September 2004 Archives

I'm always overwhelmed at this time of year by how fast and furious the Jewish holidays seem to descend upon us. Tonight is the beginning of Succot, a week-long holiday with some other holidays thrown in at the end that make for a very celebratory and somewhat confusing time.

I confess to being largely unprepared and having nothing succinct to say at the moment. So, notwithstanding the holiday, if I can get my act together I may pop back in over the next few days with a comment or two. Anyway,

Chag sameach.

Update: It's not going to be a happy holiday in Sderot, where two small children were murdered today and several others were wounded in Kassam rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip.

OTOH, this Sderot resident believes in Succot miracles.

Mike Sanders has some interesting comments on Dan Rather's teshuva (or lack thereof). Teshuva is a Hebrew word that's often loosely translated as "repentance," but which more literally means "turning" or "re-turning," or "realizing you're heading down the interstate highway of life in the wrong direction and making a dramatic u-turn." It's an especially important part of Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day just concluded last night.

Meanwhile, on my way to do some last minute shopping Friday afternoon for the break fast, I heard about this AP poll putting Bush 7 points ahead. The radio blurb also mentioned that Bush and Kerry were now neck-in-neck among women voters. Yes, indeedy. So I figured that was why the only other "news" that KYW (our local "all news, all the time" radio station) saw fit to broadcast that day was a) tape of Kerry's speech at Temple University, b) tape of Kerry's speech at U of Penn and c) long paraphrases by various roving (heh) reporters of those speeches. Ad nauseum. Funny that on Thursday, when President Bush spoke at Valley Forge, KYW's coverage largely focused on the event and not on the content. As Charles says, "mainstream media’s desperation is beginning to show."

Oh, did I mention that KYW is part of the Infinity Broadcasting network (i.e., more or less a CBS affiliate)?

And speaking of Valley Forge, it seems the Neo-Nazi rally there yesterday was "mostly peaceful."

VALLEY FORGE, PA (AP) About 100 neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan supporters shouted white supremacist slogans from an amphitheater stage at Valley Forge National Historical Park on Saturday, while twice as many counter-demonstrators heckled back from a nearby hillside.

Jeff Schoep, 30, of Minneapolis, commander of the National Socialist Movement, launched the rally with an attack on Jews, who he said planned "the destruction of all races through the evils of race mixing."

Speaker after speaker repeated the theme, with many attacking the war in Iraq as "Israel's war."

"For 40 years, Israel has sought to get American forces on the ground in the Middle East," said Clifford Herrington, a former NSM chairman.

There were counter-demonstrations, of course (I hear Michael Berg was there).

Mr. Schloep (oops) said he was unaware it was a Jewish holiday. Here's a different report.

Whatever.

Glad to hear it.

New York, NY, September 22, 2004 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today welcomed the decision by Walmart.com to remove the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion from its online catalog of books after receiving and taking into consideration "significant customer feedback."

Wal-Mart informed the League of its decision to no longer carry the book in response to ADL's letter to the retailer expressing concern about how the book was described on the Wal-Mart site, where it was suggested that the book may not be a forgery.

The problem here wasn't so much that Wal-Mart was selling the book. Amazon and B&N sell it too, but with hefty disclaimers. The problem was Wal-Mart's inexcusable ignorance as to the origins of this blatantly antisemitic forgery. Oh, and this comment on their website:

If, however, The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs. We neither support nor deny its message. We simply make it available for those who wish a copy.

I'm not big on censorship of any kind but, in this case, I think Wal-Mart did the right thing.

I also thought Shai had an especially evocative description of Yom Kippur in Israel. It's, well, unlike any other experience anywhere. But it's one you can carry with you as a memory and sort of inject into the holiday wherever you are. I try to do that, anyway.

To all of you who are observing the fast, may it be an easy one. And may it usher in a year of peace and joy.

G'mar hatimah tova.

Khaled Abu Toameh (who else?) wrote this startling article for today's Jerusalem Post.

Yunis Owaidah is probably the only Palestinian who's not afraid to admit that he is a "collaborator" with Israel. On the contrary, the 63-year-old father of 12 even boasts of the fact that he has been collaborating with Israel since 1967.

"I've saved the lives of many innocent people," Owaidah said in an interview at his home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras el-Amud. "If saving the lives of innocent civilians means that I'm a traitor, so be it."

I kept waiting for a catch. But there isn't one. I guess the most startling part of the article is that this man is still alive. It hasn't been easy.

Oweidah, who has two wives and 46 grandchildren, has also been the target of several attempts on his life. Since the establishment of the PA in 1994, he has refrained from entering the West Bank.

"I only move around in safe areas and never leave the borders of Jerusalem," he said. "I'm wanted by the Palestinian Authority and I know that they won't waste an opportunity to kill me."

I know that some people are going to read this and immediately try to draw some sort of parallel between self-hating Jewish traitors like Adam Shapiro and collaborators like Yunis Owaidah. But it takes a mighty leap to claim that supporters of terrorist thugs have ever saved innocent lives. To the contrary. Two of Mr. Owaidah's major contributions were to the prevention of an assassination attempt on Henry Kissinger at the King David Hotel and a rocket attack on the Western Wall back in the early 70s.

Owaidah explained that he decided to work with Israel "because of the injustice we saw when we were under Jordanian rule before the 1967 war."

"When the Jews came to Jerusalem, I saw how they were treating the people in a humane way," he said. "By comparison, we had been oppressed by the Jordanians when they were here. Look how the Jews have built a modern and democratic state, and look where the Arabs still are."

Thank you, sir. May you live long and prosper.

The infamous "right wing attack machine" a/k/a "partisan political operatives" a/k/a "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas" just have too much great stuff out there to read to leave me time to post anything of my own. I know, sad excuse. But we've also been having a string of unnaturally pleasant, sunny days, and it's the end of September. So I'm, like, not spending them sitting in front of a screen.

Anyway, Meryl is designing some really great custom made greeting cards. Go buy some, and send your friends. Beats the hell out of Hallmark.

On a less jovial note, I see that the ZOA is unhappy with the President's U.N. speech of yesterday. Me too.

NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is deeply disappointed that President Bush erroneously alleged, in his speech at the United Nations on Sept. 21, 2004, that Israel is guilty of “the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people.”

Webster’s Dictionary defines “humiliate” as: “To reduce to a lower position in one’s eyes, or in the eyes of others.” The ZOA points out that Israeli anti-terror security measures such as checking travelers for bombs at security checkpoints does not “reduce them to a lower position” any more than does U.S. airline security personnel checking airplane passengers for bombs before they board a plane.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “People who want to pass through security checkpoints, whether at Dulles Airport or in Judea and Samaria, should be checked for bombs. That’s not ‘humiliating’. It’s a reasonable and ordinary part of our post-9/11 world. Anything less would risk the lives of innocent people, whether in Israel or America.”

Well put. And that wasn't the only disappointing thing about the speech. The whole thing was, how do you say, limp. But not too bad as a stump speech, designed to win votes and avoid pissing people off, which I guess it what it really was. Feh!

As for the suicide bombing in Jerusalem today, what can I say? Cut through the crap and build the fence. For now.

Or is he?

Jeff Goldstein and Allahpundit have been pooling their resources on this, and they've connected some interesting dots. It is hard to believe that the buck stops here.

Update: The MSM seems to have decided to circle the wagons today. For now. CNN and Fox, anyway, are parading a string of talking heads with mostly the same message: Oh, well, been there, done that, we all make mistakes, deprecating shake of the head, ironic chuckle, we're only human, anecdotes about Dan Rather's legendary adherence to the highest principles of journalism, just a slip, they said they're sorry, nothing more to see here, it's all over, go home folks.

Who do they think they're kidding?

CBS:

We fully stand behind the authenticity of these documents.

We're launching an investigation.

We're not launching an investigation.

The documents are accurate even if not authentic.

We stand behind the documents.

Well, maybe we don't.

We can't positively authenticate the documents.

We're launching an investigation.

Do we need any more evidence that the Kerry campaign is behind the whole thing?

(Just kidding)

I'm not even going to make to remotest attempt to keep up with the faster-than-light updates of the Rathergate scandal at Instapundit, Little Green Footballs and Allahpundit (just to name a few - like any of them need a link from me). But I do have some thoughts. (Thoughts are, indeed, things one tends to have as one sits in shul for three straight days in a row -- a rare occurance, fortunately -- ooops, did I say that? -- anyway . . .)

I just came across this, from Time.com's preview of its September 27th edition cover story, in which, for some inexplicable reason, it seems that Time has elected to join CBS's lemming-like march to the sea. Fine with me.

A lot of people (and I'm too lazy to link any of them at the moment) are bemoaning the fact that the media is focusing on such ancient trivia as John Kerry's Purple Hearts and President Bush's National Guard record rather than the pivotal issues and concerns of today. I would agree, up to a point.

But here's where I split off. Presidential campaigns, in this day and age, consist largely of subterfuge and misdirection. Like it or not, that's the politics of 2004. And it will only get worse, I fear. Personally, though, I hope that, as the sun sets on Election Day, we're still discussing Kerry's medals and Bush's TANG physical and Dan Rather's retirement options. And I hope the Democrats and Republicans are still throwing wild accusations at each other. Not because I find any value in that behavior but simply because if we're still focusing on that kind of BS on November 2nd, it will mean that the terrorists didn't get an attack off, that our attention wasn't riveted and our priorities straightened out for us the way they were on 9/11.

It's a pity that it would take a successful terrorist strike on this country to pull our attention out of the proverbial gutter, but I'll take politics-as-usual over post-terror-syndrome any day.

I actually have more thoughts, but it's been a long day. Later, maybe.

A number of bloggers have been linking to this super series of journal entries from Jay Nordlinger about his recent trip to Israel. There's just too much meaty stuff to quote, so please try to find the time to read the whole thing.

I was particularly struck, though, by this telling anecdote from the first installment, which departs from the subject of Israel itself momentarily to dwell on a different problem:

Meet one more person, before signing off for today — Raphael Israeli, a professor at Hebrew U. He is a specialist on the Arab world, and on the Chinese — a broadly educated man, holding various degrees, speaking various languages. Born in Fez, he came to Israel at 14.

He is whimsical on the subject of expertise. He knew a once-famous Japanologist at Berkeley. This fellow was scheduled to give a lecture on Dec. 8, 1941, titled "Why Japan Won't Make War Against the U.S." (or something like that). He did not show up that Monday morning. Asking why, his audience was told, "He has joined the State Department as an adviser."

And then, back on topic, this from the end of the last segment:

Finally, I want to return to Metullah. At the dinner, I met a friendly couple — the parents of our host, the apple grower. (In fact, the father is an apple grower too — it is a family business.) The father doesn't speak much English, but his wife told me about his family. He was born in Germany. His mother had four children. All of her children — all four — were taken from her and murdered. Her husband, too, was taken from her and murdered. Her mother and father were murdered. Her grandmother was murdered before her very eyes.

She herself survived a camp.

Let me run through the tally again: all four children; husband; mother and father; grandmother (before her eyes).

How do you go on from that? How can you possibly bear to live? Think of that, next time you consider yourself unlucky — think of that woman, and her four children, and her husband, and her parents, and her grandmother. And then think that she was not all that extraordinary.

Anyway, this woman married someone. She was about 40. She met a man who wanted to marry her, and they did. They had three sons — one born in Germany, the next two in Israel. All of them married. They had two children each. So that woman had six grandchildren. And she lived to a relatively advanced age.

This is how I think of Israel: a determination to live, in spite of the worst. A refusal to surrender to death. A refusal to succumb to evil. A decision to live. To keep living. To choose life, not death. To go on.

[This blogger can think of nothing to add to that]

So in a little less than an hour, another year will be over and done. Of all the prayers that we recite during the upcoming holidays, perhaps the most powerful and timely is the U'netaneh Tokef, which reminds us of the awesome decisions that are made on high during the High Holy Days:

On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But repentance, prayer and charity remove the evil of the Decree.

May we all be inscribed for a peaceful, prosperous and healthy New Year.

Shana tova.

Once upon a time, there was a roadmap. And the roadmap said, among other things,

In Phase I, the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below; such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel. Palestinians and Israelis resume security cooperation based on the Tenet work plan to end violence, terrorism, and incitement through restructured and effective Palestinian security services. Palestinians undertake comprehensive political reform in preparation for statehood, including drafting a Palestinian constitution, and free, fair and open elections upon the basis of those measures. Israel takes all necessary steps to help normalize Palestinian life. Israel withdraws from Palestinian areas occupied from September 28, 2000 and the two sides restore the status quo that existed at that time, as security performance and cooperation progress. Israel also freezes all settlement activity, consistent with the Mitchell report.

So thus far, the palestinians have clearly been making an effort to comply with their obligations as laid out in this roadmap, of course. Except for the unconditional cessation of violence, the resumption of security cooperation, the termination of terrorism and incitement, the restructuring of their security services and the comprehensive political reform. Note that the "supportive measures" required of Israel are supposed to "accompany" the cessation of violence, terror and incitement. Not "precede" them, not occur in a vacuum. "Accompany" them. But what's there to accompany?

Today, Palestinian Media Watch links to two notable examples of palestinian attempts to curb terror and incitement. Neither of them say anything new. But this one, from the official PA TV station broadcast Friday afternoon, should be instructive for those who continue to insist that "it's not about the Jews."

"The Prophet said: the Resurrection will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims kill them. The Muslims will kill the Jews, rejoice [in it], rejoice in Allahs Victory. The Muslims will kill the Jews, and he will hide. . .

The Prophet said: the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!. Why is there this malice? Because there are none who love the Jews on the face of the earth: not man, not rock, and not tree everything hates them. They destroy everything they destroy the trees and destroy the houses. Everything wants vengeance on the Jews, on these pigs on the face of the earth, and the day of our victory, Allah willing, will come."

Nope. No antisemitism here. Certainly no incitement of terror and murder. None whatsoever.

I see Ideofact blogged the responses to 9/11 in his original home town of Lancaster, PA (which is, relatively speaking, almost my back yard) as well as his own reaction, living almost in the Pentagon's back yard.

And this, on the character of Americans.

Just when I'm starting to think "enough, already," I'm reminded again of why (and how) we need to keep being reminded.

Due to illness in his family, Chris Muir is taking a break.

We'll miss you, and all the Day by Day characters, too, Chris. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

You know, she isn't an American. I don't remember if she's ever even been over to this side of the pond. But still, Imshin so captures the essence of 9/11 in this post.

That's one of the things I remember about 9/11 too. Getting stuck for hours in the most horrendous city-wide traffic jam because people, everyone everywhere, left work in the middle of the day so they could go home and just hug their kids, be with their families, mourn together, rejoice that they had been spared.

(BTW, if you hadn't already figured it out, last year's 9/11 post isn't really blank. You just have to work at it a little.)

Interesting story.

Now that it's over, the details can be told. Netayah and Techiyah Fruman were married yesterday on the Temple Mount - and later in the evening held a "do-over" wedding ceremony with hundreds of guests in Jerusalem. A participant in both ceremonies told Arutz-7 this morning what happened . . .

Those details are here. But what's especially fascinating about this story is that Netayah Fruman is the son of Rabbi Menachem Fruman (of the West Bank "settlement" of Tekoah) who was present at both ceremonies and apparently officiated at the later one. Rabbi Fruman, you may recall, is, well, the guy on the right.

That photo was taken in March. There's a similar one here, from last December. So this Rabbi Fruman (or Froman) is quite a character.

Meanwhile, reaction on the part of the Muslim religious guardians who are currently running the show on the Temple Mount was more or less predictable.

Moslem Waqf officials said that there was no wedding on the Temple Mount yesterday, but that if there was, "this will storm the entire world, and the Jewish extremist government will bear the responsibility for this grave act, if it happened."

Oh, and the title of this post, in case you're wondering, is the beginning of a beautiful song, taken from Jeremiah 33:10-11, which the wedding party sang as they came down from Har HaBayit:

Od yishama be’harey Yehuda
uv’chutzot Yerushala’yim.

Kol sason vekol simcha,
kol chatan vekol kala
kol mitzhahlot chataniym m'chuppatahm

Again there shall be heard in this place..
In the cities of Judah,
and in the streets of Jerusalem...

The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride,
the jubilant voice of bridegrooms from the canopies

To which I would add, tonight, that also again is there heard in this place, in the neighborhoods of Manhattan and in the streets of New York, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness... And may it never be silenced again.

Shabbat Shalom.

Google has up-to-the-minute "news" and "group" searches. Isn't it about time that the parent company of blogger.com had a real time "blog" search?

As of 6:00 p.m. yesterday, a Google news search for "killian forged bush" turned up only four (that's "4" with a closed top and no foot) results. Now there are, well, quite a few more. But I'll bet a blog search as of yesterday afternoon would have shown a few hundred hits, on both sides of the debate, many of them with information hours ahead of the "news" items. Today, a few thousand?

Get with it, Google. Blogs rule.

Having somehow posted the previous post in duplicate, it now seems that my attempts to correct the matter and update that post have resulted in duplicate and triplicate pings to some of the sites linked. So I think I'll give this up for tonight. Apologies.

It all started here (#47). Picked up steam here. Hit its stride here and here (expect delays -- Charles is getting an awful lot of traffic today) and took on substantial weight here.

This will be interesting.

Well, not exactly. But Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has dismissed two lawsuits intended to require the State Department to enter the country of birth on passports of United States citizens born in Jerusalem, Israel. I have a number of nephews and nieces who fit that description, so this is a matter of some personal interest.

This battle is old news. It ought to be a no-brainer, but just to be sure, Congress spelled it out in Section 214(d) of the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which President Bush signed into law on September 30, 2002.

RECORD OF PLACE OF BIRTH AS ISRAEL FOR PASSPORT PURPOSES.— For purposes of the registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel.

But President Bush signed it with a strong and lengthy caveat.

Section 214, concerning Jerusalem, impermissibly interferes with the President's constitutional authority to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs and to supervise the unitary executive branch. Moreover, the purported direction in section 214 would, if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, impermissibly interfere with the President's constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the Nation in international affairs, and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states. U.S. policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed.

Campaign promises be damned.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Judge Kessler invoked the separation of powers (along with various matters of standing) in dismissing the cases. The court lacked jurisdiction over the the cases, she held, as the issue in question was a political matter and therefore the responsibility of the executive branch.

Maybe. But where, as here, there's a clear tug-of-war between the executive and legislative branches, is it not the role of the judicial branch to determine who prevails? And if the parents of a child don't have standing to demand that the sovereign country of their child's birth be recognized on the child's passport, who does? This is way out of my area of expertise, so if anyone has some to offer, please do.

Oh, man! Someone forwarded this link to me this morning. It's one of the strangest Kerry defense pieces I've seen yet. To get just how strange it is, you need to read the whole thing, because there's a Saudi Arabian twist that adds an extra touch of irony. But I'm only going to waste so much space on this garbage here.

This is the GOP smear machine logic of John Kerry's patriotic service to America. If John Kerry had just not shown up and been heroic, well, there would be no issue. Just look at George Bush.

You see, the GOP doesn't mind sending Americans to war; they just don't want to hear about it afterwards: especially if you survive, and become a force for truth and peace.

You really have to wonder. I'm starting to think that John Edwards is right about this two Americas thing. Parallel Americas in parallel realities is more like it.

Just around the corner, we have democracy in action:

Neo-Nazis Plan Rally on Yom Kippur

While many Jews sit in synagogue on Saturday, Sept. 25, deep in introspection and prayer during Yom Kippur, the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement will be rallying in Valley Forge National Historical Park.

Announcing the 2 p.m. rally on its Web site (www.nsm88.com), the group said that it was organizing against illegal nonwhite immigrants, and that “most, if not all, white Americans want our troops home from Israeli-led Zionist wars over oil, greed and lies.”

What I especially love about that quote is that if you take the word "white" out of it, it could just as easily have come from a press release of International A.N.S.W.E.R.

The Workers' World Party and "America's Nazi Party" -- perfect together!

Khaled Abu Toameh wrote last week about this great tragedy for the palestinian people.

There was deep disappointment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Monday after Palestinian singer Amar Hassan lost in a contest for the Arab world’s best amateur singer.

Many Palestinians had been glued to their TV screens late Sunday night, eagerly awaiting the results of the “Superstar” contest on Lebanon’s Future TV.

For them, Hassan’s success was a matter of national pride and a barometer of Arab support for the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian Authority had endorsed him as an important symbol of the struggle against Israel, and a source of pride for Palestinian youth and art.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who phoned Hassan to express his support for him, was also said to be disappointed.

Awwww. Well, the Libyan guy won. A fan from Jerusalem called it "a black day for Palestinian art." He lost a whole night's sleep over it.

Some folks pegged Hassan to win because they thought he had talent. But that doesn't seem to have been the prevailing sentiment.

Many Palestinians said they expected Hassan to win the title because Arab viewers would sympathize with him simply because he’s a Palestinian from the West Bank.

“The Arab world has once again demonstrated that it does not care about the Palestinians,” commented 25-year-old Ashraf Abu Madi, a university student from Bethlehem. “Amar’s victory would have boosted Palestinian morale in the face of Israel.”

Oh well.

Meryl links (along with others, I now see) to this post at Logic & Sanity, where Stan is blogging the real news about the terror and tragedy in Russia from the Russian media. This story is too horrible on so many levels, not least of which is the way the American media has been covering it.

A very bad way to end the week.

Shabbat Shalom.

Chairman Arafat is not honoring his promise to implement reforms in the Palestinian Authority. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked.

The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) decided Wednesday to suspend all sessions from September 07 to October 07 in a step interpreted as a form of pressure to accelerate the approval of a reform package, which President Yaser Arafat publicly adopted on August 18.

Two weeks ago, the PLC rejected by one vote a similar suspension call after Arafat told them he planned to approve the laws and support the reforms the Council had called for.

But he hasn't, of course. They're still waiting for his signature, which he now claims isn't necessary. His speech, he says, was sufficient. So the PLC has officially (though not practically) suspended itself in protest.

The suspension was also a protest against the cabinet of Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei, he added.

“It is also a protest against the Palestinian cabinet that up to date has not implemented the decisions and the bills that were approved by the Legislative Council,” said Fattouh.

He did not rule out that the PLC might resort to other steps after October 7 to press on with its demands.

“The PLC will discuss the situation after the expiry of the suspension period and … will take the appropriate action,” he added.

"Appropriate action." Now that sounds ominous.

Yes, the strike is over.

The Palestinian security prisoner hunger strike launched 18 days ago in protest of prison conditions came to a quiet end Thursday after the last of the inmates broke the strike and sat down for their first meal.

Prisons Service officials rejected Palestinian claims that they had negotiated the end of the strike, stating, "The strike ended without us giving in to any of their demands."