Rechavia Berman – GangstaYid

This Week in Israel: Thugs, Dogs and Pigs

Posted by: on: March 24, 2012

We are defending our very existence; There must have been very good security reasons; She’s a clear and present danger – but I don’t have to prove it in any way; All they want is to kill us; We have no choice

The excuses of occupation, supremacism and herd mentality never change much, nor have they in this particularly disgusting week in the JEWISH state of Israel.

In the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, protests continued unabated against the 2009 theft of the village’s spring, Ein al-Salih, despite the IDF – which abetted said theft by the settlers of Halamish – incessant attempts to intimidate them into just accepting their fate as the Chosen People’s punching bag.

Last night, Friday, marked the first time in over two weeks that the village wasn’t raided well past midnight by the IDF thugs. For 15 straight days the IDF’s brave, moral troops invaded this village every single night, waking up families, tossing their homes, and often confiscating stuff (computers and personal papers) without a warrant or without providing a receipt for the items seized. Seeing as following the Marmara incident several (brave and moral) IDF soldiers were caught looting computers, cell phones and credit cards belonging to the ship’s passengers, one can understand how the lack of a clear signed record of what was taken is cause for concern.

But the abuse doesn’t end here. I already told you last week what happened to Anan Naji al-Tamimi, and this week we got footage of the apparent theft of laptops at the home of one of the Palestinian Gandhis, Bassem Tamimi, who is currently held without charge, trial, or regular access to counsel because Israel can’t deal with his skill at organizing non-violent demonstrations. Ain’t many folks in Nabi Saleh that can get the teenagers to bottle their righteous anger and refrain from showing the invading thugs any physical defiance, thus making the army thugs show what thugs they truly are without even the excuse of kids throwing rocks.

When someone loses patience with this arrogant behavior and arranges a meeting between something heavy and hard and a ransacking IDF thug’s face, the wail will rise instantly: THEY HATE US JUST FOR BEING JEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWS.

Also from the occupied territories this week: The advent of using attack dogs against unarmed protesters, and finally this gutsy kid, who sent a kangaroo military court “judge” into a tantrum by telling him he doesn’t recognize his authority. The judge left the courtroom in a huff, warning the kid he’d screw him at sentencing. Big man, no? Most moral army.

Another lovely story from the Only Democracy this week: About 300 “fans” of the racist football club Beitar Jerusalem, following a victory by their crappy team, swarmed into the Malha shopping mall adjacent to their home field, and proceeded to beat the living crap out of about 10 Palestinian sanitation workers, yelling “Death to Arabs” and so on.

The pogromchiks quickly overwhelmed the mall security, and even the cops who were called to the scene required long minutes before they restored order and stopped the lynching.

Another lovely aspect of this little story is that while it happened last Monday, it was reported precisely nowhere in the Israeli media until Friday, and then only at Haaretz. You know how hasbara parrots love to talk about Israel’s vaunted free press? Bring this one up next time they try it. See what they have to say.

 

And get this: Despite the fact that the blue porkers were undeniably on the scene, they did not detain a single person for questioning. When asked why that is, a pigsty spokesperson replied that “no arrest or investigation took place because no complaint was filed.”

As my boy Bobby would say, bury the rag deep in your face – NOW is the time for your tears.

For one thing, of course, nowhere in world does a cop need a complaint to make an arrest or at least detain someone for questioning when the crime happens in front of their pink squashed snouts.

For another, though, and this naturally caught my eye, the claim that arrests and indictments can’t be made absent a victim’s complaint is false. I myself was convicted of “threats” against Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (over a blog post, not heavy breathing on the phone…), who did not file a complaint with the police and whom we were not allowed to summon as a witness.

Jerusalem District PD Chief Nisso Shaham is proving that the Kahanists managed to get to him. Said high-ranking porker was marked as an enemy of the Jehovah-nazis when, during the disengagement from the Gaza Strip he was recorded saying “shit on them” regarding the militant settlers and their threats of violent resistance.

When he was appointed Chief of the J-M district, some had naively hoped that a new era had begun for a force that had been accurately dubbed “Kahane’s Police” by songwriter Chaim Cheffer back in the 80′s and hasn’t gotten a damn bit better since. The Judonazis of course raised a big ole wail when he was appointed, but as I say some had hoped Shaham was exactly the sort of guy to blow off their hostility and do his motherfucking job. Did I mention the word Naive?

So now Nisso is cowering from the feared wrath of the racist scum that populate Teddy Stadium’s east-side bleachers, and walking around the streets of Jerusalem with Satan’s spunk dripping from his rectal orifice.

And with that Santorum-like image, we shall now return you to your points of origin, which should be looking really good in comparison right about now or you should be looking deeply into relocation. The Weekend Holyland Update is not responsible for any misconceptions, sympathies or illusions that may have been misplaced on our tours. This tour has been brought to you free of charge courtesy of the pilot’s graphomanic disorder and high-horse syndrome, but feel free to avail yourselves of the “Donate” button over there. Also, you can buy my book, “Jewcy Story: How the Jews blew redemption the last time around” and get 500 fascinating years of Jewish history for the bargain price of $3.

 

P.S. The bit about “She’s a clear and present danger” refers to Hana Shalabi, a Palestinian woman who is currently on her 38th day of hunger strike, in protest of her administrative detention. Israel apparently doesn’t feel it has a case it can actually convict her with even in a kangaroo military court.  Be that as it may, it is really chilling to think that these people, who run our lives and an entire nuclear state,  really wish after narrowly dodging the bullet with Khader Adnan, to wind up with a FEMALE martyr who isn’t the self-admitted spokesperson of a terrorist organization. Israel’s only luck with the Adnan affair was that he sucked as a symbol (what with being a bigshot in a sick demented fanatic group). A young woman, pretty enough even with a headscarf, who isn’t self evidently guilty of at least membership in a banned org and who only demanded the simple right of her day in court and to confront her accusers and their claims? That shit will sell like hotcakes. Makes you wonder if the powers that be don’t actually WANT more Toulouse incidents… (Yeah, I said it. Got a problem? Speak the fuck up).


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Israel: The Bamba Nation That Worships Gandhi

Posted by: on: March 17, 2012

Shortly after Purim, Judaism’s ancient costume festival, the masks came off in a frenzy in three completely unrelated incidents – and I’m not even talking about Israel’s calculated decision to throw a match on a dormant gas keg, throwing the lives of a million of its own people into disarray and giving the other side a free calibration test.

 

First came the ludicrous decision by Israel’s Olympic Committee to throw any shred of self-respect to the wind and not simply accept an ordinary corporate sponsorship, but to make a corporate logo the official Olympic mascot for Israel’s delegation to London 2012. Perhaps so short a time after Israel’s sucker population rose up last summer against “porcine capitalism” wasn’t the best of times to try that one…The collective snort of derision caused the powers that be to about-face in under 24 hours. Pity, tho. The logo in question: (A baby in a diaper with a forelock and a fresh mouth who represents the quintessential Israeli snack “bamba” [a peanut-flavored puff thingy]) is a perfect representation of Israel in its 64th year of sovereignty.

 

Like the logo, Israel is a rather infantile nation. Like the logo, it has a one-track mind (the bamba baby for bamba, Israel for its occupied territories and its trauma-ridden rationale for choking itself on them). Like the logo, Israel is crassly commercial, mercantile and mercenary. Finally, the choice of the bamba baby is a perfect illustration of so many of Israel’s cherished and misguided narratives. You see, although bamba is indeed an Israeliana-laden word, the sad fact of globalism is that Ossem, the long-time purveyor of said peanut-flavored mush, is no longer a plucky Israeli company. It is, rather, a small division of the Nestle Corporation – a firm which, incidentally, did not escape the 1930’s and 1940’s with an unblemished record. Nuff said? So all in all, a most apt capsule of Israel’s true current essence.

 

Then came the big story of the week. Haaretz’s crack reporter Gidi Weitz uncovered that the State of Israel is currently funding the “legacy” of former Minister and transfer-advocate Rehav’am “Gandhi” Ze’evi at twice the amount of a bunch of actual fathers of Zionism and founders of the state (Herzl, Jabotinski, Ben Gurion, and Begin) combined.

 

A bit of background on Ze’evi. First, to dispel confusion, he acquired the moniker after appearing one morning at the Palmach mess wrapped in a bed-sheet, and not due to any pacifistic convictions. He was a long-time military careerist, peaking at Central Command General, where he was known for keeping a pair of chained lions at the entrance to his HQ. Years later a famed actress would claim that as a young soldier she was sexually assaulted by an unnamed famous high-ranking officer, “who thought he could fondle the girls the way he did his lions”.

 

In 1981, shortly after a notorious gangland double murder, “Gandhi” was recorded speaking on the phone with Tuvia Oshri, one of the two men later convicted of the murders. He was asked “Can you come” and answered “If you need me I’m coming.”

 

On the other hand, he was a very well-read man who spoke fabulous Hebrew and did much for the study and disciplines of history and archaeology in Israel. Politically, he is chiefly known as the first and primary advocate of “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing, although of course called for “in peaceful ways”) as a solution to Israel’s dreaded “demographic problem.” He ended up being shot to death by a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while staying at an East Jerusalem hotel AND blowing off his security detail.

 

In numbers, Gandhi’s legacy gets about 4.9 million ILS a year. Rabin, who was actually PM and was murdered and alla that, gets around 2 million, as does the iconic Likud PM of the 70’S and 80’s, Menachem Begin. The father of political Zionism Theodore Herzl and the father of the Israeli right-wing Ze’ev Jabotinski get 250K each. So these are the express preferences of Israel today, as written in the most indelible ink there is: cash.

 

The third mask-shedding event of the week is still categorized as unproven, despite the first-hand nature of the source. Hosni Mubarak, the deposed tyrant of Egypt, states flatly in his memoirs that he used to pay Israeli politician Binyamin “Fouad” Ben Eliezer a cool $25K/month retainer as an “advisor”.

 

Now it was never a secret that Fouad was a close personal friend of Mubarak’s and an undisguised friend and advocate of Egypt within the various Israeli governments in which he served as Trade, Infrastructure, and Defense Minister. It’s also not exactly news that the guy is not completely free of any rumors of improprieties, so to speak. Still, if this is true it does set a new mark in Israeli decay, I think.

 

Finally, while all this was happening, and while the world gives itself a good close fingernail check as Syrians are slaughtered by their supposedly anachronistic villain dictator, the Israeli occupation of Palestine (the West Bank part of it) continues in full and innovative swing.

 

First to the tried-and-true methods of thuggery. You know how the IDF like to invade homes in villages all over the West Bank at 1, 2, 3 in the morning, pull everyone (including babies) from bed for a lineup, take pictures and often arrest someone for a few hours of friendly interrogation? (if you don’t know about it, you should).

 

So this week on March 11, at 01:45, our brave, brave troops raid the dangerous terror nest of Nabi Saleh – a village that’s only any trouble because settlers stole their spring with active IDF aid – and hit the home of the nefarious mastermind Anan Naji al-Tamimi. 11.

 

The resolute Israeli DEFENSE forces took Anan, blindfolded him and bound his arms, and loaded him onto a jeep. They drove a bit out of the village and proceeded to interrogate him with some “mild violence” (slaps to the back of the head) about his involvement in the use of WMP (Weapons of Mass Petrification, dismissed by the enemies of Israel as mere rocks) in the weekly demonstrations against the theft of the spring at the village.

 

After this time they drove back, stopped about 1 km from the village, removed the blindfold but left Anan’s arms bound, and dropped him off, leaving him to negotiate the 15-minute walk with arms bound in pitch darkness. His wrists were swollen upon his return home.

 

An official response from IDF spokesman has yet to arrive. Unofficial back-channels have yielded this claim: You got the wrong name, he’s 15 and not 11 (plausible from the photo too btw), he was questioned for one hour and not two and was dropped off unbound 300 meters from the village rather than 3 times that far, and this only to avoid re-igniting the village.

 

So according to the IDF, if he was 15 it’s ok to roust him and all his family from bed at 2 in the morning and interrogate him with no guardian or legal counsel present out in the open and then drop him off somewhere other than the front door. Gotcha.

 

Here’s the thing: You do that to ME? To MY boy? Police, IDF, Navy fucking SEALS of the invisible New World Order? Rocks will be the least of your worries from my side. And that’s if the unofficial version is true. If the al-Tamimi version is true? And the IDF don’t lock up the guy that was in charge of it? For his own protection, like? I find him and use a 10 pound tin can to turn his face to mush. But don’t listen to me. Remember Gilad Shalit? Yeah, he’s doin’ it right. Travelling a lot. Getting laid I do hope. Anyway, his dad’s running for Knesset in the Labor party. He said that if he was a Palestinian, he’d be trying to capture soldiers too.

 

Oh, I promised an innovation. Those who survived the holocaust remember with dread the German use of dogs to instill terror in their prey. Those of them still struggling to make ends meet, in the state that uses their name and traumas daily but leaves them less than table scraps are no doubt smiling in the knowledge that their own country has finally learned from those canine-related lessons as well.

 

And on that woof-woof note, we will now return you to you locally scheduled bullshit, which I seriously hope is tame in comparison or you should be looking into relocation. This has been a visit to the precipice of demise, brought to you by The Weekend Holyland Update, in conjunction with Brown Acid Bad Trips Inc. This excursion didn’t cost you a dime, but there’s a collection plate button thingy, if you have a mind. Also, you can buy my book: Jewcy Story: How the Jews blew redemption the last time around.

 

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Talkin’ Bout A Revolution

Posted by: on: July 31, 2011

Welcome one and all, to an unusually optimistic edition of the your weekend holyland update. Get your camping gear out, ’cause we’re taking to the streets to fight for our rights.

Doncha know, talkin’ bout a revolution? Sounds like a whisper… Actually, it’s quite louder than that. At least 150 thousand people took to the streets from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Beer-Sheba in the south, crying out that “The People Demand Social Justice”, and calling on PM Binyamin Netanyahu to resign. Over 100 thousand demonstrated in Tel Aviv, dwarfing the already huge demonstration from last week. And to conclusively put the lie to the claim by Bibi apologists, that this was merely a leftist provocation by a few stoned and unemployed spoiled brats from Tel Aviv, this time they were joined by another 50 thousand people all around the country, with Haifa, Jerusalem and Beer-Sheba adding over 10,000 protesters each.

This was the culmination of a week in which the housing and cost of living protests defied predictions and gathered steam. Earlier in the week Ofer Eini, head of the powerful umbrella labor union the Histadrut, decided that he had spent enough time with a wet finger in the air, and jumped on the bandwagon, threatening that if by the end of the Sabbath (last night) the government would not open negotiations with him regarding the demands of the protesters, he would…do stuff.

Problem is that although Eini was greeted warmly by the naïve kids running the Tel Aviv encampment, truth is he’s not at all on their side. He’s a creature of the powerful unions, the ones where a winch operator at the Ashdod harbor makes $15,000 a month (yes, that’s US dollars. 51,000 shekels), and some of his colleagues make even more. He doesn’t represent those who have trouble making ends meet. All he wants is a photo-op, followed by a quick sellout, just like he did to the strike of the social workers a couple of months back. This, after all, is the man who opposed the strike at Haifa Chemicals, where already low wages have been stagnant for years, and where tenured workers have been steadily replaced by temps with no rights. So he won’t help any.

Eini isn’t the only bandwagon jumper. MIA opposition leader Tzipi Livni was finally sighted saying something about the protests late this week and calling on Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin to postpone the parliament’s summer break so that a solution to the crisis can be found. Even Judy Mozes, whose husband is the Deputy Prime Minister and whose own family owns the country’s largest media conglomerate, is fronting like a woman of the people and tweeting that “so great to see the power with the people.” At said conglomerate, in which she owns an 8% stake, workers have no right to unionize and not much rights at all, for that matter.

Meanwhile, and regardless of Eini’s posing, Netanyahu is seriously stressing (check this out). He’s secretly talking about replacing his sock puppet of a treasury minister, Yuval Steinitz, with someone of a more “social” bend. So far there seem to be takers for the job, whose description is apparently “wanted: second sacrificial lamb. Ingratitude guaranteed.” The leading candidate, Moshe Cachlon, pointedly rejected the talk of him taking over the treasury job, but did say that Bibi must heed the calls of the people.

Likud members, fearing that this uprising will cost them at the ballot, are sweating as well. MK Miri Regev, who got one of the first headlines of this protest by clashing with the tent-dwellers, calling them “daft” and getting doused with a glass of water for her trouble, is now demanding that the party convention be called into session, to discuss the means of heading off this electoral menace. Meanwhile, even the insufficient suggestions on how to deliver relief to the masses are being blocked by ministers such as Uzi Landau, holder of the Infrastructure portfolio, who is from the racist Israel Beiteinu party and figures the uprising won’t sway any of his party’s voters.

And just this morning, the director-general of the Ministry of Finance, Haim Shani, resigned, due to unspecified “differences of opinion” with his minister – meaning with Netanyahu, whose haphazard knee-jerk reactions to the crisis managed to get on Mr. Shani’s professional nerves.

But Bibi still has one supporter he can count on – dubious gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his free rag “Israel HaYom.” The Bibiton, as it is nicknamed in Israel, correctly realized that ignoring or downplaying last night’s show of strength was not an option, so instead they went for plan B: First, they cut the number of protesters by a full third, copping to only 100 thousand protesters country-wide. Second, they ominously intoned: “The protest is social but most of the signs are political”. I’m sorry, who do YOU go to when demanding redress, if not the political establishment? However, this is still more subtle than what most in the pro-protest camp jokingly envisioned, which was the Bibiton’s leading on the front page with the whacking of a notorious organized crime boss late last night.

Far away from the tent encampments, in the occupied territories, the Israeli Occupation Force finds itself at liberty to step up the oppression of the natives. Arrests were carried out deep in Area A, a well providing water to a Palestinian business was slated to be destroyed in the Jordan Valley, and demonstrations against the larcenous separation wall are being suppressed with even greater brutality than usual, as evidenced by the picture of this Palestinian press photographer, beaten over the head with a club for violating the “closed military zone” (which accredited journalists – he is one – are exempt from), and for “unfairly depicting the security forces.”

Ah, the unfairness of reality – a reality which says that until the elephant in the room is addressed and the connection is made between the immense resources being poured down the occupation drain, replete with subsidies for housing, education and public transport, and the lack of resources for the welfare of people who choose not to subsist on the pauper’s lamb, no real progress will be achieved.

And on that grim reality note, we shall wrap it up. The Weekly Holyland Update is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

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My book, “Jewcy Story”, a popular history of the 2nd Temple Era, can be bought for Amazon Kindle, for cell phone or for PC here.

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Marching for Home

Posted by: on: July 25, 2011

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to another excursion to the mad Middle East, where nothing – not even wide-spread housing protests – stands in the way of the continued theft of other people’s land. In this week’s installation we take you camping, have a little water fight with the powers that be, and do the creeping annexation jig. So put on your dancing shoes, here we go:

 

Last night Tel Aviv saw one of its largest protests in years. At least 30,000 people (I was there, I say around 50K) marched from the edge of Rothschild Boulevard to the Tel Aviv Museum Plaza to protest the insane housing prices. After the protest march, a few rowdy anarchist types stuck around and blocked one of the major intersections along the march route, resulting in a few dozen arrested, and most released this morning. The protesters played it smart and left a tent full of candy and chocolate outside Tel Aviv PD HQ, with signs “sorry for last night” and “We’ll continue to fight for you too”.

 

The interesting thing to watch was the newspaper coverage. Yediot and Haaretz were both pro-protesters, Maariv was more or less balanced, and Israel HaYom, the free newspaper founded by gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson for the explicit purpose of promoting and defending PM Bibi Netanyahu, is simply trying, for nigh on two weeks now, to pretend that the protest isn’t happening, or isn’t as big a deal as it is. The paper devoted 5 full pages to the massacre in Norway, and less than a page to the uprising of the serfs here at home.

 

Bibi himself, regressing into his Munchausen’s disease, claimed this morning to have “foreseen the housing crisis years in advance”, and blamed it on the fact that the state controls 90% of the land and poses procedural impediments to construction of new housing. Of course, he promised a reform in Israel’s Land Authority, then let it melt away. Part of it was supposed to be included in a new Planning Committees Law, the final vote on which was just postponed today. So that’s how hard ole Bibi is pushing for this reform, the need for which he foresaw.

 

The tent encampment protest has spread in the past week from Tel Aviv all over the country. Even my sleepy semi-rural hometown of Pardes Hannah has one. The question is whether the energy will be sustained and channeled productively, or will it dissipate. The energy last night at the march (which I attended) was weird – but not necessarily in a bad way. Some have defined it as “not angry, just resolute”. We shall see.

 

In a related incident, protesters stormed the meeting of the Knesset’s Finance Committee (held at Kfar HaMacabbiah in Ramat Gan, rather than in Jerusalem) and threw water at the participants, in protest of the fact that the housing crisis was not on the committee’s agenda. Shoulda used something stronger than water, says I, but nobody ever listens to me. Armenia 1999, anyone? (Kidding. Violence, particularly indiscriminate violence, is very rarely the answer, if ever. However, the thought is savagely satisfying).

 

Another protest gaining steam is that of the MD interns, who are subject to insane hours and extremely pathetic pay (their base pay is around $1,500 a month). Their attempt to have themselves admitted as patients so as to get around a court order forbidding them from walking off the job was foiled, but they are still striking (the entire MD community has been on a court-modified strike for weeks now). After a couple of days of dithering, the housing protesters got wise and embraced the young docs.

 

Turning to the place where all the money lacking for affordable housing and decent wages for MD’s is poured down the drain, Israel’s stupid government is now renouncing the policy of ambiguity which has thus far sustained its occupation. The government passed a resolution tying government support for museums in “Judea and Samaria” with that of museums in Israel proper. Give this government enough time and they’ll give us all a one-state solution…

 

Meanwhile the Israel Occupation Force has been pursuing a policy of land theft using an Ottoman law, saying that any private land that isn’t being cultivated can be seized by the state – but they’re doing it only for the benefit of settlements for the master race. Apparently they are heeding the call of far-right MK Aryeh Eldad to “end the Muslim occupation of the Land of Israel”.

 

Approaching landing, this is how the IOF recruits deal with non-violent protests. It’s not really the fault of the recruits, but that of the state that brainwashes them and throws them into impossible situations.

 

Finally, the departing head of the Personnel Department of the IOF, General Avi Zamir, sounded the alarm at his farewell ceremony about the religious radicalization of the armed forces. Of course it is too late for that, as reports from “Operation Cast Lead”, in which soldiers were given sermons by rabbis exhorting them to “holy war” before battle, amply prove.

 

That’ll do it for this week. The Weekend Holyland Update is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

 

My book, “Jewcy Story”, a popular history of the 2nd Temple Era, can be bought for Amazon Kindle, for cell phone or for PC here.

 

 

 

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Cottage Cheese Strikes Back!

Posted by: on: July 17, 2011

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the first flight of Rick-ochet Airlines, bringing you the Weekend Holyland Update, that tour of the macabre which has been taking you on relatively safe trips to the edge of the abyss in the Land of the Prophets since 2008, now in syndication with 972Mag!

 

Today on our tour we shall have craven abdication, stark racism, a severe case of Islamophobia, working people refusing to take shit, an environmental disaster, an act of thuggishness, a sweet stroke of irony, and a dirty old man who just does not know when to stop, among other things. Confused? You won’t be by the time we get done. Please fasten your seatbelts and make sure you’re not turning Muslim on the way to passport control – That’s liable to scare folks round these parts…

 

We shall begin with something fresh from last night. Some people got fed up and put up a tent encampment in the middle of fashionable Tel Aviv, to protest the skyrocketing price of housing (folks are paying over $1,500 a month for crappy 2 bedroom apartments, and doing it on household incomes of maybe double that, often less). As one protester said on the news, “Used to be they’d sell us the lie of working hard to eventually buy our own apartment. OK, we’ve given up on that one, but let us rent at a bearable price.” So these folks in the tents made a little trip up Rothschild Boulevard to King George St., and threw cups of cottage cheese at the “Ze’ev Citadel” – the famous HQ of our ruling party, Likud. This of course is only funny if you’ve heard about the fabled Cottage Cheese Protests which took place last month.

 

The tent protesters are facing a problem anyone who ever tried to be active on anything in Israel knows only too well: Whether to tie this with opposition to occupation, as part of a coherent holistic world view, or make the occupation a sort of taboo in the organization, so as not to alienate the ones who may be nationalist but are willing to protest with you.

 

The inevitable lies are bound to come here. Soon, they’ll say the left has radical hijacked this protest. The truth is that the lefties  are an integral part of each and every protest against exploitation, poverty and social issues – even though the people for whom they protest are often deeply traditional, right-tending folks who are astounded to find the “treacherous hippies” from scorned Tel Aviv coming to fight alongside them. So when you’ll hear about those people “that ruined the protest by politicizing it,” know the score.

 

On to the top story of the week – The Boycott Law: This law that just passed here makes it a “civil injury” as the bill terms it, to “call for the economic, cultural or academic boycott of a person or other entity, solely due to its association with the State of Israel, any of its institutions or a territory under its control, in a way that is capable of hurting them economically, culturally or academically.”

 

The law goes on to specify that Judea and Samaria (i.e. the occupied West Bank) qualifies for the purposes of the law, and that anyone who calls for a boycott and is considered likely to be heeded by anyone, commits a “civil injury” for which anyone purporting to be hurt by the call to boycott can sue. The brave legislators then go on to instruct the judiciary to award “damages” to plaintiffs without the need to prove any, uhhm, actual damages.

 

Then the law goes on to say that anyone doing such a nasty, nasty thing will also not be allowed to contend for any government bids, contracts or grants. The thing to watch in this law is its overt cowardice. It’s as if the government is saying: “We really want to persecute those who dare boycott the settlements, but we know that even the most craven legal counsel won’t sign off on the government doing it – so we’ll make it a matter of financial ruin and let the settlers themselves do the grunt work for us!”

 

Even as it is, and after the original bill was amended to drop the $8,500 award provided for in the first draft, the entire top brass of the Ministry of Justice is distancing themselves from this thing.  The government’s legal counsel has grumbled that he will deign to defend this law in court when the time comes, but made it clear that he expects to lose: “The law has significant constitutional flaws”, he says.

 

This is of course slightly ironic since Israel has no constitution. What Adv. Yahuda Weinstein is referring to is Israel’s “Base Laws”, which serve as the weak stump foundations of a constitution – which we don’t have because the religious would never stand for the codification of personal and religious freedoms that would naturally feature in such a document. These “Base Laws” (freedom of speech isn’t one of them, by the by, but that’s partially rolled into “Base Law: Human Dignity and Liberty”) are so solid, all it takes is 61/120 Knesset members to amend or completely overturn it. But the government doesn’t want to be that obvious about its enmity to basic civil liberties that interfere with the occupation, so it doesn’t do it that way. Yet.

 

The all-but-assured court overturn is of course the real point of this entire exercise. The hardcore right wing in Israel constantly panders to the most basic emotions of its flock, promising things they know aren’t possible. They especially delight in “passing” laws that are bound to be struck down by the court, only to turn around and say “See? The unelected tyranny of the judiciary is thwarting the Will of the People!”

 

Tellingly, neither Bibinocchio nor his henchman, Defense-Minister (and currently devoid of an electoral base) Ehud Barak were present for the vote, and other notable failures to vote on this minor little issue of free speech include Labor Chief contender Yitzhak “Boojie” Herzog, some still-sane Likud absences (including Speaker Reuven Rivlin, who pointedly announced “present but not voting”) and all of Barak’s “Independence” silly phantom party, who sent the creepy Einat Wilf to explain their principled stand, which boiled down to “we’re hoping to weasel into Likud’s next list of candidates for Knesset. Obviously we can’t buck coalition discipline.”

 

Saw an item on the news past week about the segregation of Black Ethiopian Jews in the school system, and what chilled me was that there was at least one case where a school administrator went from the plain racism of not making an effort to help Ethiopian students meet the requirements, to the malicious go-out-of-your-way racism of actively failing dark-skinned students who were somehow ruining her pristine color scheme by passing their classes. “We were asked to lower [Ethiopians’] scores in English and literature,” one teacher admitted. If you understand Hebrew, you can watch the story here.

 

Israel was visited by a catastrophic natural disaster this week, dear readers. I refer not to the oil tanker that dumped crude on the coral reefs in Eilat, nor to the pipeline that burst and devastated flora, fauna and precious open water in the Zin Stream (Wadi al-Faqra to some of you) preserve in the Negev. I am talking about the extended exposure to one of the most toxic sources of blegh known to science – Yes, Glenn Beck was here. He has yet to make good on his threat to give a full blown revival show in which he will reveal himself to be Nehemaiah Scudder, but he spoke at the Knesset’s “Immigration Absorption and Diaspora Relations” committee. The neanderthal right have a big majority in this committee, and the whole thing was truly stomach-turning. His pants must still be wet from all the obeisance. The only non-right wing member of the committee, Labor’s Daniel Ben-Simon, chickened out and didn’t spoil the welcome wagon. I will admit, though, that it was amusing to see the trogs scream, in essence: “See? We got friends in the world too! POWERFUL ones!!” – While as an example displaying a man even Fox no longer wants to have anything to do with.

 

 

The state has climbed down from a particularly stupid tree it stuck itself on about a year ago. There’s this guy, Harald Fuller-Bennett. American Jew. Been to Israel as part of the “Birthright” tours, visited another time on his own, and was let in with no problem. But on May 2, 2010 he makes the error of reaching Passport Control at Ben Gurion airport with a passport sporting entrance stamps from Syria (gasp!) and Sudan (ewwww). So he’s pulled aside, interrogated, and denied entry. Reason? “suspicion of terror affiliation”. Huh? Source? “Secret information,” of course. “Also, we have knowledge of an anti-Israeli protest activity plaintiff has participated in, and the possibility has been raised that plaintiff intends to convert to Islam.” Oh, the horror.

 

This is what we in Israel call “the Matzliach Method”: Throw anything you can think of at the wall and see what sticks. Last week the state announced before court it does not insist on keeping the menacing Mr. Fuller-Bennett out of the country, admitting the “terror associations” charge proved false, yet insisting there was “fear of Islamization.” State was ordered to pay court expenses, and the plaintiff would like, if it’s not too much of a bother, to note that he is in fact an atheist.

 

Some fishermen from Gaza decided they would actually like to catch some fish, especially those of sufficient number and size to feed their families. Israel denies any vessels leaving the shores of the Gaza Strip the right to exceed 3 miles from shore. There are no fish in commercial quantity that close to shore. Fishermen finally had enough, defied the 3 mile barrier, and were fired upon by the Israeli Coast Guard. I know, Gilad Shalit could be smuggled away forever in a small innocent-looking fishing boat. But like with the blockade at large, inspections can be arranged. These are small vessels. The Gaza fishermen would likely have no personal problem with being checked for 20-30 minutes each way if it means they can actually, pretty please, go to cast nets where they are likely to come back full. I haven’t been able to find out the condition of the fishermen who were shot at.

 

Approaching landing, Karma proved to still have her wicked sense of humor, as she gave racist football (soccer) club Beitar Jerusalem and its “Death-to-Arabs”-chanting crowd the financial savior they had been praying for, to take the team off failed oligarch Arkady Gaidamak’s hands and enable it to purchase some players for the upcoming season. The twist? Meet Adam Levin and Dan Adler, a couple of do-gooder, lily-hearted lefty J-Street-type Jews, who promise not to get too involved in the business side, but do insist they plan to take on the “handful” who besmirch the name of this storied franchise. I wish them all the best, of course, but I hope they know that the “handful” is a good solid half of the fan-base, and by far the most emotionally and financially involved half. I can see a situation where the dyed-in-the-wool Kahanist element “secede” and start their own fan-owned club, after the model of two clubs from the other side of the political map recently (fans of the Hapoel clubs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in basketball and football respectively, restarted there teams under fan ownership and are doing nicely so far). The founder of the revisionist Beitar movement, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, must be rolling in his grave to see who runs his flagship now.

 

Finally, former President and convicted rapist Moshe Katzav is in the news again. After about a month of spreading rumors, the gag order was removed and it was revealed that Katzav’s legal team ordered illegal data acquisitions, phone tapping, witness tampering, like that. The actual crooks who did it are singing and implicating the former president as directly involved in everything. Katzav, dude, give it UP. Seriously.

That’ll do it for this week. Rick-ochet Airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments (and donations, if you’ve a mind) where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

 

Read my book “Jewcy Story” –  a popular history of the 2nd Temple Era, can be bought for Amazon Kindle, for cell phone or for PC here. Get 500 years of Jewish history for only $5!

Flytilla Exposes Israel’s Bumbling Hysteria

Posted by: on: July 9, 2011

Welcome once again to The Weekend Holyland Update. This is WHU flight 080711, taking off to utter hysteria, land theft, necrophilia, idolatry, a rare case of accountability. Please fasten your seatbelts and remember to lie about your destination at passport check, or you’ll be deported.

 

The “Flytilla” has been a resounding success. First, the organizers goaded Israel into new heights (or lows) of hysteria in the week or two preceding the stunt. I’m not talking just about the massive police and secret police mobilization (to a spot that’s already one of the most heavily secured in the country), but also about immensely stupid PR efforts such as this amazing piece of gobshite, in which Israel declares “We are a paranoid, traumatized people who see threats in every rorschach ink blot” – thereby validating one of the central claims of its critics, in a loud and horribly acted manner. (Read all about it here and in the links within that article. It’s hasbara alright, even if at first folks on our side were saying it just has to be satire. Since it isn’t, I’m beginning to think we goddamn lefties have a mole in the hasbara upper echelons causing them to release these things).

Then came the big day itself. Early in the day the headlines on Israeli websites were jubilant: “only two activists landed and were deported. Most Flytilla participants denied boarding at departure points”. The writers of these headlines, of course, gave ZERO thought to the cost of Israel having its European friends suffer the airport mayhem to enforce Israel’s policies.

But then came the afternoon arrivals and showed that like the old Jewish folk tale, Israel ate the stinking fish, took a whipping AND got kicked out of town. It imposed upon its European friends, and STILL had to deal with dozens of activists who arrived anyway.

The dealing was rather inept as usual. Oh sure, most of the terribly dangerous enemies were swiftly identified and detained, pending deportation (some were flown back immediately, others will spend the w/e in jail and be returned to their ports of departure on Sunday) – but that was the point of the exercise. The activists weren’t hoping to get in, they were hoping to be refused entry and thus expose the fact that more often than not, people arriving at Tel Aviv airport declaring that they intend to visit Palestinian cities or villages are turned away unless they can prove they have relatives or business there (and of course, sometimes having relatives is the reason to be turned away too). This is all contrary to international conventions and to the Oslo agreements, which require Israel to allow the PA to enjoy incoming tourism. Israel may deny entry to specific individuals, but not to everyone declaring their intent to visit the occupied territories.

So the genius State of Israel obliged them, arresting for deportation 50 and 60 year-old activists, many of whom it had previously admitted to the country with no problem – but that was when they lied and said they were going to Tel Aviv, rather than Ramallah. But proving the flytilla’s point was not enough for the defenders of the Jewish and Democratic State[TM]. So in addition, Israel’s police, aka the Jack Booted Thuggery, stood by as Israeli citizens in the terminal attacked humanitarian activists, cursing, spitting, and in some cases physically attacking as well. When Jerusalem Post journalist Larry Derfner attempted to defend some activists from such an attack, he himself was detained shortly by Israel “Finest” (they’re not even the country’s finest thugs, since if they were they’d be making more money as actual criminals).

To top it all off, some of the activists did manage to get past the border control and reach their destination in the verbotten West Bank. I have not been able to ascertain whether they truthfully declared their destination, which would indicate a modicum of Israeli brains, or if they lied – thereby conclusively proving the original point.

On a related matter, check out Dimi Reider’s article on the Israeli Airport Authority’s form for travelling Arabs.

Related matter 2: As part of the prep for the flytilla, Israel barred the entry of two Dutch journalists who actually wanted to tell its side of the story, scheduling interviews with anti-flytilla/flotilla subjects, and coverage of Israel bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza. Heckuva job, hasbara!

Update: The foreign airlines on which the activists flew in are now saying they will have a hard time deporting the 124 people Israel wants returned immediately to Europe. “It’s the height of the travel season and all the flights are fully booked,” one senior airline exec said. The amusing silver lining of all this is that there has been a stay in the roundup of “illegal” foreign workers and asylum seekers, since the detention facilities are filled with flytilla people.

Now we have to wait and see what means of letting Israel make a damn fool of itself its opponents will think of next.

 

On to other matters. Last week I forgot to touch upon the case of Raed Salah, head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, who was allowed into the UK only to be arrested very shortly afterwards on grounds that he was banned from the country. Apparently he managed to sneak in during the very short time-frame between the signing of the ban order and its arrival at passport control in Heathrow. Now Salah is no angel, as he is reportedly not above using classical antisemitic imagery (“We are not the ones who allowed themselves to eat a meal of bread and cheese in children’s blood”, for example…”you are monkeys, the virii of all times” for another). However, it’s kind of funny that GB would find it necessary to arrest him when even Israel allows him to be free. Also funny is the fact that the UK isn’t deporting him, but is insisting on holding him in custody. Without some solid evidence to the contrary, I really can’t blame people who see this as another case of Israel getting others to do its dirty work for it – since Israel would love to lock Salah in jail (and throw away the key) but fears the consequences.

 

In a rare case of accountability, a Border Police officer was convicted of abuse after she threatened a minor, whom she arrested for having three detonators in his pocket (these, while having terrorist associations, can also be used as a sort of fire cracker), with death, shoved one of the detonators in his pocket and pretended to light it, pointed a loaded and cocked gun at him, and showered racist abuse on him. In an even more heartening development, the perpetrator herself fully accepted responsibility for her acts and stated flatly that she acknowledges deserving punishment, while explaining that the pressure of dealing daily with a hostile population (not only arabs but also ultra-orthodox Jews) eventually caused her to snap as she did. This in contrast to incidents such as the two soldiers who used a 9 year-old as a bomb detector during Cast Lead. In that case the two thugs and their families went on the offensive upon conviction, screaming bloody murder and whining that the army was throwing its oh-so brave warriors under the bus. So even if Shani Sevilia is just saying what she said in hope of a lenient sentence, it would be petty and uncharitable to necessarily assume so, given the culture of opposite behavior surrounding her. So Ms. Sevilia, while you did very a bad thing, please accept a measure of respect for your subsequent behavior, and I hope you only have to serve a short amount of time in prison. Then again, since the scumbags who used a kid as a bomb detector and showed zero remorse got three months suspended sentence, it would be cruel irony if she does serve any time.

 

The UN has found that during the Nakba Day events, in which some (stupid) people tried to enter Israel from the Syrian border and were shot, Israel reacted with excessive and unnecessary force. Israel? Unnecessary force? Surely you jest!

 

Remember the rabid rabbi Dov Lior, who wrote a supportive introduction for the nazi-like tract “The King’s Torah”? The one who was summoned to answer to the police on suspicion of incitement, flouted the summons for months, was finally detained for an hour and this caused his supporters to throw a tantrum? Well, a day or two after this incident, he gave a lecture in which he stated that democracy is “the idolatry of our times”. He repeated this twice, lest anyone miss it, and compared himself to biblical Abraham, who according to Jewish legend was thrown into a furnace for breaking the idols in his father’s idol shop. To most of you this might sound as just more religious fulmination, but if you’re a religious Jew, you know that Idolatry is one of only three sins (along with incest and bloodshed) which a Jew is commanded to die rather than commit. Furthermore, a Jew is supposed to kill those who try to force it upon him (think about the story of Hannukah). That’s not even a dog-whistle. That’s plain Hebrew.

In a connected event, rabbi Yaacov Yosef, son of Shas leader Ovadiah Yosef, was also detained for questioning in the same case, after also flouting the summons to report voluntarily for months. His supporters also rioted, setting fire to the butt-ugly “string bridge” at the entrance to Jerusalem, which unfortunately did not cause the costly eyesore’s demise. His father reacted by saying that he was “stupid” and that he should have just gone when summoned and prevented the whole affair.

 

Israel, which in the past few years has proved itself terrified of coriander and clowns, among other things, has added necrophobia to the list of things that scare it. Israel was scheduled to return a bunch of corpses of dead terrorists to the PA. When it turned out that the list included some Hamas terrorists as well, families of terror victims got up in arms and forced Minister of the (In)defens(ible) Ehud Barak  to reverse course and cancel the corpse transfer. And the fact that letting the PA take credit for getting Hamas cadavers back would give it a minor win? Doesn’t matter, because although the PA fights Hamas for Israel (yes, even after the “reconciliation”), Israel doesn’t actually want to strengthen it.

 

Finally, just in case you were concerned that Israel As An Occupying Entity was going soft, fear not: Israel’s government has ordered the “civil administration” in the occupied territories to steal some 45 acres of land belonging to the Palestinian village of Qaryot, in order to “legitimize” the illegal (illegal even according to Israel) oupost of HaYovel, which is part of the settlement if Eli (which is only illegal according to everyone in the world but Israel). Now, lest you get any notions about the “settlement blocks” which Israel is supposed to keep under putative future agreements, Eli is nowhere near there. It is closer to the Jordan river than it is to the Green Line. In short, despite any crap you might hear from Bibi about how he’s willing to make painful sacrifices, the truth is that the theft of Palestinian land will never stop as long as he or anyone like him is in power.

 

And on that grand larceny alert, the pilot will now bring her in for landing. WHU Airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments* (and donations, if you’ve a mind) where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

 

* Please do comment. I write for feedback. Thanks!

 

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Lessons Learned And The Coming Theocracy

Posted by: on: July 3, 2011

Hello and welcome to WHU Airlines, flight 070211, taking off to budding theocracy, a lynch averted, racist violence, and sabotage on the high seas indicating a surprising capacity for lesson-learning. Fasten your seatbelts, put on your life preservers and don’t make any wrong turns; the Weekend Holyland Update is now in session:

We’ll start with the hot-button issue most of you are probably following: The new Gaza flotilla has been foiled, for now, by a combination of diplomacy and sabotage. Greece was persuaded (probably through indirect application of monetary pressure given its dire financial straits) to prevent one of the ships from leaving port. Meanwhile, two of the other ships met with mysterious malfunctions, which Israel is smirkingly denying any involvement in while its deputy PM is (in an equally smirking manner) hinting (Hebrew) that it did have a hand in it.

I gotta say that all things considered, Israel has shown quite a capacity for learning from its errors. Had it handled the previous flotilla in the same manner (I mean the sabotage, as the diplomacy was a no go with Turkey at the time. Now the Turks are eager to tone down the hostility, so it did what Israel wanted and declared that the Irish ship, one of those that met with mysterious mechanical malaise, broke down before ever arriving in port), it would have avoided the massive diplomatic nightmare it endured last spring.

So not that I support sabotage, or Israel’s stupid siege on Gaza (which benefits Hamas more than anyone, and Israel understands this full well), but one has to admit that sabotaging ships in port is a significant improvement over shooting people in the back of the head. And since I can see no reason why Israel couldn’t have sabotaged the ships last year as well, I have no choice but to conclude that Israel WANTED the bloodshed last time around, as a sort of stupid, thuggish show of force. Nice to see that they’re capable of getting it through their thick skulls that this might not have been as desirable as it may have seemed at first.

Also important to note that the diplomatic component of this relative success was achieved not by the Foreign Ministry, headed by racist international pariah Yvette Lieberman, but by the PM himself, Bibinocchio, who has been buddying up with embattled Greek PM George Papandreou for a year now, an effort which has now paid off (although reports from Greece indicate that it was the US that ordered them to prevent the Gaza-bound ships from leaving). In other words, the Baron von Bibhausen has totally neutered the country’s diplomatic corps for the sake of his precious coalition.

Now we just have to hope that the people of Gaza, who are getting seriously fed up with the thuggish ineptitude of Hamas, manage to oust the reactionary scum and leave Israel with no reason whatsoever to continue bullying the 1.5 million residents of the world’s largest open air prison. Once Hamas is out of power, even Israel’s bitch, the US of A, will be hard-pressed to justify denying the right of Gazan fishermen to sail to where there’s actually fish in the sea (i.e. beyond a 2 mile strip).

The other big story this week was the detaining for questioning of Dov Lior, one of the leading rabies (not an error) of the jehovah-nazi faction among the settlers. Lior, a civil servant (he is paid by the state both as the rabbi of Qirayt Arba and as the head of an “arrangement yeshiva”, where students study torah and do a shortened military service ) was wanted for interrogation in connection with his endorsment of the nazi-like booklet “The King’s Torah”, for which he wrote an introduction. This lovely text states that not only is it allowed to kill any gentile who is thought to endanger Jews, even those considered “righteous among the nations” for having saved Jews and even babies if one suspects they might grow up to endanger Jews, but that any Jew may carry out these murders, without waiting for state sanction. In other words, what we have here is religious sanction for the killing of non-Jews (up to and including babies) just because some Jew decided they were a threat.

So the judo-nazis who wrote it, as well as those who expressed support for it, were wanted for questioning on suspicion of incitement to violence. But for months, Lior refused to report for questioning, asserting that the Torah trumps the laws of the state.
Eventually the po-lice got tired of being flouted, and not wanting a Waco-like standoff by coming to arrest him in his settler stronghold, they got him in his car leaving Jerusalem. Lior was detained for questioning for all of one hour, which was enough time for his supporters to swarm on the plaza in front of the Supreme Court and throw a little tantrum.

When he was released, the leaders of the jehovah-jugend huffed that he been held in custody, blood would have been shed. The leader of the judo-nazis in Knesset, “National Union” chairman Yaacov Katz, threatened even after his mullah’s release that “we shall settle the score with those responsible for this crime” – the crime of enforcing a legal summons, you see.

Official response was tepid, with both Bibinocchio and his Justice Minister, Yaacov Ne’eman (who was accosted later in the week upon daring to visit the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron for his ministerial responsibility for the arrest) issuing extremely restrained statements about the rule of law. Bibinocchio has, not very long ago, called Lior and his ilk “the elite commando unit leading the nation and paving the way”. (h/t @jinjirrie). Meanwhile, even so-called “moderate” state rabies were aghast at this intolerable enforcement of law on one of their own. When the judo-nazis take over, remember this moment.

Remember how last week we recalled what happened when an Arab took a wrong turn into a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur? Well, this week it happened the other way around, when a Jew took a wrong turn into the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, and was set on by a mob. The guy may well have died, if not for the village Mukhtar (leader) who pulled him into his own home, where his three sons stood up to guard the poor guy with their lives if need be. This turned out not to be necessary, as the prestige of the Mukhtar was sufficient to hold the mob off until the police and an ambulance arrived. Lynching and mob violence are despicable no matter who does them, despite the people of Issawiya being targeted for ethnic cleansing along with a number of other East Jerusalem neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, where Arabs are being evicted to make way for settlers, tourism parks and whatever isn’t Arab homes. This poor guy has nothing to do with that and didn’t deserve to be beaten for it.

Meanwhile, all over the West Bank, settlers have been stoning Palestinian cars, torching Palestinian fields and orchards, to absolutely no effective response from the powers that be. When a settler woman from the extremist settlement of Yitzhar reported that she had been mugged in the neighboring village of Hawara (which sounds wrong – what was a settler woman doing alone there?), the leadership of Yitzhar called their Hawara counterparts to threaten that unless the alleged unknown perpetrator was handed over, they could not be responsible for the results. We’ll keep you posted on that.

I knew I forgot something or two: The Israeli Knesset has approved for final vote two particularly disgusting laws. The first will criminalize the boycott of the settlements and allow anyone claiming to be hurt by a call for such a boycott to sue the person making the call for about $9,000. Let me be the first to say that I piss on this law and will continue to boycott anything made in a settlement and call on other to do so at the top of my lungs. The settlers can repo my debts.

The second repugnant piece of legislation will require Palestinians whose homes are demolished by the occupation to pay for the demolition themselves. I could point out that this is eerily similar to the nazis requiring the Jews of Germany to pay for Krystalnacht, but then I’d be accused of Godwinizing the discussion, and we can’t have that now, can we.

And another thing I forgot: In Tel Aviv, the porkers (that’s the police for you law-abiding citizens) have begun confiscating bicycles from refugees and foreign laborers who can’t prove they bought them. Of course they wouldn’t dare do this to Jewish Israelis, because it’s not like anyone keeps the receipt for their bike on their person, or in most cases at all…

The BDS campaign is aiming at Israel’s finished diamond industry, the country’s leading export commodity, claiming that it is exploiting a loophole in the Kimberly Process to combat conflict diamonds despite the fact that the diamond industry donates some $1B a year to Israel’s armed forces. Said loophole is that the Kimberly process only refers to raw diamonds and not to cut stones.

Finally, speaking of the diamond industry, In the coastal city of Natanya, once famous for being a diamond industry hub and now famous for all its crime families and underworld shootings and bombings, a Jewish man stabbed a Palestinian whom he thought was looking at his sister. Cause, you know, gotta keep the untermenschen away from our women!

That’ll do it for this week. WHU Airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments* (and donations, if you’ve a mind) where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

 

* Please do comment. I write for feedback. Thanks!

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They MUST Stop Teaching Their Kids To Hate

Posted by: on: June 26, 2011

Welcome, one and all, step aboard upon the magic carpet, taking you on a fascinating journey to the land of the untenable. Today on the menu we have a pot calling a kettle black, pigs being pigs, a Jehovah patient coming home to roost, a superpower doubling down on a losing investment, a deluded liar being stupider than usual, a laughably obvious pinkwashing attempt, a minor environmental disaster that happened and a major one waiting to. Buckle up your seatbelts and for heaven’s sake, put out your cigarettes, for reasons of clear and present danger.

We start today with Yair Netanyahu, the eldest son of our PM, Binyamin Netanyahu, aka “Nutanyahoo” and “The Baron von Bibhausen”. Turns out that Junior (who is currently serving in the IDF spokesman’s international media division, where he enjoys an unusual amount of leave) has a Facebook account, where he unburdens himself of highly nuanced political opinions couched in elegant and erudite prose (yes, that was sarcasm).

All of Nutanyahoo Junior’s deep thoughts (written under the aliases “Jesse Natan” and “Yair Natan”) have been taken down following the discovery of his page, but here’s what we know:

2.5 years ago, an Arab driver in the mixed city of Acco (Acre of Crusader fame to y’all) took a wrong turn and entered a Jewish neighborhood. Sadly for him, this happened on Yom Kippur, the holiest day to Jews and the single day in the year when even secular Israeli Jews don’t drive (it’s known to the kids as “the bicycle holiday”, due to the streets being motor-free). Anyway, the Arab driver was lynched within an inch of his life and some of the city’s Jews rioted for two days, burning Arabs’ cars and shit.

Following this, the apple of our PM’s eye started a facebook group called “Following the Acre Pogrom – I too am boycotting Arab businesses!”. Where to start? With the victim-at-all-costs use of “pogrom” for an incident where all the bodily harm and property damage happened to Arabs by Jews? The notion of boycotting a population of over a million because of something one person did and not even on purpose? Or the fact that he ended his screed with “besides, I was boycotting those shits even before”?

Another noteworthy gem is to be found in an argument with a Muslim woman, in which Nutanyahoo the younger – the grandson of a highly acclaimed historian – trots out the stupid trope that “The Palestinians are Arab settlers in the middle of our country, who immigrated here from Arab countries only 100 years ago!”. Other gems include the inaccurate statement that “all terrorists are Muslims” and the breath-taking lie that “when we accidently kill a child in Gaza the whole country mourns for the enemy’s child!” (I guess Junior doesn’t read much talkbacks on all of Israel’s news sites, where such incidents are routinely justified and celebrated with defiance). Another post reads “staying (at the base) for the weekend because of the cursed Palestinians”.

The one about the Palestinians being recent immigrants needs answering, since it’s a favorite lie of judonazis and their abbettors, popularized by the ignorant and mendacious Joan Peters. Facts: The absolute lowest estimate for the Arab population of Palestine 100 years ago is around 500,000 people. The absolute highest, most generous estimate of the Jewish population here at the same time is 60,000 people. By 1948, there were 1.2 million Arabs and 600,000 Jews here – a 140% increase for Arabs and a 900% percent increase for Jews. I think it’s clear who the immigrants are and who are the ones who have been here continuously for hundreds of years. I do not see this as an argument against my right and that of my people to be here, but the facts are what they are.

Anyway, the reason I am spending time on the ignorant and ineloquent rantings of a teenager is that if the reverse was written by the son of Abu Mazen? This would be front page news and Nutanyahoo Senior would NEVER shut up about how the Palestinians simply MUST stop teaching their children to hate us if there’s ever going to be any peace. Therefore, I think it’s relevant to wonder about the hatred his son sucks with his mother’s milk. So Bibster, take the beam from thine own damn eye and have a nice big cup of STFU.

 

On Friday, the estimated 35,000 refugees* from Africa living in Israel were supposed to have a rare moment of grace with a lively music/arts and crafts festival marking International Refugee Day. However, on Thursday the jack booted thuggery known as the Israel PD reneged on previous agreements and came up with impossible and unlawful “security” requirements that were obviously meant to cancel the event. To remove any doubt, the pigs offered the refugees and their activist allies to hold an “event” at the tiny park known as Lewinski Garden**, but only if it was limited to 1,000 people, with no stage, PA system, speakers or music. Earlier this week, two corporate entities staged a music concert at the same venue (with a stage and PA system) attended by 3,000 people.

Ironically, this year’s Refugee Day marks the 60th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of Refugees, of which the infant State of Israel was one of the main sponsors. Now Israel hounds its refugees, locks them up, sends them back to harm’s way and won’t even let them dance in the sun one day a year. Fuck Tha Po-lice.

* The 35,000 number is those eligible for refugee status according to every relevant agency and international standard. Israel itself, in all its history, has granted refugee asylum status to a grand total of 200 people. “Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt,” anyone?

** no, not named after THAT Lewinsky, you perverts…

 

Anyone who thought that under the Obama administration the US would be any less in the pocket of Israel should check this out. US Ambassador to the UN, the righteous-fronting Susan Rice, spoke somewhere (not sure where, since the video was taken down, wonder why) and said that if the UN recognizes Palestinian statehood at the assembly general (where unlike the security council, the new Rome has no veto power): “this would be exceedingly politically damaging in our domestic context, as you can well imagine. And I cannot frankly think of a greater threat to our ability to maintain financial and political support for the United Nations in congress than such an outcome.” So depsite administrations of both parties professing to support the creation of a Palestinian state, the US would be so offended by the UN doing just that, that it would not be able to continue funding or participating in the organization. Gotcha, Ambassador.

This attitude becomes more understandable when one realizes that the US regards Israel as not merely an ally, but an extension of itself. Did you know that anyone contemplating an attack on your home anywhere in the world, they can use Google Earth to see your house down to the windows and the shape of the cornices? Well of course you knew that, but I meant to say “anywhere but Israel”. The 2007 National Security Authorization Act includes an amendment, known as the Kyl-Bingaman, which explicitly prohibits the collection and distribution of high-resolution images from Israel. When my Palestinian tweet-buddies began passing this tidbit along, I said “what ARE you talking about? I’ve seen my house here in Israel on Google Earth.” But then I realized what the point was and compared the resolutions, and whaddaya know.

2100 years ago, another super-power used its military might to guarantee the interests of a Jewish state. It threatened any would-be invaders not to even think of it, forbade them from trying to evade its customs, and the Hasmonean Kingdom enjoyed the fruits of this deferred check. Eventually, though, Rome collected. Just a lil’ something to ponder. (for more highly relevant historical parallels, or rhymes as Mark Twain would have it, buy my book “Jewcy Story, Volume 1: The unofficial, unorthodox, unabashed story of an unusual tribe” and get 500 years of Jewish history for only $5. And remember – Kindle works on smartphones and PC’s as well!).

 

Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) is trying to pull a fast one. In 2002, the Supreme Court ordered him to register Conservative and Reform converts under “Nationality: Jewish” in their ID cards. Yishai, who as an Orthodox Jew is loathe to do anything that would remotely acknowledge the conversions sanctioned by rival denominations, simply canceled the “nationality” category (but retained a way of distinguishing Jewish citizens from uncircumsized dogs by marking the Jews with a Hebrew date of birth). Now, says Yishai, poor holocaust survivors who for whatever reason need to be re-issued an ID card are complaining bitterly about not being marked as Jews, so he’s putting the category back – but only for those who want it. So the ID card, whose sole supposed purpose is to distinguish citizens from non-citizens, not only continues to distinguish between different classes of citizens, but is now to become an “as you like it” rag.

Yishai, btw, has bigger worries. Legendary former Shas leader Aryeh Deri is making a comeback to politics, and may be eyeing a return to the top spot in his old home. I’m not sure what’s worse for Yishai – to be ousted from the driver’s seat by his old nemesis, or for Deri to form his own party (which unlike Shas promises to be more moderate and peace-oriented) and get more seats than Shas in the next election as a poll published this weekend predicts.

 

Bibi has decided to “get tough” with Hamas over the stalled negotiations for a prisoner swap to bring Gilad Shalit home. Said toughness involves reducing the amenities enjoyed by the thousands of Hamas prisoners in Israel – stuff like being able to complete university degrees by correspondence and such. I can just see Ahmad Jaabari and Muhammad Dif, leaders of the Hamas military wing: “Oh no, brother Mustafa won’t be able to get his B.A.! And they won’t let him play ping-pong! Nothing to be done, gotta let Shalit go….”

The truth is that the leadership of Hamas, particularly the military wing and the political leadership in Damascus, who control the fate of Shalit, don’t really give a rat’s ass about the suffering of their people, or about 1,000 families who could have had their loved ones back many months ago. And for whatever reason (I don’t believe it’s the threat of the German mediator to quit), Nutanyahoo isn’t doing the obvious and publishing the names of those whom Israel has agreed to release, so their (extended) families would know what’s at stake.

Speaking of the scum that is Hamas, it is hilarious to hear them greet Netanyahu’s announcement that he will toughen the incarcerations of their prisoners with screams of “violation of international law!!!”. This from an organization that has been keeping a POW underground without even visits by the Red Cross for 5 years.

 

Israel’s propaganda machine, known as “Hasbara” (a Hebrew word meaning “explaining” that has become a derisive derogatory), has pulled an especially lame one. They released a video, showing a person calling himself “Mark”, who claimed he was not allowed to join the new Gaza flotilla due to being gay. The vid was suspicious from the get-go, since the person who posted it had zero documented online activity prior to doing so. Ali Abu-Nimah and his crew at The Electronic Intifada did some sleuthing (fresh off their success in unmasking the vile Tom MacMaster, aka “Amina, the Gay Girl in Damascus”), found that the vid was posted from an IP at the Israeli PM’s office, and then discovered that “Mark” is actually an Israeli club promoter named Omer Gershon. This is what they call “Pinkwashing”, and much as I am proud that gays aren’t treated as poorly here as they are virtually everywhere else in the Middle East (although things are far from perfect), this is pathetic.

 

A couple of Israelis were arrested and convicted in Poland of stealing “mementos” from Auschwitz. Curiously, not only were they let off with a fine and a suspended sentence, but their names were withheld – not just here in Israel but in the Polish press as well. Gotta wonder if Israel’s Foreign Ministry went to bat for them. If so, that is totally wrong. It should be in Israel’s interest that ANYONE desecrating Auschwitz be punished harshly, Israeli or not.

 

Speaking of the Foreign Ministry – a couple of fascist Knesset members put a bill forward that would tax foreign donations for “left wing” NGO’s at 45%. Of course they didn’t really mean it to pass since you can’t specify that only left wing orgs get taxed and the Judonazi orgs would starve without fundie and Brooklyn Hassidic money. However, they met with an unexpected objection from the Foreign Ministry, which explained that such a law would only further the criticism of Israel’s fading democracy.

 

I almost forgot – read this for a view on some of the least publicized crimes of the occupation, in the Jordan Valley which a shocking 63% of Israelis seem to think is under Israeli sovereignty (it isn’t. It’s as illegally occupied as Nablus).

 

Finally, in another chapter of “Israel and its catastrophic infrastructure”, the world-famous coral reef preserve of Eilat is in danger to a crude oil spill of 1-2 tons. The perpetrators are yet to be identified, much less apprehended. Our EPA claims that cleanup is progressing successfully and that by tomorrow the waters will be clean – which I find suspiciously optimistic, and even so no-one knows what the irreversible damage to the reef will be.

That has already happened. What hasn’t yet is an immense explosion at the Kiryat Atta “gas farm” just north of Haifa, which unlawfully holds many thousands of cooking gas containers above ground, rather than in re-inforced underground pens as required. Next time there’s a war with Hizballah, if those fucks get lucky enough, they’ll hit that and tens of thousands will lose their homes and lives. So it goes in the land of the half-assed “it’ll be ok” mentality.

 

That’ll do it for this week. WHU Airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments* (and donations, if you’ve a mind) where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

 

* Please do comment. I write for feedback. Thanks!

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Tough As Cottage Cheese

Posted by: on: June 20, 2011

Welcome, intrepid travelers, to another excursion of the Weekend Holyland Update airlines. Today’s flight will take us to the realms of faux-popular uprising, low-grade racist pogroms, the upshot of a sad joke, another one, an altar where the people are sacrificed to a bloodthirsty deity,and finally a mass wedding. The menu will consist of bland lumpy cheese with a subversive sperm sauce. Off we go!

The big story of the past few days has been the uproar over the price of cottage cheese. A little half pound cup of cottage cheese has hit 8 ILS (about $2.35, or about twice what y’all pay), and people freaked out, starting Facebook protest groups and all manner of oh-so courageous actions, vowing in the face of mentionable peril to refrain from consuming said curdled lumpy stuff for a month(!!) in protest. I think they crossed the 100K threshold on all the groups combined, and the big shopping chains have already begun to “heed the voice of the people” and lower the prices somewhat. This, of course, is the classic retail ploy: Jack the price, wait for the outrage, score for heeding the voice of the people and lower the price to somewhere between the old price and the original increase, thus still raising the price but fronting like you gave a discount. Even the pols are rushing to join in on the “cottage revolution” and are now “promising” to put basic dairy products back under price control. Gotta heed the people!

What most people missed, of course, is that it’s not about the fucking cottage cheese (or koh-tej as we call it here). In Israel, we make less for equivalent work than anywhere in the developed world, yet pay more for virtually everything. Milk, sugar, salt, meat of any kind… we pay more for a liter of olive oil than they do in Britain. Surely you’ve heard of the vast olive orchards of Albion? The proud olive oil heritage of Wessex? The presses of Cornwall? I mean, no wonder they pay less for the stuff than a country like Israel that…oh, wait.

In the case of the cottage cheese the only difference was that the three dairy giants (Tnuva, Strauss and Tara) got caught up in their own greed and bottom line-worship and made the price-creep a little too damn noticeable. One of the financial rags claimed it was Tnuva that started it. This time, that is. It doesn’t matter who started it, just like it’s not about the cottage cheese. It’s the same with everything. While I’ve accepted, to the immense sorrow of my steak-loving heart, that we pay double to triple than in the states for beef, because cattle really does have production challenges here so that it needs to be imported, in most cases there’s absolutely no good reason for any of this. Israel is a dairy empire. Our cows regularly win prizes for the yield and quality of their milk. Anyone trying to sell me any crap about the size of the market and economy of scale will get smacked. Ain’t no way it should be feasible for Muller to ship yogurts all the way over here and still be price-competitive. None. In related news: In the past year, five people in Israel joined the ranks of billionaires. Over 123,000 joined the ranks of the poor.

But the Goddess-cursed sheeple in this country don’t get it. They don’t get that it’s the occupation and the constant garrison-state mentality that perpetuates the unholy deal in which the major companies provide various clandestine services to the security apparatus (and jobs to any donkey that got tied long enough to the gate of a military base to retire as a colonel or better), and in return get the right to rape the populace and its sovereign resources with a sandpaper prophylactic. This started in Israel’s infancy, when the economy really was weak, and the socialist state needed to cut entrepreneurs all kinds of slack so that the invisible hand wouldn’t wither and die, and so that the populace would get some sort of services and goods. But now? Sheeeet.

This all ties in nicely with something from the previous dispatch. Remember Sami Ofer, the octogenarian billionaire who was shitlisted in the US for doing business with Iran, the Knesset debate on which was abruptly halted after the chairman was handed a mysterious note and who then promptly died (the tycoon, not the chairman) in the midst of the whole affair?

Well, he was being brought to rest at the Trumpledor St. cemetery, where like 90% of Israel’s founding fathers are buried, and where no common folk have been buried in decades. Somehow (gotta love the somehow), the Ofers were able to buy a plot or a few there some 20 years ago. So Sami’s procession is winding down Trumpledor street, near the beach, when suddenly, from one of the balconies, thunder the sounds of Hefner’s “The Day That Thatcher Dies“. Turns out that Alon Uziel, a clwnish “hipster” and semi-obscure music critic for major portal “Walla!”, decided to throw a little fuck-you party. He was even silly enough to write a blog post bragging about it, with footage and all. Most of my friends (myself included) felt this was highly childish and in terribly bad taste (although a surprising number of serious people felt otherwise), but we don’t pay Uziel’s freelancer fees. Walla does – or rather did, since it sent him a terse telegram (love the quaint touch there) terminating his “association” with the site, for the high felony of offending the mighty. This, of course, was enough to tilt most people – even those who found Uziel’s original stunt revolting – back in his favor.

A few days later billionaire Yithak Tshuva (the guy who threw a tantrum when the public demanded he pay a semi-fair tax on the oil he found off our coasts [the government originally gave him the concession to drill for a criminally low share of any profits], then launched a smear campaign accusing those in favor of the tax hike of trying to sell Israel economically to the Arabs) married off his son. This of course is fine. What isn’t fine is that he did this on public land in the Ben Shemen forest, which he occupied for ten days despite being turned down for approval by the authorities. I got married at Ben Shemen forest myself. My guy threw up a little hippie/Bedouin compound among some pine trees, it cost next to nothing and we occupied the land for less than 36 hours from setup to cleanup. We didn’t take over a huge chunk of land and bring in heavy machinery to smooth the ground and so the fuck on. Then came the cottage cheese thing. The wonderful Dror Fuer wrote the following in the financial paper Globes:

“They say we’re just jealous. Sure we are. When one of us faces ruin due to a kid’s root canal or a transmission replacement for his beat up jalopy, while one of them spends $2M on a single evening, while his friend is forgiven a $20M debt just because he deigned to buy a newspaper while selling another company to the Chinese, how shall our heart not fill with dark rage? When a young couple moves in with the folks because they can’t afford the rent or mortgage while the rich man buys another private jet, when I gaze sadly at a cup of cottage cheese at the supermarket as they compete for another discounted, privatized public asset, how shall we not be envious? When they are protected in their tax shelters while we can’t even write off our kids’ kindergartens – how shall we not clench our fists??”

In other words, suddenly many more people understand how normally mellow people can hate the rich fucks enough to shit on their funerals. It won’t stop there, either.

OK, that was long. Snapshots the rest of the way:

The judonazi faction among the settlers went on another of their little pogroms (which they call “price tags” and which are designed to harm the IDF and the government by forcing them to protect Ishmaelites), and torched a mosque near Ramallah. A few days later, the operators of the “Jewish Voice” website were detained for questioning in an operation that involved about 100 cops and stasi agents. Jewish Voice is the mouthpiece of the followers of a rabbi named Yitzhak Ginzburg, who is so hopped up on kabbalah his racism is completely off the charts (he has stated that there are no innocents among the Palestinian enemy, and has supported the “King’s Torah” book, published about 2 years ago, which sanctions the killing of babies if one “reasonably suspects” they might grow up to harm Jews.) This website has also been reporting, with uncanny insider dope, on the “price tag” attacks – kinda like the Hutu radio stations were “just reporting” on massacres of Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. But anyone who thought that the authorities were starting to take the budding krystalnacht kids seriously was soon disabused. The police categorically denied that any of the detainees was even suspected in connection with the arson. They also denied that the arrest had to do with a little scoop the Jewish Voice ran the day before, about a regional IDF commander keeping settler and religious-right soldiers away from certain activities – but this last sounds more likely. The Green Beast and the Stasi always get their panties in a bunch whenever media, especially non-conglomerate media, dares to make them look bad. So expect the price tags to keep on tagging.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak – the guy who dragged Labor to its worst election results ever, then effectively killed it by teaming with Nutanyahoo in the most right-wing and racist government this country has ever seen, then broke up the party and kept his four little midgets while the other Labor idiots finally managed to go cold turkey into opposition – he appears to be negotiating a merger with Likud, where he and two other lucky souls will be given safe spots in the party’s list for the next elections. You could see it coming a mile away, but still.

This is old, and my bad for leaving it on the cutting floor last time when it was fresh, but you gotta check this out. The religious disease in full effect.

For a new bit of “religion fucks with your mind” – remember Yithak Ginzburg? The guy who wants to kill Palestinian babies so they don’t endanger future good Jews? Well, he was troubled, as religious fucks are wont to do, by sins of the flesh, and by the wasting of manly vigor on the equally empty pursuits of pussy and jerking off. But fear not!

“if you fell in your lifetime into too much sex (whether in the form of self-abuse or abuse to others), don’t despair – become totally involved in overthrowing the contemporary, corrupt and anti-Torah political system. That’s the way to repair the damage you’ve done to yourself and others by misusing your sex drive. In Kabbalah we are taught that rectification must come from the very same psychological drive that brought about the damage.

So rectify sex with politics.”

In other words, if you’re a nebbishi yemenite student, hopelessly in love with the Ashkenazia chick with the pretty braid, and have sinned once too often by substituting your hand for her, don’t worry – here’s a gun, and there’s the PM, and….

IDF Chief of Staff Benny Ganz has decreed that the official mourning for fallen soldiers, Yizkor, will now read “May God remember the soldiers” rather than “May Am Israel (the People of Israel) remember”. It’s especially funny since he decreed that it should read “Elokim” and not Elohim. Elokim is what devout Jews say when they are mentioning their skydaddy casually and don’t want to profane the term. So not only is the common grief over fallen soldiers being denied to those who don’t care to involve Jehovah (whether because they’re agnostic, atheist, Druze…whatever) – but it’s not considered solemn enough to say “God” in full. Not Jehovah, mind. Not the explicit, forbidden name. Just the generic “God”.

And finally, on a pseudo-light-hearted note, 153 Israeli couples fell 11 short of a world record when they held a mass wedding in Cyprus. The reason all these Israelis tied the knot on the island is not a shared craving for souflaki and ouzo, but because for whatever reason, either one or both of each couple is not considered Jewish according to the orthodox establishment, and therefore can’t marry in Israel. There is no civil marriage in Israel, and if the medieval fucks from the rabbinate don’t like you or suspect the purity of your Aryan – sorry, I mean Jewish, of course! – blood, you may be in trouble, as this guy found out.

The Palestinian Fatah-Hamas “reconciliation” ceremony was called off for now, and we’ll talk September and UN votes next time. You can look up Tom Friedman’s latest (maybe not-that) silly suggestion on the matter on your own if you need a guffaw.

 

That’ll do it for now. WHU Airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your senses and check your comments (and donations, if you’ve a mind) where appropriate. Thank you for flying the crazy skies.

P.S. I’m the world’s WORST salesman, so I forgot to mention: My book is up on Amazon Kindle! Read “Jewcy Story: Volume 1 (The unofficial, unorthodox, unabashed story of an unusual tribe)” and get 500 years of Jewish history for only $5! What really happened on Hanukah, what did the sages say about Purim, why do Yemenite Jews sing so well, when did the circumcision go full-cut, and many other mysteries explained in this seriously sourced, flippantly written history book for the masses. Plus, you can bring nearer the day when I stop whining about my broke ass and start asking for donations to buy weed like a normal person. Enjoy the book, or buy it for your favorite Kindle-using Yid!

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Democracy, Israel Style

Posted by: on: June 5, 2011

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the re-launch of The Weekend Holyland Update, coming to you live from the tranquil rural colony (“moshava”) of Karkur, Israel. Today we shall visit the realms of hypocrisy, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing – all of the glory that is Israel. Hang on tight, the captain has turned on the “no dogs and Arabs allowed” sign.

The big story this week was the sanctions imposed by the US government on Israel’s largest conglomerate, The Ofer Brothers Group, controlled by the (now suddenly deceased) Sami Ofer and his brother Yuli. The reason for these sanctions was the discovery that the Ofers had sold an oil tanker to Iran, in contravention of US-imposed sanctions on the Islamic regime of that country – sanctions that Israel of course is loudest in demanding, for fear of Iran’s purported nuclear weapons program.

So a big public uproar ensued here in the holy land, and a hearing on the matter was scheduled to be held at the Knesset’s Economy Committee. But 15 minutes into the hearing, chairman Carmel Shama (Likud) was handed a mysterious note, and promptly ended the hearing. This of course launched hours of twitter jokes, but the fact remains that in the so-called “Only Democracy In The Middle-East”[TM] pulled the plug on a hearing at its sovereign parliament because some shadow spook sent the committee chairman a secret note.

Just-recently retired Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who had already come out publicly in favor of the Ofers a day earlier, wrote an op-ed on Israel’s leading Internet portal, YNET, saying that it’s not illegal to trade with Iran (technically false, practically speaking sometimes true, depending on the whims of the authorities) and that Iran isn’t even considered an “enemy country” (false, it’s specifically referred to as such in several laws, including one that bans anyone who visited it from running for Knesset for seven years). Then, to change the subject and get the Ofers off the front pages, he went on to say it would be “stupid” to attack Iran and expressed grave concerns as to the judgment of PM Netanyahu* and Defense Minister Ehud Barak**. In addition, Dagan also said that Israel should have accepted the Saudi (Arab League) peace proposal, but then said that once it became an Arab League proposal it became “verboten”. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, I know.

So the powers that be hit back through anonymous administration sources, who attacked Dagan as a “pompous” figure who is endangering national security in order to pave his way into national politics. While Dagan may be eyeing elected office as his next career (It’s either that or business for these guys after they’re done playing with guns), it seems that the anonymous sources (whom the media were only too happy to quote as such, as if these guys were courageous whistleblowers who faced some consequences from their bosses for speaking out) went a little too overboard. See, they criticized that he has failed, in his 8 year tenure, to stop the Iranian nuclear menace. Since Iran still doesn’t have nukes, I don’t see how this computes. Plus, I guess Stuxnet didn’t happen, and we didn’t whack all those Iranian nuclear scientists after all, and we didn’t whack Imad Mughniyah (only Hizballah’s very hard to replace #2 and chief of ops)… All on Dagan’s watch. I’ve heard of What Have You Done For Me Lately, but this is kinda ludicrous.

The noise didn’t stop there. On Saturday evening, as the remnants of the Israeli left were protesting in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square and citing Dagan’s words, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe “Boogie” Ye’elon (Likud) blasted Dagan, saying that “If as a result of Dagan’s statements the public begins to doubt the judgment of the country’s leaders – that is undoubtedly detrimental to national security”. Ye’elon, who has managed to have an illustrious career and rose to the position of IDF Chief of Staff despite suffering from a severe disorder known as caecomentis***, went on to say that “I think that it is democratically improper to criticize elected officials”. Got that? Only Democracy in the Mid-East, baby! (Update: Now they’re talking about trying him for exposing state secrets. This just gets better).

As mentioned above, the Israeli left held a rally, on the 44th anniversary of the start of the 6-Day War, to call FOR the establishment of a Palestinian state (i.e. for relinquishing the territorial conquest achieved in that war). There was all sorts of fine talk (although not fine enough for some, who were disappointed by the lack of talk of refugees, right of return and BDS). However, all the political entities represented at the rally maybe – maybe – total 30 Knesset seats, or 1/4 of the electorate. And that’s optimistic. The one party that says it supports a 2-state solution and has a chance in hell of forming a government after the next elections, Kadima, was conspicuously absent. I understand that Kadima, which makes its living in the “mainstream Zionist” sector, didn’t want to be seen supporting a rally where people were waving Palestinian flags and shit, but there’s a way around that. Here’s what Tzippi Livni, the utterly ineffectual Chairperson of the Opposition, could have said (based on her world-view, not mine):

“It was not easy for me to attend this rally tonight. While I fully support your right to wave Palestinian flags and all sorts of extremist signs, I must confess that I neither approve nor agree. To me, the Palestinian flag is the emblem of an enemy, and brings to mind senseless slaughter and hatred of Jews for being Jews. However, peace is made with one’s enemies.

Some people may rejoice at the establishment of a Palestinian state, and contemplate the yielding of lands of the utmost historical significance to the Jewish people with joy and even glee. Some people may feel nothing at the prospect of making concessions in the very heart of Jewish national consciousness, in Jerusalem. I am NOT among them. It is only with the heaviest heart, and under the most undeniable necessity, that I am willing to take such measures.

But I did come here tonight, and I came to say that despite this heavy heart, and all misgivings and doubts I may harbor as to the good intentions of our Palestinian neighbors, I do indeed agree that it is in Israel’s own vital interest to make this sacrifice and complete the partition to which we agreed when we asked the world to grant us the irrevocable right to a homeland of our own. Much as I would love nothing better than to maintain Israeli sovereignty over our historical heartlands, and over our eternal capital and its vicinity to the fullest extent, a clear-headed analysis of the needs of our nation at this point in history demand that we set aside those wishes and support the creation of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, for that is the only way to defang the increasing voices doubting our own right to independence and sovereignty.

We can no longer exist as an occupying force over a people not much smaller than our own, even if we regard the lands on which they sit as rightfully ours. Nor can we annex those lands and accord their inhabitants full Israeli citizenship as that enjoyed by our one million Arab citizens west of the Green Line, for that would destroy us in another way. We must make this hard choice, and we must make it proactively and not wait for the world to force it down our throats. The government of Israel must immediately enter into sincere and intensive talks with the Palestinian Authority, aimed at turning this authority into a sovereign nation, with mutually agreed borders and necessary security arrangements. We must do it because WE choose to, from a position of strength and not be dragged kicking and screaming in a manner that will deprive us of all bargaining power. This is why I have come here tonight. For the sake of Israel and no-one else. Thank you.”

(Tzippi honey? That was a free sample. Call me when you realize how useless your current speechwriters are.)

OK, this got really long, so we’ll end with a quick roundup of racism, ethnic cleansing and xenophobia items:

MK Tzippi Hotovely (Likud) proposed a bill that would forbid any official refernce to places in “Jerusalem” (including the occupied east side, 16 acres of which never was part of any Jerusalem in history but was annexed to the municipal borders of Jerusalem after 1967) by their Arab names, and would require all media to use only Hebraized names, even for Arab neighborhoods which no-one calls by their trumped-up Hebrew names. Hotovely, a rabid racist, cited David Ben Gurion as saying “we have no need of things that smell of Arabia”. Which is nice, appealing to venerated authority and all, but Hotovely should remember that Ben Gurion also referred to the parents of her BFF, MK Danny Danon, as “human dust”, and I’m sure he’d have nice things to say about Georgian Jews (such as Hotovely) as well. As my man Eddie Murphy once said: You wanna believe the stereotypes, you better believe ALL them shits…

Interior Minister Eli Yishai, he of the war against the children of migrant workers, is pushing a measure that would allow him to deport children of foreign laborers – EVEN WHEN THE OTHER PARENT IS A (JEWISH) ISRAELI CITIZEN. Paging Eli Yishai: Hitler says he’s proud of you and asks when you’re coming over to do a Sabbath with him. Don’t keep the guy waiting, dude.

The State of Israel apparently wants an Intifada of its Bedouin (IDF serving) citizens. There’s no other explanation for the blatant war it is pursing against them. Early last week there was a news report that contrary to earlier agreements, which would leave most of the “unrecognized” Bedouin villages in the Negev in place, recognize them and connect them to infrastructure, the state now intends to uproot about 40% of the Negev’s Bedouins (about 30 thousand people) and force them to move into a small “pale of settlement” in the failed Bedouin shanty towns created in the 70’s. Then the other shoe dropped, when another report came that one of these unrecognized village, slated to be evacuated because it was physically impossible (or at least practically unfeasible) to hook it up to infrastructure, would indeed be evacuated – only to be replaced, on the very same spot, by a community habitat for Jews – which it is now magically possible to hook up to water and power. And some people still doubt the inherent superiority of Jews. What more proof do you need???

OK, this has all been superseded by time of posting by the typical overkill reaction of the IDF to the Naksa**** Day demonstrations. I hope to post on that tomorrow. I also hope to update this post with links, because the links I have for these items are all in Hebrew and I have no time to look for the corresponding English ones now. I’m hopelessly behind on both sleep and paying work as it is.

Thank you for flying the crazy skies with WHU airlines. The WHU is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours.Please check your comments below, where you will also find a button allowing you to make a contribution and keep your humble debt-ridden correspondent out of complete financial collapse and loss of Internet connection. Thank you kindly in advance.
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* The man who this fine family feature likes to call “The Baron Von Bibhausen”

** Known to my Hebrew readers as “Napoleon Bonakirov”, Akirov being the name of the nouveau-riche high rise where Barak, as leader of the Israeli Labor Party, lived in an $11M condo)

*** Shit for brains (Latin)

**** Like Nakba, which denotes the catastrophe suffered by the Palestinians in 1948, Naksa denotes the defeat of 1967.

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