Blogging Hiatus Update and Getting Hitched

I don't usually speak about my personal life on this blog but here's an exception.

My recent blogging hiatus can be explained by something that is quite easy to understand - I am getting married on Sunday! I have been blessed with a wonderful fiance who has happily taken on the overwhelming majority of the work and I am eternally grateful for the effort she has put in.

Planning a wedding, even a small one, isn't an easy job and requires tremendous time management skills, patience and awareness of the stress that your partner may be feeling. Things can get demanding as you balance your work and social life with the small task of planning a wedding, hunting for a house/flat and then trying to fix it up before moving in. From my experience, there is little time left for a blogging life.

Lucky for me there are two authors of this blog and things have kept ticking along thanks to Mike.

There has been plenty of stuff that I have missed, biased articles and a South African radio station that I recently happened upon where a presenter described the death of an Israeli in Sderot as 'good news'! More on that later...

I will say a prayer under the chuppah for the victims of the latest heinous Palestinian terror attack. Photos and videos of the attack are available on the web. The vile brutality of these attacks still does not make any impact on the left's love-affair with the Palestinians, and that for me is quite supernatural and must be controlled and directed from above for reaons that we will probably never understand. But we will fight on.

Comments

[JoeTalin]

Mazeltov!
All the best, Steve.

[greenmamba]

Heartiest congratulations. May you have a blessed union with lots of super little naturals.

[Hard Rain]

Mazeltov, Steve. Hope everything works out. Enjoy the honeymoon!

[Joel Pollak]

God bless and mazal tov!!!

[Cindy]

Congratulations and best wishes to you both!

[Jak]

Mazal Tov!

[Derikboy]

Can't believe you planned your wedding for a time I'm not in SA. You know how much I was looking forward to my first Jewish wedding, I would've worn my kilt. It's almost supernatural...

Congrats, Muzzel Tov and Asalam Wa-alaykum!

[Tyrone And Tweety]

All the best.
We cant wait for the time of our lives at your wedding!
best wishes
Mazeltov!
Tyrone and Tweety

[Dsinc]

Congratulations and all the best for the future.
I hear there are now questions as to why the off duty soldier did not arrest the "Palestinian" front end loader driver suffering from sudden jihad syndrome, instead of doing the right thing, which he did, by sending him to his 72 virgins in the sky. I hope they give the 18yr old soldier a medal.

[Dawid]

And while Steve celebrates his wedding, I'm asking myself what these self-hating Jews (who obviously do not read IAS) think they are upto now. Read below. Does anyone have a clue what this is about?

Jul 6, 2008 23:09 | Updated Jul 7, 2008 13:15
South African team to probe 'IDF abuses'
By ASAF SHALEV

From the Jerusalem Post

A 25-member delegation from South Africa arrived in Israel on Sunday with the self-proclaimed goal of examining Israeli human rights violations against the Palestinians.

The delegation is comprised of top judges and politicians, including Edwin Cameron, a justice of the supreme court of appeal of South Africa, and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, a member of parliament, and activists from the country's Jewish community.

Doron Isaacs, previously the national chairman of Habonim (a Jewish youth group) in South Africa and now unaffiliated with the group, helped organize the trip.

Avner Inbar, an Israeli human-rights activist who is hosting the South Africans, said the delegation would not agree to have any interviews with foreign media published until Friday.

"We want to support those Palestinians and Israelis working... to bring an end to the post-1967 Israeli occupation, to end all human rights abuses and breaches of international law, and to move toward peaceful relations and a just settlement," stated the delegation's mission statement.

"The delegation's visit has two purposes; they can teach us about political activism abroad, and we can show them our situation here," said Inbar.

An official in an Israeli NGO with strong ties to South Africa, who asked not to be identified, slammed the delegation's agenda, saying it was clearly anti-Israel.

"This visit is a sham," he said. "They haven't come to learn anything new, but to reinforce their anti-Israel agenda."

As part of their tour, they will meet with Palestinian and Israeli left-wing activists, but also with Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch. They are also scheduled to go on a guided tour of Yad Vashem.

Among the delegation's destinations are Nablus, Hebron and east Jerusalem, places which Inbar said are examples of Israel's human rights violations.

The Foreign Ministry was aware of the delegation's trip but is not involved in its activities, said Yossi Levi, a ministry spokesman. Levi added that the delegation had met with Ilan Baruch, the Israeli ambassador to South Africa, in Pretoria prior to the trip.

Inbar also said members of the delegation have experience in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and that they can contribute to what he considers a similar struggle in the Palestinian territories.

"I do not agree with using apartheid rhetoric because it is inflammatory, but I think the comparison is legitimate," he said. "One purpose of the visit is to see if indeed the comparison is legitimate in their eyes."

"We are trying to show them facts on the ground, like the wall, road blocks and the lack of ability to move freely," he said.

While Inbar said the trip is meant for the mutual exchange of information among members of the delegation and activists, he would also like to see the trip influence the South African government's position on Israel, even if it means the possibility of sanctions.

"After 41 years of occupation, it is appropriate for the international community to influence Israel to change its policies," he said.

[Gary]

Here is my response:

I refer to the visit by 25 South African so-called "human rights activists" to Israel and the "Palestinian territories", including TAC boss Zackie Achmat, Doron Isaacs, ANC MP Andrew Feinstein, feminist activist Pregs Govender, ANC MP Barbara Hogan, and Nathan Geffen, head of research and communication at the Treatment Action Campaign.
They claim their visit is a bid to bid to highlight "the injustice of the occupation and its devastating consequences".
According to the report Doron Isaacs, co-ordinator of Equal Education, said that what was needed was "a movement for Palestinian freedom based on universal human rights".
Their can be no resolution to the conflict as long as people like these refuse to realize that Israeli Jews are also entitled to human rights.
Why do leftwing extremists of this ilk never condemn the killing of Jewish women and children in Israel by Arab terrorists?

Nothing about the thousands of Jews in Israel, mainly women and children, who have been massacred, by bomb, bullet, fire, and knife in the war of genocide against the Israeli people, known as the intifada.

Nothing about the pregnant Jewish mother and her four terrified small daughters who were executed one by one at Gaza.

Nothing about the countless Jewish children murdered in the last seven years and the last 80 years in Arab pogroms against Jews in the land of Israel.

Perhaps Achmat and company should heed the words of Elie Wiesel (writer and Nobel Laureate) who, in a plea for the plight of his own people today, especially the youth and children of Israel being targeted by terror and forces of genocide (such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Ahmadinejad regime as well as all who are sympathetic to these anti-Jewish elements), penned an open letter to President George W Bush. He stated: “Please remember that the maps on (former Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat’s uniform and in Palestinian children’s textbooks show a Palestine encompassing not only all of the West Bank but all of Israel, while Palestinian leaders loudly proclaim that ‘Palestine extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from Rosh Hanikra (in the North) to Rafah (in Gaza)’.

“Please remember Danielle Shefi, a little girl in Israel. Danielle was five. When the murderers came, she hid under her bed. Palestinian gunmen found and killed her anyway.

“Think of all the other victims of terror in the Holy Land. With rare exceptions, the targets were young people, children and families. Please remember that Israel – having lost too many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers – desperately wants peace. It has learned to trust its enemies’ threats more than the empty promises of ‘neutral governments’.”

Why can't leftwing radicals grasp the fact that that Israelis Jews are entitled to human rights too?






Gary Selikow

[Bigben]

Mazeltov steve!!!

Yes I agree we are going to need a blog about this delegation. I would love to know who actually put it together and funded it etc. It has an interesting composition, most of the people the seem to believe that Israel has right to exist despite them being radically against Israel defending this right. This rules out to some extent the Kasrils crowd so I am wondering who else has such an agenda that they are willing to go to such lengths to demonise the Jewish state.

[Gary]

In the Jewish Report article they say they all support Israel's right to exist, but eralier in the article Achmat says he believs in a 'single state solution' the code for Israel destruction and replacement by an Arab Palestine in the whole of Israel.

[Gary]

What a 'single state solution' means is that the Arabs willget al of the Levant to themselves.

[Bigben]

Ya Gary

That article and their publicity in general has been riddle with inconsistancies. I heard Andrew Feinstein on the radio saying that they werent going there to judge only to listen and not 2 seconds later talking about how the focus needs to be on Israels human rights violations in the West Bank.

Gary

....to highlight "the injustice of the occupation and its devastating consequences".

...have experience in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and that they can contribute to what he considers a similar struggle in the Palestinian territories.

They shouldn't even be allowed into Israel. It's obvious that they have no clue about Islam, the threat to the apes and pigs by the "normal moms and dads", the "palestinians" from Arab occupied Judea and Samaria.

There is absolutely no similarity whatsoever between the blacks in South Africa wanting independence, and to live, and let live, and the "palestinians" wanting to, in their own words, kill all the Jews.

How these South African idiots can not first do some homework about Islam before they stick their noses into another countries problems, I don't know. And Andrew Feinstein is married to a Muslim, which is totally prohibited by the "religion of peace" He, for one, should know better.

Mind you, If any of them had an inkling about the threat of Islam, they would know the futility of their mission and they wouldn't even be there, or be going there, unless, of course, they want to tell the Israeli's to give Israel "back" to the Muslims and they must be good dhimmi's and work hard for their Muslim masters and suffer conditions far worse than South Africa's blacks oppressed by the "apartheid regime".

[Lawrence]

Mazel Tov to you Steve, all the best. A honeymoon break is what you deserve, for sure. your wife is marrying a very intelligent and thoughtful man, I know that much from what you write here.

on a side-note - The Left's love affair with the Palestinians will continue not in spite of a crazed jihadist crushing a car full of Jews and upturning a bus, but BECAUSE of it. This is the crux of the matter. this is the rub.

I was at Yad VaShem earlier this week, I saw the new museum there, which was opened about two years ago and I hadn't seen it - well designed and thought out, always a difficult experience there though, it never gets easier or less comfortable to experience.

as for self-hating Jews, they are the scum of the earth, worse than Nazis and Muslim fanatics (if that's possible), after all what is their excuse?

anyway Steve keep up the good work, you have the angels on your side - I don't understand God's ways either, sometimes I think life is just a bad joke, God is a joker and the Jews are the butt of his cruel jokes, but deep down I know this is not true - it just feels that way, but yeah there is some kind of joke going on... in the beginning was the word and the word was IRONY or something like that..OK I'm rambling...enough/maspeek.

have a good time Steve, and come back refreshed and ready to take on all the anti-Semitic lying trash in SA and beyond!

[Gary]

Lawrence I absolutely agree with you that self-hating Jews, they are the scum of the earth, worse than Nazis and Muslim fanatics.
They should, indeed, not be tolerated.

[Gary]

Lawrence you ask what excuse Jew0hating Jews have?
I suppoiose it is that they are so desperate to be liked again by their firends at work or on campus that this erases any empathy for their own people.

[Dawid]

Gary, isn't Doron Isaacs a leader of Habonim?

[Steve]

Thanks for all the warm wishes guys.

Derikboy, you timed your immigration very conveniently didnt you ;) Will get in touch with you soon.

Dawid, he was the leader of Habonim. I am sure he is still very much in touich with them. He is probably somewhat of a spiritual leader to them.

More info about the self aggrandising human rights delegation who refuse to investigate how Israelis human rights have been abused here - http://www.humanrightsdelegation.org/press_item.asp?id=6&page=1

[Gary]

Mazeltov on your wedding Steve.

By the way other Habonim grads have signed "We are Jews who hate Israel and love Hamas and Hezbollah" petitions and petitions calling for sanctions against Israel- " starve the Jews out!" .
I know Doron Isaacs is no longer associated with Habonim, but one must ask oneself what quality of characters Habonim is producing, when so many develop such a hatred of Israel and stand by Israel's murderous enemies.

[Ze-ev]

This is not the first time doron isaacs has led an anti-Israel campaign. I was at UCT for 10yrs and the biggest anti-Israel campaign I saw in that time was helped organised by doron, even the islamic society was impressed. The campaign involved building a massive wall with anti-Israel propaganda posted on it. They organised speakers, screened documentaries and organised a debate against Israel. Other people who were involved were other prominent habonim leaders such as ilan strauss. At a habonim camp a few years ago, members of habonim raised the palestinian flag.