The caterer for my bat mitzvah made bourekas with a potato filling. I have a lot left over. I’ve been eating it every day since my bat mitzvah. I’m finding I cannot get enough of potato bourekas.

It’s not quite dinnertime yet, and all I can think about is that I gave a container of bourekas away today. See, Sarah, how much I love your family? I gave them some of my precious bourekas leftovers.

I may eat an early dinner tonight. In fact, I will. And I do believe I’m going to eat brisket one last time this week. It’s too darned good to give it up.

I’m so glad I had my party at the synagogue social hall. The food is all kosher, and I got the leftovers.

Bourekas.

Sigh.

Sarah, we’re going to have to try to make these ourselves someday.

Oh, so this is what Lair’s doing in his spare time. He’s not blogging much, but he’s calling Nardo and leaving instructions. (Language warning: Don’t play these at work without an earpiece.)

Click on the speaker to listen to them on the same page. I recommend Utter Crap #1, #2, and #3.

Of course, if you don’t like Lair Simon’s humor, you won’t like these. But he’s always been a favorite of mine.

Wizbang’s Jay Tea asks a simple question

Can anyone — ANYONE — ever cite a single example where the Palestinians were called upon to make any sort of concession or “good faith gesture” and actually kept it? Just once?

It’s a good question. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t very encouraging. With the Palestinians, there were obligations that, by now, have been defined down to “good faith gestures.” For example see In Mideast, Rice Pushes Annapolis Talks

The first phase of the road map called for confidence-building security measures, including Palestinian action against armed groups, Israeli dismantlement of settlement outposts and the easing of restrictions on Palestinian movements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Annapolis document, in its new format, would state that negotiations were proceeding toward the “final status” core issues.

For the Palestinians taking arms against a sea of terrorist groups is a “confidence building measure.” That’s how it goes in this parallel peace making universe. A step that most would consider a fundamental obligation of the Palestinians is now a “confidence building measure.”

On the Israeli side, the Palestinians no doubt consider dismantling settlements to be necessary, but nothing that Israel has signed has so obligated them. And it’s absurd to characterize “easing of restrictions” as a “security measure.” It is a measure that puts Israel’s security at risk and is done in the absence of Palestinian measures against terrorists.

Still calling a primary Palestinian obligation a “confidence building measure” is beyond absurd.

Crossposted on Socer Dad.

I was given a chance, courtesy of Deep Focus, to view the Hilla Medalia HBO documentary To Die in Jerusalem. I don’t even know whether our cable provider carries HBO (I am not much into TV lately) and the kind offer to send me the DVD was difficult to refuse, although the implied promise to produce a review is difficult to keep.

I didn’t know much about the movie, although a case it relates to is familiar, of course. But it was no more familiar to me than many other suicide bombing incidents, of which we have had, unfortunately, too many. Keeping in mind my natural reluctance to play a critic, and seeing that the documentary has already produced some controversy and several highfalutin outbursts of indignation (more about it later), I have decided to watch the movie and to respond to it as a normal John Q. Public would, and not to go into oxygen-starved heights of politics, visual arts appreciation etc.c

And I shall start from the end: I think that it is a real documentary and that it is very good. Unlike the fashionable staged mocumentaries, produced by fat men without moral scruple and with a penchant for self-aggrandizement, this one is a solid factual report, not trying* to recruit followers for any cause. The movie met my expectations, for a simple reason - I didn’t have any, and save a few insignificant deviations from the expected, the story sounds true.

What does not sound true in the movie, and not through any fault of the director or the cameramen, is some of the people. To start with, the infamous “farewell” video clip of the martyr-to-be, one of the many circulated in Gaza and West Bank. Here is what the documentary site says:

Before her mission, Ayat made a video in which she lashed out at the regimes and militaries of Muslim nations everywhere: “I say to the Arab rulers…

If it weren’t so tragic, it would have been laughable. I have run the segment a few times, and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind: Ayat al-Akhras read out a text somebody else prepared for her and, most probably, it was the first time she was seeing it. She was wooden, expressionless and looked more like a zombie than like somebody “lashing out” at something.

This was the first warning that caused me to start looking for falsehoods - not in the movie and not in the movie-makers motives, but in the protagonists. And I believe I found the main source of falsehood. Above the familiar cult of death - the pictures of the suicide bomber with a gun in the school, a separate “Martyr’s cemetery”, the hysterics of the sister during the mourning (”I shall kill thirty people for you, Ayat” - guess who these people are?) - above all this I was dumbfounded by the “martyr’s” mother.

I do not have any proof that may serve in a court of law, but I know it with total certainty - the mother is lying all the time, every moment she opens her mouth. It is her face or her posture or her speech - too pat and too rehearsed to come from the heart, but probably all of them together that tell me without a shadow of a doubt - liar!

Besides looking and sounding false, she contradicts herself a few times during the movie. Several times she swears: “If I had known, I would have stopped her”. Several times she claims her total innocence to her daughter’s murderous intent. And then, sometime else, as an aside: “She intended her action to be an example for other girls…”. What is this if not a confession, I don’t know…

Both the father and the mother of the bomber are way too “politically correct” and astute, judging by the way they recite, chapter and verse, all the necessary slogans about opression, occupation, the house in Jaffo, the right to pray at Al-Aqsa that was cruelly taken away. (It makes for a strong contrast with the tortured mother of the victim, who is not interested in politics and wants only to understand why - the question that will never be answered, and in any case not by the parents of the suicide bomber).

But while the father is unwisely going on about Islam being the religion of peace and whatnot, the mother does not stray away for a second from spouting her political views. The eloquence and the clarity of purpose the mother displays are amazing. That they are not leading to any possible rapprochement or, at least, a glimmer of understanding, is the more frustrating.

I don’t know whether it was Ayat, the suicide bomber herself who approached her future handlers or was it the other way around, but it does not matter. I believe that I know who has done the most of the brainwashing and indoctrination for this girl. She didn’t have to leave her home for that kind of material - all the necessary hate and brainwashing were right there. And the outburst of hate from her sister during the mourning just proves this point - both are reared on the same milk.

And so it goes, up to the ultimate act of betrayal a mother can perpetrate:

She was a mature eighteen years old, not some kid. Eighteen years old and she chose her way.

Indeed. What else do you need or want to know about Um Samir al-Akhras, the mother of Ayat al-Akhras, that beautiful suicide bomber?

And of course, the father, being much less of a weasel, put a resounding end to my doubts:

What is better than to be a martyr? You are going to die anyway - today, tomorrow or in a hundred years. To die in dignity and honor is better than anything.

Yes. They didn’t know anything. They don’t know anything. And when Avigail, the mother of the beautiful Rachel, the victim, cries out to them: “”Your daughter and my daughter got killed for nothing”, their answer is “For you it was nothing, but for her people it was something”…

In short - go and see that documentary, it is worth your time and money.

A few words about some of the criticism leveled at the documentary. The worst I have seen is a knee-jerk reaction from Backspin - the Honest Reporting blog.

HBO is due to air a film drawing moral equivalence between a suicide bomber and victim.

There are a few similarly “enlightened” reviews on the other side, but really, this one is a bit too much… and that without even seeing the movie, I am sure.

(*) Well, aside of two moments that somewhat irked me: the first, when immediately after Avigail, Rachel’s mother starts with the “After Rachel got killed, I wanted to know why…”, the picture of IDF soldiers on patrol and then the separation barrier appear, as if to start answering the question… The second when the camera focuses for a long time on Arab boys playing with toy guns - come on, the boys do it all over the globe…

Another point: it is clear why the focus of the movie was on the two girls, but there was at least one other victim of the blast - the supermarket guard, barely mentioned. Pity.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Given the unlikelihood of any substantial result emerging from the upcoming Annapolis summit David Brooks, in Present at Creation, asks why Secretary Rice would expend such energy in putting the darn thing together.

It’s slightly unfortunate that the peace process itself is hollow. It’s like having a wedding without a couple because you want to get the guests together for some other purpose. But that void can be filled in later. The main point is to organize the anti-Iranians around some vehicle and then reshape the strategic correlation of forces in the region. Iran has done what decades of peace proposals have not done — brought Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinians and the U.S. together. You can go to Jerusalem or to some Arab capitals and the diagnosis of the situation is the same: Iran is gaining hegemonic strength over the region and is spreading tentacles of instability all around.

Yikes. The peace conference is a sham. It’s an attempt to organize the nations of the Middle East against Iran. Preposterous! And John Podhoretz agrees and demonstrates why this is absurd.

What, specifically, does the status of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship have to do with that urgent and pressing need? The honest answer is: Very little. Unless, that is, you accept the contention that the “moderate” states need and deserve some face-saving bribery in the form of Israeli concessions to get them to act reasonably in concert against Iran. But if they are so worried about Iran, why would they need face-saving bribery, especially considering David’s concession that “there is remarkably little substance to [the peace process] so far. Even people inside the Israeli and Palestinian governments are not sure what’s actually going to be negotiated and what can realistically be achieved.”

(But then again, even though other Arab nations feared Saddam, the United States wouldn’t bring in Israel as an ally during the first Gulf War. So it is possible that Arabs would demand a bribe to join in an initiative with their own self interest in mind.)

But then I saw this article. (h/t Israel Matzav, but in a different context) David Samuels who had recently interviewed Dr. Rice in the Atlantic wrote Condi’s Shame, an assessment of what he saw in his interview with her.

Based on my own interviews with Rice, and my analysis of what she has said about the conflict over a long period of time, I have concluded that Rice is an agnostic on the subject of Israeli-Palestinian peace – but she believes very strongly that the appearance of an active effort to cut a deal is important to America’s interests in the Middle East. The paradox of Rice’s conduct is that she is taking the role of an activist secretary of state while believing very strongly on an intellectual level that events are driven by underlying historical circumstances and currents on which our actions and desires can have only a very limited effect. She has repeatedly stated that the deal cut between East and West Germany and the Soviet Union to end the Cold War would have been impossible even a few years earlier. She told me more than once that it seemed quite possible that historical circumstances may not be ripe for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Samuels, then, comes to a conclusion that’s consistent with that of Brooks. He only leaves out the speculation about the ultimate end of the Annapolis conference. He only allows that she sees arranging the conference to be in America’s interest.

Shrinkwrapped is dismissive of Secretary Rice’s efforts.

If Rice truly believes she can compel or create a breakthrough she is already lost; if she believes that it is better to convene a conference based on lies and obfuscations than to tell people the truth, her conference will surely fail. The truth is that only the Arabs can force the Palestinians to make the concessions necessary for Peace and there is no indication that the Saudis, Egyptians, Fatah, or any other actor is ready, willing, or able to make the mental leap required for peace. All else is rationalization.

Bookworm Room though argues that necessity might well be the mother of the conference.

Nevertheless, this is certainly not a wacky idea, and it does reflect an impulse to bring some central stability to a region that will become entirely unbalanced if the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas axis does in fact ascend to real power, rather than stopping at the noises of power, along with the violence of terrorism.

Daled Amos, though clearly sympathetic to Podhoretz, makes a similar observation to mine.

Why would there be a need to bribe the alliance to do something that natural self-interest should make natural and automatic? Then again, natural self-interest did not keep the Arabs out of the Nazi fold during WWII either.

I’m not sold on the Brooks/Samuels argument. However Samuels is somewhat more convincing in that he’s basing his conclusion on close observation of the Secretary.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Note: It’s not the d’var Torah. I didn’t get a chance to do that one. I’d like to write it up and post it at a later date, because I have a lot to say about Chayyei Sarah. This is my speech from the end of the haftarah portion, before the Musaf service.

Before I say anything else, I just wanted to tell you there was a typo on the invitations. I’m turning forty this month, not fifty. I’m trying to work out the math so it wouldn’t make me seven years younger than my younger brother. Anyone who can help with that, see me after.

Five years ago, three things happened that completely changed the direction of my life. In the spring of 2002, my weblog changed from what was essentially a journal and links to other weblogs, to a place where I write about Jewish and Israeli issues. Five years ago, I had two hundred readers a day. Today, between three and five thousand readers check in at least once a day to find out what’s going on in Israel, and see how many different ways I can be outraged at the world’s bias against the Jewish state. My blog circle is now called the JBlogosphere, short for Jewish Blogosphere. People I have never physically met, or even spoken to on the phone, are counted among my friends. Some of them are here today, helping me celebrate this happy occasion.

The JBlogosphere is a wonderful place. For the past three and a half weeks, I’ve been tutored in my haftarah by a gentleman who blogs by the name of Elisson. I have never met Elisson. I’d only spoken to him once before on the phone, when he visited a mutual blogging friend. But when I put up a post on my weblog asking for help, he was one of the first to offer assistance. I am extremely grateful for his help, and fortunate to count Elisson as one of my blogging buddies. I would not have been able to chant my haftarah without Elisson’s help.

The second event in 2002 was my move to Richmond. I knew exactly one family then—the C’s—who are sitting here today. It was my visits to them that made me fall in love with Richmond enough to move here.

Sorena used to attend Richmond Montessori. It was a natural progression to check out the synagogue next door. That first Friday night, I was welcomed warmly, by Rabbi Shapiro and people like the B’s and the S’s. I struck up a friendship with one person in particular, who effected the third major change in my life that year. During one summer Oneg, Andy K. asked if I could read and write Hebrew. They were looking for teachers for the religious school, he told me. He introduced me to Robyn S., who practically dragged me over to Dan R., and the rest, as they say, is history.

I don’t write about my class much on my weblog. But I did write about that first day. Here’s an excerpt:

Round one goes to my students. I was not expecting to have more trouble from the girls than from the boys.

I will never allow honey in my classroom ever again. It got tracked onto the girls’ table and half a dozen books. I was still cleaning up honey after class was over. Then the kids got taken out for music and some time with the Rabbi to learn a few prayers. By the time that was over, I had thirty-five minutes left and had taught them, essentially, never run down the stairway to the classroom, don’t interrupt when someone else is speaking (that one didn’t take well at all), and, well, that was about it. Unless you count, “This one’s a sucker, let’s see what we can get away with around her.”

But I won the second battle. I had had enough. The last half-hour, those kids were mine. I got them to quiet down enough to be told by one “I don’t think you’re as nice a teacher as Mrs. S.”

Robyn S. was their third-grade teacher. That student is here today, but will remain anonymous. I have one more excerpt on that first day of school in September, 2002:

When did it become okay for kids to gripe about every single thing that happens in a classroom? They griped about the color of their folders, they griped about the sharpness or dullness of their pencils, they griped about how cold it was when we first entered the classroom—about the only thing they didn’t gripe about was the fact that it was Tuesday, and give them time, and they’ll probably gripe about that, too.

Sometimes, they do gripe about Tuesdays. But not so much. And I’ve learned to get folders of the same color. In fact, I’ve learned a lot of things from my students. Every year, they surprise me with what they know, and what they like to learn. Because children love to learn, and if you present them with things to learn in a fashion that they find interesting, amusing, or entertaining, they will absorb what you teach them and retain it forever. Some of my proudest moments as a teacher are hearing from parents that what I taught their child in Daled class was being used years later. Some of that credit belongs to Dan R., the former director of Education at [my synagogue], who set the curriculum that we teach today.

When people ask my what my job is, I say that I teach little Jews to become big Jews. It’s not the job that pays the rent—I have a nice new job that does that, thanks in part to two of my blog readers, Janet and Chris, who are also sitting here today. But teaching is my most important job.

I have come to love teaching almost as much as I love children. And that’s saying a lot, because I adore children. I like them from infancy through high school and beyond. You will more often find me at an Oneg or Kiddush talking to the young people than to their parents. It isn’t that I don’t like their parents. It’s just that kids tend to be more fun.

These three life-changing events that I mention are all tied into one overarching theme. I never really belonged to the Jewish community in New Jersey. I made several unsuccessful forays into Jewish life, and then pretty much gave up. But here in Richmond, I found my community, and my niche. Looking around, about twenty people in this room are friends and family from out of town. The rest of you are my fellow Congregants, who have welcomed me into your hearts and into your community.

Doug’s tagged me with a meme I’m actually interested in playing along with. Because my 50th birthday is rapidly approaching, and it’s extremely easy for me to remember what I was doing at the ages of 19, 29, and 39.

30 years ago, I was in Steilacoom, Washington, living with my cousin Ellen and her first husband, their four dogs, and my cat. I was trying to decide two things: 1) Did I want to live in Seattle and go to U. of Wash.? and 2) Did I want to go back to school, or did I want to join the working world? My decisions: No and back to school the next year for me.

It was an interesting time in my life. I sucked at most of the jobs I tried. I couldn’t sell radio ads—got fired in two weeks. I spent a little time as a dog-bather in a grooming shop. But I had no real skills and was in an area that wasn’t yet Microsoft country, so there weren’t many jobs to be had. I also couldn’t stand the rain in the Pacific Northwest. I left. I drove from Seattle to San Diego (with my cat) in a 1972 Chevy Vega (yes, really) that broke down several times on the way. I spent the time between Christmas and New Year 1977 in the Knotty Pine Trailer Park in Rogue River, Oregon (pop. 922 at the time). I remember trying very hard on New Year’s Eve to look 21 so I could buy a bottle of champagne. I rehearsed my whole pity-me speech in my head at the grocery store, which ended with something like, “So won’t you please just let me get a little New Year’s cheer?” The clerk didn’t look twice at my bottle of (sigh) Andre, just rang it up with the rest of my groceries. I watched more football that New Year’s Day than I’d ever done in my life. Alone, bored, waiting for my father to wire me the money to put a new engine in my car. He did, eventually.

The next breakdown was in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, where a hippie chick wearing a long, flowing, white peasant dress invited me to come wait for AAA at a party she and her friends were going to. I declined. I was rather familiar with what that party would be like, and I was alone in a strange place, and not feeling inclined to trust a bunch of drugged-out strangers. When I finally got to Los Angeles, I sold the Vega and flew back to the east coast, but not until after the two blizzards of that winter hit the northeast, leaving six-plus feet of snow on the streets and making most roads small, two-lane streets. Then I flew to Florida to stay with my mother until the snow melted, and discovered why you don’t let cats out without flea collars. (Can you say, flea infestation? I knew you could.) I couldn’t wait to get back to school and out of the working world. When I did go back to school the next fall, my writing had made a dramatic improvement. Amazing what a little incentive will do to your will to hide from the working world for two more years.

20 years ago, I was living in Bloomfield, NJ, in a small attic apartment. I was depressed because I was about to turn 30 and I hadn’t achieved any of the things I thought I would achieve by that age. I wasn’t a world-famous novelist. I didn’t have a great job. Wasn’t married, no kids, life seemed rather dead-end at the time. I found myself listening to Jefferson Airplane’s “Lather” and writing in my journal (which I will not excerpt here, if you don’t mind). My friends threw me a surprise birthday party. It is the only surprise party that ever worked. I’ve always managed to ruin my own surprise parties, because I have a mind that picks up on subtle clues long before most others, so it’s nearly impossible to surprise me. Not impossible. Just very, very difficult. In fact, I was so scared by the dozens of people jumping out and yelling “SURPRISE” that I was pretty much in shock the rest of the party. It took me about half an hour to recover enough to even realize who was there. The party brought me out of my doldrums for that time, anyway.

10 years ago, I was in San Diego, California, celebrating my 40th birthday with my family. The east coast members of the family flew out to be with our cousins on the west coast. We did it there for two reasons: My west coast family is more fun, and my Aunt Edith, who was my favorite aunt, had pancreatic cancer, and it would be the last time we were all together. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it to the party. She died in October. Her death had the opposite effect you’d think, though—it inspired more members of east coast family to fly out for the party, because they began to realize that you can’t count on being at the next one, or seeing the people you want to see at the next one. So we had a good time, though there was a shadow over everything. Aunt Edith was like my second mom, and I miss her still.

Which brings us to today: November 15th is my 50th birthday. I hate getting older. I’ve chosen to celebrate my birthdays in ways that make me feel young. That’s partly why I chose this year to celebrate my adult bat mitzvah. Four years ago, I went indoor rock climbing. I’m afraid of heights. It’s the challenge that keeps you young—the challenge of learning or doing something you’ve never done before. This year, I learned to read haftarah. Next year, I’ll probably learn to read Torah for my birthday. But every year, I try to find something different to keep me from feeling old and worn out.

I think that ending my bat mitzvah on Saturday afternoon, surrounded by nearly thirty children from ages six to sixteen singing Adon Olam, was a very, very, very good way to keep from feeling old. I think including my bat mitzvah speech with this post will give you a better idea of how I felt.

The meme includes tagging five other bloggers. Feel free to tag yourselves, as I don’t usually do that sort of thing. But this was a fun exercise.

In a move worthy of a mention in Walt & Mearsheimer’s next book, nearly all of the major American Jewish leadership told Jimmy Carter to take a hike when he asked to discuss Israel with them.

Jimmy Carter’s newest efforts to repair relations with the Jewish community were rebuffed not once but twice last week — and at the very highest levels.

Carter’s first outreach effort came in an invitation to Jewish groups to discuss ways that the former president could help make the upcoming Middle East peace conference a success. While Carter invited most of the major Jewish organizations, the event was only attended by representatives of the Reform movement and by several smaller dovish Jewish groups.

“I didn’t want to be used,” said the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Abraham Foxman, one of the leaders who turned down Carter’s invitation. “I didn’t think anything constructive could come out of the meeting, except for him being able to say he met with Jewish leaders.”

Carter has encountered similar difficulties in reaching out to Jewish lawmakers on Capitol Hill. A closed-door meeting he held with Jewish members of Congress turned into a passionate rebuke of the former president’s views on Israel and the Middle East.

“He left the room less happy than Lincoln was when he left the Ford Theatre,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat who attended the meeting.

Loving that quote.

Carter has had strained relations with much of the organized Jewish community since the publication of his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” and his ensuing remarks regarding the Jewish lobby’s influence on American foreign policy. The reception he received last week suggests that the resentment is still strong and that it may pose an obstacle for him as he attempts to offer his help in brokering peace in the Middle East.

Gee, ya think?

But it’s okay. He got some Jewish leaders to show up. Okay, mostly the lesser-known leadership, and the smaller organizations and maybe some that we’ve, uh, never heard of, but hey—they talked to him. Which was more than Abe Foxman did.

The invitation was not totally unrewarded. The Wednesday lunchtime meeting was attended by five Jewish members, including the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, which was represented by Rabbi David Saperstein. Other groups that sent representatives were Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek V’Shalom and the New Israel Fund. All are strong advocates of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Another participant in the meeting was Tom Dine, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who is also known for his dovish views.

“We did not raise the issue of the book in the meeting; it is old news,” one participant told the Forward.

Pardon me while I snicker quietly in the corner.

A Jewish organizational official speaking under condition of anonymity said that Carter invited “almost all major groups” but most of them turned down the invitation. This decision was criticized by those present.

“I think the refusal of Jewish groups to show up is offensive,” said M.J. Rosenberg, Israel Policy Forum’s policy analysis director, who was in attendance. “It is very unfortunate when a former president invites and people don’t show up.”

Yeah? I think Carter’s book, his actions, and his words on Israel are offensive. And I’m not alone.

Foxman rejects the claim that turning down the invitation was improper.

“I don’t disrespect him,” Foxman said, adding that his reason for not coming to the meeting was Carter’s refusal to apologize for arguing that Jews control the media and academia. “He is entitled not to support Israel, but he is not entitled to come out and fuel antisemitic canards.”

Yuppers.

Carter’s chilly reception by the Jewish organizations only got worse a few hours later, when he met with Jewish lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The event, hosted by California Democrat Tom Lantos, served as a forum for Jewish Democrats to vent their outrage at Carter’s book.

“I told him that the Jewish community, that has great respect for his work around the world, is extremely hurt, disappointed and frustrated from his views and that he cannot serve as an honest broker,” Ackerman said.

A similar message was also voiced by Lantos and three other Jewish lawmakers who attended the meeting: Henry Waxman, Howard Berman and Jane Harman.

The members of Congress told Carter that he needs to apologize, but the former president did not do so.

Shyeah, that’ll happen. When pigs fly. Arab oil money is so far up Carter’s ass that when he pees, the price of crude oil drops. He has long shown us whose side he is on, and it is not on the side of “honest broker” for peace in the Middle East. He has advised Arafat and the Palestinians, smeared Israeli politicians at every opportunity, blamed Israel for everything that’s gone wrong, and refused to hold the Palestinians responsible in any way for their situation. I’m wishing someone took a picture of Carter getting his ass handed to him by Democratic Jewish politicians. Not that I think it did much good. He’s not going to change his tune. But at least it shows that Jewish Democrats are not standing by idly while Carter lies and defames Jews and Israel.

Via Omri, who has yet to absorb the facts in the previous sentence of mine. Omri, look again at the people who talked to Carter. Not too many big fish. The big fish told him to shove his “Peace not Apartheid” where the sun don’t shine.