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May 31, 2007
Lack of Clarity I: 4GW
Most Americans and far too many Israelis do not understand the nature of Fourth Generation Warfare, which includes the strategic use of protracted war, and political propaganda. We have only to study how the Communist North Vietnamese destroyed the political will of the United States to see how this model of warfare works.
The difference between the Communists and the Islamic terrorists are quite striking:
1. The Communists used violence as a tactic in a revolutionary struggle to absorb entire states, and then build their anti-Democratic tyrannies on the ossified bones of Marxist/Lenninist theory.
2. The jihadists use violence as a religious principle to hollow out the states they wish to fracture and plunder. They have no wish to build infastructure. Witness the so-called Palestinians who have had numerous opportunities since 1948 to have their own state. Each time they have rejected this option in favor of war. Gaza is the end result of the jihadist nihilism.
4th Generation Propaganda
Similarities must be noted for jihadists have carefully studied the Communist insurgencies of the 20th century.
Communists and jihadists exploit the natural splits in democracies to erode popular support for war. Their propaganda always frames every conflict in terms of "colonial aggression" thereby easily coopting squishy Western liberals as allies and enablers. Western liberals were content to co-exist and apologize for Communism, and now most liberals are marching along with Islamic radicals; an odd match considering Islamic radicals will turn around and butcher all feminists, homosexuals, Jews, Christians, Secularists, at the first opportunity.
But liberals are no longer liberal; their once fine ideology has been corrupted by a morally vacuous multi-culturalism. Malignant Jew-hatred has settled into a comfortable home in the rarified salons of the European and American left—cleverly disguised as "mere anti-Zionism." There is also a paralyzing fear of being accused of Islamophobia—a phantom prejudice invented by jihadists to keep the guilt-ridden West on the defensive, another tactic of 4th Generation Warfare. Thus, liberals have transmongrified into arch-reactionaries and isolationists, living in a fashionable, but ultimately suicidal state of denial.
Negotiation: 4th Generation Style
Negotiation is another tactic used by 4th Generation players to defeat their enemies. Read what Mao said about this tactic:
Revolutions rarely compromise; compromises are made only to further the strategic design. Negotiation, then, is undertaken for the dual purpose of gaining time to buttress a position (military, political, social, economic) and to wear down, frustrate and harass the opponent. Few, if any essential concessions are to be expected from the revolutionary side, whose aim is only to create conditions that will preserve the unity of the strategic line and guarantee the development of a victorious situation.
Thus, when the Democrats demand that we engage Syria and Iran, they play right into the hands of the enemy. Negotiation buys time, gives the aura of legitimacy to butcher regimes, and allows the world to sit back and imagine that all will be well. In fact, the rogue state are merely setting up their next aggressive moves. For Syria, the final annexation of Lebanon; for Iran, their nuclear bomb: hegemony over the middle-east, and the destruction of Israel.
Losing Battles, Winning Wars
Ho Chi Minh lost every important battle against U.S. forces. For General Giap the Tet Offensive was a disaster, but in defeating the political will of the United States Tet was a spectacular success; that self-important wind-bag Walter Cronkite was worth his weight in gold to the Communists, thus the North was able to win the war.
The jihadists are counting on just this strategy as America and Israel battle world-wide jihad. In Israel, those on the left through willfull ignorance, stubborn denial, all-too familiar Jewish self-loathing, or simple conflict-fatigue neatly separate the so-called Palestinians and their endless grievances from the trans-national jihadist players, Hizbullah/Iran, Syria/Hizbullah & Islamic Jihad, and continue to insist that the war is about "occupied territory" when it is about the very existence of the Jewish State.
The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the liquidation of the Zionist presence in Palestine.
PLO Charter, Article 15
This from Abbas' Fatah, the group our government and Israel's current leadership considers pragmatic and moderate.
In America we are already being told that we must "learn to live" with a nuclear Iran, as if some magical paralysis has taken hold of our national will and nothing can be done about the spread of nuclear weapons among jihadist state players.
We have also been told that the war in Iraq is "lost," that it is a "quagmire," and that we must now stamp an expiration date on this war. Of course, nothing would make the jihadists happier than a surrender time-table from the Americans.
Time... Time... Time
It is also vital to come to grips with the stark reality of the time-frame that Fourth Generation Warfare imposes. The jihadists correctly think in terms of generations. We in the west, impatient for instant solutions, believe that wars should come to a final conclusion after a few months, certainly after several years, World War I & II serving as models. But these wars were the last of Third Generation Warfare. We cannot fight these wars anymore. The enemy is too clever, and will not allow himself to be destroyed on the field of battle where he knows he cannnot triumph. Thus the jihadists have adopted Fourth Generation Warfare as their two stage strategy: destroying the political will of the west, and then rupturing one Western democracy after another.
Impatience inevitably leads to defeat. This is the heart and soul of Mao's concept of protracted war.
The Europeans are set on seeking "diplomatic solutions." This is nothing less than appeasement. Even as their capital cities sprout huge mosques generously funded by radical Islamic "charities," European intellectual elites agitate against Israel with South African style boycotts, and give a free pass to Iran, and Syria, countries that seek their destruction.
These are the mind-sets of those who have been defeated by 4th Generation Warfare, some willingly, others unknowingly. Nevertheless, it is the road to oblivion for western civilization.
Everyone should understand: Lack of clarity spells doom.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:07 AM | Comments (14)
Syria's Simple Message
In the Middle East, violence is not the result of poor communication but a tool for political gain. Nothing proves that point better than Syria's successful use of violence and terrorism to promote its interests. No amount of dialogue is going to change that reality.
Now Syria is using a Palestinian front group to start a war inside Lebanon, just as it employed another Lebanese client organization, Hezbollah, to battle Israel last year. The Syrian government's message is simple: Lebanon will know no peace until it again becomes our satellite.
To read the entire article by Barry Rubin, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)
Lebanon: Where is the Outcry?
Just as Lebanon's stew of eternally warring Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Hezbollah terrorists and militarized clans serves as a Mediterranean microcosm for the political dysfunction of the Arab world, this month's events capture perfectly the utter cynicism of the Islamic world's trumped up vilification of Israel, and the West as a whole. As with the Muslim-on-Muslim slaughter in Darfur, Iraq, Pakistan, Gaza and a dozen other hot spots, the siege at Nahr al Bared shows that what inflames "the Muslim street" (for lack of a better cliche) isn't Muslim suffering, but the relatively tiny fraction thereof that jihadi propagandists and their Western apologists can lay at the feet of Jews and Christians.
Muslim blood apparently comes cheap—but only when it's drawn by other Muslims.
To read the entire article by Jonathan Kay, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:58 AM | Comments (2)
May 30, 2007
The Case for Bombing Iran
But Hitler was not a conventional statesman and, although for tactical reasons he would sometimes pretend otherwise, he did not have limited aims. He was a revolutionary seeking to overturn the going international system and to replace it with a new order dominated by Germany, which also meant the political culture of Nazism. As such, he offered only two choices: resistance or submission. Finding this reality unbearable, the world persuaded itself that there was a way out, a third alternative, in negotiations. But given Hitler’s objectives, and his barely concealed lust for war, negotiating with him could not conceivably have led to peace. It could have had only one outcome, which was to buy him more time to start a war under more favorable conditions. As most historians now agree, if he had been taken at his own word about his true intentions, he could have been stopped earlier and defeated at an infinitely lower cost.
Which brings us back to Ahmadinejad. Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. Like Hitler, too, he is entirely open about his intentions, although—again like Hitler—he sometimes pretends that he wants nothing more than his country’s just due. In the case of Hitler in 1938, this pretense took the form of claiming that no further demands would be made if sovereignty over the Sudetenland were transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany. In the case of Ahmadinejad, the pretense takes the form of claiming that Iran is building nuclear facilities only for peaceful purposes and not for the production of bombs.
But here we come upon an interesting difference between then and now. Whereas in the late 1930’s almost everyone believed, or talked himself into believing, that Hitler was telling the truth when he said he had no further demands to make after Munich, no one believes that Ahmadinejad is telling the truth when he says that Iran has no wish to develop a nuclear arsenal. In addition, virtually everyone agrees that it would be best if he were stopped, only not, God forbid, with military force—not now, and not ever.
To read the entire article by Norman Podhoretz, and you really should, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, William "Pup" Cochran, of the wonderful Vintage Knives.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:02 PM | Comments (1)
Terrorist Sex... Really
Israel today arrested a longtime wanted terror leader here in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
According to Israeli security officials and Palestinian sources the terrorist was arrested while having car sex just a few hundred feet from late PLO leader Yasser Arafat's gravesite.
Khaled Shawish, an officer in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Force 17 presidential guards, was captured by undercover Israeli police forces following scores of shooting attacks he is suspected of carrying out. Shawish, who doubles as the Ramallah chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, previously boasted of involvement in a West Bank shooting attack in December 2000 that killed Israeli ultranationalist leader Benjamin Kahane and Kahane's wife, Talya.
To read the rest of this story, please click here.
Car sex?
How very 50's drive-in.
Next to a grave?
Personally, I find that something of a thrill-kill.
But listen, the terrorists and The Qur'an remind us that they love death more than life, thus grave-sex is probably all the rage among the so-called Palestinians. Second only to that other wildly popular past-time: honor-killings. Which have nothing to do with honor, everything to do with the hatred of women, and serves as yet another pretext to indulge in more religious and socially sanctioned murder.
I have a question: Is it considered a holy duty to have sex right by Arafat's grave?
Does Arafat send his blessings directly from hell to the adulterous couple?
Cool.
How much do you want to bet that the the Israeli security were tipped off by necrophiliac/terrorist/lover-boy's wife?
Also: Watch for high-minded British Jew-haters, er, I mean academics to take this as proof that they absolutely must boycott Israeli goods.
Why?
For not offering free marriage counseling to the troubled couple.
Israel, big meanies that they are, forced this poor, peace-loving desert nomad to thrash around with his back-seat slattern next to the terrorist grave.
This has all the makings of an episode for Sands of Passion.
Oh, and you must see this: an adorable play put on by adorable children in Gaza.
Here you have an entire society that is nothing less than a snuff film in production.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:13 AM | Comments (11)
The Zogerke, the Liver & Yom Kippur
In the 1840's there were among the simple folk many women [in Europe] who did not know how to pray in Hebrew. Still, they felt a great need to pray on the Sabbath, and especially on the High Holy Days. And there were literate women who made a business of their learning, praying aloud for the others for a small fee. Such a woman was called a zogerke (literally, a reciter). In the smaller Jewish towns there might not be such a woman, and then a man (a zoger) had to crawl into a barrel that was put right in the middle of the women's section [of the synagogue]. From the midst of this fortress, surrounded by women, he read out the prayers. As may be imagined, this custom often resulted in comical incidents. That barrel was an inexhaustible source of new jokes.
On Yom Kippur the zogerke was supposed to recite the prayers in a tearful voice, so as to bring the women's gallery to weeping and remorse. Now in our community there was a woman, the wife of the butcher, who was hard of hearing. She begged the zogerke to pray a little louder; she'd give her an extra large liver from the shop if she would do it for her. The zogerke answered in her weeping prayer voice, weaving her reply into the recitation:
“The same with the liver, the same without the liver.”
A moment later the men were startled to hear the entire women's gallery sob aloud in full voice:
“The same with the liver, the same without the liver.”
A little while later one of the women was on her way home and met another woman just arriving at the synagogue.
“Where are they? What prayer are they up to?”
“Nu, the prayer about the liver.”
“Liver? Last year we didn't say anything like that!”
“Today, efsher (maybe), because it's a leap year.”
Rememberings: The World of a Russian Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century, by Pauline Wengeroff
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:11 AM | Comments (12)
IDF: In Denial
As we all know the Winograd Comission was appointed by the current Israeli government to investigate the Second Lebanese War. The findings shredded the performances of Prime Minister Olmert, Defense Minister Peretz, and former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Chalutz.
Here's an interesting analysis of the Winograd report by Haninah Levine. Levine stresses three vital lessons for the Israeli Defense Forces.
1. Western militaries are in active denial concerning the limitations of precision weapons.
2. There are real world consequenses to overstretching the military.
3. Rhetorical praise for the troops must not interfere with an honest assessment of their abilities.
Click here to read Levine's analysis.
Levine writes for The Center for Defense Information, a think-tank that clearly veers to the left, but I find this analysis credible and forthright, and as I've said many times, Seraphic Secret values truth over ideology.
I'd be interested in hearing reactions to this analysis from our wise and articulate commenters.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:52 AM | Comments (2)
May 29, 2007
Seraphic Pick: Sands of Passion
Okay, not quite on the level of Mizoguchi or Kurosawa, but still great stuff.
It's important to poke fun at our jihadist enemies. They have no answer to humor for like all tyrannies they are miserable people with no sense of humor. Hitler was enraged beyond endurance by Charlie Chaplin's mockery in The Great Dictator.
Humor is a valuable weapon in Fourth Generation Warfare. And the west corners the market on laughter. Have you ever heard of a funny jihadist, a happy-go-lucky homicide bomber, a witty and cute Islamist?
No?
What a shock.
Islamic loonies burn with hatred of Jews, Christians, women, western civilization; they are unhappy, angry, filled with self-loathing and entirely without a shred of humor or irony.
Not fun people.
And so it's open season on everything they believe, say and do. They deserve all our contempt.
Click here for: Episode 4: The Sands of Passion.
This stuff is so good even Karen is hooked on this hilarious series.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Seawitch
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)
Seraphic Movie Pick: Sancho the Bailiff
As most of my readers know, I have a deep and abiding affection for classical Japanese movies. I consider The Seven Samurai the greatest movie ever made; in fact, watching Seven Samurai as an incredibly ignorant and dopey yeshiva high school kid inspired yours truly to become a screenwriter. And of course, when I dated Karen, one of the first films I took her to see was Kurosawa's masterpiece.
There is another great Japanese film that had a profound effect on me when I first saw it over twenty years ago: Sancho the Bailiff, directed by the great Kenji Mizoguchi.
It is finally available on DVD this week from Criterion. This company issues the best DVD's on the market. Criterion transfers are clean, they go to great lengths to get rid of scratches and dust shadows from the original negatives; their subtitles are crisp, easy to read, and the additional information is actually valuable, not the usual junk you get with so many DVD's. Check out the Criterion Collection.
This is not a film about fearless samurai and stark face-to-face swordplay. The movie is set in 11th century Japan, where slavery was not only legal, but considered part of the natural order of things. Sancho the Bailiff is a cruel slave owner, into whose hands fall a young brother and sister, the kidnapped children of a provincial governor who has been punished for his kindness and honesty to peasants. The mother has been sold into prostitution—an even more degrading form of slavery.
As a child, the Mizoguchi family was reduced to abject poverty during the Russo-Japanese War. Kenji's older sister was given up for adoption. But the adopted family turned around and sold her as a geisha. Mizoguchi never recovered from this betrayal to his beloved sibling. Thus, the theme of female servitute and suffering is a constant in his very best work.
The belief that, "Without mercy, man is like a beast," is repeated many times in this epic film that covers over 20 years in the lives of the family. And as in Mizoguchi's other masterpiece, Ugetsu, this is a film of breathtaking beauty and poetry where women and their narrow choices in medieval Japanese society take center stage.
Ugetsu: a week before I married Karen I rushed to see this film to get some chizuk.
Go figure.
Life of Oharu is another Mizoguchi masterwork, and we anxiously wait for a fine DVD transfer.
Be warned, Sancho the Bailiff is a harrowing movie at 2 hours and 5 minutes, but it is among the greatest films ever made and for me a touchstone in my intellectual and emotional education.
Further Mizoguchi Reading:
The Spirit Moves, by Gary Morris. A nice overview of the directors career.
Kenji Mizoguchi, by Alexander Jacoby. Another look at the directors career, but with valuable information about Mizoguchi's early and rarely seen films. Be warned, Jacoby takes swipes at Kurosawa and another great director, Kon Ichikawa. Film critics are a weird bunch; they have this compulsion, clinical really, to elevate one director at the expense of another.
Strictly Film School gives us a nice synopsis of these Mizoguchi greats: The Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, The 47 Ronin, Utamaro and His Five Women, Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, A Geisha, Sansho the Bailiff, Crucified Lovers, and Street of Shame.
Adventures in Space, analyzes The 47 Ronin, and concludes that this unusual Mizoguchi film, a Samurai story, is a masterpiece.
This article focuses exclusively on Street of Shame, a post-World War II production, a Mizoguchi film I have not yet seen.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:58 AM | Comments (2)
May 28, 2007
Jihad Soap Opera
This is hysterical. I'm totally hooked.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Seawitch.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:07 PM | Comments (2)
Hamas: Kill all Jews
Via Arutz Sheva: Hamas issued an official call on Sunday night asking its followers to murder Israeli Jews wherever possible. Those who follow the call would be fulfilling the Muslim command of jihad, according to Hamas.
The statement released by Hamas asks Muslims to take whatever weapons they manage to obtain and to kill Jews wherever they find them, without hesitation. “The time has come,” the group said, “to kill the occupier.”
Hamas is the elected government of the so-called Palestinian people. Thus, Hamas speaks for the civilian population.
When a government calls for liquidation of "Israeli Jews wherever possible" I take that seriously.
The "occupier" grievance, by the way, refers to the entire State of Israel.
So all you appeasers out there who believed that withdrawing from Gaza would get you brownie points with Hamas, well, it didn't happen. They saw the withdrawal, correctly, as surrender, and launched war.
All you who believe that trading Judea and Samaria (The West Bank) for peace, well, guess what?
It will not work.
Hamas, Fatah, all of them want, duh, all of Israel.
They say it all the time. Why do so many choose not to believe them?
Is it perhaps that so many on the left are racists who believe that Arabs and Muslims don't really mean what they say because, y'know, they "have a tendency to use flowery language."
I happen to respect Arabs and Muslims. I take them very seriously. When they openly and proudly call for genocide, well, call me crazy, but I believe them. They have a long and proud history of Jew killing.
Here's what has to happen now:
1.Israelis must accept that they are at war; these rocket attacks are not isolated events.
2. Israel has to rid herself of the current wretched Olmert, Peretz, Livni, Kadima government.
3. Natanyahu must be elected. Sorry, he's the only sheriff on the block.
4. Gaza should be declared an enemy state.
5. The IDF must turn off the electrical grid in Gaza.
6. Air and commando operations to commence against stragetic targets in Gaza.
7. Every single Hamas government official is and has always been an enemy combatant and should be hunted down and killed.
8. If rockets continue to rain on Israel from Gaza, then Israel should proceed with carpet bombing every inch of Gaza.
Here's what General Curtis LeMay said during World War II: I'll tell you what war is about. You have got to kill people, and when you have killed enough of them they stop fighting.
And this how General Phil Sheridan defined the object of war: To deal as hard blows to the enemies' soldiers as possible, and then cause so much suffering to the inhabitants of the country that they will long for peace and press their government to make it... Nothing should be left to the people but eyes to lament the war.
Unless Israel follows LeMay and Sheridan's stark advice, Hamas, Fatah and all jihadists win.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:42 AM | Comments (8)
Memorial Day
Karen and I wish to thank Seraphic readers who are members of the armed forces, or who have been members of our armed services. We also wish to thank all the family members of those who serve for they too sacrifice on a scale that is unimaginable to civilians.
We cannot imagine the charnal house this world would be if not for the brave volunteers of the American armed services.
Freedom is not free, and your sacrifice will never be forgotten.
May G-d bless and protect each and every one of you.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)
America's Honor
The stories behind Memorial Day.
Once we knew who and what to honor on Memorial Day: those who had given all their tomorrows, as was said of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, for our todays. But in a world saturated with selfhood, where every death is by definition a death in vain, the notion of sacrifice today provokes puzzlement more often than admiration. We support the troops, of course, but we also believe that war, being hell, can easily touch them with an evil no cause for engagement can wash away. And in any case we are more comfortable supporting them as victims than as warriors.
Former football star Pat Tillman and Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham were killed on the same day: April 22, 2004. But as details of his death fitfully emerged from Afghanistan, Tillman has become a metaphor for the current conflict--a victim of fratricide, disillusionment, coverup and possibly conspiracy. By comparison, Dunham, who saved several of his comrades in Iraq by falling on an insurgent's grenade, is the unknown soldier. The New York Times, which featured Abu Ghraib on its front page for 32 consecutive days, put the story of Dunham's Medal of Honor on the third page of section B.
Not long ago I was asked to write the biographical sketches for a book featuring formal photographs of all our living Medal of Honor recipients. As I talked with them, I was, of course, chilled by the primal power of their stories. But I also felt pathos: They had become strangers--honored strangers, but strangers nonetheless--in our midst.
To read the rest of Peter Collier's fine Memorial Day article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2007
Seraphic Kid on Indians
I was interviewed by Conservative Indian activist Dr. David Yeagley about Indians, er, Native Americans, Indian gambling, the Reservation system, Indian Nationhood, and a host of other issues I know very little about. Dr. Yeagley tells me that many of my comments are, um, controversial.
Hellooo? I'm a Republican in Hollywood. I'm accustomed to being treated like a leper.
It was Dr. Yeagley who once pointed out to me the suicidal folly of Israel's land-for-peace deals with the Arabs writing: "Look where that got the Indians with the U.S. government."
Dr. Yeagley: What is your response to the idea of an American Indian being an American patriot? Is it impossibly contradictory? Is it disingenuous?
Mr. Avrech: I see no conflict between being an Indian and an American patriot. Indians are citizens of this country and though, like many minorities, they suffered horribly, it does no good to live in some make-believe world where the Native American tribes are seen as peaceful hippies at one with the earth. The facts are quite different: most tribes were involved in inter-tribal warfare of the most brutal sort. Europeans were simply more sophisticated and brought a western discipline to the art of war that was fated to sweep away the weaker Native American tribes.
This is the way of the world and nation-states. To live in the past and in a world of victimhood is to doom oneself to a life of grievance. I need only point to the Arab/Muslim world to show where that mind-set leads.
To read the rest of my interview, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:27 PM | Comments (26)
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #118
Quick, I mean right now, click on over to this week's edition of Haveil Havelim #118 The Not Pluralistic Edition, hosted by the delightful, fanatic, right-winger (my kinda guy) Esser Agaroth.
Confession: Okay, once again, I have given this edition my own title.
But: It's a good title, right?
Anywhooo!
Ben-Yehuda's introduction, a Proustian digression upon several layers of further digression is priceless. My face hurts from smiling so hard.
We'd like to thank Ben Yehuda for including Seraphic Secret's Shavuot memory, Heaven Will Split in this week's round-up.
Also: we should all take a moment to thank Soccer Dad who works so hard to coordinate this lively and indispensible Jewish chizuk/out-reach/journalism/entertainment/whatever, week after week. He does not get paid. There is no fame. And he probably misses soccer practice. Yasher koach Soccer Dad.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:26 AM | Comments (4)
May 25, 2007
A Silver Thanks
Take a look on the right and you'll see two new medallions for Seraphic Secret from the JIB Awards. We were nominated in two categories: Best Personal Post, and Best Series for How I Married Karen. As you can see, we won silver in both categories, second place.
We have you to thank for this wonderful showing. We know that it's sort of a pain to vote, you have to click a bunch of times, then fill in that weird little box to confirm that you're really a human being and not, I presume, a Klingon, and sometimes it's really hard to read, and so you have to do it twice to get confirmation—it's such a hassle.
So we really do appreciate all the trouble you went to.
One of my readers asked me how I felt about coming in second.
Hmmm.
1. It's better to come in first.
2. But you can't always win.
3. In the Best Personal Blog category I lost to my good freind Treppenwitz, who writes a fantastic blog. As I said to Karen: It's an honor to come in second to David.
4. In the Best Series category I lost to Lazer Beams, a Breslov chassid. No doubt this was payback for my Mitnagid ways.
5. Seriously: the better blogs won.
In any case, The JIB Awards are a wonderful way for all of us to be exposed to some really sharp bloggers. I discovered one site Mere Rhetoric, that is just fantastic. Here's how he describes himself: Omri Ceren is a Ph.D. student studying Rhetoric at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. He lives in Los Angeles.
Omri didn't win any awards, but he deserves a wide readership.
I also admire Yutopia's response to the Conservative's movement's teshuva on Homosexuality. The author does not stoop to ad hominem arguments; he is understated, respectful; and then like the fine yeshiva scholar he is Rabbi Joshua Yuter marshals all the halachic evidence that the Conservative movement conveniently neglected and demolishes their house of sand. Again, this fine site did not win any awards, but it's a superb blog that deserves a wide readership.
Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:09 PM | Comments (4)
Education: Palestinian Style
Top 10 Classes Offered at Palestinian Refugee Camps
by Jake Novak
10) Crying on Cue.
9) A.P. Embezzling.
8) Tire Burning for Dummies.
7) Elementary Techniques in BBC Correspondent Kidnapping.
6) Shooting in the Air 101.
5) Duping Peaceniks.
4) 9/11 Celebration Street Folk Dancing.
3) Do-it-Yourself Honor Killing.
2) How to Impress the Yale Admissions Officer.
1) Rock Throwing for Tots.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:55 AM | Comments (2)
Memorial Day
We must never forget.
U.S. Memorial Day, History and Information on U.S. War Memorials
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
Memo to Israel: Come Back to Gaza
Here’s a UK TV clip from Little Green Football operative Kasper, a better look at the situation in Gaza than we usually get from US media, in which a Palestinian man fed up with the fighting and bloodshed says he wishes Israel would come back in and take over.
Click here to see this incredible video.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
It Just Happened
Some of the 11,000 refugees who escaped from Nahr al-Bared reported that the militants had threatened to shoot those who left, effectively using the camp’s civilians as a human shield to prevent an all-out assault.
But Elias Murr, the Lebanese defence minister, insisted that the militant group, which has been linked to al-Qa’eda, must surrender or face an army onslaught.
“We won’t negotiate with terrorists,” he said.
To read the entire story, please click here.
A few observations:
The Lebanese army shut off the water and electricity to the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. In fact, this was their very first siege tactic. Though reading yesterday's Page 6, N.Y. Times, article: "Refugees Pour Out of Camp in Lebanon" by Hassan M. Fattah and Nada Bakri, one would have no idea how the power was switched off:
As many as 40,000 Palestinians had been trapped inside Nahr al Bared with no running water or electricity and dwindling food supplies since the fighting erupted Sunday.
Notice the passive use of language: with no running water or electricity...
And:
since fighting erupted...
This is what we like to call The Jerry Springer Effect. Have you ever watched the toothless morons on The Jerry Springer Show?
Of course not. Okay, we'll fill you in.
Here's what happens. Billy Ray sleeps with Crystal, his brother's wife or with his step-mother. Incredulous, Jerry asks: "How could you do this?"
Billy Ray and his slatternly partner look at Jerry and blankly answer: "It just happened."
Well, that's what Fattah and Bakri would have us believe.
The power went off.
How?
It just happened.
Fighting erupted? Who? How? Why?
It just happened.
Now, why do these two N.Y. Times reporters refuse to divulge the obvious?
Well, that's obvious.
No matter how brutal, how barbaric Arabs are to other Arabs, the narrative The N.Y. Times, Western Leftists, and the Arab world supports is that Israel is the bad guy on the block. And so, through the clever manipulation of language, these two graduates of the Yassir Arafat School of Journalism spill ink that is a tissue of half-lies designed to convince the world that Arab on Arab violence is, well, acceptable.
In fact, in days past, Mr. Fattah went to great lengths point out that the Lebanese army would not enter the refugee camp in order not to "evoke memories of the Israeli Army."
Yes, like all good anti-Semites, Mr. Fattah always manages to conjure the image of the evil Jooz.
Never mind that the Israeli army never entered any Lebanese refugeee camps.
But Mr. Fattah and the N.Y. Times have their pre-determined narrative, and neither facts nor history will stand in the way of their anti-Israeli propaganda.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese army are killing more innocent civilians than the Israeli army has ever killed, and not one voice in the Arab world, nor the U.N., will rise in protest. Amnesty International? Well, those Jew-haters are too busy condemning Israel for phantom human rights abuses and letting truly evil regimes like Hamas, Fatah, Sudan, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Iran and Syria off the hook.
And the N.Y. Times won't even cover the slaughter in Lebanon.
That's right, in today's N.Y. Times, not one article about Lebanon. Instead, they have a front page picture of a crater in Gaza from an Israeli air-strike.
You see, to the N.Y. Times, national self-defense against Hamas, a self-confessed genocidal regime, is big news.
By the way: why are there refugee camps in Lebanon?
Why are Muslims forced by fellow Muslims to live as second-class citizens all over the Arab world? These people are crammed into cinder-block villages; they are not allowed to own property nor hold passports; they are forbidden most business enterprises, and barred from higher education. They cannot travel in their host countries without special ID's. The fourth generation is now living on UN welfare.
They live under a system of apartheid.
The million Arab citizens who live in Israel have far more freedom.
There are hundreds of thousands of so-called Palestinians living in America. We don't shove them in refugee camps. We don't make them dependant on the UN for every scrap of food and clothing. We don't make them second-class citizens.
Why does every Arab country condemn their beloved Arab brothers to generation after generation of poverty and misery?
Just asking.
Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:42 AM | Comments (10)
May 22, 2007
What is the Seraphic Secret?
Karen writes: I want to thank all those who acknowledged the strength that our blog has given them, and those who appreciate that we have transmitted Ariel's A"H spirit through this medium, however diminished, and infinitesimal in comparison to knowing him in life.
We called this blog Seraphic Secret for several reasons, but mainly because we felt that Ariel was angelic even in life, and once he departed this earth, we hoped he would still inform us, inspire us, love us, if not overtly, physically, audibly, then secretly, through a discreet, spiritual form. We are always listening. I hope the communication goes both ways.
I love you Ariel. Chag Sameach. Learn well tonight.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:14 PM | Comments (10)
Heaven Will Split
“You will see a great miracle.”
“Me?”
My Rebbe nods his head just once, but with perfect conviction.
I am eight-years old, third grade in Yeshiva of Flatbush. One of our Hebrew teachers, a Rabbi, has taken me aside during recess; he is telling me a great secret.
“HaShem makes this miracle happen—but only for special children, good children.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Just stay up all night on Shavuos learning Torah.”
“Golly.”
My Rebbe smiles.
“What will I see?”
“Heaven will split apart and reveal… everything.”
I actually feel a shiver fluttering up and down my spine, like the wings of a butterfly.
I beg my father to take me to the Beis Midrash so I can stay up all night with the grown-ups, and of course witness heaven splitting, though I don't tell him this part. It's my little secret.
“You're too young”
“I'm bigger than last year.”
“Not as big as next year.”
“That's not fair.”
“Who said life is fair?” My father goes Kierkegaard on me.
In my bedroom that night, I sit by the window with a chumash on my lap. I try and learn Torah but my eyes are drawn to the sky, to the stars, to the lemon moon.
I am soooo sleepy.
Heaven will split…
A vigorous shake of the head will surely keep me awake. But no matter how hard I try my body rebels and grows so very weary.
I know, I'll just catch a quick nap, get some rest, and then wake up in time to see the miracle.
There is no way I am going to miss heaven splitting. It sounds better than any movie I have ever seen.
My father shakes me awake for shul.
I actually sit up with tears in my eyes.
“What's wrong?”
“I fell asleep, I didn't get to see the—”
“The what?”
“Nothing.”
Together, my father and I walk to shul. I feel like a total failure.
Now, almost fifty years later, I am still that little boy who believes that heaven will split—if only I act appropriately.
Seraphic Secret will be off-line for Shavuos, the time we set aside to celebrate the giving of the Torah from G-d to the Jewish people. Karen and I wish all our friends a joyous and meaningful holiday.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:56 PM | Comments (15)
Jihad Jimmy Strikes Again
Sabeel, a group trying to promote the view that Christians should not offer support to Israel, announces the opening of the Carter Center on the West Bank. This is nothing less than an attempt to weaken Christian support for Israel.
This is a new low from you-know-who.
To read the entire story, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, David Paulin.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
The OC, Libertas Style
Saturday’s festival was a little different than the one held in L.A. every year. It was really a way of introducing Orange County to the movement. Seven filmmakers introduced themselves, talked about their experience as conservative filmmakers in a medium dominated by the left, and showed a few minutes of their work. I’ve no doubt the combined quality of the work and the charm of the filmmakers won the sold-out crowd over.
Because of Shabbat, we could not attend this important event, but Seraphic friend Dirty Harry gives a full report here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2007
Secret Anniversary
Today is Seraphic Secret's third anniversary. This was our first post:
Thinking of Ariel...
Several months ago, my beloved son Ariel Chaim passed away. I am forever changed. I will write about him, about loss and memory for as long as I can.
Seraphic Secret has changed our lives. We have made scores of precious new friends, numerous acquaintances, and through your kindness and generosity we have been able to share our memories, grief, and joy. You who read and touch our lives have given us a measure of comfort we never imagined, and for this Karen and I owe you all a great debt of gratitude.
A special thanks to our good friend and blogmother Jackie Danicki who first suggested this blog and put us on-line. Without Jackie, we would not be here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:45 PM | Comments (26)
Learning from Yojimbo
A 35-year-old woman was killed Monday when one of three Kassam rockets fired at Sderot struck a car. She was the first Israeli killed in a rocket attack since November.
A 20-year-old man was moderately wounded in the rocket attack and twelve people were suffering from shock.
Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Palestinian Resistance Committee (PRC) claimed responsibility for the attack.
Streets were blocked in the area following the incident and Sderot residents ran towards the scene to try and locate loved ones. The Home Front Command was working with police to keep people away from the site.
The attack came as EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni were meeting in the western Negev town.
Livni said during a joint press conference with Solana in Sderot that Israel did not consider the option of a cease-fire as feasible, because to Hamas it was only an opportunity to rearm and not to adhere to the true meaning of a cease-fire.
To read the entire story, please click here.
Seraphic Secret has already pointed out that Gaza gets its electricity from Israel. In other words, Israel is supplying the terrorists with the power they need to continue their murderous attacks on Israel.
To the charge that shutting off the power to Gaza is collective punishment, we see no reason why the so-called Palestinian people should not be subject to retaliation for the actions of the government they have elected. That is what war is all about: punishing a people for the governments they have chosen. And no people deserve more punishment than the so-called Palestinians who have enthusiastically chosen one genocidal regime after another.
Besides, one of the definitions of war is collective punishment. The American Civil War was only fought to a successful conclusion once the citizens of the South were made to suffer for their support of slavery and secession. Sherman and his army had to march and ruthlessly destroy the cotton plantations and civilian infrastructure of the Southern states—only then did that terrible war come to a swift conclusion.
The attempt to make war a pin-point affair, painless and, well, nice, is a grievous sin. The Arabs have only contempt for Israel's restraint. And the Jew-hating Europeans chronically hold Israel responsible for crimes never even committed. Thus, in the end, the attempt at fighting a politically correct war brings great suffering to the people of Israel, and by extension to the West. The only people who benefit from this type of warfare are the terrorists and those Muslims who yearn for a 7th century caliphite.
As for cease-fires: As if we needed reminding, Tzipi Livni is a delusional fool. There are no meaningful cease-fires with terrorists—only seeds for much larger battles; again, only the jihadists benefit.
It's time for Israel to play the role of Sanjuro in Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo: Israel should step in and help Hamas and Fatah—wipe each other off the face of the earth.
Caroline Glick's latest thoughts: Denial is not a Strategy.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:16 PM | Comments (4)
A Jewess I Wish to Die
Then, in the first of three iterations, Sol pronounced the memorable line which became her epitaph: "A Jewess I was born, a Jewess I wish to die."
From: The Legacy of Islamic anti-Semitism by Andrew Bostom.
This comprehensive, meticulously documented collection of scholarly articles presents indisputable evidence that a readily discernible, uniquely Islamic antisemitism—a specific Muslim hatred of Jews—has been expressed continuously since the advent of Islam. Debunking the conventional wisdom, which continues to assert that Muslim animosity toward Jews is entirely a 20th-century phenomenon fueled mainly by the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict, leading scholars provide example after example of antisemitic motifs in Muslim documents reaching back to the beginnings of Islam. The contributors show that the Koran itself is a significant source of hostility toward Jews, as well as other foundational Muslim texts including the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters) and the sura (the earliest Muslim biographies of Muhammad). Many other examples are adduced in the writings of influential Muslim jurists, theologians, and scholars, from the Middle Ages through the contemporary era.
Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:34 AM | Comments (2)
May 20, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #117
I used to love going to drive-in movie theatres. The tinny sound. The glorious B movies. Watching couples in the other cars, ahem, not paying the least bit attention to the latest Roger Corman epic up on the screen.
Those were the days.
Anyway, Jack's Shack presents: Haveil Havelim #117, The Drive-in Edition.
Actually, Jack calls it: The Plain Edition, which is kinda... plain.
Anyway, I'm a screenwriter and we're always rewriting other writers so Jack, consider yourself, um, rewritten.
And yes, Jack, I'm watching Apple stock soar to new heights and waiting for the stock to split. Now, I don't give financial advice, but though Apple is at 110.02 I fully expect this stock to continue upwards, probably to 120, 125 in the next few months.
Remember, the last time I talked about Apple the stock was at 84 and some of my commenters lamented that: "the people who are going to make money have already made the money."
That's not how the market works.
I'd like to thank Jack's Shack for including two Seraphic Secret articles in the Drive-in Edition:
My analysis of Fourth Generation Warfare, the Inbetween War.
And oh boy, Robert, Not too Normal, in which I have to thank my lucky stars that one of Seraphic Secret's fans did not call Social Services and have me thrown in the big house.
My crime?
Loving Karen.
Jack has done a great job in this round-up. We want to thank him for his hard work, and though it's not The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, the last movie I saw in a drive-in, this is simply wonderful.
You may now toot your own horn, Jack.
Ouch.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:58 AM | Comments (3)
May 18, 2007
The Inbetween War
Seraphic Friend Jameel, over at The Muqata, has asked me to coin a new name for the war that's about to break out in Gaza.
My response: "Gee, a war? I just thought the Arabs were killing each other for, y'know, practice?"
Jameel, understandably jaded, titles his entry: Here We Go Again, and later pleads: "This time we better win."
Here's the problem:
Hamas and Fatah are fighting a civil war in Gaza. There has never been a unity government. That was a charade from the the very beginning, each side maneuvering carefully, looking for the right moment to move in for the kill.
Within this civil war are smaller turf battles between powerful crime families, tribes and clans fighting for control of neighborhoods, for their sex, liquor, drugs and various black market operations.
All this under the guise of national liberation, and enabled by the useful idiots of the left in Israel and the West. It's much like supporting the Mafia in the name of civil rights for Italian Americans. But the left is stuck in a nihilism so self-destructive that they cannot be reasoned with nor redeemed. They are the tools of the worst moral thugs in the world, the most rabid Jew-haters since the Third Reich.
But I digress:
Is this a war?
And:
Can Israel win?
We have seen the end of conventional industrial war. This is the age of Fourth Generation Warfare. Modern day terrorists are able to challenge nation-states through incremental terrorist steps: homicide bombers, Qassam rockets, Molotov Cocktails, child-snipers. Industrial nations like Israel and America will not respond with full military might to these "insurgent threats."
Why?
1. World opinion will consider nation-state responses "disproportionate" as "civilian" deaths flash across TV screens. Let's be clear, as in the Second Lebanon War, the terrorists defined civilian deaths to a willfully naive press.
2. The homefront, pushed by a liberal and hostile media, is unwilling and unable to accept casualties in a war with faceless, nameless combatants who celebrate death over life.
3. Terrorists seem to be decentralized. In fact, most groups, at the moment, get their financing, training and support from Iran and Syria.
4. Thus, the only effective way of decapitating the terrorist organizations is by attacking the root-states: and for Geopolitical and strategic reasons, neither Israel nor America are prepared to do this. At least not yet.
And so the West fights the war on terror on the cheap; and loses and loses and loses. In horrible and agonizing slow motion.
The terrorists no longer follow the playbook of Lenin and Mao. They are not looking to overthrow and take over entire nations. Heck, they know their own limitations. They understand who and what they are: destroyers, not builders. And so, under the romantic banner of national liberation, a convenient fig-leaf for their Western apologists, they chip away at nation-states and fill in the vacuum with their criminal, Islamic enterprises.
The Taliban's brutal rule in Afghanistan illustrates how a terrorist band steps into a political vacuum with no ability to build a modern infrastructure. Tribal warlords impose brutal Sharia over an exhausted population.
Entire areas of Pakistan are lawless frontiers, closed to the Pakistanian army and controlled by Islamic warlords with liquid and always shifting loyalties. Hizbullah/Iran in Southern Lebanon is another example of Islamic gangsterhood taking over swaths of territory from a weak nation-state. This phenomenon is spreading throughout Africa.
Israel created the perfect opportunity for a Hamas/Islamic putch in Gaza when Jews were forcibly expelled by Jews; this signaled to the Islamic fanatics and to the world that the Jewish state would help create an Islamic thugocracy right on Israel's border.
Naturally, there are plenty of voices in Israel and in the West who are advocating the exact same measures for Judea and Samaria. There is no end to the charms of appeasement and defeatism—especially among Jews.
The terrorists no longer have to make outrageous demands. The outrageous has become commonplace. Let the liberals and leftists do most of the work. It's not even called collaboration. It's labeled civilized dialogue.
Thus, politely and well mannered, more and more Jews go to their graves.
And now Qassam rockets rain down on Israel.
What is the correct response?
People talk of evacuating S'derot.
Wrong.
The correct response should be: evacuating areas of Gaza.
But this will not happen because if we do this we: "will become just like them."
Or:
"Jews don't do things like that."
Or:
"It's collective punishment."
Conveniently forgetting that this is precisely the definition of war: collective punishment. War is never about the individual civilian, it's about the choices the civilians have made as to their leadership.
In fact, the endgame the terrorists count on is just this merciful mindset.
You see, when a nation-state is not at war, and not at peace, she is somewhere inbetween, and that inbetween place is the very space where she becomes most vulnerable. It's the zone of not-quite-all-out-war where the terrorists want you to be for that is where they thrive.
Nation states like Israel and America, and soon all of Europe, will have to come to the realization that when you go to war you must fight to win—anything less spells doom for your civilization.
If you fight an Inbetween War, you lose.
And we cannot afford to lose to the Islamic terrorists.
Karen and I wish you all a lovely and meaningful Shabbos and Chodesh Tov.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:20 AM | Comments (8)
May 17, 2007
Hypocrisy in Jerusalem
With the exception of the Netanyahu government, every Israeli government since 1993 has enabled the Arabs to undermine the state's control of Jerusalem. While paying lip service to the city's unity, by errors of commission and omission, Israel's governments have failed to defend the property rights of public and private land owners in Jerusalem. They have allowed the PA, enemy states like Saudi Arabia and the EU to openly abet illegal building projects in the city.
Moreover, while they have used the letter of the law to justify expelling Jews from their communities in Judea and Samaria, successive governments have ignored both the letter and the spirit of the law in refusing to take concerted action to enforce the laws of the state by blocking illegal building in the capital.
So this week, as the government conducts its hollow celebrations of the reunification of eternal capital of the Jewish people which it does so little to defend, and the Left, the EU and the US emptily speak of their "peace policies," the Jewish people must stop tolerating this dirty game.
When Barak offered Arafat the Temple Mount at Camp David in 2000, Ariel Sharon reacted by stating that Jerusalem is an eternal trust given to the Jewish people and no one has the right to breach that trust.
Forty years after the city's reunification, it is the responsibility of Jews in Israel and throughout the world to stand up for Jerusalem. We must work to expose that in its support for the city's division, the Left seeks to empower a racist regime that embodies everything the Left claims to oppose, against Israel, which embodies the very rule of law and civil rights the Left purports to care about.
To read Caroline Glick's entire article, please, please, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:10 AM | Comments (2)
Iran Crosses the Red line
Iran has officially crossed the “red line” in its nuclear weapons development. That is the conclusion a team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors reached after a surprise inspection of Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz this past Sunday.
The inspectors gave the Iranians just two hours notice before they arrived on the scene, not enough time for the Iranians to hide suspicious or illicit activities.
Nor was it enough time, according to diplomats familiar with what the inspectors saw, for the Iranians to fake the 1,300 enrichment centrifuges humming away.
To read the rest of Kenneth R. Timmerman's Front Page article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
Librescu Petition
On April 16th, 2007, a student at Virginia Tech,
senselessly murdered 32 students and teachers before taking his own life. His
shooting spree lasted over 2 hours, and when it was all over, the fabric of our
lives, our families, and the families of our friends, neighbours and fellow
students were ripped apart.
We then learned of the heroic acts of Dr. Liviu Librescu, our beloved
Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics. When the second shooting
began, Dr. Librescu instructed his students to leave the room, and blocked
the door with his body. As the last students escaped the room through a
second floor window, Cho Seung-Hui shot and killed Dr. Librescu through the
very door he was barricading. The greatest irony behind his death is that
Librescu, a Holocaust survivor from Romania, died on Yom HaShoah, or
Holocaust Martyrs Remembrance Day.
Had it not been for the brave and selfless acts of Dr. Librescu, many
more families would have been torn apart that day. We should forever remember
the heroism of our dear professor, acts that saved the lives of many. There
are numerous ways in which we can do this, from bursaries to scholarships,
to planting a tree or erecting a statue in his honor.
We, the undersigned, feel that the most fitting way to honor the memory
of our dear professor is to rename Norris Hall to Librescu Hall. Norris
Hall should not be allowed to remain synonymous with a place of darkness and
terror. Renaming the building will begin the healing process and help us
remember Dr. Librescu for what he truly was. A friend. A colleague. A
hero among the ages.
Sincerely,
Undersigned
Please click here to sign the petition.
Please forward this petition on to your family, friends and other
contacts.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Sara Avitzour
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:12 AM | Comments (2)
May 16, 2007
Jihad in the Catskills
Situated within a dense forest at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, Islamberg is not an ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden.
The 70 acre complex is surrounded with "No trespassing" signs; the rocky terrain is infested with rattlesnakes; and the woods are home to black bears, coyotes, wolves, and a few bobcats.
The entrance to the community is at the bottom of a very steep hill that is difficult to navigate even on a bright sunny day in May. The road, dubbed Muslim Lane, is unpaved and marred by deep crevices that have been created by torrential downpours. On a wintry day, few, save those with all terrain vehicles, could venture forth from the remote encampment.
A sentry post has been established at the base of the hill.
The sentry, at the time of this visit, is an African American dressed in Islamic garb -- a skull cap, a prayer shawl, and a loose fitting shalwat kameez. He instructs us to turn around and leave. "Our community is not open to visitors," he says.
To read the rest of this revealing report, please click here.
Update: The Blogger who posted this story, life threatened.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Daniel Wohlgelernter, M.D.
Seraphic Secret is a finalist in the following two categories in the Jewish Israeli Blog Awards.
Please vote here:
Best Series: How I Married Karen
Thanks so much for all your support. This is the last round. The voting ends today, at 10 EDT.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2007
Yom Yerushalayim, 40th Anniversary
On this day, in 1967, the city of Jerusalem was unified.
People forget that:
The Arabs started the Six Day War. Nasser promised to push the Jews into the sea. He meant it.
Under Jordanian rule, Jews were forbidden to enter to Old City of Jerusalem.
The Kotel, the Western Wall, was a garbage dump, courtesy of our multi-cultural Islamic cousins.
Headstones from Jewish cemeteries were used by the practitioners of the religion of peace as paving stones in the streets of the Old City.
Jordanian snipers used to sit on the walls of the Old City and take pot shots at Jews. When a Jew was killed the Jordanian government would claim that the Arab soldier was "deranged." They had lots and lots of deranged soldiers. They were all Muslims. Duh.
When the Hashemites could not collect taxes in Judea and Samaria, they would just, y'know, open up with mortars and howitzers on defenseless villages. Makes the IRS look like a bunch of pussies.
Under Jordanian occupation, disease and poverty were rampant in the Old City, and even worse in Gaza, which was occupied by Egypt.
Naturally, the Arabs refer to the creation of the State of Israel, May 15th, 1948 as Al Naqba, the Catastrophe. Does that maybe tell you something about their mind-set in regard to the existence of the state of Israel? Any alarm bells going off?
Here's how a few Arab Israeli students celebrated Yom Yerushalayim.
Arab students arrived at a location on the Mount Scopus campus wearing black T-shirts and shouting, "With our blood with our soul we die for you Palestine."
Just a bunch of wild and whacky college students, right?
Click here for the entire Ynet article.
Here's more Yom Yerushalayim celebration—so-called Palestinian style.
Yeah, let's give em a state of their own. Makes perfect sense.
Oh wait, they already have one: Gaza.
You know how you can tell it's an Arab state?
It's Judenrein.
I strongly urge everyone to read General Uzi Narkiss' superb book: The Liberation of Jerusalem, The Battle of 1967
General Narkiss led the battle that liberated Jerusalem. This modest volume reveals strategey, tactics, and the oh-so-delicate politics involved in the furious and bloody battle for Jerusalem; the spiritual core of this great soldier is also clearly revealed.
We desperately need more men like General Narkiss in today's IDF.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:48 PM | Comments (2)
Al Jazeera on Saddam's Payroll
Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light reports: ...[a] recently surfaced letter dated September 24, 2002 refers to a decision by the Iraqi Council of Ministers under Saddam authorizing the Ministry of Culture and Information to make a monthly payment of €50,000 to Al-Jazeera TV.
BTW, €50,000 is $67,700 at the current rate of exchange.
So Al-Jazeera sold itself pretty cheap.
How much was he giving others? We know CNN acted as his press agency for the right to have a bureau there. We know now he paid Al-Jazeera. It's the pressies we don't yet know about that concerns me most. Oh, I am sure there are others. Aren't you?
Hat Tip: American Thinker
Shocking, simply shocking!
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:56 AM | Comments (2)
Londonistan Calling
‘They remind me of the 60s revolutionaries in some ways," said Hanif Kureishi as we sat in one of London's finest Indian restaurants. "A lot of romantic talk, but a hard-core faction who will actually volunteer to go to training camps." Making a rather sharp distinction between the new young fundamentalists and the 1960s rebels, he added that he had never met a jihadist who wasn't militantly anti-Semitic. Monica Ali, whose lovely novel also emphasizes the generational divide and captures the Third World–type pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric, independently told me the same thing. She had seen British television cave in to extremists who did not want her book made into a film, and who threatened trouble if the cameras were brought to the East End, but this did not alarm her as much as "the way that hatred of the Jews has become absolutely standard, all across the community."
A superb article by Christopher Hitchens. It is now 1931, and the liberals are once again counseling appeasement. Click here to read the entire article.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
Rattlesnake
Ask a combat soldier a question, you get an answer. Ask the soldier next to him the same question, you get a different answer. There is wide and vibrant opinion among British soldiers and it runs the gamut from frustration with local mentalities that cling to futile violence, to disillusionment with politics, vexation with media, and consternation about the costs, calculated in so many kinds of capital. But all the British soldiers I’ve run missions with are of a like-mind when it comes to their readiness to fight on. They are soldiers. Proud and ready. I would find them practicing tactics at odd hours. They gave me combat instruction whether or not I asked. One day, on a different mission, when two soldiers were killed in the vehicle behind us, a young soldier sent me—without hesitation—to fetch machine gun lubricant in preparation for a gun battle. I was always more than comfortable going into combat with these men.
Michael Yon, America's greatest war correspondent, brings us another riveting photo-essay from Iraq. Click here to read the entire article.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:13 AM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2007
Ties that Bind
“This is our very good friend, Mr. Avrech.”
The chosson's father hesitates a second, recovers nicely, takes my hand in a firm handshake, and gives me a warm smile.
“Mazal Tov,” I say.
“Thank you, thank you.”
The hesitation? Perfectly understandable. Let's size up the situation from the Father's point of view:
He's flown into Los Angeles from Lakewood...
“My very first time west of Chicago.”
To celebrate the L'chaim for his beloved son to the daughter of my good friends here in Los Angeles...
“Such a fine family, what a b'racha for all of us...”
And the apartment here in Hancock Park is chock full of black-hat Yeshivish couples. For this is The Other Side of Town; a mere twelve-minute drive from my neighborhood, Pico-Robertson, but when spoken, out-of-towners imagine that we Los Angelinos are describing a space as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon.
Which, I suppose, is the whole idea.
Silly, really.
“What a nice community; who knew in California?”
And all of sudden the father of the Kallah introduces yours truly, dressed in L.L. Bean khakis, a plaid shirt, tzitzis definitely not hanging out, and yes, I'm wearing a regulation black velvet yarmulke, but: this is a very good friend?
Confusing.
But the Chosson's Father makes the adjustment just beautifully.
We play Jewish Geography and discover that The Chosson's Father knows Karen's Uncle, The Rabbi from Chicago, and now we are totally cool.
“And where's your wife?"
“She's in avelut, but she wanted me to convey her very best wishes and a huge mazal tov to you and your lovely family."
The Chosson's Father actually winces, looks pained when I tell him that Karen is in avelut, still in mourning. He is a good man, it's so obvious.
I spend a few minutes with my friend the Kallah's mother.
“You know I read your blog when I'm at work—even though I shouldn't.”
“Thank you.”
“I really like it.”
“What do you like and what don't you like?”
My mini-focus group. And, naturally, fishing for compliments.
“I go right past the politics, but oh, I really love the personal stuff.”
“I hear that from a lot of women.”
“Well...”
Her daughter, the Kallah, who projects the air of a more mature and wiser woman, says to me:
“You must take home some cookies for Karen. I'm so sorry she couldn't come."
I look at the Kallah and, oh my, I feel a knot in my throat.
The Father of the bride walks me to the door.
“I have to leave, Karen's waiting for me downstairs.”
“I really appreciate that you came.”
“Listen you and I, we know how important it is to celebrate simchas.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezes firmly.
Of couse we are good friends.
I look past him, at the picture of his child who died several years ago.
There's also a picture of his son who was one of Ariel's ZT'L best friends in high school; this son, who regularly sends me pictures of his wife and children, his growing family. Karen and I watch them flourish and it gives us joy, a great measure of comfort.
At the stairs my friend and I hug. “Mazal Tov, Mazal Tov.”
Outside, Karen is waiting for me; I wave to the love of my life, and smile through my tears.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:50 AM | Comments (2)
May 13, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #116
Yehuda, of Gaming and Blogging in the Holy Land has hard-wired this edition of Haveil Havalim #116. And let me tell you, it's a Jewish cyber-punk journey. Neuromancer with a Yiddishe neshama.
We'd like to thank Yehuda for including Seraphic Secret's Karen Does Not Gamble in this week's round-up.
Really, this one is, um, unique. Yasher koach, Yehuda.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:51 AM | Comments (12)
May 11, 2007
One True Thing
"Cindy, I want to thank you for all your help. You've been unbelievable."
"Aw shucks."
"No, really."
"You really wanna thank me?"
"I do."
"Tell me one true thing about yourself."
I look at her long and hard and offer her my core.
"I have been in love with my wife since I was ten-years old."
"What's your wife's name, what's she look like?"
"One question, Cindy. I answered it, right?"
"Right."
Inside the shed, I say goodbye to Eden. I wish her good luck. She does not try and slip me any contraband, does not try to hug me. None of the women do.
They all act like perfect ladies.
Every single little murderer.
This is an excerpt from Part 7, the final chapter of my Prison Series, now being syndicated in Virtual Jerusalem.
Click here to read the entire chapter.
I spent a great deal of time with the inmates. But no matter how appealing they were, and most of them were incredibly charming, funny and personable, I never really trusted what was going on between us. I was aware that I was being emotionally manipulated. The inmates, sociopaths and anti-social criminals, were expert at: "putting on a face to meet a face." Save for the occassional melt-down.
It was Corrections Officer Cindy who made the biggest impression on me, for she too was a prisoner, and no one was going to make a movie about her. Her life, in many ways, paralleled those of the inmates: working-class background; family violence, alcohol and drugs, and no higher education. Yet CO Cindy did not seek victimhood status, nor did she escape life's responsibilities by fleeing into a life of degradation. She was smart, honest, funny and, yes, courageous.
She was my protector and my friend.
If you'd like to catch up on the entire series:
Chapter 1, My Murdering Ladies
Chapter 2, Prison: Just like High School
Chapter 3, Jane Austen in Prison
Chapter 5, Love, and Murder & Picket Fences
The film I finally wrote: Within These Walls. It's pretty darn good; it got great ratings, fine reviews, and has brilliant performances by Ellen Burstyn and Laura Dern.
Karen and I wish you all a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
What I Meant to Say...
cacoepy
n. incorrect pronunciation
e·pi·car·i·ca·cy
n. taking pleasure in others' misfortune
gargalesis
n. forceful tickling
Hat Tip: Futility Closet
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:02 AM | Comments (4)
May 10, 2007
Flatbush Sings
Step into my office these days and it's likely that you'll hear the wonderful new CD by the Yeshiva Flatbush High School Choirs, Y'hey Shalom, There Will be Peace.
I continually play this new disc as I write my latest screenplay: the tale of a counter-terrorist female sniper.
What can I say: This music inspires me to write furious gun battles, rubber burning car chases, tender love scenes, and cracker-jack dialogue.
Just kidding.
It's just great Jewish music and massages every single word I write.
Here at Casa Avrech, we have all adored each and every previous Flatbush CD and this one just might be the best they have ever produced.
For further information call Ruchie Winkler:
(718) 377- 1100 ext. 120
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:36 PM | Comments (4)
Benchmarks for a Bloodbath
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is not purposely trying to destroy all of Israel's hard-won security gains of the last five years. But if she were, she could hardly have improved on her new benchmark proposal.
To read the entire article, and you should, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Kishke
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:26 AM | Comments (2)
Sarkozy: Past & Future
In an interview Nicolas Sarkozy gave in 2004, he expressed an extraordinary understanding of the plight of the Jewish people for a home: “Should I remind you the visceral attachment of every Jew to Israel, as a second mother homeland? There is nothing outrageous about it. Every Jew carries within him a fear passed down through generations, and he knows that if one day he will not feel safe in his country, there will always be a place that would welcome him. And this is Israel.”
To read the entire article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Tante Pearl Keiler.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:53 AM | Comments (5)
May 09, 2007
Robert: Not Too Normal
“I guess you noticed, I came home a little later than usual."
“I thought so."
Karen and I are sitting at the Shabbos table—twenty minutes late.
“Sorry.”
“What happened?”
“Should I tell you before or after Kiddush?”
“Before. I can't stand the suspense.”
FLASHBACK:
Twenty minutes earlier.
EXTERIOR. SYNAGOGUE - NIGHT
Robert exits synagogue, says Good Shabbos to various congregants, and walks down Pico Boulevard, on his way home.
Suddenly, from behind:
Persian Guy: Mr. Avrech?
Robert turns around.
Robert, (voice-over): Oh no, don't tell me my Persian buddy wants to talk about his Apple stock on Shabbos?
Persian Guy walks up, does NOT extend his hand in a Good Shabbos greeting.
Robert: Good Shabbos.
Persian Guy nods and gives a modified bow. Robert notices that Persian Guy looks quite distressed. Something is wrong.
Persian Guy: I wanted to tell you that I am reading of your web-site.
Robert: Oh, that's great. What have you been reading?
Persian Guy: I read the How I Married Karen writing.
Robert gets all puffed up with pride. He just knows that compliments will come rolling in.
Persian Guy: I have to tell you, Mr. Avrech, I am very distur-bed.
Robert: Huh?
Persian Guy: It is not right for you to be in love with a little girl. Kareeen is just 10-years old and you are an adult age man and, and —
Persian Guy is sputtering in barely contained fury.
Persian Guy: It is just wrong.
Robert, (voice-over): Oh my gosh, Persian Guy's reading comprehension is on a second grade level.
Persian Guy: How can you do this!?
Robert: Wait, wait, hold on. You don't understand. I was a child too.
Persian Guy stares at Robert. For a long, long moment.
Robert: Are you getting this? I was ten-years old when I fell in love with Karen. We went to grade school together. We were both little children.
Persian Guy frowns, deeply confused.
Persian Guy: You were not an adult?
Robert: Noooooo!
Persian Guy: Ohhhhhh. I begin to understand.
His head bobs up and down like it's on a spring. He's taking in this new information very… very… slowly. The puzzlement gradually leaks from his eyes. Finally:
Persian Guy: But Mr. Avrech, is it really normal to fall in love when you are 10-year old?
END FLASHBACK:
Resume Robert & Karen at the Shabbos table:
“He thought you were a pedophile."
“Yup.”
Karen slaps the table, throws back her head and laughs.
“Funny, big funny.”
“I think he's got some cognitive problems.”
“Of course, now he just thinks I'm not too normal.”
“Robert, look on the bright side.”
“Which is?”
“Not too normal is much better than being a pedophile.”
I chant the Shabbos Kiddush and then sing the Eishet Chayil , and more than ever feel every single word at my very core:
An accomplished woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband's heart relies on her and he shall lack no fortune.
She does him good and not evil, all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax, and works with her hands willingly.
She is like the merchant ships, she brings her bread from afar.
She arises while it is still night, and gives food to her household and a portion to her maidservants.
She plans for a field, and buys it. With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds her loins in strength, and makes her arms strong.
She knows that her merchandise is good. Her candle does not go out at night.
She sets her hands to the distaff, and holds the spindle in her hands.
She extends her hands to the poor, and reaches out her hand to the needy.
She fears not for her household because of snow, because her whole household is warmly dressed.
She makes covers for herself, her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known at the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes a cloak and sells it, and she delivers aprons to the merchant.
Strength and honor are her clothing, she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the lesson of kindness is on her tongue.
She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise and praise her, her husband lauds her.
Many women have done worthily, but you surpass them all.
Charm is deceptive and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears God shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:21 AM | Comments (28)
May 08, 2007
Birthrate = Birthright
The Jewish birth rate was expected to exceed that of Muslims in Israel over the next 18 years, a report said.
A study by the Washington-based American-Israel Demographic Research Group said Jewish fertility, the highest in the developed world, was rapidly approaching that of Arabs in Israel. The group, in a report entitled "Forecast for Israel 2025," projected a 79 percent Jewish majority as well as long-term population stability between Jewish-Arab population groups in Israel.
To read the entire story, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Yonoson Fisgus, M.D.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:01 PM | Comments (11)
"People" to Attack Fort Dix
Six people have been arrested on allegations of plotting to kill soldiers at a New Jersey army installation, a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office said today.
Four of them were born in the former Yugoslavia, one was born in Turkey and one in Jordan, said the spokesman, Greg Reinert.
“Allegedly they wanted to kill as many of the soldiers at Fort Dix as they could,” Mr. Reinert said.
To read the entire article, please click here
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Kishke.
The N.Y Times strikes again.
I don't know, I thought journalists were supposed to report facts. I guess that's just an old fashioned idea. Anyway, these terrorists are identified in the article as, ta-da, "people."
They don't even qualify as terrorists.
Astonishing reportage. Orwellian speak at it's finest.
How about another Quiz. These People are:
1. Out of work Hollywood actors.
2. Mormons.
3. Muslims.
4. Wiccans.
5. Klingons.
If you failed this test, you qualify to marry a Sulzberger and get to be called: Punch, Pinch, or Putz.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:43 PM | Comments (10)
French Youths
We'd like to congratulate the French people for choosing Nicolas Sarkozy as their President. This election signals a break with the past 12 years of reflexive American-hatred in the French government.
Mr. Sarkozy also supports Israel. Naturally, we could not be more pleased.
France suffers high unemployment, a GDP that is in the gutter, and a Muslim/Islamic population who constitute a growing fifth column. Sarkozy recognizes these problems and intends to act upon them.
Of course, riots ensued. His opponent, the politically petrified Socialist Segolene Royal, practically threatened violence if French citizens did not vote for her.
This probably cost her dearly.
Have you ever noticed that riots only follow when a Conservative wins an election. Does anyone truly believe that if Ms. Royal emerged victorious there would have been riots in the cities and suburbs of France?
Of course not.
Over 700 cars were burned, 592 people were arrested, and 78 police officers were wounded.
Craig S. Smith, in this morning's page 8 article in The N.Y. Times, "Hundreds Are Arrested in Post-Election Riots Across France" informs us that: "...silhouetted youths heaved paving stones..." and: "Mr. Sarkozy is most hated by minority youths..." and finally: "In Paris, at least, most protestors seemed to be of European background."
Clever.
We have to assume that Mr. Smith received his degree from The Joseph Stalin School of Journalism. Here, in this short article we have the death of language, the willfull obfuscation of truth.
An overwhelming majority of the rioting and burning took place in several cities and suburbs all across France. So the European youths Mr. Smith so carefully labels for us (why is this not racist?) constitute but a tiny fraction of the rioters.
Here's a quiz about the identity of the "youths" the N.Y. Times is so fond of are. They are:
1. Evangelical Christians.
2. Jewish.
3. Chicago Cubs Fans.
4. Muslim.
5. Klingon.
If you failed this test, you probably work for the NY Times.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:12 AM | Comments (11)
May 07, 2007
Ali's Challenge to Humanity
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is arguably the bravest and most remarkable woman of our times.
To understand why this 37-year-old woman is extraordinary, she must be assessed in the context of the forces pitted against her in her twin struggles to force the Western world to take note of Islam's divinely ordained enslavement of women, and to force the Islamic world to account for it.
To read the rest of Caroline Glick's fine article, please click here.
We strongly recommend Ali's book Infidel.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:16 PM | Comments (2)
Waiting for the Dead
Defense Minister Amir Peretz said following a Sabbath of rockets fired on Sderot that Israel is prepared for an operation in Gaza. According to Yisraeli newspaper, defense officials say he is waiting for Israeli deaths to launch a full scale retaliation.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Peretz is waiting for dead Jews.
Isn't that comforting.
Now it's official: Peretz enables the jihadists, in fact, he's a co-conspirator. The jihadists can fire away, frighten entire populations, horribly wound Israeli citizens, and suffer no consequences.
But the IDF might invade if there are fatalities.
Um, how many fatalities? One, two, three, fifty? What is the devil's arithmetic here? How many dead Jews does it take for Peretz to react?
By the way, the Israeli army should not be reacting. An intelligent Defense Minister uses the army offensively, proactively. But Peretz is a fool and a fraud, a former peacenik who has no business being Israel's Defense Minister.
The dead will find no comfort when the IDF invades Gaza. It's too late for them. And their families and friends, well, they have heard what Peretz has said, it should only be a short step to charge this heartless man with murder.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:31 PM | Comments (2)
Mickey Mouse Jihad
Hamas TV has a new children's show which features a Mickey Mouse lookalike. But this Mickey does not romp about with Pluto, nor does he woo Minnie Mouse. Instead – he teaches his young viewers to fight the "Zionist Occupation" and dream of a world dominated by Islam.
Yes, these are the people who demand their own state, their right to self-determination.
Call me crazy but a people who teach such values to their children deserve to be punished, not rewarded.
We are witnessing a society that practises child abuse on a vast electronic scale. Jew-hatred and genocide are mainstream beliefs among the so-called Palestinians.
I'm waiting for Peace Now or B'tselem to raise their voices in protest, but I have a sneaking suspicion they'll blame this cultural atrocity on Israel's "illegal occupation," they'll blame it on the "illegal wall," they'll blame it on, oh gee, how about the fact that Jews are "inconveniently breathing." That, at least, is intellectually honest.
By the way, Disney should sue. They are notorious for going after copyright infringers. How much you wanna bet they give Hamas a big pass.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
Israel: Making War Easy
Over the past few days, 10 Kassam rockets have been launched from Judenrein Gaza into Israel. Israel's response was to hit a car carrying terrorists. One terrorist was wounded.
Yeah, that'll do it.
Did you know that Gaza gets it's electricity from Israel?
That's right.
A month ago, the so-called Palestinians shot an Israeli electrical worker. He was fixing the grid that feeds Gaza.
In the meantime, Condi Rice is pressuring Israel to:
1. Send weapons to the PA, which they will use to kill Jews. Plus, America will be sending 59 million dollars to the PA "security forces." ie. terrorists.
2. Israel also has to open up border crossings: to make life easier for the so-called Palestinians. In reality, this will make it easier for homicide bombers to get into Israel and kill more Jews.
These are called, in diplo-speak: confidence building measures. Haven't we been down this road before? With various American presidents, various Israeli Prime Ministers, and always with the same results: Israel makes concessions and the so-called Palestinians make war.
Does anyone see a pattern here?
Call me cynical, but I have no confidence in confidence building measures. Not when you're dealing with a a bunch of thugs whose leadership defines terrorism as "resistence."
I'm talking about Abbas here, not Hamas.
So let's sum up: The Arabs send Kassams into Israel and Israel is expected to send arms, and open up border-crossings for these peace-loving Arabs.
And what do the Arabs give in return?
Vague promises from the PA that they will crack down on the various dissident factions.
Makes perfect sense.
I know this is hard for some people to believe, but Israel's withdrawal from Gaza was a disaster. It signaled to the Arabs, the Iranians, and the entire Muslim world, that terrorism works, that Israel is weak, that it is politically correct to create Judenrein territories in a post-Holocaust world, and that Jews will collaborate in such an atrocity, and finally: the Gaza withdrawal signaled that terrorism can chip away at Israel's national will until nothing remains but... nothingness.
To quote from The Belmont Club's analysis of the Winograd Report:
...ceding the initiative to the enemy and withdrawing from contact while he is still advancing increases rather than decreases vulnerability. It does not "take troops out of harms' way". It sets them up for the slaughter. The second error is more fundamental. Disengagement is an act in which the enemy gets a vote. The Israeli public's desire for peace, which manifested itself in unilateral withdrawal, the abandonment of its allies and in the reluctance to give the give the slightest offense to its enemies could only have succeeded in ending the fighting if it had been matched by a similar desire on the part of its enemies.
It is not for nothing that retreat in the face of a still-active enemy is considered the most dangerous of military operations. Only among Western politicians is such an operation synonymous with safety.
War is the disproportionate response to acts of aggression.
To react with restraint is to lose a war in a slow motion; it is to prolong war and increase misery.
I have posted this quote by General William Tecumseh Sherman before, but it's time to post it once again:
"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."
It is time to shut out the lights in Gaza.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:16 AM | Comments (10)
May 06, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere # 115
Okay, a little bit late in the day, but well worth the wait. Haveil Havelim # 115 is up. We'd like to thank Barbara's Tchatzkahs for including Seraphic Secret's No Yen for Yoga in this round-up.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:01 PM | Comments (2)
"Honor" Killing in Iraq
A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion.
As a horrifying video of the stoning went out on the Internet, the British arm of Amnesty International condemned the death of Du’a Khalil Aswad as "an abhorrent murder" and demanded that her killers be brought to justice.
Reports from Iraq said a local security force witnessed the incident, but did nothing to try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding in fear for his life.
Miss Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an "honour killing" by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.
Click here to read the full story.
The Video. Viewer discretion advised.
Evil exists.
Jihadists learn their trade at home, in the moral vacuum of their women-hating families. They yearn to bring this level of barbarity to our shores.
Europe is lost to a culture of appeasement and reflexive Jew-hatred—disguised as "mere anti-Zionism."
Remember: those who hate Jews also hate America.
The twin malignant hatreds now go hand-in-hand. It's easier to hate those who fight evil than to fight evil itself. Why fight the jihadists, who will cut your head off, when you can call President Bush a murderer and suffer no consequences other than being published in the pages of the N.Y. Times.
Moral inversion, let's face it, is the height of academic fashion and hides, chameleon-like under several titles: Post-modernism, Post-colonial studies, Middleastern Studies, Literary Deconstruction, Queer Studies. Fancy labels for appeasement, cowardice, and a broken moral compass.
In two generations France and England will be Judenrein, well on their way to devolving into backward Islamic states.
If America and Israel don't fight the jihadists no one will, and the tragic fate of Du’a Khalil Aswad will be the destiny of all our children.
Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a wonderful and joyous Lag Ba'Omer
What's The Omer? Find out here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:52 AM | Comments (10)
May 05, 2007
Hard Hand of War
“This war differs from other wars in this particular: We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make young and old, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”
—General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:35 PM | Comments (3)
May 04, 2007
CO Cindy & Me
"Okay Cindy, you ready?"
"Lay it on me."
"The ten greatest prison movies ever made."
CO Cindy and I are sitting outside the shed where the inmates train the dogs to be companions for people with severe physical disabilities. It's lunch time, and I've scheduled an interview with Cindy. I've been hired to write a film for LifeTime Network about this program and Cindy has been my guide, my babysitter, my eyes into the program, into this women's prison.
My job is to bore into these people's lives, but it's a one-way relationship. I have learned through years of experience, and some awkward stumbles, that I must withdraw a central portion of myself to be an effective writer. The true me has to be locked away for this work must never become about me; who I am must never interfere with the work, which is discovering the truth of who these people are, the truth of what this place is. If the people I interview begin to intuit who I am, all will be lost for they will use it against me in the power struggle that exists between interviewer and interviewee.
And so Robert, the Orthodox Jew, that central me, is gone. I have become a crypto Jew. It is a disorienting experience.
And so I casually deflect almost all personal questions, answering only in the most evasive ways.
"So, Robert, you married?"
"What do you think?"
"I think you're wearing a gold band."
"Detective Cindy."
"How long?"
"Long time."
"What's your wife do?"
"She's not an inmate, not a CO."
And:
"Robert, you Jewish?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Y'know, Hollywood, Jews."
"What do you think?"
"I think... yeah."
"And if I were?"
"Nothin'."
And:
"Robert, are you like this important screenplaywriter?"
"Cindy, you ever hear the story of the Polish actress?"
"Uh, I have the feeling I'm about to."
"She slept with the screenwriter."
Cindy hesitates a second, then absolutely cracks up. It's the o