The Blue Glove and Ziad Abu Ein (UPDATED)

In this video documenting the incident near Adei-Ad, see the blue glove:

I'll return to it shortly.  But first, here's one version of the event:

The head of the Palestinian Authority committee against the separation wall and settlements died Wednesday after Israeli soldiers assaulted him in a village near Ramallah, committee sources said.  Ziad Abu Ein, 55, died after an Israeli soldier beat him on the chest with his helmet in the village of Turmsayya in the Ramallah district, the director of the committee's information center, Jamil al-Barghouthi, told Ma'an.   Abu Ein also suffered severe tear gas inhalation as Israeli soldiers fired canisters in the area. 

Another:

PLO Executive Committee Member and Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat condemned in the strongest terms the killing of Minister Ziad Abu Ein by Israeli Occupation Forces.  'The killing of the Minister Abu Ein, is another example of Israel's vicious and arrogant actions committed against the Palestinians'

Abu Ein was killed while marking the International Human Rights day by planting olive trees to symbolize the hope for both peace and justice...Minister Ziad Abu Ein was participating in a nonviolent demonstration on the occasion of the international day for Human Rights when Israeli soldiers quelled the demonstration with teargas canisters, causing him to die instantly.

The activity included planting olive trees around an area that has long been the target of Israeli settler violence and terror. The illegal settlements of Shilo, Eli and Ma'ale Levona surround the village.  Abu Ein was in charge of the Settlements and Annexation Wall portfolio and a prominent member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council.  'The Israel government bares full responsibility for the killing of Minster Abu Ein and the systematic crimes committed against the Palestinian people. This new assassination will have severe consequences,” Erakat added.

I have just watched Roi Sharon on Channel 10 TV.

Abu Ein collapsed some 5 minutes after the incident and after an hour, the hospital announced his death.  He wasn't choked [Sharon was standing next to him at the moment of the tiff] but was pushed and it was over in a few seconds. He even was interviewed for a TV station.  No rifle butts or such were employed. No rocks were thrown. There was a confrontation line, shouting, a few tear gas grenades tossed at the beginning but the incident happened afterwards. Sharon said it was a very low-key demo.

Note that no other demonstrato complained about the gas.

[Health Ministry: "the death was caused by blockage in the coronary artery, and there were signs of light internal bleeding and localized pressure on the neck.  The deceased suffered from heart disease, and there was evidence that plaque buildup were clogging more than 80% of his blood vessels, as well as signs that he had suffered heart attacks in the past."
And now: The death of Ziad Abu Ein was caused by a blockage of the coronary artery (one of the arteries that supplies blood to the heart) due to hemorrhaging underneath a layer of atherosclerotic plaque. The bleeding could have been caused by stress.  Indications of light hemorrhaging and localized pressure were found in his neck.  The deceased suffered from ischemic heart disease; blood vessels in his heart were found to be over 80% blocked by plaque. Old scars indicating that he suffered from previous myocardial infarctions were also found.  
The poor condition of the deceased's heart caused him to be more sensitive to stress.  It is necessary to wait for the medical treatment report before determining more incisive explanations on this matter. Indications of CPR  were found. but still the Pal. line: "...the murder of Head of the Anti-Wall and Settlement Committee Abu Ein, who died after being directly struck in the chest and choked by an Israeli soldier..."]

Now, about that blue glove.  It is on the hand of an IDF medic who is about to treat the man but he is removed, lifted up and carried away.

Think about that.  And now this.

P.S.  The PA is revving things up:

PMW Bulletin

Dec. 10, 2014

PA and Fatah: Israel killed Ziad Abu Ein "intentionally" and "in cold blood"

Just saw:

Reuters gets it wrong:

a scuffle ensued in which a border policeman pushed Abu Ein and grabbed his neck firmly with one hand. Footage of the incident and pictures taken by Reuters do not show Abu Ein responding with any violence.

and perhaps he was trespassing?

Shortly before his death, Abu Ein spoke to television reporters, sounding hoarse and short of breath.  "This is the terrorism of the occupation, this is a terrorist army, practicing its terrorism on the Palestinian people," he told the official Palestine TV. "We came to plant trees on Palestinian land, and they launch into an attack on us from the first moment. Nobody threw a single stone."

-----------------

In a 2006 interview:

"The Oslo Accords are not the dream of the Palestinian people. However, there would never have been [violent] resistance in Palestine without Oslo," he said.

"Oslo is the effective and potent greenhouse which embraced the Palestinian resistance. Without Oslo, there would never have been [violent] resistance."

"In all the occupied territories, we could not move a single pistol from place to place. 

______________________-

UPDATE

What has been placed in his mouth by his comrades?

ES wrote to me:

That classic Pallywood "carry" to the  ambulance, which ended with laying him down in the dirt could have killed him - but, again, look closely at the video linked below- Somebody put something in Abu Eiun's mouth, that might have also made it hard for him to breathe- especially with someone pinching his throat closed- notice that later Abu Ein spits whatever it is out of his mouth

Compare this to the video here  - which also (0:19) shows someone spraying something on his wrist - and almost immediately he seems to pass out -but notice at :40 he is being propped up with his neck compressed forward - also inhibiting his breathing- so that a photographer opposite him can get a better shot.

_______________________________

And if you thought this was an exercise in futility, read this.
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The "One-Sentence Media Bias" Maneuver

How easy is it to perform a media bias maneuver?

Just one sentence can do it.

How?

Here:-

Exiled from Canaan in antiquity, Jews are famously scattered across the world

By the time the Jews were scattered (for the second time I should point out), the land called Canaan hadn't existed for many centuries.  And there were no Canaanites either.

Even the Romans who in 69 CE conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple and then, in 135 CE, lost tens of thousands of troops quelling a revolt of Jews led by Bar Kochba, called the country Judaea:-

Soon, however, all Judaea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by overt acts; 2 many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter. Then, indeed, Hadrian sent against them his best generals. First of these was Julius Severus, who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews. 3 Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the open at any one point, in view of their numbers and their desperation, but by intercepting small groups, thanks to the number of his soldiers and his under-officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up, he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparatively little danger, to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few of them in fact survived. 14 1 Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. 2 Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon[the temple], which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed, and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities. 3 Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war. Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, "If you and our children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health."

The country is the Land of Israel, in Hebrew, Eretz-Yisrael.

^

Oiled Media Bias at the BBC

Consider this opening line:

The first time I realised how delicious olive oil from the West Bank can be was more than ten years ago when a Palestinian farmer offered me breakfast as I stood watching a broad strip of his land being destroyed.

That was the BBC's Jeremy Bowen.

Jeremy, dear chap, only ten years you've know good olive oil?

And if we're talking time-wise, that territory has been the "West Bank" only since April 1950.  Before that, for 2500 years, it was Judea and Samaria.  Judea like in where Jesus was born.  Judea like in Jews.

And the best olive oil is from Meshek Achiyah at Shiloh.

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Reuters is Anti-Zionist? Or Who Hates Us More

If it is, it started a while ago:

Source

If you think today's media is bad, try something like this:

“I freely admit that the Jewish race has shown conspicuous political unwisdom since the War. Prominent British Jews have brought great unpopularity upon their community because of clamorous persistence in pressing for maintenance, at the expense of the hard-driven taxpayers, of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, which no Jews above the charity line want at all.

“Those on the inside of public affairs feel furthermore a good deal of resentment against the activities of wealthy Jewish individuals and organizations who try by every means ”financial, social, political and personal” to influence British Government Departments and members of parliament for ends serviceable to Jewish interests.

“Tactlessness always has been one of the outstanding defects of the children of Israel. British Jews do not err in this respect nearly as much as their kinsmen of the Continent. Nevertheless, they would do well to remember that the fact of leadership of the Bolshevist campaign against civilization and religion being almost entirely in the hands of men of their blood has done inevitable and incalculable harm to the reputation of the Hebrew race in every country of its adoption.”

That was by Lord Rothermore, the publisher of the UK Daily Mail and sponsor of what he termed 'universal Fascism'.

Read more here: 

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While Wearing Tallitot

I took the liberty of translating Tzur Ehrlich's poem that appeared in Makor Rishon on November 21, 2014.

While Wearing Tallitot

When we die
in tallitot
Bury us
in tallitot
They have slipped 
off our shoulders,
silent,
dripping.

Our tefillin take off from between our eyes
and place them between the eyes of our sons
For a remembrance and as signs.

But leave us in our tallitot.

Carry us between the pall polls
and with our tallitot prepare our resting-place
when we die and after we die.
And make us eternal signs with your cameras
and the earth shall tremble for a distance of 600 parsot.

In our tallitot you'll commemorate us 
For in them we lived, and we fell on our high places
and the the length of our days were our deaths.

You'll photograph us,
but not our faces;
rather they'll be within the state of the hidden face.
Our wounds are not uncovered,
only the boxes on our foreheads.

In our tallitot commemorate us
and then place us down.
Our lips then will be murmuring prayers as we lie
at the Yeshiva of On High
that which we murmur while standing
at the Yeshiva Below
and will continue at the place that was interrupted.

When we die in tallitot,
bury us in tallitot,
For there are tallitot fill of red red wine.
And while we say all this
while being laid to rest,
You'll all say after us, Amen.

_________________

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'Accused' in a NYTimes' Headline

From today:

Palestinian Teenager Accused of Stabbing 2 Israelis
By JODI RUDOREN
Two Israeli men were wounded in an attack in a West Bank supermarket, and the suspect was shot and wounded by an off-duty guard who was shopping there.

Actually, Israelis simply go around in supermarkets looking for Arabs doing nothing who they can shoot.

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Uncultivated/Cultivated

I was at Esh Kodesh today and snapped the following photographs:

That view is looking north towards Qusra whose homes you can make out on the horizon, etc.

But what caught my interest is in this one:

The same land opportunities the Arabs had, the Jews improved on.  See the marked areas that remain uncultivated for hundreds of years or for however long they claim they were there, and right next to them, the cultivated fields that the residents of Esh Kodesh now have producing wines and eating grapes from the planted vineyards.

If that sounds to you a bit old-fashioned Zionism, of "making the desert bloom", you are right for that is the truth and the reality.  The pioneering endeavor continues even to today.

Unfortunately, security issues also have stayed with us since the early 20th century and Arab marauding, brigandage and wanton destruction continues and so the building I have marked is an army tower, set up to prevent residents and international sympathizers from coming over the hill and acting with impunity:

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Scenes from the Temple Mount Morning Kollel

As we know, for the past almost three years, the Islamic Movement-North has been funding, probably with money from Gulf States, Muslims to sit inside the Temple Mount compound, to situate themeselves close to where Jews walk, to shout out "Allah Akbar", to congregate near the pathways in a threatening posture and even block the walkways, to spit at Jews, slap them if possible, wave Qurans around hoping someone will strike back and then they could drop them and claim a desecration of a sacred text and occasionally throw stones.

The women I've termed the Wicked Witches of the Waqf.

The men I refer to as those of the Morning Kollel.

Some humor:

^

Jordan is Palestine, Archaeologically

I know the Hashemites get all uneasy when anyone reminds them, like with my Fraction Principle, that any territorial and/or administrative solution to the problems Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-Palestinians have with Zionism must inlcude Jordan.

But this is an aspect:

Palestine Exploration Quarterly

Volume 146, Issue 4 (December, 2014)

NEW INSIGHTS ON THE COPPER MINES OF WADI FAYNAN/JORDAN

Zeidan A. Kafafi

THE CHRONOLOGY OF QASR EL-BINT, PETRA: DISCUSSION AND NEW RADIOCARBON DATES

Khaled Shenwan Al-Bashaireh and Gregory W. L. Hodgins

AN INSCRIBED NABATAEAN BRONZE OBJECT DEDICATED TO OBODAS THE GOD FROM WĀDĪ MŪSĀ, SOUTHERN JORDAN

Zeyad al-Salameen and Hani Falahat

BYZANTINE AND UMAYYAD PERIOD POTTERY AT BARSINIA (2006 SEASON OF EXCAVATION)

Lamia El-Khouri

All located in Jordan.

P.S.  By the way, that first article deals with

the possible connection between Iron Age copper mining and the biblical King Solomon are considered

^

Nothing Much New Under the Middle East Sun

From Palestine Media Watch

Israeli Parliament Member Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 was used by the PA to spark the five-year terror campaign (the "Intifada") that left thousands dead. According to Mamdouh Nawfal, Arafat's advisor for internal affairs and member of the Palestinian Supreme National Security Council, Arafat summoned the Palestinian leadership just days before Sharon's planned visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and told them the following:

"[Arafat said:] 'The Al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger, and as Allah is my witness, I make this known.' [Arafat] spoke with the knowledge that Jerusalem is a special place for the Palestinian nation, for the Arab people and Islam, and with full conviction that it would be easy to involve the Palestinian and Arab street and to motivate them to participate in a battle of defense for Jerusalem and the holy places. He was certain that the masses of believers would hurry to the defense of Al-Aqsa." 

[Al-Ayyam, Aug. 30, 2001]

That theme of "al-Aqsa is in danger" already appeared during the 3rd Palestinian Arab Congress in 1920 and most prominently, at the December 1931 General Islamic Conference in Jerusalem.

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Media Bias? It's an Old Story

In a report on Matti Friedman's latest on the media anti-Israel campaign (here), I caught this observation,

The Arab Israeli reporter Khaled abu Toameh has been writing and speaking about the problem for at least a decade. It was also the subject of Stephanie Gutmann’s The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy (Encounter, 2005).

As for myself, I'd locate the current problem, - which has been around since the early 1920s with the British press magnate Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, who visited Mandate Palestine in 1922, accompanied by a journalist, Mr. J.M.N. Jeffries who wrote the anti-Zionist tract, Palestine: The Reality, and especially starting with the NYTimes' Joseph Levy in 1929 (see this book), with the use of hyperbole and cooperation with NGOs, etc., - around the First Lebanese War and with the responses of David Bar-Ilan, Zev Chafets' Double Vision and especially AFSI's documentary/pamphlet as reported in the NYTimes:

''NBC in Lebanon,'' subtitled ''A Study in Media Misrepresentation,'' is a polemic; it stacks the deck, and sometimes it nearly collapses under its own sarcasm. At the same time, it raises significant questions about television journalism. It attempts to prove, and to a large extent does prove, that coverage by the ''NBC Nightly News'' of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982 was faulty. The one-hour documentary will be seen on National Jewish Television, carried by several cable systems, at 1 P.M. tomorrow.

The burden of the documentary, produced by a group called Americans for a Safe Israel, is that NBC consistently favored the Palestine Liberation Organization and discriminated against Israel. From June 4 to Aug. 31, 1982, we are told, the ''NBC Nightly News'' devoted 600 minutes of air time to Lebanon, with less than 30 minutes of this reflecting the ''Israeli viewpoint,'' or the ''factual background of the war.''"

And, does the following from that review sound ominously familiar?

Consider, for example, the reports on civilian casualties during the early part of the invasion. On June 10, Roger Mudd, the ''NBC Nightly News'' co-anchor, said that 10,000 civilians had died. He attributed the figure to the Red Crescent, the Lebanese Red Cross. A few nights later, Tom Brokaw reported that Israel had been silent on the number of civilian deaths. Shortly after that, Jessica Savitch said the fighting had left 600,000 civilians without food or supplies.

In fact, Israel, relying, it claimed, on actual body counts, had said that 460 civilians had died, and that the fighting had left 20,000 people homeless. The Israeli figure on the number of deaths may have been too low; truth can be a casualty in wartime. However, the unreported Israeli figure seems to have been more accurate than the figure put out by the Red Crescent. Newspaper accounts called it a wild exaggeration.

Meanwhile, ''NBC in Lebanon'' notes that Yasir Arafat's brother was the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent [= NGO - YM]. It also notes the unlikelihood of 600,000 people being left without food or supplies; fewer than that many people lived in the area of the fighting.

NBC's alleged failures on the reporting of figures may be attributed to carelessness, or to the exigencies of putting together a nightly news broadcast. The documentary, however, raises a more serious charge when it accuses NBC correspondents of ignoring the reality of Beirut. We see NBC film clips of ruined buildings; we hear correspondents saying they were not military positions. The implication is that Israeli artillery fire was always indiscriminate.

However, other journalists reported that the P.L.O. frequently used civilians as cover. David K. Shipler, The New York Times correspondent in Beirut then, reported that ''P.L.O. weapons and ammunition were placed strategically in densely populated civilian areas in the hope that this would either deter Israeli attack, or extract a price from Israel in world opinion for the killing of civilians.''

And indeed, world opinion, moved at least in part by the television images, did not favor the Israelis. As early as June 16, in an NBC commentary, John Chancellor spoke about a ''feeling Israel was turning into a warrior state, using far more force than is necessary to solve its problems.''

He also mentioned the ''problem with Israeli credibility.''

Unfortunately, the bias is an old story.  And every few years, someone points it oit as if it's ... news.

^

A Matter of Safety Distance

Members of the various Temple Mount groups and specifically MK Moshe Feiglin have pleaded with the police to establish "security space" between Muslims and Jews within the site's courtyards.

The suspicion is that if that speace does not exist, possible injury or worse can occur.  Separation is safety.

An example:

This screen snap was taken from a visit today, Monday.  The Jew and the policeman are in the center and on the left, a Muslim woman approaches while off to the right and in front, is another.

I am not accusing either women of criminal intent but simply illustrating that if a security distance is not kept, the possibility of danger increases.  Today, an Arab woman stabbed a Jew at Gush Etzion.  it happens, and it happens all the time.

^

Provocatively Picnicking

Here are two snaps from this video taken today, Sunday, on the Temple Mount:

The Murabitoun, those Waqf-hired Islamic-paid mercenaries, self-described 'sentinels', 

The Public Security Ministry and other branches of Israel’s defense establishment are advancing a bill to outlaw the organization of Palestinian guards stationed on the Temple Mount to block entry by Jews. The guard corps, staffed by Muslim men and women, has often been at the center of clashes with Jewish worshippers during the past year.  The guards are called “Mourabitoun” in Arabic, a term used to describe an advance guard meant to protect Islamic holy sites from heretics. Dozens of men and women are part of the guard, and are present near the mosques on the Temple Mount – which is worshipped by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary – day and night. They are funded by various Islamist parties, including some extremist groups in Israel. In many cases, the guards, particularly the females, have been involved in clashes with the Israel Police or Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. A senior security official told Haaretz that the defense establishment has learned that the Mourabitoun guards receive a monthly salary of between 3,000 and 4,000 shekels ($776 - $1036). Some of the funds come from the Gulf States, through the occupied territories by way of couriers, and from there the money makes its way into East Jerusalem. Recently, the Shin Bet and Israel Police apprehended a courier at the Jordanian border in possession of 1 million shekels, meant for the Mourabitoun guards.

are sitting on the pathway directly leading from the raised platform at the center of the Temple Mount towards the east.  The pathway leads to the Eastern Wall where those who visit pause to observe the sight, to hear a short lecture on how the compound looked when the Temple was extant and to silently and motionlessly meditate.

Not only do they break the law, Protection of Holy Places Law 5727 (1967)

The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places...Whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

but they are establishing a new status quo because three years ago they weren't there.

The police, if they are so zealous on behalf of the status quo, should be rolling back this new status.

^ 

Abbas Also Is Against the Status Quo

President: We are no Longer Able to Live with the Status Quo

Oops.

The other status quo, not the one on the Temple Mount:

CAIRO, November 29, 2014 – (WAFA - PLO news agency) – President Mahmoud Abbas stated Saturday that the Palestinian people could no longer live with the status quo in the occupied Palestinian Territory.

Addressing the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, Abbas stated: “We could no longer live with the status quo, particularly since Israel has been stepping up its attacks to impose a fait accompli on the ground.”

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Quoting Jabotinsky on a 'Jewish State' and its Arabs

Michael Brenner has a blog post wherein he writes about the new Jewish Nation State legislation and notes:

It may come as a surprise to many that Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky...was not that different [than Herzl] in his views of a future Jewish state. While his conviction that Jews should be allowed to settle on both sides of the Jordan and his vision of a state with a strong Jewish army are certainly no secrets today, it is less known that all [?] a Jewish state meant for him was a territory in which Jews enjoyed a sufficient degree of sovereignty in their internal and external affairs and in which they constituted a majority.


In The Jewish War Front, his last book before his premature death in 1940...Jabotinsky draws on the draft constitution worked out by the Revisionist Executive in 1934.


In Jabotinsky’s vision of a future Jewish state, the inhabitants not only all enjoy equal individual rights, but both Jews and Arabs share equal collective autonomous rights as well. Jabotinsky writes:


In every Cabinet where the Prime Minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab, and vice-versa. Proportional sharing by Jews and Arabs both in the charges and in the benefits of the State shall be the rule with regard to Parliamentary elections, civil and military service, and budgetary grants… Both Hebrew and Arabic shall be used with equal legal effect in Parliament, in the schools, and in general before any office or organ of the State… The Jewish and the Arab ethno-communities shall be recognized as autonomous public bodies of equal status before the law… Each ethno-community shall elect its National Diet with the rights to issue ordinances and levy taxes within the limits of its autonomy, and to appoint a national executive responsible before the Diet.

And just like Herzl, Jabotinsky states: “After all, it is from Jewish sources that the world has learned how ‘the stranger within thy gates’ should be treated.”

but he concludes that

...to turn Israel from a Jewish state into a more Jewish state is not only an unnecessary provocation to Israel’s Arab citizens. It also ignores the vision of its founders right underneath their images proudly displayed inside the Likud headquarters.

The book, and it may come as a surprise even to Brenner that it was reviewed the Foreign Affairs, is no surprise to my readers as I have quoted from it and particularly that passage many times.  I even quoted an extreme anti-Zionist quoting that book favorably.


One always need be careful when dealing with quotations from Jabotinsky. Excerpts must be faithful to the fundamental conceptualization of the author's thinking so that the quotation cannot be used for a purpose which is contrary to the author's outlook.  

For example, Jabotinsky writes in his introduction to the article that

Nothing, of course, is perfect on this earth, and there is no doubt that it is pleasanter to be in the majority than in the minority, even under the best conditions imaginable; but that does not mean that the status of a minority is everywhere and always a tragedy. Every great people has its outlying
fragments which form minorities in other countries...

Today's reality amongst Israel's Arab minority is not quite that.  They do think of their status a tragedy, the events of 1948 that caused their status a nakba, catastrophe, and have, in increasing numbers and ferocity, acted with violence to the idea of a Jewish state.  Can Jabotinsky's idyllic vision be easily applied today, without a period of reduction of Arab hostility on the one hand and, on the other, a coming to terms with Israel, by Arabs both within and without?

Secondly, Jabotinsky does add a qualifier:

The draft is not an official programme, and the writer is not prepared to defend it in all its aspects.

And even while extending assurances and guarantees, Jabotinsky writes:

...the Jews are ready to guarantee to the Arab minority in a Jewish Palestine the maximum of the rights which they claimed but never obtained for themselves in other countries. 

The "Jews", and not Israelis; "Jewish Palestine" echoing today's "Jewish State". As Jabotinsky writes in introducing his thinking on the basic issue of civic equality: 

1. Provided nothing be done to hinder any foreign Jew from repatriating to Palestine, and, by doing so, automatically becoming a Palestinian citizen, the principle of equal rights for all citizens of any race, creed, language or class shall be enacted without limitation throughout all sectors of the country's public life. 

there are certain inbuilt constitutional privileges, like the one above echoing Israel's own Law of Return, which Arabs combat and refuse to accept.

Jabotinsky knew that Muslim Arabs were problematic as regards the entire question of Jewish nationalism and so he added this:

Should the Christian Arabs, or any other group of citizens reasonably justified in claiming autonomy, also demand a measure of independent recognition, Parliament shall be entitled to grant the request. 

Do our progressive liberals accept that?  Would that lead to bifurcation of our society?  Is that good or bad?  Should not all citizens feel patriotic and compliant to a general state culture?

Following that line of thought, Jabotinsky continued and wrote:

The following matters shall be delegated by the State to each ethno-community with regard to its members:
(a) religion and personal status;
(fa) education in all its branches and grades, especially in the compulsory elementary stages;

Again, is that agreeable to our liberals, as with the ultra-Orthodox community or will they fight to have core educational themes incorporated in their curriculum? And would the right-of-center and even a good deal of the centrist elements agree to this:

THE HOLY PLACES 

1. The relevant areas within the Old City of Jerusalem, to be delimited under the authority of the League of Nations, shall enjoy the same measure of extra-territoriality as that universally recognized in the case of embassies.

And what if the Arabs disagreed with all this?  What was Jabtoinsky's thinking? Here:

Whether the Arabs would find all this a sufficient inducement to remain in a Jewish country is another question. Even if they did not, the author would refuse to see a tragedy or a disaster in their willingness to emigrate. The Palestine Royal Commission did not shrink from the suggestion. Courage is infectious. Since we have this great moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of 350,000 Arabs from one corner of Palestine, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay. The writer, as he has already said, cannot see any necessity for this exodus: it would even be undesirable from many points of view; but if it should appear that the Arabs would prefer to migrate, the prospect can be discussed without any pretence of concern. 

I think it, too, quite necessary to quote Jabotinsky's logic for ignoring many of the Arab demands and complaints:

There is, moreover, one great ethical difference between the case of Palestine and that of all the other poly-ethnical areas...In all the other areas friction is caused by ambition: one section wishes to dominate, or so at least the weaker section fears. Such an ambition may be, or seem, justifiable or excusable, in the sense that it is an expression of inherited vitality...In Palestine any inconvenience to the native population from the influx of immigrants arises from the tragic necessity that these immigrants must find a home. It has nothing to do with ambition, nothing to do with the will to dominate over anyone...The cause is genuine hunger, the nostalgic passion of people who have nowhere else where they can make a home for themselves.

That need still exists and it does not gain any sympathy with our Arabs.

One can quote Jabotinsky.  One must do so correctly and fairly and one must be able to adapt his principles to current realities.

^ 

What Is A 'Religious War'?

Here is an example why the struggle for Jewish rights, under law, the secular law which guarantees free access and worship, that is, is a "religious war" - because the Muslims make it so:

I excerpted that from a clip broadcast on Israel's Channel One TV news this past week.

The Muslim women are being interviewed, or shouting their answers back, at 2:41, and they are explaining that the prohibition of Jews entering the current Temple Mount compound is "in your Torah" and "It's not me saying it. It's your own Torah."

The moment non-Jews begin telling Jews what or what not is dictated by our own religion is the moment something becomes wrong.  Not because we are special but because would "Palestinians" tolerate being told what "Palestinianism" is all about?  Or that a Rabbi would declare that Muslims have no real connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem?  Or that I would interpret a Quranic passage as indicating that indeed Jerusalem is really not that important to Muslims.

Whose narrative is this?  Would Muslims accept my "reverse inventivity" model?

Would a Muslim wish the Jew to revert to a second-class citizen?  Redefine us as unbelievers as in the beginning of Sura 2?  

And to those Jews who charge the Temple Mount Jewish activists with hypocrisy in saying 'would you permit a Muslim to pray at the Western Wall?', I ask you: in what direction would they be facing?

^

Is There Jewish Archaeology?

I don't think so and for sure, our radical progressive liberals would denounce that.  So particularistic, so narrow, so anti-cultural.

I did find a recent conference entitled Archéologie du judaïsme en France et en Europe but if my French is still good, that should mean the 'archaeology of Judaism' otherwise the adjective 'juive' should have been used.

However, I did find this:-

ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY WORKSHOP
Whilst in the past Islamic archaeology was often regarded as peripheral to the main areas of interest within Near Eastern Archaeology it has now emerged as an integral part of the study of the archaeology of the region. Recent sessions at BANEA have incorporated papers on Islamic archaeology both within the general sessions and within workshops however there has not been a specific session which addresses some of the issues of particular significance to the Islamic period (approx. 622- 1914). Islamic archaeology was last represented as a special session at BANEA in the 1990’s since then there have been many developments including numerous fieldwork projects, a large number of synthetic and thematic studies, several introductory books and most recently the launch of a new journal Islamic Archaeology. In view of these developments it seems appropriate to have a workshop which looks at the current state of this rapidly growing field of enquiry within Middle Eastern Archaeology.

More interestingly, one of the 'key themes' includes

• Archaeology and Conflict

I wonder, do they mean something like this

Israel 'destroyed' Islamic archaeological sites in Silwan dig

or something like this

ISIS Destroying Biblical Archaeology in Middle East

or this

Millennia-old archaeological sites in Iraq and Syria face looting, destruction under militants

or this

After 1,700 years, Buddhas fall to Taliban dynamite

which, 13 years later, is still problematic

Afghanistan halts suspected reconstruction of ancient Buddhas

Will there be a paper at that session dealing with this?

'Waqf Temple Mount excavation damaged archaeological relics'
State Comptroller's report finds that the Muslim religious trust carried out works without permits and used heavy equipment damaging the Jerusalem holy site.

And if want to assist with salvaging the damage done on the Temple Mount by the Islamic Waqf (a Jordanian institution), go here.

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James Baldwin's Hyberbole

Dear the late Mr. Baldwin,

Your reference to the Holocaust in your complaint that Angela Davis was photographed for the cover of Newsweek in 1970 that the New York review of Books saw fit to republish

You look exceedingly alone—as alone, say, as the Jewish housewife in the boxcar headed for Dachau,

was probably dealt with adequately at the time.

Slavery was and is evil.  It endnagered lives for sure.  But it wasn't certain death.

Why NYRB saw fit to highlight your letter now is one matter (hint).  That your hyberbole is repeated is the problem.

^

Britain's Avishai Raviv

I read this and Avishai Raviv* came to mind:

Bob had been a member of the Special Demonstrations Squad, the domestic-intelligence-gathering arm of the Metropolitan Police. The S.D.S. was established in 1968, after the Grosvenor Square protests against the Vietnam War. Conrad Hepworth Dixon, the squad’s first chief, when ordered by his superiors to do something about the protests, is said to have replied, “Give me a million pounds and ten men, and I can deal with the problem for you.”

The unit’s mission—to provide “sufficient and accurate intelligence to enable the police to maintain public order,” according to an internal document obtained by Evans and Lewis—was as broad as its techniques were particular. Officers, known as “deep swimmers,” transformed themselves into facsimiles of their targets, taking on new identities that they inhabited for years. They got perms and new passports; they acquired tattoos, accents, and, if necessary, drug habits. “For the whole time they were undercover they would never wear a uniform or set foot in a police station, unless, of course, they were dragged in, kicking, screaming, and handcuffed,” Evans and Lewis write. “They would find flats or bed-sits, preferring those at the back of houses in case fellow activists went past at night and noticed the lights were off and no one was in. They would take up jobs with flexible working hours and travel, such as laborers or delivery van drivers, so they could disappear for, say, a day with their family without arousing suspicion.”

and

...In October, 2011, Bob was a speaker at a conference organized by anti-racist groups in London. In front of an audience of four hundred people, he delivered a lecture on extremist political violence. During the question-and-answer session, a man stood up and raised his hand. When called upon, he spoke:

“I have one question from the floor. David Morris, London Greenpeace. Is he going to apologize for organizing disgusting undercover police infiltration of campaign groups including anti-fascists and my own group, London Greenpeace, for five years as Bob Robinson?”

The lecture’s moderator tried to quell the mutiny. Morris, who had come with a group of activists, continued to shout from the floor, pressing Bob to apologize. He added, “We want to ensure that you are not informing on groups that are here today.” According to “Undercover,” “Lambert sat impassively, giving nothing away. He sipped from a glass of water.”

and

...The revelation of the extent of the British police’s spying, and the dubiousness of some of their tactics, caused a scandal that has yet to be resolved. Reporters and activists have confirmed that at least nine police officers—including one woman—conducted sexual relationships with unsuspecting citizens during their undercover deployments. At least twelve women, including Jacqui, are suing the Metropolitan Police for deceit, assault, misfeasance in public office, and negligence. Those whose relationships began after 2000 are also bringing suit under the Human Rights Act, arguing that the Met’s “systemic abuse of female political activists” breached Articles 3 and 8, which forbid inhumane treatment and guarantee the right to private life. Jacqui has said that she feels as though she were “raped by the state.”

*

"Avishai Raviv was an agent of Israel's Shin Bet or Shabak, Israel's domestic intelligence service whose mission was to encourage and fabricate activities of right-wing extremists. His code name was 'Champagne'.
Raviv was a student at Tel Aviv University and was expelled for violent behavior. He was later a student at Bar Ilan University.
Under orders from the Shin Bet Raviv created Eyal to perpetrate acts of violence to discredit the Israel right wing. Raviv recruited Yigal Amir, a religious law student from Bar-Ilan University, who fiercely opposed the Oslo Accords.
At one protest, Raviv was filmed with a picture of Rabin in an SS uniform prior to Rabin's murder. Raviv allegedly knew of Yigal Amir's plans to assassinate Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, based on a controversial classification of handing over Jewish land in the category of "din rodef" ("law of the pursuer"). According to Jewish law, anyone who is classified as a pursuer, must be killed immediately...Uri Dan, a journalist close to Ariel Sharon, wrote that witnesses heard Raviv tell Amir: "Be a man! Kill him already!"
After Rabin was assassinated, the journalist Amnon Abramowitch revealed that Raviv was an agent of the Shabak.
Raviv was brought to trial in 2000 for not preventing Rabin's assassination. Raviv mounted a successful defense on the grounds that he had just been doing his job and events had spun out of control.

^ 

Democracy and the Police Commandant

The 'wisdom' of a police officer, the most senior in the force:

It's a mistake to allow right-wing MKs on Temple Mount, Police Chief Danino says
 “Anyone who wants to change the status quo on the Temple Mount should not be allowed up there,” Police Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino said Tuesday, criticizing Attorney General Yehudah Weinstein for enabling right-wing politicians to incite Arab unrest by visiting the disputed holy site.

...Citing an “extreme right-wing agenda to change the status quo on the Temple Mount,” Danino made his position clear: “We say leave the Temple Mount alone.”

The police chief, whose force has been beleaguered by months of rioting and terrorist attacks, added that declarations by politicians, such as Moshe Feiglin, to change current policy does little more than incite the “Muslim world.”

First, he clashes with another government official.

Second, he misunderstands democracy.

Third, he forgets parliamentary immunity.

Fourth, he points an accusatory finger at the victims of violence hwo only seek what the law guarantees them.

Fifth, he is perceived as letting off the Muslims despite their violcnce. 


Will he resign or be forced to do so?

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