Still unanswered

Posted on 07/14/2008 by Soccerdad

Newsbusters takes the NYT to task for ignoring the result of the Enderlein-Karsenty case. (Newsbusters acknowledged that the result was covered half-heartedly in the NYT’s blog.)
Newsbuster’s author Warner Todd Huston asks:

So what gives, New York Times? Why the reluctance to cover this new twist in the al-Dura story that you have used so many times in the past to support Palestinian terrorists? You have used this tale to beat the Israelis up for 8 years, now. But, we have final proof that this is a faked video. The Jews didn’t kill little Muhammad al-Dura.

( via memeorandum )

Instapundit answers (with a question):

Because it opens the door to suggestions that this wasn’t an aberration, but the norm in Mideast coverage?

It’s a topic I wrote to the Times’s public editor about two months ago. At the time I wrote:

As I’ve shown above the Times accepted a narrative that shaped a lot of its reporting at the time. One piece of that narrative was exposed quickly. In another case a Times reporter used a highly suspect statement of an interested party to support the narrative. Now another part of the narrative has been shown to be suspect. At least in the name of accuracy one would hope that the Times would look into the case and what it implies.

In addition to the immediate issue of the origins of the “Aqsa intifada”, the case calls into question the widespread use of local stringers who may be more interested in promoting an agenda than in accuracy. The Times’s lack of curiosity in this case reflects poorly on its commitment to getting the story correct.

I still have not received a response from Clark Hoyt. I don’t think that accuracy is the main goal of the NYT.

This failure doesn’t just apply to the NYT but to nearly every major media outlet in American.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Media, Media Bias | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Still unanswered

Ordinary evil

Posted on 07/14/2008 by Soccerdad

Rochus Misch is nostalgic about his former boss.

Misch recalls:
“He had a deep and quiet voice. There was no need to be scared if you made a mistake”

His boss

particularly enjoyed the parties thrown by his wife

and the boss was something of an egalitarian:

Nobody saluted their higher-ranking colleagues within the building.

And given that he worked for his boss in Berlin during the Nazi era, well, his boss was quite open minded. One of his boss’s

favorite songs was composed by a Jew, and revealed that his personal cook was not a “real Aryan”

His boss even “had a small fund of jokes,”

His boss though wasn’t a terribly sensitive sort as he

“… cracked jokes about concentration camp inmates.”

Actually Rochus Misch’s boss was Hitler, who was evil incarnate. By presenting these impressions through Mr.Misch’s eyes news organizations are minimizing the enormity of Hitler’s crimes.

And no, the sentence:

The war crimes that occurred under Hitler’s leadership, including the Holocaust, go almost unmentioned in the book.

doesn’t sufficiently detract from the narrative of an old man reliving the glory of his youth.

Back in 1983, Commentary magazine published “Interrogating Eichmann” taken from a book by Avner Less, who’s job it was to build the case against Eichmann.

The book itself was reviewed by the New York Times. Two paragraphs in the review stick out in particular. First there’s Less’s description of Eichmann.

”My first reaction when the prisoner finally stood facing us in the khaki shirt and trousers and open sandals was one of disappointment. I no longer know what I had expected -probably the sort of Nazi you see in the movies: tall, blond, with piercing blue eyes and brutual features expressive of domineering arrogance. Whereas this rather thin, balding man not much taller than myself looked utterly ordinary. The very normality of his appearance gave his dispassionate testimony an even more depressing impact than I had expected.”

Then there’s this incident which still boggles my mind:

There is unexpected drama in the relationship between the police captain and his prisoner. Eichmann respected his interrogator while trying to save his own neck. He felt that one uniform was speaking to another, that rank had its privileges, even for a prisoner. The reader watches for the cat-and-mouse interplay. When Captain Less tells him that his father had been deported to Auschwitz by Eichmann’s own headquarters, Eichmann opens his eyes wide and cries out: ”But that’s horrible, Herr Captain! That’s horrible!”

So the Nazis did not come out of central casting. If anything their appearances seemed to have inspired Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” observation. But in Avner Less’s telling, the ordinariness of Eichmann served to underscore the enormous evil he had committed. In the recollections of Rochus Misch, the ordinariness he describes allows him and the reporters covering him to put a soft focus around the Holocaust. They are sentimentalizing genocide.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Holocaust | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Hezbullah wins

Posted on 07/14/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Hezbullah didn’t even have to hold up its end of the deal fully, and yet, the prisoner exchange is going ahead.

The Israeli Prison Service transferred Monday morning four of the Lebanese prisoners slated for release in the framework of the upcoming exchange deal with Hizbulllah from the Ashmoret Prison to the Hadarim Prison, where terrorist Samir Kuntar, who is also included in the deal, is held.

The four prisoners, who had been held at Ashmoret since the Second Lebanon War, were taken to Hadarim by van at around 10:40 am.

Lebanese newspaper Al- Safir reported Monday that the prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hizbullah will take place on Wednesday, at 9 am at the Nakura crossing, located north of Rosh Hanikra. German mediator Gerhard Konrad is expected to be present during the exchange.

And the IDF thinks that after the swap, Hezbullah might, gee, try to kidnap more soldiers or attack Israel or something. Because it’s not like they’ve ever done it before.

Israeli security establishment officials fear Hizbullah will boost its rearmament efforts and may look to escalate the situation along the northern border following the implementation of the upcoming prisoner exchange deal.

The officials believe, however, that Hizbullah is wary of a harsh Israeli response and will therefore act with caution.

Really? You mean like the caution that’s caused them to rearm to the point where they have more weapons now than they did before the war in 2006?

The organization has been able to obtain more rockets and has increased is caches of short and mid-range rockets by 30% and over – going from having several hundred rockets, to having several thousands.

Since the war ended, Iran has tightened its ties with Hizbullah, making its resources available to it, training and armament wise. Hizbullah’s recruitment capabilities have never better and it has been rapidly increasing in numbers

But it’s so good to know that Ehud Olmert thinks Israel is closer to peace with the Palestinians than ever before. And that he thinks giving up the Golan is the way to achieve peace with Syria. Because it’s working so well with Hezbullah, they’re ready to break out the doves and olive branches.

Oh. Wait.

Posted in Israel, Lebanon | Tagged | Comments Off on Hezbullah wins

Before you quote Uzi Mahnaimi, read this

Posted on 07/13/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The Sunday Times is publishing proven fantasist Uzi Mahnaimi on yet another unsourced, headline-grabbing Israel story. This time, he says George Bush gave Israel the go-ahead to attack Iran. But don’t rush to reprint this story on your blog. The blogosphere is filled with deconstructions of his fantastic claims (one could even call them “lies,” particularly his most infamous lie, the claim that Israel was building a “genetic weapon” that would target only Arabs).

For instance: There was the “imminent” massive attack on Gaza we were promised … on June 17th, 2007.

ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.

According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.

More than a year later, that “imminent” attack has become a bit less imminent.

Here’s another one: Israel is going to attack Iran with nukes. Read Joe’s Dartblog for a deconstruction of that one. Joe points out that Uzi wrote the same story twice before. Israel Matzav says he wrote it three times.

Allison Kaplan Sommer, a real reporter, wrote:

One thing is clear: Mahnaimi makes a regular habit of reporting that Israel is about to attack Iran. If his reporting was accurate, Iranian nuclear facilities would already be a smoking ruin – not once, but multiple times.

Notice the Mahnaimi patterns: He quotes “senior” sources, yet never names them. If he does name a source, that source inevitably turns out to have no contact with the current military establishment. He says an attack is going to happen within days or weeks. He adds the element of nuclear weapons strikes. Most of those are in his latest fantasy:

President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.

“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the official said. But the Israelis have also been told that they can expect no help from American forces and will not be able to use US military bases in Iraq for logistical support.

Guaranteed this will sweep across the blogosphere as a legitimate story. But before you write that post, read up on your source. I’d love to know if there even is such a thing as an “amber light” status, because it sounds like b.s. to me.

Mahnaimi’s reputation got so bad the Times gave him a co-author. But Sarah Baxter is a political reporter who seems to have been assigned to Mahnaimi’s stories to add respectability to his reputation. She has no foreign reporting chops, unless you count things like this interview with John Gibson on Madeleine McCann. Adding her byline to Mahnaimi’s stories isn’t getting the result the Times wants. It’s making me (and probably others) think less of her. And adding to the skepticism about Baxter are stories like this, where she quotes secondary sources quoting unnamed sources, saying that the Pentagon has a “three-day blitz” plan for Iran. Secondary sources, quoting unnamed sources: Now there’s a well-sourced article for you—in Bizarro World.

The questions about Mahnaimi’s facts are numerous. You can’t turn around without finding someone easily debunking a Mahnaimi story. Here’s an in-depth debunking of Mahnaimi and Baxter, translated from the French.

Remember that before you reflexively quote this Times story as true. So far, the record on this “reporter” has been the complete opposite. The Sunday Times of London is not the paper that it used to be. If it ever was. Perhaps my British readers could vouch for the Times’ reputation back in the day. Because right now, it’s the paper the keeps publishing a reporter who should be writing fiction—not getting front-page headlines in the Times.

Posted in Iran, Israel | Tagged | 3 Comments

Daily rocket and mortar attacks, “truce” is still on

Posted on 07/13/2008 by Meryl Yourish

So what exactly is Israel getting for the truce?

Nothing.

Two mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon landed near the border fence, on its Palestinian side, in the Kibbutz Nahal Oz area. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

Twenty-four hours earlier, the ceasefire reached between the Israel and the Palestinian factions was violated once again, as a Qassam rocket landed in an open area near a community in the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council.

The Color Red alert system was activated at around 1:05 pm in Sderot and the Gaza vicinity communities. Several seconds later, an explosion was heard near one of the communities.

On Thursday, two Qassam rockets landed in the western Negev. There were no reports of injuries or damage. The al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fatah’s military wing, claimed responsibility, saying the rockets were fired in response to the assassination of Talal Abed just outside the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Wednesday.

Hamas is “arresting” the rocket cells. And yet, the rockets keep on coming.

What is Hamas getting for the truce?

Everything.

Time to regroup, rearm, and train.

In a nondescript Gaza Strip mosque, a group of Islamic Jihad fighters wearing black facemasks and combat vests proudly showed off Chinese-made machine guns and Russian rocket-propelled-grenades.

“It’s like rain coming down,” said one 25-year-old militant who identified himself as Abu Thabet. “You can get all kinds of weapons.”

Though they aren’t regularly firing rockets, Islamic Jihad members said they’re still making new ones.

“This cease-fire is a matter of rest,” said a 20-year-old fighter who gave his non du guerre as Abu Mohammed. “It’s a fighters’ break, to prepare for the next stage.”

Way to go, Olmert. Way to go, Barak. Way to protect Israel. Her sons will pay the bill for this “truce,” just as they’ll pay the bill for the prisoner swap with Hezbollah.

“On the Palestinian street there is now an understanding that without kidnapping soldiers, we can’t get prisoners released. Through negotiation, we haven’t managed to get prisoners released,” the Palestinian Authority’s minister for Prisoners Affairs, Ashraf al-Ajami, said over the weekend.

Oh, as for that prisoner swap? Hezbollah isn’t holding up its end of the deal.

State officials told Ynet that they believe the document would not suffice Israel’s demands. They said the Israeli government would have to decide whether to continue with the prisoner exchange, despite the fact that the evidence Hizbullah was asked to deliver was not included in the report.

But the deal will go on, anyway. You know it will.

A statement by the Prison Service said that “on June 29 the government resolved to approve the draft for the agreement to release the Israeli kidnapped soldiers in Lebanon, according to which kidnapped soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev will be returned to Israel in exchange for the return of Samir Kuntar and four other illegal Lebanese militants to Lebanon.” The statement also said Kuntar would be released this coming Wednesday.

Just a few minutes after the list’s publication on the Prison Service’s website, it was taken off for an undisclosed reason. Aside from Kuntar, the list includes Khader Zidan, Maher Qurani, Mahmad Srour, and Hussein Sleiman, all captured during the Second Lebanon War.

Olmert should be ashamed of himself. And yet, he is not. Word is he’s going to run in Kadima’s primary, even after more evidence of his corruption surfaced, and an indictment is expected within weeks. Try to imagine an American president holding onto power under this scenario. I can’t.

Israel’s political system is broken. They need to fix it. Where are the Israeli political reformers? Are they waiting for God to step in?

Not gonna happen.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Terrorism | Tagged | Comments Off on Daily rocket and mortar attacks, “truce” is still on

Practical or tacky?

Posted on 07/13/2008 by Soccerdad

A wedding hall ATM:

Guests at an Israeli wedding hall can now insert a credit card into a machine at its entrance, tap in a sum and leave a gift for the bride and groom.

“It’s new in Israel and the world,” Aya Alon Kaufman of the Gan Oranim hall in Tel Aviv said on Israel’s Channel 10. “It’s very convenient … guests can give a gift even if they forget their checkbooks.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel | Comments Off on Practical or tacky?

The army’s top 10 inventions and the legacy of Harry Diamond

Posted on 07/13/2008 by Soccerdad

Harry Diamond was credited with developing the proximity fuze for artillery shells. (.pdf)

About a year before Pearl Harbor, the United States became interested in the development of the proximity fuze. It was calculated (and borne out in combat) that a fuze which would explode a projectile near a plane, or at the best height above a target on the surface, would increase lethality by a factor of five or ten.
Initial work was at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. Two or three months later, the National Bureau of Standards was brought into the program, and Harry Diamond was given responsibility for this phase of the Bureau’s work. Within about four months of the start of the program, Diamond’s group established feasibility of the radio proximity fuze through conclusive tests in bombs dropped at the Naval Proving Ground at Dahlgren, Va. Throughout World WarI I, this group acted as the central laboratory of Division 4 of the National Defense Research Committee, and Diamond was the central figure of the group. Much of the basic proximity fuze technology was developed under his direction.

This invention was extremely important to the ground war in Europe but was used effectively in a number of scenarios.

During 1943 approximately 9,100 rounds of proximity-fuzed and 27,200 rounds of time-fuzed 5-inch anti-aircraft projectiles were fired. Fifty-one percent of the hits on enemy planes were credited to VT-fuzed projectiles. The proximity Fuze equipped shells success in repelling air attacks against fleet units reached its peak when a task group in the Pacific reported the destruction of 91 of 130 attacking Japanese planes. This high level of effectiveness was to save many servicemen’s lives from the onslaught of Kamikaze attackers. Had not these Samurai minded pilots been removed from the air, they would have rammed their planes onto the decks of our navy vessels causing the death of many servicemen. The VT Fuzed shells were also used with great success in the Mediterranean and Atlantic theaters.

…

During 1944 the intense warfare in the European theater of operations necessitated the lifting of the ban against the use of the fuze where it might be recovered by an enemy. On 12 June 1944 the first V-1 “buzz bomb” fell on London marking the start of Hitler’s massive effort to level the city by rocket. The all-out valiant effort of the Royal Air Force was not able to devise a good defense against this new weapon.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff reluctantly agreed upon the necessity of using the proximity fuze in the defense of London. Large numbers of anti-aircraft guns were moved to the channel coast where they could fire at the bombs over water. Success in destroying the V-1 rocket bombs by gunfire increased proportionally with the increase in the use of VT-fuzed projectiles. In the last month of the terrifying 80 days, 79 percent of the bombs engaged were destroyed as compared with the 24 percent destroyed during the first week of the attacks. On the last day of large-scale attacks only 4 Of 104 bombs succeeded in reaching their target. Some of the 100 destroyed are credited to the Royal Air Force and to the barrage balloons, but the majority of the V-1’s were victims of proximity-fuzed projectiles. There was little profit to the enemy with such a small percentage of success so Hitler turned the weapon on the port of Antwerp, which at that time was vital to the Allied supply lines. In the autumn of 1944 the devastating damage wrought while the Allies were redeploying anti-aircraft guns threatened to close the port. As the number of guns firing the proximity fuze increased, the damage decreased and the Allies were able to move their guns closer and to assume the offensive against the aerial targets. The defense of Antwerp resulted in the Combined Chiefs of Staff removing all bans against the use of the fuze which was most fortunate for the allied soldiers fighting there.

And it was so recognized. (.pdf)

The War Department later described inventor Harry Diamond’s proximity fuze as “one of the outstanding scientific developments of World War II … second only to the atomic bomb” in military importance

I bring you this bit of history as an introduction to the recent announcement of 2007’s top army inventions.

Every spring, the U.S. Army designates a set of top inventions from the preceding year. Rather than radical, out-of-the-blue creations, the list tends more toward refinements on existing gear, but that doesn’t make them any less significant for the soldiers who use that gear in battlefield conditions.

The top inventions for 2007, honored in a ceremony last month, like last year’s bunch has an emphasis on ways to reduce the threat of, or the damage from, improvised explosive devices. This year’s group also recognizes a novel technique for saving the lives of severely injured soldiers.

One of these inventions is an improvement upon existing fuzing technology, the XM982 Excalibur precision-guided artillery projectile. (relevant pictures here and here.)

The targeting information of the shell is programmed by a setter immediately before firing and further information is transmitted in flight.

The recognition of these advances comes from soldiers in the field.

Nominations were submitted from across the Army laboratory community and evaluated by Soldier teams from the Training and Doctrine Command and Army divisions.

“The Army’s greatest inventions are chosen by our customers – Soldiers who use the equipment in war zones and whose lives depend upon having the best equipment,” said Dr. Joseph A. Lannon, Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center director.

“There is nothing more satisfying and motivating to our workforce than knowing they have made a difference to our Soldiers on the battlefield,” Lannon said.

The Army’s 10 greatest inventions program was initiated in 2002.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel | 2 Comments

Ask Mark Regev

Posted on 07/13/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Got a question for Israel’s foreign media adviser?

Go here and ask it.

Mine’s already been asked. I would word it a bit differently: Why the hell can’t Israel manage her own PR better? The Arabs have been winning the propaganda war for decades.When is Israel going to fight back?

Oh, hell. I’ll go submit it anyway.

Posted in Israel, Media Bias | Tagged | Comments Off on Ask Mark Regev

Exercising my Second Amendment rights

Posted on 07/12/2008 by Meryl Yourish

I went to a gun show today. And came home with a .38 revolver and a .22 rifle. The rifle is for fun. The revolver is for protection.

I am now an armed American. Mind you, I won’t be shooting them until I get all the cleaning stuff and, uh, learn how to clean and maintain them. But now I can go shooting at a range without having to rent a thing.

More about this later.

Posted in Guns | Tagged | 13 Comments

My simple litmus test

Posted on 07/12/2008 by SnoopyTheGoon

Richard Gold of Engage made an amazing discovery when, as a youngster, he thought he is joining an anti-fascist demo, and it appeared that in fact the fascist side is represented (oh the horror of it!) by the socialist British SWP. What can I say? Some of the neuron connections in my brain, created during the intensive brainwashing over there behind the Iron Curtain, are still reacting the way young Richard’s did. Nothing to do about it, probably. Even when the avowed socialists shout “We are all Hezbollah” and dreck like this.

I suppose one can even find some humorous side in this unsurprising amalgamation of the BNP – type Nazis, Islamofascists and the ones that are supposed to be the purest of the pure, the progressivest of the progressive – the socialists. Especially when the reason for this touching unity is Jooz.

But then one stumbles on something that could be enlightening. Something that shows where the leaders of the modern British version of socialism are taking their brethren. Something like this:

To put the matter as starkly as possible: from the standpoint of Marxism and international socialism an illiterate, conservative, superstitious Muslim Palestinian peasant who supports Hamas is more progressive than an educated liberal atheist Israeli who supports Zionism (even critically).

I don’t want to sound apocalyptic, but there is no way to pass this message but starkly, as comrade Molyneux likes it: if and when the time comes, and comrade Molyneux and his faithful finally join hands with their Nazi and Islamofascist colleagues and come to sort out the educated liberal atheist Zionist supporters and their sympathizers, you better be ready.

You better have the necessary wall to put them up against and the necessary implements to dispatch them. There will be no other way, I am afraid.

And let’s put paid to the endearing British penchant for understatement. Hocus pocus in definitely ain’t. Fascism it is – pure and simple.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Addendum by Meryl: I don’t normally break into my cobloggers’ posts, but I thought I’d mention two things here. One, I’m very thankful that I live in America. And two, I’m going to a gun show today, and may very well come home with a gun. If not today, though, I will certainly have one in the next few weeks. A well-armed Jewry is a Jewry that survives the next Hitler.

Israel is very well-armed.

Posted in Israel Derangement Syndrome, Politics, World | Tagged | 2 Comments

Early Caturday posting

Posted on 07/11/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Okay, so it’s Friday, not Caturday. But still.

So, remember all those goofy poses I caught Tig in?

Looks like his successor is going to be just as goofy. This is what I saw when I looked over from my downstairs laptop. The downstairs laptop is mine; the upstairs is the work laptop in a docking station. Tig follows me. The blanket is a fleece blanket that I picked up winter before last. I kept it on my chair this winter because it gets chilly downstairs, and the backs of my kitchen chairs are metal. I never wound up putting it away because, well, look at the picture. Somebody really likes it. Half the time, he’s underneath it and I see a grey lump right about where he’s lying.

Tig asleep by my chair

I also discovered him in Tig 2 mode on my bed earlier today: Sprawled on his back with his paws in the air and looking utterly ridiculous. Apparently, that’s a Maine Coon thing, so we can look forward to more fluffy Tigger belly pictures. And he’s gained another half pound since I last checked his weight, so the boy is growing. He’s weighing in at over five and a half pounds, and he’s not quite five months old yet.

Tig’s got about a 75-25 record of sleeping in my room. About 25% of the time, he wants to play when I want to sleep, so after about two minutes of my saying “No!” as he jumps for my feet, leaps at my hands, races around the bed, and yowls for me to play with him, I catch him, throw him out, and close the door on him. And Gracie’s been coming into my room at night again, too, so it gets quite exciting from time to time. They’re taking turns chasing each other, I think. He literally chased her down the stairs the other day, because he was so excited that Aunt Gracie was upstairs with us that he ran over to her, which prompted her to make a hasty exit. Which made him think she was playing, so he ran after her, chasing her down the stairs. She’s such a wuss. But the other night, she came upstairs to sleep in my laundry basket, and held her ground when he came near. There was much hissing. I awoke to Gracie in the laundry basket, adding more fur to the dirty clothes in there. (I think I should go back to using the hamper, but then, I’m a softy for kitties, and Gracie can’t sleep in the hamper.)

One of the things that I find very interesting is that Tig has decided that he really likes playing on my bed. We have a nighttime game now: I throw rolled-up paper balls on the bed, and he chases them around (and off) the bed, retrieving them in his mouth and leaping back on the bed if they fall off. And he likes to chase the laser pointer on the bed, or strings, and all-around play on the bed. Well, when Tig and Gracie were kittens, I lived on the third floor of a converted house, and was careful about my neighbors. I encouraged the kittens to play on the bed, not on the floor. I’m in a townhouse apartment here, and don’t have to worry about neighbor noise, and Tig has free rein in the apartment. I’ve been getting him to run up and down the stairs chasing the laser pointer, because it’s just kitty noises, and doesn’t bother the neighbors. But still—it’s just a tiny bit eerie that he wants to play on the bed every night, like Tig the Second used to do.

Then again, it’s a whole lot of funny. He does all the classic kitten moves, including the leaping a foot straight up in the air before attacking the paper ball, turning around and pretending it was sneaking up on him, driving it under the blankets then trying to get it out, and, well, I laugh. Every night. Just like I used to do in the old days.

It’s a good thing.

Posted in Cats | Tagged | 3 Comments

Moderate PA wants to honor mass-murderer of Jews

Posted on 07/11/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The “moderates” in the Palestinian Authority would like Israel to hand over the corpse of a female Palestinian terrorist who took part in an attack that murdered 36 and wounded 71. Because they want to honor the mass-murderer.

The Palestinian Authority has asked Israel to hand over the remains of Dalal Mughrabi, the Palestinian woman who led the March 11, 1978 coastal road attack in which 36 people were murdered and 71 wounded.

Israel is planning to deliver Mughrabi’s remains, together with those of scores of Palestinians and Lebanese, to Hizbullah in the context of the new prisoner exchange between the two sides.

The PA said in its request that it wanted to “honor” Mughrabi by holding a big funeral for her in Ramallah.

Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official closely associated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, described Mughrabi, whose family originally came from Jaffa, as a “the first Palestinian woman to carry out one of the most courageous operations in Israel.” He claimed that in her will, Mughrabi, who belonged to Fatah, had asked her family to see to it that she was buried in “Palestine.”

Let’s take a look at what this “courageous” terrorist did:

On the morning of March 11, 1978, Dalal Mughrabi and her Palestinian Fedayeen unit of eleven members (including one other woman) landed by Zodiac boats on a beach near Ma’agan Michael north of Tel Aviv, having departed from Lebanon. They killed Gail Ruban (some sources spell Rubin [2]), an American photographer who was taking nature photographs nearby, and then hijacked a bus full of Egged bus drivers and their families on a day outing, on the Coastal Highway.

While driving, Mughrabi and her unit opened fire at the vehicles in the vicinity. An Israeli army unit, headed by Ehud Barak (who, in the 1990s, became Chief of the General Staff and later Israeli Prime Minister) pursued the bus until it was finally stopped near Herzliya. A long shooting battle between the Palestinians and the soldiers ensued. The Palestinians started shooting the passengers that attempted to escape. Eventually, the Fatah members blew up the bus which became a large deathtrap of fire. The attack left thirty five civilians, thirteen of them children, and six Palestinian guerillas killed (38 by some sources) and seventy-one civilians wounded.

This is what the PA considers a “hero.”

“We want to turn Dalal’s funeral into a national wedding, a major celebration,” the Fatah official said. “The operation she carried out off the shores of her hometown of Jaffa was heroic and exemplary. She will always be remembered as a symbol for the Palestinian women’s struggle.”

These are the people that the world insists want peace with Israel. At every turn, they prove that they don’t want peace. They honor mass-murderers, even thirty years after the attack occurred. They name soccer stadiums after terrorists. They’ve named schools after Mughrabi. And they’re going to have a big party no matter what.

Even if Israel refuses to deliver her remains to the PA in Ramallah, Fatah officials said they were planning to hold big celebrations throughout the West Bank to coincide with her funeral in Lebanon.

And just when you think they can’t get any lower, they do.

Ahmed also praised Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar for carrying out another terror attack in Israel one year after the 1978 carnage. He described Kuntar as a “stubborn and firm fighter in the ranks of the Lebanese resistance who led a very courageous operation.”

Make no mistake: The average Palestinian does not want peace with Israel. They want Israelis gone. By word and by deed, they prove this over and over again. Their society is utterly, hopelessly broken. And the world encourages it with billions of dollars in welfare to murderers.

Disgusting.

Posted in Israel, palestinian politics, Terrorism | Tagged | 1 Comment

As the WRMEA turns

Posted on 07/11/2008 by Soccerdad

When I first read about the plight of Gaza reporter Mohammed Omer, I was suspicious.

Omer claimed that when he returned to Gaza (via Jordan) after receiving a “journalism” award he was mistreated and beaten by Israel guards. The truth was that the pictures of Omer, didn’t show someone who was in such bad shape. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Snapped Shot for example noted that compared to the treatment some reporters suffered at the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah, this wasn’t even worth mentioning:

Get a tiny scratch from the IDF, however, and it’s time for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Israel Matzav heaped on some more scorn:

I want you to look at this picture where Omer is holding up his left arm. Am I the only one who thinks that looks more like a ‘hickey‘ than that someone beat him?

The Israeli authorities have looked into Omer’s case and found his complaints to be without basis. HonestReporting UK has the scoop:

Regarding the Complainant’s collapse, as it were, it should be noted that the paramedic who attended to him found no evidence of a physical cause of collapse. The Complainant’s behaviour raises doubts as to the sincerity of the situation. In any event, the Complainant was sent to an infirmary and an ambulance was ordered for him.

As to the Complainant’s allegation that he was compelled to stand on his feet for twelve hours, we point out that according to our records, the Complainant arrived at the Allenby Crossing at approximately 11:00, and the entire incident ended at approximately 14:00. Thus, this claim is also baseless.

Read the whole thing.

Ah, but you’ll say, “Of course, Israel would claim this. It must defend the actions its security forces took against an award winning journalist.”

Wait, stop right there. Mohammed Omer is not a journalist. He “reports” for the Washington Report on Mideast Affairs (WRMEA), a publication of the innocuously named American Educational Trust (AET). AET is a virulently anti-Israel (if not antisemitic) organization headed by former diplomats who represented the United States in the Arab world.

Since George W. Bush was elected President there have been occasional news stories about diplomats who have joined together to criticize President Bush for not pressing Israel more. These weren’t spontaneous gatherings, but organized by AET or a related organization the Council on the National Interest. However in order to embarrass the president these criticisms were treated as news and not as the press releases from a highly biased organization.

Still what does this have to do with Omer’s trustworthiness? AET didn’t hire him as a reporter but as a propagandist. Take this article he wrote about Christian in Gaza.

Father Musallam explained why Christians in Gaza do not feel singled out or oppressed. “Palestinian Christians are not a religious community set apart in some corner. We are part of the Palestinian people,” he asserted. “Our relationship with Hamas is as people of one nation. Hamas doesn’t fight religious groups. Its fight is against the Israeli occupation.”

When asked about Western media reports that Gaza’s Christians are considering emigrating because of Islamic oppression, Father Musallam sighed. “If Christians emigrate, it’s not because of Muslims,” he emphasized. “It is because we suffer from the Israeli siege. We seek a life of freedom–a life different from the life of dogs we are currently forced to live.”

This isn’t reporting, it’s propaganda. Father Musallem is often quoted in the media. And he can be counted on to criticize Israel and apologize for Hamas. I don’t know if he’s a coward or an accomplice.

Still this is false. Christians aren’t moving out of the Middle East (and Israel specifically) because of Israeli oppression. In fact the numbers tell a much different story.

Midway through this century, Christians comprised about 80 percent of the population of Bethlehem. Christians now make up less than 15 percent of the town. This is a trend that mirrors the Christian flight throughout the Palestinian Authority. However, this exodus began long before Israeli checkpoints and the security wall. It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of the Christian population fled during the time when Jordan occupied the West Bank. The Christian population under the Palestinian Authority has suffered from a negative growth-rate and now number less than 50,000, or about 2.4 percent of the population.

In fact, the Christian population throughout the Middle East has been in rapid decline. In 1900, Christians comprised 20 percent of the population of the Middle East; now, they are less than 2 percent. While the Muslim population has expanded rapidly in Europe and the U.S., Christians in the Middle East have experienced a negative population-growth rate. The only country noting a positive growth rate for Christians is Israel.

To call Omer a critic of Israel is to sell him short. His false and easily refuted portrayal of Israel’s oppression of Christian is not the work of a critic, it is the work of a hater. Of course he’s writing for an organization that hates Israel (despite its claim of supporting resolution 242). Mohammed Omer is not trustworthy, so there’s no reason to believe his claim.

This leads to one final irony. Elder of Ziyon observed that Omer was abroad to receive the Martha Gellhorn prize. Here’s the truth about Martha Gellhorn:

Martha Gellhorn was an amazing journalist who did some groundbreaking reporting over sixty years, traveling to most major conflicts.

I’ve mentioned her views on Palestinian Arabs in the past, when she filed reports from 1961–1967. Even though she was a committed leftist, she had no patience for how the Palestinian Arabs had turned into pawns in the conflict nor for their wildly inflated claims as to what happened in 1948. She was passionately pro-Israel.

So she would be aghast at the fact that the award named in her honor has been going to people who she would have eaten for lunch in real life, such as Robert Fisk. The award committee includes such rabid anti-Israel advocates as John Pilger.

It’s not enough that Mohammed Omer is a crude and dishonest anti-Israel propagandist. He has also been awarded a prize named for someone who supported the Zionist enterprise that he opposes.

UPDATE: Above I argued that Mohammed Omer should have had no credibility on account of his ties to WRMEA. There’s a stronger argument, he was contradicted by a doctor in a Jericho hospital:

Dr. Diaa Husseini, who examined Omer at the hospital, said the journalist had no signs of physical injury. He said Omer had suffered a nervous breakdown brought on by emotional stress and was given stomach medication and released after two hours.

(h/t Noah Pollak)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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Daily truce violations; daily inaction from Israel

Posted on 07/10/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Kassams continue to rain down on Israel daily. Closing the crossings just isn’t enough. What is Barak waiting for?

Two Qassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza towards Israel on Thursday afternoon, one of them landed near a kibbutz in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council.

No injuries were reported and no damage was caused.

Shortly after 3:40 pm the Color Red rocket alert sirens blared throughout Sderot and neighboring communities in the western Negev, sending residents running to bomb shelters.

Fatah’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, claimed responsibility for the fire. The organization said this was in response to the killing to Talal Abad near Jenin on Wednesday.

That would be this killing, of a Palestinian who refused to stop even after shots were being fired in the air.

Earlier on Thursday a Palestinian man was killed by IDF fire near the Kissufim crossing. The army said that at around 4:00 am soldiers manning an observation post spotted a suspicious figure advancing towards the security fence near the Kissufim crossing on the Gaza border. Infantry troops who were alerted to the scene called for the man to halt and fired warning shots in the air.

However the man continued to advance towards the Israeli side of the border, at which point the soldiers fired in the air once more and then aimed at the suspect’s lower body; when he did not stop the soldiers resumed their fire and killed him.

The AP spins it, of course. Read the article and see how they manage to blame Israel for the rocket attack in the lead. Notice also how many ways they paint the 18-year-old as a “teenager” or “youth”.

Israeli troops shot and killed a teenage Palestinian militant along the country’s border with Gaza Thursday in the first deadly incident since the two sides reached a cease-fire last month.

A faction of the militant group Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades said the 18-year-old killed in Gaza belonged to its ranks. It vowed revenge and claimed responsibility for two rockets fired at southern Israel after the shooting.

“We will not let this crime pass silently,” the group said in a text message to reporters.

Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which had previously violated the June 19 truce by firing rockets at Israel, did not say what the militant was doing along the border.

Gee. Planting bombs? Scouting for terrorist attacks? Setting up rocket launchers? Who knows?

The AP also managed to present Hamas as the voice of moderation—for not “vowing revenge” over the killing of a terrorist.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group which rules Gaza, said it considered the pre-dawn shooting a violation of the cease-fire, but did not vow revenge.

Gee, Hamas. Thanks for not promising to murder civilians because soldiers killed a terrorist who refused to stop coming towards them. And it’s not like the terror groups are denying he was one of theirs. Not that it makes a difference to AP.

Israeli troops fired on the youth after he did not respond to warning shots and calls to stop, a military spokesman said. The soldiers thought he was armed but, after inspecting the body, found that he was not, the spokesman said.

And again… an Israeli spokesman is contacted and spoken to, but not identified. Israeli spokesmen are almost never identified. There are three direct quotes from identified Palestinians, including a member of Hamas.

Your objective media, hard at work.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Media Bias | Tagged | 1 Comment

International Israeli influence (the good kind)

Posted on 07/10/2008 by Soccerdad

Newsweek’s reporting (h/t Noah Pollak)

Borrowing television formats isn’t new; some of our most successful franchises—”American Idol,” “Survivor,” “The Office,” to name three—started in Europe. But with two shows hitting TV this year and another two in development, it’s Israel that is fast becoming Hollywood’s cheat sheet. “B’Tipul,” a drama about a therapist and his demanding clientele, was adapted into HBO’s critically acclaimed series “In Treatment.” Premiering this fall on CBS is “The Ex List,” which was adapted from the Israeli series “Mythological X.” “List” is a romantic comedy about a woman who learns from a psychic that she has already dated—and broken up with—her soulmate, and if she can’t narrow him down from her lengthy roster of suitors, she’ll spend life as a spinster. It’s no wonder Israel is such a close friend of the United States. To judge from their television shows, the Israelis are just as neurotic as we are.

And what about “All in the Family?” It’s interesting that Israeli television has progressed to the point where American television seeks to emulate it.

Daled Amos points out that there are another couple of concepts in the pipeline too. (Also from the Newsweek article.)

Also forthcoming are adaptations of “Merhak Negia” (“A Touch Away”), a story of forbidden love between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Russian immigrant, and “Loaded,” an “Entourage”-like comedy about a quartet of dotcom millionaires. And as long as Israeli television shows combine high quality with low price tags, it doesn’t take a psychic to predict that more television executives will be making pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

Interesting about those dotcom millionaires. I guess that show doesn’t have as much to do with neurosis as American admiration for Israeli tech know-how.

Anthony, the managing partner of New York-based venture-capital fund 21 Ventures, told a Montreal audience that Israel is “the single best place in the world to invest in technology ventures.”

Anthony was the guest speaker at the inaugural Albert Einstein Business Forum, co-sponsored by the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Government of Israel’s Economic Mission to Canada. The guests came largely from Montreal’s financial and investment sector.

He founded 21 Ventures four years ago when even high risk-tolerant investors were shying away from Israel after the tech bubble burst and the intifadah was still being waged.

He has investments now in 20 seed and early-stage technology companies in Israel and the United States, mainly in the physical security, clean energy and mobile software fields, and is actively seeking more.

(h/t NY Nana at LGF links)

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

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