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.

Let the Truth Come Out At Durban II

So apparently we're gearing up for the next big World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2009, and the US, Israel and Canada are already talking about boycotting the thing if the text of the declaration isn't to their liking. I remember the first Durban love-fest from eight years ago, right before 9/11. Back then, this conference that was supposed to be about WORLD racism got bogged down with petty fights and the usual accusations against Israel, instead of, you know, actually talking about racism. So the US and Israel got all huffy puffy and bolted the thing (with the contemptible Shimon Peres of course expressing his oh so deep regret at having to do so).

This, of course, accomplished little, and only allowed the anti-Israel crowd to express their hatred before a worldwide forum with no opposition (the most vicious stuff actually took place at an NGO Forum outside the boundaries of the conference).

And now they're doing the same thing again. The US, Israel and Canada are all puffing their chests and threatening to boycott if the World doesn't do a good enough job of pretending it has something other than hatred for Israel.

This type of thing happens all the time with the UN -- the best example was the 16 years of political arm-twisting to get enough countries to pretend to repeal the infamous "Zionism is a form of racism" General Assembly resolution (I don't think that resolution was ever TRULY repealed, but that's a topic for another day). I just don't get it.

To me, there's nothing wrong with having the truth on display. If the world thinks Zionism is racism, or that the Holocaust (capital "H") isn't unique, fine. Let them say that. I want to know how they REALLY feel. Don't make back room deals to get them to lie while thinking the nasty thoughts (and ultimately acting on them) anyway. Heck, the UN doesn't even try to hide its feelings most of the time. It spends literally 1/3 of its time either condemning Israel or basking the suffering of the Palestinians, who are, of course, the most unjustly oppressed minority on the planet (if only the blacks in Darfur realized how good they have it!). Every November 29 (the anniversary of the 1947 General Assembly Partition Resolution), the UN celebrates its annual "Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People." Seriously. So let them say what they want at conference. If nothing else, it will probably be immensely entertaining.

The proper response is not to boycott this circus, but to send your toughest folks over there to rub the barbarians' face in their idiocy with the whole world watching. I'd love it for once for somebody from Israel or the other parts of the civilized world to say "Zionism is racism? Are you retarded? There are Israelis of virtually every race on the planet. If you want so real racism, read the PLO Covenant, which explicitly states in Article 5 that you have to be an Arab (a RACE) in order to be considered a Palestinian. That's some bitchin' old-school racism right there. Talking about Zionism, which has absolutely nothing to do with race, at a conference on racism is just downright nutty." The response to that would probably be worth the price of admission alone.

The "Moderate" Mahmoud Abbas

I saw this a few weeks ago from the Middle East Media Research Institute and had to write about it. Some absolutely priceless statements are in there from Mahmoud Abbas. You know Abbas, right? He's the secular "moderate" peace-lover who is the Great Hope for ending the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Never mind the fact that Abbas was Arafat's number 2 guy in the PLO for roughly 40 years while they were conducting more terrorist attacks than Hamas could ever dream of. Never mind that the reason we call Abbas "Dr." is that he wrote a Ph.D thesis arguing: (i) that the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis; and (ii) that the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was purposefully inflated to further Zionist aims.

Isn't that so cute and moderate? Don't you just want to pinch his cheek? And oh yeah, he probably personally financed the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.

But back to the MEMRI article. See, the big difference between the PLO and Hamas is that the PLO recognized (say it with me now) "Israel's Right to Exist." This is the big thing preventing the US from dealing with Hamas -- they won't say those magic words. So yeah, the PLO will recognize the right of us Jews to live in Israel while Hamas won't. Um, not so much, according to a briefing our Peace Prince gave to a Jordanian newspaper at the end of February:

"Abbas stressed that he is opposed to the so-called 'Jewish state,' saying, We already rejected such a proposal at the Annapolis summit, last November in the U.S. [In fact,] the summit almost broke up over this issue. We were asked at the time [to agree] that the summit's concluding statement should refer to the Jewish state – but we categorically objected to this..."

Read that again so it fully sinks in. They will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Of course, this is not very surprising since PA negotiator Saeb Erekat said basically the same thing several weeks ago (with just as little coverage from the media). In January 2001, Faisal Husseini, another "moderate" the Israelis thought they could deal with, told an Egyptian newspaper that the Oslo Accords were a "Trojan Horse" and that the ultimate strategic goal remained the same: all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The goals of the PLO are what they always have been: declare a "Palestinian State" in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and deluge Israel proper with millions of Arabs through the so-called "Right of Return" to take over the country demographically and ultimately unite the whole area as "Palestine" with a large Arab majority ruling over the Dhimmi Jews just like old times.

Abbas even has a nice "moderate" attitude when it comes to lobbing missiles at helpless civilians. They're not bad because killing civilians is bad. No, they're bad because they provide a "pretext" for Israel to hit back (note to Radical Islamists: terrorism often does make civilized people want to hit back).

In fairness to Abbas, it's perfectly rational and understandable for him not to be satisfied with a nice cuddly little state next to Israel. His family isn't from the "Occupied Territories." He was born in Safed, from where his family fled the fighting in 1948. So giving back the territory conquered in 1967 doesn't settle the issue for him at all. Nor does it settle the issue for the PLO, most of whom come not from Judea, Samaria or Gaza, but from families who also fled Israel proper from 1947-49.

Under the Palestinian Narrative, which Mahmoud Abbas wholly subscribes to, their land was stolen out from under them by foreign,imperialist, colonialist (insert further pedantic-sounding pejoratives here) Jews, they want it ALL back, and they're willing to fight for it for as long as it takes. Just read the PLO Covenant.

So why this "Palestinian State" business? Why this Trojan Horse? Well, during the Cold War, the PLO was heavily allied with the Soviets, and the Soviets taught them to say things the West wanted to hear. No more driving the Jews into the sea and destroying Israel. Now it's all about the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, about vindicating universally recognized human rights under (drum roll please) International Law (don't worry, we're not going there with this note). So in 1974, the Palestinian National Council passed what is known as the "Phased Plan." Basically, the PLO would take any portion of "Paleistine" it was offered and declare a provisional state. But the endgame remains the same -- use the "Palestinian State" as a launching point to take over the rest of the land.

THAT is the "moderate" philosophy of Mahmoud Abbas. And that's why the so-called "Two State Solution" is no less fictional than Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

More Collective Punishment

Now this is typical barbarian morality:

"Say, Achmed, I'm like totally pissed off that our brothers are being slain in Gaza by the Jews with the collaboration of the Western states"

"Yes, Salah, this is a bigger tragedy than Sanjaya getting so far on American Idol, but how can we seek retribution?"

"Why, kidnap two Austrian tourists, duh! No country has a longer history of being friendly to the Jews than Austria, right?"

Humor aside, this is collective punishment and vicious envy at their worst. You know, the same "collective punishment" the Arabs always accuse Israel of inflicting on the pure and innocent civilians of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. Unlike Israel's actions, though, this fits the bill. These tourists were kidnapped (which most rational people, I think, would consider a form of punishment) not because of anything THEY did but because of generalized grievances against the West. Think about the immense injustice here. The two victims probably never hurt an Arab or Muslim in their lives. In addition, since they're not from the US, Israel, or, um, Micronesia (Yay Micronesia for its consistently pro-Israel UN votes!), the odds are we're not dealing with two flag-bearers for the Zionist cause. I've never hurt an Arab or Muslim either, but if they came after me, at least they could truthfully say that I'm a Zionist Lapdog who is not too fond of the whole "Palestine" business. But THESE people? What did they ever do?

There's also a rather vicious envy at work here. These Al Qaeda guys just can't accept the fact that people in the West go to Africa on vacation while their darling brothers in so-called Palestine are killed by the dastardly Israelis (who are like totally backed by the monolithic West in everything they do, of course). It was the same deal during the Lebanon war in the 1980's. The PLO started bombing East Beirut not to achieve any military objective, but just because it wasn't fair in their mind that their strongholds in West Beirut were being bombed to smithereens while the people in East Beirut still got to lead something resembling a normal life.

Of course, the world will issue its usual half-hearted "condemnations" which will accomplish nothing. The proper response is to rub the noses of these barbarians and their supporters in their blatant hypocrisy and demand that they and those who support them be held fully accountable for their barbaric acts via noose or firing squad.

Freedom Fighting, Barbarian-Style

This article was my response to the barbaric terrorist attack at the Yeshiva at the beginning of March:

I'm almost at a loss for words over this. The worst part was how some of the famous "innocent civilians" reacted:

"About 7,000 Gazans marched in the streets of Jebaliya, firing in the air in celebration, and visited homes of those killed and wounded in the last Israeli incursion. In the southern town of Rafah, residents distributed sweets to moving cars, and militants fired mortars in celebration. "

That's right. The mass murder of religious students studying in a seminary is a cause for celebration. The fact that so many are convinced that peace with such depraved people is possible never ceases to amaze me.

Larry Miller Dances on Arab Dead Bodies

Seriously, is that a kick-ass article title or what? Anyway, here is what it refers to to. Larry Miller, a long-time friend of Israel and one of the rare sane people out there who has retained his sense of right and wrong, was sticking up for war crime victims in Israel (how awesome would it be if the Israeli media actually said that when referring to Sderot?):

Of course, an Arab blogger, for reasons known only to him, labeled this as, I kid you not, "dancing on our dead bodies."

Yes, raising money for victims of rocket attacks directed at civilians involves dancing on Arab dead bodies. Unfortunately, this is very often the type of argumentation one has to deal with when perusing anti-Israel blogs. I especially love the first commenter on the Arab blog who says that he sees literally no difference between what's going on in Gaza and the Holocaust. In other words, precision attacks aimed at terrorists who consciously hide themselves among the civilian population (in gross violation of the laws of war) are the functional equivalent of the Holocaust, albeit, as the commenter argues, using different means (i.e., not gassing 10,000 people a day in an effort to eradicate every so-called Palestinian on Earth). Ironically, Sderot is a town largely inhabited by refugees of Arab countries, who were the victims of some old-school ethnic cleansing by the Arabs shortly after Israel was established.

My response to these Holocaust/"ethnic cleansing" arguments is always pretty much the same. If Israel is conducting a holocaust, ethnic cleansing or whatever, they're like REALLY bad at it and stuff, given how dramatically the Arab population (and their standard of living) has increased in Judea and Samaria and Gaza since the Six-Day War in 1967. If you're trying to eradicate a population, giving them a better life than pretty much anywhere else in the Middle East probably isn't the best way of going about it. But hey, Bizzaro World and all, right?

Collective Punishment and Projection

Now THIS is an awesome article! In short, Michael I. Krauss, a law professor at George Mason University, completely demolishes the collective punishment claim the Arabs have made with respect to the blockade of Gaza. It only leads to the rather sad question of why such an article is published in the AMERICAN Thinker rather than in a press release from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Krauss makes some of the same points I did in my note titled "Israel's Media Problems" -- namely that the blockade, rather than being illegal collective punishment, is a perfectly legal instrument of war under international law. His analogy was slightly different than mine though. Krauss pointed to the U.S. blockade of Cuba in 1962, which had far less of an adverse effect on the citizens of that country than the Union's blockade of the Confederacy, which I referenced. The point, though, is that all of these blockades were perfectly appropriate under international law. If anything, Israel's blockade is MORE legal than what occurred during the Cuban missile crisis. While missiles were installed in Cuba and aimed at the United States, Cuba, to my knowledge, never took any actual military action against the United States. In contrast, Hamas fires missiles at Israeli civilians every day.

The last paragraph is especially refreshing since it refers to an instance of psychological projection, a recurring trend in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arabs falsely accuse Israel of "collective punishment" against their civilian population. However, as Krauss points out, it is HAMAS who commits acts of collective punishment by launching missiles exclusively at civilians to collectively punish the Israeli population for the actions of its government and military.

Most Arab grievances against Israel simply involve the Arabs psychologically projecting their own acts and crimes onto the Israelis. My favorite example is the rather amusing charge that "Zionism is racism." Of course, this is plainly absurd to any rational person since there are Israelis of just about every race on the planet. Contrast this with the PLO Covenant, which explicitly states that to be a "Palestinian", you have to be an Arab (or at least have an Arab ancestor):

"Article 5:The Palestinians are those ARAB nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian." (emphasis added)

Other articles of the Covenant also equate being a Palestinian with being an Arab, such as:

"Article 1:Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation."

Also, while I'm on the topic of the glorious PLO Covenant, I would be remiss not to point out Article 9, which kind of puts all of the fool's errand Peace Plans we've suffered through into perspective:

"Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it."

I Dare Call It Treason

I expect to see a lot of ineptitude from the Israeli media, but this dropped even my jaw to the floor. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz gave Op-Ed space to Ahmed Yousef, a purported "senior political advisor to the foreign minister in the Hamas government." That sounds all official and statesman-like, doesn't it? I would refer to him as nothing more than a barbaric member of a mass-murdering terror gang, but that's the difference between Ha'aretz and me, I guess. (I can't help but wonder how many junior political advisors there are to the foreign minister in the Hamas government, but we'll save that chuckle for another day).

Nevertheless, the issue is not the veil that Ha'aretz throws over this murderer to make him seem like something other than a barbarian. It's that they gave him any space at all to spew his propaganda and to justify his mass murder. Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the specifics of Israeli law when it comes to treason. I do know that the United States Constitution, which has one of the strictest definitions of treason in the world, speaks of providing aid and comfort to an enemy of the state during a time of war.

Nobody can rationally dispute that Israel is at war with Hamas, which denies its right to exist and claims the right to lob missiles and bombs at civilians without even the pretext of a military target. What greater aid and comfort can one provide to an enemy than giving him space in your own newspaper to disseminate his propaganda? I can only imagine what the reaction would have been if the London Times had opened up its editorial page to Joachim Von Ribbentrop in 1943. This is no different. Say what you will about Newsday or the New York Times, but they would never open up their Op-Ed page to Ayman Al-Zawahri.

This is sickening, and it is probably a serious crime at that. In a sane world, the person or people that made this decision to give the enemy space for his propaganda would be immediately arrested. But as I've said, we live in Bizzaro World. And in Bizzaro World, treason is cool, I guess.

The Hamas "Coup" and Bizzaro World

Here is another article I wrote about the so-called Hamas "coup" in Gaza:

Media coverage of the Arab/Israeli conflict often offers us a glimpse into Bizzaro World, and this Reuters article is no exception. You see, in the Bizzaro World of the so-called Palestinian Authority, the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip earlier this year was, in the words of Husni Mubarak, a "coup against legitimacy." Palestinian "President" and Holocaust Denier (we'll deal with that another time) Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to "end its coup in Gaza," calling Hamas "an 'illegitimate party.'"

Of course, anybody with short-term memory will surely realize that what Hamas did in Gaza was not a coup -- in fact, it was quite the opposite. While Hamas is an evil, mass-murdering terror gang, the fact of the matter is that they won the PA elections in January 2006 overwhelmingly. No less of an authority than the great Jimmy Carter himself signed off on those elections as legitimate.

The problem was that Abbas's Fatah guys didn't like the results of that election and refused to give up their offices. So after numerous attempts at negotiations and intermittent violence, Hamas basically decided earlier this year to simply seize the power they'd won in the election by force. Whatever that is, it's certainly not a coup since it involves the (apparently) legitimately elected government seizing the very power it had lawfully won.

The problem is that the US and the West in general, having preached the virtues of democracy in the Arab world, were taken aback by this result. They sought to do whatever they could to keep Abbas and his particular terror gang in power since they are the "moderate" good Jew-killers who will bring peace in our time (as opposed to Hamas, who, as everybody knows, are the "radical" bad Jew-killers).

So the US is only too happy to put forth the Bizzaro World scenario where Abbas and Fatah are the "legitimate" rulers of the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas is unlawfully pulling off an insidious coup. It's as if those 2006 elections never happened. That way, you can pretend Abbas is the spirited leader the PA carrying the flag of peace while Hamas is the "fringe" extremist group obstructing peace with their dastardly coup. Quite brilliant, really.

Israel's Media Problems

Pro-Israel friends often ask me why the media is so "biased" against Israel. My response is usually that Israel does such an inadequate job of advocating its case to the world that really, who could blame the media? In most situations, Israel allows the terms of the debate to be framed in such a manner that it's almost impossible to logically lead to a pro-Israel viewpoint.

The pathetic and wrong-headed Israeli response to a recent resolution passed by the Human Rights Commission is a perfect example of this. That resolution "demands the lifting of the blockade on Gaza and calls for international action to protect Palestinian civilians."

Instead of defending its blockade as a legitimate weapon of war against a terror gang hell-bent on its destruction, Israel "was busy lobbying UNSC member countries to amend the draft presidential statement to include condemnation of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, which the original neglects to mention."

So in effect, what we have is one side saying "Israel is taking illegal, illegitimate actions," and the other side, rather than defending the actions it is taking, meekly responds "you must condemn both sides." This is almost always the Israeli response to UN resolutions -- yeah, we may have done something wrong, but condemn both sides, please. Is it any wonder that so many people come out of such a discussion with an anti-Israel viewpoint?

Hamas and its fellow terror gangs have been firing rockets into Israel from Gaza for years. They established full control over Gaza earlier this year and have said on numerous occasions that they will continue their attacks in one form or another until Israel is destroyed. This is war. And the effects of that war have been felt dramatically in Sderot, which even apart from physical casualties, has been completely crippled economically (though both the media and the UN have largely ignored THAT humanitarian crisis).

Israel is in a war right now, and a blockade has always been accepted as a legitimate way of fighting a war -- cutting off the enemy's access to resources and supplies until he agrees to stop fighting -- even if civilians suffer the effects. One of the primary weapons the Union used against the Confederacy during the Civil War was a blockade, and Confederate cities were often besieged and cut off until they surrendered. I daresay that the residents of Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863 would probably scoff at the fabricated "humanitarian crisis" that Gaza purports to face today.

But nothing like that ever comes out of the mouths of Israeli diplomats.

Newsday on Israel

I'll give this blog a kick start by posting columns I wrote a while back on Facebook. Here is my response to an unintentionally funny Newsday editorial on the so-called Peace Process.

Every now and then, the Newsday editorial staff writes a piece on Israel and all of the obstacles to the heralded so-called "Peace Process." Usually, they come off as comically uninformed, and this six-paragraph gem was no exception.

Putting the substance aside for the moment, Newsday's ridiculous use of metaphors to describe the state of the peace process is comedy gold in and of itself. In the first sentence, we learn that the peace process has been "resurrected", but apparently, at the same time, it "may be heading for the grave." Before it reaches the grave, however, Newsday laments that "another nail was driven into the coffin." How that's possible is a mystery to me. Mind you, this "nail" was driven not by Hamas's rocket attacks on Israel, but when, in Newsday's words, "Israel RESPONDED to Hamas rocket attacks by imposing a blockade on the Gaza Strip." (emphasis mine).

Newsday then refers to "feeble efforts at restarting the peace process, already weakened by an Israeli plan to add more settlements to East Jerusalem." So apparently now our peace process, while "weakened", has been "resurrected", but not yet fully "restarted," albeit while nails are being driven into its coffin. Again, just awesome.

As to the substantive component of that sentence, claiming that Israel is adding "new settlements to East Jerusalem" makes about as much sense as claiming that New York state is adding a new city to Buffalo. Israel has not built any new settlements since before the Oslo Accords. What Newsday is likely referring to is the building of additional housing units in eastern Jerusalem (the very term "East Jerusalem" is itself a total fraud, but that's a whole other topic), NOT the building of new whole settlements.

There's a lot of other fun stuff in here I could eat up bandwidth discussing, like Newsday's hilarious description of "[h]ard-liners in Israel's right-wing Likud party" and Hamas as "rejectionist political forces on both sides determined to sink [our beloved Peace Process]," but I think I've covered the gist of it. Note to any prospective journalists out there -- whenever you report on Israel, you must refer to bad people on "both sides," lest you be accused of having some infinitesimal appreciation for the difference between right and wrong.

Introduction

Welcome to my glorious blog! Basically, I've been writing pro-Israel notes on Facebook with a tinge of wit and sarcasm for a while now, and a few faithful readers suggested that I start a blog. Despite my almost complete computer illiteracy, I figured this might not be the worst idea. So here we are.

Basically, as the name implies, I am a passionate Zionist with a viewpoint that is, admittedly, not mainstream. If you're looking to read tear-jerking tomes lamenting the suffering of the peaceful, kitten-cuddling Palestinian People or extolling the virtues of the so-called "Two State Solution," this is probably not the blog for you.

But if you're looking for decent, kinda funny writing with a pro-Israel bent: welcome! I will try to update frequently and write stuff that is not too indescribably boring. So buckle up, and let's get started!