Letter From Israel

  elinor        אלינור   

                                                                                                                        

Worrying

 

A comment recently made about people in the West not having to worry about losing their butchers in suicide bus explosions made me contemplate worrying.  It is personal, local, regional and national.  It is, in fact, universal.

 

A plane overhead this morning, quietly making its way across a brilliantly blue sky, covers the width of Israel in about 10 seconds.  Unless we’re at war, the skies over our small town are never disturbed by airplane noises.

 

So why does a plane cross our quiet sky this morning?  Has Assad decided (in his palpable wisdom) that he’s the one who will finally bring us to destruction?  Did Hezbollah at last accumulate the arsenal that Iran is trying to trans-ship across Syria?  Too bad someone keeps interrupting that flow.

 

Will the border hold between Syria and the Golan Heights?  Can the IDF stop an incursion there, or one of innumerable Syrian refugees from Jordan? Oh dear.

Both my daughters drive SUVs.  Both have been involved in accidents where their cars were the definite winners.  They assure me that they are as safe as safe can be.  I have had two serious car accidents.  Do their reassurances help assuage my unease?  Not a bit (tfu, tfu, tfu).  And let’s not even talk about lead-footed grandsons learning how to drive on our inconsiderate roads.  I really don’t want to think about that.

 

I developed a theory a long time ago that we all have a worry space, something like a stomach which, when empty, insists on being refilled.  I have no idea where it is.  I have never investigated this theory—as is, it satisfies my personal disquiet—but I have a feeling it’s pretty much common.  Health concerns feature prominently with haunting apprehension for the humans in your life.  As soon as the tax bill is satisfied, worry shifts to the condition of the plumbing, until that’s fixed and then: The car.  The job.  The dog.  You know what worries you.

 

Could they be training flights?

 

So those are the contents of my worry space.  I’m happy to report that there is constant motion within the space; when one worry ceases or is solved, another takes its place.  No need to feel overwhelmed; your worries are safe.

 

cross posted  Israel Thrives

The Netzarim Junction Blood Libel -- You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet

geoffff

"...peekaboo ..."

Some will say this is no case for levity but sometimes the eternal comedy of the universe just demands a moment of it. Where is Muhammed al-Durah? He would be twenty-four or perhaps twenty-five if he is still alive. I've got no idea. You would have to ask his father or Hamas or perhaps France 2 and they for sure will never tell you. They will take that information to their graves. Apparently it's a French thing. But I've already made an educated guess about where he was on the night of 30 September 2000. He was home with his family watching himself on CNN. Chances are they were eating KFC.  It's finger-lickin' good.

Two days ago an Israeli Government enquiry delivered its report on the affair .  Twelve years after the event. Hallelujah. Better late than never as the Archbishop said to the Inquiry Into Child Abuse In Religious Organisations. (sorry. Australian joke).  First of all he was not shot by the IDF. Ahuh.  I recall saying exactly that the first time I saw the clip on the ABC News at about the same time as young Muhammed as we now know was watching himself on CNN and every other station that broadcasts into Gaza. Again and again and again.

There were many reasons to conclude that. It was more convincing the closer you looked at it. This was something else entirely. There was no question about it. 

Nevertheless I was grievously duped. I thought I was looking at something that might be even worse than what we were being invited to perceive. Something sinister beyond  imagination. Something new. It seemed to me the shooting of this child had to be deliberate. And if it wasn't the Israelis who else could it be?

There was no doubt this thing gurgled quickly into a blood libel in classic form but if the killing was deliberate, or even a stage accident, what horror was this?  An ideology with a hold over a population, and a man, the bosses can do this to a son and a regard for human life so scant they do it with a careful plan. A martyrdom operation. To what end? To create a blood libel as ugly as they get to launch a war of racist hatred against Israel and the Jews. 

Was this a snuff film? Probably the only one ever made of the genre that wasn't apocryphal and it was being broadcast into every home in the world with the television news for a purpose that was the antithesis of life itself.

Peekaboo. I see you. That's a childish trick too far. Perhaps Muhammed will debut next week in a heat of the French version of The Voice singing the Brahm's Lullaby and clear up the mystery for all as soon as the court has delivered its verdict on the latest appeal. 

We know now there is not a shred of evidence that the child was killed. He was not shot by anyone; as this blog and others have been saying for twelve months and more. This was  an elaborate and rehearsed hoax that needed the active participation of Hamas, the "Palestinian" foreign press stringers at the scene and especially the France 2 man, the PA police, hospital staff, the extras and "the street" and something else absolutely critical besides. 

For this terrible deception I blame the Australian media but that's only because I'm Australian. Like just about everyone I believed the boy was dead. I bought the prissy explanation that the last seconds of his life were just too terrible to show. No need to see.  We are the ABC and what you are seeing is the best professional journalism your money can buy. Trust us. He's dead. France 2 tells us so. 

That critical something else needed, apart from the active conspirators themselves, and they were legion, was the open ended acquiescence of France 2 and the rest of the Western media in the narrative. Take the story and run.  It needed the media to consent to being duped and therefore to dupe the rest of us.  This  near perfect media crime had to have a complicit media anxious to take and carry the story and this thing got that in spades. It's almost as if the conspirators at the centre of this evil thing seemed to know they could count on that.

People are still writing books about the Dreyfus Affair and they will be writing books about this affair as well a hundred years from now and for much the same reason. Those who think this will be quietly dropped don't understand Jews. For that reason it is fitting that the legal part of this drama is being played out in the French courts. The imminent decision turns on a narrower legal point than whether this was the outright fraud it obviously is and it will be interesting to see whether the court will grab what wiggle room it can to avoid a politically unpopular decision. Richard Landes certainly has these concerns. 

Whatever happens this will not be the end of it.   

Judicial cowards will always find a way if they have to. This will be a measure of how far the French judicial system has buckled and even decayed under the pressure of  this nasty crowd ideology. Perhaps very seriously.  Perhaps not all. There are many closely watching. 

This site provides all the background needed on this affair. The Elder has started collecting al-Dura stamps.   And the excellent CiF Watch has been bringing up the Guardian's disgusting role in this racist libel in excellent detail and ungentlemanly style. Australian media take note. There is a point where being duped becomes willing and another where electing to stay duped crosses to joining the conspiracy. 



cross posted Israel Thrives

The Hypocrisy of the Australian Greens

geoffff

No human rights for women, religious minorities and gays.

If there were trophies for bigotry, superstitious ignorance,  racism and the oppression of women then the regime that rules Iran would take them all. Even the Guardian has difficulty with the persecution of the Baha'i  and the antisemitic and Holocaust denying gangsters of Tehran are notorious.

Iran is among the most egregious governmental violators of religious liberty and human rights. Its treatment of homosexuals is barbaric .Human rights organizations have  expressed alarm about the rise of sexual assault on women prisoners in Iranian jails.

Press TV is the official voice of this vile regime.

Given this record one might expect an Australian politician to take some care before giving Press TV an interview especially in the course of a demonstration ostensibly for human rights. Quite clearly Greens MP David Shoebridge has no such qualms.  

For him and the Greens human rights must mean something very different to what you might understand. Something very ugly indeed.

hat tip Shirlee

cross posted Israel Thrives

Obama and his Islamist Friends

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives.}

One of the important elements of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up is the fact that the Obama administration has such faith in the enemies of the American people that he actually put them in security positions at the Benghazi facility.

Barry Rubin writes this:

Consider the Benghazi scandal from the standpoint of Benghazi--where the militia that murdered the Americans is one of the most powerful forces in the city--and Libya itself. Suppose that from the beginning on September 11, 2012, the U.S. government announced that the U.S. facility was under attack by a militia group linked to al-Qaida. It would have had to explain why it had hired members of that militia group to guard the facility, a scandal in itself. We know 100 percent that this is true but it hasn't become an issue.

Why in this world would the Obama administration hire members of an Islamist organization to guard American diplomats in a region as violent and unstable as Benghazi, Libya?  Does it make even a wit of sense?  Why wasn't that compound guarded by American soldiers?

This question gets right to the root of the matter because it raises the question of Obama's relationship with, and friendliness towards, the movement of political Islam.  There are people on the hard right who believe that Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim and there are those on the hard right that believe that he, himself, is an Islamist.  I do not think so.

What I think is that Barack Obama is not nearly so intelligent as they kept telling us that he is.  He put Islamists in charge of security in Benghazi because he honestly believes that political Islam is a force and movement that should be negotiated with and cultivated in America's favor.  This is why he helped install the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt.  This is why he allowed Islamists to guard the American compound in Benghazi.  This is why he has deleted all references to Islam within internal government documents and discussion around the problem of international terrorism.

It's not so much that Obama favors political Islam as that he sees it as a legitimate expression of the will of Arab and Muslim peoples throughout the Middle East and therefore believes that it must be accepted, honored, and negotiated with.  If we wish to promote democracy in the Middle East - which would be in American interests - the United States does not get to say just what that democracy should look like.  If the Arab and Muslim peoples in the region wish to promote a violent political movement that is misogynistic, viciously homophobic, genocidal towards Jews, and deeply anti-American who are we to say "no"?

The Obama administration has proven itself friendly toward radical Islam.  This is not a matter of conjecture or theory, but a matter of fact.  The only question is just why is the administration friendly toward radical Islam?  The answer that seems the most reasonable is that the administration promotes radical Islam because it hopes to use that movement to advance American interests on the world stage.

And this is why we must conclude that Barack Obama is not really terribly bright.

Supporting radical Islam in the Middle East, or the Brotherhood in Egypt, will not promote American interests, but undermine those interests, particularly in the long term.  It takes a special type of stupidity to think that helping your enemies, while subverting your friends, can possibly be in the interests of the American people; a little fact that Barack Obama unwittingly taught Ambassador Stevens the hard way.

My suspicion is that Obama and his people are beginning to awaken to this reality, but it is far, far too late and there is little that they can do at this point to change course, anyway.  Barack Obama made a crucial and fundamental miscalculation at the beginning of his tenure and he will never admit what a profound mistake it was to support political Islam in that part of the world.  He cannot admit it because it would be tantamount to acknowledging responsibility for failure, which he will never do.  He won't do it and his supporters won't do it, even if they recognize it, which itself is rather doubtful.

One thing is certain.  Obama supporters will have much to answer for in the coming months and years.

The truth of the matter is that Obama's foreign policy borders on the treasonous.

You may not want to hear it, but it happens to be the truth.

Antizionists and other bigots in my valley

geoffff

The "Insiders" Beacon on the Hill

Echonetdaily is the voice of of "progressivism" in the Tweed Valley and therefore almost never publishes what I have to say about "Palestine" and Israel. For them, this is a closed world where "Zionists" are evil and the "Palestinians", and all who support Palestinianism , are a light unto the nations.

In the tradition of "thinking locally and acting globally"  this blog will treat Echonetdaily with the same courtesy as it treats all soft and ignorant Jew-haters who would have us believe that the whole Middle East problem is because of the Jews.  

This letter was published today in their electronic newspaper. 

Gareth Smith, Byron Bay

It’s so good to see Byron Shire locals helping to relieve Ethiopia’s water crisis through their Wellwishers charity which has sunk 510 wells since 2002, changing the lives of 220,000 people: brilliant! (Echo,April 30).

Byron Friends of Palestine support the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) which, through its Maia (‘water’ in Arabic) campaign, has provided clean water to 16 large UN schools in Palestinian refugee camps and to 22 kindergartens in refugee camps, towns, and villages.

They achieved this despite Israel’s blockade of water purification units, destruction of Gaza’s electricity generating station and water infrastructure.

Operation Cast Lead, for example, destroyed or made unusable 800 of Gaza’s 2,000 wells and caused $5.97 million in damage to Gaza’s wastewater treatment  facilities.

While Israelis enjoy 300 litres of water/day per capita, Palestinians average about 70 litres/day against the World Health Organisation’s recommended 100 litres/day per person.

Access to clean water is a basic human right and Israel’s water deprivation tactics are a violation of international law which the world community should not tolerate.

...........

Complete bullshit. As anyone in possession of the facts could tell you in a second.

Byron Bay. That would be right. Three times as many people have been killed in the Syrian civil war in the last two years than "Palestinians" in the war against Jewish nationhood and the Jews since 1948. The people at Echonetdaily seriously don't give a stuff about that. 

Che Gorilla replied on behalf of this blog and all decent people everywhere.

There are grave violations of international law in that part of the world. All of them are committed by Hamas, Fatah and their murderous allies.

The criminals are not the Israelis who provide water, power, food and medical services to the “Palestinian” population in massive quantities. The criminals are the “Palestinian” leadership who have viciously oppressed these people for decades. Do not be fooled into supporting these racist fronts for antisemitic propaganda.

Will Echonetdaily even publish this reply?

I doubt it. They never have. Maybe it is time to get in touch with their advertisers.  Now there's a Zionist conspiracy theory they can dine out on.

Update

They did not.

The Remains of Ben Zygier

geoffff

R.I.P.

At The Conversation ( "The enemy of trusted journalism is disinformation and spin")  what hopefully is the last gasp of the "Prisoner X" affair is being exhaled and this tragic business can finally be put to rest and the family left in peace. No doubt the conspiracy theories will continue forever and for certain it will be slyly integrated into the eternal disinformation campaigns against Israel and the Jews. That always happens. 

Associate Professor Felix Patrikeef took on the job of writing two short pieces for The Conversation in  an information vacuum that was being filled to the brim with disinformation in the general media and overflowing with malicious spin.

The first was on 22 February when the "affair" was at its peak and the whole Australian political class was in an orgasmic rapture of rancid speculation especially in the Fairfax/ABC mindgroup.  At its worst journalists pontificated about the dual loyalty of the Australian You Know Whoooos. They do that. They have always done that. 

The second was posted three days ago. It is striking how fundamentally the political climate surrounding the "affair" has changed in these weeks. There is only one reason for this. Der Speigal published an article which among other things killed stone dead  the more lurid and ugly analyses at least in public or polite company where  "progressives" still believe it expedient to suppress open displays of antisemitism. Then the ABC hammered the last nail when the Foreign Correspondent team, the same unit that broadcast the original story, broadcast an update last Monday. 

So what have we learnt? That Israel sometimes uses clones of foreign passports to provide cover for its agents on national security missions while abroad? Duh. So does every other  intelligence and security agency in the world  including the Australian  Security and Intelligence Service as an Australian politician got into strife for publicly almost admitting when the Dubai affair broke.  What else?

On 15 February this blog  said this when there really wasn't a lot to talk about but a certain element of the Australian media and political classes were absolutely preoccupied with talking about it anyway. What to say? 

What does the Prisoner X tragedy prove?

Nothing at all really.

 As if there has never been a death in custody in an Australian prison.

As if Australian law does not provide not only for the prosecution of persons employed by Australian security agencies for divulging secret information but also for the trial proceedings to be in secret AND even for the prosecution of court officials who keep a record of those proceedings.

That the Australian and Western media have demonstrated how much and how intensely they absolutely love a dead Jew?

Not that either. We already knew that.

Contrast the treatment of this affair with how the same political classes are coping with the news that the Boston marathon outrage was an attack by political Islamist ideology. 

This is a job for Che Gorilla who as usual took it upon himself to venture forth into the The Conversation on the ground he is the only non-human primate in this outfit and therefore really the only one qualified to engage intellectuals especially on their own turf. He knows his way around a jungle when he sees one. 

Che Gorilla

Human Rights Activist

This is the second piece from Professor Patrikeef on Prisoner X. Much has changed since the first was posted at The Conversation on 22 February. Almost nothing was known then as you would expect about national security matters in both Australia and Israel. However nothing of any particular interest is known now. What is interesting is how Australian commentators and observers including in the universities have handled the saga.

The first article was mainly about the al-Mabhouh Dubai operation and the small part that an Australian passport was able to play in neutralising this dangerous international criminal and terrorist while he himself was on an operation. In a vacuum this was within the range of reasonable informed speculation I suppose but as it turned out there was no connection between Zygier and the Dubai incident and the subsequent diplomatic fallout.

Now we can only speculate about why an intelligence asset that the Israelis were cultivating, and who Zygier apparently stupidly betrayed, only served three years instead of fifteen ( or indeed taken out the back and shot after "debriefing" -- this is Hezbollah after all), and whether he was a real asset or a double (or triple) asset or just an asset in progress. Or a double asset in progress or ...

Enough.

As for Ben Zygier? Now that we know what we should have known in the first place, that his death was suicide just as the Israelis said it was (why would you put a man you intended to liquidate in a high security "suicide proof" cell that was supposed to be under video surveillance?). Like every death in custody it was a tragedy but was the result of at worst pretty typical organisational bungling and incompetence that you can see anywhere in the world and not the result of malice or foul play. How boring.

What's more he was treated humanely, had full access to his family and lawyers and was receiving due process. How very boring.

A barometer of how Israel is treated by the "progressives" and others in Australia is in the comments threads of the two pieces.

There were 68 comments under the February article and they ranged the full range of speculative malice. This was cold blooded murder back then. Prisoner X had been "imprisoned without trial" and "tortured". There was"substantial evidence of the collusion of Israeli institutions & authorities - including the courts - in covering up and denying Zygier due process. "

"lets face it - he was executed"

"No shadow of doubt - you can see Netanyahu's own fingerprints on Zygier's neck under the gravestone"..

Not much room for speculation there.

And now that it is known to be all crap you can gauge the loss of interest here. 11 comments only and a few of those are by the usual anti-Israel fanatics.who spend their time scanning the internet for opportunities to vent undisguised Jew hatred.

In a news vacuum speculation mushrooms but it is now a law of nature that when the matter concerns Israel or anything remotely connected in the public (and academic) mind, such as Islamic militarism and terrorism, the speculation will quickly gurgle into elaborate, malicious and utterly baseless conspiracy theories.

Evidence is irrelevant.

Compare and contrast this with the Boston Marathon bombings for instance where once again The Conversation provides a classic counterpoint. To have even prematurely suggested that the bombings might have been inspired by political Islamist ideology before it was known for sure that the attack was inspired by political Islamist ideology was to invite condemnation for "Islamophobia". Moreover it was perfectly acceptable to more than speculate about a well funded conspiracy of the you know whoooos to wage an Islamophobic campaign of hate against all Muslims.

Not much room for speculation there either.

A discussion of this phenomenon at The Conversation is here.

cross posted Israel Thrives

Just Another Dumb Academic (Updated)

geoffff

"Thank You Intel.  Now Boycott Israel "

Israel is a leader in adult stem cell research in the treatment of the neurological disease ALS or Lou-Gehrig's Disease. Research is at the clinical trial stage. This is the disease that Stephen Hawking has.

The equipment that Hawking uses to communicate with the world has at its core, technology developed by Intel Israel. 

To accept an invitation from the President of Israel to a scientific conference and then to publicly cancel and join a boycott is more than just boorish manners and ignorance. 

Zionist Conspiracy has a suggestion that should relieve Hawking of any pending moral dilemma now that he has used Israeli scientific knowledge to add his voice to the racist and morally repugnant BDS campaign. Harsh but fair. There has to be some plane in time in some dimension of the multiverse where the miracle of human inquisitiveness tips for the urge of its own extinction. Surely the end of time's brief history. Hawking may have found it. He can keep it.  

  I would like to propose that if Israeli researchers discover a cure for the disease, it should be refused to Stephen Hawking.   After all, we would not want to compromise his strong moral stand on behalf of the "suffering Palestinians"!   And boycott for the goose is also boycott for the gander.  Let us not put Hawking into any uncomfortable ethical position now that he has decided to join the BDS terrorists and boycott Israel.  So let us help him avoid compromising his principles and simply let him know in advance that he will be denied any cure for ALS that ever comes out of any Israeli institution or research.

"No Jew stem cell injections for me"

hat tip Doodad and  Ziontruth  at Israel Thrives

update

Alan Dershowitz at the Algemeiner  

The only logical conclusion that can be derived from Stephen Hawking’s decision to join the academic boycott of Israel, coupled with his enthusiastic visits to Iran and China, is that he actively endorses and supports the repression practiced by the Iranian mullahs and the Chinese party bosses. Why else would he single out the world’s only Jewish state for his academic boycott?

Prior to the cancelation of his academic talk in Israel, it might have been argued that his visits to Iran and China reflected not support for the regimes but rather a neutral approach to academics, or a refusal to participate in academic boycotts.  No longer can this justification work.  The only possible justification for distinguishing between Israel on the one hand and Iran and China on the other hand would be if Israel’s actions were worse than those of Iran and China.  Only a knave or a fool would believe that to be so.  Israel’s academies are among the most open, diverse and free in the world.  Israeli universities have affirmative action programs for Palestinians and other minorities.  Political dissenters receive tenure and thrive at Israeli universities.

Read on