110203
3rd February 2011
Shabbat Shalom, happy Chinese Year of the Rabbit and enjoy the Superbowl!!!
I am frustrated!! I don't know how you manage with the biased and fallacious news broadcasts that you have to suffer! Yes I am still in the wonderfully relaxing atmosphere of Florida but gosh it is ridiculous – do the networks thinks we are idiots? Let me give you a few examples.
”Mubaraks mobs are now attacking the freedom demonstrators” and “The Government sponsored attackers were throwing grenades and molotov cocktails at the peoples demonstration” or “Mubarak is still trying to control the people through his thugs” No information is given about El Baradei's links to Iran or the Moslem Brotherhood despite considerable proof (Dr Malcolm Hoenlein, hardly quick to judgement writes http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspxID=206048&R=R1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter ) ,
nor do they speak of the clear links of those who back the “People Revolution” to Al Quaeeda, the MB and Iran http://www.memrijttm.org/content/en/report.htm?report=4969¶m=GJN.
Those behind the revolution are the very people who would see the downfall of the West! Of course Mubarak was not a nice man, he was a despot, benign only in the sense that he tried to keep his country free of oppressive Islam and close to the West. Dictators are not democratic yet some are capable of ensuring more freedom by eradicating the evil-doers without the consent of the people. Democratic elections do not ensure democracy.
According to PBS news the mobs in Egypt were told that the journalists were Israeli spies thus initiating the violence against them! I cannot find proof but it is feasible.
Day of Rage in Egypt was a network revolution and subsequent demonstrations were carefully planned and the call was for similar explosive demonstrations throughout the entire Arab world using the power of Twitter, Facebook and similar social networks. http://m.memri.org/14499/show/23ccbc11b6506a87770f19b5a277b55a&t=20320d97cb30b6845cb6422bedb5dfbe
This vlog was recorded on January 18th by Asma Mahfouz, the girl who started it all, shared her video on Facebook, and went viral. It was so powerful and popular, that Egyptians swarmed by the thousands into Tahrir Square causing the Egyptian government blocked Facebook to stem the danger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgjIgMdsEuk
Sean Hannity of Fox News interviewed Imam Anjem Choudary, a London Moslem Cleric, concerning the MB and their involvedment in the Egyptian riots. He got much more than he expected – a lesson in Sharia Law! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANG9s5EoAnQ
As I write a demonstration is taking place and growing in “la-la land” in Sanborn Square, Boca Raton Florida, in support of the people of Egypt and the demonstration. Ahmed Al- Awaadi has been in the States for 10 years but wihes he was back in Egypt. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts they do not understand that what they believe to be “freedom” for Egypt would in fact deny those people the right to wear such clothes as unfitting or un-chaste.
In the melee surrounding the Egyptian events few bothered to report the increased number of rocket attacks on Southern Israel. - except the much maligned Egyptian Army. A Grad Rocket (not the smaller Kassam) narrowly missed a wedding celebration (CCTV) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkQxhwlIhKY
Australia and Canada understand the situation far better than older democracies.
Last week, Canada’s Free Thinking Film Society was scheduled to screen Iranium, a new documentary about the regime that has ruled Iran since 1979, its drive to acquire nuclear weapons, and the dangers that poses to the West. But then the Iranian embassy complained and — coincidently — threats and “suspicious letters” were received at the National Archives in Ottawa, where the event was to take place, the Archives cancelled the screening and shut the building. However Minister of Heritage James Moore delivered a Churchillian response.“This movie will be shown, the agreement will be kept,” he said. “We will not be moving it to a different facility, we’re not bending to any pressure. People need to be kept safe, but we don’t back down to people who try to censor people by threats of violence. Canada does not accept attempts from the Iranian Embassy to dictate what films will and will not be shown in Canada.” AGAIN BRAVO CANADA!!!
Of all the people in power that our work has enabled us to meet, one who stands out above them all. Congresswoman Ileana Ros Lehtinen is an exceptional woman and I am proud to say that she and Dexter are dear friends. Loved and admired by politicians on both sides of the Congress and Senate as an honest broker who is loyal to her beliefs and honest in her dealings, she has gathered respect and believability in a world almost devoid of both. This week I went to a memorial service for Ileanas mother Amanda Ros, together with Adv. David Efron and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. The service was exceptional on every level, held in a non-denominational church in the “Little Cuba” area of Miami, attended only by friends of the family. The clergy were Catholic, Methodist, Evangelical, a Rabbi and the Israeli Consul General in Florida. Each spoke of Amanda's Jewish roots, she became a Catholic when she married Enrique, and the Jewishness of her heritage and her good works – and the love of Israel she imbued in her children. The hymns were mostly Davids psalms and when the priest gave the final blessing he turned to the assembled clergy and the family and said “When a person passes on it is irrelevant what faith they embraced because a good person will be welcomed by the angels” May Amanda's soul rest in peace and the Ros-Lehtinen family know now more sorrow.
Marna Winter is a friend. In truth we have been friends for far longer than either of us realised but that is another story!! Marna and I went to a delightful open air mall the other night, and after walking around the grounds (OK and the shops) we sat and talked of “Cabbages and Kings”. I noted that most of the staff and the diners were immigrants – the harmony of a hundred languages is apparently common to most countries today
The Chilean miners are coming!!!! At the invitation of Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov, 31 of the 33 miners, their spouses, the Regional Governor of Atacama and Chilean journalists will come to Israel in a Pilgrimage of Thanks on the 23rd February. They will visit sites holy to Christianity, and some of Israel's leading tourism locations. including the Via Dolorosa, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Garden of Gethsemane, Room of the Last Supper, the Western Wall and King David's Tomb. They will be welcomed by President Shimon Peres for an official welcome reception in his residence. I will be there and take Zvi with me as my translator!
Yesterday I received some exciting news. Danny Seaman was the controversial Director of the Foreign Press Office of the Government Press Office in Israel. Why controversial? Because Danny is no-nonsense, doesn't suffer fools and wanted certain standards from the foreign Press who walked all over us. Danny was ousted from his position and yesterday wrote telling me he has won the position of Deputy Director General for Information at the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs. Basically, he will be in charge of the Ministry's Hasbara activities, and hopefully, over time, will be able to influence things to a degree that Israel's hasbara won't be "a joke" as Melanie Phillips stated so profoundly on Israel television recently! The irony is that he will be responsible for... the GPO! MAZAL TOV DANNY. Israel is lucky to have your love of Israel and ability.
Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and take heart our sense of humour and self-mockery will hold us in good stead – there is a great joke going around
“PLEASE DON'T DAMAGE THE PYRAMIDS BECAUSE WE ARE NOT COMING BACK FOR REPAIRS”!!!!
With much love from the warm love of our gracious hosts and their friends and our friends.... some of whom we have seen some are yet to see during the week.......
Love
Sheila
Showing posts with label Danny Seaman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danny Seaman. Show all posts
Friday, 4 February 2011
Friday, 19 November 2010
Shabbat Shalom letter from Jerusalem
101119
19th November 2010
Shabbat Shalom
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn up an agreement with the United States Government to continue the building moratorium with the exclusion of Jerusalem. Jerusalem's exclusion from the moratorium would be an enormous achievement for the Prime Minister and for Israel showing Jerusalem's special status. The supposed “reward” for agreeing to the moratorium is a false hope. The aeroplanes were part of a deal signed by Ehud Barak several weeks ago; We are asked to stop building and decide on the final borders of both Israel and the PA within 90 days without any solution to the refugees, compensation, the status of Jerusalem and all outstanding issues; we will not be given the planes already within our special arrangement and our Prime Minister will appear to be rigid and warmongering if he doesn't agree and the Palestinians are expected to do.......... nothing, not even recognise our existence as a Jewish National home!!!! We must read and understand exactly what this demand entails and its repercussions. Prime Minister Netanyahu has an enormous task on his head because no-one understands the might of these demands.
The United Nations needs serious re-evaluation. Its conduct, purpose and bias are clear, but then I decided to check who pays what in terms of their UN fees. Israel pays more than $40 million a year membership fees to the United Nations, which is more than any Arab or Islamic country including the oil rich ones! Iran pays $4.3 million while the US pays $598 million, surely time for a major assessment of the balance of power in the UN and a determined outside investigation of its disproportional responses to Israel! Maybe suggesting that in order to be on the Human Rights council one should have an impeccable record on human rights?
Canon Andrew White is in Baghdad where the mayhem is complete as the local extremists take the Allied withdrawal as victory. The Christian community is under siege and decimated by bombs and terror attacks. Andrew no longer lives on the American Army compound, his only refuge is in St Georges Church compound. He has lost 100 members of his flock recently and one of his drivers lost his legs in a targetted bombing. The Very Reverend, Canon Dr. Andrew White said these few simple words in a personal email to me and gave me permission to tell you and the world “There is only one country in the entire Middle East where Christians are safe and that is Israel.”
The London Revue of Books would, one would think, review books. Apparently its raison d'etre is to write scurrilous lies about Israel. Among the articles this Arts Council publication has published:
* "The state of Israel wishes to inculcate in its soldiers a "neo-Nazi ideology wrapped in Judaism." (LRB article, 22 July 2004)
* "Should Arabs in Israel be forcibly sterilized to prevent their children outnumbering the children of Israel's Jews? ... Was this inherent in the Zionist idea?" (LRB article by Charles Glass, 24 June 2004)
* "Gas chambers are not the only way to destroy a nation [like the Palestinians]. It is enough to destroy its social tissue, to starve dozens of villages, to develop high rates of infant mortality." (LRB article by vehemently anti-Zionist Israeli Yitzhak Laor, 9 May 2002)
* Yasser Arafat is "admirable" for not having "betrayed his people and accepted the offer [of an independent Palestinian state] made at Camp David." (LRB article by Raja Shehadeh)
* LRB readers were told that the IDF were "arrest[ing] hundreds of people... [and] concentrating them in camps behind barbed wire". (LRB article) Please read Tom Gross' report www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001151.html
Liu Xiaobo is the winner of this years Nobel Peace Prize but he will not be able ot receive it since he is in prison for expressing his opinions against the ruling party in his home country of China. His wife was allowed to tell him but she is in house arrest too; his family cannot go because they have been warned not to. Thus the headline should read PEACE HAS BEEN CANCELLED IN 2010
Further to Leakpedia on Tuesday a website published a list of 200 IDF soldiers which it classifies as directly involved in operations carried out in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Each entry features the soldiers and officers' pictures and personal details, including identification numbers and addresses. This endangers many Israeli soldiers and could lead to their arrest in a Europe hungry for excuses. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3986365,00.html
147 years ago Abraham Lincoln spoke the words of the Gettysburg Address. He too thought that war may cleave his nation....http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
Danny Seaman left his post heading the Prime Ministers Office Press Office for foreign journalists. Danny executed his enormous task with honour and with a great love and concern for Israel, which did not always meet with the approval of his seniors. He will be sorely missed – men of his calibre are rare. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=194079
Harry Potters grave is in Ramle! As the media hype builds over “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” Private Harry Potter was a British soldier killed in 1939 after a battle with an armed band of local Arabs and his grave in Ramle has now become a major tourist spot. I always felt that JK Rowling and Harry Potter were stories highly relevant to todays tribulations but this is ridiculous!!!! http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/17112010/5/tourists-flock-harry-potter-grave-0.html
Happiness is a moral obligation says Dennis Prager http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQqJvfh9irs&feature=channel
Talking of happiness, I actually got out of the house this week and not to the doctors!! Girlfriends took me to drink coffee (Cafe Hafuch of course http://www.flickr.com/photos/illuminea/4348804144/ ) and eat wonderful salads. The other evening my childhood friend Susan took me to the Botanical Gardens, to Caffit Restaurant, which was overflowing with clientèle. We sat beside the pond, the balmy night air kissing the dark waters, mirror smooth, reflecting the trees on the far bank. The portions are as generous as the people and as we ate our complimentary anti pasti the most gigantic bowl piled high with a little lettuce, lots of vegetables, Bulgarian cheese and a huge pile of oven roaster sweet potato chips!!!! The setting, the company, the food and the fact that I was out of bed and out of house made the day complete!!! I cannot wait to return to the passages of the Old City, to my beautiful Mahane Yehuda Market where Zvi said they miss seeing me, to the streets and coffee shops where I can once again see the incredible rainbow of people who make up this exceptional city.
I often think that the greatest asset of Israelis is that we know what the world thinks of us and truthfully don't care. Those countries that most despise us in Europe are falling under enormous economic and social stagnation Israel is young, strong, vibrant, innovative, bubbling and so full of history that it is difficult for us to understand why anyone would think we don't belong here. As one elderly friend said to me “When I was in Europe they kept telling me to go back home to Jerusalem – now I am here they tell me to go back home to Europe”. We must remember that in a world that only reads headlines people have short memories. We have to defend what is ours and no matter how good the intentions of world leaders they cannot take away our homeland. How any leader that claims to be a Christian can deny our right to Jerusalem is beyond my understanding.
Shabbat Shalom dear friends, from the most breathtakingly beautiful city in the world
Sheila
19th November 2010
Shabbat Shalom
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn up an agreement with the United States Government to continue the building moratorium with the exclusion of Jerusalem. Jerusalem's exclusion from the moratorium would be an enormous achievement for the Prime Minister and for Israel showing Jerusalem's special status. The supposed “reward” for agreeing to the moratorium is a false hope. The aeroplanes were part of a deal signed by Ehud Barak several weeks ago; We are asked to stop building and decide on the final borders of both Israel and the PA within 90 days without any solution to the refugees, compensation, the status of Jerusalem and all outstanding issues; we will not be given the planes already within our special arrangement and our Prime Minister will appear to be rigid and warmongering if he doesn't agree and the Palestinians are expected to do.......... nothing, not even recognise our existence as a Jewish National home!!!! We must read and understand exactly what this demand entails and its repercussions. Prime Minister Netanyahu has an enormous task on his head because no-one understands the might of these demands.
The United Nations needs serious re-evaluation. Its conduct, purpose and bias are clear, but then I decided to check who pays what in terms of their UN fees. Israel pays more than $40 million a year membership fees to the United Nations, which is more than any Arab or Islamic country including the oil rich ones! Iran pays $4.3 million while the US pays $598 million, surely time for a major assessment of the balance of power in the UN and a determined outside investigation of its disproportional responses to Israel! Maybe suggesting that in order to be on the Human Rights council one should have an impeccable record on human rights?
Canon Andrew White is in Baghdad where the mayhem is complete as the local extremists take the Allied withdrawal as victory. The Christian community is under siege and decimated by bombs and terror attacks. Andrew no longer lives on the American Army compound, his only refuge is in St Georges Church compound. He has lost 100 members of his flock recently and one of his drivers lost his legs in a targetted bombing. The Very Reverend, Canon Dr. Andrew White said these few simple words in a personal email to me and gave me permission to tell you and the world “There is only one country in the entire Middle East where Christians are safe and that is Israel.”
The London Revue of Books would, one would think, review books. Apparently its raison d'etre is to write scurrilous lies about Israel. Among the articles this Arts Council publication has published:
* "The state of Israel wishes to inculcate in its soldiers a "neo-Nazi ideology wrapped in Judaism." (LRB article, 22 July 2004)
* "Should Arabs in Israel be forcibly sterilized to prevent their children outnumbering the children of Israel's Jews? ... Was this inherent in the Zionist idea?" (LRB article by Charles Glass, 24 June 2004)
* "Gas chambers are not the only way to destroy a nation [like the Palestinians]. It is enough to destroy its social tissue, to starve dozens of villages, to develop high rates of infant mortality." (LRB article by vehemently anti-Zionist Israeli Yitzhak Laor, 9 May 2002)
* Yasser Arafat is "admirable" for not having "betrayed his people and accepted the offer [of an independent Palestinian state] made at Camp David." (LRB article by Raja Shehadeh)
* LRB readers were told that the IDF were "arrest[ing] hundreds of people... [and] concentrating them in camps behind barbed wire". (LRB article) Please read Tom Gross' report www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001151.html
Liu Xiaobo is the winner of this years Nobel Peace Prize but he will not be able ot receive it since he is in prison for expressing his opinions against the ruling party in his home country of China. His wife was allowed to tell him but she is in house arrest too; his family cannot go because they have been warned not to. Thus the headline should read PEACE HAS BEEN CANCELLED IN 2010
Further to Leakpedia on Tuesday a website published a list of 200 IDF soldiers which it classifies as directly involved in operations carried out in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Each entry features the soldiers and officers' pictures and personal details, including identification numbers and addresses. This endangers many Israeli soldiers and could lead to their arrest in a Europe hungry for excuses. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3986365,00.html
147 years ago Abraham Lincoln spoke the words of the Gettysburg Address. He too thought that war may cleave his nation....http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
Danny Seaman left his post heading the Prime Ministers Office Press Office for foreign journalists. Danny executed his enormous task with honour and with a great love and concern for Israel, which did not always meet with the approval of his seniors. He will be sorely missed – men of his calibre are rare. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=194079
Harry Potters grave is in Ramle! As the media hype builds over “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” Private Harry Potter was a British soldier killed in 1939 after a battle with an armed band of local Arabs and his grave in Ramle has now become a major tourist spot. I always felt that JK Rowling and Harry Potter were stories highly relevant to todays tribulations but this is ridiculous!!!! http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/17112010/5/tourists-flock-harry-potter-grave-0.html
Happiness is a moral obligation says Dennis Prager http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQqJvfh9irs&feature=channel
Talking of happiness, I actually got out of the house this week and not to the doctors!! Girlfriends took me to drink coffee (Cafe Hafuch of course http://www.flickr.com/photos/illuminea/4348804144/ ) and eat wonderful salads. The other evening my childhood friend Susan took me to the Botanical Gardens, to Caffit Restaurant, which was overflowing with clientèle. We sat beside the pond, the balmy night air kissing the dark waters, mirror smooth, reflecting the trees on the far bank. The portions are as generous as the people and as we ate our complimentary anti pasti the most gigantic bowl piled high with a little lettuce, lots of vegetables, Bulgarian cheese and a huge pile of oven roaster sweet potato chips!!!! The setting, the company, the food and the fact that I was out of bed and out of house made the day complete!!! I cannot wait to return to the passages of the Old City, to my beautiful Mahane Yehuda Market where Zvi said they miss seeing me, to the streets and coffee shops where I can once again see the incredible rainbow of people who make up this exceptional city.
I often think that the greatest asset of Israelis is that we know what the world thinks of us and truthfully don't care. Those countries that most despise us in Europe are falling under enormous economic and social stagnation Israel is young, strong, vibrant, innovative, bubbling and so full of history that it is difficult for us to understand why anyone would think we don't belong here. As one elderly friend said to me “When I was in Europe they kept telling me to go back home to Jerusalem – now I am here they tell me to go back home to Europe”. We must remember that in a world that only reads headlines people have short memories. We have to defend what is ours and no matter how good the intentions of world leaders they cannot take away our homeland. How any leader that claims to be a Christian can deny our right to Jerusalem is beyond my understanding.
Shabbat Shalom dear friends, from the most breathtakingly beautiful city in the world
Sheila
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