New US-Israeli Crisis Looms over Jerusalem Park

Another crisis between the Netanyahu and Obama administrations looms over housing in Jerusalem, this time because of Jerusalem’s plan to wreck 22 illegally built Arab homes to make way for an archaeological park. The Jerusalem municipality proposal also calls for making legal 66 other Arab buildings built without permits.
Another similarity between Ramat Shlomo and the park project is that both of them are a long time away from final approval. "This is a preliminary planning procedure and it still gives time, more than enough time, for dialogue to continue between the municipal authorities and residents of the neighborhood in the hope an agreed solution can be found,” said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev

via israelnationalnews.com

via israelnationalnews.com

...but if the houses are illegal and Jerusalem is still willing to negotiate with a criminal party then what is the problem here? The Arabs will gain legality in 44 homes because of the park!

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Fareed Zakaria: Cushioning Our Descent into a Post-American World

Nothing surprising here -- "Post-American," and therefore willing to "live with" radical Islam as a "fact of life," Fareed Zakaria now takes up space in the Washington Post excusing Ahmadinejad (and taking the opportunity to bash John McCain in the process):

McCain reveals a startling ignorance about the Iranian regime when he argues, as in his speech, that it "spends its people's precious resources not on roads, or schools, or hospitals, or jobs that benefit all Iranians -- but on funding violent groups of foreign extremists who murder the innocent."  While Tehran does fund militant groups, one of the keys to Ahmadinejad's popularity has been his large-scale spending on social programs for the poor. 

Let's take this last sentence bit by bit. 

via bokertov.typepad.com

visit Boker Tov now for a visual analysis.... seriously. Using the word militant groups is insulting to anyone who knows someone who died because of a terrorist attack. It disgusts me that this guy is allowed on TV and considered impartial and objective for an American audience.

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Can’t Afford College? Pretend You’re Iraqi

via debbieschlussel.com

The Obama U.S. State Department is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to send at least 400 Iraqi students to college, beginning this summer. The State Department awarded grants to the Academy for Educational Development, which is funding the college education and all expenses for these Iraqis in America and 200 more Iraqis in Great Britain. The money will also go to develop something called the Iraq Higher Education Advising Network and help Iraq to eventually send 10,000 Iraqi students to study abroad, all expenses paid. And don’t be surprised if Americans are ultimately stuck with the bill for the entire 10,000.

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Obama's Mineral Management Service knew that the Deepwater Horizon was going to blow in February

The Transocean Ltd. Development Driller III platform, leased by BP Plc, works to drill a relief well at the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill site. Photographer: Derick E. Hingle/Bloomberg

BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

via bloomberg.com

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Survey Says: The Arab World Does Not Like Iran (But It Does not Matter)

Not that this should come as a surprise.

The Pew Research Center did a survey of 22 different countries on how they feel about Iran.

Ahmadinejad

The attitude to Iran is negative among Germans (86%), the French (81%), and Spaniards (73%), among other nationalities. Elsewhere, 63% of Jordanian respondents and 60% of Lebanese respondents also expressed negative sentiments towards Tehran. Iran does enjoy favorable sentiments in Pakistan (72%) and in Indonesia (62%).

Nuclear Iran



European countries opposed the idea of a nuclear Iran--

The same picture emerged in Muslim states, where 66% of Egyptians, 64% of Lebanese, 63% of Turks, and 53% of Jordanians also said they oppose a nuclear Iran.

In Lebanon, while 91% of Shiites support a nuclear Iran, 88% of Sunnis and Christians object to it.

Military Strike Against Iran

In Egypt, 55% respondents supported a military strike on Iran, compared to 16% who objected to it. In Jordan, the figures in favor of an Iran strike are 53-20% respectively. Only in Turkey, more people said they would accept a nuclear Iran that respondents who preferred military action.

Of course, this is all irrelevant.
As P. David Hornik points out: "Yet if Israel acts, all hell will break loose--against Israel."

And that is what the world has come to.

via daledamos.blogspot.com

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Zero Tolerance for This Kind of Zero Tolerance

8-Yr-Old David Morales Learns the Meaning of Zero Tolerance Ad Absurdum

via debbieschlussel.com

woah... look soldiers... with weapons in Providence R.I.?

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it's a

via youtube.com

Dumb Nazi Asses = D.N.A.. it's a Chinese Ship. fools! the only Apartheid is being accomplished by Palestine. Is a Jew free Judea and Samaria freedom? That is what the Holocaust denier in chief of Fatah and unelected leader of Palestine thinks. Israel allows Arabs in Israel. Why doesn't Palestine do the same and maybe ...then they can pass the Darwin test. This guy obviously evolved from from Adolf Hitler's anus. Israel outsourced much of their container shipping business to cut costs and move things along faster but you wouldn't expect our enemies to know the realities of the global economy so they don't know what they are looking for.

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Israeli hacker shuts down IHH website

A 30-year old Israeli computer expert from Holon claims to have hacked into the website of the IHH, the terror organization whose thugs attacked Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara three weeks ago. The hacker - who is remaining anonymous - interrupted the organization's stunning 9,000 Euro per hour fundraising efforts.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

you can't buy this kind of public relations. IDF should give this guy a job

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Higher than ever: Israel's stoners despair as marijuana prices soar

It isn't just a rumor: Israel really is drying out. Not even the most seasoned smokers can recall a dry spell like this.

via haaretz.com

Sellers' market: How Israel's marijuana prices have rocketed



Grass:
* Pre-drought price: NIS 150 for 50 grams
* Today: NIS 35 per gram
Hashish:
* Pre-drought: NIS 200 for 10 grams
* Today: NIS 500 for 10 grams
Hydro (hydroponic marijuana):
* Pre-drought: NIS 45 per gram
* Today: NIS 110 per gram
Chares (high-grade Indian hashish):
* Pre-drought: NIS 450 for 10 grams
* Today: NIS 800 for 10 grams

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When you can afford marijuana... make sure you save the seeds.  What is happening in Israel can happen in America.  Do not depend on dealers.  for one thing the illegal drug industry finances terrorism.  Grow your own!

Gradualism, and another little phrase

    I just finished reading Jabotinsky's novel, The Five, and would recommend it, especially for those whose curiosity about the author is never quenched. Toward the end, Jabotinsky inserts a character - an anonymous lawyer - with whom to lecture us:

"The crux of the matter is gradualism,' the lawyer kept insisting. "Gradualism, and another little phrase, an interrogative consisting of a few short words....
.... The phrase is: 'But why is it forbidden?'  Let me assure you that no power of agitation can be compared to this question in its devastating impact.  From time immemorial the moral equilibrium of humanity has on the fact that we hold certain axioms: some closed doors bear the inscription 'Forbidden.'  Simply 'forbidden,' with no explanation; these axioms stand firm, doors are locked, floorboards don't crack and planets continue to revolve around the sun according to the established order. But if only once you pose the question: 'But why is it forbidden?' -- these axioms come crashing down.
It's a mistake to think that an axiom is obvious, that it's 'not worth' proving because it's clear to everyone; no, my friend, an axiom is defined as a proposition that is inconceivable to prove; inconceivable, even if the whole world were to rise up in rebellion and demand: 'Prove it!'  And as soon as this question is posed - it's all over.  This little phrase is like an incantation: in its presence all locked doors are smashed to smithereens; there's no more 'forbidden' and everything becomes 'permitted.'  Not only the rules of conventional morality... but even the most instinctive, most innate...reactions of human nature -- shame, physical squeamishness, the voice of blood -- everything dissolves into dust."

In light of this passage, can't you just see Jose Maria Aznar (prime minister of Spain 1996-2004), like so many of us, valiantly seeking to resurrect an axiom from the dust it has become?

.... In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society...
.... For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.
Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.

The Five was Jabotinsky's second novel; he wrote it in 1935.  The very next year he began to prepare an "evacuation plan" for the entire Jewish population of Poland, Hungary and Romania ... to Palestine. The year after that -in 1937, two years before the Nazis invaded Poland- he addressed the Great Synagogue of Warsaw on Tisha b'Av, exhorting his fellow Jews to avail themselves of his plan: "Time is short but you can still save yourselves."
Jabotinsky died of a massive heart attack in August 1940. He was sixty years old. 
A couple of weeks later, Lev Davidovich Bronstein (that is, Trotsky) was murdered in an axe attack in Mexico.  Interesting, isn't it?  These two Jews were born within a year of one another, within about a hundred miles of one another, spent their formative years in Odessa, led amazing lives still of great interest ... and then they both died in exile, in North America, within weeks of each other.  It's enough to make you believe there is a G-d:)
From the last page of The Five  -- Warning:  DO NOT read this if you intend to read the book, as it's so much more beautiful in its proper context) --

"Everything that's good on earth, everything is tenderness: the light of the moon, the lapping of the sea, the rustling of branches, the fragrance of flowers, and the sound of music -- it's all tenderness.  And God, if one can ever manage to reach Him, shake Him, wake Him, and berate Him with one's worst curses about the big mess He's created, and then make one's peace with Him and lay one's head in His lap -- most likely, He, too, is tenderness."

via bokertov.typepad.com

...but it was that same gradualism that led me to reject the leftism I was raised in. It works both ways. What has the state done for me? What do I get out of this collective? No I don't want to do it for the group. No I don't think I need to control nature. No I don't want that kind of power in my hands... it sounds like a painful unloving burden that hurts other people anyway.
the part about Jabotinsky ringing the alarm bells in Eastern Europe Jewery in Poland is the more interesting part to me.

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Almost all of the casualties on board the Mavi Marmara were fully identified as members of Turkish Islamist organizations

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
June 20, 2010
About half of those killed had declared their wish to die as martyrs (shaheeds).
Overview
1. Since the violent confrontation aboard the ship Mavi Marmara, a great deal of information accumulated making it possible to identify the nine Turkish nationals killed in the confrontation, as well as to analyze their affiliation and political and ideological views. The analysis leads to the conclusion that almost all of those killed (8 out of 9) belonged to the IHH or those affiliated with it (mainly the Felicity Party, Saadet Partisi). About half of those killed had told their relatives of their wish to die as martyrs (shaheeds).

2. On the other hand, human rights activists from Western countries or the Arab/Muslim world were not among those killed. That is to say, those who joined the Flotilla to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians found themselves in a violent confrontation initiated by the IHH. One of those killed, a youngster who was a citizen of both Turkey and the US, is not known to us as affiliated with any Islamist organization, and his involvement in the events is still unclear.
3. Those conclusions are supported by a great deal of information collected since the IDF’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara. It turned out that hard core radical Islamist operatives prepared themselves well in advance for hard violence against IDF soldiers. That violence was preceded by speeches of incitement and indoctrination during the ship's voyage. The information includes statements taken from passengers questioned in Israel, security camera footage and footage shot by journalists on the Mavi Marmara, documents seized aboard the ship, and statements made on the media (including Turkish media) before and after the flotilla incident.

Conclusions drawn from analysis of identity and affiliation of the
Turkish nationals killed aboard the Mavi Marmara

via docstalk.blogspot.com

read the details of those that died on Doc's Talk

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