Peace Exists in the Middle East

Obama and the State Department are just ignorant, there is no other suitable word for it, polite or otherwise. They have not taken the time to go and visit what they negatively call "Settlements" and what I proudly call "Settlements". Same place, same set of facts, different perspective because they have not been to see it work.

A place where Jews, Arabs, Russians, Ethiopians, every religion, nationality, age and creed live, work, innovate and get along this is anyone¹s definition of Peace in the Middle East. Ownership of land and borders can come later, but talk about reality on the ground, and where it is happening.

This type of peace exists now in the Middle East it exists in lots of places within Israel, and it has always existed in areas that are labeled as "Settlements". From the very first settlement, before the creation of the state of Israel, Jews have always reached out to their Arab neighbors and successfully integrated them into their lives and celebrations. They have done and continue to do this out of innate hospitality, but also for selfish reasons; there are 22 Arab countries, each of them enormous both in geographical size and population, it was never Israel¹s intent to take them over or conquer them, but to live together with them in Peace.

How stupid do you need to be to believe Israel wants to conquer the whole of the Middle East for a Jewish Homeland? First of all there are not enough Jews in the whole world to populate it, and second of all, it is just a ridiculous premise.

The facts show that Israel shares it knowledge and natural resources with the world as well as its Arab neighbors, despite the political conflicts and war, and it is much greater giving than getting on Israel¹s part.

If you want Peace, get the Arabs to model some of what is going on in the settlements, on Arab lands, and then it won¹t matter who has sovereignty over it. Ariel is the newest University in Israel. It has 11,000 students, 500 are Arabs the number would be higher, but the Arabs are afraid their own families and friends will kill them if they are found to be studying at an Israeli institution. Ariel University is in the heart of the largest Settlement, it is a Settlement to be proud of, both the city and the University. Every University classroom has an Israeli Flag. Every student, including the Arab students must take a course in Jewish Heritage each semester.

There are no problems, all the student¹s cross the green line to come and study each day. This "Settlement" should be expanded, not stopped on threat of destruction. It is a MODEL OF PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Just because the Arab PR machine coined the phrase "Settlements are an obstacle to Peace in the Middle East" does not make it true, it is just a case of tell a lie often enough and loud enough and people will believe it. Even the President and State Department of the U.S.A.

I am not asserting that there has never been a crazy person in a settlement, but I am yelling from the rooftops that there are thousands of individual stories of cooperation and living and caring together in the settlements than there are negative incidents. It is always, and I will state this again, it is ALWAYS the attacks by Arabs on the settlements, which create the negative press for the settlements, when these settlements are the victims in the attacks.

We have the model in Gaza of what happens when Settlements are disbanded. Even the Arabs, who lived and thrived there, did not pick up and continue a lucrative industry that would have made them and their children proud, instead, they destroyed it and so now remain poor and beholden to their extremists. They then compound this by assisting in the distribution of arms and ammunition to destroy the very Jewish people who were helping them feed and clothe their children before they forced them to leave.

I want to call on all Settlers to make yourselves known. Write about who you are and what you do and let the world see that you are kind, and creative; professionals, blue collar workers, what you do with your lives and your families. I know you help with sick, orphaned and troubled teens, I know you have interests as far reaching as classical music to obscure bohemian pottery and rock music, but let the world know, connect to people with the same hobbies, interests and dreams, and let them know you are proud to be Settlers and why you are proud you took a piece of land that the Arabs never believed would be anything but desert and you make it bloom and flourish each and every day.

Share your stories of Peace in the Middle East today, let everyone know about the Arabs that live and work among you happily and who given the choice would never chose to be a citizen of a Palestinian State, because there is no Peace in Arab communities or villages with anyone other than other Muslims.

What the stupid, blind, idiotic world is suggesting is not Peace in the Middle East, but an apartheid that will forever separate the Jews and the Arabs. Settlements should be applauded and looked up to as a model upon which to base Peace. Each and every person who went out and made a home for themselves in the areas won by Israel in 1967 when it was attacked on all fronts by its Arab neighbors, each and every person who took a risk in developing a home in these uncharted areas that were left barren and empty for so many years, each of you should be so proud of what you have achieved and accomplished and if you do not live there and do not know what those achievements and accomplishments are, then go and visit, go and look, and see the reality, not the empty words of those that do not want to live in peace and do not care if their children ever do. Be proud to be a settler, you have done wonderful things now share them with the world.

SOURCE

*******************

A nice shot at the NY Slimes

Today's New York Times reports on a point of disagreement between the U.S. administration and the Israeli government:

The Obama administration believes that in order to build a solid regional coalition to confront Iranian ambitions, West Bank settlement building needs to stop as a sign of Israeli willingness to accept a Palestinian state.

Such a demand is part of the "road map" agreed to by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, the so-called quartet, and signed by Israel. But the Israelis said they had unwritten agreements with the former Bush administration that defined the freeze more narrowly, as not building new settlements or expropriating more land.

Today's Times story leaves open the possibility that the Israelis are simply making this up. But the Times itself, on Aug. 21, 2004, confirmed that this was the understanding of U.S. officials as well:

The Bush administration, moving to lend political support to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a time of political turmoil, has modified its policy and signaled approval of growth in at least some Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, American and Israeli officials say.
In the latest modification of American policy, the administration now supports construction of new apartments in areas already built up in some settlements, as long as the expansion does not extend outward to undeveloped parts of the West Bank, according to the officials.

Perhaps the Israelis made the mistake of believing what they read in the New York Times.

SOURCE

***********************

Black, white and Asian races do exist

That black, white and Asian races do exist has always been perfectly obvious but Leftists are always trying to deny it. They say it is "racist" even to mention it. A study of the DNA of many different populations has however now confirmed the obvious. And the researchers admit that the genetic differences can have notable effects. They also however make much of the fact that the differences occur in only a small percentage of our genes. Most genes are shared by all races. One does wonder why they think that is important. We also share around 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. Does that mean that the difference between humans and chimpanzees is unimportant?

Let me illustrate the importance of small genetic differences by a story about cricket. I know that most of my readers are American and will therefore likely know nothing about the world's most widely-followed bat-and-ball game -- but my story is a simple one so I don't think much will be lost in translation.

Australia's most famous cricketer is the recently deceased Don Bradman. What made him famous was that in his hands a cricket bat seemed to have a miraculous attraction to a cricket ball. No matter what they bowled down to him he could always swat it. As a result he would in some matches get as many as 400 runs, where 100 runs is normally considered a great achievement. Now the Don's eerie skill with a bat was obviously the result of a very rare confluence of genetic factors. If practice and training were what made Bradman great, we would have 10,000 Bradmans.

Now I am fairly sure that I share around 99.9% of my genes with Don Bradman -- but I can't hit a ball for nuts. So even very small genetic differences can make a huge difference in abilities etc. -- and not only in cricket -- JR

There is a simplicity and all-inclusiveness to the number three -- the triangle, the Holy Trinity, three peas in a pod. So it's perhaps not surprising that the Family of Man is divided that way, too.

All of Earth's people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. They are the products of the first and most important journey our species made -- the walk out of Africa about 70,000 years ago by a small fraction of ancestral Homo sapiens.

One group is the African. It contains the descendants of the original humans who emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. The second is the Eurasian, encompassing the natives of Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia (east to about Pakistan). The third is the East Asian, the inhabitants of Asia, Japan and Southeast Asia, and -- thanks to the Bering Land Bridge and island-hopping in the South Pacific -- of the Americas and Oceania as well.

The existence of this ancient divergence has long been known. What is new is a subtle but important insight into what happened on a genomic level as the human species spilled across the landscape, eventually occupying every habitable part of the planet.

People adapted to what they encountered the way all living organisms do: through natural selection. A small fraction of the mutations constantly creeping into our genes happened by chance to prove beneficial in the new circumstances outside the African homeland. Those included differences in climate, altitude, latitude, food availability, parasites, infectious diseases and lots of other things.

A person who carried, by chance, a helpful mutation was more likely to survive and procreate than someone without it. The person's offspring would then probably be endowed with the same beneficial mutation. Over thousands of generations, the new variant (what geneticists call the "derived allele") could go from being rare to being common as its carriers fared better than their brethren and contributed more descendants to the population.

Scientists have long known that regardless of ancestral home or ethnic group, everyone's genes are pretty much alike. We're all Homo sapiens. Everything else is pretty much details.

Recent research has produced a surprise, however. Population geneticists expected to find dramatic differences as they got a look at the full genomes -- about 25,000 genes -- of people of widely varying ethnic and geographic backgrounds. Specifically, they expected to find that many ethnic groups would have derived alleles that their members shared but that were uncommon or nonexistent in other groups. Each regional, ethnic group or latitude was thought to have a genomic "signature" -- the record of its recent evolution through natural selection.

But as analyses of genomes from dozens of distinct populations have rolled in -- French, Bantu, Palestinian, Yakut, Japanese -- that's not what scientists have found. Dramatic genome variation among populations turns out to be extremely rare.

Instead, it is "random genetic drift" that appears to be more important in sculpting our genes. Drift describes the chance loss of genetic variation that occurred not only in the out-of-Africa migration, but through all of human history as famine, climate change or war caused populations to crash and then recover.

Despite those calamities, it appears that all contemporary populations ended up largely the same, or only crudely distinguishable from one another, on the genome level.

More HERE

***************************

ELSEWHERE

SCOTUS reverses Sotomayor panel in Ricci case: “Officials in New Haven, Conn., illegally discriminated against white members of the city’s fire department when they refused to honor the results of a civil service exam after no African-Americans qualified for a promotion. The US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on Monday that the Connecticut city violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using race as the key criterion in refusing to certify a group of white and Hispanic firefighters for promotion. City officials said they were afraid that if they promoted the white and Hispanic firefighters but no African-American firefighters, the city would be subject to a lawsuit by black firefighters. The high court disagreed.” [Other comments here and here]

Obama holds gay pride reception, vows to overturn “unjust laws”: "“President Obama honored Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month with a White House reception Monday where he likened the struggle for gay rights with the struggle of African-Americans for civil rights. With first lady Michelle Obama at his side, the president told the cheering crowd filling the East Room that his administration would work to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and end the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding gays in the military.”

Flow of “stimulus” funds still only a trickle: “When the government enacted a $787 billion package of tax cuts and new spending this spring, there was much talk about how all that money would help pull the economy out of a deep recession. But readers are asking: Just how much of this money has been actually spent? Turns out the answer is not much. Confidence in the stimulus money is beginning to wane. People are still waiting for billions of dollars to reenergize the economy. How much of the stimulus money has actually been doled out as of this week?”

Political leanings drive car choice. Ideology correlates to U.S. vs. import: In the '80s, it was the politics of dancing. In the '90s, the politics of caring. Today, in bailout nation, we have the politics of driving. The Volvo-driving liberal and the redneck in a Chevy pickup are long-held stereotypes. But a map of car ownership - produced by R.L. Polk & Co. - overlaid on the electoral map reveals the surprising extent to which how we vote corresponds with what we drive. Blue-staters on each coast, from Los Angeles to Seattle and from Boston to the District, are the most likely to drive foreign cars. Domestic brands have their highest levels of market share in the mostly conservative interior of the country. In some blue states - where a Democrat has won at least three of the last four presidential contests - foreign cars have as much as 60 percent of the market, as measured by vehicle registrations. It is mostly in red states - Republican strongholds - where domestic cars have 74 percent of the market or more. This pattern holds in 36 states and the District".

America's Princess Di moment: "Good career move. The Hollywood assessment of the death of Elvis Presley 30 years ago eerily applies to Michael Jackson, too. Every great entertainer knows it's important to get off the stage before the hook. The death of Michael Jackson, with its unanswered questions and the exposure of the smarmy troupe of freeloaders, hangers-on and cockroaches crawling out of the dark places of his life, make this the perfect Hollywood tale of sex, money and sudden death. The media, including even newspapers that once could be counted on to put events in proper context, are throwing one long, drunken, inky bacchanalia, endlessly indulging round after round of trivia and manufactured sensation. P.T. Barnum lies green (with envy) in his grave. Oscar Levant's description of Hollywood -- "it's made of tinsel, but once you get beneath the tinsel, you'll find the real tinsel" -- is writ large, and we all live in Hollywood now. The death of Michael Jackson is our Princess Diana moment. Such vast outpourings of alligator tears and synthetic sincerity were once reserved for mourning presidents. In the age of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, the small looms large."

Michael Jackson, Anti-Semite: "Allow me to refresh your memory. While much of the world mourns the untimely death of the "King of Pop" Michael Jackson, it is worth recalling one of Mr. Jackson's more unfortunate qualities: he was an anti-Semite. In case you think I am making this up, allow me to refresh your memory. Back in November 2005, Jackson was caught on tape in a voicemail to one of his former business managers calling Jews "leeches". The tapes were played on ABC's Good Morning America program, and Jackson was heard saying, "They suck…they're like leeches. It's a conspiracy. The Jews do it on purpose." And in 1995, Jackson provoked a firestorm of protest when he released an album called HIStory containing a song entitled "They don't care about us" which had the following lyrics: "Jew me, sue me" and "Kick me, kike me". He subsequently promised to re-record the song and delete the offending lyrics. But then, in February 1996, Jackson nonetheless released a video of the song in which he had re-instated the brazenly anti-Semitic remarks.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

****************************