Unexplained media bias rips through news outlets

Posted on 07/26/2008 by Meryl Yourish

It truly is fascinating to watch the AP bias in reporting about Israel and the Palestinians. Let’s go to an old post of mine first to look at an old AP story about Israel:

Israeli Troops Kill 8 Palestinians
Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians, including a 17-year-old girl, in a two-day surge of fighting across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said Sunday.

The dead also included three militants traveling together in a car in the northern West Bank, and a man in Gaza killed in an Israeli airstrike in response to a Palestinian rocket attack.

Now let’s look at the headline that’s been going around since last night about a large, deadly explosion in Gaza:

Unexplained explosions kill 5, wound 20 in Gaza

Isn’t it interesting how the AP is so tentative about assigning blame to this attack? Funny how they’re usually so quick to blame Israel, quoting Palestinian eyewitnesses and terrorist spokesmen, yet here they are, half a day later, and the best they can come up with is “Unexplained explosions” in this headline. Hm. Why is it they would suddenly become so leery of assigning blame?

A powerful explosion ripped through a car on a busy Gaza City beach Friday night, killing a Hamas field commander and three other people, security officials said.

It was the third unexplained blast of the day in this coastal territory after a relatively calm period since Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas agreed on a cease-fire last month. A total of five people died from the explosions, and 23 suffered injuries.

Wow, it’s the third mystery blast of the day. The crack AP staff can’t figure out who’s behind them. I wonder why that is? (Hint: Because Israel didn’t do it?) And by this time in an AP lead, you generally learn if any children were killed. The “three other people” in this lead are civilians, of course, one of them a child.

No one in Gaza blamed Israel for the violence, indicating it was likely Palestinian infighting.

Oh, how nice of the AP to explain this to us. It’s “likely” that it was Palestinian “infighting.” That’s a cute name for civil war.

The late night blast killed Amar Musubah, a Hamas military field commander, and another Hamas militant, Eyad Al-Hia, medical officials said. A child and a fourth unknown individual also died.

Earlier, unknown assailants set off two bombs in Gaza City, killing one man.

Finally, the child is mentioned, and yet, there is no age given. If this were a story about Israel causing civilian casualties, by now you would know the names and ages of all the victims, soon to be followed by mournful quotes from their relatives, and calls for revenge from terrorists. Funny how the AP writer can’t find this information out when the dead aren’t killed by Israeli fire.

And now, waaaay down in the story, the AP tries to assign blame for the blasts. Guess who they blame first, backhandedly?

Gaza is the scene of regular bloodshed between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants, though the territory has been quiet over the past month because of the truce between Israel and the territory’s Hamas rulers.

Uh-huh. “Regular bloodshed”—what a quaint way of putting the fighting between soldiers and terrorists. Now that we’ve got the blame-Israel-first thing out of the way, we have the real suspect, and note the difference in phrasing:

Gaza is also a common site of internal Palestinian violence between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas fighters defeated Fatah forces during five days of combat in Gaza a year ago, and tensions remain high.

It’s “bloodshed” when Israelis are fighting, but only “violence” when Palestinians fight each other. Now, the AP might tell you that they’re simply trying not to repeat the same word in two paragraphs, but there are many, many words other than “violence” that you can use for the fighting between Hamas and Fatah that resulted in over 100 deaths, including many civilians. Like, “civil war.” But then, when you’re the AP, you have to keep the narrative, and exposing the murderous actions of Palestinian-on-Palestinian “violence” isn’t sticking to the narrative of the peaceful victims of Israeli agression that only want to be left alone to build their state in peace and happiness, forever and ever.

Yet another example of the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel media bias. But don’t worry. Like Israeli Double Standard Time, that only happens on days that end in a “y.”

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

Homeownership

Posted on 07/25/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Hm. This doesn’t look good.

Sales of existing homes tumbled more sharply than expected in June, pushing activity down to the lowest level in more than a decade.

With an already huge glut of homes on the market, median prices fell compared to a year ago and analysts predicted prices would keep falling until next spring as tighter credit, a slipping job market and rising foreclosures scare potential buyers away.

The National Association of Realtors reported Thursday that sales dropped by 2.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.86 million units, the slowest sales pace since the first quarter of 1998.

Oh, wait. That must be the reason why when I put in an offer for a significant amount under the asking price for a condo, it was accepted. The worst market in ten years is actually good news for me. I’m getting out of these lousy apartments.

Hey, folks. I’m going to be a homeowner before Rosh Hashana. A new home, a new cat, and a new year for me. Life has really picked up these last few years, and I am happy and thankful.

There will be pictures galore come September. There’s a lot more room, and Gracie and Tig are learning how to play with each other. I expect a fair amount of cat-in-sun pictures. And in front of the fireplace, come wintertime.

You know, I haven’t written a lot about my finances, other than to mention my great new job lately, but you folks have no idea how far I’ve come over the past few years. I was beyond broke four years ago. I was struggling under a mountain of debt that accrued from under- and unemployment—not from buying shiny new things—that came close to smothering me. But it didn’t. The wolf had his snout through my door, and I kicked the bastard out and sent him yelping away.

Some of my longtime readers may remember I was working three jobs, seven days a week, and struggling to pay the bills. Well, hard work paid off. My credit score is incredible, and I’m going to own my own home in just a few weeks. I don’t need no stinking government bailout.

I just moved the closing date up a week. The condo is empty, and I want the extra time to move out of my apartment.

I can’t wait.

Posted in Life | 9 Comments

A question

Posted on 07/25/2008 by Meryl Yourish

How is it that you bruise so much faster and easier the older you get?

I mean, I’m not that old, and I banged my shin and boom! Bump and bruise.

Icing.

Posted in Life | 1 Comment

Red on Red, terrorists dead

Posted on 07/25/2008 by Meryl Yourish

This is the kind of news we heard regularly about a year ago:

Bomb blasts rocked a café and a Hamas politician’s home in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least one Palestinian in one of the biggest flare-ups in internal violence since Islamists seized the enclave a year ago.

Hamas blamed unidentified gunmen for the bombings, suggesting the involvement of a Palestinian faction.

They have no trouble taking out their own innocent either, it seems.

Hamas security forces said the first bomb went off outside a popular cafe in the centre of Gaza City, killing a passerby whose identity was not immediately known.

A few minutes later, a second bomb exploded outside the house of Hamas politician and leader Marwan Abu Rass. Nobody was injured in that blast.

And Reuters had no problem lying about Hamas’ intentions.

But the truce has stoked some tensions between Palestinian factions as Hamas has sought to prevent other groups from firing cross-border rockets at Israel.

Interesting how Hamas couldn’t stop the rockets until they wanted to improve the deal for Shalit. Funny how Hamas said they couldn’t stop the rocket fire, and yet, it has stopped these past few days. Of course, it will resume as soon as they get their prisoners freed. They’re preparing for war.

Diskin briefed the MKs on the improved rockets produced by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. He said that Islamic Jihad has independently produced rockets with a 19-kilometer range and that Shin Bet had intelligence indicating that military-grade rockets, whose range is longer, have been smuggled into the territory. Some of those rockets, Diskin added, can reach Ashdod, 30 kilometers away.

Militant groups in the Gaza Strip have also obtained military-grade mortars from Iran, with a range of approximately nine kilometers, Diskin said.

And Egypt is helping them.

He said there has been no drastic change in Egyptian efforts to prevent arms from being smuggled into the strip. Diskin confirmed, however, that there has been some improvement, but argued that “Egypt accepts the fact that there is smuggling from its territory… [which] is part of the Middle Eastern theater of the absurd. We have asked the Egyptians to deal with the families of smugglers operating in Sinai.”

So, you think those British MPs still think we should “seize the opportunity” for that Fatah-Hamas reconciliation?

Shyeah.

Posted in Hamas, Terrorism | Tagged | Comments Off on Red on Red, terrorists dead

Brits to Israel: Talk with the murderers like we do

Posted on 07/24/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Some British MPs think it’s just dandy to talk with an organization that is working for the end of the Jewish State:

After a long period of politically sequestering the Hamas government ruling the Gaza Strip, a group of British statesmen are willing to reestablish official relations with the group.

According to a report in the British Guardian, a cross-party group has called on the Quartet’s Middle East envoy Tony Blair to open a dialogue with Hamas, saying “until now there has been no engagement between the Quartet and Hamas, but now we think it is time”.

No it isn’t.

The international community, said the Members of Parliament, should “seize the opportunity” presented by the ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas to try and include thelatetr [sic] in the peace process.

Really? The opportunity presented to Hamas to rearm and regroup?

A member of Hamas’ military wing was killed Tuesday morning and two others were severely injured in an explosion which took place east of Gaza City, the Palestinian news agency Maan reported. The man was hurt by shrapnel in all parts of his body.

Hamas’ military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, declared that the man, 24-year-old Halil Ibrahim Jundiah, was killed “while on a special jihad mission.”

Two weeks ago, two Palestinians were killed and two were injured in a blast at a Hamas training base near the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis. A source in the Strip said that a facility in the base collapsed following the explosion. The IDF said the incident was a “work incident”.

Is that the opportunity you’re talking about?

Liberal Democrat MP Malcolm Bruce said that MPs believed it was time for the Quartet – which is made up of the US, the EU, Russia and the UN – to allow Hamas to be heard.

The MPs noted that Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza Strip was “neither justified nor acceptable”, but added that including the group in the peace talks was imperative, urged the Quartet to use the opportunity provided by the truce to try and facilitate a solution to the rift between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah.

Yeah? The “rift” included throwing each other’s members off buildings. While still alive. I’m thinking it’s going to take more than singing Kumbaya.

But I digress. Eff you, British members of Parliament. Keep your noses out of Jewish affairs. Every single time you’ve stuck them in, Jews are the worse for it.

Posted in Hamas, Israel, World | Tagged | 2 Comments

Hating Israel more than loving Palestinians

Posted on 07/24/2008 by Soccerdad

Today Nicholas Kristof pleads for Tough love for Israel?
Before he gets to his conclusion though he writes:

Granted, not everybody sees things this way, and discussions of the Middle East usually involve each side offering up its strongest arguments to wrestle with the straw men of the other side. So let me try something different.

Then he proceeds to create a legion of straw men as he responds to the eminently sensible pro-Israel critics of a previous column. (Critics in italics; Kristof’s response in regular font.)

Jews lived in Hebron for 1,800 years continuously … until their community was murdered in 1929 by their Arab neighbors. The Jews in Hebron today — those “settlers” — have reclaimed Jewish property. So I don’t see what makes them illegitimate or illegal. (Irving)

True, Jews have deep ties to Hebron, just as Christians do to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but none of these bonds confer any right to live in these places or even visit them. If Israel were to bar American Christians from Jerusalem, that would not be grounds for the United States to send in paratroopers and establish settlements. And if Israel insists on controlling the West Bank, then it needs to give citizenship to Palestinians there so that they can vote just like the settlers.

Huh? But when the world accepts the notion that it is unacceptable to acquire land by force, isn’t it hypocritical to accept the forced Jewish exodus from Hebron and the Etzion Bloc? The only reason that Jews weren’t living in Hebron post 1935 and the Etzion Bloc post 1948 (until 1967) was because they were forced out by violence. So the Jewish absence from those areas is acceptable to Kristof, even if that absence occurred in a manner that would violates the standards he applies to Israel.

The paratroopers argument is just plain silly.

And Israel has ceded parts of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians. We’re not talking about occupation anymore but borders.

One side is a beautiful, literate, medically and scientifically and artistically an advanced society. The other side wants to throw bombs. Why shouldn’t there be a fence? (Mileway)

So, build a fence. But construct it on the 1967 borders, not Palestinian land — and especially not where it divides Palestinian farmers from their land.

Well why not demand that the farmers fight the terrorists? Israel does have to conform to court rulings that often compromise the effectiveness of the fence. What law do the terrorists follow?

While I do condemn this type of violence, it pales in contrast to Palestinian suicide bombers, rockets and other acts of terror against Jews. (Jay)

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, reports that a total of 123 Israeli minors have been killed by Palestinians since the second intifada began in 2000, compared with 951 Palestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces.

This proves what? That Israeli is indiscriminate in its application of force? I’d suggest that it proves that the Palestinians sent teenagers out as fighters without uniforms in violation of international law in order to blur the distinction between combatant and non-combatant. This is an important distinction that B’Tselem doesn’t make. Additionally, how many of those 951 were targeted while doing nothing? Every single one of those 123 Israeli minors was targeted by a terrorist.

To withdraw from the West Bank without a partner on the Palestinian side will find Israel in the same fix it has once it withdrew from Gaza: a rain of daily rockets. Yes, the security barrier causes hardship, but terrorist attacks have almost disappeared. That means my kids can ride the bus, go to unguarded restaurants and not worry about being blown up on their way to school. Find another way to keep my kids safe, and I’ll happily tear down the barrier. (Laura)

This is the argument that I have the most trouble countering. Laura has a point: The barrier and checkpoints have reduced terrorism. But as presently implemented, they — and the settlements — also reduce the prospect of a long-term peace agreement that is the best hope for Laura’s children.

Well ignorance and bias didn’t stop Kristof from trying his hand with the other arguments, so why should it stop him now? No, it is the failure to accept Israel’s right to exist and consequently, the honor accorded the terrorists who kill Israelis by Palestinian society (and Arab society in general) that reduces the prospectgs of a “long term peace agreement.”

Kristof continues:

If Israel were to stop the settlements, ease the checkpoints, allow people in and out more freely, and negotiate more enthusiastically with Syria over the Golan Heights and with the Arab countries on the basis of the Saudi peace proposal, then peace might still elude the region. But Israel would at least be doing everything possible to secure its long-term future, rather than bolstering Hamas.

I’m sorry, but Israel got removed the occupation from one area: Gaza and that’s where Hamas is strongest. Israel also withdrew from southern Lebanon and that, in turn, strengthened Hezbollah. The Saudi peace proposal was a sham.

If there is no two-state solution, there will be a one-state solution — and given demographic trends, that will mean either the end of Israeli democracy or the end of the Jewish state. Zionists should be absolutely clamoring for a Palestinian state.

As I mentioned above. Israel’s withdrawn from a number of cities in Judea and Samaria, leaving them under control of the Palestinians. There is already a two state solution. The question is only what borders it will finally have. Kristof’s view seems to be that unless it conforms to the demands of the Palestinians, Israel’s concessions mean nothing.

Laura is right about the need for a sensible Palestinian partner, and the failures of Palestinian leadership have been legion. At the moment, though, Israel has its most reasonable partner ever — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — and it is undermining him with its checkpoints and new settlement construction.

As Eric Trager notes:

Well, here’s something that’s very much within Abbas’s control: his mouth. Today, as Israel received two black coffins in exchange for a notorious–and very much alive–murderer, Abbas took the opportunity to “offer congratulations to the family of Samir Kuntar, the chief of Arab prisoners.” With this remark, Abbas demonstrated that, far from being the Great Palestinian Hope, he is merely the latest Palestinian leader who sees glorifying terrorists–and reaching out to their families–as an acceptable, if not principled, political strategy.

Abbas is, at best, ineffective. At worst he is Arafat with a suit. This is a point that was generalized by Elder of Ziyon regarding Marwan Barghouti:

Here we have the Palestinian Arab story in a nutshell. Historically, they have been led by incompetent, corrupt and selfish leaders. Yet their most competent and least corrupt leaders are still unrepentant terrorists.

And it cannot be any other way. Since the Palestinian Arab psyche is so heavily invested in making murderers into heroes, it is impossible to imagine in this generation that an effective leader could emerge who is not a terrorist. Simply put, if you haven’t spent time in Israeli jails for murder, you have no street cred.

Back to Kristof:

Peace-making invariably involves exasperating and intransigent antagonists and unequal steps, just as it did in the decades in which Britain struggled to end terrorism emanating from Northern Ireland. But London never ordered air strikes on Sinn Fein or walled in Catholic neighborhoods. Over time, Britain’s extraordinary restraint slowly changed attitudes so as to make the eventual peace possible.

Well that’s just plain ignorant. There is a separation fence in Belfast that gets credit for reducing violence. And I don’t recall that Sinn Fein launched a military campaign on the level of Fatah and Hamas. Israeli restraint hasn’t brought a reduction in the will of its enemies to launch a war against it.

Furthermore, the peace in Ireland isn’t a function of British restraint; it’s a function of the terrorists’ goal. The IRA never wanted to destroy Britain, they just wanted their independence. Palestinian nationalism – despite wrapping itself in the mantle of “independence” – is predicated on the denial of the Jewish state.

Overall, reading the Kristof column I’m left wondering: when will there be “tough love” for the Palestinians, telling them that their continued support for terror makes peace impossible.

As for Palestinian apologists like Kristof, I wonder why is it that circumstances that would lead them to declare Israel illegitimate are perfectly acceptable for a Palestinian state founded on those very same circumstances. My Shrapnel (playing devil’s advocate) observed:

“Why should we have to? We have an Palestinian minority; why can’t a Palestinian state have a Jewish minority? The people living there could become citizens of the Palestinian state. Or we could do a land exchange”.

Israel has an Arab minority and gets criticized for discrimination. Palestine, whenever it is created will not have a Jewish minority, so such niceties as minority rights won’t need to be observed. (Whether other freedoms such as the press, religion or due process will be observed in Palestine is also a real question.)

Yet people like Kristof have no concerns about such matters. Israel must be a perfect democracy in their books or not deserve to exist, while they take it for granted that Palestine would deny its citizens the very rights they demand of Israel. More incredibly they believe that Israel’s legitimacy depends on creating the little tyranny of Palestine.

Kristof, for his talk of “tough love” for Israel, is silent on the talk of “tough love” for the Palesitnians. Kristof and his fellow travelers don’t tell the Palestinians that they need to give up terror, incitement and Israeli denial. They indulge the terror, making excuses for it. As such they are at least apologists if not accomplices in the bloodshed. And yes, their excuses rather than “tough love” prolong the conflict.

Israel has changed a lot in 20 years. What’s now mainstream in Israel regarding the Palesitnians was the leftist fringe in 1988. Where’s been the reciprocal movement? Until Kristof and his ilk start demanding it there will be none. Despite his posturing, Kristof hates Israel more than he loves the Palestinians.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time, Media Bias | 4 Comments

The Russians are not our friends

Posted on 07/24/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Russia is not only arming Iran, and not only investing heavily in Iran, but also trying to make sure that the West can’t take out Iran’s nuclear sites.

Iran is set to receive an advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft system by year-end that could help fend off any preemptive strikes against its nuclear facilities, senior Israeli defense sources said on Wednesday.

First delivery of the S-300 missile batteries was expected as soon as early September, one source said, though it could take six to 12 months for them to be deployed and operable – a possible reprieve for Israeli and American military planners.

Of course, the good news in all of this is that Syria had supposedly the most modern Russian defenses—and the IAF swept right past them. Some reports indicated that Israel had hacked into the computer system that runs the defenses. And then there is this:

“There’s no doubt that the S-300s would make an air attack more difficult,” one defense official said. “But there’s an answer for every counter-measure, and as far as we’re concerned, the sooner the Iranians get the new system, the more time we will have to inspect the deployments and tactical doctrines. There’s a learning curve.”

According to the official, it would take a year for Iran to deploy the S-300s and man them with trained operators. The US was also optimistic on this count. “Based on what I know, it’s highly unlikely that those air defence missiles would be in Iranian hands any time soon,” U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said in a July 9 briefing.

Good to know. Better if they didn’t get them, well, ever.

Posted in Iran, World | Tagged | 3 Comments

Today’s moment of kitty zen

Posted on 07/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Meryl’s new sheets, decorated with cats.

First, Mr. Tig, who found something to do while I was in the shower yesterday.

Tig asleep on the bed

Then Miss Gracie, who wants you all to know that she looks even more beautiful on my new sheets than does Mr. Tig.

Gracie on the pillow

That’s the chiropractic foam pillow I got. Apparently, it works for cats as well as people. (Works really well, too, since I got my foam-topped mattress. I don’t wake up with a neckache any more.)

My new bed is really working out for all three of us. But I wish they’d paid their fair share.

Oh, okay. Tig plays on the bed and makes me laugh every day. Gracie jumps up for her evening or morning bellyrub (though she’s not quite there yet; she lies down and then gets up immediately). And I suppose I can’t count getting woken up by Tig playing with my feet this morning. After all, I apparently moved under the covers while sleeping. Silly me. Either that, or he found the ping-pong ball I took away from him at midnight last night and stowed under the blanket.

But it’s okay. I get even. I wake them up when they’re sleeping. It’s only fair.

Posted in Cats | Tagged | 2 Comments

Obama and the Holocaust myth

Posted on 07/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Obama is using the Holocaust to score rhetorical points. Mind you, he’s not the only person ever to have done so, but I’m calling bullshit on this quote:

“I am always taken back to sort of the core question of humanity that the Holocaust raises. That is, on the one hand, man’s great capacity for evil, and on the other hand, our ability to come together to stop evil.”

Stopping the Holocaust had absolutely nothing to do with the Allies coming together to stop Hitler. People who think that WWII happened to stop the Holocaust are either fools or liars. Allied leaders had the reports. They knew what was happening. They did nothing. No, wait. Some encouraged it, by refusing to take in Jewish refugees from Hitler’s advances (we’re looking at you, Britain).

STFU, Obama. This Jew isn’t buying your bull. Especially when you said you’d rather bring our troops home from Iraq and let the Iraqis suffer the consequences, instead of keeping them there to finish the job and prevent more civilian deaths.

Nobody stopped the Holocaust. It ended because Germany was defeated, and even in defeat, Germany managed to murder hundreds of thousands more (cf: Death marches).

Posted in Holocaust, Politics | Tagged , | 11 Comments

The complain, cajole, concede cycle

Posted on 07/23/2008 by Soccerdad

The NYT makes this sound like a bad thing: Mideast Sees More of the Same if Obama Is Elected

“What we know is American presidents all support Israel,” said Muhammad Ibrahim, 23, a university student who works part time selling watermelons on the street in the southern part of this city. “It is hopeless. This one is like the other one. They are all the same. Nothing will change. Don’t expect change.”

Across the border, in Israel, Moshe Cohen could not have agreed more. “Jews there have influence,” Mr. Cohen said, as he sold lottery tickets along Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. “He’ll have to be good to Israel. If not, he won’t be re-elected to a second term.”

And of course to the NYT, that’s a bad thing.

Mr. Obama, who will be here on Tuesday, has promised change. He has offered to begin dialogue where the current president has refused, in places like Syria and Iran. But when he stepped into the Middle East, he walked into a region where public expectations were long ago set. The Bush years have supercharged those sentiments, especially in the Arab world, where there is little faith that the United States can ever again serve as a fair broker between the sides.

How about a different reason for supporting Israel: it actually has more in common with the United States than any Arab state or nation.

For example there’s an effort to pardon Ahmad Dakamseh in Jordan.

In the wake of Israel’s release of despicable murderers of Jewish children, prominent Jordanians are asking King Abdullah to do the same.

And we know that even the reformist March 14th coaltion in Lebanon welcomed back Samir Kuntar – with honors.

The “March 14” movement is a political vehicle for Lebanon’s liberals, democrats, free-market capitalists, human rights activists, and those who want an exit from the seemingly endless war with the “Zionist entity.” Unfortunately, that is not all it is. It’s also a political vehicle for hard-line Sunni Arab Nationalists and other political retrogrades who only oppose Hezbollah and the Syrian Baath regime because they hate Shias and Alawites as much as they hate Jews.

And of course the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas also sent a congratulations to Kuntar’s family and condolences to Hezbollah. And his government. And his “moderate” Fatah faction named a summer camp after a terrorist whose body was returned last week.

In the meantime an Israeli soldier who didn’t kill an Arab but violated the army’s procedure for dealing with suspects is being investigated by Israeli authorities.

And of course, whatever the Times reports about perceptions in the Arab street and how disappointed they are with the United States belies the fact the the United States is pushing Israel to make more and more concessions even in the light of undiminished Arab enmity and threats:

And then there is Israel. We learn today from Haaretz
that U.S.-Israel relations are being strained by the State Department’s busy-body routine on behalf of all manner of Palestinian complaints, such as Hanan Ashrawi’s daughter’s desire to receive special treatment from the Israeli government over her residency paperwork (Ashrawi’s whining to Rice apparently caused David Welch, the assistant secretary of state, to snap to attention and harass Israeli officials).
. . .
Ah, so the American general doesn’t like the security posture that the Israeli military has determined it must assume in order to protect Israeli lives. And he doesn’t like it that the IDF doesn’t take seriously the Palestinian Authority security services, which are dangerously incompetent, but which the United States has been deeply involved in training. Question for General Jones: Would you put the PA security services in charge of protecting American lives from Hamas?

(That’s a rhetorical question, but as I recall the U.S. sent troops to Ramallah to protect the president and didn’t rely only on the PA security services.)

This leads Daled Amos to comment:

The US is so used to trampling over Israeli interests and needs, that apparently stuff like this is becoming second nature, while still maintaining that everything is normal.

Over and over again we hear from the Arabs and their cheerleaders that the United States can’t be an “honest broker” because it favors Israel even while the Arabs show an undiminished level of hostility to Israel. The United States finds some pretext to pressure Israel in the name of “confidence buliding.” Israel, unwilling to buck its main benefactor relents and allows concessions that are often inimical to its security.

Israel and the United State end up on the defensive, unwilling to justify their alliance.The Arabs get their way without paying a price or giving any credit. And the media (and assorted peace processors) act like an injustice has been righted and that peace is now closer at hand.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time | Tagged | Comments Off on The complain, cajole, concede cycle

Dozer driver stopped by “settler”

Posted on 07/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Do they have to use that stupid word? (It’s earlier in the article.)

Ynet has eyewitness accounts, plus video, of the shooting of the terrorist. Doubtless the BBC won’t show this one on the news, what with all the highly offended Brits calling in for their daring to show (can’t really see much) the death of the first terrorist.

There’s nothing shocking in this video. Just puffs of smoke and gunshots. But this label is much, much better:

The camera then shifts to a religious man who is asked for his name by the photographer. The man replies “Yaki Asael” and the photographer replies “Yaki, you were the first one to fire. Way to go.” Asael gives the thumbs up signal and walks away modestly, without taking credit for shooting the terrorist.

Officer Ganem, who is Druze, said later that as opposed to the previous bulldozer attack he refrained from climbing on the vehicle and instead fired from several feet away. “The lesson from the previous attack was not to mount the bulldozer…I improved my position and fired at him,” he said.

“After I fired and saw that he was neutralized, I attempted to open the bulldozer’s doors, but apparently the terrorist also learned some lessons from the previous attack and locked the doors,” Ganem added. “I then mounted the bulldozer, broke the windshield, and opened the door. I saw that he was no longer alive, so I didn’t fire again.”

Once again, an armed populace is a safer populace. Proof positive that guns save lives.

Posted in Israel, Terrorism | 1 Comment

‘Allah meat’ astounds Nigerians

Posted on 07/23/2008 by SnoopyTheGoon

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.

Posted in Juvenile Scorn, Religion | 3 Comments

Copycat dozer terror attack

Posted on 07/22/2008 by Meryl Yourish

A copycat terrorist managed to hurt sixteen people, but thankfully didn’t kill anyone. But not for lack of trying.

Levy very quickly understood that this was a terror attack and tried to escape. “I tried pulling the wheel and escaping him but I did not succeed and I began driving fast… The tractor driver bypassed me, raised the tractor scoop in the direction of my window, shattered it and I managed to evade him. He continued on his drive in the direction of the King David Street windmill.”

At the end of the incident, Levy managed to save the passengers’ lives due to his resourcefulness. “I managed to flee at the last minute. When it all ended everyone thanked me, passengers told me that I saved their lives. The passengers were frightened but thank God, aside from light injuries, everyone was saved.”

And the reason he didn’t kill anyone? Fast action by an armed Israeli civilian. Another case of guns saving lives.

Sixteen people were wounded, one of them moderately, as a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in central Jerusalem Tuesday afternoon in an apparent attempt to recreate the terror attack in the capital earlier this month.

The vehicle reportedly left a construction site near Yemin Moshe neighborhood and set off towards Liberty Bell Park (Gan Hapa’amon), near the corner of Keren Hayesod and King David streets. It drove a distance of approximately 160 meters, attempting to overturn a bus and crashing into four other vehicles – one of which it flipped over. The man was then shot dead by a civilian and a border policeman.

The police sealed off the area and are hunting for two accomplices. Sounds like the terrorists are trying to start intifada III after all.

The police reported that the terrorist was shot dead and that at least 18 people were injured in the incident, one sustaining moderate to serious wounds. He was evacuated to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The rest were lightly injured and evacuated to the Bikur Holim, Hadassha Mount Scopus and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals. A baby was lightly wounded by shrapnel.

And gee, it turns out this guy was related to a Hamasnik. What a surprise.

Palestinian sources in Jerusalem reported Tuesday that the man who carried out the bulldozer attack on Jerusalem’s King David Street was Ghasan Abu-Tir, 22, of the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Umm Tuba.

His relative, Hamas lawmaker Muhammad Abu-Tir, is jailed in Israel.

The mayor of Jerusalem had some interesting quotes. You’d never hear an American politician say things like this:

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, who arrived at the scene of Tuesday’s bulldozer, said that “this is another east Jerusalem resident from on of Jerusalem’s villages.”

He added, “You throw terrorists out the door, they climb through the window with all kinds of means and ideas. Every working tool becomes a means of terror and we must rethink how we employ those working here.”

And of course, if Israeli Arabs lose their jobs due to terrorist attacks, the world will blame Israel for not hiring them.

However: An armed populace is a populace a lot safer from terror attacks.

Posted in Israel, Terrorism | 4 Comments

Veneer of tolerance

Posted on 07/22/2008 by Soccerdad

Late last week, the NY Sun reported that the recent Saudi sponsored conference on religion ended on a “sour note.” A statement read by the sponsoring organization at the end of the conference, wasn’t the same one that participants had agreed upon.

The final statement, which was read by an official with the Muslim World League, Abdul Rahman Al-Zaid, rankled several of the conference participants because it differed from an earlier agreed upon draft. Under pressure from a conference participant, William Vendley of Religions for Peace, a second version was subsequently drafted which attributed the communiqué to the “conveners” of the conference and not the participants, as the earlier version had.

One complaint, which two participants voiced on condition of anonymity, is that the communiqué called for the Muslim World League to select some of the delegates for the suggested upon United Nations conference on interfaith dialogue.

The major complaint of many participants was that the document appears to have been revised at some stage without the consent of members of a drafting committee. And the vast majority of participants never had a chance to review any version of the statement before Mr. Al-Zaid of the Muslim World League read it aloud.

This might be a consequence of how Muslims – or at least Saudi Muslims – view other religions. Anne Applebaum observes:

Among other things, the Saudis sponsored an interfaith dialogue this week, one that all participants hailed as a great breakthrough — despite the fact that the meetings took place in Spain, apparently because it would be too embarrassing for Saudi Arabia to host Christian and Jewish religious leaders on its own soil.

The point of Applebaum’s column though wasn’t the conference but Saudi produced textbooks that teach students to despise adherents of other religions.

Here, for example, is a multiple-choice question from a recent edition of a Saudi fourth-grade textbook, “Monotheism and Jurisprudence,” in a section that attempts to teach children to distinguish between “true” and “false” belief in God:

Q. “Is belief true in the following instances:

(a) A man prays but hates those who are virtuous.

(b) A man professes that there is no deity other than God but loves the unbelievers.

(c) A man worships God alone, loves the believers, and hates the unbelievers.”

The correct answer, of course, is (c): According to the Wahhabi imams who wrote this textbook, it isn’t enough to simply worship God or just to love other believers; it is important to hate unbelievers, too. By the same token, (b) is wrong as well: Even a man who worships God cannot be said to have “true belief” if he also loves unbelievers.

This test and other outrages Applebaum points out, come from the new edition of the Saudi textbooks that were supposed to reflect a

“comprehensive revision . . . to weed out disparaging remarks toward religious groups.”

These textbooks are an issue because they are used in Saudi sponsored schools all over the world.

Shrinkwrapped notes how Islam-Online characterized the conference:

Spain Meet For Criminalizing Blasphemy

Shrinkwrapped continues:

There is only one religion whose adherents continue to criminalize blasphemy today. It is also a religion whose adherents consistently define terrorism to exclude attacks on non-Muslims.

A dialogue designed to avoid a clash of civilizations must be a two way dialogue; the alternative is referred to as surrender.

…which goes a long way towards explaining why the Saudis didn’t consult the participants before changing the final statement.

Marc Gopin, who apparently was at the conference, saw it as a positive step.

Throughout the three days, and even after the event has concluded, some of us are still deeply engaged with the Muslims present, exchanging information and opening up worlds of information to each other, from information on the inner workings of American Jewish politics to the inner realities of the Madrassas of Pakistan. We have been in in-depth conversation with Saudi journalists, Saudi sheikhs, and Pakistani activists. I was also on Saudi Television last night and was amazed by the respect that I was shown. This is the essence of how and when religion can become a bridge of piece in a complicated world.

It would seem, though, that the respect accorded to Rabbi Gopin and other attendees was personal. The failure of the organizers to consult the participants and the failure of Saudi officials to change the textbooks, show a general level of disdain for adherents of other religions.

Daled Amos provides a list of actions and words that demonstrate the superficiality of the tolerance purportedly demonstrated by the conference including:

Islam’s idea of ‘open dialogue’ appears to be building as big a mosque as possible in Rome while denying any open display of any other religion in all of Saudi Arabia.

Which raises the question: just what does Saudi Arabia want out of these discussions, anyway?

And the answer is that it wants participants like Rabbi Gopin who don’t look past the veneer of tolerance at the conference and will vouch for a changed (or at least changing) Saudi Arabia. Such ambassador’s of goodwill would serve as a counterpoint to the still intolerant textbooks.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Religion | Tagged | 3 Comments

Horribly wrong part II

Posted on 07/21/2008 by Soccerdad

Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy’s Israel correspondent, lets all know where his sympathies lie, with Samir Kuntar.

As Israel was getting ready to free Kuntar last Wednesday, the Lebanese militant told guards that he didn’t want to walk to freedom in a prison uniform.

When the Israeli guards refused, Kuntar said he told them to call off the deal.

“I’ve kept my dignity for 30 years,” Kuntar said he told his jailers, “I’m not going to give it up in the last half hour.”

The standoff lasted until the guards called their superiors, who eventually agreed to let Kuntar go free in civilian clothes.

Once free after nearly 30 years, Kuntar traded the civilian clothes for military fatigues and delivered a defiant threat to return to his militant mission.

Dignity?

Accepting a wife and an education and plenty of food from the evil Zionists for 30 years didn’t compromise his dignity? Why the hell did the authorities give in?

Though Israel recently released long-secret court records with eyewitness testimony and medical reports to support Kuntar’s conviction for shooting an Israeli dad in front of his daughter and then smashing the 4-year-old girl’s head with his rifle butt, Kuntar denies killing either one.

From his 1980 trial to to this day, Kuntar has said that the two were killed by Israeli bullets in a firefight as he tried to flee. Kuntar contends that he meant to take hostages in an attack that went awry.

“This was a military operation,” says Kuntar’s younger brother, Bassam, who led a long PR campaign to free Samir. “We have to accept the reality of what happened, but we will never accept that this operation was aimed at children.”

It wasn’t aimed at children? So why the hell did he take Einat Haran out to the beach? Come on. Nissenbaum, at least challenge the less plausible claims. And why not tell your audience that there was an eyewitness to the atrocities on the beach and that the evidence you link to, physically tied Kuntar to the murder of Einat. His fingerprints were on the rifle that had her brain tissue. (That also contradicts his claim that Danny and Einat Haran were killed by Israeli bullets.)

And for dessert, Nissinbaum let’s a Lebanese “political analyst” (actually Hezbollah mouthpiece from other articles I’ve seen by this woman)

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Beirut-based political analyst and Hezbollah specialist, said people here simply don’t accept Israel’s version of events.

“I don’t think all Lebanese believe he actually killed the child,” she said.

For others, there is a certain callousness in their replies.

“How come they have the right to feel sad for one or three people when they killed thousands in the south,” said the woman in the market, who criticized Israel for bombing Lebanon during the 2006 war in a 34-day campaign that killed 1,200 Lebanese civilians.

So they don’t believe he killed Einat Haran, but they do believe that he killed a policeman and Danny Haran, don’t they? Isn’t there something offensive about a society that lionizes murderers?

Nissenbaum surely knows that 1200 Lebanese civilians weren’t killed in the war two years ago. At least half were members of Hezbollah. (Yes Hezbollah claims the number is less than 200. But do you really trust Hezbollah?) But that was a war in which Israeli civilians were targeted and killed. It’s not like Israel simply took civilians from their homes and killed them, the deaths occurred in the context of war. There is a difference.

Just what role Kuntar will play in the coming days, weeks and months isn’t clear.

For now, he is a potent symbol of Hezbollah’s ascendant power.

And he is a reminder of the emotionally-charged divisions that will make it difficult for Lebanon and Israel to make peace any time soon.

Nice equivalencing Nissenbaum. The fact that a terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which is a pawn of Iran, is now in control of Lebanon’s government is the reason that there will be no peace. Forget the “emotionally-charged divisions.” That’s poppycock. It’s the declaration of a man with no moral compass, incapable of judging right from wrong. It’s the declaration of someone who romanticizes terrorists and who incapable of objectivity.

Nissenbaum you are an f—ing bastard. Why the hell don’t you draw your salary from Nasrallah? After all you’re doing his work.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time | 2 Comments