There is just too much going on for me to keep up!

You may have noticed that I haven't posted for over a week now. This is not because of a lack of things to post about. In fact it is just the opposite! The problem is that I have been much more busy than usual with my work over the last week and probably will continue to be so until Pesach.

I just couldn't let the whole week go by without addressing some of the issues that have come up this week so here it goes.

The Pope is visiting Jerusalem
...and the new mayor Nir Barkat is crossing his legs to keep from peeing himself from excitement. He is going to have the Kotel plaza scrubbed and polished to a shine. He is repaving all of the broken roads leading to the Kotel and the Mount of Olives where the Pope will hold mass. He is also having all beggars removed from the areas where His Evilness will visit.

This is the way that Israelis do things. They don't keep Jerusalem beautiful all year round for the sake of its residents, for the sake of tourism or just for God's sake. But when this scumbag wants to visit, instead of banning him as they should, they go and clean up the city in his honor.

Oops. Iran has enough Uranium for a nuke.
Jews need to get it through their head. Much, if not most of the world hates us! It is a historical fact. There is not a country on Earth where Jews have been and have not been persecuted at one time or another. What more need I say.

We need to stop relying on America as our great savior. They are standing by for years now watching Iran develop a nuke and doing nothing. If we want to have a country and survive we need to make it clear to the whole world that whoever messes with us will be sorry. Israel, one of the smallest nations on the face of the Earth also happens to have one of the strongest militaries on Earth. We need to let people like Ahmedinejad know that we have nuclear weapons and have no problem using them against any nation who's leaders even hint at attacking Israel.

We neeed to project an image of being hyper-sensitive to talk of killing Jews. I propose war against Iran immediately. And not one of these 'we are at war against the government of Iran not the people' kind of wars. There is no place for that. If the people of Iran don't like what their government is doing, let them rise up and stop it as they did only a few decades ago.

All of those Jew haters out there need to know that we don't care if you love us, but if you even look at us the wrong way it is you who will be wiped off the map.

Bibi just wants to be loved

Right after the elections, I wrote about the coalition that I expect Bibi to form. Shortly after that, I wrote that I was very afraid that he was going to go with a 'unity government'.

It is yet to be seen if my prediction was correct (let's all pray that it wasn't). But the events of the last week have proved beyond a doubt that my assessment of the situation was right on. Bibi is scared to death of a right wing government. There is nothing that he fears more, than being held accountable to carry out the right wing rhetoric that he preached during the campaign. He just won't stop kissing up to Tzippy Livni, trying to get her to join a 'unity government'.

The question that nobody asks is, "why?" What on Earth is good about a unity government? The whole point of democracy is that the people determine the path that their nation should take. Sometimes it leans to the left and sometimes to right. In this case the people of Israel elected 65 right wing Knesset members 28 centrists (Kadima) and only 27 leftists (of which 8 are Arab). The clear will of the people is a move to the Right! Yet Bibi, do to his own personal emotional issues, wants a unity government and that seems normal to people.

This essentially means that the people don't have the right to elect a Right-wing government. When companies do this we call it a cartel. When politicians do it we call it "Unity"!

There is so much more that I would like to write about, but I will have to leave it here and get back to work. Please stick with me for the next few weeks while I take care of business here. In the mean time, please remember to interact with the ads on the site if you see one that interests you. That will help my justify the time I am stealing from work.

The best news I have heard in months

This story from the Jerusalem Post is the best news I have heard in months:

Arab Israelis Consider Elections Boycott

(IsraelNN.com) As the popularity of Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) grows and debate rages on the degree of loyalty Arab citizens harbor for Israel, many of Israel's Arabs are considering avoiding the elections altogether. Many political debates between Arab parties now include a representative who argues that Arabs should not vote at all.
Mohammed Kanaaneh, one such representative, was quoted in Haaretz as arguing that voting in Israeli elections constitutes recognition of “the Zionist entity” built on what he claimed is rightfully Arab land.


By voting Arab parties into Knesset, voters allow Israel to project an image of equality and democracy, Kanaaneh argued. In reality, he said, the Arab MKs do not have significant influence.

Arab MKs argue that their presence in Knesset is necessary in order to support diplomatic agreements with the Palestinian Authority and Arab nations, and to fight discrimination.

Some Arab MKs have argued that many Arab Israelis who previously boycotted elections will vote this year in protest of the Cast Lead operation in Gaza, which ended last month. Other Arab voices claim the Gaza war will have the opposite effect -- alienating Arab voters and causing them to boycott the polls.

Recent polls predict unusually low voter turnout in the Arab sector, where turnout was already lagging behind the rest of the country, and some show the Balad and Ra'am Ta'al parties failing to enter Knesset.

If this prediction holds true, and if right-leaning voters do not carry out a boycott of their own, the Knesset next could become a relatively nationalistic one.

I really hope that they carry through with it. It is the next best thing to my proposal of taking voting rights away from all non-Jews.

Likud or Ichud Leumi?

Elections here in Israel are coming up on Tuesday. I thought that I was sure who I was going to vote for but the latest polls are making me think again...

There is no doubt that Ichud Leumi is the party that is closest to my political views. But, I was planning to vote Likud for very specific strategic reasons. In general, I am a supporter of Moshe Feiglin. Feiglin published a recommendation list before the primaries. It contained candidates who have a record of apposing the disengagement from Gaza or who are known to be very right wing. A lot of his people got on the list. The interesting thing is that most of them are either in the top 20 of the list or they are between numbers 30-40. The important point to note is that none of them are between numbers 25-30 on the list. (See the Likud list here)

As of a few days ago, all of the poles were showing the Likud hovering around 30 seats in the elections. This would have meant that every extra vote for the Likud would be a vote for the 'Feiglin people' in numbers 30-40. The polls were also showing Ichud Leumi with only 3 seats, which put my vote in danger of being wasted. This is due to the rule that a party who falls short of the 3 seat minimum doesn't get into Knesset and their votes are discarded.

Based on that, I was planning to vote Likud. My reasoning was that I would rather put my people inside the ruling party, where they would have more leverage. This would also be giving more clout to Moshe Feiglin in future elections. Whereas by voting Ichud Leumi, I could be throwing my vote in the trash! And even if they did make it in my the skin of their teeth, they would be sitting in the opposition, not doing much good.

But today's numbers show a very different picture. It seems that in the latest poll, Likud gets 26 seats. That would mean that if right wing voters vote for the Likud, we would just be putting in numbers 27, 28, 29 who are not people from Moshe Feiglin's list and not people that I want in the Knesset.

Ichud Leumi gets 6 seats in today's poll. That means that if I vote Ichud Leumi I don't have to worry about throwing my vote in the garbage. It also means that they have a significant bloc of seats that Bibi may need to form a coalition with his now smaller party of 26. It also means that I wouldn't have to plug my nose during the voting process.

As of this moment, I am leaning toward Ichud Leumi. What do you think?

The benevolent Vatican, what would we do without them?

It has taken most of the day to let my stomach settle before I could write this post. I think I am ready now.

Why do some Jews have such a deep rooted need to pander to the Gentiles? It seems that the more bent on destroying us a given nation or religion is, the more such Jews feel honored to bend over forward to appease them. If said nation/religion has a well established history of killing and torturing Jews, it is an even bigger Mitzvah in their eyes.

This seems to be the case with Lenny Ben-David. In an OpEd for JPost.com (also posted on his blog) from this morning, he is very excited about the news that the Vatican will be publishing a catalog of its stolen Hebrew manuscripts.

He first mentions the fact that over the centuries the Vatican systematically banned and burned hundreds of thousands of Jewish books (and often their owners with them as you can see in the illustration above) and stole many others for their archives so that their priest could study them in and effort to refute them. He then rules that by cataloging 800 of the stolen manuscripts, the Vatican has taken "a big step to atone for this cultural crime."

What?!!

Like I wrote a few days ago, I don't understand why we have anything to do with the Vatican. These are evil people who have tortured and massacred Jews for centuries. I don't know if there is anything that they can do to make up for it. But I am a reasonable person and if the Vatican would, say, pay annual reparations to the State of Israel... something in the high hundreds of millions or low billions range, and then turn over all of the Jewish artifacts and manuscripts that they have in their vaults to the Israel Museum, I might be inclined to think that they were sincere in their regret for their past actions. But this kind of insulting gesture should be met with a spit in the face!

Do you really want to be sick to your stomach? Take a look at this quote from Mordechay Lewy, ambassador to the Vatican:

...the manuscripts -- dating from the ninth century to the present day -- document "the history of the relationship of the Vatican and the Jewish community" as well as highlight the importance of the written word for "preserving and passing on knowledge from generation to generation, guaranteeing the continuity of the tradition and the survival of Jewish identity."

Jews like these need to grow a pair! Stop pandering to the Pope, the Germans, the UN, and the terrorists, get a gun, move to Judea and have a bunch of kids. That is what the Jewish people needs if it is going to survive.

Israeli Chief Rabbinate cuts ties with Israeli government...

not.

But it would make about as much sense as what they actually did this week in cutting ties with the Vatican.  Here is why:

The Rabbinate cut ties with the Vatican in order to protest the reinstating of a Holocaust denier as bishop.  The bishop had previously been excommunicated along with several others for rebelling against the Roman Church.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the Rabbinate cutting ties with the Vatican.  I don't think there ever should have been any ties with a body that has tortured, expelled and in every way possible persecuted Jews at every chance it got throughout history.  It is very nice that they held Vatican II in the 60's and declared that they no longer believe that all Jews are doomed to Hell.  In my book, that is a tiny step in the right direction, but nowhere near sufficient.  (I would like to see something in the order of sever billion dollars payed annually to the State of Israel as reparations for all of the damage to body and property that the Church did to Jews over the millenia.  Then I would consider their apology to be perhaps sincere.)

What I don't understand one bit, is why this action triggered the Rabbinate to cut ties.  Mahmoud Abbas is after all an unapologetic Holocaust denier.  The government of Israel took him from being considered a terrorist, and now props him up over and over again as the 'peace partner'.  Our government gives guns to terrorist, and lets thousands of terrorist out of jail, just to prop up this Holocaust denier so that we can hand him our historic, Biblical homeland on a silver platter.  

If recognizing a Holocaust denier, is more of a reason to cut ties with an entity than thousands of years of persecution, then the Chief Rabbinate had better cut ties with the State of Israel ASAP.

For those of you who use your brain to think I would like to suggest a different approach.  How about we cut ties with the Vatican because they are a vile body that has brought only pain and suffering to our people.  Then we cut ties with H.D.  Abbas because he is a Holocaust denier and we should have nothing to discuss with him.  Then we get back to what we need to be doing as a people.  That is building our nation and making it strong on the land that God has given to us after 2,000 years that we didn't have any means to do so because of people like the Pope and H.D. Abbas.

Pope Ratzinger as a young man giving Nazi salute.

One of H.D. Abbas' poor, suffering subjects.

What about Collateral Damage?

You might be surprised to find out that a fire-breathing, right wing, wacko extremist like myself is concerned with civilian deaths in Gaza. Well I am. Let me first reference two thoughtful post on this issue and then I will throw in my two cents.

DovBear: War (what is it good for?)(Absolutely nothing!)

The important quote here is:

Here's the thing: I agree that Israel should destroy the rockets, and the crews who launch them. I'm prepared to accept some collateral damage among ordinary Arabs in order to achieve this aim. I support the right of a sovereign nation to protect its citizens which is why I supported the war on Afghanistan, and also the war in Iraq before it became common knowledge that Bush had lied to the country about Iraq's capacity to harm us. My support for the war on Hamas only falters when I consider the likely results of Israel's action: More furious, impoverished Arabs; more anger; more intractibility; less international support; the increased liklihood that Hezbollah, Iran or Israel's own Arab citizens will throw in their lot with Hamas. If any of that happens, the war was a step backwards, not forward.

Mystical Paths: Gaza points-Gag me with a spoon.

His point is:

(AFP) At least 25% of Palestinians killed during Israel's massive offensive in the Gaza Strip have been civilians, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Wednesday.

This is sad, but it means in "the most densely populated area in the world" where the bad guysplace their bases, ammunition, and firing positions inside civilian buildings (that's an international war crime by the way), the Israeli Air Force has successfully killed Hamas combantants75% right on target. That's got to be the most accurate bombing in world history! Seriously impressive.

Important housing hint for Gazans...when your neighbors are masked men loading missile launchers in their windows, it may be a good idea to move to a new apartment.

I have to say that they both make excellent points. (Although, every time I hear a Brooklyn Jew like DovBear say anything about Israel with such certainty, it makes me a bit sick in the stomach. )

As long as Israel continues to take half-measures, then no matter how accurate our bombing may be, we are acting immorally. We are acting immorally towards our boys and toward the Arab enemy.

The moral answer is to wage a moral war. A war who's goal is to SOLVE THE PROBLEM. That is to eject the Arab threat from our land altogether. Such a war will have a lot of casualties all at once and then will be finished. When all is said and done though, there will be less death an both sides. Also, and perhaps more importantly, we will not be in the position of being custodian to a people who want to destroy us. A position that is fraught with uncounted moral problems intrinsic to it.

We need transfer now!