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And there is hope for your future, says the Lord, and the children shall return to their own border.

decal available - in Hebrew, English or Arabic - from CJHSLA.org

Shabbat shalom

The United Nations is going to investigate US

I'm not kidding. They're sending a UN "special rapporteur," a Senegalese lawyer, to 8 cities in the United States, to investigate racism here. He'll spend three weeks here and then report back to the UN Human Rights Council ("The United States is not among the 47 member states of the Geneva-based forum, but has observer status").

Is that unbelievable, or what?

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSL1684309820080516?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Shrapnel. In a two-year-old's head.

Toddler wounded in mall attack regains consciousness

Two-year-old Tair Afgin, who was wounded when a Palestinian Grad rocket crashed into an Ashkelon shopping mall on Wednesday, has regained consciousness. Doctors at the Sheba Medical Center said on Thursday that the girl's condition continues to be serious but confirm she is stable.

Tair's father, Adi Afgin, said he knew his wife and daughter were among the 15 injured when he heard the medical clinic on the mall's second floor had been hit. At first he rushed over to the commercial center with his mother-in-law but quickly began making his way to the nearby Barzilai Hospital after he failed to locate his family in the crowd. There he was informed his wife Avital had been moderately wounded while their daughter was being treated for severe injuries.

Afgin said the family would not even consider relocating to a different city. “We’ll go back to Ashkelon for now. The city needs our support. We don’t believe running away is the solution, like we're seeing in Sderot. It only encourages terrorism."

"It’s a miracle all her limbs remained intact,” said Avital’s mother, sighing in relief after seeing her daughter and granddaughter. “I thank God they are with us.”

Avital is yet to be told of the extent of her daughter's injuries.

“She asked me about her this morning, and I said she had only broken her leg. I don’t want to cause her any further trauma now," said Adi.

Avital has undergone several operations to remove shrapnel from various places in her body while doctors are waiting for Tair's condition to stabilize further before they attempt to remove shards of shrapnel that pierced her head.

Another woman who was also moderately wounded in the strike is Dr. Mirale Sidrer, GYN, who had been tending to a patient at the clinic when the rocket struck. The patient, also a woman, was also moderately wounded.

Sidrer’s husband Moshe, himself a physician, said his wife was able to call him just after the attack.

“We talked about the Qassams,” he recalled, "she was concerned the clinic wasn't fortified and that they were vulnerable. Unfortunately, this fear was realized. From here we are embarking on a long period of rehabilitation and reconstructive surgery, and it’s not going to be easy."

Like the Afgins, Moshe said the family has no intention of leaving Ashkelon.

“That's an awful question to raise, there isn't even the slightest chance we would ever consider that. This is my home, where I raised my children and nothing will chase us away from here… if the government is unable to handle the attacks, then the public must choose a different government in a democratic election."

In the words of Chezi Goldberg z"l,

"If I don't cry about what is happening to us, who will?"

7:30 a.m. Israel time, Sunday December 2, 2001. Eight Hours after the triple-terror attack on Jerusalem's popular Ben Yehudah pedestrian mall.

He walked into shul. I nodded my acknowledgement like I always do. He made some strange gesture, which I couldn't understand. I went on with the business of the prayer service.

A few minutes later, he walked over to me and said, "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear about what?"

"Didn't you HEAR?"

I understood that he was talking about last night's terror attack on Ben Yehudah Mall.

I assumed that he obviously intended that someone we knew was hurt or killed.

"About who?"

He looked at me as if I had landed from another planet. "About who? About everyone who was attacked last night."

I nodded, "Yes, I heard."

"Then why aren't you crying?"

He was right. Why wasn't I crying?

His words shot through me like a spear piercing my heart. Our Sages teach that "words that come from the heart enter the heart." He was right. Why wasn't I crying?

I could not answer. I had nothing to say.

He pointed around the shul. "Why aren't all my friends crying?"

I could not answer. I had nothing to say.

"Shouldn't we all be crying?"

He was right. What has happened to all of us? -- myself included. We have turned to stone.

Let's break a hundred before Shabbos

If you haven't signed this petition, please consider doing so now.

McCain, Clinton, and Obama need to hear from us that meaningless platitudes and weak leadership won't cut it anymore to make you Israel's best friend. Let's demand strong American leadership that will stop meddling in the conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis. The only path to peace and security for the whole Middle East is to allow the parties to resolve their conflicts without outside interference.

If you truly care about Israel, the US-Israel special relationship and America's credibility in the Middle East, what you should say to commemorate Israel's 60th Birthday:

When I am President:

:: I will stand by Israel's need for safe and secure borders and refrain from pressuring Israel to make dangerous territorial concessions;

:: I will support Israel's steadfastness as an ally against terrorist states and entities such as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah.

:: I will not waste U.S. dollars propping up the ineffectual Palestinian Authority, which continues to incite hatred in the Palestinian media, mosques and schools.

:: I will make sure the United States uses its veto power to protect Israel from one-sided resolutions at the U.N.

:: I will do all these things because this is what constitutes real friendship to Israel and all the peoples of the region and contributes to American interests, security, and standing in the Middle East.

SIGN HERE

You don't even have to be Jewish to sign!

#67 - DAVID - I as an American citizen and Christian believe that we owe Israel our protection since we owe our history, past, code of laws, and future to the state of Israel. Stop funding terrorism and stop negotiating with people that want to kill us!!!

#78 - John Ramirez - As an Indegious Native Ameican we count a friend as one that dose not tell ones friend what they must do, but we standby them when call on no matter the call, and I am that way. America needs to be also with Yisrael

Surely there are more than 81 people who agree that the U.S. should not support an ineffectual and hate-mongering Palestinian Authority and should stop pressuring Israel to make concessions.

So where are you people?

Let's see if we can't break 100 by Shabbos. CLICK HERE to send the petition to your friends and family.

[Jew-free] Gaza: Icon of Failure

by Michael Coren

The Gaza Strip probably receives more media attention per square metre than any other slice of land in the world. Journalists abound in this overcrowded territory with its underemployed population.

Hence our media are full of reports from generally biased reporters who know that if they ever did present a more pro-Israel position their ability to function, if not their lives, would be in acute danger.

What is seldom revealed to the general public is the often unethical closeness between Palestinian spokespeople and foreign correspondents. Anyone who has spent any time covering the region knows of the private abuse thrown at Israelis by reporters who are supposed to have open minds.

One prominent BBC reporter openly wept when Yasser Arafat died and a British documentary maker was recorded on camera ordering someone out of her room because he was Israeli and then demanding to know if another man was Jewish.

Attacking Israel is seen as a way to attack the United States indirectly and as so many media types are anti-American it falls nicely into place. Mingle this with a degree of latent anti-Semitism -- some people still prefer Jews as cringing victims rather than as mighty warriors -- and you have the press corps in Israel and Palestine.

And in Gaza. Which is an icon of the failure of peace as Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary. The country is stronger and wealthier than ever before, but peace is just as unlikely. Gaza says it all. Israel occupied it when it dared to win a war with Arab neighbours dedicated to wiping the Jewish state off the map. It wanted to hand it back to Egypt, but Cairo wanted no part of it. They still don't.

Even so, Israel withdrew. It was painful, risky and divisive. Only a fool would believe that they did this because they cared about the Palestinians. They did it because they hoped it might lead to peace. However, instead of viewing this as a gesture of goodwill, Hamas saw it as weakness and stepped up its military campaign.

Israel left an entire economic infrastructure, much to the chagrin of more hawkish Israelis. It was smashed apart by the Palestinians within hours. Within days the shower of rockets began to descend on Jewish civilians living close to the border, in towns that had never been Arab and had been built from nothing by Jewish labour.

Since then legions of women, children and families have lived in shelters. This, the Israelis are being told, is what happens if you return land. Gaza itself is hellish. But it has been given billions of dollars in foreign aid and the money is still being pumped in. Tragically, it goes to buy guns, rockets and explosives rather than food, oil and books.

As a consequence Israel has tightened the border to protect its citizens.

It is then accused by the media and its enemies abroad -- often dictators and torturers -- of being cruel.

If the shoe fits, wear it: The Bush-Obama Kerfuffle

In three videos.

On polar bears and liberals

Court Forces Government to Move on Polar Bear Status
NYT "dot earth" 04.29.08

Sultan Knish:

.... I would not pity the Polar Bear myself. For one thing he is better adapted to dealing with the real world than the liberals who would protect him are.

When a Polar Bear is attacked, he does not blame himself for the attack or agonize over whether he has any right to defend himself or not. He does not agonize over whether his species has any right to exist or wonder why his attackers hate him. As such it is likely that Polar Bears will outlive Western liberals, once the latter have succeed in finally decimating the societies they live in and the civil and military elements that protect them from the consequences of their own suicidally willful stupidities-- of which declaring the Polar Bear an endangered species is only a minor footnote.

Read it all :)

Jew attacked last night in Brooklyn

Different sources have different ways of describing the same event. I like it that in America, a yeshiva bochur is a "Brooklyn teen" like any other, but I also like it that the Jewish sources claim him as one of their own. It's just different.

New York City WNBC, Channel 4: Brooklyn Teen Beaten, Robbed

NEW YORK -- Detectives in Brooklyn are looking for two attackers they say jumped a teenage boy early Friday morning.

The incident happened around 1 a.m. near on Albany Avenue between Lefferts and Empire Avenue in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

Police said the teen was pushed off his bike, beaten and robbed of his personal belongings and bike. Family told WNBC that the teen had been doing an errand for his mother when he was attacked.

He was taken to Kings County Hospital for treatment.

The teen is Hasidic and his attackers are black, police said. Law enforcement officials said they do not think the attack was racially motivated, but Hasidic neighbors told WNBC said they believe otherwise.

Crown Heights has been the scene of racial tension, including riots, between its Hasidic and African American residents.

CrownHeights.info - Yet Another Bochur Viciously Beaten and Robbed

CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn [CHI] — Thursday night at around midnight, a group of men walking down Albany Ave, between Empire Blvd and Leferts Ave, saw a Jewish teen lying on the floor, unconscious and bleeding from his head. They called Hatzalah and Shomrim, who quickly responded to the scene. Hatzalah revived the teen, who couldn't remember his name or why his head hurt.

Witnesses said, they believe there were two Black male assailants who were hanging around the scene before the attack, and were seen leaving the scene with a bike looked like the one taken from the victim. There were no witnesses to the actual assault.

Hatzalah transported the teen to the Kings County Hospital, where he is scheduled to get a CT scan. Shomrim members who responded to the scene could not get a proper description of the assailants from the victim, from memory loss due the trauma he sustained.

The teen, which is 16 years old, was cycling up Albany Ave, when he was attacked and viciously beaten, to the point of unconsciousness. Hours later the teen still could not remember exactly what happened, or who did it to him, but did tell detectives that he was missing his cell phone, watch, wallet and the bike he was riding on.

Many detective were observed at the scene of the attack along with brass of the 71st precinct, who were investigating the incident, which as this time is still not clear what its being classified as.

Arutz Sheva: New York City Hareidi Jew Unconscious After Attack

(IsraelNN.com) A young hareidi-religious Jew from the Chabad stream was violently attacked Thursday night in New York City and is currently unconscious, HNN reported. The attackers are thought to be Jew-haters. Passersby found the young man on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn and alerted the authorities.

Police and "Hatzala" emergency medical volunteers treated the victim and evacuated him to a hospital.

Attacks on Jews in the area have become more frequent recently, and the Jewish community's representatives met with police and demanded better protection.

Daily Kosniks, GO TO HELL!

Charles @ LGF: The Protocols of the Daily Kos

Yes, it’s another ridiculously verbose anti-Israel diary at Daily Kos by “jon the antizionist jew:” Daily Kos: The Nakba at 60; Protest, Commemoration, and Solidarity.

And unlike the openly antisemitic diary we noted Tuesday, the commenters are almost all approving.

You won’t find a single diary or front page post at Daily Kos wishing Israel well on her 60th anniversary.

Not one.

And that vile antisemitic diary from Tuesday, by the way, has not been removed.

You'll pardon me if I channel Jabotinsky for a minute:

"We constantly and very loudly apologize... Instead of turning our backs to the accusers, as there is nothing to apologize for, and nobody to apologize to, we swear again and again that it is not our fault...

Isn't it long overdue to respond to all these and all future accusations, reproaches, suspicions, slanders and denunciations by simply folding our arms and loudly, clearly, coldly and calmly answer with the only argument that is understandable and accessible to this public: 'Go to Hell!'? "

Wait... there's more.

"We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody's examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change and we do not want to."

Zev Jabotinsky
Ninety-Seven Years Ago

"Instead of Excessive Apology"

Thursday night in Israel: Palestinian Arabs step up attacks, directed by Tehran

A barrage of 6 Qassam missiles was fired in two volleys at Sderot. One hit the Neve Shalom synagogue near a nursery school...

DEBKAfile’s military sources report ... Several people were treated for shock. The rest landed around Shear Hanegev, starting fires. Thursday morning, May 15, a Grad (Katyusha) rocket was aimed at the town of Netivot east of the Gaza Strip, the day after a rocket wrecked the Ashkelon shopping mall and injured 100 people. This time it fell short and exploded on open ground. Netivot has now been connected to the Red Color alert system.

Mortar shells crashed down in the Nahal Oz area.

Israeli forces fired in the air to ward off hundreds of Palestinians ordered by Hamas to crash the Gaza-Israel border crossings and level the border fence Thursday. DEBKAfile reports Hamas targeted the Erez crossing through which Palestinian sick are still evacuated to the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon.

The Ashkelon attack is believed by our sources to have carried a message from Tehran to visiting US president George W, Bush that Iran’s arm was long enough to reach an American presence anywhere.

Our military sources also disclose that the Grad rocket was in fact fired by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command headed by Ahmed Jibril. A team of this terrorist group reached the Gaza Strip in the last few days via Sinai after attending a special course in the precise targeting of rockets at an installation near Tehran. The team arrived already armed with the Grad manufactured in Iran which hit the Ashkelon mall. The PFLP-GC spokesman declared openly that the attack was ordered from Iran.

The Ashkelon rocket also carried a warning to prime minister Ehud Olmert that the truce plan Egypt presented to Israel was a take-it-or-leave it ultimatum and not open to negotiation.

Meanwhile, 8-year-old Osher Tuito, whose leg was stolen from him by Palestinian Arabs, today visited 2-year old Tair Afjin, who was badly wounded in yesterday's attack.

.. just like Asael Shabo visited him not too long ago.

L to R: Rami Tuito, Osher Tuito and Asael Shabo

We let this happen, don't forget. We as a people. Am Yisrael, with all its glory and promise, has let this happen to our children, to the future of the Jewish people. We can make excuses all night long, but this is the reality. One day we will be asked how we could possibly have sat by while these monsters tore our children limb from limb. The state of Israel has failed them, and we the Jewish people have failed them.

I may not know what to do about it, but that's like saying I didn't see the stop sign. It doesn't matter. It is our responsibility, our obligation, to defend our children and to protect them from harm.

We have a lot to answer for. And more every day.

President Bush speaks to the Knesset

President Bush to the Knesset today:

"We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction."

Annapolis: Doug Mills / New York Times

Bush obviously "gets" Hamas and Hezbollah, al Qaeda and the Taliban, but he doesn't seem to "get" Arafat's Fatah. I find that so unbelievably odd. Anyway, you should know what he said, so here's the full text.

If, on the other hand, you're looking for real information and a point of view totally lacking in diplo-babble... for that matter, lacking in any diplomacy at all (it's a compliment), then go read the transcript of the One Jerusalem call with Caroline Glick earlier in the week.

... The problem is with our so-called elites, the people who determine the course of the public discussion in Israel, and our media, and our academies, and our universities, and in our political classes.

And these are people who are ideologically weak, whose many of whose children don’t even live in Israel. I mean, Olmert’s children didn’t serve in the army and they don’t live in Israel. Barak’s children don’t live in Israel. Their chief advisor’s children don’t live in Israel. So these are people who are not committed to the future of the country, whereas ninety-four percent of Israelis , define themselves as “deeply patriotic” Israelis. And over, I think it was eighty-seven percent of Israelis wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

So, you’re living in a very small section of the overall Israel that is leaning in a direction that is antithetical Israeli’s interests as a country. And so I think that we have to have some sort of a political reform and I don’t care whether it’s district elections or, or another type of elections, but, to my mind, we need to have direct election of members of Knesset, because we need to have politicians who are accountable directly to constituencies.

* * * * *

... I’m not running for office and I’m not an Israeli politician, and I can say that American Jews who vote for Obama are sticking a finger in the eye of the Jewish people. Because, this is a man who surrounds himself with people who are known anti-Semites, who have dedicated their careers to vilifying the Jewish State, to trying to force the U.S. to abandon its alliance with Israel.

And he wants to talk with Ahmadinejad, who’s worse than Hitler in a lot of ways because he is not just resonating in one country, but, you know, throughout an entire region. And, he makes very clear that the Holocaust that he and his cadres in Iran want to enact is not something that’s going to take place over five or six years but over five or six seconds.

And, so, you know, the idea that he would say that he wants to talk to him is crazy. And, to say that, oh he’s going to—somehow or another—be acceptable from, from Israel’s perspective is ridiculous. The only good thing that I can see coming about—out of an Obama presidency for Israel is that perhaps, finally Israel will stop taking its orders from the U.S. State Department because it’s going to be impossible to ignore the fact that they’re hostile.

But as to that, I mean, I think that American Jews—and I understand that still over sixty percent of American Jews claim that they’re going to vote for him if he’s the Democratic nominee for President—, you know, should be ashamed of themselves. And, I think that it’s important for American Jews to be educating their fellow Jews about how dangerous that would be not only for the United States generally, but for American Jews specifically.

Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

Hillary's WV Win was not just demographics

It seems I am always in a position - of one sort or another - where I'm not being understood... as an Episcopalian who became a Jew, as a liberal who joined the Dark Side Republican Party, as a pacifist turned "warmonger," and now -- as a West Virginian.

Nationally, the Democrats have written off Hillary's Big Win here this week, either to racism or some other socio-economic division, but an analysis in today's local paper points to something I think was a tremendous factor in the WV primary, and I'm sorry it has yet to be understood beyond our state: The fact that She Came

... reflects the importance of retail politics in an Appalachian political culture, an emphasis on face-to-face contact - especially when the candidate is unfamiliar to the voter. John Kennedy understood the necessity of face-to-face politics when he toured the state for three weeks visiting in large and small towns. Decades later when I asked a voter why he supported Kennedy, the Boston Irish Catholic millionaire, I got a two-word answer: "He came."

In 2008 Hillary invested her time in the Mountain State. Firehouses and middle school gymnasiums become stops not just for the candidate, but also for her family. On election eve she campaigned in Wyoming County and then north to Logan and then Marion County. The day before, her spouse made five stops in five different counties....

In contrast, Obama ... came to the state only twice and each time made a major national address .... national, not state.

However many teenyboppers may swoon at Obama's big rallies, an enormous event can't compete with a real and simple handshake, one-on-one. It's true in West Virginia, and I would think it's true in the rest of the heartland as well. Part of the problem with Obama is that he's hiding, even at his own rallies. West Virginia told you so, and I won't let you soon forget it.

And you're not the only ones; our supposed representatives are blind and deaf to public opinion. Sen. Jay Rockefeller and the infamously anti-Israel Rep. Nick Rahall are superdelegates committed to Obama. Even after the state went overwhelmingly to Clinton.

Our senile Senator with the KKK background, Robert Byrd, as well as Gov. Manchin and Rep. Alan Mollohan are still uncommitted.

I am a Zionist - I am a Jew

Kol hakavod to Reuven Koret (and todah rabah to Chaim).

I belong to a people who brought the Bible to the world, transmitting the tradition of the Torah, the Ten Commandments, and the idea of One God from generation to generation.

I am part of an ancient nation that reclaimed its homeland two thousand years after being expelled from it, rising up like a phoenix from the ashes and impotence of the Holocaust.

I am a citizen of a country that has gathered in her scattered people, taking in refugees from one hundred nations, rescuing the persecuted and the impoverished, welcoming idealists and adventurers and restless wanderers who chose to join her, like me.

I am defended by the IDF, the finest small fighting force in the world, a citizens' army with high moral standards and purity of arms second to no other nation.

I am grateful to merit Jerusalem as my capital, the place to which our people have always turned, the city that our soldiers reunited and redeemed from desecration after our enemies destroyed her synagogues and sacred sites, using her shrines as garbage dumps and the tombstones of our ancestors to line their sewers.

I am grateful to walk the streets in a land where a Jew can wear a skullcap or a Star of David or a black robe without fearing ridicule or persecution or even looks askance.

I speak and understand Hebrew, the sacred tongue of Holy Writ, a "dead language" revived by our people so that our nation would have a common basis for communication. I am proud that every child can read the Torah in its original form.

I raise my children in schools where the victories and tragedies of our people are remembered, where the holidays celebrate our God and our traditions.

I participate in the only democracy in a region of the world where freedom of expression and human rights are otherwise absent.

I live in a land where I can speak of our national flaws, our social failings, our fallible leaders - and there are many, many of each -- without fear of being censored, imprisoned or executed.

I am proud that our country is hated by some of the most vicious, cruel, backward, repressive, terror-supporting dictatorships in the world.

I am proud that the morally vapid governments of Europe, Africa, and Asia, along with the UN in which their majorities rule, have nothing better to do than to condemn us.

I am proud that our strongest ally is the greatest nation in the world, and proud that its people and its elected representatives stand by us and prevent us from isolation and condemnation by lesser nations with weaker moral fiber.

I am proud of our entrepreneurial accomplishments, our research, our technologies, our innovative products.

I am proud of our artists, our musicians, our authors, our athletes, and our pilots. I'm proud of our national airline, and its legendary security checks, and I'm proud that by now they let me pass with a few perfunctory questions.

I am proud of my fellow citizens, who have shown such grace and courage under fire, refusing to allow their love of life and their passion for freedom to be sapped by death-seeking, freedom-hating terrorists.

I am proud of our compassionate leftists, and our patriotic rightists. I'm proud of our unbending ultra-Orthodox and our ultra-rational secularists. I'm proud of our pioneering settlers and our peace-seeking activists. I am proud that we are a stiff-necked people.

I belong to a people who dwell alone, yet shine a light unto the world. We may not always be right, but we're never as wrong as our enemies claim. And even when we are wrong, we are a nation that seeks to make things right.

Our people holds the birthright to the land on which we live, inscribed in the Bible, proven by archaeological excavations, and verified by the investment of agricultural, industrial, and financial investments we have made, sealed by our sweat and by our blood, by our tears of sorrow and of joy, to develop and defend our country.

We stretch out our hands in peace to our Arab neighbors, in full knowledge that they rejected the UN Partition in 1947, invaded our fledgling state in 1948, tried to strangle us in 1967, surprised us on Yom Kippur in 1973.

We pray for a just settlement with the Palestinian people, even though from the inception of the PLO in 1964, before the conquests of the Six Day War, their leadership has been dedicated to liberating Palestine, which means eliminating Israel.

We have endured from the Palestinians unceasing terror attacks ever since, and despite all political agreements and diplomatic initiatives, we see that the Palestinians continue to incite their people to despise us and to aspire to destroying us. We have offered to share our land with our neighbors, but we will not give land to be used to drive us into the sea.

Even if hundreds of millions of people hate us, even if some nations pray we did not exist, even if some of our enemies won't rest till they kill us and many in the rest of the world don't give a damn, I couldn't be prouder. We have come home, and this is it.

I am an Israeli, a citizen of the one and only Jewish homeland. I thank God that I was a born in a time when I could fulfill the dream of two thousand years to return to Zion.

I am a Zionist, a believer and supporter and defender of our reborn nation.

And you who read these words, with compassion and understanding and identification -- whether you are Jewish or not, Israeli or not -- you are a Zionist, too.

Been there, done that? Get the t-shirt.

FOX News Felony?

The second item in this "Policing the Net" segment [with Mary Katherine Hamm on the O'Reilly Factor last night] addressed a proposed New York State law that would make it a felony to videotape violent assaults and broadcast them.

O'Reilly says he "likes the law." Start at 2:40 on the clip:

I have a question. Couldn't FOX News be prosecuted under such a law, seeing as just last week Mike Tobin & crew accompanied and filmed Arab terrorists in the process of committing a "violent assault" with a Kassam rocket aimed at killing Jews?

oreilly@foxnews.com

oreilly@foxnews.com

Nice?

Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.... sounds NICE, right? At least innocuous.

It is hardly so. Check out some commentary by a "Research Associate" at this NICE-sounding "Think Tank" --

In the Fight Against Terrorism, Some Rights Must Be Repealed
By Junaid Afeef

In the post 9/11 world where supposedly “everything has changed,” perhaps it is time for Americans to reconsider the value of public gun ownership.

The idea of public gun ownership simply does not make sense anymore.

According to Afeef, the Second Amendment should be repealed but the First Amendment should be adhered to, in order to protect Muslims from right-wingers.

Afeef is a member of the Muslim Bar Association. I didn't know there was such a thing.

Beyond Bias

Tears came to my eyes when I heard President Bush's speech from yesterday [text, video]. I so want there to be real substance to his words. And more tears came when I read Yisrael Medad's blog, where he pointed out that Bush did not include Jabotinsky or Begin in his recitation of Israel's history. Medad says that Bush is farblondzhet.

And a comment I read somewhere else - now I can't remember where - said that Bush and Condi are playing Good Cop / Bad Cop with Israel. It could very well be so. What do I know about how these things actually work?

And more tears came when I read Lazer Brody on the miracle that no one was killed in Ashkelon yesterday. I don't want to be so caught up in my own negativity and misery that I miss seeing a miracle right in front of my eyes. Thank G-d no one was killed, and let me always see the fullness in a half-empty glass.

Then I moved to the New York Times, guaranteed to dry up one's tears. In case you haven't noticed, the Enemedia is not paying attention to Bush's speech, or even the fact that he's in Israel. And in the world of Dhimmedia, right-wing blogger opinions and religious observations are of course, completely non-existent. Here it's not a glass half-empty; there simply is no glass at all.

What I can see and understand this morning is the hostility of the media toward Israel. Here is this beautiful successful little country, celebrating its 60th anniversary against all odds, being attacked in the midst of it, and for every sentence about Israel, al Reuters (in the Times, and everywhere else) is compelled to interject the poorpalestinians.

What birthday, what anniversary? It's a Nakba.

Jerusalem? Masada? Hey, what about RAMALLAH? Like Ramallah is anything at all.

Dhimmedia received an advance copy of the speech Bush will give at the Knesset today, and what did al Reuters do with it?

They counted the references to Palestinians.

Bush Tours Israel's Ancient Fortress Of Masada

...A cable car carried Bush to the top of the towering plateau [at Masada] where 960 Jewish men, women and children committed suicide rather than surrender to Roman forces crushing a rebellion in ancient Judea, in an act chronicled by a 1st-century historian.

Bush, on a three-day visit to celebrate Israel's founding, flew to the desert south of Jerusalem hours before Palestinians marked the anniversary, which they refer to as the "Nakba" or catastrophe, with a mournful siren.

At Masada, Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert viewed ruins including a water collection system that sustained besieged Jewish zealots at the sand-colored sanctuary.

In Ramallah, the seat of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, pedestrians stood at attention for two minutes to remember the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced to leave their homes in the fighting around Israel's creation in 1948.

"There are two peoples living on this beloved land -- one celebrates independence and the other feels pain of the memory of its Nakba," Abbas said in a speech. "It's time to end the Nakba of the Palestinian people."

The advance copy of Bush's address to Israel's Knesset contained just one reference to Palestinians and no repetition of his oft-spoken hope of sealing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before he leaves the White House in January.

To look for and count certain words in a speech is the kind of thing I do, but I do it because I am an advocate for a particular entity. Well guess what? So is al Reuters an advocate... for the other side.

It has gone beyond mere bias. As monied and powerful as they are, and this overtly partisan, I believe Dhimmedia has come to constitute a real danger to the Jewish people. (If you don't believe this is possible, just read Deborah Lipstadt's book, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945.)

It's high time we recognize the facts, as well as the implications for our future. We desperately need to figure out a way not only to counter, but to vastly diminish the influence of, a media this flagrantly hostile to us. "Citizen journalists" and blogs that preach to small choirs are well and good, but nowhere near enough. Even the good work of HonestReporting and CAMERA has little impact, relative to the absolute monopoly on public information held by the wire services and major newspapers.

The New York Times (NYT), one of the most influential newspapers in the world, affects not only its readership's perception of world events (daily circulation is about 1.6 million), but also has significant impact on the news judgement and editorial perspective of other media. The caliber of accuracy, balance and thoroughness in this publication are, therefore, of particular importance. (CAMERA)

* * * * *

Reuters [now Thomson Reuters] is "the world's largest international multimedia news organization" with over 2,400 "seasoned journalists" reporting from "196 bureaus across the globe."

What to do? What to do?

This blog is out of words

I can't blog Bush in Israel or the Attack on Ashkelon, which wounded dozens. What am I going to say? That I condemn the Palestinian attack on innocent and unnarmed Israeli civilians? I can't say it any more.

I can't tell you that I've lost hope, because -as I keep hearing- Jews are not allowed to lose hope.

I can't tell you what the hell Bush is doing, because I have no idea. I got two different emails from Israel tonight, one saying that he's sincere and supports Israel, the other saying that his presence in Israel is intolerable.

I can't read you the headlines because they make me sick.

I can't tell you what Israel's giving up, because that's in the headlines that make me sick.

I can't tell you about the Palestinians demanding continguity because each and every demand for something that would make a "Palestinian state" more viable, would make Israel less viable.

And I can't talk about an Israel "less viable."

And so, since there's nothing I can say, and there's nothing for which I have any words, we'll just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow.

Only two words left now.... Lila tov.

Sorry sorry and Happy Anniversary

Sorry sorry, I haven't been around. I've been editing ArtSpeak for The Husband all day (he has a retrospective coming up soon at The Huntington Museum of Art). So went spent our 25th anniversary (yes, us and Israel too) collaborating on the words to go with. Exhausting, but somehow appropriate.

You don't see how writing a few blurbs took took 12 hours and wiped me out? Okay, you try writing something (that makes sense) about the whys and wherefores of this image. And keep in mind that it's for a possibly-only-once-in-a-lifetime venue.

Copyright: Thorney Lieberman and Bunky Echo-Hawk

I didn't get him a present, so I had to at least plug his show :)

He's the best, my beshert.

Caroline Glick on the Left

No, you silly infidel, I don't mean that she's on the Left, I mean that she posts on the Left. You know, comments? at her blog? As follows.

Specifically, the Left has two arguments. First, regardless of what the non-leftist says, the Left’s rejoinder is that the person is “a far rightist” and therefore unworthy of note. That is, nothing any non-leftist says matters because the very fact that the person is not a leftist renders his or her view irrelevant....

Second, the Left has only one answer to every single argument. If you say that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was a disaster which empowered jihadists, the Left’s response is to blame the settlements. If you say that Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was a disaster which empowered jihadists, the Left’s response is to blame the settlements. If you say that Israel is not facing a demographic threat to its democracy and that the view that it is facing such a threat is based on PLO propaganda, the Left’s response is to say that the settlements are responsible and therefore there must be a demographic threat.

In short, the settlements, the settlers and everyone who doesn’t hate them or even – heaven forbid – supports them, is the cause of absolutely everything that happens in the Middle East. As long as they are around, they are responsible. And if, as in the case of Gaza, they are gone, the settlers qua refugees are still responsible because people who are not leftists and therefore are irrelevant insist on pointing out that it was a strategic error of the first order to throw them out of their strategically situated communities and to transfer their lands to the Hamas and Fatah terror groups.

See also Jewish Current Issues, where Rick has taken pains to transcribe Caroline's chapter-by-chapter description of her new book, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad, including

* The War Against Israel * The War Against the Free World * Israel Alone * Threat of Destruction * Israel’s Suicide Attempt * Battle of Hearts and Minds * Contemporary Thought Police * The European Betrayal * [Chapter Nine: embedded with the U.S. Third Infantry Division on the front lines of the U.S. invasion in Iraq] and * The Light Unto the Nations. *

P.S. Apparently, the Judaica Web Store isn't processing my gift order for Condoleezza Rice, so perhaps I need to apologize to you for suggesting that you "follow my lead." It seems I have set before you an impossible task. (Who woulda thunk it?)

NY Times: Never mind WV, they're a bunch of hollerbilly racists

Today's front page, New York Times: Clinton Beats Obama Handily in West Virginia

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won a lopsided victory on Tuesday over Senator Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary, where racial considerations emerged as an unusually salient factor.

Now tell me, what NYT-reader in good standing is going to read beyond that first line? This was to be expected, but it so reeks of leftist hypocrisy that I can't let it pass without comment. You see, the Times has no problem with the stalwart if senile Democrat and senior senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd, who was in the KKK for real, but they must try to libel the whole state because the Dems here didn't fall for Obama.

According to the West Virginia surveys, 95 percent of the Democratic primary voters were white, 70 percent did not graduate from college, and 54 percent had household incomes less than $50,000.

Granted, there are nooks and crannies of racism here, and West Virginians do cling to their guns and religion, but the overwhelming election results [e.g. in Mingo County, Clinton won 88 percent of the vote] reflect something else indeed. Freedom of speech notwithstanding, West Virginians won't tolerate disrespect, they don't like it when people say "G-d damn America," and most saliently, they can peg a phoney or a snob from a mile away.

And Obama is both.