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November 30, 2007
Charlie Wilson's War on History
Hey kids, let's not go to the movies.
Here's tinseltown's latest delusion: the cold war was fought and won by, get this, an alcoholic, stripper-addicted, cocaine snorting, Democratic congressman.
Not Conservative President Ronald Reagan.
The name of the film is Charlie Wilson's War.
Oh, and the screenplay is by, what a shock, uber-leftie Aaron Sorkin, who has had his share of, er, substance abuse problems. And let's not forget that Sorkin's series, The West Wing, was but an Orwellian extension of the Clinton White House.
So: Duh.
Not that Sorkin or the left cares about such facts but America did not arm the Mujahadeen, or Osama bin Laden, as this film posits for obvious ideological reasons. In fact, America aligned itself with the Northern Alliance, led by General Ahmed Shah Massoud a group who are pro-American, anti-Taliban, anti-al Qaeda, and even now fight alongside American troops against radical Muslim terrorists. Massoud was assassinated by Osama bin Laden's agents on September 9, 2001.
Meanwhile, back on planet earth, Seraphic Friend Dirty Harry had to sit through this latest cross-hairs-of-the-left-assault on history. Talk about above and beyond the call of movie-going duty.
Due in theatres Christmas day, the makers of Charlie Wilson’s War position their advertising with megawatt-stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts romantically gazing at each other as though this is You’ve Got Stinger-Missiles instead of yet another down-with America film more likely to die at the box office than not. And while I try to stay out of the box-office prediction game, after catching a sneak preview last night I will predict word of mouth will do CWW no good. It’s not only politically illiterate, the second-half collapses into an episodic mess leaving its characters in the Afghan dust.
To read Dirty Harry's complere review, please click here.
Karen and I wish all our friends a beautiful and profound miracle in Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:42 AM | Comments (3)
November 29, 2007
The Day After Annapolis
The Annapolis Summit saga continues based on 5 misconceptions….
1. That Palestinian society can be reformed by outsiders.
2. That economic assistance to the Palestinians can alleviate political problems.
3. That Mahmoud Abbas can become the agent for change and therefore he deserves the support of the West.
4. That Palestinian society can be quickly transformed into a good neighbor of Israel and that a stable settlement is within reach.
5. That Hamas control of Gaza can be uprooted by inter-Palestinian politics.
With all of the platitudes during the Summit leading to bi-weekly meetings ahead, we will capitalize on the momentum created by our united widespread open opposition to the Summit.
We quote Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) who said, “Middle East negotiations should proceed with caution . . . While all Americans hope for a lasting peace in the region, the American people cherish our ally Israel and the security of Israel must come first…Peace talks have failed in the past because one side wanted peace and the other side wanted Israel.”
Meanwhile, Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of Palestinian Media Watch report:
Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for its people of a world without Israel.
An information clip produced by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics and rebroadcast today on Abbas-controlled Palestinian television, shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned into a Palestinian state.
The description of all of the state of Israel as "Palestine" is not coincidental, and is part of a formal, systematic educational approach throughout the Palestinian Authority. This uniform message of a world without Israel is repeated in school books, children's programs, crossword puzzles, video clips, formal symbols, school and street names, etc. The picture painted for the Palestinian population, both verbally and visually, is of a world without Israel.
The fact that this campaign continues before the ink on the Annapolis agreement is even dry appears to contradict the central promise of the Palestinians at the Annapolis conference: that Israel has a right to exist.
Hat Tip: Unity Coalition for Israel
And Melanie Phillips asks: One question, Mr. President: what the hell has happened to you?
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:35 PM | Comments (3)
No Room for Jews in Israel
Reality check #1: There were fair and free elections among the so-called Palestinian people. The winner, in a landslide, was Hamas. Only a single precinct went for Fatah. So the true and legitimate voice of the so-called Palestinian people is Hamas.
Reality check #2: Hamas tell the truth. It's a relief to hear, from the Muslim/Arab world, such, er, honest straight talk. Even if it is frankly and boastfully genocidal. One has only to read the Hamas Covenant to understand that their aim is the annihilation of the "Zionist entity", the imposition of Sharia and the elimination of Jews from, well, the face of the earth.
That Israel is negotiating with Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas, President of Fatah, President of, er, Nothingness, is just proof that Israel and the West are in denial of a terrible reality.
Reality check #3: The Arab/Israeli conflict is not about land, it's certainly not a regional conflict. Rather, it's an existential religious conflict where the Islamic world has declared war on Judaism.
The guest list at Annapolis proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt, for no one in their right mind believes that, say the Saudis, Algerians, Mauritanians or the charming Sudanese really give a crap about the so-called Palestinians. Annapolis was a ghastly check-list of Muslim/Arab tyrants who refuse to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, Muslim/Arab nations that are Judenrein, Muslim/Arab nations that make genocidal war on their own citizens, Muslim/Arab nations, that given the opportunity, would wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Yes, here gathered in one hall was a rogues gallery of Muslim/Arab tyrants and Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni were begging for their blood-soaked handshakes.
How degrading for the Jewish people.
Well, at least Hamas are here to, um, speak honestly. They don't even bother to claim to be merely anti-Zionist and not anti-Jewish.
Reality check #4: How to defeat Hamas.
Hamas, the true and democratically elected representative of the so-called Palestinian people, are proud Jew-haters.
Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.
The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that "Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews."
To read the complete article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:36 AM | Comments (7)
Vast Nazi Archive Opens
Our dear friend Jackie Danicki asked if we had any thoughts on this story:
After more than 60 years, Nazi documents stored in a vast warehouse in Germany were unsealed Wednesday, opening a rich resource for Holocaust historians and for survivors to delve into their own tormented past.
The treasure of documents could open new avenues of study into the inner workings of Nazi persecution from the exploitation of slave labor to the conduct of medical experiments. The archive's managers planned a conference of scholars next year to map out its unexplored contents.
The files entrusted to the International Tracing Service, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross, have been used until now to help find missing persons or document atrocities to support compensation claims. The U.S. government also has referred to the ITS for background checks on immigrants it suspected of lying about their past.
Inquiries were handled by the archive's 400 staff members in the German spa town of Bad Arolsen. Few outsiders were allowed to see the actual documents, which number more than 50 million pages and cover 16 linear miles of gray metal filing cabinets and cardboard binders spread over six buildings.
On Wednesday, the Red Cross and the German government announced that the last of the 11 countries that govern the archive had ratified a 2006 agreement to open the files to the public for the first time.
It's certainly taken long enough for the Europeans to open up the records of their crimes. Have they been been waiting for the survivors to pass away?
A few paragraph down, this caught our attention:
Among its files, seen by The Associated Press during repeated visits to Bad Arolsen in the last year, are the list of deportees from the Netherlands to Auschwitz on which Anne Frank's name appears, the list of employees of Oskar Schindler's factory who were sheltered from death, medical records showing the number of lice on the heads of prisoners, the list of inmates evacuated by the Nazis from the Neuengamme labor camp who later died on prisoner boats mistakenly bombed by the British air force.
The number of lice on the heads of prisoners.
The Nazis were unique in their methodical insistence on documenting their war against the Jews. It almost defies imagination that in the face of the most documented genocide in history there is an active industry—primarily in the Muslim/Arab world—dedicated to Holocaust denial.
But here's an incredible spirit of hope and pride coming from the depths of fear from a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl from Germany, who was hiding in Holland:
Who has inflicted this upon us? Who has made us Jews? different to all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then, Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example. Who knows, it might even be our religion from which the world and all the peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we have to suffer now. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or just representatives of any country for that matter, we will always remain Jews, but we want to, too.
—Anne Frank
To read the complete article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, David Paulin
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:41 AM | Comments (5)
November 28, 2007
Israel: After Nuclear War
Iran is racing to build a nuclear capability with which to tip the balance of power in the Middle East in favor of the Shia minority—and of course to threaten Israel.
Apologists for Persia learnedly point out that the tyrants in Tehran have not explicitly announced that they want to destroy Israel, "only eliminate the Zionist entity."
Oh my.
We feel so much better.
We'd like to point out to these oh-so-civilized experts in linguistics that the Germans at the Wannsee Conference never explicitly discussed gassing, burning, shooting, starving or torturing the Six Million, but used far more civilized and coded language when speaking of the fate of the Eastern European Jews.
It is always this way.
Intellectual apologists enable genociders to carry out their evil plans by excusing their language, by dismissing their obvious intentions. You see, intellectuals have deeper insights into the motives of tyrants and Jew-haters. Intellectuals and academics discern structures and sub-structures that ordinary people simply cannot fathom. They can, get this, deconstruct the real meaning of a genocidal death threat as "simply a form of cultural interplay in which the primary actors give vent to profound religious yearnings that have no real-world practicality."
Got that?
These Orwellian creatures label themselves peacemakers, progressives. They handed the Sudetenland to Hitler—he was stunned—thereby empowering the Nazi war machine. Sixty million people died in World War II. That's one person over four years, killed every 2.1 seconds. (Mathematical H/T Soccer Dad) Hitler could have easily been stopped at the earliest stages of his climb to power, but the peacemakers ridiculed Churchill. They called him a war monger.
The structure is the same with Gaza.
Judea and Samaria.
Jerusalem.
Does the left ever learn?
No, do not. They just hurl millions to their death.
Soviet Russia.
Communist China.
The Cuban Gulags.
The Cambodian Genocide.
The Vietnamese purges after the disgraceful American withdrawal.
All the while excusing their crimes with the intellectually weak and inevitable:
1. We only had the best intentions.
2. Well, that's not the real left.
To which we respond:
1. The Nazis and the Communists also claimed the best intentions. The murdered derive no comfort.
2. The real left is the left that has always triumphed; a left that is frankly and unapologetically genocidal.
A few weeks ago Israel conducted a brilliant and lightning raid deep into Syrian territory to eliminate an existential threat to the Jewish state—probably a nuclear facility built with North Korean and Iranian aid.
The Arab world did not protest.
This was almost as significant as the raid for even the Arab/Muslim world was hugely relieved that the Israelis eliminated the wild card Syrian/Iranian nuclear threat.
But now the world sits on its hands, diplomatically paralyzed, as the Persians move ahead with their nuclear program.
Israel can and must take out the Persian nuclear facility. If it doesn't the toll could be awful.
Is Annapolis the price for the Israeli/Persian raid?
Herewith, a stone-cold analysis by Anthony Cordesman, of the days-after nuclear war scenario in the Middle East. By the way, if you are an audiophile, Anthony Cordesman also writes for several stereo magazines. He's an audiophile fanatic.
Anthony Cordesman may be the most influential man in Washington that most people have never heard of. A former director of intelligence assessment for the secretary of defense and director of policy and planning in the Department of Energy, he is now the top strategic guru at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
Most serious politicians and journalists have for some years based their analyses of the Iraq war and its aftermath on his universally respected research. Cordesman is a facts man who likes and reveres good data and cool, clinical analysis as the keystones of policymaking.
He has now turned his laser-like research and forensic intelligence skills to studying the real implication of the endless diplomatic minuet at the United Nations over Iran's nuclear ambitions. In the real world, this matters mainly because an Iranian nuclear capability would transform the power balance in the wider Middle East, and leave the region and the rest of us living under the constant prospect of a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel.
This would mean, Cordesman suggests, some 16 million to 28 million Iranians dead within 21 days, and between 200,000 and 800,000 Israelis dead within the same time frame. The total of deaths beyond 21 days could rise very much higher, depending on civil defense and public health facilities, where Israel has a major advantage.
It is theoretically possible that the Israeli state, economy and organized society might just survive such an almost-mortal blow. Iran would not survive as an organized society. "Iranian recovery is not possible in the normal sense of the term," Cordesman notes.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Dr. Carol.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:52 AM | Comments (3)
Eliminating the Jewish State
Seraphic Secret has frequently pointed out that the only difference between Fatah and Hamas is tactics. The long term strategy of both terrorist gangs is identical; their charters mirror one another calling for the elimination of the "Zionist entity."
Fatah use a double pronged offensive: terrorist attacks, with plausible deniability built in for the gullible left and the Jew-hating Europeans. They cloak their murderous operations—sub-contracted through Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and other gangs—via a clever and patient political strategy of nibbling away at the physical borders of Israel. This has been immensely successful with the appeasers on the left always anxious to trade away territory for, well, nothing.
Gaza, now Judenrein, is just the first step in several incremental steps to dismember Israel.
Judea and Samaria are next.
After that: Jerusalem.
The left are, of course, in full compliance, anxious to step up to the plate and repeat the same mistakes over and over again for they just want to be loved by those who want nothing more than to kill them. It's the Stockholm Syndrome in bold type.
Hamas have no patience for demographic war. They just want to kill Jews—now. And, in truth, they speak for the majority of the so-called Palestinian people. Let's not forget for one moment that Hamas won the free and fair elections—Jimmy Carter, hero to the left, certified the final results—in a landslide. Only one precinct went for Fatah. Really, it's Hamas who should be sitting at Annapolis, let's be honest. Mahmoud Abbas is President of the "Hey, Mahmoud, Nice Suit You're Wearing Today, Society." If Israeli citizens and the IDF were not in Judea and Samaria, Fatah would be toast in about two hours.
INTERPOLATION:
The Hashemites in Jordan, contrary to their public pronouncements, would not be happy puppies. The last thing they want to see is the IDF scampering out of Judea and Samaria. That would mean another Black September for the hapless Hashemites.
END INTERPOLATION:
In fact, in every single country in the Arab world, if free elections were held, the Islamists would win—hands down—and the more secular reformers would have their throats slit.
And for those who believe that the Arabs really want to live in peace and justice with Israel.
Well, yeah, absolutely true.
But don't superimpose your Western values on the words peace and justice. When Muslims speak these two words they are imagining a world where Sharia rules as justice and peace means that Jews (and all religious minorities) are dhimmis, a severely oppressed underclass.
Just ask Jews from Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Ethiopia, or Morocco what life was like under the Muslim yoke of peace and justice.
That's why the Arab/Muslim world is, Judenrein.
Here's a superb article by Daniel Pipes that actually has something nice to say about Ehud Olmert, and reveals the Arabs as a bunch of racist Jew-haters.
Shocking, huh?
Hey, we like to surprise our Seraphic Friends.
Surprisingly, something useful has emerged from the combination of the misconceived Annapolis meeting and a weak Israeli prime minister, Ehud ("Peace is achieved through concessions") Olmert. Breaking with his predecessors, Olmert has boldly demanded that his Palestinian bargaining partners accept Israel's permanent existence as a Jewish state, thereby evoking a revealing response.
Unless the Palestinians recognize Israel as "a Jewish state," Olmert announced on November 11, the Annapolis-related talks would not proceed. "I do not intend to compromise in any way over the issue of the Jewish state. This will be a condition for our recognition of a Palestinian state."
He confirmed these points a day later, describing the "recognition of Israel as a state for the Jewish people" as the "launching point for all negotiations. We won't have an argument with anyone in the world over the fact that Israel is a state of the Jewish people." The Palestinian leadership, he noted, must "want to make peace with Israel as a Jewish state."
Raising this topic has the virtue of finally focusing attention on what is the central topic in the Arab-Israeli conflict -- Zionism, the Jewish nationalist movement, a topic that typically gets ignored in the hubbub of negotiations. Since nearly the birth of the state, these have focused on the intricacies of such subsidiary issues as borders, troop placements, armaments and arms control, sanctities, natural resources, residential rights, diplomatic representation, and foreign relations.
The Palestinian leadership responded quickly and unequivocally to Olmert's demand:
The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee in Nazareth unanimously called on the Palestinian Authority not to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Salam Fayad, Palestinian Authority "prime minister": "Israel can define itself as it likes, but the Palestinians will not recognize it as a Jewish state."
Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's executive committee: "This issue is not on the table; it is raised for internal [Israeli] consumption."
Ahmad Qurei, chief Palestinian negotiator: "This [demand] is absolutely refused."
Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations Department: "The Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel's Jewish identity. ... There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined."
Erekat's generalization is both curious and revealing. Not only do 56 states and the PLO belong to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, but most of them, including the PLO, make the Shari"a (Islamic law) their main or only source of legislation. Saudi Arabia even requires that every subject be a Muslim.
To read Daniel Pipes' complete article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2007
No Lasting Peace
Another common-sense blast from Ralph Peters, an analyst who refuses to be seduced by the mass delusions of the State Department.
Short of intolerable carnage, there's no durable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. None. The best all parties can hope for is an occasional time-out.
A respite between rounds isn't worthless, of course - lives are saved, Israel's economy improves and the Arabs get one more chance to get their act together. But we're forever disappointed because we're convinced there's a good, permanent solution, if only we can figure it out.
That's the American way: a can-do spirit, the conviction that no problem's too tough for us. But, in the real world (and in the bizarre fantasyland of Arab culture), some foreign problems can't be resolved equitably. They can only smolder on, occasionally erupting in flames.
In the Middle East, you can't buy peace. You can only buy time. If we want to help at all, the fundamental requirement is to have realistic expectations.
At present, the situation is aggravated by the Bush administration's desperate quest for a headline-worthy foreign-policy success - mirroring the Clinton administration in its closing years. But desperation's a poor basis for dealing with a geopolitical problem of near-infinite complexity, with ill will on every side except our own.
What happens in the course of Middle East "peace" talks under such circumstances? Whether the American administration is Republican or Democrat, it pressures Israel for concessions - since the Arabs won't make any. Prisoner releases precede each summit; territorial handovers come under discussion.
For their parts, Arab leaders and their representatives assume we're sufficiently honored if they just show up. We hear no end of nonsense about the great political risks they're taking, etc. We're suckers for any fat guy in a white robe with an oil can.
Today's session in Annapolis may or may not result in a we-the-undersigned statement or a few unenforceable commitments. And yes, there's merit just in bringing folks together and keeping them talking. But the baseline difficulty is that we want to solve problems for people who don't really want those problems solved.
Mahmoud Ab- bas and his Fatah Party, for example, couldn't accept a genuine peace tomorrow morning - even though Hamas' coup in Gaza has put them up against the wall. Their problem? The most successful jobs program in the Arab world has been Palestinian "resistance" to Israel.
Consider what peace with Israel - real peace - would mean in the West Bank and Gaza, in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley: Tens of thousands of gunmen (and terrorists) out of work, with no marketable skills - and radicalized by decades of fanatic rhetoric.
Think a punk who's grown accustomed to swaggering around town in a face mask with a Kalashnikov is going to scrub squat toilets for a living?
Generations have grown addicted to the struggle - and its perks. It's the only bearable justification for their individual and collective failures in life. Real peace with Israel would probably spark a convulsion throughout the Arab world - as tens of millions realized that their sacrifices were a travesty that merely empowered thieves.
Another reason Arab states won't make peace: Most of their leaders have only survived in power because they have Israel to blame for every disappointment their people face. Israel has become the great excuse for every self-wrought failure in the Middle East - and that excuse is more valuable to Arab rulers than peace could ever be.
Were peace ever to arrive, Arabs might begin to demand good government. And the corruption that has thrived during decades of crisis could come into question. Worst of all, Arabs might have to accept responsibility for the catastrophic condition of their own societies.
In the end, the problem's difficulty can be put in New York City terms: A shiftless, violent family that turned an apartment into a slum was evicted. The new tenants cleaned up the place and made the apartment a showcase. Now the former tenants hate them for it - and want the apartment back.
But the apartment can only accommodate one family.
If you want a sober perspective on the Annapolis dog-and-pony show, just ask yourself this: Who will leave disappointed, if nothing much results?
The Arabs won't care. They came because we got on our knees and begged.
The Israelis will just be relieved that their latest trip to the geostrategic dentist is over.
Any Russians soiling the furniture at the Naval Academy will be delighted if another American effort flops.
And the Europeans just popped in to check the "we care" box.
The only unhappy campers will be us. We set ourselves up. Again.
Oh, and even if there's some sort of agreement, only the Israelis will honor it. Grudgingly.
We're dealing with people who are fighting for their lives and homes. Our team's fighting for poll numbers. Now that's asymmetrical warfare.
By electing ourselves as the Middle East's indispensable problem-solvers, we've just put ourselves on the blame line for other people's problems. Without solving any of them.
Santa won't show up at Annapolis. If he did, the best gift he could bring the Bush administration and its Democratic rivals would be a sense of reality: It's a lot easier to believe in Santa than in Arabs accepting a just peace with Israel.
Ralph Peters' latest book is Wars of Blood and Faith.
Original New York Post article here.
Hat Tip: Super Soccer Dad
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:47 PM | Comments (4)
Teddy Bear Jihad
I am so relieved that the Sudanese have been invited to Annapolis. After all, we need sane, level-headed, diplomatic voices in these trying times.
Okay, so the Sudanese are guilty of genocide. What're you gonna do, it's their culture. This is the age of multi-culturalism, right?
We'll just have to be tolerant of Khartoum's official death squads, the Janjaweed, who have murdered somewhere between 200 to 400,000 non-Arabs in the past few years. The Janjaweed have also cast a million non-Arab Sudanese into refugee camps where untold numbers are dying on an daily basis. Accurate body counts are hard to come by. The Janjaweed are not exactly methodically Nazi-like in their paper-work. Why? Because most of them are illiterate Muslims. But they do know how to murder and they do know how to mutilate and rape. They have also kidnapped an untold number of women and female children as sexual slaves.
Anyway, the Western world protests feebly, (not the Muslim world, what a shock) but gives most of its attention to, who else, the so-called Palestinians.
Why?
1. Unrelenting Arab terror. If you murder innocent men, women and children that makes your grievances, er, legitimate.
2. Oil from our Saudi friends. If you have endless buckets of black gold, that makes your intolerable religion, er, tolerable.
3. Propaganda from, well, everybody. If you tell lies often enough, well, Julius Streicher looks like an amatuer compared to Al Jazeera, Al Reuters, Al AP, Al New York Times.
4. Fashion. The so-called Palestinians are, well, a fashion accessory for the always fashion conscious left, the place to be for civilized glib academic Jew-haters. Even the lefties have come to realize it.
Meanwhile, back in the happy-go-lucky Islamic Republic of Sudan, the religion of peace marches on and we wait for Peace Now, Tony Judt, or Henry Siegman to blame the Jooz for the Teddy Bear Jihad.
A British teacher is facing 40 lashes in a Sudanese jail if convicted of insulting Islam's prophet by letting children name a teddy bear Mohammed.
To read the complete story, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Chaver, Kishke
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:03 AM | Comments (4)
To Be or Not to Be
The Annapolis Peace conference begins today. And for those of you who harbor any illusions let Seraphic Secret be quite clear.
The conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbors is not about land. It never has been.
It's an existential conflict.
Quite simply: Muslims deny the right of Jews to live in their own national and religious homeland. Muslims deny any Jewish historical claims to Israel, to Jerusalem, they even deny the existence of the two Temples on the Temple Mount. Thus, we should not be surprised that Mahmoud Abbas received his PhD. from Moscow's Friendship University for a thesis in which he denies the Holocaust.
Indeed, the entire framework of the Arab relationship to Israel and to Judaism is denial of reality.
Annapolis feeds this madness, adds to this mountain of denial and third world delusion.
Here's a fine common-sense brief.
By BERNARD LEWIS
November 26, 2007 Wall Street Journal
Here with some thoughts about tomorrow’s Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel- Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, “What is the conflict about?” There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.
If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.
If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.
PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that’s not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.
A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much- discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.
What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways – Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement — Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.
The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the “return” of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
There are signs of change in some Arab circles, of a willingness to accept Israel and even to see the possibility of a positive Israeli contribution to the public life of the region. But such opinions are only furtively expressed. Sometimes, those who dare to express them are jailed or worse. These opinions have as yet little or no impact on the leadership.
Which brings us back to the Annapolis summit. If the issue is not the size of Israel, but its existence, negotiations are foredoomed. And in light of the past record, it is clear that is and will remain the issue, until the Arab leadership either achieves or renounces its purpose — to destroy Israel. Both seem equally unlikely for the time being.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:38 AM | Comments (4)
November 26, 2007
Total War
I'm going to go out on a limb and make a wild prediction—dripping irony here—that attempted terrorist attacks in Israel are going to increase during Annapolis.
And after Annapolis fails, and everybody blames the Jooz, the Arabs will riot and of course the world will excuse their bloody rampages—after all, that's their culture—and Hizbullah/Iran with Syrian support will gobble up Lebanon.
Why not? America just legitimized the murderous, and imperial—19 years occupying Lebanon—Syrian regime by inviting those thuggish assassins to Annapolis.
Once Lebanon goes to Hizbullah/Syria/Iran, well, all bets are off.
Another civil war will probably explode. And everyone will blame the Jews. Including, who else? Peace Now. They can always be counted on to embolden those who wish to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people. Call it The Josephus syndrome.
And to take advantage of the chaos, Hizbullah in Gaza will step up their attacks on Israel in order to goad the IDF into a ground invasion of Gaza.
Israel must resist this invitation. Instead, Israel must cut off all the power and fuel supplied to Gaza. There is no moral imperative to supply your enemies with the power to kill your own citizens.
If this does not pacify Gaza, then the Israeli air-force should bomb that jihadist salient back to the stone age. There is no reason for a single Israeli soldier to die or get wounded in a ground invasion.
There is no victory in warfare unless the citizens who have chosen to ally themselves with tyrants and genocidal governments are made to suffer along with their leaders. Witness Japan and Germany during World War II.
I am talking about total war.
This tactic of warfare was used in 1864 by Union troops under Maj. General William Tecumseh Sherman when he burned Atlanta to the ground and began his March to the Sea. The March was designed to break Southern morale. In Sherman's words: "... to make Georgia howl."
Sherman understood total war. He realized that that to win one must strike at the enemy's infrastructure. After Sherman's March the Southern economy collapsed and Lee's army was shattered.
Total war is not pretty, but it does save lives for it ends wars quickly instead of allowing conflicts to drag on endlessly, generation after generation.
It's time to make Gaza howl.
In the meantime, that fine analyst Barry Rubin has written an article about that folly: Annapolis.
Despite thousands of claims by lots of famous people, national leaders, and respected journals, solving the Arab-Israeli conflict will not make radical Islamism or terrorism go away. Would you like to know why? Because even if this issue could be solved—which isn’t about to happen for reasons requiring a different article—to do so would necessitate a compromise including an end to the conflict, acceptance of Israel, and compromises by the Arab side. These steps would inflame the extremists and make any Arab rulers who accepted it vulnerable to being called traitors. It would increase instability in the Arab world, also by removing the conflict as splendid excuse and basis for mobilizing support for the current rulers. Arab politicians understand this reality; most people in the West don’t.
To read Barry Rubin's complete article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:48 PM | Comments (15)
The Moral Dementia of Annapolis
Warning: Annapolis is being supported by Israel's most deep-end leftist organization Peace Now. Not surprising, Peace Now has some of their most fervent supporters here in La-La Land. If you hang around long enough you'll no doubt them babble on about Tikkun Olam—alot.
As if they have the vaguest idea what this concept truly encompasses.
At the moment, for it's the fashion, they think it means buying useless computers for Africans who desperately require roads, medicine, septic tanks, clean drinking water, y'know basic sanitation; or they lecture—endlessly, drearily—about so-called global warming, instead of confronting true and frightening evil: jihad.
It's so much easier to rant about the weather and hold, ahem, interfaith services with clever jihadists than actually show some moral and physical courage and confront these Jew-haters head-on.
Have you ever noticed that far left organizations bear names that have no relationship to reality. Peace Now has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with appeasement and the slow-motion annihilation of Israel.
One can scrawl the word peace, Shalom, on all the blackboards in the world, but it's the gesture of a fantasist when the other side is committed to your destruction, in fact boasts of this end-game relentlessly in their media, in their mosques, in their, ahem universities, and through their grade school educational system.
Just take a walk through Gaza or anywhere in the Arab world. Jew/Israeli hatred—there is no difference—is pandemic. Posters of so-called martyrs—actually, butchers of innocent men, women, and children—are displayed like rock posters. There is no talk of peace, only victory and the destruction of the Zionist entity.
When the Arabs speak of "occupation" they are talking about the entire state of Israel. From the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It's in the charter of Hamas and Fatah/PLO. Both documents are Islamist and boastfully genocidal. Parts of the Hamas charter are based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Let's be clear: Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas is president of nothing. Gaza belongs heart and soul to Hamas, Hizbullah, and a dozen criminal clans. And the only thing that keeps Judea and Samaria from sliding gleefully into the arms of Hamas is the presence of brave Jewish citizens and the Israeli Defense Forces.
Once again, we are living in 1938.
Too bad that so many in the West refuse to learn the lessons of history.
And of course, so many are Jews.
Sometimes, the only way to achieve peace, is through the business end of a gun.
In preparing for the Mideast conference in Annapolis, Maryland, this week, Jerusalem Post columnist and deputy managing editor Caroline Glick took some questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez Monday morning.
Glick, a senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy, is author of the upcoming book (March), The Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad will be released in March. All Glick clicks are available here.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Is there anything good to come out of Annapolis?
Caroline Glick: It is hard to see any positive outcome from the Annapolis conference. Some have argued that the conference will make clear the distinction between states interested in peace and states uninterested in peace. But it is far from clear why this is the case. Indeed, one of the basic flaws inherent in the Annapolis conference, and indeed in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent frenetic pursuit of Palestinian statehood is the complete absence of moral distinctions between states committed to the ideals of peace, freedom, and fighting terror and those committed to jihad, tyranny, and hatred.
To take just the most obvious example of Rice’s moral equivalence, she upholds Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayad as moderates who seek peaceful coexistence with Israel. Yet the fact is that neither Abbas nor Fayad have taken any steps that could be considered conducive to peace. They joined a unity government with Hamas in March and would have remained Hamas’s junior partner in that Saudi-brokered governing arrangement had Hamas not decided to oust Fatah forces from Gaza in June. Fayad has continued to pay the salaries of the Iranian-trained Hamas army in Gaza since the terror group’s takeover of the area just as he pays the salaries of Fatah terrorists in the West Bank.
In addition to his position as political leader of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas is also the head of the Fatah terror organization. Due to its reputation as a secular terror group, the U.S. State Department upholds Fatah as a credible partner in peace talks with Israel. But this strains credulity. Since the onset of the Palestinian jihad against Israel in September 2000, Fatah has carried out more terror attacks against Israeli targets than either Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Just last week Fatah terrorist murdered 29-year-old Ido Zoldan.
In spite of Fatah’s moderate reputation, the fact is that Fatah terror cells in the West Bank are bankrolled by Iran and its Hezbollah proxy. Its operatives are directed by Tehran no less than Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives are.
To read the complete interview, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Dr. Carol
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:49 AM | Comments (6)
BBC Wipes Israel off the Map
From the BBC Radio yesterday morning:
“And later in the program, after we have heard from our correspondent in Annapolis, Maryland, we will be speaking to representatives from both sides, the Palestinians and the Americans.”
"Was this just a mistake, or was it a further subconscious glimpse into the BBC’s warped worldview?"
Original Post from NRO
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Dr. Carol
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:09 AM | Comments (4)
General Pershing Fights Jihadists
General John J. Pershing fought Muslim insurgents in the Philippines before World War I. His methods were politically incorrect, but quite effective.
Today, he'd be hammmered ruthlessly by the press, court martialed, and thrown in the brig for G-d knows how long. But keep in mind that "Pershing is the only person, while still alive, to rise to the highest rank ever held in the United States Army—General of the Armies—equivalent only to the posthumous rank of George Washington."
I guess Pershing was doing something right.
One important thing to remember is that Muslims detest pork because they believe pigs are filthy animals. Some of them simply refuse to eat it, while others won’t even touch pigs at all, nor any of their by-products. To them, eating or touching a pig, its meat, its blood, etc., is to be instantly barred from paradise and doomed to hell.
Just before World War I, there were a number of terrorist attacks against the United States and it’s interests by, you guessed it, Muslim extremists.
So General Pershing captured 50 of the terrorists and had them tied to posts execution style. He then had his men bring in two pigs and slaughter them in front of the, now horrified, terrorists.
The soldiers then soaked their bullets in pigs blood, and proceeded to execute 49 of the terrorists by firing squad.
The soldiers then dug a big hole, dumped in the terrorist’s bodies and covered them in pig blood, entrails, etc.
They let the 50th man go. And for about the next 42 years, there was not a single attack by a Muslim fanatic anywhere in the world.
Original Post from American Soldier
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:22 AM | Comments (4)
November 25, 2007
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #142 Plus Peg Entwistle
We'd like to thank Soccer Dad for including Seraphic Secret's Aunt Pearl, Nanny & Thanksgiving in this week's fine round-up.
Hollywood is filled with actors who crave stardom. Every once in a while I gaze up at this sign and ponder the short and very sad life of Welsh born actress Peg Entwistle.
Peg Entwistle
She was never a star.
Not even a minor star.
One tiny, non-speaking role in a movie called Thirteen Women makes up her entire filmography. And Peg wasn't even invited to the film's premiere. Such a slight in Hollywood can be devastating to a young and vulnerable actress. I've seen it time and again.
Peg Entwistle achieved fame, well, notoriety, by being the first suicide off this famous landmark.
Her suicide note read:
"I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain." P.E.
Two days later, in an ironic twist, Entwistle's uncle opened a letter addressed to her from the Beverly Hills Playhouse; it was mailed the day before she jumped. In it was an offer for her to play the lead role in a stage production—in which her character would commit suicide in the final act.
—Wickipedia
Peg Entwistle was just 24 years old when she died.
Peg's studio glamour photo.
Photo courtesy: It'll Take the Snap Out of Your Garters!
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:27 AM | Comments (8)
November 24, 2007
Saving Israel
Annapolis is coming up on Tuesday and a stew of Judenrein Arab countries are going to show up in order to pressure Israel to, well, cease to exist.
Yep, let's face it, that is the end game. Here's a revealing quote from a PLO official that lays it out nice and neatly:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.
— PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, 1977 interview, Dutch newspaper Trouw.
Look, our friends the Saudis won't even shake hands with Jews. Now that's how to negotiate. And the left are so desperate for acceptance and approval from a bunch of Jew-haters they are willing to hand over Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, expel something like 85,000 Jews from their homes—Gaza redux, now that worked out extremely well—and offer citizenship to like a zillion jihadist Arabs—all for a handshake, and some vague promises of recognition.
Gee, what a bargain.
If I was offered a deal like that in Hollywood—I'd fire my agent.
No handshake to the infidel Jooz. Not surprising from a country—well not really a country—more like a massively corrupt family corporation that officially does not allow Jews to set foot on its soil, and soaks its people in the most ghastly Jew-hatred imaginable.
But the Saudis have a peace plan.
These people who condemn a gang rape victim to be whipped .
Yes, we're supposed to listen to their geo-political wisdom.
Who else is coming to Annapolis?
Algeria.
Oh goody. Now there's a model of state craft. Not a Jew left in Algeria. You know why? Because after the blood-soaked Algerian revolution against France the Muslims murdered or expelled the entire ancient Algerian Jewish community. Any reparations ever paid for property and money stolen?
You have to be kidding.
Who else is coming to Annapolis?
Yemen.
Another model Arab/Muslim state.
But wait, only about 200 Jews, old and infirm, left in this country. And why is that? Oh, you know every Jew expelled. Property and money stolen.
Reparations ever paid to these Jewish refugees?
Not one penny.
Hey, Syria might even show up. They get rewarded for trying to build a nuclear program hand in hand with the peace-loving North Koreans and Persians, which of course would never be used to threaten Israel.
Any Jews in Syria?
About 200, old and infirm.
Like all Arab countries the Syrian Jews were expelled, all money and property seized. Reparations for these Jewish refugees? Zero.
World interest in the 800,000 Jewish/Arab refugees?
Zero.
You know why?
Because Israel gathered them in, and as good Jews took care of them. Unlike the Arab countries who use their so-called Palestinian cousins like pawns to pull focus from festering domestic problems and constantly blame the Jews for, well, everything.
Who else can we expect at Annapolis?
Sudan.
Now there's a diplomatic victory.
Let's follow State Department logic: The Janjaweed militia, Khartoum's official death squads, have murdered somewhere between 200 to 400,000 non Arabs in the past few years. We have no idea how many rapes have been committed by the Janjaweed, nor how many women have been taken as sexual slaves.
There are about a million Darfur refugees.
True refugees; starving, dying people.
Not like the so-called "Palestinian refugees" who are the welfare queens of the U.N., actually of planet earth.
So: according to State Department logic, we're supposed to believe that Sudan, a genocidal, jihadist state, is a truly useful partner regarding Mideast peace talks.
Okay, I'm just a dopey screenwriter, didn't go to Harvard or Yale, but this might be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. It has all the logic of setting free Fatah terrorists, as a quote unquote confidence building measure.
Because if Olmert doesn't set them free, the Arabs might get really pissy and turn to, G-d forbid, terrorism, instead of the peaceful path they have been following.
Anyway, Olmert, Livni and Barak can be counted on to give away everything but a strategic coffee shop or two in Tel Aviv, and so it's up to us to make sure these appeasers don't hand over Jerusalem.
Here's a link. Just follow the instructions.
And here's a simple equation: If we can't summon the political, religious and national will to keep a united Jerusalem, then we certainly will not be able to defend the State of Israel—for Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people's identity.
If you believe that a divided Jerusalem will bring peace, well you have a very short memory.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:04 PM | Comments (13)
November 23, 2007
Iraq's Savage Ironies
Below is a fine article by Victor Davis Hanson, in which he brings much needed military/historical perspective to the war in Iraq.
Recently, at a Shabbos lunch, I had a discussion with a friend about Iraq. My friend, sputtering in fury, claimed to have turned a corner against President Bush because of how poorly the war has been handled. I asked my friend if he felt that Eisenhower and his generals had done a good job in North Africa?
My friend shrugged, “Pretty good.”
He had not a clue as to the series of blunders made by the Americans, tactical and strategic, in North Africa, nor the terrible toll in lives through poor planning, especially in airborne operations.
There is a learning curve in all wars, I explained, terrible as it is, and in this conflict with jihadists, the U.S. army, outfitted and trained for traditional war, must adjust to Fourth Generation combat. It's a huge change. And General Petraeus and his Colonels have done a magnificent job.
“Well, why didn't Bush do it earlier?” My friend shot back angrily.
“There were other generals in the way. Some of them real turkeys. The army is an unforgiving bureaucracy.”
Dripping with sarcasm: “Well, you're more forgiving than I am.”
“No, I just live in the real world.”
My friend went on to attack the corruption in Iraq.
I said that far worse went on in the Civil War. “Unfortunately war draws out the the best and worst in men.”
“There was no corruption in World War II,” my friend assured me. “Harry Truman made sure of that.”
I looked at my soup.
I went: “Uh-huh.”
There is no dialog with dirt ignorance.
The war in Iraq — as all wars — is fraught with savage ironies.
In the build-up to the invasion, anti-Americanism in Europe reached a near frenzy. It was whipped up by French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and evoked warnings of an eternal split in the Atlantic Alliance. If Iraq had proved a catalyst for this expression of near hatred — fueled by long-standing angers and envies — it soon, however, proved to be a catharsis as well.
Both leaders overplayed their hands when the U.S. had already begun downsizing its NATO deployments in Germany. Elsewhere, Europeans started to have second thoughts about alienating America at a time of rising Russian belligerency, and suffered from increased worry over radical Islamic terrorists at home and abroad.
The result is that their successors, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, are staunchly pro-American in ways their previous governments were not, even well before the Iraq War. And given the increased jihadist threats to Europe, worries about Iran, and the consistency of the U.S. effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, these governments may well have learned — in a way they did not anticipate in 2003 — that there really is no other ally like a steadfast United States, in these unstable times.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend from the Great White North, A. Mark David, Q.C.
Karen and I wish all our friends a beautiful and profound miracle in Shabbat.
And let's not forget Project Valor-IT Veteran's Day Fundraiser, to provide voice-activated lap-top computers to injured and disabled veterans. Please donate generously. This is a very important tzedakah, charity.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:04 AM | Comments (10)
November 22, 2007
Aunt Pearl, Nanny & Thanksgiving
“Your grandmother felt that the most important American holidays were Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. Oh, she just just loved America, was just so grateful to this country.”
I'm speaking to my beloved Aunt Pearl, my mother's baby sister. We're separated by several thousand miles; she lives in Florida, I in California, but for a major portion of my life Aunt Pearl lived in Brooklyn, with my grandmother, Chana Gittel Z'L, just a few minutes from wherever my parents lived.
Aunt Pearl called me Little Man, even when I grew older and towered over her diminutive five foot frame. We have always been close, Aunt Pearl and I. She never married, never had children, worked hard her entire life, took care of her mother, my grandmother, sacrificed much to be a good and faithful daughter. My Aunt Pearl has always been an independent woman, a feminist, without the anger, without the fashionable slogans, without the oh-so-dreary badge of victimhood. She's a remarkable woman.
“Tell me about Thanksgiving when we were children, Aunt Pearl.”
“Oh, it was so important to Nanny, she would invite all the children and grandchildren over to the apartment, cook all day, and because Aunt Regina and Uncle Albert lived in the same apartment building you kids used to run back and forth between the apartments.”
Yes, with countless and rambunctious cousins we would fly up and down the steep granite stairs, howl at one another and listen to the echoes ricochet off the concrete walls of the pre-war apartment building. We drove the neighbors crazy.
“Things changed when people in the Jewish community started making weddings on Thanksgiving. Your grandmother did not like that, she did not approve of that at all. She said it was wrong. Your parents would drop you and your sister off at our apartment and go off to a wedding. Don't get me wrong, we were thrilled to have you kids all to ourselves, but still, Nanny felt that Thanksgiving was too important a holiday to be cast aside for weddings. It was not respectful. Jews, she felt, should be more grateful.”
“She was right.”
“You know what else she hated?”
“What?”
“When her children got older and more prosperous, and they took vacations in Europe. She said to them: 'Why are you going back to Europe? I took you out of Europe. We fled from that bloody soil. Go see America.' Oh, Robert, she just loved America. Your Nanny was always grateful for all the blessings of America.”
Karen and I wish all our friends a Happy Thanksgiving.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:38 AM | Comments (27)
November 21, 2007
Oscar Worthy Terrorist Flick
Here's a little terrorist video that will actually put a smile on your face.
My buddy Treppenwitz has posted a fine little video of some Arab/Muslim terrorists, I assume in Gaza, launching what appear to be standard mortar rounds, probably c/o Ehud Olmert, from a home-made rocket launcher, towards Israeli civilian populations, in order to kill, maim, and terrorize.
All the while chanting: "Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar."
But I know, they're not really Muslims. They're radicals who have hi-jacked the, er, religion of peace.
Anyway: These master terrorists are feeding mortar rounds into a toilet pipe, over and over again, and pretty soon—well, I don't want to spoil Act Three for you.
It's a classic short, Oscar-worthy. Far better than Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Redacted, Valley of Elah, etc.
Go to that excellent blogger Treppenwitz, a man who totes a laser-pen in his pocket, and then click on the very interesting film clip.
To paraphrase Dirty Harry: It will make your day.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:19 AM | Comments (4)
November 20, 2007
Open Season on Jewish Settlers
A Jew has been murdered.
In the land of Israel.
The terrorists will put out the fable that this atrocity was committed in order to derail Annapolis.
This is a tactical ploy to force gullible Israelis to stand up and proclaim that no matter how many Jews are murdered they will sit down and negotiate with the very people who ordered and executed these murders.
The PA play their old double-flag game. They send word down through the ranks to spill some Jewish blood in order to intimidate Israel and the West into making more concessions before negotiations even begin; the implied threat is that there will be greater bloodshed if concessions are not made.
This is how jihadists negotiate—through the business end of a Kalachnikov.
It's madness to sit down with such people.
It's greater madness to contemplate rewarding such thugs with a state.
And of course Mahmoud Abbas, the old Holocaust denier who received his Ph.D from Moscow's Friendship University—impressive!—denies that he's involved in this round of violence; shrugs and says he has no control over this particular group.
The PA finances and controls Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the terrorist group who proudly take responsibility for this atrocity.
But Abbas lies and lies and lies some more. That's what he learned from his mentor the serial liar and master terrorist Yasir Arafat.
But let's play a game: let's say Abbas is not lying.
Why would Israel negotiate with a man who has no control over anything?
In fact, there's a joke among the Arabs: Abbas is the President of The Muqata. In case you don't know, The Muqata is Arafat's compound in Ramallah.
Mahmoud Abbas is a simulcram of a leader invented by Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Condi Rice to convince themselves that there is someone responsible with whom to negotiate. In truth, Mahmoud Abbas is no more substantial than a holograph.
Abbas and the PA are not in control of Gaza. That salient now belongs to Hamas, Hizbullah and a dozen other transnational terrorist gangs and the various rival criminal clans who have carved up the neighborhoods like mini mafias. As for Judea and Samaria, well, only one precinct voted for the PA, the rest are solidly behind Hamas. Only the presence of Israeli citizens and the IDF keeps this soil from descending into familiar Palestinian bloodshed and chaos.
Here's the bitter truth about Abbas and the PA: they are effective thieves, liars and killers. Beyond that, they are unable to organize effective garbage pick-ups in a single municipality.
In any case, a Jew has been murdered and the world yawns.
But we at Seraphic Secret are outraged at the murder and the disgusting silence that echoes from the world media. And when they do bother to mention this atrocity, it's tacitly excused through the use of editorial language that cunningly stresses this fine husband and father's status as a "settler."
Fact: America was built by courageous settlers.
When did settler become a dirty word?
When did it become politically correct to murder settlers?
Shame on the left, and so many feckless liberal Jews for torturing language to the point where this word has become a badge of shame.
For in truth each settler is performing a holy mitzvah by settling the Land of Israel.
Jews have the right to live anywhere and everywhere.
I have a prediction.
In a few years, Muslims will declare sections of New York, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Los Angeles and Copenhagen, to be Muslim territory, and those who are not part of the Umma will be considered infidels—hence fair game.
What will the citizens of those fine cities do when they find themselves hunted like Jewish settlers?
Thousands of mourners came to Kedumim Tuesday afternoon for the funeral of Ido Zoldan, 29, son of Nachman and Miriam Zoldan, who was killed by Arab gunmen late Monday night as he returned in his car from Karnei Shomron to Shavei Shomron.
Ido (pronounced ee-doe), known affectionately by all who knew him as Idodee, had been studying in chevruta (a study group for Jewish learning) with a friend, and was on his way home when the terrorists riddled his car with bullets.
Gray clouds filled the sky and rain poured down on the funeral. The speakers were the leading spiritual and political voices of the Jewish communities in northern Samaria and in the rest of Judea and Samaria, nearly all of whom knew Ido well, and it was clear that this funeral was unlike others. The voices bespoke deep pain and angry courage. Ido was truly a beloved and inspiring individual.
These are some of the words that were said at the funeral:
Rabbi Tzvi Farbstein, Rabbi of Kedumim: "This is not the family's private grief not; this is not the community's private grief, this is the grief of the Nation of Israel…
"On the day that the government of Israel understands that we have come home after 2000 years and the Land of Israel cannot be bargained over, the terror will be eliminated. On the day that the government of Israel understands that Jewish blood is not free for the taking, the terror will be eliminated. On the day that the government of Israel stops differentiating between moderate murderers and immoderate murderers, between Hamas and other murderers, the terror will be eliminated."
To read the entire story and view the heart breaking pictures please click here.
Baruch Dayan Emet
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:42 PM | Comments (6)
Terrorist in the AP Newsroom
Further proof that the mainstream media is infected with jihadists and their Western enablers. The AP is one of the most wretched news organizations on earth. There is no transparency to their operation. Try and interview their reporters and editors about how they choose their stories, or their hiring practises, and you run into a brick wall. The official policy of the AP is their reporters are not allowed to give interviews to, get this, the media.
Pravda reborn.
In Stephanie Gutmann's invaluable book The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy, there is an entire chapter devoted to AP's bias against Israel and Orwellian methods. You must read this book, it's a real eye-opener, one of the most important exposes about the sad state of journalism in the Middle East ever published.
The U.S. military says it has "convincing and irrefutable" evidence that an award-winning Associated Press photographer is connected to the insurgency in Iraq.
The photographer, Bilal Hussein Zaidon, faces charges in the Iraqi Central Court based on the evidence, Pentagon officials said Monday.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell and other U.S. military officials would not say directly what charges he faced. They referred reporters to the Iraqi court system.
Hussein, an Iraqi who lives in the western Anbar province city of Ramadi, has been held without charge by the U.S. military since April 2006, when bomb parts and insurgent propaganda were found in his house after the U.S. military asked to use it as an observation post during an operation.
Hussein was already under suspicion by the U.S. military because he arrived at terrorist attack sites so quickly that they suspected he had advance knowledge of attacks, according to Morrell.
To read the complete story, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Jake Novak
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:36 AM | Comments (4)
November 19, 2007
FBI Hate Crimes, 2006: Jews Suffer Over 5 Times More Attacks than Muslims
Remember this the next time CAIR starts claiming protected victim status. From the FBI's site (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair) comes a table on hate crimes, from which I have taken here only the number of hate-motivated offenses committed in 2006 against each group. Be sure to look at the whole table at the FBI site.
Anti-Black 3,136
Anti-Jewish 1,027
Anti-White 1,008
Anti-Male Homosexual 881
Anti-Hispanic 770
Anti-Female Homosexual 192
Anti-Islamic 191
Original article from Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch.
Hey, I know, CAIR can accuse the FBI study of, y'know, Islamaphobia.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, David Paulin
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:22 PM | Comments (5)
Oceans of Blood: The Al Durah Blood Libel
From that fine blogger Breath of the Beast, the latest on the blood-libel that should be on the front pages of every paper in this country, but won't be because, y'know, it's okay when Muslims fake a death and then libel Israel, Jews and Judaism, and the Islamic world, enabled by the Western press, uses the obviously fake and bloodless footage as an excuse to launch murderous terrorist attacks in every corner of the world.
Muhammed Al Durah is alive. My guess is that he's in a madrassah somewhere in Pakistan or Sudan. Meanwhile, his father makes a nice living traveling about the Muslim world signing pictures of his "dead son" much like O.J. Simpson signing memorabilia at sports conventions.
The Muslim world is addicted to the culture of death. The younger the better. It is ghastly.
Even more ghastly are the Jews on the left who enable these monsters. Charles Enderlin is a Jew, an Israeli citizen, a man who tampers with evidence. May his name be blotted from our memory.
Charles Enderlin is adrift in a rising ocean of blood. He is either so arrogant or so blinded by his fear that he is helpless to do what needs to be done to stem the tide. It is a tragedy of Biblical scale. When it all started, he was riding an exhilarating wave. (Background: here, here and here)
In October of 2000 he had what must have been a dream job. He was the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for France2. He got to live in one of the great, cosmopolitan, civilized cities of the world and report daily on a simmering, dangerous, richly symbolic conflict at the cutting edge between civilization and chaos. There was always a story. Because he lived and worked in Jerusalem there was never any censorship or physical threat or even any physical discomfort. He had Palestinian stringers who fed him footage and information from the unsafe and difficult areas so he could sit in Jerusalem, edit film in his fuzzy robe and slippers and be a war correspondent.
I am guessing that he just got too sloppy and arrogant to see how he was being used by his trusted Palestinian sidekick Talal Abu Rahma. Rahma knew the boss wasn’t disposed to check up on his work as long as he delivered serviceable goods and he gave him a juicy scoop once in a while. One day, Rahma overplayed the deal and Enderlin was setup for a fall. The rest of the story boils down to what Enderlin knew, when he knew it and whether or not he would take responsibility for it.
His now controversial report on the alleged shooting of a twelve year old boy named Muhammed al Durah at Netzarim Junction in Gaza vaulted him to the top of the jounalistic world. He had “scooped” everyone and had presented a perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict that had been hinted at by the media and longed for by the liberal and leftists in the dank guilt-ridden recesses of the west- especially Europe. It quickly became apparent that although it had never actually been seen or proven, there was a large and willing potion of the audience that readily took to the image of the Israelis as oppressors and thugs. The film and Enderlin’s presentation of it would, if true, have been proof of murderous brutality by the Israeli army. Enderlin reported that they killed the boy in cold blood. Looking at the report footage now, with the knowledge and background that has come to light it is hard to believe that such ambiguous and poorly staged stuff could have caught the imagination of the world the way it did. But, then, you had the voice of Charles Enderlin telling you what to believe about it in your ear and it is always dangerous to underestimate the size and explosivity of the subterranean lake of anti-Semitic blood-libel that seems to bubble and churn beneath the entire world’s population.
To read the complete story, please click here.
And here is a report by Melanie Phillips on the Al Durah blood-libel, from the trial in France.
Ms. Phillips concludes her piece on a powerful cautionary note:
The ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah was swallowed uncritically by the western media, despite the manifold unlikeliness and contradictions which were apparent from the start, because it accorded with the murderous prejudice against Israel which is the prism through which the Middle East conflict is habitually refracted. This scandal has the most profound implications not just for the media, not just for the Middle East conflict but for the western world’s relationship to reason, which seems to grow more tenuous by the day.
The very best book on why the media tilts so ferociously against Israel is Stepanie Gutmann's The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy. Highly recommended.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)
Farewell Israel: A Review
In the West, people have short memories, or no memories at all, especially when it comes to Islam. And the jihadists use this against us.
Our terrible ignorance plays itself out every day, every hour, in Israel's battle for survival against her Arab enemies. Most in the West see the conflict as a simple battle about land and refugees.
This is an infamous lie. A crucial link in the strategic plan to defeat and slowly dismember Israel in diplomatic stages rather than through war.
It's a battle of Islam against the Jews. The issues of so-called occupation, so-called refugees, are merely fig-leafs for the true religious confrontation that animates the Islamic war against Jews and Judaism.
Farewell Israel: Bush, Iran and the Revolt of Islam written and directed by Joel Gilbert lays out the true nature of the Arab Israeli conflict with an unblinking eye. He is eloquent about the Islamic point of view, which should put to rest, once and for all, the notion that we are are all alike:
First, an understanding of the Islamic world view, from the point of view of Muslims. In the West, there is a huge gap in understanding Islam on every level, from the man on the street, to Jewish and Christian religious leaders, to our elected officials. Only by gaining an understanding and appreciation of Islam's world view, through its historic trials and its theology, can the West begin to deal with the real issues and challenges.
Second, misunderstanding leads to war. Israel's lack of understanding of Islam, its values and goals, have lead it to a policy of surrender of territory, based on the belief that it will achieve "Peace" in Western terms. In reality, "Western Peace" between Israel and Islam is unattainable. Peace can only be achieved in Islamic terms - "Peace with Justice" - which requires the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. Muslims have 1,400 years of experience and holy scriptures to refer to that deal with Jews. Because Judaism predates Islam, Jews have no such foundation in dealing with Muslims, hence the Israeli misunderstanding, and the Islamic advantage. That's why when the Israelis negotiate anything, they give up everything, and in return receive nothing.
Gilbert is a gifted Islamic scholar who speaks Arabic and knows Islamic history cold. His film lays out the bitter and bloody confrontation between Islam and the Jews from the time of the prophet Muhammed to this very day. The film is an historic journey from the birth of Islam, through its 1,200 year imperial reign over much of the civilized world, to the last 300 years of its decline, dominated by the West, and humiliated by the very existence of a Jewish state.
Farewell Israel makes clear that it is a religious duty for every Muslim to reject Israel. The film also shows how Israel tragically misunderstands Islamic goals and values, hence a parade of Israeli and American politicians play into the hands of Israel's enemies at each and every turn.
Finally, Gilbert's film focuses on the Iranian strategy for acquiring weapons of mass destruction to eliminate Israel, and the West's inability to deal with this existential threat.
Gilbert believes that Israel cannot survive. He believes that Israel faces two choices: abandonment by America and eventual military annihilation, or dhimmitude.
I met with director Joel Gilbert and discussed his film. I voiced my concerns about his "pessimistic" vision. Joel countered that it was a "realistic" vision.
It's an odd feeling, discussing the annihilation of the Jewish state, the murder of millions of Jews with a Bob Dylan look-alike, an earnest and likable Jewish man who wants nothing more than to warn the Jewish people and the Western world about the Islamist cut-throats oozing through our doorways.
I diagree with Joel. Obviously.
Israel, Jews, have always fought against enormous odds.
I believe that Israel will, must, in the near future, launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities and eliminate the Persian nuclear threat. I also believe that the Palestinians will overplay their bloody hand and launch a series of horrific terrorist attacks against Israel that will force Israel, once and for all, to smash Hamas and the PA, and send their leadership packing to Tunisia once again, never to return. And if any Arab country dares attack Israel, Israel should retaliate with such force and such power that this country must accept an unconditional surrender. No more cease-fires. No more last minute reprieves by petro-dollars.
In any case, save for its conclusion, Farewell Israel is a powerful film, an informative film, and I urge everyone to order Farewell Israel and screen it for as many of your friends as possible.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:53 AM | Comments (4)
November 18, 2007
The Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #141
Haveil Havalim #141 is up and it is titled: The Save Israel Edition.
Yid with Lid has done a fine job of culling and organizing a series of powerful blog posts about the danger of appeasement that grips certain elements of the Israeli government, and of course the usual arch leftists in the Israeli and American communities.
Point out that Israel expelled 9,000 Jews from Gaza in exchange for peace and instead got Hamas and a daily barrage of rockets, the left says: “Give up more territory—and by the way, divide Jerusalem.”
Point out that Hamas promises to crush Fatah and take over Judea and Samaria and the left insists that only further concessions will bring peace—and by the way, divide Jerusalem.
Ignoring the proven reality that concessions only invite further aggression. That the Muslims have a very different view of, ahem, peace.
Ignoring the facts that both Hamas and Fatah deny the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist at all, deny the existence of both Jewish Temples on Har Habayit in Jerusalem, and are now targeting Rachel's Tomb by inventing a religious claim designed to oust the Jewish presence after thousands of years—and the left just shrugs off this cultural and religious atrocity as inconsequential.
Point out that both Fatah and Hamas have vowed to annihilate the entire state of Israel in their official charters and the left shrugs and says one has to pursue peace at all costs—and divide Jerusalem.
Point out that Jerusalem was once divided and it was a disaster for the Jews and the left says it will be different now because the Arabs are so, y'know, peace-loving.
Point out that sometime peace only comes at the end of a gun barrel and you're accused of being a war monger.
It's enough to make a grown man weep.
No wonder the Arabs love the Israeli and American left. At every turn in history, these peace-loving creatures enable tyrants and aggressors—and make the end of Israel and Jews a civilized topic of discussion.
And let's not forget Project Valor-IT Veteran's Day Fundraiser, to provide voice-activated lap-top computers to injured and disabled veterans. Please donate generously. This is a very important tzedakah, charity.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:41 AM | Comments (2)
Redacted: The Review
Seraphic Friend Dirty Harry should get a Purple Heart.
The man has sat through and reviewed every Bush-bashing, America-hating, anti-military, jihadist-enabling movie that Hollywood has released in the past several months. So punch drunk is Dirty Harry that he told me in an email after he saw Fred Claus that it "looks like Citizen Kane compared to all the dreck he's been exposed to."
You should know that Dirty Harry is a pious Catholic who curses in Yiddish when he gets really angry about important stuff like, y'know, movies.
It's a-dorable.
Anyway, every single one of these Hollywood dogs has tanked at the box office—as we predicted—and Redacted will be no different. It's already playing to empty houses.
Why does Hollywood keep producing movies that are such obvious losers at the box office?
That's easy.
Most Hollywood writers, actors, directors and executives are far more interested in being popular with one another than in in making a profit. They care more about fashionable politics and groovy little film festivals than fiscal responsibility.
Thus, by leaning hard left Hollywood's elite gamble they can safely fail upwards.
Brian DePalma’s latest weapon in Hollywood’s merciless crusade to see the Iraqi people abandoned tries to convince us that the Iraq War has dehumanized the U.S. Soldier and Marine to such a degree that they are now either capable of raping fifteen year-old girls, or standing by and allowing it to happen. This is how DePalma justifies his anti-war sentiments, by twisting a tragic true story into a morality play that argues the Iraqi civilian would be better off liberated from our monstrous Marines and left to the whim of terrorists and death squads.
The incident is exploited with the zeal, though none of the talent, of Leni Riefenstahl, to demonstrate that an innocent Iraqi family wasn’t machine gunned and their daughter raped and murdered because of the actions of a few out of a few hundred thousand. No, it happened because George W. Bush went to war with Iraq; because of the stress of danger and boredom that comes with misguided foreign policy.
To read the complete review, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:17 AM | Comments (2)
November 16, 2007
Crypto Tinseltown Republicans
Confess that you're a drug addict, an alcoholic, a gambling degenerate, and Hollywood liberals will shower you with support, love and best of all, offers of employment.
As long as you adhere to the prevailing arch liberal political ideology.
Come out publicly as a Conservative and prepare to take some pretty serious hits—socially and professionally.
Believe me, there is no one as close-minded as a Hollywood, ahem, progressive.
I've experienced it first-hand time and again.
The Hollywood liberal mind-set is reminiscent of Soviet totalitarianism. If you don't adhere to the party line you are seen as the other; not just someone with a different political point of view, but as a dangerous virus, an evil thing to be mocked and shunned.
No wonder so many Hollywood Conservatives stay in the closet.
Republican presidential candidates have been drawing support — and cash — from Hollywood celebrities, but few of the stars in super-liberal Tinseltown want to be publicly linked with the Grand Old Party.
One high-profile celebrity, when asked about her political views, even had her lawyers declare "our client's rights of privacy and other legally protectable intangible rights" and warn that she should not be labeled a Republican.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Son-in-Law, and Seraphic Friend Libertas
Karen and I wish all our friends a beautiful and profound miracle in Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:26 AM | Comments (8)
Come Home
From Iraq, Michael Yon, our greatest war correspondent, tells us in no uncertain terms that the surge has worked, that the terrorists are on the run, that the forces of freedom are winning.
But the Democrats last night on CNN were deeply invested in America's defeat in Iraq.
Are the Democrats unaware of the reality of what's happening in Iraq? Or is the truth a mortal wound to a party whose platform is built on defeatism?
Michael Yon contributes a lovely and moving photo essay.
I have to say this: I'm glad that Christians are returning to their churches to worship. It's a fine thing and I hope freedom of religion spreads in Iraq.
But the fact remains that Iraq, like every Arab/Muslim country, save for several thousand Jews in Morocco, is Judenrein and toxic for Jews.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any fighting. I can’t remember my last shootout: it’s been months. The nightmare is ending. Al Qaeda is being crushed. The Sunni tribes are awakening all across Iraq and foreswearing violence for negotiation. Many of the Shia are ready to stop the fighting that undermines their ability to forge and manage a new government. This is a complex and still delicate denouement, and the war may not be over yet. But the Muslims are saying it’s time to come home. And the Christians are saying it’s time to come home. They are weary, and there is much work to be done.
To read Michael's complete photo essay, please click here.
And let's not forget Project Valor-IT Veteran's Day Fundraiser, to provide voice-activated lap-top computers to injured and disabled veterans. Please donate generously. This is a very important tzedakah, charity.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:10 AM | Comments (7)
November 15, 2007
Is Israel a Jewish State?
As I put up this post I'm watching the Democrats debating on CNN. They are talking—endlessly—about universal health care.
Frankly, they sound like a bunch of Bolsheviks.
Except for Dennis Kucinich—who sounds like a man who's gulped deeply from the Kool-Aid. Man, when he opens his mouth the other candidates are like: Can somebody puh-leese drop some extremely strong medication on poor Dennis.
They also talk—naively, ignorantly—about ending the war in Iraq.
Helloooo. We're winning the war in Iraq. The surge is working.
But they won't admit that. It's bad for their party. Al Qaeda is on the run, but the Dems will keep playing the Tet Offensive card.
This is cynicism of the highest magnitude.
Memo to John "Hair" Edwards: You keep darkly referencing the "neo-Cons" in the Bush administration. Why don't you just come out and say what you really mean?
Jews.
Memo to Hillary: Don't you ever wear a simple trumpet dress, a nice silk blouse and wool pencil skirt? Something, um, lady like? You know why nobody trusts you?
Two words: pants suit.
You know what the Democrats are not talking about? What they won't dare talk about in any serious manner?
Islamic terror.
They won't even form the words. The Democrats will not discuss the existence of transnational Muslim jihadists who are battering down the walls of Western civilization.
How come?
Well, the Dems, no doubt, have an, ahem, "nuanced view," of the war of terror.
Translation: they are in denial for they are living in 1938; appeasement is a habitual reflex for liberals.
But when it comes to so-called global warming, believe me, there's nothing nuanced about their position. It's quite militant. One might even say: uncompromising. One might even say: fanatic.
It's easy to fight the weather. It's fun to blame big-bad multi-national corporations—boo Haliburton, always works—for polluting mother earth. It's makes everyone feel all so self-righteous and holier-than-thou.
But fighting evil, well, that's way too complicated for the liberal imagination.
Meanwhile, Israel is on the chopping block, and Jeff Jacoby is eloquent on Israel's Jewish character and the Arab Jew-hatred that is intent on delegitimizing Israel and Judaism simultaneously.
In advance of the upcoming diplomatic conference in Annapolis, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the other day that he expects the Palestinian Authority to finally acknowledge Israel's existence as a Jewish state. A newly arrived visitor from Mars might wonder why this should even be an issue - after all, Israel is a Jewish state. If the more than 55 countries that make up the Organization of the Islamic Conference are entitled to recognition as Muslim states, and if the 22 members of the Arab League are universally accepted as Arab states, why should anyone balk at acknowledging Israel as the world's lone Jewish state?
Yet Olmert's demand was rebuffed. Saeb Erekat, the senior Palestinian Authority negotiator, said on Monday that Palestinians would refuse to recognize Israel's Jewish identity on the grounds that "it is not acceptable for a country to link its national character to a specific religion."
In fact, there are many countries in which national identity and religion are linked. Argentinian law mandates government support for the Roman Catholic faith. Queen Elizabeth II is the supreme governor of the Church of England. In the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, the constitution proclaims Buddhism the nation's "spiritual heritage." The prevailing religion in Greece," declares Section II of the Greek Constitution, "is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ."
In no region of the world do countries so routinely link their national character to a specific religion as in the Muslim Middle East. The flag of Saudi Arabia features the shahada - the Islamic declaration of faith - in white Arabic script on a green background; on the Iranian flag, the Islamic phrase "Allahu Akbar" (God is great") appears 22 times. And then there is Erekat's own Palestinian Authority, whose Basic Law provides in Article 4 that "Islam is the official religion in Palestine."....
To read Jeff Jacoby's complete article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:22 PM | Comments (13)
Say the Word
Okay, we haven't done this for a while. I suppose we've been sidetracked by world events, great and small, for the past few months. But you know what? We should never stray too far from our core passions. Just to be clear: language and its awesome power, well, that's one of our obsessions here at Seraphic Secret.
Thus, we never tire of quoting this Torah:
Death and life lie in the power of the tongue.
—Mishlei, Proverbs 18:21.
Anyhoo.
If you're new to our little contest, here's the drill: we've listed three really obscure English words. Your job—if you choose to risk the assignment—is to compose a single coherent and witty sentence using all three words.
Send the sentence to our comments section.
Good luck.
And the best Seraphic Sentence is the, er, winner.
agrexophrenia
n. inability to perform sexually due to fear of being overheard
leint
v. to add urine to ale to make it stronger
nihilarian
n. a person with a meaningless job
Hat Tip: Futility Closet
And let's not forget Project Valor-IT Veteran's Day Fundraiser, to provide voice-activated lap-top computers to injured and disabled veterans. Please donate generously. This is a very important tzedakah, charity.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:45 AM | Comments (17)
November 14, 2007
The Hebrew Kid and the Psycho Toddler
Thanks so much to Psycho Toddler for a wonderful review of my novel The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden. It's not often I get compared to J.K. Rowlings.
Shameless plug: Chanukah and Christmas are coming up, and my novel is the perfect gift.
Bloggers who would like a review copy of The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden, please send me an email with your request and a snail mail address.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:32 PM | Comments (11)
Spy vs. Spy
A Muslim woman lives in America illegally, fakes a marriage to gain U.S. citizenship, infiltrates the FBI and CIA, and then passes info to Hizbullah. But of course there's "no evidence she was a spy." Oh yeah, she's also the sister-in-law of one of Hizbullah's principle U.S. financiers, Talal Khalil Chahine, who has fled the country. And she's from Detroitistan. No, she's not a spy. Must be, ahem, Islamaphobia running rampant in the FBI and CIA.
So much for the background checks.
A former agent for the FBI and CIA pleaded guilty Tuesday to faking a marriage to win U.S. citizenship, clearing the way to being hired and given security clearances by the two intelligence agencies.
Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, emigrated to United States from Lebanon in 1989. She was given U.S. citizenship five years later and began working as a special agent at the FBI's field office in Washington in 1999, according to a criminal information sheet filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
While working as a special agent, Prouty improperly searched an FBI computer database for information about her relatives and links they might have to the Hezbollah terrorist organization, the criminal sheet showed. She joined the CIA in 2003 and resigned as part of her guilty plea Tuesday, officials said.
To read the complete story, please click here.
The great Debbie Schlussel has more damning evidence on the Hizbullah spy.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Chaver, Kishke
And let's not forget Project Valor-IT Veteran's Day Fundraiser, to provide voice-activated lap-top computers to injured and disabled veterans. Please donate generously. This is a very important tzedakah, charity.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:52 AM | Comments (13)
November 13, 2007
Mr. Homicide Bomb Goes to Washington
How stupid is the State Department and are our lawmakers in Washington?
There are no words.
Read on and let us caution our readers, a barf bag will be most handy. This is a case where a simple Google search could have turned up all one needs to know about this jihadist Jew-hating Islamist.
Tamimi's Washington trip was timed to generate support for an upcoming U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit at which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to outline a Palestinian state including most of the West Bank. Some reports claim Olmert also is willing to cede sections of Jerusalem.
According to media reports, Tamimi and his group expressed to U.S. lawmakers last week a six-point platform that includes plans to set up a panel representing all the faiths that would condemn media or government incitement against any religious group; a board that would review educational materials for incitement; and a "hot line" to address any emerging crisis surrounding access to holy sites.
But in the recently released book, Schmoozing with Terrorists, by WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein, Tamimi presented a different attitude, stating Jews have no right to Jerusalem or to Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount.
Tamimi also is well-known for his justification of Palestinian suicide bombings and was accused by Israel of inciting violence at the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada that started in September 2000.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:53 AM | Comments (1)
Mukasey: Early Chanukah Gift
A fine article about a good and brilliant man whose nomination was opposed by a politically correct block of liberals who care more about abstract theories than the harsh realities of the war being waged upon the West by uncompromising jihadists.
The confirmation of Michael Mukasey should have been a slam dunk. Instead, it rolled around the basket for eight weeks, teetered perilously on the rim (when it was almost not recommended out of the Judiciary Committee), and, happily, finally dropped through the hoop.
It should have been a slam dunk because of the quality of the nominee. Senator Whitehouse, a Democrat of Rhode Island, commended Judge Mukasey as "a brilliant lawyer, a distinguished jurist, and a good man." Moreover, his nomination was strongly endorsed by Senator Schumer of New York, a liberal Democrat and a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who knew and respected Mr. Mukasey's qualities. The first hearing in the Judiciary Committee turned out to be something of a love fest with senators of both parties relating to the nominee with exceptional respect and admiration.
I was not surprised. I have known Michael Mukasey for almost 60 years, since he first entered the second grade at the Ramaz School. I was his teacher in a Jewish sociology course in his senior year of high school. I was his counselor at camp. In all of this growing period, he demonstrated the same qualities of dignity, integrity, refinement, brilliance, and modesty for which he is known today.
As his rabbi, I was approached by him for advice when, as a federal judge in the First District he was asked to be the presiding justice in the first World Trade Center bombing case in 1993 at the conclusion of which, he sentenced Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman to life in prison.
He was told in advance that if he took on the case, no matter what the conclusion would be, he and his wife would have to be guarded for the indefinite future by federal marshals, night and day, every place they went, including in their home. I listened to him, but I couldn't offer him advice except to say that if he declined the case I would certainly understand his reasons, but if he accepted, it would be a great service to our country. Personally, I had little doubt what his decision would be. Mr. Mukasey always was a patriot, a man of great principle, and a person of exceptional courage. That's why the president chose him, why Senator Schumer supported him, and why the Senate Judiciary Committee treated him in its first hearing with such respect. And that's why his confirmation should have been a slam dunk.
To read the complete article by Rabbi Haskell Lookstein, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Lance Fogel
Seraphic Friend Shrink Wrapped comments on therapy, the New York Times, the Mukasey affair and The Suicidal Pursuit of Perfection.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
Cowards Make Anti-War Movies
In the latest round of war movies the heroes are not the Soldiers and Marines who every day fight and defeat a vicious and barbaric enemy–the heroes are reporters, lawyers and activists.
And since every story requires a villain, the real enemy–Mohammedan Jihadists–are replaced by neo-cons, politicians, Soldiers and Marines.
Please go to Seraphic Friend Libertas for the complete article.
And let's not forget Project Valor-IT Veteran's Day Fundraiser, to provide voice-activated lap-top computers to injured and disabled veterans. Please donate generously. This is a very important tzedakah, charity.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:44 AM | Comments (3)
November 12, 2007
Arafat Memorial Turns Into Bloodbath—What a Shock!
So what happens at a memorial for terrorist leader Yasser Arafat? Flowers, speeches, dignified and calm crowds of well-wishers acting like, y'know, civilized people?
Not exactly.
In fact, the memorial turned into a riot and blood bath.
Not a Jew in sight. Though I'm sure the Arabs will blame the Jooz.
No, this was just more Arab on Arab violence that is, in fact, a fitting tribute to the bloody legacy of Arafat, one of the most reprehensible figures in modern history: a terrorist, a liar, and a thief who pocketed millions upon millions of dollars earmarked for humanitarian aid.
The memorial for Arafat, a thug, was attended by thugs who acted, well, in character.
Sure, let's give 'em a state. Just what the world needs, another dysfunctional, Jew-hating jihadist Arab country.
Oh wait, they already have a state, it's called Gaza. And what a fine, peace-loving country they are building.
Hundreds of thousands of Fatah supporters fled in panic today after gunfire erupted at a memorial event for former Palestinian Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat.
The anniversary had given the defeated faction in Hamas-controlled Gaza a rare chance to hold a rally. Medical officials said at least 15 people were wounded.
Fatah officials accused Hamas forces of opening fire from the nearby Islamic University. Hamas said its men had come under fire from Fatah gunmen and shot back.
To read the entire story, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:42 AM | Comments (2)
Pogrom and the Silence of the Media
Mobs burn Jewish homes, terrorize Jewish families; there is looting, kidnapping, chaos. Jews end up fleeing homes they have lived in for generations out of fear for their lives.
And the mainstream media imposes a resounding net of silence over the entire atrocity.
In which country did this outrage just happen?
The complete story and pictures: A Pogrom in Israel.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Jameel at the Muqata.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:07 AM | Comments (3)
The Saudi Threat in America
One of the politically correct lies we are fed is that Saudi Arabia is a "moderate" Arab state. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Saudis are in the forefront of the jihadist war against the West. But because of our need for oil, and their need to placate the West, they wage their holy war in particularly piratical methods. Expertly and cunningly the Saudis put on one face to meet the West, while at the very same time the corrupt Saudi royal family foments hatred of Jews through national education that teaches The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to grade school children, slick lobbyists in Washington, pouring millions of petro-dollars into the Middle Eastern Studies departments of our universities—fig-leafs for official Jew/Israeli hatred—and the financing of radical mosques on foreign shores to promote hatred of Jews, Christians and all non-Wahhabi sects of Islam.
Here's a fine article by Frank Salvato on the Wahhabist Infiltration of America.
Part of the reason many Americans don’t appreciate the significance of Osama bin Laden’s declarations of war against the United States and the West is because they are completely oblivious to the in-roads radical Islam has made within the United States. Radical