Leading members of Britain’s Jewish and Christian communities have condemned a prominent Anglican church for holding a service where traditional carols were rewritten to attack Israel.

Israel continues to stand by the victims and survivors of the terror in Mumbai. Awash with deep sympathies, the blogosphere's sentiments speak for themselves in mourning the loss of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, along with six other Israelis.

Reactions fell into three predominant camps with bloggers asking the questions:

• What should our response to terrorism and tragedy be?
• Why were the Jews targeted in this instance?
• What good can come of this?

Here are their responses.

The Jewish Response to Terrorism and Tragedy–

Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg (may their memories be a blessing). Photo sourced from Chabad.org

Rabbi Yonah of Jewlicious writes:

“I am heartbroken. The Jewish world weeps over the brutal murders of Jews, Indians, and others in Mumbai. News of the tragedy spread around the globe in minutes. We are all truly connected.

The response to the tragedy cannot be depression, but hard work. The way for us to avenge the blood of the murdered is to erect pillars of loving kindness and charity.”

Rav Eliyahu of A Dwelling Place for G-D in the Lower Worlds in an entry entitled “The Torah Response to Terrorism” echoes Rabbi Yonah, saying:

“The world is faced with terror all around it – now so, perhaps – more than ever. How should we react? What is the Torah response to terrorism?! …The response is a clear one. Continue to grow! Continue to do good. Do even more good!”

Leiv Esther joins the consensus on the Jewish response to tragedy:

“It is always hard to hear of Jews being hurt in any way. The Jewish response to any difficulty is to increase in our efforts to bring unity amongst Jews and goodness and kindness to the world.”

On an entry entitled “Muslims Mourn Mumbai Massacre,” Daniel Lubetsky points out that for the first time, Islamic nations have publicly condemned this terrorist act. In his Peaceworks blog, he posts:

“…a sample (by no means exhaustive) compilation of some of the Arab and Muslim nations and organizations across the world - from Saudi Arabia to the Arab League - who condemned the tragic and barbaric terrorist acts in Mumbai. Everyone can always do better, but the below can be shared whenever you are asked “Why are Muslims not condemning terrorism?”

Even blogs devoted to unrelated themes join in. Israeli Kitchen blogs:

“A candle for the victims of the Mumbai massacre. May G-d comfort their families and avenge their spilled blood.”

A Jewish man saying prayers in India. Photo sourced from Chabad.org

Why Jews Were Targeted

In a post analyzing why Jews (who were by coincidence also Israeli) were specifically targeted, Israellycool establishes a thesis that the terrorists' goal is to “establish a global Islamic Caliphate and impose Sharia law on societies currently based on Judeo-Christian principles.” He writes:

“It is no coincidence that the terrorists target Jews. Evil will always target Jews because we represent G-d in the world. It was true with the Nazis, and it is true with Islamic terrorism, the new Nazism. We have the task to be a light unto the nations, and even when though we may not always be completely successful, we have not done such a bad job. Especially when you look at the amazing work performed by a Jewish organization such as Chabad.”

In conclusion, he proposes a worldwide war on terrorism by ordinary people asking us to support Israel and all global democracies and promote the message that those who support terrorism will never able to live as free people, self-ruling people in their own state.

Treppenwitz's David Bogner concurs with Israellycool and expands on his argument that Jews were specifically hunted down and killed in the Mumbai massacres. Bogner explains:

“Mumbai is a city of over 18 million people, yet there are only about five thousand Jews living there. And of those, only a few dozen are identifiably Jewish outside of the synagogue.

Heck, the entire country of India - with a staggering population of over 1.1 billion people - has only about 15 thousand Jews! I'm not so good at math, but I think that if you try to express the Jewish population as a percentage of the overall Indian population, you're going to end up with a lot of zeros to the right of the decimal point.

So isn't it weird that nobody seems to be talking about how statistically odd it is that this Muslim terror group sought out and attacked an unremarkable home containing one of India's only identifiably orthodox Jewish families.

Apparently the breaking news from Mumbai has demonstrated anew that targeting Jews is not unusual… even when just finding Jews in India to attack is harder than finding Samoans in Iceland. ”

A Rediff News report quotes the doctors' reactions to the Jewish hostages murders in a story entitled, “Doctors Shocked at Hostages' Torture,” writing:

“Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. “During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis,” an IB source said.”

Jameel of The Muqata expresses his anger at Israel for their criticism of Indian security's slow response.

“Hypocrisy rules in Israel today as IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldier Gilad Shalit remains a hostage in Gaza — a terrorist state created by Israel, and Israel's only stated way of freeing him, is the release of hundreds of murderous terrorists…

Yet my anger at Israel is displaced only by my sorrow and condolences for the families of the Jews murdered in Mumbai this past week.”

Indian Chabad House sign in Hebrew and English. Photo sourced from Chabad.org

Where Do We Go From Here?–

In our blackest moments, we ask ourselves, “Where do we go from here? What good can come of this?” There is no one answer– we must grieve and learn from it in our own ways– but Israeli bloggers have some suggestions.

Of like minds, both This is Israel and Jewlicious' CK post entries headed, “We Are All Chabad” and “We Are All Chabadniks,” commenting on how events such as these unite us as a worldwide Jewish family.

Yael of Aliyah! Step-By-Step reflects that for the first time since she was a child, the terror in Mumbai stirred her to fully celebrate Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath:

“It just really felt to me like the right thing to do, the best way to honour their memory and all the other lives lost, criminally lost. In large part because by celebrating Shabbat as a Jew I was carrying on one of the very things the terrorists were fighting to wipe out. By celebrating Shabbat, which is symbolically in essence the celebration of the miracle of life and love and goodness and commitment for a better future, it is absolute defiance and rejection and maybe a tiny countering of the evil that so obviously exists in this world.”

And in “A Light In To the Darkness,” Israellycool reminds us that: “When the world was witness to the worst of humanity, it was also witness to the best,” citing the rescue of the Holtzberg's two-year old son by his Indian nanny, Sandra Samuel, who saved him at the last possible moment.

(Samuel returned with the family to Israel today, where the Israeli government is considering bestowing upon her the title of “Righteous Gentile,” one of the nation's highest awards that is given to those who risk their own lives to save Jewish ones.)

Indian-Israeli unity flag. Photo sourced from Facebook's Israel Condolence Book for the Terror Victims of India.

How We Can Help–

So how can we help? Chabad has established the Chabad of Mumbai Relief Fund to aid with the reconstruction of the Chabad center there and help support the Holtzberg's young child. The Jewish Agency of Israel will also help the families of those lost through the Fund for the Victims of Terror.

Let us remember the names of those who perished in the Chabad House last week and they shall represent our mourning for all the victims of Mumbai. May their memories serve as a blessing and a lesson to us all.

• Bentzion Chroman (Ben-Zion Kruman)
• Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg
• Rivka Holtzberg
• Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich
• Rabbi Leibish Teitlebaum (Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum)
• Yocheved Orpaz

(Alternate spellings may be due to the transliteration of the names from Hebrew to English. Further names are pending release.)

Lastly, in a section of their website called, “What Can I Do?” Chabad urges us to honor the memories of those lost by committing to do mitzvot (good deeds) in their name. Over 950 have been pledged so far.

Further Reading–

This article is a continuation of “Israel: Sending Help and Sympathy to Mumbai” and is part of Global Voices Online's ongoing coverage of the Terror in Mumbai.

The complicated world of wireless HD delivery just got a little more interesting today, as Panasonic and Samsung both made strategic investments in chipmaker SiBEAM. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

The financial support of the two consumer electronics giants gives a boost not only to SiBEAM but to the WirelessHD standard, which uses the 60GHz spectrum to wirelessly beam HD video in the home. It’s just one of many wireless options vying to become the de facto HD transmission standard, including Wi-Fi, Ultra-wideband and WHDI.

But consumer electronics companies are hedging their bets as the standards process shakes out. Sharp, Sony and Samsung support WirelessHD and the proprietary WHDI standard, developed by Israel-based Amimon. SiBEAM offers a point-to-point transmission solution, while Amimon promises to blanket an entire home in rich, creamy HD. However, the Amimon-based solution (which is already being used in Japan) can add $800 to the cost of a device, whereas SiBEAM says its chips will only add between $80 and $100.

SiBEAM isn’t alone in the 60GHz chip market; Vubiq is attempting to do the same thing. Prior to Panasonic and Samsung’s investment, SiBEAM had raised a total of $77.5 million since the company’s founding in 2004, including a $40 million round raised this past April.

SiBEAM CEO John LeMoncheck told us in September that his company’s product would hit the market in Spring of 2009.

جورج وسوÙ-لقاء مميز ÙÙŠ دبي مع سلطان الطرب dahmene el harrachi guerouabi hadj mohamed el anka omar charif Cheikha Rimitti Dauphin Cheb Enrico Macias syrie turk salam salhi clip george wassouf abdelhalim hafez haifa wahbe nancy ajram ihab tawfik om kalthoum oum bouchnak mbc art rotana lbc fairouz walid assala latifa charki Adrar Chlef Laghouat Oum-El-Bouaghi Batna Bejaia Biskra Bechar Blida Bouira Tamanrasset Tebessa Tlemcen Tiaret said saadi Djelfa Jijel Setif Saida Skikda Sidi-Bel-Abbes Annaba Guelma Constantine Medea Mostaganem M'Sila Mascara Ouargla Oran El-Bayadh Illizi Bordj-Bou-Arreridj Boumerdes El-Taref Tindouf Tissemsilt El-Oued Khenchela Souk-Ahras Tipaza Mila Ain-Defla Naâma Ain-Temouchent Ghardaia Sahara Desert voyage mer plage bledard drague beauté algerien algerienne marocain marocaine tunisien tunisienne maghrebin maghrebine kabyle kabylie chaoui allaoui saharoui rai raï rap rnb staifi été zidane kenza farah harraga melissa karim benzema samir nasri sofia boutella rimk rim'k 113 andalouse kiffan kiffen club projet moderne pays capritour air algerie algerie islam bateau marseille depart L'Ariana Béja Ben Arous Bizerte Gabès Gafsa Jendouba Kairouan Kasserine Kébili Le Kef Mahdia La Manouba Médenine Monastir Nabeul Sfax Sidi Bouzid Siliana Sousse Tataouine Tozeur Tunis Zaghouan mezoued carthage monastir hammamet djerba Agadir Casablanca Tanger Essaouira Mohammedia Fedala Ouarzazate Taroudant Oujda Tetouan Rabat Marrakech Fes Meknes Fes musulman musulmane represente fierté football musique arabe cheb hasni bouteflika ben ali roi mohammed VI Reda Taliani Cheb Mami Cheb Khaled Cheikha Rimitti Cheb Bilal Cheb Abdou Houari Dauphin Cheb Nasro Idir Massa Bouchafa ali Lounès rachid taha takfarinas warda el djazairia chaabi reggada jallal el hamdaoui wahrane el bahia wharane oranais

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If we talk about "balancing" the attributes of God, we can easily fall victim to our own metaphor. These are not discrete elements that can be placed on a balancing scale, with justice making the left side go down, and mercy making the right side go down. Rather, God intervenes in our story, and He does so as the one triune God, and His interventions all make sense in the story. And in the same action, the same intervention, we can see all His attributes in harmony. Once Spurgeon was asked to reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility -- he refused for, as he put it, he "never reconciles friends." It is the same kind of thing here. God's justice is not leaning one way with His mercy leaning another, with Him trying to keep His balance on the high wire of the highest heaven.

"Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face" (Ps. 89:14). This is a package; it is not an "on the one hand" and then "on the other" kind of thing. God is not merciful to His people in spite of being a warrior. He is merciful to His people because He is a warrior.

The divine warrior theme is found throughout Scripture, and His lovingkindness is inextricably linked with His prowess in battle. In the psalm just cited, this truth stands out in high relief. The psalm begins by rejoicing in God's mercies. "I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens" (Ps. 89:1-2). But then the psalm goes on to celebrate the greatness of God as a warrior, and links this in unambiguous ways to His mercy. "For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD?" (v. 6). In other words, look through all the ranks of the heavenly warriors, and you will not find one like our God. His ability to show mercy is clearly linked to His strength. "O LORD God of hosts, who is a strong LORD like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee?" (v. 8). And His strength is not just potential strength either, but rather actual strength in conflict. "Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm" (v. 10). The Lord is mighty. "Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand" (v. 13). "For the LORD is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is our king"(v. 18). And look where all this power culminates -- in mercy.

"And I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him. But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted . . . My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him" (vv. 23-24, 28).

The same gift is given to us in another psalm as well.

"And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy endureth for ever: But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him which led his people through the wilderness: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him which smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for ever: And slew famous kings: for his mercy endureth for ever: Sihon king of the Amorites: for his mercy endureth for ever: And Og the king of Bashan: for his mercy endureth for ever" (Ps. 136:14-20).

We don't understand biblical mercy because we don't understand the antithesis, which is another way of saying that we do not know that the kingdom of God is in a state of perpetual war with the ungodly. We read a passage like this, and our sympathies are immediately extended to Pharaoh and his host, famous kings, not to mention Sihon and Og. What about mercy for them? But this is not a question that Scripture teaches us to ask. The fact that we have learned to ask it means that we are letting somebody else teach us when we shouldn't.

Now of course it would be easy to multiply other passages about militaristic pagans, whose prowess in war is not linked to mercy at all. And so since Scripture doesn't make that connection, we must not. There is no necessary connection between military might and mercy. But Scripture does make a necessary connection between the righteous military power and mercy.

As C.S. Lewis argues in some essay somewhere, the Christian Church has produced two suggested solutions to the horrific nature of war, those proposed solutions being pacifism and chivalry. The pacifist option, with its overrealized eschatology and perfectionism, has unfortunately been the seedbed of many disasters. As Martin Luther once put it, when the lion lies down with the lamb prematurely, the lamb must be replaced frequently. The chivalric option has been, given the condition of this world, by far the more effective option, and has the advantage of imitating the Lord. The warrior who fights powerfully and who shows mercy effectively is one who imitates the Lord in a comprehensive way.

div style="margin-bottom: 10px; font-size: 10px;"posted by Neil/div spanThis is a bit long./spanspan style="font-weight: bold;" /spanspanApologies./spanspan style="font-weight: bold;" /spanspanI'd meant to talk about other things, but I started writing this morning and got a bit carried away./spanspan style="font-weight: bold;"br /br /I have questions about the Handley case. What makes lolicon something worth defending? Yaoi, as I understand it, isn't necessarily child porn, but the lolicon stuff is all about sexualizing prepubescent girls, yes? And haven't there been lots of credible psych studies saying that if you find a support community for a fetish, belief or behavior, you're more likely to indulge in it? That's why social movements are so important for oppressed or non-mainstream groups (meaning everything from the fetish community to free-market libertarianism) -and why NAMBLA is so very, very scary (they are, essentially, a support group for baby-rapists.)br /br /The question, for me, is even if we only save ONE child from rape or attempted rape, or even just lots of uncomfortable hugs from Creepy Uncle Dave, is that not worth leaving a couple naked bodies out of a comic? It is, after all, more than possible to imply and discuss these issues (ex. if someone loses their virginity at 14, and chooses to write a comic about it) without having a big ol' pic of 14 yr. old poon being penetrated as the graphic. I also think there's a world of difference between the Sandman story-which depicts child rape as the horrific thing it is (and, I believe, also ends with a horrific death for the pervert, doesn't it?) and depicting child rape as a sexy and titillating thing. I think there is also a difference between acknowledging children's sexuality, and pornography about children that is created for adults. Where on this spectrum does something like lolicon fall? And, again, why do you, personally, think that it should be defended?br /br /Thanks for reading my ramble, and for being accessible to us, and engaged in things like CBLDF. Mostly, they are a fantastic org., but I'm really on the fence with this case...br /br /Jess/spanbr /br /Let me see if I can push you off the fence, a little. I'm afraid it's going to a long, and probably a bit rambly answer -- a span style="font-style: italic;"credo/span, and how I arrived at that.br /br /If you accept -- and I do -- that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don't say or like or want said.br /br /The Law is a huge blunt weapon that does not and will not make distinctions between what you find acceptable and what you don't. This is how the Law is made.br /br /People making art find out where the limits of free expression are by going beyond them and getting into trouble.br /br /LOST GIRLS, by Melinda Gebbie and Alan Moore is several hundred pages long. (a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/06/lost-girls-redux.html"I posted the full-length review I did for span style="font-style: italic;"Publishers Weekly /spanhere/a. Describing it, I said,br /br /blockquote style="font-style: italic;"The boundary between pornography and erotica is an ambiguous one, and it changes depending on where you're standing. For some, perhaps, it's a matter of whatever turns you on (my erotica, your pornography), for some the distinction occurs in class (i.e. erotica is pornography for rich people). Perhaps it's also something to do with the means of distribution – internet pornography is unquestionably porn, while an Edwardian publication, on creamy paper, bought by connoisseurs, part works bound into expensive volumes, must be erotica./blockquotebr /br /and I went on to say,br /br /blockquote style="font-style: italic;"It's the kind of smut that would have no difficulty in demonstrating to an overzealous prosecutor that it has unquestionable artistic validity beyond its simple first amendment right to exist./blockquoteWhich was the kind of thing you put in a review suspecting that its real purpose may be to persuade a prosecutor that the case is already lost, and not to bother.br /br /In with span style="font-style: italic;"Lost Girls/span' many permutations of sexuality, we find some content featuring fictional characters under the current age of consent. It's a story about sexual awakenings, after all, and few of us wake exactly on our eighteenth birthdays (or whatever your local age of consent or representation happens to be). At one point we find ourselves reading a book within a book, a Beardsleyesque fantasia in which fictional characters discuss the fact that they are lines on paper, metafictional fantasies, while having underage, incestuous, sex. It's art, and it's brilliant, and it makes you think about what porn is and what art is, and where the boundaries are.br /br /The Law is a blunt instrument. It's not a scalpel. It's a club. If there is something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find yourself defending the indefensible.br /br /I was born the day of the conclusion of the span style="font-style: italic;"Lady Chatterley/span trial in England, the day it was decided that span style="font-style: italic;"Lady Chatterley's Lover/span, with its swearing, buggery and raw sex between the classes, was fit to be published and read in a cheap edition that poor people and servants could read. This was the same England in which, some years earlier, the director of public prosecutions had threatened to prosecute Professor F R Leavis if he so much as referred to James Joyce's span style="font-style: italic;"Ulysses /spanin a lecture (the DPP was a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Bodkin"Archibald Bodkin/a, who also bannedspan style="font-style: italic;" The Well of Loneliness/span) , in which, when I was sixteen and listening to the Sex Pistols, the publisher of span style="font-style: italic;"Gay News/span was sentenced to prison for the crime of Criminal Blasphemy, for publishing an erotic poem featuring a fantasy about Jesus.br /br /When I was writing span style="font-style: italic;"Sandman/span, about eighteen years ago, I had thought that the Marquis de Sade would make a fine character for my French Revolution story (I loved the fact that at the time he was a tubby, asthmatic imprisoned for his refusal to sentence people to death) and thought I really ought to read his books, rather than commntaries on them, if I was going to put him in my story, and I discovered that the works of DeSade were, at that time, not available in the UK, and that UK Customs had declared them un-importable. I bought them in a Borders the next time I was in the US, and brought them through customs looking guilty. (You can now get De Sade in the UK. The arrival of internet porn in the UK meant that the police stopped chasing things like that.)br /br /The first time I got involved in fund-raising for comics freedom of speech was in late 1983 or early 1984 -- Knockabout Comics were having one of their frequent battles with UK Customs over what could and could not be imported into the UK. Some comics contained rude words, sex, or the use of marijuana in them, and Customs would seize any comics they objected to, forcing Knockabout to fight long, expensive, court cases to get them back. (I remember their outrage when, in 1996, Knockabout imported some Robert Crumb books to accompany a BBC TV documentary on Crumb, and UK Customs confiscated the books, forcing yet another court case. I'm pretty sure that it was over some autobiographical Crumb work which contained drawings of sexual fantasies including characters who were under 18. As a href="http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=1515"Tony Bennett, from Knockabout said in a recent interview,/a span style="font-style: italic;""The other case was with HM Customs in 1996 over Robert Crumb’s comics and explicit sexual imagery. We won this overwhelmingly as well and Customs were kind enough to write to me after the case setting out a list of what sex acts might be shown in comics. I haven’t actually framed it but it is a precious document."/span)br /br /The first time I ever came close to sending a publisher to prison was about 1986 or 1987, for Knockabout's span style="font-style: italic;"Outrageous Tales From The Old Testament/span: I'd retold a story from thespan style="font-style: italic;" Book of Judges/span that contained a rape and murder, and this was held to have contravened a Swedish law depicting images of violence against women. The case was only won when the defense pointed out that the words were from the King James version of the bible, and that the images were a fair representation thereof...br /br /(For those of you who are a bit shaky on your Book of Judges, here's a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=judges%2019;amp;version=31;"an online Bible version of the scene that caused the prosecution/a.)br /blockquotebr /span style="font-style: italic;"While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him."/spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."/spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home./spanbr /br /span style="font-style: italic;"When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel./span/blockquotebr /And in each case, you could rewrite Jess's letter above, explaining that only perverts would want to read span style="font-style: italic;"Lady Chatterley/span, or see images of women being abused, or read span style="font-style: italic;"Lost Girls/span or the works of Robert Crumb, and mentioning that if only one person was saved from a hug from a creepy uncle, or indeed, being raped in the streets, that banning them or prosecuting those who write, draw, publish, sell or -- now -- own them, is worth it. Because that was the point of view of the people who were banning these works or stopping people reading them. They thought they were doing a good thing. They thought they were defending other people.br /br /I loved coming to the US in 1992, mostly because I loved the idea that freedom of speech was paramount. I still do. With all its faults, the US has Freedom of Speech. You can't be arrested for saying things the government doesn't like. You can say what you like, write what you like, and that the remedy to someone saying or writing or showing something that offends you is not to read it, or to speak out against it. I loved that I could read and make my own mind up about something.br /br /(It's worth noting that the UK, for example, has no such law, and that even the European Court of Human Rights has ruled thata href="http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/3543216b2ccd2e5738717582.pdf"span style="font-style: italic;" interference with free speech was "necessary in a democratic society" in order to guarantee the rights of others" to protection from gratuitous insults to their religious feelings./span/a)br /br /So when a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_diana"Mike Diana/a was prosecuted -- and found guilty -- of obscenity for the comics in his Zine "Boiled Angel", and sentenced to a host of things, including (if memory serves) a three year suspended prison sentence, a three thousand dollar fine, not being allowed to be in the same room as anyone under eighteen, over a thousand hours of community service, and was forbidden to draw anything else obscene, with the local police ordered to make 24 hour unannounced spot checks to make sure Mike wasn't secretly committing Art in the small hours of the morning... that was the point I decided that I knew what was obscene, and it was prosecuting artists for having ideas and making lines on paper, and that I was going to do everything I could to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Whether I liked or approved of what Mike Diana did was utterly irrelevant. (For the record, I didn't like the text parts of span style="font-style: italic;"Boiled Angel/span, but did like the comics, which were personal and had a raw power to them. And somewhere in the sprawling basement magazine collection I have span style="font-style: italic;"Boiled Angel/span 7 and 8, which I read back then to find out what was being prosecuted, and for owning which I could, I assume, now be arrested...)br /br /The first time the CBLDF did anything to defend one of my comics, it was the span style="font-style: italic;"Death Talks About Life/span comic at the back of DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING, in which we see Death putting a condom on a banana and talking about how not to get pregnant, diseased or dead. The Chief of Police in (if memory serves) Jacksonville Florida ordered a comic shop not to sell it, because she thought it was obscene and encouraged teen sex. In this case, it only took a letter from the CBLDF legal counsel, Burton Joseph, to the Jacksonville Police Department, explaining the concept of the First Amendment (and, by implication, that there was an organisation prepared to defend this stuff) and they shut up and went away. (That's what most of the CBLDF activity consists of -- small, quiet things that stop it ever getting to a court of law.) From the police chief's point of view, span style="font-style: italic;"Death Talks About Life/span was obscene. She wanted it off the shelves.br /br /In this case you obviously have read lolicon, and I haven't. I don't know whether you're writing from personal experience here, and whether you have personally been incited to rape children or give inappropriate hugs by reading it. (I assume you haven't. I assume that Chris Handley, with his huge manga collection, wasn't either. I've read books that claimed that exposure to porn causes rape, but have seen no statistical evidence that porn causes rape -- and indeed have seen a href="http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/06/rape-porn-and-criminality-political.php"claims that the declining number of US rapes may be due to the wider availability of porn/a. Honestly, it's a red herring. I'll leave that for other people to argue about.) Still, you seem to want lolicon banned, and people prosecuted for owning it, and I don't. You ask, span style="font-style: italic;"What makes it worth defending?/span and the only answer I can give is this: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you span style="font-style: italic;"don't /spanbelieve is worth defending, stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art.br /br /The CBLDF will defend your First Amendment right as an adult to make lines on paper, to draw, to write, to sell, to publish, and now, span style="font-style: italic;"to own/span comics. And that's what makes work you don't like, or don't read, or work that you do not feel has artistic worth or redeeming features worth defending. It's the stuff you like and the stuff you find icky, wherever your icky line happens to be. Because the law is a big blunt instrument that makes no fine distinctions, and because you only realise how wonderful absolute freedom of speech is the day you lose it.br /br /(And let it be understood that I think that child pornography, and the exploitation of actual children for porn or for sex is utterly wrong and bad, because actual children are being directly harmed. And also that I think that a href="http://news.cnet.com/Police-blotter-Teens-prosecuted-for-racy-photos/2100-1030_3-6157857.html"prosecuting as child pornographers a 16 and 17 year old who are legally able to have sex, because they took a sexual photograph and emailed it to themselves is utterly, insanely wrong/a, and a nice example of the law as blunt instrument.) div class="label_list" style="margin-top: 20px; padding-left: 15px; text-indent: -15px; font-size: 78%/1.4em; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: .1em;"strongLabels:/strongnbsp; a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/wittering%20on%20a%20bit" style="color: #999; text-transform: uppercase;"wittering on a bit/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/The%20First%20Amendment" style="color: #999; text-transform: uppercase;"The First Amendment/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/Bible%20stories%20that%20nearly%20sent%20publishers%20to%20prison" style="color: #999; text-transform: uppercase;"Bible stories that nearly sent publishers to prison/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/Lost%20Girls" style="color: #999; text-transform: uppercase;"Lost Girls/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/CBLDF" style="color: #999; text-transform: uppercase;"CBLDF/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/Why%20I%20Support%20the%20CBLDF" style="color: #999; text-transform: uppercase;"Why I Support the CBLDF/a/div

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Israeli naval vessels intercepted a Libyan ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on Monday, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.div class="feedflare" a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?a=crZ1Dswg"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?a=90TlQpzF"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?a=vd8ZyFkT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?i=vd8ZyFkT" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?a=RZjotoP4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?a=ZweYO8Wa"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_world?i=ZweYO8Wa" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/cnn_world/~4/-7ZU2GbTEUk" height="1" width="1"/

Israeli naval vessels intercepted a Libyan ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on Monday, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.

Israeli naval vessels intercepted a Libyan ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on Monday, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~4/pPXnBRgr79o" height="1" width="1"/

Israel has gotten fed up with spam. Anyone who sends out messages without receiving the recipient's consent can now be slapped with a big fine. Last June, a new law gave solicitors six months to ask prospective clients if they wanted to receive unsolicited messages. The deadline expired Monday.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=I3EFO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=I3EFO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=n2uCo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=n2uCo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=dMX6o"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=dMX6o" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ibtimes/tech/~4/471316822" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/21713?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Israeli+navy+blocks+Gaza+aid+shipch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territories+%28News%29%2CLibya+%28News%29%2CMiddle+East+%28News%29%2CAid+and+development+%28Society%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Policy+Society%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Rory+McCarthyc7=2008_12_01c8=1126877c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territoriesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FIsrael+and+the+Palestinian+territories" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Israeli navy today prevented a Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Palestinians from docking in Gaza./ppThe al-Marwa, carrying food, blankets and powdered milk, attempted to challenge a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelandthepalestinians"Israel/a's tight economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has worsened in recent weeks. /ppBut as the ship approached Gazan water at dawn, an Israeli naval ship ordered it to turn back. The al-Marwa headed south and has reportedly docked at al-Arish, an Egyptian port in the northern Sinai just south of Gaza./ppAn Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said there was no physical contact with the ship but it was ordered back by radio. "This is a policy we have had for a long time: if somebody wants to bring in humanitarian aid they can do it through the border with Egypt or the Israeli passages into Gaza," said the spokesman, Andy David./ppHowever, since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas won parliamentary elections nearly three years ago, Israel has imposed a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/13/israel-gaza-blockade"ever tighter restrictions/a on Gaza. /ppWhen Hamas took full control of Gaza last summer those restrictions became an economic blockade, while Egypt has also kept its one crossing into Gaza at Rafah largely closed./ppAs a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza has unravelled in the past month, so the blockade has again been tightened. Deliveries of food, aid and fuel have been prevented on most days and a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/israelandthepalestinians-pressandpublishing"journalists/a have been barred from entering./ppThree smaller boats carrying activists and some aid successfully crossed into Gaza from Cyprus without being stopped by the Israeli navy. However, the Israelis moved quickly to prevent the Libyan ship, which carried a much larger cargo, from entering./ppA crowd of Palestinians had gathered at the Gaza City harbour from early in the morning ready to meet the ship. Five trucks waited to offload the aid. /pp"The civilian boat carrying only humanitarian supplies and food was turned away by an Israeli warship," said Jamal Khoudary, a Palestinian MP and head of Gaza's Popular Committee against the Siege./ppSome reports suggested the aid might now be unloaded in Egypt and delivered by road, although until now Egypt has been reluctant to turn the Rafah crossing with Gaza into a regular route for deliveries. Egypt does not want to assume responsibility for the strip and is also wary of the influence of Hamas./ppConcern is mounting about the humanitarian conditions inside Gaza. Its sole power plant, which relies on fuel deliveries from Israel, paid for by the European Union, was closed for two weeks in November and only restarted last Thursday./ppIsrael says the crossings are being closed because of rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel and because of reported security threats on the crossings themselves. /ppEvery few days a shipment of food or fuel is allowed in but figures from the UN show in the past month an average of less than five truckloads a day have been allowed in, compared to 123 in October and 475 in May last year, just before Hamas took control of Gaza./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelandthepalestinians"Israel and the Palestinian territories/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya"Libya/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast"Middle East/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/internationalaidanddevelopment"International aid and development/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/GLrYQgwPhhYeMuc_3Ej8lH5WUuA/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/GLrYQgwPhhYeMuc_3Ej8lH5WUuA/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Israeli and Jewish victims of the attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai are to be flown to Israel for burial, officials say.

Israeli and Jewish victims of the attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai are to be flown to Israel for burial, officials say.

When he left office in January 2001, President Clinton refused clemency to Jonathan Pollard,in spite of his repeated express commitments to Israel to free Pollard in return for numerous heavy concessions, in spite of his commitment to free Pollard as an integral part if the Wye Accords and in (...)