Palestinian TV - Western funded hate

JPost - Palestianian Media Watch reports:

Would you sign a check for $120 million and hand it over to a former terrorist without carefully supervising what he was doing with your money? That's exactly what Norway, chair of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that co-ordinates international funding to the Palestinian Authority, is doing with its taxpayers' money.

In response to extensive documentation by Palestinian Media Watch about the hate promotion on official Palestinian Authority-Fatah TV, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre recently made a series of statements defending PA TV that indicate he is totally ignorant of its content. Then, to put his money where his misinformed mouth is, he wrote another check for 85 million kroner to the PA under Mahmoud Abbas, whose office controls PA TV.

The Norwegian foreign minister is certainly not evil. Neither are other Europeans. Neither are the Americans, whose recent agreement to give the PA an additional $150 million puts their 2008 aid to the PAat more than $700 million - more than the US pledged at a donors' conference in December 2007.

But these countries throw money at Abbas's feet with such infatuation you'd think he was a clone of Mother Teresa. Unfortunately,if his messages to Palestinian children are any indicator, Abbas seems far more like the clone of his predecessor, the terror lord Yasser Arafat, than a peacemaker.

Defending his Abbas spending spree, Støre said: "This [PA-FatahTV] channel cannot be said to engage in indoctrination of children or denying Israel's right to exist..." and he added his objection to TV being used for "spreading hate or inciting terrorism," which he indicated is not being done by PA TV.

UNFORTUNATELY HE is completely wrong. During the 11 years of PMW's existence, there has never been a period of such intense demonization of Israel, continuous hate promotion and denial of Israel's existence by the PA (Fatah)-controlled media as during the 11months since the Annapolis Conference.

Jews and Israelis are being demonized by the PA through malicious libels - including the lies that Israel intentionally spreads AIDS and drugs among Palestinians, conducts Nazi-like medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners, took Palestinian babies in 1948to bring up as Jews and is planning to destroy the Aksa Mosque. A PA TV"historical" documentary featured hateful fabrications, including videos of dead bodies filmed in Lebanon in 1982 that PA TV falsely presented as evidence of a so-called Israeli "massacre" in 1948. Israelis even said to be breeding supernatural rats to chase Arabs who live in Jerusalem.

As far as recognizing Israel, Abbas's TV is no different than Hamas TV - unequivocally denying Israel's existence and right to exist.Note these recent TV examples in which young Palestinian children were given scripts repeating that Israel from Metulla to Eilat is "occupied Palestine," eventually to be "returned."[...]

AS LONG as PA leaders see the current process as a stage towardthe destruction of Israel, the PA is not worthy of any financial support. The onus is on the PA to prove that it's promoting peace to its own people in Arabic - not just talking peace in English when the cameras are rolling.

Let the world not forget that it was the Palestinian Authority hate machine, funded by the West from 1994 to 2000, that led to the longest systematic terror war in history. At the helm were Yasser Arafat and his close confidant, Mahmoud Abbas. Has Abbas changed since then? While his English voice is peaceful, his voice through his Arabic media is more venomous and hateful than ever.

It is time that the Western funders of the PA be held morally,legally and financially responsible for the terror crimes of the PA,just as the funders of Hamas are being held financially responsible to Hamas terror victims in courts around the world. They are guilty of criminal negligence, and thus are morally responsible for the war and terror yet to be carried out by this generation of PA children, being raised and indoctrinated to hate with US and European money.

I was asked by a journalist after my presentation in parliament if I thought it was right for Norway to interfere with Palestinian freedom of expression. My answer is very straightforward: The Palestinians have the inalienable right to indoctrinate their kids to blind evil and hate, but Norway and the West have the moral obligation to stop paying for it.

Obama - who is he? II

LATimes - Peter Nicholas wrote:

[...] For the last year and a half I've covered the presidentialrace, focusing first on Hillary Clinton, then moving over to Obama.

AfterClinton's defeat in the Iowa caucuses, she decided she needed anemergency reinvention. She began mixing with reporters, sipping a glassof wine late at night in the aisle of her campaign plane andunburdening herself about the state of the race. As her prospectsdimmed, her accessibility grew. Sometimes she was off the record, butyou can't say she wasn't fun.

Not so with Obama. One of thestriking ironies is that a man who draws tens of thousands of people tohis rallies, whose charisma is likened to that of John F. Kennedy, canbe sort of a bore.

Discipline is essential for candidates whowant to drive home a consistent message, or avoid the self-sabotagethat comes with a careless answer. A steely perseverance helps explainwhy Obama at this point stands a better than even chance of becomingthe 44th president. But when you're exposed to the guy 18 hours a day,it's a bit maddening. You want him to loosen up.

I've watchedObama demonstrate a soccer kick to his daughter in Chicago; devour acheesesteak in Philly; navigate a roller rink in Indiana; drive abumper car; and catapult 125 feet in the air on an amusement-park ridecalled "Big Ben." He's done it all with dogged professionalism, butwith little show of spontaneity. After all this time with him, I stillcan't say with certainty who he is.

A couple of images from the long campaign stay with me.

Onewas watching Obama enter an apartment building near his Chicago homefor a morning workout. He wore dark sweats, a gray T-shirt and abaseball cap pulled low over his forehead. In those few seconds it tookhim to walk from the car to the building, with his head down, thin andsolitary, he looked nothing like the adored politician presiding overrallies. It was a reminder that behind the hype and the TV ads is thisone rather vulnerable-looking guy. And in that moment came thequestion: Is he really ready to take over the toughest job on theplanet?

The other was a hot summer afternoon in Iowa. Obamawas flipping burgers at a backyard barbecue, in what the campaign hopedwould be an exquisite photo opportunity. A fly began circling his head.Then more flies. Pretty soon flies were swarming him, the burgers --everything. It was awful to watch. But in rhythmic fashion he beganwaving them off with his hand. He scooped up the burgers and headedback to the picnic table, as if nothing had gone wrong. That smallepisode told me something about Obama's temperament. I would havewanted to fling the grill over the fence in frustration.

Both impressions came from a distance. A cordon of aides ensures nothing more intimate is available to the traveling press. [...]

First Clinton, then John McCain made the argument that Obama is someonewe don't really know. Obama's supporters counter that we have hisrecord in the U.S. and Illinois senates, two memoirs that reveal hisinner thinking and a vast trove of public speaking. Ironically, thoseof us who were sent out to take his measure in person can't offer muchhelp in answering who he is, or if he is ready. The barriers set inplace between us and him were just too great.

Obama - wealth redistribution bombshell

Michelle Malkin reports:

The blogosphere is buzzing about this video posted on YouTube Sunday night. It’s Barack Obama musing about how best to redistribute wealth in America in a Chicago Public Radio interview in 2001.

Not whether, but how: Through the courts or through legislation?

A caller asks The One to explain how he would do “reparative economic work.” Obama gives the legislative route two thumbs up as his preferred method of “breaking free of the constraints” placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution and then burbles about cobbling together the “actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”

Joe The Plumber, you barely scratched the surface:

Obama said the following:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Israelis return - American dream shattered

YNet reported:

Global financial crisis prompts thousands of Israelis living abroad to return to Jewish state. Immigrant Absorption Ministry foresees 15,000 homecomings by end of 2009

The silver lining: The global financial crisis hitting world markets seems to have one favorable effect as far as is Israel concerned, as thousands of Israelis who have been living abroad for the past few years head back to their homeland.

According to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, some 15,000 Israelis are expected to return to the Jewish state by the end of 2009.

The ministry launched a campaign encouraging Israelis living abroad to do just that in August of 2007, as part of the nation's 60th anniversary celebrations, offering a NIS 100 million (about $24 million) incentives package.

"The last few weeks have been crazy," Tali Naveh, who heads New York's Israel House, which tends to New York-based Israelis who wish to return, told Yedioth Ahronoth. "The phone has been ringing off the hook, and not just here, in all of out 10 centers on North America. People here have their American dream shattered."

Some 2,000 Israelis have returned home between August and mid October alone – a 50% rise from the same time last year.[...]

Child abuse - Valas case

YNet reported:

Knesset Member and Jerusalem mayoral hopeful Meir Porush testified Monday before the Jerusalem District Court, on behalf of Israel Valas, an ultra-Orthodox man convicted of killing his three-month-old son.

Porush, along with several other prominent figures in the ultra-Orthodox community, was a character witnessed for the defense, which is trying to convince the court to order a light sentence.

Valas, who was convicted of manslaughter in July, was arrested in April on 2006 on suspicion of abusing and subsequently killing his infant son. His arrest sparked

The defense denied any wrongdoing on Valas' part, but according to doctors' testimony, the baby presented with severe signs cerebral edema, which could only have been caused by someone forcibly shaking him.

"The defendant is a good man, I can't say a bad word about him," said Porush, adding that he was "marked for great things" within the ultra-Orthodox community.

Porush told the court that he has been acquainted with Valas and his family for six years, and that Valas was one of the "finest yeshiva boys" he had ever encountered. Another character witness for the defense was former MK and religious radio personality Israel Eichler. The latter testified he has been helping the family since the young patriarch's arrest, and warned that should he face prison time, it might "bring about the home's destruction and bring about a destruction of the Second Temple."

Other character witnesses included Menachem Porush, MK Porush's father who was a Knesset member for 35 years, and Rabbi Ben-Zion Gutfarb, who heads Valas' alma mater – the Matmidim Yeshiva.

Obama - who is he?

NYTimes reports:
[...]

But in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama would have a new set of deficits.Just 47 years old and only four years into a national political career,he has never run anything larger than his campaign. He began his run for president while he was still getting lost in Washington, a city he does not yet know well. His promises are as vast as his résumé is short, and some of his pledges are competing ones: progressive rule and centrist red-blue fusion; wholesale transformation and down-to-earth pragmatism.

Mr. Obama’s ambition and confidence have long confounded critics and annoyed rivals. In 2006, the still-new United States senator appeared before Washington’s elite at the spring dinner of the storied Gridiron Club, and as tradition dictated, roasted himself. He ticked off the evidence of his popularity: the Democratic convention speech that had won him national celebrity, the best-selling books, the magazine covers.

“Really, what else is there to do?” he said in mock innocence. “Well, I guess I could pass a law or something.”

He passed a few. By the end of the year, he was running for president.[...]

There is little Mr. Obama has controlled more tightly than his own story and message. Just as he was planning his entry into politics, he used “Dreams From My Father” to cast his peripatetic, confusing childhood into a lyrical journey. When he was elected to the United States Senatein 2004, Mr. Obama wrote his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,”laying out his political philosophy. It meant getting only three or four hours of sleep at night, his editor said, but he insisted on writing the entire thing himself’. (He not only read policy books to prepare, but also some of the articles cited in their footnotes.) For his presidential campaign speechwriter, he chose a 26-year-old who describes his job as channeling the thoughts of a boss who already knows what he wants to say.[...]

US attacks Syria - 8 dead

JPost reported:

Syria called the US attack within its borders on Sunday evening a heinous crime and a statement issued by Damascus said the country was reserving the right to respond as it would see fit. Damascus claimed that the four US helicopters that entered Syria attacked an "agricultural farm," Israel Radio reported.

Syrian ambassador to Britain Sami Al Khiyami said he was convinced the US was hunting for terrorists based on false intelligence.

At least eight people were killed when US military helicopters bombed targets in a Syrian border town near Iraq after global jihad operatives allegedly crossed the border into Syria.

The attack, which was not confirmed by the US military, was the first-ever reported American strike on Syria, which called it a"serious aggression."

Iran also condemned the raid, saying on Monday that theviolation of the territorial integrity of any sovereign state was unacceptable.

Israeli defense officials said the incident was not connectedto Israel and confirmed that the American troops had been chasing global jihad suspects in Iraq.

The helicopters then crossed into Syria in pursuit of the terrorists.[...]

A US official, in confirming the raid, said the attack targeted elements of a robust foreign fighter logistics network and that due to Syrian inaction the US was now "taking matters into our own hands."

The US military official said the special forces raid targeted elements of a network that sends fighters from North Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East to Syria, where elements of the Syrian military are in league with al-Qaida and other fighters. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

Syria's Foreign Ministry said it summoned the charges d'affaires of the United States and Iraq to protest the strike.[...]

Obama - Close relationship to ex PLO member

L.A. Times sits on video of Obama toasting radical Jew-basher

By Michelle Malkin • October 25, 2008 11:14 PM

Jim Hoft has the story on the damning video of Barack Obama that the L.A. Times refuses to release.

Writes Jim: “It’s hard to imagine that the LA Times would hold on to a video of Sarah Palin praising an anti-Semitic radical and former PLOoperative…”

Exactly. Guess the reporter doesn’t want to open himself up to the Joe the Plumber treatment.

Akko Yeshiva burnt

YNet reports:

Mass prayer to be held in Akko yeshiva

The Akko police authorised a mass prayer to be held Sunday evening near the Hesder yeshiva that was set on fire over night.

 

Some 400 people are expected to take part in the prayer, and some additional 150 police officers will be patroling the city over the next 24 hours.

Child Abuse - Tzemach Tzedek/ Dr. Klafter comments

The Tzemach Tzedek - the third Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote one of the first teshuvos regarding child abuse. It was included in a list of citation sent to me by jewishwhistleblower from a footnote #33 - by Prof. Marc Shapiro. [New link] The translation is that of Prof. Shapiro. I asked the psychiatrist Dr. Nachum Klafter - who is very familiar with the issue of child abuse as well as the Torah sources - how he understood this teshuva. He has given me permission to post part of his response. He raises a very critical issue regarding child abuse - to what degree is it necessary for poskim to consult with experts in the field? I recently asked a posek why the issue of child abuse is being handled differently now than it was a few years ago. He replied that the poskim are now becoming more informed of the seriousness of the harm to the child.

R. Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (the third Lubavitcher Rebbe) in Tzemah Tzedek, Yoreh Deah, #237, was asked the following question:

A rabbi was playing with a young man on Purim and stuck his hands into the pants of the youth. The rabbi claimed that he did so because he was unable to perform sexually. He thought that this was due to his small testicles and he wanted to see if he was unusual in this regard. In other words, the rabbi was conducting a medical examination on the boy. The Tzemah Tzedek decided that the rabbi should not be removed from his position, as he provided a good explanation for his behavior.

The Chabad web site has the Hebrew original

צמח צדק (סימן רלז): לשו"ע סי' רמ"ו וסי' של"ד סמ"ב. ע"ד החשד שהיה על ההמ"צ דמחניכם ששחק עם נער א' בפורים והכניס ידו לתוך מכנסים של הנער אך נותן אמתלא ע"ז כי [הוא] חשוכי בנים מפני שאין לו ג"א מצד שהביצים שלו קטנים ביותר. ולכן רצה לידע אם כמ"כ הם אצל שארי אנשים:

הנה בירושלמי הביאו בב"י סס"י של"ד ובכ"מ פ"ז מהת"ת זקן שסרח אין מורידין אותו מגדולתו. לפ"ז מ"ש בש"ס שלנו במ"ק (די"ז) הכבד ושב בביתך. אין ר"ל להורידו מגדולתו כלל. והנה צ"ל דהפוסקים פסקו כר"ל דאמר ת"ח שסרח אין מנדין אותו כו'. ופסקו ג"כ כרב יהודה דשמתי' לההוא צורבא מרבנן דהוי סאני שומעני'. ושניהם במ"ק שם. והרי הם זה לעומת זה. הן אמת מדברי הרמב"ם נ' דהחילוק כך דפוסק כרב יהודה כמ"ש בפ"ו מהת"ת בסופו וז"ל חכם ששמועתו רעה ומ"ש רפ"ז מהת"ת אין מנדין היינו דוקא חכם זקן מופלג או אב"ד כו'. וכן מצאתי בב"י סי' של"ד שחילק בכה"ג בד"ה ומ"ש וכן כל ת"ח כו'. אך בטור שם משמע דמחלק בענין אחר והוא דרב יהודה מיירי בסני שומעני' דהיינו מתביישים משמועתו וזה גרע טפי מפני דה"ל חילול השם וכדאיתא ביומא דפ"ו. ומעתה בנד"ז י"ל דה"ל חילול השם. ויש להחמיר להרא"ש. אבל לפ"ד הרמב"ם כיון דהוא כמו אב"ד בעירו וראש העיר אין להעבירו כו'. ועיין בתשו' שער אפרים סי' ס"ד ס"ה. אך בנ"ד שנותן אמתלא טובה על הדבר י"ל דלכ"ע אין להעבירו כלל דאמתלא מהני בגמ' נגד כמה דברים

Dr. Klafter replied:

The Tzemach Tzedek, like all other human beings with no education about child sexual abuse or training in deviant sexuality, has a very limited capacity to imagine how a Rabbi would wish to do this to a boy. It is something which he himself, like all other normal human beings, would not find sexually gratifying or appealing. It is, to the contrary, instinctively horrifying and repugnant to him. Therefore, he is very ready to accept any rationalization or explanation, however implausible, which will allow him to deny the reality of homosexual pedophilia. This same psychological defensive style (which, again, is normal) is also what allows many misguided rabbonim to conclude that a Rebbe with a history of molesting bochurim has "done teshuva" and therefore will no longer be a risk to boys. To poskin that such a rabbi need not be removed from his position, the Tzemach Tzedek should have at least interviewed the victim to find out if he had complained of sexual dysfunction and if he was seeking the accused rabbi's assistance and guidance. If that was not done, it might be a further indication that there was an a priori wish to exonerate the Rabbi which is based on what appears to be a universal tendency to disbelieve, dismiss, and suppress from public awareness allegations of sexual abuse, rather than to take them seriously, investigate them. and implement.

Solutions are often placebos

NYTimes reported:

Half of all American doctors responding to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. The results trouble medical ethicists, who say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work.

The study involved 679 internists and rheumatologists chosen randomly from a national list of such doctors. In response to three questions included as part of the larger survey, about half reported recommending placebos regularly. Surveys in Denmark, Israel, Britain, Sweden and New Zealand have found similar results.

The most common placebos the American doctors reported using were headache pills and vitamins, but a significant number also reported prescribing antibiotics and sedatives. Although these drugs, contrary to the usual definition of placebos, are not inert, doctors reported using them for their effect on patients’ psyches, not their bodies.

In most cases, doctors who recommended placebos described them to patients as “a medicine not typically used for your condition but might benefit you,” the survey found. Only 5 percent described the treatment to patients as “a placebo.”

The study is being published in BMJ, formerly The British Medical Journal. One of the authors, Franklin G. Miller, was among the medical ethicists who said they were troubled by the results.

“This is the doctor-patient relationship, and our expectations about being truthful about what’s going on and about getting informed consent should give us pause about deception,” said Dr. Miller, director of the research ethics program in the department of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. William Schreiber, an internist in Louisville, Ky., at first said in an interview that he did not believe the survey’s results, because, he said, few doctors he knows routinely prescribe placebos.

But when asked how he treated fibromyalgia or other conditions that many doctors suspect are largely psychosomatic, Dr. Schreiber changed his mind. “The problem is that most of those people are very difficult patients, and it’s a whole lot easier to give them something like a big dose of Aleve,” he said. “Is that a placebo treatment? Depending on how you define it, I guess it is.”

But antibiotics and sedatives are not placebos, he said.

The American Medical Association discourages the use of placebos by doctors when represented as helpful.

“In the clinical setting, the use of a placebo without the patient’s knowledge may undermine trust, compromise the patient-physician relationship and result in medical harm to the patient,” the group’s policy states.

Controlled clinical trials have hinted that placebos may have powerful effects. Some 30 percent to 40 percent of depressed patients who are given placebos get better, a treatment effect that antidepressants barely top. Placebos have also proved effective against hypertension and pain.

But despite much attention given to the power of placebos, basic questions about them remain unanswered: Are they any better than no treatment at all? Must people be deceived into believing that a treatment is active for a placebo to work?

Some studies have hinted at answers, but experts say far more work is needed.

Dr. Howard Brody, director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston, said the popularity of alternative medical treatments had led many doctors to embrace placebos as a potentially useful tool. But, Dr. Brody said, doctors should resist using placebos, because they reinforce the deleterious notion that “when something is the matter with you, you will not get better unless you swallow pills.”

Earlier this year, a Maryland mother announced that she would start selling dextrose tablets as a children’s placebo called Obecalp, for “placebo” spelled backward.

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, one of the study’s authors, said doctors should not prescribe antibiotics or sedatives as placebos, given those drugs’ risks. Use of less active placebos is understandable, he said, since risks are low.

“Everyone comes out happy: the doctor is happy, the patient is happy,” said Dr. Emanuel, chairman of the bioethics department at the health institutes. “But ethical challenges remain.”