Hagana's Hypocrisy

As a result of the explosion on July 22, 1946 in the southern wing of the King David Hotel, the section that since 1939 had housed various government and army offices (only in the northern wing were there tourists and other civilians who were not targeted and not harmed), over 90 persons were killed, the majority of them employees or members of the Mandate government.

Despite the fact that the Irgun had not intended that anyone would be physically harmed and had made efforts to assure that warnings would be made, indirectly (releasing the kitchen staff; igniting a firewall in St. Julian's Way (today, King David Street); and tossing petards) and directly (phone calls to the hotel and police, as well as to the French Consulate), and despite Menachem Begin expressing regrets at the loss of life, the Irgun and Begin are vilified and castigated until this day.

The left-wing in Israel, and the Jewish people, never stop pointing an accusatory and damming finger.

But consider this:

On November 25, 1940, an installation in Palestine was attacked by a Jewish underground militia. The result of the explosion caused the deaths of almost 300 civilians with only 209 bodies recovered.

Are the perpetrators damned in the history books?  Is their deed recalled every year like with the King David Hotel?

No. 

Probably the fact that those who carried out the operation were members of the Hagana.

I am referring to the sinking of the Patria, a French-built 11,885-tin ocean liner.  The Patria 

was carrying about 1,800 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe whom the British authorities were deporting from Mandatory Palestine to Mauritius because they lacked entry permits. Zionist organizations opposed the deportation, and the underground paramilitary Haganah group planted a bomb intended to disable the ship to prevent it from leaving Haifa.

The Haganah claims to have miscalculated the effects of the explosion.

As one can now read at Wikipedia:

A bitter debate over the correctness of the operation raged in secret within the Zionist leadership...An effort was made to enshrine the incident as an icon of Zionist determination...Some leaders of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) argued that the loss of life had not been in vain, as Patria's survivors had been allowed to stay in the country. Others declared that the Haganah had had no right to risk the lives of the immigrants...The Haganah's role was not publicly revealed and a story was put out that the deportees, out of despair, had sunk the ship themselves...Britain believed the Irgun was probably responsible.
The Haganah's role was finally publicly disclosed in 1957 when Munya Mardor, the operative who had planted the bomb, wrote an account of his activities in the Jewish underground. He recounted, "There was never any intent to cause the ship to sink...

Hypocrisy of the left vs. the right in Zionism?

^ 

What's Bad for You Is Not Bad for Me

So writes Shaul Arieli in Ha-Ha-Haaretz:

Once a concept becomes crystallized in the minds of the public, it’s very difficult to dislodge. Sometimes, its crystallization reflects a lack of thought; sometimes it is intentional; sometimes it is intellectual stagnation; and sometimes it’s all of these together. The fact that the State of Israel has no permanent borders greatly affects its conduct in the diplomatic arena with regard to resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. In the context of attempts to agree on Israel’s borders, the concept of the “settlement blocs” has crystallized into a fossil that no one has the strength to smash.
Over the past 20 years, this concept – which refers to adjacent Jewish settlements in the West Bank – has become an organizing principle in every proposed diplomatic plan. It has been present in all negotiations since then, and also in the unilateral measures Israel has taken.

Of course, the concept of a "two-state solution" is not in the same category, correct?

Left-wingers are not connected to their own frames of reference which are reserved solely for their political opponents.

Hypocrisy?


^

Broadcast Hypocrisy

The news is that

Israel Shuts Down Dovish Radio Station

Israel has ordered the shutdown of a dovish Israeli-Palestinian radio station, officials and the station's operators said on Sunday. The station and other critics said the move was politically motivated, and part of a broader assault on democracy by conservative forces in the government.

Could that be true?

Of course, there are those that are always "high-profiling" themselves:

Conservative lawmaker Danny Danon boasted that he had helped close the "All for Peace" radio station. Danon, a member of Netanyahu's Likud Party, claimed the Communications Ministry shuttered the station at his request, after he claimed it "incited" against Israel. "A radical leftist station that becomes an instrument of incitement must not be allowed to broadcast to the broader public," Danon said.

But, perhaps there was a matter of illegality? Of a license?

Israel's communications ministry confirmed it issued the order, and said the station was broadcasting into Israel illegally.
The ministry, headed by a Likud Cabinet minister, said in a statement that the station's Hebrew-language broadcasts inside Israel were "economically damaging local radio franchisees." It did not mention the issue of incitement.

So, there was a legal problem and I am sure that if a court becomes involved we will know.

But I found this funny:

Mossi Raz, the Israeli director of the station, said that it transmits from the West Bank where it is not subject to Israeli law.

Why funny?

Well, where do you think the Arutz 7 radio broadcast from (even though there were boosters inside the Green Line)? And Abie Natan's Voice of Peace really broadcast from ov'r the waves? Who is kidding whom?

Hypocrites.


^

For Those Upset With Derfner Being Fired - Don't Be Hypocrites

Don't be upset.  And don't be hypocrites.

The Left here is calling for the firing of Avri Gilad.

The initiators are Shutafut-Sharakah.

In Englisch:

It’s time for the last word: Sign the petition to fire Avri Gilad

Countless complaints have already been submitted to the Galei Tzahal (Israel Army Radio) about the incitement and racism that Avri Gilad reveals in his program, but the broadcaster continues on as usual. We cannot allow Mr. Gilad to continue to misappropriate his role as a journalist and to sabotage the prospects for a shared society in Israel! The time has come for a public call for the firing of Avri Gilad.

In the radio program, “The last word,” broadcast on August 28, we were once again exposed to the unbridled, hate-filled views of Mr. Avri Gilad toward the Arab citizens of Israel. This time, Mr. Gilad called for the revocation of the citizenship of Arab citizens of Israel who live in the “triangle” region so as to turn Israel into a state that is “as Jewish as possible,” while also mocking the customs of Ramadan. Sign the petition and add your name to this call. When 1,000 signatures are collected, we’ll submit them to the Israel Press Council and to the Commander of Galei Tzahal, and publish the number of signatures.
Please add your name to the Hebrew petition, which states:

Dear Mr. Isaac Tonic, Commander of Galei Tzahal, and the Israel Press Council:


As Jewish and Arab citizens, we are appalled by the recurring, offensive statements of Avri Gilad against the Arab citizens of Israel in his program, “The Last Word”, and we strongly urge Galei Tzahal to fire him.


With the ridicule, venom and hatred that Mr. Gilad insists on conveying toward one-fifth of Israel’s citizens, he is violating the ethical guidelines of the Israel Press Council, which demands fair coverage and an avoidance of incitement, and misappropriating his role as a journalist in a democratic country.


Mr. Gilad systematically makes statements that incite against, and generalize about, Arab citizens of Israel. In two recent examples, Mr. Gilad suggested using Gaddafi-style violence against Israeli citizens (“surround the place, full curfew, zanga zanga, dar dar” – in his program on April 26, 2011); he declared that the day would come when “with unconcealed happiness, we will have to draft different borders… which will turn Israel into the most Jewish state possible and which will exclude the ‘triangle’ region, for example.” In the same program, a moment before he declared his aspiration for the revocation of the citizenship of 1 million citizens, Mr. Gilad mocked the fast of Ramadan, which prevents the Arab workers who are renovating his home from finishing their work according to the demands of the landlord (28.8.2011).


Since this is not a one-off slip of the tongue, but a fixed behavioral pattern, and since countless complaints already been submitted against Mr. Gilad have not been answered, we stand by our demand to fire him so that he will not be given a platform from which to continue to sabotage the prospects for a shared society in the State of Israel.

If he should be fired, according to the Left, which is now supporting Derfner, for words of presumed racism, what is the punishment for someone who advocates terror and murder?

Hypocrisy reigns.

^

Beinart, Ben-Ami and Polls

From CAMERA's post:

...three different recent polls have disproven claims promoted by Peter Beinart and Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street that the American Jewish community is increasingly alienated from Israel and that the traditional pro-Israel organizational establishment does not represent mainstream American Jewry...

In his Aug. 3 column, entitled "Seeking Balance on the Mideast," Kristof tenaciously grasps at Beinart/Ben-Ami's sinking ship of American Jewish diminishing support for Israel, writing:

Ben-Ami argues that "the loudest eight percent" have hijacked Jewish groups to press for policies that represent neither the Jewish mainstream nor the best interests of Israel. . .There's also some evidence that young American Jews are growing disenchanted as Israeli society turns rightward. . . ."What happens as Israel continues to become more religious and conservative, more isolated internationally and less democratic domestically?" Ben-Ami writes. "What happens to the relationship between American Jews and Israel as the face of Israel shifts from that of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres to that of the national religious settlers and the ultra-Orthodox rabbis?"

Is it true, as Beinart, Ben-Ami and Kristof claim, that American Jews, mostly liberal, are better represented by J Street than by AIPAC? Is it true that the population is increasingly distanced from the Jewish state? Not according to three recent polls.

A May 16-17, 2011 poll of more than 1,000 American Jews conducted by Luntz Global on behalf of CAMERA found continuing, deep support for the Israel. CAMERA Executive Director Andrea Levin noted that the poll found: "The overwhelming majority of American Jews are cognizant of threats to Israel, protective of the country, cautious about risks and strongly opposed to such measures as boycotts, including boycotts of settlements."

...A second poll, carried out June 20-7, 2011 by the Dick Morris Poll revealed similar findings demonstrating strong Jewish American attachment to Israel and deep concern for its security. In particular, the poll found:

...Finally, a third poll of American Jews, carried out by Pat Caddell and John McLaughlin and release July 12, 2011, affirmed similar findings. Notably:

...81% are against Israel being forced to return to its pre-1967 borders [sic; they were armistice lines]
73% believe Jerusalem should remain the united capital of Israel and only 8% support that the US should force Israel to give away parts of Jerusalem

So much for Kristof 's fictional "hijacking" of American Jewish organizations by a loud fringe of hawks.

Who says that leftwing progressive liberal Jewish intelletuals know anything?

^

Leftists Admit: The Arabs Initiate The Violence

From a long article here in The Nation by Jospeh Dana and Noam Sheizaf:-

...After a while, one of the local Palestinians gathers the Israelis and internationals and explains the reasons for the protest, thanking everyone for coming. Then an Israeli activist gives a more technical briefing: how to deal with tear gas, how to avoid injuries, what to say if you get caught by the soldiers. “Don’t be afraid to get arrested,” he tells his listeners, some of them first-timers and clearly nervous. “Make sure someone knows where you are. You will probably be released within a few hours. Only Palestinians are kept in jail for long periods.”
After the briefing, the Palestinians lead the Israelis and international activists to the edge of the village, with more protesters joining them along the way. Half a mile down the road lies the security barrier, where some twenty soldiers can be seen on the other side. As the protesters approach, the soldiers rush through a gate in the fence, blocking their path, while the protesters chant “Viva Palestine!” and “Free Palestine!” They carry signs in Hebrew, Arabic and English demanding an end to the occupation. Finally, both sides halt, with only a few yards separating them. Itzik, an Israeli activist who has been coming to the demos for five years, carries a Palestinian flag. Like some of the other veteran protesters in Bil’in, he is wearing goggles to protect his eyes from tear gas. Another Israeli activist calls out to the soldiers in Hebrew, “You don’t belong here! Get off the village’s land!”
“You are violating a closed military zone order,” an army officer retorts. “If you don’t leave, you and your friends will be arrested.”
“I was invited here by the people of this village,” comes the answer. “It’s you who are invading it!”
After half an hour of standing and shouting, someone throws a stone. As if they were waiting for this moment, the soldiers respond immediately. Tear gas and stun grenades are thrown at the protesters, with more fired from afar. A disorganized, rushed retreat begins. Back at the village’s edge, the protesters regroup and try to march again toward the fence. This time the soldiers fire tear gas before the activists can get close. On the sides of the road, between the olive trees, Palestinian teens—the shabab, as they are known in Arabic—continue to hurl stones, and IDF snipers respond with rubber-coated bullets, which can be deadly. Gradually, the confrontation begins to assume the nature of a ritual, with both sides testing the other’s patience and resilience. But it’s a deadly game: this past December, Jawaher Abu-Rahma collapsed during a protest after inhaling massive amounts of tear gas [but she was not at the demo and her subsequent death was due to a wrong injection being given - what's known as doctor's error - not due to the IDF]. She was rushed to a Ramallah hospital, where she died the following morning. This was a year and a half after her brother, Bassam, was killed when a soldier fired a tear gas canister at his chest, also during an unarmed protest.

Don't trust left-wing radical and progressive sources for reliable information on what goes on in Judea and Samarfia as it is mostly propaganda and unsubtantiated if not outright lies.

^

I'm Indignant!

Reported:

Stéphane Hesse..at 93...is the author of a best seller that has become a publishing phenomenon in France...a thin, impressionistic pamphlet called “Indignez-Vous!,” held together by two staples and released by a two-person publishing house run out of the attic of their home. It urges young people to revive the ideal of resistance to the Nazis by peacefully resisting the “international dictatorship of the financial markets” and defending the “values of modern democracy.”

"Democracy"?  "Values"?  How?

In particular Mr. Hessel protests France’s treatment of illegal immigrants, the influence on the media by the rich, cuts to the social welfare system, French educational reforms and, most strongly, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

“When something outrages you, as Nazism did me, that is when you become a militant, strong and engaged,” he writes. “You join the movement of history, and the great current of history continues to flow only thanks to each and every one of us.”

Don't you just marvel at someone, a Resistance veteran who "was...imprisoned in concentration camps, waterboarded in Nazi torture sessions and saved from hanging by swapping identities with an inmate who had died of typhus", who is a complete idiot - or is he just a fool when Israel enters his sphere of attention?

And consider this indicator of attention-time:

The book’s short length [29 pages in French] and low price (it sells for about $4) made it a popular Christmas gift among left-leaning intellectuals, parents struggling to inject political activism into their children and just about anyone else who needed an extra stocking stuffer.

But there's more:

...the book has been branded anti-Semitic by some French intellectuals for its attack on Israel, in particular that country’s 2008 incursion into Gaza. The book describes Gaza, which Mr. Hessel visited with his wife in 2009, as “an open-sky prison for a million and a half Palestinians,” and says that “for Jews themselves to perpetuate war crimes is intolerable.”

On his Facebook page Pierre-André Taguieff, an expert in the history of French anti-Semitism, wrote: “Certainly he could have ended his life in a more dignified way, instead of inciting hatred against Israel, thus adding his voice to the worst of anti-Jews. Even old age doesn’t make someone impermeable to vanity, or kill the appetite for applause.”

Mr. Hessel denies that he is anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. “I feel that I am completely in solidarity with Jews in the world, because I know what it is to be a Jew,” he said. “I’ve seen what it is, I am myself of Jewish origin, and therefore I can only be fully in support of the idea that the Jews, after all they’ve suffered, need a country where they are at home. I shouted my joy when Israel was founded. I said, ‘At last!’ ”

When a handful of protesters branded him a racist during a speech he gave in the Paris suburb of Montreuil last week, he said that he told them: “My love for Israel is stronger than yours. But I want it to be an honest country.”

Other critics have pointed out the book’s outrage does not mention human rights offenses in places like North Korea, Myanmar, China and Iran.

Jewish?

He was born in Berlin to a Jewish father and a Protestant mother and was baptized so that he could attend school. The family immigrated to Paris when he was 7.   With her husband’s consent his mother had a longstanding affair with Henri-Pierre Roché, the writer and art dealer. The relationship became the inspiration for Mr. Roché’s first novel and later for François Truffaut’s classic French New Wave film “Jules and Jim.” The young Stéphane character was the little girl in the film.

Self-hating?

No; or maybe; but whatever, ignorance, spite and above all, left-wing thinking or what passes as intellectual thought, are at fault. Democracy he's concerned about?  In the Palestinian Authority?

He's indignant and angry?  I am moreso.


^

Left Gets Moving

Received last night:

From: Ronnie Barkan
Date: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 10:04 AM
Subject: Urgent: people needed TONIGHT against settlers' "price tag"


There are reports about around 100 settlers organizing for a "price tag" in the Hebron - Baqa / Hill 17 area.

If you can come - please contact Arik Asherman 050-5607034

I wonder, if I called them about a Hamas ambush, would they come, too?

Would they act as human shields?


- - -

Such Incredible Stupidity

This is from Ilana Hammerman, serial smuggler:

Thus it was that, happy and good-hearted, I reached the blinding lights and concrete blocks of the Ein Yael checkpoint. A soldier armed with a machine gun stretched out an arm and ordered me to stop. Obeying, I stopped. We stood there, face to face, a face no longer young (mine ) opposite a very young face, helmet opposite helmet, bicycle opposite concrete block.

"Where are you from?" he asked. "In what sense, where am I from?" I replied with a philosophical question. "Where do you live?" he asked. "In Jerusalem," I replied without trying to be smart again. "Well done," he said and saluted, really saluted.

He didn't know that the woman he was saluting is a serial smuggler of female human beings whom he knows as "people illegally present," a smuggler against whom a complaint is pending with the police, a smuggler who the evening before was asked on a well-regarded television program if she checks the underpants of the women she smuggles, in case they have hidden a bomb there.

And since the soldier at the checkpoint saluted me and sent me on my way, it now occurs to me to ask the many people of little insight among my Israeli compatriots: Who, then, will protect you, you who foolishly place your trust in checkpoints, who will protect you from offenders like me who do not poke around in the underpants of their Palestinian friends but bring them here to socialize with us and be guests in our cities and thus, among other goals, look for different ways to ensure us at long last a life of security and peace?

Well, Ilana, the obvious answer to your query is that we start with arresting you so that Arabs don't think they can take advantage of your incredible stupidity and next time, send into Israel someone that is more sinister than your other girlfriends.

After all, if that soldier didn't recognize you, maybe you won't recognize that future her.



- -

The Sadness of the Irrational

These are the opening two line from Heinrich Heine's Die Lorelei:-

Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin;

which translates as:

I don’t know what it may signify
That I am so sad;

I think I have a reason for a certain sadness.

This op-ed which claims that "There is no rational argument against withdrawing from the West bank". It's by Zvi Bar'el from, of course, the Ha-Ha-Haaretz.

The essence of his thinking posturing:

But withdrawal from the West Bank, especially the eastern parts of Jerusalem, is a completely different story.

...The West Bank runs alongside Israel...The West Bank can be used as a launching pad for missile attacks on Tel Aviv or Ben-Gurion International Airport...But it's not the well-worn security argument that blocks Israeli withdrawal...When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows concerns about developments on the eastern front, he is referring to Iraq and Iran, not Ramallah, a West Bank town heaving with shopping centers and discotheques. There is no oil in the West Bank, which does not provide us with foreign workers. The West Bank has stopped serving as Israel's economic hinterland, a role it played in the 1970s and '80s. So no economic argument is at play here.

Nor can the danger of a collapse of the governing coalition serve as a viable excuse for not withdrawing, because even when center-left coalitions were in power and had the option of withdrawing, a pullout from the West Bank was not on the agenda. In other words, no rational argument is left to block a withdrawal.

Israel's refusal to pull out is rooted in another dimension - the dream of Greater Israel has never disappeared...a psychological complex of power and bury a dream.

This is the core of Israel's schizophrenia, the reason the country has moments of lucidity during which it sounds reasonable, amenable to direct negotiations, and even eager to engage in peace talks...But most of the time Netanyahu and his government are captive to an illusion; they are kept in thrall by the psychosis of a dream.

The Likud government and extreme right are not the only ones who suffer from this disease. Most of the public succumbs to it...

First, again, the Left permit themselves what they scream about if the Right employs the same. I am referring to the term "disease". As I pointed out recently, with the term "virus", our liberal progressive camp-to-the-left are hypocrites. And, secondly, they do not tell the truth and the truth they pervert.

He disdainfully dismisses any security threat from a possible, yea probable, Hamas-dominated Judea and Samaria in the near future if what we all know can happen will happen. Ramallah is just a hot spot for tourists for Bar'el not where Arabs torture each other on occasion or where they plan to shoot at Jews to kill them. Or a territory that will make itself available for a Jordan that itself has become subverted by its own Hamas to enter in some form of a security pact. That's a rational thought.

Any coexistence is rejected as there is no...oil in them hills. But, of course, there is olive oil and wine. So maybe agriculture can united us. That's rational.

That even left-of-center coalitions refused to yield and withdraw doesn't mean they were irrational but that there was a very good rational set of arguments not to surrender Jewish rights in its historical homeland.

Echoing James ("dream of Greater Israel") Baker, Bar'el prefers the irrational: a 'psychological complex of power' is at work, as if for 90 years the Arabs have not continuously sought Jewish deaths and the eradication of any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, as if there were no pogroms, riots and terror, no refusal to agree to any compromise by Arabs, - all this before Israel, a la Bar'el, became an "occupier", and found itself, as a result of, again, Arab aggression, in possession of those areas of our Jewish national homeland that Jordan illegally occupied for real.

All this history, which I have telescoped, is not unknown to Bar'el. He just ignores it all. And he thinks I am part of the schizophrenia he bewails? I am in an illusion with most of the Israel public?

That is why I am sad.

Because Bar'el is sick.

And last: it is not psychotic to hold proud nationalist ideals, to seek to fulfill them, to hope you are protecting your culture, your religion, your ethos so that they will exist for centuries (well, at least until the coming of Messiah) and to believe that all of the previous works for the good, is a positive influence, can contribute to peace if only the Arabs would realize their inherent problems.


(Kippah tip: BPO)
- - -

Left, Liberal, Lost

Spotted at those demos at the Shimon Hatzaddik neighborhood where Jews are not allowed to live, according to the lost left liberals of Israel:-




That reads:

There is no sanctity in a city that is occupied.


What's in a mind that is "occupied" by Arab propaganda and post-Zionist claptrap?



Source

Indutably So

the French writer Pascal Bruckner has called the Western intelligentsia’s new “tyranny of guilt” — a self-effacement that forbids critical inquiry into the historical narratives of those national movements granted the sanctified status of “oppressed” — the Nakba narrative [which] cannot even be challenged.

Source



I left a comment there.

- - -

Didi Remez and I - An Unsettling Exchange

I am personally unacquainted with Didi Remez that I can recall or maybe I am? I've met most Peace Now leaders and debated them since 1980.



He runs "Coteret", a left-wing radical site that provides English-language translations from the Hebrew press and media. Quite useful, actually.

He is also:

senior partner at BenOr Consulting. Remez specializes in policy-change oriented strategic planning in the Israeli sphere and provides consulting services to a wide variety of organizations operating in Israel and the Occupied Territories including Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights, Friends of the Earth Middle East, Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, Ir Amim, Israel Energy Forum, Kav La'Oved (Worker's Hotline), Life and Environment, the New Israel Fund, Physicians for Human Rights - Israel. The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, The Carter Center, The Elders, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, The World Bank West Bank & Gaza Program and Transport Today and Tomorrow. In 2005-2006, he served as senior media advisor to James Wolfensohn - the Quartet Special Envoy for Disengagement. Before joining BenOr in 2001, Remez directed Peace Now Settlement Watch and was the spokesperson for the movement in Israel. He is a founding member of Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights.

Nach his post about building construction at the former Mufti's home now referred to as Shepherd Hotel, we had this exchange:

#

Just to know: is “settlement compound” a translation or an editorial comment by the translator?

*
Didi Remez

Just to know: Did you watch the video?

#
Yisrael Medad

Yes. The location is not referred to as a “settlement” (hitnachalut) but as a neighborhood, or as a compound (mitcham). You could have written “underground shopping mall” just as easily or 20 apartment complex.

So, I guess the headline was editorializing and not a translation.

Why did I have to pull teeth?

*
Didi Remez

Ah, your problem is with the headline (if you had made that clear in the first comment you “would not have to pull teeth.” Well: (1) s headline is always an editor’s prerogative; (2) said compound is beyond the 1967 border; (3) I constantly hear settler voices saying their “settlement identity” should not be hidden.

#
Yisrael Medad

The term “settlement compound” only appears in the headline. That was clear to me, at least. As for “identity” and you listening to “voices”, (a) I prefer the term “community” instead of “settlement” and “revenant” or simply “resident” to “settler” and hope you permit me my identity; (b) is Hadassah Hospital a “settlement”? (c) are Arab localities in Israel “settlements”?

It can get complicated.

*
Didi Remez

“Mityashvim” (Makor Rishon standard) = “Settlers”

#
Yisrael Medad

Ah. So Rivka Alper’s book, “HaMitnachalim BaHar” on Motza, Levy Eshkol’s book, “B’chavlei Hitnachalut” and Yosef Weitz’s book, “Hitnachaluteinu b’tkufat HaSa’ar” equalize the pioneering enterprise of pre-state, pre-67 and post-67 Zionism in redeeming the Land. That’s good. We’re all in this together. In Arab eyes, all we have done on both sides of the Green Line is “settlement” and that’s bad in their opinion.

I await your answers then to (b) and (c).

*
Didi Remez

Settler, settlements etc. (should answer all your questions): Used in Coteret to denote Israelis beyond 1967 border. This is not extraordinary. In fact, it is the term used in many right-wing Israeli publications.

Thread closed. Go fishing somewhere else.

My observations:

1. You notice that he doesn't answer any questions that are too difficult from a factual or even political perspective.

2. You notice that he doesn't even know what was in the video clip of the Channel 10 news report.

3. You notice that even when I 'attacked' the Arab presence in the state of Israel (not really, just arguing against the discriminatory terminology used only against Jews) he didn't leap at the bait.

He pooh-poohs it all and blames me for "fishing". And closes the thread.

Is this the typical Zionist progressive humanist lefty?



P.S. By "settlers", we are not referring to a video game. Meyer Levin's novel, though, comes very close:

...very well written, informative and moving. It begins at the turn of the century and follows a Russian-Jew family escaping the increasingly dangerious situation developing there. Levin paints a very clear picture of their dreams, goals, strengths and weaknesses. Life was not easy there either but to them it was home. During WWI they fought to help Jews from all over Europe escape death. It is 832 pages that is hard to put down.

...The Settlers is a fabulous novel about a family who settles in Israel before World War I. There are far too few books written about early Aliyot to Israel. This book gives a fabulous insight to the struggle and hard work that it took to build Israel.

P.P.S. Why doesn't anyone pay me to run a Coteret-like site for material from the national camp?

That is really unsettling.


- - -

More Border Security, More Troops

No, not in Israel.

In America.

Under Obama.

Here:-

President Obama will deploy 1,200 National Guard troops and request an extra $500 million to secure the Mexican border, his administration said Tuesday, a move dismissed by Republicans as insufficient to win their cooperation on an overhaul of the nation's immigration system.

By reinforcing the 340 Guard members already monitoring border crossings and analyzing intelligence, the initiative echoes 2006's Operation Jump Start, in which President George W. Bush devoted 6,000 guardsmen to a two-year commitment in support of the Border Patrol.

Then, as now, the troop deployment was fueled by heightened concerns about lawlessness -- then it was illegal immigration, now it is drug traffickers -- as well as political maneuvering in Washington to lay the groundwork for an effort to change immigration policy. But the issue remains bitterly contentious, with increasing pressure on Obama and lawmakers from both Latino supporters and conservative activists.

The March 27 killing of Robert Krentz, a prominent Arizona rancher who had reported drug-smuggling activity on his land, has galvanized political anger toward illegal immigration in that state, although the identity of Krentz's assailant remains under investigation.

Another American Jew Who Is "West Bank" Crazy

No, not one of those right-wing Brooklyn born types.

Another.

I just find it so hard to comprehend to thinking and perceptions of those on the Left.

Here's something from a Ha-Ha-Haaretz profile on an American Reform Jew who supports Meretz and who know acts as counsel for Arabs in Bil'in:-

In Jerusalem she discovered the hidden world, for her at least, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In those days, before the second intifada, she found a common language with Meretz activists on the Mount Scopus campus. "I met my first Palestinian friend then, Sari Abu-Ziad, the oldest son of Ziad Abu-Ziad, who was a minister in the Palestinian government then. He told me about his childhood, what a checkpoint was, what it meant to feel like you're living in a prison, what it's like to be an Arabic-speaker in Israel, how frightened he was. He studied at the Hebrew University. This was before the 1999 election. We gave out stickers that said 'With Barak There's Hope.' We believed that things could change. That year I plunged deep into the conflict, and it broke my heart."

Yes, Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza have had a difficult time. Checkpoints, feelings as if you are in a prison, speaking Arabic, etc.

I won't even go into the security reality but just ask Ms. Emily Schaefer:

So, you met this subjugated and oppressed Arab where?

At the Hebrew Univeristy?

A student, right?

Wow, that Israel - so bad.

Left-wing Radical Progressive Israelis Attack IDF Soldiers

In the south Hebron hill area:


Source

The Sullying Continues

Andrew Sullivan, the not-so-crypto antisemite of The Atlantic, attacks Maureen Dowd on her perception of Israel and the conflict the Arabs have foisted upon us.

Here's an excerpt from his blog piece:-

Nothing illustrates better the total bizarreness of the US-Israel relationship. No one in Washington - apart from a few Likudniks and Palinite end-timers - actually supports more settlements or any settlements i [sic] the West Bank. At the same time, Washington exercizes a UN veto to protect Israel from international law, funnels a vast amount of foreign and military aid to the country, helped finance the pulverization of Gaza last year, provides absurd international cover for Israel's 150 nukes, has worked tirelessly to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capacity, and on and on.

In return? Fuck you, Obama. To which the overwhelming response in Washington is: Obama screwed up.

There is something completely awry here and it has rarely been more evident than in the last twelve months.

Funny that the infamous Baker phrase of "Fuck the Jews" is now applied to the Jews who are being screwed by Obama. Andrew, while you harp on the "settlements" theme, please do not forget that east Jerusalem neighborhoods are also included in the State Department denouncements. And that has mobilized much more than Likudniks (there really are Likudniks in Washington?) and Palinites. Israel has a very strong support group which actually does view the retention of Judea and Samaria as crucial.

And using verbs like "funneling" to describe the aid Israel gets? Nasty imagery there. Do all recipients of foreign aid merit a funnel? Or maybe some of it is quite well deserved?

Israel is most definitely not "protected from international law", Andrew but from an immoral gang of dictatorships who have overtaken the functions of legality in the international community who twist those instruments in a biased and irrational way.

The Obama has "worked tirelessly" on the Iran issue? Oh, please. Are you functionally incapable of employing basic cerebral tools that you know stoop to propagandizing, shilling for your ideological heroes?

This is not punditry. Even a putz could write better.

I Had A Bit Role Last Night in London

I was informed that at last night's discussion panel, sponsored by the New Israel Fund at the London Jewish Book Week, - which assured its balance, pluralism of opinion and fairness (not really) - whose participants were Francesca Klug, David Newman and Daniel Levy, this happened:

The meeting was not too bad...500 people there. Francesca Klug praised the Goldstone Report. [Jonathan] Freedland tried to wind them up by quoting from your blog about the meeting and saying 'Yisrael Medad - a Settler".

And what had I blogged?

Read it.

Fame.

(Just kidding. But I enjoy annoying my ideological opponents, especially when they know they are in the wrong.)

Backward? Or Just Der Stürmer?

If you go to the Purim spoof issue of The Forward, appropriately entitled "Backward", you'll see this:-




Yes, that's Holocaust victim Anne Frank photoshopped as winking.

Bad taste?

Well, if my friend, Forward senior columnist JJ Goldberg can write this about the anti-NIF/Naomi Chazan advert this:-

the Der Stuermer-style caricature of Chazan with horns that was run as a newspaper ad in the Jerusalem Post and carried as signs by protesters outside Chazan’s home.

well, I guess I can call the publication of that fake ad not only a perversity but a defamation of the sacredness of Jewish suffering. Oh, and border-line Der Stürmer, - and JJ, note the correct spelling.

Of course, sometimes, left-wing radical progressive forces just don't know anything about democracy, respect and awe, basic Jewish values.

Those "Cultural Differences"

Saw this from the 'other side':-

Register for Transportation to Friday February, 19 Demonstrations Against the Wall and the Settlements

~ As the efforts to repress the demonstrations have intensified recently, your presence is specifically vital ~

Bil'in - Mass Demonstration

Five years of struggle will end only when the wall falls!

Not to the settlements! Not to segregation!

Not to the occupation!

Yes to the joint and popular struggle! Yes to just peace!...

!! IMPORTANT !!

Please let us know as soon as possible if you can bring a car and take into consideration cultural differences in the choice of clothing

Newcomers and those requiring more information are invited to contact Dan

Passengers, you don't have to participate in the transportation expenses, but if you can afford it, please don't wait to be asked to pay - sugget it yourselves.

Drivers, you don't have to pay for the fuel. Please ask the passengers to participate if and as much as they can. You can get a refund through the transportation coordinator.

Transportation from Jerusalem requires additional coordination after registration

Please register as early as you can to ensure a place in the organized transportation and ease the organizing process

To arrange a personal support and listening session on activist trauma, burn-out and recovery...

So, "cultural differences" in apparel appearance or religious fanaticism?

And the dress of Hareidim in Meah Shearim is okay with these lefty progressives?

And as for burn-out, imagine what the soldiers are going through. Have pity you activists.