It’s funny, but one of the things that I seem to have lost in the changeover from writing the HTML for this site myself to using WordPress was my regular commenters.

Granted, I have regular commenters now, and some of you are the same ones that have been around for many years. But I was looking for the posts I wrote about teaching in the past, and wound up going through some months of posts, and, well, there were a lot more comments back in the old days, it seems. Just take a look at this week’s worth of posts and you’ll see what I mean. Very few posts went without a single comment, and two of the more controversial ones had dozens. (Yes, I know, the Messianic “Jews” posts always generate huge debate, but still—lotsa comments.)

What happened out there? How did I lose so many regular readers? Or did you all just stop commenting?

It’s strange, because I have more readers now than I had in 2005. But you’re a lot quieter.

Then again, sometimes I like it quiet. Fewer things to worry about.

Eh. You know me. Never quite happy with the status quo. Onward and upward, and all that.

Well, once I’m done with my bat mitzvah, I’ll have a bit more time to devote to sprucing things up around here.

One thing I will be doing is keeping my cobloggers. The new guy, Elder of Ziyon, is doing a great job. Soccer Dad and Snoopy have been great, too. My blog is in capable hands.

Regular blogging will return on November 5th. Possibly the fourth. I’ll probably post my speech, and maybe even put up a few lines of my haftarah. Gawd. I can’t believe it’s Monday. Holy crap. Four days left to cram for the big day.

Very, VERY funny. Thanks to Allahpundit.

The rest are at the link.

Fatah has a real good racket going on - they do the Mafia-style “threats” and no one calls them on it:

The top negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), warned on Sunday that the region would suffer greatly in the event that the upcoming Annapolis peace conference failed.

“If the summit fails – frustration will win out over everything else and it will have a negative affect on the region. I cannot predict exactly what will happen, but it may lead to more wars.

“I warn now against failure there, which will open the door for extremists and extremism – and that door will be very difficult to close,” said Qureia at a conference held by Meretz activists.

Oh, he can predict precisely what will happen all right - if past history is any guide, Fatah is planning the newest intifada phase right now in anticipation of a summit that doesn’t accede to all of their demands, just as they did in 2000.

Notice also the usual Arab subtext that they cannot control their “street.” This excuse has been used for decades, but for some reason they manage to control their people quite fine - and brutally - when they go against the wishes of whatever regime they are in. It is only when they want to do something that the Arab regimes agree with that they turn into such a “threat.”

I have previously described this as “the diplomacy of fear,” a well-used part of the Arab negotiating lexicon. It is quite effective so there is no reason for Arabs and Muslims to stop using it.

cross-posted at Elder of Ziyon

In The Attempt to Kill Olmert, Barry Rubin writes

Several Fatah security force officers assigned to protect Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as he went to meet with Palestinian Authority (PA) head Mahmoud Abbas, it has just been revealed, planned to assassinate him instead. This event should be amazing enough to get people to rethink their premises. After all, it is late 2007, with a supposedly moderate leadership running the PA and Fatah, and this kind of thing is still happening.It should be emphasized that the would-be assassins were Fatah, not Hamas, and that they were quickly released by PA authorities before outside pressure forced their re-arrest. (Prediction: they will be freed soon with little or no international media coverage.)

But this is merely the same basic pattern as happened with the assassins of Israeli government minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001 or the gunmen who seized the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002: international indifference, a show of PA law enforcement, and terrorists go free. Not to mention thousands of other attacks when the PA had a chance to teach its own people about the politically counterproductive—not to mention immoral and divisive–nature of terrorism.

He follows this up with eleven reasons why this never seems to change. The final reason starts:

No speeches, no foreign aid, and no international plans or meetings have altered these basic rules.

The Palestinians pay no political or diplomatic price for their bad faith.

If we go back to the exchange of letters between Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat, the latter wrote:

The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.

The fundamental premises of certifying the PLO was no longer a terrorist organization, were that it had renounced terror and that it could control all of its elements to bring them into line. The latter condition has been violated as much as the former.

But it’s not just that these conditions have been violated, it’s been who has been responsible for this neglect. Surely successive Israeli governments have failed to address Palestinian violations adequately. (And when Binyamin Netanyahu did he found himself on the wrong side of the Clinton administration.)

But there have been plenty of aiders and abetters. As Rubin points out the Palestinians have flouted every norm of relations with Israel by allowing terrorists to escape (Israel) justice. In March 2006 6 of those prisoners who were being held in Jericho were preparing to break out. The international monitors who were supposed to watch them had left out of fear. These were terrorist who hid in the Church of Nativity and, at least one of whom was involved in the killing of Israeli tourism minister Rehavem Ze’evi. Israel permitted them to be jailed in Jericho under international observation as a condition of their being allowed to leave the Church. Now four years later, that agreement was about to be broken so Israel, under Prime Minister Olmert, took action and raided the jail capturing the 6.

How did the Washington Post react in an editorial?

So it’s not surprising that Mr. Olmert would have ordered yesterday’s sensational raid on a Palestinian prison in the West Bank, in which Israeli forces captured six militants accused of murdering a right-wing Israeli minister in 2001. True, Palestinian leaders invited the intervention by suggesting that the ringleader of the group would soon be freed, and U.S. and British monitors withdrew from the prison minutes before the raid, reportedly because of their own objections to security arrangements. But this was an act tailored for Israeli voters, some of whom will be as pleased by the predictable expressions of Palestinian and international outrage as they are by the roundup of bad guys.

Cynicism, pure and simple. The Palestinians had once again shown that they were unreliable protectors of Israeli interests (as a peaceful neighbor ought to be) and the Washington Post post charges the Israeli Prime Minister of playing politics when he rectifies the situation.

The Washington Post, I’m sure, was reflecting a view common in political, diplomatic and academic circles. Israeli claims are mere posturing. It’s the needs of the Palestinians that must be met for there to be peace in the Middle East.

Of course by prescribing a Palestinian state without ensuring what kind of state it would be puts the cart before the horse.

By creating a destabilizing nation in the Middle East the world will not bring peace. Until the Palestinians accept responsibilities of self-government and of peaceful relations with Israel, their state will solve nothing.

Nor should it come as a surprise to anyone that that would be the case. Back in 1983, Daniel Pipes wrote “How Important is the PLO?” in which he wrote about the corruption and tyranny with which the PLO ruled its “state within a state” in Southern Lebanon. But the past performance of the PLO was ignored as the future returns of a Palestinian state were heralded as essential to peace.

The peace processors who have ignored the past and excused (and continue to excuse) Palestinian bad behavior are not helping the cause of peace.

President Bush is preparing for the failure of sanctions against Iran. I think he really means it when he says that Iran will not be allowed to produce nuclear weapons.

The US is secretly upgrading special stealth bomber hangars on the British island protectorate of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to military sources.

The improvement of the B1 Spirit jet infrastructure coincides with an “urgent operational need” request for £44m to fit racks to the long-range aircraft.

That would allow them to carry experimental 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs designed to smash underground bunkers buried as much as 200ft beneath the surface through reinforced concrete.

One MOP - known as Big Blu - has already been tested successfully at the US Air Force proving ground at White Sands in New Mexico. Tenders have now gone out for a production model to be ready for use in the next nine months.

The “static tunnel lethality test” on March 14 completely destroyed a mock-up of the kind of underground facility used to house Iran’s nuclear centrifuge arrays at Natanz, about 150 miles from the capital, Tehran.

The lack of world condemnation of the Israeli raid on an nascent Syrian nuclear plant is probably heartening to those supporting the bombing of Natanz. But I don’t think that Bush cares one way or the other whether the world condemns him over taking out the Iranian nuclear capability.

We have been at war with Iran since 1979, although it is a war that has never been officially proclaimed. Iran funds the enemies of America. The Iranian-founded and -backed Hezbollah murdered 241 American soldiers in 1983. The Iranians have been killing American soldiers in Iraq for the past four years. The Iranians are smuggling arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It’s an undeclared war against America, just as Iran has been waging an undeclared proxy war against Israel.

Get ready for $120 a barrel oil sometime after the November elections. I don’t see W. backing down on this one.

Abbas, Olmert pledge ‘meaningful’ understandings

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas agreed on Friday to try to find a meaningful agreement to take to a planned Middle East meeting, an Israeli official said.”They agreed to try to reach, as soon as possible, a meaningful statement,” Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said after two and a half hours of lunchtime talks between the two at Olmert’s official Jerusalem residence.

Abbas’s “meaningful understandings”
1) Next time we catch someone trying to assassinate you Mr. Prime Minister, he will serve at least 4 months in prison. Not a day less.
2) We recognize the historical connection of the Jews to the land of Israel.
3) We respect the archaeological integrity of the Temple Mount.
4) Heck, we even recognize Israel’s right to exist.

In other news.
Rice taps Clinton, Carter for Middle East advice (h/t Pillage Idiot)

Carter?

Clinton

At a time when the CIA is supposed to provide assurances that it will deal with all matters of terror, the question remains: Even In the case of the murder of two US citizens, has the way that the US intelligence community has dealt with the murder cases of David Boim and Nachshon Wachsman represent any indication as to how the US will continue to relate to Israel’s security concerns ?

Bush 43

So if my source could find out that a member of Aziz’s cell (not Aziz himself - I asked that question) is going to be part of this training course, why can’t the CIA? Or if the CIA has figured it out, why don’t they care? We’re not talking about someone who committed an act of terrorism in the pre-Oslo period. We’re talking about someone who was part of a group that murdered ten people, including a 16-year old American, in April 2006.

Finally - h/t Daled Amos who writes:

It’s like a political “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”–with the worst possible lifelines.

- Powerline writes

Was Rice always this bad, or has she changed course in order to regain the esteem of the foreign policy establishment before she heads back to private life?

I guess the answer’s here:

“She realizes that her legacy right now is really very poor,” said Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser and a strong critic of the Bush administration. “If she can pull this off, she will be seen as a real historical figure.”

Brzezinski’s criticism must have really stung.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

RIVERSIDE, Calif., Oct. 26 (UPI) — A federal agency has banned flag-folding recitations at U.S. veterans cemeteries after a complaint over religious content. The Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise said the recitation, used at thousands of military burials, explains the significance of each of the 13 folds of the flag. The newspaper said a complaint was lodged against the words for the 11th fold, which “celebrates Jewish war veterans and “glorifies the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

Much as I’m riled by these senseless displays of political correctness, I wonder who the heck has the time necessary to perpetrate these acts of stupidity. Clearly the number of government employees in some places is above what is really needed.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.