Israel Matzav: Facing veto threat, Senate removes F-22 funding

Facing veto threat, Senate removes F-22 funding

Facing a veto threat from 'America's popular President,' the US Senate has voted 58-40 to remove funding for the F-22 Raptor from the armed services appropriation bill.

The F-22, the world’s most advanced fighter, had become a flashpoint in a larger battle over the administration’s push to shift more of the Pentagon’s resources from conventional warfare to fighting insurgencies.

The plane’s supporters, who ranged from hawkish Republicans to Democrats close to organized labor, also voiced concern over the possible loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs at a time when the economy is in turmoil.

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Israel Matzav: Facing veto threat, Senate removes F-22 funding

Israel Matzav: Why Britain hates Israel

Why Britain hates Israel

In the JPost, Robin Shepherd recounts the crescendo of anti-Israel sentiment that has been rising in Britain in the past few weeks. She asks, "why now?" and comes up with five possible answers. These include the Obumbler's election, Netanyahu's election and his appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Foreign Minister, Foreign Secretary David Miliband's apparently preparing the ground for Britain to recognize Hamas, Israel's 'hard line' stance on Iran and Netanyahu's insistence that the 'Palestinians' recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

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Israel Matzav: Why Britain hates Israel

Israel Matzav: Shocka: UNIFIL helped Lebanese breach border

Shocka: UNIFIL helped Lebanese breach border

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gavriela Shalev, has accused UNIFIL of assisting 15 Lebanese in breaching Israel's border on Friday.

On Friday, 15 Lebanese civilians crossed illegally into Israel, shouting and waving Hizbullah flags. IDF troops spotted the group, but did not confront them as they were reportedly unarmed and returned to Lebanon minutes later, without incident.

In a letter submitted by the ambassador to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the president of the United Nations Security Council, Shalev accused a contingent of Indian UNIFIL peacekeepers of having done nothing to prevent the demonstrators from crossing the border and even cooperating with the group.

"[The demonstrators] stood opposite the UNIFIL force, [which did nothing,] and worse than that, according to statements made by the organizers of the demonstration, they even cooperated with them," the letter read.

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Israel Matzav: Shocka: UNIFIL helped Lebanese breach border

Israel Matzav: Krauthammer on India

Israel Matzav: Krauthammer on India

Israel Matzav: If we let the Gaffemeister walk the beaches of Tel Aviv, will the Obama administration love us more?

Israel Matzav: If we let the Gaffemeister walk the beaches of Tel Aviv, will the Obama administration love us more?

Israel Matzav: About the Shepherd Hotel

Israel Matzav: About the Shepherd Hotel

Israel Matzav: Holocaust denial, 'Palestinian' style

Israel Matzav: Holocaust denial, 'Palestinian' style

Israel Matzav: Some reminders about Jerusalem

Some reminders about Jerusalem

President Obumbler's efforts to stop Israeli construction at the Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah section has prompted David Hazony to send the Annointed One some reminders of why Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people and is not up for negotiations. Here's his bottom line. Jerusalem is not just a consensus issue in Israel but also a deeply personal one.

There is no erasing the thousands of years of yearning for Jerusalem in Jewish texts, nor the heart-wrenching failure of Jewish forces to capture East Jerusalem in 1948, nor the national catharsis of its reunification in the Six Day War, nor over four decades of astonishing development and construction and tourism and flourishing of religious life for all faiths since then. The idea that now, suddenly, a new American president, speaking of “settlements,” will change this reality is not simply offensive and alienating to Israelis only but also to Jews the world over. Rather than recognize his failure in the Middle East so far, Obama is exacerbating it. Israelis do not like to be bullied, and this is far more likely to steel the Israeli public’s resolve against American pressure than weaken it.

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Israel Matzav: Some reminders about Jerusalem

Israel Matzav: Monument to a fraud

Israel Matzav: Monument to a fraud

Israel Matzav: Mitchell denies retirement plans

Mitchell denies retirement plans

On Monday, I blogged an article by former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams that claimed that US Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell would like to retire at year's end. Foreign Policy Magazine's The Cable (a blog that is very well-connected to the Washington foreign policy establishment) reports that both Mitchell and the State Department are denying the report.

"Mitchell says [the claim] is an utter fabrication," a State Department official told Foreign Policy on behalf of Mitchell Monday. "Mitchell said, ‘I have never experienced the thought, let alone expressed it.'"

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Israel Matzav: Mitchell denies retirement plans

Israel Matzav: 'A step too far'

Is

'A step too far'

NGO Monitor Executive Director Gerald Steinberg takes apart the Saudi-funded Human Rights Watch, which has totally lost its moral compass. Here's the upshot:

In response to extensive ridicule, [Sarah Leah] Whitson [executive director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division. CiJ] and [Kenneth] Roth [HRW's executive director. CiJ] lashed out at their critics (they accused NGO Monitor of lying), but they have not offered any details to contradict this version of events or the systematic analysis exposing HRW’s targeting of Israel. They have also tried to sell a distinction between soliciting the Saudi regime for money, and wooing wealthy private individuals and Wahhabi religious officials in Saudi Arabia who, we are assured, are genuinely concerned about human rights. Right.

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rael Matzav: 'A step too far'

Israel Matzav: Video: Sean Hannity on the first six months of the Obama administration

Israel Matzav: Video: Sean Hannity on the first six months of the Obama administration

Israel Matzav: Obama's selective meddling

Israel Matzav: Obama's selective meddling

Israel Matzav: Jordan's Abdullah II clenches his fist, revokes 'Palestinians' citizenship

Jordan's Abdullah II clenches his fist, revokes 'Palestinians' citizenship

Jordan's King Abdullah II has decided to 'help' the 'Palestinians' who have lived in Jordan for generations by revoking the Jordanian citizenship that his father gave them in 1988 to 'ensure' that they won't 'give up' their 'right of return.' The 'Palestinians' do not seem pleased.

As a preemptive measure, the Jordanian authorities recently began revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians, leaving many of them in a state of panic and uncertainty regarding the future.

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Israel Matzav: Jordan's Abdullah II clenches his fist, revokes 'Palestinians' citizenship

Israel Matzav: A debt of honor: The F-22 to Israel and Japan

A debt of honor: The F-22 to Israel and Japan

Ed Timperlake argues that the despite the Obama administration's desire to cut off production of the F-22 Raptor fighter plane (pictured) it should nevertheless be provided to Israel and Japan as a debt of honor.

America, Israel and Japan are now at a crossroad. America may not be able to sell an export version of the best fighter in the world, the F-22, to Israel and Japan. The reason is the Administration's current insistence on holding fast to a DOD-budgeted production run of F-22s that will stop soon at 187. The harsh reality of stopping F-22 production will be two American allies who are in increasing mortal danger will not have access to the absolute best when they really need America's help.

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Israel Matzav: A debt of honor: The F-22 to Israel and Japan

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinians' reject US proposals on land swap, 'right of return'

'Palestinians' reject US proposals on land swap, 'right of return'

It's difficult to understand what sort of 'compromises' the Obama administration thinks it is going to reach with the 'Palestinians.' The 'Palestinians' have once again categorically rejected any kind of 'land swap' with Israel as part of a final 'settlement.' They have also rejected the notion that there will be no 'right of return' to the part of Israel that is within the 1949 armistice lines.

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Israel Matzav: 'Palestinians' reject US proposals on land swap, 'right of return'

Israel Matzav: Lebanese forces on alert on Israeli border

Lebanese forces on alert on Israeli border

The Lebanese Broadcast Corporation (LBC) television network is reporting that Lebanese forces are on alert on the country's border with Israel due to the various incidents that have taken place there over the last few days.

According to the Lebanese TV station, the forces' alert level was raised in response to Israeli violations of UN Resolution 1701, which ended Israel's war with Hizbullah in the summer of 2006. The report mentioned the erection of a military outpost near Kafr Shuba, a village just outside the divided border village of Ghajar, as an example of one of these "violations."

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Israel Matzav: Lebanese forces on alert on Israeli border

Israel Matzav: Oregon to bar teachOregon to bar teachers from wearing kippot (skullcaps) ers from wearing kippot (skullcaps)

Oregon to bar teachers from wearing kippot (skullcaps)

A newly-passed Oregon law that prohibits teachers from wearing religious clothing may prohibit teachers from wearing kippot (skullcaps) in the classroom.

The Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which was just signed by Governor Ted Kulongoski, was intended to enable workers to don religious attire such as yarmulkes, turbans, and hijabs while on the job, as well as take time off for their holy days.

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Israel Matzav: Oregon to bar teachers from wearing kippot (skullcaps)

Israel Matzav: Friends for a rainy day

Israel Matzav: Friends for a rainy day

Israel Matzav: Why Abu Mazen fled Safed

Why Abu Mazen fled Safed

Nearly two weeks ago, I noted a confession by 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen, whose public profile (in English) claims that he is a 'refugee,' on 'Palestinian' television that his family had voluntarily left Tzfat (Safed) in 1948, and had not been expelled by the Jews as he would have you believe. If he's a 'refugee' he (or his father) made himself one.

But Tzfat wasn't just a town where the Arab armies urged the 'people' to get out of the way so that they could drive the Jews into the Sea. The inimitable Sarah Honig recalls the background of Tzfat and why its Arab population was so fearful as to flee. (Warning: This is graphic).

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Israel Matzav: Why Abu Mazen fled Safed

Israel Matzav: Report: US to 'allow' hotel in exchange for 'setting borders'

Israel Matzav: Report: US to 'allow' hotel in exchange for 'setting borders'

The Torah Revolution: It's getting ridiculous

The Torah Revolution: It's getting ridiculous

The Torah Revolution: Idiotic

The Torah Revolution: Idiotic

The Torah Revolution: Re: # 25 Chocko on the so called American aid to Israel

The Torah Revolution: Re: # 25 Chocko on the so called American aid to Israel

The Torah Revolution: An open message to Secretary of State Clinton

The Torah Revolution: An open message to Secretary of State Clinton

On Jerusalem

On Jerusalem

I'm way too busy these days for much blogging. Fortunately, however, there are lots of others out there still doing a fine job, and I can link to them. David Hazony, for example, who has done a great job of summarizing the issues the Obama adminstration raised earlier this week when they urgently summoned our ambassador Michael Oren to Foggy Bottom, (over the weekend apparently, so urgent it was) to reprimand him for the intention to build some apartments in Sheich Jarach.

At the same blog (Contentions), Rick Richman has dug up an interesting historical document:

Neither Resolution 242 nor 338 mentions Jerusalem, and the omission was intentional. On March 12, 1980, Arthur J. Goldberg, who was U.S. ambassador to the UN when Resolution 242 was adopted, wrote a letter to the New York Times to “set the record straight”:
Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate. . . . In a number of speeches at the UN in 1967, I repeatedly stated that the armistice lines fixed after 1948 were intended to be temporary. This, of course, was
particularly true of Jerusalem. . . . I made it clear that the status of Jerusalem should be negotiable and that the armistice lines dividing Jerusalem were no longer viable. In other words, Jerusalem was not to be divided again.

Personally, I have not yet written off the Obama administration in its attempt to make the world better, though my original scepticism is being reinforced steadily. One does however wonder if anyone there knows much about history.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

One Man's Terrorist is... Still A Terrorist

One Man's Terrorist is... Still A Terrorist

Barry Rubin writes a standard piece against the Zeitgeist, exposing the idiocy and harmfulness of the idea that truth and justice are merely subjective constructs in the eyes of the beholder.

He's right, of course, though his column is a bit jaded: they've said it all, we've said it all, no-one's listening.

But then he gives a fine metaphor, one I suggest we use often until it becomes self evident:

Let me suggest an experiment. Take an apple or other handy piece of fruit or vegetable. Hold it in one hand. Then take a very sharp knife. Hold it in your other hand.Then, say out loud: One man’s [expletive deleted] is another man’s truth.Next, assuming that the location of the piece of fruit is a matter of personal opinion which has no relationship to spatial dimensions, slash out with the knife until you fall to the floor bleeding profusely.Congratulations, you now understand the effect of such a doctrine on the Middle East.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

DoubleTapper: Pimped out Drug Cartel Guns Siezed

DoubleTapper: Pimped out Drug Cartel Guns Siezed

European Taxpayer Money for Israel's Critics

European Taxpayer Money for Israel's Critics

A number of European countries have been supporting "Breaking the Silence", an Israeli organization which collects stories about how bad the IDF is. This is actually not new; Europeans support the radical corner of Israeli society as a matter of routine, and have been doing so for many years. I know this because I'm sort of friendly with some of the people in these organizations and they're quite free with the information; my response has been to wish them luck and suggest they ratchet up their fundraising efforts, since in essence what they're doing is exporting Israeli services to Europe.

The funny thing about the report this time is that the Europeans aren't getting their money's worth. I've read many of the reports in the recent case, and they're mostly comfortably within the norm for warfare. Nothing NATO soldiers aren't routinely doing in Afghanistan. But for that, you have to know what NATO soldiers are doing in Afghanistan, on the one hand, and you need to read Hebrew, on the other. Not qualifications most Europeans are likely to have.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Fundamental Historical Baggage

Fundamental Historical Baggage

Maureeen Dowd's regular column in the NYT deals this week with the hypocrisy of Republican politicians. The content doesn't particular interest me one way or the other. It's a litany of things Dowd doesn't like abut the behavior of various Republican politicians, and it's probably very interesting if you're into the minutiae of such things; I expect - without knowing, mind you - that a similar list could be made about Democratic politicians, or British Labor ones, or German CDU ones, or Israelis of any political stripe. Polticians in democracies, rather like apparatchiks in tyrannies, are rarely paragons of moral greatness.

The reason I'm linking to her piece is because of its title: Pharisees on the Potomac. For Dowd, brought up in a Christian culture even though she herself may well be secular, agnostic, athiest or whatever, the term Pharisee resonates as a deeply negative description. It goes back 2000 years, and is so profoundly a part of her cultural conditioning she's totally unaware of it. It simply "is".

For any educated Jew, on the other hand, the same word resonates very differently. The Pharisees were the group of Jews in Judea, 2000 years ago, who came out on top of the generations of severe religious and cultural strife. The Pharisees won the cultural war against the Saducees, first and foremost, but also the essenes, the early Christians (=Minim), and various other splinter groups of the time. Which means, the Pharisees: that's US. And proud of it, too. This isn't a remote and insignificant factoid from 2000 years ago: it's how we identify ourselves whenever we deal with those 2000-year-old texts which are the living fundament of what many of us are today, in July 2009.

I'm not saying Maureen Dowd is an antisemite. She isn't. But even Maureen Dowd, an unthinking and superficial liberal in an American society which is broadly free of antisemitism, can't quite get rid of the cultural baggage she has inherited from millenia of cultural forbears.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations