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The Cholent Pot©2002
Reflections from Israel on Life, Recipes, Politics, Religion, Music, Fantasy and just about anything
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Thursday, April 10, 2008 :::
The View From Mahrs©2008
The intolerable situation in Israel, wherein there is no constitution, nor constitutionally protected rights, has created the surreal and absurd fact of life that the national (in fact only) police, have near absolute power over people. This coupled with the Elitist and largely left-wing, unstoppable Israeli Court system, combines to create an almost inescapable gordian knot of forced repression and fear.
In Israel, one is presumed guilty. If an person under arrest chooses their "right to remain silent", it is taken as that they will not cooperate with a police investigation. You have a right to a lawyer, but they do not have to tell you this and the lawyer cannot be present when they question you. The police routinely browbeat and terrify a person being questioned. One has a right to read any statement that they gave to the police prior to siging, but the Police refuse routinely to give a person the time to read these statements often substituting in whole cloth, completely fabricated statements which a scared, confused person signs under threat of lengthy imprisonment.
Furthermore, the police routinely entrap innocent indivuduals into crimes they otehrwise would never even contemplate committing. They further, plant incriminating evidence, and then incarcerate with little or no outside contact between the accused and parents or other relatives - all in the name of potentially hindering their investigation. the OVERWHELMING majority of cases, after wandering through the labyrinthine Israeli Justice system (this is a post all to its own) are invariably dismissed for either lack fo evidence or lack of public interest - meaning there is not nor ever was anything to prosecute.
This causes untold anguish to the accused and their families and of course incredibly large sums of money defending these accusations.
The Police can use unlimited physical force against an individual. If an accused demands his rights, they can have the charge of resisting arrest added!
These facts, combine with many other issues such as that most Israeli police are Army cadets who washed out of the army and are basically in the uneducated thug category. There are those who are genuinely good "cops" but they are few and far between.
All Police appointments are generally Politically motivated. Just as any investigation of the police is conducted bythe internal police investigation unit whose primary task is to cover any police wrong doing UNLESS the wrongdoing is so HEINOUS that they have no choice but to take action.
As a case in point, there is the famous incident of 10-12 years ago where the police under orders from Yitzchak Rabins Government, suddenly attacked a group of women who were holding a peaceful protest rally against a govt. policy. The police beat and trounced these women. The police were videoed prior to the attack, removing their name tags from their uniforms so that they could not be identified. SOme helpless women were beaten so badly they required hospitalization.
The "servant of the Public" who ordered the final assault was none otehr than Micky Levy who later was rewarded for his valorous actions with a promotion to commissioner of Jerusalem branch of the police.
While I could go on and on, Let's focus on a potential solution. A solution I might add that would be resisted vigorously by the Police.
First, I must say that in countries that have strict constitutional guarantess, such as the US or some European countries, there certainly are problems, but there is also a redress of the problem in other venues. In Israel this is simply not possible. The Police routinely and without reprehension, without fear of any legal reprisal, bend break and otherwise trample on the very law they are supposed to uphold. If a person so much as asks a cop "why are you doing that...?" they can be arrested on the spot for interefering in police investigations.
Ok so the solution? As follows:
1) All Police must be required to have aminimum of an associates degree in criminal justice. This will give a two year gap between taking army losers and putting them on the streets to "protect" the public.
2) The ENTIRE Israeli Police structure must be shattered - broken from a national Police into city and regional Police. The argument they will make against this is that ISrael is not the US. It is too small and so on. Further, they will argue that there is already and regional structure in place.
The answer to their argument is severalfold. a) Even though there is a regional structure, indeed even a city structure, there is little to no connection between the individual police and the region inwhich tehy serve. The police at whim or perceived need, transfer police willy-nilly from one place to another case in point was the disengagemet from Gaza wherein tens of thousands of police were called up from every possible locale and sent to gaza to evictJews from their homes.
What possible connection does a cop from Haifa, whose task is to patrol the streets of Haifa, have to evicting Jews in gaza? This is akin to a NYC Cop (not John Mcclain) travelling to Honolulu to arrest a native hawaiian, one who has NEVER left hawaii, for the crime of jaywalking in honolulu. There is simply a deep disconnect in logic and practice in such a ssytem. The crime rate of theivery and auto theft and violent domestic crimes soars in Israel, as the cops play musical districts.
The solution, the true solution is that their must be a Municipal Police completely unconnected to the national behemouth. In the US the police are largely under the jurisdiction of the executive branches. In Israel, while the titular head of police is the minister of internal security ( how communistically dictatorish is that appelation), it is truly the courts whom they obey along with the Attorney general who also serves at the pleasure not of the prime minister, but rather of the courts. Therefore, The municipal police must be under the jurisdiction of the Mayor of each city. This is logical especially given that the Mayor is almost the ONLY directly elected official in all of Israel! Yes that's right a Mayor is the only elected offical with direct accountability to the people who elected him. Prime Minister Olmert is accountable to only himself. There is no impeachment process, there is no recall other than a vote to bring down a government which usually cannot garner enough votes to topple the feeding trough of government handouts and bribery.
b) The newly installed munipal police will be required to LIVE in the city they operate in. They must have residency requirements and cannot be transferred to other cities at the drop of a hat.
c) Any police leadership by definition must have strong connection to the city they are in. Furthermore, the head of the police i.e. the commissioner of police - should either be elected by the citizens of the city, or appointed by the mayor of the city and then undergo a full vetting process in the city council, thereby giving citizens the right to testify publicy for or against such an appointment.
So, the best solution is to BREAK UP THE POLICE. Make them accountable.
Destry the foundations of the police state that causes Jews to live in fear in their own land.
::: posted by eric at 9:40 PM
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 :::
The View From Mahrs©2007
The current debate over the ill advised immigration reform bill (read - surrender the US to foreign interests) begs the question - Why is there a need to reform anything? It is really a simple case of enforcing what already exists. The proponents of reform say that it is impossible to arrest and deport 12 million illegals.
In my humble opinion this is a patent absurdity. If 12 million people all fo a sudden stopped paying taxes, how long before the IRS cracked down on them? OH OH WAIT these 12 million already don't pay taxes! Wrong analogy. If 12 million people started ignoring our traffic and murder and theft laws, how long before local authorities cracked down and arrested them? OH OH WAIT they ALREADY break all these laws and more.
If 12 million people became a danger to public health with rampant disease, drug smuggling, and other socially unacceptable habits, how long before the social workers quarantined them? OH OH WAIT! these 12 million ALREADY carry with them diseases that were all but eradicated in the US.
Friends when government won't or can't serve the will of the governed then it ceases to be a government and becomes a tyranny. When social order breaks down it becomes anarchy.
The modern minute men proved what dedicated conered citizens can do when government can't or won't.
This immigration bill is an abortion. OH WAIT we already have a ramrodded abortion culture that was foisted on us with no debate.
Mr President Bush. We knew Ronald Reagan and you for sure ain't no Reagan. Prescription Drug program and now immigration. You are no conservative and are leading america to ruin. Your precious legacy will be worse than Clintons.
Stop Immigration Reform NOW! There is no need.
::: posted by eric at 12:38 AM
Monday, August 14, 2006 :::
The View From Mahrs©2002
The cease fire imposed by the UN and France and agreed to by the US. has now been in place for three hours. While we welcome the respite from more missiles and injuries and deaths, we all in Israel cannot help but - wonder, speculate, fear, conjecture, all the adjectives you can think of - when this latest round of peace will be over and the fighting will begin in earnest.
Several points become very clear. (I'll elaborate later on for each point raised)
1) Israel has lost this round.
2) The next round will be much deadlier
3) The US is angry with Israel
4) Miracles occurred on a daily if not hourly basis
5) The overwhelming majority of the Jewish people were united on this action
6) It may not have been the correct action to take
7) Nietsche once again is proven right - what does not destroy me makes me strong
8) Either the arabs are becoming stronger and Israel weaker or there is something seriously wrong (or both!)
While there are more points to ponder let's tackle these first.
1) Israel's shifting objectives in this war actually made it impossible to win given the current paradigm. They started out wanting to get the hostage soldiers back - they so far have failed miserably. Then they wanted to destory Hezbollah - they may have killed some fighters and destoryed some rockets but hezbollah will now emerge as the defacto rulers not of southern lebanon but of all of lebanon. They can justly and rightfully claim PR victory and actual victory in that they more than survived and in fact carried out a part of their mandate while they didn't detroy Israel they did in fact terrorize and disrupt Israel and Israelis. They wanted to prevent rockets from raining down on Israel - far from stopping the number of daily attacks rose to an icredible 250 on the day of the cease fire. 250 rocket attacks and israels response is STILL politically correct? Imagine, please imagine, Just imagine that 250 missiles fell on detroit from WIndsor or on Seattle from vancouver or bufalo from Toronto. or SanAntonio from mexico! How long would the US stand still or even remotely care about the fallout of consequences before they obliterated the opposing city and force? Or England or France or Russia or CHina! How long would any normal nation stand still for such atatcks and Israel stood by and dithered about a response for over a month! Unbelievable and unacceptable. Israel has neither weakend hezbollah, liberated captive soldiers, prevented rockets from falling or achieved ANY of the stated objectives. SCORECARD Hezbollah 1 Israel 0
2) All a ceasfire has ever accomplished historically has been to allow the two sides to rearm and re stock with better and deadlier weapons and war plans. So what if Israel pushed Hezbollah north of the Litani river - which it is not certain that they have done. Iran has already said that they will re supply hezbollah with more better advanced and longer range weapons during the cease fire. The next round will be more fierce and savage with higher grade weapons and any gains that may have been made which in essense as stated are none - will quickly fall by the wayside.
3) The US stragic plan was for a savage Israel to take out Hizbollah, force them to the east to Syria, (which is already in command and control of teh latest round of missile firings from syrian territory no less) then Israel attacks syria who allied in a mutual defense pact with Iran would then force iran to directly attack Israel THEREBY giving the US the excuse (as if they need one) to attack Iran directly and take out the nukes and Syria from the east and take out baby assad. Israel timidly did not fulfill US expectations and so Bush is angry and disappointed to say the least and also this UN ceasefire was truly ALL that could be salvaged from the ruins.
4)Fact well over 3000 missiles rained down on Israel and yet only dozens died, not thousands. Look at all reports from Iraq. In the normal course of events, a bomb blows up and scores die. SCORES if not hundreds. A bomb blows up in Bali and over 300 people die. Here in Israel the Divine supervision is palpable. You can see daily how we are somewhat safe or as the Torah says, it is not the missile that kills it is the sin that allows the missile to reach its address. The surest and best method is prayer and tehillim. As the torah tells us Ha Kol Kol Yaakov meaning (from genesis) the voice is yaakovs voice but the hands are the hands of esau. In partnership, teh Jewish people must send out troops coupled with an equal or greater number of people learning and praying on all our behalfs. SO yeshiva bachurim (students) are equally important to the soldiers in the field one cannot succeed without the other.
5) Well over 90+% of Israelis are for the war. Now war is not a popularity contest. BUT when you have essentially acitizens army as israel does, where her reserves constitute the main body of the army, then it is axiomatic that the support of the people who make up the army is essential to the battle. In this case after 13 years of left wing insanity starting with Oslo and culminating with the expulsion from Gaza of all the Jewish residents, the main body of the Jewish people is frustrated, angry and aching to clean clocks. The crying shame is in not having a leadership that unleashes the rage.
6) This is a tough point. At the beginning of both the Gaza and the Lebanon affair, Olmert was really faced with only two valid options. 1) To negotiate a prisoner swap and get the soldiers back it certainly would not have been the first time israel would have released terrorist prisoners. In fact (I am no posek but...) The basic halacha regarding this is that the prisoners should have been released to get the soldiers back. It is a case of absolute certainty against potential threat. Here we know/knew that if we attacked hezbollah it was certain that they would attack and shoot back and fire rockets. It is NOT rocket science to realize that if they have stockpiled 13000 missiles and rockets, they intend to use them. So they did and so innocent Jews died and of course the soldiers who also died. That was the certainty. The potential was that the prisoners (terrorists in jail) when released MIGHT have attacked and terrorized again and MAYBE might have caused innocent death. SO Halachically when weighed against one another the correct course of action is to negotiate a release based on uncertainty rather than attack and incurr absolute. Face it folks Hamas and Hezbollah (Pahched in the face) slapped Olmert and Peretz in the face and embarrassed them so this whole war really came down to Olmerts pride. If this is the case then all the deaths and injuries and destruction of Northern Israel (which nevuah and the gemorah speak about by the way) were all for NOTHING. What collasal waste. what arrogance. What sadness.
7) What does not destroy me makes me strong. Again no rocket science here. the Hezbos are not destroyed they will be back and stronger than ever. Like Heracles and the Hydra. Until he torched each neck, the untorched necks grew TWO new heads deadlier than the one he cut off in the first place. Wait for it folks the next round with Iran is coming closer.
8) OK this one is NOT EXACT (spoiler warning here) I in no way have official numbers. I have seen these bantered about and cannot confirm or deny them. But they are plausible so I'll use them.
a) The six day war, the death ratio was 1 IDF soldier to over 25 arabs killed! (1:25 remember that number) Total ISraeli war dead 800
b) Yom Kippur war, the death ratio was 1 soldier to about 19 or 20 arabs (1:20)
c) The first Lebanon war the ratio was 1 soldier to 12-15 arabs (1:15)
d) NOW This lebanon war the ratio is 1 soldier to 5 arabs!!!! (1:5)!!
These are not absolute numbers, certainly as I mentioned not even official and accurate, but they give good overview as to the problem. The arabs are getting to be better soldiers and Israel not so good? or perhaps the method and means of warfare has changed completely. This we know to be true. Now Hezbollah is not an army they are a rag tag group of terrorists trained by Iran. The geurilla method of warfare means higher casualty rates. BUT the reticence in targeting villages and so on including collaborating civilain populations is appalling. One of the problems of course is that the Hezbos fire from just those villages that they WANT israel to attack for example Hamas fired at jerusalem from Beit Jalla - a CHRISTIAN village south of Jerusalem, daring israel to wipe it out and remove the Christians from the vicinity. They want the mid east christian rein as well as judenrein.
Remember dresden and hiroshima. I am not advocating nukes, but if a rocket is fired from a village that village ceases to exist. make southern lebanon a parking lot.
The price to be paid by the arab side is not high enough. In the anals of war fare when a country is an aggressor they lose land as a result of the aggression. Only with Israel and tha arabs does the reverse happen. I am reminded when in 92 Rabin as defense minister deported 400 arabs to lebanon. The world screamed. IF IF IF he had deported 400,000 of them the world would have screamed just as loud but something positive would have been accomplished. Instead the 400 were brought back and israel lost another fight.
The political will is not there by the leadership to win.
Rush Limbaugh said it best unleash the army and win the peace. unconditional surrendur has historically been what it takes to make peace that lasts. Not this abortion of a ceasefire that salves Olmerts pride. We will all suffer for it.
::: posted by eric at 12:58 AM
Monday, July 17, 2006 :::
The View From Mahrs©2002
Israel Defense Forces Homefront Command Issues Instructions
Israel Army Home Front instructions to the publicHome Front Commander Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak Gershon issued instructions on Monday to civilians for how to defend themselves: Citizens living along the northern border, in Karmiel and northwards, should remain in bomb shelters and secured rooms. Citizens living between Haifa and Karmiel should remain inside. Upon hearing an explosion or a siren, those inside buildings must immediately enter secured or other interior rooms. Those who find themselves outdoors should enter a nearby building or stairwell, take shelter against a wall, or even lie on the ground. "When the siren is sounded you will have less than a minute to get into underground shelters and secure rooms," said Gershon. Residents in areas south of Haifa should go about their business as usual. Gershon urged the public to listen to the media for additional instructions, to call its information center at 1207 or to go to the Home Front Command's website . TV Channel 33 will broadcast the Home Front Command instructions every hour on the hour. Emergency numbers: Home Front Command: 1207Haifa Municipality: 1212-466-106Tiberias Municipality: 04-673-9632Rambam hospital: 125-5144Rambam fax: 04-854-3420Bnei Zion hospital: 125-5145Bnei Zion fax numbers: 04-835-9306Karmel Hospital: 125-5142
::: posted by eric at 10:39 PM
Thursday, March 31, 2005 :::
The View From Mahrs©2002
Murder She Wrote
Terri Schiavo has been successfully murdered by her estranged, adulterous spouse and Judge Greer of Florida.
The plight of this woman and her family profoundly touched on the core beliefs of many people across the nation.
It is imperative that a deep investigation into Greer and Schiavo be carried out and if found guilty of murder they be convicted and sentenced
Actually not if found guilty, but rather WHEN found guilty
::: posted by eric at 7:39 AM
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 :::
The View From Mahrs©2002
Water Water Everywhere...
Day fourteen of state sanctioned murder in Florida.
It is completely incomprehensible how seemingly moral upright human beings can be so callous as to starve and dehydrate a defenseless woman to death in the manner in which Terri Schiavo is suffering as I write this, in Florida.
How can the Supreme Court not reverse the criminal rulings made by lower courts all the way down to a COUNTY PROBATE JUDGE in Florida?
My friends, regardless of your worldviews, regardless of your religious beliefs, regardless of your stance on political issues, the plain and simple fact is that which we would not dream of doing to an animal is being done to a human being created in the image of G-d.
If this can be done to a defenseless woman, then it can be done to any of us under any circumstance. Mark my words that it is far worse than a slippery slope. it is a steep precipise.
Hitler (may his name be blotted out) Did not begin with the Jews. He began with the infirm and handicapped. It is a short step from there to denying inalienable rights to select groups of people.
I am reminded of the famous quote from Martin Niemuller,
"In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up."
It may not be too late. We must speak out on this crime against G-d and man, the crime of murder of the innocent.
Perhaps in deference to Terri, a hunger strike by all of us and especially for those protesting, or better a denial of food and water to Greer and others, would be most telling as a sign of support and protest.
Write to your congressman, write to Jeb Bush, write to your Newspaper, write to Geroge Bush.
Take five minutes and express your revulsion at the murder in this manner or any manner of the innocent before the innocent becomes you or yoru loved ones.
::: posted by eric at 11:23 PM
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