Friday, February 29, 2008
The Rocket Blitz
(see web page for photos)
A fascinating question of history is what might have happened had Neville
Chamberlain not resigned in May 1940 but continued on as British prime
minister, with Winston Churchill never taking command. What would have
happened during the blitz as bombs and rockets exploded all over London,
killing and maiming men, women and children?
After careful consideration, the following is a virtual history of the
London blitz without Churchill:
As the rockets begin to land and explode around London, Chamberlain
announces that he recognizes the German Reich and the right of Germany to
set up its own state in areas released from Czech and Polish occupation.
Britain appeals to Hitler to arrest those enemies of peace who are
launching rockets at London. Chamberlain appeals to the political leaders
of the Reich to denounce the rocket terror and begin negotiations to end
the attacks.
Hitler insists he is trying his best to stop the violence but is having
trouble controlled the radicals who have taken over the German parliament.
The British foreign minister agrees. To help calm the situation, the
British government agrees to send food and medicine to Germany. The RAF
targets and assassinates some Luftwaffe pilots and base personnel, but
several German civilians are killed; Britain is denounced for this by the
international community and by the British Labor Party.
Hitler speaks at a large rally in Nuremberg and exhorts the masses to
remember the martyred German pilots who were killed while dropping bombs
on London, and to strive to continue their mission. Chamberlain praises
Hitler's speech for exhibiting moderation and restraint. He begins sending
small arms to the Germans to help control the
anti-peace German underground opposition groups.
During a lull in the bombings, Chamberlain makes a speech in which he says
he is more concerned about the invasion of Britain by Hollywood movies
than he is by buzz bombs (to be echoed decades later in an Oslo-era speech
by Shimon Peres in which Peres would say he is far more worried about the
infiltration into Israel of cable television than the infiltration of
terrorists).
When more bombs explode, the calls increase inside Britain to strike back
at Germany. The British Union for German Human rights denounces this as
racism and bigotry.
Chamberlain points out that massive retaliation would be the very worst
option possible. Britain must endeavor to make peace with its German peace
partners, not feed the fires of hatred. This is the only way to achieve a
New Middle Europe, he insists. And besides, if Hitler is not supported and
strengthened, an even more radical and violent leader will emerge in
Germany.
As more rockets fall, Chamberlain points out that the dead are simply
martyrs for peace and Britain must carry on with its peace process, since
there is no alternative. A pro-German member of the British parliament
travels to Berlin and calls for Britain.s annihilation.
Chamberlain allows Oswald Mosley's fascist party to run in the election.
Mosley's people exercise hegemony over the British universities and the
media.
After more rockets explode, Chamberlain loses his temper and decides to
take action at last. He assigns extra police to guard the Underground
stations in London. He orders British critics of his peace process to be
arrested for criminal incitement against the government, accusing the
critics of undermining peace efforts and endangering
security. Chamberlain meets with British antiwar poets and writers and
they issue an appeal to the British public to remain firm in the face of
adversity and continue to strive for peace. Stiff British upper lip and
all that.
Chamberlain again appeals to President Hitler, as the legitimate leader of
the Teutonic peoples, to arrest those responsible for the rocket
aggressions. But he reminds British citizens that the unbearable
alternative to negotiations with the Reich would be to send British
soldiers back into the territories of Central Europe. Teams of pro-German
professors from British universities tour the world demanding a boycott of
all commerce and trade with Britain.
More rockets land. Chamberlain proposes speeding up the peace process and
disarming the Royal Navy as a show of good will. The representatives of
Vichy France come for a state visit, congratulating Chamberlain and the
British and German peoples for their devotion to peace in the face of
provocation.
Some more rockets land. Chamberlain proposes, as a retaliatory measure,
arresting some pro-German spies inside Britain, but British civil rights
lawyers appeal to the Court of Appeals and the ruling is overturned. The
government considers proposals to turn Stonehenge over to the Germans as a
goodwill gesture, since it is a holy shrine for all pagans.
Even more rockets land. The British Peace Now movement notes that there
would be no violence at all if the British would just disarm altogether
and stop making Hitler feel insecure. Besides, they say, the British
should not be occupying Scotland and Wales at all, lands in which they
don.t belong. Chamberlain opens secret negotiations with Germany to
transfer London.s East End, Greenwich and Docklands areas to German
sovereignty.
Many more rockets land. That.s it, yells Chamberlain. The proverbial
camel's back is broken. It is time to fight German terror with all means
at our disposal. This is the Moral Equivalent Of War, he yells - MEOW, for
short. There is no alternative.
We must, he declares, initiate talks with Germany at once so that we can
conduct unilateral withdrawal as quickly as possible from Devon and the
Midlands.
Israeli Cowardice Fuels the Arab Terror
Hamas rockets this week and is meowing that this really is intolerable and
crosses all the red lines.
Translation: firing thousands of rockets into Sderot is tolerable and was
never crossing red lines because who the hell cares about those backward
blue-collar workers in Sderot?
Olmert's people are saying that if the blitz on Ashkelon does not end,
then Israel will hit back really really hard. Of course Israel has been
making empty threats to hit back really really hard for 25 years.
For those who have forgotten, I reprint here an older piece on the RRH
doctrine:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/5621
Sharon Renews the RRH Doctrine
First appeared October 2, 05
NOTE THE PREDICTION THAT ASHKELON WILL BE NEXT AFTER SDEROT!!!
by Steven Plaut
(IsraelNN.com) I've long suspected that it is the Israeli grand strategy
to defeat the Palestinians by forcing them to laugh themselves to death.
That seems to be the only possible way to understand the latest
resuscitation of the RRH Doctrine, which has dominated Israeli policy
toward the Palestinians and the Arab states since the early 1990s.
The RRH Doctrine was invented in the early days of Oslo and stands for
Really, Really Hard. Israeli governments would make deals to hand over
most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the PLO, while reassuring Israelis
that there was no reason for worry - if the Palestinians misbehaved,
Israel would hit back at them Really, Really Hard.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf was a far more credible strategist.
Even if, perchance, anyone ever took the RRH threats seriously, by the
mid-1990s the RRH was little more than an overly-long-running joke.
Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres had threatened it during the early days of
Oslo. Later, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, after each and every act
of terrorism, would loudly invoke RRH, but then did little, if anything,
to retaliate. After Netanyahu came Ehud Barak, who once again threatened
RRH regularly. But his only implementation of it consisted of chopper
attacks on empty Palestinian buildings - and only after the PLO was given
advance notification, so that all humans and terrorists could be
evacuated.
RRH was also used by Barak (and other prime ministers) to threaten
Hizbullah in Lebanon and their Syrian puppet masters. After each Hizbullah
attack on Israeli towns and on Israeli forces inside southern Lebanon,
Israel threatened the most serious RRH. But, in the end, the only
manifestation of RRH implemented by Barak consisted of a panicked
unilateral capitulation and withdrawal from southern Lebanon, which left
Hizbullah sitting smack dab on Israel's border, with thousands of its
rockets aimed at northern Israel, with Haifa in range.
When Ariel Sharon first revealed his Gaza-Samaria Disengagement Plan,
after winning the last Israeli election, it too was accompanied by empty
threats of RRH. Israel could not get the PLO to make any concessions in
exchange for surrender of the Gaza Strip and the eviction of the Jewish
population there; Sharon nevertheless decided to implement the Mitzna
Plan, against which he had campaigned, and withdraw without any quid pro
quo. He would just go ahead with unilateral capitulation, whether the PLO
liked it or not. And if the PLO failed to contain Hamas and prevent terror
attacks against Israel after the withdrawal, why, then, Sharon's
government would order the Israeli Defense Forces to respond with serious
RRH.
Yeah, sure.
Hours after the Gaza capitulation was completed, and all Israeli troops
and settlers had been removed, the rocket and mortar attacks on the Negev
began. The PLO was calling Sharon's bluff.
Almost as old as the RRH Doctrine is the
Who-Could-Have-Ever-Predicted-That Syndrome. Since Oslo, every new Israeli
concession resulted in escalated Palestinian violence. And the Israeli
chattering classes would sigh and ask rhetorically, "Who could have
possibly foreseen this?" Likewise, after each violation of the Oslo
Accords by the PLO, the media and the left-wing politicians would pout,
"Who could have predicted that?"
After years of daily proof that the entire Oslo concept was unworkable,
its advocates were still responding to each new failure as if it was total
serendipity.
The Israeli media could not foresee any failures of the Oslo capitulations
and appeasements because the media are by and large the occupied
territories of Israel's radical Left. The overseas media were even less
capable of foreseeing the consequences of Oslo because they were far more
interested in bashing Israel than understanding anything about the Middle
East conflict.
The answer to the rhetorical question of "Who could have foreseen the
failures of Oslo?" is, "Anyone not blinded by ideology." A few weeks after
the handshake on the White House lawn in 1993, I published my first
article predicting the complete failure of the Rabin-Peres Oslo
initiative; in fact, it was the first such article published in North
America. I predicted that the PLO would simply use any territory turned
over to it by Israel to build terror infrastructure and launch attacks on
Israel. I wrote of future rocket attacks and sniper fire against Israeli
towns from the PLO-controlled areas years before they actually began in
earnest. And I was hardly alone in 20/20 foresight.
It was not particularly difficult in 1993 to see why Oslo would fail. It
is even easier now, with 12 years of disastrous "peace process"
experience, to understand why Sharon's Gaza disengagement will result in
an enormous escalation of violence, not in any relaxation of tensions.
Let's give the Arabs some credit. Israel has been making so many threats
of RRH ever since the Oslo "peace process" began that a Palestinian leader
would have to be learning-disabled to take any of them seriously. If I
consider them a joke, why should Abu Mazen believe them?
The Oslo Accords produced the greatest escalation in Palestinian terrorism
and atrocities in modern Israeli history. At their most severe, Israeli
retaliations took the form of some targeted assassinations of Hamas and
PLO terror leaders. More often than not, Israeli retaliations consisted of
meaningless gestures like bombing the aforementioned empty buildings or
making sonic booms over terrorist concentrations, and of course the ever
louder empty threats of RRH. On Israel's northern border, virtually no
retaliations against Hizbullah took place, even after Hizbullah kidnapped
and murdered three Israeli army officers and fired rockets into Israel.
All of this brings us to the latest rocket attacks by the PLO on Sderot a
few days ago. The main effect of the Gaza capitulation is that the PLO can
now import unlimited supplies of weaponry from Egypt, with no ability of
Israel to interfere. Israeli troops are no longer on the ground inside the
Gaza Strip.
We already see the results and we can clearly foresee the "unexpected"
consequences that will be taking place in the near future. The PLO and its
affiliates now have all the freedom they need to upgrade their rockets.
The new, improved Kassam rockets will be able to hit Ashkelon from Gaza.
Sharon's Gaza capitulation will turn the Negev town of Sderot into
Israel's Stalingrad. The PLO has already converted an abandoned synagogue
building in Gush Katif into a weapons facility.
When the latest rockets hit Sderot after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza,
Sharon and his people responded mainly with a new round of RRH. The
laughter from Ramallah was deafening. Let's note that back before 1993,
when Israel held Gaza tightly with on-the-ground military rule, there were
no Kassam rockets in Gaza. The Palestinian savages threw stones at Jews
because real weapons were hard to procure.
The PLO knows what we all know; namely, that Sharon is afraid to take the
only action that, in the end, can end the shooting of Kassam rockets into
Jewish homes . R&D, or Re-Occupation and DeNazification. Let's hope his
successor will be less
2. Haaretz "Post-Zionist Columnist . there is no Jewish people, only a
Palestinian People:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
________________________________________
Last update - 17:30 28/02/2008
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
By Tom Segev
3. Saudi Arabia: Professor faces lashes for having coffee with female
'student'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3439642.ece
Michael Theodoulou
A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has
been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail - for having coffee
with a girl.
The man, a prominent and well-respected Saudi teacher of psychology at Umm
al-Qra University in the holy city of Mecca, was framed by the
religious police after he angered some of their members at a training
course, his lawyer said.
4. Israeli Cowardice Fueling Islamofascist Terror:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3512443,00.html
The price of restraint
Israeli indecision in face of rocket attacks emboldens Hamas, guarantees
escalation
Alex Fishman
Vague, non-aggressive, and mostly inconsistent Israeli policy . this is
the recipe for the ongoing failure on the Gaza front.
The political leadership does not want to reoccupy the Strip, the army is
not overly excited about returning to the Gaza quagmire, top political and
military officials know exactly what we should not be doing, yet nobody
wishes to take any risks . either diplomatic or military . in order to put
out the fire. So what do we do? They have no idea.
Meanwhile, they engage in experiments, utilize economic, psychological,
and military levers, play with fire, and pretend that it would be possible
to control the height of the flames over time.
The unwritten instructions to the army are to kill, but not too much. The
IDF needs to act in a way that hurts and deters Hamas, but does not
obligate it to resort to heavy fire on Gaza-region communities, but
rather, make do with two or three Qassams a day. We can live with that.
A month and a half ago, the Egoz unit operated against mortar cells in the
Strip. The unit was very successful. Too successful. A total of 18 Hamas
men were killed there, including the son of senior Hamas figure Mahmoud
al-Zahar. Hamas was mad, and for the next three days, about 200 rockets
were fired at Gaza-region communities.
Israel.s political leadership was quite dissatisfied with the Southern
Command.s excessive success. The soldiers killed too many Palestinians in
that raid, and the Southern Command was gently reprimanded for deviating
from expectations.
On Wednesday, the Air Force and Shin Bet eliminated several men who
returned from military studies in Iran and were about to carry out a
terror attack. Hamas was infuriated. In their view, we breached the rules
of the game . after all, Hamas determines the height of the flames, not
Israel.
And indeed, in response to the surgical strike, close to 50 rockets were
fired at southern communities. A student at the Sapir College was killed
by a direct hit. Factory workers in Sderot survived miraculously. And for
the first time, a four-rocket barrage landed in Ashkelon . no longer a
single rocket meant as a signal. Yesterday, Ashkelon became yet another
routine target for Hamas, just like Sderot.
Hamas becoming bolder, more aggressive
Is it possible that fears of an aggressive Hamas response would lead to
Israeli hesitation to target .ticking bombs. or armed terrorists next
time? Hamas not only expanded its range, but also the frequency of the
fighting. If in the past it was only willing to take a risk and respond in
kind once every few months, by now it produces heavy barrages every few
weeks, while its rockets become more accurate and deadlier.
It is unthinkable that after Hamas. Wednesday assault, the group.s
leadership still faces no threat to its life. Hamas. military and
political infrastructure should be dealt with non-stop. This is a phase
that we can enter even before we embark on the .large-scale ground
operation. that nobody in Israel is interested in at this time. Yet the
political leadership is so scared of escalation that it hinders the shift
to this interim phase . just so we don.t give Hamas a pretext to lose it.
The problem is that, paradoxically, this hesitation actually guarantees
that we shall be faced with a large-scale incursion more quickly . because
Hamas leaders got the idea. They understand that Israel.s strategy starts
and ends with .controlling the heights of the flames.. This Israeli
restraint is perceived by Hamas as indecision. When the threats on their
lives start and end in the newspaper, they no longer take threats
seriously.
Hamas. response to IDF operations will become increasingly bolder and more
aggressive, more Israelis will be killed and wounded, the public pressure
will grow, and we shall find ourselves . because of twisted policy,
embroiled in a war we didn.t want at the least convenient timing.
5. First Temple Artifact Discovered:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204213983542&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Nizar Hassan is Safe!
Qassam rocket launched at Sderor by the Olmert government. It hit the
Sapir College, where the man studied.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125400
You will all be relieved to hear that the Sapir College Arab lecturer,
Nizar Hassan, who prohibits Jewish students from entering his class
wearing a Magen David or wearing an IDF uniform was not hurt.
There is only one viable solution: R&D = Re-Occupation and
Denazification!
2. Prof. Amnon Rubinstein (Meretz) denouncing Israeli radical
academics:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204127193588&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Homemade Israel-bashers
________________________________________
Amnon Rubinstein , THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 27, 2008
________________________________________
Shortly after I began teaching at Columbia University, I was taken aback
to hear that the Iranian ruler Ahmadinejad had been invited to speak on
campus. There was hardly any time to organize a protest against the event.
Despite this, three kipot-wearing students from Hillel House worked day
and night to distribute posters and pamphlets featuring a choice selection
of the guest's hate-filled, genocidal invective. They organized a
demonstration in front of the hall where the Iranian president was to
speak, and all without any outside help.
I spoke at the demonstration, where I discovered that almost all the
participants present were local Orthodox Jewish students. The number of
secular Israeli students could be counted on the fingers of one hand -
with fingers to spare.
Inside the hall sat an Israeli student who applauded Ahmadinejad. I asked
another Israeli who witnessed this behavior to tell me about her. I asked:
How can she applaud someone that wants to exterminate her?
His matter of fact reply: "She's known to be a leftist."
In other words, "leftists" applaud a tyrant, a Nazi, a persecutor of
minorities, oppressor of women, stoner of "adulterers," and executioner of
homosexuals. If he protests the oppression of the Palestinians, then he
must clearly be a member of the "left" and should therefore be cheered.
Later, I encountered other Israeli academicians at Columbia who added more
fuel to the fire of hatred against Israel - all belonged to what is known
as the radical Left.
WHEN THE semester ended, my wife and I were invited to a Shabbat meal on
Friday night prepared by the organizers of the demonstration.
I am a professed and impassioned secular Jew. My Judaism is national and
cultural. I believe that my approach is in no way inferior to the Orthodox
or haredi one. It contains neither temptations of paradise, the punishment
of hell, nor the revival of the dead. It is filled with a rich,
multifaceted and wondrous Jewish-Hebrew culture. I also believe that
secular humanism is the right answer for us as individuals and as a
nation.
But if I had to choose between the kipa-wearing Jews at Columbia and the
representatives of what is known in Israel as the radical Left - I know
where my heart is.
That is the entire story.
No, it is the end of the story.
It is also the end of the story of the anti-Israeli squadrons in the
Israeli academia.
FOR SOME time, I have been waiting for a hysterical outburst from this
direction, one that would bring their claims to such an absurd point, that
they would be finished. I always believed that their "post-intelligent"
anti-Israeli claptrap would eventually climax in an paroxysm of extremist
mumbo-jumbo lunacy, after which there would no longer be anything to argue
about. They'd be exposed.
Ben-Dror Yemini provided me with just that evidence (Ma'ariv, January 11),
in an article in which he tells of a research project carried out by
graduate student Tal Nizan at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her
research question was: How is it that, contrary to the accepted practice
among other occupation armies, the Zionist occupation army does not rape?
The researcher had two explanations: First, IDF soldiers do not rape
Palestinian women because for them, these women have been dehumanized, and
"consequently, a sexual act cannot be carried out with someone that is
perceived as less than human." Second, the soldiers refrained from raping
the Palestinian women in the service of a higher, demographic goal,
because the rape could cause pregnancies that would subsequently increase
the numbers of our enemies. In other words, not only are there no rapes,
there are no condoms either.
The significant aspect is not this surreal research project. It is not
unusual. Incitement against Israel can be found on the lowest level in
some of the social science departments in Israel's universities. A
well-known philosopher in Tel Aviv University called Israel the dustbin of
Europe - and students, as we know, are influenced by their teachers, even
when the latter are seized by a frenzy of hatred toward the state that
provides their livelihood, and at the expense of which, thanks to their
attacks on it, they make their names.
The interesting thing is that this "research" project won a prize from a
sociology association, with a number of distinguished professors voting in
favor of granting the researcher a prize.
It would be interesting to hear how these professors propose that Israel
amend this serious flaw, that IDF soldiers are not serial rapists. Does
that fact that female tourists are not raped mean that they too have been
dehumanized?
These professors are wrong. It's not true that there is no rape. There is
- the rape of the academia, of science and of the students forced to
listen to these professors' drivel.
The writer is a professor of law at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC)
Herzliya, a former minister of education and MK, and the recipient of the
2006 Israel Prize in Law.
3. From Campus Watch:
Quote of the Month (past quotes)
"Who are you? Who are you? You are a nothing! I am a professor! You can
only have an opinion! I have knowledge!"
Joel Beinin, director of Middle East studies at the American University in
Cairo and on leave from Stanford, reacting to a question from audience
member Scott Abramson following a December 2, 2003 lecture Beinin gave at
Grace Baptist Church, San Jose, California; reported to Campus Watch in
reaction to a web log post from February 15, 2008. (link to source)
4. Jewish Anti-Zionist treason exposed:
http://www.z-word.com/uploads/assets/documents/zword_Julius_Z4N6s4qT.pdf
I will get the tar if you bring the feathers:
http://www.btvshalom.org/pressrelease/20060306pr.shtml
5. Cute bunny!
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125392
6. What refugees?
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009518.shtml
See also http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/571/620.html
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Stern Hell
year to Israel's worst academic leftist McCarthyist, Zeev Sternhell. That
spelling of his name is not a joke, he really spell sit like that.
Sternhell is a far-leftist political scientist at the Hebrew University.
He has devoted much of his career at painting Israeli non-leftists as
violent fascists who should be suppressed and denied freedom of speech.
Sternhell was one of the promoters of the leftist McCarthyism against
anti-Oslo dissidents, especially after the Rabin assassination by Yigal
Amir. Sternhell considers all non-leftist Israelis to be fascists. The
fact that a leftist extremist is to be awarded the Israel Prize by the
Olmert government states volumes. The committee that nominated Strenhell
was headed by Shlomo Avineri, a one-time (??) hard-core Marxist from the
same department as Sternhell who had been thought to have moved towards
the Zionist center.
Aside from his McCarthyism, Sternhell is also known for some other things.
Wikipedia reports: 'Sternhell was taken to court by Bertrand de Jouvenel,
a French philosopher and political economist, in 1983, after Sternhell
published his work Ni Droite, ni gauche (Neither Right nor Left). Jouvenel
sued Sternhell on nine counts, and Sternhell was subsequently convicted in
France for defamation. In his book, Sternhell accused Jouvenel of having
had Fascist sympathies. Convicted on two counts, Sternhell did not need
to retract his remarks from the book however.' Strenhell is also the
leading academic proponent in Israel of 1930s style Bolshevik central
planning.
Edward Said, Columbia University's professor of terror, praised Sternhell
in Al-Ahram, May 21, 1998. In Said's immortal words, Sternhell "author of
a very important recent book on the myths of Israeli society (the main
ones of which -- that it is a liberal, socialist, democratic state -- he
demolished completely in an extraordinarily detailed analysis of its
illiberal, quasi-fascist, and profoundly anti-socialist character as
evidenced by the Labour Party generally, and the Histadrut in
particular)."
Sternhell wrote in the Davar newspaper in 1988: "In the end we will have
to use force against the settlers in Ofra or Elon Moreh. Only he who is
willing to storm Ofra with tanks will be able to block the fascist danger
threatening to drown Israeli democracy."
In the Haaretz newspaper, in 2001, Sternhell said: "There is no doubt
about the legitimacy of [Palestinian] armed resistance in the territories
themselves. If the Palestinians had a little sense, they would concentrate
their struggle against the settlements, and refrain from planting bombs
west of the Green Line." (see
http://www.leibler.com/article/61 )
[Hat tip:
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2008/02/israel-prize-to-professor-who-favors.html]
2. Professors of Hate: http://www.leibler.com/article/61
3. Allies of Iran:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E9599420-B905-498F-84DD-8A13B52A8945
4. Very Good piece:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/collective_punishment_and_news.html
February 24, 2008
Collective Punishment and Newspeak
By Michael I. Krauss
5. I have a year's salary put down on a bet that it will never be
used against Arab fascists nor Jewish leftists:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3511212,00.html
Nazism and racism outlawed in Israel
New law approved by Knesset maintains supporting, advocating Nazism or
racism or holding such rallies to be considered a criminal offense.
6. Creepy Convergence:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120396229737290779.html?mod=Best+of+the+Web+Today
The Peretz-Farrakhan Convergence
By JAMES TARANTO
February 25, 2008
Not yet creeped out by the Barack Obama phenomenon? Maybe this will change
your mind. Marty Peretz, the pro-Israel hawk who is The New Republic's
titular editor-in-chief, and Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic head of the
Nation of Islam, are as one in their avidity for Obama. Here's a piece of
Peretz's blog entry from Friday:
He actually brought tears to my eyes. "I was born to a teen-aged mother,"
said Barack Obama, thereby locating his origins in poverty, which is true
and also relevant. He told the nation that in the Austin debate, as he had
told his listeners in many appearances during the campaign. He did not
say, however, "to a white teen-aged mother," unspoken and unnecessary. . .
.
To give fullness to the paradigm and promise of an open society, we could
not do better--at least in this contest--than to choose a brilliant and
articulate, pragmatic and embracing child of a poor teen-age mother.
And here is the Associated Press, reporting on Farrakhan:
"This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change
and be made better," he said. "This young man is capturing audiences of
black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama's
audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being
transformed."
Farrakhan compared Obama to the religion's founder, Fard Muhammad, who
also had a white mother and black father.
"A black man with a white mother became a savior to us," he told the crowd
of mostly followers. "A black man with a white mother could turn out to be
one who can lift America from her fall."
Peretz's and Farrakhan's strange fixation on Obama's mother's race makes
this all the more peculiar. This is one respect in which Obama would be
anything but a pathbreaker: By our count, white women have given birth to
more than three dozen U.S. presidents. We're pretty sure both Hillary
Clinton and John McCain have white moms too.
Again, it's not necessarily Obama's fault that people react in such
bizarre ways to him. It's just that somehow the idea of a president who
provokes such unhinged support strikes us as dangerous.
7.
February 26, 2008
GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS
The Sderot Calculus
February 26, 2008; Page A18
The Israeli town of Sderot lies less than a mile from the Gaza Strip.
Since the beginning of the intifada seven years ago, it has borne the
brunt of some 2,500 Kassam rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian
terrorists. Only about a dozen of these Kassams have proved lethal, though
earlier this month brothers Osher and Rami Twito were seriously injured by
one as they walked down a Sderot street on a Saturday evening.
Eight-year-old Osher lost a leg.
It is no stretch to say that life in Sderot has become unendurable.
Palestinians and their chorus of supporters -- including the 118 countries
of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, much of Europe, and the panoply of
international aid organizations from the World Bank to the United Nations
-- typically reply that life in the Gaza Strip is also unendurable, and
that Palestinian casualties greatly exceed Israeli ones. But this argument
is fatuous: Conditions in Gaza, in so far as they are shaped by Israel,
are a function of conditions in Sderot. No Palestinian Kassams (or other
forms of terrorism), no Israeli "siege."
The more vexing question, both morally and strategically, is what Israel
ought to do about Gaza. The standard answer is that Israel's response to
the Kassams ought to be "proportionate." What does that mean? Does the
"proportion" apply to the intention of those firing the Kassams -- to wit,
indiscriminate terror against civilian populations? In that case, a
"proportionate" Israeli response would involve, perhaps, firing 2,500
artillery shells at random against civilian targets in Gaza. Or should
proportion apply to the effects of the Kassams -- an exquisitely
calibrated, eye-for-eye operation involving the killing of a dozen
Palestinians and the deliberate maiming or traumatizing of several hundred
more?
Surely this isn't what advocates of proportion have in mind. What they
really mean is that Israel ought to respond with moderation. But the
criteria for moderation are subjective. Should Israel pick off Hamas
leaders who are ordering the rocket attacks? The European Parliament last
week passed a resolution denouncing the practice of targeted
assassinations. Should Israel adopt purely economic measures to punish
Hamas for the Kassams? The same resolution denounced what it called
Israel's "collective punishment" of Palestinians. Should Israel seek to
dismantle the Kassams through limited military incursions? This, too, has
the unpardonable effect of resulting in too many Palestinian casualties,
which are said to be "disproportionate" to the number of Israelis injured
by the Kassams.
By these lights, Israel's presumptive right to self-defense has no
practical application as far as Gaza is concerned. Instead, Israel is
counseled to allow goods to flow freely into the Strip, and to negotiate a
cease-fire with Hamas.
But here another set of considerations intrudes. Hamas was elected
democratically and by overwhelming margins in Gaza. It has never once
honored a cease-fire with Israel. Following Israel's withdrawal of its
soldiers and settlements from the Strip in 2005 there was a six-fold
increase in the number of Kassam strikes on Israel.
Hamas has also made no effort to rewrite its 1988 charter, which calls for
Israel's destruction. The charter is explicitly anti-Semitic: "The time
will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the
Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew
hiding behind me, come on and kill him!" (Article Seven) "In order to face
the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising
the banner of Jihad." (Article 15) And so on.
It would seem perverse for Israeli taxpayers, including residents of
Sderot, to feed the mouth that bites them. It would seem equally perverse
for Israel merely to bide its time for an especially unlucky day -- a
Kassam hitting a busload of schoolchildren, for instance -- before
striking hard at Gaza. But unless Israel is willing to accept the
military, political and diplomatic burdens of occupying all or parts of
Gaza indefinitely, the effects of a major military incursion could be
relatively short-lived. Israel suffered many more casualties before it
withdrew from the Strip than it has since.
Perhaps the answer is to wait for a technological fix and, in the
meantime, hope for the best. Israel is at work on a missile-defense
program called "Iron Dome" that may be effective against Kassams, though
the system won't be in place for at least two years. It could also
purchase land-based models of the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, used by
the U.S. to defend the Green Zone in Baghdad.
But technology addresses neither the Islamic fanaticism that animates
Hamas nor the moral torpor of Western policy makers and commentators who,
on balance, find more to blame in Israel's behavior than in Hamas's. Nor,
too, would an Iron Dome or the Phalanx absolve the Israeli government from
the necessity of punishing those who seek its destruction. Prudence is an
important consideration of statesmanship, but self-respect is vital. And
no self-respecting nation can allow the situation in Sderot to continue
much longer, a point it is in every civilized country's interest to
understand.
On March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the border
town of Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans. President Woodrow Wilson
ordered Gen. John J. Pershing and 10,000 soldiers into Mexico for nearly a
year to hunt Villa down, in what was explicitly called a "punitive
expedition." Pershing never found Villa, making the effort something of a
failure. Then again, Villa's raid would be the last significant foreign
attack on continental U.S. soil for 85 years, six months and two days.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com1
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on
Opinion Journal2.
And add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum3.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120398961080492299.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) mailto: bstephens@wsj.com
(2) http://online.wsj.com/opinion
(3) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=1546
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Cool Hand Abu Luke
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2591
While the whole country, except for the Olmert government, is concerned
about the daily rocket attacks on Sderot, I think we have all been
overlooking the obvious solution.
The way to fix things occurred to me while watching a rerun of that Paul
Newman film classic "Cool Hand Luke." After making "Exodus," Newman went
on to assist the Jewish people when he made "Cool Hand Luke," about
prisoners in chain gangs. They are chained to one another by the ankle,
and do terrible manual labor, like building roads and moving earth by
hand.
Now Sderot has become the Israeli version of Guernica. But the Olmert
people do not care because they do not have any friends or relatives who
live there. After all, Sderot is nothing but a backward town of low-income
blue-collar workers from Morocco, not the sorts with whom the Kadima
people fraternize and sip brandy. We might dub this "Failure to
Communicate," for those who have seen the movie. And even Amir Peretz,
who was once mayor there, lost interest in Sderot when its people voted
against him.
So here is my idea. Let's take all those jailed "Palestinian" terrorists
and security prisoners, those Olmert considers having "blood on their
paws" and those he does not, and create chain gangs like those in Cool
Hand Luke, employing them around Sderot. Then whenever a Qassam is fired
at Sderot, the townies can seek shelter and the chain gangs can stay out
on the streets and go on working. We will see how long it takes for the
Hamas to resolve Israel's dilemma of what to do with all those jailed
terrorists!
Then Israel can solve the problems in Gaza once and for all by setting up
large pumping stations to pump sea water into Gaza. Once the entire Gaza
Strip is under two meters of sea water, I bet the Qassam firings will end!
And when the bleeding hearts complain, Israel can just blame the flooding
on global warming!!
2. Something of interest: Check out the new web feature "ALEF
Watch" on www.isracampus.org.il (which replaces
Israel-Academia-Monitor.com) - http://isracampus.org.il/ALEF%20Watch.htm
3.
TAKING ON THE ISRAEL BASHERS
Barbara Kay
National Post, January 30, 2008
Both Judeophobes and Judeophiles agree that Jews are smart, but when it
comes to thwarting anti-Semitism, Jews can be pretty dumb.
In 2004, Israeli Cabinet minister Natan Sharansky attempted to convene
the heads of Israeli universities to devise counter-strategies to the
then-temporarily subdued movement to boycott their scholars and campuses.
Immured in their ivory towers, they were so oblivious to the gathering
threat that it took Sharansky six months to facilitate the meeting, where
they insouciantly dismissed his concerns: "When [the boycott movement]
gets stronger again, we'll get organized."
By contrast, rabid enthusiasm always dominates the annual
internationally co-ordinated Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), the fourth of
which unfolds on six Canadian university campuses Feb. 3-10.. More
ominously, IAW 2008 will include the founding conference of "High
Schoolers Against Israeli Apartheid.".
Tonight, I am speaking to the Jewish community of London, Ont., about
academic bias against Israel. I will have with me my review copy of
Academics Against Israel and the Jews, for which Sharansky wrote the
foreword, including my column's opening anecdote. Holding it aloft, I will
declare, "Everything you need to know about global campus anti-Zionism and
how--and how not--to fight it is contained in this book. If this Jewish
community cares about Israel's survival, you will read it and act on it
now."
A collection of essays by knowledgeable scholars and pro-Israel
activists, Academics Against Israel and the Jews is an important new
information resource, for it is the first comprehensive analysis of this
subject extending beyond a single country.. The essays are sobering but
reader-friendly, and written with a view to education, not retaliation.
Amongst other fascinating facts, we discover in these pages why only one
university in Spain (Navarre) is friendly to Israel; why United Kingdom
academics are particularly boycott-obsessed; and why Jewish students in
North America are far better placed to combat anti-Zionism than those in
Europe.
In a particularly distressing probe by Palestinian Media Watch
directors Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, we see scarifying evidence that
revisionist history and open anti-Semitism of the vilest kind is common
currency amongst "scholars" in Palestinian universities. If only shameless
historical lies and routine classroom incitement to hatred were criteria
for collegial shunning.the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a
standard "text" for Palestinian students.rather than trumped-up charges of
a non-existent "apartheid," Palestinian universities would be instant
pariahs. Alas, thanks to our postmodern intellectuals' weakness for moral
inversions, it seems even university-sanctioned incitement to literal
genocide is no barrier to acceptance in the West's Islamophilic groves of
academe.
Canada holds the dubious honour of providing material for two chapters:
an overview of the Canadian campus scene in general, and a chapter on the
ferment leading to the 2002 Concordia Netanyahu riot, an often-cited case
study in appeasement and a primer in how not to deal with ideological
scofflaws.
Manfred Gerstenfeld, the book's editor and chairman of the Board of
Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is a prolific,
authoritative writer on the subjects of anti-Semitism and world Jewish
communities. Gerstenfeld is also a canny activist. If the cumulative
effect of so much of the book's bad news is demoralizing, Gerstenfeld's
bullish emphasis on remedies, and abundant proofs that the smart activism
of a few can be effective in pushing back, are re-moralizing..
Gerstenfeld's summary chapter is an education in itself. Here, an
uninformed reader can assimilate the essentials: how to distinguish
criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism; the nature and effectiveness of
various present and past boycotts; contemporary Arab anti-Semitism and the
recycling of old motifs; anti-Semites' contradictory images of the Jew;
and Israel's plight as a paradigm for the West's future.
As universities are a feeder system into the elite cultural ranks of
the general population, campus anti-Semitism is more than a threat to Jews
alone. Widespread anti-Semitism is always a symbol of decline in a
society.. Cultures in which anti-Semitism becomes the reigning ideology,
like Nazi Germany and most Arab states since 1917, are by definition
failed cultures.
At York University in 2003, a Jewish student told Sharansky, "For me as
a Jew, the existence of Israel is a big problem. I want to be a normal
person ... If Israel did not exist, I would feel much easier." If a Jewish
student can't feel "normal" on a university campus because Israel
"exists," is he not already studying in a failed culture?
4. Hint . They are BROWN!!
Israeli analyst: We know the color of Nasrallah's and Ahmadinejad's undies
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/12653.htm
Remember how Napoleon always went into battle wearing red so that if he
were wounded and bleeding, it would not show. Well...
5. Army of Chelm:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7778
6. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3508712,00.html
Olmert's latest insanity
7.
(http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=11668).
A Great Loss
04/02/2008
The Levant was a model example of coexistence among the followers of
different religions; you could witness examples in classrooms, business
companies and art or cultural projects. This was the case until the first
wave of displacement of Jews from Arab states started to occur. This
However, this also coincided with the declaration of the Zionist state to
which security agencies in some of the Arab countries reacted to
foolishly; Arab governments began to deal with the Jewish communities with
suspicion and concern. The outcome was that the Jews were subjected to
forced migration (that is not to neglect the malicious practices that the
Zionist aid agencies used to undertake to instill fear among the community
to compel them to go back to Israel).
This had a hugely detrimental impact on the social and economic diversity
in the Arab world. It was also the practical downfall of the understanding
of tolerance, coexistence and the acceptance of others.
Today, there is a blatant codified mobility for the "second exodus",
meaning the evacuation of Christian citizens from the Arab world. The
percentages of Christians leaving Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine,
Sudan, and Syria have reached staggering heights. Palestine, in
particular, is subjected to a "blueprint" to evacuate all the original
national Christians living on its territories
Christian Palestinian immigrants are predominantly settled in Chile, South
America, and especially in the capital Santiago. The present census
indicates that 70,000 Palestinians have moved there (and the national
football team includes more than one Palestinian player).
But there is Christian displacement happening in other parts of the Arab
world and immigrants are moving to Europe, Australia, America and Canada.
In light of the growing extremism and the loss of the ability to apprehend
the true values of coexistence that were effectively implemented during
the Prophet's time, it is no surprise that extremist models exist. Such
models exercise hegemony over the religious discourse, which is what is
happening today and which has become a more critical matter than the
employed means of Christian "expulsion" from their native Arab homes.
This forced migration that is taking place is irrefutable evidence of the
decrease of tolerance and the acceptance of others, since the outcome is
what really matters. As long as Arab Christians do not feel stable and
secure then there is a grave problem that requires immediate action to
counter it, because the cost will continue to rise to indiscriminately
affect everyone, Muslims included.
However, silence in the face of this ongoing 'exodus' and ignoring the
outgoing departure figures as though the matter does not concern anyone
remains incomprehensible.
The Arab world has always been a point of convergence for civilizations
and a model for the coexistence of religions and the merging of cultures,
which in turn has yielded richness and diversity on more than one level
that cannot be overlooked. Today, with the manifestation of these alarming
indicators, the situation may continue as it is. Immigration figures are
no longer calculated in dozens or hundreds but rather in thousands, and it
is no longer done covertly but rather collectively and publically and the
reasons are clearly stated. These include fear and concern, in addition to
failures in the social system.
This significant second wave of departure is a great error that should not
be concluded in this manner because the region is the one that will suffer
the most losses.
8. Paying for socialist delusions:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203518555162&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
There is Madness in the Methodist
or Jewish radical leftists?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/955072.html
Haaretz, Last update - 01:33 18/02/2008
Knesset passes draft bill outlawing membership of racist organizations
2. The Hizbollah's "Rabbis":
"We are all people of the book. For example, I was the first one to
bring five rabbis from outside Lebanon into the country; three of
them came from New York, and two from Manchester. They visited Beirut
in 2005. I have many Jewish friends around the world, such as Stanley
Cohen and Seymour Hersh."
- Ibraham Mousawi, editor of Hezbollah's Alintiqad weekly newspaper
http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10214
3. Balint on Israel's Fence:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5CE70FF5-DCAA-4EDD-8AE3-CC16F3BD355C
4. Dersh on Hezbollah:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=431C90B5-BA18-449B-B590-5ECA65CC12DC
5. There is madness in the Methodist:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F25F6DEA-B3D3-4BFB-960D-DA94B95B2EB8
6. The "Good" Suicide Bomber:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=B0E781D4-02BF-4BF0-8CC8-2A44D9793AE5
7. The Wahhabis of Georgetown:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=EDF90AB2-753F-4018-8927-1D171A828C46
Monday, February 18, 2008
A Learned proposal for dealing with "Anarchists"
Joe (the black character):
'He says, "Socialist and Anarchsit, we ought to shoot dem dead. Dey's all
no-good sons of bitches." I says, "Hold on, you talk 's if Anarchists and
Socialists was de same." "Dey is," he says. "Dey's both no-good
bastards." "No, dey ain't," I says. "I'll explain the difference. De
Anarchist he never works. He drinks but he never buys, and if he do ever
get a nickel, he blows in on bombs, and he wouldn't give you nothin'. So
go ahead and shoot him. But de Socialist, sometimes, he's got a job, and
if he gets ten bucks, he's bound by his religion to split fifty-fifty wid
you. You say . how about my cut, Comrade? And you gets de five. So you
don't shoot no Socialists while I'm around. Dat is, not if dey got
anything. Of course, if dey's broke, den dey's no-good bastards, too."'
--- The Iceman Cometh, Act I, Eugene O'Neill
2.
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2008/02/ben-gurion-university-faculty-member.html
Ben Gurion University faculty Member calls for Israel's Annihilation
Ben Gurion University, sometimes called the 'Bir Zeit of the Negev'
because of the large number of anti-Israel "Post-Zionist" radical leftists
on its faculty, now has a new achievement.
Anti-Israel extremist Neve Gordon is on the faculty there in the
department of political science, which is a monolithic far-leftist
department in which no non-leftist is permitted to teach. Gordon is on
leave this year at the University of Michigan, itself a bastion of
Bash-Israel bigotry. Speaking at an anti-Israel rally that was part of
"Israel Apartheid Week" there, Gordon called for a "one-state solution" in
which Israel would cease to exist altogether. He also denounced Israel as
a racist apartheid entity.
A University of Michigan student reports the event in details here:
The student reporting this concludes:
'Neve Gordon is one of the biggest self-hating Jews I have ever seen. It
is no surprise the University of Michigan hired him as a .Visiting
Professor.. This University is really anti-Israel and that they had to
hire a Jewish person to push the hatred on Israel and Jewish people. The
last paragraph, I mentioned how he said Israel made "Jewish roads." I had
whole argument with him during lecture on this statement he made. He said
that "Jews are the only ones who can travel without any difficulty, and
that makes them Jewish roads." Another person in the audience made a
comment about this statement in his lecture, and he mentioned my "question
from last Fall's class." Overall, if Ben-Gurion university keeps this man
as a professor, they should be ashamed, and people should protest the
university's hiring policies.'
In the past the Jewish Press reported about the extremist shenanigans at
Ben Gurion University, where churning out anti-Israel hate propaganda
"counts" as scholarly research, and where extremists get hired and
promoted on the basis of such agitprop.
The President of Ben Gurion University, Rivka Carmi, coddles the radicals
and anti-Semites, collaborates with them, and "understands" them.
3. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2580
Ban use of Term "Israeli Apartheid" by Israeli Profs
12 Adar 5768, 18 February 08 07:16
by "Back to Sanity" - Arutz 7 Analysts
(IsraelNN.com) McMaster University is light years ahead of Israeli
campuses when it comes to distinguishing between freedom of speech and
vile bigoted hate!
Located in Hamilton, Canada, the university has decided to put a stop to
the metasticizing of the "Israeli Apartheid Weeks," organized by
anti-Semites and pro-terrorists, onto its campus. Canadian campuses have
had as many anti-Semitic Nuremberg Rallies, supposedly against Israeli
"apartheid," as US campuses.
First, McMaster Provost office, which is second in authority only to that
of the President's office, banned all campus use of the term "Israeli
Apartheid" as hate speech. Then it was backed in this by the McMaster
Human Rights & Equity Services (HRES). Finally the McMaster Student Union
expressed support and approval for the ban. Has civilized behavior at
last infiltrated North American college campuses?
Naturally, the local axis of evil uniting Islamofascists and far Leftists
was upset at this "suppression of freedom of speech." The same people who
would have you expelled from school if you say "Negro" or "chick" or
express a negative opinion of homosexual relations want "Israeli
Apartheid" to be a subject of academic debate. And after that perhaps
more debate about Jews drinking gentile blood on Passover and being
cheapskates.
Now one place where anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate speech is ALWAYS
protected is on Israeli campuses. Far Leftist anti-Israel professors
express it all the time, often inside their classrooms!
Interestingly, no student groups or professors at McMaster want all the
Canadians thrown into the sea or bombs placed inside Toronto school buses
because they are occupying Indian lands in Canada. In some departments at
Israeli universities one cannot find any professors who OPPOSE Arab
terrorism against Jews!
So lets round up a few hundred tenured traitors on Israeli campuses and
ship them off to Hamilton, where they can learn some civilized behavior,
manners and decency!!
4. Bumpy Leftists -
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7766
Thursday, February 07, 2008
From Kiev to Ben Gurion University?
of a large university in Kiev, the Ukraine, the Interregional Academy of
Personnel Management, known in English by the acronym MAUP, he says that
Jews are evil, academia should research their evil, Chabad is the evilest
of all, engaged in terrorism, anti-Semitism does not exist and is a
fabrication. The Ukrainian National Conservative party, the most
anti-Semitic party in the country, was founded by MAUP's president, Georgy
Tchokin.
See http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/951764.html
Dear Lord, do you realize what this means? It is only a matter of time
before Mykola Golavatiy replaces Rivka Carmi as president of Ben Gurion
University!
2. Sapir college Prof. faces dismissal
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1202246336250&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The big question - why only him? There are 400 Jewish professors in
Israel even more anti-Israel and anti-Semitic than him?
3. From the Wall Street Journal:
The Israeli Lesson
February 5, 2008; Page A16
The news about yesterday's suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Dimona
is that it's news. In 2002, at the height of the second intifada, 451
Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks, including 14 suicide bombings.
By contrast, yesterday's attack, which killed one and injured 11, was the
first of its kind in more than a year.
This didn't happen by accident, or because Palestinian radicals have
somehow become less hostile to Israel. Responsibility for yesterday's
attack was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, which is affiliated
with President Mahmoud Abbas's ostensibly moderate Fatah party. Islamist
Hamas remains even more ardently dedicated to Israel's destruction, a
point it emphasizes with its rocket barrages at southern Israeli cities
close to the Gaza Strip.
Instead, the difference has come because of Israel's increasingly
successful antiterrorist efforts. Key to that success has been the
construction of its ostensibly "illegal" security fence, its equally
"illegal" targeted assassinations of key terrorist leaders, its
"disproportional" attacks on terrorist enclaves in Jenin and elsewhere,
and other actions that saved innocent lives but which much of the
international community deplored.
One of the most common arguments against Israel's actions is that it would
feed a "cycle of violence." It's fair to say that what happened is closer
to the opposite. As Israel put pressure on terrorist leaders, they were
forced to spend their time running for their lives rather than planning
the next attack. As Israel set up physical obstacles to terrorism, the
need for large-scale military incursions declined, allowing a semblance of
normal life to return for Israelis as well as Palestinians. Contrary to
the conventional wisdom, Israel proved that terrorists can be defeated --
a lesson that applies equally in Iraq.
4. Nonsense about "Arab Jews" and their communist inventors:
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4753
5. Eldad says Olmert has "blood on his hands":
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3503145,00.html
6. Islamofascists for Obama:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=36308A44-DF3D-46AD-829A-4F63BA0C52F1
Monday, February 04, 2008
Blue Moon
was so cold this week, I think it may have been a Blue Moon!
Yes, at long last, after bungling the war against the Hezbollers in Lebanon,
the Israeli army is doing something we can all really be proud of!! It is
MOONING the Pestilinians - rather than appeasing them with land concessions and
money a la Olmert.
As you can imagine, the Left is very upset. It gets far more upset at soldiers
doing a Bart Simpson than it does at hundreds of Qassam rockets landing on
homes and schools in Sderot, or at suicide bombers inside buses full of
children.
Read more here: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=60032
I certainly hope the story turns out to be for real and that the soldiers were
not simply having a morning potty in a field after reading the Haaretz
editorial page!
2. Candidates for faculty positions at Ben Gurion University:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a4188/News/New_York.html
3. Three cheers for Neocons:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201867280306&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
4. Shmoozing with terrorists:
http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=2156
5. British Asslibs: http://www.leibler.com/article/302
6. The Problem with Post-Zionism: http://www.leibler.com/article/195
7. Jimmy Carter's Lust and North Korea:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120188087161935467.html?mod=Best+of+the+Web+Today
8. Debunking Chamishism and its demented ilk:
February 2, 2008
Five Best
These works help untangle
the mysterious popularity
of conspiracy theories
By MAX HOLLAND
February 2, 2008; Page W8
1. The Paranoid Style in American Politics
By Richard Hofstadter
Knopf, 1965
First conceived as a university lecture, Richard Hofstadter's seminal essay --
the title work in this collection -- remains the place to begin any discussion
of conspiracy theories. "Heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and
conspiratorial fantasy" are hallmarks of the paranoid style, writes Hofstadter
(1916-70). To paranoia's purveyors, "history is a conspiracy, set in motion by
demonic forces of almost transcendent power." Hofstadter was writing about
extreme right-wing groups, such as the John Birch Society, that flourished in
the early 1960s. It's a pity that he is not here to analyze today's extreme
leftists who promote the line that the Bush administration was behind the 9/11
terror attacks.
2. Enemies Within
By Robert Alan Goldberg
Yale, 2001
Of the nearly dozen books that have been published in the past decade about the
rise of conspiracism, historian Robert Alan Goldberg's "Enemies Within" is
unrivaled. He explores five conspiracy theories that have gained popularity in
the past half-century: the cover-up of a UFO incident in Roswell, N.M.; the
plot against black America; the rise of the anti-Christ; the establishment of
the New World Order; and, of course, the assassination of JFK. Goldberg
expertly illuminates the political and social conditions that have allowed
conspiracy-mongers, once consigned to the lunatic fringe, to creep into the
mainstream.
3. The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies
By William Hanchett
University of Illinois, 1983
To understand conspiratorial thinking, it is instructive to study how
explanations for a historical event evolve over time. No work is more useful in
this regard than William Hanchett's "The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies."
Lincoln's assassination was, of course, part of a real conspiracy aimed at
decapitating the federal government. Most of the schemers were caught and
executed. But the chief mover, John Wilkes Booth, was killed before he could be
arrested, denying the country the catharsis of a courtroom drama and a
definitive account of what occurred. Thus competing theories about the
assassination began to appear. By tracing them during the century following
Lincoln's death, Hanchett illustrates an immutable truth: Ultimately,
conspiracy theories tell us more about their authors and about human nature
than they do about the event itself.
4. Praise From a Future Generation
By John Kelin
Wings Press, 2007
This work deserves to be read -- but not for the purpose the author intended.
According to John Kelin, a few hardy souls in the late 1960s dared speak truth
to power and turned the American public against the government's "unacceptable"
Warren Report of 1964 investigating JFK's assassination. The real history is
more complicated, and large chunks of it are missing from this book. You will
not learn from Kelin, for instance, that Mark Lane -- a New York lawyer who was
Lee Harvey Oswald's self-appointed chief defender -- was secretly subsidized by
the KGB. Yet because Kelin draws heavily from primary sources -- mostly private
letters between "assassination buffs," as writer Calvin Trillin dubbed them
back then -- this book is a fascinating portrait of how conspiracy theories
about JFK's death were nurtured mostly by liberals desperate to find an
alternate explanation for the murder of President Kennedy by an avowed Marxist.
5. Presidential Commissions & National Security
By Kenneth Kitts
Lynne Rienner, 2006
When a monumental event occurs that transcends the power of the courts to
uncover the truth, the U.S. government turns to special commissions -- most
recently for the investigation into the 9/11 terror attacks. The findings are
usually well received, but over time the authority of these efforts often
wanes. In "Presidential Commissions & National Security," Kenneth Kitts shows
why federal panels are imperfect and why they often inadvertently spur the
conspiracy thinking they are designed to minimize. The Roberts Commission
report on Pearl Harbor, for instance, begot countless books alleging that
President Roosevelt knew in advance about the attack. No matter how lofty their
aims, Kitts says, government-commission reports are inevitably political
documents and will come to be seen as such.
Mr. Holland is the author of "The Kennedy Assassination Tapes" (Knopf, 2004).
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120190643729936587.html
Friday, February 01, 2008
Shimon Peres has a Master Plan
know that Ehud Barak personally was responsible for the firing of 4000
Katyusha missiles into northern Israel from Lebanon in the summer of 2006,
the only people who do not realize that the Israeli government completely
lost the war against the Hezbollah and behaved with incredible stupidity
throughout the war, the only people who failed to realize that Ehud Olmert
and Amir Peretz belong in prison, were the members of the Winograd
Commission.
Meanwhile, here is Eyal Megged on the Winograd boondoggle (he an author
and the son of non-leftist author Aharon Megged; that needs mentioning
because there are so few non-leftist writers in Israel):
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3501298,00.html
2. I have long believed that Shimon Peres is actually onto something.
You see, he understands that part of anti-Semitism is the stereotype
belief that Jews are smarter than other folks. So he has decided to end
anti-Semitism once and for all by proving to the world that it is not so.
Here is Uncle Shimi's latest:
3. Norman Finkelstein's Israeli Groupie on the leftwing Neo-Nazi web site
Counterpunch: http://counterpunch.com/gordon01302008.html
