I have been slammed with work today. I was slammed with work for the past few days, actually, and will be again tomorrow. There was even some Sunday work to be had.
I’ll be up for air soon.
06/30/2008
This deal keeps getting worse and worse
The Israeli government has decided to swap a live terrorist for two dead soldiers.
Former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is in favor of the deal.
And isn’t the price too high? According to Halutz, “Our nation is not like all other nations. Let’s face it, we have different sets of values, which I believe are the right values. In returning the soldiers we must act from the same place we acted at the time – from the Jewish place. Redemption of prisoners, mutual guarantee.
“Sometimes the sentiment must dictate a decision… And the main thing is that the soldier and his family should know that we will do everything for them – because we have been sentenced to many more years of hostility.”
For Halutz this deal ought to pre-sage a deal with Hamas to get Gilad Shalit back. Halutz’s predecessor Moshe Yaalon disagrees:
Former IDF Chief of Staff Yaalon sparked a row Monday when he said that security prisoners should not be released as part of prisoner exchange deals in which the demanded “price” is too high.
“When it comes to the question of a deal, I am one of those who call for the minimum, and in some cases we must even say we are ready to sacrifice in the face of what we are required to pay, because the payment price is much heavier than the price of losing the hostage,” he said.
Not surprisingly Yaalon was criticized by the Shalit and Goldwasser families.
Emanuele Ottolenghi has a question about how Israel handled the situation:
When did the government know that the two soldiers were in all likelihood dead? Was it immediately after Hezbollah’s incursion into Israeli territory, on July 12, 2006? If so, the government launched a military campaign of 33 days, that cost the lives of over 130 Israelis, in order to rescue the dead bodies of two. Some explaining is in order, if that is the case.
We’ve been down this road before. In 2004 Israel released hundreds of prisoners to get the bodies of 3 soldiers who had been killed in a crossborder raid by Hezbollah, violating the international border behind which Israel had retreated month earlier.
Israel released more than 400 prisoners Thursday in a long-awaited swap with the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah in exchange for the return of an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.
The German-brokered exchange was completed despite a suicide bombing earlier on a bus in Jerusalem that killed at least 10 bystanders and wounded about 50 in the deadliest attack on Israel in four months. The blast occurred near Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s official residence, but he was not in the area at the time.
“We are releasing another 400 Palestinians with a very heavy heart, because we know that these 400 will return very quickly to the cycle of violence,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled said in Jerusalem.
This time again it was the Germans who helped facilitate the return of dead Jews. And the Washington Post adds, it was under the auspices of the UN.
The deal, which followed months of negotiation mediated by Germans under U.N. auspices, marked the first such swap between Israel and Hezbollah since 2004.
That’s the UN whose troops aided the 2000 cross border raid, protected Hezbollah and did nothing to enforce its own resolutions when violated by Hezbollah. It’s kind of like paying to getting your property back from the very thieves who stole it.
The New York Times reminds us that this was purportedly one of the reasons that Hezbollah carried out the raid two years ago.
Indeed, within minutes of the decision, Al Manar, the Hezbollah television station, hailed it as evidence of the group’s power. “What happened in the prisoner issue is proof that the word of the resistance is the most faithful, strongest and supreme,” Hezbollah’s executive council chief, Hashem Safieddine, was quoted as saying.
The July 12, 2006, raid by Hezbollah into Israel that captured the two soldiers was aimed at seizing bargaining chips for the group’s effort to free Mr. Kuntar and several other Lebanese.
So Israel has effectively handed a Hezbollah a victory with this trade.
And of course there’s the question of who will be next.
Three government ministers voted against the prisoner swap deal Sunday-Finance Minister Roni Bar-On, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann and Housing Minister Zeev Boim.
The three said that the deal constitutes a victory for the Hezbollah. “After the release of Kuntar, who will be able to stop the release of [Tanzim head] Marwan Barghouti?” Bar-On said Sunday.
The families of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser will get much needed closure. The question will be at what cost.
Meryl wonders if there might be some advantage to Israel that may occur on account of the release of Kuntar for the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser:
There’s one tiny point of light at the end of this dark tunnel. I think that Israel may be clearing up all the details of her prisoners and KIA hostages as a way to clear the decks for action in Gaza. In other words: If Israel has her captives back, whether they are alive or dead, she can then start clearing out the terrorist rat’s nests with a clear conscience, and without fear that it is causing their deaths.
The only problem with that idea is that Israel just agreed to a one-sided ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. Daled Amos asks if there’s a different consideration in play
Is it a coincidence that this exchange is taking place now, at the same time that Olmert is attempting peace negotiations with Lebanon?:
For those of you who are concerned about Samir Kuntar’s suffering in jail, Israelly Cool has some details:
Did I mention that Kuntar got married, received conjugal visits from his wife, and earned a college degree all while in prison?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Professor Arnd Krüger and his pet conspiracy
Choose an event in the past. The event should be famous enough for any news related to it to reverberate far and wide. The event should be remote enough to make checking the “news” difficult to impossible. Now start manufacturing the news. And voila:
Professor Arnd Krüger claims Israeli athletes murdered in 1972 knew their lives were in danger because of ‘Olympic village’s poor security,’ but decided to stay, sacrifice themselves for Israel’s interests.
This method of getting famous is becoming a routine act for some historians, it seems. Especially when their prospects of getting famous are quite low, like in case of Professor Arnd Krüger, whose area of expertise is “sport history; sport management; sport media; training theory; coaching science; track & field“. Hard to become a TV star upon issuing a monograph on a revolutionary jockstrap for a baseball player.
So what does one do? Revises a bit of history, not necessarily related to his field of expertise, but one that allows him to claim some personal knowledge. Hitherto undisclosed for some reason. Hitherto undisclosed for some reason.
In a recent lecture, Prof. Arnd Krüger of the University of Göttingen, who covered the Munich Olympics as a journalist and claimed to have known some of the murdered Israeli athletes, compared the decision made by the sportsmen to stay in the Olympic village despite the known threat to their safety to the decision made by the Jews to stay in Hebron during the 1929 Palestine riots.
Yes. Letting themselves get killed in order to promote their far-reaching interests is a well known Jooish trick, from times immemorial. Like luring all these Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and Germans to kill the Jooz to promote… whatever. Good theory.
Of course, the learned professor is now backpedaling.
Speaking to Yedioth Ahronoth on Saturday, Krüger denied ever saying he believed the Israeli mission to the Munich Olympics knew that it would be targeted, but added that “one has to assume that the sportsmen who stayed in the village knew it had poor security.
But the bird has already escaped, and professor is feverishly covering his arse:
I’m not a racist or an anti-Semite, I’m just trying to understand what really happened.
Yep. Thirty six years of trying to understand and this is what we have: a wannabe celebrity crawling to fame over people’s graves. With the “what really happened” battle cry of freaks and morons all over the world.
And you know what? I really believe he is neither a racist nor an anti-Semite.
Just dreck.
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
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06/29/2008
My Second Amendment lesson
I went for my second shooting lesson today, which I think you could call my second Second Amendment lesson. The teacher this time was Joe, a friend of my last teacher’s, who also happens to be an ex-police officer. Joe brought the guns, and I discovered that I’d better start doing this on a more regular basis. It took a while to get back into the swing of loading and unloading a weapon. But I got the hang of putting ammunition in the clip fairly quickly. The two guns were a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver and a .22 pistol (whose origin, I’m sure, Joe will alert me in the comments or email). I can shoot the .22 all day long. (The target pictured below is one of my best groupings with it.) It’s fun and easy.
The Smith & Wesson made my hand tired after a few uses. It also rather surprised me the first time I fired it. Oops. Bit more of a kick than the .22. I need to build up my hand and arm muscles. I should go back to to the rock climbing gym. You use many of the same muscles to climb as you do to hold a gun and fire it.
There were an awful lot of young men at the range today, and one of them rented what looked like a military semi-automatic rifle. I have absolutely no desire to try a weapon like that, but I was curious enough to stay until I saw him fire it. I think I may head back on my own and rent one of the rifles. Now that I no longer teach on Sundays, I finally have the time to hit the ranges and see what I like. Although it’s a rather expensive habit, but I was warned about that.
My new teacher declared himself very satisfied with my shooting skills today. I was thinking I really need to renew my prescription. It was getting tough to sight the target clearly. But overall, I did well enough to stop an attacker. Most of my shots were within a five-inch range, Joe said.
I think two or three more trips to the range will be enough for me to make up my mind about which guns to buy. The crime rate in my neighborhood is sure convincing me I need one. The range holds classes every other weekend. I’m busy this weekend, but two weeks after the Fourth, I think I’ll take that all-day class and learn about the gun laws in Virginia, shooting and cleaning a weapon, and protecting yourself with your Second Amendment right.
Overall, I think my second Second Amendment lesson went really well.
It’s “beat the war drums” Sunday in the British press
Add the Guardian to the list of Sunday papers that are featuring heavily the Israel/Iran issue. It apparently took four authors to slam Israel with the typical canards.
And while some of the messages amount to signalling, to warn Iran as well as the EU and the US that Israel does not intend its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East to be challenged, it is clear that Israel has launched an aggressive information campaign apparently designed to soften up public opinion for the case for war, reminiscent of the run-up to the war against Iraq. Indeed, some of the same cast are back on stage, not least the former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who has loudly been making the case for an Israeli strike.
Interesting how they put the cause for war. Israel doesn’t want it’s “nuclear monopoly” to be challenged. It doesn’t happen to be that Israel is at risk of being destroyed by Iran, no. The article discounts utterly the proxy war that Iran has been waging for years via Hamas, PIJ and other terrorist groups, and Hezbullah.
Academics and journalists who have recently visited Israel have come back from meetings convinced the country is getting ready for war. The campaign has been assisted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) in the US and the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre in the UK, two influential Jewish lobby groups who have brought over experts to brief the media.
And thus we see the true subtext of this story. Those crafty Jews are at it again: Doing what they have done for millennia, tricked the world into going to war. You think I’m reading into things? Read on.
Last week, Bicom invited journalists to meet Shmuel Bar, a former military intelligence officer and civil servant in the Prime Minister’s Office. Now an academic, Bar writes on Iranian defence doctrine. On Monday the same organisation will be hosting a member of Israel’s security cabinet, Isaac ‘Bouji’ Herzog, who once again will answer questions, among other issues, on the threat posed by Iran.
The Israel lobby is trying to convince the media that the war is right. But there’s even more blame for AIPAC to go around, and of course, the article is filled with references to “neocons.”
Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney and the remnants of the neoconservative lobby in Washington are believed to be sympathetic to the idea. However, there are also those in strong positions, such as Defence Secretary Robert Gates and some senior military chiefs, who are thought to be privately opposed to such a move. ‘If it were up to Bush and Cheney they would want to see this thing done,’ said Larry Johnson, a former top CIA analyst. ‘But they are now up against a lot of fundamental military realities that make it hard. The military has been pushing back against this.’
Larry Johnson is now a Democrat (he once even gave the Democratic response to Bush’s radio address) with, shall we say, an agenda. You may remember that the Air Force is currently restructuring its top brass due to some really awful mistakes made with the transportation of nuclear-armed missiles (among other things).
The Air Force continued handing out disciplinary actions in response to the six nuclear warheads mistakenly flown on a B-52 bomber from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30. The squadron commander in charge of Minot’s munitions crews was relieved of all duties pending the investigation.
[...] The original plan was to transport non-nuclear Advanced Cruise Missiles, mounted on the wings of a B-52, to Barksdale as part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. It was not discovered that the six missiles had nuclear warheads until the plane landed at Barksdale, leaving the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3 and one-half hour flight between the two bases, the officers said.
Here’s Johnson’s analysis of what happened—before the Air Force investigation came out.
So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let’s call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.
Then he told me something I had not heard before.
Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can’t imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?
That’s some awesome analysis, Johnson. Why, it’s only 100% wrong regarding the nukes. No wonder the Guardian is quoting him. He says all the things they want to have “confirmed” by “experts” for their “readers.” (Sorry, got carried away with the scare quotes there.)
Right-wing think-tanks, however, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, have been vocal in their advocation of confronting Iran. Indeed, the institute recently produced a report on a theoretical military attack on Iran authored by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt, entitled ‘The Last Resort: Consquences of Preventive Military Action Against Iran’.
The study fell short of recommending such an attack but it did provide an exhaustive argument on why and how such an attack would work. That led critics to dub it a blueprint for war with Iran. It suggested that the possible best line of attack would in fact not be against Tehran’s nuclear programme but against its oil industry, thus cutting off the source of Iran’s current wealth. ‘The political shock of losing the oil income would cause Iran to rethink its stance,’ the report suggested.
Shyeah, because that’s exactly how stupid they think we are: Performing actions guaranteed to double (yet again) the price of oil.
It comes at a time when a resolution has been put forward in Congress calling for a naval blockade of Iran led by US warships. The proposal calls for the United States to lead an international effort to cut off the country by sea, something that would almost certainly by seen as an act of war by Iran. The resolution has got huge support from Israeli politicians and the country’s highly effective lobbying industry in Washington, led perhaps inevitably by Aipac, which has made the issue its legislative priority. ‘The war drums are beating. There is no doubt about that,’ said Johnson.
A naval blockade? Oh, they must be referring to this:
(2) urges the President, in the strongest of terms, to immediately use his existing authority to impose sanctions on–
(A) the Central Bank of Iran and any other Iranian bank engaged in proliferation activities or the support of terrorist groups;
(B) international banks which continue to conduct financial transactions with proscribed Iranian banks;
(C) energy companies that have invested $20,000,000 or more in the Iranian petroleum or natural gas sector in any given year since the enactment of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996; and
(D) all companies which continue to do business with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps;
(3) demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program; and
That’s a bill in committee at the moment calling for tougher sanctions on Iran. So does this make the EU complicit in the war as well? They’re also calling for tougher sanctions on Iran.
Read the whole article. It’s Israel Wants A War Day in the British press. Know your enemy, as Frank J likes to say.
Breaking: Samir Kuntar to be freed
Looks like Israel is creating more reasons for Hezbullah, Hamas, and other terrorists to kidnap more Israelis. They’re freeing Samir Kuntar and other Lebanese prisoners for what is now declared the corposes of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.
The cabinet approved Sunday the prisoner exchange deal with Hizbullah, which will facilitate the return of IDF captives Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. The motion was carried with a majority of 22 ministers.
Earlier, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged his ministers to vote in favor of the deal. “At the end of a long process, I have reached the conclusion that as the Israeli prime minister I must recommend that you approve the proposal which will bring this painful affair to an end – even at the painful price it requires us to pay,” Olmert said during Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
I’m not an Israeli. I don’t understand why the nation will allow terrorists to hold it hostage this way. But I do understand cause and effect, and incentives. Israel has just guaranteed that Hezbullah will try to kidnap more soldiers. Next up: the Hamas swap for Gilad Shalit.
There’s one tiny point of light at the end of this dark tunnel. I think that Israel may be clearing up all the details of her prisoners and KIA hostages as a way to clear the decks for action in Gaza. In other words: If Israel has her captives back, whether they are alive or dead, she can then start clearing out the terrorist rat’s nests with a clear conscience, and without fear that it is causing their deaths.
Mind you, I have a tendency to see the glass half-full, so this may be entirely wishful thinking. But maybe it isn’t.
The Times (U.K.) and their regularly-published liar
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It’s yet another article from Uzi Mahnaimi, proven liar about all things Israel and Iran, with yet more unnamed sources (in this case, “defence sources”) claiming that the Israel-Iran war is imminent.
Iran has moved ballistic missiles into launch positions, with Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant among the possible targets, defence sources said last week.
The movement of Shahab-3B missiles, which have an estimated range of more than 1,250 miles, followed a large-scale exercise earlier this month in which the Israeli air force flew en masse over the Mediterranean in an apparent rehearsal for a threatened attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Israel believes Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at acquiring nuclear weapons.
The sources said Iran was preparing to retaliate for any onslaught by firing missiles at Dimona, where Israel’s own nuclear weapons are believed to be made.
The Times keeps publishing this liar, and every time they do, they lose yet more credibility. You’d think the editors would catch on by now. You’d think Israel would protest every time they publish this buffoon’s lies about Israel, especially with those liberal U.K. libel laws. Because I would think that the man who created the blood libel of the “genetic bomb” (that is now used on anti-Semitic conspiracy websites as truth, and by anti-Israel lefties the world over as “proof” that those Israelis are just plain EVIL) wouldn’t be able to keep being published by a paper that used to have a record of credibility and real reporting.
The fact that they keep publishing this man makes me disbelieve most of what I read in the Times. The fact that Ynet publishes this drek as if it’s real news surprises me even more.
Pass the word, please. Liar on Aisle 2.
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06/28/2008
Caturday mellow
From Tig to you: Don’t harsh my mellow, dude.
He hit the five-pound mark. I weighed him this morning. Yep, he’s going to be a big boy.
Another day, another mortar attack, and still–truce
Israel will send goods through the crossings, in spite of mortars fired at Karni crossing today.
An explosion was heard near the western Negev community of Gabim, but a search for a rocket or mortar landing site came up empty.
The Karni crossing is expected to be reopened by Israel on Sunday for the transfer of goods to the Strip within the framework of the agreed upon ceasefire between Israel and the armed Palestinian organizations in the coastal enclave.
The AP isn’t even reporting the mortar fire. Apparently, only kassams count. They still haven’t acknowledged the mortar that first broke the truce.
And I’m tired of writing about it.
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In celebration of Heller
In celebration of the Heller decision, I will be going to my second shooting lesson tomorrow. Or, as my friend Sarah puts it, I’m going to go shooty-bang-bang.
Report, and maybe pictures, tomorrow evening.
06/27/2008
Gazans fire mortars, AP calls it “test” of truce again
Mortars fired from Gaza are yet another “test” of the ceasefire, according to AP, while somehow, the closing of the border crossings—which were contingent on the ceasefire working—are labeled as the cause of the mortar fire by the AP. Note the headline: It’s a cause-and-effect summation.
Israel closes Gaza, Palestinians fire mortars
You see? As a result of closing the border crossings, the Palestinians fired mortars at Israel. Not as a matter of habit, this being the third day in a row that the Palestinians have violated the truce by firing rockets and mortars. But that’s not the worst of it. The AP is outright blaming Israel for the rocket fire. Look at the lead:
Israel refused on Friday to fully open crossings with the Gaza Strip and Palestinian militants attacked Israel with mortars, further testing an already fragile truce.
For the third day in a row, Israel prevented food trucks from entering Gaza by closing crossings in retaliation for repeated Palestinian rocket attacks, Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner said. Later in the day, Palestinian militants fired two mortar shells toward Israel, Israeli police said, but no injuries or damage were reported. It was not immediately clear which militant faction fired the shells.
Notice the order of the events in the paragraphs. Israel closed the crossings, and THEN the Palestinians fired rockets. The AP is framing the situation as an Israeli cause—”refusing” to open the crossings—and a Palestinian effect—firing rockets and mortars. As if those are the natural progression. What the AP is no longer doing is calling the rocket fire a violation of the truce. The Israeli refusal to open the crossings is following the terms of the truce, which the AP knows full well, having published many articles detailing the truce. First, the attacks were supposed to stop. Then Israel would send more goods into Gaza. If three days went by without an attack, more goods would go in. Since the Palestinians are violating the truce, Israel is doing exactly as was agreed, and not sending in more goods or opening the crossings. But the AP is not reporting this honestly. The news service is trying to make its readers think that Israel is violating the truce by “refusing” to open the crossings. You have to dig down ten paragraphs to find the word “violation” anywhere in this article. And it’s used in the context of a revenge attack.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called for retaliation for the attacks.
“I am not interested who fired and who didn’t fire at Israel,” she told reporters Thursday. “It is a violation, and Israel needs to respond immediately, militarily, for every violation.”
Notice that the only Israeli quoted is made to look like a bloodthirsty, well, “militant.” Strangely for the AP, which manages to find a quote for every single Palestinian casualty of Israeli fire, there are no quotes at all from Hamas or terrorist groups in this article. And in this short piece from early this morning, the AP outright calls Israel’s closure of the crossings a violation of the truce, thus following the Hamas line.
Israel has refused for the third day in a row to fully open crossings with the Gaza Strip in retaliation for rocket attacks. The rockets and closure both constitute violations of a cease-fire that began June 19.
Truly, is there anyone out there anymore who thinks the AP is an objective news source? Because if so, I have this bridge that’s been in my family for generations, for sale, cheap.
What color is the sky on J-Street?
J-Street has a wonderful new feature that allows you to send a letter to the editor of a local paper to support J-Street’s views. I decided to take advantage.
Amy Teibel’s report on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has a very important sentence in the middel, “Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for the past year, has said it will enforce the truce, but not confront militants from other groups who violate the deal.”
In other words Israel made a deal with a partner unwilling to live up to its side of the bargain. Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh said last week that his organization would not stop the smuggling of weapons into Israel.
In word and deed Hamas is showing itself to be just as committed to peace as Fatah was:not at all.
.
You’ll note that my text doesn’t match the default message that J-Street recommended.
Why’d I go to J-Street. Well you see they’re very proud of an ad (pdf) they just sponsored in the NY Times. The ad reads in part:
If Israel had gone to war this week, established pro-Israel organizations would have rallied to its side. There would have been ads, press releases, fundraising appeals and political speeches. Let’s have the courage to support Israel loudly and clearly when it pursues security through diplomacy.
If Israel had reacted to the repeated provocations by going to war against Hamas this week, much of the world would have ignored the reasons went to war and reflexively condemned Israel for protecting its citizens. Pro-Israel organizations would have rallied to support Israel in the face of the concerted efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. It isn’t a matter of supporting war, it’s a matter of trusting Israel’s government to defend the lives of its citizens.
When J-Street asks pro-Israel groups to show courage, it’s a shame that it lacks the courage to criticize Israel’s enemies who show contempt for diplomacy and care nothing for the lives of Jews in Israel.
They cannot even bring themselves to criticize Hamas for working against peace.
And yet they call themselves pro-Israel and pro-peace. I wonder what color the sky is in that world the denizens of J-street inhabit.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Re-posting
Taking its cue from the NY Times that recently introduced “Op-classics,” the Washington Post is inaugurating a feature called “Re-posted.” (I like the name Op-Classics better, but the idea is still a good one.)
Here’s the deal:
This RePosted article comes at the suggestion of a reader, Howard Schmitt of Pittsburgh,
who recently came across a 1999 Post essay about the perils of cheap gas and praised it for its prescience. That essay, originally published in The Post’s Outlook section, is “reposted” below, along with the article that originally accompanied it.
We’re grateful for Mr. Schmitt’s generosity. He also got us thinking: What other columns or editorials from The Post’s archives would you like to read again? Are there past opinion pieces that you think are newly relevant? Do you remember editorials or columns that were spot-on — or dead wrong? Do you wonder what the Post had to say about a particular historical event that might shed light on what’s happening now?
Send your suggestions to reposted@washingtonpost.com.
We don’t expect you to recall headline, byline and date. And we can’t promise that we’ll get to every request. But give us as much guidance as you can — and explain why you think it would be helpful or interesting to read again now. Then we can start digging through the archives.
Here’s my suggestion: Charles Krauthammer wrote a column “The end of the illusion” on March 7, 1996. The column started:
This is peace? “Israelis Unnerved by Peace That Kills ,” says a Washington Post headline, March 5. Peace that kills ? This is an absurd oxymoron. If peace means anything, it means at its very minimum an absence of violence. After all, “armistice” and “truce” — lesser forms of peace — mean cease-fire. Peace must mean at least that .
This Orwellian conjunction of peace and violence demonstrates the state of hypnosis that Americans and Israelis have placed themselves under since the September 1993 Handshake on the White House lawn. What followed has been called a peace process. It has been nothing of the kind. The Palestinian war on Israel has been unrelenting. More Israeli civilians have been massacred since the handshake than at any time in the entire history of the country.
The ” peace process” is in fact nothing more than a unilateral Israeli withdrawal. The Palestinians have gotten Gaza, West Bank autonomy, huge influxes of foreign aid, international recognition, their own police force, their first free elections ever (something their Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers never granted them).
In return Israel has gotten what? Pats on the head from the United States. The occasional trade mission from Tunisia. And, from the Palestinians, death. This is peace?
I already criticized the Post’s coverage of Hamas’s breach of the ceasefire it concluded with Israel last week. In short, the Post’s correspondent Griff Witte departed from straight reporting in his portrayal of Hamas’s bad faith.
1) He termed the firing of rockets at Israel as “rattling” neither “breaching” nor “violating” the ceasefire, and thus downgraded the seriousness of the action.
2) He failed to report (unlike the New York Times) that a leader of Hamas claimed that the organization had no obligation to stop the firing on Israel.
3) He reported Hamas’s claim that Israel’s renewed closure of Gaza was a violation of the truce, effectively declaring Hamas the good guys.
4) He termed those who criticized the truce as “hard-liners,” and then quoted an Israeli critic. The critic, Gen. Moshe Yaalon was correct when he called the truce unstable, largely because Hamas will not stop the smuggling of weapons as it committed to and, as mentioned, won’t stop the firing on Israel.
Just as the Post’s correspondent (I think Barton Gellman) 12 years ago declared “peace” where an extremist group was violating its terms, (then it was Fatah,) now Witte pretends there is a ceasefire or truce when an extremist group (now Hamas) was violating every one of its terms.
I don’t expect that the Post will follow my advice; it seems averse to self criticism. But what the heck, I’ll give it a shot.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
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06/26/2008
A telethon to support the troops
Don’t forget to check in with Michelle Malkin at 4 p.m. Eastern today. She’s running a live, streaming video telethon to raise money for From the Frontlines. Or you can go here to sponsor a care package in your price range. If you do send a package, email Michelle. She’s keeping a tally. And tell her I sent you. She’s been a good blog buddy to me. I’d like to repay the favor.
This is a case of my not agreeing with everything she writes, and vice-versa, and yet, we don’t hate each other. Go figure.
Update 11:15 p.m.: They’re closing in on one million dollars. THere’s still time to donate.
Hamas pwned by Israeli hackers
A group of Israeli teenagers pwned a few terrorist websites.
Izzadin Kassam’s site displayed a blank white screen and Hebrew text notifying of a technical error.
The websites of Arab Israeli political party Balad, and left-wing activist groups ‘Hagada Hasmolanit’ and ‘Occupation’ featured a black background with an Israeli flag, and the emblem of the ‘Extremist Zealots’ group, similar to that of Meir Kahane’s Kach movement.
The lyrics from the Israeli national anthem ‘Hatikva’ were also posted on the sites in Hebrew, as well as pictures of Palestinian babies dressed as suicide bombers with the caption, ‘Murderers from Birth.’
Pictures at the link.
Ynet doesn’t label the kids right-wing, and talked to some of the hackers, who don’t sound nearly as scary as the JPost is making them out. (The JPost is going Ha’aretz on us? WTF?)
“The criteria are defined as anti-Zionist or anti-Jewish sites that support or assist in harming Zionism and the existence of Israel as a Zionistic, Jewish state”.
According to him, the group consists of young adults from 16 to 18 years of age.
In addition to the Hamas military wing’s site, they also broke into the Balad political party site, that of the Hagada Hasmalit (the left bank), the Kibush (occupation) site and more.
[...] Despite the fact that the slogan, “Kahane was right” appears and with it, the symbol of the Kach party, a yellow and black fist, the groups’ members clarified that they are in no way connected to the Kahane Chai party, “except for many common opinions and agreement with Kahane’s ways, out of the understanding that there is no other choice.”
Fanat al-Radical is a new group of hackers whose members were members of another group called Kamikaz Team. “Since we didn’t want to include politics in Kamikaz, we created a parallel group that supports the destruction of Arab sites.
I actually don’t care what their politics are. I wish them success in hacking all the anti-Israel sites they can find.
Syrian serial peace making
David Ignatius hails Israel-Syrian negotiations in A surprise negotiation. There is so much wrong with this article it’s hard to know where to start.
OK, I’ll start with Noah Pollak’s observation that Ignatius:
regularly demonstrates that you can write about something for a living without understanding it
I don’t agree with Pollak’s assessment that Israel’s raid on the Syrian reactor makes it more likely that talks will succeed, his characterization of Ignatius is apt.
Lately I’ve been reading a review copy of “The Truth About Syria” by Barry Rubin. (Here’s an interview with Michael J. Totten and a review by Elder of Ziyon.) A review from me is upcoming.
Prof. Rubin’s thesis is that Syria has learned to be suited by the West. That’s how the Assad regime survives. Syria doesn’t leave obvious fingerprints on its support of terror and plays hard to get, demanding concessions from the West to support stability in the Middle East. And of course, even though the State Department classifies Syra as a state sponsor of terror, there are always those Nobel seeking politicians, credulous journalists and ambitious diplomats who see some semblance of reasonableness in the tyrants of Damascus.
Here are some of Ignatius’s points:
(3) Can Syria be decoupled from Iran?
Israel’s overriding goal has been to draw Syria away from its alliance with Iran. So far, the Israelis see no sign that the peace talks have achieved this goal. Syria-watchers caution that this sort of decisive transfer of loyalties is unlikely. But eventually, Syria may move away from Iran (and toward Turkey) because the Baath regime in Damascus is secular to its core — and mistrusts the religious fervor of the mullahs. The decoupling would be cultural and political, rather than a matter of security policy.
Really? Prof. Rubin makes the case that Syria – specifically the Assads – beneifts from the “religious fervor,” given the status of Alawites (who are not really Muslims, if I understood their description their sort of like Muslims for Jesus adopting some of the trappings of Christianity mixed in with their belief in Mohammed.) The Assads have cultivated their religious image in an attempt to mollify the Sunni majority in Syria and the Islamic world in general. Breaking with Iran would undermine Assad’s pious pose.
(4) Who assassinated Imad Mughniyah in Damascus in February?
The car bomb that killed Iran’s key covert operative in Hezbollah is still echoing in the Middle East. Suspicion immediately focused on Israel. But on Feb. 27, a London-based newspaper called Al-Quds Al-Arabi, with very good sources in Damascus, alleged that several Arab nations had conspired with Mossad to assassinate Mughniyah.
Adding to the speculation are reports that shortly before his death, Mughniyah was attempting to heal a split within Hezbollah between the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and its former leader, Subhi Tufaily. Tufaily’s power base is the Bekaa Valley, which has lost influence in Hezbollah to Shiites from southern Lebanon. According to one Arab source, Mughniyah — traveling under his longtime pseudonym, “Haj Ismail” — paid a visit shortly before his death to Tufaily’s village of Britel, just south of Baalbek.
Mughniyah usually traveled without bodyguards, believing that his protection was the surgical alteration of his features, which prevented even old friends from recognizing “Haj Ismail.” For that reason, the Syrians insisted they weren’t at fault. But a sign of tension was Tehran’s announcement that a joint commission would investigate the killing, a statement that Damascus promptly denied.
This is pure speculation. I was always skeptical of the claim that Israel killed Mughniyah. The idea that the Mossad conspired with Arab regimes in his killing. This strikes me as Uzi Mahnaimi-like speculation. Most likely Mughniyeh ran afoul of Assad.
(5) What about Syria’s secret nuclear reactor, which was destroyed by the Israelis on Sept. 6, 2007?
Oddly enough, that attack on what CIA analysts called the “Enigma Building” may have helped the peace talks. The Israelis felt that their decisive action helped restore the credibility of their deterrence policy. The Syrians appreciated that Israeli and American silence allowed them time to cover their tracks. Finally, the fact that Assad kept the nuclear effort a secret, and that he managed the post-attack pressures, showed Israelis that he was truly master of his own house, and thus a plausible negotiating partner.
Yes he’s master of his own house, but he uses that role to sow instability. The overtures to Israel worried Iran, which ended up making a new defense deal with Syria.
Getting involved in a peace process with Israel has only served to enhance Assad’s reputation in the West without requiring any tangible action on his part. It has also given leverage with his sponsor, Iran. Likely it will also get him some sort of concession from Israel that he will then claim is irrevocable, even when he fails to reciprocate.
Getting involved in a peace process for Assad is like the smoker who finds quitting easy because he does it again and again. The smoker never stops smoking and Assad will never make peace.
More at memeorandum.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
What ceasefire?
Rockets hit Israel again today. And from the PA’s very own Fatah terrorists.
A Qassam rocket was fired Thursday afternoon from the Gaza Strip into Israel, exploding in an open area in Sderot’s industrial zone. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fatah’s military wing, took responsibility for firing the rocket. Sources in the Gaza Strip believe that the firing was meant to embarrass Hamas and to harm the ceasefire efforts.
Meantime, the PA’s own prime minister tells Israel to pay no attention to the rockets raining down on southern Israel, just open the crossings anyway. (What, you expected him to tell terrorists to stop firing the rockets? Please. You must be new here.)
Palestinian authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Thursday called on Israel to reopen border crossing with the Gaza Strip which were shut after Palestinian rocket attacks violated the shaky truce with Hamas.
“We have 1.5 million of our people with a sense of not having much to lose. That situation must end,” Fayyad told a news conference in Prague with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek.
Yes, it’s because they have “a sense of not having much to lose” that they’re firing rockets on Israel. Not because Hamas and Fatah are in a terror war with Israel. Nope. Pay no attention to the rockets, mortars, shootings, stabbings, and bombings. It’s all because of the “humiliations” suffered by the Palestinians.
And in today’s event being held in Arab/Muslim Bizarro World, Hamas is forming a committee to monitor violations of the truce—by Israel.
Earlier Thursday, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that “the occupier’s continued blockade on the Strip constitutes a violation of the truce agreement.”
He spoke following a meeting held Hamas representatives with members of the Islamic Jihad, Popular Front and Democratic Front on Wednesday, in which the sides decided to form a joint committee which would monitor the Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement and decided on the response.
Got it? He’s talking to the people who are firing the rockets about monitoring Israel for closing the crossings because those people are firing rockets. Yes, a day in the life of a terrorist in Gaza or the West Bank: It’s just like a day with the Red Queen, and makes even less sense.
Once more unto the breach
The NYT and Washington Post both reported on the recent breach of the ceasefire by Hamas. Though both papers included the reporting in articles about PM Olmert’s political maneuverings the Times did a superior job. The Washington Post left out a significant detail in its reporter’s attempt to draw and equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians.
In an article focused on Ehud Olmert’s last minute political save the NYT reports on the recent attacks on southern Israel by Gaza based terrorists.
Also on Wednesday, Israel closed the Gaza border crossings for supplies in response to Palestinian rocket fire on Tuesday that was the first serious breach of a nearly week-old truce between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza. Islamic Jihad, a small extremist group, claimed responsibility for firing the rockets, describing the move as retaliation for an Israeli raid that killed one of its senior commanders in the West Bank, which is not covered by the cease-fire accord. But the closing was expected to be brief.
Maybe the rockets were the first “serious” breach of the ceasefire, but earlier there had been a mortar fired into Israel.
Regarding the rockets on Tuesday, which struck Sderot, an Israeli border town, and its environs, Israel has said it will hold Hamas responsible for all infractions of the truce, including those carried out by other groups.
Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said Wednesday that Hamas was committed to the truce but would not “police” the border with Israel or enforce the calm with rifles.
So what was the point? Hamas is essentially denying responsibility for the agreement it signed.
One of the hallmarks of a legitimate government is that it has a monopoly on the use of force. Hamas’s refusal even to try to exercise such a monopoly reveals that it is not a government but a gang.
The Washington Post’s Griff Witte engages in a bit of dissembling about the ceasefire.
Talks with the radical Islamist group Hamas, mediated by Egypt, have already borne fruit in the form of a six-month cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. That truce was rattled Tuesday, however, when the armed group Islamic Jihad fired three rockets from Gaza into southern Israel in response to an Israeli operation in the West Bank city of Nablus that left two of the group’s members dead.
In retaliation, Israel on Wednesday closed all commercial crossings into the coastal strip and would not say when they would reopen. Under the terms of the truce, Israel is supposed to gradually loosen the strict economic embargo it imposed a year ago, when Hamas toppled a unity government with the rival Fatah party and took control of the territory.
Hamas said Israel’s decision to close the crossings violated the terms of the truce. But the group also said it planned to continue to honor the week-old cease-fire, and by refraining from a military response, Israel indicated that it would, as well.
The truce wasn’t “rattled,” it was violated, or as Israbel Kershner of the NYT reported, “breached.” Note furthermore that in the third quoted paragraph how Witte frames the issue: Israel “violated” the truce but Hamas would “honor” the truce. Nothing about Hamas has said that it won’t stop smuggling or as reported elsewhere, denied any responsibility for enforcing the ceasefire.
Finally we come to this bit of pernicious equivalence.
The truce is controversial in Israel and Gaza, with hard-line critics on both sides arguing that now is not the time for quiet.
Retired Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, a former chief of the Israel Defense Forces, said that instead of holding its fire, Israel should be conducting targeted killings and medium-scale military operations so that, ultimately, Hamas “will cry for [a truce] without conditions.”
But Yaalon said he doubts the current cease-fire will last.
“It’s not a stabilized situation, and it’s not going to last for six months,” he said.
“Hard line critics on both sides?” So after he presents the view that both sides are honoring the truce, he quotes only an Israeli “hard-line” critic. But since Witte’s left out the Hamas statement about not enforcing the ceasefire, Gen. Ya’alon’s statement can be interpreted, I suppose, as that of a “hard-liner.” But if Witte had taken the time to report on Hamas’s denial of responsibility of enforcing the ceasefire, Ya’alon’s statement is a realistic assessment of the situation. If terror groups other than Hamas will be free to strike at Israel whenever they want, the ceasefire is not a “stabilized situation.”
I wonder if Deborah Howell is concerned.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
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Miraculous cure of a catatonic Ukrainian
This story happened in Ukraine during the Soviet times and has two protagonists:
- Jewish Professor of psychiatry, a diminutive man widely known for his knowledge, professionalism, ornery character and a compassion toward his patients.
- Ukrainian Patient who got into a totally catatonic state for more than a year, without any cure in sight. Fed via a tube and slowly wasting away in a Soviet psychiatric hospital.
The doctor responsible for the Patient was totally despaired. Every known drug and every known therapy failed. Relatives visited the patient from time to time, talked to him to no avail, and, after shedding some tears, left without receiving any response. There was no hope.
And then our Professor came into the picture. He even made a bet with his colleague on success of his way of treatment. You see, he counted on the power of suggestion. Hearing and vision of the Patient were not impaired – he heard and saw everything, but apparently didn’t respond to it, living deep inside his shell. Professor also counted on the ingrained discipline of an army veteran – Patient served in the army for a very long time.
The only thing to do was to prepare Patient for the appearance of a person whose voice would penetrate Patient’s soul to the maximum imaginable depth. To this end, twenty or more times a day nurses, doctors and even some volunteer patients told Patient about a legendary Professor and his wizardly powers. Yes, Professor will definitely come, it is only that he is too busy at the moment, teared apart by the incessant demands of his other patients and other commitments. Of course, the whole brainwashing procedure was orchestrated by Professor, building up hope in the mind of the Patient. This centuries old remedy: belief-based cure – worked this time perfectly as well. With a small detail that is the reason for the story.
Well, after ten or so days of the brainwashing, Patient was told that tomorrow Professor will definitely stop by. And the patient started showing some signs of excitement that developed towards dawn into a fever of anticipation.
Come morning, about six doctors in white smocks burst into the room and promptly sorted themselves in a line which would have mollified even a drill sergeant. Patient started sweating and his eyes became almost clear. And then Professor – a small, white-haired and power-exuding figure – came into the room, approached Patient and barked: “Stand up!”.
And Patient sat up in his bed and, with some assistance, stood up!
Then, jabbing his finger in the Patient’s stomach (because of Professor’s puny height), Professor barked again: “Do you know who I am?”.
And, as if there were no year long stretch of catatonic state and muteness, the Ukrainian licked his dry lips and obediently answered:
“A kike.”
****************************
This wonderful bitter-sweet story was translated (poorly, I am afraid) by me from a book Walks Around The Barracks : Autobiographical Novella by Igor Guberman, an outstanding poet/philosopher, an ex-Soviet dissident, a Jerusalemite, a mensch. I hope Igor doesn’t mind this rip-off. Maybe it will be another tiny push to translation of this (and many other Igor’s books) into English.
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
06/25/2008
Israel’s slow defeat
Ehud Olmert is presiding over Israel’s slow defeat by her enemies. What else can you call a situation when a country refuses to fight back when terrorists attack her? And not just refuses, but tells the enemy that she will not fight?
Israel promised Egypt that it would not attack the Gaza Strip even if one of the Palestinian terror organizations violate the ceasefire, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas reported Wednesday morning.
According to the report, which is based on details provided by Egyptian sources involved in the meeting conducted yesterday between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel agreed to restrain itself if Hamas punishes the organizations violating the calm.
It was also reported that Israel fears that Hamas’ decisions are being made by Iran. Egypt tried calming Israel by saying that they themselves are responsible for Hamas’ commitment to the agreement. Egypt threatened that if Hamas violates the ceasefire, the government in Cairo will disassociate itself from the Islamist group.
Oh, that’s all right, then. If Hamas murders Israelis, Egypt will stop talking to it. Gee, you can’t beat an offer like that. And see what else is Egypt doing?
The newspaper also revealed that Egypt is attempting to increase the amount of Palestinians released in the prisoner exchange deal involving kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit from 450 to 600.
That’s right. Helping Hamas free more terrorists. And Hamas’ reaction? They’re not going to “police” other terrorist groups for violating the truce.
The militant group Hamas said it remains committed to a cease-fire with Israel, but will not act as Israel’s “police force” in confronting militants who breach the truce.
[...] Hamas said it was exerting pressure on Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the attack, to stop the rocket fire and demanded that Israel open the crossings. But al-Haya said its forces would not confront rocket launching squads on the ground.
“Even if there is a violation by some factions, Hamas emphasizes its commitment to the calm and is working to implement the calm,” al-Haya said.
“But Hamas is not going to be a police securing the border of the occupation,” he added. “No one will enjoy a happy moment seeing Hamas holding a rifle in the face of a resistance fighter.”
So rocket attacks aren’t considered a violation of the truce. But Hamas says there is a violation happening:
On Wednesday, all cargo crossings were closed, though a pedestrian passage was kept open.
Hamas government spokesman Taher Nunu said the closure was a “clear violation of the calm” and called on Egypt, which mediated the truce, to intervene.
Translation: Terrorists trying to kill Israelis is fine. Just don’t stop feeding us and supplying us with fuel for our rockets.
Meantime, Hezbullah senses the utter weakness and confusion of the Israeli administration.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah will not lower his demands in the framework of a prisoner exchange deal even if Israel declared captive soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev “killed in action”, an analyst with ties to the Shiite group said in a column published by the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar on Wednesday.
And the PRC is refusing to change its demands for Gilad Shalit.
Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) spokesman Abu Mujahid told Ynet Wednesday that the demands posed by the groups holding IDF soldier Gilad Shalit will not change and that “Israel must comply with our demands otherwise Shalit will not see the light of day.
This is because Israel is letting the fate of three soldiers dictate its behavior towards terrorist groups. I know I’m not related to one of the captives (or dead soldiers), so my view isn’t going to be theirs, but I can’t see allowing terrorists to hold an entire nation hostage over the fate of three men. It only strengthens your enemies, and encourages weak leaders like Olmert to make a deal at any cost—which he will do, seeing as he’s survived his latest challenge. Labor knuckled under, and refused to dissolve the government.
“On the public level, we have reiterated our norms and values,” Defense Minister and Labor chairman Ehud Barak said Wednesday, following the Labor faction’s approval of a deal between Labor and Kadima by which the two parties agreed to avoid a vote for the dissolution of the Knesset.
Yes, and on the private level, much bribery went on, I’m sure. Olmert survives. God help Israel. Because right now, it sure seems like the terrorists groups have the upper hand.
All this has happened before, and apparently will happen again. I swear, you could go back in my archives a few years and find almost exactly the same post as this one. Nothing has changed since Ariel Sharon’s stroke, and even before his stroke, he was refusing to go in and take care of the terrorists on a large scale. Israel needs a warrior like King David. But I don’t see one on the horizon.
Pictures = 1000’s of words
On the ceasefire:
We have this picture with the caption:
An Israeli woman stands outside her damaged house after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza landed in the southern town of Sderot
And this picture with this caption:
Palestinian Hamas militants take part in a training exercise in Gaza
Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet — he was against the Hamas cease-fire in the first place — tells Haaretz that both arms smuggling and terrorist training in Gaza have increased since the cease-fire took effect.
So the ceasefire has had the effect of forcing an Israeli family, once again, to seek shelter, while the terrorists of Hamas train openly without fear.
Related thoughts at Yourish, Bookworm Room and Mere Rhetoric.
On Palestinian police:
And here we have a picture from the Berlin conference in support of Palestinian civil security and rule [of] law where these important people will discuss funding Palestinian police so that they can balance things on their noses, dance the Hora and fix their pants.
On normalcy:
This idyllic picture of people in the surf is accompanied by a caption that “Palestinians” are enjoying a day at the beach. On closer inspection, you see that the caption should have read “Palestinian men.” Except for a few small girls, the folks clad in bathing suits are all men.
Where are the women? Oh they’re also at the beach. Here, in burqas. I don’t imagine that they’re enjoying the day nearly as much.
My point isn’t to complain about the separation of the sexes. That, by itself, doesn’t bother me. It’s that these pictures are being used to show how the Israeli agreement not to defend itself has now allowed these people to live normally. But it’s not normal in the Western sense. The fact that the women dare not attend the beach in anything less bulky than burkas shows that the organization governing Gaza is one that enforces a rather rigid Islam on its inhabitants. And that bit of information isn’t being reported. Just that Israel has finally relented
and allowed the Gazans some normalcy.
Related thoughts at Elder of Ziyon.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
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Israel’s unacknowledged terror victims
The current AP boilerplate for Gaza is as follows:
The Egyptian-brokered deal aims to end a year of violence that has killed more than 400 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, and seven Israelis in a bloody cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli reprisals.
That’s actually an improvement from a few days ago:
The cease-fire, which Egypt labored for months to conclude, aims to bring an end to a year of fighting that has killed seven Israelis and more than 400 Palestinians, many of them civilians, since the Islamic militant group Hamas wrested control of Gaza a year ago.
The thing is, both of the boilerplates have completely ignored dozens of Israeli casualties in this terror war. The “seven Israelis” the AP mentions are the tip of the iceberg. The AP is only counting civilian deaths. But that’s wrong. Eleven Israeli soldiers have been killed by terrorists from Gaza in the past year. Here are the total number of deaths caused by terrorists from the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over:
July 12, 2007 – Staff Sgt. Arbel Reich, 21, of Yuvalim was killed when Hamas terrorists ambushed IDF troops engaged in anti-terror activity in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The terrorists detonated previously planted explosive devices and then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns.
Oct 17, 2007 – Sgt. Ben Kubani, 20, of Hadera, was killed in an exchange of fire with terrorists during IDF activity targeting the terror infrastructure near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Oct 29, 2007 – IDF reservist St.-Sgt. Maj. Ehud Efrati, 34, of Beit Yehoshua was killed in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists in southern Gaza Strip, near the Sufa crossing.
Jan 15, 2008 – Carlos Andrés Mosquera Chávez, a 21-year-old volunteer from Quito, Ecuador, was killed by a Palestinian sniper from the Gaza Strip as he was working in the fields of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. The Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Feb 27, 2008 – Roni Yihye, 47, of Moshav Bitcha in southern Israel, a student at Sapir College, was killed Wednesday afternoon when a Kassam rocket exploded in a parking lot near the Sderot campus. He died shortly after sustaining massive wounds to his chest. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mar 1, 2008 – St. Sgt. Doron Asulin, 20, of Beersheba and St. Sgt. Eran Dan-Gur, 20, of Jerusalem were killed in an exchange of fire with Hamas terrorists during an IDF anti-terror operation in northern Gaza targeting rocket launchings. The gunmen reportedly fired mortar shells, antitank and RPG missiles at the soldiers.
Mar 6, 2008 – An IDF soldier – a Bedouin tracker, 27 – was killed during a routine patrol along the security fence in the central Gaza Strip, near Kissufim, when Palestinian terrorists detonated an explosive device near the jeep in which he was driving. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
St.-Sgt. Liran Banai, 20, of Ashkelon, the critically wounded jeep driver, succumbed to his injuries on Sunday, March 9.Apr 9, 2008 – St.-Sgt. Sayef Bisan, 21, of the Druze village of Jat in the western Galilee was killed in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists in an overnight IDF operation against terror infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip. Two soldiers were wounded.
Apr 9, 2008 – Oleg Lipson, 37, and Lev Cherniak, 53, both of Beersheba, were killed when Palestinian terrorists, after firing a salvo of mortars at the Nahal Oz area, penetrated the fuel terminal and opened fire on the civilian employees.
Apr 16, 2008 – Three IDF soldiers – Sgt. Menhash al-Banyat, 20, of the Bedouin community of Kseife in the Negev; Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, of Moshav Patish in the western Negev; and Sgt. David Papian, 21, of Tel Aviv – were killed in a confrontation with armed Palestinian gunmen approaching the Gaza security fence south of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal. Three other soldiers were wounded.
May 9, 2008 – Jimmy Kadoshim, 48, of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, was killed by mortar fire from the Gaza Strip while tending his garden.
May 12, 2008 – Shuli Katz, 70, of Kibbutz Gevaram, was killed while visiting relatives at Moshav Yesha, some 15 kms (9 miles) from the Gaza Strip.
June 5, 2008 – Amnon Rosenberg, 51, of Kibbutz Nirim was killed and four other employees were wounded when a mortar bomb fired by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip exploded outside the Nirlat paint factory in Kibbutz Nir-Oz. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
That’s eighteen deaths due to Gaza terrorism—not seven. The AP wants to have it both ways: Keep Palestinian terrorists in the casualty count, but eliminate Israeli soldiers killed by terrorists. The end result ameliorates the effects of Hamas terror since the takeover of Gaza.
It’s an utter whitewashing of the real Israeli casualties, and very typical of the mainstream media. The double standard is reprehensible. Palestinian civilian deaths, and overall Palestinian death totals, are played up—while Israeli soldier death tolls are ignored utterly. Note that I didn’t even count the deaths by terrorists that occurred within Israel itself, even though some of them were perpetrated by Hamas terrorists. Those figures, too, are ignored by the AP. But just because the AP doesn’t report the deaths doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.
In Gaza, though, the AP is misrepresenting the facts. Eighteen Israeli deaths by terror occured between June 15, 2007 and June 15, 2008—in the “year of violence,” as the AP called it. The evidence is right there, in black and white. Seven civilians and eleven soldiers were killed. Perhaps the AP should change its count to reflect the facts accurately. After all, it has no such compunctions about including the American soldier casualty counts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But that’s a post for another day.
Go Greyhound
Okay, so now I’ve checked around some more, after someone asked me, “Have you tried Greyhound?” and I said, “Duh! No!”
$43 round trip, takes me to the Springfield-Franconia mall, four-tenths of a mile from the Metro station, which saves me the trouble of taking the train into Union Station and having to reverse course. Also, Amtrak is $57 plus parking. But hm, Greyhound is in one of the crappiest sections of town… parking there would be a problem. Taxis are pretty much out of the question in Richmond.
Damn.
American mass transit sucks, outside of New York, New Jersey, and Chicago.
And they wonder why Americans won’t use it.
06/24/2008
Tig3.0: The cycle is broken
For thirteen and a half years, I never had to clip Tig the First’s claws, because he never scratched. From time to time I’d don a pair of gloves and he would know it was no-holds-barred playtime. He loved it.
For eleven years, I could not clip Tig the Second’s claws, because you couldn’t really do anything to him without a struggle. The last time I had the vet clip his claws while Tig was conscious, it was in New Jersey (over six years ago), and there was the vet, his assistant, and me. Tig was wrapped in a towel. He got two out of the three of us. After that, I only let them clip Tig’s claws if he was going to be unconscious for something else.
Well. Today, I picked up Tig3.0, put him on the bathroom counter, picked up a plain old nail clipper, and clipped his claws. My biggest problems? Finding the thumb claws and getting Tig to stop licking me or playing with my necklace.
As a reward for getting his claws clipped and behaving, he got a rolled-up paper wad to play with. And as a reward for my readers, here’s another picture of Tig expressing his Computer Fu. The Force is strong within him.
Yesterday, he changed my email display from date order, descending, to day order, threaded. And flagged another message as important. I have no idea how he’s managing to do so many things just by stepping on my keyboard at random. I begin to think it isn’t random, and that I’m in big trouble in the future.
AP: Truce violations a “test”
And here we go. Buried in the middle of an article about an Israeli guard who committed suicide while Sarkozy was boarding his plane to leave Israel, we have this description of the Palestinians violating the truce:
Earlier, Palestinian militants fired three homemade rockets into southern Israel, the first such attack since a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza militants took effect last week.
Israel condemned the attack as a “gross violation” of the truce, but did not say whether it would retaliate.
The barrage wounded two people and capped a day of violence that presented the truce with its first serious test.
Note how the AP won’t call it a violation of the truce, but insist on using an unnamed Israeli spokesman calling it a violation. The truce wasn’t violated, even though three rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel in the last few hours.
As for whether or not Olmert will declare the cease-fire to be over… still waiting.
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And the AP reverts to form: “Israel says” truce broken
Check out the headline:
Rockets hit Israel, which says truce broken
Gee. The truce says no launching of rockets. Rockets were launched. Is the truce broken? The AP doesn’t know. It has to say that Israel says the truce was broken. Yet another example of your anti-Israel media bias. And we also have the AP carrying the terrorists’ justification for launching the rockets.
Police say three Palestinian rockets have hit southern Israel and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office says the cease-fire that took effect last week has been broken.
Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip says they carried out the attack to avenge an Israeli military raid that killed one of their fighters in the West Bank early Tuesday.
Israel’s national rescue service says two people were lightly wounded in the rocket barrage.
The West Bank is not formally part of the truce. But Islamic Jihad says it “cannot keep its hands tied” when its “brothers” in the West Bank are being targeted.
However, the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas group says it remains committed to the truce.
Notice how it carries both the Hamas and PIJ excuses.
It. Doesn’t. Matter.
The truce was broken the second those rockets headed towards Israel. (Actually, it was broken the second Hamas refused to stop smuggling, but we’ll ignore that for now.) The AP can’t bring itself to say so? Why is that?
Gee. Wonder who wrote that piece. There’s no byline. But I’m betting it wasn’t an Israeli.
Rockets hit Sderot, truce broken again
The truce is broken for the third time. The first was Hamas’ refusal to end smuggling. The second was a mortar fired early this morning. And now rockets are being fired at Sderot.
Ceasefire shattered? Residents of Israel’s south were rattled to hear the ‘Color Red’ rocket alert sirens blare throughout their towns twice on Tuesday evening as two Qassam rockets crashed in near Sderot.
No injuries or damage were reported.
Will Olmert declare the truce over?
I don’t think he will. That’s how low things have sunk. However, Hamas has achieved its goals. Its allies are trying to get the world to grant legitimacy to the terrorist group.
Top diplomats skirmished on Tuesday over whether to engage the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group now that it has arranged a truce with Israel in Gaza.
At an international donors conference called to strengthen Palestinian police, Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa said he believed the ceasefire in Gaza would hold, and voiced support for more negotiations between Palestinians and Israel .
But he said reconciling the Palestinians in Hamas-run Gaza and the Western-backed government of Mahmoud Abbas was critical for peace and the international “veto” on this had to be lifted.
To her credit, Condi Rice said no.
“You cannot have peace if there is not a partner who respects the right of the other partner to exist,” she said, in an apparent reference to Hamas.
On the other hand, there’s still time for her to change her tune. She is, after all, one of the people who forced Israel to allow Hamas to run in the elections that brought Gaza to where it is now.
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AP recognizes Palestinian truce violation
Holy crap! The AP noticed the truce violation, and even called it such. And get this—they didn’t call Israel’s killing of a “ticking bomb” terrorist a violation. What’s wrong with the editors?
Palestinians fired a mortar into southern Israel in the first violation of a fragile truce between Israel and Gaza Strip militants, the military said Tuesday.
No casualties or damage were reported in the attack, which took place around midnight Monday, and troops did not retaliate, the military said. No militant faction immediately took responsibility.
[...] Early Tuesday, Israeli troops killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander in a raid in the West Bank town of Nablus.
[...] In Germany, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the operation. Fayyad, whose government is trying to negotiate a peace deal with Israel, has said continuing military operations are undermining his efforts to restore law and order in the West Bank.
[...] In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Israel of trying to sabotage the truce.
“The resistance factions in the West Bank have the full right to respond to this crime,” Barhoum said.
Yes, those quotes say that Israel violated the truce. But here’s the difference: The AP used a direct quote, and did not editorialize in the copy, using phrases like, “Israel’s actions threatens the shaky truce.”
That article is timestamped 6:48 ET. We shall see what happens on the updates, and pay particular attention to our pal Ibraham Barzak’s version. Just wait for it.