Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Morons can publish anything and Google calls it "news"

Yet another anonymous incoherent anti-semitic rant. This one is so utterly disjointed and rambling that it makes most similar articles appear to be written by Rhodes Scholars.

It would be really funny if it wasn't for the fact that Google News indexes this article and presents it to the world as legitimately as the Times of London.

This despite repeated emails to Google News that this site ("The People's Voice") is a haven for anti-semitic lunatics.

An Islam free from Zionist subjugation is the last hope of the world

An elite ruling class has risen in Western Civilization — at the top of this elite are the merchant bankers who are Zionist (Jewish supremacist) Jews who believe in racial superiority and class superiority and in the right of power — the power to take control of nations that where liberal republics and, by control and manipulation of the money supply, by the creation of monopolies, especially of capital and land convert these nations into plutocracies where the middle classes are plundered and robbed of political participation and voice – or, as often as not, they have their control from outright conquest –as the defeat of Germany after both world wars, the subjugation of Russian under (Jewish — and covertly banker-controlled) communism. The Jew bankers means of gaining power is ultimately through wars — they create wars — and cold wars — in order to organize all of a nations economy — its “war economy” — under their control.....

I know that many Moslems — I write “Moslems” and not “Muslims” because 50 years ago in the United States publications used the term Moslems, and I remember an English teacher telling me that “Muslims” was a spelling that carried a pejorative cargo, and now I find, in this Jewish age, that “Muslim” is exclusively used by the Jewish media, and so I will still use “Moslems” — just so you understand — now, as I was saying — I know that many Moslems believe that Saddam Hussein was evil because he fought back when the Kurds attempted to overthrow him or that he used brutal tactics against those whom he thought the CIA was using to overthrow his country or because he is Sunni and not Shiite — I don’t know — but for whatever reason some Moslems say they are glad Saddam Huessein is gone — but I look at it differently — to me Saddam Hussein was a nationalist who was for this country and wanted it to be great, wanted its people — all of them — to be great. He did all that was in his power to make Iraq a great and good country. But Saddam Hussein’s nationalism and pro-population view ran counter to the world order that the Jewish bankers want. And so Saddam Hussein was lured into — perhaps the war with Iran (I do not know the particulars here) — but more important he was definitely lured into attacking Kuwait — attempting to reunite a part of his country — as Red China seeks to reunite Taiwan (the Republic of China) with China — or, looking at it anther way — as the Republic of China (Taiwan) would like to reunited the mainland with itself (and, yes, the Jewish bankers supported communist mass-murderer Mao against the liberalizing party of Sun Yat Sen and a nationalist republic — Zhou Enlai murdered Sun Yat Sen.) — but back to Saddam Hussein — Saddam Hussein was a populist — and he was elected to his office — and it is exactly populist nationalist leaders that the Jewish bankers seek to destroy — the Jewish merchant bankers do not want countries where the masses have a high standard of living and a culture (and a faith in God) of their own — the Jewish merchant bankers did not want Saddam Hussein showing the world what a country could do if it devoted its wealth to national development — and so they lured him into a war so that the United States could make war with him in 1990 Gulf War — then US President George Bush actually signaled US permission for Saddam Hussein to go ahead with his invasion over the issue of slant drilling — only after this — and after a flood of Jewish newsmedia propaganda — now all shown to be lies (like the falsely alleged stealing of hospital intensive-care neo-natal isolets — which never happened) and so the Americans led an expedition to slaughter the Iranians. And after that came the sanctions — started under the older Bush and continued by Bill Clinton (both tools of the Jewish Merchant Bankers) — sanctions that starved millions, that prevented Saddam Hussein from furthering his national policies — sanctions, but also the no-fly zones and bombing sortees (more bombing sortees were flown during the eleven years of sanctions than were flown during the actual Gulf War) — sanctions that prevented even current medical journals — during the sanctions hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children under five died during the 1990’s from preventable, curable diseases: primarily water-borne bacteriological infections and acute respiratory infections that Iraq simply lacked the anti-biotic and other medicine to cure (what irony when the US supposedly went to war over stolen infant-care isolets that were never actually stolen!) — prevented from reaching Iraq due to sanctions — whereas in the 1980’s Iraq’s medical facilities were comparable to those in the United States. In the name of preventing Iraq from developing weapons the sanctions destroyed all of Iraq’s industry and trade. But this is as nothing compared to what the Jewish Merchant Bankers are doing to Iraq today.

...So where am I going with these ramblings of mine — I couldn’t sleep and so came down to the basement and typed this out — but it needs a conclusion — and that conclusion is this:

Islam is the hope of the world against domination by Jewish merchant bankers (whose religion is Zionism) — it is my hope — that Islam will triumph — that the truth of this war against Islam will become known to all who have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda — that the world will see that Islam is attacked because it is good — because it is God’s will for mankind - and not the enslavement of mankind that Zionism, the enemy of Islam, represents.

And I hope for Christianity too — that it may purge itself of Zionist and pagan falsehood — and return to the message of Jesus which directs man to God.

This joke of a "news" site can print whatever it wants, but to be given implicit legitimacy by the largest news gathering site on the planet is simply irresponsible.

Another "honor killing"

A woman named Saber Bedier was shot in the chest and killed at her home in Kfar Qasim, apparently by her father-in-law and her husband collaborating. It looks like it happened last Monday but of course most of the Palestinian Arab press didn't report it at the time.

To their credit, it was reported recently and in very negative terms by Kul al-Arab and Fasl-Al Maqal.

Also, a mother and son were killed in an explosion in Hebron . The PalArabs are quick to blame some leftover Israeli explosives, but it is not like Hebron is the target of cluster bombs, so it seems much more likely to have been a Palestinian Arab weapon that exploded.

My very undercounted PalArab self-death count since late June now stands at 175.

Arab psychosis

There was a very interesting interview of the Al-Jazeera editor by a Swiss journalist. The entire thing is worth reading but this part is the most revealing:

(Interviewee Ahmed Shiekh): In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can a teacher do his job in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East.

Who is responsible for the situation?

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.

Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?

I think so.

Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?

The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.

In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?

Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.

We've spoken before about Arab pride and how ingrained it is in the Arab psyche. But even though there are many examples of how important "honor" and "pride" is to the Arab people, one can almost wish it away by thinking that it is only a side-effect of being religious, or poor, or oppressed, and not something that is truly inherent.

But here we have Ahmed Sheikh, an educated man, an editor for a worldwide news service, someone who is a journalist and is trained to be careful with his words. And this man is saying with a straight face that if Israel did not exist, the Arab world would not have any problems - and that the reason is this perverse sense of pride.

The clear inference, of course, is that it is Israel's very existence that is the problem from the Arab perspective - not territories, not occupation, not supposed Israeli war crimes.

Earlier in the interview, Sheikh justifies suicide bombings and says how convinced he is that Israel targets civilians purposefully. Again, this is supposedly an objective journalist that represents the mainstream thinking of the Arab world at large - no fringe group, noIslamic cult, no poverty-stricken or easily manipulated Arab street crowd.

This is the Arab intelligentsia.

And it is psychotic. There is no other word for it - there is no way the Western mind can rationalize or comprehend this mental illness.

Too many Westerners are willing to accept this as a fact of life and sacrifice Israel on the altar of realpolitik - which means that the inmates are this much closer to ruling the asylum.

About "Palestinians"

Bradley Burston in Ha'aretz has been railing against those who say that there are no such people as "Palestinians" in his comment section. He does not attempt to address their arguments, but rather asserts:

I believe that it is a form of racism to tell an entire people, millions upon millions all over the world, that their culture is not a true culture, that their identity is not an identity, that they do not, in fact, exist.

I believe that the reason for denying their existence is to deny the legitimacy of their pain, their aspirations, their longing, the facts of their history, none of which make for a comfortable fit with the history that Zionism originally wrote for itself.

The very idea of the Palestinian Arab represents competition for limited resources of land, the moral high ground, and the self-esteem of long-oppressed peoples.

You can't just wish away the Palestinians.

A actually agree with the last sentence. There is, today, a clearly defined group of people who call themselves "Palestinian" and redefining them or renaming them does not solve their day to day problems.

But to call those who say that there were no historic, separate Palestinian Arab people "racists" is simply a form of censorship and intimidation by political correctness. (In fact, Burston briefly censored many of the commenters.)

It does not serve any purpose to deny history in the name of anti-racism. Facts should be easy enough to discover and verify for themselves and Burston is at least as guilty of trying to wish away history as he accuses his critics of wishing away today's reality.

It is indeed way too simplistic to say that since there has been no historic Palestinian people or culture that the problem is solved. But one cannot solve any problem without defining the problem properly, and like most people who think they know the solution, Burston shows no interest in defining it.

History is an integral part of the Israeli/Arab conflict. To deny that is to deny reality itself. Today's arguments depend to a large degree on historical facts, whether the history is from last year or from 200 or 2000 years ago.

When this blog refers to "Palestinian Arabs" it is not to deny peoplehood, but to be as accurate as possible. There are a not small number of Palestinian Jews who have lived in the area at least as long as most Palestinian Arabs, which from my research indicates a large influx from Syria and other Arab areas in the 1920s. Calling only the Arabs that lived in the area "Palestinian" does not serve the purpose of truth and as such does not go towards solving the problem.

On the other hand, I will not call them simply "Arabs" even though that would have been more accurate in the 1940s. For better or for worse, this group of people have become a separate group since 1948 and have been treated as such, mostly by the other Arabs themselves.

I am not going to go over all the arguments as to the fiction of a historic Palestinian people. I have written many articles on this blog about that topic. But I do not write these articles to be bigoted against a people. I have on numerous occasions written that the PalArabs have been screwed continuously by their so-called "leaders," and only relatively recently have I started blaming Palestinian Arabs themselves for their problems (mostly in the wake of their electing Hamas and the constant polls showing a clear support of terror among them.)

It is not racism to point out that the UN's self-perpetuating definition of "refugee" to include descendants of only a single set of refugees is a tragedy for the Palestinian Arabs themselves. It is not racism to point out that the neighboring Arab countries, by not assimilating them as every single other refugee group in history has been absorbed, have contributed more to the suffering of this people than Israel has. It is not racism to ask that a people that want to have their own country begin to act like responsible members of the world community. All of these are "history" and they are relevant today.

Saying that there is a "Palestinian" people implies accepting the Arab narrative of history in which Israel is a usurping colonialist imperialist apartheid state. Accepting at face value the claims of these people without looking at real facts is not only irresponsible but it can itself end up being a bigoted viewpoint against the Jews of the Middle East.

How can the status of Jerusalem be decided without looking at history? Saying that today's Palestinian Arabs hopes and dreams for Jerusalem has the same weight as the Jews' historic yearning for its holy city is a perversion of both history and of today's reality. One does not have to go back that many years to see how well the PalArabs treated Jerusalem when they did have control. To judge the merits of their arguments without taking a clear-eyed view of history is not helpful towards defining, and therefore solving, the problem.

Scientology was borm roughly the same time that the "Palestinian" people were born. Scientologists are clearly a real group of people with real beliefs. Does this mean that Scientology now has an equal claim of being a religion, should get tax-exempt status, should be taught in history classes in the same manner as Christianity or Buddhism? Of course not. One must look at the context, one must look at history, one must look at the facts. To uncritically accept a people's narrative without history does a disservice to everyone as well as to the truth. And it goes nowhere towards solving the problem.

There is another set of victims that come from uncritically accepting the Palestinian Arab narrative. These are the other peoples who indeed do have long historic or religious histories and aspirations of nationhood. The Kurds and Armenians and others suffer, partly, because the world is giving priority to the problems of a people who do not have nearly the same claims of peoplehood. There are finite resources on this planet and it only makes sense that people with a true history of suffering and discrimination should be taken care of before those who believe, no matter how passionately, in a fiction.

I do not claim that saying that there is no historic Palestinian Arab people magically solves their or our problems. But denying reality has a cost as well. And buying into the ahistorical narrative does a disservice to everyone.

Looking south, about 10 PM last night.

You can now vote for the Best Middle East or Africa Blog at the Weblog Awards.

Already after a few hours, Iraq the Model (going for a threepeat) and Rantings of a Sandmonkey have more votes than I'm likely to get after the full week. Treppenwitz is doing respectably. I'm avoiding the dreaded last place position so far.

Normally, I do not ask for votes for things like this, but in some ways David's and my blog seem to be representing the entire JBlogosphere to the larger blog universe, so in that sense I would like to see my readers vote for either this blog or Treppenwitz. (Dry Bones is also up for an award in the Best Comic Strip category.)

You can vote once a day until next Friday. So check out the nominees and vote!

UPDATE: Treppenwitz has a shot to win this thing. I don't. Do the right thing.
But I will accept a few pity votes.

UPDATE 2 : Jack's Shack is also up for an award.

Adding up the PalArab budget

The EU said that so far this year they paid $865 million to the Palestinian Arabs.
The Hamas finance minister says that Arab governments are giving $45 million each month, which annualized is $540 million.
Hamas has smuggled $60 million into Gaza this year.

This adds up to $1.465 billion of foreign money into Gaza in 2006.

The PA budget in 2005 was roughly $2 billion.

So without lifting a finger or selling anything of value, the PA is getting three quarters of what it got last year. The entire shortfall is covered by Israel's withholding of tax revenue.

Some boycott!

And the UN wants to add $450 million more.

Amazing.

What Palestinian Arabs have given the world

Fatah's secretary in Gaza, Ahmed Hales Abu Maher, proudly said on PA TV:

“Oh warrior brothers, this is a nation that will never be broken, it is a revolution that will never be defeated. This is a nation that gives an example every day that is imitated across the world. We gave the world the children of the RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenades], we gave the world the children stone [-throwers], and we gave the world the male and female Martyrdom-Seekers [suicide bombers]."

[Palestinian Authority TV, November 14, 2006]

Their generosity is touching.

And Mr. Maher is being modest, too. Because his people also popularized the airplane hijackings in the 70's that culminated in 9/11.

Their R&D efforts are not slowing down either as they plan to export their expertise in grandmother suicide bombers, stuffed animal bombs, and booby-trapped donkeys.

If they can accomplish so much with so little, the least we can do is reward their selfless work with a state so they can work on much more effective and efficient methods of mass-murder.

A little selective reporting from Reuters

Reuters just blasted out a dispatch to its hundreds of newspapers and other media subscribers, where it is being reproduced on hundreds of websites, with the headline:

Israeli forces wound 2 Palestinians on Gaza border

The story goes on to say:

GAZA, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and wounded two Palestinians on the Gaza border on Thursday, medical officials said, the second time Israeli forces have opened fire since a truce took effect along the strip last month.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said a number of Palestinians approached the Israeli-built border fence near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya and began to sabotage it. Soldiers fired warning shots that were ignored, she said. "The force fired at one Palestinian and hit him in the leg," the spokeswoman said. The army said it was unaware of a second man being hit.

Palestinian hospital officials said two brothers had been wounded, although it was unclear if it was from the same shooting.

Residents said the men were collecting scrap metal.

One gets the impression of poor, helpless unarmed Palestinian Arabs just scavenging for scrap metal (seemingly on the ground or from another structure) near the border, heartlessly shot by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers, with the lame excuse of "sabotage" concocted afterwards.

You need to go to The Jerusalem Post to learn a bit more:

IDF troops shot and wounded a Palestinian man Thursday morning he and nine others tried to cut the Gaza Strip security fence near the community of Netiv Ha'asara.

According to the army, it was unclear whether the Palestinians were planning on infiltrating Israel, or if they were just stealing the metal from the fence. An IDF patrol that arrived on the scene called on the group to disperse, and after they refused, opened fire at their legs.

Nine people cutting a border fence, for whatever reason, is a bit more serious.

And clearly Reuters knew this because they mentioned the "collecting scrap metal" idea but didn't bother to say that it was metal from a fully functioning security fence, not "scrap." Also, the JPost story above was written when only one was known to be injured while the Reuters update mentions two, so Reuters knows quite well it isn't "scrap metal" and what they were doing.

But in the Reuters Bizarro world where Kassam rockets are "home-made" even while Israel used to target "metal workshops" in Gaza, and somehow the reporters at Reuters were never able to put those two pieces of information together, it is not surprising that "collecting scrap metal" and "sabotaging a fence" can seem to be unrelated as well.

I wouldn't be surprised to see al-Reuters starting to refer to PalArab tunnel-diggers as "miners."

It would be completely beyond the intrepid Reuters reporters to even consider the slightly wider context that those nine scavengers may have been sent to draw fire as a pretext to say that Israel is violating the "cease fire." After all, the fence has been there for years now and we have not seen any scrap metal collectors show up before, as far as I can recall.

(I'm surprised that Reuters didn't highlight how the PalArab media is describing this - that Israel took potshots at farmers who were working their farmland. )

Ahmadinejad: We'll crush our enemies

Let's see what our favorite messianic nutcase with imminent nuclear weapons is saying:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Wednesday that the Iranian nation has achieved victory in the field of nuclear energy and will crush its enemies.

"The Iranian nation is nearing the pinnacle of nuclear victory through the efforts and wisdom of its talented youth. It is now recognized as a strong and courageous nation and a model for regional states," he said.

He added: "The Iranian nation has walked the path of nuclear technology and is about to reach its end with the grace of God and through resistance.

"There remains just one step to be taken before complete victory.

"We will hold a big, nationwide nuclear celebration by the end of the current Iranian year (March 20, 2007)."

It is interesting that he links nuclear technology with crushing enemies.

Must be peaceful nuclear technology and crushing enemies economically.

EoZ is a finalist for the Weblog Awards

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this blog has been nominated as a finalist for the 2006 Weblog Awards under the "Best Middle East or Africa Blog" category.

Being considered as a finalist among the tens of thousands of blogs that are out there is a huge honor, and I'd like to thank those who nominated this blog and got it to the final round.

Congrats also to David Bogner at Treppenwitz which is the only other JBlogger nominated. (Of course, he and the other nominees have the advantage of actually being in the Middle East or Africa.)

Thanks!

UPDATE: I just found out that Linda from Something....and Half of Something is the person who originally nominated me, so thank you!

Blogging will be light the next couple of days

Don't go through withdrawal symptoms for my sake.

But it would be nice!

"Israeli woman spreading AIDS to Palestinians"

There is an interesting pattern in the PalArab territories. Every time there is an "international day" to raise awareness on any topic, they ue it as an opportunity to bash Israel and blame the Jews for their part in that problem.

For example, last Monday was the "International Day of Disabled Persons." So the Palestinian Arabs wrote press releases asking the world to stop Israeli attacks disabled PalArabs.

Last week was the "International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women," sp the PalArabs trotted out statistics of women that Israel "attacked." Somehow, Kassam rockets and suicide bombers don't make it into that report.

Well, we have just had International AIDS day. And guess what the PalArabs are saying?

"Israel is trying to hurt the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people also by means of exporting AIDS, drug trafficking, promiscuous norms, and making prostitution legal," warned president of the sharia religious court in the PA, Sheikh Taissir Tamimi, and spokesman of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Atalla Hanna.

Hanna also said that he had read in one of the Palestinian newspapers about a young AIDS-infected Israeli woman who, according to the article, arrived in Jerusalem in order to infect young Palestinians with the disease. The archbishop called the Palestinian public to beware of such dangers.

Two religious figures emphasized that people with AIDS should not be ostracized "because there is no certainty that they were infected through immoral acts or forbidden sexual relations outside of marriage, but may have been infected for other reasons. Therefore, they should not be excommunicated."

No word from these figures on the probability that Yasir Arafat had AIDS, and not due to "other reasons."

A real source for murder stats in the territories?

My never-ending quest for real statistics on the number of Palestinian Arabs killed by each other got a boost today as I saw that Al-Hayat, which hardly ever publishes stories about PalArabs being murdered, printed this (autotranslated):

Ramallah, Ibrahim Abu-Kamish statistics showed by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen's Rights , announced yesterday. a big increase in the proportion of homicides that occurred in the light of the growing phenomenon of insecurity in the Palestinian territories during the year 2006, compared with the previous years.

The body that 322 Palestinians had been killed citizens in the areas of the Palestinian National Authority until the date of 30 / 11 / 2006 236 citizens were killed in the Gaza Strip, 86 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank. , a rise of 90% for the full year 2005, which collapsed during which 176 citizens were 97 shells in the Gaza Strip and 79 shells in the West Bank. The equivalent proportion of those killed in the Gaza Strip until the date of 30 / 11 / 2006, three times those killed in the West Bank.

The statistics point to a rise in the monthly rate of murders during 2006 up to 26 cases per month, while the monthly rate through 2005, 15 cases, The monthly rate during 2004 amounted to 8 cases. as well as the Statistics of the documentation section in the body that during the 17 killed in 2005 against the background of what is known as honor killing, signed including seven cases in the Gaza Strip and 10 in the West Bank. while they recorded 14 cases of the killing of citizens against the background of what is known in the family's honor in 2006 until the date of 30 / 11 / 2006, 5 cases in the West and 9 cases in the Gaza Strip, the total number of bullets from the women, which was signed on various backgrounds including murder against the backdrop of honor of the family had arrived in 2005 to 26, while a woman Rtva number during the year 2006 until the date of 30 / 11 / 2006 for up to 27 women.

The deaths of children who have died due to security problems have reached during 2005, 28 children while until the date of 30 / 11 / 2006 killed 33 children in the same background.

The STA pointed out that 95% of the killings were a firearm or explosive materials.

Until the date of 30 / 11 / 2006 killings were classified as follows : 41 cases of murder committed on the political background of which 40 occurred in the Gaza Strip and one in the West Bank. 88 homicides occurred due to family quarrels signed 54 of them in the Gaza Strip, 24 of which occurred in the West Bank. 83 murder cases resulted from the chaos and the misuse of weapons, the case of 71 shells in Gaza, 12 of them fell in the West Bank. previous classifications and the total up to 222 murder cases by 59% of all cases, As for the rest of the cases, which reached 110 cases by 41% and has signed the background issues and revenge killings against the backdrop of the so-called family's honor.

At the level of other attacks that were committed during 2006 and until the date of 30 / 11 / 2006, it reported that its statistics in the attacks came as follows :

A 12 attack on academic freedoms, and 16 attack on the municipalities or workers or on their property, and a 12 assault on the symbols of the judiciary, as well as the 22 attack on press freedoms. There have also been 93 kidnappings individually and collectively, to the citizens and foreign visitors, , 344 incident falls under the pretext of security problems occurred injuries individually and collectively.

These numbers are much more in line with what I've been able to gather, but their report is not available on their website and last year's report is only there as an executive summary, so I can't compare specific cases and see if they are missing any.

Still, this list of deaths from 2006 so far seems to be more accurate than any others I've seen. As usual, it is being buried in the PalArab press (it was the very last story on the "local news" page of al-Hayat) . It verifies that there is nearly one murder a day in the territories, again which are hard tofind in the actual press. It shows that the rate of self-deaths is much worse in the West Bank than I thought, as almost all of the ones I've seen were in Gaza.

I'm also not sure if Hamas/Fatah battles are reflected here.

I'll keep an eye on the website of PICCR to see if the final report is published there. I'm not optimistic; the site is terrible and has very little information. Also, it is funded by the PA and while it pretends to be independent there may be entire classes of murders it turns a blind eye to.

UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post has the same information in real English.

The bubble-wrap protest

From YNet:

The plight of Sderot's residents struck a chord with students from the Jerusalem Visual Theater School who decided to opt for an ironic display of protest in their effort to convey frustration with the state's continuous foot-dragging over the residential fortification project.

The students decided to go ahead and fortify a home in Qassam-struck Sderot by themselves. With bubble wrap.

The students call it a social-art project, but Merav Svirsky, who used to live in nearby (and often Qassam target) kibbutz Be'eri said that the group has no political pretensions.

Wrapping the house in Sderot with bubble wrap (Photo: Amir Cohen)

"We aren't holding a political protest because we don't have political solutions," says Svirsky, "we're not pretending to save the day or come up with solutions. We came here to discuss the fortification problem and the absurdity that it has been dragged for so long. There is protest in our actions, but no political statement."

The house selected for the bubble treatment belongs to Moshe Nagar who lives in the heart of town. His house has been damaged by Qassam rockets more than once in the past.

"At first I thought that they were coming to fortify my house, so I was pleased," said Nagar, "but even after Svirsky told me it was only a display I agreed."

Nagar says that one of the reasons he agreed to have his house bubble-wrapped was his desire to keep the fortification issue on the agenda.