=sajp0311
Steve Amdur; Letters-to-the-Editor of the Jerusalem Post,
Jerusalem Report, et. al; Collected Nov. 27 '03; from June '03--
Nov. 26 '03
    
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To:      David Bedein, Israel Resource; media@actcom.co.il
From:    Steve Amdur, Mevo Modi'in, 73122 (D.N. HaMerkaz)
Tel:     08--971-6255
E-mail:  sa73122a@yahoo.com
Re:      Old JP Letters, for possible boilerplate.

I enclose the texts of many of the letters-to-the-Editor that I've
dashed off in the past few months.
Most, but not all, are relevant to the campaign to reduce Israeli
sovereignty and territorial control.
Some, I assume, raise points with which you would disagree, and
which I'm sure you can skim past.

Some, I think, are well-written.  (Though I include a few draft
letters that would need re-writing.)  
Most do not get printed; so if you can make any of use of any of
them, in whole or part as "boilderplate" for use by persons
opposing anti-Israel media-bias, feel free to do so.

with best wishes,

Steve Amdur
Mevo Modi'in
sa73122a@yahoo.com                                                

==================================================================
=================================================================
              
To the JP, August __ '03 (Sent, Published)

At last -- a newspaper that I can read in the subway, as soon as
they build a subway.

------------------------------------------------------------------
==================================================================

Where do you sell the ends that you trim off your daily newspaper
-- with all those missing articles.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Take 2:

Those ends that you trim off the newspaper each morning -- do you
sell them somewhere -- with all those missing features?

----------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================
JP 1 June '03

Israel has the right to live behind secure borders.
The Jordan river is a practical, if not ideal, border.
The 1967 Armistice line is neither a border nor secureable.

================================================================= 
 
(Not yet sent)

TELL ME PRETTY LIES

The state of Israel wants to give away Judea-Samaria, but nobody
will sign for it.
                                      

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

Netanyahu is the only politician who could lose to Peres.  And
Shimon Peres is the only man who could not be elected rat-catcher
in Hamlin.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
AND MAYBE A RELIEF PITCHER                                         
 
How about we trade Yossi Beillin for peace.

SENT 22 OCT
------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================================
TURF WARS 2003  (Sent; not printed.)
or:  IT'S WAR, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT*


Lately, inside the Jaffa Gate to the Old City, I have been subject
to apparent low-grade political harassment disguised as aggressive
begging.  I do not really look like a typical businessman from
Iowa.  
The rather intimidating men who demand my attention claim to be
residents of the Armenian Quarter; that seems unlikely.          

*[Cf. a now-classic line from vintage Star Trek:  
"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it." ]

----------------------------------
                                    
[Note (sa): (Not sent; and not OK to send:  FYI only:)
I would also raise the question -- not as a charge nor an
insinuation, merely as a question -- of whether, outside Jaffa
Gate or immediately within the courtyard of Jaffa Gate, there may
occasionally be some harassment of marginal members of the Jewish
community -- eg poorly-dressed and possibly homeless hippie/baal
tchuva adolescents-or-older   -- by young men from the East
Jerusalem community, who perhaps work in an at least informal
relationship with the Israel Jerusalem police forces.] 
One incident which I observed led me, upon reflection, to raise
this question.
I did not, however, observe any instance of improper behavior. ]

-----------------------------------------------------------------
==================================================================

==================================================================
(Draft Letter to the IHT='International Herald Tribune';
Not completed, not sent:)

X  [a French Jewish letter-writer whose name I did not note -- TRY
TO FIND AND CHECK ] that a 'right of return' should be limited to
those persons (or their descendents, though presumably for a
limited number of generations) who have been more or less forced
to leave their land of birth. 

This is a reasonable argument, but I think not justified.

First of all:  Setting criteria for admission and citizenship is
considered a national perogative of a sovereign nation.            

Of course the Israel Law of Return is intentionally though too
late the converse of the Nazi anti-Jewish laws which set the
pseudo-legal framework for Nazi regional genocide.  The state of
Israel was established in the bitter knowlege that,  had it
existed prior to the Nazi takeover of Germany, the European Jewish
people and their/our living culture might have been saved.

But the Israel Law of Return is more than a futile gesture of
redress toward an historic crime against humanity.
                                                            
The religious culture of Judaism, like that of aboriginal cultures
-- eg the culture of the American Indians of the Southwest -- is
interwoven with a particular land/ecology.
Jewish religion outside the land of Israel is 2-dimensional.  

It is this which gives the Jewish people a pre-eminent right to
live in the land of Israel.
It applies not only to 'modern religous Zionists'; but as well to
to ostensibly secular Zionists (for whom Israeli culture takes the
place of religion), and to ostensibly non-Zionist ultra-orthodox
(who, regardless of their religious ideology, evidene a strong and
deep love for the people, culture, and land of Israel).

Many 'Arab' citizens and residents of the land of Israel -- some
of whom may be long-coverted descendents of those Israelis and
Jews who were not driven into exile -- may, more than urban and
suburban recent immigrants, claim to be wedded to this land and
ecology, and to and its traditional culture (however much they
romanticize their tradition, at least as propoganda.)  
But the religion of Islam is not, as far as I know, interwoven
with this land and its ecology.  The religion of Judaism is
interwoven with the land of Israel.

=================================================================

To the Editor, Jerusalem Post:

Really, it's too absurd even for Dry Bones:
In their campaign for a subsidized mini-state, the 'Palestinians'
choose a terrorist strategy of killing and maiming randomly
selected groups of Jews.  Israel responds with a tactic of
individually assassinating identified mid-level terrorist
organizers.  And who does the world blame for civilian casualities
-- Israel.  


================================================================= 
(Reference:  Media Conference, CJS 2 November '03; referring to
Connie Mus (Holland) and Simon Wilson (BBC):)

To JP (Sent):

Two prominent and presumably objective foreign journalists
recently claimed that Israel has engaged in an unprecedented
escalation of the campaign against Palestinians.  By this they
apparently mean that a gentleman can no longer organize homicidal
bombings without himself risking assassination.

=================================================================
BRECHT WITH A PENTIUM        

  Cyberspace is a "jungle of cities".  As us intelligentsia
(including most of Israel and half Manhattan) move into it, we
need honest guides. For every honest Website and helpful program
there are a hundred hustlers and a dozen predators.  The Post
should run more Internet features.


=================================================================

If 'the rabbis' said (e.g. ad absurdum) 'we put pencils in our
ears', many men would do so, and some women demand to do likewise.
                                                
[Cf. a recorded remark by RSC, which I recount from memory:  They
were very [willing to learn]; if I had said, we put pencils in our
ears, they would have put pencils in their ears.]

==================================================================
Sent JP 3 Nov. '03
                  
Suggested headline: 

AMATEUR ECONOMIST IN BRYLCREAM

Netanyahu may be the only person in the world who could lose an
election to Shimon Peres.  And Peres couldn't be elected rat-
catcher in Hamlin.            

================================================================= 

The USA supports establishing a ("demilitarized") 'Palestinian'
state 9 miles from Israel's coastline; but risked World War III to
contain Cuba, 90 miles from the Florida shore.

================================================================= 

NO MORE SWISS JOURNALIST JOKES

A Swiss journalist asks:  how does it feel to live on Arab land.
Try it in Manhattan, or Massachusetts.

==================================================================

Maybe a third-world 'autonomy' will co-exist amicably within the
first-world nation that reluctantly hosts it; but it seems more
likely to survive in chronic hostitlity, as an extortionist 
pirate mini-state nurturing low-grade terrorist warfare. .
Israel may be the first nation to try such an experiment.

[Alternate wording:                     
[Or maybe it will continue as a warlord anarchy, supporting an
elite by crime against its own people, by foreign extortion backed
by the demonstrated threat of terrorism, and by domestic chronic
low-grade warfare of exceptional brutality.

==============================================================

If terrorism succeeds in Israel -- and it seems well on the road
to doing so, with a most expensive Lemmings' Roadmap -- it will
probably be tried for real in the USA (which, the cultivated
hysteria of the Bush administration notwithstanding, has suffered
only one international-terrorist attack, albeit a spectacular
one).
It is less likely to be tried in Continental Europe, which, in its
civilized way, fell nicely into a politically correct line after
just a few Parisian cafe-bombings.
And the English scarcely notice such things.  Due, no doubt, to
their miserable weather.  

==================================================================

As  ?Shalom Freedman? points out, Zionism and humanism both
presuppose the meaningfulness of life; and both tend (in the
perspective of adherents) to take a teleologic standpoint.  

Post-Zionism and 'post-humanism'  tend to presuppose an anarchic
viewpoint.  

     But the persuasiveness of post-Zionism is rooted in an
unacklowleged Marxist teleologic standpoint: the notion that, as a
consequence of some sort of cultural inevitability,  there has
been an evolution through and past Zionism.  
     So in that sense -- by presupposing the deterministic
inevitabilty of meaninglessnesss - they are diabolic.   Except for
those who can 'take refuge' (as the Buddhists say) or anyhow find
comfort, in the romantic fantasy of the internatinal solidarity of
the working class.

==================================================================
                                                       
=jr031123.txt; Re-re-vision of =jr031119.txt (rev. =jr031120.txt)

To the Editor, Jerusalem Report:
jrep@report.co.il
23 Nov '03
(2nd revision of Letter sent 19 Nov '03, rev. sent 20 Nov '03)

     In arguing that Israel should relinquish sovereignty over
Temple Mount in exchange for a guaranteed peace, Gershon Gorenberg
(JR 17 Nov '03) makes several interesting but questionable
assumptions.

     Gorenberg gives ethics ontologic, and hence valuational, 
priority, if not exclusivity.  To do so disregards other
dimensions of civilization; in particular the 'transcendental
spirituality' (in traditional Judaism and in American Indian ways)
that embeds religiosity in a particular geography/ecology.  

     (Incidentally, "to treat land as inherently holy" may
characterize some 'pagan' religions; but it can not comfortably --
that is, within the bounds of ordinary language -- be termed
'idolatry'; nor is it necessarily incompatible with monotheism.)

     Gorenberg also presupposes the 'billiard-table' model of
causality.  That is:  he assumes that that the events of history
occur in a closed 'linear-causal' system.  
    But this is a simplistic model of merely mechanistic
("efficient") causality.  In the general case, even without
considering purposive free human agency, causal factors are
multiple, partial, alternative, and interactive. 

     Hence Gorenberg argues that if Israel had concluded a 'peace
treaty' with the PLO "880 Israelis and 2000 Palestinians killed in
the conflict would be alive."

     And of course such would have been the case -- all other
things being equal.  But in real-world contexts (unlike laboratory
experiments) all other factors do not in general remain equal. 
    Had Israel accepted the PLO demands, it is also possible that
the outcome might have been disasterous, not utopian; and the loss
of life much greater.   
     As Robert Frost observed ironically:  "Two roads diverged in
a wood and I -- / I took the road less traveled by, / And that has
made all the difference." 


=================================================================

Let's trade Kfar Shermayahu for peace.  I never go there.        

Or let's all get together, and stick it to Bat Yam.

=================================================================
(not sent)

Possible headlines:
   FROM THE DEAD HAND OF SLIPPERY JIM     or
   FROM THE MAN WHO BOUGHT DADE COUNTY                             
                           
To keep the USA happy [or:  to keep our Uncle Sam happy ], we
should trade Ariel for peace; but only in exchange for San
Francisco.  Or at least Akron.

==================================================================

Israel should relinquish the Territories; but only in exchange for
the Louisiana Purchase.

==================================================================
(not sent, on the slight chance that, if published, it might
prove, amongst American readers,  counterproductive:)

Israel should tell Uncle Sam what to do with his Loan Guarantees.

=================================================================

To the Editor, Jerusalem Post (Sent) 

Suggested headline:  OR EVEN A WELL-DONE BOILED SEAGULL*

Dear Sir:

    I didn't get my Geneva Initiative.

-------------------------------
                                                        
[Headline based on a traditional Maine recipe for boiled seagull:
(Kosher l'mehadrin):
 
Put on a large pot of water with a small, well-rounded rock.
Add one well-plucked seagull of medium weight.
Let boil for several hours.                   
After several hours, remove the seagull and eat the rock. ]

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

==================================================================
(sent JP):

THAT'S JOISY, MOISHE

Yossi Beillin was very wise not have convened his Conference in
Hackensack, New Jersey.

==================================================================

JP, 3 July 03

There is nothing out-of-order in a rabbi giving the opinion that
it would be contrary to Jewish religious law for the government of
the state of Israel, or anyone acting on its behalf, to relinquish
to non-Jewish control a portion of the biblical land of Israel.

==================================================================

JP 5 July '03

There is no risk from genetically modified foods; the George Bush
family of Houston (ex-Connecticut) have been eating them for 3
generations.

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

6 July '03  -- to In Jerusalem, JP

The Mayor of Jerusalem has the right to appoint as many Deputy
Mayors as he needs, at $10,000 a month apiece.  However (in accord
with Roman tradition) they should be personally responsible for
the expenses of the city.

----------------
    
(variation sent, 25 Nov '03 to ij@jpost.com, under suggested
headline:

                  $100,000 apiece for What?              )

The Mayor has the right to appoint as many Deputy Mayors as he
sees fit, provided, of course, that they meet the City's operating
expenses out of their salaries.


================================================================
JP 8 July '03                    

[The following was not sent; 
it's an important point which  I'd like to see developed:  
that this 'intifada' is a multi-dimensional war, 
and that whoever writes 'Palestinian' overall strategy  
     (some very expensive Saudi-paid PR firm, maybe ) 
is much subtler than Israel's planners. 

Arab culture is know for its subtlety; and I think so prizes
deviousness 
[Cf. the Greek epithet for Odyseus, 'polymekanos', the man of many
devices, 'wile-y' ] 
that they'd make the Greeks look like Kansas farmers.     ]:

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

As Carolyn Glick points out (JP 4 Jul 03), our Arab opponents
don't play plastic soliders:  the present war is not like wars of
the past.  Wars are won by a 'pardigm shift'.  This war is waged
on a complexly interacting multi-dimensional front:  para-
military, diplomatic, economic (both capitalist and
philanthropic), political (both international and national), mass-
media (internet, TV news, newsmagazines, broadsheet newspapers,
tabloid newspapers ), psychologic, psychic, religious.  As Glick
notes, terrorist incidents are not the essence of this war; merely
its plot.  So a policy of assassinating mid-level hitmen, although
unlawful, is not immoral, but may not be sufficient.

==================================================================


[In the following, I make some of the preceeding points more
clearly.
So this is worth reading, whether or not one supports the
'Jerusalem Summit'.

Sent to JP, but as a (*.txt) Attatchment, so maybe not opened nor
read.  The JP Letters Editor sent me a note saying (tersely),
Don't send Attatchments.  Maybe that means they refuse to Open
Attatchments, at least as Letter-to-the-Editor 's  (from fear of
computer virus); or maybe it just means, they don't like 'em.


=jp031021
Letter to the Editor, Jerusalem Post
From:  Steve Amdur, Mevo Modi'in, 73122 ISrael
Date:  03/10/21
Ref:   JP 17 Oct 03, Advt, "Joint Declaration of Jerusalem Summit"

-----------------
JP 21 October '03

SAM HUNTINGTON WOULD BLUSH:

The Declaration of the self-styled 'Jerusalem Summit' (posted JP
17 Oct 03) seems a bit overblown.

Here are a few points in reaction (based only on the Jerusalem
Summit Declaration, not its Website): 

Israel may be the testing-ground for a new paradigm of warfare; a
sort of low-grade but multi-dimensional terrorist subversion of
democracies. 
But if so, the optimal response is not necessarily the sort of
unlimited international military opportunism practiced by the Bush
administration.  ("Fighting fleas with a sledgehammer.")  Nor is
Islamic fundamentalism necessarily the Arche-enemy.

Maybe "civilization itself is in jeopardy" (if only from SPAM &
McDonald's); but it has been at risk since the USA incinerated
Nagasaki, and is exponentially more at risk with nuclear
proliferation.

'Civilization' is not exclusive to the USA-dominated bloc. 
'Western civilization', such as it is, lacks the subtlety of
Islamic culture, the depth of African culture, the tradition of
Asian cultures.                       

The role played by 'radical Islam' even in Arab terrorism, let
alone international terrorism, is not clear (USA demonology
notwithstanding).  But it is not an imperial threat comparable to
Nazi-ism, or even to Stalin-ism.       

Islamic fundamentalism, like Christian and Jewish fundamentalism,
is not inherently malign; it is a particular cultural rejection of
the excess of modernity.

To advocate a 'war on radical Islam' [whatever that means] as a
'righteous cause' is conceptually incoherent, politically
simplistic, and ethically irreponsible.  

Sam Huntington would blush, or should.


Steve Amdur
Mevo Modi'in

SENT


==================================================================
(Draft notes for a revision of the draft article  on 'multi-
dimensional warfare':)

My neighbor says:  Never try to outthink a mouse; you might be
disappointed.                                                 

Israel is in a very low-grade territorial war with a coaltion of
ostensibly 'Palestinian' mini-groups of terrorist extortionists.
Those groups thrive on a state of chronic low-grade warfare;
manipulating a pose of victim-hood, backed by the demonstrated
threat of terrorism, to extort funds from western governments.

Israel has all but lost that war; it is looking only for a face-
saving surrender.  
The 'right of return' has always been a red herring.

It is aximoatic that nations, losing nations anyhow, fight each
war in the terms of the last.

The present war is multi-dimensional:  terrorist acts are merely
the stage-setting.
Dimensions include:  pseudo-military acts; economic attrition;
diplomatic maneuvering; battles for public opinion (media bias);
psychologic; psychic.  These interact.

A nation which, under pressure of hostile action, cedes a large
quantity of its territory and natural resources, may be said to
have lost a war, even if it pretends that it wishes to relinquish
that land.

=================================================================

Sent JP 28 October '03; but sent as an Attatchment, and so maybe
not even Open'd.

Really, it's too absurd even for Dry Bones:
In their campaign for a subsidized mini-state, the 'Palestinians'
choose a terrorist strategy of killing and maiming randomly
selected groups of Jews.  Israel responds with a tactic of
individually assassinating identified mid-level terrorist
organizers.  And who does the world blame for civilian casualities
-- Israel.  
                 
[N.B.:  As I mention, I'd be glad to see anyone else use the
letters, wording, or ideas that I've sketched.
In particular, I'd be glad to see 'Dry Bones' pick up this idea.
I assert no claims, financial nor otherwise, to any of this
material./sa]
==================================================================

Ref:  JP Editorial, 28 October '03

Replacing tyrany with anarchy may nurture terrorism, not abort it.

==================================================================

It is most appropriate to the present low-level but crucial
kulturkampf -- in which, as the ship of state slogs northward into
eternal winter, the "secular" humanist left side of the boat seeks
to sink the "religious" right side, the better to cozy up to the
world's richest Imperialism -- that Gershon Gorenberg cites the
Deir Yasein massacre.  Because, from what I read, the Deir Yassein
massacre never occured; it was a fabrication by the 1948 Israel
Left to discredit the Irgun.  
Shmuel Katz notes that Yair Tzaban, one of Israel's most
distinguished left-wing leaders, arrived at Deir Yassin shortly
after the Irgun had left, and found no signs of a massacre.

[ I suppose someone has written and posted to Internet  a short
concise rebuttal of the 'Deir Yassin' canard; I'd appreciate
that/those LINKs. ]  'Myths and Facts' maybe?

Shmuel Katz [unless I misremember, and it was Ben Hecht ] was very
clear and convincing on it; but I don't now have his book at hand.
==================================================================

(new, not yet sent)
                        
"DECLARE A VICTORY AND BUG OUT"

Ref:  JP 19 Nov '03; Daniel Pipes, 'The case for 'Iraqification''

Daniel Pipes, forswearing imposed democracy, civil liberties, and
maybe human rights, follows traditional USA banana-republic policy
in calling for a pro-US dictator in Iraq.
       
-----------------------------------------------------------------
BRITNEY SPEARS FOR PRESIDENT

It seems obvious, from what I read on the covers of TIME and
Newsweek, that George Bush Jr. has had his little war. 
Unfortunately for the future, especially hereabouts, it was the
wrong one.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
DEMOGRAPHY RECONSIDERED                                            

It is not unthinkable that Israel might restrict the right to vote
for Knesset and Prime Minister (for what little that's worth; and
what little they are worth).   Two-tiered citizenship is not
apartheid; the USA and UK muddled along with it until 
enfranchising women.   

-----------------------------------------------------------------
JP 26 Nov 

In abetting the nascent European boycott of goods from post-1967
Israel, Ehud Olmert let himself be bullied and outbluffed by the
EU, which, prudently, goes to considerable lengths to appease
international 'Palestinian' terrorism.

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

jp 25 November '03

In the real world, as I recall, people and groups that make a
practice of murdering autobus passengers, cafe coffee drinkers,
and the like, cannot necessarily count on continuing to enjoy
unrestricted freedom of residence.

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

Sent ca. 23 Nov. ith minor variations to jp, jr, haaretz, newsweek

    Imagine how different the world might now be had Al Gore been
recognized as the duly elected President.  The USA would not now
be held in the international disdain provoked by Bush Jr.'s pose
of now-nothing provincialism.  The 'rogue states' of Afghanistan
and Iraq might without war have been contained as superficially
genteel tyranies.  And some steps would have been taken to
acknowlege and confront the impending global ecologic crisis.  
     Of course Israel might now be managed by Holiday Inn on
behalf of a Saudi-led Consortium; but the U.S. economy would be in
much better shape. 

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

Sent ca. 23 Nov. '03 to jp, jr, haaretz

A BETTER BOONDOGGLE

Israel should immediately discontinue work on that atrocious and
ruiniously expensive misnamed 'security fence', and instead open
negotiations for a small portion of the Great Wall of China. 
Given the going rate for Chinese labor hearabouts, they could
probably deliver.  

------------------------------------------------------------------
                   
"I say, the future is a serious matter -- 
 and so, for g_d's sake, hock and soda water!"

Byron, Introduction to Don Juan

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

Sent to metro@jpost.co.il
Ref:  Focus 21 Nov '03, 'Unruly patient imprisoned' (Ranana)
[My source:  Recollected conversation in the mid-1970's with
Carole Robbins Meyers, of 22 Evergeen St., Hartford, Connecticut,
a former computer programmer (systems' manager, if I recall)
active in dialysis patients' rights.]       

Patients in need of dialysis suffer from mental impairment until
their blood is cleaned.  So a chronic dialysis patitent who acted
irrationally adn violently while awaiting and undergoing tratment
should not have been convicted of criminal behavior, much less
jailed.

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

Sent JP 5 Nov '03
Ref:  JP Letters 3 Nov, re:  Derrfner, JP 3 Nov. '03

Suggested Headline:

"RAW", RARE, WELL-DONE, & OVERDONE* 

I've often read the Israelis are exceptionally inconsiderate, but
I've never noticed that.  In my experience, Israelis are
exceptionally considerate.

* [Headline taken from my media-bias article respone to a line in
Let's Go to Israel, ca. 1994, in which the writer found Israel
noteworthy for "raw sex".  Article cc'd to DB, probably titled
'letsgo94' [Search for letsgo* ]; article presently unavailable to
me.]

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

Sent JP 31 Oct '03

GALUTZ PARTNERSHIP

How about we move the security 'fence' to the seashore, and please
everybody.

---------------------------------------------------------------- 
(not yet sent)

One should not make too much of Palestinians killing civlians.  It
is no less a crime, and scarcely more sporting, that they murder
uniformed young men and even young women who guard Israeli
civilians.

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

Sent JP 29 Oct '03
Re:  JP Op/Ed 28 Oct (J. Shwartz)

MARX MAYBE; BRECHT NYET

So Swiss journalists side with the Palestinians because
Palestinians suffer more than Israelis.  On that basis,
Switzerland should support the rest of the world.

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

Sent JP Oct 29 '03
Re:  JP Editorial, 28 Oct '03

Replacing tyranny with anarchy may nurture terrorism, not abort
it.    

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sent, JP, ca. 6 Nov '03

David bar-Ilan, z'l, was among the first to identify, analyze, and
oppose anti-Israel media bias.

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


'Social parasites' -- a class which Netanyahu, as a professionally
elected public servant, more precisely exemplifies than
identifies-- are not those 'haredim' who preserve the intellectual
tradition of religious Judaism. 

------------------------------------------------------------------
(Sent, JP 7/03?)

Netanyahu seems to have fallen for Ronald Regan's "voodoo
economics".
"A rising tide lifts all boats" -- except those stuck in the mud.

[Notes:
"voodoo economics" was the term coined by David Stockman, Regan's
Director of the Budget, until he was deemed over-qualified for the
job.

"A rising tide lifts all boats" -- JFK invoked that notion.

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

The 'Palestinian' terrorist campaign against Jerusalem is only
ostensibly territorial.   It is an attempt to debase and desecrate
the cultural/spiritual focus and 'center' of the Jewish people.

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

(not sent)

In calling for the resignation of Mayor Lupolanski, the Post
editorial says nothing, except that he is not a media star.

------------------------------------------------------------------
                               
I LIKE THE PYRANEES

Israel should immediately demarcate geographically clear and
conventionally 'defensible' borders between -- well, between its
self-styled 'Palestinian' residents, and everyone else.  Any
above-treeline mountain range or broad unfordable river should do
adequately.  If such features do not exist within the present
borders of the state of Israel, they should be selected from any
member state of the European Union.                   

------------------------------------------------------------------
(Sent, ca. 25 Nov '03)                       

EAT MORE MALEKITE GREEN

I hear on the English news, such as it is, that the Ministry of
Health has authorized the sale of fish-pond fish, pending
determination of whether or not they contain 'significant' levels
of a presumably carcinogenic chemical.

[Addition, not sent:]  The indidividual causation of
carcinogenesis is random (like the risk of of becoming a terror
victim on a city bus); so one cannot speak of safe levels of
exposure, neither in terms of quantity nor duration.


------------------------------------------------------------------
(not yet sent)
                
I notice that in your new 'yuppie' format the masthead no longer
includes the Islamic date.  But besides being a courtesy, that is
sometimes important news.  News media should include more features
on Arab and Islamic culture and religion.

------------------------------------------------------------------
POP PLAUDITS                                                    

Re:  JP Letter 28 Nov  re: JP 21 Nov '03 (Rosenblum)
                                             
Greater rigour, eg pietistic misogyny, is not necessarily greater
spirituality; and comic-book dogmatism is not the quintessence of
Jewish religious tradition.

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

Palestinian autonomy has been tried and failed.  The Palestinian
Authority has proved itself unwilling and/or unable to prevent
terrorism; and barely capable of even municipal self-government.  

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

If Shinui were not Israeli, it would be deemed anti-Semitic
              
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Demography is barely relevant to Israel's struggle against Arab
subversion.  They raise their children for media-oriented cannon-
fodder.

==================================================================
                 
The area and resources of Israel are scarcely sufficient for one
state, let alone two.  Proposals to give away most of the
remaining rural area are most foolish.

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

================================================================
29 Nov '03  21:00 34K

==================================================================

              

