Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 3, 2015

Un article de Wikipdia, l'encyclopdie libre.

Le Hamas (en arabe:, ferveur), acronyme partiel de harakat al-muqwama al-'islmiya (arabe: , Mouvement de rsistance islamique), est un mouvement islamiste constitu d'une branche politique et d'une branche arme, principalement actif Gaza. Cr en 1987 par Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi et Mohammed Taha, tous trois issus des Frres musulmans, sa charte[2] affirme que la terre de Palestine est une terre islamique. Il prne donc la destruction de l'tat d'Isral et l'instauration d'un tat islamique palestinien sur tout le territoire de l'ancienne Palestine mandataire, c'est--dire incluant l'tat d'Isral, la Cisjordanie la bande de Gaza) et la Jordanie.

Dans le cadre du conflit isralo-palestinien, le Hamas se dfinit lui-mme comme un mouvement trouvant ses principes dans le Coran et se battant au nom de l'islam. Les militants du Hamas, dont ceux des Brigades Izz al-Din al-Qassam, prennent pour cible aussi bien les militaires que les civils israliens. Entre avril 1993 et 2005, le Hamas a organis des attentats suicides visant essentiellement des civils. Le dernier attentat-suicide contre Isral revendiqu par le Hamas remonte ainsi janvier 2005[3]; il a dclar en avril 2006 renoncer ce type d'actions[4], prfrant alors tirer des roquettes de type Qassam et des missiles Grad sur des villes israliennes, dont Sdrot, Ashdod, Ashkelon et Beer Sheva.

Le Hamas est sur la liste officielle des organisations terroristes du Canada[5] et des tats-Unis[6]. Il est class terroriste par Isral[7], l'gypte[8] et le Japon[9], et est banni en Jordanie[10]. Pour la Grande-Bretagne[11] et l'Australie[12], seule la branche arme du Hamas est classe comme terroriste. D'autres pays du monde, notamment l'Afrique du Sud[13], la Russie[14], la Norvge[15], le Brsil[16] ne reprennent pas le Hamas sur la liste des organisations qu'ils considrent comme terroristes. En dcembre 2014, l'inscription du Hamas sur la liste des organisations terroristes de l'Union europenne a t annule par la justice[17], car le Tribunal a estim que cette inscription tait fonde non pas sur des faits examins et retenus dans des dcisions dautorits nationales comptentes, mais sur des imputations factuelles tires de la presse et dinternet. Cette annulation ne remet pas en question la qualification du groupe palestinien d'organisation terroriste sur le fond, a prcis la cour, qui condamne la manire dont il a t formellement inscrit sur la liste europenne en 2003[17]. L'Union Europenne fait appel de cette dcision en janvier 2015[18],[19] et maintient le Hamas sur la liste des organisations terroristes le 27 mars 2015[18]. Le 29 janvier 2015 la justice gyptienne a class la branche militaire du Hamas comme organisation terroriste laccusant de soutenir l'insurrection jihadiste dans le Sina[20]. En revanche, la Ligue arabe demande l'gypte d'annuler cette dcision[21].

Selon la biographie semi-officielle du Hamas, Truth and existence[22],[23], l'histoire du mouvement s'articule autour de quatre grandes tapes ou priodes:

De nombreux experts [rf.ncessaire] pensent que l'histoire du Hamas dbute seulement avec le tournant des annes 1980 lorsque son influence politique commence s'affirmer.

L'abrviation Hamas apparat pourtant pour la premire fois en 1987 dans un document accusant les services secrets israliens.

Le Hamas s'est form fin 1987, le mouvement est alors proche des Frres musulmans d'gypte[24]. Selon sa charte, le Mouvement de la Rsistance Islamique est l'une des ailes des Frres musulmans en Palestine[25].

Le Hamas se dveloppe diffremment en Cisjordanie, ne participant pas, notamment, la cration ou au contrle d'institutions publiques. Les Frres musulmans en Cisjordanie forment alors une partie importante du Mouvement islamique de Jordanie qui fut pendant quelques annes un alli du rgime hachmite. De plus, les Frres musulmans en Cisjordanie s'appuient sur une classe sociale plus leve (marchands, propritaires, employs). Jusqu'au milieu des annes 1980, les Frres musulmans prennent des positions essentielles dans les institutions religieuses de la Cisjordanie.

Selon certains analystes, les Frres musulmans palestiniens taient financs pendant les annes 1970 et 1980 directement et indirectement, au titre d'organisation caritative, par diffrents tats comme l'Arabie saoudite et la Syrie, financements qu'Isral a laiss faire car l'poque ils n'taient qu'un mouvement religieux sans actions militaires et ne pratiquant pas d'attentats terroristes contre Isral la diffrence de diverses branches de l'OLP. L'tat hbreu, par ailleurs, a officiellement reconnu ce bras politique et caritatif des Frres musulmans probablement au printemps 1978[26]. Les activits du groupe se dclinent autour de projets religieux et dans une intense action sociale et communautaire. Au milieu des annes 1980, les Frres musulmans palestiniens voluent sous l'influence d'Ahmed Yassine. Ce dernier prne l'action arme contre l'occupant hbreu. Il est emprisonn par l'tat isralien en 1989 pour meurtre et incitation la violence, puis relch au cours d'un change de prisonniers.

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Posted By simmons on July 3, 2015

LONDON A bitter row broke out at the end of a rally Friday in Golders Green, north London. Under the slogan Golders Green Together, the rally was called to demonstrate opposition to a proposed neo-Nazi gathering that had been planned for the neighborhood, which is nicknamed Londons Jewish heart. But the display of Israeli flags at the largely good-natured event proved divisive.

Earlier this week, Londons Metropolitan Police announced that it had relocated the neo-Nazi rally to a secure area in Richmond Terrace, Whitehall, where the demonstrators will be confined to a one-hour slot on Saturday before being made to disperse.

In preparation for the anticipated neo-Nazi invasion, however, mainstream Jewish opponents, including the umbrella organization the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the London Jewish Forum, and the pluralistic anti-fascist group HOPE Not Hate, had banded together in Golders Green to declare a Day of Action on Friday.

A variety of faith communities in the area had lent their support to the Day of Action, and organizers decided it would go ahead despite the relocation of the far-right action.

On Friday morning two women appeared at the event carrying a huge Israeli flag and proceeded to decorate parts of the Golders Green war memorial, where the rally was being held, in Israeli bunting and pennants.

Sharon Klaff (left) and Amber Shetreet, claimed to represent five grassroots organizations which monitor anti-Semitism, and sparked a quarrel at the Golders Green Together rally against neo-Nazis with their use of Israeli flags, on July 3, 2015. (Jenni Frazer/The Times of Israel)

The women, Sharon Klaff and Amber Shetreet, claimed to represent five grassroots organizations which monitor anti-Semitism. They denounced the Board of Deputies for what they called its kumbaya cooperation with HOPE Not Hate, which they insisted is virulently anti-Israel. (Gemma Levine, HOPE Not Hates deputy director, emphatically denied this claim.)

Although the women attempted to broadcast their ideas through a megaphone during the mornings event, for the most part the other participants, busy draping lamp posts and flower troughs in the Golders Green campaign colors of gold and green, did not interact with them.

But a furious Israeli businessman, Eyal Landau, was not ready to ignore them. Despite angry protests from Klaff and Shetreet, Landau accused them of disrespecting the Israeli flag.

People died for that flag, he proclaimed, as he went around the war memorial taking down the womens flags. You have no right to use this flag here, Landau told the women. You are doing great damage. This event is not about Israel, it is about anti-Semitism. Enough is enough.

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Posted By admin on July 2, 2015

Who is Leo Frank? Leo Frank, born April 17, 1884, was a Jewish-American businessman who was lynched by a party of prominent citizens in Marietta Georgia. The vicious and hateful treatment of Leo Frank and his subsequent lynching turned a spotlight on anti-Semitism and hateful acts based on religious beliefs in the United States. The lynching of Leo Frank ultimately led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. The Mary Phagan Murder: Mary Phagan was a young girl who worked in a mill that was operated by her family. Phagan left school at the age of 10 to assume a job at the mill. After working in the mill, Phagan took a job with the National Pencil Company, where ran machines that inserted rubber erasers into the pencils metal bands. Mary Phagan worked in the metal room, down the hall from Leo Franks office. Around noon on April 27th, the factorys security guard went to the factory basement to use the facilities where he discovered the dead body of Mary Phagan. Her body was savagely beatn, and a seven foot strip of wrapping cord was tied around the young girls neck. There were two notes found next to Phagans head. The notes, which were written in gibberish, were believed to a ploy to falsely accuse the black security guard who discovered the body. When the guard was interviewed on suspicion of leaving the note, the authorities realized that the man was not the murdered. With no murder suspect in hand, the suspicion gradually fell on Leo Frank. The authorities believed that Frank was the culprit because he had developed a flirtatious relationship with Phagan and was extremely nervous when questioned. The Leo Frank Trial: On July 28, 1913 the murder trial commenced in a Georgia courtroom. Leo Frank was represented by eight lawyers. The prosecutions predominant theory cited that Leo Frank was the murdered and the murder notes were dictated by Frank to an African-American janitor to effectively pin the crime on the man. The janitor, who was kept in custody and questioned by police, changed his story multiple times but finally claimed that Leo Frank promised him $200 dollars to write the notes. Leo Franks defense team brought numerous witnesses who affirmed Franks alibi, which ultimately did not leave enough time for Leo Frank to commit the murder. On August 25, Leo Frank was convicted of murder. Shocked by the verdict, Leo Frank appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court denied this appeal as a writ of habeas corpus sought by Franks lawyers. Months later, William Smith, the lawyer for the African American janitor announced that he believed that his client had murdered Phagan. A writ of error was issued, which allowed Leo Frank to appeal the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal in April of 1915. On April 19, the appeal was denied on a 7-2 vote. Originally Leo Frank was sentenced to death, but after further review of the evidence the governor of Georgia commuted Franks sentence to life in prison. The Lynching of Leo Frank: A group of prominent men in Georgia organized themselves into a group called the Knight of Mary Phagan. The men recruited 25 to 28 other men, who possessed necessary skills, to effectively kidnap Leo Frank from prison in hopes of lynching him. On the afternoon of August 16, eight cars arrived at the prison shortly before midnight. The team executed an elaborate plan to remove Leo Frank from prison; when they got to Leo Frank they handcuffed him and tied his ankles together. They removed Leo Frank from jail and hung him from a tree that faced Mary Phagans home. Several hundreds of people viewed the lynching for they assumed Leo Frank was the murderer. Nearly seventy years later, in 1982, Alonzo Mann, who was Franks office boy, told the authorities that he had seen the janitor alone at the factory, carrying Phagans dead body. Comments

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Posted By simmons on July 2, 2015

Members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas movement, take part in a military march in Gaza City on Monday. Photograph: Wissam Nassar/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Islamic State insurgents have threatened to turn the Gaza Strip into another of their Middle East fiefdoms, accusing Hamas, the organisation that rules the Palestinian territory, of being insufficiently stringent about religious enforcement.

The video statement, issued from an Islamic State stronghold in Syria, was a rare public challenge to Hamas, which has been cracking down on jihadis in Gaza who oppose its truces with Israel and reconciliation with the US-backed rival Palestinian faction Fatah.

We will uproot the state of the Jews [Israel] and you and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be overrun by our creeping multitudes, said a masked Islamic State member in the message addressed to the tyrants of Hamas.

The rule of sharia [Islamic law] will be implemented in Gaza, in spite of you. We swear that what is happening in the Levant today, and in particular the Yarmouk camp, will happen in Gaza, he said, referring to Islamic State advances in Syria, including in a Damascus district founded by Palestinian refugees.

Islamic State has also taken over swaths of Iraq and has claimed attacks in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.

Hamas is an Islamist movement that shares the jihadis hostility to Israel but not their quest for a global religious war, defining itself more within the framework of Palestinian nationalism.

Deemed a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and viewed by neighbouring Arab power Egypt as a regional security threat, Hamass struggle against Islamic State-linked jihadis has not won sympathy abroad.

Israels intelligence minister, Israel Katz, accused Hamas on Tuesday of partnering with Islamic State affiliates in the Egyptian Sinai a charge long denied by the Palestinian group.

There is cooperation between them in the realm of weapons smuggling and terrorist attacks. The Egyptians know this, and the Saudis, Katz told a Tel Aviv conference organised by the Israel Defense journal.

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Posted By simmons on July 2, 2015

History of Israel: The Descendants of Abraham The history of Israel commences with God's covenant with Abraham in approximately 2000 B.C., "I will make you into a great nation" (Genesis 12:2). The name "Israel" (meaning either "one who fights victoriously with God" or "a prevailing prince with God") comes from the new name God gave Abraham's grandson Jacob, after Jacob withstood a spiritual struggle at Jabbok (Genesis 32:28). It is at this point that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are often referred to as the "Children of Israel."

History of Israel: Its Selection as a Special Nation The history of Israel goes back even further than 2000 BC. In fact, the selection of Israel as a special nation was part of God's plan from the beginning of time. God's choice of Israel as His "chosen people" did not lie in any special size, nature or attraction. Actually, the nation of Israel was the least in number among all the nations (Deuteronomy 7:6-8). Rather, God chose these people because of His love for them and His unconditional covenant with Abraham. This doesn't mean that God loved Israel more than other people, it was just that He intended to use Israel as His means to love and bless everyone. It was God's plan from the beginning to bring forth the Messiah through Israel to act as the savior for the entire world.

History of Israel: The Biblical Record The history of Israel as detailed in the Bible encompasses around 1800 years. It proclaims a dynamic account of God's miracles, judgments, promises, and blessings. Israel begins as a unilateral promise to one man, Abraham. For more than 400 years, Abraham and his descendants rely on that promise, even during a significant period of slavery in Egypt. Then, by means of an amazing series of miraculous events, God delivers the Israelites of out Egypt in the Exodus (Hebrew: "a going out"). The Exodus is the occasion that most Jews look to as the foundation of the nation of Israel. The Exodus is the act of deliverance which Israelites dwell on as the demonstration of God's love and protection of Israel. Once the Exodus was completed, God established a conditional covenant with the Israelites at the Mountain of Sinai. It is there that God proclaimed His Law (the Ten Commandments). It is there that God promises blessings for adherence to His Law and curses for noncompliance. The rest of Israel's history as recorded in the Bible is a continuing cycle of blessing and punishment for Israel's obedience and disobedience to God's Law. Throughout times of victory and defeat, king and judges, priests and prophets, restoration and exile - the Israelites are blessed when they obey God and disciplined when they do not. As a nation, Israel was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. At that time, the Jews scattered throughout the whole world, keeping the hope based on prophetic promises of an eventual regathering to the chosen land God gave to Israel. In 1948, after almost 1900 years had passed, Israel was again declared a sovereign nation and officially reestablished in the promised land. Through a series of miraculous events, including the Jews retaking of Jerusalem in 1967, this generation is witnessing the fulfillment of prophecy with respect to God's special nation.

History of Israel: God's Ultimate Purpose Why is so much of the Bible focused on the history of Israel and the future of its people? Why was one nation called out as "God's chosen people"? These questions are answered when we examine God's ultimate purpose for Israel. When God made His unconditional promise to Abraham that He would make his descendants a great nation, God also promised to bless all people through that nation (Genesis 12:1-3). Therefore, Israel was never considered a sole recipient of God's blessings, but rather, a channel for God's blessings to all mankind. God's miracles for Israel, such as their dramatic deliverance from Egypt, were intended not only for the Israelites themselves, but as evidence of God's absolute power and uniqueness for a watching polytheistic world (Exodus 7:5; 14:18; Joshua 2:9-11). The Messiah that would come through the nation of Israel was always intended to be the Savior for all mankind (Isaiah 49:6). The Old Testament also contains many invitations to the entire world to come and worship the one living God in Israel (Psalm 2:10-12; 117:1).

Based on recent events in the Holy Land, it is clear that God's promise to Abraham is still being fulfilled. Accordingly, God's promise to bless all peoples through Israel is still absolutely apparent. The teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the growth and influence of His church, were made possible through God's choice of Israel as His people. All people who accept Jesus as their Messiah, whether Jew or Gentile, receive the great blessings of God channeled through His chosen people, the nation of Israel.

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Posted By admin on July 1, 2015

The theater production of The Diary of Anne Frank is playing in Newtown, Sydney. I saw it last month when it opened. The play was powerful, moving, and sensitive. The acting was highly professional. The characters portrayed the situation, the fears, the pressures, and the closeness of the Jews hiding in the attic. It also showed the bravery and moral courage of the gentiles who put their own lives at risk to save Jews. The Newtown production brought this 71 year old diary to life with great vibrancy. I would urge all those so inclined to see it.

However, it was disappointing to see that the 1955 play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett which was reenacted at Newtown was not updated to recapture Annes authentic words about antisemitism. Annes words had been replaced with a sanitized version about antisemitism and the reason for the suffering they were subjected to. The playwrights put these words into Annes mouth: We are not the only people that have had to suffer sometimes one race, sometimes another. This is an egregious rewriting of history.

Whilst it is true that other peoples have also suffered, and continue to suffer, due to racism, these fabricated words negate the unique aspects of antisemitism. Racism thus becomes some bland generic universalistic phenomenon, negating the unique history and reasons for racism against different peoples, whether it be the enslavement of black Africans in previous centuries or of Yazidi women presently or the continuing persecution of Bahai, Assyrians, Roma or Rohingya, and thus disrespecting all victims of each form of racism.

As Dennis Prager and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin state in their book Why The Jews?, the elimination of Annes original words is part of the dejudaization of antisemitism [] Anne Franks beliefs that Judaism was at the root of Jew-hatred and that the Jews were different were eliminated in the Broadway version. [] The Hacketts thus presented their dejudaized interpretation of antisemitism in place of the Jewish interpretation offered by Anne Frank, that the Jews are hated precisely because of the Jews unique role in the world.

It is worth revisiting Annes original words, rather than those that have been put in her mouth. On 11 April 1944, she wrote in her diary:

Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up until now? It is God who has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. Who knows? It might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and only that reason do we suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English or representatives of any country for that matter. We will always remain Jews, but we want to, too.

Anne had a far superior understanding of the reasons for, and uniqueness of, antisemitism than many people. She understood that it was not just an unfortunate confluence of random events that saw a long history of hatred and murder of Jews. Although she grew up in a secular and assimilated Jewish family, Anne realised it was Judaism, with its ethics and values, that intrinsically so rile up those who would prefer to live by brute force and have freedom without conscience. It is this, which a 14 year old Dutch/German girl understood even as she hid in that attic, trying to survive the onslaught of murderous hate. It is a pity that a great play could not appreciate Annes deep insights.

Antisemitism is on the rise once more throughout the world. Obfuscating the nature of antisemitism and the impetus for it is counterproductive to the efforts to fight it. Whether it is hostility and hatred towards the Jewish religion, the Jewish people, or the Jewish state, we need to understand the perennial nature of the toxic evil that propels this unique phenomenon.

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Posted By admin on July 1, 2015

Likud (Hebrew: , translit. HaLikud, lit. The Consolidation), officially the LikudNational Liberal Movement, is the major center-right political party[10][11] in Israel. A secular party,[12] it was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's landslide victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had lost power. In addition, it was the first time in Israel that a right-wing party won the plurality of the votes.[13] However, after ruling the country for most of the 1980s, the party lost the Knesset election in 1992. Nevertheless, Likud's candidate Benjamin Netanyahu did win the vote for Prime Minister in 1996 and was given the task of forming a government after the 1996 elections. Netanyahu's government fell apart after a vote of no confidence, which led to elections being called in 1999 and Likud losing power to the One Israel coalition led by Ehud Barak.

In 2001, Likud's Ariel Sharon, who replaced Netanyahu following the 1999 election, defeated Barak in an election called by the prime minister following his resignation. After the party recorded a convincing win in the 2003 elections, Likud saw a major split in 2005 when Sharon left to form the Kadima party. This resulted in Likud slumping to fourth place in the 2006 elections and losing twenty-eight seats in the Knesset. Following the 2009 elections, Likud was able to gain fifteen seats and, with Netanyahu back in control of the party, formed a coalition with fellow right wing party Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas to take control of the government from Kadima, which earned a plurality but not a majority. Netanyahu has been prime minister since and Likud has been the leading vote-getter in each election.

A member of the party is often called a Likudnik (Hebrew: ).[14]

The Likud was formed as a secular party[12] by an alliance of several right-wing parties prior to the 1973 electionsHerut, the Liberal Party, the Free Centre, the National List and the Movement for Greater Israel. Herut had been the nation's largest right-wing party since growing out of the Irgun in 1948. It had already been in coalition with the Liberals since 1965 as Gahal, with Herut as the senior partner. Herut remained the senior partner in the new grouping, which was given the name Likud, meaning "Consolidation", as it represented the consolidation of the Israeli right.[15] It worked as a coalition under Herut's leadership until 1988, when the member parties merged into a single party under the Likud name. From its establishment in 1973, Likud enjoyed great support from blue-collar Sephardim who felt discriminated against by the ruling Alignment.

Likud made a strong showing in its first elections in 1973, reducing the Alignment's lead to 12 seats. The party went on to win the 1977 elections, finishing 11 seats ahead of the Alignment. Begin was able to form a government with the support of the religious parties, consigning the left-wing to opposition for the first time since independence. A former leader of the hard-line paramilitary Irgun, Begin helped initiate the peace process with Egypt, which resulted in the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. Likud was reelected with a significantly reduced mandate in 1981.

Likud has long been a loose alliance between politicians committed to different and sometimes opposing policy preferences and ideologies.[16][17] The 1981 elections highlighted divisions that existed between the populist wing of Likud, headed by David Levy of Herut, and the Liberal wing,[18] who represented a policy agenda of the secular bourgeoisie.[16]

Begin resigned in October 1983 and was succeeded as Likud leader and Prime Minister by Yitzhak Shamir. Shamir, a former commander of the Lehi underground, was widely seen as a hard-liner with an ideological commitment both to the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the growth of which he encouraged, and to the idea of aliyah, facilitating the mass immigration of Jews to Israel from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union. Although Shamir lost the 1984 election, the Alignment was unable to form a government on its own. Likud and the Alignment thus formed a national unity government, with Peres as Prime Minister and Shamir as foreign minister. After two years, Peres and Shamir switched posts. This government remained in power through 1990, when the Alignment pulled out and Shamir stitched together a right-wing coalition that held on until its defeat in 1992 by Labor.

Shamir retired shortly after losing the election. His successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, became the third Likud Prime Minister in May 1996, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu proved to be less hard-line in practice than he made himself out to be rhetorically, and felt pressured by the United States and others to enter negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat, despite his harsh criticism of the Oslo accords and hawkish stance in comparison to Labor.

In 1998, Netanyahu reluctantly agreed to cede territory in the Wye River Memorandum. While accepted by many in the Likud, some Likud MKs, led by Benny Begin (Menachem Begin's son), Michael Kleiner and David Re'em, broke away and formed a new party, named Herut The National Movement, in protest. Yitzhak Shamir (who had expressed harsh disappointment in Netanyahu's leadership), gave the new party his support. Less than a year afterward, Netanyahu's coalition collapsed, resulting in the 1999 election and Labor's Ehud Barak winning the premiership on a platform of immediate settlement of final status issues. Likud spent 19992001 on the opposition benches.

Barak's "all-or-nothing" strategy failed, however, and early elections for Prime Minister were called for March 2001. Surprisingly, Netanyahu declined to be the Likud candidate for Prime Minister, meaning that the fourth Likud premier would be Ariel Sharon. Sharon, unlike past Likud leaders, had been raised in a Labor Zionist environment and had long been seen as something of a maverick. In the face of the Second Intifada, Sharon pursued a varied set of policies, many of which were controversial even within the Likud. The final split came when Sharon announced his policy of unilateral disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. The idea proved extremely divisive within the party.

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Posted By admin on July 1, 2015

One of the major Islamic evangelist movements in the Middle East started in 1928 in Egypt with the name of the Muslim Brotherhood. The movement was formed with social and religious motives initially and focused on the educational and social reforming of the Palestinian Arab areas. The situation changed following the intifada in West Bank and Gaza in 1987 when the Muslim Brotherhood was challenged regarding their fundamental beliefs as Palestinian population turned their focus on the uprising. In such a situation where leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood felt that they are being detached from the activities of the PLO and Islamic Jihad, they founded a new organization in the same year as a response and named it Hamas.

The Hamas Covenant, which was drawn up in 1988, laid down that the organization recognizes the contributions of the PLO and its efforts to work for a Palestinian state fighting Israel. However, it did not recognize the PLO superior than themselves in representing Palestinian Arabs and Islam. Hamas held the view that only jihad and armed struggle can liberate Palestinian land from Israel and not negotiations. Stated in Hamas Covenant:

There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad. All the initiatives and international conferences are a waste of time and a futile game.

Hamas gives a clear vision of the Palestinian state which runs from Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River and is based on the principals of Islam, opposing to the view of a small, indeterminate state given by the PLO. Hamas also enjoyed a position more balanced in the 1990 Gulf Crisis than the PLO and received major aids from Saudi Arabia as PLO sided with Iraq, leaving an inclination of Saudi Arabia towards Hamas who were critical of the secular Iraqi rule.

More distances came between the PLO and Hamas after the Oslo peace process started. Iran supported Hamas in its efforts to carry on the Islamic movements. During the time Israel expelled Hamas activists to Southern Lebanon, relations between Hamas and Hezbollah were strengthened. There was a slight improvement in the relationships between the PLO and Hamas during 1993 when the PLO refrained from involving in peace talks with Israel. However, it turned out to be only a temporary improvement as the PLO signed Oslo Agreement in 1993.

Aimed at achieving a higher political standing in Palestine, Hamas found its position deteriorating with the peace process negotiations of the period 1993-1995. It brought them down to the dilemma where they had to choose between joining in the negotiations which challenged their origins or continue to oppose the negotiations which would damage their image in front of the emerging Palestinian state. Eventually agreements were signed between the PLO and Hamas which solved the problem for both and turning their rivalry in collaboration.

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Posted By simmons on June 28, 2015

If for whatever reason you are one of the very few people on this Earth who wants to go into,rather than get out of,the Gaza Strip, you may want to know what to expect.

Because although its been just a bit less than a year since the Israeli-Gaza conflict of 2014 or Operation Protective Edge, as the Israeli Defense Force called it came to a halt, you shouldnt expect to find a society rebuilding. No, according to The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, the new book from Max Blumenthal, the journalist behind 2013s incendiary Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, what youll see instead is mountains of rubble, barely any less than there was at the conclusion of the war.

Based on his contacts in Gaza as well as his own first-hand reporting, Blumenthals book does two things, neither of which are especially welcome in U.S. politics and the mainstream media. Blumenthal not only provides a methodical breakdown of the run-up to the conflict one that differs in crucial respects from the narrative most commonly found in American media but also offers a more detailed accounting of what was happening behind the fog of war. He also tries to answer some of the still-vexing questions about the war: Why did it last so long? Why so many civilian casualties? And what was even accomplished?

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Blumenthal to discuss the book, the history of Gaza many Americans dont know, why he believes the war was an almost deliberate result of longstanding Israeli policy, and why he believes it wont be the last. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length.

You argue that last summers war cannot really be understood in isolation, that one has to see it in a larger context. For example, why do you think the situation today is a consequence of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharons disengagement from Gaza in 2005?

The withdrawal of religious nationalist Israeli settlers (who numbered about 9,000) from the Gaza Strip was celebrated by liberals, because they saw these fanatics being forced by Israeli troops from an area that Israel [had] occupied. This actually should have been a scenario, this unilateral withdrawal, that anyone who had any concern for the people in the Gaza Strip would have opposed, because the agenda was very clear and out in the open. It was to remove [Israel] from the obligations of the Geneva Convention regarding the Gaza Strip, to claim that it was no longer occupied.

What did that new footing do for Israel?

It enabled it to establish a panopticon-style system, where it controls the exterior; the sky, the sea; and can place the Gaza Strip under a very high-tech siege, a robotically-controlled siege. Secondly, it allowed Israel to retrench its control of the major settlement blocks around East Jerusalem. They received a letter from George W. Bush [requesting] the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and guaranteeing these gigantic settlements on top of the Palestinian aquifer which cut deep into the heart of the West Bank and will eventually separate the West Bank from itself will remain in permanent Israeli hands under any US negotiated peace agreement. Thats point number two.

And point number three?

Point number three is that withdrawal, in the words of then Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, allows the military more freedom of action in the Gaza Strip. If there arent Jewish Israelis in the Gaza Strip, that allows you to start using 150-mm artillery shells during these barrages of the border regions; that allows you to use 2,000-pound fragmentation bombs. As soon as the withdrawal took place, you started seeing the use of experimental weapons, like dime weaponry. Gaza started to become a laboratory for the Israeli weapons industry, and for the entire mechanism of control that Israels trying to market and export to the word as field-tested.

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Posted By simmons on June 27, 2015

Anti-Semitism in Europe has increased to a level where many committed Jews ask themselves if they should emigrate. The same is true for a significant number of more assimilated Jews. Even more widespread across the Jewish community is the question of whether their children should remain in their native country.

In an environment where the Jewish community has great doubts regarding its future, it helps to get a greater perspective by looking back to the European anti-Semitism that reached unprecedented post-war levels after the Second Intifada in 2000.

Of all the European countries, France is a good one to use as an example, for a number of reasons. Since 2000, the level and nature of anti-Semitic incidents occurring in France which included several murders of Jews by Muslims have been more severe than in other European countries. France not only has the largest Jewish community in Europe, with half a million Jews, but also has the largest Muslim community, with an estimated five million. In addition, the first high-level analysts who came forward to assess the new anti-Semitism which differs, to a large extent, from the classic religious and ethnic anti-Semitism, did so in France.

The work of these analysts is not well-known internationally because most of it was published in French. It remains of great importance, however, because so much of what they originally observed has expanded to even greater proportions. This is due, to a large extent, to the failure of governmental authorities. The sociologist Shmuel Trigano, one of Europes leading Jewish thinkers, was one of the first to make a substantial contribution in exposing and assessing the situation. At the end of 2001, Trigano began publishing a series of articles titled, Observatoire du monde juif.[1] (Observatory of the Jewish world), a series which lasted more than two and a half years.

Trigano succeeded in organizing the collaboration of a substantial number of authors who analyzed many aspects of the hate-fueled outbursts. The first issue, dated November 2001, contained titles indicative of the climate for the French Jewish community: The Jews of France Targeted by the Intifada?, An Atmosphere of Insecurity, The Middle East Conflict is Exported to Western Democracies, The Anti-Jewish Aggressions, The Perverse Logic of French Politics, Religious Anti-Semitism, Political Anti-Semitism, and The Extreme Left and its Ideological Manipulations.[2] These could very well be titles of current essays. since the situation has only worsened.

In another issue published in 2002, Alexandre del Valle explained the convergence of various totalitarianisms in an article titled, The New Red, Brown, and Green Faces of Anti-Semitism, referring to the coming together of communism, fascism and Islamism in regard to anti-Semitism.[3] In the next issue, Michle Tribalat described how the Islamist social network was full of messages comparing Israel with Nazis.[4]

Another important scholar who greatly contributed to diagnosing the anti-Semitic reality in France is Pierre-Andr Taguieff. This non-Jewish philosopher published his book, The New Judeophobia in 2002, which made a major contribution to the understanding of anti-Israelism. Taguieff discussed this latest mutation of anti-Semitism and how it hit French Jewry. He noted that although classic anti-Semitism is considered to be politically incorrect, anti-Israelism did not encounter such resistance and was thus able to expand rapidly.

...[Taguieff] identified the new myth of the intrinsically good Palestinian, or, in other words, that the Palestinians can do no wrong. Taguieff exposed the process by which the crimes of the allegedly deprived, a group to whom the Palestinians claim to belong, are condoned. He described the role of the media in justifying violence and portraying criminals as victims. He pointed out that the next step in the distortion process was to declare that the criminals, now disguised as victims, were not to be held responsible for their acts because they are molded by their socio-economic conditions.

Taguieff also exposed other key issues such as the belief that Muslims and Arabs behave as they do because they are supposedly humiliated or persecuted. He identified the new myth of the intrinsically good Palestinian, or, in other words, that the Palestinians can do no wrong. Taguieff stated that blind pacifism places both the aggressor and his victim at the same level of morality and turns legitimate self-defense into a criminal transgression.[5] These days we can see many examples of this phenomena, including the newly published report of the United Nations Human Rights Commission report on the 2014 Gaza war.[6]

Taguieff also exposed the widespread fallacy that Islamophobia was a larger problem than anti-Semitism. The risk for Jews of being attacked in France was and remains many times greater than the risk of Muslims being attacked.

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