To be honest with you, I try to ignore people on Twitter who don't have a lot of followers. Normally, it's not worth the time or the exposure I give them to respond to them. But this one has gone too far.
I'd like to introduce you to one @JamesMArcher. Here's his bio - a panoply of causes of the extreme Left, with the Democratic party being too far to the right for him.
He seems to use this picture fairly regularly - it's not the only time it's in his timeline.
There's just one small problem. Like so many other symbols of the Left, the picture is a fake.
The Israeli boy in the yarmulke is Zvi Shapiro, the son of two
secular American-Israelis. The Palestinian boy is Zemer Aloni, an
Israeli Jew. The only real aspect of the photo is that the boys were
indeed friends and that the picture was taken in their Jerusalem
neighborhood of Abu Tor,
which straddles the 1949 armistice line and contains both a Jewish and
an Arab section. The boys grew up on the Jewish side of the
neighborhood, and while they both recall interactions with Palestinians,
neither counted close friends on the other side of the line.
The picture was taken by Ricki Rosen,
an American photojournalist who has been covering the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict for 26 years. Rosen snapped the photo on
assignment for Maclean’s, the national news magazine of Canada, for a
cover story about the Oslo Peace Accords. Rosen said that the magazine’s
art director was so specific in what he wanted that he even drew her a
picture — one boy in a yarmulke, the other in a keffiyeh shot from the
back walking down a long road, which was supposed to symbolize the road
to peace. He didn’t care whether the boys were actually Israelis or
Palestinians, nor did it occur to him that the Palestinian’s keffiyeh
would be styled in a way more typical for elderly Palestinian men than
for young boys.
“It was a symbolic illustration,” said Rosen. “It was
never supposed to be a documentary photo.” She also took other
real-life photos for the same article.
For the Hebrew-impaired, the dog is relieving himself on a campaign sign that says "Left is Meretz." Meretz is one of our extreme Leftist political parties. From here.
German Left party official taking legal action to get herself off list of anti-Semites
German Left party official Claudia Haydt is bringing a lawsuit to force the Simon Wiesenthal Center to remove her from a list of anti-Semites.
In a December 30 email obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post,
Hadyt, who is a member of the Left Party’s executive board, writes, “I
am at the moment initiating legal action against whose have started the
slanderous rumors about my so called ‘involvement’ in ‘Toiletgate,’
but I hope that this will not be necessary in your case.”
The
Toiletgate incident is a reference to an anti-Semitic scandal that
engulfed the German Left Party in November. According to the Wiesenthal
list, Haydt – along with the German Left MPs Annette Groth, Inge
Höger, and Heike Hänsel – played a key role in inviting and organizing
an event with two fringe anti-Israel extremists. The two extremists
chased the party’s fraction leader in the Bundestag, Gregor Gysi, into a
parliamentary bathroom while yelling at him as he sought to protect
himself from apparently pending bodily harm and verbal abuse.
Haydt
is an employee in Höger’s office. She said her job is to cover “German
military policies.” The subject of the email read “urgent. please
change mistakes. top ten.” Höger and Groth were on the Turkish vessel
Marvi Marmara,which sought to break Israel’s legal blockade of the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in 2010.
In Haydt’s email, which was
filled with examples of broken English, she wrote “I was only involved
in the unbearable scene in front of Gregors Gysis office after I was
asked for help to escort the Journalist and other guest to the exits of
the Bundestag. I can nor see that this merits the label
‘Antisemitism.”’ Haydt refused to answer multiple Post emails and
telephone press queries. An employee in Höger’s office told the Post
she would not comment. She denied in her email inviting the anti-Israeli
radicals.
It is unclear whether Haydt plans to file a lawsuit
against other Left Party members and politicians. In November, some
leading Left Party MPs, regional politicians and members launched a
petition entitled, “You don’t speak in our name,” calling for Groth,
Höger, Hänsel, and Haydt to be disciplined for enabling the two
anti-Zionist assailants – a Canadian-Israeli and an American – to
confront Gysi.
I couldn't view this on the plane last night (airline WiFi doesn't allow streaming video), and I wasn't able to post either from London (way too little time) or on the plane back from there (British Airways doesn't hold from WiFi and besides - the flight was so cramped I barely had room for my knees, let alone to open a laptop).
But watch this video. Someone shows an ISIS flag to students at Berserkeley and that doesn't get them too excited. Watch what does.
In a live interview broadcast this morning on Israel Radio Reshet Bet, Roni
Keidar, resident of Netiv HaAsara, a moshav that borders on the northern
edge of the Gaza Strip and has been subject to intensive attacks, explained
that Israel should give the Palestinians what they want.
Keidar, who is a member of Other Voice, gave as her proof that Israel
should follow her policy recommendation the fact that she engages in
dialogue with a woman in Gaza in English who also seeks peace. Keidar even
meets this woman periodically when she accompanies a relative to Israel for
monthly medical treatment.
"The two sides each have to share rather than take the position that
everything is theirs." Keidar noted.
Keidar, who was being interviewed from Eilat where she was taking a break
from the ongoing attacks on her home from Gaza, explained that while she is
free to express her views in Israel, her Palestinian friend has to keep her
views about peace and reconciliation to herself as it would be "life
threatening" for her Palestinian friend if her Palestinian friend's
neighbors were to find out her views.
The reporter declined to ask Keidar to address the disconnect between her
policy recommendation that Israel give the Palestinians what they want with
her belief that Palestinian society would murder an innocent Palestinian
only because they advocate peace and reconciliation with Israel.
And you were wondering how anyone in the Gaza envelope could be a Leftist....
It is difficult for the Western liberal to observe the new Middle
East. His worldview is based on criticizing the West and granting
sweeping amnesty to those who are seen as its victims. This liberal’s
code of values forbids him to define Third World evil as such. So he
demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, but kept silent in the face of
the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. He opposed the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, but kept silent in the face of the oppression in Iran.
This
is why he hastens to denounce Israel, while displaying leniency toward
Hamas’ fascism. The Western liberal knows how to rise up against Western
exertion of force and likes doing so. But at the sight of Arabs
slaughtering Arabs, he is lost. Whom will he rage against? Whom can he
demonstrate against? At whom will he feel holy fury?
...
The new Middle East is now raising penetrating questions that must
generate an upheaval in liberal thought. Liberals can no longer ignore
the awful plague of Middle Eastern brutality and the fact that millions
of Arabs live with no rights and no future.
While voicing
justified criticism against Israel (for the occupation, settlements,
racist fringes), they must lift their eyes and see the expanse in which
Israel is located. An expanse in which Yazidis are massacred and
Christians are persecuted and women are stoned. An expanse in which
there is no democracy, or peace, or grace. This is a Middle East that
liberals must see as it is – and deal with its diseases courageously.
Pigs fly: Haaretz says Netanyahu was right about Iran all along
Incredible. In an editorial by Nehemia Shtrasler, Haaretz admits that Prime Minister Netanyahu was right about Iran all along.
It’s inconvenient, even embarrassing, but we must admit that Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right. He was the main, perhaps the only,
force behind putting Iran’s nuclear program on the global agenda. Were
it not for him, Europe’s leaders and U.S. President Barack Obama would
have closed their eyes, tsk-tsked - and awakened one morning to a
nuclear Iran.
In our cynical world there is neither justice nor
honesty, only power and vested interests. Israel was the only country
Iran threatened to destroy. The Europeans and the Americans believed the
nuclear threat would only get as far as Israel, at most, and they could
live with that - quite well, even.
Someone had to wake up the West, to frighten them into realizing that
they could be next after Israel, that the Iranian threat was serious.
That’s what Netanyahu did. Without his pressure, there would have never
been tough sanctions, sanctions that led to economic collapse, the steep
devaluation of the Iranian rial and crippling inflation that reduces
the value of workers’ salaries by the day. As a result, there are long
lines at the banks, where Iranians wait in a desperate attempt to
exchange rials for gold and dollars.
This economic stranglehold has led to chronic domestic unrest that poses
a real threat to the Ayatollahs’ regime. That is why President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad was replaced by President Hassan Rohani, who indeed has
changed tack. The purpose of his “charm offensive” in the West is to
achieve the critical goal of ending the sanctions.
...
So it is ridiculous for commentators to now say that Netanyahu should
stop threatening and start should supporting Obama’s diplomatic efforts.
That’s for The New York Times, from its safe home, to say. But the
truth is that now is precisely the time to turn up the pressure on Iran,
to get it to pivot from words to deeds. For 20 years now Tehran has
been playing the West for a fool, promising to permit inspections while
enriching uranium, talking about civilian energy needs while developing
detonators and missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. The sanctions
must not be relaxed, even slightly. Instead, Iran must be forced to
relinquish all of its nuclear-bomb manufacturing capacity. Only
afterward can it receive a full complete “Marshall Plan” from the United
States.
The world must not fall into the North Korean trap. In 2005, the entire
world applauded the U.S. diplomatic coup of obtaining North Korea’s
promise to suspend its nuclear program in exchange for avoiding
sanctions. But not a single centrifuge was dismantled, not one nuclear
reactor was shuttered. Washington settled for a goodwill agreement and
international monitoring that became a joke. Within 18 months after the
agreement was signed, North Korea exploded its first nuclear bomb.
Incredible. Most of that editorial could have appeared in Yisrael Hayom....
Rabbi who was fired for speaking out against 'Rabin's legacy' to receive NIS 400,000 in compensation
A rabbi who was fired by the Education Ministry for criticizing 'Rabin'slegacy' will be compensated to the tune of NIS 400,000 (a bit more than $100,000) under a court ruling issued on Thursday (link in Hebrew - English summary below).
Rabbi Yisrael Shiran, who was fired by the Education Ministry for speaking out against 'Rabin's legacy' will receive NIS 400,000 in compensation according to a ruling on Thursday by the Jerusalem District Court.
The story started in 2000, when the rabbi published an article speaking out against schools conducting memorial services for Rabin and being forced to conduct special sessions on 'Rabin's legacy.' Then-Minister Yuli Tamir suspended him from the school for which he worked.
The decision was made depsite a declaration by the parents' committee that they wanted Rabbi Shiran to remain with the school.
Shiran appealed the suspension and returned to the school, but he left in 2002 after an argument with the school's administration.
In 2007, the parents' committee signed another agreement with Shiran, but the Education Ministry nixed the agreement, saying that in light of its previous experience with Shiran as a homeroom teacher, they were not willing to have the school employ him as a rabbi.
Shiran then appealed to the court again, and today was granted NIS 400,000 in compensation.
On his Facebook page, Shiran thanked God and all those who supported him.
I'm amazed he was allowed to return to the school in 2002....
'Peace partner' refuses to condemn terrorist murder
How can anyone consider the 'Palestinian Authority' a legitimate partner for peace?
Razi Barkai keeps asking a Palestinian official on @galey_zahal 2 condemn murder of IDF soldier, and he keeps avoiding it #disgusting#JPost
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) September 23, 2013
For the record, Razi Barkai is probably as Leftist as the media gets in this country (and they get very far Left), and was probably shocked by the 'Palestinian' official's behavior.
The Palestinian Authority, under Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to
condemn the murder of Gavriel Kobe, which took place in Hevron yesterday
(Sunday).
Following the murder, PA Foreign Minister Riyad
al-Maliki stated that "this is no reason to walk away from the peace
talks in any way," according to a report by Israel Radio. Al-Maliki
communicated this statement, but would not condemn the murder.
He
was also asked about the second batch of security prisoners being held
in Israeli prisons who were about to be released. "The agreement upon
this issue is clear and binding on both sides," he replied.
If you need a data point about how far Left the JPost has gotten since Steve Linde took over for David Horovitz, you now have one. In a story about the biggest snowstorm since 1992, the JPost has reported on the snow in 'Palestine.'
At least 17 people have died in the winter storm in Lebanon, Jordan,
Turkey, Israel and Palestine. Meteorological agencies in Israel and
Lebanon both called it the worst storm in 20 years.
Yes, I know, they're going to tell us that the sentence was copied from Reuters because it says 'Reuters contributed to this report,' but the byline is "JPOST.COM Staff, Melanie Lidman."
The bottom line is that the Leftist media - of which JPost has sadly become a part, is trying to subconsciously get us used to the idea that there is a 'state' called 'Palestine.'
Here's Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat talking about the snow in Jerusalem.
Let's go to the videotape.
There has not been a plow or a salt truck in my neighborhood as of 9:00 am. There are no buses, and if you must get around the only ways to do so are walking (which isn't really an option outside the neighborhood) or by car. This morning, on the way home from synagogue, I saw two ambulances struggling to make it up one of the hills, with their chains.
But then again, why would anyone expect otherwise? I live in a Haredi neighborhood. We're always the last to receive city services.
Pigs fly: Supreme Court orders uber-Leftist AG to disclose why he didn't prosecute Mavi Marmara MK
This is a flying pigs moment.
The Supreme Court has ordered uber-Leftist Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein (the same guy who refused to defend the government's position on Migron last week) to disclose to the court why he decided not to prosecute MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) and Islamic Movement leader Raed Sallah for their participation in the Mavi Marmara attempted terrorist attack in May 2010.
The decision was made following Monday’s hearing on a petition filed by MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union), activist Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Movement for Our Land of Israel.
The petition had demanded a full accounting of the state’s decision to close the case against Zoabi and Salah as a first step toward compelling the state to file the case.
The petitioners hoped that once a fuller version of the state’s reasons for closing the case was put forward that they would be able to point out defects in the decision.
Previously, the state had only released a brief press release regarding the decision to close the case with no significant detailed explanation as to why.
However, there was nothing remarkable in and of itself about the fact that the press release was short on details.
In the separation of powers scheme between the executive and judicial branches, the court mostly defers to the state prosecutor when it comes to closing cases, reasoning that as the official body which litigates criminal cases for the state, its professional judgment about how good a case it has should not be second-guessed.
Most cases which are closed do not even have a press release, let alone a public explanation in detail of the reasons the case was considered weak by the state.
The fact that the courts do not normally interfere with the state’s decisions to close cases makes the court’s decision all the more surprising.
Further, the court wrote an extremely short two page opinion, citing no legal precedents for its decision, also an unusual step.
That said, putting matters in perspective, even as the petitioners have won an initial victory in that the state must produce a more detailed explanation within 30 days, their battle is far from won.
The article goes on to discount the possibility that Ben Ari and Gvir might actually win (and that might just be media bias), but for now at least, we can celebrate.
Your tax shekels at work producing more anti-Israel 'academia'
If you pay taxes in Israel, you are supporting the work of Shlomo Sand, the radical author of The Invention of the Land of Israel. Sand sits in the academic ivory tower at Tel Aviv University. You (and I) pay his salary.
What is a homeland, and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for them throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land?
Following the acclaimed and controversial Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest running national struggle of the twentieth-century. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand's account dissects the concept of 'historical right' and tracks the invention of the modern geopolitical concept of the 'Land of Israel' by nineteenth cntury Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel, it is also what is threatening Israel's existence today.
In other words, this clown is denying the authenticity of the Bible at yours and my expense. And you wonder where our taxes go?
Has the Left not noticed that President Obama is pursuing President Bush's war on terror, or are they too embarrassed to say anything? Rich Lowry captures the double standard.
Needless to say, had Dick Cheney consulted “baseball cards” to decide in weekly meetings attended by Karl Rove who deserved to have close encounters with drone-fired missiles, Nancy Pelosi would have drafted the articles of impeachment herself.
The Obama killings vindicate the core premises of the Bush war on terror: This is a war, and the protections of our criminal-justice system don’t apply to the enemy. In light of the kill list, it’s a wonder anyone ever objected to Bush-era detentions or interrogations. If we can pick someone off a roster of names and sentence him to death without due process, surely we can capture and hold that same person. If we can execute someone — and any of his associates who happen to be in the vicinity — from on high, surely we can keep him awake at night and otherwise discomfit him should he fall into our hands.
The Times notes that “Mr. Obama’s record has not drawn anything like the sweeping criticism from allies that his predecessor faced.” True enough. It hasn’t been subjected to a highly politicized assault at home and abroad by people desperate to put it in the worst possible light and even make it a war crime.
With a few exceptions, the Left has retired from the field when it comes to smearing the executive branch for prosecuting the war. If the Left were still in the game, it would insist on always calling the actions assassinations, demand congressional authorization and judicial sign-off, excoriate the secret proceedings, and pour scorn on the entire notion of enemy combatants’ standing outside the criminal-justice system. It would call the assassinations a “terrorist-recruiting tool,” as indeed they are, since almost anything we do to combat al-Qaeda will offend some sympathizers of al-Qaeda.
For most of the left, the highest principle of just-war theory is licet si Obama id faciat (it’s okay if Obama does it). This is how Gitmo, formerly a standing repudiation of all that we hold dear as a nation, becomes an afterthought when it is owned and operated by one Barack H. Obama. As it happens, the president holds exactly the same Obama-centric view. So long as the kill list is overseen by him as judge and executioner, it’s beyond reproach.
Imagine what a second Obama term would be like with the fawning media, God forbid. What could go wrong?
Madonna opened her world tour in Tel Aviv Thursday night. For some reason, it seems like every performer who comes through here has to make a speech about 'peace.'
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
I'd like to see her give the same speech in Ramallah or Gaza City. And I resent the implication that Israel does anything other than 'treat every human being with dignity and respect.' Apparently she missed the security people at the entrance to her concert on Thursday night.
She referenced her decision to offer free tickets to left wing members of Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental groups.
“There are several brave and important NGOs that are represented, both Palestine and Israel [here] together,” she said.
“You cannot be a fan of mine and not want peace in the world,” she said.
“We are all on different paths but we are all sons and daughters of the universe. We are all human beings,” she said.
“We all want to love and be loved. It is easy to say I want peace in the world. But it is another thing to do it,” Madonna said.
“If we can all rise above our egos and our titles and the names of our countries and our religions. If we can rise above all of that and treat everyone around us every human being with dignity and respect than we are on the road to peace,” Madonna said.
“So no matter how many laws we change and how many percentages of land we give back, no matter how many talks, no matter how many wars, if we don’t treat every human being with dignity and respect, we will never have peace,” Madonna said.
"Start today, start now, each and every one of you is the future." She ended the concert wishing everyone shalom and salaam.
Manfred Gerstenfeld argues that the problem with the peace campers is that they only condemn one side. In fact, he writes that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia suppressed the peace camps in their own countries while encouraging them elsewhere in the world. He concludes with this:
With this background in mind, one can investigate a variety of elements in the contemporary peace camp. For those who condemn Israel, do they also condemn the Palestinians? If they do, one should check which actions they condemn on the Palestinian side. If this only concerns the shooting of rockets from Gaza, it is usually no more than a masking operation of where they stand.
Few are those who condemn the PLO’s glorification of terrorist murderers of Israeli civilians including women and children. The same is true concerning Hamas' calls to genocide – the greatest crime in the world - of the Jews in its charter.
The international Pax Christi movement is an example of peace campers who delegitimize Israel and are feeble in their condemnations of the Palestinians. This is even worse because it is a Catholic body. Catholicism has played a major role in laying the foundations of anti-Semitism in the Christian world for many centuries and in making it an integral part of European culture where it is insuppressible.
One among several examples of Protestant anti-Israeli hate monger bodies can be found among Mennonites, a pacifist denomination. As analyst Dexter van Zile wrote: “Mennonist peacemaking institutions have been at the forefront of the effort to discredit Israel to audiences in North America. These institutions portray Jewish sovereignty as the cause of conflict and suffering in the Middle East and downplay Muslim and Arab hostility toward Jews and Israel.”
They also portray Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a legitimate partner in dialogue and a victim of bad publicity. When he visited New York, the Mennonite Central Committee helped mainstream Ahmadinejad by organizing an interfaith dinner with prominent Christians.
Rarely do anti-Israeli peace campers pay a severe price for mixing with Palestinian hate-mongers.
...
Many peace campers claim that they have deep respect for human life. In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this is often only true on the surface. When one scratches a bit below that, one realizes that many of them look away from intended genocides and other crimes in the Muslim world. Galtung’s recent statements have helped to show part of the malice that hides behind the false humanitarian masks of many in the “peace camp.”
Are Israel's leftists pure ideologues or guns for hire? Yotam Feldman, who was born into the leftist camp – his father is liberal lawyer Avigdor Feldman – believes the latter.
In a Hebrew language post at the "Eretz HaEmori" blog, Feldman says that in his life, he has witnessed how Israel's "human rights movement" became a source of income for its activists. He relates how his father's old Subaru "gradually turned" into a BMW, and how the family moved from a rented apartment in Yafo to a spacious Tel Aviv apartment.
"When it came time to provide for myself, I also turned to fields that were somehow connected to the state of democracy in Israel," Feldman writes. These fields "gave me an interesting vocation and a salary that was not bad. Then I began to understand that there is something irreversible about belonging to this community. It seemed to me that whoever tied his fate – whether because of family lineage or a private decision – with the fate of the NGOs in Israel, guaranteed himself a livelihood… for most of his adult life."
Nor is his case extraordinary. "It is a well known but seldom stated fact that a very large part of the leftist activists in Tel Aviv earn their salaries in different ways from the human rights branch. Many of the prominent – and often most vocal – activists in the demonstrations are paid spokespeople, PR people, producers and organizers and of course, lawyers who man the tip of the pyramid in these groups."
"This is a pretty confusing situation because when you are standing in a demonstration or even just engaging in idle talk, it is not clear if the person next to you is expressing his opinion as a result of inner conviction or as an inseparable part of his job…"
I wish someone would pay me to be an ideologue. There is no money on the Right. The Europeans don't support us. So I have to keep my day job.
I am sure that some of you who grew up in the '60's and '70's like I did watched that video of interviews from the J Street conference and wondered why so many of the people attending look so old. I grew up believing that young people are Leftists and Democrats, and that after growing older and getting mugged by reality they become conservatives and Republicans.
But when it comes to Israel, it seems that the generation from which most of the anti-Israel crowd is drawn is one that begins a few years older than I am and ends around retirement age. Let's call it the 60-70 crowd. Why is that? Hillel Stavis tries to explain.
You see them in every University town in America, the aging, angry and disaffected children of the ’60′s, grandchildren of Jewish socialism and communism of the ’30′s – in perpetual mourning for the Soviet Union, Cuba and all the other failed socialist experiments of the last 100 years. Like dinghys floating on the surface of the water waiting in vain for the mother ship that will never come back for them, they band together to find an enemy, the passion that will breathe life into them again, the resurrection of the unfinished revolution. And as we’ve seen for the past 20 years, the most convenient enemy and scapegoat is Israel and the Jews. The 1930′s was the Right’s turn, now the hatred spews from the Left.
This time, many of the Hamas support groupies are PWJN (Persons with Jewish Names), the “as-a-Jew” antisemites. You know them – from Berkeley to Madison to Ann Arbor – the ones who preface every Israel hating remark with statements like: “As a Jew I deplore and abhor what Israel is doing to that nation of Ghandis, the Palestinians…” They lend credibility and energy – by simple virtue of a last name – to the most inaccurate, mendacious and vicious campaigns against the Jewish people since the Nuremberg rallies of the 1930′s. I once asked one of the AAJ’s (as-a-Jew) what connection she had with her local Jewish community; did she regularly got to Synagogue, support local Jewish community groups, keep kosher, or was she knowledgeable about Jewish history? Stunned, she answered that she was an active fighter for “Social Justice.” Asked if that included the right of her Jewish brothers and sisters to exist in their own historical country, she abruptly turned on her heel and laughed, saying that she considered them “cousins” only. Of course, her real brothers and sisters sport keffiyahs (as did she) and followed the teachings of the Koran.
The latest chapter in the grey ponytails was recently written in Cambridge, MA, a “city of refuge” for any and all Jew hating Muslims and one of the mirror image cities that are associated with University PC culture. This time it involved an ADL initiative inviting police and fire department administrators to visit Israel to learn the latest counter terrorism tactics. Like El Al’s highly successful program to keep U.S. airports safe from Al Qaeda and its copycat would-be killers, the ADL should be commended in its efforts to lend Israeli expertise to the U.S.
Redefining chutzpah, this group, in the words of its leader, Cathy Hoffman, former director of The Cambridge Peace Commission (I kid you not-along with trash removal, the City aspires to remove war from the global landscape) characterized the Israeli invitation as further proof that the Jewish state opposes multiculturalism and is an example of Apartheid – ho hum.
By the way, to the best of my knowledge, the guy at the top of this post (who is pushing 58) was not at the J Street conference. Dan Rather wouldn't let him go.
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
