44 Haredim want Separate Sidewalks for Men and Women

(1) Israel Lobby uses VP Biden against Obama
(2) Haredim want Separate Sidewalks for Men and Women
(3) Stores In Jerusalem Introduce Separate Entrances For Men And Women
(4) Chief IDF rabbi: Army magazine shouldn't feature homosexuality
(5) Gilad Atzmon: Fake Jewish Tolerance vs Vile Israeli Aggression
(6) Bob Dylan Makes Christmas Album
(7) Israel's Central Bank purchases Dollars to keep Shekel down

(1) Israel Lobby uses VP Biden against Obama

From: World View <ummyakoub@yahoo.com> Date: 09.08.2009 04:03 PM

The Biden and Clinton Mutinies

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

July 31 - August 2, 2009

http://counterpunch.com/cockburn07312009.html

Time bombs tossed seemingly casually in the past month by his vice president and his secretary of state disclose president Obama, in the dawn of his first term, already the target of carefully meditated onslaughts by senior members of his own cabinet.

At the superficial level Obama is presiding over an undisciplined administration; on a more realistic and sinister construction, he is facing mutiny, publicly conducted by two people who only a year ago were claiming that their qualifications to be in the Oval Office were far superior to those of the junior senator from Illinois .

The great danger to Obama posed by Biden's and Clinton's "time bombs" (a precisely correct description if we call them political, not diplomatic time bombs) is not international confusion and ridicule over what precisely are the US government's policies, but a direct onslaught on his presidency by a domestic Israeli lobby that is so out of control that it renders ridiculous Obama's puny attempt to stop settlements--or to curb Israeli aggression in any other way.

Take Joe Biden. Three weeks ago he gave Israel the green light to bomb Iran, only to be swiftly corrected by his boss. At the time it seemed yet another, somewhat comical mile marker in a lifetime of gaffes, perpetrated in the cause of self-promotion and personal political advantage.

But Biden's subsequent activities invite a darker construction. In the immediate aftermath of Obama's Moscow visit, the air still soft with honeyed words about a new era of trust and cooperation, Biden headed for Ukraine and Georgia, harshly ridiculing Russia as an economic basket case with no future. In Tbilisi he told the Georgian parliament that the U.S. would continue helping Georgia "to modernize" its military and that Washington "fully supports" Georgia's aspiration to join NATO and would help Tbilisi meet the alliance's standards. This elicited a furious reaction from Moscow, pledging sanctions against any power rearming Georgia.

Georgia could play a vital, enabling role, in the event that Israel decides to attack Iran's nuclear complex. The flight path from Israel to Iran is diplomatically and geographically challenging. On the other hand, Georgia is perfectly situated as the take-off point for any such raid. Israel has been heavily involved in supplying and training Georgia's armed forces. President Saakashvili has boasted that his Defense Minister, Davit Kezerashvili and also Temur Yakobashvili , the minister responsible for negotiations over South Ossetia, lived in Israel before moving to Georgia, adding "Both war and peace are in the hands of Israeli Jews."

On the heels of Biden's shameless pandering in Tbilisi, Secretary of State Clinton took herself off to Thailand for an international confab with Asian leaders and let drop to a tv chat show that "a nuclear Iran could be contained by a U.S. `defense umbrella,'" actually a nuclear defense umbrella for Israel and for Egypt and Saudi Arabia too.

The Israel lobby has been promoting the idea of a US "nuclear umbrella" for some years, with one of its leading exponents being Dennis Ross, now in charge of Middle Eastern policy at Obama's National Security Council. In her campaign last year Clinton flourished the notion as an example of the sort of policy initiative that set her apart from that novice in foreign affairs, Barack Obama.

From any rational point of view the "nuclear umbrella" is an awful idea, redolent with all the gimcrack theology of the high cold war era, about "first strike", "second strike", "stable deterrence" ,"controlled escalation" and "mutual assured destruction", used to sell US escalations in nuclear arms production, from Kennedy and the late Robert McNamara("the Missile Gap") to Reagan ("Star Wars").

Indeed, as one Pentagon veteran remarked to me earlier this week, "the Administration's whole nuclear stance is turning into a cheesy rerun of the Cold War and Mutually Assured Destruction, all based on a horrible exaggeration of one or two Iranian nuclear bombs that the Persians may be too incompetent to build and most certainly are too incompetent to deliver."

The Biden and Clinton "foreign" policy is: 1) to recreate the same old Cold War (with a new appendage, the US versus Iran nuclear confrontation) for the same old reasons: to pump up domestic defense spending; and 2) to continue sixty years of supporting Israeli imperialism for the same reasons that every president from Harry to Dubya (perhaps barring Ike) did so: to corner Israel lobby money and votes. Regarding the latter, Obama did the same by grabbing the Chicago-based Crown and Pritzker family money very early in his campaign and by making Rahm Emanuel his very first appointment (the two are hardly unrelated).

So right from the start Obama was already an Israel lobby fellow traveler. The Mitchell appointment and the toothless blather about settlements were simply cosmetic, bones tossed to the increasing proportion of the American electorate that's grossed out by the ethnic cleansing of the Arabs from the Holy Land. Obama does have a coherent strategy: keep the defense money flowing and increasing, but without making so much noise as the older generation did about ancient Cold War enemies (e.g. Russia and Cuba). The F-22 -- to date, the one and only presidential issue on which he's shown any toughness at all -- is in no sense a departure from keeping the money flowing, since he is indeed increasing the defense budget, in part by using the F-22 cancellation to push spending on the even worse F-35 and to hide his acquiescence to all the other pork in the Congressional defense budget.

The window for any new president to impose a decisive change in foreign policy comes in the first three months, before opposition has time to solidify. Obama squandered that opportunity, stocking his foreign policy team with tarnished players such as Ross. As the calculated indiscretions of Biden and Clinton suggest, not to mention the arrogance of Netanyahu and his political associates, the window of opportunity has closed.

Would it have been that hard to signal a change in course? Not really. Obama could have excited the world by renouncing the Bush administration's assertion, in the "National Defense Strategy of the United States" of 2002 -- preserved in its essence in ensuing years -- of the right and intention of the United States to preëmptively attack any country "at the time, place, and in the manner of our choosing." As William Polk, the State Department's middle east advisor in the Kennedy era, wrote last year: "As long as this remains a valid statement of American policy, the Iranian government would be foolish not to seek a nuclear weapon."

But Obama, surrounded with Clinton-era veterans of NATO expansionism and, as his Accra speech indicated, hobbled with an impeccably conventional view of how the world works, is rapidly being overwhelmed by the press of events. He's bailed out the banks. He's transferred war from Iraq to Afghanistan. The big lobbies know they have him on the run.

Hence Biden and Clinton's mutinies, conducted on behalf of the Israel lobby and designed to seize administration policy as Obama's popularity weakens. When the results of the latest Rasmussen presidential poll were published, showing Obama's declining numbers, there were news reports of cheering in Tel Aviv. And remember two useful guiding principles: first, it is impossible to overestimate the vanity of politicians, particularly of Joe Biden. Maybe he secretly entertains some mad notion of challenging Obama in 2012, propelled by Israel Lobby money withheld from Obama. Maybe Bill is reminding HRC that he reached the White House in 1992 partly because the Israel lobby turned against George Bush Sr. Second principle: there is no such thing as foreign policy, neither in democratic governments nor in dictatorships. As Thalheimer's Law* decrees. All policy is domestic.

(2) Haredim want Separate Sidewalks for Men and Women

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/08/haredim-want-separate-sidewalks-for-men-and-women-345.html

Women ordered to walk on the opposite side of the street. ==

Jerusalem: Haredim bring segregation to the street

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3759554,00.html

Group of Neturei Karta activists tour capital's ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods on Friday, call on men and women to use separate sidewalks

Ari Galahar • Ynet Published: 08.10.09, 19:06

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3667208,00.html

A group of ultra-Orthodox men took to the streets of the haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem last Friday and called on the public to adhere to a complete separation between men and women in certain areas of the city.

    The activists toured the streets near Geula neighborhood in taxicabs and announced, using  megaphones that on some streets men and women should walk on opposite sides of the road during the weekend.

    According to a resident of the neighborhood, Avraham Cohen, those responsible for the initiative belong to the extremist Neturei Karta stream. "The leading rabbis of the ultra-Orthodox public do not support this initiative," he said. "This group decided to on their own accord go into the neighborhoods and set new modesty codes."
    
    However, eyewitnesses said that although the segregation had not been sanctioned by prominent spiritual authorities, most passersby heeded the call last Saturday. "During the noon hours when women go out for a stroll and the men go to the synagogue, men and women walked on different sidewalks," one resident said.

    But the same level of separation was reportedly not observed on the busy Friday, when the streets are regularly packed with crowds.

(3) Stores In Jerusalem Introduce Separate Entrances For Men And Women

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/02/stores-in-jerusalem-introduce-separate-entrances-for-men-and-women.html

J'lem: Stores to introduce sex segregation

After popular Jerusalem store institutes separation ahead of Tu B'Shvat, haredi sources estimate more businesses will follow suit

Uri Gilhar, Ynet

Published: 02.06.09, 09:35

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3667208,00.html

Last week, a popular nuts and seeds store at the Bucharim neighborhood in Jerusalem declared it plans to institute separation between men and women shoppers ahead of the Tu B'Shvat holiday during which dried fruit sales are on the rise.

The owners of Pitzuchei Mizrahi said they would arrange separate entrances for men and women, after they were recommended to do so by a kashrut supervisor.

He advised them to prevent a situation whereby men and women customers unintentionally touch each other during the busy shopping hours when the store is crowded.

Not all residents of the neighborhood welcomed the idea, which to some seemed "radical and exaggerated." But one resident, Avi, said that in his view "it would be more pleasant if on these busy days there is separation at the store and men don't rub against women."

The decision was widely lauded by leaders of the Haredi Community, who issued notices supporting the store's new policy, which they said falls in line with Halachic principles.

Sources in the ultra-Orthodox public believe that other businesses in the capital will follow suit.

(4) Chief IDF rabbi: Army magazine shouldn't feature homosexuality

By Anshel Pfeffer and Jonathan Lis • Haaretz

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/08/idf-chief-rabbi-army-magazine-should-not-report-on-homosexuality-234.html

IDF chief rabbi: Army magazine shouldn't cover gays

Last update - 17:11 10/08/2009 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106488.html

Chief Israel Defense Forces Rabbi Brigadier General Avihai Ronski recently voiced harsh criticism against a series of features in the army's weekly magazine Bamahane revolving around gay officers serving in the IDF.

    In a letter addressed to the army's personnel department and to the education corps Ronski wrote that homosexuality was not an appropriate topic for a publication that reflects the IDF's way of life.

    Ronski's main gripe was with a particular interview with Major Yehoshua Gortler, a religious, declared homosexual. In the interview, Gortler described his life as a religious Jew and a gay man.

    Ronski received a reply to his complaint, stating that the magazine reflects the way of life of all IDF soldiers, including the homosexual ones.

    The IDF spokesperson's unit also issued a response to Ronski's complaint, stating that "the IDF assigns soldiers to posts based on military needs and the soldiers' personal abilities, not based on their sexual orientation or their gender. Any statement to the contrary represents personal opinion and not official IDF policy."

    This was not the first time that the magazine Bamahane was at the center of controversy over coverage of homosexual IDF officers. In 2001, the IDF personnel department shut the magazine down for two weeks after it featured an article about a homosexual officer who came out of the closet.

    Police widen probe of Haredi soldier who threatened gays

    The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Sunday remanded Shmuel Primarik, who was arrested on suspicion of posting threats on a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Internet forum, for three days.

    Police say that Primarik, a soldier in the ultra-Orthodox Nahal Haredi unit, confessed to authoring posts saying "more serious attacks are expected against the gays; don't say you didn't know about it." The messages were posted on Saturday night, shortly before a Tel Aviv rally commemorating the victims of the previous week's shooting attack on an LGBT support center. Primarik was arrested in Jerusalem later that night.

    Though his personal weapon and ammunition have been confiscated, police stressed Sunday that he is not suspected of posting explicit murder threats. They also said he has cooperated with his investigators.

    Nevertheless, police sources said, Primarik's arrest was "very important," and they are now looking into whether he was involved in a long list of other homophobic attacks, including several bombs set off to protest Jerusalem Gay Pride parades in previous years. They are also examining whether he was involved in other attacks that they suspect were perpetrated by right-wing religious extremists, such as that on Prof. Zeev Sternhell, who was slightly injured by a pipe bomb placed at his door almost a year ago. However, no connection to Primarik has as yet been found.

    Police sources also said they are examining possible connections between these cases and last week's attack on the LGBT center.

    However, they refused to explain why Primarik's arrest for posting online threats sparked such an extensive investigation.

    In addition to extending Primarik's remand, Judge Arnon Darel denied his request for a gag order on his identity. "The public interest in publishing his identity is obvious, considering the recent murder in Tel Aviv, as are the needs of the investigation," Darel wrote.

    The LGBT center shooting was preceded by many less serious homophobic attacks. Although the traditional trigger for such violence, the Jerusalem Gay Pride parade, passed this year without incident, several assaults have been reported in recent months, with transgenders being targeted most frequently.

(5) Gilad Atzmon: Fake Jewish Tolerance vs Vile Israeli Aggression

From: World View <ummyakoub@yahoo.com> Date: 11.08.2009 07:33 PM

Fake Jewish Tolerance vs Vile Israeli Aggression

By Gilad Atzmon

Aug 3rd, 2009

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/08/03/gilad-atzmon-fake-jewish-tolerance-vs-vile-israeli-aggression/

How many times have we heard about Islam, Muslims and Arabs being slammed for being reactionary on Gay Rights? How many times have we seen political lobbies mobilizing to address Gay Rights issues against Muslim and Arab states and institutions? Interestingly enough, it is actually in the Jewish state where Gays are murdered on the street. Two days ago in Tel Aviv, the Jewish metropolis that insists upon regarding itself as an international Gay capital proved to be a pretty dangerous place for people who happen to be homosexuals.

In fact, the attack on the Gay community in Tel Aviv should not take us by surprise. The Jewish state, in spite of its relentless effort to prove otherwise, is one of the least tolerant places on this planet. It is fuelled by hatred towards others and Otherness. Its politicians are defined particularly by their level of cruelty towards Palestinians.

As much as the Israelis do love to see themselves as being `tolerant and liberal', they hate their neighbors and would implement the most murderous lethal tactics against them. At the end of the day, it shouldn't take us by a complete surprise that in a country that pours white phosphorous on civilians and starves millions behind barbed wire, some people develop deadly inclinations.

The Jewish state is founded on negation. It hates everything that fails to be Jewish. It hates Arabs, it hates the Palestinians, it hates the Goyim, it hates criticism, it hates Islam, it hates the Pope, it hates Christianity. You name it, they hate it. As it happens, all it takes to hate Gays is for someone out there to think that Gay is not Jewish enough. And in fact it isn't. It is as non-Jewish as much as democracy and tolerance are totally foreign to the spirit of Jewishness.

A list of prominent Israeli leaders rushed yesterday to promote the fake notion of Jewish tolerance. Amongst them was opposition leader Tzipi Livni who just eight month ago flattened Gaza directly over its inhabitants. "We need to give strength to the child who comes to his parents and says: 'I am gay,' or 'I am a lesbian;' said Livni. Seemingly, just eight months ago, the same Livni didn't care much about the hundreds of children that were slaughtered in a criminal war she was enthusiastically pushing for. She appeared to not care much about the thousands of kids who were severely injured and broken for life.

Another Israeli prominent War Criminal, the man who introduced WMDs to the region is no other than President Shimon Peres. "The shocking murder in Tel Aviv last night," he said, "is the kind of murder that an enlightened and cultured people cannot accept." The man who prides himself as an enlightened and cultured Jewish ambassador is actually personally responsible for more Palestinian death and carnage than any other living politician.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the least tolerant leaders ever also had something to say about tolerance: "we are a democratic and tolerant country and we must respect every person as he is." I can only wish the Israeli PM would find the courage to listen to his own words next time he evicts Palestinians from their soil and dwellings.

This is really the crux of the matter. Israel is only tolerant symbolically. It is engaged solely in pseudo manifestations of liberalism, it is a `kind of' a democracy, it is `kind of' an open society, it is `kind of' a broadminded society. The more it praises itself for being tolerant and liberal, the more aggression is brewing within. The more open it pretends to be, the more murderous it becomes for real.

This may explain how it is that in such a `tolerant society' 94% of the population supported the slaughter of the Palestinians in the last Israeli campaign in Gaza. This may explain also how it is that in a `tolerant' society, sightseers flocked to the Gaza border to watch their army spreading death en masse.

The repellent duality between fake `tolerance' and vile aggression is the outcome of an unauthentic Jewish fictitious national fantasy. A fantasy that is grounded in mimicking some Western ideologies that are totally foreign to Jewish ideology (religious and secular). Tolerance, democracy and liberalism are foreign to Jewish political precepts which are all racially orientated and supremacist to the bone.

For those who cannot see it yet, Zionist aggression is turning against itself. Israel is imploding.

(6) Bob Dylan Makes Christmas Album

This is "completely consistent with his longstanding tradition of doing the unexpected."

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/08/bob-dylan-makes-christmas-album-123.html
==

Bully! Pulpit News World Exclusive: Bob Dylan Recording Christmas Album
   
Bob Dylan recording christmas album; "O little town of Bethlehem," "i'll be home for Christmas" among tracks

By Ryan McDuff • Bully! Pulpit News

http://bullypulpit.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1095:bully-pulpit-news-world-exclusive-bob-dylan-recording-christmas-album&catid=1:latest-news

LOS ANGELES, Calif ------Bob Dylan is recording his first Christmas album, Bullypulpit.com has exclusively learned and has been quietly compiling a collection that includes both Christmas carols and modern songs. At least four songs have reportedly been recorded for the album including, “Must Be Santa,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “I’ll Be Home For Christmas" and “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

    The recording sessions have been taking place at fellow recording artist Jackson Browne's Groove Master’s Studios in Santa Monica, California, where Browne produced his album, "I’m Alive."

    Prominent media expert and best-selling author Michael Levine said the move by Dylan was "completely consistent with his longstanding tradition of doing the unexpected. Concerning Bob Dylan literally nothing would surprise me which of course is part of his lasting appeal. He confounds like no other pop artist ever."

    The inclusion of “O Little Town of Bethlehem," written by an Episcopal priest named Phillips Brooks in 1867 after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, is likely to fuel speculation about Dylan's religious beliefs that have swirled ever since he publicly converted to Christianity in 1979, recorded explicitly religious material on three subsequent albums and for a time refused to play his old songs. Religious references on subsequent recordings became less overt after 1981's "Shot of Love."

    The other three songs, “Must Be Santa” by Hal Moore and Bill Fredricks, “Here Comes Santa Claus” by Gene Autry and Oakley Haldeman  and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Buck Ram, Kim Gannon and Walter Kent were all written between 1943 and 1960.

    "A Christmas album by Bob Dylan in the pipeline doesn't really shock me," said Scott Marshall, author of a forthcoming book on the singer, "God and Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life". "At first glance it may sound bizarre, but I don't think Dylan cares much about what his detractors might make of it. Dylan still sings songs from "Slow Train Coming" to this day and he's both never renounced being Jewish or renounced his experience with Jesus some three decades ago. He remains enigmatic and this will probably be talked about for years to come."

(7) Israel's Central Bank purchases Dollars to keep Shekel down

Dollar purchase by Israel's central bank temporary fix
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-07 19:32:22

by Zhang Yanyang and Xu Gang

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/07/content_11843707.htm

JERUSALEM, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Stanley Fischer, governor of Bank of Israel, Israel's central bank, caught the foreign currency market off guard this week when he bought several billion U.S. dollars over the course of several days in a surprise move that sent the dollar to shekel exchange rate up more than 5 percent from an eight-month low.

Fischer on Monday afternoon said the bank would intervene in the event of unusual movements in the exchange rate that are inconsistent with underlying economic conditions, or when conditions in the foreign exchange market are disorderly, making it clear the central bank will enter the market whenever it perceives the need.

The dollar to shekel exchange rate was set at 3.931 shekels to the dollar on Thursday. Since December 2008, the rate had seen a steady rise to well over 4 shekels to the dollar nurtured by dollar purchases Fischer initiated in March 2008 in an attempt to curb the shekel's rally.

The shekel had appreciated to a 13-year high against the dollar when it reached 3.23 shekels to the dollar on July 9, 2008.

The more expensive shekel weighed on Israeli producers leading to a 40 percent drop in exports in 2008, and was one of the main reasons why Fischer decided to intervene in the foreign currency market by buying 100 million U.S. dollars on regular trading days and 50 million U.S. dollars on Fridays.

However, the dollar purchases, which had the declared goal of increasing foreign currency reserves to the accepted level in developed countries of about 44 billion U.S. dollars, over time became priced into the market as speculators knew exactly how much and when the central bank would buy dollars, thus becoming less effective as a tool to curb the shekel's rise.

"The dollar purchases made an important difference as they raised the dollar to shekel rate 5 percent," Zahi Elias, head of forex trading at Bank Leumi told Xinhua in a telephone interview.

Elias said it was clear the central bank's policy of transparency had become ineffective. The Bank of Israel's surprise move was in line with other central banks, and its change in tactics was necessary to indicate its disapproval with the soaring shekel.

He noted that the central bank had demonstrated its power in controlling the market and keeping dollar selling low.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the central bank would not be able to pursue dollar purchases endlessly. Foreign currency reserves had long surpassed the targeted 44-billion-USD objective and already exceeded 50 billion.

"In the long run dollar purchases will not be effective," Elias said, noting that Fischer was happy with the rise he had managed to inspire as the dollar purchases had offered the desired effect, but future moves in the market strongly depended on the trends in the world market and if the dollar drops globally, it would also do so in Israel.

"As Fischer himself said, Israeli exporters can take advantage of the break which afforded them through the dollar purchases for now, but in the long run they will have to establish their own protective barrier," Elias said.

Ayelet Nir, chief economist at IBI Investment House in Tel Avivechoed Elias' views that Fischer's intervention through dollar purchases was wise and said it should have been done a long time ago.

"Pressure for the appreciation of the shekel was there all the time and increased once the Bank said they would stop buying dollars, causing the market to price in a rise in the shekel," Nir told Xinhua.

"Fischer understood that it was speculative pressure that pushed up the shekel, so he started buying dollars but without telling the market how much he would be buying and when, thus making it harder for speculators to guess the direction of the dollar to shekel rate," she said.

She noted that Fischer would continue to intervene as long as he feels that his actions will help the exporters, saying that "Once he sees that exports have sufficiently risen to prod up the shekel themselves he will move out of the market."

Analysts noted that there were various strategies for the central bank to lower its intervention over time.

The bank would first have to lower its daily purchase volume and see how the market reacts. In the event the dollar stays stable, purchase volume could gradually be lowered to zero. If that proved ineffective, the bank could pursue an unpredictable buying pattern much like Fischer has already started.

Ultimately, however, the easiest way for the central bank to withdraw from the foreign currency market would be once the U.S. dollar's status improves around the world, or Israeli exports increase, both of which would boost the dollar to shekel exchange rate.

Analysts said the large foreign currency reserves Israel had amassed did not pose a problem. The money could be deposited in commercial banks, to keep the money supply in circulation from growing and thereby curb inflationary pressure.

"Large reserves are a sign of a country's economic strength, and it is not a bad thing for Israel to have large foreign currency reserves," said Elias.