Iran's Flying Saucer

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They illustrate the article with this picture.
Looks cool!!!
...Also, surprisingly fake!
I'm bummed.
I was hoping that Iran's leaders
were getting some
alien anal probes
in exchange for the nifty flying
saucer technology. 
After all, Iran has said publicly
that it shot down several
UFOs
in 2009. Really.
It turns out that the actual device looks like this
From FARS News:  TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran unveiled a home-made unmanned flying saucer as well as a light sports aircraft in an exhibition of strategic technologies.  The unmanned flying saucer, named "Zohal", was unveiled in a ceremony attended by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.  Zohal, designed and developed jointly by Farnas Aerospace Company and Iranian Aviation and Space Industries Association (IASIA), can be used for various missions, specially for aerial imaging. The flying machine is equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS (Global Positioning System) and two separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality and is able to take and send images simultaneously. via elderofziyon.blogspot.com

American Jewry's minds are so open that their brains have fallen out

When Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) made the statement in the picture at the top of this post, he might have thought he was referring to J Street. He may not have realized that he was identifying an affliction that has much broader application to the American Jewish community. When defining what constitutes support for Israel, the American Jewish community's collective brains seem to have fallen out.

Let's start with the good news: The morons at J Street have finally found a boycott that they don't like. Unfortunately, it's a boycott being promoted by the pro-Israel community.

J Street is deeply troubled by recent attacks on Harvey Weinstein and Julian Schnabel, as well as on their new film Miral.

It is not our place to take a position on the film as art. However, we believe strongly in the role artistic expression has to play in bringing to attention complex histories and opening up difficult but necessary dialogues both within and between our communities.

Arguing against the distribution or screening of Miral does a disservice not only to this sort of public discourse, but also stands against the values and traditions of rigorous and civil debate that underpin our Jewish community.

We oppose any efforts to limit Miral‘s distribution, as we would with any artistic effort to tell the important Israeli-Palestinian story from either people’s perspectives. We encourage broad engagement with the film and believe that only by understanding “the other’s” narrative can the groundwork be laid for a lasting resolution of the conflict and true peace and security for generations to come.

On the other hand, the American Jewish community has apparently now decided that boycotts of the Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria are 'pro-Israel.' Yes, you read that correctly. It starts with this article in this week's New York Jewish Week.
As the Jewish community struggles to combat efforts to delegitimize Israel and still retain a “big-tent” strategy, a mainstream consensus appears to have taken shape in recent weeks that boils down to this: one can support a targeted boycott of Israeli settlements and even a cultural ban against the West Bank settlement of Ariel — as long as one also supports Israel as a democratic Jewish state. [Without Ariel and the other Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria, there's not likely to be a Jewish state for very long, because we will be overrun if we - God forbid - return to the Auschwitz borders. CiJ]

...

Raffel’s thinking on the issue of “settlements-only” boycotts seems to have evolved since the Israel Action Network was formed in December. At the time, he told The Jewish Week, “I don’t know that a consensus has crystallized on this subject.

“If a person believes that Israel ought to do more to achieve peace based on a two-state formula, the question is, will boycotting a settlement advance the day that there will be peace? I’d argue that no, it will only harden positions and be counterproductive,” he said in December, “but being misguided in one’s policies doesn’t mean one necessarily has become part of the ranks of the delegitimizers.”

This week Raffel cited Meretz USA as a group that, though it might fit his earlier description of “misguided,” is safely in the tent, so to speak. The group supports the targeted boycott of Israeli settlement products and the cultural boycott of Ariel, but, Raffel said, “it is fully supportive of the Jewish state and it repudiates the BDS movement.”

Ron Skolnik, executive director of Meretz USA, agreed, saying that despite “a certain similarity of tools, we are clearly in favor of a two-state solution in which Israel remains democratic and the national home of the Jewish people. JVP doesn’t really specify what end result it prefers.”

Yet he said his organization decided to issue a statement after the action of Brandeis Hillel because it rejects the “idea that a boycott of the settlements in the occupied territories is the same as the delegitimization of the State of Israel. … We believe that a targeted boycott of the settlements (as opposed to a global boycott of sovereign Israel) is a legitimate tool to be used by Zionist organizations and individuals … ”

Alana Goodman comments:
The fact that Jewish leaders are making this argument is bad enough on its own. But here’s the bigger problem: the Israel Action Network is no shabby left-wing gang of activists. It’s a multimillion-dollar project funded by the Jewish Federations of North America, created for the sole purpose of combating the boycott movement.

...

And as the leader of this anti-boycott initiative, Raffel seems to be finding ways to apologize for and excuse delegitimizers instead of combating them.

...

How is a targeted boycott of settlement goods not a part of the BDS movement? And what exactly is the point of sinking millions of dollars of Jewish communal money into a task force to fight Israeli boycotts if this task force ends up legitimizing the delegitimizers?

The Israel Action Network was founded on a good premise, but if Raffel’s statements are indicative of the sort of “action” the group will be taking, then it doesn’t seem to be serving the best interests of American Jewry.

I sent Alana's post to William Daroff, the Vice President for Public Policy and Director of the Washington office of The Jewish Federations of North America, asking for comment. Daroff responded by sending me a link to this post by Ben Suarato with a statement by Martin Raffel on JCPA's blog:
“In the Jewish Week interview, I sought to articulate where I believe a general consensus lies with respect to the Jewish communal tent on Israel advocacy. Consensus, not unanimity. Clearly there will be differences of opinion about where lines get drawn. And, in fact, the lines may be different from community to community - what works for the San Francisco Jewish community might not work for the Houston Jewish community - and that's ok.

“In my judgment, those groups that are unwilling to support the Jewish people's right to build a national homeland in Israel -- i.e., recognition of Israel as a democratic and Jewish state -- place themselves outside the Jewish mainstream and cannot reasonably be seen as allies in our effort to counter the growing assault on Israel's legitimacy.

“But what to think about Zionists on the political left who have demonstrated consistent concern for Israel's security, support Israel's inalienable right to exist as a Jewish democratic state, and consider Israel to be the eternal home of the Jewish people -- but have decided to express their opposition to specific policies of the Israeli government by refraining from participating in events taking place in the West Bank or purchasing goods produced there? I vigorously would argue that such actions are counter-productive in advancing the cause of peace based on two states that they espouse, a goal that we share. But this is not sufficient cause to place them outside the tent.

Sorry, but people who are pro-Israel ought to at least be capable of seeing that the dispute between us and the 'Palestinians' isn't about borders or territory. It's about Israel's existence. By opening the 'tent' to allow in those who would place the blame for the 'peace process' failure on Israel, these fools put themselves in the same league as those who sponsored the Durban conference. They are delegitimizers.

I wonder who Raffel and friends would respond to an eventual one-state solution that is Jewish only. Would they accept that? Given the 'Palestinian' refusal to compromise and continued lust to destroy the Jewish state, the conflict here has become a zero-sum game where either we will survive or they will. Will the Raffels of the world find that unacceptable because the 'Palestinians' will (God willing) lose?

In the process of opening the tent, the American Jewish community has allowed its collective brain to fall out.

I would not want one red cent of my donation going to support Rafell's group. If in fact he "vigorously would argue that such actions are counter-productive in advancing the cause of peace," then he has no backbone. And the very idea of saying that it's okay to favor a boycott of the Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria if you live in San Francisco, but not if you live in Houston, shows the absurdity of the entire argument.

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Saudi Arabia authorizes medicine by 'the book'

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Blue Wizard Is About To Die!


Media_httpwwwjpostcom_jmqoyFor some people, alternative medicine means acupuncture, for others it's macrobiotics. But now, in Saudi Arabia, Islamic holy scripture is now among a patient’s legally sanctioned therapeutic options.
This week, the government awarded a license to a clinic treating the ill with Koranic incantations. The permit for The Center for Treatment through Ruqiya (Incantation) in the coastal city of Jedda was given by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, which also oversees the center's activities.
"You sit with the patient for three to four minutes and begin with general questions like the patient's name, what he likes, his age and weight, all as a kind of mental preparation for the patient," Tawfiq Al-Hashimi, a Koran therapist who won the license for the Jedda clinic, told the Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat.
Until now, regulations have been designed to eliminate the practice of sorcery, which is illegal in Saudi Arabia and punishable by death. Two men were sentenced to death last October following charges of practicing witchcraft in the kingdom. But Saudi practitioners insisted that ruqiya should not be confused with sorcery.
Al-Hashimi told A-Sharq Al-Awsat that half of all diseases are treatable by using the Koran because they are "Satanic afflictions" that disappear following prolonged verse incantation. Al-Hashimi added that 80% of cancer cases in the kingdom are caused by the evil eye, which is treatable by the Koran as well.
Price regulation was also introduced by the government. According to Al-Hashimi, the price of the first consultation is 100 Saudi Riyals ($27), with treatments for "difficult cases" climbing to as much as 600 Saudi Riyals ($160).
Fawzia Al-Bakr, an education professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, said charlatanism and sanitary concerns drove the government to regulate a practice endorsed by the religious establishment but pooh-poohed by most Saudis.
"This practice is often carried out in private homes, with the verses being read over water or oil," Al-Bakr told The Media Line. "But there have been cases of misuse -- health problems resulting from the reuse of water glasses, and price gouging."
Al-Bakr said Saudi liberals have written about the phenomenon with manifest sarcasm.
Medical specialists in the kingdom were suspicious of ruqiya as well.
"Eighty percent of women with mental illness visit ruqyia therapists, avoiding the fact they are mentally ill and believing they were afflicted by sorcery or the evil eye," Muhammad Al-Falaqi, an expert in Islamic law (sharia) and a researcher in psychology, told the on-line news daily Ilaf. "Many of these therapists ignore the fact that mental illness is an organic disease that requires real treatment in addition to Koran incantation."
Samira Al-Ghamidi of the mental health hospital in Jedda stressed the need for government supervision over ruqiya, mainly from the Ministry of Health.
Sexual harassment was also a grave concern of government, since most of the patients of ruqiya are women and the therapists must be men.
"Women tend to believe is ritual practices more than men in Saudi Arabia," Al-Bakr said. "Women are generally more religious than men."
Al-Bakr explained that when girls’ education was introduced in Saudi Arabia in 1960, it was handed over to the authority of the kingdom's clerics, whereas males are educated under the more liberal Ministry of Education. Only two years ago a unified curriculum for male and female students was introduced by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. A half century of overly religious education explained female tendency towards spirituality, Al-Bakr said.
"I don't think many clinics like this will open," she added. "The government isn't encouraging it."


The judges, in their wisdom, said that he deserved to be killed because the proof that he practiced sorcery was obvious to the millions of people who had seen his programmes, and that his actions made him 'an infidel'. They went on to say that the death sentence would act as a deterence to the increasing number of 'foreign magicians' entering the Kingdom.

Israeli Gay Club Ad. Hilarious

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as you can see Avinunu is quite concerned.... or shall I say jealous he isn't in on the fun.
Dutch will look into NGO funding of anti-Semitic website
NGO Monitor told the Post that “EI executive director Ali Abunimah is a leader in delegitimization and demonization campaigns against Israel. In his travels and speaking engagements, facilitated by Electronic Intifada’s budget, he calls for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and routinely uses false apartheid rhetoric.”
“Abunimah also equates Israel to Nazi Germany, comparing the Israeli press to Der Stürmer, referring to Gaza as a ‘ghetto for surplus non-Jews,’ and claiming that ‘Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.’” NGO Monitor criticized ICCO’s employment of Mieke Zagt, who is “the ICCO official directing the funding to EI,” a “former employee of Amnesty International’s Middle East division, and a vocal proponent of BDS herself.” BDS is the abbreviation for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

NGO Monitor reveals Dutch government funding for Electronic Intifada

November 29, 2010
IMRA: Electronic Intifada (EI), a website that publishes articles that compare Israelis to Nazis and promotes campaigns for anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions), has received funding indirectly from the Dutch  government. The Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), a Netherland-based NGO has supported EI since at least 2007, including a 3-year funding commitment. ICCO receives 95% of its budget from the Dutch government and the EU.
In 2008, ICCO received €124 million in Dutch government funds, representing 90% of its €139 million budget. An additional €8.5 million (6.1%) came from the European Commission (Annual Report, p. 135). When NGO Monitor contacted ICCO regarding funding for EI, our researcher was directed to the coordinator of government funds, Mieke Zagt. Ms. Zagt did not return NGO Monitor’s phone calls or emails.
As documented by NGO Monitor, EI plays a central role in the Durban strategy of political warfare against Israel, with frequent accusations of “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “slow genocide.” Articles on the EI site justify violence against civilians, call Gaza a “concentration camp,” and label Palestinian participation in peace talks as “collaboration.” EI has an extensive section supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah, as well as other contributors, also employ antisemitic and anti-Israel themes in their writings and Twitter statements.
Despite the evidence to the contrary, ICCO praised EI as an “internationally recognized daily news source” that “contributes to a balanced opinion.”
In an article (Jerusalem Post, November 26, 2010), journalist Benjamin Weinthal quoted Netherlands Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal: “I will look into the matter personally. If it appears that…ICCO does fund [EI], it will have a serious problem with me.”
In sharp contrast, Chairman of ICCO’s Executive Board Marinus Verweij called EI “an important source of information” and said “in no way is the EI anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.” The Post also reported that ICCO informed the Dutch government that EI “was funded with Dutch subsid[ies] until 2010. From 2010 on it has allocated only non-subsidy funding.” The evidence for this claim has not been provided.
MORE HERE

The president parties while the world burns

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If the world is in crisis, you wouldn’t know it by watching President Obama’s spring break. Between golf, basketball and the president’s upcoming trip to Rio de Janeiro, the White House is projecting a disinterested aura of business as usual. For this administration, “tuned-out” is the new normal.
Thompson on Hollywood
You offend!

The Mideast crisis is continuing, and Hillary Rodham Clinton has been the one taking the 3 a.m. phone calls. The secretary of state has been dealing with political reform in Egypt, a military crackdown in Bahrain and the continuing civil war in Libya. However, she is hampered by a chief executive who can’t make up his mind which course of action would best secure his place in history. It’s no wonder she took the opportunity to tell CNN she had no interest in continuing in the job in a theoretical Obama second term.

For the president’s part, he did manage to squeeze in a phone call to the kings of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to express his “deep concern over the violence in Bahrain” and stress “the importance of a political process as the only way to peacefully address the legitimate grievances of Bahrainis.” After this exercise in talking-point leadership, Bahrain’s crackdown continued apace. Mr. Obama’s views simply don’t matter to a world that views him as weak.

The news from Japan grows direr as the nuclear crisis intensifies. The Obama administration has shown considerably less interest in responding to this disaster - actually three disasters: earthquake, tsunami and potential nuclear meltdown - than it did to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. This is strange given the possibility for a monumental nuclear catastrophe and destabilizing the world’s third-largest economy, which also happens to be one of America’s best friends. A radioactive plume is set to hit the U.S. West Coast on Friday, and on Thursday President Obama said - twice - that “we do not expect harmful levels of radition to reach the U.S.”Either way, it certainly won’t pose a threat to the president, who by this weekend will be safe with his family on Brazil’s beaches.

Congress continued to debate a stopgap federal budget during the week, and on Tuesday the national debt scored a one-day $72 billion jump. Given the critical importance of the debate, it would be reasonable to expect Mr. Obama to be working hard to find a way out of the fiscal mess he largely created. The president, predictably, was nowhere to be found. Sen. Joe Manchin, West Virginia Democrat, scored the president for his “failure to lead” on the budget issue, and Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said the president was “absent from this debate.” Vice President Joe Biden, who was supposed to be representing the White House in the congressional budget wrangle, instead took a trip to Russia.

None of this is meant to suggest Mr. Obama hasn’t been productive. He laughed it up at the Gridiron Club dinner, took a stand against schoolyard bullying and spoke on the radio about Women’s History Month. Over the weekend, he played his 61st round of golf as president and finalized his March Madness bracket picks, predictably avoiding controversy by choosing the four top seeds for the Final Four. On Monday, he attended a gathering of potential big-money donors at the St. Regis hotel that Democratic Party officials insisted was not a fundraiser. Sure, it was not a fundraiser; and the White House isn’t coming across as disconnected, weak, passive and paralyzed either.

Japan nuclear safety agency says aware of Chernobyl solution

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Media_httpwwwreutersc_fgqnb

Japan's Bonds Fall
on Cost of Quake Recovery;
Futures Rise as Stocks Slide




Nuclear FALLOUT
West Coast of America

Get Well Soon Japan


Japan's nuclear safety agency said on Friday that it was aware of the ultimate "Chernobyl solution" to contain the nuclear disaster at its quake-hit nuclear plant by covering it in sand and encasing it in concrete, but added that it was currently focusing on efforts to restore power and cool down the reactors.








The US Support of Bullets and Blackhawks in Bahrain?

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اوائل الصور لشهيد ستره - لاتصلح للقلوب الضعيفه
Just how American bullets make their way into Bahraini guns, into weapons used by troops suppressing pro-democracy protesters, opens a wider window into the shadowy relationships between the Pentagon and a number of autocratic states in the Arab world.  Look closely and outlines emerge of the ways in which the Pentagon and those oil-rich nations have pressured the White House to help subvert the popular democratic will sweeping across the greater Middle East.
A TomDispatch analysis of Defense Department documents indicates that, since the 1990s, the United States has transferred large quantities of military materiel, ranging from trucks and aircraft to machine-gun parts and millions of rounds of live ammunition, to Bahrain’s security forces.
According to data from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the branch of the government that coordinates sales and transfers of military equipment to allies, the U.S. has sent Bahrain dozens of “excess” American tanks, armored personnel carriers, and helicopter gunships.  The U.S. has also given the Bahrain Defense Force thousands of .38 caliber pistols and millions of rounds of ammunition, from large-caliber cannon shells to bullets for handguns.  To take one example, the U.S. supplied Bahrain with enough .50 caliber rounds --- used in sniper rifles and machine guns -- to kill every Bahraini in the kingdom four times over. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency did not respond to repeated requests for information and clarification.
In addition to all these gifts of weaponry, ammunition, and fighting vehicles, the Pentagon in coordination with the State Department oversaw Bahrain’s purchase of more than $386 million in defense items and services from 2007 to 2009, the last three years on record.  These deals included the purchase of a wide range of items from vehicles to weapons systems.  Just this past summer, to cite one example, the Pentagon announced a multimillion-dollar contract with Sikorsky Aircraft to customize nine Black Hawk helicopters for Bahrain’s Defense Force.
On February 14th, reacting to a growing protest movement with violence, Bahrain’s security forces killed one demonstrator and wounded 25 others.  In the days of continued unrest that followed, reports reached the White House that Bahraini troops had fired on pro-democracy protesters from helicopters.  (Bahraini officials responded that witnesses had mistaken a telephoto lens on a camera for a weapon.)  Bahrain’s army also reportedly opened fire on ambulances that came to tend to the wounded and mourners who had dropped to their knees to pray.
"We call on restraint from the government," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in the wake of Bahrain’s crackdown.  "We urge a return to a process that will result in real, meaningful changes for the people there."  President Obama was even more forceful in remarks addressing state violence in Bahrain, Libya, and Yemen: "The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur."
Word then emerged that, under the provisions of a law known as the Leahy Amendment, the administration was actively reviewing whether military aid to various units or branches of Bahrain’s security forces should be cut off due to human-rights violations.  "There's evidence now that abuses have occurred," a senior congressional aide told the Wall Street Journal in response to video footage of police and military violence in Bahrain.  "The question is specifically which units committed those abuses and whether or not any of our assistance was used by them."
In the weeks since, Washington has markedly softened its tone.  According to a recent report by Julian Barnes and Adam Entous in the Wall Street Journal, this resulted from a lobbying campaign directed at top officials at the Pentagon and the less powerful State Department by emissaries of Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his allies in the Middle East.  In the end, the Arab lobby ensured that, when it came to Bahrain, the White House wouldn’t support “regime change,” as in Egypt or Tunisia, but a strategy of theoretical future reform some diplomats are now calling “regime alteration.”
Read full article....

House Votes to Defund NPR

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The House just voted 236-181 to remove federal funding for National Public Radio via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Anti-Semitic Facebook page of the day

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Scandinavia.... FUCK YOU TOO!

...The Facebook page F.U.C.K Israel is worth a look. Many of the people posting to it appear to be Danish, but it also offers a song in Norwegian.
Visit the Facebook page. The song (in Norwegian) is attributed to G-Joe and titled “Gaza for Palestinians”, but it is also found on the website Selvportrett av en venn, where it is described as a Russian song from 1963. via israelwhat.com

Reuters and Jordan Times think North Korea is Artistic

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SEOUL (Reuters) — North Korea, renowned for its secrecy and incredible artistic performances, is now planning the ultimate magic show — complete with disappearing aircraft. The North’s state-run KCNA news agency reported that the capital Pyongyang would host a “new form” of magic show in which the aircraft, a bus full of passengers and an elephant would be made to disappear. via jordantimes.com image via telegraph.co.uk 

Babol, Iran Protestors chant Death to Dictator

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Media_httpraymorrison_fllehIs Mahmoud Ahmadinejad having a bad day?...How is Mousavi the founder of Hezbollah opposition doing?...Lots of Questions... so we will just let you get on with killing each other.  Tah Tah!
جوانان بابل، مراسم چهارشنبه سوری را به صحنه اعتراض به حکومت تبدیل کردند
via raymorrison.wordpress.com
image from Crethi Plethi

A Poor Comparison:

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The Jewish people were exiled in 79 AD by the Romans during a Jewish revolt. This was the same period in which the second temple was destroyed. The Jewish people of the 21st century have inherited a right to return to Palestine, from descendants from almost 2000 years earlier.By refusing to acknowledge the rights of the descendants of Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral home a mere 62 years after their parents and grandparents were driven out, Michael Coren not only delegitimized the right of Jews to return to Palestine after 2000 years of being exiled, but also delegitimized Zionism as an ideology.
This argument only works within it's own accepted context which is that the Jewish diaspora had a parallel to the Palestinian one. Did the Jewish refugees of Israel 2000 years ago find themselves forced to leave their own homes by their own Jewish leaders? Obviously not, so how could the two experiences be compared? Were the Jews forced to live in lands with other Jews who didn't want Judea Jews around them? no... of course not. The denied correlative is that the Jews did not force themselves out of Israel.

An open letter to Harvey Weinstein

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Daniel Greenfield writes an open letter to Harvey Weinstein, the director of the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel movie Miral, which is previewing this week in the United Nations General Assembly.
Come along Harvey, into the bedroom where a father and his three-month-old daughter, Hadas, were fast asleep. It can be hard to get a 3-month-old baby to fall asleep. Her father must had quite a time of it that night. Babies may not have language, but they do have fears. They are afraid of the strange new world they were born into. And they need parents to comfort them and assure them that everything will be all right. That they are loved and protected.

When Rabbi Fogel finally got his little baby daughter to sleep, she must have felt safe with her father there. The man who would have taught her about life. Who would have done his best to protect her. And the man whose throat was slashed in his sleep along with his child's.

Tell me Harvey, do you know what goes through a three month old baby's mind when her throat is being slashed? You can't make a movie about it and you wouldn't it if you could. Movies are complex stories. The characters change and grow. They become someone else. A three-month-old baby having her throat cut will never become anyone else. She is fixed in that moment of horror and pain. Dying without knowing why. Only that her parents couldn't protect her.

If you were going to make a movie about this scene, it would be about the killers. You would show their past and explain their actions. Surely an Israeli soldier stepped on their toe once or blew up their house. Stretch it out over two hours and you can justify anything. Even the knife being drawn across Hadas' throat. That is the magic of cinema. But to three-month-old Hadas, there is no context. The movie of her life ended the night you were hard at work promoting yours.

The mother had been in the bathroom while the bloody work took place. A small moment of peace while her children slept. She didn't let them cut her throat, the way they had that of her husband and her baby daughter. Instead she fought them. They had to stab her to death.

If you ever make a movie about these particular terrorists, be sure to emphasize how hard it is to stab a mother to death. She will fight for her children. And the terrorists will have to work to kill her. You should swoop the camera down sympathetically on their sweating faces as they do the hard work of murdering her.

From there they went on to murder 11 year old Yoav who was reading in bed. Next was 3 -year-old Elad. Why stab a 3-year-old boy twice in the heart? That is the question, Harvey. I understand once. Once is certainly enough to kill any 3 year old. But twice? Maybe it was that each killer wanted a turn and a share of the glory of murdering a toddler. They had already murdered three children and their parents, but the laws of Islam can be arcane sometimes. Is it possible then that the Shaheed (the martyr) will not enter paradise unless he murders a 3 year old too?

Maybe there are more virgins waiting in paradise for each child killed. Murder a child and trade his body in for more virgins. Or maybe it is that the brave Jihadists who climb through living room windows and cut the throats of children in their sleep wanted to feel the violence of that blow. The thrill of the knife slamming home into a child's heart. Or maybe it is that Elad's heart was strong enough that even two adult Muslim terrorists had to stab twice to kill him.

I would like to think so.

Your article promoting Miral urges that 'understanding the "other" requires us to step out of our comfort zones'. Step now out of your comfort zone. And understand the other. I don't mean the murderers themselves. I think you understand them a little too well. If you didn't understand them at all, Miral would be lying on a back shelf somewhere.

I urge you to understand your own 'Other', not those who kill in the name of Islamic terrorism, but those who die of it. Who die and yet refuse to give in. Who cling to their tiny patch of land, more than you would ever cling to your Connecticut estate.

Family members have released photos of the children lying in their blood, but I don't think you will want to see them. They are too far outside your comfort zone. There is plenty of blood and gore in your movies, but this is different. These are the bodies of inconvenient children. Their deaths don't fit into your ideological framework. You know quite well that Muslims are good people, and Jews who live on land claimed by the Muslims, are bad people. If they are murdered it is inconvenient because it retards the peace process. The process by which terrorists climb through living room windows and slash the throats of children. Until whole families are at peace.

...


"Unless the Palestinian narrative is finally understood and acknowledged by Israelis and their American supporters, there will never be peace in the Holy Land," you say. As if peace were in your hands to give. But we understand the Palestinian narrative all too well. The real one and the fake one. We know the olive groves, the bulldozers and the keys. And we also know the terrorist gangs trained by Islamic fanatics and Socialist dictators to seize the land and murder its inhabitants. The gangs whom Moscow gave a nationalist gloss calling them the Palestinian people, the smirking thugs on whom President Clinton and European leaders bestowed legitimacy and billions of dollars.

If you want to know the real narrative, then put Miral on a shelf and ask where the Christians of the region have gone. Where have the Zoroastrians gone? Why are there so few left? The answer would make for a much better movie, but it is not a movie that you will ever make. It is a story of bigotry and genocide. It is an old story and a new one. You can find its oldest chapters in the Koran, along with the graves of the Jews of what is today Saudi Arabia. Its latest chapters are being written in Europe, where Jews once again flee European cities, not from men in uniforms, but in long robes. And unless that narrative is understood, there will be no peace in the Holy Land, or anywhere else.

I know that none of this will move you. Controversy is your bread and butter. The more you hear cries of pain, the more you count the cash. Miral will make you money. Just as Der Ewige Jude made money. And you will protest that there is no comparison between the two. Miral is only giving the Palestinian narrative, just as Der Ewige Jude gave the Aryan narrative. It is more subtle, I'm sure. The audiences you count on are liberal and sophisticated. They won't be taken in by gutter propaganda.

You will dismiss this as, what you describe in your article, being, "smeared by those who insist on reducing this conflict to us vs. them." So stand outside while Rabbi Cohen walks with his gun, a twelve year old by his side, her heart beating almost as hard as her little brother's did when the knife came down on it, and wait while she goes inside. And then answer her this, if you truly believe in not reducing the conflict to 'Us vs Them' then why are you telling the story of Miral and not her story?

You have chosen a side. Our 'Them' is your 'Us'. Soon that girl will leave the house again, along with her younger brothers. Three children who somehow survived. Look her over carefully. She is your 'Other'. The story you do not want to hear. The face you do not want to see. She survived tonight. So did two of her brothers. Next time they might not. No movie is needed to tell her story. Her life is her story. Her survival a testament.

The letter is a bit long, but it's worth it to read the whole thing.

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

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