Garage-made wine challenges traditions
Winemaker shakes up Bordeaux wine region
By John Ward Anderson
The Washington Post
Updated: 10:20 p.m. ET March 9, 2006
SAINT-EMILION, France - He was a logger, a lifeguard, a disc jockey and a banker. But Jean-Luc Thunevin didn't strike it big until he started making red wine in his garage. From there, the Algerian-born high-school graduate began challenging upper-crust wine barons and their traditions, helping spur a revolt that experts argue will either revitalize the fabled Bordeaux region or drive it nearer to ruin.
In the beginning, Thunevin climbed into vats with his wife, Murielle, to slosh around in the grapes. He relied on friends to bend over tables in the driveway and pluck out leaves and stems in exchange for dinner.
But from that first vintage -- 1,291 bottles of 1991 Chateau Valandraud, which retailed for about $25 each -- evolved one of the most exclusive boutique wines in France, fetching as much as $500 a bottle. Today, Thunevin makes 11 different wines and sells about 1 million bottles a year in markets from Paris to Hong Kong, Moscow to New York.
To some wine lovers, Thunevin, 54, and other garagistes who use similar iconoclastic techniques represent the greatest threat facing Bordeaux and its reputation as the world's premier wine region.
But to others, stubborn defense of tradition in the face of tough overseas competition is a key reason for the decline of Bordeaux, which had a surplus of 200 million unsold bottles last year. They question whether the people who make Bordeaux wines have the gumption to change and compete. "We had success because we rediscovered some techniques that were used a long time ago that had been abandoned," Thunevin said. Among them: extensive pruning and thinning to concentrate grapes on the vine, and handpicking and sorting only the ripest fruit.
"It did not go over well with the historic winegrowers in the region, especially when Valandraud started selling for more than the top traditional wines," he said with a smile, his lips stained purple from a recent tasting. "But it forced all the big chateaux to take a second look at what they were doing, and that was useful because it helped them prepare for the future, for the American and Australian competition."
"There was jealousy from the historic properties," said Michel Bettane, one of the most influential wine critics in France. But Thunevin and a small band of garage winemakers "had brilliant ideas about wine making, and they were doing it better than anyone else, and now 80 percent of the best growers in Saint-Emilion are doing the same thing the garagistes did 10 or 12 years ago."
‘A standard taste’
Many traditionalists remain unconvinced, accusing Thunevin and other modernists of embracing an international trend toward standardization in wines. They say that too many winemakers are ignoring the unique characteristics of their vines and land in favor of technical, by-the-numbers production that will make all wines taste the same.
"A wine should tell you the story of the place it came from," said Jean-Claude Berrouet, the top winemaker at 12 vineyards, including Chateau Petrus, the most famous wine in the neighboring Pomerol region, and Napa Valley's high-browed Dominus Estate. Innovation and change are important, Berrouet said, but there should be limits on techniques that a winemaker can use and still be classified as a Bordeaux. "If I'm a conductor playing Mozart, can I add notes to it?" he asked. "Pretentious men do this."
"As long as I can make a living doing what I do, I will resist the move to a standard taste," Berrouet said. "But you need to be realistic, and the day you can't make a living, you have to change." Three decades ago, Bordeaux was one of the top fine wines all over the world. Then the world's taste buds started to change, and lighter, fruitier, less expensive wines from abroad -- particularly the United States, Australia and Chile -- won international acclaim.
Between 1999 and 2004, France's wine exports dropped 11 percent, while America's rose 49 percent, Chile's grew 96 percent, and Australia's exploded by 152 percent. Over the same period, France's share of world wine exports dropped from 25 percent to 19 percent, while the combined share of the other three countries grew from 13.5 percent to 25 percent.
‘Sunnier, fruitier’
In blind, international tastings, 80 percent of the people prefer "sunnier, fruitier" wines from the overseas vineyards, "and if you try to force the consumer to accept the very old style of Bordeaux, it's a disaster," said Hubert de Bouard, president of the St.-Emilion Winegrowers' Union. He is the eighth generation of his family to head Chateau Angelus, a Premier Grand Cru Classe wine that is ranked among the highest quality in France.
Members of the government's stodgy wine regulating agency, the Appellation d'Origine Controlee, accuse Bouard of being "a revolutionary," he said. Among his demands they cite is that French wines relax their regulations, change their labeling, modernize their production techniques and adjust their styles and tastes -- even allowing oak chips to be used in aging barrels for flavoring -- to compete in global markets.
In his demand for innovation, the aristocratic Bouard, 48, is an unlikely ally of Thunevin. Bouard has purchased vineyards in Spain and South Africa, and his teenage son is apprenticing at a vineyard in Argentina to better understand the importance of globalization. His logic is simple, he said. "You want to work, or you want to die?"
"I don't want to kill my tradition and roots," he said, "but if you want to protect your traditions, you have to be strong enough to understand that the world changes."
But to Yves Delol, 66, whose family has owned the modest Chateau Gueyrosse vineyard since 1870, modernist techniques that use additives "are like doping in sports." Other vineyards "are free to do it, but they should be transparent and say on the label that oak chips were added, because it's not a natural process," he said, waving gnarly hands that look like the vines they tend.
"You don't want to sell your soul and lose your individuality," added his daughter, Samuelle, 37, next in line to run the vineyard.
While French wines are under commercial assault abroad, their problems are being compounded at home by a health movement that has slashed national wine consumption in half, from an average 27 gallons per person a year in 1980 to 14 gallons in 2004. That has contributed to the unprecedented surplus in Bordeaux.
"We have to find a solution to simple problems -- there's too much wine, and too much of it is bad in quality," said Bettane, the wine critic.
‘Pushing your limits’
Those are problems Thunevin says he doesn't face, citing his willing to try new things -- -- such as his development of a kosher wine that critic Robert Parker claimed was "undeniably the finest red kosher wine in the world." It sells in the United States for more than $200 a bottle.
"It's not that, if you weren't born wealthy in a chateau, you can't make good wine," Thunevin said. "It's a question of pushing your limits."
"At the beginning, he crossed the road looking both ways -- everybody was fighting the modernists," said Michel Rolland, a renowned wine consultant who provides production advice to about 100 French winemakers -- including Thunevin -- and another two dozen vineyards in 13 countries.
"Jean-Luc is permanently looking for something new to do. Every year he's asking how is it possible to move and change?" Rolland said. "We need 200 Jean-Luc Thunevins in Bordeaux, but we have only one."
In fact, with his extraordinary success, Thunevin said, "My friends say, you're not so garage anymore. And I say it's a state of mind."
Special correspondent Marie Valla contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
10 March 2006
09 March 2006
Bernard Malamud's Daughter Finally Tells His Secrets - New York Times
Bernard Malamud's Daughter Finally Tells His Secrets - New York Times: "Bernard Malamud's Daughter Finally Tells His Secrets
David M. SmithJanna Malamud Smith with her father, the writer Bernard Malamud, and her son Peter in Massachusetts in 1984.
Bernard Malamud's Daughter Finally Tells His Secrets
David M. SmithJanna Malamud Smith with her father, the writer Bernard Malamud, and her son Peter in Massachusetts in 1984.
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: March 9, 2006
MILTON, Mass. — In 1997, Janna Malamud Smith, daughter of the writer Bernard Malamud, published a book called "Private Matters" in which she argued for the importance of privacy in a culture of talk shows and tabloid journalism. Human dignity, Ms. Smith wrote, is based on shielding and protecting the deepest parts of the self from scrutiny. Moreover, the most important of human relationships are formed within the carapace of privacy.
Skip to next paragraph
Forum: Book News and Reviews
Enlarge This Image
Mark Ostow for The New York Times
Janna Malamud Smith says she needed the distance of years before she could write about her father, the author Bernard Malamud.
So it may come as a surprise to some people that this month, Ms. Smith, 54, is publishing "My Father Is a Book" (Houghton Mifflin), a memoir of her father, the most private of men, in which she reveals not only how deeply autobiographical his novels were, but also the fact that he had an extramarital affair with one of his Bennington College students that began in the early 60's. The Malamud family, which until now has resisted all biographers, has also given the British scholar Philip Davis access to Malamud's extensive papers for a biography to be published by Oxford University Press.
Why has Ms. Smith chosen to break her silence now? "Writing a memoir, you're still in control," she said with a wryness characteristic of her father. Ms. Smith resembles her father, too, with her square jaw and her articulateness. She also wanted to write her book while her mother, Ann de Chiara Malamud, was alive. "I needed her to tell me where I was wrong," she said.
Along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Malamud, who died in 1986, was part of a triumvirate of American Jewish writers who dominated the national literature in the 50's and 60's. Malamud won the Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Awards. In works like "The Assistant," "The Magic Barrel" and "The Fixer," he borrowed from myth and folklore and transformed the stories of ordinary Jewish lives into moral fables.
Unlike Bellow, of whom it was said he wrote a novel about each ex-wife, or Mr. Roth and Claire Bloom, who each wrote books based in part on their bad marriage, Malamud remained married to the same woman all his life and retained the image of a devoted family man.
Ms. Smith, a psychotherapist, explained why it had taken her 20 years to write about her father: "I needed that privacy to figure out who I was. I needed to learn how to write before I wrote about him. I needed some distance."
"One of the struggles as the kid of a famous parent is the huge incentive to become a narcissistic extension of them," she added, "like Athena born out of Zeus' head."
In the book, Ms. Smith describes Malamud as affectionate toward her and her brother, Paul, living a quiet, small-town life in Corvallis, Ore., where he taught from 1949 to 1961 at what was then Oregon State College. Still, Ms. Smith writes, when other fathers were coaching baseball, hers adhered to a rigid writing schedule. Malamud was a gentle figure, but "he was consumed by the question of whether he could realize his talent without becoming ruthless in ways he just couldn't abide."
Malamud's own childhood in Brooklyn was one of terrible impoverishment. His father, Max, was barely literate in English and, to Malamud, often seemed inept in trying to provide for his family in the New World. Malamud's mother, Bertha, and his brother, Eugene, were both mentally ill. Bertha died when Bernard was 15, possibly a suicide. His last memory of her was seeing her waving to him through the barred window of a mental institution. He was not allowed in to visit her. Later, he tried desperately to help Eugene, but without success.
Ms. Smith said that her father was driven by the desire to give his children the opportunities that he had lacked as a child. Paul Malamud, now 58 and a government worker in Washington, said, "We were sort of dubbed the family that was supposed to be better than the first." (Mr. Malamud would not discuss the memoir or living members of his family.)
In 1961, Malamud, by now famous, moved his family to Vermont, where he had taken a job teaching at Bennington College. Into the stable world he had created for himself came a young woman, Arlene.
Ms. Smith pieced together their relationship from copies of the letters between her father and Arlene, which he kept. Arlene gave permission for her to quote from her letters, and even to use her full name, though Ms. Smith declined to do so. Ms. Smith said she did not know how long the relationship remained sexual but that Arlene stayed in her family's life for more than 20 years. She was an aspiring writer and eventually became a doctor and psychoanalyst.
At times, Malamud's letters to Arlene are romantic: "I want your life to be as beautiful, as lovely as you are. I love you. B." But for the most part, they are avuncular, "Congratulations on your National Boards! You have every reason to be proud. What a courageous accomplishment."
Ms. Smith said of the affair, "I chose not to know," though she could feel tension between her parents. She was able to ignore it, "partly because of the rules Bennington gave you to play with." The permissive attitudes there all but encouraged affairs between students and teachers, she said. Indeed, during their years in Bennington, her mother also had an affair. Ms. Smith said she also became aware of that relationship as it was happening. Meanwhile, Ms. Smith said, one of her high school teachers pursued her relentlessly, and her parents did not intervene.
Reached by phone in Cambridge, Mass., Ann Malamud, now 88, acknowledged that both she and her husband had affairs. "Essentially I feel that my husband and I had a very strong bond," she said. "Other relationships sometimes happen in life of various sorts. That does not mean that they destroy everything."
In Malamud's sixth novel, "Dubin's Lives" (1979), about a biographer from Vermont, the married Dubin takes his young girlfriend, Fanny, on a trip to Venice. There, he thinks he catches sight of his daughter with an older man. Dubin justifies his own behavior with the idea that the age difference between his daughter and her lover is even greater than that between him and Fanny.
Ms. Smith said she believed the scene referred to her relationship with her older teacher. At the time the book was published, "I was really, really angry about it," Ms. Smith said, adding, "To have your family life turned into fiction, everything in the service of fiction and not in the service of family."
Yet Ms. Smith, who is married to an English teacher at Milton Academy and the mother of two sons, said she never confronted her father about "Dubin's Lives." "It was a taboo to take on his entitlement to the creative process," she said. "His writing was privileged."
In discussing her father's life with Mr. Davis, his biographer, she said, "We both realized that the man who claimed he was writing fiction tracked his life more closely in the fiction than we thought."
For instance, "The Assistant," Ms. Smith said, though long thought to contain biographical elements, "was much more autobiographical than people know." Morris Bober, the seemingly ineffectual Jewish grocer, becomes a redemptive figure, almost Christlike in his goodness and gentleness, to his assistant, the petty hoodlum Frank. "The book was about how much he was trying to work out his feelings about his father," Ms. Smith said.
"He struggled with his life all the time," she continued. "How to manage what happened with his mother and brother. There were a lot of powerful things he was dealing with."
"He wanted privacy," she said of her father. "One of the functions of writing is to transmute shame. What you present, when you present it, it's your choice. Writing was a way to cloak his shame."
David M. SmithJanna Malamud Smith with her father, the writer Bernard Malamud, and her son Peter in Massachusetts in 1984.
Bernard Malamud's Daughter Finally Tells His Secrets
David M. SmithJanna Malamud Smith with her father, the writer Bernard Malamud, and her son Peter in Massachusetts in 1984.
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: March 9, 2006
MILTON, Mass. — In 1997, Janna Malamud Smith, daughter of the writer Bernard Malamud, published a book called "Private Matters" in which she argued for the importance of privacy in a culture of talk shows and tabloid journalism. Human dignity, Ms. Smith wrote, is based on shielding and protecting the deepest parts of the self from scrutiny. Moreover, the most important of human relationships are formed within the carapace of privacy.
Skip to next paragraph
Forum: Book News and Reviews
Enlarge This Image
Mark Ostow for The New York Times
Janna Malamud Smith says she needed the distance of years before she could write about her father, the author Bernard Malamud.
So it may come as a surprise to some people that this month, Ms. Smith, 54, is publishing "My Father Is a Book" (Houghton Mifflin), a memoir of her father, the most private of men, in which she reveals not only how deeply autobiographical his novels were, but also the fact that he had an extramarital affair with one of his Bennington College students that began in the early 60's. The Malamud family, which until now has resisted all biographers, has also given the British scholar Philip Davis access to Malamud's extensive papers for a biography to be published by Oxford University Press.
Why has Ms. Smith chosen to break her silence now? "Writing a memoir, you're still in control," she said with a wryness characteristic of her father. Ms. Smith resembles her father, too, with her square jaw and her articulateness. She also wanted to write her book while her mother, Ann de Chiara Malamud, was alive. "I needed her to tell me where I was wrong," she said.
Along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Malamud, who died in 1986, was part of a triumvirate of American Jewish writers who dominated the national literature in the 50's and 60's. Malamud won the Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Awards. In works like "The Assistant," "The Magic Barrel" and "The Fixer," he borrowed from myth and folklore and transformed the stories of ordinary Jewish lives into moral fables.
Unlike Bellow, of whom it was said he wrote a novel about each ex-wife, or Mr. Roth and Claire Bloom, who each wrote books based in part on their bad marriage, Malamud remained married to the same woman all his life and retained the image of a devoted family man.
Ms. Smith, a psychotherapist, explained why it had taken her 20 years to write about her father: "I needed that privacy to figure out who I was. I needed to learn how to write before I wrote about him. I needed some distance."
"One of the struggles as the kid of a famous parent is the huge incentive to become a narcissistic extension of them," she added, "like Athena born out of Zeus' head."
In the book, Ms. Smith describes Malamud as affectionate toward her and her brother, Paul, living a quiet, small-town life in Corvallis, Ore., where he taught from 1949 to 1961 at what was then Oregon State College. Still, Ms. Smith writes, when other fathers were coaching baseball, hers adhered to a rigid writing schedule. Malamud was a gentle figure, but "he was consumed by the question of whether he could realize his talent without becoming ruthless in ways he just couldn't abide."
Malamud's own childhood in Brooklyn was one of terrible impoverishment. His father, Max, was barely literate in English and, to Malamud, often seemed inept in trying to provide for his family in the New World. Malamud's mother, Bertha, and his brother, Eugene, were both mentally ill. Bertha died when Bernard was 15, possibly a suicide. His last memory of her was seeing her waving to him through the barred window of a mental institution. He was not allowed in to visit her. Later, he tried desperately to help Eugene, but without success.
Ms. Smith said that her father was driven by the desire to give his children the opportunities that he had lacked as a child. Paul Malamud, now 58 and a government worker in Washington, said, "We were sort of dubbed the family that was supposed to be better than the first." (Mr. Malamud would not discuss the memoir or living members of his family.)
In 1961, Malamud, by now famous, moved his family to Vermont, where he had taken a job teaching at Bennington College. Into the stable world he had created for himself came a young woman, Arlene.
Ms. Smith pieced together their relationship from copies of the letters between her father and Arlene, which he kept. Arlene gave permission for her to quote from her letters, and even to use her full name, though Ms. Smith declined to do so. Ms. Smith said she did not know how long the relationship remained sexual but that Arlene stayed in her family's life for more than 20 years. She was an aspiring writer and eventually became a doctor and psychoanalyst.
At times, Malamud's letters to Arlene are romantic: "I want your life to be as beautiful, as lovely as you are. I love you. B." But for the most part, they are avuncular, "Congratulations on your National Boards! You have every reason to be proud. What a courageous accomplishment."
Ms. Smith said of the affair, "I chose not to know," though she could feel tension between her parents. She was able to ignore it, "partly because of the rules Bennington gave you to play with." The permissive attitudes there all but encouraged affairs between students and teachers, she said. Indeed, during their years in Bennington, her mother also had an affair. Ms. Smith said she also became aware of that relationship as it was happening. Meanwhile, Ms. Smith said, one of her high school teachers pursued her relentlessly, and her parents did not intervene.
Reached by phone in Cambridge, Mass., Ann Malamud, now 88, acknowledged that both she and her husband had affairs. "Essentially I feel that my husband and I had a very strong bond," she said. "Other relationships sometimes happen in life of various sorts. That does not mean that they destroy everything."
In Malamud's sixth novel, "Dubin's Lives" (1979), about a biographer from Vermont, the married Dubin takes his young girlfriend, Fanny, on a trip to Venice. There, he thinks he catches sight of his daughter with an older man. Dubin justifies his own behavior with the idea that the age difference between his daughter and her lover is even greater than that between him and Fanny.
Ms. Smith said she believed the scene referred to her relationship with her older teacher. At the time the book was published, "I was really, really angry about it," Ms. Smith said, adding, "To have your family life turned into fiction, everything in the service of fiction and not in the service of family."
Yet Ms. Smith, who is married to an English teacher at Milton Academy and the mother of two sons, said she never confronted her father about "Dubin's Lives." "It was a taboo to take on his entitlement to the creative process," she said. "His writing was privileged."
In discussing her father's life with Mr. Davis, his biographer, she said, "We both realized that the man who claimed he was writing fiction tracked his life more closely in the fiction than we thought."
For instance, "The Assistant," Ms. Smith said, though long thought to contain biographical elements, "was much more autobiographical than people know." Morris Bober, the seemingly ineffectual Jewish grocer, becomes a redemptive figure, almost Christlike in his goodness and gentleness, to his assistant, the petty hoodlum Frank. "The book was about how much he was trying to work out his feelings about his father," Ms. Smith said.
"He struggled with his life all the time," she continued. "How to manage what happened with his mother and brother. There were a lot of powerful things he was dealing with."
"He wanted privacy," she said of her father. "One of the functions of writing is to transmute shame. What you present, when you present it, it's your choice. Writing was a way to cloak his shame."
Dubai Ports labeled willing to deal U.S. assets - MarketWatch
This chapter is really wacked. I have never seen (personally) such obviously racist politicizing of a commercial transaction in my life. No-one has been able to demonstrate that there is any chance of the security of our ports being made to be worse than it already is. Why was it OK for the British to be 'running' our ports and not a Dubai-based company? This was such a no-brainer that 12 government departments passed on it. They did not consider the political implications of having an Arab country as the owners of the firm that runs the ports even though it would be Americans who would be in day-to-day functional control. It's just ridiculous how low politicians will sink to appeal to the most base instincts in the American body politic.
____________
U.S. ports divestiture now in cards
Dubai firm aims to end furor by selling some P&O assets
E-mail | Print | | Disable live quotes By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:02 PM ET Mar 9, 2006
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Dubai Ports World has decided to sell operations at some U.S. ports to a domestic entity in a bid to end a political firestorm, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner said on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.
The move comes with House Republicans in legislative revolt and the Senate tied in procedural knots over DPW's acquisition of London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (UK:PO: news, chart, profile) .
Republican leaders reportedly told Bush earlier Thursday that the deal would be blocked by Congress despite the president's veto threat.
Depending on the details, the decision by DPW could be a face-saver for President Bush. Republican leaders reportedly told Bush earlier Thursday that the deal would be blocked by Congress despite the president's veto threat.
"DP World has decided to transfer fully U.S. operation of P&O Ports North America to a United States entity," Warner, R-Va., said, reading from a statement provided by DP World.
The company said the decision was "based on an understanding that DP World will have time to effect the transfer in an orderly fashion and that DP World will not suffer economic loss."
Details regarding the entity that would be taking over the operations weren't immediately available.
But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the move should "make the issue go away."
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a leading critic of the transaction, said that the offer was a "promising development" but that he wanted to closely examine the decision to ensure that the domestic entity would be "fully independent in every way" from DP World.
House Republicans lauded the decision.
"The resulting outcry of concern from across the country [over the transaction] went unanswered by the administration," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., an early critic of the acquisition. "Today, Dubai Ports World itself seems to have answered those concerns."
The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday voted 62 to 2 to amend an emergency-spending measure with language that would effectively bar DPW from taking over P&O's U.S. operations.
The vote underlined an uprising by House Republicans, who joined Democrats in rejecting Bush's pleas to let the deal proceed. The amendment was sponsored by Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and was endorsed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
Senate Republicans had urged a wait-and-see approach, noting that the administration had begun an extended, 45-day review of the transaction.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats created a dust-up when they introduced an amendment to pending lobbying reform legislation that would kill the ports deal. In a previously scheduled procedural vote that took place shortly after Warner's announcement, the Senate refused to kill the Democratic amendment.
Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. DPW acquired P&O's global operations in a deal valued at more than $6 billion.
The administration earlier this year approved the acquisition, but the deal has since sparked a political firestorm.
Bush and other top officials insist that the deal was thoroughly vetted for security concerns, while Democratic and Republican lawmakers have charged that the interagency task force -- the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States --that approved the deal had failed to adequately consider national-security risks.
Backers of the deal have argued that the United Arab Emirates has been a valuable Middle Eastern ally in the Washington-led war on terror, and warned that blocking the deal would set a double standard that discriminates against Arab-owned firms, while allowing other foreign-owned firms to operate port terminals.
The deal's critics have charged that the UAE has a mixed record on terrorism, and they also contend that state-owned firms should be held to a higher standard than other companies.
The administration agreed to take another look at the deal under the aegis of a 45-day review by CFIUS, but Bush has made clear that he believes the transaction should eventually proceed.
William L. Watts is a reporter for MarketWatch.
____________
U.S. ports divestiture now in cards
Dubai firm aims to end furor by selling some P&O assets
E-mail | Print | | Disable live quotes By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:02 PM ET Mar 9, 2006
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Dubai Ports World has decided to sell operations at some U.S. ports to a domestic entity in a bid to end a political firestorm, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner said on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.
The move comes with House Republicans in legislative revolt and the Senate tied in procedural knots over DPW's acquisition of London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (UK:PO: news, chart, profile) .
Republican leaders reportedly told Bush earlier Thursday that the deal would be blocked by Congress despite the president's veto threat.
Depending on the details, the decision by DPW could be a face-saver for President Bush. Republican leaders reportedly told Bush earlier Thursday that the deal would be blocked by Congress despite the president's veto threat.
"DP World has decided to transfer fully U.S. operation of P&O Ports North America to a United States entity," Warner, R-Va., said, reading from a statement provided by DP World.
The company said the decision was "based on an understanding that DP World will have time to effect the transfer in an orderly fashion and that DP World will not suffer economic loss."
Details regarding the entity that would be taking over the operations weren't immediately available.
But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the move should "make the issue go away."
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a leading critic of the transaction, said that the offer was a "promising development" but that he wanted to closely examine the decision to ensure that the domestic entity would be "fully independent in every way" from DP World.
House Republicans lauded the decision.
"The resulting outcry of concern from across the country [over the transaction] went unanswered by the administration," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., an early critic of the acquisition. "Today, Dubai Ports World itself seems to have answered those concerns."
The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday voted 62 to 2 to amend an emergency-spending measure with language that would effectively bar DPW from taking over P&O's U.S. operations.
The vote underlined an uprising by House Republicans, who joined Democrats in rejecting Bush's pleas to let the deal proceed. The amendment was sponsored by Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and was endorsed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
Senate Republicans had urged a wait-and-see approach, noting that the administration had begun an extended, 45-day review of the transaction.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats created a dust-up when they introduced an amendment to pending lobbying reform legislation that would kill the ports deal. In a previously scheduled procedural vote that took place shortly after Warner's announcement, the Senate refused to kill the Democratic amendment.
Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. DPW acquired P&O's global operations in a deal valued at more than $6 billion.
The administration earlier this year approved the acquisition, but the deal has since sparked a political firestorm.
Bush and other top officials insist that the deal was thoroughly vetted for security concerns, while Democratic and Republican lawmakers have charged that the interagency task force -- the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States --that approved the deal had failed to adequately consider national-security risks.
Backers of the deal have argued that the United Arab Emirates has been a valuable Middle Eastern ally in the Washington-led war on terror, and warned that blocking the deal would set a double standard that discriminates against Arab-owned firms, while allowing other foreign-owned firms to operate port terminals.
The deal's critics have charged that the UAE has a mixed record on terrorism, and they also contend that state-owned firms should be held to a higher standard than other companies.
The administration agreed to take another look at the deal under the aegis of a 45-day review by CFIUS, but Bush has made clear that he believes the transaction should eventually proceed.
William L. Watts is a reporter for MarketWatch.
Missed Tributes
Ben Stein is a terrific commentator on America and just about anything else you'd want some common sense on, including financial advice. Check out his website at www.benstein.com. I look for his stuff every so often, and this article comes courtesy of a friend who sent it to me via email, though I went and found its original source so that those who received it from her can know from whence it came.
I consider Ben Stein to be the first "blogger" though he hit the telly long before computers and blogs were de rigeur and ubiquitous in our lives.
His books, by the way, are great gifts: they are skinny and tell the common sense that we sometimes miss while we are mired in the business of our lives. All of which means it's good to take a step back, a breath, and read what people like Ben have to say.
RS
Missed Tributes
By Ben Stein
Published 3/6/2006 2:08:21 AM
Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.
I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.
The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies are evil -- this is nonsense. All of these are mainstream ideas in Hollywood, always have been, always will be. For the people who made movies denouncing Big Oil, worshiping gays, mocking the rich to think of themselves as brave -- this is pathetic, childish narcissism.
The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.
No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to attack America -- which has made it all possible for them. They are not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they said that, so they never will.
Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and basic, but let's not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on national TV.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator. Please click here to subscribe.
I consider Ben Stein to be the first "blogger" though he hit the telly long before computers and blogs were de rigeur and ubiquitous in our lives.
His books, by the way, are great gifts: they are skinny and tell the common sense that we sometimes miss while we are mired in the business of our lives. All of which means it's good to take a step back, a breath, and read what people like Ben have to say.
RS
Missed Tributes
By Ben Stein
Published 3/6/2006 2:08:21 AM
Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.
I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.
The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies are evil -- this is nonsense. All of these are mainstream ideas in Hollywood, always have been, always will be. For the people who made movies denouncing Big Oil, worshiping gays, mocking the rich to think of themselves as brave -- this is pathetic, childish narcissism.
The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.
No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to attack America -- which has made it all possible for them. They are not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they said that, so they never will.
Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and basic, but let's not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on national TV.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator. Please click here to subscribe.
08 March 2006
TETZAVEH/Zachor: Shedding Our Skin
BS"D
TETZAVEH/Zachor
Shedding Our Skin
FRIDAY NIGHT:
Command the Children of Israel to bring clear olive oil, beaten for the
light, so the Menorah can burn continuously. (Shemos 27:20)
As usual, Parashas Tetzaveh is also Parashas Zachor, and is read one week
before Purim. It starts off by talking about olive oil for the Menorah,
and then discusses the clothing required for the Kohen Gadol. It finishes
with the consecration of the priests into their office and of the altar,
seemingly not very Purim-related.
Nothing is by chance in this world, and if the connection is not surface- obvious, it is below the surface, which often makes it more profound.
After all, everything in Torah is inter-related, so there has to be some
kind of connection on some level. Didn't Achashveros wear the clothing of
the Kohen Gadol at his famous party celebrating the end of the 70 years
since the destruction of the First Temple?
We're now getting ahead of ourselves, because we still have to address the
issue of the Shemen Zayis, which, incidentally, is usually more of a
Chanukah matter, no?
Actually, the answer is yes and no. True, the Menorah is the symbol of the
Chanukah miracle and the central activity of the holiday itself, but that
does not mean that it has little to do with Purim. Indeed, Purim and
Chanukah are just two sides of the same coin, or should I say, kohen?
In any case, Shemen Zayis has everything to do with the sefirah
called "Yesod," and the spiritual basis of our millennium, which is also
symbolized by the letters Lamed-Vav. The gematria of Lamed-Vav happens to
also be 36, the number of candles we light throughout the eight days of
Chanukah. So, even as we approach the holiday of Purim, it is through the
lens of Chanukah, whatever that means.
And, how does Amalek fit into this picture? Is Parashas Zachor just a
local event, meaning that, since Amalek was the main antagonist in the
Purim story that we focus on this particular enemy of the Jewish people?
Or, was Purim not as significant as the previous bigger story, of which
Amalek is a major player?
After all, it was only against Amalek that G-d Himself declared war
against. Only Amalek is said to divide the Name of G-d, and it is his
continued existence that keeps the Throne of G-d from being complete.
That's about as evil as one can get in this world of ours. Was he present
during the Chanukah story as well, or did he just take a break and let the
Greeks have their own shot at the Jewish people in their time?
After all, if Amalek and therefore, Haman, can be traced back to the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Chullin 139b), he must be quite primordial,
like Purim and Chanukah. For, G-d's question to Adam HaRishon after he ate
from the tree was "Aiyekah" (meaning, "Where are you?") - a word whose
gematria equals the number of Chanukah candles we light over the eight
days of Chanukah: 36.
Well, it only stands to reason that what goes around comes around, and
that whatever went wrong at the beginning of history is what needs to be
fixed up at the end of history. And, if history is about this primordial
tikun, then the Mishkan and what went on inside of it, and the clothing
that the Kohen Gadol wore to officiate, must somehow represent the process
of this tikun. No wonder Achashveros would not permit the re-building of
the Temple, even if the infamous 70 years were up!
SHABBOS DAY:
G-d commanded the Man, saying, "You may eat from every tree in the Garden,
except from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you do, you will
certainly die, from that day." (Bereishis 2:16-17)
I noticed tonight (February 25) that they found the mayor of London guilty
of racial slurs. As a result, he will be suspended from his office for 30
days, although he may still receive his pay. I'm sure that English Jews
will find reason to sigh with relief, seeing that justice can still be
done on their behalf in London.
The mayor was unrepentant to the end, and on his behalf, a few interesting
remarks were made:
. . . Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron issued a statement calling the
decision "absurd". "This decision ... strikes at the roots of democracy.
Millions of Londoners elected the mayor -- and three unelected officials
remove him. An elected mayor should only be removed by the law or by the
electorate. Not by an unelected body. This issue should never have come to
the standards board in the first place -- it was given a thorough airing
at the time. But it has been blown out of all proportion. What Londoners
care about most are issues like safer streets, more buses and a cleaner
environment."
Frankly, the only absurd thing, as far as I can see, is the statement
itself, particularly the last part. I'd love to know if there is any truth
to it: Do Londoners care more about technical improvements to their city
than about their mayor speaking despairingly about another people, and
even using a comparison to a nightmarish period (the Holocaust) in their
history?
I sure hope not, because that is what Hitler, y"s, gambled on and won. In
order to carry out his extermination of the Jewish people at his reach, he
had to convince the rest of his country to go along with it. But genocide
is never an easy sell to the average person on the street, so he had to
package it in all kinds of propaganda that boiled down to a single
message: a better life for the German people.
Still, it wasn't easy, as the average human being is not THAT selfish. So,
the Nazi campaign greatly developed the idea of a Fatherland, and insisted
that anyone who was not for the Fatherland was against it, quite a
nationalist sentiment that, at certain times in history, is not a hard
sell. Anyone that is against the Fatherland, the Nazis later argued, are
subhuman and therefore worthy of destruction.
Anyone who has seen the clips of Hitler, y"s, addressing masses of Germans
in huge sports arenas, cannot help but be overwhelmed by how many of them
not only supported his plan, but threw themselves completely into it! And
these were Germans, who just yesterday had no problem with being neighbors
with Jews. How quickly an evil leader can tap into the weakness of human
beings and exploit it for an evil purpose.
And what is the scary part? We all share the same weakness.
It was not a weakness with which we were created, but one that we
inherited as a result of Adam HaRishon's interaction with the Aitz HaDa'as
Tov v'Rah, even before he ate from it. In fact, it was THIS (touching it)
that led to his actually eating from it, something he could never have
done while unaffected by the tree. It was this, in a sense that gave the
Ayin to Amalek, and the vulnerability to man as a result of this.
This is why the number 70, the numerical value of Ayin, is such a crucial
issue in the Purim story.
SEUDOS SHLISHIS:
Make holy garments for Aharon, your brother, for glory and for splendor.
(Shemos 28:2)
Ever wonder why a snake changes its skin so often, or even at all? Well,
zoologists do and they still don't know why. But Kabbalah does know:
middah k'neged middah: for having caused the change of man's skin from
Kesones Ohr (Aleph-Vav-Raish) to Kesones Ohr (Ayin-Vav-Raish), he was
punished with a skin that must constantly and painfully be changed.
Indeed, the skin we have now is also called Mishcha d'Chivya (Clothing of
the Snake) because of Adam HaRishon's and Chava's role in our eating from
the Aitz HaDa'as Tov v'Rah. Whereas man's original skin was made of light,
like the Ohr HaGanuz specifically, our present skin is simply flesh, and
if you look closely, it somewhat resembles snake skin. How physical can
you get?
Hence, the gematria of Moshiach is that of Nachash (Snake) because
Moshiach comes to complete the process of returning to our former glory
and skin of light - from Kesones Ohr (Aleph-Vav-Raish). And, this is
precisely what the Shemen Zayis Zach of the Menorah, and the clothing of
the Kohen Gadol came to teach and facilitate. Hence, the Torah comments:
Make holy garments for Aharon, your brother, for glory and for splendor.
(Shemos 28:2)
The glory and splendor being referred to, is the skin of light with which
we were created, a reflection of the Ohr HaGanuz, of which the Zohar says
Shemen Zayis Zach represents. Thus, one of the places the Ohr HaGanuz was
hidden, explains the B'nei Yissachar, is in the 36 candles of Chanukah.
And, we wear masks and costumes on Purim to symbolize the "clothing" we
wear as a function of our transformation from Clothing of Light to
Clothing of Skin. Thus, not only does this parshah allude to Chanukah and
its tikun right at the start, but it is followed by an allusion to Purim
and its tikun as well.
Indeed, they are really two aspects of the same tikun. Our skin once
resembled Shemen Zayis Zach, clear and full of light. The clothing of the
Kohen Gadol resembles, in this world, the splendor and glory of Kesones
Ohr with an Aleph. The Kohen Gadol is our leader in that process of
teshuvah, which can only happen through a life devoted to Torah.
The consequences of not working on this process are horrific, and the
reason for the situation in the world today, and especially in Eretz
Yisroel.
MELAVE MALKAH:
G-d told Moshe, "Write this as a memorial in the Book, and repeat it
carefully (literally, b'aznei -- in the ears) to Yehoshua. I will
completely eradicate the memory of Amalek from under heaven." (Shemos
17:14)
The gematria of Amalek is suffek (doubt). Interestingly enough, this word
is very close to another word which is quite different in meaning: sippuk
(contentment). The first one is spelled: Samech-Peh-Kuf, and the second
one is spelled: Samech-YUD-Peh-VAV-Kuf; the Yud and the Vav are extra.
Nothing creates a greater sense of lacking than doubt, the exact opposite
feeling of sippuk.
The question is, what difference does the letter Yud and Vav make?
First of all, they are two letters from G-d's four-letter Ineffable Name,
the first and the third. The Yud corresponds to the sefirah called
Chochmah (Wisdom), whereas the Vav corresponds to the sefirah of Yesod,
which corresponds to our millennium, Lamed-Vav, (36). The other two
letters of the Name are the same, the letter Heh twice, one is for Binah,
and the other for Malchus.
In fact, though the Name is normally written from right to left, when it
represents the Sefiros, it is written from top to bottom. Then it
resembles, of all things, a tree, with the final Heh (for Malchus)
becoming the ground, the Vav acting as the trunk and the tree, and the
other Yud and Heh acting as the top of the tree. It is Amalek's goal to
sever the Yud from the Vav, so that wisdom cannot flow down to the world
below, so that suffek and discontentment can rule mankind.
In fact, Yesod itself is really just the Yud attached to the word Sod,
which means mystery, but which actually refers to Kabbalah. Thus, when
Moshe advised Yehoshua about the ongoing battle against Amalek, he spoke
b'aznei Yehoshua - in the ears of Yehoshua. However, the GR"A points out
that the gematria of b'aznei is, in fact, Sod, the only true way to defeat
Amalek.
The deeper the doubt, the greater the need to understand more deeply.
And when wine goes in, says the Talmud, a central part of the Purim Feast,
Sod goes out, and Amalek falls. Thus, the Talmud writes:
For, anyone who becomes settled through wine has the knowledge (da'as) of
his Creator . . . has the knowledge (da'as) of the Seventy Elders; wine
was given with seventy letters (Rashi: the gematria of yai'in -- wine --
is 70), and the mystery (of Torah) was given with seventy letters (sod --
mystery -- also equals 70). When wine goes in, secrets go out. (Eiruvin
65a)
Another word for yishuv hada'as (peace of mind), is sippuk. Albeit, not as
in getting drunk and losing consciousness, but as in rising to a higher
level of understanding, beyond the reach of the suffek of Amalek. Truth is
as pristine as Shemen Zayis Zach. However, Amalek severs the Yud from the
Ayin (70) that represents wisdom, and that keeps us childish, never
knowing more than we have to in order to be discontent about our position
in life.
This is why, in an age that promised the ultimate in a pressure-free life
from all our technological success, anxiety and panic disorder is at
epidemic levels more than ever before. We have the tools, but we lack the
wisdom. We're so smart, and yet we live with so much doubt about ever so
much. That is the direct result of Kesones Ohr with an Ayin, the Ayin of
Amalek and the clothing of the Snake, but not the clothing of the Kohen
Gadol.
This is the direct consequence of interacting with the Aitz HaDa'as Tov
v'Rah. It makes everything so murky, resulting in all our bad traits,
unlike the Shemen Zayis Zach. Living in the time period that corresponds
to Yesod, is more relevant for us to know this, perhaps, more than in any
other generation.
When we finally shed our snake skin, the Snake will no longer have to shed
his, and Moshiach Tzidkainu, will have already been here.
Zachor - Remember!
Have a great Shabbos, and Purim Samayach,
PW
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TETZAVEH/Zachor
Shedding Our Skin
FRIDAY NIGHT:
Command the Children of Israel to bring clear olive oil, beaten for the
light, so the Menorah can burn continuously. (Shemos 27:20)
As usual, Parashas Tetzaveh is also Parashas Zachor, and is read one week
before Purim. It starts off by talking about olive oil for the Menorah,
and then discusses the clothing required for the Kohen Gadol. It finishes
with the consecration of the priests into their office and of the altar,
seemingly not very Purim-related.
Nothing is by chance in this world, and if the connection is not surface- obvious, it is below the surface, which often makes it more profound.
After all, everything in Torah is inter-related, so there has to be some
kind of connection on some level. Didn't Achashveros wear the clothing of
the Kohen Gadol at his famous party celebrating the end of the 70 years
since the destruction of the First Temple?
We're now getting ahead of ourselves, because we still have to address the
issue of the Shemen Zayis, which, incidentally, is usually more of a
Chanukah matter, no?
Actually, the answer is yes and no. True, the Menorah is the symbol of the
Chanukah miracle and the central activity of the holiday itself, but that
does not mean that it has little to do with Purim. Indeed, Purim and
Chanukah are just two sides of the same coin, or should I say, kohen?
In any case, Shemen Zayis has everything to do with the sefirah
called "Yesod," and the spiritual basis of our millennium, which is also
symbolized by the letters Lamed-Vav. The gematria of Lamed-Vav happens to
also be 36, the number of candles we light throughout the eight days of
Chanukah. So, even as we approach the holiday of Purim, it is through the
lens of Chanukah, whatever that means.
And, how does Amalek fit into this picture? Is Parashas Zachor just a
local event, meaning that, since Amalek was the main antagonist in the
Purim story that we focus on this particular enemy of the Jewish people?
Or, was Purim not as significant as the previous bigger story, of which
Amalek is a major player?
After all, it was only against Amalek that G-d Himself declared war
against. Only Amalek is said to divide the Name of G-d, and it is his
continued existence that keeps the Throne of G-d from being complete.
That's about as evil as one can get in this world of ours. Was he present
during the Chanukah story as well, or did he just take a break and let the
Greeks have their own shot at the Jewish people in their time?
After all, if Amalek and therefore, Haman, can be traced back to the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Chullin 139b), he must be quite primordial,
like Purim and Chanukah. For, G-d's question to Adam HaRishon after he ate
from the tree was "Aiyekah" (meaning, "Where are you?") - a word whose
gematria equals the number of Chanukah candles we light over the eight
days of Chanukah: 36.
Well, it only stands to reason that what goes around comes around, and
that whatever went wrong at the beginning of history is what needs to be
fixed up at the end of history. And, if history is about this primordial
tikun, then the Mishkan and what went on inside of it, and the clothing
that the Kohen Gadol wore to officiate, must somehow represent the process
of this tikun. No wonder Achashveros would not permit the re-building of
the Temple, even if the infamous 70 years were up!
SHABBOS DAY:
G-d commanded the Man, saying, "You may eat from every tree in the Garden,
except from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you do, you will
certainly die, from that day." (Bereishis 2:16-17)
I noticed tonight (February 25) that they found the mayor of London guilty
of racial slurs. As a result, he will be suspended from his office for 30
days, although he may still receive his pay. I'm sure that English Jews
will find reason to sigh with relief, seeing that justice can still be
done on their behalf in London.
The mayor was unrepentant to the end, and on his behalf, a few interesting
remarks were made:
. . . Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron issued a statement calling the
decision "absurd". "This decision ... strikes at the roots of democracy.
Millions of Londoners elected the mayor -- and three unelected officials
remove him. An elected mayor should only be removed by the law or by the
electorate. Not by an unelected body. This issue should never have come to
the standards board in the first place -- it was given a thorough airing
at the time. But it has been blown out of all proportion. What Londoners
care about most are issues like safer streets, more buses and a cleaner
environment."
Frankly, the only absurd thing, as far as I can see, is the statement
itself, particularly the last part. I'd love to know if there is any truth
to it: Do Londoners care more about technical improvements to their city
than about their mayor speaking despairingly about another people, and
even using a comparison to a nightmarish period (the Holocaust) in their
history?
I sure hope not, because that is what Hitler, y"s, gambled on and won. In
order to carry out his extermination of the Jewish people at his reach, he
had to convince the rest of his country to go along with it. But genocide
is never an easy sell to the average person on the street, so he had to
package it in all kinds of propaganda that boiled down to a single
message: a better life for the German people.
Still, it wasn't easy, as the average human being is not THAT selfish. So,
the Nazi campaign greatly developed the idea of a Fatherland, and insisted
that anyone who was not for the Fatherland was against it, quite a
nationalist sentiment that, at certain times in history, is not a hard
sell. Anyone that is against the Fatherland, the Nazis later argued, are
subhuman and therefore worthy of destruction.
Anyone who has seen the clips of Hitler, y"s, addressing masses of Germans
in huge sports arenas, cannot help but be overwhelmed by how many of them
not only supported his plan, but threw themselves completely into it! And
these were Germans, who just yesterday had no problem with being neighbors
with Jews. How quickly an evil leader can tap into the weakness of human
beings and exploit it for an evil purpose.
And what is the scary part? We all share the same weakness.
It was not a weakness with which we were created, but one that we
inherited as a result of Adam HaRishon's interaction with the Aitz HaDa'as
Tov v'Rah, even before he ate from it. In fact, it was THIS (touching it)
that led to his actually eating from it, something he could never have
done while unaffected by the tree. It was this, in a sense that gave the
Ayin to Amalek, and the vulnerability to man as a result of this.
This is why the number 70, the numerical value of Ayin, is such a crucial
issue in the Purim story.
SEUDOS SHLISHIS:
Make holy garments for Aharon, your brother, for glory and for splendor.
(Shemos 28:2)
Ever wonder why a snake changes its skin so often, or even at all? Well,
zoologists do and they still don't know why. But Kabbalah does know:
middah k'neged middah: for having caused the change of man's skin from
Kesones Ohr (Aleph-Vav-Raish) to Kesones Ohr (Ayin-Vav-Raish), he was
punished with a skin that must constantly and painfully be changed.
Indeed, the skin we have now is also called Mishcha d'Chivya (Clothing of
the Snake) because of Adam HaRishon's and Chava's role in our eating from
the Aitz HaDa'as Tov v'Rah. Whereas man's original skin was made of light,
like the Ohr HaGanuz specifically, our present skin is simply flesh, and
if you look closely, it somewhat resembles snake skin. How physical can
you get?
Hence, the gematria of Moshiach is that of Nachash (Snake) because
Moshiach comes to complete the process of returning to our former glory
and skin of light - from Kesones Ohr (Aleph-Vav-Raish). And, this is
precisely what the Shemen Zayis Zach of the Menorah, and the clothing of
the Kohen Gadol came to teach and facilitate. Hence, the Torah comments:
Make holy garments for Aharon, your brother, for glory and for splendor.
(Shemos 28:2)
The glory and splendor being referred to, is the skin of light with which
we were created, a reflection of the Ohr HaGanuz, of which the Zohar says
Shemen Zayis Zach represents. Thus, one of the places the Ohr HaGanuz was
hidden, explains the B'nei Yissachar, is in the 36 candles of Chanukah.
And, we wear masks and costumes on Purim to symbolize the "clothing" we
wear as a function of our transformation from Clothing of Light to
Clothing of Skin. Thus, not only does this parshah allude to Chanukah and
its tikun right at the start, but it is followed by an allusion to Purim
and its tikun as well.
Indeed, they are really two aspects of the same tikun. Our skin once
resembled Shemen Zayis Zach, clear and full of light. The clothing of the
Kohen Gadol resembles, in this world, the splendor and glory of Kesones
Ohr with an Aleph. The Kohen Gadol is our leader in that process of
teshuvah, which can only happen through a life devoted to Torah.
The consequences of not working on this process are horrific, and the
reason for the situation in the world today, and especially in Eretz
Yisroel.
MELAVE MALKAH:
G-d told Moshe, "Write this as a memorial in the Book, and repeat it
carefully (literally, b'aznei -- in the ears) to Yehoshua. I will
completely eradicate the memory of Amalek from under heaven." (Shemos
17:14)
The gematria of Amalek is suffek (doubt). Interestingly enough, this word
is very close to another word which is quite different in meaning: sippuk
(contentment). The first one is spelled: Samech-Peh-Kuf, and the second
one is spelled: Samech-YUD-Peh-VAV-Kuf; the Yud and the Vav are extra.
Nothing creates a greater sense of lacking than doubt, the exact opposite
feeling of sippuk.
The question is, what difference does the letter Yud and Vav make?
First of all, they are two letters from G-d's four-letter Ineffable Name,
the first and the third. The Yud corresponds to the sefirah called
Chochmah (Wisdom), whereas the Vav corresponds to the sefirah of Yesod,
which corresponds to our millennium, Lamed-Vav, (36). The other two
letters of the Name are the same, the letter Heh twice, one is for Binah,
and the other for Malchus.
In fact, though the Name is normally written from right to left, when it
represents the Sefiros, it is written from top to bottom. Then it
resembles, of all things, a tree, with the final Heh (for Malchus)
becoming the ground, the Vav acting as the trunk and the tree, and the
other Yud and Heh acting as the top of the tree. It is Amalek's goal to
sever the Yud from the Vav, so that wisdom cannot flow down to the world
below, so that suffek and discontentment can rule mankind.
In fact, Yesod itself is really just the Yud attached to the word Sod,
which means mystery, but which actually refers to Kabbalah. Thus, when
Moshe advised Yehoshua about the ongoing battle against Amalek, he spoke
b'aznei Yehoshua - in the ears of Yehoshua. However, the GR"A points out
that the gematria of b'aznei is, in fact, Sod, the only true way to defeat
Amalek.
The deeper the doubt, the greater the need to understand more deeply.
And when wine goes in, says the Talmud, a central part of the Purim Feast,
Sod goes out, and Amalek falls. Thus, the Talmud writes:
For, anyone who becomes settled through wine has the knowledge (da'as) of
his Creator . . . has the knowledge (da'as) of the Seventy Elders; wine
was given with seventy letters (Rashi: the gematria of yai'in -- wine --
is 70), and the mystery (of Torah) was given with seventy letters (sod --
mystery -- also equals 70). When wine goes in, secrets go out. (Eiruvin
65a)
Another word for yishuv hada'as (peace of mind), is sippuk. Albeit, not as
in getting drunk and losing consciousness, but as in rising to a higher
level of understanding, beyond the reach of the suffek of Amalek. Truth is
as pristine as Shemen Zayis Zach. However, Amalek severs the Yud from the
Ayin (70) that represents wisdom, and that keeps us childish, never
knowing more than we have to in order to be discontent about our position
in life.
This is why, in an age that promised the ultimate in a pressure-free life
from all our technological success, anxiety and panic disorder is at
epidemic levels more than ever before. We have the tools, but we lack the
wisdom. We're so smart, and yet we live with so much doubt about ever so
much. That is the direct result of Kesones Ohr with an Ayin, the Ayin of
Amalek and the clothing of the Snake, but not the clothing of the Kohen
Gadol.
This is the direct consequence of interacting with the Aitz HaDa'as Tov
v'Rah. It makes everything so murky, resulting in all our bad traits,
unlike the Shemen Zayis Zach. Living in the time period that corresponds
to Yesod, is more relevant for us to know this, perhaps, more than in any
other generation.
When we finally shed our snake skin, the Snake will no longer have to shed
his, and Moshiach Tzidkainu, will have already been here.
Zachor - Remember!
Have a great Shabbos, and Purim Samayach,
PW
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"Munich's" Misplaced Sympathy
"Munich's" Misplaced Sympathy
By Dr. Robert Friedmann
FrontPageMagazine.com March 8, 2006
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=21527
Even before its notable shut out at this year's Academy Awards,
Steven Spielberg's Munich lost the battle for Israeli public opinion.
Following a screening for former Mossad officials in Israel last
month, a consensus emerged that the movie--Spielberg's take on
Israel's response to Palestinian terrorists' murder of Israeli
athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games--had all but ignored the country
at the center of its story. "There is nothing about Israel in this
movie," the officials noted at a post-film panel.
And indeed, to anyone even slightly familiar with Israel's military
service and security forces, the movie had failed to portray
accurately Israeli protocol, uniforms, social interactions, customs,
and way of life more broadly. Israel operates one of the world's
most effective and efficient security services. Watching Munich,
however, one might conclude that Israeli agents are either amateurs,
bumbling fools, loose cannons, or some combination of the three.
Munich's many inaccuracies are not accidental. The film is based on
author George Jonas' controversial book Vengeance. Jonas defends it
as "solid research," as does Jonas' ex-wife Barbara Amiel,
who "cannot stress too highly the care and effort that went into
this book as well as George Jonas's lifelong commitment to the
values clearly expressed in Vengeance that are now all but reversed
in the film." But while the book may have been thoroughly
researched, the resulting work nonetheless indicates that, at best,
Jonas fell prey to a con man's story: Vengeance is today widely
regarded as a fabrication. Another warning sign: Munich's
screenwriter was none other than anti-Israel dramatist Tony Kushner.
(Fortunately, one does not have to rely on Munich to understand the
events it purports to explore. Another movie, The Sword of Gideon,
(1986) was also based on the book and it is far better without
having to rely on Spielberg's pyrotechnics. A new
documentary, "Bayonet," is to be released shortly and it should
provide a far greater element of credibility to what really
happened. Similarly, a recent documentary on the Discovery Channel,
Munich: The Real Assassins does a very good job because it relied on
authentic sources, not, like Spielberg, on fiction.)
The biggest weakness of the movie, however, lies in its endorsement
of two moral fallacies. The first moral fallacy is strongly embedded
in Western tradition. Namely, the movie presents a false equivalence
between victim and perpetrator. Spielberg and Kushner go out of
their way to show a sacred "balance" that gives an equal footing to
terrorists and those who fight them. Were they to carry on ad-
absurdum, they would have equated the allied forces in WWII with the
Nazis whom they fought. Or perhaps they would have suggested that a
police officer who kills a criminal who threatens the officer's life
(or that of a citizen) is no different from the criminal.
To blur the boundary between victim and victimizer, Munich distorts
what Israeli prime minister Golda Meir once said about killing: "We
can forgive the Arabs for killing our children but we cannot forgive
them for forcing our children to kill their children." In the movie,
however, the sentiment appeared as: "Israel, like every
civilization, may find it necessary to negotiate compromises with
its own values." What compromises in Jewish values? The famous
Jewish value that suggests killing the enemy who intends to kill
you? There are no heroes or villains anymore for Spielberg and
Kushner: everyone is equal. Thus do they accord unwarranted
legitimacy to terrorists and criminals.
The second moral fallacy is the biggest weakness of this movie.
While potentially appealing to some idealists (religious or
otherwise) and to anyone who abhors violence, the ending message is
that all violence is obscene and futile, clearly implying that the
violence of the defender is wrong. Moreover, violence begets
violence. Devoid of context, the film could have said that fighting
Nazis was futile and obscene and "might" beget more violence. The
idea that fighting terrorism is futile is a luxury that the
beautiful people in Hollywood and their media admirers can afford.
In an era when the terrorist threats against civilians exist on an
unprecedented scale, Spielberg might have explored the delicate
balances of the human soul. Unfortunately, what he achieved instead
was an untenable formula for the destruction of a democratic nation.
Yet, in a perverse way, Munich has performed an unintentional
service for Israel and the Jewish people. Purporting to
be "inspired" by real events, Spielberg ended up proving that some
of our very own cause us no less damage than our external enemy.
By Dr. Robert Friedmann
FrontPageMagazine.com March 8, 2006
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=21527
Even before its notable shut out at this year's Academy Awards,
Steven Spielberg's Munich lost the battle for Israeli public opinion.
Following a screening for former Mossad officials in Israel last
month, a consensus emerged that the movie--Spielberg's take on
Israel's response to Palestinian terrorists' murder of Israeli
athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games--had all but ignored the country
at the center of its story. "There is nothing about Israel in this
movie," the officials noted at a post-film panel.
And indeed, to anyone even slightly familiar with Israel's military
service and security forces, the movie had failed to portray
accurately Israeli protocol, uniforms, social interactions, customs,
and way of life more broadly. Israel operates one of the world's
most effective and efficient security services. Watching Munich,
however, one might conclude that Israeli agents are either amateurs,
bumbling fools, loose cannons, or some combination of the three.
Munich's many inaccuracies are not accidental. The film is based on
author George Jonas' controversial book Vengeance. Jonas defends it
as "solid research," as does Jonas' ex-wife Barbara Amiel,
who "cannot stress too highly the care and effort that went into
this book as well as George Jonas's lifelong commitment to the
values clearly expressed in Vengeance that are now all but reversed
in the film." But while the book may have been thoroughly
researched, the resulting work nonetheless indicates that, at best,
Jonas fell prey to a con man's story: Vengeance is today widely
regarded as a fabrication. Another warning sign: Munich's
screenwriter was none other than anti-Israel dramatist Tony Kushner.
(Fortunately, one does not have to rely on Munich to understand the
events it purports to explore. Another movie, The Sword of Gideon,
(1986) was also based on the book and it is far better without
having to rely on Spielberg's pyrotechnics. A new
documentary, "Bayonet," is to be released shortly and it should
provide a far greater element of credibility to what really
happened. Similarly, a recent documentary on the Discovery Channel,
Munich: The Real Assassins does a very good job because it relied on
authentic sources, not, like Spielberg, on fiction.)
The biggest weakness of the movie, however, lies in its endorsement
of two moral fallacies. The first moral fallacy is strongly embedded
in Western tradition. Namely, the movie presents a false equivalence
between victim and perpetrator. Spielberg and Kushner go out of
their way to show a sacred "balance" that gives an equal footing to
terrorists and those who fight them. Were they to carry on ad-
absurdum, they would have equated the allied forces in WWII with the
Nazis whom they fought. Or perhaps they would have suggested that a
police officer who kills a criminal who threatens the officer's life
(or that of a citizen) is no different from the criminal.
To blur the boundary between victim and victimizer, Munich distorts
what Israeli prime minister Golda Meir once said about killing: "We
can forgive the Arabs for killing our children but we cannot forgive
them for forcing our children to kill their children." In the movie,
however, the sentiment appeared as: "Israel, like every
civilization, may find it necessary to negotiate compromises with
its own values." What compromises in Jewish values? The famous
Jewish value that suggests killing the enemy who intends to kill
you? There are no heroes or villains anymore for Spielberg and
Kushner: everyone is equal. Thus do they accord unwarranted
legitimacy to terrorists and criminals.
The second moral fallacy is the biggest weakness of this movie.
While potentially appealing to some idealists (religious or
otherwise) and to anyone who abhors violence, the ending message is
that all violence is obscene and futile, clearly implying that the
violence of the defender is wrong. Moreover, violence begets
violence. Devoid of context, the film could have said that fighting
Nazis was futile and obscene and "might" beget more violence. The
idea that fighting terrorism is futile is a luxury that the
beautiful people in Hollywood and their media admirers can afford.
In an era when the terrorist threats against civilians exist on an
unprecedented scale, Spielberg might have explored the delicate
balances of the human soul. Unfortunately, what he achieved instead
was an untenable formula for the destruction of a democratic nation.
Yet, in a perverse way, Munich has performed an unintentional
service for Israel and the Jewish people. Purporting to
be "inspired" by real events, Spielberg ended up proving that some
of our very own cause us no less damage than our external enemy.
Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest
While tooling around the internet and having checked in on HEEB magazine, I ran across Amitai Sandy's website as apparently so many others have. Only this one is, well, different. It is dedicated to Anti-Semitic Cartoons drawn by Israelis and Jews all over the world, though I can't say for sure how this limitation is exactly enforced. Anyway, look at the cartoons as a slide show. They are (well, to my perverted sense of humor anyway) really excellent and a good old slap at the boobs who started riots over showing the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish Newspaper. And once the riots started, all of the European papers kicked into high gear and published them again, just to tickle their Wahabbist citizens into more rioting and killing...over a cartoon? How insecure ARE these people? Well, I'm starting to froth now, so just take a look and see just how basically secure Jews are in their own skins, for the most part.
http://boomka.org/blog/wp-content/plugins/falbum/wp/album.php?album=72057594067999377
Oscars for Osama
Oscars for Osama
By Charles KrauthammerThe Washington PostMarch 3, 2006
Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers.
Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.
But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
The "Syriana" script has, of course, the classic liberal tropes such as this stage direction: "The Deputy National Security Advisor, Marilyn Richards, 40's, sculpted hair, with the soul of a seventy year-old white, Republican male, is in charge" (Page 21). Or this piece of over-the-top, Gordon Gekko Republican-speak, placed in the mouth of a Texas oilman: "Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm... Corruption... is how we win" (Page 93).
But that's run-of-the-mill Hollywood. The true distinction of "Syriana's" script is the near-incomprehensible plot – a muddled mix of story lines about a corrupt Kazakh oil deal, a succession struggle in an oil-rich Arab kingdom, and a giant Texas oil company that pulls the strings at the CIA and, naturally, everywhere else – amid which, only two things are absolutely clear and coherent: the movie's one political hero and one pure soul.
The political hero is the Arab prince who wants to end corruption, inequality and oppression in his country. As he tells his tribal elders, he intends to modernize his country by bringing the rule of law, market efficiency, women's rights and democracy.
What do you think happens to him? He, his beautiful wife and beautiful children are murdered, incinerated, by a remote-controlled missile, fired from CIA headquarters in Langley, no less – at the very moment that (this passes for subtle cross-cutting film editing) his evil younger brother, the corrupt rival to the throne and puppet of the oil company, is being hailed at a suitably garish "oilman of the year" celebration populated by fat and ugly Americans.
What is grotesque about this moment of plot clarity is that the overwhelmingly obvious critique of actual U.S. policy in the real Middle East today concerns America's excess of Wilsonian idealism in trying to find and promote – against a tide of tyranny, intolerance and fanaticism – local leaders like the Good Prince. Who in the greater Middle East is closest to the modernizing, democratizing paragon of "Syriana"? Without a doubt, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, a man of exemplary – and quite nonfictional – personal integrity, physical courage and democratic temperament. Hundreds of brave American (and allied NATO) soldiers have died protecting him and the democratic system they established to allow him to govern. On the very night the Oscars will be honoring "Syriana," American soldiers will be fighting, some perhaps dying, in defense of precisely the kind of tolerant, modernizing Muslim leader that "Syriana" shows America slaughtering.
It gets worse. The most pernicious element in the movie is the character at the moral heart of the film: the beautiful, modest, caring, generous Pakistani who becomes a beautiful, modest, caring, generous... suicide bomber. In his final act, the Pure One, dressed in the purest white robes, takes his explosives-laden little motorboat headfirst into his target. It is a replay of the real-life boat that plunged into the USS Cole in 2000, killing 17 American sailors, except that in the "Syriana" version, the target is another symbol of American imperialism in the Persian Gulf: a newly opened liquefied natural gas terminal.
The explosion, which would have the force of a nuclear bomb, constitutes the moral high point of the movie, the moment of climactic cleansing, as the Pure One clad in white merges with the great white mass of the huge terminal wall, at which point the screen goes pure white. And reverently silent.
In my naivete, I used to think that Hollywood had achieved its nadir with Oliver Stone's "JFK," a film that taught a generation of Americans that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the FBI in collaboration with Lyndon Johnson. But at least it was for domestic consumption, an internal affair of only marginal interest to other countries. "Syriana," however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world.
Most liberalism is angst- and guilt-ridden, seeing moral equivalence everywhere. "Syriana" is of a different species entirely – a pathological variety that burns with the certainty of its malign anti-Americanism. Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film
By Charles KrauthammerThe Washington PostMarch 3, 2006
Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers.
Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.
But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
The "Syriana" script has, of course, the classic liberal tropes such as this stage direction: "The Deputy National Security Advisor, Marilyn Richards, 40's, sculpted hair, with the soul of a seventy year-old white, Republican male, is in charge" (Page 21). Or this piece of over-the-top, Gordon Gekko Republican-speak, placed in the mouth of a Texas oilman: "Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm... Corruption... is how we win" (Page 93).
But that's run-of-the-mill Hollywood. The true distinction of "Syriana's" script is the near-incomprehensible plot – a muddled mix of story lines about a corrupt Kazakh oil deal, a succession struggle in an oil-rich Arab kingdom, and a giant Texas oil company that pulls the strings at the CIA and, naturally, everywhere else – amid which, only two things are absolutely clear and coherent: the movie's one political hero and one pure soul.
The political hero is the Arab prince who wants to end corruption, inequality and oppression in his country. As he tells his tribal elders, he intends to modernize his country by bringing the rule of law, market efficiency, women's rights and democracy.
What do you think happens to him? He, his beautiful wife and beautiful children are murdered, incinerated, by a remote-controlled missile, fired from CIA headquarters in Langley, no less – at the very moment that (this passes for subtle cross-cutting film editing) his evil younger brother, the corrupt rival to the throne and puppet of the oil company, is being hailed at a suitably garish "oilman of the year" celebration populated by fat and ugly Americans.
What is grotesque about this moment of plot clarity is that the overwhelmingly obvious critique of actual U.S. policy in the real Middle East today concerns America's excess of Wilsonian idealism in trying to find and promote – against a tide of tyranny, intolerance and fanaticism – local leaders like the Good Prince. Who in the greater Middle East is closest to the modernizing, democratizing paragon of "Syriana"? Without a doubt, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, a man of exemplary – and quite nonfictional – personal integrity, physical courage and democratic temperament. Hundreds of brave American (and allied NATO) soldiers have died protecting him and the democratic system they established to allow him to govern. On the very night the Oscars will be honoring "Syriana," American soldiers will be fighting, some perhaps dying, in defense of precisely the kind of tolerant, modernizing Muslim leader that "Syriana" shows America slaughtering.
It gets worse. The most pernicious element in the movie is the character at the moral heart of the film: the beautiful, modest, caring, generous Pakistani who becomes a beautiful, modest, caring, generous... suicide bomber. In his final act, the Pure One, dressed in the purest white robes, takes his explosives-laden little motorboat headfirst into his target. It is a replay of the real-life boat that plunged into the USS Cole in 2000, killing 17 American sailors, except that in the "Syriana" version, the target is another symbol of American imperialism in the Persian Gulf: a newly opened liquefied natural gas terminal.
The explosion, which would have the force of a nuclear bomb, constitutes the moral high point of the movie, the moment of climactic cleansing, as the Pure One clad in white merges with the great white mass of the huge terminal wall, at which point the screen goes pure white. And reverently silent.
In my naivete, I used to think that Hollywood had achieved its nadir with Oliver Stone's "JFK," a film that taught a generation of Americans that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the FBI in collaboration with Lyndon Johnson. But at least it was for domestic consumption, an internal affair of only marginal interest to other countries. "Syriana," however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world.
Most liberalism is angst- and guilt-ridden, seeing moral equivalence everywhere. "Syriana" is of a different species entirely – a pathological variety that burns with the certainty of its malign anti-Americanism. Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film
Hamas Leader Khaled Mash'al: "There Will Be No Concessions"
Special Dispatch - Palestinian Authority
March 9, 2006
No. 1109
Hamas Leader Khaled Mash'al on Arab TV: "There Will Be No Concessions";
"...The Demand to Disarm and ...to Turn Hamas ...Into Political Parties is Unrealistic"
To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD110906 .
The following are excerpts from interviews with Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV and Al-Arabiya TV on March 6, 2006.
TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1064 .
Al-Jazeera TV
Khaled Mash'al: "The government is a means and not the end, and we insist on the option of resistance. If Israel is thinking of declaring an all-out war against the PA, claiming it has become a terrorist authority - this does not frighten us, because we will adhere to our principles and not to formalities.
[...]
"If they want an all-out war - we are ready. If they want peace - let them acknowledge the rights of the Palestinian people and get out of our land. There can be no peace or stability along with occupation and aggression.
"The Palestinian people are prepared. In the past, Hamas fought Israel with its military wing, but today - if Hamas finds itself facing this option - it will fight Israel with the Palestinian people in its entirety. This is our choice.
"When the international community sees that we are resolute in our position, it will respect this position. Therefore, Hamas is saying, with complete confidence - Allah willing, we will knock on [the doors of] all the world's capitals. We are confident that ultimately, the world - even if it does not support us - will at least know there are men in this region."
[...]
Al-Arabiya TV
Interviewer: "You've said that Hamas has adopted a realistic approach. What does this realism mean? In other words, what is the limit of the tactical concessions you might make?"
Khaled Mash'al: "There will be no concessions. Some people believe that realism means making concessions. It doesn't. Concessions were made in the past, with no results. On the contrary, making concessions is not realistic, because it means you are not acting in accordance with your people's needs, or with the requirements entailed by the reality of the Palestinian people.
"In addition, these concessions encourage Israel to act unrealistically, by trying to have both occupation and security. When Israel feels that it can maintain its security and its interests, while continuing the occupation, why shouldn't it have both? To be honest, making concessions is an unrealistic option."
[...]
"Realism means responding to the needs of the Palestinian people, learning the lessons of the past, and dealing with the facts as they are. I say that we are being realistic, because we believe that the source of the problem is the existence of the occupation. Any attempt to deal with the problem without removing the occupation is unrealistic. Realism means putting an end to the occupation. Realism means to talk about the liberation of the land and putting an end to its occupation, before you talk about a state.
"Those who talked about a Palestinian state that would hang from the sky, before we liberate the land and gain full sovereignty over it, were being unrealistic. Realism means insisting upon putting an end to the occupation, liberating the land, and gaining sovereignty, before talking about a state. This is realistic logic. Some consider this difficult. Yes, it is. But it is in line with the true history. On the other hand, surrendering may seem easy, but it leads nowhere."
[...]
"Hamas is realistic. It says to the international community: You talk about the 1967 borders - by all means, make Israel declare that it will withdraw from all the Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, that it will accept the right of the refugees and the displaced to return to their lands and property, that it will dismantle the settlements, destroy the separation wall, and release all the prisoners and detainees. Since you believe in it, pressure Israel to do this, and then demand that the Palestinians and the Arabs take serious steps. Then we will be ready to take a serious step that will lead us to true peace. That's realism."
[...]
"Our realism also leads us to conclude that the demand to disarm and the demand to turn Hamas and the rest of the resistance forces into political parties is an unrealistic demand, because it has nothing to do with the Palestinian reality."
*********************
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MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.
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Search previous MEMRI publications at www.memri.org
07 March 2006
Jewish Ethicist - 235 - Long Hours
|
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir, Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem
How many hours of work is too many?
Q. My hours of work at my law firm seem to be endless. How much work is too much, leaving too little time for spiritual pursuits?
A. The need for a fair and transparent work hour policy was evident already in the time of the sages of the mishnah, 2,000 years ago. The mishnah in tractate Bava Metzia states: "One who hires workers and told them to arrive early or stay late, if it is a place where it is not customary to arrive early or stay late, he cannot compel them." (1)
What then is a "standard" work day in a place where there is no custom to extend it? The Talmud tells us that it begins at daybreak, and continues until some time before nightfall, in order to allow the workers to arrive home before dark. (On Shabbat eve the worker needs time to make minimal Shabbat preparations before sundown, so he must leave earlier.) (2)
It's clear that this is quite a long workday nearly 12 hours on average. Certainly this is not customary today, though in some professions, including yours, 70 hour work weeks are not too unusual. On the other hand, it is a workday that is clearly delineated. While the worker is admonished to be prompt and hard working, his obligations are clearly defined, and the employer is not allowed to exceed them to compel the worker to work longer if custom or agreement doesn't stipulate this.
It is this aspect that is most often a problem today. Average work hours are much less than in the time of the mishnah, but probably more workers today find that their workday seems to be "endless," as you state, because they feel that they are on call even when the workday is done. Many workplaces don't provide any clear guidelines for fair working hours for professionals and managers; some have this problem for shift workers as well.
The Shulchan Arukh (authoritative Code of Jewish law) states: "After you leave the synagogue [following morning prayers], go to the house of study, and establish a time for learning. And this time must be fixed, not to be missed even if there is an opportunity to earn much". In the next chapter, it tells us that a person should then go to work, but must remember that work is of secondary importance to Torah. (3)
This is the same Shulchan Arukh which later on tells us the standard workday of the mishnah. (4) We see that making work of secondary importance to Torah doesn't require us to devote many hours to activities which are devoted solely to God's service, like prayer and Torah study. But it does require a commitment, having certain times that are sacrosanct and to which workday concerns cannot intrude.
Of course the main refuge we have from our work lives is the Shabbat. But even on weekdays, which are appropriately devoted to work and livelihood, we need certain times free from the burden of employment.
The ideal working situation is one that leaves ample time for other aspects of life: family life, helping others, prayer and study, social life, and constructive recreation. But everyone has to make a living, and it is a fact of life that some kinds of work require long hours on the job. In these cases, the most important thing is to ensure that the obligations of the worker are as clearly defined as possible. A workday with no clear end is exploitative to the worker, and often backfires as workers engage in unproductive competition to put in hours without productivity as well as "undertime" activities meant to camouflage leisure or errands as work.
We wrote in a previous column that keeping a worker later than necessary turns often into gratuitous "busy work", which Jewish law forbids as a kind of unseemly domination of the employee.
The ideal working situation is a job which in itself contributes to mankind, and also leaves adequate time for other dimensions of God's service, religious and otherwise. But even those whose livelihood requires a long work day can keep their personal commitments, as long as their work obligations are clearly defined and make their non-working hours truly their own.
SOURCES: (1) Mishnah Bava Metzia 7:1. (2) Babylonian Talmud Bava Metzia 83b. (3) Shulchan Arukh Orach Chaim 155 and 156. (4) Shulchan Arukh Choshen Mishpat 331:1
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The Jewish Ethicist presents some general principles of Jewish law. For specific questions and direct application, please consult a qualified Rabbi.
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Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir is Research Director at the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem. Rabbi Dr. Meir received his PhD in Economics from MIT, and previously at Harvard. He subsequently studied at various Israeli yeshivot, and received his ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. Prior to moving to Israel, he worked at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan administration. Rabbi Dr. Meir is also a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Jerusalem College of Technology and has published several articles on the subjects of modern business and economics and Jewish law.
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Thanks to the Financial Times' John Lloyd
Dear Mr. Lloyd:
Thank you for your comments in today’s column in the FT. Well done. You summed up the issues very well and put to the public what we Jews have always known: that we are, by virtue of our religion, held to a higher standard by ourselves and by others. That standard – a higher one – has resulted in Jews and Israel always being held to a double standard to which no other group of people or political entity (state/nation) in the history of mankind has been and continues to be subjected to. The result is the production of the likes of the President of Iran calling for the destruction of Israel and the Anglican Church calling for divestiture from companies that do business in Israel. As you ask, why is Israel, and only Israel, subject to hysterical criticism when its government takes measures to do what a State’s main function is – protect its citizens? This tiny little piece of land – nothing in terms of all the area of its Arab neighbours – is only subject to this level of scrutiny because it is a Jewish state. Plain and simple. I am thankful that you have given voice to this truism which I have not hitherto seen in print.
That Jewish state is a miracle in terms of growth, production, high-tech research and development, and manufacturing. Israelis have turned that patch of desert into an economic and military powerhouse, the latter more out of necessity than desire, I am afraid. It is, according to one source, the fourth most “wired” nation on the planet. As to any of the foregoing, what can be said in comparison about those nations that surround it or that would see it die? Israel is, by anyone’s measure, a first-world country in a sea of regressive, oppressive governments who cannot stand the sight of success. We are, I am afraid, our own worst enemies. Is there such a thing as being too good? We are all taught from a young age to succeed, but why, if it is Israel which succeeds economically and otherwise, do people gasp in horror? You know the answer: it’s because it was established by and for Jews so that we would always have a place to go in the event of the rise of another Hitler. It was established out of worry.
Israel’s existence posed no problems for organizations such as the Anglican Church so long as it was the “underdog”. When that façade ceased to be true (after 1967), those in power became nervous, and now, nearly 40 years hence, discussion about Israel has descended into shrieking hysteria from all corners, from the left to the right. It is scrutinized with a microscope by everyone to ensure that it stands by the higher standard we hold ourselves to. That higher standard might just be (and I truly hope not) the end of the political entity – people in positions of power cannot stand the notion of Jews with a State -- but will never be the death of am Yisroel (Hebrew for “the people Israel”), because that higher standard has allowed us to continue as a people for a very, very long time and we will never, as a people at least, die. Is Israel perfect? No. Nothing is. But it is the task of every Jew to try to make the world a better place (the concept of tikkun olam in the Hebrew) – and it is trying, in spite of itself at times and in spite of the actions and words of organizations such as the Anglican Church, to do so.
Once again, thank you for your insight. It is high time that someone in the mainstream press said what you have.
I. Randolph S. Shiner, Esq.
12820 Via Nieve
Suite 72
San Diego, CA
Voice: +1858.481.9900
Efax: +1858.630.3337
Mobile: +1858.663.1690
____________________________________
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Thank you for your comments in today’s column in the FT. Well done. You summed up the issues very well and put to the public what we Jews have always known: that we are, by virtue of our religion, held to a higher standard by ourselves and by others. That standard – a higher one – has resulted in Jews and Israel always being held to a double standard to which no other group of people or political entity (state/nation) in the history of mankind has been and continues to be subjected to. The result is the production of the likes of the President of Iran calling for the destruction of Israel and the Anglican Church calling for divestiture from companies that do business in Israel. As you ask, why is Israel, and only Israel, subject to hysterical criticism when its government takes measures to do what a State’s main function is – protect its citizens? This tiny little piece of land – nothing in terms of all the area of its Arab neighbours – is only subject to this level of scrutiny because it is a Jewish state. Plain and simple. I am thankful that you have given voice to this truism which I have not hitherto seen in print.
That Jewish state is a miracle in terms of growth, production, high-tech research and development, and manufacturing. Israelis have turned that patch of desert into an economic and military powerhouse, the latter more out of necessity than desire, I am afraid. It is, according to one source, the fourth most “wired” nation on the planet. As to any of the foregoing, what can be said in comparison about those nations that surround it or that would see it die? Israel is, by anyone’s measure, a first-world country in a sea of regressive, oppressive governments who cannot stand the sight of success. We are, I am afraid, our own worst enemies. Is there such a thing as being too good? We are all taught from a young age to succeed, but why, if it is Israel which succeeds economically and otherwise, do people gasp in horror? You know the answer: it’s because it was established by and for Jews so that we would always have a place to go in the event of the rise of another Hitler. It was established out of worry.
Israel’s existence posed no problems for organizations such as the Anglican Church so long as it was the “underdog”. When that façade ceased to be true (after 1967), those in power became nervous, and now, nearly 40 years hence, discussion about Israel has descended into shrieking hysteria from all corners, from the left to the right. It is scrutinized with a microscope by everyone to ensure that it stands by the higher standard we hold ourselves to. That higher standard might just be (and I truly hope not) the end of the political entity – people in positions of power cannot stand the notion of Jews with a State -- but will never be the death of am Yisroel (Hebrew for “the people Israel”), because that higher standard has allowed us to continue as a people for a very, very long time and we will never, as a people at least, die. Is Israel perfect? No. Nothing is. But it is the task of every Jew to try to make the world a better place (the concept of tikkun olam in the Hebrew) – and it is trying, in spite of itself at times and in spite of the actions and words of organizations such as the Anglican Church, to do so.
Once again, thank you for your insight. It is high time that someone in the mainstream press said what you have.
I. Randolph S. Shiner, Esq.
12820 Via Nieve
Suite 72
San Diego, CA
Voice: +1858.481.9900
Efax: +1858.630.3337
Mobile: +1858.663.1690
____________________________________
Please note: All email to and from this computer are scanned by updated AVG Antivirus Software.
Further note that this transmission may contain information which may be privileged under, among other things, the attorney work product or attorney-client privilege. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, please delete it immediately and cause it to be erased from all hard drives and/or servers upon which it may be located and notify the sender of its deletion and erasure.
If you are a client and wish to have your email encrypted, please notify us to make those arrangements
05 March 2006
The I-word goes public
http://www.salon.com
One can only imagine the shrieking that would be going on if the Democrats had the Presidency and the Commander in Chief had admitted to so many offenses. He would be swinging from a cherry tree along the Potomac by now. RS
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The I-word goes public
By Michelle Goldberg
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/03/impeachment/index.html
- - - - - - - - - - - - Sun Mar 5 16:03:27 2006
One can only imagine the shrieking that would be going on if the Democrats had the Presidency and the Commander in Chief had admitted to so many offenses. He would be swinging from a cherry tree along the Potomac by now. RS
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The I-word goes public
By Michelle Goldberg
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/03/impeachment/index.html
- - - - - - - - - - - - Sun Mar 5 16:03:27 2006
Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France - New York Times
There is a more dread disease going around France other than the Bird Flu. Now it appears that it's open season on Jews by the same "social delinquents" that were rioting because they weren't accepted part of French society. With this, who needs them?
RS
Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France - New York Times: "Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France
By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: March 5, 2006
BAGNEUX, France, March 3 — Two strips of red-and-white police tape bar the entrance to the low-ceilinged pump room where a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, spent the last weeks of his life, tormented and tortured by his captors and eventually splashed with acid in an attempt to erase any traces of their DNA.
Ilan Halimi was remembered by 350 people at a gathering in Toulouse, France, center, on Feb. 24. He died of injuries he suffered in Bagneux.
Police tape barring access to a basement room in a building in a housing project in Bagneux, France, where Ilan Halimi, 23, was held and tortured.
The floor of the concrete room, in the cellar of 4, rue Serge-Prokofiev, is bare except for a few packets of rat poison, a slowly drying wet mark and a dozen small circles drawn and numbered in white chalk, presumably marking the spots where the police retrieved evidence of Mr. Halimi's ordeal.
Mr. Halimi, 23, died Feb. 13, shortly after he was found near a train station 15 miles away by passers-by, after crawling out of the wooded area where he was dumped. He was naked and bleeding from at least four stab wounds to his throat, his hands bound and adhesive tape covering his mouth and eyes. According to the initial autopsy report, burns, apparently from the acid, covered 60 percent of his body.
"I knew they had someone down there," said a young French-Arab man, loitering in the doorway of a building adjacent to the one where Mr. Halimi was held. He claimed to live upstairs from the makeshift dungeon but would not give his name or say whether he knew then that the man was a Jew. "I didn't know they were torturing him," he said. "Otherwise, I would have called the police."
But it is clear that plenty of people did know, both that Mr. Halimi was being tortured and that he was Jewish. The police, according to lawyers with access to the investigation files, think at least 20 people participated in his abduction and the subsequent, amateurish negotiations for ransom. His captors told his family that if they did not have the money, they should "go and get it from your synagogue," and later contacted a rabbi, telling him, "We have a Jew."
The horrifying death has stunned France, which has Europe's largest Muslim and largest Jewish populations. Last weekend, tens of thousands of people marched against racism and anti-Semitism in Paris, joined by the interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, and smaller marches took place in several other French cities, including Marseille.
In the wake of the riots that broke out in the immigrant-heavy Paris suburbs last fall, the case seems to embody the social problems of immigration, race and class that France has been facing with so much uncertainty. The emerging details raise deep fears of virulent anti-Semitism within the hardening underclass, and point to the decaying social fabric in which that underclass lives.
Those that the police say kidnapped and killed Mr. Halimi called themselves the Barbarians, and included people of different backgrounds: the children of blacks from sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, of Arabs from North Africa, of at least one Persian from Iran, and of whites from Portugal and France.
The gang's leader was a tall, charismatic young man named Youssouf Fofana, 25, one of five children born in Paris to at least nominally Muslim immigrants from Ivory Coast. When he was a teenager, the family moved to the bleak neighborhood of 12-story concrete apartment blocks where Mr. Halimi was held.
Trouble started early. He studied plumbing at a local vocational school but by the age of 16 had already begun a series of run-ins with the police, eventually racking up 13 arrests for everything from theft to fencing stolen goods. In 1999, at the age of 19, he stole a car, beating the Portuguese owner who tried to intervene. He was arrested and sentenced to his only jail term, serving two years in prisons in Nanterre and Fleury-Mérogis, neither far from Paris.
He returned to his mother's apartment and used his prison credentials to assume the role of senior tough among younger, idle men and women, people in the neighborhood say. Lawyers familiar with the case suggest that this is when the seeds of the Barbarians were sown.
By 2004, the police say, he tried extortion, aiming at prominent French Jews. When that failed, the gang apparently turned to kidnapping, using young women as bait.
The Barbarians are thought to have been behind six attempted abductions, four of Jewish men, before succeeding with Mr. Halimi.
In a case in early January, a woman tried repeatedly to get a Jewish music producer to meet her on the outskirts of Paris, finally managing instead to persuade his father to come to a suburban parking lot, on the pretext that she had music CD's that belonged to his son. Several men met the father instead, beating him senseless when he resisted their attempt to force him into their car.
Mike Akiba worked with Mr. Halimi at Voltaire Phone in Paris, one of a dozen tiny Jewish-owned cellular telephone shops along Boulevard Voltaire in the 11th Arrondissement. He said Mr. Halimi was alone in the store when a 17-year-old French-Iranian girl came in and flirted with him. Mr. Akiba said she might have thought Mr. Halimi, a handsome man with piercing brown eyes, was the owner.
Mr. Halimi told Mr. Akiba about her the next day and said he had agreed to meet her that Friday night near Porte d'Orleans, a neighborhood on Paris's southern edge. Mr. Akiba last saw him about 10:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 20, as he drove from Boulevard Voltaire in his Champagne-colored Renault Twingo.
Mr. Halimi apparently met the woman as planned, then drove her to Sceaux, a suburb near Bagneux, where his captors must have grabbed him. His car was later found abandoned in a parking lot there.
Mr. Akiba said the investigating police officers discovered the gang had tried the same tactic on several men in the other phone shops.
Mr. Halimi was taken to the Pierre-Plate housing project in Bagneux, and initially held in an empty third-floor apartment at 1, rue Serge-Prokofiev, with the help of the building's superintendent, according to the lawyers who have seen the investigative files. The gang covered his eyes and mouth with tape, leaving only a hole for a straw.
The Halimi family's first contact with the kidnappers was the night of Saturday, Jan. 21, when a gang member called Mr. Halimi's girlfriend and instructed her to log on to a Hotmail e-mail account. That began a series of agonizingly disjointed communications from Mr. Halimi's abductors that included hundreds of phone calls and e-mail messages, and ransom demands that started at $500,000 and dropped to $5,000, said the family's lawyer, Francis Szpiner.
After a few days, the gang moved their captive to the concrete basement room beneath a section of the building a few doors down. They shaved his head and sliced his cheek with a knife, photographed him with blood running down his face, and e-mailed the picture to his family.
As the days wore on, his captors turned increasingly cruel, stripping off his clothes and beating, scratching and cutting him. A burning cigarette was pressed into his forehead.
The family was instructed to send a ransom to Ivory Coast, via Western Union, and Mr. Fofana traveled to that country at least once in early February. According to reports after his eventual arrest, it was after the ransom failed to arrive that the torture of Mr. Halimi began in earnest.
The police did not yet know the identities of the gang members but were close on their heels. Around Feb. 10, Mr. Fofana briefly visited an Internet cafe on the Rue de la Fidélité in the 10th Arrondissement, wearing a cap and a scarf that covered his mouth and nose. "I don't even think he took his gloves off," the manager said Friday. Just 15 minutes later, he said, police officers arrived looking for a black man, a computer-generated sketch in hand. They lifted fingerprints from the keyboard Mr. Fofana had used and confiscated the computer's hard drive and the 5-euro note he had paid with.
On the evening of Feb. 13, Mr. Halimi was found. It is not yet clear when he was stabbed or whether his captors thought he was dead when they dumped him among the trees behind the Ste.-Geneviève-des-Bois train station south of Paris.
Two days later, with the case beginning to make shocking headlines, Mr. Fofana flew back to Ivory Coast and was soon moving freely about town with a girlfriend, identified by the French media as Mariam Cissé. Meanwhile, the police had begun circulating sketches of two women who had served the gang as bait, drawn from the recollections of the men who had been approached.
One was the 17-year-old French-Iranian believed to have lured Mr. Halimi to his death. The sketch of a second woman proved particularly accurate, and when it was shown on television, many people recognized her as Audrey Lorleach, 24, lawyers involved in the case say.
Fearing she would be caught, Ms. Lorleach turned herself in and led the police to her boyfriend, Jérôme Tony Ribeiro, a young man of Portuguese descent. He gave the police Mr. Fofana's name.
When Mr. Fofana saw his name and image in the French media the next day, he was enraged and called Mr. Halimi's father and girlfriend and various of his accomplices in France from Abidjan, threatening them all — and confirming his whereabouts to the police. He was arrested on Feb. 22. [Mr. Fofana was returned to France on Saturday after being handed over to French custody by Ivorian authorities, Agence France-Presse reported.]
So far, a total of 19 people, ages 17 to 39, have been arrested in connection with Mr. Halimi's abduction and death, including the French-Iranian woman, whose first name is Yalda.
The police found Islamist literature and documents supporting a Palestinian aid group in the home of at least one of the people arrested, but lawyers involved in the case dismiss Islamic extremism as a motivation, noting that many of the people involved were not Muslim. The Halimis' lawyer, Mr. Szpiner, denied French news reports that the gang had called Mr. Halimi's family and recited the Koran.
Mr. Fofana has admitted his involvement. In an interview videotaped by a local journalist at the police station in Abidjan and broadcast on French television, a smiling, relaxed Mr. Fofana denied that he killed Mr. Halimi and dismissed the anti-Semitic aspect of the abduction.
"It was done for financial ends," he said on the tape.
Standing in the doorway in Bagneux near where Mr. Halimi was held, the young French-Arab man smiled when asked about Mr. Fofana. "He was nice, everybody liked him," he said. "If the police bring him back here, the guys in the neighborhood will liberate him."
RS
Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France - New York Times: "Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France
By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: March 5, 2006
BAGNEUX, France, March 3 — Two strips of red-and-white police tape bar the entrance to the low-ceilinged pump room where a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, spent the last weeks of his life, tormented and tortured by his captors and eventually splashed with acid in an attempt to erase any traces of their DNA.
Ilan Halimi was remembered by 350 people at a gathering in Toulouse, France, center, on Feb. 24. He died of injuries he suffered in Bagneux.
Police tape barring access to a basement room in a building in a housing project in Bagneux, France, where Ilan Halimi, 23, was held and tortured.
The floor of the concrete room, in the cellar of 4, rue Serge-Prokofiev, is bare except for a few packets of rat poison, a slowly drying wet mark and a dozen small circles drawn and numbered in white chalk, presumably marking the spots where the police retrieved evidence of Mr. Halimi's ordeal.
Mr. Halimi, 23, died Feb. 13, shortly after he was found near a train station 15 miles away by passers-by, after crawling out of the wooded area where he was dumped. He was naked and bleeding from at least four stab wounds to his throat, his hands bound and adhesive tape covering his mouth and eyes. According to the initial autopsy report, burns, apparently from the acid, covered 60 percent of his body.
"I knew they had someone down there," said a young French-Arab man, loitering in the doorway of a building adjacent to the one where Mr. Halimi was held. He claimed to live upstairs from the makeshift dungeon but would not give his name or say whether he knew then that the man was a Jew. "I didn't know they were torturing him," he said. "Otherwise, I would have called the police."
But it is clear that plenty of people did know, both that Mr. Halimi was being tortured and that he was Jewish. The police, according to lawyers with access to the investigation files, think at least 20 people participated in his abduction and the subsequent, amateurish negotiations for ransom. His captors told his family that if they did not have the money, they should "go and get it from your synagogue," and later contacted a rabbi, telling him, "We have a Jew."
The horrifying death has stunned France, which has Europe's largest Muslim and largest Jewish populations. Last weekend, tens of thousands of people marched against racism and anti-Semitism in Paris, joined by the interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, and smaller marches took place in several other French cities, including Marseille.
In the wake of the riots that broke out in the immigrant-heavy Paris suburbs last fall, the case seems to embody the social problems of immigration, race and class that France has been facing with so much uncertainty. The emerging details raise deep fears of virulent anti-Semitism within the hardening underclass, and point to the decaying social fabric in which that underclass lives.
Those that the police say kidnapped and killed Mr. Halimi called themselves the Barbarians, and included people of different backgrounds: the children of blacks from sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, of Arabs from North Africa, of at least one Persian from Iran, and of whites from Portugal and France.
The gang's leader was a tall, charismatic young man named Youssouf Fofana, 25, one of five children born in Paris to at least nominally Muslim immigrants from Ivory Coast. When he was a teenager, the family moved to the bleak neighborhood of 12-story concrete apartment blocks where Mr. Halimi was held.
Trouble started early. He studied plumbing at a local vocational school but by the age of 16 had already begun a series of run-ins with the police, eventually racking up 13 arrests for everything from theft to fencing stolen goods. In 1999, at the age of 19, he stole a car, beating the Portuguese owner who tried to intervene. He was arrested and sentenced to his only jail term, serving two years in prisons in Nanterre and Fleury-Mérogis, neither far from Paris.
He returned to his mother's apartment and used his prison credentials to assume the role of senior tough among younger, idle men and women, people in the neighborhood say. Lawyers familiar with the case suggest that this is when the seeds of the Barbarians were sown.
By 2004, the police say, he tried extortion, aiming at prominent French Jews. When that failed, the gang apparently turned to kidnapping, using young women as bait.
The Barbarians are thought to have been behind six attempted abductions, four of Jewish men, before succeeding with Mr. Halimi.
In a case in early January, a woman tried repeatedly to get a Jewish music producer to meet her on the outskirts of Paris, finally managing instead to persuade his father to come to a suburban parking lot, on the pretext that she had music CD's that belonged to his son. Several men met the father instead, beating him senseless when he resisted their attempt to force him into their car.
Mike Akiba worked with Mr. Halimi at Voltaire Phone in Paris, one of a dozen tiny Jewish-owned cellular telephone shops along Boulevard Voltaire in the 11th Arrondissement. He said Mr. Halimi was alone in the store when a 17-year-old French-Iranian girl came in and flirted with him. Mr. Akiba said she might have thought Mr. Halimi, a handsome man with piercing brown eyes, was the owner.
Mr. Halimi told Mr. Akiba about her the next day and said he had agreed to meet her that Friday night near Porte d'Orleans, a neighborhood on Paris's southern edge. Mr. Akiba last saw him about 10:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 20, as he drove from Boulevard Voltaire in his Champagne-colored Renault Twingo.
Mr. Halimi apparently met the woman as planned, then drove her to Sceaux, a suburb near Bagneux, where his captors must have grabbed him. His car was later found abandoned in a parking lot there.
Mr. Akiba said the investigating police officers discovered the gang had tried the same tactic on several men in the other phone shops.
Mr. Halimi was taken to the Pierre-Plate housing project in Bagneux, and initially held in an empty third-floor apartment at 1, rue Serge-Prokofiev, with the help of the building's superintendent, according to the lawyers who have seen the investigative files. The gang covered his eyes and mouth with tape, leaving only a hole for a straw.
The Halimi family's first contact with the kidnappers was the night of Saturday, Jan. 21, when a gang member called Mr. Halimi's girlfriend and instructed her to log on to a Hotmail e-mail account. That began a series of agonizingly disjointed communications from Mr. Halimi's abductors that included hundreds of phone calls and e-mail messages, and ransom demands that started at $500,000 and dropped to $5,000, said the family's lawyer, Francis Szpiner.
After a few days, the gang moved their captive to the concrete basement room beneath a section of the building a few doors down. They shaved his head and sliced his cheek with a knife, photographed him with blood running down his face, and e-mailed the picture to his family.
As the days wore on, his captors turned increasingly cruel, stripping off his clothes and beating, scratching and cutting him. A burning cigarette was pressed into his forehead.
The family was instructed to send a ransom to Ivory Coast, via Western Union, and Mr. Fofana traveled to that country at least once in early February. According to reports after his eventual arrest, it was after the ransom failed to arrive that the torture of Mr. Halimi began in earnest.
The police did not yet know the identities of the gang members but were close on their heels. Around Feb. 10, Mr. Fofana briefly visited an Internet cafe on the Rue de la Fidélité in the 10th Arrondissement, wearing a cap and a scarf that covered his mouth and nose. "I don't even think he took his gloves off," the manager said Friday. Just 15 minutes later, he said, police officers arrived looking for a black man, a computer-generated sketch in hand. They lifted fingerprints from the keyboard Mr. Fofana had used and confiscated the computer's hard drive and the 5-euro note he had paid with.
On the evening of Feb. 13, Mr. Halimi was found. It is not yet clear when he was stabbed or whether his captors thought he was dead when they dumped him among the trees behind the Ste.-Geneviève-des-Bois train station south of Paris.
Two days later, with the case beginning to make shocking headlines, Mr. Fofana flew back to Ivory Coast and was soon moving freely about town with a girlfriend, identified by the French media as Mariam Cissé. Meanwhile, the police had begun circulating sketches of two women who had served the gang as bait, drawn from the recollections of the men who had been approached.
One was the 17-year-old French-Iranian believed to have lured Mr. Halimi to his death. The sketch of a second woman proved particularly accurate, and when it was shown on television, many people recognized her as Audrey Lorleach, 24, lawyers involved in the case say.
Fearing she would be caught, Ms. Lorleach turned herself in and led the police to her boyfriend, Jérôme Tony Ribeiro, a young man of Portuguese descent. He gave the police Mr. Fofana's name.
When Mr. Fofana saw his name and image in the French media the next day, he was enraged and called Mr. Halimi's father and girlfriend and various of his accomplices in France from Abidjan, threatening them all — and confirming his whereabouts to the police. He was arrested on Feb. 22. [Mr. Fofana was returned to France on Saturday after being handed over to French custody by Ivorian authorities, Agence France-Presse reported.]
So far, a total of 19 people, ages 17 to 39, have been arrested in connection with Mr. Halimi's abduction and death, including the French-Iranian woman, whose first name is Yalda.
The police found Islamist literature and documents supporting a Palestinian aid group in the home of at least one of the people arrested, but lawyers involved in the case dismiss Islamic extremism as a motivation, noting that many of the people involved were not Muslim. The Halimis' lawyer, Mr. Szpiner, denied French news reports that the gang had called Mr. Halimi's family and recited the Koran.
Mr. Fofana has admitted his involvement. In an interview videotaped by a local journalist at the police station in Abidjan and broadcast on French television, a smiling, relaxed Mr. Fofana denied that he killed Mr. Halimi and dismissed the anti-Semitic aspect of the abduction.
"It was done for financial ends," he said on the tape.
Standing in the doorway in Bagneux near where Mr. Halimi was held, the young French-Arab man smiled when asked about Mr. Fofana. "He was nice, everybody liked him," he said. "If the police bring him back here, the guys in the neighborhood will liberate him."
04 March 2006
Remember Why It's All Worth It
Dear Dr. Blogberg,
Aside from getting a compliment from the endodontist, the fact that I went 45 years without a root canal job does NOT have much to recommend it. Some would say it's due to non-existent flossing over the years. Others might say I just deserve it anyway, and yet others would just be nice and wish me a speedy recovery. Who knows? But at least I now know what to say to somebody that tells me they've had a root canal -- "sorry to hear it...I hope you get better soon. Can I bring you anything?".
Meanwhile, life does go on, but without much input from me, I'm afraid. Thank goodness for Laurie Buhrow - what a help!
Who knows, one day a book will arise from all of this meshugas. Just that I've been down lately -teeth hurting so much that I finally broke down and went to the dentist. Who laid the bad news on me - if it were her, she'd have the root canal done because it was coming any way - and facing more physical things than I care to handle, what with this root canal, the shoulders both having some tendonitis in the rotator cuffs and labrum being torn in my right (whatever that is...it f*&king hurts!), Crohn's, and PV.
If I'd take better care of myself, this stuff wouldn't be half as bad as it is - that's the shit part of this - I haven't been taking care of myself. Maybe I've just felt too down, but it's time to quit making excuses and start acting like I care about my body again, despite all the bullshit.
True, all of what I have is more than I bargained for. As the Yiddishists said "man plans and God LAUGHS!!". God is rolling on the floor laughing over ME! This must be some cosmic joke. He's getting even for all those times I played hookey from Sunday school at Temple Sholom and hit Mort's Deli with the Tzedekah money. Or the Treasure Island on Broadway. Whatever!
Well, this IS my bargain. I have to make it, if not for myself, then for Mitchell. Thank GOD for HIM. He is a miracle in the body of a 14 year old. He is just a terrific kid, who, at this point is thank GOD a wonderment. Surely I didn't bargain for him either, but how lucky am I?! So I will count my blessings - they are many. Thanks for listening, Dr. Blogberg.
Shavua Tov...see you next week.
SiteAdvisor blog: The Web's Download Disasters, Inaugural Edition
Site Advisor is a startup funded by MIT -- they've gone through 1 million websites that offer downloads (for us download junkies) to see what's safe. And the answer is that, well, not many. And they can download a little item on your browser to let you know what's safe and what's not. And by the way, if you don't have a spy-sweeper of some kind, I'd strongly advise you to get one. I use Webroot's program -- I've found it to be the best one, though it's not free. However, it will save you from having to call your tech to come fix your computer, so to me, that's money in the bank. You decide, but do decide.
RS
SiteAdvisor blog: The Web's Download Disasters, Inaugural Edition
RS
SiteAdvisor blog: The Web's Download Disasters, Inaugural Edition
01 March 2006
You come to a fork in the road, and you see these signs. You've heard there were concentration camps in France. This way to the evidence. Definition of the word "horror". The evidence of the results of what happens when words are put into action in the "right" time and the "right" place.
Imagine a little Austrian Corporal - taking the fears of a nation - fear of poverty, of "non-Aryans" and translating them into the industrialization of death of an entire race of "untermenschen" and other undesirables. We saw the gas chamber and imagined the screams that writers like Elie Weisel have written about still lurking, ghostlike in the still standing building, still begging. We looked at a building like no other we had ever seen - one used exclusively for the killing of humans. Touching the bricks and the metal grates over the windows was...indescribable. 
Imagine a little Austrian Corporal - taking the fears of a nation - fear of poverty, of "non-Aryans" and translating them into the industrialization of death of an entire race of "untermenschen" and other undesirables. We saw the gas chamber and imagined the screams that writers like Elie Weisel have written about still lurking, ghostlike in the still standing building, still begging. We looked at a building like no other we had ever seen - one used exclusively for the killing of humans. Touching the bricks and the metal grates over the windows was...indescribable. 
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