Yes, that’s Australia, not Austria. The one with kangaroos, not Nazis. Australia now joins Europe in the “Who wants to be the biggest Jew-hater?” contest.

Attacks on the Jewish community are at a high, following 638 reports covering assault, vandalism, intimidation and harassment in the year to the end of September.

This is twice the previous annual average and 8 per cent higher than the previous record year, 2002.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry meeting in Melbourne this week heard that the attacks mainly occurred in Sydney and Melbourne, the home of the country’s largest Jewish communities.

“In other cities, you are not going to have large groups of people walking to and from synagogues on the weekend,” said former council member Jeremy Jones, who compiled the annual audit.

It was not clear what caused the jump in reporting, he said.

Yeah, isn’t that funny. Nobody ever knows why attacks against Jews go up. They just do.

Imagine that.

via memeorandum

In the afterglow of the confidence building Annapolis conference where President Bush said

I have known the President for quite a while. I am convinced that he is dedicated to the formation of a Palestinian democracy that will live in peace with their neighbor, Israel. And I believe the Prime Minister of Israel is dedicated to the same vision. And therefore, as I told the President, the United States of America will work as hard as we possibly can to help you achieve the vision, Mr. President.

we learn that the PA, under President Abbas’s leadership intends to confront terrorists - and work alongside them. Khaled Abu Toameh has this exclusive in the Jerusalem Post.

Fatah will fight alongside Hamas if and when the IDF launches a military operation in the Gaza Strip, a senior Fatah official in Gaza City said Thursday. 

“Fatah won’t remain idle in the face of an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip,” the official said. “We will definitely fight together with Hamas against the Israeli army. It’s our duty to defend our people against the occupiers.”

The Fatah official said his faction would place political differences aside and form a joint front against Israel if the IDF enters the Gaza Strip. “The homeland is more important than all our differences,” he said.

A blog for All observes

Israel will continue to be attacked by its enemies - and the Palestinian terrorist groups Fatah and Hamas are likely to rejoin forces at some point in the future, which means that all the aid that was going to Fatah will end up in Hamas’ hands. Gaza is currently in Hamas’ hand, and if the terrorist attacks from Gaza do not cease and Israel takes military action against Gaza, Fatah might strike at Israel in response. 

Hamas has never waivered from its position on demanding Israel’s destruction. Fatah hasn’t either - although they’re more coy in their calls. They’d rather kill Israel through thousands of paper cuts.

Diplomacy under these circumstances is a fool’s errand for Israel.

Israeli diplomats couldn’t even enter through the same entrances as Arab diplomats at Annapolis and Arab diplomats couldn’t be seen shaking hands with their Israeli counterparts either.

That speaks volumes to the hatred and animosity towards Israel in the Middle East.

Israel Matzav provides a bit more background

You will recall that the reason why Olmert met with Abu Mazen in Annapolis is because Abu Mazen is a ‘moderate’ who wants ‘peace’ (despite the fact that his ‘moderate’ Fatah organization sponsors an armed wing called the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades that has carried out most of the terror attacks in Israel in the last seven years). In other words, Abu Mazen is ‘good’ as opposed to the nasty Hamas terrorists in Gaza who are his enemy and who are ‘bad.’ You will also recall that three and a half weeks ago, I reported that the US had given Israel clearance to send the IDF into Gaza to clean out the vipers and stop the firing on Sderot and its environs. At the time, Israel postponed the ‘operation’ - earning Sderot a few hundred more rockets and mortars and earning Olmert a few brownie points with his prosecutors - so as not to interfere with the Annapolis gang rape. But now that Annapolis is over and was just so successful (/sarc), it’s time to clean up Gaza, restore it to the rule of the good terrorist Abu Mazen and bring quiet to Sderot and the western Negev, and then we can make peace and prosperity and live happily ever after. Right? 

Well, maybe. But if we do send the IDF into Gaza, they won’t just be facing the bad terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You see, if the IDF invades Gaza, that will be enough for the good terrorists of Fatah and the bad terrorists of Hamas to put their differences aside and fight together against the real enemy: Israel.

And Meryl emphasizes

Please note that the quote is not from a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the “armed wing” of Fatah. That quote is from Fatah, the organization that is now headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who claims he wants peace with Israel. 

They don’t want peace. They want Israel.

It’s astounding that time after time the same thing happens and no one’s the wiser.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I’ll go you one better, Elder, than just writing about the reappearance of armed “militants” in Nablus, which is supposed to be fully under PA police control. Here are two incidents that occurred in and near Nablus:

Smuggled bombs:

Two Palestinian youths were arrested at the Hawarah checkpoint south of Nablus on Friday after troops on duty discovered they were carrying three bombs.

Attacks on civilians:

An Israeli car was damaged Friday when it was hit by stones and a Molotov cocktail in the Nablus area.

No one was wounded.

And that, of course, is only today. These things happen every single day. And not just in Nablus.

Which is why Olmert is an absolute fool for even thinking of ceding control of Nablus to the Palestinians.

The news item about the death of Former KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov - one of the instigators and leaders of the failed putsch against Gorbachev in 1991 - didn’t occupy a central place in the media. However, there is some symbolism in this death. Kryuchkov has joined the ghosts, but the ghosts seem to be more and more active in the gray fog that is surrounding the internal Russian politics.

If “politics” is the right word for that unique mix of mafia style ruling structure, corruption of gargantuan proportion, permanent infighting for the place closer to the trough.

A person grown up in relatively innocent and sheltered Western Europe or North American environment is usually unable to grasp the bewildering country, where:

• One percent of population is living in luxury hitherto unseen in many developed countries and normally thought of in connection to Saudi prince or other oil dignitary.
• A cup of coffee in the capital costs about the same as the daily income of many citizens.
• Democratic constitution hasn’t prevented the government moves to take over most of the mass media, including all TV channels.
• A policeman during the day turns into a blackmailer at night (”werewolf” in local lingo), if he wants his family to have a semblance of normal income.
• Soldiers are growing vegetables near their barracks to survive, while new weaponry of highest sophistication and destruction power is being developed and produced with enormous expense.
• Corruption has become so integrated in the daily life that the funny mention by Douglas Adams of “rival police gangs” came true with vengeance, when rival FSB (the KGB child) departments shamelessly fight their turf wars for the rights of collecting graft.
• Scientists are arrested on false charges of selling the secrets of Motherland to a foreign power.
• Alcoholism is killing off the men so early that the average life span for men dropped to 56-58 years (depending on the source). Poor diet and health care contribute their fair share too, of course.
• The negative growth of population, on the other hand, is contributing to the growing problem of taking care of old and disabled…
• Democratic institutions are reduced to sock puppet of the president.
• And people clamor for the man who is overseeing all this, looking at him as a savior and begging him to stay more at his post, that by now looks more and more as just a job for an aspiring tyrant…

So what it is that makes this strange mechanism tick? The “sovereign democracy” - does this perverted idea work? And what will happen when (and if) Putin, the “leader of the nation” leaves his post next year? For how long will the huge natural resources of the largest country in the world keep its people at a minimum level above poverty?

To understand better the powers that be in Russia, it is worth to look for the motivating force.

It is not ideology: the main political party, created by the oligarchs initially to support their interests and now used by Putin and his circle of trust, is far from being ideological. Aside of few vague patriotic slogans and the overwhelming parliamentary majority (that is going become even more overwhelming after the coming elections), the party does not have any ideology to speak of.

It is pure greed. The river of money, generated by the country’s seemingly inexhaustible natural resources, is channeled to few small distinctive groups: Putin’s clique of oligarchs that have replaced the ones that were too unruly for his taste, the bankers, the so called “siloviky” - the power structures, such as FSB, the army, the police and, of course, the various shades of mafia type groups - not always easily distinguished from the oligarchs. Not to forget the politicians of different ranks that toe the party (Putin’s) line. And of course, the masses, the great unwashed are kept in their places by the “siloviky”.

To make it all happen without complications expected in any really democratic country with free press and independent judiciary, the oxymoron of “sovereign democracy“, that perversion of evolution of human society and human values, was invented. It is mistakenly called “managed democracy” in the West, to help the ready and willing fellow travelers to swallow the pill. Interestingly, there is an entry in Wikipedia on the sovereign democracy, but only in Russian.

Sovereign democracy is the term originally imposed by Kuomintang government of Taiwan to describe their current political system.

This term was, in the Taiwan rulers way of thinking, supposed to stress, on the one hand, Taiwan’s sovereignty, its independence from the central Chinese government, but on the other hand, formally democratic, multiparty nature of the Taiwanese political system, as opposed to mainland China, tightly managed by the CPC.

In the early XXI century, the term got a new meaning in the political rhetoric of official Russian Federation. Originally, the term was used on February 22, 2006 in the program speech by Vladimir Surkov before the activists of the United Russia party.

According to the ideological paradigm “sovereign democracy”, Russia as a sovereign state reserves the right to determine the timing, form and methods of the movement towards democracy. Building on the concept of managed movement to democracy allows to classify sovereign democracy as a form of simulated democracy.

It could be interesting to sidestep into the fascinating life story of the inventor of the “sovereign democracy”, one Vladimir Surkov, but it can wait for another opportunity. Now, after reading the above, you can see how far he and his boss took the Taiwanese definition of sovereign democracy from its origin and how far is this “idea” from the “managed democracy” that some fellow travelers will try to sell you. Precisely like the Soviet version of “mature Socialism” was a harbinger of the future shining peak of the coming communism, the “sovereign democracy” is a precursor of the (here it is, see it?, it is coming!) real democracy to come.

It is necessary to notice that, like in any pyramid structure built around one man, the upcoming retirement of Putin is already causing tremors and “dog eats dog” squabbles for succession of various cushy positions. But these are only the first temblors, and the real bloodletting is still to come, when Putin leaves and his heirs and enemies start the war for inheritance.

Now, of course, the big question is whether Putin will indeed leave. For two years he repeated his promise to retire. For the last several months his buddies are feverishly seeking a way to get him another term, however there clearly is no legal way to do so, Putin’s promises notwithstanding. He may try to get “elected” to the PM post and to gradually acquire, via his pet party, the necessary powers that currently belong to the president, but it is a long and difficult way and his ex-friends and enemies will do their best to tear him apart while unprotected - as hyenas do.

So another possibility - that of inventing new, meanwhile vaguely defined, post of a “leader of a nation” is being broached in some circles. The necessary background, such as “spontaneous” mass demonstrations begging Vladimir Vladimirovich to stay put, anti-Western hysteria which Putin was very careful to nurture for the last year or two, clumping down on the pro-democracy leaders and the (already weak and dispersed) opposition parties, the very worst of nationalist demagoguery - in short, every weapon in the arsenal of the good old KGB is being drawn from the warehouses and getting used.

Still, it seems that Putin will go, at least for a while. He will try to promote his chosen successor, of course, he is already putting forward claims to the leadership of his party (a new one, since up till now, the United Russia was only a compliant vehicle for his moves), and he increases the volume of anti-Western and especially anti-US rhetorics. Just look at Pravda:

United Police States of America grows mad because of strong Russia
Putin: Russia not to tolerate foreign meddling
US advised OSCE not to send observers to monitor Russian elections

There is hardly any need to go deeper than these headlines. For me, the most worrying is the language of the incendiary articles, so reminiscent of the worst examples of Soviet propaganda hacks. It all looks so painfully familiar…

And the economic outlook does not bear any good news. Even the rivers of money that are accumulating today in the oligarchs’ coffers and trickling down to the great unwashed will become insufficient to cope with the nearing housing crisis, with the growing percentage of the pensioners and crumbling health care system, with the outdated and insufficient infrastructure, with the moribund industry and with ever growing imperial pretensions. Coupled with the trend to nationalize the big businesses and corruption that makes these same businesses to crash, the outlook is really bleak. Whoever will be at the helm of Russia, in a few years he will have to cope with a real economic disaster.

And then the country will be really at the edge of an abyss. And the ghosts of the past, aided by the ready and willing wannabe tyrants of the present, will have a real field day. It is impossible to know what monster will come out of the fog. But it’s easy to see what is in stock for the nation that has had only a brief glimpse of democracy for a few years, and decided that it is not what it needs.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

The Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany decreed that if you had at least one grandparent who was Jewish, you were Jewish, and off to the camps you went. Apparently, if it was good enough for the Nazis, it’s good enough for the Algerians.

France’s Foreign Ministry expressed surprise Wednesday about an Algerian government minister’s remarks about a “Jewish lobby” being behind French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The flap comes as Sarkozy is preparing to visit Algeria next week.

Mohamed Cherif Abbas, Algeria’s minister for veterans, was quoted Monday in the daily El Khabar as saying that Sarkozy was brought to power by a “Jewish lobby that has a monopoly on French industry.” Abbas also mentioned Sarkozy’s “roots,” an apparent reference to the French president’s maternal grandfather, who was Jewish.

Gee, what religion is that minister? Could it be—the Religion of Peace™? But remember, it isn’t anti-Semitism. It’s anti-Zionism. Well, in any case, the minister was at least embarrassed at what he said, right?

Wrong.

On Wednesday, Abbas told the Algerian state news agency APS that he “never had the intention …. of attacking the image of a foreign head of state.” He did not deny making the comments.

Even halachically (by Jewish law) non-Jewish heads of state are not immune to anti-Semitism. But that Nuremberg thing? Well, we pretty much knew about that even before it was codified into law. So we note this incident without surprise. The anti-Semitism of the Arab and Muslim world is extremely well-documented.

Update: Judeosphere has more.

Barbara Kay reports on an initiative underway on Canadian college campuses to take back Canada’s colleges from the virulent anti-Semitism that has dominated so many campuses for the past six years.

The coming milestone of Israel’s 60th anniversary next spring is ratcheting up anti-Zionist organizations’ zeal for greater impact during the 2007-08 academic year. Like most such initiatives — Israeli Apartheid Week is an American import — their new projects will soon make their way to Canadian campuses.

Look for an “Apartheid Bus Tour,” featuring a Palestinian Arab, an Israeli Jew and a South African black, who will travel between campuses, teaching students that Israel is morally and socially equivalent to South Africa’s formerly racist regime. There will also be reinvigorated divestment drives, led or supported by faculty, pressuring universities to pull funds from Israel, such as the “Hang Up on Motorola” drive to discourage Motorola from providing services to the Israeli military.

[...] Campus Zionists are becoming pro-active: A number of groups have emerged over the past few years. Hasbara, for example, an Israel-sponsored leadership training program, has shown canniness and courage at York University in pushing back against intimidation, last week holding their own against a “pack of wolves,” as one Israel defender described a mob surrounding his anti-Ahmadinejad display table.

I’m personally following with great interest a pilot program offered to university and cegep students here in Montreal: Student Israel Advocacy Seminars (SIAS), sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research. The endeavour correctly identifies the battle against Israel hate as the front line in combatting the greater malaise of our universities’ alarming decline in moral and intellectual integrity.

Barbara is on the board of advisors to Montreal’s Canadian Institute of Jewish Research, the organization behind this wonderful movement. Kol hakavod, Barbara, and to the students putting themselves out there to fight the lies and the professional “activists” that the Muslim world has been sending to discredit Jews.

Yesterday, Hamas made quite clear exactly what they think of the nation of Israel:

Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.

The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that “Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem… there is no room in it for the Jews.”

Regarding the partition decision, Hamas said that “correcting mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of, but prolonging it is exploitation.”

This is the same organization that Jimmy Carter has been urging Israel to deal with for years. Because he’s really, really sure that Hamas wants peace with Israel. He said so in February of 2006:

When I met with one of the Hamas leaders after the election, whom I had also met with ten years ago and hadn’t seen him since, he told me what the Hamas people want is a peaceful unity government. Whether he’s telling the truth, I have no way of knowing.

But my belief is that Hamas now wants a stable, domestically oriented policies in their government to deal with the problems of the Palestinian people. And in my belief is if they’re treated fairly, they might very well be less likely to resort to violence than if a Palestinian people are mistreated.

[...] By the way, let me add that eventually, Wolf, they are going to have to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and resolve to their problems with Israel in a peaceful way. There’s no doubt about that. They cannot escape that international mandate which they have to fulfill.

There’s no doubt at all. Except the lack of doubt would be on the part of Hamas, whose charter states:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.

If someone can find a word in the charter signifying anything other than the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state, I’ll give you my Jeep.

Say, about those “stable, domestically oriented policies”—I wonder if this is what he had in mind?

The nights in Gaza belong to the Izzedine al-Qassam brigades. On potholed streets in the border city of Rafah last week, disciplined rows of fighters bristling with guns and rocket launchers listened to a midnight pep talk from their commander before melting into the darkness.

The militia that was once the underground military wing of Hamas, the Islamic extremist organisation, has become a feared unofficial army controlling this isolated strip of Palestinian territory.

I have been stating on this weblog for years that the terrorist groups do not want peace with Israel—they want the destruction of the Jewish state, and its replacement with an Islamic state. I have also come to the conclusion that that is what most Palestinians want. It is what Yasser Arafat wanted. It is what Mahmoud Abbas wants. It is what the overwhelming majority of Palestinians want. Poll after poll after poll has proven that most Palestinians approve of suicide bombings. They approve of “resistance” against Israel (code for armed attacks on all Israelis). They have been raised on decades of hatred, incitement, and the idea that if they only wait long enough, or get the right leadership. or maybe ally themselves with the right Arab nation, they can destroy Israel from without and within.

And don’t think this is limited to Hamas. The Palestinian Authority believes exactly as Hamas.

Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for its people of a world without Israel.

An information clip produced by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics and rebroadcast today on Abbas-controlled Palestinian television, shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned into a Palestinian state.

This is the picture shown on Palestinian TV:

The Palestinians don’t want peace. They want Israel. And in case there was any doubt of that, I give you this exclusive from one of the Jerusalem Post’s most trusted reporters:

Fatah will fight alongside Hamas if and when the IDF launches a military operation in the Gaza Strip, a senior Fatah official in Gaza City said Thursday.

“Fatah won’t remain idle in the face of an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip,” the official said. “We will definitely fight together with Hamas against the Israeli army. It’s our duty to defend our people against the occupiers.”

Please note that the quote is not from a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the “armed wing” of Fatah. That quote is from Fatah, the organization that is now headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who claims he wants peace with Israel.

They don’t want peace. They want Israel.

Which one of these leaders said the following?

A) King Abdullah said, “The Kingdom must open up its holy cities to everyone and allow all visitors to worship as they please or Saudi Arabia is finished.”

B) President Bashar Assad said, “Syria must stop bullying its neighbor and killing its politicians. The occupation of Lebanon must end or Syria is finished.”

C) Ismail Haniyeh said, “Hamas must start buildling an economy in Gaza, allowing a free press and stop persecuting Christian and stop firing rockets into Israel, or Hamas is finsihed.”

D) President Mahmoud Abbas said, “The Palestinian Authority must accept the verdict of history, fight terrorists and teach its citizen to live peaceably with Israel or Palestine is finished.”

E) President Hosni Mubarak said, “Egypt must open up its government to opposition and encourage its citizens to honor the 30 year old treaty with Israel, or Egypt is finished.”

F) PM Olmert said, “Israel must stop considering it acceptable to force people from their homes just because they’re Jewish, or Israel is finished.

G) None of the above.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.