I got a call from Sarah yesterday asking “Do you have plans for tonight?”

That’s usually followed by a request to help shepherd children around to their various schedules, often caused by her husband being out of town or extremely busy with work, or even with Sarah heading out for a dog show. Well, I had no plans, except I was going to work a few extra hours tonight to make up for the sick time earlier this week, but hey—the kids come first. And I have until April 15th to make up the time.

The conflict was T-ball and baseball. The twins had a T-ball game early, and Jake had a game that started around 7:30, which ends way too late for six-year-olds. Sarah had kept the kids up late the previous night, and figured she’d ask me to choose between staying with Jake and bringing him home, or babysitting the twins and Nate. It’s allergy season. I chose the latter.

The kids were really excited about riding in the Jeep. It was very tempting to take the windows out, what with it being in the high seventies here yesterday, but the prospect of putting them back in the following day because it’s supposed to rain made me hesitate. The onset of Green Dust Season tipped the scales. Even so, the kids were thrilled. Max told me that he never rode in my Jeep, ever. “Yes you did,” I told him. “A few times.” “Oh.” That’s one of my favorite responses from a child. They live in the present, always. The past? What’s that? It happens with my students all the time, too, and when I remind them of something that happened, oh, half an hour before, their response is always, “Oh.”

So we got the carseats and put them in the back, and I turned off the airbag in the front passenger seat so Nate could ride in it without fear of exploding balloons crushing his head. (Mind you, I didn’t explain it like that. Just turned it off. Jeeps have a key switch for that, which is great.) But he made sure I had turned it off before I started the car. I notice both he and his brother want absolute assurance that the airbag is not going to leap out of the dashboard and attack them.

We drove home with the radio playing. Nate knew the first three artists and songs. Conversation went something like this, “Do you know the Foo Fighters?” “Yes, I do.” “Do you like this song?” “Yes, I do.” “Oh, I love this song. Do you like this song?” “Yes, I do.” I tried to blast the music, but Max is a very particular young man. He has his rules and regulations, and music can only be so loud before it disturbs his world. So instead, I taught Nate how to headbang on the way home. He liked it. Did it really well, especially as his hair’s rather moptopped right now. And the final song of the day was unrecognizable to Nate. “I don’t know this one.” “Give me a minute… wait… Oh, that’s Metallica. Unforgiven.” “I like this song. Do you like it?” “Yes.” “They’re a hard rock band.” “They’re a metal band, Nate.”

(And by the way, nine-year-olds like to notice exactly how fast you are going, and tell you so. Then they like to tell you what the speed limit is. And repeat how fast you are going. I could not, of course, mutter imprecations or even assure him that 50 mph on a 45 mph road is not a big deal. I could only slow down to the stated speed limit, after which he stopped pointing out how fast I was going, until we got to the 50 mph section of the road, when I pointed out to him that I was doing the legal limit.)

Home, snack, a little TV before bedtime, then vitamins, brush teeth, get into jammies, go to bed. Not too much struggle, for a change. Except while Nate and I were doing his spelling homework, Rebecca came out of her room. “Aunt Meryl,” she said,” there’s a bug in my room.” We go and look. She points to the light on the ceiling. There is an enormous brown wasp on it. “Holy crap!” I said, “Rebecca, come out of the room.” On the phone to Sarah, ask for bug spray. None in the house. Put Rebecca in Mommy and Daddy’s bed and Sarah will take care of it when she gets home. Works for me. I am not good with flying, stinging insects. Sarah told me it was one of the wasps that don’t sting you unless you piss it off, but I was just fine waiting for her to take care of it. (She wrapped it up in a paper towel when she got home, and then released it outside. Showoff.)

I put Rebecca on the phone with Sarah, as she was just about in tears over the Horrible Bug Event. Then, I had to put Max on, because he always needs to know what’s going on. Settled them back down, finished working on Nate’s homework, and he and I spent a few minutes chatting before I sent him off to bed. They are much, much easier to watch now than the first time I sat for the kids, some years ago. I’m not exactly sure when, but I know it was post-diapers for the twins. I don’t generally babysit children in diapers. It’s a rule of mine, broken so far only for my nephew, who is now seventeen. And what a patient child he was, fifteen years ago, waiting for Aunt Meryl to figure out which part of the diaper was the front, and which was the back. I got it wrong. Had to turn it around. He was patient about that, too.

Ah, well. I had a pleasant evening. Jake stayed up talking with Sarah and me for about a half hour after they got home, and we woke Nate up laughing at the Best! Game! Ever! video over at Teeny Manolo. (It’s Improv Everywhere showing up at a Little League game and playing it up like it’s a major league broadcast, go watch and laugh.) Then it was time for Aunt Meryl to go home. Until the next request, anyway.

The UN peacekeepers along the Israel-Lebanon border have hit upon the perfect plan to stop border infiltration by terrorists.

They’re laying barbed wire.

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon began on Friday erecting a barbed-wire fence along the border with Israel to prevent breaches of the “Blue Line” aimed at keeping peace between the two neighbours.

“UNIFIL soldiers began laying the barbed-wire fence in the area north of the (border) village of Ghajar,” Yasmina Bouziane, spokeswoman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, said.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Yeah, barbed wire. That’ll stop Hezbullah from ever invading Israel again. Uh-huh. Sure.

Next up: “Danger! Keep Out!” signs.

Get out the hankies for this one.

Gift from America: Eight-year-old Osher Twito, who sustained serious wounds and lost his leg two months ago after being hit by a Qassam rocket, will be able to move around more easily now that he received a surprise gift from an evangelical group.

The Christian group, Hugs for Israel, provided Twito with an electric all-terrain vehicle. Group members wanted Osher to feel that he is one of the strongest kids in his neighborhood andshow others that he is moving on with his life, the group’s founder and president, Brenda Giles, told Ynet Thursday.

Giles, who lives both in Israel and in the United States, said that she turned to various Israel supporters after hearing about the injuries sustained by Osher and his older brother Rami. One of the people approached provided a donation that allowed the group to purchase the gift for Osher, she said.

You can wonder (and to be honest, I do) whether some Evangelicals support Israel only in the hopes of the end times. But you can’t deny that this was a wonderful gift to a boy in need, brought by a woman with a loving heart. I’m thinking the only thing on her mind was the needs of a boy who lost his leg.

There’s a picture at the link.

via memeorandum

AFP reports on yesterday’s violence on the border with Gaza.

Two Israeli civilians and seven Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in an explosion of violence on the Gaza Strip border after Palestinian commandos stormed into Israel.The attack came after early morning fighting left an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian gunman dead, shattering a month-long lull that followed a bloody Israeli blitz on Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire.

The Israeli army said Palestinian fighters, under cover of mortar fire, breached the border near the Nahal Oz terminal that provides Gaza with its fuel supplies, and moved into Israel.

The militants shot dead two Israelis working at the terminal in what the army called a “failed abduction attempt.”

The report notes that Islamic Jihad and two other groups took “credit” for the attack but that Israel holds Hamas accountable. The logistics necessary to carry out this kind of attack were probably significant enough that the authorities would have to have been aware of the planning. Of course, since the authorities are also terrorists, they had no reason to prevent the attack.

And this would be a breach of the “lull” or “ceasefire” or whatever you want to call it. Unless mortars and qassams are considered breaches. So I guess this qualifies as an escalation, though it’s not one that can be pinned on Israel, unless one blames Israel for responding.

Michael Goldfarb takes the obvious lesson from the continued violence from Gaza and applies it to Iraq:

Israel withdrew unilaterally, ended the occupation of Gaza, and a terrorist group took over the territory. The result is cross-border violence. The same thing happened after the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. So tell me again how unilateral withdrawal from Iraq will lead to a different result? Granted AQI won’t be able to run across the border to kill Americans, but there is no doubt that terrorists can strike from a great distance when they are allowed to plot and train unmolested.

Last week we saw pictures of Gaza with gas stations that were out of fuel and read that Gazans were protesting Israel’s restriction on allowing gas into Gaza.

Taxi drivers queue outside a petrol station in Gaza April 7, 2008, as they wait to fill their cars with fuel. Owners of petrol stations in Gaza said on Monday that they have ran out of fuel as Israel has not allowed fuel to be supplied to Gaza everyday.

Yesterday it was the transfer point of gas into Gaza that was attacked. If Hamas doesn’t care enough about Gaza’s gas supplies to prevent this attack, why should anyone care if Israel chooses to deny Gaza the resource it needs to run and that, in effect, allows terrorist to attack Israel?

UPDATE:
Boker Tov Boulder blasts AFP for grouping all the fatalities together instead of emphasizing that the initial attack killed two Israeli civilians. The picture she mentions of a “militant” going to a funeral shows a guy with a Kalashnikov. Most funeral I’ve attended haven’t had folks show up sporting assault rifles.

Perhaps she should have saved some of her outrage for the Washington Post for it’s disgraceful headline: Gaza Fighters Attack Fuel Depot Inside Israel

Fighters?!?! At least use the somewhat judgmental term “militants.” (Yes, I know that they are terrorists, but no way the Post headline writer would use that term.)

Anyway the reporting here isn’t bad. In particular:

A Hamas spokesman denied the group had been involved in the Nahal Oz attack, but lauded it as courageous and vowed further strikes.Despite the denial, Israel said it blamed Hamas, which has controlled the territory since it seized sole power 10 months ago. The armed Islamist group won Palestinian elections in 2006 but failed to maintain a power-sharing arrangement with the rival Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and has strong support in the West Bank.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Hamas would “bear the consequences” for the attack, which spokesman Arye Mekel said was proof that the group “really doesn’t care for its own people.”

“This is the same group that was complaining we were not sending enough fuel. Now that we’re sending enough, they try to blow the place up,” Mekel said.

This is exactly the way the attack should be viewed.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The New York Times reports that Hamas is currently engaged in its largest weapons buildup ever, thanks to Iranian arms, money, and training. Hamas’ goal? The bombardment of Israel.

An Israeli study says Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, is engaged in the broadest and most significant military buildup in its history with help from Syria and Iran. It adds that Hamas is restructuring more hierarchically and using more and more powerful weapons, especially longer-range rockets against Israel’s southern communities.

The study, by an independent research group with close ties to the Israeli military establishment, says that though the buildup will take some years to complete, it is in an intensive phase that has already led to better infiltration into Israel and a rise in the breadth and precision of rocket fire.

In spite of evidence like this that Hamas has absolutely no intention of maintaining any kind of real peace with Israel, Jimmy Carter is plowing ahead in his determination to be the first world leader ever to sit down with terrorists who openly and unashamedly admit they want to destroy the Jewish State. The Washington Post spins this decision as a “political bind” for the Democratic candidates, neither of whom are condemning Carter.

Both Clinton and Obama issued statements with milder language, saying they “disagreed” or did “not agree” with Carter’s plans.

The WaPo also points out that Carter has finally noticed Jews are starting to bail on him over his constant anti-Israel drumbeat. As ever, though, Carter is being his usual mendacious self about the issue:

Indeed, a source close to Carter said that the former president favors Obama but that he has decided not to endorse Obama publicly or formally because he fears it would contribute to hostility toward Obama among Jewish Democrats.

And the WaPo carries the party line that isolating Hamas hasn’t accomplished anything, and brings out the tired old guns of the Carter Administration—the ones who blew it on Iran and Russia—to bolster their assertions that these men could be right about anything.

However, Carter’s trip would also come at a time when a growing number of experts in the United States and Israel have argued that isolating Hamas is not productive. A poll published in February in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that 64 percent of Israelis favor direct talks with Hamas. Both Efraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad spy agency, and Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former foreign minister, say Hamas can no longer be ignored.

A bipartisan group of foreign-policy luminaries, including former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, issued a statement before the Annapolis peace talks sponsored by the administration in November that said “we believe a genuine dialogue with the organization [Hamas] is far preferable to its isolation.”

That poll of Israelis, by the way, was deconstructed by Soccer Dad and found to be rigged. When presented with either talking to Hamas, or defeating them militarily, Israelis choose the latter. Most Israelis do not support talking with a terrorist group sworn to their destruction. Just as most Americans would not support negotiating with Al Qaeda.

And there is, of course, the inevitable result of the “peace” talks: Hamas will use the period of calm to continue its military buildup, just as Hezbollah did in Lebanon, until they feel ready to attack Israel. And on that day, count on at least a three-front attack.

A senior Israeli official in the prime minister’s office, who agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, said that what he took from the report was that when there was relative quiet in Gaza, Israel ran the risk of playing into Hamas’s hands by allowing it to continue its military buildup.

[...] It also says the military buildup is being run largely from Damascus, where Hamas has a base, because there is better access there to Syrian and Iranian money and weapons. Nonetheless, it says, political power within Hamas is increasingly moving to the Gaza Strip.

One focus of the study is the improved nature of the rockets available in Gaza as a result of smuggling through Egypt and dozens of underground tunnels leading from Egypt into Gaza. The report does not accuse Egypt of cooperating in the smuggling, only of ineffectiveness in stopping it.

I wrote weeks ago about the increase in missile strikes and deaths by Hamas rockets. I just didn’t know the extent of the Iranian military training. However, it’s not really hard to find out about the military buildup, not when even the New York Times is running articles about it.

And still, Jimmy Carter is going to sit down and have tea with the man responsible for the mass murder of Jews in Israel and without. Carter’s ego, and his ability to ignore or belittle the negative connotations of recognizing a terror leader such as Mashaal, will allow him to insist that he is right, and the critics are wrong, when it is pointed out that his actions will be a propaganda coup like the terrorist world hasn’t seen since—Bill Clinton got Yasser Arafat to shake hands Yitzhak Rabin. And gee, how well that turned out.

Next on Carter’s agenda: Dinner with Ahmadinejad. Count on it.

via memeorandum

Lee Smith in TNR argues that talking with the bad guys isn’t a cost free exercise.

So, it was not doctrinaire anti-diplomatic tendencies that led the Bush administration to curtail relations with Syria. The administration’s outreach had done nothing to alter Syria’s behavior, and to keep talking would merely demoralize anxious American allies in Lebanon, which has become one of the U.S.’s most valuable assets. Not only has Lebanon been a key venue for taking on Iran by facing down its proxy, Hezbollah, but the pro-Western government there led by Christians, Druze, and moderate Sunnis represented precisely the sort of Middle East the administration’s democracy advocates had envisioned. An Obama White House may have no interest in “regional transformation,” but the delicate diplomacy required to support Lebanon still represents an almost insurmountable barrier if it chooses the road to Damascus.

The short version at Betsy’s Page:

What Asad wants is not acceptable. So how is Obama going to engage in a helpful dialog with Syria without giving in more than what any thoughtful American foreign policy should find insupportable. To engage Syria, President Obama would have to sacrifice Lebanon to Hezbollah so that Syria could have a base to keep attacking Israel. Is that what Obama’s idea of diplomatic engagement with our enemies?

Meanwhile the Powerline guys got Smith to expand his thoughts regarding Jimmy Carter:

Carter and his White House staff misunderstood the nature of the Khomeini government back in 1978 and it seems that he, like the incorrigible Brzenzinski, have learned little about Iran since then. It is, above all, a revolution and one of its goals is to overthrow the established order by routing the US and drive it from the region. In the Persian Gulf, Iran is bullying Washington’s Sunni allies and, as General Petraeus’s Senate testimony yesterday made plain, waging open war against the US in Iraq. In the Eastern Mediterranean it is fighting US allies in Lebanon and Israel and threatening Egypt, the largest Arab state and still in many ways the most influential.

But in general the issue is that the rogues attach importance to talks and require that the democracy grant them something in return. This means that the democracy either grants the wish or appears to be the unreasonable one. This happened throughout the Oslo process. Preconditions are always a part of dealing with the devil.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

It should be accepted by now as a given that people schooled in precise sciences tend to laugh at their colleagues that have chosen art, literature, philosophy, history… as their lifelong occupation. Most of the jokes - and responses to these jokes - are good natured and, at the worst, end with salt replacing sugar in someone’s tea or some such thing.

It’s a bit different when a specific science is being made a butt of a cruel joke by a non-scientist. Like the incomparable Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary:

HISTORIAN, n.
A broad-gauge gossip.

HISTORY, n.
An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

Of Roman history, great Niebuhr’s shown
‘Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish ’twere known,
Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,
Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.

Not a kindly view of that science and its scientists. But, being a joke, the definition above carries only a smidgen of truth. Being concerned with rulers and soldiers, this science (notice how manfully I have avoided the use of quotation marks) breeds scandals naturally. Just like fish breathes water. Specifically in Israel, the raise and fall of the so called “new historians” who enjoyed their moment of fame is a good illustration of unscrupulous use of the profession as a springboard to recognition - of sorts. Of this revisionist breed, the outstanding examples would be Ilan Pappe who by now doesn’t even conceal the fact that he is rewriting history to suit what he calls “the Palestinian narrative” and Benny Morris who eventually repented and now does his best to be a good Zionist.

The fame (or, rather, notoriety) of these two had a serious impact on the minds of some of their colleagues who, apparently, wish to get their own place at the trough. And here comes one Shlomo Zand, an Israeli professor of French history and cinema (emphasis mine, of course) and decides to have some of that too. This dude found the shortcut to fame and will not be deterred - but here I pass the microphone to Ami Isseroff:

For 2,000 years, philosophers and historians have tried to understand the Jewish problem, others have tried to solve it by eliminating the Jews. No Jews, no problem! Sometimes it requires a non-expert to find a solution. Shlomo Zand, an Israeli professor of French history and cinema, is the latest contender to offer a final solution to the Jewish problem. His solution has French elegance: Prove that there are no Jews, get everyone to believe it, and then there will be no more Jewish problem. His book, “Matai ve’eych humtza ha’am hayehudi?” (”When and How was the Jewish People Invented?”) was just published in Israel and is a best seller. By September, it will be published in French. By that time, Zand should be well on his way to solving the Jewish problem.

See how simple the way to the top really is? Ami does an excellent job debunking Zand in his article Are the Jews a people? The Zand controversy. Effectively, this would be enough to consider the whole shindig finished. However it is clear that it wouldn’t be finished - too many “activists” want more of the same and too many political forces want to use this “scientific” discovery for their own nefarious purposes.

And this is where I would like to ask a question: what is this all about? Aside of the fact that these and similar examples of bad science and sloppy, politically motivated logic will be eventually swept aside by the clear unequivocal conclusions of genetic research and we all will eventually know quite clearly what specific monkey contributed most to our character, looks and other traits - why should we, the Jooz, care about incessant attempts by the anti-Israeli crowd to prove that we are not who are we saying we are?

And more important: should we be saying anything on the subject, and what does the whole subject has to do with where we reside and what are our relationships with our neighbors - to take one of the aspects of this thorny issue?

My dear reader: I say that the whole issue of real origins of our tribe should be considered (and this is precisely how I consider it) as important as the proverbial number of angels that could gather on the tip of a needle.

First of all - recognition of a Jew. I remember vaguely two or three cases when somebody told me “you know, you don’t look Jewish”. I am not going into details, but experience is the best proof of this simple concept. Neither our friends, nor (especially) our enemies have ever had trouble recognizing a Jew. Never had and never will. There is no need of historic research (especially not as pointless and stupid as the one mentioned here) nor of test tubes, microscopes and whatnot to help an anti-Semite to detect a Jew in a crowd, using his/her finely tuned antennae.

Second, and much more important aspect of the issue is why? Why bother? Even assuming that Jews as a people do not stem from King David, but were formed as a tribe later - is there a difference between 4000 years or so and 1.5 thousand years (which is still more than many modern nations can claim)? Should it really matter to me whether there is a cubic cc of King Solomon’s blood in my 5 or so liters or that, maybe, this cubic cc belongs in reality to Chenghiz Khan? Why, in short, should I care whether I descend from Khazars or Aztecs or survivors of Atlantis, when I look, walk and quack like a Jew and everybody recognizes me as such?

Ladies and gentlemen: I don’t give a flying donut about some half-baked “scientific” scoop proving that I am a descendant of Khazars or of a passer-by alien from a neighborhood galaxy. Nor about the genetic research mentioned above. I am a Jew, I live here in Israel and will do so until I decide otherwise or die. And anyone who is not happy about this fact is welcome to make peace with this fact and with us - or to make war. And we all should better focus our minds on trying to get the former - if we don’t want to get the latter.

And let’s leave the pointless drivel of the expert in French history and cinema to his publisher and to French TV. I assure you we’ll be all much healthier and better of as a result.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.