If you haven’t been following this story, it’s pretty funny.

Dear Iranian Mullahs! While our satirical website and your Propaganda Directorate deal in the same trade of making up facts and exaggerating reality, we are different in that we can recognize a spoof - but you apparently can’t. On Dec. 27, 2007 you used our spoof image on your propaganda website to illustrate a “true” statement that Jews are welcome in Iran and that Western reports about mass emigration of Iranian Jews are “lies spread by the Zionist hegemony.”

The spoof image in question first appeared in 2005, in our parody called Israel Dismantles; World’s Problems End, which revealed the absurdity of demands to dismantle Israel, with various nations, including Iran and Germany, celebrating the return of their long-missed Jews.

It gets better. Our Iranian friends tell us that the original Farsi-language placard says “Nuclear power is our absolute right,” which means that you, dear Mullahs, used that image as a propaganda tool to advance your nuclear program - so you could threaten and maybe even annihilate the Jews in Israel. In our spoof, we changed the message of the placard to the complete opposite, making it appear improbable. To be fair, your story about Iran’s love for the Jews was just as improbable, so it would seem only logical to put them together. It would, we repeat - if your goal were to publish a self-parody. That wasn’t your intention, however. You only did it because you didn’t know better.

Let’s call it self-inflicted poetic justice.

Click on the link to see the pictures. Really, really funny.

Israeli “human rights” organization, B’tzelem issued its report for 2006.

The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in 2007 has fallen by almost two-thirds compared to the figure for 2006, the human rights group B’Tselem reported Sunday.According to the figures published in the organization’s annual report, 131 Palestinian civilians were killed this year - 36 in the West Bank and 95 in the Gaza Strip. Last year, Palestinian civilian fatalities numbered 283 in the Gaza Strip and 65 in the West Bank, for a total of 348.

The drop mirrored a decline in overall hostilities this year compared to last. One hundred eighty-eight illegal Palestinian combatants were killed in 2007, compared with 292 the previous year.

The figures also paralleled a drop in the number of Israeli civilian fatalities in 2007. Seven Israeli civilians were killed in 2007, compared with 17 in 2006. Four soldiers died this year, compared to six last year.

But still

“The figures, nevertheless, still give cause for concern,” wrote B’Tselem, which blamed the civilian deaths primarily on Israeli policy allegedly determined by the army’s top echelon. The policies include allegedly illegal easing of the military’s rules of engagement, faulty transmission of these rules to soldiers in the field, approval of operations that cause disproportionate harm to civilians and failure to independently investigate most cases in which Palestinian civilians are killed.

Forgetting for a moment that according to the Geneva conventions positioning oneself near civilians does not render a combatant immune from attack, is Btselem certain that all of the innocents were necessarily innocent. Do they use the same criteria as the IDF?

Of course B’Tselem doesn’t count the number of Palestinians killed by other Palestinians, which has passed 600 for the year.

And as Elder of Ziyon has been noticing recently, the IAF really has been avoiding civilian casualties in its recent attacks on illegal combatants. Or as Meryl has summarized, 97% of the attacks on illegal combatants in 2007 have resulted in no civilian casualties.

Of course, for Israel’s critics, B’Tselem included, Israel must maintain an impossible standard in fighting its enemies or be judged in the wrong.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

It appears that I have missed a huge brouhaha lately.

A research paper that won a Hebrew University teachers’ committee prize finds that the lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose.

The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that “the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals.”

You can guess that all them pro-Israeli bloggers jumped on the poor Tal as proverbial flies on the proverbial… no, this is not the metaphor I need… well, let’s say they have just jumped on her and not in order to rape the poor aspiring doctoral candidate in sociology.

Now it is up to me, I am afraid, to straighten the pro-Israeli side in the dispute. Because you happen to be wrong, ladies and gentlemen!

So, our doctor-to-be claims that our soldiers don’t rape Palestinian women because of a political/racial imperative, which is apparently very simple: the fear that the offspring of this union will not be recognized as Jewish.

The other (pro-Israeli) side claims that the soldiers don’t rape for the following reasons (different reasons from different sources):

• Moral probity
• Coming from a culture that forbids and condemns rape
• Being under strict orders and fearing a possible court martial on the spot
• Etc.

Of course, such preposterous claims could come only from the members of academy who have never observed an IDF soldier in his natural environment. It is widely known that the moment an Israeli dons the uniform, he immediately transforms into a hungry, horny and cruel creature whose ability to rape the defenseless population is matched only by his blood thirst. And don’t make me laugh with your funny court martial. The only possible court martial for an IDF soldier could be caused by him raping the brigade commander’s secretary (keep dreaming, soldier…)

And of course, Tal Nitzan is absolutely right: the only thing that could stop this frenzied rapist a fraction of a second before the dastardly deed is carried out and, indeed, make him totally disabled (from this specific point of view, we mean) is the thought about the consequences. Indeed, only the knowledge that the fruit of his loins will be considered an Arab is sufficient to deny the colonizer and oppressor the mere ability to reach this ultimate pleasure.

So cool down, please.

Now, I don’t want to be blamed for purely destructive criticism. This wasn’t the purpose of my post. In fact, to satisfy Dr Nitzan on one hand and the pro-Israeli crowd on the other, I have a proposal that will create a bridge between the warring sides. Since in that research something named “organized military rape” was mentioned, it gave me the idea.

From now on military rape will become organized indeed. Every soldier in the field will be accompanied by an Orthodox Rabbi. The rabbi will guide the soldier to the most desirable object of the next rape, assist him in the execution of the said act and perform a special short military ceremony converting the freshly raped person into Judaism. The said ceremony* to be developed by the Chief IDF Rabbi without undue delay.

Clearly this measure will have a lot of positive effects:

• A solution for the precarious demographic balance in the region
• An increased motivation to serve and lowered frustration level of IDF soldiers
• Compliance of the new IDF with Dr Nitzan’ thesis = calm in the academic circles and, eventually:
• Expedited peaceful solution of the Israeli/Palestinian crisis (after all, it is said “Make love not war”)
• The last, but not the least - drastic reduction in frequency of sexual offenses in Israel

To be carried out immediately - by the authority of the Elders.

(*) A special version of the conversion ceremony to be developed for the adherents of the Conservative and Reformist fractions each in short order.

(**) I have really read (part of) the learned opus by Tal Nitzan. Being schooled in precise sciences, I wonder more and more what kind of “research” is being done by some branches of science at the expense of the tax payer. The paper, while not as bad as the linked above INN article is trying to show, is full of pseudo-scientific jargon to the brim and is hardly readable by a normal person. Well, I guess, this is the purpose of people who are in need of a degree… However, the quote by INN, while taken out of context, is precise. And mind-boggling.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is telling Palestinians to put up or shut up regarding the removal of checkpoints:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel would not take any security risks in its gestures to the Palestinians until the Palestinian Authority begins taking the necessary actions against terrorist groups.

“As long as the Palestinian Authority does not take the required measures, with the required intensity, to fight terror groups, the State of Israel cannot make any changes that may expose it to dangers and create security hazards,” said Olmert, at the outset of the weekly cabinet meeting.

“We do not intend to compromise on this, and it will be an inseparable part of any dialogue between us and the PA,” the prime minister added. Olmert’s comments came in the wake of Friday’s deadly West Bank shooting attack, in which two Israelis were killed.

The Palestinians have no intention of stopping terrorism, in spite of the platitudes you see their leaders mouth from time to time. It’s obvious when you read quotes like this, and realize the duplicity behind the Palestinian leadership’s empty promises about peace.

Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdainah said Abbas’s government was committed to meeting its security obligations under the road map.

He said Israel should not create obstacles in the way of the negotiations by expanding Jewish settlements and by carrying out “assassinations” in the Gaza Strip, which the Hamas Islamist group seized by force in June after routing Abbas’s secular Fatah forces.

You see the backwards logic of the Palestinian leadership. The deaths of terrorists on their way to and from shooting rockets at Israeli civilians are “assassinations.” Rocket attacks that kill terrorist leaders who are responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of Israeli civilians are “assassinations.” And they are “obstacles” to negotiations with the Palestinians. But rockets falling on Israel? Well, that’s Hamas’ fault. The PA can’t control that. And shooting attacks, firebombing, thwarted suicide bomb attacks, knife attacks on Israelis? Funny, but the PA leadership never really says a thing when a boy is stopped at a checkpoint and found to have a suicide bomb vest hidden in his bags.

But the larger fraud is the one the wire services always perpetuate on the world: When they insist that Palestinian leaders “condemn” the deaths of Israelis. Here is what Reuters considers a “condemnation.”

“We mourn the deaths of the two soldiers. Every death is a senseless one,” Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Saturday evening in a meeting with President Shimon Peres in Herzliya.

“We are working to end the bloodshed, to create a better future,” said Fayyad and extended his condolences to the families of Cpl. Ahikam Amihai and Sgt. David Ruben, two off-duty soldiers on a hiking trip who were killed in a shooting attack south of Hebron.

I’ll give you a hundred bucks for any word of condemnation in those quotes. But that doesn’t stop Reuters from claiming he “condemned” the deaths of two Israelis. The fact that the Palestinian prime minister actually said he mourns the deaths of the soldiers (and I believe that about as much as I believed that Arafat was concerned about Palestinian Christians, whom he allowed to be driven out of Bethlehem and Nablus) is astonishing in and of itself, but I suspect that if the reporter had managed to stick around afterward, he would have found Fayyad laughing his ass off with his buddies at having managed to pull off such a great PR move.

Here’s another so-called condemnation that is not a condemnation, carried by the Jerusalem Post, whose editors should know better:

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki strongly condemned Friday’s shooting attack near Hebron which claimed the lives of two Israelis.

“The group that carried out the attack seeks to sabotage peace negotiations and the Palestinian Authority’s plan to increase security in the Palestinian territories,” he was quoted as saying by Israel Radio on Saturday.

Malki added that severe steps would be taken against those responsible for the terror attack.

You see what is condemned? The group’s actions in trying to “sabotage peace negotiations.” The PA’s “plan to increase security.” In other words, the PA is upset that their cover is being blown. As far as the “severe steps” to be taken, I expect they will be similar to Yasser Arafat’s revolving door policy for captured terrorists. Pick them up, imprison them (all the while allowing them full access to phone, TV, visits from relatives and other terrorists), then release them the next time Israel takes out a terrorist or three and blame Israel for it.

Adding to the theme are the words of Marwan Barghouti, convicted Palestinian terrorist that some people think is Fatah’s the PA’s last, best hope for leadership:

“Israel has not made a strategic decision to make peace with the Palestinians,” Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti said in an interview with the Saudi paper Al Wattan on Sunday.

“What is demanded of Israel now is that it announce clearly that it is ready to end the occupation, retreat from occupied territories, remove settlements and checkpoints, stop seizing land, release prisoners, stop the siege of the Gaza Strip and stop killing and destroying operations,” he added.

These are the operations that stop Palestinian terrorists from killing Israelis. Every Palestinian leader, including the so-called “moderates,” insist that Israel must stop targeting and killing terrorists. In an earlier post, I pointed out how the IDF is now so careful to avoid civilian casualties that 97% of all casualties in targeted killings in 2007 were terrorists. In the last few weeks, 40 terrorists have been killed by the IDF with zero civilian casualties, and only three wounded IDF soldiers.

And there you have the real reason why the Palestinians want Israel to stop the “assassinations” and the “killing and destroying operations.” Because they are successful. PIJ leaders have been killed and arrested. The Hamas leadership have all gone to ground for fear of a Hellfire missile knocking at their door. The PA/Fatah/Tanzim leadership doesn’t have to do that, because Israel—and the world—are pretending that Fatah has moderated its stance, and that it wants peace with Israel.

The words of their leaders prove they do not. But the fraud will continue, at least for now.

I really do wonder what is going to happen when the Palestinians eventually get their state. Because I think they will. And I don’t think that terrorism will stop when that happens. Nor will the world condemnation of Israel when she defends herself against the murderers.

Boker Tov Boulder notes that Salam Fayyad is hitting some of the right notes in his response to the murder of 2 Israelis on Friday. (BtB also observes that unlike some earlier reports the two murdered Israelis were not “settlers.” Of course even if they were “settlers” they were still people who were murdered for being Jewish.)

Still one time saying the right thing hardly makes Fayyad a moderate or a peace partner. After all, he can’t even countenance the notion of Israel as a Jewish state.

But even if I were to take his condemnation of terror as proof of his reasonableness, I wonder when he’s going to explain this (via memeorandum):

The IDF and Shin Bet uncovered 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate hidden in sacks that were disguised as aid from the European Union, the army announced on Saturday.Security forces discovered the stash in the cargo of a Palestinian truck at a West Bank checkpoint earlier in December. According to the IDF, the material, hidden in sugar sacks, was planned to be used by terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

Israel Matzav asks two clarifying questions:

Was the EU in on this? Or did the ‘Palestinians’ somehow do it themselves?

And Elder of Ziyon wonders why no other (serious) media outlet picked this up.

The story is now over six hours old and only a satirical UK site has published it, according to Google News.

According to the IDF this contraband was confiscated in the “West Bank” and was headed for Gaza. So wouldn’t this suggest that Fatah is likely involved in this smuggling - either by abetting Hamas or by turning a blind eye to it?

Meryl observes

You know, those humiliating checkpoints—the ones that are the cause of terrorism against the Israelis—they really don’t do much good, do they? Nah. Catching six and a half tons of a chemical used to make explosives is not worth “humiliating” the poor, poor, pitiful Pals.

(You think that the explosives were only meant for military targets?)

For every time some Palestinian official says the right thing, there are multiple instances where their belligerent actions speak louder.

UPDATE: Hasmonean won’t hold his breath.

I’m waiting for the massive international aid inquiry, the firings & charges against the EU aid workers who are smuggling weapons to terrorists, and the international condemnation..I’ll no doubt be waiting a VERY long time as the EU response was ‘no comment.’

If the record of OLAF is any indication, I have no doubt that he’s correct.

UPDATE II: More links at memeorandum.Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

You know what I’d like to see? Some day, when some terrorist crapbag asks Israel for a “mutual cease-fire” because he’s afraid the IDF is going to come into Gaza and go all medieval on his ass, I’d like to hear the Israeli representative say something like, “You want a cease fire? Kiss my big, fat Jewish ass.”

No cease-fire for terrorists. Good policy.

I’d love to see that one go across the wires.

According to JP (gleeful of course) report, Ha’aretz editor David Landau is definitely in a wrong line of work. For two reasons at least: he cannot help venting his personal frustrations in public and, secondly, with his deep penetrating analysis of subconscious sexual desires of whole states he is missing his real calling - that of a sex therapist.

Ha’aretz editor David Landau told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a recent private dinner that Israel “wants to be raped by the US” and needed more vigorous American intervention to resolve Middle East conflicts, according to a report in the New York Jewish Week.

This astute diagnosis is not all, Mr Landau apparently suffers from a streak of voyeurism as well:

Landau reportedly “implored Rice to intervene, asserting that the Israeli government wanted ‘to be raped’ and that it would be like a ‘wet dream’ for him to see this happen.”

Mr Landau himself denies the voyeurism charge:

“I told [Rice] that it had always been my wet dream to address the secretary of state” on this critical issue, Landau told the Jewish Week.

It seems that diplomatic skills acquired by Ms Rice served her well through that encounter with a sexually charged Mr Landau.

Rice was “fantastic” and “completely unfazed” by his comments, he said, and remained “urbane and diplomatic.”

Probably helped him out with a napkin after the fulfillment of that dream too…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Here’s an interesting statistic that you wouldn’t know unless you read the Israeli press: Ninety-seven percent of all IDF anti-terror attacks in 2007 caused casualties on terrorists, and only terrorists. That’s right. Only three percent of casualties in anti-terror attacks were civilians.

Lately, the thwartings have indeed become more worthy of the title “pinpointed.” In all the attacks of recent weeks, only gunmen were hurt, as confirmed by Palestinians. The rate of civilians hurt in these attacks in 2007 was 2-3 percent. The IDF has come a long way since the dark days of 2002-2003, when half the casualties in air assaults on the Gaza Strip were innocent bystanders.

The attacks fall into three main categories: targeting specific known terrorists; targeting Qassam rocket-launching cells en-route or in action; and punitive bombardments of Hamas outposts, in response to rocket or mortar fire into Israel. Since Israel began air assaults on the Gaza Strip, in late 2000, the first two types of attacks killed more than 100 Palestinian civilians.

And yet, when Israel is successful at killing terrorists—and only terrorists—the Palestinian prime minister is quick to label these pinpointed “thwartings” crimes.

… the PA leader condemned Israel’s “crimes against our people in the Gaza Strip and Qabatiya in the West Bank,” and called on the international community to intervene immediately “in order to stop Israel’s aggression against the Palestinian people.”

Thus proving that the so-called moderates are not moderate at all. Like I believe him when he said this yesterday:

“We mourn the deaths of the two soldiers. Every death is a senseless one,” Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Saturday evening in a meeting with President Shimon Peres in Herzliya.

“We are working to end the bloodshed, to create a better future,” said Fayyad and extended his condolences to the families of Cpl. Ahikam Amihai and Sgt. David Ruben, two off-duty soldiers on a hiking trip who were killed in a shooting attack south of Hebron.

This is the most dangerous Palestinian since Arafat. He really knows how to work the Western press and politicians. And now I know why Condi is acting so brainwashed. Because she believes this thug.

Once again, Osama bin Laden is trying to rally support for his terrorist network by threatening Jews. Yawn.

Bin Laden also made an unusually sharp threat of attacks against Israel, saying, ”I would like to assure our people in Palestine that we will expand our jihad there.”

”We intend to liberate Palestine, the whole of Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the sea,” he said, threatening ”blood for blood, destruction for destruction.”

Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders frequently vow to liberate Jerusalem and Palestine in their messages. But the latest comments were a more direct language than Bin Laden usually uses. Israel has warned of growing al-Qaeda activity in Palestinian territory, but the terror network is not believed to have taken a strong direct role there so far.

”We will not recognize even one inch for Jews in the land of Palestine as other Muslim leaders have,” Bin Laden said.

You know what astonishes me? That they try to pretend that “Palestine” was ever a Muslim country. Even the name—”Palestine”—is the name given to the area by the Romans, centuries before Mohammed was born, in an attempt to erase the Jewish state forever. Yeah, that didn’t work, either.

Mind you, there is more al qaeda activity in Gaza than there has ever been—but I don’t think bin Laden has a whole lot to do with it. On the other hand, it’s good to see him being open about his Jew-hatred, just as his admirers in Hamas have been of late. On the heels of Hamas insisting there’s no room for Jews in “Palestine,” on cue, here comes bin Laden saying the same.

Yeah. WhatEVER.

I just want to say:

Stupid hot flashes.

Now I think I’m getting cold flashes, too.

Can you get cold flashes?

I thought I had chillls this afternoon. Then they went away.

Stupid pre-menopause.

I want my youth back.

Fifty isn’t that old. Dammit.

The terrorists are trying to smuggle potassium nitrate in bags using the EU imprimatur.

In the West Bank.

In a joint operation of the Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces several weeks ago, a truck was caught at one of the crossing points in the West Bank carrying approximately 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate intended for use by militants in the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced in a statement Saturday.

Potassium nitrate is a banned substance in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank due to its use by militants for the manufacturing of explosives and Qassam rockets.

“The terror organizations disguised the Potassium Nitrate in sugar bags that were marked as being part of the humanitarian aid provided by the European Union,” the IDF said.

“This is another example of how the terror organizations exploit the humanitarian aid that is delivered to the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip with Israel’s approval.

You know, those humiliating checkpoints—the ones that are the cause of terrorism against the Israelis—they really don’t do much good, do they? Nah. Catching six and a half tons of a chemical used to make explosives is not worth “humiliating” the poor, poor, pitiful Pals.

In Middle East Bog the perceptive editors of the Washington Post write:

The trouble began within days of the Annapolis meeting, when Israel’s Housing Ministry made the first of a series of gratuitous and provocative announcements about construction in Jewish settlements beyond Israel’s internationally recognized border. The most tangible of these was a tender for the construction of 307 homes in Har Homa, a controversial Jerusalem neighborhood that is wedged between Palestinian areas of Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Palestinian negotiators — several of whom were closer to former president Yasser Arafat than they are to Mr. Abbas — seized on the action as a violation of Mr. Olmert’s commitment to “immediately” implement the first phase of a 2003 U.S.-sponsored “road map” that calls for a freeze on all settlement construction.

Let’s stipulate for the moment that tender to build on Har Homa was provocative. Could it still be possible that it was the post-Annapolis problems? Consider how the editorial continues.

Israeli ministers, including a couple who oppose the peace talks, rushed to tour Har Homa and to make the point that, in Israel’s view, it is part of Jerusalem and thus not subject to the building restriction. The European Union, the United Nations and, somewhat surprisingly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized the Housing Ministry action. When Egypt joined the chorus, Israel’s defense minister said the real problem was not settlement-building but Cairo’s allowance of massive weapons-smuggling to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A low-grade war between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants in Gaza has escalated in the past month, putting further pressure on the talks.

Notice, there are only Israeli ministers who oppose peace talks. But is Egypt’s complicity in supplying Hamas support for peace talks? Is it worthy of a single sentence dismissal?

And how, pray tell, do stepped up Israeli efforts to protect its civilians from rocket attacks put “pressure on the talks?” If Abbas objects to such defensive measures is he really committed to peace?

Herb Keinon rather explicitly rejects the Post’s spin:

While the Palestinians have done a good job over the last month convincing international public opinion that construction in Har Homa and the settlements is what is holding everything up, in actuality the more fundamental problem is not a few hundred housing units that will be built atop Har Homa, but rather the tunnels that are being constructed under the Philadelphi Corridor.When Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this week that Egypt’s performance on the Egyptian-Gaza border was “awful and problematic,” she knew well her words would complicate relations with Egypt, one of Israel’s key strategic allies. But she also knew that the ongoing smuggling from Egypt into Gaza also poses a strategic threat to Israel, as an emboldened Hamas strengthened with massive quantities of explosives and weapons would doom any diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

For a long time Hamas has been the elephant in the Annapolis process room that no one wants to talk about. But with the elephant being fed through Egypt and growing, it is impossible to ignore, and its size and strength cast a shadow over everything else.

Later on Keinon asserts that unless Israel defeats Hamas, the pressure on Abbas will be too strong for him to compromise. I am skeptical of the good faith of Abbas but this sounds a lot more plausible than to argue that Israel’s self defense “puts pressure” on the talks. Unless the Post means to imply that Israel’s self defense is not in the interest of peace.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Palestinians, who want only to live peacefully, side-by-side with Israel, have murdered two men whose crime was hiking in the Hebron hills.

Two Israellis were killed Friday in a drive-by shooting in the south Hebron Hills. The two men were hiking in the area of the Talam and Adura settlements with a female resident of Kiryat Arba, when a group of terrorists opened fire on them from a Jeep.

The two men were armed and managed to return fire, reportedly killing one of the terrorists.

Islamic Jihad is claiming the shooting. Watch for more PIJ members to meet Israeli missiles in the near future.

And of course, more rockets fell on Sderot today.

As for the PA stopping terrorism like this, well—the bodyguard who was killed yesterday? Turns out that Ahmed Qurea’s bodyguard was a wanted Tanzim terrorist.

Muatsam Sarif, who was also a member of the Palestinian security services and served as one of the bodyguards of Ahmed Qurea, was recently involved in transporting weapons to terror operatives in Ramallah. An IDF force arrived overnight in order to arrest Sarif. Sarif opened fire at the IDF force after he identified them approaching. During the ensuing exchanges of fire that took place on location, Sarif was killed.

You can take the boy out of the terrorism, but….

And it includes another one of our three-way chats, this time between Damain Penny, Brian of London, and me.

I seem to remember that sometimes when he left J. Jonah Jameson, Spiderman would say “See you in the funny papers.”

Apparently that’s where we’re now going to see the U.N. In the funny papers. With Spiderman. (via memeorandum)

He has fought against foes ranging from the Green Goblin to Doctor Octopus, but Spider-Man now faces an even more formidable challenge: improving the battered image of the United Nations.In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the World War II, the U.N. is joining forces with Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1 million U.S. schoolchildren, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature superheroes such as Spider-Man working with U.N. agencies such as Unicef and the “blue hats,” the U.N. peacekeepers.

HotAir exclaims:

This is a waste of a perfectly good ficticious super hero.

comments:

The UN has to resort to fiction to bolster its image because a book about the UN doing any good would by definition have to be a work of fiction.

and asks:

Why not set the book in an actual war-torn country and highlight the heroic acts of real, actual US military men and women to help the people who live there? There is no shortage of those real heroes. We don’t need to credit their deeds to made-up comic book characters.

While this doesn’t quite answer his question, Marvel did sort of honor the military, with a special series of comics including the recently deceased, Captain America:

Captain America may not be back from the dead, but he’s back — sort of.Four months after Marvel Comics unexpectedly killed off the champion of liberty and the American way, he appears in a comic made exclusively for U.S. soldiers. He is seen on a videotape made before his death.

One million copies of “The New Avengers: The Spirit of America,” the fifth in Marvel’s series for the military, will be available free starting Saturday at military base stores worldwide.

The impetus for the series comes from a boy.

Marvel Comics started the military series in 2005 after getting a call from a young boy, saying he could no longer afford to send comics to his two brothers serving in Iraq, Sabouni said.Marvel sent the boy a box of comics but wanted to do more, so the company started working with AAFES to develop something just for soldiers. The military series has been very popular, with books selling quickly after their release.

“You have the fantasy aspect, but they’re staying true to our culture,” said Lt. Col. William Thurmond, an AAFES spokesman. “You can’t ask for anything more if you’re a comic book fan.”

Blue Crab Boulevard really lets Marvel have it. Ed Driscoll notes that this isn’t the first time Marvel has engaged in dubious propaganda.

Let’s finish up with semi-related items:

OK so if you want Spiderman check the UN. But it you want spider webbing, check out Israel.

Now totally off-topic, a member of the U.S. Military got a writing gig with Marvel!

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Egyptians are annoyed that people are making money on replicas of pyramids. So they’re trying to copyright the shapes of their monuments. Yeah, that’ll go over well.

Egypt might copyright its pharaonic antiquities, from the pyramids to scarab beetles, in an attempt to get paid from the sale of replicas, an official said Thursday.

It was unclear whether such a copyright would be recognized internationally.

Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said it would apply only to exact replicas - including scale - meaning someone would have to build a full-size copy of the giant pyramids for it to violate the copyright.

“If you (want to) build an exact copy of the Great Pyramid we will stop you,” Hawass told The Associated Press.

You know, now I want to see someone do it, just to piss off Egypt.

Under the law, anyone seeking to make an exact replica of a copyrighted pharaonic artifact would have to seek permission from and pay a fee to Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The draft bill comes amid recent complaints in Egyptian media about money being made by the pyramid-shaped Las Vegas Luxor casino.

But Hawass said that and other ancient Egyptian-themed parks and malls around the world would not be affected by the copyright law.

Pardon me while I laugh. You know, this is from the same country that was going to sue Israel for the wealth the Jews took out of Egypt during the Exodus, until it was pointed out to them that if they sued Israel for that, Israel could sue Egypt for centuries of enslaving Jews.

I’d also point out that Egypt has no chance whatsoever of getting a piece of the action of the Luxor. I mean, c’mon. Las Vegas? The Mafia? The Egyptians are way out of their league with them.

One of the lead articles in this week’s Forward is Debate Underscores Orthodox Community’s Rightward Drift. Reporting on a recent debate between Michael Medved and David Luchins, Rebecca Spence reports:

The charged debate, attended by some 150 Orthodox convention-goers who hailed from Canada to California, opens a window onto the voting patterns of America’s Orthodox population. While the Orthodox, who make up 10% of the American Jewish population, once voted for Democrats — in keeping with American Jewry’s standing as one of the country’s most liberal voting blocs — in recent years they have slid heavily to the right, according to the O.U.’s own data. In addition, as Luchins’s own willingness to embrace Republican candidates underscores, they are more likely than other American Jews to cross party lines.

The next paragraph though, I think, explains the subject accurately:

“Orthodox Jews are much more of a swing-vote constituency and are more prepared to vote for a conservative Republican than other segments of the Jewish community,” said Nathan Diament, the O.U.’s director of public policy. “What we’ve seen over the past few election cycles is that Orthodox voters are very much issue-driven voters, with Israel and terrorism and security issues at the top of their list.”

Correct, Orthodox voters tend to be “issue-driven.” Those who pay attention to the issues find more in common with Republicans than Democrats. To say the Orthodox community has moved to the “right,” is to dismiss them. Obviously there are plenty of Orthodox Jews who feel more comfortable in the Democratic party, but those of us who are more conservative these days came to our conclusions by looking at the issues, not by mindlessly “moving to the right.”

Another article in the Forward shows the dismissive use of the term “right.”
GOP Leader Calls For Revisions to Fatah Movement’s Outdated Charter by Nathan Guttman - the Forward’s James D. Besser (and that’s not a compliment) starts:

A push by right-wing American Jewish activists to change the constitution of the governing Palestinian party is gaining momentum in Congress, even as Israelis are dismissing the document as “irrelevant,” and the umbrella body of American Jewish organizations has voted against taking up the issue.

Frankly I don’t care if some Israelis are saying that the Fatah constitution is irrelevant. They’re wrong. It’s just as wrong as ignoring the Palestinian National Charter. Yes, I know that in April, 1996 and in December, 1998 the Palestinian Authority supposedly took votes to abrogate those parts of the charter that were incompatible with making peace.

However as Prof. Yehoshuah Porat noted in 1997:

Several days after this resolution was passed, I asserted to the Israeli public that this was actually a sophisticated fraud. The resolution did not refer to specific articles that were apparently canceled, and therefore there was no way of knowing what was actually canceled, since there are deep differences of opinion over the questions of which articles of the Covenant run counter to the exchange of letters between the PLO and the Israeli government.Does this include only those articles which explicitly negate Israel’s right to exist, or does it also apply to the articles which deny any link whatsoever between the Jews and the Land of Israel, Zionism, the partition of the country, those which attribute the right of representing all Palestinians including Israeli Arabs to the PLO, and those which support the armed struggle to liberate Palestine?

The lack of clear action being taken was also notable in 1998, despite the presence of then President Clinton.

But even if the action to abrogate the offensive parts of the Charter were taken in one of those sessions, it really doesn’t matter. The Charter represents the beliefs that are still held today by even the “moderates” of Fatah. Prior to the Annapolis conference claimed that they could not countenance Israel as a Jewish state. This is the equivalent to the many articles of the Palestinian Charter that deny historical basis of Zionism.

But you say this is the Fatah constitution not the Palestinian Charter? Well Fatah is the main organization within the PLO, one must assume that its views are largely the same.

But don’t take my word for it, here’s what Morton Klein found:

Klein searched for the Fatah constitution on Google, the online search engine, and found several Web sites containing translations of the document. The translations contained explicit calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, the eradication of Zionism and the continuation of armed struggle against Israel.

Of course that summary could just as well apply to the Charter. Still there are doubters.

As the ZOA-led effort gathers momentum, Fatah members, Middle East experts and even Israeli officials are arguing that the campaign is a misguided distraction from the recently revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process, since the document no longer holds any significance and doesn’t serve as the party’s platform.“If it was such an important document, someone would be able to get hold of an authoritative copy of it,” said Nathan Brown, director of George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies and a leading scholar on Palestinian politics. “The governing documents regarding any ideological issue come from the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, not from the Fatah party.”

This isn’t misguided at all. If even the “moderate” Fatah doesn’t accept Israel’s right to exist will concessions from Israel really bring peace? Nathan Brown’s statement is a demonstration of willful ignorance. The Fatah party was the main constituent party of the PLO. So its ideology would be the dominant one. If Fatah still holds those views, well then the Palestinian Authority does too.

If in 1993 Arafat set out to create a state that could live in peace with Israel, maybe I could see saying that the document is irrelevant. But since 1993, Arafat was committed to terror and to violating many of the provisions of the treaties he signed. Absent concrete action to the contrary, there’s no reason to give the Palestinians the benefit of the doubt here.

Crossposed on Soccer Dad.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad is missing a few terrorists today, thanks to the IDF.

A series of attacks launched by the IDF in Gaza Thursday has claimed the lives of at least eight militants, including Mohammad Abu Murshud, head of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing in the central Gaza Strip.

According to Palestinian sources, Murshud was killed when the car he was traveling in north of al-Mugarka (near the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim) was struck by a missile fired by Israeli aircraft. Two other Jihad members were killed and a number of others were injured in the attack, which was the IDF’s third of the evening.

Five Palestinians were killed in two attacks in Gaza earlier in the day: Two Hamas members and two Islamic Jihad gunmen were shot dead by Israeli soldiers operating south of Khan Younis in the southern Strip, while two more Jihad gunmen were killed near the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

And some Hamas members, too. This is good news. That makes about forty dead terrorists in the last week and a half. Do I hear fifty? Fifty?

The political leadership, against the advice of the IDF, is allowing the Palestinians to receive 50 armored vehicles from Russia for use in the West Bank. The final barrier—mounting machine guns on them—has been dropped by the Palestinians. No doubt at a future date, they’ll get Russian assistance in adding machine guns to the vehicles, and we will see them used against IDF forces at some point in the future.

Palestinians have received Israeli permission to import 50 Russian-made armored personnel carriers into the West Bank next month, after resolving a dispute with Israel over arming the vehicles, the top Palestinian security official said Thursday.

Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya said the Palestinians dropped a request to mount machine guns on the vehicles, clearing the way for the deal to proceed. Israel objected to the guns. Israeli officials had no immediate comment.

The arrival of the vehicles would be the latest step in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to impose law and order in the West Bank.

[...] Al-Yahya said his forces have made important strides, confiscating weapons from Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants and reining in the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed group linked to Abbas’ Fatah movement.

“The situation now is much better, but we still need more weapons to enhance our forces,” he said. “No one will be allowed to possess weapons besides the security forces.”

It should be noted that the weapons given to the PA and stored in Gaza have all been taken over by Hamas, who did thank the Americans and Israelis for them. I imagine there’s a bit of celebrating going on at Hamas HQ today, because they know those 50 armored vehicles will be theirs in a matter of, oh, months, probably.

Before you make up your mind about whether Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is bad for Pakistan, you might want to read this. I was looking around on some blogs and trying to remember why I never thought very much of Ms. Bhutto. Perhaps because I remembered that she was tossed out for corruption. But this op-ed in the LA Times makes her look as bad as Musharraf.

It is widely believed that Ms. Bhutto lost both her governments on grounds of massive corruption. She and her husband, a man who came to be known in Pakistan as “Mr. 10%,” have been accused of stealing more than $1 billion from Pakistan’s treasury. She is appealing a money-laundering conviction by the Swiss courts involving about $11 million. Corruption cases in Britain and Spain are ongoing.

It was particularly unappealing of Ms. Bhutto to ask Musharraf to bypass the courts and drop the many corruption cases that still face her in Pakistan. He agreed, creating the odiously titled National Reconciliation Ordinance in order to do so. Her collaboration with him was so unsubtle that people on the streets are now calling her party, the Pakistan People’s Party, the Pervez People’s Party. Now she might like to distance herself, but it’s too late.

Why did Ms. Bhutto and her party cronies demand that her corruption cases be dropped, but not demand that the cases of activists jailed during the brutal regime of dictator Zia ul-Haq (from 1977 to 1988) not be quashed? What about the sanctity of the law? When her brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto — my father — returned to Pakistan in 1993, he faced 99 cases against him that had been brought by Zia’s military government. The cases all carried the death penalty. Yet even though his sister was serving as prime minister, he did not ask her to drop the cases. He returned, was arrested at the airport and spent the remaining years of his life clearing his name, legally and with confidence, in the courts of Pakistan.

[...] And I am suspicious of her talk of ensuring peace. My father was a member of Parliament and a vocal critic of his sister’s politics. He was killed outside our home in 1996 in a carefully planned police assassination while she was prime minister. There were 70 to 100 policemen at the scene, all the streetlights had been shut off and the roads were cordoned off. Six men were killed with my father. They were shot at point-blank range, suffered multiple bullet wounds and were left to bleed on the streets.

My father was Benazir’s younger brother. To this day, her role in his assassination has never been adequately answered, although the tribunal convened after his death under the leadership of three respected judges concluded that it could not have taken place without approval from a “much higher” political authority.

Read it all. Then read some more about Bhutto before wondering if her assassination is good or bad for Pakistan—and for the U.S.

Update: Here’s another post from the same blog that you should read: Pakistan’s Arafat. Now there’s an epithet.

How do you reconcile negotiating for the release of a kidnapped soldier on the one hand—with the probability that hundreds of convicted terrorists will go free to terrorize more—with the fact that rockets are raining down daily on Sderot. Nine on Tuesday. Eleven so far today.

I really don’t understand how the Israeli leadership thinks that this won’t lead to anything less than more kidnappings—unless it’s being done so that the IDF can go full-blown into the Gaza Strip after they get Shalit back. Now that—that I could live with. Not this.

The Palestinian News Agency Maan reported Thursday that a breakthrough has been accomplished in regards to kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

According to the report, Egypt has been able to convince Israel to accept some of Hamas’ demands, including the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners – some of them militant cell leaders – who Israel considers to be “extremely dangerous”.

However, we’ve read conflicting news reports about this subject a dozen times before. Yesterday Reuters reported that Hamas is not moving an inch on its demands for the release of over a thousand terrorists:

Hamas will not release a captured Israeli soldier unless Israel meets its demand to free nearly 1,400 Palestinian prisoners, including 350 with life sentences, a leader of the Islamist group in Gaza said on Wednesday.

[...] Muzaini said Hamas would not budge on its demand for 1,400 prisoners. “In March we closed discussions on this issue and we have no intention of reopening them. The ball is in Israel’s court,” he said.

Olmert will release terrorists with blood on their hands, putting more Israeli soldiers—and Israelis everywhere—at risk of kidnapping. The Palestinians think their tactics are working. And why not? Terrorism got Israel out of Gaza. Terrorism is turning Sderot into a ghost town. Kidnapping is about to pay off, big-time.

Only when the IDF is systematically killing terrorist leadership do the terrorists stop their murderous actions. You would think that Israel would catch on to that, sooner or later.

via memeorandum

Keith Richburg has a front page report Not Relevant? Sharpton Scoffs at the Idea in yesterday’s Washington Post. Clearly the reporter scoffs too. There’s a sub-head line
“Activist’s Busy Calendar and Ringing Phone Speak to His Role in Civil Rights” which would have been more correct if it read “… His Role in Self-Promotion.” The article is a highly selective view of Sharpton’s career until now.

Richburg, of course, is scrupulous enough to mention that unpleasantness that plagued him early in his career.

In New York, his home base, Sharpton remains a polarizing figure for many, best remembered for championing the cause of Tawana Brawley, a black teenager who said she was abducted and raped by six white law enforcement officials but whose claims were later discredited.

That’s the sanitized Cliff Notes version of the incident. Sharpton made his name in the case. He accused the prosecutor in the area, Stephen Pagones, of raping Brawley and defiantly challenged Pagones to sue him if he was wrong. When Pagones did sue for defamation and won Sharpton refused to pay, or even apologize.

And the article doesn’t mention that Sharpton inserted himself into the 1991 Crown Heights riots on the side of rioters. He didn’t call for calm. He didn’t call for understanding. Rather he used Gavin Cato’s funeral as an opportunity to rail against the Jewish diamond merchants and falsely accuse Hatzaloh of being an “apartheid ambulance service.” (Hatzaloh personnel were directed away from the injured children by police who feared for their safety.)

Richburg uncritically echoes Sharpton’s case for relevance:

As evidence of his continued relevance on the political scene, Sharpton pointed to the presidential candidates chasing his endorsement. He planned to fly to South Carolina earlier this month to meet former president Bill Clinton until his flight was canceled. Last month, he shared a meal of chicken wings, cornbread and coconut shrimp with Obama at Sylvia’s, a Harlem soul food restaurant.”On the one level, they say we don’t matter. On the other level, they want to know who we’re endorsing,” Sharpton said, smiling at his own position.

Sharpton said he is going to decide among Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Obama and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina. And like much of the black community, he is torn about which way to go.

“I really haven’t decided,” he said. He said he is most concerned about finding the candidate who will pursue his racial justice agenda.

It’s hard to see exactly how Sharpton’s endorsement would help anyone. Look at the primary results for 2004. Except for D.C. and South Carolina Sharpton didn’t reach 10% of the vote