Jewish Indy

How to Write About Israel

By Daniel Greenfield
The Sultan Knish Blog
May 16, 2012

Writing about Israel is a booming field. No news agency, be it ever so humble, can avoid embedding a few correspondents and a dog's tail of stringers into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, to sit in cafes clicking away on their laptops, meeting up with leftist NGO's and the oppressed Muslim of the week.

At a time when international desks are being cut to the bone, this is the one bone that the newshounds won't give up. Wars can be covered from thousands of miles away, genocide can go to the back page, but, when a rock flies in the West Bank, there had better be a correspondent with a fake continental accent and a khaki shirt to cover it.

Writing about Israel isn't hard. Anyone who has consumed a steady diet of media over the years already knows all the bullet points. The trick is arranging them artistically, like so many wilted flowers, in the story of this week's outrage.

World Opinion � A Surmountable Obstacle

By Yoram Ettinger
Israel Hayom
May 16, 2012

World opinion should not deter Israel from enhancing Jewish roots and national security, expanding the Jewish presence in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights and pre-empting Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorism.

Adverse world opinion and Global pressure have always been an integral part of the Jewish People and the Jewish State. The aim of this global campaign has been to eliminate the unique national, religious, cultural and territorial features of the Jewish People, including Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel.

The bolstering of Jewish sovereignty, while deflecting world opinion, generates negative world opinion (except in the USA and a few other countries), but enhances respect towards a conviction-driven Jewish State. On the other hand, retreating Jewish sovereignty, while submitting to world opinion reflects weakness, never satisfy world opinion, and therefore fuels global pressure, eroding respect towards the Jewish State.

Thus, world opinion towards the Jewish State was not upgraded by Israel's 1957 and 1982 mega-retreats from the Sinai Peninsula (almost three times as large as Israel!), the transfer of 100% of Gaza and 45% of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinian Authority, and the 1993 Israeli importation of PLO terrorists to the door steps of their intended victims.

Bulldozers Roll in Oz Zion, Ramat Migron

The IDF Civil Administration demonlished two structures in the nascent communities of Oz Zion and Ramat Migron; six arrested in clashes

By Gabe Kahn
Arutz Sheva
Iyar 25, 5772, 17/05/12 01:22

The IDF Civil Administration demolished two structures in the Oz Zion and Ramat Migron communities in Samaria.

"One building was evacuated in Oz Zion and as a result there were disturbances, six people were arrested for disorderly conduct and entering a closed military zone," Micky Rosenfeld said.

"In Ramat Migron one empty building was evacuated and everything was taken out. There were no incidents there," added Rosenfeld.

Both nascent communities are near the Samaria city of Ramallah. Residents and Civil Administration officials have been in a cycle of unauthorized construction and demolition since their inception.

Arabs Target Samaria in Evening of Attacks

PA Arabs launch several attacks against Israeli targets in Samaria, including hurling of firebombs and trying to smuggle weapons.

By Elad Benari
Arutz Sheva
Iyar 25, 5772, 17/05/12 12:04

Palestinian Authority Arabs launched several attacks against Israeli targets in Samaria on Wednesday evening, according to a report in the Tazpit agency.

In one incident, terrorists hurled at least 10 firebombs at a road near the Arab village of Az-Zawiya, southeast of Kalkilye. No injuries or damage were reported.

Earlier on Wednesday, security forces arrested two Arabs who were armed with knives at the Yitzhar junction. IDF forces also captured an Arab with a gun near the community of Ofra. The gun was confiscated and the Arab was arrested.

In addition, PA Arabs hurled rocks at Israeli vehicles traveling on Route 55 near Azzun. Two vehicles sustained damage. IDF soldiers searched the area and discovered a pipe bomb. As the soldiers were conducting the search, Arabs fired flares at them, causing some thorns to catch fire. Firefighters were called to the scene.

Givat HaUlpana Ruling Pure Politics, Pundit Shows

Kalman Libeskind: when homes were built on a Jewish owners' land, the court did not order them razed.

By Gil Ronen
Arutz Sheva
Iyar 24, 5772, 16/05/12 07:41

Kalman Libeskind, a popular columnist in the daily Maariv, offered proof in his blog Wednesday that the High Court's insistence that homes in Givat HaUlpana be razed is purely political.

Libeskind pointed to a similar case that involved a dispute over homes built without permission on privately owned land. Unlike Givat HaUlpana, the owner in this case was a Jew: property entrepreneur Moshe Zar.

In 1982, Zar legally purchased 92 dunams of land in Samaria, near the village of Sarta. Sometime during the 1990s, the state gave permission to the adjoining community of Barkan to build a neighborhood on the land, without Zar's knowledge. In April of 1999, several months after the development of the neighborhood began, Zar's lawyer wrote to the IDF's Civil Administration and informed them of the situation. According to Libeskind, the state was slow to reply and the matter dragged on for years.

Happy Nakba Day!

Original suggestions for greeting cards for nakba sympathizers, followed by the real origin of the word "nakba". Get set for a surprise.

From Prof. Steven Plaut
Arutz Sheva
Iyar 23, 5772, 15/05/12 11:10

Today is “Nakba Day,” the day in which the organization of Jews for a Second Holocaust join their Islamofascist friends in mourning Israel’s creation and existence.

Being a fella with a good sense of commercial potential, I wanted to suggest that we all print up Nakba Day greeting cards and send them to tenured traitors and other aficionados of the Palestinian “right of return.”

Here are some card slogans I have thought up Halmark are you listening?:

-One, two, three, MANY Nakbas!
-Nakba-ize unto Victory!
-A little Nakba never hurt anyone!
-My professor went to Nakba Day and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
-Remove the illegal Palestinian settlements sitting on Jewish land!
-Two-state solution: One for the Jews and One for the Kurds, but none for the Arabs who live down the Lane
-Bulldoze an anarcho-fascist today!
-Help the Palestinian prisoners maintain their hunger strike!
-End the Illegal Syrian Occupation of the Gilad
-Don’t wall them out Fence them In!
-When this drone is a rockin’, we’ll come a-knockin’!!
-We switched your 72 virgins with a 72 year -old virgin!

And in a more serious vein, my article: How 'Nakba' Proves There's No Palestinian Nation

Obama worth as much as $10 million

By Richard Wolf
USA Today
May 15, 2012

Three things are apparent from President Obama's annual financial disclosure statement, released today:

He is a wealthy man, with assets of as much as $10 million.

He has a hefty stake in JPMorgan Chase, the megabank that just made a bad $2 billion bet. Obama has an account worth between $500,000 and $1 million.

Despite the nation's $15.6 trillion debt, he is a believer in government paper. More than half of his assets are in Treasury bills and notes.

The disclosure statement lists assets and liabilities in dollar ranges, so pinpointing the president's net worth is difficult. His assets appear to tally between $2.6 million and $9.9 million. He holds a mortgage on his Chicago home of $500,000 to $1 million.

Rock-Solid Proof Barack Obama is Unpatriotic!

By Jeff Dunetz
Yid With A Lid
May 16, 2012

The liberals will attack this post, they will put it in the same category as those who say Obama wasn't born in America. I don't really care what they say because I have a testimonial from a leading public figure proving that Barack Obama is unpatriotic--that public figure's name is Barack Obama.

This is what he said on July 3, 2008

The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents - #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic.

Obama says adding $4 trillion to debt is unpatriotic. (Video 0:39)

Now if $4 trillion over eight years is unpatriotic (actually $4.889 trillion after Obama added to it with the stimulus plan), what do you call $5.1 trillion over three years and five months?

U.S. has 55 daily encounters with ''suspected terrorists''

By Mark Hosenball
Yahoo News
May 15, 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement and homeland security personnel face an average of 55 daily encounters with "known or suspected terrorists" named on government watchlists, officials told Reuters.

The figure - which equals more than 20,000 contacts per year - underscores the growing sweep of the watchlists, which have expanded significantly since a failed Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt of a U.S. airliner. But officials note that very few of those daily contacts lead to arrests.

Civil liberties groups question the use of watchlists, and they have been ridiculed for ensnaring innocent citizens.

U.S. officials said the encounters, which involve airport and border security personnel as well as federal and local law enforcement officers, are reported to the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), an interagency unit led by an FBI official based in a tightly guarded building in northern Virginia.

At its headquarters, the TSC operates a 24-hour command center, resembling something from a Hollywood thriller, complete with giant wall-screen projections and signs flashing "SECRET."

Officials said that when a law enforcement or homeland security officer in the field stops a person whose name matches a name in the TSC's databases, the officer is supposed to phone the TSC command center for instructions. Based on information in the databases, the TSC then will advise the officer in the field how to proceed, which could range from releasing the suspect to calling in federal officers as backup.

US Leads Major War Drill in Jordan � Israel Not Invited

Nineteen nations are conducting the 'largest military exercises in the Middle East in 10 years' in Jordan

By Gabe Kahn
Arutz Sheva
Iyar 24, 5772, 16/05/12 02:15

The United States is leading what it described as the "largest military exercises in the Middle East in 10 years" in Jordan on Tuesday.

Eager Lion 2012 “is the largest exercise held in the region in the past ten years,” Major General Ken Tovo, head of the US Special Operations Forces, told reporters in Amman.

“Yesterday we began to apply the skills that we have developed over the last weeks in an irregular warfare scenario … They will last for approximately the coming two weeks,” he added.

“The message that I want to send through this exercise is that we have developed the right partners throughout the region and across the world … insuring that we have the ability to … meet challenges that are coming to our nations,” Tovo said.