The kingdom of Jordan, which was the guardian of Jewish holy sites from 1948 to 1967, is lecturing Israel on digging near the Temple Mount.

Jordan said on Thursday it summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest against plans for excavation and construction work near the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Jerusalem’s most volatile holy site.

“Foreign Minister Salah Bashir summoned the Israeli ambassador this week to officially inform him that Jordan rejects such illegal measures,” said MP Mohammed Abu Hdeib, head of the lower house of parliament’s committee on international affairs, after meeting Bashir on Thursday.

Really? Jordan objects to such “illegal measures”? And yet, Jordan had no such objections when it was using Jewish cemetery headstones to pave roads, knocking down synagogues that had stood for centuries, and letting the al-Aqsa Mosque fall into disrepair.

Funny how the Jordanians only find their voices about this when they’re not the ones doing the digging. And Israel has never deliberately destroyed Muslim holy sites. So we really have no comparison to speak of.

You know, I really want to tell Jordan to do something extremely disgusting, but I think I’ll just leave this post with a G rating. (”Eat [censored] and die” was what I was thinking, actually.)

Someone didn’t get the New York Times editorial staff’s memo. The one that said:

A way must be found to help turn Hamas into a legitimate and acceptable negotiating partner.

Because here’s what the “negotiating partner” has to say about negotiations:

“Jerusalem will be retrieved to the Palestinians not through negotiations or by hugging and kissing the enemy, but by way of jihad, blood, shahids and resistance. With Allah’s help, Jerusalem will be returned,” he said.

And if that’s not enough for you, let me remind you that Ismail Haniyeh is the man elected by the Palestinians to represent them in negotiations. And he says he won’t accept negotiations:

Haniyeh said that “according to most all reports on secret peace talks or agreements, Israel is refusing to relinquish Jerusalem and the West Bank, refuses to accept the right of return of Palestinian refugees, refuses to dismantle the settlements and deems the Jordan Valley vital to its security.

“On behalf of the Palestinian nation and Muslims everywhere, I say that we will not accept any such agreements,” he said.

So, you think the folks who write the Times editorials are going to get a clue?

When hell freezes over, perhaps.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the world media and political elite ignore statements like this (which are repeated every few weeks, without fail) and insist that Hamas can be talked to, and brought into the negotiations process. Go and peruse my Hamas category to find statements like this over and over and over again. Hamas wants one thing, and only one thing: The destruction of the state of Israel, and its replacement with an Islamic caliphate. Anyone who tells you anything different is lying.

I told you the Iranians were lying when they announced that they could launch an air strike team on Israel. (H/T: Mike)

Fact is, the Iranian Air Force–or more correctly, Iran’s two Air Forces have serious training, equipment, airspace and logistical issues that make a successful strike on Israel almost impossible.

We’ll begin with the airspace problem. Getting to Israel from Iran means over-flying countries like Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Crossing Iraq and Jordan offers the most direct route, but that means a confrontation with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy jets–a battle the Iranians would certainly lose. Turkey and Saudi Arabia would also oppose transit by Iranian fighters headed for Israel, and both have better jets and pilots.

In fact, Iran’s most “viable” option for an airstrike against Israel would require a long, circuitous flight down the Persian Gulf, around the Arabian Peninsula, and up the Red Sea. That route would carry Iranian fighters through international airspace, but it would significantly increase flight time, in-flight refueling requirements and the probability of detection.

And, speaking of tankers, did we mention that Iran has only two–a KC-707 (similar to our own KC-135) and a modified Boeing 747. The older KC-707 flies on a periodic basis; as for the 747, there is some speculation that it has been converted for other missions, such as hauling cargo.

There’s much more. Read it all for an in-depth look at why the Iranians can barely muster enough fighter jets for an air show on “Death to the Infidels” Day.

So, when Chipmunk Cheeks Nasrallah makes threats on TV from a hidden location deep in Lebanon, should we do anything more than laugh, loudly and scornfully?

Speaking on Lebanese television in a special broadcast marking two years since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Nasrallah said that the outcome of the war “affected Israel and the entire region.”

[...] Nasrallah accused Israel of planning to assassinate Hizbullah leaders, saying this would not deter Hizbullah from continuing its battle against Israel.

“I tell the Zionists: We don’t fear you. Say whatever you want and do whatever you want. We know that you are planning new assassinations of resistance leaders. But this will not make us retreat,” he said. “We are staying here and standing fast here.”

The Hizbullah leader went on to say that Israel was helpless in dealing with the Iranian Islamic Republic, and that even Israel recognizes its own inability to cope with the rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

To review: He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, and yet, he’s afraid to show up in public unless surrounded by thousands of civilians, knowing full well that Israel won’t drop bombs on him if there is a risk of killing women and children. He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, yet he has been in hiding for years. He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, and yet, he can’t walk in the open in downtown Beirut, his stomping grounds.

Yeah, “cognitive dissonance” is not a phrase bandied about much in NasrallahLand.

From the headline until nearly the last paragraph, this condescending, sexist piece of drek willl go down in my Feminist Hall of Shame. And it’s from AP. It figures.

What a ride: Woman, 82, inducted into Hall of Fame

Wow. A woman was inducted into the Hall of Fame. What, the first one ever? Is that why you don’t identify her in the headline, like you would any other inductee into the Hall of Fame? Does she not have a name? Well, let’s look at the lead.

Betty Skelton Erde is 82 and lives in a retirement community where many are content to putter about in golf carts. Not Erde: She drives a blazing red Corvette to match her red hair and really means it when she says, “I like fast cars.”

An auto racing pioneer, Erde (Uhr-Dee) once was the fastest woman on Earth, setting female speed records at Daytona Beach and Utah’s Bonneville salt flats half a century ago. On Wednesday, she reaches a new milestone as only the fifth woman inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in suburban Detroit.

Oh, she has a name. You even tell us how to pronounce it. And she’s not the first. She’s the fifth woman inducted. So the headline is just, gee, sexist. And those “female” speed records? Aren’t they supposed to be either “speed records” or “women’s speed records”?

Dozens of firsts are attached to her name: the auto industry’s first female test driver, in 1954; the first woman to set a world land speed record in 1956 (145 mph at Daytona Beach); and then the world land speed record for women in 1965, hitting 315.72 mph at Bonneville.

Funny, those aren’t all “female” speed records. I do believe the word “world” was in front of some of them. And here’s what the writer describes as Erde’s first drive in a fast car:

In February 1954, at France’s invitation, Erde went to Daytona. She climbed into a Dodge sedan, went 105.88 mph on the beach - that’s when folks still raced on sand - and set a stock car record.

That’s a record. Not a “female” record. What a bunch of condescending, sexist crap.

The AP also manages to quote one of the more sexist remarks from the time period when sexist remarks were, well, unremarkable. So when you read this, you nod your head and say, “How quaint. So glad men have learned not to be such morons today.”

“I would venture to say there is no other woman in the world with all the attributes of this woman,” France once remarked. “The most impressive of them all is her surprising and outstanding ever-present femininity, even when tackling a man’s job.”

But when you read the AP article, which includes this:

But if Erde was aware of how different she was for a woman at the time - unmarried, without children - she didn’t show it.

“I had to do what I wanted,” she said.

You have to wonder what century the writer is living in. And what is wrong with her. Because this drek was written by a woman. Perhaps she’s aiming for one of those “female” writing prizes.

We have reached the height of irony. Who needs sexist male writers when a woman will do the job for him?

Well done, Sister Suffragette.

It looks like simply killing off one another is not enough anymore for Hamas and Fatah:

The internecine fight between Hamas and Fatah has gotten ugly - at least for Palestinians who favor men with mustaches. Hamas has resumed its policy of shaving the mustaches of rival Fatah members to humiliate them as a form of punishment…

A Fatah activist has his mustache shaved in solidarity with a fellow member, whom Fatah says Hamas shaved as a humiliating punishment.

The next step in the escalation is already looming ahead: according to our sources, a large shipment of Braun Silk-épil EverSoft Solo 2170 Epilator is on its way to Ramallah. Very soon members of Hamas will be easy identified (see the before/after image below):

I shudder at the thought of the future Hamas’ retaliation to this atrocity. Enforced self-mutilation of the type shown below cannot be rejected as a possibility.

And then…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

This is a first, for me at least. I was already inured to Allah fishes and even Allah tomato caused only a moderate reaction in my stomach, having nothing to do with this fashionable salmonella strain that seems to inhabit some US vegetables.

What looks like the Arabic word for God and the name of the prophet Muhammad were discovered in pieces of beef by a diner in Birnin Kebbi.

The name of the file that carries the photograph of the holy meat in the linked BBC article includes a string “mysterymeat”. I think that some interested Islamic parties should sort it out with BBC. I detect a whiff of disrespect here.

But all in all, the whole issue is very encouraging, at least for me. Since the beef was blessed by Allah, I guess it is safe to say now that it will put paid to the vegetarians trying to enforce their creed on the rest of the world.

“When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind,” he said.

Yes, I see the light now! As long as my burger and my T-bone and my fried chicken are blessed, I am totally with it!

Lead me, oh chef chief of all kabobs!

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Oh, this is too funny: A group of pro-Palestinian Israelis wanted to hold a demonstration at sea against the Gaza seige, but a Herzliya captain refused to take them on board until they dumped their kaffiyehs and Palestinian flags. They refused. End of protest.

Left-wing activists were left stranded on the shores of Herzliya Monday, after a floating protest against the siege on Gaza went awry due to one boat-owner’s refusal to set sail. The captain was hired by the leftists to take them out to sea, but he declined to do so when they arrived wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags.

The leftists’ boat was to set sail simultaneously with some Gazan fishermen’s boats leaving from the Strip. “The boat owner and captain refused to set sail until the Palestinian flags were removed and the demonstrators took off their keffiyehs,” Gush Shalom spokesman Adam Keller told Ynet.

A vocal conflict erupted between the two sides and police were alerted on the claim that the activists were trespassing. “In the end we couldn’t hold the solidarity regatta because we refused to take down the flags and the keffiyehs. Therefore we remained on the beach and held a protest in the marina, during which we spoke on the phone with the Palestinians sailing opposite the Gazan shore,” Keller said.

Just picture it: Instead of being on the water, waving their flags in solidarity, they were on cell phones, essentially holding the “Wish You Were Here” protest—left high and dry.

Score one for Israeli common sense, and realize that Gush Shalom represents a very small percentage of the Israeli population.

Those famous words were spoken by British climber George Mallory in 1924 when he was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. I believe that this is as good an answer as any other - to an unanswerable question.

For some reason I recalled this while reading the CNN article about the book Human Smoke by one Nicholson Baker.

Even the staunchest opponents of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq are loath to take issue with World War II, the quintessential conflict between good and evil that became the model of a morally just war.

This opening sentence of the article is faulty in my opinion: I wouldn’t characterize the WW II as good vs. evil. It was rather less evil vs. more evil, but both Mr. Baker and the author of the article are confined to the Western-centric view of the war - more about it later. Meanwhile, I have realized the reason for recalling Sir Mallory’s words. Baker, as many other revisionists of history, is most probably driven by the same motive - because the history is there. Of course, a strong political belief (pacifism in his case) and unerring 20-20 hindsight, selective to the point of almost total blindness, don’t cause any harm to this endeavor.

In fact, as many of history revisionists have discovered, the business definitely has its perks. Such as the 15 minutes of glory, lucrative publishing contracts and a shoal of supporters, no matter how small a fringe they belong to. Of the seven billions world population even a fringe is enough to create a considerable source of pride, glory and income. But this is less important - after all, the roads to stardom are not paved by model behavior - in most cases.

So what is the main point of the book, according to the CNN article?

Baker said he was surprised and shocked at the way Churchill responded to Hitler’s attacks on Poland and other neighboring states by launching a relentless bombing campaign against German cities as well as a blockade that was designed to starve the enemy into submission.

“He was acting like a bloodthirsty maniac during that period. That has to go back on the record in all of its unpleasantness. We can’t learn from a hero like that. It’s a mistake to say that because Hitler was bad, we have to clean up the image of Churchill. Churchill was also bad,” Baker said.

Baker maintains that Churchill’s bellicose actions and Roosevelt’s eagerness to supply Britain with ships and planes served only to prop up Hitler’s standing with Germans and strengthen his hold on the country.

Now, the point is not necessarily new. In fact, the “pacifist” movement that protested any attempts to curb the Nazis’ expansionist moves was quite strong in pre-war Britain and fairly sizable in US as well. That some of the “pacifists” were quite overt in their support of Nazi ideology is another point worth remembering. I don’t know whether Mr Baker touches upon it in his book.

So - the main, and not too revolutionary, point of Mr Baker’s book is: why, oh why, haven’t Churchill and Roosevelt talked to Hitler, why haven’t they tried to understand an pacify him?

Yeah. Indeed, why haven’t people tried to talk with Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Pol Pot, why don’t they talk enough to Kim Jong-Il, not to mention Sheik Nasrallah, Mugabe and myriad other tyrants and mass murderers throughout the history? Surely, given some frank and convincing talking-to, all these people could have been persuaded to become no more harmful than lambs. After all, Hitler has done no more than “attacks on Poland and other neighboring states”. That could have been a result of temporary indigestion which is an occasional burden for a vegetarian like Hitler.

Hmm… there must be some snag in the above logic. Somehow Mr Baker forgot that Poland and “other neighboring states” happened to become occupied as a result of these “attacks”. With well-known consequences. Unless, of course, Mr Baker thinks that the consequences could have been avoided as well by talking to Hitler in a right way. Or, as it may happen, Mr Baker just isn’t interested very much in the fate the befell all these Eastern heathens.

And this is the second important point: for some reason, as I have mentioned at the start of the post, Mr Baker focuses on Hitler - Churchill - Roosevelt trio, disregarding the Eastern side of the map. Whether it comes from ignorance or from some intentional oversight I wouldn’t know. The CNN article disregards the issue as well. But I couldn’t.

You see, my problem with Baker’s theory is of a practical nature. Given, for the purpose of the exercise, that by cuddling up to Hitler instead of confronting him, Churchill and Roosevelt could have prevented Nazis’ westward expansion, what about the Operation Barbarossa? Conceived and planned in meticulous detail long before the beginning of WW II, this operation eventually failed and was the ultimate cause of the downfall of the most evil regime in history.

But what if Baker’s villains, Churchill and Roosevelt, have decided to stay away from assistance they have generously provided to the Soviet Union, as Baker’s guidance would have been? What if the Red Army failed in its resistance? For me the answer is quite simple - I wouldn’t have been born and somebody else would have had to respond to Mr Baker’s well-meaning drivel.

On the other hand, both Baker and his readers would have been exemplary citizens of the Third Reich and a post like this one would have hardly be possible in the circumstances.

Oh well. The post is getting too long, the weather outside is getting too attractive. Time to forget Mr Baker and his crapola and deal with more pleasant matters.

Only… maybe later in the day I could raise Kim Jong-Il on Skype and talk him into stopping the starvation of his people and accumulation of all kinds of Dongs - medium or long range as they may happen to be. After all, he is so ronely, and a good talking-to may just be what the doctor recommends.

Peace…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Astonishing. The AP managed to write an article that utterly contradicts its lead. Here’s the lead:

Israeli students slam American ‘Israel Lobby’ authors
Two prominent American professors, who have recently been causing an uproar with their best-selling book critical of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, faced a raucous reception Thursday at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

About 200 students and faculty members crammed into a stuffy lecture hall and grilled John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt for more than two hours about the harsh findings in their book, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” published last year.

Makes you think there are going to be some hard-hitting questions by Israeli students to the W-M team, doesn’t it? That opening makes you think you’re going to get some really nasty responses from the students at the lecture. Were W-M shouted down? Booed? Did anyone throw a pie in their faces?

I wouldn’t know. The AP didn’t inform me of anything other than that W-M spoke at Hebrew University, that they’re martyrs of the “Israel Lobby,” and that a lot of people disagree with them but some people don’t.

You won’t find a single question in the paragraphs that follow. Not one. You’ll get a statement by a student sympathetic to the W-M smear. You’ll get a very long explanation by the AP writer on how W-M have been attacked by people who disagree with their thesis. And you’ll get a quote at the very end of the article by someone from the ADL who, I think, is critical of them. It’s hard to tell in context. But most of the article is like this:

Since Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago professor, and Walt, of Harvard University, published their working paper of the same title in 2006, they have drawn the wrath of Jewish American groups and US Administration officials.

“If you bring up the Israel lobby, you are asking for trouble,” Walt said as he opened his lecture. He said he knew he was “playing with fire” when he wrote the book, but said he would not be deterred by personal attacks against him.

There is not a single quote of a question from the “raucous reception”. There is nothing but this description:

They said AIPAC wields disproportionate power because of deep financial resources and heavy-handed tactics. They were then showered with questions, as the classroom erupted in excited conversation. The exchange was mostly cordial, with the American professors eliciting some laughs from the crowd, but at times it got testy.

Gee. It got “testy.” But “the exchange was mostly cordial.” And yet, the scary lead talks about the “raucous reception” W-M got. You know, like this one:

Not all in the audience were hostile. Korina Kagan, a political science lecturer, said she essentially agreed with their thesis and was appalled by the attacks against them, especially from academic circles.

“The smear campaign against them is worse than anything they have ever written,” she said, adding that many of their positions are shared by commentators in the Israeli media. “We need to have a free academic exchange.”

Hm. That’s awfully raucous, Korina. You want to control yourself. You may suffer an aneurism if you’re not careful.

Here’s my question to the AP: Was this article written entirely from the Walt-Mearsheimer press release, or did you actually have someone in the audience for the student quote above?

The Chronicle of Higher Education managed to find a completely different angle for the same lecture:

‘Israel Lobby’ Professors Get Hospitable Greeting in Israel
Jerusalem — The first appearance in Israel by Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer since the publication of their controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, impressed a largely student audience at the Hebrew University, but left some faculty members wondering about their honesty.

A threatened boycott failed to have any effect, and the talk passed off with nothing more dramatic than some lively debate and repeated declarations from the pair that they are neither anti-Semitic nor Israel-haters.

So, gee, the AP is what, lying?

Yeah, I’m thinking.

The Arab League is holding an “extraordinary” meeting about Israeli expansion of Jerusalem suburbs.

CAIRO, June 5 (Xinhua) — The Arab League (AL) Council has decided to hold an extraordinary meeting on June 15 to discuss the Israeli settlement activities in the disputed territory, an AL spokesman said on Thursday.

Abdel Aleem al-Abiyad, spokesman for AL chief Amr Moussa, made the announcement in a brief press release on Thursday, saying the meeting will be held at the level of permanent delegates.

On Sunday, Israeli Housing Ministry published a bid for the construction of more than 800 apartment units in east Jerusalem, the latest decision to build more houses in the disputed territory since the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks at the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis conference last November.

Hey, Arab League: Bite me.

“To tell you the truth I don’t quite understand this. Must Israel ask permission from some other authority in the world? It has been our capital for 3,000 years. We have been there since the time your forefathers used to drink wine, bury their daughters alive, and pray to multiple gods.”

Keidar was referring to a period Arabs call Jahiliyyah (ignorance of divine guidance), which prevailed in the Arab world before the time of the Islam. “So then,” he continued, “why must we speak about this? It has been our city for 3,000 years and will be for eternity.”

(Can’t wait to see a full transcript of that interview.)

Say, remember my telling you that Syria isn’t making a serious offer towards peace with Israel?

Yeah, well, I’m not wrong about that.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said during a visit to The United Arab Emirates on Monday that Israel’s agreement to withdraw from the Golan Heights was a prerequisite for the renewed peace negotiations between the two countries.

Speaking to editors of local news outlets in Abu Dhabi, Assad said “Syria conditioned the launching of indirect negotiations with Israel, with Turkey’s mediation, on the (Jewish state’s) agreement to cede the Golan.

Uh-huh. And after that, all the Jews who left Syria after the founding of Israel will trip merrily back into Damascus, singing “La-la-la-la” and bearing flowers, which they will lay at the feet of the dortktator president.

I think Tom Paine is wearing off on me.

The next time someone tries to tell you how culturally superior Europe is to us, send them to YouTube to see the entries in this year’s Eurovision contest.

Pay particular attention to the Russian entry. It won.

Snoopy, if you can enlighten me as to what on earth the ice skater is supposed to represent, I’d be grateful. If you want to see the Russian entry in its entirety, feel free. I’m thinking there isn’t a single straight man in that video, but hey, book, cover, etc.

As for the rest, well, check out Estonia and Belgium. Oh. My. God.

I’ll be discussing the Eurovision contest in my upcoming Shire Network News contribution.

Oh, I almost forgot: I have something in the recent SNN, which is actually hosted from the Shire this week. I’ll split out my essay later this weekend.

So my post yesterday appears to have pissed off the neo-Nazis so much, that they copied me on a sock-puppet email conversation about some Jew converting to Christianity. I expect they wanted me to join in, or be hurt, or curl up and cry over the fact that someone converted from Judaism to another religion. Gee, like that never happened before.

Maybe they thought I’d get mad or something. Nah. I think I’ll just back up yesterday’s post with numbers. 155 Jewish Nobel prize winners since the prize began. Let’s see, 49 in biomedical science, 23 in economics, 27 in chemistry, 44 in physics, 12 in literature.

And gee, there are basically no Jews giving out the prizes, so there goes that conspiracy theory. 155 prizes out of a total of 797. Gee, what’s that percentage? Carry the one, subtract the—wow, that’s nearly twenty percent given to the Jews.

So, how many Nobel prizes have British neo-Nazis won over the years?

None. That’s right. A great big goose egg.

Have a nice day, boys. Try not to let those penises get any smaller.

Eff you.

With the same inevitability as the increase in terrorist attacks and rocket scientists’ activity toward Jewish and Israeli holidays, the so called Jewish anti-Zionists get restless during the period. The phenomenon usually manifests in a joint letter, published in a sympathetic newspaper. And in UK you can hardly get a more sympathetic one than The Guardian, of course.

This time the wretches couldn’t even wait for the Holocaust Remembrance day to be over.

In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating.

And then the usual tripe, half-truths, distortions, etc. And the usual list of signatures with painfully familiar names. The democratic nature of the list is touching - professors, writers, thieves, rabbis, you name it.

There is one thing I would like to understand better: why should a person declare with such pomposity and publicity that he/she doesn’t celebrate this or another holiday? I mean, if I decide not to celebrate, for example, St. Patrick’s day (rest assured I shall not do so, it’s just for illustration) - should I get a space in a Turkish (to use another example) newspaper to announce this decision to the world?

There is another issue unclear to me: who asked these people to celebrate? As far as I know, Olmert is too busy these days, what with all these investigations and stuff, and his ministers are too busy watching him - not to miss the moment he stumbles or blinks first.

And the last, but not the least: who cares? As far as I, and the other 99.9% of Israeli citizens are concerned, this whole list could collectively kiss our collective rosy posterior.

And it is only of respect to the place where this post will appear that I refrain from posting a certain picture I have in mind.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Just when you think that Iranian spokesliars can’t get any dumber, they do.

American officials follow the policy of Iranophobia,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in a weekly news conference.

Apparently, Baghdad Bob was not a one-off phenomenon.

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

They’re laying barbed wire.

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

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

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

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

Next up: “Danger! Keep Out!” signs.

Roee Nahmias is hereby officially pronounced an Apprentice of Juvenile Scorn™ for this story about the PIJ haxxor d00dz incredible hacking skillz.

Islamic Jihad operatives have been able to hack into several Israeli websites, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.

“The electronic surveillance unit of the media warfare division has been able to hack into several Israeli websites and take them over,” said a statement by the al-Quds Brigades, quoted by the paper.

Wow, that’ sounds pretty scary. What websites did they hack? IAF? IDF? Mossad?

A Ynet probe has revealed at least two websites hacked by the Islamic Jihad – the Kfar Truman and the “High-Tech Motors Body-Shop” websites.

The next sound you hear will be the sound of millions of true hackers around the world snorting with derision. Oooh. A body shop website. The world trembles at the loss of yet another scratch-and-dent repair website, so vital to Israeli security.

And here’s where Roee gets that Juvenile Scorn apprenticeship:

Website defacement of this nature requires only basic programming know-how and usually boils down to changing the main page – a file easy to reconstruct.

[...] A statement by any terror group pointing to a unit dedicated to defacing websites does not necessarily indicate any operational sophistication, since any teenager with basic programming skills can do the same.

[Snicker]

Well done, Roee.

It’s “poring.”

You’re welcome.

Oh, no way this could go wrong. Civil rights groups in Israel are trying to stop Israeli security, which has successfully stopped all hijacking of Israeli planes, from profiling potential hijackers/bombers.

Airline security faced a legal challenge yesterday from a civil rights group charging that its practice of ethnic profiling is racist because it singles out Arabs for tougher treatment.

At a Supreme Court hearing, civil rights lawyers demanded an end to the policy, which they say violates Israeli law. Such profiling is illegal in the U.S., where passengers must be singled out for security checks on a random basis.

And the whining:

[...] there hasn’t been a successful attack on an Israeli airliner in decades, and experts point to Israel’s security procedures as a key factor.

Many of the measures are kept secret, but known precautions on Israeli airliners include armored luggage compartments, armed sky marshals and reinforced cockpits.

But a key to preventing attacks, experts say, is the screening process on the ground, and that is the focus of the civil rights complaint.

Israeli Jews and Arabs get dramatically different treatment when boarding Israeli planes, as anyone who’s ever stood in line at Ben-Gurion International Airport has seen.

Hanna Swaid, an Israeli Arab, remembers being strip-searched by gruff security guards and having his luggage taken apart piece by piece 20 years ago before he flew from Israel to London, where he was a post-doctoral student.

Let’s stop for a moment and think back all of two weeks. Who, exactly, was the perpetrator of the largest massacre of Jews in the last several years? That’s right. An Israeli Arab. So excuse me if I don’t shed any tears over the different treatment of Arabs and Jews boarding Israeli planes.

I think, however, the lawsuit will fail. In Israel, security trumps political correctness.

“A bomber on a plane is likely to be Muslim and young, not an elderly Holocaust survivor. We’re talking about preventing a lot of casualties, and that justifies inconveniencing a certain ethnic group.”

Uh-huh. You’d think the U.S. would have figured that out by now.

Soccer Dad has almost all the facts in his post on the so-called “council of elders” that want to help “ease tensions” in Israel. He forgot their name here on Yourish.com: The Transnational Old Farts Israel-Haters Club.

In my post (which has tons of links to their anti-Israel actions and statements), I said this:

I suppose the best thing I can say about this new “council of elders” is that with any luck, they’ll be dropping like flies due to their advanced ages.

Say, Israel-hating old farts: Take a leaf from the Yourish.com mantra, and take a long, long dirt nap. Soon, so you can’t muck up Israel any more than you already have.

Gee, that’ll hurt the Israeli/Afghan trade: Afghans are protesting Israel’s attack on Hamas. Who the hell cares what Afghanis think? The country that gave us the Taliban and 9/11 is protesting the deaths of terrorists? My heart bleeds.

Stil the Human Wrongs Committee: The supposedly unbiased and revamped UN Human Rights Council held a moment of silence for the deaths of the “martyrs in Gaza” by the “Zionist regime” in response to a request from Iran, yes, Iran, which sits on the Council. The fact that God did not strike dead the council members immediately is proof that God is the most patient Being in existence. The fact that the Council made no mention whatsoever of dead Israelis surprised absolutely no one.

Abbas shills the Hamas line: Mahmoud Abbas now says he’ll only hold peace talks with Israel if they reach a cease-fire with Hamas. Good. Now there’s no reason to talk with the asshat. Keep it up, Mahmoud. The masks are coming off, and Fatah is being revealed for the killers that they always were. Exit snark: Watch Condi try to force Israel to make a deal with Hamas so they can talk with Fatah. Because it would continue the “peace” process.

Well, that was quick: Condi got Abbas to change his mind. I’m betting money changed hands.

Yeah, pull the other leg: Israeli security ministers are telling the IDF to draw up plans to completely stop rocket fire from Gaza. Why bother? Ehud Olmert won’t let the IDF do what needs to be done to stop the rockets. He hasn’t yet. There’s a possibility the rockets in Ashkelon have changed his mind. But I’m not counting on it.

Oh, that’ll help: Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan are planning to come to Israel to help arrange a Gaza cease-fire. Hey, Olmert, hide the silver and valuables. And whatever you do, never, ever, ever stand with your back to them. Not unless you’re wearing body armor. And here’s the howler of the story:

According to the report, Israel is opposed to the initiative, but officials said that Jerusalem would be well advised to try and channel the visit into a positive track so as not to damage the country’s image in the media.

Wow. To think, the JPost actually put that in black and white. Someone wrote that with a straight face. Double wow.

Gee, maybe Carter can hand out copies of his book to Hamas and they’ll read it, smack their foreheads and go, “Oh! NOW I get it. Sure, we’ll work things out.”

Hey, it could happen. In Bizarro World.

At the moment, I want to marry Mark Regev. Look what he told the Washington Post:

[...] Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that controls Gaza, declared victory and held a celebratory rally in Gaza City. But Israel reported that it had achieved its goal of significantly weakening Hamas’s military capabilities. Since Wednesday, Israeli forces have been intensively targeting rocket-launching sites, weapons warehouses and Hamas military leaders.

“I wish them many more such victories,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. “I have no doubt that the incursion that ended today has succeeded in hurting the Hamas military machine. I also have no illusions that it’s over.”

Mark, I hereby dub you a Master of Juvenile Scorn™.

From the last videotaped speech by the Lebanese “liberator”:

Like all human beings we have a sacred right to defend ourselves.

But isn’t hiding a year and a half in a bunker taking that sacred right a bit too far?

Just asking…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

China,the nation that launched a satellite-killer last year, is demanding that the U.S. release data from yesterday’s successful satellite kill.

China called on the US to release data on the shooting down of an ailing spy satellite, while the Communist Party’s newspaper blasted what it called Washington’s callous attitude toward the militarization of space.

China registered its objections well before the satellite’s destruction by a missile launched from a Navy cruiser on Wednesday, which likely accounted for the mild response Thursday from the Foreign Ministry.

“China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the US action to outer space security and relevant countries,” spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regularly scheduled news conference.

“China requests the US … provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way,” Liu said.

How do you say “Bite me” in Mandarin?

The latest brouhaha in the British parliament clearly shows that some conservatives still cannot figure out the power of PCS (Politically Correct Speak). The new invention of the Home Secretary that will ease the task of isolation and extermination of terrorism is beautiful in its simplicity: if you don’t like it - just call it “anti-Islamic”. And you are home and dry.

Of course, the dreary conservatives who always like things just as they are would vastly prefer to call a terrorist “terrorist”, a bomb “bomb”, a wife-beater “wife-beater”. They just don’t get it.

I, on the other hand, fell in love with the new idea immediately and have been vigorously applying it in my personal life. Here are some results I am happy to share with you.

1. Spouse. Definitely Islamic - pure as snow and so good I may even splurge on a burqa as a sign of my appreciation.
2. Children. Mostly Islamic, but sometimes showing signs of anti-Islamic behavior (like asking for money, refusing to behave, etc.)
3. Male cat. Definitely anti-Islamic, esp. when stealing food, breaking things and pissing in randomly chosen corners.
4. Female cat. Generally Islamic, excluding the tendency to cry out loudly at nighttime.
5. The Japanese car. Superbly Islamic.
6. The French car. Violently anti-Islamic and may have to be beheaded. Publicly.
7. Friend #1. Mostly Islamic but doesn’t hold his drink. Er… anyway…
8. Friend #2. Generally Islamic, but doesn’t return books. May have to chop off his hand.

Etc. You got the principle now, unless you are thick as… Don’t you see how amazingly simple life became? And how orderly and easy to understand the world really is?

If not, you are anti-Islamic and have to be dealt with. Watch out.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Al-Qaeda finances seem to be in disarray, according to this:

Al-Qaida video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cell phones, the terror network announced as part of its attempts to extend its influence.

Influence - shminfluence, come on, folks, let’s not mince the words. If you are using that Adam Gadahn creep as your chief salesman (when it is widely known that the only sale he made in his life was his candidacy for the Al Qaeda spokesman job), your cash situation is not good, let’s be straight about this, at least.

And selling clips of the poorly staged speeches by your various cave dwellers can never compete with such luminaries of freedom as Laure Manaudou, Noelia, Pamela Anderson and many others. So keep dreaming.

On the other hand, a free clip of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s last 30 seconds, accompanied by some easy elevator music… Hmmm…. let me think about it…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

If you haven’t been following this story, it’s pretty funny.

Dear Iranian Mullahs! While our satirical website and your Propaganda Directorate deal in the same trade of making up facts and exaggerating reality, we are different in that we can recognize a spoof - but you apparently can’t. On Dec. 27, 2007 you used our spoof image on your propaganda website to illustrate a “true” statement that Jews are welcome in Iran and that Western reports about mass emigration of Iranian Jews are “lies spread by the Zionist hegemony.”

The spoof image in question first appeared in 2005, in our parody called Israel Dismantles; World’s Problems End, which revealed the absurdity of demands to dismantle Israel, with various nations, including Iran and Germany, celebrating the return of their long-missed Jews.

It gets better. Our Iranian friends tell us that the original Farsi-language placard says “Nuclear power is our absolute right,” which means that you, dear Mullahs, used that image as a propaganda tool to advance your nuclear program - so you could threaten and maybe even annihilate the Jews in Israel. In our spoof, we changed the message of the placard to the complete opposite, making it appear improbable. To be fair, your story about Iran’s love for the Jews was just as improbable, so it would seem only logical to put them together. It would, we repeat - if your goal were to publish a self-parody. That wasn’t your intention, however. You only did it because you didn’t know better.

Let’s call it self-inflicted poetic justice.

Click on the link to see the pictures. Really, really funny.

It appears that I have missed a huge brouhaha lately.

A research paper that won a Hebrew University teachers’ committee prize finds that the lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose.

The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that “the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals.”

You can guess that all them pro-Israeli bloggers jumped on the poor Tal as proverbial flies on the proverbial… no, this is not the metaphor I need… well, let’s say they have just jumped on her and not in order to rape the poor aspiring doctoral candidate in sociology.

Now it is up to me, I am afraid, to straighten the pro-Israeli side in the dispute. Because you happen to be wrong, ladies and gentlemen!

So, our doctor-to-be claims that our soldiers don’t rape Palestinian women because of a political/racial imperative, which is apparently very simple: the fear that the offspring of this union will not be recognized as Jewish.

The other (pro-Israeli) side claims that the soldiers don’t rape for the following reasons (different reasons from different sources):

• Moral probity
• Coming from a culture that forbids and condemns rape
• Being under strict orders and fearing a possible court martial on the spot
• Etc.

Of course, such preposterous claims could come only from the members of academy who have never observed an IDF soldier in his natural environment. It is widely known that the moment an Israeli dons the uniform, he immediately transforms into a hungry, horny and cruel creature whose ability to rape the defenseless population is matched only by his blood thirst. And don’t make me laugh with your funny court martial. The only possible court martial for an IDF soldier could be caused by him raping the brigade commander’s secretary (keep dreaming, soldier…)

And of course, Tal Nitzan is absolutely right: the only thing that could stop this frenzied rapist a fraction of a second before the dastardly deed is carried out and, indeed, make him totally disabled (from this specific point of view, we mean) is the thought about the consequences. Indeed, only the knowledge that the fruit of his loins will be considered an Arab is sufficient to deny the colonizer and oppressor the mere ability to reach this ultimate pleasure.

So cool down, please.

Now, I don’t want to be blamed for purely destructive criticism. This wasn’t the purpose of my post. In fact, to satisfy Dr Nitzan on one hand and the pro-Israeli crowd on the other, I have a proposal that will create a bridge between the warring sides. Since in that research something named “organized military rape” was mentioned, it gave me the idea.

From now on military rape will become organized indeed. Every soldier in the field will be accompanied by an Orthodox Rabbi. The rabbi will guide the soldier to the most desirable object of the next rape, assist him in the execution of the said act and perform a special short military ceremony converting the freshly raped person into Judaism. The said ceremony* to be developed by the Chief IDF Rabbi without undue delay.

Clearly this measure will have a lot of positive effects:

• A solution for the precarious demographic balance in the region
• An increased motivation to serve and lowered frustration level of IDF soldiers
• Compliance of the new IDF with Dr Nitzan’ thesis = calm in the academic circles and, eventually:
• Expedited peaceful solution of the Israeli/Palestinian crisis (after all, it is said “Make love not war”)
• The last, but not the least - drastic reduction in frequency of sexual offenses in Israel

To be carried out immediately - by the authority of the Elders.

(*) A special version of the conversion ceremony to be developed for the adherents of the Conservative and Reformist fractions each in short order.

(**) I have really read (part of) the learned opus by Tal Nitzan. Being schooled in precise sciences, I wonder more and more what kind of “research” is being done by some branches of science at the expense of the tax payer. The paper, while not as bad as the linked above INN article is trying to show, is full of pseudo-scientific jargon to the brim and is hardly readable by a normal person. Well, I guess, this is the purpose of people who are in need of a degree… However, the quote by INN, while taken out of context, is precise. And mind-boggling.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.