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By Daniel Greenfield, Canada Free Press, March 10, 2010
“I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem” —Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, March 09, 2010
For nearly twenty years the great sham of the Middle East Peace Process has dragged on. And this despicable scam has consisted of only one policy, only one platform and only one plan. Pressuring Israel for more concessions.
Year in and year out, new peace conferences were declared and new plans for peace were hammered out. All of them had one thing in common, they carved up Israel for a non-existent peace. When Arafat and his gang of terrorists made a concession, it was to demand 5 percent less of Israel in the current phase of negotiations. When Israel made a concession, it was to turn over another 10 percent of land to its worst enemies in this phase of negotiations… in exchange for them putting off their demands for that 5 percent into the next phase of the negotiations. And this sick charade in which Israel gave and the terrorists took was the peace process.
While this great surrender process was going on, outside the bombs went on exploding, tearing apart buses, restaurants, malls and families—the politicians and diplomats in charge excused the terrorists and damned Israel if it so much as lifted a finger to defend itself, or erected a single checkpoint to catch at least one of the terrorists on the way to kill a dozen people in Jerusalem. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Judaism, Opinion, Recent Posts on March 11, 2010 - כ"ה אדר תש"ע at 10:51 am
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By Ted Belman, Israpundit, March 10, 2010
President Obama intends to impose a solution on Israel.
During the lead up to his election victory, he surrounded himself with a host of vehemently anti-Israel advisors including Lee Hamilton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Gen Jones, many of whom advocated imposing a solution on Israel..
He also made common cause with Jewish leftists represented by J Street and Israel Policy Forum who were urging him to increase the pressure on Israel and if that didn’t work, to impose a solution on Israel.
So it was no surprise that he started his term of office by attacking Israel, America’s best and most steadfast ally, declaring that all settlements were illegal and demanding a complete settlement construction freeze east of the greenline including in Jerusalem. He went so far as to repudiate the US commitment set out in the Bush letter ’04 to Sharon, declaring there was no agreement. Elliot Abrams and others involved in the negotiations which led to the letter, testified otherwise.
This letter also affirmed that “as part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.” Pres Bush had always supported a negotiated settlement and this letter did likewise. Noticeably absent was any reference to the Saudi Plan. The letter also contained a commitment, that “the United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan”.
By repudiating this letter as a U.S. commitment, Pres Obama opened the way for a settlement to be imposed according to the Saudi Plan rather than Res 242.
He set a goal of achieving an agreement in two years. One year is up, what has he accomplished? At first blush, it would appear, not much. But the reality is otherwise. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on March 10, 2010 - כ"ד אדר תש"ע at 9:56 am
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by Gil Zohar, Jewish Journal, March 9, 2010
After four years of construction, the Jewish Quarter’s landmark Hurva Synagogue – built by Polish Jews in 1701, destroyed by Arab creditors two decades later, rebuilt in 1864 by followers of the Vilna Gaon, and dynamited in 1948 by Jordan’s Arab Legion – is being re-dedicated this Sunday and Monday (March 15-16, 2010). All the rest is commentary.
During a media tour this week, a beaming Nissim Arazi, who since 2003 has served as the CEO of the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem Ltd. (the JQDC), showed off the venerable if controversial NIS 43 million project which has been his dream for nearly a decade.
Arazi follows a distinguished list of public servants, starting in 1969 with then Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who have served as either chairman or director of the government agency charged with rebuilding the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. That historic job had largely been completed when Arazi stepped onto the scene. But the new CEO resisted calls for the JQDC to be disbanded as redundant, instead pressing ahead with the Hurva project and protecting his fiefdom. (In Jerusalem, Nov. 2, 2007)
As the Hurva’s construction crane was being taken down, Arazi launched into the synagogue’s convoluted story, hailing the many figures responsible for the rebuilding. In 1999, he explained, a public committee was formed by then Minister of Housing, Rabbi Yitzhak Levi and headed by Rabbi Simha Hacohen Kook with the intention of recreating the building whose famous dome once dominated the skyline of the Jewish Quarter. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Judaism, Middle East, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts on March 9, 2010 - כ"ג אדר תש"ע at 10:57 am
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Fodor, Nagel, and Plantinga don’t need to turn themselves into biochemists, but some awareness of the issues and advances would not be entirely misplaced.
By Michael Ruse, Chronicle Review, March 7, 2010
Last year was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The anniversary was marked by conferences the world over. I will not tell you how many I attended; ecologically sensitive readers of The Chronicle might start whining about carbon footprints and that sort of thing. Let me just say that I found myself going no fewer than three times through the Quad City International Airport, in Moline, Ill. Moline!
I mention this as background to the publication of a new book by Jerry A. Fodor, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona. The title of the book, What Darwin Got Wrong (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), tells you their opinion of the old English naturalist and of his theory of evolution through natural selection. If Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini were an isolated case, one could dismiss their book with a grimace (if you were a biologist), or welcome them with a cheer (if you were a creationist). But in the philosophical community, there is an increasingly vocal cadre of eminent philosophers harboring doubts about Darwin. To understand their critique, we must first put the clock back a year, to the beginning of the celebrations.
The anniversary conferences usually had a smattering of professional Darwin types like me—I am a historian and philosopher of science specializing in evolutionary theory—but the bulk of the presenters and attendees were evolutionary biologists. For two reasons, the atmosphere was universally positive. First, scientists deeply respect Darwin and his achievements. These people are evolutionists—they take the past seriously. Second, there was not a person at these conferences who was not excited about the science today. Evolutionary biology is on a roll, and that was a cause for celebration—and frenetic presentations that jammed in as much new science as possible. Moreover, to a person, the scientists saw that the first point led smoothly into the second. Everyone appreciates the tools of Darwinism, above all the mechanism of natural selection. But great science doesn’t stand still. It picks up and carries ideas and findings way beyond the wildest hopes of its founders. Evolutionary biology today is deeply Darwinian, but it has outpaced the Origin in ways that its author could never have imagined. To use a hackneyed phrase, Darwin gave biology a paradigm, and biologists have been expanding it ever since.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Opinion, Recent Posts, Science on March 8, 2010 - כ"ב אדר תש"ע at 3:15 pm
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If Great Britain could have stopped the London subway attack by misusing passports, would M6 have allowed the terrorism to go forward in the name of preserving passport integrity? Of course not. The same is true of Spain with regard to the Madrid bombing and to every other country in the world that seeks to prevent terrorism. Well, if the Mossad did in fact kill al-Mabhouh, they too did it to prevent the killing of their innocent civilians.
by Alan M. Dershowitz, Aish.com, March 7, 2010
The complaints leveled against Israel by European countries and Australia, regarding the alleged misuse of passports by the Mossad in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, ring hollow and smack of blatant hypocrisy. Whoever did kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh — whether it was the Israeli Mossad or someone else — clearly did have their agents use stolen or forged passports. Big deal.
Every good intelligence agency uses stolen and forged passports. The British have been especially adept at this means of spycraft. No country that uses fake passports in their intelligence operations has the moral authority to complain about the alleged misuse of passports in this case. The only ones that have a legitimate grievance are those individuals whose passports may have been misused without their knowledge.
I guess it’s the job of foreign ministries to complain publicly when other nations do what they themselves do secretly. Hypocrisy is, after all, the homage that vice pays to virtue. I’m reminded of the famous scene in Casablanca, when officer Renault declares, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A croupier then approaches Renault, and hands him a roll of currency: “Your winnings, sir.”
The hypocrisy in this case seems even more blatant than usual. Is it because Israel is the alleged offender, and the world has gotten accustomed to singling out Israel for double standard condemnation?
Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Bali, which killed a large number of Australian tourists, I had the opportunity to meet with the Australian Prime Minister. I was writing a book at the time on preemption, and I asked him whether he would have authorized a preemptive attack on the terrorist who killed Australian citizens, if such an attack would have saved their lives. His response was that Australia would have done anything it could, to prevent these terrorist attacks. Anything, I guess, except misusing passports? Is there anybody who believes that Australia would not have used forged or stolen passports to prevent the Bali massacres?
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on March 7, 2010 - כ"א אדר תש"ע at 9:29 pm
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Iraq’s second parliamentary election since the 2003 invasion has been hit by multiple attacks, with at least 35 people being killed.
Two buildings were destroyed in Baghdad and dozens of mortars were fired across the capital and elsewhere.
Despite the violence, there were long queues of voters at polling stations in a number of cities.
Polls closed at 1700 (1400 GMT) but people already in line were allowed to cast their votes.
An immense security operation was mounted, involving more than 500,000 Iraqi security personnel.
The border with Iran was closed, thousands of troops were deployed, and vehicles were banned from roads.
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki had called on voters to turn out in large numbers, saying that participation would boost democracy.
“ I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home ”
Baghdad voter
In Washington US President Barack Obama issued a statement after polls had closed, saying Iraqis had chosen "to shape their future through the political process".
"We mourn the tragic loss of life today, and honour the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people who once again defied threats to advance their democracy," he said.
Multiple attacks
There were mortar, grenade and bomb attacks in Baghdad and in other cities, including Mosul, Falluja, Baquba and Samarra.
But the capital was hardest hit, with dozens of mortar shells falling in several neighbourhoods. Twenty-five people were killed in one explosion that destroyed a residential building in the north of the city.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East, News Articles, Recent Posts on March 7, 2010 - כ"א אדר תש"ע at 2:42 pm
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The nation must defend its historical ties to the land against those who deny them.
The increasingly global campaign to delegitimize Israel has been bolstered significantly by the reticence of past Israeli governments and other Jewish opinion leaders to assert the great Jewish legacy in this land.
By Aron U. Raskas
March 5, 2010
Jerusalem
JERUSALEM–The Israeli government adds two culturally rich, millennium-old historic sites to a list of national treasures, and riots break out, followed by international condemnation. Yet, it is precisely this cynical, albeit predictable, response that demonstrates why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to add the Tomb of Rachel and the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs to Israel’s National Heritage Sites.
There is no nation with firmer roots in a land than the Jewish people in the greater land of Israel. Yet, that great heritage has been under assault by Arab protagonists and their pusillanimous patrons for the longest time, and this has intensified in recent years.
As the Arab people began to recognize their inability to defeat the Jewish people on the battlefield, they began to cleverly craft a strategy of burying Israel’s legacy in the arena of world opinion. This strategy seeks to eradicate the Jewish connection to the land and erode the support for Israel’s legitimacy and very existence. Indeed, the increasingly global campaign to delegitimize Israel has been bolstered significantly by the reticence of past Israeli governments and other Jewish opinion leaders to assert the great Jewish legacy in this land.
The arrogation to itself of the "Palestinian" mantle was the first formidable success for the Arab population that shared with the Jewish people the land that came to be known as Palestine. Likewise, 50 years ago, there was nary a reference to a "West Bank" until that term was introduced by Palestinian Arab propagandists to eliminate further references to the time-honored titles of Judea and Samaria, as the land had been routinely referred to in maps, travel guides, newspapers and even U.N. resolutions.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on March 5, 2010 - י"ט אדר תש"ע at 9:24 am
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Adar 18, 5770, 04 March 10
by Gil Ronen, Arutz Sheva
(Israelnationalnews.com) The Palestinian Authority (PA) is continuing to enforce a boycott of goods made in the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria. The PA-based WAFA news agency reported that PA customs agents confiscated 20 tons of nylon sheeting intended for wrapping food, and destroyed it.
"We destroyed 20 tons of nylon that were seized in a warehouse in Nablus [Shechem], and are manufactured in the settlement of Naaran near Jericho,” the chief customs official in the Shechem area said. Naaran is a kibbutz, or cooperative community, in the Jordan Valley.
The government of the PA under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad recently launched a high-profile boycott of goods made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. PA-government inspectors have reportedly begun combing PA marketplaces in search of goods made in the Jewish communities.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on March 5, 2010 - י"ט אדר תש"ע at 8:54 am
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By Shaul Rosenfeld, YNet News, March 4, 2010
Part 1 of article
The events of “Israel Apartheid Week” in the world opened this year with “freedom fighter” Leila Khaled’s emotional plea to “continue the armed struggle against Israel.” Khaled, a certified airplane hijacker and a well-known favorite of the radical Left in Western European delivered her words of “reconciliation, peace, and brotherly love” in a videotape shown to participants of a Mideast studies convention held at University of London last weekend.
It is possible that on normal days, with mentally healthy academics and intellectuals who do not rush to worship Satan, such plea would have prompted a major outrage. Yet these are grim days; an era where all the horrors of the world have apparently passed, with the exception of Israel’s acts of injustice and crimes, the oppression of its Arabs, and its many conquests.
Hence, even polls indicating that more than one third of Britain’s Muslim students justify murder on behalf of their religion cannot overcome the “blood pact” being formed between the forces of progress from the East and West.
And so we don’t get confused, heaven forbid, neither Kedumim nor Ariel or Beit El are the main concern of participants. According to the “program” of the week’s events, the participants will devote most of their attention to the “intolerable combination” of a Jewish state, the equality Arab Israelis are being deprived of, the return of all refugees to their homes, and of course the Operation Cast Lead, which as we know befell Gaza residents who committed no crime. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on March 4, 2010 - י"ח אדר תש"ע at 9:02 pm
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Palestinian protests against the restoration of Jewish heritage sites are part of a campaign of delegitimisation against Israel
By Jeremy Sharon, Guardian UK, March 3, 2010
Palestinian men walk past the Al-Ibrahimi mosque, which Jews call the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site holy to both faiths, in the West Bank town of Hebron on 24 February 2010. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP
Speeches and comments made by Binyamin Netanyahu of late have been rather heavy on their biblical and historical references. In his speech at Bar-Ilan University last June, he declared: “The connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel has lasted for more than 3,500 years … This is the land of our forefathers.” And in an interview with talkshow host Charlie Rose in September, he mentioned a signet ring found by the western wall in Jerusalem, dating back 2,700 years and bearing the name “Netanyahu Ben-Yoash” inscribed on it in ancient Hebrew.
The context of these comments and the motivation for Netanyahu’s recent announcement of a plan for the refurbishment of national heritage sites are one and the same: Israelis view those elements that seek to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the land as part of larger strategy aimed at delegitimising the state of Israel. Senior politicians and Israeli thinktanks have identified this phenomenon as a serious threat to the country, and the heritage restoration project is an example of the Israeli reaction to this challenge.
Unfortunately, the inclusion in the restoration plan of two of the most sacred Jewish sites, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb, has sparked riots in the West Bank and Jerusalem over the past few days and led supposedly moderate Palestinian leaders to burst forth with disturbingly inflammatory rhetoric. Mahmoud Abbas even raised the spectre of “religious war” in light of the inclusion of these two sites. The international community weighed in too, with the US State Department and the UN secretary general, both reprimanding Israel for the decision.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on March 4, 2010 - י"ח אדר תש"ע at 2:07 pm
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