Boker tov, Boulder!

Another gesture of goodwill backfires

via Daily Alert

Abbas Appoints New Security Agency Chief

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday named Rashid Abu Shbak as the new head of the Preventive Security Service, in charge of reining in militants. (AP/Washington Post)

I think that must be a typo. Shouldn't it read, "in charge of raining militants"?

Who is Rashid Abu Shbak?

In November 2000, a bomb targeted a school bus just outside the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip, killing two adults and maiming three children for life. Israeli security sources accused Rashid Abu Shbak of preparing the bomb. (Jerusalem Report)

Among the Fatah leaders in Gaza, Rashid Abu Shbak is playfully dubbed the "father of mortars," as he had patronized mortar manufacturing in the resistance. (Frontline-India)

Rashid Abu Shbak is wanted by Israel for his personal involvement in terrorist attacks that have led to the murder of Israelis. (Jerusalem Post)

After the handover of Gaza and Jericho to the PA, Rashid Abu Shbak referred to pre-1967 Israel when he told Yediot Ahronot on May 29, 1994: "The light which has shone over Gaza and Jericho will also reach the Negev and the Galilee." (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

See also Abbas Appoints "Collaborator Hunter" - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)

Abu Shbak is responsible for a ruthless campaign against at least 100 suspected "collaborators" in the Gaza Strip, and among many Palestinians is known as the "collaborator hunter."

Head of the Preventive Security Service (PSS) in the Gaza Strip for the past three years, he would now also be in charge of the PSS in the West Bank. Earlier this year, Israel agreed to remove Abu Shbak from its list of wanted terrorists as a goodwill gesture toward Abbas.

I'm done for the day

Just when you think things can't get more hideous, more perverse, you come across something that is more hideous and more perverse.

Exhibit A. A "tallit" made out of a Fatah keffiyah.

WARNING. There are More Photos, sure to turn your Jewish soul inside out: The self-proclaimed "orthodox anarchist" who created this monstrosity ... in his "tallit" at his "wailing wall" (otherwise known as a life-saving security barrier between Israelis and those who would blow them up).

This is what I get for reading Rafah Pundits. Just think, if I didn't go there to see what the "other side" is thinking, I wouldn't know that someone has taken a holy Jewish garment, and the practices associated with it, and (physically) linked it with a symbol of Jew-hatred and murder.

And you wouldn't know about it, either.

So, for once, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ever saw this vile desecration. I'm sorry I feel compelled to blog it. I'm sorry for the sorry state of humanity.

Gd protect us from all evil.

To save the world from the rest of us

Read David Horowitz's account of his visit to the University of Hawaii

.... The agenda was to show how "diverse" and "fair" they were. In fact, there was quite a difference in the university's response to Ward Churchill and myself and not just in the size of the crowd which was greatly in his favor. Before Churchill arrived professors in political science and other departments vied with each other for the honor of introducing him, and attended in droves, and encouraged their students to do likewise. No professors showed up for my speech.

.... The reception at the Political Science Department had been scheduled for earlier in the afternoon. At the appointed time, Jamie, who is a soft spoken well-mannered young man, brought me to the Political Science Department outer office. The first thing I noticed was that the Chairman's office door was adorned with a large Anti-Iraq War poster. I have made a personal campaign against such political statements on professorial offices. Students go to theste offices for counseling. Such partisan statements create a wall between the professor and the student who it is his or her professional responsibility to help. They serve no purpose but to vent the spleen of these tenured individuals who are apparently so frustrated as to be unable to maintain minimal self-discipline in the presence of a captive audience students who -- if they disagree with the statements -- have no choice but to suffer them.

..... Jamie and I left the outer office and walked about twenty feet to where the Political Science Department had reserved the room where the professors were to meet with me. On the wall outside the room and just to the left of the entry door there was a poster, which had a picture of me next to Joseph McCarthy. Very subtle. And very thoughtful of Hiller not to take it down.

I hardly need to add that the only professor who showed up for the reception was the lone conservative in the department whom I knew already and whom I had already met, and who as a woman and a minority had slipped through the conservative hiring screen.

This incident depressed me more than any pie or protest could. The insult which had been carefully planned by this Chairman and his department was not to me really, since I get insults every day and would be gone tomorrow -- but to Jamie and all the conservative students at the University of Hawaii who would be there when I was gone, and whose four years are spent as second class citizens in their own school.

I try to fathom what kind of teacher would do a thing this to his students? Who could be so petty, so deficient in human grace, as to inflict such an injury on a youngster who had come to him to learn, and for so trivial a triumph (if you could call it that)?

.... To behave like this they have to abandon every ethical principle that ought to govern them as teachers (and that in fact is written into their faculty handbooks and ignored). But of course they do this for a higher purpose. They see themselves as social redeemers. They are busily indoctrinating and recruiting the next generation of Gramscians and leftists and Churchillian haters of the American dream, to save the world from the rest of us....

The chair of that political science department is Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, recipient of the University's 2003 Regents' Medal for Excellence in Teaching. The University states that he "has been involved in writing a new undergraduate curriculum for political science and has designed a new university-wide program for the study of law, society and globalization."

Al-Reuters and the Morally Equivalent Headline

via LGF

Palestinian, Israeli Killed at West Bank Roadblock

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian driver ran over and killed an Israeli at an army checkpoint in the West Bank on Monday before soldiers shot him dead in the latest violence to strain a de facto cease-fire, witnesses said.

The Israeli was an IDF reserve soldier, First Sergeant Tziki Eyal, 23 years old, from Mazkeret Batya. Please Gd, send comfort and strength to his family and friends.

JPost has more on the story.

Blinkered Boycott

Daily Alert

Britain's lecturers' union voted Friday by 96 votes to 92 to boycott two Israeli universities in protest over their alleged support for the Sharon government's policies. After a heated debate a narrow majority of the 190 delegates at the Association of University Teachers (AUT) conference voted to cut all links with Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities.

photo: AUT website

The move was in protest against the alleged ill-treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories and in support of Israeli academics who claim that they are not allowed to conduct studies into the establishment of the state of Israel....

The call to boycott the two universities and their staff was led by Sue Blackwell, a lecturer in English at Birmingham University, and Shereen Benjamin, a Birmingham-based linguist, after pleas by more than 60 cultural and academic groups in the West Bank and Gaza. Ms Blackwell gave details of alleged abuses by the Israeli Army in the occupied territories. Ms Benjamin, who is Jewish and declares herself to be a “supporter of Israel”, held up photographs that, she said, illustrated the destruction of the home of a Palestinian family last November which, she alleged, was carried out to allow the expansion of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

She also highlighted the case of a senior lecturer at Haifa University allegedly threatened with court action and dismissal for defending a graduate’s thesis on a massacre of civilians by the Haganah, the Jewish militia preceding the state of Israel. She said: “There are far too few academics in Israel who are prepared to speak out against the (Israeli) Government’s past and ongoing culpabilities in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors and principals, condemned the move as "inimical to academic freedom."

The Israeli Embassy said: "Israeli universities are beacons of academic freedom where Jews and Arabs alike study together....In particular, Haifa University has a substantial Arab faculty and student body."

Dr. Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, said: "Academic life is about building bridges of dialogue, not destroying them; opening minds, not closing them; hearing both sides of an argument, not one alone." (Times-UK)

See also the Times' editorial: "Blinkered and ill-timed"

The decision by the [British] Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott two universities in Israel is a mockery of academic freedom, a biased and blinkered move that is as ill-timed as it is perverse.

Oy, the President with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah

Michael Moore must be ecstatic.

More at ISRAPUNDIT

The end of the exodus from Egypt

Haaretz

CAIRO - Outside it looks like a ruin, but after the guard opens the door to admit visitors, it turns out that there once was a synagogue here. Behind a small courtyard covered with building debris stands a Holy Ark. Its doors are broken, and from its top dangles a Star of David, hanging by a thread. The guard explains that the ceiling of the building collapsed in 1992, and the pile of debris was never cleared away.

It looks like just another Cairo synagogue that has come to a sad end. At least 20 such synagogues have been destroyed since the 1970s, and most of them were larger and more magnificent than the small Maimonides synagogue in Harat al-Yahud, the medieval Jewish quarter of Cairo. But this synagogue is not just any synagogue; it is one of the most important Jewish sites in Egypt and in the entire world.

Last year, special events were held all over the world to mark the 800th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, the Rambam (Maimonides). He died in 1204 in Cairo, and according to the accepted tradition, his bones were transferred to Tiberias for burial. But the Jews of Egypt believe his bones never left the country. According to Egyptian tradition, the body of Maimonides was first brought to the small beit midrash (study hall) where he taught, and afterward was buried at an unknown Egyptian location; one of the traditions has it that he is buried today in the small niche in the wall of the ruined synagogue's study hall.

No evidence has been found for any of these traditions, but even historians say that the synagogue and the yeshiva named for Maimonides is one of the oldest synagogues in the world, almost 800 years old. That is why the Jewish community in Cairo allows only rare visits to the place. After many pleas, they agreed to open its gates to a journalist and a photographer, on the eve of Pesach.

Fascinating article, if you have the time.

Go figure

JTA Breaking News

Ariel Sharon’s support among Israelis has dropped, according to a new poll.

In a poll released Friday by Ha’aretz, Israelis rated the prime minister’s performance at 5.95 on a scale of one to 10. It was the first decline in Sharon’s popularity in nearly a year. He previously was rated 6.6 in March, 6.3 in January and 6.05 last November. Analysts are unsure of the reason behind the decline.

A happy and kosher Pesach

Even the gorillas in Israel keep kosher for Passover! At least the ones at the Safari Park Zoo in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, do. (Israel Insider)

Good Shabbos, Chag Sameach

A little boy once returned home from Hebrew school and his father asked, "what did you learn today?"

He answered, "The Rabbi told us how Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt."

"How?"

The boy said, "Moses was a big strong man and he beat Pharoah up. Then while he was down, he got all the people together and ran towards the sea. When he got there, he has the Corps of Engineers build a huge pontoon bridge. Once they got on the other side, they blew up the bridge while the Egyptians were trying to cross."

The father was shocked. "Is that what the Rabbi taught you?"

The boy replied, "No. But you'd never believe the story he DID tell us!"

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt but HASHEM our Gd took us out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Had not the Holy One Blessed be He taken our fathers out from Egypt, then we, our children, and our children's children would have remained enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.

.... We might ask why it was necessary for Gd to allow Pharaoh to oppose our freedom. Since the hearts of kings and ministers are in the hand of Gd, why did He not simply influence Pharaoh to free us?

Had Pharaoh generously freed us, the Exodus would have been a simpler affair, but we would have remained morally indebted to Pharaoh as our emancipator and savior. This Gd did not want. His intention was to make clear to Jew and gentile alike that only He rules the world and that we are beholden to no one but Him. This is a deeper dimension of freedom: that the Jew has no master or benefactor other than Gd. The Haggadah Treasury

[And] what of the long night?
He will shout, like a watchman, and say:
"Morning comes after night."