The View from Israel.: WE WANT PEACE, BUT LET'S GET REAL. IT AIN'T GOING TO HAPPEN! Great piece by Barry Shaw.http://israeltheviewfromhere.blogspot.co.il/2012/09/we-want-peace-but-lets-get-real-it-aint.html
Carmel Market Tel Aviv
Carmel Market Tel Aviv
Saturday, 29 September 2012
Monday, 27 February 2012
The Water Issue Between Israel and the Palestinians.(the “IWA Report”)
The State of Israel Water Authority (IWA) just released this month a PowerPoint report (www.water.gov.il/Hebrew/about-reshut-hamaim/The-Authority/FilesWatermanagement/Presentation-The_Water_Issue_Between_Israel_and_the_Palestinians.pdf) entitled “The Water Issue Between Israel and the Palestinians.” (the “IWA Report”)
The IWA Report debunks the BDS (boycott-divest-sanction) myth that “Israel is stealing West Bank water from the Palestinians,” In fact, the IWA Report provides documentary and graphic evidence that the Palestinians have ““stolen”” water from Israel in direct, and constant “breach” of the Oslo Accords.
Another great anti-BDS article is Haim Gvirtzman’s “The Israeli-Palestinian Water conflict: An Israeli Perspective”www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/MSPS94.pdf which asserted along that “despite there being a $500 million international Donor fund available” for the building a sewage treatment plants, “The Palestinians refuse to build sewage treatment plants.” The Gvirtzman BESA Report is an excellent explanatory counterpoint to the IWA Report, and clearly elaborates many of the underlying West Bank water issues.
For more information please visit this website – www.marklangfan.com.
For one link to all of this information click on the following-www.marklangfan.com/israelwaterauthorityreport.html
The IWA Report debunks the BDS (boycott-divest-sanction) myth that “Israel is stealing West Bank water from the Palestinians,” In fact, the IWA Report provides documentary and graphic evidence that the Palestinians have ““stolen”” water from Israel in direct, and constant “breach” of the Oslo Accords.
Another great anti-BDS article is Haim Gvirtzman’s “The Israeli-Palestinian Water conflict: An Israeli Perspective”www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/MSPS94.pdf which asserted along that “despite there being a $500 million international Donor fund available” for the building a sewage treatment plants, “The Palestinians refuse to build sewage treatment plants.” The Gvirtzman BESA Report is an excellent explanatory counterpoint to the IWA Report, and clearly elaborates many of the underlying West Bank water issues.
For more information please visit this website – www.marklangfan.com.
For one link to all of this information click on the following-www.marklangfan.com/israelwaterauthorityreport.html
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Groups that demonize Israel place themselves outside the tent
UC Berkeley’s Jewish Student Union's decision to deny membership to JStreetU created controversy. Opponents of the decision claim that JStreet is pro-Israel, no Jewish group should be excluded, and that any exclusion is undemocratic and alienates students.
Yet those who oppose JStreet's inclusion have good cause for concern. Consider some of the groups and speakers that JStreet has brought to U.S. campuses:
"Breaking the Silence" (BTS), is a fringe Israeli group touring US campuses defaming the Israeli army (IDF) for “war crimes.” This New Israel Fund (NIF) supported group claims that Israel commits "crimes against humanity," "ethnic cleansing" and "violates human rights." BTS is quoted 27 times in the infamous Goldstone report, which Goldstone himself has disavowed. BTS still promulgates it.
This is the same BTS that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which leads the delegitimization campaign against Israel on campuses, lists on its website as an advocacy group for its anti-Israel campaign.
JStreetU arranged talks by John Ging, former director of UNRWA in Gaza. He is known for promoting political warfare against Israel and supporting the pro-Hamas flotillas.
JStreetU promotes the NIF-funded Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement (SJSM). The Jewish Agency describes the SJSM as "opposing the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland and promoting an anti-Zionist agenda." The group collaborates with the anti-Israel Global BDS movement, and defames Israel as a "fascist state." They talk about victories over "cowardly Zionists' who are perpetrating an 'apartheid state' and 'ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem," and urge liquidation of the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund.
JStreetU also presents the NIF-funded B'Tselem, which is quoted 56 times in the Goldstone report. The chair of B'Tselem's board, Oren Yiftachel, has called for "effective sanctions" against Israel during the war against Hamas in Gaza, and supported the Palestinian “right of return" which means the destruction of the Jewish state. Their CEO, Jessica Montell, justifies calling Israel an apartheid state. She said: “I think the word apartheid is useful for mobilizing people because of its emotional power." The SJP which delegitimize Israel lists B'teselem on its website as an advocacy group.
What's common to JStreetU events is not a balanced, thoughtful discussion of Israel -- it is the defamation of Israel, spreading of falsehoods and one-sided attacks.
Alan Dershowitz says, ‘JStreet has harmed Israel more than any American organization’. Its pro-Israel claims constitute "fraud in advertising." "It has made a generation of Jews ashamed to be pro-Israel, and has made it politically correct among young people to single out Israel to a double standard and for fault."
JStreet is already entrenched at Berkeley's Hillel and the JSU. The Hillel group, Kesher Enoshi (KE), is it's proxy there.
This year KE along with JStreetU, brought the founder of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement to speak at Hillel. He demonized Israel, proclaiming 'Jerusalem is a symbol of evil.' Berkeley's Hillel Director argued that this was "within the framework of national Hillel's Israel policy." However, National Hillel guidelines explicitly state that "Hillel will not partner with, house or host organizations, groups or speakers that Delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel."
Hillel also funded its members to go to JStreet's national Conference in Washington.
The toxic consequences of KE's Israel bashing events--organized in the last three years under the guise of "progressiveIsrael activism,"--demonstrate why groups that demonize, orcollaborate with demonizing-groups, should be excluded.
In the year preceding the Spring 2010 anti-Israel divestment bill at UC Berkeley, Hillel's KE organized Israel defamatory events in collaboration with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). These events laid the groundwork for the SJP initiated divestment bill.
KE and SJP organized Breaking the Silence event, promoted by Hillel as: "testimonies by Israeli soldiers about human rights abuses committed by the Israeli Military."
They organized the “Shministim,” a group of Israeli draft dodgers who defame the IDF and Israel. Their U.S. tour was organized by the delegitimizing/BDS Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
Along with SJP, the Muslim Student Association, JVP, Middle East Children's Alliance and other delegitimizing groups, Hillel’s KE sponsored an event that compared the IDF to the Nazis.
At the Berkeley student Senate meetings, formerly pro-Israel Jewish students--who were co-opted by exposure to Kesher Enoshi's demonizing events--were conspicuously active in advocating the adoption of the divestment resolution.
Many of the co-opted students are joining the larger delegitimizing/BDS movement. For example: Avital Aboudy, who signed pro-Hamas ISM petitions calling for divestment from Israel, and Eyal Mazor, who is involved with the delegitimizing/BDS JVP and Code Pink. Eyal's younger brother, Alon, became a leader of Kesher Enoshi, and is actively trying to get JStreetU into the JSU.
Many Jewish students now avoid Hillel because of its demonizing events.
Would people who advocate the inclusion of demonizing groups, under the guise of promoting a "big tent," welcome a Kahanist group or Jews for Jesus?
In "Is J Street in the tent, or out?" Daniel Gordis observes: "It’s one thing to put “pro-Israel” in your tag line, and another to be “pro-Israel. … Even a big tent, though, has its limits."
Hillel leaders should enforce National Hillel guidelines forbidding Israel-demonizing events and groups.
Demonizing-groups and events place themselves outside the tent.
Natan Nestel when a graduate student at UC Berkeley founded the Jewish Student Union and co-founder the Israel Action Committee (IAC) there. He also served as the Chairman of the Israeli Students Org. in N. America and was on the Executive Board of the North American Jewish Students Network, the Umbrella org. of Jewish Students in N. America.
Yet those who oppose JStreet's inclusion have good cause for concern. Consider some of the groups and speakers that JStreet has brought to U.S. campuses:
"Breaking the Silence" (BTS), is a fringe Israeli group touring US campuses defaming the Israeli army (IDF) for “war crimes.” This New Israel Fund (NIF) supported group claims that Israel commits "crimes against humanity," "ethnic cleansing" and "violates human rights." BTS is quoted 27 times in the infamous Goldstone report, which Goldstone himself has disavowed. BTS still promulgates it.
This is the same BTS that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which leads the delegitimization campaign against Israel on campuses, lists on its website as an advocacy group for its anti-Israel campaign.
JStreetU arranged talks by John Ging, former director of UNRWA in Gaza. He is known for promoting political warfare against Israel and supporting the pro-Hamas flotillas.
JStreetU promotes the NIF-funded Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement (SJSM). The Jewish Agency describes the SJSM as "opposing the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland and promoting an anti-Zionist agenda." The group collaborates with the anti-Israel Global BDS movement, and defames Israel as a "fascist state." They talk about victories over "cowardly Zionists' who are perpetrating an 'apartheid state' and 'ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem," and urge liquidation of the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund.
JStreetU also presents the NIF-funded B'Tselem, which is quoted 56 times in the Goldstone report. The chair of B'Tselem's board, Oren Yiftachel, has called for "effective sanctions" against Israel during the war against Hamas in Gaza, and supported the Palestinian “right of return" which means the destruction of the Jewish state. Their CEO, Jessica Montell, justifies calling Israel an apartheid state. She said: “I think the word apartheid is useful for mobilizing people because of its emotional power." The SJP which delegitimize Israel lists B'teselem on its website as an advocacy group.
What's common to JStreetU events is not a balanced, thoughtful discussion of Israel -- it is the defamation of Israel, spreading of falsehoods and one-sided attacks.
Alan Dershowitz says, ‘JStreet has harmed Israel more than any American organization’. Its pro-Israel claims constitute "fraud in advertising." "It has made a generation of Jews ashamed to be pro-Israel, and has made it politically correct among young people to single out Israel to a double standard and for fault."
JStreet is already entrenched at Berkeley's Hillel and the JSU. The Hillel group, Kesher Enoshi (KE), is it's proxy there.
This year KE along with JStreetU, brought the founder of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement to speak at Hillel. He demonized Israel, proclaiming 'Jerusalem is a symbol of evil.' Berkeley's Hillel Director argued that this was "within the framework of national Hillel's Israel policy." However, National Hillel guidelines explicitly state that "Hillel will not partner with, house or host organizations, groups or speakers that Delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel."
Hillel also funded its members to go to JStreet's national Conference in Washington.
The toxic consequences of KE's Israel bashing events--organized in the last three years under the guise of "progressiveIsrael activism,"--demonstrate why groups that demonize, orcollaborate with demonizing-groups, should be excluded.
In the year preceding the Spring 2010 anti-Israel divestment bill at UC Berkeley, Hillel's KE organized Israel defamatory events in collaboration with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). These events laid the groundwork for the SJP initiated divestment bill.
KE and SJP organized Breaking the Silence event, promoted by Hillel as: "testimonies by Israeli soldiers about human rights abuses committed by the Israeli Military."
They organized the “Shministim,” a group of Israeli draft dodgers who defame the IDF and Israel. Their U.S. tour was organized by the delegitimizing/BDS Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
Along with SJP, the Muslim Student Association, JVP, Middle East Children's Alliance and other delegitimizing groups, Hillel’s KE sponsored an event that compared the IDF to the Nazis.
At the Berkeley student Senate meetings, formerly pro-Israel Jewish students--who were co-opted by exposure to Kesher Enoshi's demonizing events--were conspicuously active in advocating the adoption of the divestment resolution.
Many of the co-opted students are joining the larger delegitimizing/BDS movement. For example: Avital Aboudy, who signed pro-Hamas ISM petitions calling for divestment from Israel, and Eyal Mazor, who is involved with the delegitimizing/BDS JVP and Code Pink. Eyal's younger brother, Alon, became a leader of Kesher Enoshi, and is actively trying to get JStreetU into the JSU.
Many Jewish students now avoid Hillel because of its demonizing events.
Would people who advocate the inclusion of demonizing groups, under the guise of promoting a "big tent," welcome a Kahanist group or Jews for Jesus?
In "Is J Street in the tent, or out?" Daniel Gordis observes: "It’s one thing to put “pro-Israel” in your tag line, and another to be “pro-Israel. … Even a big tent, though, has its limits."
Hillel leaders should enforce National Hillel guidelines forbidding Israel-demonizing events and groups.
Demonizing-groups and events place themselves outside the tent.
Natan Nestel when a graduate student at UC Berkeley founded the Jewish Student Union and co-founder the Israel Action Committee (IAC) there. He also served as the Chairman of the Israeli Students Org. in N. America and was on the Executive Board of the North American Jewish Students Network, the Umbrella org. of Jewish Students in N. America.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Explore Your Religious Heritage and Spiritual History With Elite Tour Club
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| Luxury Religious Tours From Elite Tour Club |
At Elite Tour Club, we’ve formulated four new luxury travel experiences to choose from. All will find you amid the world’s most holy places, and in lands steeped in religious heritage and spiritual history.
Whether you are Jewish, Christian or Muslim, or are fascinated by the history of the great faiths, our religious tours in the Middle East and North Africa will fire your imagination and move you closer to spirituality.
Jerusalem and Bethlehem are ultimate pilgrimage cities, and form part of our Christian Heritage Tour (8 days/7 nights) and Jewish Heritage Tour (12 days/11 nights). Jerusalem’s revered ‘Haram esh-Sharif’ or ‘Western Wall’ is the city’s oldest surviving structure and is a sturdy feature of our Jewish Heritage Tour. Another ancient and significant site is the Church of the Nativity, which is said to have been saved from destruction in 614 AD, because its ‘Magi icons’ — ‘Persia-admiring graphics’ — cooled the tempers of invading Persian hordes who descended on Bethlehem. So thankfully, this marker of the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth stands glorious and is considered to be the oldest church in the Holy Land.
At Elite Tour Club, we believe we’ve planned our The Route of the Holy Family travel experience (9 days/8 nights) in the most impactful way. It focuses particularly on Egypt as a sanctuary for the Holy Family. You will trace their hurried steps to escape King Herod’s cull of male babies — his desperate attempt to cease breaking-news of a newborn Messiah.
Our Muslim Heritage Tour (9 days/8 nights) will lead you through the old Cairo mosques of Al Azhar, Imam El Hussein, Saida Zeineb, Imam El Shafi and Saida Nafisa. And among Damascus’ 2,000 mosques, you’ll visit Umayyad Mosque. Completed in 715 AD, it is thought to be the oldest place of continuous prayer since the ascent of Islam. Umayyad is also one of the world’s largest mosques, and the mausoleum of Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub lies within its walls.
Whichever of our 5-star-accommodation Religious Tours you decide to join, Elite Tour Club consultants will happily include visits to additional churches, synagogues and mosques. All will welcome your attendance at their services.
To book a set itinerary, or create your own tailor made luxury tour, call us on 0800 619 3450 or email tours@elitetourclub.com and out travel consultants will be happy to help.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Elite Tour Club's Luxury Jewish Heritage Tour in Israel
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| Tel Aviv by night with Elite Tour Club |
Elite Tour Club is a luxury travel company recently launched in the UK. With many years of experience of running tours in the Middle East, we offer tours for those who are keen to explore their religious heritage.
Are you one of many in the world’s Jewish community who has yet to make it to the Middle East? Perhaps it’s fallen short as a personal Promised Land, but do you still revere Israel as the centre of Jewish culture? Do you love travel that combines luxurious accommodation and a high level of service with extensive interaction with the history, culture and people of the places you visit? If so, then at Elite Tour Club, we’ve got the absolutely essential Jewish Heritage Tour for you!
Throughout your twelve days of luxurious touring, you will be immersed in history. You’ll also gain experience of the dynamic ways Israelis live and thrive today. You’ll feel the nation’s pulse; its breathtaking diversity and complexity. At last here is Israel for real; a fertile land of innovation, creativity and adaptability.
As if you need reminding, the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Koran tell us that Jacob was a patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant. Before the birth of his son Benjamin, Jacob was renamed "Israel" by an angel, and thereafter the tribes of Israel were named after Jacob’s/Israel’s descendants. Jacob’s "Israel" name was given to mean ‘God contended’; ‘persevere with God’; ‘God rules’, or ‘God judges’. Jacob passed God’s message to his twelve sons, who eventually headed the ‘Twelve Tribes of Israel’ — the ‘Israelites’ of antiquity — and by extension; the Jewish people.
The wondrous land of Israel is your Jewish Heritage. But so is her coral marine life; culture and adventure; 5-star accommodation and sophistication, history and haute cuisine.
Your Jewish Heritage Tour begins in sparkling Mediterranean Tel Aviv, and transforms your locale to the Roman city and Crusader fortress of Caesarea. Next it’s onwards to Haifa, Acre and Rosh Hanikra Kibbutz; then to Safed; a climb of the Golan Heights, a look around Upper Galilee. And — before you tread the paths of Old Jerusalem — feel at home in Beit She’an, Beit Alpha and Gan Hashlosha.
Your ultimate pilgrimage to Israel doesn’t end until after a dramatic Judaean Desert-drive to the Dead Sea. You’ll visit the Qumran caves of ‘Dead Sea Scroll’ renown. Finally, peacefully reflect upon Masada’s plateau-top palaces and fortifications. Here, Roman thuggery caused the tragic mass-suicide of the Sicarii rebels.
Bauhaus architecture-filled Tel Aviv is a tour-opener like no other. In 1909, sand dunes outside the 8,000-year-old port city of Jaffa were requisitioned to site the then futuristic garden city. In vivid contrast, here is Caesarea Maritima, the ancient city that King Herod the Great named to honour his Roman enforcer, Caesar Augustus.
Below the foothills of Mount Carmel, the major seaport of Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel. At the northern extremity of Haifa Bay, you’ll stroll in Acre — one of the country’s oldest places of continuous habitation. You can never leave Israel without spending some time in a kibbutz, and we use Rosh HaNikra’s, which was established in 1949 by demobbed Palmachs, Zionist youth and young Holocaust-survivors.
Known as the ‘Western Wall’, Elite Tour Club’s guides will explain the history around the ancient stones in Jerusalem and take you on a journey of discovery of the richness and depth of your Jewish Heritage. Even if you are of another faith, this tour of Israel is enjoyable, informative and luxurious as you would expect from Elite Tour Club.
Visit our website and see more details of our Jewish Heritage Tour here: http://www.elitetourclub.com/israel/jewish_heritage_tour.htm or call our travel consultants on 0800 619 3450. They will be happy to personalise this trip for you and tell you more about out tailor made tours.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Friday, 22 April 2011
Israel: A Meditation
Israel,
You are my people.
You are my heart and you are my hope.
We waited together at the mountain
When G-d revealed the Holy Word.
We wandered together through the desert
On the path to sacred soil.
We watched the sea part.
We heard the heavens roar.
We stood at the doorway to freedom,
At the border of a Promised Land.
Israel,
You are my destiny.
You are my joy and you are my truth.
We were victorious at Jericho,
Unyielding at Masada.
We defied empires
For Torah.
We defied kings
For justice and freedom.
We’ve traveled the earth,
Wandered the millennia,
Refugees of the ages,
Homeless and hopeful,
Waiting to return
To native ground.
You are my destiny.
You are my joy and you are my truth.
We were victorious at Jericho,
Unyielding at Masada.
We defied empires
For Torah.
We defied kings
For justice and freedom.
We’ve traveled the earth,
Wandered the millennia,
Refugees of the ages,
Homeless and hopeful,
Waiting to return
To native ground.
Israel,
You are my brother in history,
My sister in fortune,
The mother of my spirit,
The father of my heart,
The child of my longing,
And the light of generations.
To you I pledge my right arm
And my voice in song.
To you I pledge my soul.
To you I pledge my spirit.
You are my brother in history,
My sister in fortune,
The mother of my spirit,
The father of my heart,
The child of my longing,
And the light of generations.
To you I pledge my right arm
And my voice in song.
To you I pledge my soul.
To you I pledge my spirit.
Israel,
You are my nation.
You are my inheritance.
You are my home.
You are my nation.
You are my inheritance.
You are my home.
© 2010 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.
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