Eretz Yisrael Time

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Thursday, April 29, 2010
I don't like children's computer games. I can't stand them.

Yes, their educational, their fun, the kids learn a lot, but in the end they are all ripoffs.

Even after you install them, they only work with the original DVD in the computer.

Let me ask you. How long do you think DVDs survive with kids in the house using them?

Not long. They get scratched, they get lost, they get broken. Very quickly they are useless.

I'm annoyed. A few months ago I invested in a bunch of these games for my kids. At first they were great.

But eventually, almost half of them crash in the middle because of scratches (or software incompatibilities). 25% won't load anymore at all for who knows what reason, and the rest, despite having installed the software, my kids don't remember where they hid the original DVDs, so now they are useless icons on the screen.

The children's gaming industry needs to find MODERN technology solutions (such as using the internet) to protect their property, but expecting young kids to understand how to properly care for a disk (or that their parents have the unlimited energy to keep track of the disks at all times and won't let their kids run the games by themselves) is unfair and wrong.
Egypt, our "Peace Partner" to the south again is raising the issue of Israel signing the NPT, the Nuclear non-Proliferation treaty.

Meanwhile, Egyptian soldiers freely shoot and murder Africans trying to cross from the Egyptian border to Israel's - not to protect Israel, but simply because they can, and can get away with it.

This week, reports say that Egypt gassed Palestinian smugglers in their tunnels, killing 4, injuring 6 more. I'm not going say "gas" and compare it to the Shoah and talk about Jewish sensitivities, because that is a ridiculous argument in my eyes.

What I am going to point out is that while most of the countries of the world have signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, Egypt stands out as one of the few countries who have not signed it, putting them in the company of North Korea and Syria.

And Egypt's action's this week prove more than ever how much Egypt is defying the international community, not only by stockpiling chemical weapons, but using them too.

And not only using chemical weapons, but if the Palestinians are to be believed (a separate question in of itself), deploying those chemical weapons against civilians, not military.

I would fully expect the UN and the Security Council to condemn Egypt.

And I fully expect to hear that Egypt will be asked to sign the CWC, destroy it's chemical weapons stockpile, and stop using them against civilians.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
It's very interesting. Every time Bibi says or does something, the mainstream media give their interpretation of events, and Feiglin his (in his emails he sends out).

Two recent examples are Feiglin stating unequivocally that there is a Jerusalem freeze, and Feiglin explained why Bibi desperately wants to delay Likud elections.

So far in these examples (and pretty much every other one he made), Feiglin has been uncannily right while the pundits have been completely wrong.

It's like either Feiglin's prescient, or he really understands Bibi better than everyone else in the country.
Monday, April 26, 2010
When I see a headline like this in the Jerusalem Post, I immediately think Oslo.

Rabin bribed Lieberman, Rabbi Yosef 
Developers may have handed cash to ministers for Holyland



Wouldn't that just explain everything?
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Lurker made an interesting point to me, which I'll let him decide if he wants to leave as a comment here or not.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
There you go, the title says it all.

If you haven't been following the rhetoric coming out of the Obama regime, you may have missed the new blood libel that's emerging.

Israel and Israeli policies are responsible for America's woes in the Middle East, and Israel is responsible for the death of American soldiers.

Some say it out loud, some imply it, but the message is being sent out loud and clear.

Just today former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk made a number of telling remarks on Israel Army Radio.

"The US believes that the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has harmed its efforts to isolate Iran and prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons."

"US now believes that a continued Israeli-Palestinian conflict harms its strategic interests in the Middle East."

“A zoning committee in the ministry of the interior can now do damage to the national interests of the United States.”

“Israel has to adjust its policy to the interest of the United States or there will be serious consequences.”

And the kicker...

"Obama signs 30 to 40 condolence letters a month, which is 'many more than the Israeli prime minister signs', so it has a vested interest it reducing tensions in the region."


So there you have it. Israel is responsible for the tensions,problems of the US in the Middle East - and most pointedly, 30-40 dead US soldiers every month.

For the past 2 months this is the blood libel that has been coming out of the Obama regime.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Not every day in the army is memorable. Sometimes the days blend one into the next, so all you are left with are jumbled experiences and memories that could have happened at any time in any order, but stand on their own as independent stories.

And there are good days in the army and bad days. And sometimes days that seem bad turn out to be good. And sometimes days that start off good, go bad.

Your first Shabbat out of the army, walking around town with your uniform and gun – good day.

Your first Shabbat stuck on the base when you expected to go home – bad day.

Getting stuck all day with kitchen duty – bad day, until you realize in retrospect how much fun you actually had – good day.

The day you spent without sleep and endless guard duties and other menial tasks – bad day.

Your first day in Lebanon – scary day, exciting day, fun day, long day, good day.

The day you kill your first terrorist on his way to murder Jews – great day.

Calling Jameel from Lebanon or Gaza to brag a bit - an even better day.


But there is one day that is marked by what my mother calls “that terrible day”.

He had enlisted with me. We weren’t close, we only occasionally spoke, but at a time that I needed some good advice and someone to talk to, he happened to have been there at just the right time, had the exact right thing to say, and the right advice to give.

The last time I saw him was in Jerusalem. He was across the street going in the opposite direction. I had gotten back from the latest mission, and I assume he was back from his. Time was short and we both wanted to get home for Shabbat, so we just waved to one another and continued on our way.

Back on the base I heard the news.

Just barely a week after I saw him, he was murdered by terrorists.

Till then, the army was fun and games. Life was fun and games.

But this was reality. This was a good person, who signed up to save Jewish lives and defend the Jewish people, and here he was, murdered by terrorists, not in combat, not in a fair fight, but in cold blood.

I remember the details of that day. I remember every conversation I had on the base. I remember where I sat, and where I walked.

I found a payphone and called my parents collect. We spoke all night. I don’t remember about what. I just know that we spoke. It helped. But it didn’t change anything.

My mother calls it “that terrible day".

I can’t give meaning to the day he was murdered and I can’t give meaning to his murder. He was murdered simply because he was a Jew. He was murdered simply because as an IDF soldier he represented the Jewish people and represented defending the Jewish nation.

It’s been years, and life has gone forward, yet there is still a hole from where he was ripped away.

I remember that terrible day. I remember it as "that terrible day".
Friday, April 16, 2010
In one of the Myth Adventure series, the heroes join an army with the purpose of disrupting it. They find themselves in charge of the supply chain and immediately begin misdirecting supplies to the wrong units. They outsource the shipping to the local union and the mob to raise costs and overhead. In short they do everything they can to prevent getting needed supplies to the right unit in time and inexpensively.

To make a long story short, in typical Myth fashion, the team gets citations by the army and all the units they ship to.

Suddenly shipments are received on time. Suddenly items that were really needed were received. Suddenly shipping costs dropped to a fraction of what they used to be.

You see, the army they were trying to disrupt was like any typical army. Lots of overhead. Lots of bureaucracy. Lots of wasted resources. Lots of misplaced resources.

Every mistake they introduced just removed the "army" from the picture and introduced the free market (sort of).

I was reminded of this story because the IDF just launched a new internal system.

Hashlamat Tziyud ("Supplies management") is an important skill that one learns quickly in the army - from foot soldier to company commander to cook to driver. Without this skill a soldier might easily find himself without the needed tools or equipment required to get the job done.

Someone in the IDF realized that while this is perhaps not the best (or most legal) way to manage the local supply chain, but realized that it does have a certain level of effectiveness that simply can't be ignored.

So the IDF launched eBay-IDF (whatever it's actually called).

Units in the army can buy and sell their equipment (internally obviously) to other units. The money comes from each unit's budget, and the money only goes to the unit's budget.

Each unit will be allowed to set the price for their equipment they want to sell.

Free market in the IDF.

For example, a unit with extra uniforms can sell them. They can then take that extra money and buy needed boots that they may not have been issued.

I think this is a great idea.

Personally, I'm waiting to hear about the first Merkava tank, or F-16 that gets posted (not to mention tactical nuclear missile).
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Ehud Barak and the government are sparing no expense to enforce the “Rule of Law” in Judea and Samaria, even to the point of breaking the law and looking stupid.

Ever since Bibi ordered the freeze (will you really vote Likud again?), Barak has had drones in the air photographing every single JEWISH town in Judea and Samaria.

At enormous expense these drones are sent out every 2 weeks (instead of to valuable security missions), and then the photo data is analyzed by Intelligence specialists (instead of reviewing Iranian satellite photos) to discover if any settler has dared to add an extension to a room, enclose a porch, or open a skylight.

This morning 50 Yassam troops burst into the town of Efrat to demolish the illegal foundation of a home that one of these settlers dared to build.

Barak caught the settlers by drone building the foundation, it was followed up by an on the ground inspection who confirmed that concrete had been laid down, and so Barak then sent in a bulldozer, pneumatic drills, and 50 policemen to destroy this evil edifice.

As the bulldozer drove onto the home’s foundation, the mere 1 inch thick concrete floor collapsed under it and the entire foundation was destroyed.

Oh. And here is the “Oops” part of all this.

They were not building a foundation for a home. The family will be celebrating a bar mizvah soon, and they decided to make a patio in their backyard and celebrate the bar mitzvah there.

Furthermore, the family had received permits to lay the concrete for a patio, and if Barak’s storm troopers and spies had bothered to examine the permits (do they know how to read?) they would have known that their actions today were both stupid and illegal.

Unfortunately, instead of fighting real enemies, whether in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran, Barak is pulling important and limited resources off real danger points, and wasting them instead on the real heroes of this country.

-

Six months before elections the Barak-Bibi honeymoon is going to end badly. Barak will quit the government and fight it tooth and nail. Everything that Bibi trusted Barak with will be publicly aired. Bibi is going to learn real close about what it means to be deceived, and it will be far worse than what Bibi did to us voters just 1 year ago.
Monday, April 12, 2010
A discussion that was guaranteed to upset my grandmother was the question, “Could it happen in America?”

“America is a great country. It took us in when no one wanted us. It could never happen here.”

And with that the discussion would end.

Hagai Merom, former Labor MK, and treasurer of the Jewish Agency and WZO just published a report ahead of Yom Hashoa.

In the past 2 years, approximately 1/3 of all reported anti-Semitic attacks occurred in the United States. In 2008, it was 130 out of 343, and in 2009 it was 120 out of 440.


These statistics can be argued in many different ways. After all, the US has the second largest Jewish population in the world, so this number isn’t so large compared to similar volume of attacks in the UK or Europe. And the absolute number dropped in relation to the rising world number.


There’s also the question of what Merom has actually counted as anti-Semitic attacks, as the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at TAU indicates very different, and far more worrisome numbers – and this is what they do for a living.

In their more detailed report and analysis, it is clear that anti-Semitism is rising, rising rapidly, and rising high.


To begin with, SRI reports 1,129 major violent anti-Semitic attack worldwide in 2009 – up from 559 in 2008. And these are just major attacks, not general incidents. But of those only 116 were in the US. While the UK leads with a whopping 374.



Surprisingly, polite Canada, with not such a large Jewish population, actually tops the US in anti-Jewish violence. (Now that’s scary. I though those guys were nice.) 

But unlike Merom’s report, SRI data indicates that major anti-Semitic attacks in the US rose (not dropped) in 2009 to 116 from 98 (and in Canada to 138 from just 13 the year before!).

 So now I return to my original question that would upset my grandmother so much.

Could it happen in America?

To begin with, it seems clear that the trend these past few years worldwide is that it could happen again if we aren’t watching – and if the State of Israel didn’t exist.

We’re talking about a 7-fold increase in major anti-Semitic attacks in the space of 10 years, and 14-fold increase in the space of 20 years. In the last year alone it doubled.

That a lot.

Surprisingly, the ADL reports that anti-Semitic attitudes (not acts) in the US are at an all-time low (in the general population).

The ADL also says that general anti-Semitism (major + minor incidents) in the US dropped between 2007 (1460 incidents reported) and 2008 (1352). They haven’t yet released 2009 data.


The problem here is the disconnect in the correlation between anti-Semitic attitudes (down) and acts of major violent anti-Semitism (up).

It appears to me that small groups (Muslims, ISMer types, etc.) are responsible for the increasing attacks and feel freer about using more violent measures. They feel more emboldened for a number of reasons.

Looking at other ADL reports, it is clear that while the ADL does do incident breakdowns, they seem to generalize and lump all incidents together in their final analysis - regardless of severity - while the SRI reports primarily uses only violent or more serious incidents as their measuring stick.

It might be difficult to say who is objectively right here in analyzing the data and deciding what is most important yardstick to use, but subjectively I don’t think there is any question at all.

Once merely needs to ask Jewish students (or Michael Oren) on campus, if they think that the problem is worse.

And all the reports do agree, there is no denying that on an individual level, the attacks are more violent, more virulent, more open, and more aggressive than in previous years – and no indication of that stopping anytime soon.

Does this mean eventually Concentration Camps, or just a Kristallnacht?

I am honestly afraid to say yes. It is hard to imagine these things happening in America – but I am sure the Jews in Germany said the same thing.

Yet, think about it, how far off is America from a Kristallnacht variant?


Do anyone really have difficulty imaging such a thing happening around Berkeley, for instance, particularly after the Muslim students get themselves all riled up? Or in New Jersey?

Berkeley protest from ZombieTime



And now you’re probably saying to yourself, Joe’s made the point that has ruined his argument. It’s not America that is increasingly acting anti-Semitic; it’s the Islamists in America and the academics in America.



That may very well be, just like it’s the Islamists in Europe that are changing the face of Europe.

It may never be able to happen in the America as we remember it, but it might be that it could very well happen in the America that it is turning into.

The only difference between now and the anti-Semitic violence of the 1930’s is that now we have a State of Israel to help defend us and provide guaranteed refuge.

I honestly can’t answer the question if it could happen in America. I would certainly hope that it couldn’t and wouldn’t. I would love to say absolutely not. But the raw data is clearly worrisome enough that the question is no longer just hypothetical.

It is certainly a question that must be asked and discussed if we want to try to make sure it won’t happen in America, and to at least be prepared for the possibility that it could.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
On Shabbat, a group of Leftist entered the town of Otniel with the goal of trying to upset the residents. They came in with cameras and tried their best to provoke the Jewish residents - hoping to capture videos of angry Jews. Ooooh.

They began by marching to the center of the Jewish village while playing music.

When the only response that brought was by the security team asking them to leave, they escalated their attempted provocation.

One woman from the group, after police and soldiers asked them to leave decided to strip off her shirt, saying "you want to rape me just like you do to all the female soldiers." (Obviously not female Arabs, since the Leftists and the Arabs already declared quite clearly that that doesn't happen).

I hear that the only thing that upset everyone was how ugly the woman was.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Welcome back, I hope everyone had an enjoyable Pesach and is enjoying their Mimouna.

You probably all remember the Hebrew University study by the far-left Tal Nitzan that said IDF soldier simply don’t rape Palestinian women. Nitzan explained that this inexplicably absent war crime results from our racist society.

Turkish TV disagrees with Nitzan’s study. They ran a whole episode about IDF soldiers raping female Palestinian prisoners.

Ever since Turkey joined the Axis of Evil, government sponsored TV shows like this have become the norm.

But this time, Turkey crossed a line.

You see it’s one thing to show IDF soldiers killing Palestinian babies. That makes them martyrs and heroes.

It’s another thing to claim that Palestinian women are raped in Israeli prisons.

You see, the Turkish government has now destroyed the honor of every female terrorist in Israeli jails – and worse, the honor of their families.

What Palestinian will be able to say with pride that his dear wife Fatma, or his sweet daughter Miryam is sitting in an Israeli prison?

Everyone, after watching this episode of Turkish TV (seen throughout the Arab world), will immediately think, not about what act of anti-Zionist bravery the girl did to end up in an Israeli prison, but rather how she is likely to have been dishonored in the Israeli prison, and her family dishonored through her actions.

The Palestinians are also upset because the show depicts the raped girl being killed by her family (honor killing) once released – while unconnected to Jews and Israel, honor killings are well known and documented occurrences in Palestinian society - and since honor killings happen often enough, that would just reinforce the image.

To quote the Palestinians:

“Those who think that a Palestinian female prisoner is raped when she’s arrested are living in an illusion and are mistaken. There has never been such a case.

Nor have we heard of a Palestinian family that killed their daughter after her release.”

Can you imagine the suspicious looks going around this morning?

I’m glad we all set the record straight on this.
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