Back in December North Korea condemned the Israeli raid on what we now know to be a Syrian nuclear reactor.

North Korea lashed out Tuesday at Israel for invading Syrian airspace last Thursday, its official news agency said.”This is a very dangerous provocation little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security,” a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea strongly denounces the above-said intrusion and extends full support and solidarity to the Syrian people in their just cause to defend the national security and the regional peace,” he added.

Last week it was revealed that perhaps there was an even bigger reason for North Korea to condemn Israel.

Ten North Koreans may have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Syria in September, NHK reported on its Web site, citing unidentified South Korean intelligence officials.The 10 people, whose remains were cremated and returned to North Korea in October, had been helping with the construction of a nuclear reactor in Syria, Japan’s public broadcaster said. Some North Koreans probably survived the air attack, NHK said.

Now, President Bush is making the connection explicitly. The New York Times reports:

Making the first remarks in public about the Israeli attack by any American official, Mr. Bush said that his administration maintained a cloak of secrecy to avoid the risk of further military conflict in the region, including possible Syrian retaliation against Israel. He said that risk of conflict “was reduced” now.Mr. Bush did not explain why exactly the administration disclosed the information at this point, but the timing coincided with renewed efforts to persuade North Korea to abide by last year’s agreement to acknowledge all of its nuclear activities. The North Korean activities include what administration officials assert are a still undisclosed program to enrich uranium and the sale of nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

“We also wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures, and one would be to the North Koreans to make it abundantly clear that we, we may know more about you than you think,” Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference.

Senior officials have signaled that the administration may accept a less-than-full disclosure, allowing North Korea, for example, not to explain its nuclear cooperation with Syria in the kind of detail that American officials have now done.

In his remarks on Tuesday and at Camp David on April 19, the president appeared to back off such a compromise. He restated his demand that North Korea make “a complete disclosure” about its proliferation and enrichment activities.

More than that President Bush emphasized:

Mr. Bush said that the disclosure of a covert Syrian reactor, which Syria has denied, should persuade other countries to support United Nations Security Council resolutions intended to keep Iran and other countries from developing nuclear arms.“We have an interest in sending a message to Iran and the world for that matter about just how destabilizing a nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East,” he said.

In addition to his comments about the North Korean aid to Syria, the President also added (according to the Washington Post):

Bush avoided criticism of former president Jimmy Carter’s recent talks with Hamas, the radical Palestinian group classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist entity. The United States refuses to engage with Hamas, which Bush said is “undermining peace.”"They’re the ones whose foreign policy objective is the destruction of Israel,” he said. “They’re the ones who are trying to create enough violence to stop the advance of the two-party state solution.”

The President implicitly gives too much credit to Fatah, but it’s correct for him to acknowledge this.

Left unsaid, is that this episode suggests that the “axis of evil” was quite possibly more than just a rhetorical flourish.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Anti-Semitic attacks are up worldwide, and “major” anti-Semitic attacks—ones classifed as severely violent—tripled in the past year. And this time, the world doesn’t have the Lebanon war to blame for their attacks on Jews. It’s just plain old vanilla Jew-hatred, aided and abetted by the media portrayal of Jews and Zionism, with a lot of help from the anti-Semitic United Nations.

A 6.6% rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks has been registered across the world in 2007, a report published on Wednesday by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at the Tel Aviv University revealed.

Furthermore, the number of severe violent attacks rose threefold in 2007.

According to the study, 632 incidents of racially-motivated violence against Jews have been reported in 2007, compared to 593 in 2006. Fifty-seven percent of the attacks in 2007 have been classified as “major attacks” – three times higher than in 2006, when the number of major attacks stood at 19.

The report’s authors noted that the trend of growth in anti-Semitics violence continued last year, despite the absence of a direct “external catalyst” – such as the Second Lebanon war the year before.

Islamophobia is mentioned. I’ll have to read the full report, because this sounds like excuse-making to me:

They further suggested that the rise in major attacks could be linked to internal social and economic tensions in various countries and the consequent rise in Islamophobia.

The vast majority of violent assaults were registered in western and central Europe, where the growing presence of millions of immigrants, including some 20 million Muslims, is a source for constant friction, the report maintained.

And the three countries with the biggest rise in anti-Semitic attacks?

Meanwhile, in Germany, Canada and Britain the number of anti-Semitics assaults in both categories grew in 2007.

The good news: Attacks grew only 6.6%. The bad news: Attacks in 2006 doubled over 2005. I suppose we should be grateful that the growth industry is seeing a severe slowdown. But let’s face it: Attacks on Jews never go out of style. And now, they rarely go reported, except by Jewish organizations.

Condoleeza Rice told U.S. Jews that Palestinian propaganda is working—they’re raising a generation of Palestinians who don’t want peace with Israel. But I don’t think that’s quite the message she was trying to get across.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told an American Jewish audience Tuesday that young Palestinians are losing hope for an agreement with Israel.

“Increasingly, the Palestinians who talk about a two-state solution are my age,” Rice, 53, said in a somber speech to The American Jewish Committee at its 102nd annual meeting.

Insisting that the Bush administration will never yield to dealing with Hamas militants, Rice said, “What you don’t want is that the hopelessness and the vision of the extremists have no counter.”

So it looks like the Palestinan refusal to stop “incitement”—which is another word for raising their children on a steady diet of Jew-hatred in the schools, on TV, and in the homes—is paying big dividends. For the Palestinians, who never truly agreed to live with Israel in the first place.

Qureia said in response that Barak “can say whatever he wants, but the determining factor will be the negotiations and the outcome of the talks.

“On principle, we know what our rights are and will fight for them using all means and ways. We reject any demand, any position, or any Israeli statement regarding territory outside the 1967 borders.”

And that’s just a jumping-off point to the next phase, which is still, in their minds, the elimination of Israel. It’s just that Fatah is a little more subtle about it than Hamas.

And, the administration would have no dealings with Hamas or other Palestinian extremists that war with Israel and refuse to recognize the Jewish state.

“Either you are a political party or a terrorist group,” Rice said. “You cannot be both.”

Yeah, tell that to Fatah. The ones who are boycotting any dignitary that celebrates Israel’s 60th birthday.

Presidents, prime ministers and other dignitaries who attend Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations next month will be shunned by Palestinian leaders if they visit the West Bank.

However, one positive thing came out from Condi: She dissed Jimmah again.

Once again, Rice criticized former President Jimmy Carter for holding talks with Hamas leaders. “I don’t see the point of trying to negotiate with people who are determined to destroy the foundation of peace,” she said.

Look for him to respond petulantly.

Two Orthodox Jewish men were stabbed in fairly rapid succession, yet the British press first called these attacks “random,” and the perpetrator is not being charged with a hate crime. See if you can guess the probable faith of the perpetrator.

A man has been charged following a double knife attack on two Orthodox Jews in Golders Green.

Mohamed Jama Ahmed, 37, of North Circular Road, Cricklewood, was arrested after two stabbings which happened just meters apart in roads off Golders Green Road on Friday.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said the attacks, which happened at around 6pm, appear to have been random and unprovoked, but were not being treated as faith hate crimes.

Officers were alerted to a 47-year-old man in The Drive who was suffering from stab wounds to his arm and chest.

While at the scene, police were informed that a 43-year-old man had been stabbed in nearby Beverley Gardens.

Yes, the attacks were meters apart, and “random and unprovoked,” but the British police—who charged a British television station with race hate for running a program that showed the anti-British, anti-Semitic, and anti-infidel attitudes of radical Islamists in British mosques—can’t seem to bring themselves to discover a faith-based motivation for an attack on two religious Jews. I guess they must have been attacked on the day they didn’t dress as religious Jews. Or maybe the British police are of the opinion that it’s anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism, motivating the attacker.

Here’s another whitewashing:

The 37-year-old was arrested after two men were attacked within minutes of each other in Golders Green, north-west London.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said detectives are keeping an open mind about the stabbings.

But she added that the attacks, which took place on Friday at about 6pm, were not being treated as faith hate crimes.

Amazing how the U.K. simply cannot call an anti-Semitic attack an anti-Semitic attack. No wonder anti-Semitism is on the rise in the U.K.

There’s a new paper in town!

ONE of the Middle East’s wealthiest ruling families has a new asset: The National, a newspaper that promises independence from its royal owners.The paper, an English-language daily based in Abu Dhabi, published its first issue on April 17, under close scrutiny in the Middle East and abroad. With its pledge to emulate Western newspaper standards and to “help society evolve,” The National is an anomaly in the Middle East, where most media are tightly controlled by the government.

“We aim to produce an excellent newspaper out of the region” that will set a new standard for other publications to aspire to, said Hassan M. Fattah, the deputy editor, who was a correspondent for The New York Times in the Middle East before joining The National. “Being government-owned does not equal being government-run,” he said. “There are no ministers sitting in my office” telling the paper what to write.

Western newspaper standards?

The National, which aims at expatriate and local professionals in Abu Dhabi, has published a few articles with criticisms of the region, like one about severely overcrowded private schools, which limit companies’ abilities to attract new people. It has also printed controversial opinion pieces, one asking Arabs to welcome Jewish investors to the region and another warning that Emirate culture is disappearing.

Is encouraging Jewish investment controversial in the West?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

It looks like Shaul Mofaz is openly declaring that the Golan Heights needs to stay exactly as it is right now: Under Israeli control.

Giving Syria the Golan Heights will mean bringing Iran there as well, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said overnight Monday after meeting in Washington with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

[...] “I can only say one thing about that: Due to the fact that there is a strengthening of the radical axis, and Syria is a very central and dominant component of the radical axis, any handover of the Golan Heights to them means Iranians in the Golan Heights.”

“We must take this under consideration, not as a statement that creates headlines, but as an issue that will become very tangible and real,” he added. “Just as today the Iranians have a foothold in southern Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip, they will have one in the Golan Heights.”

Yes.

“This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make peace with the Syrians in the future, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk to the Syrians, but in this reality the Golan Heights is a strategic asset for Israel and handing it over to the Syrians is tantamount to handing it to the Iranians.”

And yes again. Let’s not forget that Syria regularly attacked Israel from the Golan.

From 1948-67, when Syria controlled the Golan Heights, it used the area as a military stronghold from which its troops randomly sniped at Israeli civilians in the Huleh Valley below, forcing children living on kibbutzim to sleep in bomb shelters. In addition, many roads in northern Israel could be crossed only after probing by mine-detection vehicles. In late 1966, a youth was blown to pieces by a mine while playing football near the Lebanon border. In some cases, attacks were carried out by Yasir Arafat’s Fatah, which Syria allowed to operate from its territory.

Israel’s options for countering the Syrian attacks were constrained by the geography of the Heights. “Counterbattery fires were limited by the lack of observation from the Huleh Valley; air attacks were degraded by well-dug-in Syrian positions with strong overhead cover, and a ground attack against the positions…would require major forces with the attendant risks of heavy casualties and severe political repercussions,” U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) Irving Heymont observed.

Israel repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, protested the Syrian bombardments to the UN Mixed Armistice Commission, which was charged with policing the cease-fire. For example, Israel went to the UN in October 1966 to demand a halt to the Fatah attacks. The response from Damascus was defiant. “It is not our duty to stop them, but to encourage and strengthen them,” the Syrian ambassador responded. Nothing was done to stop Syria’s aggression. A mild Security Council resolution expressing “regret” for such incidents was vetoed by the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Israel was condemned by the UN when it retaliated. “As far as the Security Council was officially concerned,” historian Netanel Lorch wrote, “there was an open season for killing Israelis on their own territory.”

After the Six-Day War began, the Syrian air force attempted to bomb oil refineries in Haifa. While Israel was fighting in the Sinai and West Bank, Syrian artillery bombarded Israeli forces in the eastern Galilee, and armored units fired on villages in the Huleh Valley below the Golan Heights.

Sure. Let’s hand the Golan back to Syria. They’ve proven themselves eminently trustworthy. It’s not like they’re trying to build nuclear weapons on the sly or anything like that. Oh, wait. Yes they are.

A suspected Syrian reactor bombed by Israel had the capacity to produce enough nuclear material to fuel one to two weapons a year, CIA Director Michael Hayden said on Monday.

Hayden said the plutonium reactor was within weeks or months of completion when it was destroyed in an air strike last September 6, and within a year of entering operation it could have produced enough material for at least one weapon.

“In the course of a year after they got full up, they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons,” Hayden told reporters after a speech.

And then there’s this spin by the UN:

A diplomat close to the UN nuclear watchdog and outside analysts have said the US disclosure did not amount to proof of an illicit arms program because there was no sign of a reprocessing plant needed to convert spent fuel from the plant into bomb-grade plutonium.

Hm. Can we think of a country that Syria is currently allied with that would have the plant necessary to do the reprocessing once the Syrians had the nuclear fuel? Let’s think. Hm. Starts with “I” and ends with “ran.” That’s right. Iran. The same people who will show up in the Golan Heights if Israel gives it back now.

Shire Network News is up, and I have a piece in this week regarding the Syrian “peace” overtures.

It’s a full house this week; Doug and Damian have commentary as well. Tom’s interview is with Barry Rubin of the GLORIA Center.

Throughout the day Reuters reported:

Israeli fire hit a house in the Gaza Strip on Monday while a family was eating breakfast, killing six Palestinians, including four children and their mother, residents and medical officials said.

Elder of Ziyon and Israelly Cool! followed the story and did a little research over the course of the day and showed that there was some doubt that it was “Israeli fire” that hit the house.

Israelly Cool!:

What I am not seeing in the mainstream media is this version reported in the Jerusalem Post (hat tip: Shy Guy):The Palestinian mother and her four children who were killed Monday during IDF ops in Beit Hanun were not hit by a tank shell but rather were killed when ammunition carried by gunmen exploded, Army Radio quoted an IDF source as saying.

Elder of Ziyon:

After reading the IDF explanation as well as the PCHR preliminary investigation into the deaths of the mother and four daughters this morning, I am convinced that the IDF version is correct - the IDF shot a missile at two terrorists who were outside the Abu Meatak home, and the explosives that at least one was carrying exploded, killing most of the family.

I’d add that Elder of Ziyon did not just rely on the IDF report.

The NY Times managed to acknowledge the Israeli version of the deaths.

The Israelis said they shot a missile from the air that hit two armed men who were carrying heavy explosives, which blew apart the family’s house behind them. Palestinian witnesses said they believed an Israeli tank shell or a missile from a drone flew into the small house, killing the four as they were eating breakfast. Two other children from the same family were badly wounded and hospitalized.

The Washington Post does too:

Israeli military officials said the blast was caused by explosives that the two gunmen were carrying in backpacks. But Gazan medical officials said the Israeli fire had directly struck the one-story, corrugated metal home of the Abu Meiteg family as the children and their mother began to eat breakfast.The children ranged in age from 1 1/2 to 5. The blast also killed a teenager passing by the home, and the Israeli military said he may have been one of the targeted gunmen.

The Post also takes care to acknowledge the sixth death. (Israel claimed to have killed the two gunmen, so the death toll should be seven not six. Or was the teenager double counted.)

The Post also gives some context:

The attack took place in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, a frequent launching area for rockets targeting southern Israel. The Israeli military said 18 rockets and more than a dozen mortar shells were fired from Gaza on Monday, adding to a tally that stands at more than 1,600 for the year. One Israeli home was damaged by the attacks, but they caused no serious injuries.

But Reuters is less a news agency than a mouthpiece for Hamas.

The game is up so what does Reuters report?

Palestinians carry the bodies of four children and their mother during their funeral in the northern Gaza Strip April 28, 2008.

That’s the complete report. Instead of reporting that there was any doubt about the circumstances surrounding their deaths, Reuters doesn’t leave us with any hints that their earlier assertion was mistaken or incomplete.

UPDATE: Crossing the Rubicon points out that Andrew Sullivan is doing all he can to promote Hamas without context too. Utterly irresponsible.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Folks, I dropped my WD portable hard drive. It’s not spinning properly. Best Buy’s Geek Squad thinks it’s pretty much done unless I want to spend over $1500.

I can pretty much recover the data I need for work, but I’m going to lose all of the photos I took since last June, since I’ve been lax transferring them to CDs. That means all of my final Tig photos are gone.

Is there anyone out there who knows of a good data recovery place that might be able to pull the data off for less than I’ve been quoted?

In Pariah Diplomacy, ex-President Jimmy Carter argues that continued boycotting of Hamas is counter-productive.After enthusiastically cheering on the success of Maoists in Nepal, he turns his attention to the Middle East.

The Carter Center had monitored three Palestinian elections, including one for parliamentary seats in January 2006. Hamas had prevailed in several municipal contests, gained a reputation for effective and honest administration and did surprisingly well in the legislative race, displacing the ruling party, Fatah. As victors, Hamas proposed a unity government with Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah as president and offered to give key ministries to Fatah, including that of foreign affairs and finance.Hamas had been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, and the elected Palestinian government was forced to dissolve. Eventually, Hamas gained control of Gaza, and Fatah is “governing” the Israeli-dominated West Bank. Opinion polls show Hamas steadily gaining popularity. Since there can be no peace with Palestinians divided, we at the Carter Center believed it important to explore conditions allowing Hamas to be brought peacefully back into the discussions. (A recent poll of Israelis, who are familiar with this history, showed 64 percent favored direct talks between Israel and Hamas.)

Similarly, Israel cannot gain peace with Syria unless the Golan Heights dispute is resolved. Here again, United States policy is to ostracize the Syrian government and prevent bilateral peace talks, contrary to the desire of high Israeli officials.

Now I’m glad that he brought up his history in observing Palestinian elections. But first let me remind you that his election observing also confirmed the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, despite plenty of evidence that he cheated. Chavez recently added to his self accrued powers, arguing further that Carter was wrong to have certified his election in the first place.

In acknowledging his role in certifying the election of Yasser Arafat in 1996, Carter takes pride in another fixed election that he certified despite evidence of its fraudulence.

And of course now he prides himself on supervising an election that brought Hamas to power.

He argues that it is the refusal to recognize Hamas and Syria that prolongs conflict in the Middle East. Yet he fails to realize that it was giving legitimacy to the likes of Yasser Arafat that has prevented peace in the Middle East. Terror organizations and rogue states don’t become good actors through elections or any other phony attempt to play down their mischief.

After all these years he still doesn’t get it. He is a living example of the self-deluded Westerner. (via memeorandum)
UPDATE: There’s less to Carter’s little factoid about 64% of Israelis supporting talks with Hamas than meets the eye. His dishonest presentation - including his continued denial of being warned away from Meshaal by Sec. Rice - should remind all readers of Carter’s own history. It’s not one of candor.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

When you, an avid reader of Jerusalem Post, go through another editorial by Caroline Glick (to take one, but outstanding, example), the customary feeling of gloom and doom sinks its talons into your sensitive soul. It makes your morning pita taste just the same as that highly hygienic sliced white bread you get from a plastic bag. Syrians are already climbing the fence, Hezbollah is horribly bemissiled, Hamas is finishing a burrow to get to the Prime Minister’s office and Mahmoud the Mad is priming the warhead on the doomsday machine.

If you read it here in Israel, your pita still retains a bit of its taste. After all, we all know that our Caroline is, how to say it gently, a bit too overexcited. Just because a certain knight in his slightly tattered armor has not yet unseated that weasel who somehow insinuated himself in the PM’s chair and who doesn’t show any signs of getting off. Anyhow, we understand her bitterness.

But if you are Jooish abroad, your pita’s taste is definitely off. Your day is destroyed, your digestion is ruined and, short of running to the airport to take the first flight to Ben Gurion and start saving us the moment you step of the plane, a fat check to AJC or JNF is your only recourse to some semblance of healing.

And if you are a non-Jooish sympathizer, you just wonder what keeps IDF from tearing all these vicious enemies to bits in one mighty swoop. And your conclusion is that these commie peaceniks at the helm are too impotent to do anything useful and thus condemn the country to speedy demise.

Well, I think that there is something in the way of relief. It is not that Syrians don’t have a look now and then at the fence or that Hezbollah is not horribly bemissiled. It is just that we need to step back from the hype from time to time to get some sense of proportion. Which is hard to do if you are an avid reader… but this is how I have started this post. In any case, the article Israel Is Strong - Really by professor Barry Rubin of GLORIA Center does exactly this.

Let’s face it: after almost 2,000 years in exile and only 60 years of Israel as a sovereign nation, it still feels funny for Jews, especially those outside of Israel, to have a state.

That, along with other factors, makes it easy to underestimate Israel’s success and security. However, though at first glance it might seem counter-intuitive to say so, Israel today is stronger, more secure and in a better strategic position than at just about any time in its history.

Read the whole article before you go for that pita. And Bon Appetit!

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

The New York Times reported on the Toronto transit strike, Iran vs. Barbie, and a dispute about Champagne.The Times even reported that Khaled Meshaal acknowledged that a truce with Israel is nothing more than a “tactic.” (As if you would expect anything else from a group that increases terror when it says its asking for peace.)

In the course of the report, the AP observes that:

The Egyptian deal would also include a prisoner swap and the reopening of Gaza’s border crossings. The territory has been virtually sealed by Israel and Egypt since Hamas violently seized control from the rival Palestinian faction Fatah last June.

Somehow the Times missed that Hamas disrupts fuel supplies to Gaza:

Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip on Sunday attacked fuel trucks headed toward the Nahal Oz border crossing, forcing them to turn back, sources in the Palestinian Petroleum Authority said.The fuel was supposed to go to the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the sources said.

“Dozens of Hamas militiamen hurled stones and opened fire at the trucks,” the sources added. “The trucks were on their way to receive fuel supplied by Israel. The drivers were forced to turn back. Some of them had their windshields smashed.”

The Palestinian Petroleum Authority reached an agreement with Israel over the weekend to receive 250,000 liters of fuel after UNRWA complained that it did not have enough fuel to distribute food aid to more than 500,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

(via memeorandum)

Somehow the Times neglected to report that “Hamas kept the border ‘virtually sealed.’”

(My complaint isn’t just with the NY Times. The Washington Post didn’t seem to carry the story either.)

Then again I suppose that the Times is governed by a maxim of “All the news that UNRWA sees fit to print.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Shaul Mofaz, the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, said what Ehud Olmert has not yet said publicly: That Syria can forget about the Golan Heights or a peace treaty until it stops working with the enemies of Israel.

“Syria is entangled up to its neck with aiding Hizbullah and other terror groups like Hamas. Now it must decide, does it want to continue to allow Iran to lead it by the nose or does it want to abandon the axis of evil,” he said.

This is my favorite quote:

“We must ensure our moves regarding Syria are measured, very level-headed and very very responsible. I am not interested in issuing labels for (Syrian President Bashar) Assad – whether I believe him or not – but his strategic decision was to side with Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah. And that speaks volumes.”

I’m thinking Mofaz is the unnamed “high-ranking official” that’s been quoted saying much the same thing in recent news articles. It’s good to know that Olmert has some people with sense working for him.

So now I’ve had Tig3.0 for just over a week, and he’s already become a huge part of my life. He makes it a lot more difficult to work in my office. I’ve had to escape him by moving to the laptop downstairs for significant chunks of time. But it’s the only way to keep myself from getting accidentally mauled by a kitten who is too small to jump into my lap, but instead, leaps most of the way, digs in his claws, and climbs the remaining distance. My legs are simply covered with scratches. I will be unable to shave my legs for at least a week without requiring a blood transfusion afterward. Worse still, I’m allergic to my new kitten. I’m told it will take about two weeks for me to get acclimated to the new cat in my house, but in the meantime, I wash my hands a dozen times a day and try very hard not to scratch itchy eyes while I’m in my office.

We’re in the discovery phase. I tend to try cheap, ready-to-hand cat toys first, like rope (string is anathema; cats eat it—quarter-inch rope is a great toy) and paper wads. He loves them both. But I also found Tig and Gracie’s old stash of toys. They didn’t really play with them anymore, except for the metal chains (keychain-type chains), which happen to be Gracie’s all-time favorite toy, but which she likes to drag around at inconvenient hours of the day and night. I am a light sleeper. Cat toys that make any kind of noise have been banned from my home for decades. Anything with bells on will not be purchased; if received as gift, the bell is removed. And really: What non-cat-owning moron ever thought up putting noisy things on cat toys, anyway? Bells on collars? Please.

I bought a few cat toys while shopping last week. I have four soft sponge balls that Tig loves. And I have a poofy thing on a spring that he attacks sometimes. He liked it fine until he discovered things that really move across the floor, like the paper wads or ping pong balls (found those in Tig’s toy stash, too). He’s running around like a mad thing right now as I write this, going after a paper wad and picking it up in his little kitten mouth and trotting with it three feet then dropping, hopping, and attacking. Sometimes he plays quite happily by himself, requiring only my presence in the room. Sometimes he needs to attack me. I wear my winter boot-style slippers now to prevent slashes on my feet, and my thickest pair of jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. I’m a living cat toy, apparently. My role in life has changed. I am also a cat-sitter. Tig is still confined to my office (Gracie is now boycotting the upstairs; I’m not sure what to do next), so when he yowls, I take a look inside and sit with him if I have the time. That’s all he wants, half the time—my presence in the room. Things will be much better when he has the run of the house. But I’m off to northern VA tomorrow, so there’s no point in letting him out for another few days.

Yesterday, Tig was introduced to the laser pointer. He loved it so much that he literally cried when I turned it off. I had to turn it back on and let him down gently. He ran around the room looking for it, even leaping at the hole in the wall for the cable that a previous tenant left. Today, I tried to see if I could get him to run in a figure eight with it. I didn’t close the eight, quite. Next time, maybe.

It is a rare thing when we actually get exactly what we want. I wanted a Maine Coon kitten mix that looked like my last Tig. I wanted a sweet, affectionate, goofy boy that would make me laugh, and bond to me the way that Tig bonded to me. I had resigned myself to not getting anything near what I wanted and was going to settle for a young adult orange Maine Coon. And now, running around my feet chasing a rolled-up piece of paper, is exactly what I wanted. Even moreso. Tig3.0 gives kisses. His predecessor did not. Right now, of course, every time Tig3 licks my chin he’s also giving me exactly what I’m allergic to: A huge dose of kitty saliva, which carries the allergens inside it. He’s injecting me with his venom, I tell Sarah. But then again, it’s helping me build up the antibodies even while it makes my chin itch.

My home is happy again. I have a Tig that makes me laugh, every day, just like I had for the past eleven years. Yesterday, while talking to Sarah on the phone, Tig leaped off my computer backpack into a spot between the box next to it and the wall. There was nowhere to go, so there was just a kitten-butt and tail sticking out of the hole, waving around while Tig mewed and tried to figure out what to do next. He finally backed out of the hole and went running around playing somewhere else. It took me a minute or two to stop laughing long enough to tell Sarah what I was laughing at.

Yes, I got what I wanted. Here’s hoping for two more decades of Tig.

Yes, this is a real headline:

Poop Predicament Has Los Angeles Horse Owners Raising a Stink

And it goes with an exclusive article on Bloomberg News:

April 25 (Bloomberg) — The poop hit the fan when the last manure mulcher in Los Angeles closed shop.

The price of poop disposal is breaking the budgets of Los Angeles horse owners, as stable owners pass along the expense of taking horse droppings to landfills.

“The cost to get rid of this stuff has just skyrocketed,” said Royan Herman, 65, who runs the Peacock Hill and J-Bar Ranch stables in the San Fernando Valley with her husband, Mark. “A lot of young families aren’t able to afford a horse anymore.”

You’ll simply have to click the link to find the fascinating details about the Los Angeles horse manure problem. Me, I’m just glad that my little pooper weighs in at two pounds (so far), and deposits his waste products in a litterbox.

Rocket attacks on Israel have increased in the last couple of days. What do you want to bet they’ve done so because Hamas is trying to force Israel into agreeing to that bogus truce?

A Qassam rocket fired from northern Gaza landed at the Sderot cemetery Sunday afternoon. Another rocket landed near a house in town, causing substantial damage to the building. Gas tanks nearby caught fire as a result of the rocket’s explosion.

Fortunately, the house’s residents were not there at the time of the attack.

A rocket fired from northern Gaza earlier Sunday landed near the local garage in a kibbutz south of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported in the attack.

On Saturday, a Qassam rocket landed in an open field in the Sdot Negev Regional Council, causing no injuries or damage.

Four rockets were fired at Ashkelon on Friday morning, one of then landing in the city’s southern cemetery. Dozens of graves were damaged.

There was also a katyusha rocket attack on Ashkelon.

Palestinian terrorists fired a rocket towards Ashkelon Sunday morning, Israel Radio reported.

The rocket, likely a Grad type Katyusha, exploded before landing but caused serious damage to a garage in the city’s industrial zone. No one was hurt in the attack.

It astonishes me that Israel is under near-daily rocket attacks, and the world does nothing. Yet when the IDF goes into Gaza—as it will, this summer—to stop the rocket attacks, the world will rise up as one and condemn the country that is suffering from the rocket attacks.

Yes, it’s a day that ends with a “y,” so this means it’s Israeli Double Standard Time.

There were also more mortar attacks.

The World Bank issued a report today that effectively states the Israeli blockade of Hamas is working, but that Israel should lift the blockade, because it’s working.

Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.

The lending agency told donor nations in a report that per capita income in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2008 would be static, if not lower, despite the $7.7 billion in aid pledged to the Palestinians in December.

Notice where the aid is actually working:

The World Bank said modest gains in economic growth in the occupied West Bank, where western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas’ government holds sway, were not sufficient to offset the “severe contraction” seen in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Okay, so let’s parse this information. Fire rockets into Israel, launch terrorist attacks, murder Israelis, and your income level goes down. (Bear with me, we’re going to pretend that Fatah and the PA aren’t actively working for Israel’s demise, which is partly true because they’re rather weak at the moment). Don’t do the above, and your income level does not go down. Of course, that isn’t good enough for the World bank. They want Israel to let the Fatah terrorists have as free a hand to kill Israelis as Hamas lets the ones in Gaza.

“While the PA (Palestinian Authority) has moved ahead with its economic reforms, albeit slowly, there has been little progress on relaxing movement and access constraints,” the bank said in the report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

The World Bank said the impact of these restrictions, including hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, “cannot be overestimated.”

Yes, it can. Because the world thinks that if Israel removes the roadblocks, peace will suddenly spring up, in spite of the constant spate of attacks in and from the West Bank. The opposite has proven true: When Israel removes checkpoints, Israelis die.

To recap: The Gaza blockade, which everyone from Jimmy Carter to most media services to most (anti-)Israel pundits say cannot possibly work is … working. And it’s working well enough that Hamas is suing for a “truce” so they can regroup, re-arm, and attack Israel with greater strength later on.

The only conclusion I can take from this report is that the World Bank simply does not give a damn about Israeli deaths. No matter what, they are working for the Palestinian interests, even if those interests harm Israeli. Because really, what other conclusion can you reach when the IMF complains that a blockade that was put into effect to starve out a terrorist government is doing its job?

I get a lot of comments that never get approved because, well, I don’t believe in publishing hate on my blog.

But then sometimes, I get an email that makes me smile for the rest of the day.

I know the article of Black and Jewish relations is two years old, but I just came across it today. I just wanted to say thank you for telling the truth. I believe Jews and Blacks have a lot in common and I am fascinated and inspired by the diversity of the Jewish culture(s) in and outside of America.

Again, thank you for your insightful article.

Happy Passover
Steffannie

Steffannie, thank you.

My Christian readers will really appreciate that MySpace link. Steffannie writes and sings Christian music, and she has a wonderful voice. Check her out.

It’s gotten to the point where Hamas doesn’t even have to pretend that they’re possibly, maybe, kinda sorta if the right offer came along ready to deal with Israel. Not that they ever really did—it’s just that the media generally don’t publish the truth about Hamas as openly as this AP piece has done.

And by the way, color me shocked. I had to reread the source a dozen times to believe it.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said Saturday that the group would accept an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire with Israel but it would be a “tactic” In the group’s struggle with the Jewish state.

The Damascus-based Mashaal said in an interview with al-Jazeera television that Egypt had proposed a six-month truce between the Hamas rulers of Gaza and Israel. He said his group was ready to cooperate but added: “It is a tactic in conducting the struggle. … It is normal for any resistance that operates in its people’s interest … to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit…the battle is to be run this way and Hamas is known for that,” he said. “In 2003, there was a cease-fire and then the operations were resumed.”

In other words, just as Israel has said, the Hamas truce is only so that Hamas can regroup and rebuild its army of terrorists. For some reason, this line is missing from the Ynet article. (It’s the third graf in the plain AP version. The Times also saw fit to change the quotes above, taking some direct quotes out of the quotes and making them seem like paraphrases.)

He warned of an explosion of violence in Gaza if Israel rejected the truce.

However, the Ynet version uses other information from previous Ynet articles that gives you far more background on Hamas’ deception.

Earlier Saturday, Mashaal said that Hamas is still waiting for Israel’s official response to the group’s sixtruce offer. During a press conference in Qatar, Mashaal said he had asked for a written commitment from Israel to open all of Gaza’s border crossings, including the one at Rafah.

Hamas Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told London’s Al-Quds Al-Arabi that if a truce is not reached the region could see unprecedented violence.

Gee, you mean like the bloody spring of 2002, where Israel suffered multiple terrorist attacks—including multiple suicide bombings—on a daily basis?

On Thursday Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar called a press conference following his meeting with the head of intelligence in Egypt, in which he declared that Hamas would offer a six-month truce in exchange for the opening of all border crossings. “The ball is in Israel’s court now,” he said.

Yes, and on Wednesday, I called the truce offer bogus. And every other time Hamas has offered a “truce,” I’ve called bullshit on it. The only ones who seem to think that Hamas really means it are idiots like Jimmy Carter and the UN. And this is in spite of all proof to the contrary.

I’d love to hear what Carter has to say about Hamas openly admitting that the only reason they want a truce for six months is so they can continue fighting Israel six months from now. That’s some major spin he’s going to have to do to convince us that Hamas is interested at all in peace with Israel. Because his spin on his talks with Hamas was as follows:

“It’s very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians,” Carter said in an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.”

“There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process,” Carter added. “I think someone should be meeting with Hamas to see what we can do to encourage them to be cooperative and to find out what their attitude.”

Their point of view is simple: They want to destroy Israel. Now that they’ve come out and admitted it again, do you think Carter will stop blaming Israel for the lack of peace with the terrorists in Hamas?

Yeah, me neither. But perhaps there’s hope for the AP, after all.

You know, I just can’t write about this crap today. I mean, Hamas is pulling its usual bullshit line of “Israel must accede to our truce demands or we’ll kill even more Israelis because they didn’t.” The MSM will be pushing the line that Israel is refusing the “truce” being offered, knowing full well it’s only because Hamas wants to re-arm and regroup and come back stronger in six months. We even have word now that Hamas is trying to develop exploding drones. Lovely. Let’s absolutely give them six more months to develop more weapons against Israel. Because it’s not like Iran is subsidizing their weapons research. Oh, wait. It is.

The Egyptian authorities are investigating the possibility that Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are cooperating on the development of explosive drones, state-run Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram reported Saturday.

The AP continues its anti-Israel bias with headlines and stories that emphasize all Palestinian casualties and de-emphasize any Israeli casualties. A quick headline comparison:

1 Palestinian killed in clashes with Israeli troops in Gaza

Israeli military says 2 Israelis dead in shooting

Uh-huh. No anti-Israel bias. Not at all.

Every so often, people ask me in email how I can keep writing this stuff, day after day, time after time, with no end in sight, and no changes on the horizon. Well, sometimes you just have to take a dandelion break.

That’s Opus’. Here’s mine.

via memeorandum

Israel Matzav noted that PM Olmert has apparently gone even beyond Ehud Barak’s generous concessions to Syria and promised Bashar Assad the complete Golan even up to the Kinneret.

But my question is why now? Why would Olmert extend a lifeline to Assad at this point?

It’s just been revealed the Syrians were re-arming Hezbollah. The United States is just revealing more evidence that the site Israel hit in Syria was a nuclear reactor. In other words it’s time to be pressuring Syria not giving into its demands.

Of course this wouldn’t be the first time that Israel has strengthened an enemy at a critical time. In 1993 Israel rescued Arafat from political oblivion with Oslo. In 2000 Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon allowing Hezbollah to bolster its power and leading to the 2006 war. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza after killing the leaders of Hamas, giving Hamas a platform to regroup and intensify its war against Israel.

Past experience says this isn’t the time to concede anything to Syria.

Yesterday the NYT reported that Israel and Syria hint at progress on Golan deal:

Peace overtures between Israel and Syria moved up a gear on Wednesday when a Syrian cabinet minister said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel had sent a message to President Bashar al-Assad to the effect that Israel would be willing to withdraw from all the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria.The Syrian expatriate affairs minister, Buthaina Shaaban, told Al Jazeera television, “Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of international conditions; on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights in full to Syria.” She said that Turkey had conveyed the message.

Israeli officials did not deny the statement from Damascus but would not confirm it either, offering a more general, positive reaction. “Israel wants peace with Syria; we are interested in a negotiated process,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Olmert. “The Syrians know well our expectations, and we know well their expectations.”

The Washington Post today gives some background of past efforts:

Syria and Israel last held direct peace talks in 2000. The negotiations, mediated by President Clinton in the waning days of his administration, foundered over how much authority Syria would have over the coast along the Sea of Galilee.

It’s also worth pointing out that Assad insisted that Israel agree to his terms of withdrawal before negotiating with Israel. This is the reason Assad didn’t make peace with Israel.

Elliott Jager notes that Assad the younger isn’t likely to be welcoming Israel with open arms even if he gets all he (and his father) demand up front:

WHATEVER HIS motivations, Israel should judge Assad by what he says and what he does. Assad insists that even under a peace treaty normalization is out of the question. This is how he put it at a conference in Damascus last week: “Restoration of land and rights may lead to relations based on routine, but not [necessarily] normalization. What happened in Jordan and Egypt is proof to us that the public does not want normalization, and therefore nobody can impose it on anybody else. I know that the Syrian people reject normalization and therefore I will not impose it on them.”

Still that doesn’t stop Ha’aretz from enthusiastically supporting the surrender of the Golan in Don’t be afraid of Peace with Syria. (I won’t call it peace, because I don’t believe that the withdrawal from the Golan will bring peace.)

There seems to be a need to repeat, over and over, this basic fact: Nothing contributes to Israel’s security more than a peace accord. Before the protests of solidarity with the Golan Heights begin, it should be emphasized that withdrawal from the Golan in exchange for peace is endorsed not only by bleeding hearts, but by distinctly security-minded figures. The supporters of the Golan are West Bank settlers, like Golan resident Effi Eitam, who see any withdrawal as a national catastrophe; parties that gain strength by sowing security-related fears, such as Israel Beiteinu; those with economic interests in the region, hikers, bird-watchers, wine connoisseurs and winemakers; and mainly the people of the past, who still consider the lookout point on Mount Hermon to be “Israel’s eyes,” even though those eyes did not prove a very effective source of warning in 1973. Today, neither advance warning nor deterrence rely on the “Alpinists” (the elite IDF unit trained for snow operations), and the missile war expected in the future is not affected by natural boundaries, whether of the flowing or the ascending kind.

Of course it could be argued that Israel hasn’t come to a hot war with Syria since 1967 while it held the Golan. Also, why need peace come only on Syria’s terms? Why can’t Israel obtain peace for half the Golan? Surely if Assad would agree to a compromise that would be a better indication of peace than if Israel meets his unconditional demands, wouldn’t it?
Here’s Jager again:

It is in Israel’s long-term interest to have a peace treaty with Syria, but not at any price. Israel would have to make irrevocable strategic concessions. So it’s hard to imagine many Israelis having the confidence to support a deal that does not signify a true opening of genuine peaceful relations.

That’s the subtlety Ha’aretz and like minded folks miss. Syria views talking peace only in terms of what it will receive. So Assad and his lackeys can say “peace,” but don’t mean peace in any meaningful sense of the word. They want territory, and they’ll deign to accept that territory from Israel.

By insisting that ceding territory is the same thing as achieving peace, Ha’aretz accepts Syria’s “peace” talk at face value. It is a view that unhelpfully echoes through the diplomatic world. But it puts Israel at a disadvantage. Israel then in the name of “peace” is required to cede real assets in return for nebulous future considerations. It requires an element of trust that Bashar Assad, in his recent activities, has contradicted.

If people want peace, there needs to be a demonstrated change of heart from Damascus. Ceding the Golan Heights by itself won’t bring peace, unless one defines peace simply as the acceptance of land by a hostile country.

Meryl offers