Month: November 2015

SINAI — The Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula, a prominent terrorist organization, is threatening to sue Turkey for copyright violation after Turkish forces downed a Russian plane on Tuesday.

“We did it first and, by the law of precedent, the copyright on downing Russian planes belongs to us,” the group’s spokesman Youssif Abu-Ayat said today from his hideout in the Sinai desert.

“The downing of foreign aircraft is regulated by international convention and we take a very dim view of Turkey’s flagrant disregard for global norms of behavior.”

Abu-Ayat warned that the group would file a suit against Turkey at the International Terrorist Court (ITC) in Raqa if Turkey did not apologize for its transgression and undertake never to repeat it.

“There’s nothing to prevent them from downing Chinese or Bulgarian planes, say,” Abu-Ayat added, “but we’ve got the Russian patent.”

The Hebron-based Association of Israeli Terrorist Ex-Prisoners announced yesterday that it would be offering honorary membership to American-Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who was released last week after 30 years imprisonment in the United States.

“It’s regrettable that Pollard didn’t kill any Arabs,” said association president Menachem Livni, “but we believe that his intentions were pure and he deserves another chance to do the right thing.”

“He’ll learn from us to confine his activities to the liberated territories,” Livni added. “That way he’ll get out after a couple of months, like the rest of us.”

Reminded by The Kibbitzer that Pollard’s parole conditions may prevent him from coming to Israel, Livni responded: “No problem. He’ll revive our New York branch, which has been dormant since Kahane.”

Meanwhile, The Kibbitzer has learned that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has sent a secret envoy to the Vatican to study the beatification process.

The move comes as Israel is studying ways to appropriately reward Pollard’s sacrifice. “Nothing we currently have on the books does justice to the martyrdom of Pollard,” said Ezra Zeidoff, a senior aide to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “So we have to come up with something new.”

The Hamburg-based Nazi Preservation Society has criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other prominent Israelis for what it called “cheapening its brand.”

“The persistent use of Nazi analogies when discussing parochial issues like labelling goods or removing products from shelves has the effect of cheapening our brand in the eyes of the public,” the society said in an open letter published in Die Lüge am Sonntag newspaper.

“We worked very hard and made many sacrifices to build the Nazi brand up to what it is today,” the letter continued. “We respectfully urge others to build up their own brands, rather than piggy-backing on ours.”

Eitan Schwartz, acting chairman of Israelis for Nazifying Everything, a non-profit organization, dismissed the society’s appeal saying, “let them show us their copyright.”

“We’re sick and tired of being dictated to by the Germans,” Schwartz added. “It’s a free world now and they won’t tell us what is Nazi and what isn’t.”

A spokesman for the prime minister said that Netanyahu’s use of the Nazi brand was “judicious and well within the boundaries of ‘fair exception.’”

Convicted Israeli nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu has sent an email to Jonathan Pollard, commiserating with the punitive terms of the American spy’s release from prison, The Kibbitzer can reveal.

Vanunu, who was imprisoned for 18 years, has been under surveillance since his release in 2004 and is forbidden to leave Israel or speak with foreigners.

“My brother in espionage,” Vanunu wrote in his email to Pollard. “My advice to you is to join a monastery. It won’t free you from your chains, but at last you won’t be with people who use you for their own political purposes.”

The Kibbitzer was unable to confirm whether Pollard, who is forbidden from using the Internet, received Vanunu’s email.

Renowned American criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz described Pollard’s parole conditions as “totally irrational.”

“He has no classified information, so he should be able to talk to the press, go online and go to Israel,” said Dershowitz, who is not known to have made similar comments on behalf of Vanunu.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unable to accommodate all the requests by world leaders to meet with him at the Climate Summit in Paris at the end of the month, a senior official in the prime minister’s bureau told The Kibbitzer yesterday.

“We’ve agreed to the entreaties by Hollande and Putin to meet with the PM, but Obama is going to have to make do with second-tier meetings,” the official said.

Hollande has scored a meeting by virtue of his being “a fellow combatant against terror,” the official explained, but other “label-Nazis from Europe” will go home disappointed.

He attributed Netanyahu’s popularity to the world having “finally woken up to the fact that climate change is caused by the Abbas-Baghdadi-Meshal terror axis, as Bibi has been saying for years already.”

While in Paris, the prime minister, a veteran proponent of the war against terroristic climate change, is scheduled to make an unscheduled visit to the Place de la Republique for a photo-op with the grieving population of Paris.

In Israel, meanwhile, a new public opinion survey published on Thursday revealed that 98 percent of Israelis regard Netanyahu as the world’s greatest living statesman, beating Winston Churchill into second place.

Israeli school children will be able to attend school in 2016 thanks to the generosity of the Israel Defense Forces, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said yesterday.

Ya’alon was speaking after he and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon reached agreement on the next state budget, which is due to be tabled in the Knesset on Thursday.

“We in the military have generously foregone the purchasing of new jet fighters and missile systems in order to ensure that Israel’s children can study next year,” Ya’alon said.

“Likewise, we have turned down the opportunity to purchase new submarines, aircraft carriers and B-52 bombers in order to enable the sick to be treated in hospital,” Ya’alon added.

“We have even gone as far as to restrict pensions to military personnel retiring over the age of 30, to allow the country’s aged to live out their lives in dignified penury.”

Kahlon, for his part, thanked the military for what he called its “selfless and far-sighted gesture” in allowing funding to be allocated for civilian purposes.

“One again we have shown that Israel is a democratic and progressive military force that is deeply concerned about the wellbeing of civilians and other weaker members of our society,” Kahlon said.

The Israeli Chief Rabbinate is preparing to send a team of experts to Paris to check the kashrut of the city’s mezuzot in the wake of Friday’s massacre, The Kibbitzer has learned.

“We expect to find at least 129 non-kosher mezuzot in Paris,” said Rabbi Shlomo Elyashiv, the rabbinate’s spokesman. “Perhaps more.”

Elyashiv denied speculation that the delegation from the rabbinate would include Rabbi Dov Lior, the controversial former chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba, whose reaction to the massacre was: “The wicked ones in blood-soaked Europe deserve it for what they did to our people 70 years ago.”

“The Holocaust may have been a contributory factor, but we believe that non-kosher mezuzot were the primary cause of the killing,” Elyashiv said.

“The last thing we want to do is send mixed messages to the goyim. So for now we’re concentrating on the mezuzot.”

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, sources in the Prime Minister’s Bureau said that Benjamin Netanyahu was “deeply disappointed” at the failure of French President Francois Hollande to arrange a march of international leaders through the streets of Paris.

“What better way of showing Israel’s solidarity with the French people than having Bibi push his way into the front row of a march and wave gaily at Jews lining the route?” one source asked. “It’s a real missed opportunity.”

The Israeli government will shortly issue guidelines for the labeling of European products exported to Israel, The Kibbitzer has learned.

The purpose of the guidelines is to inform Israeli consumers about the origin of the products, thus enabling them to make informed and moral decisions about what they consume.

When the guidelines come into effect, every product will bear the name of the country in which it was manufactured, along with a tag informing the Israeli consumer whether the country of origin is anti-Semitic.

The initial guidelines make provision for two labelling options: “Made in [Country]. (Anti-Semitic according to the Beth Din)” and “Made in [Country]. (Goyim but not necessarily anti-Semitic).”

Further labeling options will be added as necessary, according to Chen Hareven, head of the Economy Ministry’s new Product Labeling Authority. One option being considered is “Made by Righteous Gentiles,” which would be the top category.

“This move is not intended to punish all Europeans,” Hareven insisted in a conversation with The Kibbitzer. “We’re simply fulfilling our obligation to ensure that Israeli consumers are fully informed.”

“If, after seeing the label, Israelis still want to drink wine touched by Nazi hands, that’s their decision and God will punish them accordingly”

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is not backing down from her proposal to imprison unborn babies, despite the opposition of the Attorney-General, The Kibbitzer has learned.

The proposal is included in a new Sentencing Reform bill currently being prepared by ministry officials. Under the bill, fetuses carried by terrorist mothers could be eligible for imprisonment if they are deemed to have inherited the “terrorist gene.”

“We’ll develop a surgical technique to go in and put an electronic bracelet on the ankle of the fetus,” Shaked told The Kibbitzer. “That way, it won’t be able to escape.”

“Then, after it’s born, it will join the rest of the terrorists rotting in jail.”

“Imprisoning unborn children is not how a civilized country should behave,” Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein said in response. “People should not be eligible for imprisonment until after they’ve finished breast feeding.”

Shaked is best known for proposing compulsory Holocaust education for unborn babies in 2007. “If they can listen to Mozart, they can listen to Hatikva and learn the basics of anti-Semitism,” she said at the time.