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.

 

Comment on Random thoughts

Corkscrew "journalism" Half truths are total lies Taking words out of context

 

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, Donald Trump makes some headline-worthy remarks.

Problem is, the headlines frequently are not accurate.

I watched and heard "The Donald" clearly state he wants to prevent Muslims from entering the U.S.

I watched and heard tv talking heads on ABC, CBS, and NBC state that Trump would bar a Muslim who is an American citizen from re-entering the county.

One network had the absolute chutzpah to suggest that a U.S. Marine who was killed in action would not be allowed back into the U.S. had he survived his deployment.

Only a fool would twist Trump's words to suggest he meant U.S. citizens..

(Although to be fair, the male attacker in San Bernardino was a "born in the USA" citizen.)

Trump later backed off and allowed that athletes coming to compete in sports, diplomats, and at least one other category of Muslim visitors would be permitted to enter the U.S.

One tv network admitted that the U.S. has not always been kind to people. Case in point, the tv talking head said with film in the background, were Japanese during WW 2. First and second generation Americans were herded into concentration camps just because they were Japanese.

Germans were not incarcerated, even those pro-nazi Germans in the Bund.

Italians were not locked up behind barbed wire even if they were pro-Il Duce.

Mind you the people sent to camps were AMERICAN CITIZENS. Many Japanese were fighting for America in Europe. America was afraid to let them fight in the Pacific, but Germans and Italians were fighting in Europe. Looking different made the difference.

The network talking head carefully ignored the fact that the U.S. refused to let Jews trying to escape the nazis into the country. An appeal to allow 20,000 CHILDREN into the country was denied by America's politicians.

Maybe Trump is too radical to be president. He appears to be honest, which is more than can be said for many -perhaps most -who have resided in the White House.

No question that Trump is NOT "politically correct," most especially in the eyes of the liberals.

One thing apparently ignored is that the San Bernardino massacre was at the hands of a native son, a born and educated in America Muslim. Despite evidence to the contrary, none of his acquaintances nor his mother - who shared a home with her son and daughter-in-law - reported the couple's terror-like behavior to the authorities. The pair had more than 3000 rounds of ammunition in their home and bomb making equipment in the garage. Mother never saw the bullets and never went to the garage?

Were all the people who knew them afraid? Were they in agreement with the couple's ideology?

When something is written or said in the media I am skeptical. So many times what is said is distorted or only partially reported. Watching a politician - particularly a Republican politician - say something on tv and then listening to the media report it is like listening to two different talks.

The way statements are presented in the media makes me think of a cork screw; twisted beyond recognition.

IN WASHINGTON

President Obama:."We should put in place stronger screening for those who come to America without a visa so that we can take a hard look at whether they’ve traveled to war zones,” Obama said Sunday in a televised address from the Oval Office. “And we’re working with members of both parties in Congress to do exactly that.”

U.S. House or Representatives: The House overwhelmingly passed legislation on Tuesday (407 to 19) that would overhaul the federal visa waiver program and bar those from Iraq, Syria, Iran and the Sudan, or those who have visited those countries in the last five years, from traveling to the United States without a visa.

Sounds good, but a terrorist likely has a passport that is used for trips to the "forbidden lands" and another passport for legitimate travel - say to the U.S.

Citizens of many countries currently can enter the U.S. sans visas. Among the no-visa-required countries are Belgium, France, Germany, and UK, all of which have active terrorist organizations as proven by recent events.

QUESTION: How are passport checkers at international arrival points going to know the man or woman with a "clean" passport was in Daesh-controlled areas or Iran?

STILL ANOTHER QUESTION: Since it is difficult - or very expensive - for a person to enter the U.S. with weapons and bomb making equipment, the person with intent to kill and maim must be supported by people already in the country - perhaps a "born in the USA" citizen.

ANSWER: The president's and representatives' plans are useless; hardly "better than nothing."

Religious fervor It's not just Islamists; Hindus also terrorists

 

SOMEHOW I STUMBLED across a story about Hindu extremists attacking Christians in India.

I thought only Jews were targeted around the world.

An Internet search for anti-christian movement in India turned up a slew of hits, including the following sampling:

  * Behind the anti-Christian violence in India :: Catholic News ... (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

  *  India: A saffron corridor of anti-Christian hatred - Spero News (www.speroforum.com/)

  *  India's supreme court orders report into anti-Christian violence (www.theguardian.com)

  *  Opposition to Christianity - Conservapedia (www.conservapedia.com/Opposition_to_Christianity)

Weed out Christianity, says Hindu BJP nationalist leader (www.persecution.in/content/weed-out-christianity-says-hindu-bjp-nationalist-leader)

The copy under the Weed out Christianity heading reads:

Bangalore (AsiaNews) – A Hindu nationalist leader with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vowed last Sunday to weed out the seeds of Christianity in the State of Karnataka. On the same day, two Protestant clergymen were detained by police. Since the BJP has been in power in the state, there have been more than 200 anti-Christian incidents.

Speaking during India’s Independence Day celebrations on 15 August, Prahlad Remani, a member of the Karnataka State Legislature, said that he would not remain quiet until Christianity was weeded out of his state.

“People must remain aware and watchful about the spread of these seeds of Christianity,” said the lawmaker, who is a member of the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP, which has ruled Karnataka since May 2008. “The followers of any religion, including the Hindus and others, must weed out Christianity”.

The Spero News offered an article titled India: A saffron corridor of anti-Christian hatred reports that

During the past three years it has become evident that more than a thousand anti-Christian incidents have occurred, as there is a "line of extremism" across the states of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat in central India, but also Andra Pradesh and Karnataka in the southern part of the country.

"There have been more than 100 cases of true martyrdom of Christians, thousands of displaced persons, hundreds of churches, communities and institutions attacked," comments a memorandum submitted to the President of India Pratibha Patil. Orissa is the "crossroads of hatred" and the attempt at "ethnic cleansing" against Christians, the memorandum notes.

Given the Muslim disease of "convert or die" and sometimes "convert and then die" I wonder if what is happening in India is part of the same mental illness.

If it is, is there a way to identify and quarantine people with the malady? Yes, I know quarantine is not "politically correct," but frankly, Scarlett . . .

Sadly, what is happening in the pipe-dream caliphate of the Islamists and the Hindu's prevention of proselytizing is not limited to Islam and Hinduism - we have as many narrow-minded, "I'm-right-you're-wrong" fools in the U.S. It makes no difference if they denigrate from a pulpit in a church or tent or parade around in low thread-count sheets or carry banners promoting hatred.