MEMRI’s enemies keeps on accusing the organization of cherry-picking quotes, or pulling them out of context. I’d like to know what MEMRI’s enemies can possibly say to excuse this excrescence, who has managed to both steal and warp one of the best concepts of all of Judaism—which was, of course, copied by Islam. The Jewish concept is that when one takes a life, it is as if a whole world has been destroyed. Islam borrowed that concept. Radical Islam appears to have changed it for the much, much worse:

Hamas Parliament Member Fathi Hammad tells Al-Aqsa TV, the television station of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip, that Allah hates the Jews more than anyone and that the 15 million Jews in the world are worse than the 4.5 billion infidels in the world. Hammad adds that killing one Jew is like killing 30 million Jews in the eyes of Allah.

Click on the link to watch.

An exact quote: “Allah has chosen you to fight the people he hates most—the Jews.”

And displaying the murderous math of the jihadi mind, dividing the number of infidels in the world by the number of Jews—and when he says Jews, he doesn’t mean “Zionists”—gives you a jihadi sum on which to base each murder. 30 million.

Disgusting. Depraved. Despicable. These are the people that Jimmy Carter defends as the free-and-fair elected representatives of the Palestinian people, while ignoring the hatred spewed out on a daily basis.

And these are the members of the organization that the EU and the UN seem to think Israel should sit down with and negotiate. Because this is just rhetoric, right?

Wrong.

I remember some cartoon - maybe from Mad Magazine, maybe from Calvin and Hobbes - showing a little boy on Santa Claus’s lap asking for all sorts of weaponry and - peace on earth. This picture reminded me of the punchline.

Anyway, Elder of Ziyon observes that these toy weapons aren’t very safe.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

So a party that advocates the lifting of restrictions of Nazi symbols has won a significant victory in Austrian elections.

(h/t LGF)

No doubt Austria will now be shunned internationally - and rightly so - just as it was a decade ago when the Austrian government sought to bring in Jorg Haider.

But contrast that to the mad Mahmoud’s recent successful American tour as Jeff Jacoby recounts:

At the United Nations, the Iranian president delivered a speech laced with undiluted anti-Semitism, denouncing “people called Zionists” who dominate the world’s “financial and monetary centers” and control “the political decision-making centers” in the West through “deceitful, complex, and furtive” means. His remarks were greeted not with jeers or stony silence, but with lusty applause from the delegates and a hug from the president of the General Assembly.

Then CNN provided the hatemongering head of state with another soapbox - an interview with Larry King, who warmly shook the Iranian president’s hand and tossed him a series of fatuous softballs: “Where in the US would you like to travel? Would you like to meet Sarah Palin, since you’re both former mayors? You don’t wish the Jewish people any harm, do you?”

On Thursday, Ahmadinejad was the guest of honor at a dinner and “dialogue” hosted by several left-wing Christian organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, and the World Council of Churches. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom had urged the organizers not to honor someone who “has manipulated such dialogues repeatedly into a platform for spreading hatred,” and warned to no avail that lionizing Ahmadinejad would only “burnish the Iranian leader’s legitimacy.” The dinner went ahead as scheduled, amid pious invocations of “engagement” and “discussion.” Intoned Mark Graham of the American Friends Service Committee: “You can’t just engage with people with whom you agree on all issues. That leads to a very myopic view of the world.”

You see antisemitism is unacceptable when it’s expressed by Europreans. But when it’s expressed by Muslims who want to bring back the actual policies of the Nazis not just their symbols, why, it’s perfectly acceptable.

The excuses are all predictable.

We can’t judge them, they’re different than us.
They’re showing solidarity with their Palestinian brothers.
They don’t really mean it.

Those are loads of BS.

There’s been a case made that Ahmadinejad’s statements constitute “incitement to genocide.”

The statements emanating from the Iranian President are not only alarming and destabilizing. They also constitute direct and public incitement to commit genocide — a gross violation of international law. Such incitement is reminiscent of historical incidents of genocide, like that which occurred in Rwanda. The critical difference is that while the Hutus in Rwanda were equipped with the most basic of weapons, such as machetes, Iran, should the international community do nothing to prevent it, will soon acquire nuclear weapons. This would increase the risk of instant genocide, allowing no time or possibility for defensive efforts.

It is essential to distinguish between freedom to oppose a government and incitement to genocide. Various political leaders outspokenly condemn rival governments using epithets like “the evil/Cuban/corrupt/North Korean/ruthless regime.” These verbal barrages, however, pose no existential threat to ordinary people in the street. Ahmadinejad’s reckless anti-Semitic tirades that “the Jews are very filthypeople,”"[theJewshave]inflictedthemost damage on the human race,” “[the Jews are] a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians,” “they should know that they are nearing the last days of their lives,” and “as the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map” should have aroused trepidation. Thus far, however, Ahmadinejad’s threats have been met with acquiescence, indifference, and inaction. Yet, his apocalyptic utterances are not mere rhetoric. Ahmadinejad’s declaration that the Holocaust was a “fairy tale,” and his enabling of Hamas and Hizbullah, demonstrate that there is simply no way for his ambitions to be realized without perpetrating a new genocide.

Again this is a lot more serious than reviving “Nazi imagery.” Ahmadinejad’s actions and statements could be considered actionable, in a legal sense, and grounds for expelling Iran from the UN. (The General Assembly did this to South Africa, when apartheid was the law of its land.)

And yet I suspect we’ll have to wait really long time before the UN chooses to act responsibly regarding Iran and its threat to Israel. Heck, even Mohammed el-Baradei concedes that his Nobel prize winning agency hasn’t been successful in stemming Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Of course this isn’t an admission of incompetence, but a request for more money to continue being ineffective.

The events in Austria are certainly troubling, but Iran remains a bigger threat to Israel and the world.

Meryl has more.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Some background first.
From the The Winograd Commission report:

a. The Prime Minister bears supreme and comprehensive responsibility for the decisions of ‘his’ government and the operations of the army. His responsibility for the failures in the initial decisions concerning the war stem from both his position and from his behavior, as he initiated and led the decisions which were taken.

b. The Prime Minister made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one. Also, his decision was made without close study of the complex features of the Lebanon front or of the military, political and diplomatic options available to Israel. He made his decision without systematic consultation with others, especially outside the IDF, despite not having experience in external-political and military affairs. In addition, he did not adequately consider political and professional reservations presented to him before the fateful decisions of July 12th.

c. The Prime Minister is responsible for the fact that the goals of the campaign were not set out clearly and carefully, and that there was no serious discussion of the relationship between these goals and the authorized modes of military action. He made a personal contribution to the fact that the declared goals were over-ambitious and not feasible.

From the summary of “Releasing Terrorists: New victims pay the price”

* The Israeli Cabinet approved on August 17 the release of almost 200 Palestinian security prisoners as a “goodwill gesture” to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. The list includes several prisoners “with blood on their hands,” who, by definition, were involved in the murder of Israelis.

* According to an informal estimate by Israeli security bodies, about 50 percent of the terrorists freed for any reason whatsoever returned to the path of terror, either as perpetrator, planner, or accomplice. In the terror acts committed by these freed terrorists, hundreds of Israelis were murdered, and thousands were wounded.

* Israel freed 400 Palestinian prisoners and five other prisoners in return for Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was held captive by Hizbullah, and for the bodies of three soldiers kidnapped on Mount Dov. According to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi, from the date of the deal on January 29, 2004, until April 17, 2007, those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis.

Keep those two bits of information in mind when parsing Ethan Bronner’s Olmert Says Israel Should Pull Out of West Bank:

In an unusually frank and soul-searching interview granted after he resigned to fight corruption charges — he remains interim prime minister until a new government is sworn in — Mr. Olmert discarded longstanding Israeli defense doctrine and called for radical new thinking, in words that are sure to stir controversy as his expected successor, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, tries to build a coalition.

Let’s just say, as demonstrated above, this wouldn’t be the first time that Ehud Olmert has “discarded longstanding Israeli defense doctrine” and the earlier times cannot exactly be called resounding successes.

In the past Israel has, of course, believed in deterrence and no releasing prisoners with blood on their hands. These are doctrines that Olmert (and other Prime Ministers) has (have) discarded and they haven’t made Israel any more secure or brought it closer to peace. I suppose you can package it as “radical new thinking” but that’s not the same thing as it being a good idea.

Dion Nissenbaum thinks that Olmert’s right but that it’s too late and that he should have made this speech last year.

Yes, a year after degrading Israel’s deterrence and with the results of the withdrawal from Gaza flying into Sderot on a regular basis, the Israeli public would have been quite receptive to the idea of more withdrawals.

Tim McGirk is similarly cynical.

But for all those who think that Olmert’s thinking is in any way new, how does it differ from the past 15 years since the Oslo accords were signed? Since then even Binyamin Netanyahu ceded land to the Palestinians. As I’ve written before, what’s now the mainstream Right for Israel, is roughly where Israel’s Left was twenty years ago. Netanyahu, if he’s elected, isn’t going to recapture Gaza - he might bring the fight to Hamas - but no Israelis will be staying there. And Netanyahu isn’t likely to reverse any facts on the ground in Judea and Samaria either. He may not be willing to cede as much land to the Palestinians, but that’s a far cry from saying that he’d be making the “occupation” irreversible.

And it takes a real naif - or knave - like McGirk or Nissenbaum to heap sarcastic praise on Olmert for saying the right thing too late, when in fact it is the Palestinians who haven’t changed over the past fifteen (or twenty) years. As Jonathan Spyer recently wrote after outlining the phony Palestinian efforts to codify their “commitment” to a two-state solution:

The advocates of the one-state solution then maintain that since Israel has chosen to sabotage the possibility of partition, there is no longer any possibility for the realization of this, and since Israeli settlement activity has de facto created a single entity west of the Jordan River, the appropriate–or perhaps sole possible–response of the Palestinian national movement is to accept this fait accompli and to begin a campaign for integration of the entire population of this area into a single state framework. This case has been made in myriad publications in a variety of languages over the previous half decade.[25] It is hard to find mention of the fact that this position was in fact the PLO’s official stance until 1988. Rather, the impression given is that after a long period of commitment to partition, the Palestinians and the international community must now abandon this position, because Israel’s actions have made it an impossibility.

More generally Barry Rubin writes that he premise of Olmert and his admirers have it all wrong:

The reality is that the Palestinians–albeit living off large-scale, though poorly spent, global subsidies–for whom time is an enemy. They face bad conditions; Fatah’s decline continues; the chance to have their own state slips away because their leadership pushes it away. Arab regimes face Islamist challenges that may be defeated but waste resources and stunt their progress. The chance for democracy, moderation, and stability has been lost for another generation.

Peace is preferable but much of what makes it so is that it must be a good peace, one that makes things better and is sustainable. Peace is possible only when the other side wants it. Today’s peace process mania is like a cartoon character whose legs windmill in a blur but which never advances.

But whether or not Olmert is correct, his statement causes mischief.

The Yedioth Ahronoth wrote that Olmert’s comments would complicate Livni’s job even before she takes over.

“He places on the doorstep of his successor a foreign policy doctrine, the likes of which has never been spoken by an incumbent prime minister,” commented his interviewers.

It should be no surprise that the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas intends to pocket this for future negotiations.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he hopes the statements made by Prime Minster Ehud Olmert regarding sovereignty over Jerusalem, the territories and the Golan Heights will serve as a “deposit” for the next government.

And when lame duck Ehud Barak negotiated with Yasser Arafat, “under the gun” of the “Aqsa intifada” in early 2001, the Palestinians accepted all of his concessions as a starting point for future negotiations. Another example of defense doctrine disregarded, at great cost to Israel.

Ehud Olmert can’t help learning the the wrong lessons.

See also Daled Amos, My Right Word, Israel Matzav and Meryl.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Ehud Olmert, not content with leaving Israel in a near-shambles, manages to make things even worse on his way out by declaring that Israel needs to surrender entirely to the Palestinians, or there will be no peace.

In the farewell interview, published Monday, Olmert also said Israel would have to leave the Golan Heights to make peace with Syria.

In the interview, Olmert said, “We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, one meaning that we will withdraw in practice from nearly all of the territories, if not from all of them,” Olmert said.

Olmert said Israel would keep “a percentage” of the West Bank but would have to give Palestinians the same amount of Israeli territory in exchange, “because without this there will be no peace.”

He also said Israel would have to leave parts of east Jerusalem, saying Israel couldn’t hope to maintain its control of the more than 200,000 Arab residents there.

Did I say “surrender entirely to the Palestinians”? Because what I meant was, “Surrender entirely.” Give up the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. And what, pray tell, will Israel get in return? Peace? You mean like the peace that exists for the residents of the Negev? The peace that exists in Sderot?

Israel will have peace, even thought Nasrallah is saying that there will never be peace with Israel because Israel doesn’t “belong” in that fictional nation known as “Palestine”?

“Jerusalem and Palestine, from the sea to the river, belong to the Palestinian people, the Arabs and the Muslims, and no one has the authority to concede a grain of earth, wall or stone from the holy land,” Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said Friday evening.

You mean peace with the Iranians even as they constantly predict the end of Israel?

You mean peace with Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that is calling for renewed waves of suicide bombings? The Hamas that’s looking to take over the West Bank, which Olmert says Israel “must” give back to the Palestinians?

It’s simply unbelievable to me that he’s managing to try his best to take the ship of state down with him as he drowns. He’s definitely Israel’s Jimmy Carter—trying to make deals where he has no authority, no mandate, and no business making those deals.

He can’t leave office fast enough for me.