Israel remembers

Yom HaZikaron 5769:

After the official ceremony in memory of Israel's fallen soldiers, a ceremony memorializing victims of terror attacks was held in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg, the father of Rivka Holtzberg, who was slain along with her husband Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg in the horrific terror attack in Mumbai in November 2008, spoke at the ceremony at Mount Herzl.

[ ... ]

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also spoke at the ceremony.

"Dear bereaved families," he said. "As a member of a bereaved family, I recognize and know your pain, the pain that accompanies the family members every day, and is not focused on a particular day or event. Today, Remembrance Day for the fallen of Israel's wars and those who fell in terrorist attacks, the entire State of Israel, bows its head with you and to you, salutes the fallen and embraces you."

The prime minister said that the entire country stands with the victims' families and remembers and recalls the relatives who are no longer among the living.

And tonight, the celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, will begin.

Sticky opinions

Some stuff that's been on my mind ...

This was a very bad day for America. I'm becoming more and more convinced that so was this. I hope we survive it. I know that sounds a little hyperbolic. And still...

This guy is NOT a hero. He's an instigator. And he's clearly confused about what, exactly, are his Fourth Amendment rights. Then again, so are the Border Patrol guys who beat him up, it would appear. The dog was totally unnecessary.

This one has me in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand, David Duke surely deserves whatever is coming to him. On the other hand, the hate speech laws in Europe give me the willies. They could just as easily be turned on their heads. There are those who are already doing their damnest to see that happen. For now, I guess I'll just indulge in a bit of hypocrisy and work on sorting all this out later.

This and this make me literally ill. So it's time I officially weighed in. Yes, I've read beyond the headlines. I've been following this sad story for well over a year now. I do hope and pray that both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer come to their senses, before it's too late. I'm not holding my breath.

Well, that's about enough out of me for now.

Shabbat Shalom.

Yom HaShoah 5769

A day late ...

Never again.

Their Last Steps / Leurs derniers pas -- David Olère (1902-1985)

Please visit this website.

Holiday-itis

It's not like there's not what to post... (huh?) I just seem to have been pre-occupied with other stuff last week, and this week. Taxes are all done now but another holiday approaches.

I'll be back after.

Chag Pesach Sameach.

Friend or fig leaf?

The known civilized world has its knickers completely in a twist over the impending departure of Salaam Fayad as the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. It's quite pathetic, really.

As the Jerusalem Post headline today laments, "Trusted PM's resignation could affect US aid to PA." Trusted by whom?

Well, by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), apparently.

"It certainly makes it much more difficult," said US Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-New York), who chairs the House foreign affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, of efforts to allocate funds to a PA absent Fayad. "He's good, and he instills much confidence in the part of those [in Congress] who will have something to say about that money."

Rep. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), too.

"I'm hoping that he will be the prime minister because he's been a very important leader and earned the respect of Congress," she told the Post. "His leadership has been critical."

President Bush and Condi Rice were also fans. The European leaders adore him. The Wall Street Journal calls him "a Western favorite." He has gained a reputation as the last and only honest palestinian politician, seemingly due primarily for his ongoing insistance upon transparency and integrity in the management of PA funds and particularly those that have been donated by generous foreign governments.

But the fact is that Fayyad has clearly been fighting an uphill battle and has gained no traction in his attempts to reform financial business-as-usual in the palestinian fisc.

Hamas despises him, which is, of course, a point in his favor. Nevertheless, his "moderate" credentials don't stand up all that well to scrutiny.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has said Palestinians have a legitimate right to resist Israeli occupation, even if the phrase does not appear in his new government program.

"We are certainly an occupied people and resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people as an occupied people," Fayyad told reporters in Cairo, where he is leading the Palestinian delegation to an Arab League meeting on Monday.

Palestinian officials confirmed on Friday that the platform of the new government omits the phrases "armed struggle" and "resistance" against Israeli occupation.

But he implied that "resistance" did not mean "armed struggle." Necessarily.

And a few months ago, while lauding the importance of Jerusalem to the world's major religions at a "UN organized interfaith peace conference," he ... left one out.

"Jerusalem is home to the third most holy place to Islam, the place where Muhammad rose to the heavens, and the place where Jesus, the Christian, was resurrected," the Palestinian leader proclaimed.

So are we in the West, already cash strapped and struggling to prop up our economies with gimmicks and slight of hand, so incredibly anxious to continue doling out money to the Arabs in Gaza and Ramallah that the departure of Fayyad is causing such wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth? Again, from the Wall Street Journal.

"The feeling is that Fayyad is a guarantee for our support and our money," said a Western diplomat in Jerusalem. "Fayyad has overwhelming support from Moscow to Washington to Rome and without him it will be a lot harder to persuade our domestic parliaments to give money to the Palestinians."

Is Fayyad really a guarantor that our support and our money will be spent wisely? Or is he just a fig leaf that allows us to claim it's protected while we keep shovelling it out. And if his presence is the magic balm without which we have no confidence in the integrity of the system that oversees the use and distribution of our largesse, isn't is just possible that we shouldn't be sending it there in the first place?

Shabbat Shalom.

Both sides now

It's no surprise. Benjamin Netanyahu is literally caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.

On the one hand, we have the morons at the EU, who are clinging desperately to the world's worst idea (or at least one of them)...

The European Union once again sent strong warning messages to Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday, cautioning him that EU ties with Israel could take a turn for the worse if he rejects a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On the other hand, we have the staunch right wingers in Israel, whom Bibi never pretended (much) to be courting (what choice did they have?), throwing their own hissy fit over his partnership with labor.

Ah, well. Israeli politics. The more things change, the more that stays the same. Unpredictable and motivated by many of the baser human instincts. Those who pretend to be shocked (shocked! I say) at this are fooling no one.

As always, stay tuned. Oh, and a parting message for the EU: please to STFU.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dear Noam and Aviva (Shalit)

Parents who lost their children in terrorist attacks explain in an open letter why they oppose a deal "at any cost." Eloquent and heartbreaking.

... We sat across from you on the sidewalk in order to present the people of Israel with a different stance, an unpopular one perhaps, an unpleasant one perhaps, but the right one in our view. Gilad needs to be released in a way that secures our future, that would ensure the cessation of abductions, and that would prevent terror. We must do it in a way that chooses the present and the future, for the sake of all citizens of the country, over Gilad's wellbeing.

Quietly, within us, we asked for your forgiveness a thousand times. We debated every day whether we are convinced that what we are doing is right. We tried to find excuses for why we should give up and go back home.

As you asked us many times, where were you for three years? We were at the same place where many of the country's citizens are found today. We were scared to hurt you. Yet every day, when we returned home, we saw our children who are still alive, the ones we promised to protect over the graves of our dead children, and we decided that we will do everything in our power to stop the terrorists. ...

As indeed we all must.

Shabbat Shalom.

Meat

This past weekend, we were celebrating ... meat. It all started here, as a protest against PETA's "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign and, well, it's become a tasty tradition.

Sharing is part of the fun. So here are a few samples of what was for dinner here at our house on Saturday and Sunday night.

That's a hunk of raw buffalo tenderloin, just waiting to be thrown on the grill. And here's a chunk of said tenderloin post-grill, about to be enjoyed ... by me.

Eland is a kind of African antelope (sort of). They're quite beautiful, very plentiful and extremely delicious. This loin chop didn't disappoint.

And that's it for this year's EATAPETA, where we eat well and make fun of stupid, offensive and over-the-top "animal rights" organizations all at the same time. Cheers!

Consistency

Further to the Chas Freeman withdrawal, SoccerDad meticulously sets forth the case for What Was really behind it (as well as What Wasn't). There's too much good stuff in there to effectively excerpt and it hangs together too well as a whole so you really should just go and read it all. But here's the core of his analysis:

One can only conclude that it was Freeman himself who feared the revelations of the IG and stepped aside before they became an issue. His accusation that the Israel Lobby scuttled his appointment was calculated to obfuscate the real issue. Still there was a credulous media ready to accept it.

Yeah. And they'll always have help. (See also...)

In other news, Charles Krauthammer's excellent op-ed this week exposes yet more of the moral bankruptcy and overweening arrogance of the Obama administration. It just keeps coming.

While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, President Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.

Those of us who favor federal funding for embryonic stem cell research with appropriate safeguards and restrictions in place have now been thrown under the bus along with those who disfavor funding of such research. To the tiny crowd of those still standing, I hope you enjoy your brave new world.

And George Will makes a similarly salient point in an entirely different area: the economy.

The president's confidence in his capacities is undermining confidence in his judgment. His way of correcting what he called the Bush administration's "misplaced priorities" has been to have no priorities. Mature political leaders know that to govern is to choose -- to choose what to do and thereby to choose what cannot be done. The administration insists that it really does have a single priority: Everything depends on fixing the economy. But it also says that everything depends on everything: Economic revival requires enactment of the entire liberal wish list of recent decades.

It appears we can at least tentatively award Obama a few points for consistency.

Nevertheless, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 9% this week. Yes, it may be a bear market rally but I'll take it.

Finally, Daylight Savings Time began last Sunday. I love DST. I'm not a morning person so it really is a gift of an extra hour of sunshine and I already feel like I'm emerging from my winter doldrums. I do think they're pushing the envelope starting it this early in March, but I especially appreciate it on Friday afternoons, which never seem long enough in the winter. See? Today, I'm early!

Shabbat Shalom.

Withdrawal

On a day when the most virulent of Israel bashers are trying their best to pin the withdrawal of Chas Freeman on the efforts of "Steven Rosen, a former director of AIPAC awaiting trial on espionage charges [sic], who has a long history of attacking and undermining anybody he deems hostile to Israel," it's more than surprising to find Daniel Pipes and the Middle East Forum working to help them out.

I'm not going to publish the text of the email Pipes sent out to his readers yesterday. You can find it here, on one of the most hysterically anti-Israel sites on the blogosphere, which was more than delighted to have "confirmation" of "The Lobby" conspiracy.

Jeffrey Goldberg (admittedly neither Rosen's nor AIPAC's biggest fan) went out of his way to dismiss this charge today.

It is widely believed on the blogosphere that the campaign against Freeman was coordinated by AIPAC or by Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC official no charged with espionage. I've been away, so maybe I've missed a couple of Elders of Zion meetings, but no one coordinated this "campaign" with me. In fact, I haven't spoken to Steve Rosen since he screamed at me for writing this profile of him in 2005.

(Ah. You'll have to follow the link to get the link to that profile. I believe in feeding my sources.)

Fact is, the Freeman appointment was derailed by the hard work of a number of people and in the end was driven more by Freeman's glaring conflicts of interest, foreign entanglements and anti-American statements than by the anti-Israel bias that Rosen first exposed. So why does Pipes reiterate the rationalizations of Freeman's defenders by characterizing the derailment as Rosen's "achievement?"

Needless to say, it was quickly picked up by Freeman's supporters. Glenn Greenwald gloats:

...And Antony Loewenstein notes that neocon fanatic Daniel Pipes is sending out mass emails crediting indicted AIPAC official/espionage suspect Steven Rosen with being the catalyst of the anti-Freeman campaign.

(Follow those links if you must. It's the first and last (I hope) time you'll ever find a link to either of those twits here. But as compensation I must refer you to this classic post which, if you haven't read it, you haven't truly lived.)

Pipes is hardly a "fanatic." But I can't imagine what he was thinking here. And the Zionist Organization of America, for some reason, is exercising a similar lack of common sense and discretion in sending around a memorandum claiming its own title in the Freeman KO.

The fact is, it wasn't the efforts of Rosen or the ZOA or the "Israel Lobby" that defeated Freeman's appointment. If anything, those efforts made it a bit harder by generating resistance to the appearance of "caving in to pressure." What ultimately mattered was that enough members of congress, including several Democrats, started to realize that this guy had way too many negatives and that the appointment was making them look bad.

Yes, it appears that "the Lobby" would love to take credit for this one. They can't. In the end, Freeman defeated himself.

One more thing

Last week, I posted an update to the ongoing saga of the campaign against Bangladeshi pro-Israel Muslim journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. He has since then published this press release at The Blitz. It's a detailed account of the latest physical attack on him and the reluctance of the Bangladeshi authorities to take any action against his attackers. Please do read it all.

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) has been among the leading voices advocating for Choudhury's freedom and release from the scurrilous charges brought against him by his government. You can read more about Rep. Kirk's efforts here.

This week and last, Rep. Kirk has been instrumental in launching this offensive to challenge the appointment of Chas Freeman to the chair of the National Intelligence Council. Kirk's appeals to the Inspector General are designed to shine light on Freeman's numberous conflicts of interest and failures of disclosure, which are already raising uncomfortable questions in Congress among Republicans and Democrats alike. This could get interesting.

Sincere thanks to Rep. Mark Kirk for his hard work and support on so many fronts.

Shabbat Shalom.

Good stuff

This is a great story about real hope and change.

Less than a day after receiving the rank of officer and before heading back to the paratroopers he will command, Lioz Shaashua headed to Havat Hashomer military base to direct a phys-ed class. The visit had great significance, not just for Shaashua but for all involved in a project launched 30 years ago by former IDF Chief of Staff Rafael (Raful) Eitan.

The project, dubbed 'Raful Youth', was intended to assist and support soldiers from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and to reinforce their integration within the IDF.

The army was reluctant to enlist Shaashua, 22 from Bat-Yam, who dropped out of high school after completing the tenth grade and became involved in criminal activity. But he claims the army changed his life as he became the first 'Raful youth' to complete the officers' training course on Thursday.

"It's an amazing feeling of satisfaction and personal victory, but it's also more than that," Shaashua told Ynet. "My message is clear – whoever wants to reach the top just needs to know how to get the right tools, and no one will be able to stop him."

And there's both good and bad news out of Italy. First, the good news:

ROME (AP) — Italy said Thursday it is pulling out of a U.N. conference on racism — the latest blow to a meeting seen by many Western governments as marred by Muslim attempts to attack Israel and shield Islam from criticism.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also decided to postpone a planned trip to Iran in protest over remarks against Israel and the U.S. administration by Tehran's leadership, the ministry said in a statement.

Speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels, Frattini said Italy has withdrawn its delegation from the preparatory negotiations ahead of the so-called Durban II conference due to "aggressive and anti-Semitic statements" in the draft of the event's final document.

And then, the not-so-good:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said Friday it would attend a U.N. conference on racism next month but hoped for a change in the wording of its final declaration, which some countries view as hostile to Israel.

"People go to conferences to discuss and debate," said the Vatican's chief spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. "That doesn't mean we agree with the draft text of the final declaration as it is now."

Both Italy and the United States have said they will not attend unless the wording of a document they consider hostile to Israel is altered before the gathering starts.

Israel is calling for a boycott of the April 20-24 event but so far only the Jewish state and Canada have said they will not participate.

This is incredibly disappointing, as well as naive. And it sounds a lot like what Obama was saying a few weeks ago before he was disabused of his optimism.

Yes, I know that Anne Bayefsky and Melanie Phillips are seeing this glass half empty. I did catch the weasel words and I reluctantly suspect that Durban II's agenda is a lot less offensive to the Obama administration than they like to pretend. My optimism stems from the fact that most of the world won't look too closely behind that curtain and on the surface at least, the departure of the U.S. and Italy are both good. It also stems from my desperate need to find something to be optimistic about.

Best news in a while

Ok, that's not saying much. But it's something.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has decided not to participate in a UN conference against racism dubbed 'Durban 2', which is scheduled to take place in Switzerland in April. A senior US official said the White House would announce its intention soon.

US President Barack Obama's administration sent two representatives to Geneva last week, where negotiations on a document leading the event were taking place. The administration hoped it would succeed in getting anti-Israeli references dropped from the document, which characterizes Israel as a racist and occupying nation.

While the US presence was warmly welcomed, the senior official said Friday that in the negotiations a bad document became worse.

In choosing to withdraw participation from the conference the US is following the lead of Israel and Canada, and a number of European countries are currently awaiting an official statement from the White House in order to declare their refusal to participate as well.

If you've been following Anne Bayefsky's reporting on the pathetic attempts of the US representatives to steer this conference away from blatant antisemitism, this comes as cautiously welcome news. I say "cautiously" because it's not a done deal yet. And I'm skeptical of anything coming out of the White House these days. But just yesterday Bayefsky laid out in very clear terms that we were headed into the deep weeds and the point of no return was rapidly approaching. Maybe someone actually listened.

According to the AP, the decision to withdraw is contingent upon a failure of the conference "to drop all references to Israel and its criticism of religion" in its final document. That's a bet I'd take.

Shabbat Shalom.

Choudhury attacked -- again

This report from Sunita Paul is an update of her previous reports on the trials and tribulations of Bangladeshi pro-Israel Muslim journalist Shoaib Choudhury. As such, it contains a great deal of valuable background for those not familiar with his story and his mission.

This time not Islamists or religious fanatics, but, this time, our Hero and my brother and a loving brother of millions of people around the world, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is attacked by the very party cadres of Bangladesh Awami League, a party now in power in Bangladesh, which pretends to be following secularist ideology.

According to a Press Release, distributed by U.S. Peace activist Dr. Richard L Benkin and a tireless defender of Shoaib Choudhury, office of anti Jihadist newspaper, Weekly Blitz in Bangladesh came under attack on Sunday morning (February 22, 2009) by armed members of the ruling party in presence of law enforcing agencies. The team of thugs was led by one Shamim from DGFI (Military Intelligence).

The details are quite harrowing and starkly reveal how badly Bangladesh's attempts to achieve democracy continue to slide backwards.

At 10 a.m. Sunday, local time, internationally-acclaimed journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, was attacked as he was working in the office of his newspaper, Weekly Blitz, by 'a gang of thugs' claiming to be from Bangladesh's ruling Awami League. Choudhury is now under medical treatment for eye, neck, and other injuries suffered in the attack. The renewed violence marks the first against him since he was abducted by Bangladesh´s dreaded Rapid Action Battalion a year ago.

A large group led by one Shamim introducing himself to be an official of DGFI stormed Blitz premises and attacked newspaper staff until they found Choudhury. At that point, he said, 'they dragged me (and two staffs) into the street' where they beat them in broad daylight. They looted Blitz office and stole Shoaib Choudhury´s laptop with all his important information. As of this writing, the attackers continue to occupy the Blitz office and there is no sign of any action from the government in Dhaka.

Police were impassive and seemed intimidated when the attackers emphasized their party membership and accused him of being an agent of the Israeli Mossad. They later threatened to attack his home should Choudhury go to the police again.

A case has been lodged with Paltan Model Police Station. Case No. 65. Under section 143, 448, 323, 342, 384, 380, 227 and 506 of Bangladesh Penal Code. Police although claim to have already started searching for the culprits who were involved in this broad day crime, according to Weekly Blitz; there is no action from the police in arresting the culprits. Meanwhile, a number of culprits are continuing to give threat calls to Weekly Blitz editor Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury and reminding him of not taking any legal action on Sunday's incident. They are saying, "You should know, Awami League is in power and we can do almost everything, whatever we want. You will be a dead man if you proceed."

Elements in the international community and governmental pressure from the U.S. have probably been the only thing standing between Shoaib Choudhury and a death sentence for the crime of attempting to attend a writers' peace conference in Tel Aviv in November, 2003. This resolve is constantly being tested, and the reported indifference (back in 2006) of Senator Obama to Shoaib's situation has surely been noted by and has no doubt encouraged those hoping to make him quietly disappear.

Let's disappoint them -- again.

Hello Bibi

So it's official. Benjamin Netanyahu will be given first crack at forming the next Israeli government coalition under his leadership. It certainly seems that, should he succeed, Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Beyteinu party will be at his side. Israel's three religious parties joined in the recommendation to President Peres to give Bibi the nod. And that coalition would give him 65 seats, enough to form a small, solidly right-wing, majority. Except on religious issues, that is, where the solidarity would take a hit.

Will Kadima join the Labor, Meretz and Arab parties in the opposition? Or will Livni cave and agree to join the 65 already in Bibi's camp? Will the religious parties and Lieberman be able to reconcile their differences? Or will the religious parties bolt, which could open the door for a 70 seat Likud-Israel Beyteinu-Kadima coalition?

However it turns out, it appears that Israel has learned the lessons the U.S. has not. Maybe that's because of the rockets' red glare, which we seem to forget, ignore or dismiss. Good for Israel. Too bad for us.

Shabbat Shalom.