Continue to ]]> Source: Arutz Sheva News

Yukiya Amano, the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog, will meet Iranian officials in a visit to Tehran on Monday.

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Chief Justice Beinisch’s Ultimate Assault against Israeli Democracy and Rule of Law

By steven plaut

Dorit Beinisch was the Chief Justice of Israel’s Supreme Court until retiring recently. While already retired, she is still writing verdicts for some cases that began while she was on the bench. Beinisch was the worst Israeli practitioner of the anti-democratic doctrine of “judicial activism,” which holds that court judges can just make up laws and “right” as they go along and that unelected judges should have the right to veto and dictate laws against the will of the elected representatives of the people. In other words, judicial activism is judicial ]]> Source: Israpundit

Chief Justice Beinisch’s Ultimate Assault against Israeli Democracy and Rule of Law

By steven plaut

Dorit Beinisch was the Chief Justice of Israel’s Supreme Court
until retiring recently. While already retired, she is still writing
verdicts for some cases that began while she was on the bench.
Beinisch was the worst Israeli practitioner of the anti-democratic
doctrine of “judicial activism,” which holds that court judges can
just make up laws and “right” as they go along and that unelected
judges should have the right to veto and dictate laws against the will
of the elected representatives of the people. In other words,
judicial activism is judicial tyranny.

Yesterday Beinisch and two other judges issued what is without a
doubt one of the very WORST court rulings in Israeli history, and for
that matter one of the worst in the history of the democratic world.

The ruling is based on illiteracy and ignorance. But even worse,
for all intents and purposes it overrides the fundamental principle of
all democracies that one is innocent until proven guilty. Beinisch’s
latest venture into judicial activism is to reverse that principle
when it comes to women claiming to be victims of discrimination.
Henceforth in Israel employers will be presumed guilty unless they can
prove that they are innocent whenever any woman can be found who drew
a salary less than any man.

This act of sabotage of Israeli democracy was triggered by a suit
in which a woman claimed she was underpaid due to the fact that she
was a woman. Under Beinisch’s new “law,” employers will be presumed
guilty of discrimination whenever a woman employee claims she was paid
less than a male employee. It does not matter WHY she was paid less.
And the woman does not even have to prove she suffered any damages
from the discrimination she alleges took place.

So a panel of three judges who have probably never taken an
economics course in their entire lives presume to pontificate about
what the causes and sources of pay disparities are in the labor
marketplace. Their position is clearly that each and every wage
disparity must be presumed to be a reflection of discrimination unless
it can be proven otherwise. And proving otherwise is an extremely
complicated and burdensome affair.

Consider the following: it has been established statistically
that fat people on average earn less than thin people. Under the
Beinisch rules the simple fact of such a disparity must be presumed to
be a reflection of discrimination against fat people. But there is no
reason at all to think this is the case, and at least a thousand
alternative explanations for why such a gap in wages exists, having
nothing at all to do with discrimination. Fat people may be less
healthy on average than thin people, may suffer more injuries, may be
unable to perform certain job functions (such as climbing telephone
polls). In addition fat people may be characterized more often by
certain personality characteristics than are thin people. They may
have less self-discipline, less ability to delay gratification, less
perseverance. Certainly less energy. They also may have less
interest in certain types of education or jobs compared with what
appeals to thin people. If ANY of these many reasons explains the gap
in wages, discrimination has been ruled out.

But notice the difficulty. It is not a trivial matter to prove
in a statistical or legal way which of the reasons explains the
fat-thin pay gap. Ordinarily, the burden of proof for any fat person
claiming that the reason for a lower pay is discrimination against fat
folk would be on the plaintiff, who would have to provide persuasive
evidence that the other 1000 conceivable factors and reasons are not
the actual cause.

And the exact same problem exists for pay disparities between
the tall and the short (which also exist), or male-female, or
Jewish-Arab, or Ashkenazi-Sephardi, or young-old pay disparities. The
truth is that in many cases it is not clear at all what precisely
produces a specific pay disparity. My wife is a university faculty
member like me and makes more money than I do. Under the Beinisch
rule this proves I am a victim of discrimination and I can sue the
university. (She would insist that the REAL reason is that she is
simply smarter than me, which is why it is just and proper that I have
to do all the hoovering in the house.) I have not done sued – I
prefer the legal redress solution of helping my Missus spend all the
extra wampum.

I have never in my life met a student who believes he got the
grade he deserved, and I have never met a person who gets the salary
he thinks he deserves. Since everyone thinks they have been cheated
and shortchanged by the universe in some way, everyone has a
grievance. Courts that operate based on common sense do not make
judgments based on complaints and feelings of people. Plaintiffs have
to prove their claims with hard evidence.

But not in the post-Beinisch version of Israel’s Brave New World.
Every feeling of resentment and sense of having been shortchanged will
be presumed to be objectively valid and reflecting discrimination.
Equality patrols and a Soviet-like wage boards of bureaucrats will
intervene and dictate to every single employer in the country what
wage should be paid to which employee. Employers will have to spend
the bulk of their resources fighting off the Equality Patrols and
producing proof that they have NOT discriminated, leaving them with
little time to do things like produce goods and services.

Israel’s feminists are beside themselves with glee at all this.
Part of the irony here is that the immediate defense tactic of many
employers will be to desist from hiring women altogether, to avoid
comparisons of male and female pay, in order to save themselves from
being harassed by the Equality Terrorists.

But the more serious and long-lasting damage is that in her last
gasps as a judge, Madame Beinisch is underlying the basic principles
of judicial democracy in Israel. Here is a dangerous precedent that
regards you and me as guilty unless we can provide overwhelming
econometric evidence and scientific analysis showing that we are
innocent.

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This goes back 2 generations, 3 if you are over 50. It also explains why many Jewish men died in their early 60′s with a non-functional cardiovascular system and looked like today’s men at 89.

Before we start, there are some variations in ingredients because of the various types of Jewish taste (Polack, Litvack, Dutch and Gallicianer).

Just as we Jews have six seasons of the year (winter, spring, summer, autumn, the slack season, and the busy season), we all focus on a main ingredient which, unfortunately and undeservedly, has disappeared from our diet. I’m ]]> Source: Israpundit

This goes back 2 generations, 3 if you are over 50. It also explains why many Jewish men died in their early 60′s with a non-functional cardiovascular system and looked like today’s men at 89.

Before we start, there are some variations in ingredients because of the various types of Jewish taste (Polack, Litvack, Dutch and Gallicianer).

Just as we Jews have six seasons of the year (winter, spring, summer, autumn, the slack season, and the busy season), we all focus on a main ingredient which, unfortunately and undeservedly, has disappeared from our diet. I’m talking, of course, about SCHMALTZ (chicken fat). SCHMALTZ has, for centuries, been the prime ingred ient in almost every Jewish dish, and I feel it’s time to revive it to its rightful place in our homes. (I have plans to distribute it in a green glass Gucci bottle with a label clearly saying: “low fat, no cholesterol, Newman’s Choice, extra virgin SCHMALTZ.” (It can’t miss!) Then there are grebenes – pieces of chicken skin, deep fried in SCHMALTZ, onions and salt until crispy brown (Jewish bacon). This makes a great appetizer for the next cardiologist’s convention.

There’s also a nice chicken fricassee (stew) using the heart, gorgle (neck), pipick (a great delicacy, given to the favorite child, usually me), a fleegle (wing) or two, some ayelech (little premature eggs) and other various chicken innards, in a broth of SCHMALTZ, water, paprika, etc. We also have knishes (filled dough) and the eternal question, “Will that be liver, beef or potatoes, or all three?”
Other time-tested favorites are kishkeh, and its poor cousin, helzel (chicke n or goose neck). Kishkeh is the gut of the cow, bought by the foot at the Kosher butcher. It is turned inside out, scalded and scraped. One end is sewn up and a mixture of flour, SCHMALTZ, onions, eggs, salt, pepper, etc., is spooned into the open end and squished down until it is full. The other end is sewn and the whole thing is boiled. Yummy!

My personal all-time favorite is watching my Zaida (grandpa) munch on boiled chicken feet.
For our next course we always had chicken soup with pieces of yellow-white, rubbery chicken skin floating in a greasy sea of lokshen (noodles), farfel (broken bits of matzah), tzibbeles (onions), mondlech (soup nuts), kneidlach (dumplings), kasha (groats), kliskelech and marech (marrow bones) .
The main course, as I recall, was either boiled chicken, flanken, kackletten, hockfleish (chopped meat), and sometimes rib steaks, which were served either well done, burned or cremated. Occasionally we had barbecued liver done to a burned and hardened perfection in our own coal furnace.

Since we couldn’t have milk with our meat meals, beverages consisted of cheap soda (Kik, Dominion Dry, seltzer in the spritz bottles).

Growing up Jewish

If you are Jewish, and grew up in city with a large Jewish population, or are gentile with Jewish friends or associates, the following will invoke heartfelt memories.

The Yiddish word for today is PULKES (PUHL-kees). Translation: THIGHS. Please note: this word has been traced back to the language of o ne of the original Tribes of Israel, the Cellulites.

The only good advice that your Jewish mother gave you was: “Go! You might meet somebody!”

You grew up thinking it was normal for someone to shout “Are you okay?” through the bathroom door when you were in there longer than 3 minutes.

Your family dog responded to commands in Yiddish.

Every Saturday morning your father went to the neighbourhood deli (called an “appetitizing store”) for whitefish salad, whitefish “chubs”, lox (nova if you were rich!), herring, corned beef, roast beef, cole slaw, potato salad, a 1/2-dozen huge barrel pickles which you reached into the brine for, a dozen assorted bagels, cream cheese and rye bread (sliced while he waited). All of which would be strictly off-limits until Sunday morning.

Every Sunday afternoon was spent visiting your grandparents and/or other relatives.

You experienced the phenomenon of 50 people fitting into a 10-foot-wide dining room hitting each other with plastic plates trying to get to a deli tray.

You had at least one female relative who penciled on eyebrows which were always asymmetrical.
You thought pasta was stuff used exclusively for Kugel and kasha with bowties.
You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven.

You were as tall as your grandfather by age seven and a half.

You never knew anyone whose last name didn’t end in one of 5 standard suffixes (berg, baum, man, stein and witz).

You were surprised to discover that wine doesn’t always taste like cranberry sauce.

You can look at gefilte fish and not turn green.

When your mother smacked you really hard, she continued to make you feel bad for hurting her hand.

You can understand Yiddish but you can’t speak it.

You know how to pronounce numerous Yiddish words and use them correctly in context, yet you don’t know exactly what they mean. Kaynahurra.

You’re still angry at your parents for not speaking both Yiddish and English to you when you were a baby.

You have at least one ancestor who is somehow related to your spouse’s ancestor.

You thought speaking loud was normal.

You considered your Bar or Bat Mitzvah a “Get Out of Hebrew School Free” card.

You think eating half a jar of dill pickles is a wholesome snack.

You’re compelled to mention your grandmother’s “steel cannonballs” upon seeing fluffy matzo balls served at restaurants.

You buy 3 shopping bags worth of hot bagels on every trip to Stamford Hill orEdgware and carefully shlap them home like glassware. (Or, if you live near Chigwell, Manchester or another Jewish city hub, you drive 2 or 3 hours just to buy a dozen “real” bagels.)

Your mother or grandmother took personal pride when a Jew was noted for some accomplishment (showbiz, medicine, politics, etc.) and was ashamed and embarrassed when a Jew was accused of a crime… as if they were relatives.

You thought only non-Jews went to sleep away colleges. Jews went to city schools… unless they had scholarships or made an Ivy League school.

And finally, you knew that Sunday night and the night after any Jewish holiday was designated for Chinese food.

Zei gezunt!!

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[T]he softening mainstream liberalism of American Jews can be seen as the feeble remnant of what was once a fiery and uncompromising leftism. Indeed, as historian Tony Michels said at the YIVO conference, the history of American Communism “cannot be understood without Jews.” But the mood of the conference was best summed up in the title of the keynote address, by the political philosopher Michael Walzer: “The Strangeness of Jewish Leftism.” What was once a proud inheritance now seems like a problem in need of a solution. For many Jews, it remains axiomatic that Judaism ]]> Source: Elder of Ziyon

A very interesting article:

[T]he softening mainstream liberalism of American Jews can be seen as the feeble remnant of what was once a fiery and uncompromising leftism. Indeed, as historian Tony Michels said at the YIVO conference, the history of American Communism “cannot be understood without Jews.” But the mood of the conference was best summed up in the title of the keynote address, by the political philosopher Michael Walzer: “The Strangeness of Jewish Leftism.” What was once a proud inheritance now seems like a problem in need of a solution. For many Jews, it remains axiomatic that Judaism is a religion of social justice and progress; the phrase “tikkun olam” has become a convenient shorthand for the idea that Judaism is best expressed in “repair of the world.”

In his speech, and in his new book In God’s Shadow: Politics and the Hebrew Bible, Walzer offers a contrary vision of traditional Judaism, which he argues “offers precious little support to left politics”—a truth that he recognized would surprise those who, like himself, “grew up believing that Judaism and socialism were pretty much the same thing.” If a leftist political message cannot readily be found in the traditions of Judaism, it follows that the explosion of Jewish leftism in the late 19th century was actually a rupture with Jewish history, and potentially a traumatic one.

Walzer’s reluctance to associate Judaism too simply with leftist politics, or indeed with any politics, represents a break from his earlier thinking. In his influential 1985 book Exodus and Revolution, for instance, Walzer argued that the Exodus narrative had provided a template for generations of revolutionaries and progressives in Western society, offering a model of how to escape an oppressive past and create a better future. The contrast with his new book could not be sharper. In this work, Walzer reads the Bible with an eye to its explicit and implicit teachings about politics and finds that its most eloquent message on the subject is silence. “The political activity of ordinary people is not a Biblical subject,” he writes, “nor is there any explicit recognition of political space, an agora or forum, where people congregate to argue about and decide on the policies of the community.”

Coming from Walzer, who co-edited a multivolume treatise on “The Jewish Political Tradition,” and who has been one of the leading theorists of mainstream left-liberalism for decades, this emphasis on the antipolitical nature of the Bible is striking. In his YIVO speech, he listed six central features of traditional Judaism that made it a conservative force, including the very idea of Jews as a chosen people—an idea that cannot easily be made to harmonize with universalism and egalitarianism.

…The left’s rejection of Judaism, Walzer concluded in his speech at YIVO, was both “necessary and profoundly wrong.” Necessary, because traditional Judaism did not offer a basis for a social justice movement; but also wrong, because the severance with tradition rendered the Jewish left culturally disoriented and spiritually impoverished.

While a number of speakers at the YIVO conference invoked Isaac Deutscher’s concept of the “non-Jewish Jew”—figures like Trotsky or Rosa Luxemburg, who rejected on principle any definition of themselves or their goals in Jewish terms—both Walzer and Ezra Mendelsohn warned against the idea that identity could be so abstract and universalized. Walzer called instead for a renewed critical engagement with Jewish tradition, including a return to the Jewish calendar and Jewish lifecycle events.

If this represents a kind of retrenchment on the part of the left, it is partly because the Jewish left has lost any certainty that the future is on its side. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is the strongest and most popular leader in decades; in both Israel and America, the fastest-growing section of the Jewish population is the Orthodox, a right-leaning group who 50 years ago, Mendelsohn recalled, seemed headed for extinction. Still, political fortunes can always change, and Mendelsohn concluded his speech, and the conference, with a wan prophecy that the Jewish left would return: “Maybe I won’t see it, but my grandchildren will.”

…The problem for the left today is that it has gone over largely—but not, Geras and others insisted, wholly—to the negative view of Judaism as an obstacle to human progress. Israel, Geras held, “has been an alibi for a new climate of anti-Semitism on the left,” a development whose full venomousness can only be seen in Europe. (“I don’t think people here realize,” he said mournfully, “what it’s like to be a Jewish leftist in Britain today,” comparing it to living in a sea of poison.) This is the atmosphere that the Anglo-Jewish novelist Howard Jacobson evoked so powerfully in his recent novel The Finkler Question: one in which hostility to Israel is a reflex and insinuations about Jewish power and the “Jewish lobby” go unchallenged.

(h/t @WarpedMirrorPMB)

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Thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran on Friday to protest a proposed union of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The authorities had urged citizens to protest the American plan to annex Bahrain to Saudi Arabia and express their anger against the “lackey regimes of Al-Khalifa and Al-Saud”.

Media reports said demonstrators in the capital, many brandishing the Bahraini flag, shouted “death” to America, Israel, the “traitors” Al-Saud and Al-Khalifa. Official media also reported ]]> Source: Elder of Ziyon

As if you needed any more evidence after my post this morning about a Saudi company buying software from Israel, we have this from Hezbollah’s Al Manar:

Thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran on Friday to protest a proposed union of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The authorities had urged citizens to protest the American plan to annex Bahrain to Saudi Arabia and express their anger against the “lackey regimes of Al-Khalifa and Al-Saud”.

Media reports said demonstrators in the capital, many brandishing the Bahraini flag, shouted “death” to America, Israel, the “traitors” Al-Saud and Al-Khalifa. Official media also reported protests in other cities.

This week’s Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi said the “US-Zionist plot” to create a union between will fail. “Recently … (Riyadh and Manama) came up with this plot to annex Bahrain to Saudi Arabia … They call it a union but they want Bahrain to lose its identity instead of giving in to its people’s demands,” the cleric said on state radio.

“This is US-Zionist conspiracy and they should know that the Muslim people of the world and the Iranians will not tolerate this plot … Saudi Arabia did not prevail by its military presence there, and will gain nothing in this plot except disgrace,” he added.

The plan, floated last December, was Saudi Arabia’s idea, not America’s. And the smaller Gulf states are not too keen about it anyway.

But this hysterical reaction by Iran (and its Lebanese proxies) is interesting, mostly because of Iran’s own territorial designs on Bahraini territory.

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Border Guard, police officers detain teenagers who planned to spend Shabbat in illegal West Bank outpost Continue to ]]> Source: ynet – News

Border Guard, police officers detain teenagers who planned to spend Shabbat in illegal West Bank outpost

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By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST