Here's the flyer left at the scene of the domestic terror attack at Prof. Sternhell's house:

My observations after reviewing it:

1.  There is no ב"ה or בס"ד, usual heading of religious persons writing.  Those abbreviations mean "with God's help".  And the word מספיק - "enough" is odd.  Youngsters would use די!

2.  The signature "the Army of the Statist Liberators" is ridiculous.  The whole concept of ממלכתי, i.e., supporting the state, is anathema to the radical nationalist right.

3.  Why announce an award of 1.1 million NIS?  1.1???  Why an odd number?  What was that, a typo?

4.  The state of Israel is described as the "dream" (חלום) of the past 2000 years.  Religious/nationalists would use the word "vision" (חזון).

5.  In the list of weapons that Israel has handed over to the PA is included מכונות ירי (and why not יריה?) which is a fairly archaic term for machine guns which may indicate someone over 65.  A youngster who has actually served in the army would use תת-מקלעים or straight out קלצ'ניקובים - Klatchnikovs.

6.  The use of the Hebrew term for "Palestinians" is פלשתינאים which is not usual.  Either פלסטינים or ערבים - Arabs would have been used.

7.  The inclusion of amongst the "sins" of the state of Israel of abortion encouragement would indicate perhaps Hareidi groups, not nationalists.

8.  The same for the inclusion of encouragement of "gay pride parades".

9.  The use of מלכות יהודה - Kingdon of Judea, instead of the Kahanist demand for מדינת יהודה - State of Judea, also indicates to me Hareidi or GSS composition.

10.  Sternhell isn't mentioned in the flyer and the addition of the 1.1 NIS reward for the murder of Peace Now leaders is in a different typeface, as if tacked on later to the original flyer.

Something is fishy.

This needs more study.

Isabel Kershner is the New York Times' correspondent in Israel, formerly of The Jerusalem Report and the wife of Hirsch Goodman.  Isabel takes on the Yesha scene in an article today entitled, "The Radical Right Takes On Israel".

Takes on all of Israel?

It is, surely, the "radical right" that she describes, and to be safe, she uses these terms such as: "elements of Israel’s settler movement", "Hard-core right-wing settlers", "extremist bastion", "the religious, ideological wing of the settlement movement", "so-called hilltop youth" and "the more militant activist part".

Nevertheless, she does not provide any standard of judgment for the uninitiated reader. Is she talking about 10,000 persons, 1 million or 250 teenagers? Of course, one terrorist or fanatic is more than enough, as Yigal Amir proved. Still, my point is that she was not describing a known quality but was drawing a general picture, providing background. And while using terminology that shielded her from being accused of making sweeping generalizations, I think that in not informing the reader as to what is the true picture, she was tranferring impressions and not facts. In other words, her reporting was a bit biased I would suggest.

For example, in writing that there have

been bouts of settler violence for years, notably during the transfer of Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005

she is misleading because both in absolute numbers of incidents and in relative to the monstronsity of the acts done to the Gush Katif and Northern Samaria revenants, what actually happened was minor, although regrettable, and cannot be compared in violence to any similar event on that scale in other countries.

She also failed to let her readers know that the person responsible for the terror attack at Yitzhar, which she describes fairly, was the same person the army killed a week or so later as he tried to throw a molotov cocktail at soldiers. In other words, the residents of Yitzhar were facing a quite determined killer.

In another instance, she writes,

In Samaria, the biblical name for the northern West Bank, and in Binyamin, the central district around the Palestinian city of Ramallah, settlers recently ousted their more mainstream representatives in local council elections, voting in what they called “activist” mayors instead. These new mayors, like the Samaria council’s Gershon Mesika, reject what they see as the more compromising policies of the Yesha council...

First, Samaria was not only the Biblical name but it is the geographical name used until today. Secondly, the mayor, or head of the Binyamin Reginla Council, Avi Roeh, is not more activist than the former head, Pinchas Wallerstein, for sure. Thirdly, as for Gershon's activism, well, have you heard a Jew say 'eh'? And fourthly, as she does mention the friction with the Yesha Council, she couldn't speak with Dani Dayan, the Council's Chairman? (Note: I called her up, spoke with her and made that very suggestion.)

And one more example of troublesome writing. She relates to Rechalim

Rahelim, a Samarian community of 45 families founded in 1991, has been labeled an illegal outpost

but could have added "...founded in November 1991 in protest following an Arab terror attack on civilian buses which killed a mother of 7 children and the bus driver, a father of two".

I guess not all the facts fit.

Ir David, the project to rejuvenate the City of David, is doing tremendous work.  Repopulation, construction, archeology, conferences and tourism.

Here's their latest advertisement, promoting a Selichot walk:

Something caught my attention in the above ad. The map.  Let me enlarge it:

You can see marked off the Kotel Ma'aravi.  And Mount of Olives.  And the City of David.

And the Temple Mount?

The Selichot event takes places in the national park adjacent to Ir David, according to the advert.  So one can't say that you visit all three places.  And even I am mistaken, and if the tour does go to all three locations, even if they believe Jews shouldn't ascend the Mount, therefore it isn't represented on the map, neverhteless, it could be labeled.

The map, after all, is entitled "Ancient Jerusalem".  The Temple Mount surely belongs in that category.  Even if to identify it so that people shouldn't mistake the area for a soccer pitch - and the Muslims do play football up there - they could, and should, have notated it.

The Temple Mount is important.  Very much so.  Within that triangle is a crucial piece of real estate, and it the reason we are here in Zion, in Eretz-Yisrael.  It is our past and our future.

It shouldn't be missing.

Can someone explain this absurdity?

In a "Letter to the Editor" in Friday's New York Times, Morton Sobell who stood trial with the Rosenbergs clarifies aspects of his previous admission about his spying and stated

As for me, I helped an ally (admittedly illegally) during World War II. I chose not to cooperate with the government in 1950. The issues are now with the historians. Morton Sobell, Bronx, Sept. 12, 2008

To help you out, I will remind you that Sobell was arrested in August 1950 and in April 1951 was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for the crime of spying for the Soviet Union (then in 1951 an enemy of the United States but not during the war), of conspiracy to commit wartime espionage, by handing over to his handlers sensitive military material. In 1969, Sobell was released from jail. He did not cooperate with the trial proceedings and never testified, either against or for the Rosenbergs or himself.  He never spoke at the trial.

The total time he spent behind bars: 19 years.

As regards the Rosenbergs, their death sentences resulted because of the Espionage Act of 1917, which imposes death as a maximum penalty for espionage in wartime. If they had spied in peacetime, the maximum penalty would have been twenty years' imprisonment.

Now, consider this -

Jonathan Pollard was arrested in late 1985 and sentenced to life imprisonment in March 1987 for a crime commited on behalf of an ally, aiding Israel, and not during wartime. He had entered into a plea agreement, cooperating fully with the prosecution yet his life sentence, with a recommendation that he never be paroled was in violation of the plea agreement he had reached with the government.

Jonathan Pollard was never indicted for harming the United States nor was he ever indicted for compromising codes, agents, or war plans or charged with treason in that he ever spied for an enemy state in time of war.

Jonathan Pollard was indicted on only one charge: one count of passing classified information to an ally, without intent to harm the United States.

Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Williams called the case "a fundamental miscarriage of justice" and wrote that he would have ordered that Pollard's sentence be vacated.

So, tell me, why is Jonathan Pollard still in jail 21 years after being sentenced?

What is the difference in the leniency granted Sobell and the cruelty displayed to Pollard?

What am I missing here?

Ehud Olmert's remarks in referring to the anti-terror protest at the Arab village of Aasira Al-Qabaliya on last Shabbat as a "pogrom" were not only incorrect but stupid.  They were incorrect because the actions taken by the civilians threatened with murder and arson were a response to a mini-pogrom that has been going on for the past few years invarious degrees of anti-Jewish violence.  Olmert did indeed note that but went ahead with his own verbal violence.  The media, his main and only support group, chimed in and as has been reported here and at other Hebrew-language sites presented biased and misleading information about the incident itself and the background to it.

According to my information, the terrorist actually was observed not only as he entered the Jewish residential area, with the IDF soldiers presuming that he was a worker - on the Shabbat?! - but that he was seen fleeing and that they took no measures since he was (are you ready for this?) unarmed.

I wrote above that Olmert was stupid for using the term "pogrom".  In the first instance, since many many people think that what Israel did in South Lebanon two years ago was illegal, they can now call it a "pogrom".  After all, if Olmert refers to what happened near Yitzhar as such, then surely what Omert did two years is at least that.  Secondly, what the Arabs of ShfarAm did to a suspected Jewish terrorist two years ago, when the man was killed, has been defended by left-wing and Arab legislators and they have refused to term that a "pogrom".  Moreover, I don't think Olmert himself referred to that act of violence but if I am wrong, I invite Mr. Olmert to correct me.

Of course, Olmert knows what a "pogrom" is.  He initiated one.  At Amona. What he had done at Amona cannot be compared to what was done at Asira Al-Qabaliya.

At Amona, as we all recall, hundreds were injured, some quite seriously and at least one a near-death casualty.  At Amona, official security personnel - police, Yassam, Border Police, mounted calvary, etc., - were ordered to bash heads.  And those were, in one way or another, Olmert's orders.

That was a pogrom, a real one.