The International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People

Well, this past Saturday was November 29, and like every November 29 since 1977, the United Nations, in a truly saintly act of pure non-biasedness, celebrated its (I kid you not) "International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People." To explore this exercise in yearly Jew-bashing, we'll journey over to the horse' s mouth itself, the UN's website and its description of the event.

The date of 29 November was chosen because of its meaning and significance to the Palestinian people.

Such impartiality! The beauty of this is, of course, that on November 29, 1947, the only people on Earth calling themselves the "Palestinian People" were Jews.

On that day in 1947, the General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which came to be known as the Partition Resolution. That resolution provided for the establishment in Palestine of a “Jewish State” and an “Arab State”, with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under a special international regime. Of the two States to be created under this resolution, only one, Israel, has so far come into being.

Notice "Arab State" and not "Palestinian State." Because, again, no Arabs in 1947 were walking around calling themselves Palestinians or "The Palestinian People." And why did this "Arab State" never materialize? Well, the UN kind of doesn't tell us. Instead, it skips to this:

The Palestinian people, who now number more than eight million, live primarily in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, including East Jerusalem; in Israel; in neighbouring Arab States; and in refugee camps in the region.

This is just wonderful. We're told that the General Assembly passed a partition resolution in 1947 calling for an Arab State, which was never implemented, and that, now the "Palestinian People" live in the "Palestinian Territory" (there never was such a thing) that has been "occupied by Israel since 1967" and in so-called "refugee camps" without giving any explanation as to why any of these events took place. We're not told that in 1947, the Arabs tried unsuccessfully to wipe the Jews off the map or that in 1967, Israel conquered this so-called "Palestinian Territory" in a defensive war after Egypt blockaded the country (an act of war) and mobilized its forces in the Sinai. The only reason that Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem are in Israeli hands is that Jordan entered the war and began attacking Israeli positions after Israel begged King Hussein to stay out of it. And I've dealt with the refugee issue before, so need to rehash that again here.

And the notion that Judea, Samaria and Gaza constitute "Palestinian Territory" is just mind-boggling. We're talking about land that, in the last 500 years, was controlled by the Turks, British, Egyptians, Jordanians and Israelis. No "Palestinians" on that list.

The International Day of Solidarity has traditionally provided an opportunity for the international community to focus its attention on the fact that the question of Palestine remained unresolved and that the Palestinian people are yet to attain their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly, namely, the right to self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property from which they had been displaced.

Really, this is like some kind of sick joke. As I believe the Israeli ambassador pointed out at some point, look at the irony and hypocrisy at play here. You have a day commemorating the fact that "question of Palestine remains unresolved," and that the "Palestinian People" don't have a state of their own where they can exercise their "inalienable rights" to "self-determination," "national independence," and "sovereignty". What day did they pick? The very day on which the Arabs REJECTED a partition resolution which aimed to provide them with a state that would have given them all of those things! This is utter lunacy.

The rest of the article is basically filler, detailing all of the activities and speeches to be done "in observance" of this special day. Yes, they seriously wrote "in observance," as if it's some kind of religious holiday with traditions and obligations attached. What nonsense.

This whole exercise flies in the face of what the UN is supposed to be about. The very first provision of the UN Charter states that the purpose of the UN is to:

maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.

How this is achieved by openly declaring "solidarity" with one of the parties in a dispute is beyond me. But that's why I'm not a diplomat, I guess.

Incidentally, Sha'i Ben Tekoa does a much better job than I do of dissecting and demolishing this little UN get-together.

A British Islamist Justifies Murdering Children

It's something you have to read to believe (at least if you're not familiar with this type of thing I guess). One woujld think that most people who hate and incite would draw the line at children. Well, not if you're British Islamist Dr. Kamal Al-Hibawi. Let's have a looksie:

Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "I condemn the targeting of any civilian, but incidentally, I believe that every Israeli civilian is a future soldier."

This is so typical. The Arabs condemn "terrorism" but what they do against Israel isn't terrorism. They condemn murdering civilians, but, of course, no Israelis are civilians. It's really quite a spectacle. As you can see, even the interviewer is a bit freaked out at this madness:

Interviewer: "He is what?"

Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "A future soldier."

Interviewer: "Even if he is two years old?"

Of course at two years old, silly! Here comes the explanation. Better buckle up!

Dr. Kamal Al-Hilbawi: "Even if he is a child. A child born in Israel is raised on the belief that [the Arabs] are like contemptible sheep, and that this is a land without a people, and they are a people without a land. They have very strange concepts. In elementary school, they pose the following math problem: 'In your village, there are 100 Arabs. If you killed 40, how many Arabs would be left for you to kill?' This is taught in the Israeli curriculum. What would you say about that? Should a child studying this be considered a civilian? He is a future soldier."

Yep, we know those dastardly Israelis. All they do is walk about talking about how Arabs are sheep, and apes and pigs and -- hey, wait a second!

Jews and Christians – Cursed by Allah and Turned into Apes and Pigs
A textbook for 8^th grade students explains why Jews and Christians were cursed by Allah and turned into apes and pigs.Quoting Surat Al-Maida, Verse 60, the lesson explains that Jews and Christians have sinned by accepting polytheism and therefore incurred Allah's wrath.To punish them, Allah has turned them into apes and pigs.

But don't worry. The more "liberal" Dr. Nabil Yassin is going to condemn this insanity . . . sort of:

Dr. Nabil Yassin: "What Kamal said is very dangerous. He is familiar with the case of the Kharijites. He takes us back to the Azariqa, the Kharijites who were most lethal to Muslims. They used to cut open the bellies of pregnant women, because they believed that the child would become an enemy of the Kharijites."[...]

Yassin: "I Do Not Condemn the Child, Who Still Doesn't Know How He Will Kill the Arabs in 20 Years' Time, When He Becomes A Soldier"

"If we, as Arabs and Muslims, condemned every operation targeting civilians anywhere, we would be able to demand that all parties - not only the U.S. - commit themselves to the same position. I condemn the Israeli governments for teaching children such things, but I do not condemn the child, who still doesn't know how he will kill the Arabs in 20 years' time, when he becomes a soldier. We should differentiate... These things lead us back to the root of the problem: Who is a civilian, and who is a soldier, who is being targeted, and who is targeting me? We must not include civilians in the list of military targets."

So the more liberal dude also believes that the Israeli school system teaches their kids that Arabs are contemptible sheep. Fantastic. At least he's not cool with targeting children. Adults? Well, I guess we'll never know.

Abbas to Obama: Make Israel Surrender

Oh, this could be entertaining. Our favorite moderate Dr. Mahmoud Abbas is calling on Obama to implement the so-called "Pan Arab Peace Initiative" that the Saudis first proposed in 2002. Let's have a looksie at how the AP reported it and the little detail that they keep leaving out:.

Abbas, who spoke at an economic conference in the West Bank town of Nablus, also asked Obama to endorse a pan-Arab peace initiative that offers full peace with Israel in return for its withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.

And that pesky "Right of Return." You can't forget about that, AP.

The "Arab Peace Initiative" was first proposed in 2002 by dozens of Arab countries that do not have ties with Israel. It requires Israel to leave the lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast War.

And to implement the "Right of Return," allowing itself to be flooded with millions of Arabs so that it no longer has a Jewish majority.

"We ask Obama to become immediately involved in the peace process, and to adopt the Arab initiative," Abbas said.

Abbas' call to Obama came after he appealed directly to Israelis by taking out full-page Hebrew-language newspaper ads Thursday that said the Arab initiative would bring peace to the region.

Yes, I think it's universally accepted that the destruction of Israel would bring peace to the Middle East and to the world as a whole.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the chief negotiator with the Palestinians over the past year, has welcomed the plan as a positive gesture, but says its positions on key issues such as final borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are unacceptable.

See that? Five paragraphs in, we learn that the Arab plan has something (though we are not told exactly what) to do with "the fate of the Palestinian refugees." This is awesome reporting. Why Tzipi Livni thinks this ridiculous PR stunt by the Arabs is a "positive gesture" is a total mystery to me.

"Instead of living in an island of peace it will live in an ocean of peace," he said.

An updated way of saying they want to drive the Jews into the sea, I guess.

However, a year of negotiations between Palestinians and Israel has not brought tangible results.

A more accurate statement would be that 15 years of negotiations have not produced tangible results, except lots and lots and lots of terrorism and deaths.

Abbas said Saturday that Israel's actions, such as continued construction of settlements and the West Bank separation barrier, contradict Israel's declared willingness to make peace.

"These acts truly make one wonder whether they (the Israelis) mean peace or not," he said. "Those who want peace don't do this. They don't build a wall or a settlement in our throats ... We are ready to stretch out our hands in peace, but all of these acts leave hatred in one's soul."

This is a joke. The separation barrier was built because the Arabs were inflicting so much terror on Israel and its population, not as part of some nefarious plan to defeat peace in the region. And the construction of settlements in Judea and Samaria have nothing to do with obstructing peace because the Arab goal has never been to create a nice, cuddly little state adjacent to Israel.

In any event, Abbas's words are especially loony and hypocritical given that he has explicitly stated on numerous occasions that the Arabs would never recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

Nice, way to stretch your hand out in peace there, eh, Mahmoud? Spare me.

No Deal Without Control of Jerusalem, PA Says

To put it more specifically, Arab negotiator Ahmed Qurei recently said that "Palestinian leaders will never end their territorial roe with Israel without gaining control of Jerusalem in the deal."

Gaining control of Jerusalem. Notice the language here. There's no limitation to the eastern portion of Jerusalem which Israel liberated in 1967. The PA wants the whole ball of wax, despite its majority-Jewish population. And notice also that there's no talk of compromise here. It's an outright non-negotiable demand serving as a precondition to negotiations. Why can't Israel talk like this? Why can't Israel say, "Listen, Arabs. You want peace? Here's the deal. We get Jerusalem, and you drop this silly Right of Return business. You also repudiate the 1974 Phased Plan and recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state with a majority Jewish population. Once you agree to that, then we'll start negotiating."

Instead, back in 1993, Israel negotiated with the PLO without any preconditions. They didn't even force the PLO to pretend to amend its covenant, which explicitly calls for Israel's destruction. They continue to negotiate with the PA despite Mahmoud Abbas's statement back in February that the PA would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This is silly. But it gets even better.

The negotiator said Palestinian leaders also are concerned Israeli control of the city means Judaism is spreading throughout Jerusalem.

What is this man talking about? Jews have been a plurality in Jerusalem since at least the 1840's. We've been the majority there since at least 1896. So, sorry, Ahmed, if you're worried about "Judiasm spreading throughout Jerusalem," that ship sailed over 150 years ago.

"The Palestinian leadership is decisive (in its stance) not to negotiate and conclude matters with the Israelis without Jerusalem," he said "The postponement of the discussion of this issue is aimed at continuing the Israeli plans to Judaize the holy city, especially the al-Aksa mosque."

Again, I'm just at a total loss here. Qurei seems to be claiming that Israel has plans to "Judaize" the Al-Aksa Mosque. Of course, the reality is that Israel has allowed the Islamic Waqf to control the Al-Aksa Mosque since 1967, and I'm not aware of any plans to change that. Of course, the beautiful irony there is that the Al-Aksa Mosque was the culmination of the Islamization of what had once been an exclusively holy site.

In Praise of Hitler's Moustache

Okay, so today I learned that there's a group out there called the "Egyptian Unique Moustache Association." Apparently they like and respect all types of mustaches, including Hitler's mustache. Hitler's mustache is, like, totally rad because, according to Captain Sayyed Shahada, Hitler "humiliated the most despicable sect in the world. He subdued the people who subdued the whole world."

Of course, this leads one to question exactly how Hitler was able to subdue the Jews if, in fact, the Jews had actually "subdued the whole world," as our facial-haired captain claims. But logical reasoning is apparently not a prerequisite for entry into the prestigious "Egyptian Unique Moustache Association."

Then the good captain goes off on a weird nostalgia trip about the good old days, back when all the cool kids were walking around with Hitler mustaches:

By the way, that kind of moustache is called "11." The generation of this Hitler... When I was little, my father, may he rest in peace, grew that kind of moustache, and so did all his class members. They all had this "11" moustache. That was in the days of Hitler... My father...

You have to love how his voice just trails off at the end. Yes, those genocidal times were good for the Jew-haters of the world. Kids today with their Guitar Hero and their Amy Winehouse -- they just can't appreciate the beauty of the Hitler mustache and the Jew-killing that goes with it.

So it Happened

Kuntar was released. What else is there to really say at this point? My thoughts are laid out here and in the comments section of this fine post. I fear very much that history will look upon this as a very dark day. Ugh!

Israel Agrees to Release Samir Kuntar

I am sick to my stomach. Israel's cabinet today agreed to a "prisoner exchange" involving the release by Israel of Hizballah terrorist Samir Kuntar in exchange for the "release" of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were abducted by Hizballah in 2006, setting off the most recent Israel/Lebanon war. Amazingly, Israel made this "deal" despite clear assessments from both the Mossad and Shin Bet that its two captured soldiers were no longer alive. Again, just sickening.

But even if they were alive, this is no "prisoner exchange" by any stretch, or at least one that involves the exchange of legitimate combatants. Kuntar, unlike Goldwasser and Regev, is no soldier or any other type of legitimate combatant. He is a murderer, who should have been executed shortly after he was captured and tried (Israel, for some inexplicable reason, has no death penalty, even for the worst of terrorists). This man brutally murdered a four year-old girl and her father in 1979. You can learn all about it here. And Israel is trading him (and the bodies of numerous other terrorists) for what will likely be the remains of two soldiers and "intelligence" related to the fate of soldier Ron Arad, who disappeared in 1986 (and is likely dead). Add to this the fact that Kuntar has said openly that he will join up and fight with Hizballah against Israel once he is set free.* How can any country make such a deal and claim to be either sane or moral?

Yes, the soldiers' families are grief-stricken and want their sons and husbands to come home (or to at least know their fate). Who wouldn't? Nobody can blame these people for favoring such a deal. But the job of politicians and leaders is to look beyond that and see the forest for the trees. The families' grief and desire to know the fate of their loved ones cannot be allowed to trump the national interests of the country. And it certainly cannot be allowed to interfere with the just punishment of a remorseless murderer for the brutal crimes he committed (and has said outright that he will murder again). Unfortunately, the family of Kuntar's victims just doesn't have the same political pull as the soldiers' families do.

Don't fret though. Kuntar's brother said that Kuntar was a fighter and that all of Lebanon would celebrate his return. And Hizballah stated that Kuntar's release proves the organization's strength. What an awful, awful day.


*Hat tip: Solomonia

Why Gentile Americans Overwhelmingly Support Israel

In the July/August 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs, Walter Russell Meade writes an immensely thoughtful essay about what drives the foreign policy of the United States with respect to Israel. Unlike certain other people, Meade does not believe that U.S./Israel policy results from the insidious machinations of some well-funded "Lobby" representing a minority of the population that is acting against the interests of the United States.

Rather, says Meade, U.S. foreign is and has always been driven by the will of the majority of the American people. That logically leads to the question of why the majority of Americans tend to support Israel while the majority of the rest of our beloved planet clearly does not (and is so receptive to the message of Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer, linked to above).

Well, I'm not going to spoil it. Read the essay. It's THAT freaking good. I swear, I didn't chuckle at all until the last page, when Meade hilariously suggests that the Arab leadership might one day end terrorist attacks and embrace non-violent civil disobedience (Michael Moore made the same suggestion in one of his books). Suffice it to say that if such a mentality was even possible, we probably wouldn't be in this pickle. But other than that this essay is great. If nothing else, you'll learn that Adam Clayton Powell raised money for the Irgun, which might be the single biggest badass fact I've learned about Israel in like five years.

So stop reading this blog, and read the essay!

Hat tip: DeProgram Program

Inside the Brain of Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi

Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi has been laying pretty low for the last twenty years, and I can only guess that Libya's "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" grew tired of allowing his fellow dictators to corner the market on craziness. Well, not to worry because on June 11, 2008, Qaddafi decided to share his thoughts with the world. Buckle up, everyone, because this one is going to be a bumpy ride!

"It has been proven that there is no democracy in [the U.S.]. Rather, it is a dictatorship no different than the dictatorships of Hitler, Napoleon, Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and the rest of the tyrants."

A wobbly start. Invoking Hitler is not exactly the most creative approach, though you have to respect the Genghis Khan name-drop. You don't hear many folks comparing the U.S. to Genghis Khan. The Mongols were pretty bad-ass so that can't be all negative, right? Okay, let's hear the reasoning as to why there is no democracy in this lovely country of ours.

"In the days of crazy Reagan, the American president issued a presidential order to launch a war against Libya, for example, a presidential order to besiege Libya, a presidential order to boycott Libya, and so on. Is this a democracy or a dictatorship?"

I'm going to go with "republic" (because that's, like, what the Constitution says, and stuff), but that's a topic for another day. In any event, the "logic" employed here is just priceless (as is the irony of Qaddafi referring to "crazy" Reagan -- projection, anyone??). But let's follow the reasoning. The U.S. gave Libya its comeuppance so that makes the U.S. a dictatorship. This is ironclad. I have no response.

"There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama.

"All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency."

I have no doubt that the butchers in Darfur are just jumping with joy at the thought of Barack Obama becoming President. Obama is not Muslim. And he by no means "studied" at an Islamic school (except in the sense that the student body was mostly Muslim at some schools he attended before he was ten). One would think that a powerful crazy dictator would be able to get his news from someplace more reliable than email forwards.

"But we were taken by surprise when our African Kenyan brother [Obama], who is an American national, made statements that shocked all his supporters in the Arab world, in Africa, and in the Islamic world."

"We hope that this is merely an elections 'clearance sale,' as they say in Egypt - in other words, merely an elections lie. As you know, this is the farce of elections - a person lies and lies to people, just so that they will vote for him, and afterwards, when they say to him, 'You promised this and that,' he says: 'No, this was just elections propaganda.' This is the farce of democracy for you. He says: 'This was propaganda, and you thought I was being serious. I was fooling you to get your votes.'

"Allah willing, it will turn out that this was merely elections propaganda. Obama said he would turn Jerusalem into the eternal capital of the Israelis. This indicates that our brother Obama is ignorant of international politics, and is not familiar with the Middle East conflict." [...]

Don't worry, he backtracked. Barack's no Zionist Lapdog like I am. Now we get to the real good stuff.

"We thought he would say: 'I have decided that if I win, I will monitor the Dimona nuclear plant, and the other WMDs in Israeli's possession.' We expected him to make such a decision. He undoubtedly had this in mind. When he talked about Iran and its nuclear program, he undoubtedly had Dimona in mind.

"But when he was thinking about Dimona, he undoubtedly had the fate of former president Kennedy on his mind as well. Kennedy decided to monitor the Dimona nuclear plant. He insisted on doing so, in order to determine whether or not it produces nuclear weapons. The Israelis refused, but he insisted.

"This crisis was resolved with the resignation of Ben-Gurion. He resigned so he would not have to agree to the monitoring of the Dimona plant, and he gave the green light for the killing of Kennedy.

"Kennedy was killed because he insisted on the monitoring of the Dimona plant. This image was undoubtedly on Obama's mind. He undoubtedly wanted to talk about this, but decided not to."[...]

I'm inclined just to let this sit on its own. Read it. Digest it. And reflect on just how big a secret freaking Dimona has been over the years. Lee Harvey Oswald, Zionist Lapdog?

"We expected him to say: 'If I win, I will implement the one-state solution - the "Isratine" which appears in Qaddafi's White Book.' This idea constitutes the final, deep-rooted, and historic solution. It is impossible to establish two midget-states in this area. What kind of country is only 15 km deep? The so-called Israel is only 15 km deep. What kind of a country is this?

"There are five million Palestinians there. We expected Obama to say: 'I've decided to return millions of Palestinian refugees to the land of Palestine, from which they were expelled in 1948 and 1967.' This is the 'change' that the peoples applaud, the change that the American people - and the black people in America - want.

"We expected him to say: 'I will strive for the independence and unity of the Kurdish nation. This nation must take its place under the sun in the Middle East.' The Kurdish nation is torn apart, tormented, and persecuted, and is colonized by everyone. He should have supported it, instead of supporting the collaborators, while sacrificing the future of the Kurdish nation. This is 'change.'" [...]

We expected him to say "Death to America! Death to Israel!" That's the change the American people (especially African-Americans, I guess) want. Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi: a man with his finger on the pulse of America.

"The thing we fear most is that the black man suffers from an inferiority complex. This is dangerous. If our brother Obama feels that because he is black he doesn't have the right to rule America, this would be a disaster, because such a feeling would make him act whiter than the white, and go to an extreme in his persecution and degradation of the blacks."

My first impression after hearing Obama speak? Inferiority complex. It's possible that this is a translation issue, but you have to adore how Qaddafi believes that if he becomes President, Obama will "rule" America.

"We say to him: Brother, the whites and blacks in America are equal. They are all immigrants. America belongs neither to the whites nor to the blacks. America belongs to its original inhabitants, the Indians. Both the whites and the blacks immigrated to America, and so they are equal, and Obama has the right to hold his head high, and say: 'I am a partner in America. This is my land as much as it is yours. If it is not my land, it is not yours either. It is the land of the Indians. You are immigrants, and so are we.'"[...]

So we should all prostrate ourselves before the Indians, our rightful lords and masters?

"We are still hoping that this black man will take pride in his African and Islamic identity, and in his faith, and that [he will know] that he has rights in America, and that he will change America from evil to good, and that America will establish relations that will serve it well with other peoples, especially the Arabs."

He has no "Islamic identity." You are a crazy person. And why should he change America from evil to good? As Mel Brooks taught us over twenty years ago, evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb!

John Stewart Can Go to Hell

Update: Debbie Schlussel has provided a more detailed response to the John Stewart video (and was kind enough to link to this blog. Thanks, Debbie!)


I have disagreed with John Stewart a lot over the years, but through it all, I always saw him as intelligent, funny, and generally worthy of respect. That changed last night when a friend sent me a clip of The Daily Show (click on "Indecision 5768"). In that clip, Stewart pokes fun at the Presidential candidates during their addresses to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The first 80% of it is fine, maybe even a bit funny.

But at the end, Stewart "comically" maligns the candidates for not expresssing any criticism of Israeli policies during their speeches. He also incredibly states that one cannot "remotely criticize Israeli policies and expect to be elected President." At this point, my jaw dropped.

First, why would he expect any candidate to criticize Israel WHILE ADDRESSING AIPAC?? Seriously, when has any candidate ever criticized the NAACP (or the African-American community) WHILE ADDRESSING THE NAACP?? Or for that matter, when has any candidate ever seriously criticized the NAACP and been elected President?

But more important, Stewart is nothing short of a traitor for disseminating what amounts to enemy propaganda: that somebody cannot "remotely criticize Israel's policies" (whatever that means) and get elected President. He just provided a sound byte for the Arab world that will serve as further justification for acts of mass murder against his Jewish (and non-Jewish) brothers and sisters in Israel and throughout the world and will further the myth that the "Israel Lobby" (whatever that is) has a stranglehold over both the US media and the Middle East debate. Maybe Stewart forgot that Obama said that the so-called Palestinians were suffering more than any people on Earth. Not to mention the fact that Obama has surrounded himself and associated with numerous anti-Israel people like Robert Malley (who had to quit once his Hamas connections came to light). I guess Obama can't get elected President, right?

These blog entries usually contain a degree of humor. But there is nothing funny about this. I am really pissed off. John Stewart has criticized Israel in the past, which is fine, even though I believe he's wrong when he does it. If he wants to say he favors a "two-state solution" or that Israel should take down settlements or withdraw from Judea and Samaria, that's fine. He's expressing a respectable opinion. A wrong and uninformed opinion, but a respectable one.

But I have no tolerance for traitors who disseminate enemy propaganda tinged with anti-Jewish stereotypes that have served as the justification for killing Jews throughout the centuries. And that's exactly what Stewart did by making jokes implying that you can't criticize Israel in America.

John Stewart is an empty shell of a man, and he can go to Hell.

So About That Whole Ethnic Cleansing Thing

Commentary has a rather fine article detailing the ACTUAL history leading up to the 1947 War of Independence, and of course, the Nahkba (everybody give our oppressed refugee friends a sniffle and a tear now!). Because you can't celebrate Independence without recognizing the (Greek?) tragedy that was the Nakhba. In fact, I think you shouldn't be able to celebrate anything without reflecting on the Nahkba. Next Saturday, when you're at your great aunt's 65th birthday, you go up to each one of your family remembers and remind them just how much the Palestinians suffered in 1948 and continue to suffer today! When your five year-old cousin Timmy is about to eat some birthday cake, swat it to the floor and tell him "That's what it felt like when the Palestinians were driven from Haifa!" For the more one tells the story of the Nakhba, the more he is to be praised. And if you don't tell the story of the Nakhba every time you so much as crack a smile at the sunset, you are a soulless, Imperialist, Fascist, Zionist lackey (or lapdog).

Teaching the Little Tykes About Anti-Israel Protesters

So the JTA recently posted an article about how kids apparently have trouble dealing with anti-Israel protesters. Time for the Zionist Lapdog primer!

A burst of black balloons ascended toward the gray sky as thousands of area Jews marched down the Philadelphia boulevard waving their blue-and-white flags in support of Israel. . . . "I don't get it," a 9-year-old said to his parents as they tried to explain that these balloons were not meant as symbols of celebration.

Simple, kid. There are people out there that hate Israel. And they will continue to hate Israel, regardless of what Israel does or tries to do to make them happy. So don't bother trying to make them happy or to hate you less. Do stand up for what you believe is right.

With Israel and its supporters marking the nation's 60th anniversary with festivities around the world, pro-Palestinian groups have been unusually assertive in pressing their case that Israel's birth marked a "nakba," or catastrophe, for the Palestinian people.

Message for 9 year-olds: In wars, there are almost always winners and losers. And the losers are usually pretty pissed off that they were not able to vanquish the winners. That does not mean the winners should not be celebrating like there was on tomorrow that they stopped the losers from driving them into the sea.

The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition that includes many anti-Israel organizations, is launching an advertising campaign in New York in advance of the city's June 1 tribute to Israel, which is likely to be the largest celebration of Israel outside the Jewish homeland itself.

I can't wait. Incidentally, the name of that organization is a flat-out lie. It's not a campaign just "to end the Israeli Occupation" (whatever that ultimately means). Rather, this organization favors the so-called "Right of Return." This means they want to flood Israel with millions of Arab "refugees", most of whom have never spent a minute of their lives in the Holy Land, so that the
Arabs can overwhelm the Jews demographically and ultimately take over the country.
Indeed, according to their FAQ, if you're just for "ending the Israeli Occupation" but don't favor this large scale Arab invasion of Israel, "then this would become grounds to review [your] membership with the Campaign." Ain't that sweet?

While debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is commonplace among adults, for children it can be unsettling to see large signs and graffiti denigrating the very state they are celebrating.

I don't really see the big deal here. Kids see unsettling things every day. That's why adults are around to explain things to them as best they can.

In Philadelphia, the parade marchers persevered down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the city's grand boulevard. Spontaneous singing erupted with songs of peace and hope -- "Oseh Shalom," "Hatikvah," "Lo Yisa Goy el Goy Cherev."

The conversations between parents and children were heard everywhere, as the adults sought to explain why protesters were raining on their parade.

Because they hate Israel and have no desire to allow Jews to have their own country.

For some it was an opportunity to educate, to explain and in some instances re-explain that Israelis and Palestinians both claim the land of Israel, that Israel has sought to make peace with the Palestinians but that many Palestinians have opposed it -- some violently -- and that people have the right to express their opinions as long as they do so peacefully.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Not about people being able to express opinions peacefully -- that's fine. But you don't say that "Israelis and Palestinians both claim the land of Israel" as if each has an equally legitimate claim. That is simply not true whether one looks at the Bible, the secular historical record, or international law.

You explain that Jews have the legitimate right to settle and have sovereignty over the land of Israel and that the Arabs have actively and violently opposed this for over a century. They have oppressed Jews in their own Arab lands and have sought and continue to seek to destroy Israel. The fact that the Arabs have failed to do this and are lamenting over their "Nahkba" is exactly why you are celebrating so joyfully.

For others it was more black and white. "Some people want to destroy Israel; we want it to live," one mother was overheard telling her children.

Praise the Lord!

At Israel parades and celebration events nationwide, this confusion has increased with organized anti-Israel activity. From an educational symposium in San Francisco to parades in Sacramento, Milwaukee and beyond, pro-Palestinian activists have been a forceful presence this year.

Nakba events have made a "strong showing this year," said Josh Ruebner, the director of national advocacy for End the Occupation.

"It is very important to put across an alternative message," Ruebner said. Pro-Palestinian groups believe that "the overwhelming discourse about Israel minimizes or ignores the fact that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948."

Okay, we dealt with this issue in the last posting. So I won't rehash my arguments here. Just read the last paragraph for my response to this attempt to put forth an "alaternative message." I don't think there's any obligation to mourn the suffering of the losers who tried to destroy you or to disseminate their propoganda while you celebrate your victory. But I'm, like an extremist and stuff.

Like many of the anti-Israel protesters at several of the demonstrations, Ruebner is Jewish.

"As a Jewish person, I don't believe we should be celebrating at the expense of another people," he said." This is profoundly opposed to Jewish traditions."

That's a profoundly ignorant statement. What do we celebrate on Passover? The destruction of the Egyptain army as we were freed from slavery. On Purim? The killing of Haman and his 75,000 followers who tried to destroy us. On Chanukah? The victory of the Jews over the Syrian-Greeks. And that's just a sampling.

There are few things more central to Jewish history and traditions than the celebrations of our victories over those who attempted to kill us. And the Arabs are no exception to that.

At the JCC of San Francisco, during a May 8 educational symposium in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, anti-Zionist activists staged the largest anti-Israel protest ever to take place in the building, according to a JCC official. Twenty of these protesters were escorted out by the San Francisco Police Department, which was well equipped to deal with the situation due to intense security preparations for the event.

According to Doug Kahn, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, the protest was loud and there was much chanting.

But since the Bay Area is known as a hotbed of action on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian fence, “there was a smooth and effective response," Kahn said.

So apparently they trespassed and attempted to disrupt and educational event by heckling it down. Good to know that such people are so in favor of freedom of expression.

The rest of the article basically deals with parents explaining to their kids that protesters are free to protest under the First Amendment. That's undoubtedly true, but it's not an adequate response or explanation. You have to explain to children why these people are protesting, and why they're wrong.

Israel, The Refugees and the Lebanon War

Counterpunch is a pretty radical Left Wing newsletter that, for whatever reason, devotes a highly disproportionate amount of its time and bandwidth to Israel-bashing. A piece written a couple of days ago by Kathleen M. Barry was no exception. The article is styled as an "open letter" to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi protesting Pelosi's celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary (can there be a greater war crime?).

The first sentence of this screed lectures the Speaker of the House to "[c]heck your history books." Since I am now anticipating an authoritative lecture on the history of the Arab/Israeli Conflict, I naturally skim to the bottom of the article to investigate the author's qualifications to give such a lecture:

Kathleen Barry is Professor Emerita of Penn State University. A feminist and sociologist, she is the author of Female Sexual Slavery, Prostitution of Sexuality: Global Exploitation of Women, and Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist and is now completing Expendable Lives, a new book on masculinity and war.

Nothing there indicates that Barry possesses any level of expertise on the Middle East or that she has read or written even a single sentence about the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Of course, this alone does not discredit her arguments (after all, facts are facts, regardless of who presents them), but it does provide some explanation and context for the silly and completely unsubstantiated arguments that are to follow.

Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel is celebration of the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine, the celebration of the expulsion of 750,000 Arabs who generations later still people the refugee camps of Lebanon, Syria, Jordon [sic], who still mourn their families slaughtered by Zionists as they completely destroyed Arab villages in Palestine, who still hold keys to their homes that were seized by the new Israeli state in 1948.

There are so many mistakes here that it's just laughable. First, her 750,000 figure is inflated. As explained by Middle East scholar Dr. Mitchell Bard in his exhaustively-researched book debunking numerous myths surrounding the Arab/Israeli Conflict:

Many Arabs claim that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1947-49. The last census was taken by the British in 1945. It found approximately 1.2 million permanent Arab residents in all of Palestine. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs living in the country after the war. In 1947, a total of 809,100 Arabs lived in the same area.¹This meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees. A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine arrived at an even lower figure — 472,000, and calculated that only about 360,000 Arab refugees required aid. (emphasis added) (citations omitted)

Second, there was no "ethnic cleansing" in Palestine, at least by any rational definition of that term. After the 1948 War of Independence, about 160,000 Arabs remained as citizens of Israel, and that figure has grown to over 1 million today, which comprises roughly 20% of Israel's population. If one counts the Arab population in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, the total Arab population in what the Arabs consider to be "Palestine" is nearly equal to the Jewish population. So if Israel was engaged in ethnic cleansing, they're, like, really bad at it and stuff.

Third, the implication here is that the refugee problem was somehow caused by the Zionists, who willfully and relentlessly dispossessed the Arab population. This is a complete distortion of the historical record. Historian Efraim Karsh has spent considerable amounts of ink debunking such ridiculous claims. As he wrote in an excellent essay:

The claim of premeditated dispossession is itself not only baseless, but the inverse of the truth. Far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, the Palestinians were themselves the aggressors in the 1948-49 war, and it was they who attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to "cleanse" a neighbouring ethnic community. Had the Palestinians and the Arab world accepted the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947, calling for the establishment of two states in Palestine, and not sought to subvert it by force of arms, there would have been no refugee problem in the first place.

It is no coincidence that neither Arab propagandists nor Israeli "new historians" have ever produced any evidence of a Zionist master plan to expel the Palestinians during the 1948 war. For such a plan never existed. In accepting the UN partition resolution, the Jewish leadership in Palestine acquiesced in the principle of a two-state solution, and all subsequent deliberations were based on the assumption that Palestine’s Arabs would remain as equal citizens in the Jewish state. As David Ben-Gurion, soon to become Israel’s first prime minister, told the leadership of his Labour (Mapai) party on December 3, 1947:

"In our state there will be non-Jews as well-and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as well."

In line with this conception, committees laying the groundwork for the nascent Jewish state discussed in detail the establishment of an Arabic-language press, the improvement of health in the Arab sector, the incorporation of Arab officials in the government, the integration of Arabs within the police and the ministry of education, and Arab-Jewish cultural and intellectual interaction.

That's just a sampling. That whole essay is a must-read. Bard also further debunks the idea that it was the Zionists who forcibly expelled the Arabs. Of course, the fact that there are Arabs suffering in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and wherever else leads to the question of why those countries have allowed that situation to continue. But that is an issue that Barry never addresses. Instead, she writes:

I stand with Jews, with Palestinians, with every people who seek protection from persecution, but never with those who persecute others, who conduct well documented ethnic cleansing to gain their own protection which in six decades of Israeli wars has been no protection at all for Israelis.

Well, it's good to know that the so-called Palestinians don't persecute others. Israel could only dream of one day becoming the beacon of tolerance and pluralism that is the Palestinian Authority. And indeed, six decades of wars have provided no protection for Israel, other than to, like, ward off attempts to destroy it and stuff.

After criticizing Israel for its Original Sin of, um, existing, Barry then goes off on some weird tangent about the 2006 Lebanon War:

I expected George Bush to align himself with the war mongering far right wing government of Israel. He after all provided most of the millions of laser guided smart bombs Israel directed at apartment buildings and cluster bombs that still take lives in the south of Lebanon. Israel’s crimes against humanity in the 2006 Israeli war against Lebanon go unnoticed by you and your delegation as you are only concerned with Hezbollah’s threat to Israel, kidnapping of three soldiers. In that war, the Israeli Air Force launched more than 7,000 air attacks on about 7,000 targets in Lebanon between 12 July and 14 August, while the Navy conducted an additional 2,500 bombardments. Does that sound at all proportional to the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers? Neither are justified, but reason is required, although with your personal convictions override reason making you very dangerous in a position of leadership.

Are those the Israeli tags of kidnapped soldiers you carry from that war? Do you wonder at all about the families of the 1200 dead Lebanese while you worry for those soldiers? Check the details Nancy, Israel’s aggression of Lebanon’s borders has outnumbered Hezbollah’s.

Okay, you heard it here first, folks. The ruling Kadima party is the "war-mongering far right-wing government of Israel." As the link explains, the platform of these Kadima guys and gals is to achieve peace with the Arabs by making land concessions. Filthy war-mongerers!!

In any event, the object of this rant within a rant is to criticize Israel for acting disproportionately in response to the kidnapping of its two soldiers by the Hizbullah terror gang. I hope we can all agree that kidnapping soldiers is an act of war. When you fight a war, the object is to get the enemy to surrender. This is usually done by hitting him with more force than he is able to bring to bear against you -- i.e., by hitting him with disproportionate force. Barry's claim that Israel's aggression somehow "outnumbered" Hizbullah's (huh?) is especially odd given that Hizbullah's missile attacks forced Israel to effectively depopulate the northern portion of the country and make roughly 300,000 people homeless. If anything, the force employed by Israel was not disproportionate enough because those two soldiers unfortunately remain in captivity.

Bathing in self-congratulations on Israel’s 60th anniversary, without any acknowledgment of the Naqba, the disaster wrought upon the Palestinians by Zionist in what was then Palestine, you have told me and all Americans clearly that as Speaker and therefore head of the people’s house, you are not representing Americans. You are representing the current Israeli government without ever questioning, in fact, implicitly condoning their crimes against humanity.

Okay, here's the climax. The rest of the article is basically non-substantive filler so here we go. The whole basis of this article seems to be that it is somehow improper to celebrate Israel's independence without bowing your head to mourn the Nahkba, the tragedy of those who were, of course, dispossessed so the greedy Zionists could have their homeland. Shame on those like President Bush who recognize that, while neither side is perfect, there are good guys and bad guys here, and Israel is the side worthy of celebration. And people without neurotic guilt have no problem celebrating victory over the bad guys even when the bad guys suffered as a result of the war. This isn't really that radical a concept when you think about it. Every July 4, we celebrate this country's independence as a generally positive event. I have never once heard anybody claim on July 4 that we were somehow wrong to celebrate our freedom while ignoring the plight of the victimized Loyalists who opposed the Revolution and therefore were forced to flee the country after having their property confiscated. This happened to tens of thousands of people. Yet you would have trouble finding even one American who expresses a scintilla of guilt over that. As I have written before, I don't do guilt well when it comes to the Arab/Israeli Conflict.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

Latest Western Outrage Against The Musliim World

Once again, the Imperialist (tm) West has invaded the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia is being infiltrated by . . . KABBALAH BRACELETS!

"Dr Abdullah Al-Yusuf, professor of sociology at Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that any imported foreign trendwill have an influence on the society to which it has been introduced and that the consequences of such a trend are considered a form of cultural invasion as new behaviors are adopted..."

Now, granted this is a major concern because the last thing anybody would want is for Saudi Arabian society to change its behaviors, right? Last I checked, Saudi Arabia is a pretty awesome place to live.


Oh, and Hamas thinks Bush is, like, a vampire and stuff. Good day.

Ahmadinejad Wishes Israel a Happy Birthday

Yeah, I know. I haven't posted in a week. The fact is I've been bored with most of the stories surrounding Israel of late. Lately, the most amusing story has been the silly catfight between pro-Israel CAMERA and and anti-Israel Electronic Intifada over Wikipedia, and that's not even entertaining enough to comment on.

But then I hit the jackpot. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, everybody's favorite cuddly psychopath, wished Israel a happy 60th birthday yestderday. Swell of him to take time out of his schedule like that. One thing about Ahmadinejad -- you know if he opens his mouth, something crazy and immensely entertaining is going to come out.

If the "Zionist Regime" (Mahmoud and those who think like him don't like to use to the "I" word) is dying, then why is Mahmoud spending so much time thinking and talking about it? It's really amazing just how obsessed Mahmoud and his ilk are with the "Zionist Regime." Think about it. He's taking time out of his day that could be spent accomplishing something constructive for the Iranians and giving a speech just to say how much he ain't a fan of Zionism. His country spent most of the first day of the Preparatory Session for the World Conference Against Racism trying to kick the Jews out. Not to mention the fact that he's spending billions of his country's wealth (that, again, could be used for more constructive things for Iranians) to build nuclear bombs just to launch at Israel, which, to my knowledge, has never done anything hostile toward Iran. I have to be honest -- I find this obsession to be a tad unhealthy. But more fun awaits:


>>"They should know that regional nations hate this fake and criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to regional nations they will destroy it."<<

Wait, Israel's neighbors hate it? Fo shizzle? Now, "criminal" regime I can sort of understand because I guess you're saying (wrongly) that Israel violates international law. Of course, threatening to destroy a country is a pretty basic violation of Articel 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter:

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

That's not exactly complicated legalese. So yeah, Mahmoud, the next time you want to ID a criminal regime, look in the mirror. He also called Israel "fake". Fake? Israel is a real country with a real government and is a recognized member of the community of nations. Unlike, say, Palestine, which is a fake non-country with a bunch of mass-murdering terror gangs kind of pretending to be a government.

As far as chances to destroy Israel, Mahmoud is REALLY not making sense here. The Arabs have been given PLENTY of chances to destroy Israel. They just haven't succeeded. And that's why Israel is now 60 years old. Happy Nahkba Day, Mahmoud. May you and your terror gang friends celebrate many more.

Hamas Holocaust Fun

I've spent a decent amount of time on this Earth, but I still sometimes make the mistake of thinking I've seen and heard everything when it comes to Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. However, right when I start getting bored, out comes Hamas with something so amusingly insane that my night is made.

Tonight was one of those nights. According to the invaluable Palestinian Media Watch, Hamas TV ran an "educational program" outlining the truth about the Holocaust so that all of us who are so horribly misinformed can finally learn the truth. Buckle up, everyone, because you know what's coming is going to blow your mind. Apparently, Holocaust was a Zionist plot to kill . . . other Jews, specifically handicapped Jews! Upon seeing the title, I was immensely enthusiastic to see what evidence Hamas would be presenting to rebut over sixty years of Holocaust scholarship. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

The video begins with an apparent quote from David Ben Gurion (helpfully identified as "Zionist Leader - Israel's first PM," in case any of the viewers mistakenly thought he was a member of Hamas or something) stating that the "disabled and handicapped are a burden on the state." Now, I'm not too sure what "state" is being referred to here since there wasn't yet an Israel during the Holocaust, but whatever state it was I'm sure was like totally burdened and stuff.

A voiceover then kindly informs us that the "Satanic Jews" (nice) thought up the Holocaust to, well, off handicapped people. We then accused the "Nazis or others" (others?) so the Jews would seem persecuted and would benefit from international sympathy. As a bonus, we are told that these "Satanic Jews" were "the first to invent the methods of evil and oppression." I'm going to take a moment and relish in the awesomeness of that thought: Jews invented evil. I didn't know that evil could be "invented," but if we somehow managed to pull that off, that's kind of cool. Apparently, this particular plan was so meticulously executed that the best minds were misled for over sixty years. It took the Hamas brain trust to bring this nefarious plot to light.

Speaking of said brain trust, we are then introduced to Amin Dabur, the Head of the Palestinian "Center For Strategic Research." Dabur strategically researched this matter to death and concluded that the "Israeli Holocaust" (again, no Israel during the Holocaust) was "a joke," and the "perfect show." Ben-Gurion focused on young people and sent the handicapped off to die or something, curiously adding "if it can be proven historically." (He's unsure?)

Then my minute and a half of entertainment ends with a statement from the narrator that the "alleged" number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was "merely for propaganda." Jimmy Carter keeps great company. So, dear readers, how much of Judea, Samaria and Gaza do you think will satisfy these guys?

They're on to us!

Time for panic, people! The Pepsi connection has been exposed!

We knew this was coming. Just stick to the training:

1. Destroy all Pepsi-related documents immediately (but only with a ZOA-approved shredder to ensure maximum security). If you use a non-ZOA shredder and end up in a gulag, please do not write me a complaint letter. I won't want to hear about it.

2. You can PROBABLY still safely be seen drinking Mountain Dew or Gatorade, but personally, I wouldn't risk it.

3. If anybody with even arguably non-Zionist tendencies approaches you, do not be afraid to use our secret weapon. Your survival might depend on it.

4. If disaster strikes, and you are cornered, use your dying words to congratulate our enemies on their effective use of irony.

5. Nah, strike that one. If you're cornered by a bunch of Hamas radicals, ask them why they're stealing Iran's material from two years ago. Hamas used to be cool, but now Iran is fresh and with it when it comes to the forefront of Jihad. All Hamas can do is plagiarize them. While this sad reality sinks in, make your escape and help continue our quest for world domination!

More Jimmy Carter Awesomeness and More Fun with the UN

Today started off as a nice relaxing Sunday. I slept late and sat down to watch Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer as I ate my bagel and lox. Suddenly, Wolf announces he will be interviewing none other than our pal, Jimmy Carter about Jimbo's meetings with Hamas. You know my thought: awesome!

Wolf begins by playing a clip of a speech from President Bush denouncing Jimbo's meeting with the mass-murdering terror gang. Now, we know "Dubya" isn't exactly Abraham Lincoln when it comes to political oratory, and admittedly, yeah, he fumbled this one. Bush said almost nothing useful and stammered and stuttered about how Hamas would not recognize Israel, refused to endorse the so-called "Two State Solution," and was generally an "obstacle to peace." Of course, the problem with such a statement is that it implies that if Hamas were out of the picture, peace would be more likely to occur. Of course, as you know, faithful readers, this is a position I completely reject.

Carter responded by chortling mightily about how Bush OBVIOUSLY did not understand Hamas's TRUE positions because, dagnabbit, he met with their leaders, and while they seem all tough and musky on the outside, they're really just a nice bunch of guys who enjoy cuddling kittens and grooving to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

See, the Hamas leaders told Carter (after they crossed their hearts and hoped to die) that they wanted a ceasefire. And more important, they would recognize and abide by any peace agreement (including, Carter believes, one that would recognize Israel), so long as it was approved by a popular referendum of the Arabs living in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Wolf, who is not completely oblivious, makes two points. First, Hamas spokespeople vigorously disputed Carter's account of the meetings and what was promised. And second, such statements fly in the face of what Hamas has proclaimed publicly, both to their own people in Arabic and to the West.

Carter's response was, well, Carter-like. He stated these Hamas spokespeople disputing his statements were low-level dudes on the totem pole, while he had met with the "high leaders" of Hamas. Unfortunately, Wolf didn't press Carter any further, and the conversation then moved to the Democratic Primary.

I really wish Wolf had confronted Carter with some of the statements that I have previously documented, along with the many others Hamas has made both disparaging Jews and declaring their unwillingness to recognize Israel.

At the very least, Wolf could have shown Carter the recent statement from Khaled Mashal (one of the leaders Carter met with) that the ceasefire, or "Tahdiah", that Hamas proposed "is a tactical means. It is a step within the resistance and is not detached from it." Mashal went on to say that:

"'It is only natural for any resistance movement, which cares about the interests of its people, to bear in mind the general Palestinian condition. At times, it generates an escalation, and at times, it withdraws a little. It is a process of ebb and flow, going up and down. This is how you run a battle. Hamas is renowned for this.

'In 2003, we began a tahdiah, and later renewed the operations. The same thing happened following 2005. Hamas conducted resistance from within the government, as well as when it was not in the government. This is a method of conflict management.'"

So, yeah, I guess it never occurred to Carter that Hamas might just be utilizing him as a useful idiot to improve their PR in the West.

In other news, there was a lot more fun at this Durban II Prep Session the past couple of weeks. Anne Bayefsky has two recent columns describing what went on. Both are excellent reads.

The April 23 column is especially fun. There, Bayefsky describes how the Arab/Muslim delegations argued that the only way to truly fight racism and oppression is well . . .with more oppression and less freedom (as I keep saying, satire is obsolete):

"The Egyptian representative gave a good summary of most everything wrong with Durban II. He claimed the conference and its preparatory process should focus on criminalizing “racial profiling,” “racism in the media,” “the challenges posed by Islamophobia since the events on 9/11,” and “instrumentalization of democratic processes for racist applications.” In short, racism is an evil Western plot to victimize Muslims, who can only be protected by the undermining of democracy, freedom, and law enforcement."

And then came my favorite part:

"While the European Union attendees stayed in their seats, the assault on democracy carried on. Algeria said “freedom of expression spread[s] hatred and violence and lead[s] to the burning of mosques in ‘advanced’ countries.” Syria ranted about “the crimes that are perpetrated in the name of democracy” and the “killers” that “are countries that advocate democracy . . . and give [a] free hand to perpetrate massacres.” *

Yes, indeed. Freedom of expression leads to mosque-burnings. I mean, what can I really add to that? Jimmy Carter could not have said it better. I fear that as I wrote this note, a child weeps in the distance as a mosque burns.

*Syria is, of course, uniquely qualified to educate the world as to what leads a nation to perpetrate an old-school massacre.

The UN Spends Our Money Bashing Canadian Jews

Update: The Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy has withdrawn its application to attend the UN Conference on racism. Nice start to the Conference: The Jews have been successfully excluded.

A couple of weeks ago, the glorious UN began its two-week preparatory session for the "Durban II" World Conference on Racism that will take place next year. I'm sure all of you are VERY excited, right? So how does this preparatory session begin? Well, channeling the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, there was a two-and-a-half hour fight about whether or not the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, an NGO, should be accredited and allowed to attend the conference. According to the National Review's Anne Bayefsky, this took up roughly three-quarters of the entire opening day.

So, yeah, the first day of the newest World crusade against racism was spent, um, trying to keep the Jews out. The fact that the world insists on spending so much of its time thinking about us Jews is just so empowering in a way. Who led this latest obsession with the Children of Israel? Why, Iran, of course, with Egypt, Pakistan, Algeria and the delegation from the Palestinian Authority in tow.* Progressive, anti-racist nations, right? Dr. King would be so proud.

In case there was any doubt that satire has been rendered obsolete, the reasoning behind the opposition made me fall out of my chair:

"Ezrin said Iran is objecting in part because the Canadian Council is not involved in anti-racism or anti-discrimination work."

As opposed to Iran, which is totally the world's bastion of tolerance and anti-discrimination (this is at least partly true, I guess -- they don't discriminate against Holocaust Deniers). Just ask all of Iran's apparently non-existent homosexuals.

Of course, this would be the perfect opportunity for SOMEBODY to point out that Iran (and its lackeys) are supporting the overtly racist PA (since, as we've discussed several times, one has to be an Arab to be a Palestinian under the PLO Covenant). But such things only happen in my fantasies, I suppose.

To add more hilarity, according to Bayefsky, "Algeria was concerned about Jewish money, or 'their sources of funding.'" Gotta watch out for those perfidious Jews and their Jew money, right? Some might think that's a rather ironic statement to be making during a preparatory session for a conference that's supposed to be fighting bigotry, old prejudices and intolerance, but I just see it as further proof that we don't need comedy writers to be adequately entertained.

Not to be outdone, the Palestinian Authority Representative argued that "the NGO supported Israeli settlements and no NGO supporting an illegal activity could be involved in Durban II." First the settlements are NOT illegal for various reasons (but that's far too boring to cover in this Note). Second, that statement is rather ludicrous given the PA's overt use and support of numerous indisputably illegal activities, most notably war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from attacks aimed exclusively at civilians. The idea that the representative of a "government" led by HAMAS, which prides itself on breaking the rules of war and civilization, could oppose anything based on "illegal activities" and do so with a straight face is really quite astounding.

Finally, Bayefsky reported that "Algeria and Egypt voiced their support for rejecting this NGO’s accreditation on the basis that inclusion would be 'political' and 'politics must be set aside.'" That is just awesome beyond words.

So to recap, the first day preparing for the World Racism Conference was spent trying to keep the Jews out and making ridiculous and often overtly anti-Jewish remarks. All in a day's work at the UN. And the best part is, THEY SCHEDULED ANOTHER DEBATE on the issue for next week. So even more time and money (wouldn't be surprised if it's most of the day again) will be wasted bickering about whether or not to let the Jews in. Just so empowering. I love it.

*It is well-known, of course, that Iran loves Jews.

Jimmy Carter is Awesome

A couple of weeks ago on The Office, Pam Beesly was stuck at her boss Michael Scott's torturous dinner party. Suddenly, when it seemed as though things could not get any worse, Pam's, um, eccentric co-worker Dwight Schrute crashed the party with his old baby-sitter as his "date" ("Purely carnal. That's all you need to know."). Pam, realizing that this party was about to get a LOT more entertaining, smiled to herself and whispered quite possibly the best line I've heard on television all year: "Awesome."

That is how I feel every time I see a new article about Jimmy Carter. Jimmy is in the news again, this time defending his meeting with exiled Hamas mass-murderer Khaled Mashal.

Lots of people I know hate Carter and call him an anti-Semite along with other pejoratives. Try as I might, I just can't bring myself to hate the guy. To me, he's just an uninformed, yet oddly entertaining, doofus when it comes to the Middle East. Hating him for that is like hating a second-grader because he can't understand Calculus and sounds kind of funny every time he tries to talk about it.

As Carter says,

"I feel quite at ease in doing this. . . . I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."

See? Totally awesome. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you're wondering "What would Neville Chamberlain say?," just Google a Carter quote about Hamas, and you'll probably have your answer.

Carter then got more specific about his reasoning:

"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind," he said.

So Carter wants to assess Hamas's flexibility, huh? He must not read very much because Hamas has touted in the past just how flexible they are. They'd be happy to renounce violence and live in peace as long as Israel withdraws from . . . all of Israel:

"Abu Marzouk: "One of Hamas’s founding principals is that it does not recognize Israel. We [participated in] the elections and the people voted for us based on this platform. Therefore, the question of recognizing Israel is definitely not on the table unless it withdraws from ALL the Palestinian lands, not only to the 1967 borders. How can we be expected to recognize an occupying entity when millions of our people are refugees, and thousands of others are prisoners!? Why must we recognize them when they do not recognize us as a sovereign state with full independence?"

See? They're TOTALLY flexible. And if the Neville Chamberlain analogy seems like hyperbole, keep in mind that the Hamas Charter includes some pretty kick-ass old-school Antisemitism:

"Article Twenty-Two:

For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it."

Yup. The Freemasons and Rotary Clubs. Starting World War I, World War II, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution. They went there. I'm just a bit surprised they glossed over the Jewish role in starting the First Punic War because that was some pretty underhanded stuff.

But don't beat up poor Jimmy over this. He's probably never even read the Hamas Covenant or any substantive quotes from Hamas officials. In fact, I read that book of his last year, and it seemed like, well, he hasn't read much of anything on the Middle East. The only citations in the entire book are to two prior books Carter himself wrote. I won't get into the pervasive factual inaccuracies because they've been covered fairly well elsewhere (camera.org and Alan Dershowitz both did a decent debunking).

But overall, that book was a disorganized mess. Carter constantly vacillated between giving his own first-hand experiences and describing the "history" of the conflict (no footnotes or endnotes, of course). There was a fun controversy where Dennis Ross accused Carter of stealing the maps that were originally in Ross's book. Of course, this can't really be verified because the maps in Carter's book were completely silent as to their sources. The book did have an appendix, which contained an odd set of documents related to the conflict which seemed to be assembled almost randomly. For example, Carter decided to include Israel's objections to the famous Road Map for Peace without actually including the Road Map itself.

On one page early in the book, Carter describes the PLO as an "umbrella" of different groups who were using different means to accomplish their goals (notably, Carter doesn't identify these goals). The implication appears to be that some members of the PLO are either opposed to violence or don't utilize it. That, of course, is blatantly contradicted by Article 9 of the PLO Charter, which explicitly states that "armed struggle" is the only way to liberate "Palestine".

A bit later, Carter took Yasser Arafat at his word when Arafat told him that the PLO never sought to destroy Israel. That's just great comedy. Of course, later in the book, Carter alludes to the fact that the PLO promised during the Oslo process to amend its Charter to take out the provisions that called for Israel's destruction. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up (in fairness, Carter didn't actually quote any of the provisions at issue, which leads me to believe he's never actually read the PLO Covenant).

My favorite, though, was a tiny sentence buried at the end of one of the chapters where Carter muses wistfully about how the blood of Abraham flows through "Arabs, Christians, and Jews." Not Muslims, Christians and Jews. Arabs, Christians, and Jews, as if there are no Arab Christians or Arab Jews.

By this point, the book was getting pretty hard to read because I was giggling at the end of every sentence. So have some understanding for me. I just can't bring myself to hate Jimmy Carter. He's just too awesome.

Obama on Israel

If anybody needs any proof that Barack Obama is pretty much an empty suit when it comes to certain issues, this article is a pretty nice read. Obama spoke to the Jewish Telegraph Agency and gave his views on the Middle East. Like a Newsday editorial, he came off as comically uninformed, repeating most of the politically correct platitudes regardless of the amount of cognitive dissonance required to reconcile some of them.

Consider the very first thing Obama says: "My belief is that Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East, one of our strongest allies anywhere in the world." Okay. But then:

"The U.S. role 'requires listening to both sides and talking to both sides," Obama said. "That requires that we don't dismiss out of hand the concerns of the Palestinians because there's no way we can move forward in those negotiations without at least understanding their perspective.'"

Sorry, Barack, this is nonsensical. If you're in an alliance with somebody, and that person has a dispute with a third party, you support your ally in that dispute. That's what being in an alliance involves. You don't "talk to both sides" and/or mediate. This is one thing the Arabs are absolutely right about. The US can't deem itself an "honest broker" or neutral mediator while at the same time lauding its strong alliance with Israel. That's trying to have it both ways, and the failure of most US politicians and diplomats to understand this basic concept has led us to the joke of a failure that has been the so-called "Peace Process."

Now, in fairness, it's been a long-held belief of mine that there's no such thing as an "honest broker" when it comes to this conflict. The Arab/Israeli conflict has emotional implications for the majority of the world. And those emotions undoubtedly inform the opinions people have (and of course this is especially true for somebody like me). Anybody who claims to be "neutral" or "objective", for the most part, is either deluded or lying. Even people who honestly try to be objective are ultimately picking one side or the other based purely on the vocabulary they use to describe the conflict, but THAT is a topic for another Note.

Of course, Barack Obama does not understand any of that. He's in the "common sense camp," you see. I always chuckle when I read things like that because of the immense amount of arrogance inherent in such statements. Obama's views are so obviously right (or "Wright", get it? Ha!!!) that anybody who disagrees with him is obviously not using common sense. I give my opinions and do my best to provide factual support for them. At the end of the day, you either agree or disagree. But if I say something as ludicrous as "I'm in the common sense camp," somebody please slap me. (I will, however, not waiver in my belief that anybody who thinks that what Israel does is equivalent to the Holocaust is clinically bonkers.)

Of course, Obama's statements seem to betray a lack of common sense, or at the very least, a lack of information.

"For a settlement to be reached, Obama said, Palestinians must make great strides in recognizing Israel's security needs and abandon the goal of an unfettered right of return for Palestinians that would undermine Israel's existence as a Jewish state."

As I have pointed out, Abbas EXPLICITLY stated that the Arabs would NEVER recognize Israel as a Jewish state. So what, exactly, is the point of negotiating with them and making concessions to them? In that same Note, I also touched on why the Arabs were unlikely to give up the so-called "Right of Return."

What Obama is implicitly recognizing when he says the above-quoted statement is that at present, the Arabs want to destroy Israel, or at least want to destroy Israel as it currently exists with Jews in the majority and in control of the government. Yet, he clearly makes no attempt to understand WHY that's the case and treats that desire as nothing more than a bargaining chip that can be traded away in a negotiation (like Israel dismantling outposts on hills).

It's immensely comical that somebody who prides himself on being so willing to "listen[] to both sides" has so little understanding of where the Arabs are coming from and what motivates them.

So yeah, empty suit. But, hey, it's all about "Hope" and "Change", right?

Israel Demonstrates Testicular Fortitude

I'm as surprised as anybody, given that Richard Falk is exactly the trendy Leftist type that Israelis try to woo all the time under the highly mistaken impression that making concessions to the enemy will get such people to like them.

Falk, who compared Israel's treatment of the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza to to the Holocaust, is the new "United Nations official appointed to investigate Israeli-Palestinian human rights." Sounds like the right man for the job, right?

Well, Falk stood by his Holocaust comments, and Israel, for once, actually took a stand, refusing to allow this degenerate to enter the country. While I fully support this, I have to say that I found the the responsive comments from Israel rather tame:

"The Foreign Ministry spokesperson called Falk's comments 'unacceptable and, in fact, a little strange.'

'To compare Israel to the Nazis is not just a total falsehood, it's also a personal insult to everybody," he said, adding that the choice of Falk is indicative of the Human Rights Council's negative attitude toward Israel. "Of all the people to be able to appoint, to find somebody who compares Israel to the Nazis is very bizarre and outrageous,' he said."

Well, yes, all that is true, but I think you need to go further. Quite frankly, if Falk really believes that what Israel does is in any way comparable to Germany's mass genocide of World Jewry during the Holocaust, he's not just wrong and being insulting. He's freaking insane. This man is not mentally competent enough to head a party planning committee, much less play a leading role in a major international organization (though, in fairness, the UN Human Rights Council is one of the most ridiculous organizations on the planet, so maybe it is a good fit). As Steinbrenner said to George on Seinfeld, "You're non copus mentus! You got some bats in the belfry!"

And this is not the only issue either. This dude at least strongly suspects that, um, "the Neoconservatives" (not just particular neoconservatives?) caused 9/11.

In fact, perhaps Israel is taking the wrong action here. Perhaps the wisest course would be to let Faulk into the country and then commit him to a mental institution. That way he's not a threat to himself or anybody else.

The fact that Falk used to teach International Law at Princeton is downright scary.