Boker tov, Boulder!

FBI: 927 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2003

kesher talk

Antisemitism watch. According to FBI statistics, anti-Jewish actions are the majority of religious hate crimes in the US.

The 166-page report documented more than 1,300 religion-based hate incidents in 2003. Jews were by far the most frequent targets of such attacks, with anti-Muslim incidents trailing far behind at 149.

JTA

NEW YORK, Nov. 23 (JTA) — The incidence of hate crimes in the United States may not be rising, but religion-based hate crimes overwhelmingly are directed against Jews and Jewish institutions.

Those were some findings of the FBI’s Hate Crimes Statistics 2003, released Monday. The survey documents 927 anti-Jewish crimes last year — most of them classified as intimidation — comprising more than 12 percent of all hate crimes reported in America.

.... Overall, the report found that hate crimes remained relatively steady between 2002 and 2003. The 7,489 total incidents last year were just 27 more than took place in 2002, the FBI said — and the 2002 figures were the lowest since 1994.

As a motivating factor for hate crimes, religion was a distant second — along with sexual orientation — behind race. While 16.4 percent of these crimes were motivated by religious animus, more than 52 percent were the result of racial prejudice, most often anti-black.

France falsified Arafat death certificate

israelinsider

Israel's ambassador criticised the French government for issuing a death certificate for Yasser Arafat stating his place of birth as Jerusalem.

"I cannot understand how the French government agreed to issue a death certificate based on false information," ambassador Nissim Zvili told a press conference in Montpellier.

Municipal officials at Clamart, the suburb of Paris where Arafat died on November 11, said they issued the document based of a family record book issued by the French foreign ministry in 1996, after Suha Arafat became a naturalized citizen of the Third Republic.

Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Rawf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Hussaini, on August 4, 1929.

While his official biography claims he was born in Jerusalem, numerous biographers agree that he was born in Cairo, where his Gaza-born father owned a business.

Zvili said the affair was "very badly perceived in Israel", adding that those responsible for issuing the "false document" could be subject to a legal process.

"I don't understand how when Arafat arrived in France he had been born in Cairo and when he left France he had been born in Jerusalem," he said.

The Election's Over; Bush Won

For those who may not have noticed. No, really it's the headline for this post by Charles Johnson at LGF:

The Miami Herald counted ballots in three Florida counties, and discovered (surprise!) that Bush really did win by a large margin in traditionally Democratic areas: No flaw is found in Bush’s state win.

Last week, The Herald went to see for itself whether Bush’s steamroll through North Florida was legitimate. Picking three counties that fit the conspiracy theory profile — staunchly Democratic by registration, whoppingly GOP by voting — two reporters counted more than 17,000 ballots over three days.

The conclusion: No conspiracy.

The newspaper’s count of optical scan ballots in Suwannee, Lafayette and Union counties showed Bush whipping Sen. John Kerry in a swath of Florida where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-1.

So there. finis.

And btw, I agree with Comment #4:

The Jewish democrats knew that Kerry would hand Israel over on a platter to make friends with France and Germany.

Database of Shoah Victims already yielding fruit

I am very happy to pass on this news from Nu? What's New? the E-zine of Jewish Genealogy edited by Gary Mokotoff and published by Avotaynu, Inc.:

Yad Vashem formally announced its Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names on Monday, November 22, to worldwide publicity. The overall reaction of the genealogical community was great excitement and great finds. Many genealogists told of finding family they had not known existed some of whom had survived the Holocaust.

Baruch Hashem.

See also the journal, AVOTAYNU: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy, and all the (62) books -plus CD-ROMS and maps- offered for sale by Avotaynu at http://www.avotaynu.com/allbooks.htm. Happy hunting...

Wake up: They want to annihilate Israel.

Palestinian supporters of the Islamic Hamas group, holding a big map of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as they participate in the campaign for students' council elections in Al-Najah university in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Sunday Nov. 28, 2004. The map reads in Arabic: 'Muslim Palestine'.... (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

Zionism, post-Zionism and now, neo-Zionism

This opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post by Moty Cristal is called "Beyond Aliya," but would better be called "Forget Aliya."

Somehow, this man's "new model," which he calls neo-Zionism, consists of "new ways to engage and commit to the well being and advancement of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, regardless of physical location."

Have your cake and eat it too. Be a strongly-identified Jew and Zionist, without feeling compelled to endure the inconvenience and difficulty of actually moving to Israel.

Never mind Herzl (or rather, mind him only from a comfortable distance?)

"The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes.

The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness.

And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity." (1896)

True neo-Zionism is beautifully expressed in these writings at Kumah.org.

Amana Mona unrepentant, starts riot in Israeli prison

JPost

Female security prisoners incarcerated in the Sharon Prison rioted against prison guards at noon Sunday.

The riot erupted while the prisoners were in the prison-yard when one of the prisoners, Amana Mona, refused to stand for a routine head count, guards reported.

Amana Mona, 25, of Bir Naballah, is serving a life term for the murder of Ofir Rahum of Ashkelon. In January 2001, Mona used the Internet to lure the 16-year-old youth to Ramallah, where he was murdered by two Fatah terrorists. After her trial, Mona told reporters that she was proud of her actions.

During the riot the prisoners threw boiling oil and cleaning liquid at the guards, wounding two lightly. The guards managed to disperse the female prisoners using water jets. The inmates were returned to their cells and the wing sealed off.

Riots that broke out in the prison in February of this year were also attributed to Mona's insubordination: after the inmate prevented wardens from entering her cell to take her cellmate for medical treatment, violence erupted in which three wardens were lightly wounded.

Simultaneously, Palestinian youth incarcerated in the prison's security wing began banging on the cell doors and rioting. Prison guards restored calm after firing tear gas.

Today's Maureen Dowd worth reading

... because she hands much of her column over to her conservative brother, Kevin, who says via email,

"We do not live in a secular country. There are all sorts of people of faith that place moral values over personal freedoms. They are not all 'wacky evangelicals.' They are people who don't like Howard Stern piping a hard porn show over the airwaves and wrapping himself in the freedom of the First Amendment. They don't like being told that a young girl does not have to seek her mother's counsel about an abortion. They don't like seeing an eight-month-old fetus having his head punctured and his brains sucked out. They don't like being told the Pledge of Allegiance, a moment of silent prayer and the words 'under God' are offensive to an enlightened few so nobody should be allowed to use them..."

Amen, brother.

UPDATE: Others may want to follow the lead of my friend Alan:

From: Alan
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 22:09:14 -0600
To: [email protected]
Subject: Your brother Kevin

Well, far out. Why don't you alternate your op-ed with Kevin and the rest. That way those many, many of us who have finally lost it with MoDo herself would start reading the column again, in hope of encountering her sibs on occasion.

Happy holidays. Was pretty brave of you to run Blood is Thicker...

Arabic in US high schools will aid recovery from moral decay

Daniel Pipes:

So argues Akhtar H. Emon, president of an outfit called the Arabic Language Institute Foundation (or ALIF, which is the name of the first letter of the Arabic alphabet), based in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. His interesting argument can be found on an undated webpage, "Bringing Arabic to U.S. / Canadian High Schools" [I've extended the excerpts]:

"We must make Arabic as prevalent in the United States as Spanish. Or at least as commonplace as French and German. The Arabic Language Institute Foundation (ALIF), a Los Angeles-based organization is committed to introducing the teaching of the Arabic language into public high schools.

. . . Europeans are closer to the Middle East and have been ahead in terms of teaching Arabic. . . Getting Arabic into American schools will be a more difficult task, but it could prove to be beneficial.

ALIF is already working with several Southern California high schools to get the program installed . . . ALIF has launched a recruitment drive in which a mosque will "adopt" a high school, funding and providing an Arabic teacher. . . . Most of the universities we contacted, including UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, Colombia, U of Michigan, UTA, USC and other schools, are excited about having students taught the Arabic language in high school. . . .

. . . about 30 years ago soccer was hardly known or played at public schools in North America. Today, soccer moms get to choose who will be the next U.S. President. The big auto makers are competing to design cars in order to please the soccer moms. The AYSO organization deserves the credit. ALIF has a similar role to play for popularity of Arabic language like AYSO did the job for soccer in North America. We can do it in 30 years, and make Arabic as the "soul" second language, while reinforcing the spirituality in the west. . . .

Arabic is the language of the Qur'an. In order to convey the message of Qur'an in North America and Europe, we have to first deliver its language. Knowledge of Arabic can then help the Western countries recover from the present moral decay. Shootings of the likes in Columbine High School, and an Diego schools are the symptoms and the signs (Ayah) from Allah. High School students in North America deserve better than the metal detectors to protect them. The whole system of education needs a moral shake-up. The Arabic Language Institute Foundation (ALIF), a Los Angeles-based organization is committed to this goal.

So there you have it – "Knowledge of Arabic can then help the Western countries recover from the present moral decay."

[DP] Comment: Even innocuous-looking groups like ALIF (a project partially sponsored, wouldn't you know it by the Council on American-Islamic Relations) has an intent to transform the United States into a majority Muslim country. (November 26, 2004)

I get it... ban the Declaration of Independence in the fifth grade, and then teach Arabic in high school. I can see the "documentary" now: Raising Jihadis

UPDATE: IslamiCity.com hosts the ALIF webpage, so check them out too. Their homepage has a series of "Highlights" including the UN's upcoming seminar on Confronting Islamophobia, with opening statement by Kofi Annan. You don't want to miss it.

Measure Palestinian freedom,

... not summits

by Natan Sharansky

The death of Yasser Arafat has once again placed the search for peace at a crossroads. Ten years ago, policymakers took the wrong road, believing that peace could be made with a dictatorship. Today, we must instead embrace a peace process that is anchored in the expansion of freedom within Palestinian society.

The temptation to return to the Oslo formula will be very great. Today, many hope to identify a Palestinian strongman as quickly as possible who can prevent chaos, rein in the extremists, and reach a deal with Israel. Similarly, many view the upcoming Palestinian elections as an opportunity to legitimize a Palestinian leadership that could quickly be "strengthened" by Western and Israeli largesse.

This was exactly the misguided approach to peace that failed so miserably over the last decade. According to the logic of Oslo, a "moderate" like Arafat should be embraced and empowered by the free world so that he would be strong enough to fight terror and reach an agreement with Israel.

Unfortunately, little attention was paid to how Arafat ruled. In fact, far from being considered an obstacle to peace, Arafat's repressive rule was seen as facilitating peace. As prime minister Yitzhak Rabin put it only days after Oslo was signed, Arafat would fight Hamas "without a Supreme Court, without human rights organizations, and without all sorts of bleeding-heart liberals."

What was not understood then, or often even now, is that a non-democratic Palestinian regime will, by its nature, always threaten Israel. Non-democratic regimes always need to mobilize their people against external enemies to maintain internal stability. This is why the regime in Egypt, having lost Israel as a political enemy by signing a peace treaty, sponsors what is perhaps the most rabid anti-Semitic incitement on earth. That is also why the Saudi regime funds a Wahhabi fanaticism at home and abroad that is terrorizing our entire world. And that is why the Palestinian Authority used all the resources, not to improve the lives of Palestinians but rather to strengthen hatred toward Israel.

It is time to explore the road not taken, a road that could make all the difference.

continue...