Nothing Ever Changes

Tisha B'Av

1938 years after the destruction of the temple they are still plotting against us

Dan Margalit
Tisha b'Av, August 10, 2008
Israel Today

Today we mark the destruction of the Temple 1938 years ago. We reflect on the national and moral contents of this day rather than the religious and ceremonial ones, while our Jewish sovereignty is still being challenged with delicate and complex security issues.

The desire to destroy the Jews is as old as the hills and as stubborn as a mule.
Three years ago it had the Jews forcibly expelled from Gush Katif and was going to establish normal economic and trade relations with Pleshet. Except painful unilateral concessions were rewarded with Qassam and mortar salvos at the Negev, leaving the IDF with no choice but to return fire and slam shut the gates of commerce. In any other part of the world, Palestinian terror would have been met with a severe military and economic response.
But the world does not hold Israel up to equal and uniform standards, such as are acceptable in any other violent conflict. Thus Hamas was allowed to raise its head, overtake Gaza and recruit ill-wishing, perhaps naïve, elements who are now preparing to sail from Cyprus aiming "to break the siege" on Gaza and "bring Israel down on her knees."
While the Jewish State is raking its brains trying to find a way to stop the boat from running the blockade, Russia has attacked Georgia without any signs of mercy: 2,000 casualties in just two days. The land of the czars has been and always will be imperialistic.
The Russian State has imposed a cruel and unjust war and has pounded Georgia unrelentingly, until the latter had no choice but to beg for mercy and a ceasefire. When one goes to war – whether justified or not – one must not hesitate nor bat an eyelid. Not the way Israel went to war two years ago in Lebanon and was defeated.
Former US Secretary of State George Schultz once reminisced how upon joining the marines, his commander gave him a rifle and said to him: "Hold on to this weapon only if you are going to use it when necessary. Otherwise get a broom." In plain English. It sounds pretty clear in Russian as well. But for the time being it does not sound very clear in Hebrew.
The important lesson is that Israel must stand her ground and not lose sight of the objective. Israel must demand that this hostile world apply the same criteria that are in order when Russia unjustly invades Georgia.
1938 years ago today our second Temple was put to the torch. Today, more than ever, we call upon our rulers to focus on Jewish sovereignty. Even if it means a token focus.
On this Tisha b'Av our rulers need to stop the Hamas ship from reaching our shores. Perhaps those on board, Israelis included, had better steer for the bleeding shores of Georgia.

Out of Our Minds

During my daily rounds of the blogosphere, I found this story that really got my pulse going:

New Book May Further the Rift Between Israeli Arabs And Jews
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - An Israeli Arab organization distributed at Arab schools throughout northern Israel on Wednesday 20,000 copies of a booklet aimed at promoting Arab unity around the popular idea that the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948 was a catastrophe, or what is widely referred to in Arabic as the "nakba."

The booklet contains stories written by 150 Arab children in Israel, the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, Syria and Lebanon that are harshly critical of and even hostile toward Israel.

It was produced by the Ibn Khaldun Association in northern Israel, whose director Asad Ghanem told Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper that he hoped the booklet would "reaffirm Palestinian consciousness, and maintain and reinforce it among future generations" of Israeli Arabs. Ghanem is also head of the political science department at Israel's Haifa University.

In remarks to Cybercast News Service, Israeli Arab affairs expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a research associate with the Begin-Sadat Center, stressed his view that Ghanem and other Israeli Arabs like him do not view the booklet as a threat to Israel.

"They see this book as designed to strengthen national awareness and to promote a connection between Palestinians who are Israeli and those living in other Arab countries in order to consolidate the Palestinian spirit," said Kedar.

That national awareness and struggle is more commonly known as the "Palestinian cause," which today is largely taken to mean the effort to establish a sovereign Palestinian Arab state in the Gaza Strip and the areas known collectively around the world as the "West Bank," but which many Israelis refer to by their biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

The problem for most Israelis is that the Palestinian cause as formulated by late PLO founder Yasser Arafat does not stop with Judea and Samaria. Even after signing the so-called "Oslo Accords" with Israel, Arafat repeatedly told Arab media that the PLO's "phased plan" remained in effect, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would be only the first step toward the destruction of Israel.

Despite the threat inherent in the Palestinian cause and the "nakba" narrative that fuels it, Kedar said he remains convinced most Israeli Arabs and Jews want to "live together instead of fight each other." Unfortunately, Ghanem's booklet is poised to widen the rift between the two communities by further antagonizing the more hardened elements in Israeli society, whose reaction will be used by Islamists to further radicalize Israeli Arab youth.

This book "will definitely pour more oil on the fire against the Arabs within certain Israeli circles, which will in turn pour even more oil on the fire created by extremist elements on the Arab side," said Kedar.The publication of Ghanem's booklet comes at a time of already markedly increased tension between Israeli Arabs and Jews, a phenomenon that was highlighted last month as Israeli Jews and a slew of visiting foreign dignitaries celebrated Israel's 60th Independence Day while most of the nation's Arabs spoke out against the state or were cowed into silence by extremists.

Israeli media commentators have asserted that national ethnic divisions can be at least partially blamed on an Israeli government establishment that has beholden itself to the principles of political correctness and now refuses to be seen as interfering with its Arab minority by countering negative trends in that community.

Jerusalem Post columnist Carolyn Glick wrote earlier this year that "the natural pull of Israeli Arabs is toward the Palestinians," and that Israel has to make a concerted effort to win the hearts and minds of its Arab citizens, or risk facing an internal explosion in addition to numerous regional threats.

So the Israeli establishment wants to stick to politically correctness and allow free circulation of this piece of inflammatory propaganda (150 stories) rather than interfere (provoke riots) with our ever so hostile and treacherous Arab minority. But the same Israeli establishment does allow the Arab minority to interfere with the Israeli majority in a blatant attempt to shut us up. Said Israeli establishment has just given in to the extortion of a Yaffo-based terrorist sympathiser going by the name of Ibrahim Abu-Shindi, who regularly appears on Israeli TV in order to bash the State of Israel while pretending to work for peace. The man is even the director of an Arab-Jewish Community Center. Well, if it's peace he wants, I'll accept nothing less than the publication of the "bone of contention" poem written by one ten-year-old Israeli boy from Ness Ziona. Please also note that the State of Israel can only afford to publish 500 copies of the poetry contest booklet, while an Israeli Arab organization has the funds to come up with 20,000 copies of their revised "Arabian Nights". Good grief! Fortunately, I am not bound by any multi-crappy-culti PC nonsense. So here's the offending poem:

Ahmed's bunker has surprises galore: Grenades, rifles
are hung on the wall. Ahmed is planning another bomb!
What a bunker Ahmed has, who causes daily harm.
Ahmed knows how to make a bomb. Ahmed is Ahmed, that's
who he is, so don't forget to be careful of him.
We get blasted while they have a blast!
Ahmed and his friends could be wealthy and sunny, if only
they wouldn't buy rockets with all their money.


Anyway, in an extraordinary instance of poetic justice, a mishap seems to have befallen one of Ahmed's bunkers and it is no longer operational. Nor are the houses around it habitable.

I am pleased to see that the saga of Ahmad's bunker, the innocent little poem, has made it to several blogs:
B'nai Elim
Double Tapper
Esser Agaroth
Freerepublic
Infidel Blogger's Alliance
Muqata

Shira bat Sarah

Stop Raping Israel

Stronger than Death

The Amboy Times

Woman Honor Thyself

This just in from France

The original contents of this post have been removed as it has come to my attention that this is one of those unstoppable "pass it on to all your friends" chain letters. Not that the contents were untrue or inaccurate. The problem was that the events described therein were not so recent, rather an account of anti-Semitic violence perpetrated in Europe in 2002, at the height of the second intifada (which by the way gained momentum in the wake of al-Dura mother of all hoaxes, but was carefully planned in advance). Six years is not such a long time, and the death toll exacted by the dead or not dead? boy, who, after being pronounced dead several times by director/cameraman Talal-abu-Rahma, still manages to raise his head from father's crotch, probably overwhelmed by the consequences of daily servings of hummus with fava beans coupled with faulty bodily hygiene, surely warrants a reminder of what we went through as far away in time as six years ago. I mean, if Arabs commemorate things that DID NOT happen 60 years ago (Merry Nakba and Many Many Returns of the Day once again!), why can we not commiserate with what our fellow Jews were subjected to in this decade?
So, without further ado, for all those not sharing in the opinion that the e-mail was a hoax and the contents no longer relevant, here's the link to the original post (to certify authenticity) and why not? the entire text for the convenience of all those who stumbled onto this page (my comments in brackets):

The canary in Europe's mine
By Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, April 28, 2002

The rocks have been lifted all over Europe, and the snakes of Jew-hatred are slithering free.
In Belgium, thugs beat up the chief rabbi, kicking him in the face and calling him "a dirty Jew." Two synagogues in Brussels were firebombed; a third, in Charleroi, was sprayed with automatic weapons fire.
In Britain, the cover of the New Statesman, a left-wing magazine, depicted a large Star of David stabbing the Union Jack. Oxford professor Tom Paulin, a noted poet, told an Egyptian interviewer that American Jews who move to the West Bank and Gaza "should be shot dead." A Jewish yeshiva student reading the Psalms was stabbed 27 times on a London bus. Antisemitism, wrote a columnist in The Spectator, "has become respectable . . at London dinner tables." She quoted one member of the House of Lords: "The Jews have been asking for it and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last." (When the Queen will have to wear her hijab or else, and the muezzin will call the "fidels" to prayer from the top of Big Ben will it be politically correct to say that "the Brits have been asking for it and so forth?")
In Italy, the daily paper La Stampa published a Page 1 cartoon: A tank emblazoned with a Jewish star points its gun at the baby Jesus, who pleads, "Surely they don't want to kill me again?" In Corriere Della Sera, another cartoon showed Jesus trapped in his tomb, unable to rise, because Ariel Sharon, with rifle in hand, is sitting on the sepulchre. The caption: "Non resurrexit."
In Germany, a rabbinical student was beaten up in downtown Berlin and a grenade was thrown into a Jewish cemetery. Thousands of neo-Nazis held a rally, marching near a synagogue on the Jewish sabbath. Graffiti appeared on a synagogue in the western town of Herford: "Six million were not enough."
In Ukraine, skinheads attacked Jewish worshippers and smashed the windows of Kiev's main synagogue. Ukrainian police denied that the attack was anti-Jewish.
In Greece, Jewish graves were desecrated in Ioannina and vandals hurled paint at the Holocaust memorial in Salonica.
In Holland, an anti-Israel demonstration featured swastikas, photos of Hitler, and chants of "Sieg Heil" and "Jews into the sea."
In Slovakia, the Jewish cemetery of Kosice was invaded and 135 tombstones destroyed.
But nowhere have the flames of antisemitism burned more furiously than in France.
In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseille; so was a Jewish school in Creteil. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails, and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words "Dirty Jew" were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months. According to the police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day since Easter.
Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming "Jews to the gas chambers" and "Death to the Jews." The weekly journal Le Nouvel Observateur published an appalling libel: It said Israeli soldiers rape Palestinian women, so that their relatives will kill them to preserve "family honor." The French ambassador to Great Britain was not sacked - and did not apologize - when it was learned that he had told guests at a London dinner that the world's troubles were the fault of "that shitty little country, Israel." (In fact, it has been proven subsequently that Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women out of sheer racism - if you're a Jew, damned if you do, damned if you don't do, you know, why you do the things you do when you do what you do the way you do when you're a Jew; or if you are an Israeli soldier you might as well be Druze or Bedouin, if you don't rape you'll be counted as a Jew).
"At the start of the 21st century," writes Pierre-Andre Taguieff, a well-known social scientist, in a new book, "we are discovering that Jews are once again select targets of violence. . . . Hatred of the Jews has returned to France."
But of course, it never left. Not France; not Europe. Antisemitism, the oldest bigotry known to man, has been a part of European society since time immemorial. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, open Jew-hatred became unfashionable; but fashions change, and Europe is reverting to type. (If memory serves, did Europe not witness its own destruction along with the annihilation of European Jewry?)
To be sure, some Europeans are shocked by the re-emergence of Jew-hatred all over their continent. But the more common reaction has been complacency. "Stop saying that there is antisemitism in France," President Jacques Chirac scolded a Jewish editor in January. "There is no antisemitism in France." The European media have been vicious in condemning Israel's self-defense against Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank (it all starts when Israel strikes back); they have been far less agitated about anti-Jewish terror in their own backyard.
They are making a grievous mistake. For if today the violence and vitriol are aimed at the Jews, tomorrow they will be aimed at the Christians.
A timeless lesson of history is that it rarely ends with the Jews. Militant Islamist extremists were attacking and killing Jews long before they attacked and killed Americans on Sept. 11. The Nazis first set out to incinerate the Jews; in the end, all of Europe was ablaze (nice to see memory still serving).
Jews, it is often said, are the canary in the coal mine of civilization. When they become the objects of savagery and hate, it means the air has been poisoned and an explosion is soon to come. If Europeans don't rise up and turn against the Jew-haters, it is only a matter of time until the Jew-haters rise up and turn against them (I sincerely hope not).

There, I put the quote (which referred only to the violence in France and was calling for a boycott of things French) in its original context. Hope the people at the hoax-watch are satisfied.

Thank you, Mr. Simon Deng

A few weeks ago Mr. Deng was interviewed by Israeli Channel One. Sadly, I missed the better part of it, except for a few words at the end, where Mr. Deng was praising the State of Israel. I can only thank him for speaking out for us and remind him that God blesses those who bless Israel. His account of the atrocities perpetrated against his own people is too painful to read and bear, yet I am pasting it at the end of this post. It is the least I can do for the victims of the horrors inflicted in this day and age against Christians whose additional sin is that they are black, and also had the misfortune of being born in Sudan. Not exactly the plight of the Palestinians, is it now?

Disappearance of Bishop Tutu
By Simon Deng - Monday December 3 2007
Late last month, I went to hear Bishop Desmond Tutu speak at Boston’s Old South Church at a conference on “Israel Apartheid.” Tutu is a well respected man of God. He brought reconciliation between blacks and whites in South Africa. That he would lead a conference that damns the Jewish state is very disturbing to me.
The State of Israel is not an apartheid state. I know because I write this from Jerusalem where I have seen Arab mothers peacefully strolling with their families - even though I also drove on Israeli roads protected by walls and fences from Arab bullets and stones. I know Arabs go to Israeli schools, and get the best medical care in the world. I know they vote and have elected representatives to the Israeli Parliament. I see street signs in Arabic, an official language here. None of this was true for blacks under Apartheid in Tutu’s South Africa.
I also know countries that do deserve the apartheid label: My country, Sudan, is on the top of the list, but so are Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. What has happened to my people in Sudan is a thousand times worse than Apartheid in South Africa. And no matter how the Palestinians suffer, they suffer nothing compared to my people. Nothing. And most of the suffering is the fault of their leaders. Bishop Tutu, I see black Jews walking down the street here in Jerusalem. Black like us, free and proud.
Tutu said Israeli checkpoints are a nightmare. But checkpoints are there because Palestinians are sent into Israel to blow up and kill innocent women and children. Tutu wants checkpoints removed. Do you not have doors in your home, Bishop? Does that make your house an apartheid house? If someone, Heaven forbid, tried to enter with a bomb, we would want you to have security people “humiliating” your guests with searches, and we would not call you racist for doing so. We all go through checkpoints at every airport. Are the airlines being racist? No.
Yes, the Palestinians are inconvenienced at checkpoints. But why, Bishop Tutu, do you care more about that inconvenience than about Jewish lives?
Bishop, when you used to dance for Mandela’s freedom, we Africans - all over Africa - joined in. Our support was key in your freedom. But when children in Burundi and Kinshasa, all the way to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in particular in Sudan, cried and called for rescue, you heard but chose to be silent.
Today, black children are enslaved in Sudan, the last place in the continent of Africa where humans are owned by other humans - I was part of the movement to stop slavery in Mauritania, which just now abolished the practice. But you were not with us, Bishop Tutu.So where is Desmond Tutu when my people call out for freedom? Slaughter and genocide and slavery are lashing Africans right now. Where are you for Sudan, Bishop Tutu? You are busy attacking the Jewish state. Why?

Simon Deng, a native of the Shiluk Kingdom in southern Sudan, is an escaped jihad slave and a leading human rights activist.

My name is Simon Aban Deng. I am from Sudan. I am a Shiluk by tribe. I am a Christian by religion. I belong to a people who have been subjected to mass murder, slavery, systematic rape, religious persecution, enforced starvation, dislocation, exile. We are the victims of genocide, both physical and cultural. We have been targeted for annihilation as human beings and as members of a culture. These miseries did not fall upon us from the sky; we have been and remain the victims of the radical jihadist regime in Khartoum.The scale of our losses has been enormous in the two genocides perpetrated by the Islamists - two, not one. Starting in 1955, the year before independence was granted by the British, up until 1973, 1.5 million Southern Sudanese Christians were slaughtered by the Arab/Muslim dominated government in Khartoum. From 1983 until just 3 months ago when a peace treaty was brokered by the United States, we Southern Sudanese lost 2 million more to what Khartoum calls a holy war against the infidels. Yes, I am an infidel according to their definition. I think many of you are as well. We black "infidels" in the South, Christians and other non-Muslims, refused to be ruled by Islam, and we refused to be Arabized.Our only offense was our determination to remain faithful to our religion and to honor our African cultures. For these "crimes" The National Islamic Front regime has committed genocide against us. Not only has that genocide produced the largest body-count of murdered innocents since the Nazis and the work of Joseph Stalin's followers, but it has also produced the largest population of refugees anywhere on earth since the Second World War.
I am standing before you today, ladies and gentlemen, a victim of Sudanese Arab enslavement in Sudan. I was a slave. I am not ashamed to say it. When I was nine year's old, my village was raided by Arab troops in the pay of Khartoum. As we ran into the bush to escape I watched as childhood friends were shot dead and the old and the weak who were unable to run were burned alive in their huts. I was abducted and given to an Arab family as a "gift." A "gift," ladies and gentlemen. When you look at me, do you see a gift? Do I look like an object or a commodity? I am a human being, a person created in the image of God, a simple truth the jihadists did not and can not recognize. As a child, I lived as a slave for several years. I was beaten time and time again for no reason at all - even the whim of my "master's" children could produce these beatings. I was subjected to harsh labor and indignities of every sort. A beloved child in my own loving family, I had to become accustomed to sleeping next to the animals and to clean the ground where I slept. I became accustomed to awakening first in the household to begin my labor, eating the leftovers from the plates of my "master's" and going to sleep last - only after every bit of heavy work had been performed. I will not dwell on this time in my life. I speak of it because you need to understand that if you take my experience as a child slave and multiply hundreds of thousands of times only then can you begin to understand the nightmare of the African peoples of Sudan at the hands of the jihadists.While the life of a slave is like hell, there is no shame in being a slave; it is not a choice. There is only shame in being a "master." If any one is to feel shame for the suffering of the people of the Sudan who have lost 3.5 million lives at the hands of a barbarous regime, it is the radical Muslims in Khartoum and their Islamist allies throughout Sudan and across the whole of the Islamic world. It is important to bear in mind that by definition the African Christians of the Southern Sudan are the victims of jihad Islamism. The war against us (I should add that the word "war" is misleading because it has not been conventional war we have experienced but a genocidal war of extinction) has been and is being conducted in the name of jihad. According to the murderers, rapists and slavers - they are engaged in a holy war in the name of Allah. The Sudanese jihadists have a simple-minded, cruel, binary worldview. If you are not a Muslim you are a khoufar, an infidel, an enemy, a human being with no right to life who may be treated with terrible inhumanity. The jihadists in Khartoum have a great challenge in Sudan, the Land of the Blacks. Those Arabs and Sudanese who have chosen to be culturally Arab are so comparatively few - and the blacks are so many. Still, they have done their work with great efficiency. They have been well-armed by their friends in the Arab world. They committed genocide against us in the South and they got away with it: the world simply looked away. Now they have turned their attention west, to Darfur. Some are watching; most are not.
When millions of African blacks were being slaughtered and hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese children were and are being enslaved, the world was indifferent. Perhaps worst of all - the UN turned its back. Ladies and gentlemen, there are very painful questions which must be asked, and I will ask them. How long will mass murder, slavery, religious persecution, systematic rape, enforced starvation, and "ethnic and religious cleansing" be allowed to go on? When will those with the power to act to stop these crimes stand up and say enough is enough?
Not long ago - only yesterday in historical terms - after the Nazis slaughtered millions of innocent Jews, the UN was created. At that time, standing on the ashes of the victims of Auschwitz and the other places of torture and mass-murder, the world said, "Never Again." The words seemed to mean something at that time; they seemed filled with purpose and power. It appeared as though a brave new world was coming into being in which such atrocious evil would never again be permitted by civilized nations. When Pol Pot slaughtered his own people in Cambodia we returned to that phrase and once more said, "Never again." But in Sudan, when 1.5 million were lost in a genocide perpetrated by the Islamists, nobody said anything at all. Then Rwanda came, and even though no one lifted a finger to save the 800,000 so horribly slaughtered, yet again, everybody said "Never Again". In Sudan, in the second genocide in the South, 2 million were being slaughtered up until two months ago in the name of jihad by the Islamic government in Khartoum. Once more, there was a deathly silence.
When are we going to say "Never Again" with respect to the people of Sudan? And more to the point, when - at long last - will the international community act on the meaning of those words?
But perhaps this is not the right question. I have begun to think that the right question to ask the so-called civilized world is to stop saying "Never Again" since those words carry no meaning. Why bother repeating the phrase when you know in your heart you do not mean it? That is the question I leave you with today. If we live in a world in which simple moral understanding is dead, perhaps we should at least have the decency to speak that truth. Lest us bury the empty words. It is an act of indecency to the victims to permit these words to have lost all meaning. Let us bury them along with the bodies of the innocent.
I ask this question as a victim of enslavement in Sudan; I ask it for my fellow Southern Sudanese who are always asking this question. My voice is their voice. We can not stop wondering why no one cares about our fate, why nobody does anything about it. We have been victimized by the Arabs in the name of the ideology of jihad, but no one seems to care. We have endured and are enduring the most systematic destruction of a people since the Nazi Holocaust, but our fate seems largely invisible to the world.
It is very painful to say this, but we Sudanese victims can not avoid uttering the truth, at least among ourselves: we are black, and therefore nobody cares about us. We are the ultimate victims of a global racism that continues even in the new millennium. We also have the great misfortune to be the victims of Arabs who slaughter and enslave us in the name of jihad. And everyone sitting here surely knows that when it comes to the ideology of jihad, open discourse at the Commission for Human Rights is muted. People refuse to speak the truth because no one wishes to be seen as anti-Islamic, especially not at the UN.
Finally, let me turn to address Muslim believers. Surely you know the enslavement and slaughter of millions of people is evil. Does your religion condone these crimes against humanity? If it does not, why don't you speak up to condemn these crimes, these sins? The genocide and slavery perpetrated by the government of Khartoum is done in the name of the ideology of jihad. Thus, these crimes appear to be committed, by implication, in your name, in the name of the religion you hold sacred.
If you are silent, I can not help but think you condone these crimes against humanity. If any religion, condones mass murder, slavery, religious persecution, systematic rape, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing, what can be said about the peaceful, beneficent character of that religion?
I speak with an angry voice because I am a victim. I am a victim of the great evil of slavery. I have witnessed the slaughter of my people - the death of 3.5 million innocent human beings created in the image of God. My enslavement, the murder of my people - these crimes were often committed in the name of jihad. Muslims: if you believe your religion does not condone these crimes against humanity, shouldn't you collectively say it is wrong here at the UN?
As a child in Southern Sudan, I witnessed my people being slaughtered with my own eyes; I witnessed young girls and women being raped. As you surely know, the rape of black women in Sudan counts for nothing because the Arab regime of Khartoum sends its soldiers in the field to rape and murder because black African infidels are not judged to be entitled to human rights as defined by the international instruments. The ideology of jihad places infidels outside the law. No religious authority or system of justice holds the perpetrators responsible because their crimes are a matter of government policy and are sanctioned by the state religion, a religion that pretends to be universal but that slaughters the "other" without mercy.
In the Sudan I witnessed my people who escaped slaughter in the South become refugees. I assume all of you know how the Khartoum government deals with black African refugees: it denies food to the needy, water to the thirsting. To receive humane treatment as a refugee you must become a Muslim. Thus even the system of relief to needy refugees is part of a process of forced conversion.
There are 2-3 million Southern Sudanese refugees in another part of Sudan where they are treated like dogs; they are not even considered citizens because in Sudan citizenship is based on religion, and only Muslims qualify. The laws relating to citizenship rights place the nation's black African Christians at the bottom, in legal limbo without status or rights. Muslim men are first-class citizens. The second-class citizens of the Sudan are Arab Muslim men from any other Islamic country, and the third-class citizens are the Arab Muslim women. The infidel Africans of that nation are not considered by jihadists to be full citizens; this despite the fact that nearly 90% of the population is black African.
Let me draw to a close. In conclusion, I repeat the question that never stops troubling me and my fellow Sudanese who have suffered so terribly: how long will the world be silent? How long will the world let my so-called "infidel" people be slaughtered and enslaved in the name of the ideology of jihad? How long will the world silence moral judgment in a pointless effort not to offend the murderers and slavers and the supporters of murder and slavery? Is the sacrifice of ethical principle more important than not offending violent jihadists?
While the world watches on the sidelines, the government of Sudan wages its war of jihad against the black African people of the land, the true indigenous people of Sudan, focusing now on Darfur. Because the world has failed to act decisively millions have died, hundreds of thousands have been enslaved, hundreds of thousands have been raped, and millions more have traveled the painful path of exile. To be silent is to condone. The international community must accept responsibility for every evil that it could end yet chooses not to.
I direct these last words principally to the United Nations. Do you stand for all human rights? Do you stand for all human liberties? Do you care about the dignity of all of the people of the world, including those branded by jihadists as infidels? The questions I have asked are repeated every single day by millions of black Sudanese. Can you answer me?
The failure of the United Nations to guarantee the basic rights of the slaves of Sudan and other black African "infidels" is shameful beyond my ability to express.

Thnak you again, Mr. Deng. This Israeli loves you.

The Leftist Fascist

Ben Dror Yemini
Ma'ariv, June 15, 2005
(Shabbath supplement)

Years of dehumanization have turned the Jews' very existence into a menace to world peace. Years of demonization have turned Israel's very existence into a menace to world peace. Avrum Burg dehumanizes, demonizes and comes to the fascist conclusion: no right to exist.

These types are readily found in the extreme right. One can tell them by certain peculiarities: they deeply despise everyone who is not like them; they totally deny the other's right to exist as a human being; they totally deny the other's right to self-determination; they also deny the other's national rights.
In order to justify their existence, fascists resort to that old trick: dehumanization. Thus, the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, are nothing but a bunch of animals. All of them, without exception. As such they have no right to self-determination or to a state of their own.
All of this is perfectly mirrored by the extreme left fascism. The two are identical twins. Everything the right-wing fascist says about Arabs, the left-wing fascist says about Israelis and/or Jews. Israelis and Jews are thus demonized and dehumanized and can be turned into Nazis, or quasi-Nazis, who no longer have the right to self-determination and a state of their own.

Reinforcement player
The left-wing fascist camp in Israel has been joined by a fresh player, Avrum Burg. He no longer is a post-Zionist, he is anti-Zionist now. He is in favor of a Palestinian state. Or perhaps two Palestinian states, as fascist standards are double standards. Whatever the side you support deserves must be denied the side you oppose. Don't let Burg fool you! The fact that he quotes Ehad Ha'am and George Steiner doesn't mean he is less of a fascist. In true fascist fashion, he misquotes Ehad Ha'am. And Steiner is several sizes too big for Burg, but one can see why he clings on to him.
Steiner, an important and creative thinker, defines himself as a citizen of the world, a Diaspora kind of Jew. In fact he is cosmopolitan and radical. His ideal Jew is the wandering Jew. His texts are his motherland. But despite his critique of Zionism, Steiner also justifies it. He comes close to blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. He may have even crossed the red line. Not that he has done anything. "Jews are guilty of innocence", he says, in order to explain, or perhaps justify anti-Semitism. Everything Steiner claims, not always with great success, is regurgitated by Burg in a miserably superficial manner.
It is not by chance that Burg chose Hitler for the title of his book. Steiner got there ahead of him: The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. (A.H. being Adolf Hitler). The plot is not important here. Steiner's book concludes with Hitler's defense plea. The Nazi criminal miraculously turns accuser: "Did I declare the superiority of the Aryan race? It was the Jews who declared themselves the chosen race (ubermenschen). Did I invent genocide? You taught us how to destroy other peoples, the way you destroyed those you conquered in your Promised Land." Mind-boggling demagoguery. On the one hand, Steiner engages in an intellectual exercise. On the other hand, his text becomes anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist. Steiner tries to explain that Hitler's convincing argument, which remains unanswered, is a technique employed by Dostoyevsky as well. In fact, he even admitted that he doubts that there is an answer. His mind was probably made up.
Burg tries to plagiarize Steiner, but the results are disastrous. Steiner managed to link between Herzl and Bismarck's nationalism. Burg, the little imitator, claims that the Israeli nationalism equates pre-Nazism. The original is wrong, and the copy – a disgrace. Three years ago, Burg published an article justifying the Palestinian shaheeds and blaming the Israeli for the suicide bombings. One can look hard and still find no facts, no evidence of the Hitlerism taking root in our bosom. This is dehumanization at its most monstrous. It is fascism.
We honor Burg by comparing him to Steiner. Steiner is a man of controversy. He sometimes hesitates. He even admitted last year that anti-Zionism is a pretext for anti-Semitism. But there, he sprouted a wild weed that pretends to walk in his footsteps.

Humanism and its opposite
Decades of blood libel, brainwashing, dehumanization and demonization have created the Jew whose very existence threatens world peace. Decades of blood libel, brainwashing, dehumanization and demonization have created Israel whose very existence threatens world peace.
This is exactly what left-wing fascists do, those who call themselves anti-Zionists. That's exactly what the extreme Islam, such as Hamas, does. This how low Burg has sunk. He has dehumanized Israel: the Jewish State threatens world peace, and has come to the only logical conclusion – the State of Israel has no right to exist. Fascism is the opposite of humanism. If humanism is all about recognition of rights, fascism is all about the denial of rights. Burg, at the height of his gall, dares call himself a humanist.

A swamp of lies
Facts? What about them? Is there a grain of truth in the libels spewed by Burg & Co.? The world is currently witnessing terrible and horrible war crimes that have nothing do to with Zionism, Jews or Israel. One may, can and should criticize Israel. But one must also put things in perspective. Since most of the criticism directed at Israel targets "occupation", it might be a good time to tell the truth about this occupation. During the 40 years of Israeli occupation, less than six thousand Palestinians have been killed. The absolute majority died in war operations. Very few of the nearly six thousand can be defined as victims of "war crimes". Very few.
Every armed conflict in the world claims far greater numbers of victims and causes far greater suffering among civilians. In just one week of conflict, more Muslims were butchered in Srebrenica, Europe, that in the entire Arab-Israeli conflict. In just one week, more civilians are massacred in Congo than in the entire 40 years of occupation. In Saddam's heyday, every single month ten thousand individuals were murdered in Iraq, obviously more than in 40 years of occupation. The NATO air strikes campaign against Milosevic's rule in Serbia exacted many more innocent civilian victims, relatively, than the Israeli occupation.
There is no national conflict generating such a small number of casualties. And I am not claiming that all Israeli actions are clean. But examining the global scale of atrocities committed against mankind in the last century alone, if Hitler were top of the list, Israel would only make to the last occupants at the bottom of the list, perhaps even the last.
But let us not confuse Burg & Co. with facts and figures. They are holding fast to demonizing. Blood libels have always been the anti-Semites' lifeline, just as they are the lifeline of those who hate Israel. They just can't do without the defamation. Take e.g. a large scale ground operation in Gaza – most Israelis are against it, despite the Qassams. But Burg claims most Israelis are in favor. And by the way, most Israelis would be justified to such a large scale operation. But that is not the point. The point is that Burg is living in a swamp of lies. And he just can't do without those lies. Because that is the essence of fascism. That is how Kahanists think of Muslims. That is how Hamasniks think of Jews. This is how Burg thinks of Israelis.

The jeep has nothing to do with it
It is high time one put Burg back in his place. Him and his friends from the radical islamists, the neo-Nazi right and the radical left. Not because of his salary and not because of his jeep. Not even because of his superficiality – after all it is hard to find intellectual depth in a person who adopts Azmi Bishara's ideas, but because of his support for Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak. It is hard to define Burg's sort as "serious" when he chooses to live in Europe, but at the same time vehemently asserts that Sarkozy is a "threat to world peace". After all, Burg was supposed to be a Zionist, according to Nordau's definition of Zionism as an extension of European borders into the Middle East. Except Burg has no idea who he himself is. He is against Zionism because we have built a wall separating us from the East. He is anti-Zionist by virtue of his being European and cosmopolitan.
Burg must be put back in his place because he is a fascist, an anti-Zionist fascist. And if anybody wanted more proof that fascism and anti-Zionism go hand in hand with idiocy and meanness, with dehumanization and denying the very right to exist, there comes Burg to provide it. But please don't thank him; we didn't really need more proof.

The Stockholm Syndrome

Even before it is out, Burg's book is making headlines. I wish I could call it names, but I haven't read it, and I probably never will. It might be a good read, I admit, but the fact that it was picked up by almost every possible anti-Jewish anti-Zionsit sites puts me off. Besides I saw Burg's interview with London and Kirschenbaum and he wasn't able to provide proper answers to their probing questions (no attacks, no provocations, just musings) and in fact endorse his claims by anything other than the ramblings of his burning mind and vivid imagination. He went on whining in his monotonous voice, reciting a well-prepared well-rehearsed speech, totally oblivious of the anchors' questions. He invoked his dead father (who is probably turning over in his grave) and went on to explore his gut feelings that he is welcome to keep for himself as far as I am concerned. For me, he is just another example of a self-hating intellectual Jew trying to make a living maligning his fellow Israelis, as soon as his career petered out, just like Uri Avneri. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you well. .

Arik Bachar
Ma'ariv. June 10, 2007

With a coveted EU passport in his pocket, with a yearning for the Diaspora that spat his father out, Avrum Burg is free to go to France and leave the feeling of disgust to us.

They say that the people residing in the Land of Israel is so stupid that it cannot elect its leaders. Avrum Burg is the ultimate proof of the stupidity put forth by this thesis, proof that the filters of the Israeli electorate do a better job than most believe.
This is the man who would have been our PM, the one with two passports and a multitude of faces. The one who came to the conclusion that Zionism is not so great only after his retirement conditions were revised. Not to mention the police inquiry into his shady business enterprises. Only after he hit the glass ceiling did he realize that his meteoric light was dimming and started to search the depths of his tormented soul for proof that perhaps the Jewish presence of Israel is misplaced and that in fact we were at our best while in exile.
In his wonderful interview with Arik Shavit for the Ha'aretz (available on the net, mostly on Zionist-bashing, Jewish-blood-sucking sites, in case you have had too much to eat and cannot puke), Burg is taking the Stockholm Syndrome to incredible heights: the loyalty displayed by the average hostage towards the goals of his abductors pales next the Burg's burning adoration of the same Diaspora that spat out (and on) his ancestors and devoured all those who lacked the foresight to run for their lives before it was too late.
Last week I returned from a visit I to those places that make up Burg's love and desire: Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Lodz ghetto, places Burg himself must have visited while wearing elegant suits provided for him and paid for by the Jewish people. Since he confessed to Shavit that the ideas he put down in his soon to be published book had been on his mind for quite some time, one can assume that Burg came up with profound realization that "Israeli society is afraid, ... [experiencing] this utmost fear, the ancestral fear of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust" while searching for it in those very locations. And what is the amazing observation that this retired genius who purported to be the great hope of Zionist politics brought back from Poland? That the people subjected to the ultimate genocide is not always behaving in a rational manner. Really, Burg! You mean we should no longer be wary 60 short years after the terrible trauma?
You are talking about the belligerent Israeli society and the disproportionate use of force against explicit threats to complete that genocide? Go to Rwanda, Burg, and observe the behavior of those who survived an extermination attempt 13 years ago. Then perhaps you will appreciate how restrained Israel actually is. Go to your beloved America, the center of your coveted exile, where you claim that that Jews can attain their their utmost glory, and count the number of human lives exacted in response to the 3,000 WTC victims.
However, in spite of everything, Burg is one more example of the vitality of the Jewish people. He managed to find in the Shoah the exact opposite of what most Israeli have learned: namely that the Jews believed and hoped up to the very last moment, when they were pushed into the gas chambers. But 60 years ago, as they stepped over the threshold of the phony showers built for them on the soil of the continent that Burg's heart goes out to, they must have thought, every last one of them, that perhaps moving to Palestine in the mid 1930's might not have been an entirely bad idea.
So now Burg holds a EU passport that entitles him to vote, work and reside as a proud Jew in France. Congratulations, Mr. Burg, but when you take up lodgings over there, remember to cover your head with a see-through skullcap, just to be on the safe side. And you can let us deal with the disgust on our own, and to drink from the well into which you chose not only to piss, but also to throw up.

Burg's Passport
Ar'el Segal
Maariv May 19, 2007
(not that holding a foreign passport is amoral, criminal, or even illegal, no such thing. But one who served as Knesset Speaker and Director of the Jewish Agency - "President of the Jewish people" - is in no position to urge Israelis to acquire a second passport and clear out of the country that is not only their homeland, but that they also love, cherish, build and sometimes even die for. And die young, too.)
Several days ago a Jerusalem Court rejected the appeal of French citizen and former Jewish Agency director (1995-1999), Monsieur de Bourg, who insisted that the Jewish Agency keep on covering the costs of a private driver for his private jeep, to the tune of 22,000 NIS/month (~ 5,500 USD). Justice Sara Shdior explained that "Burg failed to list all pertinent details to his claim, such as the fact that the Jewish Agency is not the only or the main sponsor of Burg's vehicle, as he is entitled to funding from the Knesset, as former Knesset speaker. He also failed to mention that the fact that he sometimes uses said jeep for purposes connected to his activities as a private businessman.
During the Gaza disengagement I sat next to Mr. Burg as guests of Nissim Mishal's talk show. When I was done talking, Burg looked at me with arrogance and disdain, and proceeded to regurgitate the corny cliches of the articulate left, the so-called voice of sanity. I was not impressed. I had always considered Burg a self-content megalomaniac pompous ass. As a matter of principle I'd rather not share in other people's flatulence. I even make it a point to restrict my own to "under the blanket" situations. But I must confess that I had shared the general opinion defining Burg's public figure as an honest politician, a man of principles. Yet the fact that the former Jewish Agency Director and Knesset Speaker bends over backwards for a foreign passport is quite metaphoric - one more indicator of the decomposing political leadership which justifies the rapidly spreading feeling of despair. If a former chairman of the official body in charge of bringing Jews to Israel uses his wife's birthright to obtain a French passport, where does it leave the others?
And perhaps Burg's appeal (which was rejected in court) to obtain funding for his private driver from the Jewish Agency is one more proof of Mr. Burg's principles - unfathomable impudence and great sense of humor: one more attempt at cracking jokes at our expense.

Gilad Shalit has a French passport, because his mother is French. What good did it do him?

From Independence to Suicide

Ben-Dror Yemini
Ma'ariv, April 25, 2007

"Jaffa" is a documentary about the orange and the brand, the story of Palestinian oppression by the Zionist capitalism and colonialism. This is a story of the Engineering Corps bulldozers committing more than the habitual war crimes. The film takes us to a higher level. Now the bulldozers are destroying Palestinian orchards without anything do with terror or suicide attacks, but only to satisfy Israeli greed: bulldozers in the service of capitalism. This film is not just about the orange and the brand. This film is the story of Zionism crimes: the Zionist colonial-capitalist plot about to be exposed.
Who wrote the screenplay, Protocols of the Elders of Zion fans? German neo-Nazi groups? The Islamic Jihad propaganda service? Or is it perhaps the Israeli cultural institutions that have chosen this film to mark the 60th anniversary of Israel independence?
The State is Israel is losing its will to live. She despises those who love her and honors those who hate her. And this is nothing new. This has been going on for some time now and is threatening our very existence. Perhaps not our physical existence in the near future. But this is the trend, the purpose, the fashion.

Suicidal democracy
Three public institutions, Israeli Channel 8, the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the Rabinovich Foundation have decided recently to fund ex-pat Eyal Sivan, a known hater of Israel, for the making of an anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic movie to mark the celebration of Israel's 60th birthday anniversary.
The Israeli democracy is and should be able to suffer all. Even pathological phenomena such as Eyal Sivan. The problem, however, are the commissars who have the gall to select this evil man and his screenplay. And it is not Ahmadinejad who will fund the movie, but we, the Israeli tax-payers, if we choose to keep our mouths shut.
The problem is the national strength failure syndrome that is taking hold of Israel. The problem is that the majority, left and right, all of us have become a doormat for everyone. Everybody is allowed to spit on us. So we will pay this Sivan person a fortune to make an anti-Semitic movie for us to watch on our next Yom ha-Atzmaut. This man has for years been part of the propaganda aimed at putting an end to the "Zionist enterprise". He has expressed his despicable ideas in films, lectures and publications. Only a few weeks ago he was behind the "Apartheid Week" organized in Britain by a bunch of organizations seeking the destruction of the State of Israel. A petty servant in the agitprop machine busy demonizing the State of Israel.
The list of evils committed by this man is a long one. A previous film churned out by Sivan's anti-Semitic production line earned Sivan the label "anti-Semitic Jew" from the usually indifferent Alain Finkielkraut. Sivan filed suit against Finkielkraut. Intellectuals from left rather than from the right side of the political spectrum testified and proved that Sivan was indeed an anti-Semitic Jew. The French court rejected Sivan's lawsuit. And this is not the only instance. One of the most prestigious cultural establishments in France, the Pompidou Center, cancelled the film screening. But in Israel there are those who have not had enough of Sivan and they want to pay him to come up with more. We have lost all shame.

Gang rape
And if this was not enough, immediately after his suit was rejected, the man made public his intentions of embarking on a public campaign against the "dangers of diseased philosemitism hiding behind European support for Israel". "Diseased philosemitism" indeed! It is perhaps wrong to assume that the man is part of the new anti-Semitism, because even the old kind of anti-Semitism couldn't have come up with something better.
Sivan even hit the bottom with his rendition of the Eichmann trial. He made a laughing stock of prosecutor Gideon Hausner and of testifying Holocaust survivors. He inserted out-of- context answers. Tammy Raveh-Hausner, the attorney's daughter, spoke of students who after watching the film had no idea why and for what offense Eichmann was standing trial at all. This is the result of a Holocaust movie made by a Jew thinks that Israel is walking in the footsteps of Nazi Germany.
And now, this man, who is rightfully thought by many to be anti-Semitic, has been chosen by Israeli public institutions to make a film for Israel's 60th anniversary. Have we lost all measure of self-respect?
The bleeding hearts will jump and claim that this is democracy at its best. True, suicidal democracy. Has Britain given any funding to any treacherous lord for propaganda? Is this freedom of speech?
The response of all those involved is predictable: it is none of our business, it is beyond our control, we cannot interfere, this is freedom of speech and freedom of creation. The response of shunning responsibility. The response of institutionalized spitting on the collective face of the absolute majority of the citizens of the State of Israel. The Rabinovich Foundation claimed that two professional bodies – the lecturers and the Advisory Professional Board - chose Sivan's film, but the decision had not yet been ratified by the Board of Directors.

Symbol of Oppression
This evil man is no stranger to those who chose him. They know exactly who he is and what the stands for. They didn't choose him despite his hatred for Israel, but rather because of his hatred for Israel. As a supporter of the boycott against Israel, Sivan wrote in his proposal: "The orange imported from Israel is boycotted just as the orange imported from apartheid South-Africa, or from Franco's fascist Spain, or from Pinochet's Chile. The orange becomes a symbol of oppression or justice."
Sivan concludes his proposal stating that by "clearing ground in the guise of security reasons, the Israeli engineering corps" implements economical agreements that stifle the Palestinians. Sivan is totally oblivious of suicide bombings and terrorist activities. And he is not satisfied with accusing Israel of war crimes. He goes up one notch: he has found the reason – capitalist Zionist greed.
Just as the Eichmann film ridiculed the prosecutor and the Holocaust survivors, the Jaffa orange makes no secret of its conclusion: a call to terminate this greedy, criminal country. Yes, this is the commissars' birthday present for our 60th year of independence as a Jewish state.
Those who chose the film read the proposal. They knew exactly whom and what they were opting for. And now they want it to happen at our expense.
This cancer is infecting not only the man himself. This cancer is at the heart of the anti-Zionist clique, representing perhaps 0.5% of the Israeli public, but holding the power and calling the shots in the Israeli cultural institutions. They have the nerve to hide behind "freedom of speech and freedom of creation" and hand out taxpayer money to sponsor the gang rape perpetrated on the Israeli public.
We are entering into the 60th year of the State of Israel without independence, sovereignty or democracy. What we have is a severe syndrome of national strength failure mixed with anti-Zionism and anti-Israel feelings laced with anti-Semitism. Unless a loud outcry is heard from the left and from the right of the political spectrum, this strength failure will become another milestone towards the demise of the State of Israel. We have to put an end to this disgrace.

It appears however that the decision has been reversed and acclaimed artist Eyal Sivan made a fool of himself during the Knesset hearing.
And the funny thing is that the first large scale growers and exporters of Jaffa oranges were the German Templers who settled in Palestine in the 19th century. And who do you think turned citrus cultivation into a form of art?
"The cultivation of the orange, introduced by the Arabs before the commencement of Jewish settlement, has developed to a very great extent in consequence of that settlement. There is no doubt that the pitch of perfection to which the technique of plantation and cultivation of the orange and grape-fruit have been brought in Palestine is due to the scientific methods of the Jewish agriculturist." (the Hope Simpson Royal Commission Report of 1930)

World Cancer

Ben-Dror Yemini
Ma'ariv, May 25, 2007


Many a newspaper editor around the world is having a hard time trying to figure out how to present the images pouring in from the Middle East. How to explain the "heavy shelling of militant strongholds". How to explain the dismal reality revealed by every picture: thousands of Palestinian refugees - yes, they are refugees once again - fleeing their refugee camp because of the bombardment. This is a very difficult task, because the same sentence, the same headline, the same news piece, must justify somehow these "hard measures" taken again the inhabitants of those refugee camps, i.e. turning homes into piles of rubble and forcing men and women to pack their belongings and run for their lives.

I have no doubt that the legions of enlightened leftist liberal editors are facing a difficult task these days. Up until a few days ago everything was neatly black and white. If there are piles of rubble as a result of shelling, and if the Palestinians are moaning and groaning, there's the habitual culprit: Israel. Only Israel, always Israel. Except a few days ago, the International Herald Tribune front page sported the usual picture of a Palestinian woman weeping inside the remains of her Palestinian home after it was destroyed by a wicked Israeli attack (much like this one). Yes, the favorite deceiving picture. Those who failed to read the small font caption, and I guess the majority of readers did fail, will never know that in fact the woman was weeping due to the reaction to a Qassam salvo. A reaction to the Israeli homes that have been reduced to piles of rubble. A reaction to the thousands of Israelis who have become refugees. Their photographs - people and homes - never make any page of the major newspapers. Only the Israeli reaction gets published. Just like the spontaneous generation, Israelis suddenly fancy destroying Palestinian homes. A peculiar kind of delight favored by a state that is gradually being perceived by most Westerners as "the greatest danger to peace on earth". Except this perception has been generated by an industry of lies, not by reality.

Except now the plot is getting thicker. The long rows of refugees seen during the past days and weeks and the scores of bodies they left behind are Palestinians alright. But they are not from Gaza. And now this is becoming really confusing. Because at long last, on prime time, money time, the Palestinians are involved in two conflicts: in Gaza and in Naher-el-Bared, a refugee camp close to Tripoli, Lebanon. In both instances, messengers of the islamist cancer are the cause of continuous suffering. In both cases those who get hurt must react. Therefore, surprise, surprise! Despite the incessant rocket salvos raining on Israel, despite thousands of Israeli refugees, our response is moderate and restrained. Very restrained, even. In Lebanon, on the other hand, where there are no Lebanese refugees, where state sovereignty is not being threatened, where there is no damage to write home about, in Lebanon the response is brutal. Civilian centers are being shelled just because a handful of terrorists have taken refuge inside. Many pay the price for the crimes of few. Houses turn to dust. Civilians become refugees.

We feel no pleasure seeing so many Palestinians suffer. But we have the right to remind everyone that this the islamist cancer at work, a cancer that cancer knows no boundaries. Let us not forget that the vast majority of victims of this islamist cancer are Muslims themselves.

And the West? The industry of lies will keep pointing its finger at Israel. Israel must be scapegoated somehow. Once it was the Jew responsible for all the evils in the world. Now the onus is on the State of Israel. Does it matter that radical islam preceded Zionism and is in no way connected to Israel? Make no mistake, anti-semites never let facts get in their way. Neither do those who want to destroy Israel.

It cannot be empahsized strongly enough: Muslims are the majority of victims caused by the islamist cancer. Most Muslims, according to every conceivable study, oppose radical islam. But they tend to understand its reasons, an even justify its actions sometimes. Just like their friends in the academia, deceiving mass media and industry of lies, both in the Arab world and in the West. Take for instance the Muslim communities across the USA - their live better than any other Muslims in the world. They have integrated, they have good incomes, yet 60% of them don't believe that Muslims were behind 9/11. And if not Muslims, then it is not hard to guess whodunit. Needless to say how these crazy opinions are born.

The industry of lies can be proud of itself, no doubt. The enlightened liberal media may not have been prepared for this result, but they are responsible for it. They are the wheels that set it in motion.

Hypocrites

By Ben-Dror Yemini
Ma'ariv, May 31, 2007

The British academics know the truth. At least they should. They know that in Chechnya, e.g., Putin's Russian army whacked Muslims in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands in order to regain control of the rebellious region. They know that there can be no comparison between the Russian army and the IDF in terms in humaneness. They also know that in Srebrenica, in the heart of Europe, more Muslims were massacred in just one week than have been killed in of 40 years of Israeli occupation. They also know that British troops who control Basra, southern Iraq, as well as US troops controlling Baghdad and other areas in Iraq, treat the locals more brutally than the IDF troops treats Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank. They know that the Syrian regime is brutally oppressing its Kurdish minority and jails each and every intellectual who dares speak out against the regime. Still the British academics never call to boycott Russia, Britain, the USA or Syria – and this is just a sample of the potential list. No, they decide to single out Israel.
Why? How is it that the Jews, - no, sorry, citizens of the Jewish collective – are once again singled out for boycott, despite the fact that they have committed no crimes against humanity, neither 78 years ago, nor now, if we take into consideration what the rest of the states on this planet do, among them Britain itself, versus Israel's actions in the territories. Why? Why are witnessing once again these repeated condemnations that are both bewildering and annoying? Why is there a different and unique standard for Israel, unless it is a racist standard, in order to ostracize us from the rest of the world?
No, it's not the morality. No-one is foolish enough to think that the Brits' morality glands are secreting overtime. Hypocrisy and morality don't mix. Boycotting Israel instead of Russia or Syria is taking British hypocrisy, not British morality, to new records. If only human rights and human lives were what the Brits were all about, then they would have invested much more effort and energy into the Darfur situation instead of Gaza and the West Bank.
It is quite unbelievable, but the answer is oil. A conflict in this part of the world threatens the oil market stability. And thus, the British lecturers foolishly believe that scapegoating Israel will appease the Islamic threat. And so they grovel at the feet of those who control world petroleum. They would never boycott women's oppression in Saudi Arabia that is much more severe than the oppression of Palestinians. They would never boycott any other miserable oil-producing Islamic dictatorships. Why, they wouldn't dare.
True, the main reason is brainwashing. The TV screen is showing the Brits, and not only them, many more images from Beit Hanoun in Gaza than from Chechnya or Darfur. What more can one say about Darfur? Muslim Arabs are massacring Muslim blacks, and I mean genocide. Hundreds of thousands are dead, while millions have become refugees. But that is perfectly alright since British academic hypocrisy does not react to anything that does not emanate from a TV screen. And TV screens show only what is easy to attack, not what needs to be attacked.
The good news is we can keep things in perspective. Two weeks ago I attended some lectures during the "Apartheid Week" that actually called for the destruction of the State of Israel. Water-well poisoners such as Itzhak Lior and Eyal Sivan, Israelis who loathe the Jews' right to a state of their own, were also there. But, lo and behold, the lecture halls were almost empty. Attending were mostly Palestinian students, a few Israel-hating Jewish activists and a marginal gathering of radicals from the sleep-walking leftist fringe.
The majority of Brits know that occupied Palestine is not the problem. The problem is Londonistan which is being conquered by Islamists who are not ashamed to declare loud and clear their intention to hoist the green banner over London. That is why the lecturers' decision in favor of boycott points to the decline and decay of their academia. I wish I could say that were the case over there, but the disease is here as well.
Read in Hebrew (http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/589/110.html)
And for a better idea of what the British elite thinks about us, read here.

Pogrom in the Holy Land

There are nights when I just can't sleep. So I read, watch tv (in search of a good movie) or just wander about the net. Every now and then I strike gold. Take this account for instance. Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. Jews and Arabs living side by side. No love lost between them.

Alexander William Kinglake
Eothen (1898)

CHAPTER XXVI - THE PROPHET DAMOOR
For some hours I passed along the shores of the fair lake of Galilee; then turning a little to the westward, I struck into a mountainous tract, and as I advanced thenceforward, the lie of the country kept growing more and more bold. At length I drew near to the city of Safed. It sits as proud as a fortress upon the summit of a craggy height; yet because of its minarets and stately trees, the place looks happy and beautiful. It is one of the holy cities of the Talmud, and according to this authority, the Messiah will reign there for forty years before He takes possession of Sion. The sanctity and historical importance thus attributed to the city by anticipation render it a favourite place of retirement for Israelites, of whom it contains, they say, about four thousand, a number nearly balancing that of the Mahometan inhabitants. I knew by my experience of Tabarieh that a “holy city” was sure to have a population of vermin somewhat proportionate to the number of its Israelites, and I therefore caused my tent to be pitched upon a green spot of ground at a respectful distance from the walls of the town.
When it had become quite dark (for there was no moon that night) I was informed that several Jews had secretly come from the city in the hope of obtaining some assistance from me in circumstances of imminent danger; I was also informed that they claimed my aid upon the ground that some of their number were British subjects. It was arranged that the two principal men of the party should speak for the rest, and these were accordingly admitted into my tent. One of the two called himself the British vice-consul, and he had with him his consular cap, but he frankly said that he could not have dared to assume this emblem of his dignity in the daytime, and that nothing but the extreme darkness of the night rendered it safe for him to put it on upon this occasion. The other of the spokesmen was a Jew of Gibraltar, a tolerably well-bred person, who spoke English very fluently.
These men informed me that the Jews of the place, who were exceedingly wealthy, had lived peaceably in their retirement until the insurrection which took place in 1834, but about the beginning of that year a highly religious Mussulman called Mohammed Damoor went forth into the market-place, crying with a loud voice, and prophesying that on the fifteenth of the following June the true Believers would rise up in just wrath against the Jews, and despoil them of their gold and their silver and their jewels. The earnestness of the prophet produced some impression at the time, but all went on as usual, until at last the fifteenth of June arrived. When that day dawned the whole Mussulman population of the place assembled in the streets that they might see the result of the prophecy. Suddenly Mohammed Damoor rushed furious into the crowd, and the fierce shout of the prophet soon ensured the fulfilment of his prophecy. Some of the Jews fled and some remained, but they who fled and they who remained, alike, and unresistingly, left their property to the hands of the spoilers. The most odious of all outrages, that of searching the women for the base purpose of discovering such things as gold and silver concealed about their persons, was perpetrated without shame. The poor Jews were so stricken with terror, that they submitted to their fate even where resistance would have been easy. In several instances a young Mussulman boy, not more than ten or twelve years of age, walked straight into the house of a Jew and stripped him of his property before his face, and in the presence of his whole family. 43 When the insurrection was put down some of the Mussulmans (most probably those who had got no spoil wherewith they might buy immunity) were punished, but the greater part of them escaped. None of the booty was restored, and the pecuniary redress which the Pasha had undertaken to enforce for them had been hitherto so carefully delayed, that the hope of ever obtaining it had grown very faint. A new Governor had been appointed to the command of the place, with stringent orders to ascertain the real extent of the losses, and to discover the spoilers, with a view of compelling them to make restitution. It was found that, notwithstanding the urgency of the instructions which the Governor had received, he did not push on the affair with the vigour that had been expected. The Jews complained, and either by the protection of the British consul at Damascus, or by some other means, had influence enough to induce the appointment of a special commissioner - they called him “the Modeer” - whose duty it was to watch for and prevent anything like connivance on the part of the Governor, and to push on the investigation with vigour and impartiality.
Such were the instructions with which some few weeks since the Modeer came charged. The result was that the investigation had made no practical advance, and that the Modeer as well as the Governor was living upon terms of affectionate friendship with Mohammed Damoor and the rest of the principal spoilers.
Thus stood the chance of redress for the past, but the cause of the agonising excitement under which the Jews of the place now laboured was recent and justly alarming. Mohammed Damoor had again gone forth into the market-place, and lifted up his voice and prophesied a second spoliation of the Israelites. This was grave matter; the words of such a practical man as Mohammed Damoor were not to be despised. I fear I must have smiled visibly, for I was greatly amused and even, I think, gratified at the account of this second prophecy. Nevertheless, my heart warmed towards the poor oppressed Israelites, and I was flattered, too, in the point of my national vanity at the notion of the far-reaching link by which a Jew in Syria, who had been born on the rock of Gibraltar, was able to claim me as his fellow-countryman. If I hesitated at all between the “impropriety” of interfering in a matter which was no business of mine and the “infernal shame” of refusing my aid at such a conjecture, I soon came to a very ungentlemanly decision, namely, that I would be guilty of the “impropriety,” and not of the “infernal shame.” It seemed to me that the immediate arrest of Mohammed Damoor was the one thing needful to the safety of the Jews, and I felt confident (for reasons which I have already mentioned in speaking of the Nablus affair) that I should be able to obtain this result by making a formal application to the Governor. I told my applicants that I would take this step on the following morning. They were very grateful, and were, for a moment, much pleased at the prospect of safety which might thus be opened to them, but the deliberation of a minute entirely altered their views, and filled them with new terror. They declared that any attempt, or pretended attempt, on the part of the Governor to arrest Mohammed Damoor would certainly produce an immediate movement of the whole Mussulman population, and a consequent massacre and robbery of the Israelites. My visitors went out, and remained I know not how long consulting with their brethren, but all at last agreed that their present perilous and painful position was better than a certain and immediate attack, and that if Mohammed Damoor was seized, their second estate would be worse than their first. I myself did not think that this would be the case, but I could not of course force my aid upon the people against their will; and, moreover, the day fixed for the fulfilment of this second prophecy was not very close at hand. A little delay, therefore, in providing against the impending danger would not necessarily be fatal. The men now confessed that although they had come with so much mystery and, as they thought, at so great a risk to ask my assistance, they were unable to suggest any mode in which I could aid them, except indeed by mentioning their grievances to the consul-general at Damascus. This I promised to do, and this I did.
My visitors were very thankful to me for the readiness which I had shown to intermeddle in their affairs, and the grateful wives of the principal Jews sent to me many compliments, with choice wines and elaborate sweetmeats.
The course of my travels soon drew me so far from Safed, that I never heard how the dreadful day passed off which had been fixed for the accomplishment of the second prophecy. If the predicted spoliation was prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor must have been forced, I suppose, to say that he had prophesied in a metaphorical sense. This would be a sad falling off from the brilliant and substantial success of the first experiment.
43 It was after the interview which I am talking of, and not from the Jews themselves, that I learnt this fact.

Jenin Redux

Dorit Gabbay
Ma'ariv, April 25, 2007

Five IDF reserve troops who took part in the "Defensive Wall" operation in Jenin and were depicted as war criminals in Muhammad Bakri's production "Jenin, Jenin" have sued the film director and the Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv Cinematheque respectively. This week the five were deposed in court and claimed that the film that had portrayed them as cold-blooded murders had changed their lives and distanced their friends from them.

Five years have elapsed since the terrible events in Jenin. These five men are part of the company that lost 13 combat troops in battle. They feature as war criminals in "Jenin, Jenin", the controversial movie produced and directed by actor Muhammad Bakri (Israeli Arab). Not only were they publicly humiliated, they also started fearing for their lives. In an attempt to clear their names, the five have filed a libel suit against Bakri and the cinematheques, and demanded 2.53 million NIS in compensation.
Yonathan van Caspel was born a Christian in Holland 37 years ago. He came to Israel, converted to Judaism and served as a paratrooper in the IDF: 'I knew that Jenin was the capital of Palestinian terror capital, but I was determined to fulfill my duty for my country. On the eighth day of fighting in Jenin, my company lost 13 combat soldiers in fierce fighting with the Palestinians. This terrible event was extensively covered both by the Israeli and the international media. We were interviewed and our names and addresses were disclosed. My friends and I appear in a film called "Jenin – a reservist's war diary", shot by a fellow reservist during "Defensive Wall Operation". This footage documented the reactions of IDF troops immediately after 13 of their comrades had been killed by Palestinians in the booby trapped alleys of Jenin.
Sometime later, I was contacted by the bereaved mother of one of the soldiers killed in Jenin, appalled by the fact that we were portrayed as monsters and murderers by the film "Jenin, Jenin"… I can hardly describe how shocked I was when I watched the movie myself…The images and the accusations were terrible. Nothing was like we had seen or experienced on the ground... It was enough to convince everybody who knew I had fought in the Defensive Wall Operation that my comrades and I had committed all those heinous crimes. But the worst blow I received was when my own beloved father, who lives in Holland, called and asked me in a stern voice what I had done in Jenin. He told me that he knew that IDF soldiers murdered and massacred residents of Jenin, and wanted to know whether I had anything to do with it. I told him that those were false accusations, but I felt that did not believe me. My own beloved father was under the influence of the terrible accusations, and was wondering whether I had lost the values I had been brought up on and become a monster. My loving father, who knew me so well, who believed in my moral values, who would never have suspected me of war crimes, felt the need to call and ask me what had happened… This is how damaging "Jenin, Jenin" was.
Everybody I knew started confronting me with probing questions, trying to establish whether there was any truth to the film. I found myself defending myself and my fellow soldiers, explaining that nothing like that had ever happened, and that quite the opposite was true – IDF troops remained sensitive to the civilian population, and had made every possible effort not to harm innocent Palestinians.
The fighting in the Jenin refugee camp (by the way, anyone residing in a house is not a refugee. You got to live in a tent in order to be classified as a refugee. Except, of course, if you are a Palestinian) was fierce. We were trying to capture terrorists, but thousands of booby traps and roadside bombs had been hidden in the camp. They were firing and fighting from houses inhabited by innocent people, hiding behind civilians, including women and children. They were using ambulances for terrorist activities. I personally saw loads of booby trapped dollies and toys, just waiting for a soldier to pick them up or touch them…
My fellow soldiers and I experienced and witnessed shocking scenes. Our friends were wounded and died in front of us, sometimes in our arms. And we were the ones accused of war crimes by this film maker …
My friends and I were there the day the film was screened at the Cinematheque, to voice our protest. Members of the audience shouted "Murderers! Nazis! War criminals!", cursed and abused us. I participated in the Defensive Wall Operation for the sake of this country, I wasn't looking for a hero's death. Still I couldn't believe that I would be showered with insults and abuse, so harsh and humiliating…
I began fearing for my own life. I felt exposed. I felt someone might be prompted to take revenge on me for the "crimes" I allegedly committed in the refugee camp.'

Doron Keidar owns and manages a car parts import company. To this day he avoids calling on his Arab customers:
'I saw "Jenin, Jenin" shortly after it started playing and I can hardly describe the shock I experienced. The film is not the work of an amateur, it seems very professional and convincing, so I started asking myself which troops could have perpetrated the horrors it "documents". I thought that perhaps it was a company of "regulars", young troops who perhaps lost it and started shooting at will. It took me a while to understand that it was all fiction, a fabric of lies that had nothing to do with reality. But then I also wondered what people who hadn't been there thought about the troops who had fought in Jenin. The fact that I wasn't able to tell immediately that the film was a pack of lies made me realize that the public would brand us "war criminals", who murdered innocent civilians out of disregard for Arab lives.
The terrible charges brought against me in the film have completely changed my life. I felt ashamed, humiliated and worthless for taking part in this operation. I was embarrassed by the fact that all my friends knew I was a soldier in Jenin.'

Nir Oshri, combat medic, runs a drug rehabilitation center. Most of the soldiers died in his arms: 'I treat drug-addicts at this center. I need to develop a special bond, very close rapport with the patients, for the treatment to succeed. Sometimes the addicts become dependent on me. Many of my patients are Arabs and their situation is very complex and stressful. After "Jenin, Jenin" was aired, I felt a shift in the way my Arab patients were relating to me. Instead of seeing in me their "elder brother", the one who helps them overcome their difficulties, they began avoiding me. I often heard them whispering "Jenin" between themselves, their eyes filled with hatred. I could no longer approach them freely, uninhibitedly. They were suspicious of me. One day one of them started yelling in front of the staff and patients at the center "murderer, you massacred Arabs, tens of little children in Jenin". I felt great pain, such that words cannot describe.'

Adam Arbiv, businessman.
'My father lives in the Arab part of Yaffo-Tel-Aviv. At one time, my office was also there. After the screening of the film I felt that even my closest friends and relatives were unsure about me. My mother, who lives in Holland, asked me several times about my part in the Defensive Wall Operation, and I felt that she was worried that I might have been one of the Jenin "war criminals". The woman who gave me life, who has always been so close to me, began doubting my integrity because of this film. Perhaps some of the viewers understood that the terrible accusations were blown out of proportion, but I guess they also believed that there was still some truth to it.
Some of my relatives living in the US and Canada also contacted me, to enquire in a very around the bush fashion about the terrible actions presented in the movie. Such horrible things can drive a man insane. Nobody will ever be able to compensate me and my fellow soldiers for our stained reputation. How can I put a price to the pain I felt when my own mother needed to make sure that I was or was not a war criminal as portrayed by the film? Or when my relative living abroad looked at me trying to make sure that I was not one of the perpetrators of the heinous crimes in the film?
Due to the terrible accusations we cannot go on with our lives. I was afraid to go see my father in Yaffo. I was afraid for his life. I was afraid to go to my own office in Yaffo. I am afraid and worried to this very day.'

Ofer Ben-Nathan, lawyer:
'All of my lawyer colleagues and associates started to shun me, or even display obvious hostility due to the terrible allegations of the movie. They accused me of having committed massacres and war crimes in Jenin. They weren't even trying to conceal their disgust. I am sure I have lost numerous potential clients, Arabs who would have sought my services by themselves or based on recommendations from Arab colleagues. There were days when I thought I might be forced out of my profession, and I sometimes feared for my life.'

Muhammad Bakri – No need for balance (because I received funding from rabid anti-Semitic terrorist!)
Avigdor Feldman, Bakri's lawyer, claims that the film never intended to present a balanced image of the fighting in Jenin, but rather to allow the Palestinians to tell their story. The stories certainly reflect the events that took place in Jenin. Bakri's deposition is expected within 60 days.

Jenin, Jenin – document or propaganda?
On March 27th, the eve of Passover 2002, a suicide bombing shook the Park Hotel in Netanya. Two days later Operation Defensive Wall was launched, with the purpose of rooting out the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank. During this operation, on April 3rd, IDF forces entered the Jenin refugee camp, practically the suicide bombers' breeding ground and headquarters. The IDF instructed the civilian population to leave, and then proceeded to enter several houses in order to apprehend terrorists hiding inside them. The troops were met with a tremendous amount of fire and explosive charges from the terrorists hiding among the civilian population. On April 9th 13 combat troops were ambushed and killed. They served in the same company as the five plaintiffs. The IDF decided to send in bulldozers in order to demolish the houses where the terrorists were hiding.
Twenty-three IDF combat troops were killed in Jenin, and 60 others were wounded, some very badly. 52 Palestinians were also killed, half of them civilians.
A few weeks later, actor and director Muhammad Bakri (much like Azmi Bishara in Lebanon) and his film crew toured the camp and shot interviews with some locals who claimed to have seen the troops shoot and kill innocent civilians, women, children and old people, prevent medical assistance to the wounded, and even loot. (Ahem... the Palestinians claim to be so pathetically poor, starving to say the least, and yet there still are valuables to be found in their booby-trapped houses? ) The Film Critics Committee stopped the screening of the film, defining it as "one-sided propaganda, … distortion of real events so as to appear as truthful documentation and give the public a wrong impression…, incitement and deligitimizing the very existence of the State of Israel.
When Muhammad Bakri petitioned the Supreme Court, three Supreme Court "justices" allowed the film to be screened in the Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv Cinematheques respectively.

Read more about Jenin here and here. This is the diary of an ultra-Orthodox soldier who was there. Also some extraordinary pics that, most likely from the writer's private albums.