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This week on the Tribal Update, the media satire television-on-Internet newcast produced weekly by Latma, we interview the CEO of Israel's Channel 10 television to find out what stands behind his station's annual request for an NIS1 billion bailout. We also look into the future and consider the financial plight of Peace Now in the event the Knesset passes the bill now under consideration that would severely constrain foreign governmental donations to Israeli anti-Israel NGOs. Finally, we bring you into the depths of the IDF's new elite special forces unit trained to fight what the local media have characterized as the largest existential threat facing Israel today.

Enjoy the show!

Latma is funded through contributions to the Center for Security Policy in Washington. If you are in the United States and would like to support our efforts, you can contribute by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page for the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."

If you live outside the US, we formed a non-profit organization in Israel to accept donations from outside the US called the Zionist Incubator.

Here is the information you need to make wire contributions to the Zionist Incubator for Latma.

First of all, here is the link to Latma's page for donating by credit card through PayPal.

Second, here is the information you need to wire contributions to the Zionist Incubator for Latma.

Bank Name: Israel Discount Bank Ltd.

Branch Number: 510

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Account Number (IBAN 23 digits): IL94-0115-1000-0010-4351-154

Beneficiary's Name: Zionist Incubator

Beneficiary's address: POB 841 Mevasseret Zion, Israel 90805

November 14, 2011, 4:26 PM

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Defending Israeli Democracy


US Embassy cables leaked by Wikileaks in September exposed the ugly truth that self-described champions of Israeli democracy would like us to forget about the actual goals of Israel's self-described human rights organizations.




In a meeting with then US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv in January 2010, B'Tselem director Jessica Montell explained what her group wished to achieve by colluding with the UN's Goldstone Commission's inquiry into Israel's handling of Operation Cast Lead. According to the embassy report, Montell said, "Her aim...was to make Israel weigh world opinion and consider whether it could 'afford another operation like this.'"

In other words, in colluding with the UN's anti-Israel commission, whose mandate from the UN Human Rights Council was to explain how Israel broke international law by acting to defend its citizens from Hamas's illegal, indiscriminate missile assault, B'Tselem's goal was to undermine Israel's ability to defend itself. B'Tselem wished to use the UN commission to foment an international witch-hunt against the Jewish state that would exact a prohibitive price for defending the country. Israel's democratically elected government would react to the international onslaught by ignoring the needs of the Israeli public and opting not to defend the country again.

Obviously, if Israel ceases to defend itself, in light of its enemies' dedication to its destruction, it will cease to exist. And in a meeting with US Embassy officers in February 2010, Hedva Radovanitz, the New Israel Fund's then-associate director in Israel said that would be just fine by her. According to a leaked embassy cable report of the meeting, Radovanitz said "she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic."

THE LIKES of Radovanitz and Montell are acutely aware that most Israelis do not share their extremist goals or their radical visions for Israel's future.


Radovanitz acknowledged that public support for the radical left, which the NIF supports to the tune of $18 million per year, has no serious domestic constituency.

As the cable put it, she described the "disappearance of the political left wing" in Israel and the lack of domestic constituency for the NGOs.

She noted that "when she headed ACRI's [the Association for Civil Rights in Israel's] Tel Aviv office, ACRI had 5,000 members, while today it has less than 800, and it was only able to muster about 5,000 people to its December [2009] human rights march by relying on the active staff of the 120 NGOs that participated."

As for Montell, in a meeting with the US Embassy's political officer in February 2010, she "estimated that [B'Tselem's] 9 million NIS ($2.4 million) budget is 95 percent funded from abroad, mostly from European countries."

The reality that these Wikileaks-leaked documents expose is precisely the reality which the Knesset this week launched a renewed effort to contend with by submitting three separate bills for consideration. Two of the Knesset bills address the issue of foreign funding to NGOs. One bill would limit the amount of funding Israeli political NGOs can receive from foreign governments and international organizations like the EU and the UN to NIS 20,000 per year. A competing bill would deny tax exemptions - that is, government subsidies - for such contributions and apply a 45% tax to all such foreign contributions.


While the laws would apply to all NGOs, obviously they would be particularly problematic for the NGOs run by Israeli radicals like Montell and Radovanitz that have no domestic Israeli constituency and rely on foreign governments to support their anti-Israel efforts.


THE THIRD bill addresses the main source of the political power of these foreign-funded NGOs - Israel's radicalized Supreme Court.

For the past 20 years or so, as the radical left has discredited itself as a political force in Israel, it has increasingly used the Supreme Court to achieve its aims. The Court is dominated by far leftists who legislate laws from the bench that would never pass in the Knesset.

Petitioning the Supreme Court, EU-funded groups like B'tselem, Peace Now and Adalah have been able to place court-imposed constraints on IDF operations.

They have been able to block or hamper the implementation of security measures that enjoy broad public support like the construction of the security fence.

They are able to block political leaders from devising and carrying out policies they believe serve the country's interests such as preventing illegal PLO activities in Jerusalem and building Jewish communities on Jewish- owned land in the Galilee.


The Supreme Court's radical legislative agenda is not limited to political and security issues. It has also overturned Knesset laws to liberalize the media and privatize sectors of the economy like the prison system. It has acted on the basis of constitutional claims that have little grounding in actual law, and that it applies inconsistently in accordance with its judges' ideological leanings.

The public has taken notice of the Court's increasingly undemocratic activities. According to a recent Maagar Mohot poll, the Supreme Court, once the most trusted institution in Israel, is now seen by 54% of the public as politically biased and, by a 75% to 11% margin, slanted left. Sixty-three percent of the public believes that the personal political views of the judges influence their legal decisions to some degree.

The Supreme Court's radical agenda is facilitated by Israel's undemocratic method of selecting its members.


Court members are appointed by the Judicial Appointments Committee. For all practical purposes, the committee is controlled by the Supreme Court itself and so the justices effectively select themselves. Fifty-six percent of the public wants this selection method changed.


The bill submitted by Likud MKs Yariv Levin and Zev Elkin would subject all Supreme Court nominees to public hearings conducted by the Knesset's Law, Constitution and Justice Committee. These hearings would provide legislators and the public with full disclosure on the views, activities and associations of prospective justices. Doing so would constitute a tiny step toward bringing court appointments procedures more in line with those in effect in most other western democracies.


While the bills dealing with foreign funding of NGOs and the bill concerning Supreme Court appointments are ostensibly unrelated, in fact they are directly linked.

Speaking to the media, the heads of various NGOs claim that the bills addressing their foreign funding are "unconstitutional" and therefore of little concern.

They know that they can depend on their ideological brethren in the Supreme Court to protect them from the public and its representatives in the Knesset. Just as the Court has not hesitated to block legitimate governmental policies and reforms in the past in the interest of the justices' radical ideological convictions, so the NGO representatives believe, the Court will protect them from the Knesset's actions this time around as well.

This means that the only way to protect Israeli democracy from subversive, foreign funded groups who seek to undermine the foundations of the state is to reform the Supreme Court that enables their activities.


All the bills that were submitted this week are serious attempts to tackle a serious threat to Israel democracy.

And they are not the first of their kind. Over the past several years, Israel's legislators have introduced several bills aimed at achieving the same goals. And each of these bills in turn has been attacked by the leftist Israeli media as "anti-democratic."


The media are repeating their standard practice today. Rather than foster debate about the substance of these bills and the problems they seek to address, the media are colluding with the heads of the NGOs and their foreign governmental donors to demonize the bills' sponsors and to threaten Israel with "diplomatic consequences" if the Knesset moves ahead with the initiatives.


All of this is bad enough. But what makes the situation even worse is the behavior of self-declared champions of democracy among senior Likud politicians. In the name of democracy, Ministers Bennie Begin, Michael Eitan, and Dan Meridor all oppose these measures, which are all focused on protecting and strengthening Israeli democracy.


Meridor can always be depended on to take the position of the left against his party's voters. But Begin and Eitan have distinguished themselves as independent thinkers. Eitan has taken a tough and independent line on governmental corruption. Begin has not hesitated to oppose the leftist media and bureaucracy in issues related to terrorism.

Yet here, these men habitually embrace the specious and frankly indefensible arguments of the radical left that represents no one but itself and its foreign funders.


It was the opposition of the likes of Begin, Meridor, Eitan and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin that gave the radical left the necessary political cover to torpedo previous parliamentary initiatives to protect Israel's democratic institutions from their foreign-funded onslaughts.

And the Supreme Court's success to date in averting any serious parliamentary or governmental attempts to check its anti-democratic actions owes in large part to these Likud leaders' championship of its judicial usurpation of legislative and governmental power.


It is hard to know what is driving these men to act as they do. But it is high time that they exercise some independent judgment and rethink their support for the radical left's foreign funded, judicially enabled assault on Israeli democracy.


Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.

Posted on November 14, 2011 at 4:26 PM

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The experts weigh in on bombing Iran


This week's Tribal Update brings you straight into Israel's nerve center for thinking through what a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would look like. We bring you three leading experts in the business - our film critic, our fashion advisor and our military commentator. We also feature an interview with two of Israel's most respected Supreme Court Justices who explain how our objective, enlightened judges select their colleagues, (yes, one of the problematic aspects of Israel's political system is that our judges appoint themselves).


We also feature an important lesson in plumbing and a weather report for your edification.

The Tribal Update is of course the news satire show produced weekly by Latma, the Hebrew-language satirical media criticism website I run. To support our donor financed work, see the information below.


In the meantime, enjoy the show.

The Tribal Updates' experts on striking Iran and Israel's objective judges select their colleagues





http://www.carolineglick.com/


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Zechariah 12:3,9:
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people; And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.


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Disclaimer: Rapture Bible Prophecy Forum, ( http://www.rapturebibleprophecyforum.com ) does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article posted on this site. We do however, encourage a healthy and friendly debate on the issues of our day. Whether you agree or disagree, we encourage you to post your feedback by using the reply button.

If you are new to this site and would like to post articles, opinions, youtube videos that are appropriate for this site just e mail me at

stevensandiego@ymail.com

I will send you a PASSWORD

Ybic

Steven


Our New Website URL
http://www.rapturebibleprophecyforum.com

Our New Website URL
http://www.rapturebibleprophecyforum.com


For Fair Use Discussion and Educational Purposes

http://www.carolineglick.com/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Jewish American Community in Danger


This year at Jewish Federations of North America's annual General Assembly, they invited the newly minted anti-Israel activist Peter Beinhart to speak. They also showcased the Boston Globe's resident anti-Israel columnist James Carroll. These moves as well as much of the program of the 3-day conference which presented several panels discussing whether anti-Zionists should be embraced by the community are indicative of the advanced suicidal tendencies of the American Jewish community.


This is a community that has for generations seamlessly merged its definition of Judaism with leftist politics. And now that this generation of leftists has cast its lot with the anti-Semites, the young American Jews coming of age have embraced anti-Semitism to show their moral purity.

It may have once gone without saying, but apparently it is no longer obvious that this embrace of Jew hatred by young American Jews is a death embrace for the community.

The only way to deal with this is head on.

But who among the well-funded American Jewish leadership has the courage to tell these young people that they are deranged? Who has the courage to tell their children that they have embraced evil and ought to be ashamed of themselves?


If you think I am overreacting, take a look at the following video of Jewish American Birthright Alumni taking over a Birthright meeting in solidarity with the Jew-hating Arabs and the Jew-hating Occupy Wall Street mobs. Watch this and tell me I am overreacting. I'd love to be proved wrong because this is not only dangerous, it's disturbing.

It's one thing for the Spanish to embrace the cause of genocidal Jew haters. It is quite another for Jews to do so.

Thanks to Pamela Geller from Atlas Shrugs for sending me this video. While watching it ruined my day, we have a duty to know the truth. Denial is not an option.
Occupy Birthright Israel, Un-Occupy Palestine


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With friends like these



The slurs against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voiced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama after last week's G20 summit were revealing as well as repugnant.




Thinking no one other than Obama could hear him, Sarkozy attacked Netanyahu, saying, "I can't stand to see him anymore, he's a liar."




Obama responded by whining, "You're fed up with him, but me, I have to deal with him every day."




These statements are interesting both for what they say about the two presidents' characters and for what they say about the way that Israel is perceived by the West more generally.




To understand why this is the case it is necessary to first ask, when has Netanyahu ever lied to Sarkozy and Obama? This week the UN International Atomic Energy Agency's report about Iran's nuclear weapons program made clear that Israel - Netanyahu included - has been telling the truth about Iran and its nuclear ambitions all along. In contrast, world leaders have been lying and burying their heads in the sand.




Since Iran's nuclear weapons program was first revealed to the public in 2004, Israel has provided in-depth intelligence information proving Iran's malign intentions to the likes of Sarkozy, Obama and the UN. And for seven years, the US government - Obama included - has claimed that it lacked definitive proof of Iran's intentions.




Obama wasted the first two years of his administration attempting to charm the Iranians out of their nuclear weapons program. He stubbornly ignored the piles of evidence presented to him by Israel that Iran was not interested in cutting a deal.




Perhaps Obama was relying on the US's 2007 National Intelligence Estimate about Iran's nuclear weapons program. As Israel said at the time, and as this week's IAEA report proves, it was the NIE - which claimed that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 - not Israel that deliberately lied about the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program. It was the US intelligence community that purposely deceived the American government and people about the gravest immediate threat to US national security.




Israel, including Netanyahu, was telling the truth.




So if Netanyahu never lied about Iran, what might these two major world leaders think he lies about? Why don't they want to speak with him anymore? Could it be they don't like the way he is managing their beloved "peace process" with the Palestinians? The fact is that the only times Netanyahu has spoken less than truthfully about the Palestinians were those instances when he sought to appease the likes of Obama and Sarkozy. Only when Netanyahu embraced the false claims of the likes of Obama and Sarkozy that it is possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians based on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River could it be said that he made false statements.




Because the truth is that Israel never had a chance of achieving peace with the Palestinians.




And the reason this has always been the case has nothing to do with Netanyahu or Israel.




THERE WAS never any chance for peace because the Palestinians have no interest in making peace with Israel. As the West's favorite Palestinian "moderate," Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Egypt's Dream TV on October 23, "I've said it before and I'll say it again. I will never recognize the 'Jewishness' of the State [of Israel] or a 'Jewish state.'" That is, Abbas will never make peace with Israel.




Acknowledging this, on Tuesday Netanyahu reportedly told his colleagues that through their recent actions, the Palestinians have abrogated the foundations of the peace process. As he put it, "By boycotting negotiations and by going instead to the United Nations [to achieve independent statehood], they [the Palestinians] have reneged on a central tenet of Oslo."




That tenet, which formed the basis of the Oslo peace process, was "land for peace."




As Netanyahu explained, Israel gave up land within the framework of the Oslo Accords. In exchange the Palestinians committed to resolve their conflict with Israel through direct negotiations that would lead to peace. Their UN gambit, like Abbas's statement to Egyptian television, shows that the Palestinians - not Israel - have been lying all along. They pocketed Israel's territorial concessions and refused to make peace.




So why do the likes of Sarkozy and Obama hate Netanyahu? Why is he "a liar?" Why don't they pour out their venom on Abbas, who really does lie to them on a regular basis? The answer is because they prefer to blame Israel rather than acknowledge that their positive assessments of the Palestinians are nothing more than fantasy.




And they are not alone. The Western preference for fantasy over reality was given explicit expression by former US president Bill Clinton in September.




In an ugly diatribe against Netanyahu at his Clinton Global Initiative Conference, Clinton insisted that the PA under Abbas was "pro-peace" and that the only real obstacle to a deal was Netanyahu. Ironically, at the same time Clinton was attacking Israel's leader for killing the peace process, Abbas was at the UN asking the Security Council to accept as a full member an independent Palestine in a de facto state of war with Israel.




So, too, while Clinton was blaming him for the failure of the peace process, Netanyahu was at the UN using his speech to the General Assembly to issue yet another plea to Abbas to renew peace talks with Israel.




Clinton didn't exhaust his ammunition on Netanyahu. He saved plenty for the Israeli people as well. Ignoring the inconvenient fact that the Palestinians freely elected Hamas to lead them, Clinton provided his audience with a bigoted taxonomy of the Israeli public through which he differentiated the good, "pro-peace Israelis," from the bad, "anti-peace," Israelis.




As he put it, "The most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs; second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis that were born there; third, the Ashkenazis of longstanding, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel's founding."




As for the bad Israelis, in the view of the former president, "The most anti-peace are the ultra-religious who believe they're supposed to keep Judea and Samaria, and the settler groups, and what you might call the territorialists, the people who just showed up lately and they're not encumbered by the historical record."




BY RANKING the worthiness of Israel's citizens in accordance with whether or not they agree with Clinton and his friends, Clinton was acting in line with what has emerged as standard operating practice of Israel's "friends" in places such as Europe and the US. Like Clinton, they too think it is their right to pick and choose which Israelis are acceptable and which are unworthy.




On Wednesday we saw this practice put into play by British Ambassador Matthew Gould. This week the Knesset began deliberations on a bill that would prohibit foreign governments and international agencies from contributing more than NIS 20,000 to Israeli nongovernmental organizations. The bill was introduced by Likud MK Ofir Okunis with Netanyahu's support.




According to Haaretz, Gould issued a thinly veiled threat to Okunis related to the bill. Gould reportedly said that if the bill is passed, it would reflect badly on Israel in the international community.




Last month, Makor Rishon published a British government document titled, "NGOs in the Middle East Funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office."




The document showed that in 2010, outside of Iraq, the British government gave a total of £100,000 to pro-democracy NGOs throughout the Arab world.




In contrast to Britain's miserly attitude towards Arab civil society organizations, Her Majesty's Government gave more than £600,000 pounds to farleftist Israeli NGOs. These Israeli groups included the Economic Cooperation Foundation, Yesh Din, Peace Now, Ir Amim and Gisha. All of these groups are far beyond Israeli mainstream opinion.




All seek to use international pressure on Israel to force the government to adopt policies rejected by the vast majority of the public.




So for every pound Britain forked out to cultivate democracy in 20 Arab non-democracies, it spent £6 to undermine democracy in Israel - the region's only democracy.




And the British couldn't be more pleased with the return on their investment. Speaking to Parliament last year, Britain's Minister of Middle East Affairs Alistair Burt said the money has successfully changed Israeli policies. As he put it, "Since we began supporting these programs some significant changes have been made in the Israeli justice system, both civilian and military, and in the decisions they make. They have also raised a significant debate about these matters and we believe these activities will strengthen democracy in Israel."




In other words, as far as Britain is concerned, "strengthening democracy" in Israel means tipping the scales in favor of marginal groups with no noticeable domestic constituency.




These shockingly hostile statements echo one made by then-presidential candidate Obama from the campaign trail in February 2008. At the time Obama said, "I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel."




Scarcely a day goes by when some foreign leader, commentator or activist doesn't say that being pro-Israel doesn't mean being pro-Israeli government. And like Obama's campaign-trail statement, Clinton's diatribe, Sarkozy and Obama's vile gossip about Netanyahu and Britain's self-congratulatory declarations and veiled threats, those who make a distinction between the Israeli people and the Israeli government ignore two important facts.




First, Israel is a democracy. Its governments reflect the will of the Israeli people and therefore, are inseparable from the people. If you harbor contempt for Israel's elected leaders, then by definition you harbor contempt for the Israeli public.




And this makes you anti-Israel.




The second fact these statements ignore is that Israel is the US's and Europe's stalwart ally. If Sarkozy and Obama had said what they said about Netanyahu in a conversation about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or if Netanyahu had made similar statements about Obama or Sarkozy, the revelation of the statements would have sparked international outcries of indignation and been roundly condemned from all quarters.




And this brings us to the other troubling aspect of Sarkozy and Obama's nasty exchange about Netanyahu. Their views reflect a wider anti-Israel climate.




Outside the Jewish world, Sarkozy's and Obama's hateful, false statements about their ally provoked no outrage. Indeed, it took the media three days to even report their conversation. This indicates that Obama and Sarkozy aren't alone in holding Israel to a double standard. They aren't the only ones blaming Israel for the Palestinians' bad behavior.




The Western media also holds Israel to a separate standard. Like Obama and Sarkozy, the media blame Israel and its elected leaders for the Palestinians' duplicity. Like Obama and Sarkozy, the media blame Israel for failing to make their peace fantasies come true.




And that is the real message of the Obama- Sarkozy exchange last week. Through it we learn that blaming the Jews and the Jewish state for their enemies' behavior is what passes for polite conversation among Western elites today.




Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on November 10, 2011 at 4:38 PM



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Zechariah 12:3,9:
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people; And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Disclaimer: Rapture Bible Prophecy Forum, ( http://www.rapturebibleprophecyforum.com ) does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article posted on this site. We do however, encourage a healthy and friendly debate on the issues of our day. Whether you agree or disagree, we encourage you to post your feedback by using the reply button.

If you are new to this site and would like to post articles, opinions, youtube videos that are appropriate for this site just e mail me at

stevensandiego@ymail.com

I will send you a PASSWORD

Ybic

Steven


Our New Website URL
http://www.rapturebibleprophecyforum.com