Thursday, January 23, 2020

Opuscula

One thing
At a time

THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON TODAY, 23 January 2020/25 Tevet 5780 that it is hard to know on what to focus.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN is to host the anti-Jew, anti-Israel “2020 Youth for Palestine Conference,” on Jan. 25-26 on the campus in Ann Arbor. It is being hosted by Midwest Students for Justice in Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Students Allied for Freedom and Equality.

The United With Israel (WIN) web site, https://tinyurl.com/vp2g7m7, is asking its followers to “Demand University of Michigan Cancel the Event!” and provides the names of the university’s president and of its chief flack.

UM is notorious for support of BDS and generally anything against Jews or Israel.

Interestingly, BDS does more damage to residents of PLO-controlled Israel and to Israelis. Where BDS has success, Israeli firms that hired residents from PLO and Hamas territories lose jobs when the Israeli firms fold or relocate.

The pro-PLO groups are following the nazis whom many supported during WW2.

Goebbels’ “Big Lie”

Joseph Goebbels told his fellow nazis and their friends, including Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” (https://tinyurl.com/yy9scb8x)

Substitute "PLO" for "state."

Anyone who has lived for more than a few weeks in Israel KNOWS that what the propagandists of the PLO, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are claiming is, in blunt terms, bovine excrement. Muslims from the PLO-controlled areas come — in some case, “came” — into Israel to work for better wages than they could get where they live — IF there were available jobs. “Came” into Israeli to work for Israeli-owned operations until BDSers forced the businesses to relocate or fold. Soda Stream is a prime, but not the only, example of BDS’ impact on the residents of the PLO-controlled areas.

If life in Israel is so bad, why do so many Muslims continue to live in Israel. They can sell and move to any of 50 Muslim-dominated countries in the world. (https://tinyurl.com/wb9e2aw)

FOR ALL THAT this scrivener is against WIN’s appeal.

The FIRST Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states clearly: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Let the ignorant bigots speak, and assure that those protesting the conference do not interfere with the event.

At the same time, assure that Jewish groups can hold their own “conference” a day later, with the same guarantees that the idiot bigots who came for the pro-PLO event are kept at bay so the Jews’ conference can proceed sans violent interference.

That should satisfy the bigots and the Jews and the U.S. Constitution.

French church is extra-territorial?

According to the left-wing Israeli publication HaAretz (https://tinyurl.com/wc95un), the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, confronted Israeli security in the Old City of Jerusalem Wednesday, yelling at them not to enter the Church of St. Anne, which is considered to be French territory.

Does any other country allow such “extra-territorial” churches?

According to numerous web sources, the church is considered French property. It is not an embassy or consulate, but apparently Israel allows the French to claim it.

I wonder what the French thought when “during the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, Saladin converted the church into an institution of Muslim theological study” (https://tinyurl.com/rqv7fv5)

In any event, after paying his obsequious visit to the terrorist Abu Mazen, a/k/a Mahmoud Abbas (whose 4-year term staring in 2005 now is in its 14th year), Macron visited the Catholic church where he allegedly told Israeli security forces that "Everybody knows the rules ... Outside, please," he can be heard screaming at Israeli security forces.

Were it not for the national embarrassment of having a visiting “dignitary” (Macon) insulted, injured, or murdered by one of his many enemies on Israeli soil, Israel would not need to follow him around.

France is one of the nations where Jews live in safety — written in sarcasm. French Jews are some of the most threatened peoples in Europe today.

This scrivener can understand a consulate or embassy being “extra-territorial,” but a CHURCH?

A cursory search of the Internet failed to find any “extra-territorial” churches in the U.S. outside of a consulate of embassy.

Perhaps someone claims the Catholic church in Bet Lehem (Bethleham) also is “extra-territorial.” Apparently such claims mean nothing to the Muslim terrorists who took over the facility. Where was the French, or Italian, or even Vatican outrage at the affrontery of the Muslims.

France, as anyone who has studied French-Israeli relations knows, is politically two-faced; selling arms to Israel and then, abandoning Israel and selling arms to its ememies.

Given that France caved to the nazis without a great deal of fuss, it’s no wonder than its president du jour tries to restore respect to the country by behaving foolishly in Israel.

He should be glad Israeli security follows him wherever he goes.

BBC does it — again

Honest Reporting shares
At the end of an otherwise nice profile of Holocaust survivor Rena Quint, reporter Orla Guerin goes on to editorialize about Israel’s “occupation” of the Palestinians. (https://tinyurl.com/wtrwyj2)

It has nothing to do with the story at hand, except in the minds of Guerin and her BBC editors. (Watch https://vimeo.com/386664438. Guerin’s key quote is at 4:12.)

”The state of Israel is now a regional power. For decades, it has occupied Palestinian territories. But some here will always see their nation through the prism of persecution and survival.” Orla Guerin, BBC News, Yad Vashem.

I don’t know if the BBC mimics the New York Times or if the Times mimics the BBC. When it comes to “reporting” (read “editorializing”) about Israel, both leave something to be desired, i.e., truth and fairness.

Perhaps Ms. Guerin failed Middle East History 101.

In 1947/48, Israel agreed to occupy only a sliver of land originally allotted to it by the political power of the time; the same powers that created, in 1921, both the modern Kingdom of Jordan and appointed a foreign ruler — that is, from another Middle East “state” — to rule over the few indigious inhabitants of the interior (what now defines the Hasemite kingdom of Jordan.)

When Israel declared its independence in 1948, it was attacked from three sides by its neighbors who swore to drive the Jews into the sea.

Toward that end, many Muslims fled towns in Israel’s sliver of land and many more followed the mufti’s word to get out of the way of the glorious Arab armies coming to liberate all of Palestine and free it of Jews.

The attacks failed, and failed again in June, 1967, and again in October 1973. In each case, the attackers lost land as the price of attacking Israel. With the peace agreement between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, Egypt regained the Sinai (but refused to take back the Gaza Strip).

The so-called “Palestinian territories” Ms. Guerin claims Israel is occupying include Jerusalem, Israel’s capital since King David. It also “occupies” other land the invaders lost to modern Israel. It excludes PLO-controlled land.

Arabs in Israeli “occupied” land are better off financially that their brothers in PLO-occupied lands. They have better medical care, better educational opportunities, better job prospects than those Arabs in PLO-controlled lands.

Unlike their brothers, they are free to travel on Israeli passports to any country that accepts those passports. Meanwhile, Arabs in PLO and Hamas-controlled areas must travel to Europe or other Arab nations. The Muslim-dominated nations typically allow “Palestinians” in to work as temporary residents and the “Palestinians” often complain of discrimination among their fellow Muslims.

As an after thought, it is the “Palestinians” who will always see their nation "through the prism of persecution and survival.” Until such time as Abu Mazen and his kind are willing to come to the table and seriously negotiate sans pre-conditions, the Muslims of the PLO-controlled territories and Gaza have no hope of statehood.

Too many times when they condescended to show up, they refused all Israeli concessions and, in return, increased attacks on Israeli citizens.


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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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