Okay, so it’s Friday, not Caturday. But still.

So, remember all those goofy poses I caught Tig in?

Looks like his successor is going to be just as goofy. This is what I saw when I looked over from my downstairs laptop. The downstairs laptop is mine; the upstairs is the work laptop in a docking station. Tig follows me. The blanket is a fleece blanket that I picked up winter before last. I kept it on my chair this winter because it gets chilly downstairs, and the backs of my kitchen chairs are metal. I never wound up putting it away because, well, look at the picture. Somebody really likes it. Half the time, he’s underneath it and I see a grey lump right about where he’s lying.

I also discovered him in Tig 2 mode on my bed earlier today: Sprawled on his back with his paws in the air and looking utterly ridiculous. Apparently, that’s a Maine Coon thing, so we can look forward to more fluffy Tigger belly pictures. And he’s gained another half pound since I last checked his weight, so the boy is growing. He’s weighing in at over five and a half pounds, and he’s not quite five months old yet.

Tig’s got about a 75-25 record of sleeping in my room. About 25% of the time, he wants to play when I want to sleep, so after about two minutes of my saying “No!” as he jumps for my feet, leaps at my hands, races around the bed, and yowls for me to play with him, I catch him, throw him out, and close the door on him. And Gracie’s been coming into my room at night again, too, so it gets quite exciting from time to time. They’re taking turns chasing each other, I think. He literally chased her down the stairs the other day, because he was so excited that Aunt Gracie was upstairs with us that he ran over to her, which prompted her to make a hasty exit. Which made him think she was playing, so he ran after her, chasing her down the stairs. She’s such a wuss. But the other night, she came upstairs to sleep in my laundry basket, and held her ground when he came near. There was much hissing. I awoke to Gracie in the laundry basket, adding more fur to the dirty clothes in there. (I think I should go back to using the hamper, but then, I’m a softy for kitties, and Gracie can’t sleep in the hamper.)

One of the things that I find very interesting is that Tig has decided that he really likes playing on my bed. We have a nighttime game now: I throw rolled-up paper balls on the bed, and he chases them around (and off) the bed, retrieving them in his mouth and leaping back on the bed if they fall off. And he likes to chase the laser pointer on the bed, or strings, and all-around play on the bed. Well, when Tig and Gracie were kittens, I lived on the third floor of a converted house, and was careful about my neighbors. I encouraged the kittens to play on the bed, not on the floor. I’m in a townhouse apartment here, and don’t have to worry about neighbor noise, and Tig has free rein in the apartment. I’ve been getting him to run up and down the stairs chasing the laser pointer, because it’s just kitty noises, and doesn’t bother the neighbors. But still—it’s just a tiny bit eerie that he wants to play on the bed every night, like Tig the Second used to do.

Then again, it’s a whole lot of funny. He does all the classic kitten moves, including the leaping a foot straight up in the air before attacking the paper ball, turning around and pretending it was sneaking up on him, driving it under the blankets then trying to get it out, and, well, I laugh. Every night. Just like I used to do in the old days.

It’s a good thing.

The “moderates” in the Palestinian Authority would like Israel to hand over the corpse of a female Palestinian terrorist who took part in an attack that murdered 36 and wounded 71. Because they want to honor the mass-murderer.

The Palestinian Authority has asked Israel to hand over the remains of Dalal Mughrabi, the Palestinian woman who led the March 11, 1978 coastal road attack in which 36 people were murdered and 71 wounded.

Israel is planning to deliver Mughrabi’s remains, together with those of scores of Palestinians and Lebanese, to Hizbullah in the context of the new prisoner exchange between the two sides.

The PA said in its request that it wanted to “honor” Mughrabi by holding a big funeral for her in Ramallah.

Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official closely associated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, described Mughrabi, whose family originally came from Jaffa, as a “the first Palestinian woman to carry out one of the most courageous operations in Israel.” He claimed that in her will, Mughrabi, who belonged to Fatah, had asked her family to see to it that she was buried in “Palestine.”

Let’s take a look at what this “courageous” terrorist did:

On the morning of March 11, 1978, Dalal Mughrabi and her Palestinian Fedayeen unit of eleven members (including one other woman) landed by Zodiac boats on a beach near Ma’agan Michael north of Tel Aviv, having departed from Lebanon. They killed Gail Ruban (some sources spell Rubin [2]), an American photographer who was taking nature photographs nearby, and then hijacked a bus full of Egged bus drivers and their families on a day outing, on the Coastal Highway.

While driving, Mughrabi and her unit opened fire at the vehicles in the vicinity. An Israeli army unit, headed by Ehud Barak (who, in the 1990s, became Chief of the General Staff and later Israeli Prime Minister) pursued the bus until it was finally stopped near Herzliya. A long shooting battle between the Palestinians and the soldiers ensued. The Palestinians started shooting the passengers that attempted to escape. Eventually, the Fatah members blew up the bus which became a large deathtrap of fire. The attack left thirty five civilians, thirteen of them children, and six Palestinian guerillas killed (38 by some sources) and seventy-one civilians wounded.

This is what the PA considers a “hero.”

“We want to turn Dalal’s funeral into a national wedding, a major celebration,” the Fatah official said. “The operation she carried out off the shores of her hometown of Jaffa was heroic and exemplary. She will always be remembered as a symbol for the Palestinian women’s struggle.”

These are the people that the world insists want peace with Israel. At every turn, they prove that they don’t want peace. They honor mass-murderers, even thirty years after the attack occurred. They name soccer stadiums after terrorists. They’ve named schools after Mughrabi. And they’re going to have a big party no matter what.

Even if Israel refuses to deliver her remains to the PA in Ramallah, Fatah officials said they were planning to hold big celebrations throughout the West Bank to coincide with her funeral in Lebanon.

And just when you think they can’t get any lower, they do.

Ahmed also praised Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar for carrying out another terror attack in Israel one year after the 1978 carnage. He described Kuntar as a “stubborn and firm fighter in the ranks of the Lebanese resistance who led a very courageous operation.”

Make no mistake: The average Palestinian does not want peace with Israel. They want Israelis gone. By word and by deed, they prove this over and over again. Their society is utterly, hopelessly broken. And the world encourages it with billions of dollars in welfare to murderers.

Disgusting.

When I first read about the plight of Gaza reporter Mohammed Omer, I was suspicious.

Omer claimed that when he returned to Gaza (via Jordan) after receiving a “journalism” award he was mistreated and beaten by Israel guards. The truth was that the pictures of Omer, didn’t show someone who was in such bad shape. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Snapped Shot for example noted that compared to the treatment some reporters suffered at the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah, this wasn’t even worth mentioning:

Get a tiny scratch from the IDF, however, and it’s time for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Israel Matzav heaped on some more scorn:

I want you to look at this picture where Omer is holding up his left arm. Am I the only one who thinks that looks more like a ‘hickey‘ than that someone beat him?

The Israeli authorities have looked into Omer’s case and found his complaints to be without basis. HonestReporting UK has the scoop:

Regarding the Complainant’s collapse, as it were, it should be noted that the paramedic who attended to him found no evidence of a physical cause of collapse. The Complainant’s behaviour raises doubts as to the sincerity of the situation. In any event, the Complainant was sent to an infirmary and an ambulance was ordered for him.

As to the Complainant’s allegation that he was compelled to stand on his feet for twelve hours, we point out that according to our records, the Complainant arrived at the Allenby Crossing at approximately 11:00, and the entire incident ended at approximately 14:00. Thus, this claim is also baseless.

Read the whole thing.

Ah, but you’ll say, “Of course, Israel would claim this. It must defend the actions its security forces took against an award winning journalist.”

Wait, stop right there. Mohammed Omer is not a journalist. He “reports” for the Washington Report on Mideast Affairs (WRMEA), a publication of the innocuously named American Educational Trust (AET). AET is a virulently anti-Israel (if not antisemitic) organization headed by former diplomats who represented the United States in the Arab world.

Since George W. Bush was elected President there have been occasional news stories about diplomats who have joined together to criticize President Bush for not pressing Israel more. These weren’t spontaneous gatherings, but organized by AET or a related organization the Council on the National Interest. However in order to embarrass the president these criticisms were treated as news and not as the press releases from a highly biased organization.

Still what does this have to do with Omer’s trustworthiness? AET didn’t hire him as a reporter but as a propagandist. Take this article he wrote about Christian in Gaza.

Father Musallam explained why Christians in Gaza do not feel singled out or oppressed. “Palestinian Christians are not a religious community set apart in some corner. We are part of the Palestinian people,” he asserted. “Our relationship with Hamas is as people of one nation. Hamas doesn’t fight religious groups. Its fight is against the Israeli occupation.”

When asked about Western media reports that Gaza’s Christians are considering emigrating because of Islamic oppression, Father Musallam sighed. “If Christians emigrate, it’s not because of Muslims,” he emphasized. “It is because we suffer from the Israeli siege. We seek a life of freedom–a life different from the life of dogs we are currently forced to live.”

This isn’t reporting, it’s propaganda. Father Musallem is often quoted in the media. And he can be counted on to criticize Israel and apologize for Hamas. I don’t know if he’s a coward or an accomplice.

Still this is false. Christians aren’t moving out of the Middle East (and Israel specifically) because of Israeli oppression. In fact the numbers tell a much different story.

Midway through this century, Christians comprised about 80 percent of the population of Bethlehem. Christians now make up less than 15 percent of the town. This is a trend that mirrors the Christian flight throughout the Palestinian Authority. However, this exodus began long before Israeli checkpoints and the security wall. It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of the Christian population fled during the time when Jordan occupied the West Bank. The Christian population under the Palestinian Authority has suffered from a negative growth-rate and now number less than 50,000, or about 2.4 percent of the population.

In fact, the Christian population throughout the Middle East has been in rapid decline. In 1900, Christians comprised 20 percent of the population of the Middle East; now, they are less than 2 percent. While the Muslim population has expanded rapidly in Europe and the U.S., Christians in the Middle East have experienced a negative population-growth rate. The only country noting a positive growth rate for Christians is Israel.

To call Omer a critic of Israel is to sell him short. His false and easily refuted portrayal of Israel’s oppression of Christian is not the work of a critic, it is the work of a hater. Of course he’s writing for an organization that hates Israel (despite its claim of supporting resolution 242). Mohammed Omer is not trustworthy, so there’s no reason to believe his claim.

This leads to one final irony. Elder of Ziyon observed that Omer was abroad to receive the Martha Gellhorn prize. Here’s the truth about Martha Gellhorn:

Martha Gellhorn was an amazing journalist who did some groundbreaking reporting over sixty years, traveling to most major conflicts.

I’ve mentioned her views on Palestinian Arabs in the past, when she filed reports from 1961-1967. Even though she was a committed leftist, she had no patience for how the Palestinian Arabs had turned into pawns in the conflict nor for their wildly inflated claims as to what happened in 1948. She was passionately pro-Israel.

So she would be aghast at the fact that the award named in her honor has been going to people who she would have eaten for lunch in real life, such as Robert Fisk. The award committee includes such rabid anti-Israel advocates as John Pilger.

It’s not enough that Mohammed Omer is a crude and dishonest anti-Israel propagandist. He has also been awarded a prize named for someone who supported the Zionist enterprise that he opposes.

UPDATE: Above I argued that Mohammed Omer should have had no credibility on account of his ties to WRMEA. There’s a stronger argument, he was contradicted by a doctor in a Jericho hospital:

Dr. Diaa Husseini, who examined Omer at the hospital, said the journalist had no signs of physical injury. He said Omer had suffered a nervous breakdown brought on by emotional stress and was given stomach medication and released after two hours.

(h/t Noah Pollak)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.