Oops, There Goes Another Olive Tree

My impression is that almost every 2-3 days, we read a report like this one:-

Palestinian settlement monitoring authorities say a group of extremist Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian olive farms in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Residents from the notorious Yitzhar settlement, near the city of Nablus, destroyed the trees in the village of Burin some 150 meters (yards) from their settlement on Thursday morning.

Now, this is a constant theme story. I do not know how true this particular story is (there are others, like this one or this one) and I have been informed by a good friend that basically, there are more stories about cut-down or burnt trees than trees.

Whatever.

But I would to know, how many Arab olive trees are there so that we can put this into a perspective and be informed when we are reaching saturation.

You're Invited

You are invited to a special evening in English at the

Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Jerusalem

Moshe Arens, Former Defense and Foreign Minister

Dore Gold, Former UN Ambassador

Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister

and Alan Baker, Former Ambassador to Canada

in conversation with journalist Ruthie Blum Leibowitz

Marking the anniversary of the U.N.'s approval of the partition of Palestine

"Confronting New Threats to Delegitimize Israel:

the U.N. and the Jewish State 62 Years Later"

Wednesday, November 25 at 7:30 p.m.

Launching the new public policy advocacy and education organization

HADAR: Israel Council for Civic Action

"Strengthening the Anglo Voice in Israel"

Open to the public, advanced registration required:

register@hadar-israel.org

A Usless But Entertaining Historical Fact

...in 1836 [Sir John Franklin] became lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen’s Land in Australia...During one factory visit the female convicts showed how boring they found being preached at by turning their backs, lifting their skirts, and smacking their bare bottoms at the official party.

Source

Némirovsky - The Counter-Explanation

I dealt with Irene Némirovsky previously, the French Jewish novelist - (in 2006, in 2007, and in 2008) - and trying to be thorough and fair, here's a counter-presentation:

I take offence at Naomi Price’s recent attack on this author and her outrageous claim that The Dogs and the Wolves would have been welcomed by a Nazi publishing house (October 30). In this novel, Némirovsky illustrates the lengths to which immigrants went in order to escape poverty and be assimilated. She criticizes rich Jews for displaying the same prejudices against their poor brothers as certain sections of French society did – hardly a pro-Nazi sentiment. By the end of the novel, it is clear that assimilation is not possible, a lesson that Némirovsky would learn herself, in the most tragic way.

While Price emphasizes the Jewish stereotypes in the novel, she omits to mention the four-page anti-Semitic, xenophobic diatribe by the Catholic banker, Delarcher, which is meant to fill us with revulsion...This novel examines various types of prejudice – Catholics towards Jews, the rich towards the poor, the French towards foreigners. The crux of Némirovsky’s dilemma as a novelist was the fact that anti-Semitism in France during the 1930s was so rife that Jewish immigrants were stereotyped and rejected. The only way to be accepted was to assimilate, and the easiest way to assimilate was to be wealthy...

...Price goes on to mention the family’s conversion to Catholicism; this has been raised many times with Denise Epstein, Irène Némirovsky’s surviving daughter. Her reply is always the same: it was September 1939. The family believed that converting would protect them. Sadly, they were wrong. Denise Epstein remains adamant that while living a secular lifestyle her family identified as Jewish and were proud of their heritage, a sentiment Némirovsky expressed in an interview in 1930 when she stated that she was Jewish and proud of it. Denise Epstein never recalls “practising” Catholicism as a family. However, when they lived in Issy-l’Évêque in Burgundy, they were required to wear the yellow star, and did so...

SANDRA SMITH
Robinson College, Cambridge.

Misleading BBC Caption

If you go here, the second picture is captioned thus:-

An ultra-orthodox Jewish man pauses in front of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which Jews know and revere as Temple Mount.

But don't think any ultra-Orthodox/Haredi is up on the Temple Mount right smack in front of the Mosque at the southern portion of the Temple Mount compound.

Nope.

He's at the Kotel and the shot is from below catching his hatted head and the Gold Dome of the Rock, not El-Aqsa!

Oh, well, it's only a BBC report.

Nothing Like Real Treasure

From an AP report:-

Israel displayed for the first time Wednesday a collection of rare coins charred and burned from the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple nearly 2,000 years ago.

About 70 coins were found in an excavation at the foot of a key Jerusalem holy site. They give a rare glimpse into the period of the Jewish revolt that eventually led to the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in A.D. 70, said Hava Katz, curator of the exhibition.

The Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire and took over Jerusalem in A.D. 66. After laying siege to Jerusalem, the Romans breached the city walls and wiped out the rebellion, demolishing the Jewish Temple, the holiest site in Judaism.

The coins sit inside a glass case, some melted down to unrecognizable chunks of pockmarked and carbonized bronze from the flames that destroyed the Temple.

"These really show us the impact of the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century," said Gabriela Bijovsky, an antique coin expert from Israel Antiquities Authority. "These are a very vivid, dramatic example of that destruction."

"The most important coins we have are from those last four or five years of the rebellion against the Roman army, and one coin we found was actually minted very close to the destruction of the Second Temple," she said.

The coins were excavated from an ancient street below the Temple Mount, experts said. Archaeologists had to sift through debris and remove boulders thrown off the Temple Mount during the Roman raid before they found the road and the hoard of coins.

Today the Al Aqsa Mosque compound sits atop the ruins of the temples. Muslims refer to the site as the Noble Sanctuary, marking the spot from where they believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. The conflicting claims make the site one the most explosive issues in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Darn that archaeology.

Destroys silly Arab claims like these:

August 27, 2009

The Jewish temples never existed, and Jews have no historic connection to Jerusalem, declared chief Palestinian justice Sheik Taysir Tamimi today.

Tamimi condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for stressing in Europe this week the long Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

Tamimi claimed "all Jewish rabbis and extremist organizations" as well as Netanyahu are lying when they state Jerusalem was a historically Jewish city.

November 6, 2008

The Jewish Temples never existed and Israel has been working to "invent" a Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem, the chief Palestinian negotiator asserted.

Ahmed Qurei, the Palestinian Authority official leading all peace talks with the Jewish state, made the controversial statements in a small media briefing Wednesday attended by WND as well as by a Palestinian media outlet and an Arab affairs correspondent for a major Israeli newspaper.

July 11, 2007

Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi claimed the Jewish Temples "never existed."

"About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount)," said Tamimi, who is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

But there's always 'one righteous person in Sdom'.

That New 'Let's Kill a Goy' Book

Maariv terms it "the stuff Jewish terror is made of" and here's from the Jerusalem Post story:-

Copies of a new book that provides justification for the killing of non-Jews could not be found in Jerusalem at the beginning of the week. At Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, the flagship educational institution of Orthodox Zionism, there was a small sign in the entrance advertising the sale of Torat Hamelech: Dinei Nefashot Bein Yisrael Le'Amim (The King's Torah: Laws of Life and Death between Jews and the Nations)...But the books were gone.

Lior...whose name and telephone number appeared on the advertisement for Torat Hamelech, was surprised at how quickly the books had been sold. "Really? They're all gone?" he said, adding that there was no other place in the Jerusalem area or anyplace else besides Yitzhar where the book could be found.

Part of the reason for the interest was a front-page headline in Ma'ariv on Monday outlining the most shocking items from the book, such as halachic license to kill innocent children in battle situations in which their presence endangers Jewish lives, or even if there is concern that these young children will grow to become mortal enemies of Jews.

I previously posted the cover.

Well, here are some peeks.

The frontispiece:

The contents:
Introduction & Short Summary:

Conclusions (2 pgs.):
The book is some 230 pages long so you'll have to wait some more for reflections on it.

Did Someone Say "Palestinian State"?

The Burns Speech

All of it as regards Israel.

America and the Middle East in a New Era

William J. Burns
Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Remarks to the Middle East Institute

Washington, DC

November 10, 2009

Thank you very much Wendy for that kind introduction. And thank you for this opportunity to speak again at the Middle East Institute, for whose leadership, membership and mission I have enormous respect.

...I have certainly learned that we do not have the luxury of ignoring a part of the world that holds some of our closest friends, two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves, several of the world’s most poisonous regional conflicts, and violent extremists who feed on the region’s bitterness and alienation.

I’ve learned that a little humility goes a long way in the exercise of American power and purpose in the Middle East. We come by that humility honestly, through many trials and many errors. Winston Churchill, a life-long admirer of America, once said that the thing he liked most about Americans was that “they always did the right thing in the end … they just liked to exhaust all the alternatives first.” The latter describes much of our historical experience in the Middle East; the former is an outcome to which we always aspire.

I’ve learned that America can lead more effectively through the power of our example than through the power of our preaching. I’ve learned that other people and other societies have their own realities, not always identical or hospitable to ours. That doesn’t mean that we have to accept them or indulge them, but it does mean that understanding them is the starting point for successful policy.

I’ve learned that stability is not a static phenomenon. To borrow an analogy used by one of your very deserving award winners last night, both political systems and peace processes, like bicycles, tend to fall over if they’re not moving forward. I’ve learned that the Middle East has many good and decent people, who seek dignity and respect and a better life for their children, and a few great leaders, like the late King Hussein of Jordan, a man of uncommon courage and vision, who died shortly after I began my tenure as Ambassador in Amman more than a decade ago.

I’ve learned too that the Middle East is a region of deep discontents and powerful grievances, many of which roll to a rest, rightly or wrongly, at the doorstep of the United States.

I’ve learned that there is no substitute for determined American leadership in the Middle East, aimed squarely at addressing the problems at the core of some of those real or imagined grievances, and serving as a catalyst for making common cause with others. And I’ve learned that we must be clear not only about what we stand against, but also what we stand for.

In his speech in Cairo last June, President Obama spoke far more eloquently than I ever could about what American stands for in this new era. He called for “a new beginning … based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” We have been working hard, starting well before that historic speech, to translate the President’s compelling vision into practical policy, to begin the long, difficult process of turning rhetoric into results.

That is not easy. It never has been in the Middle East, a land where dreams are regularly shattered, where good intentions regularly run aground, and where pessimists rarely lack either company or validation. Progress means applying mutual interest in a way that builds on common ground wherever it exists, but doesn’t shy away from dealing plainly with our differences wherever it doesn’t.

It means translating mutual respect into an approach that doesn’t patronize or pretend to hold a monopoly on wisdom, that shows that listening is occasionally something other than an unnatural act for Americans – but that also shows no hesitation in speaking honestly to both our friends and our adversaries about the importance we attach to universal human rights. It means exercising our responsibility to lead, to set a good example, to help resolve regional conflicts, to help build coalitions in support of a new positive agenda. But it also means that others in the region and outside it must live up to their responsibilities, whether in upholding non-proliferation norms or taking risks for peace.

Progress is possible toward realizing the President’s vision, toward realizing a positive agenda for the Middle East. Such progress is the ultimate antidote to the fundamentally negative agenda of violent extremists, who are much better at describing what they want to destroy rather than what they want to build. America’s contribution to a positive agenda has many parts, and today I’ll highlight only a few of them. They include: building peace between Israelis and Arabs; supporting the emergence of a new Iraq, at peace with itself and its neighbors; dealing with the challenge of Iran; and building economic and political hope, in a region which for too long has known too little of either.

This is not an a la carte policy menu. We cannot successfully neglect one priority in the pursuit of others. Progress will inevitably be uneven, but it is important to connect the dots among issues, and pursue a comprehensive strategy. Let me touch briefly on each of the four priorities that I mentioned.

Building Peace Between Israelis and Arabs

If there’s one issue that should keep us humble, it is the elusive quest for Arab-Israeli peace. While not a magic solution to all the many ills of the region, no other issue cuts closer to the core of what drives emotions throughout much of the Middle East. It is a truism that the parties themselves must make the difficult decisions for peace, and it is an historical fact that most of the biggest breakthroughs, from Sadat in Jerusalem to the secret negotiations in Oslo, have come from the parties themselves. But persistent, hard-headed, day-in-and-day-out, high-level American engagement has also been a critical ingredient for success, from Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy, to Jimmy Carter at Camp David, to Jim Baker on the road to Madrid.

It is exactly that realization that has animated the efforts of President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Senator Mitchell, appointed as the President’s Special Envoy on the second day of the new Administration. Our goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security; a Jewish state of Israel, with which America retains unbreakable bonds, and with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, that ends the daily humiliations of Palestinians under occupation, and that realizes the full and remarkable potential of the Palestinian people.

Toward that end, as Secretary Clinton emphasized last week in the region, we seek to re-launch direct negotiations, without preconditions. That emphatically does not mean starting from scratch; it means building on previous agreements, resolving the core issues of the conflict, and settling it once and for all. At every step of this process, the United States will be an active and creative partner.

We seek to create the best possible circumstances for negotiations, working with the parties, working with key regional partners like Egypt, and the Quartet. We do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements; we consider the Israeli offer to restrain settlement activity to be a potentially important step, but it obviously falls short of the continuing Roadmap obligation for a full settlement freeze. We seek to deepen international support for the Palestinian Authority’s impressive plan to build over the next couple years the institutions that a responsible Palestinian state requires. And we also seek progress toward peace between Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon, as part of a broader peace among Israel and all of its neighbors.

I wish I could stand before you today and point to substantial progress toward those goals. I cannot. But what I can say is that the Administration’s commitment and determination are undiminished, and that we will continue to work hard to bring about the early resumption of negotiations, which is the only path to the two state solution on which so much depends, not only for the future of Israelis and Palestinians, but for the entire Middle East. Setbacks and complications are the common thread that runs through every effort at Middle East peace. We need to learn from them, but not be deterred by them. We have made limited headway – a shared understanding between the parties about a two state objective; a shared interest in moving back to the negotiating table; wide international backing for this process; steady progress, in the face of very difficult odds, toward shaping reliable Palestinian security organizations and governmental institutions in the West Bank. Now we need to bear down, move ahead, fulfill our responsibilities for leadership, and challenge every other party to fulfill theirs.

...The Challenge of Iran

A third challenge before us is the difficult question of Iran...We seek a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interest and mutual respect. We do not seek regime change. We have condemned terrorist attacks against Iran. We have recognized Iran’s international right to peaceful nuclear power. With our partners in the international community, we have demonstrated our willingness to take creative confidence-building steps, including our support for the IAEA’s offer of fuel for the Tehran research reactor. With our partners in the international community, we are ready for a serious dialogue with Iran about how it can resolve longstanding doubts about the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear ambitions, doubts only reinforced by the recent revelation of a clandestine enrichment facility near Qom. With our partners in the international community, we are ready to move with Iran along a pathway of cooperation, not confrontation, of integration, not animosity. But that depends squarely on the choices that Iran makes, on its willingness to meet its international obligations and responsibilities.

...While we remain ready to engage the Iranian government on the urgent matter of its nuclear program, and on other matters of common concern, that does not mean that we will turn a blind eye to abuse, or compromise our principles. In Iran, as in any other country in the world, we will always be with those who seek peacefully to protect basic human rights.

We have before us an historic opportunity, but it won’t last forever. The talks that took place in Geneva last month were a constructive beginning. The tactics of recent weeks, however, have been far less encouraging, and we and our international partners are not interested in talking simply for the sake of talking. Too much is at stake, not only for Iran itself, but for a region hardly in need of more tensions or more arms races; for the credibility of the United Nations Security Council; and for the future of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the nuclear non-proliferation regime. It is time for Iran to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or to move beyond it; whether it wants to dwell on familiar suspicions and imaginary external enemies, or make a positive choice about the role that it seeks to play in the world.

Building Economic and Political Hope

The Arab-Israeli peace process, Iraq and Iran all pose immense challenges...

This is a hard time to be optimistic about the Middle East, or America’s role in it. Palestinians and Israelis seem stuck in patterns which do little good for either of them. Iraq faces formidable hurdles. Iran’s leadership seems capable of endless obfuscations. Economic and political systems across the region are often brittle and resistant to change. Most people manage to contain their enthusiasm for American prescriptions, and doubt in any case that results will follow our rhetoric.

None of that, it seems to me, is cause for despair. Of course the road ahead, for us and for our friends across the Middle East, is littered with problems. Of course it will be hard, full of roadblocks and potholes and dead ends. Of course we will fail at least as often as we succeed.

But I genuinely do believe that progress toward peace is possible between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Israel and the wider Arab world. It will take strong nerves, persistence, and a willingness to take risks. Iraqis are also making fitful but unmistakable progress toward the stable, unified state that seemed unimaginable a few years ago. Unity amongst our international partners may yet have an impact on the calculus of the Iranian government. And societies in the Middle East are no more immune to the inexorable pull of economic and political openness than those in any other part of the world.

I suppose that makes me something of an optimist, at least by the standards of the Middle East. That reminds me of one of the many, characteristically fatalistic, Russian definitions of an optimist – “someone who thinks tomorrow will be better than the day after.” I actually have something a little different in mind. I suspect that tomorrow is going to be pretty complicated in the Middle East, with no shortage of troubles and frustrations. But I genuinely do believe that, with sustained and creative American leadership, a willingness from leaders in the region and outside it to take responsibility alongside us, and long-term investment in building economic and political hope across the Middle East, the day after tomorrow holds real and enduring promise.

Thank you.

Darn Those Obstacles

Some construction of residential units:-


Some more vineyards and olive groves for land reclamation:-


Jews coming home.

Three More New Wall Posters

This one announces that Greek-style forced conversion is among us! Youngsters are adopting modern dress fashions:-

This one assumes the Shabbat is calling out for help. Some 165 stores are open on the Shabbat, the Karta parking lot is open and Intel is requesting to be allowed to operate. A demonstration is to be expected.


And this one is devoted all to Intel:-

Skipping the Historical Truth

Sometimes, it's the little things.

In a letter-to-the-editor in today's NYTimes, by Marvin Bograd fo East Windsor, N.J., I found this:-

Historically, Menachem Begin candidly admitted that the agreement he signed with Egypt was due to the active involvement of Jimmy Carter. Without American influence, any chance for an agreement to end hostilities is nil.

This, of course, completely skips the historical truth that both Begin and Sadat purposefully began to forge an alliance that would bypass Carter's attempts to convene an international conference with Russia.

Carter, actually, was pulled into a different negotiations process than that which he wanted at first.

This is a reliable outline:

The international climate at the time of Begin's rise to power in May 1977 leaned strongly toward some type of superpower-sanctioned settlement to the Arab-Israeli dispute. New United States president Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Brezhnev both advocated a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement that would include autonomy for the Palestinians. On October 1, 1977, in preparation for a reconvened Geneva conference, the United States and the Soviet Union issued a joint statement committing themselves to a comprehensive settlement incorporating all parties concerned and all questions.

Nevertheless, the idea of a Geneva conference on the Middle East was actively opposed and eventually defeated by a constellation of Israeli, Egyptian, and powerful private American interests. Begin proclaimed that he would never accept the authority of an international forum to dictate how Israel should deal with its territory, especially because, aside from Washington, the Israelis would lack allies at such a meeting...Sadat also opposed a Geneva conference, seeing it as a way for Syria, supported by the Soviet Union, to gain leverage in an Arab-Israeli settlement. Sadat realized that if an international conference were held, Egypt's recovery of Sinai, which was his primary objective in dealing with Israel, would be secondary to the Palestinian issue and the return of the Golan Heights to Syria.

To stave off an international conference and to save Egypt's rapidly collapsing economy, Sadat made the boldest of diplomatic moves: he offered to address the Knesset. Begin consented, and in November 1977 Sadat made his historic journey to Jerusalem...

I Am Quoted

On the Teitel case in The Jewish Week:-

Yisrael Medad, an American-Israeli who calls himself “an unofficial spokesman” for the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements, asserts that settler violence hurts the entire community.

“It allows people to accuse Teitel’s neighbors and entire community of 300,000 Jews of being his comforters and cheerers on. That wasn’t the case.”

If Teitel did indeed commit the crimes, Medad says, “he had a wrong-headed view of what we’re doing here. I can’t deny that there are maybe dozens [of settlers] who think this is a repeat of the Wild Wild West and the Indians, and that they are Davey Crocket. But that’s Teitel’s fault, not ours.”

Medad, a resident of the settlement of Shilo, who moved from the U.S. to Israel in 1970, says he sometimes meets diaspora Jews “who think they know better than us. But they don’t live here and don’t have to adapt to the Israeli reality. You can’t live here and proclaim pure and unadulterated reality. It’s more complicated than that.”

The Yesha spokesman noted that Teitel allegedly murdered two Arab men in 1997, “when he didn’t live here. He could not have been imbued with a so-called ‘messianic radical settler mentality.’ If anything, he came with an unstable mentality.”

And Akiva Eldar:-

...urges caution, not a rush to conclusions, in the Teitel case.

“I don’t know about his family or where he grew up, exactly. Someone should do research on the young American Orthodox kids who move to the settlements, to try and figure out their motivations. It’s important not to generalize.

“I’m sure there are many Orthodox American Jews living in the settlements who are ashamed and embarrassed by this kind of violence,” Eldar says.

Obama Fun

(Kippah tip: BT)

Koestler, Jabotinsky and Begin

Christopher Hitchens reviews a book on Arthur Koestler in The Atlantic, entitled Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic.

I have dealt with Koestler previously (here as well as his own letter to me here).

Here are two excerpts from the review:

most European Jews were drawn to Palestine by labor and socialist groups, but when Koestler set off for the Holy Land he did so as a consecrated follower of Vladimir Jabotinsky and the so-called Revisionists...

...Having temporarily abandoned Zionism for Communism, he resumed his engagement by covering (and participating in) the violent birth of Israel, initially taking the side of the Menachem Begin ultranationalists but eventually becoming sickened by the violence of the Zionist right and finally worrying whether there should be a Jewish state at all. Scammell is not quite in his depth here: he conflates the Stern gang and the Irgun and gives superficial treatment (as he also does, bizarrely, to Koestler’s part in producing The God That Failed) to a subsequent book, The Thirteenth Tribe. In this, his last semi-serious work, Koestler suggested that Ashkenazi Jews were actually descended from the lost people of Khazaria, who before vanishing from the northern Caucasus a thousand years ago had somehow opted to Judaize themselves. One implication of that theory was that no authentic Ashkenazi Jewish tie to Palestine could ever be established. “Arthur just rather enjoys betraying his former friends,” I remember Patricia Cockburn snorting when this effort was published in the 1970s...

He leaves out that another book of Koestler's, Thieves in the Night, that is dedicated to Tedy Kollek, if I recall correctly as well as
Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917-1949.


Here's on his Eretz-Yisrael stays:

Koestler arrived in Palestine in April 1926 and for a few weeks lived in an agricultural collective. However, his application to join the collective, (Kvutza Heftzeba), was rejected by its members.[14] For the next twelve months he supported himself by whatever menial work or commercial enterprise he could find in the cities of Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but for most of the time he was penniless and starving, and frequently had to depend on the kindness of friends and acquaintances for survival.[15] His occasional involvement with the writing or editing of broadsheets and other publications, mostly in German, were all short-lived. In the spring of 1927 he left Palestine briefly, to run the Secretariat of Jabotinsky's Revisionist Party in Berlin. Later that same year, through the intervention of a friend, Koestler obtained the position of Middle East correspondent for the prestigious Berlin-based Ullstein-Verlag group of newspapers. He returned to Jerusalem and for the next two years produced a succession of detailed political essays, as well as some lighter reportage, for his principal employer and for other newspapers. He travelled extensively, interviewed heads of state, kings, presidents and prime ministers[16] and greatly enhanced his reputation as a journalist. But by 1929 Koestler was tired of living in Palestine and in June 1929, while on leave in Berlin, he successfully lobbied at Ullstein for a transfer away from Palestine.[17]...

...In December 1944 he travelled to Palestine with an accreditation from The Times newspaper. There he had a clandestine meeting with the head of the Irgun Gang, Menachem Begin, who was wanted by the British and had a £500 bounty on his head, but Koestler failed to persuade him to abandon terrorism and accept the prospect of a two-state solution for Palestine after the war. Many years later, Koestler wrote in his memoirs: “When the meeting was over, I realized how naïve I had been to imagine that my arguments would have even the slightest influence.”[31]

He stayed in Palestine until August 1945, collecting material for his next book Thieves in the Night, then returned to England...


^ Arrow In the Blue, p.125-132
^ AIB p.137, p.165
^ Cesarani, Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind, p. 57
^ AIB pp.183-86

^ Stranger on the Square, p.37

Rahm, I Know What Your Really Said

While this neutral review of Rahm Emmanuel's GA speech-in-lieu-of-Obama does not mention the specific reference to the issue of the Jewish communities in Yesha (and eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods, I presume), to which the JPost provides this headline:

Emanuel: Don't let settlements prevent goal of lasting peace

I wish to be more upbeat. Here it is and it is followed by my question:

"The Palestinians must come to the table, recognize Israel’s right to exist and reject violence”...“No one should allow the issue of settlements to distract from the goal of a lasting peace between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab world.”

Now, The Forward characterizes this as

Emanuel also took the opportunity to reiterate the U.S. position that Israel must halt construction in West Bank settlements

But, truth to tell, and since I wasn't there, I can't get the 'feel' through my Internet connection, I think his words could go either way.

Rahm, I think, was at the very least saying to the Pals. that they, too, must get on with negotiations without regard to any demand, unsupported, to freeze our communities. That's the way it reads.

Now, he also added:

"Demographics cannot be denied," he declared, referring to a situation whereby Israel will have to "attempt to preserve a democratic state, a Jewish state when Jews will soon be a minority west of the Jordan River."

But as you know, I have, with the help of others, illustrated that the demography issue is a dud. If it's a matter of mathematics, Rahm, we have all the answers. No fear.

The communities can stay.

Thanks Rahm, I knew I knew what you really said.

And mazal tov on the upcoming Bar-Mitzva.

GA Goof

Here's from the program schedule for today:-

Workshops III, 1st Set
Tuesday, November 10 @ 8:00-9:15 AM

The Pro-Israel Lobby and the Media

An explosive debate has erupted in recent years over the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and U.S.-Israeli relations. We’ll hear from some of the journalists and advocates who have found themselves smack in the middle of the fight and discuss what their experiences and insights mean for Jewish activism.

Designed by: JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Confirmed Speakers: Joe Klein (Time Magazine), Jennifer Lazlo Mizrahi (Founder and Director: The Israel Project), Ori Nir (Spokesman for Americans for Peace Now), James Kirchick (Assistant Editor, The New Republic)

Moderator: Ron Kampeas (JTA)

Hello?

Peace Now?

And no Yesha Council?

No balance?

No pluralism in Jewish communal life?


Can that be fixed next year?

Why I Like Bibi

No, not because of the "demilitarized Pal. state" he supports.

These words from his GA speech:-

...can we dramatically reduce our dependence on oil?

Remember, sometimes, one or two inventions can change centuries of habit. For many centuries, salt was highly valued for preserving food. Caravans of camels carried it across the deserts, and it was nearly worth its weight in gold. The salt trade helped build economic empires, and the world’s dependence on salt showed no signs of slackening.

But then came two inventions: canning and refrigeration. Virtually overnight, salt lost its immense value. The same thing may happen to oil. Scientific and technological breakthroughs could dramatically reduce the world’s dependence on petroleum. And Israel could play an important role in making that happen.

You know, of course, about our high-tech companies and venture capital funds, our engineers and scientists, our patents and our Nobel laureates. In biotech and agro-tech, in solar energy and desalination, and in many other fields, Israeli innovation is transforming the way we live.

Let's Make That Dismantlement Claim Very Clear

Abbas has made his vision of peace quite clear 'Palestinian state requires settlement dismantlement'

Specifically,

Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has reiterated that Israel must freeze all construction of illegal settlements so that a Palestinian state can be created.

During a visit to Bethlehem on Sunday, he said the Palestinian leadership had not abandoned the national objective of establishing a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.

The Road Map (*) conditions not only call for a halt to the construction of illegal settlements but also the dismantlement of all of the settlements that are built on Palestinian lands in the West Bank in order to establish a Palestinian state, he added.

Dear Mahmoud,

Despite this, (a) I don't plan on moving

and

(b) I won't dismantle all Arab settlements in the state of Israel (but I will if you think that is a fair quid pro quo).

Do you?

And as for your reading comprehension, let's review the Road Map:

(*)

Phase I

Settlements

* GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001.
* Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).

Phase II

As part of this process, implementation of prior agreements, to enhance maximum territorial contiguity, including further action on settlements in conjunction with establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders.

Phase III

Second International Conference: Convened by Quartet, in consultation with the parties...to launch a process...leading to a final, permanent status resolution in 2005, including on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements...

Sorry, there, Abbas, that's not what's written.

Another "Esther"

No, not Madonna.



Rather on Lauren Flanigan who stars in the title role of the New York City opera production of "Esther".

And as for her lungs,

...the soprano Lauren Flanigan, who created the title role in 1993, a milestone in her career, was back, giving a vocally blazing and vulnerable performance. Even the acoustics of the renovated Koch Theater, at least from where I sat (front row center in the first ring), sounded livelier than during Thursday night’s gala concert (heard from the orchestra level). I will have more to report on this shortly.

Flanigan may not be Jewish, but the story most certainly is:

The opera focuses on the turning point of Esther’s life in the ancient Persian city of Susa. King Xerxes has deposed his scheming wife, Queen Vashti. Esther, a beautiful young maiden, the niece of a court clerk, Mordecai, is summoned to the king’s harem, and Xerxes is immediately smitten. The king’s minister, Haman, who loathes the Jews, and his wife, Zeresh, are planning to exterminate the kingdom’s Jewish population. When Mordecai begs Esther to intervene, she rashly does so by divulging at a royal banquet that she is a Jew...Ms. Flanigan was mesmerizing. If there was sometimes a hard edge to her sound, it mattered little, given the unforced power, intensity and tenderness of her singing. She cut through the orchestra equally well with chilling top notes or floating pianissimos. She conveyed the growth of this character, from a virginal woman thrust into a terrifying situation to a courageous queen who draws out the decency in her husband, Xerxes, whom she grows to love.

And in case you forgot your Bible (so many put that book down, especially when referring to the region where I live):

The opera concludes with a scene fraught with wonder and anticipation. Having issued an order for the Jews to be killed, Xerxes cannot retract it. All that Esther secures is the king’s promise that on the appointed day, the Jews can fight back, which they do triumphantly, an event now celebrated with the festival of Purim.

Pic: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Why Israel Will Have To Go It Alone Vs. Iran

Ed Lasky makes it quite clear that Obama is going...Iranian.

Excerpts from The New Iran Man at the State Department's Iran Desk

John Limbert will be the senior Iran official at the State Department, replacing Dennis Ross...Limbert is not a neutral arbiter; he serves on the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).

What is the National Iranian American Council?

The Council is widely considered the de facto lobby for the Iranian regime in America. It opposes sanctions on Iran, soft-pedals any controversial events in Iran, and counsels "patience" regarding Iran's stance towards its nuclear program...The NIAC staunchly opposes any military attacks on Iran. In other words, it all but serves as Iran's embassy in Washington...

The NIAC is also headed by the controversial Trita Parsi. Who is Trita Parsi?

...Parsi serves as an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute...the author of the book The Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States, which was an expanded version of his dissertation thesis. The book was warmly endorsed and recommended by none other than John Mearsheimer, Zbigniew Brzezinski (who served as Parsi's dissertation adviser), and the former Foreign Minister for the State of Israel who has become an appeasement-focused dove...Parsi distorts history and willfully mistranslates the Iranian call for Israel to be "wiped off the map."...and blames the problems between America and Iran on Israeli machinations to turn nations, including our own, against Iran...

...One curious fact is that board members of the NIAC contribute to J Street, the anti-Israel lobby that tries to pass itself off as "pro-peace" and supportive of Israel (just as the NIAC tries to palm itself off as being pro-American and pro-peace). Not so coincidentally, Trita Parsi himself was on a panel at the recent J Street conference.

...the National Iranian American Council now has one of their own as the Iran man (literally and metaphorically) at the State Department. The caviar is flowing in Tehran.

See this and this.

(Kippah tip: AtlasShrugs)

Statistical Bias - Continuing With the Tel Aviv University Left-wing Bias

Here's a response from today, following up on the story about Tel Aviv University and its left-wing slant:

"We've been dealt a stupid blow with no justification," a senior TAU professor said yesterday.

He said Hativa's comments were "not based on a statistical analysis of an explicit question put to all the students, right- and left-wing. They were based on complaints written by those who want to complain. It's a statistical bias, and it's impossible to know how representative it is."

Another lecturer said, "The definition of left-wing is very broad. Until specific statements or situations are examined, these are nothing but generalizations that right-wing people would gladly use to attack academia."

I can fully understand he being upset as well as his research insight.

But how is it that the academics opposed to certain government policies get all the publicity, most of the grants, get invited to all the academic conferences, and are nigh worshiped across the globe but right-wing or nationalist academics are shunned, boycotted, despised?

Is that a statistical bias?

Definitely Not Funny

Hot Off The Shelf

Rabbi’s book says Jews can kill gentiles

The book:



From the Hebrew reports, I get a slightly different slant.

Will report later.

There Was ABBA and There Is Abbas

But both seem to be providing entertainment.

But Abbas is of a dangerous kind.

Hillel Frisch thinks Abbas is perhaps:-

turning from a state-builder into a terrorist, a seditious leader, a man who engages in violence for violence's sake? There are worrying signs. To begin with, at the Fatah conference, Abbas adopted a policy plank which declares that armed conflict remains an option.

Most recently, Abbas and the PA have been behind the violence and conflict in and around the Temple Mount. This is evident in the way the two semi-official PA newspapers, Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida, mobilized and promoted the tensions over the Temple Mount...

Another telling fact is found on the sophisticated Fatah websites, financed by Abbas and Fayyad,[1] which publish countless pictures of Chairman Abbas straddling posters of the terrorist Fatah Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Brigades against the backdrop of the Temple Mount. And although he banned armed groups, the communiqués of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades appear on this official Fatah site.

I Almost Erred

I have been seeing various lists (and here, too) of Islamic terror acts committed in the United States and wondered, what about the assassin of Presidential-candidate Robert F. Kennedy - Sirhan Sirhan, born in Mandate Palestine?

I am wrong.

He was born a Christian and basically stayed that way.

$2,473 Per Page

A fact:-

The fact that it costs the United Nations an average of $2,473 per page to create every single document in its six official languages, while outside contractors complete the same work for around $450, prompts diplomats to accuse the organization of running amok during a global financial crisis.

Think about that.

Four Who Can't Think

Ethan Bronner reported this about Mahmoud Abbas' resignation threat:-

Four top officials made the same point in separate interviews. Mr. Abbas, they say, feels at a total impasse in negotiations with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has declined to commit to a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders including East Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu favors negotiations without preconditions.

I may be missing something but these Arabs want Israel to commit to a Pal. state when, to my chagrin, astonishment and disappointment, that's what Netanyahu has done.

Last June:-

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, reversing himself under U.S. pressure, but saying the Palestinians would have to lay down arms, a condition they swiftly rejected.

A week after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would also have to recognize Israel as the Jewish state — essentially saying Palestinian refugees must give up the goal of returning to Israel.

With those conditions, he said, he could accept "a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state."

That's fairly clear, no?

Yes, you could argue about whether the Netanyahu definition of the Pal. state is a precondition or not or a fact-of-life factor like one state should not make war against another.

But if those Arabs can't grasp that Netanyahu agreed in principle to a state and all they have to do is accept a little to get a lot, do they deserve a state?

Maybe this

saying the Palestinians would have to lay down arms, a condition they swiftly rejected

is the problem?

Yes, I admit, I am hoping they continue in their obtuseness and stubbornness but, goodness, the Pals. seem to be missing another opportunity.

Now The Koran Hits The Fan

Guess what:-

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda...

...Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) said the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan's efforts...Hoekstra said he is "absolutely furious" that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan's attempt to reach out to al Qaeda...

...Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S. In a blog posting early Monday titled "Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing," Awlaki calls Hasan a "hero" and a "man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people."...Major Hasan attended the Falls Church mosque when Awlaki was there.

...On Sunday, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist.

"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance," Lieberman told Fox News Sunday...

A Bit of Abbreviation Commentary

Rabbi Natan Neta Shapiro of Cracow writes in his Megaleh Amukot on this week's past portion:

That the second to fifth words of the opening verse contain as their first letters, the abbreviation for the Four Kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Edom and Greece.

And those four letters make up anagramically the Hebrew word 'brings' as in the verse un the Amidah prayer: "He brings a Redeemer to the sons of their sons..."

Or, in Hebrew:-

מתוך ה"מגלה עמוקות" לרב נתן נטע שפירא על הפרשה, עמ' יח,

"וירא אליו י' באלוני ממרא:

ר"ת - הראה לו ד' מלכיות אדום בבל יון מדי הן הן מבי"א גואל לבני בניהם למען שמו..."

Back to Gastronomical Judaism (For This They Need A Rabbi?)

Well, the reform kitchen is back, in it's own way:

Reform Jews should eat less red meat and consider more carefully what food they serve in their synagogues, the movement's leader said.

"We need to think about how the food we eat advances the values we hold as Reform Jews," Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said...he urged Reform Jews to consider the ethical, environmental and health aspects of what they eat, and come up with food policies for their synagogues.

Yoffie steered clear of promoting kashrut, saying "ours is an ethically based tradition."...Yoffie said that cutting down on red meat "is an area where we can make a difference" in offsetting our carbon footprint.

...Synagogues might also consider serving more communal meals, Yoffie suggested, as a way of building spiritual community. He also encouraged the planting of synagogue gardens.

Wait there's more:

Yoffie also urged Reform congregations to harness the community-building power of the Internet and set up their own blogs. Calling such congregational blogs an "online Oral Torah," he said congregations need to think more creatively about social media.

For this they need a Rabbi?

And that throw-away line about kashrut. There's a lot of ethics in keeping the dietary laws of kashrut.

Apartheid Alert

This note came over the wire:

The Jalame Crossing (in the Gilboa area, near Jenin) will tomorrow (Tuesday), 10.11.09, at 10:00, be opened to Israeli Arab vehicles.

Regional Cooperation Minister Silvan Shalom, Quartet Representative Tony Blair and senior Israeli, Palestinian Authority, and US Embassy officials will attend.

You caught that?

...be opened to Israeli Arab vehicles.

That wouldn't be discriminatory, prejudicial or even apartheid now, would it?

A New Braslav Study

Zvi Mark has a new article in Tarbiz:-

The Mystical Fellowship: On the Visions of R. Shmuel Isaac of Doshiv and R. Yitshaq Isaac of Tirovitz (Two of R. Nahman of Braslav’s First Disciples)

There's No Escaping Google

What happened to a New York Times reporter investigating Scientology?

...I could, however, take a correspondence course — and to be nice, they let me start right there in the library. To reciprocate, I gave my real last name. And then I got down to studying.

The introduction to Mr. Hubbard’s “A New Slant on Life” tells readers to look up any words they don’t know. After I’d read a few chapters, a friendly young instructor quizzed me on some of the words they contained: Did I know what esoteric meant? Nobility? Critical? He seemed really impressed that I did.

One of the book’s main ideas is that people can learn only by questioning. Many pages are spent explaining the folly of believing something just because an authority figure said it was true. So then what about that waiver?

While I pondered this paradox, the instructors exchanged a few whispers, then asked everyone to leave for a short break. As they exited, a man in a tan suit entered, and extended his hand to me. He was the president of the New York chapter. Apparently while I had been studying, someone had been Googling. He complimented me on my articles in The New York Times. And my adventure in the press-shy Church of Scientology came to a halt.

He was very polite, even inviting me back for a tour. But after a few minutes, he escorted me out.

New! HH #242

Here.

Oh My Gosh, Finally Discovered: The Truth About Academic Freedom

Recently, Prof. Itzhak Galnoor had published "Academic Freedom Under Political Duress: Israel" in Social Research: An International Quarterly, Issue: Volume 76, Number 2 / Summer 2009, Pages: 541 - 560

The Abstract:

Political duress within the academic community is a strong sense that there is a threat of external interference with core academic values and freedoms - free inquiry, free speech institutional autonomy and personal safety. After a short introduction to the background of Israeli higher education, this article focuses on two current threats: first, political intimidation originating from extreme nationalistic and religious groups aimed at silencing "nonloyal" voices inside and outside the Universities (for example, the pipe bomb that exploded on September 25, 2008, at the gate of Professor Ze'ev Sternhel's house, wounding him slightly, or the threats on the Israel-Academia-Monitor.com web site); second, a process of "commodification" - political and administrative pressures and the enforcement of a "management" and privatization policies (for example, budget cuts forcing internal institutional changes, shifts of resources, and competition).

These steps have been accompanied by antiintellectualism under the slogan of the "democratization of higher education." Academic freedom is under duress in Israel because of the combination of these two attitudes and policies aimed at "taming" higher education.

I commented on it here.

Well, now look what has popped up:

University memo claims students fear payback over right-wing views

Tel Aviv University students are hesitant to express their political views in class, lest lecturers perceived to have left-wing political views penalize them with lower grades, the head of TAU's Department of Curriculum and Instruction wrote in an internal memorandum last month. Prof. Nira Hativa's comment in the faculty memo ignited controversy among professors, with some declaring that her sentiments should not be made public.

Hativa wrote: "There are no small number of students of lecturers with left-wing views who complain bitterly that they are extremely offended by the presentation of materials that oppose their views, but are fearful of expressing contrary viewpoints in class, lest it harm their grades."

...The chair of the university's students' union, Shahar Botzer, said his organization receives a number of complaints each year from students dissatisfied with what they view as lecturers' biased portrayal of material in favor of left-wing positions. He said that such complaints are the exception

...Hativa wrote on October 23. "I have come across many complaints from students about a small number of lecturers in various fields, who express radical left-wing opinions in their classes - that they are lashing out at the State of Israel, the army, the Zionist movement and worse."

Academic freedom, did you declare?


P.S.

Seems there was a conference on ths subject - "Free Inquiry at Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times" - and there, I found this:

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30th, 2008

2:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Session II - Free Inquiry under Conditions of Duress

Some Past History: Past Threats to the Core Values of the University: Europe and the US
Ellen W. Schrecker, Professor of American History, Yeshiva University; Stern College for Women

Academic Freedom under Political Duress: Israel and Palestine
Itzhak Galnoor, Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Deputy Chair, Israel’s Council on Higher Education; Associate, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
and
Khalil Shikaki, Director, Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research; Associate Professor of Political Science, Bir Zeit University

Is It Homeland or Minority Security?

Homeland Security is now engaged in minority security:-

The U.S. Homeland Security secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas.

Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday's rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Consider this point-

Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen...assumed the military's chain of command knew about Hasan's doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates at the Maryland graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan's "anti-American propaganda," but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal complaint.

UPDATE


Consider this:

During his time at Walter Reed and the Uniformed Services University, Major Hasan also became increasingly vocal in his opposition to the wars. He knew much about the harsh realities of combat from having counseled returning soldiers, and he was deeply concerned about having to deploy. But over the past five years, he also began openly opposing the wars on religious grounds.

A former classmate in the master’s degree program said Major Hasan gave a PowerPoint presentation about a year ago in an environmental health seminar titled “Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam.”

Either you oppose all wars on religious grounds, or a specific war because of a universal standard of morality that dovetails with all religions but to oppose a war because you view it as a war against your religion, then you have a problem.

And the clincher:

The night before the shooting, he had dinner with Mr. Reasoner and said he felt that he should not go to Afghanistan.

“He felt he was supposed to quit,” Mr. Reasoner said. “In the Koran, it says you are not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christians, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell.”

So, his religion was spiteful and maybe hateful of other religions - one of the reasons I would hope America is fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq: to assure religious freedom and equality for all.

That's Really Rich, Rabbi Rich

This bit out of the NYTimes article on the UK school admission policy based on religion illustrates the problem there within the Jewish community:-

Rabbi Danny Rich, chief executive of Liberal Judaism here, said the lower court’s ruling, if upheld, would help make Judaism more inclusive.

“JFS is a state-funded school where my grandfather taught, and it’s selecting applicants on the basis of religious politics,” he said in an interview. “The Orthodox definition of Jewish excludes 40 percent of the Jewish community in this country.”

a) the decision of the 40% non-Orthodox that left them excluded was theirs and not the Orthodox. They decided to alter their own definition of Judaism so why are they blaming the Orthodox?

b) religious "politics"? Politics or Halacha?

That twisting of the essence of the argument, no matter the merits, is so rich.

Even Somali Pirates Can Provide Humor

Luxury Cruise Lines

Now Accepting Reservations! Additional cruise information available below.

To The Point Cruise Lines is excited to offer the ultimate adventure cruise, along the pirate-infested coast of Somalia !

Ultimate Adventure Cruise Route Rates and Availability

We board our luxury cruise ships in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea, and disembark in Mombasa, Kenya seven adrenaline-charged days later. Reservations start at only $5,200 per-person (double occupancy, inside room) and $6,900 (verandah complete with bench rest).

You'll relax like never before!
That's because you are welcome to bring your own arsenal with you. If you don't have your own weapons, you can rent them from our onboard Master Gunsmith. Enjoy reloading parties every afternoon with skeet and marksmanship competitions every night!

But the best fun of all, of course, is...

...Pirate Target Practice!

The object of our cruise is to sail up and down the Somali Coast waiting to get hijacked by pirates!

For the gun nut who has done everything, join a cruise to sunny Somalia and see how many pirates you can take out.

The Somali cruise package that departs from Sawakin (in the Sudan) and docks at Bagamoya (in Tanzania).

The trip includes a master gunsmith and will have reloading parties every afternoon as well as optional marksmanship training.

The cruise lasts from 4-8 days and nights and costs a maximum of $3200 per person double occupancy (4 days). If you don't have your own high powered weapons you can hire them on the boat.

The cruise boat sails along the coast of Somalia waiting to get hijacked by pirates. Here are some of the costs and claims associated with the package.

*$800.00 US/per day double occupancy (4 day max billing)

*M-16 full auto rental $ 25.00/day ammo at 100 rounds of 5.56 armor piercing ammo at 15.95

*Ak-47 riffle @ No charge. ammo at 100 rounds of 7.62 com block ball ammo at 14.95

*Barrett M-107 .50 cal sniper riffle rental 55.00/day ammo at 25 rounds 50 cal armor piercing at 9.95

*Crew members can double as spotters for 30.00 per hour (spotting scope included).

*RPG’s at 75 bucks and 200 dollars for 3 standard loads

*“Everyone gets use of free complimentary night vision equipment and coffee and snacks on the top deck from 7pm-6am.”

*Most cruises offer a mini-bar and this cruise offers a MOUNTED MINIGUN AVAILABLE @ 450.00 per 30 seconds of sustained fire”

“We guarantee that you will experience at least two hijacking attempts by pirates or we will refund half your money back including gun rental charges and any unused ammo (mini-gun charges not included).

How can we guarantee you will experience a hijacking? We operate at 5 knots within 12 miles of the coast of Somalia. If an attempted Hijacking does not occur we will turn the boat around and cruise by at 4 knots. We will repeat this for up to 8 days making three passes a day along the entire length of Somalia.

At night the boat is fully lit and bottle rockets are shot off at intervals and loud disco music beamed shore side to attract attention. Cabin space is limited so respond quickly. Reserve your package before the end of May and get 100 rounds of free tracer ammo in the caliber of your choice.”

As if all that isn’t enough to whet your appetite, there were a few testimonials

*“I got three confirmed kills on my last trip. I’ll never hunt big game in Africa again. I felt like the Komandant in Schindlers list!”---- Lars, Hamburg, Germany

*“Six attacks in 4 days were more than I expected. I bagged three pirates and my 12yr old son sank two rowboats with the mini-gun. PIRATES 0 - PASSENGERS-32! Well worth the trip. Just make sure your spotter speaks English” - Ned, Salt Lake city, Utah USA

*“I haven’t had this much fun since flying choppers in NAM. Don’t worry about getting shot by pirates as they never even got close to the ship with those weapons they use and their squirrelly aim—reminds me of a drunken ‘juicer’ door gunner we picked up from the motor pool back in Nam”—“chopper’ Dan ----Toledo USA.

*“Like ducks in a barrel. This is must do! – Zeke, Minnahaw Springs, Kentucky, USA

Finally, someone had the common sense to cash in AND solve a major problem. These folks deserve a medal!

What Is This Jew Referring To?

Ynet quotes one Dan Rickman writing:

Many Jews are familiar with negative images from the Koran if only because these are used frequently in the ongoing propaganda wars between Zionist and anti-Zionist groups. Yet many Jews are unaware that within Jewish sources there are also many negative stereotypes about “the other”, the most radical perhaps being a view in the Palestinian Talmud that non-Jews do not even exist.

These sorts of jarring views are sadly common place in almost all religious literature and as a consequence religion has all too often played a negative role in this conflict.

"a view in the Palestinian Talmud that non-Jews do not even exist"?

Dan refers to himself as a "left wing Orthodox Jew" and his bio reads:

Dan Rickman is an alumnus of an ultra-orthodox Jewish school in London and Oxford University who currently works in the IT industry. He has an MA in Hebrew and Jewish studies from the University of London

Is he referring to this?

"The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts. (Baba Mecia 114-6)."

which is countered:

Baba Mecia 114-6. This quotation is a complete fabrication. Even the numbering is incorrect. There can be no 114-6; it has to be 114a or 114b.

Maybe this?

In a parallel story in the Talmud Yerushalmi, Rabban Gamaliel responds to the criticism (there concerning whether property stolen from a non-Jew could be used) by reversing the law--and forbidding the use of an object stolen from a gentile--lest the law cause God's name to be profaned (Talmud Yerushalmi Bava Kamma 4:3, 2c).

Even from here I can't figure it out.

A Bit of Fanatic Religious Hatred - In Case You Missed It

From the transcript of "God Has Filled People’s Hearts With Loathing For These [Jews]"

Amin Al-Ansari: "God has filled people’s hearts with loathing for these [Jews]...

Amin Al-Ansari: "This is a Jewish soccer player, who behaved unjustly even on the field. But Allah be praised...

Replay of footage

Amin Al-Ansari: "Look at this Jew being kicked. People hate them. They don’t like them.

[...]

"We are not talking only about people. [The same goes] even for trees and animals. You know, there is rather peculiar footage, in which an Arab man who has a camel loves it and kisses it, and the camel kisses him back. Along comes a Jew and wants to kiss the camel, just like the Arab. What do you think the camel did? Let’s watch."

Footage showing Arab kissing camel and camel trying to bite Jewish man

... The proof is that the Prophet Muhammad said that when Judgment Day draws near, the final war between the Muslims and the Jews will take place. The Prophet said that the Muslims would kill the Jews.

"'Judgment Day will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.' The Muslims will kill the Jews. Be patient. All the trees and all the stones will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him – except for the Gharqad tree.' Only one kind of tree will not call [the Muslims]. It is the Gharqad tree."

What a stupid spiteful man. As are all who listen to him and believe him.

Isn't That Name Familiar?

If you go here, on page 32, (page 29 of the document itself) you'll find a familiar, by now, name as a person called upon to help Obama during his transition team period on securitiy priorities.

Can't wait?

Here it is:-

(Kippah tip: AtlasShrugs)

History Belongs To The Doers

Here, scanned, is an article I penned back in May 1987, that's umm, 22 years ago, right?

It was published in the Labour Party's English-language monthly at the time, Spectrum, edited by Susan Hattis-Rolef.

How does my thinking stand up to the test of time?

Two More Posters Spotted

This one announces a party to honor the two soldiers recently incarcerated for displaying political soogans at their swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall.


This one warns hareidim from viewing DVDs:

Tyler, Remember: The Ball Bounces

There's this 18-year old basketball player over at Haifa Maccabi, an American straight out of highschool. His story in a nutshell:-

[Jeremy] Tyler still talks openly about retiring with $200 million in the bank after a 15-year N.B.A. career. He also talks about modeling, the documentary being made about him, and how he and his girlfriend, Erin Wright, the daughter of the rapper Eazy-E, will grow up to be an American power couple.

Wow.

his coach was baffled that a player with such great potential could arrive without basic skills like boxing out and rotating on defense. Tyler is lost, Ashkenazi said, if he cannot do what he does best: taking the ball to the rim and dunking.

Wow.

Tyler, a 6-foot-11 center considered the best American big man since Greg Oden, cried when leaving the United States. He missed his first flight because he did not know he needed his passport.

WOW!

I Was Thinking Just The Same Thing

I was reading a book review of a book entitled MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS, A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen and came to this:

Janzen has clearly inherited her mother’s gift for emotional generosity and tolerance. She laughs lovingly at the oddities of her conservative upbringing, the horrible “shame-based” lunches she and her siblings were forced to take to school in diaper bags, the strict ethical and behavioral standards she was held to until she was old enough to flee. She takes us on a hilarious tour of Mennonite cuisine: borscht “looks and smells like milk gone bad,” with a “lingering afterwhiff” of soldiers’ socks, while a typical sandwich is made from ketchup, homemade bread and salty little meatballs...

and I began to say to myself, 'Mennonite? This is a Jewish situation'.

And then this appears:-

Her tone reminds me...also of the many Jewish writers who’ve brought mournful humor to the topics of gefilte fish and their own mothers, as well as to the secular, often urban, often intellectual world they call home now.

An Azure Letter-to-the-Editor Reject

Michael Oren was at least as entertaining as the film he reviewed and certainly more intellectually stimulating. Nevertheless, his essay (“Post-Zionism, Hollywood Style”, AZURE No. 34, 2008), springboarded off of Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan”, contained two errors of historical fact.

He asserts, p. 53, that, following the threat of American President Eisenhower to apply sanctions on Israel unless it retreated from the Sinai Peninsula after the 1956 Sinai Campaign, “the Jews of America remained silent”. Not all. The Betar Zionist youth movement attempted to protest what was perceived as unfair American pressure. A demonstration was conducted in the Garment Center district which led to the virtual expulsion of the movement’s Israel emissary. In addition, efforts were made by Betar and former Betar members to mobilize opposition to that administration pressure. Attempted approaches to such personages as Abba Hillel Silver, Henry Morgenthau Jr. , Felix Frankfurter and others were made with the assistance of Rabbi Louis I Newman, Eliyahu Ben Horin and Max Lerner however without success.

On page 54, Oren writes that “the first formal call for Jewish statehood was issued not in London or even Jerusalem, but in 1942 at New York’s Biltmore Hotel”. Not being sure of how “formal” is defined in this instance, I would suggest that at the 17th Zionist Congress of 1931 it was Ze’ev Jabotinsky who issued a formal call for Jewish statehood. His call for Jewish statehood was included in his proposal of an endziel declaration that Zionism meant the establishment of a Jewish state, with a Jewish majority in the original territory of the Jewish National Home as decided by the League of Nations prior to the British initiated partition that established Transjordan. The Congress voted against that suggested decision.

Yisrael Medad
Shiloh

Another Nice Jewish/Israeli Girl Gone Gothic

Natalie Portman:



Or is that kitsch?



Or gothic?

Just To Be Clear

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Who Was More Dangerous - Pollard or Hasan?

After reading a good few stories about the massacre at Fort Hood commited by Nidal Malik Hasan, including this one by Phylis Chesler and this one by Diane West (which includes this stat: "Pentagon statistics show there are more Jews and Buddhists than Muslims serving in the 1.4 million strong, overwhelmingly Christian armed forces") and pointed out that "Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian", I am asking myself:

why does the intelligence community still think Jews in the military or in government service are potential enemies and suspects and why people like Hasan are around?

and

who, in the end, was more dangerous to America, Jay Pollard of Nidal Hasan?

Creating A Sinisterly Link Through "Lure" and "Context"

Gershom Gorenberg, has an article in The American Prospect.

Gershom has specialized in messianic Zionism. His Wikipedia entry defines him as "an American-born Israeli historian, journalist and blogger, specializing in Middle Eastern politics and the interaction of religion and politics" and "a left-wing, skeptical Orthodox Zionist Jew".

The article, as others of his usual writings, attempts to sinisterly link the mainstream of the nationalist-religious camp all the while distancing himself from what he does. It's a form of ballet.

The article is entitled "Yaakov Teitel and the Allure of Lawlessness" it begins with another theme altogether so as to create the "lawlessness" and then seeks to create a link between two different realities but in doing so, points an accusatory finger and walks away after staining a whole camp.

First, he relates of 'a glossy flier posted on a bulletin border in a small, illegal outpost of Israeli settlers near Nablus' and 'citing religious sources, the flier urged Jews to "harvest" the Palestinians' olives if they could, and uproot the trees if they couldn't.'

However, 'since Judaism forbids not only theft but also the destruction of fruit trees even in warfare', even Gorenberg had to point out that 'the writer had to use considerable casuistry to make his case'. Ans sure enough, i't was condemned a few days later in a popular right-leaning newsletter' but Gorenberg then writes: "The moderate right is disturbed by such tactics...The flier's text is testimony to the violence and lawlessness that are part of the ideological atmosphere at the settlement movement's radical edge" Okay, but what about that "edge"? Gorenberg dances: "The mayhem isn't just the work of a few crazed individuals" and then draws the link: "Use that as context for understanding the arrest of Yaakov Teitel...".

Gorenberg admits "Teitel's alleged offenses reads like a brief guide to hate crime" that "He was reportedly seen as a loner" but Gorenberg won't let his prey get away. He continues: "But that's framing the picture much too narrowly. Even if Teitel is a man driven by his own particular furies, he chose to live in an environment where acting on fury is sometimes treated as acceptable, even as a virtue."

Well, a) his first two suspected crimes were committed prior to his living in any Yesha community. So just perhaps his mind-set was fixed before he could insert himself into an "environment"? And his mind-set was less ideologically political than mentally unstable maybe? and b) a 'virtue' of 'acting on fury' is 'acceptable'? er, like getting drunk at bars and beating up innocent people or killing your sister because of unacceptable social activity? What exactly is Gorenberg saying?

Ah: "Ideological violence is basic to settlement history. Arguably, it is inherent to a project that asserts one ethnic group's ownership of territory while negating another group's rights".

So, Gorenberg is getting theological - a new meaning to 'born in sin'.

And he is quick to the defensive offensive maneuver: "Predictably, prominent settlers argue Teitel is an aberration". And he perverts something Emily Amrusi wrote, about the "300,000 people living today in Judea and Samaria" who are not guilty and certainly not connected to Teitel's perceived deeds. Gorenberg adds: "That's the number of Israeli settlers, not counting those in annexed East Jerusalem. For Amrusi, apparently, the Palestinians either are invisible or are something other than people".

Does Gorenberg think that Emily should have included Arabs in the pool of potential Jewish criminals? What does he take us for - fools? If she had written 'so-and-so million people' would he not have then, perhaps, claimed Emily was intimating that all Arabs posses a virtue of fury, that their history is one of ideological violence, that they are all to be stereotyped?

But he has thought of that and he quickly adds, after doing the damage: "Put aside that gaffe". Thanks there, Gershom.

And next, he gets downright mushy: "It's true that stereotypes should be avoided, that settlers are not a monolithic group. More Israelis have moved to settlements in search of the suburban dream than for the sake of ideology. Even among ideological settlers, there's a wide spectrum of attitudes. I assume that many felt a helpless revulsion when they heard of the Teitel case: Again, someone from their community had shed blood and besmirched their name."

But he can't let go: "...as I said, there is a historical context of settlers treating violence, not to mention casual disregard of the law, as trivial or even heroic...". Lucky for him, we're not talking about the Second Aliyah, the Third, the Hagana, the Palmach.

And he claims that Shvut Rahel is "a community established in violation of Israeli law, according to the government-commissioned Sasson Report".

That's wrong. Shvut Rachel was established right after the murder of Rachel Druck in October 1991, shot on the eve of the Madrid Conference on land zoned as part of Shiloh and in fact is registered as "the Shvut Rachel neighborhood in Shiloh".

Gorenberg if fearful that his mental instability will permit his friends and neighbors to "ignore the question of why he chose to live among them". So, every murderer and rapist and thief is to be looked at geographically - why did he come to live in this neighborhood or that village?

And then Gorenberg gets into conspiracy theories: "The open question now is whether Teitel was caught because his repeated attacks created more evidence for investigators, or because he'd begun attacking Israelis, or a combination of both" as if the failure to arrest him previously was due to an indifference to crimes against Arabs. I am sure the police would be upset about that

Gershom ends by noting "The occupation will not be listed as co-defendant or co-conspirator. But if he did do what the investigators claim, his hatred not only fits a context. It fits a context he chose, drawn by the allure of lawlessness".

The "context". Another innocent key word of blame and guilt. Another sinister link.

Such a ballerina.

A Dvar Torah for VaYeira

In the newly republished Rav Yeivi of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Ostrog, 1738-1791, a disciple of the Maggid Dov Ber, he explains the testing of Avraham in quite an allegorical manner.


Avraham signifies the soul ('neshama') and it is being sent into this world to be tested if it can survive within a corporeal form. The phrase 'after these things' is a Midrashic reference that the soul is shown all the pleasures of Gan Eden before being sent out into the world. 'Your son' refers to the body, which builds up the person and his fulfillment of God's commands and instructions. Yitzhak is another term for the body based on Proverbs 31:25 in that the sould obtains joy from serving God but the body only does so in the world-to-come and therefore the future tense, "yitzchak", is employed.

The raising up of a sacrifice is the raising up of the body from level to level in God's service until it is at its highest, the mountain. The donkey signifies another element of the soul ('nefesh') which acts as a vehicle for the other two ('neshama' and 'ruach') and the two servants are the Good Inclination and the Evil Inclination. The splitting of the wood is akin to the outbreak of light when the sechel, the commonsense bursts into the mohin. The wood is interpreted through a play on its root as 'advice'. The fire signifies the Torah and the slaughtering knife indicates his death if the soul is not adequate enough too the task of bringing itself back to the place it left.

The conversation between Avraham and Isaac is between the soul and the body: will the fire be the Torah, for good, or of Hell, for bad? The ewe is the promised reward for the righteous which usually is wanted earlier than later. And the best result is that two should go together, the soul and the body, to achieve God's will and design.

The binding is representative of the successful act of harnessing all powers, physical and spiritual. as well as the power the soul has of causing uncomfort to the body so that is should properly act in God's service. But since a tzaddik is used to bodily punishment and severe restrictions, he has to be warned not to go too far and the call comes from on high to halt the exercise, for the body is still young, as a youth, and needs to be nurtured. Although almost worn out and tired, the eyes are raised and the ram is seen. In Hebrew, the root of איל, 'ram', also signifies strength and so the process is able to be completed despite the intervention of the Evil One, signified by the סבך, the thicket.

Tricky Dick Goldstones His Audience

Unctuous and slick at the debate last night:-

...Goldstone said the forum allowed him a chance to explain the substance of his findings “and avoid the personal and ad hominem attacks that have marked the debate on the report to date.’’ Goldstone, a former South African constitutional court justice who is himself a Jew, said much of the criticism of the report was based on false premises...Goldstone said the days he spent in Gaza were full of surprises. He admitted to a bout of nerves at the thought of a Jew roaming around Gaza and said that just before he went he had a nightmare that he had been kidnapped by radicals “and that people in Israel were rejoicing,’’ drawing a laugh from the audience.

But in the end, he said, he was struck by how similar Israelis and Palestinians were in their warmth and their aspirations.

People in Israel were rejoicing at his imaginary distress?

Projecting now, is he?

And this is a nasty way of perverting the term "war crimes":-

"War crimes are committed when disproportionate force is used," Goldstone said. "That is the essence of what war crimes are all about, Israel has the absolute right and duty to defend its citizens, I repeat for the third time but in doing so its responses must be proportionate," Goldstone said. "That
is the law and up till now that law has been accepted by Israel."

If you do not view Hamas as a terror group but rather seem to sense that it has justification for "resisting" Israel, then the shooting off of rockets as opposed to Israel's precision-bombing capabilities, well maybe there is, in a sick way of thinking, something disproportionate in Israel's response.

But that is immoral, Judge Goldstone, and ad hominem or not, you are wrong, grossly so.

Words of Wisdom

Elliott Abrams has a wonderful description of what the administration has been up to —

“nine months of nonsense.”

(Full context: Instead of demanding an unrealistic freeze, Abrams said, the administration could have made the Bush deal public, noted that Israel had not consistently lived up to it and declared that it would now be enforced. "Instead, we had nine months of nonsense," he said. "Palestinians and Israelis are not sure what the United States stands for.")



Of course, there's always another opinion:

Ghaith al-Omari, a former Abbas aide who is advocacy director for the American Task Force on Palestine, said, "The situation is so complicated that no matter what approach the administration would have taken would have led to difficulties." He said that things have improved in the past nine months, including getting a reluctant Israeli government to embrace the idea of talks. Negotiations will begin eventually, he said, because the Obama administration has signaled that it will not waver in pursuit of direct talks.

A Very Bad Idea

I found a piece in a South New Jersey weekly, The Jewish Times, entitled A Bad Idea and it forced me to write this letter:-

In "A Bad Idea" by Stephen Kramer (Nov. 6), we read this assertion: "The Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank after 1946...". But this is wrong.

The 1947 UN Partition Resolution establishing both a Jewish and an Arab state in the area of Mandate Palestine does not mention the West Bank at all. In all British official documents as those of the US State Department as well, the territory is Judea and Samaria. In the section delineating borders, it refers solely to Judea and Samaria. Only in April 1950 did there appear a geopolitical term, the "West Bank", when the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan illegally annexed Judea and Samaria after occupying it in 1948.

Your Health

The American Citizens Abroad (ACA) organization is alerting US citizens who live overseas to an unfair excise tax of $1900 per family that they may be required to pay as part of the proposed new healthcare and insurance legislation.

ACA is requesting all members and supporters to email, fax and/or write their Senators in support of a change in legislative language to the bill "Americas Healthy Future Act of 2009" authored by Senator Max Baucus.

In the 16 September 2009 version of this bill there is wording which would cause great hardship on American citizens living outside the US. The wording would leave Americans overseas exposed to paying an excise tax regardless of whether they carry health insurance via overseas health providers. The purpose of the proposed excise tax is to encourage all Americans who benefit from the US health program to participate in its financing. Americans residing overseas cannot benefit from the US health system so for them the excise tax is just that -- a tax with no counter-part service. Currently the planned maximum excise tax per family for non-participation would be $1,900.

Please help ACA to insure that Americans overseas are not unfairly taxed. Help ACA to bring this matter to the attention of the decision makers in Washington DC by writing to your representative today.

LGF Gets Dainty

Here's the Little Green Footballs post on the identity of the Fort Hood shooter:

Fort Hood Shooter Identified As a Major

The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.

Hmmm.

Malik Nadal Hasan. Just a Major?

Not Muslim?

Not of Palestinian descent?

Tsk, tsk, Charles.


See:

He attended the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring and is devout, according to Faizul Khan, former imam at the center. He attended prayers at least once a day, seven days a week, often in his Army fatigues, Khan said.

See:

Hasan is an American citizen of Palestinian descent

Gideon Levy Is An ASSinine Individual

On the very day that the IDF announces the capture of an extremely large and dangerous shipment of arms to Israel's adversaries from Iran, Gideon Levy publishes this, and please excuse the longish extracts but to bury him, seems one needs a lot of evidence:-

Every few weeks you have to sow fear, every few months you need to make threats, and once every year or two you have to have another little war. Blind cooperation between the defense establishment and the media holds the promise of another round of fighting...It also creates good television ratings and sells sensationalist newspapers and advanced weapon systems. What's better than that for us?

The most recent cry of alarm: NASA in Palestine, Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in Gaza. Hamas launches an Iranian rocket - it must be Iranian - 60 kilometers. The head of Military Intelligence reported on it, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke immediately about missile systems, and the media immediately broke into its favorite war dance. "Three million citizens within range," "Confrontation in December," "Are you within range?" "Outskirts of Tel Aviv in danger," "Doomsday weapons" - frightening headlines accompanied by no less scary maps. "This is a new dimension confronting the IDF. It's not a simple matter. It's really a different story altogether. We should remember that there will be many casualties on the home front," roared the national baritone - the military commentator on television.

So again we are dealing with the grotesque - a strip of land under siege wallowing in its distress and ruins...That's how they create the scenario for the next war. That's how they empower not just the enemy, but first and foremost the IDF, which can beat the enemy.

The warmongering military commentators say war will come early, maybe even next month. The furious predictions of the commentators will again be a self-fulfilling prophesy. As with the horrible earlier incarnations, we can soon expect a series of "incidents" that are "heating up the front" - bombing a tunnel or shelling a weapons lab. A few helpless peasants who dare approach the security fence, rusty plows in hand, will be killed after being depicted as terrorists laying explosives, and the Palestinians will fire hollow Qassams in response, sowing fear in the Negev and creating pressure on the government to "do something."

...It would be funny if it were not so depressing. Even satire would not be as ridiculous as this constantly recurring reality. No lessons are learned...

Gideon, go! Leave! Exit!

Fool. Dangerous ranter of perverse leftwing claptrap.

Thoughts/Words of Wisdom

1.

“We might have an impact. A politician can’t be a politician if they get voted out of office.”

Jerry Hershberger, at a demonstration in Washington protesting the Obama health bill.


2.

"'Wrong' is one of those concepts that depends on witnesses."

Catbert