World Takes A Short Pause ...

A short lead post this week ...  

World Takes A Short Pause ...

... Trump's US still hasn't extracted itself from Iran, so the real world is kind of on a short pause.

A World In Flames?

Has the world gone gone to hell?

The World In Flames?

That question has to be asked if you just look around at the state it's in.

Refugees For-evermore

 At what point do "refugees" stop being refugees? 

Jewish Refugees In Yemen, Nov 1949

..... after 10 years? 20 years? 40 years? Inherited refugee status forever and eternally?

Terror In Israel

The images being shown from Israel this week, after the ISIS style mass terrorist attack from the Gaza strip by the animals of Hamas have been frankly very disturbing.

Hostages Face Terror In Gaza

 .... the terror on a young woman, Noa Argamani's face, as she is hauled away to be kept possibly for years as a hostage, and probably being abused, is not something I'll easily forget. I certainly couldn't face looking at the pictures or video's that Hamas put out while committing these barbarous acts.

The Hi(jab) and L'O(real)

The long and winding road to Politically Correct advertising is one that has undone many company's over the years, and The Face of L'Oreal campaign has also joined that list.

Racism Or Valid Comment - Depends On Your Cultural Point Of View.

This after tweets posted in 2014 by Amena Khan, who was to be a model featured in a UK advertising campaign, were deemed to be anti-Israeli, or anti-Semitic.

 

Herod The Great Builder

While Israel worries about what to do about its growing population of the ultra orthodox, who harp back to an earlier era in Jewish history, using religious practise as an excuse not to work for the state, or anybody else.

 

Herod The Great

Ironically, all the latest archaeological evidence is that long before the advent of 'socialism', and the welfare benefits that allow the ultra orthodox men to not work, ancient Judaism was place where hard work was actually the norm for all but the elite.

Cuban Crisis Remembered

I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 well ..... not the news stories, but my parents reaction - my mother glued to the reports (which seemed to be constant), of where the Russian ships were believed to be, and where the USA fleet was waiting for them. I would come home from school to face parents who seemed drawn. We even had a school event where we had to sit under our school desks when the teacher blew a whistle (although I don't think it registered why) .... I don't think anyone under the age of fifty five, really realises that we actually were hours away from the end of the world as we knew it.

Cuban Missile Crisis Anniversary October 2012

Nowadays we assume that the US, China and Russia are not stupid enough to invade each other, but we are not as far away from those times as many people assume .... Iran, North Korea, and possibly Pakistan are all armed and dangerous, and either have, or will have the capability to strike out with nuclear weapons at a superpower, or a close ally, in their stupidity.

What's actually more worrying is that in the case of one of these 'rogue' nuclear nations, there would probably not be any 'hot line' diplomacy, we would just wake up to their actions, and have to either back down, or instantly retaliate e.g. Iran drops a few warheads on Israel, or the other way round (Israel has the same weapons, but is not usually considered a 'rogue state' outside of the Arab/Muslim countries), then either the US or Russia would either have to retaliate on their behalf, or just accept that this had happened, and try to negotiate with the 'victors' or 'aggressors' .... if the result was obliteration for the victim, the question is, would the superpower ally, really risk 'Armageddon' to honour the treaty?

Its the point we would all have to consider when relying on an allies nuclear umbrella .... yesterday Sudan  said it was attacked by Israel after an explosion at an arms factory, that it claims was caused by an Israeli air strike .... not for the first time.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Sometimes a picture, doesn't just paint a thousand words, it tells you a whole story ....

Comic Chase, or Social History?

..... this 'arresting' picture, ostensibly shows a rather funny scene with policeman or security guard, chasing another man, who is dressed in a strange costume, and pulling a funny face. But of course its much more than that.

 

Food For Thought

Quote of the week .....  "Human rights do not prescribe national suicide".

The actual context of this quote from Israeli Judge, Asher Grunis, was in a ruling upholding the right of the Israeli state to stop Arab Israeli's marrying non Israeli Arabs, and then these spouses being automatically granted Israeli citizenship.

4.6 million Arabs want to get into Israel

This practise was banned on both security grounds, and because it was starting to affect the demographics of Israel and would if continued, have led to the Jews becoming a minority in their own state.

 

Israel's Blood Price

Israel is apparently on the point of swapping one thousand and twenty seven Palestinian terrorists and criminals (including murderers and rapists), from its jails, in return for the handing over of one of its soldiers captured by Hamas in 2006  ....

 

Gilad Shalit - Worth Freeing A Thousand Terrorists?

Obviously the family of the soldier Gilad Shalit think that this is a price worth paying, but surely this has now set a hostage value of around 1,000 to 1, for every Israeli citizen captured by Palestinians? 

 

Compare And Contrast

Yesterday the ex-President of Israel (he resigned from the largely ceremonial post of head of state in 2007), Moshe Katsav, was convicted of rape by a jury in open court in Tel Aviv.

 

Ex- President ......

 

He was found guilty of raping an employee in the 1990s, when he was tourism minister and of later sexual offences while he was President. The judges said they believed the evidence of the woman whose testimony had led to two charges of rape.

Israels Dancing Soldiers

Six Israeli soldiers have escaped being penalised after a video of them doing a dance routine while on duty in the West Bank went viral in Israel and beyond.

The video shows the troops breaking into a choreographed dance routine, set to US singer Kesha's dance hit 'Tik Tok'...... should maybe have been "Always look on the bright side of life".

Of course the Arabs, have posted it under less than flattering terms while others, just think its funny.

There is a hint that its actually just a stunt and not shot in occupied territories ..... but who's to tell?

No Peace In Middle East

As mad as any mob led by a Mullah, this band of religious zealots and nutters, are the reason, along with the rent a mob of the Arab world, why there will never be peace in the Middle East .... the Hassidic Jews are as strict as any Muslim and in much the same ways .... in fact its surprising how much they share in common and yet can't stand each other (much like Communists and Fascists).

They appear to be led by those Jews who wear strange Middle European clothes i.e. Wide brimmed hats, dreadlocks and white shirts.

Their current demand is for their children to be educated separately from other Israelis i.e. 'seculars' and those deemed 'less religious', which in this case includes those who allow TV's in their houses. 

This reminds me of another group in the West, who increasingly demand special conditions and recognition for their religion ..... 

Peace Protesters Are Shown To Be Merely Thugs

Finally, here's film of the boarding of the "Peace Flotilla" ship which very clearly shows the "Peace Protesters" using violence to attack Israeli soldiers.

Whether the violence of the attacks on them justifies the killings, is probably a matter only the soldiers being attacked can be sure of, but I won't listen to Western "Peace Protesters" saying that it was the Israeli's who started the violence, when clearly it was the Islamist's on the ship who did so.

Violence begets violence and the protestors should have remained 'peaceful' protestors ......

Terrorist Blockade Runners OR Peace Convoy?

Israel has clashed violently in International Waters, with a Turkish led convoy of "Peace Campaigners" who were taking aid into Gaza, thus breaking the Israeli blockade of the area.

Peace Convoy?

 There are a number of dead, and claim and counter claim over the events.

European or Not European?

The draw for the 2012 "European" football tournament was made:

• Group A: Germany, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan
• Group B: Russia, Slovakia, REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, FYR Macedonia, Armenia, Andorra
• Group C: Italy, Serbia, NORTHERN IRELAND Slovenia, Estonia, Faroe Islands
• Group D: France, Romania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Belarus, Albania, Luxembourg
• Group E: Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Moldova, San Marino
• Group F: Croatia, Greece, Israel, Latvia, Georgia, Malta
• Group G: ENGLAND, Switzerland, Bulgaria, WALES, Montenegro
• Group H: Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Cyprus, Iceland
• Group I: Spain, Czech Republic, SCOTLAND Lithuania, Liechtenstein

...... now ignoring any football questions, and I may be a bit hazy on geography, but are Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Israel really European?

The map of the Caucasus region includes all nearly all these countries.

The map includes Kazakhstan (a Turkic peoples of mainly Muslim faith), and shows that its only connection to Europe is a border with its old master Russia ..... equally it shares a border with China, or a lot of Turkic states with names ending in 'stan'..... which is a sure sign that you are not ethnically or geographically "European".

OK, so what about Azerbaijan? Well, as the map shows it shares a border with Russia, which appears to be its only claim to being European. It's another majority-Turkic and majority-Muslim population country that has no ethnic or cultural ties to Europe.

Israel ...... well no need for a map ...... this simply FIFA's cowardice in allowing Arabs to refuse to play Israel, and not simply expelling them from world football. End result they have helped perpetuate the conflict. But in any event they are not European.

Armenia and Georgia are a little trickier because they have occasionally interacted with European affairs such as the crusades, but geographically they are next to Azerbaijan, so can't really be anymore "European" than them, despite being Christian in a largely Muslim part of the world.

Finally Turkey, a country that as this blog has pointed out before, claims its 'European' status based on less than 10% of its territory being in Europe, and a history of violence, genocide and aggression towards non Muslim and European races.

It appears that in the near future Syria, Pakistan, and Iran will be able to compete in UEFA's idea of what is "Europe".

Its a strange world we now live in.

The "H" word in Israel

I have remarked before about the similarity between the Orthodox Jews and some Muslim groups, but I hadn't realised that it extended to the injudicious use of the term "Holocaust".

The catalyst for this tale was the sentencing of former welfare minister, Shlomo Benizri, to a four-year sentence for taking bribes, and his imprisonment Masiyahu Prison in central Israel. Corruption in Israel is as endemic as in the rest of the Middle East, but the difference is that they do get caught and punished.

Haredi Call Police Zionist Gestapo .....

It was some of Mr Benizri's haredi supporters who proclaimed their disgust at his imprisonment with the extreme terms "a disgrace" said one, "a holocaust," said another. These supporters from the Mea Shearim, the haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jerusalem neighbourhood, have put up posters calling the Israeli police - with whom some haredi men are regularly battling at demonstrations over a number of complaints - "Zionist Gestapo".

This use of Nazi terminology is not restricted to politics, with Jerusalem hospital doctors who uncovered a case of child abuse in the community described, by outraged haredim, as "Doctor Mengele's" and hard line settlers calling the police "Kapo!" (A kapo was a class of inmate at the Nazi concentration camps and death camps, whom the guards used to do some of their dirty work on the ordinary prisoners).

All Jews detest it when the term "*Holocaust" is used by others in casual references, or situations that are palpably not a holocaust, such as when arabs refer to Gaza as a "concentration camp" and the treatment of Palestinians as attempted genocide, or when Hamas deplores draft UN plans for Gazan children at UN schools to be taught about the Holocaust because - in the words of a Hamas spokesman - it is "a big lie".

However to the haredi, these language constraints just aren't in place, because like all religious nut cases, they are utterly convinced that they act with Gods blessing, and therefore any constraints don't apply. One liberal rabbi, whose parents are both Holocaust survivors, managed to smile in wonder, as he told dinner guests from America about how some haredim were comparing Jerusalem's main hospital to Auschwitz. "It's amazing how they jump straight in with the most extreme language they can, and then they just turn it up a notch or two."

*The Oxford English Dictionary traces the etymology of "holocaust" back to 1250. It meant a sacrifice completely consumed by fire. From the 17th Century it carried wider connotations of utter destruction