Comments on: Uzi Mahnaimi and his lies about Israel

By: Daoud Abd-Al Massiya

Daoud Abd-Al Massiya — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:59:20 +0000

The Russians call this Dezinformatsiya.

By: David Charlap

David Charlap — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:28:49 +0000

A mythical bomb which, when dropped, only kills the enemy, spares your own soldiers and civilians, and has no long-term effects would be wonderful.

But no such thing exists, and it is likely that no such thing ever will exist.

Any weapon capable of selecting on genetics would be incapable of discriminating between enemy soldiers, civilians from the same population, and allies from that population.

And like other biological weapons, it is doubtful that the area of effect (both in space an time) could ever be controlled.

By: Sabba Hillel

Sabba Hillel — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 09:26:12 +0000

Actually, there was such a weapon in the past. However, I doubt that we will be able to see makas bechoros again because we no longer have overt miracles occurring. Besides, that time 80% of us were left behind in Egypt.

By: Eli

Eli — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 08:05:15 +0000

No, Meryl, it’s not a have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife kind of question. You’re free to reject any kind of such weapon (which you did). I was just asking what the grounds were, since on the one hand, there is this benefit to them.

And, to tell you the truth, I don’t see how this conflict ends without massive death on one side or the other. And if it is us or them, it might as well be them.

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 02:18:04 +0000

I am skeptical about anything written about Israel that appears in British newspapers (including The Daily Telegraph) especially from “unnamed sources.” What would be the point of reoccupying Gaza when you would have to leave eventually. Gaza could be brought to its knees (and I am not trying to sound like a military know-it-all) by a combo of artillery, jet strikes, and cutting off of power and water. Last summer they (the IDF) did not even use a third of the fire power that was available to them in Lebanon yet still inflicted enormous losses on Hezbollah. By the way I am thrilled that Peretz the putz is gone, how long before the odious Olmerde follows suit?

By: Meryl Yourish

Meryl Yourish — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 01:12:35 +0000

I’m sorry, but all I see here is the answer to a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question.

Have you?

By: Eli

Eli — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:58:46 +0000

Meryl, I have no doubts it is a myth. I’m only considering the hypothetical.

The world has plenty of chemical and biological weapons. I would tend to think that a targeted weapon is less indiscriminate than a non-targeted weapon … unless equal-opportunity-of-death is a moral consideration for bomb-making.

By: Meryl Yourish

Meryl Yourish — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:37:43 +0000

Eli: No. On moral and ethical grounds. I am not a believer in genocide, and that is what a genetic weapon is for.

I can’t believe you even asked that question. You are really making me think less and less of you as time wears on.

There is also the fact that a gene bomb is a myth, and it was exploded as such in a very early blogwar between me and someone named Aziz Poonawalla.

Look it up.

By: Alex Bensky

Alex Bensky — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:12:27 +0000

Israel has plans to turn Gaza into a war zone? And how would that look different from right now?

Michael is quite right that since half the population of Israel shares some genes with Arabs, this is an absolutely idiotic assertion, one that fails the slightest test of credibility, publishing it as a straight story is suspiciously close to a modern blood libel…so it’s not surprising that the Sunday Times printed it.

By: Michael Lonie

Michael Lonie — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:02:21 +0000

I think that a gene bomb would be illegal under the Biological Weapons Convention. (That convention did not stop the USSR, a signatory, from developing a supersmallpox weapon, starting innediately after signing it. Totalitarians never abide by treaties, something the advocates of engagement with the Pharaohs of Teheran should bear in mind.) I don’t know if Israel is a party to it but I rather doubt that the Jewish state, of all countries, would countenance such a genocidal weapon even if it were possible. Going by what I’ve read of Meryl’s postings over several years, I am certain that she would not countenance such a weapon either, for the same moral reasons. Israel’s enemies, of course, have no such moral scruples, and you can bet that Gorilla Boy and other Muslim tyrants would have their scientists hard at work on one for Jews if they could.

But the whole idea is ludicrous. Do you suppose there is any significant genetic difference between Arabs and Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews? The genetic differences among ethnic groups and human races are exceedingly small, variations in the numbers of repeats of certain small DNA sequences for example. Even genes we tend to think of as characteristic of a particular race, such as sickle-cell genes among people of African ancestry, are not unique to them. The same mutation crops up among Italians whose ancestors lived in the Romagna, and for the same reason: endemic malaria.

This sort of idea never would have passed the smell test if the Sunday Times editors had had the slightest critical faculty where an opprobrious story about Israel is concerned. That they did not, and published it, can be attributed either to gross incompetence, sheer ignorant stupidity, or antisemitism. That pushing such a scummy story has not totally discredited Mahnaimi is a testimony to the low and vicious nature of contemporary journalism.