Kidnapped in Lebanon, seven Estonians plead for help and YouTube CENSORS it?

Seven Estonians, who were kidnapped three weeks ago while bicycling on the Lebanese side of the Lebanese - Syrian border, have issued an appeal for help via a YouTube video. Unfortunately, the video has been taken down for violating YouTube's terms of service.

The video, which was posted on YouTube, shows the men pleading with Lebanese, Saudi, Jordanian and French leaders to help secure their release.
The seven men went missing on 23 March when cycling in the Bekaa Valley after entering Lebanon from Syria.
The motive for their abduction remains unclear.
Wearing sports clothes and appearing in front of a white background, the Estonians take it in turns to ask for help.
“This is a really difficult situation. Please do anything,” one said.
“It appears from the video that all seven abducted Estonians are alive and well. However it is not known when the clip was recorded,” the Estonian Foreign minister, Urmas Paet, said in a statement.
...
This is the link to the video

The video was removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service.

Yes, really. What a bunch of morons.
Anyway, the Estonians were kidnapped in the Bekaa Valley. Just for the fun of it.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

YouTube... I'm not even going to comment on this.

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Esther Pollard ‘Hurt’ by Obama’s Silence on Her Husband

Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard’s wife Esther expressed a deep sense of hurt and bewilderment on Wednesday at the lack of response by President Barack Obama to a personal request from President Shimon Peres to release her husband ahead of Pesach.

Esther Pollard revealed for the first time that Peres had hand-delivered to Obama a personal letter from her husband, the first personal letter Jonathan Pollard had ever written a to a US president. She said she was disappointed by Obama’s lack of a response when Peres brought up her husband’s fate.
“Obama’s utter indifference to Peres’s request was very puzzling, but it has to be seen in context of the president’s indifference to all of the requests he has received to release Jonathan Pollard after 26 years in prison, not only from Peres and Netanyahu but also from ranking senior American officials,” she said. “The president’s resounding silence in the face of all of these requests leaves no room for any doubt. Clearly it is nothing personal against Jonathan, but it is, without a doubt, a devastating slap in the face to Israel and Jews worldwide.”
Esther Pollard noted that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a formal request for Jonathan’s release from the podium of the Knesset in January after her husband had served more than 25 years in prison, but Obama did not respond then either.
“To be met with total silence and indifference by Israel’s supposed best ally is tantamount to having the President of the US personally spit in [Netanyahu's] face, publicly and unapologetically,” she said. “Even if the prime minister wants to try to ignore the insult, Israel’s neighbors know exactly what it means in terms of the US-Israel special relationship.”
When asked how she felt to see pictures of Obama’s Passover Seder that were publicized in the media, she said she stared at the photos and questioned why her husband’s fate was apparently not considered at Obama’s Seder.
“All I could think of was the irony that upstairs in the White House they were celebrating the Jewish national holiday of freedom, totally oblivious to the cries of a Jewish captive, painfully chained to the dungeon walls beneath their feet,” she said. “With a mere stroke of the president’s pen, the captive could be free.”
Asked why this Seder was different than others, Pollard noted that unlike past years, all the factors were in place not only to facilitate Jonathan’s release, but even to compel it, as a matter of justice, including requests to Obama from Israel’s president and prime minister and many top American officials.
She said Peres’s request was particularly important, because of the sense recently expressed by American officials that Obama might not want to take a step that could benefit Netanyahu politically due to the tension between the two.
“Shimon Peres is the voice of consensus for the people of Israel,” she said. “He is perceived worldwide as a man of peace and as a super diplomat. A positive response to Peres’ request would entail no insult to Netanyahu, and would solve Obama’s dilemma about perceived benefit to the prime minister.”
Contrary to the views of American officials in past administrations who had used the Pollard issue as a bargaining chip against Israel in the peace process, Esther Pollard said Obama needed to release Pollard to show the Arab world that he is close to Israel.
“It is the personal relationship between Obama and Netanyahu that is perceived both by Israel and its neighbors as the key factor to success and security in the region,” she said. “By blatantly ignoring official Israeli requests for Pollard’s release, Obama has turned the issue into a deeply personal and obstructive obstacle between himself and the prime minister of Israel and by extension between the two countries. As long as Jonathan remains in a dungeon in America, an American-brokered peace process can’t move forward.”
Esther Pollard said she celebrated Seder night by crying and praying a lot and trying to make sense of her husband’s situation. She said she spoke to Jonathan and that he too was devastated that yet another year had gone by and he is still in prison. But she said that instead of lamenting, he comforted her and encouraged her not to give up the effort for his release.
Asked what she hoped would happen next, she answered: “A miracle. Jonathan home. Now.”
{The Jerusalem Post/Matzav.com Newscenter}

via matzav.com

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Helen Thomas exits anti-AIPAC meeting amid controversy

 Helen is too Toxic for Code Pink now?

“When Thomas was informed about this, she feared that the focus of the events might shift to her, instead of AIPAC and US policy, and she gracefully withdrew her participation,” the press release by Move Over AIPAC said.

Thomas was quoted by organizers as thanking Move Over AIPAC for inviting her, saying she hoped the conference’s purpose of countering Israel’s perceived influence in Washington will succeed.

Photo by: Rabbi David F. Nesenoff

“I am delighted that people are coming together for this gathering and I want to make sure that the focus stays on AIPAC and US policy, not me,” she was quoted saying by the anti-Israel lobby group.

A week earlier conference organizers announced Thomas would be the keynote speaker at the event in a press release which was removed from the Web on Wednesday.

“We’re delighted to announce that Helen Thomas, who spent her career questioning the powerful and speaking out against war and injustice, will be joining us in DC as a keynote speaker at the Move Over AIPAC,” a press release stated.

Move Over AIPAC has been endorsed by the likes of political scientists Stephen Walt and John Meirsheimer, who wrote a book criticizing the “Israeli lobby” in Washington, and Jewish Voice for Peace, a leftist Jewish organization involved in attempts to break the blockade on Gaza, according to its website.

Several messages and phone calls to Walt, Meirsheimer and JVP went unanswered.

Medea Benjamin, a spokesperson for the event, elaborated on differences of opinion among participants regarding Thomas and her reputation.

“Some within the coalition think that the remarks were anti-Semitic and condemned what she said,” Benjamin said.

“Others thought that it was a slip of the tongue and that her extended comments afterwards were a good explanation. Personally, I’ve been an admirer of her for years and her protest of the Iraq war.”

Asked if inviting a speaker who in the past made inflammatory comments about Jews proved the point of the gathering’s critics that it was pushing an anti- Semitic agenda under the guise of an anti-Israeli lobby event, Benjamin responded in the negative.

“The conference is really to talk about – and many of us are Jews – is to work for a policy where Israel and Palestine can live together in peace and get a process started,” Benjamin, who is Jewish, said.

“My values are Jewish and I believe in compassion for all and AIPAC does not represent my Jewish values. Helen Thomas is one of 30 people who have been invited and we are a community
via jpost.com

I can not see the difference between any of these people.image via uncoverage.net