J'Accuse! Ilan Halimi and French Justice

A colleague and friend once asked me why California still had a death penalty.

"Because if there are not state-controlled executions, people will do their own killings," I said. To me, this seemed perfectly apparent. My friend, a young defense attorney, was horrified. "But that's not justice," he protested.

"No, it's the state's attempt to minimize revenge killings by putting them into a judicial strait-jacket and making the death penalty very limited and very controlled," I told him. I don't have any authority for this. It was simply my impression after years in a prosecutor's office.

Any prisoner on Death Row was referred to as a "dead man walking" by other prisoners.

What does this have to do with Ilan Halimi?

Ilan Halimi was a young French Jewish kid of working class Moroccan-born parents who was lured by a pretty gang member to go out on a 'date,' then was kidnapped and tortured to death over a three week period. During that period, his gangster captors repeatedly called his family to demand a ransom "because Jews are rich, everyone knows that," and tortured him during the calls so his family was in agony.

The family is poor. When they told his captors this, their response was: "Go to the synagogue and have your compatriots come up with the money."

When the family complained to the police, the police shrugged it off. Not until he was found naked and dying in the streets did the police take any action. When he died, the police dismissed the claim that his torture/murder was anti-Semitic. That denial lasted until the first arrest, when one gang member boasted that they had kidnapped and killed Ilan because he was a Jew.

Youssouf Fofana, the gang leader and reputed mastermind of this depravity, was sentenced to "life" in prison.

Fofana is a Moslem. Many of his cohorts are Moslems. They read excerpts from the Quran to Halimi's family during telephone calls in which the family could hear Ilan screaming during torture.

Have you heard one word of regret from the Moslem community anywhere in the world? Aren't Moslems offended that one of their own could butcher a young man who has done nothing, and quote the Quran while doing it?

Fofana was one of 27 people on trial in the kidnapping, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, who was only 23 years old. A month after the start of the trial, Fofana admitted to having stabbed and set fire to Halimi, pouring flammable liquid over him and setting it alight. Testimony indicated that acid was thrown on Ilan. Ilan's throat was cut by Fofana just before he was released, but he didn't die immediately. He was able to walk, and died while trying to reach help.

French journalist Guy Millière reported that “the screams must have been loud because the torture was especially atrocious: the thugs cut bits off the flesh of the young man, they cut his fingers and ears, they burned him with acid, and in the end poured flammable liquid on him and set him on fire.” Reports of Ilan's death stated that over 80% of his body has been "butchered." Ilan died on the way to the hospital.

But no one in the buildings where he was tortured heard anything. So they say. All "good citizens" like those in the Third Reich who never noticed the ethnic cleansing going on all around them. It's not clear from the news reports so far if the custodian who provided the apartment to his captors was convicted of aiding and abetting.

Today, all but two of his murderers were convicted. The longest sentence, a "life sentence" for Fofana, means his killer can be paroled in 22 years. Others received varying sentences but many will get what is called "good time/work time" credit: they will only serve half their sentence if their prison behavior is good and they will also receive credit for their time in custody to date.

His two main accomplices, Samir Ait Abdelmalek and Jean-Christophe Soumbou, were given sentences of 15 and 18 years, respectively. Another man who was a minor at the time also received a 15-year prison term, while Emma, a young girl used to attract Halimi, was sentenced to nine years in prison.

The 22 others were convicted of a variety of crimes, including kidnapping by an organized group, sequestration that resulted in death, or failing to assist a person in danger. Those acting as jailers received 10 to 12 year terms.

22 years or less for a three week exercise in sadism? For torturing a young man targeted solely for being a Jew? For pouring acid on him? For cutting his throat? For cutting flesh from his body? For pouring flammable liquid on him and setting him on fire?

For money.

For Jew-hatred.

France should be ashamed of herself if she calls this "justice." If Ilan Halimi were my child, Fofana would be a dead man walking. France is too dainty to execute barbarians? Fine, I'll do it myself.

Islam should be ashamed of not excommunicating these barbarians. Where are the fatwas calling for Fofana's death for Insulting Islam? Because torture murder of someone innocent in the name of Islam when it's really just for cold cash is an insult to Islam.

If he were my child, I'd build a guillotine in the streets in front of the court house. Bring back the guillotine. Or give me a hunting license.

If It Ends With Money......

I would hear this phrase, "if it ends with money" in both English and Hebrew. The English came courtesy of friends who spoke English to me so I wouldn't have to struggle to keep up so much.

I didn't get it.

"If it ends with money"? What is this, a profit-making venture they're talking about? It was always in the context of bad news if not outright disaster.

I'd heard it so much, and sooo did not understand, and I was already embarassed by my limited Hebrew skills so I didn't want to blurt out, "WHAT are you talking about?"

The reason I didn't understand became clear last week. It's a PART of a phrase. Yes, it applies to disasters, usually of the major medical or automobile kind.

Your teenager was in an accident and the car will be in the garage for a week. But he's fine. "Thank G-d! If it ends with money...."

Your elderly mother dropped a heavy vase which shattered all over the floor. No one was hurt. "Thank G-d! If it ends with money...."

Your brother is confronted by an angry tus-tus driver who is shouting that he was cut off in traffic. The driver slams his helmet into your brother's car and shatters the windshield. Your brother is fine but needs a new windshield. "Thank G-d! If it ends with money...."

You've just received the results of a blood test, and your doctor tells you your have some wierd syndrome you've never heard of before--and it's easily cured but the medicine isn't in the health basket and it's expensive. "Thank G-d! If it ends with money...."

Last week, a neighbor's car died. While she was driving it. In the middle of a busy boulevard. She had it towed to the garage and it was eventually fixed for 1500 NIS she didn't really have in her budget. "But thank G-d you weren't hit!" I exclaimed, knowing how busy that road is.

"Yes, exactly what I was saying," she responded, "If it ends with money...."

"If it starts with money and it ends with money, thank G-d, because it's only money," our other friend chimed in. No one died. No one was injured. It's money, it's not life or limb. It can be fixed.

NOW I get it.

Where's My Vote -- The Cost of Freedom

Cartoonist: 'Abdallah Jaber

Source: Al-Jazirah, Saudi Arabia, July 5, 2009

Souk Bargaining v Real Diplomacy

There is a story I heard many years ago about bargaining in the souk. A man is trying to sell his donkey. A potential buyer comes and asks about the price. The buyer wants a lower price. The seller refuses. Then the buyer wants the bridle. The seller refuses. Then the buyer wants the blanket on the donkey. The seller refuses. Then the buyer starts to walk away, and the seller realizes that he's losing the sale. "But you can keep the hobbles," he says to the buyer, in an effort not to lose his customer.

This puts me in mind of the Palestinian approach to the peace process, which is to always come up with some non-negotiable demand in response to ever-more-generous Israeli offers, and then scream about how the Israelis are the obstacle to peace.

I have been assured repeatedly by friends and acquaintances to the political Left of me that the Palestinian "Right of Return" is nothing more than symbolic. That the descendants of the Palestinian refugees living outside of Israel have no real desire to live in Tel Aviv or Karmiel or Haifa, and that what they are really seeking is a public acknowledgement of their plight, Israel's "responsibility" for their trauma and exile, and some form of monetary recompense or reparation.

So every time I have pointed out that the "Right of Return" is a non-starter and a red line no Israeli government will cross, I hear the snickers and "tsk, tsk" from the Left, with the sometimes condescending platitudes about how I fail to understand the Palestinian perspective and what the people and their leadership really want, and how this is merely symbolic and not any kind of impediment to peace, really.

Really?!

It turns out that the "Right of Return" is not as benign as the peace camp would wish. This is from Friday's Jerusalem Post, quoting the Washington Post's coverage of this issue:

The Washington Post on May 25 reported that according to PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), prime minister Olmert accepted the principle of the "right of return" for Arab refugees and offered to resettle thousands in Israel. Abbas also said that Olmert offered him 97% of Judea and Samaria (after Israel had already withdrawn from Gaza in 2005). In addition, last week Newsweek reported that Olmert had told them that he proposed that Israel would give up its sovereignty in the "Holy Basin" in Jerusalem and suggested that it be jointly administered by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the PLO, Israel and the United States; this was confirmed by PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Furthermore, the Palestinians have no intention of abiding by the U.N. Resolution 181 calling for two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian:

PLO leader Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) explained lately to Haaretz that "it's not fair to demand that we recognize you [Israel] as the state of the Jewish people because that means... a predetermination of the refugees' future, before the negotiations are over. Our refusal is adamant." To prevent misunderstanding, Mahmoud Abbas, in his Washington Post interview, rejected the possibility that the PLO recognizes Israel as a Jewish state because it would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.

Imply? We've been crystal clear on this from the beginning: so-called "Palestinian refugees" (those being Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Gaza and West Bank-born descendants of people claiming to be Palestinian refugees) are NOT coming to live in Israel.

Is there something we're not making clear here? Like Jewish refugees driven from Europe, Iran, Ethiopia, and multitudinous Arab countries who found refuge ONLY in the Jewish state, your refugees need to find refuge in the Palestinian state.

Not good enough for Abbas & Co.

In other words:

Internationalizing the Old City and Kidron Valley (also Obama's plan) isn't acceptable--the Palestinians want it for themselves and won't recognize any Jewish right to the city that is our Mecca and in which we were the majority population in 1948;

Giving up 97% of the Occupied West Bank, and making up the remaining 3% with land swaps isn't enough;

Building a land bridge to Gaza so there is 'territorial contiguity' between the two districts isn't enough;

"Acknowledging" that there is a right of return but it won't be to Israel except in some minor family-reunion situations isn't enough.

In short, the Palestinians are demanding a return to the status quo ante of 1967 PLUS a demand that Israel absorb a hostile Arab population educated to kill Jews and hate Israel (never mind that they've lived on the dole for three generations, don't speak the language and don't have any job skills--several million enemy aliens on welfare is not what we need, thank you), PLUS a settlement freeze PLUS the evacuation of anything Jewish over the pre-67 armistice line, plus some of Israel's real estate so they can facilitate weapons transfers from Gaza to the West Bank.

I've said it before, and need to tell those who push the sugar-coated idea that the Right of Return is simply "symbolic" -- no, it's not. The Palestinians have never acknowledged the Arab defeats of 1948, 1967 or 1972 or the Intifadas---they are still fighting the Partition and this is an on-going war to eradicate Israel and replace it with an Arab state.

Until the Palestinians evidence some acceptance that ultimately there will be two states for two peoples, one Jewish and one Palestinian, there is no peace process. Their utter intransigence is going to end what feeble peace process there is.

Ammo In The Olives?

Let me start with a confession: I detest Amira Hass. To me, she is the Vicarious Outlaw Incarnate. I knew this type in college: always out-radical-ing the radicals. It isn't prompted by concern for world justice, or fair play, or peace. It's prompted entirely by Gigantic EGO. "Look at me! I'm a RADICAL! I'm for (insert cause here) and listen to my Words of Wisdom. Pay Attention To Me, darn it!"

I thought then, and I think now, that (1) people like this make lousy journalists and (2) I don't want to read someone's therapy, because that's what people like this write---stories designed to make them look important and radical and hip in the hopes of overcoming whatever childhood crisis makes them so toxicly insecure and attention-seeking.

Amira Hass is, IMHO, the ultimate Palestine Pimp who has never really given a moment's thought to reporting objectively or truthfully, for that matter.

However, every once in a while, even the worst so-called "journalist" can come up with a story that deserves outrage and action.

Even Amira-I-Want-To-Be-A-Palestinian-Hass.

ASUMMING any of this is TRUE (a huge assumption with the stuff she writes) this posted in Wednesday's HaAretz:

A West Bank checkpoint managed by a private security company is not allowing Palestinians to pass through with large water bottles and some food items, Haaretz has learned.

MachsomWatch discovered the policy, which Palestinian workers confirmed to Haaretz.

The Defense Ministry stated in response that non-commercial quantities of food were not being limited. It made no reference to the issue of water.
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The checkpoint, Sha'ar Efraim, is south of Tul Karm, and is managed for the Defense Ministry by the private security company Modi'in Ezrahi. The company stops Palestinian workers from passing through the checkpoint with the following items: Large bottles of frozen water, large bottles of soft drinks, home-cooked food, coffee, tea and the spice zaatar. The security company also dictates the quantity of items allowed: Five pitas, one container of hummus and canned tuna, one small bottle or can of beverage, one or two slices of cheese, a few spoonfuls of sugar, and 5 to 10 olives. Workers are also not allowed to carry cooking utensils and work tools.

MachsomWatch told Haaretz that Sunday, a 32-year-old construction worker from Tul Karm, who is employed in Hadera, was not allowed to carry his lunch bag through the checkpoint. The bag contained six pitas, 2 cans of cream cheese, one kilogram of sugar in a plastic bag, and a salad, also in a plastic bag.

The typical Palestinian laborer in Israel has a 12-hour workday, including travel time and checkpoint delays. Many leave home as early as 2 A.M. in order to wait in line at the checkpoint; tardiness to work often results in immediate dismissal. Workers return home around 5 P.M. The wait at the checkpoint can take one to two hours in each direction, if not longer.

The food quantities allowed by Modi'in Ezrahi do not meet the daily dietary needs of the workers, and they prefer not to buy food at the considerably more expensive Israeli stores.

IF this is true, it's outrageous. Har Homa has dozens of Palestinian workers, and these guys get here (by Municipal bus) around 0600. [Those that don't qualify for the bus, i.e. they snuck across the border, are in place much earlier--before dawn generally.]

They sit down and brew a cup of coffee in the morning over some burning scrap lumber. This requires a coffee pot. And coffee. And sugar. They currently work in temperatures up in the 90s doing construction. This requires food and water. Lots of both. MDA recommends two liters a day in this weather if you're going outside for a walk -- I would assume doing heavy construction work requires a lot more. You're a worker supporting a non-working wife and at least two small children, and the pay is peanuts....you're going to WALK to the top of our extremely steep, large hill and BUY overpriced bottled water, hummous, vegetables, cheese and so on? I don't think so--not if you want to have money left over to give your wife to pay the bills and feed the family. Hey, even locals don't buy in the market if they can get to Rami-Levy.

What, someone's afraid that bullets will be smuggled in in the olives? A full-clip of semi-auto rounds will be buried in the humous container?

Okay, I get the concept that maybe someone, somewhere, has smuggled some Taiba beer and resold it for a hefty mark-up on the Israeli side [note: if we ever put paid to this conflict, we can all drive to the supermarket and buy it ourselves...or even go to the Oktoberfest at Taiba!] so we have to have some controls.

But controlling what the daily laborers bring in for lunch, and limiting water and food to half-rations is bad for two reasons: first, it's unjust, unnecessary and unkind and second (if the first reason doesn't move you) it makes US look like goons.

So, knock it off already!

Yes, I have my issues with the Holocaust-denying, incitement-promoting, no-offer-is-ever-good-enough-to-even-talk-about leadership of the PA -- but that's no reason to take it out on the working stiffs who just want to feed their families.

And if anyone has an official government address to which I can complain, let me know...

And if anyone finds out Hass is making it all up, also let me know.....

Nothing surprises me any more.

G-d Is Great--Let Freedom Ring!

Listen to the energy! The Next Generation is shouting from the rooftops in defiance....and what's the fascist mullahcracy going to do? You can't hang the entire country, Fascist Dictators.

London Takes It As A Compliment

Stolen shamelessly from Michael Totten because it made me laugh out loud. Besides, Totten is doing a bang-up job of blogging Iran's struggle against the fascist mullahcracy.


Boris Johnson, the untidy haired Mayor of London, has a good laugh at Ayatollah Khamenei's expense. Johnson is flattered that Khamenei considers Britain still to be a superpower:

Doesn't it make you almost burst with pride? For decades, we have got used to the idea that we are a dowdy middle-ranking sort of country that long ago abandoned any pretensions to influence east of Suez. We thought we were wholly dependent on America for our nukes and our cryptography--and here's this top mullah who seems to think that the Tehran protests are being staffed by swarms of burka-wearing Bonds, and that the whole thing is being orchestrated by Dame Judi Dench from her lair on the South Bank.

Newspeak in Farsi

Iran's ambassador to Mexico, Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, appeared on CNN-Mexico on Wednesday, and as the representative of the Islamic Republic, leader of the struggle for world wide Islamic dominance (led by Iran, of course) had this to say:

"The minority can't impose their opinion on the majority," Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri told CNN en Español. "They can't impose a dictatorship saying that the majority is not going to govern."

Hello? The "minority" looked pretty much like a mass movement. Usually less than 5% of people get out of their homes and demonstrate, so if that "minority" of thousands was demonstrating, that says something powerful about the number of people in silent agreement who for whatever reason, including being beaten like animals or shot dead in the street, have chosen not to protest in public.

There are acceptable ways of addressing electoral fraud, if any occurred, he said.

In a nation where the ruling party itself perpetrated the election fruad? Oh, right, they're just going to admit it and join the call for a recount. If you will recall, Mr. Ambassador, the reason the protests poured into the streets was precisely because when Mousavi cried "Foul!" your ruling junta told him to shut up and live with the results.

"But they go out on the street, they attack buses, they attack banks; that affects the security of the country."He added, "The law doesn't permit terrorism. It doesn't permit attacks on innocent people."

WHAT?! You hypocritical piece of garbage---you and your benighted government FUND attacks on innocent people and terrorism is part of your national policy.

And unleashing your trained thugs to shoot and ax demonstrators is arguably "terrorism" as well, only the state-policy kind.

The minority has lost the election, they have to accept the role of the majority," he said. "If there was fraud, they have to show it. They have no proof."

Saying it doesn't make it so--that's why people are in the streets and on the rooftops, screaming in outrage. Evidence? You've no doubt burned it by now--hence the need for a new election. With international monitors this time.

Asked why the government has made it impossible for nearly all international journalists to report from Iran, he accused the media of not accurately reporting events.

Translation from the Farsi: the media reported what they saw on the streets, which strengthened the protesters and gave them hope, so the fascist illegitimate mullacracy had to censor it by shutting down the press.

There is no First Amendment in Iran apparently.

"In Tehran, there were much bigger demonstrations in favor of the government that you didn't report about," he said.

Yes, they did. We all saw it on the news, while your fascist theocracy was still allowing reporters to report. Of course, they're not reporting now because they've either been arrested, confined to house arrest, or expelled from the country. How do you say "censorship" in Farsi?

Asked about the shooting of the 26-year-old woman whose death captured on video has come to symbolize the anti-government forces, he said, "It is not clear who killed who," he said, adding that "terrorists" were among the demonstrators. "Some armed people have attacked police," he said. "Naturally, we have to respond."

Right. She was just standing there. Clearly unarmed. Methinks the terrorists were the ones with the guns--you know, YOUR guys, those Basiji thugs. Your nasty little stormtroopers. The ones whose pictures are all over this blog. (Thank you, Mohamed.) The older posts show a lot of Basiji--they're the guys with the side-handle batons, guns, rifles and baseball bats.

And Al Jazeera has it on video. Go here , and go down to the Al Jazeera entry at 12:33 on Huffington Post's Liveblogging. You'll see armed Basiji firing into a crowd of demonstrators from the rooftop of a mosque.

By the way, visit ID The Basiji not just for the pictures, but for the latest report that their street recruits aren't Iranians--the shock troops on the streets are Arabic speakers. Earlier rumors said Hamas and Hezbollah members in Iran for "training" are getting their field tryouts on the Iranian protestors.

In an interview with CNN International, he was more blunt about accusations of brutality by government forces: "We do not beat up our people and we do not kill them," he said.

No?! Who am I going to believe? A government stooge 10,000 miles away or the stream of videos coming out of Iran?

In the wake of the vote, Obama has used increasingly harsh language to discuss Iran, saying he was "appalled" by the crackdown. Ahmadinejad, who is to be sworn in for a second four-year term by August, warned that there would be "nothing left to talk about" if Obama kept up such a tone.

Obama has failed the Iranian people and the free world by keeping diplomatically silent in the face of this slaughter and repression. Of course, that's par for the world--big talk but no action when the crisis comes. Ask any Rwandan....

As for Dictator Ahmadinejad and his storm troopers -- there was never anything to talk about anyway, sweetheart, so that kind of bluster won't work. You know what the west wants and you've already determined not to give up nuclear weapons in order to bully the rest of the region like you bully your populace. All you've done is prove the Right right, and Obama's plan to treat you like an equal in the family of nations now looks ridiculous.

In the meantime, Ahmadinejad is complaining about "foreign interference" and other government stooges are jumping on this bandwagon with allusions to Zionists, the CIA, and BBC (now THERE is a strange combination) among other "foreign influences."

First, this is rich, coming from a dictatorship that is bankrupting its own treasury to foment terror, insurgency and proxy armies all over the region. YOU'RE complaining to US about "foreign interference?" Don't make me laugh.

Second, if a news broadcast is "foreign interference" whether via radio, television, or internet, then you are a truly frightened and ethically bankrupt dictatorship which is in terror of its own people if it can't let them listen to a news broadcast not dictated by your propaganda departments.

Ahmadinejad's patron, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said the election result would not be reversed.

Translation from the Farsi: we stole this election and we're NOT giving it back!

Ahmadinejad's standing at home appears to have suffered since the election. Several Tehran newspapers reported that 185 out of 290 members of parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani, stayed away from a victory celebration for Ahmadinejad on Tuesday.

Can you say, "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" ?