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| Hizbollah Jaunt |
| 02.19.04 (10:07 am) [edit] |
For most students, foreign trips are a valuable and fun addition to their time at university, generally providing a great opportunity to complement their studies.
It is hard to see where a session with brutal terror group Hizbollah fits in with these extra-curricular activities.
But the Grimshaw club, from the London school of economics international relations department, plans to do exactly that.
It certainly doesn’t take a university education to know Hizbollah is a terrorist organisation Its military wing is recognised as such by the EU.
What new insights on the middle east conflict are these youngsters, whose education is being subsidised by UK taxpayers, likely to receive from a group of thugs who call for the utter destruction of Israel and thrive on hatred of the Jewish people?
The students may like to think they are being very brave and clever in arranging this exciting spring break.
They clearly have a lot to learn.
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| The Jewish Vote |
| 02.19.04 (10:03 am) [edit] |
by Alex Sholem
With his warm relationship with Ariel Sharon and determination to rid the world of terrorism, George Bush’s popularity is on the rise among American Jews. As November’s presidential election nears Alex Sholem asks whether he can earn the vote of the country’s Jews.
It is too early to tell whether Massachusetts senator John Kerry, or any of his rivals currently contesting the Democratic primaries, can return their party to the White House.
But there is one thing they can count on - the vast majority of Jewish voters will choose the Democratic candidate, no matter who he turns out to be.
The party, perceived as the natural home for a liberal, socially-conscious community, has long been the popular choice of American Jews.
Indeed, over the years the community has remained remarkably loyal – 82 per cent voted for John F Kennedy, 80 per cent for Bill Clinton in 1992, even Al Gore won 79 per cent of the Jewish vote in his losing campaign in 2000.
But since Bush won the presidency by a hair’s breadth that year there have been indications that the Democratic party’s vice-like grip on the Jewish vote is no longer as strong as it once was.
An independent poll published in January by the American Jewish Committee, one of the country’s leading Jewish interest groups, showed that 31 per cent of Jews would vote for Bush at the next election, a more than 50 per cent increase on his Jewish support in 2000.
Just last month Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matthew Brooks said: “It now undeniable that there is a major shift taking place among Jewish voters. At this point, the question isn’t will more Jews support the President, but rather, how many more will do so.”
But Steve Rabinowitz, a political strategist for the Clinton administration, rejects the findings of the AJC poll.
He claims that because those questioned were not offered a Democratic party alternative, the result do not predict how Bush would fare against a popular candidate such as Kerry.
He told us: “This supposed phenomenon of Jewish voters moving to the right is an issue Republican Jews put forward every two years, and every subsequent December when the election results come in, they are proved wrong.”
Richard Foltin, the AJC’s legislative director, also rejects the notion that the country’s Jewish population is undergoing a fundamental shift in its political beliefs.
He said: “I think there’s a certain number of people in the country who would vote for the Democratic party candidate no matter what, with a much smaller proportion who would always vote Republican. But there is a definite swing vote, who will go for the candidate they feel is strongest on the issues that matter to them.”
Foltin believes that uncertainty over exactly who Bush will face, and most importantly, his performance on key issues, are the main reasons for the current shift towards the Republican party.
“In Bush’s case he has come to be seen as a friend of Israel and he is also perceived as understanding the threat from terror, which affects both Israel and the United States.”
Indeed, Israel is often seen as a make or break issue when it comes to attracting the Jewish vote.
In the 1980 election the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter won only 45 per cent of the Jewish vote against the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, who was perceived as a staunch supporter of Israel.
But Rabinowitz believes the community’s left-leaning stance on domestic issues, such as the economy and education, is much more important to a candidate’s success than a hard-line stance on Israel.
He explained: “The Middle East is not the single most important issue. I call it a threshold issue – a candidate has to be good on Israel, though not necessarily the best, to gain acceptance, then the focus shifts to domestic issues.
“The community hasn’t traditionally voted with its pocketbook but with its social conscience. It’s a very liberal community, and always tends to vote for the more liberal candidate, even if the conservative candidate is Jewish.”
That could favour Kerry, who is seen as liberal on domestic issues and a friend of Israel, but the real question is whether the Jewish vote help him to the White House.
There are some six million Jews living in the US, most of them concentrated in just a handful of states, which would seem to suggest that the Jewish vote could help a candidate win in those states.
But very few swing states - those that could go to either a Republican or Democratic candidate - have a measurable Jewish population.
Rabinowitz said: “States with large Jewish populations – such as New York, Maryland and California – are not swing states, so carrying 90 per cent of the Jewish vote instead of 80 per cent doesn’t make a difference.”
But the Jewish community’s contributions to political causes is grossly disproportionate for its size. And for that reason, if for no other, the two parties will continue to fight for the Jewish electorate’s affections.
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| Google Yiddish Launched |
| 02.17.04 (9:31 am) [edit] |
by Daniella Peled
Here’s a question fit to pucker the brow of any language scholar. What do Serbo-Croatian, Kyrgyz, Turkmen or Twi have in common with Yiddish?
The answer is that they are all recent additions to the languages in which internet users can browse the web via the world’s most popular search engine.
Last month, Google added mama-loschen to the list of nearly 100 languages – including the Star Trek alien favourite, Klingon - which surfers can use to find and access pages on the world wide web.
A Google spokesman told Jewish News: “It is part of our ongoing efforts to expand the availability of our search services worldwide.”
Meanwhile, the first Yiddish library in the UK accessible to the public was launched in London last week.
The Spiro Ark’s library comprises several hundred books and magazines, including volumes donated by authors, members of the public and a shipment sent by the South African board of deputies.
In its inaugural event, David Mazower, great-grandson of the famous Yiddish writer, Sholem Asch, spoke about the treasures from his own personal collection of Yiddish memorabilia.
Nitza Spiro of the Ark, which has run Yiddish classes for more than 15 years, told Jewish News that the library was a way to remember the language and lifestyle of the east European Jews who died in the Holocaust.
She said: “We have to invest in commemorating not only their death but their lives, through learning their language and absorbing the culture they treasured.
“If we sing their songs and read their literature, we give them a living memorial.”
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| Hip Hop Hate |
| 02.13.04 (11:16 am) [edit] |
[i]The Jewish community has become all too familiar with the prevalence of vicious hate material in the popular culture of certain Arab countries. [/i]
After all, the soaraway Egyptian pop hit of 2001 was a ditty charmingly entitled I Hate Israel.
But the news that a vile rap video is being circulated in the UK, urging jihad and exulting at terrorism, has brought the reality of Islamist propaganda shockingly close to home.
This song, available in the heart of London, breaks all boundaries of decency by attempting to give a glamorous edge to murder.
It features gruesome shots of bloodshed, destruction, and the death of innocents all set to hip-hop beats and a thunderous chant urging death to non-believers.
Ironically, the very Islamic fundamentalists who reject all that is good about Western culture, are now trying to appropriate its decadent pop culture and exploit it for their own ends.
This so-called music artist, posing as Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew, dressed up in the hip guise of urban rappers, presents himself as brave warriors in the fight against globalisation and champions of the rights of the oppressed.
But he is playing a vile and cynical game, spreading racial hatred and trying to recruit vulnerable British youngsters to the cause of radical Islam.
The idea that it is being handed out at the London central mosque in Regents Park, a highly visible and respected place of worship, is particularly disturbing.
With its soaring, gilded dome, the centre is one of the best-known symbols of moderate Islam in the country. But where better for the hate-mongers to try and spread their dangerous propaganda?
Islamic extremist Mohammed al-Massari boasted this week that this song was all the rage among the Muslim youth of London. There is no reason to believe him.
But only last year, the Jewish News reported on a Hizbollah-sponsored video game being sold in the UK, where the player hunted down and shot Israeli soldiers.
The culmination of Special Force was the opportunity to gun down Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.
With the news that this hate music is being peddled in the heart of London, we have to ask just how much of this material is being circulated on London’s streets.
This insidious cult must be stamped out as soon as possible. We urge the strongest action to be taken against this vile video and its creators.
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| One Week Later |
| 02.09.04 (7:38 am) [edit] |
Judy Lash Balint is an award-winning Jerusalem based writer and author of Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times.
The shiva week is over. For the families of the eleven victims of the No.19 bus bomb the initial mourning period draws to a close.
The rituals of mourning ratchet down a few notches for the next 30 days, and even further over the next 11 months, but the real pain of living without a father, sister, daughter, husband, son or brother has only just begun.
On the surface, the speed with which the city returns to “normal” is almost obscene. The area of the horror is cleaned with lightning speed, leaving only two wreaths and a score of memorial candles at the site. People are back waiting at the No.19 bus stop with no visible signs of discomfort. Politics dominates the news again.
But beneath the surface, this attack seems to have had a particularly jarring effect on many of us. Like Café Hillel, last September, this one occurred on our turf, everyone knows someone killed or injured. In countless conversations this past week, friends have expressed their profound feelings of grief, loss, depression, resignation and helplessness.
For one, a nurse at Hadassah Hospital who rides the 19 to work every day, it was the swift discovery that the son of a colleague lay in a ward upstairs with “moderate” injuries—the loss of an eye, limited hearing and shrapnel all over the place. Another friend, who was walking a block away when the bus blew and saw everything, has had trouble doing anything except sleep all week.
Someone else was surprised to find herself so upset over the realization that one 23 year-old victim shared her rather unusual last name. I was shaken to discover that father of seven, Chezi Goldberg, 42, an e-mail acquaintance, was supposed to be the third member of my Hebrew conversation class that started this week. It’s the severing of a life in full swing that’s so jarring.
Driving a couple of American guests around town at the beginning of the week, I realize that there’s almost nowhere to go that doesn’t harbor a reminder of the terror we’ve endured. Here Sbarros; there Café Moment, the #4 bus stop on Jaffa Road, the site of the stabbing in front of the Anglican School, Café Hillel, Ben Yehuda Mall, Hebrew U, the shoe store next to my coffee bar where the owner’s wife was murdered in a bus bombing etc. etc
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to lift oneself out of the reality of the effects of Arab terror. Especially this week when the lop-sided body/prisoner exchange takes place and our prime minister decides to give the appearance of rewarding terror by announcing his plans to remove thousands of Jews from their homes.
This shiva week is over, but who knows what next week will bring?
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| A Heavy Price To Pay |
| 02.02.04 (11:12 am) [edit] |
Israel seems to be preparing to pay a heavy price in the prisoner exchange due to take place this week.
The release of more than 400 Arab detainees in return for the bodies of three soldiers and an Israeli businessman who was kidnapped by Hizbollah in dubious circumstances three years ago throws up some agonising issues.
It is true that Israeli society cleaves strongly to the principle of never abandoning soldiers in the field. It is impossible not to sympathise with the families of those lost Israelis, who yearn for their safe return or at least a grave to mourn at.
But the swap sends certain messages to both Hizbollah and Palestinian extremists.
When Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000, it did so unilaterally and in chaos, a clear consequence of the war of attrition Hizbollah had successfully prosecuted for 18 years.
That, at least, was the conclusion drawn by the Palestinians. Terror had worked, pure and simple. Months later, far from spontaneously, the so-called al-Aqsa intifada broke out.
Now, more than three years of concerted Palestinian terrorism seems to have led to prime minister Ariel Sharon abandoning his previous status as protector of the settlements and making plans of unilateral withdrawal.
His vision of such a pullout may not mirror Palestinian national aspirations, but if acted upon it will doubtless be viewed precisely as a triumph of terrorist might.
Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has already publicly boasted the group plans to kidnap more Israelis. Armed force had been seen to be a most effective weapon against the Jewish state.
It seems that emotions may have over-ruled strategic thought. It remains to be seen whether Israel will yet pay an even heavier price for this decision.
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| Jenny Regrette Rien |
| 02.02.04 (6:34 am) [edit] |
Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Tonge represents the very worst of the limp-wristed liberalism that seems to plague British thought on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Her statements of empathy with Palestinian suicide bombers, which she defended to TJ this week, embody the kind of muddle-headed thinking that adds exactly nothing to our understanding of the middle east.
Overflowing with sympathy and compassion, she insists that suicide bombers are driven to carry out their terrible acts of murder by destitution and desperation.
It seems to have escaped her attention that billions of people live in conditions of appalling hopelessness, brutality, and poverty, certainly without being shored up by the united nations works and refugee agency, solely dedicated to helping Palestinians for more than 50 years.
And for most of these people, their despair does not make them strap explosives to their bodies and kill innocent civilians.
She also fails to factor in the anti-Jewish incitement that has become an integral part of both the Palestinian educational system and the mainstream media.
Nor does she consider the rising Islamic fundamentalism that has as its aim jihad and the establishment of an Islamic state, rather than peaceful coexistence with Israel.
And her understanding of the situation does not include the massive funding by foreign Muslim states that allows the terror groups to so effectively arm themselves and recruit on the most vulnerable and damaged in Palestinian society to become their human bombs.
Predictably, commentators from around the Muslim world applauded the courage and honesty of her comments.
Her observations were not just silly, misguided and duplicitous. Speaking as she did from a position of respectability, they were shockingly irresponsible.
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