Ransom

Ransom Demand
The Ransom of the Jews: The Story of Extraordinary Secret Bargain Between Romania and Israel

 
Ransom Politics
Israel was never shy of ransom politics. 370,000 Romanians were one of its main immigration sources after 1948. Israel paid ransom for them, and Romania got also influence in the Middle East.
The Zionists’ alternate jail traded cash, agricultural products, and even political influence. This relationship allowed Israel after the 1967 War to maintain in Bucharest its only embassy in the East European Communist bloc.
The price was $2,000 to $3,300 per head, and also involved trade and loan considerations. The payments per Jew were determined by his education, profession, employment, and family status.
This profitable business permitted President Nicolae Ceausescu to emerge as a mediator in the Middle East peace process, and to improve Romania’s relations with the United States.
“Jews, Germans, and oil are our best export commodities,” Ceausescu said in the mid-1970s.

 
 State Corruption
Israel has no problem conducting Ransom Politics openly. Its Courts are infamously corrupt, being little more than rubber stamps signing illegal Government decisions.
“There are judges in Jerusalem” was former Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s most famous words; he said them in 1978 after the Supreme Court accepted the State’s position on the expropriation of land for the Beit El settlement.
Begin was a lawyer, it is safe to assume that the Justices too had at least some legal training. Yet, they ignored the fact that Israel is a Geneva Conventions’ signatory country.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged
No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991 (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

 
 
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory; thus the Israeli settlements in the West bank clearly violate it. Israel disputes that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the Palestinian territories, claiming that they had not been legally held by a sovereign prior to Israel taking control of them. Israel’s interpretation has been rejected by the International Court of Justice and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Begin’s words were the first official acknowledgment by an Israeli Prime Minister that Israeli courts are politically motivated; actively serving the government that pays the Justices’ salaries. On January 7, 2013, former candidate to lead Likud, Moshe Feiglin, spoke in the 10^th Jerusalem Encounter of B’Sheva, the settler main newspaper; it was later reported by Channel 7 and other Hebrew media. He said, “The people lost trust in the corrupt courts” (see Likud Leader: Israeli Courts Corrupted).
State Corruption in Israel is so common that summarizing it in an article dealing mainly with other issues is impossible. Yet, one must mention that last January West Bank settlers gave false testimony to the Supreme Court. The latter accepted an obvious lie as truth, but changed its decision after it was caught red-handed by the lawyers defending the Palestinian owners of the disputed land.

Desperate Polls
In July 2013, Israeli citizens are increasingly desperate. After Netanyahu’s last government was forced to call for early elections due to social protests and the new Conscription Law, the new one is proving to be equally inept.
Showing a scary capability to provide bread and circuses to the people, Netanyahu is attempting to distract them from their social problems by starting again the peace process with the Palestinians, which was stopped in 2010.
On July 24, the Dialog Institute published the results of a poll asking Israelis if they would support any peace agreement Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu submitted to a referendum. It was conducted four days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement last Friday that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians would resume.
39% Said that they would accept any agreement. Another 16% said that they would probably accept. Imagine being so hungry that you would pay any price for a slice of bread.
Ransom Mechanics
Unlike the ultra-secret contacts between Communist Romania and Crypto-Communist Israel, the negotiations with the Palestinians would be quite open. Most issues would appear on the media, with a lot of errors, misquotations and wrong numbers, until nobody would trust any report and agreement.
One of the first issues made public is that Israel would release Palestinian prisoners. Various numbers have appeared on the Hebrew media. Most of them claim that around 100 “Fatah Elders” would be released. Fatah is the largest party in the PLO, which became the Palestinian Authority. “Fatah Elders” refers to prisoners of that party who are held in prison by Israel from before the 1993 Oslo Agreements. Almost as veterans as the Elders of Zions.
Today, July 24, the prisoners who are candidates to be released issued a special statement in which they gave their consent to being released in four phases and not one as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had demanded.
However, they threatened not to leave prison unless an external third party would oversee the release. “Should there be any manipulation on Israel’s part we will take unexpected steps that will stop the entire peace process,” they wrote.
Aren’t the Elders of Fatah desperate to leave their prison? On January 31, 2012, I reported in Minority Report: IDF arrests Palestinian prisoner released in Shalit swap, about the arrest of Mamun Ismail Salame Stut, a Palestinian man who was released from Israeli prison in October 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal.
He had been originally arrested in 2002, and indicted on attempted murder, membership in an unidentified organization, assembling bombs and providing asylum. An Israeli court sentenced him to 38 years in prison. The new arrest took place in Dura, near Hebron, well within Occupied Palestine.

Hebrew for Hypocrite also means Hyena^*

 
The first arrest was mainly due to “membership in an unidentified organization,” the second for “being a security threat.” This while nobody can claim precognition powers or act on this claim. This while—as analyzed in that article—under the Criminal Law system enforced in Israel the law does not impose restrictions on society that physically prevents people from committing a crime in the first place. This man is innocent. The State failed to show that he committed a crime.
Knowing this, the reaction of the Elders of Fatah is understandable. They fear that after being released, Israel will jail them for no reason and will ask for a new ransom for them. After all, Mr. Stut can tell them all about this; he is in a nearby cell.
Who were the bad guys, Romania or Israel? Two persons are needed to dance a tango. Mr. Evil and Ms. Devil shared this one. As Israel’s Ransom Mechanics show, both were equally evil. Prisoners, behold!
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^* Can you daily follow up on the growth of a hyena? Most days, no differences would be spotted. Yet, from time to time, changes become obvious. One day, it becomes a monster. The word used in Hebrew for hyena is complicated because it depicts also the name of a bird and the word “hypocrisy.” In the most literal way, “tzavoa” means “colored,” or “painted,” and thus is a natural choice for naming speckled animals. It is used also for “hypocrisy,” because hypocrites’ souls are painted in complex, misleading patterns. Symbolizing hypocrisy, there is no better analogy than a hyena to depict the State of Israel. The most dangerous aspects of Israel are slowly appearing over time, making it difficult to notice that they are increasing. One day, Israel became a treacherous monster.