Somewhere on A1A...

Posted 10/30/2003 09:24:00 AM by Ocean Guy
More about Jews on Campus

Natan Sharansky's article that appeared in last week's Forward has resulted in a rebuke by Hillel's Interim President, Avraham Infeld. Mr. Infeld, though, doesn't offer much of a counter-argument, in fact his comments identify a gaping hole.

Infeld, however, said the situation was not as dire as Sharansky had portrayed it.

"If I were to look at the 400 campuses where Hillel has a presence, I don't think there are serious battle issues on more than 25 or 30 of those campuses," Infeld said. "And on those campuses the Arab students are organized, the Arab students have mobilized the faculty and we're having a more difficult time. But that's not representative of the entire country."

In his article, Sharansky cited the example of a Harvard University student who told him she was afraid to participate in pro-Israel activities for fear that her professors would retaliate against her.

The president of Harvard Students for Israel, Josh Suskewicz, told the Forward that outspoken pro-Israel faculty members, such as law professor Alan Dershowitz, have helped to create a campus climate free of intimidation. But at the graduate level, students have said they felt intimidated by professors who are hostile to Israel, said a Harvard Hillel rabbi who asked not to be identified by name.

Infeld agreed that hostile faculty can be a problem, but said the problem is limited in its scope.

"There is no question that faculty on campuses speaking out against Israel can be very intimidating to the Jewish student," Infeld said. But, he added, faculty intimidation is a problem on only a few campuses.

From his comments, it seems to me, that Mr. Infeld ought to be writing in Forward about the 25 or 30 campuses where there is a problem. Maybe he ought to be publicizing the problem of faculty intimidation and where it exists.

There has been an identifiable global trend of increasing anti-Semitism over the past few years. We should not ignore it and hope that it will simply go away. As I said last week, I thought Mr. Sharansky's column offered hope while describing a gloomy situation. One of the best ways to eliminate the gloom is to shine light on the facts. The brighter the light the faster the gloom disappears. Mr. Infeld is in a position to bring the light to bear on the problems where they exist. To be sure he should and cannot ignore the good things happening, but we'd all be better served by knowing where problems do exist. Mr. Sharansky may have opened some eyes... Mr. Infeld ought not to try to put blinders on us by minimizing the problems.

Posted 10/30/2003 09:20:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Party Affiliation

I am not comfortable with either the Democrats or the Republicans. The Democrat's hard turn to the way left and increasingly reactionary rhetoric pushed me to change my party of record. I made the change as a sign of displeasure with the Democrats more than real acceptance of Republican aims. I am not alone.

"Coleman Republican" appears to be a new moniker for Moderate Jewish Republicans.

The trend of Jews running under a moderate Republican banner has been a long time in coming, some analysts say.

"It shouldn't be surprising," said Pennsylvania pollster G. Terry Madonna. "Many [Jews] are pro-business and socially liberal. Many Democrats are not pro-business. Breaking into the party machinery in cities and suburbs isn't easy. The Republican Party is a little more open and flexible."

Some see internal Democratic Party politics as the source of Jewish alienation from the party of Franklin Roosevelt.

"Those Jews who are staying in urban areas are fed up with the Latino and African American tribal politics [of the urban Democratic machines], which are not serving cities particularly well," said Joel Kotkin, a public policy fellow at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif...

...A surge of Jewish Republican office-seekers would come in the wake of a steadily evolving shift that began in the 1970s, when Jews began taking a prominent role as Republican theoreticians and policy-makers and continued more recently with a slow shift of Jewish opinion, particularly among younger and more affluent Jews.

The "Coleman Republicans," most of whom are running in heavily Jewish districts — and several of whom are Orthodox or observant — are not shy about leveraging issues of Jewish concern to further their candidacies.

Non-Jewish Democrats have, for the most part, become anti-Israel and anti-Jewish if not outright anti-Semitic. The opportunity to affect policy is more open to moderate Republicans than it is for moderate Democrats. I expect the trend of Jews running under and voting for moderate Republicans to gain momentum.

For another angle on the same underlying issue, see Judith Weiss on the anti-war movement.

Posted 10/29/2003 09:53:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Syrian TV

The folks at MEMRI have a translation of the Ramadan Mini-Series, The Disapora being broadcast from Syria via satellite. The Prologue: (appearing on screen in text)

Two thousand years ago, the Jewish sages established a global government, aimed at ruling the world, subjugating it to the precepts of the Talmud, and segregating Jews completely from the other peoples. Then, the Jews turned to inciting wars and internal strife and the [various] countries condemned them. They falsely presented themselves as persecuted, and waited for their savior, the 'Messiah,' who would complete the vengeance upon the 'gentiles' that their God Jehovah had begun. In the early 19th century, the Jewish global government decided to escalate the conspiracies. It dissolved itself in order to create a new secret Jewish global government headed by [Mayer] Amschel Rothschild.

The scene described, would be funny on SNL but the Arab mind sees it as a documentary:

The first scene, set in Frankfurt in 1812, shows the death of Amschel, the patriarch of the Rothschild family. Amschel Rothschild lies on his deathbed in what appears to be a cave illuminated by candles in Jewish candelabra. He instructs his "illegitimate" son to summon his four brothers, and when he leaves to call them, the following narration is heard: "Kill the best of the non-Jews, destroy their religion, annihilate their lands. Israel will not survive if the foreign peoples survive, the Jews are the offspring of God like the child is the offspring of his father. As man has hegemony [over the lower animals], thus the Jews are superior to all the peoples of the world, because the seed of strangers is like the seed of the ass. The delivering Messiah will not come until the peoples that are not Jews are extinct and control will be in the hands of the Jews alone."

Enter Rothschild's five sons. The dying patriarch says to them: "The non-Jewish nations – they are all of the filthy seed of the ass. Rule over them secretly and publicly, by force and by repression, by deceit and by trickery. Do not let any nation share power over this world with you… God has honored us Jews with the mission of ruling the world through money, knowledge, politics, murder, sex – by all means…

Posted 10/28/2003 12:59:00 PM by Ocean Guy
More on Life and Death Decisions

Carl Hiaasen speaks for me on this one:

It doesn't get any lower than that -- capitalizing on the plight of a brain-damaged woman to score points with religious fundamentalists.

Not since George C. Wallace fought desegregation in Alabama has a governor so brazenly thumbed his nose at a judge, and Bush had plenty of help.

His Republican pals in the Legislature hastily passed a bizarre law giving him the one-time authority to intervene in the Schiavo family tragedy.

And this is the same GOP that rails incessantly against government intrusion into private lives. What a gang of phonies...

...The governor well knows that the law inserting him into this case is ineptly written, baldly unconstitutional and doomed to be overturned.

He also knows that the odds are minuscule that Terri Schiavo will ever improve, and that she'll likely spend her remaining days in the same condition in which she's been since 1990.

That lawmakers gave Bush only 15 days to act is proof that it was theater from the beginning, that concern for the Schiavo family was merely a front for appeasing the ideological fringes of the GOP.

That the governor went ahead and ordered Schiavo reconnected to that feeding tube was the most cynical, morally bereft moment of his administration.

The gratitude and relief expressed by her parents is understandable, but it will be temporary -- and Bush knows that, too.

Long after this obscene piece of legislation is nullified, long after Terri Schiavo is left to die in peace, Bush and the others who staged this cruel charade will be touting their righteous stand to fundamentalist supporters.

Meanwhile, all of us who have watched loved ones fade away and struggled with life-and-death decisions can only shudder at the prospect of surrendering such heavy responsibility to a total stranger.

Not a doctor, not a judge, not a clergyman -- but a vote-grubbing politician.

Posted 10/28/2003 09:40:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Life and Death Decisions

Over the course of 11 years I watched three people I love, experience slow and painful deaths. Feeding tubes kept them all alive a little longer than otherwise possible. During those years I've had countless discussions with other family members about end-of-life issues. I've held medical power of attorney for someone incapable of acting in his own behalf. I can confidently say that I have given more than enough thought to the way I'd prefer my end-of-life care to be handled.

I never want to live like Terri Schiavo, being kept alive artificially with no ability to give love to those close to me. I want the right to die naturally with some sort of dignity. It is wrong for Governor Bush to have the right to make that decision for me. Michael Schiavo may not get your sympathy, but it is no reason to assume that it's not right to allow Terri to die naturally. Because you think you know better than he is no reason to allow a government official to force his will on them in the name of everyone in the State. I would consider it torture for anyone to make me live in the state she is in. She may not be able to say, "Keep me alive," but she can't say "Leave me to die in peace," either. The Law recognizes a special relationship in marriage. Those who take the parents side seem to disagree.

The life and death decisions that can be made in such situations are incredibly varied; the circumstances are limitless, as are the individual feelings we all may have when faced with those circumstances... either as the patient or the care-giver/decision maker. One thing is for certain: I want someone that I love making those decisions for me when I can't. I don't want Governor Bush or any other politician to have the power to decide for me, especially if the decision is against my wishes.

It is particularly offensive the way that the Florida Legislature rushed to take this ill-advised action to overturn six years of court decisions. The courts may not be perfect, but they are by far the best way to handle disputes in these cases.

It is a deeply troubling moment when a stranger, a governor, a legislator, a president is given the power to write the end of our ethical, medical, family tales. Yes, this is how we lose our freedoms: One signature at a time.

Posted 10/27/2003 10:59:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Where are the Millions?

More accurately the title ought to be Where are the Billions, but the idea is the same... the question is the same one I've been asking

"Where are the millions?" is the name of a popular Arab song in which Lebanese singer Julia Botrus denounces the failure of the Arab world to go to war against Israel. The song is played repeatedly on Palestinian Authority radio and TV as a cry of despair aimed at mobilizing the Arab masses on the side of the Palestinians in their fight against Israel. In recent weeks, amid reports that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat is in poor health, many Palestinians are also beginning to ask the same question, but in a different context: They are demanding to know what has happened to hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to the Palestinian people...

... Hassan Khraisheh, one of nine members of the Democratic Bloc, said he and his colleagues believe that Arafat's adviser on economic affairs, Muhammad Rashid (also known as Khaled Salam), is holding at least $200 million in a secret bank account. Rashid is now living in Cairo after he reportedly fell out with Arafat.

According to Khraisheh, only Rashid, who is chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund, and Arafat know where the money is deposited. A delegation from the fund visited Egypt lately in an attempt to find out what happened to the money.

"Rashid refused to cooperate in revealing where the money is," Khraisheh said. "He also refused to meet with the PLO ambassador in Egypt to talk about the issue."

"This is money that belongs to the Palestinian people," Khraisheh added. "It could have been invested in establishing a social welfare system instead of shady deals. The Americans and the Egyptians are protecting [Rashid], and Arafat provides him with cover. We're talking about tens of millions of dollars. How is it that one person can control such huge sums? When we asked Arafat about it, he said, 'Muhammad Rashid is my man. He is my financial adviser.' This is Arafat's method. The source of Arafat's power is money."

How can anyone possibly consider giving these criminals and murderers Sovereignty over anything?

Posted 10/24/2003 10:44:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Kid DY-NO-MITE as a Columnist

I don't know how I've missed Jimmie Walker's commentary but this column on the Rush Limbaugh firing. There are a couple of old columns too where I pulled this bit of wisdom from August of last year about "What did they know and when did they know it?:

What we did know wouldn't have helped in this "Politically Correct" culture. Imagine a memo from FBI Director, Robert Mueller, to American airports and the FAA ..."Twenty or so Middle Eastern men, who were learning to fly in American flight schools, are perceived to be Bin Laden terrorists. It is thought that they are planning to hijack commercial airliners. Please detain, question, and search ALL Middle Eastern men until further notice." There would have been more of an explosion from this memo than the actual World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings!

Can you imagine the political and human fallout from this? We would hear from every organization from the NAACP, ACLU, NCAA, KKK, Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson, Jane Fonda, and Bono.

I know it's dated, but I'll have an eye out for his next article.

Posted 10/23/2003 04:04:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Sharansky on Visiting US Universities

Forward also prints Natan Shransky's report of his visits to a few University Campuses.

When I sat for Sabbath dinner with 300 Jewish students at Columbia University in New York — together with Glenn Richter, who in 1964 at the university launched the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry — and I told them about those days, the events seemed to them all but unimaginable. Today, when Jewish activity on campus is directed almost entirely inward, when Jewish student organizations feel like walled fortresses in enemy territory, when pro-Israel students hardly dream of taking leadership positions in campus struggles for human rights, those days seem like a distant dream.

Years of massive investments of money and effort by Arab states and the Palestinians have changed the picture. One after the other, departments of Middle Eastern studies have been set up on university campuses, with generous Saudi funding — departments that worked to establish pseudo-scientific theories, presenting Israel as the last colonial state, a state whose very existence is immoral regardless of borders, a state that should not exist. Differing views are as a matter of course not tolerated. When Jewish community leaders decided in the last few years to begin investing funds to create chairs in Israel studies, they discovered there is no one to teach them. There are no experts, no writers. The field has been abandoned.

Not only in the intellectual arena have we abandoned the field. In the public relations field, too, the Palestinians have learned, unlike the Israelis, to appreciate the importance of the university as the shaper of the next generation, and to concentrate their efforts there. Articulate, effective speakers have been dispatched to campuses to mobilize the idealistic students for their own political interests.

They have been sent to explain that despite the fact that in the Arab nations, as in the autonomous areas of the Palestinian Authority, there are no rights for women, minorities, gays or nearly anyone else, that despite all this they are the true bearers of the banner of human rights; that all true seekers of justice should act on their behalf, and against Israel's.

The absurdity cries out to the heavens, but no one seems to notice. The banner of human rights, once identified to a great degree with Jews, has become a weapon against them. Liberal and democratic discourse on human rights serves mainly as a vehicle for attacks against Israel, and increasingly against Jews.

What's happening on campus is not any different from what's happening in National politics. Why Forward continues to lionize the Democratic Party is a mystery. In the face of continuing evidence that a large portion of its members are, in fact, working against Israel's interests and increasingly against Jews, one would think a thoughtful journal would be working to reverse the trend. Have they fallen for the moral relativists’ ruse? Mr. Shransky offers both hope and reason for grave concern:

For six days I traveled across the United States. I did not meet with administration officials or do any politicking. Just campuses. Meeting students, instructors, Jewish and non-Jewish activists. A marathon of 13 campuses in six days. I discovered an enormous thirst for knowledge, for straight answers about these supposed "human rights violations" and "war crimes." I learned that combining human rights, a popular, burning issue among students, and Israel, a very unpopular issue, works to Israel's advantage, because even the most pro-Palestinian students, including Arab students, had to back down when the discussion centered squarely and honestly on human rights and democracy.

But I also learned that every such victory was a limited one, like capturing a single hill in enemy territory. The overall picture is deeply worrying. On every campus I visited, Jewish students make up between 10% and 20% of the population, but no more than a tenth of them, by my estimate, take part in Jewish or pro-Israel activity. Another tiny but outspoken fraction serves as the spearhead of anti-Israel activity, for there is no better cover for hiding the racist nature of causes like an anti-Israel boycott than a Jewish professor or student eager to prove that he is holier than the pope. And the rest? The rest are simply silent. They are not identified, not active, not risk-takers. Nearly 90% of our students are Jews of silence.

To the credit of the activists, it must be said that they do impressive work. But they are few, and many are tired and discouraged. One student who was active in pro-Israel organizations told us that at a certain point he could no longer stand the peer pressure of those around him who viewed him as a pro-Israel obsessive

Posted 10/23/2003 03:29:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Error in Logic

In this week's Forward rightly takes to task Haley Barbour, an old-time Republican figure, for chumming up with an allegedly racist and anti-Semitic group. They should have stopped there.

The real point of the article is summed up here:

Barbour's appearance also drew criticism from the press secretary of the Democratic National Committee, Tony Welch. "Barbour is just another in the long line of Republican Party compassionate conservatives who talk compassion but [are] more than willing to cozy up to one of the most bigoted groups in our country," Welch said. "The more we look, the more this looks like the same old divisive Republican Party."

To declare the Republican Party, in its entirety, guilty because of the actions of one is wrong. Did Forward or the DNC condemn the Democratic Party for allegiance to, and support of, Cynthia McKinney or any of the other anti-Semitic people and organizations who support the Democratic Party and its candidates?

The old assumption that Democrats are more in tune with Jewish values than Republicans are, is not easy to defend. Many of us have looked outside the Democratic Party we once supported, because the Party has taken our votes for granted while taking more and more positions that are anti-Jewish and/or anti-Israel. Jews, just like the Democratic Party, have a variety of ideas on the entire spectrum of issues. The days of voting straight-party tickets are gone. Forward should recognize that and stop playing to old fears springing from the old assumptions that Democrats are good for Jews and Republicans are bad. It's not that simple.

Posted 10/23/2003 11:05:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Good Neighbors?

Here's another bit of evidence that the Arabs don't need a second palestinian State whose prospective citizens continue to show they are incapable of governing themselves.

The two men, Samer Ufi and Mohammed Faraj, both in their twenties were shot Thursday by masked militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in front of a crowd of people. Their bodies were then displayed at the camp's central square.

On Wednesday a videotape of the confessions was distributed to residents of the West Bank refugee camp.

The two men were abducted two weeks ago with six other men in a kidnapping planned by two militant groups, the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade and Islamic Jihad. The men were suspected of giving away the hideout of a wanted Al Aqsa militant, Palestinian security sources said.

A source in Al Aqsa said the men had been kidnapped and interrogated by Islamic Jihad, but that the two groups had carried out the killings together "to share the honor."

Unfortunately it's also evidence of why the neighboring states don't want these people as citizens.

Posted 10/20/2003 10:02:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Revisiting History

You simply must see these articles in Life Magazine from January 7, 1946. Here's the tease quote:

"We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease."

The more things change the more they remain the same. Here's more:

They blame us for the corruption and disorganization of UNRRA. They blame us for the fumbling timidity of our negotiations with the Soviet Union. They tell us that our mechanical de-nazification policy in Germany is producing results opposite to those we planned. “Have you no statesmen in America?” they ask.

The skeptical French press

Yet whenever we show a trace of positive leadership I found Europeans quite willing to follow our lead. The evening before Robert Jackson’s opening of the case for the prosecution in the Nurnberg trial, I talked to some correspondents from the French newspapers. They were polite but skeptical. They were willing enough to take part in a highly publicized act of vengeance against the enemy, but when you talked about the usefulness of writing a prohibition of aggressive war into the law of nations they laughed in your face. The night after Jackson’s nobly delivered and nobly worded speech I saw then all again. They were very much impressed. Their manner had even changed toward me personally as an American. Their sudden enthusiasm seemed to me typical of the almost neurotic craving for leadership of the European people struggling wearily for existence in the wintry ruins of their world.

Hat Tip: Greatest Jeneration

Posted 10/20/2003 08:08:00 AM by Ocean Guy
More on the Ford Foundation

Lynn at In Context has more on the Ford Foundation and it's thin veil of balance in regards to its Middle East policies.

Posted 10/17/2003 03:33:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Political Correctness Run Amok

The FBI won't hire Jews, it might offend the Arabs..... Meanwhile they hire Muslims, and then have to arrest them for espionage... at least the Arabs weren't offended. Read Caroline Glick's column.

The story is that when, in the aftermath of September 11, the FBI made a public call for Arabic-speaking translators, over 90 Sephardic Jews from New York applied.

According to the Sephardic New York community leaders questioned in the story, many of these applicants – all American – had prior professional experience working for Israeli radio in Arabic and serving as linguists in the IDF. Indeed, for most of them, Arabic was their mother tongue.

The FBI has offered no official comment on its rejection of the applicants. Sources familiar with the FBI's vetting process have claimed that the sense was that the Jews "were too close to Israel" and might, according to the report, fail to translate documents in an objective manner. A former FBI official I spoke with on the issue said that he could not dismiss at face value the idea that perceived loyalty to Israel would in fact cause a Jew to be rejected by the FBI.

It is too soon to tell how much of this story is true. If American Jews are indeed being barred from contributing to the US war on terrorism for fear of conflicting loyalties with Israel, there is reason to be very distressed.

In the past month, Muslim military and civilian personnel working at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay have been arrested on suspicion of committing espionage for al Qaeda and Syria.

Shabbat Shalom

Posted 10/16/2003 12:58:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Those Peace Loving palestinians

Heres' one reporter's account of her trip to Gaza to cover yesterday's bombing:

I waited for hours to get into Gaza, but once I arrived, I wanted out pretty quickly...

...Wednesday, [the small groups of teenagers and boys] turned menacing -- groping me and grabbing at my backpack. When my interpreter and I yelled at them, they didn't back down, and as I was interviewing a witness, someone behind me kneed the back of my legs -- hard.

We retreated to a garage and began asking the owner if he had seen the bombing. As we talked, the other American journalist who was with the driver called. The driver, we learned, was standing on top of the car roof trying to disperse a crowd encircling the car.

This was about the time the rocks started flying in our direction. My interpreter and the other Palestinians we were talking with motioned for me to hide in the garage, since it seemed a mob was coming specifically for me.

From the back of the garage, I could see some in the crowd heaving fist-size rocks. Then the people in the garage hustled me inside a bathroom to hide. I couldn't see but continued to hear the banging of rocks against the walls and garage equipment.

Sovereignty over a second palestinian state will cure this?

Posted 10/16/2003 12:26:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Remember the Durban Conference?

Forward reports on the money trail leading to those who supported the grossly anti-Semitic gathering in August 2001. It's no surprise that the often anti-Semitic Ford Foundation was a major sponsor.

The event featured posters displaying Nazi icons and Jewish caricatures, anti-Israel protest marches, organized jeering, incendiary leaflets and anti-Jewish cartoons, in addition to anti-American agitation. A resolution drafted by nongovernmental organizations at the conference labeled Israel a "racist apartheid state" guilty of "genocide and ethnic cleansing."

Israeli officials and Jewish groups were not surprised by the events — they had been warning for months that palestinian nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, and their allies, were bent on hijacking the conference.

What they did not suspect was the degree to which some key groups leading the charge against Israel at Durban were being funded by one of America's largest and arguably most prestigious philanthropic institutions: the Ford Foundation.

"We are struck by the scores of Palestinian NGOs funded by Ford," said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, "a number of which have deeply disturbing and troubling records on Israel and Jews."

The Ford Foundation — which was endowed with funds donated by Henry and Edsel Ford but no longer maintains any ties to the Ford Motor Company — has long been known as a funder of Palestinian causes. Less known is the extent of the foundation's involvement in funding of groups that engage in anti-Israel and antisemitic activities both inside and outside the Middle East. Read the rest...

Posted 10/16/2003 11:38:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Toughness: EUnuch Style

Oh those Euroweenies! They're mad now, they've had they can stand and they can't stands no more.

EU leaders in a summit meeting Thursday and Friday were expected to release an unusually tough statement condemning the attack and demanding action by the Palestinian authorities.

How tough? Here's a hint:

I realize that Arafat is very sorry, but he has to change the system," said Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller. "It's not good enough.

But wait, there's more:

EU officials said the summit statement would also be critical of Israel for constructing the West Bank separation fence, which cuts into Palestinian territory, and for expanding settlements in the West Bank.

Posted 10/15/2003 12:20:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Was it Hizbollah?

Hamas and the other usual suspects are strangely silent on today's attack on an American Diplomatic mission. How long will the silence last, will it be Hizbollah claiming the victory or some other Islamist group?

Especially since the local palestinian terrorists are denying involvement, the attack is clear evidence that the problem in the disputed territories involves the entire Arab world, and not simply those kept in Refugee camps. Hizbollah has an interest in expanding the conflict and the focus. Was it the Iranian/Syrian funded terrorists who are sending a message to Arafat et al?

Posted 10/15/2003 11:57:00 AM by Ocean Guy
The Case Against Jordan

I recommend reading Alan M. Dershowitz's The Case for Israel, but he's also written an article titled The Case Against Jordan which is also worth a couple of minutes to read.

A few largely unknown facts about Jordan:

* Jordan has a law on its books explicitly prohibiting any Jew from becoming a citizen, or any Jordanian from selling land to a Jew. It has refused to amend this law despite repeated demands.

* Jordan has perfected the art of torture and uses it routinely against dissidents, suspected terrorists and perceived opponents of the monarchy. I'm talking about real torture here, not the kind of rough interrogation occasionally employed by the US and Israel. Jordan even threatens to torture and tortures the entirely innocent relatives of suspected terrorists, as it did with Abu Nidal's mother.

* The United States is fully aware of Jordan's proficiency in torture, having "subcontracted" some of its own difficult cases to Jordanian "experts" (along with Egyptian and Philippine torture experts). Yet the UN has never condemned Jordan for its use of torture.

* Jordan killed more Palestinians in one month September 1970, known as Black September than Israel has killed during the three years of suicide bombings that began in the fall of 2000. The brutality of the Jordanian Army toward Palestinian dissidents and terrorists was far more egregious than anything Israel has ever done.

* The Jordanian Army has deliberately bombed civilian areas of Israeli cities in clear violation of international law. In 1967, before Israel fired a single shot at Jordan, the Jordanian Army fired 1,600 missiles into west Jerusalem, targeting apartment buildings, shops and other non-military targets. Israel did not respond by bombing Amman, which it easily could have done. It responded by attacking Jordanian military targets and then offering a cease-fire, which Jordan rejected.

* Jordan is not a democracy. It is a hereditary monarchy which stifles dissent, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Its democratic facades a legislature, cabinet, judiciary are all subject to control by the Hashemite minority rulers who were placed in charge of the majority Palestinian population by a colonial decision.

Posted 10/14/2003 11:37:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Tunnels in Rafah

If this is true, then I have even less sympathy for the poor Arabs being used by the PA.

The smuggling operation is essentially a family enterprise, report Huberman and Shalom, with several large Gaza families "owning" a piece of the action. They pay families that agree to have a tunnel running from their homes $1,000 each month, and they then sell the weapons that are thus smuggled to the Palestinian Authority. If a tunnel-camouflaging home is destroyed by the IDF, the PA pays generous compensation to the family - and even builds the family a new home in the Tel Sultan neighborhood. Some residents have therefore begun spreading rumors of tunnels in their homes, designed for Israeli ears, so that they can "start all over" with a destroyed home, PA reparations, and a new modern house...

...Some of the tunnels have been found to be as deep as 30 meters underground, in order to evade some of Israel's counter-measures. They are used not only to smuggle arms and weapons, but also precious metals, electric appliances, car parts, and even terrorists. The IDF has uncovered and destroyed 36 tunnels so far in 2003.

Posted 10/14/2003 10:59:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Still More on the Geneva Accords

Ehud Barak on the issue:

Former prime minister Ehud Barak, who left office in early 2001, several months after the intifada broke out, said Monday it was
unfortunate that the Labor Party had permitted some of its members to formulate such a "delusional" peace plan.

"This is a fictive and slightly peculiar agreement... that clearly harms the interests of the State of Israel," Barak told Israel Radio.

Meanwhile, Ariel Sharon was interviewed by Cal Thomas, and had this to say about Five Conditions the palestinians must meet:

(1) dismantle the terror organizations such as Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Hamas and make a 100 percent effort to end terrorism.
(2) collect its weapons and hand them to a third party, preferably the United States, which will destroy them.
(3) arrest, interrogate and punish terrorists, their supporters, their commanders (who are implicated in) murder.
(4) take all necessary diplomatic steps and stop incitement and...
(5) at least start to teach peace (to children).

Asked if he saw the Palestinians making any efforts to even begin fulfilling one or more of these conditions, Sharon said, "Not by now." Sharon indicated he is weary of "declarations, speeches and promises," which, he said, he no longer considers "something serious" Only performance matters now in Israel's relationship with the Palestinians.

Posted 10/13/2003 11:16:00 AM by Ocean Guy
More on the Geneva Accords

Again and again I ask myself, what is it that makes people like Yossi Beilin trust the Arabs enough to concede anything that can compromise Israel's security. Here are two views of the so-called Swiss Accords, one from Haaretz and the other from the Jerusalem Post.

This from Haartez, the mouthpiece for the left:

Details that have come to light so far show that most of the compromising was done on the Israeli side, especially in terms of the determination of borders and the division of Jerusalem. The Geneva accord goes even further than Barak did on some points. It gives up Ariel and transfers authority on the Temple Mount to the Palestinians. It surrenders Israeli control of the border passages between Israel and the Palestinian state (but not its demilitarization); it grants status to an international force in Jerusalem and at border points; and agrees to a border based on the Green Line, with a 1:1 exchange of territories.

The Palestinians' main compromise was in recognizing Israel as the state of the Jewish people...

What is it that leads these people to believe that peace with Israel is at all acceptable to the Arabs? The fact that they promise to recognize Israel as the "State of the Jewish people?" [Don't kid yourself into thinking that that si hte same as a Jewish State.]Have those on the left been able to explain away Oslo's failures to the point that they want to reward the Arabs for 10 years of murder? And they don't even care what kind of State they would grant to the Arabs who want Israel destroyed. again from Haaretz:

As one official involved in the agreements put it, "As far as I'm
concerned, it can be a dictatorship like it is in Egypt, but if they can't provide security, there will be no accord."

Tovah Lazaroff at the Jerusalem Post got it right:

Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Israel Radio Monday morning the agreement should not be signed in Geneva, but rather in Munich.

"I would call it Munich 2," Lieberman said.

Former Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs Hisham Abd al-Raziq was quoted in Monday's Al-Quds newspaper as saying that the unofficial "Geneva Initiative" completed Sunday by Palestinian and leftist Israeli negotiators did not include a Palestinian concession on the "right of return." ...

...Likud Minister Uzi Landau called the effort "anti-democratic." More than 1,000 Israelis have already been killed as a result of similar efforts, he said.

Social Affairs Minister Zevulun Orlev (NRP) said such initiatives harm Israel and hurt the government's ability to reach an agreement.

"Apparently," he said of the former politicians, "they still do not understand that the public pushed them out of the government."

Posted 10/09/2003 12:07:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Negotiation or Appeasement

So... there is a group of Israeli's from the left engaged in secret talks with palestinians about a Final Status Agreement. That's not necessarily a bad thing, negotiating with the PLO, but history ought to teach us to be cautious. Especially in the case of the Arabs.

It will be wrong to enter any agreement without getting real assurances that the Arabs will in fact live as peaceful neighbors. It's not unreasonable to doubt their intention. There is absolutley NO evidence that the PLO, or any other Arabs, want to live peacefully side-by-side with Israel. It's also entirely reasonable to doubt that a sovereign PLO can run a nation. There is more to worry about.

The mere fact that Arafat and his gang are dealing secretly behind the Israeli government's back ought to give even the most hopeful peaceniks reason for pause. If it's true that the Israeli government didn't know about this, then the actions of Beilin are practically criminal. What part of the US Government encouraged these subversive meetings? It's bad precedent to deal with terrorists and their partners on the left while they work contrary to our ally's government. The whole thing makes me cringe.

Here's an exerpt from the report:

A group of left-wing Israeli politicians led by former justice minister Yossi Beilin has been meeting for the past year with senior Palestinians in an attempt to reach an outline for a final status agreement between the sides, the ynet website reported today. A high-level meeting will be held this weekend in Jordan to finalize the accords. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lashed out at left-wingers who were coordinating actions with the Palestinians behind the government's back.

The agreements, based on meetings that have taken place in Switzerland among other places, have come to be known as the "Swiss Accords," ynet reported, and were reached with the knowledge and support of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. One of the senior officials representing the Palestinians was former information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo...

...The meetings between the Israeli and Palestinian officials were held with the knowledge of Arafat, Abu Mazen and new Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala). The meetings were financed by the Swiss, the European Union, Japan and the United States, ynet reported.

The final approval of the agreement between the sides was delayed several times due to a number of reservations on crucial points. The agreement's organizers plan to market the agreement to the Israeli public as an alternative to government policy and to prove that Israel does have a Palestinian partner in the quest for peace.

Posted 10/09/2003 10:21:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Arafat and Cowardice

I usually agree with David Warren, but not today. His charge of cowardice is misplaced.

As much as I believe that the world will be a better place when Arafat leaves it, I also believe it to be wrong for Israel to target him and take him out. But killing him would be infinitely better than exiling him. If they want to act strongly against Arafat, they should arrest him, try him and imprison him in isolation until the end of his days. Exiling him is no real option... he's already proven he works just as effectively from Beirut and Tunis as he does confined to the Mukhata

Unlike David Warren, I do not think the strike in Syria was cowardice, and unlike David Warren I don't think the raid into Syria was a substitute for action against Arafat. And I think he's mistaken in his thought that the raid was meant to deter Arafat.

I applaud the strike into Syria for the exact reason that Warren criticizes it. It widens the conflict. In reality it's a signal that Israel recognizes that the problem is NOT merely with Arafat. The Israelis are defending themselves against the entire Arab world, not just a criminal confined to a semi-demolished office building.

Mr. Warren is just wrong to charge Sharon and Israel with cowardice for not killing or exiling Arafat. Real cowardice would be ignoring the role the wider Arab world plays in threatening and attacking Israel. By eliminating Arafat and even the PA, the problem still remains: Millions of Arabs want Israel destroyed, and are trying to do it.

Posted 10/07/2003 10:59:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Ambassador Gillerman to the Security Council

If you didn't see Ambassador Gillerman address the Security Council, just seconds after the Syrian Ambassador's parody of a serious diplomat, you missed a terrific speech. Still, the text is worth a read (thank you lgf & readers). Some exeprts that stood out in my memory:

Syria has itself facilitated and directed acts of terrorism by coordination and briefings via phone and Internet and by calling activists to Damascus for consultations and briefings. Three such operatives — Tarek Az Aldin, Ali Saffuri and Taabat Mardawi — have been identified under investigation as specifically designated liaisons for relaying instructions between officials in Damascus and terrorist cells in the West Bank and Gaza. Mr. Mardawi himself has admitted involvement in many attacks, including a bus bombing in Haifa in May 2001, a suicide attack at a restaurant in Kiryat Motzkin in August of that year and an attack on a bus near Nazareth in March 2002.

Another example comes from an intelligence report provided by the Head of the Palestinian Preventative Security Apparatus on 31 October 2001, which asserts that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah were meeting in Damascus “in order to increase their joint acitivity ... with the aid of Iranian money”. Instructions are also given to halt terrorist activity when it suits Syrian or Iranian interests to avoid the spotlight, such as following the terrorist attacks of 11 September in the United States. It is very strange that Syria decided to be in the spotlight today and actually put itself in the dock on this very day, after these actions...

...Syria uses its State-run media and official institutions to glorify and encourage suicide bombings against civilians in restaurants, schools, commuter buses and shopping malls. To mention but a few examples, Radio Damascus — far from being a free radio — in a broadcast on 9 May 2002 lauded “the wonderful and special suicide attacks which were executed by some of the sons of the Palestinian nation”. In another State-run announcement on 1 January 2002, Damascus Radio declared “The entire world knows that Syria, its political leadership and its Arab people...have turned Syrian Arab soil into a training camp, a safe haven and an arms depot for the Palestinian revolutionaries.” And on 13 May 2002, President Bashar Assad himself announced in reference to so-called acts of resistance “If I was not President of Syria I wouldn’t hesitate to participate in them.” This was not said by Osama bin Laden or by Saddam Hussain, but by a President of a State that is a member of this Council. Syria has also played host to a number of conferences in which senior terrorist operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other organizations meet...

...The membership of this arch-sponsor of terrorism in the Council is an unbearable contradiction and an embarrassment to the United Nations. For Syria to ask for a Council debate is comparable only to the Taliban calling for such a debate. It would be laughable, if it was not so sad.

And yet, members of the Council and the United Nations can hardly be surprised at this shameless act of hypocrisy by the Syrian regime. This is the same regime that speaks so often of occupation while it brutally occupies the neighbouring territory of Lebanon. It is the same regime that speaks of international law and human rights while it subjugates its people under a repressive and primitive dictatorship, violating countless international obligations. It is the same regime that supported the Saddam Hussain regime in Iraq in violation of Security Council resolutions and that to this day facilitates the infiltration of terrorists to attack civilian and military targets in Iraqi territory. And it is this same despotic regime that speaks so freely of double standards at the United Nations. Syria would do well to take a hard look at the mirror and count itself fortunate that it has not yet, for unfortunate reasons, been the subject of concerted international action as part of the global campaign against terrorism — not yet...

...If there is a double standard in this Organization, it is that while some States are afforded the right to protect their citizens, Israel too often is sent the message that its citizens are not worthy of protection. If there is a double standard, it is that some States are able to support terrorism with impunity, while those defending against it are called to account. If there is a double standard, it is Syria sitting at the Council table and raising one hand to vote against terror and the other to perpetrate and initiate terror around the world. For the sake of peace and the reputation of the Council, let there be no such double standard today.

Read it all

Posted 10/07/2003 03:27:00 PM by Ocean Guy
The Recall 2 cents

I don't think much of California's Recall law and the circus it's made out of California democracy, but this eye-witness account made me laugh.

I just came back from the polls in Los Angeles. Bad news... long lines. Worse news, an old man surnamed Gomez was in front of me and didn't get that he wasn't allowed to vote since he had already requested an absentee ballot. He was holding the stub for the absentee ballot in his hand and wanted to vote again. I wanted to yell in his ear "Go to Chicago!".

Posted 10/07/2003 11:29:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Catching up on Middle East News

I've been curious about the lack of real Arab outrage over the Israeli raid into Syria.

Awad said: “I couldn't believe my ears when I heard. I wish I was there with a shotgun in my hand.”

A university student, Jamal, said he hoped the government would send its own air force “to show them what Syrians can do”.

Admittedly I haven't seen a whole lot of news about it, but what I have seen has been remarkable in it's lack of reporting of hundreds of civilian casualties, as we've come to expect from the Arab propogandists. Is it that the terrorist apologists at Reuters and Al Jezeera and other agencies were caught off guard, or was the raid a successfully delivered message?

A target like Ein Saheb can be accurately hit by missiles fired at a great distance. The Syrians announced that one person had been injured in the attack, but sources say there has been loss of life as well. A number of hours passed between the attack and Syria's announcement, an indication of its surprise and confusion over the strike

I did get to see Ambassador Dan Gillerman's statement to the Security Council on Sunday as well as the Syrian Ambassador's statement. The Syrian statement was soo over the top it was satire like, but Ambassador Gillerman's was brilliant. (Anyone know where the complete text of the statment is available?)

Briefly detailing the extent of support that Syria, as well as Iran, afforded terrorist organizations, such as Islamic Jihad, he highlighted the safe harbour and training facilities provided throughout Syria, such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah, both in separate facilities and in Syrian army bases. Syria itself had directed acts of terrorism, with coordination and briefings by phone and Internet, and by summoning activists to Damascus for briefings. Iran, through the use of Syrian and Palestinian banking systems, sustained a systematic money-transfer system, and large sums of money had been transferred to Islamic Jihad, as well as to other terrorist organizations, through Damascus for the planning and perpetration of attacks.

Continuing, he said that Syria used its State-run media and official institutions to glorify and encourage suicide bombings against civilians in restaurants, schools, commuter buses and shopping malls. Syria had also facilitated the transfer of arms to Palestinian terrorist organizations by allowing the transfer of sophisticated weapons from Iran to Hezbollah through Syrian territory. Hezbollah, itself a vicious terrorist organization, had then sought to smuggle those arms to Palestinian terrorist groups. The Syrian delegate speaks a great deal about resistance. Perhaps he could explain precisely how the murder of children in a restaurant was an act of resistance.

Update: Thanks to Charles and his readers for the text of Ambasador Gillerman's statement to the Security Council on Sunday October 5, 2003.

Posted 10/03/2003 10:24:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Shabbat

From The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel:

He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

Shabbat Shalom ...back on Tuesday

Posted 10/03/2003 10:20:00 AM by Ocean Guy
World's Largest Cocktail Party

Here, in my fair southern city, we host a little party every year that goes along with a little Ball Game. As it is most years this year's game will be played the first Saturday in November. The RV parking lot for tailgating will open on Wednesday, and the whole weekend is one big party. There will plenty to see and do. Both Dawgs and Gators know how to party, and the game makes a pretty good excuse for a get-together.

So, I was thinking... maybe it would be an opportunity for a regional blogger meet-up. Maybe some area bloggers, or some from outside the area, already have plans to travel to the game, and there are a few of us here in town. Drop a comment or send an e-mail or link back if you're interested, and we'll set something up. How about it Velociman? LomoJunkie? Rogers Cadenhead? Anessa? DeDoc? Pamibe? Frank? JDouglasMurray? Timatollah? Todd @ Sharkbitten? Attaboy? Momma Bear? Scott? Or any of the other Florida Bloggers? How about the Georgia contingent? Acid Man has a thing planned in Dahlonega that weekend, sure you wouldn't rather go see your Dawgs? Kelley? Laura? Dizzy Girl? Anyone else?

Anyway, it's a thought. A couple of hours out of the weekend to meet some other bloggers might be fun.

Posted 10/03/2003 09:05:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Yom Kippur Thirty Years Ago: An Arab Victory?

With Yom Kippur approaching, along with its religious observance, some of us will be remembering the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Arabs too, will be remembering. In fact, they'll be celebrating their victory of 30 years ago. The Arab reality is confusing if not absolutely amazing:

Ironically the Egyptians call the October War as ‘Ramadan War’ and the Israelis call it ‘Yom Kippur’ – with both these terms signifying religious forebodings. There is nothing of that sort and it just happened and it was the month of fasting when Anwer Sadaat reckoned that it was the time of maximum political and strategic surprise and he struck a massive blow at the Israeli positions across the Suez Canal and demolished the Bar-Lev Line and with that the myth of Israeli infallibility. This victory is part of the recent Egyptian history - and a glorious part of it, and 6 October is celebrated with great fervour.

...“Yes, the first element of the October victory was faith. The Outcry ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ – (God is Greatest) coming out of the brave believing hearts, was the prime support for the Egyptian fighter. He was in full control over his will and arms. He gave his life willingly and courageously to make history, opening a new bright golden page in our contemporary history loudly announcing to people throughout ages, here is Egyptian man, and here is Egyptian Army.” There could be no better tribute to the Egyptian Armed Forces.

Here's another view of the Glorious Egyptian Victory:

That Egyptians are able to convince themselves that they won the 1973 war is an impressive feat of intellectual creativity. It does not change what happened: despite the element of surprise, Egypt not only failed to destroy Israel or even to take back the Sinai, but ended the war with a large chunk of its army surrounded and Israeli forces just 101 kilometers from Cairo.

Posted 10/03/2003 08:23:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Maid or Slave?

Does an employee need to escape from a locked apartment? What do the moral relativists say about this kind of human rights?

An expatriate maid died while another was seriously injured in separate attempts to escape from their Saudi sponsors in Makkah.

The first maid lost her life while she was trying to escape from her sponsor’s locked fourth floor apartment. She attempted to abseil from the window by tying several bedsheets together while the sponsor and his wife were away.

But the knots were not strong enough to hold the woman and the baggage she was carrying on her back and she fell several stories onto the sidewalk and died instantly...

...Runaway maids have become a frequent problem for Saudi employers. Many maids escape with their employer’s valuables.

The increase of cases in the past few years has variously been attributed to sexual harassment and beatings from the employers, long working hours without days-off, as well as the maids’ lack of Arabic or inability to operate various household gadgets.

Do they hire people they cannot communicate with and who cannot do the job, or are they enslaving them?

Posted 10/02/2003 04:23:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Altruism

From the Palestine Chronicle this altruistic educator, Jim Miles demonstrates a severe case of idealistic naiviety. He also likely suffers from common leftist myopia as he seems incapable of seeing anything but innate goodness in the thugs of the PLO. He easily demonizes the leadership of Big Bad America, yet ignores the despotic leadership of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the PLO among others. It must be all that innate goodness in Saddam, and Arafat.

The people of the world quite literally want the Americans to go home - they are tired of the covert-subversive actions, they are tired of the overt military actions, tired of the economic stranglehold now supported in secret negotiations involving the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the large transnational corporations, all of which are strongly non-democratic.

America's course is therefore plotted by people who view others as evil, without any innate goodness (which of course has to mirror back on themselves); this is combined with an empire that Americans view as good and just simply because it is rich and powerful. These justifications have taken the United States into a renewed era of military interventions around the globe, interventions that deny basic human rights and that deny effective interventions on the part of larger global political bodies.

If only everyone was as enlightened as Mr. Miles.... Oh, I think he's Canadian.

Posted 10/01/2003 10:27:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Worth Repeating

It's an old story but it continues to amaze me at how many don't understand it. It's worth repeating, and repeating and repeating until it's truly understood: The Arabs don't want Israel to exist.

The Trojan Horse analogy was made most explicitly by the late and unlamented Faisal Husseini, terrorist, agitator, holder of the Palestinian Authority's "Jerusalem portfolio," and darling of the political Left in Israel and abroad. On July 24, 2001, he told the Egyptian al-Arabi newspaper: "Had the U.S. and Israel not realized, before Oslo, that all that was left of the Palestinian National movement and the Pan-Arab movement was a wooden horse called Arafat or the PLO, they would never have opened their fortified gates and let it inside their walls." Asked what he sees as the ultimate goal of the Arafatian Trojan Horse, Husseini answered: "...When we are asking all the Palestinian forces and factions to look at the Oslo Agreement and at other agreements as 'temporary' procedures, or phased goals, this means that we are ambushing the Israelis and cheating them... [I]f we agree to declare our state over what is now only 22% of Palestine, meaning the West Bank and Gaza - our ultimate goal is [still] the liberation of all historical Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, even if this means that the conflict will last for another thousand years or for many generations."

The main faction of the PLO and that led by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Fatah, for instance, also announced quite plainly, in December 2001: "Fatah believes that the Zionist movement constitutes the biggest threat against not only the Palestinian national security, but also against the security of the Arab world. It also believes that a legitimate Palestinian entity forms the most important weapon that Arabs have against Israel, the outpost of the imperialist powers."

The physical evidence of the Arab position, as described above, is also overwhelming. No map, no official document, no school textbook in an Arab country includes the state of Israel. The official symbols of the Palestinian Authority, whose alleged recognition of Israel was a sine qua non of negotiations, contain maps of all of present-day Israel (from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, just as Husseini stated was the "ultimate goal").

Until that fact is recognized, there can be no meaningful movement towards peace. It's way beyond time to tell the Arabs, that they are about to lose the chance of ever seeing a second palestinian state carved out of what was the British Mandate of Palestine. Negotiaitions only encourage the Arabs to keep holding on to their often and plainly stated goal: the liberation of all historical Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.