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 10 Feb 2006 @ 20:56
The 'spontaneous' demonstrations were orchestrated. The 'insult' was fueled by deception. See how things got started. More >
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10 Feb 2006 @ 02:08
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician forced to go into hiding after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, responds to the Danish cartoon scandal, arguing that if Europe doesn't stand up to extremists, a culture of self-censorship of criticism of Islam that pervades in Holland will spread in Europe. Auf Wiedersehen, free speech." More >
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 4 Feb 2006 @ 05:33
[This section from my book, Dare to Inquire, seems relevant to the Danish Mohammed Cartoon controversy. By the way, Muslims ought to be free to express their opinion of disdain if they feel insulted. Or to not buy Danish cheese, etc. When they begin to threaten other people's property and lives then they ought to know that civilized people will oppose them. ]
The Dynamics of Insult
Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the originators of “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” (which they derived, in part, from their study of General Semantics) wrote: “The meaning of your communication is the response that you get. If you can notice that you are not getting what you want, change what you’re doing.”
This way of stating a potentially useful point leads to some problems relevant to issues of extensional (factually-oriented) communicating and responsibility. If people feel insulted by what I say they can claim, according to the statement above, that their feeling of insult ‘is’ the ‘meaning’ of my communication, for
which I––the speaker––am totally responsible.
This is indeed what fundamentalist Muslims (unfortunately not just a vocal minority in the Muslim world) claimed about novelist Salman Rushdie and his book, The Satanic Verses (and now, in Feb. 2006, claim about the Danish "Mohammed Cartoons"). More >
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3 Feb 2006 @ 19:23
Why does Hamas waste money on a propaganda machine... More >
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30 Jan 2006 @ 00:15
A violent, totalitarian jihad group comes to power in the Palestinian
parliament. More >
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21 Dec 2005 @ 23:34
"Prof. Aumann to Knesset C'tee: Disengagement Was a Disaster"
Report from IsraelNationalNews.com - December 21, 2005 / 20 Kislev 5766
"Nobel Laureate Prof. Yisrael Aumann addressed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Wednesday, calling the Disengagement a “disaster” and pleading for patience on the part of the state."
More >
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23 Nov 2005 @ 22:18
"...now [Kurt Vonnegut's] old and he doesn't want to live any more. You only have to read his book to understand that. And because he can't find anything worthwhile to keep him alive, he finds defending terrorists somehow amusing."
Vonnegut's nihilism in this interview reflects an internal rot that has been bubbling for a very long time. Sad, sad to read. Darkness Visible More >
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20 Oct 2005 @ 20:53
Ryan Mauro, the youngest hired geopolitical analyst in America discusses the foreign support for the "Iraqi insurgency," where Saddam`s WMDs really went, and Russia`s "hidden hand" in the conflict.
To read more visit Secrets of Terror More >
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7 Oct 2005 @ 19:19
David Meir-Levi demolishes the myths of the propaganda war against Israel. Big Lies More >
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26 Sep 2005 @ 01:48
Straight From The Jerusalem Cloakroom #184, September 25, 2005
IT'S THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, STUPID!
by Yoram Ettinger
1. THE 1993-94 IMPORTATION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY (PA) from terrorist camps in Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia and Lebanon created the largest terrorist base in the Middle East. The PA, rather than Hamas, has provided the overriding manpower, hate-education, logistics and operational capabilities, which have produced an unprecedented wave of Palestinian terrorism. Suspension of disbelief has presented the PA as a partner for peace, rather than a terrorist regime. It is consistent with Oslo wishful-thinking, but inconsistent with an effective battle against global terrorism.
More >
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30 Aug 2005 @ 17:33
MUST READING: Why has George W. Bush gone wobbly about rewarding Palestinian terrorism?
This essay by Paul C. Merkley, a retired Professor of History from Carleton University and a consultant on foreign policy, provides a reassessment of Merkley's depiction of George W. Bush in his book American Presidents, Religion and Israel (Praegar, 2004.) More >
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 22 Aug 2005 @ 18:13
In "Confessions of a Once ‘Hopeful Leftist’ or How ‘Disengagement’ Reveals the True Character of the Proposed Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza," Jared Israel of Emperor's New Clothes writes on what he discovered about what Arabs mean by 'Palestinian Liberation'. More >
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 19 Aug 2005 @ 21:09
And I just had to...cry...
Jewish Current Issues has some tough and moving words about what Israel is giving up, the terrible cost and the uncertain outcome Sitting Shiva for Gush Katif More >
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18 Aug 2005 @ 21:46
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated in his speech to his nation Monday:
"Now the Palestinians bear the burden of proof. They must fight terror organizations, dismantle its infrastructure and show sincere intentions of peace in order to sit with us at the negotiating table."
"The world awaits the Palestinian response -- a hand offered in peace or continued terrorist fire. To a hand offered in peace, we will respond with an olive branch. But if they chose fire, we will respond with fire, more severe than ever." More >
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9 Aug 2005 @ 00:58
In the August 8, 2005 NY Times, an article by Dina Kraft,
Coping With Adult Conflict in Gaza Can Be Child's Play, disgustingly demonstrates the Times policy of equating the Palestinian terror culture with that of the beleagered Israelis.
The attitude of moral equivalency expressed in this article truly frightens me. More >
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25 Jul 2005 @ 18:13
Tom Gross in the Jerusalem Post notes the hypocrisy of a large portion of the British & world press and political establishments in their treatment of the execution of an unarmed innocent Brazilian Catholic man in England by a British policeman versus their treatment of Israeli efforts at self-defense against a terrorist barrage greater than any other country has yet faced.
--BIK
Tom Gross writes in his article "From London to Jerusalem: "Last Friday, as British police frantically searched for four presumed suicide bombers on the run, the people of London had a glimpse of what the people of Israel live with daily. The explosive devices of all four men had failed to go off properly on London's transport system the day before, and the men had subsequently escaped. More >
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17 Jul 2005 @ 18:15
Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post surveys below the Nazi links of Islamism, i.e., Political Islam. Happily at least a few more people, perhaps world leaders too, are beginning to realize the terrible dangers that all civilized people, including civilized Muslims, are confronting (see Tony Blairs recent remark about fighting the "evil ideology" within Islam.)
---BIK
=======================
The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
Column One: The beginning of the reckoning
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 14, 2005
"Reacting to Neville Chamberlain's Munich Pact with Adolf Hitler in the British Parliament in October 1938, Winston Churchill warned, "You have to consider the character of the Nazi movement and the rule which it implies There can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power, that power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That power can never be a trusted friend of British democracy." "
"With the outbreak of World War II one year later, Churchill's warning that Munich was "the beginning of the reckoning" with an implacable foe was of course proved correct." More >
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15 Jul 2005 @ 19:52
One should not forget the phenomenon of Jewish Self-Hatred, in understanding Thomas Friedman (nominally Jewish), the editorial policies of the New York Times (owned by nominal Jews), and the behavior of many nominally Jewish liberals and leftists who disparage or condemn Israel.
In its most extreme manifestations such individuals actively work to undermine Israel or like Noam Chomsky may even qualify as out and out antisemites. (Many non-Jews, as well as Jews seem completely clueless about Jewish Self-Hatred.)
Jewish self-hatred also needs to be taken into account to understand the behaviors of much of the 'leadership' of successive Israeli governments and of a large portion of Israeli academic and media leftists.
Many years ago psychologist Kurt Lewin described Jewish self-hatred thusly: More >
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15 Jul 2005 @ 05:00
Elliot Chodoff from MiddleEastOn-Target.Com wrote an excellent piece on the delusions of Thomas Friedman of the New York Times regarding the upcoming Israeli disengagement from Gaza.
Wednesday July 13, 2005
6 Tammuz 5765
Friedman Unsettled
by Elliot Chodoff
"Thomas Friedman of the NY Times is, if nothing else, consistent: he never misses an opportunity to bash the residents of the West Bank and Gaza. In an op-ed in the NY Times today (“The Revolt of Israel’s Center,” NYTimes, published July 13, 2005) he argues that the Israeli population has finally had enough of settler extremism and is 'finally confronting them.' "
"But, as is all too often the case, Friedman has gotten it wrong." More >
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 4 Jul 2005 @ 18:20
Yeah, what's so great about America? More >
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 6 Jun 2005 @ 18:32
From my friends at MidEast on Target
Jerusalem Day - Yom Yerushalayim
On this date 38 years ago the IDF liberated and reunited the city of Jerusalem. Two years later, the following Letter to the World was published, signed by Eliezer ben Yisrael. We reprint it here verbatim. - Elliot Chodoff
A Letter to the World from Jerusalem
I am not a creature form another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite – like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people.
I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you, or even persuade you. I owe you nothing. You did not build this city; you do not live in it; you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away.
More >
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24 May 2005 @ 18:25
A Belgian correspondent of mine shocked and educated me several years ago, when he said that the Israeli army stood in the same position toward the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza as the Nazis stood in relation to the Jews in 1939.
He was not a radical leftist by any means but--as I have since gathered-- a rather typical mainstream European one. Educated, 'progressive' and grossly ignorant of the antisemitism he was spouting.
Despite my admonitions, he appeared impervious to the obvious differences between Israel's seige by the Arab world and the Nazi Juggernaut. He was unwilling to admit that he didn't sufficiently know the history either of 20th Century Europe or of the Middle East. He felt insulted with the implication that he had uncritically absorbed the assumptions of anti-Israeli propagandists.
He resisted my suggestion that his "Israel is an apartheidt state" rhetoric echoed the dehumanizing rhetoric of Nazi Jew-hatred. More >
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12 May 2005 @ 18:51
Happy Israel Independence Day! Even though the official date is on the 5th of the Jewish month of Iyar, it gets celebrated today, I guess because the 5th falls on Shabbat this year. Today (Thurs.) in honor of the holiday we have a special Torah reading from the book of Deuteronomy, wherein the beauties of the land of Israel are described. The Haftorah reading is from the book of Isaiah, the passage which describes the time of Moshiach when the lion will lie down with the lamb. We have some ways to go til that happens. Have a happy holiday!
--Bruce Kodish
I've excerpted the following entry on Israel's Independence from Joseph Telushkin's wonderful book Jewish Literacy: pp.311-312
"Proclamation of Israel's Independence, May 14, 1948/The Fifth of Iyyar [,] Medinat Yisrael/The State of Israel
On May 14, 1948, British Rule Over Palestine Ended, At 8:00 A.M., the Union Jack was lowered in Jerusalem. Hours later, the armies of six Arab nations launched an invasion of the Jewish state. At 4:00 P.M., David Ben-Gurion read over the radio the new nation's Proclamation of Independence. In Jerusalem the citizens of the new state could not hear the broadcast; their beseiged city was without electricity. More >
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 11 May 2005 @ 16:46
Today is Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day for the fallen defenders of Israel.
I've known some of the fallen. I'm privileged to know some defenders who are still alive. And for what it's worth I've done my own rather minescule part in defense, as well.
Tomorrow, we celebrate Israeli Independence day. In the Arab world and among the bien pensants of the Israel-hating left (including some Jewish and Israeli intellectuals), this is a day of disaster for which Israelis and the Jewish people at large should apologize. Our original sin--of surviving.
If the present Arab neurosis is the unreasoning blame of others for their problems, a long-standing Jewish neurosis is unreasoning acceptance of blame for their persecution by others. This is not a good combination. After years of studying the Arab-Israeli conflict, including living in Israel at one time, I conclude that Jewish existence in the Middle East is nothing to apologize for. Palestinian Arabs (who have been 'screwed' by their leaders and Arab 'brothers') will only continue to fail by blaming the Palestinian Jews for their problems.
Apropos of this, I'd like to share with you Rabbi Dov Greenberg's beautifully moving piece (to me) on Jewish survival below.
Shalom,
Bruce Kodish
No Holocaust Possible With Israel Around
by Rabbi Dov Greenberg
IsraelNationalNews.com - May 08, 2005
"Elie Wiesel was once asked whether the world had learned anything from the Holocaust. Wiesel, who lost most of his family in Auschwitz, responded, 'Yes, that you can get away with it.'
If Wiesel is right — and the international fury released against the Jewish state in recent years seems to confirm his words — then for us Jews the lesson must be the exact opposite: Never again will we allow a holocaust to happen!
First and foremost, Israel must be strong.
A home and a power" More >
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5 May 2005 @ 20:15
Tomorrow is Yom HaShoa- Holocaust Remembrance Day. After 60 years nonsense about Nazi crimes is still widely broadcast while antisemitism (in the guise of anti-Israelism) remains rampant and many people remain just plain ignorant about what happened to the Jewish people then and what continues to happen now. Elliot Chodoff of Middle East Outpost has written the following piece which anyone who doesn't wish to be afflicted with this nonsense should read and ponder.
--Bruce Kodish
Denying The Holocaust by Elliot Chodoff
"Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, sixty years after the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny and genocide, we reflect on the murder of six million Jews at the hands of Hitler’s Germany and its all-too-many allies.
Not everyone, however, chooses to remember these horrible events. There are those who deny the horrors of the Holocaust, preferring to continue the work of the Nazis in a different form, under the guise of objective scholarship or political criticism.
There exist two types of denial of the Holocaust: the outright, blatant contention that the Holocaust is nothing more than a Zionist hoax, and the accusation that Israel is continuing the policy of the Nazis in its conflict with the Palestinians.
The first, blatant as it is and obnoxious as it may be, is failing miserably, except in the Arab world and among the world’s neo Nazis.
The second, subtle and insidious, is based on the safe assumption that most people are ignorant of at least one of two subjects, the Holocaust and the Middle East Conflict. It effectively denies the horrors of the Holocaust while painting Israel with the brush of Auschwitz.
More >
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 22 Apr 2005 @ 21:49
Wishing all a joyous and peaceful Pesach (Passover). More >
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 18 Apr 2005 @ 21:42
He was the man who co-wrote and performed "Judy in disguise" with his Playboy Band.
I love that song.
"Judy in disguise,
Well, that's what you are,
Lemonade pie
with a brand new car..."
Here's the obit, the lyrics, the song. More >
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26 Feb 2005 @ 05:46
KILLING A NATION by Emanuel A. Winston, Middle East analyst & commentator (courtesy of IsraPundit)
"Would killing a nation carry the same penalty as killing a person? February 25, 5PM Chicago time. THIS JUST IN: A suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, killing at least 3, with 50 wounded, 3 severe/critically - next to young people - outside of a Tel Aviv night club called The Stage at 3 AM Israeli time. Islamic Jihad claiming responsibility. Expect Sharon to call for a few days of disconnect with Abbas, followed by one of those ingenuous statements saying "the Peace Process must go on!". Let’s wait for a media coverup and downplaying of what we all expected. They will save Abbas at all costs - even our young people. We are awaiting a statement by Abbas condemning the bombing - as Arafat often did. We should be hearing from President Bush giving his condolences and telling us how we must fight Terror - except in Israel. Sharon has opened the gates, closed the checkpoints and allowed the Terrorists in." Read Winston's full text here
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25 Feb 2005 @ 18:25
Many years ago, Mordecai Nisan talked about what could be called the irony law of Mideast peace:
"The more talk there is about peace, the more sure one can be that war is approaching."
I wish I could say otherwise, but I am coming to the conclusion that another disastrous round of war is being prepared by the inexorable pressure on Israel by Bush's administration and the capitulation to it by the Israeli government of so-called 'tough-guy' Ariel Sharon.
I believe that these men are recklessly endangering Israel, whatever their noble statements of intention. Since the Arab nation has not given up its basic opposition to the existence of Israel, no concessions (and certainly not a Palestinian Arab state) will lead to the kind of peace that so many Israelis want. Instead, it looks to me like disengagement will lead to more war and perhaps the worst danger to Israel's existence that it has ever faced.
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