The X-Shikseh Files

The Rebbe

2008-07-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

What the Rabbi said...

2008-07-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

One does not deal with terrorists; one does not bargain with terrorists; one kills terrorists.- Rabbi Meir Kahane ZTK"L, HY"D

A Dear Friend, Barry Krugel

2008-07-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

This article was published in the UTLA newsletter in 2004.

Hollenbeck Middle School teacher Barry Krugel passed away earlier this year. Barry was a lifelong educator, having dedicated 20 of his 30 Los Angeles Unified School District years to Hollenbeck. He served the Hollenbeck community as teacher, social studies department chair, audio-visual coordinator, and member of the SBM School Site Council. Barry was always dependable, and his commitment reached everyone in need of help for extra-curricular activities.

A man of his word, “The Colonel,” as he was affectionately called, meant and did what he said.

Barry’s scholarly endeavors were evident by his home library collection of more than 10,000 books. His love for reading gave him knowledge and the ability to talk up a storm on any subject or topic. An erudite individual, his knowledge created stimulating conversations during which Barry held passionately firm in his beliefs, which were supported by concrete statistics and data that only he knew best. A discussion with Barry was truly a learning experience.

Barry was a veteran of many UTLA precinct walks and phone banks, and he was active in UTLA East Area. He walked the line in ’89 and never missed a demonstration.

Barry is survived by his wife, Leah, and daughters Lisa and Dilia.

Barry will truly be missed, yet his legacy of contributions fulfills those who knew and understood him every day. It is with great sadness and love that the Hollenbeck community says goodbye to
their friend and colleague.

Anti Zionists: who are you? HA HA HA HA HA HA...

2008-05-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

You can't make this stuff up. Oh wait, they did. This is seriously hysterically funny and ohmigosh, this stuff is funny. CLICK HERE TO READ THIS CLASSIC.

When you're done with that one, read how these guys helped perpetrate the hoax that Che Guevara was actually Jewish (and supposedly on a mission to forcibly convert Bolivian Indians to Judaism when he was assassinated by the C.I.A.) and best of all, read how world media fell for the nonsense! CLICK HERE FOR THAT GOODIE.

Heh. These guys are great.

Documents show UK post-WWII dilemma over Jewish refugees

2008-05-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

By GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Documents released Monday show how the British government tried to send thousands of Palestine-bound Jewish survivors of the Nazi genocide back to postwar Germany without inflaming world opinion.

Could it be done? The answer was no. It was just two years after the end of the war and the world was outraged by the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis in what became known as the Holocaust.

Despite the best efforts of early spin doctors to portray the move in the most sympathetic light, the decision to turn away the more than 4,500 Jews on board the Exodus refugee ship turned into a humanitarian and public relations debacle for Britain.

The story is detailed in more than 400 pages of formerly secret documents at Britain's National Archives made available to the public on Monday.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY

Trial of US citizens charged with plotting to train terrorists begins

2008-04-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Opening statements were to begin Tuesday in the trial of three men charged with plotting to recruit and train terrorists to attack US and allied troops overseas.

Federal prosecutors say the men, who all lived in the Toledo area for a while, attended a Muslim convention in Cleveland during the summer of 2004 where they talked about training in explosives, guns and sniper tactics.

The men were there with a former US military man who worked undercover and helped foil the plot, prosecutors said.

Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi and Wassim I. Mazloum are accused of conspiring to kill or maim people outside the United States, including military personnel in Iraq. They have all pleaded not guilty.

All are US citizens except Mazloum, who came to the US legally from Lebanon while El-Hindi and Amawi are Jordanian-Americans.

LINK

Working hard for peace, I see...

2008-04-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Apr 1, 2008 19:38

Palestinian teen caught in possession of pipe bomb near Nablus

A Palestinian teen was caught in possession of a pipe bomb at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus on Tuesday evening.

IDF sappers detonated the bomb in a controlled explosion and the teen was detained by security forces for interrogation.

From the Jerusalem Post.

Partners for Peace?

2008-04-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

WARNING: DO NOT CLICK TO WATCH THIS VIDEO IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET BY IMAGES OF VIOLENCE AND/OR BLOOD. CERTAINLY, NO CHILD SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SEE THIS VIDEO.

Having said the above warning, if you want to know what Israel, the United States, Jordan, Qatar, and other peace-desiring entities have to work with in terms of "partners for peace," then do not turn your face away from the truth. It is here:

Whores for Death [a series of articles] - Dareen Abu Aysheh

2008-03-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

PLEASE NOTE: First, for purposes of this post and series of articles, I will define "whore" as one who prostitutes their soul, one who trades in all human decency to replace it with the worst depravity imagineable and which the whores know to be depraved. Indeed, it is the degree of depravity in their acts that becomes its own reward. They are whores. They are whores because they have had the opportunity to know better, to know what decency is, and they choose to be depraved. They are whores.

premeditation
pre·medi·ta·tion
noun
the act of premeditating
Law: a degree of planning and forethought sufficient to show intent to commit an act

Well, if a murderer were to videotape their own murder confession before they ever went out and committed their heinous act of taking an innocent life, any court in any civilized decent society would accept that as evidence of premeditation to murder.

Then there are other kinds of societies. There is the society that formed the warped mind of this whore for death. A society that breeds its own children to be instruments of death. A society that won't allow its children to have any hope for the future.

How could that be? How could this young woman actually believe that murder was acceptable?

It's because her society has been hijacked by power-hungry rapacious lazy unprincipled gutless pigs who spew a few public words of hate then sit back and collect billions of dollars in donations from the Arab countries of this world so as to maintain their stranglehold on this young woman's mind and the minds of all others in her society.

As long as the so-called leaders of this culture of death keep churning out murder and terror at the expense of its own children, the billions of dollars will continue to pour in. It matters not that very little of the money is actually spent on improving the quality of life for the children.

When Yasser Arafat died of AIDS, he left behind a personal Swiss bank account of over three billion dollars. How many schoolbooks might that have purchased for Palestinian children? How may meals for his hungry people? It mattered not to Yasser.

The children of Palestine are not raised with the knowledge of the billions in treasure being stolen in their name. They are not raised with the knowledge that their neighbor Israel has for years been willing to cede land and almost everything that's been asked in the name of establishing a national identity and homeland for the Palestinian people.

Because if they knew the truth, they would revolt against their masters, their pimps in death.

Instead, fed on a daily diet of hate and the exaltation of murder, they become whores as this woman did, recording her pre-murder-event murder confession then driving off in the company of two other would-be murderers to do their dirty deed.

In decent societies, policeman are revered as first responders, rescuers, heroes, law enforcement officers and keepers of the peace. They are the vanguard that stands between us, the normal folk, and disaster. Without them, laws would have no enforcement and no individual would be safe.

This whore cared little for decency when she premeditated, plotted, to murder policemen and bragged of her deed before it was ever committed.

It is truly a blessing of G-d that the only successful murder she committed that day was her own. She killed herself in an effort to murder several policemen. Her mission was not a success. G-d is great.

Normally, I would say that all suicide is tragic and all effort should be expended to rescue the life of the one who wishes to end their own existence.

However, if the end of the life of this whore for death meant that murder did not happen to innocent people then it is obvious that the hand of G-d intervened on behalf of the innocent.

And so, she is merely a failed whore for death. But a whore, nonetheless. As were the Tanzim terrorist whores (two men) who accompanied her.

Whores, all of them. No honor. No respect. And they did their part to inhibit the birthing of the Palestinian nation. They are traitors to their own children, to their own cause, their own society.

No honor for whores.

Whores for Death [a series of articles] - Wafa Idris

2008-03-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

PLEASE NOTE: First, for purposes of this post, I will define "whore" as one who prostitutes their soul, one who trades in all human decency to replace it with the worst depravity imagineable and which the whores know to be depraved. Indeed, it is the degree of depravity in their acts that becomes its own reward. They are whores. They are whores because they have had the opportunity to know better, to know what decency is, and they choose to be depraved. They are whores.

Wafa Idris was bitter and enraged that her husband - and cousin - had divorced her for being unable to have children. Barren and then divorced, she was left in the permanent status of being forever "undesireable" as wife material to any other man. She was unwanted and cast off and then had to suffer the indignity of watching her cousin joyously celebrate his new union with another woman.

She did make an attempt to stitch together the pieces of her shattered life by seeking employment with the Red Crescent Society (similiar to the Red Cross in Western countries). But then her cousin remarried and Wafa was forced to endure the humiliating indignity of pretending to celebrate along with the rest of her family. She wanted to die.

She was also bitter. Angry. A scorned woman. She sought an outlet for her rage.

The terrorists found her and took this shattered creature, erasing whatever grain of self-esteem she may have had left, and replaced her own thoughts with the dogma of their death cult.

Wafa Idris would murder an 81-year-old man and injure 150 innocent people who were "guilty" only of going shopping and attending to their daily business. She'd found her outlet.

Wafa Idris became a whore for death and her fall from decency courtesy of terrorist death merchants was orchestrated much like the best work of any Hollywood pimp.

Wafa Idris, the whore.

Ms. Idris was not universally admired for becoming a murderer. Red Crescent advisor Dr. Hussam Al-Sharqawi had this to say: "I am shocked; I never expected anything like this… We teach our staff to help people regardless of religion, color, citizenship, or any other classification. One of [our staff] killing others pains us greatly, because this contradicts our humane values, which have not and will not prevent us from helping [even] soldiers and settlers when necessary."

She had at least one sympathetic family member, an aunt, who said, "He [her husband] killed her when he discarded her."

Her girlhood friend Raf'ah Abu Hamid would blame society's rejection of Ms. Idris for being divorced and unable to have children. According to this friend, Ms. Idris was left feeling "deficient" and so she had to compensate for that.

Al-Quds University student Maram 'Alawi, 22, said, "This is an [act] of terrorism… The Islamic movements exploited this girl's psychological or emotional distress and recruited her for the operation…"

Wafa Idris got her life pimped out for Death. Wafa Idris, whore. Pitiful? Maybe. Her innocent victims were human beings who perhaps found a great deal of meaning in their own lives. But, that didn't matter to this whore for death. Not in the least. No, I don't pity her. She's a murdering bitch.

A whore for death.

LEARN MORE HERE.

So... which side wants peace?

2008-03-29T23:22:00.000-07:00

Want to know where terrorism comes from?

2008-01-31T15:04:00.000-08:00

Islamic Rage Boy Sings "Infidels" (Jingle Bells)

2007-12-29T22:16:00.000-08:00

'93% of Palestinian kids suffer domestic violence'

2007-12-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

Ahead of International Children's Day, New Family - an organization that promotes family rights - reported unnerving statistics on Sunday in its annual 2007 report on domestic violence in Palestinian families.

According to statistics gathered from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO), 93.3 percent of Palestinian children have experienced domestic violence, amounting to 1,950,739 children - 953,950 of whom are girls.

READ THE ARTICLE

I do find it a bit odd that the author of this article seems to blame Israel for Palestinian mothers not knowing where their sons go and she also seems to blame Israel for the incidence of domestic violence in Palestinian homes.

I think the author ought to have included in her story this information about Palestinian child abuse. But, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words so maybe she ought to have viewed this slideshow of what Palestinians do to their children.

Saudi King Pardons Rape VICTIM

2007-12-17T09:22:00.000-08:00

Abdullah reportedly spares woman in sex-assault case from jail and lashes

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned a female rape victim who had been sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man who was not related to her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.

...The victim in the case, known only as the "Girl of Qatif" after her hometown in eastern Saudi Arabia, was in a car with a man in 2006 when they were attacked and raped by seven men.

She was initially sentenced in November 2006 to several months in prison and 90 lashes for being alone in a car with a man with whom she was neither related nor married, a violation of the kingdom's strict segregation of the sexes.

The woman, who was 19 at the time of the rape, has said she met the man to retrieve a picture of herself from him because she had recently married.

The case sparked international outcry, especially after the court more than doubled the sentence last month to 200 lashes and six months prison in response to her appeal.

READ MORE

Yep, Saudi Arabia sure does have a HUGE public relations problem with the rest of the world. A few of their nasty bits of business:

"Death of a Princess" - This story, which generally went around as a girl who willingly accepted to die rather than compromise over a love she felt for a boy, that touched buttons. It's a crucifixion story. It has that same sort of resonance. And that stirred things in people. And that was what the film was about, was about that stirring. At the same time, it was trying to find the girl herself. Who was she?

Saudi Arabia: Religious Police Role in School Fire Criticized - Eyewitnesses, including civil defense officers, reported that several members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (mutawwa'in, in Arabic) interfered with rescue efforts because the fleeing students were not wearing the obligatory public attire (long black cloaks and head coverings) for Saudi girls and women.

...The report noted that mutawwa'in were at the school's main gate and, "intentionally obstructed the efforts to evacuate the girls. This resulted in the increased number of casualties."

The religious police reportedly tried to block the entry of Civil Defense officers into the building. "We told them that the situation was dangerous and it was not the time to discuss religious issues, but they refused and started shouting at us," Arab News quoted Civil Defense officers as saying.

"Whenever the girls got out through the main gate, these people forced them to return via another. Instead of extending a helping hand for the rescue work, they were using their hands to beat us," Civil Defense officers were quoted as saying.

The officers also said they saw three people beating girls who had evacuated the school without proper dress. A Saudi journalist told Human Rights Watch that the mutawwa'in at the scene also turned away parents and other residents who came to assist.

Sex slave trafficking in Saudi Arabia - Today the State Department released a list of countries that are not doing enough to prevent international trafficking of people, especially women and children. U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who has previously led the efforts to track and punish international human traffickers, urged immediate action by the State Department to insure that countries, including some U.S. allies, take responsibility for putting an end to this horrific practice of buying and selling women and children.

...Sen. Schumer continued, “I am particularly disturbed that Saudi Arabia, according to today’s report, ‘does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so, particularly its failure to protect victims and prosecute those guilty of involuntary servitude.’”

“This only serves to strengthen the arguments many have made that this Administration is too close to the Saudi government and has not held them accountable to the most basic standards of humanity,” Schumer concluded.

Anti-Americanism in Saudi Arabia - Several developments have contributed to the rise of anti-Americanism in Saudi Arabia since the end of the Cold War, including the steady growth of American influences on Saudi society and mores and the decline of common external threats. There were also a series of events that highlighted or symbolized two realities in conflict with the Kingdom's self-concept as the hub of Islam: dependence on the United States for external security, and American cultural influence. These events include the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91, the second Palestinian intifada, the terror attacks of September 11, and the second American war with Iraq.

Saudi Schools Indoctrinate Their Children with Hate : ...However, these textbooks are part of the official curriculum for Saudi students and are a fundamental part of their education. Approximately 35% of school studies is devoted to compulsory Saudi religious education. (For more on Saudi religious education, see FRONTLINE's interviews with Ali al-Ahmed, Mai Yamani, and Hassan Youssef Yassin.).

SOME EXAMPLES FROM SAUDI SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS:

"The last hour won't come before the Muslims would fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them so Jews would hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only "Gharkad" tree, it is of Jews' trees."

"It's fate decided by Allah that the Muslims and Jews will fight till the end of the world."

"The Hadith predicts for the Muslims God's victory over the Jews."

"The opposition of God and his Apostle and the opposition of His Sharia- is a reason for retribution of Allah that is what happened to the Jews of Ibn-Nadhir. God Says: "That is because they acted in opposition to Allah and His Apostle, and whoever acts in opposition to Allah, then surely Allah is severe in retributing (evil)"

"It's allowed to demolish, burn or destroy the bastions of the Kufar (infidels)- and all what constitutes their shield from Muslims if that was for the sake of victory for the Muslims and the defeat for the Kufar."

The Kingdom of Corruption - The Saudi Connection: But Wahhabism remains the state religion of Saudi Arabia, imported with petro-dollars to fund extremism elsewhere in the world. During the war against the Soviet Union, Pakistani military intelligence requested the presence of a Saudi prince to lead the jihad in Afghanistan. No volunteers were forthcoming and the Saudi leaders recommended the scion of a rich family, close to the monarchy. Ossama Bin Laden was despatched to the Pakistan border and arrived in time to hear President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, turban on head, shout: "Allah is on your side."

The religious schools in Pakistan where the Taliban were created were funded by the Saudis and Wahhabi influence was very strong. Last year when the Taliban decided to blow up the old Buddhas there were appeals from the ancient seminaries of Qom and al-Azhar to desist on the grounds that Islam was tolerant. A Wahhabi delegation from the Kingdom advised the Taliban to execute the plan. They did. The Wahhabi insistence on a permanent jihad against all enemies, Muslim and non-Muslim, was to leave a deep mark on the young boys who later took Kabul. The attitude of the United States in those days was sympathetic. A Republican Party packed with Christian cults could hardly offer advice on this matter and both Clinton and Blair were keen on advertising their Christianity.

The Corruption of Corporate America By The House of Saud - This site is dedicated to the Royal House of Saud, and to the web of corruption it has spun around corporate America. And while it has become evident, even without those secret excerpts from the official U.S. Government 9/11 Report, that the House of Saud has been instrumental in the spread of hateful Wahhabism, that is not the main theme of this web page. The purpose of this site is to open up the discussion on an even more insidious aspect of the corrupt House of Saud, that is the influence it holds within the highest levels of the U.S. Government and American corporations.

Odor of Corruption Over Saudi "Contract of the Century" - Last year, Tony Blair, then still prime minister, blocked an investigation of financial embezzlement involving the Saudi royal family in the negotiation of this fabulous contract. The investigation had begun in 2004 and established that BAE had transferred a billion pounds sterling (1.4 billion euros) to the private account of Prince Bandar, who was Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington for twenty years, and another billion pounds to the Swiss accounts of other royal family members. The British Serious Fraud Office (SFO), a theoretically independent agency, was not authorized to pursue its investigations.

London has succeeded in keeping a lid on this scandal, to finally end up signing this contract.

The Corner House and CAAT win landmark ruling on BAE-Saudi corruption case - This past Friday, 9 November 2007, just before 1 pm, two High Court judges granted permission to Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House for a full judicial review hearing against the UK Government's decision in December last year to cut short a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into alleged corruption by BAE Systems in recent arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

U.K. politician to boycott official Saudi visit to protest handling of corruption probe - The acting leader of a British opposition party said Sunday he will boycott a state visit by Saudi King Abdullah to protest the handling of a British investigation into claims that members of the Saudi royal family received kickbacks as part of a massive arms deal. It begins Monday and is to include a banquet held by the Queen Elizabeth II in his honor at Buckingham Palace.

... "I have introduced three debates in Parliament this year expressing serious concerns over the al-Yamamah contract and the corruption allegedly involved. I have, in my arguments, also been very critical of members of the Saudi royal family and the Saudi record on human rights, including its maltreatment of British citizens," the letter said.

"In my opinion, it is quite wrong for the British government to have proposed a state visit at this time. Therefore, it would, I believe, be inappropriate for me to participate in a ceremonial state visit against this background."

Human rights in Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia is one of a number of countries where courts continue to impose corporal punishment, including amputations of hands and feet for robbery, and lashings for lesser crimes such as "sexual deviance" and drunkenness.

...In 2002, the United Nations Committee against Torture criticized Saudi Arabia over the amputations and floggings it carries out under its interpretation of Sharia.

...Saudi Arabia also engages in capital punishment, including public executions by beheading and stoning. While some are also executed in private by firing squad, many executions are popular public attractions.

...Individuals accused of crimes are not provided with representation, and according to Amnesty International, some defendants are convicted based on confessions obtained under duress, torture or deception.

...Saudi women face severe discrimination in many aspects of their lives, including education, employment, and the justice system and are clearly regarded as inferior to men. Although they make up 70% of those enrolled in universities, women make up just 5% of the workforce in Saudi Arabia, the lowest proportion in the world. The treatment of women has been referred to as "gender apartheid."

...In the legal system, women face discrimination as the criminal laws of Saudi Arabia adhere to strict Islamic precepts. The testimony of a woman is not regarded as fact but as presumption.

As a result of these laws women are particularly vulnerable in cases of assault and/or rape, as their testimony is treated as a presumption, while that of their attackers is accepted as fact. In some cases, victims of sexual assault are punished on the grounds that they should not be alone with unrelated males.

Women are not allowed to drive or ride bicycles on public roads in large cities.

Women cannot be admitted to a hospital, examined by a doctor, travel abroad or leave the house without the express permission and/or company of an immediate male relative.

After their first menstrual cycle, women must cover their entire body in a long black cloak (abaaya) as according to tradition. Failing to do so results in severe punishment. Foreign women are also expected to wear abaya, violators may face caning, harassment or fines.

Women are forbidden from voting.

"Freedom of religion does not exist," the U.S. State Department's 1997 Human Rights Report on Saudi Arabia states. "Islam is the official religion, and all citizens must be Muslims. The government prohibits the public practice of other religions." However, at the U.N. Third Millennium Summit in New York City, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz defended Saudi Arabia's position on human rights, saying "It is absurd to impose on an individual or a society rights that are alien to its beliefs or principles."

Saudis prepare to behead teenage maid - Human rights campaigners yesterday urged the authorities not to behead a 19-year-old Sri Lankan maid found guilty of killing a baby in her care.

According to the Saudi authorities, Rizana Nafeek admitted strangling the four-month-old boy while feeding him with a bottle.

But Nafeek, whose job was not meant to include child care, has denied making any such admission. She claims the child had begun to choke before losing consciousness in spite of her desperate efforts to clear his airway.

Tonight is the deadline for appeals in the case. Unless the Saudi authorities change the sentence or the parents of the victim offer clemency, Nafeek will have her head cut off by an executioner wielding a sword in front of a crowd of onlookers.

On September 11, 2001, 15 out of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were Saudi citizens.

Hamas Plans New War of Aggression Against Israel

2007-12-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hamas' charter calls for the complete destruction of the state of Israel. They will not be satisfied until Israel and the United States both cease to exist.

The numbnut left-wingers in this country who know Israel is not the aggressor but who persist in their anti-Semitic diatribes against our ally Israel have to do some real pretzel-twisting to continue to support terrorist Hamas.

I'll spell it out. The numbnuts are FOR Hamas because the numbnuts claim to want peace. But, that doesn't jive with the reality of Hamas' constant bombardment of rockets into Israel. Hamas = murder and aggression. The numbnuts want Hamas to be weak and defenseless and the poor simple victims of Israeli self-defense moves... that were started by Hamas rocket attacks/aggression. Whatever lie fits the numbnuts program, that's the one they promote.

Okay. Enough pretzel-twisting. For now.

So, now Hamas is threatening another war of aggression. They warn they should be allowed to launch their rockets against innocent civilians without facing any repercussions whatsoever. They warn if Israel defends itself in this war, "Jews, go back, because we have already dug graves for you."

And the numbnuts will still call Hamas the peaceful ones.

READ THE REUTERS STORY ON HAMAS' PLANS OF AGGRESSION

Horror Under the Hijab

2007-12-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

HORROR UNDER THE HIJAB

A Canadian Muslim teenager was murdered this week for trying to establish her own identity by moving out of her family home and for reportedly defying her father’s command to cover her head. Meanwhile, Canada’s largest daily newspaper, the Toronto Star, disgracefully hid its own head in the sand.

Pakistani-Canadian Aqsa Parvez, 16, was strangled by her father in an honor murder last Monday in the Toronto-area city of Mississauga. Refusing to wear the Islamic hijab, Parvez, who was herself born in Pakistan, wanted to live the normal lifestyle of a Canadian teenage girl, but ran into conflict with her strict, religious father. One friend and schoolmate said the Canadian teenager was afraid of her father and often came to school wearing bruises, the result of his violence.

“She was scared of her father; he was always controlling her,” the friend told the National Post, a Canadian national newspaper. “She wasn’t allowed to go out or do anything.”

Nevertheless, the Grade 11 student, according to friends, would leave home wearing the hijab but arrive at school in western-style clothes, having changed on the way. This was part of her courageous desire to live her own life and overcoming the fear in which she lived.

Despite the Canadian public’s disgust and outrage over this murder and in contrast to Parvez’s courage, the Toronto Star avoided tackling head on the issue of Muslim male intolerance and violence toward female family members who wish to establish their independence and lead their own lives.

READ THE ARTICLE

Herzl's lone grandson to be reinterred today

2007-12-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

The tragic life of Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl's lone grandson comes full circle today with his burial at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery.

Stephen Norman, who committed suicide in Washington, D.C. 61 years ago after learning of his parents' death in the Holocaust, will be reinterred alongside his grandfather, uncle and aunt.

Norman, who was born Stephen Neumann to Herzl's daughter Trude, failed to escape the depression that plagued his aunt Pauline, who died from an apparent drug overdose and uncle Hans, who committed suicide.

In 1933 he received special funding from the World Zionist Organization to attend an exclusive boarding school in England and later to study law at the University of Cambridge.

Norman did his utmost during this period to become a regular Englishman, even changing his name. However, the 1938 annexation of Austria, where his parents were living, brought out his Jewish roots.

"I can't say I received an especially Jewish or Orthodox education," he wrote seven years later describing how he felt at the time. "The Zionist idea, despite my family connection to it, was never forced into me - not at home nor later in school or university.

"But, I found my grandfather's letters and read them and I feel they comprise fascinating reading for anyone who has even the scantiness tie to Judaism."

Norman tried in vain to arrange immigration visas to Palestine for his parents. He was drafted to the Royal Artillery, where he eventually became a captain, and war broke out. Losing contact, he assumed his parents were dead but was never sure.

After the war he visited Palestine for the first time on a three-day visit. Later, he joined a British scientific delegation to Washington. In November 1946 he was informed that his parents had indeed perished in Teresienstadt in 1943. For three weeks he wandered the capital a broken man, feeling guilty for not having saved his parents.

On November 20, he jumped to his death from the Massachusetts Avenue bridge.

Archaeologists find link to 1st temple in controversial J'lem dig

2007-12-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

Israeli archaeologists overseeing a contested dig at Jerusalem's holiest site for Muslims and Jews stumbled upon a sealed archaeological level dating back to the era of the first biblical Jewish temple, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Sunday.

Islamic authorities responsible for the Old City compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, said the dig was part of infrastructure work at the site to replace 40-year-old electrical cables. But the Islamic Trust denied that any discovery was made, or that any Israeli archaeologists were supervising the work.

On Sunday, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that it had discovered fragments of ceramic table wares and animal bones dating back to the first Jewish temple - from the 6th to the 10th centuries B.C.

The finds also included fragments of bowl rims, bases and body sherds, the base and handle of a small jug and the rim of a storage jar, the agency said in a statement.

The site represents the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It houses both the Al Aqsa Mosque and the gold-capped Dome of the Rock, Islam's third-holiest shrine, built over the ruins of both biblical Jewish temples. Archaeological digs for a renovation project earlier this year by Israeli authorities next to the holy site sparked protests by Muslims.

Jon Seligman, Jerusalem regional archaeologist for the Antiquities Authority, said the find was significant since it could help scholars in reconstructing the dimensions and boundaries of the Temple Mount during the first temple period.

"The layer is a closed, sealed archaeological layer that has been undisturbed since the 8th century B.C.," he said.

But the Public Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, a group of Israeli archaeologists, downplayed the findings, saying the dig was conducted in an unprofessional manner without proper documentation. The group previously condemned the maintenance works, which included using a tractor to dig a trench, charging that digging at such a sensitive site could damage Bible-era relics and erase evidence of the presence of the biblical structures.

"I think it is a smoke screen for the ruining of antiquities," said Eilat Mazar, a member of the committee.

Seligman said the maintenance work was necessary to accommodate the thousands of worshippers who flock daily to the site. He said no damage was caused to the site and added that the discovery was merely a pleasant surprise.

By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

Sights and Sounds of Israel

2007-11-27T08:25:00.000-08:00

I love this video and the music is wonderful. Do play it...

Nazi prosecutors still hunt death head doctor

2007-11-10T19:47:00.000-08:00

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - For the few surviving inmates of Mauthausen concentration camp, one visitor in the autumn of 1941 left an indelible memory.

Tall and athletic, Aribert Heim was the camp doctor for only two months and the 27-year-old enjoyed his time in the Austrian town.

On one occasion, he picked out a prisoner passing his office. After checking his teeth, Heim persuaded him to take part in a medical experiment with the vague promise of release.

Heim killed the man with an injection of poison to his heart, later severing his head and using the skull as a paperweight.
Injections to the heart -- with petrol, water or poison -- were a favorite experiment of Heim's, who timed patients' deaths with a stopwatch.

Sometimes, out of boredom, he carried out operations without anesthetic, removing organs from conscious victims.

Heim was arrested after World War Two but he was later released and was soon practicing as a doctor again. He moved to Baden Baden, a small town in western Germany.

But survivors of Mauthausen did not forget the camp doctor who delighted in seeing the fear of death in his patients' eyes. Police were sent to re-arrest Heim. The night before they were due to call, he disappeared. Continued...

Israel may OK division of Jerusalem

2007-10-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would ever see that headline in my lifetime or at any time in the history of the Jewish people. Israel so desires peace, they would divide Jerusalem. I am in shock. I don't know what I am thinking right now.

The core of my soul trembles. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem...

Here is another link to the article.

YouTube criticized over Neo-Nazi clips

2007-08-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Video-sharing Web site YouTube has met with harsh criticism in Germany for hosting clips that incite racial hatred, according to a news report due to be broadcast on German public TV late on Monday.

The videos hosted on YouTube include clips of a 1940 anti-Semitic propaganda film "Jud Suess" and two music videos of outlawed German far-right rock band Landser, which show footage from World War II depicting Nazi military operations.

Report Mainz, which is due to air the program, said in a statement that Social Democrat (SPD) parliamentarian Dieter Wiefelspuetz said airing the clips on YouTube in Germany was scandalous. Report Mainz quoted him as saying: "Publishing these films amounts to aiding and abetting incitement of the people."

Report Mainz also said that Germany's Central Council of Jews Vice President Salomon Korn was considering pressing charges against Google Germany.

According to the statement from Report Mainz, German youth protection body Jugendschutz.net has complained to Google Germany more than 100 times and asked Google, which bought YouTube last year, to remove the clips.

Some of the material has been on the site for almost a year.

Google Germany was not immediately available for comment.

More than 60 years after the Holocaust, Germany is grappling with a rise in support for Nazi ideas. Neo-Nazi violence in Germany has reached its highest level since reunification in 1990.

SOURCE

I have mixed feelings about the publication of Nazi propaganda. I don't want them to get free advertising but I also think they should be confronted. I also think the public should see the truth, what the Nazis are all about. Pouring sunshine into dark corners sometimes makes the rats scurry and the mildew dry up. So public awareness is a good thing.

But, what about the benefit to these types of organizations when it comes to recruiting and strengthening the bonds between members of Nazi groups and between the groups themselves?

Does the manufacture and distribution of Nazi propaganda stregthen the Nazi movement? I think maybe it does and I think that's what has Germany so upset. They have laws in place to prevent the rise to power of the Nazis or other hate groups that might spawn another Holocaust. Germany has codified into law its opposition to Nazism.

So, I guess the reaction to the Nazi propaganda is a bit different over there.

Suicide Reversal? Polling the Muslim world

2007-08-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

From Daniel Pipes' Blog:

National Review Online asked a group of experts: "On Tuesday, Pew released a poll indicating that support for suicide bombings is on the decline in the Muslim world, among other things. How encouraging is this poll? What can we do — as a government, as private entities — to use the information constructively?" For all replies, see "Suicide Reversal?"

It is good news if Muslim support for suicide bombings is indeed declining. But it need not have much to do, as the poll takers theorize, with improved personal circumstances. Two other factors likely have more importance.

First, as Muslims themselves (in such countries as Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, and Pakistan) become the victims of suicide bombings, they increasingly reject this tactic. The Pew Global Attitudes Project itself noted in June 2006 that this "shift has been especially dramatic in Jordan, likely in response to the devastating terrorist attack in Amman last year; 29 percent of Jordanians view suicide attacks as often or sometimes justified, down from 57 percent in May 2005."

Second, Muslims appear growingly aware that the terroristic ways of Osama bin Laden offer a less successful path to realizing the Islamist goals of imposing the Shari'a and creating a caliphate do than the political, lawful ways of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's newly-triumphantly reelected prime minister. Whereas terrorism stimulates its own antibodies and offers no plausible path to power, working through the system is proving successful in such diverse places as Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Iraq, and Bangladesh, as well as in the West.

Therefore, this survey has more subtle and ambiguous implications than first appear.

READ MORE OF DANIEL PIPES' ARTICLES ON HIS WEBSITE

Operation Life Shield

2007-08-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

Operation LifeShield is now an EMERGENCY CAMPAIGN!

Citizens in the north and south of Israel are in imminent danger of injury or death from missile attacks. Please come to their aid now. Every donation to Operation LifeShield, small or large will help provide them with safety and security from this threat.

Operation LifeShield is an emergency campaign to deliver badly-needed air raid shelters to Israeli communities that are under constant rocket and missile attack.

Israeli citizens are in danger of being seriously wounded or killed because there are not enough shelters available, and not enough time or funds to build more. LifeShield shelters are available for immediate deployment.
When the air raid sirens sound, there are only about 30 seconds to find shelter. If you can't find shelter, your life may be over. Yes, 30 seconds can be the difference between life and death.

Military intelligence is currently warning of the extended range, accuracy and power of the thousands of Kassam missiles in the hands of the Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Reports also indicate that Hamas is now in possession of Katyusha and other advanced missiles. The danger of Hezbollah attacking again in the north are growing daily.

VISIT THE WEBSITE

Abe Foxman, Genocide Denier

2007-08-01T05:32:00.000-07:00

When I first started reading this article, I thought perhaps a local chapter of the ADL was having a little dust-up with some local Armenian group but as I read on, I was shocked to discover it is none other than Abe Foxman himself and the national ADL organization that's firmly in the genocide-denial camp.

Oh, Abe, how could you do it? How could you, of all people, deny history? You bring shame to your entire organization as well as calling your personal ethics into question.

The fact is: Over 1,000,000 (mostly) Christian Armenians were massacred by Muslim Turks in the not so distant past. Abe, you surely know those who deny history are condemned to repeat it. Why, Abe? Why do this horrible thing?

The Armenian people have a right to acknowledgment of the suffering and the genocide they have endured. Abe, do you feel good about the Holocaust deniers who say it is a lie that two out of every three Jews in Europe was put to death by the Nazi machine?

Abe, why have you signed ADL up with the likes of David Irving? You and he have become one. Your claims are wedded, the one to the other. Denying history... and justice... is the same no matter who's name is on the stationery letterhead.

Abe, Abe, Abe... how could you?

In recent weeks, the town that bills itself as No Place for Hate on a sign outside Town Hall is abuzz with anger and frustration, especially among the large Armenian population. At issue is not the program itself, but the group behind it, the Anti-Defamation League, and in particular the ADL's refusal to acknowledge the Armenian genocide at the hands of Turks during World War I.

"It's kind of the worst hatred to deny genocide," said Nayiri Arzoumanian, a woman of Armenian heritage who has lived in Watertown for eight years. "It's the worst kind of hypocrisy."

The debate began in letters to the editor of the Watertown Tab newspaper and has pitted Watertown Armenians against the ADL's national director, Abraham H. Foxman. Now what was once considered a positive civic effort, declaring Watertown No Place For Hate, finds itself at the center of a debate burdened by divisive international history and politics.

For decades, Armenians have fought to get the Turkish government and other world leaders to recognize the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as genocide. The refusal of the ADL to support the Armenians, especially as they lobby Congress to recognize the genocide, has fueled the local war of words. SOURCE

Then Abe said exactly what FDR might have said regarding the passengers aboard the St. Louis (Jews escaping Nazi Germany): "We're not party to this, and I don't understand why we need to be made party."

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY JEWS SHOULD CARE ABOUT GENOCIDE, ESPECIALLY GENOCIDE CARRIED OUT BY ISLAMIC FANATICS?

Abe Foxman, you have lost all credibility. You do not represent the Jewish people, that is for certain. You represent only your own cold unfeeling heart.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE

Anne Frank's tree to be cut down

2007-07-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

The old chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank while she was in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands is to be cut down.

Amsterdam city council says the diseased tree behind the building in which the Jewish Frank family took refuge has been attacked by a fungus.

But after protests by environmental groups and the Anne Frank Museum, a cutting of the tree will be replanted.

The chestnut tree is listed as a monument and is at least 150 years old.

New life

The 27-tonne tree has been attacked by the horse chestnut leaf miner moth and by a fungus. It could be dangerous if it falls, so Amsterdam City Council says it has to be cut down.

The fungus rots the wood and has caused concerns about public health.

But after a lobby to save the Anne Frank tree, grafts were taken and a sapling will soon replace the original tree that she saw in the courtyard from her hiding place in the attic.

The new tree will be a big attraction for the Anne Frank Museum, where the Frank family's tiny flat is preserved.

LINK

Was Elvis Jewish?

2007-07-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

According to this website, yes indeed, the King was a nice Jewish boy. His maternal line can be traced to Martha Tacket, a Jewish woman. Elvis' beloved mother, Gladys, taught son Elvis all about his Jewish heritage and Elvis was a student of Judaism and Kabballah long before it became fashionable in Hollywood. He wore a "Chai" pendant and even had a Star of David engraved on his mother's headstone.

Elvis wearing the "Chai" onstage.

Gladys' grave

VISIT THE WEBPAGE

Calling Jews to New Orleans

2007-07-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

Hoping to repopulate a dwindling Jewish community, leaders appeal across the country to help heal the city. They also offer cash incentives.

New Orleans — 'DO you have a pioneering spirit?" read the recent ad in the Jewish Week newspaper of New York. "Are you searching for a meaningful community where YOU can make a difference?"

To generations of American Jews, the pitch had a familiar ring. But this was not an invitation to settle the Promised Land. It was a call to repopulate New Orleans, a city known less for its Jewish culture than for its shellfish, sin and pre-Lenten carnival.

New Orleans' Jewish population, in fact, has long been a subtle but important ingredient in this curious dish of a city. But its numbers, though always small, have declined precipitously since Hurricane Katrina. Of the 10,000 Jews in the area before the storm, 7,000 remain.With fewer dues-paying members, some synagogues and Jewish service agencies have been kept afloat by donations from Jews around the country. But the bulk of that largess, provided by the nonprofit United Jewish Communities, dries up at the end of the year.

The Jewish community is by no means New Orleans' most afflicted demographic. But Jewish leaders do not want to see a single Jewish institution closed. They don't wish to consolidate any of the seven synagogues and two Chabad centers that offer a full range of religious observance.

The issue is plain.

"We need people," said Jackie Gothard, president of Congregation Beth Israel, a modern Orthodox synagogue that has seen more than 40% of its members move away.

So Jewish New Orleans has cooked up a novel solution: a recruitment drive. With an ad campaign crafted by an Israeli public relations firm, the city's Jewish leaders are hoping to attract at least 1,000 Jews to the city over the next five years. They will appeal to potential pilgrims' better natures, stressing the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, Hebrew for "healing the world" — or, in this case, healing a broken city.

They also plan to lure them with cash. Starting next month, any Jew who has relocated to the city since Jan. 1 will be eligible for up to $5,500 for moving and housing expenses, interest-free loans of up to $30,000, half-price tuition at Jewish day schools, and a year of free membership at a synagogue and a Jewish community center.

The concept was hatched, in part, by Michael J. Weil, an economist who moved here from Israel in October to head the Jewish Federation, the umbrella group for the city's Jewish agencies and programs. As a consultant to the Israeli government, Weil helped settle thousands of Jewish refugees in Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The New Orleans benefits were based, in part, on the sal klita, the "absorption benefits basket" offered to Israeli newcomers.

The recruitment drive springs from an acknowledgment that city officials have done a poor job touting New Orleans' progress in the two years since Katrina. The Jewish community will have to get that message out to its people on its own, Weil said.

"I would hope that nobody's going to move here just because of the incentive package, but it will be a lubricant," Weil said. "We cannot sit around waiting for the Road Home program and all these other things to take place, because we want to be in that great, better place tomorrow." Road Home is a state program that distributes federal funds for Katrina recovery efforts.

The only recruitment ad that has run thus far, the one in New York's Jewish Week, was paid for by Uri Topolosky, a rabbi recently chosen to lead Congregation Beth Israel. It touts the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans' subsidies and the chance to join in an "inspirational rebuilding effort." The federation will begin running its own ads this year in the nation's Jewish newspapers.

So far, Jewish leaders acknowledge that they have attracted only a few newcomers, such as Hal Karp, a former magazine writer from Dallas who is moving here to teach in the public schools.

Karp, 43, said he was "ready to fix the … world down there." After some financial problems, however, he almost bailed out on his move — until he received an e-mail from the Jewish Federation. In addition to the money, they offered to pair him with a Jewish "host family" who would help him get to know the city."It was really like someone sending you a life raft," he said. "It was like they were saying, 'We need Jews, and if you will come, we'll welcome you.' "

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

Hamas' True Feelings About Being a Partner for Peace in the Middle East

2007-07-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

Archaeologist Finds Tomb of King Herod

2007-05-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

Archaeologist Finds Tomb of King Herod

JERUSALEM (AP) - An Israeli archaeologist has found the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Hebrew University said late Monday.

The tomb is at a site called Herodium, a flattened hilltop in the Judean Desert, clearly visible from southern Jerusalem. Herod built a palace on the hill, and researchers discovered his burial site there, the university said.

MORE...

MDA enters Gaza to treat Palestinian

2007-04-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

MDA medics risked their lives Friday and crossed Erez Crossing to the Palestinian side in order to stabilize and evacuate a Palestinian woman who had suffered a heart attack in Gaza.

IDF sources said the MDA medics took a "great risk" by crossing over to the Palestinian side of Erez.

The woman, 31, was evacuated to the crossing by Palestinian medics who had failed to resuscitate her following the heart attack.

After coordinating with the Gaza Liaison Administration, the MDA medics crossed into Gaza, stabilized the woman and evacuated her into Israel where she was transferred to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.

On Thursday, for the first time since the beginning of the second intifada, an MDA ambulance entered Ramallah to evacuate a six-month-old Palestinian baby for medical treatment.

The baby, who was in critical condition, was thought to have been exposed to toxic chemicals.

LINK

Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims

2007-04-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed.
It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.

The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'.

MORE...

Friday Sermon at Gaza Mosque

2007-03-18T01:53:00.000-07:00

What Happens When You Pour Coke On Raw Pork?

2007-03-04T22:26:00.001-08:00

You know, just in case anybody had a hankering for el puerco.

Another piece of the Anne Frank Story...

2007-02-15T18:52:00.000-08:00

Anne Frank is the baby in the middle of the photo.

In Old Files, Fading Hopes of Anne Frank’s Family

On April 30, 1941, just days after a Gestapo courier may have threatened to denounce Anne Frank’s father, Otto, to the Nazis, he wrote to his close college friend Nathan Straus Jr. begging for help in getting his family out of Amsterdam and into America.

“I would not ask if conditions here would not force me to do all I can in time to be able to avoid worse,” he wrote in a letter that forms part of a 78-page stack of newly uncovered documents released yesterday. “Perhaps you remember that we have two girls. It is for the sake of the children mainly that we have to care for. Our own fate is of less importance.”

The rest of the article details through an exchange of letters Otto Frank's desperate struggle to save his doomed family. It is truly heartbreaking.

The series of letters only recently came to light. The papers, owned by YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, had lain undisturbed in a New Jersey warehouse for nearly 30 years.

MORE RESOURCES:

Anne Frank Center
The official Anne Frank House website
Anne Frank - Who was she?

Anne Frank
(1929-1945)
"I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

Natan Sharansky is awarded the Medal of Freedom

2007-01-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

In December, President Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Natan Sharansky, whose book helped inspire the president's pro-democracy initiatives.

JewishLink

2006-09-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

JewishLink.net

The LINK To Every Jewish Link and Link And Link...

In Honor of My Friend, Jay Adler

2006-09-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

Zionist play with Marlon Brando and Adler family marks 60 years
By Rafael MedoffAugust 31, 2006

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 27 (JTA) — Broadway plays don’t usually produce political or social change. But Ben Hecht’s controversial pro-Zionist play, “A Flag is Born,” which debuted 60 years ago, had an impact on three of the most contentious issues of its day: the fight to establish a Jewish state, the smuggling of Holocaust survivors to Palestine and the battle against racial segregation in the United States.

Hecht, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, was active in the Bergson Group, a 1940s political action committee that lobbied for the rescue of Jews from Hitler and for the creation of a Jewish state. It made waves by using protest tactics that were unusual...

MORE...

Lids for Yids

2006-09-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

Lids for Yids

Get your yarmulkes here, any kind, customized to your liking. Want the Harley-Davidson logo on it? You got it. How about your favorite sports team?

This place is a real hoot just to visit and see what's available. Go on now... you know you want to check it out...

VISIT THE WEBSITE!

Widow files $20 million suit over JDL activist's death in prison

2006-08-19T02:16:00.000-07:00

Widow files $20 million suit over JDL activist's death in prison

LOS ANGELES - The widow of a Jewish Defense League activist killed in a federal prison filed a $20 million lawsuit Tuesday, claiming the government failed to protect him.

Earl Krugel, 62, was killed in November at the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix, where he was imprisoned for his role in a bomb plot against a Southern California mosque and the office of a Lebanese-American congressman.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Lola Krugel contends authorities knew or should have known that her husband's "high-profile religious and political beliefs and affiliation with the JDL made him an imminent target for violent acts by other inmates."

Last month, David Frank Jennings, a 30-year-old inmate at the Phoenix prison, was indicted on first-degree murder in the slaying.

A message left Tuesday night with the prison was not immediately returned.

The lawsuit maintains Krugel was improperly placed in the prison's exercise yard, where workers failed to remove debris that could be used as weapons.

Family members have said Krugel died after an inmate struck him in the head with a concrete block.

A former dental assistant from Los Angeles, Krugel was arrested in 2001 and charged with conspiring to bomb the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City and a field office of Republican Rep. Darrell E. Issa.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2003 and was later sentenced to 20 years in prison.

SOURCE

Haaretz Editorial: The Holocaust - Get over it

2006-04-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

The Holocaust - Get over it

There are readers, many of them, who at this very moment are thinking "Oh no, here it comes, the litany, the ostentatious suffering, the reveling in victimhood, the endless preoccupation with the woes of the Jews."

There are readers who at this very moment are thinking, "These Jews, with all due respect, they learned nothing from the Nazis - they're just as bad in their treatment of the Palestinians, if not worse."

In fact, one of those who chose this Holocaust Remembrance Day to tell us to get on with our lives was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With exquisite timing, Ahmadinejad chose the eve of Yom Hashoah to issue his latest advisory, telling the Jews of the Holy Land that they should pack up and move away - to Europe, the place, he says, we all came from.

It might be time to break it to Ahmedinajad that most of us didn't come from Europe, and few of us have any interest in living there. It might be time to break it to our readers who believe that we are as bad as the Nazis, that the compassion showed by individual Israeli officers soldiers in a broad range of contacts with Palestinians often has a great deal to do with the soldiers' consciousness of the Holocaust and of persecution of the Jews.

Anyone who knows this newspaper, knows that it makes great efforts to expose mistreatment of Palestinians by members of the security forces, in an effort to assure that wrongful practices are stopped.What we do not do, is to do enough to expose and thus encourage the acts of compassion and human generosity that anyone who really knows the IDF, knows is part and parcel of the way the army works.

Some of the most compassionate IDF officers are, in fact, the children and grandchildren of survivors. Hundreds of thousands of them. For them, there is no question of getting over the Holocaust. They will not. For them, every day of their lives is Yom Hashoa. Even after two generations.

It doesn't end, even if you try to make it end. The sins of the Nazis will be visited upon the Jews, perhaps until the tenth generation.

Sixty years on, the Holocaust bears different lessons for all of us. Some believe that the lesson is do unto others before they do unto you. Others believe that the lesson has much more to do with compassion and tolerance even when it may seem undeserved, when the blood cries vengeance. War does that to you. It replaces compassion with hatred.

Just this once, however, it might be time to look at the Holocaust for what it remains - a wound that will never heal, an experience that is beyond our experience, comprehension, or puny, wrongheaded automatic comparisons to current events.

Just this once, after all these years, let us honor the victims and survivors with introspection, with compassion, with modesty, with respect, with awe.

COMPLETE EDITORIAL HERE

Holocaust Remembrance Day

2006-04-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

Thousands Mourn Holocaust at Auschwitz March

ReutersTuesday, April 25, 2006; 10:14 AM

OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) - Thousands of young Jews, Poles and Holocaust survivors on Tuesday marched at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz to mourn the victims of Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War Two.

Led by former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, some 8,000 people took part in the annual March of the Living between Auschwitz and its twin camp Birkenau, some three kilometers (two miles) away.

"As long as I am alive, I will come here each year. It is my duty," said Stefan Buchler, 74, an Auschwitz survivor who now lives in Israel.

Marchers begun their trek under Auschwitz's notorious gate with the inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work sets you free).

"I am shocked. This should be a warning for everyone to reject intolerance, which can very easily lead to fascism," said Marion Pitzer, a teenager from Israel.

This year's march, under the banner "Never again," comes just a month before German-born Pope Benedict visits Auschwitz as part of his first visit to Poland as Pontiff.

"Here under these walls my family was murdered," said Krzysztof Kisielewski, a Pole whose father and aunt were killed in Auschwitz. "When I think that the German Pope will pray here in a few weeks, I believe that history has turned full circle."

COMPLETE ARTICLE

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority

Simon Weisenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation

Official Anne Frank Website

Egypt: Non-denying Holocaust book

2006-04-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

Book published recently in Egypt gives, for first time, truthful picture of Nazis' crimes

Itamar Eichner

A new book which does not deny the Holocaust and the number of Jews murdered in it has been published in Egypt in recent days, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Tuesday.

The book, "The Holocaust of the Jews – concentration camp, Auschwitz Birkenau" was written in Arabic and is 325 pages long. The author is Dr. Ramsis Otz.

The book is based on research carried out in the West and in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, and presents the truthful and known picture regarding what took place in the concentration camp – a first for Egypt.

Sources in the Israeli embassy in Egypt say that the book has high importance due to the strengthening of voices in Egypt and the Arab world which deny the Holocaust, doubt the number of Jews murdered, and attributing the Holocaust to Zionist media manipulation.

COMPLETE ARTICLE

G-d bless and comfort you, my sister Irena Shaulov

2006-04-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

The pain of one Jew is the pain of all Jews...Irena Shaulov embraces the Israeli flag- wrapped body of her son David, during his funeral in the town of Holon, near Tel Aviv, Tuesday April 18, 2006. David Shaulov, whose wife Radmila is 9-months-pregnant, was killed Monday in a suicide bomb attack outside a packed Tel Aviv fast food restaurant that killed nine civilians and wounded dozens during the Jewish Passover holiday. The 21-year-old bomber, a West Bank university dropout, was sent by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group.(AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

What happened to the Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern countries?

2006-04-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

In the years following Israel's independence in May 1948, 600,000 to 800,000 Jews from Arab North Africa and the Middle East (approximately as many as the number of Palestinian refugees who left Israel in 1948) arrived in the new state, as a direct result of official and popular anti-Semitic actions against them. Israel received them as returning countrymen, granted them citizenship and helped them begin new and productive lives. There is currently no visible sign of their being "refugees," since they have long since been absorbed into Israeli society.

Nevertheless, they still have substantial claims against those countries which forced them to flee, often penniless, and these must be addressed in any comprehensive resolution of the refugee problem.

Throughout Arab lands, 1948 Jewish populations have been decreased to next to nothing. To where did these Jewish refugees vanish? The majority went to Israel, often living in tent camps for up to 12 years, just as the Palestinian refugees. However, they got citizenship in Israel and did not remain permanent refugees.

Jewish refugees from Arab lands have received no compensation for expropriated property, while Arabs who lost property in Israel are eligible to file for compensation from Israel’s Custodian of Absentee Property.

Sources and additional reading on this topic:
The Refugee Issue
The Forgotten Refugees
History of the JDC
Refugees
Who Were the 1948 Refugees?
The Jewish Dispossessed
The Jewish Refugees
Invisible Natives... and Occupied Lands

VISIT THE PALESTINE FACTS.ORG WEBSITE

FactsOfIsrael.com Blog

2006-04-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

FactsOfIsrael.com Blog
Just found this blog today and I plan on lots of return visits. Their front page "Random Fact" is interesting, although I think the javascript could be reworked to produce the random facts by simply refreshing the page instead of spawning a new pop-up window for each fact. Good organization otherwise, with blog posts findable by categories.

Dry Bones Political Cartoon

2006-03-31T21:14:00.000-08:00

The International Coalition for Missing Israeli Soldiers

2006-03-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

Ron Arad 7105 Days Missing... Guy Hever 3147 Days Missing... Zachary Baumel, Tzvi Feldman, Yehuda Katz 8693 Days Missing...

Find out the stories of these young men and more at this website.

10 Mitzvahs You Can Do

2006-03-30T20:42:00.000-08:00

From the Holy Sparks Website:

Click on any of the links below to find out more about each mitzvah.

1. Light Shabbos Candles (a special mitzvah for women)
Illuminate the world with spirituality.

2. Put on Tefillin (a special mitzvah for men)
Strengthen the Jewish bond with the Infinite.

3. Affix a Mezuzah
Open the door to G-d's protection.

4. Give to Tzedaka - Charity
Fill the world with acts of kindness.

5. Join a Torah Class
Discover your own potential and the potential of humanity.

6. Keep Kosher
Feed your soul.

7. Mikvah - Family Purity
Immerse yourself in spirituality.

8. Jewish Education
Develop the potential of humanity.

9. A Home Filled With Jewish Books
Live in sacred space.

10. Love Your Fellow Jew.
Enlighten the world with love.

Visit the Holy Sparks Website today!

Islamofascists are making us all Israelis

2006-03-27T08:07:00.000-08:00

Islamofascists are making us all Israelis
Arlene Peck
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 12 February 2006

Eons ago, when I was going through a divorce, people would come to me and say, “Poor thing, I know how you feel” And I’d think, “No, you don’t.” There are some feelings that, unless mutually experienced, you just cannot comprehend. The death of a family dog, for instance, means nothing to a friend unless they are also a dog lover.

Now that the rest of the world has no choice but to witness the demonic, savage culture Israel has had to contend with for its’ entire existence, suddenly the times, they are a-changing! No longer are we hearing the politically correct mantra, “Oh, can’t them Jews and A-rabs jus’ get along and stop all that fighting.”

Since the world has been reluctantly forced to absorb scenes of mobs raging through major European cities, fists in the air, shouting “Jihad, jihad, behead, behead!”, the take has changed. The latest “offended Muslim” chants of “Exterminate those who mock Islam,” “Be prepared for the real Holocaust”, “Europe, learn your lesson from 9/11” and “Europe you will pay, your 9/11 is on the way”, has the “shock jocks” shouting, “Nuke them! Nuke them!”

How ironic, that a few cartoons are achieving what Israel’s entire history, 9/11 and our young heroes returning from Iraq in body bags, had only partially been able to achieve; an unavoidable awareness of the Islamic reality.

Good Lord, I think we are finally getting it.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE

Aish.com's Recommended Reading List

2006-03-26T18:56:00.000-08:00

GO HERE for the Aish reading list that includes a short description/review of each book along with reader comments.

Toby Knobel Fluek, Artist

2006-03-26T15:59:00.000-08:00

You really must visit the website of this wonderful artist who has created visual expressions of her life growing up in Poland. From the website:

Toby Knobel Fluek was born Czernica, Poland, near Lvov. She and her family were driven out by the German invasion and forced into the ghetto in the town of Brody. She survived the Holocaust, came to the United States in 1949 and now lives in New York. Her paintings of her childhood are unique, as they provide not only a chronology of daily life in her village, but also some remarkable Jewish "still life" paintings of objects that are unique as Holocaust memories.

You can find this artist's work here.

A Voice from Hebron

2006-03-26T11:44:00.000-08:00

Found a new webpage to check out: "A Voice from Hebron." Will be back later with more commentary.

The Truth About Bob and Rochelle Manning

2006-03-26T10:10:00.000-08:00

BOB MANNING,
my friend

The truth about my friend, Rochelle Manning, is that she was a devoted wife and mother who lived for the happiness and well-being of her child (when I find the photo I snapped of Rochelle and daughter at an Israel Birthday in the Park, I will post it). Rochelle would have endured any torture, any punishment, any death rather than consciously and willingly commit any act that would have brought pain to her loved ones. Rochelle would never have participated in any murder plot and all law enforcement agencies involved in her arrest, perverted evidence, double jeopardy trials, and eventual death in prison do know this very well. Let my one measly little post on a blog here be one more voice crying out the truth in honor of a beautiful and dedicated Jewish mother.

Bob Manning is a very funny guy who always had me laughing with his crazy stories. He is utterly dedicated to the survival of the Jewish people and although I cannot speak to his every nuance of speech, declarations made, actions taken, I do believe wholeheartedly that he did not do the thing that has sent him to prison for 30 years and when his first parole hearing comes up in about another 20 years, he will have to decide if getting out of jail is worth the price of having to confess to a crime he did not commit. I know Bob's character and his sense of honor. And I cannot tell you if he will be able to tell the lie that he committed the crime that sent him to prison. The truth is, he did not do it. But can he say that he did just to buy a get-out-of-jail ticket?

If the price of getting out of jail and out from under charges for a crime he did not commit meant Bob Manning had to open his mouth and say out loud the name of someone who had access to his business or home, someone he trusted, someone he thought was a friend, someone who was a fellow Jew... well, Bob is now in jail for many long years to come and there is the answer to that.

Even after all these years in prison, Bob Manning remains a frum Jew and devoted to Torah study and honoring the will of G-d.

The history of how he came to be in prison and his wife Rochelle was hounded unto death is told in some extensive detail by American-Israeli journalist Maggid ben Yoseif, a senior member of the editorial staff at The Jerusalem Post. Because the investigative report is freely available on the internet and the writer/editor is also an American citizen, the report is not subject to Israeli censorship.

I urge everyone to read the truth HERE.

From the article: According to the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee director of legal services who was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in the report of Manning’s arrest pending extradition, the FBI had identified Manning as a prime suspect in the Wilkerson case prior to March 1987. But the only evidence so linking him (which has been found suspect) did not surface until April 1988. The Arab lobby wanted Manning in connection with the death of West Coast ADC Chairman Alex Odeh and would press the State Department however necessary to get him.

So much for NEUTRAL Switzerland

2006-03-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

From the Le Mont de Sisyphe Blog:

Switzerland: Hamas is a partner

I got the bad news via Ludovic Monnerat. The Swiss governement considers the terror gang Hamas to be a "partner". While the U.S. and the European Union have put Hamas on their respective terror lists, the Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey tries - once more - to aggrandize herself through questionable means. She was the one who laid down flowers on Arafat's grave, an act which was heavily criticized in Switzerland at the time. Socialist Calmy-Rey is also the one who gave birth to the "Geneva initiative", a project which was supposed to promote peace in that region but which none of the relvant actors in the Middle East ever took seriously. The latest announcement of the Swiss Foreign Ministry relies on "Oslo" and wants to be "pragmatic". Switzerland however seems to be unable to recognize reality: "Oslo" is dead since summer 2000 at the latest. And now one of the worst islamist terrorist groups in the world with a genocidal charta and responsible for hundreds of civilian deads over the last years is being treated as a partner by Switzerland...

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE

PLEASE REPUBLISH THIS POST ON YOUR OWN BLOGS

2006-03-09T08:39:00.000-08:00

Media Contact:
Sara Salzman303-617-9412media@holocaust-history.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Trial By Fire: Holocaust History Project Won't Be Silenced

In the early hours of March 6, 2006, a fire broke out at a warehouse complex near San Antonio International Airport, causing extensive damage to the offices of The Holocaust History Project (THHP), an organization that has been, for the last ten years, in the forefront of confronting Holocaust denial online, in addition to providing educational materials to students throughout the world. Arson investigators now have confirmed that the fire was intentionally set and are continuing their investigation.

It was just the latest in a series of attacks with the apparent intent to silence THHP. For the past 18 months, the THHP website has been under an unprecedented Distributed Denial of Service attack. This cyber attack began on September 11, 2004, and is being carried out by a specially modified version of the MyDoom computer worm, programmed to target the THHP web server. See the THHP statement:http://www.holocaust-history.org/denial/denial-of-service.shtml

Harry Mazal, the Director of THHP said, "We have been able to defend our work against these cyber attackers. They tried, but couldn't shut us down. We have strong indications that this arson is the next step in a series of attacks against our educational and scholarly work. Although the fire caused significant damage to our offices, there is no way we will be silenced. Our web site has not been affected, and our work will continue."

While an arson attack such as this cannot be specifically anticipated, THHP has long ago taken steps to minimize the impact of any attacks, physical or virtual. Several mirror sites ensure that even as serious an attack as occurred Monday morning will be unsuccessful in forcing THHP to go offline.

Background:

THHP is one of the largest repositories of information relating to the Holocaust on the Web. For the last ten years, an international staff of volunteers has worked tirelessly to make information on the Holocaust, and on those who would deny it, easily accessible to students, scholars, and anyone who has an interest in the truth.

Among the material on the site are essays about various events and people, scientific and legal analyses, original Nazi documents, expert witness testimony, transcripts of many of the Nuremberg trials, and the complete texts of two seminal works, Jean-Claude Pressac's "Auschwitz" and Robert Jay Lifton's "The Nazi Doctors." In addition, THHP volunteers personally answer emails from thousands of students each year who are looking for information to further their studies.

The site has registered more than 50 million hits in a year. "Traffic to our site increases every year," said Mr. Mazal, "we intend to keep adding new content to the site. Right now we are preparing the Belsen trial transcripts, and the transcript of Adolf Eichmann's trial in Israel."

Media questions should be addressed to: Sara Salzman, 303-617-9412, media@holocaust-history.org

Rotary Club Member? Hamas Wants to Kill You!

2006-03-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

Superfrenchie's blog details how Rotary Club members are singled out in the Hamas charter for "special consideration." So, before you go singing at the old ladies' home or do yard clean-up for a handicapped neighbor or have another bake sale or promote local business in your neighborhood, know that those activities are so despised by Hamas that they consider you to be an enemy of all Moslems everywhere. You are to be exterminated.

Read the post at Superfrenchie's. Get educated. They're coming to get you.

Paul Wolfowitz Sells Out Israel, America, and the Jewish People to Terrorists

2006-03-07T19:36:00.000-08:00

Paul Wolfowitz and his World Bank have agreed to give millions of dollars to the terrorist group Hamas to fund even more suicide bombings and other acts of terror against innocent civilians. There is nothing more corrupt than a terrorist. They are corrupt on every level and yet, Paul Wolfowitz would have the world believe he is against corruption. Hypocrite.

More of the Wolfowitz hypocrisy can be found at the NecessaryRoughness Blog where I discovered this Wolfowitz quote:

Paul Wolfowitz, while Deputy Secretary of Defense, said the following in 2002:
To those who champion the cause of an independent Palestine, we say this: Stopping terror is the most important thing you can do to serve the Palestinian cause. (Applause.) Those who blow themselves up to deliberately destroy innocent life are not suicide bombers — they are killers. (Applause. Cheers.) As President Bush has said, they are not martyrs — they are murderers. (Applause. Cheers.) Those who fill the minds of children with hate, who use the bodies of children as weapons, who exploit the deaths of the young to further their own power have as their goal the destruction of peace and freedom. (Source: DOD)

The next time a mother in Israel weeps over a dead child killed by Hamas terrorists, know that Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank had a hand in financing it.

Either Wolfowitz is for financing dangerous enemies of the United States and did that on his own or he is fronting for George Bush and the "Bush Doctrine" that he, Wolfowitz, helped to create. If Wolfowitz is acting on Bush's orders, then we have to consider that a true enemy of the United States is at the head of the United States government.

Something to think about.

Eitan Demands Investigation into Nazareth Incident's Spin

2006-03-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

MK Michael Eitan (Likud) demands a government investigation: How did the human tragedy in Nazareth become a campaign of hatred and incitement against the Jewish People?

Eitan has asked Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to immediately appoint a committee, headed by a judge, to investigate the chain of events following the weekend firecracker incident in Nazareth.

"How did it happen," Eitan wants to know, "that a human tragedy [involving] a Jewish man and a Christian woman so easily became an incitement campaign against the Jewish People and the State of Israel?"

MK Eitan says that the police and the media had a major part in the above developments. "The police and press reported the incident as if it were a religious-based terrorist attack by Jews," Eitan said. "This message is that which gave the incident, in its first hours, a political and inter-religious character, and contributed to the fanning of the flames at the protest rally in Nazareth."

COMPLETE ARTICLE

Palestine Media Watch

2006-03-07T18:05:00.000-08:00

Palestine Media Watch tracks some of the news happening under the auspices of the terrorist Hamas government. Here are a few sample stories:

A Self-Portrait of Suicide Terrorists
PA TV: Mom sad daughter arrested, but not because of bombing attempt
Hamas and Nuclear Terror
Hamas plans to kidnap Israeli soldiers to trade for imprisoned terrorists
Hamas Video: We will drink the blood of the Jews
Palestinian Cartoons
New Hamas Video: Gaza leads to Haifa
New Hamas Internet Video
Hamas Remains Hamas
PA Poem: There is no Bin Laden
Classic PLO Hate Speech on PA TV
PA Duplicity: Talk peace to Israelis and terror to Palestinians
Arab Knesset Member: Sharon is "butcher of the Palestinian people"
PA to Israel: "Die anywhere, but don't die here"
65% of Palestinians Support Al-Qaeda Attacks in the US and Europe
Mother Who Sent Sons on Suicide Missions Becomes Hamas Candidate
PA Ridicules US Demand to Oust Hamas from Election
Hamas Election Video: Armed struggle until destruction of Israel
Abbas Approves Grants to Suicide Terrorist Families
PA on Terror: "Condemns" on paper, praises in practice

Hamas Website Teaches Their Kids to Kill

2006-03-07T16:35:00.000-08:00

The hypocrites and liars, anti-semites all, who proclaim any sort of "moral equivalency" between the terrorists of Hamas and their acts of mass murder and terror against innocent civilians and the nation of Israel defending the lives of her citizens against those terrorist attacks need to have a look at the following and then find any evidence that the government of Israel runs websites and schools for little children that teach those young children murder is a good thing and the liars and hypocrites, anti-semites all, will then be able to provide irrefutable evidence that Israel straps her young people up with suicide bombing gear and sends her youth into Arab discos and Arab malls and Arab public transportation venues with orders to murder as many innocent people as possible. Oh, that's right. The liars and hypocrites, anti-semites all, won't be able to do that because there is absolutely no moral equivalency.

READ ON:

Hamas Launches Web Site Encouraging Kids to Become 'Martyrs'

The Palestinian Authority's ruling Hamas terror group has launched a web site for children, preaching the moral desirability of being a suicide terrorist through cartoons and children's stories.

The Hamas-run Al-Fateh.net glorifies shahada, martyrdom, and presents the deaths of terrorists attacking Israelis as a time of celebration, according to a report by Palestinian Media Watch.

One of the stories on the site quotes a mother saying that when she heard her son had become a shahid, a martyr, she bought dates, candies and coffee to give out.

Hamas recently won the Palestinian Authority's parliamentary elections by a landslide and has since been subject to requests and demands that it at least verbally recognize Israel. One the web site, though, according to PMW, "Israel is repeatedly referred to as 'thief' and 'invader' and its defeat in battle is both desired and anticipated."

COMPLETE ARTICLE

You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely "anti-Zionist." And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of G-d's green earth; when people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is G-d's own truth.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Please DO trackback to this article on your own website or blog or at least, mention the news article. Please get the truth out.

Blogs and Websites that also mention this story: IRIS BLOG

Saudi Arabia is NOT Our Ally

2006-03-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

Exclusive: Saudi Arabia will host Israel boycott event

Despite a promise made to Washington last November to drop its economic boycott of Israel, Saudi Arabia plans to host a major international conference next week aimed at promoting a continued trade embargo on the Jewish state, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The Post also found that the kingdom continues to prohibit entry to products made in Israel or to foreign-made goods containing Israeli components, in violation of pledges made by senior Saudi officials to the Bush administration last year.

The Saudi decision to host the parley appears to run counter to assurances that Riyadh gave the Bush administration when Saudi Arabia was seeking entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

On November 11, the WTO's ruling general council voted to grant Saudi Arabia entry into the prestigious group, which aims to promote international free trade, after it agreed to scrap restrictions on doing business with Israel.

In December, just weeks after being allowed into the WTO, Saudi officials were quoted in the Arab press as insisting that the boycott of Israel would continue.

COMPLETE ARTICLE

Answering-Islam.Org

2006-03-06T20:34:00.000-08:00

This is an informative website with some interesting articles. Worth a look. Here are just a few of those articles:

Is Islam Above Criticism?
Cartoons about Muhammad in a Danish newspaper have caused a world wide uproar from Muslims. Ambassadors are recalled, flags are burned, Danish products boycotted in Arabic countries, etc. The issue of respect for Muslim feelings versus freedom of expression is debated in both Muslim and Western newspapers, on TV, on the internet ... but there are some highly relevant aspects that seem to be missing from the discussion.

Are Pictures of Muhammad Really Forbidden In Islam?
While some Muslims were outraged by a magazine printing cartoon pictures of Muhammad, we have to step back and calmly ask, are pictures of Muhammad really forbidden in Islam? — The answer might surprise you.

Islam and Human Rights
What happens when Islam gets a foothold in a new region by preaching “peace and love,” but it does not confront the numerous violent verses and passages in the Quran and in the traditions about the prophet? Later on, will religious leaders inflict anti-human rights laws, like mutilation or crucifixion in Quran 5:33 or other tortures found in original Islam? Is an only peaceful representation of Islam full disclosure about this religion?

Auschwitz haunts photographer

2006-03-05T20:16:00.000-08:00

Auschwitz haunts photographer
Prisoner's work at the Nazi death camp enabled him to survive, but he never took pictures again.
Ryan Lucas / Associated Press

ZYWIEC, Poland -- For years afterward, photographer Wilhelm Brasse saw them in his dreams -- emaciated Jewish girls, herded naked in front of his camera at Auschwitz.
Eventually, his dreams stopped. But he never took pictures again.

"I didn't return to my profession, because those Jewish kids, and the naked Jewish girls, constantly flashed before my eyes," he said. "Even more so because I knew that later, after taking their pictures, they would just go to the gas."

"I must have taken 40,000 to 50,000 of those identity pictures," he said. Sometimes the prisoners had been beaten too badly for him to get a clear photograph of their faces.

"The picture wasn't taken and the prisoner was sent away and called back later, but sometimes it happened that there wasn't anybody to call back because they'd been able to murder him in the meantime," he said.

Brasse still keeps a prewar Kodak Retina camera at home. It sits unused.

COMPLETE ARTICLE

Judge Orders Accused Nazi Guard Deported

2005-12-28T15:58:00.000-08:00

Judge Orders Accused Nazi Guard Deported
Updated 6:31 PM ET December 28, 2005

By M.R. KROPKO

CLEVELAND (AP) - Extending a 30-year legal battle, an immigration judge Wednesday ordered John Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker accused of being a Nazi concentration camp guard, deported to his native Ukraine.

Demjanjuk, 85, has been fighting to stay in this country since the 1970s. He was suspected for a time of being the notoriously brutal guard known as Ivan the Terrible and was nearly executed in Israel.

Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ruled that there was no evidence to substantiate Demjanjuk's claim that he would be tortured if deported to his homeland. He said Demjanjuk should be deported to Germany or Poland if Ukraine does not accept him.

Demjanjuk can appeal the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals within 30 days.
Demjanjuk lost his U.S. citizenship after a judge ruled in 2002 that documents from World War II prove he was a Nazi guard at various death or forced labor camps.

His attorney had argued at a hearing last month that sending Demjanjuk back to Ukraine would be like throwing him "into a shark tank."

John Broadley, Demjanjuk's lawyer, said Wednesday's ruling is the judge's final order in the case. It was required before a June ruling authorizing the government to deport Demjanjuk could be appealed.

Broadley said he had not read the entire ruling issued Wednesday, but that Demjanjuk would appeal Creppy's earlier decision.

The United States first tried to deport Demjanjuk in 1977, accusing him of being Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka concentration camp. Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel, convicted and sentenced to hang, but the Israeli Supreme Court found that someone else apparently was Ivan.

Demjanjuk returned the United States and his U.S. citizenship was restored before being lifted again.

The current case is based on evidence uncovered by the Justice Department alleging he was a different guard. Demjanjuk has denied the allegations.

LINK

Islamic Terrorism on Screen

2005-12-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

Islamic Terrorism on Screen

by Scott Holleran

September 10, 2005

Anyone who doubts that the Sept. 11, 2001 Islamic terrorist strike had long been foreshadowed need only check Hollywood's long roster of movies about such diabolical attacks.

Shortly after what was the worst attack on the U.S.A. in history, America's national security adviser proclaimed that no one could have imagined the scale of an act of war such as occurred on that black Tuesday. Actually, many in Hollywood—writers, directors, producers—could and did, often with penetrating motion pictures for the big and small screen.

READ THE ARTICLE

The Murder of Earl Krugel: Where's the Outrage?

2005-12-08T00:48:00.000-08:00

The Murder of Earl Krugel: Where's the Outrage?
by Cinnamon Stillwell
Dec 07, '05 / 6 Kislev 5766

On November 4, 2005, Jewish Defense League (JDL) member Earl Krugel was murdered in an Arizona prison. It was only his third year into a 20-year sentence at the Federal Correction Institution in Phoenix. The 62-year old Navy veteran and former dental technician was exercising when another inmate came up behind him and hit him over the head with a concrete block, killing him instantly.

READ THE ARTICLE

The True Story of the Holy Ark

2005-12-07T20:44:00.000-08:00

The True Story
of the Holy Ark
based on a talk of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

When King Solomon built the Temple he did it in a very special way. As we have seen recently in the Gulf War Saddam Hussein's palace had also an underground palace so when the palace above ground was destroyed, he moved into the underground palace. Solomon built the Temple the same way. There was a whole other Temple built underground, exactly underneath the upstairs Temple. The Holy of Holies underground is directly below the upper Holy of Holies. When the Kohanim (priests) saw that Nebbucadnezzar was about to enter the Temple, they and the Levites moved the Holy Ark and various other utensils to the underground Temple. Therefore the Temple is still there in full Holiness.

The way to the underground Temple was thru tunnels designed by King Solomon the wisest of men. So they are impossible to find and impossible to go thru. So the Temple never really stopped. It has always been there and is still there now waiting for the Moshiach (Messiah).

FROM KABBALAH ONLINE

Aish HaTorah's Tunnel Tour

In front of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, an incredible labyrinth of tunnels, arches, and passageways remained untouched for centuries. At last, revealed through extensive archaeological excavations during the last few decades and culminating in the explosive opening of an exit in autumn of 1996, the Tunnels beckon us to enter...

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE WEBSITE

Why Do Moslems Hate Jews?

2005-11-17T06:43:00.000-08:00

Does the Islamic religion or tradition actually teach hatred or justify it in any way? Is it the religion itself, its history, and/or its prophets and leaders that causes Moslems to hate Jews?

I do find the subject somewhat interesting. I do not know how me sitting in my living room, watching my favorite television programs ("Lost" and "Desperate Housewives"), eating my favorite food (mashed potatoes with cheese melted in them), trying to remember what to buy at the grocery store (I always forget something), and loving G-d is in any way a threat to any Moslem or anyone else. I'm not doing anything bad to anybody. I'm just being me.

And apparently, me just being me is enough reason for millions of adherents to another religion to want to kill me. That's a whole lot of hate. So, naturally, I'm curious.

I'm going to keep a little mini-library here about this very subject. So... this list is going to grow as I search for understanding:

Mohammed's Own Words

Qur’an 2:64 “But you [Jews] went back on your word and were lost losers. So become apes, despised and hated. We made an example out of you.”
Ishaq:240 “The Jews are a nation of liars.... The Jews are a treacherous, lying, and evil people.”
Qur’an 33:26 “Allah made the Jews leave their homes by terrorizing them so that you killed some and made many captive. And He made you inherit their lands, their homes, and their wealth. He gave you a country you had not traversed before.”
Ishaq:250 “The bestial transformation occurred when Allah turned Jews into apes, despised.”
Qur'an 59:14 “The Jews are devoid of sense. There is a grievous punishment awaiting them. Satan tells them not to believe so they will end up in Hell.”
Ishaq:254/Qur’an 2:96 “We will not remove a Jew from the punishment. They know the shameful thing that awaits them.”
Qur’an 4:55 “Sufficient for the Jew is the Flaming Fire!”

Please Help Former Residents of Gaza and Northern Shomron

2005-11-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

The Orthodox Union is collecting funds for former residents of Gaza and Northern Shomron, both for their short-term needs, and in order to help them rebuild their lives elsewhere. In order to identify these needs for us and for those who are donating through our website, a committee is being formed of representatives of the various communities. The funds will be disbursed based on their recommendations.

Many of the families have become dependent—at least temporarily—on the generosity of others, as they still do not have arrangements for employment, permanent housing, or schooling for their children. Your contributions will make a real difference in the quality of their lives.

Meanwhile, the staff of the OU's Seymour J. Abrams Israel Center in Jerusalem is actively involved in assisting them, particularly the young people, with programs to help raise their spirits and to build their confidence for the future.

Contributions may be made through our website, or by sending your check, payable to Orthodox Union Gaza/Shomron Fund, to Orthodox Union, 11 Broadway, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10004. Please write "Gaza/Shomron Fund" clearly on both the check and the envelope.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT WEBSITE AND DONATE ONLINE

Kosher Product Search

2005-11-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

The Orthodox Union has an online service that allows you to look up products to check their "kosher status" or maybe you need a certain something and you'd like to give kosher a try. So... in the interests of "spreading the light of yiddishkeit" as far and wide as possible, I present to you the following link from the OU.org website:

Fun with Yiddish

2005-11-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

Yiddish Words and Expressions

This is a fun webpage for folks who are looking for that perfect way to express themselves in Yiddish. This is merely a list of some words and expressions. It is not a complete dictionary or tutorial in the Yiddish language.

Here's a few samples:

Ess gezunterhait - Eat in good health
Es iz nit dayn gesheft - It's none of your business.
Eingeshpahrt - Stubborn
Eingetunken - Dipped, dunked
Einhoreh - The evil eye
Eizel - Fool, dope
Ek velt - End of the world
Emes - The truth
Farklempt - Too emotional to talk. Ready to cry. (See "Verklempt)
Farpitzed - To get all dressed up to the "nines."
Shadchen - Matchmaker or marriage broker.
Shlemiel - Clumsy bungler, an inept person, butter-fingered; dopey person
Shlep - Drag, carry or haul, particularly unnecessary things, parcels or baggage; to go somewhere unwillingly or where you may be unwanted

VISIT THE WEBPAGE

Palestinian Child Abuse

2005-11-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

And how do haters learn to hate? From where does a child with no experience of the world learn to hate it so and even learn to hate their own precious lives, so much so that they look forward to the day when they, too, can strap explosives to their young chests and blow themselves up with their hate, killing as many innocent lives as they can take with them? How do they come to believe that this is admirable behavior and an honorable witnessing of their faith? How does a child come to "know" these things?

It is because hate is the only thing they are ever allowed to know. An army of hate is indoctrinated from infancy (see above photo) in the ways of murdering innocent lives. It is the only thing they know.

Ponder this: Where are the homicide bomber training camps in the United States or Canada or England or Chile or Norway or Australia or Israel or Portugal? How is it the schoolchildren of those nations are not forced to endure an official curriculum of how-to-murder? How many of the youth of those nations have strapped on the explosives and sought out innocent targets?

And why is that?

And what is the strength of those nations compared to the fortunes of the Palestinian people? Exactly what... or who... are the stumbling blocks to the Palestinian people claiming their own nationhood? Who negotiates with them now to make that dream of nationhood come to fruition?

Israel has given and given and given. The Gaza strip, instead of turning into a building block of a new country, is now dissolving into factionalized land thefts with various terrorist groups and gangs claiming possession of that piece of real estate, inch by inch, acre by acre. It is a battle and the P.A. (Palestinian Authority) seems not merely powerless to stop it, but is a particpant, a collaborator of murder and hate. Many of the land thefts, fenced off tracts of Gaza land, are now "owned" by individuals within P.A. ranks. So what have they given the children to replace the hate?

The P.A. have no success in stopping the youth of their would-be nation from being indoctrinated with terror and hate, preparing for the day when they can give their lives to the effort to stop Palestine from ever being declared a nation. Because that is the end result of the violence. The P.A. is an active participant in the destruction of the dream.

Hamas is yet another enemy of Palestinian Statehood. Hamas will never achieve their only goal: complete annihilation of Israel. Israel will NEVER cease to exist. Hamas knows this. Hamas and other "leaders" of the Palestinian people continue to sell out the Palestinian State. They continue to betray their own people. Why?

If not for the hate and the senseless murders in the name of raising billions for terror that somehow got channelled into the personal Swiss bank accounts of men like Yassir Arafat, those children by now might have been building dreams of a real future.

But their "leaders" continue to treat their most precious gift, their children, as cannon fodder and those babies may never know what a dream really is. The haters are stealing the future from their own children. And that is cruel child abuse.

See a Slideshow titled, "Palestinian Child Abuse," by CLICKING HERE. It will open your eyes and absolutely break your heart.

The Kids are Not All Right
What might we imagine is the hope of parents who entertain their children with messages of hatred and the glorification of suicide in the service of killing others?

by Rabbi Avi Shafran

Its pretty commonsensical: a culture's ideals and spirit can be discerned in what its adults choose to nourish their progeny's developing minds. One can know much about a world, in other words, by considering its childrens entertainment.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Kosher Cruises

2005-11-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

Do you love travel? Do you love cruises? Find out how you can travel in luxury AND keep kosher by visiting "KosherTravelers.com."

From the website:

Kosher Cruises and Kosher Travel - Ever dreamed of watching the setting sun gild the crystal blue Caribbean sea surrounding your deluxe cruise ship, while graceful candles flicker to the sound of soft music, and elegantly-dressed waiters set gourmet Kosher cuisine on the table before you? Have you imagined touring exotic destinations with all your kosher travel and Jewish religious needs catered for par excellence? Or treated yourself to celebrate a Chag in a luxury Israeli hotel? For nearly a half a century Eddie’s Travel has been making the discerning kosher travelers’ dreams a reality —Eddies Travel is indeed the natural choice for the kosher traveler’s perfect holiday in the best of comfort, luxury and value, with unparalleled personal service.

This website is to promote the kosher cruise business of one individual and I am not putting the information here to promote one kosher business over another. This is simply one more resource of information for Jewish travellers to check out for themselves.

Islamization in Europe

2005-11-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

Last update - 11:11 11/11/2005
Islamization in Europe
By Ze'ev Schiff

The outbreak began in England. At first there were signs of increasing extremism and incitement in declarations by Muslim clergy; then weapons were found, including poison; and then young Pakistani men who grew up in England performed acts of terror. German intelligence discovered that Pakistanis were responsible for the suicide bombing in Djerba, Tunisia in 2002, where German tourists were killed. Meanwhile, Moroccan citizens were involved in the two major terror attacks in Spain.

The violence in France began even before the current outbreak, in acts of vandalism perpetrated by young Muslims against Jewish cemeteries and synagogues. Thus they created a situation unprecedented in France since the days of the Nazi occupation Jewish parents were afraid to send their children to school wearing kippot. The French police fought the phenomenon, without success.

Clearly, the Muslims in France are operating out of a sense of strength and self-confidence. The sense of power comes from their growing numbers more than 12 percent of the population and their demographic centralization. They are formally French, but in their own areas they maintain a unique lifestyle, and that's where Islamization has reached its climax.

The current intifada in France began almost exactly like the Palestinian intifada in 1987. Here, an accident in Gaza claimed Palestinian lives. In France, an accident in which two young Muslims were electrocuted sparked the violence. For both Palestinians and French Muslims, the initial motive of the rage was the sense of oppression and humiliation.

Those who argue that the initial and main motive for the riots in France is the sense of oppression felt by the new proletariat emerging among the Muslim immigrants are right. But it is a mistake to focus entirely on socioeconomic causes. They were an initial motive, but the next stages always arrive, and religion has a lot to play in the matter. When Islam doesn't provide enough of an answer, they look for heroes elsewhere, such as Al-Qaida. READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE

More Moslem Destruction of Temple Mount Feared

2005-11-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

More Moslem Destruction of Temple Mount Feared
18:14 Nov 09, '05 / 7 Cheshvan 5766
By Hillel Fendel

The Committee to Prevent Temple Mount Artifacts Desecration warns that Muslim Waqf construction works are once again underway - this time at the Temple entrance path taken by Jews 2,000 years ago.

The Committee sent a letter on the matter this week to the Prime Minister and to the Director of the Antiquities Authority. The letter states that new information has been received indicating the Waqf's intention to continue its "refurbishing" works on the Mount.

Yisrael Caspi, an active member of the Committee, told Arutz-7, "For some years now we have been standing guard to try to have the Waqf stop its destruction works. The Waqf is trying to take over the Mount and make it a totally Moslem site, with no Jewish presence."

"The problem is that the Prime Minister has neutralized all other elements - the Minister of Public Security, the Education Ministry, and the Antiquities Authority - and has taken full control of the situation. And the cycle is always the same: The government gives the Waqf a permit for refurbishing and the like, then the Waqf starts building and turning the area into a mosque, while destroying or hiding Jewish artifacts, and then we are not even allowed into the sites. This cycle has to be stopped!"

Caspi said that the latest information indicates that the Waqf plans to begin work at the site known as the Hatunya, adjacent to the Southern Wall excavations and the Dung Gate entrance to the Western Wall.

"A staircase leads from the Temple Mount plaza downward under the Al Aksa mosque [south of the Dome of the Rock]," he said, "to two tunnels built by King Herod 2,000 years ago. The tunnels served the Jews who entered the Holy Temple from the Hulda Gate on the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount. Today, we see the Hulda Gate, but just to the left is a building called the Hatunya, built several hundred years ago. The Waqf wants to excavate the tunnels and the Hatunya, and, based on past experience, turn it into yet another mosque - while hiding or destroying Jewish artifacts."

"We firmly object to granting the Waqf a construction permit for its Temple Mount works," the Comittee's letter states, "and we demand that all work be carried out only under the supervision of the Antiquities Authority."

Caspi said, "Our past experience has shown that the Waqf does not exactly have an interest in preserving the archaeological findings there, and especially not the Jewish ones. On the contrary: They want to hide and even destroy all Jewish findings. This is our concern. We demand that the Antiquities Authority - which is not taking a strong enough position on this issue - be responsible once again for what goes on there." READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE...

A SPECIAL REQUEST: Will someone who knows their Torah please leave a comment that includes the exact prohibition against permitting any desecration of the Temple? Todah rabah.

Jewish Cookbooks & Recipes

2005-11-11T06:17:00.000-08:00

Oyf a nikhtern mogn ken men keyn zakh nit fartrogn
(With an empty stomach nothing can be tolerated)

The Irgun Website

2005-11-10T22:10:00.000-08:00

Click to Visit

WEBSITE: Gamla Shall Not Fall Again!

2005-11-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

Pay a visit to the "GAMLA SHALL NOT FALL AGAIN!" Website. It's got quite a few good resources and even add-ons for webmasters and bloggers (see near the bottom of this page - a news ticker and a banner). Gamla.org is also where I found the following links to important documents from Israel's history:

Israel - Background Materials
Terror Victims since OSLO (Fatilities ONLY)

Pre-State
The Balfour Declaration - 1917 The Mandate for Palestine - May 1922

Pre 1967
Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel - 1948
UN General Assembly Resolution 181 - 1947
The Palestinian National Charter - 1964

After 1967 War - Labour Party
Protection of Holy Places Law - 1967
The Khartoum Resolutions - 1967
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 - 1967
U.N. Security Council Resolution 338 - 1973

Begin (Likud) Gov.
Camp David Accords - September 17, 1978

Shamir Labour/Likud Gov.
Israel's Peace Initiative - May 14, 1989
Madrid Letter of Invitation - 1991

Rabin Gov.
Declaration of Principles - Sept. 1993
Israel-PLO Recognition - Letters - Sept. 9, 1993
Agreement on Gaza Strip and Jericho Area - May 4, 1994
Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities - Aug. 29, 1994
The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement - September 28, 1995
Summit of Peacemakers - Sharm el-Sheikh, March 13, 1996
Agreement on Temporary International Presence in Hebron - May 1996

Netanyahu Gov.
Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron - Jan. 17, 1997
Agreement on Temporary International Presence in Hebron - Jan. 21, 1997
Protocol Concerning Safe Passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
The Wye River Memorandum - October 23, 1998

Barak Gov.
The Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum - September 4, 1999
Trilateral Statement on the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David - July 25, 2000
U.N. Security Council Resolution 425 (Regarding Lebanon)

Sharon Gov.
Israeli Settlements and International Law Legal Position Paper May 2001

View Israel As If You Were There!

2005-11-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

360° IPIX Pictures of Israel

Step right inside Israel and Jerusalem! Experience our incredible 360° orb-images of some of the most beautiful sites in the country. Simply use your mouse to zoom around inside them, look up, look down, and look in every direction. Loading the pictures will take at least thirty seconds, depending on the speed of your Internet connection. The Java version (medium-resolution image) can be clicked on and seen immediately, while the Plug-in version (high-resolution image) requires you to first download the IPIX Plug-in. We know of some problems with the Netscape browser program. If this problem occurs on your computer, please either use the Internet Explorer browser program and/or only use the Plug-In versions of the photographs below. Scroll down for the complete list of all ten IPIX images....

Includes:

Western Wall (Kotel)
The Temple Mount & Dome of the Rock
Nimrod's Castle
Gamla Nature Reserve
Banyas Springs
Ein Avdat Nature Reserve
The Ramon Crater
The Red Canyon
Solomon's Pillars
Timna National Park

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THIS WEBPAGE

Get a Kotel Screensaver

2005-11-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

You can download a free screensaver of the Western Wall in Jerusalem by CLICKING HERE (actually you won't be downloading anything by clicking that link - it just takes you to the page where you CAN download the screensaver).

Binyamin Netanyahu's Official Website

2005-11-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

CLICK HERE TO VISIT (links to homepage or first page of website). Be sure to see his LINKS PAGE, too.

Personal Anecdote: Mr. Netanyahu, before becoming Prime Minister of Israel, Cabinet Minister, Likud Party member and sometimes leader, used to be Israel's Consul General in Los Angeles, California. That's how I met him. I didn't know him as well as some other members of the Jewish Defense League knew him but I was aware of his devlish sense of humor.

Once upon a time (and many times thereafter), the PLO and Islamic Student Council (actually pretty much one and the same as each other) planned a violent anti-Israel riot at the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles. They actually imagined that they could walk right up to the building housing the consulate and start smashing windows or beating people up. Whatever. They didn't count on the Jewish Defense League getting there FIRST.

We were a human barrier that they simply could not penetrate and those few who tried very quickly regretted the attempt and scampered back to their side of the boulevard with a few new bruises to show for their pathetic attempt.

The FBI did not try to stop the confrontation although they were happily taking pictures of all the attendees. On both sides.

Eventually, the LAPD showed up and ordered the entire crowd (both sides) to disperse. And there was simply no way the JDL would abandon Israel until every last anti-Israel anti-American fanatic was gone from the street. Every last one of them.

So, just as the LAPD started slapping on the handcuffs on us JDL members, Binyamin Netanyahu comes out from the consulate stating with great conviction to the police, "No, no, you have no legal authority to do that."

Seems that it is federal law that the building(s) that house any foreign embassy or consulate as well as 500 feet extending outwards from those buildings is the sovereign territory of that nation. So the LAPD was stepping onto Israeli "soil" to arrest the JDL.

Mr. Netanyahu told them they would have to gain his government's permission to do that and since he was his government's representative and he was declaring all of us in JDL to be Israeli citizens "by right of return*," he was therefore refusing to allow the LAPD to have access to "his" citizens. He asked them to kindly step off of Israeli soil.

So none of us were arrested that day and we turned our side of the street into a great block party celebration. Shalom Sherman, a well-known Israeli entertainer who happened to be on the premises, came out to entertain us. It was great fun.

And I thought that Mr. Netanyahu was a very funny man for doing what he did.

*The "right of return" refers to Jews who emigrate to Israel and can almost automatically be granted Israeli citizenship by claiming this right. A person normally goes to Eretz Israel to do this but conceivably, since Israeli embassies are considered "Israeli soil," I guess a person could also make that same claim that way. At least, that's how it worked that one day with Mr. Netanyahu. Many American citizens hold dual citizenship with another country.

"Islam Undressed"

2005-11-10T14:51:00.000-08:00

"Islam Undressed"
A Critical Analysis of ‘Real Islam’.
Its People, Culture, Philosophy, and Practices Yesterday and Today.
by: Vernon Richards (Sept 19, 2005)

Talk Now, Demolish Israel Later, Hamas Says

2005-11-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

Talk Now, Demolish Israel Later, Hamas Says
By Julie Stahl CNSNews.com
Jerusalem Bureau Chief
November 09, 2005 Jerusalem

(CNSNews.com) - Hamas is ready to negotiate with Israel as a means of achieving its goals, which include the end of the Jewish State, a Hamas leader said on Wednesday.

Hamas candidates are planning to run in the upcoming Palestinian Authority elections, scheduled to take place in January. Officials from the group have said they plan to use the democratic elections as a means to establish an Islamic state.

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar took that a step further on Wednesday when he said that Hamas might be willing to negotiate with Israel but only as a means of achieving its final goals."Negotiation is not our intention. Negotiation is a method," al-Zahar said in a rare interview with Israeli media, broadcast on the radio. MORE...

JUST A LITTLE REMINDER: The Oslo Accords forbid any terrorist group from participation in Palestinian elections. In violation of this important agreement that began the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has invited Hamas to field candidates in all P.A. elections.

A Moslem Voice Speaks Truth

2005-11-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

The PBS website has an interview with one Mamoun Abdelali who speaks of what it is like to grow up Moslem in France, poor, disenfranchised, with no real hope for a bright future. He tells of countless young people abandoned by their own local Moslem clerics who are then left to form a quasi-counterculture of their own without any real moral or true Islamic compass to guide them.

So how DO they find direction? Al Qaeda seeks them out at mosques and markets and schools and private living rooms and anywhere else they can be tracked down. Young people are selected and then profiled for their "terrorist potential" before being approached. Then they are seduced by favors and money.

Mr. Abdelali says the lure is understandable. One day, you are a juvenile delinquent detached from the society where you live but you still know it is wrong to steal cars (even if you do it, anyway) and the next day you have powerful friends with a twisted version of a religion you don't even know that well and those "friends" are now telling you that all criminal behavior, car stealing, arson, even murder are now to be considered acts of worship to Allah. How very empowering and validating that must feel to that young person.

Mr. Abdelali seems to think that this force may now be unstoppable. He fears for the future of Europe. READ HIS INTERVIEW HERE.

Moroccans demand release of hostages

2005-11-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

Moroccans demand release of hostages
Thousands march for two workers reported held in Iraq
Monday, November 7, 2005; Posted: 1:44 p.m. EST (18:44 GMT)

CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Moroccans marched through Casablanca to demand the release of two Moroccan Embassy employees reported kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with execution.

Demonstrators chanted "No to terrorism" and "Islam is a religion of love, not hatred" during Sunday's march. The Moroccan government has condemned the kidnappings and called for the hostages to be released without any conditions. MORE...

A war of values, not religion

2005-11-10T08:38:00.000-08:00

A war of values, not religion
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist
November 6, 2005

THE PRINCE of Wales was at the White House last week, hoping, the Daily Telegraph reported, ''to convince President Bush of the merits of Islam . . . because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since Sept. 11, 2001." This is a drum Prince Charles has been beating for years. In 1993, for example, he scolded those in the West who peddled ''unthinking prejudices" about Muslim culture -- for example, ''that sharia law of the Islamic world is cruel, barbaric, and unjust." Two months after 9/11, he was lambasting the American attitude toward Islam as ''too confrontational."

Of course, it goes without saying that most Muslims are not terrorists. Of course many people professing Islam are compassionate and generous. Of course Islam should not be gratuitously insulted. But neither should it be sugar-coated or kowtowed to. Yet too many Western elites are unwilling to speak plainly about the problems within Islam itself, or to hold Muslim culture to what should be universal standards of decency and justice. Far from being ''too confrontational" in their attitude toward Islam, they have been too indulgent and deferential, careful never to say anything that might be deemed insensitive. One result has been an increase in extremist behavior: Witness the ''Eurofada" raging in the streets of Paris. MORE...

France’s Ramadan Uprising - a Ticking Bomb for Europe

2005-11-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

France’s Ramadan Uprising - a Ticking Bomb for Europe

The violent riots spreading across France took several worrying directions Sunday night, Nov. 6, and Monday. The mostly Muslim gangs of youths began surging out of the immigrant suburbs to invade town centers; they fired their first gunshots at policemen; the number of torched cars peaked to 1,400; and disturbing new slogans were hurled, depicting Paris as ”Baghdad-on-the Seine” and their campaign as the start of Europe’s Ramadan Intifada.

A single slogan made a mockery of president Jacques Chirac’s efforts of the last three years to distance France from President George W. Bush’s Iraq war. Furthermore, the French government’s helplessness in quelling the trouble is encouraging other European communities to follow suit - in Denmark, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, for starters.

There are plenty of indications that the riots are not simply spontaneous outbursts of frustration by disadvantaged youths of North and black African descent, but centrally organized mayhem, an “intifada” activated by Muslim networking.

France’s leaders, like the British and Dutch, are clinging to the hope that sympathetic dialogue with moderate Muslims will calm the street, despite all the evidence that radical, activist Muslims do not heed established Islamic authorities.

The controlling hand, far from being legitimate Muslim authority, is beginning to emerge as the very organization that has for several years been recruiting young fighters in French Muslim ghettos fight al Qaeda’s wars against the West in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and other sectors.

On February 20, 2004, DEBKA-Net-Weekly and DEBKAfile were first to reveal the extent of al Qaeda’s penetration of West Europe. They turned up French intelligence statistics which estimated that “al Qaeda had recruited in France between 35,000 and 45,000 fighters and was organizing them in military-style units.

Today, French counter-terror sources are willing to admit, albeit on the quiet and not for attribution, that those clandestine terrorist cells may well be at the bottom of the current riots. MORE...

Al Qaeda in the News

2005-11-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

Zarqawi Moves His Headquarters to Baghdad

According to intelligence data reaching the American command, the Jordanian terrorist chief, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, commander of al Qaeda Iraq, has left the Sunni-dominated Anbar province bordering on Syria after two years. In mid-October he is described as driving into Baghdad in mid-October in a convoy of six Iraqi military vehicles stolen from US-Iraqi bases in the north. All the travelers, including the boss, were clad in new uniforms of high Iraqi army officers. They breezed past the roadblocks guarding the town’s entrances without arousing suspicion. Indeed some of the Iraqi security officers manning them saluted the fake officers. MORE...

Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed the triple suicide blasts that ripped through three Amman hotels Wednesday, Nov. 9.

Jordan has closed its borders, government offices and schools in a high security alert after the serial strikes against Western chain hotels bearing the hallmarks of al Qaeda’s Abu Musab al Zarqawi, himself a Jordanian Palestinian. The Radisson, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn were attacked minutes apart, the first suicide bombings al Qaeda brought off in Amman. MORE...

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been diverting fighting strength from Iraq to terror arenas in Jordan, Syria, Sinai and the Gaza Strip.

The suicide attacks on three US-owned five-star hotels popular with Westerners in Amman Wednesday night, Nov. 9, points to several disturbing manifestations. MORE...

When Pictures Lie

2005-11-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

It was always a great horrible lie. The entire thing, from beginning to end, was a lie. I'm talking about that pitiful and pathetic video show put on by French television that was shown around the world that featured a father trying to shield his young son from a barrage of Israeli bullets. It never happened. At least, not in the way the Al Qaeda recruiting posters would have you believe.

When this report first aired and I saw it, I felt great sympathy for that father and child and it broke my heart on that poor father's behalf that he was unable to save his child's life. It truly broke my heart. It didn't matter if you were Moslem or Jew, Arab or American. The only story from those horrifying images was one of heartbreak.

But what would have been the reaction of millions of viewers around the world if they had been permitted to see ALL the video shot that day by that French TV crew? What if the world had seen the extra footage of the father and son actors being stage blocked and managed by the French crew prior to actual "shooting?" Most especially, where would the public outrage have been directed and should have been directed if the remaining video had been shown that clearly displayed the "dead" boy after being "shot," now sitting himself up, propped up on an elbow and with a playful attitude?

And should the whole story have been told... in the interest of journalistic integrity, of course. That part of the story about how a child who had died in a local hospital that day who'd had no part in any shooting was identified as the boy in the video even though that boy, still very much alive, looked nothing like the dead child in the hospital. Should that part of the story have been told?

Oh, that's right. Seeing as how the whole thing was a set-up from start to finish, it is rather silly to toss around terms like "journalistic integrity," isn't it?

It was all staged. They were actors performing for the camera. Nobody died. It's believable at this point that nobody even got shot.

And who benefitted from this disgusting manipulation? Well, as mentioned, Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations used the fake video in their recruiting efforts which were so successful that a young woman strapped herself up with explosives and, fortunately, was stopped by Israeli soldiers before she could carry out her plan - to walk into a children's hospital and blow herself up so as to kill as many innocent babies as possible in revenge for the videotaped "killing" of the Palestinian boy.

And that was hardly the only repercussion of this piece of propaganda filth. The nation of Israel was condemned from every corner of this planet for this incident. It hardly mattered when the truth came out. The intifada was on.

So where does Israel go to get her reputation back? How do we put back the lives of innocent civilians who were slaughtered by terrorists who carried out their acts of murder in the name of a "murdered" child that still lived?

These are some of the questions posed by David Gelernter in his article, "When Pictures Lie." Go read it.

Life in Israel from Cafe Oleh

2005-11-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

Cafe Oleh from the Jerusalem Post lists many great resources for information about living in Israel.

Truth in History - Were the Palestinians Actually Expelled from Israel in 1948?

2005-11-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

But were they uprooted, and if so by whom? In Haifa, one of the largest and most dramatic locales of the Palestinian exodus, not only had half the Arab community fled the city before the final battle was joined, but another 5,000-15,000 apparently left voluntarily during the fighting while the rest, some 15,000-25,000 souls, were ordered or bullied into leaving against their wishes, almost certainly on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee. The crime was exclusively of Arab making. There was no Jewish grand design to force this departure, nor was there a psychological "blitz." To the contrary, both the Haifa Jewish leadership and the Hagana went to great lengths to convince the Arabs to stay. These efforts, indeed, reflected the wider Jewish attitude in Palestine. All deliberations of the Jewish leadership regarding the transition to statehood were based on the assumption that, in the Jewish state that would arise with the termination of the British Mandate, Palestine’s Arabs would remain as equal citizens.

-- From, "Were the Palestinians Expelled?" by Efraim Karsh

November 9, 1938

2005-11-09T18:41:00.000-08:00

KristallnachtTo learn more about it, please CLICK HERE.

On Hating the Jews by Natan Sharansky

2005-11-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

On Hating the Jews
The inextricable link between anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.
BY NATAN SHARANSKY

An incredible article. Everyone should read it.

And a personal note: In the 1970's when the Jewish Defense League was probably the most vocal (in terms of grabbing headlines) fighters for the survival of Soviet Jewry, we began wearing metal bracelets inscribed with the names of individual Soviet Jews who awaited emigration out of the old Soviet Union. I wore two bracelets, one for each arm. On one was the name, "Sylva Zalmanson," who had been in a group of desperate Jews who attempted to hijack a Soviet aircraft to freedom.

And the other bracelet bore the name, "Anatoly Sharansky." Mr. Sharansky, upon finally emigrating to Israel, would take the name of Natan and would one day become Israel's minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs.

For as long as the names Sylva Zalmanson and Anatoly Sharansky remained on my wrists, next to the pulse of my heart, they stayed constantly in my thoughts and the night did not pass that they weren't also in my prayers.

Thank you, Mr. Sharansky. For surviving. Todah rabah. Kol ha kavod.

What Martin Luther King, Jr. Had to Say

2005-11-09T11:48:00.000-08:00

So what happened to the canary?

2005-11-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

Jeff Jacoby of the Jewish World Review writes in his editorial, "The canary in Europe's mine," that anti-Semitism is not merely on the rise in Europe, it has spilled over the floodgates and engulfs the continent. His article gives example after example of how anti-Semitism has worked its way back to political correctness after a period of shame and guilt following the Holocaust.

You see, the point of his article was to say, "Pay attention to your history, Europe. When your Jews have suffered, so have you. Pay attention, Europe. Disaster is coming." Jacoby paints the Jew as the symbolic canary in the mine. When the canary in the mine dies, all the miners know to get out fast because at that point disaster is imminent.

Interestingly, a portion of his article discusses France and the French government's reaction to the flood of French anti-Semitism. Mr. Jacoby writes:

But nowhere have the flames of antisemitism burned more furiously than in France.

In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseille; so was a Jewish school in Creteil. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails, and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words "Dirty Jew" were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months. According to the police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day since Easter.

Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming "Jews to the gas chambers" and "Death to the Jews." The weekly journal Le Nouvel Observateur published an appalling libel: It said Israeli soldiers rape Palestinian women, so that their relatives will kill them to preserve "family honor." The French ambassador to Great Britain was not sacked -- and did not apologize -- when it was learned that he had told guests at a London dinner that the world's troubles were the fault of "that shitty little country, Israel."

"At the start of the 21st century," writes Pierre-Andre Taguieff, a well-known social scientist, in a new book, "we are discovering that Jews are once again select targets of violence. . . . Hatred of the Jews has returned to France."

And what is the reaction of the leader of France to all of this? President Jacques Chirac has proclaimed, "Stop saying that there is antisemitism in France. There is no antisemitism in France."

Well, in that case, here's a thousand words, Mr. Chirac:

Mr. Jacoby writes, "A timeless lesson of history is that it rarely ends with the Jews. Militant Islamist extremists were attacking and killing Jews long before they attacked and killed Americans on Sept. 11. The Nazis first set out to incinerate the Jews; in the end, all of Europe was ablaze.

Jews, it is often said, are the canary in the coal mine of civilization. When they become the objects of savagery and hate, it means the air has been poisoned and an explosion is soon to come. If Europeans don't rise up and turn against the Jew-haters, it is only a matter of time until the Jew-haters rise up and turn against them."

And now it is France's turn to face the fires. See the article, "Why French youth are rioting." In it, you will read, "The spark for the rage is economic - unemployment among French Muslim youth is endemic. But the riots, increasingly organized through Internet sites, have given an opening for fundamentalist Islamists to radicalize French Muslims, giving the riots an even more volatile and sinister edge in an age of terrorism." More coverage of the riots (or should it be called the Cyber-Intifada?) spreading across Europe can be found on Yahoo's Special Riots Coverage Section.

Yo. Europe. How's that canary doing?

After all, they ARE experts... here's what they say.

2005-11-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

"Allah revealed Islam in order that humanity could be governed according to it. Unbelief is darkness and disorder. So the unbelievers, if they are not suppressed, create disorder. That is why the Muslims are responsible for the implementation of Allah's Law on the planet, that humanity may be governed by it, as opposed to corrupt man-made laws. The Muslims must make all efforts to establish the religion of Allah on the earth."
--Muhammad 'Abdus Salam Faraj, Jihad: The Absent Obligation, p43

"Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which Nation assumes the role of the standard bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State."
--Sayeed Abdul A'la Maududi, Jihad in Islam p9

Visit IslamistWatch.org

Reform vs. Islamism in the Arab World Today

2005-11-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) has an excellent article on their website that explains the historical roots of today's radical Islamic terrorism. The article follows the progression from the barbarism practiced by early Moslems in fulfillment of their religious idealogy against non-Moslems to how the most extremist views would be extrapolated by radical clerics from the religious texts of Islam and distorted then distorted again and again by the followers of the early clerics unto today's radical extremist clerics of Islam and from that, twisted yet again to fuel a war of hate and terror and death against "the west."

MEMRI suggests there are two camps that exist inside the world of Islam - one based on hate for the infidel and calling for all-out jihad until all the world is brought under the Islamic lash...or dead, and then there is the more moderate school of thought that seeks coexistence with the rest of the planet. So far, the radical voices seem to hold the most sway in the Islamic world and the MEMRI article suggests some of the reasons why this is so.

I'm sorry to say that this article does not hold out much hope that the moderates will ever prevail. Still, the article is eye-opening and quite fascinating. You can READ IT HERE.

Rachel Who?

2005-11-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Rachel Corrie, an American activist, stood in front of an Israeli tank below the driver's line-of-sight and was killed when the tank moved forward and over her. If you put her name into Google, you will get back many thousands of links, stories, websites.

But did you know that other Rachels have also been killed in Eretz Israel? And do you know what they did to get themselves killed? One was a grandmother returning home from the celebration of the birth of her first grandchild. For that, she was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist. Another was a mother of seven children who was murdered, along with several of her children, inside her own home. Again, by a Palestinian terrorist. Yet another Rachel stepped out for a bite of pizza and for that, a Palestinian terrorist determined it was her time to die. He made that choice for her.

And there are more. Too many more. Where are the stories about these Rachels? Why are they invisible to international media?

These are some of the things the article, "Rachel Who" discusses on the blog titled, "Boker Tov, Boulder!" Please go have a look-see.