Monday, November 30, 2015

700 Square Miles of Occupied Land

I spotted this while watching a special CNN report recently:

The message to many here: Never tear up the land.

And someone

performed a religious ceremony in which he declared this land sacred.

And a woman said

They would tear up the land. And, to me, I think (the land is) more important than all the money. So, in the future, my kids would have a place to call home.

And the reporter quoted another person who said

That was a song our ancestors sang when they marched 
through the snow and back to this land.

And noted for the viewer that

They used it to mark the borders of the territory.
It claimed the land as sacred.
That song -- that story -- has been a guiding light for this community. 
It flows through their veins, gives them a sense of purpose, 
reminds them who they are and will become.

And ended his story, declaring in admiration:

If only the rest of us were so grounded.

But that story wasn't about the Jews and their ancient homeland.

No, it was about the nearly 700 square miles of land occupied by the Northern Cheyenne Indians in Lame Deer, Montana and the threat of coal development.

Something to think about.

^

The Temple Mount, Western Wall and Jihad

More on The Temple Mount, the Western Wall and jihad during the Mandate period (and just before) from this book:





^

Good in 1948, Good Today

Chaim Weizmann's first public address as President of the State of Israel, September 30, 1948:


^

Chaim Weizmann's Logic

From his testimony on November 26, 1936 before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the riots that year:



Quite applicable today, no?

^

And, Eighty-Five Years Later

In an interview with the British Prime Minister in November 1930, this was discussed:





"That was not done" and, so, here we are 85 years later and we're still accused of destroying the Mosque.

_________

I blogged too soon.  Gilad Hadari snapped this photo today.


But that's a purely Muslim smoke plume there.  Rumor has it they were burning old copies of the Quran.

^

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Did the American Arab Throw a Bomb in King George Avenue?

In 1938?



He claimed he was innocent.

FOLLOW-UP



^


Reversionary Narrative in Quotation Marks

I am sure that you like me sees too many quotation marks around words in news stories as if somehow the action or item didn't really exist or, at the least, you needn't believe it happened or was.

I spotted a new one in a NYTimes story on ‘The Complete Works of Primo Levi’ by Edward Sonnov:

Primo Levi studied chemistry at Turin and worked as a chemist until, at 24, he joined the Italian “partisans” resisting the Nazi occupation of northern Italy in 1943.

Thank God they didn't include resisting in those quotation marks.

___________

UPDATE

At the urging of JS, I sent a letter to the Public Editor of the NYT:


​Why was partisans​ placed in quotation marks?
Is the NYT suggesting that partisans did not exist?  Or that Italian partisans did not exist? Or that they should have been termed "anti-Nazi militants"?
I see that in the style guide the use of quotation marks can me someone does not fully agree with the use of such a word encased in quotation marks.  Who doesn't agree with the use of partisans to describe ... partisans?


Terror Is The Real Occupation


Here is Marwan Barghouti last month

The real problem is that Israel has chosen occupation over peace

In March, Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, told a conference of liberal activists in Washington


“An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end...Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely.”

Here is Richard Falk, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2012:

In the light of the General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a nonmember observer State in Assembly resolution 67/19 of 29 November 2012, it seems appropriate to refer to territory under Israeli occupation as “Palestine” rather than as “Occupied Palestinian Territories”. Such a shift in language also emphasizes the inadequacy of the international law framework available to address a condition of prolonged occupation that has now extended for more than 45 years.

There's even a video "It's the Occupation".


Here is one Michael Kramer, which pushes back the date of the start of the "occupation":


Occupation of Palestine started in 1948

And an Arab site writes of

 within the Green Line—the territories under Israeli occupation since 1948

The official site of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asks

Which Came First - Terrorism or "Occupation"?

Despite all this, the real occupation that occupies the Arabs, and consequentially Jews and their supporters, is terror.  That is their occupation.

Since 1920, terror is the political tool of violence of the Arab residents of Eretz-Yisrael.  Not negotiations.  Not diplomacy.

There is no compromise.  No coexistence.  They will not yield.

If anyone reading this seeks to assist those Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-'Palestinians', liberate them from their terror mindset.  Free them from their self-imposed occupation of death and murder.

^


Friday, November 27, 2015

New Term Discovered

Meandering, I found this term, actually applied to Ted Hughes, but I think I will find a way to use it discussing Palestinianism.

self-mythologising

Palestinianism is the ideology which suggest there is a nationalism for a group of Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-'Palestinians' and which, at its essence, denies the existence of a Jewish People, with its history, religion, culture and history who possess an historic homeland.

^

Hearing "Shev" (Sit, in Hebrew) on American TV

The television is on and we hear "Torah" and then "shev".  And it turns out it is An Unjust Death, the first episode of Breakout Kings season


Damien Fontleroy, an inmate in his 30s, sits in his cell, running his fingers across the pages of a book, reading and mumbling Hebrew to himself. A guard arrives and tosses a package into Damien's cell. Damien tears open the package to find the Torah. The guard tells Damien not to expect any special privileges once he's converted. Now alone, Damien tears open the book's spine to reveal the long, flat, leather strip inside. A small smile crosses his face...

Damien rips the elastic band from his underwear, and cuts a hole in the bottom of a water bottle that has been cut in half. He then burns two plastic spoons into sharp points and runs a string from the elastic band, now fastened to two posts of his bunk and drawn back like a bow.

Later that night, Damien moans in pain drawing a plainly annoyed guard to his cell. Damien tells the guard that he thinks he has food poisoning and convinces him to open the cell door. Before the guard can get inside, Damien ducks and kicks the string, which releases the drawn elastic strap, firing the two sharp-pointed spoons into the guard's throat. As the guard collapses, Damien takes his keys and makes a run for the roof.

...Ray, still reading over Damien's file, is amazed to find out that Damien learned Hebrew after he found out that the K9 unit had been trained in Israel.

^

Biblical Diplomacy Suggested?

From a review of Secretary John Kerry's latest efforts:

Netanyahu and Abbas both doubled down on their positions and refused to take even the most minimal step to restore calm,..Kerry’s meeting with Abbas was no better. Sources briefed on it said Abbas refused to take even minimal confidence-building measures like condemning stabbing attacks, or at least not voicing support for the perpetrators. Abbas kept asking what Kerry had brought him from Netanyahu, and when he realized the answer was nothing, he began threatening to turn the keys of the PA over to Israel or start new diplomatic and legal campaigns against Israel at the United Nations.Afterward, Kerry phoned Netanyahu while en route to the airport and told him, “I’m out of ideas,” a source briefed on the conversation said.
The White House had already concluded that Netanyahu and Abbas were a lost cause, but now, Kerry’s aides are coming to the same conclusion.
“Our begging and pleading isn’t helping,” one American official said. Maybe what’s needed is simply for the situation on the ground to force the sides to take action.”


And Abner said to Joab: 'Let the young men, I pray thee, arise and play before us.' And Joab said: 'Let them arise.'

^

Thursday, November 26, 2015

The LATimes Can't Vet Its Op-eds for Facts?


In writing "Palestinian denialism, while existent and problematic, is a function of politics. If anything, there’s evidence to show that Palestinians did not deny the Jewish connection to the land until it was used to justify Palestinian dispossession after the creation of modern Israel in 1948."  I am not accusing Munayyer of racism for this but simply total misrepresentation, defactualization of history and  propagandizing.

The first Jew to be killed for obtaining a license to purchase property in Jerusalem in was Avraham Tzoref in...1851. Before the founding of a political movement, Zionism, to return Jews to the historic homeland illegally conquered, occupied and settled by Arabs who invaded the area in 638, Jews were killed and it went on before and during the Mandate which the League of Nations recognized that Jews had, Article 5, a right that their immigration should be facilitated and further, the Mandate power "shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."

In 1920, Arabs rioted. And in 1921. And in 1929. And during 1936-39. Over 700 hundred Jews were murdered, many horribly.  In a prequel, Arabs claimed Jews wanted to destroy the Haram compound.  A campaign of ethnic cleansing was under way as thousands of Jews who had lived for centuries in areas now termed the "West Bank" (after in 1950 Jordanians (a people created in 1922 when a Saudi Arabian was granted an Emirate in part of the territory originally part of the Jewish homeland was separated from the terms of the Mandate) illegally annexed the area becoming the first state to deny local Arabs their rights. Munyyaer lies; there certainly was denial before 1948.

There is so much more there.

He claims  that razing of villages "effectively wiping most of the Palestinian presence off the map."  But there seems to be enough villages and Arabs around still.

Ah, propaganda.

^

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

'Palestinian' Poet Sentenced to Death

According to MaanAshraf Fayadh was sentenced to death on Nov. 17 for "alleged blasphemous statements" which he denied.

Human Rights Watch announced

"Regardless of what Fayadh said or didn't say, Saudi Arabia should stop arresting people for their personal beliefs...The fact that Ashraf Fayadh is facing the prospect of being beheaded only adds to the outrageousness of this court ruling."

I think his alleged statements had nothing to do whether a Palestinian people exists or whether they have superior claims to Jews regarding the territory of the Land of Israel. 

^

Monday, November 23, 2015

Where Is Shiloh?

This new EU labeling campaign is producing some silly things.

Here is a picture accompanying a story on that German KaDeWe store's policy of boycott and its reversal:


But there is a caption:


As EG pointed out to me, that German reads:


From the city of Ramallah in the West Bank wine is exported. Such products must be labeled in future.

Shiloh is not located in Ramallah.  We're outside Palestinian Authority-supervised territory, north about 18 kilometers.   




And those cartons are from Shiloh Winery situated in Shiloh.

And the wine is superb.

^

The Status Quo and Arab Terror

That American Yeshiva students are killed in Eretz-Yisrael while studying Torah as has just occurred is not, unfortunately, a new phenomenon.

Already in 1929, eight Americans were murdered in Hebron and their names are:

William Zev (Wolf) Berman, Philadelphia; 
David Sheinberg (Shunberg), Memphis; 
Benjamin (Bennie) Hurvitz (Horowitz), Brooklyn; 
Harry Frohman, Chicago; 
Wolf Greenberg, Brooklyn, N.Y.;
Hyman Krasner, Chicago; 
Aaron David Epstein, Chicago; 
Jacob Wexler, Chicago. 

But did you know just how parallel a situation exists between the events of 1929 and 2015?

The 1929 riots broke out due to the Mufti fueling the flames of religious hatred based on the false claim that 'Al-Aqsa is in Danger' and that the Jews not only desired more rights at the Western Wall but also sought the rebuild the Temple.

Here are the words of Binyam Hurwitz, 19 years old, from a letter he wrote two days before he was knifed slashed and hacked to death in Hebron:

The Arabs began to realize that the Jews could  manage without upsetting the status quo, but the Arabs started to build.  They built a new gateway near the Western wall, they opened a doorway so that they could disturb the Jews, and they declared that the status quo pertained only to the Jews and not to them.  The Jews protested, but to no avail.  The Arabs began to disturb those engaged in prayer.  The British government was silent!  Only the Jews were causing trouble!  On last Thursday, youth from the Trumpeldor legion [Betar] rallied against the government regarding access to the Western Wall.  They marched to the wall and decried the Zionist leaders for their weak stand.  But they did not hit or even touch anyone.  The next day the Arabs rallied too.  But this was an entirely different protest.  They marched out of the new gate and hit Jews in the midst of prayer, tore up prayer books, and removed the notes of beseechment that had been placed in the crevices of the Wall.  The British police did nothing, not only that but they did not even permit the Jews to approach the Wall to pray.  And this is the status quo?!  Then the British issued a statement that equated the two protests!

Reads like today's news.

Palestine Bulletin, September 2, 1929:-







^

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

J Street Does the Green Line

Jeremy Ben-Ami's latest campaign letter appeal includes this:

The future and security of Israel as the democratic national home of the Jewish people depend on establishing a border between Israel and a new state of Palestine. There’s no other way to approach drawing the border than with the Green Line -- the only demarcation the world recognizes -- as the starting point.

And there's a web site.

The Green Line demarcation was not quite so recognized.

It was infiltrated constantly.

It was but a cease-fire line, where the armies stopped fighting in early 1949.

The armistice agreements were never fully observed.

The Green Line was dangerous and provides Israel with no strategic depth.

Why should Israel yield on this matter so that J Streeters can feel comfortable living in...America?

^

A 'Who Wrote This?' Quiz

Who wrote this?

I joke to my friends that six years in jail will still leave me a whimpering coward...it’s hard enough working on explaining an occupation to the outside, without having to fight from within for everything…from getting your work travel cheque reimbursed to asking serious questions about the financial management of work places.

New York Times' Diaa Hadid.

Really

^

'Gone With The Wind' and Fascism

As we all should know

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" 

is a line from the 1939 film Gone with the Wind starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. The line is spoken by Rhett Butler (Gable), as his last words to Scarlett O'Hara (Leigh), in response to her tearful question: "Where shall I go? What shall I do?"

But I discovered this:


the Italian comparable phrase, which is me ne frego, meaning 'I don't give a damn'  was the motto of the Italian fascist militia during the 1930's.  The Blackshirts – the Fasci di Combattimenti were usually ex-soldiers and it was their job to bring into line those who opposed Mussolini. It was the Blackshirts who murdered the socialist Matteotti – an outspoken critic of Mussolini. The motto of the Blackshirts was “Me ne frego” (I do not give a damn”).


From Mussolini's treatise:


... Fascism carries this anti-pacifistic attitude into the life of the individual. "I don't care a damn" (me ne frego) - the proud motto of the fighting squads, the Squadrista, - scrawled by a wounded man on his bandages, is not only an act of philosophic stoicism, it sums up a doctrine which is not merely political: it is evidence of a fighting spirit which accepts all risks. It signifies new style of Italian life. The Fascist accepts and loves life; he rejects and despises suicide as cowardly. Life as he understands it means duty, elevation, conquest; life must be lofty and full, it must be lived for oneself but above all for others, both near bye and far off, present and future.

Odd?

^

Sunday, November 15, 2015

April 1936: How Did It Start, Mr. American Consul-General?


According to the US Consulate-General Leland B. Morris, who wrote back to Washington on the first month of what was to be a three-year terror campaign by Arabs against the British Mandatory regime and the Jewish community therein,


described how it started


but did manage to include how Arabs killed Jews before they walked into a 'crowd of irresponsible Arabs'




Isn't that a bit backward?
^

Saturday, November 14, 2015

The Way the NYTimes Equalizes

Note the "valiant" attempt by the NYTimes to equalize between Arab terror and Israel's measures of defense:

The attack on Friday took place near Hebron in the southern West Bank, which has emerged as a locus of the uprising. It brought the number of Israelis killed in the latest surge of violence to 13.

During the same period of time, at least 82 Palestinians have been killed. Some of them were attacking or attempting to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians; others were killed during violent demonstrations in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem or on the border with Gaza. 

Not one Israeli was attacking an innocent Arab.

Not one was a terrorist.

Not one was demonstrating.

They were all going about their business, not harming or potentially harming any one.

All those Arabs killed in "demonstration", actually riots, were identifying with the Arab terrorists.

^

Friday, November 13, 2015

No Regrets, All Pain

Another interesting document:



^

Feisal Admitted - Palestine To Be Set Aside

At a meeting conducted in Paris of the Council of Ten * with the Emir Feisal regarding his post-war demands from the Versailles Conference:



I understand that to mean that Palestine was not to be part of the Arab state contemplated.

At a meeting on February 13, one Chekri Ganem, a Christian Syrian domiciled in Paris and editor of a newspaper, Al-Mustakbal, made this statement, p. 1037:




*
Those present:




^

Was A Jewish State An Agenda Item From the Beginning?

From the archives of the United States Department of State
Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1919. 
The Paris Peace Conference (1919)

American plans and preparations for the peace conference, p. 69


Reads that way to me.

^

Seven US Factors 1947

Let the document speak for itself:

Memorandum by Mr. Fraser Wilkins of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs1

[Washington,] January 14, 1947.secret
The Palestine question is one of the most difficult problems with which the Department is faced. Our policy toward Palestine is based on seven factors:

1) Present responsibility of Great Britain for administration of Palestine under League of Nations mandate to which administration United States consented in American-British-Palestine Mandate Convention of December 3, 1924.
2) The intense desire of Jewish DP’s in Europe to emigrate to Palestine.
3) Support for Jewish National Home in Palestine as expressed in Presidential statements, Congressional resolutions and party platforms.
4) The Arab population of Palestine outnumbers the Jewish population two to one. The Arabs in Palestine and neighboring countries are opposed to the partition of Palestine and to Jewish domination in any form.
5) Religions importance of Palestine to Christians, Jews and Moslems.
6) Strategic and economic importance of American oil, aviation and telecommunications facilities in Palestine and neighboring countries.
7) Practically speaking, the unsettled Palestine problem, made more difficult by the pressure for post-war migration of displaced Jews from Europe to Palestine, is an irritant in Anglo-American relations. It is also prejudicial to American-Arab relations in the fields of education, trade, petroleum and aviation. Continued agitation and uncertainty regarding the Palestine question, by weakening the Anglo-American position in the Near East, permits a more rapid extension of Soviet Russian objectives, and is distressing to Christians everywhere because the Christian interest in Palestine tends to become submerged in an Arab-Jewish controversy.
American policy in Palestine, as now developed, has five principal aspects:

1) In Palestine, which now contains 1,250,000 Arabs and 600,000 Jews, neither group shall dominate the other. Palestine should be neither a Jewish State nor an Arab State, but the people of Palestine should be granted full independence as soon as practicable in one or more states in which the form of government will satisfy as nearly as possible the national aspirations of both Jews and Arabs. Accomplishment of such a solution through a workable partition of Palestine, with the exception of the Holy Places, into an Arab State, which might join a neighboring Arab State, and a Jewish State, in control of its own immigration and economic policies, could be supported by the United States. Pending full independence, Palestine would enjoy partial self-government under United Nations trusteeship.
2) Immediate transfer of 100,000 Jews from European DP camps to Palestine. Immigration laws of other countries, including United States, should be liberalized to permit admission of other DP’s from Europe.
3) Continued development of Jewish National Home in Palestine through immigration and land purchase, both of which are now restricted, if partition proves impracticable.
4) Broad political, economic and cultural development of Arab population in Palestine.
5) Obtaining acquiesence of all Arab states to whatever solution gives promise of settling the Palestine question.

_______
1 Mr. Wilkins was the desk officer in charge of Palestinian affairs.

^

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Kate Winslet Has NOT Converted to Judaism

Despite this picture, Kate Winslet has not converted to Judaism:




Kate Winslet plays Irene, a Russian-Israeli mafia moll in Triple 9,




an action film.

^

When A Jewish Mother's Breast Meets the Muslim Dome of the Rock

The campaign for Jewish rights to the current Temple Mount compound and within its precincts has always had its feminine side.  There is a "Women on Behalf of the Temple and Temple Mount" group with their Facebook page.  Others promote specific preparatory crafts, such as weaving, as a means for raising consciousness about the restrictions Jews face at their most holy site.  In the past, Rabbanit Penina Pel'i, Esther Abutbol and Rabbanit Esther Breuer were among the leading figures two and three decades ago. Today, Rabbanit Rivkah Shimoni and Rachel Sela and others.




Sometimes, they are physically attacked (and children, too) by Muslim women in addition to the shrieks they sound off.

Yesterday, Tuesday November 9th, was, perhaps, a turning point.

Those who wish to ascend while keeping to as full a commitment to the stringent Jewish ritual obligations as possible face a daunting task.  There is the mikveh immersion previous to arrival and keeping within a limited route for the walk-about.  Since the police are very uncooperative, there are long waits which include rising early to get there in time for the 7:30 AM opening and the long wait to enter, while hundreds of tourists go in through a parallel security check gate freely.

A nursing mother faces a daunting possibility: will she be able to complete the entire procedure without recourse to suckling her infant, or not.


Yesterday, Michal Ben-Uri needed to feed her infant while within the Temple Mount.  The police refused her permission and did it in a nasty and brusque if not brutal fashion.  Here is a short clip:




A second, longer clip, was posted at a major Israel news web site.

There were Rabbis who reacted in a negative fashion, asking whether the act was to be done in a modest way, that is, no flesh seen.  Others even asked if the act itself is permissible.

The responses came and noted that at the Hakhel ceremony at the end of the Shemittah seventh year period, all were to be present when the King read out from the Torah scroll. Others noted that every year during the Succot holiday, there was a special joyful Drawing of the Water event at which children were also present.  It would be logical that infants were there and that they would be needed to be fed.  Presumably, if modesty were kept, there would be no problem.  The Talmud, Tractate Chagiga 6A notes that while minors are technically exempt from the command to see and be seen at the Temple,* nevertheless:

Abaye said: Wherever a major is obligated according to the law of the Torah, we also initiate a minor according to Rabbinic law

The Western Wall feminists have been successful.

Will the Women of the Temple/Temple Mount be so as well now?

_________

*

Chagiga 7A:  What is meant by Re'ayon [ראיון]? — R. Johanan says: [It means] appearing10 in the Temple Court.

(10) The different form of the word implies a different meaning from ראיה; the latter in this context would mean ‘the (cost of the) pilgrimage burnt-offering’; the former signifies ‘appearing’ in the Temple.

UPDATE

The Temple Institute has the story up.  And this comment and response.

UPDATE

Can you imagine this ceremony on the Temple Mount?


Three MKs have called on Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, supervisor of the Western Wall and the holy places, to allow a Hanukka candle-lighting ceremony to be staged in the women’s section of the Western Wall for the upcoming holiday.
MKs Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union), Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) and Michal Rozin (Meretz) made their call following a campaign launched this week by the Women of the Wall prayer-rights group, which is calling on public officials to refuse invitations to participate in the annual public candle-lighting ceremony staged at the Western Wall.
A Hanukka candle-lighting ceremony is staged every year at the Western Wall in the men’s section of the plaza, in which prominent leaders and public officials are invited to light the Hanukka lights each night of the eight-day holiday.
Women are not invited to participate, however.
______________


Incidentally, the Rambam records in Hilchot Bi'at Hamikdash that a Kohen who performs the Temple service while drunk on milk is to be punished but, most importantly, his service was kosher as "drunk" refers only to wine.   

Here:

Chapter 2
Halacha 1
Whenever a priest who is fit to perform Temple service drinks wine, he is forbidden to enter the area of the Altar or [proceeds] beyond there. If he entered [that area] and performed service, his service is invalid and he is liable for death at the hand of heaven

Halacha 2
If a person is intoxicated from beverages other than wine, he is forbidden to enter the Temple. If he enters and performs service while intoxicated from other beverages - even if he is intoxicated from milk or figs - he is liable for lashes, but his service is valid, for one is liable for death only when drinking wine at the time of service and one does not invalidate service unless he is intoxicated from wine.





Tuesday, November 10, 2015

"People"

According to B'tselem, at the end of 2013 there were  

350,010 people were living in the settlements residency communities of the West Bank Judea and Samaria excluding East Jerusalem. According to data provided by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, the population of the Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem numbered 196,890 people at the end of 2012.

That adds up to 546,900.

With an annual growth rate at that time of  4.4% and 1.9% percent, respectively, they assert that there are

an estimated 547,000 [?] settlers in the West Bank Judea and Samaria

as of last May.

So, at the end of next month, that figure could be close to 575,000.  And the post-1967 neighborhoods of Jerusalem would be perhaps 205,000.  If I took errors into consideration, in favor of the Jewish population, the number of Jews beyond the Green Line is approaching 800,000.

That's a lot of 'people'.

^

Monday, November 09, 2015

Would The Pals. Call This 'Extrajudicial Murder'? And The Temple Mount Connection

This

A Jordanian policeman on Monday killed four contractors working with the Public Security Department, two US, one Jordanian and one South African nationals, before he was killed - ...PSD personnel dealt with the incident, which took place at a police training facility in eastern Amman, and killed the attacker

What do you say?

And a second question, if I'm on the subject:

If Israel relinquishes any security element, including cameras inside the two mosques on the Temple Mount, a demand Jordan's king now makes, will events like this also happen, with Jewish casualties?


How Many Homes in Two Outposts?

You may have read this:

According to Haaretz, the Higher Planning Council of the Civil Administration agreed to advance a master plan for the Ma’aleh Michmash area east of Ramallah.  If it goes ahead, the move will retroactively approve two outposts and add thousands of homes to the settlements in the region.

If you know anything at all about "outposts", you know that two outposts, combined, probably contain less than 100 houses.  Michmas itself numbers some 250 people altogether.

Just saying.

UPDATE

Regional master plan approved last week will see two outposts retroactively approved, and existing settlements get thousands of more homes

Long live the comma.

^

And Now: Consulate-sponsored Trips

At the US Consulate in Jerusalem Facebook account here, you will learn that last week, the Consulate sponsored a trip for a group of Gaza children to visit the old city of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

A happy participant:


Do Jews, residents either of Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria, get sponsored trips to, say, Joseph's Tomb?

Here's from my ongoing memo:

...A rather disturbing pattern of behavior has emerged from the US Consulate-General in Jerusalem over the past years that would point to a need for Congressional review and oversight.
 Except for consular matters (passports, visas and birth registration), all other activities whether social, educational, scientific, cultural or otherwise, are discriminatory in that no Jewish American citizen who lives in the area supervised by the Consulate can benefit from or take part in.  They are intended for Arabs solely.  For example, the Consulate’s Facebook page appears in English and Arabic while Hebrew is not used.
 Jews resident in the area of Judea and Samaria especially face a policy of exclusion which would seem to be unconstitutional and illegal.  In the same geographical area under the jurisdiction of the Consulate, there exist two separate and not equal populations: Jewish and Arab, whether Muslim or Christian...

...New instance in 2015 can be seen here including U.S. Teacher of the Year Builds Strong Bonds with Palestinian Teachers and Students (September 4, 2015); U.S. Consul General Donald Blome Delivers Commencement Address for Al-Quds Bard College Graduates (August 25, 2015); U.S. Consul General Donald Blome Visits Duma in Solidarity with Surviving Members of Dawabsheh Family (August 20, 2015) whereas no visit was paid to a Jewish victim of Arab terror, killed by an Arab who is an American citizen(!);  Arab-American Comedy Festival Shares Values and Smiles with Palestinians (August 13, 2015); Camp Discovery: 700 Palestinian Youth Build New Skills for Future (August 6, 2015).  New programs include an exchange platform between Palestinian entrepreneurs and the Silicon Valley (on September 27, a third group of Palestinian entrepreneurs were sent to the Silicon Valley to network, learn, and sell their products); U.S. Consulate General-sponsored IVLP program on U.S. Elections for journalists; Palestinian Women's Microenterprise Bazaar in support of Palestinian Women Entrepreneurs (November 18-19, 2015); The U.S. Department of State’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) local grants program; Consulate-sponsored trip to Jerusalem for Gaza residents; free English language classes at America House Ramallah and a series a “Consulate staff speak Arabic” clips, but not in Hebrew.
 Is what they are doing legal by American law?  Is it in the spirit of the democratic foundations of American democracy?  Can the Consulate adopt exclusionist policies that separate between peoples based on race in the same geographic area?  Can it create the "state of the West Bank"?
 There are almost 400,000 Jewish residents in the communities located in the territory for which the C-G is responsible (and in the newer Jerusalem neighborhoods and within the Old City there live over 210,000 Jews).  There are tens of thousands of potential American citizens who have lost their rights to enjoy the Consulate-sponsored activities and advantages.  

Are there any Congressmen or Senators who will look into this?

^