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December 31, 2008
And the Oscar Goes To...
Here's the feel-good movie of the year: the IAF targeting and taking out a cell of Hamas terrorists as they load Grad missiles—manufactured by Iran, smuggled into Gaza via tunnels from Egypt—to the back of a truck. This compelling and suspenseful film—very Hitchcock—was up on the IDF's new You Tube account, but, naturally, a bunch of terrorists and their enablers protested and the politically correct idiots at You Tube removed it. Can't let the public see a bunch of Arab Muslim thugs preparing to launch missiles against innocent civilians in Israel. That would, y'know, give lie to their precious victim status.
Thankfully, Live Leak is happy to pick up the business. The IDF should immediately shift its account to Live Leak. Capitalism at work.
Update: We have just been informed by Seraphic friend Ezzie, that You Tube have reinstated the banned video. Just goes to show, with enough publicity and pressure the good guys can win in this PC environment.
Speaking of politically correct idiots, a group of Hollywood actresses have decided to enable the Jew-hating terrorists. Explain to these actresses that they are strengthening sharia-yearning transnational Islamists who routinely oppress, rape and murder women, and they will look at you as if you're crazy. For them, that only happens in the movies. And you wonder why it's been almost 50-years since Hollywood produced Exodus, the last big studio film in support of Israel.
And hey, want to know where the courageous Hamas leadership in Gaza is hiding? In maternity and cancer wards. Shocking, huh, they're cowering behind their most vulnerable civilians. As they well know, there is no chance the IAF will bomb a Gaza hospital. Because unlike Hamas and the Gazans who elected them, the Jewish State is civilized, even when threatened by a relentless and genocidal enemy.
Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin briefed the cabinet Wednesday on the progress of Operation Cast Lead.
According to Diskin, "Hamas has been attacked like never before. It has suffered significant damages and its rule over Gaza has been compromised."
Diskin also noted that large numbers of Hamas operatives are hiding in hospitals and that some are posing as medical staff. "Some are also hiding in mosques and some of those have been turned into headquarters, since they assumed Israel won't attack them there. Their weapons' labs have been completely destroyed and their tunnel system has been severely damaged.
For the full story, please click here.
Ah, Denmark, the little country that heroically rescued its Jewish citizens during World War II. Well, times have changed.
A group of Arab youths opened fire Wednesday evening on a number of Israelis working at a mall in the Danish city of Odenza, some 200 kilometers north of Copenhagen.
Full story here.
The next time someone claims that anti-Zionism is not pathological Jew-hatred, here's what Seraphic Secret recommends: Punch them in the face—really hard—and calmly explain to the, hopefully bleeding useful idiot, that the punch was merely an advanced rhetorical device, not violence. I'm certain he'll calm down and accept your nuanced—one of their gold-plated words—interpretation.
Jack has just published his Gaza Roundup 3.5. Invaluable.
My friends Jameel and Aussie Dave continue live-blogging the war. These guys should get a medal for excellence in journalism.
A Jewish soldier recites Shachareet, the morning prayer,
on the Israeli Gaza border.
Watch this 15-second video clip. Fifteen seconds is all you have from the start of a "Code Red" air raid siren—if you're in the 10-kilometer zone around Gaza—to reach the safety of a bomb shelter.
Ready, set, go!
Not a lot of time.
Here's the petition in support of the citizens of S'derot. H/T The Muqata.
Also from Aish, Missiles from Gaza, a sobering look at the current situation.
Oh joy! Further honest if unlettered Arab rhetoric. This from Iran, where Jew-hatred is a fine art. Notice the not-so-subtle atomic logo on the red balloon. This, no doubt, signals that Persia is developing atomic energy for peaceful purposes, not as we right-wing alarmists caution, to bomb the Jewish State into ashes.
Jack is a busy blogger, he's just posted his Gaza Roundup numero IV.
My good friend and one of the best bloggers in the known universe, David of Treppenwitz, is gladly—well, sorta—running in and out of a bomb shelter.
Attention! Did you know that Nazis are evil, that World War II offered moral absolutes? Did you know that sophisticated film reviewers consider this POV rather, um, unsophisticated? Well, check out the review of Valkyrie by Manolo Blahnik—I always call her that—at the, what a shock, NY Times.
It’s a war that offers moral absolutes (Nazis are evil) and narratives (Nazis are evil and should die) that seem easier to grasp than any current conflict. Truly, World War II has become the moviemaker’s gift that keeps on giving, whether you want it to or not.
Karen read this—I actually don't bother reading reviews—and went into a pretty dramatic melt down.
“Robert, you have to write about this.”
“Oy, it's just a dopey film review from a clueless tool.”
“Robert, this is horrifying. Can you imagine if you showed this to a Holocaust survivor?”
“Why draw attention to such idiocy?”
“Really, you have to write about this review, it's unconscienceable.”
“Okey-dokey.”
Thanks heavens nobody pays attention to film reviewers. In fact, the dinosaur media are wisely laying off their film reviewers, recognizing dead wood when they see it. New media is moving into the film world with the speed and power of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman across Georgia. The blogosphere is brimming with stupendous and penetrating film sites, the good blogs so much better than the mainstream media that it's not even a close call.
A really powerful film producer once explained to me that if one of his blockbusters received a positive review from the NY Times the film was guaranteed to tank. A negative review was gold in the bank.
Anyhoo.
Yours truly needs a drink. Oh wait, I don't drink, liquor gives me migraines. Okay, somebody out there pour a stiff one for Seraphic Secret.
Liberals are going to need a drink—many drinks—once they get a look at this honest and hard-hitting report from FOX Business News: The Media and Gaza.
Seraphic Secret is going to take a moment to shep nachas, Yiddish: experience joy and pride, for the Exectuve Producer of the Fox Business News is long-time Seraphic friend, Jake. Hat Tip to faithful Seraphic reader Lance, who suggests that we give the Oscar to Jake.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at December 31, 2008 04:39 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
Nothing warms my cockles like an observant, conservative, pro-Israel, Republican Jew. Bookmarked.
Posted by: Jesusland at December 31, 2008 07:26 AM
Hopefully these videos will show those yapping "proportional response" liberals that Israel is not dropping bombs from B-52s into the middle of cities.
Of course it won't make any difference to those that make a living stirring up protests against Israel defending their freedoms.
Posted by: MU789 at December 31, 2008 07:52 AM
Robert,
There seem to be at least a few screenwriters and actors who are of the conservative/patriotic persuasion. And there are certainly some wealthy investors of the same sort (though probably not as many as on the other side.) So what is it about the structure of the industry that is keeping non-left-wing-oriented films from being made and distributed?
Posted by: david foster at December 31, 2008 08:04 AM
Robert - thanks again, as always for your kind words (and an excellent blog post!)
Regards from the (almost) front lines...
The Muqata Crew.
Posted by: Jameel @ The Muqata at December 31, 2008 09:43 AM
Excellent vid by Aish. Would that the Israeli govt. were as effective in presenting their case.
Posted by: kishke at December 31, 2008 10:12 AM
This post is going to be included in update 4.5.
Posted by: Jack at December 31, 2008 10:19 AM
From Hugh Hewitt's blog
This commentary by Alan Dershowitz pleasantly surprised me:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1231/p09s02-coop.html
"Equally unsurprising is the response of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and others who, at least when it comes to Israel, see a moral and legal equivalence between terrorists who target civilians and a democracy that responds by targeting the terrorists."
Hugh said: (http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog)
"Be sure to read as well Alan Dershowitz's "Israel, Hamas and Moral Idiocy" in today' Christian Science Monitor. Everytime I hear some MSMer passing along a condemnation of Israel's alleged "disproportionate response," I ask myself if the critics employing that canard want Israel to respond with 2,000 rockets lobbed into Gaza with no targeting. The use of indiscriminate missile attacks against civilians is a war crime. If Hamas had bigger and deadlier rockets that could reach farther into Israel and kill more, it would use those, just as Hezbollah did in the 2006 war. The moral idiots that Dershowitz refers to are counting dead and wounded, not focusing on the means of the attack and the intent. Israel is declaring, hopefully one and for all, that it will not abide the use of such missile attacks and will strike back whenever they are employed and will do so until they end."
Couldn't have said it better myself. Moral Equivalence - the mantra of the left.
Posted by: Bill at December 31, 2008 11:01 AM
Good job. Koi to madarchodon ko sabak sikha raha hai!!!
Posted by: Ajay at December 31, 2008 02:41 PM
I think what the NYT reviewer means to say is that the Nazi command was not as monolithic as is portrayed in many movies. There was a complex cacophony of opinion that riddled the hierarchy. In any case, I was not very impressed with the movie but also did not find it terrible. The actors do adequate jobs without really shining, and the reviewer's opinion that the movie makes the whole enterprise sound like a boys' adventure is true. The director could have done a better job.
Posted by: Bob at December 31, 2008 11:35 PM
EXODUS was pro-Israel, but for anyone familiar with the true story of the voyage of the "Exodus 1947," it was rolling-on-the-floor laughing funny.
For a good film website, try www.jabootu.com.
Posted by: Miranda Rose Smith at January 1, 2009 03:30 AM
Bob..."I think what the NYT reviewer means to say is that the Nazi command was not as monolithic as is portrayed in many movies." I don't think the cited remark by the Clueless Tool (which was at the very end of the review) had anything to do with the movie. Rather, it was an assertion that unlike the world at the time of the film (good guys & bad guys clearly separable) *today's* world is oh so nuanced and complicated. It is simply one more NYT attempt to undercut the moral case for action against terrorism, as if the evil of the Taliban and al Quaeda should not be as obvious as that of Naziism.
Regarding the movie, I thought it was pretty good although not deep. There was one major inaccuracy: the portrayal of Fellgiebel as a coward who had to be bludgeoned into participating in the conspiracy, which does not accord with the historical record.
Someday, perhaps someone will make a different kind of movie about all this, one which is more focused on the internal motivations of the conspirators.
Related: see my post Oster, Stauffenberg, and Valkyrie.
Posted by: david foster at January 1, 2009 06:01 AM
I just checked, and the IDF's YouTube channel seems to be back on the air. A friend sent me a link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk
Posted by: alterbentzion at January 1, 2009 09:40 AM