What to say, what to say Part II

Picking up where we left off the other day on how to handle the accusations from the fools who call themselves "peace-activists" - but first, another unbelievable photograph from one of these rallies...this one in Manhattan, New York...



As ridiculous as the whole thing is...while a sign proclaiming death to all Jews doesn't seem all that liberal to me to begin with...what's most insulting is that this idiot...this absolute IDIOT had the nerve to write in pen "Zionist" in between "TO ALL" and "JUICE" - as if his stupid afterthought somehow justifies his obvious Nazi-esque hatred. Oh but don't worry, it's not ALL Jews he hates, just the half that live in Israel and the 2/3's of the rest who support them. Or maybe he was at the wrong rally and he just hates watered down grapefruit juice...who the hell knows.

You just can't make this stuff up folks...

So what do you say to these clowns when they accuse Israel of "disproportionate force," "collective punishment," "apartheid" or "ethnic cleansing" ?

Here's a handy guide on how to shut these people up.

Disproportionate Force:

This is always the first thing our supposed peace-loving friends (that's right Nicky Sarkozy, I'm talking to you!) throw around when Israel does anything other than turning the other cheek.

If the Palestinians throw rocks, how can Israel respond with guns? If the Palestinian shoot bullets, how can Israel respond with artillery? If the Palestinians shoot little tin-can rockets how can Israel respond with thousands of tons of bombs?

On the surface it seems like a legitimate question. If the Palestinians pose no existential threat to Israel, why respond with such overwhelming force? Israel has access to tremendous military might. The Palestinians do not. It seems like a classic David VS Goliath scenario. However, it is, like all of these accusations - nonsense.

The first thing you need to know is that the idea that this is a conflict between big bad Israel (population: approximately 7 million) and little tiny Gaza (population: approximately 1.5 million) is a ridiculous notion to begin with. Hamas is sponsored by Iran, and the Palestinian leadership has been the beneficiaries of hundreds of millions of dollars of support from countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Dubai, Qatar and the rest of the Arab world. Since we now know what that money is used for...



Source: Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2008

We can then extrapolate that it's not just Israel VS the poor, abused Gazans...it's the entire big, bad Middle East VS little, tiny Israel.

But let's even pretend that we were willing to concede the point that Israel has an organized, well-funded, well-trained Goliath military and the Palestinians are just a disorganized rabble of barbarians. Imagine the following analogy:

You are pulled into a fight with someone half your size who was armed only with toothpicks while you have a baseball bat already in your hands. Now at first, this fight starts with your opponent pricking you in the arms with the toothpick. You maintain your composure because hey after all, it's just a toothpick! Yeah sure it hurts, but it's not worth beating someone up over. Then your opponent starts poking you in the face. Again. And again. And he starts screaming about how much stronger he is than you. How he's going to kill you and your family. But you still maintain your composure because hey, it's just words and it's just toothpicks. Then he starts trying to stab you in the eye with his toothpicks, but you keep swatting his hands away because he can barely reach you. Still you do not retaliate because it's not worth beating someone up for this, no matter how annoying it may be. Finally, your opponent realizes he will not be able to defeat you in this way he tells you he wants to stop and be friends, he even shakes your hand.

As soon as you turn your back to him he rushes over with his toothpicks and stabs your wife or husband in the eye. You turn around just in time to see him do the same to your daughter or son.

What do you do? Are you going to toss him a baseball bat to make sure he has a "fair" chance...or are you going to do everything in your power to put a stop to it immediately? Would anyone fault you for reacting in the most efficient way you can think of to put an end to this threat once and for all? Probably not...unless you're wearing a yarmulke. Use that analogy next time some French guy tells you that Israel's response is "disproportionate."

Collective Punishment:

How can Israel lay a "siege" to Gaza that hurts innocent civilians in addition to the terrorists? (Or militants. Or peace-activists. Or same thing.) Why do the innocent women and children who have no access to food and supplies as result of this "blockade" of Gaza deserve to suffer for the actions of their governing body?

First of all, let's not forget why Gaza is ruled by Hamas today. In the first "democratic" election in the Palestinian territories (certified by no less an authority on democracy than EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Javier Solana himself!) the wonderful, peace-loving Palestinians elected Hamas, an organization sworn to destroy the state of Israel, by a landslide. NOTE: the Hamas charter does not say anything about freedom and liberation, nor does it say anything about settling on pre-1967 borders...it says DESTROY ALL OF ISRAEL. It says NO SOLUTION FOR THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION BUT JIHAD. It says INITIATIVES AND PROPOSALS ARE A WASTE OF TIME. But more on the Hamas charter later in the "apartheid" chapter. For now just remember that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians voted for these guys and the sitting government, the "more moderate" Fatah party willingly stepped aside, saying that Hamas was the "will of the people."

Every single Gazan that willingly voted for Hamas bears some responsibility for this nightmare. They all have blood on their hands...every single one of them.

Next, did you ever wonder who powers Hamas offices, Hamas terrorist training camps and the homes of Hamas leaders? Did you ever wonder who gives Hamas the very fuel they use to transport their weapons, rockets and fighters? Did you ever wonder who provides water to the toilets that these jerks sit on after firing off a few rockets into an Israeli bus stop? That's right, the JEWS!

Think about that for a minute. You're at war with another country...a country whose democratically elected, internationally-recognized government has vowed to destroy you...whose government that along with controlling the electricity, water and fuel supplies you give them is engaged in active attempts to kill your women and children...whose government is TAKING THE ITEMS YOU ARE GIVING THEM AND USING THEM TO TRY AND KILL YOU. Pretend for a minute that it was you. Not some Jews you don't really know or care about, who live 6,000 miles away from you. It's you. You are physically handing someone gasoline that he then pumps into his car and tries to run you over with. You personally. Not some people you've never met and will never meet. YOU. Does that make sense? Would any sane individual even consider doing something like that? And yet that's exactly what Israel has done for the past three years! Enough already!

And you know what, apparently Hamas didn't get the message when Israel used these NON-VIOLENT methods...so guess what? It's war time.

Apartheid:

How can Israel be so unfair and racist to the Palestinians by restricting their movements in the West Bank with checkpoints and keeping them from entering Israel-proper for work? How can they strangle the Palestinian "economy" with their military occupation? Of course the Palestinians are upset, who wouldn't be?

Most important to remember about this nonsense is that there is NO LAW that states who can and cannot be an Israeli citizen. Not only are Arabs eligible for Israeli citizenship, several members of the Israeli Parliament are Arabs! Note in that video the language used by the Arab members of the Parliament - they flat-out call the Israeli actions a war crime and aside from some shouting, what's the penalty? Trial for treason? Execution? Jail? NOTHING. Because Israel is a DEMOCRACY. It's a DEMOCRACY where even a non-Jewish Arab who is anti-Israel can be elected to public office! I'm not so big on the concept of apartheid but somehow I don't think that would fly in South Africa. Or Iran. Google how many Jews are in the Palestinian government today. Or Iran. Or any other Muslim-ruled country. I'll give you a hint, it's less than one.

As for the Palestinians who live under "occupation" in the West Bank...where were all these protesters and sympathizers before 1967 when the Jordanians ruled the West Bank and the Egyptians ruled Gaza and barred Jews and Christians from visiting their holy sites in Jerusalem? Why don't they speak out about the awful things that are broadcast over Palestinian government-run television?

And to bring up the earlier analogy about supplying your enemy with the fuel to kill you - if you are at war with the ruling body of a separate territory, and that ruling body regularly sends suicide bombers into your country to kill thousands of your citizens over the course of 60 years...why would you allow them to continue? If you could seal that territory up and prevent these people from breaching the border, wouldn't you do that? Not only does this protect your own citizens, it keeps you from having to go after these people in their own territory where they hide behind innocent civilians and use them as human shields. So not only are you saving your own civilians, you're protecting theirs. But sure, it's totally racist.

Finally, let's go back to that Hamas charter I brought up earlier. Here are a few selected quotes from that document:

Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps.

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.

Arab and Islamic Peoples should augment by further steps on their part; Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews.

I think it pretty much speaks for itself...but just in case you need to point this out to a "peace-activist" who SUPPORTS Hamas, make sure when they complain to you about checkpoints and discrimination you ask them what Hamas has to say about the Jews.

Ethnic Cleansing:

Why does Israel kill so many Palestinian civilians? They must be trying to get them all to leave the West Bank and Gaza...or worse, kill them all just so more of those greedy, land-stealing Jews can move in.

This is probably the most ridiculous accusation of all. On the one hand, we're meant to believe that Israel has this unstoppable, juggernaut military that can lay waste to the pathetic Palestinian rock-throwing brigades in 10 seconds flat...but on the other hand it's not even capable of putting an end to this conflict for over 60 years. Despite trying everything possible to do so?

Huh?!?!?!

Well, there is one accurate part of that - the Israeli military could put an end to this conflict very swiftly and very painfully. You only need to turn on the news see the might of the Israeli Air Force. Israel rules the skies over Gaza and they ruled the skies over Lebanon in the 2006 war. They essentially destroyed the entire Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian air forces in the 1967 war before they managed to even get a single plane off the ground. And yet, they continue to show restraint, continue to put soldiers in harm's way by using ground forces in an attempt to minimize civilian casualties. Whether you believe the reasons for this are because of Israel's higher moral code (I do) or just because of some fear of international retaliation is irrelevant - the bottom line is that Israel has the power to ethnically cleanse most of the Middle East and doesn't do it. It's just NOT happening.

Furthermore, Israel has a much bigger problem than some Palestinians in Gaza. If current trends continue, Israeli Arabs - who again, are full Israeli citizens - may outnumber Israeli Jews by the year 2020...that's 11 years from Thursday. Might be time to speed the process up a little there, huh guys?

So why all the dead Palestinian civilians?

I heard a quote from Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday that I think summed it up almost perfectly:

Responding to accusations that Israel was committing war crimes, coming mainly from the Arab world, but also from Israel's ally Turkey, Netanyahu said Hamas "commits a double war crime: Attacking [Israeli] civilians and hiding behind [Palestinian] civilians."

Take a look at this video, direct from the Israeli Air Force:



Pay close attention to the footage. Note the buildings surrounding what appears at first to be a nondescript patch of land. If you're like me, you put your face up to the monitor and wondered which building was going to be targeted when suddenly there's an explosion and a small missile goes spiraling out of this empty space off into a field somewhere.

More video from the IDF

Because you see, Netanyahu is right. Hamas digs holes in the ground surrounded by residential buildings and fires missiles at innocent women and children. And that's when they're not firing from on top of apartment buildings. They do this, because they know that Israel will think not twice, not three times, but possibly SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS before retaliating. They cheat. They DELIBERATELY put Jews and Arabs in harms way. Israel tip-toes around and jumps through hoops to do all it can to both defend its citizens while minimizing civilian casualties on the other side.

Civilians by the way, who voted overwhelmingly for a party that swears not to rest until Israel is destroyed.

Now compare this to the other side.

The Palestinians DO engage in the following:

- Unprovoked suicide bombings against innocent men, women and children on buses, in cafes, pizza parlors, restaurants, hotels, etc, in heavily populated urban areas that are DELIBERATELY designed to kill as many civilians as possible (disproportionate force, collective punishment)

- Unprovoked rocket attacks fired from inaccurate launchers with no guidance systems that rain down on kindergartens, bus stops and playgrounds in an attempt to cause as much chaos, panic, death and terror and eventual evacuation of all non-Arabs from all cities within their firing range (collective punishment, ethnic cleansing)

- Bans of non-Muslims from visiting holy places such as Temple Mount (the holiest place in all of Judaism) including violence against innocent civilians who dare to break this decree (apartheid, disproportionate force)

Please note by the way that the attack on the kindergarten happened in 2004! FOUR YEARS AGO!

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Really, I could spend years talking about all the deliberate murders of innocent people by these Hamas killers and never run out of material. All in attacks that SPECIFICALLY target innocent people, including children. Yet it is ISRAEL that is criticized when it responds to these murders and takes all the care in the world to try and prevent civilian tragedies.

Maybe "Death to Juice" isn't the most ridiculous thing I've seen today after all...

So please, the next time one of these supposed "peace activists" throws these stupid catch-phrases at you, use the information you've read here to put them in their place.

What to say, what to say

What to say...what to say...

Another Arab-Israeli conflict has erupted and as usual along with it we have the concurrent world-wide "peace activist" protests:



They get started early in the West Bank.



Nothing says "peace now" like the serial killer from the Scream movies!



You know something has gone terribly awry when even the Arabs see the leader of Egypt as being more attached to Israel than France. At least Sarkozy doesn't have to worry about any of this voodoo being cast on him.



Great symbols of peace there guys...how dare Israel try to rob Palestinians of their God-given right to fire rockets at civilians. Maybe they're just confused about that whole "Right to Bear Arms" thing applying to Katyusha rockets. Or Gaza.

I mean I wish I was making this up, but there you have it folks - the "peace" camp in all its glory.

So...what to say, what to say? It's bound to happen. Someone will ask you about "disproportionate force" or "collective punishment" or "apartheid" or maybe the best of all "ethnic cleansing". What do you say when one of these alleged advocates for peace and tranquility start throwing accusations like this (or as I like to call it -- "nonsense") your way?

Stay tuned for the answer in the next 24 hours...

WAR

"There is a time for cease-fires and a time to fight, and now is the time to fight"
--Ehud Barak, earlier today

Well I'd say the time to fight was months ago but still...





Better late than never.

From an anonymous Hamas spokesperson:

"Today we are stronger then we've ever been," one spokesperson for the group said at a press conference. "We won't raise the white flag, we won't give anything up, we won't retreat."

Yes yes, we know you have missiles...





We've seen what they can do...



But hey what do you know, we got things that explode too.







The policy of restraint...is over.

As the operation grows in scope, expect the usual condemnations and denigrations from the various cultured and enlightened European countries that we've come to expect whenever Israel dares to show some strength and defend its own population.

And in one of the most bizarre batches of foreign policy quotes in recent memory, Nikolas Sarkozy - formerly revered as the first pro-Jewish French Prime Minister since maybe Napolean Bonaparte - calls Israel's response "disproportionate" while the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit essentially lays the blame on Hamas!

How screwed up has the West gotten that prime ministers of democratic countries like France and Britain are all tripping over themselves in the rush to be the first to condemn the Israeli actions...while representatives of an autocratic nation like Egypt...that's EGYPT by the way...become the voices of reason!!!

Stay tuned for more embarrassments from the West. Can't wait to hear what our old pal Ben Wedeman has to say about this.

And just to point out like our friend, Mr. Gheit so eloquently pointed out in that article...Israel has been warning Hamas to cool it for many months and months now.

And lest we forget who and what started this fight, please remember that rocket attacks on Israel didn't start this month. Or this year. Or last year. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the first Hamas Qassam rocket fell on sovereign Israeli soil on April 16, 2001. Over eight years ago. To put that in perspective, that's FIVE MONTHS before the September 11th attacks in NYC and DC. And it's been raining missiles on Israeli cities and towns ever since.

Let's also not forget about this guy:



Still imprisoned in some Gazan hell-hole for over two and a half years by the very Hamas leadership that garners sympathy from these "enlightened" Western democracies and "peace-activists" all over the world.



How long can anyone expect a nation to stand idly by while its own citizens are forced to live under conditions of terror?

The IDF has been conducting limited operations in Gaza for years, all of which have failed to stop these rocket attacks. This was the only option left. And early reports are that the vast majority of casualties on the Palestinian side are of actual terrorists and not civilians. But still we are criticized.

How long before the world realizes that attacks from Gaza have increased almost TENFOLD since the disengagement? Ten times more rocket attacks since the poor, oppressed Palestinians were given autonomy over their own land. Instead of using the time since the disengagement to build up the Gazan economy and actually move toward a brighter future, the Palestinians spent all their time, money and energy on building more powerful and farther reaching rockets to kill, murder and maim more innocent Israelis and cause more chaos and panic. Again there is no moral equivalency here because while Palestinians intentionally target Israeli civilians EVERY DAY the world remains silent until Israel responds by targeting terrorist targets.

How long before the world realizes that you cannot negotiate with an insane person? How long before the world realizes who the enemy really is?

I know I sound like a broken record - but like Barak said there is a time for cease-fires and a time to fight.

If ever there was a time...that time is now.



He Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- may He bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Forces, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea.

May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.

May He lead our enemies under our soldiers' sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.

Now let us respond: Amen.

Happy Holidays from ronmossad.com

Merry Christmas to most, Eid Mubarak to many, Happy Chanuka to the rest.

(In other news does anyone even remember Kwanzaa anymore?)

Do me a favor though...if you have one of these in your home:



Please just go away.

Interfaith marriages are one thing...(they happen to be one thing that's slowly and torturously eradicating all non-Orthodox forms of Judaism in America but that's a subject for an entirely different article) but for the love of God pick one option and stick with it. And yes, this is a free country and everyone can do whatever they want - but surely people must appreciate the irony of combining a holiday that commemorates a violent and bloody uprising against assimilation with a holiday that basically assimilated the entire Roman empire...

12/7/41

Today is the anniversary of the last (and only other) time our country was deliberately sneak attacked by a foreign totalitarian regime.



Why then is support for action against our current enemy so far behind where it was in the 1940's?



And lest we forget, Germany never attacked us. Nor did Italy. Why then would we be so in favor of launching an all-out invasion on both countries which killed literally hundreds of thousands of brave young American soldiers?



Must we wait, as we did all through the 1930's, until the enemy has matched us in strength and technology before we take action? Must we continue to repeat the mistakes of our fathers and grandfathers and our leaders of the past? Because as we all know, the end result of that inaction before WWII...



...was epic disaster.

For both sides. For all sides. For all of humanity.

Let us hope there is still time for this generation to avoid a similar fate.



For both sides. For all sides. For all of humanity.

The difference?

We police our own...



...they welcome theirs with open arms as heroes.

Every nation has its extremists, how the moderates deal with them is the mark of a civilized society.

In the picture a Jewish extremist in the West Bank was arrested for disobeying the law and refusing to to vacate a disputed house in Hebron.

In the video, a group of Palestinian children sing and dance while dressed up as suicide bombers on national television.

What's wrong with this picture??

In the first link, the Israel Defense Force destroyed a ship carrying weapons on its way to supplying the Irgun, a Jewish militia right at the outset of the War of Independence. Several Jews (on both sides) were killed and many tons of ammunition/weapons (all of which were desperately needed) were destroyed.

In the second link, a man named Samir Kuntar, who murdered three Israelis (one of whom was a four year old girl) was welcomed as a hero for his actions. Later on he vows to kill more Jews and praises notorious terrorist Imad Mugniyeh - the former most wanted man in the world before Bin-Laden brought the house down on 9/11/01.

Whether we agree with the political views of the settlers or not. Whether we agree with their actions against the Palestinians or not. One side has proven time and again that in pursuit of the greater good they will make very real, very tangible



and very serious sacrifices.

While the other side...



...is less than flexible.

Jews evicting other Jews in Gaza and getting into fights with each other to make room for Arabs who use the now vacant property to fire rockets at more Jews. And then doing the same thing in the West Bank.

And the world looks on as if there was any moral equivalency in the Middle East.

Y. A. M. T. A.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

--Reverend Jeremiah Wright: The Day of Jerusalem's Fall

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.

--Professor Ward Churchill: Some People Push Back

Fight those who do not believe in Allah, ... nor follow
the religion of truth... until they pay the tax in acknowledg-ment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

--Qur'an, Sura 9:29

So, another year is slowly, excruciatingly drawing to a close. Thanksgiving has come and gone...the holiday shopping season officially kicked off in earnest yesterday and nervous retailers are worrying about the impact of the economic downturn on their bottom line. All across the country Americans are still digesting their leftover turkeys and bickering with their family members over how long gas prices will stay below $2 a gallon.

But in India, they are digesting something else entirely. The shell-shocked residents of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) are just giving thanks today for having escaped the insanity that surrounded the Taj and Oberoi hotels. As details begin to emerge about the absolute chaos that gripped these innocent people and the poorly executed commando operation that saved them, Presidents and President-elects promise to support the Indians and find out who was really behind these attacks.

Was it Pakistan? Was it al-Qaeda? Some new terrorist organization? And I'm sitting here in my living room watching awful CNN anchors cracking stupid jokes and laughing about Biden's criticism of Obama's lack of foreign policy experience during the primaries and how right he was about being tested in his first six months...now Sandy Berger is postulating about what the "motivation" was for these attacks on Western targets, pointing out that there is a "jihadist odor" to this nightmare. But there's really nothing to postulate or theorize or hypothesize or speculate about here. We all know who the smiling perpetrators are.

Because, you see, what we've got here (aside from a failure to communicate) is Yet Another Muslim Terror Attack, or Y.A.M.T.A. for short.

Does it really matter if it's Bin-Laden? Or Hizballah? Or Iranians? Or Saudis? Or Shiites? Or Sunnis? Or Wahabbis? In reality, what difference does it actually make which group of animals goose-steps through the streets and takes credit for this latest massacre?

What difference does it make for poor Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka,



tied-up and executed as hostages hours BEFORE the commando operation? And for what? That's right, they committed the terrible sin of being born Jewish.

Do you think Rabbi Holtzberg, a real example for the Jewish people, a quiet, humble hero in a world full of embarrassments and more loudmouth embarrassments was wondering whether his new Muslim overlords were motivated by anger over the American invasion of Iraq? Or the Israeli Army's policies in the West Bank? Do you think he had time to ponder about whether or not Jeremiah Wright and Ward Churchill had a legitimate point that the West is now reaping the seeds that were sown during the Crusades?

Or did Yocheved Orpaz,



also guilty of the crime of being Jewish, sit and ponder why Afghanistan wasn't properly rebuilt after their war against the Soviet Union...as a masked barbarian deposited bullet right into her brain? Did she postulate and theorize and hypothesize about who and why and how? Did all of the 195+ of the (mostly Indian Hindu) victims have a nice debate about what the root causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict are? About who had the land first? Over who started the first riot? About who is right and who is wrong?

Or did they all just run screaming...from Yet Another Muslim Terror Attack.

In all honesty, who cares who it is? This isn't some big Sherlock Holmes-style whodunit mystery. As if the Prime Minister of India will call a shocking news conference and announce that it was Colonel Mustafa in the Attic with the candlestick.

Whether it's Pashtuns from Pakistan, Salafists from Algeria, Hamas thugs from Gaza or Fatah thugs from the West Bank. They're all just YAMTA. It's all the same. They all hate the West. They all follow the Qur'an, they all think they're doing Allah's bidding. They all rioted over the Muslim cartoons in Denmark.



They all hate Americans and Jews and Christians and Hindus and anything that isn't what they're used to. We sit around and debate and theorize about what drives them as if by figuring it out we will find some magic solution to placate each individual group with what they want and put an end to this never-ending global nightmare.

The Wrights, Churchills, Chomskys and other supposed liberals of the world point to mistakes the West has made with its foreign policy decisions of the past 2,000 years as justifications for why these YAMTAs keep happening but it's all nonsense...self-hating, delusional nonsense and nothing more.

What does the West's decisions have to do with Mumbai, a frequent target of these animals? What does the West have to do with continued death and destruction in the Sudan? Or Nigeria? How about continuing Shiite/Sunni violence in Iraq? Maybe both sides are just mad at each other for bringing the scourge of democracy to their country...

Nope it's just YAMTA.

Take a look at this list of Islam-driven attacks from just the past week:



Courtesy of www.thereligionofpeace.com

It's brutal isn't it? What does any of this have to do with the West? Are any of these attacks motivated by the plight of Palestinian refugees? Are these people angry about the US Army being stationed in holy Saudi Arabia? Or maybe they're just upset about global climate change and President Bush's response to Katrina.

What the apologists and pundits don't understand or don't want to admit is that it's not about democracy or capitalism or distribution of wealth or ANY of that. It's about chaos, muder, death and destruction. THAT'S IT. Just YAMTA.

The sooner we realize that, the sooner the world stops trying to placate their demands, the sooner we can put an end to this nightmare once and for all.





All I see turns to brown, as the sun burns the ground
And my eyes fill with sand, as I scan this wasted land
Trying to find, trying to find where Ive been.


May God be with the families of the dead and injured. May God have mercy on the victims and all of India. And may God bring justice once and for all to the perpetrators of this and all other YAMTAs.

Because we sure as hell don't seem capable of doing it ourselves.

OUTRAGE

A friend of mine just sent me this picture, taken of the Hugo Boss store in Manhattan on the corner of 14th St and 10th Ave:



That's right, a YELLOW "Juda" star.

In 2008.

Spotted the day after the 70th anniversary of Kristalnacht.

Quick! Someone tell me that anti-Judaism is dead!

I'm sure whatever clown did this will blame the "Israeli occupation" and say they're not really against "Jews" just "Israel" but we all know by now that's the same thing. Or some Jewish apologist will try to explain how complicated the situation is in the Middle East and how the United States needs a more "even-handed" approach to the conflict. Well that's how even-handed the other side is...



WHERE is the outrage???

Not interested

I recently had a conversation with someone about the election. Generally, this blog has avoided commenting much on the never-ending election cycle, although I made my stance known on our new president-elect fairly early on in the process. However, something that was said during that conversation lit a fuse inside me. The topic of "white guilt" and its role in the election came up when the other person said he was voting for Obama in part because it would help the United States "atone" for slavery. I said that the very fact that he said the country had to atone for slavery at all speaks to a certain amount of white guilt (that almost certainly factored at least a little in this election) in-and-of-itself.

Here's the deal...most Americans did NOT own slaves...and the country split in half and destroyed itself for five years over it. I mean I think that’s pretty much enough. It’s not like Nazi Germany (Holocaust), or Spain (Inquisition), or the Catholic Church (Crusades, millenia of oppression), or Egypt (slavery), or Italy (Roman Empire scattering our ancestors all over the world), or Greece (Greek Empire trying to put an end to our culture, religion and way of live), or France (Nazi collaboration/Holocaust), or Russia/Poland/allofEasternEurope (ghettos, pogroms, and on and on) and pretty much every other country in the world ever had a civil war over what they did to us...where they abused us for CENTURIES if not MILLENIA and never repented. EVER. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died on both sides over slavery. The civil rights movement and Affirmative Action happened.

Where is my affirmative action??

Where’s MY reparations for the 22 million dead Jews at the hands of the church. Or the 6 million at the hands of the Nazis. Or the millions upon millions upon millions of our brothers, sisters and cousins who were tortured, enslaved, displaced, discriminated-against, hated, demonized and murdered throughout the history of our people? WHERE? At least the Africans had until what, the 1500’s before the Europeans started with them? My people have been hunted since the very dawn of our culture!

I just don’t want to HEAR it anymore. ENOUGH already. Where was Germany’s civil war? Or Russia’s? Where were the pro-Jewish abolitionists??? Who was willing to fight for MY grandparents? And their grandparents? And their grandparents’ grandparents?

TO HELL WITH THAT.

Where’s my American president? Where’s my social justice? My distribution of wealth? I had nothing when I was growing up. I never asked for a damn hand out. When I moved out of my parents’ house at 18 I had NOTHING for years. I could have qualified for welfare, or government assistance or public housing (like ALL of my neighbors did) but it never even entered my mind to ASK.

That’s the atonement for American slavery. That’s all that’s necessary. I don’t need to see Obama now take more of MY hard-earned money so his buddies can have more hand outs. I don’t need to see Obama going and talking to people who would like to see my current Israeli relatives (as well as me and you and all of us) turned into stinking corpses. I don’t need ANY of that nonsense to atone for something that I never was a part of and quite frankly have the market cornered on.

My parents are both immigrants. My family never owned a single slave. None of my relatives or friends or friends of relatives or relatives of friends' relatives ever had slaves.

Just by default, every child or grandchild of an immigrant post-1865 is entirely absolved of any guilt or responsibility for slavery. And every child or grandchild of an immigrant can tell you stories about discrimination during the 19th and 20th centuries...



Maybe it's befitting that this conversation (and perhaps the election in general) happened on the eve of Kristalnacht. Because you see...my grandparents WERE slaves in Auschwitz. They told me stories, firsthand about how they were beaten and tortured by their masters. And for what? For an insane ideology - for nothing.

Who else in this country can say that about their family aside from the Jews? Living relatives who were slaves.

So why, tell me why I should I have to pay for the mistakes of people who lived 150 years ago? People who discriminated against my people as well Blacks. People who I have no relation to whatsover.

Was American slavery bad? Absolutely. Is there still discrimination against Blacks in today’s society? Absolutely. I am not minimizing the Black slavery experience at all...it, along with the treatment of the American Indians were both shameful blotches on the history of this country.

But frankly, they are blotches that have got exactly ZERO to do with me. And I’m sick of having to pay for other people’s suffering while mine continues to go unrecognized and ignored. Tell someone that Jews are discriminated against today and you get laughed at because of all the famous and rich Jews. Statistically Jews in America have the highest standard of living of any minority and to ask for a handout would truly be ludicrous. But people, let's remember though that a mere 70 years ago today



our grandparents were the victims of the largest pogrom in history while the rest of the world (including the United States and Franklin Delano Roosevelt) stood idly by and did nothing. Where is the justice there?

No one helped the Jews get to where we are today. I for one do not want any help.

But I REFUSE to be made to feel that just because I get sunburned more frequently than other people that I should feel GUILTY about slavery.

Not me. Not now. Not ever. I'm just not interested in hearing it.

We've ALREADY paid our dues - this day is just a reminder of them.



Never again.

Day of Atonement

For generations our success as a people has caused others to be jealous of us and make us feel guilty. Make us feel like we have to atone on daily basis. And many of us have sacrificed our pride as a result.

Remember that there is only one Day of Atonement every year.



And that we stopped offering sacrifices with the destruction of the 2nd Temple...

To all who are fasting - have an easy and meaningful day tomorrow.

Jackie Mason-approved!

Looks like Jackie Mason and the RONMOSSAD blog have something in common.

We both can't stand Sarah Silverman:



Note in his video that Barbara Streisand also makes an appearance.

Way to go Jackie!

You do NOT speak for me

(warning, several of the links below may be deemed inappropriate by many, click them at your own risk)

Sarah Silverman is funny.

She's also Jewish.

Or at least that's what I've been told. Her TV show, The Sarah Silverman Program had one of the most successful debuts in the history of Comedy Central last year. And in case you didn't know, she's Jewish. She worked for Saturday Night Live and has appeared on such comedies as Seinfeld, Frasier and Crank Yankers. Also, she's Jewish. Silverman has been romantically linked to such comedians Dave Attel, Colin Quinn and Jimmy Kimmel. And she's JEWISH. She's been a part of several Comedy Central Roasts, has had her one-woman show turned into a feature film as well as appearing on the cover



of Heeb magazine.

BY THE WAY SHE'S JEWISH.

And she'll keep reminding you of that fact in a way that suggests she really is proud of it. Although how proud she could be of her heritage when she's regularly dating guys who are not Jewish themselves may be up for debate, but to each their own. Clearly she has no problem with you knowing that she went to Hebrew school and loves money and has a "tuckess" (because apparently no one ever taught her how to make the chet sound) and loves doctors and has a Holocaust survivor grandmother who was at one of the "better" concentration camps.

Still with me? Because I think that may be the most stereotypes I've ever put into one sentence in my entire life. In any case, our friend Sarah is also a gigantic Obama supporter...so much so that she's encouraging young Jews to fly down to Florida where their grandparents live, to convince them that just because they're huge racists they can still be ok with voting for a black man because he's the "goodest person we've ever had as a presidential choice" who is apparently "the last hope of ending this country's reputation as the assholes of the universe."

OK terrific.

Politics aside, fact-checking aside, my biggest issue with this video is the same issue I've had with Sarah Silverman for years.

I'm TIRED of this act.

I'm tired of famous JEWS getting on a national stage and acting like just because they make fun of Jewish stereotypes that somehow it qualifies them to speak for the rest of us. And enough with the "tuckess" and the "schmeer" and the "chutzpah" and the "shlep" and the "kvetch" and all those other annoying stereotypical Yiddish phrases that when used, somehow justify the person to speak for the rest of us. It's not just Sarah Silverman, I'm also talking to you Woody Allen and you Barbara Streisand and every other brisket-eating, knish-loving, doctor/lawyer/accountant-admiring, neurotic, big-nosed, walking stereotype out there.

When I see/hear this going on, I cringe the same way I cringed when I heard Rich Vos on Opie and Anthony several months ago, having no answer for the Jewish Banker stereotype.

I mean who elected Sarah Silverman as a representative of the Jewish community anyway? Who elected any of our representatives? In fact, who ARE our representatives for that matter?

All these Hollywood Jews who hog the spotlight? Enough already! What did any of these people do to earn the right to speak for any of us? They have Jewish last names? They've all seen Fiddler on the Roof? They say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas? What, exactly qualifies them to speak for us? What have they done to advance Jews, Judaism or our homeland, the state of Israel? What do they even know about this culture that they claim to love so much?

Because they certainly aren't doing very much to break down those stereotypes that have held us down for thousands of years. Rather, they're perpetuating them. Not by making jokes...but by not supporting the causes that they should be supporting. The causes that actually affect our future.

The Streisands and Silvermans and Allens of the world want us to allow them to speak for us as Jews who are comfortable with their heritage? Where are they on issues such as the future status of Jerusalem (our ancient capital of 3,000 years)? Where are they on issues such as the thousands upon thousands of rocket attacks on Sderot and the Western Negev? Where are they on issues such as the continuing Gilad Shalit hostage crisis - now in its 826th day! Where are they on such topics as intermarriage and what the the future of Jewish identity in America will be?

.

..

...


.......silence. Nothing. Zero.


And the reason for this? Because these people have NO CLUE what Jewish identity even is! Jewish identity to these people is knishes and briskets and oy vey. Jewish culture is lox and hava nagila and banker stereotypes. Gilad Shalit doesn't matter to these people because he does not even EXIST in their worlds. How can he? He doesn't talk or walk or act anything like them.

But he exists in MY world. And in my world there's a lot more to being Jewish than having a big nose and fat bank account.

So don't tell ME who to vote for Sarah or Woody or Barbara. Don't tell ME what Jews should or should not do at all for that matter.

You want to know who to talk to about being Jewish? An Israeli soldier. A Holocaust survivor. The convert who voluntarily left their family behind to be one of us. The rabbi who has devoted his entire life to learning about Judaism, teaching it to a new generation and showing young Jews what this ancient culture is really about. The Zionist activist who raises money for victims of terror attacks in Israel. These are the people that should speak for us...people who understand the concept of SACRIFICING something for the betterment of the sons and daughters of Israel. Not these spoiled, self-absorbed, vapid, shallow embarrassments to our ancestors who sit around and pat themselves on the back for nothing more than being born into a religion they never embraced or fully understood.

We need to take control of our representation. Think long and hard about it and decide if this is the kind of image you want to project to the outside world. Are we not tired of EVERYONE else thinking that we are a bunch of self-deprecating, neurotic weasels? Because I sure am.

Do we really want Sarah Silverman as the poster-child for 21st century Judaism? Is she really the person we want speaking for and representing us? Because I sure do NOT.

It's time everyone understood we are not the stereotypes that these people project of us. It's time everyone understood that there's more to being Jewish than knowing a few Yiddish phrases.

But most importantly it's time everyone understood that these people do not speak for all of us.

Turn the lights out...

...this party's over.







My summer home has been officially condemned and I along with its other former tenants have been evicted.



What a night. What a place. What a travesty.

Goodbye Yankee Stadium.

A snake in the road less traveled

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.



Walking along an isolated, quiet path on a lazy end-of-summer day I stumbled upon an odd sight. There in front of me was a man holding a fishing pole, methodically throwing rocks into the middle of the lane. As I approached him he turned around and told me that there was a snake up ahead and that he thought it might be poisonous.

He was throwing rocks at it to try and scare it into moving...but it just wouldn't budge. Now being a city guy myself, I don't know the first thing about snakes, poisonous or not, however I did know that I didn't really feel like finding out firsthand if this guy was right. But I also wasn't going to let such a lowly creature stop me from continuing my hike. So I too began to launch various projectiles at this reptile and together the two of us joined forces to try and get it to move. But nothing. Eventually the other guy worked up enough courage to try and tap the snake with his fishing pole. Nothing. The snake would move its head but continued to stay put blocking any further advance.

Eventually my comrade decided he would pick up his stuff and go back in the other direction...I on the other hand refused to allow this lowly animal such an easy victory. So I asked my new friend to wait for a minute and to call for help if this thing (which again, neither of us was sure was actually a threat) actually bit me. Taking a deep, nervous breath, I proceeded cautiously...slowly...trying not to startle this creature...



...which never even budged from where it was laying. Oddly enough I felt a moment of pity for this snake which just seconds ago had inspired fear in me but now appeared to be just be slimy, pathetic creature. As I looked back at the fisherman who still refused to continue even though I had just passed by with no incident, I felt even worse for him - for being even more pathetic than the snake that just continued to sit there, nearly motionless...looking about as threatening as one of the small branches I had thrown at it just minutes earlier. And so I continued on my way lost in thought about what this experience meant.

The first thing that occurred to me was that Robert Frost poem The Road not Taken. It's very easy to follow the path others have already explored and have proven is safe (well except for this fisherman apparently)...but if we never go out on our own, what progress can we ever hope to achieve? And if we choose the road less traveled we must expect to come across something that we are not prepared for. The unknown. The snake in the road is a metaphor for the irrational fear we have all experienced when jumping into something unfamiliar. All too often we are held back by this fear when in reality if we confront it we can achieve great things.

I mean, in all honesty...my experience was really pretty mundane. The snake was in all likelihood not venomous and all I "accomplished" by not turning back was feeling some pride in the fact that I was apparently braver than some stranger that I will most likely never see again for the rest of my life. My only victory was over an irrational fear that was based purely on a lack of knowledge. But that's still something. And it's something that too many people allow to control their lives.

Too often we allow these irrational moments to hold us back. We avoid situations that scare us rather than confronting them head on. We go around neighborhoods that scare us instead of taking the shortest path to our destination. We ignore world events that scare us because we are afraid of the picture of reality that they paint. We avoid conversations about topics that scare us because we don't want to deal with the consequences.

We isolate and insulate and shelter ourselves from the truth because we are afraid to confront it. We create barriers and safety nets around ourselves, that only serve to stifle our advancement.

All because of the unknown. The irrational. The snake in the road that we fear but do not fully understand.

This is what we must overcome if we are to ever progress in our lives. Or, like my friend the fisherman we can just allow our fears to control us and go home empty handed, never knowing what lies farther down the road we were too afraid to take.

Seven years

Here's today's top stories on cnn.com:

1. Parts of Houston evacuated
2. Advisor warned Palin on firing
3. Missing girl's body found in case
4. Venezuela to expel U.S. ambassador
5. Palin takes tough stance on Russia
6. Bill Clinton: Obama will win big
7. McCain, Obama come together
8. Rapper Kanye West arrested
9. 9/11 memorialized at crash sites
10. Sex offender admits 7th grade ruse

Well at least it's better than last year. We have two 9/11-related stories and no sign of Britney Spears.









I'm not sure what's scarier...that this day actually happened, that it's already been seven years...

Or how little most Americans care about it.

Seriously...how different are our day-to-day lives since 9/11/2001? With the exception of being seven years older...society in America is exactly the same.

WAKE UP people.

Never forget.

RIP James Hoyt

James Hoyt, one of the first Americans to witness the brutality of Buchenwald, a concentration camp my grandfather did time in, died Monday in his rural home in Iowa. Hoyt, who told his story to author Stephen Bloom for an upcoming book called "The Oxford Project" stumbled onto the camp and as a result still suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder until the day he died. He was a good man and a quiet hero.

I only found one other original article that mentioned Hoyt. All the rest were just quotes or reposts of the CNN article...Reuters and the AP didn't even bother to cover it.

Here's the thing...check out both articles.

Did you read them? If so, read them again. Count how many times the word "Jew" or "Jewish" appears.

I'll give you a hint...it's less than one. In a story about a guy who liberated a concentration camp full of starving, beaten and tortured Jews.

RIP Private Hoyt. It's a shame, but this world is running out of people like you.

The meek shall inherit the land...

...and delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Psalms 37:11

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

Psalms 137:5,6



Today marks the 1,937th anniversary of the destruction of the 2nd Temple (amongst several other Jewish nightmares) as well as the 1,874th anniversary of destruction of Betar and the last Jewish army to exist for approximately 1,800 years. Whatever remaining Jewish survivors were cast out of Judea to the far reaches of the Earth and our people entered the era of the great Diaspora.

Since the nation was born at the foot of Mount Sinai over 3,300 years ago, no single event in Jewish history has had as much of an influence on Jewish culture and attitudes as the destruction of the 2nd Temple. As our ancestors watched the very Temple that they dedicated as a house of God burn at the hands of the Roman horde, something fundamentally changed in the Jewish psyche. The religious implications of a God allowing, or even worse, causing its house to be annihilated at the hands of a nation that literally stood against the very essence of the Biblical teachings and commandments that served as the backbone of divine worship, must have boggled the minds of the sages and leaders of the time.

But also important to consider, were the political implications. As the story goes, three years into the Great Revolt of Judea, the Romans had finally re-conquered the vast majority of the roiling province. Jerusalem was surrounded on all sides by Roman legions and the Jews in the city were fighting amongst themselves. Rabbis and wise men who felt the situation was hopeless and spoke of surrender were overruled or in some cases even killed by Zealots. Adding to the chaos, these same extremists destroyed the city's food supplies to force Jerusalem's citizens into a final showdown with the Roman army. As anyone who is sitting in mourning today knows, this fight did not go as planned for the Zealots and the Temple was destroyed.

The two responses to this disaster were as follows:

Religiously - the Jews sinned, became corrupt and were punished for it by God as they had been time and time again.

Politically - the wise decision would have been to negotiate with the Romans once the situation was deemed hopeless...or better yet not to have instigated a revolt against the strongest military the world had ever seen.

The failed rebellion of Bar-Kochba some 62 years later only served to validate these responses. And from then on until very recently, official Jewish policy was essentially to "blend in" with the countries that adopted the exiles and not to do anything that could be perceived as "causing trouble." Whereas the Bible describes a nation of "stiff-necked" (stubborn) people, in the Diaspora Jews are expressly forbidden from rebelling in any way against their adopted countries and must hope that their rulers will not oppress them excessively. Jewish self-defense and self-determination was a privilege that was to be buried with the martyrs of Judea - only to be resurrected by the true Messiah.

And so, over in the ensuing decades, centuries and millenia we endured the following:

- The rebuilding of Jerusalem as the pagan city, Aelia Capitolina in the year 133
- The First Crusade (and subsequent massacres of tens of thousands of Jews) beginning in the year 1095
- The Expulsion of Jews from England in the year 1290
- The Spanish Inquisition in the year 1492
- The first World War in the year 1914
- The Final Solution being ordered by Hitler, in the year 1941 which of course led to
- The order being given to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto in the year 1942

ALL ON THE SAME DAY.

This day. The 9th of Av.

And it has stuck in our consciousness all the way through the last 1,937 years. All through the calamities, the pogroms, the expulsions and the holocausts. The synagogue-burnings and the grave desecrations and the Anti-Semitism. And we have survived through the years not by fighting back but by sitting and waiting for the Messiah to come and deliver us from this eternal punishment we have endured. This punishment that we as a people decided that we deserved for nearly 2,000 years.

And it can all be traced back to this one day in history. This one day that continues to haunt us year after year. This one day that serves a reminder of why we gave up on our right to self-defense until very recently. This one day of mourning for the millions upon millions of Jews who were burned at the stake or gassed and cremated or thrown out of their adoptive homes time and time and time and time again. This one day of mourning for not only the destruction of our Temple, capital and country...but for the crushing of our will to decide our own fate.

This is the reason I have not eaten nor drank anything for the past 24 hours. This is the reason I mourn today as my ancestors have done for generations. This one day.

Because on all other days of the year...




We are meek no more.