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      Cheshvan 12, 5768, 10/24/2007

      Cain was a Patsy!

      by Steven Plaut


      There are numerous inconsistencies in the official report in Genesis!!

      Obviously doctored scene taken from Genesis surveillance tape!

      We have received incredible breaking news.

      A team of people claiming to be investigative reporters based in Florida, Ohio, and Jeruslem have announced that they have discovered that Cain was a patsy and that he did not in fact murder Abel.

      Numerous pieces of evidence have been brought together in order to derive this conclusion, they insist.  And the inconsistencies in the official report in Genesis about the developments on the day of the assassination must mean that Cain was innocent and had been set up as a patsy by a nefarious conspiracy.

      First, they insist, Cain did not in fact stab Abel with an actual knife but rather used a fake rubber knife from a gimmick shop that was picked up in Chinatown.  That explains why there were reports that a passerby down the road was thought to have yelled "Rubber Knife!  Rubber Knife!"

      Second, in the surveillance tapes near the exit from the Garden of Eden, Cain's arm appears to be unnaturally long, suggesting some sort of conspiracy was at play.

      Third, the very fact that Cain admitted that he murdered Abel when questioned about it proves that he was set up and a victim of a conspiracy.  The fact that Cain later continued to plead guilty and that everyone else in his family agreed that he was guilty just shows how broad the real conspiracy was!  You see, Abel - even after being elected - may have been having second thoughts about his own policies regarding sacrifices and a sinister conspiracy wanted to prevent Abel from changing the menu.  So Cain was a convenient scapegoat.

      There are so many inconsistencies in the official report of the Abel murder, insist the investigators and promoters of the Alternative Theory of the Abel Assassination, the one that challenges the accuracy of the report in Genesis.

      Why didn't anyone call 911 or even 101 to get emergency medical help?  Why was the palm tree near Cain seen in the surveillance tape as having branches that moved strangely and in an unexplained manner?   And just how many wounds did Abel have?  Initial reports said 12 stab wounds, and later it was claimed in the official commission of investigation that there were  only 11!  But what about the unexplained extra hole in Abel's shirt, cleverly disguised to look like a cigarette burn?  And why did Eve not try to give Abel CPR (not to be confused with CFR!)?  What exactly was Eve REALLY doing when the murder took place?  And how come we have not been shown all the CAT scan images of Abel's corpse?

      Meanwhile, several self-proclaimed "journalists" are demanding that Abel's complete set of medical records be published at once.  They also claim that the surveillance tapes near the Garden of Eden exit have been doctored to make it appear that Cain was the murderer.  A popular singer has just come out in favor of releasing Cain from prison so that the real murderer can be identitified.  The conspiracy theorists claim that anyone who rejects their arguments about Cain's innocence must be a paid agent of the forces of darkness and the Council on Foreign Relations.

      We will keep you updated on all new developments in this major breaking story!



      Cheshvan 8, 5768, 10/20/2007

      Uri Avnery being Promoted By Neo-Nazis

      by Steven Plaut

      Herr Uri Avnery is Israel's longtime Lord Haw Haw. In recent days he was denounced by Avigdor Lieberman as a "kapo," to the bellowing and shrieks of all the Bleeding Hearts, upset by such rhetoric except when it is directed against Zionists. Recently stories have emerged about how Avnery published a nazi magazine in Germany in the 1930s.  Avnery is a regular columnist on the leftwing Neo-Nazi web magazine "Counterpunch," as well as the web site of klansman David Duke.  Avnery's own mother disowned him and regarded him as a traitor.  Menachem Begin revealed that the chief of the secret service had asked in the late 50's for his support for putting Avnery in administrative detention.  Begin unfortunately refused.

           

      Avnery with his Puppet Master (above)

      Now it turns out that Avnery's Bash-Israel propaganda is being distributed by bona fide Neo-Nazi organizations and web sites. The following was sent out this week to a long list of Neo-Nazi groups (see the ending especially!):

      Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:44:40 -0700 (PDT)
      Subject: [JihadNewsDesk] An Honest Jew Reviews "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"

      An Honest Jew Reviews "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"

      Uri Avnery (illustration) is a journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom, a peace movement in Israel . Two Knights and a Dragon -- by Uri Avnery (Wednesday, October 3, 2007) "The two professors take the bull by the horns. They deal with a subject which is absolutely taboo in the United States , a subject nobody in his right mind would even mention: the enormous influence of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign policy...."

      (Citing Avnery):

      This wall cannot be torn down by reasoned argument. Nobody has tried, and nobody is going to. Instead, the authors are being smeared and accused of sinister motives. If the book could be ignored altogether, this would have been done - as has happened to other books which have been buried alive....

      The two professors take the bull by the horns. They deal with a subject which is absolutely taboo in the United States , a subject nobody in his right mind would even mention: the enormous influence of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign policy. In a remorselessly systematical way, the book analyzes the Lobby, takes it apart, describes its modus operandi, discloses its financial sources and lays bare its relations with the White House, the two houses of Congress, the leaders of the two major parties and leading media people.... In its second part, the book shows how the Lobby uses its tremendous power in practice: how it has prevented the exertion of any pressure on Israel to for peace with the Palestinians, how it pushed the US into the invasion of Iraq, how it is now pushing for wars with Iran and Syria, how it supported the Israeli leadership in the recent war in Lebanon and blocked calls for a ceasefire when it didn't want it.  Each of these assertions is backed up by so much undeniable evidence and quotations from written material (mainly from Israeli sources) that they cannot be ignored.  Most of these disclosures are nothing new for those in Israel who deal with these matters.

      In 1968, a very respected American publishing house (Macmillan) brought out a book of mine' "Israel Without Zionists", which was later translated into eight other languages. The book described the Israeli-Arab conflict in a very different way and proposed the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel - a revolutionary idea at the time. Not a single review appeared in the American media. I checked in one of the most important book stores in New York and did not find the book. When I asked a salesman, he found it buried under a heap of volumes and put it on top. Half an hour later it was hidden again. The book dealt with the "Two States for Two peoples" solution long before it became a world-wide consensus, and with my proposal for Israel 's integration in "the Semitic Region".... The book by the two professors, who criticize the Israeli government from a different angle, cannot be buried anymore. This fact, by itself, speaks volumes. The book is based on an essay by the two that appeared last year in a British journal, after no American publication dared to touch it. Now a respected American publishing house has released it - an indication that something is moving. The situation has not changed, but it seems that it is now possible at least to talk about it.

      The two professors are, of course, accused of anti-Semitism, racism and hatred of Israel . What Israel ? It is the Lobby itself that hates a large part of Israel . In recent years is has shifted even more to the Right. Some of its constituent groups - such as the neo-cons who pushed the US into the Iraq war - are openly connected with the right-wing Likud, and especially with Binyamin Netanyahu. The billionaires who finance the Lobby are the same people who finance the extreme Israeli Right, and most of all the settlers. The small, determined Jewish groups in the US who support the Israeli peace movements are remorselessly persecuted. Some of them fold after a
      few years. Members of Israeli peace groups who are sent to America are boycotted and slandered as "self-hating- Jews"....

      Most of the American public now opposes the Iraq war and considers it a disaster. This majority still does not connect the war with the actions of the pro-Israel lobby. No newspaper and no politician dares to hint at such a connection - yet. But if this taboo is broken, the result may be very dangerous for the Jews and for Israel . Beneath the surface, a lot of anger directed against the Lobby is accumulating. The presidential candidates, who are compelled to grovel at the feet of AIPAC, the senators and congressmen, who have become slaves of the Lobby, the media people, who are forbidden to write what they really think - all these secretly detest the Lobby. If this anger explodes, it may hurt us, too. This lobby has become a Golem. And like the Golem in legend, in the end it will bring disaster on its maker. If I may be permitted to voice some criticism of my own: When the original article by the two professors appeared, I argued that  "the tail is wagging the dog and the dog is wagging the tail". The tail, of course, is Israel . ...

      I agree that the US is acting against its true interest (and the true interests of Israel ) - but the American leadership does not see it that way. Bush and his people believe - even without the input of the Lobby - that it would be advantageous for the US to establish a permanent American military presence in the middle of this region of huge oil reserves. In my view, this counter-productive act at was one of the main objectives of the war, side by side with the desire to eliminate one of Israel's most dangerous enemies. Unfortunately, the book deals only very briefly with this issue.

      The email posting by the Neo-Nazis carried the following warning at the end of the message:

      Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments is Racially and Religiously privileged and confidential. It is intended for specific Aryan recipients only and Brothers and Sisters of their choosing. If you are a jew, you can only be in possession through deceit, treachery, guile, cunning, dissimulation and chicanery, and such possession of this e-mail is contrary to law. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail through the error of someone else, you must notify the sender and permanently delete this e-mail and any attachments immediately. You should neither retain, nor copy nor use this e-mail or any attachment for any purpose. Disclosure of all or any part of the contents to any other jew is a punishable offense.

      Avnery illegally enters Beirut to help the PLO in 1982:

       



      Cheshvan 2, 5768, 10/14/2007

      The Dangers in Conspiracist Nonsense

      by Steven Plaut


      “A Conspiracy!” cried the delighted lady, clapping her hands. “Of all things, I do like a Conspiracy! It’s so interesting!” - Lewis Carroll, My Lady, Sylvie and Bruno (1889)
      Conspiracism is probably best characterized as a form of mental illness. Some researchers in psychiatry plainly agree. It is the attribution of control of world events to a hidden cabal of omnipotent conspirators. It is the claim that an organized "hidden hand" lies behind world developments. It is probably best treated in clinics with padded walls.
       
      Perhaps the best example of conspiracism in recent years has been the attempt to dismiss the fact that thousands of eyewitnesses saw passenger planes full of civilians crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11 and that the hijackers were all Arab al-Qaeda operatives. Crank conspiracists insist instead that the CIA, the Mossad, the Council on Foreign Relations (which publishes Foreign Affairs magazine), the Jews, the freemasons, the "Illuminati," the Vatican, or some other nefarious group were really behind the attacks.  (In the case of the fabricator of the "theory" of a SHABAK conspiracy behind the Rabin assassination, it seems to be ALL of the above!)
       
      Many of us have a tendency to dismiss people making such conspiracist claims as harmless lunatics and amusing eccentrics. This is all the more true because quite a few conspiracy “theorists” also endorse crackpot claims about UFOs and abductions by space aliens. But conspiracism can be quite dangerous, and conspiracism in Israel has played a particularly harmful role in recent years. Moreover, Israeli conspiracists at times promote the very same “theories” as Holocaust Deniers and anti-Semites, and often on the very same web sites.
       
      In the US conspiracism has emerged with special popularity in relation to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. Polls show that large numbers of Americans believe conspiracy "theories" about Kennedy's death. But there was no conspiracy there at all. The very best article debunking JFK conspiracism is still “Yes, Oswald Alone Killed Kennedy,” by Jacob Cohen in Commentary Magazine, June 1992.
       
      Outside Israel, conspiracism is closely linked with anti-Semitism, and many of the "grand cabal" theories of the conspiracists involve supposed plots by Jews (or “Zionists") to "take over" the world, or at least American foreign policy. Conspiracism is common among the Neo-Nazi fringe Right, the far Left, and the "anarchists". There are tens of thousands of internet web sites devoted to their “theories”.
       
      It would be a mistake to dismiss all such people as mere harmless buffoons. In North America a handful of university professors endorse conspiracy “theories” about the collapse of the World Trade Center, including Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones, and a professor of economics at the University of Ottawa Michel Chossudovsky (who is also a Holocaust Denier). It is all the more alarming to see the spread of conspiracism into Israel.
       
      Conspiracists see “evidence” of an invisible cabal and plotting where none exists. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgolin of small minds." Belief in a powerful cabal seems to serve a psychological need for some people. It provides them with an explanation and excuse for their own failures in life. After all, how can one succeed when up against such an ominpotent adversary? It also allows them to pretend to understand a complex world, without the nuisance of having first to study, research, and master analytic tools.
       
      Perhaps the best analysis of the conspiracist mindset is that of Daniel Pipes in his seminal book “Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where it Comes From” (the Free Press, 1997). Pipes defines “conspiracism" as “fear of a nonexistent conspiracy.” Pipes shows that nonsensical theories of a single institution or cabal plotting to take over the world go back at least 250 years. “Conspiracism,” according to Pipes, is a form of paranoid delusion that tends to take over the entire lives and personalities of believers. Embracing conspiracism strongly resembles the totalitarian immersion of cult members into herd thinking.
       
      Conspiracism feeds on misrepresentation of facts, outright lying, and tendentious twisting of unrelated factoids into a grand theory. Conspiracists take the logical fallacy, the non sequitur, to incredible heights. They are notoriously prone to rearrangement of their perception of reality based upon the mere power of suggestion. The internet is full of web sites that claim that watching news tapes of the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center reveals explosions of bombs inside the buildings before the planes struck, thus proving that the buildings were brought down by "controlled explosions” from the inside. Suggesting that Elvis can be seen on the 70th floor in photos of the collapsing WTC would just as thoroughly convince these people that he was really there in his blue suede shoes. Michael Billig wrote, “The conspiracy theorist … is to the professional historian what the treasure-hunter is to the archeologist; only in the case of the conspiracy theorists, there is no means of convincing them that their quick dig among the documents has revealed only false gold.”


      Tishrei 30, 5768, 10/12/2007

      Let's Make More Global Warming!

      by Steven Plaut


      As P. J. O'Rourke said, everyone wants to save the planet but no one wants to help Mom do the dishes.

      For years most of us have believed that the Nobel Peace Prize could not possibly be debased any worse than it has been.  Shimon Peres and mass murderer Yassir Arafat were granted a Nobel "Peace Prize" for plunging the Middle East into an endless cycle of terrorist aggression against Israel and for putting Israel's very survival into jeopardy.  Arafat's share of the loot was used to buy weapons.  True, the decision to elect Peres as President of Israel is so much more absurd that the Nobel Committee looks lucid in comparison.  The only "peace" the Prize really celebrates is that where Arafat now Rests In.

      And theirs wasn't even the only Orwellian award of the Peace Prize.  Bishop Desmond Tutu, who thinks the Israel Lobby is a manifestation of Nazism and supports anti-Jewish terror, also got the award.  For years Israel's Moonbatocracy has been trying to nominate Uri Avnery, Israel's Lord Haw-Haw, for one.  Israeli communists have been promoting terrorist accomplice Tali Fahima for one.  And let us not forget Goobers the Peanut Brain, the worst president in American history but a Nobel Prize holder!

      But the decision to grant a Nobel Peace prize to Whacky Al Gore for his environmentalist hysterics and pseudo-scientific posturing must surely rival the earlier absurdities.  Gore, who was defeated in the Presidential election even though he tried to steal it by only recounting the ballots in his favor in Florida, is also the guy who claims to have invented the internet.  He has reinvented himself in recent years as a groupie of radical environmentalist nuttiness.

      It seems that whenever countries get too rich and comfortable, their chattering classes start wringing their hands over the environment.  It is part of the price those countries pay for not having more serious national problems and challenges.

      "Global Warming" has become the leading pseudo-cause of those practicing recreational compassion, people looking for a cheap way to impress their friends and neighbors about how caring they are.  Recycling bins on their lawns are their version of a PC creche.  As P. J. O'Rourke said, everyone wants to save the planet but no one wants to help Mom do the dishes.

      Global warning is the cause celebre of the moral posturers, except when they are warning us about the dangers of global cooling (and there are many who still do THAT!).  They discover thinning ice shields in the polar regions except in the areas where it is getting thicker. They chant the mantra that George Bush and America's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol is behind the warming and the hurricanes.  Of course, if the earth is really getting a smidgen warmer it has nothing to do with humans.  Mars is getting warmer and its ice caps are melting a bit.  Gore will no doubt attribute that to selfish Republicans as well.

      I have always thought that the idea that humans can change a planet's climate is a bit of megalomania.  A more believable take on planetary survivability is in this week's Torah portion, about Noah and the rainbow.  While there is doubt as to whether global warming is even taking place, there is no doubt at all that humans - if it is for real - have nothing to do with it.   

      The global warming hysteria also ignores the many benefits and positive aspects of global warming.  Even those who are convinced beyond a doubt that it is occurring agree that its main manifestation is slightly warmer winter nights.  Since my heating system does not work very well, I for one would welcome warmer winter nights.  No one knows how warmer climate affects rainfall but it is likely to cause more of it, and that surely is good for Israel, and the British would deserve it!

      Ever since the first shrieks about global warming were heard, I have been checking the beaches of Haifa, hoping to see a visible sign of some rise in ocean surface levels.  But alas, not even a bit.  On the other hand, all those tales about tropical orchids growing at the North Poll are actually reasons for celebration!

      There are so many benefits from global warming, I think it behooves all of us to do our parts to create more of it!

      First, if the ice pack over Greenland really does melt, this might be a nice place to create a "Palestinian state."   The terrorists could undergo career reorientation and take to cod fishing.  They could throw grenades at whales.  Ahmedinejad and his ayatollahs could be sent there, as a substitute for Alaska, where they want to send all the Jews.

      Second, I can see numerous benefits for the world from any rise in ocean surface levels.  It would solve most of the problems of the Middle East!  

      Flooding the Gaza Strip with ocean water due to rising sea levels would surely stop the Kassam rockets.  Now THAT is something worth buying an SUV over in order to achieve!  True, some other areas might be inundated.  But what is wrong with Ramat Aviv being under some nice sea water?  The leftist yuppies in the upper floors of their buildings would not be affected and would get capital gains on their oceanfront property.  The others could simply relocate and make aliya to Eretz Yisrael, getting new homes in Gush Etzion, Efrat and Ariel. 

      Elsewhere, rising sea levels would erase Venice, California, and Santa Cruz.  The hills in Berkeley where the employed professionals live would be safe, but the Berkeley lowlands where the radicals posture and protest would be eliminated.  The more I think about it, the more I like the idea!

      Israel is so small that it cannot be seen on most global maps.  But even so, we really should be doing more in order to hasten global warming.  Cutting taxes on imports of SUVs would be a good place to start and would also lower the traffic fatality rate.

      So let's do our part to hasten global warming!  A Nobel Peace Prize may be in it for us! 



      Tishrei 28, 5768, 10/10/2007

      Answers to Answers to Answers

      by Steven Plaut


      Chasing imaginary conspiracies works to neutralize the Israeli Right

      The entire world saw those hijacked planes crashing into the WTC towers on 9-11.  Yet there are conspiracy nuts (one of whom is the main inventor of the Rabin assassination conspiracy "theory," at least when he is not busy publishing his articles on Neo-Nazi Holocaust Denial web sites) who insist that the collapse of the WTC towers was NOT caused by the exploding planes, or even claim that no planes at all crashed into the WTC.  The entire world saw Yigal Amir on the tape shoot Rabin, as did all the eyewitnesses, and Amir readily confirms he shot Rabin with live bullets.  I am reminded of that old Richard Pryor quip when I read the conspiracy "theories" about the assassination - "Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"

      Does Fendel seriously mean to argue that if Lincoln and Julius Caesar were assassinated, this proves that Yigal Amir is innocent of killing Rabin?

      The blog entries that follow below must be read to make sense of this posting here.  So we agree that the "20 minute car trip to the hospital" was not 20 minutes and was based on inaccurate recordings of times by those involved.  So what?

      1.  None of the MDs who at first thought Rabin was struck by three bullets or struck from the front think so today.  They themselves think their initial impression was wrong, and accept the findings of the Shamgar Commission.  Why does Fendel doubt their word today?  There was no third bullet wound at all. Rabin's spine was NOT sliced by the bullet. These "claims" were at best early innocent suspicions that turned out to be wrong and today are conspiracist misrepresentations, similar to falsehoods in the 9-11 conspiracy "theories." 

      2.  Initial hospital reports made in the emergency room often bear little resemblance to actual final reports, especially when surgery is involved.

      3.  I do not know if Miriam Oren thinks today Rabin was unhurt by the gunfire of Amir.  Maybe someone should ask her.  In any case, the simple fact of the matter is that he WAS.  So she was wrong.  The other eyewitnesses all saw things differently.  Did Oren also not see the planes crashing into the WTC on 9-11?

      4.  UPDATE:  A security man checked the back seat of the car, closed the "mysteriously closing door" but did not ride with Rabin in the car's back seat on the way to the hospital.  No mystery!  No conspiracy!

      5.  At the Columbine school shooting, the shooting in Virginia Tech, and at many others people thought they were hearing blanks because real bullets being fired do not sound like what people imagine.  Tell me, if it is now discovered that someone yelled "Felafel" close to the scene of the shooting, would this prove that Amir had fired felafel at Rabin?

      6.  People injured by gunfire often continue to take steps and walk. This can confuse people like Miriam Oren and Hillel Fendel.

      7.  Sneh himself says he was wrong in his earlier impression of the wounds.  He believes the Shamgar Commission report.  Why does Fendel not believe him today?

      8.  Haber does not say that he destroyed evidence.  Neither does the Shamgar report.  Fendel says that.

      9.  Fendel is not an expert on gunpowder residue.  The Shamgar Commission spoke with numerous experts.  They saw nothing to suggest Amir did NOT shoot Rabin.  Who is Fendel to second guess them?

      10.  The best way to discredit Israel National News, to discredit the entire Israeli Right, and to ensure that the policies of the Israeli Left continue to be implemented is to try to recruit the "Right" into pursuing mindless conspiracy nonsense, chasing imaginary conspiracies for which not a single scrap of real evidence exists.  None of Fendel's "questions" constitute evidence.  At best they are his ponderings and conjectures.

      11.  Here is a question of my own.  How is it that Fendel believes anything (and everything?) he is told by David Rutstein?  Does he know who and what Rutstein is?  Why does he consider Rutstein more credible than Shamgar?



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