Touring Israel with Mike Huckabee by Helen Freedman

bs"d

Apparently, after reading Helen Freedman's report, Governor Huckabee said many important statements of which I totally agree. In fact, I have nothing but the utmost respect for this man. He is a mensch and a true friend of Israel. But the following observation is very painful to me as a Jew. Why do Bible believing Christians assert the right of the Jews to their homeland and the Jews themselves are not assertive?

Let us work to change this and raise the Jewish Voice!

Huckabee spoke about American Christians' very deep support for Israel. He believes there is more unity amongst Evangelicals for Israel than there is among Jews. He describes the Christian connection to Judaism as one that is totally genetic, "part of its DNA," and that because of this, Bible-believing Christians assert the right of the Jews to their homeland.

Why can't the Jews?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: afsi <afsi@rcn.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 11:14 AM
Subject: Following the Huckabee Trail in Israel
To: afsi@rcn.com

ARUTZ-SHEVA – AUGUST 24, 2009

.

4. First-Person Account: Touring Israel with Mike Huckabee
by Helen Freedman

A first-person account of a US presidential candidate's trip to Israel by a prominent Jewish-American activist reveals a calm man with strong principles.

When I received the invitation from Shani Hikind at the Ateret Cohanim/Jerusalem Reclamation Project (JRP) to accompany Republican Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on a mission to Israel, I agreed immediately.

Having listened to Huckabee speak at the many debates held amongst the candidates, and being a fan of his Fox television show and his ABC radio shows, I knew that traveling with Mike would be a unique and extraordinary experience. It was all that and more!!

I trust that the messages he brings back, which are strong contradictions of the Obama policies, will help educate the general public about the true situation that exists in Israel today, and the necessity of keeping Israel a viable ally of America.





I arrived at Newark Airport late Saturday night, August 15, and waited at the gate to board my El Al midnight flight to Israel. An unassuming man walked into the area all alone. There was no entourage, no guards, no secretaries, and no press. When I looked again, I realized it was Mike Huckabee. I approached him, introduced myself, and told him I was part of the group with which he would be traveling. He was as gracious as could be, agreed to take some books and materials that I had for him, and posed for a photo with me. From that time on, he greeted me as Helen whenever we met.

He had that same warm quality with everyone in the group, remembering each one's name and greeting each one with a smile. This calm, affable, genuine quality about him continued throughout our three-day trip in Israel, despite the constant pressure of the media surrounding him, pushing their way forward, shouting out questions, and following him everywhere.



The trip was under the tireless guidance of JRP Representative in Jerusalem, Daniel Luria. Our first day was concentrated in Jerusalem, with a fascinating tour of the City of David, where ancient excavations dating back 3,200 years have been discovered. This was followed by trips through the former Yemenite village in Silwan, mostly Arab but with a renewed Jewish presence as there was decades ago, a visit to Maaleh HaZeitim, a flourishing Jewish development on the Mount of Olives, and a delightful stop at Kidmat Tzion, another Jewish development, adjacent to the ugly wall that cuts through Jerusalem and separates Abu Dis from the rest of Jerusalem.

While most of us enjoyed a picnic lunch in the lovely shaded forest area adjacent to Kidmat Tzion, Mike Huckabee sat in the strong sunshine, in front of a stunning view of the Old City, while he gave interview after interview to the omnipresent press.



Huckabee's remarks to the press have been well-recorded, but there were some particular comments that stand out in my memory. He insisted that his visit was not meant to be a provocation. He believes that two sovereign nations cannot control the same piece of territory, and that though the PA deserves to have a state, "it can't be in Israel." He affirms the unique relationship between the U.S. and Israel which he describes as "organic," with both having experienced the same struggle and victory. He also spoke about his experiences growing up in the deep South with segregated schools, which makes him very sensitive to issues of discrimination and prejudice.



When asked about the "occupation," Mike Huckabee responded brilliantly. He described Israel's government as one of "accommodation, not occupation." He spoke about Israel's efforts to bring all types of services to the Arab communities such as schools, infra-structure development, hospitals, and welfare payments.



The Moskowitz family, owners of the Shepherd Hotel in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem, hosted a lovely cocktail reception on Monday evening at the hotel. Although the hotel is located near the National Headquarters of the Israeli police, near the tomb of Shimon HaTzadik, and adjacent to the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, the purchase of the hotel by a Jewish family, with the purpose of converting it to apartments for Jews, had set off a storm of protest. As we arrived at the hotel, we saw the protestors from Peace Now screaming their opposition to Huckabee's presence. Huckabee's reaction to their insults and noise was that their ability to behave in that fashion simply demonstrated Israel's democratic character, where free speech, even if ugly and unwanted, was fully tolerated.



On Tuesday, the former governor was given a tour of Maaleh Adumim and the E1 corridor to Jerusalem. The town's mayor, Benny Kashriel, explained that the population of nearly 40,000 people in the city provided 2,000 jobs to Arabs, and that freezing construction meant putting Arabs out of work. Huckabee agreed that Obama's policies are not in sync with either his campaign promises, or his assurances made to AIPAC of his continued support for previous understandings regarding Israel's settlement situation. Huckabee asserted that Israelis must be allowed to make their own decisions.



He continued along these lines as we toured Shomron/Samaria with David HaIvri. We visited Beit El, Mt. Gerizim overlooking Shechem (Nablus), Har Bracha, and Givot Olam. In each place he met hard-working, devoted people who love the Land of Israel and dedicate their lives to its preservation. Gershon Mesika, the head of the Shomron Regional Council, asked Huckabee to do what he could to encourage the Jewish people to love Israel and thus restore the Temple to Jerusalem.



Huckabee spoke about American Christians' very deep support for Israel. He believes there is more unity amongst Evangelicals for Israel than there is among Jews. He describes the Christian connection to Judaism as one that is totally genetic, "part of its DNA," and that because of this, Bible-believing Christians assert the right of the Jews to their homeland.



Huckabee suggested that Obama's positions on Israel have brought anxiety to Congress, and that Democrats don't want to be seen to be in conflict with Israel. He reminded us of Reagan's bombing of Libya, and stated, "Abandoning the Israel/U.S. relationship would be the undoing of both countries." Responding to questions about defensible borders for Israel, Huckabee maintained that there would be none if control were turned over to Hamas.



Referring to the years of peace processes, he reminded us of Einstein's definition of insanity, namely, "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Huckabee recommends starting with a blank slate and seeing what is realistically possible; "there is no point in talking about a plan that is a proven failure." Although he recognized that he is out of the mainstream in his beliefs, he says he prefers that to the position of always having to check the prevailing winds.



Asserting that Jews should have the right to live wherever they choose in their homeland, he commented, "If Arabs didn't want to lose land, they shouldn't have started wars." He reminded us that wars and history have caused so many lands to change hands and populations.



That evening, back in Jerusalem, there was a cocktail reception at the very beautiful home of Mr. Guma Aguiar in Yemin Moshe. The former governor was awarded photos and plaques for his deep devotion to Israel as the Jewish homeland. Many Members of Knesset and other dignitaries were there, along with the press of course, and once again Huckabee displayed his modesty, equanimity, and sincerity as he graciously accepted the awards and once again pledged his devotion to Israel.



(Pictured below:) Huckabee with Rabbi Wolpe at Gush Katif Museum



By Wednesday, August 19, work commitments began to intrude in the planned schedule. Though he did not make it to the Gush Katif "resettlement camp" in Nitzan (see below), Huckabee did get to the Gush Katif museum in Jerusalem, where he met Rivka Goldschmidt, an evacuee from the destroyed Gush Katif communities. He spoke to her earnestly, listening to her description of what it had been like to have led a useful and productive life in a beautiful home and community and then to have it all torn away and destroyed. Four years later, only 15 percent of the 400 farmers of Gush Katif have received proper compensation. There were 50 greenhouses in Gush Katif; today, the former residents have only three. People are still paying off the mortgages on their destroyed homes, and must pay rent for the caravans in which they live in the "refugee camps." Huckabee seemed deeply moved by what he heard, as well as by the vivid photos and powerfully emotional film of the expulsion.



He was unable to continue with us on our visit to Nitzan, the largest of the Jewish "refugee camps," where we met with Dror Vanunu and Rachel and Moshe Saperstein, former residents of N'vei Dekalim. After a lovely lunch at the visitors' center, we traveled on to Hevron to enjoy the spirituality always present in this city of our Matriarchs and Patriarchs. David Wilder once again served as our valuable guide.



At our farewell dinner at the "Between the Arches" restaurant in the Old City, Huckabee was there to greet each one of us. He shook hands with us individually, and posed for photos. I spoke to him briefly about his plans to visit Israel again in late January/February with a Christian group. I reminded him that Herbert Zweibon, chairman of my organization, Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI, has always worked closely with the Christian community and would work with him on his planned visit. He indicated that he would look forward to discussing this further.



Mike Huckabee did not stay to dine with us; he fought the Jerusalem traffic that erev Rosh Chodesh Elul night simply to say farewell personally to each one of us who had accompanied him on this memorable trip. He then left for the airport and his return flight to New York. I look forward to watching his personal reports on Fox News and listening to his radio commentaries on Israel.

I trust that the messages he brings back, which are strong contradictions of the Obama policies, will help educate the general public about the true situation that exists in Israel today, and the necessity of keeping Israel a viable ally of America.



Helen Freedman is Executive Director of Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI - 212-828-2424; afsi@rcn.com
Comment on this story

Fwd: West Bank: slowly, determinedly, settlers bid to build new town by Rory McCarthy

bs"d

"People like to present us like crazy lunatics," said Matar. "But one day these people in the West will see. The Muslims are taking over there too. You better be on our side for your sake, but you guys in Europe are not. Those who curse Israel will be cursed, and those who bless Israel will be blessed."

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Women in Green <womeningreen@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 12:53 PM
Subject: West Bank: slowly, determinedly, settlers bid to build new town by Rory McCarthy
To: wfit2@womeningreen.org

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Dear Friends,

Rory McCarthy of the Guardian spent a morning with us in Shdema. Below is what he wrote.

Enjoy!

Nadia Matar, Women in Green
Yehudit Katzover, The Committee for a Jewish Shdema
---------------------------------------------------

West Bank: slowly, determinedly, settlers bid to build new town
Rory McCarthy, August 23, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/23/west-bank-israeli-settlements

In the first of a series of exclusive reports examining settlements in the West Bank and their role in the middle east peace process, Rory McCarthy meets a group of Israelis who want to 'redeem' a patch of land near the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audioslideshow/2009/aug/23/israel-settlements-shdema
Audio slideshow: 'This land belongs to the Jewish people'


Early in the morning, Nadia Matar drove to the hills south of Jerusalem, near the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, and turned into a dusty, unmarked road. There she planted a sign which read "Welcome to Shdema". She drove on, stopping every few metres along the route to jam into the rocky ground a series of fluttering blue and white Israeli flags. Israeli soldiers let her pass unhindered as she drove up to the concrete ruins of what was until a few years ago the Israeli military base of Shdema.

Here, just a stone's throw from Palestinian homes and only a few minutes from the city of Bethlehem, Matar and her friends are intent on building a Jewish community, the next settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank.

It is a glaring challenge to the Obama administration, which is trying to halt all Israeli settlement growth as a precursor to renewed peace talks. But recent history suggests it is the highly-motivated settlers like Matar, 43, a mother of six born in Belgium and now living in the settlement of Efrat, who may in the end triumph on this particular dusty patch of land.

Tomorrow, the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu arrives in London for a series of key meetings, including four hours of discussions on Wednesday with the White House's special envoy, George Mitchell, and talks with Gordon Brown tomorrow. The continued colonisation of the West Bank, an extraordinarily successful project over the past 40 years, will dominate the agenda. Settlement on occupied land is regarded as illegal by the rest of the international community, but nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers live in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Shdema is even beyond Israel's West Bank barrier, which runs deep into Palestinian territory and which many believe will one day be the final border of Israel.

Matar's goal is "redemption of the land". In her view, the land on which the Palestinian homes sit belongs by Biblical and historical right to the Jewish people and is, for now, "temporarily under Arab occupation". She is trying to build a "Jewish Shdema" and to prevent the land from remaining Palestinian. After the military evacuated the base there were plans, since shelved, to build a hospital for Palestinians. "They want more pieces of land that belong to the Jews. They want to take it away from us," Matar said.

"The Land of Israel was given by God to the people of Israel," she said. "Some will tell you God gave it to us, others will say Jewish history of 4,000 years is our historical right … You don't have to be a religious Englishman to see London belongs to the British."

This is a rare insight into how outposts get built: with determined settlers and eventually complicit Israeli authorities.

At first, after the army withdrew from the base three years ago, soldiers closed the area off and prevented all settlers from approaching. But the settlers sneaked in and kept coming. Eventually Matar, a leader of the group Women in Green, and her supporters convinced the military to allow them in just once a week, on a Friday. They cleaned the buildings up, painted over graffiti, tidied the rooms and held workshops and discussions. Sometimes they have stayed the night, sometimes they have been allowed to come twice a week and eventually, they believe, settlers will begin to live here.

Similar struggles take place every week on other hilltops across the West Bank. All this is happening even though the Israeli government says in public it will allow no new settlements.

"At the beginning we fought against the army to come up here," said Matar. "But when they saw we were adamant they let us come on a Friday … But it's not enough for us. We don't want to ask permission to be in our homeland."

Now every time they come the army far from preventing them in fact provides them with security, deploying several soldiers and armoured vehicles but not interfering with their activities. In April the military also halted the construction of a Palestinian park, part funded by the US government, because it was at the foot of the hill claimed by the settlers at Shdema.

Already the settlers have produced a glossy brochure with architectural plans of the Shdema they would like to see: it has grassy lawns, lines of trees, a cultural centre and a small but thriving Jewish community.

On this day around 30 settlers of different ages gathered, among them several children, a rabbi and at least two women carrying discreetly holstered pistols. They sat in one room on plastic chairs as Tomer Karazi, 34, a rabbi with five children, discussed a Biblical text and the importance of building a new village in this Biblical land.

Later Karazi said he and his wife Hannah were ready to move from their home in the settlement of Nokdim to Shdema as soon as possible. "It's our duty not to escort the process of redemption from the outside but to be involved and active from the inside," he said. "We don't need to wait for things like water and electricity. And we really love the place. It's beautiful."

Then out came large tubs of white emulsion paint and several brushes and the group began painting over the grey concrete walls, stopping occasionally for glasses of water and slices of watermelon.

Yosef Ziggerman, 18, a settler from Efrat had been involved in several other, often unsuccessful, attempts to establish new outposts on nearby hills. "I believe every single piece is ours and I don't see many pieces of land as beautiful as this," he said. "We aren't doing anything crazy or fanatic. We're painting and making it look nice."

Several spoke of their frustration with other Israelis who enjoy the more secular lifestyle of cities like Tel Aviv or Eilat but who seemed not to understand or endorse the settlers' millenarian ideology and their effort to claim the West Bank as their own. Since Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza four years ago, many fear more compromises and would rather take a more radical and practical stand to expand Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

They described themselves as a frontline in a wider struggle against what they see as radical Islam, insisting that settler outposts protect the larger settlement blocs, which in turn protect Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and which in turn protect the Western world.

"People like to present us like crazy lunatics," said Matar. "But one day these people in the West will see. The Muslims are taking over there too. You better be on our side for your sake, but you guys in Europe are not. Those who curse Israel will be cursed, and those who bless Israel will be blessed."


 

=============================================
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Fwd: Activists telephone conference, this Thursday, August 27 at 7:30pm EDT

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Yosef Rabin <613yos@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 12:19 AM
Subject: Activists telephone conference, this Thursday, August 27 at 7:30pm EDT
To: Robin Ticker <faigerayzel@gmail.com>

Activists telephone conference, this Thursday, August 27 at 7:30pm EDT

Dial-in Access Number: 1-218-862-7200
Conference Code: 720504

The point of this phone conference is to help spark a grassroots campaign, against Obama's attempt to destroy the communities of Judea and Samaria. Specific actions will be recommended and Jews and lovers of Israel across the US will be urged to start mobilizing and acting immediately.
Up to 500 will be able to participate in the call.

Jewish Press -Frontpage Headlines - Important News Favoring Obama? Obama - No Second Thoughts by Jonathan Toban

bs"d

Dear Publishers, Editors, Journalists and Rabbinic Leaders:

This is In response to Anonymous who commented on a post I sent around and posted on my blog,   entitled "Fwd: Stop the Presses: Blood Libel Goes Mainstream...":This post was critical of the Jewish Press for their front page headlines and for using JTA as their news service.  The Jewish Press is not alone is presenting a slant that is not helpful to the Jewish people and the Jewish Land, Israel.  A Hamodia post used an AP  news service that did not go into detail why Jews disliked Mary Robinson. You call that objective journalism?????  Maybe an outcry from Hamodia and the Jewish Press widely circulated religious Jewish Papers, could have alerted Obama that honoring Mary Robinson deeply offends majority of Jews especially if Jews understand the  role she played at Durban.  While the News was still fresh, Jewish activism might have made a difference. However, Hamodia did not report what happened at Durban and Robinson's role and their readership who only wants "kosher news" had no clue about Mary Robinson's antisemitic connection to Durban and naturally didn't respond.  This lack of reporting also reflects the sleeping Jewish Leadership who take a Silent passive role in seeing disturbing current events unfold. Perhaps if the Jewish Media would report about it alerting the public, the public will then wakeup the sleeping Leadership.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post

Um, maybe the Jewish Press highlighted the sory about obama getting 92 percent of support from Jewish Democrats is because... it HAPPENS TO BE AN IMPORTANT STORY. Should we pretend it's not true? The front page story in the Jewish Press is a NEWS story, not an editorial, so it's perfectly consistent for a newspaper to run a story like that while at the same time opposing Obama's policies. The fact that you don't understand this indicates you know nothing about journalism -- as does the fact that you keep glorifying Arutz Sheva. Look, I agree with most of the Arutz-Sheva/religious Zionist agenda, but Aryuz Sheva is not a reliable news source. They're advocates of a certain ideology -- an ideology I happen to share -- and they skew their "reporting" to fit their agenda in almost every story.



Posted by Anonymous to Shemittah Rediscovered at 9:57 PM

My response to Anonymous updated:

There are many important stories in the news.  I am sure Obama has done many wonderful things in his life.  He might act or be a wonderful father and husband and a paper can choose to have these positive images of him on the front cover.   Every news article has a slant. One news headline can be "Jewish Democrats Still in Love with Obama" and that 92 percent of American Democrat Jews favor Obama and that  there was nearly unanimous approval of Obama's efforts according to a survey of 500 self-identified Democrats  with a margin of error plus minus 4% as was in the front page headline of the Jewish Press, Friday August 21, 2009.  The Jewish Press could have chosen  a different  headline that reads "Majority of Israeli Jews feel that  Obama can not be trusted to Safeguard Israel's security" and that only 7 percent of Israeli Jews believe that Obama is pro Israel and that 60 percent believe that Obama can not be trusted to take Israel security into account and safeguard them in his diplomatic efforts. (Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research as reported in Arutz 7 and published by 5Times Jewish Times August 14, 2009 page 57 in article headlined Survey: 66% of Jews Say Jerusalem Sovereign Indisputable by Gil Ronen, Arutz7. The poll surveyed 512 people and has a margin of error of 4.5 percent)  Perhaps both headlines are accurate and important yet they send 2 very different messages. It seems to me that the Jewish Press has their agenda as well!  On front pages their headlines clearly reflect Obama Administration in a positive light and their inner pages reflect their true inner feelings which reflect a wariness about President Obama.  It seems to me that it's not so much hypocrisy on the part of the Jewish Press but a desire to on the surface find favor in the society they find themselves.

  However, there is an obligation of  religious Jewish papers of wide circulation to spread the knowledge to those who happen to glance at  the headlines, that the Obama Administration is truly acting in ways that is hurtful to Israel's security rather than that Obama is a favorite among Jews. 

One can be an "objective journalist" and at the same time be a soldier in the War of the Media. There is a Media War going on and Jewish Media unfortunately is fighting for the wrong side. Saying that Obama is a favorite of Jews (who will take notice that the headline says Jewish Democrats and not simply Jews?) does not send the message that Jews are concerned under the Obama Administration about the security  threat to Israel.  And if Jews are not concerned, then it is your job as educators of the news to inform the public, bring them the news,  and make them aware about why they should indeed be concerned and hopefully motivate them to act.  We have that obligation to ourselves, our children and to the 350,000  or so Jews living in Judea and Samaria within rocket range.  Reporting the News carries with it a moral and social responsibility. .

Unfortunately it deeply pains one like myself, who was made to feel isolated  and a minority by this headline,  to read that 92 percent of Democratic Jews couldn't care less about Israel's security since apparently they are still "in love" with Obama.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Women in Green <wfit2@womeningreen.org>
Date: Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 2:29 AM
Subject: No second thoughts by Jonathan Tobin
To: wfit2@womeningreen.org


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No second thoughts
August 18, 2009
Jonathan Tobin, THE JERUSALEM POST

When asked about whether US President Barack Obama was rethinking his
decision to give Mary Robinson his nation's highest civilian award, a
spokesman for the White House was quoted as saying that the president
"had no second thoughts" about giving the former Irish president the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. Indeed, the ceremony went off without a
hitch and nary a discouraging word as Robinson and 15 other less
controversial recipients got their medals amid a blizzard of
presidential praise.

Obama lauded Robinson, the woman who presided over the United Nation's
anti-Semitic hate fest at the 2001 Durban Conference on racism, as "an
advocate for the hungry and the hunted, the forgotten and the
ignored," and ignored the widespread criticism of the honoree from a
wide range of Jewish groups as well as some members of Congress.

Robinson is a longtime foe of the Jewish state and even today holds
the post of honorary president of Oxfam, an NGO that gained publicity
last week for firing actress Kirstin Davis of Sex and the City fame as
its spokeswoman because she also represents Ahava, whose Dead Sea
cosmetics are considered off-limits by Israel-haters.

Though the dustup over Robinson cast something of a shadow on an event
that is almost always non-controversial (because the White House
generally eliminates questionable candidates), the dispute did not
generate a great deal of publicity. It was Robinson's good fortune
that the weeks leading up to the ceremony were dominated by a divisive
national debate over health care reform.

Even Obama's most virulent critics on the right were too preoccupied
with the debate over the president's massive expansion of government
power for it to register much of an impact on the nation's political
Richter scale.

BUT FRIENDS of Israel, especially those Jewish Democrats who have been
doing their best to ignore the White House's increasingly belligerent
tone toward the Jewish state, would do well to note what happened with
Robinson. Obama honored a virulent enemy of Israel, someone who bore a
great deal of responsibility for Durban, one of the most disgraceful
episodes in the history of an institution - the UN - that is no
stranger to disgrace. And he has gotten away with it with hardly a
scratch on his reputation.

Though some will dismiss this incident as a minor mistake that will
soon be forgotten, the main lesson to be learned here may not be the
one about presidential award nominations needing to be more thoroughly
vetted. Rather, it may be that as much as this was an unforced error
on the part of the White House, what Obama and his advisers may take
away from this incident is how easily they were able to dismiss a
nearly universal Jewish dismay.

In the weeks to come, the president and his foreign-policy team are
said to be preparing what we are told is a new Middle East peace plan.
The upshot of this exercise may be some sort of peace conference
doomed to certain failure because neither of the two leading
Palestinian factions - the supposedly more moderate Fatah that runs
the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist terrorists of Hamas - have
any real interest in a peace deal with Israel.

As Robert Malley, the former Clinton administration staffer who is a
prominent critic of Israel, wrote in The New York Times last week, for
either group "to accept Israel as a Jewish state would legitimize the
Zionist enterprise that brought about their tragedy. It would render
the Palestinian national struggle at best meaningless, at worst
criminal." Thus, the only possible purpose of the Obama initiative
will be to attempt again to bludgeon Israel into making concessions to
Palestinians that are uninterested in peace.

THE ADMINISTRATION is also still committed to "engagement" with Iran's
despotic Islamist regime and continues to appear uninterested in any
serious effort to stop Teheran from gaining nuclear capability. Though
both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert
Gates have talked about giving the Iranians until after the General
Assembly of the United Nations meets this fall before attempting to
organize more stringent sanctions, this is not a credible stance since
such efforts will not only be undermined by lackluster European
support and open opposition from China and Russia, they will almost
certainly be too late to stop Teheran's nuclear timetable.

On both these issues, despite their hopes that Obama may ultimately
step back from a full-throttle battle, the pro-Israel community may
soon find itself looking into the business end of a White House
propaganda machine that will feel confident about dismissing concerns
about Israel's security in much the same way that they have trashed
opponents of their health care plan.

There are those who take the point of view that the willingness of
mainstream groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and others to
allow any daylight to be seen between themselves and the White House
on the Robinson affair is a sign that Jewish spines are stiffening in
response to Obama's attitude on Jewish security issues. But that
strikes me as over-optimistic at best since left-wing groups with
growing clout among administration circles, such as J Street,
dutifully supported the president on the issue. So long as his leftist
base sticks with him, it's doubtful that the president will worry
about support from mainstream liberals who are loathe to make common
cause with Obama's critics.

Though they may have been surprised that any major Jewish groups had
the chutzpah to oppose the president even on this issue, the
nonchalance with which Obama and his apologists road roughshod over
any opposition to the award may well have taught the White House that
they can get away with anything.

There may have been some who thought Robinson's award would prove to
be Obama's Bitburg moment - a symbolic episode that forever tarnished
Ronald Reagan's reputation even among his most ardent Jewish
supporters. But while Reagan paid a heavy price for offending Jewish
sensibilities by honoring dead SS members at a German cemetery, Obama
escaped from the Robinson award with few scars and little media
attention to the story.

Far from serving as a warning to the White House to tread carefully in
the future when it comes to Israel or the Jews, Mary Robinson's medal
may turn out instead to be a trial run for far worse outrages yet to
come from this president.

The writer is executive editor of Commentary Magazine where he
contributes to its blog Contentions at www.commentarymagazine.com
--
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow  (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
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Fwd: Stop the Presses: Blood Libel Goes Mainstream By Barry Rubin

bs"d

Blood libels are our worst nightmare especially in mainstream press. 

The News creates the News.  Also very dangerous is our own Jewish Media Headlines sanitizing  a Palestinian State and reporting widespread approval polls of Obama and his policies instead of emphasizing critics of Obama and of the 2 State Solution and  Netanyahu's statements.  Why do we need to have Huckabee, a non Jew but a Lover of Israel,  to get our message straight?  Why pay and use non Kosher news sources rather than  Kosher news sources reporting the same event.  Why print posts about Mary Robinson from JTA and not Arutz7? Why describe polls putting Obama in the best light 92% approval among Americans on the front page as did the Jewish Press and then blast him in your editorial pages later on.  It confuses the reader.    Why not use Arutz7 as a news source for polls in Israel and put articles to strengthen our position on the front page like the the  Five Towns Jewish Times.

Publishers and Journalists have a tremendous responsibility and the bottom line ($), trying to impress more readers or advertisers or trying to impress a Rabbinic Leadership that is sleeping should not determine what you print! We are on the verge of a nuclear disaster Chas Veshalom. Caroline Glick is definitely newsworthy.  Why don't I see more of her in your papers.  Not everyone reads the Jerusalem Post.
The news influences peoples mindset big time to the point of brainwashing.  This in turn changes facts on the ground to benefit our enemies.

For Kosher News Sources: :.http://shemittahrediscovered.blogspot.com/2009/08/fwd-hamodia-kosher-and-treif-press.html

Stop the Presses: Blood Libel Goes Mainstream:
Swedish Newspaper Proves Antisemitism Is Anti-Zionism Is Now Acceptable
By Barry Rubin
August 19, 2009

We are not talking about a Saudi newspaper or Hamas radio station but a Swedish newspaper. We are not talking about a neo-Nazi rag but a daily closely tied to the Swedish Social Democratic Party. And we are not just talking about an obscure item but an article that received top billing.

On August 18, Aftonbladet, Sweden's largest newspaper which claims 1.5 million readers, published an article by a man named Donald Bostrom. The editor responsible is named Asa Linderborg. She is the newspaper's cultural affairs' editor.

This was no random decision for her. When asked once: "What do you wish for most in life right now?" She answered: "What a simple question. What I want is a free Palestine."

And what did this article say? That Israel's army deliberately kidnaps Palestinian civilians and then murders them so it can cut out and sell their organs to sick people needing transplants.

The story is based on the arrest of a Jewish man in Brooklyn for selling organs but the news coverage has no hint of any Israeli connection.

The Swedish story is based on Palestinian sources (though the author also claims he has UN sources for it)--like so many slanders of Israel which are widely purveyed. It is easy to forget that the false claim of a Jenin massacre--which received massive coverage in the Western media--was based on an interview with a single Palestinian who nobody even knew.

Palestinians simply told him that the bodies of terrorists or others killed came back with organs missing. Any photos, medical records, documented complaints? Of course not.

[Ironically, the Beirut Daily Star has a very responsible article, with no claim of Israeli involvement, on the issue of organ sales.]

At this point you are no doubt thinking: This is some kind of sick joke.

Yes, it is. But the newspaper published it any way.

Apparently, the author is a left-wing activist for Palestinian causes, though the newspaper calls him a journalist.

[By the way, this is not the first time such accusations have been made. In the Turkish film, "Valley of the Wolves," Gary Busey played an American Jewish doctor who was stealing the organs of Iraqis for the United States and Israel. Note that the Turkish prime minister praised the film, that it was shown to large Muslim audiences in Holland and elsewhere in Europe, and that a friend who saw it in Syria noticed people crying in the theatre at the sight of such evil behavior. Have no doubt: many thousands of people who saw the film believe this accusation to be true.]

To show how typical this is, Radio Sweden has just broadcast once again the claim that Israel murdered Muhammad Dura, a little boy who may or may not have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli or Fatah bullets. The only proof of these claims was a very suspicious video (other parts of which show Palestinians rehearsing for the show) which a French court has determined to be a fraud. That court decision went unmentioned by Swedish radio.

As Ralph Haglund points out, a Swedish radio Middle East correspondent said he is always ready to take the word of Hamas over that of Israel.

And just to "balance things out," Sweden, at the moment EU president is sending its ambassador to Iran to grace next month's inauguration of recently "reelected" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose ideas are starting to seem triumphant in key sections of the European mass media. This is at the very moment when Stalinist-style show trials of opposition leaders are being held by his regime.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, Something is rotten in the state of Sweden.

Will Swedish politicians, intellectuals, and others rise up, pronounce this defamatory article and other things going on in that country to be a national disgrace, and demonstrate? Will the editor be fired? Will there be serious reconsideration of how the hatred of Israel which has so obsessed this supposedly enlightened country has gone over the edge? Will this irrational hatred be re-examined and repudiated? Will the forgotten lessons of how such attitudes produced the Holocaust be learned once again?

I wish so but I don't believe there will be a powerful reaction.

At least, though, the competing newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, has blasted the article which it says is an antisemitic blood libel without a shred of evidence. For other brave people who are objecting in Sweden--albeit there are very few of them--go here.

.What does this incident tell us? One thing is that there is no limit to the insanity of how Israel is treated nowadays in so many supposedly responsible, left-wing, and intellectual circles.

It also tells us that anyone of decency and good intentions should start re-examining right now their credulity in accepting anti-Israel slanders, nonsensical media or academic claims, or irresponsibly inaccurate "human rights" group reports.

It also tells us that Jews who criticize Israel based on what they are being taught at universities and what they see in the media need to think about what they are doing. And, yes, all this bashing and chipping away at Israel's reputation; this unfair blaming; this blindness toward the goals, behavior, and ideology of radical Islamist forces and Palestinian intransigence is promoting an antisemitism beyond anything seen in the Western world since 1945.

The time has come to realize that antisemitism, anti-Zionism, absurd misrepresentation of Israel and the effort to wipe it off the map are all tightly intertwined.

We have seen the rise of a systematic industry in wild anti-Israel claims by Palestinians which are repeated without evidence by the Western news media and others.

Yet this type of story about ghoulish Israeli monsters is actually rather typical nowadays. The basic methodology in the Swedish case is like that of dozens of others, only in this case the specific accusation was too lurid to win wide acceptance in the West (though not in much of the Arabic-speaking and Muslim majority world).

The recipe is simple: Palestinians make up charges, tell them to sympathetic reporters or academics or "human rights'" officials who don't demand evidence, and then are widely spread through other willing executioners of truth whose low degree of professionalism and high level of politicization make them conducive to becoming collaborators in the enterprise.

Before Israeli officials can investigate and present a detailed response--largely ignored by the media--they are all off to the next lurid accusation.

The fact that none of these accusations is ever ultimately proven correct seems to have no effect on the industry.

In a variation of this theme, a few days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly denounced, as if it was some sort of ethnic cleansing, the eviction of two Palestinian families from an apartment building in Jerusalem. Apparently, Palestinians had presented it as such to U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem.

In fact, as the public record clearly showed, this was merely the result of an Israeli court decision following a long, detailed case lasting years, for non-payment of rent. Palestinian families who paid rent in the building had no problem at all.

The British newspaper of intellectuals and beautiful people, the Guardian, carries an article which uses this incident, among other things, to claim that Israel is a Nazi country. That's two families evicted for non-payment of rent, not quite equivalent to seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia, invading all of Europe, and murdering 12 million or so Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Poles, Russians, etc., etc.

In fact, when the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein murdered tens of thousands of Kurdish citizens in the 1990s or when the Syrian regime murdered 10,000 to 15,000 of its own citizens in Hamas in 1982, there was no outrage at all in the West. There still isn't today.

In his Cairo speech, President Barack Obama urged Arabs and Muslims to reject antisemitism. Guess he needs to make that speech to Europeans now.

After all, the hysterical misrepresentation of Israel increasingly seems to parallel the tales of well-poisonings, ritual murders, and Zionist conspiracies to seize world power of past eras.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org. To see or subscribe to his blog, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2009/08/stop-presses-blood-libel-goes.html

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