Fallout continues

1.       It is now 4 days after the bloody massacre on the Mavi Marmara. Things have played itself out it seems, and on many points in the short-term, there have been a few successes and a few themes are generally coming to the fore.

2.       Egypt has reopened the Rafa border, the detainees have been released except for a few more, and Turkey seems to have developed a more prominent role amongst the muslim world. The latter isn’t a bad thing given Erdogan’s outspokenness, particularly after his walkout to the Israel-biased Davos forum a couple of years back. Erdogan, when compared to other Arab leaders silent on the world stage, is head and shoulders above them in terms of stature and diplomacy. Perhaps, given the constraints of the military-backed Kemalism in Turkey, Erbakan and Erdogan have both over time developed this ability of pinpointing and executing specific objectives that promotes the Islamist agenda while still appearing to play Western-style diplomacy. Other leaders, Najib, Anwar, Nik Nazmi(?), please take note.

3.       The themes which will recur and play itself out in the coming years are Turkish-Israel relations, US pressure on Iran, and European support for Israel. On a few of these, public opinion has successfully gravitated against Israel and exposed their inhumane treatment of Palestinian refugees in Gaza. And if they were to respond in the familiar playground bully defense, that this is necessary for their security and defense, it will be pointed out that they are the aggressors in hostilities when driving out Palestinians from their homes.

4.       Back to the key point though. These are all early days yet. Since An-Nakba, there have been many occasions such as these and each time, Israel has thwarted them all off in the long run using their manipulating media and coordinated diplomatic networks of support amongst the developed countries. There is no evidence yet that this will change. Palestinians will still have to wait a while to return home, unless public opinion on the fate of Gaza becomes central to elections in the developed countries.

5.       What will happen though is the loosening of support to Israel. They don’t deserve any, if the blood of the dead in Mavi Marmara, Rachel Corrie, Lord Moyne, the UN-appointed Swedish mediator in 1948, are added to the daily killings and massacres of Sabra, Shatilla, Rafah, Gaza and Palestine are totaled up. Europe is the first to wake up, in that they won’t owe Israel that much no matter how long the Holocaust will be raised as collateral by the conniving liars.

6.       Dear Allah, Please let us see curses rain down upon Israel and their conniving liars, let there be sufficient recompense for their brutality, let them be humiliated and destroyed for their arrogant actions, and destroy them in this earth while they still commit these injustices in Palestine while sowing discord and confusion in the rest of the world through their lies. Ya Allah, let me see the day when the Palestinians will return to their rightful homes.

 

Attack on Freedom Flotilla - sadness.. envious, rage..

1.       Freedom flotilla is organised by a Turkish NGO, a coalition of civilian activists internationally from all over the muslim world, including European countries. Its purpose was to bring in aid to Gaza, where the enforced blockade of Gaza by both Israel and Egypt has caused immense hardship to its populace. It brought aid in the form of cement and construction material, food, medicince and such, and from day one had announced that it brought no weapons with it.

2.       The eight (or so) ships knew the risks. They knew that Israel would resort to violent means to stop them. They still went, and some had written their last will to their family members knowing they could be detained indefinitely, or they could be killed for whatever reason.

3.       Today, about 90kms from Gaza, in pitch darkness, Israel navy and armed personnel hijacked the boats, and the numbers vary, but between 10 and 20 of these brave, civilian humanitarians died. Israel TV played out the story that their strikeforce was attacked and had to react in self-defence. How these Israeli combatants,  after they had boarded the ships from abseiling down from their sophisticated helis, attack ships and subs clad in their full combat gear, could have been attacked with “knives and other sharp weapons” (by itself, an admission there were no ordnance) is a farce. Shades of “parang in Aminurrasyid’s car”, but that’s a digression.

4.       Israeli aggression is uncalled for. But now they have to deal with the response from the international diplomatic community, the outpouring of anger and hate from the large (albeit quite powerless) muslim community, and pressure from their previously close partners in the US and Europe.

5.       The sacrifice of the shuhada’ and the brave souls on-board Mavi Marmara was calculated to provoke maximum publicity for the crass, violent, insolent, manipulating and uncivilized political leaders of Israel. Others, who follow this struggle of the Palestinians, will have to wake up and take heed.

 

=============================================================================================

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/5/31/nation/20100531191843&sec=nation

 

No word on fate of Malaysians onboard attacked ship

By SHAUN HO

 

 

PETALING JAYA: The fate of Astro Awani journalist Ashwad Ismail, 26, and cameraman Samsulkamal Abdul Latip, 43, and nine other Malaysians believed aboard Turkish ship Mavi Marmara when Israeli commandos stormed it on Monday, remains unknown.

 

The other Malaysians are Noorazman Mohd Samsuddin (chief of the Malaysian delegation and a UIA lecturer), Dr Mohd Arba Ai Shawal (medical doctor), Dr Syed Muhamad Haleem Syed Hassan (medical doctor), Dr Selamat Aliman (businessman), Jamaluddin Elias (Klang councillor), Al Hilmi Husain Suhaimi (religious teacher), Mohd Nizam Mohamad Awang (engineer), Abd Halim Mohd Redzuan (Syabas executive) and Ustaz Hasanuddin Aqsi Assarip (non-governmental organisation personnel).

 

Astro Awani's last contact with its crew was at 7.45pm on Sunday, according to a statement from the TV channel.

 

A senior Astro Awani source said they were trying desperately to establish contact with the two.

 

The attack, which took place 65km off the Gaza coast in international waters early Monday, killed 16 people and injured many others.

 

The two-man Astro Awani crew had left Kuala Lumpur for Istanbul, Turkey, on May 23, before proceeding to Antalya Port to join the convoy, which departed for Gaza on Sunday.

 

Mavi Marmara was leading the international convoy, dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, with six other ships intending to deliver 10,00 tonnes of aid to the blockaded Gaza.

 

The cargo included building material, food and medical supplies.

 

According to a statement from Lifeline 4 Gaza, which coordinates the Malaysian delegation to the convoy, nine other Malaysians were aboard the ship.

 

Six other Malaysians on board another ship, the Rachel Corrie, which left from Cyprus, were safe, according to a statement by non-governmental organisation (NGO) Perdana Global Peace Organisation.

 

They were lawyer Matthias Chang, journalist Shamsul Akmar, Parit MP Nizar Zakaria, activist Ahmad Faizal Azumu and TV3 crew members Halim Mohamed and Jufri Junid.

 

Meru state assemblyman Dr Abdul Rani Osman, who was on board one of the ships, managed to send a message to some of his Selangor state assemblymen that he was safe.

 

PAS activist Jamaluddin has yet to get in touch, said PAS secretary-general Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar.

 

It is learnt that the Israeli navy has diverted the convoy to the port of Ashdod where a special passport and detention centre has been set up.

 

An Israeli television reported Monday that Israeli forces attacked the flotilla carrying aid to besieged Gaza, killing up to 16 and wounding more than 30 others.

 

The clash occured after Israeli soldiers tried to stop the flotilla from reaching Gaza.

 

News agencies reported that Israeli forces opened fire after being attacked by a number of passengers.

 

Israeli commandos dropped from a helicopter onto the deck of the Mari Marmara around 4.30am local time, and immediately opened fire on unarmed civilians, said a tweet of human rights group Free Gaza Movement.

 

 

Chosen hope over fear

OBAMA-hypeology

 

“Chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord”, “Harnessing the sun and wind and soil”.. and for sure other Obama soundbites will enter the lexicon as the craftily designed inauguration speech gets analysed to death. How to say a lot of things, move people towards optimism and hope, yet not lay on too much for people to bite you in 3-4 years time as the realities of the world’s problems set in.

 

We all live in hope that tomorrow, next year, 5 year’s time will always be better. But the values that remain is of how we touch the hearts of others, and of that I have been a terrible failure to myself in my lifetime and moreso in my adult life. But the thought processes of leaders, particularly the great ones who could mobilise the masses to believe, and to bring forward the collective issues in their own voice, is a model for others to emulate.

 

We all can build our opinions, with hindsight, based on the mistakes of others, but those were judgments they had made within their circumstances. Of greater value is the ability to extend the same lines of reasoning to the future and choose our path, the best path for us and those we want to be with. That is a trait difficult to obtain and carries the risk of creating more bystanders instead of those partaking in the forging of the path to tread. Obama has chosen his way.. and our greatest hope is that he does not fall by the wayside too early. Pak Lah had a similar effect, though perhaps not in scale, when he took over from Tun, but 6 years on, he moves on with a whimper, generally with some sympathy at his inability to stamp his personality and character onto his political support, and in some cases reviled as the guy who brought shame to UMNO.

 

All this is well and good, but what can I use for my takeaway? A better adab when addressing people, including those of my kith and kin, and a greater sensitivity towards decision making when faced with life’s intersections.

 

Everton fallout

Firstly, good for Kaka to reject Mansour’s millions – money isn’t and cant buy everything. And it takes a devout Brazilian Christian raised in poverty to remind an Arabian billionaire that. Now if only he can donate the money towards reconstruction of Gaza and Palestine, I’m sure Gaza’s GDP is equivalent to that obscene amount for a footballer.

 

Secondly, MU has gone top, Chelsea is slowly turning things around and we’re still drawing games. Fans are getting anxious about the way things are going on and off the pitch, Chelsea, Villa and Arsenal are closing in, and not only are we falling off the top to MU (of all things), we’ll have to contend with the new, increased threats. I’ll support Rafa, though he has done many good things, not sure if his mind games are that good though although it was a valiant effort to take on all-comers – SAF, G&H, Parry et al. Now if only we can focus on regaining the early season and the first half form against Hull and Newcastle where we looked every bit as title contenders. In the meantime, I’ll have a lot of anxiety watching things unfold. I remember coming back from Hajj and seeing in the papers we had a chance to win the EPL in 2002 until that defeat to Spurs, and feeling a bit guilty that Liverpool playing many miles away is still a concern despite just coming hope from Mekah.

 

But, I do choose hope over fear.

 

Why Israel's war is driven by fear

This was spotted on the guardian.co.uk site and I thought you should see it.

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Israel and Jews double speak. Who has control of the media controls issues and society's talking points of the day. Who undertands this better than the Jews?
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To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/11/gaza-israel-political-attitudes

Why Israel's war is driven by fear
Outrage at Israeli actions has mounted across the world as the Gaza conflict goes on. But as Israel expands its military action, support for the aggressive strategy is growing, while sympathy for Palestinians is receding. And, with an election looming, political attitudes are hardening
Chris McGreal at the Gaza border
Sunday January 11 2009
The Observer

Yeela Raanan says she would prefer not to know about the war in Gaza. She doesn't want to see the pictures of dead children cut down by Israeli shells or read of the allegations of war crimes by her country's army as it kills Palestinians by the hundreds.

But there is no escape. Raanan can hear the relentless Israeli bombardment by air, sea and land from her home, just three miles from the Gaza border. Hamas rockets keep hitting her community. And somewhere in the maelstrom of Gaza, her 20-year-old son is serving as an Israeli soldier.

"I'd rather not know. I can't do anything about it. We didn't see the pictures of the Palestinian kids who were killed. It's easier not to feel," she said. "I just turn on the news for five minutes a day and that's it, just to see if anybody says anything about my kid."

But when Raanan thinks about her son - whom she prefers not to name - she also thinks about Palestinian mothers and their sons in Gaza. And that's when she finds her herself out of sync with the neighbours. "I don't talk to the neighbours about it any more," she said. "Hamas is violent. Hamas is stupid. I don't like what they are. But I don't feel angry towards them. I understand why they were elected, I understand why they act as they do."

Attempting to understand has earned Raanan, a former operations officer in the Israeli air force, denunciations as a traitor and accusations of "selling her nation to the devil". Doesn't she love her son?, they ask.

The world has reeled in horror at revelations of Israeli atrocities as the Palestinian death toll has climbed toward 800. The International Red Cross was so outraged it broke its usual silence over an attack in which the Israeli army herded a Palestinian family into a building and then shelled it, killing 30 people and leaving the surviving children clinging to the bodies of their dead mothers. The army prevented rescuers from reaching the survivors for four days.

Israel's shelling of a UN school that had been turned into a refugee centre near Gaza city, killing 42 people who had fled the fighting, drew further accusations of indifference to civilian lives. And Israel has struggled to justify the eradication of entire families, including small children, in pursuit of Hamas officials.

But ordinary Israelis have been told little about this and when they are they generally brush it aside with assertions that it is sad but Hamas has brought it on the Palestinian people. Israel is the real victim, they say. The mainstream Israeli press has stuck firmly to the official line that it is a war of defence, a moral conflict forced on Israel by Hamas rocket fire.

The scale of Palestinian civilian casualties is played down. The dead are overwhelmingly described as terrorists. The accounts of entire Palestinian families being wiped out are buried beneath stories of the Israeli trauma at Hamas attacks.

"The news said the Israeli army had killed 100 'terrorists' and also a bomb fell and 40 lost their lives," said Raanan about the shelling of the UN school. "That was more or less the rhetoric that was used, so the focus was on the fact that we had managed to kill terrorists rather than we had also killed 40 other people. We weren't told who they were." There are alternative voices in the press, but they are mostly dismissed or shouted down. Israeli Arabs who protested against the war have been arrested for undermining national morale. Television anchormen berate critics of the onslaught on Gaza, questioning their patriotism.

The paradox of Israel is that most of its citizens tell the pollsters they agree with Raanan and the peace lobby that there should be a negotiated agreement of the establishment of a Palestinian state. But a significant number of Israelis now question whether this is possible. They view the continued conflict after Ariel Sharon pulled Jewish settlers and the military out of Gaza in 2005 as evidence that Arabs don't want peace; that giving up territory does not bring security.

Support for the vague notion of peace has been further buried under the rhetoric of the looming Israeli election, where the right in particular, led by a former prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is playing on fear of a nuclear Iran in league with Hamas. Netanyahu, who is likely to win the 10 February ballot, has no intention of dismantling settlements or relinquishing the control that Israel exercises over the lives of Palestinians on the West Bank. He dances around the issue of a Palestinian state and has made clear in the past that what he wants to see amounts to a canton or bantustan (homeland) surrounded by Israeli control.

And so the vast number of mainstream Israelis, while saying they support peace, once again find themselves in bed with the settlers and on the side of oppression. "I hate to say we told you so," said Yisrael Medad, a prominent Jewish settler from Shilo, deep inside the West Bank. "Now you hear all the time that it was a mistake to pull out of Gaza. You hear it on the television when it was never discussed before. More of the anchors are willing to ask that question. They would never ask that a year or two ago. They used to say ours was the extreme view. Now I would say that it's the mainstream, that no matter what we have done territorially speaking it's not going to satisfy them [the Palestinians]. They are always going to attack us."

The settlers might be an extreme minority, but their views as to why Israeli soldiers are fighting in Gaza are not exceptional. Raanan lives in Ein Habsor, a moshav or cooperative agricultural community of about 1,000 people. It suffers regular hits from Hamas rockets. "In the last few days we've had two a day. In the vicinity. A couple inside. Close enough that it could have been your house," she said. No one was hurt but a student at the nearby Sapir college, where Raanan teaches public policy and administration, was killed by a Hamas rocket in February. Roni Yechiah, a 47-year-old father of four, died after the missile hit the car park.

About a quarter of the families in Ein Habsor have left. "They didn't so much go because of the rockets. It was because of the war and being really scared. They closed the schools. Those with little kids have mostly gone," said Raanan. It's not an atmosphere in which to question whether Israeli troops should be in Gaza. Most of the residents of Ein Habsor see the assault as a straightforward and necessary response to Hamas rockets, uncomplicated by issues such as occupation or the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

But Raanan does question. She wants to see a government willing to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians, and she takes the view that just because Israel is strong enough to get one over on the Palestinians, that does not mean that it is in its interests to do so. Raanan also wants other Israelis to understand what the Palestinians are suffering. "My moshav is quite right-wing," she said. "They believe in using power and they don't particularly like Arabs. I don't talk to my neighbours much about these things.

"If you do open your heart to the fact that 40 completely innocent people in a United Nations school were killed you have a very hard time. It's difficult to open your heart to that place and also hold on to wanting the soldiers to succeed. It's a very hard split in personality. I think it's necessary but it's a difficult thing to do." Raanan says Israelis have dehumanised Palestinians to such an extent that they are no longer sensitive about who they kill. "It's so difficult for them to put themselves in the place of someone who lives in Gaza. I guess you have to be able to dehumanise to be able to accept this type of war," she said.

"Israelis think of Hamas as a terrorist group and therefore anything we do to Hamas is OK. But the question is, why do we think it's OK also to kill civilians while we're killing or destroying Hamas? We rationalise; they do it to their own people. That's the rhetoric in Israel. It makes it OK to do what we're doing. In Israel we're brought up to be afraid of Arabs. It's a short step to hating them. It's unusual for people not to have hostile feelings toward Arabs, and it's racist feelings because it's a whole group."

In Shilo, Medad finds himself in agreement with Raanan on one thing. He sees Israeli public opinion as increasingly indifferent to Palestinian suffering. But he says it is because of foreign criticism of Israel's actions. "With the harshness of the criticism, they're slowly but surely turning off more Israelis to elements of humanity, consideration, so eventually they say: who the hell cares?" he said. "We don't see the human face. In that situation we can do anything we want. There's a lack of identity of who the enemy is. He's not human any more."

You might not know there was a war on while visiting Jerusalem's restaurants, Tel Aviv's frantic bars or the Azrieli shopping centre. The mall is one of the largest in Israel. Next door is the Kirya military headquarters, which houses Israel's defence ministry and the country's top military officers. The two buildings are linked by a bridge.

Through the Gaza war, Israel has accused Hamas of endangering civilians by establishing military installations in populated areas. It has been a central justification by the army for the killing of Palestinian civilians. The shoppers at the Azrieli mall see no contradiction between that claim and Israel building its defence headquarters next door to a shopping centre. "They might have a point if they attacked it," said Yoni Ahren, a computer engineer sipping coffee. "But they don't. Instead they send suicide bombers to blow us up in the mall. The Palestinians set out to kill any Jew. The Israeli army sets out to kill Hamas and, yes, innocent Palestinians get killed. But that is not why the army is in Gaza."

A soldier with Ahren, who declined to be identified because he was in uniform, said the Palestinians brought it on themselves. "They voted for Hamas and then Hamas attacked Israel so it's their problem," he said. "I don't know if this [attack on Gaza] will solve anything. Probably not. We cannot get rid of Hamas. But the lesson we've learnt is that we can't trust the Palestinians. We knew that with Arafat. Now we know it again."

That is the upside of the conflict in Gaza for Medad. He believes it could help assure the future of the West Bank settlements by reminding Israelis that control over what Israelis call Judea and Samaria is what keeps Hamas rockets from falling on Tel Aviv. "Things are changing. It's Gaza that's changed things," he said.

Shilo sits alongside the main road from Ramallah to Nablus, a long way from the "security barrier" Israel has built through the West Bank and Jerusalem. Shilo's residents are religious and mostly assert Israel's claim to all of the territory west of the Jordan river. A Palestinian presence is tolerated at best.

When Ariel Sharon pulled Jewish settlers out of Gaza in 2005, he called it a painful sacrifice for peace. Another view was that he had run out of political options and the pull-out was a way to stave off international pressure to talk to the Palestinians. What the dismantling of the Gaza settlements did not do was end the expansion of colonies on the West Bank. Shilo has grown by about 25% since 2005. The "outposts" around it, which are illegal even under Israeli law, have been expanding so fast that the "Shilo block", with about 10,000 residents, is now as large as the main settlement that was dismantled in Gaza.

Most Israelis tell the pollsters they would sacrifice Shilo for peace. But influential voices are against it, among them the man tipped to be Netanyahu's defence minister. Moshe "Bogie" Yaalon, the former military commander in the West Bank, pressed the government for months to attack Gaza, and is against a withdrawal from the West Bank.

Medad is confident that Yaalon's views will prevail. "If you don't have control over a population, you suffer. You want to call it occupation... fine. But there has to be some sort of control, supervision," he said. Yaalon recently asked: "What is the big difference between Gaza and Judea and Samaria - Judea and Samaria we can go in at night, we know where they are, and pick them up. In Gaza we can't do that."

It is a view largely shared by Netanyahu, who has called for the assault on Gaza to be carried through until it forces Hamas from power. Most Israelis may not want to go as far as Netanyahu, but he remains ahead in the polls. Even on the left, attitudes have hardened. Support for Ehud Barak, the Labour party leader and defence minister, has risen sharply because of the assault on Gaza.

Jeff Halper, a veteran peace campaigner, says this is further evidence that Israeli public opinion is principally shaped by fear. "The Israeli public is being held hostage by its own leadership," he said. "This whole idea there's no partner for peace has been internalised by Israelis. Everything has been reduced in Israel to terrorism because Israel has eliminated the political context of occupation and claims it only wants peace and has made generous offers and the Arabs always reject them."

"Seventy per cent of Israeli Jews say they don't want the occupation. They would be happy with the two-state solution. But what they say to us is: 'You don't have to talk to me about peace, I want peace. The Arabs won't let us because the Arabs are just terrorists.' There is in Israel a deeply held assumption that Arabs are our permanent enemies."

Raanan hopes not. She is counting the days until the Gaza assault is over and her son is pulled out. But the personal trauma will not be over if and when that happens. Her second son is due to be called up in six months. The way things are, he could be following his brother into Gaza.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009

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Despicable human traits: Israel, Singapore and Karpal

There are some human traits that are so abhorrent to others, arrogance, bullying and oneupsmanship. It’s a trait that Israel displays since time immemorial, and allied with their incessant lies and hypocrisy of shouting “help, I’m victimized” even when they wallop other deprived, impoverished and destitute people into humiliation physically, after finding that doing so mentally isn’t sufficient through their proxy administration in the refugee camp they call Palestinian land in Gaza and the West Bank, it is no wonder how much despise they are despised. And this hatred extends to those who show a willingness to back them, and that includes the ever-present neo-cons in all US administrations, inadvertently exposed in the Bush administration due to his clumsy leadership and persona.

 

Singapore has imported this trait, evident in their ‘kiasu’-ness, give no quarter, expect no quarter attitude to their closest neighbours. Was Dr M right when he employed a particularly aggressive foreign policy relationchip with Singapore? Only time will tell. Singapore does not care for history and cordial relations, they care about the present, and their continuing dominating (and overbearing) presence in the future. If it’s to the detriment of their neighbours, so be it. This lack of charm can be attributed to their single-mindedness to achieve comfort and standing toe-to-toe with the rest of the developed world, a good virtue on its own, but when it comes with a disregard for others, you might as well leave them alone in their quest, but the simmering discontent can easily spill over to anger.

 

Karpal Singh from DAP is yet another. LGE has perhaps distanced himself with the old guards in DAP, perhaps with a greater appreciation of the sensitivities of the diversity we have in Malaysia. But Karpal continues to talk from his excreta when dealing with Malays. Perhaps, it was lost in the media translation. Perhaps it was just political positioning for his constituencies. But, it has been too consistently done for him to be excused. If you fail to recognize that you are now leading a multi-racial Malaysia, with a very sensitive Malay race as its majority, but continuously try to ignore the leanings of many highly educated Malay professionals who form thought leadership within the Malay community who wants Islam to play a major role in dictating their lives, ie to have hudud implemented in some form, then you are not fit to become a leader.

 

Sorry, Karpal, you will have to go. If you don’t understand this, please, I urge you as you have urged others before this, resign and let others who have greater appreciation of the multiple polarities of their various constituencies lead. You are just too old and useless.

Madoff, Jews, Judaism and Money

An interesting article relating the close proximity between Jews and money, and in Madoff’s case, the deception and betrayal of a Jew to his co-religionists.

For a muslim, Jews and Christians are taught as People of the Book, given enlightenment by God before they chose a path for their religion for themselves. In Islam, whilst the teachings are preserved through the pristine Quran and Sunnah, the transmission of teachings of which are historically and academically proven, and the choices of muslims is now down to their own control of their personal will and desires. But I digress.

In the Seerah, we find how the Prophet treated the Jews of Bany Qurayzah (tbc) with kindness, before the ultimate act of betrayal of abrogating a peace treaty at the darkest hour of a potential siege on the muslims in Madinah during the height of the Battle of the Ditch forced the Prophet’s hand to show how to deal firmly when an act of trust is betrayed. And being the confused being that I am, though I think the Jewish double-standard and hyprocritical business dealings being justified through their Rabbis is proof of the fact that they have strayed from the right path, I absolutely admire their ability to have a stranglehold on business and finances in any society since time immemorial.

There was a though a pretty senseless comment made at this site which reads as below,

I’m surprised that this article has not triggered the standard Jew-bashing vitriol yet. Come on, let’s hear it from the marauding masses!

Which seems to suggest that the commentator has been taken in by Israel’s Zionist agenda. Anyone with some sense of justice would be able to look beyond Israel’s continued surreptitious, merciless and underhanded colonizing war against defenceless, down-trodden Palestinians, while portraying themselves as the victims of terrorism with their control on the global media. And this is backed by the UN through UN resolutions ever since the illegal occupation in 1948. And the negotiations with the ‘wildmen of the Arab world’ is to create a legal Israel state, thereby conveniently leaving out the argument of forceful occupation 60 years ago to legitimately consider Israel as a legal nation on the basis of the might of Israels’ friends. Amidst all these political maneuverings, principles, justice and truth are ridden roughshod. In Madoff’s case, from the Judaism perspective, and I say this cognizant of others in Judaism who deplore the Israeli political machinery that brings with it many predictions of Armageddon contained in the Talmud, it would seem that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You can’t have double standards in life.

Although I suppose my comments here is proof that I am anti-semitic and vitriol?

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http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/world/14739-in-madoff-scandal-jews-feel-an-acute-betrayal

In Madoff scandal, Jews feel an acute betrayal

NEW YORK, Dec 24 — There is a teaching in the Talmud that says an individual who comes before God after death will be asked a series of questions, the first one of which is, “Were you honest in your business dealings?”

But it is the Ten Commandments that have weighed most heavily on the mind of Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles in light of the sins for which Bernard Madoff is accused of.

”You shouldn’t steal,” Rabbi Wolpe said. “And this is theft on a global scale.”

The full scope of the misdeeds to which Madoff has confessed in swindling individuals and charitable groups has yet to be calculated, and he is far from being convicted.

But Jews all over the country are already sending up something of a communal cry over a cost they say goes beyond the financial to the theological and the personal.

Here is a Jew accused of cheating Jewish organizations trying to help other Jews, they say, and of betraying the trust of Jews and violating the basic tenets of Jewish law. A Jew, they say, who seemed to exemplify the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes of the thieving Jewish banker.

So in synagogues and community centres, on blogs and in countless conversations, many Jews are beating their chests — not out of contrition, as they do on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, but because they say Mr Madoff has brought shame on their people in addition to financial ruin and shaken the bonds of trust that bind Jewish communities.

“Jews have these familial ties,” Rabbi Wolpe said. “It’s not solely a shared belief; it’s a sense of close communal bonds, and in the same way that your family can embarrass you as no one else can, when a Jew does this, Jews feel ashamed by proxy. I’d like to believe someone raised in our community, imbued with Jewish values, would be better than this.”

Among the apparent victims of Madoff were many Jewish educational institutions and charitable causes that lost fortunes in his investments; they include Yeshiva University, Hadassah, the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America and the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.

The Chais Family Foundation, which worked on educational projects in Israel, was recently forced to shut down because of losses in Madoff investments. Many of Mr Madoff’s individual investors were Jewish and supported Jewish causes, apparently drawn to him precisely because of his own communal involvement and because he radiated the comfortable sense of being one of them.

“The Jewish world is not going to be the same for a while," said Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of Congregation Ansche Chesed in New York.

Jews are also grappling with the implications of Madoff's deeds for their public image, what one rabbi referred to as the “shanda factor,” using the Yiddish term for an embarrassing shame or disgrace. As Bradley Burston, a columnist for haaretz.com, the English-language website of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote on Dec 17: “The anti-Semite’s new Santa is Bernard Madoff. The answer to every Jew-hater’s wish list. The Aryan Nation at its most delusional couldn't have come up with anything to rival this.”

The Anti-Defamation League said in a statement that Madoff’s arrest had prompted an outpouring of anti-Semitic comments on websites around the world, most repeating familiar tropes about Jews and money.

Abraham H. Foxman, the group’s national director, said that canard went back hundreds of years, but he noted that anti-Semites did not need facts to be anti-Semitic.

“We’re not immune from having thieves and people who engage in fraud,” Foxman said in an interview, disputing any notion that Mr Madoff should be seen as emblematic. “Why, because he happens to be Jewish, he should have a conscience?”

He added that Madoff’s victims extended well beyond the Jewish community.

In addition to theft, the Torah discusses another kind of stealing, geneivat da'at, the Hebrew term for deception or stealing someone’s mind.

“In the rabbinic mind-set, he’s guilty of two sins: one is theft, and the other is deception,” said Burton L. Visotzky, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

“The fact that he stole from Jewish charities puts him in a special circle of hell,” Rabbi Visotzky added. “He really undermined the fabric of the Jewish community, because it’s built on trust. There is a wonderful rabbinic saying — often misapplied — that all Jews are sureties for one another, which means, for instance, that if a Jew takes a loan out, in

some ways the whole Jewish community guarantees it.”

Several rabbis said they were reminded of Esau, a figure of mistrust in the Bible. According to a rabbinic interpretation, Esau, upon embracing his brother Jacob after 20 years apart, was actually frisking him to see what he could steal. “The saying goes that, when Esau kisses you,” Rabbi Visotzky said, “check to make sure your teeth are still there.”

Rabbi Kalmanofsky said he was struck by reports that Madoff had tried to give bonus payments to his employees just before he was arrested, that he was moved to do something right even as he was about to be charged with doing so much wrong.

“The small-scale thought for people who work for him amidst this large-scale fraud — what is the dissonance between that sense of responsibility and the gross sense of irresponsibility? he said.

In a recent sermon, Rabbi Kalmanofsky described Madoff as the antithesis of true piety.

“I said, what it means to be a religious person is to be terrified of the possibility that you're going to harm someone else,” he said.

Rabbi Kalmanofsky said Judaism had highly developed mechanisms for not letting people control money without ample checks and balances. When tzedakah, or charity, is collected, it must be done so in pairs.

“These things are supposed to be done in the public eye,” Rabbi Kalmanofsky said, “so there is a high degree of confidence that people are behaving in honourable ways.”

While the Madoff affair has resonated powerfully among Jews, some say it actually stands for a broader dysfunction in the business world.

“The Bernie Madoff story has become a Jewish story,” said Rabbi Jennifer Krause, the author of “The Answer: Making Sense of Life, One Question at a Time,” “but I do see it in the much greater context of a human drama that is playing out in sensationally terrible ways in America right now.”

“The Talmud teaches that a person who only looks out for himself and his own interests will eventually be brought to poverty,” Rabbi Krause added.

“Unfortunately, this is the metadrama of what’s happening in our country right now. When you have too many people who are only looking out for themselves and they forget the other piece, which is to look out for others, we’re brought to poverty.”

According to Jewish tradition, the last question people are asked when they meet God after dying is, “Did you hope for redemption?”

Rabbi Wolpe said he did not believe Madoff could ever make amends.

“It is not possible for him to atone for all the damage he did,” the rabbi said, “and I don’t even think that there is a punishment that is commensurate with the crime, for the wreckage of lives that he’s left behind. The only thing he could do, for the rest of his life, is work for redemption that he would never achieve.” — NYT