Internecine warfare intensifies.

I strenuously object to being lumped in with Finkelstein in any fashion whatsoever. Finkelstein denies the Holocaust as a uniquely evil deed, equates Israel with the Nazis, compares persons he disagrees with to Nazis, justifies Hamas and excuses Muslim anti-Semitism. For good measure, he adds, “I do not think there is very much genuine grief among Jewish leaders about the Nazi holocaust,” for they gained from what he calls “the Holocaust reparations racket.” They “blackmailed Europe, got billions of dollars and then stuffed their pockets, bank accounts and organizations with the money.” Yoking me to Finkelstein betrays Reinharz’s profound moral confusion-something especially regrettable in the case of the president of a major university whose moral judgment is in steady demand.

The statements by Reinharz and Hose also prompt several questions:

1. How am I, exactly, a weapon of mass destruction, Mr. Reinharz? And what do you mean by this phrase?

2. And Mr. Hose, have you taken a look at just who gets inflamed by my speeches? On Jan. 31, for example, it was a bunch of Islamist goons, and you can see them yourself on the three videos listed on my Web site (www.DanielPipes.org), at “My Disrupted Talk at the University of California-Irvine.” After preventing me from speaking, the leader of this group called for the state of Israel to be “wiped off the face of the earth.” Your statement makes me wonder whose side you are on-theirs or mine?

3. What, precisely, are those scholarly resources available at Brandeis? Might Hose be referring to the University’s leading specialist on “contemporary Islamic thought and practice” (the title of her course), Prof. Natana DeLong-Bas (NEJS), an apologist for Al-Qaeda whose depraved thinking was exposed in several recent articles (including “Natana DeLong-Bas: American Professor, Wahhabi Apologist” and “Sympathy for the Devil at Brandeis,” from frontpagemag.com)? Or is he referring to Khalil Shikaki, a Crown Center fellow who has been credibly accused of terrorist links and has a second-to-none record in getting it wrong in his chosen field of Palestinian public opinion?

I’m sure there will be more on this, as the Pipes lecture has not been okayed by the newly-formed committee that will now vet talks on Middle East subjects.

TRex over at Firedoglake doesn’t know that the blogosphere existed long before 9/11.

I think the wider world has learned a lot about the world of blogging over the last few weeks, not just with FDL being front-and-center-and-above-the-fold in today’s New York Times, but also in terms of what the people on the Right are willing to do in their attempts to kneecap liberals as we push past them and to the forefront of the New Media movement. For you see, originally blogging was a mostly Right Wing creature. It began as an extension of talk radio and for years the field was kind of like a wet t-shirt contest at an old folks’ home. You had to give them credit for trying, I guess, but, well, let’s just say the world wasn’t ready for the results.

Actually, the first bloggers were tech bloggers, and they tended to be overwhelmingly liberal in their points of view: cf Dave Winer, Shelley Powers, Doc Searls, and many others.

Blogging wasn’t an extension of talk radio. It was a way for techies to communicate with one another. The tools were quickly adapted around 2001 by people like Glenn Reynolds, but they were there for all to use.

Some people just used them better—and faster—than others.

And oh yeah: This is a prime example of do as I say, not as I do, in regard to Michelle Malkin:

It’s time for someone to call the bitch out.

Sexist much?

For some reason, “Da bomb” flashed into my head.

I always hated that phrase. And I mean hate with a red hot hate from the core of my being.

I have also grown to loathe “Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” First of all, I don’t care where it’s from, it’s so incredibly stupid as to be meaningless. Mostly what happens in Vegas is that tourists spend their money there, and gamblers waste it. The rest is mostly fiction.

And I cannot stand a single word from the Sopranos that has infiltrated the common tongue, but “bling” is my least-favorite of all Soprano-speak.

So what other trendy phrases do you/did you hate?

Ricky Martin has his gift-kaffiyeh tied a little too tight, and gives Bush the finger over the Iraq War and Puerto Rican rights.

AP never misses an opportunity to twist the issues:

The United States seized Puerto Rico in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War.

Puerto Rico’s 4 million people are U.S. citizens and can be drafted into the military but cannot vote for president and have no voting representation in Congress. They also do not pay federal taxes.

Okay, readers, pick the Puerto Rican issue that doesn’t pertain to February 16, 2007:

• Voting for president
• Voting representation in Congress
• Not paying Federal taxes
• Military draft

That’s right: there is currently no active military draft in 2007. (Unless Charlie Rangel has his way, of course.)

As with the Israeli-Palestinian issues they work hard to subtly twist their bias into, AP expects people who read cheesy Ricky Martin celebrity news not to look too deep into the crap being shoveled into their heads.

It. Never. Ends.

There was a riot about the Temple Mount ramp dig in Kashmir. At first glance, you might think: Kashmir? Who cares?

Keep reading.

Police fired teargas in Indian Kashmir’s main city on Friday to disperse hundreds of people protesting against Israeli excavations near Islam’s third holiest shrine in Jerusalem, police and witnesses said.

Three policemen were hurt in clashes with stone-throwing men near Jamia Masjid, the grand mosque in Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, they said.

The one in Jerusalem was minor, since the police presence was tripled and the only men allowed at Al-Aqsa were over 50 and carried Israeli IDs, which let out most of the stone-throwing rabble.

The Palestinians arrested were trying to break through police checkpoints or throwing stones at police officers, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Policemen used stun grenades to disperse a crowd in one neighborhood, Rosenfeld said, but there were no casualties.

Arab teenagers threw stones and burned tires at a West Bank checkpoint leading into Jerusalem, and security personnel used tear gas to disperse them. Shoving matches were reported around the city. But the 6,000 worshippers who attended prayers at the site dispersed without incident, Rosenfeld said.

Outside the mosque compound, Mohammed Omar, 65, attributed the relative quiet to the severe restrictions on access to the mosque.

“The rage is still here, it will not go away,” Omar said.

Yes, we know. Because check out this Reuters picture that accompanied the Ynet story:

“Down with Jewish lobby.”

That’s a very interesting phrase to have at a protest against the imaginary destruction of an Arab mosque.

Is there anyone left that doesn’t really know how stage-managed these “protests” are? And in Kashmir, where Muslim terrorists have murdered tens of thousands:

Life in Srinagar, a scenic city of 1.1 million, is frequently disrupted by strikes and protests over Islamic issues, separatist causes or alleged rights violations by Indian troops.

Officials say more than 40,000 people have been killed since a revolt broke out in Kashmir in 1989. Human rights groups put the toll at about 60,000 dead or missing.

And the media is always there to take the pictures and report the story—even as it shows proof of stage-management to anyone with half a brain.

The Muslim “rage” over the Temple Mount ramp dig is being manipulated by the same people who manipulated the Danish cartoon riots, or any other “Day of Rage” that we’ve seen ad nauseum these past few decades. The truth is always denied, because it doesn’t fit the radical Islam agenda.

The answer to the problems in the Middle East can be put into a four-word sentence: It’s the Islamism, stupid.

DefenseNews has more details on the Arrow test.

In the Feb. 11 test, improved versions of Israel’s operational Block 3 Arrow Weapon System went up against a target programmed to simulate the nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles that Israeli officials expect will be deployed by Iran in coming years. The upgraded defensive system demonstrated its ability to intercept targets at higher altitudes and longer ranges, so that fallout from such mass destructive warheads would remain far away from Israeli territory, officials here said.

“We widened the defensive envelope,” said Uri Sinai, manager of IAI’s MLM Division, which designed and produces the Arrow interceptor. “What distinguished this test was the special target, which was simulated to represent the extreme, difficult conditions in which the Arrow Weapon System may have to operate in the future.”

It was the first so-called distributed weapon system test conducted in-country, which required two Arrow units deployed some 100 kilometers from one another to share data on incoming threats and coordinate launching assignments. It was also the first time the U.S. Link 16 data distribution system was used to connect two Arrow units, although the system had been used in previous tests to connect Arrow and Patriot batteries, sources here said.
According to program officials, both of the Arrow’s two operational Block 3 Green Pine radars acquired and tracked the target almost immediately after it was launched from an Israel Air Force fighter many hundreds of kilometers away in the Eastern Mediterranean. Target data from the remotely deployed Arrow/Green Pine unit was used to manage and command the actual intercept, which was performed by a second unit deployed near the coast in central Israel.

The entire process — from target acquisition to target destruction — took mere minutes, and demonstrated full fidelity of all elements of the integrated system, program officials here said.

“All test objectives were achieved in full. It marked an important milestone in our ability to defend against future threats operating under extreme conditions,” said Israel Air Force Col. Moshe Patel, deputy director of the Arrow Weapon System program at Israel’s Missile Defense Organization.

Of course, the best defense against a nuclear missile is not letting your enemy get one in the first place. But this is a good thing to hear after the spate of “Iran is going to get nukes and there’s nothing we can do about it” articles.