| Flytilla crybabies fighting each other Posted: 12 Jul 2011 08:13 PM PDT From one of the Flytidiots, unsure of the date: An Open Letter to Paul Larudee from the Welcome to Palestine Campaign
From: lubnna (at) gmail.com
To: larudee (at) pacbell.net
Paul,
I regretfully send you this second letter and will publish it publicly as you have left us no choice.
You have appeared in the media over the last week, often stating that you organized the Welcome to Palestine campaign. All statements you have made in regards to this campaign were false.
As organizers, we were surprised by your statements as you were never part of this campaign. Sadly, your declarations about our campaign being about the right of return have confused the media and brought on damage to our basic plan.
We appreciate your will to work for Palestine but trying to take over any activity has profoundly affected the trust we have in you and we would be very surprised if any respectful organization in Palestine will be willing to work with you.
We urge you to stop giving statements to the media in the name of the Welcome to Palestine campaign.
Lubna Masarwa
On behalf the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign From Paul Larudee's Free Palestine Movement site: Accusations have been circulating about FPM's Paul Larudee representing himself and FPM as part of the Welcome to Palestine project. Here are the facts:
1. FPM has had a project called the Return from Exile Project for more than a year. Larudee has given multiple presentations on this project at Al-Awda, the PRC and other conferences. In addition, he has described the project in numerous interviews on television, radio, the written press and other places. A description of the project appears at www.freepalestinemovement.org/ffe.html.
2. The Return from Exile Project has some similarities with the Welcome to Palestine project in that it includes a fly-in to Lid ("Ben-Gurion") airport. However, that is where the similarity ends. It uses different procedures, occurs on a different date, yet to be determined, and it has different objectives.
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4. The accusations by some Palestinian and Palestine solidarity sources, accusing Larudee of false representation and undermining the Welcome to Palestine project could have been avoided by confronting him with the "evidence", discussing the matter, and seeking explanation. A small amount of research, such as going to the FPM website would reveal the truth immediately. It is totally irresponsible to make such accusations without first going through the due process of justice which we all advocate but that some of us are reluctant to practice before pronouncing judgment.
We hope that those responsible for issuing these accusations will take the trouble to discuss them with the accused, discover the truth, issue an apology and then all trust each other again. First Ken O'Keefe, and now Paul Larudee? My, my. Solidarity doesn't mean what it used to! The funny thing is, even with all the infighting, you still won't hear any of these "non-violent" activists or their apologists at 972mag or Mondoweiss say a word against the IHH's actions on the Mavi Marmara. Criticizing fellow Westerners is fine, but don't dare criticize the Muslims! Muslims and Arabs can do no wrong! (h/t fafa) 
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| Orthodox Zionist films becoming mainstream in Israel. And a word about empathy. Posted: 12 Jul 2011 01:57 PM PDT An interesting article in the New York Jewish Week: [The Ma'aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts in Jerusalem] says it is the only film school of its kind, committed to producing work by filmmakers "inspired by their Jewish heritage," including the prophetic heritage that was not only about scolding Israel but loving, comforting and defending Israel, as well.
Ma'aleh students are free, in their projects, to explore any Israeli topic whatsoever, fiction or documentary. The only requirement, aside from no work on Shabbat (a rarity in the film business), is that there be no overt sexuality, gratuitous violence or crude language.
Within the confines of modesty, or perhaps because of it, more than a few of these films nevertheless depict Orthodox Jews in highly erotic or religiously ambiguous situations. These films are hardly propaganda: In "A-Meiseh," a relationship between a Holocaust survivor and his Filipino caregiver is tested when police search the neighborhood for illegal foreign workers.
In "Elyokim," a young, brilliant but wheelchair-bound haredi man in Meah Shearim develops a crush on his rebbe's daughter, who has private sexual reckonings of her own. Another film, "The First Night," enters into the bedroom of a newlywed Modern Orthodox couple who, never having touched, confront their first nights of intimacy. Their unease is accentuated during "sheva brachos" week by the couple's greater ease with old friends than with each other.
And yet, for all these tensions, the viewer never doubts that the Ma'aleh films fully respect – even love -- all the Jewish characters and Jewish laws that come into play, much as no one doubts that Thornton Wilder, writing "Our Town," or Frank Capra, directing "It's A Wonderful Life," were anything but in love with American small-town dreams and values, while not shying away from the truth that someone in Grover's Corners or Bedford Falls might consider suicide, or how it can all turn into Pottersville if just one good man has a run of bad luck, or wasn't born.
Ma'aleh has changed Israeli film and TV. Hannah Brown, a film critic for the Jerusalem Post, reported in 2010 that "in decades past, religious characters could often be seen as the butt of jokes in silly comedies…. But these new films take their religious characters seriously. They have also sold tickets both here and abroad, and have won prizes at festivals around the world." In recent years, "religiously observant directors and movies on religious themes have claimed an increasing share of the limelight and have become part of mainstream local cinema."
Among Ma'aleh's graduates are the creators of "Srugim," a hit Israeli television series about Modern Orthodox single men and women in Jerusalem.
Harold Berman, Ma'aleh's director of resource development, says he knew someone "who wanted to make a film, set in the West Bank, with a kind of Zionist script," only to get a rejection from a Tel Aviv producer who said, "'Zionism is no longer relevant.'"
Yet, it might be obvious that several Ma'aleh films about the West Bank are more relevant than ever. "Barriers," a film about the complexity but justification of checkpoints (shown this week in the Jerusalem Film Festival) is a drama, but what's fascinating is that several Ma'aleh settlement films are comedies. "Evacuation Order," directed by Shoshi Greenfield, for one, is the story of a secular, leftist soldier, for whom the West Bank is alien territory, sent to evacuate an illegal hilltop settlement. He ends up falling in love with a beautiful female settler with long flowing hair and an ankle-length dress. (As Zionism was an erotic revolution as well as a political one, Ma'aleh casting crews have no trouble finding and casting beautiful and erotic Orthodox faces). The settler woman can't imagine abandoning a thyme-speckled hillside that she sees as entwined with her soul. Beyond the film's gentle humor, there's the underlying truth that as a prelude to peace, or evacuation, Israelis must find a way to love the Jewish "other."
Greenfield, the director, took a settlement story "to a whole new place," says Neta Ariel, director of the school, "because she knows what it is to be a settler, and self-humor can be very strong and very refreshing."
...
In Ma'aleh films, the land is as sensual as anything else. Einat Kapach, who handles Ma'aleh's international relations, says that when she did her graduate work at Ma'aleh, "my goal, my purpose, was to go to the desert and film an extreme long shot, because in Israeli films there wasn't enough connection to the land and the places and the space."
Modern Israel may be the greatest story ever told, but one consistently hears from Ma'aleh's artists, "if we don't tell our story, who will?" The beginning of the article is noteworthy for what it doesn't say: Many Jewish artists pride themselves on having empathy for the "the other," even — especially – for Palestinians.
For example, "Miral," a film released earlier this year, shows a Palestinian girl living under an Israeli occupation depicted as absolutely brutal. The director, Julian Schnabel, a Jew, was quoted as saying that he had "a personal Jewish responsibility" to make such a film, which was distributed by Harvey Weinstein, who's Jewish, too.
Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of CLAL, has said of "Miral," in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, that what's missing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a "lack of empathy on both sides." Miral "is fundamentally a meditation on empathy."
That only begs the question: In recent years, how many films have been made — anywhere — with empathy for, say, West Bank settlers? Of all the Jews in the film business, how many ever felt "a personal Jewish responsibility" to make films empathetic to Orthodox or old-school Zionist lives? The writer asks about Jewish filmmalkers being emphatic with sections of the Jewish community as they are with Arabs. But he doesn't even bother asking the analogous question: Could anyone imagine an Arab film that is empathetic to Israelis? The fact that it is absolutely inconceivable is just one of those pieces of information that everyone knows with certainty. Yet so many still believe that a true "peace" is possible between Israel and its neighbors, people who have such a passionate hate for Jews living in their midst that the slightest expression of empathy towards them could easily be a death sentence. When there are Palestinian Arab films that looks as sympathetically at Zionist Jews as Israeli films humanize Palestinian Arabs, then there would be a possibility for a real peace. Until that happens, everyone knows that any peace is a sham. Most of Ma'aleh's films have English subtitles, their website is here. 
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| Is Dracula a Jewish stereotype? Posted: 12 Jul 2011 12:53 PM PDT Blood Will Tell, a new book by Sara Libby Robinson, gives some interesting evidence that Dracula was meant to evoke anti-semitic stereotypes. From Jewish Ideas Daily: While never explicitly identified as a Jew, the figure of Dracula—and vampires more generally—encompassed an array of anti-Semitic stereotypes: rootless, of East European origin, dark-complected, and lustful for the money and blood of others. Assessing a wide range of themes in which blood and vampirism were evoked in late-19th-century European "scientific" thought (Social Darwinism and criminology in particular), Robinson argues that Stoker's depiction of Dracula exploited widespread anxieties about the dangers posed by the flood (and the blood) of Yiddish-speaking immigrants to Great Britain.
Dracula's features are "stereotypically Jewish . . . [his] nose is hooked, he has bushy eyebrows, pointed ears, and sharp, ugly fingers." As for his behavior, Robinson situates Dracula in the realm of fin-de-siècle national chauvinism, which viewed non-Anglo-Saxons—and Jews in particular—as dangerous interlopers loyal only to their alien tribe. "Like many immigrants, Dracula has made great efforts to acculturate himself to his new country and to blend in with the rest of the population, through studying its language and customs . . . [his] greatest concern is whether his mastery of English and his pronunciation would brand him as a foreigner." Likewise, Stoker mines anxieties over Jewish dual loyalty. "The one identified person whose aid Dracula enlists in escaping Britain is a German Jew named Hildesheim, 'a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep,' who must be bribed in order to aid Stoker's heroes."
Robinson asserts that the purpose of her study is to widen the focus away from Dracula. She calls attention, often brilliantly, to the frequent appearance of vampiric metaphors and blood-related anxieties beginning some two decades before Stoker's work appeared, up through the First World War. She marshals evidence from dozens of German, French, and British authors (many now obscure) for allusions to perceived political and social threats evoking the fear of blood-letting and vampirism. Additionally, she casts a fine eye on some 30 illustrations culled from the satirical journals of the period, such as the German Kladderadatsch, the English Punch, and the American Puck and Harper's Weekly.  So what does that make The Count? 
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| It's a long way to Gaza City (song parody/video) Posted: 12 Jul 2011 11:53 AM PDT I'm not sure which is funnier - the lyrics or the singing. From HuffPo Monitor. 
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| Saif al Islam Gaddafi claims rebels want to convert Libyans to Christianity Posted: 12 Jul 2011 10:50 AM PDT Back in 2007, The New York Times described Saif al Islam Gaddafi as "part scholar, part monk, part model, part policy wonk" and "the un-Gaddafi." The BBC Arabic channel reports on a speech that this scholar and policy wonk gave on Libyan state TV a few days ago: Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, accused the Libyan opposition of working on the division of the country, committing atrocities during the current conflict, and working on converting the Libyans to Christianity.
He added that the opposition is only a very few people against the ruling regime, and they seek to divide the country and control the east of the country, rich with oil.
He said he has proof that the opposition, based in the city of Benghazi, east of the country, has a plan to divide the country into six provinces, and that the Libyans would not accept the existence of a conservative Berber province west of the country.
Saif al-Islam also accused the opposition of pushing a secular constitution, and of encouraging Libyans to convert to Christianity.
He called for "jihad" against the Christians and the Outlaws and the invaders, as he called them, saying the government was "ready to arm any Muslim who believes in jihad." Notice how a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics turns people into peaceful, pragmatic moderates. (Why did the BBC not report this in English?) 
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| Gaza citizens' views of all the new fancy restaurants and hotels Posted: 12 Jul 2011 09:47 AM PDT Ma'an (Arabic) has an article about the surge of new fancy restaurants, hotels, spas and resorts in Gaza, and how their prices are so far out of reach to the average Gazan. According to the article, the main customers in these hotspots are employees of NGOs, journalists and rich Gazans. An entire industry in Gaza has sprung up to service people whose entire jobs are to report on how horrid conditions are in Gaza. The article also notes that many Gazans are going to these restaurants, enjoying the food and entertainment, and then they either skip out without paying or they tell the owner that they'll pay "next month" when they get their next check. Gazans are interviewed about how difficult it is for them to save up money to go to fancy restaurants with their families, and how it is cheaper to just buy their own ingredients and make their own meals. Which sounds pretty much like most people on the planet. I had seen a previous article that described one other customer for these new hotels and halls. Apparently, (again just like people everywhere,) Gazans will go into extreme debt to pay for fancy weddings for their daughters, and they don't want to look cheap. 
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| Flotidiot whining reaches a new level Posted: 12 Jul 2011 08:55 AM PDT Screeching, perhaps. A press release from the flotimbeciles: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ann Wright, 0030 694 165 7310
Regina Carey: 0030 694 203 6296
Athens, July 12, 2011, At 10 am today, the shore electricity was cut off to the Audacity of Hope, the US Boat to Gaza, leaving us with no power. The boat has been imprisoned at the US Embassy/Greek Coast Guard dock, near Piraeus, Greece, just outside of Athens since we tried to sail to Gaza on July 1 when the Greek Coast Guard intercepted our small boat and hauled us into this compound.
Its over 100 degrees inside the boat, and a Russian ship loading grain is spewing grain and dust over the entire area. In addition, the off-loading noise the ship is making is above environmentally acceptable limit, sounding like a bad rock concert playing at the back of the boat! Six women are staying on board to protect the boat, since two boats heading to Gaza were already sabotaged in an attempt to prevent us from sailing to Gaza. Four of us are over 60. The Greek naval facility is co-located with a US Embassy compound which has one warehouse exclusively for the U.S. government, as well as a ramp for loading vehicles onto a ship. It also has a parking area for the wrecked cars of Americans who have been involved in traffic accidents plus a secure warehouse compound behind the ubiquitous high fence topped with razor wire and signs printed in both English and Greek in the US government block style lettering. Tomorrow, they'll take a dip in the sea, and then write a press release that the water is too cold for their 60 year old bodies, and therefore demand everyone call the Greek Embassy to complain. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar) 
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| Hamas promotes "Jihad and resistance and bodies and blood." Posted: 12 Jul 2011 07:50 AM PDT Martyrdom is getting really cheap in Hamastan. Now you don't even have to die! Hamas' Al Qassam newspaper interviews "living martyr" Salah Osman, who was involved in a terror attack against an Israeli bus in 1993. Now he is bedridden (perhaps because of a different incident in 2008 when he escaped a bombing attack in Gaza) and therefore has the status of "living martyr." He is sad that he didn't manage to blow himself up in 1993. The punchline of the article is this quote: The Road to Palestine and the maximum [Temple Mount] does not go through the Oslo and Washington and the round-table negotiations; but through Jihad and resistance and bodies and blood. But, remember, Hamas has moderated, and united with the peaceful Fatah terrorists. This quote in their official newspaper doesn't preclude the well-known fact that Jimmy Carter and George Galloway and others know to be true: " Jihad and resistance and bodies and blood" really means "peace and harmony and bunnies and rainbows." 
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| Al Jazeera reporters receiving death threats from "Arab Spring" coverage Posted: 12 Jul 2011 06:55 AM PDT Al Jazeera says that its reporters and presenters have been receiving threats from government loyalists in the Arab world, because of their coverage of Arab uprisings and protests. They have been receiving threatening emails and female on-air staff have been receiving obscene threats. The network has been beefing up its security procedures and is hiring investigators to track down the sources of threats that are posted on Facebook and elsewhere. Almost all al Jazeera reporters have canceled their summer vacations to Arab countries outside of Doha for fear for their families' safety. Al Quds al Arabi also has received email threats and one bomb threat in reaction to its coverage of the riots, forcing them to evacuate. 
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| Hamas condemns Abbas meeting with Greek president Posted: 12 Jul 2011 05:50 AM PDT Hamas has published a statement in their Palestine Times newspaper condemning the meeting that Mahmoud Abbas is having Greek president Karolos Papoulias. The press release, from a Hamas student group, slams Abbas for meeting with Papoulias after he was praised by Shimon Peres and Binyamin Netanyahu for Greece's role in aborting the flotilla. The group plans to hold a sit-in in Ramallah to protest the meeting. 
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| Morning links Posted: 12 Jul 2011 03:08 AM PDT The latest "flotilla" idea drops all pretense of helping Gazans and goes directly towards destroying Israel. This article includes a great graphic that shows the inter-relationships between the Flotilla groups and Islamist/terror groups like Hamas. Click to enlarge. Adam Holland exposes Mondoweiss for lying, saying it is under "attack" by Israel in order to raise cash and then admitting it really isn't. Birkat Avraham notes that the Church of England seems to be fooling Israel's chief rabbis, as it continues to engage in anti-Jewish activities. Want to see what a real refugee camp look like? A new Australian law would force Muslim women to lift their veils if requested by the police. (h/t Nick, Chanan, Mike, plus one I forgot, sorry) 
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