One of the fellows cited in the Guardian article is Michael Sfarad:
"There has been a huge change in the way the government treats those who dissent," says Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer representing several human rights groups. This process, he adds, has accelerated in the year since the attacks in Gaza: "The gloves have come off."(The man's name, of course, is Sfarad, not Sfard, which would be like a referring to Gordon Brawn, but why be nitpicky).
In a case of perfect timing, Sfarad demonstrates how his allegation has no factual base. Today of all days, while he's moaning to the Guardian that the nasty Israelis are blocking his right of free speech, Y-net - Israel's most popular news website, no less - gives him a platform to tell us that during the Gaza operation we finally rid ourselves of the yoke of morality, and we wallowed blissfully in wanton murder, barbarity and bestiality.
The mildly funny part of the story is that I could go through his litany of horrors and disprove them with quotations from the Goldstone Report, so outlandish is his tone. The hilarious part, though, is that he's forgotten that the way he tells it, our repression brigade should be blocking him from saying all these things. How inept of them.
Y-net, fortunately, doesn't see the need to translate this spite into English, so it remains an insider's joke.
Actually - his name is Sfard. Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sfard (also - 68k hits for this spelling).
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that most radical libertarians of both the left and the right express an inviolate belief in the absolute freedom of speech that always ends at the point anyone openly criticizes them. Then it's all fascism, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteYakov:
ReplyDeleteI missed the error in Sfarad's name, but picked up a couple more in Shabi's silly article. You may enjoy this:
http://cifwatch.com/2009/12/27/santas-little-helper/
And "the moral of the story is, like the story of The Tooth Fairy
On the rare occasions that the Guardian prints a “fact” about Israel:
If you want “the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth” – check it.
Very often their “facts” are – wrong.
His name is Sfard, not Sfarad. But then, why nitpick?
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought Israeli human rights activitists tend to publish in English (as you claimed in your previous post), because -as you so spitefully implied - they aren't intrested in taking part in the national conversation.
When Lea Shakdiel was arrested - along with several others - for *quietly holding a sign* against the war in Gaza (no, you don't need a permit to quietly hold a sign) - was that a sign of repression? Was t a sign of repression when the prosecution argued in court that some demonstrators should be held in pretrial detention because they pose a danger to "national morale"?
The man's Name is Sfarad, because its an ancient Hebrew word. Sfard isn't. Anyway, Ive heard him often on the radio, where he's addressed as Sfarad, and he doesn't correct his interlocutors by saying "hey, it's my name and I can do whatever I wish with it and even though my forefathers were all and always Sfarad I'm Sfard".
ReplyDeleteThe nitpick is important only because it shows people don't know Hebrew, and don't know what they're talking about.
The lunatics of the extreme left as incensed that not enough Jews were killed in Cast Lead.
ReplyDeleteThey are also extremely apprehensive at the successful tactics used by the IDF in Cast Lead as they may be used to kill 'freedom fighters' against 'domination of the world by the horrible USA'.
One has to laugh at the excesses of these lunatics. If The caliphate ever cam into existence, 'free speach' is the last thing that they would have to worry about.
Saving their own sorry skins from lunatic Imams would become much more important.
I believe that you misinterpreted ACRI's report. In the section you're referring to, ACRI discusses how the police responded to demonstrators, mostly in Arab villages, who protested against the war. The report also discusses excessive arrests against counter demonstrators, including a man who was arrested for wrapping himself in the Israeli flag. The report does not imply that organizations are unable to express their opinions freely in the press or on the internet, as you seem to have gathered from it.
ReplyDeleteCould it be an Yiddish/ Ashkenazi variant? It certainly seems popular.
ReplyDeletehttp://ansheisfard.com/
http://www.yesh-din.org/site/index.php?page=Sfardinterview&lang=en
http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue
/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521867375
t34zakat
Whatever it is, this is how the man pronounces his name. End of discussion. I once knew someone from Mexico whose surname was Shabbes, and insisted that it be pronounced that way - not Shabbat, and changed the Hebrew spelling to reflect that pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteI have now e-mailed to the man himself. He confirms that it's Sfard,not Sfarad. Furthermore, he tells that the name used to be Pardes (the same letters in Hebrew as both Sfarad and Sfard), apparently some generations back it the spelling was jumbled.
ReplyDeleteSo I was wrong on that, and now I've corrected.
Interestingly, the name Pardes sometimes denotes a Jewish scholar who dealt with the secret mysteries not accessible to most Jews. Which makes Sfard's position all the more interesting.
I suggested he might wish to comment on the content of my statements, but he didn't. Apparently he feels his task is to lecture us, not discuss - which is too bad. He makes extraordinarily harsh pronouncements, he disseminates them world-wide where our myriad enemies collect them with glee and use them against us, but he can't be bothered to respond to knowledgeable skeptics.
Yaacov
ReplyDeleteSfard was Klingberg-the-spy's lawyer and even co-authored his book. You can tell from that Ynet article that he is a brilliant fiction writer.
His name Sfard is Polish.