Unpublished Letters to The Jerusalem Post Re: David Bar-Illan Z"L, Yaakov Katz and David Hazony

Sometimes it seems that everything I write gets into the paper, and then... there are times like this. Last week I wrote two letters to the editor, and neither got published. If you're wondering why I don't try for op-eds, the answer is simple. Way back when, I did try, but I was told that I wouldn't get paid, and I couldn't use the articles in any other format, like my blog. Also, it could take a couple of weeks until they'd decide. Once years before that it took them a couple of months until I discovered my op-ed published. Of course, by the time I'd realize that it was buried, it would be irrelevant, out-of-date. That's when I decided that I'm better of just blogging my thoughts and opinions.

I don't think these two are "irrelevant, out-of-date," so here goes...  What do you think? Please say in the comments and share if you like them, thanks.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-759989

What a thrill it was for me to open up the Jerusalem Post Magazine and be greeted by the legendary David Bar-Illan and the familiar and long lamented EYE ON THE MEDIA, although by Gil Hoffman.

I'll never forget hysterically barging into David Bar-Illan's office in the week before Purim, 1996, a time when horrific Arab terror attacks -mostly suicidal bus explosions- were frequently daily, shouting:

"The police are lying!! It wasn't an accident! It was a terror attack!! Either send a reporter to interview me, or give me a computer, and I'll write it up myself."

David quickly ended his phone call, led me to the couch in his office and asked for the story. 

I had been waiting at the bus stop across from Givat Hamivtar, which is now under the lightrail train tracks, to get home to Shiloh, when an Arab terrorist made a sharp right onto the sidewalk, turning left on my foot knocking me down and then mowed down a number of other innocent civilians, murdering one and seriously injuring others. Soldiers suddenly appeared and ordered all who could to run far away, since they suspected that the terrorist's car would be exploding any second.

My foot wasn't yet seriously swollen, so I ran with a neighbor across the street and around the corner to Eshkol Blvd, where I caught a bus towards the Central Bus Station and Terem First Aid. On the bus I heard the radio report in which the police claimed that there had been an "accident" at our bus stop. After being x-rayed at Terem and told that nothing was broken, a friend picked me up and took me to the Jerusalem Post building, where I noticed that David Bar-Illan's office was right by the entrance.

Bar-Illan first made sure I was comfortable with my injured foot properly propped up and then sent a reporter to get my story, which appeared on the next day's front page. Within the next couple of days, I was asked to write it up myself as an op-ed, and he (according to the information Gil Hoffman gives in his article) wrote a full length editorial using the information I had given.

Before ending this reminiscence of David Bar-Illan, I must add that he had another profession and didn't need the stress and aggravation of top Israeli journalism. He was an accomplished concert pianist. That's how I had originally met him, at a salon performance in London.

Batya Medad, Shiloh

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-760063

Yaakov Katz

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-760000

David Hazony

I hope my mixing of two articles from different parts of the Friday newspaper isn't like mixing meat and milk in a kosher kitchen, but there are similarities in both Yaakov Katz's and David Hazony's articles. They both start out very well, bringing up good points, but then unfortunately both come to the wrong conclusions. 

I'll start with Katz who reminds or informs those who may be ignorant of the fact that even Menachem Begin during his three decades as head of the opposition never lambasted the Government of Israel when abroad, no matter how much he protested their policies while in Israel and no matter how badly he was treated, including during the pre-state period. Begin was well-known for his dignified and patriotic behavior. This was even after Begin's supporters had been attacked by the Palmach when the Altalena was approaching port with arms to be used for the defense of the nascent State of Israel. Begin reacted in tears; he didn't call for a reprisal attack. Such a total difference between Menachem Begin and Israel's opposition, which is calling for rebellion, for blood --I trust you've heard what Ehud Barak and others have been saying. There is no excuse for the outrageous anti-Israel/Netanyahu protests and media campaign even abroad. They are playing into the hands of our most dangerous enemies. I don't understand how Katz doesn't totally condemn them.

Now for David Hazony... He really starts off well, very well in describing his participation in anti-Oslo protests. Hazony mentions something which really caught my attention. 

I was active in opposing Oslo. I attended the infamous Zion Square rally in 1995 in which posters I never saw apparently depicted Rabin in an SS uniform. This became a big scandal after the fact, one that didn’t diminish when the posters were retroactively downgraded to leaflets. Nor was the rally a platform of incitement, the way it has been depicted in the official history. Did anyone call Rabin a “traitor”? Yes; a small group of hyperventilating youths shouted it out – and were then immediately told off by the speakers on the balcony, including Netanyahu. But if one should judge a protest by the stupidest words of its fringe, today’s movement is no better.

The notorious "Rabin poster" was neither central to the demonstrations nor noticeable. Just to remind people that Avishai Raviv, the Shabak agent who had been involved with Right wing youth during that time, may very well had been involved.

I relate to and agree with Hazony's article until he starts "If today’s protest movement turns tragic –"

For some inexplicable reason, he coats today's  anti-government protests with Teflon when they have crossed every single red line in a true democracy. The anti-government protests aren't simply anti-Judicial Reform. Don't be naive. Read the slogans. Listen to their leaders. It's not the young powerless "fringe"  calling for blood. It's the adult leaders, those you'd expect to be responsible for reigning in the extremists.

They want to undo/override the legal elections and veto democracy. Democracy is about numbers. If you can't pull together a coalition of more than half, minimally 61 Knesset Members, then you've lost the election. 

The leaders of this protest movement have lots of money to fund their protests, but they don't have the votes. Democracy is about votes. So the truth is that they are anti-democracy, contrary to their slogans. They've attempted to redefine democracy to make it a synonym of "progressive" political ideology.

Yaakov, David, you both disappoint me. Spit out the Kool Aid and look at the facts.

Batya Medad, Shiloh בתי'ה

That Time of The Year, Yitzchak Rabin, Memories of Hate

In the United States, even after over half a century, there are still many questions and mysteries surrounding the assassination of  President "JFK" Kennedy. So, the fact that there are still too many rumours and versions no doubt masking the truth about Yitzchak Rabin's assassination shouldn't really surprise us.

I doubt if the truth has or will ever be revealed or confirmed about either national trauma.

If JFK's assassination was to heat up the "cold war" and galvanize hatred of the pro-communist/socialist, it didn't work. But the Israeli Left has been milking Rabin's assassination very effectively to demonize people like myself, who live in Judea and Samaria and consider the contribution of the Revisionists, Etzel and Lechi to our War of Independence terribly under-rated.

Yitzchak Rabin had the gall to state that he was only the prime minister of his supporters, not those of us who opposed the Oslo Accords. He also inflated the percentage of Israelis who supported that notorious rogue agreement.

I'm not an expert in the various JFK "conspiracy theories," but I do know a lot about what had been happening in Israel in the decade or more before Rabin was killed. The Shabak's agent, Avishai Raviv, worked hard radicalizing the youth on Israel's Right, high school students and later in Bar Ilan University. He was also on the scene when Rabin was shot and there are witnesses who say he announced it before it actually happened. He was even in police stations when students were interrogated about their alleged involvement in the assassination.

Honestly, I don't mourn Rabin. At best he was a dupe of the Left. His supporters continue to blame the Israeli Right for the murder. The official memorials just play on divisions in Israeli society. Anyone who knows Israeli prestate and early State of Israel history knows that all of the violence and discrimination was from the Left against the Right.

We have a long way to go to heal these rifts in Israeli society, and manufacturing new tragedies isn't the way.

The Divisive Legacy of Yitzchak Rabin

There's so much more behind the story of Yitzchak Rabin's assassination that the authorities and mainstream media are hiding. From the minute it was announced, innocent people like myself, who live in Shiloh and other communities in YESHA have been implicated.

Just this past week, the Jerusalem Post had a long feature article in its magazine Trying to understand Yigal Amir 21 years on by NATAN ODENHEIMER, which can only be accessed by people who pay for it.

I went over that article twice, once on Shabbat and just now to check out something very crucial in the story. All sorts of people are blamed with "inspiring" Yigal Amir to his extremism, but the one most important name of the most suspicious of them all was left out, Shabak agent provocateur Avishai Raviv, who had been assigned to work with youth, high school and university for about ten years. Yes, I know for a fact that he had been working with high school youth trying to activate them years before his job in Bar Ilan University. All during that time he used the same cover. He claimed that his army injuries gave him free university tuition plus living expenses and he was "volunteering" for idealistic reasons.

Please try to read it. If someone has a link to the actual article, I'd appreciate it in the comments, thanks.

Is Raviv mentioned? Nope!

If you do a check on what happened that night. Avishai Raviv was there and played a role, and it's no secret that he was also involved in all sorts of activist/anti-Oslo Accord groups, even directing a fake one for Israeli Television.

For the past twenty-one 21 years, the Left, the pro-Oslo and Shimon Peres worshipers have  been using the assignation, which is clothed in questions, as a tool to defame the Right and split the country. NRP Education Minister Naftali Bennett is correct in his complaints here:

Bennett: Stop using Rabin murder to silence the right

Something stinks for sure. This whole anti-Right atmosphere smells too much like the Left's response to the Arlosoroff murder decades ago. What? Aren't you familiar with the story? Most Israelis today aren't, which is why the Left needed a new cause/scandal they could pin on the Right. Food for thought...

Rabin Conspiracy Theories, Realistic?

photo credit:
MARC ISRAEL SELLEM

From the very first news reports of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, many knowledgeable people felt that something was "off" in the reported story. Too many people to be ignored consider that the fact that Shabak agent Avishai Raviv's leadership in the Bar Ilan University student group of which Yigal Amir was a member strongly tainted the official story. I am among those who feel that there was some sort of Shabak led conspiracy during the Oslo period, which is being ignored by the mainstream media and public figures.

Avishai Raviv, credit

Avishai Raviv was an attractive, charismatic and well-financed figure who worked with Jewish high school youth, yishuvim and university students over a period of about ten years, from the mid-1980's to the Rabin assassination in 1995. Only after he left the field did the Bar Ilan students in the group realize that all their expenses had been completely covered and supported by Raviv.

It's a known fact that Rabin had been pushed or duped into accepting the Oslo Accords, an agreement of sorts, which had been negotiated by private individuals who had no legal right to commit as representatives of the State of Israel.

The process began in January 1993 in a meeting with two Israelis, Dr. Yair Hirschfeld and Dr. Ron Pundak, and Palestinian representatives headed by Ahmed Qurei, aka Abu Alaa. The contact between the groups was made through Norwegian mediators, who contacted Dr. MK Yossi Beilin. A short time later, Beilin was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he officially acknowledged these talks, while depicting them as unofficial. Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres was updated by Beilin after the first meeting took place in January, and Peres informed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in early February. (Knesset site)

If anything, those who initiated contact and committed Israel to these conditions should have had been charged with treason. But inexplicably, they were fully backed by Israel's Leftist leadership most prominently by Shimon Peres. By all reports Rabin hadn't a clue as to what had been taking place.

Yitzchak Rabin was a team player and didn't get to high office by shaking the boat. And talking about boats, it's a fact that he followed Ben-Gurion's orders to attack the Altalena soon after the Declaration of Independence.

Those who know the truth about the Rabin assassination have kept their silence. There are many questions that need answers, and I wonder if we will ever get them.

One of the worst results of the assassination, is that it has been used as justification to condemn, blame Israel's Right, the pro-Jewish Life in all of the Land of Israel. The hateful and untrue statements made annually and more frequently against the most patriotic of Israeli citizens is how Yitzchak Rabin's followers wish to promote his legacy. This lack of unity is the greatest tragedy of all for the State of Israel and the Jewish People.

No Parallel, Similarity between Murders of Eyal, Naftali and Gil-Ad with that of Mohammed

It may make good politics and media op for Jerusalem Mayor's politically correct joint phone call with family members of both Jewish and Arab victims, but I find the act very offensive.

During his condolence call at Nof Ayalon, Barkat spoke with Naftali Frankel’s uncle, Yishai, and, by telephone, with Abu Khdeir’s father, Hussein.
Speaking “in the name of the citizens of Jerusalem,” Barkat expressed to Hussein his shock “over the horrible and barbaric slaying of his son,” a statement from his office said. (Algemeiner)

funeral of 3 Jewish teens

The arrest of Jews for the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir has everyone I know feeling physically ill and completely baffled, while there were great celebrations in Arab towns and villages all over the night the three Jewish teenagers were kidnapped and murdered.

Avishai Raviv

And we still don't know if the arrested Jews are really guilty. In the corner of my mind I keep hearing the name "Avishai Raviv," the Shabak agent who had a very long career egging on Right wing Jewish teens to further extremism culminating in the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, and I wonder what is really behind this murder if it was really by Jews.

The Jerusalem Post now reports that one Jew has confessed, and we are waiting for facts.

Before equating the murders we must hear the same sorts of condemnation from Arabs of all walks of life about the murder of Jews as we hear from Jews about the murder of an Arab. That would be a sign that they are getting closer, but words aren't enough. While Jews are sick at the idea that there could possibly be a Jew willing and capable of such a murder, we have not heard any equivalent reactions from Arabs. That's all further proof that we are very far from true peace. There is no equivalency between the murders!

Couldn't Have Said it Any Better

Big news in Israel is that US President Bush is planning on visiting Israel in a month and a half. Read what David Bedein says about it. Then read Arlene Kushner's "Surreal." At present it's on the Homepage of her site and doesn't have its own link.

If I'm not mistaken, this isn't the first time that the Israeli Government has tried to collect legal weapons from Jews in Judea and Samaria. We're not the enemy. There's something very sick and dangerous in the Israeli Government, but that's not new.

I wonder whatever happened to Avishai Raviv. Does anyone know what he's up to...

What happened to...?

Carl asked what happened to Margalit Har Shefi. She was arrested on trumped up charges of "not preventing the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin."

She was among the unfortunate group of Bar Ilan law students persecuted by the police. Some were only interrogated, but others were jailed. They were all set up and framed by veteran Shabbak operator, Avishai Raviv. Raviv had been involving himself in various right-wing youth activities for a number of years before Rabin's assassination.

Why is this all suddenly in the news again?

It reminds me of the Rosenberg executions in the states, during the red-witch hunt. I read a book a number of years ago, which proved that Mrs. Rosenberg really had nothing to do with it, but she was charged in order to get her husband to confess. In the end, they were both executed as "spies." Considering their end, should Jay Pollard be happy he has been in jail all these decades? Of course, he was working for an ally, not an enemy. But they're all Jewish....

Back to the subject...

Former chief of intelligence (Shabak) Ami Ayalon, now a Knesset Member, revealed Thursday night that Margalit Har-Shefi did not realize that Yigal Amir intended to assassinate Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. (full article)

The Har-Shefi family isn't surprised. They always knew that she was innocent. Now, G-d willing she should be able to get on with her life and not be blacklisted. And yes, the government should be sued. Carl, you're a lawyer; why don't you help?