I have to admit, the best campaign ad on TV so far belongs to...

...Labor!

It's a simple ad.

It starts off knocking Amir Peretz big time. It derides all of the candidate's shortcomings such as his poor English, lack of leadership experience outside of the unions, provincial, etc. It finishes off with the question of "Who is this leader?", and instead of Amir Peretz that we are expecting, we get a picture of Ben-Gurion. Very powerful.

Alei Yarok also has some very entertaining ads.

NU/NRP ads are well done, but they really don't speak to me at all.

Most funny goes to the Meretz ad where their ultra-Orthodox candidate says she supports homosexual marriages. Strange though, almost all their ads seem geared directly towards homosexuals. I guess it's their freedom from religion thing they're promoting.

Shinui and Chetz are just pathetic in how each one wants to show how they hate the religious more than the other. They probably brought in a neo-Nazi to produce their commercials.

Likud has two excellent anti-Olmert ads. One asks people in the street to name one thing Olmert has done in his 40 years of politics, and everyone is stumped and answers "ehhhhhh' (the ad finishes off Ehhhhhhud Olmert), the second points out his "successes" as mayor of Jerusalem.


Kadima's ads are mostly just pathetic attacks on Netanyahu using old footage.


The Chareidi party had an excellent ad. It wasn't made for their audience (which isn't supposed to be watching TV), but was rather something for the general public. It pointed out that 80% of the volunteers (I didn't catch if it meant organizations, or full or part time volunteers) in Israel are Chareidi. It pointed out how many people and families (specifically not Chareidi) are given free assistance by these volunteers (such as free meals, free medical supplies, free medical assistance, etc.). It was good use of public airtime to let the general public realize that the Chareidim give a lot back to the Israeli community and they are direct beneficiaries. I hope they show it a few more times.

This video (in Hebrew) just came out. It points a lot of fingers and I think should be watched before the elections.

A few months ago there was a comment "war" on this site mostly between PurpleParrot and truth (and everyone else) about Jews (religious vs. secular) volunteering. Here is an article that discusses just that.


Eighteen Percent of Israeli Jews Volunteer

19:30 Mar 09, '06 / 9 Adar 5766
By Ezra HaLevi

According to a survey released by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, 650,000 Israelis take part in some regular volunteer work – 15.7% of Israel’s Jewish and Arab adults.

According to the survey, 18% of Israel’s Jews engage in volunteer work, while half that proportional percentage - just 9.1% - of the country’s Arabs do.Of Israel's volunteers, about half work with organizations such as Magen David Adom emergency medical services and the Yad Sarah medical equipment lending organization. The other half volunteer on a private basis or for smaller groups.

Volunteers contributed an average of eleven hours a month.

Among Jewish volunteers, the study demonstrated, volunteerism increased with level of religious observance and was highest among the Hareidi-Religious sector.

I'm too lazy to create an actual parody blog site of my own, so instead just go here to see the parody I wrote for Purim.

Following last week's expose in Makor Rishon on Peace Now, Makor Rishon has done it again.

Last summer a senior officer fled from England (he never even got off the plane) as he was worried he was to be charged and jailed with war crimes (read my post on it here).

Last week it happened again.

It's no secret that the lawyer filing the charges against these IDF officers is a radical leftwing former Israeli Jew living in England.

What Makor Rishon uncovered this week is that all the information supplied to the lawyer was supplied by none other than the members of Yesh Gvul, an extremist leftwing Israeli organization, that holds among it's esteemed members none other than the draft dodging son of our own current interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert!

I think the title of this post says more about them than any other comments I could write.

Peretz said that the Arabs and Palestinians (there’s a difference?) are not our enemy, terrorism is. Personally I wonder who he thinks voted for Hamas.

In an unusual twist, Zim came to the aid of the Dubai Ports World, saying they sail into DPW’s ports all the time (not under the Israeli flag though) and they are one of DPW’s biggest customers. If I were DPW I don’t know how I’d feel being outed like that, even for my own benefit.

NU-NRP went clubbing last night and handed out postcards. Each postcard apparently had a picture of a geeky religious settler family with 10 kids (or something like that) and said at the bottom, “Do you really want them as your neighbor?” I guess that is one way to turn the fear factor to your favor and stop another potential disengagement.

Olmert said he gave orders to act with an "Iron Fist" against Arab Palestinian terrorist terror attacks. If only he put in half as much effort as he did in Amona, terrorism would be wiped out worldwide.

Again the Arabs Palestinians terrorists attempted another megaterror attack from Gaza. Again hitting inside the Ashkelon power plant and injuring some workers and this time caused (unspecified) damage to the station and an explosion.

Kadima and Olmert keep dropping in the polls, but not yet fast enough.

And there were the usual roundup of Molotov cocktails, stonings, and attempted knivings.


Shabbat Shalom from the Holy Land.

Deuteronomy 7:3:
You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son.

Baruch Marzel did something interesting and unusual today. At the end of the YNET article you will see that a number of people called him a racist for what he said and did.

In a step unusual for a politician, Marzel wrote a letter to an Israeli celebrity who is about to marry a non-Jew and told her that assimilation is wrong and dangerous for the Jewish people.

"I was pained to hear you intend to marry basketball player Jasikevicius," Marzel wrote in a letter to Aberjil. "I have nothing against Sharas, and he may well be a wonderful, charming man, but as long as he has not converted, you must not make such a move."

Marzel sent two messages in one, the first is that she should not marry a non-Jew, and the second is that if he were to convert then there wouldn’t be a problem.

The general response on the website was that protesting the mixed marriage was racist!

Yet everyone ignored that Marzel said that if the man were to convert to Judaism there would be no problem (true I’m ignoring what is involved with a proper conversion, but that is a different subject). Marzel certainly isn’t protesting this man’s race. He is protesting this man’s current beliefs and religion as incompatible with Judaism (for the sake of marriage).

Is it racist to demand that we retain the integrity of the Jewish people and our message of 3300 years? (No).

True, perhaps this lady doesn’t best represent the Jewish message right now, and (in this case) halachically her children will be Jewish, but this is her final step towards her personal assimilation and essentially another Jew who is lost to our people.


Sometimes one draws lines in the sand to clarify positions, yours and everyone else’s.

All good Jews (I said "Jews" not humans) should be on the same side of the line on this issue. Marzel’s side.

Perhaps we all need to work harder so that that the reasons are obvious to all Jews (even Israeli Jews) no matter how disengaged they may be from Judaism and Torah.

I think it is very interesting that Marzel took the time to write this letter.

I have to admit, I’d say the Unilateral Disengagement was a great success - if I were an Arab.

Not only were thousands of Jews kicked out of their homes by other Jews, and not only hasn’t their own government taken care of them, but it’s trampling on them even more, to the point where the temporary hotels they are staying at plan to kick out these Jewish refugees before Pesach, even though the government (Kadima) still hasn’t supplied them with their alternative temporary housing arrangements.

But why stop there?

The southern Israeli towns are now under constant daily missile barrage, which the Israeli government is unable to stop, and not because it can’t, but because it won’t, as the only way to stop the rocket attacks is to physically go back into Gaza with ground forces, and that would mean that it was a mistake to leave in the first place. Catch-22.

Of course none of this has stopped Israel from letting Arab workers from Gaza still enter Israel (so much for ‘disengagement’) even as some of those very same Arabs try to blow up the crossing points (warning their fellow Arabs first) or hospitals that treated them, and generally just try to sneak through with suicide bombs.

And let’s not even talk about Hamas, because it’s really the average Palestinian who has become even more emboldened by the unilateral retreat, and that’s what put Hamas into power.

So nearly every other day yet another Palestinian attempts to stab a Jew, such as today in Tzomet HaGush, or the knifers caught near Bethlehem and Maarat Hamachpela.

But the truth is, it’s still the Secular Israeli club-hoppers that holds the record for stabbing their fellow Jews, but the Palestinians are certainly trying to catch up and learn from their example.

And of course, we have Olmert and crew trying to hide their responsibility in the Amona police brutality. No surprises there. But it shows that at least the government properly desensitized their police and soldiers with the disengagement, so they can now look upon their own people as the enemy.

Yes, overall the disengagement was a great success - for the Arabs. I’m sure they can’t wait for Olmert to implement the next one.

I was sent these photos of Amona after the government pointlessly destroyed part of the Amona neighborhood (photos taken by Ditza Cohen of Efrat).

One would think that after watching the IDF destroy so many Jewish homes and communities in Gaza, and then watching the Palestinians repeat the IDF’s actions by desecrating synagogues and Yeshivot, the People of Israel should have awakened from its confounded stupor and realized that we must build, and not destroy, which merely encourages our enemies.

Ze’ev writes about the natural progression that followed the self-inflicted devastation by and on our own people, communities and holy places, and the (lack of) worldwide outcry that ensued when other countries do it to us.

Alas, Amona is just another example of ignoring the lessons of Gush Katif, and the ensuing barrage of missiles hitting our towns, the reawakening of active worldwide anti-Semitism, be it in France (which the State of Israel managed to ignore completely last week) or Tajikstan, or the murder of the Rabbi in Tashkent, and even in simply not letting Jews go up onto the Temple Mount.

At least our children know that we must continue to build and rebuild, and nothing will stop them - and that is why the Jewish People will continue to survive and deliver our message despite those that would silence our voice, be they internal or external.

Mekor Rishon (in Hebrew) reveals that the major sources of funding for Peace Now's anti-Settler activities, (which runs in the millions of dollars) are none other than the Government Ministries and Embassies of foreign countries.
If you thought Peace Now’s activities were merely limited to domestic espionage for foreign interests, such as reporting on Settler activity, hiring planes and sending aerial photographs of Jewish towns to foreign governments, then think again.

No, these foreign governments also fund Peace Now to run active campaigns against Jewish citizens, such as "educational" program against settlements, and bringing court cases to the Israeli Supreme Court against their fellow Jews.

While the article said it was mostly certain European countries that were supplying them with this massive funding, would you really be surprised to learn if Iran, Hamas (seriously, click on this link if you are think I'm kidding), or Neo-Nazi organizations might also have some common interest in financially supporting Peace Now?

Perhaps we’ll learn more about these interesting doners to Peace Now’s Domestic Fifth Column and Espionage activities in the near future.

Britain
220,000 Sterling
($383,834 USD)

Norway
2,400,000 Krone
($32,472 USD)

Finland
50,000 Euro
($59,405 USD)

Holland, Canada, Germany (combined)
900,000 Euro
($1,069,290 USD)