Israel Matzav

Why Santa Claus doesn't visit Israel

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone from Boston.

For those wondering why Santa Claus doesn't come to Israel, here's the reason why.

Heh.

Labels: Christmas, humor, Santa Claus

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:59 AM 0 comments

How the anti-Israel activists steal Christmas

Miriam Elman has a very comprehensive piece on how the anti-Israel activists hijack Christmas for their own nefarious purposes.

They're all a bunch of liars.

The post is full of pictures and videos, and is simply a must read. So when you have a few minutes, sit down and read it.

Some of my past posts about Christmas in Bethlehem may be found here. 

Shabbat Shalom from Boston.

Labels: BDS, Bethlehem, Christmas, NGO's, Palestinian lies

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:59 PM 0 comments

'Tis the Season

Greetings from Boston.

In case you don't know what to eat tonight, please see above (Hat Tip: Steve L).

And don't forget it's nitel nacht and that's a time to learn or not learn Torah depending upon your custom.

Labels: Christmas, humor

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:20 PM 0 comments

ICYMI Ted Cruz's Infomercial: Cruz Christmas Classics

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

This one is going to be on Saturday Night Live a bit later tonight.

Let's go to the videotape.



For those of you who didn't get any of the references, my friend Ed Morrissey explains them here.

The connection to Israel is the lady with her hand up.

Labels: Christmas, Saturday Night Live, Ted Cruz, US presidential campaign 2016

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:12 AM 0 comments

Merry Christmas from 'Palestine'

I'm embedding the entire post so you don't miss Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner's comment:


You won't see that one in the New York Times....

Labels: Christmas, Palestinian terrorism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:36 AM 0 comments

If Joseph and Mary were trying to reach Bethlehem today.... UPDATED

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

Here's a great comment in the Washington Post from the Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein. What would happen to Joseph and Mary if they were trying to reach Bethlehem today, before Jesus' birth?

Mehdi Hasan, political director of the Huffington Post, UK, has a post up entitled, “If Mary and Joseph Tried to Reach Bethlehem Today, They Would Get Stuck at an Israeli Checkpoint.”

How would that carpenter and his pregnant wife have circumnavigated the Kafka­esque network of Israeli settlements, roadblocks and closed military zones in the occupied West Bank? Would Mary have had to experience labour or childbirth at a checkpoint, as one in ten pregnant Palestinian women did between 2000 and 2007?

Well, since Joseph and Mary were Judeans, i.e., Jews, from Nazareth, they wouldn’t need to be afraid of Israeli roadblocks needed to combat Palestinian terrorism, but of being murdered by terrorists from Hamas or Fatah.

Seriously, this sort of historical revisionism, treating ancient Jewish Judeans as if they were Palestinian Arabs, and then analogizing modern Israel to the oppressors of Jesus and his family, a common trope in the UK, would be laughable if it were not  so pernicious. Pernicious not simply because it’s a ridiculous distortion of history, and not simply because it’s often accompanied by a large dose of anti-Semitism, with Palestinians playing the role of Jesus and the Israelis being the foreign oppressors crucifying him.  But pernicious because it goes to the true heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict–the failure of the Arab side to recognize that the “Zionists” are not the “European settler-colonialists” of Third Worldist imagination, but a people with a three thousand year plus tie to the Land of Israel, whose religion was born there, who ruled two separate kingdoms there, who have prayed toward Jerusalem for two thousand years in their ancient Hebrew language, and so on.

Read the whole thing. There's a great punch line at the end.

UPDATED 9:42 PM SATURDAY BOSTON TIME

Here's more from Charisma Magazine. 

First of all, on the approach to Bethlehem, they would encounter a sign telling them that as Israelis, it's illegal and unsafe for them to continue to Area A (under full control of the Palestinian Authority, of which Bethlehem is part according to the 1990s Oslo agreement).

If they proceeded anyway, whether by foot, bicycle, car or donkey—given the current state of affairs—they would likely be met with problems from the get go, including possibly being stoned, firebombed, shot at or lynched. Recent instances of Israeli Jews going into or near other Palestinian Arab communities have played this out.

Yes, the town in which an Orthodox Jewish boy was born a little more than 2,000 years ago has become hostile and inhospitable—and, in fact, dangerous—to Jews today. Yet as much as Jew hatred is common in the region here today, it's not much more hospitable to Christians.

Recently the Pope decried the situation that Christians face from throughout the Islamic Middle East as did the Vicar of Baghdad. Bethlehem is no better.

The 2002 siege of the Church of the Nativity by Palestinian Arab terrorists, desecrating the place and the faith, is a distant memory. However, the ideology and thugery behind that remains.

As a result, the town that is not just the birthplace of Jesus but arguably of Christianity, has seen a decrease in its Christian population from 70 percent just decades ago to about 30 percent today. This is not because of Israel's "occupation" or other problems blamed on Israel, but because life in Bethlehem as a Christian is hostile and inhospitable at best, and even downright dangerous.

...

So glaring is Jesus' absence from Bethlehem this season, one ministry paid to put up a "radical" billboard celebrating Jesus. But they also had to rent a generator and full-time security people because no private companies would provide electricity to light up the sign, and for fear that someone would deface it or burn it down.

What's behind all of this? How is the situation going from bad to worse? I asked a Christian friend who had spent considerable time in Bethlehem until called in by police and told he was at risk and they couldn't protect him. He packed and left, and I drove him to my home where he couldn't be threatened.

Read the whole thing. 

Labels: Bethlehem, Christians in Israel, Christians in Muslim countries, Christmas, honor killing, Judea and Samaria, Palestinian Christians, Palestinian terrorists, revisionist history

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:15 AM 0 comments

Christmas wishes

Wish hard America....

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Christmas, Eric Holder, John Kerry, Santa Claus

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:15 PM 0 comments

The 'Palestinian' terrorists who stole Christmas

Indeed.

Labels: Christmas, Palestinian terrorism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:07 PM 1 comments

Not 'Palestinian'

The 'Palestinians' have been trying to market Jesus as one of them. That's just another lie.

Labels: Christmas, Jesus, Palestinian lies, revenants

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:09 PM 5 comments

Israeli reporters barred from Christmas services in Bethlehem

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton joined 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen at Christmas mass in Bethlehem, but most Israeli reporters were barred from attending (I know one who snuck into the city).

On Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the historic Biblical town of Bethlehem, barred Israeli journalists from covering Christmas festivities. Palestinian journalists asked for the Israeli journalists to be expelled from Manger Square; the Israeli journalists thrown out of Bethlehem include reporters from Ha’aretz, i-24 News, Channel One and Arutz Sheva.

This move follows a long campaign from Palestinian journalists to stop Israeli reporters from entering Palestinian-controlled territories in the West Bank at all. Israeli reporters have even been beaten by Palestinians in attempting to cover events in the West Bank. The purpose of such exclusivity: “isolating the Israeli media, which is contributing to misinformation and relaying a false and harmful image of the Palestinian reality.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas released a message this week in which he stated that Jesus was “a Palestinian messenger who would become a guiding light for millions around the world.” He added, “As we Palestinians strive for our freedom two millennia later, we do our best to follow his example.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor shot back that Abbas “should have read the Gospel before uttering such offensive nonsense.” Jesus, of course, was a Jew living in Talmudic-era Israel.

We wouldn't want the truth about the 'Palestinian Authority' to be too widely publicized, would we?

Labels: Abu Mazen, Bethlehem, Catherine Ashton, Christmas, freedom of the press, Palestinian Authority

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:15 AM 0 comments

Make Your Torah sweet to us

Here's Yaakov Shwekey with v'Haarev Nah (Make Your Torah sweet to us), a prayer asking that we derive enjoyment from learning Torah which is part of the daily preliminary morning service.

Let's go to the videotape.



A gutten nitelnacht tzum alles un tzum alles a gutte nacht. (And if you don't understand that, you probably also don't know why I chose this song for this evening).

Labels: Christmas, overnight music video, VeHa'arev, Yaakov Shwekey

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:34 AM 0 comments

NORAD Santa in Jerusalem, Israel

I guess someone forgot to tell Santa that it's against US government policy to admit that Jerusalem is in Israel.

#Santa is in Jerusalem, Israel!
— NORAD Santa (@NoradSanta) December 24, 2013

Heh.

Mrs. Carl points out that NORAD is actually a joint venture of the US and Canada. So maybe it's Canada's 'fault.'

Labels: Christmas, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Santa Claus

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:05 AM 1 comments

The real truth about 'Palestine'

Watch Ambassador Danny Ayalon as he rebuts "The real Truth about Palestine"

"Palestine was the Greco-Roman name for a region. In the year 135 AC, the name of the region became the official name of one of the provinces of the Roman Empire in an attempt to obliterate the connection between the Jewish people and Judea - the land they've inhabited for over 1000 years.

However, like Antarctica, the Amazons or the Sahara, naming a place doesn't create a nation of Antarcticans or Saharans.

Oh, and for the record, Jesus was not a Palestinian, he was a Judean Jew."

Let's go to the videotape.

Labels: Christmas, Danny Ayalon, Jesus, Palestinian propaganda

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:04 PM 1 comments

A 'Palestinian' Christmas

Fair and accurate.

Labels: Christmas, Dry Bones, Palestinian Authority

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:47 AM 0 comments

'Palestinians' release 'Christmas video'

The 'Palestinian Liberation Organization' (PLO) has released a slick Christmas video in which they once again try to depict Jesus as a 'Palestinian' (as if there was such a thing as a 'Palestinian' in Jesus' time, or as if the 'Palestinians' are the genetic heirs to the Jews who were called 'Palestinians' from shortly after Jesus' time until 1948).

And of course the entire video vilifies Israel, giving no context whatsoever for checkpoints (which didn't exist until after 1994) and the 'security fence' (which didn't exist until after 2003), all of which were necessitated by continuous 'Palestinian' terrorism like yesterday's attempt to blow up a bus in Bat Yam. Such terror attacks have only increased as the 'Palestinians' have bitten off pieces of Israel's land.

Let's go to the very slick propaganda that is this videotape.



But 'peace' is at hand. What could go wrong?

Labels: Christmas, Jesus, Palestinian propaganda

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:46 PM 1 comments

Blasting Haaretz for attacking Netanyahu

Dexter van Zile blasts Haaretz's Barak Ravid for attacking Prime Minister Netanyahu's Christmas message. This is from the first link.

I received a message from a colleague alerting me to Ravid’s piece in Haaretz condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for radicalizing “his traditional Christmas greeting into an attack on Muslims in Arab countries.”

Whoah, that’s a serious charge.

Apparently, in his Christmas greeting, Netanyahu made the unforgivable sin of stating the obvious: That Christian populations are shrinking and are in danger in the Middle East.

Netanyahu then added salt to the wound and reminded his listeners that Christians are safe in Israel.

According to Ravid, “Netanyahu did not specify in his greeting who is threatening to annihilate the Christians, but it’s clear from the wording that he means the Muslims.”

Earth to Barak Ravid: Netanyahu didn’t have to say who was threatening the annihilation of the Christians because we already know.

Unless they’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, most Christians know that Muslim extremists throughout the Middle East have been attacking Christians on a regular basis for the past few years. Their churches have been bombed. Their pastors kidnapped, held for ransom and killed.

And moderate Muslims and secularists in the region do not have the power necessary to stop the attacks on their Christian neighbors. They can’t even defend themselves.

Read the whole thing.  Van Zile is right. Israel's Left probably has the most active Jewish guilt complex in the world.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Christian flight, Christians, Christians in Israel, Christmas

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:53 AM 0 comments

Bethlehem packed for Christmas - it must be the 'occupation's fault

Christmas was packed on Monday night in Bethlehem, just like it was in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

But al-AP had to blame the 'occupation' for something....

Thousands of Christians from the world over packed Manger Square in Bethlehem on Monday to celebrate the birth of Jesus in the ancient West Bank town where he was born.

For their Palestinian hosts, this holiday season was especially joyous, with the hardships of the Israeli occupation that so often clouded previous Christmas Eve celebrations eased by the United Nations' recent recognition of an independent state of Palestine.

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Bethlehem, Christmas

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:30 PM 0 comments

Prime Minister Netanyahu's Christmas message

Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu's Christmas message. Note the dig about shrinking Christian populations elsewhere in the Middle East.

Let's go to the videotape.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Christians, Christmas

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:56 PM 0 comments

What is it with Jews and Chinese food?

Once upon a time, I used to work in lower Manhattan and regularly order Chinese food from a place called Shmulka Bernstein's (also known as Bernstein's on Essex Street). And I always worked on Christmas (which as all Jews in New York know is the best day to get work done in the office while the kids are at school), and the Jewish secretaries used to compete to come in and work for me (and get paid triple time).

The image above is posted in that spirit.

Labels: Christmas, humor

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:16 PM 2 comments

Why Christians are fleeing Bethlehem

Christmas has become an occasion to bash Israel because Christians are fleeing Bethlehem. Leaving aside the fact that Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has grown over the last 50 years, it's simply not Israel's fault that Christians are leaving Bethlehem or any other city (Ramallah used to have a large Christian population) in Judea and Samaria.

In a particularly vicious piece of this genre in al-Guardian, Harriet Sherwood tries to create the impression that Christians are leaving Bethlehem because Jews are setting up 'settlements' on abandoned plots of land across the city line in Jerusalem, thereby 'choking' Bethlehem. 

Amid plastic bags snagged on gorse bushes, rusting hulks of cars in a breakers yard and a few shabby trailers, traces of a biblical landscape are still to be found on a hillside between the ancient cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. A couple of donkeys are tethered to a gnarled olive tree; nearby, sheep and goats bleat as they huddle against the chill December air.

But this terrain will soon be covered in concrete after the authorisation last week of the construction of more than 2,600 homes in Givat Hamatos, the first new Israeli settlement to be built since 1997.

It lies between two existing settlements: Gilo, home to 40,000 people, sits atop one hill; to its east, on another hill, stands Har Homa, whose population is around 20,000, with further expansion in the pipeline. Both are largely built on Bethlehem land.

Givat Hamatos will form a strategic link between these twin towns, further impeding access between Bethlehem and the intended capital of Palestine, East Jerusalem, just six miles away.
Israel considers these and other settlements across the Green Line to be legitimate suburbs of Jerusalem, which it claims as the unified, indivisible capital of the Jewish state. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and official bodies have announced a spate of expansion plans in recent weeks.

In the birthplace of Jesus, the impact of Israeli settlements and their growth has been devastating. In a Christmas message, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Bethlehem was enduring a "choking reality".

He added: "For the first time in 2,000 years of Christianity in our homeland, the Holy Cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem have been completely separated by Israeli settlements, racist walls and checkpoints."

By the way, when Christianity started in this area, it started in Israel during the existence of the Jewish Temple which is denied by Abu Bluff.

But it's also important to point out that much of the land in question has actually been owned by Jews since long before 1948. Take Gilo, for instance.

The majority of Gilo, however, is built on land legally purchased by Jews prior to 1948. In the 1948 war, Jewish lands in Gilo were captured and confiscated by the Jordanian government. From 1948-67, Jewish landowners did not relinquish ownership to their land in Gilo, and when Israel recaptured the land in the Six-Day War, Gilo was built - not because of war victories, but because of longstanding legal land purchases.

Gilo lies within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and is geographically contiguous to surrounding Jewish neighborhoods that pre-dated the 1967 reunification of the city.

You could never figure that out from reading Harriet Sherwood, could you?

Then there's the inevitable discussion of 'the wall.'

The wall already snakes around most of Bethlehem, its 8m-high concrete slabs casting a deep shadow, both literally and metaphorically. At the Christmas Tree restaurant, where there are almost no takers for the "Quick Lunches" on offer, business has slowed to a standstill since the wall blocked what was once the main Jerusalem-Bethlehem road. Scores of shops along the closed-off artery have shut down altogether.

A few hundred metres along from the empty restaurant, a long steel-caged corridor leading through multiple turnstiles to a checkpoint is the main exit from the city for Palestinians wishing to go to Jerusalem. The Israel Defence Forces issues thousands of extra permits to Christian Palestinians to allow them to visit holy sites in Jerusalem over Christmas, but the lack of routine access has had a dire impact on businesses and employment rates.

The 'wall' (which is really nothing more than a fancy fence in much of the country) is there because it has reduced terror attacks outside it by a huge percentage over the last four years despite the fact that it is not yet complete. The reason it's a wall and not a fence in the Bethlehem area is because 'Palestinian' terrorists used Bethlehem's suburbs to shoot at the Jews of the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo during the early part of this decade, and that in Gilo they also have a wall where the 'Palestinian' gunfire most often hit. It's much easier to shoot through a fence than it is to shoot over a wall, although shooting over a wall is also not impossible. Just go visit Gaza.

But the most vicious libel here is the implicit one that Israel is somehow responsible for the declining Christian population. That's an out-and-out lie.

But it's not Israeli Jews who are causing Christians to leave.

Since assuming control in 1995, Arafat has Islamized Bethlehem by changing the municipal boundaries of Bethlehem and its twin towns Beit Jallah and Beit Sahour. Together, they used to constitute the Christian enclave in Judea and Samaria. Arafat transformed the demography there by incorporating into the town three neighboring refugee camps, Dehaisheh, El-Ayda and El-Azeh. Thus 30,000 Muslims were added to the 65,000 residents in Bethlehem's municipal boundaries. He intensified the Islamization of Bethlehem by adding to its population a few thousand Bedouins of the Ta'amrah tribe, located east of Bethlehem, encouraging Muslim immigration from Hebron to Bethlehem, and inducing Christian emigration/flight away from Bethlehem. The Christian population has been reduced from a 60% majority in 1990 to a 20% minority (23,000) in 2001.

As a result, more Beit Jallah Christians reside in Belize (Central America) than are left in Beit Jallah itself! A similar process has also afflicted the Christians of Ramallah, now down to 20,000.

Aware of what was likely to happen under Arafat, Christian leaders had sought to prevent the transfer of Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority. Between the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords and the 1995 transfer of Bethlehem to the PA, Palestinian Christians lobbied Israel against the transfer. The late Christian mayor, Elias Freij, warned that it would result in Bethlehem becoming a town with churches but no Christians. He urged Israel to include Bethlehem in the boundaries of Greater Jerusalem, which had been the Jordanian practice until 1967. On July 17, 2000, upon realizing that then Prime Minister Barak recklessly proposed to repartition Jerusalem, the leaders of the Greek-Orthodox, Latin, and Armenian Churches sent a letter to Clinton, Barak, and Arafat, demanding to be consulted before such action was undertaken. Barak's proposal triggered a flood of requests for Israeli I.D. cards by East Jerusalem Arabs, who dreaded PA rule with its oppressive track record.

Setting out to "religiously cleanse" Bethlehem, in 1995 Arafat, defying tradition, slapped Christians in the face by appointing a Muslim from Hebron, Muhammed Rashad A-Jabari, as its governor. Arafat fired the Bethlehem city council (nine Christians and two Muslims) replacing them with a council equally balanced between Christians and Muslims. The entire top level of bureaucratic, security and political officials have been cleansed of Christians. The area is run by the local Muslim Fatah leader and his thugs, along with Tanzim gunmen, mostly Ta'amrah Bedouins. The PA has seized control of the Church of the Nativity, and has tightened the pressure on the Greek-Orthodox, Armenian, Latin,, and Franciscan Order in East Jerusalem. The Abraham's Oak Russian Holy Trinity Monastery in Hebron was seized by the PA on July 5, 1997, which then violently evicted its monks and nuns.

In addition, Arafat and the PA embarked on a campaign of physical and psychological intimidation of Christians. During anti-Israel PA rallies the chant is heard: "After we do away with the Saturday People, we shall take care of the Sunday People." Mosques have mushroomed adjacent to--and usually taller than--churches, implementing the tradition of Saladin, who constructed two taller mosques, Al Khanqa and Abdul Malek, contiguous to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The curriculum at church schools has been altered, adding Islamic--and reducing Christian--studies. Loudly magnified Muslim sermons have been aired during Christian services, including the April 2000 address by the Pope in Bethlehem, which had to be recessed until the purposely-loud Muslim sermon was concluded. Abusing Church tradition, the PA has transformed a Greek Orthodox monastery, located next to the Church of Nativity, into Arafat's official residence in Bethlehem.

...

There has been congressional testimony on Arafat's oppression of Christians. According to former Senator Connie Mack (R-FL), "[The Palestinian Christian] was arrested and detained [by the PA] on charges of selling land to Jews. He denied the charge, since he owned no land. He was beaten and hung from the ceiling by his hands for many hours. After two weeks, he was transferred to a larger prison where he was held for eight months without trial... These Christians conveyed to me a message of fear and desperation." (Senate speech, March 3, 2000, www.senate.gov/~mack/issue/statement.htm).

The PA has imported to Gaza, Judea and Samaria in general, and most especially to Bethlehem, its oppressive legacy of Lebanonization. The Christians of Bethlehem, Beit Jallah, Beit Sahour and Ramallah are now undergoing the experiences of Lebanese Christians from 1970 to 1982. They are perceived by the PA--as were Lebanon's Christians--as a potential Fifth Column. Accused of wearing "permissive" Western clothing, Bethlehem Christian women have been intimidated by PA personnel. Rape of Christian women has occurred frequently (especially in Beit Sahour) as was the case in Lebanon. Islamic hostility, disregard for civil liberties and economic jealousy have been harnessed by Arafat and his 20,000 terrorists imported from Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, Jordan, and Lebanon in their campaign against the Christian infidel. Christians who dare oppose PLO oppression are accused of "collaboration" with Israel and face execution.

I think those numbers speak for themselves.

 But then, we've come to expect out and out lies from al-Beeb, haven't we?

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, BBC, Bethlehem, Christians, Christmas, East Jerusalem

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:16 PM 0 comments