Sefardi or Ashkenazi? Who calls Ashdod & Ashkelon home?

 

It would be interesting to see who lives in Ashdod and Ashkelon; who are in the majority.

I'd wager that the majority of the residents are from - or descended from Jews who once lived in - Moslem-dominated countries; e.g., North Africa, Syria, Iraq and Iran, Egypt.

Most of the people I know here in the States who claim Ashdod or Ashkelon as their home are Sefardi.

At the same time, most of the people who bewail the efforts of the mayors of these two Israeli towns to protect their citizens are Ashkenazi. Those criticizing the mayors include the Ashkenazi prime minister, the Ashkenazi mayor of Jerusalem - one must wonder about his position given the terrorists attacks in his city - the president, and others none of which are Sefardi.

Why is this?

Perhaps because the Sefardim understand the Moslems, and because they know the reality of Israel's "talk the talk but don't walk the walk" government that, if you would poll the pols, is mostly Ashkenazi.

I'm not going to suggest that all Ashkenazim are fools or appeasers; Begin was neither and he was Ashkenazi.

And I am not going to suggest that all Moslems - Israeli Moslems or otherwise - are planning terror attacks against Israeli Jews and non-Jews.

I AM suggesting that the Sefardim are better equipped to deal with Moslems.

My Father-in-Law (ע''ה) grew up in Morocco. He worked with Moroccan Moslems; he competed with Moroccan Moslems; he co-existed with Moroccan Moslems. He showed them respect and it was returned.

My Father-In-Law was a big man, physically. He would not be pushed around.

When the family made aliyah in the 1960s, he was settled in Bet Shean, a town in the Jordan Valley that was too hot for the Ashkenazim - besides, Bet Shean is on the Jordan border so if attacks came from that direction, the Sefardim could buffer the Ashkenazim farther from the border.

If you think that is a "sepur Savta," I suggest you look at all of the places the Ashkenazi governments settled immigrants from Moslem countries.

Moslems have an Eastern mentality, akin to the Chinese and Japanese. Sefardim, having lived with Moslems for centuries, understand that mentality. Understanding it means being able to deal with it.

The Ashkenazi, with his European mentality cannot comprehend the Moslem mind and lacks the ability to deal with the Moslem mentality. The Ashkenazi simply wants to do what is "politically correct "and damn the consequences" - the murders on the streets and in the synagogues, the rockets raining down on civilians.

At one time several Moslems invaded Bet Shean and killed several residents.

The residents and the Army killed the terrorists. The residents, 90% of whom were from North Africa, doused the Moslems' bodies with gasoline and set them afire. Moslems believe they won't get their promised 70 virgins if the body is burned. It was decades before another Moslem tried to attack anyone in Bet Shean - and he was caught as he rode an Egged bus toward the town.

Burning bodies is not "politically correct" and I am certain the Ashkenazim in government "tisked-tisked" and rung their hands over what the cruel Sefardim did to those poor Moslem terrorists - but it sent a message that kept Bet Shean "terrorist free" for decades.

My personal, American, attitude is similar to my Father-In-Law's: if you push me, I'll push you back - harder. I won't start something, but I intend to finish it.

It's time the Ashkenazi leadership realized that its threats to act against terrorists and its promises to protect Israel's citizens are just words with no value; the Moslems know that between the Ashkenazis' desire for "political correctness" and Europe's (and, unfortunately North America's) bleeding hearts will protect them from justified retribution.

It's time the Ashkenazi leadership learned a lesson from the Sefardim and became more concerned with Israel's citizens and less concerned with "political correctness."

Government is appalled Mayors said "racist" For protecting people

 

The mayors of the city of Ashdod and Ashkelon are making it tough - albeit not impossible - for Arabs from the Aza and PA-controlled areas in Yesha.

The mayor, Yehiel Lasri, along with the mayor of Ashkelon, Itamar Shimoni, have clamped down on non-Israeli Arab construction workers by having the gall to demand their Israeli-citizen employers carefully check their papers. (Try and get a job in the U.S. and, unless you are an "undocumented" [illegal] alien, it won't happen unless you have a passport two forms of pseudo-ID, "pseudo" since there is no way to prove a Social Security card belongs to the person presenting it.)

The mayors are holding up construction of some child-related projects in order to protect the children in the neighborhoods. (What do we do in the U.S. to protect our children from known predators? Do we let them work in/near schools?)

While not all Moslems in Israel, Aza, and Yesha are terrorists, there are enough that precautions are necessary. It is the primary responsibility of a government's CEO - be it a town or city government such as Ashkelon or Ashdod or the national government - that seems to have abrogated its responsibility - in Israel and, indeed, throughout the world.

Rhetorical question: Would Obama allow ISIS terrorists into the U.S. for any reason? To learn to fly jetliners? To learn to pilot huge ships carrying containers or oil? Remember, the question is just rhetorical.

The mayors are being attacked buy both the left and right, including Israel's prime minister and its president.

It seems the only people who favor the mayors' actions are the people in Ashdod and Ashkelon.

In Ashkelon, dozens of residents demonstrated in support of their mayor, bearing signs reading "guard the children," and "Bibi wake up - our children won't be abandoned."

According to an article in Arutz 7, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein weighed in on the case Thursday, claiming the move was in violation of the equal employment law. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday morning she had contacted Weistein demanding such action, and called the move illegal

For all that, the same article quotes Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin (Likud), who notes:

"There's so much hypocrisy in the media crackdown on the Ashkelon Mayor - Mr. Itamar Shimoni - and calls of 'racist' against him," Feiglin wrote on his Facebook page Thursday afternoon.

"After all, Arab workers don't enter IDF bases or sensitive facilities of the Defense Ministry," noted Feiglin. "So why is the security of kindergarten children in Ashkelon less sensitive? Why is the concern for security racism?"

In his remarks Feiglin echoed comments made by former MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, who noted earlier that from his experiences no Arab workers are employed for manual labor in the Knesset.

"Not a single Arab contractor or Arab laborer can work in the Knesset. It's a fact. I was there for four years, all of the contractors are Jews and there are no Arab laborers. Not in flooring, not in carpentry, not in cleaning," said Ben-Ari. "Let the hypocritical Bennett and (MK) Miri Regev first fight against the 'racism' in the Knesset!"

Attorney Uri Tzipori on the legal department of the Derech Chaim movement that pushes for Israel to unite behind the way of the Torah, there is nothing illegal about the move.

Tzipori argued that the equal employment law does not need to be applied in the current case, given that the layoffs are made in response to a serious security situation and a sense of immediate danger, and not out of a mere desire to fire Arab workers, in which case one would expect such steps to have been taken long ago.

IN THE BEGINNING most of the construction work in Israel was done by Jews for Jews. In fact, most of the work in Israel was performed for Jews by Jews. Slowly the Jews became "too good" to do the less than glamorous jobs and the Arabs filled the gap.

Today, more and more construction jobs are filled by Chinese. Almost all residential health care work is done by women from the Philippines. (Israel already is starting to pay the price for importing foreign workers.)

Opuscula Hamas aim: Destroy Israel Or kill innocents?

 

If you think Hamas wants to destroy Israel, you are mistaken.

Hamas wants to slaughter civilians. Period. End of story.

It wants, if the Israeli government has the "intestinal fortitude," to commit political suicide by forcing Israel to take over Gaza. (This time there is no Arial Sharon to give it back until it has been disarmed and a responsible government installed.)

Either that or its leaders are imbeciles, and that is well within the realm of probability.

My logic?

I'm not a career military planner, but if I wanted to get rid of Israel I would NOT go about it by firing rockets at civilians. That's just making the people angry and causing them to demand (at last) that Gaza once more be under Israeli military control (and damn the bleeding heart liberals who will gnash their teeth and wail about "occupation").

Israel is a "revolving door" nation.

It imports raw materials.

Does something with those raw materials.

Exports a finished product.

Add under the import/export category "tourists." Tourists are hardly "raw materials," but they are a major source of income for the country.

All the imports and exports go through ports.

  Ashdod (sea)

  Ashkelon (sea)

  Eilat (air and sea).

  Hadera (sea)

  Haifa (air and sea)

  Lod (air)

  Ovda (air)

Shut down the ports ^{NOTE BOTTOM} and you almost completely isolate Israel from the world. Israel still would have access, albeit inconvenient access, to the world via Egypt and Jordan.

It's pretty clear that the "fearless leaders" behind Hamas - and Hezbollah in the north - are interested in murdering civilians and not, as they and the PA leadership proclaim, in destroying Israel.

Add to that the terrorists Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of installing rocket launchers in residential areas, of using their own civilians as shields against Israeli counter-attacks and it becomes clear that the goal is not Israel's destruction but population reduction.

Hamas doesn't even target military installations - army, navy, and air force bases. No, it saves its missiles for civilian targets.

If Israel "went away" tomorrow - and G-d willing will be it remain until the mashiach arrives - Hamas, the PA, Hezbollah, et al, could have little or no reason to exist, so the reality of it all is that the terrorists need Israel to keep money flowing into the leadership's pockets.

NOTE: When I worked for Tadiran in Holon, customs clerks went on strike. Nothing came into the country; nothing left the country. Tadiran, a huge, multi-division company, would have laid off 20% of its workforce if the strike continued beyond a specific date. Fortunately for me and other Tadiran employees, the strike was settled and we had no strike-related layoffs.