IT'S BEEN QUITE A TRIP SO FAR

Amazingly, we got me to the airport in plenty of time for my flight. After a farewell coffee with The Savtas I was whisked away by wheely driver and left to carry out my cigarrette smuggling plot. I bought 10 cartons, 5 of marlboro light for me and 5 Marlboro red for Jeff. I took the packages apart and stuffed the individual packs into my carry on bags, and they got through!Never mind the 3 cartons in my checked bags-giggles- The only problem was at LaG uardia, where the TSA stole the gifts . That for Jeff and Jonathan. I got to Portland a few minutes after Susie and we got the car and went to the hotel. That was a bit of an adventure! I was headed in the right direction but stopped at a huge place with a huge parking lot in to try to figure it out. A guy in a pick up stopped to ask if we were ok and tried to show us where the hotel was. He was very sweet and found two wrong ones. Then I found the right one quite by accident.
In the morning we went to Jeff's and found it after quite a few wrong turns. I made it up his porch steps but went ass over teakettle trying to get in the door. I landed on our bags and my crutch and burst out laughing. I used the steps to get up and got in. We had a lovely visit with Vicki until Jeff got home. Then the waterworks started. We laughed and cried and told old stories until it was time to head for Brunswick and find a hotel. We stopped at the Comfort Inn-no smoking-grrrrr- and took a room until Sunday. Ok. This coputer is driving me wild. More later.

DELAYED IGNITION

It hit me but a few minutes ago that this Islam over all thing is nothing new. Ever since their prophet decided that Islam must become the universal religion and that all must be governed by Sharia law, they have kept on trying to impose their will on the rest of the world. This has been going on ever since the inception of their religion. Remember the Moors? They made great inroads in Western Europe back in the day, then, got their butts kicked right back to the desert where they belong. And now, a bunch of hundreds of years later, they are at it again. There is something reminiscent of Hitlers Aryan superior race in the whole Islamist thing. I kind of think that maybe Herr Hitler might have taken their idea and honed to fit his blond, blue eyed master race vision.

TRY THIS ON FOR SIZE

I can't quite remember exactly what is was that made me think of this, but I can't quite shake it.Well, I do know what started me thinking about it.
In trying to explain the situation here with the Hamas, several pundits have tried to compare it to the Canadians starting to shoot missiles at the US for no reason. Nope, sorry, wrong analogy. What it *is* most like is the Abenaki, Adroscoggin and Passamaquody and Penobscot tribes banding together and shooting homemade rockets at towns in Maine. Yup. That's it. These days no one disputes that the settlers took land belonging to those and other tribes, usually by force, and there's a long long list of broken treaties, broken by the 'white men' and still not completely honored to this day.
The Arabs have the unfortunate habit of claiming as sacred land, just about every place any Muslim set foot on, with no regard to the facts of the matter.

WAITING FOR THE NEXT TIME

Last week our idiot leaders sent the army into Gaza in the hopes of stopping the kassam and grad katyusha attacks from there.We had a few tense days up here because we knew that it wouldn't be long before katyushas started flying up here.
Yesterday our troops were pulled out of Gaza, having accomplished exactly nothing. Rockets are still flying down south while the Gazans are claiming a major military victory over us. The only victory they has was in media manipulation. As usual, most foreign reports started by saying that we attacked Gaza, and a few added the reason towrds the end, after they'd shown footage of injured Gazans and bombed buildings. Never mind the hundreds of rockets they shot at us, the Israelis they injured and killed, and the property damage and the trashed economy of Sderot. It's just a bunch of stiff necked Jews, after all.
It won't be long before we have to go in and finish the job. When we do, the good folks to the north will join the party with a nicely calligraphed invitation from Achmadinajar.
I can't adequately describe the outrage I fell that we are expected to let them shoot at us whenever they please, tell lie after lie, while we are encouraged to be patient. I wonder what the Spanish would do to the Basque region if the Basques started shooting rockets into Spain proper rather than just planting the odd bomb here and there. Or the Belgians, if their Flemish folk did the same thing? It seems that just the Turks and the Arabs here can get away with it. Who needs Kurds and Jews?
There was a bit of rioting in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Hebron and a few Arab cities inside Israel. Instead of letting them riot, our idiot government should have simply told them all to go home because the kid gloves are coming off and any one still rioting in an hour will be shot. And those who were still there should have been shot,shot to injure, not kill. That's what the Egyptians used to do to rioters, and no one ever said anything to them about it. Of course we'll never do that because it's much more important to show the world that we are better than they are. You don't see nightly news reports of us shooting rockets indescriminately at civilian targets, do you? That's because we don't, even though they'd like you to think that. We don't put women and children in harm's way to use for media manipuplation. They do. When they shoot kassams at Sderot everyone runs for cover, but isn't it at least worth a question that women and children in Gaza are always right where the trouble is, instead of safely at home?
I think I'll just stop here. The injustice upsets me too much.

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:
----------------
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:
---------------------
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:
------------------------
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:
-------------------
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

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?

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.