“Jewish power, domination, and historical facts are examined to shed light on the age old question of why Jews are so universally disliked and the pending doom that is in store if we do not wake up to the reality of this dangerously subversive element in society.” – ZCF of Terror of Zion and On the Jewish Question
Naor Gilon, a high ranking member of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, today announced that he had met with the ambassadors from several European states to demand that they do something to prevent their citizens from sending private aid ships to the Gaza Strip.
Gilon warned the ambassadors that Israel considered the aid “provocation” and that they would do whatever was necessary to stop the aid ships from reaching the strip.
Israel has had a blockade against most humanitarian aid reaching the Gaza Strip for years, and at times the Israeli Navy has attacked aid ships that got too near the tiny enclave.
Israel’s military today lifted a “gag order” on the arrest of a Turkish citizen weeks ago whom they have accused of being a member of a humanitarian group. Shin Bet alleged that the group is plotting to send a shipload of humanitarian aid to the strip.
Israel has previously arrested people for attempting to provide aid to the strip, including a June 30 incident in which they captured former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. She was charged with “illegally entering Israel” even though the boat she was on was captured by the Israeli Navy and forced to dock in Israel. The aid was seized by the government.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HHHCc8B-QY
Palestinians across the world are marking on Saturday the 62nd anniversary of Nakba, which means catastrophe.
In 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced and many became refugees due to the formation of the state of Israel.
Mass gatherings commemorating the day of "catastrophe" in the West Bank and Gaza displayed a rare instance of unity between various political factions.
Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh reports from Beit Jala, a town in the West Bank.
Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat criticized singer Elvis Costello for calling off his concerts in Israel. According to the minister, "An artist boycotting his fans in Israel is unworthy of performing here."
Costello issued a statement on his official website on Monday night, in which he apologized to his fans and explained that he had decided to cancel his gigs in Israel in protest of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Roni Sofer)
The office of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has welcomed his selection as No. 1 in The Jerusalem Post’s first annual list of “The 50 most influential Jews in the world,” which is being published on Tuesday in our Shavuot supplement.
“The fact that the prime minister of the State of Israel is viewed today as being the world’s most influential Jew demonstrates the historic change that Zionism has brought about in the condition of the Jewish people,” the PMO said.
“A scattered, powerless people has been able to reassert its national life in its own sovereign state, in its ancestral homeland,” it added. “From being mere spectators on the international stage, today the Jews control their own destiny and have returned as a people to the family of nations.”
Netanyahu's office noted that when Israel was established in 1948, “only some 5% of the world’s Jewish population lived in the new state. Today, Israel contains the largest Jewish community in the world.”
His position at the top of the Post 50, the PMO said, was an honor that testified to “the profound transformation that has occurred in the reality of life for the Jewish people over the last 62 years.”
Immediately following the prime minister at the top of the list are Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Google founder Sergey Brin and alternative energy pioneer Shai Agassi, founder of Better Place.
The Jerusalem Post's first annual list of those who are shaping the future.
The story is told, in several cultural variations, of a Jewish man spotting a friend reading an Arabic newspaper. “Moshe, have you lost your mind?” he says.
“Well, I used to read the Jewish papers, but what did I find?” Moshe replies. “Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation, Jews living in poverty. So I switched to an Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!”
In what is planned as an annual media event, The Jerusalem Post has chosen the world’s leading 50 Jewish “movers and shakers” based on a range of criteria, including personal access to power, ability to exert influence and individual talent.
The Post’s list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world was not designed to feed the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews control the world.
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Our list is headed by Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has become well known around the world for his political dexterity and eloquence in English.
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In his response to being chosen by The Jerusalem Post and our Internet readership around the world on jpost.com as the most influential Jew in the world, Netanyahu told our reporter, Herb Keinon: “The fact that the Prime Minister of the State of Israel is viewed as being the world’s most influential Jew is a historic vindication of the miracle of Zionism.”
It may be no historic accident that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, Barack Obama, recently approved a second term for Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman, and chose Jews to be his closest advisers: Rahm Emanuel, the tough White House chief of staff, David Axelrod, his savvy political adviser and Dan Shapiro, the top Middle East expert on the National Security Council.
He also happens to be friendly with several Jewish leaders, including Alan Solow and Lee Rosenberg, who are both on our list.
Second on the list is Bernanke, the man who holds the purse strings of the richest nation on the planet and is credited with steering the US out of a severe financial crisis. He is followed by Emanuel, who arguably has the most influence on the American president – and certainly has his ear whenever he needs it.
AS WE CELEBRATE Shavuot, when the Jewish people received the Torah on Mount Sinai from Moses, the most famous Jew in history, we can only pray that those on our list use their influence to better the world and help Israel and the Jewish people serve as a light unto the nations.
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The world Jewish population is estimated at being 02. percent of the total populace – some 13.5 million, with just over 5.7 million in Israel, 5.6 million in the US, half a million in Russia and France, 280,000 in the UK and 200,000 in Germany.
Yet in Vanity Fair’s latest list of the 100 most powerful people in the world, 51 are Jews. Ten of the 50 people on this year’s Forbes’ annual billionaires list are Jewish. Of the 802 Nobel prizes handed out to date, 162 have gone to Jews.
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Four years ago, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt shook the Jewish world by writing a paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, on what they perceived as the exaggerated influence of the Jewish lobby.
After being named by the pair as a key member of the media wing of the Israel lobby, Mortimer Zuckerman – a former head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations – replied sardonically: “I would just say this: The allegations of this disproportionate influence of the Jewish community remind me of the 92-year-old man sued in a paternity suit. He said he was so proud, he pleaded guilty.”
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How much influence do Jews wield in the world, and how influential are those on our list? We leave you to judge.
[oh, we will... ]
1. Binyamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel
2. Ben Bernanke
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve.
3. Rahm Emanuel
White House chief of staff.
4. Sergey Brin
Founder of Google
5. Shai Agassi
Founder of Better Place
6. Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Head of the International Monetary Fund
7. Shimon Peres
President of Israel
8. David Axelrod
Senior White House Adviser
9. Alan Dershowitz
Law professor, Israel advocate
10. Elena Kagan
US Supreme Court nominee
11. Alan Solow
Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
12. Ehud Barak
Defense Minister
13. Irwin Cotler
Canadian MP, human rights activist
14. Michael Bloomberg
Mayor of New York
15. Bernard Kouchner
Foreign Minister, France
16. Gabi Ashkenazi
IDF Chief of General Staff
17. Stanley Fischer
Bank of Israel Governor
18. Avigdor Lieberman
Foreign Minister
19. Sheldon Adelson
Entrepreneur and philanthropist
20. Dorit Beinisch
Supreme Court President
21. Natan Sharansky
Jewish Agency Chairman
22. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
US Supreme Court Justice
23. Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook Founder
24. Moshe Kantor
ECG President
25. Michael Steinhardt
Investor and philanthropist
26. Mortimer Zuckerman
Publisher
27. Ronald Lauder
WJC President
28. Larry Ellison
Oracle founder
29. Ruth Arnon
Biochemist
30. Elie Wiesel
Writer
31. Steven Spielberg
Filmmaker
32. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Chief Rabbi, UK
33. Jeff Zucker
CEO of NBC Universal
34. Joseph Lieberman
US Senator
35. Eric Cantor
US Congressman
36. Lee Rosenberg
President of AIPAC
37. Richard Goldstone
International jurist
38. Thomas Friedman
Columnist
39. Haim Saban
Media magnate
40. Jeremy Ben-Ami
J Street Executive Director
41. Shari Arison
Bank of Hapoalim owner
42. Simone Veil
French politician
43. Irving Moskowitz
US tycoon, settler supporter
44. Gill Marcus
Bank Governor, South Africa
45. Bernard-Henri Lévy
Philosopher
46. Bob Dylan
Musician
47. Roman Abramovitch
Investor, Chelsea FC owner
48. Sacha Baron Cohen
Comedian
[I judge little influence here...]
49. Lucian Freud [easy to guess the relation to Sickman Fraud without the name clue]
"Artist"
[Is this how humans/"goyim" appear through the eyes of one afflicted with the jewish psychosis?]
50. Omri Casspi
Basketball player
[One for the next edition of the Jewish Sports Legends pamphlet...]
No one knows fascism better than Israelis. They are schooled, drilled in the history, the mechanics, the horrendous potential of fascist regimes. Israelis know fascism when they see it. In others.
They might well have expected when fascism began taking root here, it would arise at a time of a national leadership of galvanizing charisma and sweeping, powerfully orchestrated modes of action.
But that would have been much too obvious to deny. And it would take denial, inertia, selective memory, a sense that things – bad as they are - can go on like this indefinitely, for fascism to be able gain its foothold in a country founded in its very blood trail.
In fact, it has taken the most dysfunctional, the most rudderless government Israel has ever known, to make moderates uncomfortably aware of the countless but largely cosmetized ways in which the right in Israel and its supporters abroad have come to plant and nurture the seeds of fascism.
Wrote Boaz Okun, the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronot's legal affairs commentator and a retired Israeli judge, of Israel's ban on Noam Chomsky: "The decision to shut up Professor Chomsky is a decision to shut down freedom in the state of Israel.
"I'm not speaking of the stupidity of supplying ammunition to those who claim that Israel is fascist," Okun wrote, "rather, of our fear that we may actually be turning that way."
At the weekend, Israeli police riot troops waded into a thoroughly non-violent sit-in near the entrance to this East Jerusalem settlement zone, where Palestinian residents were expelled by Israeli court order, to allow their homes to be taken over by Jews.
What was curious here was not the neck-wrenching brutality of the Yasam riot police in their gunmetal gray uniforms, bristling with assault rifles, clubs, tear gas and helmets, arrayed against the demonstrators, most of of them Israeli Jews, some of them well past retirement age.
What was surprising was not the fact that several burly officers, seeing a young Reshet Bet (Israel State Radio news) reporter - his microphone clearly and unmistakably marked, interview one of the seated demonstrators - jump him and drag him away in a headlock to a police custody van.
In the end, what was peculiar was that the police seemed so entirely bewildered, so completely lacking in clear orders, left on their own to decide how to proceed in an arena of hair-trigger sensitivity. Fascism with a confused face.
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The agreement on the transfer of Iran's enriched uranium, achieved via Turkish-Brazilian mediation, is an important victory for Iranian diplomacy and a debacle for Israeli policy. The deal reduces the chances, which were slim to begin with, of new sanctions being imposed on Iran, and makes a military strike against Iran even less feasible.
The full, precise details of the agreement are not known, and the devil is in the details. But the deal's significance is clear: a new atmosphere, at least on the face of it, of dialogue, negotiations and compromise with the ayatollahs' regime in Tehran.
The Israeli government described the latest Iranian nuclear deal as a trick designed to prevent the imposition of UN Security Council sanctions.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with the "Septet" of seven key ministers on Tuesday, to discuss Israel's response to the Iranian nuclear fuel reprocessing agreement, brokered by Brazil and Turkey.
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Under the deal Iran will ship most, but not all, of its enriched uranium to Turkey and in return receive uranium fuel rods for research, which cannot be used for weapons. In the event that the fuel rods are not delivered to Iran within a year, Turkey undertakes to return the original uranium to Iran.
According to the clarification, Peres stressed in his message to his Syrian counterpart that "Israel does not plan to attack Syria, nor does it intend to cause an escalation [of tensions] in the North."
His message further stated that Israel was interested in peace and "prepared to immediately engage in peace talks with the Syrians." He added, however, that Jerusalem would "not allow Syria to continue to two-time Israel by demanding a withdrawal from the Golan Heights on the one hand while setting up Iranian missiles on the mountains of the North."
Peres further stated that Israel would not "enter into peace talks while being threatened," urging Damascus to cease its support of Hamas and Hizbullah's terrorist activity.
'It is a mistake to write off the option of resistance'
"We do not trust the Israelis ... we are ready for war or peace at any moment," Assad told the newspaper. "Some make the mistake of writing off the option of resistance (a term used in the Arab world to connote militant warfare, especially against Israel), and they turn into prisoners of the peace option. They should be fully prepared for both," he said.
Assad added that Syria had entered mediated negotiations with Israel in 2008 fully intending to reach a "clear and final" solution, but that it seemed resistance was necessary for achieving peace. "If you are not strong, you are not respected," Assad said. He stressed that peace was not merely a symbolic olive branch, but a tangible and very real way to sort out the balance of power in the region. He then described the positive qualities of resistance, citing his achievements in recent years - among them renewed ties with the US and the West and Syria's "rich, strong national unity" - as manifestations of Syria's success.
When asked what Syria's position would be in the event that Israel attacked Lebanon, Assad smiled and told his interviewer, "I think the Israelis want to hear the answer to this question, and I will not fulfill their wish." Threats of war, he said, were about as likely to become a reality as suggestions of peace.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Sunday entreated Israel to take advantage of US support in the negotiations and put an end to the conflict. Erekat told the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, "My nation's patience with me is coming to an end," adding that many Palestinians had asked him to quit.
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'Uzi Arad cancelled three times'
The chief Palestinian negotiator also noted the lack of trust between the parties. "There's no need for negotiations. There is a need for an agreement. All the alternatives are on the table. This is the moment of truth. We are all experiencing birth pangs. We need leaders ready to make sacrifices. My options are two states according to the 67 borders, with territory exchanges and security arrangements. If you've come to the conclusions that you can't offer this because you don't have anyone to rely on – I'm not afraid."
He also addressed the claims that Palestinians delayed negotiations and pointed an accusing finger at the head of National Security Advisor Uzi Arad, saying, "On the first day that Arad took up his post, I asked to meet him. Three times he scheduled a meeting and three times he cancelled."
Regarding the Netanyahu government, he said, "You tie up my hands and feet and throw me into the sea. Then you tell me I don't know how to swim. That's how the Israeli government behaves today."
"I negotiate with you because in my opinion, most Jews and Arabs want an agreement, and the alternative, the conflict, is too hard," he added, and emphasized that the Palestinians would not stop in their struggle for independence.
"In my generation, this can be achieved through negotiation," he warned. "Don't miss the opportunity… The negotiations are over. The time has come to decide. Not interim decisions, not future decisions, not past decisions. A final agreement."
The frugal Israeli: As Greece spirals down and the EU catches its disease, Israel's economy yet again stands out in its robustness. But instead of merely applauding, one should understand what underlies its strength.
Stanley Fischer, as the governor of the Bank of Israel who steered the country's economy through the crisis in the United States, and Benjamin Netanyahu, who navigated the economy from 2003 to 2005 as finance minister, deserve great credit for Israel's current economic strength.
But among all the reasons for that strength, I'd actually like to begin with the point that eight years ago, Israel was Greece.
Since financial disaster was averted at the last moment, and in any event was diluted by dramatic events related to the country's security, most people have forgotten that in late 2002 Israel's economy was where Greece's is today. The effects of a bad economic policy in 2000-2002, the sudden and powerful eruption of the second intifada and the end of the Internet and technology bubbles combined to cause intense recession and the loss of faith among investors in Jerusalem's economic policy.
At the end of 2002, the budget deficit neared 10%. Israeli government bonds dived and returns rose to 10% and more, which is where Athens' bonds are today.
The financial crisis saved Israel. The government was forced to institute painful welfare and pension reforms as well as cutbacks in the public sector. Together with a $10 billion loan guarantee package from Washington and a drop in the risk premium of the Middle East in general after America's invasion of Iraq, these reforms laid the foundations for three years of conservative economic management.
Israel's "Greek crisis" of 2002 stopped Israel's leaders and businessmen from joining the borrowing extravaganza that spread a few years later throughout the United States and Europe. The scars of the local crisis had not yet healed, and Israel reached 2008, when the world economy began to implode, with a balance sheet that was stronger than ever.
The Israeli character also played a role in how we weathered the global storm. The conventional wisdom is that we are all in perpetual overdraft, but in fact the personal savings rate of Israeli households is among the highest in the world. German Chancellor Angela Merkel chided that the Greeks, Spanish and Italians should learn from the German hausfrau, who knows better than to spend more than she has coming in. Actually, to borrow her metaphor, the typical Israeli housewife is even more frugal than her German counterpart. The ratio of debt to disposable income in Israeli households is 60%, compared with 72% in Germany, 110% in the United States and 112% in Britain (although in Israel, uniquely, "disposable income" includes corporate profits, which skews the figures a tad ).
For the first time ever, the annual home front exercise conducted by the Israel Defense Forces will include preparations for an electronic attack against the country. The exercise, code-named Turning Point 4, will be held from Monday to Thursday next week.
Defense officials yesterday said that the emphasis of this year's exercise will be on the response of local authorities to a military emergency. Drills will be held in 68 cities and towns that are home to 70 percent of Israel's population. The exercise is being orchestrated by the Home Front Command and the National Emergency Authority in the Defense Ministry.
Following 15 years of negotiations, Israel, whose per capita gross domestic product approaches $30,000 (approaching that of Germany), was invited last week to join the OECD's club of democratic, market-economy countries. After receiving what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed "a seal of approval," Israel is now poised for another quantum leap in its development.
The OECD invitation will make Israel even more attractive for investors and help accelerate the country's already remarkable growth rates, which in the pre-crisis years was about 5% per annum.
Christian Aid fears legislation tabled in the Kesset in March will severely curtail the work of NGOs funded from outside Israel. The legislation seeks to remove the tax-exempt status of any organisation “seeking to influence public opinion in Israel”.
Christian Aid said the definition of political activity in the legislation was so broad that almost any organisation could be labelled as political, forcing many NGOs to scale back their work significantly.
Students in a Wayne State University study-abroad program designed to look at the tensions in the Middle East got a firsthand lesson during the weekend -- even before they walked out of Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel.
One of the students, U.S.-born Abeer Afana, 20, said she was interrogated by security for several hours and placed on a plane back home because her parents are from the Gaza Strip and she once held a Palestinian passport.
The U.S. State Department warns that U.S. travelers with Arab or Muslim origin may face additional questioning "or may even be denied entry into Israel."
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The Central Bureau of Statistics report published Sunday reveals that 8% of Israel's Jewish population defines itself as haredi, 12% as religious, 13% as traditional-religious, 25% as traditional and 42% as secular, on a descending scale of religiosity.
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Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, leader of the Yosef Chai Yeshiva; a religious institution in the Yitzhar settlement, has called for an expansion of the 'price tag' campaign - a settler policy of retribution against Palestinians and their property in response to government operations to evacuate settlement enclaves in the West Bank.
Shapira's statements were made as he participated in a demonstration along side hundreds of other settlers protesting a government decision to demolish the religious institute in Yitzhar. He is quoted as saying "What we need is to implement the policy of actively levying a price; this idea did not emerge from here, from the settlements of Nablus, in vain. As such we will lie in wait for them, and we must include all regions and settlements in the policy of making Palestinians pay the price."
(Defense Minister Ehud Barak and U.S. President Barack Obama at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, July 2008)
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday urged Israeli lawmakers to refrain from taking any actions or making remarks that might present Jerusalem as opposed to the Middle East peace process, according to Israel Radio.
The defense minister told members of Knesset from his Labor Party that Israel must work to increase the mutual trust with its top ally, the United States. He stressed that the Americans have been making a noted effort to see the peace process succeed and expected Israel to reach an agreement with the Palestinians.
Barak added that the superiority of the Israel Defense Forces, considered one of the best militaries in the world, was in part to due American arms.
I was asked during an interview on Al Jazeera the question that every Muslim lives with every day, “How can a small country like Israel control America.” My answer was simple. Imagine a friend comes to you screaming, “Someone stole my house!” You ask him what happened. His response; “I put my house up for sale, I asked $200,000 dollars. A man came to the door and said he wanted my house. He gave me $200,000 bucks and now I have no home.”
Israel doesn’t buy influence and control in America, we sold it to them. The price tags were there, had been there forever. Anyway, there isn’t such a thing as Israel. Yes, it is a country, like America but we don’t exist either, not really, we never did. Our Civil War proved this. A country is like a company with a flag, a company that doesn’t have to pay its workers, can even jail or kill them if it wants to. Real countries today are owned by stockholders, we call them banks, who hire managers who work for them.
We call this “government.”
This should explain why the two American political parties act the way they do. They really don’t exist. American history classes are filled with fun days and boring days. During the boring days, the teacher talks about monetary policies and banking. In 1791, Alexander Hamilton set up the Central Bank of the United States. It was controlled by England, our enemy, at least on the surface but was run by the Rothschilds. Jefferson saw that such a bank would turn America into a criminal empire. Jefferson favored “democracy” and Hamilton favored “conservatism” as expressed in “Federalism.”
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The Palestinian Exile, also known as Al Nakba (Arabic for “The Catastrophe”), refers to the ethnic cleansing of native Palestinian peoples … all » during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
From December 1947 until November 1948, Zionist forces (namely the Irgun, Lehi, Haganah terrorist gangs) expelled approximately 750, 000 indigenous Palestinians–almost 2/3 of the population–from their homes.
Hundreds of Palestinians were also murdered for refusing to leave their homes. The most notable massacre is the Deir Yassin Massacre, in which an estimated 120 Palestinian civilians were brutally murdered by an Irgun-Lehi force. Other massacres include the ones at Sahila (70-80 killed), Lod (250 killed), and Abu Shusha (70 killed). About 40 other massacres were carried out by Zionist forces in just the summer of 1948.
Not only did Zionist forces conduct massacres of Palestinian civilians, rape occured as well. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, “In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried to rape several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the country. At the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer [in the Ramle area] there were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large proportion of the cases the event ended with murder. Because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg.”
During Al Nakba, Palestinians were murdered, raped, and ethnically cleansed from their villages. According to Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, “In a matter of seven months, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighborhoods emptied.”
Palestinians were forced into were forced out of Palestine and into neighboring countries (i.e. Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan), where they lived in refugee camps. Many were also sent to camps in West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Most Palestinian towns were demolished and taken by the newly established Israeli government to make room for new Jewish immigrants. Old Palestinian infrastructures, as well as many ruins dating back from the Canaanites, Romans, Greeks, Crusaders, Arabs, and Ottoman Turks were completely destroyed. This signified the end of historical Palestine and the birth of modern-day Israel.
Al Nakba marked the beginning of the Palestinian refugee crisis. Al Nakba destroyed a thriving and diverse Palestinian society and scattered them into diaspora. According to the UNRWA, the number of registered Palestinian refugees today is approximately 4.5 million. These refugees are dispersed throughout the world, many of which are still living in poverty-stricken refugee camps. Today, the situation keeps worsening and thousands die from malnutrition, contaminated water, or scarce medical supply.
Israel has since refused to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and has refused to pay them compensation as required by UN Resolution 194, which was passed on December 11, 1948.
Historically, the Israeli government, Israeli schools, and Israeli historians have denied that Al Nakba has occured. However, The New Historians, a loosely-defined group of Israeli historians, have recently published information recognizing the Al Nakba tragedy and controversial views of matters concerning Israel, particularly events concerning its birth in 1948. Much of their material comes from recently declassified papers. Leading scholars in this school include Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, and Tom Segev. Many of their conclusions have been attacked by other scholars and Israeli historians, who continue deny Al Nakba even occurred.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EAmtgfPz-k
On Jan. 25, I left the United States to begin a semester abroad in Israel as part of the Eisendrath International Exchange. With 70 other high school students from across the country, my assignment was to study Hebrew and Jewish history in addition to taking regular high school classes.
The four-month program included a weeklong trip to Poland. When I signed up, I did not give that trip much thought.
As it turned out, that week would leave a lasting impression on me.
Sad, but furious
The purpose of the trip to Poland was to visit historical sites and learn about the Holocaust. I had studied the Holocaust before, but nothing could prepare me for seeing the evidence firsthand.
On March 22, before leaving Israel, my group heard a Holocaust survivor speak. The story was compelling and sad, but uplifting because this was a survivor. Immediately after this first story, we went to the airport to fly to Poland, where we would hear many more stories.
Our group’s first stop was Tikochen, an old, prominently Jewish town. My teacher walked us around the town, explaining what Jewish life was like before the Nazis came. I was relieved that we were not seeing tragedy right off the bat. We were afraid of what our reactions would be to the horrors we knew we would be learning about.
We did not have to wait long. We were told a story of how Nazis came to Tikochen, put all the Jews in trucks and drove them 10 minutes into the nearby woods.
We then made that same drive.
As we walked through the woods, one of only two survivors of Tikochen told us what had happened right where we were standing. The Jews were forced to dig mass graves and then they were shot into them. I could not get the thought out of my head.
We reached our destination: three mass graves with fences around them. Many people in the group cried, but most were silent.
My reaction surprised me: I was furious. I could not believe how angry I was at the Nazis and at everyone who let these horrors happen. I had never encountered anger before when learning about the Holocaust, but now I wanted to punch a tree.
The only satisfaction I got was seeing the Israeli flags on all the fences. The meaning of the flags was quite simple: a Jewish state exists. I decided I would wear my yamulke, the Jewish head covering, wherever we went that week. This would symbolize that we, the Jewish people, have beaten all odds and are still here. That is our revenge.
In the middle of a busy street
That night we watched the movie “Defiance,” about Jewish brothers living in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, on our bus while going to our next destination. Although it is supposed to be an uplifting movie of Jews living and fighting back in the woods, it took on a different meaning for me.
As I looked out the side of the bus while we drove past wooded area, I thought, Jews could have been killed right there — Jews could have been hiding for their lives right where I was looking.
I think one of the administrators of my trip summed it up best. He said, [“Poland is just one big Jewish graveyard.” It is a disheartening and scary thought — around 4 million Jews were killed in Poland.
The next big stop was Majdonek, a camp that was used almost exclusively for extermination. On our way there, we drove on a busy city street. I looked out my window to the right and saw it: a death camp.
My anger instantly came back. How could these people, 70 years ago, be so close and yet do nothing?
We walked up to the entrance, which was adjacent to a well-traveled road. A couple walked with a stroller. People walked their dogs. Kids rode bikes down this street.
I was enraged. Did these people think this was a park? How could they just walk casually by without shuddering at the horrors that took place a few feet away?
The first thing we did at Majdonek was walk through the camp’s gas chamber — a horrible thing to see. Right where I was standing, Jews had been crammed in naked and then gassed to death.
I felt a hatred I had never felt before. Who could do that to another person?
We then did what no Jew was able to do 70 years ago: Walk out.
After seeing a room full of shoes belonging to Jews and walking around the enormous Majdonek, we walked through the crematorium, where we were face to face with a gigantic mound of human ash. At this point, my anger had mostly subsided and I was feeling sad and remorseful. It was the first time I had physically seen everything, and it was tough.
My teacher made a comment that stuck with me. He said, “Majdonek really scares me because it’s so well kept. All the buildings are so well preserved that with a flick of switch and a phone call — it is back up and running.”
It had been a tough day for all of us, but there was more to come.
Auschwitz
The next day we were at Auschwitz. We spent the whole morning at Auschwitz II (more commonly known as Birkenau).
The gigantic Birkenau is where almost all the Jews went — somewhere around 1.75 million square meters and four gas chambers to Majdonek’s one. But Birkenau was almost in ruin — Nazis destroyed it while trying to get rid of evidence.
We entered the camp and followed train tracks. The tracks had been extended to go right to the gas chambers, so that the Jews could get off the train and go straight to their death.
The walk from the entrance to the rubble of the gas chambers, which we learned were used 24 hours a day, seemed to take forever. I stood where more than 1 million Jews were killed, and the miserable, sad feelings rushed back.
We then walked around the rest of Birkenau, which took hours due to its size. We saw the cabins where the more physically fit Jews who did manual labor slept. We saw the crematoriums and also some memorials. It was the longest few hours of my life.
We had all experienced so much sadness during the past few days that we were ready to be done. But we all knew seeing these things was important.
Lessons learned
We flew back to Israel. When we landed around 5 a.m., I was not tired at all. I couldn’t get over the fact that I had just landed back in the Jewish state of Israel. I had just taken the trip that 6 million Jews dreamed of taking — to a homeland of their own — but never got the chance.
All of a sudden, Israel and the Jewish existence were more precious. I hope to never lose that feeling. It is now my job, and our generation’s job, to learn, tell the story and never forget.
I changed in those few days. I realized that you can never fully understand the Holocaust without seeing the evidence. Although a very difficult trip, I believe everyone — Jewish or not — should go. You do not have to be a Jew to feel the sadness. You just have to be human.
However, I realized that the more you know, the more you realize you cannot know everything. Although the Holocaust was the most documented event in history, so many facts and stories will never be heard. [and so many horrorcaust fables heard and "facts" imagined - that never actually were...]
The trip also brought up many questions: How could the Nazis do such a thing? How could the world just stand by and let it happen? How could the people of Poland be so close yet turn away?
I also realized that in a few years, there will be no more survivors left to tell the story. We, as a new generation, need to see and learn this history so that we will remember and never let something like the Holocaust happen again.
By taking the trip to Poland, I have walked through the footsteps of my ancestors. I have walked through a gas chamber. I have walked the railroad at Birkenau that took Jews to their deaths. I have been to mass graves in the woods.
I am a better person because of it.
Israel's foreign minister claimed Wednesday that North Korean weapons aboard a plane seized in Bangkok in December were bound for Middle Eastern militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said during a visit to Japan that North Korea, Syria and Iran are cooperating as a new "axis of evil" and pose the biggest threat to world security because they are building and spreading weapons of mass destruction.
"We saw this kind of cooperation only two or maybe three months ago with the North Korean plane in Bangkok with huge numbers of different weapons with the intention to smuggle these weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah," Lieberman told reporters in Tokyo.
Acting on a tip from the United States, Thai authorities on Dec. 12 seized an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang when it landed in Bangkok. It was carrying 35 tons of weapons — a violation of U.N. sanctions against North Korea.
Flight documents indicated the plane's cargo — listed as oil drilling equipment — was headed for the Iranian capital Tehran. Iranian officials denied they were importing weapons.
The five-man crew — four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus — claimed they were ignorant of what they were carrying. The crew was deported in February after prosecutors dropped all charges against them.
Analysts have said that while the aircraft may have been heading for Iran, the weapons could actually have been earmarked for radical Middle Eastern groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which Iran has bankrolled and supplied with weapons in the past.
Thai authorities say the weapons on board included explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles.
The U.N. imposed sanctions banning North Korea from exporting any arms after the communist regime conducted a nuclear test and test-fired missiles. Impoverished North Korea is believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year by selling missiles, missile parts and other weapons to countries such as Iran, Syria and Myanmar.
Lieberman, who met with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama during his visit, did not elaborate on his claims that the weapons were destined for Hamas and Hezbollah.
He also claimed that "missile programs" in Iran and Syria were receiving crucial assistance from the North Korean side, without elaborating.
"This axis of evil that includes North Korea, Syria and Iran — it's the biggest threat to the entire world. Not to Israel but to the entire world," he said.
Lieberman also called for tough sanctions on Iran by the U.N. Security Council over its refusal to stop uranium enrichment.
The United States and its allies fear Tehran will use the process to build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any intention to do so, saying its nuclear program aims only to generate electricity.
A teenage Palestinian boy has been shot dead in the occupied West Bank and Palestinians said he was probably killed by an Israeli settler.
The body of Aysar Yasser al-Zaben, 16, was found before dawn today in a field near al-Mazra'a al-Sharqiya, a district of Ramallah. He had been shot in the back and was found lying face down.
Reports said a group of Palestinians were throwing stones at passing cars belonging to Israeli settlers on the main West Bank highway, route 60. Palestinian police said they believed the boy was shot when one settler stopped his car and opened fire on the Palestinians, although some accounts said the dead child was not one of the group of stone throwers. The area is close to the Jewish settlements of Shiloh and Ofra.
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"The biggest threat for both countries (is) from very radical regimes with nuclear capabilities or the desire to develop nuclear capabilities and missiles," said Lieberman. "This axis of evil that includes North Korea and Syria and Iran is the biggest threat to the entire world."
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But when some reporters brought up Israel's nuclear program, asking whether his country is going to explain it to the international community or whether Israel would consider joining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Lieberman avoided giving a straight answer, saying he can only respond to facts, not "rumors."
Israel's top court has ordered nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu back to jail for three months after he refused to do community service in west Jerusalem for fear of harassment.
After having already served 18 years behind bars, a Jerusalem court convicted Vanunu and sentenced him to three months in jail or community service for meeting with a foreigner in violation of the terms of his release.
Vanunu asked the supreme court if he could perform the community service in Arab east Jerusalem, saying he feared he would be "harassed by the Israeli population" in the west of the city.
The supreme court rejected the argument, saying suitable work had been found in mainly Jewish west Jerusalem.
"The plaintiff refused and the court had no choice but to sentence him to three months in jail, which he will serve starting May 23," it said in a ruling issued on Tuesday.
Rights group Amnesty International to urge Israel not to re-imprison Vanunu.
"If Mordechai Vanunu is imprisoned again, Amnesty International will declare him to be a prisoner of conscience and call for his immediate and unconditional release," deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa Philip Luther said in a statement.
"The ongoing restrictions placed on Mordechai Vanunu have meant that he has been unable to move to the USA to live with his adopted family, placing a huge strain on his mental and physical health," Luther said.
"They are not parole restrictions since he served his full 18-year term. They arbitrarily limit his rights to freedom of movement, expression and association (and) are therefore in breach of international law."
Vanunu was jailed in 1986 for disclosing the inner workings of Israel's Dimona nuclear plant to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.
Since his release in 2004, he has been detained several times for violating the terms of his release that ban him from travel or contact with foreigners.
Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, with around 200 nuclear warheads, but has a policy of neither confirming nor denying that.
The Jewish state has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow international surveillance of Dimona in the southern Negev desert.
Vanunu became an international cause celebre during his time in prison.
At home, he is still widely reviled for converting to Christianity shortly before he was kidnapped in Italy and jailed after being covertly shipped back to the Jewish state.
The Israeli police ask the courts for a gag order about 100 times a year. Not many countries claiming to be democracies 'disappear' their own citizens and deny them due process, notes Nadia Hijab
At first it seemed bizarre. Israel slapped a blanket gag order to prevent media coverage of the May 6 arrest of Ameer Makhoul, a prominent Palestinian citizen of Israel who heads Ittijah, a coalition of 64 major civil society organizations. Yet in no time at all the news had shot round the world, and Facebook pages were up calling for his freedom and for a demonstration in Haifa to demand his release.
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Human Rights Watch said Thursday it had evidence of cases from a 2008-09 conflict in which the Israeli army wantonly destroyed civilian property in the Gaza Strip, even if there was no military necessity.
Israel should investigate the alleged cases of destruction during the 2008-2009 Gaza war, and those who committed or ordered them should be prosecuted for war crimes, the international human rights organization said.
The New York-headquartered group criticized Hamas and other Palestinian groups for firing rockets from populated areas, noting that, in such cases, property damage caused by Israeli counterstrikes "may have been lawful 'collateral damage.'"
But in a 116-page report published Thursday, titled "'I lost everything': Israel's Unlawful Destruction of Property in the Gaza conflict," the group described 12 cases in which troops destroyed homes, factories and orchards "without any lawful military purpose."
In those cases, HRW said it found no indication of nearby fighting at the time of the destruction. In all cases, the fighting in the area had stopped and, in most, Israeli bulldozers destroyed the property after Israeli soldiers had dispersed Palestinian militants in the area and consolidated control, said the group.
HRW said it documented the complete destruction of 190 buildings, including 11 factories, 8 warehouses and 170 residential buildings - which it said was roughly 5 per cent of the total property destroyed in Gaza - leaving at least 971 Palestinians homeless.
It also condemned Israel's economic blockade of Gaza as illegal collective punishment, which prevented proper reconstruction. In this, it also held Egypt responsible.
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Five Druze residents of the Golan Heights have been stuck for more than six weeks in Syria after Israeli authorities denied them permission to cross back into the Golan.
The group includes two women, Hamaa Shaar, 36, and Johara Shakhrur, 56, from the Golan Heights town of Buqata, who were visiting their families in Suwara, Syria following the death of Sha'ar's brother and Shakhur's mother.
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Barack Obama is to ask the US Congress for an extra $200m in military aid to help Israel get a short-range rocket defence system in place.
The system is designed to shoot down mortars and rockets from Gaza or Southern Lebanon with guided missiles.
The system, called Iron Dome, has gone through testing and installation will start later this year.
According to US State Department figures, direct military aid to Israel was $2.55bn in 2009.
This is set to increase to $3.15bn in 2018.
Man suspected of providing Jewish state with details of location of Lebanese president's house, entry of Iranian ships to Lebanon waters.
Lebanon's security forces arrested a man 10 days ago suspected of spying for Israel, Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar reported Friday. The man is suspected of passing reports to Israeli intelligence services detailing the exact location of Lebanese President Michel Suleiman.
According to the newspaper, the man, identified by his initials F.S. only, was also instructed to keep track of Iranian ships entering Lebanese territorial waters as well as a ship belonging to a businessman who maintains links with Hezbollah.
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Israel's Foreign Ministry rejected a call by the presidents of Russia and Turkey to include Hamas in the peace process.
In a joint news conference Wednesday in Ankara, Russia's Dmitry Medvedev and Turkey's Abdullah Gul said Hamas should not be excluded from the current peace process. Gul said peace could not be achieved without Hamas involvement.
"Nobody should be excluded when these talks are held," Gul said. "Unfortunately the Palestinians are divided in two. They must be united, and to unite them there must be talks with both sides. The Hamas side won elections in Gaza and so cannot be ignored."
Israel's Foreign Ministry in a statement released late Wednesday also condemned Medvedev's meeting that day with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus.
"Israel has always stood behind Russia in its fight against Chechen terrorism and we expect similar treatment in the case of Hamas terrorism against Israel," the statement said.
Western concerns about Iran's nuclear programme have so far dominated the latest UN conference on the treaty aimed at stopping the spread and stockpiling of nuclear weapons.
But another state is sharing centre stage at the month-long negotiations in New York to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), despite its complete absence from the hall.
"Israel's nuclear arsenal stands like the radioactive elephant in the room," says blogger and journalist Khaled Diab.
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"There is a lot of emotion right now. The general public asks: How come that 20 families control the economy? Israelis want these families to have less power," says Omer Moav, economics professor at the Royal Holloway, University of London, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog has called for international input to pressure Israel into joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano has asked the watchdog's 151 member states to share views on how to implement a resolution demanding that Israel "accede to the" NPT and open its nuclear facilities to inspections.
â??It would be helpful to me if Your Excellency could inform me of any views that your government might have with respect to meeting the objectives of the resolution,â?� he wrote in a letter to the foreign ministers of IAEA member states.
However, Israel has objected to the letter. Tel Aviv says that the move is misdirected and the IAEA should instead focus on preventing NPT signatories like Iran from acquiring atomic weapons.
But Israel's accusations are clearly baseless since IAEA inspectors have never found evidence of diversion in Iran's nuclear program.
Amano's letter, which was published on Wednesday, comes seven months after IAEA member states passed a resolution in Vienna criticizing Israel's nuclear program.
The resolution "expresses concern about the Israeli nuclear capabilities," pointing out that they give rise to "concern about the threat posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons for the security and stability of the Middle East."
An English Literature Advanced Placement essay prompt featuring a quote from the late Palestinian-American professor Edward Said has caused some Jewish students insist the test was politicized against Israel, the Forward reported Thursday.
The essay prompt did not mention Palestine or Israel, but it did characterize Said as a "Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic.”
The essay question, about the nature of exile, read: “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and its native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.”
For Bronx High School of Science senior Ayelet Pearl, identifying the author as Palestinian politicized the test and reinforced what she feels is a widespread worldview that paints Israel as the aggressor against the Palestinians. Pearl said of the quote:
“I was really startled to see that quote because both of the practice questions didn’t mention the writers’ nationalities. For me including this one clearly had political implications.
“I’m in a public school and most students here have the impression that Israel is the one attacking [the Palestinians]. To put a quote in like this subconsciously reinforces the idea that Israel’s the antagonist, the aggressor, the one in the wrong.”
Pearl said she froze when she encountered the quote: "I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t comfortable answering it." Quoting Said on the AP exam “is very reflective of the widespread use of education and testing as a platform for anti-Israel propaganda,” she said.
The College Board, which develops and administers testing for the Advanced Placement exams, said there is nothing wrong with the essay prompt. College Board spokeswoman Jennifer Topiel said:
“We have heard no concerns about this exam question, which contains a quotation about exile and does not contain any political subject matter.”
The Forward said no other writers reference on this year's AP English Literature exam referenced their nationality. However, two years ago, an essay prompt referenced Anita Desai as an Indian author.
'Zionism is dumbing down Jews'
Journalist and Mondoweiss blogger Philip Weiss said the Edward Said furor is another example that "Zionism is dumbing down the Jews."
"In order to believe the Zionist narrative about Israel," Weiss wrote Thursday, "you basically have to block out a lot of history and wipe out another people’s humanity and experience, simply disavow it." That includes insisting that the inclusion of Said's nationality is tantamount to calling Israel an aggressor state. According to Weiss, Said didn't make Israel an aggressor state - Israel did:
"Ayelet Pearl does not want to believe that Israel was an antagonist, an aggressor. This is fantasy. Ennobling Israel at every turn means never having to come to terms with the unfairness of Said’s dispossession– which by the way, was in complete defiance of the 1947 Partition resolution that breathed legitimacy into the Jewish state. It means self-imposed stupidity."
Media Matters Action Network Senior Foreign Policy Fellow MJ Rosenberg heard about the AP exam row, but he was not impressed with Pearl's dismay either. The former AIPAC staffer said in the Huffington Post that the civilizational concern over the AP question is indicative of "the new style of pro-Israel advocacy built on victimhood."
He said AIPAC and the rest of the pro-Israel lobby is trying to garner support for Israel by attempting to convince "the most secure Jewish community in history that they should be afraid, very afraid."
"Israel is the 4th strongest military power in the world. It has 200 nuclear bombs. It has an army of cool, tough, non-weepy soldiers -- many of whom look like Olympic athletes. And you are teaching victimhood."
Whether the College Board has a subconscious bias against authors born east of Europe that prompts them to identify their nationality or the testing authority really has a Palestinian agenda, Rosenberg said this kind of panic is the work of pro-Israel advocacy that wants to turn Jewish kids "into scaredy-cats."
Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider, which has a series of quite juicy anecdotes about Facebook's early days, takes the credit for this one.
The exchange apparently ran like this:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
Jewishness is a state of self-hate, begotten by the cult of judaism.
