Name:     Michael L. S.   [E-Mail]
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      Website:  Middle East Resource Center


 

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Shalom l'kulam!

No news worth talking about so I've two pictures some of you may find of remote interest.




My aliyah a couple of weeks ago: rav Hoffberg is shown reading from sefer haTorah, and next to him is a !@$#&* who doesn't even know how to put on a talit properly

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Dirty old perv Jack Straw checking out the "personality" of Croatia's Secretary of State



Later!

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The King of Israel leaves hospital this morning

Well, B"H, our dear Arik appears to have convalesced completely following the mild stroke that rendered him hospitalized Sunday. See the video of the good Doctor leaving hospital today.

Those of you who know me are well aware of the prodigious level of admiration, respect and love I have for Dr. Sharon, and will have no trouble understanding why this has been something of a roller-coaster ride for me and why I'm beside myself with joy and relief to know that Arik is well again. On a more objective level, the whole of Israel should rejoice because in our rosh hamemshalah we have the greatest leader of modern time--the only one capable to achieve a settlement and bring peace. I think we are all acutely aware of the fact that no-one on the Israeli political scene is fit to tie his shoelaces, let alone fill his shoes. If Arik were to go, who would replace him? Fortunately, we do not have to ask that question because, in immortal Arik's own words--the first statement uttered Sunday: "We're moving forward."

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And seeing as we're on pretty topics today, get a load of this:


Druze Beauty: Ms Lada Abu-Salach
Read more about the lady. I want to marry this woman.

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Late afternoon Saturday Arik Sharon was reported hospitalized with an apparent minor stroke. That your regular assortment of Jewish extremist kooks would exult at the news came as no surprise, but one was rather bemused that the Aza Palestinians took to celebrating the tragedy, too.

Now, let's recapitulate, shall we: Arik ended in its entirety the 38 year long occupation of Aza, and gave the Palestinians total control over their lives within that territorial area (so, altogether in accordance with their wishes). The Palestinians "thanked" him by launching an incessant and indiscriminate barrage of Qasams at southern Israel. Dr. Sharon responded in a very temperate manner (even I thought we should've retaliated harder!!). And now they revel in the good Doctor's ailment!!? Not only that but they call for his demise fully realizing that that would in all likelihood mean mad Netanyahu succeeding Arik as rosh memshalah. And with crazy Bibi in the hot seat, they'd only need to fire one more rocket at Israel for Aza to be reoccupied--even if only temporarily. What gives? Are the Palestinians really that fucking stupid or are they truly so bored without Israeli occupation that they desperately want Tzaha"l back?? These people are honestly mind-boggling.

In any event, the Bulldozer's condition seems to be back to normal and I hope I'll be able to write here that he's convalesced completely come the morrow.

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Ante Gotovina has been arrested!!

I can hardly believe it. I wrote about this alleged criminal roughly a year ago. Many parties have been working very hard ever since he became a fugitive in 2001 to secure his arrest. My information is that there is much more to this capture than has been published but I am proud to say that an agency of which I am a close associate played a pivotal role in seizing him.

So after a totally crappy day yesterday (notwithstanding my "tryst" with the gerah LOL), good news today.

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...that I had a romantic dilemma to ruminate on? Well, I don't any more: she made sure of it. Shalom, bye. *shrug*

Nor are things any more propitious on the national level: first we had the homicide bombing in Netanya in which five people(HY"D) were brutally massacred. And just when one was beginning to think that the international community, embodied for better or worse by the UN, had decided to adopt a more balanced approach toward the Middle Eastern problem, the UNSC fails to condemn terror in Netanya. Chairman Abas squeezed out a halfhearted condemnation but because the massacre "harms Palestinian interests", not because innocent lives were so callously taken. And just to prove that those of us who've been naive enough to have thought that the leadership of Chairman Abas and then haHitnatqut would usher in a new era are terribly mistaken, the Palestinian soccer association decides to punish players who played in a peace match. Are ALL Palestinians total jerks or only the ones making the news? I am slowly beginning to believe those rabid rightists screaming ad nauseam that we have no peace partner on the other side. Sad... Well, another *shrug*

On a completely different notion, at lunch today I was teaching a giyoret birkat hamazon and found it a very fulfilling experience. I never do birkat hamazon unless I really have to, so it means I do it practically never. But teaching it today brought back all those wonderful melodies and sense of closeness...even if with a gerah. I might even do it more often myself... - the brakhah, that is

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"The New Taliban"... Well, the old Taliban are still very much around, despite the US' halfassed professed attempts to "introduce" democracy in Afghanistan. Afghanistan--outside of Qabul but not even there anymore--is even more unsafe and unstable now than before the righteous American intervention there four years ago. So much for the seriousness and dedication of the "war on terror."

But anyway, we're talking about the Talibs' neighbors across the western border: Iran. For those somehow not in the know, Iran (headed by "president" Ahmadinejad) in recent times made several pompous statements and ill-advised moves. A few weeks ago, Ahmadinejad averred that Israel should be "wiped off the map." The jerkoff had evidently forgotten that we were the ones with the capability of wiping entities off maps, not he or his pathetic fiefdom.

As an aside, his vomit sparked waves of protests across Europe, most notably in Italy. That was quite a prominent event because to get tens of thousands of people in a European city out on the streets in support of haAretz in 2005 is a huge achievement and of tremendous significance. Grazie ancor'una volta, amici.

But this came against the backdrop of Iran's accelerated bids to acquire nuclear weapons. They've been modernizing their existing and building new nuclear power plants like nobody's business, and have been extremely furtive about this enterprise. They've been giving the finger to the IAEA for many months and getting Russian and Chinese help in furthering their nefarious endeavors. All attempts to resolve the matter diplomatically have failed. And yet, even the US--which was so quick to entangle itself in the Iraq fiasco--is pussyfooting around, threatening to refer Iran to this one and to that one and to impose sanctions and blah-blah-blah... All the while the mo-fos in Teh'ran can see clearly that they are being allowed to get away with conspiracy to mass murder and yesterday announced that they are to go ahead with the commission of TWENTY new nuclear plants, two of which will be in operation in three months' time!

Our Rosh haMateh haKlali stated this morning that he was "skeptical" about the effectivity of diplomatic pressure. Well, that's one way of putting it... The Iranian "foreign minister" though paid no attention to the niceties of diplomatic parlance and wasted no time spewing more bile in response:
"Zionist authorities are well aware that if they make a foolish mistake against Iran, Iran's harsh response will be destructive and determined" (full article).

This is simply inadmissible. Iran is not some poxy terror organization trying to gain notoriety nor is Ahmadinejad a village chieftain with little accountability or responsibility. This kind of Iran is not and cannot be a member of the international community of nations. And if an entity isolates itself from the standards and norms of its enveloping society, but insists on threatening members of that society, then it is meet that it should be put in its place in no uncertain terms. A situation in which Iran would have nuclear weapons is absolutely unacceptable. There is no drawing comparisons between Iran and the USA or--speculatively--Israel because no other possessor of nuclear armaments has ever adopted the rhetoric and nonchalance vis-a-vis the rest of the world as Iran has. No other regime is as capricious or empirically reckless as that of Iran. And hence Iran has to be dealt with, and obviously so militarily. Options range from a sonic boom above Teh'ran, to cancelling Ahmadinejad, to sabotaging or destroying Iran's nuclear operations. I understand the relevant authorities are working on it.

In the meantime, the Palestinians in Aza seem to have nothing to do since Tzaha"l left and have been launching Qassams across the border all day long. Then they'll scream blue murder when we retaliate. It's depressing how they are so successfully vindicating the claims of the most racist and despicable elements in Klal Yisrael, that the occupation is ("was", when talking about Aza!) not the problem and that they want a destruction of Israel rather than an end of the occupation. How is it possible that the world is so replete with assholes; or, at least, that they seem to be running the show??

I'll write about that love problem later this week...

(For Schwartz--and the survey said: DING! Romanian ...
...
But nothing compared to S. )

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Dr. Sharon has left behind haLiqud and formed his own party. Qadimah has been an absolute success. Seventeen MKs have already joined it (greatly exceeding the most optimistic initial prognoses) and every poll--including haLiqud's internal survey--indicates that haMelekh will literally trounce his adversaries at the election scheduled for March next. Is it surprising? I could easily say: of course it isn't. But why? Arik is a man who until a few months ago had been decried in the most vehement terms as a so-called "war criminal", "butcher" and every other odious epithet ever devised. In haAretz he was beleaguered by corruption accusations, and assailed from all quarters for every problem in the country: security, economy, societal ills... In short, he was shunned as a pariah in the world and besieged by diverse scandals at home.

Today Dr. Sharon is revered in both hagalut and haAretz. Even leaders of countries traditionally seen as hostile to us have been competing who can ingratiate themselves more closely with Ari Yisrael. And in our land the only few squeaky voices of dissention are emitted by the lunatic fringe: Meretz on the one hand and the likes of Mafdal on the other--in order words, a bunch of nobodies. So, how has this transformation been occasioned? The simple answer is haHitnatqut. Oh sure, King Arik has been reviled most vocally from the left and from the right but the majority of people, Jews and others, in Israel and elsewhere, have lauded the measure as a step in the right direction. Put simply, Dr. Sharon has realized that adapting to the ever-changing state of affairs on the ground and thinking long-term is much more important than stubbornly cleaving unto ideology in the face of legal difficulties, morals, demographics and a myriad of additional factors. He is far too wise to believe that incessantly regurgitating the obtuse mantra "there is no such thing as 'palestinians'" and "Jews lived in X 3,000 years ago" will be sufficient for resolving the conflict or even maintaining the status quo. Mofaz has launched a vituperation against him for his "alignment with several members of the Left" dismissing this as "dangerous." Why? Is it not longsighted and courageous for a leader to accept at his side all those who have something constructive to contribute to a difficult situation? Would the good Doctor be better advised to surround himself with people to whom doctrine takes precedence over pragmatism or the greater good of the people? No. And that's not just my opinion but the view of the millions of Israelis who are certain to elect Arik as next rosh memshalah. Not only was the electorate squarely behind our Melekh at the time of stablishment of Qadimah, but Arik's support has only been on the increase since he unveiled his faction's manifesto.

LATEST: Bereaved Mother Backs QADIMAH & ARIK!

And on a related notion, the writing is very indelibly on the wall: the majority of Israelis AND SETTLERS realize that further disengagements are in the offing. Normal, decent-minded people are sick to their stomachs of the settlers' murderous antics, such as their attacking a filming crew or the now endemic violence of this cancerous outgrowth of the Israeli society against Palestinian civilians, theft and vandalism of Palestinian property. Worst of all though, these individuals are a law unto themselves aptly illustrated by these two articles: Datim Attack Palestinians, Shoterim and Rabis Issue Warning to Chief-of-Staff. But the most telling vis-a-vis where our society stands at this point in time has to be this initiative: Rabi: Disengage From State. Well, let's hope they finally do and may they be careful lest the door hits their asses on the way out.

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While greatly abated in frequency and intensity, rocket attacks on southern Israel still continue from Aza. The sheer idiocy of the terrorists behind these onslaughts is stupendous. I cannot do better than to quote one commentator from Yediot Akhronot:
"Perhaps Gaza is too boring without Israelis around, and they are begging for Israel to come back? [...] Perhaps Gaza doesn't feel like home without mindless terror attacks and Israeli retaliations? [...] And, of course, pointless, stupid violence is the whole point of Islamic Jihad and the rest, isn't it? The terrorists, who don't have lives themselves, have to keep everyone else on both sides of the line miserable and full of anger so that they can be "heroes" to deluded masses who would otherwise see that these guys are simply losers -- street thugs and sociopathic cretins"

Tomorrow: an amorous dilemma...

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