Boker tov, Boulder!

Oy, 25,000 Jews in Iran

JPost

With international tensions at a fever pitch over Iran's nuclear ambitions and the violent reaction in Teheran to European cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, concerns are rising about the fate of the Iranian Jewish community after its departing head took an unusual public swipe at the president of the Islamic republic.

Haroun Yeshaya, longtime chairman of the Jewish Central Committee of Teheran, sent a letter to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding his repeated denial of the Holocaust. The letter was sent several weeks ago, but first made public by the Iranian Jewish community last weekend.

"How is it possible to ignore all of the undeniable evidence existing for the exile and massacre of the Jews in Europe during World War II?" Yeshaya wrote. "Challenging one of the most obvious and saddening events of 20th century humanity has created astonishment among the people of the world and spread fear and anxiety among the small Jewish community of Iran."

The regime has not officially responded to the letter. But the Forward has learned that by the time the letter had been written, Yeshaya already had been sidelined after falling out of favor with the Ahmadinejad government.

As a result, Yeshaya's outburst was being seen by some observers in America as both a parting shot and an expression of the community's angst over a possible backlash arising from the regime's increasingly anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.

Jewish leaders outside Iran were also expressing increasing worries over the fate of the 25,000-strong community.

Light a candle for Ilan Halimi

from Naomi Ragen:

Friends,

Ilan Halimi, the 23 year old Jew brutally tortured and killed in Paris by the new Nazis, Islamic barbarians filled with anti -Semitic hatred, must not be forgotten. He was a front-line soldier in the war we Jews now wage all over the world to protect ourselves and our families from those who would take up the cause of Hitler in our day.

Please light a virtual candle in his memory by going to the following website:

http://www.col.fr/bougies/.

All over the world, decent people should be taking to the streets to express their outrage at the new onslaught on Jews and civilization. That is not happening. The total absence of official European reactions, either at an institutional and/or mass media and public opinion level, and foremost the absence of a collective reaction from the part of the European civil community- or the worldwide Jewish community -- to this racially motivated homicide in the heart of Europe, is something that leaves us numb and without words.

Nidra Poller explains [at Opinion Journal] why Halimi's murder was the final straw even for the French, who have finally woken up to the fact that the barbarians in their midst threaten all of France.

Somehow lighting a candle doesn't seem enough. How many have we lit? When will the Jewish people decide that we have lost enough, mourned enough?

That doesn't seem like it's ever going to happen, nor does it seem like the Islamic barbarian fascists are ever going to be disinclined to murder us all over the world. Until one of those two things comes to pass, I don't know what else to do but to express myself... Quite Freely. --Yael

Iran promises Hamas US$ 250 million

Ahmadinejad (left) and Mashaal in Iran Photo: AFP

YNetNews.com

The London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat reported Tuesday that Tehran promised Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal it would transfer USD 250 million to the Palestinian Authority as compensation for the freezing of American aid to the Palestinians.

In an interview with al-Hayat published on Monday, Mashaal confirmed that Iran and other Arab and Muslim states would support a Hamas-led Palestinian government....

Meanwhile, Palestinian sources have confirmed that a Hamas delegation will leave for Moscow on Friday, where it will meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

It is not yet clear whether President Vladimir Putin will meet with the Hamas leaders.

Kadima in the middle

Naomi Ragen on YNet in Hebrew only...
and in English here, via her email list:

During dinner one evening at the recent Herzlyia Conference I sat next to a well-fed local businessman, a man of middle-age with an expensive black suit and shiny black hair. We were there to hear Benjamin Netanyahu, so we got to talking politics. Are you going to vote for him? I asked. He shook his head no. "I'm going to vote for Kadima," he said, painting a straight line in the air with his finger. "Right down the middle."

"In what way," I asked him in surprise, "is Kadima in the middle?"

He looked at me blankly, astonished at the question.

Israelis love slogans. Come up with the right slogan, even if it makes no sense, if it's a total lie, and they will support anyone, and any cause. Sell them "Peace Now" wrapped up in little white doves, and they'll vote for that. And if instead they get exploding buses and pizza parlors, dead babies on the streets, they won't stop believing. They won't look back and say: "Gee, those politicians were incompetent liars, let's kick them out of office and keep them there. " Not at all. Come up with another slogan and the exact same politicians will get their vote again.

Take Shimon Peres, architect of Oslo. author of the "The New Middle East" whch has to go down in history with "Peace in Our Time" as the political blooper of the century. Peres has a new slogan: Kadima! Peres is now "in the center."

Kadima is a great slogan. It's the cry of a general leading men on a battlefield. It means: Forward! Follow me! Don't look around at the fallen and dying all around you! Keep going. Don't look back! Never mind that it was founded by a controversial general known for his impulsiveness and determination - qualities sometimes helpful on the battlefield, but quite disastrous in matters of state. Never mind that his greatest accomplishment in office, carried out with bulldozer determination, has in record time already proven an unmitigated disaster: The disengagement provided the Hamas with its successful campaign slogan: "Ten years of negotiation, five years of Intifada." Never mind that daily rockets now land in the Negev and Ashkelon and Ashdod and Sderot. Never mind that for the first time in our history the national consensus towards the IDF has begun to unravel. Never mind that. Kadima!

So the head of the party and its moving force is now incapacitated? Replace him! Never mind that Ehud Olmert was the worst Mayor Jerusalem ever had. A man whose coalition with the haredim turned the city into a filthy, poor backwater full of ugly high-rises. In between his own police investigations, Mr. Olmert has had a chance to totally change his political slogans with the times. He is a man who stands for nothing and has accomplished even less. But never mind that. Kadima!

Never mind that the Party has collected such Israeli political luminaries as Dalia Itzik, Haim Ramon, Ruhama Avraham, and Omri Sharon. Never mind that Tzachi Hanegbi now sits with them, and that Avi Dichter, a former head of intelligence, who said: "The numbers speak for themselves. . . it is clear that disengagement has decreased terror" is number five on their list. Never mind. Give them your vote.
Kadima!

The Jews, the bible tells us, are a stiff-necked people. As everyone knows, when you have a stiff-neck, you can't turn around and look behind you. You have to face forward. Those voting Kadima can only do it if they stick with the slogans and don't check them against reality. If you turn around and look at where the party came from and who is in it, you, like my friend in Herzylia, would be astonished.
Why, you would ask yourself, would anyone vote for the biggest collection of losers in Israel's political history all gathered in one spot?

Brothers and sisters, we have a very little country. We have made so many, many mistakes. Isn't it time we stopped electing leaders who blindly put our women and children on the front lines against our enemies? Isn't it time we stopped listening to our not very intelligent journalists and TV news people, clueless leftists all? Isn't it time to look back before we jump over the cliff once more? Kadima is in the middle all right. In the middle of no where.

Europe is shuffling into darkness

Douglas Murray (via Instapundit)

We should fear Holland’s silence

.... the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.

It seems the British police — who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) — were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making trouble.

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.

Those of us who write and talk on Islam thus get caught between those on our own side who are increasingly keen to prosecute and increasing numbers of militants threatening murder. In this situation, not only is free speech being shut down, but our nation’s security is being compromised.

Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.

Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people....

Links in the text are my addition. -- Yael

Israel and the West could "unleash a crisis"

AP /JERUSALEM - The United Nations warned Tuesday that Israel and the West could UNLEASH A CRISIS! in Palestinian territories by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and transfers....

The article ends like this:

.... While Israel already has taken action, the West has been less forceful, wary of causing an economic collapse and chaos in Palestinian territories.

The European Union agreed Monday to provide $143 million in urgent aid for Palestinians before a Hamas government takes office. It kept silent on what it would do once Hamas assumes control.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri welcomed the EU's decision and said it proved that American and Israeli efforts to stop international aid had failed.

I was thinking that if the Pals are having money troubles, they might want to sell Gaza back to the Jews. Ya think?

And btw, this is not the first time the Palestinians have lacked funds for payroll. (See DEBKA Feb. 2002 -- what a difference four years make. sort of.)

40,000 Iranian time bombs

This is old -- from last summer, but truly wild. I knew there was an Iranian movement to sign up volunteer bombs, but this transcript from MEMRI is, well, UFB.

On the Iranian Movement of "Martyrdom Seekers"

The following are excerpts from a report about the movement of "martyrdom seekers" in Iran. Al-Arabiya TV aired this report on July 2, 2005.

Martyrdom-seeking movement member Vesaly: My name is Vesaly... We are first and foremost Muslims and it is our duty to defend our brothers and sisters throughout the world. We don't need permission from anybody. This has to do with our religious duty and responsibilities. This is our choice, and we have no fear. We adhere to the legacy of our late leader, Imam Khomeini.

Crowd: There is no God but Allah. There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah's messenger.

Reporter: These young women have forsaken the temptations of life, and have taken the hard way. Indeed, they have chosen martyrdom as a way of liberating the Islamic lands. This is what they say.

40,000 time bombs in Iran - this is the number of volunteers so far, and the registration is still open. There is no distinction between men and women, Sunnis or Shiites. "We all sacrifice for the sake of Islam," they chant. This is the movement of martyrdom seekers, whose goals and organizational structure are still unclear. They refused to give further details, but did not conceal their determination to sacrifice their lives. The reason - what America has done in the holy places of Najaf and Karbala.

Firooz Rajai, a movement leader : In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. The movement of martyrdom seekers began after the American campaign against Najaf and Karbala in Iraq over a year ago. The religious scholars decided that such a movement should be established in this country, whose majority are Shiites, in order to support their brothers, especially following the experience of the war that was forced on Iran by the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

Reporter: This is a symbolic grave of the first man who tried to get rid of Salman Rushdi. Here, there are also symbolic graves commemorating the people who killed hundreds of American and French soldiers in Lebanon, in 1983.

This young mother from Palestine, who sacrificed her life and blew herself up at an Israeli checkpost, is a role model for the movement's members, who believe this is the only way to liberate the Palestinian lands, and especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Firooz Rajai: In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. We will not allow the Zionists to build their Solomon Temple in the place where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands. They have not succeeded so far, and they never will. We are willing to sacrifice our bodies and souls to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Our goal is to achieve martyrdom by way of true Jihad. This is the true path to which we strive. We don't need a fatwa on this, since we get our fatwas from the Koran and from all the authorities on Islamic law. We vow to turn into bombs that will explode at anyone who wishes to desecrate our holy places.

So.... they're afraid we're going to build our "Solomon Temple." Interesting. For more on the Temple Mount, you might want to check out David HaIvri's new book.

Oh, and did you hear the one about the West taking a "deep breath" and offering Iran "incentives" ? It's pretty funny.

Olmert in the shadow of greatness

Standing in front of a poster of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks to Israeli soldiers and security officials in Tel Aviv Monday, Feb. 27, 2006. Olmert said Monday that Israel can deal with Hamas if it has to, disputing statements by other Israelis that the violent Islamic group that is taking power after winning Palestinian elections is a strategic threat to the Jewish state. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

How fragile

Michelle Malkin:The Jyllands-Posten Wins A Prize

Copenhagen - Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which angered the Muslim world by publishing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad last year, has won a Danish critical journalism award for its initiative, the jury said.

Denmark's largest daily was honoured with the Victor Prize for "having opened everyone's eyes by showing how easy it is to introduce cracks in freedom of expression and how so-called political correctness is infiltrating what we believe to be inalienable rights," Hans Engell, the editor of tabloid Ekstra Bladet which awards the prize, said during a prize ceremony in Copenhagen late on Thursday.

The Jyllands-Posten's editor, Carson Juste received the prize while guarded by two secret service bodyguards, noting "how fragile freedom of expression is" as he accepted the award.

Timeout for a public service announcement