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October 31, 2007
Mufti: No Jewish Prayers in Palestinian Jerusalem
This is shocking, just shocking. A senior Pali Mufti speaks honestly about the final Pali Arab strategy for the Har-Habayit, Temple Mount—if Jerusalem is divided.
Guess what the plan is?
1. Freedom of worship for Jews.
2. No Klingons permitted in Pali Jerusalem.
3. The Temple Mount will be Judenrein.
If you answered #1, you need to cut back on your meds—drastically.
If you answered #2, you really should move out of your parent's basement.
If you answered #3, mazal tov, you are an incredibly sophisticated analyst of Middle Eastern affairs.
Of course, the arch left will dismiss Sabri's statements as irrelevant because he is no longer the official Mufti; the idea being, we imagine, that his opinions are grossly outside the normal boundaries of the dysfunctional Pali society; a culture that values death over life. Indeed, Pali society indoctrinates its youth into believing that the highest status one can achieve in life, is a blazing and bloody death, killing as many Jews as possible. Yes, such widespread values do qualify as a pathologically dysfunctional culture.
Anywhoo.
We have a sneaking suspicion that the current PA appointed Mufti and the oh-so-benevolent Pali Arabs will, I dunno, not be very tolerant of Jews and Judaism once they gain control of precious and holy Jerusalem real estate.
Hey, what can I tell you, it's just a dark and and lurking suspicion. Gosh, what's got into me? Where's my faith in human nature, in the religion of peace?
Maybe it's because I'm flashing on Arafat's solemn promise to respect and protect Joseph's tomb.
That worked out really well, didn't it?
If Jerusalem is divided, and it's eastern part made the capital of "Palestine"—world Jewry will be forever cut off from the hope it has held onto for 2000 years, and be once and for all prohibited from ascending the Temple Mount and even from praying at the Western Wall.
This warning was clearly sounded in an interview the former PLO-appointed mufti of Jerusalem gave to The Jerusalem Post this week, excerpts of which were published Thursday.
Ikrema Sabri emphatically told the Post that no Israelite temple had ever stood on the Temple Mount.
What's more, the cleric insisted, the Western Wall - whose massive stones the entire world knows to have been laid by Herod the Great during the Roman occupation of the Land of Israel - had nothing to do with any temple either.
"The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque. There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews....
To read the complete article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:30 PM | Comments (4)
Thugs in Charge
It's an odd phenomenon. The mainstream media gleefully splash huge headlines whenever an Arab is killed by an Israeli.
But far more Arabs die at the hands of other Arabs.
It's not even close.
Sectarian murder between Fatah and Hamas is epidemic. Clan and tribal feuds in Gaza are reaching horrific levels.
Do we need to mention so-called honor killings which cannot even be properly counted for so many Arab women are slaughtered in the dead of night and secretly dumped in unmarked graves.
From Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group:
Since its victory in the January 2006 parliamentary elections, Hamas has violated the human rights of numerous populations throughout the Palestinian Territories. From April 2006 through June 2007, Hamas committed various international war crimes against Fatah members. Hamas engaged in the capture, torture, and murder of Fatah members and leaders throughout the Palestinian Territories. Members of the Hamas stormed the homes of Fatah members with guns and weapons, wounding and sometimes killing selected targets and civilians during the months following Hamas’ parliamentary victory.
To read Ocean Guy's entire article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:11 AM | Comments (6)
Fatah TV Promises Elimination of Israel
According to received wisdom Hamas are the radicals and the PA are moderates.
Seraphic Secret has been saying for several years that the only difference between Fatah and Hamas are tactics. The long range goal for both terrorist organizations is the destruction of Israel.
Hamas wish to eliminate Israel immediately through all forms of terrorism.
The PA are happy to utilize terrorism, using their proxies Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, The Tanzim, The Executive Force, and the always useful fig leaf of negotiations. This gives the PA time to chip away at Israel's resolve, strengthen the Israeli and western left (always useful allies for jihadists) and wring consessions through petro blackmail using unscrupulous oil rich Arab allies and their powerful western lobbies.
It's easy to see that the PA are playing the oldest shill game in the world. All you have to do is be willing to monitor their media. Pay close attention to the rhetoric they feed their own people, not the lies carefully packaged for the gullible west. You'll quickly realize that Mahmoud Abbas and his entire thugocracy are the same genocidal jihadists as Hamas and Hizbullah.
A new music video appearing regularly on Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority television over the past week promises the elimination of Israel and the restoration of the "Arab identity" of cities throughout the Jewish State. The propaganda clip stands in stark contrast to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's recent declarations in support of reconciliation with Israel, issued ahead of the upcoming multinational Middle East peace conference organized by the United States.
As explained by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of Palestinian Media Watch, "While the Palestinian Authority announces in English its demand for a two-state solution, to its own people in Arabic it continues to define all of Israel as 'Palestine,' and to promise Israel's destruction. A new video clip, broadcast numerous times daily since it first appeared on Fatah-controlled TV last week, passionately promises 'Mother' that every Israeli city will be 'liberated' because its 'identity is Arab' and 'Palestinian.'"
To read the rest of this article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)
Diogenes of the Middle East
A fine essay by Soccer Dad on Yosef Kanefsky's proposal for a divided Jerusalem.
In 1967 Israeli leaders no doubt thought that they'd trade some of the land they captured for peace with Egypt and Jordan (and presumably the wider Arab world.) But Israel never assumed that it would be forced to return to its Auschwitz borders. Resolution 242 was worded "from territories" not "from all territories" confirming that assumption. So no, it wouldn't be an honest telling to say that Israeli leaders expected the country to risk international ostracism due to its policies after the 6 Day War. I'm not going to judge Rabbi Kanefsky, but his telling is not accurate.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:56 AM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2007
Negotiations Fatah Style
This is an interesting negotiating tactic. The, ahem, moderate Holocaust denying President of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, threatens violence if he doesn't get everything he wants.
Wow, that's a moderate starting point.
Seraphic Secret has maintained that peace talks with the Arabs are a dead issue. They have no interest in building a state, only destroying a state.
Some geo-political conflicts can only be solved on the battlefield.
The jihadists who have incited this war understand this just perfectly. It's time for the Jewish state and the Jewish people to realize the same awful truth before it's too late.
The Persian nuclear threat is only a hint of what's to come from the genocidal Muslim world.
At some point Israel will be forced to make war on the Palestinians and crush them in a terrible conflict that will, once and for all, show them that they are a defeated nation. Their only reasonable option will be an unconditional surrender and then reconstruction.
It worked with Germany and Japan.
The Arabs have given Israel no other option.
Abbas warned Tuesday that unless all the issues at the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are solved, violence will break out anew in two or three years.
Israel Radio reported that Abbas also said that a planned US-sponsored Middle East parley in Annapolis, Maryland, has been scheduled for November 15, but that the date was not yet final.
Israel Radio later quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as saying that he would make a "great effort" to ensure that the conference becomes a first step towards peace. Olmert said it was imperative to avoid making excuses and to venture forward in negotiations despite the risks involved.
Meanwhile, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei, said Tuesday there would be no talks with Israel unless a deadline was set for establishing a Palestinian state.
To read the rest of the article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Chaver, Kishke
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:28 PM | Comments (2)
United Jerusalem
An emergency coalition of American Jewish groups has been formed to save a united Jerusalem. In response we expect the Arabs to start rioting and killing Jews in terror attacks—and liberals to start whining about: occupation, refugees, poverty, the cycle of violence, the roots of terrorism, racism, Islamophobia, neo- colonialism, capitalism, truth and um, the Zionist conspiracy.
Did we miss anything?
Oh yes: the legitimate grievances of the Muslim world. That's a truly meaningless nugget.
An unprecedented coalition of American Jewish groups has formed on short notice to ensure that united Jerusalem remains Jewish.
Among the member organizations are the National Council of Young Israel, the Orthodox Union, the Rabbinical Council of America, Emunah Women of America, AFSI, Hineni, AJOP (Outreach), NCSY, Poalei Agudath Israel of America, ZOA, and more. More organizations are set to join in the coming days.
The formation of the coalition marks the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel that a significant group of American Jewish organizations has united in opposition to Israeli government policy; many of the member organizations are among Israel’s most loyal and active supporters.
Please click here for the complete article.
And this from the usually divided Knesset:
More than half of Knesset Members from both the opposition and the coalition factions have signed a petition against plans to hand over parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.
The document rejects plans to relinquish Israel’s sovereignty over holy sites in the Old City and the City of David, just outside the Old City walls, as well as possible intentions to give eastern Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods to the PA.
Likud MK Yisrael Katz and other Likud MKs spearheaded the drive, and they were quickly joined by nearly 30 coalition MKs, including thirteen members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s own Kadima party and all of Shas.
Two Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) MKs, David Rotem and Esterina Tartman, signed the petition, as did Yoram Marciano of Labor - the only Labor MK to do so. Four ministers also signed the petition, including Yaakov Edry and Ze’ev Boim of the Kadima party, and two others from the Gil Pensioners’ party.
To read the rest of the article, please click here.
Looks like Yosef Kanefsky is, um, in the minority. What a stunner. Here's Elder of Ziyon's take-down of Kanefsy's call for putting Jerusalem on the table.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)
The Fate of Iranian Jews
Fascinating article about the Jews of Persia.
"I can tell you, based both on personal experience and on what I hear from friends, that there are places [in Iran] where Muslims have already divided among themselves the homes and property of their Jewish neighbors. They say that if there will be a war, the first thing they will do is slaughter the Jews."
To read the entire article, please go to Soccer Dad.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:59 PM | Comments (4)
Google Maps go Dark on Israel
Last week we noted that jihadists in Gaza were using Goggle Maps to target Israel. Unlike some of our more, ahem, liberal commenters, we thought that this was an atrocity and unacceptable.
We also tipped our readers to the facts that Google execs were in secret talks with the IDF.
Well, we are glad to report that when the jihadists reference Israel, em excuse me, the Zionist entity, on their computers, they will come up blank.
We assume the ACLU will sue Google for, er, not providing Muslims with freedom of information to kill Jews.
Seraphic Secret would like to extend a note of appreciation to Google for not just living up to their corporate motto of "do no evil," but for actively fighting evil—a far more worthy goal.
Hat Tip: Our National Treasure, Soccer Dad
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:39 PM | Comments (16)
Laura Bush Embraces Tyranny
Caroline Glick observes the First Lady don the abaya and does not like what she sees.
And neither should we.
Laura Bush now speaks the poison language of multi-culturalism. For the Muslim/jihadist world, this is a huge symbolic victory. For America, for Israel, for Democracies inclined to fight for their freedom this is another nail in the coffin.
Due to the fact that the abayas convey a symbolic message of effective enslavement of women, Mrs. Bush's interaction with women clad in abayas was the aspect of her trip most scrutinized. In the United Arab Emirates, Mrs. Bush was photographed sitting between four women covered head to toe in abayas while she was wearing regular clothes. The image of Mrs. Bush sitting between four women who look like nothing more than black piles of fabric couldn't have been more viscerally evocative and consequently, symbolically meaningful.
The image told the world that she - and America - is free and humane while the hidden women of Arabia are enslaved and their society is inhumane.
But then Mrs. Bush went to Saudi Arabia and the symbolic message of the previous day was superseded and lost when she donned an abaya herself and had her picture taken with other abaya-clad women. The symbolic message of those photographs also couldn't have been clearer. By donning an abaya, Mrs. Bush symbolically accepted the legitimacy of the system of subjugating women that the garment embodies, (or disembodies). Understanding this, conservative media outlets in the US criticized her angrily.
Sunday morning, Mrs. Bush sought to answer her critics in an interview with Fox News. Unfortunately, her remarks compounded the damage. Mrs. Bush said, "These women do not see covering as some sort of subjugation of women, this group of women that I was with. That's their culture. That's their tradition. That's a religious choice of theirs."
To read Caroline Glick's entire article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:32 PM | Comments (3)
Targeted Killings
On the heels of the article by Lieutenant General Yaalon about Ethical Dilemmas in Counterterrorism, here's a fascinating article that deals with real world ethical problems Israel faces every single day, every single hour. Essential reading.
On Saturday morning, Sept. 6, 2003, six F-16s were waiting off the coast of Gaza. Mofaz, the defense minister, sat in his office and changed the channel on his TV from CNN to live footage of Gaza from a reconnaissance drone. By noon, several Hamas leaders had arrived at the home of Marwan Abu Ras, a religion professor who was also a Hamas activist. The Israeli cameras zoomed in to catch the details.
"Some came on foot, some came by car, some parked far away and walked," Mofaz recalled. "They covered their faces with kaffiyehs and wore flowing clothes so they'd be hard to track."
A Shin Bet agent in the command center called out the identities of the men. "It was the 'Who's Who' of Hamas," said Gabi Ashkenazi, then Yaalon's deputy. "People we'd been hunting for years."
"It got intense," Yaalon recalled. "The reports -- 'Here comes Mohammed Deif.' 'Here comes Adnan al-Ghoul.' 'Here comes Ismail Haniyeh.' They said the names, I pictured each one, and I pictured blown-up buses and disco bombings, and shootings, murders of children, and kidnapped soldiers."
Gallant, the prime minister's adviser, called Sharon at his ranch and told him about the extraordinary gathering. "We're talking about people responsible for killing hundreds of Israelis," Gallant said. "They're planning on killing hundreds more."
Sharon was setting up for his grandson's sixth birthday party. He asked, "Are the planes ready?"
In Gaza, the last Hamas member arrived in a white station wagon. Dichter himself had arrested him twice, "with these hands," he said, holding up thick, calloused fingers. It was Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a paraplegic and Hamas spiritual leader. As his wheelchair disappeared into the house, an agent called the sheik by his code name: "the Carcass."
Yaalon said to the air force chief: "Ready?"
To read the entire article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend Soccer Dad
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:38 AM | Comments (2)
October 29, 2007
Kanefsky: Flower Child
Karen writes:
Liberals like Rabbi Kanefsky do harm by providing fodder for our enemies, thus betraying the cause of Klal Yisroel. But, at their core, they are not Hamas, they are Woodstock children who never grew up. They should not be in positions of leadership or power, for they are just foundlings. They use "magical thinking"—if they wish things to be so, if it seems to be the good thing to be self destructive and weak, and it feels good, than by, G-d, let's do it!
Who cares what the consequences are. It doesn't matter what the facts on the ground are, what realpolitik demands, what history has proven. What really counts is what makes us feel self-righteous and good. The one word that describes Rabbi Kanefsky is: immature.
The naivete that leads a flower child to instruct her offspring to lie on the ground and tell the bully who has terrorized him, “Hey, come on, I should be honest with you, I've taken some self defense courses and I might beat you this time. I thought it only fair to warn you.”
Grow up Rabbi Kanefsky.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:17 PM | Comments (9)
Ethical Dilemmas in Counterterrorism
A fine article by Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Over the course of the past six decades, the reason for the existential threat to Israel has remained unchanged: The refusal of many, if not most, governments and peoples in the Middle East to accept the existence of the Jewish state. The nature of that threat, however, has undergone a dramatic evolution. In recent years, we have witnessed a shift from conventional warfare--that is, wars between armies and states--to “subconventional” warfare (such as terrorism and crude rockets) and superconventional warfare (such as missiles and weapons of mass destruction). Accompanying this change has been a profound political-ideological shift, from the prominence of nationalist-secular movements to that of religious-jihadist ideologies.
This new type of warfare, and the ideology that fuels it, are defined by the intent to kill civilians. Terrorism, rockets, missiles, and WMDs all avoid engaging the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) directly, aiming instead at the general Israeli population. The groups that exploit these methods of warfare do so partially because they know they cannot emerge victorious from a direct confrontation with the IDF. They do so primarily, however, because of their belief that Israeli society is the weakest link in Israel’s national-security chain. And indeed, attacks on Israeli civilians--and the military retaliation they provoke--are the kind most likely to arouse critical moral dilemmas for both the Israeli military and the democratic society it seeks to protect.
Faced with this new kind of warfare, military decision makers at every level, from the chief of staff down to the regular soldier, are forced almost daily to make choices of the most extreme kind--namely, those that will cost lives. In order to grasp the true difficulty, even impossibility, of these choices, it is first necessary to understand what the IDF has been up against in recent years.
To read the rest of Lieutenant General Yaalon's fine article from Azure, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:40 PM | Comments (3)
Kanefsky: Rabbi to Fatah
Normally we would ignore an article printed in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. The circulation of this weekly paper barely reaches 16,000. This blog reaches far more readers in only two days.
There's also its editorial slant that is somewhat left of Trostsky. A recent editorial advocated that Jewish women marry non-Jewish men because y'know, things are tough out there in the singles world.
As a Christian friend remarked me: “With Jewish journalists like that who needs Hamas.”
Indeed.
This leads us to Yosef Kanefsky. This past week The Los Angeles Jewish Journal got to splash a headline that proclaimed an Orthodox Rabbi Advocates Dividing Jerusalem.
Oh joy for the the not-so-Jewish Journal.
We heard sales, er, give-aways of the Journal spiked—in Gaza.
As we said, we'd like nothing better than to ignore Kanefsky, an arch leftie crank in Pico Robertson area, who leads a Romper Room congregation, but naturally the story was gleefully snapped up by the Los Angeles Times, a paper that would like nothing better than to see Israel disappear from the map. And of course, all the usual leftist Conservative, and Reform suspects jumped in to greet their lone Orthodox colleague to the Official Neville Chamberlain Appeasement Club. One of these characters labels Kanefsky a—get this—visionary.
Actually, now that we think about it, this is quite appropriate
Kanefsky sees things that do not exist.
And so, now that the Los Angeles Times has given Kanefsky's minority opinion legs, we are forced to weigh in on the matter and give this narcissist the last thing he should be afforded: attention.
You see that's one of the core problems of the left; when they publicly advocate for their extreme leftist positions they become invaluable collaborators to Israel's and Judaism's enemies. They become propaganda tools of Hamas and Fatah, proud advocates of genocide.
They become enablers to genuine Jew-killers.
If not by deed, then through the language of collaboration.
That's why Lenin pegged western liberals as "useful idiots."
Kanefsky, insufferably smug and self-righteous, a gift to the jihadists, is not, as he no doubt sees himself, a courageous voice, but a gullible man, so self-absorbed that he doesn't realize that his name is now at the head of the list being drawn up by Fatah and Hamas as the Jew most likely to head up the Judenrat.
Seraphic Friend Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric does a nice job of analyzing Kanefsky's Quisling-like proposal:
The Los Angeles Jewish Journal has decided to print an article by Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky advocating handing over Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Other people will probably handle the rank impracticality and immorality of this proposal: "Don't worry about the historical Arab desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Jerusalem or how the Wakf's ongoing destruction of Jewish artifacts on the Temple Mount is openly linked to denying Jews access to Jerusalem by unblinkingly stating that Jews never had a temple in Jerusalem — the Palestinians won't cheat on their obligations because United Nations peace keepers will protect Israeli interests!" Super.
What we're concerned with is the blistering stupidity of this Kanefsky's understanding of Middle East negotiations, and what it says about how he's bought into an anti-Semitic myth that becomes an anti-Israel talking point that becomes the basis for peace talks that end with hundreds of murdered Israelis. The article itself is a confused hodgepodge of largely unrelated leftist whines about how the Israelis have been mean (Jerusalem, settlers, human rights, etc), until it reaches this elegant crescendo of naivety:
To read the entire article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:12 AM | Comments (20)
October 28, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere # 138 Plus Susan Peters
Haveil Havalim #138 is up and Soccer Dad has done a wonderful job of organizing all the entries. Yup, if you want to feel the pulse of the best of the Jewish blogosphere, this is one-stop shopping at its best.
We'd like to thank Soccer Dad for including Seraphic Secret's Google Earth Used to Target Israel in this fine edition.
And now, as I promised last week. The great actress hardly anyone has ever heard of.
Susan Peters
Random Harvest is the great amnesia movie. This movie grabs you by the heart and just doesn't let go. There's a second act shock-reveal that, no matter how many times I've seen this movie, never fails to elicit a huge gasp from yours truly.
I mean, I just melt into a jello-like puddle.
The film stars Greer Garson and Ronald Colman. These stars had two of the most gorgeous speaking voices on planet earth. It's one of the great secrets of the golden age of Hollywood: most stars had lovely voices. It makes a huge difference. Listen to our movie stars today, they sound like, well, chalk on a blackboard. One reason Meryl Streep is such a great star is her voice. She knows how to use it like a musical instrument.
This was Greer Garson's follow-up to her huge hit Mrs. Miniver. She was under the proverbial microscope; was she a one-hit wonder?
In those days, a film's success could be measured by how long it ran at New York's Radio City Music Hall. Mrs. Miniver ran for 10 weeks.
Random Harvest ran for 11 weeks.
That's gigantic.
Anywhoo.
Grason and Colman are wonderful. But the film was stolen by a supporting performance by Susan Peters, an unknown ingenue. She plays Colman's step-niece and her performance is simply luminous. She goes from being a restless teenager infatuated with her step-uncle to a fashionable young woman yearning for his love. It's a profoundly nuanced and controlled performance that's just heartbreaking in its intensity.
Susan Peters in Random Harvest
Peters was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance in Random Harvest.
Her future was brilliant. She appeared in several more films and Peters was named Star of Tomorrow in 1944 along with Van Johnson.
Peters was paying her dues, climbing the Hollywood ladder of success. Her roles were getting better and bigger.
And then in 1945 tragedy struck.
Peters, married to British actor Richard Quine, were on a duck hunting trip in San Diego when her gun accidentally discharged and a ricochet lodged in her spine. She was paralyzed from the waist down and permanently confined to a wheelchair.
From IMDB:
MGM paid for her bills but was forced to settle her contract. In 1946 Susan and Richard adopted a son, Timothy, but two years later she and Quine divorced, some say because she felt she was too much of a burden. She made a film comeback with The Sign of the Ram (1948), the story of an embittered wheelchair-ridden woman who tries to destroy the happiness of all around her, but audiences were not receptive. She also turned to the stage with tours of "The Glass Menagerie" and "The Barretts of Wimple Street." In March of 1951 she portrayed an Ironside-like lawyer in the TV series "Miss Susan" (1951) but it ran for less than one season, folding in December of that year. After this, the actress, who was constantly racked with pain, went into virtual seclusion suffering from acute depression. Plagued by kidney problems and pneumonia, she lost her will to live and died at age 31 on October 23, 1952, as a result of starving herself to death. A sad and unnecessary end to such a beautiful spirit.
If you have not seen Random Harvest, run out and get the DVD, it's a wonderful film; and let's be thankful that at least we have this brief snippet of Susan Peter's extraordinary talent.
You can also see Song of Russia and Sign of the Ram, but both films are very hard to locate and anyway, to my mind, Random Harvest is her best movie and the performance on which her precious legacy will be remembered.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:04 AM | Comments (2)
Fire: Up Close and Personal
This from Seraphic friend Karen, who has been a faithful reader and commenter for several years. Karen is a firefighter and is now with thousands of other heroic firefighters battling the hellish Southern California blazes.
We thank Karen for her hard work and for taking the time to report on the situation from the front.
Robert,
Finally got some access—just been too busy. Here's how things went this week:
The Rice fire started Oct 22 at 4:10 am in Rice Canyon, (caused by power lines during the Santa Ana wind event) and after jumping the I-15, activated the trigger point to evacuate Fallbrook—the entire town, except for the folks who "knew nothing was going to happen" and refused to leave. Just like the couple who waited on the Witch fire nearby and wound up dying in their garage. For them, they waited too long. Interesting when one talks to individuals who were evacuated and have decided they are going to ignore future evacuations. Personally, as a firefighter, who has seen lots of these fires up close and personal, there is no way anyone could convince me to stay with an approaching fire front. My mama didn't raise a fool.
Anyway, when I can get photos downloaded, I will send you some of a trailer park that burned in the first hours of the fire. 130 homes gone, most belonging to lower income folks who can ill afford to lose everything. Looks like a bomb went off. Very disturbing to walk amongst it all.
Spent Shabbat talking to evacuees and trying to encourage and affirm their decision to leave in the evacuation. It has been very hard for them. Some stories just break your heart. Most people are very grateful for the work that has been done on their behalf.
Well, unfortunately, I just lost my access to this computer. Sorry this is so short.
B'shalom,
Karen
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:04 AM | Comments (3)
October 26, 2007
Pull the Plug on Fatah
Seraphic Secret would like to go into Shabbat with this fine article by Caroline Glick—who really should be the Prime Minister of Israel.
In this essay, Glick only strengthens Seraphic Secrets simple equation:
Hamas is Fatah.
Fatah is Hamas.
Once this simple reality is understood, Israel's choices are radically focused and the only open road is war—then victory.
All other options lead to defeat, either in a terrifying nuclear flash by way of Persia, or death by a thousand cuts through slow-motion appeasement.
In any case, Israelis must put aside all thoughts of negotiating with jihadists, a western illusion, and prepare for all-out war sometime in the next few years. A war that will not end with some desperate, petro-dollar international cease-fire to save Arab honor, but an unconditional surrender where the Arab street realizes that he has, once again, lost and been beaten into dust by Jewish soldiers.
Israel has made the mistake, time and again, of trying to make war, well, nice. This is not only foolish, it leads her enemies to hold Israel in contempt.
As Winston Churchill said, “The surest way to end a war quickly is to lose it.” Israel seems in a great hurry to lose an existential battle against her Arab enemies.
It is all well and nice to show restraint against harming enemy civilians, but when reticence is paid for by the lives of your own citizens it is no longer restraint—it is national suicide.
When the Arabs in Gaza elected Hamas as their official government, they enthusiastically chose a group whose official charter calls for the annihilation of the State of Israel and the death of Jews everywhere. In fact, part of the Hamas charter is based on the notorious Tsarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The Arabs of Gaza knowingly and freely elected a genocidal government.
They are not innocent civilians, rather enablers and cheerleaders of state terror and murder. Fatah is no different. Their charter is much the same.
It is time for the world to allow the Arabs of Gaza, Judea and Samaria to take full responsibility for their political and military choices.
Last week the Zionist Organization of America published a full-page ad in The New York Times that showed clearly Fatah is a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction. The ZOA quoted ten articles of Fatah’s charter that reject Israel’s right to exist and call explicitly for Israel’s destruction.
Following the publication of the ZOA ad, Members of Congress Shelley Berkley (D- Nevada) and Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) co-sponsored House Resolution 758, which demands that Fatah abrogate the offending articles of its charter. The resolution specifically notes that in addition to presiding over an organization whose charter commits it to destroying Israel, in October 2006 Abbas stated that “It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel.”
The resolution also recalls that in February 2007 Abbas signed the Mecca Agreement with Hamas that established a “unity government” between Fatah and Hamas dedicated to “confronting the occupation.” Moreover, Resolution 758 notes that in May 2006, Abbas accepted the so-called Prisoners Plan. That plan, written by jailed terrorists, called for Hamas and Fatah to collaborate in their terror war against Israel.
To read the entire article from The Jewish Press, please click here.
Karen and I wish you all our friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:32 PM | Comments (2)
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week: Columbia University
by Fern Sidman
On Wednesday evening, October 24th, the tension in the air was palpable on the campus of Columbia University. In a packed classroom in the mathematics building, a panel discussion was held as part of an ongoing series of lectures in a week long event being held on over one-hundred university and college campuses. This nationwide event is entitled Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and is the brainchild of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
David Horowitz is a former left-wing academic whose politics have now taken a giant step to the right. As one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s, he was also the editor of its most influential magazine, Ramparts.
He is the author, with Peter Collier, of a number of best-selling dynastic biographies on the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the Fords, and the Roosevelts. With Collier he also wrote Destructive Generation (1989), a chronicle of their break with the 1960's Left, that has been compared to Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and other classic works documenting a break from totalitarianism.
On his web site, www.frontpagemag.com, Mr. Horowitz champions an array of causes including the defense of the principles of individual freedom as well as defending free societies in the war against their enemies, and the reestablishment of academic freedom in American schools.
Because of the controversy that swirls around an event of this nature and magnitude, threats of protests and possible disruptions were made by a number of quintessential left-wing and pro-Muslim organizations including the Revolutionary Communist Party, United for Peace and Justice, Jewish Progressives and the Muslim Student Association, among others.
Several security guards, provided by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, who looked strikingly similar to stoic FBI agents or undercover cops ushered in the panelists and stood guard around the room. While the audience was quite diverse, outside the building stood a lone demonstrator, who held a sign reviling the event as racist. Inside, the story was a bit different.
A contingent from the Revolutionary Communist Party along with left wing representatives of the Women's Studies and Middle Eastern Studies departments got their printing presses rolling at top speed, churning out libelous propaganda aimed at discrediting the objectives of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and took aim at the panelists, namely Phyllis Chesler. They even resorted to passing out a sheet of pre-prepared questions for audience members that reeked of bellicosity, and surely did not promote open mindedness. So much for academic freedom and freedom of speech.
The student representative who helped organize this event asked the audience to curtail their predilection to disrupt the speakers and announced the rules for the Q&A, which followed.
Judging by the persons impaneled for the event at Columbia University, it would appear that Mr. Horowitz is not the only one whose political voice has made some major modifications. Dr. Phyllis Chesler, an Emerita Professor of Psychology at the College of Staten Island was a prominent voice and vanguard of the Second Wave feminist movement and a former political progressive. When she began challenging the feminist and left-wing camps for propounding a "multi-cultural relativism" which correctly charged the Muslim world for its pervasive and barbaric abuse of women, she was labeled as a "dangerous traitor" by her former colleagues and relegated to a persona non-grata status.
Her groundbreaking views on Islamic gender and religious apartheid have caused near riots on the many campuses where she has lectured. Chesler is a self-described "culture warrior" and is passionately committed to exposing the "Big Lies" of the left leaning, liberal Western academy. She is the author hundreds of articles and of 13 books, including, "The New Anti-Semitism - The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It", (2003) which graphically illustrates the anti-Semitic agenda of intellectuals on the left, under the guise of anti-Zionism.
Ibn Warraq is a best-selling author, ex-Muslim intellectual, a dogmatic secularist, scholar and founder of the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society and a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, specializing in Koranic criticism. Warraq gathered world notice through his controversial historiographies of the early centuries of the Islamic timeline and has published works which tend to challenge traditional conceptions of the period. He is the author of seven books, including Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995), The Origins of the Koran (1998),Quest for the Historical Muhammad, (2000), What the Koran Really Says (2002),Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out(2003), the just released - Defending the West: a Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism (2006) and Which Koran? (2007).
He has also spoken at the "Victims of Jihad" conference at the United Nations that was organized by the International Humanist and Ethical Union alongside speakers such as Bat Ye'or, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Simon Deng.
The name "Ibn Warraq" is a pseudonym, to protect the true identity of a man who is "most wanted" in Muslim circles. Having been highly critical of Islam he is now considered an apostate, a marked man for his "heretical" views and for "betraying" the faith he was born into. His detractors claim he engages in anti-Islamic polemics while others such as atheist author Richard Dawkins describe him as a "deeply knowledgeable scholar of Islam."
Christina Hoff-Sommers is a former professor of philosophy and ethics at Clark University in Worcester, MA and a resident scholar at a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). She is an author of several books including her seminal work, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women (1994), and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (2001).
She suggests that feminist leaders are not only placing their political goals above academic honesty, but they are also indoctrinating impressionable university students not with grounded science, but rather with disingenuous, emotionally-charged pseudo information. Like her co-panelist, Phyllis Chesler, Hoff-Sommers accuses the Western feminist movement of losing its moral clarity and of abandoning the cause of spotlighting and protesting against the horrific abuse of women in the Muslim world.
The evening began with Ibn Warraq offering a refutation of the late Columbia University English and Comparative Literature professor, Edward Said's 1978 book entitled "Orientalism", which marked the beginnings of postcolonial studies.
According to the impeccable scholarly research done by Warraq, he asserts that the roots of late 20th century Islamo-Fascism began with Said's premise that "all of the woes of the Arabs in the Islamic world can be blamed on America and Israel".
He points to the intellectual dishonesty of Said's claims that all Europeans are racists, thereby creating "a western style for dominating the Orient." He also reminds us that there are gross historic inaccuracies in Said's manifesto and that Said was not a Muslim and was not a scholar of Islamic thought, yet did everything in his power to foster the spread of Islamic fundamentalism.
Warraq tells us that through his writings, Said created a climate in which self-pity infected the vast precincts of the Islamic world, in which the West also appeared as the colonialist aggressor while the East remained the passive victim.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler, despite an injury to her leg, literally rose to the occasion and delivered her stirring remarks with the aplomb of a veteran academic and professor. She addressed a number of important issues including the growing concern in the Western world of the rampant spread of Islamo-Fascism which threatens to bring with it to our shores its own inimitable version of gender and racial apartheid.
That translates into forced veiling of women, honor killings, female genital mutilation, stoning, wife-beating, forced marriages and purdah, not to mention executions of women, intellectuals, dissidents, homosexuals and other infidels.
She took issue with her former feminist colleagues when she said, "Western feminists and academics must end their unnatural obsession with the so-called "occupation" of Palestine and focus of the occupation of women's bodies throughout the Muslim world. If they care about women, they must confront the issues that characterize Islamic gender apartheid and affect at least half a billion women in the Islamic world."
She also attempted to debunk the myth that former colonialist powers and imperialist forces were to blame for Islamic barbarism. Said Dr. Chesler, "The Christian Crusades did not "cause" Arab or Muslim slavery, racism, polygamy, arranged child marriage, female genital mutilation, honor murders, forced face-veiling, capital punishment for apostates (Muslims who leave Islam), or the segregation of women. It did not cause Islamic jihad or Islamic imperialism which preceded the Crusades by centuries."
She also put forth the notion of a "new McCarthyism" being spearheaded by the left that imposes fear on academics who dare speak about Muslim on Muslim violence by pigeon-holing them as "racists" and "colonialists".
The last speaker of the evening was Christina Hoff-Sommers who also addressed the issue of Islamic misogyny and said that Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare would be the liberation of Islamic women. According to Hoff-Sommers the Islamic revolution set women back for at least a century, outlining the subjugation of Iranian women under a hideous male hegemony.
She spoke of a book entitled, The Girls of Riyadh which was described as "chic literature", an Eastern version of "Sex In The City", which caused Imams in Saudi Arabia to whip men into a violent frenzy against women. She called this, "a compelling indictment of Islamic incitement."
She praised heroic dissidents who are on a civilizing mission in Islamic countries, attempting to battle the forces of misogyny and patriarchal oppression of women. Hoff-Sommers posits that Islamic women are following the example of conservative women's rights activists such as Frances Willard, the second president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and are embracing a creative interpretation of the Koran.
She chided the major Western feminist movements and women's studies departments on college campuses for focusing on such issues as the shape of women's bodies, sexual repression and the philosophy of the "Vagina Monologues", rather than championing the cause of basic human rights for women in the Islamic world.
Roberts Rules of Order seemed to prevail during the question and answer segment of the program, as the audience was again advised to keep to the question only format and not engage in diatribes or lengthy speeches.
Most of the questions focused on American military involvement in Iraq and several questioners (mostly from the Revolutionary Communist Party) intimated that this event was just a clever subterfuge for promoting the Bush administration's "war on terror" strategy, which seeks to create a groundswell of support for the war in Iraq.
The questioners made little reference to the obvious threat of Islamo-Fascism that was so eloquently spoken about by the panelists, but rather they focused on their own anti-American agenda as they questioned the perceived hypocrisy of the Iraqi constitution that enshrined Islam as the state religion. The panelists remained nonplussed during the Q&A and answered the questions with alacrity, armed with a voluminous amount of facts and a plethora of knowledge.
The adversaries of truth and the purveyors of the Big Lies were outdone by the valiant truth tellers and protectors of the future of western civilization as we know it.
While history may or may not record this event at Columbia University, our kudos and accolades go to Ibn Warraq, Phyllis Chesler and Christina Hoff-Sommers for summoning the moral strength and courage to bear the slings and arrows of the totalitarian left, for exercising their right of freedom of speech in the name of truth and for their shining collective consciences. May they continue to lead us to a more peaceful, secure world, unfettered by fascism of any kind.
UPDATE: How's this for irony? Columbia University was nice and civilized, but things were quite different for David Horowitz at Emory University where the tyrants of the left refused to let him speak.
Seraphic Secret will say it once again: the most serious threats to our freedoms, especially freedom of speech, comes from the left in America, not from the right.
On Wednesday evening, the Emory University Chapter of the College Republicans hosted acclaimed author and activist David Horowitz for a lecture on radical Islam as part of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. From the beginning of Horowitz's speech, rowdy protesters continually interrupted him and less than half an hour into the event, the crowd became so disruptive that police were called in and Horowitz had to be escorted off stage.To read the rest of the article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:34 AM | Comments (6)
October 25, 2007
University of Delaware Campus Bigots
This is not just about academic freedom. This is about Arab bigotry and how anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred have become legitimized forms of expressions in the groves of academia. The University of Delaware have acted disgracefully. No surprise. We have no doubt that Saudi money is being shoveled into their, ahem, Middle Eastern studies dept.
Yesterday, the University of Delaware asked Asaf Romirowsky to step down from an academic panel at the University of Delaware because another panelist, University of Delaware political scientist Muqtedar Khan, didn't want to share the podium with anyone who served in the Israeli Defense Forces. Romirowsky, who holds joint American/Israeli citizenship and lives in Philadelphia, had been invited to join Khan, his colleague in political science, Stuart Kaufman, a staff member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, and a graduate student to discuss anti-Americanism in the Middle East. The program was organized by the College Republicans, the College Democrats, and the Students of Western Civilization Club. The Leadership Institute provided the funds for the panel, which met on the University of Delaware campus on Wednesday evening. The students offered Romirowsky the opportunity to come to campus next week and speak alone, with no other panel members who might object to his presence.
To read the entire article by Michael Rubin, please click here.
Hat Tip: Winfield Myers, Director Campus Watch at the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:14 PM | Comments (15)
Gaza Blackout at Long Last
Israel is about to cut some electricity and fuel deliveries to Gaza. It's about time. Seraphic Secret has been calling for this simple measure—for years.
It is, literally, insane that Israel is providing electricity and fuel to an entity that is sworn to her destruction.
To those who accuse Israel of imposing collective punishment on Gaza.
No kidding.
That's war.
That's the price Gazans pay for electing the genocidal Hamas terrorists into positions of leadership. That's the price Gazans pay for allowing, encouraging and celebrating homicide bombers and the launching of daily missiles into Israel.
In fact, Gaza is lucky that her enemy is Israel. Any other country faced with such unrelenting violence and hateful propaganda would have, long ago, reduced to Gaza to ashes and rubble.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak's approval earlier Thursday of an IDF plan to impose sanctions on the Gaza Strip in wake of the escalation in Kassam rocket attacks was the first step, defense officials told The Jerusalem Post, towards a "complete disengagement" including the gradual reduction in Palestinian dependency on Israel for gas and electricity.
During his weekly security meeting on Thursday Barak approved the plan that had been formulated by Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yosef Mishlav in line with the recent cabinet decision that defined Gaza as a "hostile entity."
According to the plan, one of the power lines connecting Israel and Gaza will be shut down at first for 15 minutes after a rocket attack, gradually increasing the cutoff length if the barrages continue, up to a two-hour limit. In addition, Israel will begin reducing the amount of gasoline it allows into the Gaza Strip.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Chaver, Kishke.
And just to give you an idea of the charming people Israel is dealing with in Gaza:
A senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committee in Gaza encouraged terrorists at a press conference Wednesday, "Kill Jews everywhere without waiting for permission." Terrorist leader Abu Al-Sa'id also called for the disbanding of the Palestinian Authority (PA) government, which he said should be replaced by a "Resistance Authority."
He called for the murder of Jews as retaliation for the death of an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was killed in a massive riot at the Ketziot prison in the Negev earlier this week.
Original article from Arutz Sheva.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:19 PM | Comments (15)
Google Earth Used to Target Israel
Google, whose motto is: Do no evil.
Well, it seems to Seraphic Secret that aiding terrorists in their murderous work qualifies as evil incarnate. It should be quite easy for the clever software engineers at Google to block out the Israeli portions of their Earth Maps.
Palestinian militants are using Google Earth to help plan their attacks on the Israeli military and other targets, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, say they use the popular internet mapping tool to help determine their targets for rocket strikes.
"We obtain the details from Google Earth and check them against our maps of the city centre and sensitive areas," Khaled Jaabari, the group's commander in Gaza who is known as Abu Walid, told the Guardian.
Abu Walid showed the Guardian an aerial image of the Israeli town of Sderot on his computer to demonstrate how his group searches for targets.
The Guardian filmed an al-Aqsa test rocket launch, fired into an uninhabited area of the Negev desert, last month. Despite the crudeness of the weapons, many have landed in Sderot, killing around a dozen people in the last three years and wounding scores more.
To view video and read the rest of this article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Chaverim, Kishke and Lance Fogel
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:49 AM | Comments (14)
Coordinating Council on Jerusalem
Jewish Leaders Initiate International Effort to Keep the Jewish Capital Secure, Intact and United
NEW YORK, NY (October 24, 2007) - We are proud to announce today the formation and launch of The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, for the purpose of uniting American Jewish organizations on behalf of a secure and unified Jerusalem. Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Executive Vice President of the National Council of Young Israel, founded the initiative as a united public front of Jewish American organizations towards the principle of keeping Jerusalem united. It has been endorsed by hundreds of Jewish leaders in the Diaspora and Israel.
Recently, in preparation for next month's Annapolis summit with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ministers of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government put forth their view that Jerusalem was negotiable and opened the door to concessions of parts of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, world Judaism's holiest and most revered site. Following his ministers' remarks, Olmert himself questioned the value of maintaining Jewish sovereignty over certain Jerusalem neighborhoods. As a result, Jewish leaders around the world are coalescing around a simple bottom-line position: World Jewry opposes Israeli negotiations which would include any discussion of ceding sovereignty over part or all of Jerusalem.
Realizing the historic breach and potentially tragic significance of these ministers' position, as well as the pivotal role being played by the US Secretary of State, Rabbi Pesach Lerner, a well-known leader of numerous Israel-related campaigns, immediately recruited Jeffrey Ballabon, a nationally known strategist with expertise in issue campaigns, crisis management and government relations (www.ballabongroup.com) to recommend and execute a broad-based international strategy to ensure continued Jewish sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. As a first step, the two called for the creation of a body to coordinate and leverage efforts in Israel and the Diaspora to secure Jewish interests in Jerusalem's future.
The formation of the Coordinating Council marks the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel that a significant group of American Jewish organizations have created a broad united front to pursue a policy directly involving Israel that is based on an explicit principle that supersedes deference to the sitting Israeli government. Notably, many of the organizations on the Coordinating Council are among the State of Israel's most loyal and active supporters.
Within hours of the announcement of their intent to create the Coordinating Council, Lerner and Ballabon were contacted by dozens of Israeli groups which also have decided to coordinate their efforts with the Council.
"Jerusalem has been the epicenter of the Jewish People for 3,000 years. It is the inheritance of Jews everywhere and for every generation. Even the suggestion that Jerusalem could be divided is appalling to a majority of Israelis and the global Jewish community," said Rabbi Lerner. "The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem is an unprecedented display of unity. Every organization is setting aside other priorities and agendas and differences to unify around the future of Jerusalem. We are committed to helping each other to ensure that all of Jerusalem remains the capital of the Jewish People.
"Preserving an undivided Jerusalem is a paramount issue not only for Israelis, but for the worldwide Jewish Community. This is not a decision any Israeli government can make unilaterally. Jerusalem belongs to all Jews, even those not living in Israel, and their opinion matters."
Adds Ballabon, "We are gratified by the overwhelmingly positive response to the creation of the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem. Each organization on the Coordinating Council is a responsible national or international organization and each is exercising crucial leadership for their constituencies on the issue of the preservation of Jerusalem. The threat is grave and what is at stake for all Jews is incalculable and irreplaceable. By uniting and coordinating, members of the Coordinating Council are sending a message of unmistakable unity, unshakable commitment and a determination to succeed."
Leaders of the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem have scheduled meetings with members of Congress and White House officials in the coming weeks, as well as with Israeli government officials and members of Knesset.
The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, currently in formation, includes Americans for a Safe Israel, Association for Jewish Outreach Programs, Emunah of America, Hineni, Jerusalem Reclamation Project, National Conference of Synagogue Youth, National Council of Young Israel, One Israel Fund, Poalei Agudath Israel of America, Rabbinic Alliance to Save Jerusalem, Rabbinical Alliance of America, Rabbinical Council of America, Religious Zionists of America, Russian Jewish Community Foundation, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations (OU), Unity Coalition for Israel, Young Israel Council of Rabbis, and Zionist Organization of America.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:04 AM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2007
Actress Coleen Gray: Daggers to my Knees
Coleen Gray
“Do you remember any direction that Howard Hawks gave you?”
“Oh yes, he told me to imagine daggers to my knees.”
”Meaning?”
“I should feel weak with passion, romance.”
I'm talking with Coleen Zeiser nee Coleen Gray, about her short but memorable appearance in one of the greatest American movies ever made, Red River. Coleen plays Fen, John Wayne's first love who is murdered by Indians early in the film.
“What was Howard Hawks like as a director?”
“Oh, very relaxed and easy going. There was a cowboy who was having trouble with his scene and Howard just took him by the arm and they walked off for a while and chatted. And you know the producers were looking at their wrist watches because time is money, and then Howard and the cowboy-actor returned, they did the take and it was just perfect. That's how Howard did things. Quiet, relaxed, no big drama.”
“And Duke, how was he to work with?”
“Oh, very easy. John Wayne was tall and good looking, very quiet and hard working, a real gentleman. You have to remember I was a young, innocent girl and just concentrating, really wanting to do a good job.”
“You are spectacular, truly memorable.”
Coleen shrugs, smiles. I get the feeling that Red River, made in 1948, is for Coleen, a distant, lovely dream.
I remember the first time I saw Red River, I was a dopey yeshiva student in Brooklyn, confused, lonely, struck by the brilliant imagery, the larger than life conflicts, the towering score by Dimitri Tiomkin, and the incredibly literate screenplay by Borden Chase.
Coleen Gray's brief appearance is memorable for her beauty is luminous, and her love for the John Wayne character is absolutely palpable. Fen's terrible death haunts Wayne and motivates him for the rest of the movie.
Red River also has one of my favorite scenes of all times. Joanne Dru is shot in the shoulder by a poison arrow and Montgomery Clift, get this, sucks the poison from her wound. Joanne slaps him, cause, y'know she loves him and hates him at the same time — and then she faints.
I mean, this is like heaven for a movie-mad yeshiva kid from Brooklyn.
Anywhoo.
Coleen played Fay in The Killing directed by Stanley Kubrick. Her two scenes with Sterling Hayden are notable for the utter sincerity of the love and devotion she projects to their relationship. Coleen is the exact opposite of Sherry, the bad girl character played by Marie Windsor. It's a stark and fateful contrast and Kubrick's casting is just perfect.
Coleen Gray, studio portrait, 1950's
A few days later in a phone conversation, Coleen tells me how disappointed she was in Kubrick as a director.
“I had seen Killer's Kiss and it was really wonderful and I was so looking forward to working with him. But Kubrick was so distant. I wanted direction. I wanted to know how to make my performance better, but he didn't say anything.”
“Maybe your choices were just what he wanted.”
“Well we always want to do better, don't we?”
“Do you remember anything else about Kubrick?”
“He was a slight man, a bit disheveled. Oh, and he wore clod-hopper shoes.”
Regarding Sterling Hayden Coleen says: “He was intensely focused. There wasn't a lot of chit-chat on the set among the actors. You just learned your lines and did the very best job possible. You know how it is, Robert. Making movies is hard work.”
It's the best kept secret in Hollywood.
Coleen adds: “I just love the way Sterling checks out the automatic rifle. He does it with such authority. That's because he was in the service and he knew about guns.”
“Hayden was also in the OSS and parachuted behind enemy lines during World War II. He was quite a man.”
“You know who else was marvelous in the The Killing, Timothy Carey, what a wonderful actor he was.”
Carey plays Nikki Arcane, the sniper who shoots the race horse. His unique mouth-full-of-marbles delivery is utterly unique in American movies which favor well rounded vowels. Kubrick once again cast Carey in Paths of Glory.
“The whole cast was just amazing,” Coleen says, “Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., and that wonderful Russian wrestler Kola Kwariani, every player was just perfect.”
“It's an amazing film. Just 84 minutes, it's lean and mean and completely unpretentious. It's actually my favorite Kubrick movie.”
“Yes, before Kubrick became all full of himself.”
In the noir classic Nightmare Alley, Coleen gives a memorable and sensual performance as Molly opposite Tyrone Power.
“Tell me about Edmund Goulding, the director.”
“Oh, Eddie was a real pro, very precise in all his direction.”
“Yes, Goulding was one of those Hollywood directors who knew his craft from top to bottom. We'll not see his like ever again.”
Coleen Gray and Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley, 1947
Directed by Edmund Goulding
From IMBD: “Coleen Gray was born in Staplehurst, Nebraska in 1922. After graduating from high school, Coleen studied dramatics at Hamline University graduating with a bachelor of arts degree. Coleen then decided to see America and traveled to California, stopping at La Jolla, where she worked as a waitress. After several weeks there, she moved to L.A. and enrolled in a drama school. Her performances attracted a talent scout from 20 Century-Fox studios where she signed a contract after a screen test.”
Coleen tells me that she co-starred with Bing Crosby in Riding High, and now Coleen does a mock bow as she reminds me that this musical was directed by Frank Capra.
Coleen played Nettie in the famous Kiss of Death written by the great screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer and directed by Henry Hathaway.
“You remember the scene where Richard Widmark throws the old lady in the wheelchair down the stairs?”
“Well, sure, I mean that's classic.”
“You know who was really in the chair?”
“A stunt double, I assume.”
“Rod Amateau, my Jewish husband.”
“He was a fine writer/director.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Coleen, I hope you don't think this is really stupid, but I really want to get your autograph.”
Coleen waves her hand as if swatting a fly, then tells me that it's time for me to speak.
Coleen rises, marches to the podium, and here at the Luxe Hotel, Brentwood, I watch and listen as this lovely lady, a real presence from my movie mad life, gives me a truly generous introduction before I speak to the Bel-Air Republican Women Federated.
For one brief moment I am trapped between past and present, and a sob like a walnut, is trapped in my throat.
I have traveled so far, from Brooklyn to Hollywood, and yet I still feel so fragile.
We are all so fragile.
I speak for about thirty minutes: I speak about Hollywood's capitulation to the poison of multiculturalism, I speak about Hollywood's flight from the war on terror. Naturally, I tell the ladies about The Seven Samurai, and how it can serve as a model on how to fight terrorism.
I tell these wonderful and committed ladies that America and Israel are the front lines in the battle against jihad.
I thank the Bel-Air Republican Women Federated for providing me with a kosher lunch.
Afterwards, Coleen slips an envelope into my hand. My honorarium.
I'm too embarrassed to ask Coleen for her autograph. I don't want to make a nuisance of myself.
But when I get home, I open the envelope, and there's a note from Coleen, a private note, a prayer for me and Karen and for Ariel ZT'L—and Coleen's flowing signature.
Her handwriting is so lovely it looks transcribed by an angel.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:25 AM | Comments (13)
Israel Besieged
By Esther Levens
Israel Unity Coalition
The American administration’s new peace initiative in the Middle East is based on wishful thinking.
Late reports tell us that Mahmoud Abbas is making more demands before agreeing to attend the Summit to be sponsored by the US, in Annapolis, MD. Condoleezza Rice is determined to conclude an agreement with Abbas, who will promise “peace” in exchange for every conceivable tangible demand from Israel.
Besides almost all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, half of Jerusalem, the entire Temple Mount, right of return of four million Palestinian refugees, border areas from before the Six Day War, freedom for all PA prisoners, the right to open Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, return of the terrorists deported from the Church of the Nativity, and immediate retreat to the September 2000 lines (these are the lines from which the Arabs launched the second intifada, in which Yasser Arafat and Abu Mazen's Fatah terrorists killed more than 1,000 Israelis); in addition, they demand the execution of the third stage of the Oslo Accords, an end to building in the settlements, and cessation of the construction of the Mughrabi Bridge in Jerusalem.
Weak Israeli leadership is putting Israel’s future at risk. Since Oslo, Israeli concessions have routinely led to increased violence. Israel is being pressured to return to the 1967 green line, give up land acquired in Arab-initiated wars and accept millions of Palestinian refugees. The United States is propping up Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a peace partner, even though he is manipulated by the terrorist organization Hamas, which now controls the Palestinian territories after winning democratic elections.
Israel is threatened from all sides. Iran is waging a proxy war against Israel from both Gaza and Lebanon and openly says they will use a nuclear bomb to destroy the country. Currently, since Israel withdrew from Gaza, Palestinians continue to launch rockets and terrorist attacks into Israel. When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah amassed thousands of rockets along the border, then provoked a war with Israel. As more land is given to Radical Islamists, this trend will most likely continue.
The original Palestinian refugees numbering in the thousands have grown to 4 million. If Israel admitted them, Jews would quickly become a minority in their own state, which is already 20 percent Arabs who are granted full citizenship rights. No consideration is given the fact that 800,000 Jews (refugees) fled persecution or were expelled from Arab lands after 1945. And of course no mention is ever made of reparations for these refugees.
Israel absorbed the displaced Jewish refugees; at the same time Arab countries forced Palestinian refugees to live in camps on their borders, breeding poverty, hatred and terrorism. To date, the only Arab country that accepts Palestinians as citizens is Jordan. And 70% of the people in Jordan are Palestinians, making Jordan essentially a Palestinian state.
The underlying problem is the fact that the Arab states and their terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, PLO, al aksa Martyrs Brigade, PFLP, etc. do not accept Israel’s right to exist and openly call for her destruction. Israel represents only one front in the Arab Islamists’ war to create an international caliphate
The upcoming Annapolis Summit simply plays into the hands of the ultimate goal to eradicate the State of Israel by creating a 23rd Arab state. If history repeats itself, the new state will doubtless become one more terrorist stronghold in advancing the global Islamic Jihad aimed at world conquest.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:20 AM | Comments (1)
October 23, 2007
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week
It's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
At Tulane University, some 1500 people turned out to hear Ann Coulter give a speech connecting dots between radical Islam and the events of 9/11 and expressing the importance of continuing the War in Iraq. It took 15 police officers and personal security for Ms. Coulter to keep the crowd at bay.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, David Horowitz spoke to 600 students and various members of the community about the oppression of women in Islam and the silence coming from women’s studies departments on America’s campuses regarding this issue. The volatile crowd quieted immediately when Horowitz began his speech by showing an enlarged photograph of a Muslim woman on her knees being shot in the back of the head by Muslim fundamentalists. “Everyone in this photograph is a Muslim,” Horowitz began. “There is a helpless victim; there are perpetrators of murder. This photograph is why we’re here tonight.
At DePaul University in Chicago a rowdy crowd greeted Robert Spencer, a author of Religion of Peace? and other books on radical Islam, and Iranian dissident Amir Abbas Fakhravar, who detailed the record of violence, murder and human rights mayhem by the Achmadinijad regime. Fielding a hostile question from one member of the audience, Spencer said: “Anyone who thinks that there has been a full and fair and open discussion of Islamo fascism on our campuses and particularly in our Middle East Studies departments simply hasn’t been paying attention.”
To read the entire article, please click here.
And of course, this statement from the Judenrat at, where else, Columbia University, those Jews who enable the jihadists, those Hellenized Jews who insist on giving a helping hand to the Jew-haters of the world. H/T Seraphic Friend, David Paulin.
And here's a wonderful interview with Nonie Darwish, An Infidel in Jerusalem. H/T Seraphic Chaver, Kishke.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:47 AM | Comments (9)
What the Palestinians Will do with East Jerusalem
by Jake Novak
10) Build enormous closet for Mahmoud Abbas' $3,000 suits.
9) Create large complex to house Michael Vick's exiled dog fighting operation.
8) Invite U.N. workers to tour the area... then kidnap them.
7) Begin scholarly archaeological dig to prove that Jews don't exist.
6) Build world's largest stone throwing practice range.
5) Establish "Christiane Amanpour Center for Imbalanced Journalism."
4) Build schools & job training centers to boost peaceful economic growth... you know, just like what they're doing in Gaza.
3) Three words: "Lynn Redgrave Theater."
2) Create enormous wild grazing preserve for Suha Arafat.
1) Set land on fire... protest... repeat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:28 AM | Comments (4)
October 22, 2007
Resistance is Futile
From Michael Yon, America's greatest war correspondent, the disconnect between what's really happening in Iraq and what the MSM are reporting. Plus more encouraging news from Iraq.
All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq. Knowing this disconnect exists and experiencing it directly are two separate matters. It’s like the difference between holding the remote control during the telecast of a volcanic eruption on some distant island (and then flipping the channel), versus running for survival from a wretch of molten lava that just engulfed your car.
I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus’ testimony before the US Congress, when media interest in the war was (I’m told) unusually concentrated, it’s a wonder my eardrums didn’t burst on the trip back to Iraq. In places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Britain people hardly seemed to notice that success is being achieved in Iraq, while in the United States, Britney was competing for airtime with O.J. in one of the saddest sideshows on Earth.
No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.
Today I am in Iraq, back in a war of such strategic consequence that it will affect generations yet unborn—whether or not they want it to. Hiding under the covers will not work, because whether it is good news or bad, whether it is true or untrue, once information is widely circulated, it has such formidable inertia that public opinion seems impervious to the corrective balm of simple and clear facts.
To read the rest of the article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:43 PM | Comments (9)
Without Illusions
Fine analysis by Barry Rubin on the illusions of Middle East strategy in the West.
The alternative Western view of Middle East strategy—so influential in academic, media, and to some extent diplomatic circles—has a six-point program that boils down as:
Make deals with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah; ally with Muslim Brotherhoods; and split Iran and Syria.
Those more extreme who advocate this approach are sympathetic to these forces, seeing them as more misunderstood victim than aggressive oppressor; the more moderate among them merely think the radicals can be moderated through concessions and confidence-building measures. In other words, they are not really adversaries but either already good guys or can be converted into playing that role.
By this analysis, those who claim these radical regimes and movements are dangerous due to their radical ideology, violent methods, and totalitarian goals are standing in the way of solving issues quickly, painlessly, and peacefully. They are warmongers perpetrating needless conflicts.
This analysis generates tremendous anger against the United States and Israel or anyone else who tries to explain that this approach will not work.
Too read the entire article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:02 AM | Comments (2)
October 21, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #137
Haveil Havalim #137 is up and this edition, by Esser Agaroth, has a lovely introduction, and is so beautifully organized that I simply can't bring myself to pull focus from all his hard work by focusing on some Hollywood legend. It just wouldn't be fair.
Yasher Koach to Esser Agaroth for doing a really fine job. This week's Haveil Havalim is a model of excellence.
Next week I'm going to tell you about an amazing actress who co-starred in just one movie, was nominated for an academy award and then, well, a terrible accident put an end to what promised to be a brilliant career.
Hardly anyone has ever heard of this actress, but she was luminous in this one role. Every time I see this one movie, every time I watch her, a piece of my heart just breaks.
The reveal, next Sunday.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)
Moderate PA Plot to Assasinate Olmert
It should be clear by now that PA President and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas has no ability nor intention of curbing the terrorists that make up the PA.
This is sheer fantasy.
The only difference between Fatah and Hamas is tactics. Hamas wants to destroy Israel immediately, Fatah is willing to work through various stages for Israel's annihilation, aiming for a one-state solution, which would mean the end of the Jewish state and dhimmitude for Jews and Christians—at best.
Of course, the Arabs can always count on fifth columnists like Yossi Beilin who urge Israel to keep on negotiating even as terrorists plot a final solution. Belilin and his ilk have zero understanding of the enemy, zero comprehension that Israel and the West are locked in a life and death struggle with Muslim jihadists who have no interest in compromise.
Once again we are living in 1938, and once again the Jews are the canaries in the coal mine. And once again, as in Communist Russia, the Jews on the left have become the most implacable foes of the Jewish people.
Some of the five Fatah operatives suspected of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were members of the PA security forces and were meant to guard the prime minister's convoy, Chanel 2 quoted Israeli security officials as saying on Sunday.
Earlier Sunday, Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin informed the cabinet of the plot to fire at the prime minister's convoy during a trip to Jericho to meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas on August 6.
In the wake of the plot, the Shin Bet said it would now prevent any meetings involving Israeli officials in Area A - the area under full Palestinian control.
To read the rest of the article please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Chaver, Kishke
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:20 PM | Comments (4)
October 20, 2007
Show of Force
Superb article by Noah Pollak in Azure on why Israel gets annihilated in the court of world opinion.
On June 9, 2006, a beach in Gaza was rocked by an explosion that killed seven members of a Palestinian family. Shortly afterward, Palestinian Authority television released a horrific video showing a 10-year-old girl shrieking amidst the dead bodies on the beach, and Palestinian hospital workers and spokesmen angrily blamed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) artillery fire for the deaths--even though no investigation had been conducted, and the Palestinian accusers had no way of knowing what caused the explosion. The exultant declarations of an Israeli massacre were reported as fact in newspapers and television broadcasts around the world; human rights groups joined in the condemnations; and once again Israel found itself the object of international outrage over the issue of civilian casualties.
If this story and its origins fit a predictable pattern, so did Israel's reaction to the crisis: The IDF immediately ceased military activity in Gaza, and Israeli officials at the highest levels reflexively assented to the IDF's culpability and promised an investigation of the incident.
The last chapter of the story is equally familiar: It was ultimately determined that the Palestinians on the beach were not killed by the IDF. Rather, Hamas had mined the section of beach where the explosion occurred, hoping to defend their arsenal of Kassam rockets against Israeli commando missions. After the explosion, Hamas men combed the beach, removing shrapnel that could be used as evidence. The sensational video that captured the sympathies of credulous journalists and set off a wildfire of opprobrium turned out, upon objective evaluation, to be a mangled skein of spliced footage and puzzling anachronisms. It was, in other words, a fake. The explosion itself occurred some ten minutes after the last IDF artillery shell had been fired into the area, and the shrapnel found in the victims' bodies was not from Israeli munitions. Hamas, in a sloppy attempt at defending Gaza, had almost certainly killed its own citizens.
In the end, none of the exculpatory evidence mattered in the least: Israel had been tried and convicted in the court of world opinion in the first few days after the incident. And, as has happened so often before and since, Israeli officials had helped their enemies make their case.
To read the rest of the article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend David Suissa
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:16 PM | Comments (6)
October 19, 2007
Seraphic Friend Fox Hollywood Correspondent
Seraphic Secret is proud to announce that:
Starting tonight Friday, Oct. 19th Liberty Film Festival Co-Founder GOVINDINI MURTY will appear on the Fox Business Channel on Fridays at the conclusion of the 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific (1:00pm - 2:00pm Eastern) news hour to discuss the business and politics of Hollywood. Be sure to tune in Fridays for a special look at what’s coming up at the weekend box office, and what political agenda is driving Hollywood’s business decisions!
To find channel listings in your area for The Fox Business Channel, go to the official Fox Business Channel website.
Original article here at Libertas.
We have known Govindini Murty for several years. Govindini and her husband Jason Apuzzo have changed the political and moral landscape of Hollywood through the Liberty Film Festival, and now even greater things are happening in association with the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
When Seraphic Friend Jake Novak, a producer on the new Fox Business Channel, mentioned that he was looking for a bright and independent Hollywood correspondent, we immediately recommended Govindini.
It also helps, we confess, that Govindini looks like a perfect fusion of Hedy Lamarr and Paulette Goddard.
Brains, beauty and Conservative politics.
Sigh.
Fox Business Channel is going to bury the competition.
We look forward to Govindini's reports from Hollywood. In a media which is saturated with, Paris, Brittany, and Linsday crap, we are certain that Govindini's Hollywood reports will be witty, articulate and deeply informative.
Karen and I wish all our friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:13 AM | Comments (3)
Detroit Dhimmis
Okay, it's official, our airport security systems are not just pitiful but fractured. Check out the photo after the post that reveals the Dhimmitude of Detroit Metro.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Yonoson Fisgus, M.D.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)
See No Proliferation
Below, a fine editorial from, who else, The Wall Street journal.
Seraphic Secret would like to remind its readers that back in 1981, when Israel, in Operation Opera , bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility, this necessary military action was condemned by ever major editorial page in America—except for the Wall Street Journal.
Of course, Israel's preemptive strike was rational and necessary for a nuclear Iraq posed
not only an existential threat to Israel, but in the hands of Saddam Hussein, a tyrant who never blinked at murdering hundreds of thousands of people, this weapon would have afforded him genocidal power over his other neighbors.
We are still waiting for the editorial staff of The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc. to admit that their screeds against Israel were not only wrong, but in hindsight truly foolish.
We will wait forever, for as Dennis Prager has said: “Being on the left means never having to say you're sorry.”
Israel's latest strike, deep into Syrian territory, presumably on a North Korean/Syrian nuclear facility has drawn a great heaving silence from the Arab world.
This indicates two things: The Arabs are relieved that the Syrian nuclear ambitions have been shut down. Certainly the Egyptians and the Saudis are thrilled. They have no love for Syria or Puppy Assad, the weak tyrant. But it also means that the Arab regimes are deeply intimidated by Israel's ability to shut down Syria's "advanced" ground defense systems.
Modern Russian systems.
In fact, the Israelis jammed the Russian radar so effectively that the Syrians did not even know that they were being jammed.
No doubt, the Syrians would like a refund from the Russians.
All this leads to Iran.
The Persians have vowed to eliminate Israel. The Persians are, by some estimates, about sixteen months from going hot. Israel cannot allow Iran to go nuclear.
America, stuck in a terrible repeat of Carter and Clinton's desperate peace-making attempts between Israel and her implacable Arab enemies—the Arabs have no desire for peace, no desire to build a state, only to destroy a state—seems incapable of dealing effectively with the Iranian threat. Diplomacy and sanctions are a dead issue. They have never worked against any tyrant ever.
Israel will have to do the job.
The silence from the Bush Administration over Israel's recent bombing of a site in Syria gets louder by the day. U.S. officials continue to look the other way, even as reports multiply that Israel and U.S. intelligence analysts believe the site was a partly constructed nuclear reactor modeled after a North Korean design.
The weekend was full of reports about these intelligence judgments, first in the U.S. media then picked up by the Israeli press. Israel's former chief of military intelligence, Major General Aharon Zeevi Farkash, called them "logical." That's the term of art people use to confirm things in Israel when they want to get around the military censors.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Israel and offered her own non-confirmation confirmation. "We're very concerned about any evidence of, any indication of, proliferation," she said, according to the New York Times. "And we're handling those in appropriate diplomatic channels." Just what you need when your enemies are caught proliferating nuclear expertise--a little more diplomacy. The world is lucky Israel preferred to act against the threat, in what seems to have been a smaller version of its 1981 attack against Iraq's Osirak reactor.
To read the entire editorial, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend and Fox Business Network Producer Jake Novak
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:52 AM | Comments (4)
October 18, 2007
The Camel in the Tent
Make no mistake about it, the Islamic world has a long-term strategy: to destroy Israel and conquer the West—by whatever means necessary. We are in the midst of an Islamic revival after 300 years of cultural confusion and silence.
There are those who neatly divide the Arab/Muslim world into moderate and radical regimes.
This is wishful, even suicidal thinking.
At the core, there is no difference between the regimes in Iran or Dubai and Oman. Their long term goals are identical: the eradication of Israel, the ascendancy of Islam and the decline of the West.
The only difference between the regimes is that Iran is more bellicose, more vocal in its public language. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Oman and every other Islamic State have the exact same goals, they merely use coded language to fool gullible Westerners into believing that they are moderate and Westernized.
Given the opportunity, every Arab country would vote for an Islamacist party over a more secular party. Witness Hama's overwhelming victory over Fatah. They took every precinct in Gaza, and every precinct in Judea and Samaria but one. The only reason Hamas does not control Judea and Samaria is because those areas are not Judenrein.
The same happened in Algeria where the government had to ruthlessly suppress the Islamic party who had overwhelmingly won the popular vote over the more secular government.
So rid yourselves of any notions of moderate Arab regimes.
They only exist in the minds of naive Westerners.
The latest front in the Islamic battle against the West is the very foundations of free enterprise. How we handle this assault will spell life or death for the West.
Objections to Borse Dubai's proposed acquisition of 20 percent of Nasdaq last week prompted Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank to quip, "In the ports deal, the concern was smuggling something or someone dangerous... What are we talking about here — smuggling someone onto a stock exchange?"
It is not "who" Dubai will smuggle into the stock exchange we should worry about. It's the arrival of the world's first Islamic stock exchange exerting unprecedented Islamic influence in the heart of the U.S. and Western economies that should raise our alarm. Dubai's handsomely paid Washington lobbyists see nothing wrong with that. Rather, they claim the deal benefits U.S. financial markets, giving "Nasdaq access to rich Mideast pockets." Unfortunately, the deal also increases the appeal and influence of Islamic financing in the West.
What is "Islamic" finance? Islamic, or Shariah-based finance, is the 1920s invention of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. He ordered the Muslim Brothers to create an independent Islamic financial system to supercede the Western economy, facilitating the spread of Islam worldwide. He set the theories and practices and his contemporaries and successors developed Shariah-based terminology for "Islamic economics," finance and banking. [emphasis added]. Attempts by Muslim Brotherhood members in the early 1930s to establish Islamic banking in India failed. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser shut down the second attempt in 1964, after only one year, later arresting and expelling the Muslim Brothers for attempts to kill him. Saudi Arabia welcomed them and adopted their ideas.
To read the entire article by By Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:42 AM | Comments (7)
October 17, 2007
Morgan Stanley Dumps NY Times Stock
The New York Times is an arch liberal newspaper that operates on a 19th century business model. It provides wall to wall leftist opinions dressed up as news.
This is a recipe for disaster in today's world.
The blogosphere does a far better job at reporting news than daily newspapers.
And in a world in which radical Islam is a clear and present danger to western civilization, the editorial slant of the New York Times is simply not rooted to reality.
One of the most wretched writers on staff, Israeli correspondent Steven Erlanger, is a disgrace to the profession. His dispatches are nothing more than propaganda for Hamas. That the editors of the New York Times allow a jihad apologist to continue in such an important post is symptomatic of an organization that has not the least notion of what constitutes decent journalism.
Pinch Sulzberger and his family rule over the New York Times like medieval lords. And like medieval lords they are doomed by the march of free enterprise and free thought.
Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire stake today, according to a person briefed on the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years.
Click here to go to Seraphic Friend Dirty Harry's Place.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:25 PM | Comments (12)
Jihad in the Art World
Ah, the art world, where it's okay, even fashionable to mock Christianity, and where attacks on Conservatives and the current administration are celebrtaed as brave and passionate defenses of free speech.
Yeah, about as brave as wearing the latest Dolce & Gabbana threads.
But G-d forbid you should even mention a particular word.
One single word.
A word that conjures a Jewish national homeland.
Because if you do, you are shut down by the oh-so-sensitive artistic tyrants of the left.
An Israeli-American artist contends that a San Francisco gallery that displayed his paintings dropped plans to publish a catalog of his work after he proposed that the cover title of the collection refer to Zionism.
The artist, Alan Kaufman, said several of his Jewish-themed paintings were rotated on-and-off the walls at the Himmelberger Gallery near Union Square beginning in July. Some of Mr. Kaufman's works bear the names of figures from the Hebrew Bible, while others listed in a contract with the gallery have titles such as "Anti-Semitism," "Battle for Israel," and "Flight of Israel's Foes." One canvas is named after an Israeli city near the Gaza Strip, Sderot, and depicts a figure crouched under a Jewish star as missiles fly overhead.
Mr. Kaufman said he and the gallery's owner, David Himmelberger, were working closely on a catalog of the art as well as plans to exhibit it at other sites, when Mr. Himmelberger expressed discomfort with using the word "Zionist" in the catalog's title and with essays that included references to Zionism.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Akpoem2
By the way, we have read Mr. Kaufman's novel Matches and it is wonderful. It's the story of a young American's service in the IDF. Oddly enough, Alan Kaufman served in the IDF. We wonder, is this novel a thinly disguised memoir? In any case, we strongly urge everyone to read this fine volume.
Seraphic Friend Psychotoddler has a full review of Kaufman's novel. A fine and thoughtful piece.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:12 AM | Comments (11)
Is Hollywood Liberal? Duh
Is Hollywood filled with wide-eyed liberals?
Or is it, ahem, non-partisan?
Do they churn out movies that attack our troops and the current administration?
You need to ask?
From Variety via Libertas, a list of Hollywood moguls and their campaign contributions.
Just follow the money.
Was going to do this myself but Variety saved me the time. Here’s a presidential donor list of Hollywood nabobs. Have a good chuckle at all the early Obama supporters who then gave to Hillary. It’s well known around town that if she wins Obama-only supporters will be killed in all sorts of strange accidents.
Click here to go to Libertas and acess to the list.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:12 AM | Comments (2)
October 16, 2007
Art and the, ahem, Religion of Peace
Jihad arrives in Sweden. It was only a matter of time. We anxiously wait for the artistic community in America and in Europe to rise in defense of this man against the brutal juggernaut of radical Islam.
Indeed, we wait and wait and wait...
No doubt the brave and enlightened artists in Soho will continue to churn out passionate denunciations of the Bush administration.
No doubt the brave and enlightened craftspeople in Hollywood will continue to churn out, er, passionate denunciations of the Bush administration, films the public has no interest in seeing.
And no doubt our elite campuses will skate right past this and all incidents like it and probably damn Lars Vilks as an Islamophobe.
Yup, as in the days of the Stalin, the artists on the left can be counted on to assist the Jew-haters and the butchers of humanity.
Swedish artist Lars Vilks says all he's doing is taking a stand in the name of artistic expression. But because of that stand, on this afternoon he's lying low -- on the ground, in fact -- looking for bombs under his car.
Al Qaeda has put a $100,000 price on his head and offered an extra $50,000 for anyone who murders him by slitting his throat after the eccentric artist and sculptor drew a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog.
To read the entire article and for a video of the artist, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Jake Novak
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:16 PM | Comments (2)
Brooke Goldstein on the Dennis Prager Show Today
National talk show host Dennis Prager will interview Brooke Goldstein about her film The Making of a Martyr this Tuesday, Oct. 16th at 10:30AM PT.
Dennis Prager will be guest-hosting a special evening of films about Islamic terror on Thursday, October 18, 2007 as part of the Liberty Film Festival Screening Series. The LFF is proud to be screening Brooke Goldstein and Alistair Leyland’s film The Making of a Martyr along with Pierre Rehov’s The Road to Jenin. BUY YOUR TICKETS TODAY BEFORE THIS SPECIAL EVENT SELLS OUT! Dennis Prager will speak before the films and will host a special Q & A session with filmmaker Brooke Goldstein afterward to discuss the threat of Islamic terror to Israel and the West.
Click here to go to Libertas to read the entire article.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:04 AM | Comments (5)
Hey Kids, Let's Put on Jihad!
This from One Jerusalem:
Even though the Palestinians signed onto the Road Map which requires all official Palestinian institutions to "end incitement against Israel," a review of Palestinian text books shows that 12th graders are still being taught about Jihad and martyrdom while the maps in their textbooks do not include Israel.
During a recent meeting between Congressman Eric Cantor and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad, the PM admitted "You wouldn't call our curriculum a 'peace curriculum.' Cantor concluded from this conversation that included other questions about the state of ridding the Palestinian educational system of hate against Israel that the will to reform is not there.
Along with being a requirement in the First Phase of the Road Map - a requirement that has not been fulfilled and that no one is requiring the Palestinians to deliver on - it is important to keep in mind the words of Clinton Administration negotiator Dennis Ross: Commenting on the state of the Palestinian education system he concluded, "that no negotiation is likely to succeed if there is one environment at the negotiating table and another on the street."
Read Dore Gold's analysis here.
Why doesn't the United States insist that the Palestinians live up to their agreement and stop teaching hate?
Why don't Olmert and Livni?
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2007
Jihad in America
The New York Times is finally paying attention to the violent Muslims who are intent on destroying America, Israel, Western civilization.
When Osama bin Laden issued his videotaped message to the American people last month, a young jihad enthusiast went online to help spread the word.
“America needs to listen to Shaykh Usaamah very carefully and take his message with great seriousness,” he wrote on his blog. “America is known to be a people of arrogance.”
Unlike Mr. bin Laden, the blogger was not operating from a remote location. It turns out he is a 21-year-old American named Samir Khan who produces his blog from his parents’ home in North Carolina, where he serves as a kind of Western relay station for the multimedia productions of violent Islamic groups.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Here's the question: what are limits of free speech in America? This vile kid in North Carolina, IMHO, has no right to disseminate videos which show how to build bombs that are used to kill innocent people all over the world. He has no right to call for the death of Americans. This kid is our enemy and should be arrested and put on trial for sedition.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:16 PM | Comments (13)
Jake & Fox Business Network Launches
Seraphic Friend Jake Novak is hard at work as a producer over at the new Fox Business Network. That's why his fine and insightful comments have been appearing with somewhat less frequency here on Seraphic Secret.
We forgive Jake, and wish him and the new network the best of luck, and great ratings.
Anyway, we just received this e-mail from Jake and proudly pass it along to all our friends:
Fox Business Network launches this Monday, Oct.15th. My show will be the 12-2pm show Eastern Time, (9-11pm Pacific).
We have been working around the clock to provide viewers with business news that won't scare them off, won't confuse them, and won't bash people for the "sin" of wanting to make money.
That said, all the editorial aspects that will set FBN apart will not be in place on day 1. We need to focus on getting "clean shows" on the air. Also, expect the news media to tear us up considerably in the papers on Tuesday. But right off the bat, expect to see a network and a show, (my show), that celebrates the capitalist spirit that made and maintains America and her people.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:38 AM | Comments (7)
October 14, 2007
The Best of the Jewish Blogosphere
Normally on Sunday, you can find me watching a great old Hollywood movie. Then I like to stroll down memory lane recalling some obscure Hollywood lore as I put up the latest Haveil Havalim. But this morning I g