July 8, 2007

Israel & Middle East
Israel to carry its story directly to Iranian public with new Persian website

Italy's Prime Minister Prodi, China delegation are official visitors to Israel

IDF's Givati Brigade captures 8 Qassam missile launchers in Gaza search

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer explains support for Israel

Commentary

Holocaust denial paves way for anti-Israel war

Sports
6 + 21 + 48 + 81 not Gematria but  where four Jewish major leaguers placed in batting and pitching statistics

Tel Aviv Lightning snaps Bet Shemesh Blue Sox undefeated streak at 9 games on Pribble's pitching

Israel to tell its story directly to Iranian public with new Persian website
JERUSALEM (Press Release)—The web-launching ceremony of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' new Persian-language website will take place tomorrow (Monday 9-Jul) at 12:00 P.M. Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni and MFA Director-General Aharon Abramovitch will both attend the ceremony.

The website constitutes part of the MFA's diplomatic effort to reveal the true Israel to the Iranian public, who for many years has been denied any unbiased information about the country, while at the same time being exposed to hateful, distorted and deceptive information by the Iranian regime.

The new website, named HAMDAMI which in Persian means "camaraderie" is to be located at:https:/hamdami.com

Italy's Prime Minister Prodi, China delegation are official visitors to Israel

JERUSALEM (Press Release)—Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi arrives Sunday evening  in Israel on an official visit.  He was welcomed at Ben-Gurion  International Airport by Health Minister Yaacov Ben-Yizri. 

During his visit, Prodi will meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Likud Chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and President-Elect Shimon Peres.

Prime Minister Prodi is scheduled to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. He will also plant a tree in the Jerusalem Forest Grove of Nations and lay a wreath at late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's grave.
Romano Prodi
On Saturday, a delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress, headed by the Vice-Chairman of the committee, Yang Guoliang, arrived in Israel on a four-day official visit. This is a reciprocal visit to the visit to Beijing of the Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee, MK Tzachi Hanegbi, in the summer of 2006.

During their visit, the members of the delegation will meet with President-Elect Peres, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Majalli Whbee, Chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Association, MK Dani Yatom, MK Tzachi Hanegbi and Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Aharon Abramovitch.

The delegation members will tour the Golan Heights and the site on the northern border where Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were abducted.

The National People's Congress is China's legislative body, and is appointed by the Party for a period of five years. The NPC convenes once a year, in March, and includes some 3000 representatives from all over China. The representatives originate from different sectors of the population, from different factions of the party, from non-party organizations and from the army. Between plenary sessions, current affairs are handled by the 159 members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, headed by the Chairman of the NPC, Wu Bangguo and 15 deputies.

The preceding article combined materials provided by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
                                           __________________

IDF's Givati Brigade captures 8 Qassam
missile launchers in Gaza reconnaissance
 
BET HANUN, Gaza (Press Release) --The reconnaissance unit of Israel’s Givati Brigade uncovered eight Qassam rocket launchers during recent operations in the town of Bet Hanun located in the Gaza Strip. 
 
The launchers were equipped with timers and one set to launch.  "We entered the Gaza Strip in middle of the week.  We received orders to search for and locate the launchers threatening Sderot," said the Lieutenant Commander of  the Givati Company.

 "During night time operations we discovered eight Qassam rocket launchers that were facing towards
Captured Qassams
the town of Sderot.  One of the rocket launchers set to launch, a Qassam rocket in place, positioned towards Sderot."

  The preceding story and photo were provided by Israel Defense Forces




Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer explains support for Israel

(Editor's Note: Alexander Downer was granted an honorary doctorate by Bar Ilan University on June 26 during a ceremony at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in conjunction with the Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce Dinner. Since then the text of this speech by a Christian supporter of Israel has been flying around the internet.  We reprint it here in case you missed it)

By Alexander Downer

JERUSALEM—I can only say that tonight is a very important evening for me and I feel very touched by the great honour that's been bestowed on me by Bar Ilan University.  I feel that it's exciting on the one hand but I feel very humbled by it as well - perhaps a little undeserving.  I did get an honours degree at university but my wife says to me that "Darling, you're now a doctor but you've not done a stroke of work towards a thesis".  When I graduated as an undergraduate I thought that was enough university and it was time to go out and make money and I failed at that and went into politics [laughter].  Anyway, I've come full circle and now I'm a doctor and so I appreciate the great honour.

A lot of people ask me why I seem to be so committed to Israel - I mean, I'm a Christian, not Jewish and although I remember staying here in this hotel about three years ago ... and I think I could almost be described as an honorary Jew with a lot of the views that I hold about the issues that Jewish people confront.  But a lot of people do ask me why I am so committed to Israel.  And I think there are a variety of explanations for that.  One of them  is a
Alexander Downer
bit historic and I think some of you have heard me say this before.  When I was a child at school and subsequently when I went to university in England, for no particular reason, Jewish people seemed to befriend me as some other people did as well [laughter], but I seemed to have quite a lot of Jewish friends.

When I was at university I shared a house with four people. One of them was a New Zealander, one of them was Jewish - her name is Judy - and a Scotsman.  This was in 1972-73, that sort of time, the significance being 1973.  And Judy had a cousin come and stay with her from Israel.  And it was at the time, just as the cousin came, the Yom Kippur War broke out.  And I remember this just as though it were yesterday, going down into our little kitchenette - imagine a student's kitchen how completely disgusting it was, with washing up not done for about four days, just a complete mess really, and we ate such disgusting food as well.  Judy's sitting there in her dressing gown with her cousin from Israel and the cousin from Israel had tears in her eyes.  They were both listening to BBC radio, to the details of the Yom Kippur War and you'll remember better than I do how in the early days it wasn't going so well.  This cousin of Judy's brother was in the Israeli army and - you know all of this so much better than I do.

But I was tremendously struck by the power of the moment.  I was tremendously struck by the Jewish people, as in the Israelis in this case, under siege and so unreasonably in my view - now some people will criticise me for that - but I think completely unreasonably under siege in the way that they were and suffering so much yet again after all the wars that they'd been through. And, I don't know, it seemed to me that somebody had sometimes to stick up for the Israeli people and as the years have gone by the cause of Israel has, in many countries around the world, become decreasingly fashionable.  I don't think there's any doubt about that.  It hasn't changed my mind that it's become decreasingly fashionable, in fact I've never claimed to be fashionable, I've just tried to do what I thought was the right thing.  (Jump to continuation)

Holocaust denial paves way for anti-Israel war

By Alex Grobman, PhD

ENGLEWOOD, N.J.—Last December, the Iranian government held a two-day conference ostensibly to discuss the Holocaust in an open environment where all sides of the story could be analyzed. Aside from well-known Holocaust deniers, no Holocaust scholars wer in attendance. The conference raised a number of questions: Why has Holocaust denial become popular in the Middle East? Why did Iran the conference? How can we respond to those who seek to deny our past?    

According to Itamar Marcus, who monitors and reports on media of the Palestinian Authority, the objective of Arab Holocaust denial is to reject the connection of the Jewish people to their immediate history, erode the legitimacy of Israel, and allow the Arabs “to appropriate the role of historical victim and… apply it to themselves. Television and modern technology have provided authoritative vehicles for defaming and denying the Jewish people, their religion, history, nation, and land—in order to sever contemporary Jews from their past and the Land of Israel.”

"On the basis of this myth,” he noted a couple of months later, “the pillaging Zionist regime has managed, for 60 years, to extort all Western governments and to justify its crimes in the occupied lands - killing women and children, demolishing homes, and turning defenseless people into refugees.”

Why has Ahmadinejad become such an advocate of Holocaust denial? One plausible explanation historian Victor Hanson offers is that he understands the West’s fixation with “multiculturalism, moral equivalence and relativism.” As “a third world populist,” he assumes that his own fascist government will “escape scrutiny” if he continues to list the past misdeeds of the West. He also appreciates the importance of victimology. If he wants to annihilate Israel, Iran has to be seen as the victim—not Israel. He turns to the Europeans with a question:

"So we ask you: If you indeed committed this great crime, why should the oppressed people of Palestine be punished for it? If you committed a crime, you yourselves should pay for it." 

He knows that there are millions of educated people in the West who question the need for nuclear weapons and do not hold their culture in high regard. If the West can have nuclear weapons, why can’t Iran? "Your arsenals are full to the brim,” he says, “yet when it's the turn of a nation such as mine to develop peaceful nuclear technology you object and resort to threats.”

Ahmadinejad also understands that relativism has become part of Western thought. In this environment, who can be sure that the Holocaust was not overstated, the facts embellished or even made up in order to steal Palestinian land?

Iran’s success in analyzing “Western malaise” has persuaded them that they can create “a Holocaust-free reality,” enabling the Muslims to become the victims and “Jews the aggressors deserving punishment. And thus Ahmadinejad's righteously aggrieved (and nuclear) Iran can, after ‘hundreds of years of war,’ finally set things right in the Middle East. And then a world that wishes to continue to make money and drive cars in peace won't much care how this divinely appointed holy man finally finishes a bothersome "war of destiny."

Rather than wring our hands in frustration, we should seize the opportunity to teach about Holocaust denial, which is a threat to the way we transmit history to future generations. If the history of the Jewish people can be distorted, so can the history of other groups. Holocaust deniers seek to make Fascism and National Socialism legitimate alternatives to democracy, which makes this a problem for all those who cherish a democratic way of life.

Dr. Alex Grobman is co-author of Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happens And Why Do They Say It? which exposes the techniques used by Holocaust deniers. His latest book is Nations United: How The UN Undermines Israel and the West.

Nancy Harrison & Anderson Travel present: Adventures in Cruising Watch this ad for a different cruising photos each day. The adventure can be yours! My thanks to Abe & Bea Goldberg and Ruth Kropveld for sharing photos of their family cruise on Holland America's Ryndam. Please Call Nancy Harrison at (619) 265-0808 to help you book a cruise from San Diego or anywhere. Or click this ad to go right to her email, or you can key in  sdheritage@cox.net

Mexico cruising aboard Holland America's Ryndam Ryndam docked at Loreto, Baja California Sur

*Aaron Feldman gave what was described as his first interview ever to the San Diego Union-Tribune but limited the subjects to the businesses owned by Sunroad Enterprises.  The profile by Jeff McDonald and David Hasemyer of the businessman whose building at Montgomery Field has been the storm center of controversy is in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.  In a separate story, Jennifer Vigil reports that a consortium of companies including Sunroad has been involved in the planning of Otay Mesa, prompting some allegations of conflict of interest.
  
*Islamic terrorists have conducted operations against the following countries: the United States, Britain, Israel, Afghanistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Morocco, Iraq, Turkey, Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Jordan, Tunisia, Pakistan. In today's San Diego Union-Tribune, Jonathan Gurwitz of the San Antonio Express-News offers an analysis of the ideology/ theology that drives it.
  
*U.S. President George W. Bush's grant of clemency to I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby was a departure from his standard as governor of Texas when he limited such grants to cases in which there was an actual doubt about the convict's guilt or innocence. The story by Adam Liptak of the New York Times News Service is in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.
  
*Valerie Scher, classical music critic of the San Diego Union-Tribune, in a story today recalls the life and San Diego connections of opera diva Beverly Sills.

 

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BUSINESS BRIEFS—Andy Cooper, owner of Karman Ltd. sign company in Los Angeles, has completed installing all the interior signage for UCSD's Rady Business School.  When you figure all the classrooms, bathrooms, stairwell signs, exits, and directional signs in a two story building, his company made more than 400 individual signs.  The company also is working on the signage at Santa Fe Summit , a five-building commercial complex off State Route 56 between Interstate 5 and Interstate 15.  Cooper says two buildings re completed with three to go.

         
Bernstein     Sondheim         Robbins         Rodgers         Hammerstein      Hamlisch

CULTURAL ICONS—What would summer entertainment be without some of the great Jewish names in theatre? For example, the Christian (yes, you read that right) Community Theatre offers Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, with  lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography of Jerome Robbins, July 12-28 at the East County Performing Arts Center in El Cajon.  Moonlight Stage Productions will also stage that classic August 15-26 at the Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista. ...Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma will be staged July 20-22, 26-29 by the American Rose Theatre at the Kit Carson Park Amphitheatre, behind the North County Faire in Escondido.  Same venue, same composers, but on Aug. 10-Sept. 2  the production will be The King and I staged by the Patio Playhouse Community Theatre. ... Marvin Hamlisch conducts the San Diego Symphony's Summer Pops in some of his favorite movie music, including The Wizard of Oz and the Way We Were, July 27-28.

CYBER-REFERRALS—Hillel Mazansky found this video of Andre Rieu playing violin and conducting Hava Nagila as perhaps no one has heard it before:


DEAD SEA SCROLLS—With an art lover's discerning eye, critic Robert L. Pincus of the San Diego Union-Tribune discusses in a column today the wisdom of the San Diego Natural History Museum in augmenting the Dead Sea Scrolls, which for all their importance "offer little in the way of visual drama." ... Arthur Salm, the Union-Tribune's book critic, found a nice linkage between the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition and Woody Allen's new book, The Insanity Defense: Collected Prose.  Salm noted in his review that one of Allen's essays imagines a suspicious set of scrolls being discovered near the Gulf of Aqaba. 
 

The Jewish Sports Fan

6 + 21 + 48 + 81 not Gematria but  where four Jewish major leaguers placed in batting and pitching statistics

Unless otherwise indicated, source for these stories is today's edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune, to which we gratefully provide the links below. We do not apply halacha to determine if a player is Jewish; rather, if he or she has a Jewish parent or has converted to the faith, we count him or her as a member of our community.

.
Youkilis       Green          Kinsler         Marquis        Ausmus      Schoeneweis  Grabow

BASEBALL—We've been keeping you posted on how Kevin Youkilis has been doing in the tally of top hitters in the American League.  As of the end of play Friday, he was in sixth position with his .329 average.  But how are other Jewish baseball players doing? The San Diego Union-Tribune ran an expanded tally today, showing that among National League hitters Shawn Green of the New York Mets is currently 48th with a .275 BA and that in the American League Ian Kinsler of the Texas Rangers is 81st with a .241.  Only one Jewish pitcher made the statistician's cut: Jason Marquis of the Chicago Cubs has a 3.60 ERA, the 21st best in the National League.

Lots of averages changed in Saturday's play.  For example in the Mets marathon 17-inning 5-3 victory over the Houston Astros, Shawn Green collected 3 hits in 7 times at bat, sending his average up four points to .279.  For the Astros, Brad Ausmus went 0 for 6, dropping his average to .253.  He wasn't included in the expanded tally because batters needed to have been up at least 254 times to be counted.  But to give you an idea of how he's doing, a player with a .253 average would have place right around 70th in the National League.  Mets reliever Scott Schoeneweis retired two Astro batters, while giving up one hit and one walk, but happily for him no runs.  His ERA now is 5.57, and for comparison purposes, that would have put him about at the level of the 66th best pitcher in the National League. But to be included in the analysis, a pitcher had to have compiled at least eight decisions, and as a middle reliever Schoeneweis doesn't get many of those.

Pirates relief pitcher John Grabow completed two scoreless innings in relief, but his colleagues weren't nearly so lucky at the Chicago Cubs clobbered Pittsburgh, 7-1.  His ERA is 5.32.... Youkilis who had been benched with a sore quadricep the last several games, came off the Boston Red Sox bench in the 12th inning as a pinch hitter but flied out.  That dropped his BA to .328 and his position in the tight American League batting derby to seventh.



 

News from the       Israel Baseball League

Tel Aviv Lightning snaps Bet Shemesh Blue Sox undefeated streak at 9 games on Pribble's pitching

GEZER, Israel July 8— Sunday night's game of the week on Arutz Sport5 gave IBL fans a chance to see the Tel Aviv Lightning hand the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox their first loss of the season, going down 3-1.
   
San Francisco native Aaron Pribble earned his third victory of the season with a dominating complete game, allowing one run on four hits to go along with seven strikeouts and no walks.  Pribble's performance gives him a 0.98 ERA and puts the second-place Lightning just 1.5 games behind the Sox.
 Pribble

Tel Aviv scored all three runs in the second inning when centerfielder Bryan Langbord led off with his first career IBL homerun.  Designated hitter Matt Brill also provided some offense in the inning with an RBI single that made the score 2-0 and improved his batting average to .438.                                                                        Langbord 
   
The win was Tel Aviv's fifth in a row to improve to 7-2 on the season
while the Blue Sox drop to 9-1.
   
The earlier game at Gezer Field between the Modi'in Miracle and the
Ra'anana Express produced the same score as the Miracle took the 3-1
victory.  The win puts the Miracle one game above .500 at 5-4 on the
season.
   
Australian Matt Bennett continued his excellent start to the season,
pitching a complete game two-hitter with ten strikeouts and four walks to improve to 2-0 with a 0.53 ERA.  Bennett's only mistake came in the fifth inning when right fielder Matt Castillo hit a homer
Bennett
to tie up thegame.
   
As has become expected, Dominican catcher Eladio Rodriguez led theMiracle offense with a 3-3 night.  Rodriguez hit his fourth homerun of the season, a solo shot in the sixth, as the Miracle pulled within 3.5 games of the first-place Blue Sox.                                                                                                                                                                                             Rodriguez
Summaries:
                       1   2   3   4   5   6   7    R    H   E
Tel Aviv         0   0   3   0   0   0   0    3     9    1
Bet Shemesh   0   0   0   1   0   0   0    1    4     0
W: Aaron Pribble (3-0); L: Scott Perlman (1-1); HR: Bryan Langbord (1)

                     1   2   3   4   5   6   7   R    H   E
Modi'in           0   0   1   0   1   1   0    3    6    0
Ra'anana        0   0   0   1   0   0   0    1    2    1
W: Matt Bennett (2-0); L: Esequier Pie (0-2); HR: Matt Castillo (2),
Eladio Rodriguez (4)

Standings:
Team                             W    L     %     GB
Bet Shemesh Blue Sox    9     1     .900     –
Tel Aviv Lightning          7     2    .778     1.5
Modi'in Miracle               5     4    .556     3.5
Netanya Tigers                3     4     .429    4.5
Ra'anana Express             2     8     .200    7.0
Petach Tikva Pioneers     1    8      .111    7.5

Monday the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox host the Petach Tikva Pioneers at Gezer
Field at 5:00 pm and at 7:00 pm the Netanya Tigers visit the Ra'anana
Express at Yarkon Field at the Baptist Village.