Egyptian TV hostess: Suicide bombings okay so long as they only kill Joooz
Greetings from somewhere in Europe where the sun is staring at me through a picture window. No, not the Riviera. Would you believe London-Heathrow? I should be back in Israel later today, God willing.
Here's an Egyptian TV hostess who thinks it's okay to have suicide bombers - so long as they only kill Jews.
Abu Bluff and Egypt's foreign ministry both deny Sinai land offer
It took several hours, but both 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen and Egypt's foreign ministry are denying a story I reported earlier today that has Egypt offering Abu Mazen 1,600 square kilometers of the Sinai for a 'Palestinian state' and Abu Mazen turning down that offer. This is from the next-to-law link.
Israeli statesmen responded favorably to reports of an Egyptian-led
proposal aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the Sinai
Peninsula in order to resolve the issue of refugees.
Earlier in the day, Egypt's Foreign Ministry denied reports of the
initiative, which claimed President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi presented
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with the proposal. The ministry
added that the proposal was actually made in the past by ousted
President Mohammed Morsi.
Al-Tayyib Abd Al-Rahim, Secretary-General of Abbas's office, told the Palestinian Arab Ma'an News Agency that the reports were "fabricated."
Al-Rahim added that Abbas would not accept any alternative to a
"Palestinian state" on the 1949 Armistice lines with eastern Jerusalem
as its capital.
"This news is completely false and the proposal is an old one
suggested by former head of the Israeli National Security Council Giora
Eiland, who suggested to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and parts
of Sinai with autonomy in the West Bank," al-Rahim said.
Abbas's representative further claimed that Egypt shares the PA's
position calling for a "two state solution" based on the 1949 Armistice
lines.
My guess is that Sisi made the offer, Abu Bluff said no, and that the Egyptian foreign ministry is afraid that disclosing the fact that the offer was made will lead to rioting in the streets, and possibly to Egypt being expelled from the Arab League as happened after Camp David. Egypt is extremely anti-Semitic.
Family of Arab honored for saving Jews rejects prize
The family of Mohamed Helmy, an Egyptian doctor who was honored posthumously by Yad VaShem recently for saving Jews during the Holocaust, has turned down the prize, saying that Israel is the one country by which Helmy did not want to be honored.
The Egyptian doctor Mohamed Helmy was honored posthumously last month
by Israel's Holocaust memorial for hiding Jews in Berlin during the
Nazis' genocide, but a family member tracked down by The Associated
Press this week in Cairo said her relatives wouldn't accept the award,
one of Israel's most prestigious.
"If any other country offered to honor Helmy,
we would have been happy with it," Mervat Hassan, the wife of Helmy's
great-nephew, told The Associated Press during an interview at her home
in Cairo this week.
Mohamed Helmy was an Egyptian doctor who lived
in Berlin and hid several Jews during the Holocaust. Last month, he was
honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as "Righteous Among
the Nations" -- the highest honor given to a non-Jew for risking great
personal dangers to rescue Jews from the Nazis' gas chambers.
...
Hassan said the family wasn't
interested in the award from Israel because relations between Egypt and
Israel remain hostile, despite a peace treaty signed more than three
decades ago. But, she cautioned, "I respect Judaism as a religion and I
respect Jews. Islam recognizes Judaism as a heavenly religion."
"Helmy was not picking a certain nationality,
race or religion to help. He treated patients regardless of who they
were," she said.
Dressed in a veil, the 66-year-old woman from
an upscale neighborhood of Cairo was pleased to talk about her husband's
great-uncle. She and her husband, who did not want to give his name to
the AP, say they visited Helmy regularly in Germany.
But this next paragraph is rich....
Helmy was born in 1901 in Khartoum, in what was then
Egypt and is now Sudan, to an Egyptian father and a German mother. He
came to Berlin in 1922 to study medicine and worked as a urologist until
1938, when Germany banned him from the public health system because he
was not considered Aryan, said Martina Voigt, the German historian, who
conducted research on Helmy.
The Arabs loved the Nazis, but at the end of the day, the Nazis had no use for the Arabs.
'Friends don't send their friends' enemies taxpayer-funded F-16's and tanks'
Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Tx) slammed President Obama for abandoning Israel by sending taxpayer-funded F-16's and tanks to the Morsy-Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. The latest shipment went out quietly on Thursday.
“Friends don’t send U.S. taxpayer-funded F-16s and tanks to the enemies of their friends,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert, to Fox News.
He was referring to America’s 2010 billion-dollar foreign aid deal with then-President Hosni Mubarak. The deal called for America to send 20 F-16s to Egypt;
Thursday’s shipment brings to 12 the total that’s been sent. The
remaining eight will be sent before the end of the year, Fox News said.
But critics say the program should have been reevaluated.
President Mohammad Morsi now leads — and his tone is more aggressive against America.
For instance, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed leader attacked Mr. Obama in 2010 for supporting Israel.
“One
American president after another — and most recently, that Obama —
talks about American guarantees for the safety of the Zionists in
Palestine,” Mr. Morsi said in the Fox News report, in reaction to Mr. Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009.
Mr. Morsi has also promoted the teaching of hatred of Jewish people, the Middle East Media Research Institute said.
“Dear
brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on
hatred toward these Zionists and Jews and all those who support him,”
the group reported Mr. Morsi as saying in 2010. “They must be nursed on hatred. The hatred must continue.”
Since taking office last year, Mr. Morsi
has toned down his anti-American rhetoric. But critics say he still
harbors the same expressed 2010 views toward the Jewish community and
that upholding the terms of the aid package with him constitutes an
American betrayal of Israel.
When the history of this era is written, it will be necessary to examine how and why Fox News came to be the only broadcast mainstream media outlet that was able to take a critical view of the Obama administration. The American media is clearly not doing its job.
Voting 79 for and 19 against, the Senate on Jan. 31 tabled (killed)
an attempt to end U.S. military assistance to Egypt in response to
instability there under a Muslim Brotherhood-led government. Offered to
HR 325 (above), the amendment sought, in part, to stop deliveries of
military vehicles such as Abrams tanks and aircraft such as the F-16
fighter jet. Backers said the U.S. should not be propping up a
government openly hostile to America, while opponents said the amendment
would upend U.S.-Egypt relations, harm Israel and worsen chaos in the
Middle East.
But the Republicans have not given up. On Thursday, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Ok), the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced a bill conditionally suspending military sales to Egypt.
"For months, I have been calling on the President and his Administration to delay F-16 deliveries to Egypt," said Inhofe.
"I still am insisting the Administration suspend this transaction to
Egypt. Today there was an effort on the Senate floor to cut off all
sales of military equipment, including future F-16s, to Egypt.
While the intent is understood, the prohibition would cost taxpayers $2.2
billion and would rob the U.S. of leverage to put Egypt on the path
toward true democracy.
"For decades, the U.S. has had a good relationship with Egypt, training
their troops and working together to maintain peace and stability in the
region. Under Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi, this relationship
has come to a halt. We need to continue to support the Egyptian
military, which Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have currently
distanced themselves from. Egypt’s military is our friend – Morsi is our
enemy.
"Today I have introduced a bill to delay any further deliveries of F-16s until
the President certifies to Congress that the Government of Egypt agrees
(1) to continue to uphold its commitments under the Camp David Peace
Accords, (2) to provide proper security at United States embassies and
consulates, (3) to bring stability to its nation by ending its
systematic exclusion and silencing of all official minority political
opposition, and (4) to take concrete steps to engage in dialogue with
such opposition parties and consider a coalition, power-sharing
government with such opposition parties. I believe that won’t happen
until Morsi is gone, and we’ve got to keep this leverage to make this
happen."
Earlier in the week, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) said that he would propose similar legislation.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl) has introduced legislation in the House that goes even further than Inhofe's bill, and last week sought co-sponsors via a Dear Colleague letter.
On Thursday, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) circulated a Dear Colleague letter seeking co-sponsors for H.R.416, a
bill she introduced on January 25. The “Egypt Accountability and
Democracy Promotion Act” would “condition security assistance and
economic assistance to the Government of Egypt.” The letter expressed
concern over Egypt’s turmoil, President Morsi’s “continued civil rights
violations” and anti-Semetic comments, and that “aid could possibly be
used for nefarious intentions.” The act would require “certification
that Egypt is: Not controlled by a foreign terrorist organization,
Transitioning to a free-market democratic government, Adopting and
implementing legal reforms that protect the rights of all citizens,
Fully implementing the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, [and] Destroying the
smuggling network between Egypt and Gaza.”
Representative Ed Whitfield (R-Ky) announced on Thursday that he and several colleagues would send a letter to President Obama and Secretary of State John FN Kerry urging them not to send the F-16's to Egypt.
“In the three years it has taken for the procurement of these aircraft,
Egypt has undergone significant changes in their government, including a
revolution and the installment of a new leader, Mohamed Morsi, a former
leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Given this substantial change in
circumstances, we strongly believe reconsideration of
previously-allocated military assistance to this nation is critical.
Recent
and previous statements by President Morsi indicate a clear hostility
towards non-Muslims in Egypt as well as towards the United States and
her allies—particularly Israel. Specifically, multiple recent reports of
President Morsi’s anti-Semitic and anti-American comments, and of
increased religious persecution and civil rights violations perpetrated
by his government, are cause for great concern. The instability of the
region is also evident from this weekend’s anti-government protests that
resulted in at least 50 deaths and hundreds of injuries. We are also
concerned with news of President Morsi granting emergency powers to the
Egyptian military to arrest Egyptian civilians and serve as a police
force in the country. Thus, the United States should be extremely
cautious in providing any financial support to Egypt—to say nothing of
military weaponry.”
Unfortunately, President Hussein Obama is likely to fight this at least as hard as he fought the Iran sanctions last term....
There is no point in recounting the twists and turns of the editorial
process that led to a poorly expressed and unfair post appearing on the
site. As the editor of the site and the Mead in Via Meadia, the
responsibility for what happened is mine and mine alone. I want to
apologize to David Remnick for a mean spirited jab that was unfair to
him, to our readers and fell short of the standards of fairness,
courtesy and accuracy we try to uphold on the site. This was not a
borderline case; it was wrong and in failing to establish a process that
would prevent this kind of error, I have made a grievous mistake. It’s
particularly galling that this mistake was at the expense of a man
whose brilliant editorial leadership at the New Yorker has set the
standard for American journalism for many years.
I'm not sure what Mead was apologizing for. Mead's main point was that
the MSM misunderstands Israel and sees the Palestinian Israeli conflict
as central to defining Israel. This is central to Remnick's article.
Nothing in his article discusses Abbas's statement implying that it
would be better to die than to give up the right of return. Or Morsi's "apes and pigs"
comment. In addition Remnick throws in a gratuitous reference to
"fascism." Towards the end of the article, he quotes Mkhaimar Abusada, a
political science professor from Al Azhar University in Gaza.
“We are going to witness more settlements, a greater encirclement of
East Jerusalem, and more frustration and despair. Which means we’ll have
one of two scenarios: either meaningless negotiations or, if the
stalemate continues, a new round of violence. And, in the end, violence
is not a possibility—it’s almost a certainty.”
It isn't clear that Abusada is affiliated with Hamas, but his past writings
show that he is an apologist for the terror group. Specifically he
writes that there can't be any peace until Hamas is taken into account.
I don't think that the adjective "shameful" was inappropriate at all.
Bottom line: the underlying strength and maturity of Israel’s
democracy was demonstrated this week. With a region in flames all around
them, Israelis pulled off an election with a high turnout (66.6%),
conducted efficiently and transparently, focusing on a substantive
discussion of the key issues facing the country, but largely devoid of
deep division and rancor. The results indicate that a large, sane,
pragmatic center is the core presence in Israeli political life. It is
to be hoped that the government that emerges from the coalition
negotiations will reflect this reality.
The White House called for Mr. Morsi to make clear that he respects
members of all faiths and said the videotaped remarks run counter to the
goal of peace. President Obama should also deliver that message to
President Morsi directly.
The State Department was indignant:
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland would not say if
Washington is demanding that Morsi personally repudiate the remarks, but
she made clear the U.S. needs to see more than the statement from his
office to be convinced he no longer holds to the earlier views.
An attempt to explain himself to a group of visiting U.S. senators made matters worse.
Then Morsy crossed a line and made a comment that made the senators physically recoil in their chairs in shock, Coons said.
"He was attempting to explain himself ... then he said, ‘Well, I think
we all know that the media in the United States has made a big deal of
this and we know the media of the United States is controlled by certain
forces and they don't view me favorably,'" Coons said.
The Cable asked Coons if Morsy specifically named the Jews as the forces
that control the American media. Coons said all the senators believed
the implication was obvious.
But one of those Senators, John McCain, though he was offended, still thinks that unconditional aid to Egypt is a good idea.
McCain said the delegation voiced its disapproval and had a “constructive discussion” with Morsi.
“We leave it to the president to make any further comments on this matter that he may wish,” the Arizona Republican said.
The delegation clearly sought to move beyond the unexpected diplomatic
flap to focus on Egypt’s economy. McCain told reporters the
congressional delegation will push for an additional $480 million in
budget assistance to Egypt.
Rand Paul: “Do you think it’s wise to send [Egypt] F-16s and Abrams tanks?”
Kerry: “I think those [antisemitic] comments are reprehensible, and
those comments set back the possibilities of working toward issues of
mutual interest. They are degrading comments, unacceptable by anybody’s
standard, and I think they have to appropriately be apologized for….””
Kerry, of course, isn’t answering the question. He is detaching the
remarks from Muslim Brotherhood ideology and from U.S. policy. This is
meaningless rhetoric on his part. It does, however, raise the intriguing
problem of what Kerry would do since President Mursi isn’t going to
apologize. That would have been a good question. Of course, he would do
nothing.
Rand Paul [cutting Kerry off]: “If we keep sending them weapons, it’s not gonna change their behavior.”
Here is the essential question and the one that Kerry doesn’t want to
answer. What reason is there to believe that the U.S. supply of arms
would change the Brotherhood government’s policies? Rather than moderate
its policy wouldn’t these arms merely enable the regime to follow a
more radical position, and who would these arms be used against?
Kerry: “Let me finish. President Mursi has issued two statements to
clarify those comments, and we had a group of senators who met with him
just the other day who spent a good part of their conversation in a
relatively heated discussion with him about it….”
Yes, Mursi issued two statements but they were not to take back his
prior words but only to double down on them since he asserted that the
statements had been taken out of context by the Zionist-controlled
media. The man isn’t misspeaking. He’s just saying what he believes.
Kerry and Obama refuse to recognize that he believes these things.
Whatever one thinks of Naftali Bennett, at most he will be a junior
partner in the ruling coalition in Israel. Mohammed Morsi is the
President of Egypt with deeply held beliefs that inform his views that
are hostile to American interests. Yet, to the mainstream media, who
presents a greater threat to peace in the Middle East?
Obama's buddy Mohammed Morsy to Senators: 'Jews control US media'
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy, President Obama's best friend in the Middle East after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told seven US Senators (John McCain (R-AZ), Chris Coons (D-DE), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Kirsten Gilibrand (D-NY)) last week that the American media is controlled by Jews.
But inside the meeting, the discussion
over Morsy's 2010 remarks was much more heated than either side publicly acknowledged
afterwards, according to Coons. Addressing the comments was the first item on
the senators' agenda, and the discussion did not go well, he told The Cable in an interview.
"We tried to give President Morsy an
opportunity, now that he is the president, to put his comments in a different
context because he was claiming that he was taken out of context. On their face
they seemed to be very offensive and inappropriate," Coons said. "It was a
difficult conversation."
Morsy told the senators that the values
of Islam teach respect for Christianity and Judaism, and he asserted repeatedly
that he had no negative views about Judaism or the Jewish people, but then
followed with a diatribe about Israel and Zionist actions against Palestinians,
especially in Gaza.
Then Morsy crossed a line and made a
comment that made the senators physically recoil in their chairs in shock,
Coons said.
"He was attempting to explain himself ...
then he said, ‘Well, I think we all know that the media in the United States
has made a big deal of this and we know the media of the United States is
controlled by certain forces and they don't view me favorably,'" Coons said.
The
Cable asked Coons if Morsy specifically named the Jews as the forces that
control the American media. Coons said all the senators believed the
implication was obvious.
"He did not say [the Jews], but I
watched as the other senators physically recoiled, as did I," he said. "I
thought it was impossible to draw any other conclusion."
"The meeting then took a very sharply
negative turn for some time. It really threatened to cause the entire meeting
to come apart so that we could not continue," Coons said.
Multiple senators impressed upon Morsy that
if he was saying the criticisms of his comments were due to the Jews in the
media, that statement was potentially even more offensive than his original
comments from 2010.
"[Morsi] did not say the Jewish
community was making a big deal of this, but he said something [to the effect] that
the only conclusion you could read was that he was implying it," Coons said. "The
conversation got so heated that eventually Senator McCain said to the group, ‘OK,
we've pressed him as hard as we can while being in the boundaries of
diplomacy,'" Coons said. "We then went on to discuss a whole range of other
topics."
Irony alert: In the US elections, the 'Jewish-controlled' American media was in the back pocket of Morsy's good friend Hussein Obama, who continues to shower Egypt with expensive gifts. So do the Jews control the media or does Obama control the Jews? And if Obama controls the Jews, why would the media they control be attacking poor Mohammed Morsy? Hmmm.
Once again, this time in Berlin, where are the police?
A group of self-proclaimed BDS'ers, including at least one Israeli, disrupted a free concerted by an Israeli choral group in Berlin on Saturday night.
But where were the police? There are one or two people in the video below who appear to be security guards of some sort, but all they seem to be doing is to be shielding the 'protesters' from the audience's wrath.
Let's go to the videotape.
You can see the full story of what happened and how here. But for those who don't click through, I'd like you to at least understand that this is not about Judea and Samaria.
According to a
notice on the German- language website of the Israeli Embassy, Gevatron waved
the entrance fees and said that any donations would be used to help plant trees
on Mount Carmel following the devastating fires in 2010. The choir event was
held in a Berlin church.
In an email to the Post on Saturday, Alex
Feuerherdt, a German journalist who writes extensively about anti-Israel
activity in the Federal Republic, wrote: “The anti- Semitic character of the
‘protest’ was made clear through two points.” First, he cited the slogan “From
the river to the sea: Palestine will be free,” which “can only mean ‘free from
Jews.’” Feuerherdt said the second sign the action contained “modern anti-
Semitism” involved the protesters’ defamation of the Jewish National Fund, the
sponsor of the choir group, as “one of the oldest and effective instruments of
Zionist Apartheid and repression in Palestine.”
He said the comparison
between Israel and the [former South African] Apartheid system aimed to
delegitimize and demonize Israel and was a method that characterized
contemporary anti- Semitism.
Feuerherdt added that the “very aggressive
action of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] activists deals in no way
with peace or the well-being of the Palestinians; rather, the destruction of
Israel.”
Meanwhile, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the head of the
Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, told the Post on Monday, “The uncivil disruption of
an Israeli cultural event is another example of the penetration of anti- Israel
political warfare in Berlin, which was also reflected in sponsorship by the
Willy Brandt Haus of an NGO exhibit falsely accusing Israeli forces of ‘war
crimes.’ And instead of naming and shaming the promoters of this modern form of
anti- Semitism, Berlin’s (anti-)Jewish Museum joined the attack by hosting BDS
campaigner Judith Butler.
In this atmosphere, Berlin’s leaders have a
moral obligation to act clearly and strongly to condemn all manifestations of
such immoral behavior.”
Willy Brandt Haus is the headquarters of
Germany’s Social Democratic Party.
At the very least, it is time for those who represent Israeli culture abroad to take Israeli security guards with them as protection. The local police in many cities, particularly in Europe, have shown themselves to be unreliable.
In the anti-Semitic 'new Egypt,' even the President won't say 'Israel'
In the 'new Egypt,' the anti-Semitism runs as deep as in the old one. Even the President won't say 'Israel.'
From the Egyptian perspective, Lieberman's invitation will be perceived as a provocation. Morsi’s reluctance to say the word "Israel" points to a deeply ingrained anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiment that is widespread in Egyptian society; were he to appear to have a reasonable stance towards the Jewish state, his popularity at home would have plummeted. This is the case throughout much of the Muslim world. In this context, Lieberman’s apparent olive branch will be seen as nothing short of inflammatory.
Last month, Shimon Peres, Israel’s president, received a letter, in English, signed by President Morsi, stating that he was “looking forward to exerting our best efforts to get the Middle East Peace Process back to its right track in order to achieve security and stability for all peoples of the region, including Israeli people.” This was a response to a letter sent by Peres conveying Israel’s best wishes for the month of Ramadan.
However, when reports of Morsi’s conciliatory letter emerged, the Egyptian president's office felt compelled to deny its authenticity. “This is totally untrue,” said Yasser Ali, a spokesman, adding that the letter was a “fabrication” by two Israeli newspapers. Which was odd, considering that it had been released by the president’s Jerusalem office as an official communiqué from the Egyptian ambassador, sent by registered post and backed up by fax.
That a letter such as this – which was not even instigating goodwill but echoing it – should provoke such vehement denials from Mohammed Morsi underscores the strength of anti-Israeli prejudice in Egypt.
Falistian was with her boyfriend that night, she recounted Tuesday. Her parents, both of them in their seventies, would be celebrating the holiday at the Park Hotel. At midnight, her boyfriend turned on the television and heard the news. She rushed to local hospitals but did not find her parents. At 5a.m. she was called to identify them at the Tel Aviv morgue. Falistian spoke of her struggles in the years since. She credited an Israeli organization, One Family, which assists terror victims and organized the hotel memorial, with helping her regain her bearings.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made four critical decisions during the second intifada. In three cases, he set his ideology aside and ignored his basic instincts. He decided to build a separation fence, which significantly reduced suicide bombings in Israel; he did not assassinate Yasser Arafat (it will be a surprise if this is ever proved otherwise; Sharon’s uncharacteristic restraint in this matter averted a rift with the Bush administration); and he led the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which drew broad international backing for Israel. And then there was Sharon’s most important decision: Exactly 10 years ago, at the end of March 2002 and following months of hesitation, he sent Israeli troops into the dense casbahs of the West Bank cities and the narrow alleys of the refugee camps. Some of the methods were brutal, but Operation Defensive Shield suppressed Palestinian terrorism, including Hamas and Fatah’s deadly suicide bombings. Though its impact was not fully apparent until three years later, the operation restored normalcy on both sides of the Green Line. Even though the second intifada claimed seven times as many Israeli lives as the Second Lebanon War, most Israelis seem to have erased it from their memory.
Toward the end of the article, the reporters make a very important point:
West Bank Palestinians are indeed better off now than they were at the height of the intifada and compared with their counterparts in the Gaza Strip. But the relative economic stability is no guarantee against a new flare-up. There is growing frustration in the West Bank, in part due to Israeli indifference.
Any progress reported about the Palestinian usually fails to acknowledge this. During the early years of the Oslo Accords, Arafat built a "suicide factory" in the areas under his control. It took Defensive Shield to destroy that infrastructure. Israel was condemned for a phony massacre in Jenin and "disproportionate force" generally, and for building a security barrier. Ignored in all the condemnations is why Israel had to do all that to restore normalcy to its citizens. But as Harel and Issacheroff note, Defensive Shield benefited the Palestinians too. The pessimistic note the reporters strike is unfortunate. It is probably due more to the feckless leadership of the Palestinians than anything Israel has done or could do.
His greatest passions were Torah and Israel, and he combined the two by studying for the rabbinate in the Merkaz Harav Kook yeshiva. He came to Israel after high school graduation, and never returned to America. He married a girl from kibbutz - a second-generation survivor who wanted to help repopulate a Jewish people decimated by the Holocaust - and they had nine children. Shmuel was their third. ... At the shiva last week, Iky told of a coincidence, or unis as we all call it, that so often occurs in our small world. Iky was a counselor at Bnei Akiva's summer seminar program for 12th graders in Pennsylvania, where one of the participants was Rina Tolchinsky. Iky had a major influence on Rina, and would later help her to make aliya. Her son, Matanya Robinson, served in the same unit as Shmuel. On Monday, Matanya was mortally wounded in Jenin. Shmuel, a medic, rushed to his side to try to save him, and it was there that the two of them were killed in a spray of bullets.
2) The international IDF
Back in 2003, Israel inducted its first Eskimo into the IDF:
Tomorrow morning, Meir and Dafna Ben Sira, residents of the village of Nir Etzion south of Haifa, will take their oldest daughter Eva to an induction center and, like all the other proud parents, will watch her get on the bus to commence two years of army service. Eva is headed for a squad commanders' course, somewhere in the south. The Ben Siras realize that, during her service, Eva is in for some astonished questioning; after all, the smiling, quiet young woman with the long black hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes looks a little different from the average Israeli female conscript. Eva was born in Alaska to a Yupik Eskimo mother and a Cherokee Native American father. A check of the archives of the army's Bamahane magazine, which for years has tried to track soldiers who come to Israel from remote places, indicates that she is evidently the Israel Defense Forces' first Eskimo soldier.
One of these soldiers is Vun Zon, a new recruit who came to Israel all the way from China. Zon arrived to Israel in 2007, after finding out his grandfather was half-Jewish. When asked about Zon, his commanders spoke with great admiration. “To tell you the truth, it’s the first time we ever commanded a Chinese soldier, and it was definitely a great experience,” said one commander. “His joy of life and sheer happiness is unlike anything we had ever seen in a soldier. He understands Hebrew perfectly now, and has really made big progress integrating into Israeli society.”
3) Maikel Nabil Sanad Maikel Nabil Sanad is among the "Facebook" revolutionaries in Egypt. Though he's been jailed for his activities, he gets less attention that others - I suspect because he's unapologetically pro-Israel. Jackson Diehl had a great profile of Sanad yesterday:
For writing this, Nabil was arrested, hauled before a special military court and summarily sentenced to three years in prison, for “insulting the armed forces.” At first, few Egyptians supported him: Like the Obama administration, they believed that the Supreme Military Council that replaced Mubarak was committed to establishing a democracy and yielding to civilians. Moreover, Nabil was an outlier, even among Egypt’s secular democrats. He is not just of Coptic Christian origin but an avowed atheist; not just anti-military, but a conscientious objector who refused to serve; not just pro-Western, but pro-Israel — a stance than almost no one in Egypt dares to espouse. “There are still 20 beliefs in Egypt that are considered crimes,” Nabil told me. When I asked how many of them he held, he grinned: “Probably the majority of them.”
Politically, you and I have much in common, as we both lie firmly on Israel's left. (In the religious-Zionist circles in which I run, that makes me a bit of an oddball.) I, like you, have significant moral and political misgivings about the occupation, which we both understand to be an existential threat to Israel's status as a Jewish and democratic state. I agree that American and Israeli Zionism require some important new conversations that will expand the range of what is currently being said. More, I thought it important for Zionists to hear directly from Palestinians in more robust ways than television sound bites allow. But Open Zion quickly staked out its territory in the troubling location where left-wing Zionism drifts into post-Zionism which drifts into anti-Zionism. Perhaps that is the wave of the future—the result, as you suggest, of young American Jews' discovering real or imagined contradictions between liberalism and Zionism. You offered that generation an opportunity to debate the questions concerning them: Must we leave Zionism completely, or can we remain ambivalent Zionists even today? Should we boycott some, all, or none of Israel? But if those are the questions of central concern to tomorrow's leadership, the Jewish people is in significant self-induced trouble. If those are the questions of great concern to today's young Jews, I can only stake my own territory elsewhere.
In related news, despite the media blitz Beinart's "The Crisis of Zionism" still has not achieved the status Beinart likely hoped for.
Egyptian Presidential Candidate Tawfiq Okasha: Egyptian Army will open fire on its 'enemies' – the US, Germany and Israel – within three months
Isn't this guy just the perfect President for Egypt? Egyptian Presidential Candidate Tawfiq Okasha says that the Egyptian Army will open fire on its 'enemies' – the US, Germany and Israel – within three months. As a bonus he tells us that but for the Holocaust, the Jews would have annihilated Germany (in other words, the Holocaust was 'self-defense' by the Germans).
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Will).
Aren't you glad we forced Mubarak out? What could go wrong?
When the Israeli embassy in Cairo was attacked last month, many people likened the attack to the attack on the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. But Samuel Tadros writes that this attack was different. The attack in Tehran was carried out by Islamists. The Islamists were not involved in the attack in Cairo. The Cairo attack was carried out by many different secular groups in Egypt that agree on one thing: They want another Holocaust to kill Jews. There's a link in the middle of this article to a YouTube video - I'm embedding the video below, because I watched it and found it deeply disturbing.
Islamists pose a real threat to freedom, but they are hardly the only ones. Populist demagogues are no less dangerous, neither is the odd mixture of demonstrators made up of a mix of Trotskyites, anarchists, and Nasserites. These groups have no real commitment to freedom, and they are obviously no less anti-Semitic than the Islamists. The fact is that anti-Semitism is the daily bread of Egyptian politics.
Perhaps nothing captures this grim image better than the phrase, "One Nation for New Holocaust," which was displayed on a huge banner held by thousands of hardcore soccer fans, known as the Ultras, as seen in a YouTube video bearing the same title. Despite being completely apolitical, the Ultras were at the forefront of the embassy attack, perhaps in retaliation for police violence in a recent game, flying Egyptian flags with a swastika in place of the Eagle of Saladin. Referring to Egypt’s agreement to sell natural gas to Israel, the demonstrators chanted, "We will export no gas, we shall burn you with gasoline" (it rhymes in Arabic).
Thankfully, the attack did not end with the same result as the one in 1979, and none of the embassy staff was hurt or taken hostage, but it points out to a larger problem, one that is becoming hard to ignore.
The attack on the Israeli embassy is yet another manifestation of the decline of U.S. power and influence in the region. Perhaps Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sincere in thanking President Obama for using "all the means and influence of the U.S." to bring the situation at the embassy to a peaceful conclusion. Still, it is not clear what it means if it takes the U.S. secretary of defense two hours to reach his Egyptian counterpart on the phone.
The U.S. has helped bring down the regional order it has so tirelessly built for years and has not provided an alternative order. The result has been a worsening of relations between pillars of U.S. policy and a volatile situation that might well lead to regional conflict. The fact that regional leaders seem to have no appetite for war is not a consolation. Neither did Nasser in 1967, yet he still found himself driven to war by inter-Arab dynamics. While the names of the players have changed, with the Qatari Al Jazeera replacing Cairo Radio, those dynamics are still in play today. Politics in the region continues to be shaped by an Arab Cold War that is perhaps more dangerous with the proliferation of non-state actors such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda.
Meanwhile in Egypt, 'Israel has vastly surpassed Hitler's deeds'
An Egyptian weekly has published a virulently anti-Semitic article with blood libels against every Israeli leader from Ben Gurion through Netanyahu.
In its August 28, 2011 issue, the Egyptian weekly October published on its front page an article titled "The New Nazis: The Black Record of the Israeli Generals," by 'Ibrahim 'Abd Al-Ghani, which contains virulent incitement against Israel and Israelis. The article states that all Israel's leaders, from Ben Gurion to Netanyahu, have been filled with a murderous hatred for Arabs instilled in them from youth, and have surpassed the Nazi regime in their cruelty and massacres. It is riddled with historical errors and inaccuracies, and is accompanied by an image of Netanyahu as Hitler giving the Nazi salute (see below [top left. CiJ]).
It should be noted that although it cites statements by Holocaust denier Dr. Rif'at Sayyed Ahmad, the article does not focus on antisemitism or on Holocaust denial; rather, its main theme is demonization of Israel by attributing Nazi characteristics to it and by accusing it of emulating and even surpassing Hitler's regime.
John Rosenthal makes a convincing case in refuting the notion that it was deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who was behind Egyptian anti-Semitism. Rosenthal argues that it was precisely the elements of the media that fueled the Egyptian uprising who have been behind the Jew-hatred that is rampant in Egypt.
As I showed in two previous PJM reports (see here and here), the evidence of anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israeli sentiment among the anti-Mubarak protests was extensive. Moreover, the evidence reveals not only the protestors’ hostility to Israel and/or Jews as such, but also that this hostility was inseparable from their opposition to Mubarak. Hence, the numerous portraits of Mubarak with a Star of David scrawled on his face or forehead. Arabic speakers have confirmed to me that many of the signs carried by protestors identified Mubarak as an Israeli “agent” or “spy.”
As such evidence began trickling out, a common response among supporters of the “revolution” was to suggest that the pro-Mubarak forces were also employing anti-Semitic insults against the protestors and/or foreign journalists. Such claims were typically unsupported by any evidence at all, let alone the mass of evidence revealing the anti-Semitic/“anti-Zionist” current among the protestors themselves. The ultimate source for the claims appears to have been Al Jazeera.
There is also, however, a more sophisticated variant of the same sort of argument. According to this variant, Mubarak has fallen victim to a kind of “boomerang effect.” He had himself been responsible for fomenting the widespread anti-Semitism in Egyptian society, and hence if he had now become the principal target of this anti-Semitism, he was merely reaping what he had sowed.
Now, there has been some evidence offered in support of the latter charge. Such evidence was gathered, notably, in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Max Boot titled “Hosni Mubarak, Troublesome Ally.” Boot accuses Mubarak of “turning a blind eye to the rabid anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism that polluted Egypt’s state-controlled news media and mosques,” and he cites several examples culled from the Middle East media watchdog group MEMRI.
The problem, however, is that the evidence adduced by Boot is weak and highly ambiguous. Indeed, some of the supposedly “state-controlled media” from which the examples derive are not state-controlled at all. They are private media. More to the point, not only are they private media, but they are private media that are associated precisely with the opposition that brought down Mubarak.
But perhaps the best evidence of the anti-Semitism of the Egyptian revolution is - as I pointed out in an earlier post - the fact that every Egyptian leadership candidate who is not affiliated with the Mubarak government or the military has come out in favor of some form of abrogating the Camp David treaty. You can be assured that they don't plan to give back the Sinai either.
Read the whole thing. For those of you who have not seen it, the Wael Ghonim interview that he discusses at the end is here.
Will you be annulling our peace treaty? Do you too intend to keep blaming us for all your country’s failures? Will you join forces with the Muslim Brotherhood in order to build yet another struggling Mideast state of woman-haters, democracy-haters, and Jew haters? Or perhaps I need to first ask you another question: What is your definition of an intellectual?
I do not expect you for a moment to agree with our policy towards the Palestinians; often I don’t agree with it either. However, intellectuals are people who are able to answer the question of “who am I?” not only through the question of “who am I against?” Intellectuals know how to answer the question “what God do I believe in?” not only through the question of “what God do I abhor?” Intellectuals can also answer the question of “what flag do I wave?” without having to answer the question of “what flag do I burn.”
Egypt has existed for more than 5,000 years now, you invented geometry, astronomy and paper, and you are an ancient, proud people that is responsible for its own fate. Nobody except you is responsible for what happened to you. Nobody except you is responsible for what is yet to come. I read the hateful publications in your newspapers, the calls for boycott, the clearly anti-Semitic statements, and instead of getting mad I ask myself: How is it that the claim that we’re to blame for all your troubles doesn’t insult you?
...
You are an educated person, my friend, you read all the great works, ranging from Rousseau’s On the Social Contract to Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, and you know just like I do – or even better than me – that hatred is the pathetic, dangerous comfort of those who do not love themselves. Look inside you for a moment, take a good, deep look, and tell me: Is Israel truly the source of all of Egypt’s troubles? Don’t you know, deep in your heart, that this is a ridiculous claim?
Does Israel prevent young Egyptians from finding honest work offering decent pay? Did we prompt your officials to plunder the public coffers? Did we forge your election results? Did we prevent you from building a public healthcare system? And what about an education system? Modern agriculture? Developed industry? And even if we wanted to do all that, do you really think we’d be able to? Believe me, my friend, we’re not that talented. We too have our own troubles, our own poor people, and even our own bullets, which murder leaders who dare dream.
Intellectuals are people who manage the world in their head. They look at life and try to see some kind of truth, and if they cannot find it, they attempt to create it. You have an opportunity to rebuild your country, but do you wish to premise it on truth, or on a wicked, pathetic lie that will doom you to another 100 years of anger?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
