May 6, 2014

What, Bacon in Israel.....I'm Going there Right Now


Israel’s newest delicacy is delicious — if far from kosher

Smuggled into Jerusalem in shopping bags, the Aziz Butchers' bacon dazzles foreign journalists and diplomats alike


Israel's newest delicacy is delicious -- if far from kosher
This article originally appeared on GlobalPost.
Global PostBEIT JALA, West Bank — The fact of the matter is that it is not that difficult to buy pork in Jerusalem.
Most supermarkets in the city, including the large chains, are either kosher or halal, and thus do not carry the product. But between the secular, native-born Muslims and Jews, Christians, the local tribe of internationals, and Russian Jews who lost many kosher habits during 70 years under communism, a significant number of consumers hanker after the rosy meat.
In fact, the stringency of Jewish and Muslim prohibitions against pork may well serve to heighten the desire for it in a city that almost glows with religious fervor.
In recent months, among journalists and diplomats stationed in town — men and women alike — there has been a quiet thrumming about someone referred to as “the beautiful pork guy in Beit Jala.”
GlobalPost set out to uncover what the buzz was all about.
Israel districts numbered
Israel districts numbered (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Beit Jala is a Palestinian Christian town between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, right on the seam between Israel and a potential future Palestinian state. Its inhabitants are largely Greek Orthodox Christians. The fact that it is outside of Israel proper makes it illegal to re-enter Israel carrying meat, but the law is laxly applied.
The Alsoos family has had a butcher’s shop in the center of town, and a pig farm adjacent to it, since 1920.
Today, the shop is small and conspicuously well-kept, with two large meat refrigerators behind the counter and, in the front of the store, two smaller display cases holding an impressive array of salamis, mortadella, smoked bacon, and sausages in an alluring rainbow ranging from cream to a deeply rusty red, studded with points of fat.
At any given moment at the Aziz Butchers, you are likely to hear three or four or more languages murmured by customers considering their options.
Busily manning the counter is Raf Alsoos, 24, a third-generation pig farmer and general meat man, who, as GlobalPost can attest, possesses a winning smile and warm manner that easily draws customers who may have more mundane sources of pork closer at hand.


All the fresh meat is produced at the Alsoos farm. For any locavore meat-lover trapped in a desert of pre-cut, mass-industry meat counters, the cuts here are a sigh-worthy dream: bright and light and pink. Raf commonly advises the doubtful about which cuts better fit an Easter barbecue (chops and souvlaki cubes), and which would be best roasted and served on a platter. Sixty percent of their current business, according to Raf, comes from “journalists and embassies.”
To the almost certain surprise of his international clients, many of whom delight in the titillation of crossing from Israel into Palestine for the procurement of a taboo substance, all the smoked and processed meats come from … “Tel Aviv,” Raf says, laughing. “Some friend of my dad’s makes it. They’ve known each other since 1993.”
These meats can be said to be doubly smuggled: spirited informally into Palestine in the trunk of a car, and then carried back into Jerusalem in small portions in shopping bags, under the eyes of checkpoint soldiers who do not seem unduly exercised by the prospect of illicitly imported salami.
Aziz, Raf’s father, says that business boomed between 1970 and 2000. That is local code for describing the relatively prosperous years bracketed by the Six Day War, in 1967, and the second intifada.
“Before the intifada and the wall going up,” Aziz says, referring to the security wall Israel built during the eruption of violence in the early 2000s, “eighty percent of my clients were Israelis. I have a lot of Israeli friends.”
In the early ’90s, looking for new partnerships, he met Chanan Abramovich (the Tel Avivite Raf mentioned), who had recently acquired a flagging pork business from Karl Berg, a retiree.
Abramovich, who is 62, says “Aziz and I met many, many years ago. It wasn’t just salami. We’ve been friends for years. He and I worked together trading males and females for our farms, or I’d bring him medicine for the animals.”
Today, Karl Berg, which retained its original name under Abramovich, is established as one of Israel’s top pork producing operations, beneath the unrivalled pork superpower Kibbutz Mizra. Historically, the collectivist kibbutz movement has been militantly secular, and several kibbutzim currently produce pork products.
The Romanian-born Abramovich, whose family fled the communist regime when he was 12, owns the processing plant in Holon, a Tel Aviv bedroom community, and a pig farm of about 10,000 heads in Iblin, a Christian town in the Galilee. In Holon they smoke the bacon, for example, that the Alsoos family’s customers so crave. The Abramoviches also own a shop in Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s central market, which proved useful to Aziz Alsoos after the wall went up. For a while, ”when I had orders from Jerusalem I’d take the meat from Karl Berg in the market and not from my shop, because of the checkpoint.”
In 2004, the Alsoos family moved to Canada to seek a better future. Aziz now runs a Middle Eastern restaurant outside Toronto, from which he spoke to GlobalPost.
But last July, Raf, who had helped his dad out every summer, decided to come back and run the family business with an older brother. ”I have my own business,” he shrugs. “Why would I want to work for anyone else? And it’s fun to work with meat,” he adds.
The next generation is taking over at Chanan Abramovich’s business, as well. When he spoke with GlobalPost, Abramovich, who travels frequently, was “in Normandy, enjoying the seafood.” Back at the meat plant, his son Ran, 29, was expecting a pick-up from Raf Alsoos that very day.
Like Raf Alsoos, Ran Abramovich proudly says the business is “100 percent meat, no fillers, no substitutes.” The two families’ intertwined businesses — youthful, artisanal, local — could be a Brooklyn cliche, all the more startling considering the West Bank surroundings.
But it’s no surprise that the Alsoos family’s Jerusalem clients are willing to bend the rules to get their hands on the meat. The pork chops grill up crisp and succulent, and Karl Berg’s black pepper salami is an irresistible accompaniment for a cold beer.
The fact of the matter is, not only is pork available in Israel: It’s superb.
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Roger Waters Begs Mick Jagger for the Sake of Palestine


Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters and Nick Mason: Why Rolling Stones shouldn’t play in Israel

Band's founding members come together to argue in favor of the BDS movement -- and urge the Stones to reconsider


Roger Waters at Earls Court, London. Pink Floy...
Roger Waters at Earls Court, London. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason joined the group, alongside drummer Graham Broad for Dark Side during the Saturday show. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Mick Jagger with The Rolling Stones 1...
English: Mick Jagger with The Rolling Stones 1972 tour at Winterland in San Francisco, in June (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
TOPICS: ROLLING STONESPINK FLOYDISRAELPALESTINEBOYCOTTBDS,
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and Nick Mason: Why Rolling Stones shouldn't play in IsraelRoger Waters (Credit: AP/Vadim Ghirda)
With the recent news that the Rolling Stones will be playing their first-ever concert in Israel, and at what is a critical time in the global struggle for Palestinian freedom and equal rights, we, the two surviving founders of Pink Floyd, have united in support of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a growing, nonviolent global human rights movement initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005 to end Israel’s occupation, racial discrimination and denial of basic Palestinian rights.
The BDS movement is modeled on the successful nonviolent movements that helped end Jim Crow in the American South and apartheid in South Africa. Indeed, key figures who led the South African freedom struggle, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mandela’s close associate, Ahmed Kathrada, have come out in support of BDS for Palestinian rights. BDS offers us all a way to nonviolently pressure the Israeli government to fully realize that its injustices against the Palestinian people are legally and morally unacceptable and unsustainable.
The movement does not advocate a particular political framework — one state or two — and neither do we.  Rather, we call for a resolution that upholds freedom, justice and equal rights for all, irrespective of identity, and does not cause additional suffering for either people. 
So, to the bands that intend to play Israel in 2014, we urge you to reconsider. Playing Israel now is the moral equivalent of playing Sun City at the height of South African apartheid; regardless of your intentions, crossing the picket line provides propaganda that the Israeli government will use in its attempts to whitewash the policies of its unjust and racist regime. 


We are nearing the tipping point in global awareness that the denial of Palestinian rights has had a devastating impact on generations of people, and that they need our support now more than ever.  Consequently, we encourage you, fellow artists, to ask yourselves what you would do if forced to live under military rule and discriminatory laws for decades. If the answer is that you would resist until justice prevailed, we ask that you champion BDS as a nonviolent, collective means of securing a better future for all. If you wouldn’t play Sun City, back in the day, as you, the Rolling Stones did not, then don’t play Tel Aviv until such time as freedom reigns for all and equal rights is the law of the land.  
“Together We Stand”

May 5, 2014

Larry Hancock Talks about his New Book: Shadow Warfare on NPR Radio Today

Dear Larry:

I only have one word to say to you.....History.


Your hard work and your diligence will go down in history.  The way you pay attention to detail is obvious by your blog posts as you continued your research and talked about the difficulty of trying to obtain these very tedious facts.

I love reading your posts just talking about the hard work it involved.  I, for one, admire your focus.

I will promote your book on my blog as I admire any Kennedy, Government and CIA research as I have been following the assassination since I saw it on television in the 5th grade--it never leaves you and there has to be an answer.

While I like to write about it and just say my opinion once in a while I know I would never have the ability in my wildest dreams to do your kind of research and work.  That is what I am saying.....most people cannot handle that kind of tedious facts--but in the long run that will be what stands.

Particularly, about Kennedy and the areas of cover-up you have talked about in this blog--after I have read what you said about different news situations I have a much broader view of what is going on or went on....On more than one occasion I felt like I had a better grip of what was happening or did happen after you gave your take on the situation.

I have noticed this the most about the Kennedy info--there is just so much out there and so many people talking that in the long run the truth and the facts will be the words that remain and all the opinion or just idea type things will fall to the side--not that those things were necessarily wrong but in the long run the verified and researched facts will be the only thing left standing.

Your work will not just be a current headline but an admired factual reference that will go down in history--why--from all of your brilliant and hard work.

Good luck to you, Larry Hancock, and I wish you the best--you have given the greatest mystery of our day the credence and respect it deserves.

Please keep letting us know your appearances as I am always searching for good radio listening--also, I cannot wait to see you on Book TV.

I love to write about the different radio shows in my blog--the ronnie republic--under the section of--the ronnie republic radio round-up--and I welcome any contributors as I cannot cover all of the info myself.  I am really into the idea of free radio information and internet with easy access to info for all people of all ages.  That is one of my pet things and that is what you are providing.

Thank you, Larry, for all of your hard work and taking time to tell us about your book and your radio appearances.....I will always be listening to what you have to say.

Chloe Louise...the ronnie republic

here is Larry talking about his new book Shadow Warfare......

Hi folks, just wanted to let everyone know that Stu and I will be on the Leonard Lopate show tomorrow, Monday May 5th.  The show airs at 11 am Central time but will be archived as well.  You can access the broadcast though the following options:
It should be interesting, Mr. Lopate covers a broad range of topics including writer and author interviews and the dialog will likely be broader than my more recent interviews which have generally been with hosts very much  focused on covert and clandestine operations.
I haven’t seen any posts here from readers of Shadow Warfare, perhaps its too early – after all it is a 600 page book.
Shadow Warfare has done well in library sales and at retail but not nearly well enough in Amazon sales – not sure why.  Given how much time went into digging out the actual details of intelligence agency operations, especially those of the Plans and Operations folks, I would have expected more people wanting to dig into that area.  Its also surprising that there seems to be little media interest in the deep background of contemporary covert and special operations, including those in the war on terror (now in transition from being referred to as overseas contingency operations to a variety of ops using “shield
in their descriptor).   I suppose I shouldn’t be too frustrated though.  In Shadow Warfare we present a Benghazi scenario relating covert Libyan activities to Syria.  A couple of months ago Seymour Hersh did much the same thing and drew virtually no comment.  Given his history and reputation, if he gets ignored I don’t feel too bad.  It appears various political agendas hold sway over that subject.
Enough author whining, I hope you find tomorrow’s interview interesting if you decide to listen in….   Larry

here is a link to Larry Hancock's web page:
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May 4, 2014

Thank you to all of my Twitter followers: Would you like to comment on my blog.......

Bill O'Reilly
Cover of Bill O'Reilly
English: Karl Rove Assistant to the President,...
English: Karl Rove Assistant to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Bill O'Reilly at a Hudson Union Socie...
English: Bill O'Reilly at a Hudson Union Society event in September 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Yes, it's true......I love Jesus and I am a democrat.

I would like to thank all of the wonderful people that follow me on twitter.

I know I have many followers that are of a different political view......but I love the political conversation.

That is what Karl Rove says......it's the political conversation that keeps things moving forward.

If anyone would like to comment, write a post--agree or disagree--talk about Bill O'Reilly as in what makes him tick...........or anything.

Please comment.

I do have guest contributors that are conservatives.

I also like to write about the radio, news, food, travel, dogs, cats, crafts, sewing  and Wichita.


Here is my e-mail...........chloe.louise.langendorf.louis@gmail.com

hope to hear from you.......thank you for following........the current question on my mind.........do you think cats go to heaven.  I'll just tell you that I do.....I have to.   Love to hear what you think.

Thanks again......cl.....Hillary girl forever.......the ronnie re
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