So much for the vacation in Bali ...!

RE: Can something be done about hate filled posters????

>>Might I suggest that you check your facts with the Chief

>Rabbi

>>of M4M, Rabbi Trisexual?!

>

>Your comments are disgusting, and you demean the intelligent

>discourse of political issues on this board.

Asking him to check his facts as to whether cars can drive in Jreusalem on Saturday demeans the "intelligent discourse of political issues on this board?" Or does it raise a point that makes on-line zionists who want to pretend here that the racist, zionist, militaristic, apartheid theocracy is a secular state squirm in their pants?

>As far as I know, it applies only to Jews. I never said

>otherwise.

Good, now we are getting somewhere, although I must admit it is fun to watch you contort logic to explain how a law that applies only to Jews can be consistent with a secular society. By the way, last time I checked Rabbi Trisexual was on record here as stating that Judaism was a religion and Jews were not a race. My, my it is so difficult keeping up with all this talmudic reasoning!

>At the moment your posts just

>make you look bigoted and stupid.

Please explain how/why it is bigoted to raise the issue of bigoty in Israel by showing that it is not a secular paradise?

RE: Can something be done about hate filled posters????

>Bash other countries if you like, that is your choice, but do

>not bash thoughtful and compassionate posters like Trilingual

>with your snide asides.

Come on now be serious, Rabbi Trisexual has been calling me names much longer than I have ever called him names. When he stops, I'll stop. Now why is it you think it is ok to bash other countries but not the racist, zionist militaristic, aparheid theocracy?

RE: Can something be done about hate filled posters????

Trilingual called me an anti-semite without bothering to explain why he thought so or attempt to counter my point, which was one later made by the NY Times to his satisfaction. Nonetheless, he still hasn't apologized. He baits ad rian every chance he gets, so let's not make him the pillar of sainthood here.

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

"Race" is a word with many meanings and connotations, and it's also one that commonly is grossly misused. Especially by posters like Auntie Semitic. Jews are not a "race," they are members of a multi-racial cultural group that shares certain common values and beliefs. The simple fact that anyone who wishes to can convert to Judaism and therefore become a Jew refutes any idea that Judaism is a "race," in the ordinary sense of the word.

Pyell I think misuses the word inadvertently when he refers to the right of emigration under the "law of return." I think what he really means is that people of Jewish descent generally have a right to immigrate to Israel under the "law of return." He's right that you don't have to be a practicing Jew, from a religious standpoint, to be entitled to that right, but I believe that someone of Jewish origin who formally becomes an adherent of another religion loses that right. "Who is a Jew?" is one of the oldest and thorniest debates on the planet, but one of the few points on which there is any consensus is that a Jew who formally adopts and practices another religion ceases to be Jewish.

As for having to ask Rabbi Tri if it's possible to drive on Jerusalem on the Sabbath, why doesn't he just go to Jerusalem himself and check it out? Because he might be arrested at Ben Gurion airport as a Hamas/Hezbollah operative?

There is no prohibition that I know of about driving in Jerusalem on the Sabbath. There are Sabbath road closures in some residential areas or Jerusalem that are predominantly Orthodox, but there is no general ban on driving on Shabbat, and cars circulate in most parts of the city on the Sabbath. There is no public transportation on the Sabbath except in the city of Haifa. This is in accordance with the "status quo" that existed since the time of the British Mandate and was continued after the establishment of the State of Israel.

The same status quo gives the various religious communities in Israel, including Christians and Muslims, legal control over certain areas of family law, including marriage and divorce. In this sense, Israel is not a fully "secular" state, because there is no such thing as civil marriage, so far. This situation is bitterly resented by the secular majority, but the political strength of the "religious" minority in Parliament has prevented the establishment of civil marriage until now.

And finally, it isn't exactly news that non-Jews don't have a right to immigrate to Israel under the "law of return." At the time of the U.N. partition of the Palestinian Mandate in 1948, Israel was established as a national homeland for the Jewish people. The other part of what remained of Palestine (after the British unilaterally severed 3/4 of it much earlier to create the country that is now called Jordan) was to be a homeland for the Arab residents of Mandatory Palestine. So if there is any right of return for Christian or Muslim Palestinians, it is to the territory that will eventually become a sovereign homeland.

BTW, does Auntie Semitic believe there is a right of return for all the Jews who were driven from their homes in Arab countries after the creation of Israel in 1948? Do they have a right to return home and have their property restored in Iraq and Syria and Egypt and Libya and you name it?

History is messy, and wars are cruel, and people end up living with the outcomes and moving on with their lives. Everyone except the accursed Arabs, who would rather remain mired in the past and their revenge fantasies instead of moving on and building up nations and societies their peoples could be proud of.

And enough today on this vaguely nauseating topic.

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

"History is messy, and wars are cruel, and people end up living with the outcomes and moving on with their lives"

Really? Bygones are bygones, huh?

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

Let bygones be bygones? Sure, Lucky. The U.S. devastated Germany and dropped TWO atomic bombs on Japan, and 50-odd years later relations between the U.S. and those countries are probably the best they've ever been in history. France was trampled by Germany in two world wars, but now they're each other's biggest buddies. The U.S. fought a war of independence and then an ugly replay several decades later with the British (when they burned down Washington, including the White House) yet today the two countries are joined at the hip. The former Spanish colonies in the New World spent much of the past two hundred years reviling their former colonial power, yet today relations between all of those countries and Spain are very close and growing stronger by the day. Germany and Israel, which you think would never be on speaking terms, have become close trading partners and allies. Those are just some examples that leap to mind.

These aren't just improvements in diplomatic relations. There have also been profound changes in attitudes and reconciliations between the peoples of those countries. So yes, history teaches us that it's possible for nations and peoples to let bygones be bygones and build better futures for themselves. The sad question is why Arabs in particular and Muslims in general seem incapable of escaping from their past. The Palestinian situation is particularly sad, because they've had a number of opportunites for getting out of their situation and building a better future for themselves and their children. They've turned their backs on every one of them, aided and abetted by other Arab governments and screaming mobs in the streets of other Arab countries. I don't pretend to know the answer to WHY this seems to be such an embedded feature of Arab culture. But unless it changes, the Arab world will remain mired in its angers and resentments and hatreds, and nothing will ever get better for those countries or their peoples. And that REALLY is sad!

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

And the Holocaust?

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

Lucky, you did that on purpose. You know what Auntie S is going to do now. For shame.

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

>As for having to ask Rabbi Tri if it's possible to drive on

>Jerusalem on the Sabbath, why doesn't he just go to Jerusalem

>himself and check it out?

....

>There is no prohibition that I know of about driving in

>Jerusalem on the Sabbath. There are Sabbath road closures in

>some residential areas or Jerusalem that are predominantly

>Orthodox, but there is no general ban on driving on Shabbat,

>and cars circulate in most parts of the city on the Sabbath.

>There is no public transportation on the Sabbath except in the

>city of Haifa. This is in accordance with the "status quo"

>that existed since the time of the British Mandate and was

>continued after the establishment of the State of Israel.

Rabbi Trisexual, when last did you exercise your right of return? Surely, you know that Likud has banned driving on Saturday in the Old City? You would not be engaging in more disinformation here on behalf of your favorite apartheid state, would you?

>And finally, it isn't exactly news that non-Jews don't have a

>right to immigrate to Israel under the "law of return." At

>the time of the U.N. partition of the Palestinian Mandate in

>1948, Israel was established as a national homeland for the

>Jewish people. The other part of what remained of Palestine

>(after the British unilaterally severed 3/4 of it much earlier

>to create the country that is now called Jordan) was to be a

>homeland for the Arab residents of Mandatory Palestine.

Rabbi Trisexual, are you suggesting that the current borders of Israel represent the UN Mandate? And by the way, the UN never mandayed Jordan as a Palestinian state. I thought you claimed that you were not a Likud supporter. Why do you quote from those Likud hoistory books?

>BTW, does Auntie Semitic believe there is a right of return

>for all the Jews who were driven from their homes in Arab

>countries after the creation of Israel in 1948? Do they have

>a right to return home and have their property restored in

>Iraq and Syria and Egypt and Libya and you name it?

No, because they were not driven out as most modern Israeli historians now admit, and I have posted links to those articles in the past. Their exodus was encouraged by the early Zionist leaders who deliberately wanted to destroy workable cosmopolitan and multicultural societies to set up their European apartheid state. The sad part is once they got the Middle Eastern Jews out of their homes, those Eastern European rejects and Western European Wannabes proceded to oppress the hell out those Middle Easternm jews. The real right of return is back to Brooklyn, Berlin and Warsaw!

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

>Let bygones be bygones? Sure, Lucky. The U.S. devastated

>Germany and dropped TWO atomic bombs on Japan, and 50-odd

>years later relations between the U.S. and those countries are

>probably the best they've ever been in history. France was

>trampled by Germany in two world wars, but now they're each

>other's biggest buddies. The U.S. fought a war of

>independence and then an ugly replay several decades later

>with the British (when they burned down Washington, including

>the White House) yet today the two countries are joined at the

>hip. The former Spanish colonies in the New World spent much

>of the past two hundred years reviling their former colonial

>power, yet today relations between all of those countries and

>Spain are very close and growing stronger by the day. Germany

>and Israel, which you think would never be on speaking terms,

>have become close trading partners and allies. Those are just

>some examples that leap to mind.

Let's see, does the U.S. continue to occupy Japan or Germany? Does Germany continue to occupy France? Does Brittan continue to the United States? Does Germany continue to occupy Israel? The answer is NO! So you see, end the zionist occupation of Palestine, and you will have peace in the valley. If not, well then, Rabbi Trisexual history does have a certain vector!

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

>So

>yes, history teaches us that it's possible for nations and

>peoples to let bygones be bygones and build better futures for

>themselves.

Lucky is right. Israel and American Jews continue to extort money from Germany, Austria and Switzerland for so-called Nazi slave labor, art theft, unpaid insiurance policies etc, not to mention support for Israel. I guess that's why they say "there is no business like the Shoa business." Let bygones be bygones indeed!

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

And now we get axe's "facts". Cars are banned in the Old City on the sabbath.

I have news for you, mate. Cars can't get INTO the Old City! It's a maze of narrow winding cobbled passages. Cars can poke their noses into a few streets at the edge of the Old City, but nobody drives round those streets on working days let alone the Sabbath.

Of course, if you'd ever been to Jerusalem you'd have known what a silly statement you'd made. The vast majority of Jews and Arabs do not live in the Old City. For them, there are no restrictions on driving on the sabbath apart from a few streets around orthodox ghettoes.

The Old City is an extraordinary agglomeration of Jews, Muslims and Christians. You walk for a few minutes through one quarter and suddenly find yourself in the next quarter, and the religion has changed. Five minutes later and you're in a third, with a different religion.

But quaint and historic though the Old City is, it's not where most people in Jerusalem live. Banning driving there is a bit like banning cars in Wall St, but letting cars continue to use every other street in Manhattan.

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

>Of course, if you'd ever been to Jerusalem you'd have known

>what a silly statement you'd made. The vast majority of Jews

>and Arabs do not live in the Old City. For them, there are no

>restrictions on driving on the sabbath apart from a few

>streets around orthodox ghettoes.

So the ultra-orthodox parties that made this a condition of support for various Likud governments in the Knesset were strictly controlled with secular values such as traffic control? Hmmh, very revealing observation on your part!

RE: Debunking Rabbi Trisexual and other On-Line Zionists

>I have news for you, mate. Cars can't get INTO the Old City!

>It's a maze of narrow winding cobbled passages. Cars can poke

>their noses into a few streets at the edge of the Old City,

>but nobody drives round those streets on working days let

>alone the Sabbath.

ADRIENNE ARSENAULT:

Remember the Sabbath day

CBC News Viewpoint | July 8, 2003

My rock. It now sits on my desk making a dusty mess. A jagged, fist-sized paperweight that will stay right where it is. I'm told it has to. There is, apparently, an informal tradition for new correspondents in the Middle East: like keeping the puck at a hockey game if it hits you, you must keep the rocks that make contact. This one was delivered with venom at dusk one recent Saturday.

Azur Mizrachi (the CBC's cameraman in Israel for 17 years ) and I were shooting a story in Jerusalem about the building conflict between the ultra-orthodox and secular in this country. It is, at its core, a battle over the role of the synagogue in the business of the state.

There's a new mayor of Jerusalem, an ultra-orthodox mayor, and his constituency want to see him working on their behalf. They want stores and streets closed on Shabbat, the day of rest. They want more subsidized housing and more benefits.

The secular complain bitterly that they're the ones carrying the tax burden, doing most of the work and virtually all of the military service. Yet, they argue, they still have to fend off the imposition of religious restrictions on their lives.

Increasingly, secular families are packing up and leaving Jerusalem. The fight is destined to get more complicated and more vocal as the ultra-orthodox gain in numbers and power here.

This particular scuffle took place at an intersection on Bar Ilan Street, which cuts through an ultra-orthodox neighbourhood. It's a street they want closed on Shabbat, viewing driving on the day of rest as a desecration. The problem is, it's a main artery.

After a round of protests years ago, the high court ruled that the street will be shut during prayers only. The rest of the time it must stay open. But that's not good enough, it seems. So, every Saturday for the last few weeks, the ultra-orthodox have effectively closed the road with intimidation. They hurl garbage, bottles, insults and rocks at passing vehicles and their scared drivers.

The larger fight is one we consider news, so we opted to cover the street skirmish, but carefully. We parked at a discreet distance, stayed out of the way and approached no one.

What we saw was a thick tangle of men in their traditional black coats and bearfur hats. Women and children joined them in clogging the intersection. Hundreds of people leaned out of their windows, stood on rooftops and lined the sidewalks.

As cars moved gingerly through the volley of projectiles, the protesters intoned "shabbas, shabbas" (Sabbath) in a loud, slow whine. Eventually police arrived and were greeted with rocks as well. One young officer stumbled across the street holding his bloody head. They made several swift arrests but the crowds only swelled, the voices rising.

As often happens, the curious drift towards the cameras. Two young men from Europe asked politely enough what we were doing and suggested strongly that we leave. It was none of our business, they said, and as journalists working on a Saturday, we were offensive and destined to become targets.

Moments later our conversation was cut short as an elder spat on the ground before us. He bellowed at them for talking to a whore. I guess that's me.

Eventually, a city councillor arrived to voice his disgust at the demonstration. We were in the process of interviewing him when the police suddenly and strangely decided to leave. Perhaps it had become too much for them. Perhaps they were just fed up.

Either way, their departure meant the protesters could turn their rage on us with impunity. I don't know enough Hebrew to understand what they were saying but the change in a crowd's tone is the same in any language.

Within moments they surrounded us. At first we tried quietly walking away but that quickly became a run as the glass started to crash at our feet. I first felt the shoe, then the box of rotting food.

Azur was struggling to run with the camera when a tall man yanked the gear off his shoulders and tried to push him to the ground. Azur held on and kept running. Another man appeared and endeavoured to rip the microphone and boom out of my hand.

Ridiculously, he dragged me across the road with my feet scuffling along, but he pulled too hard and ripped the microphone sock off. That sent him stumbling backwards. I would be lying if I said I wasn't utterly relieved.

We finally got to the car as the rocks were launched. Thanks to plastic windows many just bounced off. Except my rock: my new mascot. It came careering through the back windshield as we were driving away. A shower of glass came with it. (Why aren't all windows plastic?)

As we pulled out, many in the crowd cheered. One more car chased away. A block away we stopped to survey the damage. The Israeli media were waiting for us. They had escaped just moments before. It seems we had been the last reporters left.

We were fine but the vehicle has seen better days. And that rock sat defiantly in the back of it. Azur handed it to me as a gift. "It's yours," he said. "Your first rock." Lovely.

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

>And the Holocaust?

Evidently you didn't read my response above carefully. Even after the Holocaust Israel and Germany have developed a close relationship, and the same goes for many individual Jews and Germans, especially among those born after the end of the war. If Israel and the Jewish people could pick up and move on after what was done to them (and build a nation in the process) one can only return to the question of what is the problem among the Arabs that prevents them from doing the same thing, especially when nothing has happened to them that remotely resembles what the Jews experienced under the Nazis.

RE: Debunking Rabbi Trisexual and other On-Line Zionists

The ultra-Orthodox (a minority within a minority) have done a number of disgusting things, including stoning cars on the Sabbath. (The hypocrisy of throwing stones on the Sabbath, an act that is definitely forbidden, and trying to coerce others into religious observance, which is also forbidden, are particularly disgusting.) But that doesn't change the facts that driving on Shabbat is not generally forbidden in Jerusalem and Israel: that as Pyell pointed out (but Auntie S is now trying to dodge) with very minor exceptions driving is prohibited EVERYWHERE in the Old City because it's a pedestrian zone and has been so for decades; and that Israeli society is overwhelmingly secular and non-observant.

But that's OK, because it's always fun watching Auntie S lose it when challenged with facts! When you can't refute them, fulminate! That's the Auntie Semitic motto! x( I guess he gets it from watching people like Rush Limbaugh. When facts and reason don't support your viewpoints, start screaming. Bleah!

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

occupying Palestine? Didn't the land originally belong to the jews, according to the Bible? Wouldn't that make the palestinians the occupiers? There could have been a Palestinian state more than 50 years ago had they decided to take it instead of going to war. It's been their choice all along.

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

>>And the Holocaust?

>

>Evidently you didn't read my response above carefully. Even

>after the Holocaust Israel and Germany have developed a close

>relationship, and the same goes for many individual Jews and

>Germans, especially among those born after the end of the war.

But did Israel ever occupy Germany or vise versa?

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

>But did Israel ever occupy Germany or vise versa?

And, does it continue to do so?

RE: Debunking Rabbi Trisexual and other On-Line Zionists

Tri Rabbi Trisexual explaining that to the Reporter who had the stone thrown at her for driving in Jerusalem on a Saturday in your secular paradise?

RE: Debunking Auntie Semitic

So If I came into your house and kicked you out and gave it to a friend who I did not want in my own house but who had been kicked out of another friend's house would you give your house to me without a fight, or would you fight to get it back? Tell the truth now?

RE: Debunking Rabbi Trisexual and other On-Line Zionists

Had you taken the trouble to read your own posting you would have seen that the street was in the Orthodox area and Tri had already agreed that in the Orthodox areas driving was forbidden on Sabbath. As usual your posting is beyond ridiculous and just shows what a small "mind" you have. The person was stoned for violating the proscriptions of the Orthodox religionists and although they should not have stoned him, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrond thing - in fact he was offering the Orthodox a slap in the face for their religious beliefs on their own Sabbath.

RE: Debunking Rabbi Trisexual and other On-Line Zionists

>The

>person was stoned for violating the proscriptions of the

>Orthodox religionists and although they should not have stoned

>him, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the

>wrond thing - in fact he was offering the Orthodox a slap in

>the face for their religious beliefs on their own Sabbath.

Yep, that sure fits my definition of a secular society? Do you have any idea how ridiculous you on-line zionists sound trying to pretend that a militaristic, theocratic, zionist apartheid state is really a secular paradise? Ever thouht of moving to Iran or Saudi Arabia? I bet you would feel very comfortable in those secular societies too!?