Israellycool

I’m learning something new about Barack Obama every day.

This story may be from last week, but I’ll post it anyway because:

1. It shows while US Muslims claim they are being victimized and are the victims of hate crimes, members of their community are victimizing and perpetrating hate crimes against others.

2. It is a great metaphor for what is happening in the Middle East.

3. The bad guy gets hurt.

A 25-year-old Israeli rabbinical assistant was assaulted by a group of Arab teenagers screaming “Allah akbar” in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening.

Uria Ohana, originally from Kfar Chabad, entered a subway station in the affluent Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn Tuesday evening, on his way to a lecture in Manhattan, when he noticed a group of Arab teenagers congregated on a bench in the station.

Ohana did not exchange words or make eye contact with the group, but proceeded upstairs to his train.

On his way, he felt someone grab his kippa from his head and then heard laughter. Ohana decided to chase the boys to retrieve his kippa.

The 18-year-old boy who grabbed the kippa left the subway station and ran into the street, where he was hit by a car, breaking his leg.

While Ohana chased the boy, the other teenagers began chasing him, screaming “Allah akbar.”

“They screamed at me, ‘Did you see what happened to him because of you?’” said Ohana, a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical assistant who works in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Two of the Arab boys then started kicking and punching Ohana in the face.

“As soon as they started screaming, I understood [the attack] was racial,” said Ohana.

The crime is being investigated as aggravated harassment and a possible bias crime, according to a New York Police Department spokeswoman. “I am almost sure it will be charged as a hate crime,” said the spokeswoman.

“I’m sad that this kind of attack is coming to New York after seeing this in Israel,” said Ohana. “An Arab teenager attacking a Jew for being a Jew scares me as a Jew.”

Ohana said one police officer brushed the incident off as a case of a teenager who “doesn’t know what ‘Allah akbar’ means.

“This scares me in a global context, Arabs taking national pride one step forward,” said Ohana.

The youth who was hit by the car was taken to the Lutheran Medical Center to be treated for his broken leg and was placed under arrest. The other two boys fled the scene and have not yet been apprehended.

I say this story is a great metaphor for what is happening in the Middle East, because it involves the following scenario: Arabs attack Israel, Israel responds, resulting in Arabs getting hurt. Arabs then blame Israel for Arabs getting hurt, and perpetrate further violence in response. And of course, the police officer’s response is a great metaphor for world indifference to Jewish suffering at the hands of the Arabs.

However, the metaphor does not completely hold.

CBS reported that Hussein has been charged with grand larceny, petty larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.

In the Middle East, it are the Jews who are blamed, charged with crimes at the UN, and judged harshly in the court of public opinion.

Update: The story reminds me of the following joke told to me by former senior advisor to Ariel Sharon, Ra’anan Gissin:

Three hunters are out on safari — an American, a Brit and an Israeli. They are captured by cannibals who start getting the cooking pots ready. The cannibal chief tells the hunters they can have one last wish.

“What’s your last request?” he asks the American.

“I’d like a steak,” he replies.

So the cannibals kill a zebra and serve the American his steak.

“What do you want?” the cannibal chief asks the Brit.

“I’d like to have a smoke on my pipe,” which they let him do.

Then the chief asks the Israeli: “What’s your last wish?”

“I want you to kick my rear end.”

“Be serious,” says the top cannibal.

“C’mon, you promised,” says the Israeli.

“Oh, all right,” says the chief, who delivers the requested kick. Whereupon, the Israeli pulls out a gun, shoots the chief and a few other cannibals while the rest run away.

The American and Brit are furious.

“Why didn’t you do that in the first place, so we wouldn’t have had to go through all this?” they demand.

Replies the Israeli: “What? Are you mad? The UN would have condemned me as the aggressor!”

I know many of my American readers have reservations about him - especially on domestic issues - but Republican Presidential candidate John McCain is sounding the right notes when it comes to Israel.

He seems to understand that our war against the terrorists is not just our war:

“If Hamas/Hizbullah succeeds here, they are going to succeed everywhere, not only in the Middle East, but everywhere. Israel isn’t the only enemy.. They are dedicated to the extinction of everything that the US, Israel and the West believe and stand for. So America does have an interest in what happens here, far above and beyond our alliance with the State of Israel.”

That it does not make sense for Israel to talk with Hamas:

“Someone is going to have to answer me the question of how you are going to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction.”

That the US should not dictate policy to Israel:

“I really think that we should understand that the US and Israel are partners. Israel is not a client of the United States. If you are partners, then you don’t dictate what you think the terms of the survival of a nation should be.”

That Israel has the right to respond vigorously to the rocket fire emanating from Gaza:

“I can’t give you a good answer as to how you respond to these rocket attacks..I can tell you that I believe that if rocket attacks came across the border of the United States of America, that the American people would probably demand pretty vigorous actions in response. I think I know my constituency in the state of Arizona, and they would be pretty exercised if rockets came across our southern border.”

And that Iran is a huge threat to the world:

“I think Iran is a threat to the region,” McCain said, adding that not only were the Iranians “obviously pursuing nuclear weapons,” they were also arming and training extremists to send into Iraq, supporting Hizbullah and influencing Syria.

“At the end of the day, we can still not afford to have Iran with nuclear weapons,” he said. “We know they have ambitions that are not just aimed at the State of Israel.”

These ambitions included “destabilization of the entire region upon which the United States’ national security interests rest,” he said.

He also says he supports Jerusalem as the capital of Israel:

Before his arrival in Israel on Tuesday, McCain said he supports Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. He told reporters in Jordan: “I support Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

Of course, I realize there is a difference between saying the right things and doing the right things. After all, how many times have we heard a US President say they promise to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, only to postpone the move?

In McCain’s case, there are some worrying signs, including the mention of James Baker as a possible presidential envoy to the region, and the claim by Israeli journalist Amir Oren that McCain lied about having had said Israel should return to the 1967 armistice lines. And let’s face it, in any event, he would not shun the PA, since any US Government could not be more hardline than the Israeli government. So we would likely end up in a similar situation to that we find ourselves in today - “negotiating” with a bunch of terrorists still dedicated to our destruction.

Update: Yep, not much would change under McCain:

Earlier Wednesday, McCain told Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that he believed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was committed to the peace process and opposed the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip.

At a press conference with Livni, McCain said he had telephoned Abbas, who is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah just a few kilometres away, because he was unable to meet the Palestinian president in person.

McCain said the Western-backed leader wants to move forward in peace talks.

“I again believe that President Abbas wants to get this [peace] process started,” McCain said in Jerusalem.

Update: And again:

The grim situation in the rocket-battered town of Sderot has left a heavy impression on Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who visited there with Defense Minister Ehud Barak Wednesday afternoon.

McCain noted that there have been 900 rocket attacks on Sderot in the last three months, and that a rocket lands there every two hours in average. This puts intolerable pressure on the children and the population in general, he said, adding that this was “no way to spend the Purim holiday.

Speaking at a press conference after touring the town with Barak, McCain stressed the importance of the peace process in bringing an end to the conflict.

The cycle of action and reaction must stop, and therefore the peace process should not be abandoned, he said.

There is much talk about Democratic candidate Barak Obama, and here in Israel, the focus is naturally on “Will he be good for Israel?” I have certainly not dealt with this issue on this blog (mainly due to time constraints), and don’t feel the urgent need to for now, especially with some excellent analysis elsewhere (such as over at Israel Matzav).

Having said that, I would like to draw your attention to the following report from the palestinian Ramattan news agency:

A Palestinian youth from Gaza is working hard in day and night as a for free volunteer appealing the American citizens to vote for the US presidency democratic candidate Senator Barak Obama.

Ibrahim Abu Jayyab, 23, living in the besieged Gaza Strip, decided to support Obama in his harsh competition against the republican Hillary Clinton in the running US presidency election campaign.

Abu Jayyab, who studies media in Gaza, says that he uses a for-free internet communication soft ware programs to call as much as possible US citizens calling them to vote for Obama.

He spends long hours on internet and watching TV news to follow up any developments on the running elections in the United States.

Abu Jayyab tries to realize the state or city where the elections are going to be held, and then he phones people at the same state.

“I phone tens or hundreds of random phone nombers calling them to vote for Obama because he is the man of the future,” Abu Jayyab told RNA reporter.

He thinks that if Obama becomes the US President he will help the Palestinians to achieve their dreams.

“We can not achieve our dreams because of the Israeli occupation, the world did not help us to end the Israeli occupation,” he said “we hope Obama will achieve what the world could not, to help us to live in peace and to achieve our dreams.”

Abu Jayyab believes that as Obama from an Islamic origin and from those who oppressed a long the history, he thinks that he will absorb the suffer of the Palestinians and will not hesitate to help them.

The media student also faces the problem of the frequent power cut in the Gaza Strip that prevents him to use his PC or to follow the updated news of the elections.

The Israelis reduced fuel to the sole power plant in Gaza as a part of the siege on Gaza saying that such procedure is retaliation on firing home-made projectiles on Israeli towns.

Abu Jayyab is preparing to “launch new campaign” in Ohio and Texas states on the 4th of the coming March.

He says that he is admired in the personality of Obama and his skill in convincing others in his statements and debates.

However…

But, Abu Jayyab is so “disappointed and upset” because of Obama because he did not mention to the suffer and the security of the Palestinian people when he said that the security of Israel is “holy”.

“Why Senator Obama did not mention to the daily killing the Palestinian people lives in, why he did not talk about the siege on Gaza? What about security, is it not sacrosanct?” he said.

In TV discussion issues of anti-Semitism, with Hilary Clinton, Obama said Tuesday: “… I have been a stalwart friend of Israel and supported the special relationship we enjoy with it… they are among our most important allies and their security is sacrosanct.”

But Abu Jayyab mentioned that he has exceeded such issue and would continue his campaign to support Obama.

Update: And in the interests of fairness, I will also post this link to part of a Ynet interview with Obama, in which the latter presents his views on Israel, the palestinians and Iran.

Ha’aretz journalist Amir Oren has challenged likely Republican nominee for US President , Senator John McCain, to a lie detector test over the latter’s denial that he said Israel should return to 1967 armistice lines.

This week, Senator John McCain took heat because of an interview that he granted two years ago to Amir Oren, a credible journalist from the Israeli newspaper HaAretz, on May 1, 2006, in which Mr. McCain declared that his administration “would send “the smartest guy I know” to the Middle East …. “Brent Scowcroft, or Jim Baker though I know that you in Israel don’t like Baker.”

Mr. McCain added “I would expect concessions and sacrifices by both sides.”

When Mr. Oren asked Mr. McCain if that meant a “movement toward the June 4, 1967 armistice lines, with minor modifications? McCain nodded in the affirmative.”

To deflect criticism that he has encountered on the 2008 campaign trail, the McCain campaign has been quoting an article by John B. Judis., senior editor at The New Republic who wrote in an article in that publication on October 25, 2006 that Mr. McCain was “miffed at his portrayal in HaAretz,” saying that “after reading the HaAretz article and subsequent report in The Jewish Press [in New York],” he felt the need to “clear up several serious misimpressions.” Mr. McCain said that “in contrast to the impression left by the HaAretz article, I’ve never held the position that Israel should return to 1967 lines, and that is not my position today.”

The senator repeated this week what he said to the New Republic which was that “in the course of that brief, off-the-cuff conversation, I never discussed settlement blocs, a total withdrawal, or anything of the sort.”

Reached at his desk in Tel Aviv, Mr. Oren told The Bulletin that Mr. McCain is simply “not telling the truth”, and that he would gladly invite him to a polygraph to see who is telling the truth. He said Mr. McCain indeed recommended Mr. Baker and Mr. Snowcroft as his potential candidates to deal with the Middle East, and that he clearly answered in the affirmative when it came to Mr. McCain’s expectations of Israel, and how it should relate to further withdrawals. Mr. Oren said that Mr. McCain stated clearly that Israel’s policy should be one of “defending itself and withdrawing, defending itself and withdrawing.” Far from an off the cuff conversation, Mr. Oren told the Bulletin that this was a formal interview that Mr. McCain provided him at the the Brussels Forum for American-European Relations, following an interview that Mr. McCain provided to the Washington Post. Mr. Oren mentioned to the Bulletin that the interview was conducted in the presence of Mr. McCain’s aide, Richard Fontaine.

Coming on an auspicious day when Israel faced more than 20 missile attacks from the Gaza area from which Israel withdrew its troops and citizens from only two years ago, at the insistence of the U.S. government, these words from Mr. McCain may not ring favorably with American voters who do not want Israel to be pushed by future American administrations. To conduct further withdrawals of troops and citizens to the 1967 lines - which would provide further areas in Judea and Samaria from which Palestinian terrorists would launch be able to launch further missile attacks on the vast majority of Israel’s population, would be unacceptable to many. It would position Israeli citizens who live along the coastal region of Israel, inside the pre-1967 lines, between six and 12 miles from the hilly region that would come under Palestinian control - and Israel’s only airport, in Lod, less than five miles from Palestinian missile sights.

Mr. Oren was clearly upset to hear Mr. McCain was challenging the veracity of the interview from two years ago. In Mr. Oren’s words, Mr. McCain should “show the same courage on the campaign trail that he showed in Vietnam.”

Reuters reports:

The United States has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better “smart bombs” than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said on Sunday.Keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis.

The plan has angered Israel’s backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990 and has used them extensively in a 2006 offensive in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade.

Two Israeli security sources said the United States further mollified the Olmert government with an “understanding in principle” that future JDAM sales to Israel would include advanced technologies not on offer to Saudi Arabia.

“We are checking which of the top-of-the-line JDAMs will become available to us. The agreement is that Israel’s qualitative edge will be preserved,” one source said.

This is idiotic on a number of levels.

First of all, Saudi Arabia can have a trillion dollars’ worth of weapons; they are useless in a kingdom that has no decent army, no military expertise, and utterly no ability to deter any Iranian offenses. If Iran would decide for some reason to attack Saudi Arabia, it would be the US that defends it anyway - the Saudis would crumple on their own no matter what advanced weaponry they own (and they already own quite a bit of it.)

The Saudi arsenal is nothing more than a tempting target for terrorists to get their own hands on advanced weaponry for uses that are far from their conventional intent.

Moreover, in a world where asymmetric warfare is the prevailing wisdom, giving Israel a “qualitative edge” in having “smarter” bombs doesn’t help Israel’s defense a bit. Is there any chance that the Islamists who might end up with Saudi weaponry would care that Israel is somewhat better at hitting back purely military targets? They’ll be using this advanced weaponry against population centers in Israel. As Lebanon showed, Geneva no longer applies in the Arab wars against Israel and giving Israel better offensive weapons does not help much against an enemy for whom death is desirable.

Now, if the US would give Israel technology that can defend against the Saudi bombs - if an encrypted backdoor was placed in the JDAM software that could disable the weapons remotely, for example - then this might make sense. But the fact that Israel’s theoretical future versions of JDAMs might have an accuracy of 3 meters rather than 6 meters is pretty much meaningless.

None of this makes sense. Iran is not deterred in the least by these moves, on the contrary it gives them even more incentive to build nuclear bombs.

This deal might benefit defense contractors but pretty much no one else.

(cross-posted at Elder of Ziyon)

But Rice on Monday clarified that the US believes that portions of east Jerusalem are considered to be “settlements” and that Israel must stop building there as part of its commitment to implement the first phase of the road map.

The land that Har Homa is on was legally purchased by Jews from Sheikh Shehade al-Faghuri, through an Arab middleman named Ibrahim al-Dajani, in 1944 (source: Army of Shadows - read my review of the book here).

Nadia Abu El-Haj, who teaches anthropology at Barnard College, has received tenure from that institution.

Much has already been written about her book criticizing any archaeology that indicates a presence of an Jewish kingdom in what is now Israel, even though she has no archaeology experience herself. Her pre-conceived notion that there were never ancient Jews in the Middle East is so overpowering that she essentially dismisses the entire field of archaeology as being hopelessly biased against her version of the truth.

This was the only book she ever wrote, and it seems on its own to be pretty powerful evidence that her scholarship is suspect, to say the least. But what most people haven’t caught on to is that more recently she has been doing to the field of genetics what she had previously done to archaeology - to reach the identical conclusion. In an article in American Ethnologist she says modern genetics has disproved the idea that the Jewish maternal line originated in ancient Israel (what she calls “Palestine” even when she is talking about a kingdom that predates that term.)

It is an amazing coincidence that she has looked at two disparate fields, neither of which she is an expert in, and reached the identical conclusion - the Jews have no historic right to live in Israel. The fact that she is of Palestinian Arab origin surely has nothing to do with this eerie juxtaposition of separate proofs by assertion.

Perhaps if her only “scholarship” was concentrated in deconstructing archaeology, a case could be made that she is just doing the same as what other postmodernists do. But the fact that she uses her anthropology background as a blunt instrument to pretend to be a scholar in two separate, specialized fields of which she has no real knowledge shows not only that El-Haj is no scholar, but that she has a purely Jew-hating agenda. It is almost beyond belief that such a person, who can only be described as a bigot, can reach such a level at any university, let alone one as formerly prestigious as this one.

Columbia University (of which Barnard is part) certainly has seen its reputation collapse in the past year.

(cross-posted at Elder of Ziyon)

No, this is not that kind of post. I’m talking literally.

Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein lived very similar lives. They were both born in New York, edited their high school newspapers and studied film at university. And both were adopted in 1968.

It was only at the age of 35 that they discovered each other, and learnt just how similar they were: identical twins who had been separated as infants in a bizarre social experiment devised by a renowned child psychiatrist. Their adoptive parents were not told the true nature of his plan, so the purpose remained scientifically pure: a unique study of nurture versus nature, a debate that has enthralled scientists.

It came to light when Ms Schein, who had been living in Paris, decided to seek her birth mother. She was told the mother was not interested in meeting her, but was then informed that she had an identical twin, Paula.

With help from social workers she was able to find her within days. The two women met for the first time three years ago at a cafe for lunch and talked until the late evening. “We had 35 years to catch up on,” said Paula. “How do you start asking somebody, ‘What have you been up to since we shared a womb together?’ Where do you start?”

On that first day Elyse did not reveal the secret she had discovered during her research. But soon afterwards she told Paula.

The real purpose of the experiment was hidden from their adoptive parents, who were vaguely told that the children were part of a continuing study. “They neglected to tell them the key element of the study, which is that it was about child development among twins raised in different homes,” Paula told America’s National Public Radio.

“It was like something out of a movie, I broke down in tears,” she said, recalling when Elyse told her about the study. Elyse added: “Nature intended for us to be raised together, so I think it was a crime we were separated.”

Overcoming the turmoil in their emotions, the sisters, who both now live in Brooklyn, and are both writers, decided to combine forces and write a book about their childhoods and the intense experience of discovering an identical twin in their mid-30s. “Imagine a slightly different version of you walks across the room, looks you in the eye and says hello in your voice … ” they write in Identical Strangers, published this week in the US.

“Looking at this person, you are able to gaze into your own eyes and see yourself from the outside. This identical individual has the exact same DNA and is essentially your clone. We don’t have to imagine.”

They approached the scientist behind the experiment that changed their lives, Peter Neubauer, an internationally renowned child psychiatrist. At first he refused to speak, but he eventually agreed to meet them as long as their conversation was not recorded. They allege he showed no remorse and offered no apology.

The twins found that he was willingly aided by the Louise Wise adoption agency that handled both their adoptions. Viola Bernard, a child psychologist and consultant to the agency, had firmly believed that twins should be raised separately to improve their psychological development, and that dressing and treating them the same retarded their minds.

Separating twins at birth was ended in the state of New York in 1980, a year after the study ended. Mr Neubauer reportedly locked the study in an archive at Yale University, not to be opened until 2066. “It’s kind of disturbing to think that all this material about us is in some filing cabinet somewhere,” Paula said.

Both veer between regret at the years lost and joy at discovering each other. “It is sad, that as close as we are now, there is no way we can ever compensate for those 35 years,” Paula said. Elyse added: “It is hard to see where we are going to go. It’s really uncharted territory. But I really love Paula and I can’t imagine my life without her.”

Don’t tase me bub!

An infant was hit in the hand by a Taser fired by a bounty hunter, but apparently not shocked, when the child’s mother used the infant as a shield, police said.

The mother, whose name was not released, was later arrested for child endangerment.

Preliminary police reports said the bounty hunter had tracked a man to a car at an apartment complex in northwest Oklahoma City on Friday night.

“At some point, the bounty hunter felt it was necessary to deploy the Taser, and a female in the car apparently held her infant up to shield herself from the Taser,” said Sgt. Keith Vance.

One of the Taser probes lodged in the infant’s hand, but the child was not shocked since the other probe missed, Vance said.

Emergency responders were called to the scene about 6:30 p.m. Friday to treat a child with a bloody hand.

During the commotion of the child being hit by the Taser probe, the man, whom police identified as Joel Hawkins, tried to drive away and crashed his car at the complex, Vance said.

After wrecking the car, Hawkins, 28, escaped after he jumped out of the car and ran away, dropping a firearm in the process, police said.

Police also arrested a second unidentified woman, who they discovered was listed as an escapee, though it was not clear from where she escaped, Vance said.

The bounty hunter, who also was not identified, apparently did nothing wrong, according to Vance.

Just call him Bubbalah Fett.

I definitely have more important things on my mind at the moment, but I note with interest the primative midget’s arrival in the US and speech at Columbia University.

From what I am reading, he received a hostile reception from Columbia President Lee Bollinger - the man who allowed this vermin the forum to spew forth his bile in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems like he has received a very different kind of reception from the audience.

Iran’s controversial president received a rough reception from Columbia University’s president today but got a rousing round of applause from the audience when he chided school officials for their “unfriendly treatment.”

“In a university environment we must allow people to make up their own mind,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, speaking in Farsi while a translator relayed his comments. The audience clapped loudly.

Ahmadinejad took the stage after Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, took him to task for Iran’s record on human rights, its nuclear program, its alleged arming of Iraqi militias and its treatment of Iranian-American scholars. Bollinger also demanded to know why Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust and why he has vowed to “wipe Israel off the map.”

“You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” Bollinger declared.

“Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions,” Bollinger said.

Taking the stage, Ahmadinejad said he was taken aback that the Columbia president would attack his speech before he had even delivered it.

“In many parts of his speech there were many insults and claims that were incorrect,” Ahmadinejad said.

If this is the future of America, then G-d help you.

Update: Charles received this mail from a Columbia student who attended the speech:

I was in the audience today, and it is completely unfair to characterize the students in the audience as all having clapped for him. [Actually, I didn’t do that. – ed.] We didn’t. The applause you heard was from about 20-30 students (in the back, nearest to the cameras) out of an audience of over 600. Rest assured that 99.9% of Columbia students are absolutely disgusted by this thug, and we’re glad he made himself look even more insane. It’s important for people to understand how truly nuts he is.