Opuscula Before accusing, Personally check Facts you espouse

IT IS BEYOND MY KEN how people parrot “facts” that are indeed lies.

Israel is an “apartheid state.”

Israel oppresses Arabs.

Israel is racist.

Those canards are, in two words, BOVINE EXCREMENT

Bovine Excrement meter from WWW

QUICK QUESTION

Have any of the people making these claims ever BEEN to Israel. Do any of these people have first hand knowledge of life in Israel?

HONESTY IN BLOGGING: I live in Yavne, Israel, within range of Hamas’ missiles targeting civilian sites.

I am being treated at a Tel Aviv hospital because my family doctor feared to send me to Ashdod, south of Yavne, because of Hamas’ missiles.

I have been confined to a roughly 10*12 “safe room” with three other adults, three children, and a large dog because of Hamas’ rockets.

Apartheid

First, define “apartheid.”

Wikipedia does this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

Britannica defines it at https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid

Merriam-Webster lists it at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apartheid

Collins Dictionary explains it at https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/apartheid

Dictionary.com offers a succinct definition at https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apartheid:

(in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population.
any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc.

All definitions basically are the same; some offer more commentary, but the “bottom line” is segregation and economic restrictions.

APARTHEID DOES NOT EXIST IN ISRAEL

True, there are predominately Jewish neighborhoods.

Likewise, there are predominately Muslim neighborhoods.

There also are — fewer now following recent riots — mixed neighborhoods. (https://tinyurl.com/wvvt2kcp)

By law, any Israeli citizen — Arab (Druze, Muslim, etc.), Jew, and “other” — can live any place he or she can afford.

Most people tend to prefer living close to people of similar background; that’s human nature. Call it “natural” social apartheid.

Economic apartheid

There IS economic apartheid in Israel.

Muslims rarely are found in positions where national security is an issue.

Rarely, but not absolutely.

Arabs — whenever “Arab” appears on this blog, the word refers to Arabs regardless of their religion, or lack of it — are everywhere:

Courts


Knesset


Medicine,


Military


Municipal governments


Police


Universities and schools

There are NO Arab-free occupations (except perhaps the rabbinate).

There ARE some “Muslim-free” occupations when national security is concerned.

Communists once were banned from employment by the U.S. government. Communists once also were banned from Congress. Apartheid? Or common sense?

I recently spent far too many days in an Israeli hospital.

I was checked by Jewish and Muslim doctors.

I was “observed” by Jewish and Muslim medical students trailing their professor on rounds.

I had blood drawn (repeatedly) by Jewish and Muslim technicians.

Jewish and Muslim nurses attended to my care.

Jewish and Muslim aides were a constant.

I shared space with an Arab.

What was absent was animosity, at least as far as patient care was concerned.

In other words, no apartheid at the hospital (or the associated university).

 

Occupation

When your country is repeatedly attacked by your neighbors, you try to keep the neighbor at bay.

The so-called West Bank was captured by Jordan in 1948.

1947 Partition and 1948 Arab aggression map(https://tinyurl.com/mfr8umvy)

The so-called West Bank was reclaimed from Jordan after the 1967 (6-Day) war in which Israeli implored Jordan not to enter.

Before and after 1967 (6-Day) War (BBC @ https://tinyurl.com/u7ye8s)

Even after defeating the invading Arab armies (again) and gaining control of Israel’s historic capital (Jerusalem), Israel allowed the Muslim Waqf to maintain jurisdiction over Judaism’s holiest site — only Number 3 to Muslims — making the Temple Mount a place Jews cannot pray.

Talk about apartheid!

Check points

What is the purpose of border check points?

According to Wikipedia (https://tinyurl.com/34vr9m62), A border checkpoint is a place, generally between two countries, where travelers or goods are inspected. Authorization often is required to enter a country through its borders. ... To prevent entrance of goods that are illegal or subject to restriction, or to collect tariffs.

Arabs from the PLO/PFLP and Hamas occupied territories are obliged to go through check points to enter Israel.

(Israelis enter these areas at the risk of their lives. Now THAT’s apartheid.)

Arabs from Hamas-controlled Gaza also must pass through an Egyptian check point — when the border portal is open.

U.S. citizens visiting Canada are required to pass Canadian border security inspection. On their return, U.S. citizens (now) need to provide a U.S. passport and a declaration statement.

Only illegal aliens crossing the U.S. southern border are exempt from these onerous inconveniences.

Residents of both PLO/PFLP and Hamas have been known to sneak weapons into Israel to murder Israelis — Arabs, Jews, and “others.” Most security-conscious people would consider a border check point a wise endeavor.

Despite the fact that too many people from the PLO/PFLP and Hamas-controlled areas have tried, and sometimes succeeded, to murder Israels, their masters complain about the inconvenience.

Racism

Is there racism in Israel?

Yes.

Although they have been in Israel since King David, the swarthy Israeli is looked down on by Euro-Jews, recent arrivals (c 1890).

These is the same culture that brought racism to the U.S.

The U.S. inherited racism from the English who not only are racists but classists (snobs) as well.

It might be considered “fair” since the first Jews in North America were Spanish-Portuguese (Sefardi). The Sefardim were less than welcoming when the German Jews arrived. (The Germans then snubbed Jews who came later.)

Israel is a nation of color.

White as snow to black as night.

There are no restrictions on where any Jew (or Arab citizen, for that matter) may reside, but as noted above, people tend to prefer to live with others of a like mind.

Likewise, there are no restrictions regarding employment.

There is a requirement for a university degree to get any good paying job in Israel; no paper, no prestigious job. It’s not what you know but what piece of paper you have. (Another left over from the English.)

The Ethiopians are the newest immigrants. As the “new kid on the block,” and lacking higher education, they currently are working mostly as unskilled labor.

BUT, they are gaining education and as others before them, they too will move up.

It’s not “racism,” it’s “paper-ism.”

 

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

 

 

 

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Opuscula Random thoughts As missiles fall On Israeli civilians

Honesty in blogging. I am keying this in Yavne Israel. Yavne sits between Gaza City and Tel Aviv (see map, below). Gaza’s rulers — Hamas and their fellows — send unguided missiles into Israel literally day and night. As the missiles lack a guidance system — they basically are long-range mortars and a few drones, compliments of Iran — those that make it past Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system often fall on civilian targets.

In most places this is considered a “war crime,” but not when Israelis — Christians, Druze, Jews, Muslims, others — are the victims.

 

Check points

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A US/CANADA OR US/MEXICO BORDER CHECK POINT AND AN ISRAEL/PLO BORDER CHECK POINT?

• Both stop people planning to cross.

• Both demand residency documentation.

• Both want to know WHY a person wants to enter.

• Both check for contraband and weapons.

• Both usually allow the person to enter for a specific time.

SO TELL ME, WHY IS THE ISRAELI/PLO CHECK POINT MORE ONEROUS THAN CANADA/U.S. OR MEXICO/U.S. CHECK POINTS?

You’ll never know reading the NY Times

Obama CIA director and New York Times opinion writer John Brennan singled out Israel for not living up to his moral standards. (https://tinyurl.com/264543xk)

Brennan begins his article by personalizing the “humiliation” of a Palestinian child and her father at an Israeli checkpoint, described in a documentary that he recommended to President Joe Biden.

The NYT writer chooses not to add any personal anecdotes to tug at your heartstrings of equally compelling stories of Israelis murdered by Palestinians who crossed into Israel. There was the incident of two men hiding rifles within prayer rugs and killing Jewish soldiers at point-blank range at a checkpoint near Bethlehem. (ibid.)

A few words about Brennan from Wikipedia (https://tinyurl.com/6e2d68f7):

Brennan began his CIA career as an analyst and spent 25 years with the agency. He was a daily intelligence briefer for President Bill Clinton. In 1996, he was CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when the Khobar Towers bombing killed 19 U.S. servicemen. (So much for Brennan's "intelligence.")

You won’t find it on Google

At least six Israelis — including a Muslim father and his child — have been killed by Hamas’ missiles fired indiscriminately into Israel.

Do a “Google search” for Israelis killed by Hamas rockets in 2021” (I narrowed the field a bit) and what “hits” do I get? See the image below. The query was keyed at 11 a.m. Israel time (3:32 a.m. NYT time).

Screen capture of https://tinyurl.com/fn964afk

Even the Mafia knew better

Back in the day (c 1970) when I was a reporter in Trenton NJ I worked with an old timer named Harry Blaise. Harry covered the state courthouse and one of the cases was of a Mafia boss. Harry and The Boss had a relationship — not exactly adversarial but less than strictly professional. The Boss, Harry told me, often would see Harry in the hall and give him a pistol finger. (☛)

Harry was not concerned for, as he said, the Mafia never attacked reporters knowing that it it did, the media would hound the cops until and arrest was made, then hound the courts until there was a conviction.

Time have changed.

Some Israeli Muslims attacked a beat a tv news reporter.

The incident made the news on the reporter’s channel, but then the issue “disappeared.”

Much of the media in Israel leans (or falls over) to the left, unlike the U.S. in the 70s.

I once stood in the center of a group of black protesters — they had a legitimate complaint — and although not winning a popularity contest, I never was threatened or felt threatened.

Times change.

Cutting off nose to spite the face

Muslims in Israel may feel like “second class” citizens — despite sitting in parliament (Knesset), as city mayors, on courts low and high, being commanders in the national police, and in as few cases, IDF officers and soldiers. (Muslims are not, unlike Jewish citizens, obligated to serve in the army, albeit they are encouraged to perform national service in their own communities.)

Muslims and Jews work together in hospitals, in rescue groups (e.g., Mogan David Adom), in private and public service. Muslims have the vote, they can live anyplace they can afford (some have beautiful homes that most Israeli Jews — this scrivener included — cannot HOPE to afford), own businesses of all types and sell to all customers, yet some, mostly the 18 to 30 set, egged on by politicians and preachers insist on taking to the streets, with the end result being that they are generating a huge prejudice against ALL Muslims.

One man who lives in a “mixed” building now is afraid to go into the building’s shelter for fear this neighbors will attack him. Right or wrong, the fear is there.In the end it will cost the Muslims far more than their non-Muslim neighbors, not only in good will but on the “bottom line.”  

Shomo Cohen cartoon, Israel Hayom, 6 May 2021 (https://tinyurl.com/3annkkww)

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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