Can I just say, please, how very much Windows sucks?

Their freaking “automatic” updates are killing my computer, for the second month in a row.

The program chokes on my system for some reason, uses up all the CPU, causes my laptop fan to go bonkers, and slows down abso-fraggin-lutely everything. Just when I needed CPU time tonight, because I was doing something very important for Mother’s Day.

I hate Windows.

An excellent article that debunks the lie that Ashkenazi Jews are not descendants of the Tribes of Israel.

The actual details of the Khazar theory concerning European Jewry are simply pseudo-history and crackpot poppycock.

Jews already lived in Europe a thousand years before the Khazar kingdom was formed. There are no genetic markers or indicators at all showing that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Turkic tribes. In fact, there exists considerable genetic evidence showing that European Jews are closer to Levantine and Syrian Arabs than to Central Asians.

After the Mongol invasion most Khazars probably assimilated into the Jewish communities of Iran and Iraq, which of course eventually emerged as important Sephardic centers, formed mainly of Jews with Semitic racial characteristics, descended from migrants and exiled Jews from the Land of Israel. In any case, there are more “Semitic” Sephardic Jews in Israel today than there are European Ashkenazi Jews. And if the Khazars looked Turkic, how on earth could they give Ashkenazi Jews a European complexion?

There are other problems. If all Ashkenazi Jews are descended from converted Khazars, why are there Cohens and Levis among them? One inherits the status of a Cohen (priest) or Levite from one’s father. Descendants of converts through the male line can never be a Cohen or a Levite.

And why are there no Khazar surnames among Ashkenazim, or Khazar names for towns in Europe where Jews lived? And why did most Ashkenazi communities speak variations of Yiddish rather than Turkic?

As mentioned, the popularity of the Khazar myth among anti-Semites represents a return of modern anti-Jewish bigotry to the racialism of the 1930’s and earlier.

This is a point that I have made when discussing the stupidity of the Khazar argument:

So what are we to make of the Khazar myth concerning Ashkenazi Jews and their supposed lack of legitimate claims to Israel due to their Khazar origins? The greatest irony is that even if the entire Khazar theory of Ashkenazi Jews were correct – and virtually none of it is correct – it would be entirely irrelevant. Judaism has never defined Jews on racial grounds. Anyone from any race is welcome as a convert to Judaism as long as he or she is sincere.

The biblical Israelites themselves were already a racial hodgepodge. They absorbed the “mixed multitude” that left Egypt together with them at the time of the Exodus. There are biblical references to Jews of different racial features, including the black-skinned Shulamit mentioned in the Song of Songs.

Read in full recommendation.

So, every time there is the remote whiff of an Israeli spy scandal, we hear screaming from pundits the world over about how unloyal a friend is Israel. But what about how America spies on Israel?

While Israel has certainly spied on the United States in the past (and likely continues to do so), it may actually be the United States that is the nosier country–and the one that enjoys far more license in such covert activities. If one party should be paranoid about prying eyes–and I’m not sure either should–it should be the Israel.

[...] It had never occurred to me that the Israelis were concerned about American espionage, which seemed to me like the least of their troubles, so I asked an Israeli counterintelligence agent if this was really such an issue. “Definitely,” he nodded gravely. “They’re trying to spy on us all the time–every way they can.”

When I recently brought this up to a former U.S. intelligence official who spent several years working on Middle East issues, he was quick to confirm it. “As an American, I would certainly hope so,” he said, referring to the question of whether the United States spies on Israel; he added that he had himself analyzed information from “classified sources in Israel.” There is “definitely an inordinate amount of focus” on Israel in U.S. intelligence, he told me. And, when I asked him if he thought there were people in the Israeli government and military who were feeding information to the United States–Israel’s own Jonathan Pollards–he said, “It wouldn’t surprise me at all.” “The neocons ran the administration until recently,” he added, but “someone who rides the fence on whether Israel is a true ally in the CIA or [the Department of] Defense would push for that sort of thing.”

[...] For obvious reasons, it’s impossible to provide current examples of this phenomenon. But there have been cases in the past that have been disclosed, only to be quickly hushed by both the Israeli and American governments (in a way that the Pollard issue, a festering wound to both countries, never was). One of the most telling such examples is the 1986 episode of Yosef Amit. Amit was a major in Israeli military intelligence. At one point, he worked in the secretive “Unit 504,” which is responsible for coordinating spies in Arab countries neighboring Israel, and he also had close contacts in the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. In the mid-’80s, Amit was recruited by Tom Waltz, a Jewish CIA officer based in the CIA’s station in Tel Aviv. And, until his arrest, he furnished the CIA with classified information about Israel’s troop movements and its plans in both the occupied territories and Lebanon.

The incident got little press in either the United States or Israel, whose government barely even complained about it. Waltz stayed at his post in Tel Aviv, and, later, when officials inside the Israeli government considered offering to trade Amit for Pollard (or even to release Amit in exchange for leniency for Pollard), they quickly nixed the idea, because they feared stoking more anger in the United States. To some Israeli government officials I have spoken with, there is a lingering sense that Israel has been subjected to a “double standard,” as one of them put it.

[...] Rafi Eitan, the legendary Israeli spymaster who was Pollard’s handler (and who can no longer return to the United States for fear of arrest), is now a member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s cabinet. Inevitably, he was circumspect about the specifics of U.S.-Israeli espionage and counterespionage, but when I asked about the extent of American spying on Israel, he said simply, “Some things you don’t hear about.” Then, laughing bitterly, he added, “Why don’t you ask the head of the CIA about that? He knows.”

Read it all.

It’s the little bits of bias that do the most to delegitimize Israel, not the big lies that are so easily seen through. Like this little bit of bias, at the end of an article about Israeli drivers ignoring a man lying hurt or dead in the middle of a busy road:

Each year, more than 500 Israelis are killed in traffic accidents, by far more than are killed in terrorist attacks.

What has one to do with the other?

Absolutely nothing. It’s a false analogy.

But it sure does get repeated a lot, doesn’t it?

There were 43,443 fatalities caused by traffic crashes in 2005, by far more than have been killed in both Iraq wars.

Or let’s take another statistic:

In 2005, the estimated number of deaths of persons with AIDS in the United States and dependent areas was 17,011. In the 50 states and District of Columbia, this included 16,316 adults and adolescents, and 7 children under age 13, by far more than were killed in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

By the way, I added the words in bold to the last two quotes. They weren’t there. But they could have been. A false analogy works anytime, anywhere you apply it, right?

Are we feeling stupid yet?

We should be.

Iran wages war on Israel, and Israel does—nothing. The UN does—nothing. The world does—nothing.

No surprise there, at least on the last two. But here is more proof. Casus belli. Stuff the world will utterly ignore if it comes to another war.

2. During the interview, Sheikh Naim Qassem uncharacteristically admitted that Hezbollah does not pursue its own policy but rather submits to the authority of the Iranian leadership, which instructs it even on such military-operative issues as the confrontation with Israel . Such instructions are based on the ideology of the Iranian Islamic regime, set forth by Ayatollah Khomeini, whose key principle is the rule of the jurisprudent ( wilayat al-faqih ). The title used by Sheikh Naim Qassem to describe Hezbollah’s source of authority is “al-wali al-faqih” (the ruling jurisprudent), a title formerly used by Ayatollah Khomeini and presently used by his successor, leader 1Ali Khamenei.

3. In the second part of the interview granted to Al-Kawthar, Sheikh Naim Qassem described the relationship between Hezbollah and the Iranian leadership, noting that:

a. Hezbollah was founded and commenced activities in 1982, based on a religious ruling made by Imam Khomeini, who considered jihad (holy war) against Israel to be an Islamic religious duty.

b. Hezbollah is committed to receive religious instruction regarding the nature of the confrontation with Israel from al-wali al-faqih (the ruling jurisprudent, a title nowadays reserved exclusively for leader Khamenei). For example, Sheikh Naim Qassem had the following to say about suicide bombing attacks: “No one may kill himself without a jurisprudent permission.”

c. Firing rockets on Israeli civilians also requires the jurisprudent permission of the Iranian leadership.

d. Hezbollah has means to inquire (implying with the source of religious authority, Ali Khamenei) “what can or cannot be done, what is our duty and what is subject to our own consideration.”

So you want to make a point about Israel, and you’re the Watertown New Repertory Theater, so what do you do? I know! You take a play about a young woman whose life was ended stupidly, defending the rights of murderers to keep on murdering Israelis, and you pair that with a play about a young man who lost his life while trying to rescue Israelis from terrorists. Because the two have so much in common. I mean, they both died. Young.

To no one’s surprise, the Netanyahu family told the New Rep where to go.

The family of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has forced Watertown’s New Repertory Theatre to cancel a planned run next spring of a one-act play about a 1976 hostage rescue mission because it was to have been paired with the story of a pro-Palestinian American activist.

“To Pay the Price” centers on Jonathan “Yoni” Netanyahu , the older brother of the former prime minister, and a hero in Israel. Yoni Netanyahu was the lone Israeli military person killed in the daring mission in which a planeful of hijacked Air France hostages on their way from Tel Aviv were rescued at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The play draws on Netanyahu’s letters and interviews with family and friends.

“My Name Is Rachel Corrie ” is a one-woman play about the American activist who became a member of the International Solidarity Movement, an organization that advocates for Israeli troops to leave the West Bank. In 2003 , Corrie died during a protest when she was hit by a bulldozer. She was 23 .

Iddo Netanyahu, the youngest of the three brothers and the one who handled discussions with the New Repertory Theatre, declined interview requests. In a statement released by New Rep, Netanyahu said that he feels “that there is an inherent incompatibility in the joining together, in one evening, of a play based on my brother Yoni’s letters with the play ‘My Name Is Rachel Corrie.’ “

Yes, the inherent incompatibility would be that one play is about stopping terrorists, and the other is about helping them.

And the theater is simply so upset at losing this mind-blowing juxtaposition of reality, that they’re going to pair the Corrie play with a play by an Israeli-American who fits the profile they’re looking for, and who thinks that Rachel Corrie’s actions were just—ducky. As an aside, isn’t it interesting how the left loves Israelis who hate Israel, but they hate Israelis who love Israel? Too bad there’s no end to fools.

Try to read this statement by the author of the Yoni Netanyahu play without wanting to slap him upside the head. With a brick.

“I deeply regret that this project will not go forward. I want to do everything I can to make this evening of theater happen; I want the audience to meet these two incredible people — Yoni Netanyahu. And Rachel Corrie. That this so necessary evening of theater will not happen saddens me,” Cohen said. “But then I am confident that, if not together, each of these two plays will make its way on its own. Young Israelis and young Palestinians are still dying; and, for as long as they do, ‘My Name Is Rachel Corrie’ and ‘To Pay the Price’ will have a vital and urgent story to tell.”

Once again, Yoni Netanyahu was killed while trying to rescue the hostages from the Entebbe hostage crisis. He was an incredible person. The same cannot be said of Rachel Corrie, who died while trying to defend Palestinian smuggling tunnels.

Via Jay.