I’m sorry, but I can’t help thinking that the people who hurt themselves are simply too stupid to deserve sympathy—unless they were small children.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Police in Berlin said on Wednesday they had arrested two men on suspicion of placing cement-filled soccer balls around the city and inviting people to kick them. At least two people injured themselves by kicking the balls, which were chained to lampposts and trees alongside the spray-painted message: “Can you kick it?”

Police said they had identified a 26-year-old and a 29-year-old and had found a workshop in their apartment where they made the balls. The two are accused of causing serious physical injury, dangerous obstruction of traffic and causing injury through negligence, police said.

Judging from the lack of description of the victims, I’d venture a guess that they were simply stupid grownups who never learned how not to fall for dumb practical jokes.

As anyone with an IQ above room temperature can tell by a quick glance through the main page of this blog, I am a Zionist. And by “Zionist” I do not mean the perversion of the definition that Israel-haters use. I mean that if I had been alive during Theodor Herzl’s time, I would have supported his idea for establishing a Jewish state in our ancient homeland of Israel, and would have worked to help him achieve that dream. Now, when I say I am a Zionist, I mean that I support the state of Israel and her continued existence as a free, sovereign, Jewish nation.

I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that Israel is a racist state. I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that Israel has no “right” to exist. I do not give a damn for the opinions of those who think that the Jews of Israel are a bunch of European colonials who “stole” the land from the “indigenous” population (utterly ignoring the 3,500-year history of Jewish communities in the land of Israel, up to and including ignoring the Hebron massacre of 1929, which erased the millennia-old Jewish population of that “West Bank” town).

And more to the point, I am not at all interested in seeing those thoughts uttered in my comments sections. Neither am I interested in hearing the viewpoints of those who pretend that a terrorist group that has a “military” and “political” wing is any more legitimate than any other terrorist group. I am not interested in hearing about how Israel is enforcing “collective punishment” on the poor, poor, pitiful pals. I am not interested in hearing the same, tired, over-the-top shrieking against a state that is protecting its people from having brainwashed children blow themselves up in the middle of a restaurant, or a bus, or a market. I am tired of hearing the Israel-bashers attack Israel on every single point while utterly ignoring the barbarity of the so-called “victims,” the poor, poor, pitiful pals.

I was not kidding when I declared this blog to be a No Israel-Bashing Zone. I can read that garbage in any mainstream media publication. I can read anti-Israel reporting on the BBC website, or in the Guardian, or Reuters, or the AP. I can watch it on any given news program. And I can read it on any unmoderated blog that has a discussion that mentions Israel or Jews, on any topic.

You know what? That’s not this blog. If you want to rag on Israel, go somewhere else. If you want to sympathize with the poor, poor, pitiful pals, go somewhere else. If you want to bash the one nation in the Middle East where it is not illegal to be homosexual, where “honor” killings are not winked at, where women can work, vote, and run for office, where you can worship as you please, and where the government changes regularly without a single shot being fired—GO. SOMEWHERE. ELSE.

Think thats make this blog an echo chamber? Ask me if I care. My blog, my space, my dime, my rules. I did not ask for your opinions, Mr. and Ms. Israel-hater, I do not want them, I will not publish them. If your comment gets through my moderation queue, I will delete it. That means your trackbacks, too. Once again, my blog, my space, my dime, my rules.

Go somewhere else. This is a no Israel-bashing zone for a reason: So I and my readers don’t have to be subjected to the Israel-hating, Jew-hating garbage that we see everywhere else.

Not here.

Go.

Somewhere.

Else.

Words nearly fail me at this quote by a spokeswoman from the EU on the rocket that landed in Ashkelon:

Meanwhile, a Gaza-fired rocket on Tuesday night hit an empty school in the Israeli town of Ashkelon, within earshot of 80 EU border monitors housed nearby.

“We heard it. But we don’t have the feeling that we are at risk,” an EU border mission spokeswoman told EUobserver from Ashkelon. “The strange thing is people here are so used to this, life just goes on as normal.”

Yes, I said “words nearly fail me.” Let’s think: Smugness. A sense of entitlement. A sense of: “Gee, it didn’t hurt us, so we don’t care that a rocket landed in the sovereign nation of Israel, fired by a group of terrorists from the formerly occupied Gaza Strip, which was evacuated, just as the world asked, so that the palestinians could get started on a state of their own.”

Those would be words I could use.

This quote, by the way, is in an article that profiles the many ways Israel is breaking international law (according to the EU, that is) by, um, let’s see—oh, let’s quote them again.

“The Israeli military must stop collectively punishing Palestinians and putting civilian lives at risk. And I must say, it does raise questions of international law,” external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told MEPs in Strasbourg.

“Israel has to understand its responsibility for the well-being of the Palestinian people,” she added. “Those detained [by Israel] must be accorded their full legal rights.”

Funny, I’m not hearing anyone tell the kidnappers of Cpl. Shalit that they have to accord him his full legal rights. I’m not hearing anyone tell Hamas that they are collectively punishing the residents of Sderot (and now Ashkelon) for the policies of the Israeli government.

What time is it, folks? That’s right! It’s Israel Double Standard Time.

According to an unconfirmed source, Baby Assad called Hamas leaders into his office and told them to set Gilad Shalit free.

They refused.

According to the report, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal was ordered by Assad to release kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

The report, which so far does not have confirmation in other sources, says that Mashaal and other Hamas top figures rejected Assad’s demand, and left Damascus for Algeria.

[...] A few days ago, the Lebanese Al-Nahar newspaper reported of estimates that Mashaal left Syria for an Arab country in North Africa, the name of which was not mentioned. The paper said that senior organization members were taking increased precautions for fear that they will be targeted.

According to the report, Mashaal and his people left Damascus for fear they will be hurt, but the PNN report shed new light on the Hamas members’ departure from Damascus and on their relations with the Syrian president.

Let me reiterate that the news article says these reports are unconfirmed.

If, however, they turn out to be true, then the IAF buzzing Assad’s summer home definitely got the message across. That, and the back-channel warnings to Syria from the U.S.

Either way, the Dorktator is in big trouble, and I think he’s beginning to realize that.

First, the background: The IDF and security services foiled a terrorist attack in the making: They caught the terrorist with his explosives belt on, in a taxi, heading for Israel. (Link to Israeli source, you’ll see why below.)

This is how the AP reports the above situation:

In a sign militant groups were stepping up activity, soldiers caught a militant in the West Bank settlement of Barkan on Wednesday with an explosives belt strapped to his waist and ready for use, the army said. He was arrested before he had a chance to detonate his explosives, the army said.

The “activity” to be stepped up would be the blowing up of civilians in a restaurant or a shopping area. And further in the article, see how the AP spins the terrorists’ deadline expiring:

The Hamas-linked militants holding Shalit have demanded that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for information about the soldier. On Tuesday, Olmert ignored a deadline to begin freeing the prisoners.

First: Hamas’ “armed wing” is holding Shalit. Second, Olmert didn’t “ignore” the deadline. He rejected it. The AP can’t possibly tell the truth, though. That would make the pals look bad and Israel look, gee, justified in her reaction to the acts of war brought on her by Hamas these past few years.

Let’s see how Reuters spins this one:

Israel has refused demands that it free hundreds of jailed Palestinians in return for the 19-year-old soldier. The crisis has been further complicated by the fact that some of Shalit’s captors are linked to the governing Palestinian faction Hamas.

But there’s something wrong with both the AP and the Reuters version. The terrorists out-and-out identified themselves as members of Hamas last week, yet al-Reuters and the AP can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that in print today.

The ruling Hamas group said its fighters participated in the attack, calling it an act of revenge for Israel’s recent killing of militant leaders and civilians. Militants said three of their fighters were killed in a gunbattle with soldiers.

May I point out that it is a news agency’s job to report the news, not spin it, not lie about it, and not make one group look less evil in its readers eyes? Oh, wait. That’s in Fantasy World. In the real world, the media hate Israel.

And no, I’m not quite finished yet. The AP is still passing along the untruths it wrote about the rocket that hit Ashkelon. About halfway through the AP version of the story, is still lying about the high school in Ashkelon being empty when the kassam rocket hit it.

School security cameras showed a large cloud of dust rising from the point of impact. The school was empty at the time and no one was hurt.

Every Israeli news agency reported that there were many people in the school, and one said that some of the students were playing soccer outside and were thrown around by the force of the explosion.

Apparently, the AP doesn’t rely on Israeli sources for information on events within Israel. I’m sure the palestinian spokesliars, or their UN/EU/ISM enablers, were happy to oblige them in this case.

Postcript: If you read the story at the Reuters link, Yedioth Ahronoth reports that Cpl. Shalit is being held in an underground bunker, thus proving the contention that terrorists truly are ratlike creatures, as we suspected all along.

Hamas is going to sue Israel in the ICC. Over the Gaza air strikes.

Yes, really.

Yes. REALLY.

The Palestinian Authority is planning to file a petition with The Hague against Israel for “war crimes it committed against the Palestinians,” a reference to the latest series of air strikes in Gaza and arrests of Hamas legislators in the West Bank.

The decision to press war crime charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court was announced by Justice Minister Ahmad al-Khalidi in an interview with the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

And in typical palestinian fashion, if they get what they want, they’re right. If they don’t get what they want, they’re right anyway, and it’s the world’s fault for not acknowledging the rightness of their cause.

The minister warned that if the court fails to stop Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians, Hamas will have no choice but to use violence in order to protect the Palestinian people.

“Suing Israel in the international court is a test for international institutions. If they deny the rights of Palestinians, then the international community has to act responsibly when it comes to blocking the legal channels to the Palestinians, forcing them to use violence to defend ourselves and our people,” he said.

Do you get it? They’re going to sue Israel in the ICC over the legitimate reaction to a act of war by Hamas terrorists. Then, if the ICC refuses to hear the case, or if Hamas loses, Hamas will presumably launch more acts of war in retaliation to Israel’s defending herself.

And of course, the world will then tell Israel to use restraint.

All of this makes sense if you’re in Wonderland. And sometimes I think that’s exactly where we are.

It appears that the lie about Qassams being at the most “an irritant” is not just a result of a specific journo’s mental laziness or idiocy. It is now a spreading item of “knowledge” in the British MSM. Here is the post by shlemazl, but I just have to quote from it:

Well, rockets are pretty pathetic things. Nobody gets injured, they are homemade, and you well know they have nothing much stronger than an AK-47: no RPGs, they have no weapons and you are delivering some of the most sophisticated bombardment that has ever been subjected to a defenseless people. Is it an act of terror would you say?

Quote from Jon Snow - Channel 4. Unbelievable? I am becoming a believer…

One of the reasons that the IDF is currently in Gaza is to stop rockets from raining down on Israeli towns from Gaza. Like the one that hit a high school in Ashkelon today.

The AP lied about it:

The rocket flew 7 miles through the air and exploded in the courtyard of a school in Ashkelon, a city of 110,000 on Israel’s coast north of Gaza. The school was empty at the time and no one was hurt. School security cameras showed a large cloud of white dust rising from the point of impact.

Ynet did not:

Large police forces were dispatched to the area. There were no reports of injuries, although a large number of parents and students were present at the school at the time of the fall.

[...] Many parents had arrived in the school to register their children to the school.

Sara Blumenfeld from Ashkelon told Ynet: “We were standing in the school yard, and suddenly, like a huge black bird, we hears a whistle, and then saw think smoke and a lot of noise. Many children and parents were in the school yard and everyone panicked and began yelling. One woman fainted and everyone quickly ran away.”

Another eyewitness, Motti Hari-Gat, recounted: “There was a huge explosion in the school yard. I jumped from my chair. It was a serious blast. I didn’t hear a whistle or the Red Dawn (alert system.) This is the center of the city, not its suburbs. There are many police forces here and we can see smoke from the windows.”

The words “small” and “homemade” are used to describe the rocket in the AP piece. The one that said the school was empty

The “small” “homemade” rocket was described by eyewitnesses in the JPost:

No one was wounded by the rocket, which landed in a playground of a school in the heart of the Ashkelon residential area. Children playing soccer outside the ORT-Ronson High School on Rehov Ben Zvi were thrown back by the force of the explosion, witnesses reported, but were unharmed.

Ha’aretz has a map of Ashkelon’s position in Israel. Go look. It is not a “settlement.” It is not a border town. It is in Israel proper.

The JPost article has a picture of the rocket’s crater. Imagine that thing coming down through a classroom ceiling.

Now go read Omri’s posts on how the world is ignoring the real reasons why Israel went into Gaza. If you’re not outraged, then you are suffering from Israel Derangement Syndrome.

By the way, don’t hold your breath waiting for the UN to condemn Hamas for raining rockets down on Ashkelon from Gaza. Not gonna happen.