From: Dale Baranowski [mailto:rabelad@zahav.net.il]
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 10:27 PM
To: (Undisclosed Recipients)
>
> As an officer in the IDF, he found himself with a "shadow"
> - an officer from a foreign (friendly) army was attached to
> him, to learn about tactics, equipment, strategy,
> organization, etc. After a few months , the officier said
> to Rabbi M. : " This is impossible. I have been to
> Finland, to other European countries to study their army
> and their military work, and I have learned tremendously.
> But from you Israelis, I cannot learn a single thing.
> Not one thing."
>
> Rabbi M . asked : "How is that? " And the man answered:
> " Each rocket that fell last summer in the north contained
> an average of 100 kilograms of explosives. With over 4000
> such rockets falling on Northern Israel, we could expect
> vast devastation, cities and towns in ruins, thousands of
> casualties. We are talking about 400,000 kilos of
> explosives, over 400 tons !!! But no... and your life goes
> on. We just can't learn from you, because nothing here is
> normal. You guys are living on sheer, huge, obvious
> miracles!!!"
I've been saying this for years.
And I might add that Jews, though brilliant in the sciences, arts, humanities and technology, are complete and blithering idiots when it comes to knowing how to act in order to survive in the real world. We do things that would be regarded as insane by the rest of the world in order to make 'peace' We Jews do wildly irrational things to supposedly enhance our security which only ends up eroding it even more. For instance, no gentile in his right mind would even dream of empowering his enemies by giving them great hunks of land AND providing them with lots of weapons without having made peace first. It’s a fact and I long pondered over why this is so. After reading the accounts of our previous wars and having been in Israel during the Gulf War, the Lebanese war and now seen how this country handled the most recent outbreak of hostilities last summer, I came to the conclusion that this is due to the fact that our people and country have been shielded by miracle after miracle over decades and millennia.
I understand that David ben-Gurion once said something to the effect that if anyone lives in this area and doesn't believe in miracles he simply doesn't have a grasp of reality.
If we were to experience the real consequences of our actions, and live according to the rules as the rest of the world does Israel wouldn’t have survived 6 months. We would have been swiftly slaughtered by our enemies in a killing frenzy when all the surrounding Arab states attacked Israel at once, a day after her creation in 1948. If the Arabs would have known better and would have had a modicum of self-control they would have held off and we would have quickly run ourselves and our state into the ground with our incompetence and corruption within months after it's creation in 1948. The reason our country survives our enemies within, without and the perpetual blundering incompetence is simply miraculous. The thing that makes it even more miraculous is that Israel doesn’t just survive, she flourishes despite being surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Arabs who are hankering for our blood and, quite arguably, have one of the most barbaric cultures on this earth
Miracles have happened to Jews in the Land of Israel to the extent that we have never gotten normal exposure to the way the real world works. We've never had to deal with real life as the rest of humanity experiences it, and this fact profoundly affects our outlook and whole mentality. Miracles are a fundamental part of our lives and, as a result, we take insane risks that we think will enhance our security but they would require even bigger miracles for them to actually succeed.
The truth is that the success of Jews in life is always a gift, and this is especially so here in the Land of Israel as here the gifts are much more open and blatant. Well, it’s because the average Israeli has seen so many miracles and so often that they appear to be "normal" after a while. Many Israelis have developed this annoying assumption that they are natural experts in fields to which they have no knowledge, no education nor experience. This is usually interpreted as arrogance or irrationality by someone who comes from other countries where someone with no education, no experience and no knowledge is quickly snuffed out even the earliest attempt to succeed in an endeavor. Yet here in Israel many Jews have succeeded brilliantly without essential qualifications. Not just once but Israelis have done so often and again, and as a result they think that this sort of thing is normal (!). Truth is that it's NOT normal, it's the result of blatant divine intervention, but we're so much a part of this scene, so used to miracles happening daily, we’re so buried within it, that we don't have the broader perspective and can't see it even when non-Jews come here and see them first-hand.
Dale
14 June 2007
An account of Arab cultural norms, mentality and behavior from the 1920s & 30s
One issue that always seems to re-enter the international news is how Fatah & Hezbollah have rounds of fighting in these parts that many think will end in a mass civil war. For all the times that we’ve seen those periods they always seem to cool down and not end in the bloodbath of terrorists that many hope will reduce the numbers of those who are out to kill Jews. It seems that Fatah leaders use these periods of fighting to beg for weapons from the US and since their more image-conscious leaders claim that they are “moderate” the US swallows this hook, line & sinker and provides Fatah will lots of small arms, ostensibly to fight the Hezbollah. In the end those weapons are shared beteen Hezbollah and Fatah because, deep down, they're really brothers who have little spats now and then, but they hate Jews the most.
Well, I am reading Clark Hopkins work: "The Discovery of Dura-Europus" which is an account written by the head archeologist who excavated the city of Dura-Europus in Syria along the Euphrates River which was one of the richest archeological finds in the mid-East. Clark Hopkins was in charge of the dig which took place in Syria the 1920s and 1930s. The following paragraphs are taken verbatim from that book. They contain a description of the mentality and behavior of the Arabs. I wish to point out that Hopkins noticed that a cycle of violence (he called it a “cycle of murder and revenge”) that exists within Arab society and that the Arabs of his day got adventurous, stepped on another Arab group’s toes, violence erupted in reaction, someone got injured or killed in the encounter, and then the opposing group did seek blood revenge on the (perceived?) offenders. And this pattern, this cycle of violence, went on and on and on in those days between Arab and Arab. Oddly enough, that mentality seems to persist unchanged today among them. It’s a frequent occurrence for in these parts clans have clan wars and outbreaks of fighting among other groups. And then Fatah & Hezbollah have their frequent violent tiffs. This behavior is another expression of what Clark refers to in the second paragraph as “childlike simplicity”. That’s a very positive spin on some very destructive attitudes and behavior when it erupts in adults who are angry or carry a grudge. When children are hurt they react quickly, emotionally, and lash out in revenge at the one they perceive as having done the harm. Culturally speaking, when Arabs feel sighted or hurt it’s typical for them to react childishly and lash out to each other, and especially toward Jews. When adult reacts the same way, particularly one carrying firearms, death and destruction result.
All in all, their mentality remains constant and there’s little hope for them to change toward more civilized ways. So liberals: give up thy ideals, hopes and illusions, ye who enter the Middle-East!
Dale
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The following excerpt is from Clark Hopkins book, ‘The Discovery of Dura-Europus’, Yale University Press, 1979, pp 43-48:
“The desert offered little opportunity for remunerative work beyond raising the flocks and herds. When times were hard with famine, the villages were crowded with desert Arabs seeking any means to earn subsistence. There were no fat men in the desert, while in town the Arab put on flesh easily enough. The desert Arab knew bitter cold in winter and unrelenting heat in summer; he fought the climate and indigenous diseases—particularly anemia, syphilis, and ringworm—and he subsisted on a minimum of nourishment. Rice and bread, dates, figs, and nuts were the unvarying staples, but meat remained a luxury. For a special feast, a sheep was killed and the flesh roasted. Milk and sour cream were added in season, eggs and chicken occasionally, and a desert bird would be served as a special treat when the shot from a whirling sling found its mark.
“The Arabs displayed their pleasure with childlike simplicity when they came to the pay table, singing noisily and brandishing their shovels and picks as if they were guns and all were off on a hunting party. Their dance was the Turkish line of men with arms around each other's shoulders, with the end man performing fancy bends and turns. The music was high and wild or melancholy and elusive.
“A man bought his bride from a family within the tribe, and he settled down in his own tent, keeping his sheep in the common herd. There was no opportunity for school, for the herdsmen were constantly on the move. When the French insisted on an elementary school in one village, the tribal units gave money for a building, a teacher, and books, but providing the children was a different matter. The boys could not be spared from the flocks they tended, and the girls had no need for education. Schooling, if there was to be any, was only possible when the tribes remained in one place: in the spring when they settled by the river, and in the winter when the thick desert mud made migrations impossible.
“The movement of tribes was to the northern highlands for the summer and to the south for the winter. Modern political frontiers were ignored, for the desert had always been free and movement unchecked, except as the large tribes demarcated their territories and the smaller tribes concluded agreements, usually by marriage alliances and for mutual support. The broad desert was the grazing grounds of the tribes, much as the forest and plains were the hunting grounds of the American Indians, and little sympathy was expected or given between unrelated groups. Recognition of and respect for landmarks were phenomenal, but the ownership of border districts was left vague and came into question only in times of famine or unusual expansion. Raids, however, remained the popular pursuit of the daring younger men on their Arabian ponies, and the raids often evolved into deadly feuds. A rough justice prevailed, and a strong claim of injury, even against a superior tribe, might be honored, but the debt of blood devolved not on the law court but on the next of kin, and in the desert the round of retaliation rarely stopped.
“Passing through Palmyra during one of our later seasons, we found the French officer of the Meharists, the desert police, trying to settle a feud between local tribes. It had begun with a small dawn raid by some impetuous young men eager to show their strength. They had cut out a few sheep and goats and driven them back into their own tribal territory. In a retaliatory raid a few shots had been exchanged at long range, and by chance a man had been injured. This called for more serious retaliation. By the time the Meharists intervened a nephew of one sheik had been wounded, one man had been killed, and to further complicate matters, it was discovered that a woman from one tribe had been carried off by her lover from the other tribe.
“All might have been settled without too much trouble, except the death of one man called for the nearest of his kin to avenge the shooting by killing the murderer. In a raid, who fired a fatal shot is rarely known, but the blood debt could be satisfied if any member of the attacking tribe were dispatched. Of course, without proof that the random victim had committed the original crime, his next of kin was obliged to avenge his death. The CYCLE OF MURDER AND REVENGE (emphasis mine – Dale) went on and on; feuds of small tribes grew in intensity, involving larger allied tribes, until all too often desert wars erupted.
“In the Palmyra case the sheiks of the two tribes were summoned, and the injuries were reckoned in cash: How much for the wounding of a sheik? How much for the abduction of a not unwilling girl? How much for the life of one man killed? The details escape me, but I remember the life of the Arab herdsman, not related by blood or marriage to the sheik, was valued at twenty-five dollars. The French insisted that the amount be paid in silver on the spot and that both sheiks swear that particular feud was over. Life was plain but not entirely simple in the open spaces of the desert.
“Fillet dreaded a native Arab attack on his mission, and he built accordingly. He had the great, wide courtyard surrounded by a solid wall of rubble and cement higher than a man's head. A corridor ran along one side of the staff quarters, and the private rooms opened off it, each long and narrow and lighted by a single small window cut through the thick cement much like an archer's slot.
“One might be amused by his over-anxiety, but there was some justification, as we discovered in later campaigns. In the summer of 1932 the few soldiers comprising the French garrison at Abou Kemal were attacked and as the lieutenant was returning to his fort in an army truck, he was ambushed and killed. One night our foreman's house in the great courtyard became someone’s target. On another occasion, an old and experienced French archaeologist traveling alone at night was signaled to a stop by an Arab, who approached the car with one hand held high, the other behind him. When the car door opened, he pulled up the rifle he had been dragging behind him by the barrel and shot the archaeologist. Whether robbery or a fancied grudge was the motive we never knew. Our own expedition on a special investigation across the Euphrates at Baghouz, close to the Iraq frontier, was saved from attack by a sandstorm that rose at the right moment. Apparently the would-be attackers thought archaeologists carried their wealth with them and that the robbery could be covered by a quick flight across the border.
“On the other hand we drove into Deir-ez-Zor once a week, withdrawing from the bank a thousand dollars in silver and gold to pay the workmen. Our route was well known and we had to drive through one or two narrow, steep passes where a roadblock and attack would have been easy. Although a thousand dollars was a fortune in the desert, we were never molested, nor was there ever any hint that we might be.”
Well, I am reading Clark Hopkins work: "The Discovery of Dura-Europus" which is an account written by the head archeologist who excavated the city of Dura-Europus in Syria along the Euphrates River which was one of the richest archeological finds in the mid-East. Clark Hopkins was in charge of the dig which took place in Syria the 1920s and 1930s. The following paragraphs are taken verbatim from that book. They contain a description of the mentality and behavior of the Arabs. I wish to point out that Hopkins noticed that a cycle of violence (he called it a “cycle of murder and revenge”) that exists within Arab society and that the Arabs of his day got adventurous, stepped on another Arab group’s toes, violence erupted in reaction, someone got injured or killed in the encounter, and then the opposing group did seek blood revenge on the (perceived?) offenders. And this pattern, this cycle of violence, went on and on and on in those days between Arab and Arab. Oddly enough, that mentality seems to persist unchanged today among them. It’s a frequent occurrence for in these parts clans have clan wars and outbreaks of fighting among other groups. And then Fatah & Hezbollah have their frequent violent tiffs. This behavior is another expression of what Clark refers to in the second paragraph as “childlike simplicity”. That’s a very positive spin on some very destructive attitudes and behavior when it erupts in adults who are angry or carry a grudge. When children are hurt they react quickly, emotionally, and lash out in revenge at the one they perceive as having done the harm. Culturally speaking, when Arabs feel sighted or hurt it’s typical for them to react childishly and lash out to each other, and especially toward Jews. When adult reacts the same way, particularly one carrying firearms, death and destruction result.
All in all, their mentality remains constant and there’s little hope for them to change toward more civilized ways. So liberals: give up thy ideals, hopes and illusions, ye who enter the Middle-East!
Dale
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The following excerpt is from Clark Hopkins book, ‘The Discovery of Dura-Europus’, Yale University Press, 1979, pp 43-48:
“The desert offered little opportunity for remunerative work beyond raising the flocks and herds. When times were hard with famine, the villages were crowded with desert Arabs seeking any means to earn subsistence. There were no fat men in the desert, while in town the Arab put on flesh easily enough. The desert Arab knew bitter cold in winter and unrelenting heat in summer; he fought the climate and indigenous diseases—particularly anemia, syphilis, and ringworm—and he subsisted on a minimum of nourishment. Rice and bread, dates, figs, and nuts were the unvarying staples, but meat remained a luxury. For a special feast, a sheep was killed and the flesh roasted. Milk and sour cream were added in season, eggs and chicken occasionally, and a desert bird would be served as a special treat when the shot from a whirling sling found its mark.
“The Arabs displayed their pleasure with childlike simplicity when they came to the pay table, singing noisily and brandishing their shovels and picks as if they were guns and all were off on a hunting party. Their dance was the Turkish line of men with arms around each other's shoulders, with the end man performing fancy bends and turns. The music was high and wild or melancholy and elusive.
“A man bought his bride from a family within the tribe, and he settled down in his own tent, keeping his sheep in the common herd. There was no opportunity for school, for the herdsmen were constantly on the move. When the French insisted on an elementary school in one village, the tribal units gave money for a building, a teacher, and books, but providing the children was a different matter. The boys could not be spared from the flocks they tended, and the girls had no need for education. Schooling, if there was to be any, was only possible when the tribes remained in one place: in the spring when they settled by the river, and in the winter when the thick desert mud made migrations impossible.
“The movement of tribes was to the northern highlands for the summer and to the south for the winter. Modern political frontiers were ignored, for the desert had always been free and movement unchecked, except as the large tribes demarcated their territories and the smaller tribes concluded agreements, usually by marriage alliances and for mutual support. The broad desert was the grazing grounds of the tribes, much as the forest and plains were the hunting grounds of the American Indians, and little sympathy was expected or given between unrelated groups. Recognition of and respect for landmarks were phenomenal, but the ownership of border districts was left vague and came into question only in times of famine or unusual expansion. Raids, however, remained the popular pursuit of the daring younger men on their Arabian ponies, and the raids often evolved into deadly feuds. A rough justice prevailed, and a strong claim of injury, even against a superior tribe, might be honored, but the debt of blood devolved not on the law court but on the next of kin, and in the desert the round of retaliation rarely stopped.
“Passing through Palmyra during one of our later seasons, we found the French officer of the Meharists, the desert police, trying to settle a feud between local tribes. It had begun with a small dawn raid by some impetuous young men eager to show their strength. They had cut out a few sheep and goats and driven them back into their own tribal territory. In a retaliatory raid a few shots had been exchanged at long range, and by chance a man had been injured. This called for more serious retaliation. By the time the Meharists intervened a nephew of one sheik had been wounded, one man had been killed, and to further complicate matters, it was discovered that a woman from one tribe had been carried off by her lover from the other tribe.
“All might have been settled without too much trouble, except the death of one man called for the nearest of his kin to avenge the shooting by killing the murderer. In a raid, who fired a fatal shot is rarely known, but the blood debt could be satisfied if any member of the attacking tribe were dispatched. Of course, without proof that the random victim had committed the original crime, his next of kin was obliged to avenge his death. The CYCLE OF MURDER AND REVENGE (emphasis mine – Dale) went on and on; feuds of small tribes grew in intensity, involving larger allied tribes, until all too often desert wars erupted.
“In the Palmyra case the sheiks of the two tribes were summoned, and the injuries were reckoned in cash: How much for the wounding of a sheik? How much for the abduction of a not unwilling girl? How much for the life of one man killed? The details escape me, but I remember the life of the Arab herdsman, not related by blood or marriage to the sheik, was valued at twenty-five dollars. The French insisted that the amount be paid in silver on the spot and that both sheiks swear that particular feud was over. Life was plain but not entirely simple in the open spaces of the desert.
“Fillet dreaded a native Arab attack on his mission, and he built accordingly. He had the great, wide courtyard surrounded by a solid wall of rubble and cement higher than a man's head. A corridor ran along one side of the staff quarters, and the private rooms opened off it, each long and narrow and lighted by a single small window cut through the thick cement much like an archer's slot.
“One might be amused by his over-anxiety, but there was some justification, as we discovered in later campaigns. In the summer of 1932 the few soldiers comprising the French garrison at Abou Kemal were attacked and as the lieutenant was returning to his fort in an army truck, he was ambushed and killed. One night our foreman's house in the great courtyard became someone’s target. On another occasion, an old and experienced French archaeologist traveling alone at night was signaled to a stop by an Arab, who approached the car with one hand held high, the other behind him. When the car door opened, he pulled up the rifle he had been dragging behind him by the barrel and shot the archaeologist. Whether robbery or a fancied grudge was the motive we never knew. Our own expedition on a special investigation across the Euphrates at Baghouz, close to the Iraq frontier, was saved from attack by a sandstorm that rose at the right moment. Apparently the would-be attackers thought archaeologists carried their wealth with them and that the robbery could be covered by a quick flight across the border.
“On the other hand we drove into Deir-ez-Zor once a week, withdrawing from the bank a thousand dollars in silver and gold to pay the workmen. Our route was well known and we had to drive through one or two narrow, steep passes where a roadblock and attack would have been easy. Although a thousand dollars was a fortune in the desert, we were never molested, nor was there ever any hint that we might be.”
07 June 2007
RE: [efrat] Movie about our neighborhood
> Cc: 'Efrat List'
> Subject: RE: [efrat] Movie about our neighborhood
>
> Ok, so what is our response? I would like to know it.
>
> Those apricot trees were not 20 years old. (I think one man mentioned
> that they had been living off the fruit for 20 years?) But the one
> olivetree we saw destroyed certainly was - so what's the story?
I watched that film.
http://corky.net/~eran/yossi/Ertas%20200507%20Forweb.WMV
First, those apricot trees were not 20 years old, no way in Hades. They were maybe 6 or 7 years old. Anyway, if they were indeed 20 years old then they would be dead, or at least they would be going out of production and arrive at the end of their lives. If they were 20 years old then they'd be huge, in terrible shape and many in the field would have already died and left obvious gaps in the rows and in the field. Apricot trees only produce commercial fruit for 20 years, maximum, under the best of conditions -- and believe me those trees didn't get anything approaching ideal care.
Second, contrary to the claim that those Arabs make a living off those trees, even if they each had 50 or 60 trees each they couldn't possibly live off them. A mature & productive apricot tree can produce 20 maybe 30 kg of commercial quality fruit assuming that it was pruned properly and 90% of the fruit is removed very early when the fruit is at the size of a lima bean or smaller. Such thinning of fruit makes those that remain big, sweet and sale-able. But it's a lot of work. So do the math, multiply the 60 trees that the guy claimed he had that was slated for destruction, times 30 kg/tree times the price of apricots/kg in the stores these days and if any Arab would try to live off the proceeds he'd starve after 2 months at best. They lied about making a living off those trees, as no one can make a living off 60 trees.
Often in propaganda films what is not said and not shown is significant. How many trees over how much of an area did the earthmover actually destroy? 60? 100? 10,000? They didn't say, funny enough. Instead of giving us facts of the extent of the damage they showed us the "heart-rending" scenes of the power shovel uprooting a few trees but they never gave a shot of the final damage - instead they showed one guy bemoaning the loss of his trees and one other making the motion of wiping a tear from his eye, although we couldn't see any tear. I'd be interested in going to that site and see what area was plowed up for the sewerage treatment facility. Let's see how much of an area was affected.
BTW, I understand that a vast majority of Arab towns and villages do not have sewage treatment facilities and they just dump their sewerage in some wadi or each family dumps their excrement down a hole thus allowing it to contaminate the ground water that we all drink. Why aren't they complaining that they don't have sewage treatment for their town and is just contaminating the ground water instead of complaining about the loss of a few trees?
Oh, and the Arabs will be rejoicing when the treatment center starts working because it will release treated water that they will gleefully use to water their trees and other crops. So for the price of a few fruit trees they'll have an abundance of clean water to use for their agriculture, thanks to dem Jooz! But that won't get on TV or on the net!
Kudos to the soldiers who reacted well in front of the cameras, with smiles, with sufficient sensitivity -- but not too much sensitivity. They did well in that they did not enter into a dispute with the Arabs.
> Is it illegally planted land on land officially owned by Jews?
> (Please
> don't tell me we have a Biblical right to all the land, etc.) Was it
> bought out and paid for by the government in order to build the wall,
> and we aren't told that? Has there been stone throwing/shooting from
> that clump of trees necessitating its uprooting? Or what? Forgive my
> utter ignorance.
There are laws in every western country -- Right of Eminent Domain - that gives the government the right to undertake projects for the public good that may involve destroying property of others. If the property destroyed is legitimately owned by another and they can prove it then the government disburses compensation. But the policy everywhere in every country is: "no tickee, no washee" for if they took land without going through official channels and they don't have a deed then they won't get a nickel in compensation. Not just in Israel but in "progressive" countries like the US and Canada.
And ya mean that they didn't take this issue to the highly sympathetic Israeli Supreme Court that bends over backwards to satisfy Arab complaints? Wow, that says a lot about their case right there!
Heck, anyone can get a herd of folks to sit down at a kumzitz and one clown can cry crocodile tears in front of a camera and pull the heartstrings. But then the leftists know that emotion, passion and lies are the things that manipulate the "ignorant and astonished masses" (as Rene Descartes condescendingly referred to all of humanity, except
himself.)
As a former orchardist of some 15 years experience in Gush Etzion, I would like to point out that a number of sections of our orchards that I worked in were wrecked by Arab vandals.
Example #1: Kibbutz Migdal Oz had 5 dunams (1.4 acres) of mature sweet cherry trees in a section that faced Bet-Fajar that were burned to the ground. Arabs from Bet Fajar set an orchard alight -- oh, for anyone who might object to my "assuming" they were Arabs -- we knew that they came from and retuned to Bet-Fajar because the IDF brought in a Arab Bedouin tracker and he was the one who determined that the footprints of the GROUP of 5 people who lit the fires in a number of places simultaneously in the orchard had come from and returned to Bet-Fajar. Somehow a fire like that was not caused by Jewish Girl Scouts selling cookies who stopped to have a campfire to heat a can of baked beans because they were a bit hungry.
Example #2: In another incident a number of years ago, some 35 mature nectarine trees were seriously damaged or destroyed when Arabs entered
Kibbutz Migdal Oz's orchard which faced el-Arub UNRWA Camp. The Arabs,
entered at night, armed with hand saws, they cut through the primary limbs of the trees as the trees were developed into a goblet shape. The Arabs cut through about 85% of the diameter of the limbs and then they jumped on them which caused them to break and the bark was stripped off down the trunks, clear down to ground level. When that kind of damage is done there's no way to cut back the tree to eliminate the damage as the it goes all the way down to the ground so they did so in a way that mostly destroyed the trees. Again, Bedouin trackers determined that a GROUP of individuals who came and retuned to el-Arub did it.
Example #3: It happened that an Arab who deliberately led his herd of some 15 goats into our plum orchard and allowed his beasts to climb into the trees and eat the unripe fruit and leaves. Goats climb, they are heavy animals and when they climb into trees they break primary limbs with each leap. In the 7 minutes those goats were allowed to have their way with our trees the damage looked like some enormous machine went through the rows and smashed the trees with a huge hammer. If I had not seen the goats do the damage I with my own eyes I would have not believed that they were capable of that kind and extent of destruction. In response we "appropriated" a goat and told the sheppard that he'd get it back when money was paid in compensation for the extensive damage. Man, and it took about 6 more years for the trees to regrow to overcome the damage that a mere 7 minutes of goat activity in the orchard caused. That goat should have gone into a kibbutz cholent in order to partially pay for the damage.
Example #4: Before Rabin & Peres signed the Oslo Peace Accords with Arafat and Jimmy "Peanut Brain" Carter the Arabs snuck into our orchards to steal fruit only at night and only when the moon was not visible so to make it harder for our patrols to spot them. The very day after those accursed Oslo Accords were signed the Arabs gained tremendous confidence and went into our orchards and began to brazenly steal fruit in broad daylight while we were also picking in those same sections.
I have no sympathy for Arabs when they bemoan the uprooting of their orchard trees, as they have gone out of their way to inflict damage on our crops just out of meanness and intolerance. They also steal because it's a part of their culture and mentality and religion. Mohammed routinely carried out raids of thefts on specifically to non-Muslims and regarded this as a virtue. His behavior and attitudes were recorded in the Hadith, which is another sacred Muslim book that tells of the deeds of Muhammad and his gang. It records some 75 terrorist attacks that he perpetrated and it illustrates how his evil mental state was a model for succeeding generations of Muslims. Note that the Hadith was written by Mohammed's supporters and NOT by his detractors. I suggest taking seriously the following site: www.prophetofdoom.net that outlines the contents and repercussions of Muslim holy books that promote terror and intolerance.
> Does anyone understand enough Arabic to understand the last 20 seconds
> of monologue at the end? The words were not subtitled. Was that an
> innocent lapse or something the movie makers didn't want non-Arabs to
> understand?
>
> (We should all be making sure our kids learn Arabic. For positive and
> negative reasons.)
Of course, it's good to learn the language of your enemy, it works everywhere else in the world.
Dale
>
> Thanks,
> Yael
> Subject: RE: [efrat] Movie about our neighborhood
>
> Ok, so what is our response? I would like to know it.
>
> Those apricot trees were not 20 years old. (I think one man mentioned
> that they had been living off the fruit for 20 years?) But the one
> olivetree we saw destroyed certainly was - so what's the story?
I watched that film.
http://corky.net/~eran/yossi/Ertas%20200507%20Forweb.WMV
First, those apricot trees were not 20 years old, no way in Hades. They were maybe 6 or 7 years old. Anyway, if they were indeed 20 years old then they would be dead, or at least they would be going out of production and arrive at the end of their lives. If they were 20 years old then they'd be huge, in terrible shape and many in the field would have already died and left obvious gaps in the rows and in the field. Apricot trees only produce commercial fruit for 20 years, maximum, under the best of conditions -- and believe me those trees didn't get anything approaching ideal care.
Second, contrary to the claim that those Arabs make a living off those trees, even if they each had 50 or 60 trees each they couldn't possibly live off them. A mature & productive apricot tree can produce 20 maybe 30 kg of commercial quality fruit assuming that it was pruned properly and 90% of the fruit is removed very early when the fruit is at the size of a lima bean or smaller. Such thinning of fruit makes those that remain big, sweet and sale-able. But it's a lot of work. So do the math, multiply the 60 trees that the guy claimed he had that was slated for destruction, times 30 kg/tree times the price of apricots/kg in the stores these days and if any Arab would try to live off the proceeds he'd starve after 2 months at best. They lied about making a living off those trees, as no one can make a living off 60 trees.
Often in propaganda films what is not said and not shown is significant. How many trees over how much of an area did the earthmover actually destroy? 60? 100? 10,000? They didn't say, funny enough. Instead of giving us facts of the extent of the damage they showed us the "heart-rending" scenes of the power shovel uprooting a few trees but they never gave a shot of the final damage - instead they showed one guy bemoaning the loss of his trees and one other making the motion of wiping a tear from his eye, although we couldn't see any tear. I'd be interested in going to that site and see what area was plowed up for the sewerage treatment facility. Let's see how much of an area was affected.
BTW, I understand that a vast majority of Arab towns and villages do not have sewage treatment facilities and they just dump their sewerage in some wadi or each family dumps their excrement down a hole thus allowing it to contaminate the ground water that we all drink. Why aren't they complaining that they don't have sewage treatment for their town and is just contaminating the ground water instead of complaining about the loss of a few trees?
Oh, and the Arabs will be rejoicing when the treatment center starts working because it will release treated water that they will gleefully use to water their trees and other crops. So for the price of a few fruit trees they'll have an abundance of clean water to use for their agriculture, thanks to dem Jooz! But that won't get on TV or on the net!
Kudos to the soldiers who reacted well in front of the cameras, with smiles, with sufficient sensitivity -- but not too much sensitivity. They did well in that they did not enter into a dispute with the Arabs.
> Is it illegally planted land on land officially owned by Jews?
> (Please
> don't tell me we have a Biblical right to all the land, etc.) Was it
> bought out and paid for by the government in order to build the wall,
> and we aren't told that? Has there been stone throwing/shooting from
> that clump of trees necessitating its uprooting? Or what? Forgive my
> utter ignorance.
There are laws in every western country -- Right of Eminent Domain - that gives the government the right to undertake projects for the public good that may involve destroying property of others. If the property destroyed is legitimately owned by another and they can prove it then the government disburses compensation. But the policy everywhere in every country is: "no tickee, no washee" for if they took land without going through official channels and they don't have a deed then they won't get a nickel in compensation. Not just in Israel but in "progressive" countries like the US and Canada.
And ya mean that they didn't take this issue to the highly sympathetic Israeli Supreme Court that bends over backwards to satisfy Arab complaints? Wow, that says a lot about their case right there!
Heck, anyone can get a herd of folks to sit down at a kumzitz and one clown can cry crocodile tears in front of a camera and pull the heartstrings. But then the leftists know that emotion, passion and lies are the things that manipulate the "ignorant and astonished masses" (as Rene Descartes condescendingly referred to all of humanity, except
himself.)
As a former orchardist of some 15 years experience in Gush Etzion, I would like to point out that a number of sections of our orchards that I worked in were wrecked by Arab vandals.
Example #1: Kibbutz Migdal Oz had 5 dunams (1.4 acres) of mature sweet cherry trees in a section that faced Bet-Fajar that were burned to the ground. Arabs from Bet Fajar set an orchard alight -- oh, for anyone who might object to my "assuming" they were Arabs -- we knew that they came from and retuned to Bet-Fajar because the IDF brought in a Arab Bedouin tracker and he was the one who determined that the footprints of the GROUP of 5 people who lit the fires in a number of places simultaneously in the orchard had come from and returned to Bet-Fajar. Somehow a fire like that was not caused by Jewish Girl Scouts selling cookies who stopped to have a campfire to heat a can of baked beans because they were a bit hungry.
Example #2: In another incident a number of years ago, some 35 mature nectarine trees were seriously damaged or destroyed when Arabs entered
Kibbutz Migdal Oz's orchard which faced el-Arub UNRWA Camp. The Arabs,
entered at night, armed with hand saws, they cut through the primary limbs of the trees as the trees were developed into a goblet shape. The Arabs cut through about 85% of the diameter of the limbs and then they jumped on them which caused them to break and the bark was stripped off down the trunks, clear down to ground level. When that kind of damage is done there's no way to cut back the tree to eliminate the damage as the it goes all the way down to the ground so they did so in a way that mostly destroyed the trees. Again, Bedouin trackers determined that a GROUP of individuals who came and retuned to el-Arub did it.
Example #3: It happened that an Arab who deliberately led his herd of some 15 goats into our plum orchard and allowed his beasts to climb into the trees and eat the unripe fruit and leaves. Goats climb, they are heavy animals and when they climb into trees they break primary limbs with each leap. In the 7 minutes those goats were allowed to have their way with our trees the damage looked like some enormous machine went through the rows and smashed the trees with a huge hammer. If I had not seen the goats do the damage I with my own eyes I would have not believed that they were capable of that kind and extent of destruction. In response we "appropriated" a goat and told the sheppard that he'd get it back when money was paid in compensation for the extensive damage. Man, and it took about 6 more years for the trees to regrow to overcome the damage that a mere 7 minutes of goat activity in the orchard caused. That goat should have gone into a kibbutz cholent in order to partially pay for the damage.
Example #4: Before Rabin & Peres signed the Oslo Peace Accords with Arafat and Jimmy "Peanut Brain" Carter the Arabs snuck into our orchards to steal fruit only at night and only when the moon was not visible so to make it harder for our patrols to spot them. The very day after those accursed Oslo Accords were signed the Arabs gained tremendous confidence and went into our orchards and began to brazenly steal fruit in broad daylight while we were also picking in those same sections.
I have no sympathy for Arabs when they bemoan the uprooting of their orchard trees, as they have gone out of their way to inflict damage on our crops just out of meanness and intolerance. They also steal because it's a part of their culture and mentality and religion. Mohammed routinely carried out raids of thefts on specifically to non-Muslims and regarded this as a virtue. His behavior and attitudes were recorded in the Hadith, which is another sacred Muslim book that tells of the deeds of Muhammad and his gang. It records some 75 terrorist attacks that he perpetrated and it illustrates how his evil mental state was a model for succeeding generations of Muslims. Note that the Hadith was written by Mohammed's supporters and NOT by his detractors. I suggest taking seriously the following site: www.prophetofdoom.net that outlines the contents and repercussions of Muslim holy books that promote terror and intolerance.
> Does anyone understand enough Arabic to understand the last 20 seconds
> of monologue at the end? The words were not subtitled. Was that an
> innocent lapse or something the movie makers didn't want non-Arabs to
> understand?
>
> (We should all be making sure our kids learn Arabic. For positive and
> negative reasons.)
Of course, it's good to learn the language of your enemy, it works everywhere else in the world.
Dale
>
> Thanks,
> Yael
06 June 2007
An Appeal To My E-mail List Members
Dearest Listmembers,
I have a gripe that has been slowly festering and it’s gotta come out.
When the most well-intentioned people post their messages on lists, as well as send personal e-mails, the subject line of these MUST be explicit. Posting something with a vague subject line on lists usually means that those who do open them are presented with an irrelevant e-mail and thus waste their time in doing so. Now I personally accept the fact that a better portion of the postings on the Efrat-List are irrelevant to me personally. That’s ok. That’s just the nature of lists and I have no problem deleting these items. The ones that are relevant are so usefull they make deleting the irrelevant ones well worthwhile. I expect that many delete my postings out of hand as irrelevant as well. But what bugs me is that I’d like to know which are relevant or irrelevant ahead of time and would like to discern this from the subject lines. There are subject lines that are often poorly composed and so they actually obfuscate the contents of the e-mails. The following are examples of the same subject line vague enough to apply to a variety of messages, one example below is quite relevant to me and the other completely irrelevant, yet without a specific subject I wouldn’t know whether to open them or not…
Example #1: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “I discovered a great tasting Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce manufactured by Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, from a store in Givat Shaul and it was simply great!! It has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim which relocated to Micronesia in the 1300s. Unfortunately the store in Givat Shaul ran out and they don’t plan to restock this item. Anyone know where I can buy more of this? Thanks!!”
Example #2: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “Wow! What a day! Just yesterday I got a phone call from a lawyer who said that my great uncle Morris had died – he’s not really my uncle, but rather my wife’s, cousin’s brother’s adopted nephew who was somehow also 5x-removed. (He was the one with the left blue eye and the right brown eye.) Anyway, my wife is the closest heir to him and the lawyer said that he willed his entire estate to her, which includes the entire remaining stock of his great Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce from his business called The Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, and this stuff is simply great!! This Waxahatchie sauce has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim who relocated to Micronesia in the early 1300s. --- Oh, and just 5 minutes ago 3 huge tandem semi-tractor trailers pulled up to my house with LOADED TO THE BRIM with the remaining cases of this wonderful tasting Waxahatchie sauce which was specially airlifted to Israel straight from his factory – which was just in the nick of time as the building is about to be condemned to make way for the construction of Nevada State Highway #756A, as it is located just outside of the town of Peoche, Nevada, with a population of 59 souls! WWWOOOOWWWW!!!! SO I’M GIVING ALL THOSE CASES OF SAUCE AWAY TO ALL YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE OF GUSH ETZION, CASE-BY-CASE, ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS, FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! ALL OF IT MUST GO TONIGHT AND I’M GIVING IT ALL AWAY!!! COME AND GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT!!!!!!!!!”
See what I mean?
The problem is that I, too, am overwhelmed with postings that do not apply to me or mine and I’d really appreciate it when people would use the subject line to help me determine whether it’s worth opening. Please, people! Make it worth my while to open your postings by an intelligently composed subject line!
This also applies to the subject lines on personal e-mails. I get spam from all kinds of crazy people or organizations and they seem to delight in giving vague subject lines in order to manipulate me to open their e-mails so I can view their garbage. So I’m quite circumspect about even personal items sent to me. It has happened that I have deleted perfectly good and legitimate personal e-mails from well-intentioned people only because I didn’t recognize the name on the e-mail and the subject line was suspicious or vague.
Please! Compose the subject line in a way that will give list-members a serious reason to open them and read their contents!
Dale
I have a gripe that has been slowly festering and it’s gotta come out.
When the most well-intentioned people post their messages on lists, as well as send personal e-mails, the subject line of these MUST be explicit. Posting something with a vague subject line on lists usually means that those who do open them are presented with an irrelevant e-mail and thus waste their time in doing so. Now I personally accept the fact that a better portion of the postings on the Efrat-List are irrelevant to me personally. That’s ok. That’s just the nature of lists and I have no problem deleting these items. The ones that are relevant are so usefull they make deleting the irrelevant ones well worthwhile. I expect that many delete my postings out of hand as irrelevant as well. But what bugs me is that I’d like to know which are relevant or irrelevant ahead of time and would like to discern this from the subject lines. There are subject lines that are often poorly composed and so they actually obfuscate the contents of the e-mails. The following are examples of the same subject line vague enough to apply to a variety of messages, one example below is quite relevant to me and the other completely irrelevant, yet without a specific subject I wouldn’t know whether to open them or not…
Example #1: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “I discovered a great tasting Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce manufactured by Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, from a store in Givat Shaul and it was simply great!! It has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim which relocated to Micronesia in the 1300s. Unfortunately the store in Givat Shaul ran out and they don’t plan to restock this item. Anyone know where I can buy more of this? Thanks!!”
Example #2: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “Wow! What a day! Just yesterday I got a phone call from a lawyer who said that my great uncle Morris had died – he’s not really my uncle, but rather my wife’s, cousin’s brother’s adopted nephew who was somehow also 5x-removed. (He was the one with the left blue eye and the right brown eye.) Anyway, my wife is the closest heir to him and the lawyer said that he willed his entire estate to her, which includes the entire remaining stock of his great Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce from his business called The Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, and this stuff is simply great!! This Waxahatchie sauce has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim who relocated to Micronesia in the early 1300s. --- Oh, and just 5 minutes ago 3 huge tandem semi-tractor trailers pulled up to my house with LOADED TO THE BRIM with the remaining cases of this wonderful tasting Waxahatchie sauce which was specially airlifted to Israel straight from his factory – which was just in the nick of time as the building is about to be condemned to make way for the construction of Nevada State Highway #756A, as it is located just outside of the town of Peoche, Nevada, with a population of 59 souls! WWWOOOOWWWW!!!! SO I’M GIVING ALL THOSE CASES OF SAUCE AWAY TO ALL YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE OF GUSH ETZION, CASE-BY-CASE, ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS, FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! ALL OF IT MUST GO TONIGHT AND I’M GIVING IT ALL AWAY!!! COME AND GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT!!!!!!!!!”
See what I mean?
This also applies to the subject lines on personal e-mails. I get spam from all kinds of crazy people or organizations and they seem to delight in giving vague subject lines in order to manipulate me to open their e-mails so I can view their garbage. So I’m quite circumspect about even personal items sent to me. It has happened that I have deleted perfectly good and legitimate personal e-mails from well-intentioned people only because I didn’t recognize the name on the e-mail and the subject line was suspicious or vague.
Please! Compose the subject line in a way that will give list-members a serious reason to open them and read their contents!
Dale
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