The making of a new Arab lie

The UK-based Hamas newspaper Palestine Info claims that the Bashiti family owns the land that the Hurva synagogue is on.

Subhi Shoaib Bashiti claims that his grandfather, Hasan al-Bashiti, bought the land - in 1880.

Of course, the Hurva had been rebuilt already well before then, with its first rededication occurring in 1864. The land had been unquestionably owned by the Jewish community since 1819. It is absurd to believe that the Jews would have sold the land the synagogue was on in 1880.

Like terrorism, lying about subjects like these is a form of asymmetric warfare. It is easy to make up the lies; it is often much harder to defend against them all. The liars just have to succeed once to make the lying worthwhile.

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Obama the actor

When a mid-level government official in Israel insults the White House without the knowledge of the Israeli prime minister, it is a major international incident that is escalated by the administration even after a series of apologies.

When the Palestinian Authority insults the US Vice President directly, it gets papered over.

From David Bedein at The Bulletin:

The Bulletin has learned that Vice President Biden, now on an official visit to the Middle East, made a direct request that the P.A. cancel the ceremony that honors a terrorist.

And as soon as Biden was back on the plane, the ceremony was held anyway, with officials from the ruling Fatah party in attendance. (To distinguish between the PA and Fatah is an exercise in splitting hairs. Mahmoud Abbas is the leader of Fatah as well as the PA.)

People are wondering why Israel and other US allies are being publicly treated worse than Iran, Russia and Arab thugocracies by the Obama administration.

It is not because the US is aligned more with Arab interests, although the president is making worrying moves in that direction.

The reason is simply because President Obama fears confrontation with those whom he does not understand.

He (thinks he) knows that Great Britain and Israel are not going to make a stink, because they value their relationship with the US. Above all, he knows that they are not going to do anything rash.

But to Obama, the Second and Third Worlds are still a mystery. It is filled with scary characters who are not guaranteed to behave rationally. Deep down he knows that they don't think nor act like us. Yet to admit that fact aloud sounds too close to bigotry in a mindset where everyone must be fundamentally the same. It is a taboo subject.

I once described this dichotomy as "Your Crazy Uncle Ned:" Geopolitics is partially based on the idea that Arabs and Muslims are completely irrational. Instead of treating them like normal adults who need to take responsibility for their actions, we treat them like your crazy Uncle Ned who makes a scene every Thanksgiving. We smile nervously, say whatever we need to say to calm him down for now, lock up the liquor cabinet and hope he doesn't drive into a crowd. And when he acts sort-of rationally, we fall all over ourselves complimenting him on not setting the table on fire.

This is Obama's thought process towards Arabs and Muslims in a nutshell - but it is only half the story in understanding Obama.

When Obama was running for president, the impression he gave was that he was surprised as anyone that he became the frontrunner. I believe that he ran for office as a setup for a more serious 2012 run, or at best to be picked as a vice president by Hillary. He was, simply, not ready to lead. He had less experience in governing than practically all presidents in history. Even with all his rhetorical skills, it never felt like he was a man who wanted to dedicate his life to serving and leading his nation; it always seemed like someone who wanted to act like a leader rather than be a leader. He had some vague, New Age-y ideas of how the world could be a better place through mutual respect, and enough yes-men who could convince him that he was the man of the hour, but it never seemed like he truly believed it himself. He is, far more than any president in recent memory, an actor trying to learn a role.

Obama believes that a president, the leader of the free world, must act strong. But the problem is he cannot act that way when he cannot predict how the other parties will react to his show of strength. As in the movie Galaxy Quest, he may be acting but the other side is dead serious, and in such circumstances he is over his head. Upsetting a billion people or another nuclear power is something to be avoided at all costs.

So he acts like a parody of a strong leader - against his friends. He knows they won't start a war or a terror spree against American interests. He calculates that by acting tough with his friends, there is little downside while he builds up his street cred as a resolute but fair leader. He hopes that Iran and Syria (and Russia and China) will interpret his actions as a message for them, avoiding actually making decisions that could set a course from which the US cannot go back.

But what he cannot do is actually make any real foreign policy decisions. If he did, he would be burning a bridge and opening himself up to the chance that he is making a mistake. Worse yet, he would be revealing to the world that he doesn't have a clue.

For an actor playing the role of President, changing the status quo is scary. Taking a real stand is frightening. Instead,the emphasis is to make it through your term without blowing up the world. You buy time and hope and pray for the best. You rely on your advisors to guide you and you hope they are not acting the way you are.

And you continue to act how you think a President would act, hoping that your charade is not exposed.

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Nuclear disarmament conference to be held - in Iran

In another transparent attempt to deceive the West (which already has plenty of people who are anxious to be deceived,) Iran will be hosting a conference next month:

The Islamic Republic of Iran is scheduled to hold an international conference on nuclear disarmament in mid April.

The conference, dubbed as "Nuclear Energy For All, Nuclear Weapon For None", will be held in Iran on April 17-18.

Foreign ministers, representatives and nuclear experts from 60 countries are due to participate in the event to discuss challenges on nuclear disarmament, countries' commitments to the issue and the aftermaths of not destroying weapons of mass-destruction.

In February, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani announced in Japan that Iran is scheduled to hold an international gathering on global disarmament in Tehran in the next two months to be attended by internationally renowned elites and experts, adding that participants are slated to assess the causes and reasons underlying the lack of heed and attention to the implementation of nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regulations, Article 6 in particular.

A lot of well-meaning but ultimately idiotic Westerners strongly feel that as long as Iran is negotiating, it is not going to do anything dangerous. In truth, Iran has shown over the years that it will pretend to negotiate while completely undermining its public statements in private.

Here is an especially telling example where Iran is cynically pretending to put on a public face against nuclear weaponry deliberately to take international pressure off of its aggressive nuclear program.

There are enough credulous wishful thinkers in the West who will desperately grab at this straw, because the alternative is too scary for them to contemplate. For each Westerner who opines or argues that Iran is not a threat, it makes it that much harder for the clear-thinking Westerners, who see through Iran's act, to do anything effective.

While it is true that Iran's leaders do not have the same mindset as the West, they understand the West much better than the West understands them, and this conference is proof.

(h/t dd via email)

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You know how Muslims say they respect religions?

From Jordan's Al Gahd:

(h/t MEMRI Blog)

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Gold boom in Gaza (updated)

From Al Arabiya:

Gaza's borders are closed and its economy in shambles, but the glittering alleys of the territory's centuries-old gold bazaar are packed with young brides to be.

The market has experienced an unlikely renaissance in recent years as Gaza's Hamas rulers have championed weddings and Israeli closures have crippled the local economy, making gold an attractive investment.

"Not only have we not been hurt by the Israeli blockade, but our business has actually gotten better," gold merchant Iyad Basal says as people cram into his crowded family-run shop.

"We have not stopped working since the blockade because the gold comes to us through smuggling and Hamas encourages marriage," he adds.

Israel and Egypt have largely sealed Gaza's borders since Hamas seized power in June 2007, but some merchants have survived and even thrived by importing products through smuggling tunnels beneath the Egyptian border.

Others have jewelry brought in through the Erez pedestrian crossing with Israel, which is usually open to foreign journalists, aid workers and Palestinians with special permits.

Hamas has encouraged marriage by holding mass weddings, running a matchmaker service for war widows and other poor girls and giving financial support to thousands of young men hoping to settle down.

Hassan al-Juju, a judge in the Islamic family courts run by the group, says the rate of marriage in 2009 was higher than any year in the last decade.

Zvi points out:
Starving populations do not import and purchase large quantities of gold. All around the world and throughout history, starving populations have sold what jewelry they owned to food traders in exchange for food to feed their kids. People who are seriously worried about starving in the future import and hoard large quantities of canned goods and staple foods. They don't import gold, which cannot be eaten.

For an example of a normal response, consider the Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazis issued the Jews ration books that allowed them only 200 Cal/day, which is a starvation diet. Jews who had a silver bracelet or a gold ring used it as currency to obtain extra food from outside the ghetto, or (if they could scrape together enough) to pay smugglers to hide their kids on the Christian side of the wall, where they were safer. Jewelry was rapidly flowing OUT, from the moment when the ghetto was reestablished until the Nazis liquidated the population.


Gaza is importing gold through its smuggling tunnels. Gold is an expensive luxury, purchased with disposable income.

The spokespeople of the Destroy Israel Movement frequently claim that Gaza is "worse than the Warsaw Ghetto." They claim that Israel is starving Gaza. They claim that this is why Gazan terrorists murder civilians across the border in Israel. Three things are clearly true:

1. The spokespeople of the Destroy Israel Movement don't understand the situation in Gaza at all.
2. They don't understand the Warsaw Ghetto at all, and don't want to.
3. They are happy to spout absolute ignorant nonsense as long as it's anti-Semitic ignorant nonsense.

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Junk science used to claim Israel using WMD in Gaza

The "New Weapons Committee" has just released what appears, at first glance, to be a scientific study of Gaza children's exposure to dangerous contaminants during Operation Cast Lead.

The press release says:

Many Palestinian children still living in precarious situations at ground level in Gaza after Israeli bombing during "Cast lead" have unusually high concentrations of metals in the hair, indicating environmental contamination, which can cause health and growth damages due to chronic exposure. This is the result of a pilot study conducted by the New Weapons Research Group (Nwrg), an independent committee of scientists and experts based in Italy, who is studying the use of unconventional weapons and their mid-term effects on the population of after-war areas.

This research follows the previous one, published by Nwrg on December 17 last year, in which the group reported the presence of toxic metals in the areas surrounding the craters left by the bombing. Those tests had found abnormal concentrations of toxic metals in the craters, suggesting the possible contamination of the soil which, combined with precarious living conditions, particularly in refugee camps, might cause exposure, dermal, via inhalation and through food.

With the new study, the group set itself the objective of verifying whether people were actually contaminated. The result is alarming: even if the quantity of metals in excess, in fact, are only 2-3 times higher than those found in hair of controls, these levels may still be pathogenic in situations of chronic exposure.

The study, which lasted several months, analyzed the hair for 33 metals by ICP/MS (a type of highly sensitive mass spectrometry). The hair is a good indicator of contamination and investigation of environmental contamination based on its analysis are recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Nwrg examined hair samples from 95 people resident in heavily bombed areas (as reported by UNEP on the basis of satellite maps), for the vast majority children. Among them also seven pregnant women and 4 wounded people. The results have established that the distribution of metal contaminants in the three locations where the tests were performed, Beit Hanun, Gaza-Zeitun and Laly Beith, is higher than the average, and more than double in about 60 of these individuals.

The research team is based out of Italy. One of the researchers is Paola Manduca.

Manduca had already determined the results of the research while Cast Lead was still happening, as this press release from January 9, 2009 shows:

Mounting evidence is emerging that Israel is experimenting new non-conventional weapons on civilian population in Gaza. "It is happening again what we saw in Lebanon two years ago", says Paola Manduca, genetics teacher and researcher at the University of Genoa and member of New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC), "where Israel used white phosphorus, Dense inert metal explosive (DIME), thermobaric bombs, cluster bombs and uranium ammunitions. Still today there are unexploded bombs and radioactivity on the ground".

So we already have an indication that some of these scientists had an agenda.

Now let's look at the methodology of the study itself. If one wanted to determine that some Gaza children were exposed to toxic metals from Israeli bombs, what would be a good control group?

I can think of a few:

* Compare the levels in children who live in heavily-bombed areas with those who do not.
* Compare the levels of Gaza children with those in Egypt.
* Compare the levels with those in Israel.
* Compare with the West Bank.
* Compare with hair samples from before Operation Cast lead.
* Compare with people who left Gaza recently, for example, those who are in medical treatment in Israel or Egypt.

The study, however, did no such thing. They compared the levels of Gazans with those of a single reference hair sample from China and a single control sample from Italy.

A careful look at the data also shows that, while in general the levels in Gaza were higher than those of the single sample in Italy, they were not usually that much different (most are less than 2x the Italian sample.) The Italian sample was higher in many metals than for some of the Gazans. The variation within Gaza was high, and it would be instructive to see the natural variation between control samples. Even more interesting was the fact that the differences between the Chinese hair and the Italian hair were much larger than between Italy and Gaza, which would indicate that the Gaza data might not be that significant to begin with.

Despite the control being a single sample, the press release represents the Italian sample as the "average," yet there is no indication that that sample is average in any way.

Let's come up with alternative scenarios that could account for allegedly high concentrations of metals in Gazan hair:

- Hamas weapons production probably does not have very good environmental controls.
- Gaza metal shops and factories do not have adequate safeguards against toxic waste.
- The water in Gaza might be contaminated for some other reason - and the aquifier is shared with Israel.

Despite the big words that the study uses, there is no evidence that there was any scientific peer review or even that it was submitted to any scientific journal. The methodology seems to show that it would be laughed out of any serious scientific journal.

On the contrary, the press release was released to the rabidly anti-Israel Uruknet.

Furthermore, Human Rights Watch and the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons had already determined last July that there was no evidence that Israel used depleted uranium weapons or DIME weapons in Gaza (but they did find evidence of tungsten cubes as sleeves on Spike missiles.)

The "New Weapons Committee" has already shown its bias from its previous press releases that convicted Israel without any evidence, their statements of Israel using DU in Lebanon with no evidence, and the very nature of the study itself. This is not research and this is not science: it is an attempt to smear Israel by hiding behind the fig-leaf of pseudo-science that the vast majority of readers will never bother to check.

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Saudi cleric calls for destruction of Grand Mosque in Mecca

A hardline Saudi cleric, Youssef al-Ahmed, has called for the Grand Mosque in Mecca (which houses the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam) to be destroyed!

The problem is that when Muslims go to Mecca to touch and circle the holy rock, men and women are there together. Even though this has been the status quo for decades or centuries, apparently that is not good enough. So to avoid the chance that something terrible would happen, al-Ahmed is proposing to destroy the mosque and replace it with a series of smaller structures that can allow the separation of the sexes.

al-Ahmed apparently put his opinion on YouTube. He claims that other clerics have called for the same action in years past.

He is no stranger to controversy and is not necessarily taken too seriously by the Saudis at large, but he does have a following.

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Arab unity - ain't it grand?

Libya is upset that some major Arab leaders may not attend an upcoming Arab Summit scheduled for the end of March.

Six leaders might not attend. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has a good excuse, as he is recovering from surgery in Germany, but the others who are not expected to attend include leaders from Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Morocco, mostly for political reasons.

In addition, there is the fear that Libya leader Maommar Qaddafi will invite Hamas to attend as an Arab state, which may prompt Mahmoud Abbas to boycott the event as well.

Yet some Western "intellectuals" keep thinking that if only Israel would give up some land, the rest of the Middle East will turn into a peaceful oasis.

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Major Muslim religious group calls for jihad against Israel

The International Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization founded by Yusuf al-Qaradawi as a "moderate" alternate to Muslim extremism, has called on the entire Muslim world to start a jihad "in all its forms" to "defend" the Al Aqsa mosque from presumed desecration by the Zionists.

The "in all its forms" phrasing is meant to leave no doubt that he is calling for war. The photo illustrating the story in Palestine Today, showing coffins draped with Israeli flags, shows that the message is crystal-clear.

The statement specifically calls on Jordan and Egypt to sever relations with Israel and for the Muslim world to pressure their leaders to "do something before it is too late," i.e., start a war with Israel.

Qaradawi was considered by Newsweek to be a front-runner to take over as head of Al Azhar University after the death of Sheikh Tantawi.

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The Land of Milk and Homer

From JPost (h/t Bubbe):

After 20 years of poking fun at American culture, the Simpsons are scheduled to land at Ben-Gurion Airport to target Israel.

The episode set in the Holy Land, titled “The Greatest Story Ever D’ohed,” airs on March 28 in the US, coinciding with both Pessah Eve and Palm Sunday.

The plot involves Homer developing Jerusalem Syndrome and Marge interacting with an aggressive Israeli tour guide, voiced by Sasha Baron Cohen of Borat and Bruno fame.

“He’s trying to get Marge to give him good grades on the comment card, and she goes, ‘You people are pushy,’ and he goes, ‘What do you mean, you people? You try having Syria for a neighbor! What do you have – Canada?’” Simpsons producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly: “It’ll be a show that all faiths can come together and be offended by.”

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Tamimi doesn't even pause in his lies and incitement

Sheikh Tamimi, the main architect of the lie that Israel was planning to lay the cornerstone of a new synagogue at on the Temple Mount last Tuesday and the man most responsible for the riots in Jerusalem, now has "revealed" the next fictional plan to take over the mosque.

Without a hint of apology for being so consistently wrong, Tamimi now is talking about a comprehensive Israeli plan of archaeology and tourism called "Jerusalem First" that is, of course, centered around the Al Aqsa mosque. He mentions 15 projects in this initiative, of which no less than 9 are aimed at Al Aqsa. He also mentions a new synagogue being planned to be built near or on the mosque.

As usual, I can't find any real mention of this purported plan. Jerusalem sees many plans for development, some of which work out and some which do not, like any vibrant city.

Tamimi seems to spend his day scouring the Internet to find any hint of such initiatives so he can grandly announce them to incite the Arabs to riot. He's been doing this for years. And not for a moment do the Palestinian Arabs seem to notice that 99% 0f these threats never materialize and that Tamimi is a clown. On the contrary, his statements consistently get major coverage in the Arabic press.

So, he keeps on inciting violence with his lies. When lies are an integral to the very fabric of one's culture, lying is not a shortcoming - it is an asset.

(In that same vein, the Al Qassam website has a memorial of a terrorist killed seven years ago, and in that context quotes Mohammed as saying "War is deceit." This is not in the Quran but in a hadith.)

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Man murdered by Qassam

From YNet:

A 30-year-old Thai foreign worker was killed Thursday after a Qassam rocket hit the hothouse area in Netiv Ha'asara in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, north of the Gaza Strip. Magen David Adom emergency units tried to resuscitate the man, however were eventually forced to pronounce him dead.

The attack marks the third time rockets have been fired into Israeli territory in the last 24 hours. On Wednesday night a rocket exploded in an open area in Sderot. Several hours earlier another rocket landed in the region causing two people to suffer from anxiety.

The al-Qaeda affiliated Ansar al-Suna Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack from the Gaza Strip.

The Al Qassam website is filled with articles that talk about how the opening of the Hurva synagogue is a great reason to kill Israeli Jews. The fact that there has been such an escalation of attacks from Gaza recently is no coincidence. Hamas maintains its hardly-plausible deniability by saying that it came from a splinter group but in fact all of the terror groups have a history of working together; not to mention that explosives cannot enter Gaza without Hamas knowing about it and approving it.

The Palestine Today website calls the victim a "settler."

(h/t Yehudit for headline)

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Bizarro world: Herzl a terrorist, Arafat a statesman

From Arab News:

Brazil's president placed a wreath on the tomb of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday and sharply criticized Israeli policies, leading Israeli officials to suggest he was not being evenhanded.

Making the first visit by any sitting Brazilian president to Israel and the Palestinian territories, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has termed the trip a mission of peace.

Lula laid a yellow and green wreath on Arafat's mausoleum on Wednesday, following protocol for visiting leaders. The visit came a day after Israel's hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said he boycotted meetings with Lula because the Brazilian did not pay a similar visit to the grave of Zionist founder Theodor Herzl.

JPost adds:

Foreign Ministry officials were fuming on Wednesday that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who refused to lay a wreath at the grave of Theodor Herzl in Jerusalem, contrary to new Israeli protocol measures recently instituted, donned a keffiyeh around his shoulders and laid a wreath at the tomb of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.

“This is an insult,” one senior Foreign Ministry official said. “It is offensive that he laid a wreath at the grave of a terrorist, but not at the tomb of Zionism’s visionary."

That pretty much sums it up.

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Hamas puppet show shows its love

From MEMRI (h/t The Vicious Babushka):

The following are excerpts from a Hamas TV puppet show, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 11, 2010.
'Alloush: Uncle Hassan! Uncle Hassan!
Uncle Hassan: My God, why are you so happy, 'Alloush?
'Alloush: I am like the grown-ups, watching the news.
Uncle Hassan: Good, I hope it will be a good day to watch the news.
'Alloush: I've heard a very good report. Very good.
Uncle Hassan: That good?! This report will make us happy?
'Alloush: Yes! Do you know the Ibrahimi Mosque [in Hebron]?
Uncle Hassan: Who doesn't know it? We all do.
'Alloush: Well, they have turned it into a museum.
Uncle Hassan: What?!
'Alloush: So the people – all the Jews and the Christians – can visit it.
Uncle Hassan: Are you sure that's what you heard? Are you sure?
'Alloush: Yes.
Uncle Hassan: And you are still happy?!
'Alloush: Yes, this way they will protect it and stop destroying it. People will be able to see it, but not to touch it.
Uncle Hassan: Are you out of your mind, 'Alloush?
'Alloush: Why? What's wrong?
Uncle Hassan: Do you know that this mosque, at the Cave of the Patriarchs...
'Alloush: What about it?
Uncle Hassan: It dates back to the days of Ibrahim. This is our legacy, and part of the Islamic waqf. How can you possibly be happy when a mosque – where we would worship Allah and pray to Him night and day – is turned into a synagogue and an archeological site, and the Jews come to defile it?
'Alloush: I didn't know this. What, they're making fun of us in the news?!
Uncle Hassan: No, they are telling the truth in the news, but as you can see, the whole world is in turmoil over this. This is sad news, a real catastrophe for the Arab and Islamic world, 'Alloush.
'Alloush: Those Jews want to steal the Ibrahimi Mosque?
Uncle Hassan: Yes, they want to steal it, and then make it like their false temple. They want to add it to their legacy for their future generations, 'Alloush.
'Alloush: Okay, so what should we do about this sad thing?
Uncle Hassan: Unfortunately, 'Alloush and dear children, the Arab and Islamic nation is in a slumber. A deep slumber. We must stand up. We must awaken. 'Alloush and dear children – each one of you must tell his father, his grandfather, and the rest of his family that they should all arise as one. They must rise up against the criminal Zionists, who are planning to destroy Jerusalem, and to turn the Islamic waqf into something bad. We must rise against the Zionist criminals, the enemies of Allah, and liberate Jerusalem and all the holy places. We should liberate them. Do you hear, 'Alloush?
'Alloush: Ah, now I get it. I thought the Jews wanted to enable people to visit the Ibrahimi Mosque, but it turns out that they want to steal it.
Uncle Hassan: That's right, 'Alloush. It's a good thing that you got it. Did you tell this to anyone else, or just me?
'Alloush: Just you.
Uncle Hassan: Very good. You didn't make us look bad. Do you know what people would accuse you of, if you said this in the street?
'Alloush: Of what, Uncle Hassan?
Uncle Hassan: They would accuse you of being a collaborator. They would think that you are a Zionist collaborator. I would like to tell you two things, in conclusion: We must think before we speak. Get it? We should be familiar with all our Arab and Islamic holy places, okay?
'Alloush: Okay.

Besides the obvious anti-semitism, notice the subtext - Hamas is telling kids to be careful about what they say out loud, because if they say the wrong things, they could be branded "collaborators" - and therefore killed.

Other people want their kids to ask questions, to learn, to have their own opinions. Hamas, on the other hand, warns their children not to stray from the party line at the risk of their very lives.

This is the Islamic implementation of Orwellian newspeak. Limit what people can say and you therefore can control their thoughts.

What a great message for children's TV!

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Register for NORPAC MIssion to Washington

For the past two years, I attended the NORPAC Mission to Washington, speaking with members of Congress and Senators and their aides about issues of vital importance to Israel and the US.

The trip is enormously rewarding. The opportunity to speak one-on-one with elected officials is too rare for the average citizen, and they take definite notice when such a large group comes down to speak with them, and it makes an impact. Everyone who visits in person is worth a thousand phone calls or emails.

Unfortunately, I cannot attend this year, but if you live in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area I urge you to register and attend.

Trust me, you will not regret it.

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