A Gimps View From The North

My very own space for political rantings and ravings to be kept separate from Gimp House

Friday, February 22

I DARE YOU

I hereby dare the Israeli government to arrest me for having spoken out, speaking out and any future out speaking I might do.
There is no garauntee of free assembly, or free speach in Israel. We don't exactly have a Constitution, do we? And we didn't have a Miranda to give us any rights opun arrest. No one reads anything from a little card for us to waive or not and they can hold us as long as they can get a judge to sign off on it. Oh, and best of all, client-lawyer priveleged conversations doesn't exist here either and they can keep your lawyer (if you can afford one) from visiting you in jail. They've also passed a law requiring disclosing the IP and identity of Israelis who write things against the government. AND THEY DARE CLAIM THAT WE ARE A DEMOCRACY? A MOCKERY I SAY.
Right. I am not going to shut up, especially after this landed in my in box today.

Dear Friends,

Women in Green received this important article from IsraelJustice.com.

Very often, friends of Israel who reside out of Israel, contact us and ask: "what can we do to help Israel?". Below is an email giving you at least one activity all of you can be part of.

Written by a group of Israeli citizens with American citizenship, it is an appeal for U.S constituents to join a network to call their congressman about the arrest of Jewish protesters in Israel.

Please circulate this appeal far and wide.

With Love of Israel,

Ruth and Nadia Matar
Women in Green

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Protecting Our Children
A Plan of Action to Deal with Mass Arrests of Supporters of Israel
by IsraelJustice.com

The Threat:
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, saved by the United States from his domestic rivals in wake of the Winograd Report, is under tremendous pressure to dismantle Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Olmert has promised to help Bush in the U.S. plan to establish a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria by 2009. This will demand the destruction of first the so-called unauthorized outposts, followed by communities established in the early 1970s.

The government offensive has been planned by a triumvirate of Vice Premier Haim Ramon, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter and Justice Minister Daniel Friedman. Friedman's job is crucial as he heads the effort to maintain a legal system meant to quickly stifle peaceful protest against the government plan. As a result, Friedman and his chief aide, Shai=- Nitzan, are preparing a crackdown on all dissent, including a ban on assembly, speech, movement and prayer in holy sites. The government has introduced new laws to prosecute political dissent on the Internet and cellular phones while building new prisons to handle the thousands of demonstrators expected to be arrested under the crackdown.

The Timetable:
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Olmert has sought to delay the offensive against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria . But he has become more vulnerable than ever, given the growing threat to Israel from Iran , Syria and the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, which he believes would require increased support by and coordination with Washington . Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been meeting with Israeli officials and demanding that steps be taken in early 2008 that would lead to a Palestinian state.

The Experience:
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The Olmert government, and its predecessor, Ariel Sharon, have singled out Jewish supporters of Israel for special punishment. The feeling is that punishing Jewish dissidents, particularly residents of Judea and Samaria as well as their supporters, generates support from the governments of the United States , the European Union as well as their clients among the Israeli Left. Olmert and Sharon have pointed to the crackdown on the Jewish residents of the territories as proof of his willingness to take political risks to satisfy the international community.

As a result, the government has refused appeals to pardon the thousands of Jews arrested prior and during the Israeli expulsion of Jews from their homes in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria in 2005. The prosecution has refused to close the more than 700 indictments that stem from those cases. Today, Jewish minors, particularly girls, are held for months without charges because they refuse to cooperate with authorities. In all of the cases, the defendants were not accused of violent offenses. In January, several people were grabbed off the streets of Jerusalem for talking to foreign journalists during the visit by President Bush and charged with sedition.

Experience has shown that the politicians are either afraid of Olmert and the police. Indeed, many Knesset members are threatened by police investigations or scandal that could turn into indictments at any time. The major print media, with interests in government-controlled companies, have ignored the Jews. Even Israeli human rights organizations, financed by the European Union and U.S. foundations to defend Arabs, have refused to become involved. Members of the organized Jewish community in the United States have feared to speak out because they do not want to be seen as opposing an Israeli government propped up by Bush.

The Proposal:
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Some Americans in Israel -- whose children or friends have been among the detainees -- have found one pressure point on the Olmert government that actually works: telephone calls from members of Congress or their staffers to the Israel Embassy in Washington to request information about Jewish protesters arrested in peaceful demonstrations. Within hours, these detainees have been released from Israeli police custody.

We would like to help build a network in the United States that would expand on this success. The network of supporters of Jewish rights in Israel would demand accountability for those arrested or beaten by police in peaceful demonstrations, including attempts to pray at holy places.

The network would have two channels: One channel would focus on grassroots support; the other on political activists who have access to members of the House and Senate. The network, designed to generate constituency complaints, would encourage members of Congress to question the Israel Embassy in Washington and perhaps even the State Department to clarify alleged human rights violations of Jews. Supporters of this initiative would not need to take any position on the future of Judea and Samaria -- merely to call on Israel to account for reports of police brutality, arrest without charges and refusal to release Jews on bail for non-violent protests.

We are hoping to build this network so that we can stop the impending Olmert offensive against the Jews in the coming weeks. We urge you to help us establish this network or set up your own pressure group. As few as five people per congressional district willing to telephone a member of Congress can make a difference.

The prospect of turning to the U.S. political system to intervene is something we don't relish. But we have to face facts: Olmert, whose approval ratings have approached zero, has survived purely because of the Bush administration and its hopes that the prime minister will unilaterally withdraw from Judea and Samaria and establish a Palestinian state over the next year. Indeed, when Bush visited Israel in January, Olmert called the U.S. president "my confidante."

Our goal is to deter Olmert from draconian measures meant to destroy the Jewish community in Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem . A network that monitors the arrests of Jews, particularly Americans, and asks members of Congress to seek clarification could buy valuable time. It could also move American Jewish leaders to quietly warn Olmert that he cannot continue to trample on Jewish rights without a backlash from American Jews and their supporters in Congress. Every Jew who is released is a Jew redeemed one of the most important mitzvot in the Torah. Can anything be more important?

Please send comments, suggestions or offers to be part of this network to pidionshvuim@gmail.com


=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

Saturday, February 16

IT'S OUR FAULT EVEN WHEN IT ISN'T

No matter what happens in this area of the world it's our fault no matter what it was and the worse it was, the more it's our fault.Someone found a way to put a bomb in the headrest of Mughniyeh's seat in his jeep and blow him up. Even before all the pieces of that jeep landed in the street they were accusing us of doing it. I don't know if we did or didn't do it. If we did, it would be a good idea to keep quiet about it. Deny deny deny. I think we didn't do it. From what I've seen on the news, it could only have been either the Lebanese, Syrians or Iranians. Their operatives have been using car bombs to great effect recently in Lebanon and have access to Damascus. There's also the fact that a video of the blast appeared from Iran. The Lebanese have obvious reasons for doing it, the Syrians might have wanted to send a message, and the Iranians as well.
I don't know who did it, or why, but I suspect the Syrians and Iranians were in it together. Maybe to give themselves and others to something else to blame Israel for?

Friday, February 8

NOW HERE'S AND INTERESTING TID BIT

I've known for years that there is no such thing as a Palestinian People. What I never realized until reading it at another Israeli blogger's site is that most of the Gazans are in fact of Egyptian decent and not just from a bunch of different Arab countries. They came here in the 30s and 40s to get jobs with the Jewish builders because things were so bad back in Egypt in those days that they decided to try their luck here. Whole tribes of families made the move and for the most part bettered their standard of living beyond their wildest dreams. Then, along came the radical agitators like Arafart and others of ilk who went to work convincing them that they deserve more, and are in fact a separate people when they are not. Now we have the thugs of Hamas doing their best to destroy Israel with the help of Olmert, Barak, Peres and Beilin. And nobody gets it. It just sails right over everyone's head. We forced our own out of their homes and businesses in Gaza, gave it all to the PA which promptly started firing rockets at Sderot and other places in the Negev while destroying any and everything we left behind that might have been useful for them, all the while blaming us for all their problems. Sorry. I'm not buying it. It is not our fault that they allowed their leaders to brainwash them. It is not our fault that they shoot rockets at civilian populations. They shoot at our civilians and yell that they will retaliate if we take out the shooters. Then, when we say we're going to cut off the electricity we supply them, but they don't pay for, they go and organize candlelight protests before we do anything. On the other hand, if an Israeli has trouble paying their electrickery bill they get cut off without so much as a "Sorry".
Recently they decided that they'd go shopping in Egypt and knocked down the fence between Gaza and Egypt, crossed over and wreaked havoc on the Egyptian towns closest to the crossing. Does anyone doubt that there are more than several of them over there just waiting to pull off some more attacks inside Israel like the one in Dimona last week. There is also no doubt that they brought in new and better weapons to use against us from their newly discovered underground firing positions. The picture on this morning's news were blood chilling.
While what the Hamas is doing to us is bad enough, what they are doing to their own is much worse. They have taken people who came here to make a living and improve their lives for themselves and their families and brainwashed, threatened and bullied them to become what is today one of the most violent, corrupt, and yes evil people on earth today, who are encouraged to send their children to be human bombs against the very people who allowed them the opportunity to get ahead.
And no one outside of Israel, and very few inside, can see it. Let there be no doubt about it. They will do the same the rest of the world (you) after they finish us off.