Fenced In

By David Solway
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The historical record makes it nonsense to regard the formation of a Palestinian state as anything other than a collective, internationally-approved land grab in itself in an area mandated by the League of Nations as a Jewish homeland.

For too much truth, at first sight, ne’er attracts. - George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIV

The Israeli government’s present intention of holding on to a sliver of the West Bank within the perimeter of the security fence is an issue of serious import and is widely regarded as an illegal land grab. Yet the issue is by no means as simple as it has been made out to be and cannot be cursorily decided to the advantage of the hypothetical Palestinian state.
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by Bill Levinson

The Obama campaign employs moderators whose job is to keep “disrespectful” and “offensive” material off My.BarackObama.com. This posting apparently does not meet the definition of “disrespectful” or “offensive.”

They fear peace
By Kate Smythe-Blake - Jul 19th, 2008 at 10:23 pm EDT
Comments | Mail to a Friend | Report Objectionable Content
The kike filth are trying to steal this election from us. But this is our time. The kike live in fear of peace. They fear happiness. The thought of people living happily in peace without killing each other frightens the horde of kike that runs our government. But when pieces of kike use their kike manipulation tactics to stop Barack, it is time to strike back. There is nothing a kike army can do when faced with progressive people who are determined to achieve peace. We will achieve lasting peace.

It is admittedly to the credit of the people who commented on the posting, however, that they took exception to it. The comments suggest that it was in fact reported to the administrators, who did not act on the complaints. (Read more…)

By Ted Belman

When I first arrived in Israel, two months ago, I was told by two highly placed people that they feared Netanyahu would lean to the left when forming a coalition. Just last week I tried to pin insiders down to confirm what, if any, Netanyahu’s redlines were and they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me.. But they did offer me their opinion that he wouldn’t divide Jerusalem. I was not comfortable.

Now Uzi Dayan has joined the party and has been promised Defense. Dayan and Netanyahu agreed that the fence must be finished. This suggests a two state vision.

Israel Harel suggests The Likud has changed, not Dayan

[..] The criticism came in spite of the fact that at the press conference where he announced his decision, an occasion where one would expect the new recruit to praise the ideological path of his new home, Dayan presented an independent line that did not contradict his political record. But most members of the media chose to ignore this, perhaps because Dayan’s move may strengthen Benjamin Netanyahu.

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DEBKAfile Special Report

Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu takes issue with the manner of prime minister Ehud Olmert’s decision to leave office, because it sidesteps the voter.

Passing the premiership sideways to a successor, which Olmert’s own Kadima will elect in a primary in two months, is a form of “artificial respiration” for a failed government, he said Thursday, July 31. Olmert should have dissolved the Knesset and announced an early election - first when his mismanagement of the 2006 Lebanon War was confirmed by a committee of inquiry, but certainly, when the envelopes of cash scandal came to light earlier this year.

In any case, the entire ruling coalition has rendered itself unfit to govern by its many failures, said Netanyahu, a former prime minister.

DEBKAfile’s political sources report: Olmert bequeaths his successor a deeply divided cabinet based on a precarious parliamentary majority of four. It faces its first major hurdle over the passage of the 2009 budget.
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Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 30 July 2008

While Prime Minister Olmert clearly stated that he would resign after the election of a new Kadima head in the upcoming Kadima primaries, Israel Radio has been broadcasting the following clarification in its hourly news bulletins starting with the 9 PM news:

“Our state affairs correspondent Shmuel Tal clarifies that the person who is elected to head Kadima will be asked to form a government and until he succeeds in doing it Olmert will continue to serve as prime minister. If the new chairman of Kadima fails to form a government Olmert will serve as prime minister until after the coming general elections.”

SEE THIS GREAT VIDEO

THE SAME QUESTION SHOULD BE ASKED OF aMERICA

By Moshe Feiglin

“He has recently become more religious,” the reporters explained as they described the second Jerusalem Moslem who attempted to murder Jews with a tractor.

The Israeli public is already used to terror attacks in the name of Allah. These attacks are euphemistically described as ‘nationalistically motivated’. But everybody knows in whose name the terrorists stage their murderous assaults. The Arabs who piloted the Boeing jets into the Twin Towers did not yell “Long live Saudi Arabia!” and last week’s murderous tractor driver did not declare “Long live the Arab nation!” before perpetrating their horrendous deeds. Every Israeli knows what Arabs shout as they murder. They shout the Moslem motto, ‘Allah hu akbar.’ They act in the name of their god. Their terrorism is not nationalistically motivated. It is religiously motivated.

As opposed to the Left, the nationalist camp – and especially the national religious camp in Israel – is capable of understanding and dealing with this fact. But it is specifically this camp that is rapidly falling under the influence of a religious threat even more dangerous than Islam. It is specifically the nationalist and religious nationalist public that has been opening the door to xtianity and allowing it to slowly but surely sway Israeli reality.
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MEMRI has just published a very detailed report entitled In Wake of Tahdiah Agreement, Escalation in Hamas-Fatah Conflict and in Fatah’s Position Vis-à-vis Israel .

Introduction

Under the tahdiah agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, which went into effect on June 19, 2008, the Palestinians agreed to stop the rocket attacks on Israel in exchange for a cessation of Israel’s military activity in Gaza. It was also agreed that there would be negotiations for opening the Rafah crossing, with the participation of Palestinian Authority, Hamas and E.U. representatives. [1]

The agreement was the result of prolonged negotiations, during which both sides withdrew some of their original demands. Hamas waived its demands to include the West Bank in the agreement and to open the Rafah crossing immediately. Israel, on its part, withdrew its demand to stop arms smuggling as a condition for signing the agreement, and did not insist on a clause linking the tahdiah to the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

[This low was only exceeded by their grovelling to get back two bodies,]
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Obama’s and MoveOn.org’s Left-Wing Allies also talk about “Fox Jews”

by Bill Levinson

1. 8 JEWS RUN U.S. MEDIA Today, eight Jewish Americans run the vast majority of US television networks, the printed press, the Hollywood movie industry, the book publishing industry, and the recording industry.

   Most of these industries are bundled into huge media conglomerates run by the following eight individuals:

   …Fox News, which is of course owned by Rupert Murdock - also a jew.

So says a posting on MoveOn.org’s now-disgraced Action Forum, over which MoveOn.org exercised editorial control. Another posting proclaimed that “Jews control all the media.” A MoveOn.org fellow traveler blog meanwhile reports, “Fox Jews Busted.” The content is similar to that of MoveOn.org’s Action Forum with regard to purported Jewish control of the media: (Read more…)

Last month, the Domestic Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag held public hearings on anti-Semitism in Germany. Many of the speakers chose to focus on the “classical” anti-Semitism to be found in what in Germany are euphemistically called “right-wing extremist” milieus, i.e., among skinheads and self-avowed neo-Nazis. The journalist Henryk Broder, however, located the problem elsewhere: namely, in the mainstream “anti-Zionist anti-Semitism” to be found, for instance, among academics … and Bundestag members. Pajamas Media here presents a complete English translation of Henryk Broder’s statement to the Bundestag’s Domestic Affairs Committee.

by Henryk Broder

I thank you for the invitation to this hearing. It is an honor for me to be able to speak to you. I know that there has been some unhappiness on account of my participation. But I am sure that by the end of my statement you will not regret having invited me.

This is not the first hearing on the issue of anti-Semitism and it will not be the last. Ever since the writer and self-avowed Jew-hater Wilhelm Marr published his “The Triumph of Germandom [Deutschtum] over Jewry” in 1879, thus becoming the leader of political anti-Semitism in imperial Germany, there have been numerous attempts made to define, explain, and neutralize anti-Semitism. They have all failed. If this was not the case, we would not be here today. Every discussion of anti-Semitism starts with a definition of the concept. And many get no further than that, such that after all the efforts to get a grasp on the phenomenon one is left merely with the finding that anti-Semitism is, as the old joke goes, “when one can’t stand Jews even more than is normal.”
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Barack and Michelle Obama’s personal statements deceive prospective donors
by Bill Levinson

Despite at least one (and possibly more) complaints from Minnesota law enforcement agencies, the Obama campaign is still circulating E-mails that solicit donations in exchange to win an expenses-paid trip to the Democratic National Convention. Were it not for the very fine print disclaimers in the E-mails and on the donation page itself, this would very likely constitute an illegal lottery. In other words, the Obama campaign is doing the absolute minimum it thinks it needs to do to stay out of actual trouble with the law. In addition, a video by Barack Obama and an E-mail from Michelle Obama are designed to deceive supporters into thinking that they have to contribute money for a chance to win.

As reported by WorldNet Daily, the Obama campaign faced the prospect of legal trouble in Minnesota and possibly other states for running an arguably illegal lottery: donate money to Obama’s campaign (payment of consideration) in exchange for a chance (element of chance) to win an expenses-paid trip to the Democratic National Convention (prize). (Read more…)

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
The New York Post on July 28, 2008.

The most important primary for our 2008 election may be yet to come - the Kadima Party primary in Israel in mid or late September. It pits liberal-leaning Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni against hardliner and former Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz. (Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to sit out the contest and concentrate on staying out of jail.) The polls are neck and neck; in the most recent, Livni’s once-formidable lead has shrunk to 2 points. Hanging over the battle is the Iranian nuclear program.

Livni is thought unlikely to attack Iran precipitously; she largely sees eye-to-eye with advocates of diplomatic solutions to the various problems her country faces. But Mofaz has openly said he’d resort to bombing Iran if it were necessary to stop the mullahs from getting the bomb. So if Mofaz wins, military action becomes much more likely. But when?
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Yoram Ettinger,

Anyone suggesting that Jews are doomed to become a minority west of the Jordan River is either grossly mistaken or outrageously misleading.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the annual number of Jewish births has increased by 40% between 1995 (80,400) and 2007 (112,543), while the annual number of “Green Line” Arab births has stabilized around 39,000 during the same period. The secular Jewish sector is mostly responsible to the impressive increase, especially Soviet Olim, who shifted from Russian fertility rate of 1 child per woman to the secular Israeli Jewish rate of 2.2 children. Arab-Jewish fertility gap has been reduced from 6 children per woman in 1969 to 0.7 child in 2007! Arab fertility rate (3.5 births per woman) has declined 20 year faster than projected – due to successful integration into Israel’s health, educational, financial and commercial infrastructures - while Jewish fertility rate is rising (2.8 births per woman). Arab-Jewish fertility rates have converged in Jerusalem – 3.9 births per woman – for the first time since 1948. Currently, Israel’s Jewish fertility is the highest in the industrialized world.
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By Ted Belman

Let’s face it, there is going to be a Declaration of Principles agreed to, if not this year, early next year.

The INSS article Olmert’s Legacy in the Occupied Territories: Strengthening the Settlement Blocs, lays it out.

1. Olmert, with tacit acceptance by the US and the EU, is expanding settlement blocks west of the fence.
2. The D of P will agree that the fence will become the border with minor exceptions.
3. Thereafter Israel will pass a law offering compensation to settlers east of the fence to move the settlement blocks.
4 Building in these blocks will accelerate with or without the explicit approval of Abbas but with the approval of the US.
5. The rest of the settlement population would be evacuated once the agreement is implemented and the Palestinian state is established.
6. The IDF will remain in Judea and Samaria until the state is declared.
7. Jerusalem will be divided. (See today’s post and A story of Neglect by Moshe Arens)
8. Loose ends will include how much land Israel gives them and the nature of the link to Gaza.

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By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

Election ‘08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called “economic justice.” He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. “I’ve been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served,” he said at the group’s 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

[Do Americans really want a socialist President}

Democrat Barack Obama arrives in Washington on Monday. On the campaign trail, Obama has styled himself a centrist. But a look at those who’ve served as his advisers and mentors over the years shows a far more left-leaning tilt to his background — and to his politics.
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By Ted Belman

Obama talked from the other side of his mouth on Meet the Press on Sunday.

“We’ll make sure Palestinians have a state.”

What happened to free negotiations and Israels right to say “no”.

“The Palestinian people are having a very tough time right now economically, and it is in US interests to make sure that they have a sense of hope and opportunity and a Palestinian state. I think it’s in Israelis’ interest as well,”

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By Ted Belman

I had a great day today.

First I met up with Gil Zohar, an ex-Torontonian who made aliysh and works as a freelance writer for JPOST. He invited me to spend Shabbat with him and the missus which is just great.

Then I went over to the JCPA to interview Miranda in depth. She is the Zionist of mixed race that I wrote about. What a story she has to tell. I hope to publish it tomorrow.

I also met Judy Lash Balint, an award winning journalist, but didn’t have a long chat with her. I’ll have to make another trip.

Finally I met with two insiders in Likud. Based on what they had to tell me which wasn’t official policy but their understanding, I will have to amend my article Is Peace Coming? Here’s why.
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Daniel Pipes:

… On a more profound level, I protest the whole concept of privileged information — that one’s location, age, ethnicity, academic degrees, experience, or some other quality validates one’s views. The recent book by Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky titled “I Wish I Hadn’t Said that: The Experts Speak - and Get it Wrong!” humorously memorializes and exposes this conceit. Living in a country does not necessarily make one wiser about it. …

Continue reading…

Cross-posted at netwmd.com and IsraPundit

by Bill Levinson

An’ we chucked our rifles from us — O my Gawd!

Rudyard Kipling, That Day

Yesterday, we posted “Obama Campaign Site: Alzheimer’s Disease is Funny” here, at Grizzly Groundswell, and elsewhere. We also linked an entry to Free Republic. Within the day, the Obama campaign deleted the Web page in question–on a weekend. This shows they are watching these Web sites, and that they are probably terrified of the possible effect that this material might have on Obama’s electability. They have good reason to be terrified, because we are seeing a replay of the panic at MoveOn.org when we and others exposed its anti-Semitic hate speech in 2006.

We also posted “The Good Thing About Alzheimer’s…” to Free Republic, and THAT page was taken down within eight hours–on a Sunday. This suggests that the Obama campaign is watching Free Republic, and that it even has people working on weekends for damage control purposes. Needless to say, we took a screen shot before they deleted it, and we encourage our readers to circulate it as widely as possible. (Read more…)