Arab propaganda war against Israel

YNET reports:

From the outset of Operation Cast Lead, a narrative that is highly disturbing for Israelis and Jews has emerged in the Arab world. "Israel carries out mass extermination," Hamas and Islamic Brotherhood spokesmen scream out on Arab satellite networks, and especially on al-Jazeera.

"Collective punishment, genocide, Holocaust," these same spokesmen cry out, with photos of dismembered bodies in the wake of Air Force attacks posted in the backdrop. These are charged words, yet it is precisely what speakers are trying to achieve: They wish to show the world that Israel has replaced Nazi Germany. Those are not slips of the
tongue, but rather, a deliberate argument that is repeated time and again.

From early on in the war, a dual and often contradictory narrative had been created by various Arab media outlets. Yet despite the contradictions, it appears many Arabs accept it: On the one hand, Israel is portrayed as a Nazi state and a mass exterminator of defenseless civilians, while the world remains silent. Yet on the other hand, "Palestinian resistance fighters" are said to pulverize Israel mercilessly, with the IDF said to conceal its casualties. [...]

Norwegian doctor in Gaza - Apologist for Hamas

Fox News:

A high-profile Norwegian doctor who has said the September 11 terrorists were justified in their attack is now treating patients in Gaza and is being accused of presenting "hard-core propaganda" to TV interviewers in his telling of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.

Dr. Mads Gilbert has become an unofficial advocate of the Palestinian cause, his critics say.

International media reports, including those from the BBC, CBS, CNN and FOX’s sister station Sky News, present Gilbert as an ordinary doctor.

But a look at his record shows that Gilbert, 61, is a political activist and member of the Norwegian Maoist "Red" party, and he has been involved in solidarity work for the Palestinians since the 1970s. He has criticized the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders for refusing to take sides in conflicts.

Gilbert volunteers at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza with the Norwegian Aid Committee (NORWAC), an aid organization funded by the Norwegian government, and he has been interviewed by the media on a variety of issues. Israeli government officials have said Hamas hides weapons in the hospital where Gilbert works.[...]

Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in America

To all dear Jews concerned about their fellow-Jews in this time of distress:

In light of the current situation, in which thousands of Jews in the Holy Land are in danger due to the attacks of the enemy, we regard it as proper to strongly emphasize the obligation on us all to awaken ourselves in prayer, to ask for Divine mercy for our dear brethren and to increase our charity and good deeds for the protection of the remnant of Yisroel from any and all harm. We should intensify the practice of reciting chapters 83, 130 and 142 of Tehillim each day, and fervently pour out our hearts in the prayer - Vehu Rachum' said on Monday and Thursday mornings and in the blessing of -Hashkiveinu in Ma'ariv, where we ask Hashem to -spread upon us Your tent of peace' and conclude -the Guardian of His nation Yisroel forever."

May Hashem in His abundant mercy and kindness shield His nation and heritage, release them from all straits, and take us from darkness to light and from subjugation to redemption. Amen, may it be His will.

8 Teves, 5769 [forwarded by RaP]

Hamas - Rejoicing in Palestinian suffering

NYTimes reports:

The emergency room in Shifa Hospital is often a place of gore and despair. On Thursday, it was also a lesson in the way ordinary people are squeezed between suicidal fighters and a military behemoth.

Dr. Awni al-Jaru, 37, a surgeon at the hospital, rushed in from his home here, dressed in his scrubs. But he came not to work. His head was bleeding, and his daughter’s jaw was broken.

He said Hamas militants next to his apartment building had fired mortar and rocket rounds. Israel fired back with force, and his apartment was hit. His wife, Albina, originally from Ukraine, and his 1-year-old son were killed.

“My son has been turned into pieces,” he cried. “My wife was cut in half. I had to leave her body at home.” Because Albina was a foreigner, she could have left Gaza with her children. But, Dr. Jaru lamented, she would not leave him behind.

A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.

“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.

He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”

A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

Beis Din vs. Dina de Malchusa /HAFTR

RaP wrote:

(Here's a story about a Bais Din and Din Torah that has nothing to do with conversions, altho it has similarities in that like Rabbi Tropper and EJF who ignored the pleas of the Bais Din Tzedek of the Eidah Hachareidis, it is a zilzul of a Bais Din, and it goes further by landing up in gentile arka'os (courts), a very grievous matter in Halacha:)

Question: When a Din Torah clashes with "Dina de Malchusa" in the form of a secular court's counter-verdict, what does one do?

Or: Who took this case to to non-Jewish court after it was already adjucated, and why? Does the Bais Din have the power to put in cherem the person who took the Bais Din to a secular court?

If anyone has the answers to these questions, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

Here is the story, that is both fascinating and foreboding:

From:
The Jewish Star Also reported in Vos Iz Nei'as

"Beit Din decision overturned

NYS Supreme Court calls verdict on HAFTR teacher ‘irrational’

By Michael Orbach

Issue of Jan. 9, 2009 / 13 Teves 5769

The New York State Supreme Court has overturned a decision by the Beth Din of America, shocking both the rabbinical and civil legal communities. In a Dec. 18 decision, Justice Bruce M. Balter of Kings Country Supreme Court found that a verdict concerning a teacher at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway, rendered by the beit din, was “irrational” and “violative of public policy.”

Left unappealed, the ruling could impact future beit din verdicts.

The case concerns a rebbe named Nachum Brisman. He began teaching at HAFTR in 1991 and was let go at the end of the 2005 academic year due to differences in hashkafa (religious outlook) with the school. He had received tenure over the course of his employment, though tenure was canceled school-wide in 2005. A din Torah (trial) before a panel consisting of Rabbi Mordechai Willig of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun of Teaneck, and Rabbi Ronald Warburg found in Brisman’s favor and awarded him $50,000 in back pay. The beit din also doubled his salary to $100,000, reinstated his tenure and ruled that any future termination of Brisman must go through the beit din itself even though the original arbitration agreement granted such jurisdiction for just one year.

Marvin Neiman, Brisman’s lawyer, stressed the nature of the compromise.

“It was a good compromise because it made everyone unhappy,” Neiman told The Jewish Star. He also explained that the beit din salary award was lower than Brisman’s total 2005 compensation which, according to Neiman, was mainly built through overtime.

A HAFTR official said that the school would have no comment about a pending legal matter.

While Neiman believed that HAFTR would honor the beit din’s decision, he sought to confirm the award with the New York State Supreme Court, which is a common step after arbitration. The overturning of an arbitration verdict is relatively rare and considered unusual.

While arbitration verdicts are not enforceable, the decisions are given weight in court. According to a 2006 precedent, an arbitration decision cannot be vacated, even if there is a factual error in the case, unless there is a suspicion of fraud, irrationality, or a harm to public policy. There is no suspicion of fraud in the case. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court refused to confirm the verdict.

Justice Balter found that the decision should be voided on the grounds that the decision was irrational, the beit din specifically went beyond its enumerated authority and that the verdict violated public policy.

The decision was irrational on two counts, Balter found. [...]

Economics - Return to Keynes

Wall Street Journal : [See also WSJ here] [referred by Jersey Girl]

The U.S. and dozens of other nations are returning to massive government spending as a recession fighter. It's not because they're sure it'll do the trick. It's because they're running low on options and desperate for tools -- even old ones -- to fight the global downturn.

Around the world, interest rates have been slashed and trillions of dollars have been committed to bailouts. But the global recession is deepening anyway. So policy makers are invoking the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes (pronounced "canes"), who argued that governments should fight the Great Depression in the 1930s with heavy spending. With consumer and business spending so weak, he argued, governments had to boost demand directly.

Drama was a Keynes tool. During a 1934 dinner in the U.S., after one economist carefully removed a towel from a stack to dry his hands, Mr. Keynes swept the whole pile of towels on the floor and crumpled them up, explaining that his way of using towels did more to stimulate employment among restaurant workers.

Keynesian policies fell out of favor in the 1970s, as government spending was blamed for helping to spur inflation around the world. But with the global economic turmoil being compared to the 1930s, government spending is once again back in vogue.

"The situation is so severe that we're all Keynesians again -- Keynesians in the foxhole," says Martin Baily, a former Clinton White House economist at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. "It really is such a difficult time that we're going to need to use whatever ammunition we have." [...]

HaRav Sternbuch - Understanding Gaza

Fear of Moslems costs JetBlue $240,000

CNN reports:

JetBlue Airways and two TSA screeners will pay $240,000 to settle an Iraqi man's claim he was denied access to a flight until he covered a T-shirt that read in English and Arabic, "We Will Not be Silent."

In the settlement, JetBlue and the TSA screeners deny any wrongdoing, saying they only wanted to resolve the 2½-year-old federal lawsuit.

But Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi who immigrated to the United States three years ago, cast the settlement as a victory, saying the payout would discourage airlines and airport security officials from imposing restrictions in the future.

ACLU attorney Aden Fine, who represented Jarrar, also called it a victory. "A $240,000 award should send a clear and strong message to all TSA officials and to all airlines that what happened here is wrong and should not happen again," he said.

The TSA screeners -- Garfield Harris and Franco Trotta -- declined comment, referring questions to their attorneys, who also declined comment, and the TSA.

TSA spokesman Christopher White, while noting that the TSA was not a party to the suit, said "There is absolutely no intention to take disciplinary action against the employees involved."

The incident occurred August 12, 2006 -- two days after the United Kingdom revealed a plot to bomb planes to the United States had been foiled. In response, the United States imposed a ban on carry-on liquids, and raised the threat level at airports.

Jarrar, now 30, said he was attempting to travel on JetBlue flight 101 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Oakland, California, when he was approached by TSA officers. The officers told him he'd have to cover his T-shirt.

"When I asked why, one of the TSA officers said, 'Coming into an airport while wearing a T-shirt with Arabic letters on it was equivalent to going into a bank while wearing a shirt saying, 'I am a robber,' " Jarrar said.

Jarrar said he originally refused to cover up the shirt, first asking to speak to a supervisor, and asking if there was a law prohibiting Arabic shirts.

"I said, 'I think as a U.S. resident and taxpayer, I think it's my constitutional right [to express myself],' " said Jarrar, adding the T-shirt's message was not threatening.

Jarrar said he finally relented when it became obvious he couldn't get on the plane without complying. [...]

Hamas wins by being defeated

Time Magazine

Israel says its military offensive in Gaza has dealt Hamas a heavy blow, but that's not how the leaders of the radical Palestinian group see it. Their view is based more on a kind of jujitsu that uses Israel's military momentum against its own political objectives than on any serious belief in rhetoric about the organization's "steadfast" fighters being able to "crush" the invaders.

Israel had long assumed that Hamas wanted a ground invasion so it could land some blows on the Israeli military in order to claim a propaganda victory once the Israelis inevitably withdrew. Still, by entering Gaza on Saturday, the Israelis calculated that they could draw Hamas into clashes that would substantially weaken the organization, even if Israel suffered some casualties. But despite the ferocity of the fighting that rages in some parts of Gaza, there are indications that Hamas is keeping many of its best fighters out of the direct path of the advancing Israelis. Israeli military officials have noted that resistance has not been as fierce as expected, and that most Israeli soldiers wounded in the operation thus far have been struck by mortar rounds fired from a considerable distance. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel in a symbolic taunt to the Israeli public. (See pictures of Israel's sweep into Gaza.)

So what's Hamas' game?

The militant group is operating on a belief that Israel's assault cannot be sustained in the face of growing international pressure for a cease-fire. In fact, Hamas believes it is winning the political battle, as images of the horrors being suffered by the Palestinian civilian population flash around the world. And it wants to ensure the survival of as much of its military and organizational capabilities as possible so as to best profit from an eventual truce. [...]

Palestinian protest in Florida - Call for ovens for Jews

Fox News:

[...] Most of the chants were run-of-the-mill; men and women waving Palestinian flags called Israel's invasion of Gaza a "crime," while the pro-Israel group carried signs calling the Hamas-run territory a "terror state."

But as the protest continued and crowds grew, one woman in a hijab began to shout curses and slurs that shocked Jewish activists in the city, which has a sizable Jewish population.

"Go back to the oven," she shouted, calling for the counter-protesters to die in the manner that the Nazis used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

"You need a big oven, that's what you need," she yelled. [...]

Lithuanian Charedi Mitnagdim pronunciation

Frank from France sent the following request

Hi,

I've discovered your great website while searching some informations about hebrew pronunciation and different questions about minhagim, As I've noticed your great culture in those subjects I'd like to submit you some questioning I have.

I'm interested in Lithuanian Haredi Mitnaggim movement and great rav like rav Shach, rav Elyachiv, etc. and references like Chafetz Chaim, Chazon Ish, etc. My search is about their practice : hebrew pronunciation, minhag, nusach, siddur, halacha, etc.

I'd like you to clarify myself on those points :

Pronunciation, is this movement pronouncing like this : Boroukh Ato Adey-noy Eleyheynou Melekh Hoeylom Asher Kiddéshonou Bémitsveysov Vétzivonou ... ? cholam=tzerer= 'ey' like in 'veined', also I have read that some pronounce shin like sin and sin like shin not sure who is concerned...

I'm not sure this theoretical pronunciation is still respect in Israel because I didn't always recognize them while listening to some rav shach or rav elyachiv brachot also I have read many arguying about how to pronounce the holam for example, as in your website "R' Schach ruled that the vowel holam should davka be pronounced with a yud sound at the end," so lithuanian (so rav shach) pronounce 'ey' but he says to pronounce 'oy' ? same for the Vilna Gaon saying we should pronounce it like a long o (sounds 'ou' like in 'you' ?) how do the lithuanian Haredi Mitnaggim define the correct hebrew pronunciation ? and paradoxically is it different from what they actually do ?

siddur, what siddur (daily use) are they using ? classic ashkenazim siddur ? or siddur ha-gra ? other ? does an artscroll classic ashenaz siddur fit ?

nusach : does they have a melody while praying ? I read somewhere they are just talking not singing in every days prayers

halacha : is the mishnah berurah their actual authority or is there other texts ?


many thanks & best regards

Frank (from France excuse my english please)