Seraphic Secret

September 02, 2010

Remove the Check Points!

Another terror attack on Jewish civilians in Samaria.

But because they were settlers, it's no big deal. In fact, it's all their fault.

Sort of like abused wives who make their husbands beat them to a bloody pulp.

Anyhoo.

I have a fab-u-lous idea. Israel should dismantle even more check points as, y'know, a confidence building measure.

It will make the genocidal-yearning Palestinians even more confident that killing Jews is not only fun, but easy and made easier by Barack Obama who demanded the dismantling of vital check points in Judea and Samaria.

Case in point: a while ago I flew to N.Y. and there was a typically horrendous, snake-like security check point here in Los Angeles. It was like a block long and manned by surly and really rude TSA workers.

Right in front of me, a little old lady was pulled out of line—she was baffled, looked on the verge of a heart attack—and yanked into a private area for, I assume, a thorough body scan. Look, can you blame the TSA geniuses? Tons of terrorists fit her profile: Caucasian, Christian, about 75 years old, walking with a cane.

Your government at work.

But seriously, airport check points—brought to you overwhelmingly by Palestinian terrorists—should be dismantled.

Think about it.

Check points humiliate the traveler, strip him/her—and lets not forget all the beloved medicated pets—of their inherent human/animal/whatever dignity.

Check points are a sign of international aggression against, well, international peoples.

Check points are an insidious form of imperialist, colonialist, capitalist, Zionist/Jewish occupation.

It's also a breeding ground for sexual harrasement of really pretty women and, heck, let's face it, really pretty men.

My wife Karen gets a lot more attention than yours truly. Go figure.

And talk about inconvenient. I often spend more time at check points than in flight to my destination.

Here' the thing that really drives me nuts: Stinky feet. Noxious socks. The airport smells like, well, a mosque or an NFL locker room. This is definitely something Al Gore should look into. I'm sure there's some humongous glacier melting into an ice cube because of all the foot emissions.

Look, dismantle the airport check points and maybe a few hundred planes will get blown out of the sky every month—c/o your peace-loving Islamists—but heck, we need confidence building measures with the Arab Muslim world.

Remove the airport check-points and peace will, um, explode.

Just as it has in Israel every time check points are dismantled.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:59 AM in Jihad Watch | Comments (6)

September 01, 2010

The Murder Process

Yesterday, Seraphic Secret wrote about the Muslim desecration of Har Hazeitim, the Jewish cemetery on the Mt. of Olives.

We concluded:

When Arab Muslims trod on the graves of our dead, you can be certain that they have no regard for living Jews. The fiction of a peace process is a dangerous illusion. You cannot make peace with a culture that marinates in such barbarism.

A few hours after posting the piece, Palestinian terrorists murdered four Jews.

Here are the slain:

Yitzchak, 47, and Talia, 45, Imas, who leave behind six orphans aged 2 to 24 . Talia was nine months pregnant when she was murdered by the Islamist terrorists.

Avishai Shindler, 24, murdered on his first wedding anniversary.

Kokhava Even-Chaim, 37, a teacher in Efrat—where Karen and I have friends and family—is survived by her husband Maimon, a Zaka volunteer who discovered that his wife was one of the victims when he arrived on the scene. Kokhava leaves behind an eight year-old daughter.

These victims were traveling in a car near Kiryat Arba. When they halted at an intersection, Palestinian terrorists, lying in ambush, opened fire with automatic weapons. They dragged the wounded Jews from the car and riddled their bodies with hundreds of rounds. It was a brutal massacre, a Palestinian specialty.

H'YD, May HaShem avenge their blood.

Hamas and the Palestinian media referred to the murdered Jews as “settlers” and “rapists.”

Elder of Ziyon reports that The New York Times echoes this sentiment by labeling the victims settlers. In short, demonizing and blaming the victims.

Soccer Dad also takes the NYT times to task.

The dead were Jews.

Period.

That's why they were murdered.

And according to the Hamas covenant all Israelis are settlers because the entire state of Israel is considered occupied territory and part of a future Islamic caliphate.

Killing so-called settlers is simply a tactic designed to garner support from the useful idiots in the West for killing Jews. Especially the European useful idiots whose only regret about World War II is that Hitler's Final Solution was not, y'know, final.

Minutes after the murders took place, spontaneous celebrations broke out in Palestinian towns. Make no mistake about it, there is a groundswell of popular support among the Palestinians for eliminating Jews from the face of the earth.

There was a standard denunciation from the PA:

PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the attack was "against Arab interests."

Disgusting. Not a word about right and wrong. Asserting only that the murders are bad publicity for the Arabs. I'm pretty sure it's the same language used by Arafat even as he unleashed his terrorists on the Jewish state.

Jews of conscience are reacting sensibly and with determination. The bigoted building freeze imposed by Barack Obama has been suspended immediately.

And Jews should build several towns in Judea and Samaria in memory of the four Jews who were slaughtered.

In fact, every time a Jew is murdered in the land of Israel, a new town should be founded. In this way, the Islamists know that there are consequences to their murderous actions.

The peace process is a farce. The murder process is a more apt description. Does anyone believe that the building freeze appeased the Palestinians? In fact, it emboldened them. They reasoned, quite logically, that they could not allow Barack Obama to be more Palestinian than they.

There is no reason to negotiate with an entity who is sworn to your destruction, save an appetite for national suicide, which is the ideological heart of the internatonal left.

Some conflicts are intractable. The U.S. and its allies during World War II understood that the only resolution to genocidal Nazism and Japanese Imperialism was total victory. Annihilate the enemy armies, destroy their homeland, dictate an unconditional surrender, and then build functioning democracies.

At some point, Israel and the freedom loving west will be compelled to follow the same strategy towards the Islamist Palestinians and the Islamist world.

The Islamists and their enablers must be brought to their knees and humiliated beyond endurance.

And please, don't talk to me about moderate Muslims.

They are about as relevant as were moderate Germans and moderate Japanese.

There is no substitute for total victory.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:53 AM in Jihad Watch | Comments (18)

August 31, 2010

Muslim Tolerance in Action: Desecrating Jewish Graves

Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives deliberately destroyed by Arab Muslims.

You know how the Ground Zero Mosque Islamists claims that the purpose of the massive structure is to promote tolerance and interfaith dialogue.

Well, that was the intitial fiction. But that's been dropped because the aggression and rigidity are, well, obviously so not tolerant, so hostile and Islamist, that now, Mr. Feisal Abdul Rauf—“I don't believe in religious dialogue”—and his supporters tediously repeat the lie that this is about, ahem, religious freedom.

Well, religious freedom is not a problem in America.

The real problem is, gee, what a shock, in the Muslim world.

The Mount of Olives, an ancient—from biblical times Jews have buried their dead here—and a holy cemetery in Jerusalem, is being used by Muslims as a garbage dump.

Jewish graves have been desecrated and destroyed. Muslims regularly lead their donkeys across the gravestones.

Muslim children play soccer among the dead.

Of course, this is nothing new:

Jewish burials were halted in 1948, and massive vandalism took place from 1948-1967. During the nineteen years of Jordanian rule, 40,000 of the 50,000 graves were desecrated. King Hussein permitted the construction of the Intercontinental Hotel at the summit of the Mount of Olives together with a road that cut through the cemetery which destroyed hundreds of Jewish graves, some from the First Temple Period. After the Six-Day War, restoration work began, and the cemetery was re-opened for burials.

More here.

The Muslim world is a sea of Jew-hatred and intolerance.

The outrages continue. Even today, our dead are not spared.

...there was no area of Har Hazeisim [Mount of Olives] that was spared the wanton destruction, filth, and abuse. He said that neighboring Palestinians use the cemetery roads as a shortcut and on evenings parade their donkeys through the area. “I witnessed Palestinians walking on graves as if it were a pedestrian mall,” he said. His heart-wrenching video confirms the findings of State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss that Har Hazeisim has all but been abandoned by the Israeli government. Lubinsky met with officials in the Prime Minister’s office to lodge a strong protest at the government’s turning a blind eye to the systematic destruction of Har Hazeisim.

Snip.

Levin’s video shows graves that were recently deliberately destroyed by Palestinians living in nearby villages and in the cemetery. He found a fully functioning soccer field on Har Hazeisim with the goal posts being broken fragments of graves. He also found at least one dead animal between the graves, roving dogs, drug paraphernalia, and garbage strewn everywhere. Many of the Committee participants reported being victim to stones being hurled at them by youngsters and at least one participant had a Molotov cocktail thrown at his car.

When Arab Muslims trod on the graves of our dead, you can be certain that they have no regard for living Jews. The fiction of a peace process is a dangerous illusion. You cannot make peace with a culture that marinates in such barbarism.

Full story here.

The tombs of the Prophet Zecharia and of the Hezir family on the Mount of Olives.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:16 AM in Jihad Watch | Comments (10)

August 30, 2010

The Ground Zero Mosque: The Constitution, Decency and Indecency

Mark Helprin, one of America's greatest novelists—and a veteran of the Israeli Air Force—weighs in on the Ground Zero Mosque controversy in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Building close to Ground Zero disregards the passions, grief and preferences not only of most of the families of September 11th but, because we are all the families of September 11th, those of the American people as well, even if not the whole of the American people. If the project is to promote moderate Islam, why have its sponsors so relentlessly, without the slightest compromise, insisted upon such a sensitive and inflammatory setting? That is not moderate. It is aggressively militant.

Disregarding pleas to build it at a sufficient remove so as not to be linked to an abomination committed, widely praised, and throughout the world seldom condemned in the name of Islam, the militant proponents of the World Trade Center mosque are guilty of a poorly concealed provocation. They dare Americans to appear anti-Islamic and intolerant or just to roll over.

But the opposition to what they propose is no more anti-Islamic or intolerant than to protest a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor or Nanjing would be anti-Shinto or even anti-Japanese. How about a statue of Wagner at Auschwitz, a Russian war memorial in the Katyn Forest, or a monument to British and American air power at Dresden? The indecency of such things would be neither camouflaged nor burned away by the freedoms of expression and religion. And that is what the controversy is about, decency and indecency, not the freedom to worship, which no one denies.

Helprin explains that the Constitution also gives voice to those who, in protest, can refuse to build the mosque, and for citizens of good conscience not to cross picket lines manned by 9-11 families, firemen, police, and various construction guilds.

Read the full piece here.

And by the way, let us not forget that under Obamanomics federal spending is growing at an unprecedented pace. We are adding $4.8 billion—I cannot even imagine that number—to the national debt every day. At this pace, under the Democrats, our national debt, in two to three years, will be greater than our GDP. This is not only unsustainable, it is fiscal madness.

So it's not much of a surprise to learn that our tax dollars are being used to help fund The Muslim Brotherhood.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:49 AM in Ground Zero Mosque | Comments (19)

August 27, 2010

Fierce Flags

Lulu Guiness American Flag Lip Clutch

Dear Robert:

I really enjoy your Friday Footwear and Friday Fashion features. Though I can't wear the high heels you feature, I'll tip over and hit the pavement, I do enjoy keeping up with the glittery crowd. I know this is weird, but I have a fashion question. I'm going to attend some tea party rallies, but I don't want to be one of those people who just wears T-shirts, jeans and flip-flops. What do you recommend?

Desperately Patriotic But Tragically Unfashionable

Dear DPBTU:

Thanks so much for writing. Karen has been telling me for quite a while that I should multi-task as a fashion critic/screenwriter/man about town. So I'm delighted to weigh in on your fashion dilemma.

You are what you wear, so for a Tea Party, your clothing should proclaim your patriotism, love of liberty and fashion.

T-shirts and jeans. Boring. Unless worn by Kate Moss. So, yes, it's a good idea to steer clear from this oh-so-tedious uniform.

As to flip-flops, my advice is simple and deeply felt:

Throw.

Them.

Away.

Seriously, flip-flops do nothing but make you walk like a duck. And that slapping sound is sooo annoying. It's like a leper's bell announcing your arrival. Civilization is imperiled by these crimes against footwear.

Here are a few ideas on the proper wardrobe and accessories for Tea Parties and Town Hall Meetings. But if you live in a Democrat district and show up in these outfits, you can be sure that your questions will be ignored. In fact, you'll probably be barred from entering by the SEIU goons who enforce for the Dems.

Seen on the runway at the Fall/Winter 2010 Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Salute the flag with an appropriately beringed finger

When on your feet for long hours, it's important to be comfortable. These Converse flag sneakers will do the job.

But once the rally is over and you go out to dinner with all the new Tea Party friends you've made, you can step into these beauties by Zanotti, appropriate for a learned discussion of the Constitution.

How about a dance after the Tea Party. The Goddiva sequined flag dress will transform you into the Dolly Madison of the ball.

Red and white flag tights are the perfect way to round out your look.

Accessories can make or break an outfit. This pin by Tarina Tarantino is elegantly retro. I can see this as part of Sarah Palin's wardrobe, pinned to her beautifully tailored leather jackets.

Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and patriotic Shabbat.

Send in your fashion questions and I'll be glad to offer my advice.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:59 AM in Friday Fashion | Comments (6)

August 26, 2010

Greta Garbo Meets Margaret Dumont, Sorta

Groucho Marx with his greatest straight man, Margaret Dumont.

Several years ago, while on location for a TV movie I had penned, one of the featured actresses made it known that she was unhappy with, well, everything.

The producer, a total pro, did all in his power to please her, going well beyond the details of her contract. She received a luxurious hotel suite, a big limousine, and even, I kid you not, a private and very expensive Hatha Yoga instructor, who would, the actress assured us, “balance her spiritual needs.”

Cruel Interpolation
The yoga instructor—a Jewish woman (natch) in hideous Birkenstocks and equally outre Woodstock-inspired tie-dyed outfits—was always hanging around the set and earnestly dropping pearls of wisdom, which to me, sounded like warmed over Khalil Gibran. Stuff like: “To prepare the rice, you must do nothing but prepare the rice.”
End Cruel Interpolation

Anyhoo.

No matter what the actress was given, it was never enough.

Appeasement does not work in geo-politics or Hollywood.

The budget was being strained and we were losing valuable time as the actress was habitually late for her morning call. The director, a sweet man with a long list of impressive credits, confided that he was losing patience and maybe, “It would be a good idea just to strangle the b***h.”

Finally, I was asked to step in and have a private chat with our actress. Being the unthreatening screenwriter, perhaps I might gain some insight into her ceaseless demands.

After meeting with the actress for about two hours—I barely spoke, just listened and nodded, all Freud Jr.—I debriefed the anxious producer and homicidal director.

“She doesn't really care about the hotel room, the limo, the yoga, all the, um, stuff.”

The producer and director were baffled.

Her demands, I explained, were just a means to an end, a boorish if effective strategy.

Bottom line: “She thinks you don't give her enough respect.”

“But we hired her for the job,” said the director.

“Yeah, but she knows that she wasn't our first choice. She knows that first we offered the role to Name of Actress Redacted, who passed.”

“They're all so damned insecure,” sighed my producer.

As I said, the producer and director were experienced pros and they immediately made the proper adjustments. They doted on our actress like indulgent parents, and boom, before you knew it, she was as content as a drug addict with a life long supply of narcotics.

Which brings me to Margaret Dumont, (real name Daisy Juliette Baker) and Greta Garbo.

Eve Arden had a sixty year career in Hollywood. Her work spanned Hollywood's Golden Age to early television, where her unique personae—sardonic but lovable—was, at last, fully realized in the classic series Our Miss Brooks.

In Eve Arden's entertaining and well observed memoir, Three Phases of Eve, she relates the following anecdote:

In 1939, I was called to do a picture at MGM with the Marx Brothers. They were at their zenith then, and the fair-haired boys of the lot. The picture was A Day at the Circus, and my part was a zany one. I was to be the lady who walked on the ceiling...

Snip.

In a day or so, I arrived, letter-perfect, to do a scene with Groucho. As I slipped on my leotard and spangles in the set dressing room, I could hear Margaret Dumont, the grande dame of the Marx Brothers pictures, complaining in her most elegant voice that her dressing room had no top on it.

“They wouldn't dare do this to Garbo,” she boomed.

No matter what heights you reach in Hollywood, actors, writers, directors, in fact everybody is obsessively measuring themselves against an impossible yard stick: the accomplishments and status of others. It's inevitable in a town where so many creative and fragile egos collaborate/collide on an hourly basis.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:19 AM in Eve Arden | Comments (12)

August 25, 2010

Ground Zero Mosque: The Bigotry Card

H/T Sultan Knish

Why does Seraphic Secret continue to pay so much attention to the Ground Zero Mosque?

Believe me, I'd rather write about all the amazing medieval-themed movies I've been screening—Marketa Lazarova (1967) The Navigator (1988) Anchoress (1993)—but there are moments in our culture that are such obvious turning points, disputes that are so central to who we are, and where we, as a nation, are going, that to ignore the moment is to surrender to the imperial designs of violent, theocratic Islam and her liberal enablers.

Daniel Greenfield of the fine blog Sultan Knish has posted an immensely articulate article, Who are the Real Bigots?

Over the last year every time the media sensed that it might be on the losing side of an argument, it began shouting "Bigot". When ObamaCare and the Big Bailouts began floundering in the polls and meeting up with populist protests, the media began running stories accusing the protesters of being bigots, while claiming that "Socialist" was actually a racial slur. Now the media and its political agenda is once again on the wrong side of the American people over the Ground Zero Mosque, and once again the media is playing the bigotry card.

At times like these it's all too obvious why liberals have been so determined to co-opt race, because it gives them an open ended smear to use in virtually any situation. In the Obama Era, the media has been certain that the very presence of a half-black politician behind their agenda, meant they had an unlimited use of the race card. They were wrong. The media's smears have resounded only inside liberal echo chambers, and their constant attempts at exploiting a serious problem, for their own political advantage has rebounded on them.

But even as many prominent Democrats are cutting and running, the media has decided to make a last stand over the Ground Zero Mosque, in their time honored fashion of yelling, "Bigot" over and over again. The members of our red fourth estate, who graduated from shouting "Bigot" at college campus protests, to penning long articles for major newspapers about America's history of bigotry, have only adopted a more sophisticated way of shouting "Bigot", while showing their contempt for the vast majority of Americans who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque.

Head on over to Sultan Knish to read the complete article.

Make sure to check out this story about true Islamophobia.

And hey, what a shock, the Ground Zero Mosque is a Zionist Conspiracy.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:48 AM in Ground Zero Mosque | Comments (13)

August 24, 2010

Ground Zero Opponents Just Like anti-Semites

Totally predictable, and obscene.

The Islamophobia card, but framed as a new form of anti-Semitism.

A leader [Daisy Khan] of a planned Muslim community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero compared opposition to the project to the persecution of Jews, in comments that could add to the controversy over the center's proposed site.

Memo to Daisy: You forgot to mention that the Arab Muslim world is the epicenter of eliminationist Jew-hatred.

You forgot to mention that Faisel Abdul Rauf, your husband, has refused to label Hamas—dedicated to the liquidation of Israel and every Jew on the face of the earth—a terrorist organization.

In fact, you forgot to mention that your awesomely multicultural hubbie has, gee, what a shock, also called for an end to the Jewish State.

You also forgot to mention that the only genuine Islamophobia is Muslim against Muslim violence, which takes place every single day, every single hour in the Arab Muslim world.

Just today, Al Shabbab, Islamist terrorists, slaughtered scores of Muslims in Mogadishu.