Category Archives: Israel

FTAC – Hamas – Gaza – Latest IDF Missile Strike

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

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The U.N. had a readied charter for Palestine in 1948. The Arab states rejected Israel’s charter, launched a war of annihilation, lost it, enhanced Israel’s defense ability, and managed to keep the issue alive for what will soon be 70 years.

Setting Fatah aside, Hamas has found itself isolated by the counterrevolution in Egypt — it had swung with the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power — and its enthusiasm for Sunni-based Islamic Jihad in Syria, bringing it into collision with Hezbollah and annoying sponsor Ayatollah Khamenei.

At the end of “Cast Lead” in 2008/2009, so has been my impression, Israel’s Defense Forces, and truly representing Israel, had promised Hamas that the next barrage of rocket fire from Gaza — there had been about 8,000 (!) launches prior to “Cast Lead” — would be met by eliminating the senior fighting leadership of Hamas. True? I don’t know. However, Hamas has been motivated to suppress the fire of the non-Hamas launching units.

The global anti-Semitic rhetoric seems sponsored — same rant where the Far Out Left meets anti-western (anti-human, imho) “Islamist” Ambition writ large — but peace has been not only always available but also pursued and evident in trade throughput, both directions, with Gaza, the acceptance of a Judenfrei Gaza (2005 evacuation of Jews from the strip, where the archaeological record of habitation reaches back 3,500 years) that proved that “land for peace” doesn’t work and won’t, and in local labor and trade, which part includes Jews and Muslims laboring side by side in peace.

At this point, I think agreements will only follow what becomes true on the ground. What’s true in Gaza today is that Hamas has found itself isolated.  As political rogues within its own zone of control threaten by proxy the existence of its senior leadership, it has chosen a path beside a cold peace.

The news inspiring the comment: IDF Targets Gaza Terrorist, Eliminates Imminent threat to Israel – 12/9/2014.

Note: I’ve slightly revised the last paragraph of the material quoted but did so in keeping with original intent.

Related: Israeli Military Launches Airstrike on Palestinian Man – 2/9/2014.

My prediction: peace will one day be more evident in Gaza and in cross-border relationships than war, and the politicians involved will have to fall all over themselves trying to catch up with it.

Alas, that day seems distant and yet a little closer too.

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The reason for staying is loyalty to approximately 500 Palestinians who are among the plant’s 1,300 employees, Birnbaum claimed. While other employees could relocate on the other side of the Green Line if the plant moved, the West Bank Palestinian workers could not, and would suffer financially, he argued.

“We will not throw our employees under the bus to promote anyone’s political agenda,” he said, adding that he “just can’t see how it would help the cause of the Palestinians if we fired them.”

SodaStream Boss Admits West Bank Plant Is ‘a Pain’ — Praises Scarlett Johansson – Forward.com – 1/28/2014.

Additional Reference

I’ve put these references in ascending chronological order as they may suggest a story, even in headlines, about fits and starts, crimes and punishments, and, in the end, behavioral change.

Hamas claims responsibility for tunnel under Gaza-Israel border – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz – 10/21/2013.

IDF EXACTS MAJOR PRICE FROM HAMAS…FINALLY…Kills Its Military Commander…Commentary By Adina Kutnicki | Adina Kutnicki – 11/14/2014.

Hamas: Our Rockets Will Reach North of Tel Aviv – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News – 11/22/2013.

IDF soldiers fire at, hit Palestinian placing bomb on Gaza-Israel border | JPost | Israel News – 12/23/2013.

IDF observing Hamas strides to deter Gaza rocket fire | JPost | Israel News – 1/12/2014.

Hamas deploys forces near Gaza-Israel border to stop rocket fire – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz – 1/21/2014.

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The Great Leader’s Grandiose Delusion

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, North America, Politics, Psychology, Regions, United States of America

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The event in the year 1358 was a counterattack. Our courageous and religious youth attacked the U.S. embassy and discovered the truth and identity of this embassy, which was the Den of Espionage, and presented this fact to people throughout the world.

In those days, our youth called the U.S. embassy the “Den of Espionage”. Today, after the passage of 30-plus years since that day, the name of U.S. embassies in countries which have the closest relationship with America – that is to say, European countries – has become the den of espionage. This means that our youth are 30 years ahead of the rest of the world. This event was related to America as well. These three events were related, in different ways, to the government of the United States of America and its relations with Iran. Therefore, the 13th of Aban – which is tomorrow – was named “Day of Fighting Against Arrogance”.

The Office of the Supreme Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei – 11/3/2013

* * *

This same regime supplies its terrorist proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, with thousands of rockets, rockets that are aimed at Israeli civilians, rockets that are precision-guided munitions that are increasingly lethal and deadly. This is a regime committed to our destruction. And I believe there must be an unequivocal demand alongside the negotiations in Geneva for a change in Iranian policy. This must be part and parcel of the negotiations. In other words, I’m saying that what is required is not merely a shift and a diminution of Iran’s capability and elimination of its capability to produce nuclear weapons, but also a demand to change its genocidal policy. That is the minimal thing that the international community must do when it’s negotiating with Iran.

PM Netanyahu’s address to the Saban Forum 8 ec 2013

For once, the bold section is a part of the copy at the source — i.e., not mine.

This form in conflict isn’t about wealth or resources: it’s about the character of the next generation’s humanity.

* * *

And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.

Exodus 12:38.

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The Jews and all who would travel with them have been defying the “malignant narcissist” from the first pages.

Even before Exodus, God himself in Genesis arranges for Eve to partake of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, share it with Adam, and become the two of them — this I regard as the most important part — aware, self-aware, and possessed of conscience.

Whatever animals may be left to do, the First Couple have ascended from that base existence, covered and signaled consideration for the other, and been prepared — read carefully: God himself sews the first protective clothing — to live like human beings.

* * *

In contemporary political life there seem to be a thousand pharaohs holding captive and suffocating millions of souls.  In their own heads, the lives of others pale before their own, and the control of others in the cause of their own adoration takes precedence over every other consideration.

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▶ Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei : Israeli regime shaky, doomed to collapse – YouTube – Posted by PressTV 11/20/2013.

Related from this blog: Paranoid Delusional Narcissist Reflection of Motivation

* * *

▶ Mordechai Kedar: Rouhani threat? Is Obama setting-up Israel to confront Iran on nukes? [46] – YouTube – Posted 10/3/2013.

* * *

In the next breath, however, the ayatollah spoke harshly of France’s stand with the United States in opposition of much of the nuclear deal being forged in Geneva, vowing that Iran would “slap aggressors in the face in such a way they will never forget it,” Ynet News reported.

The militia members, in response, chanted “Death to America.”

 Iran’s ayatollah: Israel’s ‘doomed to extinction’ – Washington Times – 11/20/2013.

* * *

“Iran’s policy of constructive interaction with the world states has forced the world to see the realities of Iran’s capabilities,” Rouhani said during a meeting with Bushehr’s MPs on Monday.

“You see that those powers which were thinking of destroying Iran’s enrichment capability, have now admitted that they cannot stop Iran’s industrial progress and enrichment due to the indigenization of this industry and its expansion,” he added.

President Rouhani: World powers admit failure in stopping Iran’s N. progress – 12/9/2013.

* * *

“In our region there’s been a wound for years on the body of the Muslim world under the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the beloved al-Quds (Jerusalem),” Rouhani said, according to a translation by the Reuters news agency.

The earlier quote, which came from ISNA, was most notable for its inclusion of the call for the “wound” to be “removed”:

“The Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world for years and the wound should be removed,” ISNA quoted Rouhani as saying.

New Iran president Hasan Rouhani calls Israel an “old wound” – CBS News – 8/2/2013.

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In the Iranian regime’s relationship with the greater world, the encouragement of trust by way of sweet words would seem matched by an idée fixe — Islamic succession, perhaps — accompanied by a reputation for treachery.

As with others of similar mien, what the public knows and is told leaves the swallowing black shadow of things less divulged or not divulged at all.

* * *

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls a business empire worth around $95 billion (£59 billion) – a sum exceeding the value of his oil-rich nation’s current annual petroleum exports, a six-month Reuters investigation shows.

The little-known organization, called Setad, is one of the keys to the Iranian leader’s enduring power and now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.

Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei revealed to run £60 BILLION business empire covering everything from oil to ostrich farming | Mail Online – 11/11/2013; first source: Exclusive: Reuters investigates business empire of Iran’s supreme leader | Reuters – 11/11/2013.

* * *

The 82-year-old Iranian woman keeps the documents that upended her life in an old suitcase near her bed. She removes them carefully and peers at the tiny Persian script.

There’s the court order authorizing the takeover of her children’s three Tehran apartments in a multi-story building the family had owned for years. There’s the letter announcing the sale of one of the units. And there’s the notice demanding she pay rent on her own apartment on the top floor

Reuters Investigates – Assets of the Ayatollah: “Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures“:  – 11/11/2013.

There is an old saw regarding the mentality of the power behind a medieval narrative: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law!”

The malignant create laws to exclude, persecute, and thieve from others, and oh my the things that may be taken from any person subject to a monster: family, identity, labor, property, reputation, and wealth.

And life.

If Ayatollah Khamenei’s ambition and methods as an empire builder seem grandiose and rife with injustice to outsiders, there is nothing delusional about them: what you have read, what you have seen, what you have heard in relation to the aims of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, all of that is true as well.

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Gaza – No Justice – A Glimpse Into Kleptocracy

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Middle East, Politics

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Ironically, throughout all of the alleged Israeli siege on Gaza, Israel has consistently been providing Gazans water and power supplies, which Israel threatened to cut in 2011 if Palestinian Authority pursued reunification with Hamas — a threat which Israel never carried out.

Moreover, numbers speak for themselves: in March 2012, the same month when 300 Hamas rockets were fired from Gaza at Israeli towns, 3,653 truckloads of goods were delivered from Israel to Gaza and 1,375 Gazan patients and companions entered or passed through Israel for medical treatments, followed by another 1,364 in April, 2012.

In August 2012, the Hamas prime minister’s brother in law was allowed to enter Israel for treatment in an Israeli hospital.

Who Is Really Besieging Gaza? :: Gatestone Institute – Mudar Zahran – 11/15/2012.

* * *

“there are 1,200 millionaires in Gaza since Hamas took power… these people took advantage of the tunnels and the commerce of fuel to Gaza and took advantage of the people in Gaza.”

Gaza Strip full of corrupt millionaires, says Palestinian official – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz – 11/16/2013.

* * *

WAFA reported that the wealth came from controlling the smuggling of good through the tunnels with Egypt, including “alcohol and drugs,” describing Hamas leaders as “Gaza’s drug lords”.

In addition, the prominent Egyptian newspaper, al-Mesryoon, quoted Egyptian writer and academic Abdul Munim Saeed as saying that Hamas was the main importer and exporter of drugs into Gaza.

The Jewish Press » » Hamas’ Drug Lords – 4/22/2013.

*

A campaign against drugs was launched by Gaza’s interior ministry last month targeting tramadol tablets which are widely used by youth in the Sector.

Tramadol is a drug prescribed by doctors as a pain killer; however it is widely misused by drug addicts as a replacement drug. Opium, marijuana and various other kinds of drugs are in short supply in Gaza as a result of the strict anti-drug campaigns carried out by the ministry of interior.

Gaza government fights ‘tramadol’ smuggling – 7/8/2013.

The quotations having to do with narcotics proceeds and trafficking in Gaza rather seem to contradict one another but are not necessarily irreconcilable: the soul of corruption and crime resides in the opaque qualities of a governance that enables some to many to engage in illicit activities without consequence to themselves.  In such atmospheres, tightening laws and initiating crackdowns may as well serve to remove one’s own competitors or enemies from the market, which is not to say that’s what’s happening, but who is to know — and how would they know it?  Independent accounting and audit would see unknown to governments — this is not about Hamas only — that rely too heavily on their own opacity, privacy, and security in doing what they do.

Results nonetheless come out in one form or another of cash input and output comparisons, and if cash seems in short supply where in fact it has been signaled as abundant, than one knows it has been disappearing down into very dark and bottomless pockets.

* * *

The tunnels that move goods into the Strip from Egypt have been linchpins of the economy, employing 12,000 to 15,000 and supplying as much as 75 percent of the products sold in the markets, according to Sameer Abumdallala, head of the economics department at Al Azhar University in Gaza. Now the smugglers say their importance is waning: Access to Israeli goods is improving, and the Gazan government has begun regulating the tunnels, sapping profits.

Twilight of Gaza’s Smuggling Tunnel Millionaires – Businessweek – 1/31/2013.

* * *

Palestine – Gaza City.

Septemper 4, 2013

palestinian man who lost his right foot (disabled)he has 10 children in Gaza City ( Alzayton area) suffers poverty and the family lives in just two rooms.

Five of the children they don’t going to school because of the bad economic situation in the family. — family also thay don’t have an sewerage network

Gerechtigkeit für Gaza – justicia para Gaza – justice pour Gaza – justice for Gaza: Ezz Al Zanoon – brilliant photographer from Gaza – 9/4/2013.

Whose constituents are they?

Readers who click on the above link will arrive at an almost too beautiful picture of an equally ugly circumstance made more so by the point of this post: enormous sums have channeled through the Gaza Strip, but evidence of fair and responsible distribution through local governance has been weak and, in fact, both Israeli and Palestinian presses seem to have turned up stories indicating interests opposite accountable and responsive area-wide governance.

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Dictatorships and the “malignant narcissists” who manipulate and thieve from their areas of control often offer sweet words to their constituents but their wallets and their forces tend to serve mostly themselves.  For such, ideologies and religions would seem to serve mostly as cloaks and shields inscribed with the con artist’s favorite invocation: “Trust me.”

Addendum 12/5/2013

The streets of some Gaza neighborhoods are completely flooded with raw sewage, so that pedestrians have no way to go but through the muck. The Hamas government has been sinking Gaza into a quagmire of violence, blackouts, water shortages and now: a cholera epidemic waiting to happen.

The Jewish Press » » Israel Warns EU of Emerging Gaza Humanitarian Disaster – 12/3/2013.

* * *

In the past few years, the war-torn Gaza Strip relied on Egyptian fuel at 3.5 Israeli shekels (one dollar) per litre. Then in July, Egypt closed down all supply tunnels to Gaza in an attempt to crush the Hamas Islamic movement for being an ally to overthrown Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (2012-2013). The municipality says that fuel coming through Israel is heavily taxed, forcing them to pay double, at 7.0 Israeli shekels per litre.

Gaza Returns to Donkey Days – Sabbah Report – 12/5/2013.

1. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sets out to establish a family dynasty in the last years of his tenure;

2. Egypt, en masse, decides to not let Mubarak get away with that, and he’s ousted from power;

3. The only political player on the block turns out the Muslim Brotherhood, which handily, ruthlessly, takes care of its competition, ascends to power, and sets about the business of consolidating everything, starting with the army, quickly advancing to the constitution, its way;

3b. Hamas, itself a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, cheers for the arrival of its new buddy;

4. Civil war breaks out in Syria, partially, initially, aligning Shiite against Sunni Islam, and Hamas, knowing what it’s really about (read the charter), knows what it’s about, which alienates the puppet master in Iran;

5. Meanwhile, in Egypt, President Morsi turns out so ham handed, venal, and on his economy just plain absent or stupid — you decide — Egyptian about half or three-quarters en masse demand his ouster and return to the comfort of the arms of the army;

6. Uh oh for Hamas — Egyptian, Israeli, and United States diplomatic and military interests discover common cause in heading off the fascist Brotherhood (while mouthing away for more genuine democratic process, one way or the other) — and it’s Hamas — the Hamas government and governance — that can no longer sustain an inscrutable presence in the lives of Gaza’s constituents;

6a. Hamas successfully stifles the launch of protests in its streets by way of pre-event arrests and detentions and the usual methods amounting to intimidation — and no one shows up: the by-Hamas-silenced continue suffering (related on this blog: “Hamas – Tamarod – 11/11 [You’re Going to Need a Cup of Coffee“]).

7. Israel, watching this meltdown in governance, the wholesale shirking of responsibility for basic services — keep in mind Gaza’s millionaires, their number, their sources of income, their comforts — alerts the European Union as regards the strips vulnerability to other human catastrophe, including the creation of conditions for cholera.

* * *

A STRING of regional developments over the past two years has left the Islamist Hamas government in Gaza in dire straits and opened up new opportunities for Israel and Palestinian moderates.

In backing the Sunni rebels in the Syrian civil war, Hamas forfeited its special ties with its biggest arms supplier, Iran; the military ouster of its Muslim Brotherhood allies in Cairo put serious strains on its relations with Egypt; and a change of leadership in Qatar left a big question mark over the extent of financial aid from the oil-rich Gulf state it can continue to count on.

ICT – Commentaries > Hamas in disarray – 11/26/2013.

* * *

“I can’t emphasise enough that Israel’s security in this negotiation (with Iran) is at the top of our agenda,” Kerry said at a joint news conference in Jerusalem.

“The United States will do everything in our power to make certain that Iran’s nuclear programme of weaponisation possibilities is terminated.”

Kerry stressed the two men had spent “a very significant amount of time” discussing the peace talks with the Palestinians.

“Israel’s security is fundamental to those negotiations,” he said.

Israel security key in talks on peace, Iran: Kerry – Yahoo!7 – 12/5/2013.

Hate may for a while drive the heart but it consumes it too and all it envelopes.

* * *

The charter states that “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories,[1] and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.[2][3] The charter also states that Hamas is humanistic, and tolerant of other religions as long as they do not block Hamas’s efforts.[4] The Charter adds that “renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion” of Islam.[5]

Hamas Covenant – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 12/5/2013.

Any who care to look ahead to how that story ends may well look beyond Gaza, Hamas, and Israel: a figure approaching 130,000 have died in neighboring Syria’s civil war, which effort to depose a dictators has been skewered by the forces of “Islamic Jihad” that would have it a war for Islam rather than for democracy, human rights, and inclusion in power; beside that figure stands the displacement of one-third of Syria’s population before the war.

I’ve seen no figure describing the suffering and trauma visited on Syrian innocents and noncombatants, but then I believe no such figure can ever exist.

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To Be Abandoned and Betrayed by Politics’ Malignant Narcissists

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel

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“This is how I live, day in, day out, in Gaza. Most of the population is less privileged than I am. When poverty wins out and there is no work and no solution on the horizon, there’s nothing worse than losing hope.”

My sea, my day – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews – by Dr. Mona al-Fara 12/2/2013.

* * *

” . . . . there are 1,200 millionaires in Gaza since Hamas took power… these people took advantage of the tunnels and the commerce of fuel to Gaza and took advantage of the people in Gaza.”

Gaza Strip full of corrupt millionaires, says Palestinian official – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz – 11/16/2013.

______

Briefest Observation: for dictators — “malignant narcissists” — political space, locality to state, provides exclusively for their own aggrandizement and comfort through the accumulation of wealth and has otherwise no significance as regards the interests of other constituents in their immediate surrounds.

For such “kleptocrat” personalities and the systems they create around themselves, the achievement of murderous and thieving power would seem the main thing, and whatever holds together to sustain that “thing” — their thing — is the only genuine concern.

As much would seem as true for “Putinistas” investing their wealth and their lives outside of Russia, for the Assads who have decimated their constituent population in Syria — now one-third displaced or refugee, and for Gaza’s “tunnel millionaires” who have essentially forsaken those around them: all have in common the abandonment and growing impoverishment of those who had believed in them and counted on them most.

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After al-Quds University Students Raise the Black Flag and Do the Hitler Salute

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, North America, Politics, Psychology, Regions, United States of America

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Demonstrators at the Palestinian school paraded in paramilitary gear, with massed black flags, mock assault weapons, and arms extended in Nazi-style salutes. There were banners lionizing suicide bombers, and hand-drawn Israeli flags on which students trod. Islamic Jihad — long identified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union — posted photos of the rally on its website. In one, students representing dead Israelis sprawl on the ground as black-clad jihadists brandishing weapons stride past.

Rally shows pervasive Palestinian anti-Semitism – Opinion – The Boston Globe – 11/24/2013.

* * *

“Even universities like Al Quds university are established especially in Jerusalem, in order to show that Arabs and Muslims are the masters of this place and not the Jews, because in their view, if Judaism will control Jerusalem it will mean that Judaism came back to life after Islam came to replace it.

“This is why the basis of the struggle over Jerusalem and over the whole land of Israel is a religious struggle – not between Israel and the Arabs but between Judaism and Islam. This is the essence of th struggle, and everything stems from this archimedic point of the struggle.”

The speaker is the well-known scholar Mordechai Kedar and the source this one: Footage: More Nazi-Style Rallies at Al-Quds U. – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 11/28/2013.

* * *

During his press conference in Jerusalem today on the “peace process,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Israel again, but did not place any emphasis at all on the fact that the Palestinian Authority tolerates (and in many cases actively encourages) incitement to kill Jews.

Mideast Dispatch Archive: Scenes yesterday afternoon from a “moderate” Palestinian university – 11/6/2013

Related: Mideast Dispatch Archive: Update: Al-Quds photos receive attention from Netanyahu through to Al Jazeera (Tom Gross Media) – 11/11/2013; Elder Of Ziyon – Israel News: 11/07 Links Pt1: Fascist Rally at Al Quds Uni, Iranian Nobel Laureate – Rouhani is no Moderate – 11/7/2013; The Jewish Chronicle – Palestinian university partnership with Brandeis under fire after fascist style rally – 11/14/2013; Al Quds University « Commentary Magazine – 11/20/2013; Brandeis University suspends its partnership with Al-Quds University effective immediately | BrandeisNOW – 11/18/2013; Brandeis University Criticized for Nazi-Style Rally | Washington Free Beacon – 11/11/2013; Al-Quds president says Brandeis counterpart ‘gone overboard’ in row over rally | The Times of Israel – 11/22/2013.

In the final reference of the above block, Sari Nusseibeh, president of al-Quds University may have through the subtext of his response made it clear how difficult it was — and remains — to stand up to and condemn the anti-Semitic bigotry and hate paraded by Islamic Jihad on campus.  While defending his actions on the matter, which I believe he did well, he appears (in words) not to have gone so far as to lead his campus in recognizing and condemning with certainty its own deeply fascist elements and tendencies.

The Jewish press at once defensive and active –in this instance David Horovitz writing for the Times of Israel — hammers home the telling nail: “In his statement issued to al-Quds students Sunday, Nusseibeh had said that “Jewish extremists” were using the demonstration to “capitalize on events in ways that misrepresent the university as promoting inhumane, anti-Semitic, fascist, and Nazi ideologies.”

No extremists, Jewish or otherwise, would seem needed to recognize the deeper structure in argument having to do with choosing between a loyalty that pacifies, placates, and patronizes its children when they are wrong, and an integrity in matters that risks upsetting their malign narcissistic souls.

* * *

“We are very disappointed and saddened to have learned of these recent events at Al-Quds University,” said Kevin Quinn, Syracuse’s senior vice president for public affairs, in an email to The Jerusalem Post.

He said Syracuse’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism would end its ties with Al-Quds. The decision by Syracuse came three days after Brandeis University severed its relationship.

Syracuse follows Brandeis in halting ties with Al-Quds | JPost | Israel News – 11/22/2013.

When something stinks, people who don’t stink back away from it.

* * *

DEARBORN — Dozens of Arab Americans across southeast Michigan converged on Dearborn Friday to mark National Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, condemning Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands.

The protest was held at Dearborn City Hall, the designated “free speech zone” in the city.

Muslims Mark Al-Quds Day in Support of Palestinians – Around Town – Dearborn, MI Patch – 8/4/2013.

Should you click on the Dearborn Patch link, you will see a photo of a young lady holding a post with blocked and black letters on a white field: “Israel: No Right To Exist.”

Scroll down some and learn that “Abir Safa of Dearborn read a poem during the rally, and said that the event serves as a wake up call for all Muslims to take a stand against global Zionism and global hegemony and aggression regardless of race, religion or creed.”

Good idea — start with the saluting black shirts of al-Quds University, Jerusalem, Israel.

But wait — that would be off the point, which might fit a little more with observations similar to this one by Andrew Kirell writing for Mediaite:

It’s a match made in hate-filled heaven: former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Louisiana legislator David Duke endorsed, via video, Charles Barron, the controversial anti-Israel Democrat from Brooklyn, New York, who currently seeks the party’s nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Former Black Panther Barron has a long history of controversial remarks, some of which have been interpreted as anti-Semitic. He once called Israel the “biggest terrorist in the world,” and likened the Gaza Strip to “a virtual death camp, the same kind of conditions the Nazis imposed on the Jews.” At one point, he praised the late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi as a “freedom fighter.”

United In Hate? Fmr. KKK Leader David Duke Endorses Black Anti-Zionist For Congress | Mediaite – 6/22/2012.

Readers of this blog should by now well recognize the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” involved in the concoction, unconsciously or by way of deliberate and venal conceit, of “against global Zionaism . . . hegemony . . . aggression” especially when it links directly back to jack-booted, black shirt wearing, rigidly parading and Nazi-emulating thugs associating themselves with other Palestinians, among them some or many — who knows absent of free speech and unblemished elections?  — who may finally wish to think twice — independently and off their own research and reflection — about who it is, or what it is, that has been purporting to represent them.

* * *

A little bit of “Never Forget!” by way of the 1930s, Facebook, and Harry’s Place (reference provided).

boycotJGS

Harry’s Place » Old Hatred In New Words? – 9/2/2008.

* * *

While before a person had to be personally exposed, through people or perhaps a book, to vile characterizations of Jews, today anti-Semitism is prominently available everywhere anytime — to those seeking it out or to the innocent person just looking for information. Typing “Jew” into Google or Bing returns a top site (sometimes No. 2) called JewWatch, which is a vast emporium of anti-Semitic accusations and hatred claiming 1.5 billion pages in support of its mission to defame and eliminate Jews and their supposed power. This is but one of tens of thousands of anti-Semitic hate sites, which include a growing alternative to Wikipedia, called Metapedia, which seeks to create (currently in 18 languages) an anti-Semitic informational universe.

Opinion: How the Web spreads anti-Semitism – CNN.com – 10/18/2013.

With the democratic open society concept, a lot of people write and publish — and a lot more read and respond through the manner in which they conduct their lives — but to create a pervasive information atmosphere, one infused with anti-Semitic vitriol, takes some pile of sleazy cash: one wonders about who has been putting up the Big Bucks to inflame and incite yet another generation to wanton murder.

Additional Reference

Brandeis president will reach out to Al-Quds University | j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California – 11/27/2013.

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FTAC – If Information is Power, How Much Greater Must Be Power Over Information

21 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Philology, Politics, Psychology

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Some settlers may not be perfect 🙂 I don’t know for the paucity of mainstream media or otherwise vetted journalists combing the territory and less weighed down with agenda channeled by a special interest press. The “Pallywood” and issues related involve a stepped concept: the belief that 1) information is power, and if that is so, then 2) power over information must be really powerful. That organizations would arm Palestinians with cameras for their defense but also do so in an environment in which baiting, false flag, and provocation seem a part of the atmosphere may well produce viscerally compelling images without necessarily telling a whole story. Accompanying the idea that “power over information must be really powerful” (let’s ask Putin what he thinks about that — and also what he learned on the way to becoming a colonel) may be the conceit that one is above it and others merely susceptible tools, especially if the information environment is pervasive enough and there’s a little something in the target’s heart (in my world: learned but forgotten messages gleaned during early childhood language uptake) that wants confirmation still of the rule embedded and unconsciously in suspension.

Much of the Islamic Small Wars as well as the ghosts of the Soviet Union persist in informational dark space. Neither Fatah nor Hamas have produced around them anything close to “open democracy”. http://www.cpj.org/tags/fatah-voice For all the bloodshed along the several axis coinciding in these so far small wars — autocratic, criminal (narcotics, arms running, kidnapping, extortion, other trade), and religious — much would abate with growing strength in integrity and perhaps greater insight into the cognitive mechanics of “malignant narcissism”.

The interpretation of the world in language – how one knows how to talk about the experience of life in a place — may be also reflective of language programming in the head.  That programming is powerful, sufficient, certainly, to see in some fashion – or confirm with enthusiasm someone else’s observation — ghosts and witches in one century and to find the experience of either inaccessible in the next.

Autocrat, dictator, or totalitarian monster would wish his constituents (and everyone else) to see things his way.

Perhaps the little monster consign themselves to writing poetry while the larger ones erupt with whole political programs.

In any case, I suspect both grandiose and hateful desires and illusions follow sensibly from the time-hidden tracks of childhood’s social grammar.

What might keep a really bad train boiling down the line?

Absence of resistance linked to concepts not articulated within or otherwise remote from thought suspended generally in the cognitive texture of the culture of interest: one cannot call a man crazy who appears (given the tools at hand) merely inspired and passionate even if he turns out a copy of Charles Manson.  Indeed, there’s a certain malignancy that knows its targets cannot defend themselves from what they cannot — or for love, will not — perceive in the reality that has approached them to engulf, use, and eventually destroy them.

Related

Palestinians Shoot Back With Video Cameras – Video – TIME.com, n.d.

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Observed: The IDF (Emergency Response Team) In . . . .

15 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Israel

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The first baby born at the Israeli Defense Forces field hospital in the Philippines was delivered safely on Friday. The mother named the boy Israel.

The IDF sent a 148 person delegation to the Philippines on Wednesday in order to provide search, rescue and medical services in response to super-typhoon Haiyan.

First baby born in IDF field hospital in Philippines, named Israel | JPost | Israel News – 11/15/2013.

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The Talmud describes Jews as rachmanim b’nei rachmanim: a compassionate people who are sensitive to human suffering. They are unable to sit by and ignore the terrible drama of human misery. Instead, they get up and do something about it.

As the world learned the news about Haiti one Tuesday in January, the Israeli Defense Forces were already planning their response. By Friday they had already pitched camp in Haiti.

Qanta Ahmed, MD: Lessons From the IDF in Haiti: Opportunities in Global Health Diplomacy for the Muslim World – 3/7/2010.

Related Reference

Disaster response team boosts Israel’s image abroad – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 11/13/2013.

A year after Haiti. An interview with Shahaf Shtrikman – n.d.

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An Old Swofford Post on Hamas and an Ancient Treaty Involving Muhammad

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Politics

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It was under a tree, that the men aligned with Muhammad took a pledge to fight to the death for the rite of their religion. This pledge is known as Bayt-e-Ridwan. “Allah was well-pleased with the believers when they swore allegiance to you under the tree.” Al-Fatah 18 (translation by Malik) In light of a fast-developing and potentially bloody struggle a treaty was hammered out between the men of Qureysh and the followers of Muhammad. The recounting of the development of this document, whether Qur’an or Sunnah, provide a practical corpus juris for Islamic crafting of treaty which seeks entrance and egress, and possible concessions regarding land borders.

Now stupidity bores me. But intellectual dishonesty evokes quite a different response. In examining both context and the spirit of the law of just one aspect of this treaty it is glaringly apparent that Hamas has violated the principles set forth in seeking such a truce.

tammy swofford: The Challenge for Khalid Meshaal – 4/28/2008

Tammy dredged up the article from the deeps of her blog on my sharing with her this piece from a July 2013 post by Palestinian Media Watch:

PA minister: PA agreements are modeled
after Muhammad’s Hudaybiyyah
Peace Treaty

Muhammad signed a 10-year truce
at Hudaybiyyah with the tribes of Mecca,
but two years later he attacked and conquered them

PA Minister of Religious Affairs Al-Habbash,
in the presence of Mahmoud Abbas,
compared PA agreements with Israel
to Muhammad’s pact that led not to peace
but to defeat of the peace partners:
“This is the example and this is the model”

I suspect failures of creativity in language and in living have the sorriest correlations with reversions to violence and barbarism.

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