Nope. Not after Obama’s speech.
There is no shortage of speeches on the friendship between the United States and Israel. But I’m also mindful of the proverb, “A man is judged by his deeds, not his words.” So if you want to know where my heart lies, look no further than what I have done — to stand up for Israel; to secure both of our countries and to see that the rough waters of our time lead to a peaceful and prosperous shore.
The glass is now officially half-empty.
Well, I’ve done nothing worth writing about today, unless you count getting sucked into season one of Cougar Town, a show which I stopped watching too soon. If I’d stuck with it about two more episodes, I wouldn’t have had to play catch-up. Then again, a Cougar Town marathon is a wonderful thing. Laughter is good.
And speaking of laughter, here’s my goofball.
He loves my bed.
Racist, apartheid state appoints Ethiopan Jew ambassador: Yes, those horrible, awful, apartheid racist Israelis did it again. They defied the narrative and made an Ethiopian Jew an officer of the state. Oh, but wait–this doesn’t impact the narrative at all, because Jews don’t count, no matter where they’re from–just like the world does not consider refugees the 750,000 Jews driven out of Arab nations after the birth of modern Israel. The narrative is all-Palestinian Arabs, all the time.
In-depth anti-Israel narrative: Wow. Just–wow. The AP releases an article on the legality of Israeli settlements. The language could not be any more loaded.
[…] The settlers grabbed the land without government permission.
[…] However, half a million Israelis already live on war-won land, in more than 130 government-sanctioned settlements and some 100 unauthorized outposts set up by settlers who are open about their desire to impede any partition.
You know what’s missing from this story on settlements? This.
Police arrested three Palestinians from the village of Far’ata on suspicion they infiltrated the Havat Gilad outpost on Tuesday and burned a residential structure. A dog who was inside the structure died in the fire.
The AP and Reuters seem to have missed this story. AFP caught it. Why was it ignored? Because it goes against the narrative to report on how Palestinians burn down Israeli homes. It’s supposed to be the other way ’round.
A pro-Israel op-ed in the Times: And on an Iran strike, no less. Well, that’s a rarity, as anti-Israel op-eds generally outnumber pro-Israel ones by two to one. Read it now, before it’s subsumed by thousands of anti-Israel comments.
Really? A crowd of about 30 people? That’s all Azzam Tamimi could draw?
Hamas supporters just ain’t the crowd-pleasers they used to be.
Oh, and they banned a pro-Israel blogger from the event. Because it’s all about freedom of speech, you see, and he would be “disruptive.”
Buried deep inside Tom Friedman’s latest column are these words:
In Egypt, every day it becomes clearer that the Army has used the Tahrir uprising to get rid of its main long-term rival for succession — President Hosni Mubarak’s more reform-minded son, Gamal. Now, having gotten rid of both father and son, the Army is showing its real hand by prosecuting American, European and Egyptian democracy workers for allegedly working with “foreign agents” — the C.I.A., Israel and the Jewish lobby — to destabilize Egypt. This is a patently fraudulent charge, but one meant to undermine the democrats demanding that the Army step aside.
Did he really just say “the Jewish lobby” in the Op-ed pages of The Paper of Record? Did Tom Friedman just use the same phrasing that the neo-Nazi Stormfronters use? Is he feeling comfortable enough to no longer even use the modifier “Israel” in the middle of the phrase, but to change it to “Jews”?
Apparently so. Tom Friedman, a Jew, is passing along the libel that Jews are “foreign agents” in other nations, working against the common good. Does he mean to do it? Probably not. Does that matter? Not when he throws “the Jewish lobby” into a story about patent lies used by the Egyptians to foment a false nationalist story.
Why did Friedman add “the Jewish lobby” to his story? Why not stop at CIA and Israeli agents? One has to wonder. Is Tom Friedman so far over the edge that he’s joined M.J. Rosenberg on the anti-Israel/anti-Jewish front? Every other news source seems content to stop with CIA and Israeli agents (both lies, of course), or not even mention the lies. In fact, I can’t find a single, solitary source that accuses “the Jewish lobby” of being behind the aid workers.
Tom Friedman should be ashamed of himself. And he should stop himself now, before he turns into a worse hack than he’s already become.
Today is Blogger Apprecation Day, a brand-new holiday that occurs only on leap years.
I don’t want much. I’d like my nephew to get his Kickstarter campaign fulfilled. And a few shout-outs from my readers, especially if you haven’t done so in a while.
An unnamed source said it in a stolen email, so it must be true: My bullshit detector is pinging at Over-the-top on this story that Russia and Israel exchanged missile and drone codes. Really, Stratfor was a bit of a joke before Wikileaks got their stolen emails. Now they’re even more of one since I can read these breathless “facts” coming from people who met someone who said something about Israel. Puh-leeze.
Gasp! No! Incivility from Republicans to Democrats! Stop the presses! Tablet Magazine contains at least one writer who doesn’t know that Sarah Palin and Michelle Malkin receive far, far, FAR worse insults–and from far more prominent liberals–than Debbie Wasserman-Schultz–but I do agree that Joe Kaufman is an ass for the porn flick reference.
The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck. (This is a reference that you children out there will not understand, and will never understand. Sigh.) Israel complains–yet again–that the UN is ignoring rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. Yeah, yeah. SSDD. We know. SSDY. We know that, too.
Things are not looking good for Iran: Lee Smith on what Hamas’ move to Egypt means for the Shia conquest of the Middle East. (Hint: It isn’t good.)
Things are REALLY not looking good for Iran: An Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader says the Arab Spring is headed for Tehran. One can only hope. But if you think Assad is being brutal, just wait until the Khameini regime starts feeling threatened.
Remember this the next time a Ramadan exception is ruled: A Jewish school is forfeiting a championship game rather than play on Shabbat.
Julian Assholeange: Gee, maybe I can get on his enemies list. It looks like it’s going to be a big one.
But they want peace with Israel: Really, they do. Palestinian doctors protesting a tour of a Ramallah hospital by Israeli doctors as “normalizing” relations with Israel? Ignore the incitement. Really, they want two states, living side by side in peace. Watch what they say, not what they do. It’s what almost everyone else does.
A friend of mine is in a band, and they’re trying to raise $2,500 for expenses for a tour–which will actually include a stop in Richmond, so I can see my “nephew” for the first time in, um, okay, it’s more than ten years but less than twenty.
They’re not quite halfway there. Kickstarter is an online fundraising site that helps aspiring artists raise money by asking for donations from, well, everyone. I may be using it myself later this year, but for now, help my nephew raise the funds for his band’s tour, and you’re also helping me see Paul this spring. (Aunt Meryl will also be sponsoring the band overnight after their Richmond performance.)
You can contribute a buck, five bucks, or as much as you like. If you have an Amazon account, your pledge can be made via Amazon. You have to create a Kickstarter account to pledge/donate, but it was fast and easy.
If you have an extra couple of bucks, throw ’em Paul’s way.
Hey, here’s a good reason: Tomorrow’s Blogger Appreciation Day. I don’t want much for it. Just to make my nephew and his bandmates happy.
The gist of the story is simple:
A group of University of New Mexico students “mic checked” an Israel Alliance talk on their campus Thursday night, when audience members got up out of their seats and physically attacked the protesting students.
The interpretation is quite another thing. To start with, the “mic checking“, which in this case is a euphemism for interrupting somebody’s speech. But the “mic checking” is only one way of misrepresenting the story. Here comes another one:
Some UNM students and Unoccupy Albuquerque protesters were speaking out against Nonie Darwish. Her views on Islam have been controversial.
“Speaking out” is a nice version of events, you may think. But it is easily topped (in my opinion) by another thinker:
The public lecture, which began at 7PM in the Anthropology lecture hall, was attend by some UNM students who exercised their right to freedom of speech by vocally protesting the against the opinions put forward by Darwish.
I would say that in this impromptu competition of hypocrisy “exercised their right to freedom of speech” is a clear winner over “speaking out” and “mic checking”. But it’s a matter of taste, of course.
The interpretation of what had happened isn’t a matter of taste, though. You, if you are an ardent supporter of Palestinian aspirations for freedom, will find all you need as ammunition in the first sentence that starts the article where “right to freedom of speech” comes from:
Thursday evening, pro-Israel audience members physically assaulted students and solidarity activists at an Israel Alliance event hosted at the University of New Mexico.
According to this presentation of the event, some bloodthirsty Zionists identified (how?) the “solidarity activists” and immediately pounced on them. You are welcome to watch a video recording of the event.
Now you know how the “activists” were recognized. Besides having screechy armor-penetrating voices, the activists could be easily identified by their outstanding stupidity. People who must have their two or three slogans written down for them are hardly going to make much progress as far as their academic record is concerned.
But of course, the article in question mentioned the “mic checking” only in passing, so if you get to it, the fact will be already overshadowed by the beginning of that piece. The headline of the piece* is, by the way:
Israel’s ‘Gandhi’ clearly absent from Israel Alliance event at U of New Mexico
Israel’s Gandhi doesn’t pick up his phone lately, true. However, there is another and more necessary element missing in this story: a parent that will find a strong belt and apply it to the posterior of the pampered entitled deluded brat that in all seriousness considers stifling a speaker to be an exercise of the right to freedom of speech. If a person could report on his/her behavior in this way:
These students were assaulted on UNM campus for simply trying to make their voices heard and it is a shock that a non-violent action was met with such aggression.
, the person in question is in dire need of a shock treatment. Some of it (but far from enough) were meted out in that brawl. It is past time that the “anti-Zionist” hooligans that do their best to prevent pro-Israeli speakers on campuses from speaking their minds, intimidate Jewish students and display their hate in many other ways, are taught a few lessons.
(*) The site where this piece is published deserves some small measure of attention, even it will mean going off on a tangent from the topic of this post. The explanation of the name of that blog includes the following:
On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion took exactly sixteen minutes to read the scroll of the Establishment of the State to a crowd of 250 people in what was then the Tel Aviv Museum. In such a short matter of time, Palestinian sovereignty was stripped away and the forthcoming establishments paved the way for decades of humanitarian injustices institutionalized by prejudiced policies and settler-colonialist conquest.
Quite an interesting example of bending history to your immediate needs. Consider the construct “Palestinian sovereignty was stripped away“. That about a land where, after destruction of Israel and dispersal of its people, there was no sovereignty but several consecutive temporary occupiers. Consider the next one: “and the forthcoming establishments paved the way“: does the moron who has written this include in the list of “forthcoming establishments” the war against Israel that immediately followed Ben-Gurion’s 16 minutes? Bleh… now you can see how the Palestinian schoolbooks are written.
Hat tip: Fred Lapides.
Cross-posted on SimplyJews
Hamas is totally out of Syria.
Hezbollah is delusional.
The Iranians are delusional. (It’s a freaking movie, schmucks.)
A ray of light in France?
Gee, the Russians don’t want Israel to attack their client state. How–1980s of them.
Israel Apartheid Week not so successful overall. Here’s my favorite part of the article:
A survey among American students reveals that 80% are in fact not interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Related: Buycott beats boycott.
Thanks to political correctness, Tom Paine was forbidden by his employer from continuing on Shire Network News. As a result, well, the podcast died.
But before it dies, we got together and put out our last-ever Shire Network News podcast. It’s a farewell to all of our listeners from as many contributors as we could round up for one last blowout.
Thanks for listening.
Take that, all you cat-haters who say that cats don’t save people’s lives.
Jung learned that the laid-back cat had been in and out of the shelter since 2003, and made an impulsive decision to adopt him and his friend Wimsy.
Jung said the cats wasted no time fitting into their new home when they arrived. But just hours later, the Jungs’ happy day took a turn for the worse. Soon after going to bed, Amy Jung, who has had diabetes since childhood, started having a diabetic seizure in her sleep.
That’s when Pudding sprang into action. The fast-acting feline sat on Jung’s chest in an attempt to wake her up and when that didn’t work, he nudged and nipped her face until she briefly returned to consciousness.
In that moment, Jung was able to call out to her son Ethan, but he couldn’t hear her calls. Luckily, Pudding darted into Ethan’s room and pounced on the bed until he woke up and was able to call for help.
Jung told the Press Gazette that she believes she wouldn’t have made it through the night without Pudding — an opinion her doctors share. Pudding is now being registered as a therapy animal, and has learned to sit by Jung’s feet and meow when he senses that her blood sugar is low.
If you’re not reading Barry Rubin, you’re not informed about the Middle East: I haven’t pointed you to any of Barry’s writing lately, but you should just go to his column at PJ Media and scroll down. Also check out his blog, because he sometimes presents updated versions of pieces he’s published elsewhere. Take especial note of this, this, and this. One reason why I’m pretty sure Israel isn’t going to attack Iran is because Barry is my go-to guy on all things Israel, and he’s laughing at the latest media frenzy.
The rocket attacks the world ignores: No, I’m not talking about Syria, although the world is pretty much doing nothing about Syria shelling and murdering civilians. They do get awfully snippy when the shelling kills a journalist, though. I’m talking about the regular rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, which the media ignore until Israel hurts or kills Palestinians while trying to stop more rocket attacks. I guess the Syrians are just getting the Israel treatment from the world. “Rockets falling from the sky? You’re on your own, kids.”
But he’s the man of the people: Yeah, Obama loves to talk about how the majority of his contributions are from people like you or me, handing out about $200. And yet, he has so many of these $30,000-a-ticket fundraisers, one has to wonder: Who does he think he’s fooling? And he sees no irony at all in these words:
Obama insisted that the administration is trying to make the economy work again for all, particularly for the middle class “and those who strive to enter the middle class.”
“We want success. We want to make sure that somebody like Vince Carder can build a house like this,” Obama said, waving to a house with 29,000 square feet of living space — so big it actually dwarfs the full-size, indoor basketball court.
Isn’t it amazing how he doesn’t mention the evil capitalism of basketball players–who each paid $30k per ticket–the way he does the evil capitalism of, well, millionaires and billionaires who aren’t basketball players?
Hamas isn’t all that thrilled about the unity: Funny how the AP doesn’t seem to think this is newsworthy. Hamas is demanding amendments to the unity agreement, ones that will give them full control over the PA, and install Mahmoud Abbas as a figurehead. But it goes against the media narrative that Hamas is moderating, so you only saw it in Reuters reports. By the way, I’m pretty sure you’ll find the narrative about Hamas moderation goes all the way back to 2005, the year Israel withdrew from Gaza. Shortly thereafter, Hamas took over from Fatah by force, throwing people off buildings and shooting them in the kneecaps. But they’re moderating. Any day now. Wait for it.
For your viewing pleasure, typos included. I particularly like “Assistant director in charge James w. Mcjunkin”.
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:50:44 +0530
From: “F.B.I WASHINGTON DC”
Subject: F.B.I -WE NEED A RESPONSE URGENTLY
ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONETORY CRIMES DIVISION
FBI HEADQUARTERS WASHINGTON, D.C.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING
935 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE,
NW WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535-0001
Fax 0872 111 5935
Bank of Nigeria transferred 10,500,000.00 us dollars to bank of America in your favor as the beneficiary. bank of Nigeria used (secret diplomatic transit payment to wire this money. Secret diplomatic payments are only made if its Terrorist related. why must your payment be made by a secret transfer, if you are not a terrorist, then why did you not
Receive the money? Why did you instruct them to use a coded means to transfer your money? We have intercepted the transfer of $10,500,000.00 usd to you .we advise you to contact us immediately for directives on what next to do, as your money is In a suspense account in the bank of America, present to us your diplomatic immunity seal of transfer (dist) document
To prove this money is not terrorist related.
Failure to produce the dist document, we shall impound your money and prosecute you for criminal offense, but on the Contrary the money will be released immediately we receive the dist document. The dist document guarantees the following
60t your transferred money is genuine
61h you are empowered to receive the money without further scrutiny
62j your receiving bank account can either be in usa/uk/outside or anywhere you wish
Reply immediately with this dist document if you want to receive your transferred moneys we intercepted Respond within 24 hrs upon receipt of this mail
Assistant director in charge
James w. Mcjunkin
For
Robert s. Mueller, iii
Federal bureau of investigation
United states department of justice
Washington, d.c. 20535
Cc Canadian police association
Cc Asia pacific group on money laundering (apg)
Cc international monetary fund (imf)
Cc international organization of security commission (Iosco)
Cc economic financial crime commission (efcc)
LEGAL NOTICE:
Unless expressly stated otherwise, this message is confidential and may be privileged. It is intended for the addressee(s) only. Access to this e-mail by anyone else is unauthorized. If you are not an addressee, any disclosure or copying of the contents or any action taken (or not taken) in reliance on it is unauthorized and may be unlawful. If you are not an addressee, please inform the sender immediately.
AVISO LEGAL:
Salvo que se indique lo contrario, este mensaje es confidencial y puede ser privilegiada. Se pretende a su destinatario (s)solamente. El acceso a este e-mail por cualquier otra persona no est?± autorizado. Si usted no es un destinatario, cualquier divulgaci??n o copia de lacontenidos ni de cualquier acci??n realizada (o no) en la dependencia en que no est?± autorizado y puede ser ilegal. Si no son unadestinatario, por favor notifique al remitente de inmediato
ECJJLLQKUZWOOTFMQTSVSPIDZDDGDKLYVTCUWF
Yes, it’s Jew Cooties time again! The head of Egypt’s veterinary authority–someone who you would think might have a scientific bent, but then, you would be someone who has never read this blog, because when it comes to Israel and Jews, all science goes out the Jew-hater’s window–where was I? Oh. Right. He says that Israel is poisoning Egyptian poultry by giving them diseases and bird flu. Oh, and an Egyptian TV show called–yes, really–“The Truth”–says that Israeli chocolates give you cancer and cause infertility. The power of the Joooooooos! Kneel before our awesome abilities!
Iran is paying attention to this: Israel’s super-sub will be online the end of this year. It can produce its own fuel, which means it can go anywhere and stay anywhere. Nice. Iran is definitely paying attention to this news.
What is WRONG with these people? Two U.S. soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier who used his American-supplied weapon to murder them. Why? Because korans were accidentally destroyed. You know, I’m starting to think we should just use the Aliens method of combating terrorist states. Really, are they so insecure about their religion that they think murdering people for unintentionally burning a koran or three is a sufficient response? And when is the media going to stop calling them “protesters” and start calling them “rioters”–because that is what they are.
The Palestinians don’t want peace, exhibit 56,423: Palestinian TV lionized one of the planners of the Netanya Passover Massacre.
This is a man who was considered at the beginning of the previous decade the head of the military wing of Hamas in the town, and responsible for two of the harshest suicide bombings Israel has ever known, including the attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya and on the night of the Passover Seder in 2002.
The reporter, who works at a program dedicated to the families of prisoners, did not spare the superlatives: “We are outside the home of the warrior hero, the commander, the lion of the prison, Abbas a-Said.”
You will NEVER see anything like this in an AP report on why there is no peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. Because that would be an admission that the narrative–that they want to live side-by-side in peace with Israel–is false.
