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IDF vets train NY Jewish paramilitaries
The Jerusalem Post ^ | July 25, 2008 | HAVIV RETTIG

Posted on 07/27/2008 8:41:08 AM PDT by ChicagoHebrew

onatan Stern, the "Sgan Mefaked Hakita" (deputy squad commander) of Kitat Konenut New York, insists his "paramilitary emergency armed response team" is no "group of vigilantes or a JDL [Jewish Defense League]." Members of Kitat Konenut New...

Members of Kitat Konenut New York pose in a photo posted on the group's Facebook page. Photo: Courtesy Slideshow: Pictures of the week

"The goal of the organization is to have a competent and professional group of armed volunteers ready to respond to a threat at a moment's notice in any area where Jews reside," explains the Israeli combat veteran.

"We do not carry out demonstrations or political activity of any kind as we have no political agenda. Our agenda is to protect Jews wherever and whenever necessary and by any means needed."

On Friday, the third session of the group's training camp will begin in the Catskills woodlands of upstate New York, on land belonging to a Jewish supporter of the organization. With tuition at $400, the group expects 15 participants and five instructors for the 10 days of training. Participation has doubled since the group began three years ago.

Kitat Konenut New York is modeled on the rapid response teams in the West Bank settlements that are often the first to act when terrorist attacks or other emergencies take place. The group bills itself as religious-Zionist but nonpolitical.

American Jews have "felt a false sense of security in the United States," Stern believes, "because historically there has been less anti-Semitism than in other countries. But there have been incidents - neo-Nazi terrorist attacks, Arab terrorist attacks. Jews have to be vigilant."

"The threat is not from the American people or government," he adds, but from "terrorist sleeper cells that want to target Jews. These people are very dangerous and the FBI issues warnings against them very often," he said, citing the FBI's warning, after the killing of Hizbullah operations chief Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in February, that the Lebanese group might carry out terror attacks on Jewish communities.

"The average American is friendly to Jews, but we're worried about those individuals on the periphery of society," Stern says.

The group was founded in the summer of 2006 in response to the shooting attack at the Jewish federation of Seattle premises by local Muslim Naveed Haq.

"We realized there is a need for this kind of organization, and as Israeli combat veterans living in the US, we have the skills and ability to respond to this," Stern says.

The group's MySpace page details the camp's regimen, which includes training in the IDF's Krav Maga martial art, use of non-lethal weapons and identification of suspicious objects, but also sharpshooter and assault rifle training, infantry exercises and endurance marches. Explanatory literature lists a large number of weapons with which participants can expect to train.

"We believe all Jews in the US must be legally armed and trained," Stern says, "and towards this goal we hold paramilitary training camps to train and equip Jewish American youth."

The group's literature notes emphatically that all firearms used in training "are 100% legal and in compliance with all federal, state and local laws."

"We strongly believe in the constitutional right to bear arms and we express this right to its fullest," it adds.

The group claims to be "well-connected with the New York police and fire departments" and it invites "all members of the law enforcement community to join in our life-saving activities."

Stern says, "We are all legally armed and carry radios and cellphones" during all hours of the day, and even on Shabbat, "as we need to be constantly ready to respond to any incident."

The camp literature also promises discussions on Torah and Halacha, understanding and confronting terrorism, fighting anti-Semitism, the history of the Zionist movement in the Land of Israel, and encouraging participants to "know your rights and learn how every American can and must be legally armed and how to express the Second Amendment" - the right to bear arms.

Funded by tuition money and a handful of private donors, the group does not exclude secular Jews, Stern says, but asks that they respect the Orthodox nature of the camp by observing Shabbat in public and refraining from bringing non-kosher food.

"We wouldn't have a problem with non-Jews coming either," says Stern, "but no non-Jew has applied thus far."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: guns; heller; israel; secondamendment
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To: spanalot
Hitler and the Nazis did not sprout up like antisemetic mushrooms one day. As the opposing bolshevics were as genocidal as the tsars, so were the nazis a reaction to the bolshevics.
Much of this has to do with bad historical understanding on the part of the Germans.
It was the German High Command, including the future Nazi ally Luddendorf, who funded and transported the Bolsheviks into Russia in 1917.
Hitler's friends and the decrepit Junkers created the USSR, but found it convenient to blame Jews, when Frankenstein's monster came at them.

And nazi-communist collusion continued. They were quasi-allies even in the 1930's when they were opponents. They worked together to destroy democracies, each hoping to win in the end. Of course we all know the Moltov-Ribbentrop pact, but how many remember the communist subversion of allied war machines in 1940, which, as much as the treason of Quisling in Norway, helped the Nazis take most of Europe.
241 posted on 07/28/2008 9:24:03 PM PDT by rmlew (Liberalism is like AIDS; it destroys the natural defenses of a nation or civilization.)
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To: sport

Oh, I don’t.

I hope nothing happens. But Jews in NY have often been the victims of directed violence, thanks in part to losers like Farrakhan and Sharpton.


242 posted on 07/28/2008 11:28:38 PM PDT by Levante
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To: spanalot
Your post begins with a lie and a false light.

I understand some people have problems with Jews.

We're generally annoying (especially those seen on TV), often condescending (or seemingly so), sometimes a little too tricky, can be really rude, and simultaneously successful, smart, and just generally seem to get ahead.

People have been complaining about that since the first Joshua.

That said, for whatever reason (my hunch is theological, but interpersonal can be blamed, too, if you want), people have been trying to kill us en masse for nigh 3,500 years or so.

It gets old.

Ergo, we take countermeasures.

243 posted on 07/29/2008 6:24:50 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan ("Jesse Jackson was an important figure; paving the way for Osama bin Laden to appear" -- Dan Rather)
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To: ExpatGator

It looks like sir spamalot has been banned or suspended. Good riddance to bad trash.


244 posted on 07/29/2008 6:35:14 AM PDT by ExpatGator (Extending logic since 1961.)
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To: ExpatGator
Good riddance to bad trash.

Not at all!

Observing the way FReepers dealt with such naked equivocation (in the rhetorical sense) has been most instructive.

There is much to think about, here.

245 posted on 07/29/2008 6:54:22 AM PDT by papertyger
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To: ExpatGator

Nothing but facts? LOL. You inferred someone was anti-semetic because they didn’t like the idea put forth in this article. That is very lib-like.


246 posted on 07/29/2008 8:24:40 AM PDT by abercrombie_guy_38
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To: abercrombie_guy_38

He misrepresented the facts of the article. I did not initially infer anti-semitism. It was only after his vociferous defense of his claims, via name calling and inflammatory accusations (such as those aimed at me), that I concluded that it could only be Jew-hate clouding his judgment.

I challenge you to find one non-factual crumb in my posts. Heck, I even identified myself by name and disclosed my business in this thread. Any of you folks who took umbrage at this article and sided with spamalot got the testicular fortitude to do that? Thought not.

Your defense of spamalot is noble, but misguided. Go find another windmill to tilt at.


247 posted on 07/29/2008 8:39:59 AM PDT by ExpatGator (Extending logic since 1961.)
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To: papertyger

Yeah, I reckon you are right. He did get pummeled with the logic stick, and from all sides.


248 posted on 07/29/2008 8:41:56 AM PDT by ExpatGator (Extending logic since 1961.)
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To: abercrombie_guy_38
LOL. You inferred someone was anti-semetic because ...

That's a rather "strained" recitation of the events here.

Inferring an IDF paramilitary organ out of this report, along with attendant accusations of "treason" and "Israel-first"ism, is not so much the expression of an "idea" as the action of a provocateur.

249 posted on 07/29/2008 9:08:50 AM PDT by papertyger
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To: ExpatGator
He did get pummeled with the logic stick, and from all sides.

To the contrary: he managed to inflame many here into manifest foolishness with absurdities that should have triggered the "shoot first, ask questions later" response.

250 posted on 07/29/2008 9:16:13 AM PDT by papertyger
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To: ExpatGator
I’m a veteran of our U.S. Armed Forces. If I train a member of a so called militia to shoot would it mean that the U.S. is training militias???

If White Christian or Atheist Americans "organized and trained as a militia" they would rounded up, imprisoned, and their communities could be WACO'ed. Double standard strikes again.

251 posted on 07/29/2008 8:42:16 PM PDT by Solitar ("My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them." -- Barry Goldwater)
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To: wastedyears
I’d follow somebody from the IDF, especially their Special Forces.

Have you seen some of their women?...

http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2006/08/why_israelis_will_wi.html


252 posted on 07/29/2008 9:08:04 PM PDT by Screaming_Gerbil (How do you know that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a muzzle flash?)
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Comment #253 Removed by Moderator

To: American Patriot1981
You signed up today to post this:

Meaning since when do Hebrews get the right to make the rules ?

I think you will be more welcome at the liberty forum. You are not going to last long here.
254 posted on 08/30/2008 7:50:57 PM PDT by PA Engineer (Liberate America from the occupation media. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Free Laz.)
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To: Solitar

I really do hate the media as they print what the want to hear and not the whole story.

The only thing that makes this group JEWISH is that the founder is Jewish and lives in a Jewish community. The concepts of the group are “global”.

Any community that feels the government isn’t capable (history) of protecting life and property under extreme circumstances has the utmost right to defend itself.

All this group wants to do is to train people to do just that. To provide be the first responders when needed AND to provide the security lacking in the current governments action plans.


255 posted on 09/01/2008 12:21:58 PM PDT by PerpetualStudent
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