This is a bit old, courtesy of Canada:

It’s a bit like a bad Troma joke but with better production.

Muffti hopes the clarification of details mentioned in the article clarifies the details. It wouldn’t be crazy to think, he guesses, that suspecting a freeze lots of construction started in anticipation. Think what you like of the freeze, but it’s not good to impose it and then ignore it. From Jpost

The number of housing starts in the settlements rose in the fourth quarter of 2009, precisely when the government-ordered freeze on such activity should have pushed the numbers down.

Work was begun on 593 Jewish West Bank homes from October through December, a 73.3-percent jump over the first three months of 2009, when ground was broken on 342 homes, according to numbers released this week by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The increase is even more dramatic – 84.7% – when the fourth quarter of last year is compared with the second, when work was commenced on 321 homes.

The tide, however, turned sharply in the third quarter, when work was started on 447 homes.

The numbers continued to rise in the fourth quarter, even though Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the cabinet imposed a 10-month moratorium on new settlement construction that took effect on November 29, which should have prevented any housing starts in December, and thus kept the fourth quarter tally down.

It was impossible from the CBS data to know how many new homes were begun in December. As of press time, the CBS had not responded to a Jerusalem Post query to clarify the matter.

These initial numbers represent the first official data on the impact of the freeze. It only covers one month of the freeze. The impact will be more apparent in May, when the CBS plans to release data on the first quarter of 2010.

Overall, according to CBS statistics, new settlement construction in the year 2009 fell within the overall pattern of past years.

The 1,703 housing starts in the settlements in 2009 marked a 19% drop from 2,107 in 2008. But that number was still higher than the 1,471 starts in 2007 and the 1,518 in 2006.

Out of the 1,703 housing starts last year, only 33.6%, 573, were public construction, and 1,130 were private. It was a drop from 2008, when 37.8% of the new construction was public.

Since the moratorium was put in place, inspectors from the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria have gone to all the settlements to monitor and ensure compliance. In some places they were initially met with stiff resistance by settlers who tried to block their entry by closing the community gates or by rallying in the middle of the road.

Last month, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i said 29 settlements were in violation of the freeze.

The civil administration and the IDF have handed demolition notices in cases of illegal construction and have threatened to demolish such work sites.

But to date, they have destroyed construction at only three sites where work was ongoing in violation of the freeze.

According to the terms of the moratorium, work was halted on all homes that lacked a foundation. But work was allowed to continue on 3,000 homes that did have foundations in place.

According to the CBS, the number of homes completed in the settlements also rose in 2009, to 2,077 homes, a 29.7% hike from the 1,601 West Bank Jewish homes that were finished in 2008. In 2007, 1,747 homes were finished and in 2006, 2,167 homes were completed.

A UC Davis student, living in a Jewish residence, was disturbed to find a swastika carved into her door. Muffti hopes they find the perp and treat it like a hate crime. Source the Sac Bee
Yesterday the LGBT centre was defaced as well (see: here. Muffti hates homophobes and anti-semites but he hates cowardly ones even more. He was happy to read that student response was swift and supportive.

Authorities are investigating vandalism at a University of California Davis dorm room occupied by a Jewish student.

The student this week found a two-inch swastika carved into her dorm room door. The freshman student, who asked not to be identified, told television station KXTV that she was scared and confused.

In letter sent Friday to students and faculty, UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi says the university will not ignore deliberate acts that demean and threaten others.

Campus authorities are searching for the vandal.

Muffti has been a way for a while, and he sees that the landscape has changed in his absence: writers are throwing around words like ‘reificatory’ akwardly and the Middle is back to posting (ugh) Idan Raichel videos. But anyhow, he saw this in the news and thought it worth posting. It’s long; but Muffti thought the most interesting quote was this:

Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis…That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I.”

Mosab Hassan Yousef’s God these days is the Christian one, as he converted years back. The story is extremely interesting as Muffti is sure his book will be. Here’s the rest from the Times Online.

The son of one of Hamas’s founding members was a spy in the service of Israel for more than a decade, helping prevent dozens of Islamist suicide bombers from finding their targets, it emerged today.

Codenamed the Green Prince by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, supplied key intelligence on an almost daily basis from 1996 onwards and tracked down suicide bombers and their handlers from his father’s organization, the daily Haaretz said.

Information he supplied led to the arrests of some of the most wanted men by Israeli forces, including Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader often tipped as a potential president who was convicted of masterminding terrorist attacks, and one of Hamas’ top bomb-makers Abdullah Barghouti, who is no relation of the jailed Fatah chief.
(more…)

It’s a steep number but would it ever be great to get him back, after three years. From Cnn.

Israel could release 980 Palestinian prisoners in a possible deal to win the freedom of an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas for three years, prosecutors disclosed Sunday.
The number from Israel’s State Prosecutor’s Office is the first official estimate of how many Palestinians could be freed in exchange for Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was captured in a 2006 Hamas raid near the Israel-Gaza border.
Prosecutors disclosed the number in response to demands, made by the families of Israelis killed by Palestinians, that the government disclose the terms of a potential deal with Hamas.
In papers filed with Israel’s high court, the prosecutor’s office said the government is considering an initial release of 450 prisoners in the first phase of a deal, with another 530 prisoners slated to be freed in a second phase. No prisoner names were released with the numbers.
Relatives of Israelis slain by Palestinians have petitioned the court to force the government to release more information about the details of a possible exchange. Many of them have been vocal opponents of plans to release prisoners they believe may commit acts of violence again.
Israel and Hamas have been negotiating Shalit’s release through third-party mediators from Egypt and Germany, but talks have started and stalled numerous times. Shalit’s freedom has become a condition for the Israelis to consider ending a blockade that has economically wounded the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
Speculation about a possible deal emerged last week after Israeli President Shimon Peres met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, and hinted that the talks could be at a critical juncture. But Israel’s government is obligated to publicly announce the list of any prisoners to be released and allow 48 hours for objections before a deal can take place.
Shalit was 19 when he was captured on June 25, 2006, by Palestinian militants from Gaza, including those from Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the territory. Israel immediately launched a military incursion into Gaza to rescue Shalit, but failed.
In October, Hamas gave Israel a minute-long “proof of life” tape of the captured soldier in return for the release of 20 female prisoners. The video showed Shalit sitting in a chair, reading a newspaper dated September 14, 2009, and saying he was in good health.

Muffti is glad they got him. What a strange story. The man was granted the right to carry a handgun despite suspicion of murder. He confessed to murders in 2000 but the shin-bet claimed it wasn’t him that did the shooting. He managed to smuggle in a hand gun by plane.

Muffti believed in the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but dude did claim in court that ‘it was my pleasure and honor to serve God…I have no regrets’. Here is the story from Jpost.

The state on Thursday filed a 25-page indictment against US-born, alleged Jewish terrorist Ya’acov Teitel, which included two counts of premeditated murder and three counts of attempted murder and involved 14 separate incidents between 1997 and 2008.

The indictment was filed and will be heard in Jerusalem District Court.

Teitel’s lawyer, Adi Keidar, told the court he needed one month to study the evidence before his client would be ready to answer the charges.

The state’s representative, Saguy Ophir, told the court the indictment was based on Teitel’s confession and on forensic evidence based on a DNA sample that was found at the scene of one of the crimes.

As he walked into the courtroom, Teitel more or less confessed that he was guilty of the acts for which he was charged.

“It was my pleasure and honor to serve my God,” he declared. “God is proud of what I have done. I have no regrets.”
(more…)

The use and abuse of the swastika for political purposes is no new thing: the left used it to characterize Bush, the right has used it at tea parties to characterize Obama (or at least his proposed policies). Comparisons to Hitler? The left did it, the right did it and probably once in a while the centre got caught up with an unfortunate analogy or two.

But, The clear abuse of photos of dead bodies from Dachau? Ugh. .

And one more offensive poster to boot:

Muffti really doesn’t know why people on the left or the right tolerate this kind of thing at rallies when it aids to their delegitimization – it’s awfully easy to ignore thousands of peoples’ legitimate concerns when you see an anti-semitic sign or someone comparing the attempt to cover more americans with concentration camp murder.

Fail.

Yet more evidence that CNN is rather behind the curve…when you basically open up with a paragraph like this, one has to wonder if you are a real news organization or, more like, um, Jewlicious. Let’s see what light investigative reporting has shed:

A blogger writes about how one of Judaism’s holiest days ended, for her, in a strip club, while elsewhere a guy strolls into a tattoo parlor requesting a Star of David. Two women exchange wedding vows in a Jewish ceremony, and hipsters toss back bottles of HE’BREW, The Chosen Beer. A full-time software developer prepares to lead a group in Jewish prayer, as a PhD candidate in Jewish thought pens a letter criticizing Israel’s policies.

I’m shocked and amazed. If you want to find out about a magazine called ‘Heeb‘ that sometimes puts provocative pictures and messages on their cover, go check out CNN on New Jews.

And here Muffti is giving it the attention it doesn’t deserve. But he really likes the line about the ‘moral obligations of a celebrity’. Does anyone of our readers know which passage of the talmud concerns those? From CNN.

Jon Gosselin’s actions haven’t been too kosher lately.
But now, given relationship dramas and bad press, the father in “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ is looking to a higher authority.
In a statement released to CNN, Gosselin said he is receiving “regular study sessions and counseling” with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, well known as a spiritual adviser to Michael Jackson.

Boteach, the author of the book “The Michael Jackson Tapes” and host of TLC’s “Shalom in the Home” series, has linked up with the beleaguered “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ for an upcoming seminar titled “Fame: Blessing or Curse?” to be held at a synagogue in New York City.
Gosselin said in his statement that he is “troubled to learn that the media has accepted as true the scurrilous rumor that I would appear in a reality television program with Nadya Suleman” and goes on to say that such reports are “utterly false.”

“I do however accept that some of my previous actions have in some way lent credence to such outrageous stories,” Gosselin said. “I am well aware that my behavior over the past few months has not always reflected my personal and religious values. I further accept that I have allowed myself to become somewhat severed from my own moral anchor and be carried away by the challenges of fame.”

For that reason, the father of possibly the most famous set of twins and sextuplets said he has sought the spiritual guidance of Boteach, who is himself no stranger to the camera.

Boteach bills himself as “one of the world’s leading relationship experts and spiritual authorities.”

According to his author bio in “The Michael Jackson Tapes,” Newsweek referred to him as “the most famous rabbi in America.” Among his achievements: a National Fatherhood Award.

Gosselin could certainly use the help.

Since his high profile breakup with his wife in August, the reality star has been slammed for reports of his involvement with other women and extravagant spending sprees.

Earlier this month TLC announced he would be cut from the show and that plans were under way for a “Kate Plus 8″ series. That show was put on hold after Jon refused to allow his children to be filmed. The network has since filed suit against him for breach of contract.
He and his estranged wife also headed to court after she accused him of looting their joint account of more than $200,000. A Pennsylvania judged ordered him to return $180,000.

Most recently, Gosselin’s girlfriend, Hailey Glassman, accused him of being “emotionally abusive” and throwing “mantrums” because of his frustrations.

Gosselin said in the statement that he regrets having “betrayed the moral principles that have always guided me” and said he is committed to making things right with Kate and his children.

He turned to Boteach, he said, because the rabbi has counseled others in similar circumstances. Gosselin said Boteach has made clear to him the “moral obligations inherent in celebrity.”

“It is my sincere desire to use the fame I have so unexpectedly acquired to highlight mature, responsible behavior as well as the joys of fatherhood and family,” he said. “I ask the public to please understand the challenges I face in living under constant public scrutiny, even as I am aware that I have at times courted that scrutiny.”

OK, well, he re-affirmed the myth that Jews are money grubbing thieves who would rip-off even their own people and institutions. But, he did apparently party like it was 1999. A lot. His office was described recently as the ‘north pole’ on account of cocaine use in a recent lawsuit. When he realized the end was nigh, he bought cars and bling like a gangsta. From CNN:

NEW YORK (CNN) — A new lawsuit alleges that convicted swindler Bernie Madoff financed a cocaine-fueled work environment and a “culture of sexual deviance,” and he diverted money to his London, England, office when he believed federal authorities were closing in at home.

A new lawsuit alleges Bernie Madoff financed a sex-and-drugs workplace with investors’ money.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York’s State Supreme Court, was brought on behalf of former investors and seeks unspecified punitive damages and compensation.

Beyond that, it offers a look at what the plaintiffs’ attorneys say was once Madoff’s multimillion-dollar empire and what is now his world in a federal prison in North Carolina.

Among the allegations in the 264-page lawsuit are that during the mid-1970s, Madoff began sending employees to buy drugs for company use.

The complaint alleges that some employees and investors were aware of the drug purchases, and that BMIS [Bernard Madoff Investment Services] was known by insiders as the “North Pole” in reference to the excessive amount of cocaine use in the work place.

Attorneys Joseph Cochett and Nancy Fineman filed the complaint based on an investigation, including a four-hour interview with Madoff in prison in July, that they conducted for former investors. They also allege that major financial institutions, including KPMG, the Bank of New York and JP Morgan Chase, were aware that Madoff was transferring stolen funds to his London office for personal purchases.

According to the complaint, Madoff transferred funds to London to buy extravagant personal items.

“In 2006 Madoff thought the end was near because the [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] investigated. He realized he had to change things up so his focus shifted to London,” Fineman said. “We know that KPMG were the auditors for the London branch and that money was used to buy yachts and Bentleys, they are supposed to look at related-party transactions. KPMG should have noticed these as a red flag.”

Officials of KPMG and the Bank of New York did not immediately respond to calls from CNN Wednesday evening for comment on the lawsuit.

JP Morgan Chase spokesman Tom Kelly said, “We do not comment on pending litigation.”

The alleged illicit behavior outlined in the complaint did not stop at drug use and extravagant spending. Company parties consisted of topless entertainers, and some employees had affairs in places such as Madoff’s own office, the lawsuit says.

Madoff was fond of escorts and masseuses, and used money stolen from investors to pay them, according to the complaint.

Madoff was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme and defrauding thousands of investors. He pleaded guilty in March to 11 counts, including fraud, money laundering and perjury, and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Prosecutors have said it was the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person, totaling billions in losses to investors.

Before Madoff, 71, was transferred to Federal Butner Correctional Complex outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, he lived a life of luxury. The lawsuit states that he had multimillion dollar residences in Manhattan, Montauk on New York’s Long Island; Palm Beach, Florida; and Cap d’Antibe, France.

The complaint includes details of Madoff’s drastically different life now in prison. He lives in a cell where he sleeps on the bottom bunk while up top sleeps his 21-year-old cellmate, who is serving time for drug crimes, according to the lawsuit. Madoff’s recreational activities consist of walking around the prison track at night, and eating pizza cooked by a convicted child molester, the lawsuit says.

Madoff now spends his time with infamous inmates, the lawsuit says, including Carmine Persico, a former organized-crime former boss, and Jonathan Pollard, a convicted spy for Israel. Many of his fellow inmates are in prison for drug and sex crimes, according to the lawsuit.

Going after large financial institutions that allegedly allowed Madoff’s scheme to flourish is the goal of Fineman and her associates.

“Our goal of meeting with Madoff during the investigation is to get as much money back from responsible parties and that’s why lawsuits are filed and why lawyers do what they do,” Fineman said. “Even now, 10 months later, the pain in the victims’ voices is still evident. I still hear it when I talk to people who were being defrauded for so long.”

According to the complaint, Fineman and Cochett are seeking punitive and compensatory damages for their clients with “an amount to be determined at trial, including interest thereon.”

Fineman said that during the prison interview with Madoff, “He said he was apologetic, but he didn’t seem apologetic.”

“I forgot I was in prison, he was talking to us as if we were in a restaurant — he has quite an ego, you could see why people would be drawn to him,” Fineman said.

“He told us things that were self-serving to him,” she said. “But he told me he knew he would die in prison.

who fights with molotov cocktails and refuses to obey the rule of law? As one IDF officer said “[They] have forgotten what it means to live in a state of law…They think everything is permissible.” From Jpost:

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) is investigating a Molotov cocktail attack on a military jeep, which occurred Sunday during a violent clash between settlers and security forces at the unauthorized Gilad Farm outpost in the West Bank.

Although the incident received wide media attention on Sunday, the Shin Bet waited until Tuesday night before it announced that during the fray, settlers had thrown a firebomb at an army jeep.

Sources in the IDF’s Central Command said that the Molotov cocktail attack was the first time in recent years that settlers used such extreme means against soldiers.

The firebomb is said to have landed close to the jeep, without causing damage, and a fire erupted but was quickly extinguished.

“These settlers have forgotten what it means to live in a state of law,” said an IDF officer. “They think everything is permissible.”

The sources said that the firebomb was considered a major escalation and was an example of the fierce resistance security forces would likely face when trying to evacuate 23 illegal outposts erected after March 2001.

Located outside of the Kedumim settlement, Gilad Farm is among those outposts slated for removal.

IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has said he would prefer that the Border Police carry out the physical evacuation when it occurs in the coming months.

Itai Zar, whose family owns and created the outpost and was present during Sunday’s clashes, disputed the Shin Bet’s claim. He said that he had not witnessed any Molotov cocktail attack and that no one from his outpost, which is home to 20 families and a small yeshiva, had thrown a firebomb.

The incident started Sunday when a civil administration representative saw settlers moving a caravan from one end of the outpost to another.

The settlers reportedly ignored his request that the caravan be returned to its original spot.

Security forces, including border policemen and soldiers, were immediately dispatched to the scene.

Central Command sources said that dozens of settlers and far-right activists accosted the civil administration official as well as security forces.

A border policeman was lightly hurt in the ensuing scuffle, and treated at Kfar Saba’s Meir Hospital.

Settlers also punctured the tire of a security vehicle, they said.

Settlers, in turn, charged that they had been physically assaulted by security personnel, but no casualties were reported.

EV has a new one out, this time describing some rather nasty elements at an Israel Rally. It’s in the Forward:

It’s not a bad scam – the direct victims don’t complain and the indirect victims don’t know. But the risks are high – get caught and you really look bad. An LA Jewish cemetery, the 3rd largest (Groucho Marx lies there), is alleged in a recent lawsuit to have desecrated graves for profit. From CNN:

One of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the Los Angeles, California, area has been accused of desecrating the remains of those buried there, according to a lawsuit.

The cemetery holds the remains of celebrities such as Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce.

The suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that employees at Eden Memorial Park, in Mission Hills, California, “intentionally, willfully and secretly desecrated the remains of deceased individuals,” often moving them to make room for new remains.

Attorney Michael Avenatti, who filed the suit, told CNN that his investigation revealed that as many as 500 graves may have been torn up without the families’ permission.

“We allege that Eden Memorial Park and its management for the better part of 15 years were engaging in improper burial practices, including the desecration of graves and the improper disposal of human remains,” he said.

The lawsuit is filed by F. Charles Sands, whose parents are buried at Eden Memorial Park, against the cemetery and its owner, Service Corporation International, based in Houston, Texas. The company is the largest owner of cemeteries and funeral homes in the United States.

This is not the first time Service Corporation International has faced allegations of digging up graves and moving bodies to make room for new remains. It reached a $100 million settlement with families of people whose remains were desecrated at Menorah Gardens in Florida. The company also reached a $14 million settlement with the Florida state attorney’s office over issues related to those claims.

A number of celebrities are buried at Eden Park, including comedians Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce, according to several Web sites that track burials of celebrities.

Anthony Lampe, the general manager of Eden Memorial Park, said he had not seen the lawsuit and referred inquiries to Service Corporation International. Company spokeswoman Lisa Marshall said the allegations in the lawsuit were not valid. She said SCI had investigated and confirmed burial issues at Eden Memorial Park in 2007, but she could not provide specifics of that investigation.

The lawsuit alleges groundskeepers were secretly instructed to break buried concrete interment vaults that contained caskets that were already buried, using backhoes. It also alleges human remains would often fall out of the broken caskets, and those body parts were either scattered or thrown away.

In one case, Avenatti said, a human skull was discarded.

“We have uncovered evidence that the groundskeepers and others at Eden Memorial Park have been instructed to break off or break apart that concrete vault and, at many times, that exposes human remains,” Avenatti said.

Asked about the seriousness of the allegations, he said, “If the allegations are proven true, this is incredibly horrific.”

The lawsuit said that under Jewish tradition, “the deceased are typically required to be interred within 24 hours, thereby leaving little time to obtain consent to move an encroaching vault in an adjacent plot and giving defendants a motive to desecrate human remains and commit other immoral acts rather than comply with the law.”

The forward ran an interesting story about a potential orthodox agenda to JEC – the organization that takes care of post-birthright trip follow-ups and Alumni for New York. In particular, the story contains reports that JEC participants, in some cases, felt nudged in a firm direction towards orthodoxy. Muffti thinks the story is not conclusive – it seems that the complaints are a bit scattered and that this may be the work of some rabbis rather than policy. Nonetheless, the ties, both financial and in terms of where JEC rabbis were trained, between Ohr Somayach (a clear orthodox institution) and the JEC is one worthy of close attention, and was first noted, but friend of Jewlicious David Kelsey. From The Forward.

Many of the young people who pass through the Jewish Enrichment Center in Lower Manhattan view it with great affection. It is often the first time they have come in contact with a Judaism that is engaging and accessible. The rabbis responsible for the center’s educational and religious programs are charismatic and approachable people who, participants say, have had a large impact on their lives.

As the official New York follow-up organization for Taglit-Birthright Israel — which sends young people on free trips to Israel and lately is trying to keep them Jewishly engaged when they return — there could hardly be a better model.

But there are also those Birthright alumni who have been turned off by the JEC, sensing that it has a hidden, religious agenda that clashes with Birthright’s declared nondenominational and pluralistic stance. Their suspicions have now been substantiated with the revelation that the JEC’s rabbis were trained at Ohr Somayach, a Jerusalem-based ultra-Orthodox yeshiva with international branches and a publicly declared goal of turning secular and nonobservant Jews into ba’alei teshuvah. The JEC, it has emerged, was launched as an outreach arm of the yeshiva.
(more…)

Working for a blog does come with perks! Muffti just got this email:

Dearest Dear.
My name is Jennifer,i saw your profile today in www.jewlicious.com and became intrested in you,i will also like to know you the more,and i want you to send an email to my email address so i can give you my picture for you to know whom i am. Here is my email address(jennifer2006mendy@yahoo.com)
I believe we can move from here! I am waiting for your mail to my email address above.
Jennifer.

Sure, her photo included has a name that turns up on scam sites, and Muffti doesn’t think she is jewish. He thinks he may have to put some money into wire transfer to keep up the relationship as well, but luckily he has been saving for a rainy day. Wish him mazel tov!

…even if it’s not particularly Jewlicious. One can have a reasonable fight over the healthcare plan proposed in the US (or one of the many proposed…) but this may be the greatest case of refusal to engage Muffti has ever seen, care of Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma:

I don’t have to read it, or know what’s in it. I’m going to oppose it anyways

Muffti is charitably assuming this was taken out of context. But it’s still funny.

Avigdor Lieberman goes all the way to crazy and then added a few kilometers some with this beauty:

It’s a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews…This is reminiscent of Sweden’s stand during World War II, when [it] had failed to intervene as well.

One might find Swedish neutrality over the organ stealing article offensive and with that they had not sold iron to the Nazis while staying neutral during the war. Still, the Swedes, Muffti might remind you, accepted and protected nearly all of the Danish jews and many Norwegian Jews during that same war (not including the famous individual heroism of Swede Raoul Wallenberg).

But we love him all the same. Here’s the new work from EV, in Gawker. In this one, some chimps represent people doing stuff that he thinks satires something relevant. You can figure out the rest yourself.

Huckabee, noting that the right to a homeland doesn’t entail a right to the homeLAND that you want, suggested that maybe the palestineans would do better to have a homeland, ummmn, somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just not where they are. Thanks Huckster. That’s really helpful and Muffti can see you are already preparing your own demise in 2012…from Jpost:

Palestinians have a right to a homeland, but not within the boundaries of Israel, former governor of Arkansas and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee suggested at a meeting with reporters in Jerusalem on Tuesday morning.

Huckabee advocated for a one-state solution, thereby challenging the policies of both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.

Huckabee, who many consider the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, is here on a four-day visit sponsored by Ateret Cohanim, the organization spearheading efforts to buy property for Jewish homes in east Jerusalem.

In an exchange with The Jerusalem Post, he said that while both Israelis and Palestinians have a right to a self-governed homeland, it would be impossible for the countries to live side-by-side.

“The point is that if you try to layer two governments on top of each other, there is going to be nothing but conflict,” Huckabee said when asked if the Palestinians had a right to a homeland within territories currently controlled by Israel. “I don’t know how that would work. That comes back to the question of how you designate two owners of the same car.”

“Historically, the international community has already said Israel has a right to be here, that this is going to be their homeland,” Huckabee said.

The same international community that granted Palestine to Jews ought to decide where Palestinians should establish their homeland, he said.

“The question is, should the Palestinians have a place to call their own?” he asked. “Yes, I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That’s what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic.”

However, Huckabee backed away from a suggestion he made in 2007 that the Palestinian state could be formed in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

“It wasn’t so much of a plan, I think, as it was a speculation,” he said. “I was speculating. My question was, why does it [the Palestinian state] have to be here?”

It was unreasonable for the world to expect Israel give up any of its land for a Palestinian state, he said.

“They [the Jews] have been given a tiny minuscule strip of land to upon which to call home,” he said. “To ask them to further give increasing amounts acreage away for what is hoped to be a peaceful arrangement – it has not resulted in creating any level of peace.”

Huckabee’s one-state solution is politically to the right of the prime minister, who recently came out in favor of a two-state solution as long as the Palestinian state is demilitarized and does not pose a threat, and as long as Jerusalem remains Israel’s undivided capital.

“In my vision of peace, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect,” Netanyahu in an address delivered at Bar-Ilan University in June. “Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, and its own government.”

“And how is that two-state solution working out for them?” Huckabee asked reporters on Tuesday morning.

Red herring, of course, being the fallacy of throwing in unrelated information to defend a claim. Recently, in defending his country’s banking secrecy policies, Prince Hans-Adam II of Lichtenstein claimed that secret banking had helped save Jews during WWII. The claim is not only irrelevant in this context, to Muffti’s mind, but particularly stinging since the main complaint about the secrecy policies comes from the Germans. Even German Jews aren’t especially impressed with the picture of Lichtenstein allowing secrecy for their banking customers as a venture to protect the (very wealthy) oppressed from tyranny…from Jpost. It’s a fun read, especially given how bombastic the Prince’s claims are.

The latest flare-up of fractious relations between the tiny Alpine principality and its much larger neighbor to the north follows outspoken comments this weekend from Prince Hans-Adam II on Liechtenstein’s national holiday.

The prince took aim at Germany, which has been pressuring Liechtenstein to clamp down on confidential banking practices that allow German depositors to evade taxes.

“We and Switzerland saved many people, especially Jews, with banking secrecy,” Hans-Adam told the Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. “Germany should clean up its own act, and think about its past.”

Germany’s Jewish community, which last year condemned Hans-Adam II’s description of modern Germany as a “Fourth Reich,” slammed his latest comments Monday as another insensitive twisting of history.

“He is portraying a picture of the banks which is absolutely not true,” said Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the German Central Council of Jews.

Kramer told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the prince was falsely describing the role of Swiss and Liechtensteinian banks as pursuing “a rescue mission” of Jews in World War II.

He said the prince should not cite the struggle of Jews to escape the Holocaust as “a defense shield against people targeting the banks and their practices today, hiding not only clean money but dirty money.”

But Hans-Adam noted how some Jews were able to buy their safety during the Holocaust by using money they had deposited in Switzerland or Liechtenstein.

The prince said banking secrecy also had helped people persecuted by communist governments. He said it could be a lifesaver today for people who must shelter their savings from “Third World countries run by bloodthirsty dictators.”

Hans-Adam said other nations’ high tax rates – not Liechtenstein’s money havens – were responsible for tax evasion.

“Germany and many other countries have an unbelievable mess with their state finances. These must first be put in order,” he said.

Kramer said Hans-Adam’s views were outrageous and insulting to Holocaust victims.

“This was not some search-and-rescue mission by the Liechtenstein banks or the Liechtenstein state or the Swiss state to help those poor Jews being persecuted,” he said. “This was their money in their bank accounts that they then took out to get rescued from the Nazis.”

The Liechtenstein royal family’s press office declined Monday to respond to the criticism.

The 64-year-old prince has waged many legal battles in Germany to recover artwork he says was stolen from his family by the Nazis during World War II. More recently, Liechtenstein has feuded with Berlin over German citizens’ use of Liechtensteinian banks to evade taxes.

Last year, German authorities paid a former employee of Liechtenstein’s LGT bank for the names of about 1,400 alleged tax cheats on its customer rolls. The bank, which is wholly owned by the prince and his family, responded with fury, but the operation did push Liechtenstein toward reforming its banking rules.

Hans-Adam rejected the idea that his country prospers from tax evasion. He said the principality’s banks offer “high-quality performance.”

“There are clients who deposit money here completely legally, because they value our good service,” he said.

Still, Hans-Adam warned that Liechtenstein’s banks could suffer over the next two or three years as “the market crash is hitting far more negatively than the whole tax debate.”

The following film has been making the rounds of the internet — it is apparently the film ‘within the film’ of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’. It’s designed to look like war-era propaganda but was produced by Eli Roth.

Muffti thinks this bodes very well for Tarantino’s new film. Hope you watch it with a sense of humour…

Felix Brinkmann survived the holocaust, apparently literally talking his way out of the gas chamber 5 times in Auschwitz. He was apparently murdered in New York, found face down, hands tied with the results of blunt force applied to his 90 year old body. Muffti hopes they find the perps and in short order. From CNN.

The New York City disco sphere of the 1970s was a blinding world spinning unto itself, running on celebrities, celebrity worshipers, cocaine, polyester, slick operators and music with memorable beats and forgettable lyrics.

Everyone had a story, some not worth telling, but few were as compelling as Guido Felix Brinkmann’s.

Mr. Brinkmann, known as Felix, managed Adam’s Apple, a disco on First Avenue on the Upper East Side, and while others would boast of their money, sexual prowess and dancing skills, he could speak of having avoided death four times at Auschwitz, according to a close friend.

“Felix is one tough man who lived a life that people could only imagine going through,” said Richard Dietl, known as Bo, a private investigator, former police detective and a semicelebrity himself, who said he had been friends with Mr. Brinkmann since 1971.

On Thursday, Mr. Brinkmann, 89, was found dead in his apartment at 435 East 65th Street by his building superintendent just before 6 p.m. Someone had called the superintendent because Mr. Brinkmann had not shown up at his job in the Bronx.

Investigators said he was lying face-down on his bed, his hands tied behind his back with a sheet. He appeared to have been struck on the back of the head, they said. The cause of death was compression of the neck, a condition similar to asphyxiation, Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office, said after an autopsy on Friday.

Mr. Brinkmann’s apartment had been ransacked, and officials said robbery was the most likely motive.

A law enforcement official said a man and a woman visited Mr. Brinkmann at 11:15 p.m. Wednesday. Investigators believe that the couple, whom they have not identified, left through the garage after stealing Mr. Brinkmann’s car.

Mr. Brinkmann’s car, a 2009 Honda Civic with a license plate that read FELIX B, was found early Friday afternoon at East 136th Street and Willis Avenue in the Bronx by police officers on patrol. Investigators began searching it for evidence.

No arrests had been made as of Friday evening, the police said.

Mr. Dietl said Mr. Brinkmann drove the car to work every day in the Bronx, where he worked in a managerial capacity.

“Even though he was 30 years older than me, he had a very young mind and he was very active for his age,” Mr. Dietl said, adding that Mr. Brinkmann was like a “brother-father” to him. “He was very active. He loved ladies.”

Mr. Brinkmann was born in 1920; Mr. Dietl said he was born in Latvia.

In the late 1930s, Mr. Dietl said, Mr. Brinkmann and his family were moved to a ghetto because Mr. Brinkmann’s mother was Jewish. Later he was moved to several concentration camps, ending at Auschwitz. It was there, he told Mr. Dietl, that he had been in the line for the gas chambers on four separate occasions, but managed to avoid death each time.

He also met his wife, Mona, in Auschwitz, Mr. Dietl said. She died in recent years, he said, and added that their son, a doctor in Portland, Ore., was flying to New York on Friday.

After Adam’s Apple closed in the early 1990s, Mr. Brinkmann started his job in the Bronx. He had a licensed gun, and on April 20 he was arrested after being accused of menacing someone in the building where he worked, a police official said. The Bronx district attorney’s office said the case was not prosecuted because the accuser was not cooperative.

At the 15-story brick building on the Upper East Side where Mr. Brinkmann lived, most of the residents who were interviewed entering and leaving on Friday said they did not know him. Those who did said they were surprised and saddened by the news.

Mr. Dietl said that Mr. Brinkmann was not reluctant to talk about the past, and that he recounted stories of his time in the ghetto and the concentration camps.

“He used to tell me all these stories, fill my mind up with all these stories,” he said. “He was a man who had no hatred.”

Muffti is in beautiful Budapest and stopped by Apuchka to have a drink with ROI alum Bruno Bitter of Judapest, who is the new father of a gorgeous baby boy (Benjamin Arion). He couldn’t stay long but he met some of Bruno’s family and friends and he’s happy to say that he hasn’t seen a happier man than Bruno in a long time. Mazel tov to Bruno and Brigitta (also an ROI alum!)!

Sorry for the shortness of post but Muffti has to run to the University. Hope y’all are having a great summer.

If he did, however, he’d thank him/her/it for the beauty of Yosemite as seen here from the top of the famous half dome (which Muffti hiked w/Sari K — soon to be chair of jewish studies at a CUNY campus).

He’d then ask the holy one blessed be he to heal his sore, sore legs. Amen.

The pendulum in Europe is swinging to the right and it ain’t pretty. Most recently, Nick Griffin of the British Nationalist Party was elected to the European Parliament representing North West England. This is no joke: the man is no flash in the pan but has been a dedicated leader of the British far right for years. (He was recently pelted with eggs at a speech by british protestors).

You may try to write this off as a one-off event reflecting British frustrations. Though the political body is different, brits were recently told that their MPs had been behaving badly with their expense accounts, for example (from suite 101):

Labour Hazel Blears claimed expenses for three different houses in a single year including mortgage, furniture, TVs and bed linens. Not contented with three different addresses, she also claimed for stays at some of the most fashionable hotels in London. Miss Blears sold her second home to another politician making a profit of £45,000 without paying Capital Gains tax, having conveniently reassingned her primary address. Miss Blears, it is worth pointing out, is Communities Secretary and, as such, she is in charge of Housing Policy.

Yikes! Not cool, Hazel. But, as the new republic points out:

What is particularly grim, however, is that this is not solely a British phenomenon: The far right has made gains across Europe, including in longstanding EU member states. In Italy, the anti-immigrant Northern League and post-fascist National Alliance are part of the political establishment, serving in Berlusconi’s government. In Austria, the political spirit of Jorg Haider lives on as two extreme-right, anti-immigrant parties took an unprecedented 17.7 percent of the vote. In the Netherlands, the anti-Muslim immigrant far-right party of Geert Wilders came in second place, again with 17 percent of the vote, while in Denmark the far-right Danish People’s Party won two seats in the European Parliament.

But the most worrying developments are in the “new” Europe, where the heady days of rapid growth enjoyed in the post-Communist era have been brought to an abrupt halt. With national economies in a tailspin, ultranationalists and neo-fascists have tapped into the hardship felt by many voters, turning their ire on immigrants, Gypsies and other “outsiders.” In Slovakia, only 19.4 per cent of people turned out to vote–allowing ultra-nationalists parties, complete with their chilling anti-Roma rhetoric, to triumph. In Hungary, the Jobbik party, with its anti-Roma propaganda and Hungarian Guard paramilitary wing, won three seats for the first time.

A trend to notice is the increasing sophistication of at least the BNP. They have made a concerted effort to ditch anti-semitism and move onto cashing in on fear and hatred of Islam. In other words, Nick went from saying things like this:

I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter-day witch-hysteria…

to this:

It stands to reason that adopting an ‘Islamophobic’ position that appeals to large numbers of ordinary people – including un-nudged journalists – is going to produce on average much better media coverage than siding with Iran and banging on about ‘Jewish power’, which is guaranteed to raise hackles of virtually every single journalist in the western world.

.

(The first quote is from Griffin’s 1998 trial. The second is from an article last year, both from the Guardian)

The BNP even put out a Jewish candidate, Patricia Robertson. According to the editor of the BNP newspaper, ‘Freedom’:

There has been a growing dialogue between senior members of the Jewish community and the BNP and today there are an increasing number of Jews campaigning for the BNP and feeling very comfortable with their political choice.

Muffti imagines that ‘increasing numbers’ may be easy to achieve given how low the numbers presumably were to begin with. Muffti assumes that few Jews feel comfortable with a party whose leader was a holocaust denier and whose prominent members members are holocaust deniers. In other words, the far-right is becoming more sophisticated in their message and ditching the ‘we hate every body’ that made them easy targets for the more nuanced position of ‘we hate those guys and, hey so do you!’. Muffti only hopes we won’t all be duped: radical islam is a terrible and frightening force and European politicians have been slow and lazy to deal with it. But empowered far right political parties that can take advantage of what promise to be very tough economic times for Europe have a history is not a very savory alternative.