Quote of the Day - Meaning of the 'Healthcare and Terror Platform'

"Palestinians are not stupid, and it insults their intelligence to pretend that when they vote to empower a genocidal organization with a platform straight out of ''Mein Kampf," what they're really after is better healthcare.
Islamist extremism isn't needed to fix Palestinian hospitals any more than fascism was needed to make Italian trains run on time in the 1920s. If Palestinians turned out en masse to elect a party that unapologetically stands for hatred and mass murder, it's a safe bet that hatred and mass murder had something to do with the turnout."

-Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe

Hamas

Catch 22 - Hamastan Part II

Caroline Glick writes a crisp article here putting forth the proposition that the Hamas win is a result of "international bluster backed by policy paralysis" by both Israel and the West. I did not necessarily oppose the Sharon Gaza withdrawal. However, at this juncture we find ourselves without Gaza, without stability in Gaza, without Sharon, and without a clear path forward.

While I would love to take Bibi at face value, I too well remember his last go-round as PM, when he spoke loudly and carried no stick.

The point which is always missing in the Likud-niks' speeches as well as Ms Glick's article is the question of whether the people of Israel, and particularly those age groups subject to draft, still have the will to fight.

There. That was hard to write, but if the will is not there we may as well start lining up for visas. Hamas and their ilk are depending on the too easy exhaustion and fatigue of the West and Israelis as their tickets to the next caliphate.

One solitary bright spot about Bibi is that if he can resume his economic wonder working as PM then at least we won't have to ask for additional aid for America on top of the additions to the additional aid from America.

But us chareidim won't be too happy.


hamas

Catch 22 - Hamastan

I would have normally left the last post up at the top for a while, but Hamas' win has just disturbed me so much.

Since Arafat's return not one school was built in his territories. Education was limited to hate.

Hence the Catch 22. We got democracy, but 15 years of Arafat sponsored (mis) education has changed the perceived needs and goals of the residents of Gaza and the WB.

I don't think Bush figured on that , and neither would most well meaning people.

Arafat wins the election again in death.

Rabbi Y. Frand quotes R' Yerucham Levovitz on this weeks' Parsha asking why Moshe Rabbeinu had to go through the motions of praying to remove each plague.
We all know that each plague is to be removed until the tenth. Why pray for it?

He answers that it's to teach us the efficacy and importance of prayer.

If prayer is the answer to the known, it is probably the only answer to the unknown - the future of Jews in Israel.


hamas
israel

Mission Statement

Every so often I see from the tenor of those who communicate me that it is important to reiterate our position and what we advocate here:

1. The Internet is very dangerous
2. The Internet is both unavoidable and useful - it is the shuk (marketplace) of the Talmud
3. Internet bans reward the liars and cheats, do not prepare our children for their future, and are destined to fail.
   
4. We must take positive measures to protect ourself and develop new measures.
5. We as a community are not meeting this challenge
   

[jews internet]
[orthodox jews internet]

Law and Order

"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government," -former VP Gore.
Today's New York Sun reports that "President Clinton will be eligible this week to reclaim the law license he gave up as a consequence of the inaccurate responses he gave under oath."

Hat Tip: James Taranto

GeSchickt

Hirhurim has an important post on the Lakewood Internet Ban, taking off from a Marvin Schick post here.

Sarah, Rivka, Rochel, and Leah?

Wall Street Journal and CNN Report:

Four Ancestors
About 3.5 million of the world's Ashkenazi Jews, the Yiddish-speakers who settled Central Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries and today make up about 80% (?? -Leapa) of the world's total Jewish population, are the descendants of just four women, according to a new DNA analysis by Israeli researchers. There are about 11 million Ashkenazis in the world today, of a total global Jewish population of about 14 million. The four ancestors, who apparently lived in Europe or in the vicinity of Israel at some point within the past 2,000 years, left a DNA signature that shows up in their descendants today.

No wonder those 'Jewish mother' jokes sound so familiar, and Jewish men are overweight!

Hat Tip for the post title thought: Rebbetzin Leapalle

Study Indicates 1/3 of Israeli Ultra Orthodox Use Internet

A University of Washington study of 14,000 chareidi internet users indicated that despite bans, almost 1/3 of chareidim use the internet.

Internet usage was more evenly distributed among income levels than among the general population.

If you go to the link, note that there is a PDF file attached to the press release with the complete study.

Reality Check or Do We Get Results Around Here???

1. Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz, Editor of one of the two American Chareidi newspapers (Yated) has a long time blog here.

2. Hamodia, the other one, has an 'under contruction' website here .

3. The Israeli English Yated ("the only English edition of the only paper in the world that is completely controlled by rabbonim") appears here .

Well, they're starting to walk the walk.
Now how about the talk?

Quote of the Day - Equal Opportunity Yiddishkeit

“I don’t care what group you belong to, as long as you are ashamed of it.”

-Dennis Prager

Hat Tip to Yitzchok Adlerstein of Cross Currents

Prohibiting The 'Net to Save One Life

I received the following e-mail as part of a response to my 'Poster Watch IX' post:

"let me ask you a very simple question if all the posters stops one person from using the internet who has no business on the internet because of his or her particular situation of their personal life doesn't this nullify all the mindless aspect of it all"

Ignoring the sentence structure, the writer makes an important point. Do we ignore or do battle with new technology because of the inevitability of some people succombing to temptations that they weren't exposed to before?

The positive answer (advocated by the writer above) would be due to even one neshama being as important as the entire world. A true Jewish hashkafa.

The negative answer is, if we never do anything which would endanger anyone, (a) how do we walk out in the morning, drive a car, etc [physical danger], or (b) how do we take the subway, walk on the street in a non Jewish neighborhood, or converse with different types of people [spiritual danger]?

Obviously we weigh cost and benefit, both physical and spiritual and make our best effort to be safe. How is the 'net different?

Sharon

I was going to ignore the subject of Sharon's massive stroke (perhaps wrongly), but in my local Satmar 'mik' I was filling someone in on then current Sharon health report and implying that the news wasn't too positive. A fellow from left field pipes up: "Is that bad news or good?"

My opinion:
1. Jews, even sinners, are still Jews as Chazal have taught us.
2. I can conceive that an Israeli PM can and should know something I don't. Therefore, although I am not a firebrand 'Land of Israel' fanatic, I supported Sharon in the time of Sabra and Shattila, and I also supported him this past summer.
3. He definitely saved a lot of Jewish lives, especially in his brilliant maneuver around the Egyptian III Army in 1973.
4. His life has been dedicated to the security of the State of Israel, where more than a few chareidim just happen to live.
5. Therefore I will include 'Ariel ben Vera' in my prayers.

And as to those of you snotty enough to think that all he cares about is the destruction of Judaism - wipe your nose, please, and get out of my mikve!

Poster Mania X

A whole kibutz shratzim of posters have appeared in the last week attacking those who use the internet for parnosa and for Torah.

The parnosa ones continue to quote Talmudic statements on earning money honestly and misapplying them to the internet.

Is there a Bais Din Miyuchid for imbecility?

Your Privacy or Your Life!

Privacy is, or should be, a big deal to us Jews. After all, from the Marranos to Stalin, loose lips have sunk many of our ships, at great human cost.

As a population with more than average overseas overseas telephony, the NSA phone data mining probably involved a lot of our heimishe communications.

Now as a non-lawyer (perhaps a wannabe, but my kids have to get married y'know?), I shouldn't going to comment on the legality or illegality of these filters. But as a blogger, I'll do so anyway.

Firstly, the operative word in the Fourth Amendment is unreasonable. A vast majority of legal and public opinion in this country, including former Solicitors General and erudite lawyers, hold that data mining in the context of a war on terror is reasonable. The Fourth Amendment only criminalizes "unreasonable searches".

Secondly, the computer algorithms used in a data mining operation are about as close to a wiretap as somebody reading a rest room sign is to a peeping tom.

And what does it mean to the Jews? Very, very simple. When America's enemies are looking to nuke or bio attack a major American city, and 99% of all Borsalino and shtreimel wearing Americans live within 90 miles of Ground Zero, our privacy should be back-burnered. Our lives and American chareidi Judaism as we know it are both at stake.

When the threat passes, we can all join the ACLU.

Enter Al Qaeda, Stage Right

Disappointed with the tahdiya ('truce') of recent months, which apparently raised some hope of better conditions for the Arab residents of Gaza and the West Bank, Al Qaeda is now sending in Federal Marshals to better manage the jihad in Israel.

This has been confirmed by Israeli intelligence (See Jan 2 Daily Alert).
PS: Additional confirmations are here and here.
Will this work to reduce American pressure on Israel by confirming the existence of a common enemy, or will it increase pressure if America cuts and runs in Iraq?