Brazilian Nelson Ascher Drops Some Science On Europe
Nelson Ascher, he of the great blog
Europundits, drops some sublime science on the Euros:
During my stay in France, after a while I got fed up with the anti-Americanism there.
(I’m kind of inoculated against anti-Americanism because of the simple fact that in my age group, high school and among my friends I was also the very first one to be contaminated by this virus. For years I didn’t wear jeans nor drank Coca Cola and watched only non-American movies. By the time I was outgrowing this teenage sickness, the others were becoming infected by it.)
Well, fed up with cheap Euro anti-Americanism as I was, I couldn’t help reminding those non-simplistic peoples that the US saved their sorry skins at least three times in the last century, and saved the Europeans from other Europeans mainly, because WW1, WW2 and the Cold War were actually one single and huge European civil war.
What do you think they answered me when they were unable to question the facts? Obviously that America did it out of self-interest. Eventually, I found a metaphor to use against them and, up to now, none of them has been able to fight or "deconstruct" it.
What I tell them is the following:
Look, what do you prefer, to be saved by a doctor who does it for money because he too has bills to pay or to be killed by an idealistic murderer for free?
There's really no point in trying to make such a point to Europe at large because Europe is senile, therefore, no longer capable of understanding logic.
However, I think it's important for the rest of the world, including us Americans, to think through these ideas. Until 9/11, I, Pastorius, was one of those who would rank on my country. I believed all the anti-American stuff. I would sit in bookstores and read Chomsky.
But, alas, I must have been just a poser to intellectual fashion because when the feces hit the fan I, almost immediately, thought to myself,
"What if these Islamofascists were actually able to take America away from, not only us Americans, but from the entire world?"
The answer is it would be a disaster for the whole entire world.
Being that I live in America, I have friends and family who are first generation immigrants (yes, that's right, in America we actually marry first-generation immigrants because we are not racist or classist like people in many other places around the globe)and these people tell me that, when they were stuck in the countries they came from, America represented for them a beacon of hope.
Hope.
America is something to hope and long for. America can keep a person alive and trying, not despairing and dying.
Just a note, there's no patriotic music playing in the background while I'm writing this. I'm actually listening to some Philadelphia Soul.
Well, maybe that is patriotic music to us Americans.
The Media War
In light of the previous post about The U.N. joining the Palestinian Army, here's an excerpt
post from Belmont Club, which discusses an essay, about our current brand of warfare, by Lt. Colonel Robert Leonhard of the U.S. Army:
... the really frightening aspect of Col. Leonhard's argument is not that the military and political aspects of warfare have fused, but his realization that foreign battlefields and home front have merged into one integrated area of operations. There is now no real distinction between winning the "media war" and cleaning out a sniper's nest in Ramadi; between Abu Ghraib the prison and Abu Ghraib the media event. Many readers have criticized the Belmont Club's An Intelligence Failure as being too "soft" on the liberal press, arguing that the media's distortions are not simply the effect of incompetence but the result of a deliberate campaign of partisan information. Doubtless many in the liberal press harbor symmetrical resentments. Yet I have held back from framing the argument in these terms until I could place it in the framework of Col. Leonhard's concept of a global battlefield: one in which the WTC towers and the New York Times newsroom are front line positions no less than any corner in Baghdad; and where victory is measured not simply by the surrender of arms but the capitulation of ideas.
Notice, in my previous post I mentioned that Reuter's shot the footage of the U.N. ambulance two weeks ago and yet the world's media has not picked up on it. It's a huge story, but the media does not choose to break it. The media's editorial decision to not inform the citizenry of such events amounts to Propoganda for the Palestinian side. If the media is Propogandizing for the Palestinian side that means they have joined the war effot as well.
The U.N. Joins The Palestinian Army
U.N. Ambulances Are Used For Terrorist Operations
That's right. United Nations Ambulance drivers are complicit in terrorism. Reuters shot the footage two weeks ago - though somehow it has been lost to the world media - and Access Middle East has it
here.
This really should be one of the biggest stories of the year. Think about it,
the United Nations has effectively joined the Palestinian Army in it's fight against Israel.
Alot of you fancypants nuancin' types would try to say that it isn't the Palestinian Army, it's just a bunch of militants. Israeli's would call them terrorists, and that's a fair word, to some extent. But,
I will call them the Palestinian Army because it has been proven that Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian government, uses Palestinian Government money to fund terrorist operations.
People carrying off operations with guns and bombs paid for by their government. That's an
Army, no matter how you nuance it.
Hail Marat Safin - An International Hero
It is a good day. Associated Press brings us the
story of an international hero; the Russian tennis player, Marat Safin:
PARIS - Marat Safin celebrated a particularly nifty shot at the French Open (news - web sites) by mooning the crowd, which raised the question: What will he do if he wins the tournament? The mercurial Russian advanced to the third round Friday by winning a two-day marathon against Felix Mantilla, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-7 (4), 11-9.
The match was suspended Thursday because of darkness at 7-all in the fifth set and ended 24 minutes after it resumed when Mantilla sailed a backhand long.
Afterward, Safin was still annoyed about being penalized a point for dropping his shorts early in the fifth set Thursday.
"I felt it was a great point for me," the former U.S. Open (news - web sites) champion said. "I felt like pulling my pants down. What's bad about it?"
Absolutely nothing Mr. Safin. It's perfectly understandable, and quite commendable, actually.
When They Came For the Jews I Did Nothing And Then ...
An
article posted on Israpundit today says "More Muslims now see U.S., Israel the same way":
Israel's dealings with the Palestinians have long been the top grievance of many Muslims and Arab-Americans when they think about the Middle East.
But the prisoner abuse case and America's other setbacks in Iraq are increasingly linking the United States with Israel in the minds of many Muslims, who now equate American treatment of Iraqis with Israel treatment of Palestinians - surely one of the last things President Bush hoped for when he authorized the war in Iraq.
"The more you look at Iraq, the more you see a replica of what is happening in the West Bank," said Hani Awadallah, president of the Arab-American Civic Organization in Paterson. "The story is no longer that we are there for liberation. It is clear to everybody that we are there as conquerors."
That view differs from those of major American Jewish groups, who say Israel is defending itself against terrorist attacks, and reject any link to the prisoner abuse in Iraq.
"Israel is engaged in a life and death battle with Palestinians," said David Elcott, the American Jewish Committee's interreligious director for the United States. "That has nothing to do with the U.S. sending troops to Iraq.
"The tragedy is the perception of Muslims is that they are under assault by the West," he said. "It's not a surprise to recognize that Muslims will see this in the same way they see the crusades and colonialism."
But many Muslims and Arabs have long seen a U.S.-Israel link in terms of foreign aid and political support.
Televised images of American troops battling insurgents in Iraq - and graphic footage of wounded and dead civilians - resonate among a Muslim community long used to seeing similar pictures beamed from Palestinian refugee camps.
At the Islamic Center of Passaic County, one of New Jersey's most influential mosques, many worshippers express concern.
"The same thing is happening in Iraq and in Palestine: One force has all the power and the other side is trying to defend itself and find its liberty," said Nabil Abbassi, the center's president.
"The whole reason we went to Iraq was to liberate it," he said. "What is going on is not liberation. All the problems of the people in the jail and the animosity toward the U.S. doesn't help us. It's definitely heading in the wrong direction. We're getting ourselves deeper and deeper into a quicksand situation."
Ahmed Shedeed, director of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, put it more succinctly: "An occupation is an occupation."
Imam Mohammad Qatanani, spiritual leader of the Paterson mosque, has regularly condemned Israeli actions in the occupied territories. But in his recent sermons, the United States is cast in the same light.
"In Iraq is the U.S., and in Palestine is Israel," he told worshippers a week ago. "These two powers nobody can mess with and nobody can criticize. If you criticize, you're a terrorist, and you will be a criminal. What is happening in the Abu Ghraib jail, how could people support that? It is a crime against humanity.
"Occupation is worse than terrorism," he said. "It is a bigger crime, it is even bigger than terrorism. If you really want to stop terrorism, end the occupation first."
Ok, so you want the world to just allow you to detroy yourselves and others, and not do anything about it?
Grow up.
If It Walks Like A Duck And Spews Duck DNA
It's Probably A Duck
Anti-Semitism In Greece
Check this
article out:
ATHENS, Greece, May 24 (JTA) — A prominent Greek journalist has accused Greek Jews of being puppets of the Israeli government and of censoring criticism of what he calls “fascist” Israeli policies.
Kostas Betinakis, a former foreign editor of the Ta Nea newspaper, Greece’s largest, made his comments on his news Web site.
The incident raises the issue of anti-Semitism in Greece at a time when a leading Jewish group has reiterated its call for a travel boycott of the country just months before Athens hosts the 2004 Olympics.
Betinakis, known for his anti-Israel views, criticized the country’s Jews after the Central Board of Greek Jewish Communities wrote to the Greek Journalists Union about anti-Semitism in the media following a series of editorial cartoons following Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March.
The cartoons included depictions of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Nazi garb and images of Sharon as a butcher cutting up bloody human limbs with a hatchet.
One cartoon portrayed a conversation about the Yassin assassination between two Greek villagers in which one asks the other: “Why did Sharon kill a religious leader?”
The other answers, “They were practicing for Easter,” repeating the canard that the Jews killed Jesus.
Gee, how could the Jews think there's any anti-Semitism there?
How about if a journalist wrote a column defining the Greek's preferred sexual act? Would that be ok?
The letter was intended to be private, but Betinakis — who had access to it as a member of the Journalists Union’s board of directors — called it an official protest and publicized it.
On April 16, the president of the Central Board, Moses Konstantinis, met with Manolis Mathioudakis, the Journalists Union president, to discuss the portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Greek media
Following the meeting, Konstantinis sent Mathioudakis the letter that included the controversial cartoons. The letter said that Greek Jews “recognize the steady policy of the Journalists Union to distance itself from racist principles,” and wanted to bring the cartoons to the union’s attention.
Several leading Jewish organizations, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League, have sent several protest letters to the Greek government over anti-Semitic expression in the Greek media.
The Wiesenthal Center also wrote to the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, asking that the IOC press Greece on anti-Semitism. The letter comes just two and a half months before the summer games.
Unless Greece takes action against anti-Semitism and racism, the Wiesenthal Center will keep in place its call for a travel boycott against Greece.
Betinakis’ anti-Israel beliefs are not new. As foreign editor of Ta Nea, Greece’s largest newspaper, he has been known to omit news items about Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel.
His Web site also has a 2001 article he wrote about Israel in which he states that the “armored policemen of the U.S. in the Middle East remind one of a caricature of a Jewish small-time merchant breaking his promises and contracts.”
Nope. No anti-Semitism there.
There's No Such Thing As Palestinian People?
Sometimes You Just Gotta Love Your Enemies
Here's another perspective on the Middle East Conflict. This is a quote from Zahir Muhsein, PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization*) executive committee member, in an interview with the Dutch newspaper "Trouw" March 31, 1977:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism."
Well, well, well, what do you know about that? Thanks for letting us in on that Zahir.
* Editors Note: The Palestinian Liberation Organization is the same thing as the PA (Palestinian Authority) and was founded, and is still run by Yasser Arafat. The official Palestine U.N. website contains the
original 1964 PLO Charter which calls for the destruction of Israel. Note, that the PLO was founded in 1964 three years before the 1967 War during which Israel took possession of the disputed territories.
So wait, you mean they started fighting against Israel before Israel even took their land? Why would they do that?
Yeah, why? Do you think it has anything to that
those clauses (19-23) in the PLO charer calling for the complete and utter destruction of Israel?
Hmmm.
Unilateral Disengagement Is Merciful
Dan Schueftan published
this post at bitterlemons.com:
The mainstream of the Jewish public today understands that Israel has to disengage from the Palestinian population in order to maintain a nation state that is both Jewish and democratic. Since there is no Palestinian partner for an historic compromise that is prepared to abandon both terrorism and the demand for "return", Israel must act unilaterally and withdraw from the heavily populated heartland. Israel will withdraw to a border it will determine unilaterally in accordance with the demographic reality, incorporating the three settlement blocs where most of the settlers dwell.
Along this line a physical barrier is being erected, designed to terminate the "creeping return" of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Israel, to reduce Israel's vulnerability to Palestinian terrorism, and to afford Israelis an acceptable quality of life and standard of living. This barrier, the fence, enjoys public support in Israel primarily as a defense against terrorism, but its significance goes far deeper. In recent decades the entire way of life of the Jewish population had been dictated by its intimate contact with the Palestinians. The Jews have come to understand that the illegal Palestinian migration, as well as the crime and the corruption from the territories, are no less detrimental, in the long run, to their way of life than the terrorism. In recent years Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, one of the most prominent proponents of the Greater Israel paradigm, has also reached similar conclusions. His acceptance of partition, acquiesce in a Palestinian state and even willingness to dismantle settlements does not derive from hope for peace, but rather from despair regarding the chances of historic compromise as well as from recognition that the status quo endangers the democratic nation state of the Jewish people. His plan for unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria rests on the assumption that the Palestinians are not a potential partner to a "two states for two peoples" compromise, and that Israel cannot wait until (if ever) such a partner emerges.
Sharon's disengagement plan enjoys the massive support of the general Israeli public, and of the Likud voters, but Likud members rejected it. While some of the plan's opponents ideologically reject uprooting of settlements, there are many, notably within the security community, who are mainly concerned lest the image of Israel fleeing the territories encourage more terrorism. Acutely aware that the image of Israel "fleeing" Lebanon due to Hizballah terrorism contributed to the war initiated by the Palestinians in 2000, they fear that unilateral departure from Gaza is liable to promote even worse acts of terrorism in the West Bank (perhaps even among the Arab citizens of Israel).
The Rafah operation is intended not only to strike at terrorists, but primarily to enhance Israel's capacity to deal with them following its departure from the Gaza Strip. The key is the weapons supply conduit along the Egyptian border. The main objective is to expand Israeli control over the ridiculously narrow strip of land that separates Egypt from Gaza, through which weapons are smuggled to the Palestinians. The byproduct of a resolute operation in Gaza is a message to the Palestinians that Israel is determined in its struggle against terrorism and is creating the conditions that will enable it to meet this challenge for as long as it takes.
The cost of such determined action is additional damage to Israel's image. But this issue too must be seen within its wider context. The media, European media in particular, present such a convoluted and distorted image of Israel's struggle against Palestinian terrorism that Israel no longer has anything to lose. If the fear of such damage to her image deters Israel from taking needed action in time, terrorism will only be stepped up to a point where more drastic counter measures are called for. Those measures, in turn, will certainly cause even worse damage to Israel's image.
Unilateral disengagement is inevitable because all other options are unacceptable. The offensive against Palestinian terrorism will persist, to demonstrate that terrorism has set Palestinian national objectives back rather than allowing Palestinians to dictate Israeli policy. This requires steadfastness and stamina. Israelis have demonstrated in the last few years that they have more of those qualities then anyone expected.
These ideas are all so logical, and fair. I just can't understand how it is that much of the world sees a unilateral disengagement plan, with a fence erected for security purposes, as an a human rights violation.
Say you're in a bar and a pathetic little guy starts punching you, and you say, no my friend I don't want to fight, but he keeps punching, so you punch him back on the arm, just to give him a taste of what you can do, but that doesn't stop him and he keeps on punching, and so, finally you decide to have the bouncers at the bar just make sure he stays on one side of the bar, and you'll stay on the other.
Is that a human rights violation, or is that mercy? Clearly, it's mercy.
Come on world, Israel could obliterate the Palestinian people if they wanted to. The terrorist are not able to accomplish any more than they already do. So if Israel walks away from the fight, it is an act of mercy.
Child Sacrifice
FrontPageMag posted a David Hornik
article this morning called Palistinian Moloch. Moloch is the Hebrew word for child sacrifice:
On Friday, May 21, buried deep in a lengthy Haaretz article, Amir Oren related a tidbit about a much-publicized incident two days earlier. When an Israeli tank fired a warning shot to the side of an approaching crowd of Palestinians in Rafah, Palestinians were accidentally killed. According to Oren, previously some of the marchers had “obeyed the calls over the loudspeakers to turn themselves in to the IDF authorities” but “were confronted by members of the terror organizations, who opened fire on them and killed two children. A senior officer in Gaza reported . . . that the IDF have in their possession pictures of this incident, of Palestinians killing their children. He expressed amazement as to why the army has refrained from publishing them.”
Naturally, Oren’s tidbit didn’t spark a firestorm of concern; it would have made Palestinians look bad, not Israel, and the focus of media, leftist, UN, and EU moralism is always to make Israel look as bad as possible. But when IMRA, an independent Israeli news-monitoring agency, asked the IDF about the incident, an official source confirmed Oren’s story and said the pictures had not been released to the media because aspects of them could compromise security in the field.
Truth is, we don't know that this is true, yet. Read on:
Palestinian aggression toward their own children is, unfortunately, nothing new, and the world’s apathy toward it is, unfortunately, nothing new either. “The world” didn’t get mad at the Palestinians when in the opening weeks of the “second intifada” in fall 2000, over 40 Palestinian children were killed who had been sent to the front lines by their parents. No surprise there, since the same world had yawned two years earlier when an Israeli video documentary showed a Sesame Street-like children’s program on Palestinian TV in which very young children sang songs about wanting to become suicide warriors and fire machineguns at Israelis.
When in November 2000 the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, called for the complete “liberation” of all Israel by the Palestinians and said “The younger the martyr, the greater and the more I respect him,” the Security Council didn’t meet in urgent session to take up this open call to politicide and child sacrifice by the PA-appointed cleric. Sabri, when asked “Is this why the mothers cry with joy when they hear about their sons’ death?” replied, “They willingly sacrifice their offspring for the sake of freedom. . . . The mother is participating in the great reward of the Jihad. . . . ”
Reports that pictures of “martyrs” and child “martyrs” are plastered not only on buildings throughout the Palestinian Authority but in schoolrooms, that children avidly trade “martyr cards” sold to them in local shops, that Arafat calls children “the generals of the stones” in speeches and lauds their role in the violence, that the PA awards families $2000 per child killed and $300 per child wounded, that official PA fifth- and sixth-grade textbooks sing the praises of shahada (martyrdom), that signs on the walls of kindergartens proclaim children “the martyrs of tomorrow”—none of this has ever prompted demands for regime change in the PA or for efforts to rescue Palestinian children from the murderous abuse and manipulation. Nor have, to date, any of the 29 suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinians younger than 18.
On October 8, 2003, prominent columnist Mark Steyn was inspired by a visit to the Palestinian Authority to call it “a wholly diseased environment. On the West Bank, almost all the humdrum transactions of daily life take place in a culture that glorifies depravity: you walk down a street named after a suicide bomber to drop your child in a school that celebrates suicide-bombing and then pick up some groceries in a corner store whose walls are plastered with portraits of suicide bombers.” His words didn’t gain any special notice.
This year “the world” was treated to two televised cases of would-be Palestinian “child martyrs” who were save by Israel. In March, 11-year-old Abdullah Quran approached an IDF checkpoint in Nablus carrying—apparently unknowingly—a powerful bomb in his schoolbag. After a border policewoman discovered the bomb, he told her someone had promised him “lots of money” to take his cargo past the checkpoint and enter Israel-proper; indeed, an attempt was made to detonate the bomb by cellphone while sappers went through the bag. Not much would have been left of Abdullah Quran if the bomb had gone off, but the whole PA would have celebrated the exploit since Israelis would have died too.
Just a week later Husam Abdu, a mentally slow 16-year-old known to his peers as “the ugly dwarf,” was also caught at a Nablus checkpoint with a suicide-bomb belt. This time his adult handlers seem to have explained to him his mission while offering him 100 shekels (less than 25 dollars) for his efforts. TV crews captured IDF soldiers helping the terrified boy remove the belt and averting another catastrophe.
A whole culture of child sacrifice? It seems to be true. Mark Steyn, while clearly a person with a pro-Israel bias, is not a columnist accused of just making up the details of his stories.
Yesterday, I violated my own rule against talking about political policy in the Middle East. Today I'm going to violate my policy of bringing the Bible into the equation. I write this blog with what I think of as a Christian perspective. However, I think it is not up to me to judge whether I am write or wrong. God will be the judge. Therefore, I don't quote the Bible as if I know my judgements to be absolutely true. I try to live by my principals, keeping mindful that one day God will sort it all out.
Does that make sense? I guess I'm kind of a postmodern Christian.
Anyway, I'm violating my policy today, so here goes;
From my understanding of the Bible, there is nothing God hates more than child sacrifice.
From my understanding of the Bible, if they are doing what it appears they are doing (sacrificing their children as a religious sacrament) then we should be afraid for them as a people.
Oh Yeah? Well We'll Just Shoot 6001 Right Back At You,
So There
Those Iranian Government officials must be watching the WWE for lessons in diplo-speak. Jeez, check
this out from Michael Ledeen at National Review:
Meet Hassan Abbasi, a well-known Iranian political scientist, longtime top official of the Revolutionary Guards, and currently "theoretician" in the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (how does one get a job description like that, I wonder) and the head of the National Security and Strategic Research Center. Abbasi holds special responsibility for North American affairs.
That would be us 'murikins, for those of you keeping score at home.
Apparently morale is very low in the ranks of the Basij, the group of fanatical thugs that do the regime's dirty work in the streets, things like beating up women whose scarves show too much hair, rounding up student protesters, and so forth. Friends of mine in Iran tell me that Basiji are becoming convinced that the regime's days are numbered, and they are understandably discouraged.
... last Sunday, Abbasi set out to restore the Basiji's enthusiasm for the Islamic Revolution. Speaking at the Technical College of Tehran, he made some amazing statements. "The infidels — Western countries and America — are the sworn enemies of God and Muslems and any action taken to terrorize them or frighten them is considered holy and a source of pride." Abbasi went on, "Lebanese Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas have all been trained by these hands," that is, Iranian hands.
Thus far, the usual jihadist rhetoric, although the specific confirmation of Iran's intimate links to three of the world's most lethal terrorist organizations was a bit unusual. But then he went on with a megalomanical vision that bears some attention. "We intend to withdraw $53 billion of Iranian and Arab investments from the U.S.A. and thus cause instability [in] its economy, we take pride that our actions have brought 1/9 of the budget deficit in America's economy this year and we shall keep up with our economic actions." The claim to have caused nearly ten percent of the American deficit probably refers to the rise in oil prices. But this was only the beginning of his promise to bring America to its knees.
"We have identified some 29 weak points for attacks in the U.S. and in the West, we intend to explode some 6,000 American atomic warheads, we have shared our intelligence with other guerilla groups and we shall utilize them as well. We have set up a department to cover England and we have had discussions regarding them[;] we have contacted the Mexicans and the Argentineans and will work with anyone who has an axe to grind with America."
...when an official as authoritative as Abbasi tells the regime's loyalists in a closed meeting that Iran is sabotaging our economy and organizing terrorist attacks on our territory, you can take that to the bank.
Sooner or later we will be forced to fight back against the mullahs, because their war against us is driven by fanatical hatred of everything we stand for and the knowledge that their regime is doomed if we succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no escape from this war, whatever the appeasers in Foggy Bottom may think. We can win or lose, but we can't get out of it.
The claim that he has six-thousand nuclear warheads might sound preposterous, but I started getting really, really scared when I heard that he actually pronounced the word nuclear correctly.
Krauthammer Drops Some Science
You'll notice I don't often post articles that speak on Middle East policy. The reasons for this are multiple, the most important being that this blog is not about the Middle East conflict so much as it is about indefensible Anti-Semitism. It doesn't really matter what Israel does, or what Jews do (if you can make a case for the idea that Jews do anything as a group, other than call themselves Jews), what matters to me is that it is
not legitimate,
not ok,
not tolerable that one group would call for the death of another group. It is also not ok to accuse a group of people of terrible deeds when they are not engaged in doing terrible deeds. So, that's what my blog is about for the most part.
So, now that I've made that point, I'm going to post on policy for once. Charles Krauthammer was
interviewed by the Canadian Jewish News and he made points which seem to me self-evident:
Israel should withdraw from the Gaza Strip out of self-interest and not as a favour to the Palestinians, U.S. syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer believes.
“Israel should pull out because Gaza is indefensible militarily,” he said in a recent interview. “Israel has to rationalize and straighten out its defensive lines.”
Positing further reasons why a unilateral withdrawal is necessary, Krauthammer noted that Israel is at war with the Palestinians and that the current Palestinian leadership is not a credible negotiating partner.
Claiming that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat seeks Israel’s destruction, Krauthammer said, “If Arafat didn’t want to destroy Israel, he would have made a counter offer at the Camp David summit four years ago.”
Asked how he reconciles Arafat’s public support for a two-state solution with his own contention that Arafat’s real objective is Israel’s demise, Krauthammer replied:
“Arafat is a liar. He signed 63 ceasefires during the civil war in Lebanon. What does that tell you about him? Of course he’s a liar! Arafat will never sign an agreement that leaves a Jewish state intact.”
This is self-evident as well, although it seems to be the cornerstone that the builders of this world insist on rejecting. My friends, the
official Palestinian U.N. website calls for the destruction of Israel. On with the Krauthammer:
Krauthammer, a conservative columnist associated with the Washington Post Writers Group, urged Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to move ahead with his recently announced plan to evacuate Gaza on a unilateral basis.
“If I were him, I’d go straight ahead.”
On May 2, the Likud party’s central committee rejected the scheme by a wide margin in a non-binding referendum.
“Sharon can’t break a promise to the president of the United States, especially after he went out on a limb for him,” said Krauthammer, referring to George W. Bush’s statement in mid-April backing Israel’s right to retain parts of the West Bank and refusal to accept an influx of Palestinian refugees.
Sharon runs the risk of alienating Israeli public opinion and rupturing relations with the United States should he reconsider his plan, he warned.
“Any policy that lacks the support of Israeli public opinion and the United States is dead,” he added.
“Gaza will never be part of Israel.”
Krauthammer expressed sympathy for Gaza’s 7,500 Jewish settlers who vehemently oppose Sharon’s proposal. “People don’t want to be uprooted from their homes. That’s pretty understandable. But in the end, the people as a whole decide what’s in a nation’s interests.”
Now, I want to remind you that I am on record as calling "the settlements" neighborhoods. I find nothing wrong with Jews building housing tracts and living in them. I do find three things wrong with people's opinions about these neighborhoods:
1) Calling them "settlements" is a cheeky way of accusing Israel of imperialism. Building housing tracts is not imperialism. There's nothing wrong with Arabs living in Israel, and there should be nothing wrong with Jews living in Arab countries. Somehow, though, when Jews want to live in areas of Palestine it is wrong. How is that? I don't get it.
2) The "problem" with the "settlements" is that the Palestinians do not want any Jews in Palestine. The problem is racism. It's like Nazi Germany. The PA wants Palestine Judenrein (Jew-free). Again I would refer you to the official Palestinian U.N. website.
3) The idea that there are Jews who want to live in the "settlement" neighborhoods surrounded by people who want them dead seems to me to be stupid. If they really do want to live in such a place then they take their lives in their own hands. I think it is foolish, and the height of selfishness, to expect the Israeli government to help you when you are doing something so stupid. Why should everyone else have to pay exorbitant amounts for your security?
On with the Krauthammer:
He acknowledged he was at a loss to explain how Sharon would persuade the settlers to pack their bags and leave. “It may cost him the prime ministership.”
In his view, a withdrawal will not be interpreted as a Palestinian victory since Israel is building an electronic security fence through the West Bank.
The barrier will stop terrorism, deprive the Palestinians of a powerful weapon and define the borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Now, how about that. Israel defines the boundary of a Palestinian state and they're accused of Apartheid, and human-rights violations. Damn, that must be some of that fancypants nuancin' again, eh boy? On with the Krauthammer:
Krauthammer denounced proposals by Israeli personalities Ami Ayalon and Yossi Beilin for a virtual Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders.
“They’re beyond naive,” he asserted. “They criminally naive. The problem in the Middle East is the lack of a Palestinian partner. Jews will negotiate among themselves until they’re blue in the face, and in the finest talmudic tradition.”
Archly dismissing Ayalon’s People’s Voice initiative and Beilin’s Geneva accord, Krauthammer said, “It’s comically and tragically a show of self-delusion.”
Harshly dismissive of the late Yitzhak Rabin’s decision to enter into the Oslo peace process, Krauthammer noted, “What Rabin signed at Oslo was a catastrophe. He did it in good faith, but he was catastrophically wrong.”
The road map to peace will remain still-born unless the Palestinians dismantle “the terror apparatus,” he said.
Calling the new anti-Semitism in Europe “extremely serious,” he said, “It’s a return to the pre-Holocaust norm. The last 50 years were an aberration. Now we’re back to old Europe. The Europeans are not too comfortable with the idea of the proud, independent Jew. They swallowed this discomfort for 50 years in the shadow and shame of the Holocaust. Now they have no shame. So they do what they can to cut Jews down to size.”
Apart from Britain and Denmark, Jews have no business living in Europe anymore, said Krauthammer, a graduate of Montreal’s Talmud Torah and McGill University who resided in Canada for 15 years.
By contrast, the new anti-Semitism has bypassed the United States because of its spirit of decency and tolerance. “That makes us unique.”
Something tells me them Europeens would think that last part didn't have much of that nuance stuff them's so fond of.
Jew-Baiting On 60 Minutes?
The American Thinker posted an
article by Richard Baehr about Jew-Baiting on 60 Minutes:
A few months back, leftist Jewish critics, such as Frank Rich, Abraham Foxman and Leon Wieseltier, trashed Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, for what they called its blatant anti-Semitism, warning of the danger the movie could create for Jews wherever the movie was shown. So far, 50 million people have seen the movie in America, and nobody has been seen running out of a cineplex calling for Jewish blood.
They are yelling for Jewish blood however, in many countries around the world, especially Muslims leaving their mosques after furious incitement by their Wahhabi-trained imams. On this subject, we hear less from some of these same critics, particularly Frank Rich, who this week found the time to laud the latest Michael Moore screed, presumably for its dedication to truthfulness.
The Passion has not generated any pogroms in America, but a new insidious strand of Jew-hatred is creeping out of the closet and making its appearance in widely broadcast mainstream media. In an utterly shameful program on CBS's 60 Minutes last night, Steve Kroft conducted a fawning interview with retired General Anthony Zinni ...
Zinni has been a critic of the war with Iraq for some time. He believes Iraq was successfully contained before we went to war. This, in itself, is a reasonable position to take. This was a war of choice. Zinni also argues that if we chose to go to war, we needed more force strength. So he agrees with the Powell doctrine that you need lots of manpower, to insure a successful military campaign and post war outcome.
Zinni says we had too few men at the start, and for the post war period. He also says that Ambassador Bremer has made some mistakes (I guess Zinni never has), including dismissing the Iraqi army, which he says eliminated any ability to get Iraqis to help secure the country, and was responsible for our forces being viewed as an occupation army. In itself, these criticisms are nothing new, and in fact, if this is the sum of what Zinni had to say, one wonders what contribution to the debate CBS thought he was making. Some supporters of the war effort agree with part of the Zinni critique -- particularly on the size of our force commitment.
But Zinni is not comfortable just with criticism of how the war or post war effort was run. He needs to blame people, and he wants heads to fall. And he names names -- in particular the group he calls the “neocons”, naming five men: Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Richard Perle, and Ellot Abrams, as the key ideologues who caused this war to occur. And their real justification for pushing the US to war, we learn from Zinni, were not the three stated by the Administration -- weapons of mass destruction, terror links, or gross human rights violations.
Rather, it was to secure Israel, and to remake the Middle East in our image, a noble but unrealistic vision, according to the General. The fact that the named neocons are all Jewish, Zinni says, is accidental. He says this is irrelevant to him. But if it is irrelevant, why does he only provide the names of Jewish neocons? Are there no others? How Jewish is Jeanne Kirkpatrick or Bill Bennett? And what evidence does he have for his charge that the war was fought for Israel? Zinni never even touches on the three justifications the Administration offered for the war in the 60 Minutes segment. But Steve Kroft repeats the neocon slander, and the link to Israel, and names the Jewish names. This after all is the important part of the story.
...two weeks ago, the doddering and thankfully retiring Senator Fritz Hollings penned an op-ed for a South Carolina newspaper charging that the war in Iraq was fought for Israel, and to win Jewish votes for the Bush administration, and blaming three Jews for pushing us to war: Perle, Wolfowitz, and columnist Charles Krauthammer (if you are scoring, Perle and Wolfowitz now lead the villainy derby with two mentions each).
None of this Jew-baiting is accidental. The road is being prepared for an ugly smear campaign against Jews and Israel. If the war is lost, then the American dead, and all the money spent, will be laid at the feet of a few Jewish political writers and government officials, most of whom are completely unknown to the vast majority of Americans, who can rarely name their Senators or Congressman.
The absurdity of the charge that the Jewish neocons led us to war requires one to believe that Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice are push-overs, without real views of their own, and they were therefore easily manipulated by the nefarious neocons. So Lewis Libby is the power behind Cheney, and Elliot Abrams the man behind Condoleeza Rice (how un-feminist to make this charge). Feith and Wolfowitz need only whisper in Rummy’s ear, and he marches soldiers off to war. And masterminding all of it from afar, is the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle. Now we have all learned these last few years that Dick Cheney tells George Bush what to do, so there is no need for Zinni to link any of the neocons directly to Bush.
It is remarkable that people could buy such nonsense.
It is remarkable and I'm glad he remarked on it.
Could It Really Be Worse For Jews Now Than In The 1930's?
Phyllis Chesler
makes her case for the idea that we live in very, very bad times:
Some say that we are re-living the 1930's. I disagree. Today, the danger to Jews is far graver and more complex than it was in the pagan or medieval-Christian world, or during World War Two.
Today, anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, and anti-American propaganda has gone global. It is visually masterful, technologically sophisticated, and available around the clock, especially in Arabic. Jews and Zionists can be "seen" holding a meeting of the (fake) Elders of Zion, (falsely) demanding that Jesus be tortured and crucified, committing (fake) massacres in Jenin, and stabbing non-Jewish children to death for their blood.
Old-fashioned Czarist-, Nazi-, and Stalinist-era anti-Semitic stereotypes (the Jews control the media and the banks and seek world domination), have been added to the pre-existing Islamic views of Jews as subhuman infidels. The mix is a hot brew of relentless hatred.
Jew-haters are creating a situation in which - dare I say it? Yes, I must say it - another mass murder - perhaps even a Holocaust-like mass murder of Jews might be possible. Indeed, in my view, it has already begun, certainly not in America, and not yet in Europe - but in Israel. Today, Jews who live in the Jewish state - a nation that was initially envisioned as the solution to the ceaseless persecution of the Jews - are far more endangered than those who live in the Diaspora. Worse: The existence of the Jewish state is now being used to justify verbal and physical attacks against Diaspora Jews around the world and on campuses throughout the Western world. For example, "Zionism" is an increasingly dirty word on campuses. I am also told that among American teenagers, the word "Jew" is increasingly being used pejoratively.
Israel has served as the laboratory, or groundzero, in the terrorist war against the West. It is where the Islamofascists have perfected their experiments, their grisly, spectacular, and well-choreographed mass murders and their ingenious use of hijacked planes.
In my recent book, The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It, I was among the first to characterize the new anti-Semitism as an alliance between Islamofascist terrorists and "politically correct" western intellectuals. Both groups have remained morally blind to the slaughter of innocent civilians in Israel and America. Worse, they have blamed that slaughter on Israeli and American policy. In their frenzy to scapegoat Israel for all human suffering, these new anti-Semites have joined the United Nations, international human rights groups, and the media in failing to condemn the most horrendous human rights abuses in the world, including genocide.
Reality Turned Upside-Down
The propaganda war against Israel and against Jews is staggering, both visually and linguistically. It is often vulgar and blatant but it is also subtle, earnest, persuasive. One is forced to confront Big Lies at every level, socially, professionally, among scholars and in the media.
Today, Israel is the world's punching-bag symbol for "Colonial, Apartheid, Oppressor." Although Arafat began his terrorist campaign against Israel in 1964 when the "offending" settlements were Tel Aviv and Haifa, his terrorism against Israel is justified because of the offending Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Let me quote from ex-PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat, who has since converted to Christianity and is now pro-Israel. In an interview in the Jerusalem Post, Shoebat suggested the unthinkable: "The true occupation is of the minds of Palestinians, of teaching them hatred for Jews. That is the real occupation."
Let me expand upon that. The true occupation also includes the utter Palestinianization and highjacking of the western media and the western
academic world into believing that black is white, day is night, that the Palestinian Authority can do no wrong, and Israel can do no right.
Bizarrely, tragically, these new anti-Semites have decided that Israel is the "greatest oppressor of all time," and is "worse than the Nazis" - surely a new form of Holocaust denial.
They also characterize Israel as an "apartheid" state (which it is not). In fact, Islam is the largest practitioner of apartheid in the world, both in terms of religion and gender; Israel once again is the scapegoat for this.
... from 9/29/2000 to 5/12/04, 961 Israelis were murdered by terrorists. This represents 0.015% of the Israeli Jewish, Christian, and Muslim population of six million, four hundred thousand. Based on an American population of approximately 293 million, the Israeli civilian death count is the equivalent of 44, 005 Americans killed by terrorists on our own soil, in pizza parlors, on buses, at Passover sedorim, in our beds.
In addition, between 9/29/2000 and 5/12/04, a total of 6,344 Israelis were wounded by terrorists, often seriously, and for life. This represents .099% of the Israeli population. In American terms, this is the equivalent of approximately 290,000 Americans wounded by terrorists.
Every Israeli personally knows someone - a parent, a child, a spouse, a co-worker, a neighbor, a friend - who has been killed. Every Israeli personally knows someone who has been wounded for life. Ads for hospital beds and orthopedic devices regularly appear in mainstream newspapers, not in medical journals.
And yet, our "best and brightest" suggest that the Jews are "paranoid" about anti-Semitism, "alarmist," "neurotic," that Hitler killed millions of people who were not Jews ("Why do the Jews go on and on only about themselves as if they are the only victims?"), that the Israelis are now perpetuating a "Holocaust" upon the Palestinians, (another way of saying that "Hitler should have finished the Jews off"), that Israel is a "colonial" state that should be abolished - exterminated - and that this suggestion, which is being made by many progressives and intellectuals, does not necessarily amount to Jew-hatred.
Even Orwell might weep at this.
Meanwhile, as some Jewish American organizations launch major fundraising drives pegged to these latest alarming trends, their leaders hasten to reassure us that Jews in America are relatively safe; that Israel has a strong military, including a nuclear strike capacity. All true.
But if Israel (G-d forbid) ceases to exist, if America is fatefully weakened by the terrorist threat against it - who are we? If the Jews of Israel, Europe, and South America remain at peril - what then? Is it "okay" that we're "okay" in America?
Hillel asked three questions, not just one. Let me remind us of these questions: "If I'm not for myself, who will be for me?" "When I am only for myself, what am I?" "And, if not now, when?"
Many Jewish progressives gloss over Hillel's first question and focus only on his last two questions. Some Jews are often the first to demonize the Jewish state and the Jewish religion in their zeal to institute social justice as if doing so is a substitute for G-d.
Yes, of course Israel has made mistakes; what nation hasn't? But nothing - I repeat, nothing - that Israel has done deserves the savage, obsessive, demonization and terrorism against it. The Israel Defense Forces have behaved with exquisite moral restraint given the enormous provocation against the Jewish state. They have not been congratulated for this but rather condemned.
Call to Action
As I have documented in my book about the new anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism is today's new anti-Semitism.
So, what must we do? We must stand up to The Big Lies. We must take back the campuses. We must forge an alliance with Christian and Republican Americans to fight the war against terrorism and for a safe Israel. And yes, of course, the Israeli government and Jewish organizations and individuals must continue talking with Arab and world leaders.
But my most radical suggestion is a gathering of the twelve tribes. This must be undertaken in the same spirit in which Theodor Herzl convened the first World Zionist Congress. So many Jews who hold passionate and opposing views have simply stopped listening and talking to each other. The silence is more awful than arguments. Many Jews no longer act as if they believe the 'Other' has been created in G-d's image. We must come together in order to strategize about our very survival.
Let me suggest that we consult the Torah for some perspective and guidance. What does the Torah teach us about anti-Semitism?
Early on, we see that G-d accepts Abel's offering but rejects Cain's. Despite G-d's intervention, the heartbroken and enraged Cain kills his brother Abel, whose offering was "chosen" by G-d.
Yaakov favored Yosef - and Yosef's older half-brothers envied, resented, and hated him. Yosef, the absolute apple of his father's eye, the precocious dream-interpreter, the young peacock who struts about in his coat of many colors - oh how his brothers want him out of the way. Some want to kill him but they settle for selling him into slavery. Divine destiny will have Yosef both rescuing his people from famine and forgiving his brothers.
What happens when one is chosen, not only by one's biological father but by G-d, one's heavenly parent?
One breaks the hearts of all those who have not been chosen and such heartbreak often leads to envy and resentment. Oddly enough, despite the
considerable hardship and danger, many people still want to be "the chosen one."
While Jews do not cause Jew-hatred - nor does Israeli policy - we must also quietly consider that our chosenness (or at least our perceived chosenness) does seem to have certain consequences. We are the first People of the Book and are, psychologically and theologically, the Mothers and Fathers of all those who have followed in our monotheistic footsteps. In addition, our Jewish ideas about G-d, mitzvot, justice, ethics, mercy, have indeed gotten us into trouble with all those who wish to worship idols, engage in child sacrifice, and to murder, rape, slander, and steal. The glory of being "chosen" is also a dangerous and difficult burden.
The sages say that Jerusalem is the source of the world's peace and light. When the source of peace is not at peace, the world is sorely troubled too.
May the Israel Defense Forces and the American military endure and prevail. May civilians - both here and in Israel - be kept safe from terrorist attacks. May G-d protect and look over us.
Arabs for Israel
There is a new website called
ArabsForIsrael.com which is exactly what it says; Arabs who support Israel. Read their basic tenets:
Who are we?
We are Arabs who believe…
We can support the State of Israel and the Jewish religion and still treasure our Arab and Islamic culture.
There are many Jews and Israelis who freely express compassion and support for the Palestinians. It is time that we Arabs express reciprocal compassion and support.
The existence of the State of Israel is a fact that should be accepted by the Arab world.
Israel is a legitimate state that is not a threat but an asset in the Middle East.
Every major World religion has a center of gravity. Islam has Mecca, and Judaism certainly deserves its presence in Israel.
Diversity should not be a virtue only in the USA, but should be encouraged around the world. We support a diverse Middle East with protection for human rights, respect and equality under the law to all minorities including Jews and Christians.
Palestinians have several options but are deprived from exercising them because of their leadership, the Arab League and surrounding Arab and Moslem countries who do not want to see Palestinians live in harmony with Israel.
If Palestinians want democracy they can start practicing it now.
We stand firmly against suicide/homicide terrorism as a form of Jihad.
We are appalled by the horrific act of terror against the USA on 9/11/2001.
Arab media should end the incitement and misinformation that result in Arab street rage and violence.
We are eager to see major reformation in how Islam is taught and channeled to bring out the best in Moslems and contribute to the uplifting of the human spirit and advancement of civilization.
We believe in freedom to choose or change one’s Religion.
We cherish and acknowledge the beauty and contributions of the Middle East culture, but recognize that the Arab/Moslem world is in desperate need of constructive self-criticism and reform.
We are NOT:
Anti-Islam, Anti-Arab, confrontational or hateful.
Thank you friends.
Grandma Europa Invites Her Rapist To Birthday Party
Snears At The Man Who Pulled Him Off Her
France is
inviting Germany to their 60th Anniversary D-Day Celebration. Meanwhile, the French magazine expresses a highly nuanced gratitude by snearing at the American President George Bush's invitation to the same celebration.
From
Merde In France (who also has a photo of the cover of the mag):
"Still more anti-American hate speech in the mainstream French press Pravda. The weekly 'Marianne' (dated 17 May), a sort of sub-product rag dipped in a concentrated 'human rights' dish water, had this to say about George W. Bush:
'60 years after the D-Day Landing, is the America that brought us freedom going to be represented by its exact opposite in the person of George Bush? THE UNBEARABLE PROVOCATION. All of the values for which the Allies fought in 1944 are now ridiculed by the Bush administration. The presence of the American President at the anniversary ceremony creates a great feeling of unease.'
George Bush should call France out. Call a whore a whore. Call an enemy an enemy."
Hey, Merde In France said it, not me. But, you know I would have.
The Rafah Myth
FrontPageMag posted an
article from David Meir-Levi this morning, which probes the Rafah Myth:
Media coverage depicts the civilians as an orderly "demonstration" upon which the IDF fired without provocation, certainly a violation of international law, if not a crime against humanity.
While providing some limited quotes from IDF spokespersons about the need to enter Rafah to put a stop to arms smuggling via the tunnels, nowhere in the media do we learn that the urgency of this operation was due to the fact that terrorists in Rafah were trying to smuggle in Strela anti-aircraft missiles capable of shooting down civilian airliners. Strela missiles from the Gaza strip could shoot down planes landing at Ben-Gurion airport.
Understanding the urgent need to prevent such a situation puts a new and very elucidating light upon the speed and size of the Israeli raid.
Our media also neglected to mention that a UN special envoy to the PA noted that "Palestinian gunmen (were) using a mob of civilians as cover". At least a dozen armed terrorists were scattered within this demonstration (*).
There were c. 3000 people about a mile from the IDF tanks. A group of c.100 unexplainably separated from the main body and advanced toward the tanks. The armed terrorists were in this group of 100. Some were armed with anti-tank RPGs. One hardly need wonder what their intent was.
Media coverage depicts the Israeli fire as either intentional or accidental, but in either case, striking innocents in the "demonstration".
But aerial video surveillance shows that an Israeli Apache gunship fired a warning missile into an EMPTY FIELD in order to deter the procession. When the mob continued to move on Israeli soldiers, field commanders, fearing a major assault on their troops by the RPG-bearing terrorists who were using the civilians as human shields, fired flares into the air. When the mob still advanced on the tanks, the IDF directed machine gun fire and four tank shells at an ABANDONED BUILDING near the marchers.
A total of 10 people were killed and many more wounded, but the IDF spokesman said, after reviewing the surveillance tapes, that it seemed highly unlikely the casualties were caused by Israeli fire.
The army did note that the path taken by the mob was an area ".rigged with explosive charges planted by the Palestinians."
So it is quite possible that the carnage among the Palestinian civilians was caused by land mines planted by Palestinian terrorists to stop IDF advances.
But our media, and the UN, EU and much of the USA ignore this possibility. Instead of withholding judgment until an examination of video surveillance can be made, they instead swallow the knee-jerk assertion that Israel is massacring Palestinians.
Moreover, some, including the same aforementioned UN, claim that Israel is in violation of international law.
This is false. The Fourth Geneva Convention does not protect groups of civilians among which are dispersed armed combatants. "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations," reads Article 28. Rather it is the Palestinians who are guilty of a war crime by involving children and adult civilians in a violent confrontation.
Furthermore, Article 27 gives the "parties to the conflict" the flexibility to "take such measures of control and security in regard to protected persons as may be necessary as a result of the war." In other words, IDF soldiers can defend themselves against Palestinian civilians if they deem doing so "necessary as a result of the war."
If taking such action is the direct result of armed terrorists using crowds of people as human shields so they can get closer to the tanks for more effective use of their RPGs, then those gunmen are directly responsible for any ensuing civilian casualties because they have committed the war crime, by violating Article 28.
Now, the thing is, I don't know that I believe that the Palestinian's in the crowd were killed by their own land mines. In fact, the IDF itself does not make a categorical assertion that that is what happened. They merely offer it as a possibility.
Isn't it more rational to just say we don't know what happened until there has been a full investigation?
The Rafah Myth - Anti-Semitism in Action
One of the reasons my anger has reached a creshendo recently is the situation in Rafah. I am reminded of the Jenin Myth which is what got me started in my research into anti-Semitism in the first place. In Jenin Israel was accused by CNN, along with most Western media outlets, of enacting a massacre of thousands of Palestinians. At the time the accusations were being leveled I found them hard to believe, but obviously the media did not.
The reason I found them hard to believe is Israel had sent troops into Jenin, and they were going door to door, trying to root out terrorists. They were not bombing. If they wanted to kill thousands of people, then going door to door would not be the most efficient way to do it. Bombing would. In addition, bombing would not have left Israeli soldiers vulnerable to Palestinian snipers.
With Jenin, when it all came out in the wash, Human Rights Watch investigated and corroborated Israel's version of the events. In fact, there were not thousands killed. There were 56 killed, 48 of them being Palestinian combatants.
Similarly, now Israel is being accused by most of the Western media of firing on a crowd of innocent Palestinian's. At first, it was said, they killed 40 people including many children. Now, that number is down to eight. I'm not sure how many children are included in the number.
The question that needs to be asked, and I'm sure will be answered as facts come to light, is why would Israel, all of a sudden, just let loose on a crowd of innocents when that is not normally their modus operandi.
If they wanted to kill innocent people they would and could do it on a regular basis, by doing the same thing the Palestinians do; that is they could just set off bombs in places that are filled with innocent people, eating lunch, or riding buses.
Palestinians try to kill innocent people. Israeli's consistenly try not to kill innocent people.
But when Israel makes a mistake, the Western media jumps all over them and accuses the Israeli's of "war crimes."
That is anti-Semitism in action. Why are there not cries of "war crimes" when the Palestinian's deliberately blow up a bus filled with schoolchildren.
I can think of no other reason than the glaringly obvious; the Palestinian's are Palestinian's, and the Israeli's are Jews.
Nakba - What The Palestinians Are So Angry About
From an
article by David Hornik posted at FrontPageMag:
The occasion of Arafat’s speech was Nakba Day, commemorating the 56th anniversary of the nakba—that is, Israel’s declaration of its independence on May 14, 1948. Note that the nakba—it means “catastrophe” in Arabic—is not June 10, 1967, the day when the Six Day War ended with Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza, but a day nineteen years earlier when Israel declared sovereignty over a much smaller entity granted it by the UN Partition Resolution. In other words, for the putative Palestinian peace partners of the Israeli peaceniks, the nakba is Israel itself.
Yes. And I would also remind you that Palestine's U.N. website calls for the destruction of Isrel.
How do you negotiate with an entity that wants you dead?
Elvin Jones Changed My Life
The other day I sat down at my computer and put on the CD
Sun Ship by John Coltrane, one of my favorite albums. As I was listening to the roiling opening bars of the album, I gazed at the music news published on my Windows Media Player screen. There was the headline; "Elvin Jones Dies."
I started listening to Coltrane when I was 13 years old. I learned about him in Down Beat magazine. Elvin Jones was often mentioned as being one of the best jazz drummers alive. So I bought my first Coltrane album to hear Mr. Jones play.
What I heard created a sea change in my life. A paradigm shift. It was cataclysmic and shocking. The music of Coltrane was so raw, much more raw than the Led Zep, Cream, and Aerosmith albums I was used to at the time. And yet somehow Coltrane's music, and the drumming of Elvin Jones in particular, flowed like a river. All parts swirling together and going in the same direction.
Elvin Jones changed jazz drumming from being the rat-a-tat-tatty segmented commentary, barking in the background, to being a continous downpour of rhythmic ideas that at once existed within the melody structure and superseded it. Elvin's rhythms would overflow the changes carrying across measure, across phrases, across choruses.
I guess ultimately I don't really know how to express Elvin's playing. I want to say that he was the first truly African African-American drummer. But, I know jazz historians would argue and probably make some case for early jazz drummers being more African because they lived in closer proximity timewise to the African experience. Nope, I don't buy it. And, of course I don't really understand how it could be that Elvin somehow caught fire and burned with this African brilliance when he had nothing to do with Africa.
The only thing I can come up with is maybe it had to do with Coltrane's embracing of the drone beginning around 1962-63. Maybe untehtering himself from the complexity of chord changes favored in jazz allowed the Classic Quartet to move closer to the feel of African music.
I don't know. Ask Amiri Baraka.
That's a joke.
Anyway, I feel that I lost a brother even though I never met the man. Elvin Jones' rhythmic approach became part of my life. Elvin's drumming was more than just drumming to me, it was an approach to life that inspired me. His endless variation became a goal for me. I've always wanted to live my life the way Elvin played the drums.
I know this is all badly written, but I had to get it out. And I don't really know how to come up with the right words.
Anyway, love to Keiko and the rest of his family. Thanks for sharing him with us.
My Anger Overcomes Me
You'll notice my posting has dropped off considerable. You'll also notice that my most recent posts have been increasingly angry. I find it hard to read through this stuff everyday and not take it to heart. As a person, I've actually been blessed with an ability to take in a lot of negative information, and not have it effect my mood. But, I do have a limit. And I might have reached mine for the time being.
Grandma Europa Brings Out The Antique Silverware
It must be a party. Grandma Europa is
breaking out the old silverware:
In a rare move, Yad Vashem on Thursday criticized an Austrian newspaper for running a caricature that compared an IDF solider to a Nazi.
In the caricature titled "Then and Now," which appeared Wednesday in the Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung, a frightened Jew appears on one side of the cartoon, labeled past, as a Nazi soldier, with a swastika on his arm, bears down on him.
On the other half of the caricature, marked
present, a small, frightened Palestinian child appears, with an Israeli soldier with a Star of David on his arm bearing down on him.
"The caricature is a classic expression of the new antisemitism... which diminishes the Holocaust and distorts both today's reality as well as that of the Holocaust," a press release issued Thursday by Yad Vashem read.
Go
here to see the cartoon.
Remember Grandma Europa, when you were just a young slut, servicing those big handsome German men, in their dashing grey and black uniforms, with those masuline swastikas? Weren't those the days? Why, a girl could get herself into a lot of trouble back then. But, not to worry, they were romantic times. You couldn't blame a girl for going down on her knees for the entire SS, could you?
Yeah, break out the old silverware Grandma. We'll bring back the old days, even if it's just for tonight.
Syrian's Killed In North Korean Train Blast?
I don't know about
this one. I found it on littlegreenfootballs. Mid East Web News Service says there were Syrians who were mysteriously involved in the North Korean train blast. I thought there was something very suspicious about that blast, and the way N. Korea rejected humanitarian aid. But, the thing is, I don't know whether to trust this story as I don't know who MidEast Web News Service:
[FBIS Translated Text]
A military source familiar with Korean Peninsula
affairs revealed on 6 May that Syrian technicians were
killed in a train explosion incident that occurred on
22 April in Yongch'on in the northwestern part of the
DPRK and that the damage was especially serious in
that section of the train where the Syrians were
aboard, along with large equipment. The same source
noted that although the contents of the equipment are
unknown, DPRK military-related personnel wearing
protective suits arrived on the scene immediately
after the explosion and removed debris only from that
section of the train where the Syrian group had been
aboard. Consequently, there is a strong likelihood
that the accident occurred when military materials
were being secretly transported between the DPRK and
Syria.
According to the same source, the technicians aboard
the train had been sent from the Syrian technical
research center called Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche
Scientific (CERS). Although CERS was established to
promote science and technology development, it is
suspected of playing a major role in Syria's weapons
of mass destruction development program.
The technicians and the cargo were reportedly aboard
the same section of the train. The same source said it
was uncertain whether the cargo was the source of the
explosion or whether it exploded after being set off
by an explosion on another section of the train. The
source then said, "The damage to that section of the
train was the most serious," noting that nearly 10
Syrians and accompanying North Koreans were killed.
The bodies of the Syrians were carried onto and
transported home on 1 May by a Syrian aircraft, which
had come to Pyongyang to deliver aid supplies.
Syrian and DPRK medical and military personnel who
were involved in transporting [the Syrians and other
victims] were also reportedly wearing protective suits
similar to those worn by the DPRK military personnel
who arrived on the scene immediately after the
accident.
The same source said, "The action taken by Syria and
the DPRK indicates that the cargo was top secret
matter, which the two countries did not want to bring
out into the open." With regard to the DPRK and Syria,
the United States and other countries have indicated
concern that the two countries are continuing to
cooperate in the development of Syria's "Scud-D"
missiles, as well as chemical and biological weapons.
Concerning the cause of the explosion incident, the
DPRK has explained that a train carrying fertilizer
containing ammonium nitrate and a railroad tank
carrying petroleum were being shunted, and, in the
process, came into contact with electrical wires, due
to carelessness.
[Description of Source: Tokyo Sankei Shimbun (Internet
version-WWW) -- Internet version of daily newspaper
published by Fuji Sankei Communications Group]
Hmmm.
Speculation
I believe that when we invaded Iraq Bush believed that it would start a bigger war than what we currently have on our hands. I think Bush expected that Iran and Syria would be drawn into the war in a more clear way than they have been to date. There is a lot of talk about Syria and Iran aiding the forces of terrorism in Iraq now. However, none of it has been digested by the general public, and it is not widely seen as a serious problem by the chattering classes.
The truth is, it is a problem. Iran supports Sadr, and Syria, being a Baathist state itself, supports the remnants of the Hussein regime.
I believe the Iranian/Sadr forces, and the Baathist forces, have not yet begun to fight. I believe they are biding their time until June 30th when we are supposed to be "handing over power" the Iraqi Governing Council.
I have to wonder if the Bush strategy is to hand over power, pull our troops back to a comfortable vista, and then watch these expected events unfold.
I believe this probably is the strategy. And, I will add, I hope it is the strategy.
UPDATE: Bremer came out today and said we will leave if asked, but he doesn't think we will be asked. Why am I under the impression that half the world has been asking us to leave for quite a while. Well, anyway ...
The War On Terrorism has never simply been about Afghanistan and Iraq. It is about Terrorist Organizations and the States who support them. Way back at the beginning of this war, I believe it might have even been in Sept. of 2001, I recall Colin Powell making the statement that what will be required is regime change in the terrorist-supporting states.
The Bush Administration has never been shy about telling us who those states are. Iran, Iraq, Syria. So, while a lot of people have accused Bush of lacking strategy, the objective, or at least my understanding of the objective, has been clear from the beginning.
Maybe one of the reasons peole aren't clear on the objective is they think we invaded Iraq on the flimsiest of pretenses, and that we have no justifiable reason for invading any of the other states because their support of terror is nebulous.
While we never had a legal reason, under the U.N., to invade Iran or North Korea. With Iraq we did have law on our side. They were clearly violating the terms of the post-Gulf War peace agreement. They were not cooperating with U.N. Inspections teams, and, in what I've always believed is an even more clear, if less ominous violation, they were shooting at U.S. jets in the northern no-fly zone. What would you call that if not a provocation to war?
The truth is, until the regimes of Syria and Iran are done away with, the War on Terror will still be in a very, very incomplete stage. Even after they are gone we still have the problems in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, among others.
I believe that we will start to see events unfold in a very interesting way over the next four to sixth months. I believe we are coming to the beginning stages of the real war. By that I do not mean that we are not already fighting a real war. What I mean the real war is going to finally come crashing to the fore, and the Americans and Europeans who have been trying to deny the import of the War are going to be shown conclusively that we are, and have been, fighting World War III.
Here's what I think might happen. U.S. forces will slowly back out of Iraq (I don't know where we will go) and gradually Iran and Syria will begin to duke it out to take control of Iraq.
In addition, within the next two or three months, Israel will fly into Iran and bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities.
The U.N. will condemn Israel. The Arab World will seethe with anger. Harsh European condemnation of Israel will give Arab countries the idea that the West is on their side. Syria and Iran, and maybe other Arab countries will attempt to retaliate in some manner against Israel. And meanwhile, all hell will break loose in Iraq.
At that point, U.S. forces will reenter Iraq bringing European condemnation, and more Arab delusion. Inflamed and emboldened by their delusion that European condemnation means European agreement, I believe Iran and Syria will finally make an outright attempt to seize control of Iraq. At this point, the U.S. will seize on the opportunity to invade those countries and change their regimes.
Now, I could very well be completely off on all of this. I merely believe these things will happen because if they don't the War On Terror will not truly be resolved.
Until the Western world wakes up and realizes that our enemy is Islamofascism, and until we recognize which specific govenments support and promote the enemy of Islamofascism, the War On Terror cannot truly be resolved.
I believe, and have always believed that the Bush Administration is clear on who our enemy is. Therefore, I have to believe the Bush Administration has a strategy to bring the enemy out into the open.
We'll see.
Meanwhile, FrontPageMag has an article today on Bush's Syria Accountability Act. Read the
article and hear the echoes of the leadup the Iraq War. Doesn't it sound like the Bush Administration is in the beginning stages of justifiying regime change in Syria?
We live in interesting times.
Welcome Back Andrew
The other day I poked a little fun at Andrew Sullivan for losing heart about the war as a result of the Abu Ghirab lunacy. Today it looks like he's back in the fold. Here's a
post listed as "Email of the Day":
"It was interesting to hear about the jump in hits on blogger web-sites. Let me suggest that it is due not so much to the Nick Berg video, but to the combination, or sequence, of the Abu Ghraib photos AND the Nick Berg video. For me, the Abu Ghraib photos acted as slate clearer. Like you, after I first saw those photos I fell into a deep funk where I started to question everything that had made me a staunch supporter of the war. While in this funk I realized that much of my rationale for going to war was underpinned by an unformed, yet felt assumption that it would go well. Those photos yanked that all away. So then what happened? Into this void gets poured the images of an innocent civilian being savagely beheaded. Now unencumbered by unspoken assumptions that this would be easy, I see the true nature of what we are up against, and am more committed to winning this thing than ever before. I wonder if many in the blogosphere are experiencing the same phenomenon." The guy's right; and count me among those in this emotional whiplash. I feel more committed this week to getting this liberation right than I have for months. That doesn't mean I think we shouldn't prosecute the perpetrators of the Abu Ghraib abuses as forcefully as we can. It merely means I feel emboldened to carry on, thanks to the reminder of Zarqawi.
Welcome back Andrew. And allow me to say, I think your term "emotional whiplash" is well-conceived. It betrays a certain moral instability, which I believe is media induced. I don't mean to say that you are immoral in any way, only that you got diverted rather easily on this issue.
Andrew, you are a journalist. I am not. I don't care what the media says, while your life is very wrapped up in the day to day antics of the media. It has to be. If you want to play at the top of your game, you have to be involved in what's going on media-wise. You have to know what the different columnists are saying. I think this hyperawareness of the changing tides of the media voice creates the instability, the moral vertigo, if you will.
You are great, Andrew Sullivan. I'm glad you're around. Just stick with the program, ok my friend. You are a very important voice.
Imam Of The Great Mosque In Mecca Preaches Racist Anti-Semitism And Incites Violence
National Review posted an
article, by Steven Stalinsky, which talks about a Saudi government-appointed Imam's Canadian lecture tour. Oh yeah, and by the way, he's an anti-Semite:
Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, the Saudi government appointed imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, will give a series of lectures in Canada next week and attend the Islamic Society of North America conference in Toronto. Al-Sudayyis's position is one of the most prestigious in Sunni Islam. Thus, his sermons hold significant weight throughout the Islamic world.
The themes of his sermons are characterized by confrontation toward non-Muslims. Al-Sudayyis calls Jews "scum of the earth" and "monkeys and pigs" who should be "annihilated." Other enemies of Islam, he says, are "worshippers of the cross" and "idol-worshipping Hindus" who should be fought. Al-Sudayyis has been consistent in calling for jihad in Kashmir and Chechnya, for Jerusalem to be liberated, and for the "occupiers in Iraq" to also be fought. He often claims that Islam is superior to Western culture.
At the Grand Mosque in Mecca on February 1, 2004, Sheikh Al-Sudayyis called on Muslims everywhere to unite to defeat the world's occupiers and oppressors. "History has never known a cause in which our religious principles, historical rights, and past glories are so clearly challenged.... The conflict between us and the Jews is one of creed, identity, and existence." He told those listening to "read history," in order "to know that yesterday's Jews were bad predecessors and today's Jews are worse successors. They are killers of prophets and the scum of the earth. Allah hurled his curses and indignation on them and made them monkeys and pigs and worshippers of tyrants. These are the Jews, a continuous lineage of meanness, cunning, obstinacy, tyranny, evil, and corruption...."
Al-Sudayyis elaborated on the conflict between Muslims and Jews:
O Muslims, the Islamic nation today is at the peak of conflict with the enemies of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, with the grandsons of Bani-Quraydah, Al-Nadhir, and Qaynuqa [Jewish tribes in the early days of Islam]. May Allah's curses follow them until the Day of Judgment.
"Read history," Al-Sudayyis stated in another sermon in May 2002, "and you will understand that the Jews of yesterday are the evil fathers of the Jews of today, who are evil offspring, infidels, distorters of [others'] words, calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers ... the scum of the human race 'whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs....' These are the Jews, an ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption...."
The concluding supplications of Al-Sudayyis sermons are often filled with statements concerning current affairs. He consistently calls for "Muslims to humiliate the infidels (non-Muslims)," as well as for their destruction. For example, on November 1, 2002, he stated "O Allah, support our mujahedeen bothers in Palestine, Kashmir, and Chechnya and destroy the aggressor Jews and the tyrannical Zionists, for they are within your power." In a June 21, 2002, sermon, Al-Sudayyis gives supplication: "O Allah, support them in Palestine, Kashmir, and Chechnya. O Allah, deal with the Jews and Zionists for they are within Your power. O Allah, scatter their assemblies, make them a lesson for others, and let them and their property be a booty for Muslims."
Also, on July 11, 2003, he stated: "O Allah, support our mujahedeen brothers everywhere. O Allah, help them score victory over the unjust Jews and aggressive Zionists in Palestine. O Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. O Allah, destroy them, for they are within your power. O Allah, disperse them and make them prey for Muslims."
His rhetoric is a bit purple, but he states his point clearly.
What Kind Of People Are They? - Part II
Andrew Boston has an
article, posted on FrontPageMag.com, explaining what he calls "The Sacred Muslim Practice Of Beheading":
Reactions to the grotesque jihadist decapitation of yet another "infidel Jew," Mr. Berg, make clear that our intelligentsia are either dangerously uninformed, or simply unwilling to come to terms with this ugly reality: such murders are consistent with sacred jihad practices, as well as Islamic attitudes towards all non-Muslim infidels, in particular, Jews, which date back to the 7th century, and the Prophet Muhammad's own example.
According to Muhammad’s sacralized biography by Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad himself sanctioned the massacre of the Qurayza, a vanquished Jewish tribe. He appointed an "arbiter" who soon rendered this concise verdict: the men were to be put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, the spoils to be divided among the Muslims. Muhammad ratified this judgment stating that it was a decree of God pronounced from above the Seven Heavens. Thus some 600 to 900 men from the Qurayza were lead on Muhammad’s order to the Market of Medina. Trenches were dug and the men were beheaded, and their decapitated corpses buried in the trenches while Muhammad watched in attendance. Women and children were sold into slavery, a number of them being distributed as gifts among Muhammad’s companions, and Muhammad chose one of the Qurayza women (Rayhana) for himself. The Qurayza’s property and other possessions (including weapons) were also divided up as additional "booty" among the Muslims, to support further jihad campaigns.
The classical Muslim jurist al-Mawardi (a Shafi’ite jurist, d. 1058) from Baghdad was a seminal, prolific scholar who lived during the so-called Islamic "Golden Age" of the Abbasid-Baghdadian Caliphate. He wrote the following, based on widely accepted interpretations of the Qur'an and Sunna (i.e., the recorded words and deeds of Muhammad), regarding infidel prisoners of jihad campaigns:
“As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, 'When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks' (Qur'an sura 47, verse 4)”....Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah." [The Laws of Islamic Governance, trans. by Dr. Asadullah Yate, (London), Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1996, p. 192. Emphasis added.]
Now, for my friends over in Europe, I want to point out the beautiful nuances of thought at work here. Muslims are not given a strict dogma as to what to do with us infidels. They are, instead given four ... guidelines shall we call them? ... and told that they should choose that which would be most beneficial. One of their choices is that they could simply show us infidels "favor" and pardon us. It is from such sources that we get the rumor that Islam is a religion of peace.
Indeed such odious “rules” were iterated by all four classical schools of Islamic jurisprudence, across the vast Muslim empire.
For centuries, from the Iberian peninsula to the Indian subcontinent, jihad campaigns waged by Muslim armies against infidel Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and Hindus, were punctuated by massacres, including mass throat slittings and beheadings. During the period of “enlightened” Muslim rule, the Christians of Iberian Toledo, who had first submitted to their Arab Muslim invaders in 711 or 712, revolted in 713. In the harsh Muslim reprisal that ensued, Toledo was pillaged, and all the Christian notables had their throats cut. On the Indian subcontinent, Babur (1483-1530), the founder of the Mughal Empire, who is revered as a paragon of Muslim tolerance by modern revisionist historians, recorded the following in his autobiographical “Baburnama,” about infidel prisoners of a jihad campaign:
"Those who were brought in alive [having surrendered] were ordered beheaded, after which a tower of skulls was erected in the camp." [The Baburnama -Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, translated and edited by Wheeler M. Thacktson, Oxford University Press,1996, p. 188. Emphasis added.]
Recent jihad-inspired decapitations of infidels by Muslims have occurred across the globe- Christians in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Nigeria; Hindu priests and "unveiled" Hindu women in Kashmir; Wall Street Journal reporter, and Jew, Daniel Pearl. We should not be surprised that these contemporary paroxysms of jihad violence are accompanied by ritualized beheadings. Such gruesome acts are in fact sanctioned by core Islamic sacred texts, and classical Muslim jurisprudence. Empty claims that jihad decapitations are somehow "alien to true Islam," however well-intentioned, undermine serious efforts to reform and desacralize Islamic doctrine. This process will only begin with frank discussion, both between non-Muslims and Muslims, and within the Muslim community.
Really though, Mr. Boston left out another option which is open to us infidels. We can
SUBMIT TO THE JIZYA. But, that's just not for me, not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with it.
What? What's that? No, no, you don't understand. The Jizya is a special tax on infidels. Jeez, you thought I was making a crude joke? Nope, not me.
What Kind Of People Are They?
I have avoided the Nick Berg beheading story for several reasons,
1) While it is an example of Islamic extremism at work, it is not clear that it is anti-Semitism,
2) It doesn't surprise me,
3) I tend to not be impressed with isolated incidents of extremism.
However, on his radio show today, Dennis Prager made a great case for why Americans should be aware of what happened to Nick Berg. Prager said that one of the reasons we in the West are so afraid to use words like good and evil is that we never really have to look evil in the face.
For us in the West, evil is just part of the background noise. We are vaguely aware of Rwanda, Sudan, Nigeria, Cambodia, the gassing of the Kurds, etc. But, we never are confronted with the gruesome reality that there are people who not only are willing to kill, but actually delight in the act.
In the case of the Islamic fanatics who killed Nick Berg, they not only delight in the murder, they believe the murder is an act of worship.
Having thought about it from that perspective, I find I do agree with Prager. We should see it. So here's a
link to the video:
In my previous post ("Jeffrey Dahmer Would Have Been Proud")about Hamas parading with the body parts of their victims, I posed the question , "What kind of people are they?"
There was an
article by Bob McManus in the NY Post today which kind of answers my question:
In the end, of course, the real enemy in the War on Terror is a madness that at the moment of murder shouts "Allahu Akbar"-"God is great."
There is no reasoning with radical Islam.
Now for my thinking impaired friends over in Europe, I know that quote doesn't seem very nuanced. But, do me a favor, why don't you nuance around about it for a few days, or hell, go ahead and take a few months if you need to, and get back to me with an answer, then, as to what kind of enemy they are.
Take Hitler (Please) for example. Would it have been worth it back in the 1940's to go to great lengths navigating the labyrinthine nuances of Nazi thought and governance? The answer, no matter how much you nuance it is a resounding "no."
The Nazi regime was evil and it had to be done away with, not understood.
Likewise, this Islamofascist madness needs to be done away with.
Day after day, my posts give the evidence. There is a real evil afoot. These are not people with legitimate grievances. The Islamofascists do not present the world with any viable alternatives in terms of how they would run the world if they got the power they seek.
We have had enough of their enslavement of women, their hatred of Jews, their persecution of Christians, their violence and their incitement to violence. Enough.
Jeffrey Dahmer Would Be Proud
Associated Press
reportsthat after Hamas killed six Israeli soldiers with a roadside bomb they used them as trophies and and ransom merchandise:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Hamas militants triumphantly displayed remains of some of the six Israeli soldiers killed in a roadside bombing in Gaza City on Tuesday, prompting Israeli threats of punishing reprisals if body parts are not returned.
As the troops withdrew around daybreak, an armored personnel carrier transporting at least 220 pounds of explosives for use in the raid was shredded by the roadside bomb.
Through the day and into the night, hundreds of troops searched Zeitoun for the remains of their comrades, which were scattered across a 300-yard radius.
"We are checking every roof and every balcony in order to locate the remnants of the armored personnel carrier and the bodies of our soldiers," said army Maj. Gen. Dan Harel.
Al-Jazeera, an Arabic-language TV channel, broadcast a video it said showed two masked Islamic Jihad activists taking responsibility and displaying what they said was the head of an Israeli soldier on a table in front of them. Israel TV carried the footage but electronically obscured the head.
"We are not conducting any negotiations," said Israeli military commander Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon. "We will show no forgiveness toward those who are responsible for (what happened to) the bodies."
Hamas militants displayed pieces of metal and bits of flesh, laying them out on the ground. In another scene, a Hamas gunman on a motorcycle held a bloodied burlap bag with body parts.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the roadside bomb, but two other groups, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - linked to Arafat's Fatah movement - and Islamic Jihad, said they also had some of the remains. They offered to negotiate with Israel.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was approached by Israel with a request for help in retrieving the remains. Israeli security officials said they warned the militants they could expect punishing reprisals if the remains were not returned.
What kind of people are they?
Little Green Footballs has pictures. Go to this
link and look under May 11th for the posting titled "Where's The Outrage?"
Israelly Cool has more photos. Go to this
link and look under May 11th for the posting entitled "Six IDF Soldier Killed."
Hey France, How About Trying a Little Radio Contact?
World Net Daily has the
scoop that French military jets buzzed an Israeli El Al plane as it flew over French airspace:
French air force jets dangerously maneuvered several times around an Israeli El Al passenger plane in an apparent effort to inspect the airliner for anti-missile systems, reports the premium online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The incident occurred over French territory as French fighter jets entered the civilian designated air corridor. The Israeli captain reported the French interceptors flew dangerously close and in some cases formed, what was described as, a dangerous interception mode.
It seems the French fighters not only circled the Israeli passenger plane, but also approached it from underneath.
One pilot said he is under the impression the French were inspecting the planes from every possible angle in an attempt to discover whether the passenger aircraft was carrying anti-shoulder-operated missile devices. Israel announced all its passenger planes are in the process of being equipped with such counter measures, pending the approval of a number of civil-administration authorities worldwide.
France has not approved the use of such devices. The U.S. is contemplating whether to allow them as well.
According to a French source, the Paris government views such equipment as if it were a weapon system requiring a license.
Israel approached France demanding an explanation for the dangerous practice, saying the French took unnecessary risks endangering the lives of hundreds of passengers in a recognized international airline corridor.
The Israeli devices are regarded top secret and, according to sources well aware of the invention, they are perfectly disguised and seen as normal parts of the aircraft frame.
The Israeli decision to use such devices stems from terrorist attempts to shoot down Israeli aircraft in Kenya in late 2002 and information suggesting terrorists might try to do the same in Europe.
According to an Israeli source, similar maneuvers were conducted by the Ukrainian air force but in that case the Ukrainian government informed Israel of interception practices...
"Shoulder-fired missiles continue to pose a serious threat to civil aviation," said subcommittee chairman John Mica, a Florida Republican. "Continuing the Department of Homeland Security's anti-missile research is critical to the long-term security of the aviation industry," he said.
Mica noted that Israel announced last week tests for an anti-missile system to protect its national carrier, El Al.
Missiles were fired at an Arkia Israeli Airlines Boeing 767 on November 19, 2002, as it was leaving an airport in Mombasa, Kenya. Al-Qaida took responsibility for the failed attack.
Let's be honest, the writer of this article clearly has a bit of an ax to grind with France. The use of the word "dangerously" to describe how French jets "maneuvered" around the El Al passenger plane, is unqualified. There are several other such biased uses of adjectives.
What I would be interested in knowing is, would the pilot go on record as saying it was an aggressive maneuver? Did the El Al pilot feel their was breach of ethics, or of etiquette?
We can be pretty sure it wasn't a surprise to France that El Al was flying in French air space. Therefore, we come away with one question from this article asked with a justifiable tone of irritation;
Why didn't they just just call?
Hey France, pick up the radio, for God's sake. Let El Al know you will be approaching their airliner.
I guess it's no surprise that the Ukranians are more polite than the French.
Grandma Europa Hears Her Grandchildren Whispering In The Next Room
As A Person Gets Older The Body Deteriorates
And - newsflash - people
do die. Oh yes, and by the way, Daniel Pipes says
civilizations die too.
“Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam.” So declares Oriana Fallaci in her new book, La Forza della Ragione (The Force of Reason). And the famed Italian journalist is right: Christianity’s ancient stronghold of Europe is rapidly giving way to Islam.
Two factors mainly contribute to this world-shaking development.
· The hollowing out of Christianity. Europe is increasingly a post-Christian society, one with a diminishing connection to its tradition or its historic values. The numbers of believing, observant Christians has collapsed in the past two generations to the point that some observers call it the “new dark continent.” Already, analysts estimate Britain’s mosques host more worshippers each week than does the Church of England.
· An anemic birth rate. Indigenous Europeans are dying out. Sustaining a population requires each woman on average to bear 2.1 children; in the European Union, the overall rate is a one-third short, at 1.5 per woman, and falling. One study finds that, should current population trends continue and immigration cease, today’s population of 375 million could decline to 275 million by 2075. To keep its working population even, the EU needs 1.6 million immigrants a year; to sustain the present workers-to-retirees ratio requires an astonishing 13.5 million immigrants annually.
Into the void are coming Islam and Muslims. As Christianity falters, Islam is robust, assertive, and ambitious. As Europeans under-reproduce at advanced ages, Muslims do so in large numbers while young.
Some 5 percent of the EU, or nearly 20 million persons, presently identify themselves as Muslims; should current trends continue, that number will reach 10 percent by 2020. If non-Muslims flee the new Islamic order, as seems likely, the continent could be majority-Muslim within decades.
When that happens, grand cathedrals will appear as vestiges of a prior civilization (the jahiliya?) – at least until a Saudi-style regime transforms them into mosques or a Taliban-like regime blows them up. The great national cultures – Italian, French, English, and others – will likely wither, replaced by a new transnational Muslim identity that merges North African, Turkish, subcontinental, and other elements.
This prediction is hardly new. In 1968, the British politician Enoch Powell gave his famed “rivers of blood” speech in which he warned that in allowing excessive immigration, the United Kingdom was “heaping up its own funeral pyre.” (Those words stalled a hitherto promising career.) In 1973, the French writer Jean Raspail published Camp of the Saints, a novel that portrays Europe falling to massive, uncontrolled immigration from the Indian subcontinent. The peaceable transformation of a region from one major civilization to another, now underway, has no precedent in human history, making it easy to ignore such voices.
There is still a chance for the transformation not to play itself out, but the prospects diminish with time. Here are several possible ways it might be stopped:
· Changes in Europe that lead to a resurgence of Christian faith, an increase in childbearing, or the cultural assimilation of immigrants; such developments can theoretically occur but what would cause them are hard to imagine.
· Muslim modernization: For reasons no one has quite figured out (education of women? abortion on demand? adults too self-absorbed to have children?), modernity leads to a drastic reduction in the birthrate. Also, were the Muslim world to modernize, the attraction of moving to Europe would diminish.
· Immigration from other sources. Latin Americans, being Christian, would more or less permit Europe to keep its historic identity. Hindus and Chinese would increase the diversity of cultures, making it less likely that Islam would dominate.
Current trends suggest Islamization will happen, for Europeans seem to find it too strenuous to have children, stop illegal immigration, or even diversify their sources of immigrants. Instead, they prefer to settle unhappily into civilizational senility.
Europe has simultaneously reached unprecedented heights of prosperity and peacefulness – and shown a unique inability to sustain itself (one demographer, Wolfgang Lutz, notes that “Negative momentum has not been experienced on a large scale in world history”).
Is it inevitable that the most brilliantly successful society also be the first in danger of collapse due to a lack of cultural confidence and offspring? Ironically, creating a hugely desirable place to live would seem also to be a recipe for suicide. The human comedy continues.
Yes, and I must admit, I am laughing ... through my tears.
The Voice Of Palestine Radio Is The Voice Of Jew-Hatred
FrontPageMag.com posted an important article by David Bedein this morning:
Palestine Authority radio, known as the PBC "VOICE OF PALESTINE", remains the most influential media tool in the hands of the Palestinian government. It has been in business ten years as the official voice of the Palestinian people and since the genesis of Palestinian Authority self-rule.
You hear the VOICE OF PALESTINE everywhere in the Arab street. It sets the public tone.
VOICE OF PALESTINE was founded by Yassir Arafat and overseen by the highest echelons of the nascent Palestinian Authority, providing radio feeds that are played in every Arab marketplace and every home in areas ruled by the PA. The radio airwaves for the VOICE OF PALESTINE were provided for the PA from Israel's Ministry of Communications with the idea that the Palestinians would be able to broadcast messages of "peace" on their own radio and in their own language.
Despite this, during the past ten years, The VOICE OF PALESTINE has consistently praised Arab terror attacks.
Last week was no exception, when all of Israel stood in shock at the Arab terror drive-by murder of a pregnant woman and her four little girls. Two Arab terrorists executed each little girl at point blank range with a shot to each one's head, the youngest child being only a two-year-old, after they first blew their mother to bits. The murders were witnessed by a CNN crew who watched with horror only 30 meters away. Mike Swartz, the CNN producer, had the good sense to use his vehicle to block any further traffic from driving into the terror trap on the highway. Israeli soldiers who arrived on the scene were able to kill the Arab terrorists, but not before the four little girls in the van had been finished off by their murderers.
Dr. Michael Widlanski, an Arabic media expert at the Hebrew University, formerly a reporter for the New York Times and the Cox Syndicate in Jerusalem, who is also an academic who recently completed his PhD on the subject of Palestinian Authority media, listened carefully to The Voice of Palestine during the hours that followed the attack.
The VOICE OF PALESTINE described the men who carried out the attack that left a pregnant mother and her four children dead as "an act of heroic martyrdom." The VOICE OF PALESTINE radio station repeatedly used the term "is tish-had" (heroic martyrdom in Arabic) and "mustash-hidin" (heroic martyrs) to describe the act committed by "two youths". After reporting the attackers’ names, the radio repeated again that they were heroic martyrs. Widlanski recorded the VOP constantly referring to the victims of the shooting attack only as "five settlers" without mentioning that the attack claimed that they were a pregnant woman and her four children.
The Monday morning broadcast of the Voice of Palestine added that that the five “settlers” who were killed were "mukharibun" - terrorists. The reference to the settlers as “terrorists” was in a VOICE OF PALESTINE report that the settlers were preparing to build a new neighborhood in a settlement near Gaza. Once again, VOICE OF PALESTINE did not condemn the attack that killed a pregnant mother and her four children, but did vigorously condemn the "cowardly act" by Israel of attacking a Hamas radio station which had exhorted Palestinians to carry out further attacks against Israelis. There were no reported Arab casualties in that Israeli attack.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the Palestinian Authority's official daily newspaper glorified yet another murderer - a man who was responsible for a cold-blooded murder of an Israeli father and his 2 daughters, labelling him "a beacon of light for generations to come." Palestine Media Watch, an agency that translates Arab broadcasts, noted that "According to the daily newspaper , 'Al-Hayat Al-Jadida', Samir Quntar, the murderer of Dani Haran and his two daughters in Nahariya in 1979, is a Palestinian hero and 'authentic role model'..."(sic).
So there you have it. The official media outlet of the Palestinian Authority, an entity with diplomatic relations with 138 nations around the world, endorses the cold-blooded murder of parents and their children.
That is the same Palestinian Authority which receives direct aid from all of the western democracies, including the USA to the tune of more than 10 billion dollars in its ten years of existence. The United States taxpayer used to fund Palestinian Television also until word got out about children's shows teaching small children to become martyrs.
For the past week, the U.S. State Department was asked if it would condemn the PA’s official media outlet, THE VOICE OF PALESTINE for endorsing the cold-blooded murder of a pregnant mother and her four children and no answer was received.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department did issue a statement in which it states that it “expects” the Palestinian Authority to fight terrorism. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv was asked what basis the U.S. had for assuming the “expectation” that the PA would fight terrorism would be heeded?
The answer from the U.S. State Department spokesman: “Because they committed themselves to doing so.”
The U.S. government does not feel under much pressure to condemn the Palestine Authority for directing its official media outlet to praise, justify and glorify those who would murder a pregnant mother and her four little girls.
And why no pressure? The answer is simple: Not one U.S. news outlet reported that the PA praised, justified and glorified this week's cold-blooded murder of a pregnant woman and her four children. If people don't know about it, why worry about it?
Now readers of this article know what the VOICE OF PALESTINE and the official Palestinian Authority newspaper really communicate to their people, perhaps those readers will be motivated to contact the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dr. Daniel Kurtzer, one of the architects of the Oslo Process, to ask him why the U.S. cannot at the bare minimum condemn the Palestine Authority for inciting its own people in its own language to murder innocent human beings.
I like the tone of this guys article because it expresses the appropriate outrage. It is one thing for journalists to be objective and neutral. It is another thing entirely to surrender one's humanity on the altar of "objectivity" and report coldly the machinations of evil. There is really no other way to describe such actions, such broadcasting.
Think about it. Our country is at war in Iraq. Do we ever celebrate the killing of innocents? Our media does not even celebrate the killing of combatants, and that is appropriate.
I celebrated the killing of Yassin and Rantisi, but they are leaders, the fomentors of the ideology that inspires the anti-Semitism that drives the war against Israel.
I think it is inappropriate to celebrate the death of combatants because they are cogs in the wheels. They may have little choice other than to stand in the streets with guns. They
may have a choice, or they many not. They may be truly evil murderers, but we don't know, so it would be disgustingly uncivilized to celebrate their deaths.
This is a war. In a war soldiers are recruited and not all the guys on the other side are bad guys. We know this to be true.
Well,
we do, but clearly the Voice of Palestine does not.
And neither apparently do the governments of Europe who support this murderous propaganda, or the American State Dept., who clearly have trouble making simple moral distinctions.
And while we're on the subject, here's some
video from Palestinian Authority Television.
That Andrew Sullivan Feller Is Thinkin' Too Damn Much, Eh Boy?
I mean the guy is bordering on nuance. If he
keeps it up we're gonna hafta kick him the hell out of 'merika:
THE CHASTENING: The question I have asked myself in the wake of Abu Ghraib is simply the following: if I knew before the war what I know now, would I still have supported it? I cannot deny that the terrible mismanagement of the post-war - something that no reasonable person can now ignore - has, perhaps fatally, wrecked the mission. But does it make the case for war in retrospect invalid? My tentative answer - and this is a blog, written day by day and hour by hour, not a carefully collected summary of my views - is yes, I still would have supported the war. But only just. And whether the "just" turns into a "no" depends on how we deal with the huge challenge now in front of us.
Dearest Andrew,
Get a grip. Snap out of it. Come over here, I'm gonna slap you.
My friend, do you really want to tell me that what happened at Abu Ghirab compares to what was going on in Iraq, or much of the Arab World where:
1) People are really tortured and raped in rape rooms
2) Half the population (that is, women) are SLAVES
3) A government (Iraq) has used chemical weapons on it's own people
4) Outright anti-Semitism is part and parcel of official government and civil discourse when discussing internal and international affairs, a situation that finds it's unique modern precedent in Nazi Germany
5) Homosexuals face death by stoning, perhaps at best.
That's just a partial list.
Really, my friend, what are you crying about?
These Are Momentous And Frightening Times
I open Yahoo this morning and it brings me three world news headlines:
1)
Chechen President Killed
2)
Sharon Cancels U.S. Trip After Gaza Plan Setback
3)
Blair Faces Calls For Resignation
All three of these are the result of The War On Terror, a War whose existence half of the civilized world, in their civility, seem bent on denying. Here's a little poetry:
Wake Up.
You can't remember where it was.
Had this dream stopped?
That's a line from drunken rock star Jim Morrison (it's kind of a goofy theme this week) that somewhat pertains to our situation.
We've got to wake up. We
have forgotten where it was we placed our values, our virtues; everything that makes our culture great, and different from, in particular, Islamic culture. Everything that makes our culture worth saving.
And then, glancing again at the poetry(?) of Mr. Mojo Risin, you will notice the quick shift of tenses, from the present to the past:
Had this dream stopped?
AS QUICKLY AS
THAT IT CAN ALL BE TAKEN AWAY FROM US.
Just ask the people of Chechneya.
WAKE UP. WAKE UP, DAMN IT.
They just killed the Chechen President. They've got Blair and Sharon on the ropes without triggering one of their stupid bombs.
WAKE UP!
Jeez, maybe I need to take a vacation. I'm starting to sound like Orianna Fallaci.
The Arab Bruce Springsteen
An
article from Egypt Today tells of pop singer Shabaan and his racist, anti-Semitism. Surprise, surprise, he's a big hit:
He Hates Israel, Too
Meet Islam Khalil, the brains behind “I Hate Israel” and makwagi crooner Shaaban Abdel Rahim’s other political hits
By Yasmin Moll
The middle-aged shaabi singer — who once said in a television interview that he likes his suits to match his upholstery — came into the national spotlight in 2001 with his hit song “Ana Bakrah Israel (wa baheb Amr Moussa)” — “I hate Israel (but I love Amr Moussa)” — dedicated to the man who was then Egypt’s foreign minister and is now head of the Arab League.
Since then, Shaabola (as he is known to his devoted fans) has proven he’s no one-hit wonder, having become a regular fixture at the five-star weddings of Egypt’s elite. This despite the fact that his knife-scarred face, greasy hair, strange taste in attire — not to mention his lack of real singing ability — makes him a questionable pop idol at best and a laughing stock at worst.
His fans counter that Shaaban’s “ingenious” lyrics make up for any shortcomings. The singer regularly touches on hot-button issues in his albums in a way that simplifies complex political and social problems for the average Egyptian, they claim. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Anthony Shadid, writing for the Washington Post, even singled Shaaban out as “another sign of the emergence of Arabic pop music in recent years as an arena for dissent and protest over Israeli and US policy.”
The real man behind the message, however, is not the illiterate Shaaban, but Islam Khalil, an Arabic teacher at an elementary school in Qalyoubia.
Khalil, who has been writing lyrics for Shaaban since 1991 and is responsible for all of the singer’s political hits, is angry that some critics think he is no different from his uncouth musical partner.
The truth of the matter is that they’re nothing alike, Khalil claims.
“It’s tough working with Shaaban sometimes, because he doesn’t know how to think. I am the only one who thinks in this partnership,” claims Khalil, who began his artistic career writing musical scores for plays. “Look, I am not a political specialist or anything. If I sat in a political debate, I wouldn’t know what to say, to be honest. I just write about what I see in the news and how I feel about it.”
Khalil says Shaaban’s appeal lies in the no-holds-barred lyrics he croons: “If I got anyone off the street and told him to sing ‘I hate Israel,’ he would have been a success like Shaaban.
“Shaaban says things that no one else dares too, even though we all feel them,” says Khalid Abdallah, a security guard in Nasr City. “That’s really the only thing he has going for him.”
That American lawmakers have openly condemned Khalil’s lyrics as anti-Semitic only heightens Shaaban’s appeal, many say.
But, of course, all our Pop Stars are pushing America's
Imperialistic Hegemony
Love Means Never Having To Say You're Not Sorry
Thanks to littlegreenfootballs for making me aware of
this:
Bush Apology Sparks Torrent of Global Goodwill
IMAMS: "YOU HAD US AT 'SORRY'"
Washington - The recent apology of US President George W. Bush for abuses by American military prison guards continued to reverberate around the globe today, as the White House was again inundated with with a flurry of "apology accepted" notes from world media, governmental leaders, and Islamic fundamentalist clerics.
Typical of the responses was a personal note from Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, who wrote "aww, dude, you know I can't stay mad at you," saying that the apology had prompted him to immediately dismantle his country's secret nuclear weapons program. In a postscript, Assad added, "good luck to the Rangers this year."
"Now was that so hard?" joked Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat in an email to Bush. "Now get out of here ya knucklehead, before we have to do one of those awkward man-hugs."
The apology also prompted an outbreak of gratitude in the Arab street, as hundreds of thousands of Muslims took to the streets Friday in an impromptu demonstration of thanks. In Gaza, a cheering crowd estimated at 30,000 waved American flags and banners reading "No Prablem Bosh" [sic], while in Damascus throngs gathered in the Square of the Martyrs chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A".
"I used to dream about dying in a glorious fireball of martyrdom," said Ali Ahmed Amoud, 23, a marcher in the first annual Infidel Appreciation Days parade in Nablus. "But that apology was so nice and sincere, it just seems kind of petty to keep nursing a grudge."
In Tehran, the ruling council of Iranian clerics ordered a "national day of celebration and family fun" to commemorate the historic apology. "The Great Satan has given our honor back, so it's time to move on and let bygones be bygones," said Ayatollah Rafinstani in a nationwide radio address. Rafinstani also announced Iran's immediate nuclear disarmament, and cautioned celebrants not to drink and drive.
In Cairo, local clerics were equally enthusiastic and appreciative of Bush's gesture. In his weekly Friday sermon, Egyptian Imam Muqtaba Salim urged followers to show their appreciation by "reaching out and hugging a Zionist."
"Sure, they're a little pushy and abrasive, but c'mon guys -- let's take a deep breath and count to ten before we go all 'martydom operations,'" said Salim.
Perhaps the biggest reaction to the Bush apology occured in Saudi Arabia, where leaders of the fundamentalist Wahabbist sect issued a rare commendation of the president.
"It's just been such a catharsis for all of us," said Imam Abdelkarim Matwalli, prayer leader of the Grand Mosque in Medina, choking back emotion. "All we really ever wanted was a simple 'I'm sorry,' and Mr. Bush delivered. Thank you, America."
The president's apology was no less well-received in Europe, with dozens of newspapers blaring effusive, pro-Bush headlines. The Parisienne Le Monde declared "All Is Forgiven, George" while the Manchester Guardian lionized Bush as "an Apologizer for the Ages"; the tabloid Sun carried a simple "Dubya, We Lubya" above a flattering photo of the president festooned with garlands.
The apology also appeared to have created a thaw in the United States' sometimes icy relationship with continental political leaders. French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder issued a joint communique welcoming the United States "back in the fold of civilized nations," and vowed to introduce a UN resolution asserting the US right to exist, following scheduled week-long pro-Bush demonstrations across Europe.
Newly elected Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero also commended the President's contrition, and said that "I would gladly once again pledge Spanish troops to the War on Terror, if the whole terror thing ever becomes a problem again."
Domestic reaction was generally favorable, led by Congressional Democrats who drafted a resolution prasing the President's "bold, thoughtful groveling for world peace," and calling on Bush to "stop beating yourself up." Progressive websites such as DemocraticUnderground, Daily Kos and BartCop urged readers to "forgive, forget, and send a nice thank you card to the White House."
Despite the outbreak of world geopolitical harmony, not everyone was satisfied with Bush's overture. In a scathing OpEd in today's New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman demanded an additional apology from the President.
"Fess up, Mr. Bush," said Friedman, "that was my idea."
Couldn't have said it more sarcastically myself.
You're Not Paranoid If They Really Are Coming To Get You
A BIG THANK YOU, in advance, to Israel, for always
doing what needs to be done.
WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has been examining the prospect that Israel will attack Iranian nuclear facilities in an attempt to prevent the Islamic republic from completing an atomic bomb as early as this year.
U.S. analysts and government sources said the Bush administration has discussed the prospect of an Israeli air strike at several levels of government. They said the issue has been examined in terms of the diplomatic, military and security implications for the United States, particularly its military presence in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region.
The issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program was discussed by President George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during the latter's visit to the White House on April 14. The sources said the two men were alone during the brief discussion in an effort by the president to gauge a likely Israeli response to the completion of an Iranian nuclear bomb.
"It would be intolerable for the Middle East if they [Iran] get a nuclear weapon," Bush said after meeting Sharon.
Israel will be saving the world's butt when they do this thing, but, of course, they will receive condemnation from every corner of the world.
Grandma Europa Is Having A Flashback
Thanks to the A Double Izzle (Allah) for making me aware of this
article from the Jerusalem Post. It seems they are having some flashbacks in the Netherlands:
Something's rotten in the land of Anne Frank
In Holland, this week marks Remembrance Day. This year's proceedings take place against the disturbing backdrop of a new wave of anti-Semitic violence that is sweeping not just The Netherlands but the whole of Western Europe.
In France and Germany, this new violent anti-Semitism has been around for almost a decade now. In Holland, however, violent incidents used to be just that: incidents, rare disturbances in an otherwise tranquil society. But lately, something is rotten in the land of Anne Frank.
In Amsterdam, a Turkish man, apparently mistaken for a Jew, was verbally abused and beaten up by two Arab immigrant youths. A Jewish retirement home was firebombed. Observant Jews no longer feel safe wearing yarmulkes in public. Anti-Semitic slogans appear on Jewish graves and synagogue buildings.
Even the Remembrance Day services themselves are no longer safe. In Amsterdam, Arab immigrant (mainly Moroccan) youths disrupted last year's proceedings by shouting slogans like "Hamas, Hamas, pump the Jews full of gas"; by burning a flag that had been lowered to half-mast; and by playing football with some of the commemorative wreaths. In a separate incident, guests at another memorial service - including a Holocaust survivor - were physically harassed by a gang of Arab immigrant teenagers.
Dutch politicians and social policy experts are gradually coming round to the view that this problem needs to be taken seriously. So far, however, their efforts at tackling it have been disappointing, to say the least. Perhaps their intransigence has something to do with the fact that it isn't their old b te noir, the extreme Right, that is behind this latest outburst of anti-Semitic violence. For as the Amsterdam-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) has pointed out, the new anti-Semitism is overwhelmingly an Arab immigrant phenomenon. And even in post-Pim Fortuyn Dutch society, where anti-Islamism is now a mainstream political sentiment, accusing Arabs of anti-Jewish racist crimes is still a major taboo.
INSTEAD OF naming, shaming, and punishing the perpetrators of these crimes, the Dutch political class prefers to "gain a deeper understanding of the motives of the criminals." The Amsterdam Social Services Commissioner Ahmed Aboutaleb thinks he has found this root cause of Arab anger: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Basing his argument on the old maxim that if a Jew gets harassed it must be because he's done something wrong, Aboutaleb claims that Arab immigrant youths "sometimes develop anti-Semitic feelings because they (or their parents) strongly sympathize with the Palestinian cause." He also urges people to make the distinction between "normal street talk" and real anti-Semitism which, according to him, is a much rarer phenomenon.
No wonder, then, that the Dutch police don't know what to do with the case of the Turkish immigrant rapper zg r Korkmaz and his group NAG (Nieuwe Allochtone Generatie - New Immigrant Generation). In his song "F***ing Jews," Korkmaz warns the "f***ing Jews" that immigrants are "comin' to kill" them. After CIDI's director Ronnie Naftaniel filed a complaint against him, Korkmaz reported to his local police station. But the police, who probably couldn't decide whether these lyrics were an expression of genuine anti-Semitic feelings or just normal street talk, sent him away without even charging him. "I don't understand," Korkmaz said. "I was here to make a statement because I feel CIDI is right. My lyrics were completely over the top." Instead of singing "kill all Jews," he would have preferred to have sung "kill the Jews that are in Israel's government and are responsible for the slaughter of Palestinian babies."
Korkmaz's song is a hit among Arab immigrant schoolchildren. He is obviously an idiot, but he was on to something when, in the course of complaining about being "unfairly singled out" by CIDI, he observed that "Holland is full of Jew-haters, and the Internet is full of songs like mine."
Through the Internet and satellite television, Arab youths are in fact exposed to a daily diet of virulently anti-Semitic propaganda in which Muslims are called on to kill Jews and destroy Israel.
I love how they can't decide if it's anti-Semitism or just tough street talk. I guess that's what you call "nuanced thinking." I sure am glad Europe is so sophisticated, and that they've moved beyond war.
Jewish Memorial Desecrated in France
Just one week after 127 Jewish gravesites were spray-painted with swastikas and German anti-Jewish slogans, Reuters reports it has happened again:
... (Vandals desecrated) a memorial to the French Jewish soldiers who died during World War One, in the Fleury-Devant-Douaumont cemetery near Verdun, in eastern France, May 7, 2004. Tombs were sprayed with swastikas and Nazi slogans one week after another 127 tombstones were desecrated with Nazi slogans in a Jewish cemetery in the western city of Herrlisheim-Hattstatt.
Go
here for photo.
Melanie Phillips Drops Some Science
Melanie Phillips comments on, and quotes from, an
article on by Bret Stephens in the Jerusalm Post today about Israel's plan for unilateral disengagement in Gaza.:
Phillips
Stephens argues not on the basis of the self-destructive utopianism of the left, but from hard-headed pragmatism. Negotiation with the Palestinians is not an option as there is no peaceful partner to negotiate with; staying put in the disputed territories is not an option because demography will soon rob Israel of its democratic character.
Stephens:
... let's concede for the purposes of this argument that at some point Israel will be pressured into relinquishing control over the Strip's ports of entry and Gaza will become a 60-kilometer long armed camp, all gun sights trained on Israel. That's exactly the situation Israel faces on the border with Lebanon. What keeps Hizbollah from launching its missiles? The answer is, they are deterred by the threat of a conventional military response. Hizbollah may have been a relatively effective guerrilla outfit so long as Israel's presence in southern Lebanon gave it the opportunity to wage guerrilla warfare. But Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon deprived Hizbollah of that option and transformed it into what it is now, a relatively small conventional militia. The same goes for the Palestinian front: Withdrawal would mean Palestinians could no longer wage the terrorist war against Israeli civilians at which they're so expert. If they chose to fight, it would be on terms that overwhelmingly favor Israel. Palestinians, keen calculators of what they can get away with, know this, which partly explains their pronounced ambivalence about disengagement.'
Phillips
In other words, withdrawal makes military sense. And surely once this is understood in Gaza, it must be applied to the West Bank too. Ehud Olmert, the deputy PM, showed he understood all this when he said a few months ago that Israel had to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank; and it was a fair bet from that point on that Ariel Sharon agreed.
Such is the scale of the irrational hatred in Britain of Sharon, however, that his withdrawal plan has been viewed either as a scam or has even been opposed -- by the very people who scream six times a minute about Israel's 'illegal' occupation. Those of us in favour of withdrawal can disagree -- and no doubt will -- about how much of that territory Israel should ultimately retain. But the fact is Sharon's policy -- to which he appears to intend to stick, despite the ridiculous referendum-that-wasn't -- offers the best chance in decades to break the murderous stalemate in the Middle East.
Just thought the points were interesting. It seems to me the unilateral disengagment plan is a good idea. If you personally were fighting against a little wimp who you could obliterate with the sweep of a hand, but you didn't want to be brought up on charges, wouldn't you just unilaterally disengage? Isn't that the only option?
Israel has fully intended to trade land for peace this whole time. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise. They haven't tried to take back the deals they made with Jordan and Egypt. But the thing is, if the PLO will not negotiate then it is best just to build a wall and completely separate. Then, maybe, just maybe, Israel can put it's full effort into tech and bio-tech, etc. The whole world would be a better place for it.
Ooh, Provocative Title From Charles Krauthammer
Has Charles Krauthammer's editor been telling him he's got to hep up his act, or what? Today's
article from Krauthammer is actually very important, but carries the stupid title "This War Is Also About Sex":
WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 11, America awoke to the great jihad, wondering: What is this about? We have come to agree on the obvious answers: religion, ideology, political power and territory. But there is one fundamental issue at stake that dares not speak its name. This war is also about -- deeply about -- sex.
For the jihadists, at stake in the war against the infidels is the control of women. Western freedom means the end of women's mastery by men, and the end of dictatorial clerical control over all aspects of sexuality -- in dress, behavior, education, the arts.
Taliban rule in Afghanistan was the model of what the jihadists want to impose upon the world. The case the jihadists make against freedom is that wherever it goes, especially America and Europe, it brings sexual license and corruption, decadence and depravity.
I will cut in here to explain why I think the title is stupid. It's because the War is not about sex. It's about
SLAVERY. What the Taliban imposed on women, and what is imposed on women in many of the countries of the Middle East, is slavery. That's it. They don't have choice over what they wear, whether to get an education, who to marry, whether to work. That is slavery. Yes, there is the aspect of gender, but the problem is slavery.
Read the book Roots by Alex Haley, or just remember, if you can, the TV miniseries. Everything they did to Kunta Kinte and his progeny is done to women in the Arab world.
SLAVERY.
The appeal of this fear can be seen in the Arab world's closest encounter with modernity: Israel. Israeli women are by far the most liberated of any in that part of the world. For decades, the Arab press has responded with lurid stories of Israeli sexual corruption.
The most famous example occurred in the late 1990s when Egyptian newspapers claimed that chewing gum Israel was selling in Egypt was laced with sexual hormones that aroused insatiable lust in young Arab women. Palestinian officials later followed with charges that Israeli chewing gum was a Zionist plot for turning Palestinian women into prostitutes, and ``completely destroying the genetic system of young boys'' to boot.
Sometimes these Arab conspiracy theories are just so funny that I tend to forget about their menace.
Next, Krauthammer makes a very important point.
Which is why the torture pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib prison could not have hit a more neuralgic point. We think of torture as the kind that Saddam practiced: pain, mutilation, maiming and ultimately death. We think of it as having a political purpose: intimidation, political control, confession and subjugation. What happened at Abu Ghraib was entirely different. It was gratuitous sexual abuse, perversion for its own sake.
That is what made it, ironically and disastrously, a pictorial representation of precisely the lunatic fantasies that the jihadists believe -- and that cynical secular regimes such as Egypt and the Palestinian Authority peddle to pacify their populations and deflect their anger and frustrations. Through this lens, Abu Ghraib is an ``I told you so'' played out in an Arab capital, recorded on film.
That's right Mr. Krauthammer. It's a disaster. While I don't agree with the media's characterization of what happened at Abu Ghirab as being torture, I do believe that, for a culture of men who are psychologically wired with an Honor/Shame program, this is
psychological torture. The reality is, it is humiliation. But their manhoods are built on sand, so it is experienced as torture. Our media likes to believe it. I wonder what that says about those in the media. Hmmm.
It is no accident that jihadists around the world are overwhelmingly male. It is very rare to find a woman suicide bomber. And when you do, like the young woman who blew herself up in Gaza killing four others last January, it turns out that she herself was a victim of sexual subjugation -- a wife accused of adultery, marked for death, who decided to die a martyr rather than a pariah. But die she must.
Which is what made one aspect of the Abu Ghraib horrors even more incendiary -- the pictures of American women soldiers mocking, humiliating and dominating naked and abused Arab men. One could not have designed a more symbolic representation of the Islamist warning about where Western freedom ultimately leads than Thursday's Washington Post photo of a uniformed American woman holding a naked Arab man on a leash.
... exactly as bin Laden would have scripted it.
A very penetrating analysis from Mr. Krauthammer.
By the way, sir, where did you get that name? Did you, by any chance, make it up? I wish you'd write an article about your name.
Terrorist Television
FrontPageMag.com posted an
article today about how the terrorist organization Hezbollah has it's own TV network. And it's popular:
Symptoms of a sick culture are not difficult to find in the Middle East. State-sponsored (and popularly embraced) anti-Semitism, violent fundamentalism and barbaric treatment of women and minorities are endemic in the region. For many years now the world has been waiting for a generational break between the fundamentalists and a new intellectual class borne of increased access to information and technology longing for a society based on acceptance, truth, and diversity.
As satellite dishes becoming more prevalent throughout the Middle East, Western pop culture and news are becoming the hook that tugs at the heart strings of those who hope to be free but have only known oppression. (Look at polls of young Iranians’ positive views of America, for example.) That success has been countered by the dark forces of Islamic fundamentalism.
There are suicide bomber trading cards, video games where children can control a “martyr” on a mission to kill Jews, and the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah even has it’s own satellite channel, al-Manar (“The Beacon”), founded in June 1991. One of the Syrian/Iranian funded network’s newest and most popular programs is a game show called, “The Mission.” Contestants answer questions about the American-Zionist conspiracy for points. For every question a contestant answers correctly, they are allowed to move another step closer to the goal of Jerusalem on a large map. Sixty points lands a contestant on the holy city while the Hezbollah anthem plays in the background. The refrain “Jerusalem is ours and we are coming to it” rings out as the contestant collects a $3,000 check.
“’The Mission’ follows a standard game show format, with contestants quizzed about history, literature, geography, science and the arts,” according to a recent New York Times article. “But at least half the questions revolve around Palestinian or Islamic history, and at least one contestant is usually Palestinian.”
Throughout the show, the host praises the exploits of suicide bombers and pleads for viewers to keep the faith that one day Arabs will “recapture” the land stolen by the Jews.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is about the most kind-hearted programming the channel has to offer.
Another show, “Sincere Men,” profiles suicide bombers.
The station was the first to break the story that 4,000 Jewish World Trade Center employees were warned about the September 11 in advance and didn’t show up to work that day. The attacks themselves were perpetrated by, “Jews, Israel, and Mossad,” of course. Before the 2000 pullout of Israeli forces from Lebanon, the station aired live pictures of attacks against Israeli soldiers and broadcast threats against the Jewish state in Hebrew.
Part of that resistance is against America now, particularly coalition troops stationed in Iraq. The station makes time in its programming now for pictures of gruesome scenes from Iraq. “The people of this region will receive you with their rifles, with blood, with martyrdom, and martyrdom operations,” a Hezbollah official warned Americans during one broadcast. “Today, as the region fills up with hundreds of thousands of American troops, our slogan was and will remain ‘Death to America.'“
We've got TNT. They've got TVT.
Some Thoughts On Multiculturalism and Assimilation
Thanks to Melanie Phillips for making me aware of this
article, by Emanuelle Ottolenghi, from the Jerusalem Post. Ottolenghi says Europe's multicultural ideal has planted the seeds of it's own destruction:
Europe's liberal elites believe multiculturalism is the alternative to America's imperial calling in the Middle East. They doubt democracy can be exported to the Arab world and loathe American arrogance in imposing its own values on a different culture. They criticize current American "imperialism," proposing their multicultural vision instead.
Perhaps Europe is right in its skepticism of American adventures. But it is wrong in presuming that multiculturalism offers a better alternative. There is, in fact, no multicultural society outside the West. And even in Europe, multiculturalism is under pressure.
As people migrate to, are absorbed by, and integrate into Europe, Europe is changing: As homogeneous nation-states give way to a supranational community of multicultural post-national states, the liberal gospel is already causing a backlash because it preaches inclusion of all by deriding the deeply entrenched ethnic and religious identities of some.
The real question is not how long before Europe can become a universal community of unburdened individuals. Rather, it is: What are Europe's limits of tolerance and willingness to accommodate diversity?
Social cohesiveness rests on common values, which are in turn a product of shared memories. Multiculturalism and cultural relativism obliterate that shared patrimony in favor of political correctness. But a collective vision of the future cannot emerge from denial of the past. A people forgetting its history will forsake its collective future.
The only people who
will remember their history in such a society are religious people, primarily Jews and Muslims, with a few of the more educated Christians thrown into the mix. Religious people will remember their history because they share a collective myth by which to measure themselves in the world. Of course, the power of the myth is made even stronger when it is in written down and it's dispensation is ritualized, as it is with Judaism and Islam.
(Side note: Christianity's myth is, of course, written down. However, Christianity suffers from the problem that it's only alive and growing branch, the Evangelical branch, is not formally ritualized in it's dispensation of the tradition.)
Such is the dilemna for secularists multiculturalists. If they want multiculturalism, and a socity where we forsake history for inclusion, then they doom themselves to cede their secular society to the most religious of people.
Being that I am a person who believes in the separation of church and state, in other words a secularist, I am adamantly opposed to the kind of fanatical multiculturalism described in the above article.
The great philosopher-king (drunken, impotent rock star) Jim Morrison said, "The West is the best. Just get here and we'll do the rest." I agree with the first line, but not the second.
I believe in multiculturalism to a point. I believe that the West can handle immigration, even lots of immigration. However, I believe there is an undetermined amount of immigration that we can handle. I don't think there has ever been any serious effort put into determining what exactly is the process of assimilation. This is probably at least partially the result of the fact that we could not even come up with a definition of "assimilation" in the first place.
But, the reality is, if you have a society, a culture, a tradition, which you want to preserve, you must define what it is that created that culture, and then define assimilation accordingly.
From there, one must look at the reality that other cultures, by virture of their similarity or differences with our culture will produce people who are easier, or more difficult, to assmililate into Western culture. This needs to be taken into account when accepting immigration from various cultures.
Jeez, is that too much to ask for?
First They Came For The Jews, And The Media Said Nothing
Then They Came For The Christians And The Media Said Nothing
Then They Came For The Blacks
And Sold Them Into Slavery
And The Media Still Said Nothing
The
Boston Globe reports:
IT IS HAPPENING again. A government of murderous ideologues is committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing while the international community either pretends not to notice or laments its own inability to stop the slaughters.
Sudan's National Islamic Front regime has waged a war of atrocities against the Christian and animist peoples of southern Sudan since 1983. Two million people have perished. Thousands of black Africans have been captured in militia raids and sold in slavery to Arab masters in the north.
Now the regime in Khartoum is perpetrating massacres and ethnic cleansing in two new areas of the country. United Nations reports tell of more than 1 million people being driven from their homes in Darfur, the western region of Sudan. In Darfur, the victims of the regime, which is led by Lieutenant General Omer Bashir, are themselves Muslim, like the government-backed militias known as the janjaweed who are burning their villages, raping women, and murdering men. In a recent alert from Human Rights Watch, the executive director, Kenneth Roth, says: "These militias work in unison with government troops, with total impunity for their massive crimes."
The UN emergency relief coordinator for Sudan, Jan Egeland, said Friday: "The number one humanitarian drama in the world right now is not in Iraq and not in the Palestinian territories. It is in Darfur."
Human Rights Watch reported last week on separate massacres of villagers in western Sudan. In one raid, 136 men of the Fur ethnic group were "taken in army lorries to nearby valleys where they were made to kneel before being killed with a bullet in the back of the neck." In another area of Darfur, 72 men were executed in the same way. And in a third mass killing reported by Human Rights Watch, 65 men were murdered.
Often Sudan's Air Force bombs the villages to be ethnically cleansed by its militia partners. And all the while, the regime in Khartoum has been maneuvering to keep international monitors from entering Darfur to witness the horrors there.
Since early March the regime has opened yet another campaign of extermination, this one in the Mid-West Upper Nile region of southern Sudan known as the Shilluk Kingdom. More than 70,000 villagers have been displaced, their family members killed and their villages burned by militia groups acting for the Islamist rulers in Khartoum.
Those rulers have been putting off signing a peace accord in Kenya to end the war in southern Sudan. Incredibly, President Bush recently certified Khartoum's "good faith" in those peace talks. Instead, Bush should be rallying the rest of the world to sanction and isolate Khartoum if it does not cease its genocidal acts and permit international monitors to intercede in Sudan's killing fields.
Two Million Christians and Animists Have Been Killed In Sudan In The Past Twenty Years By the National Islamic Front. Untold numbers of black African Christians have been kidnapped and sold into slavery by Arab Muslims. Untold number of children, boys and girls, have been raped. Google it; Sudan - massacre - christians - child rape - slavery.
And you know, I've got to say, I can kind of understand why they want to kill us Christians. You know, we are always going around evangelizing like we know the truth and no one else does. But why would they want to kill the Animists. I mean, just because they make cartoons? I know they have regualtions against idolatry and graven images, but jeez.
First They Came For The Jews And I Didn't Speak Up ... Then There Was A Jihad Against Christians
AllAfrica.com reports that there is a "Sharia project" against Christian churches, aka Jihad against Christians, aka Islamofascist Nazi Regime.
Governor Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State, has ordered the demolition of all churches in the state, as he launched the second phase of his Sharia project yesterday.
Speaking at the launch in Gusau, the state capital, Governor Sani disclosed that time was ripe for full implementation of the programme as enshrined in the Holy Quran.
He added that his government would soon embark on demolition of all places of worship of unbelievers in the state, in line with Islamic injunction to fight them wherever they are found.
One thing I can say for Governor Sani, the man knows his Holy Quran.
Andrew Killgore Is An Interesting Man
Joel Mowbray has an interesting
article on FrontPageMag.com today wherein he talks about the "open letter to President Bush denouncing U.S. support for Israel, and discusses it's author Andrew Killgore.
I haven't read the letter itself, so I don't want to discuss it. However, Mowbray does point out some interesting things about Killgore:
Killgore may or may not be an anti-Semite, but he certainly could be mistaken for one. That is a strong statement, to be sure, but it seems a fair assessment after spending some time at the website for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, of which he is the co-founder and publisher.
The site’s front page keeps a counter only of foreign aid money given to Israel. It calls for ending all military aid to Israel, though there is no similar call for ending the exact same level of aid given each year to Egypt for the same purpose, an arrangement that has existed since the Camp David Accords in 1978.
Killgore’s website also has a “Neocon Corner,” where he and others castigate one Jew or another for their sinister loyalties to Israel. (One execption was a hit piece on Dick Cheney.) Typical is a recent column on Richard Perle, former head of the Defense Policy Board. In the course of 800 words, Killgore refers to Perle as: a “fervent Zionist,” a “dyed-in-the-wool Israel-Firster,” part of the “Zionist lobby,” “always active in Zionist organizations,” the “Prince of Darkness,” and a “Zionist ideologue.”
On its webpage listing 27 “charitable organizations” are several with which no reasonable group would affiliate. Many are well-known for their radical Islamist agendas, and two in particular should have raised red flags: the United Palestinian Appeal and the Kinder USA, both “charitable” organizations who share leadership with the Holy Land Foundation, which was closed in December 2001 for allegedly funneling money to Hamas.
Well, I went to Killgore's website and it clearly does focus on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, with some foray into Iraq. I can not find the "NeoCon Corner" but, then again, I have trouble finding my shoes in the morning. If it's there I do not see it.
Anyway, Killgore's site does feature the aid to Israel counter at the very top of the page. It's the first thing you see. I must say, it seems to me that if you call yourself a "Report on Middle East Affairs," and then disproportionately focus on Israel, you're being less than even-handed. The Middle East has problems that far exceed anything going on in Israel. Islamofascists might not agree, but they should ask themselves questions like:
1) Has Israel ever used poison gas on Palestinians?
2) Has Israel killed as many Palestinians in it's
defense against the Intifada, as the King of Jordan did when he ordered a killing spree that left 8000 Palestinians dead in a few short weeks back in 1970?
3) Has Israel ethnically cleansed Palestinians as Kuwait did after the Desert Storm War when they showed a third of a million Palestinians the door?
4) Why is the King of Jordan afraid the Palestinians will move back to Jordan as a result of the building of the wall?
5) Are women who live in Israel slaves as they are in much of the Arab world?
I could go on, but I hope you get the point.
First They Came For The Jews And Then They Came For...
Jack over at
Jack of Clubs wrote an important post today where he points out how, in Nigeria, Christians are having their villages attacked and their churches burned down. See the article
"Freedome Fighters in Nigeria":
First a question: what do you call a group of people who take up arms to prevent another group from imposing its value system? Freedom Fighters? OK, now read this article. This is a breaking story, so not many have covered it, but so far I have not seen the double-F word being applied to these people. Note also, this paragraph:
Although the motive was unclear, the attack came a week after Hausas launched an attack on the Tarok village of Kawo, burning churches and inflicting an unknown number of casualties.
What exactly is unclear about the motive? Could it be that this is part of a larger reaction to the imposition of Sharia, or muslim law, in Nigeria. A related story from the Guardian seems to suggest that this is the case:
New sharia regulations give the state authorities the power to demolish any "illegal structures", which Christians fear will be used to tear down their churches. They also call for businesses to close five times a day for Muslim prayers.
My prediction: these Christians who are trying to defend themselves from the imposition of a hostile religion, will not be seen as freedom fighters, if they get any attention in the press at all. Look at how long it has taken the situation in Sudan to make the news, and even now it is not considered a major story. But these African countries are the first line of defense against a militant Islam that would like to take over the entire continent.
Thanks Jack. And, by the way, that's a very clever catch phrase you came up with; "double f-word." I will use that in perpetuity.
Here's the
article to which Jack linked.
British Columnist Has Been Reading His Copy of The Protocols Too
The respected British author Anthony Sampson is making an effort at dragging his countryback into the dark ages along with the Arab world. This is from a post by Melanie Phillips called
The Oldest Hatred Revisited:
The latest egregious addition to the ranks of those who are spreading the poisonous libel of the 'world Jewish conspiracy' is Anthony Sampson, the veteran and well-regarded author of the 'Anatomy of Britain'. Writing in the Independent on May 1 (sorry, no free on-line service provided) he wondered how the British had allowed themselves to become 'so dependent on the policies of the Pentagon'. To answer his question, he referred to the new book on the Iraq war by Bob Woodward, 'Plan of Attack', which chronicles the tensions in the Bush administration in the run-up to war. Then, out of the blue, came this:
'It was the victory of the Pentagon over the State Department which determined American policy in the Middle East, reinforced by the powerful influence of the neo-conservative cabal and the Israeli government'.
Note that word 'cabal' -- the Jewish conspiracy from the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' brought up to date once again. Moreover, so important did Sampson clearly think this sinister Jewish influence was over the war, he actually returned to the theme to finger the hapless Paul Bremer as yet another tool of the Jews, even though -- as he conceded -- Bremer was actually a State Department appointee:
'But Bremer soon showed himself closely aligned to the generals, as well as to the neo-cons in Washington and their allies in Jerusalem'.
'Their allies in Jerusalem'? In Sampson's view, the war in Iraq was a Jewish plot stretching across the world. Wherever does it come from, this demented fantasy that Israel was pulling the White House strings over Iraq? Certainly not from Woodward's book, in which Israel barely figures at all and the neo-con influence is relegated to a relatively minor factor. In his account, the main drivers behind the Iraq war were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George W Bush himself. Not a neo-con between them.
'Regime change' in Iraq, as Woodward reminds us, was actually US policy since Bill Clinton first promulgated it in 1998. And as for Britain becoming 'prisoners of policies made in the Pentagon', Woodward also reports that Tony Blair was urging President Bush to do something about Iraq before 9/11, because he was so worried by the confluence of rogue states, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. As he has often said.
None of this was reflected in Sampson's article, which went on to laud (of course) Britain's 52 revolting 'camels' (see below) and to praise the UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's 'real independence of view' for describing Israel as 'the great poison in the region'.
Pastorius will cut in here to say that, as reported by
Eursoc, the respected Brit author,
Sampson went on to praise the "independence" of the
UN envoy to the region, Lakhdar Brahimi. Brahimi, an Algerian, has called Israeli policy "the big poison" in the region. He is also
reported to have claimed that he has never knowingly shaken hands with a Jew.
Back to Melanie,
This article demonstrates once again that those who imagine anti-Jewish feeling is a preserve of the far-right are utterly misguided. These disgusting attitudes now course openly through the British liberal intelligentsia and establishment, from where they influence countless thousands of people because of the respect with which such influential voices are heard. Well, it's time to strip away such pretence. This is raw, ignorant, bigoted Jew-hatred, no less shocking because it uses an educated voice rather than a knuckle-duster. The world Jewish conspiracy is a disgusting smear rooted in medieval prejudice. When applied to the war in Iraq, as to everything else, it is a lie. But in Britain, alas, it is a lie which has burrowed appallingly deeply into the consciousness of the nation, with potentially alarming consequences both for the war on terror and for the Jewish people.
Cabal. Neo-con. "Allies in Jerusalem." These are code words. I applaud Melanie Phillips for being so courageous as to point out this fact. She is a respected author in Britain as well. So, to call Sampson on his anti-Semitism, when he has so artfully hid himself behind code words does take guts. Many people will simply disregard the racist origins of the words and ideas Sampson espouses and instead shoot Phillips, the messenger.
The Morning Meditation From Arab News
The A-double-izzle (Allah) let me in on this. Breathe in deeply and let these thoughts nestle into your soul:
Israel IS the problem — by both choice and design!
It has inserted itself, like a virus, into every American Congress, administration, all the media, and election campaign. And it is not only the US.
Go to South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, and you will find Israelis training rebels or government assassins on behalf of the CIA.
Go to India, and they are supporting the Indian Army and intelligence in their standoff with Pakistan.
Back to Washington, and you find Sharon’s cronies in the White House, Pentagon and Congress dictating US policies regarding the Greater Middle East, which includes Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The war in Iraq is the brainchild of this pro-Israel group of ideologists; so was Afghanistan and just about anything and everything else related to the Muslim and Arab world.
We could understand a reasonable motive, even if it was dirty realpolitik, but it is hard for us to understand how the world’s only superpower can be ordered around like an office boy and hired gun by a small country such as Israel?
It's hard for you to understand? All you need to do you idiot is go read your favorite book for the 100th time;
The Protocols of The Learned Elders Of Zion.
The Arab News is a Saudi Paper funded by Saudi Research and Publishing Company, a state-owned organization. Where else in history have the leaders of a state authorized and given a mandate to the spread of such hatred? Where, oh where? Does it sound at all
familiar?
Could You Stand Up For This? Would You?
Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for making me aware of this
article from Clifford May:
Consider what's required to wear the label: “Pro-Palestinian.”
To start,
you have to appear non-judgmental about innocent Palestinian children being raised to become human bombs.
You must refer to those who send such children on suicide/mass murder missions as “political leaders” or, even better, as “spiritual leaders.” Call them militants if you must, but never terrorists.
To be thought of as pro-Palestinian,
you must cite the plight of the Palestinian refugees as a key motivation for violence, ignoring the fact that there would have been no refugees had Israel's Arab neighbors not launched a war to destroy the tiny Jewish state immediately upon its birth.
Indeed,
Arabs who chose to stay in Israel are today Israeli citizens, as are their children, enjoying more freedoms than do the citizens of neighboring Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia or even Jordan. Disregard all this if you want to be seen as someone who cares about Palestinians.
Supporters of Palestinians must
point to the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as another root cause of violence. Avoid mentioning that it was a second Arab war against Israel that led to the seizure of those territories which, at that time, were not called Palestinian territories. Gaza was administered by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan and no one demanded that they be turned them over to Palestinian sovereignty.
The Israelis captured the Sinai as well. That territory, several times larger than all of Israel, was returned to Egypt in exchange for a piece of paper promising peace. Forget these awkward details.
To burnish your pro-Palestinian credentials, even as you rail against the Israeli occupation,
say nothing positive about Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to end that occupation entirely in Gaza and to withdraw Israeli troops and settlements from 85 percent of the West Bank. In Orwellian fashion, insist that Mr. Sharon is giving up those lands as part of a “land grab.”
While it is true that at Camp David in 2000,
then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered about 95% of the West Bank and Gaza, Yassir Arafat turned that offer down and initiated several years of terrorist attacks. Even so, Mr. Sharon has said he's willing to consider further withdrawal, to discuss permanent borders, though he won't negotiate with those dispatching terrorists. Dismiss all that as irrelevant -- if you want to be described as someone who sympathizes with the Palestinians.
Also,
continue to insist that Israelis eventually must agree to a “right to return” – that they must let millions of Palestinians settle not just in an independent Palestinian state next to Israel but in Israel itself.
Promote this idea even if you're savvy enough to know it can never happen – just as Hindus can never re-settle in what is today Muslim Pakistan, just as Greek Christians can never re-settle in what is today Muslim Turkey, just as the million Jews forced to flee from Arab countries after World War II can never return to what were, for centuries, their homes.
In fact, Israelis with roots in Arab countries today comprise about half of Israel's population. They may understand better than anyone else that
a Palestinian “right to return” would mean the end of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people, that Jews would become a minority in what would no longer be the world's only predominately Jewish state. And that's a frightening thought because, sadly, few minorities living in the 22 Arab countries and the more than 50 predominately Muslim nations enjoy anything approaching freedom and equality. Such freedom and equality may be achieved in Iraq in the years ahead -- though not if the dictators of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia can help it, and not if the Palestinian “political and spiritual leaders” who supported Saddam Hussein and who now oppose the American “occupation” have anything to do with it.
Nor should Friends of Palestine plan for the opportunities that the Israeli withdrawals will present. Don't even think about the Israeli homes that will be turned over to Palestinian families, the hotels that could be built along the Mediterranean. Forget about foreign investors, new hospitals and schools. And certainly don't talk about cooperation with Israel. On the contrary, shrug when Hamas terrorists bomb the checkpoints through which Gazans pass on their way to work in Israeli factories. But should the Israelis respond by closing those checkpoints, complain vehemently that the Israelis are cutting off the livelihood of Palestinian workers.
The United Nations is very pro-Palestinian. That's why UN experts are not hard at work drafting a plan to give Palestinians more say over who governs them. Arafat was elected Palestinian leader – he ran exactly one time in 35 years and in that election he was opposed by a woman whose name few can recall and who hadn't a ghost of a chance. Surely, that's as much democracy as any reasonable person could desire for Palestinians.
Perhaps someday people will look back in astonishment on all this. Perhaps someday the term pro-Palestinian will be redefined to include those who would urge Palestinians to seek compromise and peaceful co-existence with their neighbors, build a real economy, and discourage their children from suicide, murder and mutilation.
Right now, however, these are wildly radical notions.
Fallujah
I have refrained from commenting on the tactics of the War On Terror because
1) I don't know what I'm talking about (which, of course, doesn't stop me from commenting on other isssues) when it comes to military issues,
2) I have believed that the U.S. military has it under control and has reasons for what they do,
3) while anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are linked (in that they both emanate from Islamofascism) the War On Terror is not really the subject of this blog (which, of course, has not stopped me from commenting on other issues).
But anyway,
Andrew Sullivan posted some comments on the Fallujah situation that capture my growing sense of frustration and fear about this War:
I also know that it's easy to sit here in D.C. and pontificate while, on the ground, political compromises and military messes are inevitable. But last week seems to me to have reached a point where even hopeful, pro-war, Bush supporters like me have to acknowledge the epic mishandling of the post-war occupation. The U.S. is beginning to look both cruel and (a much bigger problem) weak. The huge propaganda victory handed to the enemy by the celebrations in Fallujah by Islamo-fascists shouldn't have happened. Nor should the disgusting pictures of prisoner abuse and humiliation simply exist in a military as professional and ethical as that of the U.S. The misconduct is unforgivable, and shows simply a lack of control of the situation. The complete disarray in Fallujah - the inability of anyone from Bremer up even to expain what's happening, let alone tell us what they're doing about it - is a further sign of drift. It is no longer unreasonable to surmise that the administration is preparing to hand over power to any U.N.-blessed Shiite or Baathist general it can find, while indicating to the wider terrorist enemy that we will buckle under to pressure. At a critical moment when Fallujah should have been the occasion for a critical wiping out of the terrorist and insurgent infrastructure, we seem to have blinked. The consequences for our future credibility, for the lives of coalition servicemembers, for the lives of Western civilians, could not be graver.
I believe he's right because the Islamofascists have indicated on a number of occasions that they believe that mercy, and a willingness to negotiate out of messy situations, are signs of weakness. Therefore, I fear that this Fallujah situation will indicate to them that we are cracking and they should take the war to us all the more.
I also fear that maybe we are cracking. Have we become too complacent in our morality and reliant upon the surgical precision of our video game weaponry? We don't want a real battle? The problem is, the real battle will come, sooner or later. Do we take it to them, or will they bring it to us?
This Fallujah situation reminds me of watching Shaquille O'Neil against the San Antonio Spurs yesterday. Shaq is so big, powerful and skilled compared to everyone else on the court. But there he was, refusing to go up and administer humiliating dunks because he knows he will only get fouled and sent to the line. So instead he shoots these pathetic little shots, trying to get the shots off before the oncoming fouls, and he misses, and misses, and misses again.
Note the result. The Lakers got humiliated.
See I told you I don't anything about military issues.
Is Associated Press Doing Public Relations For Racist Anti-Semites?
Last night I was reading Little Green Footballs and they posted a link to an article on Yahoo (from AP) that was titled "Gunment Kill Six At Saudi Oil Facilty. The article contained the following quote:
Later, the Saudi Press Agency quoted Abdullah as telling a gathering of princes in Jiddah that “Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom. I can say that I am 95 percent sure of that.”
He said Zionism had misled “some of our sons,” but did not elaborate. Anti-Israeli sentiment runs high in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Now, if you go to the link that quote has been excised and replace with the less inflammatory quote:
Crown Prince Abdullah, speaking on Saudi television, said: "The kingdom will eliminate terrorism no matter how long it takes."
What are they doing? The only truly interesting thing about the article was the fact that the Crown Prince actually made such a racist statement. Without that quote the only people who would be interested in the article are War On Terror junkies. That quote should have been the headline of the article. Think about it, a head of state makes a vicious, groundless accusation, based completely on his racism, and AP decides it's not really very important. And then later, they decide to remove the quote completely.
Just to prove that the "Prince" did say it, here's a
link to the an article in an Arab paper called Al Bawaba which includes the quote.
And just in case that one disappears here's a
link to an article in The Scotsman which also contains the quote.
