Eating Chametz (Prohibited Bread) on J Street

The accompanying photo is "photo-shopped" and is not a real portrait

The Passover Seder service invites all who are in need to come and eat. This year I will not extend an invitation to our Seder to J Street’s director Jeremy Ben-Ami.

Passover is a wonderful celebration of freedom for the People of Israel and serves as an example to the world. Yet, Ben-Ami had the chutzpah on Passover eve to produce his own commentary on the Seder and to distort the meaning of the Passover holiday and Seder service to fit his anti-Israel agenda.

I don’t recall seeing in Ben-Ami’s bio any reference to his ordination as a rabbi. Maybe it was from some Deconstructionist divinity school, but it certainly wasn’t from the ancient schools of Moses, the sages Rabbi Gamliel or Rabbi Akiva, or from modern day rabbinical seminaries.

Oh, yes, I remember: Six months ago, the religious authority Ben-Ami presented to the New York Times his different and unique vision of how Judaism and Israel can survive and how to observe Passover:

“The average age of the dozen or so [J Street] staff members is about 30,” the Times profile reported. “Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. ‘They’re all intermarried,’ he says. ‘They’re all doing Buddhist seders.’ They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of ‘Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.’ Living in a world of blogs, they’re similarly skeptical of the premise that ‘we’re still on too-shaky ground’ to permit public disagreement.”

Ben-Ami sent out and posted on J Street’s website his “Four Questions for the Seder” handout. His distortions of Judaism and his attacks on the pro-Israel community and the Israeli coalition government cross the line – whatever line you chose, it’s crossed.

The Torah belongs to all of the Jewish People ever since Mt. Sinai and forever. As a collective, the Jewish People believe that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people from the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Today, no one should deny that the largest stake, the largest rewards and the largest risks belong to those who protect Jewish peoplehood and statehood spiritually and physically, those who guarantee future generations of Jewish families, those who work its Land, and those who study its Torah (in whatever structure they chose).

Not protecting the Jewish People, the Jewish community, or however you call the Jewish collective are those who seek to encourage the assimilation of the Jewish people and its Torah into some 20th and 21st century universalist ideology. Call it what you will – communism, socialism, liberalism, tikkun olam, post-Zionism, etc. it is not anything near the “time-honored Jewish values” Ben-Ami dares to claim. Ben Ami: You may not dissolve Judaism in an attempt to subsume it into a universalist code that decries Jewish self-defense, pride and patriotism.

As I’ve written elsewhere, Ben-Ami is the shaliach tzibbur (prayer leader) for "Newest Testament" Jews: Jews who have embraced the new American Jewish religion of tikkun olam [fix the world] liberalism. Tikkun olam is the new overarching mitzva that guides them, even though it was never one of the 613 precepts of the Torah. The founding of Israel and the creation of Palestinian refugees may not have been the Original Sin in their theology as it is to others on the Left, but the settling of the West Bank following Israel's victory in 1967 is definitely viewed by them as Israel's Golden Calf.

The universalism of tikkun olam is a direct challenge to the exclusive “chosenness” of the core traditional Shma prayer. Shma Yisrael – Hear O’ Israel (why only Israel?), Hashem Elokeinu --the Lord is God (isn’t God dead or maybe She’s retired?), Hashem Echad –the Lord is One (doesn’t declaring the Oneness of God exclude the believers in Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Wiccan gods, or Elvis?)

I’m sure Ben-Ami’s intermarried Buddhists are wonderful people, but in 25 years they and their children will not be filling the synagogues, temples, and day schools in the United States, nor will be they sitting in the classrooms of Hebrew University or Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavne, nor guarding the borders or flying the aircraft over the State of Israel. To them, Passover Seder will be a quaint custom observed by their grandparents.

Ben Ami’s false message

In his Passover missive, Ben Ami divides the Jewish world in two, describing it as a “struggle developing between two camps with radically different visions of Jewish expression in the 21st century.” According to Ben-Ami, it’s “us” or “them.” There are no shades of grey? How Jewish is that?

“On one side of this struggle,” Ben Ami continues,” are those committed to our vision of time-honored Jewish and democratic values - grounded in respect for ‘the other,’ a tolerance for dissent, and a willingness to sacrifice territory for peace.”

Notice Ben-Ami has no respect for “the other” when she/he is a Jew. It's all "we" and "they." And since when is surrender a "time-honored Jewish value?" Look how divisive Ben-Ami is in the next section:

“On the other side,” says Ben-Ami, “are those who seem willing to muffle dissent, view all conflict as zero-sum, and place retaining captured land and territory at the center of its value system.”

What intolerance! Anyone who opposes J Street as well as the Israelis who democratically vote for what they perceive as best for Israel are depicted as fascist. Don’t forget that territory was given up by right-wingers Menachem Begin and Binyamin Netanyahu when they negotiated directly with real partners for peace. Barak and Sharon surrendered territory to terrorists and got rockets in return from Lebanon and Gaza.

“As a people,” Ben-Ami concludes, “do we line up with those who seek to hang on to all of "Greater Israel" and watch our Jewish and democratic values erode in Israel and in our community, or do we stand up urgently for territorial compromise and for behavior in Israel and in our community that reflects our cherished and long-held values? … We're in a larger and more significant battle over who we are as a people in this new century and how our people are defined collectively for ourselves and for others by the behavior of the country that serves as our national expression.”

What an anti-democratic diatribe by Ben-Ami. His “we” should decide Israel’s values and behavior! He's upset because Israel's behavior will define him, a Newest Testament Jew, living in Washington.

Ben-Ami – go find your afikoman somewhere else. You remind me of someone else who scorned the Jewish People and sought to divide them -- the rosha – the evil son – and he is not invited to my table either.

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The Prouty Case Continued: Curiouser and Curiouser

As part of the PR campaign to honor the convicted Hizbullah-related Nada Nadim Prouty, Gannett News put out this picture and caption earlier this month:

Since she lost her citizenship two years ago in a naturalization scandal, Nada Prouty, a former covert CIA agent and world traveler has been living a quiet life in suburban Washington, trying to get her reputation back. At her Vienna, Va. home she displays terrorism investigation awards from the FBI on Monday, March 1, 2010. (Gannett, Joe Brier)

Here are a few questions about "Nada Prouty" AKA "Nada Nadim Deladurantaye" and AKA "Nada Nadim Alley" --

Why does Gannett call her "a former covert CIA agent?" (She was so covert the FBI and the CIA didn't know about her.) And what's a "world traveler?" A euphemism for spy?

Let's not forget NNP was convicted in a Federal court. She admitted to committing serious crimes. Yet, she and her sister-in-law got off with a slap on the wrist. Here are excerpts from the 2007 Justice Department release detailing her crimes after her conviction.

Former Employee of CIA and FBI Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy, Unauthorized Computer Access and Naturalization Fraud -- November 13, 2007

Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese national and resident of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizbullah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

At a hearing in Detroit before the U.S. District Court Judge Avern Cohn, Prouty entered a plea of guilty to counts one, two and three of a second superseding information. Count one of the information charges conspiracy, for which the maximum penalty is five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Count two charges unauthorized computer access, for which the maximum penalty is one year imprisonment and a $100,000 fine. Count three charges naturalization fraud, for which the maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, and requires the court to de-naturalize the defendant.

According to documents filed in court by the government, Prouty first entered the United States from Lebanon on June 24, 1989, on a one-year, non-immigrant student visa. After her visa expired, she remained in the country, residing in Taylor, Mich., with her sister, Elfat El Aouar, and an individual named Samar Khalil Nabbouth. In order to remain in the United States and evade U.S. immigration laws, Prouty later offered money to an unemployed U.S. citizen to marry her. On August 9, 1990, Prouty married the U.S. citizen. As planned, Prouty never lived with her fraudulent “husband,” but continued to live with her sister and Nabbouth.

Prouty later submitted a series of false, fraudulent and forged documents and letters to federal immigration officials to verify the validity of the fraudulent marriage in order to obtain permanent residency status, and, later, U.S. citizenship, thereby committing naturalization fraud. On Aug. 5, 1994, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service granted Prouty U.S. citizenship under the name “Nada Nadim Deladurantaye.” The following year, she filed for a divorce from her fraudulent husband, and later obtained a U.S. passport, which she used to travel overseas.

Talal Khalil Chahine

According to court documents, from May 1992 through April 1993, and again, from August through November 1994, Prouty was employed as a waitress and hostess at La Shish Inc., a chain of Middle Eastern restaurants in Detroit that was owned by Talal Khalil Chahine. During this time, Chahine wrote a letter for submission into Prouty’s immigration file attesting to the validity of Prouty’s false marriage.

Chahine is currently a fugitive believed to be in Lebanon. He, along with Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, and others were charged in 2006 in the Eastern District of Michigan with tax evasion in connection with a scheme to conceal more than $20 million in cash received by La Shish restaurants and to route funds to persons in Lebanon. Last month, Chahine was also charged in the Eastern District of Michigan, along with a senior ICE official in Detroit and others in a bribery and extortion conspiracy in which federal immigration benefits were allegedly awarded to illegal aliens in exchange for money.

Employment at FBI and CIA

In April 1999, through a series of false representations and use of her fraudulently procured proof of U.S. citizenship, Prouty, then known as “Nada Nadim Alley,” obtained employment as a special agent of the FBI. It was a prerequisite to FBI employment that she be a U.S. citizen. As a special agent with the FBI, Prouty was granted a security clearance and assigned to the FBI’s Washington Field Office to work on an extraterritorial squad investigating crimes against U.S. persons overseas. During her tenure with the FBI, Prouty was not assigned to work on investigations involving the international terrorist group Hizballah.

In August 2000, Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, entered into a marriage with Talal Khalil Chahine, the owner of La Shish Inc. In September 2000, Prouty, while employed as an FBI special agent, used the FBI’s computerized Automated Case System (ACS), without authorization, to query her own name, her sister’s name, and that of her brother-in-law, Talal Khalil Chahine. In addition, on or about June 4, 2003, Prouty accessed the FBI’s ACS and obtained information from a national security investigation into Hizbullah that was being conducted by the FBI’s Detroit Field Office.

According to court documents, in August 2002, Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, and her brother-in-law, Talal Khalil Chahine, attended a fundraising event in Lebanon where the keynote speakers were Chahine himself and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Sheikh Fadlallah had previously been designated by the U.S. government as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist based upon his status as a leading ideological figure with Hizbullah....

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Is CBS about to Give a Medal to a Possible Hizbullah Spy? Is a Presidential Pardon Next?

Here’s the 60 Minutes promo for Sunday’s program as posted by CBS on YouTube:

"Ex FBI & CIA terror fighter Nada Prouty was herself accused of aiding terrorism, but in her first interview, she denies she was anything other than a patriot. 60 Minutes investigates her case Sunday."

The 60 minutes YouTube clip shows an attractive, articulate woman who vaguely looks like actress Julie Roberts. “I love the country, I believe in the country.” The popular TV show will present Nada Nadine Prouty this Sunday as a terrorist fighter who, she states, she “went to Iraq and put her life on the line.”

Here’s a reminder of who Nada Nadine Prouty is: She’s a Lebanese national who fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship and used it to secure employment in the FBI and CIA. Her sisters and sister-in-law also obtained citizenship through sham marriages, and one sister later married a Detroit restaurateur suspected of raising $20 million for Hizbullah. He fled to Lebanon before his arrest.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, NNP pleaded guilty in November 2007 to “charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizbullah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

Click here to read the Justice Department’s detailed report, “Former Employee of CIA and FBI Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy, Unauthorized Computer Access and Naturalization Fraud.”

Prouty’s roommate (and one-time sister-in-law) Lebanese citizen Samar Spinelli was also arrested on naturalization fraud. Here’s the Justice Department report on her. Spinelli was able to sneak into the U.S. Marine Corps where she was a commissioned captain and served in Iraq.

Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, was sentenced to 90 days in prison and stripped of her U.S. citizenship for citizenship fraud. She served the sentence simultaneously with an 18-month term she received in May 2007 for helping Chahine in his tax evasion and Hizbullah fundraising scheme. Chahine’s son, Khalil Talal Chahine, is serving a 20-30 year sentence for murder.

Incredibly, when it came time to be sentenced in May 2008 Prouty received no jail time, $975 in fines and fees, and no deportation (the Feds reportedly requested no deportation because she knew too much about American intelligence agencies). Likewise, Spinelli received no jail time and a $500 fine.

Watch NBC News’ account which reports, "NNP had a much bigger role than officials at the FBI and CIA first acknowledged. In fact, Prouty was assigned to the CIA’s most sensitive post, Baghdad, and participated in the debriefings of high-ranking al-Qaida detainees."

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Rachel Corrie Wasn’t the Only ISM Member Playing Chicken with a Bulldozer That Day

Reprinted from Pajamas Media

At least two of her colleagues had placed themselves under the tractor's maw on that day in 2003. Russian roulette was apparently the group's strategy.

God, sometimes we Israelis are idiots. Leave aside the colossal fashla (you call it a snafu) of the ill-timed announcement of the expansion of the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood that sent the Obama administration into a hissy fit. What we’re doing with the latest “lawfare” case against Israel, the trial brought by Rachel Corrie’s parents, is another beaut.

In March 2003, a young American woman named Rachel Corrie was crushed and killed by an IDF bulldozer in Gaza. And now her parents are in Israel, suing Israel. Last week, the Israeli newspaper Yediot portrayed her as a saintly martyr and featured a false photo of the incident, taken at a different time and with a different bulldozer. The anchor of Israel Radio’s morning commute show rebuked Israel’s actions, and the Israeli YES cable network presented Rachel, a two-hour paean to Corrie and an indictment of Israel.

We’re nuts.

We overlook the fact that Corrie’s death took place in the midst of the “intifada” terrorist onslaught against Israel and that she was working for a Palestinian-led organization as the first line of defense against Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield to stop terrorist suicide bombers. Just ten days before Corrie’s death, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a bus in Haifa, a few miles from the courthouse where the Corrie parents are suing Israel. Seventeen Israelis died in the attack, many of them teenagers.

Today, the parents of the dead are outraged by the attention Rachel Corrie is getting and by the chutzpah of the Corries embracing Israeli courts to rail against the country Rachel Corrie loathed.

The Palestinian-led group — International Solidarity Movement (ISM) — enlisted dozens of “internationals,” including Corrie, to serve as support troops. ISM admits that it “recognizes the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle.” ISM’s creed translated into action: In May 2002, ten ISM members rushed into the Church of the Nativity to serve as human shields for Palestinian terrorists holed up there and desecrating the holy site. In Jenin in March 2003, an ISM woman hid a wanted Islamic Jihad terrorist, Shadi Sukiya, from the Israeli army. In Gaza in April 2003, two terrorists “had tea” with ISM members before they embarked on their mission to blow up Mike’s Place, a bar in Tel Aviv, five days later.

Danny Seaman, a spokesperson for the prime minister’s office, stated at the time: "Members of the ISM have been knowingly aiding and abetting terrorists and disrupting the activity of the IDF meant to prevent the murder of Israeli civilians."

Corrie and her band of ISM internationals had been disrupting IDF activity in Rafah just yards from the infamous “Philadelphi route” along the Gaza-Egypt border. This was an area of intense terrorist activity and was — and still is — the location of Hamas tunnels.

But the ISM group was frustrated, Newsweek’s Joshua Hammer wrote in a 2003 exhaustive report on Corrie in the leftist Mother Jones magazine:

"An anonymous letter was circulating which referred to Corrie and the other expatriate women in Rafah as 'nasty foreign bitches' whom 'our Palestinian young men are following around.'"

"That morning [of Corrie’s death], the ISM team tried to devise a strategy to counteract the letter’s effects. 'We all had a feeling that our role was too passive,' said one ISM member. 'We talked about how to engage the Israeli military.' That morning, team members made a number of proposals that seemed designed only to aggravate the problem.… "

“The idea was to more directly challenge the Israeli military dominance using our international status,” said the ISMer.

On the day of Corrie’s death, the new ISM aggressive actions involved placing themselves in severe danger. Eyewitness reports recorded immediately after Corrie’s death prove that the ISMers had knowingly decided to put themselves in harm’s way.

Reported here — for the first time — is the fact that prior to Corrie’s death at least two “internationals” had been pulled out from under the bulldozers at the last second.

According to one of Corrie’s colleagues, whose recollections were published three days after her death (emphasis mine):

For two hours we attempted at great risk to ourselves to obstruct and frustrate the bulldozers in their work.

Another ISM colleague stated:

Our group began to stand in front of these bulldozers in an attempt to stop them. Generally they did not stop when we stood in front of them, but continued to push the earth up from underneath our feet to push us away. Several times we had to dive away at the last moment in order to avoid being crushed. This continued for about two and a half hours. … At one point, Will from the United States was nearly crushed between the bulldozer and a pile of razor wire. The bulldozer stopped at the last minute in Will’s case. If it had moved any closer he would have been impaled by the razor wire.

Besides “Will,” Newsweek’s Hammer reported on “Jenny’s” close call:

"An Irish peace activist named Jenny was nearly run down by a D9. 'The bulldozer’s coming, the earth is burying my feet, my legs, I’ve got nowhere to run, and I thought, ‘This is out of control,’ she told me. 'Another activist pulled me up and out of the way at the last minute.'”

On that day in March 2003, the ISM internationals had decided to play a game of Russian roulette with the Israeli army, and Corrie lost.

At the trial in Haifa last week, Corrie’s colleagues testified that Rachel stood in front of the bulldozer and the driver intentionally drove over her. Israel has been saying for seven years that the driver couldn’t see her. Again, careful review of news accounts and statements made by ISMers immediately after her death prove that Corrie was squatting down amidst the rubble, thus minimizing her profile:

“When the bulldozer approached a house today,” wrote the New York Times, “Ms. Corrie, who was wearing a bright orange jacket, dropped to her knees.”

“The bulldozer drove toward Rachel slowly, gathering earth in its scoop as it went,” an ISM friend stated in 2003. “She knelt there, she did not move.”

Another colleague related: “She did not ‘trip and fall’ in front of the bulldozer. She sat down in front of it, well in advance.‎“

He added: “Corrie dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers. She fully expected that the driver would stop just in front of her.”

The conclusion: Corrie’s ISM colleagues may have committed perjury by insisting that she was standing.

The result of ISM’s aggressive actions and Corrie’s carelessness was tragically predictable. Wrote Hammer: The IDF “makes a credible case that the operators, peering out through narrow, double-glazed, bulletproof windows, their view obscured behind pistons and the giant scooper, might not have seen Corrie kneeling in front of them.”

There’s no doubt this is well-organized “lawfare” against Israel. Craig Corrie (pictured receiving an honor from Arafat) told the Israeli Yediot newspaper last week that they cannot take their case to the International Court until after exhausting all legal measures in Israel. Father Corrie’s intention is clear.
After reviewing the case, another suit should be brought: the International Solidarity Movement should be on trial, not Israel. ISM founder George Rishmaw told the San Francisco Chronicle that Corrie was cannon fodder for the organization:

"When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore. But if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice."

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Reflections on the AIPAC Conference.Dowd Confirms: J Street Is Obama's Enabler

Thank God for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Maybe after its conference in Washington this week and its loud and clear expression of Americans’ support for Israel, the anti-Israel pundits, “Waltsheimers,” and the J Street-Walkers will shut up. On second thought, they have no shame, so they’ll probably keep yapping about how bad Israel and the pro-Israel lobby are.

Consider Maureen Dowd’s screed against the “supremely aggravating” Benjamin Netanyahu last week. After what she called the “president’s smackdown” of Netanyahu, she and others, like Joe Klein, MJ Rosenberg, and Roger Cohen, were experiencing orgasmic frissons over the Administration’s attacks on Israel. “Tough love,” they call it; others recognize the act they recommend as attempted rape.

Dowd lets the J Street cat out of the bag when she wrote, “Mr. Obama knows that Jews no longer speak with one voice. That gives him enough room to keep the heat on Mr. Netanyahu.”

Then along came AIPAC with its 7,500 delegates, 1300 students, hundreds of senators and congressmen – of all faiths and colors -- and put the squeaky J Street mouse back in the bag.

J Street was formed, reportedly with the help of Obama aides even before the 2008 elections, precisely to claim that there was a counterweight to AIPAC. Soon after its establishment, J Street published a public opinion poll ostensibly supporting its positions, but it was quickly discovered that the poll had been drafted and cooked by one of J Street’s founders and officers. And again last week, J Street shamelessly went back to the same founder who cooked and presented another distorted poll. (Ha’aretz attempted a similar trick this week to try and show popular Israeli support for Obama and dwindling support for Netanyahu. The poll was also quickly discredited.)

Circumstantial evidence suggests that J Street was primed to back the Administration attack on Israel last week. Last year, when faced with the American financial crisis, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, expressed his strategy for crisis management: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste — and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before.”

As the U.S.-Israel tension grew, J Street sent out a letter on March 16 to its members urging support for the Administration. The wording was uncannily familiar: "The Obama Administration can turn this crisis into an opportunity to tackle a core issue at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians - the need to establish a border between Israel and the future Palestinian state….Bold American leadership is needed now to turn this crisis into a real opportunity to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

If we’re talking about chums chomping at the same trough of analogies, Tom Friedman blasted the Israeli government on March 14 for “driving drunk in Jerusalem.” Now, where did we hear that description before? Oh yeah, J Street’s director used that line to describe Israel in the Washington Post in May 2008, and in Newsweek two weeks later. J Street co-founder Daniel Levy used it too in July 2009.

There is – and there must be -- a place in the Jewish and pro-Israeli body politic for expressions from the Left. But not a fraudulent one like J Street that received political action funding from Americans affiliated with pro-Arab and pro-Iranian organizations or working with the Saudi government and embassy.

Kudos to the students who attended J Street’s October conference in Washington, revealed their true anti-Israel colors and requested that J Street’s “pro-Israel” brand be removed from their campus organizations. Compare them to the 1300+ proudly pro-Israel students of all faiths and from 50 states who attended the AIPAC conference this week.

And bravo to Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz who interrupted a J Street rep who was holding court at the AIPAC Conference on Monday. "I reject J Street,” the professor declared before a Ha’aretz reporter, “because it spends more time criticizing Israel than supporting it. They shouldn't call themselves pro-Israel.”

Ha'aretz continued, “The combative Harvard law professor said that he too opposed settlements. ‘But I spend 80 per cent of my time supporting Israel,’ he said. The sort of supporters J Street was attracting to its conferences showed that the group was damaging to Israel, Dershowitz said.”

"’If you invite [former NSC advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski you are not pro-Israel,’ Dershowitz told the J Street rep. ‘You should ask yourself why Norman Finkelstein loves you,’ he said, referring to the noted leftwing American political commentator [and Holocaust denier].’”

Dershowitz’ own presentation to the AIPAC Conference was brilliant.

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Israeli Housing at Shepherd Hotel -- Location, Location, Location

No one will accuse Prime Minister Netanyahu of planning the announcement of the new housing at Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem on the eve of his meeting with President Obama. But the bureaucrat's announcement of approval of another stage in the project's long process underscored Netanyahu's declaration that Jerusalem is Israel's capital, not a settlement.

Click on and enlarge the satellite photo which shows the site's location .3 of a mile west of the Mt. Scopus enclave (under Israel's control between 1949 and 1967) and .4 of a mile east of the 1949 Armistice Line (see the red lines on the photo). Putting the location in greater perspective, the Shepherd Hotel tract is 1.2 miles north of the Western Wall. Pictured is the view of the site from Mt Scopus.

Here's a reminder of the site's recent and not so recent history from a longer blog, posted here in July 2009:

The 1920 attacks against Jews in Palestine were led by the nephew of Jerusalem’s mayor, a young rabble-rouser named Haj Amin el Husseini. Rather than throw Husseini in prison or hang him, the British chose an appeasement policy and appointed him as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Mufti would later incite more bloody pogroms against Jewish communities in 1929 and launch the Arab Revolt (1936-1939) against the British, Jews and fellow Arabs. The anti-Semitic terrorist leader used his position to garner a following and a status that he would wield for the next 25 years, culminating in his collaboration with Adolf Hitler in World War II.

When the British attempted to arrest the Mufti in 1937 he fled Palestine, and the British made do with confiscating his property. The Husseini clan owned several well-known buildings in Jerusalem, among them the Palace Hotel on Mamilla Street (later Israel’s Ministry of Trade, and now being rebuilt as a hotel), the Orient House (the site of Palestinian Authority attempts to establish its rule in east Jerusalem), and the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah on a plot of land known as Karam al Mufti, named for Husseini.

The Shepherd Hotel was located on a key roadway; just yards away is the site of the infamous Hadassah Hospital convoy massacre in April 1948, prior to Israel’s independence. Seventy-nine Jews, mostly doctors and nurses, were killed on that road when their convoy to the Mt. Scopus hospital was attacked by hundreds of Arab terrorists.

The acquisition of the Shepherd Hotel site was carried out according to the letter of the law. The land, first confiscated by the British was administered by the Jordanian government after it illegally annexed the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1950. Under international law, the Israeli government became custodians after the 1967 war. For the last 15 years the building stood abandoned.

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The White House's Errand Boy? Or J Street Walker?

As if on cue, J Street used the Emanuel dictum to rally its troops yesterday, directing them to back-the-bash-Israel campaign being conducted by the Administration.

We presented Emanuel's dictum here yesterday. It states: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste — and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before.”

And here's an abstract from the J Street letter: The Obama Administration can turn this crisis into an opportunity to tackle a core issue at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians - the need to establish a border between Israel and the future Palestinian state.... We cannot let any single provocative Israeli announcement of construction in East Jerusalem, no matter how infuriating, delay progress towards a two-state solution. Bold American leadership is needed now to turn this crisis into a real opportunity to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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What's Driving the Obama Administration's Policy toward Israel Right Now?

Why didn’t the argument between Israel and the U.S. end after Vice President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu seemingly smoothed things out?

Consider this quote from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, stated when asked about steps to solve the American financial crisis:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste — and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before.”

The Ramat Shlomo “crisis” now allows the U.S. to impose a solution on Israel – something the U.S. didn’t think it could do before (and vowed never to do).

The U.S. demand on Israel to cease all building in east, north and south* Jerusalem outside of the framework of direct talks is nothing short of an imposed solution. And that's the red line that has not been crossed since 1956.

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*Prior to 1967, the city of Jerusalem was confined to a peninsular strip of land, opened to the west and always vulnerable to a blockade and siege. Imposing a ban on building in the post-1967 Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ramot, Pisgat Ze'ev, French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, Ramat Shlomo, Sanhedria HaMurchevet, the Old City, Gilo, Talpiot, Ma'alot Daphna, and Har Choma strangles Israel's capital, something the Arabs failed to achieve in the 1948-1949 war.
Map: Koret Communications

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Sayeret Hasbara: Another Perspective on the New Israeli "Settlement Outside of Jerusalem"

Take a look at the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem on this GoogleEarth satellite photo. [It's the yellow push-pin on the left.] It's not some far-flung settlement on some wind-swept hilltop with two shacks and a tent.

Ramat Shlomo's population of 20,000 is Haredi - ultra-Orthodox, with the largest families and population growth in Israel and quite probably in the Middle East. New housing for them is essential, and cannot be found in the old ultra-Orthodox areas such as Meah She'arim or Bnai Brak. Large cities have been built for them in Beitar Eilit and Modi'in Eilit -- close to the 1949 armistice line. Those cities, each with about 40,000 residents, are also under building restrictions because they are considered as "settlements."

Look at the attached satellite photo of Ramat Shlomo. It is just 1/4 of a mile on the "other side" of the 1949 armistice line (drawn in red), and just over two miles from the Western Wall [the yellow push pin on the right].

The armistice map, drawn in 1949, is also known as the "Green Line" or "1967 borders." At the time it was considered a temporary boundary and never recognized as an official international boundary. This was also the stated intentions of the British and American ambassadors to the UN when they drafted UN Security Council Resolution 242 in November 1967.

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The Upcoming Rachel Corrie Trial: Go After Her Real Killers

Reprinted from Pajamas Media
By Lenny Ben-David

Jerusalem — Craig and Cindy Corrie, I welcome you to Israel where, I understand, you plan to bring a civil suit before an Israeli court on March 10 “to put on public record,” the British Guardian wrote, “the events that led to [your] daughter Rachel’s death in March 2003.”

I thank God for the well-being of my children and grandchildren, and I cannot imagine the pain and anger you feel over the loss of your daughter, Rachel.

My sons have served as combat soldiers, and may have actually fought on the very ground where your daughter died. The area was laced with tunnels to smuggle weapons and explosives for use against Israelis. My children are Israelis who ride in buses and eat in pizzerias, and by the grace of God they have been spared attacks by the suicide bombers your daughter championed.

Some may see the irony in your using the courts and the free press of Israel in your attempt to pursue and denounce the nation your daughter loathed. I see the tragedy in your allying with the International Solidarity Movement — the very people and organization who led and, in a sense, really pushed Rachel to her death.

According to news accounts, Israel will permit four of Corrie’s colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) to enter Israel to give testimony on what occurred that day. Actually, I believe it’s a good decision to permit the four into Israel’s jurisdiction where the ISM members could and should be arrested for reckless endangerment, fraud, manslaughter, aiding terrorists, and a host of other charges. The public may also discover who paid for your lawsuit and the expenses of bringing you and ISM witnesses to Israel.

Mr. and Mrs. Corrie, three pictures relating to your daughter are etched in my memory.

The first is a very agonizing photo of your daughter broken and crumpled and bleeding in a Gaza field — with her ISM friends attempting to help her:

(Photo attribution: Right to a Sustainable Future blog)

But I am troubled by the pictures. Who took them? Someone from ISM, according to the organization’s literature. Why wasn’t that person aiding your daughter? (God, I hope they were not posing her for a better shot!) What would motivate a person to not drop everything to help a wounded colleague? Is the ISM hatred of Israel so strong that his first priority was to document the scene? Was Corrie just an expendable foot soldier of an evil organization that used her for the photo-op? Apparently so. Her ISM colleague and handler Joseph Smith, who also goes by the name Joseph Carr, took the picture, actually one of many (!), and later eulogized Rachel with these horrifying words:

The spirit that she died for is worth a life. This idea of resistance, this spirit of resisting this brutal occupying force, is worth anything. And many, many, many Palestinians give their lives for it all the time. So the life of one international, I feel, is more than worth the spirit of resisting oppression.

The second photo is that of a very angry woman surrounded by a mob of children as she burns an American flag at a pro-Saddam Hussein rally:

The rage is palpable. What did she hate more, Israel or the United States? I suspect the former, because she justified the use of terrorism against Israeli civilians. She imbibed the ISM philosophy, as stated by one of its leaders during an interview with Al-Jazeera: “We recognize that violence is necessary and it is permissible for oppressed and occupied people to use armed resistance and we recognize their right to do so.”

That radical belief is clear in a phone message Rachel left you, Cindy, with instructions on how to speak to the press:

Please think about your language when you talk to them. I think it was smart that you’re wary of using the word “terrorism,” and if you talk about the cycle of violence, or “an eye for an eye,” you could be perpetuating the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a balanced conflict, instead of a largely unarmed people against the fourth most powerful military in the world.

Rachel spoke those words in 2003 after Israel had buried 1000 civilians killed in Palestinian suicide bomber attacks.

And the third picture is of your earlier visit to the region to see where your daughter lived and died. You were met and honored by Yasser Arafat.

That is where you should have realized that you daughter was his pawn, another young idealist brainwashed into hating Israel. Arafat regaled in his “shahids,” the suicide bombers who blew up Israeli civilians. The New York Times documented the training of 25,000 Palestinian teens in the summer prior to launching the September 2000 intifada. Your daughter Rachel was another impressionable youth recruited for the Palestinian cause. I’m sure that is hard for you to believe, but read what her ISM buddy Joseph Smith believed:

“We knew there was a risk,” Smith said, “but we also knew it never happened in the two years that we (the ISM) have been working here. I knew we take lots of precautions so that it doesn’t happen, that if it did happen it would have to be an intentional act by a soldier, in which case it would bring a lot of publicity and significance to the cause.”

According to another account:

“Her death serves me more than it served her,” said one activist [unclear if the speaker is an IMS activist or a Hamas activist] at a Hamas funeral. “Going in front of the tanks was heroic. Her death will bring more attention than the other 2,000 martyrs.”

And Corrie herself discussed the possibility of an American activist’s death as a propaganda tool:

"You just can’t imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed U.S. citizen."

Finally, who sent your daughter into Gaza? The International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group, founded in August 2001 by Huwwaida Arraf, Adam Shapiro, Ghassan Andoni, Neta Golan, and George Rishmawi.

In July of 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

Rishmawi said the ISM’s main purpose is to increase international awareness of Palestinian suffering through the involvement of foreign activists, who pay their own way to the West Bank, where they are trained in various methods of nonviolent direct action.

“When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore,” Rishmawi said. “But if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.”

Mr. and Mrs. Corrie, leave Israel with our deep condolences. It may be easier for you to live with the belief that Rachel was an idealistic fighter for peace. Maybe she was, but she was also used as a tool and discarded. ISM actually tried to market her as the “new Anne Frank.” Her life was wasted by a cruel, opportunistic, radical movement for whom the ends justify the means.

Sue them.

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J Street's Position on Gaza Is Worse than First Thought:Their Letter Was Worse than the Cong'l Letter of 54

When I first reported on J Street's support for the 54 Members of Congress who wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to pressure Israel (and nominally Egypt) to lift the blockade on Gaza, I based the report on a newspaper story in the Minnesota Independent. "[The] members of Congress," the paper stated, "as well as a number of religious groups and denominations, have signed on to Ellison’s letter." J Street appeared first on the newspaper's list of organizations.

But there were two very different letters, it turned out. The Congressional letter placed some of the blame for Gaza's plight on Egypt. "The people of Gaza have suffered enormously since the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt following Hamas’ coup," the letter stated. The Members of Congress also conceded that Israel had legitimate security concerns: "We recognize that the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups."

The other letter, written by J Street, several other leftist Jewish organizations, and known anti-Israel organizations, however, placed the onus solely on Israel. "[D]ue to Israel’s policy of severely limiting passage of essential goods and materiel through its crossings, the suffering in Gaza continues.....We urge that your administration use America’s unique relationship with Israel to persuade it to lift the closure of its border crossing with Gaza now."

There is no hint of Israel's legitimate security concerns or Hamas' terrorism.

The J Street letter was co-signed by the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Americans for Peace Now, the Arab American Institute, Churches for Middle East Peace, B’Tselem USA, and Rabbis for Human Rights – North America.

Don't look for the letter on J Street's site. They're afraid people will read it. You can find it on the webpage of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

PS: J Street's Congressional Mission to Israel flaunted its partnership with the Churches for Middle East Peace organization even before it arrived in Israel. The letters requesting meetings bore the logos of J Street's Educational Fund and the CMEP. It's no wonder Israelis were reluctant to meet the total group, and when Israeli officials requested to meet with the Members of Congress alone, they were rebuffed with a response to the effect, "You meet all of us or none of us, and we'll call a press conference."

Charming.

This is what NGO-Monitor says about CMEP: "[S]ome of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel. A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign – as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel."

After taking CMEP to Israel and trying to force this BDS-endorsing organization upon its Israeli hosts, J Street has the chutzpah to post on its website today:

J Street & J Street U Reiterate Opposition to Boycott Divestment Sanctions, “Israel Apartheid Week”

They have no shame.

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