The Democracy Poll

Our leftist guests have made the assertion that Israel is not a democracy.

As I understand their arguments, as a result they believe Israel does not morally deserve the automatic support of fellow democracies when Israel's right to exist is questioned or Israel's right to self-defense is attacked in the UN and other venues.

So here is your chance to vote and let us know what you think.

Is Israel a democracy?


SORRY. The poll didn't work. Please enter your vote in the comments section.


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Please Help this Chosson!!

Posting for Jameel:

Dear Fellow Jew,

Even though the current economic situation is very tough for all of us, we turn to you for help for a Chosson who just recently got engaged. His whole life, nebach, has been one of great tragedy; his parents were divorced when he was still a young child, and when he was just fifteen years old, his mother was a passenger in a car that was involved in major accident and *unfortunately* died as a result of the injuries she sustained.

Due to his family situation he had no other choice other than, rachmona l'tzlan, to join the army, and now at the age of twenty-eight after many years of hardship and great difficulty, he has finally found his zivug.

We trust you won't turn him away in his time of greatest need. Please send donations marked 'Hachnosas Kalloh' to the address below. On behalf of him and his family we offer you our heartfelt thanks and thank you in sharing in this great mitzva.

Send donations to:

Buckingham Palace,
Buckingham Palace Rd,
London SW1A 1AA,United Kingdom

Tizke l'Mitzvos


hat-tip: David!


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TOP SECRET Information for Israeli Consumers!

Muqata Exclusive: TOP SECRET Information for Israeli Consumers

Sick and tired of waiting for customer support to answer your call? (Yes, Israeli "Customer Support" used to be an oxymoron, but things have slightly improved).

The following table lists the top service companies in Israel...with the secret access codes of how to cut through the waiting time, and get DIRECTLY to customer support people who will answer your call immediately. These codes are used by customer service reps in the field, when they need to quickly get in touch with a real person.



Or in the words of my friend Treppenwitz, "Don't thank me, I'm a giver."


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Videos of the Day Roundup

The well done Eights Days of Chanuka -- NBN video.


Palestinian Authority TV slanders Israel (surprised? pathetic)


So glad I'm neither a West Coast OR East Coast Jew...


So glad I don't have hashkafic problems about science and Orthodoxy.


Glad I'm not flying with my kids in the USA anytime in the near future

TSA Screener Accosting 3 Year Old Child at Security Checkpoint from RonPaul Fan on Vimeo.

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Israel's "Best Friend" Provided Safe Haven to Nazis

As Israel is pressured by its best friend to relinquish sovereignty over its capital city of Jerusalem and the West Bank, sordid details are emerging of how the US provided safe haven for Nazis.

The 600-page report, written in 2006 and which the US Justice Department has tried to keep secret ever since, describes what it calls Washington's "collaboration with persecutors".

Agents from the Justice Department's Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations (OSI) found that war criminals "were indeed knowingly granted entry" to the US, even though government officials were aware of their pasts, the report concluded.

"America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became – in some small measure – a safe haven for persecutors as well."

Read it all at the Daily Telegraph.

Remember, countries don't have friends they have "interests"...and the interest of any country, including democracies, can change based on new administrations.

Maybe Palestinian terrorists will be given "safe haven" in the US as well?

Just a thought.


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The Soul of America is on the Line

If there were any people that thought the massive loss of Congress would give the Obama a pause in whether the people of the US approved His actions and philosophies, they can remove all those mistaken assumptions right now.

Let’s forget for a minute that the Obama is asking for an additional freeze.

Let’s instead consider His open threats.

Obama is telling Israel, that if Israel doesn't continue the freeze for another 90 days and fully comply to His wishes, the Obama administration will give orders to do the following:

1. The US will not veto any unilateral acts by the “Palestinians” in the UN.

2. The US will not veto any UN resolution that denies Israel the right to self-defense.

3. The US will not veto any UN resolutions that denies Israel the right to exist.

4. The US will not oppose any of these above efforts or actions in the UN Security Council and other UN forums either.

Well congratulations America. The Obama has just lined up the United States with all the third world, repressive, dictatorial countries such as Syria, Libya, Iran, and others that routinely attack Israel and America as well.

Can you imagine that?

Where once the United States was a beacon of democracy, and known for standing up for what was right, in just two years the Obama will have dragged the country down to what is probably the lowest moral point in its history.

The Obama has given notice that he will allow all these third world countries unbridled permission and US support to attack the only true, functioning democracy in the Middle East.

The Obama has said that the defense of a fellow democracy is negotiable and on the chopping block.


Bibi, call Him out. Openly take this to Congress and the Senate.

This is Obama's personal war against the Jewish state of Israel.

The Jewish people have friends in Congress and the Senate, and when the Obama pulls a stunt like this, they won’t take it lying down - if they see we won't take it lying down either.

People of America - WAKE UP.

Write your Senators and Congressman. Call their offices. Take just a minute of your time and take an action.

The bottom line is that Israel shares America's democratic principles and values, and if you let the Obama get away with this without doing so much as making a phone call or writing an email, then you will be as guilty of destroying the moral standing of the United States and the security of Israel, as the Obama is.

This is your battle too, and all you need to do is make a phone call or send an email.

The soul of America is on the line.

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Stop mailing us stuff before January

Dear Friends and Family,

Starting January 2011, the Israeli Post Office will be taxing recipients of packages from overseas a minimum NIS 38 fee (over $10) on all packages we receive through the mail.

It doesn't matter how small or cheap the package is you send, the initial tax begins at NIS 38.

If the package you send is more expensive, that tax will be even higher.


Unfortunately, this is not a joke, but abuse of the Israeli citizen.

We ask that everyone sending us packages please ensure they arrive before 2011, as after that date we have no interest in having to pay this harassment tax.

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The Arabs get an upgrade

No longer does just Israel exclusively share that special relationship with the US.

“This figure underscores the strong determination of the American people and this administration to stand with our Palestinian friends even during difficult economic times,” declared US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in announcing the aid, which was taken from the $200 million the Obama administration plans to allocate to the PA in 2011."

Under the Obama regime, the "Palestinians" have been upgraded to "friends" of the US. That kind of makes a mockery out of it when they say the same about Israel.

Palestinian Friends of the US expressing their friendship.

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Rant of the Day (There's Someone on the Wing!!)

There was a time when I used to post all sorts of stories like the upcoming one. I wonder how many readers remember my infamous Manila posts, my rant about a certain restaurant in London, the origin of the Muqata Wafflemaker or Elvis the Drug Dealer...

Regardless, I don't rant everyday but its time to let off some steam.

Last time I flew to India for business, I brought all my food with me. Not that there's so much Kosher food to eat in India to begin with, but I brought everything: cereal, boxed milk, tuna-fish, pitot, a bunch of manachama (manot chamot) [just add hot water for an instant meal], and bottled water.

I sparingly ate every meal knowing that there was no margin of error, and I didn't want to get stranded without any Kosher food.

After a few days, it was time to fly home to Israel, via London and I was thrilled that I'd have a "normal" kosher meal on the plane, even if it was "airline food".

During check-in, I double checked to ensure that my kosher meal was in fact reserved, and I'd be receiving it on my flight. All was in order.

Luckily for me, this leg of the trip was in business class and I sat in the upper deck of the plane (you'll soon see why this factoid is important for the story)

About 30 minutes into the flight, the stewardess (air-hostess? what's the proper politically correct term?) came by and reassured me that my kosher meal would be ready shortly. My stomach growled in anticipation -- I guess there's something about flights that makes one hungrier than usual, and having spent the week rationing my food, I was famished.

Meal service began.

Meals were given out one at a time, as I hungrily looked on in anticipation...one more minute...and I'd have "normal" food for the first time in a week.

And then, the stewardess smiled and presented my meal to me.

A linen napkin covered tray with steaming hot food, smiled at me.

"Excuse me," I said, "I ordered a Kosher meal."

"This is a Kosher meal," stated the stewardess, as she smiled and pointed to a piece of paper written in Hebrew, Yiddish and English which was neatly lying on the tray.

Shaking my head in hungry disbelief I asked, "didn't you see that the entire tray was wrapped in plastic, with big red letters on it, "ONLY TO BE OPENED BY THE PASSENGER", and that the hot dish of the meal had the same warning on it?"

The stewardess smiled back, "This is India. They didn't want you to feel bad that your meal looked different than everyone else's, so food services opened up your meal, and we heated it up with everyone's food, so you wouldn't feel different than everyone else ."

It took a minute for all this to sink in.

"Do you know that I'm not able to eat this now?" I asked?

The stewardess sighed.

I asked her if she could look out the window of the airplane for a second, and if she could read what it said in big letters on the wing.


"DO NOT WALK OUTSIDE THIS AREA," she read from the wing.

"Exactly!", I said, "Maybe...just maybe someone in the India ground crew thought the wing would 'feel bad,' and walked all over the wing. After all, you can walk on other parts of the airplane, but not that specific part of the wing, and we wouldn't want the wing to feel differently, would we? Even though there's a clear warning on it, how do we know that no one walked all over it?"

The stewardess nodded her head seriously and said, "You're absolutely right. Would you like anything else to eat?"

She managed to find me some fruit and a coke.

Ten minutes later I was surprised when a member of the cockpit crew, perhaps the Captain or Co-pilot walked over to me.

He bent down to talk to me and in a very serious voice said, "We radioed back to Bangalore airport. Apparently, the person you saw walking on the plane's wing was a fuel technician, and he is specially trained where he is allowed to walk on the wing, and where not to walk."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"I didn't say I saw someone walking on the wing," I blurted out, "I was trying to make a point by the comparison of my meal to the wing, and how instructions should be listened to..."

The cockpit officer gave me a puzzled look, and said, "I thought you would be happy to know that the person you saw on the wing knew where he was allowed to walk."

"Thank you," I said, "I'm very relieved now," and he turned around going back into the cockpit.

No one seemed to "get it."

And why am I reminded of this now?

I'm going back to India soon, and needed to apply for a visa. The procedure required that I provide my current and expired Israeli passports, as well as my US passport to the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Now, my US passport was very recently issued and is therefore a "USA Electronic Passport". You can tell from the weird symbol underneath the "United State of America"that this is a genuine electronic passport.

The exciting features of an electronic passport include some of the following (but isn't limited to)...

* Securely stored biographical information and digital image that are identical to the information that is visually displayed in the passport;

* Contactless chip/RFID technology that allows the information stored in an Electronic Passport to be read by special chip readers at a close distance; and

* Digital signature technology that is used to verify the authenticity of the data stored on the chip. This technology is commonly used in credit cards and other secure documents using integrated circuits or chips.

Sounds great, right?

Located on the inside back cover (where the electronics are located) is a message in clear, bold, block letters:

THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS SENSITIVE ELECTRONICS:
FOR BEST PERFORMANCE, DO NOT BEND, OR PERFORATE,
OR EXPOSE TO EXTREME TEMPERATURES

Imagine my surprise when I received my Israeli passport with the new visa to India in it and all my other passports...AND THEY WERE ALL STAPLED TOGETHER BY THEIR BACK COVERS.

The "do not perforate" rule doesn't apply to India...(after all, you wouldn't want your passport to "feel bad" that other passports can be perforated, and not new US electronic passports...so who cares what it says...who cares if it ruins the electronics?)

Will this affect the validity of my US passport, now that it has 7 pairs of staple marks in the back cover, probably ruining all the high tech invested in it?

Probably not yet, but I doubt the friendly people in TSA will care or even believe me when I say, "it's not my fault, the Indian embassy in Tel-Aviv did it," as they drag me off to one of those newfangled full body naked scanners.

PS: My travel agent informed me today that the airline I'm flying on from India to London leg of my trip, no longer offers Kosher meals when leaving India. I guess following directions proved to be impossible...

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