Anti-Freeze Oriented Online Game. Settlement Freeze, That Is

A guy named Ami Hanya from Petah Tikva has created a Macromedia Flash game to fight against the settlement freeze in his own unique way.

You can play the game below or or on the original hosted site . Click where it says "משחק חדש" (New Game) to start playing.

Basically, you have to protect the 145 (according to Mr. Hanya; of course, 25 of those are illegal outposts not recognized by the Israeli government) settlements from Bibi and Barak as they drop ice cubes. You have to spear the ice cubes to break them.




As someone who at least before college (and still is, on train rides) was a major gamer, I have to say, it's really not very good. On the other hand, I've never been the biggest fan of Flash games.

As a political statement, it's interesting. Particularly the 145 settlement part-what are the 25???

I played through a bunch of times to see which settlements came up. A quasi-pseudo-random number generator seems to have been used to choose the order of the settlements (the reason I call it quasi is that, as an aspiring cryptographer who should really be working on reading papers/writing his research instead of this, true pseudo-random number generators aren't generally used in random number generation libraries), so by running it a few times, I can find most of them.

After a huge amount of time, I got a surprising result. Several legal settlements do not seem to be present. Settlements left (after finding 136) include Beitar Illit, Modi'in Illit, Ariel, Ma'ale Adumim, Kedumim, Karnei Shomron and Kiryat Arba


it seems he (I suppose appropriately) left out the ones that do have current construction going on [the construction that began before the freeze], while including a whole bunch of illegal outposts in the West Bank and evacuated settlements from Gaza and northern Samaria-but not, for whatever reason, from the Sinai.

Screenshot:

Lesson for Secular Progressives: How to Really Fight a War on Christmas

It's December again, time for one of the most sacred annual traditions. I am of course talking about the incessant whining about the "War on Christmas" being conducted by "secular progressives" in the United States.

This year, President Obama's getting flak for his own personal War on Christmas

The card selected by the Obamas announces: "Season's Greetings." Inside, it reads: "May your family have a joyous holiday season and a new year blessed with hope and happiness."

But Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., said abandoning Christmas at Christmas is just plain wrong. On Tuesday, he introduced a resolution calling for the protection of the sanctity of Christmas. So far, 44 lawmakers, Democrat and Republican, have co-signed the bill.

"I believe that sending a Christmas card without referencing a holiday and its purpose limits the Christmas celebration in favor of a more 'politically correct' holiday," Brown told Fox News Radio on Thursday.

Yes, Representative Henry Brown seriously introduced a (non-binding) resolution in the House of Representatives to protect Christmas, which currently has 72 Republican co-sponsors as well as Democrat Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, who apparently hasn't been bought off by the nefarious secular progressives yet.

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected for use by those who celebrate Christmas.

Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and

Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment of the Constitution, in prohibiting the establishment of religion, would not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;

(2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and

(3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions by those who celebrate Christmas.

Now, it's not entirely clear to me how many Christmas symbols, like an evergreen tree, electric lights, a "frosty" snowman, "Jingle Bell Rock" playing on a mall PA till it drives you insane, etc. have anything to do with any God, but to each his own, I guess.

At any rate, it's not like this is Congress being out of touch with the people. There's a grassroots website, Stand for Christmas, which lets consumers rate how Christmas-friendly, Christmas-negligent or Christmas-offensive a retailer is.

The most offensive retailer at present is "The Gap", which was founded by Donald George Fisher, z"l. That's right, (as if there were a doubt as to who the "secular progressives" are), Mr. Fisher was Jewish, and a major donor to San Francisco Bay Area Jewish causes.
Banana Republic, founded by Mel Ziegler, who seems to be yet another "secular progresive" Yid, is also up there-of course, it's been owned by The Gap, Inc. for most of its existence. American Eagle Outfitters, founded by Mark and Jerry Silverman, need I say more. Old Navy has, from what I can see, always been under the Gap.

Of course, on the other hand, Kohl's is one of the most pro-Christmas retailers, and Max Kohl was definitely Jewish (as were his sons Senator Herb Kohl and Allen Kohl), and Best Buy, the second worst, was founded and is currently run by German descended (I assume) Catholic [to the extent of being on the board of a Catholic university] Richard Schulze. So who knows.

At any rate, American warriors against Christmas would do well to look to Eretz Yisrael to find out how to really bring down Christmas. The Lobby for Jewish Values is really bringing it:

Backed by rabbis, and with the self-righteous air of the American Christian right, lobby chairman Ofer Cohen told the Israeli media that he had considered publishing a list of businesses bold enough to put up Christmas decorations, call for a boycott against them, and - with a little help from Jerusalem Rabbinate - revoke the kashrut certificates of said hotels and restaurants.

The article, however, does not really explain why they're going after Christmas so hard. To clarify, it's not so much because it's non-Jewish as because it's Christianity. Many if not most poseks (interpreters of Jewish law) have ruled that Christianity is an idolatrous religion. I'm not going to get into why, but this is almost certainly the root cause. For instance, this is why Rav Haskel Lookstein got into hot water for having gone to the Interfaith prayer service at the National Cathedral, not just because of the fact that prayer was happening, but even because it was in a church.

“To go into a cathedral, in this case an Episcopalian cathedral in the main sanctuary, is certainly by most accounts not appropriate," the executive director of the RCA, Rabbi Basil Herring, told JTA. "If one wants to visit the Sistine Chapel to view the art of Michelangelo it is problematic.

On the other hand, apparently Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel Yonah Metzger wanted to enter the arsoned Yasuf mosque when he went to condemn the actions, but was prevented by the villagers; i.e. Jewish law had no problem with it. This is because Islam is universally deemed non-idolatrous by Jewish law, due to its steadfast opposition to any sort of visual depictions of religious things, as we of course saw during the Mohammad cartoon controversy.

Note to Pamela Geller Regarding General Keith Dayton

Notable conservative blogger and שיקסע (and I'm using shiksa here in the literal sense, since Geller is a fellow Yid) had an interview with Front Page Mag to discuss Obama's Landscape of anti-Semitism

Miss Geller made some curious remarks in this interview:

Then in May 2009 came the revelation that the United States and allied military, under the command of Lt. Keith Dayton, was training 1,500 Palestinian troops.

Would American-trained Palestinian troops one day go into battle against the forces of American ally Israel? It was possible.

This is quite curious. Now, yes, USSC for Israel and the Palestinian Authority Lt. Gen Keith Dayton is indeed training Palestinian troops.

But look at what Jim Zanotti's CRS report from October 8, 2008 had had to say:

Since Hamas gained control of
the Gaza Strip, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, the U.S. Security Coordinator, has helped with the
training of about 400 Presidential Guardsmen and about 1,000 National Security Forces
(NSF) troops (training for the second of five special NSF battalions planned for the West
Bank began in September 2008) at the International Police Training Center just outside
Amman, Jordan. Most reports agree that law and order have improved where the PA
forces have been deployed, but uncertainty remains (particularly among some Israeli
officials) over the willingness and ability of the forces to incapacitate militants

Now, if I recall correctly, a dude named George W. Bush was president of the United States at the time. I believe he was elected and served as a Republican.

Now, during that dude Mr. Bush's time in office, there were indeed significant concerns over the effectiveness of those forces

As security coordinator between Israel and the PA, US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton was responsible for training and financing equipment used by the Presidential Guard, Abbas's elite force that was in charge of the Rafah and Karni crossings. During last week's fighting in Gaza, the forces proved their ineffectiveness and together with the rest of the Fatah military and political wing, failed to demonstrate a real opposition to Hamas.

"Dayton's plan completely failed," a senior defense official said. "The Presidential Guards which he was responsible for were easily run over by Hamas."

But the Bush administration didn't listen to Israel; since then, the IDF has had more mixed feelings about the PA security forces trained by Dayton:

Overall, the forces have been successful in cracking down on Hamas as well as other terrorist groups in the West Bank, a senior officer in the IDF Central Command said on Thursday.

"The problem is that now that they are doing a good job they have a lot of self-confidence and think they can venture into areas they are not allowed into," the officer explained.

The article references a PA security officer who was found in Area C just north of Efrat at a junction; from my reading of the map, that would just about be where the border will presumably be based on a plan mostly aligned with the partition fence.

So, how is Miss Atlas gonna shrug this one off?

Quasilateral disengagement from northern Samaria?

Obviously the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip and semi-disengagement from northern Samaria (i.e. the four settlements in the Jenin and Nablus area) didn't end up working out so well-at least not the full, complete disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

On the other hand, can they do a quasilateral disengagement?

Ari Shavit, Ha'aretz's centrist columnist (in addition to the many left-wing columnnists, they have a centrist and a few rightists), thought that might be possible.

Obviously, it would be dependent on coordination with the PA, and European (and American) active support, unlike Gaza. One of the questions is whether settlements have to be evacuated (rather than just turned over to PA authority), and if so, whether that is just some of the ultra-violent settlements or all of them.

Ari Shavit on "Disengagement II"

Netanyahu has two options. One is Shaul Mofaz's plan: the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders. The second is Disengagement II: the evacuation of about 20 West Bank settlements and their transfer to the Fayyad government. The Mofaz plan has major advantages, but it makes Netanyahu fear unlimited and unrestrained Palestinian sovereignty. This means he might be forced to seriously consider the other option. We can't rule out that in 2010 Netanyahu will find himself pushing a limited withdrawal, just as Sharon did in 2004 and 2005.

Disengagement II will have to be completely different from its predecessor. It will have to be coordinated with the Palestinian Authority and granted European support, and it will have to turn the evacuated area into an economic prosperity zone. It will need to prevent Palestinians from smuggling in weapons and increasing their military might, and must assure Israel's right to self-defense.

The obvious place to do this would be in the northern Shomron. If one evacuates/turns over just six settlements (Kfar Tapuach doesn't allow for "adding" much territory but as a settlement violent even for these settlements standards, it might as well be added), one creates a relatively extensive contiguous Palestinian territory containing Nablus, Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarm as well as a large number of towns and villages.

In the case of these settlements, due to their history of violence, unless any of them truly and legitimately have land that is legitimately privately owned by those living on it (while uncommon, such land does exist, and the state of Israel doesn't really have a right to kick those people off their land except under certain circumstances [i.e. building a needed highway/train line where this is a good route], and I'm not sure this qualifies).

Settlements include:

• Itamar
  
  • Population-785 in 2008, 439 in 1998
  • Politics-80% for the National Union in 2009, with 7% for Habayit Hayehudi, 5% for Shas, 4% for Likud, 2% for UTJ; 13% for Jewish National Front and 71% for the NU-NRP union in 2006
  • Violence-Among other things, Itamar's settlers are known for attacking Palestinian olive harvesters; while I think agriculture is a doomed occupation in this region due to climate change, that's for another post; in the past, youths in Jordan Valley kibbutzim, the Tzabar battalion of the Givati Brigade as well as the more usual types (Rabbis for Human Rights, assorted well-meaning but (maybe) naive to insane and anti-Semitic foreign and domestic leftists/anarchists, and of course Palestinians themselves fight back harshly
  • Notable Personalities-Yehoshua Elitzur, who was convicted of manslaughter after he shot and killed a Palestinian, who as far as I can tell is still a fugitive from the law
• Elon More
  
  • Population-1315 in 2008, 1030 in 1998
  • Politics-77% for the National Union in 2009, with 5% for Habayit Hayehudi, 5% for Shas, 10% for Likud, 2% for Beitenu; 10% for Jewish National Front and 73% for the NU-NRP union in 2006
  • Violence-Going after the IDF, puncturing jeep tires, attacking Palestinian farmers, attacking "Bibi's inspectors"
  • Notable Personalities-Elyakim Levanon, the settlement's rabbi and head of its hesder yeshiva. The Elon Moreh hesder yeshiva made Aluf Dan Halutz's four-hesder list and then single-hesder list of yeshivas for elimination, but a then-more right-wing Shaul Mofaz didn't approve it immediately and the 2nd Lebanon War sidetracked things. The yeshiva also just barely missed out on Barak's cut
• Bracha
  
  • Population-1364 in 2008, 686 in 1998
  • Politics-66% for the National Union in 2009, with 26% for Likud, 2% for Habayit Hayehudi, 3% for Shas; in 2006, 5% for Jewish National Front, 59% for NU-NRP, 31% for Likud/li>
    
  • Violence-Shot mortar shells at Palestinian villages, donkey-killing (as bad as donkeypunching????)
  
  
  • Notable Personalities-Eliezer Melamed, the head of the Har Bracha yeshiva; he's encouraged IDF refusal and basically did his best (by refusing to go to a hearing, renounce refusal, etc.) to get things rolling and make the de-hesderization of his yeshiva happen earlier this week, in what I believe is the first such occurrence.
  
  
• Yitzhar
  
  • Population-864 in 2008, 291 in 1998
  • Politics-87% for the National Union in 2009, with 1% for Habayit Hayehudi, 4% for Shas, 6% for Likud, 1% for UTJ; 61% for Jewish National Front and 30% for the NU-NRP union in 2006
  • Violence-Pogrom (as an untargeted display of wrath, that's what it was) against Asira el-Kibliyeh after a scumbag f***tard from that village stabbed a 9-year old from the settlement, as well as very frequent attacks on Palestinian farmers; Col. Amir Baram, head of the Samaria brigade mentioned one of the yeshivas there as one of the top violence-creator in the area; numerous other attacks on Palestinians
  • Notable Personalities-Several rabbis [probably pretty much all of the ones there] associated with settlement's two yeshivas. For the Dorshei Yichudcha yeshiva-Yosef Paley has been arrested for incitement to genocide. Yitzhak Shapira, the head of the yeshiva, recently released a book halachically justifying killing Gentile children (if they're deemed to pose a threat now or possibly in the future, which is minimal to no nuance). Yitzchak Ginsburg of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva, originally at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus before the IDF pulled out in 2001, is one of the many absolutely batshit American-born settlers. Born in St. Louis, Missouri to a not-so-religious family, he got ba'al-teshuva'ed in Philadelphia, and later made aliyah and joined Chabad, and I believe he thinks Scheneerson is the Mashiach. His most notable batshitness is Baruch HaGever, praise for Baruch Goldstein's massacre at the Me'erat HaMachpelah
• Kfar Tapuach
  
  • Population-867 in 2008, 353 in 1998
  • Politics-In 2009 65% for Ichud HaLeumi, 15% for Likud, 9% for Shas, 8% for Habayit Hayehudi, 3% for Yisrael Beitenu; in 2006, 29% for the Jewish National Front, 50% for NU-NRP, 7% for Shas, 5% for Likud
  • Violence-Since Meir Kahane's son Binyamin moved there in 1990, a hotbed for violence and Kahanism (some dispersal since Binyamin was shot, but still quite strong); notable attacks include Eden Natan-Zeda's Arab bus-shooting at Shefa Amr during the disengagement, and, in my guess (given locations, though I could be wrong) the arson of the Yasuf mosque several days ago
  • Notable Personalities-In addition to Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane and Natan Zeda, Daniel Pinner, an often indicted settler (born in England rather than the U.S., though) gave a very disturbing interview to Ha'aretz recently
• Shavei Shomron
  
  • Population-692 in 2008, 592 in 1998
  • Politics-In 2009 54% for Ichud HaLeumi, 20% for Likud, 12% for Habayit Hayehudi, 6% for Beitenu, 3% for Shas; in 2006 8% for Jewish National Front, 69% for NU-NRP, 6% for Likud, 5% Beitenu
  • Violence-Less than most of the others, apparently; ironically, in 2008 a man got arrested for selling (for financial reasons, not ideological) weapons to Palestinians; in 2006 evacuees from Sa-Nur attacked IDF officers; the reason to evacuate this one
  • Notable Personalities-None that I know of

I'll probably write more about this later, but here's a rough map. It combines four different Area A enclaves in the northern West Bank with four or fives Area B enclaves (which would be upgraded to Area A), creating a pretty large enclave. The key is whether it can be gotten to work.


View Palestinian Independent Area Northern Samaria in a larger map

An estimate of the population (as of the 2007 Palestinian Census) in this proposed "Independent Area." (IA) It includes most of the Jenin, Tubas, Tulkarem and Nablus governorates, and a bit of the Salfit governorate. The total population of these four governates was 772,318, about 3/8 of the total West Bank Palestinian population.

Nearly all of the Tubas Palestinian population seems to be in the IA; 47,461 out of 50,261.

For Jenin, the only area missing is the villages around the settlements in northwest part of the governorate. I would say that evacuating those settlements makes sense as well in a final-status agreement, if it does in conjunction with making part of the land exchange vis-a-vis the 1967 borders the I believe very nearly entirely Arab [and I believe largely identifying as Palestinian anyway] (I would personally donate lavishly and fundraise hard to greatly)overcompensate the handful of Jewish Israelis living in the area should something like that happen) area between the Green Line, Route 6, Route 65, and Route 66 (possibly even rerouting Route 65 a bit north around Kafr Qara and Basma). At any rate, it is about 5,000 missing, almost all of that due to the concavity for Hermesh and Mevo Dotan, which are far more secular/less violent and extremist than the 6 above (80% of the vote in Hermesh went to one of the four larger secular parties Likud, Yisrael Beitenu, Kadima, Labour, and 67% in Mevo Dotan the same), so about 250,000 from the Jenin governate.

About 10,400 of the Palestinian population of the Tulkarem governorate is missing, so about 147,500 of the 157,988 people in the Tulkarem governorate are in the IA, so over 95% of the Palestinian population of these three (Tubas, Tulkarem, Jenin) governorates are in the IA.

A few towns of the Salfit governorate are also in the IA. 15,000 of the 59,000

Finally, the Nablus governorate, with about 312,800 of the 320,830 Palestinians.

Note that this probably misses a few thousand rural Palestinians, so the 772,000 total I've counted is probably more like 750,000, which is a nice round number and means about 3/8 of the West Bank Palestinian population is in this Independent Area.

Not bad at all.

Settlers vs. the liberal democratic state, Tzofim

On the other hand, though, Tzofim will remain part of Israel; it would frankly be more helpful to peace if the manpower was spent rebuilding the fence to narrow the amount of land being annexed by Israel (and then letting Tzofim do what it wants in expansion to the West and North (i.e. towards the Green Line); terrain explanations can shove it.

On the Other Hand, US Geothermal just signed a deal

So maybe things are looking up ...

Wind Now Provides Over 2% of U.S. Energy Consumption

I guess that's better than nothing.

It is still absolutely disgusting, though.

Especially since we get a smaller percentage energy from renewable sources today then we did 15 years ago. Mind, this is due to hydroelectric having maxed out at around that time--hydroelectric still provides the bulk (almost 2/3) of renewable energy in the U.S., with carbon-intensive biomass and wood-related fuels providing about 1/8.

And of course this is bad news (both for geothermal and presumably for my portfolio as well ...)