Sunday snarks

Posted on 10/24/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Must… not… say… it… Must… not… say… it: The Palestinians are opening a Rachel Corrie restaurant. Say, think it’ll feature pancakes?

Damn. I said it.

Iranian ERA Watch: Iran has restricted 12 “Western” social sciences. These include law, women’s studies, and human rights. Psst: Dufuses—they don’t have to study these subjects to know that you’re restricting them.

Lauren Booth completes the transformation: She’s now a Muslim, so I presume she’ll soon be advocating actual jihadi tactics against Israel, instead of just slamming Israel as your run-of-the-mill British anti-Semite.

Queers for Palestine: Still on the wrong side. Israel’s version of Dancing With the Stars will have a same-sex couple. Palestinians still torture and murder gays. Wrong side, QUIT morons.

Posted in Iran, Israel, News Briefs | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Saturday briefs

Posted on 10/23/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Christians telling Jews what to do, 2010 version: A synod of Middle East bishops met, and decided that a) Israel shouldn’t be occupying “Palestinian lands,” b) Israeli Christians shouldn’t sell their homes no matter what, and b) There is no such thing as a Chosen People anymore, so Israelis should stop calling the West Bank Judea and Samarea (even though those are the historical names of the region).

“We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.

(I think they’re just jealous that they weren’t chosen. Dudes, you can convert into the Chosen People. We won’t mind.)

Meryl says: The days when Christians could tell Jews what to do are long over. So eff off with your supercessionist twaddle, anti-Israel bishops. Gee. I am so surprised that bishops from the Middle East are anti-Israel. Shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

There are Wikileaks and then there are Wikileaks: The AP is focusing on the fact that the Iraqi civilian death toll is 15,000 deaths higher than before (and this is treated as a horribly shocking secret). You know what they’re not focusing on? The fact that Iran and Hezbollah trained Iraqi terrorists to kill U.S. soldiers. This is the second administration in a row to downplay the Iranian role in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re at war with Iran. Admit it once and for all, and take some kind of action over it instead of these namby-pamby sanctions.

Posted in Iran, Israel, News Briefs, Religion | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

Gideon Levy: baron of deceit industry exhuming wrong dogs

Posted on 10/23/2010 by SnoopyTheGoon

I am watching with some interest the unfolding battle between Ben Dror Yemini – opinion-editor of the daily newspaper Maariv and the self-appointed “conscience of Israel” – Gideon Levy, the editor of Haaretz.

The fight started with Mr Levy giving a rather long and boring interview to his partner in journalistic sloppiness: Johann Hari of Independent. In this interview, among other “facts”, Gideon Levy has presented the following example of Israeli bloodthirstiness and lack of proper feelings:

During Operation Cast Lead, the Israel bombing of blockaded Gaza in 2008-9, “a dog – an Israeli dog – was killed by a Qassam rocket and it on the front page of the most popular newspaper in Israel. On the very same day, there were tens of Palestinians killed, they were on page 16, in two lines.”

Ben Dror Yemini, being more of a professional journalist than Levy will ever be, was incensed by this spoof and the whole travesty of the interview and has done something that Levy never bothers with: basic investigation. The result was an article in NRG: Baron of deceit industry (in Hebrew).  Before we plunge into the article, here goes its lede:

If you wish to know how demonization of Israel is concocted, you should read Gideon Levy in an interview with a British newspaper. The body of lies by the Israeli journalist makes Pravda, in its bad days, into a reliable and serious newspaper.

Keep it in mind. Keep in mind also the following opinion by Ben Dror:

…earlier this week I was asked by a young Israeli I do not know personally, how can I sit in a television studio with Gideon Levy, and not boil from indignation. I assured him I was proud to live in a country where there is a Gideon Levy, who writes and kicks freely. Any other option will be worse.

So Ben Dror Yemini went to the archives “of the most popular newspaper in Israel” – Yediot Achronot and checked what appeared to be all the daily issues for the three weeks of the war. To be on the safe side, he also checked the same days’ issues of the second most popular newspaper – Maariv. Result – zero. No dog.

But the dead dog is only one of the points raised by Yemini. There are many more in that article, so the best I can offer is that Google translation, unfortunately not nearly good enough.

To get this post into a reasonable frame size-wise, I shall skip the other items, focusing on the unfortunate dead dog for a while. Anyhow, unlike in many other cases of his frequent journalistic snafus, Levy decided to go to war and published a rebuttal of Yemini’s article. In Haaretz the rebuttal doesn’t include the newspapers’ front pages, but there is a copy on a site called Israeli Occupation Archive, and you can see there the front pages of both Yediot and Maariv. Only… but I shall let Levy explain this:

The dog: Oops. I misstated the date of publication of the page-one pictures.

Check this out: both pictures belong to these two newspapers indeed. The only small (for Levy) problem is that they are dated three years before the times Levy so poignantly described to his bosom buddy Johann. But this “Oops” is a very rare phenomenon for Levy: usually he doesn’t bother even with his oopses. Indeed, issuing oopses will interfere with his stream of propaganda articles…

And I use the word “propaganda” advisedly, since this oops and, especially, the lack of many other oopses make Gideon Levy into what he really is: a propagandist who is rarely bothered with facts, making do with using anything and ignoring anything that helps/stands in his way to another small victory of anti-Israeli propaganda.

Levy’s rebuttal should be read in its entirety for two reasons: first of all, for lack of the English translation of Yemini’s article: Levy attempts to rebut other points Yemini made, so it will save you reading Yemini’s stuff in its bad Google translation. Second reason is to see how clumsy is Levy’s footwork when arguing with something he is not able to disprove.

Again: I was surprised by Levy’s gall in going head-to-head with Yemini. Usually he tends to avoid any reference to his past snafus. To remind you of his latest and most glaring:

The day after the shooting of two Israeli officers (one dead, one severely wounded) by Lebanese sniper, in spite of IDF following all the small letters of established procedure on the border, which fact was confirmed by all levels of UNIFIL, Levy righteously (and falsely) thunders:

We’ll continue to ignore UNIFIL, ignore the Lebanese Army and its new brigade commander, who has the nerve to think that his job is to protect his country’s sovereignty.

It took a few days for all the facts absolving IDF from any responsibility for what has occurred on the border to come in. Has Levy mentioned that he was on the wrong side of the argument in this piece? Nah…

The story of Sabbar Kashur, an Arab Israeli convicted for rape on “false pretenses”. Judging by the conviction only, without showing a smidgen of interest in the details of the case itself, Gideon Levy rained brimstone and (why not call it frankly?) shit on the cruel racist Israel in a notoriously titled piece He impersonated a human. Read it yourself, if you wish. And then, the real story of the rapist and chronic liar Sabbar Kashur is published. Instead of a man who was unjustly accused, convicted and imprisoned – all this for being an Arab, we get something entirely different, don’t we? And what does Gideon Levy do? Apologize, retract, what? You have guessed by now, haven’t you…

Benjamin Kerstein, a Senior Writer for The New Ledger, exploits the options that Gideon Levy faces in regards to this case:

If Levy has any professional honor left, and if Haaretz wants to salvage some measure of its integrity, then both should do the right thing, at long last. Levy should resign immediately. He should issue a written apology to the victim of this assault and allow it to be published publicly. If he does not do so, Haaretz should fire him. If he does resign, Haaretz should also issue its own apology for its coverage of the issue.

Yeah… Gideon Levy and professional honor… The former wouldn’t recognize the latter if it bit him on the arse, that’s for sure. Sorry for being cynical, Benjamin.

Now back to the dead dog. First, actually to Johann Hari of Independent. The headline of his article asks: Is Gideon Levy the most hated man in Israel or just the most heroic? Neither, Johann. Not enough people read Haaretz to make Levy anything “most” in Israel, and hate is too strong an emotion to be leveled at a lying hack. Heroic? You make my dog laugh, and I don’t even have a dog…

But since we have mentioned dogs so frequently: that IDF dog is dead and buried for five years. I bet that if exhumed, his remains wouldn’t even stink. Unlike Gideon Levy, who is alive and kicking, and may he continue so until (at least) 120. You see, Johann, your friend Gideon stinks to high heaven.

Professionally speaking…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Media Bias | Comments Off on Gideon Levy: baron of deceit industry exhuming wrong dogs

Distorting Mideast policy

Posted on 10/22/2010 by Soccerdad

According to Laura Rozen (note here yesterday) the administration’s upset that Netnayahu isn’t infinitely pliable.

The American team is said to be frustrated and upset at Netanyahu’s dismissal to date of the package, which was drafted by the NSC’s Dennis Ross in close consultation with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israeli negotiator Yitzhak Molho.

“They’re really upset,” one Washington Middle East hand in close contact with administration officials said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, they made this incredibly good faith effort to keep Bibi at the table.” And Bibi proved as yet unwilling to budge.

“’We put our asses on the line,’” the sense of dismay among the U.S. Middle East team at Netanyahu’s rejection of the U.S. package was described. “’We worked with your defense minister and gave you this amazing deal, all the cover you needed to extend the freeze. And you not only rejected it, but put forward a counterproposal [demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state] pandering to the right and a stalling tactic.’”

Add to that the complaint of administration water carrier and thumb sucker, Thomas Friedman, that Israel’s acting like a spoiled child.

Aside from the fact that the “counterproposal” should be a premise of any peacemaking, what’s troubling is that there is no other country that seemingly gets singled out with kind of leak or synchronized cajoling.

Last year President Obama asked King Abdullah to offer a confidence building measure to Israel. Abdullah refused. There was no orchestrated outrage parcelled out to reporters and pundits to show the adminstration’s dissatisfactoin with the Saudis.

Now we learn that the administration has decided to reward the Saudi stubbrorness.

Defense industry analysts said the weapons sale is key to U.S. efforts to boost support among Arab allies and counter any threats from Iran. The deal is also seen as a boon for U.S. defense companies as the Pentagon tightens its budget in ways that could curb contracting opportunities.

Boeing makes the F-15, the Apaches, the Little Birds and some of the other equipment. Raytheon makes some of the anti-radar missiles.

“There’s an enormous amount at stake in terms of U.S. foreign policy, credibility in the region, and the health of the aerospace industry,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace industry analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax. “When you sell combat aircraft you’re also selling a strategic relationship. It is a symbolic commitment to consult on common defense issues, and when you operate the same equipment, that often means joint training and an ongoing military relationship.”

The sale is framed as a good thing (“to counter threats from Iran) and little oppostion is mentioned. (That comes from Rep Weiner.)

If Israel were treated to some sort of positive attention from the administration but was deemed to be obstinate, the critics from within and without the administration would be quoted all over the article. Support for those ungrateful Israelis is uesless, it could only the result of that outsized Jewish influence on politics. But the uncooperative Saudis get a huge weapons package and the hypreventilators are silent. Again, which lobby distorts America’s interests?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Saudi Arabia | Tagged | 5 Comments

Friday briefs

Posted on 10/22/2010 by Meryl Yourish

In your face, Iran!: An Israeli took the world’s record for most simultaneous games of chess played—from an Iranian. Oh, the misery! And this is a Master of Juvenile Scorn™ in the making:

“Taking the record from an Iranian in a game that was invented by Iran – it’s going to be even sweeter,” he said as his record attempt was getting under way Thursday.

Look, NPR can report objectively: NPR is covering its own news about firing Juan Williams in a fairly fair manner. Unobjective, the way journalism is supposed to be. Like so:

Williams is now enjoying the full embrace of Fox News, which has given him a new three-year, $2 million contract and a guest slot, Friday night, as host of The O’Reilly Factor.

And

She said such restraint is a vital part of NPR’s code of ethics, which states that news staffers cannot say things in other public forums that they could not say on NPR’s airwaves as well.
[snip]
Schiller had her own verbal miscue Thursday. In an address to the Atlanta Press Club, she said perhaps Williams would have been better served confiding his thoughts to his psychiatrist or his publicist — a flip line for which she later apologized.

And yet, the CEO of NPR was not fired for saying something in a public forum that she could not say on NPR’s airwaves. Double standard? You betcha!

Posted in Iran, Israel, Media Bias, News Briefs | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Briefly

Posted on 10/21/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Hey, can you make this headline a little more anti-Israel, please? Really. Check it out: Slain US activist’s parents face Israeli killer. It’s about the lawsuit Rachel Corrie’s parents brought against the driver of the bulldozer. The death was ruled an accident, but the AP is still treating it like the guy murdered Corrie. The AP repeats the lie that she was protecting a home. She was not. She was protecting the entrance to a smuggling tunnel.

Update: The AP changed the headline. Slain US activist’s parents face Israeli driver. Guess it was too biased even for them.

Obama peace talks sink Palestinian peaceniks: Yes, really. Before the peace talks: 58% of Palestinians were ready to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. After: 49%. Way to go, Obama!

If they come through Rafah crossing, how can the media call them a “flotilla”? Yes, the latest blockade-busters are now in Egypt, working their way overland with their latest aid package (more money to Hamas, as this is George Galloway’s “Viva Palestina” bunch of asshats), to—Rafah. Right, guys. Hand out aid, because as soon as you’re gone, the Palestinians are going to slip it into the tunnels and sell it back to Egyptians at a profit.

Posted in AP Media Bias, Gaza, Israel, palestinian politics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Will Bolton’s fears be realized?

Posted on 10/21/2010 by Soccerdad

Yesterday I noted that John Bolton feared that the Obama administration would (tacitly) support a Palestinian effort to get support for statehood at the United Nations.

The Palestinians clearly are looking to the UN for support:

The Palestinian leadership, near despair about attaining a negotiated agreement with Israel on a two-state solution, is increasingly focusing on how to get international bodies and courts to declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The idea, being discussed in both formal and informal forums across the West Bank, is to appeal to the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and the signatories of the Geneva Conventions for opposition to Israeli settlements and occupation and ultimately a kind of global assertion of Palestinian statehood that will tie Israel’s hands.

(The irony here is that the Palestinians are the one who walked out of the talks. So the “near despair” is misleading. As the article subsequently points out, this is the Palestinian way of avoiding negotiations and concessions.)

And Laura Rozen (h/t JoshuaPundit) reports that the Obama administration is frustrated with Israel.

Between now and November, the Obama administration will try to avoid open failure, or getting into a fight with Israel, says former peace negotiator Aaron Miller.

After November, the administration might consider putting “out American ideas, either to close the process down until the two sides are ready to accept them, or one side accepts and the other doesn’t, putting pressure on the declining side to come round,” Miller said.

Such U.S. mediation, designed to produce “a horizon” on core issues such as borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees, could either “shut the game down until the locals are ready to play seriously,” Miller said, “or gin it up.”

If the Palestinians say yes to such a plan and the Israelis say no, this “means pressure on Bibi to give, or to change his coalition,” Miller said.

While this proves nothing about the administration’s intent, it does suggest that Bolton’s fear is well founded as the elements seem to be in place for more support for the Palestinians at the UN.

Apparently the thawing of relations between the administration and the Netanyahu government was window dressing to avoid the harsh judgment of the American public in November.

Daniel Pipes argues that Israel policy is one more reason to support Congressional Republicans this year. Weakening the President’s political support would seem to be important.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, palestinian politics, The One | Tagged | Comments Off on Will Bolton’s fears be realized?

More cat pictures

Posted on 10/20/2010 by Meryl Yourish

I think the internet doesn’t have enough cat pictures.

Up first: Gracie, who needs to have more pictures taken, because I’m noticing her goofball brother has about three times the pictures in my folder as she does.

Tig

Below: Tig, right after my Horde of Latina Women cleaned my house (and made my bed). Seriously. I don’t even bother making my bed on the day they clean my house anymore, because they actually remake it if I do. Apparently, my bed-making ability is not up to their standard.

Doesn’t Tig look like he’s on a throne here?

Tig

Posted in Cats | Tagged | 3 Comments

The “bash Israel” security blanket

Posted on 10/20/2010 by Soccerdad

The first paragraph of Thomas Friedman’s column today, Just Knock it off, makes sense:

Some of Israel’s worst critics are fond of saying that Israel behaves like America’s spoiled child. I’ve always found that analogy excessive. Say what you want about Israel’s obstinacy at times, it remains the only country in the United Nations that another U.N. member, Iran, has openly expressed the hope that it be wiped off the map. And that same country, Iran, is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Israel is the only country I know of in the Middle East that has unilaterally withdrawn from territory conquered in war — in Lebanon and Gaza — only to be greeted with unprovoked rocket attacks in return. Indeed, if you want to talk about spoiled children, there is no group more spoiled by Iran and Syria than Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia. Hezbollah started a war against Israel in 2006 that brought death, injury and destruction to thousands of Lebanese — and Hezbollah’s punishment was to be rewarded with thousands more missiles and millions more dollars to do it again. These are stubborn facts.

Unfortunately, he continued writing. What’s bugging Thomas is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to extend a moratorium on building in Judea and Samaria for another two months.

After being pressured by President Obama, Netanyahu agreed late last year to a ten month moratorium on building in Judea and Samaria in order to facilitate direct negotiations. Sure enough, two weeks before the moratorium was set to expire, Abbas finally agreed to engage in direct talks. After being given a window of ten months, Abbas waited until the very end to start negotiating. Of course nothing would happen in two weeks and it didn’t. But why should Netanyahu have to make another concession to entice Abbas to return to the negotiating table?

A few weeks ago, President Abbas said at the White House:

Excellencies, the time has come for us to make peace and it is time to end the occupation that started in 1967, and for the Palestinian people to get freedom, justice, and independence. It is time that a independent Palestinian state be established with sovereignty side by side with the state of Israel.

If it’s time for an independent Palestinian state, why doesn’t Abbas simply negotiate? Why does he insist on an Israeli concession to talk with Netanyahu? As I noted yesterday, Jackson Diehl puts the blame for this on President Obama.

So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: “When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped,” he said. “If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?”

The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama — who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote.

Simply put, there should be no reason for Netanyahu to agree to another freeze. The first one did not motivate Abbas to negotiate in good faith for a state he supposedly wants.

After calling Israel “spoiled” for refusing President Obama’s request to give into Abbas’s tantrum, Friedman concludes:

But the fact is that the team of Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have built a government that is the best the Palestinians have ever had, and, more importantly, a Palestinian security apparatus that the Israeli military respects and is acting as a real partner. Given this, Israel has an overwhelming interest to really test — that is all we can ask — whether this Palestinian leadership is ready for a fair and mutually secure two-state solution.

That test is something the U.S. should not have to beg or bribe Israel to generate. This moment is not about Obama. He’s doing his job. It is about whether the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are up to theirs. Abbas is weak and acts weaker. Netanyahu is strong and acts weak. It is time for both to step it up. And it is time for all the outsiders who spoil them to find another hobby.

There’s something self contradictory about this argument. On the one hand Friedman argues that Abbas has been a great leader and in the next paragraph he calls him weak. He’s weak for a number of reasons. One is that his term is long expired. Another is that he’s weak – in his ability to make peace – because he presides over a government that discourages the idea of peaceful coexistence.

Given his first paragraph acknowledging that Israel’s past concessions for peace have encouraged terror, Friedman suffers from a disconnect. He believes that Israel ought to “test” Abbas, as if there’s no possible damage that could result from further Israeli concessions. Netanyahu is acting cautiously. It is Friedman who can’t get away from his bashing Israel security blanket, who is acting childishly.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time | Tagged | 2 Comments

Jimmy Carter: I really, REALLY hate Israel

Posted on 10/20/2010 by Meryl Yourish

You don’t even have to read between the lines anymore to see Jimmy Carter’s utter loathing of all things Israel:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, during a visit to Damascus on Tuesday, called for Israel to lift completely its blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Carter made the remarks in the forum of a delegation known as The Elders, who met with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hamas leaders in Syria.

Please note the place of the forum: Syria, one of the world’s greatest human rights violators, noted by HRW recently for a decade of failure by Bashar Assad to improve upon his father’s record. Although, he really has improved on some things. His father murdered at least 10,000 of his own citizens in 1982. This nation, mind you, is the setting where the “Elders” (otherwise known as the Nosy and Useless Old Farts) chose to meet to discuss peace.

Carter’s best quote?

“The blockade is one of the most serious human rights violations on Earth and it must be lifted fully,” said Carter from Syria.

Sure. It’s a horrible, horrible human rights violation. Why, it’s just like Darfur, or the suppression of Chinese dissidents, or Tibet, or the lack of women’s rights throughout the Middle East (except in Israel), or the cutting off of thieves’ hands in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Yes, not allowing Hamas to freely import weapons that can murder Israelis is a terrible violation of their human rights.

Second-best quote?

“We believe that Hamas should be included in all the major efforts to peace … It is part of the Palestinian people,” Carter said. He added that “1.5 million Palestinians are held in a cage or prison while their human rights are taken away.”

The Gazans are now exporting goods to Egypt. Yeah, that blockade is just keeping them in cages. And for no reason whatsoever. It’s not like there are kassams and mortars fired regularly out of Gaza by Hamas and Hamas-affiliated terrorists. Oh. Wait. Mary Robinson is concerned about Hamas’ violation of human rights.

“In our meetings with the authorities we raised issues of human rights violations that were reported to us. Mr Haniyeh said that if they were provided with specific allegations, they would investigate and report the outcome to us. He also said that any mistakes would be corrected.”

I’m thinking the name “Gilad Shalit” never occurred in that conversation. But hey. Who cares about a single Israeli soldier kept in complete isolation for years when 1.5 million Gazans can’t come and go freely into Egypt and Israel? It’s a matter of scale, don’t you see? Rockets? Mortars? They’ll just magically stop when Israel opens the borders. Because in the world of the Nosy and Useless Old Farts Elders, the rockets don’t exist. Only Israeli “human rights” violations.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel Derangement Syndrome | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

What’s under Meryl’s desk?

Posted on 10/19/2010 by Meryl Yourish

I like my new desk. It’s transparent. And apparently, I’m not the only one who likes it.

Tig under the desk

The UPS is warm and cuddly to a cat, seemingly.

Posted in Cats | Tagged | 3 Comments

Tuesday morning sniefs

Posted on 10/19/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Ew, Jew cooties: The Turkish PM not only refuses to talk to Netanyahu, but he’s not going to attend a climate change conference if Bibi shows up. He says that Israel is close to losing Turkey as a friend. Hey. Moron. Friends don’t send armed thugs to attack Israeli forces. We’ve got your number, Islamist jerk.

Twice zero is still zero: Hamas says they’re ready to resume talks on Gilad Shalit, but of course, with an ultimatum—they have to start where they broke off. If I recall correctly, they broke off because Israel said NFW are they releasing terrorist masterminds back into anywhere but Gaza, and Hamas insisted they be released into the wild. Yeah, sure, I’m totally expecting these talks to accomplish as much as the current talks with the Palestinians. And remember, twice nothing is still nothing.

Israel’s partners in peace: Boycott Israel. The Palestinians want the OECD to boycott Israel’s debut meeting. Because they totally want peace with Israel. The movement to delegitimize Israel in all world forums continues apace. The good news is, it’s not yet working. Keyword being “yet”.

Don’t let those facts get in the way of my opinion, please: Somehow, I don’t think this news will spread nearly as wide as the original: Netanyahu has ordered a change to the loyalty oath so that all new immigrants, not just non-Jews, will have to swear allegiance to the “Jewish and democratic state” of Israel. The fact that Israel has listened to objections and agreed to change what bothers people will not matter one whit in the discussion of this subject. Refer back to this post to see why.

Brush up on your Aramaic and Greek: Coming to an internet near you: The Dead Sea Scrolls. Of course, this great news could not be delivered by the AP without pointing out that “experts have complained only a small number of scholars were allowed access to the scrolls.” I’m surprised they didn’t also carry that idiotic Palestinian claim that the scrolls are theirs because they were found in the West Bank.

Posted in Hamas, Israel, Jew Cooties | 2 Comments

A textbook example of a moronic commenter

Posted on 10/18/2010 by Meryl Yourish

While trying to wrap my brain around the New York Times Magazine profiling Pamela Geller, I came across Charles Johnson and Robert Spencer in the Guardian’s Comment is Free. Now, I sometimes delve into the CiF comment sink, because Know Thine Enemy is one of my most stolid rules. And here’s an absolutely stunning example of the idiots that inhabit all comments threads. BBZaph, in an answer to the idiot below:

and there it came … in posting no. 7

MDMAok
I do not know who this Pamela Geller.is. I suspect that anyone who hates Muslims as much as Ms Geller HAS to believe she is a Christian. I suspect many of my Christian friends would be as uncomfortable with her as my Muslim friends are uncomfortable with AQ’s professed adherence to Islam.

Actually, she’s Jewish. Not that it matters – you do not have to belong to a specific religion to recognise what is hateful. I am a Christian and I do not “suspect” that my Christian/Muslim/atheist friends would be uncomfortable with her – I know they wouldn’t give her the time of day and would simply dismiss her for what she is.

And the response by MDMAok?

@BBzapf,

just so long as she a) has religion and b) is American my world view will not require changing, but thank you for correcting the diagnosis of her disease.

Note that MDMAok did not read the article in question, took at face value what she read in CiF, and, when given the correct information said that it doesn’t matter; Judaism and Christianity are interchangeable.

The ignorance is appalling. But it totally explains why they shriek so loudly about Israel over there. They’re all effing uninformed idiots who wouldn’t let a fact into their head if it cracked it open for them.

Posted in Bloggers, Juvenile Scorn | Comments Off on A textbook example of a moronic commenter

Jacoby: The Undeniable Jewish State

Posted on 10/18/2010 by Soccerdad

Last week CNN reported (via the Daily Alert Blog)

Top PA negotiator Nabil Sha’ath, an advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, distanced the PA government from comments by PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo inferring that Palestinians might recognize Israel as a Jewish state in exchange for a future Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.

“We are not going to do it – forget it,” Sha’ath told CNN, adding that Abed Rabbo’s comments did not represent the position of the PLO or the Fatah faction which dominates the Palestinian Authority.

Though I’ve written about this, I haven’t done it as well as Jeff Jacoby (h/t AN):

Today, half the planet’s Jews live in that state, many of them refugees from anti-Semitic repression and violence elsewhere. In a world with more than 20 Arab states and 55 Muslim countries, the existence of a single small Jewish state should be unobjectionable. “Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people,” President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly last month. By now that should be a truism, no more controversial than calling Italy the sovereign homeland of the Italian people.

And yet to Israel’s enemies, Jewish sovereignty is as intolerable today as it was in 1948, when five Arab armies invaded the newborn Jewish state, vowing “a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.” Endless rounds of talks and countless invocations of the “peace process” have not changed the underlying reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is not about settlements or borders or Jerusalem or the rights of Palestinians. The root of the hostility is the refusal to recognize the immutable right of the Jewish people to a sovereign state in its historic homeland. Until that changes, no lasting peace is possible.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, palestinian politics | Tagged | Comments Off on Jacoby: The Undeniable Jewish State

Working against peace and Israel?

Posted on 10/18/2010 by Soccerdad

Jackson Diehl observes:

So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: “When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped,” he said. “If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?”

The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama — who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote.

Meanwhile Powerline points out that Canada was shut out of the Security council

Canada lost out to Portugal after Portugal’s natural ally, Brazil, lobbied Islamic countries with warnings that Canada’s vote on Israel-related issues would be no different than that of the United States. Portugal, the argument went, would be more “balanced.”

The argument is accurate, except that it implies an overstatement of the extent to which the Obama administration can be expected to support Israel at the U.N. Under Prime Minister Harper, Canada is a reliable ally of Israel than the U.S. is right now. In fact, shortly before the vote, its international trade minister visited Israel and then announced his intention to tighten Canada’s already close trade relations with Israel.

As for Portugal, Israeli diplomats view it as among those EU nations that all too often goes with the anti-Israel flow. In addition to the Arab and Muslim states, Portugal had the backing fo Cuba and Venezuela.

and

Where was the U.S. while this was going down? According to the above-referenced report, we were nowhere to be found.

Apparently the President fearing political backlash won’t pressure Israel during the next two weeks. Afterwards what can we expect? In other words are these incidents the results of ineptitude or antagonism?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, The One | Tagged , | Comments Off on Working against peace and Israel?