Thursday, July 23, 2009

Jerusalem threatened

Why Should Israel Have Jerusalem?

************

The Israeli Jews, stewards for all Twelve Tribes of Israel, must acknowledge their biblical right, first and foremost, to the biblical city of Jerusalem, and seal it with the liberation and restoration of the Temple Mount. What other people or holy book have made Jerusalem famous worldwide? To shy away from this clear biblical mandate to liberate and annex, to go and grow, survive and thrive, in every area of the Promised Land of Israel, capital Jerusalem, undermines their blessings from God and begrudging respect from the nations.

Regardless of pressure from the bloody Vatican and unclean birds like Shimon Peres and dangerous UNJews, the few faithful Jews must do all they can to withstand Jerusalem’s betrayal and rape.

www.davidbenariel.org

Thursday, July 16, 2009

HonestReporting.com

Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,

Will the media never learn?

In March 2009, Ha'aretz published a story alleging "war crimes" and serious ethical failures on the part of the IDF in Gaza. Predictably, many international media outlets repeated the allegations without bothering to do any rudimentary checks.

Subsequently, it was revealed that the soldiers' testimonies were based on nothing more than rumors and hearsay, causing acute embarrassment to Ha'aretz and serving up a salutary lesson for those media outlets that reproduced such shoddy journalism.

Now, Israeli non-governmental organization Breaking the Silence has published a new report reliant upon testimonials from soldiers who served in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Once again, allegations of "war crimes" and misdemeanors are based on second-hand evidence and hearsay. Once again, international media outlets rushed to publish a story from another flawed source.

While the BBC gleefully pushed the story to the top of its agenda, The Independent produced a two-page center spread with a screaming headline "Israeli soldiers reveal the brutal truth of Gaza attack". Others also covered the story, including CNN, The Guardian, Associated Press, Reuters, AFP, Financial Times, Times of London, Daily Telegraph, NPR, Toronto Star and the Globe & Mail.

The G & M's Orly Halpern even wrote on her personal Twitter page: "I'm reading a really moving report which I will be writing about for the Globe and Mail. It makes me sick to my stomach." Can an objective and balanced story emerge when emotions rather than facts are the driving force?

Defending the IDF operation against charges including the use of human shields, Golani Brigade commander Col. Avi Peled stated that one of the soldiers who testified in the report was not even in the field at the time: "He told his commander about a week [during] which he wasn't even in the field. He reported about what he heard happened."

NGO Monitor's Dan Kosky points to the Breaking the Silence report's central problems - flawed methodology and absence of any reasonable research standards:

By Breaking the Silence's own admission, the allegations are comprised of "the testimony of around 30 combatants" – a fraction of the thousands of Israeli combat troops deployed during the Gaza conflict. This extremely narrow and presumably hand-picked sample is an absurd basis on which to pass judgment, and even these limited testimonies were entirely unverifiable.
All statements are anonymous, and so-called "evidence" is further compromised by the absence of any details of where and when alleged incidents occurred. Consequently, were the report intended to prompt the IDF to investigate individual allegations, Breaking the Silence has made this impossible.

The IDF has issued an intial response to Breaking the Silence that can be viewed here.
As for Breaking the Silence's motivations, The Jerusalem Post's Amir Mizroch offers an insider's insight on his personal blog on how the group attempted to give Ha'aretz exclusive rights to the story. The paper, in light of its previous embarrassment, did not take the bait and sent the report to the IDF for response. Meanwhile, Breaking the Silence attempted to get the JPost's military correspondent off the story, fearing that the paper would take a critical look at their report. According to Mizroch:

Several days before all this, Breaking The Silence gave out their report to a wide array of foreign media, and not to the IDF to probe into itself, with the caveat that they observe the embargo until after Ha'aretz published the report first. All of which shows their original intent was to get as much uncritical worldwide publicity for their report. Legitimate, sure. Fair? Not so sure.
Breaking the Silence has succeeded in gaining the international publicity that it sought. Many media outlets have also demonstrated their propensity to uncritically publish unverifiable accounts from non-governmental organizations that feed their own unquestioning narrative of Israel and the IDF.

FUNDRAISING IN SAUDI: HRW EXPOSED
The media and NGOs maintain a symbiotic relationship that feeds stories such as the one above. David Bernstein of the Wall St Journal, however, has exposed the politicized agenda and hypocrisy behind NGO superpower Human Rights Watch, a regular source of anti-Israel reports.

He writes about how HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson tried to fundraise from wealthy Saudis by highlighting battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations":

The point of my post, though, is not that HRW is pro-Saudi, but that it is maniacally anti-Israel. The most recent manifestation is that its officers see nothing unseemly about raising funds among the elite of one of the most totalitarian nations on earth, with a pitch about how the money is needed to fight "pro-Israel forces," without the felt need to discuss any of the Saudis' manifold human rights violations, and without apparent concern that becoming dependent on funds emanating from a brutal dictatorship leaves you vulnerable to that brutal dictatorship later cutting off the flow of funds, if you don't "behave."

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg engaged in a e-mail exchange with HRW executive director Ken Roth on the issue. Roth responded:

We report on Israel. Its supporters fight back with lies and deception. It wasn't a pitch against the Israel lobby per se. Our standard spiel is to describe our work in the region. Telling the Israel story--part of that pitch--is in part telling about the lies and obfuscation that are inevitably thrown our way.

As Goldberg puts it:
In other words, yes, the director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division is attempting to raise funds from Saudis, including a member of the Shura Council (which oversees, on behalf of the Saudi monarchy, the imposition in the Kingdom of the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law) in part by highlighting her organization's investigations of Israel, and its war with Israel's "supporters," who are liars and deceivers. It appears as if Human Rights Watch, in the pursuit of dollars, has compromised its integrity.

HonestReporting. com

Click here for Backspin to comment on this communique and the articles above.

Friday, July 03, 2009

CFR Member Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu: CFR Member

Not new but increasingly relevant information, a blast from the past:

Who Owns the National Bank of Israel? [who gets the NIS seigniorage?] - Barry Chamish, February 21, 2006

[Note: Up to now, each Israelite was stolen of about 800,000 US dollars-equivalent of seigniorage]

Where CFR sell each other's profits. [Barry Chamish continues with information from a reliable source]

I told you a couple of days ago that a CFR member, (Edgar Bronfman's son Matthew who purchased it for the family), purchased 6% of Israel Discount Bank, with option to buy another 25% the controlling interest, listen to this:

November 14, 2005, there was a press release from the Israel Finance Ministry, with EHUD OLMERT as finance minister, to the effect that 9.99% of Bank Leumi's shares had been sold to the "Barnea Investment Group" ( a Jewish enough sounding name, don't you think?), in parenthesis the Cerberus-Gabriel group, with option to buy another 10%, which would make it the controlling interest in the bank, in this particular case.

Prof. Amir Barnea is the founding Dean of the Arison School of business, teaches at the Recanati School of Business, TAUGHT AT TAU, SPECIALIZES IN CORPORATE FINANCE AND IS A VISITING PROFESSOR IN THE US, IN PARTICULAR IN HOUSTON, AT RICE UNIVERSITY, and is a partner in the Singer Barnea investment firm.

What the press release failed to mentioned, and what the Knesset official release in January of 2006 - complete with picture of beaming Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Stanley Fischer, and Jewish representative of the Barnea group - "failed to mention", and what the Israeli Press the world over failed to mention, is that the Barnea group is a front for the Cerberus hedge fund, (the Cerberus-Gabriel group, according to my research, only appears on the internet in connection with this single transaction of Ben-Leumi; with other words, it doesn't exist!). Who REALLY bought 9.99% of Bank Leumi, and who, by their own words, definitely plans to exercise their option to buy the rest, thereby making them the controlling interest of the "National Bank of Israel"? Well, the CERBERUS HEDGE FUND, WITH AT ITS HEAD NONE OTHER THAN DAN QUAYLE, BILDERBERG GROUP MEMBER, FORMER US VICE PRESIDENT, WHO FAILED TO OBTAIN THE LAST REPUBLICAN NOMINATION, WHO STILL HAS PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS, WHO REGULARLY VISITS THE WHITE HOUSE AND HELPS THEM WHENEVER HE CAN, WHOSE WIFE BELONGS TO A HOUSTON-BASED CHURCH.

More details: The Cerberus group was competing against six other bidders, and BID AS A STRATEGIC INVESTOR vs. FINANCIAL INVESTORS . With other words, Dan Quayle's purpose is not to make a lot of money, but to be able to do whatever he wants and actively control the bank. Not only that, but he paid so much more for the deal than what it is worth that the whole financial and banking community was in shock!!

WHY WOULD THE FORMER VP OF THE U.S. PAY SO MUCH FOR THIS ISRAELI BANK UNLESS THE US, IN PARTICULAR THE BUSH FAMILY (DON'T FORGET THAT HE WAS THE VP OF GEORGE BUSH SENIOR) WANTS TO CONTROL THE FLOW OF FUNDS HERE IN ISRAEL?

EHUD OLMERT, THEN FINANCE MINISTER, AND STANLEY FISCHER, DIRECTOR OF THE BANK OF ISRAEL, SOLD A STRATEGIC FINANCIAL ASSET OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL TO THE ENEMY! THE CFR IS THE ENEMY! THE BILDERBERG GROUP IS THE ENEMY!
And [the reliable source] found the source for the donations. They were both American members of the CFR;

Council on Foreign Relations Membership List (L-R)
2893. OLIVER COVEY T,CFR '84, 1988 annual rpt ,,
2894. OLMERT EHUD,CFR '92,,,
2895. OLMSTEAD CECIL J,CFR '92,,,
http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/roundtable/CFRL-Rlist.html#N

2803. NEMAN RICHARD A,, 1988 annual rpt
2804. NETANYAHU BENJAMIN,, 1988 annual rpt
2805. NEUMAN STEPHANIE G,CFR '92,
end


December 13, 2005
Cerberus-Gabriel hedge fund buys stake in Leumi Bank
http://www.fundstreet.org/2005/12/cerberusgabriel.html

Israel is on its way to privatization. The banking sector is amongst the first ones to take a step in this direction. Bank Leumi was in the market recently and attracted bids from several players. Bidder names include strategic investors like Lev Leviev, IDB and Bill Davidson and also financial contenders like UBS, Deutsche Bank and Citibank. However the winner was an American Hedge fund, Cerberus-Gabriel.

Cerberus-Gabriel has purchased 9.9% of the shares of the bank. The purchase of this stake was for approximately $500 million. The fund also has the option of buying an additional 10.01% in the bank. This will bring the total shares quantum to 20% and is roughly valued at $1 billion. This option of additional purchase has to be utilized with in the next one and a half years.

Ehud Olmert, Finance Minister of Israel, is reportedly quite satisfied with the outcome. He feels that this is a positive development and will help the over all Israeli economy. He is amongst the top promoters of privatization move. In his statement he also mentioned that the purchase will ensure healthy competition between the banks and will definitely contribute a lot to the local market.

Another person quite happy with the development is Yaron Zelekha, the treasury's accountant-general, who led the tender. He sees it as fulfillment of the promise made to the people of Israel about privatization of the entire banking system in 2005. Ynetnews reports:
Cerberus-Gabriel offered NIS 2.474 billion (about USD 500 million) for 9.99 percent of the bank's shares, and has the option to purchase another 10.01 percent of the shares held by the State within a year and a half, and to reach a total holding of 20 percent of the bank's shares.”