New York Times admits: Egypt’s Leader, Morsi, Made Anti-Jewish Slurs

The New York Times finally reports on something that has been circulating in the Jewish blogosphere since last week, and which Jeffrey Goldberg wrote about today in his blog for the Atlantic: Egypt’s Leader, Morsi, Made Anti-Jewish Slurs.

Nearly three years ago, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood delivered a speech urging Egyptians to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists. In a television interview around that time, the same leader described Zionists as “these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.”

That leader, Mohamed Morsi, is now president of Egypt — and his comments may be coming back to haunt him....

“When the leader of a country has a history of statements demonizing Jews, and he does not do anything to correct it, it makes sense that many people in Israel would conclude that he cannot be trusted as a partner for peace,” said Kenneth Jacobson, deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League....

As the chief of the Brotherhood’s political arm before becoming president, Mr. Morsi was one of the group’s most outspoken critics of Zionists and Israel. He sometimes referred to Zionists as “Draculas” or “vampires,” using demonizing language historically associated with anti-Semitism. Although he explicitly denigrates Jews in the recently exposed videos, Mr. Morsi and other political and Brotherhood leaders typically restrict their inflammatory comments to the more ambiguous category of “Zionists.”

The anti-Semitic statements that have come to light this month both date back to 2010, when anti-Israeli sentiment was running high after a three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza the previous year.

In the video footage first broadcast Friday on Mr. Youssef’s television program, Mr. Morsi addressed a rally in his hometown in the Nile Delta to denounce the Israeli blockade of Gaza. “We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews,” Mr. Morsi declared. Egyptian children “must feed on hatred; hatred must continue,” he said. “The hatred must go on for God and as a form of worshiping him.”

“The land of Palestine will not be freed except through resistance,” he said, praising the militant group Hamas as an extension of the Brotherhood.

“Who is our enemy? The Zionists. Who occupies our land? The Zionists. Who hates us? The Zionists. Who destroys our lands? The Zionists,” Mr. Morsi added, lashing out at “America, France and Europe” as “Zionist” supporters.

“And the last of them is that Obama,” Mr. Morsi said. He called the American president a liar who promised the Arab world “empty meaningless words.”

The other video clip was a television interview from the same period unearthed last week by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington, which tracks anti-Semitic statements in the Arab world.

“These bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs,” Mr. Morsi declared, using a slur for Jews that is familiar across the Muslim world. Although he referred repeatedly to “Zionists” and never explicitly to Jews, Mr. Morsi echoed historic anti-Semitic themes: “They have been fanning the flames of civil strife wherever they were throughout their history. They are hostile by nature.” ....

Elder of Ziyon wrote about this yesterday: MSM gives Morsi a free pass for calling Jews "apes and pigs." He was quoting an article by Richard Behar, who writes for Forbes, on January 11: News Flash: Jews Are 'Apes And Pigs.' So Why Is Egypt's Morsi The Elephant In America's Newsrooms?

Last Friday, the sitting president of Egypt – the world’s 15th most populous nation — was exposed for calling Jews “apes and pigs.” And he did it in a TV interview (in Arabic) in 2010, less than two years before he took office.

Needless to say, this was HUGE NEWS for American mass media! Only it wasn’t. (Knock, knock, New York Times? Anybody home?) In fact, to be fair to the paper of record, not a single major outlet has covered it. Not AP or Reuters. Not CBS News or CNN. Not Time magazine or U.S. News & World Report. Not the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, or USA Today. Etcetera. And therein lies a story, which this column can only begin to skin open here.

Mohamed Morsi’s bizarre Apes-and-Pigs rant hit the Jerusalem Post’s homepage that same day (again, last Friday), as its lead story. Specifically, a prestigious U.S. organization named the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) — chaired by Oliver “Buck” Revell, a former deputy head of the FBI in charge of counter-terrorism – released it widely to the global media and posted it on YouTube.

Undoubtedly, the Cairo and Jerusalem bureaus of the big U.S. media outlets saw the story. But the news only found its way to certain American readers and viewers by getting picked up in Jewish and/or conservative forums over the following days.

Commentary magazine, American Thinker and Breitbart thoughtfully weighed in on the subject. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Jewish Talk Radio, and the Christian Broadcasting Network also saw value in covering it. So did – of all things — a prominent national stock-picking and finance newspaper, Investor’s Business Daily. Fox News entertainer Sean Hannity has been pouncing on it — no surprise there. (Do I really have to tune in to that unpleasant loudmouth if I want to be sure not to miss such newsworthy information?) UPI gave it some pickup, but that news service is only a shadow of its former great self. Once nearly equaling the size and reach of AP in the 1960s, it shrunk to a virtual carcass by 2000 — when it was sold to a company founded by Reverend Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah.

The Times of Israel ran a story about it, and added the fact that Morsi was captured three months ago by MEMRI on a different video. In that tape, he can be seen in fervent prayer at a mosque in western Egypt in October, mouthing the word “Amen” after the preacher urged Allah to “destroy the Jews and their supporters.” (Virtually every big media outlet in America ignored that, too.)

I studied the Pigs-and-Apes story’s journey and trajectory through America over the past week with Sue Radlauer, the Director of Research Services here at Forbes. We gave it seven days to see if any of the so-called “mainstream media” — a pejorative phrase that too-often obscures more than it reveals — bestowed the hate speech even a few sentences of back-page ink. Nothing.

Of course, the demonization of Jews is commonplace and de rigueur in the Arab media (although most Americans wouldn’t know that because they are not being made aware of it). But what makes this omission in Big Media especially egregious is that Morsi–sometimes spelled Morsy or Mursi– went even further than genetically pairing Jews with lower beasts. As you can see and hear for yourself in the Morsi Tapes, he called for an end to any and all negotiations for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians – droning on that all the land belongs to the latter. He called for a boycott of American goods because of its support for Israel. (Of course, he didn’t bother mentioning that American taxpayers have provided nearly $70 billion of aid to Egypt, since it made peace with Israel in 1979, and the spigot continues for now.) He even went so far as to label the Palestinian Authority an entity “created by the Zionist and American enemies for the sole purpose of opposing the will of the Palestinian people and its interests.”

Apes and pigs aside, Morsi also warned his TV listeners that Jews have never been nice people. “They have been fanning the flames of civil strife wherever they were throughout history,” he oozed. “They are hostile by nature.” (One can almost see comedian Jon Stewart’s frozen eyes right about now, before he says something like, “A holiday in Luxor, anyone?”)

If that’s not enough to make the Morsi Tapes even a little newsworthy, consider that Egypt’s economy is on the brink of collapse, with its government desperate for a $4.8 billion IMF loan. Meanwhile, plans have long been underway for the first official visit by the Egyptian president to Washington this March, where he’ll dine with President Obama. So far, the U.S. State Department hasn’t issued a peep of dismay about the tapes. And yet this is arguably the time to do so — before (not after) the huge checks are cut.

So what’s going on here? On Monday, I raised the topic of Morsi’s 2010 language with Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. “Well, they [Muslim Brotherhood] certainly don’t have a monopoly over anti-Semitic comments in the Middle East,” said Oren, who was born and raised in America, and who has written best-selling books on Middle Eastern history. “These comments were alarming, intolerant, and cause for serious concern. Still, we want to distinguish between what they say and what they do. We expect people to act in a responsible and accountable way. That Morsi and his government today played a constructive role in reaching a ceasefire [with Hamas in November], that’s more important – because it actually saved lives.”

Fair enough. But major, seasoned reporters still need to hold Morsi’s feet to fire over such comments – if not by asking him directly about them, then at least by reporting that he uttered them. Surely, if the president of virtually any other country in the world had defamed an entire people in such a way — only a couple years before they got the top job, to boot — it would have at least gotten a few column-inches. Yet Morsi gets a free pass.

“In my view, it’s important to know just how extreme this important man really is, especially because [Leon] Panetta and [Hillary] Clinton after visits there made statements suggesting otherwise,” says MEMRI board director Elliott Abrams, who served in top policy positions under Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush. “You’re right that if such a tape by Putin or [Turkey's] Erdogan or [Argentina's] Kirchner, etc., etc., was discovered, it would be big news. If it isn’t, is the MSM saying, ‘Well, hell, we know all Muslims have a fanatical hatred of Jews, so no big deal?’”

On Sunday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer spent an hour with Morsi in Cairo in what the network billed as an exclusive interview. It was a fine conversation, and he’s doing an hour-long special this weekend about his hour-long interview and visit to Egypt. Blitzer is one of my favorite TV anchors today. (He plays it straight, if sometimes dull, and doesn’t condescend to viewers. I never feel like he’s trying to drag me with a rope through my television set.)

But Wolf could have tossed a few Ape-and-Pig hardballs in Morsi’s direction — given that his reporting staff surely must have been aware of the tapes from the Jerusalem Post piece, if from nowhere else. Why not ask the anthropologist-in-chief: “Do you still believe that Jews are pigs? Invoking Koranic scripture, you claimed that Zionists descend from pigs, but since Zionists weren’t around at the time of your prophet, does this mean all Jews come from pigs, or just certain ones? Do you still believe that America should be boycotted? And does that include American cash? Or should your whole diatribe be disregarded as merely the kooky, carefree views from one’s youth – uhhh…TWO YEARS AGO?”

For several days, I attempted to speak with Blitzer about the good, the bad and the ugly of media coverage of the Middle East. But his publicist says he’s too busy – even to consider responding to a single email question prior to my publishing.

The New York Times rarely touches this stuff. In fact, a harshly critical mega-report about the newspaper’s Middle East coverage was recently released by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). The Times can’t be too happy about it. “The failure of the New York Times to cover the hate indoctrination leads the pack, in a way,” CAMERA’s head Andrea Levin told me yesterday. “The fact that they deem it to be so unimportant helps to lay down that news decision for others as well. And, to us, it’s one of the greatest derelictions in current news coverage of the conflict.”......

One wonders if this Forbes article provoked the Times into publishing their article tonight about Morsi's comments. The Forbes article is much better than the Times article - more in depth, interviews Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren, better analysis - and especially because it's not hobbled by the attitude that there must always be balance in an article.

Should Chuck Hagel be our next defense secretary?

I haven't felt that I knew enough one way or the other to have an opinion on whether Chuck Hagel should be the next US defense secretary. These are my thoughts on two issues with his nomination - his views on Israel and gay and lesbian rights.

Israel

I am disturbed by some of the statements that the Fact Checker blog of the Washington Post has gathered from Hagel. The blog puts them in the context of the entire speech where they can be found.

Hagel says his positions on Israel has been “completely distorted,” though he acknowledges that “I have also questioned some very cavalier attitudes taken about very complicated issues in the Middle East.” Certainly, Hagel has expressed sentiments that many U.S. politicians tend to avoid, including a consistent concern for the plight of Palestinians.

I agree with his concern for the Palestinians, but I don't like the way in which he has blamed Israel for problems in the Middle East that Israel is not responsible for. In a discussion with then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1998, about getting Arab states' support for US policy vis-a-vis Iraq, he asked her, "Do you believe part of this problem is the perception in the Arab world that we’ve tilted way too far toward Israel in the Middle East peace process?" She says no. After Albright's response, he asks again, "But surely you believe that they're linked? You don't believe that there's any linkage between the Middle East peace process and what's happening in Iraq?"

I think Albright was right - what did sanctions against Iraq have to do with whether negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians were going well or badly? Does everything that happens in the Middle East, even when it does not involve Israel, actually involve Israel? Remember, Israel did not participate in the Gulf War, even though it was attacked by Iraq.

I also find it offensive what he said, in an interview with Aaron David Miller, talking about about someone asking him a question during a meeting in New York, "I said, ‘I’m a United States senator. I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator.’ I support Israel, but my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States — not to a president, not to a party, not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I’ll do that. Now I know most Senators don’t talk like I do.”

This is offensive to me because it comes across as if Hagel is questioning the patriotism of the questioner. If he's not an Israeli senator, then what does that make the questioner? Someone who is more loyal to Israel than the US? The quote doesn't tell us the speech or meeting where he made this statement, so we don't know if he's speaking to someone Jewish or not. In the US there is a classic trope that accuses American Jews of being more loyal to Israel than to the US, and whether or not Hagel intended to do that, it feels to me that he's evoking that accusation.

Do any of these statements mean he shouldn't be the next US defense secretary? Probably not. He doesn't make US foreign policy - President Obama does. But I don't feel particularly happy that Obama nominated him rather than Susan Rice. Why did Obama fold on Rice? Senate Republicans opposed her (at least some of them), and probably the same Senate Republicans will oppose Hagel. Why wasn't it worth supporting Rice in the face of the same opponents?

Gay and lesbian equality

In addition to his statements about Israel, Hagel has also said and done other things that I don't agree with - for example, his offensive remarks about the gay man that Clinton nominated to be ambassador to Luxembourg, whom he accused of being an "aggressively gay" and his consistent anti-gay voting record in the Senate. The New Yorker reports:

But the Hagel nomination also presents challenges for Americans who care about civil rights. When Hagel served in the United States Senate, as a Republican from Nebraska, he consistently voted against gay rights—his record earned him a zero-per-cent rating (three times) from the Human Rights Campaign, the leading gay-rights lobby. Among other things, Hagel voted against extending basic employment nondiscrimination protections and the federal hate-crimes law to cover gay Americans. 

In 1998, after President Bill Clinton nominated a prominent gay-rights advocate from San Francisco, James Hormel, to be the ambassador to Luxembourg, Hagel, then a Senator, seemed to go out of his way to malign not only Hormel—“openly, aggressively gay”—but gay Americans generally, with comments that were blatantly offensive even then; they suggested that the very fact of being gay should disqualify one from representing America abroad.

Hagel was also opposed to gays and lesbians openly serving in the US military (ironically enough, Israel accepted openly gay and lesbian soldiers in 1993 - at just the time that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was passed in the US). This raises another question - while the defense secretary doesn't make foreign policy, he does direct the US military. Now that DADT has been repealed, will Hagel aggressively support the equality of gay and lesbian soldiers?

The New Yorker article continues:

Hagel should—and, presumably, will—be pressed to do substantially more than give his assurance that he will carry out the President’s policies on gay rights. If he has truly changed his views, he needs to explain the context of that conversion and lay out a plan for making the Pentagon and the military more welcoming for gay and lesbian Americans. (“I want to hear how he’s evolved on this issue,” Tammy Baldwin, the newly elected openly gay Senator from Wisconsin told MSNBC.) He will also need to speak to the issue of gay-marriage equality and how it impacts gay military families who are among those most affected by the Defense of Marriage Act, under review this term by the Supreme Court.

I hope that this issue is one that Obama will press Hagel on. I also wish that Obama had considered  more carefully whether it was a good idea to put a man in control of the Defense Department who had voted consistently against gay rights and made offensive anti-gay remarks about a gay man nominated to be an ambassador.

Joe Weissman - his family's fate at Buchenwald and Sobibor

Joe Weissman, who blogs at Harry's Place, has written a very moving post about the fate of his family during the Shoah: My Weissmann family at Buchenwald and Sobibor.

His grandmother Lili, from Austria, was saved by the Kindertransport to London, but her father, Heinrich Weissmann, was murdered at Buchenwald, and her mother Anna and brother Heinz were murdered at Sobibor. They are pictured below (L-R: Anna, Lili, Heinz, Heinrich).

Hungry for Jerusalem

This article makes me hungry for Jerusalem - literally!

Winter on Saladin Street.

The last grapes, the first strawberries, a sweet rosetta and bitter coffee. It’s the nicest time of year to roam the central artery of East Jerusalem.

Yum!

"Israelization" among East Jerusalem Palestinians?

A very interesting article in today's Ha'aretz about the "Israelization" of some Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

Some highlights:

• Isawiyah now has a post office
• increasing number of East Jerusalem Palestinians are requesting Israeli ID cards
• more high school students are taking the Israeli matriculation exams (bagrut)
• greater numbers are enrolling in Israeli educational institutions
• decline in the birthrate
• more requests for building permits
• rising number of young people in East Jerusalem volunteering for national service (I didn't know there were any!)
• revolution in health care services - the Israeli HMOs are now very active in the eastern part of the city, which has drastically improved health care there

Other signs:

More Palestinian presence in west Jerusalem - in the malls, on the light rail, and in the Mamilla mall (I've noticed this since the mall opened, a few years ago - it creates a pedestrian link between the Old City and west Jerusalem).

The light rail has made it much easier to travel from east Jerusalem to the city center.

Thousands of homes in east Jerusalem have finally been hooked up to the Israeli water system (rather than the Palestinian).

More flexibility in issuing building permits (this is a huge deal, because Israel usually refuses to grant east Jerusalem Palestinians building permits, so people build illegally, and then the municipality tells them they have to tear down the building and issue demolition orders against them).

Now the Festival of Light, which takes place in the Old City in the late spring (it's one of the many cultural events that the city sponsors now that Nir Barkat is the mayor) has spread to all four quarters, and the local Palestinian merchants are starting to open their shops in the evenings to cater to the hundreds of thousands of people who come to the festival. This is something I noticed this year when I went to the festival.

Counter-signs:

Not all of the residents of east Jerusalem can participate in this process, because they are stranded outside the separation wall, basically in no-man's land. They're within the municipal boundaries so the PA can't do anything for them, and the city has basically abandoned them. They lack the most basic services (for example, garbage pickup, ambulances entering to take people to hospitals, schools), and it's very hard for them to get into Jerusalem for services. About 70,000 of east Jerusalem Palestinians are in this situation. The Israeli government deliberately built the separation wall to keep them on the wrong side.

Jewish settlement activity in east Jerusalem

This article talks about the "King's Garden" plan on the lower slopes of Silwan, which would create a tourist area by demolishing 22 homes of east Jerusalem Palestinians, who would be forced to move. This would be run by Elad, a ultranationalist Israeli group that runs the City of David site.

There's a lot of other settlement activity within Palestinian neighborhoods, including in Sheikh Jarrakh, elsewhere in Silwan, on the Mt. of Olives, and places I don't know about. (Ir Amim has information on settlement activity on their website, as does the Settlement Watch run by Peace Now).

A Walk in Fall Creek, Ithaca

I've been posting all these terribly gloomy stories about murder, so I think it's time to post something much more pleasant - some photographs I took of my neighborhood when I took a walk this afternoon: Fall Creek, Ithaca.

Icicle outside my door

Icicle line

Pumpkins

Porch

Porchfest

Up from Fall Creek school

Porch on Tioga St.

Another porch on Tioga St.

Garage on Tioga St.

3 more gun murders today

Ambushed NY firemen shot dead; two police killed elsewhere

In addition to the horrible arson-murder-suicide today outside Rochester, NY, a police officer was killed in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin - Jennifer Sebena, age 30. In Houston, a police officer was killed during a shootout, along with a bystander.

Two more gun deaths: Two Rochester-area Firefighters Shot and Killed

Two Rochester-area Firefighters Shot and Killed

Webster, N.Y. - Two firefighters were shot and killed during a call to a fire on Bay Road in Webster, N.Y., which is located in Monroe County northeast of Rochester on Lake Ontario. Two other firefighters were also shot, and at this point, have survived. 

Report from CNN:

(CNN) -- At least two firefighters died when they were shot at the scene of a blaze in upstate New York on Monday, police said. 

Two other firefighters were injured, police in Webster, New York, told reporters.
Authorities believe one or more shooters took aim at the firefighters after they left their vehicles, Police Chief Gerald Pickering said. 

It was unclear whether there were any suspects. 

"We have different individuals that were possible people with knowledge, but at this point I can't really comment," Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn told reporters.
For hours, the gunfire stopped firefighters from working to extinguish the fire and forced police SWAT teams to evacuate homes in the area. 

Firefighters first arrived before 6 a.m., said Rob Boutillier, Webster's fire marshal. By 9 a.m., flames had engulfed three houses and a vehicle, he said. 

"It's still an active crime scene," Pickering said. "We have firefighters there at the location. It took a while to make it safe ... to put out the fires." 

Doctors were treating the wounded firefighters Monday morning, said Teri D'Agostino, a spokeswoman for Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. They were in guarded condition, she said. 

One firefighter escaped from the scene in his own vehicle about an hour after he was shot, then was taken to the hospital by an ambulance from another location, Boutillier said. He was listed in satisfactory condition, Boutillier said. 

Another wounded firefighter was conscious and speaking when he was removed from the scene, Boutillier said.

Updates

Names of the victims: "One of the deceased, Michael J. Chiapperini, was a police lieutenant in the Webster Police Department; the other, Tomasz Kaczowka, was a 911 dispatcher for Monroe County."

The injured: "John Ritter, an off-duty police officer from Greece, N.Y., who happened to be driving by and stopped to help, suffered shrapnel wounds from the shooting, Chief Pickering added. The firefighters who were injured, both volunteers, were identified as Joseph Hofstetter and Theodore Scardino."

The murderer: "Webster Police Chief Gerald L. Pickering tells reporters that the gunman — found dead at the scene from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound — was 62-year-old William Spengler. Pickering says Spengler was convicted of the 1980 murder of his grandmother, was imprisoned in 1981 and was paroled in 1998."

Central Pennsylvania, Friday: 4 deaths by gun

4 dead, including shooter, in central Pennsylvania

A man killed two men and one woman Friday in central Pennsylvania, then died in a gunfight with state troopers, authorities said. 

One woman was killed at Juniata Valley Gospel Church, one man was found dead in a residence, and another man was killed after getting into a car accident with the truck's driver, added Bivens. All three had been shot.

After these three people were killed, state troopers then shot the killer.

The first report of shots fired "at multiple locations" in Frankstown Township came in a 911 call placed around 9 a.m., Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said. As state troopers converged on the area, someone in a truck -- going the opposite direction on a two-lane road -- fired at two marked patrol cars. 

The truck's driver continued driving and then "rammed ... head-on" into a different patrol car, Bivens said. He then got out of his vehicle and began firing at officers.
State troopers returned fire, eventually killing the truck's driver. 

Three state police members were hurt in the response. One was struck in the wrist by bullet fragments and in his chest -- which was protected by body armor -- by a bullet. Another trooper got glass fragments in his eyes and bullet fragments in his forehead. The third suffered minor injuries in the car accident with the shooter's truck. 

More information from a Reuters article -

The killer's name was Jeffrey Lee Michael, 44. His victims were Kimberly Scott, 58, Kenneth Lynn, 60, and William Rhodes Jr., 38. 

In the Pennsylvania incident, the gunman in fairly rapid succession shot and killed a woman inside a church, then fatally shot two men at their respective homes - all within a short distance from each other - before trying to flee. 

He opened fire at two state police patrol cars rushing to the scene as he passed them on a two-lane road and slammed head-on into a third patrol car. The gunman was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police at the crash scene, police said.

To Live and Die in America

From Huffington Post's home page today:

TO LIVE AND DIE IN AMERICA

3 Shot And Killed In Mich... 18-Year-Old Shot Multiple Times, Dies... Man Kills Wife, Teen, Himself... Man Shoots, Kills Own Son... Cops Shoot Teen Dead... Man Gunned Down In Parking Lot... 5 Dead In Spate Of Shootings... 2 Murdered In Philly... 2 Kansas Cops Shot Dead... Shooter Killed... 4 Die In Apparent Murder-Suicide... Ga. Cop Dies From Gunshot... Argument Leads Teen To Shoot Friend...Man Shot To Death... Teen Dies After Being Tied Up, Shot... Man Shot Dead In Street... Drug Deal Leads To Shooting Death... Mother Of 2 Killed In Road Rage Shooting... Man Shoots, Kills Intruder... 1 Killed In Coney Island... Man Dies From Gunshot Wounds... Cops Investigate Gun Death... Shooting Victim's Body Found On Bike Trail... Man Charged With Shooting Own Brother Dead... Man Dies After Being Shot In Chest... Body Of Shooting Victim Found In Pickup... Teen Arrested For Robbery Shooting Death... Man Carrying 2-Year-Old Son Shot Dead... Man Fatally Shot Near Home... Parolee Dies In Shooting... 1 Killed In Buffalo Shooting... Man Shot Dead In Apartment Complex... Street Gun Battle Kills Grandma Bystander... Man, Woman Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide... Woman Shot Dead By Intruder... 14-Year-Old Arrested Over Fatal Gun Attack... Man Found Shot Dead In Parking Lot... Woman Shot In Face By Ex-Boyfriend... 1 Woman, 3 Men Shot Dead... 2 Die In Attempted Robbery... Army Reservist Shot To Death In Alley... Man Shot To Death In Bodega... 2 Shot Dead In Burned House... Man Shot During Break-In... Man Fatally Shot... 20-Year-Old Gunned Down... Man Shoots Self During Police Pursuit... 1 Killed In Baltimore Shooting...Cops ID Shooting Victim... 60-Year-Old Man Shot Dead... Shot Man's Body Found In Vacant House.... Woman Shot And Killed Outside Her Home... Shooting Victim Was 'Trying To Turn Life Around'... Slain Shooting Victim Found In Street....Driving Altercation Leads To Shooting, 1 Dies... 3-Year-Old Dies In Accidental Shooting... Man Turns Self In After Allegedly Shooting Wife... Man Shot Dead Outside Home... 3 Slain In Separate New Orleans Shootings... Cops Investigate Shooting Death... Man Shot Dead In Ohio... Teen Shot To Death... Man Dies After Being Shot Multiple Times... Man Charged Over Son's Shooting Death... Cops Find 2 Men Shot Dead... 1 Dies In Shooting... Man Charged Over Gun Killing... 1 Shot Dead In Confrontation... Man Charged With Murder Over Shooting... Motel Owner Shot And Killed... Husband Shoots Estranged Wife Dead... Suspect Arrested Over Deputy's Shooting Death... Police Probe Fatal Shooting... Cops Kill 2 Suspects In 3 Shooting Deaths... Man Killed Fighting Back Against Robber... Man Killed In Home Invasion.... Nightclub Shooting Kills 1... Child Brain Dead After Drive By Shooting... Man Charged Over Shooting Of Ex-Wife... Body Found In Vacant House... Teen Fatally Shot...

People I know who were murdered: Barry Smotroff and Ben Blutstein

I believe I've only known two people who were murdered, in sharp contrast to Aisha Roberts, the 19 year old quoted in the previous post, who knows 13 people who were murdered just this year.

The first person I knew was Barry Smotroff, a science fiction fan who lived in New York City, who was killed on July 29, 1976, apparently in a robbery. See a link to a photo of him. Here's a link to a story about Barry. I'm not sure exactly how I met him - either during a visit to New York to meet fans, or possibly at a science fiction convention or two.

The second person I knew was Ben Blutstein, who was murdered on July 31, 2002, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem by a terrorist who left a bomb in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria. Eight other people were killed in the same attack. I did not know any of them, but friends of mine in Jerusalem knew them. This was during the height of the second intifada.

Nine people - four Israelis and five foreign nationals - were killed and 85 injured, 14 of them seriously, when a bomb exploded in the crowded Frank Sinatra cafeteria on the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus shortly after 13:30. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The bomber left the bomb in an innocent looking bag packed with shrapnel in the cafeteria. The device was professionally prepared, possibly in one of the factories in the Nablus casbah, which the IDF has refrained from entering since Operation Defensive Shield after Passover. 

Though classes were not in session, students were taking exams at the time of the blast, and the cafeteria was crowded with diners. There were also numerous students in the building registering for classes for the coming school year. 

The cafeteria is also near the Rothberg International School, where about 80 pupils from the US and other Western countries had arrived to prepare for the fall semester.
Most of the injured were between the ages of 18 and 30. The explosion gutted the cafeteria.

The murderers in this case were caught about two weeks later. They were also responsible for the Cafe Momento attack in Jerusalem on March 9, 2002, when 11 people were killed. The man who placed the bomb in the cafeteria was Muhammad Ouda, 29, who worked as a construction worker at the university.

Who was killed by guns this week in the US?

The Huffington Post has tracked murders in the US since the Sandy Hook school massacre on December 14. They found that over a 100 people have been killed this past week. Some of those killed by guns since then are:

Aydan Perea, age 4, in Kansas City.

Adreanne Evans, 21, in Harrisburg, PA, allegedly killed by her boyfriend on December 20. He also shot another man in the head. A baby was sleeping in a crib nearby at the time of the shootings.

On December 15, a 3 year old boy shot himself in the head (accidentally), after he picked up a gun in a home owned by his uncle, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer.

Paul Sampleton Jr., a 14 year old boy, was killed in Gwinnett County, Georgia, on Wednesday.

Veronica Soto, 30 years old, was killed by Mark Trevino in a case of road rage, in Fort Bend County, Texas, on Thursday. She left behind her husband and two children, 7 and 14.

Veronica Soto and her husband went out to get food from a Jack-in-the Box when they got into a traffic altercation with two other vehicles, investigators said. The drivers were all heading to the same neighborhood and Soto's vehicle was "boxed in" by the others. 

Investigators said Mark Trevino came to a stop, ran into his home on Addicks-Clodine, grabbed a rifle and started shooting. Soto was shot in the head.
Her husband also pulled out his gun. 

“They started shooting back and forth and the bullet went through the windshield, hit her and went out the back windshield,” said Matthew Soto, the victim’s brother-in-law.

In this case, having an armed protector did not save Veronica Soto's life.

On December 17, Leroy Louderback of Georgetown, Ohio, age 71, killed his son, 41-year-old John Louderback. He called the police and told them he had killed his son, and he's being charged with voluntary manslaughter.

More cases from the Huffington Post article:

Ramona Foreman was found shot in the doorway of the Oakland, Calif., 92nd Avenue Head Start office. The 48-year-old and her sister were walking home from a store when shots rang out. Foreman had been the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting. The victim's stepdaughter told a reporter that her grandmother was the 13th person she knows killed this year.

She was the 124th person murdered in Oakland this year. The stepdaughter is named Aisha Roberts and she is 19 years old.

Deputy Sheriff Christopher Parsons, 31, worked the early-morning shift on Saturday, when he took an emergency call to assist an unconscious woman at a trailer park in Mineral Point, Mo. As he helped place the woman in the ambulance, her son came out of the mobile home and fired a rifle, killing Parsons. 

On Sunday in New Orleans, three people were shot and killed, including 18-year-old Lawrence Burt, 56-year-old Vivian Snyder, and a 56-year-old Jefferson Parish taxi driver Joseph Wilfred, who was shot behind the wheel. According to an account, he'd been on the job for about three weeks. 

That same afternoon, 25-year-old Krystal Garcia Nacoa was allegedly shot to death by her husband, Leonardo Nacoa, 26, at their Porterville, Calif., home. Police found the husband's cell phone number and called it multiple times, until the man finally picked up. He admitted that he had fled across the border to Mexico. Police were able to get Nacoa to surrender.

When the good guys with guns are killed by the bad guy with a gun

Yesterday, Wayne LaPierre, the vice president of the NRA, said that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

David Gogian and Jeff Atherly were both armed, but they were both killed by a man with a gun. The mere possession of a gun, even wielded by someone who is trained in how to use it in a dangerous situation, is not a guarantee that the "bad guy" will be stopped. The suspect in that case fled and was subsequently killed in a shootout with police on the Monday after the officers were killed.

People are murdered every day by guns in the US

After the horrible massacre at Newtown, I think we need to become aware of all the other people in the US who are murdered every day with guns.

According to the FBI reports for 2011, "firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults." In 2011 there were 14,612 "murders and non-negligent manslaughters," and the rate per 100,000 was 4.7. There were 653 justifiable homicides in 2011.


The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program "collects supplementary homicide data that provides information regarding the age, sex, and race of the murder victim and offender; the type of weapon used; the relationship of the victim to the offender; and the circumstance surrounding the incident."


The FBI figure for victims of murder for whom supplemental information is known is: 12,664. Of these, firearms were used in 8,583 of the murders (6,220 handguns), for a rate of about 67% of all murders.

Using the same figure of victims for whom supplemental information is known - victims of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in 2011 were disproportionately male - 77% of all victims were male. 50% of the victims were black, 46% were white.

Note that in the last 20 years, both the number of murders and the murder rate have gone down very significantly. In 1992 there 23,760 murders, and in 1993 there were 24,526 murders and the rate was 9.5. For the overall violent crime rate, the peak number of violent crimes was in 1992 - 1,932,274, for a rate of 757.7 per 100,000, while in 2011 it was 1,203,564, for a rate of 386.3 per 100,000.

December 16, 2012 - two police officers in Topeka, Kansas, were killed "after exchanging gunfire with a man." Their names were David Gogian and Jeff Atherly. The man suspected of killing them is David Edward Tiscareno.

Jews of Libau / How not to be an antisemite / Losing the plot

In Norm's excellent series, "Figures from a dark time," he has just posted about the fate of the Jews of Libau/Liepaja, Latvia, which I have also written about. Norm's headline is "The figure 2700-2800."

On the night of December 13, 1941, Latvian policemen arrested the Jews of Liepaja and took them to jail. Those with work permits, along with their families, were released. 

The remaining Jews were taken to Skede, north of Liepaja, to the dunes overlooking the Baltic Sea, the site of a former military training [ground]. A long ditch had been dug just before the dunes. The Jews were forced to strip off their clothes except for their underwear. Near the ditch they then were made to take off their remaining clothes and assemble in groups of ten. They were executed by members of a Latvian SD guard platoon, units of the 21st Latvian police battalion, and members of the Schutzpolizei-Dienstabteilung (German security police) under the command of the local SS and Police Leader Fritz Dietrich. On the 15-17 of December, 2,700-2,800 Jews were massacred, most of them women and children.

His source is an article on the site of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: This Month in Holocaust History, December 6.

Fat Man on a Keyboard (Peter Ryley) has also pointed to an excellent resource for those who wish to criticize Israel without being antisemitic, on a Tumblr blog called "This is not Jewish." His post is also very good, discussing the vexed question of "Why does the Israel/Palestine conflict send everybody gaga?"

Building in E-1: a final blow against the two-state solution?

If Israel goes ahead with its plans to develop E-1 (Dividing the West Bank, Deepening a Rift), located between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem, it will cut the West Bank in half and make a viable Palestinian state impossible. It's time for the Obama administration to come out publicly against this plan, as publicly as the UK and France are - who are threatening to withdraw their ambassadors from Israel.

The New York Times has an excellent multimedia presentation on the final status issues: Challenges in defining an Israel-Palestinian border.

Review of Orlov, "Dark Mirrors"

At the SBL in November, 2012, I participated in a book review session for Andrei Orlov's fine new book, Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology. I've just posted my review as a Page on this blog - Review of Dark Mirrors.

Israel Gaza fighting: What’s it’s like to be in Jerusalem as the conflict escalates

Really good article by Dahlia Lithwick of Slate on What’s it’s like to be in Jerusalem as the conflict escalates. She's in Israel for the year working on a book about the Supreme Court and also because her parents live in Israel and they wanted to spend a year with them. She's there with her two sons, who are 7 and 9. Her description of the atmosphere in Jerusalem and Israel at a time like this is perfect.

Sirens Disrupt the Sabbath in Jerusalem

Sirens Disrupt the Sabbath in Jerusalem

An article from the New York Times about how the tranquility of Shabbat last night in Jerusalem was disturbed by the air raid sirens going off, warning of the rockets launched at the city by Hamas.

When dusk descends on Jerusalem on a Friday, it usually brings a moment of rare harmony and almost magical tranquillity. A steady siren announces the onset of the Jewish Sabbath just hours after Muslims wind up the special Friday noon prayer at Al Aksa Mosque in the Old City. 

So this Friday, when a rising-and-falling wartime siren wailed out at twilight, followed by at least two dull thuds, many did not immediately grasp what was happening. 

In the 48 hours since Israel began its military operation in Gaza, militants’ rocket attacks have extended farther and farther north, starting in southern Israel and advancing to Kiryat Malachi, then to Rishon Lezion and off the shore of Tel Aviv. 

Throughout it all, residents of this disputed capital said they had felt largely immune from the battle by virtue of the city’s religious sites and its huge Palestinian population. Until they heard the siren blaring. 

“I thought, ‘Is that for Shabbat?’ ” said Judy Axelrod, a resident of West Jerusalem, a predominantly Jewish area. When she realized it was not, she walked off King David Street into the Y.M.C.A. for safety, even though most of those around her just carried on....

By firing at Jerusalem, about 48 miles from the Gaza border, Hamas had set a brazen precedent. The city was even off limits to Saddam Hussein, the fallen Iraqi leader, when he fired Scud missiles at Israel during the first Persian Gulf war in 1991. 

The military wing of Hamas boasted that it had aimed at the Israeli Knesset, or Parliament. In fact, the rockets fell short of the city. One landed in an open area near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, just south of Jerusalem, and other explosions were heard in the same area.

The article then describes prayers at congregation Kol Haneshama in the Baka neighborhood. When I was in Israel this year, I often went to the Friday night services, which are usually attended by a large crowd and cultivate a very peaceful, contemplative atmosphere. There is a lot of singing and the service ends with a prayer for peace in Hebrew and Arabic. In the late 1980s, when I was a visiting graduate student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman introduced this prayer into the service, at the height of the first intifada.

When the siren sounded, Levi Weiman-Kelman, an American-born rabbi, was preparing to lead Sabbath services at Congregation Kol Haneshama, where worshipers recite a special prayer for peace on Fridays in Hebrew and Arabic.

He described the mood in synagogue as “extremely tense and antsy.” Hoping the service would pass quietly, he said, “My prayers had an added intensity.”

About half the usual crowd turned up, but with the Israeli military poised for a ground operation and a massive call-up of reservists under way, there were more parents of soldiers than usual.

Across the invisible line that divides West Jerusalem from the contested eastern part of the city, there was anxiety, too.

Out in his car at night in the near-empty streets, Taisar Ahmad, a municipal worker from the Arab neighborhood of Jebel Mukaber, said that striking Jerusalem should be “forbidden.”

“It’s scary,” he added. “Everyone was frightened.”

When I heard that Hamas had launched rockets toward Jerusalem, I called a good friend in the city, who described going into the stairwell of her building, as people had been instructed to act when they heard the sirens. She sounded shaken up and wondered what would happen if a siren went off when she was at work - she works with children at a kindergarten with Jewish and Arab children.

May this war end soon!

Rockets land in Rishon LeZion, Holon, and Tel Aviv

From reading Haaretz online and also the Twitter feeds of Israeli friends - air raid sirens have sounded in Tel Aviv. Three rockets fired there.

Hussein Ibish on the conflict between Israel and Hamas

Hussein Ibish, in Operation Cast Lead 2.0, provides a good discussion of what's at stake in Israel's attack on Hamas and its possible repercussions.

Map of rocket ranges

This slide shows the range of the various rockets that Hamas has in its possession - image from Haaretz, with some translations from the Hebrew by me.

Map of bombings and rockets in Israel & Gaza today

From Haaretz:

Israeli bombingl targeted Fajr missiles

Fajr missiles, from Iran, can reach as far as Tel Aviv. Apparently many of the air raids launched by Israel today were aimed at destroying the missiles before they could be fired. Below is photo distributed by the IDF Spokesperson's office showing Fajr launch sites in Zeitoun, Gaza.

Will Hamas target Tel Aviv with missiles?

From Haaretz: Israel holds its breath for Hamas' decision: Target Tel Aviv?

Bradley Burston 

Tel Aviv is holding its breath. This war is the same war, fought for years far to the south, out of sight and firmly out of mind. But abruptly, without warning, it threatens to become Tel Aviv's war.

And the decision rests with Hamas.

In one fiery stroke - the Wednesday Israeli air strike that killed Hamas' most influential and powerful military mind, Ahmed Jabari - the rules of the Holy Land's oldest established permanent floating chess game were, for the umpteenth time, utterly changed.

Rocked by the assassination, Hamas, its strategic hierarchy shredded, now faces a fateful choice. Pressed by a broad coalition of Gaza militants to retaliate and exact revenge, Hamas could order the launch of the Iranian-developed Fajr-5 missile, straight north.

For the first time since the waves of suicide bombings in Israeli cities during the Palestinian uprising, Hamas could target Tel Aviv.

The decision will not be a simple one, however. Hamas has always been hair-trigger sensitive to Palestinian public opinion, particularly in its birthplace and power base, the Gaza Strip. Gazans at the grass roots level have already made it known that they fear a reprise of the devastation and severe loss of civilian lives which Israel's Operation Cast Lead wrought on the Strip four years ago.

Israel, meanwhile, has made it plain that Tel Aviv is the trip wire.

"Today we attacked strategic Hamas targets with precision," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the press late on Wednesday. "We significantly harmed its capability to launch rockets from Gaza to the center of the country."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak added, "Most of the Fajr missiles have been hit."

There was a warning in their words, to Hamas. But there was an implied, if unintentional, threat to residents of Tel Aviv, as well. Hamas can still hit them, should it choose to do so.

Mindful of the significance of a possible attack on Tel Aviv, Israeli leaders spared no effort to head it off. Immediately after the Jabari assassination, the next phase of the newest war was unleashed, an onslaught to destroy Gaza launch bunkers housing Hamas' Fajr-5 missiles.

Wave after wave of Israeli air strikes were launched. Dozens of Fajr launchers were hit.

But not all of them.

As Wednesday night wore on, IDF civil defense officials began to be asked about whether Tel Aviv residents should take special precautions ("There have been nationwide drills, and citizens will know how to respond," one replied). Police and ambulance crews were placed on heightened alert, Israeli media reported.

And, perhaps inevitably, analysts noted the timing of the Jabari assassination, in the thick of an Israeli election campaign in which both Netanyahu and Barak are intent on holding on to their jobs.

As both well know, past wars - Cast Lead among them - have demonstrated that the longer, more complex, and more unresolved a military operation becomes, the more likely it is to claim its initially victorious initiators, among its victims.

Tel Aviv is the trip wire, as well, for candidates Netanyahu and Barak. If Israel's financial, cultural, and media capital is successfully attacked, much of the political capital accrued by the prime minister and his defense minister, will suddenly, literally, go up in smoke.

It's war again: Israel launches military operation in Gaza

It's war again - Israel launches military operation in Gaza. Israel just assassinated the top Hamas military leader in Gaza and attacked more than 20 targets. Thus far, 8 Palestinians dead, 30 wounded. This is after days of rocket fire from Gaza on southern Israeli communities. The rocket fire is now continuing.

Name of this operation - Pillar of Defense (in English), עמוד ענן (in Hebrew - Pillar of Cloud, a biblical reference).

I hope this ends quickly.

Romney concedes!

It seems that Romney has just called Obama to concede, and he's about to speak at his headquarters in Boston. "I have just called President Obama to congratulate him." "I pray that the President will be successful in guiding our nation." Clapping from the audience. Now thanking Paul Ryan.

President Obama Reelected!

It appears that all our worrying is now followed by relief - President Obama has won reelection according to the New York Times and all the television networks, with up to 332 electoral votes, depending on what happens in Ohio and Virginia.

Another exciting victory - gay rights has won in several states. Maryland has approved gay marriage (51.7%-48.3%), Maine has defeated a referendum to overturn gay marriage (currently 54%-46%). It also looks like Washington State has approved gay marriage, although there's only 50% of the vote reported thus far. And Minnesota may have defeated an anti-gay marriage amendment (only 53% reporting).

Tammy Baldwin seems to have defeated Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, thus becoming the first open gay person in the Senate.

And here's a great picture of Barack and Michelle -