If you don’t want your child to be traumatized for life, trust me when I tell you that it is not funny to pretend you’re going to throw your daughter into the alligator pit at the Staten Island Zoo.

I hate alligators. What a coincidence.

I’d like to make a request. Let’s stop calling for Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s “right” to exist. Let’s stop associating the delegitimization of Israel by various bodies (such as the WCC, PC-USA, most British lefties that read Comment Is Free) by asking why these idiots think Israel is the only country that has no “right” to exist.

Let us point out, as Menachem Begin did, that Israel exists. She exists, and she needs no special acknowledgement from a bunch of terrorists, anti-Semites, and Israel-haters. She existed long before any of us having these arguments was born. She will exist long after all of us are gone.

Screw them and their recognition or nonrecognition of Israel’s “right” to exist.

Israel exists. Let us have only one answer to the delegitimization of Israel crowd:

Am Yisrael chai. The people of Israel live.

Even my fourth graders know that.

Israel exists. Without explanation, without caveat—Israel exists.

The CSM has a relatively balanced piece on Israel’s targeting both sides of Hamas.

Israel’s message to Hamas and to regional supporters in countries such as Syria is that it will not accept Hamas’s claim that political figures - in Gaza or abroad - act separately from the military wing. Mr. Meshaal has vowed that Hamas would continue to fight Israel, despite more moderate statements coming from Palestinian leaders elected in January.

“It is a mirage to think that internal and external leadership of Hamas fundamentally represent some cataclysmic rift,” says Hamas expert Magnus Ranstorp, an analyst at the Swedish National Defense College.

“Yes, there are differences, but the movement is much larger than individual representatives. They play the inside-outside card very carefully, and they divorced the military wing from the rest, so they could say [militant activities] ‘are outside our control.’ But the inside-outside leadership is much closer than what [it] appears,” he says.

It’s a remarkably sensible piece, for the most part, though it devolves into the usual “settler” language towards the end, and focuses on how Operation Summer Rain is actually bringing the warring factions together. (That’s okay, as soon as the IDF is gone they’ll go back to gunning for each other.) But I’d give it a RIF reading. (Read in full)

I almost never quote FrontPage magazine, but I will make exceptions in the case of straight interview pieces. This is an interview with Ephraim Halevy, a former head of Mossad, on the current situation.

“The real question is whether the Palestine national movement has the power to create a structure of command, control and viable governance,” Halevy states. “Are they capable of setting up a system of governance?” While Halevy won’t predict the outcome, his analysis is that Hamas is now on the horns of a dilemma about the direction they will take. “All timetables have changed,” Halevy asserts, noting that the ruling party would now be pushed to go one way or the other because a faction had chosen to instigate the well-planned tunnel incursion into Israeli territory. “We’ll see all this unfold in the next 24-48 hours,” he predicts.

Halevy paints a scenario where Khalad Mashal, the Damascus based head of Hamas’ military wing could triumph over the so-called civil wing. There’s a “real possibility Mashal will succeed in leading Hamas into a spiral of destruction over this issue,” he asserts. If that should occur, the future will be an even greater question mark than ever, Halevy says.

But the former intelligence head posits that should the Gaza and Ramallah Hamasniks “get it together and overcome the threat from Damascus, Hamas could become a viable partner for negotiations with Israel.” If they resolve the kidnapping, “we’ll be in a new ball game,” Halevy asserts. At that point, Hamas will have some degree of credibility and if they show that they will adhere to some basic norms of how a responsible government acts, it will be possible to deal with them, Halevy maintains.

At the end of the day, Halevy insists, the ball is in the Hamas court. “Hamas has to decide how to resolve the issue of the kidnapped soldier. Israel doesn’t have to do anything. If they resolve it, a new situation will arise.” As far as Halevy is concerned, there’s no place for Israel to support one Hamas faction over another. “We don’t have to save Hamas in any way. This is a test of authority for Hamas leaders.”

Read the rest.

No worries, it is already out. Normal services are being resumed at this moment.

BBC rejects call to change terminology

The BBC has rejected a call made by an independent panel studying charges of bias in its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to change its editorial policies on the use of the word “terrorist” and appoint a senior editor to oversee its Middle East coverage.

Using the word “terrorist” to describe attacks on civilians, BBC management argued in a paper released June 19, would make the “very value judgments” it had been asked to eschew.

Indeed. Who knows, maybe killing a civilian or two is a vital bodily function without which these nice “militant” folks will simply wither away?

Still, for variety sake: I had a few options of non-judgmental terms offered sometimes ago to AP. Take a look here.

Otherwise: feh.

Israel has arrested some 60 Hamas legislators and ministers, and apparently threw in a few Fatah members for good measure. Ha’aretz says the arrests were planned before Cpl. Shalit was kidnapped.

The detention of dozens of Hamas lawmakers in the early hours of Thursday morning had been planned several weeks ago and received approval from Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Wednesday. The same day, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the list of Hamas officials slated for detention.

The Group of Eight industrialized countries said Thursday that the Hamas arrests raised “particular concerns.”

Israel Defense Forces troops launched the major arrest operation overnight, detaining 64 of the ruling party’s cabinet ministers and parliamentarians in the West Bank, as well as another 23 military activists.

The move is part of Israel’s expanded military operation against the Hamas-led government in the Palestinian Authority.

The arrests took place in Ramallah, Qalqilyah, Hebron, Jenin and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian reports. Soldiers carried arrest warrants signed by judges that were issued following cooperative preparatory work by the state prosecution and police.

This operation was not a surprise.

There appeared to be some confusion Thursday as to whether Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nasser a-Shaer, had been one of those detainees or whether he had evaded capture and gone into hiding in the West Bank.

The Hamas ministers had apparently expected the arrests. A-Shaer’s wife said Thursday that he had avoided the military arrest operation as he had not been sleeping at home when the sweep took place.

He reportedly had disconnected all his cellular telephones for fear Israeli security services would again attempt to track him down and arrest him.

I suppose the world is going to blather on about “democratically elected representatives,” yadda yadda yadda. The fact that these are democratically elected terrorists doesn’t seem to matter to anyone but Israel, but, well, Israel’s the one doing the arresting.

And these are three great quotes:

A Hamas official called the arrests an “open war against the Palestinian government and people,” and said that Israel must be prepared to pay their consequences.

As opposed to the secret war that Hamas has been waging against Israel?

“We have no government, we have nothing. They have all been taken,” Saeb Erekat, an ally of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, said of the arrests. “This is absolutely unacceptable and we demand their release immediately.”

You can almost see Erekat crying those crocodile tears. “Wah, wah, you’re destroying Hamas, our bitterest political enemies, the ones who kicked our asses in the elections… oh, wait a minute.”

Israel Radio quoted Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin as having told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the day of the kidnapping: “If the soldier is not returned in 24 hours, Israel will not allow the Palestinian government to survive.”

Yes, but the story has already established that the arrests were planned weeks before Cpl. Shalit was abducted. Still, that is an awesome quote. If I had a random quote generator on this blog, I’d put it in. Hm….

Russia, for having the nerve to tell Israel to avoid harming civilians during Operation Summer Rain.

Moscow - Russia called on Israel on Thursday to avoid harming Palestinian civilians in any offensive in Gaza and urged militants to free an Israeli soldier, whose capture helped spark the current crisis.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mikhail Kamynin also criticised Israel for sending warplanes on Wednesday to buzz one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad palaces, saying it was “absolutely unacceptable” to breach the border or air space of any country.

“There is no doubt about the right and responsibility of the Israeli government to defend the lives and security of its citizens,” Kamynin said in a statement posted on the ministry Web site. “But it cannot be done at the cost of many lives and many peaceful Palestinians (and) heavy military strikes with grave consequences for the civilian population,” he added.

One word for you, Kamynin: Chechnya.

When the Russians attacked the Chechen capital of Grozny during the first weeks of January 1995, about 25,000 civilians died under a week-long air-raid and artillery fire in the sealed-off city. The Russians are reported to have lost some thousands of soldiers during their assault.

Goddamned hypocritical sons of bitches. They are part of the reason that Israel is in this situation to begin with. By funding Syria, Egypt, the PLO, and other Russian client-states during the sixties, Russia can lay claim to have fathered this situation with Hamas.

Don’t think that condemning Israel is going to stop the Jihadis from executing more Russians. They’ve got your number, Chechnya-boy.

Effing hypocrites. Russia, the nation that would not let its Jews practice Judaism. Russia, the nation from which nearly all of my grandparents fled, so that their children and grandchildren could lead safe, happy, and Jewish lives in America. Russia, the nation that bombed Chechnya indiscriminately, murdering thousands of civilians while chasing after the Islamist separatists.

Shut up, Russia, you effing hypocrites. Because Israel always tries to minimize harm to civilians, which is more than we can say for the idiots who gassed their own citizens in a hostage situation and then refused to tell doctors what kind of gas was used to help save lives after the crisis was over.

I think I’m going to be using this phrase a lot today: STFU.

The Russians have condemned the Israeli buzzing and sonic-booming of Bashar Assad’s palace:

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin criticized Israel on Thursday for sending warplanes to buzz one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad palaces early Wednesday.

In a predawn operation Wednesday morning, Israel Air Force warplanes carried out a low-altitude flight over Assad’s palace in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia in northwestern Syria.

Kamynin said it was “absolutely unacceptable” to breach the border or air space of any country.

The Syrians tried to counter the news of the buzzing with an announcement that anti-aircraft fire and defenses in Damascus “drove away the Israeli warplanes.” However, the defenses didn’t activate until the operation was well underway.
Of course, we all know who provided this hardware and technology to the Syrians which proved utterly ineffective against the Israeli operation and is wishing to provide further technology and hardware in exchange for Syrian port access… the Russians.

So, it’s very likely that the Russian condemnation has nothing to do with air space or borders or sovereignty, but the fact that the Israelis have proven in a big way to other wealthy clients in the Middle East that Russian hardware is totally incapable of detecting and defeating any operation by their obvious target.

The Los Angeles Times has the most typical of the calls for Israel’s restraint, utilizing the lie of Hamas “moderation:”

ONCE AGAIN, ESCALATING VIOLENCE threatens to derail any hope of a breakthrough between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a depressingly familiar theme in a depressingly familiar struggle, prompting a depressingly familiar response: These latest horrors should not be allowed to affect the prospects for peace.

Oh, look. Israel defends herself, the world rears up on its hind legs and screams “Nooooooooooooooooo!” in perfect George Lucas Star Wars fashion. Say, Mr. Times Editorial Writer, a question? What prospects for peace? You mean the fact that a terrorist organization was elected to govern the palestinians, refuses to deal with, make peace with, or recognize Israel, and praises terrorist attacks on Israel? That prospect for peace? No? How about the one that has sent hundreds of kassam rockets into Israel since the Gaza withdrawal? That one? No?

Make no mistake: The frustration that triggered the Israeli military’s incursion into Gaza on Wednesday is understandable. The Israeli public was aghast to see Palestinians react to the Israeli pullout from Gaza last year by electing the terrorist group Hamas in January.

[...] But there is a broader agenda to this act of violence. Hamas is split between hard-liners who continue to reject Israel’s right to exist (a position that has cost the Palestinian government much of its international support) and more moderate elements who understand that Hamas needs to alter its ways now that it is in power. Some Hamas leaders have even been negotiating with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of the more moderate Fatah party on an agreement that would implicitly recognize the fact, if not the right, of Israel’s existence. Radical Hamas leaders also may have worried about Abbas’ earlier talk of putting the question of Israel’s right to exist to Palestinian voters in a referendum.

What’s wrong with this editorial? Well, all of it. There are no moderates in Hamas. The prisoners’ document does not recognize, implicitly or otherwise, Israel’s existence. Mahmoud Abbas was never going to put up a referendum regarding Israel’s right to exist. He was going to put the prisoners’ document to a referendum, and oh yeah, for the millionth time: The prisoners’ document does not implicitly recognize the existence of Israel.

For these more intransigent leaders of Hamas, any accommodation with Israel is unacceptable. They must be ecstatic at Israel’s retaliatory incursion into Gaza. Regardless of whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government is justified, the Israeli military’s destruction of vital infrastructure in Gaza — and its detainment of several Palestinian cabinet ministers and lawmakers in Ramallah — runs the risk of further radicalizing the Palestinian population and further marginalizing more moderate voices within the Palestinian government.

Note how no matter what Israel does, she loses. If she doesn’t defend herself, she looks weak in the eyes of the “more intransigent leaders of Hamas” (and oh, yeah, nice way to say “Jew-murdering scum,” Times). Reread the Hamas charter. The one that quotes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and insists that “Palestine” is an Islamic waqf and may never be held by infidels. Try taking it seriously for a change.

Hence the calls, from the Bush administration and other governments, asking Olmert for restraint. It isn’t that the world questions Israelis’ right to feel frustrated, or to retaliate. It is simply that we cringe at the sight of a disproportionate response that could undermine prospects of ending the cycle of violence.

Notice the condescension of the words in bold. First, why is it that the Israeli reaction to being attacked on a daily basis is compared to a child’s reaction at being grounded? Rockets are falling in Sderot. Terrorists are attacking Israeli civilians and military. When Israel defends herself from these attacks, it isn’t “retaliation.” It isn’t “frustration.” It is a sovereign nation responding to acts of war by going after the people who attacked her.

And Mr. Times Editorial Writer? Shut the hell up. Because we cringe at the sight of yet another “Israel must use restraint!” editorial from yet another clueless editorial writer who can’t comprehend that when Hamas says they will never recognize Israel, they mean it.

Noun: deception
An illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers

This picture caused me to think about the birds and their use of colors:

The images do not leave any room for doubt. It is quite clear who are the good guys: the blue sky, the boy, the flag; and who are the villains: the monster of a tank, the yellow dust, no human beings. Just to be on the safe side, the images are strengthened by the captures for more stupid readers:

Israel lunches strikes on Gaza after crisis over captured soldier…

…but Hamas are on the verge of accepting two-state solution.

Now, unless you are terminally stupid, the message should be crystal clear. Ain’t it?

So what about the birds? It’s really simple. Birds, at least the males of the species, use colors to attract the opposite sex. Undoubtedly, the colors may compensate for lack in other departments, such a mental deficiency, lack of agility, some problems with reproductive organs etc.

So what can I say: great cover page!

Just an aside: surfing for birds and their habits, I have stumbled on the sentence here that is strangely fitting the topic of this post:

Similarly, the parrot was thought to have no cry of its own but can deceive us into thinking that a nobler bird is on the scene.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

The latest Guardian leader on the developments in Gaza probably caused its author (or authors, as the case might be - you never know with these people) a serious bout of indigestion. Trying to artificially balance the wobbly logical structure, throwing on the scales some truths, some evasions and some half-truths could harm the most robust stomach.

…there has always been a grim inevitability about the offensive - codenamed Summer Rain - that Ehud Olmert unleashed yesterday to try to free a soldier abducted by Palestinian fighters.

Why is that? Doesn’t the fact that the steady flow of Qassams started immediately after the disengagement have something to do with it?

Bombing bridges may have some military logic, but the destruction of a power station seems intended solely to intimidate and inflict collective punishment.

Please - stop that whining about collective punishment. The Palestinians themselves excel in the whining as it is. Hiding the “freedom fighters” after their individual crimes are perpetrated, allowing them to launch Qassams from the most populated neighborhoods counts as collective crime in my book. Imagine London being bombarded and tell us what would the enlightened Brits have done in our place. Just a second, London was bombarded actually? And? Oh, that Dresden story - no, we would not mention it, after all it was so looong ago. Besides, Jupiter and bull and all that stuff…

The brutal truth, though, is that Israel has killed many more Palestinians in its attacks on the Gaza Strip - the distinction between preemption and retaliation now bloodily blurred.

We can hardly teach Europeans anything about bloody. We should not mention all these tens of millions lying in mass graves all over the bloody continent. Must be sensitive, after all some of the graves are quite fresh. And again: Jupiter and bull, Jupiter and bull… Could we mention the word “war”? Please?

Ironically, at this menacing moment, prospects for negotiation may have improved - at least on paper - thanks to Mr Abbas’s agreement with Hamas.

The irony is sometimes is the eyes of the beholder, it looks like. Read “Palestinian Prisoners’ document may end the peace process” about the great sham called “Mr Abbas’s agreement with Hamas”. I shall just quote the ditty here:

There was a old gent named Abbas;
Who smiled as he rode on Hamas.
They came back from the ride;
With Abbas inside,
And the smile on the face of Hamas.

Somebody is selling some major bull here, and it is amazing how willing are some people to buy into it wholeheartedly. I wonder why.

But there can clearly be no negotiations until the guns fall silent and the harsh cycle of attack, retaliation and vengeance is broken.

Ditto. Something we could all agree with, at least. Now go and tell this to Hamas and all the other members of the alphabet soup of the gangs as well.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Chris Muir’s Day By Day, which has had a prominent spot in my sidebar for years, has made the big time. As of today, it’s in newspapers across the country. Check yours to see if you’ve got Chris’ latest strip.

You know what this means, don’t you? Sam and Zed and Jan and Damon on refrigerators across the country.

I’m very much looking forward to putting them on mine.

(By the way, if anyone knows a real-life Zed, send him my email address.)

((No, really.))

(((Yes, I know he’s a cartoon character. That’s why I said real life.)))

((((Oh, shut up.))))