A blog dedicated to investigating events, as they occur in Judea and Samaria, and as they relate to the global powers and/or to the Israeli government, public figures ,etc.
It is dedicated to uncovering the truth behind the headlines; and in so doing, it strives to do its part in saving Judea and Samaria, and by extension, all of Israel ,from utter destruction at the hands of its many external and internal enemies.
Med Students Accused of Buying Bones of Holocaust Victims
Tammuz 8, 5769, 30 June 09 06:30
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com)
Medical students at the Iasi University in Romania allegedly have been purchasing bones from mass Holocaust graves and using them for research, the European Jewish Press (EJP) reported. The Rabbinical Center of Europe has been investigating the charges.
The alleged practice came to light after an American student notified the rabbinical group that local students bought bones and skulls of victims of the Holocaust who were buried in a nearby village. The bones were reportedly sold for $40 a piece and were used in research in place of those made of plastic.
Thousands of students from all over the world attend the university, which includes a well-known school of medicine and pharmacy.
The Rabbinical Center sent two students to the university to pose as medical students in order to verify or deny the claim. A caretaker of the mass grave did not deny being involved in the sale of the bones but apparently was suspicious of the would-be buyers and referred them elsewhere.
One Jewish student, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said it was obvious the caretaker was concealing information, according to EJP.
Jewish medical students confirmed to the two "students" that information about the sale of human bones was available throughout the university, but no single purchaser has been identified.
The price for the bones included the workers' task to "clean them up nicely."
One of two death trains that left Isai during the Nazi regime stopped in the village of Podu Iloaiei, where nearly 1,200 Jews were buried in a mass grave after dying of starvation.
Comments:
Jack said:
This is appalling but not surprising. Almost 20 years ago, it was reported that medical schools in Germany are still using cadavers and organs of victims of the Holocaust preserved in alcohol. Everyone wants to profit from Amaleq.
A WORLD WITHOUT A LEADER While the world is focusing on Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian/Israel conflict and Michael Jackson, no one seems to be noticing the obvious.
It's like that old saying about not seeing the 800-pound Gorilla in the room.
After more than 100 years of world leadership, the world is for the first time without a leader.
It was always assumed during the past century and accepted as fact by the world body, that the President of the United States of America is not only the Commander In Chief of the USA, but also the de facto LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD.
BUT NOT ANYMORE.
In just 6 months, Barack Obama has abandoned America's world leadership in speech and deed. He went on his global APOLOGY TOURS to diminish America by giving undeserved approbation for bad behavior to Europe, Asia, the Arab Middle East and Islam.
He made it clear that the USA will become just another country in the fraternity of nations. The most telling example being what he said about the crisis in Iran at the outset:
THAT HE WANTS TO WAIT AND SEE WHAT THE WORLD REACTION WILL BE BEFORE HE MAKES A STATEMENT.
I will use one of Obama's favorite lines: "LET ME BE CLEAR" - Obama has NEVER been a leader. Nor will he EVER be a leader.
A great many of Obama's supporters, especially in the propaganda LEFTIST media shrugged-off the fact that Obama chose to vote PRESENT in the Illinois State Legislature on just about EVERY contentious Bill that he would otherwise have to take a black or white position on.
This might have been acceptable in Illinois politics, but PRESENT isn't a position nor is it an option that is available to a US President.
The Iranian pro Freedom Uprising is Obama's FIRST REAL CHALLENGE.
He could have stepped up to the plate in defense of hundreds of thousands of unarmed people who took to the streets in their demand for Freedom.
He could have simply stated that he was with all of those who were prepared to sacrifice for the principles of FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.
BUT HE DIDN'T.
What Obama said was so mealy-mouthed that it isn't worth repeating.
Where President Ronald Reagan stood tall with the Poles who rallied under Lech Walesa, Obama spoke his usual bombastic platitudes.
Where President Reagan challenged Gorbachev to "TEAR DOWN THAT WALL", Obama made no challenge whatsoever.
It was the British, the French and the Germans who challenged the Mullahs for their horrid response to demonstrations for FREEDOM. It was ONLY after Obama (probably is handlers) figured it out that the American people were upset by his silence on this outrage that he finally sort of ponied-up.
It's interesting how Obama kisses the backsides of world tyrants, but LAYS DOWN THE LAW TO ISRAEL, America's single greatest and most reliable ally in the world. Not to mention the only real Democracy in the Middle East.
WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT OBAMA?
Worse – What does that say about the people who voted for and continue to support he who will go down in history as the worst President the United States of America has ever known?
And perhaps the very worst of all – We now live in a world where there is a leadership vacuum, when a World Leader is needed the most.
The last two times the USA abrogated its obligation to lead the world (1914 and 1939), only to watch other people make global decisions, the results were two world wars the USA had to finally step into to end.
Five-to-40-year-olds and Canada's aboriginal communities should be the first to get vaccinated against human swine flu, experts say as Canadian officials decide who gets priority for the flu shots.
Under Canada's official pandemic plan, the entire population would ultimately be immunized against the H1N1 swine flu.
But the vaccine will become available in batches, meaning the entire population can't be vaccinated at once. It might take four or five months to get all the vaccine we're going to get, during which time a second wave of swine flu may well be underway.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is working on a priority list, deciding where the first batches should go, and who should get the injections first. All provinces and territories would be expected to follow the national prioritization scheme.
Unlike normal seasonal flu, the H1N1 virus appears to be disproportionately infecting older children and young adults. So far the largest number of confirmed cases have occurred in people between the ages of five and 24.
"It doesn't mean they're all getting sick and need to be hospitalized, but they're getting significant illness," said Dr. Noni MacDonald, a leader in pediatric infectious diseases and a professor of pediatrics at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
British researchers reported last week that targeting children first would protect not only them, but also unvaccinated adults.
"Even if you are concerned about the elderly, who are often mentioned as another risk group, their main connection to the big pool of infection is often their grandchildren," said Dr. Thomas House of the University of Warwick.
But adults older than 64 don't appear to be at increased risk of H1N1-related complications so far in the outbreak. It's possible they have some antibodies against the virus.
As well, children "are known to be really important for transmitting flu," said Earl Brown, executive director of the Emerging Pathogens Research Centre at the University of Ottawa.
"They're important for the cycle of infection. They tend to be naive as far as not having flu antibodies in their system before. And really young kids, their immune systems aren't fully mature.
"Children tend to be hit, and they can be hit harder," Brown said. By immunizing children first, "you get to try to block spread, and protect a vulnerable group."
Gymnasiums would be used for mass school-based vaccination programs but experts say the harder to reach group will be the 18-to-30-year-olds.
"Some of them are in school, a lot of them are not," MacDonald said. "They're very much living in the moment and don't necessarily see themselves as being at risk. We need some fast thinking about how to reach those people."
She suggested booths could be set up outside bars for information and immunization.
"You've got to be creative about this and really think out of the box."
Canada's aboriginal communities also appear to be getting more serious infections. Crowded, poorly ventilated housing and poor access to high-quality running water and sanitization are some of the factors being blamed. Aboriginals also have higher rates of asthma, chronic lung disease, obesity and diabetes — the very diseases early data suggests puts people at higher risk of life-threatening complications from swine flu.
The H1N1 vaccine will be a separate vaccine from the regular, annual flu shot. People will require two jabs, and possibly three, depending on how effective the vaccine is in producing immunity. The Public Health Agency of Canada says that no decisions have yet been made about who would get priority first.
One of the challenges will be getting people to agree to the shots. There will be limited information about any vaccine's safety before immunization campaigns are rolled out across the country.
"We usually do research in healthy adults before we do it in children, because this is a new vaccine, and you want to be sure that it's safe and effective before you give it to vulnerable populations, or populations who don't have full capacity to make an informed decision about getting it or not," said Dr. Joanne Langley, of Health Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization.
"There are pros and cons to putting (children) first."
Babies under six months of age are not vaccinated against flu.
It is not exactly my forte to write a Dvar Torah, but I have been thinking of some strange coincidences lately, and you probably do know by now my interest in numerology and the Hebrew letters. So please let me share with you the following. Let me stress that these are just my thoughts, and do not necessarily represent the truth - although they just might!
This week's Torah portion in Israel will be PARSHAT BALAK.
In brief, it discusses how the king of Moab, Balak, became FRIGHTENED because ISRAEL WAS VERY NUMEROUS ( rings a bell? NO POPULATION GROWTH WANTED ANY MORE IN YESHA!) , and Moab feared being overpowered by Israel. So Balak devised a scheme to hire a "prophet" who was also a sorcerer, Balaam, who would CURSE ISRAEL and use SORCERY in order to vanquish Israel . When that scheme failed, Balaam advised Balak to DEBAUCH the people of Israel, knowing that this was the ONLY way to vanquish Am Yisrael.
Sure enough, THAT scheme worked; with the help of their Midianite ( Saudi) allies, Moab enticed Israel to follow the ANAL GOD BAAL PEOR. IN DEFIANCE OF Moshe ( the rabbis) Zimri and Cozbi held a brazen, rebellious, debauched 'PRIDE PARADE' in front of the TENT OF MEETING ( the Temple of those days) .. As a result, 24,000 Israelites died in a plague , until Pinhas came along and put an end to the debauchery by slaying the leaders of the debauchery movement.
This story, as does every Torah portion, has a very contemporary feel to it, and is totally relevant to what we are going through right now in Israel.
See what Eric Phelps had to say about the pope and sorcery - I have to stress that this is NOT a Jewish book, NOT part of the Torah and the Tanach, and therefore not kosher - I am just using his quote to support my claim:
Most correct. The pope, the king of Rome, is the world's greatest sorcerer according to Revelation 17:23.
The pope has been using the services of Barak Obama, who considers himself a prophet of God, speaks as though he is G-d's gift to humanity. He sincerely believes that he is a prophet. And he knows how to MESMERIZE audiences, he is a kind of magician in his own right.
We have seen how the pope , using NUMEROLOGY REPEATEDLY, SORCERY, on April 16-18 gathered 80 religious leaders in Rome to try and compose a common DECLARATION, to be used for the coming G8 meeting - the military-political entity - part of THE CURSE - against Israel.
MUSLIMS did participate in the interfaith meeting, and Arab Nations - Midian - will participate in the G8 meeting as well, the scheme to destroy Israel.
The CURSE, which deliberately took place in Abruzzo, obviously did not work: on the 17th , instead of Israel bowing to the US, Hillary, the envoy of the papal crew to Israel, FELL AND BROKE HER ELBOW.
The pope, it seems, wanted to use a FAKE HOLY ARK TO OVERPOWER ISRAEL as well - this failed too - maybe he became frightened himself of the REAL POWER of the Ark, Hashem, and decided to abandon THAT MAGIC TRICK? And decided to use the bones of an alleged saint instead? Who knows.... I suspect that this show of a RELIC is part of the sorcery used against Israel, THE CURSE, once again,
But the fact is, CURSES SO FAR DID NOT WORK AGAINST ISRAEL: see what happened Erev Pessach, when Jews were busy turning to God: instead, ALL THE POPE'S IDOLS WERE DESTROYED IN ABRUZZO!
THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS AGAINST ISRAEL IS DEBAUCHERY, AND THESE SORCERERS AND THEIR ARAB ALLIES KNOW THAT VERY WELL.
So instead, THE GAY PARADE IS BEING USED. EVEN IN WASHINGTON, OBAMA IS BUSY COWTOWING TO THE HIGH PRIESTS OF DEBAUCHERY today:
(Not just to weaken Israel, mind you; also to weaken AMERICA in this case. Muslims know that, don't you think? They know that debauchery will weaken a nation, so they are VERY EAGER TO USE IT AGAINST AMERICANS AS WELL.) In particular, the PRIDE PARADE took place this week IN JERUSALEM, AT "THE ENTRANCE TO THE TENT OF MEETING", next to the old city of Jerusalem and Har Habayit.
Because THIS is the ONLY way to weaken Israel, there is no other way.
We just found out this week, in my blog post MAJOR BOMBSHELL #2, THAT THE SCHEMES TO DEBAUCH THE WORLD ORIGINATE FROM THE CLUB OF ROME.
ARE YOU SURPRISED?
BenediK... B.....K
Balak..........B----K
He was also a great sorcerer. Both HE and Balaam were the two greatest sorcerers of their time.
oBaMa B.....M, incidentally also B....K ( Barack)
Bilaam B.....M
ARE BENEDIK AND oBAMa THE GILGULIM (REINCARNATIONS) OF BALAK AND BALAAM?
Is THIS WHAT THE SWINE FLU IS ALL ABOUT - to destroy Israel with a deadly plague, as in the days of old?
In this case, the United States is included in the SCHEME AGAINST ISRAEL, as it is being perceived as being PART of the JUDEO-CHRISTIAN nation by the sorcerers...
IF SO, WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO STOP THE PLAGUE, both in Israel and in the US???
I think the parsha told us that already: his name was PINCHAS, and he did what he had to do.
DS
NB; Make sure to read the posts under the label VATICAN SCHEMES AND LIES.
Comments:
Ed sent this:
BEWARE THE OBAMA 'EVIL EYE' Tue Jun 30 2009 07:43:56 ET
As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye!
Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view.
White House photographers have captured the "evil eye" in recent weeks, during sessions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Colombia's Alvaro Uribev.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got hit with the commander's malocchio last week in the Oval office.
And at least one White House reporter has been on the receiving end of the daggers during a press conference.
Developing...
From nik:
nice sevora...
DS replies:
I have another one for you:
How do you write Obama in Hebrew? Aleph, vav, beth, me, heh.
Turn the letters around and you get, ha - Moab, Moav.
Obama the Moabite
How do you like that? his name is even the same as Moab. I think that is very interesting
nik replied:
excellent... moab... bill clinton is a gilgul of acheshvarosh and hitlery is vashti for sure... so why can't these mamzarim be biliam and barak...? nik.
obama = a moab... nice... works for me... nik.
Update, ON SHABBAT PARSHAT BALAK EXACTLY : Obama Turns to Pope to Back Mideast Plan
(Israelnationalnews.com) U.S. President Barack Obama is turning to the Pope to back his vision of a new Arab state on all of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. The president told the Catholic Italian newspaper Avvenire, one week before a scheduled meeting with the Pope in Italy, "It [the Middle East] is a subject I am keen to discuss with the pope. I think he will share my approach."
OBAMA DECIDES TO JOIN FORCES WITH THE POPE AGAINST ISRAEL:
BALAK AND BALAAM TO WORK TOGETHER:
WHAT WILL THIS "NEW APPROACH" OF OBAMA/BALAAM THE MOABITE BE: WILL IT BE DEBAUCHERY, OR WILL IT BE SORCERY?
"It seems obvious to me. The world has accepted Hitler's definition of "peace": No Jews."
Jack
Obama tells Jews where they can live Joseph Farah asks why U.S. supports creation of a new 'anti-Semitic hate state' (WND)
By Joseph Farah
Barack Obama is taking what he and his administration refer to as "a more balanced approach to Middle East policy."
Let me explain what that literally means in real terms.
It means the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.
I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country.
Of course, that would never happen with "a more balanced approach to the Middle East."
It's the 1930s all over again. This time, it's the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live and how far they must bend if they want to live at all.
I know you haven't heard it put like this before. I don't really understand why. There is simply no other accurate way to explain the machinations behind the latest demands on Israel from the West and the rest of the world.
Israel is being reduced to "Auschwitz borders." Jews have already been told they can no longer live in the Gaza Strip. Now they are being told they can no longer choose to live in any of the areas being set aside by international elites for a future Palestinian state.
Again, I ask, "Why would internationalists seek to create, by definition, a racist, anti-Jewish state that doesn't even tolerate the mere presence of Jews?"
Can anyone answer that question for me?
Obama and Clinton – and, thus, by definition, you and me, the taxpayers of the United States – have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.
I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people. Yet, because most people simply don't understand the clear, official plan by the Arab leaders to force out all Jews from the new Palestinian state, the policies of capitulation retain a degree of sympathy, even political support, from much of the world.
Think about what I am saying: It is the official policy of the Palestinian Authority that all Jews must get off the land! Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea?
Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?
Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims?
Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?
That's what we do when we forbid "settlement construction," repairs, natural growth, additions to existing communities.
This is "balance"? Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.
Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well. But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.
All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naïve hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors. Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely.
But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.
I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends. These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s. These are the same kinds of people who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich. These are the same kinds of people who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.
I say, "No more ethnic cleansing. No more official anti-Semitism accepted. No more Jew-bashing. No more telling Jews where they can live, how they can – and if they can live."
Posted By Melanie Phillips Jewish Chronicle, 26 June 2009
Among American Jews, a degree of 'buyers' remorse' has been detected recently.
Almost 80 per cent of American Jews voted for Barack Obama as President. Those of us who warned that this man would endanger Israel were scorned.
How could that possibly be, said the secular, liberal American Jews. He's a Democrat, he's black and he's pro-abortion. With this triple-lock of unassailable virtue, how can he be bad for Israel? Now some of them are getting an awful feeling that they may have made the biggest misjudgment of their lives.
As the world watched events unfold in Iran, Obama's double standard over Israel was illuminated in flashing neon lights. How come he's saying it is wrong for him to tell the Iranians what to do, people asked themselves, when he is dictating to Israel its policy on settlements?
Why was he so concerned not to antagonise the Iranian regime? Was it because he hopes to reach a Grand Bargain which would allow Iran to develop nuclear capability, provided it promises him ever so nicely it would never turn this into weapons — in exchange for which, Israel would be offered up on a plate?
For the past six months, while Obama has been holding out the hand of friendship to Iran, he has been showing Israel a mailed fist.
Why, people asked themselves, was he singling out Iran's putative victim for the heavy treatment while soft-soaping Tehran? Why had he torn up the Road Map which requires the Palestinians to dismantle their infrastructure of terror before anything else can happen, telling Israel instead that its stubbornness over the settlements was the main impediment to a Palestinian state?
Why didn't he acknowledge the blindingly obvious — that the Palestinians' continuing, explicit refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state was the fatal impediment?
And then there was the Cairo shocker of a speech. Even the American Jews could not ignore this. Obama stated falsely that the Jews' aspiration for a homeland was rooted in the Holocaust and their tragic history.
Airbrushing out both the Jews 3,500-year connection to their ancient homeland and the central place of Jerusalem within the religion, he thus effectively denied that Jews are in Israel as of right.
Sanitising Islam through false claims about its historic achievements and selective and misleading quotation from the Koran, he declared that it was part of his responsibility to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
Why? Did this mean therefore that he would fight against any condemnation of the theologically based Jew-hatred pouring out of the Islamic world, not least in Egypt where he was making this speech?
Did he not have a similar responsibility to fight against the negative stereotypes of Jews or Zionists that are inciting terrorism, war and genocide in the Muslim world?
Through the use of a Koranic reference, he also subtly implied that Jerusalem would become Muslim while stating that it should be home equally to Christians, Muslims and Jews.
And he referred to the region as being where Islam was first revealed. This was a revealing word to choose, implying acknowledgement of divine revelation. 'Revealed' is the language of a believer.
None of this proves Obama is really a Muslim. But it does all suggest that America has a pro-Islamist President.
Doubtless as a result of his constant sniping at Israel, the percentage of American voters who say they support Israel has plummeted, according to the Israel Project, from 69 per cent last September to 49 per cent this month.
The US and Israel could be heading for the greatest disagreement between the two countries in the history of their relationship, as Middle East expert Robert Satloff recently told Newsweek.
Even now, though, despite the outbreak of buyers' remorse, most American Jews still don't realise what they have done — and probably never will.
Pope Says Scientific Analysis Seems to Confirm Tradition
VATICAN CITY, JUNE 28, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The tomb of St. Paul may indeed contain the remains of the Apostle of the Gentiles, Benedict XVI affirmed in his homily at the closing of the Year of St. Paul.
The Pope presided at first vespers this evening for the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, which marked the conclusion of the Pauline Year. The celebration took place at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, where it has traditionally been believed St. Paul was buried.
"An authentic scientific analysis" conducted on the sarcophagus conserved in the basilica, the Holy Father said, "seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul."
"A tiny hole was drilled into the sarcophagus -- which over many centuries had never been opened -- in order to insert a special probe, which revealed traces of costly purple colored linen fabric, laminated with pure gold and a blue fabric with linen filaments," Benedict XVI explained.
"Grains of red incense and protein and chalk substances were also discovered," he continued. "There were also tiny bone fragments, which were sent for carbon-14 testing by experts who were unaware of their origin. These were discovered to belong to a person who had lived between the first and second centuries."
St. Paul is said to have been beheaded at Aquas Salvias -- where the Church of Tre Fontane was then erected -- while he was buried at the place where the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls now stands, and where two basilicas -- one ordered by Emperor Constantine and the other the so-called basilica of the "Three Emperors" (Theodosius, Valentinian II and Arcadius) -- were constructed during the fourth century.
Despite the fact that the original tomb of St. Paul had been the object of profound devotion on the part of pilgrims from the beginning, over the centuries it disappeared from view and eventually could no longer be identified.
During the reconstruction of the basilica, which had been destroyed by a fire in 1823, two marble plaques dating from the time of Pope Leo the Great (440-461), which contained the barely visible inscription "Paolo Apostolo Mart" ("Paul the Apostle Martyr"), were discovered beneath the "confessio" altar.
The first archaeological inspections, which took place in 2002-2003 in the area of the "confessio," permitted the identification of the remains of the Constantinian and Theodosian basilicas.
Between May 2 and Nov. 17, 2006 excavations were carried out that brought to light a marble sarcophagus 2.5 meters long and about 1.2 meters long, which rested on layer of clay floor dating from 390, the time during which the Constantinian basilica was expanded.
Beginning in 2007, visitors were allowed to enter below the basilica's altar to pray before the tomb of the Apostle.
Examiner.com:
Ark of the Covenant
The details about the Ark’s public appearance were also set to be announced on Friday and since then, no details have been revealed. Some have questioned whether Pauolos was even in a position to bring the Ark into the public light. Others have speculated that that Pope Palpatine vetoed Pauolos’s decision to bring the Ark public. And many others have speculated that the Church fears the scientific analysis of the "magic box". Regardless of the reasons, no Ark of the Covenant has been revealed as promised.
Comments:
1. anonymous asks:
And why should that interest me?
DS replies:
I thought it is funny how they use something else, ANYTHING: it seems to me that this ark business was rather humiliating for them, so they had to find some kind of substitute. Just ironic, that's all. Obviously they had a scheme that misfired, regarding us, I am not sure what. Maybe they got scared of the consequences of fooling with the Aron Hakodesh, and desisted in the last minute, Maybe they realized the ark was a fake... who knows, but they had to SAVE FACE.
NB: make sure to read the latest post: Re: BENEDIKT AND OBAMA: ARE THEY THE GILGULIM OF BALAK AND BALAAM?
(Israelnationalnews.com) Arabs set fire to a granary in the Judean community of Bat Ayin Monday in the early morning hours. Firefighters who arrived on the scene extinguished the blaze.
The police opened an investigation into the incident.
Fighting in Yitzhar after Arab Arson
Tammuz 7, 5769, 29 June 09 08:32
(Israelnationalnews.com) Confrontations were reported Monday evening in the Samarian Jewish community of Yitzhar after Arabs from the neighboring village of Atzhira set fire to agricultural land belonging to Yitzhar.
Yitzhar residents say that rocks were thrown at them when they came to put out the fire. They said the confrontations continued after the fire was quenched.
Update:
Tens of Simultaneous Fires in Northern Israel are ‘Terror Arson’ Tammuz 9, 5769, 01 July 09 10:54 by Gil Ronen
(Israelnationalnews.com) Fire fighters in northern Israel fought dozens of blazes that broke out during the day Wednesday, most of them around noontime.
A source in the Hadera Fire Services told News1 that due to the fact that numerous fires broke out in a relatively limited area, the working assumption is that they were deliberately set. “We still do not know how the fires were set and we do not have details about the arsonist or arsonists,” he said.
In one of the fire locations, north of Rosh Pina, the fire spread to within close range of the residents of Rosh Pina, and dozens were asked to leave their homes. The Israel Land Fund said that more than 1,000 dunams of natural thickets had gone up in flames.
Initial investigations by fire fighter squads in the numerous fire locations found a likelihood of arson. “This is man-made terror,” a fire commander said. “Fires don’t just break out on their own.”
Fire locations included the Gilon Forest and locations near Karmiel and between Sakhnin and Kibbutz Eshbal. 200 dunams of natural thickets near the Yesha Fortress in the Upper Galilee were also burned. The vegetation in the area had been recovering from fires ignited by Katyusha rockets in the Second Lebanon War. %ad%
A large fire broke out in the hay storage facility at Kibbutz Giladi. Three large fires broke out near Tzfat, damaging electrical lines and causing disruptions to Tzfat’s power supply at noontime.
Dozens of fires broke out in the Wadi Ara area between Hadera and Afula. The thick smoke made it necessary to close off traffic on Highway 65 for some time.
Illegal Arab Outposts Targeted in High Court Appeal
Tammuz 7, 5769, 29 June 09 06:27
by Gil Ronen
(Israelnationalnews.com) A pro-Land of Israel group has filed a motion asking the High Court of Justice to order a halt to construction of illegal Arab outposts in Judea and Samaria, as it has done in the case of illegal Jewish building. The petitioners hope that the court will be as strict with regard to Arab outposts as it was when groups like Peace Now and Yesh Din filed motions against Jewish construction.
The petitioner is an organization named Regavim, which is dedicated to safeguarding of Jewish national lands. It was filed Monday against the Minister of Defense and the Head of Central Command, and demanded that they issue demolition orders against illegal structures within the illegal outposts near the Arab villages of As-Sawiya and Yatma, next to the Jewish community Rechelim in Shomron (Samaria). Rechelim is located in territory that is labeled as "Area C", under full Israel security and administrative control.
Illegal Arab outposts near Rechelim (Israel news photo courtesy of Regavim)
The petitioners ask the court to issue an order requiring the Head of Central Command to declare the area where the illegal building is being carried out as a closed military zone and to instruct the Civil Administration to immediately issue work-stoppage orders and demolition orders against three structures that are in advanced stages of construction and which have not yet been populated.
In addition, they ask that the police initiate criminal proceedings against the builders. The High Court is requested to prevent the connection of the structures to the electricity grid and to water and sewage pipes, and to disconnect them if they have already been hooked up.
'Under the noses of the authorities' Regavim is an organization dedicated to preventing unwanted elements from taking over national lands. It monitors the administrative agencies entrusted with safeguarding national lands to make sure that they operate properly.
The petitioners claim that "entire outposts are being built in broad daylight and in contravention of the law, under the very noses of the law enforcement authorities." The outposts, they say, "are built without the requisite authorization and include spacious mansions that would not look out of place in the most lavish neighborhoods in Israel and the world."
Three spacious homes The constructors in the outposts "make a mockery of the legal authorities and invest large sums of money in building luxurious homes illegally and without the required permits," the motion states.
The motion includes documentation of three spacious homes that are in advanced construction, which were photographed on June 25th.
Despite the fact that Regavim informed the Defense Ministry and the Civilian Administration of the construction in early 2008, no steps have been taken against the builders. There are no "supervision files" and no work stoppage or demolition orders.
In a letter from the Civilian Administration received on February 17, 2008, the Administration claimed that work-stoppage and demolition orders were already issued and that further steps would be taken "in accordance with procedures and priorities as regards illegal construction" Regavim claims, however, that no enforcement steps have been taken in the 18 months that have passed since.
IDF report acknowledges problem Attorney Amir Fisher, who represents Regavim, accused the authorities of adopting "a clear and declared policy of non-enforcement of planning and construction laws" and that builders of the outposts are well-aware of this fact. In this situation, he said, his clients had no recourse but to petition the High Court.
He quoted a 2008 report by the IDF Civilian Administration's Central Supervision Unit which said that "2008 was characterized by a near-total freeze of enforcement action with regard to the illegal Palestinian construction." The report acknowledged that "a freeze of demolitions and other enforcement activities with regard to infrastructures sends a negative message to the populace and makes it possible to create facts on the ground that we will have difficulty facing."
Bernard Madoff, the confessed mastermind behind the largest Ponzi scheme in history, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
A U.S. District Court judge in New York sentenced Madoff to 150 years in prison, which was the maximum allowable sentence under the law.
Judge Denny Chin made his decision Monday morning after reviewing letters from many of Madoff's victims and hearing testimony from them in court.
According to reports filed by journalists in the courtroom, Madoff made a statement prior to the announcement of the sentence in which he said in part to his victims: "I cannot offer you an excuse for my behavior. I know this will not help. I'm sorry."
Madoff's attorney had asked Chin for a far more lenient sentence of 12 years.
Madoff plead guilty to 11 criminal counts, including securities fraud and money laundering, on March 12. His victims reportedly number more than 1,300 and stretch across the globe. Their losses are estimated at more than $13 billion.
Sir Allen Stanford arrested in US
June 19, 2009 Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford has surrendered to the US authorities after a warrant was issued for his arrest on criminal charges.
The 58-year-old already faces civil charges brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over an alleged fraud worth $8bn (£6bn).
Sir Allen turned himself in to the FBI in Virginia and is expected to appear in a Richmond federal court on Friday.
It was not immediately clear what criminal charges Sir Allen faces.
Dick DeGuerin, Sir Allen's lawyer, told The Associated Press he had surrendered "to some FBI agents who were hiding out in black SUVs outside the residence where he was staying in Virginia".
"He walked out and asked if they had a warrant," Mr DeGuerin said.
He said Stanford told the agents to arrest him if they had a warrant, but if they did not have a warrant, he would go back to Houston to turn himself in.
In February, the SEC, the US financial watchdog, described the alleged fraud at Stanford Financial group as a "fraud of shocking magnitude".
The cricket impresario is accused by the SEC of luring investors with promises of improbable and unsubstantiated high returns on certificates of deposit and other investments - what is known as a Ponzi scheme.
The billionaire financer has refused to talk to US regulators investigating his alleged fraud, and court documents show that Sir Allen pleaded the Fifth Amendment - the right to withhold potentially self-incriminating evidence.
In an interview with ABC earlier this year he insisted no money was lost by customers dealing with his financial services companies.
"If it was a Ponzi scheme, why are they finding billions and billions of dollars all over the place?" he said at the time.
Comments:
1. bill said:
Let's keep in mind that Madoff was in business for 40 years, giving people higher-than-normal returns.
Most of these people made more money than they invested with him.
He was so highly respected, that he was made chairman of THE NASDAQ STOCK EXCHANGE.
His empire collapsed only when the U.S. Government destroyed the real estate market by forcing banks to make bad loans to people who could never afford to pay.
That same government runs the biggest Ponzi scheme in the world, the "Social Security" System.
Yes, the Jew will be thrust in front of the public, to be tarred and feathered, while the real crooks--the Clinton people who manipulated the real estate market, and the Congressmen who twisted the arms of the bankers, sneak away, laughing all the way to the (Swiss) bank.
By Bill Bonner, the Daily Reckoning newsletter: The Extraordinary Evil of Bernie Madoff by Bill Bonner London, England
Let the punishment fit the crime!
Poor Bernie. The man has been ordered to spend 150 years in the hoosegow. What for? Who did he kill? A century and a half seems a little excessive for a financial crime. You could hold up three liquor stores and rape a whole convent and still not get 150 years. With a little bit of good lawyer-ing, a history of child abuse in the family, and good behavior in the big house, you'd be back on the street in 18 months.
But all the papers seem delighted. "Locked up for Life!" says one of today's headlines. The judge "threw the book at him," says another. His victims wanted him to get no mercy. The judge gave him none, imposing the maximum sentence. He is "extraordinarily evil," said the man on the bench.
Justice has been done. Right?
Here in the building with the gold balls on the roof, we're not so sure. We stand up for lost causes...die hards...and scalawags. Besides, we're not convinced that Bernie is extraordinarily evil at all. He seems much more like an ordinary evil to us.
They say he defrauded investors out of $65 billion. The amount is unusual, but the crime is as common as income tax evasion. Who gets 150 years for evading income taxes? Heck, in civilized countries it's not a crime at all - but a civil misdemeanor, subject to fine and retribution, not punishment.
But didn't he lie to investors? Well, yes...he exaggerated the returns investors were likely to get from his fund. But if you put every fellow on Wall Street who does that in jail, you wouldn't have any room for stick-up men and wife beaters.
Isn't he the biggest financial scammer of all time? Well...he's the title-holder now. But he has a lot of competition close on his heels. Bernie's crime was taking money from people under false pretenses...and then being unable to give it back to them. How is that different from the financing activities of the US government?
This year alone, the feds will borrow 50 times as much money as Bernie managed to take in during his whole 20-year career. They can only pay it back by borrowing even more money from more lenders. This is not very different from the typical "Ponzi" scheme, except that it's the government doing it. Eventually, the suckers are going to lose a lot of money.
And when you balance Bernie's sins against his virtues, we're not sure the man doesn't come out at least as well as many of his accusers. While Bernie was pretending to make his investors rich, the SEC was pretending to protect them from Bernie. In fact, neither were really doing what they claimed. Which is to say, both are guilty of ordinary evil.
As we pointed out yesterday, nothing is as dangerous as good luck. Madoff was not extraordinarily evil; he was just extraordinarily lucky. He was plying his trade when the feds were pumping up the biggest financial bubble in history. No wonder so much hot gas came his way. His luck ran out when the bubble popped. And now a court has found him guilty of fraud and a judge has ordered him locked up for a period equal to roughly the time between the end of the US War Between the States and the resignation of Richard Nixon. While Bernie is behind bars, the SEC and FED officials are still at large. Both are clearly guilty of dereliction and negligence.
But, what is the point of keeping Madoff in prison? He represents no threat. Rather than pay $30,000 per year to keep him locked up, we suggest that he be forced to do community service work. He should be pressed into service as the next head of the Federal Reserve after Ben Bernanke's term expires in December. With Madoff in the big office, there would be no longer any illusions about what sort of bank the Fed is running.
A contrarian view:
Free Bernie Madoff
Bernie Madoff stole billions from the customers of his phony investment funds, running a racket rather than a financial service. People who aren't even his victims are furious, and nearly everyone enjoyed a 10-minute sense of vengeance when the judge threw him behind bars for 150 years.
Let me weigh in with a contrary view. Free Bernie Madoff, I say.
His life is already ruined. He is a pauper. He will never again do business.
From the innovative genius whose information technology in the 1960s became the basis of NASDAQ, he rose to the heights and fell to the depths where he will stay this way until death. He won't be able to be seen in public for the rest of his life without encountering scorn and derision from everyone around him.
Maybe the idea of jail is punishment. I don't see how it can be a worse punishment than he would face on the outside.
Maybe the idea is to impose on him a feeling of remorse. But does he not already feel regret, even deep sorrow? This man who was widely considered to be a historic phenom is now disgraced, forever. We all have one life to live, and his is now a complete wreck, going down in history as the worst financial criminal of all time.
What, then, precisely, is the point of jailing him? He is no direct threat to anyone. Society would not be safer because he is in the slammer. He is not going to rob people or beat people up.
He might write a book and donate the funds to charity or make some restitution to his victims. I, for one, would like to read that book.
Instead, taxpayers will be forced to pick up the tab for his living expenses. Victims get nothing. That's not justice. That's inhumane for both sides of the transaction: Bernie and us.
Will jail "rehabilitate" him? It's ridiculous. His rehabilitation, if there can be one, is probably already complete. Consider the dilemma in which he found himself. It began small, a simple scheme that anyone can play. His problem was that it worked better than most.
Once his scam began, he probably hoped the markets would turn around and he would become honest again. It didn't turn out that way. Then he couldn't dig his way out of it, no matter how much he hated his life. That it lasted decades instead of days is a testament to his marketing savvy, but that's not to say that he loved his life. Spending the rest of his life in the pokey won't rehabilitate him any more intensely than life on the outside.
The problem with prisoners is not that you are treated like an animal. Would that they had it so good! At the zoo, the animals are fed and groomed and cared for. They have value because they elicit affection from paying customers. Even slaves are in a better position, for at least they are valued to some small degree by their masters.
Prisoners, on the other hand, face a kind of metaphysical transformation. They go from being valued members of society to being treated like blobs of flesh taking up space. Their wardens see them as objects. They are abused by fellow inmates and live in a state of incredible degradation everyday.
All prisoners are therefore living amidst a kind of torture. It isn't modern. It isn't even medieval. It is contrary to all principles of civilization. Perhaps we should allow it for the most violent members of society, pending some other solution. But that doesn't apply to Madoff, and it doesn't apply to some ¾ of all the prison population.
But still, we are all supposed to feel some kind of joy at his captivity. For decades we've been told by sociologists that the real criminals in society are not muggers and murderers and rapists but rather "white-collars criminals" who are capitalists sneakily stealing money using fancy finance. They are the ones who should be in jail.
And so now, those educated by the sociologists, forever soft on real crime but oddly tough on financial crime, have their way, as the bourgeoisie cries out for vengeance against a guy whose sole victims were the rich people who were his own customers.
Can there be anyone doubt that Madoff has been set up as a scapegoat, a person on which to blame the downturn so that we will be distracted from the greatest scams of all that enjoy the cover of law?
So let us ask the unaskable: Just how unusually evil were Madoff's actions? Not that unusual. In fact, the whole notion of paying off past investors with the funds of present investors is at the very core of the Social Security system.
At least Madoff sought the consent of his investors who let him care for their money based on their own volition. And at least he didn't attempt to defend himself with the claim that he was conducting wise public policy.
First round in Internet war goes to Iranian intelligence
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
June 28, 2009, 4:00 PM (GMT+02:00)
Millions of sympathizers around the world looked forward to seeing Iran's protest movement using the Internet for the first online coup in history. Instead, the Iranian Islamic regime turned the tables: Its Internet police, arguably the largest in the world, pushed "control," "halt," "delete" and "send" buttons to activate a deadly weapon for suppressing the movement, as soon as it took to the streets to protest the June 12 election which was believed to have given Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a false victory.
By Sunday, June 28, when the Guardian Council was to hand down its final verdict on their complaints, the street rallies had petered out.
Part of the reason, DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report, was their organizers' heavy reliance on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other social sites to orchestrate their protest movement. They did not at first appreciate that Iranian intelligence Internet experts, operating from secret headquarters established months ago, were using their communications to shoot them down.
According to our sources, that headquarters is located at the telecom center on Sepah (Khomenei) Square in Tehran. It was built for the Shah in the 1970s by the Israel construction contractors Solel Boneh and designed by Israeli intelligence and telecommunications experts.
The high-end apparatus, installed in late 2008 by the German Siemens AG and Finnish Nokia Corp. cell phone giant, gave Iranian intelligence the most advanced tools anywhere for controlling, inspecting, censoring and altering Internet and cell phone messaging. Those tools were being used weeks before the poll to identify penetrations by alien spy services, their local agents and dissident activists.
This system is capable of conducting "deep packet inspection" of every type of text and video communication in all parts of Iran on three tracks:
1. Like other advanced electronic spy systems in the world, this one uses such keywords as attack, weapons, cash, data, explosives, meeting, demonstration, resistance, protest, etc. to alert Iran within milliseconds to feeds of interest by computer or phone - mail, signals or visuals.
In a flash, intelligence analysts get a fix on the sender and the electronic addressee which are then placed on a surveillance list for further monitoring. Once identified, the sender or receiver and their connections are closely shadowed by field agents.
2. By "deep packet inspection," the secret controllers can cause delays in online data transfers, which surfers may attribute to glitches connected with their providers. The more targets under surveillance, the more online transfers are slowed down.
DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that the day after the presidential poll and resulting street outbreaks, Iran's Internet control and tracking supervisors took over the 10 leading service providers in the country. Their first action was to slow down incoming and outgoing cyber traffic from 1,500 to 54 kilobytes to make sure that not a single byte by Internet or cell phone to or from protest leaders escaped their notice.
Tehran has vented its ire on Britain because it is accused of providing the organizers of the dissident movement with London telephone numbers to circumvent the deliberate slowdown of online traffic from inside the country. These numbers gave anti-government activists instant, direct links through Western Internet providers for getting their messages out to the world. Iran suspects they were laid on by British intelligence.
Eventually, the British lines became jammed by overload.
3. Iranian intelligence made cynical use of the large amount of electronic and personal data accumulated on anti-regime elements. Instead of detaining their prey at once, Iranian intelligence invaded their computers and cell phones to plant false leads for smoking unsuspecting activists out in the open and keeping them under inspection.
Within a few days of their protest, Mir Hossein Mousavi and the bulk of his supporters, realizing their electronic campaign had been taken over by the regime to hunt them down, disappeared from the streets of Tehran.
Wednesday, June 24, when the extent of the damage the Iranian Internet invasion had inflicted on American interests was brought home to him, US secretary of defense Robert Gates ordered a special cyber defense system set up to protect the US armed forces' 15,000 Web sites, which encompass seven million computers. Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, was put in charge of getting the new system up and running by the end of 2010.
Tuesday, June 23, a group of US senators led by the Republic presidential candidate John McCain and independent Joe Lieberman initiated legislation to fund a cyber defense system capable of combating Internet assaults like the one mounted by the Iranian government.
Review my article dated April 8th, 2008: SIEMENS: HAS THE LEOPARD CHANGED ITS SPOTS?
World War II Era
Preceding World War II Siemens was involved in the secret rearmament of Germany. During the Second World War, Siemens supported the Hitler regime, contributed to the war effort and participated in the "Nazification" of the economy. Siemens had many factories in and around notorious extermination camps such as Auschwitz and used slave labor from concentration camps to build electric switches for military uses. In one example, almost 100,000 men and women from Auschwitz worked in a Siemens factory inside the camp, supplying the electricity to the camp.[5]The crematorium ovens at Buchenwald bear the Siemens label.
Report: German Company Sold Iran Surveillance Equipment
4 Nissan 5768, 09 April 08 11:17
by
(IsraelNN.com) The German company Siemens was very likely responsible for selling sophisticated surveillance equipment to Iran, according to the Jerusalem Post. Austrian investigative journalist Erich Moechel first broke the story.
Moechel said he was "99 percent certain" that Siemens had provided Iran with equipment used to track landline and cellular phone conversations. Iran also purchased "Intelligence Platform" systems allowing it to monitor financial transactions and travel, he said.
Siemens spokesmen did not confirm or deny the allegations, but said the company was careful to obey all European Union guidelines regarding trade with Iran.
Contemporary scholars are continuing to learn about the extent to which Siemens, and every major German business in the Thirties and Forties, was implicated in the brutality of Nazi economic policies, most egregiously through the abuse of forced and slave laborers. Siemens ran factories at Ravensbrück and in the Auschwitz subcamp of Bobrek, among others, and the company supplied electrical parts to other concentration and death camps. In the camp factories, abysmal living and working conditions were ubiquitous: malnutrition and death were not uncommon. Recent scholarship has established how, despite German industry's repeated denials, these camp factories were created, run, and supplied by the SS in conjunction with company officials -- sometimes high-level employees.
And this from the Wall Street Journal: Notice how they play so self-righteous - it is all for the benefit of humanity, of course. These evil monsters are hypocrites too.COMBATING TERRORISM in Iran? Please explain to me, maybe I don't quite understand: I thought the Iranian regime IS TERROR!
According to a somewhat confusing Wall Street Journal story,( what's so confusing about this? It seems very clear to me: we are talking collaboration with the Iranian regime here, DS) Iran has adopted NSA-like techniques and installed equipment on its national telecommunication network last year that allows it to spy on the online activities and correspondence — including the content of e-mail and VoIP phone calls — of its internet users.
Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Germany's Siemens and Finland's Nokia, installed the monitoring equipment late last year in Iran's government-controlled telecom network, Telecommunication Infrastructure Co., but authorities only recently engaged its full capabilities in response to recent protests that have broken out in the country over its presidential election.
The equipment allows the state to conduct deep-packet inspection, which sifts through data as it flows through a network searching for keywords in the content of e-mail and voice transmissions. According to the Journal, Iran seems to be doing this for the entire country from a single choke point. "Seems," because although the Journal states that Nokia Siemens installed the equipment and that signs indicate the country is conducting deep-packet inspection, the paper also says "it couldn't be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection."
It's previously been reported that Iran was blocking access to some web sites for people inside the country as protesters took to the streets and the internet to dispute the results of the country's recent presidential election.
But sources told the Journal that the government's activities have gone beyond censorship to massive spying. They say the deep-packet inspection, which deconstructs data in transit then reconstructs it, could be responsible for network activity in Iran having recently slowed to less than a tenth of its regular speed. The slowdown could be caused by the inspection at a single point, rather than at numerous network points, as China reportedly does it.
A brochure promoting the equipment sold to Iran says the technology allows for "the monitoring and interception of all types of voice and data communication on all networks."
A spokesman for Nokia Siemens Networks defended the sale of the equipment to Iran suggesting that the company provided the technology with the idea that it would be used for "lawful intercept," such as combating terrorism, child pornography, drug trafficking and other criminal activity. Equipment installed for law enforcement purposes, however, can easily be used for spying as well.
"If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability to intercept any communication that runs over them," the spokesman told the Journal.
He added that the company "does have a choice about whether to do business in any country" but said, "We believe providing people, wherever they are, with the ability to communicate is preferable to leaving them without the choice to be heard."
In March, the company sold off its monitoring technology to a German investment firm.
What is also glaring in its absence is any kind of CONDEMNATION, or SANCTION, by the German government. After all, they have known about Siemens's activities in Iran for a long time. Have YOU heard about any fine, or prosecution, or incarceration, of Siemens executives regarding this specific matter? I haven't.
On the other hand, they have been FINED and INVESTIGATED over OTHER MATTERS, mind you, both in the U.S. and in Germany: over corruption and bribery issues. But what about the issue of COLLABORATION with an enemy? Nothing.
Siemens even uses as their defense the argument that they are not violating any criteria of the European Union regarding trade with Iran.
What this tells us is something very clear about both Germany and Europe's, and even the United States' position re: Siemens's activities in Iran: TACIT ACQUIESCENCE. The leadership of Iran is obviously NOT an enemy in their eyes, and it is OK to give it the most advanced technological capability, both to oppress their own population, and of course to SPY ON ISRAEL, so it can destroy it better.
.... and we already know WHO the European Union works for.....
SEE ALSO MY POST: A WRITER'S VIEW OF TODAY'S GERMANY.
THE LEOPARD, TRULY, HAS NOT CHANGED ITS SPOTS!
Update, 7/17/09 AsiaNews
» 07/17/2009 16:18
IRAN Nokia accused of being in the service of VEVAK, Iran’s spy agency Dariush Mirzai Iran’s opposition calls for a boycott of Nokia and Siemens, accused of providing Iran’s secret services with technology capable of monitoring telephone use. Along with the Pasdaran and Basij, the powerful spy agency has one main purpose, to crush the country’s democratic aspirations, by torture and beheading if necessary.
Tehran (AsiaNews) – A month ago Ahmadinejad’s opponents used electronic means of communication to organise and broaden their protest. The regime’s first reaction was to unleash the brutal Basij, the “volunteers” of the Revolution.
Such armed militiamen are the foot soldiers of Iran’s domestic secret service, the VEVAK, which is part of the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI). With some 20,000 employees, the MOI is at the disposal of Iran’s hard-line rulers, men like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But at one time, when Rafsanjani was president, the VEVAK was in the “state terrorism” big time, threatening and killing the regime’s opponents even in Western countries.
According to Yves Bonnet, a former director of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) (Directorate of Territorial Surveillance, the French secret service), in just two month in 1988 the VEVAK executed some 33,000 people on the order of Khomeini. No wonder then, that the VEVAK is listed as a “terrorist organisation in some countries like Canada”.1
Today the domestic spy agency runs its own prisons, torturing and beheading enemies of the state. Unlike the Pasdaran and the Basij whose task is to keep an eye on the streets of Iranian cities, VEVAK’s business is spying on Iranians and propaganda, great tools to undermine Iran’s pro-reform and pro-democracy movement.
Recent reports suggested that two major European mobile phone companies, Nokia and Siemens, with big sales in Iran (especially Nokia), have sold Iranian authorities sophisticated surveillance technology. As soon as the information became public a boycott of Nokia products was launched in Iran.
Boycotts are nothing new in the Islamic Republic. In the past “anti-Islamic” or “Zionist” firms have been targeted, sometimes on behalf of the former’s foreign competitors. Whether directly involved or not, this boycott campaign is of high propaganda value for VEVAK because in the current economic climate, fewer Iranians can afford to have a mobile phone. With fewer Iranians willing to test high tech phone surveillance, fewer dangerous messages will be sent.
All this does not mean that the report about Nokia and Siemens is not true. Over the years, business people, journalists and politicians in Tehran have developed the habit of not taking their mobile phones with them into rooms where they meet, leaving them instead outside the entrance or in a separate room. The reason for this is VEVAK’s capability of using any mobile phone left on standby as a microphone to pick up conversations.
Such high level espionage is not the only card up the spy agency’s sleeve. The best way for it to keep on eye on everyone is to monitor phone text messages. Indeed what Tehrani hasn’t received or sent a joke about the clergy or Ahmadinejad? Now fear of getting caught will lead many to censor themselves. And by blocking communications (a technique used at the height of the protest movement), the VEVAK can weaken the opposition and reinforce the image of an all-powerful state.
In order to manipulate public opinion the VEVAK does not rely on technology alone. It has established charities (in favour of suffering Iraqis and Lebanese for example) to show how good Iran is compared to the wicked West.2
Another way for the VEVAK to manipulate public opinion is to organise and invite Westerners on visits to Iran, showing nice things about Iran which will be picked up by the CNN or the BBC. The intent of Iran’s spy masters is not so much to change opinions in the West in favour of the Islamic regime, but rather to show to Iranians with access to Western media that their country is not so bad after all.
In its 30 years of existence the Islamic Republic has learnt how to stay in power. The VEVAK is the equivalent of the Shah’s brutal SAVAK. One of the reasons for the collapse of the Pahlavi regime lies in the decision made by many SAVAK officials and agents to jump ship and join Khomeini and the regime he was setting up.
At present such a “migration” appears very unlikely and this despite the contacts and parallel networks Rafsanjani built years ago inside the services which are now in the hands of his political opponents.
1. BONNET Y., Vevak, Au service des ayatollahs, Paris : Timée-Éditions, 2009, 454 p.
2. So-called collateral damage in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and provocative speeches by George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon have been very useful in demobilising Iran’s opposition.
UN public hearing in Gaza broadcasts accounts of war victims
• Inquiry held by Jewish South African judge • Israeli witnesses to attend next round in Geneva
Up to 13 Israelis and 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the three-week war, which saw rocket strikes on a UN school. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
The UN has held an unprecedented public hearing in Gaza to broadcast live witness accounts from Palestinians who described seeing their relatives killed and injured during Israel's January war.
One after another, they detailed Israeli rocket strikes and artillery shelling near a mosque, a UN school and on several homes across Gaza during the three-week war. The two-day hearing is part of an inquiry by the UN human rights council into the war led by the respected South African judge, Richard Goldstone.
Israel has refused entry for the inquiry team, accusing the UN council of an anti-Israel bias even though Goldstone himself is Jewish. But another round of hearings will be held in Geneva next week, for which some Israeli witnesses are expected to be flown in. They may include residents of Sderot, near Gaza, which has suffered repeated Palestinian rocket attacks.
"The purpose of the public hearings in Gaza and Geneva is to show the faces and broadcast the voices of victims – all of the victims," Goldstone said last week. He had sat on South Africa's constitutional court after the fall of apartheid and was a chief prosecutor on the UN criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Yesterday's public hearing was the first in a UN fact-finding mission, though there is little chance it will lead to prosecutions. Up to 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the war.....
The UN inquiry team will issue a final report in August.
My previous articles on the topic are listed here:
William E. Grim is a writer who lives in Germany and is a native of Columbus, Ohio.
I'm not Jewish. No one in my family died in the Holocaust. For me, anti-Semitism has always been one of those phenomena that doesn't really register on my radar, like tribal genocide in Rwanda, a horrible thing that happens to someone else.
But I live in a small town outside of Munich on a street that until May of 1945 was named Adolf Hitler Strasse. I work in Munich, a pleasant metropolitan city of a little over a million inhabitants whose Bavarian charm tends to obscure the fact that this city was the birthplace and capital of the Nazi movement.
Every day when I go to work I pass by the sites of apartments Hitler lived in, extant buildings in which decisions were made to murder millions of innocent people, and plazas in which book burnings took place, SS troops paraded and people were executed. The proximity to evil has a way of concentrating one's attention, of putting a physical reality to the textbook narratives of the horrors perpetrated by the Germans.
Then the little things start to happen that over a period of time add up to something very sinister. I'm on a bus and a high school boy passes around Grandpa's red leather-bound copy of Mein Kampf to his friends who respond by saying "coooool!" He then takes out a VCR tape (produced in Switzerland) of The Great Speeches of Joseph Goebbels."
A few weeks later I'm at a business meeting with four young highly educated Germans who are polite, charming and soft-spoken to say the least. When the subject matter changes to a business deal with a man in New York named Rubinstein, their nostrils flair, their demeanor attain a threatening mien and one of them actually says, and I'm quoting verbatim here: "The problem with America is that the Jews have all the money." They start laughing and another one says, "Yeah, all the Jews care about is money."
I found that this type of anti-Semitic reference in my professional dealings with Germans soon became a leitmotif (to borrow a term made famous by Richard Wagner, another notorious German anti-Semite). In my private meetings with Germans it often happens that they will loosen up after a while and reveal personal opinions and political leanings that were thought to have ceased to exist in a Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. Maybe it's because I have blond hair and my last name is of German origin that the Germans feel that I am, or could potentially be, "one of them." It shows how much they understand what it means to be an American.
Whatever the reason, the conversations generally have one or more of these components:
(1) It was unfortunate that America and Germany fought each other in World War II because the real enemy was Russia.
(2) Yes, the Nazis were excessive, but terrible things happen during wars, and anyway, the scope of the Holocaust has been greatly exaggerated by the American media, which is dominated by Jews.
(3) CNN is controlled by American Jews and is anti-Palestinian. (Yes, I know it sounds incredible, but even among the most highly intelligent Germans, even those with a near-native fluency in English, there is the widespread belief that the news network founded by Fidel Castro's friend Ted Turner, who was married to Hanoi Jane Fonda, is a hotbed of pro-Israeli propaganda.)
(4) Almost all Germans were opposed to the Third Reich and nobody in Germany knew anything about the murder of the Jews, but the Jews themselves were really responsible for the Holocaust.
(5) Ariel Sharon was worse than Hitler and the Israelis are Nazis. America supports Israel only because Jews control the American government and media.
For the first time in my life, then, I became conscious of anti-Semitism. Sure, anti-Semitism exists elsewhere in the world, but nowhere have the consequences been as devastating as in Germany. Looking at it as objectively as possible, 2002 was a banner year for anti-Semitism in Germany. Synagogues were firebombed, Jewish cemeteries desecrated, the No. 1 best-selling novel, Martin Walser's Death of a Critic, was a thinly-veiled roman a clef containing a vicious anti-Semitic attack on Germany's best-known literary critic, Marcel Reich-Ranicki (who was a survivor of both the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz); the Free Democrat Party unofficially adopted anti-Semitism as a campaign tactic to attract Germany's sizeable Muslim minority; and German revisionist historians began to define German perpetration of World War II and the Holocaust not as crimes against humanity, but as early battles (with regrettable but understandable excesses) in the Cold War against communism.
The situation is so bad that German Jews are advised not to wear anything in public that would identify them as Jewish because their safety cannot be guaranteed.
How can this be? Isn't this the "New Germany" that's gone 60 years without a Holocaust or even a pogrom, where truth, justice and the German way prevail amidst economic wealth, a high standard of living that is the envy of their European neighbors, and a constitution guaranteeing freedom for everyone regardless of race, creed or national origin?
What's changed? The answer is: absolutely nothing. My thesis is quite simple While Germany no longer has the military power to enforce the racist ideology of the Nazis and while all extreme manifestations of Nazism are officially outlawed, the internal conditions -- that is, the attitudes,world view and cultural assumptions - that led to the rise of Nazism in Germany are still present because they constitute the basic components of German identity.
Nazism was not an aberration; it was the distillation of the German psyche into its essential elements. External Nazism may have been utterly defeated in May of 1945; internal Nazism, however, remains, and will always remain, a potential threat as long as there exists a political and/or cultural entity known as Germany.
Now hold on a second, I hear many people saying. You can't possibly claim that Germans are as anti-Semitic today as they were during the years 1933-1945.
It is true that Germany today is much different than during the Third Reich. What is different is that due to its total defeat by the allies Germany today is a client state of America and must do its bidding. That means repression of overt anti-Semitism. It's bad for business.
The other thing that has changed is that, even though Hitler lost World War II, he was phenomenally successful in carrying out his ideological agenda. Germany, indeed virtually all of Europe, is essentially Judenfrei (free of Jews) today due to the efficiency and zeal of the Germans as they perpetrated the Holocaust during the Third Reich. In fact, a very convincing case can be made that Nazism is one of the most successful political programs of all time. It accomplished more of its goals in a shorter amount of time than any other comparable political movement and permanently changed the face and political structure of several continents.
Germany is wealthy, stable, relentlessly bourgeois, and for all intents and purposes, free of Jews. Yes, there is a tiny minority of Jews, mostly centered in Berlin, and yes, there have been a number of Jews from the former Soviet Union who have emigrated to Germany, but most of the immigrants from Russia are not practicing Jews and do little if anything to promote a unique Jewish-German identity.
The result of all this is that Germans today are able to reap the benefits of Hitler's anti-Semitic policies while paying lip service to the "need to remember." Young Fritz doesn't have to be overtly anti-Semitic today because his grandfather's generation did such a bang-up job of the Holocaust. There just aren't that many Jews left to hate any more, and besides, the Germans have their old buddies, the Arabs, to do their hating for them.
You might call the overwhelming German support for the Palestinians to be a form of anti-Semitism-by-proxy. The German government has made cash payments to the State of Israel, as well as to individual Jews, to settle claims of murder, torture, false imprisonment, slave labor and genocide. Talk to most Germans and you'll soon discover that they think that the score has been settled between Germany and the Jews, that somehow the return of just a portion of what the Germans stole from the Jews is fair recompense for the deliberate murder of millions of people.
If you think the Germans are truly sorry for what they did to the Jews, think again. There's never been an official "tut mir leid" offered by the Germans to the victims of the Holocaust and their descendants because that would admit culpability. Germany has paid off all claims against it without acknowledging responsibility in the same way that the Ford Motor Company engages in recalls of automobiles. It's all done to avoid liability.
I have previously mentioned that Germans overwhelmingly support the Palestinians as opposed to the Israelis, and that this overwhelming support represents a form of anti-Semitism-by-proxy. Germans may claim to be supporting the Palestinians because they think they are an "oppressed people " but let's be honest - they are supporting the Palestinians and their Arab handlers because the Palestinians and Arabs share the same ideals as the Nazis.
There's a long-standing history of German co-operation with the Arabs. In 1942 Hitler personally assured the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem that as soon as German forces conquered Great Britain, the Jews in Palestine (which was then under control of the British Mandate) would be exterminated.
We should also keep in mind that the Arab terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 atrocities did their planning in Germany. There are several reasons for this. The first is the well-known bungling and de-centralized chaos of the German federal bureaucracy where literally the "linke" hand doesn't know what the "rechte" hand is doing.
The second is that Arab terrorists can count on a substantial number of Germans who share their anti-American and anti-Semitic views. The former members of the SS and Hitler's praetorian guards, along with their neo-Nazi supporters, who gather weekly in Munich beer halls, made Osama bin Laden an "honorary Aryan" after the 9/11 attack.
Mein Kampf is also a best seller in the Arab world, especially in Saudi Arabia, America's putative "friend." Indeed, there is very little difference between the anti-Semitic rantings of Hitler and those of the so-called "spiritual leaders" of al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Fatah. The Arabs also owe Hitler and the Germans big time. Hitler killed off the Jews, and Konrad Adenauer and his "democratic" descendants replaced them with the Turks.
Yes, the Turks aren't Arabs, but they are Muslim, and although Turkey is a member of NATO and has relations with Israel, many Turks identify and support their radical Arab co-religionists. Turkey remains as fragile a democracy as Weimar Germany during the 1920s. It wouldn't take much for Turkey to fall into the dark side of Muslim extremism.
The end result of Muslim immigration into Germany has been twofold:
(1) It allows the Germans to feign liberalism and being open to freedom and diversity; and
(2) By replacing the Jews they murdered with Muslims, who for the most part are as viciously anti-Semitic as were the Nazis, the Germans have cynically assured that those few Jews who remain in Germany will be unable to reassert political power even in a minority role.
A final point I would like to make concerning the reasons for the a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany is one that many will find at odds with the prima-facie evidence, or even appear to stretch the boundaries of common sense. Yet, I ask you to consider carefully my line of reasoning.
In many respects Germany got away with the Holocaust without paying much of a price. Yes, many Germans died as a result of German perpetration of World War II and the Holocaust, and yes, there was much physical destruction in the country, but the situation is like the little boy who steals a cookie from the tray when it is cooling on the kitchen table. For his efforts he may have gotten his hand slapped by his mother, but the stolen cookie remains eaten nonetheless.
After having committed the worst crimes in the history of humankind, the Germans were allowed to regain their sovereignty after only ten years; their infrastructure was completely rebuilt thanks to the generosity of the American people; and relatively few Germans were brought to trial for their monstrous crimes. Even those who were tried and convicted received relatively short sentences or had those reduced or commuted in general amnesties.
For example, some members of the Einsatzkommandos, those Germans who, before the construction of the death camps, hunted and murdered Jews by the hundreds of thousands, received sentences of as little as five years imprisonment. If there were true justice in the world, Germany would no longer exist as a separate country, but would have long ago had its territory divided up and dispersed among the Allies.
It was an unfortunate historical coincidence that the Cold War began just as Germany was at last being brought to task for its many crimes and atrocities extending back to the First World War. The new threat of the Soviet Union took precedence over a just settling of accounts with Germany. The tragic result is that many of the countries raped and despoiled by Germany, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, are just now coming out of decades of economic decline, while Germany - fat, sassy, arrogant, self-satisfied, and essentially Judenfrei - has enjoyed four decades of undeserved economic prosperity.
We can't turn back the clock to redress all of the historical wrongs that have been committed by the Germans, but there are a number of things that can be done to assure that Germany can never again be in a position to threaten the rest of the civilized world.
First and foremost is the realization that, while not all Germans are anti-Semitic, there is an anti-Semitic tendency within German culture that extends back to the time of Martin Luther. Germans are instinctively anti-Semitic in the same way that Americans are instinctively freedom loving. Anti-Semitism has been and unfortunately remains the default ideology of the German people.
All things being equal, Germans will instinctively support the enemies of the State of Israel. Therefore, America will need to monitor closely and be ready and politically willing to intervene at a moment's notice in German affairs when it appears that Germany is back-sliding into anti-Semitism.
Additionally, it should be a goal of American foreign policy to oppose and to accelerate the dismemberment of the European Union. We must not allow German domination of the EU to accomplish through parliamentary maneuvering and brokered deals what Hitler and the Germans were unable to accomplish during the Third Reich.
Given Germany's resurgent anti-Semitism (and that of France as well), a strong, German-dominated EU that tolerates and even benignly encourages anti-Semitism, and is diplomatically allied with the Arab world, is potentially the greatest threat to Judaism since Nazi Germany and a major threat to the United States as well.
The enemies of Israel are the enemies of the United States. Let all Jews and Americans stand united as we proclaim never again to both the Holocaust and 9/11.
The following appears to be a commentary on this article written by a Jewish man:
* This is the very first post-Holocaust picture of Germany that i have ever seen published that depicted the post-Holocaust country of the nazis with absolute accuracy in every detail. Over the years i have often written about the reunification of the two Germanys and described it as one of the greatest mistakes ever made in history, and wrote that instead naziland should have been divided into the four historical parts that is its nature, never to rise to brutalize its neighbors or the world again! A crucial and horrible error!
It took only a few minutes during my first visit back to the land of my birth for me to realize that the place was clearly no different than when my parents and I had the good fortune to be among the very last Jews to escape, literally "minutes before midnight", when the gates of that man-made hell slammed shut with a resounding clang for the final time, dooming those of my people left behind,including over 50 of my immediate family.
I recall the words of my beloved grandfather as we came to Breslau to say our final farewell, knowing that there was no likelihood of ever seeing each other again. He ran alongside the slowly rolling departing train we were on, knowing he was bidding a final farewell to his only son and his family. Even then he optimistically maintained that "no harm will come to us.
After all, I served my country and my Kaiser as an officer, and have always been a good citizen."
I do not know Mr. Grim, but I salute him for his clear view and thank him for writing this piece, which, had it been written by a Jew, would never be believed nor given its proper credence.
"And, finally, just what great sinister force is hoaxing us?
What's the motive for this great cruel trick perpetrated by a good chunk of the world's scientific community on the people of the planet, to impose on the credulity of their victims?
Who are their intended victims?"
My answer was: "Scroll down through these quotes and you will find the answers to your 3 questions:
Best, Dave A. "For those who understand, no explanation is needed and for those who do not, none is possible"
"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts…Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Dr. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." - Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation, the organization responsible for establishing the IPCC to handle Global Warming issues delegated to it by certain leadership figures in the WMO
"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment, and responsible for Canada's contributions to the IPCC
"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC and the person responsible for establishing the future emphasis of the IPCC reporting
"Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet's climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced - a catastrophe of our own making." - Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth
"We are getting close to catastrophic tipping points, despite the fact that most people barely notice the warming yet." - Dr James Hansen, NASA researcher
"This planet is on course for a catastrophe. The existence of Life itself is at stake." - Dr Tim Flannery, Principal Research Scientist
"Climate Change is the greatest threat that human civilization has ever faced." - Angela Merkel, German Chancellor
"Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster." - Barak Obama, US Presidential Candidate
"We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late." - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California
( maybe that is why California is broke? DS)
"Climate Change will result in a catastrophic global sea level rise of seven meters. That's bye-bye most of Bangladesh, Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis." - Greenpeace International
( there is Shimon Peres's darling, DS)
"The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself." - Club of Rome
"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe." - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis…" - David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive member
"The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government." - Mikhail Gorbachev, State of the World Forum
"I envisage the prinicles of the Earth Charter to be a new form of the ten commandments. They lay the foundation for a sustainable global earth community." - Mikhail Gorbachev, co-author of The Earth Charter....
(hmmm... so now these folks think they are GOD too, heh? DS)
"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?" - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
"The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are." - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
"Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control." - Professor Maurice King
(Poverty, heh... hmmm... I wonder how much HE is worth....)
"Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
"The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet." - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it's full complement of species, returning throughout the world." -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions." - Prof Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
THESE RECOMMEND MASS GENOCIDE, NO LESS. A WORLD COURT OF THE SANE WORLD URGENTLY NEEDED TO HANG THESE CHARACTERS!DS
"I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history, but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in the number of game animals and the need to adjust the cull to the size of the surplus population." - Prince Philip, preface of Down to Earth
"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor.
I agree, we need to do some serious CULLING: HOW ABOUT STARTING WITH THESE CHARACTERS? It's THEIR idea, after all! DS
"… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion." - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund
(Philip, darling, would you like some help in getting reincarnated into a killer virus real fast?DS)
"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
"The fate of mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new faith in the future. Armed with such a faith, we might find it possible to resanctify the earth." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
"The greatest hope for the Earth lies in religionists and scientists uniting to awaken the world to its near fatal predicament and then leading mankind out of the bewildering maze of international crises into the future Utopia of humanist hope." - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
"It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature." - Maurice Strong, first Secretary General of UNEP
"The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security." - Maurice Strong at the 1992 Earth Summit.
"If we don't change, our species will not survive… Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse." - Maurice Strong quoted in the September 1, 1997 edition of National Review magazine.
"[The Earth Summit will play an important role in] reforming and strengthening the United Nations as the centerpiece of the emerging system of democratic global governance." - Maurice Strong quoted in the September 1, 1997 edition of National Review magazine.
"[I am] a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology." - Maurice Strong as quoted in Macleans.
"[The Great Depression left me] frankly very radical." - Maurice Strong quoted in the September 1, 1997 edition of National Review magazine.
"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace, and the person often described by some IPCC leaders as the inspiration for their environmental efforts with respect to Climate Change
"The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level." - Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
"A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation." - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
"We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land." - David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
"This planet is on course for a catastrophe. The existence of Life itself is at stake." - Dr Tim Flannery, Principal Research Scientist
"Climate change should be seen as the greatest challenge to ever face mankind." - Prince Charles
"We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change. Failure to act to now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible. We urgently require a global environmental revolution." - Tony Blair, former British PM
"We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
"By the end of this century climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic." - Sir James Lovelock, Revenge of Gaia
"In Nature organic growth proceeds according to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a 'master plan' is missing from the process of growth and development of the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years form today it will probably be too late." - Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"We need a new paradigm of development in which the environment will be a priority. World civilization as we know it will soon end. We have very little time and we must act. If we can address the environmental problem, it will have to be done within a new system, a new paradigm. We have to change our mindset, the way humankind views the world." - Mikhail Gorbachev, State of the World Forum
"The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation." - UN Commission on Global Governance report
"Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today's problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time." - Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
"In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways." - Dr Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General,
"Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises." - Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute
"Regionalism must precede globalism. We foresee a seamless system of governance from local communities, individual states, regional unions and up through to the United Nations itself." - UN Commission on Global Governance
"A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income. Perhaps only a new and enlightened humanism can permit mankind to negotiate this transition." - Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
"The alternative to the existing world order can only emerge as a result of a new human dimension of progress. We envision a revolution of the mind, a new way of thinking." - Mikhail Gorbachev, State of the World Forum
"Adopting a central organizing principle… means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution… to halt the destruction of the environment." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
"Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level." - UN Agenda 21
"The current course of development is thus clearly unsustainable. Current problems cannot be solved by piecemeal measures. More of the same is not enough. Radical change from the current trajectory is not an option, but an absolute necessity. Fundamental economic, social and cultural changes that address the root causes of poverty and environmental degradation are required and they are required now." – from the Earth Charter website
"Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control." - Professor Maurice King
"Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
"The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil." – Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview
"Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on the earth." - Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society
"Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor." - Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia
"The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing." - Christopher Manes, Earth First!
(NOW THIS GUY REALLY, REALLY WANTS TO DIE... ANY HELP NEEDED?? DS)
"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." - David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
(IF THIS WEREN'T SO SICK, IT WOULD BE FUNNY. NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHERE THE GAY MOVEMENT ORIGINATES FROM??DS)
"The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human species has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution…. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature." - Rene Dubos, board member, Planetary Citizens
"Each element, plant, insect, fish and animal represents a certain aspect of Gaia's - and our - being. In a way, we are Gaia's intelligence and awareness - currently lost in self-destructive madness. We must acknowledge, respect and love her for being the Mother she is to us or we deny our very selves. Nurture the Mother as she nurtures us." - Prof. Michael J. Cohen, Ecopsychologist
"It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature." - Maurice Strong, first Secretary General of UNEP
"The spirit of our planet is stirring! The Consciousness of Goddess Earth is now rising against all odds, in spite of millennia of suppression, repression and oppression inflicted on Her by a hubristic and misguided humanity. The Earth is a living entity, a biological organism with psychic and spiritual dimensions. With the expansion of the patriarchal religions that focused on a male God majestically stationed in Heaven ruling over the Earth and the Universe, the memory of our planet's innate Divinity was repressed and banished into the collective unconscious of humanity." - Envision Earth
"Still more important is the implication that the evolution of homo sapiens, with his technological inventiveness and his increasingly subtle communications network, has vastly increased Gaia's range of perception. She is now through us awake and aware of herself. She has seen the reflection of her fair face through the eyes of astronauts and the television cameras of orbiting spacecraft. Our sensations of wonder and pleasure, our capacity for conscious thought and speculation, our restless curiosity and drive are hers to share. This new interrelationship of Gaia with man is by no means fully established; we are not yet a truly collective species, corralled and tamed as an integral part of the biosphere, as we are as individual creatures. It may be that the destiny of mankind is to become tamed, so that the fierce, destructive, and greedy forces of tribalism and nationalism are fused into a compulsive urge to belong to the commonwealth of all creatures which constitutes Gaia." – Sir James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look At Life
"Little by little a planetary prayer book is thus being composed by an increasingly united humanity seeking its oneness. Once again, but this time on a universal scale, humankind is seeking no less than its reunion with 'divine,' its transcendence into higher forms of life. Hindus call our earth Brahma, or God, for they rightly see no difference between our earth and the divine. This ancient simple truth is slowly dawning again upon humanity, as we are about to enter our cosmic age and become what we were always meant to be: the planet of god." - Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
"What if Mary is another name for Gaia? Then her capacity for virgin birth is no miracle . . . it is a role of Gaia since life began . . . She is of this Universe and, conceivably, a part of God. On Earth, she is the source of life everlasting and is alive now; she gave birth to humankind and we are part of her." - Sir James Lovelock, Ages of Gaia
"Nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals." - Mikhail Gorbachev, Green Cross International
"The spiritual sense of our place in nature…can be traced to the origins of human civilization…. The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
"Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian Religious tradition." - Peter Singer, founder of Animal Rights
"I pledge allegiance to the Earth and all its sacred parts. Its water, land and living things and all its human hearts." - Global Education Associates, The Earth Pledge
"By fostering a deep sense of connection to others and to the earth in all its dimensions, holistic education encourages a sense of responsibility to self to others and to the planet." - Global Alliance for Transforming Education
The best 'too much of you' quote:
"One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population,we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it." - Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
The best hypocritical quote:
"We require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public's desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
And to conclude, WATCH THE FIRST MINUTE OF THIS VIDEO, WHICH WILL TELL YOU WHERE WOMEN'S LIB ORIGINATED. EXTRAPOLATE.... WOMEN'S LIB...... GAY MOVEMENT.
By: Jamie Glazov | FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, June 26, 2009
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Pamela Geller, founder, editor and publisher of the popular and award-winning weblog Atlas Shrugs.com. She has won acclaim for her interviews with internationally renowned figures, including John Bolton, Geert Wilders, Bat Ye'or, Natan Sharansky, and many others, and has broken numerous important stories -- notably the questionable sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign. Her op-eds have been published in The Washington Times, The American Thinker, Israel National News, Front Page Magazine, World Net Daily, and New Media Journal, among other publications.
FP: Pamela Geller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Geller: Thank you for having me Jamie.
You've been following the trial of the torture and murder of a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, in Paris. Tell us about the case and the trial.
Geller: The death of Ilan Halimi can only be described as an unspeakable horror, and yet typical of the increasing Islamic Jew-hatred and violence against the Jews. A group calling itself the Muslim Barbarians targeted Jewish men for torture and murder. Their first attempts to kidnap a Jew were unsuccessful, despite the lure of a beautiful girl. Ilan Halimi was not so lucky. He did not escape the Islamic homemade concentration camp the Muslim Barbarians had set up.
The banality of evil lived in that apartment building. Apartment dwellers, all Muslims, heard Ilan's screams and cries of torture over a period of three weeks, and yet did not call the cops. The screams must have been loud because the torture was especially atrocious: the thugs cut bits of flesh off the young man. They cut his fingers and ears. They burned him with acid. They poured flammable liquid on him and set him on fire. Not only did those in the building not go to the police -- they did nothing at all. Worse, many took part in the tortures.
So systemic is the Jew hatred in France that it impeded rescuing Ilan or securing his release. Halimi's family said that throughout Ilan's entire captivity, the French police refused to move on any of the evidence that pointed to an anti-Semitic motive. Instead, the police conducted a routine kidnap investigation (which invariably involves ransom, not death). The police refused to pursue the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers in spite of the fact that, according to newspaper accounts, "in their e-mail and telephone communications with Ilan's family, his captors repeatedly referred to his Judaism, and on at least one occasion recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in agony in the background".
The family begged the police to listen to torturous phone calls from the kidnappers and acknowledge that Ilan was abducted because he was Jewish. Clearly, had the police not acted in Judeophobic fashion, they would have recognized that Ilan's life was in terrible danger and taken urgent action. But law enforcement was not the only guilty party. The government refused to acknowledge the anti-Semitic motives behind the torture and killing a full week after the Halimi turned up mutilated and dead.
This was not new, of course. In 2003, Sebastian Sellam, a popular disc jockey at a hot Parisian night club called Queen known as DJ Lam C (a reverse play on his surname) was on his way to work when in an underground parking lot, a Muslim neighbor slit Sellam's throat twice. His face was completely mutilated with a carving fork. Even his eyes were gouged out.
It has taken three years to bring this case to trial and even now, they are hiding their dirty little secrets behind closed doors.
FP: How come this trial is not receiving any attention or coverage?
Geller: The French would like this ugly little business to go away. Like Al Dura. Like their sordid national behavior when the Nazis occupied France.
The latest outrage is the closed (more like hidden) trial of the "Muslim barbarian" ringleader Fofana and his 26 accomplices (it was more like 50) in the savage torture and murder of Ilan Halimi is suspension of the trial, with no indication of when it will begin again. Why isn't Youssouf Fofana, in a glass box like Eichmann at Nuremberg, chained like the wild animal that he is?
In a shocking display of proud Islamic Jew hatred (consistent with the most sacred teachings of the Koran), the brutal Halimi murder trial was suspended after the defendant spewed vile invectives and threw his "Arab shoes" across the courtroom at the jury. Throwing shoes at someone is a powerful insult in the Arab world.
According to a prosecution lawyer, Fofana's shoe throwing occurred during the presentation of evidence by doctors who examined Halimi's body.
It is not clear when the hearing would be resumed. The trial is being conducted behind closed doors, with no press or public allowed, at the request of two of the defendants who were minors at the time of the killing. The trial is closed at the request of barbarians so evil, so savage that it defies the normal mind. And yet the vichy French acquiesced to the Muslim nazis and are hiding their pathetic attempt at justice behind closed doors.
The silence in the media and across the world is a crime against humanity. Imagine, if you will, the unthinkable, the impossible -- if Ilan had been a Muslim and his attackers had been Jews. Stop laughing -- I know it is impossible, but that's not my point. This is damning proof of the Jew hatred that is running wild across the world. Israel shuts a light off in Gaza and the world wants to eliminate her. Imagine if Ilan had been black and his attackers had been white. Stop and think about it.
FP: So let's dig a bit deeper here: why did the police turn a blind eye to the evidence indicating that Islamic anti-Semitism was behind the kidnapping? Why is the French government, law enforcement and the media now covering up why this horrifying crime was committed? Better to let a Jew get tortured and killed than to point to the truth about what Islam teaches and what many Muslims believe and are ready to act upon, yes? This is Jew-Hate and a surrender to Islam simultaneously, yes?
Geller: Yes, exactly. This is a strain of anti-Semitism in Europe that has never been eradicated. There is never any discussion of Islamic anti-Semitism, and it is fundamental to Islamic teachings. This refusal to acknowledge the obvious gives tacit approval to incitement to violence. It is unsafe to walk about many European cities with any identifying Jewish apparel or accessories on. Is that what Europe learned from World War II? Is that the lesson that Europe took away from the holocaust?
The lesson that Europe had decided to avail itself of in the aftermath of Auschwitz was not that evil is bad and that they behaved like monsters, but rather that everything was caused by nationalism -- and therefore, what they really needed to do was have a European Union that would obviate their need for nationalism, so that they could become this transnational gobbledygook. They'd all get together and therefore they wouldn't have another Auschwitz.
But really the lesson should have been that they were evil and they had to be good. And that is the lesson they still have to learn. You have to be able and willing to make moral distinctions and stand up for the good and fight evil, and that is something the Europeans refuse to do.
They are constantly having memorials to dead Jews, while condemning Israel for every act of self defense, no matter how benign it is, in the defense of innocent Jewish citizens.
Ilan Halimi best demonstrates the horror of this lack of humanity. But certainly the "death to Jews" rallies that spread like a cancer across the Europe (and major US cities) during the Gaza defensive in January is certainly a gross demonstration of this evil.
FP: What are your own personal thoughts on this case?
Geller: It is an indescribable horror. Unimaginable. It demonstrates the free hand that Jew hatred is given. It was not just the Muslims that reveled in the torture of this young Jewish man; it was law enforcement's response (or lack of it), and the circus-like atmosphere of the trial. It is a stunning indictment of French society. Flagrant and unabashed hatred… Judenhass!
FP: What can ordinary citizens do to try to bring some kind of justice to this horrifying crime and to expose the shameless, hateful and cowardly behavior of French authorities and the media etc?
Geller: Speak up! Write, call, email, fax media and elected officials. Burke was right when he said all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. Speak up! Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction (channeling Ayn Rand here).
FP: What do we get from the reality that this happened, as you relate, in an apartment building where myriad dwellers, all Muslims, heard Ilan's screams and cries of torture and did not only did nothing but came to participate? This wasn't a secret between three people. Dozens and dozens of people knew about this, and supported and engaged in it. What does it tell us?
Could it possibly have something to do with the Islamic theological teaching about not only the importance of hating and killing Jews, but also that a Muslim will go to heaven if he kills a Jew? Hmmm I wonder.
The liberal and leftist milieus cannot accept what it tells us, of course, but they know there would never be a reverse situation (i.e. an apartment building full of Jews who hear a Muslim screaming from being tortured and they support it and participate in it, etc.). And if this did happen, which it wouldn't, it couldn't, imagine the media being completely silent about it.
Geller: This is the terrible truth about Islam, well documented in Dr. Andrew Bostom's encyclopedic tome, The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism. The Islamic dehumanization of the Jews mirrors what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. I find it troubling in all of my research and personal dealings it is difficult to find devout Muslims (any Muslims that are not apostates) who are not hostile to Israel. It speaks volumes. And of course, none of this would be possible if the Left were not aligning itself with political Islam. But this is consistent with the modus operandi of the left. Historically they align themselves with the totalitarian ideology du jour.
FP: Pamela Geller, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
A.M. sent this, thank you.
Comments:
DS:
The same thing is happening in New York right now, although the incidents are thank G-d not at the same horrifying scale: both in Williamsburg and in the Bialystoker Shul incidents, the antisemitic nature of the attacks was whitewashed. According to the media, the Jews ignored the antisemitism; it remains to be seen if maybe the MEDIA were behind the whitewash there too.
If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
> > If George W. Bush > had given Gordon Brown a set of > inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon > Brown had given him a thoughtful and > historically significant gift, would you > have approved? > > If George W. Bush > had given the Queen of England an iPod > containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this > embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? > > If George W. Bush > had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you > have approved? > > If George W. Bush > had visited Austria and made > reference to the non-existent "Austrian > language," would you have brushed it off as > a minor slip? > > If George W. Bush > had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers > with people who cannot seem to keep current on their > income taxes, would you have > approved? > > > > If > George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to > "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador > when it was the fourth of May (Cuatro de Mayo), and > continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have > winced in embarrassment? > > > > If > George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word advice > would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle > and potatoe > as "proof" of what a dunce he is? > > > > If > George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go > plant a single tree on "Earth Day", would you have > concluded he's a hypocrite? > > > > If > George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One > flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter > in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you > have wondered whether they actually "get" what happened > on 9-11? > > > > If > George W. Bush had been the first President to need a > teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press > conference, would you have laughed and said this is more > proof of how inept he is on his own and is really > controlled by smarter men behind the > scenes? > > > > > If > George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood > victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or > made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made > into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism > and incompetence? > > > If George W. Bush > had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major > corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority > to do so, would you have approved? > > If George W. > Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which > had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one > year, would you have approved? > > If George W. Bush > had then proposed to double the debt again 10 times > within years, would you have > approved? > > > If > George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings > of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in > GM, would you have approved? > > > If > George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to > take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have > approved? > > > So, tell me > again, what is it about Obama that makes him so > brilliant and impressive? Can't think of > anything? Don't worry. He's done all > this in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and > seven months to come up with an > answer.
I am not sure I understand the full implications of either the first, or the second announcement. But they appear clearly related, and give me a BAD FEELING. Coupled with the sudden praise of Shimon Peres in the New York Times, his elated mood, the G8 meeting about to take place, I have a feeling Netanyahu is giving in on EVERYTHING, SELLING ISRAEL DOWN THE TUBES.
Israel will be admitted to the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, by the end of 2010, thanks to a deal finalized over the weekend between Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and OECD Secretary Genera Angel Gurria. At a meeting between the two in Paris, the two agreed to speed up Israel's acceptance into the organization, which is expected to improve Israel's standing in the credit market, as well as in the realms of agriculture, trade, and science.
The agreement will entail Israel's adjusting of several mechanisms in the economy to match the standards demanded by the OECD. The members of the OECD are considered the "first world" economies, and include the wealthy countries of Western Europe, the U.S., and South Korea. Russia, along with Israel, was invited for membership in 2007.
World Bank to Fund Dead Sea-Red Sea Canal Test Project
Tammuz 5, 5769, 27 June 09 11:43
The World Bank has agreed to fund a pilot program of what could turn out to be one of the most ambitious water projects in the world – the Dead Sea Canal Project, which would see the construction of waterworks 112 miles in length, connecting the Red Sea and Dead Sea.
The project would help replenish the Dead Sea, which is in danger of major ecological damage, according to many scientists, as well as provide a new source of fresh water for the region, with large desalination plants treating water that would be provided for Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
The deal for the pilot project, which would see the construction of a pipeline between the two bodies of water, was closed Friday between Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. The pipeline, to be built by 2011, will function as a study to decide the feasibility of the project.
Besides helping to replenish the Dead Sea, the project could also ease energy costs for participants. The Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth, is 400 meters below the Red Sea, and the drop in altitude as the water flows could be used to generate hydroelectric power. The water would then be treated in a companion desalination plant, making it fit for agricultural or industrial use and easing the strain on fresh water resources in the region.
Eventually, the full project could see as much as 1.8 billion cubic meters of water pumped through the system. One billion cubic meters would be pumped into the Dead Sea, and the rest would be treated at a desalination plant, to be split between Israel, Jordan and the PA. The project has been much discussed for decades – it was first proposed by the British in the 1880s, according to historians.
According to the World Bank, the desalination plant attached to the project would be the biggest in the world, with a final bill of around $7 billion. The pilot project, which the World Bank has agreed to fund, will cost around $15 million. Shalom is working on developing funding for the full project, from both the World Bank and countries around the world. Speaking to reporters, Shalom said that the initial funding was "a dramatic, important move that can lead to a breakthrough. This project has been delayed for years. We see it as a staple for financial peace."
Comments:
Anonymous said:
Don't forget Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer's spat with Shari Arison over the Bank ha-Poalim exec. Dankner.
Fischer (IMF, Citibank, World Bank) was sent here by the Council on Foreign Relations to change Israel from a banana republic with 8 oligarchs to part of the fascist socialist world state.
Defense Minister Barak, on the eve of his departure for Washington, is hoping that his easing of travel for Arabs in the PA-areas – removal of most checkpoints and the issuing of hundreds of free-pass BMC (businessman) cards – will encourage the Americans to be more lenient on the matter of settlements. "If we have significant progress in talks with the Palestinians, the issue of the settlements will become less central," Haaretz reported Barak as saying.
( A7)
UPDATE:
.... as expected:
Firebomb Attack at El-Arub Tammuz 7, 5769, 29 June 09 12:04
(Israelnationalnews.com) Three Molotov cocktails were thrown at an Israeli bus Sunday evening, next to El-Arub, southwest of Bethlehem, on the highway between Jerusalem and Hevron.
No injuries or damage were reported but a fire broke out near the bus as a result. An army force that arrived at the scene fired in the direction from which the firebombs were thrown but did not identify a hit. Members of the force put out the fire and proceeded to search the area for suspects.
"THROUGH THESE ACTIONS, THE NAMED DEFENDANTS HAVE LAID THE GROUNDWORK FOR MASS GENOCIDE"
QUOTE:
" These people have created or allowed provisions to remain in place that make it a criminal act to refuse to take an injection against pandemic viruses. They have imposed other excessive and cruel penalties such as imprisonment and/or quarantine in FEMA camps while barring the citizens of the U.S. from claiming compensation from injury or death from the forced injections. "
Originally published June 25 2009
Journalist Files Charges against WHO and UN for Bioterrorism and Intent to Commit Mass Murder
by Barbara Minton, Natural Health Editor
(NaturalNews) As the anticipated July release date for Baxter's A/H1N1 flu pandemic vaccine approaches, an Austrian investigative journalist is warning the world that the greatest crime in the history of humanity is underway. Jane Burgermeister has recently filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and several of the highest ranking government and corporate officials concerning bioterrorism and attempts to commit mass murder. She has also prepared an injunction against forced vaccination which is being filed in America. These actions follow her charges filed in April against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology of Austria for producing contaminated bird flu vaccine, alleging this was a deliberate act to cause and profit from a pandemic.
Summary of claims and allegations filed with FBI in Austria on June 10, 2009
In her charges, Burgermeister presents evidence of acts of bioterrorism that is in violation of U.S. law by a group operating within the U.S. under the direction of international bankers who control the Federal Reserve, as well as WHO, UN and NATO. This bioterrorism is for the purpose of carrying out a mass genocide against the U.S. population by use of a genetically engineered flu pandemic virus with the intent of causing death. This group has annexed high government offices in the U.S.
Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.
The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the "bird flu" virus and the "swine flu virus" in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S. This action is in direct violation of the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act.
Burgermeister's charges include evidence that Baxter AG, Austrian subsidiary of Baxter International, deliberately sent out 72 kilos of live bird flu virus, supplied by the WHO in the winter of 2009 to 16 laboratories in four counties. She claims this evidence offers clear proof that the pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies themselves are actively engaged in producing, developing, manufacturing and distributing biological agents classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth in order to trigger a pandemic and cause mass death.
In her April charges, she noted that Baxter's lab in Austria, one of the supposedly most secure biosecurity labs in the world, did not adhere to the most basic and essential steps to keep 72 kilos of a pathogen classified as a bioweapon secure and separate from all other substances under stringent biosecurity level regulations, but it allowed it to be mixed with the ordinary human flu virus and sent from its facilities in Orth in the Donau.
In February, when a staff member at BioTest in the Czech Republic tested the material meant for candidate vaccines on ferrets, the ferrets died. This incident was not followed up by any investigation from the WHO, EU, or Austrian health authorities. There was no investigation of the content of the virus material, and there is no data on the genetic sequence of the virus released.
In answer to parliamentary questions on May 20th, the Austrian Health Minister, Alois Stoger, revealed that the incident had been handled not as a biosecurity lapse, as it should have been, but as an offence against the veterinary code. A veterinary doctor was sent to the lab for a brief inspection.
Burgermeister's dossier reveals that the release of the virus was to be an essential step for triggering a pandemic that would allow the WHO to declare a Level 6 Pandemic. She lists the laws and decrees that would allow the UN and WHO to take over the United States in the event of pandemic. In addition, legislation requiring compliance with mandatory vaccinations would be put into force in the U.S. under conditions of pandemic declaration.
She charges that the entire "swine flu" pandemic business is premised on a massive lie that there is no natural virus out there that poses a threat to the population. She presents evidence leading to the belief that the bird flu and swine flu viruses have, in fact, been bioengineered in laboratories using funding supplied by the WHO and other government agencies, among others. This "swine flu" is a hybrid of part swine flu, part human flu and part bird flu, something that can only come from laboratories according to many experts.
WHO's claim that this "swine flu" is spreading and a pandemic must be declared ignores the fundamental causes. The viruses that were released were created and released with the help of WHO, and WHO is overwhelmingly responsible for the pandemic in the first place. In addition, the symptoms of the supposed "swine flu" are indistinguishable from regular flu or from the common cold. The "swine flu" does not cause death anymore often than the regular flu causes death.
Burgermeister notes that the figures for deaths reported for the "swine flu" are inconsistent and there is no clarity as to how the number of "deaths" has been documented.
There is no pandemic potential unless mass vaccinations are carried out to weaponize the flu under the guise of protecting the population. There are reasonable grounds for believing that the mandatory vaccines will be purposely contaminated with diseases that are specifically designed to cause death.
Reference is made to a licensed Novartis bird flu vaccine that killed 21 homeless people in Poland in the summer of 2008 and had as its "primary outcome measure" an "adverse events rate", thereby meeting the U.S. government's own definition of a bioweapon (a biological agent designed to cause an adverse events rate, i.e death or injury) with a delivery system (injection).
She alleges that the same complex of international pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies that have developed and released pandemic material have positioned themselves to profit from triggering the pandemic with contracts to supply vaccines. Media controlled by the group that is engineering the "swine flu" agenda is spreading misinformation to lull the people of the U.S. into taking the dangerous vaccine.
The people of the U.S. will suffer substantial and irreparable harm and injury if they are forced to take this unproven vaccine without their consent in accordance with the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, National Emergency Act, National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51, Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20, and the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza.
In the U.S. since 2008, Burgermeister charges that those named in her allegations have implemented new and/or accelerated the implementation of laws and regulations designed to strip the citizens of the U.S. of their lawful constitutional rights to refuse an injection. These people have created or allowed provisions to remain in place that make it a criminal act to refuse to take an injection against pandemic viruses. They have imposed other excessive and cruel penalties such as imprisonment and/or quarantine in FEMA camps while barring the citizens of the U.S. from claiming compensation from injury or death from the forced injections. This is in violation of the laws governing federal corruption and the abuse of office as well as of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Through these actions, the named defendants have laid the groundwork for mass genocide.
Using the "swine flu" as a pretext, the defendants have preplanned the mass murder of the U.S. population by means of forced vaccination. They have installed an extensive network of FEMA concentration camps and identified mass grave sites, and they have been involved in devising and implementing a scheme to hand power over the U.S. to an international crime syndicate that uses the UN and WHO as a front for illegal racketeering influenced organized crime activities, in violation of the laws that govern treason.
She further charges that the complex of pharmaceutical companies consisting of Baxter, Novartis and Sanofi Aventis are part of a foreign-based dual purpose bioweapons program, financed by this international criminal syndicate and designed to implement mass murder to reduce the world's population by more than 5 billion people in the next ten years. Their plan is to spread terror to justify forcing people to give up their rights, and to force mass quarantine in FEMA camps. The houses, companies and farms and lands of those who are killed will be up for grabs by this syndicate.
By eliminating the population of North America, the international elite gain access to the region's natural resources such as water and undeveloped oil lands. And by eliminating the U.S. and its democratic constitution by subsuming it under a North American Union, the international crime group will have total control over North America.
Highlights from the complete dossier
The complete dossier of the June 10th action is a 69 page document presenting evidence to substantiate all charges. This includes:
Factual background that delineates time lines and facts that establish probable cause, UN and WHO definitions and roles, and history and incidents from the April, 2009 "swine flu" outbreak.
Evidence the "swine flu" vaccines are defined as bioweapons as delineates in government agencies and regulations classifying and restricting vaccines, and the fear of foreign countries that "swine flu" vaccines will be used for biological warfare.
Scientific evidence the "swine flu" virus is an artificial (genetic) virus.
Scientific evidence the "swine flu" was bioengineered to resemble the Spanish flu virus of 1918 including quotes from Swine Flu 2009 is Weaponized 1918 Spanish Flu by A. True Ott, Ph.D., N.D., and a Science Magazine report from Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger et.al.
The genome sequence of the "swine flu"
Evidence of the deliberate release of the "swine flu" in Mexico
Evidence as to the involvement of President Obama that delineates his trip to Mexico which coincided with the recent "swine flu" outbreak and the death of several officials involved in his trip. Contention is made that the President was never tested for "swine flu" because he had been previously vaccinated.
Evidence as to the role of Baxter and WHO in producing and releasing pandemic virus material in Austria includes a statement from a Baxter official stating the accidentally distributed H5N1 in the Czech Republic was received from a WHO reference center. This includes delineation of evidence and allegations from Burgermeister's charges filed in April in Austria that are currently under investigation.
Evidence Baxter is an element in a covert bioweapons network
Evidence Baxter has deliberately contaminated vaccine material.
Evidence Novartis is using vaccines as bioweapons
Evidence as to WHO's role in the bioweapons program
Evidence as to WHO's manipulation of disease data in order to justify declaring a Pandemic Level 6 in order to seize control of the USA.
Evidence as to the FDA's role in covering up the bioweapons program
Evidence as to Canada's National Microbiology Lab's role in the bioweapons program.
Evidence of the involvement of scientists working for the UK's NIBSC, and the CDC in engineering the "swine flu".
Evidence vaccinations caused the Spanish killer flu of 1918 including belief of Dr. Jerry Tennant that the widespread use of aspirin during the winter that followed the end of World War I could have been a key factor contributing to the earlier pandemic by suppressing the immune system and lowering body temperatures, allowing the flu virus to multiply. Tamiflu and Relenza also lower body temperatures, and therefore can also be expected to contribute to the spread of a pandemic.
Evidence as to manipulation of the legal framework to allow mass murder with impunity.
Constitutional issues: the legality vs. illegality of jeopardizing the life, health and public good by mass vaccinations.
The issue of immunity and compensation as evidence of intent to commit a crime.
Evidence as to the existence of an international corporate crime syndicate.
Evidence of the existence of the "Illuminati".
Evidence as to the depopulation agenda of the Illuminati/Bilderbergs and their involvement in the engineering and release of the artificial "swine flu" virus.
Evidence that weaponized flu was discussed at the annual Bilderberg meeting in Athens from May 14-17, 2009, as part of their agenda of genocide, including a list of attendees who, according to a statement once made by Pierre Trudeau, view themselves as genetically superior to the rest of humanity.
Media is keeping Americans clueless about the threat they are under
Jane Burgermeister is a dual Irish/Austrian who has written for Nature, the British Medical Journal, and American Prospect. She is the European Correspondent of the Renewable Energy World website. She has written extensively about climate change, biotechnology, and the ecology.
In addition to the charges currently under investigation that she filed against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology in April, she has filed charges against WHO and Baxter among others concerning a case of exploding "swine flu" vials meant for a research lab on a busy IC train in Switzerland.
In her view, control of the media by the ruling elite has allowed the world crime syndicate to further its agenda unabated while the rest of the people remain in the dark about what is really going on. Her charges are an attempt to get around this media control and bring the truth to light.
Her greatest concern is that "in spite of the fact Baxter has been caught red handed nearly triggering pandemic, they are also moving ahead, together with allied pharma companies, with supplying the vaccine for pandemics." Baxter is hurrying to get this vaccine to market some time in July.
Does it sound paranoid? Well, paranoia is just a heightened state of awareness. See the quotes from the most prominent champions of the war against “global warming” that follow....
In the post:MAJOR BOMBSHELL PART II: THE GLOBAL WARMING HOAX PERPETRATED BY... YOU GUESSED WHO!....
ADDENDUM July 4th, 2009
Make sure to watch this excellent YouTube Video, received from Brasscheck:. This supports Jane Burgermeister's contentions, and contains valuable advice:
Update:
Make sure to also watch the videos in BOMBSHELL #3: about MYCOPLASMA in vaccines!
In the article there is a huge point not mentioned: that of King David bringing the Ark from Hebron to Jerusalem. 3000 years ago near the Old City of Jerusalem the Ark suddenly tilted, and one of his men touched it to straighten it up and was instantly killed by HaShem (G-d) Himself. All the bearers of the Ark were pure and our Sages write even further: they DIDN'T CARRY THE ARK - THE ARK TRAVELLED ON ITS OWN - that is ONE of the many miracles of the Ark.
That is G-d's greatness. We of Am Yisrael are his loving loyal servants who guard the physical Torah and the spiritual connection to HaShem.
There is NO WAY a non-Jew could touch it, or bring it to ROME.Please consider what most likely is the grandest lie ever to hit the face of the Earth - the true Ark is not outside of Eretz Yisrael.
And inside the REAL Ark are many items: the "Luchot HaBrit" (the two Covenant Tablets from the SECOND Aliya to Mt. Sinai), the rod of Aaron, the rods of the Tribes, the plate made from the sacrifices of Dotan, Aviram and Korach and their 250 followers who were sucked-down into the sand, and more items. There were THREE Arks in the desert, which Joshua brought into Eretz Yisrael - the Ark made to contain the broken pieces of the two tablets of the FIRST Aliya to Mount Moriah, the Ark containing the SECOND Aliya to Mt. Moriah with the Second set of Tablets and many other items, and the Ark of Joseph the Righteous (Mother Rachel's first-born who saved Egypt from extermination of the famine, found by Sarai daughter of Asher - she lived hundreds of years! and carried by Moses until he passed away), who is buried in Sh'chem (Nablus is the name that deniers of Jewish rights to Eretz Yisrael gave that place, but Sh'chem is the CORRECT name).
That which is to be revealed in Rome today is MAYBE a replica OR MAYBE somebody's concoction of what they thought it SHOULD look like; your decision to promote lies.
Be well, Chaya.
DON'T FORGET THAT WHEN LEAVING EGYPT, THE GOAL IS TO GET TO ERETZ YISRAEL WITH THE TORAH!!!
It never ceases to amaze me that JEWS in America, even an ASSEMBLYMAN, not some naive, innocent Chassid, REFUSE TO ADMIT ANTISEMITISM WHEN IT IS BEING SHOVED IN THEIR FACE.
They have been so infected by the UNIVERSALIST BUG that they cannot detect when HATRED HAS ONE SPECIFIC, AND ONE SPECIFIC AIM ONLY: THE JEWS. AM YISRAEL.
Why are they so afraid to face the truth? Why do they persist in playing the ostrich? Because it would disassemble all their CAREFULLY BUILT MENTAL CONSTRUCT OF THE GOLDENE MEDINE, " THE NEW JERUSALEM" LEHAVDIL, WHERE NO WRONG CAN EVER OCCUR??
TIME TO WAKE UP, FOLKS: the game has changed. This is NOT the United States of America that you knew, this is WEIMAR GERMANY, you better wake up before it is too late.
What will it take to convince you that it is time to pack up and leave???
Shabbat Shalom
DS
Swastika Painted On Bialystoker Shul
Police are investigating after a swastika was found yesterday painted on the inside of a Manhattan synagogue. A swastika and a derogatory word were painted on an inside door of the Bialystoker Shul on East Broadway. A smoke bomb was set off, as well.
State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has attended the synagogue since he was a child and said he was furious to discover what had happened.
"This is a crime, not against the synagogue; this is a crime against society," said the assemblyman. "When people choose to desecrate a house of worship, it doesn't matter whether it's a church, a synagogue. It is just a despicable act that really should tug at the heartstrings of all of us."
Silver said surveillance cameras nearby may have caught the perpetrators.
American Jews in the average are exact copies of the Weimar Republic suicidal maniacs. NOTHING has changed or will for as long as we tolerate the type of system of "machers", hotel lobby president's table, corrupt and even criminals as leaders. Just a week or so ago the US Jews... saw a Nazi attacking the Holocaust Museum in Washington to murder people. NOTHING was learned from that either! Nothing has changed... Nothing has been learned...
DS: It turns out there was even MORE to the story: one more Jewish site defaced by a swastika. The culprits: non-white youths.
Anti-Semitic Attacks Hit New York Synagogues Tammuz 6, 5769, 28 June 09 11:13 by Yehudah Lev Kay
(Israelnationalnews.com) New York City police arrested two youth who vandalized two Lower East Side synagogues on Thursday with eggs, smoke bombs, and swastikas.
The teenagers, a 15-year old Asian and a 16-year old black, drew a large swastika on the United Hebrew Center on East Broadway. The two then set off a smoke bomb before heading to the Bialystoker synagogue on Willet Street, where they drew a second swastika and through eggs at the building.
The attacks occurred only a few days after eight Jewish children were injured in Williamsburg, Brooklyn after a resident of a Latino block across the street threw a bottle with dangerous chemicals at them. That attack is not officially categorized as a bias crime, however.
Police plan on charging the Lower East Side vandals with the hate crimes of aggravated harassment, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.
“This is a desecration of G-d, no matter what your religion,” said New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who attends the Bialystoker synagogue. “It is just a despicable act that really should tug at the heartstrings of all of us.”
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that the Civil Rights Bureau would open an investigation into the crime calling it “outrageous and deeply disturbing.”
ASIA Asia mourns for Michael Jackson The " star of pop music " died last night. A musical genius and a controversial personality, whose life was overtaken by show business. In the end he lived alone and full of debts. A Jehovah's Witnesses, year ago he had converted to Islam. Comments and condolences from China, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, India, Philippines.
..... It is still not clear the cause of death but some suspect that it was due to stress and diet drugs that the singer was taking prior to a new world tour in July, with which he wished to draw the curtain on his career.
For everyone he was a musical genius who transformed the music of the 80s and 90s into a breathtaking spectacle. His gestures, his style of dance, his way of dressing still influence generations of young people. But his genius was overshadowed by a bizarre way of life and sex scandals: Jackson described himself as a "Peter Pan" (the myth of eternal adolescence, adulthood without responsibility); he preferred to stay in the company of boys, had a chimpanzee as a friend and had a very high, almost feminine, tone of voice.He had undergone plastic surgery several times to transform his face and (perhaps) lighten his skin.
His fame, his successes also overwhelmed in his life, his two marriages and three children. As a result of being convicted for paedophilia and failing to honour certain contracts, Jackson - who in the end retired, living in silence - had large debts.
From a family of Jehovah's Witnesses, Michael, seventh of 9 children, seems to have become a Muslim last year, changing his name to Mikail.....
Comments:
Carl says:
Go to: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/
Apparently Jackson had borrowed millions from [Saudi Arabia][?] on the condition that he would use his concerts to announce the coming genocide to wipe out much of the population in the US and other countries through bio-terrorism using the bird and swine flus which will call for forced vaccinations that lead to the deaths of millions.Apparently, they wanted to keep his mouth shut. DS, you must realize also that the music industry is controlled by the big shots.
Then this from AP:
CAIRO – A Bahraini royal mourned him publicly, young Lebanese held a candlelight tribute, Egyptian musicians hailed him as an inspiration.
Beyond his global reach, Michael Jackson held a special place in the Muslim world, as one of the first major Western entertainers to break through cultural barriers in the 1980s.
Some made a connection with the pop icon because of rumors, never substantiated, that he had converted to Islam. Others embraced him as one of their own after he sought refuge in the Gulf emirate of Bahrain in 2005, following a bruising trial on child molestation charges in the U.S.
"God have mercy on him. He was a Bahraini. He lived with us," said Jassim Ali, 35, shopping for Jackson CDs on Saturday in a music store in the capital, Manama.
Jackson only spent a year in the emirate, as a guest of Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Isa Al Khalifa, a son of Bahrain's king and an aspiring songwriter who had befriended the entertainer. Jackson kept a low profile there, largely staying close to his host.
After Jackson's departure, the sheik sued Jackson for $7 million, saying he had failed to fulfill a joint music venture, but the two settled in November, with terms not disclosed.
The sheik said Saturday, in a statement in the Gulf Daily News, that "the world has lost a giant in the music industry."
"We are all very saddened by that," Al Khalifa said in comments confirmed by his spokesman.
Across the Arab world, the tributes to Jackson, who died Thursday, mirrored those elsewhere around the globe, though some argued the singer had a special appeal in the region.
"Religion is a big part of identity in this part of the world, and the idea he became Muslim boosted his popularity," said Egyptian cultural critic Tarek el-Shinnawi.
The conversion rumors were fueled, in parts, by comments by Jackson's brother, Jermaine, a convert to Islam, who has said his brother showed interest in the faith. In November, a British tabloid claimed Michael Jackson converted at a friend's home in Los Angeles.
The Jackson brothers were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses.
DS replies:
I have seen a lot of fantasy coming out of the site whatdoesitmean. But I have also seen grains of truth interspersed with fantasy . So you really do have to separate the wheat from the chaff here.
What is NOT FANTASY AT ALL, is the LAWSUIT MENTIONED IN THAT ARTICLE. Please see the post on this blog with title: MAJOR BOMBSHELL, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST Files Charges.....
And by the way, anonymous sent the following:
Jane Burgermeister, the journalist in question, says Michael Jackson was never a supporter of her swine flu campaign, she's never had a thing to do with MJ on any level, in any way, and she wonders why Faal is spreading these lies, and wonders who he/she works for.
And as a last note, this blog by Michael Freund A7: Michael Jackson the Anti-Semite
While much of the world mourns the untimely death of the "King of Pop" Michael Jackson, it is worth recalling one of Mr. Jackson's more unfortunate qualities: he was an anti-Semite.
In case you think I am making this up, allow me to refresh your memory.
Back in November 2005, Jackson was caught on tape in a voicemail to one of his former business managers calling Jews "leeches". The tapes were played on ABC's Good Morning America program, and Jackson was heard saying, "They suck…they're like leeches. It's a conspiracy. The Jews do it on purpose."
And in 1995, Jackson provoked a firestorm of protest when he released an album called HIStory containing a song entitled "They don't care about us" which had the following lyrics: "Jew me, sue me" and "Kick me, kike me". He subsequently promised to re-record the song and delete the offending lyrics.
But then, in February 1996, Jackson nonetheless released a video of the song in which he had re-instated the brazenly anti-Semitic remarks.
So before you go shedding a tear in Michael Jackson's memory, take a moment and consider the hate that he spewed against Jews, both in private and in public.
And then maybe you'll consider saving those tears for someone far more deserving.
Over the next 6 months, law enforcement and the military will be given unlawful and illegal orders to round up and purge all dissidents against the New World Order crowd.
The purge is the systematic liquidation of all those identified as a threat against the Globalist Plan.
Furthermore, all TEA Party participants have been filmed and their license plate information taken by all FBI Special Agents in charge at all the rallies.
Consider the ramifications...
Since coming to office, the current regime has devoted massive amounts of money and Federal Spy Agency assets to identifying gun owners and those in the military who still love this Country and take their oath seriously.
All former combat Veterans, Special Forces, Green Berets, Delta, and Spec operations personnel must absolutely change your physical location and TELL NO ONE!
With DHS having validated the Seek and Destroy Lists, their plans are now being set in motion!
Does it not make you furious that men and women in the Armed Forces who have fought all these years for the principles that the Constitutional Republic ONCE Stood for, are now deemed terrorists by the DHS? along with Constitutionalists, Christians, gun owners and those who speak out against the foreign destruction of America's economy?
Domestic security is now defined as, "quell all first amendment rights. Period!"
Whether false flag or intentional acts of globalist terror incidents, the events will be orchestrated to blame the "DHS hit list people".
Whether you know it or not, by painting conservatives and people who are against the New World Order with such a "terroristic civil rights violating hit piece" you have not only been vilified but have been targeted for extermination.
Anyone who would follow orders to take your guns away will not hesitate to BLOW YOU AWAY. History has proven this time and time again!
The Psalmist wrote, "If the foundations be destroyed what shall the righteous do?" Our only Hope is to repent and cry out to the Living God and seek his personal direction and guidance.
While we can not stop the hand of Divine Judgment, we can know our God and do exploits! Write your Senators and Congressmen and women — scream at the top of your lungs, write editorials; do all that you can do legally.
But remember, very soon when they initiate their attacks, you will have no one to blame except yourselves while there is still a whisper of time to make a difference for Righteousness Sake.
DO NOT ALLOW THESE PLANS FOR SLAUGHTER TO GO UNOPPOSED!
CYNICAL WORDS COMING OUT OF WASHINGTON; OBAMA AND THE POPE HAVE A WILLING PARTNER IN BIBI NETANYAHU
U.S. Appreciates Israel's Roadblock Removal Tammuz 4, 5769, 26 June 09 12:24
(Israelnationalnews.com) The United States State Department expressed appreciation to Israel Thursday over steps taken to make things easier for Palestinian Authority residents in Judea and Samaria. Those steps included the removal or easing of processing at roadblocks and inspection points, and reduced Israeli security activity in four PA cities.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly stressed the U.S.'s recognition of Israel's security concerns, coupled with what he called the Arabs' critical need for transportation of people and goods. He also repeated the American goal of comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.
Sent by Anonymous, thank you
Netanyahu folds under US pressure for pulling out of West Bank towns before peace talks
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
June 25, 2009, 9:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed by Nicolas Sarkozy
Despite his pledge to keep security considerations uppermost in his dealings with the Palestinians, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is buckling under pressure from the US administration aimed at softening Israel up ahead of Middle East peace talks.
This pressure turned Netanyahu's first official visits to Rome and Paris sour.
He had hoped to outmaneuver the Obama administration's insistence on a total settlement freeze by winning the support of friendly Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy for a compromise formula, which would be presented as a European-Israel deal.
To achieve this, he promised the Italian and French leaders that Israeli forces would soon be pulled out of West Bank Palestinian towns. But he failed to anticipate that the Obama administration would outflank him and get there first. So his arrival in Rome and Paris was preceded by Italian and French officials parroting the Washington line on a settlement freeze, including East Jerusalem
When he met Berlusconi Monday, June 22, the Israeli prime minister saw that he had already talked to Obama on the phone and promised that the Italian boot would toe the American line.
In Paris, he found the same trap had been laid at the Elysee.
In these circumstances, Netanyahu should never have gone through with his visits to Italy and France. And defense minister Ehud Barak should call off his trip to Washington Monday for the interview with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell which the prime minister postponed. He has little hope of persuading the administration to change its tune or head off the impending clash between his administration and the Obama White House.
Netanyahu's promise to the Italian and French leaders to pull the IDF out of the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and Qalqilya, has meanwhile gone on record, for no gain in Rome in Paris. But he can no longer capitalize on this major concession for a quid pro quo from the Palestinians. The IDF has also been ordered to reduce to the number of checkpoints on the West Bank to 10 active facilities to allow the Palestinians to travel from town to town free of holdups for searches – another concession to US demands.
These concessions are tantamount to the handover of the main West Bank towns to Palestinian security control.
It is the most sweeping redeployment of Israeli security forces since their unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria four years ago as part of Ariel Sharon's disengagement policy.
To make the gesture palatable to the Israeli public - who have not forgottenthat years of Palestinian suicide bombing attacks from the West Bank were finally stemmed by the IDF presence in terrorist city strongholds - Netanyahu told the army spokesman to announce Thursday, June 25, that the measures were being given a one-week trial run before being finalized.
However, once in place, these measures will be practically impossible to withdraw.
The Obama administration has thus cornered the Netanyahu government into giving away valuable assets to the Palestinians before negotiations have even begun. This diplomatic dexterity has not been displayed in Washington's dealings with Iran.
See also here:
Once Again: IDF to Leave Four PA Cities
Tammuz 3, 5769, 25 June 09 03:09
by Hillel Fendel
(Israelnationalnews.com) Israel has agreed to reduce its military presence in four PA-controlled cities, including Ramallah and Bethlehem, raising concern that terrorists will fill the security vacuum.
In yet another gesture towards the Palestinian Authority, senior IDF officials have informed their PA counterparts that they would "reduce to a minimum" the army's presence in four cities: Kalkilya, Ramallah, Jericho and Bethlehem. PA forces are expected to assume greater responsibility for security issues in these cities – though Israel reserves the right to enter the cities when necessary. "Over 1,000 Israelis have already paid with their lives for the lack of understanding that only free IDF activity can guarantee security for Israeli citizens," Dayan said.
This was the result of a meeting on Wednesday between Brig.-Gen. Noam Tivon, commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Civil Adminsitration head Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai and top PA officers.
The Almagor Terror Victims Association responded by asking the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to hold an urgent session on the topic. "This new decision,' Almagor wrote to the Committee, "together with the removal of most of the checkpoints, exposes the citizens and soldiers of Israel to increased terror activity, under the auspices of the security vacuum that will now be formed in the cities – as we have seen in the past.
"No Palestinian force can do the work for us the way that IDF soldiers know how, want and can do it.
"In addition, the decision to pass security information to the PA makes the sin even worse in that it exposes our Arab informants to danger, and enables the terrorist-sympathizers who fill the PA to warn the terrorists to hide – as it used to happen in the past."
The PA forces were active until now only from midnight til 5 AM but will now work 24 hours around the clock.
Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, warns of the dangers of the new decision: "We have been through this story before. The IDF goes out, the terrorist labs begin working and thriving once again and the terrorist attacks resume."
"Over 1,000 Israelis have already paid with their lives for the lack of understanding that only free IDF activity can guarantee security for Israeli citizens," Dayan said.
Meanwhile, in the PA, this is what appears to be cooking:
PA Citizens Fear Hamas Coup in Judea and Samaria
Tammuz 2, 5769, 24 June 09 09:11
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com)
Arabs in Kalkilya, adjacent to the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, fear that Hamas will stage a coup similar to the one on Gaza two years ago, residents and political leaders told the American National Public Radio (NPR) network.
"The Hamas leadership wants to take over [Judea and Samaria] and the proof is that they have discovered large weapons cache right here in Kalkilya in Hamas areas," Kalkilya's Fatah representative Ahmed Shreen told NPR.
He dismissed unity talks between the rival Fatah and Hamas factions as being remote. "What I am worried about is that while we are talking in Cairo, Hamas will be planning the coup." The terrorist organization, which won the Palestinian Authority legislative elections in 2006 while the rival Fatah party won the position of chairman, has constantly charged Fatah with
Most citizens were too afraid to express their opinions in public but said privately they fear an all-out war.
Interviews with local officials and residents were conducted on the background of two recent gun battles, one of which killed four gunmen from each side in Kalkilya. One of the victims was the nephew of the mayor of the city, where Hamas handily defeated Fatah in local elections.
The mother of one of the slain Hamas terrorists said that Fatah trained her son and they turned against him. "Fatah is the foundation of the resistance in Palestinian society," she said. Now they have sold out and they have betrayed the young men who followed them. This is what happened to my son. I thought he would die in battle with Israelis, not by Palestinian Authority forces."
Hamas spokesman Ihab Al-Ghussain told NPR, "They are continuously arresting our men. They committed an awful crime against a group that was fighting Israel for more than six years. The Israelis could not capture them so the PA security forces did the Israelis' dirty work and assassinated them."
Many of those interviewed viewed the PA as trying to please U.S. President Barack Obama by showing that its American-trained forces are fighting terrorism. The PA and the United States have used the drop in terrorist attacks against Israel as a tool to force the Defense Ministry to remove blockades and eliminate most checkpoints.
Officials in Judea and Samaria fear that the U.S. has bought an illusion that will literally explode in Israel's collective faces in the future, similar to the years of violence that began in 2000 after the PA rejected an offer to accept a new PA state.
Comments:
From bill:
THEY HAVE A GUN TO HIS HEAD. AT THIS POINT, HE'S A ROBOT, DOING THE WILL OF HIS CONTROLLERS.
From Joel:
...Nethanyahu is doing the very best he can for Israeli sovereignty, but all to no avail. Watch out for Barak! I think this Mossad assassin is a snake put in place to be sure that Nethanyahu does not waver from the plan.
DS: My G-d, we only IMAGINE what it's like to be caught in a disaster in an airplane: but to see it with our very own eyes?! Frightening.
The extraordinary photographer, who kept his cool even in the last moments of his own life and took these photos.
The world saw the disappearance of an Air France aircraft during a trans Atlantic flight between Rio to Paris. Below are two unbelievable photos taken from inside the aircraft before it crashed.
The two photos attached were apparently taken by one of the passengers just after the collision but before the aircraft crashed. The photos were retrieved from the camera's memory stick. You will never get to see photos like this. In the first photo, there is a gaping hole in the fuselage through which you can see the tailplane and vertical fin of the aircraft. In the second photo, one of the passengers is being sucked out of the gaping hole.
These photos were found in a digital Casio Z750, amidst the remains in Serra do Cachimbo. Although the camera was destroyed, the Memory Stick was recovered. Investigating the serial number of the camera, the owner was identified as Paulo G. Muller, an actor of a theatre for children known in the outskirts of Porto Alegre . It can be imagined that he was standing during the turbulence, he managed to take these photos, just seconds after the tail loss the aircraft plunged. So the camera was found near the cockpit. The structural stress probably ripped the engines away, diminishing the falling speed, protecting the electronic equipment but not unfortunately the victims. Paulo Muller leaves behind two daughters, Bruna and Beatriz.
Comment from E.T. who had originally sent the pictures:
interesting read everything..........i just received this from a doctor friend in Maryland............ ET
I thought you might find the following article from snopes.com interesting: http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/brazil737.asp
And with the announcement that Obama will be meeting the pope in Rome after the G8 meeting, in an IRREGULAR audience, July 10th:
VATICAN CITY, JUNE 24, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican confirmed today Benedict XVI will receive in audience U.S. President Barack Obama next month.
The meeting, set for the afternoon of July 10, will be the first between the Pontiff and the new president.
Obama's Vatican visit will take place within the context of his participation in the Group of Eight summit, which will be held July 8-10 in L'Aquila, Italy.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said to reporters today that "Benedict XVI is open to receive the president of the United States during the afternoon of July 10." The decision to set the meeting for the afternoon, which breaks protocol for papal audiences, is due to the president's tight schedule.
WHERE DO YOU THINK THESE "LIBERATED" U.S. SOLDIERS, UNDER OBAMA AND JIM JONES, DON'T FORGET,
- WHO ARE APPARENTLY STILL QUITE NEEDED IN IRAQ,
YET ARE GOING TO BE RELEASED PRECIPITOUSLY ON JUNE 30TH, -
ARE GOING TO BE SENT:
HOME?
DARFUR?
PAKISTAN?
NORTH KOREA?
OR RIGHT HERE TO JERUSALEM, TO FIGHT THE ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES - OR AT LEAST, THE ONES THAT HAVE NOT YET BEEN TOTALLY PERVERTED FROM WITHIN, BY YEARS OF BESTIALITY AND HOMOSEXUALITY BRAINWASHING AND PRACTICES?
Iraqis have second thoughts over June 30 date for US troops to leave
Alice Fordham in Baquba
For six years Iraqis in this restless provincial capital have been waiting for US forces to withdraw, in the hope that the area will return to being Iraq's sleepy rural backwater.
However, with only days to go before the last American soldiers are due to pull out of Baquba and other Iraqi cities, the residentshaving doubts.
There are fears that a premature departure will lead to a return of sectarian violence or allow al-Qaeda to re-establish itself. Many would like the Americans to remain until security is restored permanently.
"After you guys pull out from the city I don't know what our enemies are going to do,Thaban Hassan said. The head of an Iraqi Army battalion in Baquba, he told the American soldiers gathered in his office that "safety is not 100 per cent . . . why are the Americans leaving?"
"If it was up to me," a US army captain said, "we would stay in the city, take a more active role, even."
Colonel Burt Thompson, the commander of US forces in the area, whose troops still patrol Baquba, admitted that Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, had taken a gamble by insisting that his forces take control according to an agreed timetable.
In the past few days a bomb hit a mayor's convoy, another hit an Iraqi army patrol and there was a revenge killing of an al-Qaeda militant.
In line with the status of forces agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, which came into effect at the beginning of this year, all US troops will cease patrolling Iraqi cities from June 30.
Despite the spike in violence Mr al-Maliki has insisted that the withdrawal will go ahead as planned.
Colonel Thompson called this insistence political and said that he would prefer to keep US soldiers in Diyala province, which remains a hub for insurgents coming into the country, until after elections next January.
That view is shared by residents. Dhea Taha, 32, who lives with her children near Baquba, said: "The security situation is not stable in the first place ... there is an increase in terrorist activity."
Mohammad al-Obeidi, the chairman of the Security Council of Qais and Khalis, areas of Baquba which still have sectarian tensions, said that Mr al-Maliki's reassurances did not ease concerns.
"Iraq is like a baby right now," he said. "It needs people to look after it."
The religiously and ethnically diverse province was split by sectarian conflict during the turmoil after the invasion and never fully recovered. Remnants of Sunni groups, including al-Qaeda in Iraq and Shia militia, are still active.
A Sunni in Khalis said that she fled after her house was hit by gunfire last year but when she tried to return two months ago her family's homes and businesses were still occupied by a Shia militia.
First Lieutenant Hatem, head of an Iraqi Emergency Response Team in Baquba, said that his troops have been hit by roadside bombs and targeted by kidnappers. One soldier was seized last week and a ransom demanded.
"After you guys pull out," he said to his American allies, "the situation is going to be bad."
The border with Iran is patrolled by the Iraqi Army, but he had little faith in them, saying, "all insurgents escape from the country through the border ... and of course weapons are smuggled across the borders."
"I certainly see that insurgent forces will perceive June 30 as a gap in our security plan," said Colonel Shaun Reed, a battalion commander. "I think we will see a spike in violence based on the idea that the Iraqi security forces aren't ready."
I don't remember when I have felt so bad....actually, yes, I do remember: last time I went to another one of these "GAY" parades, which to me, are the saddest thing in the world. Every time I come back from one of those events, I am despondent, depressed, feel just terrible. I think other people who go there feel the same; I spoke to a friend of mine - she will recognize herself here, if she reads this - who reports that these parades make her weak and sick.
I understand this very well. It feels like a lost cause. You work, you work, you give your best.... and you see that the cancer is only growing, despite all your efforts. Of course we don't go there to participate but to oppose, to protest.
This time, the teeny tiny protest took place at Kikar Paris in Jerusalem. A tiny area, sort of cordoned off by a row of policemen, not too close this time. A few familiar faces - Baruch Marzel, Itamar Ben-Gvir ( Shifra had not informed me that those were the organizers, I am not sure I would have showed up if I had known in advance), a bunch of young boys with peyot, girls with Kahane shirts, a few older men... and SHIFRA. Besides myself, she was the only adult woman I saw there. It is really discouraging to think that Jews just stay home, and don't bother to physically show up, although I do understand to a certain degree: I think everybody feels the same way, that it is a lost cause.
But still, it is important to at least SHOW that we care. All the journalists whom I spoke with were discussing the parking lot issue on Shabbat, because that is the battle that the Haredim have decided to continue fighting. This battle they have abandoned.
I was interviewed by a number of journalists, AP, Reuters, Jerusalem Post.
The first journalist, a young woman from Reuters,- you can read a small portion of the interview below- kept asking me what I think of the Haredim not demonstrating this year, and what did I think of them creating a TENSION. I said that sometimes TENSION is necessary, justified, and therefore WELCOME; I gave as an example what is happening in Tehran. I think she understood the comparison just fine, and dropped the subject.
Then when it came time to discuss things with the Jerusalem Post, I decided to bypass the religious issue altogether, because I know that it is a BOUGHT NEWSPAPER - papal voice, so what's the point. So I focused on the MEDICAL aspect, the DEATH aspect, THE FORD FOUNDATION AND their $ 40 million grants to the New Israel Fund, which is behind this disgraceful circus. I explained to the journalists - and I think they were quite interested - that this is only one more aspect of the AGGRESSION of the Ford Foundation against Israel, that it leads to death, that we are foolishly cooperating with their evil scheme. A TIME magazine journalist was there too, who appeared gay himself. He questioned my remarks in an rejecting manner, and at first told me : let's NOT discuss the Ford Foundation. I retorted: oh YES, that is EXACTLY what we need to discuss. FOLLOW THE MONEY. If this money stopped coming, the whole thing would just dry out and die. He wanted actual proof of what I was saying, I referred him to this blog. I hope the blog doesn't FREEZE up on him too!
Then there was the issue of the SIGNS I was carrying, The one that made the most impression and right away drew attention to me, is the one I made as soon as I had arrived at Kikar Paris. The first thing that had caught my eye were the RAINBOW FLAGS ADORNING THE CITY. This is just such a shame: we placed the flag of ISRAEL when we conquered Har Habayit, and here the authorities are flying , honoring the colors of this ABOMINATION. This is a total disgrace.
So I composed a sign, which you can see here, held by a young man up high, which read: "NO FLAGS OF FAGS HERE" in red, surrounded by a black circle, with a black bar diagonally crossing it. It was done by hand and clumsy, but I felt it expressed my revulsion and outrage at this recurring parade of evil, right in the middle of Jerusalem.
I stayed there for a good 3 hours, until, as expected, trouble erupted between the police and the Marzel-Ben Gvir crowd. That is when I decided I had enough, and left. I read later that they had tried to bring two donkeys into Jerusalem streets, and the police didn't like it too much. ( By the way, I brought my signs from previous years; one year, I had focused heavily on bestiality, which is one of the things the Jerusalem Open House promotes, although they will not say so publicly. I know; I have PHYSICAL PROOF OF IT, and some people on this list have seen the proof with their own eyes.)
I did not want to go see the gays themselves, it was enough for me to stand far away and demonstrate. I had planned to go to the Kotel earlier as well , but traffic from Kiryat Arba was blocked, it was burning hot, and I also managed to have a car accident on the way there, with significant financial loss but no health consequence, thank G-d. BUT WHY? WHY TODAY? So I passed on that plan.
Before going to the demonstration, I was so grateful that today was also the Yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I felt that his Kedushah somehow counterbalanced this terrible Chillul Hashem being perpetrated in Jerusalem, in all our names.
What is going to become of us, tell me? We are going downhill so fast. People on the street, sweet faced girls, looking at my sign, said angrily, That's disgusting. THE NATION HAS BEEN COMPLETELY BRAINWASHED BY THESE PEOPLE. WHAT SHALL WE DO ?? I AM VERY, VERY DISCOURAGED AND DESPONDENT.
Just this week, an article appeared in one of the newspapers, describing how an Eli Raz , an archeologist, was SWALLOWED ALIVE BY THE EARTH IN EIN GEDI five years ago, rescued by miracle after being in a sinkhole for 14 hours. Ein Gedi, that is very close to Sodom... and just as we read PARSHAT KORACH.... I felt I had to stay clear of these people: what is going to happen to them? What is going to happen to us? At this point, there does not seem to be any answer from above; are WE wrong? Does Hashem really care one way or another?? I don't see any reaction, either way, not good, and not bad.
Across the street from the park, a small cluster of demonstrators gathered to protest the gay pride parade. Most offered rather extreme interpretations of the gravity of allowing the pride parade. Daisy Stern, [ OBVIOUSLY THE REPORTER DELIBERATELY OMITTED MY TITLE DOCTOR, WHICH I MENTIONED TO HER IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS. THAT IS AN INSULT ]holding a sign saying “No Flags of Fags Here”, said she was “protesting and fighting this horrible trend that persists in this city, which is funded and masterminded by our enemies who don’t want to see a Jewish land and this is a way to break our spirits”. One student, who joked he was protesting “to be a hardcore fundamentalist”, added: ” I’m not so much against the gay part , I’m protesting the pride part. The bible says homosexuality is an abomination. Only an abominable person would be proud about their homosexuality.” Some held up copies of the Torah, and signs offering help for homosexuals.
Some held up banners that read: "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."
AND LOOK AT THIS ABOMINATION I FOUND, which shatters everything that has ever been dear to Jews all over the world for millenia:
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/19132/
The sun was just beginning to sink into the Mediterranean as the couples took their places under the fluttering wedding canopy: three sets of brides and two sets of grooms.
In a nod to Jewish wedding tradition, a member of each couple stepped on a glass to seal the deal. Except in this wedding, the centuries-old words that finalize the Jewish marriage contract were uttered with a twist: "If I forget thee, O Tel Aviv, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Tel Aviv above my highest joy."
Replacing the traditional "Jerusalem" with "Tel Aviv" was a pronounced statement in Israel's first municipal gay-wedding ceremony and reflected the fact that it only could have taken place in Tel Aviv -- the most open and liberal of Israel's cities.
The wedding, although just symbolic because the marriages are not recognized by the state, was seen as a sign of how far Israel's gay community has come since its coming-out as a tiny movement in 1974, when a handful of activists wearing masks marched in front of Tel Aviv City Hall demanding equal rights.
Some comments:
1. From Rabbi Dov:
Dear Daisy
I am full of respect and honor to your demonstration. As you know if a woman is raped by some one and she does not cry her husband has to divorce from her. But if she cry then it is a rape. We are G-D's woman. We are raped by CFR all the nations the Vatican and so on. The fact that there are Jews protesting shows to G-D that we were raped. It was not with our will. I planed to come to the demonstration but another national issue appeared that needed my attention.
Never the less YISHAR COACH
Dov
From bill:
EVERY GOOD EFFORT BEARS FRUIT AND IS REWARDED, SOONER OR LATER. (THE OLD REBBES OF GER)
From Zerach:
Whatever happens today will be overshadowed in history by the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.
From Bruce:
All things are for a blessing... even if we, with our myopic vision can't perceive how at this moment or from our vantage point. Just keep that in mind and don't fret. You're doing what you feel you must and just trust in the Grand Orchestrator: He has it all under control. When are we going to Gemorrah for brimstone? Now THAT would be a great response: BRIMSTONE FROM GEMORRAH.
Yah's best, --bruce
DS: Since our enemies try to COVER UP THE TRUTH, literally - by covering up this post with CENSURING BLACK, the cowards, I have not choice but to POST the WHOLE THING, ONE MORE TIME. SO HERE IT IS:
B"H
Hello everyone,
I don't remember when I have felt so bad....actually, yes, I do remember: last time I went to another one of these "GAY" parades, which to me, are the saddest thing in the world. Every time I come back from one of those events, I am despondent, depressed, feel just terrible. I think other people who go there feel the same; I spoke to a friend of mine - she will recognize herself here, if she reads this - who reports that these parades make her weak and sick.
I understand this very well. It feels like a lost cause. You work, you work, you give your best.... and you see that the cancer is only growing, despite all your efforts. Of course we don't go there to participate but to oppose, to protest.
This time, the teeny tiny protest - a few pictures taken, that you probably saw already - took place at Kikar Paris in Jerusalem. A tiny area, sort of cordoned off by a row of policemen, not too close this time. A few familiar faces - Baruch Marzel, Itamar Ben-Gvir ( Shifra had not informed me that those were the organizers, I am not sure I would have showed up if I had known in advance), a bunch of young boys with peyot, and girls with Kahane shirts, a few older men... and SHIFRA. Besides myself, she was the only adult woman I saw there. Really discouraging to think that Jews just stay home, and don't bother to physically show up, although I do understand to a certain degree: I think everybody feels the same way, that it is a lost cause.
But still, it is important to at least SHOW that we care. All the journalists who I spoke with were discussing the parking lot issue on Shabbat, because that is the battle that the haredim have decided to continue. This battle they have abandoned.
I was interviewed by a number of journalists, AP, Reuters, Jerusalem Post. I don't know if any of those interviews will see the light of day, I don't really care, I did what I had to do.
The first journalist, a young woman from Reuters, kept asking me what I think of the haredim not demonstrating this year, and what did I think of them creating a DISTURBANCE. I said that sometimes disturbances are necessary, justified, and therefore WELCOME; I gave as an example what is happening in Tehran. I think she understood the comparison just fine.
Then when it came time to discuss things with the Jerusalem Post, I decided to bypass the religious issue altogether, because I know that it is a BOUGHT NEWSPAPER - papal voice, so what's the point. So I focused on the MEDICAL aspect, the DEATH aspect, THE FORD FOUNDATION AND their 40 million $ grants to the New Israel Fund, which is behind this disgraceful circus. I explained to the journalists - and I think they were quite interested - that this is only one more aspect of the AGGRESSION of the Ford Foundation against Israel, that it leads to death, that we are foolishly cooperating with their evil scheme. A TIME magazine journalist was there too, who appeared gay himself. He questioned my remarks in an rejecting manner, and at first told me , let's NOT discuss the Ford Foundation. I retorted: oh YES, that is EXACTLY what we need to discuss. FOLLOW THE MONEY. If this money stopped coming, the whole thing would dry out and die. He wanted actual proof of what I was saying, I referred him to this blog. I hope the blog doesn't FREEZE on him too!
Then there was the issue of the SIGNS I was carrying, The one that made the most impression and right away drew attention to me, is the one I made as soon as I arrived at Kikar Paris. The first thing that had caught my eye was the RAINBOW FLAGS ADORNING THE CITY. This is just such a shame. We placed the flag of ISRAEL when we conquered Har Habayit, and here the authorities are flying , honoring the colors of this ABOMINATION. This is a total disgrace.
So I composed a sign, which hopefully you are able to see, which said: "NO FLAGS OF FAGS HERE" in red, surrounded by a black circle, with a black bar diagonally crossing it. It was done by hand and clumsy, but I felt it expressed my revulsion and outrage at this recurring parade of evil right in the middle of Jerusalem.
I stayed there for a good 3 hours, until, as expected, trouble erupted between the police and the Marzel-BenGvir crowd. That is when I decided I had enough, and left. I read later that they had tried to bring two donkeys into Jerusalem street, and the police didn't like it too much. ( By the way, I brought my signs from previous years; one year, I had focused heavily on bestiality, which is one of the things they promote, although they will not say so publicly. I know; I have PHYSICAL PROOF OF IT, and some people on this list have seen the proof with their own eyes.)
I did not want to go see the gays themselves, it was enough for me to stand far away and demonstrate. I had planned to go to the Kotel too earlier , but traffic from Kiryat Arba was blocked, it was burning hot, and I also managed to have a car accident on the way there, with significant financial loss but no health consequence, thank G-d. BUT WHY? WHY TODAY? So I passed on that plan.
Before going to the demonstration, I was so grateful that today was also the Yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I felt that his Kedusha somehow counterbalanced this terrible Chillul Hashem being perpetrated in Jerusalem, in all our names.
What is going to become of us, tell me? We are going downhill so fast. People on the street, sweet faced girls, looking at my sign, said angrily, That's disgusting. THE NATION HAS BEEN COMPLETELY BRAINWASHED BY THESE PEOPLE. WHAT SHALL WE DO ?? I AM VERY, VERY DISCOURAGED AND DESPONDENT.
Just this week, an article appeared in one of the newspapers, describing how Eli Raz , an archeologist, was SWALLOWED ALIVE BY THE EARTH IN EIN GEDI five years ago, rescued by miracle after being in a sink hole for 14 hours. Ein Gedi, that is very close to Sodom... and just as we read PARSHAT KORACH.... I felt I had to stay clear of these people: what is going to happen to them? What is going to happen to us? At this point, there does not seem to be any answer from above; are WE wrong? Does Hashem really care one way or another?? I don't see any reaction, either way, not good, and not bad.
As you probably already know, today is the 15th Yahrzeit of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe.
I still remember the Rebbe: about 18 years ago, we went down from the Catskills to Crown Heights for a three day stay, including Shabbat - or was it Shavuot? I can't exactly remember that -; but I do still remember standing on line, waiting along with thousands of people, for a minute to spend with the Rebbe. I remember him giving me and my son, each, a dollar. I remember his wide blue eyes, feeling that they were piercing my soul. I remember my son, who was about eight years old at the time, sitting at his feet for a good long hour during a 'Verbrengen', while the Rebbe spoke. I remember that his presence was so intense, it filled the room. I mostly remember his eyes, that seemed enormous and clear blue, like the wide blue sky.
I also remember all the blessings I received from him in the course of the years; how every time I had trouble, somehow one of his Shelichim would appear out of the blue. He helped me a lot in the course of the years.
I was very upset about this whole controversy that arose after his passing, and the circus that was made after his death, with people starting to idolize him. I had the highest, greatest respect and love for him, for the incredible brachot he gave people, and to myself. But I cannot accept the distortions of reality that people go through , somehow denying that unfortunately, he passed away. Now his great Neshama is helping us and following us, while we do the work that needs to be done.
YEHEI ZICHRNONO BARUCH.
Here is an excerpt that was sent to me by Anonymous, that should send shivers down our spines, considering the gay parade today.... but then there was the uplifting event of last night, which made me feel that maybe, MAYBE , THE GOOD WILL OUTWEIGH THE BAD.
.... WE CAN ONLY PRAY....
DS
The Lubavitch Rebbe, zs'kl, forewarned: "Yerushalayim will have to be freed once more"
Recently, Yom Yerushalayim was celebrated. We bring a relevant excerpt of an interview with former MK Geula Cohen, who relates what the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zs'kl, told her years ago regarding Yerushalayim.
"I visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe immediately after the Six Day War. During the course of the conversation, the Rebbe spoke harsh words also about Yerushalayim.
"The Rebbe said that Yerushalayim wasn't occupied because of a deep inner desire to free our holy places, rather due to external pressure. This was obvious in the way that the IDF was requested not to damage anything, and cost the lives of soldiers.
"He also spoke of the uncertainties that were part of the war that they hadn't prepared to occupy our holy places, and didn't identify themselves with those places, and have no empathy for them. Therefore the Rebbe said that he is concerned that Yerushalayim will have to be occupied once again.
"In that same conversation, he said that this occupation will not hold out, and that the city will have to be fought for again.
"When the Rebbe told me this, I was extremely alarmed. When the Rebbe noticed this, he tried to calm me, and said that certainly things may change, if the leadership changes their mode of thought. But this is what the Rebbe felt, and what he told me at that time.
"At first I was wary of publicizing what the Rebbe said. At the time, his words seemed unrealistic. Only after a while, when we all see the situation, I publicized the Rebbe's words."
Excerpt from an interview aired on Reshet Moreshet, with Uri Revach. www.sos-israel.com
Comments:
bill said:
A TRULY GREAT MAN. HE IS SORELY MISSED!
Edith said:
I know exactly what you mean by your story about the Rebbe, zichron l'bracha, In Cleveland I was the secretary for the local Chabad House. (The only secretary that between office work, cooked for many people),.
In a very hard time of our life, I went with a group of women. Mozae Shabbat I stood in line for hours, and learned a lot about his ways from the answers he gave to the women before me, but my story is a miracle one which I have told to hundreds of people, both hiloni and religious. He changed our lives and I have his pictures all over my house, and I bless him each day...
I have a lot of the Rebbi's books, including two that have the stories of tales of people like you and me. Fantastic, and I knew a few of the people included personally.
Tonight I was fortunate to go to a very special event, which restored my spirits, savagely beaten by all the problems we are facing, which seem to hit us from all sides: external enemies, overwhelming gay demonstrators , a degenerate Supreme Court, a drought, financial worries... it seems that the list just keeps getting longer and longer.... but tonight revived my spirits.
Yehuda Glick, who was awarded an honorary "rabbi" title by his cheering fans, is a very special and brave Jew, who in his direct, straightforward and simple way is challenging the authorities, the police, the Supreme Court, the Waqf, and all our enemies, by simply GOING TO HAR HABAYIT EVERY SINGLE DAY TO PRAY MINCHA, and by bringing others to join him on tours on the Temple Mount, wherever it is halachically permissible .
Tonight's event was organized for his sake, to give him support, at the Chazon David synagogue in Kiryat Arba, one of the "outposts" that has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times. It was the initiative of Rabbi Dov Lior, from what I understand. Rav Lior is quite an incredible person: in his seventies, vigorous as a young man, active, chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and a Dayan, he is also heavily involved in the movement to get Jews to go pray in purity at Har Habayit.
So these two giants spoke, in addition to other people also involved in the project. We saw short video segments of these, and other, brave Jews up on the Temple Mount, PRAYING, believe it or not,- as though prayer was a crime ; segments of the capture of Har Habayit during the Six Days War were shown, the testimony of a soldier present at the time.
The speakers reminded the audience about the incredible miracle of our generation, that of actually being able to go up there. As they spoke, I could feel the powerful surge of Kedusha that comes from the most holy spot on earth. It was very uplifting and invigorating. The main message was that little by little, Jews are more and more numerous in going up in larger and larger groups; there is a momentum there. It is good to know, when we see the efforts of the nations to separate us from our heart and soul, we see the pope and his helpers trying to steal the place away from us.
The main reason this event was organized is because RABBI GLICK WAS RECENTLY ( during Pessach), TAKEN TO A POLICE STATION, AGAINST ISRAELI LEGAL REGULATIONS, AND THERE, SEVERELY BEATEN BY THREE THUGS WHO CALL THEMSELVES POLICEMEN ( we have seen plenty of those on TV recently in Tehran), with the express purpose of intimidating Rabbi Glick. But this is a very stubborn, tough, faithful Jew, readheaded like King David, who will not let himself be deterred by anything or anybody, although he confessed to be humbled and worried by those beatings. His wife, who is a lovely woman full of light, was also there, obviously a great source of his strength, as I could tell.
I took a few pictures of Rav Lior speaking, and of Chazon David, but unfortunately my batteries died, the pictures weren't that great, .... but ZE MAH SHE YESH. I am sure the media will have more audio visual recordings of the evening. I just tried to give you a sense of what I felt there. Right now I am unable to upload the pictures, but I will try to do that tomorrow ,or whenever my batteries permit it.
Considering that tomorrow is the gay parade of abomination, it was really important to be reminded of the Kedushah of Har Habayit.
(Tonight is also the 15th yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, which also helps in the fight against the forces of evil)
I am planning on going to the prayer at the Kotel tomorrow, Thursday, at 3:00 PM, but I won't fast; I just don't have the energy for a fast in this heat. Then after the prayer, I intend to go demonstrate with signs. Anybody who wishes to do the same, please show up at the Kotel, and then we can go and appear with signs.... wherever.
Iran media: Obama sent secret letter of support to Khamenei before election
DEBKAfile Special Report
June 24, 2009, 11:05 PM (GMT+02:00)
Barack Obama purportedly sent a secret letter to Khamenei
US and Iranian sources report that before Iran's presidential election, the Obama administration sent a secret letter to its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for "cooperation in regional and bilateral relations" and a resolution of the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
The Iranian media gave great prominence to the disclosure - for which they cited the Washington Times of Wednesday, June 24 - in order to underline US president's backing for Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in contrast to his latest words of condemnation for the regime and support for the "reformists."
According to the WT, a senior Obama administration official speaking on condition of anonymity refused to confirm or deny that this letter had been sent to the supreme leader or whether there had been a response.
DEBKAfile's Iranian sources say the Iranians are using this expose to embarrass president Obama for telling a news conference in Washington Tuesday that Iran's rulers are on the wrong side of history.
The secrecy of the communication can only add to the awkwardness because it points to Obama being convinced that once the protest movement dies down, he can go back to his plan for engaging Iran's leaders in dialogue.
Khamenei himself referred indirectly to the missive when he commented in his sermon last Friday:
"On the one hand, they write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand, they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe."
Following the disclosure of the Obama letter, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced: "Given the events of the past many days, those invitations [for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 events in different world capitals] will no longer be extended."
The events going back and forth in a single day, Wednesday, signaled a conspicuous retreat in the process of US-Iranian rapprochement.
High ranking homosexuals in law enforcement system influenced Supreme Court's decision to aggravate former Shas minister's punishment, his brother claims
A conspiracy of top-ranking homosexuals was behind the Supreme Court's decision to aggravate the sentence of former Shas Minister Shlomo Benizri, his brother, Rabbi David Benizri charged on Wednesday.
Earlier Wednesday the Supreme Court granted the State's appeal and decided to send Benizri to four years in prison, instead of the original punishment of 18 months. The former minister was also ordered to pay a fine of NIS 250,000 (about $63,555).
Benizri was convicted by the Jerusalem's District Court in April 2008 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, committed during his tenure as labor and welfare minister. Both the State and Benizri appealed the original sentence.
"The entire system has tuned Shlomo Benizri into its target," said the brother. "He was a man who wasn't afraid to say what we, as religious Jews, did not dare utter.
There are a lot of gays in the courts, the Knesset, the police and the State Prosecution, and I guess many Jews in the law enforcement system did not like to hear the truth."
David Benizri recounted that he used to tell his brother that "those who threaten this clique pay a price. I told him this a long time ago – I said, keep your head down, be careful what you say, but he said that he plans to keep on telling the truth because this was the way of the Torah."
He added, "I prayed to our father in heaven not to punish him, but he is allowed to say no. God almighty told me that he wanted my brother to carry on his mission in prison. He will even make the gays in jail become religious – there are plenty of Torah lessons to give there."
DS comments: COME TO THINK OF IT, IT MAKES SENSE: THE TIMING IS JUST PERFECT, GIVING THE GAYS A HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESENT, WHILE PUNISHING THE EVIL RELIGIOUS JEW WHO DARED OPPOSE THE JERUSALEM GAY PARADE AND THE WHOLE GAY MOVEMENT IN ISRAEL.
BARRY CHAMISH'S COMMENTS:
LEVY, (YIGAL) AMIR'S JUDGE.
DS: GOODNESS! NOW YOU SEE HOW THEY ARE ALL IN BED TOGETHER! SIMPLY DISGUSTING AND SHOCKING.
Update on the Supreme Court: A view of Aharon Barak,its previous President Aharon Barak: Jews Want to Throw Arabs into the Sea Tammuz 4, 5769, 26 June 09 09:56 by Maayana Miskin
(Israelnationalnews.com) Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak revealed his political views Thursday at a conference on Lawmakers for Human Rights. In his lecture, Barak described himself as “a great believer in the concept of 'a state of all its citizens.'”
Barak said, however, that Israel can be both a democratic Jewish state and a state that treats all citizens equally. “A Jew has precedence when it comes to Aliyah [immigration], but as soon as he gets here, his rights should be equal to those of an Arab,” he explained.
Barak also criticized Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria as an “occupation,” and said the Israeli presence there leads to human rights offenses and racism elsewhere in Israel.
The situation has reached the point where Jews wish to throw Arabs into the sea, Barak claimed. “If you ask a Jew if he's in favor of human rights, he'll say 'Of course.' If you ask him if he's in favor of throwing the Arabs into the sea, he'll say 'Of course.' He sees no contradiction between the two,” Barak told his audience.
Echoing Bishara "A state of all its citizens" is a phrase used by those in Israel who do not want Israel defined as a Jewish state, and is most closely associated with Azmi Bishara and his Balad party. Former MK Bishara escaped Israel after being suspected of treason. His party was disqualified from running for the Knesset but the High Court annulled the disqualification.
Members of Knesset from the political right said Barak's speech proved that the extreme left has power over Israel's justice system. “Barak's words bear witness to the post-Zionist takeover of the courts,” said MK Yariv Levin of Likud.
MK Michael Ben-Ari of the National Union said, “The former Supreme Court President's speech, and his support for the anti-Zionist concept of 'a state of its citizens,' prove that the Supreme Court's agenda has been taken from the platforms of [MK] Ahmed Tibi and [former MK] Azmi Bishara.”
"Today, more than ever, we see the need to change the panel of judges in the Supreme Court in order to save the Jewish state,” he concluded.
See also the post: Poor Ben Izri doesn't understand....
First of all , make sure to watch these videos, that will shed even more light on the current state of relations between Japan and the Vatican: the MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD, the JESUIT GENERAL, SPENT MOST OF HIS LIFE IN JAPAN! Something is mighty fishy down there....
The Growing Closeness of Japan and the Holy See (Part 1)
Interview With Ambassador Kagefumi Ueno
By Miriam Diez i Bosch
ROME, JUNE 23, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See and Japan established diplomatic relations in 1942. Some 67 years then passed with no Vatican dignitary making an official visit to the Asian nation. But in March, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti changed that. And the Japanese ambassador to the Holy See affirms his visit shortened the "sense of distance" between the two states.
ZENIT spoke with Kagefumi Ueno about the visit from Archbishop Mamberti, secretary for Vatican relations with states, and about another big event for the Church in Japan: the beatification of 188 martyrs last November.
Part 2 of the interview, on a Buddhist view of economics, will be published Wednesday.
ZENIT: We celebrated the beatification of 188 Japanese martyrs in Nagasaki last November. Did it seem a strange ceremony for the Japanese culture?
Ueno: I personally witnessed in Nagasaki that the ceremony of the beatification of the 188 Japanese martyrs who were executed four centuries ago took place very solemnly and honorably, [and the ceremony] was deemed successful by the majority of Japanese Catholics.
Besides that, in terms of the response by Japanese society at large, my impression is that it by and large the news and reports of the beatification were received warmly and calmly. To be more precise, I would like to point out the following four positive phenomena that are worthy to note:
First, major local religious groups such as Buddhist and Shinto denominations, which by far constitute the majority of Japanese society, sent representatives to the ceremony to pay tribute, as did Japanese non-Catholic Christians such as Protestant and Episcopal churches. To paraphrase, all the major religious groups of Japan showed their solidarity with the Japanese Catholic Church.
Secondly, last year's beatification was given considerable publicity by national and local media -- newspaper and TV. In this way, in every corner of the country, Japanese citizens came to be aware of the historical occurrences, and of course as well in Nagasaki, where 15% of Japanese Catholics reside.
On top of that, in 11 provinces where the martyrs were executed, local papers gave special reports on their stories, thereby arousing people's attention to the local history of four centuries ago.
As a consequence of the above, many Japanese were given an opportunity to consider the meanings of religiosity and human dignity, as well as the significance of dedication to others, through reflection on the tragedy of four centuries ago.
Fourth, it should not be overlooked that many Catholics came to Nagasaki from a number of neighboring Asian countries. I was impressed, in particular, by the following remarks given by a participant from India:
"The ceremony eloquently demonstrated that the (Catholic) Church does not just belong to Europe, but to the world. The way the Japanese martyrs adhered to their faith gave us power, encouragement and hope."
ZENIT: What do you think of the G-8 summit to be held soon in Italy on poverty and climate change?
Ueno: At the G-8 summit in July, two issues will emerge as particularly important, to which Japan and other G-8 nations should give a specific focus. One will be the impact of the economic crisis on Africa. The other will be climate change. I briefly touch on the present endeavors extended by Japan in this respect:
First, as African countries are experiencing severe and negative impacts as a result of the sharp decline in the world economy, it should be stressed that Japan shares with the Holy See the view that the poorest countries in Africa should never be made victim of the present crisis, for which they are not responsible.
Second, in this context, Japan hosted the 4th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV) last year and announced various initiatives, including doubling Japan's official development assistance for Africa by 2012 and providing support for doubling private investment to Africa. Japan will faithfully fulfill these commitments.
Third, Japan co-hosted the first meeting of a TICAD follow-up mechanism in Botswana in March, where we discussed the impact of the economic crisis on Africa and how we could overcome it. Later on at the London summit of G-20 nations in April, Japan did its best to present the African concerns expressed at Botswana.
ZENIT: And climate change is also a concern.
Ueno: Last year, as the chair of the G-8 summit, Japan demonstrated its leadership in shaping an agreement to reduce global greenhouse gas emission at least by half by 2050.
This year is the year when we G-8 nations decide on concrete actions. The international community should share the understanding that the problem will never be solved unless all countries share the burden equitably in keeping with their respective responsibilities.
ZENIT: After nearly 70 years, a Vatican official has visited Japan.
Ueno: In mid March -- from the 15th to the 20th -- Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign secretary, made a 6-day visit to Japan as an official guest of Japanese Foreign Ministry. I participated in almost the whole official program in Japan. By the way, the archbishop is the first Vatican top diplomat to make an official visit there in the 67 year-history of bilateral relations, which were established in 1942.
First, [let me] briefly touch upon the foreign minister meeting that took place on March 17 in Tokyo between Archbishop Mamberti and Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone, which was a highlight of the archbishop's stay in Japan. During the 150-minute dialogue, the two ministers covered a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from the world economic crisis and its impact on poor countries, notably those in Africa, to regional situations such as North Korea, China and the Middle East, to bilateral relations.
On North Korea, in response to the concerns expressed by Nakasone on the possible launching of a ballistic missile together with hostage problems, Archbishop Mamberti replied that he sympathized with Japan on these issues, appreciating the efforts of relevant countries to bring relaxation to the region, and expressing the desire that hostages be returned at the earliest possible opportunity. I found that the bilateral policy dialogue was rich, condensed and profound, i.e. a success.
Second, Archbishop Mamberti's two-day visit to Nagasaki was another success in that, firstly, at the atomic bomb memorial, he conveyed messages of sympathy and peace toward citizens of the region and, secondly, with messages from the Pope, he impressed and moved many local Catholics who warmly welcomed him. At a meeting with the governor of the Nagasaki prefecture and the mayor of the City of Nagasaki, who referred to their desire that historical churches there be recognized as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, the archbishop responded by expressing his accord with their interest. After he went on to Tokyo, he had a cordial meeting with representatives of the Japanese Catholic Church.
Third, Archbishop Mamberti had moments to be introduced to Japanese culture and religiosity at the Urasenke Tea Chapter's tea house as well as at the Meiji Shrine of Shintoism. At the shrine, Chief Priest Reverend Nakajima heartily welcomed him, speaking of the dialogues he has carried out with Catholic priests for the last decades.
All in all, I am more than sure that the successful visit of Archbishop Mamberti to Japan assisted in shortening a sense of distance existing between the two countries.
The Growing Closeness of Japan and the Holy See (Part 2)
Interview With Ambassador Kagefumi Ueno
By Miriam Diez i Bosch
ROME, JUNE 24, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Catholicism and Buddhism might have a new area for cooperation: a joint resolve to fix the problems that caused the global recession.
According to the Japanese ambassador to the Holy See, Kagefumi Ueno, dialogue between proponents of so-called Buddhist economics, and those of a Catholic orientation, could give interesting results.
ZENIT talked to the ambassador about this proposal for healing some of what's gone wrong with the global economy, and how Buddhist economists have been sounding a warning for years.
Part 1 of this interview, focusing on certain elements of the Church in Japan, as well as climate change and African development, was published Tuesday.
ZENIT: Lately, the Pope and the Vatican have issued a number of messages in which they lament the lack of moral considerations on the part of many business leaders. How do these words sound to Buddhism in the Japanese context?
Ueno: In Japan, similar voices were heard for decades, inter alia, among some economists with a Buddhist orientation. In fact, over the last decades some economists had started to amalgamate Buddhist philosophy with economic analysis, thereby founding a new discipline called "Buddhist economics." I am happy to introduce the basic thoughts that shape this discipline:
Buddhist economists are, by and large, critical of the neo-liberalism that sustained the economic policies of major world economies during the last decades, thus bringing about the aggravation of economic disparity, inequality, absolutizing of profit making, and the deterioration of the global environment.
Whereas there are divergent views among Buddhist economists, I understand that they share basically eight key tenets as smallest common denominators. These are respect for lives; nonviolence; Chisoku (awareness of enough); Kyousei (a sense of living together); simplicity, frugality; altruism; sustainability and diversity.
Each of them is the antithesis of the following notions which, as some argue, characterize contemporary economy: neglect of lives; violence; greed; isolation; division; extravagance; luxury; self-centered interest; un-sustainability and uniformity.
For instance, E. F. Schumacher, a German economist and one of the founding fathers of Buddhist economics, author of the famous “Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered," gave specific focus to Chisoku and simplicity.
Likewise, Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist and the winner of the Nobel Peace Price in 2004, has a philosophy similar to Buddhist economics. She is well known as an advocate of the “Mottainai campaign," i.e. the international campaign with three Rs: Re-use, Reduce and Recycle.
Some years ago, while she stayed in Japan, she learned the Japanese word “Mottainai,” which basically means, "Never waste even petty things since even the smallest things have intrinsic value.” At that moment, she had an inspiration for the campaign, i.e. she was inspired that the "spirit of Mottainai" that embodies the spirit of the three Rs should be diffused globally. She keeps saying that to ensure the protection and preservation of the global environment, the “spirit of Mottainai" is indispensable. This spirit she advocates is obviously in accord with the basic thought of Buddhist economics.
ZENIT: How do these values become concrete?
Ueno: They (Buddhist economists) are advocating policies that are conducive to, inter alia, detachment from a growth-conscious approach, detachment from oil-driven production, and the establishment of a new international mechanism to do away with violence.
In Japan, Komazawa University, a renowned Buddhist university in Tokyo, established a Research Institute on Buddhist Economics in 1966. Some other universities such as Keio University (Tokyo) and Ashikaga University (Gunma) from time to time offer special lectures about this.
With the current instability and uncertainty about world economy, which intensified skepticism regarding free market principles, Buddhist economics is gathering more attention.
It may be an interesting idea to arrange a dialogue in this sphere between economists of Buddhist and Catholic orientations.
Last but not least, in this respect, it should not be overlooked that under the framework of the 24th General Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB), which took place in Tokyo last year, a symposium was held on "The Economics of Happiness."
[Part 1 of this interview was published Tuesday.]
Let us not forget , also, this very important item: THE PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN IS A CATHOLIC!
Japan installed its first ever Roman Catholic prime minister this week, a milestone that has attracted media attention around the world — but hardly a word in his home country. It is doubtful whether most Japanese citizens are even aware that their flamboyant, manga-cartoon reading new leader, Taro Aso, has any particular religious beliefs.
Mainstream Japanese media have not touched on the fact that Aso is a member of a tiny religious minority — about 0.4% of the population — in a country where both Buddhism and Shinto rituals are a part of every day life for many. Aso himself rarely mentions his Catholicism, except when speaking to foreign audiences.
One of the foreign audiences that noticed was the Vatican daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, which enthused: "The nomination of a Catholic as prime minister is a turning point in Japanese politics, where religion has never had a real influence on public life, but the respect for traditions is shared by all sides. Recently, breaking with the proverbial reserve that Japanese politicians have on religious issues, the new prime minister said that his family has been Catholic for four generations."
Christian-founded schools and universities are commonplace in Japan, and many brides dream of a white wedding in a church. But converts are few.
Aso was born on the southern island of Kyushu, where Catholic missionaries gained a foothold in the 16th century, before being suppressed by a government that feared the conflicting loyalties religious faith might bring. He is the grandson of Shigeru Yoshida, prime minister during the U.S. occupation after World War Two, who is said to have converted on his deathbed, under the influence of his Catholic wife.
Though the first Catholic, Aso is the third Christian to serve as prime minister, following Tetsu Katayama and Masayoshi Ohira. Like Ohira, Aso has attended ceremonies at Yasukuni , a Shinto shrine in Tokyo that honours Japan's war dead but is seen as by Asian critics as a symbol of the country's past militarism.
See also this latest piece of news:
UPDATE Japan raps Citi for lax money laundering controls Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:34am EDT
* Japan bans Citi from retail banking promotions for month
* Cites problems with governance, internal controls
* Regulatory action follows similar violation in 2004
* Citi apologises, promises plan to improve compliance (Adds Citigroup comments in paragaph 3, 12, 13)
By Taro Fuse and David Dolan
TOKYO, June 26 (Reuters) - Japan ordered Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to suspend sale promotions for a month at its retail bank for lax oversight against money laundering, in the struggling U.S. bank's second brush with Japanese regulators in five years.
The Financial Services Agency said Citigroup had not developed adequate systems to detect suspicious transactions such as money laundering, citing the same violation that led the regulators to close its private banking business in 2004.
Citigroup, which has 35 branches and generates about $2 billion in revenue a year from its retail and corporate banking division, Citibank Japan, apologised for the breach, saying it stemmed from the way it reported suspicious transactions.
"If Citibank cannot get its house in order, its operations in Japan may come under threat," said Neil Katkov, head of Asia research for financial services consultancy Celent.
"We have seen banks in the U.S. shut down for alleged loose money laundering compliance, and this is a sign that Japanese regulators are getting tougher." The suspension comes as Citigroup tries to sell assets in Japan, an integral part of its efforts to raise cash after suffering more than $85 billion in losses on toxic assets and receiving a U.S. government bailout.
The bank agreed last month to sell its Japanese brokerage and investment banking assets to Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (8316.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Japan's third-largest bank, for about $5.9 billion.
It is also looking to sell its Japanese asset management arm, Nikko Asset Management, and telemarketer Bellsystem24 Inc, sources have told Reuters. The deals are expected to raise more than $1 billion each. [ID:nBNG457249]
The FSA said Citigroup had not made improvements since the last regulatory crackdown in 2004, which prompted then-chief executive Charles Prince to make a public bow of apology in Japan, a custom for Japanese executives showing remorse.
The FSA said the lack of compliance showed Citigroup executives "... lack an understanding of the rules applied in Japan, such as laws and regulations, and an awareness of improvement".
Citibank Japan, which handles retail and corporate banking operations, had 299 billion yen in net assets and 1,548 employees as of the end of March, according to its website.
Citibank Japan promised to submit a plan to the Japanese regulator by the end of July to remedy the problems.
While Citibank Japan cannot promote its retail products for the next month, customers can still initiate transactions with the bank, the FSA and Citigroup said in statements. (Additional reporting by Mayumi Negishi, Nathan Layne and Noriyuki Hirata; Editing by Michael Watson)
Update:
Japanese Prime Minister to Visit Vatican
VATICAN CITY, JUNE 28, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI will receive in audience the prime minister of Japan next month, which will be the second high-level meeting between the Vatican and the Asian country this year.
The Union of Catholic Asian News revealed Friday that Japan's Catholic prime minister, Taro Aso, will visit the Vatican on July 7, the day before the opening of the Group of Eight Summit in L'Aquila, Italy.
Last March, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign secretary, became the first Vatican top diplomat to make an official visit to Japan in the 67-year-history of bilateral relations, which were established in 1942.
Japan's ambassador to the Holy See, Kagefumi Ueno, told ZENIT last week that Archbishop Mamberti's 6-day visit "assisted in shortening a sense of distance existing between the two countries."
The last Japanese prime minister to visit the Vatican was former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who visited Pope John Paul II in 1999.
There are 1 million Catholics living in Japan, out of a total population of 127 million.
LATEST UPDATE:
INTERESTING, INTERESTING!
2 days after the announcement that the prime minister of Japan will visit the Vatican, Japan takes the heat for the story of the $134 billion in US bonds, which suddenly ARE REAL - until now, there was a doubt -now no more, and Japan is the guilty party.
Of course, the PM's visit to the pope has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS "SUDDEN DISCOVERY".
So to clarify the story, it seems that the US government is not too pleased by these revelations of Nazi Hal Turner about the coming AMERO, and is threatening all bloggers with imprisonment for revealing the plans of the NWO.
In addition, VATICAN NEWS are hard at work, putting up smokescreens, and making sure that JAPAN is mentioned as the guilty party. Not the INNOCENT MAFIA, God forbid; and specially , NO CONNECTION TO THE VATICAN FINANCES EITHER. The Catholic Japanese PM's visit announced two days earlier has NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING to do with the story, of course. And neither does the JESUIT GENERAL WHO HAILS FROM JAPAN, of course, of course.......
DS
» 06/30/2009 13:13 ASIA-ITALY Everything suggests that the American bonds seized at Chiasso are real Official U.S. sources continue to say they are fakes, but there is no news that American experts have inspected them in person. Arrested for another matter, the director of a U.S. radio who says the bonds are real and Japan was trying to sell in Switzerland, not trusting the ability of the United States to honour its debt.
Milan (AsiaNews) – Four weeks have passed since American bonds were confiscated from two Japanese men who were travelling on a direct train to Chiasso, Switzerland, and while there has been clarification of some - very few -points, Italian authorities have remained silent on the rest of the episode.
In addition, a strange coincidence in the timing of the arrest of a director of an internet radio who had made revelations regarding the incident ,increases the already strong oddities surrounding the case. This added to the revaluation of the fact that among the evidence seized there were "Kennedy Bonds", all points toward the authenticity of the items seized by the Guardia di Finanza (GdF) in early June.
The major English-speaking newspapers ignored the story for a couple of weeks. They only started to report on it after the Bloomberg agency carried a story on 18 / 6, in which a spokesman for the Treasury, Meyerhardt, declared that the bonds, based on photos available on the Internet, were "clearly false." The same day, the Financial Times (FT) published an article whose title laid the blame for the (alleged) infringement at the feet of the Italian Mafia, despite the fact that the article failed to make even one possible connection with the episode in Chiasso. Nevertheless, the version of events as reported in FT was taken up by others as being "appropriate" (given that it is a very common cliché about Italy and it is a sequester that took place in Italy) and in the end "colourful." It’s a pity that it goes against all logic: that the Mafia tried to pass unnoticed in its attempt to dump fake bonds amounting to 134.5 billion dollars and moreover were to "stung" a mere step from their gaol, is not very credible.
Most recently last week, 25 / 6, the New York Times reported on the story in particular, the allegations of CIA spokesman, Darrin Blackford: the U.S. Secret Service carried out inspections, as required by the Italian judiciary, and found that they were fictitious financial instruments, never issued by the “U.S. government”. It is not clear, however, how the checks mentioned by Blackford were carried out and whether they were also are carried out via internet. In fact according to official Italian sources the Commission of American experts, expected in Italy, have yet to arrive. Furthermore, the bonds were accompanied by a recent and original bank record. It is therefore unclear how the U.S. authorities can declare fake documentation that does not originate from the Fed or the U.S. Department of Treasury.
On the contrary, claims in support of the bond’s authenticity were made 20 / 6 on the Turner Radio Network (TRN), an independent radio station broadcast via Internet. On that date in a massive exposure, TRN stated that the two Japanese men arrested by the Guardia di Finanza (GdF) and then released in Ponte Chiasso were employees of the Japanese Ministry for Treasury. AsiaNews had also received similar reports: one of the two Japanese arrested in Chiasso and then released is Tuneo Yamauchi, is the brother of Toshiro Muto, until recently vice governor of the Bank of Japan. On its website, the creator and presenter of the Radio, Hal Turner, had also claimed that his sources had revealed that the Italian authorities believe the evidence to be authentic and that the two Japanese officials are from the Japanese Ministry for Finance. They were supposed to bring the bonds to Switzerland because the Japanese government had apparently lost confidence in U.S. ability to repay its debt. Japanese financial authorities therefore were trying to sell a part of the securities in their possession through parallel channels ahead of an imminent financial disaster, thanks to the anonymity which, Turner said, is guaranteed by the laws of Switzerland.
AsiaNews does not know to what extent Turner’s revelations can be held as credible, given that in this case too, it is difficult to believe that $ 134.5 billion would pass unnoticed anywhere in the world. It seems far more logical to assume that the bonds, if authentic, were directed to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, BIS, the central bank of central banks ahead of the issuance of securities in a new supranational currency. Turner had in any event added that as evidence to support his revelations he would have provided the serial numbers of the seized bonds. Before he could do so, however, was imprisoned. Hal Turner is the journalist who long ago first broke the news of a secret plan to replace the dollar, after a severe financial crisis, with a common North American currency, the Amero. In a dramatic phone call from inside the prison in which he is detained pending trial, relayed via internet, Hal Turner claims that his arrest is political and it is in relation to the securities seized in Chiasso, because the authorities are terrified by his revelations of the bonds’ authenticity. Of course, the allegations made against him have to nothing to do with the story and thus an already intricate story becomes ever more complex. Turner maintains that he did not personally formulate the disclosure for which he has been imprisoned. Although it was clearly his responsibility to remain vigilant, it is also true that blogs from around the world and the U.S. themselves are full of threats and provocations. The coincidental timing, the unusual diligence and the details of his arrest arouse suspicions about the true motives of the American federal police. Indeed, this very arrest suggests that the evidence seized from GdF are truly authentic.
One more element in favour of the bond’s authenticity is found in the securities, which in the June 4 statement, the GdF termed "Kennedy Bonds” with photos provided. These photos reveal that the securities under discussion are not bonds but Treasury Notes, because they are securities that can be immediately exchanged for their worth in goods or services and because they are devoid of interest coupons. One side carries a reproduction of the image of the American president, the reverse side that of a spaceship. From confidential, usually well-informed sources, AsiaNews has learned that this type of paper money was issued less than ten years ago (in 1998), although it is difficult to know whether those seized in Chiasso are authentic. But the fact that the release of this particular State Treasury was not completely in the public domain tends to exclude the possibility of counterfeiting. It highly unreasonable to suppose that a forger would reproduce a State Treasury not commonly in circulation and of which there is no public knowledge. For this reason, it can be concluded that the 124.5 billion dollars divided in 249 bonds of 500 million each are authentic. These titles, although referred to as "Federal Reserve Notes" are actually bonds, because they accrue interest and are redeemable at maturity. But one question remains unsolved regarding them. It is somewhat hard to understand why the securities, which were from the outset indistinguishable from the original to the GdF, all have their coupons. Any ordinary investor, even a state, would have cashed in the interest coupon every year, so as not to lose purchasing power.
(Israelnationalnews.com) The Supreme Court decided Wednesday to increase a jail sentence given to former minister Shlomo Ben-Yizri from 18 months to four years. In addition, the court more than tripled an accompanying fine, sentencing Ben-Yizri to pay 250,000 shekels ($62,000) in place of the 80,000 shekel ($20,000) fine imposed by a lower court.
Ben-Yizri was ordered to begin serving his prison sentence on September 1. short;y before the Rosh HaShanah Jewish Near Year holiday.
The former Shas member was convicted of abusing his power as an MK and a minister to provide favors for contractor Moshe Sela in exchange for bribes. Rabbi Reuven Elbaz was convicted as a co-conspirator.
Ben-Yizri was accused of obtaining permits for foreign workers for Sela, providing him with inside information and hiring members of Sela's family for state jobs in exchange for bribes, primarily money. Much of the money was donated to yeshivas run by Rabbi Elbaz.
The two were convicted after Sela turned state's witness. Sela testified that he paid for improvements made to Ben-Yizri's home and for other benefits.
Justice Edmund Levy explained the harsher verdict, saying, "The growing corruption in Israel's public institutes requires us to take action by setting a higher price for such acts." While he expressed sympathy for Ben-Yizri and his family, Levy noted, "He himself did not take care to follow the prohibition against taking bribes."
Ben-Yizri reacted with shock to the new, harsher verdict handed down Wednesday. "This is a hard day for me, my elderly parents, my wife, and my eight children... I have been persecuted and maligned," he said.
"The court found that I did not take a single shekel for myself, even though prosecutors tried to portray this as a big bribery scandal... I don't understand the harsh verdict," he added.
Former Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson of Kadima will appear in court on Wednesday as well. Hirschson is expected to face prison time for embezzling public funds.
(Israelnationalnews.com) Shas MKs spoke out on Wednesday and said that the four year jail sentence the high court gave former Minister Shlomo Benziri is disproportionate. The court chose to increase Benziri’s prison sentence from one and a half to four years and increase the fine he has to pay from NIS 80,000 to NIS 250,000.
Benziri, who is father to eight, appeared visibly shaken after the verdict was handed down and claimed he did not actually ever accept a bribe, but that his crime should have been treated as a lighter offense. He said he would have to read the verdict carefully before taking further action.
NB: I don't know about the exact details of this case: there might have been corruption involved, we know that a lot of the religious institutions are riddled with corruption as well.
Still, this does not take away from the fact that the Supreme Court has a CLEAR BIAS AGAINST RELIGIOUS JEWS AND SETTLERS, and CONSISTENTLY RULES IN FAVOR OF THE LEFT, AND AGAINST TORAH JEWS.
THIS IS CALLED ANTISEMITISM, AND WOULD NEVER BE TOLERATED FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY. IT REMINDS ME OF THE DESTRUCTION OF SYNAGOGUES IN GUSH KATIF,- see slide show on the blog - WHICH PASSED SILENTLY, WHILE A SIMILAR ACTION IN GERMANY, LET'S SAY, WOULD HAVE PROVOKED A HUGE OUTCRY WORLDWIDE - at least before the world itself started on an antisemitic rampage. THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS HAS TO CHANGE: WHAT ARE YAAKOV NEEMAN AND URI ARIEL WAITING FOR???
Some comments:
Milton says:
Daisy, take it easy on this Jew-hatred business. Try to use it when it's really applicable. If Ben-Yizri screwed up and got convicted (remember Aryeh Deri?) then he wont screw up again. It's no more complicated than that.
While Samy said:
I don't understand, the guy misused his office and got payback for it. If it went to him or someone else is not the issue. Because of people like this, in case he is guilty , we are paying high taxes. this is not some private person doing some tax evasion.
The excuse everybody does it is not valid , because prosecute everyone.
Now maybe the punishment is harsh maybe not. for this one has to see full court proceedings.
....
I am not pro civil courts.
But if the facts are that he manipulated his position and got benefits for his people more then others, so he should get to sit at home with no punishment?????????????
DS answers: So maybe I am wrong in this case. If so, my sincere apologies, and I will take down the post. But don't you agree that the Supreme Court is biased? Haven't you seen enough examples of it?
I still think that they were extra harsh with him because of his being Shas and not, let's say, Labor or Kadima, wouldn't you agree?
While SHmuel said:
f course it is for the "benefit of clean government" and all that jazz. Now, Ezer Weitzman took a 1 million dollar personal bribe and he only had to resign a bit out of his President's posting. Nothing else.
Ladies * gentlemen, If the PEOPLE insist on keeping the gruesome filth that was inserted up there as "judges" and politzei commanders, our common future will also include "desaparecidos", mass murder and more. I do not condone illegal acts but I have personal evidence of the degree of putrefaction that system is inundated with.
DS: NOW MAKE SURE TO READ MY NEXT POST ABOUT THE TOPIC: IT TURNS OUT THIS WAS NOT AN ANTISEMITIC ATTACK, BUT AN ANTI-RELIGIOUS ATTACK. BENIZRI GOT AN AUGMENTED AND UNFAIR SENTENCE BECAUSE OF HIS INSISTENCE ON PRESERVING THE RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF ISRAEL: OPPOSING THE GAY MOVEMENT IN ISRAEL.
MAYBE IN YOUR BOOK THEY ARE DIFFERENT. IN MY BOOK, ANY ATTACK AGAINST A JEW BECAUSE HE FOLLOWS THE TORAH IS ANTISEMITIC BY DEFINITION. BARRY CHAMISH'S COMMENT:
LEVY, (YIGAL) AMIR'S JUDGE.
DS: GOODNESS! NOW YOU CAN SEE HOW THEY ARE ALL IN BED TOGETHER.
bill sent this Shas newspaper: System can't stand successful Moroccans
Stiffened punishment for Benizri arouses resentment within Sephardic haredi community. 'Why is Olmert still free?' asks front-page article of Shas newspaper, which claims discrimination. Former MK Maya: We are still in exile. They are deathly afraid of us
A day after the ruling was handed down stiffening the sentence against former minister Shlomo Benizri, stipulating that the Shas member will sit in jail for four years, the Sephardic haredi community is up in arms.
Within the haredi community, it is widely believed that the fact former minister Abraham Hirchson, who was convicted of embezzling millions of shekels, received a far lesser sentence than his haredi colleague for a more serious offense smacks of the discrimination that started with Arye Deri.
In the biting article, Rabbi Moshe Shapir attacked the legal system and the media in Israel, claiming that they operate on an ethnic, clan basis. "A comparison between the trial of Hirchson, who stole from taboo areas and the trial of the Shas minister who only failed to follow the draconian protocols left over from the Mandate period, does not indicate a great degree of sanity within the Israeli justice system," wrote Shapir, editor of the newspaper's Oneg Shabbat supplement.
According to him, when the public looks at similar instances from the past, the ethnic discrimination is obvious.
"I think it is obvious what happened here. Olmert is still walking free; (former president) Ezer Weizman was also helped out; and, what's happening with Benizri? Four years to a person with eight children? Apparently, he touched upon something, disturbed something, spoke too much. Just as they did to Deri, they're doing to Benizri. They like us small, useless, and harmless, as some kind of pets," Shapir explained public sentiment.
'We are still in exile'
Shapir is not the only one to be of this opinion. Rabbi Moshe Maya, a former Shas MK said to Ynet, "Our people were in exile for 2000 years. We grew accustomed to being in exile. The people of Israel in exile walked with their heads down. We are also holding our heads down in quiet in the meantime."
And here are the latest related news, 6/26/09
(Israelnationalnews.com) MK Michael Ben-Ari (Ichud Leumi – National Union) has begun a campaign to get Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch removed from the Judges Selection Committee. Ben-Ari charges that Beinisch is biased against religious nominees. The freshman MK is calling on his colleagues to sign a petition asking Beinisch to step down.
The initiative to remove Beinisch from the committee began, Ben-Ari explains, “following an aggressive, unprecedented campaign that began in the [Supreme Court] President's office, against the candidacy of four religious judges to the Supreme Court.” Beinisch's associates attacked certain candidates in particular, he said, chief among them judge Moshe Drori.
Sources identified as being "close to Beinisch" said the justice had received dozens of angry letters complaining about Drori's candidacy. “That's really amazing, Drori's candidacy was made public just a day ago, and president Beinisch has already received dozens of responses,” Ben-Ari replied.
"Moreover, did Beinisch receive complaints against Drori alone? Were there no complaints against other judges, those who Justice Beinisch hopes to see succeed?” he asked.
Report Led to Complaints of Racism According to the Hebrew-language daily Yediot Aharonot, many complaints were sent following a report in the paper accusing Drori of racism. The paper published selected quotes from a judgement in which Drori ruled in favor of a hareidi-religious man accused of attacking a female supermarket cashier of Ethiopian Jewish origin, and followed with statements from Ethiopian-Israeli activists accusing the judge of racism.
Among those who criticized Drori following the publication of the Yediot Aharonot article was MK Shlomo Molla, who termed Drori “racist and evil.”
Not all responses to the report were critical. Several figures in the legal world spoke out in defense of Drori, terming him “brilliant,” “understanding” and “warm.”
Boaz Kenig, the attorney who represented the hareidi-religious man in the case that led to accusations of racism, accused Yediot Aharonot of taking quotes out of context. “In order to understand the verdict you have to read the entire thing,” he insisted. “There isn't a trace of racism against the plaintiff – the opposite.”
Media Leaks to Sway Committee? Whatever the complaints against Drori or others, such information should not be leaked to the public, Ben-Ari said. “Is this how the Judges Selection Committee is supposed to make its decisions? Is this how committee members are swayed to pick one judge over another?”
Ben-Ari ended his petition with harsh criticism of Beinisch and her colleagues: “Justice Beinisch, like her fellow 'enlightened, liberal' judges, wants the Supreme Court to have a single opinion. They do not want religious judges, judges who may have voted for a party slightly to the right of Meretz, they do not want independent judges, only those who will conform to the system.”
See also the entry -Re: the Supreme Court.... for more related information.
NB: I WAS offered a job in one of those outfits many years ago: I DECLINED, because it didn't sound kosher. I am very happy that this doctor had a change of heart - DID TESHUVAH, as we say in Hebrew -, this way he can give us a first-hand look into the workings of these self-serving, dangerous entities.
As a doctor, I noticed very early on in my career the damage that medications were causing, and how they did nothing to really CURE the patient, specially in chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, etc. This led me to turn to PREVENTIVE MEDICINE, which I practiced for many years, alongside primary care.
This other approach, on the other hand, might be helpful to you:
If you cannot open the video,- it takes a very long time to load -, go to Arutz 7 , in the video section, and watch it there. LEARN ABOUT TRUE HEALTH.
This was sent to me, again, by our friend Scott Jacobs of Democast, who happens to be AT THE RIGHT PLACE, AT THE RIGHT TIME - after all, Los Angeles is PACKED with Iranian exiles, including monarchy supporters, who are becoming extremely vocal these days.
Expect a lot more Iranian and other voices to come out of Los Angeles in the days and weeks to come, with Scott, a video and media expert, at center stage of the storm!
So here is a video he made at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where, in addition to the important remarks made by Simon Wiesenthal (I must say, though, that he does not go nearly deep enough, not examining the REAL causes of the world's inaction, such as the West's COLLUSION with the Mullahs; read all the articles having to do with Iran's role on this blog, and about the ties between Clinton and the regime, for instance), A WELL CONNECTED MONARCHIST'S SPEECH IS ALSO BEING RECORDED.
Then, see the "green" revolution currently taking place in that new light. Refer to the previous article, "Washington might have picked Iran's future king and premier", for more information.
Paris - Continuing his series of articles aimed at exposing Washington's "foolhardy" policy regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran, American scholar and writer
William O. Beeman says in its quest for regime change in Iran, the United Sates might have "already picked the new rulers of that country".
"The form of government would be a Constitutional Monarchy, with the Head of State being Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was deposed in the 1978-79 Islamic revolution, and Sohrab Sobhani as his Prime Minister", Mr. Beeman wrote.
"The Bush Administration apparently has a handpicked American "plumber" ready to go in Iran, much like Ahmed Chalabi (the leader of the Defence Department-backed Iraqi National Congress) in Iraq. This is Sohrab "Rob" Sobhani, an Iranian-American associated with the neoconservatives in Washington. With Reza Pahlavi as Shah, the 40-ish Sobhani would presumably be prime minister or president", he prognosticated.
As in his previous article published by the Beirut-based "The Daily Star", (see IPS's "America's Case Against Iran Is Full Of Holes"), the scholar names Mr. Michael Ledeen, a tough-tongue historian and journalist as the "promoter" of the "Restore Monarchy" project.
"The promoter of the Administration policy is American Enterprise Institute Freedom Chair Holder Michael Ledeen, who has written and lectured obsessively about regime change in Iran. Ledeen was reported by "The Washington Post" to be one of four advisers in regular consultation with White House strategist, Karl Rove", Mr. Beeman said, adding that Ledeen and Sobhani recently established the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI) to promote this regime change.
Reza Pahlavi had been living quietly in Maryland until 11 September, when he began to address the Iranian community via the internet and satellite television. This prompted the Iranian community to dub him the "Internet Prince."
Rob Sobhani, who has known Reza Pahlavi since childhood, was actually born in Kansas. His doctorate, completed in 1987, dealt with Iranian-Israeli relations from 1948-88. He became a specialist in energy policy. He has had his finger in many pies in Washington, including consultation on the construction of an oil and gas pipeline across Afghanistan.
Well-connected politically, he ran twice for the US Senate from Maryland as a Republican. Although his heritage is Iranian, he is far from being an expert on Iranian society, politics or economics. His move to the Washington area put him in close contact with his old friend, Reza Pahlavi.
Sobhani's interests in regime change are very clear and very consonant with American desires. They are largely commercial. Following his graduation from Georgetown, he became head of a Caspian Energy Consulting, a firm dealing with the transport and sale of Caspian oil.
On March 5, 2001 in an article written with Pennsylvania State business professor Fariborz Ghadar, he advocated a number of the policies that have since been carried out by the US, including containing the Taleban and Saddam Hoseyn. He also notes that supporting a secularisation of Iran would lead to easier transport of Caspian oil through Iranian territory.
Of equal importance, Sobhani also sees secularisation of Iran as beneficial for Israel. This is not surprising, since Israel and Iran had excellent ties before the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution. The Iranian Jewish community is the oldest continuous Jewish community in the world. The community is as prominent in Diaspora as in Iran, with members in powerful positions in the Israeli government and in American life, particularly in California. Elimination of the clerical regime in Iran would eliminate support for (the Iran-backed Lebanese) Hezbollah. It might even lead to renewed trade between Tehran and Tel Aviv.
Ledeen, Sobhani and Morris Amitay, former director of the principal Israeli lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) joined forces at the American Enterprise Institute in a seminar entitled The Future of Iran, in which they called for regime change. AIPAC has indicated support for the restoration of Reza Pahlavi to the throne, although they wish to remain in the background, as reported by Mark Perelman on 16 May in "The New York Jewish Daily Forward".
Sobhani has pursued a ploy in order to give himself academic billing for television and the lecture circuit. He teaches one course at his alma mater, Georgetown University on Iran and Caspian Oil politics. On this basis he has claimed to be a "professor" at Georgetown. He is in fact an adjunct faculty member at the college, but here it is hard to know what kind of "adjunct" he is, since he never seems to be on campus. The chair of the department of government has tried in vain to get him to cease and desist in claiming this affiliation.
Both Sobhani and Michael Ledeen are remarkably cagey about claims for the restoration of the Monarchy. Their ambitions are clearly to restore the Pahlavi dynasty, but they are both exceptionally careful about making this pronunciation openly or in print. They are frequently photographed with Reza Pahlavi and in some circles Sobhani is derisively referred to as "The Pretender's Prime Minister". Sobhani, when he refers to Reza, frequently calls him an "activist" rather than a future Monarch.
All three have connections with the media agency, Benador Associates, who manages both their op-ed placements and television appearances. Eleana Benador represents Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Charles Krauthammer, Martin Kramer and other conservatives connected to the Bush Administration. Pictures of Eleana Benador and Reza Pahlavi with Israeli supporter and AIPAC member Bob Guzzardi, and Middle East Forum head Daniel Pipes appear on Bob Guzzardi's website, www.bobguzzardi.com .
Sobhani and Ledeen clearly feel that the United States can produce an internal coup in Iran. Ledeen has said as much in (his recent book) "The War Against the Terror Masters" and many articles for the "National Review Online", "The Wall Street Journal" and other media outlets.
Ledeen and Sobhani expect to have the coup first, and then present Reza Pahlavi as the emergent ruler. Ledeen said as much in a rally in Los Angeles for Iranian monarchists, saying in effect: Let's have the revolution first, then worry about who will rule Iran.
He put a price tag on the operation saying; "I think you can buy yourself free Iran today for $20 million". What Ledeen, who has never traveled to Iran, and Sobhani don't understand is that Iranians are deeply skeptical about American motives in the Middle East. They remember that the CIA engineered a counter-coup in 1953 that deposed a popular revolution against the Pahlavi regime*.
The counter-coup created an American puppet regime in Iran, which only came to an end in 1978-79 with the Islamic revolution. For such an operation to work, it cannot be tied to an overt embracing of a restoration of the Monarchy.
Moreover, it cannot specifically espouse use of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation (MKO), the guerrilla movement opposing the Iranian government from Iraq. Both the Pahlavi regime and the Mojahedeen are widely opposed in Iran, even from people who would like to see clerical rule eliminated.
Astonishing for Americans is the fact that many Iranians feel that the United States engineered the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini to power. The theory is that the American government felt that containment of the Soviet Union would best be effected by the establishment of a "Green Belt" (green is a sacred color in Islam) to confront the "godless Communists".
When the Shah became sick and unreliable, according to this theory, the United States traded the "crown for the turban". The resulting new regime was seen to be just as repressive as the old one. However, it did prevent Communists from coming to the fore. Thus, for a large body of Iranians, Americans have always controlled the Iranian government. To have Reza Pahlavi return to power with American blessing would, for many Iranians, be a continuation of American interference in Iranian affairs.
Added to this are the insults and damages that the United States has inflicted on Iran over the past two-and-a-half decades. Iranians will never forget that the United States tilted toward Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. By all accounts, Iran would have won the war if the United States had not interfered. Moreover, it is widely known that the United States provided poison gas and other chemical weapons to Iraq during that conflict.
Also regarded with bitterness are incidents like a downing of an Iranian plane by the United States during the Gulf War, an incident for which Washington never apologised. Economic sanctions against Iran are not debilitating, but they are a significant annoyance, and the continual insulting treatment of visa applicants and arrivals on American shores is humiliating for the well-educated, sophisticated Iranian citizenry, like world-famous Iranian film-makers receiving major international rewards being denied visas to come to the United States, or have been strip-searched at Kennedy Airport.
Could a restored Monarchy succeed in Iran? The answer is a qualified "yes," with the very large caveat that America cannot be involved in any way. If Reza Pahlavi, or any leader is to succeed in leading Iran, he or she must do so without overt US help. Once Iran is established on its own, not under an American thumb, the two nations may re-establish their relationship with some profit.
The best model for reforming Iran is the carrot, not the stick. An example of this process is seen in the European Union, which has lured states into its fold with the promise of economic prosperity. The new states entering the EU have bent over backwards to reform criminal practice, economic practice, and human rights attitudes to gain membership.
The best thing the United States could do is to re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran, get involved with commercial dealings, and give the Iranians some reason to undertake reforms a better life in partnership with the West. In time, the younger generation, which makes up more than 75 percent of the population, will take over. Having democratic models close at hand, and some incentive; they will make the necessary changes themselves, without the CIA, or machinations from Washington. ENDS US MONARCHISTS 3606
Editor's note: Mr. William O. Beeman (William_beeman@brown.edu) teaches anthropology and is Director of Middle East Studies at Brown University.
The Daily Star published this article on its 2 June issue
Some editing, phonetisation of names, brackets and highlights are from IPS
The article does not represent IPS's view or policy.
* In 1953, the CIA, with cooperation with Intelligence Service, triggered a coup that deposed the popular Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, who had nationalised Iran's oil industry, monopolised by the British.
VERY ASTUTE REMARKS, made by a poster on an investment board:
Until the elections.....he talked one way before, then did a 180 after, so now he's my enemy. When a political party cuts down peoples kids & families, ..... takes over all 3 branches of govt., immediately ignores the Constitution, takes the census bureau to White House control so they can tweak more votes, appoints an all criminal staff, instantly makes more debt than ALL PRESIDENTS added together, with many more items in the works.........you would think some scrutiny would be advisable, wouldn't you? .....but NO! WE HAVE A DEADLY ENEMY HERE!
The following should have been the clincher................
In his Cairo June /2009) Obama stated, "in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That's why I'm committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."He is instituting Muslim law in America ... isn't that up to Congress? If they wanted to give, they could & would now as nothing is preventing them. (Zakat is anobligatory act ordained by Allah (The Glorified and Exalted) to be performed by every adult and able bodied Muslim. It is an important pillar among the five pillars of Islam. Zakat is a part of the wealth andproperty that Muslims must pay annually, to help the poor of their community.A Distribution of wealth,and he wants our government to do the same. One of the main purposes of Zakat is to keep those who are wealthy clean, monetarily, from sin. It is a form of Sadaqah (charity) which is obligatory on Muslims. SO, MAKING THE RICH SHARE THEIR WEALTH WITH THOSE WHO HAVE LESS (SHARE THE WEALTH) IS NOT ONLY FROM HIS MUSLIM ROOTS HE IS NOW SO PROUD OF, BUT ALSO COMMUNISTIC & MARXIST.
Another bit of info.
Obama has created the following Czar positions. They are appointed by the President and do not have to be approved or confirmed by Congress or be forced to testify in Congressional hearings. They answer to no one, and their position holds a status over cabinet members and they have the luxury of NO accountability. (Administration of "transparency?) His Czars are: Bailout Czar, Education Czar, Latin America Czar, Cybersecurity Czar, Internet Czar, Afghan-Iraq War Czar, Income Redistribution Czar, Voter List Czar, Radio-Internet Fairness Czar, War Czar, Drug Czar, Energy Czar, Health-care Czar, AIDS Czar, Zoning Czar, Land-use Czar, Tech Czar, Climate Czar, Border Czar, TARP Czar, Performance Czar, Intelligence Czar, Pay Czar, and "there may be more."
Russia had 25 Czars ... from " "Ivan the Terrible," in 1533, to Nicholas II who abdicated power in April of 1918.
Obama has at least 23 Czars in less than 5 months.
בית הדין של הסנהדרין החליט היום לקיים תענית ותפילה ביום חמישי יום המצעד. יתקיימו בכותל מנינים שבהם יקראו בתורה שערה 800 בבוקר ובשעה 1500 אחר הצהרים. מלבד הקריאה הרגילה בימי חמישי בבוקר יקראו בפרשת אחרי מות קדשים איסורי העריות וכמעשה ארץ מצרים לא תעשו. יקראו פסוקי עגלה ערופה כדי שראשי הציבור יוכלו לומר ידינו לא שפכו את הדם הזה ועינינו לא ראו. כן מן הראוי לומר העשרה פרקי תהלים של התיקון הכללי.
התפילה היא לקב"ה שיפקח עיני עיוורים וישיב ליבות התועים והטמאים ואל יבוא במשפט עם עמו ישראל. יש להתחנן ולבקש בעבור מנין המתפללים הנמצאים בסדום שהעיר והארץ לא תחרב.
כל מי שמתכונן להתענות שיקבל על עצמו התענית ביום רביעי מחר בזמן מנחה. כמו כן הסנהדרין קורא כהצעת הלל פנדל לשביתה ממלאכה ולנעילת החנויות בזמן המצעד ותליית שלטי מחאה.
בית הדין מבקש מכל מי שהתכונן להשתתף במצעד שלא לתמוך בו בהשתתפותו ובשכר זה יפתחו למתחרו שערי שמים ולא יראה פני גיהנום אם לא ימשיך בדרכו הרעה. בית הדין יתפלל על החוטאים ועל הפושעים כדי שיסורו מדרכם הרעה. שובו שובו בנים שובבים
הודעה זו היא הודעה ראשונה לציבור. אנו מבקשים מך לעשות הכל כדי להפיצה וכן מכל מי שיכול. מי שמתכונן להשתתף בתפילה ביום חמישי שיודיע למזכיר הסנהדרין לרב דב שטיין או לרב יואל שוורץ אב"ד של הסנהדרין.
מי שלא יכול להגיע לירושלים ישתדל להודיע במקומו שהוא קורא לתענית ולתפילה כמצוין כאן.
יסייע ה' בידינו ויפדנו מכף כל העריצים ברכה והצלחה וישועה במקום טומאה תבוא טהרה וימיש הקב"ה עוון הארץ ביום אחד דובר הסנהדרין הלל ויס
to the People of Israel and to the Seventy Nations
AFTER THE SPEECHES
The heads of state who recently spoke publicly about the state of affairs in the Land of Israel have apparently forgotten that the G-d of the universe watches over the country "from the beginning of the year until the end" and that the Land of Israel is the ultimate material and spiritual basis of all of human history.
The Bible expresses the idea of the presenceof G-d in the world and His Providence over all ofHiscreatures. He is the G-d who gave to the people of Israel, His beloved nation, the land that is designated for them. Therefore the people of Israel are not stealing G-d's gift and anyone who challenges this legacy which involves His giving the Torah to the Jewish People andtheir acceptance ofit as opposed to the nations of the world who refused to take it and instead push the nations to war, will have to stand to judgment in the Valley of Yehoshafat.
The speeches in part continue to express a lack of faith in humanity's obligation to develop the Land of Israel forthe People of Israel as aholy land. Instead they spoke of making peace with its being stolen away – Netanyahu's speech on one hand, and justifying this act of theft on the other – Obama's speech.
We commend the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu for making the recognition of the State of Israel as a Jewish state a condition for any dialogue with peoples and nations.
We censure Binyamin Netanyahu for choosing the path of expelling Jews from the outposts, thus denying the principles on which he imagined he had based his speech.
Dismantling the outposts and expelling their residents in effect means adopting the ideas and policy of Barack Hussein Obama.
We call upon all Jews to oppose this expulsion by being present there.
We encourage all of those who are involved in settling the Land of Israel and intensifying our hold over it in all places.
We again call upon the citizens to locate themselves in the mountainousregions for their own safety against the day when, G-d forbid, weapons of mass destruction will be turned against us.
It is proper that the government leaders hear what their own mouths are saying. In orderfor Israel to be a Jewish state, headed by Jewish leaders, they must recognize the State of Israel as a state whoseexistence is contingent on accepting G-d's leadership and removing all moral impurity from the land, first and foremost, removing the abominations from our country that causes the land to spew us out.
Accepting the "Gay Pride" parades in our holy land is the ultimate proof that that Stateof Israel hasfailedas a Jewish state, constituting a desecration of G-d's name and showing support for Obama and the moral standards that herepresents.
It is the obligation of the Jewish people to accept warmly the people who walk in the path of G-d and acceptthe Seven Noachide Laws.
The Land of Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile cannot contain nations or groups, nor even individuals, who openly oppose the exclusivity ofthe Landof Israel as promised to the people of Israel, and those who do not accept the Noachide laws, which means to set up proper courts of law, to abstain from murder and theft, to instill proper moral beliefs, and to observe the laws of sexual propriety.
We believe andknow that very soon as a result of the struggle over Jerusalem, the land will contain tens of millions of Jews, if not more: "Who can count the dust of Jacob", all ofthose Jews who had been dispersed throughout the world, all descendants ofthe Jewish people, remainders of the Kingdom of Judah and Benjamin and Levi.
The world anticipates the imminent return of the lost tribes of Israel, returning to the faith oftheir fathers andthe everlasting peace between Efraim andJudea andthe establishment of the House of David. The Jewish descendants will find their place within thepromised borders.
Nations or states who demand or maintain a false sovereignty in the area designated for the Jewish people live there unlawfully, in a land that isnot theirs, andwill be ultimately forced to relinquish their hold, either voluntarily or under duress.
The nucleus oftheworldis the place that G-d chose for His Temple in Jerusalem, a sanctuary for the G-d of the Universe, as statedby the prophets.
The courtyardsofthe Temple – andnot the nucleus – are a house of prayer for all the nations that will come to bow down before the G-d of Israel, the one G-d who created heaven and earth.
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