Peace Pipe

Yesterday ‘Peace Now’ Professor Zev Sternhell was lightly wounded by a pipe bomb which exploded at the entrance of his Jerusalem home.

Whilst not condoning this criminal act, it has exposed the true scale of double-standards being operated by the Leftist establishment in Israel today.

Just listen to these prima-donnas screaming foul about 'existential threats' and the need to put the 'miscreants' away for many years.

Consider some of the reactions printed in today’s papers:

Police and Shin Bet announced the establishment of a special task force to investigate the attack.

A 'task force' no less ...for a petty pipe bomb. How about a task force in East Jerusalem to respond to the butchery of our Yeshiva students in Mercaz Harav, for which not a shred of retribution or justice has been seen.

“This is the beginning of the way to the crumbling of democracy," says Sternhel. “We need to mobilize in its defense with determination and decisiveness,”

And what about the 9 year old boy who was stabbed by Arabs in Yitzhar last week. The only mobilization was by the Israeli army against Yitzhar residents whom they tried to disarm and thus rob them of the means to defend themselves. By failing to condemn Arab attacks on Jews outside the Green Line, Sternhell bears a fair share of responsibility for such incidents.

Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz called the attack against Sternhell "a cowardly terror activity carried out by miscreants. I call on the police and Shin Bet to make every effort to quickly find those behind the incident and to ensure they are imprisoned for many years."

More years than Barghouti and the other murderers Pines-Paz and his ilk are so keen to set free?

MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) also commented on the attack against the professor, saying that "the attempt to hurt Professor Sternhell is the result of the authorities' lenient attitude and helplessness in face of the radical Right, which enjoys a Knesset lobby."

What about the lenient attitude and helplessness of the government to Arabs in the face of their daily rocket attacks on Sderot?

MK Menahem Ben-Sasson, chair of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, said that "the combination of nationalism and religious fundamentalism promotes bloodshed and is destructive for the State, and not only for outstanding persons such as Professor Sternhell. The attack threatens the entire Israeli society."

Well, perhaps we need to recall what the ‘outstanding professor’ said about Religious Zionists in 1988: "In the end we will have to use force against the settlers in Ofra or Elon Moreh. Only he who is willing to storm Ofra with tanks will be able to block the fascist danger threatening to drown Israeli democracy. There is no doubt about the legitimacy of [Palestinian] armed resistance in the territories themselves."

The left-wing Yesh Gvul movement charged that right-wing activists who "use brutal violence against Jews and Arabs, members of the security forces and political rivals, as well as those who send them, know nothing will happen to them. The police and the army, past and present governments and the courts have always been very lenient toward them."

Lenient? Everyone knows that the only people getting away with murder are the Arabs. Whilst Yesha farmers who’ve done nothing more than defend their farms against terrorist attacks are thrown into administrative detention without trial, and teenage girls are imprisoned for simply joining a peaceful protest march. If the mounted police pogrom in Amona represents leniency toward religious Zionists, Israel might usefully export that kind of leniency to Gaza and get Gilad Shalit freed.

This egregious double standard beggars belief ... no-one condones such criminal activity, but it is bound to repeat itself if the establishment keeps dehumanizing and discriminating so openly and harshly against Jews who cleave to their legitimate homeland.

In truth, the biggest threat to the State of Israel is Peace Now and the likes of Sternhell, who fail to understand that the future of the Jewish State can only be secured by defending every inch of our homeland instead of surrendering it by the mile to those eternally sworn to the destruction of our people.

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Enfranchising the Jihad

For all the appeasement, concessions, giveaways and surrenders we have seen under Olmert’s weak and corrupt premiership, September 17^th 2008 will probably be the date Jewish historians will mark as the most significant.

This is the day a prime minister of Israel was elected by the Arabs. In particular by a terrorist organisation Fatah - which worked so hard to boost the Livni vote in the final stages.

• Give them ID cards and they will drive bombers into our town centers.

• Give them jobs in yeshivas and they will return at night to butcher our students.

• Give them jobs on a building site and they will run tractors over our women and children.

• Give them prisoners and they will give us dead bodies.

And unless there is legislation to demand a 2/3^rd’s Knesset majority for any territorial concessions, you may soon see half of Jerusalem gifted to the Jihad on the casting vote of a single Arab MK.

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Livni's Betrayal

Most parents would be immensly proud of a daughter who rose to become leader of the country's ruling party and likely prime minister.

Chances are that Tzipi Livni's parents will not be popping whatever goes for champagne corks in heaven tonight over her victory in the Kadima primary.

Eitan and Sara were valiant fighters of the Irgun resistance, without whose efforts the British might still be in control of Palestine and the Jewish State would still be a dream. They must have glowed when Israeli troops captured Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in 1967.

And they must have glowered to see their own daughter offering it all back to the unrepentant offspring of the Arab thugs they fought in 1948. They would have balked to see her supporting a Palestinian State in the Land of Israel. And will have been sickened by the way Tzipi has so casually abandoned the Zionist and Betari principles for which they, her parents, would have given up their lives rather than betray in their own lifetimes.

How sad that a child of these brave Irgun fighters may wind up actually giving away more of the Land of Israel than Yossi Beilin even dared talk about.

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No Vote and Foe Vote

One of the very few reporters (rather than distorters) of Israeli news, Makor Rishon, reports that a survey of Palestinians shows they would be happier to have Livni take over from Ehud Olmert.

That really does speak volumes.

It also prompts us to ask the question: 'Who would the Palestinians vote for in the US presidential election? Who would Bin Laden vote for? Who indeed would Assad and Ahmadinejad vote for? Or even Putin?'

Well it sure won't be McCain.

It's really not about black or white, Muslim or Christian, pro-life or pro-choice.
The only question every voter needs to ask in that polling booth is:
"Who would my biggest enemy vote for if they had the chance?".

He Didn't Inhale

Childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. “We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque." [LA Times: March 15, 2007]



In England .. "I experimented with marijuana a time or two and I didn't like it and didn't inhale ….." [Bill Clinton, Primary Debate: March 29, 1992]

Putin's Unholy Land Grab

Red Square in Jerusalem

Last month, it took two tank divisions and a diversion of Olympian proportions for Vladimir Putin to subdue Georgia’s fledgling democracy and seize two of its territorial regions. This month we may see Russia’s new emperor claiming a prime slice of downtown Jerusalem for the KGB without even firing a shot.

I am referring to a shady transfer to Putin of what is known as the ‘Russian Compound’; a 17-acre site between Jaffa and Haneviim roads, close to the Old City walls. According to a Foreign Ministry letter which has come into my possession, the deal was agreed between the two governments on December 12th 2007. However, the transaction could not be completed until the land was transferred from Israel’s Custodian General to the government itself. According to the same Ministry letter, this final clearance was ratified by a Jerusalem court just days ago, on August 27th 2008. Like so many other concessions on outposts and the security fence, this seems to be yet another surrender concocted between the executive and the judiciary, without any parliamentary involvement or Knesset oversight.

Given Russia’s close ties with Iran and Syria, the prospect of its establishing an enclave in the heart of the Jewish capital is daunting indeed. It conjures up images of Arab terrorists fleeing into the compound and our security services not being able to pursue them without precipitating an international crisis. In many respects it would be tantamount to inviting a Russian spy ship to permanently dock right in the middle of an Israeli naval base.

The Russian Compound isn’t just a superlative real estate deal. Its commanding position made it the perfect staging ground for numerous conquests of Jerusalem from the Assyrians to Titus’s Roman legions. In 1890, half of the site was redeveloped by the Grand Duke, Sergei Alexandrovich, as a palatial guest house for visiting Russian aristocrats.

In 1964 Israel purchased the compound - excluding only some church buildings - from the Russian Orthodox Patriarch for $3.5 million. For lack of hard currency, the price was paid in an equal value of citrus exports. Since the date of this so-called ‘Orange Deal’ the site has been used to accommodate various government offices and the ‘Sergei Building’ is home to the Society for the Protection of Nature.

During his state visit to Israel in 2005, Vladimir Putin paid a private visit to the compound and the magnificent Sergei Building is said to have ‘captured his heart’. He declared his intention to get it back for Russia. Much has changed in the three years since that backslapping state visit. Whilst Putin has not stopped pushing the legal process for the ‘return’ of the site, he has said lots of kind words about his concern for Israel, which he insists is a good friend of the Russian people. Sadly his actions over these past three years have exposed him as an enemy of Israel and, more recently, a threat to the free world.

Not content with supplying Iran’s Ahmadinejad with all he needs to ‘wipe Israel off the map’, Putin is supplying him with advanced Iskander missiles, to make it even more difficult for the Jewish state to neutralise this existential nuclear threat. Closer to hand, Putin has been arming the Syrian dictator with advanced missiles and looks to be creating a base for his nuclear warships in Syrian ports not far north of Haifa.

This doesn’t seem to bother Ehud Olmert who has the same strategy for all our enemies: giving away parts of Eretz Yisrael without asking for anything in return. This is the prime minister who boldly told fraud investigators that American whistleblower Morris Talansky gave him all that cash without expecting anything in return. The police were incredulous. But to anyone who has seen Olmert handing our enemies land, prisoners, rifles, bullets and jeeps for nothing in return – why should this come as a surprise? It’s his tried and trusted business model.

Even as she campaigns for the Kadima leadership, Tzipi Livni as Foreign Minister is directing the final moves in this latest in a long line of betrayals of the Jewish nation. To keep Shas in the coalition she continues to deny what every Israeli knows for a fact: that half of Jerusalem has already been ceded to Abbas; a man Ariel Sharon once dubbed as ‘a chicken without feathers’. In Turkey, Olmert’s lawyers have put all of the Golan Heights on the table in hopes of a handshake and photo-op with the Syrian dictator. And then there is the backdrop discussion of 1967 borders and returning refugees, both of which topics seem lately to have changed from red lines to amber lights.

Moreover, Putin’s interest in our promised land is not just limited to Jerusalem. Russian government websites and news agencies have previously reported that Abbas has transferred three sites in Jericho to the Russian Government and further sites in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. Insiders tell me to expect the next move to be in Hebron where other sites are on Russia’s shopping list. Taking his lead from Livni, the PA chairman also gives away land that is not his to give.

Likud MK Yuli Edelstein has told this writer that the Jerusalem giveaway was first mentioned to him casually by a lawyer working in the Knesset. “It was so absurd that I really didn’t take it seriously. So I submitted a sha-ilta (member’s question) and was astonished to receive confirmation of the intended transfer.” The ministry said nothing about what (if anything) was expected from the Russian government in return for the property.

Edlestein, a Ukrainian-born former refusenik, is pressing the Defense and Foreign Relations Committee for a Knesset debate on the subject. He worries about creating precedents: “Next thing we will have the Greeks reclaiming the land on which the Knesset itself and the president’s residence are standing. Where will it all end?”

In justifying the government’s actions, Livni’s ministry argues that the Compound was never Israeli property in the first place and that the Custodian General was, at all times, holding the property in trust for its original Russian owners. But this seems to ignore two important facts. First the $3.5 million paid out by Israel in the sixties, whether in cash or oranges. Second, that the ‘original Russian owners’ are neither Putin nor the Russian government. The prevailing Ottoman law prevented such property being owned by a foreign state. As Sergei Alexandrovich commissioned the project with private funds, the only relevant beneficiary of the Custodian’s trust has to be the Duke’s family.

Grand Duke Sergei was assassinated in 1905 and left no children. It happens that one of the last surviving heirs of his Romanov dynasty is the Queen of England’s husband, Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. For my part, and as a British subject, I have sent His Royal Highness a personal letter asking him to register a family claim which, I feel confident, can halt this unworthy transaction in its tracks.

I appeal to all readers in Israel and the Diaspora to use whatever communal or political influence they can to expose this story and bring pressure on the government in Jerusalem to tear up this agreement, or – at the very least – to press them to submit the proposals to a full vote in the Knesset. Our nation is small enough for individuals to make a real difference.
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Plus ca Change ....

Anyone remember Eric Hoffer?


He was a longshoreman who turned into a philosopher, wrote columns for newspapers and some books. He was a non-Jewish American social philosopher. He was born in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic.

Here is one of his columns from 1968.

This article was written 40 years ago … some things never change.

ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION by Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman.


Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one.


Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967], he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.


No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia. But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.

The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us all.

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