Hamastan

Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, plans to perform a second "disengagement" from the Gaza strip, says the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The plan, we is to be presented to Catherine Ashton, the European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, during her scheduled visit to Israel next week, accompanied by six European foreign ministers.


This disengagement will include the complete removal of the naval siege on one hand and on the other will include the removal of all the Palestinian dependencies on Israel. This means that the Palestinians will need to produce their own drinking water, electricity, handle waste water, and so on - or in other words: they'll need to start acting as an independent country, which - everybody presumes - this is what the Palestinians are aiming for.

This plan - which should be considered as a major step in the process of establishing an independent Palestinian country - was already rejected by Hamas officials, saying "This is an (Israeli) attempt to evade its responsibility for the siege. The removal of the siege is a legal right according to international and human rights law, and we must separate between the removal of the siege and the disengagement of the Strip from the rest of the homeland".

... Or in other words: removing the siege from Gaza is nice, establishing an independent state in Gaza is good, but this will not end the conflict, and war will continue until the "rest of the homeland" - commonly known as the State of Israel - is "freed from the Jewish occupation".

So, again in other words, Hamas once again declares that it does not aim for peace or freedom within the borders set in 1967 - Hamas is aiming for the destruction of Israel.



And Israel is the aggressor?

Queen of Hypocrisy

Rania, queen of Jordan recently publised a children's book, along with an American writer - Kelly DiPucchio, and an American illustrator - Tricia Tusa.

The book is called "The Sandwich Swap" and it speaks about two girls who come from different cultures: Salma has pita and humus, representing the Arabic "world", and Lily has a sandwich with peanut butter and jelly, obviously representing America. At first, the two girls don't get together, but later - as the story "evolves" - they become friends and they share their lunch with each other.

As a kids, educational, story - this is all very nice. The problem is when this comes to "real life", and that is where the queen failed: when offered to translate her book to Hebrew - Her Highness refused.

As far as the Jordanian queen - who is originally a Palestinian - is concerned - it's okay to share, trade, become friends - all of this is very nice, but doesn't apply to Israelies, and the only way the queen could make this any clearer was to say that Lily and Salma become friends only to join forces against Sara and her Matzo bread...

It's in our Teva

Teva, in Hebrew, means "nature", but when people speak of Teva this days, it is usually in the context of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the known Israeli pharmaceuticals company. That's why I was surprised to see the name Teva among Amazon's 100 Best Selling Shoes. Only then did I find that Teva Naot is selling shoes over Amazon, Zappos, and other known websites.

In fact, item #4 in Amazon's best selling shoes, in Teva's Women's Olowahu Sandal. As item #11 you can find Teva again with Women's Mush Flip Flop, and again with item #16, #22, and #25.

I didn't go over Amazon's list beyong the Top 25, but 5 items out of 25 is a very impressive "status" for a small Israeli company, standing equal among world's famous shoes brands.

With Teva Pharmaceutical keeping people healthy, and Teva Naot making shoes, I guess you can really say these Israeli guys keep the world on the move - but that's not surprising - it's in our nature!

You're grounded!

Some may see this is stupid, some as petty, and who knows - some may share my feelings about this, but when I think of how Britain forbade Jews from entering Israel (foremerly, "Palestine") as they were fleeing from the Nazis and their supporters, and how Israeli officials can't enter Britain, and how they kicked out a Mossad representative, it does kind of puts a smile on my face, knowing that thanks to volcano Eyjafjallajoekull, Britain is as grounded as it hasn't been, let say, since the days of World War II...

I'm only thankful that this happens only now. I don't want to think what would have happened if they cancelled the Beatles' flight to the USA back in 1964!

Sabra and Shatila - Iraqi Style

In September 1982, Muslims murdered the Lebenese president-elect Bachir Gemayel, and in response, his supporters - the Christian militia - stormed the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, killing an unknown number of people. The Red Cross counted 400 bodies, "International Sources" speak of 800, and the Palestinians speak of 3500.

Israel took heavy political fire for this, as this was done under's "Israel's shift". Israel conquered Lebanon a couple of months earlier, and was held responsible for this horrible act of violence.

Now, nearly 30 years later, Sunni Muslims kill Shiite Muslims (and vice versa) under American occupation. Will America be requested to pay the price for such acts? Will General Petraeus - the commander of the U.S. Central Command, who is personnaly responsible for Iraq - will he be requested to pay the price?

Or is it that it's okay for everyone to kill everyone, as long as they don't wear Israeli uniforms?

Shout first - ask questions later

Earlier this week, Palestinians reported that Mohamed al-Farmawi, a 15-y/o Palestinian teenager, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers while protesting along, or trying to cross (depends who you ask), the security fence between the Gaza strip and Israel.

The Israeli army denied the reports, saying it is true shots were fired, but no one was hurt. The report, "obviously", was accepted as true, and was reported as such in dozens of newspapers, websites, and all other sorts of media reports.

Today the late Mohamed al-Farmawi returned home.

It might be a side-affect of the Easter, and it might be that again the Palestinians were lying, but Mohamed al-Farmawi was never killed, he was never shot, and in fact - he was never in the area of the shooting.
Instead, Mohamed al-Farmawi was in Egypt.

Maybe he was looking for a job, maybe he was looking for some food, and maybe he was looking for trouble, just like any other normal teenager, but the fact is one: Palestinians blamed Israel for the killing with no proof, and the world took the bait without asking "redundant" questions such as "where is the body?".

Keep that in mind the next time you hear such stories, and question your news sources.
Question them - and let them know you question them, so maybe they'll actually look for answers.

Arrrrrr-vinder Sambei, ay!

As surprising as it may be, and it is surprising as can be, pirates still exist, and I'm not talking about the type of pirates who download music, movies or software from the internet. I'm talking about the type of pirates who hunt down ships in the oceans, takes over them, steal their cargo, and often kill its crew.

That type of pirates live and prosper in Somalia, and that types of pirates recently attacked "Africa Star", an Israeli cargo ship. This ship was attacked by pirates last year, and was saved by the fact it had barbed wire fence all around it, blocking the pirates from boarding the ship.

Recently, on March 24 and again on March 27, this ship was again attacked by pirates near Somalia. During the March 24 incident, the pirates opened fire at the ship, and the Israeli security team shot back and killed one of the pirates.

In response to this act of self defense UN official Arvinder Sambei, a legal consultant for the United Nations’ ant piracy program, said that it "will be scrutinized very closely" and that "there’s always been concern about these (private security) companies". She concluded by saying "the bottom line is somebody has been killed and someone has to give an accounting of that".

Pirates attacked a ship, a pirate was killed in the attack, and a UN official is concerned about the private security companies, and says that somebody will need to give an accounting of that.
Maybe if the UN was less focused on the rights of pirates and was more worried about the fact pirates can freely act in 2010, maybe then nobody would have been killed. However, it makes you wonder: if the UN really cares more about pirates than it cares about normative, law-abiding people, maybe the fact the UN favors Hamas and Hezbuallah over Israel only makes sense?

Then again... what if the ship wasn't Israeli, and the guards weren't Israeli... What if the ship and the guards were all nice, Christian, Europeans - would that still be the UN's position?

National Identity Theft

For over two years Rahim (fake name), the MI-6 agent, operated in one of Al-Qaeda’s cells on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Although he only operated as a junior specialist for liquid explosives, yet the packed like sardines conditions in which they lived, packed in the Zahra Zahra caves allowed him to get acquainted with some of the organization’s leaders, and to deliver his operators valuable information using mail-louse.

The ability to encode and miniaturize information allowed the glorious British Security Service to retire the famous mail pigeons five years ago, replacing them with trained mail louses that carried the tiny chip under one of their armpits, and that could jump out of the beard the moment they heard the secret password “Anything to declare, luv?” pronounced in a Cockney accent.

Even after his operators in London instructed him to murder Al-Hindawi, Bin Laden’s Fashion Deputy, using an overdose of fish burgers (“Fishcakes”, in the organizations slang), nobody suspected him. One day, however, when it was really hot in the bunker, Rahim was caught using his British passport as a hand-held fan. The disguise was shredded to pieces and Agent Jones was tortured and executed. In Britain they deviated from the common habit of not providing any information about the life and death of the agents. Agent Jones’ acts of glory were told in details. His family, in a restrained ceremony, received the highest degree of excellence given by the queen, and the organization’s chief easily avoided the vexing question why did the agent carry his original passport. You didn’t expect, the chief said, that our agent would still some Israeli’s identity and wave a stolen blue passport, have you?

And indeed, not one of the veterans in the world's famous espionage organizations, assemble in Baden-Baden, could recall any of history's famous spies ever going down to the lowest level of using a identity theft. Mata Hari never named herself Malka Harry, even when her life was in danger. Sir Thomas Edward Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") never tried to hide behind some Tommy Law-Race's Union Member's ID. And 007, even between the most dangerous satin sheets, never hid behind the relative security his John Jones stolen identity could provide. He never avoid saying simply "The name is Bond. James Bond".

With that in mind it is easy to understand the fury, the rage in which the British leadership charged the moment they were convinced, based on foreign resources, that Israeli Mossad agents used fabricated British passports when they left on their mission in XXXXXX. The fact that the agents boldly lied as they checked into the YYYYYY Hotel, specifying “INSTTIUTE*” as their occupation, only made the scorn and the rage worsen.

“Even in the world of shadows in which we live, there are red lines that must not be crossed”, a retired Securitate agent was quoted. “Order must be kept”, said one of the German BND leaders, who preferred to introduce himself as “Wolfgang, just Wolfgang”.

Even when we accidentally bomb the wrong wedding in Afghanistan, even when we misfortunately destroy a Sunni mosque instead of a Shiite mosque in Basra, we were never ashamed of our passport, said the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who never hid his Jewish identity.

What came next was inevitable. The Mossad representative in London received an amazingly polite letter, instructing him to leave the United Kingdom the moment he finishes the essential shopping.

Israel had its own lessons learned, and from now on agents will go on their missions carrying their original Israeli passport, as well as their IDF ID, and a Star of David medallion on their neck…

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Written by the Israeli Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad.
Translated by me.

The thin red line

"Jerusalem is a red line and the world should not be silent about Israel's attempts to get rid of Jerusalem's Arabs residents, Muslims or Christians... to stop Israel's provocative measures in Jerusalem, that seek to change its identity and threaten holy sites there" said today Jordan's King Abdullah II to the visiting EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Let's read this again, shall we? "...Israel's attempts to get rid of Jerusalem's Arabs residents"? "seek to change its identity...?" Without hesitation and without any shame, His Royal King dares telling this blunt lie, knowing that it was his forefather who did exactly this - killing and deporting Jerusalem's Jewish inhabitants.

Abdullah knows that if Israel really wanted - not a single Muslim would have lived in Jerusalem, but instead - Jews are not allowed to pray in the Temple Mountain - Judaism's holiest site - while Muslims are allowed to. Abdullah knows that Israel is doing this of its own good will: after all, the Arab countries tried many times before to destroy Israel and failed.

Abdullah knows all that, and still - he dares lying to an official EU delegate. I know his late father would have buried himself alive, had he seen his son king lie like that, but apparently this king has no shame, no sense of dignity, and most of all - no respect to the truth.

But you know what really bothers me? Knowing that the king wouldn't dare lying, if he knew that the person he's talking to actually cares about the truth, and Catherine Ashton apparently doesn't care.

Day of Rage and Alarm

You can somehow understand when Muslims in general and Palestinians specifically tell blunt lies about Israel, because you somehow understand that it is all part of the mind-games, a part of the psychological warfare they are using in order to get the world's support in their war against Israel.

What you can't understand is how people are falling for their lies, and more bothering is how can bright people take something as a fact, when it stands against any sort of common sense.

Today was declared by the Palestinians as a "Day of Rage and Alarm" and thousands of Arabs rioted in Jerusalem. Arab hooligans also stoned buses in the city of Jaffa, deep inside the "consensus borders" of Israel. The rage and the alarm are mainly about the reconstruction, the inauguration, the restoration, the reopening or whatever you'd like to call it, of the "Hurva" synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem.

According to the Palestinians, the reopening of this synagogue is a symbol to Israel's attempt to "Judaize" Jerusalem, and that Israel doesn't really care about building a synagogue and its "true intention" is to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as Haram al-Sharif or Beyt al-Mukdas.

What the Palestinians will never mention is who destroyed this synagogue in the first place. They will never mention it because they know that this synagogue was destroyed - not once but twice - by Muslims!

You can get a detailed history of the synagogue in Wikipedia, but in short - this synagogue was first built in 1700AD. It was destroyed by Muslims in 1721, and on the same event the Muslims deported a big part of the Jewish population, forbidding them from living in Jerusalem for decades. In 1864 the synagogue was rebuilt, and was used until 1948, when the Jordanian army intentionally blew it up. It is reported that the Jordanian officer who commanded the demolition of the Hurva synagogue reported to his superiors, saying "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible". Well, guess what - the Jews returned.

And here's what troubles me: if the Muslims lied, saying there was never a Jewish synagogue in this location, and the world "bought" the lie - I can somehow take it, but if the Muslims say "yeah, there was a synagogue there, yeah, we destroyed it, and yeah - if Israel rebuilds it we'll see this as a declaration of a Holy War" - how can anyone take them seriously?

How come you hear Obama's administration constantly denouncing Israel, but you don't hear him say that the Palestinians should immediately stop the riots, release Gil'ad Shalit, and sit and talk? How come you don't hear Europe condemning the riots? Can you imagine a case where Muslims burn down a church, and then riot because Christians rebuild it? I doubt it.

The Palestinians and their supporters around the world keep saying that Israel is trying to destroy holy Muslim sites. Well guess what - whenever Muslims took over Jewish holy sites - they destroyed them, and prevented them from getting anywhere around them. When Israel took over holy Muslim sites - it gave the authority, and practically the ownership - back to the Muslims. This goes for Al-Aqsa, and same goes for The Jewish holy sites in Hebron and Beth-Lehem, where Muslims can pray freely.

If Israel wanted to destroy Al-Aqsa or any other Muslim site, it would have done that in 1967, it wouldn't have waited until today. But that's the difference between Israel and the Arabs: Israel doesn't speak of respect to other religions, it simply respects them. Arabs have a lot of respect to religion - but only to their own.

Remember that next time somebody tells you Israeli is provoking Arabs and Muslims.
And remember that if someone tells you that building a house approximately 450 meters (492 yards) he must be a lier or a fool, but either way - he's not someone follow.

466 meters from the Hurva synagogue to Al-Aqsa mosque

Tasteless ad campaign?

Disclaimer: I do care what you think, and I'd like to ask you all to comment on this blog, so before "checking out", please use the "Comments" link at the end of each post. Thanks!

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CNN reporter Paula Hancocks published yesterday that a new Israeli ad is mocking the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, killed last January in Dubai. The video attached to the article was marked with the subtitle asking "Tasteless ad campaign?", to which I would like to repond.

Though never admitted, Israel is considered as the "obvious suspect", and as such was targetted by many countries - starting with Dubai itself, and continued by many other countries - either for the killing itself, or for the use of forged passports. If Israel is indeed reponsible for the killing of al-Mabhouh, I guess we'll never know. If the Mossad is indeed involved, then this kind of information is unlikely to leak from within the Mossad's secured walls and gates.

Either way, while other countries or people see this story as "did Israel do that or not", Israelies see this in an entirely different perspective. Most Israelies react with one (or more) of the following:
1. Did Israel really do that? If so, our Mossad guys really rock!
2. Did anyone else do that? Were they trying to frame Israel?
3. What do they think, the Mossad would be so reckless to be taped like that?
4. What do they think, the Mossad is stupid? So many cameras - and they caught not even a single agent!

The one thought that is common to all Israelies, excluding the most left-wing exteremists, is: "Thank God and Good Riddance, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh!"

While the world is trying to ignore this "tiny" detail, al-Mabhouh was a terrorist, directly involved in the killing of Israelies, and currently (well, no longer, but recently) involved in smuggling weapons from Iran to the terrorists in Gaza. For Israelies al-Mabhouh is a killer, not a victim, as portrayed by CNN.

CNN's article says: "As Dubai authorities blamed Israel for the hit, Israeli marketing minds saw a business opportunity.". My reponse to that is that maybe the Dubai authorities should be blaming themselves for this entire incident. Maybe if they were less focused on the "business opportunities" introduced by trading with "innocent" people like al-Mabhouh, and more focused on stopping the arms trades in their country - arms that are used for killing actual innocent people, maybe all of this could have been prevented.

Israelies don't know if they should be proud of his killing or not, but only because most Israelies don't know who did it. But either proud or not - for Israelies the killing of al-Mabhouh is a reason to be happy, and yes - definitely something to mock.

So is this a tasteless ad campaign? It may be tasteless only to someone who really doesn't understand Israel's daily fear of terror. For someone who does understand this fear, the death of a terrorists is very tasteful: it tastes like living!

Killer Talker

After being heckled by Pro-Palestinians during his last speech in Irvine university in California last November, Israel's ambassador to the USA, Michael Oren, offers to return and try again.

I'm not sure the ambassador will indeed get a second chance to speak to this audience, after his previous attempt was interrupted by professional shouters, calling him a murderer and a "war criminal", but I'm sure that if you are around, and if you want to get a better understanding of Israel's policy and plans - you would like to hear Mr. Oren.

Somehow, I tend to believe that if people there will be less focused on screaming and more focused on listening - a very interesting discussion can develop there.

Ajami

The Israeli movie Ajami was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for tonight's 2010 Oscar Awards.

This movie was written, directed, and played by Israelies - some Jews, some Muslims. It was written and directed by an Israeli Jew - Yaron Shani - and an Israeli Muslim - Scandar Copti. It speaks about Israeli issues, in Israel, by Israelies. It was heavility sponsored by Israeli foundations, some funded directly by the Israeli government. It was chosen as the Israeli nominee for the Oscars by an Israeli comittee.

After all of the above comes Scandar Copti and says that "he doesn't represent Israel" in tonight's ceremony in Holywood. He claims he "cannot represent a state that does not represent" him. He says that "technically" the movie represents Israel, but he doesn't.

Well, guess what, Mr. Copti? It just might be that you're the last Israeli Arab to be sponsored and nominated by the Israeli government, funds, and comittees, because if Israel is good enough for you to take money from, but not good enough for you to represent it - we don't really need your "service", but don't complain about "discrimination". When you spit into the well you've drank from - don't be surprised if next time you won't be allowed near the well...

Holy Crap

I just finished writing the previous post, and ran into this headline: "Three people were killed when a parked car rigged with explosives blew up near a Shiite shrine in the holy city of Najaf on Saturday, the Interior Ministry said".

Muslims killing Muslims, in a holy Muslim site, right?
And Israel is the cause of all evil, right?

Casus Belli

Representatives from multiple Arabs and Muslim countries said today that "Israel's actions" may lead to a "holy war", the ancient terminology for a religious war, also known as Jihad.

The things that outraged the Muslim countries were Israeli soldiers and police forces entering the Temple Mountain in Jersualem, known by the Muslims as Haram al-Sharif. The perpesentatives, as always, reacted in a reflex, after years of Pavlovian conditioning. The representatives, so eager to support their fellow-Muslims were very quick to condemn Israel for entering the holy site, forgetting the reason for this incident: Muslims throwing stones at Jews praying on the other side of the wall.

Muslims tend to say that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the Prophet Mohammed preached for peace, and therefore they find it very hard to explain why Mohammed initially tried to gain the trust of the Jews he lived among, and why - when they refused to follow his new religion - he decided to kill or enslave them all. They also find it hard to explain why is it that while the Kuran preaches for peace, but over 90% of the wars and killing around the world are done by Muslims.

It is a common habbit in Muslim countries to say that Israel is the cause of all evil, and whatever Israel is not responsible for, the USA is. We often hear about "how many Muslims or Arabs Israel killed today". We hear about this so often, we tend to forget that while only a couple of thousands of Palastinians were killed in all of the 60 years of fighting (and the Palastinians were fighting Israel from the day of its foundation), millions and millions of Muslims were murdered around the world by their own "Muslim Brothers".

How can you take these "representatives" seriously, when they attack Israel for sending forces to stop a stone-throwing mob, but ignore Muslim suicide bombers killing 33 Muslims in Iraq? Or when they ignore Taliban (Muslim exteremists) attacking Pakistan's capitol, leaving dozens dead?

How can those Arabs and Muslim representatives take themselves seriously, when they blame Israel for everything, and are not able to understand, that by giving an OK for terror against Israel, they are giving an OK for terror against themselves?

Either way, I say - if those countries want to start a war over the Temple Mountain, I say "Bring it on". Maybe it will give Israel the chance to destory the musques there, revealing the only true holy sites ever built there: the Jewish Temples.

But that - that is a topic for a different post...

Thanksgiving Turkey

Obama's administration has called on a Congressional panel not to describe the killing of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I as genocide.

Apparently Obama, who is seeking to make peace with the entire world, at the cost of ignoring what is right or just, is affraid that such a move - declaring that the killing of 1.5 million Armenians is a genocide - might "upset" Turkey.

Apparently, Obama is okay with Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan saying that Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza, but he's not okay with saying that a genocide can also be a case where Turks slaughter 1.5 million Armenians. It just might be that genocide, according to President Barack Hussein Obama is a matter of geography: When you kill in gaza - it is a genocide, when you kill in Europe - it's not. On the other hand, it might be President Barack Hussein Obama considers this as a matter of religion - when you kill hundreds of Muslims (during a war you were forced into) it is a genocide, but when you kill 1.5 million Christians in a war you started - that's not a genocide.

What can I say - I guess it is all a matter of perception and proprtions, but it is up to the Americans to decide whether they agree to be led by a man with such perception and proprtions, and it is up to the United Nations, and to the whole world, to decide whether they are going to continue following Obama light blind sheep, trying to please Muslims and Arabs, all in the name of "global peace", something which is nice for beauty pageants, but not something to rule the world by.