Quick Note

Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

The institution that wants to shut down free speech in Israel is the Center for Jewish Pluralism. How "funny" is that? Pluralism is great, as long as you agree with me.

You Must Be Joking

Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

So much for free speech. Arutz 7, a pirate radio show, is now required to show the government that it is not biased toward the right wing in Israel. What kind of nonsense is that?

Has anybody checked out Ha'aretz lately? There's a left wing paper for you. Have they been told that they have to prove that they are unbiased?

It's like telling Rush Limbaugh that he needs to be unbiased. Or telling any left wing commentator the same. They don't have the right to broadcast their opinions.

What about talking about the issues and policies that the government is planning and carrying out? Do the people have to follow the government blindly over the edge? They are not allowed to discuss what are some of the more important matters that will directly involve them- that may cost them their lives?!

It's obvious that the government feels pressured. As a result they made free speech in Israel a joke. Not a funny one at that either. I'm not laughing.

Say No to Lieberman

Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

Lieberman supports a Palestinian State. I guess he sees fit to reward terror. We should see fit not to vote for him for President in 2004.

Smart Fellow

Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

Finally we have someone with half a brain in their head. An Arab sees exactly what will happen when we hand away half of Jerusalem on a silver platter. Why is it an Arab who can see what will happen and not a Jew?

Zuheir Hamdan, one of the mukhtars of the Sur Baher neighborhood, in Jerusalem can see clearly that whatever the Palestinians have touched has been destroyed. Handing over Jerusalem will let all the terrorists in and the death toll will rise even higher, G-d help us.

May the Jews get a clue...quickly.

Can we say "Insane"?

Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

The Labor Party has officially gone off the edge. Their platform is now -- divide Jerusalem, and civil marriages. They also want public transportation to run on Shabbat, but they'll keep shops closed. Why bother with one and not the other? The Labor Party has finally lost it.

What is the point of living in Israel? What's the point of being Jewish in Israel? If they want to be Jewish without the restrictions, let them move to Los Angeles with the rest of the Israelis that have left the country. Don't bother the Jews that want to be there. I'd even start a collection to help them move out. Let's be more American than the Americans. Why bother being Jewish in a Jewish land? Go to America.

To top it all off, Labor will continue to talk to the Arabs without making them stop the terror attacks with the conclusion being that the Arabs will get Judea and Samaria within a year - if not sooner- if the Israelis and the Arabs can make a peace agreement. Ben-Eliezer, the last Labor chairman before Mitzna, even said -- what's the point of the Arabs making a peace agreement if they already know they'll be getting the land at the end of the year anyway? Duh?!

Who needs peace agreements anyway, when all we have to do is roll over and die? May as well start packing, Los Angeles here we come.

Bill of Rights Day

This coming week, some of us will be celebrating what should be a National holiday. We will be rejoicing by doing the same things we do every day. We will be celebrating by writing letters to our Congressional representative or to the President, by praying to whatever Power we believe in, or by going target-shooting and hunting. The holiday that encompasses all these is Bill of Rights Day.

Last year, the Michigan House of Representatives passed Resolution 264 proclaiming December 15th as Bill of Rights Day. These amendments were ratified 210 years earlier on December 15, 1791, and this year will commemorate 211 years that the Bill of Rights has been on the books.

As United States citizens, we have the obligation to remember that the Constitution would not have been ratified if the Bill of Rights were not guaranteed. The unfortunate truth is, most Americans have no idea what the Bill of Rights includes.

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. They list the most basic rights of the people living in this country. Some include: the freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, protection against unreasonable searches and testifying against oneself, as well as eliminating cruel and unusual punishment. The two most important amendments are the last two, those that are directed not at specific rights, but to guard individuals against any future encroachment by the government.

Since the early Americans founding the United States had just broken away from Great Britain where they had limited freedoms, they were afraid of a strong central government. They assumed that breaking the government into three different, and sometimes competing, parts, would create a self-checking system. While some, federalists were happy with this compromise, others, such as the anti-federalists, felts that a three-pronged government was simply not enough to guarantee the freedoms of the ordinary citizen. This is where the Bill of Rights came in.

While America is not perfect, and there is quite a bit that needs work, we must realize that the basic framework is solid. Instead of people complaining that there are too many problems, and relying on others to fix it, we should look at the fundamentals. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights show us what can be done and where we can move ahead as a country. Whether you are a Socialist or a Libertarian, a Liberal or a Conservative, a Democrat or Republican, there is a place for all of your philosophies.

Other countries around the world do not have many of these freedoms. Slavery still exists in the world. So does torture. Limitations on free speech still exists in the world, and how you practice your religion is still limited and made illegal in parts of this planet.

While people living in this country have difference in views on the United States and its future, we all have the right to disagree and discuss our views without worrying that we are breaking the law. This is our entitlement.

On this upcoming holiday, please remember how lucky we are compared to the rest of the world. Don’t take for granted what our forefathers fought and died for, and that we live everyday.

Hey, maybe you’ll even break out the barbeque.

Enough is Enough

We Jews have tried to be nice. We have tried not to offend anyone. We have tried to be politically correct and talk around the real issues. We discuss two state solutions. We discuss replacing Yasser Arafat with someone we can “talk” to. We discuss achieving normalized relations with our Arab neighbors.

Enough is enough.

During an Arab student rally here on Detroit's Wayne State University’s campus we heard the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” There is no compromise in that chant. There is no attempt not to offend anyone. There is a claim being made to the Land of Israel. They are claiming an “historic Arab Palestine” while negating the Jewish connection to the Land.

Let us deal with “historic Arab Palestine”. When did it historically exist? Where were its borders? Who were its leaders? What kind of culture did those ‘ancient’ Palestinians have? What kind of political system did they have? This “historic Arab Palestine” never existed.

“Palestine” is the slave name given to our Land by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 135 CE to destroy the Jewish connection to the Land. Both Jews and Arabs were “Palestinians” during the British Mandate period of 1917-1948. Today’s “Palestinians” are a politically expedient creation by the Arabs as another tool to destroy Israel. Nothing more. We owe nothing to them.

Self-respect demands the Jewish claim, the only real right that we have to the Land of Israel and the current State. The Land of Israel was given to us 4,000 years ago by G-d before there were Muslims, before there were Christians, and before there were “Palestinians”.

Who is man to decide what belongs to G-d and His Jewish People? What power does the United Nations have to decide that the Jewish State should or should not exist? Resolutions condemning Zionism as racism. Resolutions that demand that Israel compensate the same Arabs who attempted, and failed, to destroy her 54 years ago. Resolutions that we give away the Holy Land that we won in defensive wars. A United Nations that is filled with nations that are united in their hatred toward the Jewish People and the modern miracle of the State of Israel.

Enough is enough.

Two thousand years ago the Jewish People said enough was enough. No more compromise. Those were the Maccabees. They made their statement to the World. “Who is with G-d, is with me.” This is Jewish Pride. This is a Pride in the Torah. This is a Pride in being the Jewish People. This is a Pride in having a Jewish Land run by Jews.

The time for politics is over. The time for discussion has passed. The Arabs have made their claim to all of the Land between the river and the sea. During the height of the “peace process” in 2000, 25,000 Arab children were being trained, in a summer camp, to ambush, kidnap and murder Jews. When the Arabs were given Schem (Nablus), they destroyed the Tomb of Joseph, and rebuilt it as a mosque. The Arabs have made their statement. They have taken what is ours and rebuilt it in their own image.

Stop using the slave names forced on us. Judea, Samaria and Gaza, not the “West Bank” and the “occupied territories”.

Jerusalem is a Jewish city. Chevron (Hebron) is a Jewish city. Tzfat (Safed) is a Jewish city. Schem (Nablus) is a Jewish city. Tveria (Tiberias) is a Jewish city. These cities belong to the Jewish People.

The Land of Israel belongs to the Jews without any apologies. It was given to us by G-d. Enough said.

The Culture of Violence

Since writing the last article about how Arabs are using their children to wage war against the Jews in Israel, I have done more research into this unacceptable state of affairs. This Culture of Violence is more deeply imbeded than I had first believed.

The Palestinian Broadcast Corporation, which includes both television and radio, was created in the early years of the peace process. One would think that this would be a great opportunity for the Arabs to use the media to talk about peace and reconciliation. However this was not the case. Instead, the PBC became the mouthpiece for inciting violence and inviting children to join the war against the Jews even though the use of children in an armed conflict is strictly forbidden by the international community. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and recent UN Security Council Resolution 1261 specifically described the use of children as soldiers as a “violation of international law.”

In January 2002 on Palestinian Authority television, in an interview with Yasser Arafat when asked what message he’d like to send to the Palestinian children answered, “...The child who is grasping the stone, facing the tank; is it not the greatest message to the world when that hero becomes a Shahid [dies for Allah]? We are proud of them.”

Arafat in another televised appearance (8/18/02) speaking to an auditorium full of children said, “One of you, a boy or a girl, shall raise the [Palestinian] flag over the walls of Jerusalem, its mosques and its churches...Onward together to Jerusalem!” The children responded, cheering and chanting, “Millions of Shahids marching to Jerusalem!”

This is not recent development. Four years earlier, on February 8, 1998, The Children’s Club, a childrens television show similar to Sesame Street, a ten year old girl declared that she wanted to “turn into a suicide warrior” in Jerusalem. On July 2, 1998, The Children’s Club showed an episode with young boys chanting, “We are ready with our guns; revolution until victory; revolution until victory.” On the same show an 8 year old boy announced to the audience of children, “I come here to say that we will throw them to the quiet sea...We will settle our claims with stones and bullets.”

One Palestinian broadcast in 2001 that got reported on NBC with Martin Fletcher was a “commercial” for child martyrdom. In reenactments, Palestinian children were shown putting down their toys and picking up rocks to follow the paths of the martyrs. In the commercial, paradise after death is shown as an inviting, green, sunlit meadow where friends meet and play.

The Palestinian Authority sends different messages to the world and to their own people. The PA “banned journalists from photographing Palestinian children carrying weapons...saying that the pictures harm the Palestinian cause.” At the same time they are preventing the world from seeing what’s going on in the Culture of Violence, PA television interviewed a boy in his home and placed a Kalatchnikov automatic rifle over his shoulder (AP, The Jerusalem Post 8/26/02).

The parents also help to start the children in this unacceptable Culture of Violence. They are proud of their young terrorists. In the London Times, one mother said, “I am happy that he [her 13 year old son] has been martyred. I will sacrifice all my sons and daughters (12 in all)...(10/19/00)” Another mother bragged that she had bore her son to fight the Jews. Her husband bragged that he was the one who had trained his son militarily.

Some parents try to go against this Culture of Violence and keep their children safe. However, Hafez Bargutti, the editor in chief of the Palestinian Authority (PA) official daily newspaper, Al Hayyat Al Jedida, wrote an editorial condemning parents who forbid their children from joining the riots (10/27/00).

The PA has also threatened Christian Arab parents in the Bethlehem area “because no Christian blood has been spilled, only Moslem blood” and because “Moslems have donated their children to the cause, but Christians haven’t.” These Christian parents have been told that the families of “martyrs” will get food first. As a result of protecting their children, they may starve.

When the international media challenged Palestinian Legislative Councilwoman Hanan Ashrawi about the use of children during the conflict, she reacted, “They’re telling us we have no feelings for our children. We’re not human beings, we’re not parents, we’re not mothers and fathers.”

After looking at all the evidence, we have to wonder.