The Zionist Conspiracy |
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A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews. 
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Thursday, August 28, 2003
Arafat and Red Lines Friday's Jerusalem Post contains an excellent editorial calling for Yasser Arafat's removal from the region: "following last week's bus bombing, we were told by senior Israeli officials that, perhaps with the next large-scale attack, Arafat's future may have to be reassessed. But why even bring up his name if the threat is so plainly hollow? "No less than it is in the nature of man, it is in the nature of governments to prefer known to unknown dangers. We, too, cannot be certain that the removal of Arafat will bring about the peace we all seek. But we also feel that the current situation could hardly be worse. Removing the man chiefly to blame for the loss of so much life, rather than rescuing him, seems to us one risk well worth taking." The editorial also criticized Israeli government officials for saying that today's rocket attacks on Ashkelon "crossed all red lines": "Yesterday, after Palestinian Kassam rockets reached as far as the southern city of Ashkelon, Israel grimly warned that such attacks crossed "a red line." Funny, that: Such warnings are never issued when Israelis are shot dead in their cars driving through the territories. Nor does it seem that red lines are considered crossed when suicide bombers take fewer than, say, 20 victims with them." Tehran Times Column Reading op-eds in the Arab and Muslim media is a good way to gauge the extent of the paranoia and animus of Israel's enemies. Today's Tehran Times has a column by Kian Mokhtari about the "holocaust" of Indians by the U.S. In the middle of the column, Mokhtari, out of context, expresses a screed against Israel, because, well, that's what paranoid people like Mokhtari do: "I was listening to the radio the other night and some foreign station was insisting that they were our long distant blood brothers, that they had a heaven called “Zion” and that since we had such fantastic cultural and blood links we should help each other and we should throw open the gates to our rich country to ensure their survival. Their logic seemed to be that they were a race chosen by God to inherit the planet earth. So I take it that their God is a racist. Then I realized it was ‘good old radio Israel’. I was shocked because on my dealings with Jews overseas I had always been treated like the lower order of life on earth, a member of an inferior race. So I thought maybe I had forgotten to tell those Jews that I was an Iranian and according to their own radio channel related to them by blood and culture. Then I remembered that those abroad knew that I was Iranian. Most odd!" Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Ehud and Nava Barak Separate Aug. 27, 2003 Baraks to Split By JOSEPH SCHICK After 34 years of marriage, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his wife Nava have decided to separate. Since his defeat in 2001 to Ariel Sharon, Barak has built a large new home, and has earned millions of shekels consulting for major high tech companies in Israel. Under a separation agreement proposed by former President Bill Clinton, Ehud would agree to relinquish 97 percent of his assets to Nava. Nava would also gain sovereignty over the surface of the family home, with Ehud retaining control over the below ground areas, including the basement, and being granted access to the home's western wall. Earlier, Ehud had insisted that "I do not intend to sign an agreement giving up control of the house." Ehud Barak admitted that the separation agreement would be "difficult as hell for us emotionally," but when it was suggested that his concessions to Mrs. Barak were excessive, shouted "I am trying to put an end to the conflict." For her part, Nava has rejected Clinton's plan, insisting that Ehud fully end his "illegal occupation" of the family home. Abdul Aziz Rantisi, a leader of Hamas, also rejects the proposal, demanding that the "Zionist Family" unilaterally vacate their home, with title being immediately passed to Arabs displaced during the 1948 war. Monday, August 25, 2003
Torah and Targeted Killings A reader found this site via a Google search for Torah and targeted killings. I'm not a rabbi, but I believe that Jewish Law's approval of preemptive liquidation of terrorists appears in the Talmud, which states: "If somebody comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first." (Sanhedrin 72a). EU and Hamas This sounds like a parody, but incredibly is not: The Jerusalem Post reports that France is objecting to placing Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the EU's list of terrorist groups because "there is no proof that these two organizations are terror groups." According to an advisor to Jacque Chirac, "If we find that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are indeed terror groups opposed to peace, we may have to change the EU's stand. However, we mustn't limit ourselves to one, clear cut, position." I-Formation I don't know if Jets Offensive Coordinator Paul Hackett is a reader of this blog, but if he is, then Paul, the Jets should sometimes use the I-Formation, with both Curtis Martin and Lamont Jordan in the backfield. In recent years, the Jets have always used a single-back formation, with less than optimal results. The Jets Most of this blog's focus has been on Israel and Jewish issues, with sports only a small focus. Yet with the Jets season opener only ten days away (it's next Thursday night against the Redskins) and with the entire 2003 season now in doubt, I can no longer stay quiet. The Jets have provided me with 25 years of aggravation, frustration and misery. I have fond memories of my father screaming at the TV following a Richard Todd interception, a holding penalty by John Ward, or a run on 3rd and long called by Joe Walton. There's a family picture in my parent's house which was taken on December 27, 1981, the day I became a real Jets fan. The time on my brother's watch, which can be seen in the picture, was 11:58 A.M. At noon the Jets were hosting the Buffalo Bills at Shea Stadium, the first time the Jets were in the playoffs during my lifetime. I ran home from the studio and arrived around 12:03. It was a few seconds into the game, and the Jets were losing 7-0. Bruce Harper fumbled the opening kickoff, and it was returned for a touchdown. The Bills took a 24-0 lead, and all seemed lost. But that's too easy for the Jets. Instead, they battled back. Somehow they rallied to within four points and had the ball deep in Bills territory late in the fourth quarter. Alas, they lost 31-27, as Richard Todd was intercepted at the Bills 2 yard old. A few minutes later, the Giants - who had been humiliated by the Jets' New York Sack Exchange (the Jets recored nine sacks) earlier in '81 by a score of 26-7 at Giants Stadium, played the Eagles. The Giants won. The NFL went on strike the next season, but the league played a shortened season and the Jets again made it to the playoffs. On January 15, 1983, my 10th birthday, they beat the Raiders in Oakland as a result of two interceptions in the final three minutes by Lance Mehl, and went to Miami for the AFC Championship. There they lost 14-0, with the Dolphins' AJ Duhe intercepting three Richard Todd passes. Coach Walt Michaels, angered by poor field conditions, went into a tirade after the game, and was fired and replaced by Joe Walton. The Jets were disappointing in '83 and in '84, when they moved to Giants Stadium. 1985 was better, as they went 11-5, but again after a fumbled kickoff returned for a touchdown, they wasted home field advantage in the playoffs by losing to the Patriots. '86, though was going to be different. The Mets, who had been baseball's worst team in the early 80's, won the World Series, and the Jets started 10-1, including an unforgettable 51-45 win over the Dolphins, when Ken O'Brien threw four touchdowns to Wesley Walker, including the 21 yard tying TD as time expired and the winning 43 yard TD pass in overtime. Yet then things collapsed. The Jets last their last five games. In the playoffs, they beat Kansas City and had a 20-10 lead over Cleveland with four minutes left in the fourth quarter. The announcers were already discussing the AFC Championship the following week. After Mark Gastineu took a roughing penalty, the tide turned, and the Jets eventually lost 23-20 in two overtimes. They would not win another playoff game until the 1998 season, Bill Parcells' second as coach. It was as windy and freezing as I can remember at Giants Stadium, but the Jets victory over the Jaguars, their seventh straight, made it all worth it. Unfortunately, in the AFC Championship the next week, after taking a 10-0 lead, the Jets collapsed against Denver. We all had high hopes for 1999, but then Vinny Testeverde suffered a season ending injury in the first game of the season. Vinny has never been the same since, but after the sensational performance by Chad Pennington last season, optimism returned. That optimism proved to be naive, as Pennington broke four bones in his wrist in Saturday night's exhibition game, and will be out for most, and possibly all, of this season, with Vinny returning as QB. Despite the injury to Pennington and the Jets' weak group of wide receivers, I actually am optimistic. I'm sure the Jets will make the 2003 season a painful one, but they won't go 1-15, as they did in 1996, my first year as a season-ticket holder. Instead they will provide their fans with some false hope. Vinny won't be too good, but he won't be as terrible as at the start of last season either. They'll lose a lot, but most of their losses will be close. When we're ready to give up, they'll win two in a row, before losing another close one. In summary, while I won't blog less about Israel, over the next few months the NFL will also be a topic for discussion. Survivors of Terror Three days ago, at sabbath morning services in a Manhattan synagogue, a chasidic man sat directly across from me and introduced himself. He quickly mentioned that his son is married to the daughter of Goldie Taubenfeld, the New Square, New York woman who was murdered in Tuesday's suicide bombing along with her 5 month old son, Shmuel. He also mentioned that 16 year old Batsheva Taubenfeld, who has been described as "lightly wounded," in fact has shrapnel in an eye, was (as of Saturday) still hospitalized in Jerusalem, and will likely need to be hospitalized when she returns to the U.S. This reminded me of the speech at last year's pro-Israel rally in Washington by Mark Sokolow, who survived both the 9/11 attack (he worked in the World Trade Center) and a bombing on Jerusalem's Jaffa Street, in which he, his wife and two daughters were wounded. Mr. Sokolow stated that following the bombing: "We were all rushed to different hospitals, and for several agonizing hours I didn't know whether the rest of my family was alive. Thank God we all survived with what the press called "minor injuries." My wife has a severely fractured leg on which she still can't walk. My daughter and I just had surgery to reconstruct our eardrums, and my youngest daughter has lost some vision in one eye. And we all have significant shrapnel injuries and scars, not to mention the mental trauma we have all suffered." Unfortunately, with so many people murdered by Arab terrorists, even those of us who support Israel often overlook those who have been injured, or assume that the wounded will fully recover. Some do, but many do not. Thursday, August 21, 2003
Comments On a trial basis, comments are being added to this blog through Labor Day. I'll decide then whether to keep them. If the problems experienced by other blogs occur, such as error messages and inaccurate numbers of comments, they won't be here long. Bad Terror and Not Such Bad Terror In today's Washington Post (and other newspapers that carry his syndicated column, including the New York Daily News), Richard Cohen writes that following Tuesday's terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Baghdad "it seemed, as George Bush has always said, that terrorism is terrorism, whether in Baghdad or Jerusalem. That, though, is not the case." Cohen argues that "the difference between Israel and Iraq is palpable," because Israel "unmistakably squats on land that was once Palestinian" and "some of the suicide bombers are not religious militants but merely people who in their own way are saying they can't take it any longer. The trick for Israel is, as always, to pull out of the territories, build its defensive fence -- and wait for a new generation to accept the status quo." Cohen basically says that killing civilians is not so bad if there is a political reason behind the terror and/or if the terrorists are not religious militants but frustrated secular humanists, like himself. I think that's morally heinous, but that's up to the reader. Cohen, however, also grossly distorts the facts: Israel does not "unmistakably squat on land that was once Palestinian." Judea, Samaria and Gaza were never controlled by Palestinians. Cohen would presumably respond that many Palestinians have lived in those areas since before Israel's formation and that if Israel unilaterally withdrew, eventually peace would come since Palestinians would be satisfied with their own state . Yet, many Arabs also lived in places such as Tel Aviv, (western) Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa, and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and much of Fatah view all of those areas (and all the land "from the river to the sea") as part of Palestine, insisting that Israel be dismantled. Even those who ostensibly claim a moderate position on terrirtory demand the return of refugees to pre-1967 Israel. Cohen knows this, but intentionally overlooks it, instead blaming Israel's "occupation" for the murder of babies by "people who in their own way are saying they can't take it any longer." Colin Powell Recognizes Arafat's Authority Colin Powell made the following statement today: "(I) call on Chairman Arafat to work with Prime Minister Abbas and to make available to [him] those security elements that are under his control so that they can allow progress to be made on the road map —end terror, end this violence." I thought that a key aspect of the road map, at least from the perspective of Israel and the U.S., was for Arafat to be left without any political or military authority, and to essentially be relegated to a symbolic role. Instead, Powell recognizes that Arafat remains in full control, and requests that he "make available" to Mahmoud Abbas the PA security forces, rather than giving Abbas control of such forces. Sadly, the Bush Administration continues to deviate from President Bush's June 24, 2002 speech, demanding Arafat's replacement. Israelis (and visitors to Israel) are paying the price of this deviation. James Bennett's Mystery James Bennett demonstrated his idiocy, and that of the New York Times, in his article today about Tuesday's suicide bombing. Bennett wrote: "It was a mystery to many how the bomber, a 29-year-old Palestinian from Hebron, managed to reach the heart of the bus unsuspected, let alone why the bomber — the father of two, the husband of a pregnant woman — would choose to strike among so many children." Presumably, if the victims had been "settlers" or parents of children but not children themselves, Bennett would not have thought the motivations of the suicide bomber to be mysterious. He and the moronic editors at the Times (today's Times lead editorial praised Mahmoud Abbas) continue to refuse to face the reality that terror groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Arafat's Fatah seek to kill men, women and children, on both sides of the Green Line, in order to frighten Israelis into leaving the country and tourists from coming, and to force Israel to make dangerous unilateral concessions. Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Ridicule of a Shark Victim At the end of his program on CNN last night, Aaron Brown reviewed the headlines in today's newspapers. One paper included a headline about a California woman who was attacked and killed by a shark on a California beach. Brown laughed and smiled as he read the headline, and then smugly stated that he was laughing because he did not want CNN to waste time on shark attacks, as it did in 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks. The obnoxious Brown was unable even to pretend to have a bit of empathy for the shark victim and her family. Ridicule of a Terror Victim On his radio program this morning, Don Imus interviewed Tom Rose, publisher of The Jerusalem Post. The interview was fine until toward the end, when Imus mentioned (without name) Goldie Taubenfeld, a chasidic mother of 13 from New Square, New York, who was killed in yesterday's bombing, with at least one of her daughters wounded. Rumors suggest that a 6-month-old child of Taubenfeld was also killed, but at this time that has not been confirmed. Derisively referring to Mrs. Taubenfeld, Imus asked Rose: "What was that woman thinking? I mean, what'd she say to herself, let's go to Jerusalem and get on a bus?" Instead of objecting to Imus' offensive statement, Rose meekly responded that the woman was probably an immigrant to Israel who needed to ride the bus to get around. Not only is that factually inaccurate, but it suggests that one needs to be defensive about riding buses in Israel, something most visitors frequently do. UPDATE: It has now been confirmed that six-month-old Shmuel Taubenfeld was killed in the suicide bombing. The family had come to Jerusalem for a wedding. Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Reaction to Murder My first reaction to suicide bombings such as today's is anger and fury as the death toll quickly rises. When information about specific victims is released, that feeling includes sadness about the victims and their families, whose lives will be shattered because they got onto a bus after praying at the Western Wall. It's now about two and a half hours after the bombing, and Haaretz just reported that a "2-year-old dies of wounds sustained in Jerusalem bus bombing, bringing number of dead to 21" and that "hundreds take to streets of Palestinian camp in Lebanon, hand out sweets to celebrate Jerusalem attack." When one thinks of a mass murder, whether today's or even the Holocaust, often it's hard to internalize the scope and depth of the tragedy, and the extent of the evil that perpetrated it, until being confronted with information about actual victims. For example, as in many older synagogues, Young Israel of Forest Hills has plaques in memory of those who have passed away. Many of those were vicitims of the Holocaust. As I was leaving Friday evening services a few days ago, I noticed a series of plaques for the Osterwieck family. There is a plaque for a husband and a wife who were murdered together in 1942, another for their daughter who was murdered in 1943, another for a brother who was murdered in 1943, and yet another for the brother's wife, who was murdered later in 1943. Presumably, these plaques were put up by a surviving relative of that family. These were only five of the six million victims, and their suffering was actually not unique - hundreds of thousands of families suffered similar fates. Yet the four plaques for five martyred members of the Osterwieck family is a powerful reminder of the extent of the Jewish people's loss at the hands of the Nazis. Similarly, being encountered with news of a two-year-old baby's murder and the murder of the other infants, children and adults today, is a reminder of the extent of the Jewish people's loss at the hands of their evil, murderous Arab enemy. The Cowardly Oz In today's New York Times, radical Israeli leftist Amos Oz writes that the peace process is failing because "the leaders on both sides are cowards. Both Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, realize that there can be no progress before the extremists are contained and overruled. Yet each of these leaders wants the other to launch an internal civil war while he just sits and watches. Each of these leaders wants the internal battle to take place inside the other's family." In fact, it is Oz who is a coward and a hypocrite. For on September 3, 1993, ten days before the signing of the disastrous Oslo accords, Oz wrote in The Jerusalem Post as follows: "What if they take whatever we give them and demand even more, still exercising violence and terror? Within the proposed settlement, Israel will be in a position to close in on Palestine and undo the deal. If the worse comes to the worst, if it turns out that the peace is no peace, it will always be militarily easier for Israel to break the backbone of a tiny, demilitarized Palestinian entity than to go on and on breaking the backbones of eight-year-old stone-throwing Palestinians. "Once peace comes, Israeli doves, more than other Israelis, must assume a clear-cut "hawkish" attitude concerning the duty of the future Palestinian regime to live by the letter and the spirit of its obligations. The plan now being negotiated, Gaza and Jericho first, is a sober and reasonable option. If the Palestinians want to hold onto Gaza and Jericho, eventually assuming power in other parts of the occupied territories, they will have to prove to us, to themselves and to the whole world, that they have abandoned violence and terror, that they are capable of suppressing their fanatics, that they are renouncing the destructive Palestinian Charter and withdrawing from what they used to call "the right of return." They will also have to show that they are willing to tolerate in their midst a minority of Israelis who may choose to live where there is no Israeli government." Peace has not come, and the Palestinians control much more than Gaza and Jericho, but Israeli doves such as Oz refuse to take "a clear cut hawkish attitude concerning the duty of the Palestinian regime to live by the letter and the spirit of its obligations" or to demand that Palestinians show that they "have abandoned violence and terror, that they are capable of suppressing their fanatics." Nor have the Palestinians renounced what they still call the "right of return," or shown any willingness to allow Jews to live peacefully in areas controlled by the PA. Yet Oz not only refuses to undertake what he called for in 1993, he has the audacity to attack his own government and his own prime minister in a hostile newspaper. Terror For The Sake of Terror Two months ago, Hamas bombed a bus in Jerusalem, killing at least 17 Israelis. That bombing occurred one day after Israel had attempted to liquidate Hamas leader Abdul Rantisi. Many (either naively or out of malice toward Israel) blamed the attempt to kill Rantisi for the bus bombing. Since then, Israel has released hundreds of terrorists from prison, and has transferred control of major cities to the Palestinian Authority. Yet the PA has refused to take any action against Hamas, and again today a bus has been bombed in Jerusalem, with both Hamas and Islamic Jihad boasting of responsibility. Clearly, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah need no reason to kill Israelis, as for them murder of innocent Israelis is itself a most noble act. Israel must respond by arresting (and/or rearresting) all terrorists, killing its leadership, such as Rantisi, and resuming the erection of the security fence in its original plan, i.e., including Ariel and other large communities in Western Samaria. Thursday, August 14, 2003
Clinton Plan Satire A reader recalled my January 2001 satire about the Clinton Plan, so it probably makes sense to post it here. It was written during a time of considerable angst about the egregious concessions the Barak government was making while terror escalated, even after PM Barak's coaltion had collapsed and Barak had resigned. Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Volokh's Blogathon Eugene Volokh, whose blog gets thousands of unique visitors a day, is asking readers to "please recommend" The Volokh Conspiracy to others: "E-mail them a post that you think they might particularly like. Tell them that we aren't just for conservatives. Remind them that 'I tried reading a blog a while back, and thought it was stupid, so I don't read blogs' makes as much sense as 'I tried reading a book a while back, and thought it was stupid, so I don't read books.'" I understand that the number of readers to even the major blogs such as 'Volokh' is tiny in comparison with the large media sites, but, from my perspective as an infant blogger, the Professor's request is unnecessary gluttony. Update on Hitchens, Pipes and Said While the full text of Justus Reid Weiner's article about Edward Said was originally not found online, a reader has maintained a copy of it on her hard drive, and has now posted it on her blog, where it appears in full. Another reader has informed me that it is also available, with all of Weiner's footnotes, here. If you're too lazy to scroll down a few posts, my original piece about this issue is available here. Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Cartoon About the Fence Cox & Forkum provides a superb cartoon about Palestinian opposition to Israel's security fence. Oslo Redux As with the Clinton Administration during the Oslo process, the Bush Administration appears more interested in sustaining the "process" (at least as it pertains to Israeli "gestures" such as withdrawal of IDF soldiers, a freeze of consturction in Judea and Samaria, and releases of terrorists) than in anything resembling actual peace. Despite the two sucide bombings this morning and the PA's refusal to take any action against terror, Colin Powell stated that "We cannot let [the road map] go off track. We will continue to move forward on the road map. We will continue to do everything we can... We will not be stopped by bombs. We will not be stopped by this kind of violence because we owe it to you, we owe it to you to give you a better world," Powell told a group of Israeli and Arab students in a Seeds of Peace program. In other words, Powell believes that "moving forward on the road map" will "give a better world" to people in the Middle East. His assurance that bombings won't stop the road map provdes a nice incentive for the PA to continue to do nothing to stop terror, and for Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad to rebuild their terror network. Monday, August 11, 2003
Protocols and Northern California Those of us who thought that "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," was an anti-Semitic forgery may have been mistaken... at least according to the Daily Californian, which reports that "many historians believe" Protocols to have been an anti-Semitic forgery. Presumably other historians disagree, such as Berkeley professor Abbas Kadhim, who has been accused of claiming that Protocols was written by Jews. He denies those claims only slightly, instead arguing that there is no consensus about Protocols' legitimacy. Over the last few days this issue has been discussed at The Volokh Conspiracy, during which Eugene Volokh and David Bernstein have failed to take a clear position against Kadhim. Hitchens, Pipes and Said Speaking of Protocols, the blog Protocols refers to an article in Slate today by Christopher Hitchens. In the article, Hitchens launches a screed against Daniel Pipes. The piece is consistent with Hitchens' animus toward Israel (it refers to IDF actions as Israel's "ruthless policy of collective punishment"), and is not especially interesting. However, Hitchens shows his ignorance (and bias) when he writes that "Pipes has maintained that professor Edward Said of Columbia University is not really a Palestinian and never lost his family home in Jerusalem in the fighting of 1947-48. I have my own disagreements with Said, but this is a much-discredited libel that undermines the credibility of anybody circulating it. Professor Said is deservedly respected for his long advocacy of mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians." Said is no advocate of mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians. For example, in an article last year, he expressed oppostion to any negotiaton with Israel until after Israel returned to the 1967 borders. Said wrote: "Negotiations can only be about when the total withdrawal will take place, not what percentage Israel is willing to concede. A conqueror and a vandal cannot concede anything: he must simply return what he's taken and pay for the abuses that are his responsibility to bear, just as Saddam Hussein should and did pay for his occupation of Kuwait." Even if Israel were to unilaterally withdraw to the 1967 borders, Said would still be opposed to recognition of it. Instead, he insists on a return of refugees to Israel and the replacement of Israel with a binational state. Indeed, in an interview with Haaretz, Said stated that "the two-state solution can no longer be implemented... Jewish sovereignty as an end in itself seems to me not worth the pain and the waste and the suffering it produced." As for Hitchens' claim that it is a libel that Said is not really a Palestinian, this was in fact established by Justus Reid Weiner in Commentary. While the full article is apparently no longer online, Weiner's Wall Street Journal piece is, and can be read here. As Weiner made clear, Said and his family lived in Cairo in the 1940's, and while they visited his aunt's home in Jerusalem, they never resided in pre-Israel Palestine. I was able to find this piece in less than 30 seconds. Hitchens never bothered to search for it. Instead, in accusing Pipes of libel, Hitchens committed a libel against Pipes. UPDATE: Thanks to a reader/blogger who kept it on her hard drive, the full text of Weiner's Commentary article is available here. It is also available, with all of Weiner's footnotes, here. Thursday, August 07, 2003
The Jewish Week's Guide To Assimilation On Campus Its original sensationist piece was apparently so popular that The Jewish Week has published another article about"A Parent's Guide To Orthodox Assimilation On University Campuses," the pamphlet written by Gil Perl and Yaakov Weinstein. This week's article cites a modern Orthodox Columbia student for the notion that "college life isn’t exactly the scene of decadence and debauchery depicted in" the pamphlet. Yet it was the original Jewish Week article, rather than the pamphlet, which used the term "debauchery" in its headline. That notwithstanding, the article criticizes for pamphlet for its "hysterical tone," when in fact it is The Jewish Week that is acting hysterically. This week's article, however, does a good job of validating the concerns raised in the pamphlet. For example, it quotes an Orthodox NYU senior who "attended a pagan celebration for the winter solstice," while the Columbia student has dated non-Orthodox guys. Would Orthodox parents be happy about that? Certainly, many would not be. Which is the point of the pamphlet, whether one agrees with it or not. My original post on this topic can be found here. Tuesday, August 05, 2003
U.S. Fence Threat Today's Times reports that the Bush Administration may reduce loan guarantees to Israel by all amounts spent on construction of the fence separating Israel from Palestinians. I have four comments on this: 1. The article states that this threat "had not been transmitted to Mr. Sharon's government. 'This takes us by surprise,'" an Israeli official told the Times. Given that Prime Minister Sharon just met with President Bush last week, it's rather condescending for this issue to first be raised in the media, rather than directly to Israel. 2. It's infuriating that only Israel is the recipient of these sorts of punitive sanctions. No sanctions were ever threatened against U.S. "allies" such as Saudi Arabia for their support of terrorism. 3. Even if the loan guarantees were to be reduced, shouldn't they be reduced, at most, by the amount spent on the portion of the fence that deviates from the 1967 border? What opposition could the Bush Administration have to the parts of the fence that run along the Green Line? The Times article touches on this issue, but indicates that it has not been considered very much. 4. The article quotes Colin Powell as saying that the United States is "concerned when the fence crosses over onto the land of others." However, to the extent that the fence "crosses over" beyond the 1967 borders, it mostly encompasses Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, rather than Palestinian villages. Powell's statement, however, is a clear indication that the State Department views all post-1967 areas as belonging to the Palestinians. Monday, August 04, 2003
PA and Terror The editorial in today's Arab News states that "while Ariel Sharon withheld any credit for the Palestinian Authority or Abbas’ Cabinet in securing a halt to operations inside Israel — claiming instead that this was achieved primarily through Israeli security forces and the United States — the PA has restored calm in Palestinian territories." That, however, is the point. While the PA claimed for three years that it was unable to stop terror, the past month is evidence that, at least to a large extent, it can. Similarly, the PA has the ability to arrest terrorists and confiscate the tens of thousands of illegal weapons in the territories it controls. Sunday, August 03, 2003
Jerusalem Report Letter The latest issue of The Jerusalem Report has published a letter from me, but oddly it does not appear on their website. The magazine edited the letter I submitted, most notably by changing my references to "charedi" to "ultra-Orthodox." I don't like the term "ultra-Orthodox." In fact I don't like the term "Orthodox." Anyway, here's the letter as it appears in The Jerusalem Report: Ami Pedahzur claims that support for the Kahane ideology is growing substantially, particularly within the ultra-Orthodox community (Back Page, July 14). As proof, he states that "most of those who voted last January for the radical right-wing Herut party" were ultra-Orthodox. Herut, however, did not even receive enough votes to join the Knesset. Only 36,202 Israelis voted for Herut, while the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, received 258,879 and 135,087 votes, respectively, for 11 and five Knesset seats. Clearly, only a tiny minority of religious Israelis supported Herut. Joseph Schick New York On June 30, I wrote a more detailed post about this issue, which can be read here. Friday, August 01, 2003
Frum Teens Frum Teens should be required reading for observant Jews. The site deals with a vast array of issues. I strongly disagree with the moderator (apparently there are several) on issues concerning Zionism, and modern orthodoxy. As examples, Rav Kook is compared to Korach, while Rav Soloveitchik is essentially labeled an egomaniac. The moderator's approach is so harsh, that I believe the site to be worthless with regard to these issues. Yet in other ways it is uniquely valuable. There are postings from bais yaacov girls who have been sexually active, from kids who have been molested or raped, have attempted or are considering suicide, who are using drugs, who are pregnant, and everything else one can think of and some things you couldn't - like the kid whose mother divorces her father to move in with another woman. The kid desparately wants to remain observant. Incidentally quite a few of the kids started off on the wrong track after being expelled from school for minor infractions, such as hanging out with a member of the opposite sex, or listening to "offensive" forms of music. One girl who said she was close to killing herself claimed that only after his death was a Boro Park boy who died of a heroin overdose treated with sensitivity rather than as an embarrasment. (That girl was incorrect; in fact the boy's parents tried desperately to help their son.) Not only does the moderator deal patiently and supportively with each of these kids (he reminds them, for example, that Joshua married Rachav, a former prostitute), he does not hesitate to criticize the schools and teachers for causing and/or worsening many of the problems. He points out that throwing out kids is in almost all cases a violation of Jewish law, and is done because teachers do not like to deal with difficult kids. He also correctly ridicules the approach to "at risk" kids, which is to isolate those kids while ignoring the reasons why the problem is growing. As he puts it, it is as though a city reacted to the problem of an unstable bridge by building a hospital for victims when the bridge falls. Anyone who reads some of the thousands of anonymous postings will learn alot about the shortcomings of the community, of the fact that the problems mentioned above really do exist, and will (hopefully) gain an understanding of, and a sensitivity toward, the pain and challenges these kids face. Obviously these kids often created their own problems, but the consequences often outweigh the transgression. At the very least, any educator or parent dealing with an "at risk" child should review frumteens.com. Sharon Forced To Resign? Maariv's investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak reports that Prime Minister Sharon will likely resign in early 2004 due to campagin finance scandals that are currently being investigated. Yitzchak has previously broken major stories, including large gifts received by former President Ezer Weizman, and EU funding of various left-wing grops. Clearly, he has good sources, and his report must therefore be taken seriously. | "
