The Headlines- Haaretz: " Hundreds of settlers clashed with Israel Defense Forces soldiers and police officers in the West Bank yesterday, after the settlers violated a military ban on marching near Ramallah... Six protesters were arrested, and several more were detained for questioning and then released ." The Reality - See more videos of the Beit El March here at Israel Reporter
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Forgetting the 3 Myths of the Holocaust and Learning the Very Real Lessons for Today
Conventional Holocaust commemorations follow a particular narrative. We recognize the heroism and suffering of the survivors, sometimes we even recognize the evil of the perpetrators even if the narrative limits it to a generic evil or one only limited to a handful of people on top, rather than the millions of perpetrators necessary to produce millions of victims. If Santayana's truism about learning from history or being doomed to repeat it is applied, it is applied in a vague way leaving people with the impression that the way to avoid future Holocausts is to oppose dictators and racism. Jews of course have been all too willing to diminish their own history by going along with this and turning the Holocaust into a civics lesson, universalizing it into a warning on the evils of bigotry and forgetting what matters. Forget the official lessons and commemorations now. It's time to tear down the myths and speak the truth. The first myth is that the Holocaust was a unique event in
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Rapping Rabbi to promote Kadima in the US
Rabbi Marc Schneier, the Rabbi most likely to wind up in a newspaper story and least likely to accomplish anything usefull, has been appointed by Olmert to head Kadima USA, to promote the foreign wing of an Israeli political party. Rabbi Marc Schneier is a publicity hound famous for his Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and appearing in numerous ads with former drug dealer, rapper and Louis Farrakhan supporter, Russell Simmons. When the ADL criticised Simmons promotion of Farrakhan's Million Man March, Simmons blasted back warning the ADL that they would trigger even more Anti-Semitism. Simmons attempt to recreate himself as a kindler gentler and tolerant figure is particularly ironic considering that it was his label Def Jam Records that was behind the group 'Public Enemy' which continued to trade in explictly Anti-Semitic lyrics with songs such as 'Swindler's Lust.' His political organization Hip-Hop Summit Action Network is headed up by a top Farrakhan asso
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Chamish Singlehandedly Fights Off the Extra-Dimensional Sabbatean Demonic UFO Invasion
In his latest screed, Barry Chamish quotes Jim Searcy accusing WTC owner Larry Silverstein of being behind the attacks of September 11th calling him a "Sabbataian" Jew. Last week Barry Chamish called Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a Sabbatean. Prior lists of people Chamish called Sabbateans including pretty much everyone. Chamish, whose own observance is dubious at best, makes it a habit to slander and insult other Jews as Sabbateans. Jim Searcy is a fundamentalist Christian and conspiracy theorist who has done an interview with Barry Chamish promoting Chamish's books, complete with a 1-800 number, and thus earning Chamish money. In it Chamish does his usual routine about the New World Order, mentions the UFO Nephilim who are attacking Israel. To quote Chamish in the interview; "THERE WAS THIS UFO WAVE AND ASSOCIATED WITH IT WERE GIANT SIGHTINGS....UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVEN'T REACHED THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY AND I SHOULD...THAT WAS THE BIG CRIME. AND THAT'S WHAT THEY D
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Why Muslims are so Enraged over the Mohammed Cartoons
This is a subject which both the left which defends Muslim outrage and the right which condemns it have generally gotten wrong by missing the most important point. When the left compares the Muslim response to that of a persecuted minority what they fail to realize is that Muslims do not see themselves as a persecuted minority whose religion is insulted. Muslims do not believe that there are other religions, only Muslims and heretics since Muslims believe that Islam is the only natural religion of mankind. Muslims do not describe non-Muslims who convert to Islam as converts but more commonly as 'reverts,' returnees to Islam. Therefore it stands to reason that Muslims cannot comprehend the notion of 'tolerating' differences of opinion. As far as they are concerned, there are no differences. There are only examples of heretical behavior by heretical Muslims, namely us. In this worldview Islam is the only religion of mankind and the world is properly ruled by Islam and
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First Succesfull Settlement Activism since Amona - Video of the March to Beit El - Am Yisrael Chai Ve'Kayam
On April 16th over Pesach thousands of marchers braved the closed Wallerstein road between Beit El connecting the Gush Talmonim where the normal route would have been 10 minutes by car because of the blockage it is instead over an hour. Olmert had decided to maintain clear territorial integrity for the Palestinians between Ramallah and Bir Zeit while Jewish travel remains barred there. Facing police and military blockades the marchers nevertheless continued their approach and the majority succeeded in reaching their destination at Yad Yair, a former demolished outpost, that had been founded in the memory of Yair Mendelsohn who was murdered by terrorists in the early 90's. The police clearly under orders to avoid a repetition of Amona varied their tactics from arguing to harassment to violence. Six people were arrested, three of them girls who were reported to have been struck after being taken inside police vans. The official media reports have of course produced the usual pr
Tel Aviv - There Are No Words That Can Be Spoken
There are no words that can be spoken There are no truths that we can tell As eloquently as the bodies of the broken That wake us from our apathetic spell Go silently among the flesh and rubble Walk softly and do not raise your voice Pass by here in these times of trouble As you did when celebrating bygone joys Look and see all though it pains you Witness well and be sure never to forget "Philip Balhasan's relatives said he traveled to Tel Aviv with his two children, Linor and Uri, after promising to buy them CDs and computer games for Passover. The son, Uri, recounted the moment of horror: "When we heard the blast, dad wrapped his arms around me and Linor and hugged us tightly. Then he said 'grab the phone, call mom and tell her about the attack.'" Shortly thereafter, Balhasan collapsed, but police officers who led him to an ambulance were able to talk to him and heard him say he was hurt by shrapnel and by the force of the blast. It appears some of the shra
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The Great Burden of Hollywood Jewish Collective Guilt
The regular accusation Jews have to face from the right and occasionally the left is that 'Jews control Hollywood' and that therefore Jews, collectively, are responsible for Hollywood movies. When these criticisms are issued from the Christian religious right, they're usually issued by the same sort of people who argue that Catholics can't be held responsible for the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust, but that Jews must take collectively responsibility for the actions of some wealthy Hollywood executives and producers in funding movies by Catholic directors like Martin Scorcese or Kevin Smith that Christians find offensive. But let's consider how Hollywood actually portrays Jews. First of all Hollywood rarely ever portrays Jews. This is a situation that has held up pretty well from the golden age of cinema right up until today. Those Hollywood figures who are Jewish don't like to be reminded of it or associated with anything Jewish When Ben Hecht was working
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Goodbye Wesley Clark
No sooner than there is a discussion of military affairs, out comes former disgraced General and Presidential Candidate Wesley Clark. This time it's an attack on Donald Rumsfeld whom Clark accuses of having made "bad policy choices," proclaiming, "he needs to go." Of course not too long ago it was Bill Clinton, Clark's old friend and patron, who decided he needed to go when Clark nearly started WW3 by making hostile moves against Russian troops in a Kosovo airport. "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you," Lt. General Mike Jackson, commander of the British NATO forces had told Clark. Clark was then removed prematurely from his post and he had nothing left to do but write his memoirs and plan a political life. First Clark began a covert 'Draft Clark' campaign while denying that he wanted to run for President. Then he ran for President on an platform opposing the War in Iraq only to double back again on that giving a hodgep
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Yet once more will be heard....
" --עוֹד יִשָּׁמַע בְּעָרֵי יְהוּדָה, וּבְחֻצוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, קוֹל שָׂשׂוֹן וְקוֹל שִׂמְחָה, קוֹל חָתָן וְקוֹל כַּלָּה" "Yet again will be heard in the cities of Yehuda and the streets of Yerushalayim, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride..." (Jeremiah 33:11) Here a Jewish wedding takes place in Sebastia in the Shomron and guests dance over the remains of ancient stone. Sebastia was once the capital of the kingdom of Israel of King Omri, after whom Sharon's son is named after, who introduced intermarriage into the royal household that produced the corruption of Ahav and Izevel and Ahaziah. Sebastia was part of the second aliyah, the second return to the Shomron after its liberation in 1967 traveling even on Tisha Ba'av and in defiance of Rabin and the authorities who threatened to expell them by force. Like the expulsion of the Jews of Gush Katif last year, the expulsion of the Jews began after Tisha
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Dubious Charges in the Boro Park Riots
After the so-called Boro Park riots, Mayor Bloomberg accused the crowd of "putting people's lives at risk" though it is not clear in what way or how. To bolster their account of a real threat from the protesting Chassidim, two men were charged with assaulting police officers, Chaim Glick and Chaim Appel. Chaim Appel's list of charges is truly massive. He is charged with two counts of attempted assault - one a felony - menacing, obstructing governmental administration, two counts of disorderly conduct, and one count of harassment. But as AnotherRuth of Hashemsforever has pointed out, all but the 'obstruction of government administration' charge which is a standard 'refusing to comply with police orders promptly' charge often used to arrest protesters were added at the arraignment. This is very strange since the supposed assault occured on the scene against a Sergeant. Under those circumstances it's hard to imagine why additional charges were only a
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You've Gotta Make Some Noise
There's been a lot of talk about the so-called rioting by Orthodox Chassidim after the arrest of an elderly 75 year old man who was manhandled and abused after he asked for a police officer's badge number. Of course most of the 'rioting' consisted of people standing around their own neighborhood and not getting promptly out of the way when told to do so by police officers along with a few incidents of settings cardboard boxes on fire in the street; nevertheless Jewish leaders have hurried to condemn them, the liberal press that would be nodding sympathetically to stories of police abuse and public protest if the community in case had happened to be Black or Latino quickly tacked on lurid headlines to the whole thing. Jewish opinion as a whole leaned strongly towards condemnation, as Jewish opinion usually does. But let's consider two cases. In 1986 a group of white teenagers chased Michael Griffith, who was black, onto the Belt Parkway where he was struck by a car a
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PETA enlists Jonathan Safran Foer to attack Kosher
Jonathan Safran Foer made the list of New York Press' '50 Most Loathsome New Yorker's' with good reason. At the age of only 25 he received a 500,000 dollar advance for his first novel. That's extremely unusual for a first time novelist because a book advance is calculated against potential royalties and unless the first time novelist is a celebrity or somehow notorious, giving an advance that size either presumes that the book will make millions of dollars or that something is seriously wrong in the business. In Jonathan Safran Foer's case the latter is true. With him everything you need to know begins with the fact that his brother is the editor of the New Republic magazine. The New Republic may not be well known outside of some elitist circles but it remains a prominent bastion of a certain class of old line intellectual liberal. It's also a major's writer's market. Little wonder then that Franklin Foer was able to elevate his brother's car
