British unions continue delegitimizing Israel

Posted on 07/09/2007 by Meryl Yourish

The delegitimization of Israel in Britain pushes on, led by the labor unions that seem to think only Israel, of all the nations of the world, deserves to be singled out and boycotted for its policies. Not Sudan. Not Iran. Not North Korea. Not China, which uses slave laborers. Not the Asian countries that ply the child sex trade. No, only Israel, for its treatment of the Palestinians.

As a result, Israel’s largest trade union is cutting all ties with the British union that is boycotting Israel. And let me take a moment here to remind you that Israel was founded on socialism and run by labor unions, which still bear enormous clout in Israel. Not that facts should get in the way of making a political statement.

What, exactly, could be the cause of this boycott? Can it be yet another honest attempt by people to make their voices heard?

Naaaaah.

Doreen Gerson, executive vice chairwoman of Trade Union Friends of Israel, said: “The vote was extremely rushed, as time had run over and there was not enough time for discussion, and the many delegates who wanted to speak against the motion were denied the opportunity.”

Ahead of the vote, Eric McDonald, secretary of TGWU’s Birmingham branch, which proposed the boycott motion, compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

The pattern is exactly the same as it was in the vote by the British teacher’s union last year. Rush the vote through, don’t allow members to discuss it, and refuse speaking time to its opponents. The Palestinian propaganda machine marches on. Dig deeply enough on every British boycott vote, and you will find the same group of Palestinians working the strings, behind the scenes, pushing votes through exactly like this one. It doesn’t matter that some votes have been overruled later. The damage is being done, and Israel is being delegitimized by inches. The inches add up, and if this trend is not reversed, you will begin to see more binding resolutions, more groups, and more countries calling for an end not to Israel’s policies, but to Israel itself.

This is why survivors of the Holocaust are saying it’s 1938 all over again. That’s the similarity to Nazi Germany, McDonald. You have it exactly backward. It is the Palestinians who are using the Nazi-like tactics, from the propaganda, to the demonization of Jews, to the destruction of any and all who would support Israel. They learned at the feet of their Soviet masters in the 1970s, and have perfected the routine ever since. And as always, there are many in the West who fall for it utterly.

I suppose the only good news about this is that the average person doesn’t even know the British unions are doing this.

Yet.

Posted in Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome | 3 Comments

Notable comments on Comment Is Free

Posted on 07/09/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Usually, the comments on anti-Israel articles on CiF are disgustingly anti-Semitic, and overwhelmingly so. But a representative of the despicable Hizb ut-Tahrir, the organization that “peacefully” calls for a worldwide Islamic caliphate, spreads his lies on the Guardian and gets slammed for it. But even more suprising, the comments are notable because the anti-Semites are being called anti-Semites, and the commenters are both calling out the lies of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and also calling out commenters on their anti-Semitism.

Color me shocked. Here’s an example of a typical response:

It is VERY generous of you to offer to, ahem, “tolerate” me in your islamic state.

As a bloke, I’m sure I wouldn’t suffer too much.

However, if I can lift from the nearest approximations we have to islamic states, there are a few concerns for my fellow citizens that I’d like your comments on.

1. Anybody who drinks. (cf Saudi Arabia)
2. Anybody who’s gay (cf current Iranian government executing people based upon their sexuality)
3. Anybody who commits adultery (cf Saudi Arabia)
4. er, anybody who is a woman (cf practically all predominantly islamic states plus any islamic community anywhere in the world)

As Yesterday comments, if we are all to be equal under the law, why does it need to be an islamic state? My understanding of Shariah law may be incomplete but I believe that as a non-muslim, my word carries little (or certainly) less weight than somebody who bows down a lot five times a time, and that a woman’s word carries no weight at all.

Posted in Anti-Semitism, Religion | Comments Off on Notable comments on Comment Is Free

UN recognizes that it’s terrorism keeping the crossings closed

Posted on 07/09/2007 by Meryl Yourish

UNRWA is finally waking up to the terrorism that is the Palestinians. Not that they’re calling it terrorism, of course. But they’re finally starting to place the blame for the closure of Gaza where it belongs: On Hamas and its ilk.

Hamas’s failure to secure the passages into the Gaza Strip drew criticism from an unlikely source on Thursday, John Ging, who heads the United Nation’s Relief and Works Agency’s operations in the Strip.

“It is very clear the responsibility lies with the Palestinians,” Ging told The Jerusalem Post by telephone from Gaza, on a day when Palestinians fired mortar shells at two of the three open passages into Gaza.

Such activity, he said, “directly impacts on the humanitarian plight of the Palestinians living in Gaza.”

[…]The focus has been on Kerem Shalom and Sufa, because they are easier to secure than Karni, and even there the Palestinians have continued to fire mortar shells, said Shlomo Dror, the spokesman for the coordinator of government activities in the territories.

On Thursday, 156 trucks with basic foods and animal feed passed through Sufa and Kerem Shalom, Dror said. It was an increase of some 50 trucks from the previous Thursday.

More trucks could have gone through Kerem Shalom on Thursday if it hadn’t been for the mortar attack, Dror said.

Ging said he was grateful that goods were able to go through Kerem Shalom and Sufa. “But it is not a sustainable solution,” he said. While the two passages have worked as a stopgap measure to ward off hunger, in the long run they would not suffice, he said.

To prevent a deepening humanitarian and economic crisis, Hamas must secure the Karni crossing, Ging said.

“The focus has to be on the Palestinian side, and the Palestinian officials have to meet the security requirements,” he said.

Someone check the sky for pigs. He didn’t blame Israel at all for this one.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas | 2 Comments

Israel prepares for war

Posted on 07/08/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Reuters has a fairly unbiased look at the changes the IDF has made in the past year.

A year after suffering surprise setbacks against Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel’s armed forces are poised once more for a major conventional war.

Tens of thousands of conscripts and reservists have been training with an intensity not seen in Israel for decades, flush with emergency funds from a government which speaks openly of possible new conflicts against arch-foes Syria and Iran.

“An army has two jobs: waging war or preparing for war,” said Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, a career infantryman who took over the military in February with orders to knuckle down on troops perceived as having lost their morale and menace.

This is why I keep saying that Israel is fighting the next war, while Syria, Hezbullah, and Hamas are all fighting the last war. It won’t be a walkover—no war ever is—but this time, the IDF is far more prepared for the tactics that will be used against them.

It’s a worthwhile read.

Posted in Israel | 15 Comments

Another day, another example of IDST

Posted on 07/08/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Five more rockets hit Israel today.

Five Qassam rockets were launched from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israel early Sunday morning.

Four of the rockets landed in open fields, and the fifth landed close to Sapir Academic College near Sderot. One of campus’ buildings, which was under construction, sustained damaged by the attack, however no injuries were reported.

The al-Quds Brigades, the Islamic Jihad’s military wing, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. Nobody really noticed. And by “nobody” I mean “nobody outside the Israeli press.” They’re too busy blaming Israel for shooting a Hamas propadandist, calling him a “journalist” and issuing statements denouncing the fact that he was shot in the legs while lying wounded.

Funny how these same groups have yet to denounce the Palestinians for driving Palestinian journalists to seek refuge in Norway from their own people.

Seif al-Din Shahin, the correspondent for the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel network, left the Gaza Strip together with his family, they said, noting that he had received many death threats over the past few months.

Shahin’s request has yet to be approved by the Norwegian government. Several other Palestinian journalists are also reported to have fled the Gaza Strip out of fear for their lives.

Earlier this year, masked gunmen set fire to the offices of Al-Arabiya in Gaza City, causing heavy damage to furniture and equipment. Although no group claimed responsibility, Palestinian journalists blamed members of Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

The group was also responsible for beating Shahin in two separate incidents in 2001 and 2004. The second assault followed Shahin’s live broadcast of a rally held on Fatah’s anniversary. The report angered Fatah leaders who had instructed Shahin and other journalists to report that tens of thousands had participated.

What time is it folks? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time, which occurs on every day of the week that ends with a “y.”

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

Iranians look like total schmucks

Posted on 07/08/2007 by Meryl Yourish

This is absolutely precious. In an attempt to smear the U.S., an Iranian editor used a picture of Avigdor Lieberman as a “Muslim” being discriminated against by the U.S.

Is Avigdor Lieberman a “good Muslim”? An Iranian newspaper apparently thought so when they accidentally used a picture of the Israeli minister of strategic affairs to illustrate an article about Iranians being mistreated in the United States.

The article accused the US of discriminating against Iranians living in its territory, citing the example of an Iranian man who was fired from his American job due to his religious beliefs, according to the website Assar-Iran.

Lieberman’s trim beard is what apparently made an impression on the editors of Iranian weekly Ya-Lasrat when they decided to use his photograph in the article “Religious beliefs behind unjust dismissal of another Iranian in the US”.

There’s a picture on the Ynet site. Go look, and laugh.

Say, fellas, it pays to know where you’re getting your pictures from. Perhaps you should have checked with someone who knows how to read Hebrew. Or English.

Say it with me, folks: Schmucks.

Posted in Iran, Juvenile Scorn | 2 Comments

The Jews of baseball

Posted on 07/07/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Cleaning out the emailbox gives you time for lots of Saturday links that you didn’t get around to putting up when you got them.

It’s the The Chosen Team, or, the team of baseball’s best Jewish players. Go forth and argue. It’s what we do, as Jews and as baseball fans.

Players I recognize: Ken Holtzmann, Al Rosen, Sandy Koufax, and Hank Greenberg. The rest, well, I’m not the biggest baseball fan around, and have fallen away from the sport in recent years. I don’t even have a sports category on this blog, which shows you how rarely I post about the topic.

HT: Longtime reader Ted.

Posted in Jews | 5 Comments

Saturday silly

Posted on 07/07/2007 by Meryl Yourish

What really happens when you move your mouse.

Hint: Make sure you move your mouse around the center of the screen. HT: My pal Gerard.

More from Gerard: Great commercials. 1) Shadow Plays. 2) 250,000 bouncy balls in San Francisco. Definitely check the behind-the-scenes to see how it was done. You just knew, watching the commercial, that those cars were in trouble.

Posted in Humor | Comments Off on Saturday silly

Muslim ERA Watch: AP buys Iran BS

Posted on 07/07/2007 by Meryl Yourish

The AP ran a nice little fluff piece about how the Mad Mullah might accept some moves forward for women in Iran. Of course it’s all crap, but the AP never lets the facts get in the way of pretending that Iran isn’t the backwards, theocratic, misogynistic, insular little state that it is.

Iran Leader Signals Flexibility on Women
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s supreme leader has signaled a willingness to reinterpret Islamic law more favorably to women’s rights – but not by following Western conventions, state media and his official Web site reported Thursday.

“Some issues about women, which exist in religious jurisprudence, are not the final say. It is possible to interpret new points through research by a skillful jurist,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Web site quoted him as saying Wednesday during a speech to commemorate national women’s day.

The comments by the Shiite cleric, who has final say over all state matters, came amid international rights groups’ criticism of Iran for giving prison sentences to several women’s rights activists.

Yeah, those prison sentences? They’re not just prison sentences. They include whippings.

On Monday, an Iranian court sentenced a women’s rights activist to almost three years in jail and 10 lashes for attending a banned rally, her lawyer said on Tuesday.

Gateway Pundit quotes an Iranian blogger on the sentences:

This is not silliness, this is not making order. This is BRUTALITY, pure brutality. I know Delaram VERY closely.

She is a volunteer teacher for Afghan children who do not have the right of going to school in Iran. She is going to spend three years of her life in prison and be tied to somewhere and be whipped for 10 times in her back just for believing in “women should be equal to men”. This tyranny is Unbelievable.

This is on top of the beatings the women got last year for having the nerve to protest on International Women’s Day—for women’s rights. And this is how those rights are portrayed in the AP piece:

Iran’s interpretation of Islamic law imposes tight restrictions on women, such as requiring them to have a male guardian’s permission to work or travel. Women are not allowed to become judges, and a man’s court testimony is considered twice as important as a woman’s.

Yet Iranian women have more rights than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and some other conservative Muslim countries. They can drive, vote and run for most public offices.

Oh, so that makes it all better than. Because Iranian women aren’t as oppressed as the Saudis, they should celebrate this? Eff you, AP, for even implying that. But wait, because the AP is an important propaganda arm of the Khameini regime in this article:

Khamenei praised the role of women in Iran and said the emphasis on their maternal role in Islam “does not mean opposition to the presence of women in various aspects of social life at all,” the Web site reported.

He also said Westerners had “discredited” women by using them to fulfill “illegitimate” sexual desires, apparently referring to prostitution and premarital sex, which are banned by Islamic law.

And thanks for that explanation. Damn those Westerners and their refusal to go back to the laws and ways of the seventh century!

And damn AP for writing a puff piece on the cruelty that is Iran.

Posted in AP Media Bias, Feminism, Iran | 1 Comment

Democratically-elected govt. fires rockets at Israel

Posted on 07/07/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Say, that organization that Jimmy Carter says Israel should deal with because it’s the democratically-elected government of the Palestinians? They just fired rockets at Israeli civilians.

Hamas claimed responsibility Friday for firing two Qassam rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip earlier in the day, for the first time since the militant group seized power in Gaza from Mahmoud Abbas’ rival Fatah movement.

Israel Radio on Saturday quoted the group as saying that the attacks were in response to Israel’s “occupation in Gaza and the [West] Bank,” and were also a warning “to the enemy” over its “aggression.”

One of the rockets hit an intersection and a second fell in an empty field, but no one was hurt, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Say, what exactly were those rockets in “retaliation” for?

Israel sent infantry, tanks and bulldozers into Gaza on Thursday while militants laid mines and fired mortars at soldiers at the Erez passenger crossing between Israel and Gaza.

Nine militants were killed in clashes in and around the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, hospital officials said. Hamas identified six as its fighters, while three remained unidentified. Among the dead was Mohammed Siam, 37, the Hamas field commander in central Gaza, Hamas TV said.

Later in the day, missiles launched by Israeli aircraft killed two more Hamas men, the group said.

Ohhh. The IDF was clearing out terrorists with rocket launchers. Go figure.

Okay, Jimmy Carter, now what should Israel do? Ask Hamas to pretty please stop sending airborne bombs at innocents? Because talking has worked so well in the past. Well, no, it hasn’t—but your side pretends that it has. The only thing that seems to work is, well, exactly the operation that pissed Hamas off: Go in, clear out the rocket launchers (the metal and the human ones) and get out. The next best thing: A Hellfire missile up the asses of a car full of rocket launchers. Either one works for me.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel | 3 Comments

The “archy” that is Gaza

Posted on 07/07/2007 by Meryl Yourish

It’s no longer anarchy. It’s archy. No, really, Hamas has restored order and justice.

About 30 armed men from a Hamas-led security force entered Gaza City’s Al-Azhar University on Saturday and seized 80 bags with chemicals from the agriculture college, the dean said.

It was not immediately clear why the chemicals were taken. The spokesman for Hamas’ Executive Force militia was not immediately available for comment. The dean, Jawad Wadi, said he called the office of the Hamas ruler of Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, to file a complaint. (AP)

Well, it could be for a fertilizer bomb. Or it could be for resale on the street, what with money being short and all that. But it’s a perfect example of the lie that is Hamas. When the thugs are the police, the police steal you blind. It’s a no-brainer.

Even the EU has figured it out.

The EU is scaling back its monitoring mission at the Gaza-Egypt border, which has been closed since the start of bloody factional fighting that led to Hamas’ takeover of the coastal strip, a spokeswoman said Saturday.

The cutback in personnel signals that the European monitors don’t expect the Rafah terminal on the border, Gaza’s only gateway to the world, to reopen anytime soon. The monitors were deployed under a November 2005 agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, following Israel’s pullout from Gaza. Under the deal, the border was controlled by Palestinian and Egyptian security forces, with European monitors deployed on the Palestinian side to prevent smuggling of weapons and militants. (AP)

Mind you, this won’t stop them from blaming Israel for keeping the crossing closed.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas | 1 Comment

It just gets better and better

Posted on 07/07/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Last night, around midnight, once again I heard fireworks in front of my apartment. Once again some morons were lighting off fireworks in the parking lot. This time, I opened the door and shouted, “How is that safe? There are cars all around. Find an open field!” To my amazement, a man’s voice responded, “She’s right.” I closed the door, got my shoes on, intending to continue my argument. When I went back onto my porch, I saw a crowd of people and said, “Have you ever seen a car fire?”

A Hispanic man, evidently the leader, told me to shut up. “You’ve said your piece, and we’re leaving.”

They filled two huge SUVs and left.

And oh, yeah. The man who told me to shut up? Hispanic. Probably illegal. My apartments are filling up with illegal immigrants, most of whom can’t speak English, and all of whom refuse to take any part in Neighborhood Watch. They’re too afraid it’s got something to do with the police and they’ll be deported.

But boy, did I love getting my share of Mexican machismo when I had the nerve to complain that I didn’t want my car lit on fire by an errant firework lit by some macho illegal immigrant with no brains.

Six to eight months is what it will take for me to be out of here. Can’t wait. Gee. Living in a neighborhood where people don’t feel entitled to make noise at any hour of the day or night. A neighborhood where people drive cars that don’t have a bass in their cars that can shake the paint off the walls. What a change that will be.

Buh-bye, southside Richmond. Hello, suburbs.

Posted in Life | 4 Comments

The perils of working from home, II

Posted on 07/06/2007 by Meryl Yourish

You really need to be in a quiet home if you’re going to work from home. You can’t be in a 30-year-old townhouse with crappy soundproofing between units. On the one side, we have this year’s Teen House, where Daddy works all day and seemingly is unmoved by noise at night, so when his kids and their friends are setting off fireworks at midnight on July 4th, it is I who tells them they’re morons for shooting off fireworks in a parking lot and that it’s after midnight and they need to send their friends home and go inside. And during the day, I get to be the one that tells them their stereo—playing the one form of music I loathe above all others, rap—is too loud.

During one day last week, I got to deal with these kids on the one side, and then parents of brat on the other, who were playing [gag] Charlie Daniels music at ear-shattering noise levels. That kept going up and down, as if they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to annoy the neighbors or not. Just as I decided I was going out to a movie, the noise levels on both sides returned to normal.

It’s going to take me about six more months to pay down my debt and save enough money to buy my own condo/townhome/whatever. Moving to a quiet neighborhood is tops on my list. I may just make it a neighborhood without kids. Sorry. I like teaching them, but I have no desire to relive my teenage years’ constant boredom and loud music get-togethers.

Time to have a chat with Daddy next door. I suspect I have no shot at talking to parents of brat. Especially since I found a huge wad of gum stuck to the passenger side of my car on Wednesday. Now, I have no proof, but the passenger side is on the side of parents of brat. And it was a pretty fresh wad of gum.

If I find anything else, I’m going to put up a webcam.

I am so tired of apartment living. I know I only have a little more time to bear, but I’ve been crabby all week due to a stomach thing that I can’t shake, and lack of sleep. Mind you, being annoyed constantly by teenagers is not helping.

Posted in Life | 1 Comment

AP notices there is compulsion under Islam

Posted on 07/06/2007 by Meryl Yourish

“There is no compulsion under Islam” is one of the lies we’ve been told about the religion. Seems like the AP is only just noticing that sometimes, there is.

A Muslim-born woman who was forced to spend six months in an Islamic rehabilitation center because she wants to live as a Hindu said Friday after her release that she will never return to her original faith.

Revathi Masoosai, 29, said officials at the center tried to make her pray as a Muslim, wear a head scarf and eat beef, a practice sacrilege to Hindus.

“Because of their behavior, I loathe Islam even more now,” she told reporters. “They say it’s a school, but it’s actually a prison.”

Her case is one of a growing number of conflicts in Malaysia between religious freedom and state policies that favor Islam, the official faith of this southeast Asian nation. The battles have strained ethnic relations in the multicultural nation.

Once again, CAIR will tell us, and most so-called “moderate” spokespeople will tell us, there is no compulsion under Islam. And yet, we keep reading about things like this, and Malaysia keeps passing laws forbidding Hindus to go back to their original faith once they’ve converted to Islam.

Malaysia is considered one of the world’s most relaxed Muslim countries, having enjoyed racial peace for nearly four decades. But it follows a dual justice system. Islamic, Shariah, courts administer the personal affairs of Muslims, while civil courts govern Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and other religious minorities.

Under Islamic law, a person who is born Muslim cannot convert to another religion.

The Islamic Religious Department in southern Malacca state detained Revathi, an ethnic Indian, in January and sent her for religious counseling after officials discovered she had married a Hindu man.

Yeah, that’s tolerant, all right. “Relaxed,” as the AP puts it. So, what have they done to this woman? They’ve taken her child from her, refused to consider her marriage legal, and forced her to live with her Muslim mother while the case is pending—all because she considers herself a Hindu, and married a Hindu man.

The Religion of Tolerance™ strikes again.

Posted in Religion | 3 Comments

Hamas builds its army as Olmert fiddles

Posted on 07/06/2007 by Meryl Yourish

Something tells me that there’s going to be a two- or three-front war this summer.

For instance, the depots contained standard antitank Sager rockets and outdated anti-aircraft Strela missiles that could be used against Israeli planes.

Hamas also got hold of several dozen 122-milimeter caliber Grad B rockets (Katyushas), which were apparently brought into Gaza by the Islamic Jihad and seized by Fatah.

Other arms that are now in Hamas’ hands include heavy anti-aircraft DShk machine guns, large quantities of explosives, thousands of guns, a few thousand RPG rockets and millions of bullets of various types.

Additionally, Hamas took hold of radio equipment, night vision systems and telescopes that were held at Fatah’s warehouses.

Hamas’ capture of these weapons has triggered a drastic decline in the prices of arms in the Strip, which dropped by a third, and at some cases even by half.

A senior military source said that following the obtaining of such massive quantities of arms, Hamas plans to increase the size of its security forces. An original plan to augment the army by 6,000, to 12,000 men, has changed and now stands at a planned increase of 9,000 to 15,000 men.

That’s right. Prop up Fatah in the West Bank so Hamas can do the same on both sides.

Posted in Hamas, Israel | 2 Comments