The Zionist Conspiracy |
|
|
A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews. 
|
Thursday, November 27, 2003
Stupid Column of the Week This week's Stupid Column of the Week goes to Yossi Sarid's column in the Forward, which originally appeared in Haaretz. Sarid is furious that Israel hosted Italy's deputy prime minister, Gianfranco Fini, who eight years ago said that "Mussolini was the greatest statesman of the 20th century." Fini now expresses strong support for Israel, but while he retracted his pro-Mussolini statements, he has failed to fully condemn or even recognize Italy's fascist past. Sarid's criticism of the respect paid to Fini is legitimate. His stupidity - or, more likely, his transparent hypocrisy, manifests itself when he writes that he boycotted all sessions involving Fini because "I had no wish to play any part in sanitization ceremonies for fascists, neo-fascists and antisemites of all kinds." Yet in a 1995 interview, Sarid expressed support for the release of all PLO terrorists from prison. When Sarid was asked if he was concerned about the moral implications of releasing terrorists who may be guilty of "war crimes," Sarid responded that he was not concerned since "there are many world leaders who were guilty of war crimes." In the Forward, Sarid asked: "Why, of all countries, would Israel, the state of the Jewish people, want to wash the hands of a man like Fini? The reason is clear: Fini supports the Israeli government's policies in the territories; he is a friend of Ariel Sharon; and in a place that has no friends, even Fini will be considered one." This from the man who for decades, and even today, insists that Israel negotiate with Yassir Arafat. To Sarid, I ask: Why, of all countries, should Israel, the state of the Jewish people, want to wash the hands of a man like Arafat? The reason is clear: Legitimizing Arafat supports the extreme left's policies (of removing all Jews) in the territories; he is a friend of Yossi Sarid; and in a place that has no friends, even Arafat will be considered one. Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Labor's Peace Plan Today's Haaretz reports that the Labor party announced its principles for a peace agreement with the Palestinians. "Labor's plan includes a return to the June 4, 1967 borders, a division of Jerusalem, opposition to the right of return, and building a separation fence on the Green Line," the report states. Labor MK Chaim Ramon is quoted as saying that "nobody can ask us what we stand for, because the answer is provided in this draft." Indeed, it seems to me that Labor and Ramon stand for nothing. It is not enough for Labor to call for a peace agreement based on Ehud Barak's offer at Camp David or even the Clinton Plan. Those plans kept 4-8 percent of Judea and Samaria under Israeli rule, along with post-1967 Jerusalem neighborhoods. A return to the June 4, 1967 borders by definition means relinquishing every inch of territory captured in 1967. In contrast, a month before he was murdered, Prime Minister Rabin told the Knesset that "we will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines." Olmert on Powell Following Colin Powell's praise of the Geneva Accords and the U.S.'s invitation to Sari Nusseibeh and Ami Ayalon, whose peace plan calls for a return to the 1967 borders, Ehud Olmert stated as follows, as reported by Haaretz: "We know the State Department headed by Colin Powell isn't exactly a hothouse of empathy for Israel. Expressions of disagreement with our positions by the State Department are not at all surprising. "The State Department ... has always been less sympathetic to Israel, while in other quarters it is different." That's pretty disrespectful, but my initial reaction is that Olmert is right for saying it. In welcoming peace plans by private Israeli politicians whose policies have been rejected, Powell is undermining the elected government in Israel, so Olmert's response is appropriate. Monday, November 24, 2003
More Times Bias Even the sports section of the New York Times lacks fairness. Dave Anderson's column in today's paper strongly criticizes Jets fans who left early yesterday, missing the team's 94 yard game-winning touchdown drive which ended with 26 seconds left. Anderson wrote that "Jets fans aren't as loyal as Giants fans" and that "only about 10,000 people were still in their seats to see that touchdown." Unlike Anderson, who sat in the indoor, heated press box with his elitist media buddies, I was there to the end among the riff-raff. Many of the fans had indeed left, probably a majority. But there were far more than 10,000 of us there for the fantastic finish and it's absurd to say that only 10,000 of the 77,614 seats were filled for the comeback drive. Worse, the notion that because many leave early Jets fans are not as loyal as Giants fans ignores Jeremy Shockey's recent criticism of Giants fans for - you guessed it - leaving early: "It's just discouraging when it's six minutes left in the game and you see fans leaving. They think it's over. It's one play from not being over. Don't get me wrong, we have the best fans in the world ... when we are doing things right. But when things kind of go bad, they don't want to have any part of us, which is fine. We play for ourselves and the coaches. Give up on us if you want to. Leave the game. Don't even come to the game. Give your tickets away." Both the Giants and the Jets have many fans who leave early when their team is behind in the 4th quarter. While things looked bleak yesterday, it's indeed pathetic that so many people left with the Jets down by 4 points. Anderson, however, significantly exaggerated the number who left, and is wrong in thinking that only Jets fans head for the parking lot. Alonzo Mourning Retires The retirement of Alonzo Mourning only 12 games into a 4 year contract obviously leaves the Nets in a bind at center. Last month, when the Nets released Dikembe Mutombo, who was subsequently signed by the Knicks, I wrote: "The Nets' buyout of Dikembe Mutombo's contract results in the team having much less front-court depth and therefore little chance of winning a championship. Mutombo is obviously past his prime, but remains a defensive force. The Nets are apparently relying on Alonzo Mourning to remain healthy. That strategy is risky at best, given Mourning's kidney ailment." Unfortunately, I was right. Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Stupid Column of the Week Rarely do Jewish establishment leaders reach a clear consensus. The recent obscene statements by George Soros were an exception. As reported by the JTA, at a November 5 conference of the Jewish Funders Network, Soros claimed that "the policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration" are the cause of anti-Semitism in Europe. "If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish," he said. "I can't see how one could confront it directly." Soros also called for "regime change" in the United States and talked of funding projects in "Palestine." Last week, in a Washington Post interview, Soros stated that a "supremacist ideology" guides this White House and that "when I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." Reaction to Soros' speech at the Jewish Funders Network was almost unequivocal in its strong condemnation: Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress said: "Let's understand things clearly: Anti-Semitism is not caused by Jews; it's caused by anti-Semites. One can certainly be critical of Bush policy or Sharon policy, but any deviation from the understanding of the real cause of anti-Semitism is not merely a disservice, but a historic lie." Abe Foxman of the ADL called Soros' statements "absolutely obscene." "He buys into the stereotype," Foxman said. "It's a simplistic, counterproductive, biased and bigoted perception of what's out there. It's blaming the victim for all of Israel's and the Jewish people's ills." As reported in the New York Sun, James Tisch, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, called the Soros remarks "an outrage" and "invoked the precedent of the early Third Reich, when Jews were told that if they'd just be quiet anti-Semitism would abate." "It boggles the mind. Soros may be wealthy and he may be brilliant with the markets but he obviously hasn't learned his history," Tisch said. Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents, reacted that "the fundamental case he makes is flawed - the idea that somehow the anti-Semites hate Jews because of particular policies. To shift the onus onto the victim is essentially exonerating the perpetrator." The loan dissenter was Mark Charendoff, president of the Funders Network: "We found him to be enormously frank, candid and generous with his time," Charendoff said. Defending Soros is stupid enough, but in a Jewish Week column, Charendoff takes his idiocy to a new level. Charendoff is "not sure whether to be angry, disappointed or ashamed." Not with Soros, but "with the Jewish community's response." Charendoff invokes the Talmud in complaining about those who criticized Soros: "When did unpopular ideas lose currency in the Jewish community? What happened to the Talmudic ethic of defending the minority view and recording for posterity the losing side of the argument?" In other words, all ideas, no matter how offensive, foolish or dangerous, must be defended and recorded for posterity. Seems to me that Charendoff should take an Intro to Talmud course before invoking Judaism's Oral Law. It gets worse. Charendoff suggests that those who criticize Soros are responsible for "the lack of engagement of young Jews in the organized community." So Bush and Sharon are responsible for anti-Semitism, and those who condemn that notion are responsible for Jewish assimilation and apathy. Worst of all, Charendoff writes, if we criticize Soros' remarks, the anti-Semites will win: "If the anti-Semites contribute to shaping a Jewish community that will neither tolerate dissent nor allow for fruitful debate, then I'm afraid their victory will be far deeper and more long lasting than they otherwise could have hoped." Yes, I'm sure that in Paris shops, Vienna cafes and Saudi madrassas, anti-Semites are salivating about the Jewish leadership's condemnation of George Soros. They had hoped merely to burn down and blow up shuls and schools, to beat up Jews walking the streets with a kippa or Jews walking the streets without a kippa, and to convince others that the Zionist Jews were responsible for 9/11. Now that Foxman, Tisch, Steinberg and Hoenlein have condemned the notion that Bush and Sharon are at fault for their behavior, the anti-Semites have set their sights higher. Thank heavens Mark Charendoff has come forth to protect us from this scourge. He is thus this week's honoree of the Stupid Column of the Week. Stupid Column of the Week Preview This week's Jewish Press and Jewish Week are now online. While each has a suitable candidate which I plan to post about, the far more moronic column appears in The Jewish Week. The Stupid Column of the Week will not be officially awarded until after the Forward goes online tomorrow, though the Jewish Week's nominee will be hard to defeat. In the meantime, the Jewish Week sadly reports on the passing of Rifka Rosenwein, its columnist. Ms. Rosenwein was 42 and lived in Teaneck, New Jersey, and over the last year and a half, she and Barry Lichtenberg, her husband, wrote about her battle with cancer. Six weeks ago, just before Yom Kippur, Mr. Lichtenberg wrote this poignant column. UPDATE: In the course of drafting, for posting tomorrow morning, my critique of Mark Charendoff's column in the Jewish Week, I somehow posted it now, and it appears above. It is still (theoretically) possible that the Forward will come up with something more asinine, but I am confident that the Charendoff piece will hold up as this week's stupidest. FRAUD ALERT: AVOID CELL PHONE RENTALS FROM TLC COMMUNICATIONS During my recent trip to Israel, I rented a cell phone from a company called TLC Communications. I had previously called TLC and been informed that their rate for calls from Israel to the U.S. was 39 cents a minute. Indeed, this is the rate that appears on the company's website. The same rate appears on the form contract that was sent to me. I was surprised, therefore, to be charged 95 cents a minute for calls to the U.S. When I inquired with TLC, they claimed that despite the clear language on top of the contract stating the cost to be 39 cents a minute, some fine print elsewhere in the contract excluded all of my calls from the 39 cent rate. Accordingly, they refused to refund the difference. There are plenty of other companies renting cell phones in Israel, and none charge anywhere near 95 cents per minute. Avoid TLC, and rent from one of their less dishonest competitors. Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Bring Back Keyshawn Tampa Bay has suspended Keyshawn Johnson for the rest of the season, following an escalating feud between him and coach Jon Gruden. Almost certainly, the Bucs will trade Keyshawn during the offseason. A number of teams will go after Johnson, particularly the Cowboys. But with their very thin wide receiver corps and no tall receivers, the Jets and Johnson would be a perfect fit. Opposing defenses would not be able to stack the line to prevent the Jets from running, and Santana Moss would not be double teamed. Chad Pennington would have a chance to fully utilize his immense talent. Because of the NFL's "hard" salary cap, trading for Keyshawn and absorbing his huge salary would admittedly make it more difficult to improve on defense, which the Jets must do to win. However, assuming the price is a couple of draft picks, Johnson would be well worth it. He'd be motivated to win another Super Bowl and would bring excitement back to Jets home games. Monday, November 17, 2003
Beirut Daily Star Editorial: Terror is "Sometimes Appropriate" Today's Beirut Daily Star, which is considered the most moderate English language newspaper published in the Arab world, has an editorial strongly condemning Saturday's suicide bombings at two Istanbul synagogues and lamenting that "far more is needed to dispel the dangerous notion that ours is a civilization that wants its will to be expressed by violence." Alas, the Daily Star makes it clear that its opposition to the murder of Jewish civilians is not unequivocal. The editorial states: "One should, to say the least, have an exceedingly pressing reason before setting out to kill innocent Jews at prayer and anyone else who happens to walk by. That reason does not exist in this instance... "Guerrilla warfare and other forms of low-intensity political violence are sometimes appropriate when all other options have been exhausted. This is not one of those cases." So in other words, there wasn't "an exceedingly pressing reason" for the bombings of the shuls in Turkey, but in an instance "when all other options have been exhausted," the "moderate" Daily Star's position is that murder of "innocent Jews at prayer and anyone else who happens to walk by" is justifiable. Tom Friedman Gets the Facts Wrong on the Geneva Accords In his Times column yesterday in support of the Geneva Accords, Thomas Friedman stated that copies of the accord are being mailed "in Hebrew and Arabic to every home in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza." Friedman is wrong. The text is being mailed only to Israelis, not to Palestinians. Friedman also gets it wrong on the refugee issue. He writes that about 30,000 would be allowed into Israel, while the others would receive compensation. In fact, the accord does not state a number of refugees who would enter Israel, but merely says that the number "shall be at the sovereign discretion of Israel." Presumably, Palestinians will try to sway Israel's discretionary decision via their usual means of persuasion: wanton murder of Israelis. Friedman also wrote that "The Israelis get to keep settlements housing about 300,000 of the 400,000 Jews in the West Bank (in return for an equivalent amount of land from Israel), including virtually all the new Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem built in the Arab side of the city." The 400,000 number includes parts of Jerusalem that were developed after 1967, such as Gilo, French Hill, Ramat Eshkol and Ramot. Nobody considers these areas to be "settlements." They also are not now and were not prior to 1967 "in the Arab side of the city." While Jordan occupied northern Jerusalem from 1948-1967, those areas have a large Jewish majority, in contrast to the eastern parts of the city. Finally, Friedman insists on referring to Beilin as a "moderate." In fact, in the election in January, Beilin ran on Meretz's line, and failed to even win a Knesset seat. Friedman has every right to support the political positions of Beilin and Meretz, but to describe those positions as "moderate" is akin to referring to Ralph Nader as a moderate. Thursday, November 13, 2003
Jets Moving to Manhattan? The pain the Jets inflict on us is bad enough that we season ticket holders should not have to endure an endless commute to and from Giants Stadium, whose parking lot, entrances and exits ensure maximum delay. According to a Business Week article, soon we won't have to. The article reports that the Jets will soon announce plans to build a new stadium in midtown Manhattan, on the West Side. Alas, the stadium won't be ready until 2009, but Chad Pennington will then only be 33. Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Dialogue With Terrorists There can be no dialogue with terrorists, who must be confronted "with guns and swords." As reported in Arab News, that is the position of Saudi Arabian Interior Minister Prince Naif. Stupid Column of the Week Protocols features the Jewish Press Stupid Letter of the Week, but alas, that paper's opinion columns have too often been overlooked. Until now. Starting this week, I will endeavor to feature the stupidest column from Orthodox Jewry's newspaper of choice. While I can't promise to do so every week (or that the JP will publish a stupid column every week), I'll do my best. This week's inaugural honor goes to Ben Shapiro, whose column is entitled 'Debunking The Myth Of Yitzhak Rabin.' While Rabin must not be immune from criticism, Shapiro's piece contains numerous inaccuracies that, unfortunately, will be accepted as factual by naive readers of the Jewish Press. Shapiro, a 19 year old UCLA senior, relies heavily on Uri Milstein's anti-Rabin biography. Shapiro sloppily refers to events in 1947 as having occurred "during the War of Independence," which, of course, did not commence until Ben Gurion declared independence on May 14, 1948. For that he can be excused, but his claim that "Rabin's military record extends beyond incompetence" is absurd. Contrary to Shapiro's claims, in 1948 the Harel Brigade of the Palmach, which at age 26 Rabin commanded, successfully re-opened and expanded the access roads to and from Jerusalem, which had been completely cut off. Shapiro's statement that "under [Rabin's] watch, Israeli forces [in Jerusalem] met with disaster after disaster" is both false and a deep insult to the many heroic soldiers who gave their lives to end the siege on Jerusalem. Regarding the June 1948 Altalena tragedy, in which 16 Irgun members were killed by the IDF under Ben Gurion's orders, Shapiro claims that "Rabin bragged how he had 'bumped them off on the deck of the burning ship and while they were trying to swim to safety,'" but Shapiro offers no cite to back up this quote. While many have stated that Rabin was involved in the attack on the Altalena - and such participation is nothing to brag about - Rabin's biography contains only a passing reference (my recollection is that he states that he thought the Irgun was plotting a military takeover) and I am therefore skeptical of Shapiro's quote. Shapiro conveniently ignores the rest of Rabin's military career, even completely ignoring the Six Day War, when Rabin was serving as Chief of Staff of the IDF. Any honest person would have to admit that Rabin, who assumed the role of Chief of Staff in 1964, had prepared Israel's military extremely well in advance of the 1967 war. (Incidentally, Rabin's very moving speech a few weeks after the Six Day War, at Hebrew University's just liberated main campus at Mount Scopus, can be read here.) Shapiro, however, skipping 44 years, goes straight from 1948 to 1992, when Rabin was elected Prime Minister for the second time. (Shouldn't an article about Rabin at least mention something - positive or negative - about his term as PM from 1974-1977?) Shapiro writes that "before Rabin's murder, his peace program had been overwhelmingly rejected by the Israeli public" and that "before his assassination, Rabin was trailing anti-Oslo Likud candidate Benjamin Netanyahu by a wide margin." That's an exaggeration. Israelis were deeply divided on Oslo prior to Rabin's murder, with a slight majority of Jews opposed, and though it is correct that a January 1995 poll and an April 1995 poll showed big leads for Netanyahu, by July 1995 the gap had narrowed. After the assassination, Netanyahu accepted Oslo and negotiation with Arafat, and his move toward the political center resulted in his narrow victory over Shimon Peres. Monday, November 10, 2003
Saving Ron Arad Yesterday's 12-11 cabinet approval of the proposed exchange between Israel and Hezbollah was shameful. While obtaining the bodies of the three soldiers killed by Hezbollah and the release of Elchanan Tannenbaum are very important, the price Israel agreed to pay is far too high, especially since no information regarding Ron Arad and Israel's other MIAs will be forthcoming, even as Israel would give up their prime bargaining chips for the MIAs. As of now, however, it is not clear that the exchange will take place, as Hezbollah is now demanding that a Lebanese murderer of an Israeli family (inside their house) also be included. If there is a positive aspect to this tragic situation, it is that the vigorous debate on the issue has again focused extensive attention on Arad's plight (though, unfortunately, less so on the plight of Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman, Yehuda Katz, who have been missing since a June 11, 1982 battle, in the first days of the Lebanon War). Given the cruelty of Israel's enemies, it is difficult to be optimistic, but hopefully this attention will finally result in the MIAs safe return home, or, if some or all are no longer alive, a return of their bodies, and some amount of closure for their suffering families. | "
