Bahrain names Jewish ambassador

http://jmortonmusings.blogspot.com/2008/05/bahrain-names-jewish-ambassador.html
Bahrain's king has appointed a Jewish woman as the country's envoy to the United States.
Houda Nonoo said she was proud to serve her country "first of all as a Bahraini" and that she was not chosen for the post because of her religion.
She is believed to be the Arab world's first Jewish ambassador.
Ms Nonoo, 43, has served as a legislator in Bahrain's 40-member Shura Council for three years and is head of the Bahrain Human Rights Watch.
"It is a great honour to have been appointed as the first female ambassador to the United States of America and I am looking forward to meeting this new challenge," Ms Nonoo told the Associated Press news agency.
Her family is originally from Iraq, having moved to Bahrain over a century ago.
Bahrain has one of the world's oldest and smallest Jewish communities. It was, at one time, home to as many as 1,500 Jews. Today the community has a synagogue and numbers around 50 people.
Bahrain is a close US ally but has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
It has a Shia Muslim majority, roughly 65% of the population, but the ruling elite is Sunni.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world
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Israeli PR should have contradicted Palestinian reports of terrorists killed by IDF

 

Epic Fail Jonathan Dahoah Halevi     Touring the Gaza border Photo: AFP

PR fails again Israeli PR should have contradicted Palestinian reports of terrorists killed by IDF Jonathan Dahoah Halevi Published:  01.04.10, 12:53 / Israel Opinion The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) published in its weekly summary a report on an incident in which three Palestinians were killed by IDF fire: "On Saturday, December 26, 2009 at around 00:30 Israeli forces opened fire on a number of Palestinians who approached the border. As a result, three of them were killed. They were unarmed and apparently trying to infiltrate Israel in order to look for work."   The organization thus accuses the IDF of killing three innocent Palestinian civilians. In order to further exacerbate the Israeli "crime", the organization added details in the service of Palestinian propaganda in relation to the economic distress in the Gaza Strip, which it claims is the reason that the group of Palestinians attempted to enter Israel to find work.   Stories of this kind, about young people who were killed in an attempt to cross the border to find work in Israel, can be found in abundance in reports issued by Palestinian human rights groups as well as in reports on Palestinian victims issued by B'Tselem.   This case allows one to learn about the conduct of terror organizations, Palestinian propaganda (sometimes with the assistance of Israeli human rights organizations) and the ineffectiveness of Israeli public relations. In this relation it should be clarified that not a single Palestinian terror organization claimed responsibility for the incident. Does this mean that these were civilians and not terrorists? Not necessarily.   The IDF Spokesperson's Office issued a statement on December 29, 2009, which sheds some light on the incident:   "On Friday night an IDF force identified four terrorists approaching the border fence in northern Gaza in a military crawl, apparently in order to carry out an attack in Israel. The force fired at them using the 'see and fire' system, with the help of Air Force jets and forces from the Golani Brigade. The fire killed three terrorists and an additional terrorist was injured… In patrols held after the incident soldiers discovered a rope ladder and three explosive devices, among them a powerful device."   The story of the incident, as it is revealed by the IDF's version, is totally different from the report published by the Palestinian human rights group. The four Palestinian youths, three of whom were killed by IDF fire, were not trying to find work in Israel due to economic distress, but were sent either by a Palestinian terror organization or the Hamas government's security forces on a mission – to plant powerful explosive devices on the border with Israel.   The devices could have been intended for attacks on Israeli vehicles traveling on the road near the border, or as preparation for an attack intended to attract IDF forces to an area full of explosive devices near the border.   No PR strategy The terror organizations work in a way that takes advantage of young Palestinians as assistants in terror attacks without identifying them as operatives of specific organizations. This is known from experience and requires a careful analysis of Palestinian claims regarding the killing of civilians by the IDF.   PCHR is doing extensive damage to Israel in the international arena. The data it publishes are accepted as reliable by UN agencies, which use them to condemn Israel. It also played an important role in feeding figures to the Goldstone committee on Operation Cast Lead, and influenced its conclusions. In addition, in recent years the organization's management has been conducting international legal battles against state and army officials in Israel, and was also responsible for filing legal claims against military officials in Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, and other countries.   Israeli public relations organizations have so far refrained from contradicting the data published by PCHR, or confronting it with facts held by the IDF in order to harm its credibility. In the case of the four Palestinian youths all of the facts needed for a PR campaign exist, and according to the description in the IDF statement it can be deduced that the forces possess filmed proof of the gathering of weaponry from the incident.   So why doesn't Israel take advantage of the opportunity before it to attack one of the organizations held responsible for the damage done to the state and its image? The answer to this is simple and unfortunate. No proper Israeli PR plan exists, and there is no PR strategy but for occasional ad-hoc treatment of momentary crises.   From government to government the PR failure continues and it serves to undermine Israel's most vital interests. The continuing helplessness in the field of PR will not only cause hefty political damage, but will also destabilize the foundations of support that exist in Jewish communities abroad. This is a national emergency where Israel is concerned, and true leadership that can conduct change in the field of PR is desperately needed.   Jonathan Dahoah Halevi is a senior researcher and fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Director of Research at the Orient Research Group

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A lie can travel halfway around the world
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The EU's 'East Jerusalem' Christmas Gift

http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/41911

 

Moshe Phillips

Posted Dec 23 2009

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas came early for Israel's enemies this holiday season. On December 1 a draft statement from the European Union calling for the immediate restart of negotiations leading to a "viable state of Palestine ... with East Jerusalem as its capital" made worldwide news.

 

This is very curious because, after all, "East Jerusalem" does not actually exist. At least not yet. Let's remember that East Jerusalem is what the Bible means when it refers to Jerusalem itself.

 

Words and names have meaning. Especially in the Middle East. The European Union obviously chose to use the words of Israel's enemies deliberately.

 

So just what is "East Jerusalem" and why is adding the word "East" to describe part of Judaism's holiest city and Israel's capital of any serious magnitude?

 

East and West in Israel are not the simple geographic terms they are in the U.S. Northeast Philadelphia, the Upper East Side in Manhattan and East L.A. are used to denote neighborhoods and sections of a city. In Israel, where Judea and Samaria have been labeled the West Bank, things are different.

 

The term West Bank is used to de-emphasize the area's inherent Jewishness and to disassociate the land from the State of Israel. The same is true with the term East Jerusalem.

 

What is East Jerusalem? In the Christian Bible, every instance where a specific location in Jerusalem is mentioned it refers to an area the EU would like to see given to the Palestinians. The term East Jerusalem cannot be found in a Christian Bible. And that is because East Jerusalem is about as real as Santa Claus.

 

The expression "the Lights of Chanukah" refers to the menorah in the ancient holy Temple in Jerusalem. The EU sees the Temple Mount (the site of the Temple in biblical times) as part of this mythical East Jerusalem in its unholy Palestinian state. There is no East Jerusalem in Judaism.

 

According to Wikipedia, "East Jerusalem refers to the part of Jerusalem captured by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and subsequently by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. It includes Jerusalem's Old City and some of the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, such as the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher."

 

So East Jerusalem is Jerusalem's Old City and its surrounding neighborhoods. The original and oldest parts of Jerusalem are in this East Jerusalem. There has never been an independent municipal entity known as East Jerusalem. (For the record, there has never been an independent national entity known as Palestine. But that's another story.)

 

When anti-Israel partisans use the term East Jerusalem, it is to rip Israel's capital apart as part of their long-term quest to defeat Israel. This effort tragically gained full force with the Oslo Accords, as was explained in the B'tzedek Online Journal on December 30, 1996 in an editorial titled "The War Has Just Begun":

 

"The Oslo Accords are indeed the fulfillment of the PLO 'salami' strategy. That is to say, Israel shall be destroyed not through overt military action of Arab nations, but through the whittling away of Israeli resolve and slow but determined territorial expansion of a Palestinian state. Slice by slice Israel will be carved away by the knife of terrorism and world opinion, both deftly handled by the Israeli-created Palestinian entity."

 

The very name Jerusalem means city of peace, city of completeness and city of perfection. This was something Bible-believing Americans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were taught. A Jerusalem that is not complete is just not Jerusalem.

 

The United States can do much to confront the EU on Jerusalem. The late senator Jesse Helms wrote in 1996 that "Israel is the only nation in the world denied the right to choose its own capital. This second class citizenship among nations must end."

 

Now is the time for friends of Israel to apply more pressure on the Obama administration to move America's Embassy. The U.S. government has failed to relocate the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv for more than ten years.

 

The Jerusalem Embassy Act was passed by Congress on October 23, 1995; the law stipulates that "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel" and declares that "the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999."

 

"For Zion's sake I am not silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I do not rest," reads Isaiah 62:1. For Jerusalem's sake, contact your congressman today and demand that the Jerusalem Embassy Act be honored.

 

 

Moshe Phillips is a member of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel - AFSI. The chapter's website is www.phillyafsi.com; Moshe's blog can be found at http://phillyafsi.blogtownhall.com.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world
while the truth is putting its shoes on
                                        Mark Twain

Palestinians To Israel: Instead Of A Peace Summit, How About We "Escalate Our Struggle" Instead?

Palestinians To Israel: Instead Of A Peace Summit, How About We "Escalate Our Struggle" Instead?

The awesome thing is that the two statements came out on the exact same day, a nicely pointed illustration of the differences between Israel and its partner in peace. Netanyahu proposed a reinvigorated peace summit in Egypt, and promptly got his answer:

The secular Fatah movement led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday vowed to step up its struggle against the Israeli occupation with demonstrations and diplomacy. "Our programme emphasises the importance of a two-track approach, with the first being the escalation of the popular struggle to resist occupation," the movement said in a statement. The group said it would model the struggle on the weekly demonstrations in two West Bank towns, Bilin and Nilin, where residents hurl rocks and protest against the expansion of Israel's controversial separation barrier. Fatah, which marks the 45th anniversary of the start of its armed struggle on Friday, also vowed to "increase movement on the international level to pursue Israel, to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law."

The really elegant part is how they bundled together (a) threats of Palestinian violence and (b) international efforts to delegitimize Israeli self-defense in the face of Palestinian violence ("to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law"). Only Israel's Arab enemies could be so confidently brazen about crowing that they'll attack Israeli civilians and then whine about Israeli retaliation. Of course only Israel's Arab enemies are justified in that brazen confidence, so it's hard to blame them. The organizations behind the sentiment - Human Rights Watch, the UN committees who back Goldstone and his ilk, etc. - they might on the other hand be worthy of mild disapprobation.

Meanwhile - just should Abbas consider trying to reciprocate Israeli gestures - Palestinian civilians and Fatah soldiers want him to know there's more than enough violence to go around:

The killing of the three Fatah operatives in Nablus by the IDF over the weekend could trigger a third intifada, Fatah officials warned on Sunday. But the new intifada, they said, would be different from the first two - this time it would be directed against the Palestinian Authority. During the funerals of the three men, all veteran members and leaders of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, thousands of Palestinians chanted slogans accusing the PA of collusion with Israel and calling for an end to security coordination with Israel and the dismantling of the PA.

Nothing that a couple square miles of Israeli territory can't solve. Because that's what this is about. Right? Right.

And lest you think no one could be so obliviously stupid, here's Barry Rubin's recent article to disallusion you. The phrase "pressures Israel" appears in the headline, after which the post continues at length and in detail. Turns out the Obama administration might well be exactly that obliviously stupid.

References:
* Israel's Netanyahu proposes Egypt peace summit [Reuters]
* Fatah vows to escalate struggle against occupation [AFP]
* Fatah warns of intifada against PA [JPost]
* The Palestinian Authority Sets its New Strategy: Tempts Obama Administration with Instant Peace if it Pressures Israel [Rubin Report]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process
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A lie can travel halfway around the world
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Countering Bias and Misinformation mainly about the Arab-Israel conflict

 

 

http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/

 

Home Judge Goldstone encountered no allegations of organ stealing Harvesting human organs MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES THE GOLDSTONE MISSION TO GAZA 2009 THE OCCUPATION GAZA DURBAN II & THE GENEVA SUMMIT British military expert comments on the Gaza operation in BBC interview 1948 ARAB-ISRAEL WAR THE SIX-DAY WAR & RESOLUTION 242 BEHAVIOR OF ISRAELI SOLDIERS DEIR YASSIN - old but startling evidence INTERNATIONAL LAW HAMAS THE JEWISH and ARAB LOBBIES 1967 & ITS CONSEQUENCES PALESTINIAN REFUGEES WHAT SOME ARAB COMMENTATORS SAY APARTHEID,ISRAEL & SOUTH AFRICA LEBANON & HEZBOLLAH HUMAN RIGHTS ISLAMIC EXTREMISM HATRED IN PICTURES MEDIA DISTORTIONS BOYCOTTS & DIVESTMENT ACADEMIC FREEDOM INCITEMENT THE ICJ & THE WALL CONNECTING THE DOTS MEMORANDA TO UK PARLIAMENT DOCUMENTS & ARTICLES RECOMMENDED LINKS About Maurice Ostroff Open letter to South African Ambassador, H.E. Ismail Coovadia		"If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." (Mark Twain) Sadly, Mark twain's quip is possibly more relevant today than it was in his day. Irrational arguments have become commonplace, not only in alternative, but also in mainstream media. More egregiously, unsound arguments are often used in opinion articles disguised as news items. This is especially true of the overwhelmingly strident commentaries and "news" reports about the Arab-Israel conflict. On both the left and right, extremism has become the vogue and rational discussion is too often replaced by the loud and the sensational. In countering this type of bias and misinformation on this site, special care is taken to maintain credibility by checking the veracity of all data presented as fact and by adhering to rational, civil discourse and intellectual honesty. Efforts are made to acknowledge and suppress known biases and to follow the facts wherever they lead.        Click here for an academic study of the power of political misinformation

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A lie can travel halfway around the world
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Chomsky and Dershowitz debate Israel and Palestine (interview in 14 videos)

Noam Chomsky debates Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz regarding the future of Israel and Palestine
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=676068E512AEA685&search_query=israel

 

1 year ago 15,561 views

 

Fundamentally Freund: Iran: The last resort

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. - Plato

 

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see." -- Ayn Rand

 

Dec. 30, 2009
Michael Freund , THE JERUSALEM POST
As 2009 draws to a close and the second decade of the 21st century looms before us, there is no greater danger facing the world than the prospect of a nuclear Iran.
As the events of recent weeks have made abundantly clear, sanctions and diplomacy have utterly failed to stop Teheran's march down the road to an atomic arsenal. The ayatollahs have gleefully ignored repeated warnings from the West, and stubbornly insisted on proceeding apace toward nuclear proficiency.
We can no longer continue to ignore this reality. Our future and everything we hold dear is at stake. The danger is simply too great, and the threat is too real. As frightening as it sounds, Israel must give serious consideration to bombing Iran before it is too late.
MAKE NO mistake. If a halt is not put to Iran's efforts, we will soon wake up to discover the would-be Hitler of Persia with his finger on the button, threatening Israel and the world with nuclear blackmail and destruction.
What the Nazi leader could only dream of accomplishing more than half a century ago, will soon be within reach of his Iranian disciple. Indeed, the clock is already winding down and we are nearing the end of the game, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's scientists prepare to cross the threshold and storm past the nuclear goal line.
Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave a chilling account of just how close Iran is to meeting its nefarious goal. By early 2010, he said, the mullahs will have the technology to build a nuclear bomb, and they will be able to produce one within a year. That means that sometime in the next few weeks or months, Teheran will reach the technological point of no return, beyond which lies a future clouded in darkness and uncertainty.
And so, less than 1,000 miles east of Jerusalem, a new Auschwitz is steadily being prepared as the world dithers over what to do.
MONTHS AGO, Washington and its allies set a year-end deadline for Iran to accept a deal drawn up by the UN under which their uranium would be enriched abroad. But even this proved unacceptable to the hard-liners in Teheran, who are not exactly quaking in their boots at the prospect of additional economic penalties.
In a speech delivered last Tuesday, Ahmadinejad made clear that he remains unmoved by warnings from the West. The international community, he said, can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care."
And why should they? The UN Security Council has already imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran with little to show for it. Does anyone really think that yet another round of injunctions and hand-wringing will do the trick?
In fact, just a few days ago, reports surfaced in the press that Iran was once again actively seeking to violate existing UN resolutions by trying to import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan to further bolster its enrichment program.
This is just one more sign that the West's efforts to freeze Teheran's nuclear program have come up short.
MOREOVER, THE Iranians continue to improve their strategic missile capability, heightening the peril should they succeed in constructing a nuclear warhead. In mid-December Iran test-fired its latest missile, the Sajjil-2, a sophisticated solid-fuel rocket that is more advanced and more accurate than its predecessors. With a range of 1,200 miles, or nearly 2,000 kilometers, it can hit anywhere in Israel and even reach parts of Europe.
Iran's defense minister boasted on state television that the Sajjil-2 can be fired more quickly and reaches its target faster, which makes it harder to intercept or shoot down. Since it is a solid-fuel rocket, it can be prepped in advance and hidden in silos, thereby decreasing its vulnerability to a preemptive attack.
And lest there be any doubt about the ayatollahs' real intentions, the Times of London reported two weeks ago that Western intelligence agencies have obtained an internal Iranian document detailing plans for neutron initiators. These are the triggers which set off nuclear explosions, and they have no other use.
TAKEN TOGETHER, all these pieces combine to form a frighteningly unambiguous picture: Iran is terrifyingly close to becoming a nuclear power. With each passing day, this nightmare scenario moves one step closer to fruition.
And so we must look ourselves directly in the mirror and ask a simple yet very pointed question: Are we really prepared to allow the tyrant of Teheran to threaten our very existence?
An atomic Iran would transform the strategic dynamic of the Middle East, strengthen radical and fundamentalist forces and spark a region-wide nuclear arms race. It would raise the specter of terrorist groups allied to Teheran, such as Hamas and Hizbullah, getting their hands on the most devastating of weapons.
And we all know how Iran's leaders have repeatedly and brazenly vowed to exterminate the Jewish state and wipe us off the map.
The alarm bells are ringing and the danger is near. Iran can and must be stopped, and military force may be the only way to do so. Six decades ago, the world watched in silence as the Germans tossed us into Hitler's ovens and turned six million Jews into ashes. We cannot assume they will act any differently if Iran seeks to do the same.
So we dare not tarry. There is little room left for delay. If the world fails to act, the option of last resort may be our only choice.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364552552&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

--
A lie can travel halfway around the world
while the truth is putting its shoes on
                                        Mark Twain