Happy Cartoons of Truth

Thanks to http://muqata.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-does-it-feel-to-be-israeli-today.html and my Feedly.

The Humanitarian Condition in the Gaza Strip -OFFICIAL Israel Report

reposted from The View From Israel:

Note: I really hate having to “repost” these, but if I don’t, many folks who need to see this info won’t follow the links. I apologize to TVFI, but you understand how critical and necessary it is that the truth gets out. I am also assuming that the term official meant Official, as the fellow who posted this is not one to lie or deceive. His facts have always, to date, checked out with flying colors.

I. Introduction:

1. Since Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip, it has politically institutionalized radical Islam in Gaza. Hamas, supported and funded by Iran, denies Israel’s right to exist and continues to build up its weapons
stockpiles so as to continue attacking the Israeli civilian population.

Since 2010, 140 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip.

2. Hamas uses all means available to smuggle weaponry into Gaza.

Whether they are using smuggling tunnels or fisherman boats, Hamas is constantly trying to smuggle in missiles, launchers, guns, explosives and materials for building weapons.

3. IDF operations in the Gaza Strip, including the maritime closure and crossing restrictions, arise from the need to maintain the safety of the citizens of Israel from the terrorist threat in the Gaza Strip and to prevent weapons smuggling.

4. The Ministry of Defense and the IDF allow the crossing of goods and equipment in a routine and frequent manner, and enables the transfer of people for medical, religious, welfare, business or diplomatic reasons.

5. This summary provides facts and figures, which contravene the claim of a “humanitarian crisis” in the Gaza Strip.

II. Food Products and Clothing:

1. Most types of food are allowed into the Strip, and are transferred by the private sector or by international organizations.

2. During 2009, 30,920 trucks containing 800,000 tons of supplies were transferred into Gaza. This included fruits and vegetables, meat products, poultry and fish, dairy products, sugar, rice and legumes, flour and yeast,

oil, and more. Furthermore, 10,871 heads of cattle were transferred for the Muslim holidays of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha.

3. In the first quarter of 2010 (January-March), 94,500 tons of supplies were transferred in 3,676 trucks to the Strip: 48,000 tons of food products; 40,000 tons of wheat; 2,760 tons of rice; 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear; 553 tons of milk powder and baby food.

6. In 2009, 572 trucks containing approximately 5,000 tons of medical supplies entered the Strip.

7. In the first quarter of 2010 (January-March) 1,068 tons of medicine and medical equipment were transferred in 152 trucks.

8. In 2009 two elevators were transferred to hospitals in Gaza, as was a CT imaging system (to the Red Cross hospital), and equipment for a mammography machine (which checks for breast cancer).

9. During the first quarter of 2010 four trucks with special supplies for a project of the “Al Quds” hospital were transferred to the Gaza Strip, and an additional 13 trucks are scheduled to cross.

10. Due to fears of a swine flu outbreak, three Israeli hospitals were assigned to treat cases in the Gaza Strip and 44,500 immunizations were transferred to the Strip.

III. Equipment for Essential Civilian Infrastructure:

1. 14) Throughout 2009 Israel transferred 41 trucks of equipment for the maintenance of the electricity grid, and the state continues to provide approximately 60% of Gaza’s electricity.

2. 15) In 2009 over 105 million liters of fuel were transferred to Gaza’s power plant and over 3.2 million liters of gas were transferred for UNWRA operations.

3. 16) In 2009 127 trucks containing more than 3,000 tons of hypochlorite entered the Gaza Strip for water purification purposes.

Moreover, 48 trucks of equipment for improving the sanitation infrastructure led to a substantial reduction in the Beit Lahya facility’s waste levels.

4. 17) As part of the preparations made for winter, 3,607 tons of glass were transferred to the Gaza Strip. According to UN reports, windows in all education and health institutions were repaired.

5. 18) In the first quarter of 2010 Israel transferred:

250 trucks with equipment for the UNWRA summer camp, including:

Arts and crafts equipment, swimming pools, inflatable toys, ice cream machines, musical instruments, clothing, sports equipment, etc.

· Seven trucks with equipment for upgrading the sewage pumping station, which was carried out by UNWRA.

· 74 empty containers for UNWRA for use in classrooms and bathrooms

6. 19) Certain types of materials, such as cement and iron, are more restricted. These products are openly used by Hamas for developing its arsenal, building bunkers and launching sites, and making rockets and
mortars.

7. 20) Despite the risk, the transfer of these items is also permitted under supervision, once it has been cleared that these materials are for civilian purposes only. Already in the first quarter of 2010, 23 tons of
iron and 25 tons of cement were transferred to the Gaza Strip.

IV. Movement of Residents in and out of the Gaza Strip

1. Despite the inherent dangers involved, Israel permits Gazans and visitors to travel between Gaza and Israel, from Gaza to Judea and Samaria, and even abroad for medical treatment, religious pilgrimages, and business trips. Whenever possible Israel allows for diplomatic activities and trade and commerce with the Gaza Strip.

2. Here are a number of examples from 2009:

· Delegations from abroad: 21,200 activists from international organizations from over 400 diplomatic delegations were permitted entry into Gaza, and 2,200 Palestinians employed by international organizations were given exit permits from the Gaza Strip.

· Education, Vacations and Pilgrimages to Holy sites: 147 permits were given to Palestinian students for academic studies around the world.

During the Christmas holiday approximately 400 permits were given to visit Bethlehem from Gaza as well 100 permits to travel abroad.

· Business: 257 permits were given to businessmen from Gaza to facilitate business operations.

· Sports: Special permission was given to Gazan footballers to train in Judea and Samaria and compete in international matches abroad.

V. Trade and Commerce

1. Israel has taken measures to support trade and commerce, the banking system, and the existing financial market in the Gaza Strip:

· In 2009 1.1 billion NIS was transferred to the Gaza Strip for the ongoing activity of international organizations and to pay the salaries of Palestinian Authority workers.

· 40 million damaged bank notes were traded for new bills, and at the request of the Palestinian Monetary Fund, 282.5 million shekels were transferred from Gazan to Israeli Banks.

· In February 2010 an agreement was reached with the Palestinian Authority’s National Insurance Department to ensure that pensions reached those formerly employed in Israel. The funds were deposited in banks in Judea and Samaria, while the Palestinian Authority was given the responsibility of distributing the funds to the pensioners in Gaza.

VI.Conclusion:

1. The State of Israel seeks regional stability and to protect her citizens. It is not in the interest of Israel to harm the people of Gaza and the state does its utmost to assist aid efforts, so as not to harm the quality of life for the residents of Gaza.

2. Hamas, in its continued efforts to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip, harms the people of Gaza and prevents them from further development.

3. Despite these security threats, the IDF continues to allow the transfer of commercial goods, building materials, and medical equipment into Gaza.

Oblique Randomness

It’s been a while since I gave a Deviant Art update, and things have gotten a bit more, ahem, political. As I state in my Facebook profile, my political views are determined on a case by case basis. It irritates people. They want to be able to label and tag me, predict how I will view a certain thing, or react to it. One fellow in particular seemed rather miffed that I am now very uptight with BHO, and I have every right to be. In my state, I was one of the first to join in on the bandwagon that propelled him to run in the first place, but like every good, juicy story, there were quite a few devils in the details that we didn’t have, and since, he has unilaterally broken every single promise that he said he would uphold back in 2006.

There are quite a few things to cover, so let’s get rolling.

You have obviously been in a hole if you are unaware of the delightful BP oil spill that has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. From what has been said by the CEO of BP, I am left with a bit of doubt as to how much the British oil conglomerate cares either about the wildlife affected by this catastrophe, or by the millions of people and livelihoods directly in its wide swath of destruction. Greenpeace, in their usual elaborate efforts to scratch that itch of harrassing major corporations, has begun a very apt Redesign The BP Logo contest.

Here is my entry:

I made the colors representative of an icky oil spill, colors that should be readily familiar to any BP employee currently working in the Gulf, with the phrase “Bombastic Profundity”. Basically, for those who don’t “get it,” BP has in general talked down to the residents around the destruction as well as America in general, pooh-poohing their grandiose mistake and somehow playing it off to be that we are blowing our distress at this latest issue way out of proportion. Let’s just say that the Gorton Fisherman has to find new places to go, and BP has little issue with that. But it makes eating their fish sticks so much easier. You no longer have to worry about non-stick cooking. The grease is embedded.

But just when you thought sliminess was related to oil spills, I have to re-hash another piece of recent news.

Perhaps you knew, or did not know that Lance Baxter, more popularly known as DC Douglas was recently fired from his job as the voice actor of Geico for pulling a colossal stoopid. If you are unfamiliar with the cute little Geico Gecko, then forget the hole, you’ve obviously been under a rock. Much like our little gecko.

Mr. Douglas, in a fit of self-determined brilliance, decided to call up FreedomWorks, an organization that is Conservative in nature, and claiming to be writing a paper, left a voice message asking how many mentally retarded persons they maintained on staff, and how they intended to spin the media when one of the aforementioned mentally handicapped persons “finally kills someone”. He even left his contact information.

First off, I get Free Speech. I honestly don’t have a problem with that. And yes, this was an extremely off-color gag. But here’s a word to the wise, kiddies. Don’t call the folks who buy your product, thus funding your paycheck, and directly diss them just because you don’t agree. Not in this manner, not when it is known that you represent the company in a public forum.

Geico fired him in what should be touted as Intelligent Business Decision of the Year. Sometimes a company simply has to “check they hoes”. Yes, every liberal outlet is screaming and whining like they just got a wedgie, but this was a correct course of action. Once you sign on and cash that first paycheck as a public image for a company, you immediately lose the right to publicly humiliate and diss your customers.

Honestly, whether I agree with FreedomWorks, or the Douglas gag is not the point. But I’ll admit it. I didn’t find it offensive. It was a poke at a philosophy he didn’t agree with. Had he been in another function and could operate independently, it would have just been another thing. But he screwed up. And it was funnier than the message, like watching a comedy video of Dick Van Dyke falling down the stairs.

So I just had to hit it.

There is always a vision of what is meant when we use the term “Universal” whether we want it to be that way or not. For instance, the Miss Universe contest. We have known and surmised that that is simply one of the ways that Donald Trump hunts for his next wife, concubine, mistress, whatever the case may be, but I have yet to see a contestant from Beta Zeta 3, Betelgeuse, or Andromeda. Perhaps the fuel constraints are too prohibitive. At any rate, it always irked me, even as a child, that Universal really isn’t Universal. I mean, jeez. Say what you mean. I’m not dissing Donny, either. He’s a big boy, and he’s doing big boy things. I’m just sayin’.

With health care, the concept is no different. Much of the past year has revolved around the concept of Universal Health Care, with everyone taking pitchforks and firebrands to each other like fans at a Rangers-Flyers game. But if you’re going to say it’s universal, then we need to not only consider grandma who is missing more teeth than Duncan Keith, but also the extras on Communion as well. Perhaps the descendants of the Roswell Crash, provided they are not currently engaged in a civil class action suit. I’m sure they receive full coverage under the military plan, but still. Equal Rights for all!

We know they exist. We see them on half of the billboards from Lancaster to Las Vegas, and anywhere within nuclear range of Area 51. C’mon. If I’m going to spend the night on the Extraterrestrial Highway at the Little A’Le’Inn, I want to be certain everybody’s covered properly. Don’t want them to blow out one of their three kidneys while serving my soup.

So I created a nice poster to further their cause, and since they probably voted for some spare Change, I figured I’d share.

Believe it or not, someone actually didn’t get it. And they are actually American. And apparently Conservative. I was astonished.

But that’s it for the moment. I will be off to further my budding career as an Israeli graffiti artist/tagger. Not that I plan on doing any of it illegally, of course. Just more of the raucous demonstrations you have seen thus far.

Related articles by Zemanta

• “BP Acknowledges Oil Spill Is Larger Than Previous Estimates” and related posts (democracynow.org)
• The Updated, Unofficial Oil Flow from BP’s Gulf Oil Rig (pamil-visions.net)
• Envisioning the Size of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill (neatorama.com)
• “Oily Obama: Lousy Response to BP Oil Invasion” and related posts (dissidentvoice.org)
• Geico Gecko Too Dumb to Stop Digging (healthcarebs.com)

15 Facts you probably did not know…

by Mitchell G. Bard



1. Nationhood and Jerusalem – Did you know that Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

2. Did you know that Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Did you know that since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. Did you know that Arabs have only had control of Israel twice – from 634 until the Crusader invasion in June 1099, and from 1292 until the year 1517 when they were dispelled by the Turks in their conquest.

5. Did you know that for over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Did you know that Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran. There are vague references to Jerusalem in the Hadiths – stories about Mohammed – that he stopped his night journey (which the Koran explains took place in a dream!) at the “farther mosque” (or “distant place”). Muslims explain that this means “at the edge of the Temple mount”, although no direct reference to Jerusalem or the Temple Mount is made.

7. Did you know that King David established the city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

8. Did you know that Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Some Muslims (i.e. those between Israel and Saudi Arabia) pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

9. Arab and Jewish Refugees – Did you know that in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

10. Did you know that the Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms. They lost much more possessions than the Arabs who fled from Israel!

11. Did you know that the number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. Did you know that Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples’ lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

13. The Arab – Israeli Conflict – Did you know that the Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. Did you know that the P.L.O.’s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.

15. Did you know that under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

(reposted) Enough of Palestinian lies. It’s time to start fighting back with the truth.

I am reposting this wonderful piece in its entirety from a very knowledgable man at The View From Israel. Visit the original site at http://israeltheviewfromhere.blogspot.com.

Again, what you read below was NOT written by me, but I endorse it 100%. I wanted to just link it, but these words must be read openly by as many as possible. This is truth, and the world needs more truth.

Enough of Palestinian lies. It’s time to start fighting back with the truth.

A fiction has been allowed to take hold. This fiction is known as the Palestinian narrative. It is the creation of a myth that has been told repeatedly so many times that it has been accepted as fact. The falsehoods have been regurgitated endlessly in the media as to become the standard mantra. The message has become the rallying cry around which support groups are formed. Immense budgets are given to forward part of the agenda that is contained in the narrative. Activists take to the podium, the media, the unviersities, and to the streets. Any voice that challenges the veracity of the campaign is muted, ignored, suppressed, and even impeded with violence.
The accepted narrative is used to criticise, condemn, delegitimise, and even question the validity of the other side.
I represent the other side. I now say enough! Enough of the lies! It is time to fight back! It is time to expose the lies. It is time to expose the truth. Let’s rip the narrative to pieces, bit by bit.
This is a master class to be used against those to profess to be pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. It exposes some of the slogans and arguments used by them to delegitimise Israel.

OCCUPATION!

Israel withdrew every living person, and even the dead, from the Gaza Strip. Yet Palestinians and their supporters still call the Gaza Strip ‘occupied’. How nonsensical is this?
The only Jew occupying Gaza doesn’t want to be there. His name is GILAD SHALIT, soon to celebrate four horrible years of total isolation in inhuman conditions.
If they really hate the occupation why doesn’t Hamas evict him? Instead, they enjoy playing him as a propaganda tool and a bargaining chip.

I have heard the argument that all they want is the creation of Palestine with Jerusalem as their capital?
I guess that sounds reasonable. You assume that they only want what belongs to them, namely the West Bank, the Gaza  Strip, and East Jerusalem, alongside Israel.  Right? Wrong!
Why don’t you listen to what they are telling their own people? Why don’t you check the Charters of both the Islamic terror regime of Hamas and the more ‘moderate’ Fatah? There you will find the truth.
From their perspective,  all of Israel belongs to them.
Occupation does not apply only to Gaza and the West Bank. It applies to Tel Aviv, Haifa, Afula, Beer Sheva.
The truth is that, for them, occupation will remain a rallying cry until all of Israel falls under Islamic Palestinian control, with Jerusalem as its capital.
Ask any Palestinian about the ‘Nakba’. This new expression has become part of the glue to the Palestinian narrative. The Nakba, or disaster, is how the Arab world refers to the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel on 15th May, 1948. It only found expression in recent years as a rewriting of a false Palestinian history.  It is a historic mistake that must be rectified. It is as if they controlled the land before 1948 and
deserve to have it back. Untrue!
At a recent Nakba rally within Israel, the Islamic Movement leader (yes, there is such an organisation in democratic Israel), Raed Salah, called Israel ‘a cancer that will be removed’. (that’s how we allow free speech in our country).
He called on Fatah and Hamas to unite not to reach a peace agreement with Israel but to ‘unite against the occupation until the state of Palestine is established with Jerusalem as its capital’. Sound familiar.

WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY?

You have failed to check whose land it is anyway. You have accepted without question their narrative that the land is theirs to control and administer. In your ignorance you may even believe that they once had their state of Palestine that was taken from them by force. They only want it back. Again, wrong!
What if I told you that the only authority holding legal rights to Palestine, recognised under international law, is Israel.  This is true. Look it up.
This powerful and irrevocable argument. is enshrined in international declarations and law.
I do not even need to quote the famous Balfour Declaration. Sufficient for me to start with the San Remo Declaration of 1920 that mandated the whole of Palestine as the national home of the Jewish people. This was cemented into international law, agreed to by the Arabs, at the League of Nations in 1922.  It was reconfirmed later when the United Nations replaced the League of Nations.
It is important to stress that at all these conventions full agreement was given by the Arab representatives.
It is indisputable that the land was mandated to Israel as guardians of the nation home of the Jewish people.
Palestinians have no rights to sovereignty over any of the land, None.
There was never any history of Palestinian rule over any of the land but, even more potently, they have no claim that can possibly stand up as a legal right recognised under any international law.
This claim exclusively belongs to Israel.
Acceptance of this fact by the Palestinians would go a long way to creating the necessary and basic foundations of trust so lacking today and portrayed in decades of rejectionism and refusal on their part.
In short, it is up to Israel to transfer legal rights to the land to the Palestinians, or not.
It is amazing to me that this argument has not been pounded repeatedly by the Israeli Government for years
in diplomatic circles as well as in the court of public opinion. It is irrefutable.

THE FICTION OF HISTORY.

President Bill Clinton was shocked at Camp David in 2000 when Yasser Arafat told him that the Temple did not exist in Jerusalem and it was all a Jewish fiction. He could not believe his ears.
This ignorance is, however, widespread among those who support the Palestinian narrative.
Did you know that Jesus was a Palestinian? No, don’t laugh. This is part of the Palestinian rewriting of their history. They have to obliterate any Jewish history. Call it replacement theology, if you like, but it is taking places in word and deed.
I was outraged when the Israeli Government turned a blind eye to massive excavations under the Temple Mount. What were once King Solomon’s Stables were totally destroyed and the rubble removed by Palestinians without a murmur of protest or preventions by the Israeli authorities. There is no longer any physical evidence that it ever existed.
The Palestinian denial of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem and all of the Holy Land not only insults Judaism, it also insults Christianity. If there were no Jewish Temple then the story of Jesus must be a fiction. Christianity was born out of Judaism, not Islam. Yet, soon, the Palestinians will tell you that Jesus was a Muslim.

I do not need to detail the Jewish roots to the land that go back thousands of years. The Bible cannot be turned into Palestinian rubble. The Koran (in which Jerusalem is not mentioned once) cannot replace the Bible. The Bible, and the glorious and anquished history that followed, contain the ancient deeds to Jewish sovereignty. There was never a people known as the Palestinians prior to 1967 and then it only came out of the barrel of a gun held by Yasser Arafat, the original Islamic terrorist.

To those researching the subject will find interesting historical footnotes. I was surprised to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte, confident of a military victory at Acre in 1799, saw himself as the liberator of the Israelites. He wrote that of “history’s most oppressed people, the Israelites, who constitute a unique nation which, during thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny,  have deprived them of their ancestral lands, but not its name and national existence!”
There is another famous story about Bonaparte. He was passing a French synagogue on Tisha B’Av when he heard crying and wailing coming from within. He stopped and asked why the Jews were crying. He was told that they were mourning the destruction of the Temple. “When did this happen?” he demanded to know. “Almost two thousand years ago in Jerusalem”, he was told.
“Any people who bewail the fate of their Temple for thousands of years are truly deserving of a nation of their own” he declared.
Napoleon addressed the Jews as ‘the rightful heirs of Palestine’. He claimed that he was fighting to avenge the ‘almost two thousand years of ignominy imposed upon the Jews. France offers you, the Jews, at this time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel’s patrimony!”
Oh, if only Napoleon would have won!

JERUSALEM? THE CAPITAL OF A PALESTINIAN STATE? FORGET IT!

This was the name of an article I wrote a short while ago. I am dumbfounded by the chutzpah of the Palestinians that they should lay any claim to Jerusalem. Putting aside the fact that Arabs live in and around certain parts of the city the Palestinians have no legal or historical claims to Jerusalem. The Jordanians grabbed Jerusalem from Jewish control in 1948 immediately after the creation of the Jewish State. They destroyed much of the Jewish religious sites and Jews were denied entry to pray at the holy places during their intolerant rule. They certainly had no Palestinian claimants to the city. So how come the Palestinian Authority are demanding Jerusalem as their capital?
If a Palestinian state is established there is, in my opinion, only one place they should call their capital. That is Ramallah. It is where their current leadership command and control has been developed. It is where their parliament sits. It is the headquarters of their leadership. It is where they buried their revered Arafat. Let them have Ramallah as their capital, and hands off Jerusalem. It’s ours.

AN APARTHEID STATE.

Yes, it’s sad but true. Palestine will be an apartheid state. You can already see the beginnings of a brutal and racist regime. If you truly want to fight against apartheid regimes look no further than the regime you profess to support. Palestine. Make a careful examination of what is transpiring there. The Gaza Strip is already Judenrein. They can’t tolerate the thought of Jewish growth in Judea and Samaria, known to them as the West Bank. A prerequisite of a Palestinian state would involve the dismantling of what they call setttlements and the removal and transfers of tens of thousands of Jews. How much more racist and apartheid can you get?
Those of you who defame Israel in support of the Palestinian cause seem in capable of addressing the appalling human rights abuses within Palestinian society. The degradation of women, including the horrendous practises of enforced female circumsicion and honour killings, seems not to be on your radar screen. What about the abusive punishments of gays in Palestinian society? How about the radical restructions imposed on  Christians? Or the children who are exposed to hate education, indoctrination to racial hatred, incitement and violence in the name of the Palestinian cause? Why are you not encouraging the leadership to educate the children to a brighter and better future and force them to make peace? Which brings me to the next topic.

THERE IS NO PEACE BECAUSE THE PALESTINIANS DO NOT WANT PEACE WITH ISRAEL.

The truth is they want peace without Israel.
This is the root cause which is the cancer eating at the heart of the peace process.
It is not occupation. It is not settlements. It is not Jewish building in Jerusalem.  Or, it is precisely about all of these and more.
The core issue is that no Palestinian leadership, from Arafat to Hamas to Fatah to Abbas can bring themselves to tell their own people that the solution is to live in peace and security alongside the Jewish State of Israel. Period.
In ‘Camp David:The Tragedy of Errors’, written by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha who both participated in the Camp David negotiations between Ehud Barak, Yasser Arafat, and Bill Clinton, a tired and angry  President shouted at Arafat “This is a fraud! If the Israelis can make concessions why can’t you? You have been here for fourteen days and said no to everything. These things have consequences. Let hell break loose and live with the consequences””
The consequence was the Second Intifada when many people lost their lives.
This is a salient and sobering lesson for George Mitchell and President Obama today. Palestinians do not make concessions. They demand it all and will resort to violence, like petulant and dangerous people, if they don’t get what they want, which is everything, without conceeding anything.

Just look at the concessions, the unilateral gestures, made by Israel. From inviting Arafat and his henchmen from Tunis to Ramallah as part of the Oslo Accords we got terror and intifadas. From Arafat, after Camp David, we got more terror and death. After withdrawing from Lebanon we got rockets from Hizbollah. After giving the whole of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians we got six years of eight thousand rockets and mortars lauched from the once peaceful and productive productive settlements which became terror bases and training camps.
Listen to what the leadership is telling their own people. They want it all and they will get it all. It’s all a matter of time.
Today, the bluff is exposed. They don’t even want to talk to Israel. Why should they? They now have an American Administration doing their bidding. They will only talk to America if America extracts further concessions from Israel. How ridiculous is that?  And when these ‘proximity talks’ fail it will be the fault of Israel, the Americans, never the Palestinians. They are always the poor suffering victims in this saga.
They will give nothing because they want everything.

MORE PALESTINIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED BY PALESTINIANS THAN BY ISRAELIS.

I don’t know if you are aware of this but recent figures prove that two thousand Palestinians have been killed by rival factions within Palestinian society. That’s more than those killed by Israelis in counter terror actions.
This little known fact gets no air time in any of the media. You don’t hear pro-Palestinian activists demonstrating to prevent this violent abuse. Why should they? It’s easier to claim that Israel commits war crimes. Israelis don’t throw Palestinians off rooftops. Palestinians do. Israelis don’t line up Palestinians against a wall and mow them down for belonging to a rival faction. Palestinians do. Israelis don’t kill local Arabs for collaborating with the enemy. Palestinians do.

If you have any other claims to make against Israel just let me know and I will give you the other side of the coin. The truth of ther matter is that peace would have broken out years ago had anyone of character among the Palestinians truly wanted one without holding to decades, and possibly centuries, of continuing violence.

OUR CONCLUSION IS PAINFULLY HONEST.

We in Israel are ready to make sacrifices. Heaven knows, we have sacrificed plenty up to now. Our leaders will make painful concessions only when we see a pragmatic Palestinian leadership ready and strong enough to deliver a final solution that does not involve the elimination of the Jewish people.
We had that once. It will not happen again.

We return you to your regular programming, finally enlightened with the real deal.

New Directions

I turned 40 today. 40 whole years, the amount of time that the ancient Israelites spent wandering through the Sinai. They were forced to wander due to unbelief that they could take the land of Israel for their own.

A lot has happened in 40 years, many good things, many bad things, and many that were just things.

I have began to see much more of a necessity and direction in where my artistic talents need to go. What I see is a bunch of lies and mis-directed information perpetuated by those in charge of the oil cartels, as well as the countries that suck from their teat. That would be the United States, for those of you not keeping up with global politics. I’m sure I can’t be the only one that sees the bizarre irony of a Muslim mosque super-structure being erected just two blocks from the World Trade Center that was destroyed in a Muslim jihad attack. Want another dose of irony? They intend to begin erecting this structure, on American land in New York City on the tenth anniversary of the very day they blew it up. And New Yorkers are letting them.

Can you say We’ve Forgotten?

Since beginning my pathway to Aliyah, I have also begun to see the world through Israeli eyes, rather than American eyes, that are generally blind to any concept of reality whatsoever. You can argue that point all you like, but find a TV program like MTV‘s Real World or Travel Channel‘s Man vs. Food in Zaire. America is obsessed with food, and many other countries are, too. Except we have too much in America (actually in popular America), and they have too little. If you are poor, you are an asshole and should be shunned, even if it leads to your demise. Not sure how Washington and Hollywood have any right to ride their high horses, but that’s the basic stance, and I’m sick of it.

In 40 years, we went from some moderate decency and lack of technology to an explosion of technology and the pervading attitude of blatant asshattery.

But artists, especially the socially deviant, are the ones who tweak minds. I speak of those such as Ron English and Banksy. With the Arab League propaganda machine in full roll, it’s cool to hate the Jew again. Even more in vogue to hate Israel, but that’s code for the same thing unless you are a boot-licking self-hating J-Street dhimmi.

I’m 40 now. I see a real world, not the fantasy world of bullshit and fake activism over topics that either have no bearing or relation to anything, or resolve any real issues like the ones below from globalissues.org:

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit.… The costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions … are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003.

More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.

The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

If current trends continue, the Millennium Development Goals target of halving the proportion of underweight children will be missed by 30 million children, largely because of slow progress in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Based on enrolment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57 per cent of them were girls. And these are regarded as optimisitic numbers.

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.

Infectious diseases continue to blight the lives of the poor across the world. An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with 3 million deaths in 2004. Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities: Africa accounts for 90 percent of malarial deaths and African children account for over 80 percent of malaria victims worldwide.

Water problems affect half of humanity.

Who are the evil, despicable hate filled apartheid loving assholes working in Africa and other nations to build technology to help save lives, even the lives of those who hate them?

Israel. Same ones that provided medical assistance to Haiti without question. Everyone else then jumped on the bandwagon.

Same country that provided money to the palestinians for aid and support only to have it used for rockets to launch into Sderot. Same country that still provides them with food and healthcare, although you won’t ever see that publicized outside of Israel, even with photographic and video proof.

Number of women in elected political positions in Israel: 94 (1 is an anti-Israeli Arab)

Number of women in elected political position in the ENTIRE Arab/Muslim world: 0 (check it.) Isn’t that the definition of apartheid?

Who built Jerusalem, Jews, or Arabs? I rest my case.

Time to pull your heads out of your asses. Check it yourself.

I want to be peaceful, be a good flower-sniffing chassid. But the fact that I want my children breathing and free will not let me. Art is my weapon. If the oil pushers and Jew-haters can use it to lie, I can use it to tell the truth.

Shepard Fairey has turned into an establishment wussy. His credibility is now shot. It’s our turn to take over where he was actually doing a fine job until Obama bought him kneepads.

40 years, and it has come to a heavy dose of reality.

I am now Israeli.

Here’s some more to tick off all three readers I have.

There ARE such things as Black Jews.

There ARE such things as gay Jews.

There ARE such things as Reform Jews.

There is no such thing as a Palestinian. The Arabs eschewed that when they denied the Two State Solution in 1948. Palestine is in Texas. Pack your bags and move there.

Jews want peace. Jews are Israelis whether they admit it or not. But we are also not going to just lay down and take it like a prison bitch. So don’t cry and whine when you have to taste your own damn medicine.

I’m now too old for utter stupidity.

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The Future of TV

Image via Wikipedia

During a recent bad experience with Comcast here in the States, my wife and I came across a dilemma that we know we will soon face in Israel, and that is the world of TV viewing.

We are both hockey fans, and we ordered the NHL Center Ice package back at the beginning of the season. The service was wonderful, and for about $40 a month, we were able to see most of the games that were being televised. Ironically, one of the games they decided not to show was the one where our favorite teams played each other.

At any rate, while the service was good, the accounting on Comcast’s part was very shotty, so we ended up arguing with them on exactly how much we owed them. While the contract stated we were to be billed monthly, Comcast continually attempted to bill us for the full amount.

This led to us being without service for two days as we tried to find a representative that could intelligently talk about our account and the plan that we had purchased and paid for.

We know that we will face a different situation in Israel, where what we deem the “local media outlets” will no longer be local. We want to be able to view world programming, and retain those things that we like, as well as keep our music and film collections intact.

We would like to be able to view streaming video and podcasts, as well as get RSS feeds of our favorite blogs and info from our friends right there on our TV.

It is also understood that we must learn to live in a small amount of space very happily, which leads to attempting to consolidate and make everything more efficient.

Enter MythTV.

Being a Linux geek, I have known about this technology for quite a while, but have never actually worked with it. There is a report going around somewhere that a large number of people are dumping cable and satellite companies for online viewing. I can certainly understand. With the advent of grid computing and the ability to find much more interesting viewing material online than on the tube (with the obvious exception of NHL Center Ice, which I can also purchase online…) it makes good sense to go ahead and prepare for it.

I’m not entirely certain about the HOT procedures, but the channels look pretty good. Some of them I like better than here. MythTV can handle them there, too.

I plan on putting in in a rather small case, but a very potent system, which will save space, but have as many functions as a Ginzu knife. I promise to tell more about this whole process, but you will have to go to my main blog for that.

The primary gist of what I am saying is three things:

1. Comcast sucks.
2. We need a transferable entertainment system.
3. Baruch Hashem for letting me be an open-source geek.

That’s it for now. Shabbat Shalom!

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New Things

I started another Deviant Art account last week. I really like the site, it is a very good thing if you want to begin a career in art, writing, or just want somewhere to place your doodles. I have had one under my English name for quite a few years, but given the direction that my life has taken (for the better) I decided that it was time to get back into the mix with a brand new vision and way of thinking of things.

On a semi-related subject, you know how they always say, “Don’t quit your day job…” What if you don’t really want to? What if you actually like your day job?

Back to Deviant. I now have my wife on there, too. She has had an interest in photography, and it seems to me that now is as good a time as any to indulge that desire. Besides, life is too short. If you don’t do things when you think of them, especially as one gets older, it becomes much harder to remember them all, then a certainly quality of life is lost, not just by yourself, but also by those who would have benefited in some small way.

Right now, I have been doing several wallpapers, and I guess I’m starting in the desktop customization vein.  Not really sure why, but most likely because the idea was just there, and I needed to get my GIMP functionality back. I use Chromium and Chrome primarily, as I had a bunch of 32 vs. 64-bit nonsense with the Mozilla Xulrunner component going from 1.8 to 1.9. Not very pleased with the mess they’ve made of it, and Google has really suited my needs. It’s cleaner and faster. Soon we’ll see how easy it is to skin. I would really prefer to be able to place out an entire set of things with the wallpaper. An entire theme, thought, visual interpretation. So that if you grab the whole set, you have a good overall artistic vision, rather than just making things match.

I started by making an ID and avatar for DA, which are good, I like them. Then I went to my first wallpaper, which was supposed to be dual screen, but once I finished and tried it (after I had uploaded on DA) it wouldn’t go across both screens properly. But here it is:

Not entirely sure how I came up with the original idea, at first I had the background, and I was going to do something entirely different with it, but then I began thinking about how everything in life is constructed based not only on the original creation, but by every decision that we make in life. It really is a work in progress, if you will.

The title of the piece is Envision The Creator, and that is what the Hebrew in the graphic says, as well.

We construct things every day. Especially those of us in the information technology sector. We are always working with technologies that will shape how functions are done in the future, and the paradigm will continuously shift to meet those new technologies and viewpoints. It’s almost as if we have to look at how things used to be, how they are now, and what they will become in order to get a new point to work from.

Something very refreshing in that thought, because it means that all things can in some way be either corrected or otherwise dealt with. The idea that hope is never lost really works for me.

Deviant Art has always been a way for me to transmit a piece of myself in an artistic fashion, and I believe it is the same for most artists there.

More of the little things that I learn, as they help me in life, and I begin to understand just how they fit into everything, inspire me to make art of a sort out of them so I am not the only one to get use from them. Rabbi Lazer Brody has helped quite a deal with this. As I have said before, I was somewhere in the Chabad quadrant, then I now find myself where I understand many Israelis find themselves, right in the middle of Breslov and Chabad. I don’t remember where exactly I read this little factoid, but it put me at great ease and I suddenly didn’t feel so alone in my philosophy. But as I thought of the idea of social justice, and what it means, especially here in America where by and large it is a bunch of rhetoric, not something to actually be put into practice, I found a quote by Rabbi Nachman that I thought spelled things out quite well.

That led to The Truth and the Apple.

Of course, he has the nice logo that leads to his site at http://www.lazerbrody.net, so I put that in there as a free plug for his site.

The actual quote on the wallpaper is the following:

There is truth, the truth of the truth, and there is peace.

The truth is “the boy stole an apple”,

the truth of the truth is “the boy was hungry”

and peace is “nobody stole anything, now give the boy an apple!”

Of course, I wrote out what I understand to be tzedek chevruti, loosely translated as “social justice” on the bottom. There is also another message in this picture not readily available to the casual eye. There are 34 complete six-sided figures in this graphic. 6 has quite a few meanings in Gematria besides simply being the number of man.

First, it took Hashem six days to create what we call the world. Yehudah HaNasi broke the laws down to six orders in the Mishnah, to further help us understand how to conduct ourselves and share peace and love through the world. As I write this, we are counting the Omer towards Shavuot, which always occurs on the 6th of Sivan. 33 is the number attributed to Lag B’Omer, the “midpoint” of sorts, the 33rd day of the Omer. Then that big figure in front… 1 is the number for Hashem. This is also showing that by man taking what he learns from the Mishnah, and not just reading it, but applying it, attempting to get closer to Hashem, and help his fellow man, they all ascend, hence the arrow pointed upwards. Underlying this is a much larger segment of 3 parts, which in Gematria, defines kedusha, or holiness.

We have a hard time finding this holiness, learning how to apply it, and even get to a part where we feel like Hashem is approachable. On a practical level, we want what the band Hadag Nachash sings of in their rendition of Ratziti SheTida (Elohim Sheli).

And of course, where would I be without my wife? So I had to make her something related to the animal that is near and dear to her heart, the Tiger.

She has been madly in love with tigers for as long as I have known her and longer. One of the first stuffed animals I got her when we first met was a giant stuffed tiger about four feet long. He watches us sleep now. I remember on the way home from the grocery store she was driving, and I had this giant cat on my lap, aiming it out the window and stroking it as if it were a real animal.

Since it was already after dark, I believe three people swerved in shock, and one at least scrubbed the median when I pretended it was trying to get out of the car window and attack the other driver.

She made me stop before someone got seriously injured. I could feel the universal deflation of pride and self-worth as they realized they had been scared half to death by a stuffed animal.

I promise not to do it again.

Today, anyway.

Seriously, with the state of the tiger in the wild, this year being the Chinese Year of the Tiger is a frightening joke. We have to do something to save these animals. That is why this wallpaper was made, both to showcase another DA artist, as well as help people take notice of what the facts are and at least try to do something to help the situation.

Did you know that there are more tigers kept as pets in Texas as there are remaining in the wild? That’s 4,000 vs the 3,200 remaining. Oh, wait. We didn’t count the other 8,000 pet tigers across the USA. What the hell, do these guys have pet tiger conventions or something? What do you really need a tiger in your house for?

And you wonder why I get increasingly disgusted with the mindset over here…

But that’s the goods for this week. I’ll recap the work I do next week in a segment like this.

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No Place Like Home

"Did we get it all, Ma?"

I was thinking about stopping by the bank, and then the Kosher grocery store on the way home today.

It has become a ritual. Partly because kosher lunch meat goes bad so quickly, and I never seem to keep the cash on hand that I should. File that one under bills that must be paid. Here in America, a lot of our food has enough chemicals in them to embalm an elephant. Since we have become more shomer kosher, and we don’t really live anywhere near a kosher-specific grocery, that means I usually have to stop by the store on the way home.

Today, I have decided to skip that nonsense. We are having pasta with garlic bread, so I thought up what I needed to make that at home, and realized that instead of going out any buying the big loaf of bread, I could just make it and skip both the hassle and expense. It certainly sounds like a plan to me.

There’s also the gas expense of having to go out of the way. I have learned, as I tweeted earlier today, that various fruits work pretty well as a lunch, now that the Stanley Cup Playoffs are in full swing and I don’t like missing those games. Neither does my wife, for that matter. Her (our) favorite team is in the Playoffs this year, and we are hoping to see them actually go somewhere. By the time the West Coast teams finish up, you’re looking at about 1am EST, and then I am theoretically supposed to be up and at ’em by 5am.

Yeah, right.

So I am all bleary eyed trying to get the coffee together to make the drive into work, and that means that I don’t really have the mental fortitude to pack a full lunch. So I am both lazy, and mentally not with it. Grab the fruit and run. It just works.

I also found out that I have to come in to the office tomorrow, when I normally get to work from home. But I’m not mad about it. There are perfectly good reasons for everything, and you can always find them if you look hard enough. Besides, I get to use my dual-screen Linux box, and that is always nice.

So today, I get to hurry home to my family, eat the sumptuous meal I have been blessed with, gratefully say Birkat HaMazon, and hopefully watch the Nashville Predators make Blackhawks fans cry like sissies.

Hopefully.

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Hello world!

Image by Stephanie Booth via Flickr

Hello, World.

Who knows how many times I have seen that phrase beginning working with a new software programming language, or just trying to make sure it works.

The first time I remember seeing it was way back in the 1990’s when Gosling first came up with Java.

Yes, I’m that old, it appears.

I believe that is a good enough test.

So, hello, world!