Israeli ambassador calls Al-Sisi a "national hero for all Jews"

The Israeli ambassador in Cairo has told a minister in the interim government that the people of Israel look upon General Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi as a "national hero". According to Israel Radio, the ambassador rang Agriculture Minister Ayman Abu-Hadid to congratulate him on his new post and said, "Al-Sisi is not a national hero for Egypt, but for all Jews in Israel and around the globe."

Israel is looking forward to the launch of new relationships with Egypt, said Yaakov Amitai, as well as joint efforts in the war on terror. His mention of "terror" is understood to be an oblique reference to President Mohamed Morsi’s supporters protesting against the coup which removed him from office.

The two men agreed on the resumption of the work of the Supreme Egyptian-Israeli Agricultural Committee. Meetings of the committee are held alternately in Cairo and Tel Aviv every six months. They also agreed to reactivate the Egyptian branch of the Future Leaders Network, which includes Egyptian, Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli youths. 

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Third interview with Ilan Pappé: “All international activists that come to Palestine should be VIP’s…they should Visit, they should Inform and they should Protest”

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli academic and activist. He is currently a professor at the University of Exeter (UK) and is well known for being one of the Israeli “new historians” – re-writing the Zionist narrative of the Palestinian Israeli situation. He has publicly spoken out against Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and condemned the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. He has also supported the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, calling for the international community to take action against Israel’s Zionist policies.

Activists from the International Solidarity Movement had the opportunity to talk to Professor Pappé about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli politics and society and the role of the international community and solidarity activists in Palestine, resulting in a three part series of interviews which will be released on the ISM website in the coming weeks.

This is the final section; the role international community and solidarity activism in Palestine. Find part one on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine here and part two on Israeli society and politics here.

 

International Solidarity Movement: If, as you said in the previous interview (Israeli politics & society), support from the European Union (EU) and the USA is not going to stop, what could the international community do or what should change in order to force Israel to implement and respect international standards?

Ilan Pappé: We need a European spring. In the sense that we all know that if the European political leaders would only reflect what the European people want, the policy of European countries would be much tougher on Israel. Today, governments do not reflect what the people want or think. So the question is how do we transfer the pro-Palestinian sentiments of the people of Europe to the governments of Europe. By the way, this situation is the same in the USA.

I don’t think that Americans are more pro-Palestinian than Europeans, but they are starting to have enough of Israel and they would like the USA to concentrate on their own growing internal issues. But again, political leaders do not represent this wish. We had the same problem in South Africa; it took 21 years for the first European civil act against South African apartheid, which came in the form of economic sanctions. So it’s a very long process. What the international community must do is find ways of convincing their political leaders that it is both ethically and politically better to adopt a much tougher policy against the illegal Israeli occupation. The EU is a good example here because they have strong connections and relations with Israel, they essentially treat them like a member of the EU. When the boycott campaign started, it was the EU who first tried to get Israel to act in a different manner. That was just a small beginning, there is still a lot to be done, but for me, this is the right direction: a process from below towards the political elites.

ISM: There are many European politicians that would like Israel to be a member of the EU. Do you think this is possible, and if so, what will that lead to?

IP: Maybe is a good idea because then Israel would need to change its entire governmental policy, which is currently violating many EU laws. On the other hand, that could be a problem because it may just lead the different governments of the EU to accept Israel’s cruelty and violations. I still think that the best strategy is to explain to these pro-Israel politicians that history will judge them really badly because of their positions. The problem is that politicians don’t have the tendency to look beyond tomorrow. The only way is to explain to them that when this situation changes (in our case, when the occupation ends and when Palestine will be free), they will be on the wrong side in the history books, because they were the politicians that were supporting a state of apartheid.

 It is similar for those politicians who were supporting Benito Mussolini. If politicians feel comfortable with being on the wrong side, that’s okay. But if they want to be portrayed in the history books as people who were working for peace and justice, they need to change their positions and friendships before it is too late. Israel has been kept alive because it serves a lot of strategic and military functions for the West, not because of its morality. Reality isn’t how the Christian Zionists see the world; thinking that Israel should be supported because it represents some kind of moral value. This kind of support has been overcome today, and this is also thanks to the work of the BDS campaign, it is one of the few victories we had.

ISM: In which way is international solidarity useful? What is or what should be the role of international activists in Palestine?

IP: I think that international aid, which is a bit different from solidarity movements, is often problematic. On one hand, it allows the Palestinians some level of existence, but on the other it kind of pays for the occupation and for Israel’s mistakes and violations. But the International Solidarity Movement is different:  it is not about money but about people coming to help other people.  As long as this injustice is happening, I think it is really important that ISM keep coming. All international activists that come to Palestine should be VIP’s. I mean they should Visit, they should Inform and they should Protest. ISM is doing all these three together, but maybe sometimes one less than another, because of particular circumstances or because of the lack of resources, and this is a pity. I think it’s essential to do them all together.

I think that ISM’s main role is to be the ISM’ers of the outside world. I once visited the Basque country, and I noticed that there was a distance between ISM and the boycott movement there, which is a shame because they should definitely work together. What ISM sees in Palestine is the result of the BDS movement’s work outside Palestine, and it works. It is not only about solidarity on the ground, which is very important, but also solidarity from outside.

You cannot replace the liberation movement – the Palestinians have to liberate themselves, nobody can help them with that, not even I, but we can and we must show solidarity with their liberation. This solidarity can be shown on the ground, but mostly by acting in the country that activists come from. It is about finding the right balance. I remember one of the first ISM groups that came to Jenin, after the terrible massacre of 2002. The fact that somebody came, was interested and sympathetic and supportive, meant a lot to the people.

We can see how much effort the Israelis are putting into preventing you from coming here, and I think that’s a good indication – proof that you are doing something right. I would be worried if tomorrow Israel said all ISMers are welcome – that would mean you’re not doing something right.

Protest against the construction of the wall in Al Walaja

ISM: What about the BDS campaign, do you think that an academic and cultural boycott could be an effective instrument against the Israeli occupation?

IP: I was always a great supporter of the BDS movement. As it did in South Africa, it will also play an important role in changing the reality on the ground here. But it is a long process and we need to be patient.

In the case of Israel, the academic and cultural boycott is particularly important, because Israel sees itself as a European and democratic country in the middle of the Arab world. ‘European’ not because of the economic relations it has with Europe, or because it sells tomatoes in Holland – among others it also has strong economic relations with China, Russia and Africa – but because it is part of the European cultural and academic elite. If European academic and cultural institutions say that they do not want to work with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s behaviour, I think it would send a very strong message.

The cultural and academic boycott (unlike the economic one, which only affects the occupied territories) makes a huge and direct impact on Israeli society, and it is only when that happens that Israelis will talk about what is happening in Palestine. For example, the only time that the Israeli press – and sometimes international media as well – talks about the occupation is when someone like Stephen Hawking says he is going to boycott an event organized by Israeli personalities. Before the spread of the boycott movement, it was only when there were bomb attacks in Israel that Israelis remembered that there is an occupation. Now this issue is brought up more regularly, when a famous pop group or author refuses to come, or when an important university in the USA says that they do not want to work with Israeli universities. This type of boycott is really important, and it is the main thing that the international community can do.

Pro-Palestinian activists hold a boycott protest during a football match between Scotland and Israel

International solidarity movements sometimes think that they should have an opinion regarding, for example, the one-state or two-state solutions, but this is actually not their business. It is up to the Palestinians and Israelis to decide how they are going to live. What international movements can do is to create the conditions for a reasonable dialogue. But we need to end the occupation before starting to speak about peace. The Israeli trick has for many years been to try to convince the world that peace will end the occupation. But we know that actually this goes the other way around: we end the occupation and then we will start to talk about peace. I think that ISM, the BDS movement and the Palestinian solidarity movements are all grassroots organizations that do not accept the Israeli diktat “Peace will end the occupation”. These organizations are not part of the peace talks but instead they work on ending the occupation and the apartheid.

ISM: What would you say to people that believe that cultural and sport events should not be politicized?

IP: Well, it was very effective in the case of South Africa. In fact white South Africans only began to think about apartheid when the big sports teams of South Africa were not invited to international sporting events. Moreover, I think that sport is political. For example, Israel is going to host the UEFA Under-21 football tournament, and the Palestinian football team has not been invited. Palestinian players from Gaza will not even be able to go to Israel and see the tournament. Sport is political if it is not free for everyone to participate.

Academia as well is clearly political. Israeli academics, when they are abroad, think they are Israel’s ambassadors. Synagogues abroad see themselves as Israel’s embassies. When Israeli academics see themselves as ambassadors, and represent something that most decent people abroad will see as unacceptable, then people have the right to show their rejection.

And nobody tells these people that they represent Israel, they say it themselves. There was a big debate in the Basque country about the Israeli singer Noah – whether people should boycott her concert or not. People went to her website and saw she had written that she represents Israel on her tour. So she wasn’t coming just as a singer, but as a representative of Israel. We are in 2013 and if you say that, it means you represent what Israel represents, and what Israel is doing today. Therefore you are a legitimate target of the boycott.

This is the last of a three part interview series: Ilan Pappé in conversation with the International Solidarity Movement. 

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Second interview with Ilan Pappé: “The basic Israeli ideology – Zionism – is the problem”

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli academic and activist. He is currently a professor at the University of Exeter (UK) and is well known for being one of the Israeli “new historians” – re-writing the Zionist narrative of the Palestinian Israeli situation. He has publicly spoken out against Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and condemned the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. He has also supported the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, calling for the international community to take action against Israel’s Zionist policies.

Activists from the International Solidarity Movement had the opportunity to talk to Professor Pappé about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli politics and society and the role of the international community and solidarity activists in Palestine, resulting in a three part series of interviews which will be released on the ISM website in the coming weeks.

This is the second section; Israeli politics and society. Find part one on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine here.

International Solidarity Movement: We were following the last Israeli elections and we were surprised to see that there was no actual talk about Palestine, it was all basically about internal issues. Then after the elections, Netanyahu commented about extending the settlements. What do you think about this?

Ilan Pappé: Your observation is correct. Israeli voters think that the problem of the West Bank has been solved, so they think there is no need to either talk about it, or come up with solutions. You propose a solution as an idea for an election only if you think there is a problem, which they think is not the case here. They think that what we have is good for Palestinians and good for Israelis. They think that the world is stupidly trying to create a problem that is not there, and is trying to be involved where there is no need to be. They think that even if there are still missiles coming from Gaza, Israel has a strong army that will answer back. So, if you speak with Israelis in the subway, they will tell you that there is not a problem between Israel and Palestine.

The only thing that makes Israelis think about Palestine is when the boycott campaign is successful, like what happened recently with Stephen Hawking. Do you know what the problem is? 95% of Israelis don’t even want to go to the West Bank, so they don’t know what is really happening. Or they know what is happening only from their children who are serving as soldiers. But their children don’t tell them about the checkpoints, the arrests from homes and all the other awful things. Israelis could know if they wanted to – they have the internet – but they don’t want to. For example in Tivon, my neighbourhood, everybody votes for the left, but if you ask them if they have ever seen a checkpoint or the apartheid wall, or if any one of them wants to go to the West Bank and see what the soldiers and settlers are doing, they will say no. They’ll tell you that’s not their problem. They have other problems – standard of living, house prices, the new car, the education of their children etc.

ISM: Yair Lapid, the head of the Ministry of Finance of the new coalition government, stated on 20^th May that Israel is not going to stop the colonization of the West Bank or end subsidies for illegal settlers, which in fact will not only continue but increase. Do you think that any switch of parties in power could truly make an impact on this situation?

Halamish settlement, built on Nabi Saleh’s land (Photo by ISM)

IP: No. We haven’t had any party or leader different from the others, including Rabin, who became a hero after he was shot. Israelis like Lapid are always busy implementing policies so that the land has no Palestinians – so in this sense Lapid is just continuing what everyone before him was doing. The problem they have is not technical – they know how to do it, they have a script. They do not build new settlements, but they allow the natural growth of the current settlements, while Palestinians are not allowed natural growth. Then they say they’re not building a new settlement, but need to build a new neighbourhood because the settlement population has grown. So you can see from this that they do not have any technical problem, it’s more that they maintain this funny dialogue with the world: “You know that we are colonizing, you know that we are ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, you know that we are keeping them in prison, but still we are playing this game where we are speaking about a peace process.”

The only problem that Israel has – although within 10 years I unfortunately don’t believe it will be a problem anymore, unless we change something – is that they still think that what they’re doing will never be accepted by the world, so they think they need to find a new language for what they’re doing. But practically on the ground I don’t think there has been one day since 1967 that something was not built by the Israelis in the West Bank, whether it’s a house or a flat or a road or a balcony, it goes on and it will continue.

Israel knows that the EU and the USA will not stop supporting them, and they’re right. So they will talk about stopping colonization, but they will not actually stop it. This is something to worry about because that’s the reality. Lapid comes from the new generation of politicians and I think that when you are new in politics you say a bit more openly what you are doing. Then, like Silvio Berlusconi, when you have another term, you stop saying what you are actually doing. So, if Lapid were to become Prime Minister, he would stop saying what he’s doing, he’d say, “we are not building, we are just fabricating.”

Today, there is no hope for a change from within the Israeli political system. This system is just going to get more and more right wing, and less and less willing to change Israel’s unilateral policies.

ISM: There is this new far-right party “The Jewish Home” that just entered the government following the recent elections, with leader Naftali Bennet, who became Minister of Religious Services and Industry, Trade and Labour. What kind of change will that bring?

IP: He is a very clever man, he comes from a settlement, and his main agenda is to strengthen the connection between the settlements and Israel. This was not openly his agenda during the elections. At that time he was talking to young Israelis in Tel Aviv about how nice it is to be Israeli, and saying that he would bring back pride in being Israeli – and it actually worked, they liked him. It was all about this idea of the ‘great nation’. And he added Judaism to this – saying it is not just good to be Israeli, but to be a Jewish Israeli. He is young, he was in the army, he was a military hero and a successful businessman. But he is not so different from Lapid, they live the same way – “it doesn’t matter whether you are from a settlement or from Tel Aviv, we are all from Israel”.

ISM: Do you think that the settlers will have more impact on Israeli politics because of Bennet’s success?

IP: Yes, I think so, but this is not so important. It doesn’t matter if you are from a settlement or from Tel Aviv, or if you are on the right or on the left. The basic Israeli ideology – Zionism – is the problem. I think that as long as Zionism is regarded as an ideal concept, the same policies will continue. If Israel has a more right-wing government – for example Netanyahu’s government compared to the Barak government – then the differences are small. You just have a few more checkpoints and a bit more brutality. But I think in the end it’s really just the same. What matters is not the government of Israel, but how much the Palestinians are willing to accept. If they are willing to accept the current reality, then Israel will allow them to work within Israel, remove some of the checkpoints, give them some more autonomy. But the moment Palestinians show some form of resistance, Israel is going to repress them brutally. Everything is about how much Palestinians accept the Israeli diktat.

ISM: You previously said that there is no more hope for a change at the political level in Israel. But on the other side, in what way do you view today’s Israeli citizens’ commitment against the occupation? How important is it that the present and future Israeli society challenges this form of colonization?

IP: I think that the forces that oppose the occupation are very small, but there have been two positive developments. First of all, the rejection of the occupation is growing and secondly, it is led by the new generation, not like before. This is an essential element. But, pressure from the international community and the Palestinian resistance will be the main factors that will bring down the occupation. One day, when we will need to rebuild a new society, it will be much better to know that there were many Jewish people who were fighting against the occupation. When the occupation ends and takes its apartheid with it, I am sure that a lot of Jewish people will say that they were against it, like the white South Africans said at the end of their apartheid system, but everybody knows that it was not the case during that period. It is good to see that this wave is growing every day. Nonetheless, a lot of Israelis, they still don’t know that there is a military occupation! For the future it is essential that this view changes, and it is changing.

Israeli activists protesting the Gaza massacre in 2008-2009 (Photo by Activestills) Editors Note: 94% of Israelis wanted to see Gaza wipe off the map during the war crime called "cast lead"

ISM: Young Israeli people often feel criticized when they travel abroad. Do you think that this criticism has an impact or influence on Israeli society?

IP: Yes, I think it’s good to criticize young Israelis abroad. Some of them have actually changed because of that, no doubt about it. There’s a wonderful YouTube clip which shows what happens to young Israelis abroad. The Israeli military used to show this clip about young Israelis going abroad, to India. It was a clip especially against the refuseniks – people who refuse to serve in the army. In the clip they’re all sitting with young nice Indian girls, then some young Europeans come along and ask the Israelis what they did in the army. One speaks about the time he was a commander and about how cool it was to be in the army, and the Europeans look at him amazed, like he’s a hero. Meanwhile, the refusenik seems ashamed, looking down, without saying anything, basically really uncomfortable because he didn’t serve in the army. So this Israeli anti-apartheid organization made a counter-video, with the same setting, but instead of being soldiers they were Israeli activists, and the ashamed person was the one who served in the army, he was the one feeling really uncomfortable.

Now in 2013, some young people do not buy the whole story of anti-Semitism. They meet people abroad of the same age who know about the occupation, and where older people might just say that the people are neo-Nazis or something, young people are more likely to see the difference between being against the occupation and being anti-Semitic. This is an important new development, which I have seen with my own eyes.

ISM: What are the long term effects, social and psychological, on Israeli youth because of military conscription?

IP: Military conscription frames your mind. It makes you see human beings through a rifle and therefore you dehumanize them. It makes you very insensitive to suffering of others and at the same time makes you very racist. It also makes you limited in the way you can think about new options in life, because power obscures your mind. In any kind of situation you will think that the only way out from a state of affairs is the use of force. This has very negative effects on Israeli youth and it is clearly just part of the heavy indoctrination they face throughout life.

Young Israelis do not often speak about the psychological problems that come afterwards. I went to the psychiatric department in Israel and the vast majority of people are young Israelis who served in the army. This is a secret in Israel, nobody talks about it.  Two days ago a young boy who just finished his military service went into a bank that refused to give him a loan. He ended up shooting four people to death. This is just one example of the impact and effects of military conscription and militarization on the Israeli society.

ISM: How does it feel to live in Israel and at the same time be against the state? What are the consequences?

IP: It’s a fact that there are not many cases like mine and I pay a price for my position. So far, people like me pay a price not in the sense that the government is chasing them, it is different from other countries. Israel is such a racist state that it won’t do that to Jewish people. What they do instead, is to encourage society to punish you. The fact that I had to leave Haifa University is the result of this. They aim at the place where you work. For example, we had 4 brave former pilots that refused to serve in occupied Palestine because of what Israel was doing there – they were forced to leave their jobs outside of the military.

So, the public sphere or even your family or your friends make you pay a price, because you are considered a traitor. The reward you get is that you feel better about yourself and when you go abroad, people respect you. This, I hope, will encourage people to pay the price. If the Palestinians did what some Israelis are doing, they would just find themselves in jail. The Jewish people will maybe lose their job, be insulted, be hated by their neighbours, students. It is a long but really important process.

ISM: How did they kick you out from Haifa University?

IP: What they did is something called a special university court. They wanted to judge me as a traitor and kick me out of the university. This resulted in an international outrage because luckily, I was already well known at this time in the academic world, so they couldn’t go through the court process. What they did instead was to make it impossible for me to teach: they stopped my teaching allowances, they persecuted my PhD students, they gave me small classes, they told everyone at the university not to sit with me, not to speak to me. It was the director who gave the “orders”. He told to the other teachers that they would put their own career at risk if they violated these rules. They never formally fired me but I decided that that was enough, so I left.

Today there are many similar cases throughout Israel but speaking out against Israeli policies as an academic has now become more difficult than before, since in 2012 a new law was passed in the Knesset. This law says that if you are an Israeli academic and you support openly the academic boycott of Israel or you speak against Israel’s policies and actions, they have to fire you or you could even be arrested. After all, a large number of Israeli academics against the occupation created the “Israeli Academic Committee for Boycott”. These people are suffering and will never be able to become professors or further their academic careers – but more importantly I think that they feel better than the others. After this draconian law was passed, even more people decided to speak openly against the Israeli occupation or apartheid and for now, nobody has actually been arrested. How can Israel speak about democracy when our supposed freedom of speech is being violated so clearly.

This is the second of a three part interview series: Ilan Pappé in conversation with the International Solidarity Movement. Look out for the final part on the role of the international community and solidarity activism next week.

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Dome of the Rock Virtually Destroyed

 

And burned the house of the LORD, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire-Jeremiah 52:13

Dome of the Rock

 Roi Tov

Few holidays are more confused than the fast day of Tisha B’Av (“the ninth of Av”) in Israel. Formally, it commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Contradicting its source, it reintroduced idolatry by its date having become a magic number.

Jewish religious communities commemorate a plethora of other events that they define as disasters. It is claimed that on this date SS commander Heinrich Himmler received approval from the Nazi Party for The Final Solution. On this day started the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, Ariel Sharon’s Gaza Disengagement Plan and many more. On this day, hungry Israel becomes an astrologist’s Utopia.

Don’t laugh, it kills. A Pulsa diNura^* and a little help from good friends destroyed the life of the perpetrator of the Gaza Disengagement Plan.

From time to time, I report on the slow advances Israel makes in its plan to construct the Third Temple on the Temple Mount, where today is the Dome of the Rock. Last October in Israel gets closer to Third Temple, and afterwards in Israel Expands Western Wall.

Some of the preparations relate to the ground; others to the artifacts and ceremonies prepared by dedicated colleges. The latter are purposely changing the Biblical texts. The best known example of manipulation is the Menorah, the seven branches lampstand which was adopted by the State of Israel as its symbol. The reproduction publicly displayed these days is not the one described in the Bible, but the Roman pagan version (see Un-Branding Israel).

On Tisha B’Av 2013 (July 15), Israel inaugurated a new step in the preparations, virtually exploding the Dome of the Rock.

Har Kodesh Snapshot

A Graffiti of the Third Temple Appears over a Picture of the Dome of the Rock

Related: Israel gets closer to Third Temple

Did you know? Military Rabbinate Plans Third Temple

 

Holy Mount Unholy Deeds

On the evening before the fast, a press release was published by Har Kodesh, announcing its 3D virtual tour of the Temple Mount. The company’s name means “Holy Mount.”

                                                Third Temple in the Har Kodesh Website
              Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple?


Out of respect to Muslim readers I won’t quote the Hebrew reports except one that shows the trend: “In the tour, you will be able to tour Har HaBait (“Mount of the House,” the Hebrew name of the Temple Mount) from nearby and see what those evil Muslims have done to our beautiful place, and what we can do to them now.” A superb example of the charming Jewish interpretation ofthou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Lev 19:18).

The address of the company identifies it as a commercial enterprise. It is owned by “Lev HaUma” (Heart of the Nation), an NGO. The tour uses various virtual guides, three dimensional renderings of real people and their real voices. The one in the snapshot below is Abshalom Kor, a well-known linguist. Another one belongs to Minister of Housing and Construction Uri Ariel, from the settler party The Jewish Home. To the say the least, a formal part of the Israeli Government was aware of the initiative and cooperated with it.

                                            Dome of the Rock in the Har Kodesh Website
                     Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third

The press release states that the minister wants to create a museum on the Mount. The only way of doing that is by removing the Dome of the Rock and the adjacent al-Aqsa mosques. The company doesn’t explain how this would be achieved except for saying “quickly, in our days, amen.” The NGO had made the Third Temple experience available for those unable to visit the relevant sites.
Emphasizing this point “at any moment with a click on the mouse, the Dome of the Rock vanishes.” At that moment, it is replaced by the Third Temple.

Hey, Brute Samson, Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?⁺. The real Temple is in our heart; invariably, you violate it by raping others at any opportunity you have in the best fashion of the indefatigable conspirators.^**“What we can do to them now,” you obscurely threat. Let me dare you. Show us! You know that if you dare, you’ll die with the Philistines.⁺⁺
———

^* Pulsa diNura (“lashes of fire” in Aramaic) is Jewish ceremony calling the angels of destruction to block heavenly forgiveness of one’s sins, causing all Biblical curses to befall the victim.
Two cases became infamous.

On October 6, 1995, at midnight, Avigdor Eskin, a prominent member of the Settler Gush Emunim movement recited (it was made public by the media): “Angels of destruction will hit him. He is damned wherever he goes. His soul will instantly leave his body… and he will not survive a month. Dark will be his path and God’s angel will chase him. A disaster he has never experienced will befall him and all curses known in the Torah will apply to him. I deliver to you, the angels of wrath and ire, Yitzhak, the son of Rosa Rabin, that you may smother him and the specter of him, and cast him into hell, and dry up his wealth, and plague his thoughts, and scatter his mind that he may be steadily diminished until he reaches his death. Put to death the cursed Yitzhak. May he be damned, damned, damned!” Later, in Court, it was proved that the Shin Beth secret police had been involved in the subsequent assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Another published event is related to the odd stroke of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. After the abovementioned Eskin faced troubles for his public course, the perpetrators of this one were careful not to identify themselves. In July 2005, opponents of the Gaza pullout plan recited the Pulsa diNura in the old cemetery of Rosh Pina, asking the Angel of Death to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Seven months later, he was clumsily taken in ambulance to the hospital during Jerusalem’s rush hour, instead of being taken with the standby helicopter available to Prime Ministers. Along the way—oops!—he was given the wrong drug. Since then he is in a coma. Shin Beth agents refuse to comment.

Israel’s Prosecutor refused to charge them, claiming that their prayers were aimed at God and not to specific persons, thus they were not instigating violence. Oddly, Shin Beth agent Avishai Raviv (a.k.a. “Agent Champagne” as disclosed by the Shin Beth during the Rabin’s assassiantion trial) instigated the assassin but was absolved by Court. He just followed orders.

⁺ 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

⁺⁺ The Samson Option is the common name for Israel’s nuclear option. It originates in Judges 16:30And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. It is now an idion for a suicidal attack.

^** ”Indefatigable conspirator” is an indirect method of referring to the Shin Beth secret police and its agents. Four catchy phrases ruined Shimon Peres political life, relegating him to the simple formalities of Israel’s Presidency. “Yes and No” was coined by Sefy Rivlin, and cost Peres the 1981 and 1984 elections. A Peres puppet was shown answering “yes and no” to every question asked. Before that, in 1977, Yitzhak Rabin called Peres an “indefatigable conspirator.” Since this article is in English, I won’t analyze the brilliance of the Hebrew saying; in the feat of his lifetime, Rabin ruined Peres with three words. The other two phrases are related to Shimon Peres’ attempt in 1990 to replace Shamir’s government—of which he was Minister of Finances—by a narrow government led by Labor and supported by ultra-Orthodox parties. Peres failed, and Rabin hit again. He called the affair the “Dirty Trick” (literally “The Stinking Exercise”). In the popular protests that followed, the fourth slogan appeared: “Mush’hatim, nim’astem!” (roughly “corrupt people, we’re fed up with you!”). Rabin used it as the Labor slogan for the 1992 election, which he won. It was obvious that he included Peres in the culprits at whom the slogan was aimed.

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Helen Thomas, in Memoriam

by Sami Jamil Jadallah

I wrote this essay back in 2011 immediately after Helen Thomas left the AP as senior White House correspondence and after the entire Washington jumped on the bandwagon to destroy an illustrious career of a very brave woman, who dared to ask difficult questions of presidents. Farewell Ms. Thomas, you are the bravest of them all… there are NO brave souls in corrupt, coward Washington. Rest in Peace, God Bless.

President Obama who participated in throwing Helen Thomas to AIPAC dogs and wolves has this to say:

“Michelle and I were saddened to learn of the passing of Helen Thomas. Helen was a true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers for generations of women in journalism. She covered every White House since President Kennedy’s, and during that time she never failed to keep presidents – myself included – on their toes. What made Helen the “Dean of the White House Press Corps” was not just the length of her tenure, but her fierce belief that our democracy works best when we ask tough questions and hold our leaders to account. Our thoughts are with Helen’s family, her friends, and the colleagues who respected her so deeply.”

One has to compare the statements made by Helen Thomas and Henry Kissinger about Jews and Israel to see the hypocrisy and double standards that afflict official Washington, the media and public affairs in general in the US. Kissinger did not see any problem of Soviet Jews going to the gas chambers. Helen Thomas only asked why not the Jews of Israel go back to Poland and Germany where they came from. Kissinger was afforded the forum of the Washington Post to apologize for his statement while Helen Thomas was thrown to the wolves and under the train with every body from Obama on down doing their best to “delete” her outstanding contributions to professional journalism. Of course the answer to this hypocrisy is that one is an “Arab”, the other is a “Jew”, simple.

Shortly after meeting with Golda Meir at the White House in 73, Kissinger is quoted as saying to President Nixon “ The immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern, may be a humanitarian concern”. The statement of course came out to the public after Helen Thomas made her comments to a rabid Rabbi who was pestering her and asking her opinion of Israel.

This is exactly the conversation that took place between the Rabbi and Helen Thomas on June 7, 2010, (Wikipedia).

“Nesenoff: Any comments on Israel? We’re asking everybody today, any comments on Israel?
Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Nesenoff: Oooh. Any better comments on Israel?
Thomas: Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not German, it’s not Poland …
Nesenoff: So where should they go, what should they do?
Thomas: They go home.
Nesenoff: Where’s the home?
Thomas: Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else[55]
Nesenoff: So you’re saying the Jews go back to Poland and Germany?
Thomas: And America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries? See?
—May 27, 2010, RabbiLive.com [50]

Of course there was never a reference to the gas chamber, no indifference to sending the Soviet Jews the Gas Chambers, as suggested by Henry Kissinger, only calling for immigrating European Jews to go back to their countries of origin in Germany and Poland.

Kissinger offered his apologies in a Washington Post opinion page on December 26, 2010 widely republished around the world even in the Arab press and in the Israeli press. Kissinger argued his statement was taken out of context and offered this apology” Reference to gas chambers have no place in political discourse and I am sorry I made that remarks 37 years ago”. On the other hand Thomas made the following apology “ I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

Of course in a bloodthirsty media and politics, no one wanted to hear the apologies from Helen. Every one was out for her blood from President Obama to his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, to Arie Fleischer, to Lanny Davis, to Mike Huchabee, to Victor Davis Hanson to Kevin Smith of the Society of Professional Journalists. All of them found Helen Thomas comments to the pestering Rabbi as “ offensive” and “inexcusable”. No one dared to say the same thing to Henry Kissinger statements, which it seems that every one from President Obama on down found his words not worthy of comments or they all agree to his statement. Henry Kissinger did not mind if the Jews go the gas chamber and no one raised hell about it. Every one find Helen Thomas calls for the return of the Jews to Europe offensive and worthy of every drop of her blood.

It seems every one is jumping on Helen Thomas from Kevin Smith of the Society of Professional Journalist who is seeking and calling for “reconsider” the name of Helen Thomas for Life Time Achievement at their January 8, 2010 meeting. Even a group of Holocaust survivors who are by the way silent about Henry Kissinger statements about sending the Jews to the gas chambers were critical of the Arab American National Museum of Dearborn, Michigan for its plans to put out a “statue” of Helen Thomas. Even Wayne State, no doubt under pressure from American Jewish organizations and threats of cutting off private and public funding discontinued the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in Media Award.

The ironic thing is that no one in Washington or any where in the country is calling for stripping Henry Kissinger of his Noble Peace Prize he received in 1973 for his part and contribution to the death and murder of over a million Vietnamese and Cambodians and no one is calling for striping him of the Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed by the late Gerald Ford.

Henry Kissinger the “Jew” is offered every opportunity to explain his statement and offer an apology and that is the end of his indifference to sending the Soviet Jews to the gas chamber, while Helen Thomas the “Arab” is thrown to the wolfs with every one including President Obama is doing their best to “delete” her long contribution to professional journalism, her first as Dean of the White House Press Corps, the first woman officer the National Press Club, the first female member of the Gridiron Club.

With actions like these it makes one wonder if there is separate treatment of “Arabs” from that of “Jews”. Perhaps every one is telling us something we already know. When it comes to Israel, be careful, no one has the right to dare to speak. Welcome to America.

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UK MP and Israel Critic David Ward is Suspended From Party

Israel lobby draws the ‘red lines’ and dictates ‘precise terms’ for future Liberal Democrat debate, apparently.

by Stuart Littlewood

Back in January the Liberal Democrat leadership threw a mighty wobbly when MP David Ward made this remark on his website: “I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Goaded by the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who complained that Ward’s remarks “deliberately abused the memory of the Holocaust” and were “sickening” and “offensive”, the party’s Chief Whip, Alistair Carmichael, agreed they were “wholly inappropriate” and that singling out ‘the Jews’ in that way crossed a red line.

Ward was treated like a delinquent. According to the Jewish Chronicle http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/102865/clegg-response-david-ward-%EF%AC%81g-leaf party leader Nick Clegg ordered him to work alongside Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel “to identify and agree language that will be proportionate and precise” in future debate. Disciplinary steps would then be reviewed.

The story went quiet for a few months. Then this week, just as Parliament broke up for the long summer holiday, Ward received a letter from Carmichael ‘withdrawing the whip’ (suspending him from the parliamentary party), until 13 September. This is hardly a severe punishment considering MPs are away until 2 September.

As reported by Sky News http://news.sky.com/story/1117439/david-ward-in-row-after-zionist-tweet Carmichael wrote: “As we have sought to impress upon you repeatedly, we are having to decide on whether language you chose to use in January and February, and now this month, is language which brings the party into disrepute or harms the interests of the Party.

“We put it to you that your most recent statement – which specifically questions the continuing existence of the State of Israel – is neither proportionate nor precise. Unfortunately, we considered your explanation to be unconvincing and it did not satisfy us that you understood the importance of conducting the debate on this issue at all times and in all places in terms that are proportionate and precise.

“You will know that Nick [Clegg], Simon [Hughes] and I have a consistent track record of being outspoken about illegal settlement activities of Israeli governments and the threat this poses to the two-state solution for which the party has long argued.

“It is also immensely frustrating for us to find ourselves constantly responding to questions about disproportionate and imprecise language from you. These interventions cause considerable offence rather than addressing questions of political substance about the plight of the Palestinian people and the right of Israel’s citizens to live a life free of violence. It is extraordinarily difficult to gain traction in that debate at an effective political level if the expression of our concerns is undermined by the way your language misrepresents the view of our party.

“Whilst we understand you have your own views about this process, which has been long and complicated, we also hope you recognise that we have given you every opportunity to reconcile the expression of your views with the party’s policy on a two-state solution. Unfortunately, you have not been able to do that.

He won’t apologise for calling Israel an apartheid state

Only a couple of days earlier David Ward had tweeted: “Am I wrong or are am I right? At long last the Zionists are losing the battle – how long can the apartheid State of Israel last?”

As the punishment, Ward condemned it as “disproportionate” saying his views were widely shared http://uk.news.yahoo.com/israel-tweet-lib-dem-mp-suspended-135700994.html#IXktdLc. “I will not apologise for describing the state of Israel as an apartheid state. I don’t know how you can describe it as anything else,” he said. “I am genuinely quite shocked at the reaction to the kind of thing many people say.”

The Israel lobby, no doubt hoping to see much more blood on the carpet, was disappointed with the ruling. Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive Karen Pollock said: “David Ward has never fully apologised for his comments… It is about time the whip was withdrawn but the timing allows Mr Ward to repeat his unacceptable views when Parliament returns in the autumn.”

Board of Deputies vice-president Jonathan Arkush said the suspension was too little, too late and an empty gesture.

In one sense the LibDem action blows a raspberry at the outside meddlers. But this show of defiance is overshadowed by the general gutlessness that’s evident in the way the party caves in to Pro-Israel pressure.

Some of the remarks in the Carmichael letter are really quite silly…

• “We have given you every opportunity to reconcile the expression of your views with the party’s policy on a two-state solution… the two-state solution for which the party has long argued.”

The party is sadly out of date. I strongly advise Clegg and Co to watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOaxAckFCuQ . Miko Peled is an Israeli Jew, the son of an Israeli general and a former soldier in the Israeli army. You couldn’t find a more authentic insider source. He confirms in the bluntest words what many have known and been saying for years. Here is a flavour.

“The name of the game: erasing Palestine, getting rid of the people and de-Arabizing the country…

“When people talk about the possibility of Israel soArticle – mehow giving up the West Bank for a Palestinian state, if it wasn’t so sad it would be funny. It shows a complete misunderstanding of the objective of Zionism and the Zionist state.

“By 1993 the Israelis had achieved their mission to make the conquest of the West Bank irreversible. By 1993 the Israeli government knew for certain that a Palestinian state could not be established in the West Bank – the settlements were there, $billions were invested, the entire Jordan River valley was settled… there was no place any more for a Palestinian state to be established. That is when Israel said, OK, we’ll begin negotiations…”

Peled also describes the Israeli army, in which he served, as “one of the best trained and best equipped and best fed terrorist organisations in the world.”

• “It is immensely frustrating for us to constantly respond to questions about disproportionate and imprecise language from you. These interventions cause considerable offence rather than addressing questions of political substance about the plight of the Palestinian people.”

I can’t recall the LibDem leadership ever confronting the plight of the Palestinians in a robust way. Anyone who tries to – Baroness Jenny Tonge for example – gets slapped down and sacked. The political substance is Israel’s lawless and hideous conduct and the international community’s lack of backbone to deal with it.

• “We are not satisfied that you understand the importance of conducting the debate on this issue at all times and in all places in terms that are proportionate and precise.”

Anyone who attempts to debate any matter relating to Israel’s criminality is howled down by the Israel lobby while party bosses put the boot in. Nothing, it now seems, can be said unless it is “proportionate and precise” in Tel Aviv’s terms.

• “Nick, Simon and I have a consistent track record of being outspoken about illegal settlement activities of Israeli governments.”

Israel’s settlements are so illegal – a war crime, in fact – that our tremulous trio can hardly escape speaking up. The settlement building programme began with the Allon Plan in 1967 and still goes on. What effect has their so-called outspokenness had all these years? Words are plainly not enough. What real hard-edged action have the LibDems taken?

Clegg did himself and his party no favours when he came out with this lopsided statement http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/41015/nick-clegg-we-got-it-wrong-israel : “Israel’s right to thrive in peace and security is non-negotiable for Liberal Democrats. No other country so continually has its right to exist called into question as does Israel, and that is intolerable. There can be no solution to the problems of the Middle East that does not include a full and proper recognition of Israel by all parties to the conflict.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking it was written by Mark Regev’s hasbara office. Why on earth would anyone recognise a state founded on terror, grand theft and ethnic cleansing at gunpoint?

Why would anyone recognise a state that is contemptuous of international and humanitarian law?

Why would anyone recognise a state that’s bristling with nukes and other WMDs but refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty or place them under international inspection and safeguards, then foams at the mouth at the thought of a neighbouring country having a nuclear weapons programme?

Why would anyone recognise a state that itself does not recognise the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and still prevents refugees from returning home in defiance of UN Resolution 194 (re-affirmed every year since 1949)… a state that applies a brutal, illegal yet seemingly permanent military occupation and severely restricts movement of people, essential supplies and normal trade goods in the Palestinian homeland?

And why would anyone recognise a state that refuses to declare its borders so that it can continue to pursue its expansionist plans? In any case, which Israel does Clegg suggest we recognise – Israel within the 1947 UN Partition borders? Israel within the 1949 Armistice borders? Or Israel as now, in full occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Old City, and part of Syria, and not forgetting its vicious blockade on Gaza and repeated violation of Lebanese borders?

Why aren’t Clegg, Carmichael and Hughes saying, loudly and clearly, “No recognition until the occupation ends, international law is fully respected and implemented, and the Palestinians’ self-determination, security and freedoms are guaranteed.”?

Quite simply, there can be no peace until all that happens.

“You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive”
Helen Thomas

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