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That Settles That

I've been going back and forth the last couple of days about my support for Bush. Sullivan's argument that there's no use fighting for the Constitution when we're trashing the Constitution is more than a little sophistic (and it is - the rhetoric trick he pulls is having the Constitution stand in for "American values" and then switching back and having it become the actual document again), but it nonetheless has some emotional and visceral appeal.
No more of that. Letting Carter or Baker run the peace process would be a boon to terrorists everywhere and would probably end up lighting up the Middle East. And not in that thousand-points-of-light way either. Survival first, we'll figure out the rest later. If Kerry is the Democratic nominee, I'll be voting for Bush:

[Kerry] met with Arafat. After September 11. After Bill Clinton blamed Arafat for the Oslo collapse. After George W. Bush refused to meet with Arafat. After Arafat had commenced a barbaric war against Israel. After that -- and in the midst of that -- he meets with Arafat. And he came away from that meeting thinking the answer is to appoint Jimmy Carter as presidential envoy and start the negotiations with Taba.
Omri | |

UC Irvine Outrage - Muslim Student Union Brings In Rabid Anti-Semite

To help kick off their "anti-oppression week" (their clumsy name, not mine - and I don't think the irony was intentional), the Muslim Student Union at the University of California, Irvine, filed into a gender-segregated hall to listen to rabid anti-Semite Amir Abdelmalik Ali to talk about black empowerment. Apparently, black empowerment has a lot to do with putting down Jews, because that's how he's finishing up his little tour of campus tomorrow.
You know, one almost begins to suspect that there's something going on in the local Irvine community, which is where the University draws some of its more radical students from.
Omri | |

Aww... That's Not OK

A new twist on Penguin Batting. Disturbing. Mildly funny, but disturbing.
Omri | |

Amira Hass: I Just Can't Figure Out Why Palestinians Want To Kill Jewish Kids

Amira Hass has a lot of problems, but one of the more significant is her Oslo-mired refusal to admit that some Palestinians view their own death and the deaths of Jews as ends in themselves. She just can't bring herself to do it. So she's left writing articles where she wonders aloud why a suicide bomber would strike on the eve of the Hague hearings. She outlines several fanciful scenarios, each more desperate and unpersuasive than the last. Finally she basically admits that she can't figure it out.
Other people, not limited by the ideological and psychological blinders that she has, are able to easily diagnose the problem
Omri | |

Humorous Link Of The Day

The lack of a roundup this morning doesn't mean that you should be deprived of this gem.
Omri | |

By ''Anti-Semitism Is Dead'' We Meant ''Anti-Semitism Is Not Dead''

For the last couple of weeks, I have been inclined to agree with some of the less sensitive members of the blogosphere on the potential for Passion sparking an anti-Semitic upsurge. Now, however, without even getting into the (much more probable) argument that the movie will have a negative impact in Europe and the Middle East, I’m beginning to change my mind. There are undeniably troubling signs emerging that the US may also provide very fertile ground for an anti-Semitic outbreak in response to the film (one out of four - that's seriously horrifying!!).

UPDATE: Ha'aretz is somewhat alarmist about the opening of Passion:

It is the darkest accusation the Jewish People has ever faced. And it is coming to a theater near you.

This article has all some of our favorite characters:
Hutton Gibson on the Holocaust:

Hitler "had this deal where he was supposed to make it rough on them so they would all get out and migrate to Israel because they needed people there to fight the Arabs," Hutton Gibson told the Times.

Yasser Arafat on, well, whatever:

"Jesus was a Palestinian," Arafat declared to assembled thousands of Palestinians and Christian pilgrims around the world. He also once wrote the sentence in a message to the Pope.


ANOTHER UPDATE:I keep forgetting to add this quote. This is the Western educated, moderate Basher Assad trying to suck up to the Pope on the Pope's visit to Syria:

They [Israelis and Jews] try to kill all the principles of divine faiths with the same mentality of betraying Jesus Christ and torturing Him, and in the same way that they tried to commit treachery against Prophet Mohammad

Those who figure that Passion must be OK because otherwise the Vatican would have spoken out against it would do well to remember that the Vatican was silent even in response to this explicit accusation of deicide, uttered in the Pope's presence.
Omri | |

Shouldn't International Law Have To Be Legal?

The main argument that the Palestinians are making in the Hague is that Israel is building the security fence on "occupied territory." Only the Islamic Conference has gone so far as to say that any security barrier is illegal under international law before a final settlement is reached, which is essentially a recognition that they don't accept any Israeli border as legitimate.
At the very least, from a juridical standpoint, the occupied status of the West Bank is in dispute (without even mentioning East Jerusalem). In order for a territory to be "occupied" under international law, it has to have been the legitimate territory of a sovereign nation-state. The problem is that the status of the West Bank has never been settled. Pockets of the West Bank were supposed to be Israeli under the Partition, so Jordan's invasion and occupation of the West Bank in 1948 was illegal under international law - they never had a legitimate claim to the land. Jordan's subsequent annexation of the West Bank was largely rejected as illegal. So when it was taken by Israel in 1967, the West Bank was arguably not anyone's territory.
Now, under international law, "occupation" is very different than "occupying disputed territory." Building a wall on disputed territory may be politically problematic, but that of course is Israel's point - that the placement of the wall is a political, not a legal, question.

There is, however, some merit to Bibi's quip that it should be Palestinian terrorism that's on trial. The Palestinians have repeatedly violated black-letter international law by:

  • Using ambulances for military purposes
  • Using Islamic holy places for military purposes
  • Using Christian holy places for military purposes
  • Using children for military purposes
    All this has passed without even a whisper of condemnation form the UN. So forgive my skepticism about the neutrality of international law.
    • Omri | |

    Israel To Europe: If You Won't Stop Funding Terrorism, We'll Do It For You

    Israel finally got fed up with the fact that the world won't stop funneling money for Palestinian terrorism:

    Tens of millions of shekels intended to fund Palestinian terror were confiscated by the IDF, police, and Shin Bet in an unprecedented raid on banks in Ramallah and El-Bireh.
    Officials pored over hundreds of bank accounts and seized money from Europe, the US, Iran, Syria, and Jordan intended to fund Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas.

    The US criticized this move, offering the far more diplomatic and European this-doesn't-have-a-snowball's-chance-in-hell-of-working suggestion:

    "The actions, some of these actions that were taken, risk destabilizing the Palestinian banking system. And so we'd prefer to see Israeli coordination with Palestinian financial authorities in order to stem the flow of funds to terrorist groups."

    In response, the Palestinians have announced that they're going to start being violent:

    "This is provocation; they are asking for Palestinian retaliation," said Tayeb Abdel Rahim, an aide to Chairman Yasser Arafat


    UPDATE: This is outstanding:

    Defense Minister Mofaz made it clear that Israel intends to see to it that the funds, which were designated for terrorism, will henceforth serve a variety of humanitarian purposes, including improving the infrastructure at crossing points and checkpoints, Palestinian health services, transportation for school pupils, supplying food, etc.
    Omri | |

    Labor Sleeps With Dogs, Gets Fleas

    Just in case you thought that the Israeli Left's hatred of Sharon had anything to do with his actual policies, the recent move by the Labor Youth Movement to bring together Labor and Shas should disabuse you of such silly notions. Sharon moves left, and suddenly the secular Left is looking to ally itself with it's mortal enemies for political expediency. Peres should be above this kind of low politicking.
    Omri | |

    Hey Gals, Check This Out

    Those wacky Saudis are at it again:

    The Girls’ Education Administration at the Ministry of Education is asking parents to sign to a strict new code of conduct for girls’ schools it has issued...
    The majority of the code deals with students’ behavior at school and the deductions for each violation. It details desirable behavior for girls, including praying on time, wearing hijab and the appropriate school uniform, punctuality and good manners. Violations are divided into five categories with the fifth mandating temporary expulsion.
    Girls will be expelled for disrespectful and blasphemous conduct and beliefs; magic; failure to pray; possessing, taking or selling drugs; deviant behavior; dating and having unlawful relations with men or leading others to this behavior; causing permanent injury to members of the school staff; possessing and using weapons and other dangerous items; and if their presence “becomes a danger to the school”.

    Questions that I have include, but are not limited to:
    (1) Why is there something called a Girls Education Administration?
    (2) How rampant is sexual abuse is in this totally abnormal, repressed environment where children are too afraid or humiliated to speak to their parents and where teachers have now been given literally unlimited power?
    (3) Why are there still countries on this planet that legislate the use of magic, and why are those same countries still allowed to affect our oil security?
    (4) And finally, out of pure curiosity, how is the prohibition against the use of magic enforced?
    Omri | |

    Jason Alexander vs. The Field of Statistics

    As if hanging out with advocates of genocide wasn't bad enough, now Jason Alexander has to go and try to violate the laws of mathematics.

    The "One Voice" campaign, backed by Alexander and several other Hollywood celebrities, seeks to gauge the feelings of ordinary Palestinians and Israelis on core issues in the conflict through an Internet referendum.

    OK, so it doesn’t really violate any laws of mathematics. Still, one has to wonder as to its methodological rigor:

    Several people have expressed concerns regarding the representativeness of this Web survey, or any other Web-based survey. A common argument is that respondents self select themselves, and this introduces a bias... For Web-based surveys, well established correction factors do not yet exist.
    Omri | |

    The IAEA - What A Bunch Of Idiots

    So it appears that the Washington Post has taken to subtly mocking the IAEA in their headlines. Someone was smirking when they came up with the headline "Another Nuclear Program Found in Iran - Undisclosed Experiments Heighten Suspicions About Intent to Make Arms." Its got resignation, its got understatement. The only thing it doesn’t have is cold fury at the incompetent technocrats who feed at the trough of the insipid worm dictators who run the UN. But one can’t ask for everything, I suppose. Money quote:

    Iran reportedly acknowledged the experiments but offered an explanation involving another of polonium's possible uses, which include power generation. The IAEA noted the explanation and left the issue "hanging there."

    How much do we give to the UN every year?
    Omri | |

    Hey, An Anti-Bush Assertion From The Media

    I'm not saying that the mainstream media has an interest in making it seem like everyone's pissed off at Bush, but I'd like to see the numbers that make this claim plausible. Actually, before that, I'd like someone to explain to me how exactly you measure "political division." Is that a term of art?

    Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. He said the level of political polarization surrounding Bush, the division between Republicans who favor him and Democrats who don't, exceeds even that for President Clinton (news - web sites) in September 1998 during the impeachment battle.

    Then again, why wouldn't you believe the trustworthy folks over at the Pew Commission?
    Omri | |

    Can He Do That?

    So Putin woke up grumpy today, and decided to fire his cabinet. I guess when you're a former KGB officer that could nuke a city without blinking, that's not really all that difficult. Have I mentioned that that guy is really scary? How classy is this, by the way:

    Putin's move shocked even senior cabinet members, who learned about it from television.
    Omri | |

    Was There A Sale On Stupid Today?

    What could be dumber than coming out in favor of a wildly divisive, politically incoherent, and morally questionable position on the eve of an election? Developing chemical weapons against an army just itching for an excuse to go after you:

    The Palestinian terror groups and PA security organizations are working to "upgrade" explosives to include chemical agents and are also investing efforts in producing weapons that can avoid the security fence"... The weapons threat from Gaza could "hasten a Defensive Shield operation," there, Dichter warned.

    I'd feel a lot better if it was the Palestinians coming out against civil rights and Bush developing chemical weapons.
    Omri | |

    What A Stupid Idea

    Oh, but it'll rally his base. Shut up. No it won't. It's not like fiscal conservatives are going to go, "oh, you hate gays too, so your Medicare package must be OK."
    And worse, check out this poll. In fact, can't we all agree to a general heuristic - if your political battle plan involves making Andrew Sullivan into a mortal enemy, you've erred. Severely. What a stupid, stupid idea.

    UPDATE: It seems that Andrew Sullivan isn't the only one who's upset (although there's really nothing like the fury of betrayal to really get someone going - he is pissed). From what I can tell, most of even the right side of the blogosphere - Allah, A Small Victory, Instapundit - is kind of disappointed in Bush. And VodkaPundit has a broader roundup to that effect. And why shouldn't Bush supporters be disappointed - he just came out in favor of a deeply divisive policy which obliterates federalism, trashes the Constitution, and will never pass (unless I'm mistaken, isn't getting behind an unpopular policy that can't pass definitionally a losing proposition for a politician). This is a train wreck. Stupid stupid stupid.
    Omri | |

    Search Terms Of The Day

    We got a visitor this morning who was using the terms: boeing "water tower" missile hit
    This is someone who clearly needs to develop a healthier respect for John Ashcroft.
    Omri | |

    It's Not Anti-Semitic To Criticize Israel, And Other Canards

    Natan Sharansky proposes a good litmus test for distinguishing between legitimate criticism of Israel and what crosses the line into anti-Semitism. He has three standards - demonization, double standards, and deligitimation. I think that the third standard should be discarded - the first two are sufficient to establish disproportionate focus, and thus by definition bias, and thus by definition anti-Jewish bias. And after all, one can be anti-Semitic and still advocate a Jewish state - by some accounts, both Stalin and Hitler dud at various points.
    Omri | |

    It's A Difference Of Opinion

    The Hague hearings continue to dominate the news. PA: 'Wall' prevents two-state solution.
    Israel: Blowing up little babies prevents two-state solution.
    (The first article also has the priceless line "Crawford [said] it is precisely with respect to political matters that a legal opinion is needed." International law is such a joke).

    Tommy Lapid is still pissed that Israel didn't send a rep to the Hague, depriving him of his much-deserved time in the limelight. His argument is that when the Court rules against Israel, no one will remember that Israel boycotted. That seems reasonable. But it also seems reasonable that, had Israel gone, the Court would have ruled against Israel anyway, and no one would have remembered that Israel didn't boycott. Memo to Tommy: you're a footnote in Israeli electoral politics - shut up and do as you're told. Also: other international actors who forgot their place in the grand scheme of things and are now regretting it.

    As of last count, somewhere between 10%-15% of JPost readers must be clinically insane. And that's not even a story about cell phones - that's here.

    And of course, today's humor link. It's the sub-headline that really sells the story.
    Omri | |

    Science and Progress Solve Stuff

    In the din of Green hysterical crisis rhetoric and totalitarian ascetic demands, we sometimes forget that science makes it possible for us to have our cake and eat it too:

    Israel's nanotechnology program got a significant boost recently, with the first meeting of stakeholders in the Nanotechnology Clean Water Initiative. The Initiative - the result of combined efforts by Dr. Uri Sagman, Prof. Samuel Pohoryles and former prime minister Shimon Peres - has, for the first time, brought together major Israeli university researchers and global industry principals to work on nanotech-based solutions to the water shortage in the Middle East...
    From all reports, the Forum was a success, igniting practical interest among all its participants, and moving one step closer to Peres' vision of Israel as a world leader in nanoscience-based clean water technologies.

    So let me get this straight - if we build a society that emphasizes rationality, science, and technology rather than mysticism, violence, and death we can actually solve our problems instead of reverting back to primitive 9th century agrarianism? Someone should let Afghanistan Sudan know.
    Omri | |

    Understatement Of The Week Award

    The week is still young, but I'm fairly confident that this headline will not be beaten: Officials: Haitian Leader May Have Erred. Gosh, ya think?
    Omri | |

    Link Dump

    Sorry. I may put up a couple longer posts later today, depending on how amenable Msrs. Lacan and Burke prove to be during paper writing. But for now...
    We're still talking about the Road Map. Dunno why, but here're your links:
    The peace process is dead
    Long live the peace process.
    Oh, and a note to Likud backbenchers - you're better seen and not heard. Go back to rigging elections, or organizing car theft rings or something - the adults are working here.

    The Hague is obviously on everyone's mind today. Bibi says it pretty well - Palestinian terrorism should be on trial, but Imshin potentially says it better. Oh, and before I forget, here's a reminder to all those that insist that Israel doesn't have to worry about the politicization of international law because the US can check all binding resolutions with its veto (you know who you are, all you ICC people):

    Al-Kidwa also signaled the view that a ruling against the fence could pave the way for international sanctions against Israel.

    I'm glad the Left moved past the "Berlin Wall" analogy - it was taking too much time to explain the difference between keeping civilians in and keeping terrorists out. I'm not so sure that the South Africa comparisons are any more coherent, but at least they can answered with "we offered them a state like 20 times and they didn't take it," which takes somewhat less time than before. I just wish someone would explain to me why a wall designed to separate Palestinians and Israelis makes it harder for the Palestinians to get a state.

    On a more domestic note, maybe this guy shouldn't have been driving after sundown on Monday and he wouldn't have gotten rocks thrown at his car (actually that's insensitive - He was the victim of what was probably a very clumsy act of terrorism, which is of course inexcusable. On the other hand, he seems to have gotten out of it completely unscathed, and anything that happens to a Shas MK short of bodily injury is fair game. It's a rule - you can look it up).

    Abraham Foxman needs to spend less time jetting to the Vatican and more time trying to figure out why he's such a gigantic tool. Same goes for Dan Gillerman.

    And finally, the humorous link of the day.
    Omri | |

    Blogging Break

    I had one last hope for getting out of having to finish my incompletes for school, but that seems not to have panned out. So, unless something dramatic happens, blogging from me will be light to moderate for the next week or so.
    Omri | |

    The Internet And The NYT - Like Potassium And Water

    Instapundit nails the New York Times for blatant, clumsy bias. Sure, you get these stories from time to time, but this one really is outstanding.
    Omri | |

    How Hypocritical Are They?

    OK, it's time for one of Dejafoo's favorite games, "How Hypocritical Is The Left?"
    As we all know, one of the bedrock principles of the Left is that Israel is a racist cesspool where non-Jews are discriminated against in the most barbaric ways (one of my favorite on-campus stories involves walking around the University of Pittsburgh activities fair as a starry-eyed first year and having some guy at International Socialist Organization booth trying to convince me that non-Jews aren’t allowed into Israel).
    So how racist and reactionary are Israeli Jews? Well, the most recent Jerusalem Post poll asks the question: Should Israel ban 'The Passion of the Christ'? The Passion of Christ, remember, for all the debate about whether or not it’s legitimate to tell an anti-Semitic story as long as it’s a really old one, basically for better or worse, true or false, casts Jews in a less than positive light. And yet, two-thirds of respondents in this admittedly unscientific poll (because after all, JPost's readers skew right) are unequivocally against banning the film.
    As a counter-example to this kind of tolerance, take the Left's beloved Religion of Peace (tm). Two days ago, while desperately urging Iranians to go and vote so that their election would look just a little less rigged, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati took time out of his busy brainwashing, blustering, and threatening to remind everyone that Salman Rushdie still needs to die. And last week, an organization calling itself the General Staff for the Glorification of Martyrs of the Islamic World (check me on this - that is a touch pretentious, right?) offered a $100,000 reward for killing Rushdie. So it's good to know they haven't let that one slip through the cracks.
    Omri | |

    Gosh, I Dunno - He Seems So Sincere

    You know what pisses me off? A lot of things. But specifically this evening. I'm just so sick of liberal Europeans going to Yad Vashem, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jews during Holocaust memorials, and thinking that these acts of ostensible self-flagellation enable them to say the most absurd things about anti-Semitism. It's just disgusting that we've sunk so low that they think that they're allowed to get away with this crap because pretending to care is supposed to be preferable to outright hostility. Dominique de Villepin can rail against what is apparently known in French diplomatic circles as "that sh**ty little country" during the day, but he thinks that deserves to be treated as a true friend if he takes the time to write a disgustingly self-important, patronizing open letter to Israelis discussing how personally shaken up he is by the way that the French turned over all their Jews to the Nazis.
    Now, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel is on a trip to Israel to explain why the fact that his country spends an inordinate amount of time criticizing Israel rights shouldn’t be taken as a sign of hostility:

    Speaking of anti-Semitism in the 21st century, Michel does not flinch. "The phenomenon exists," he says. "I don't deny it, as others sometimes do. We must not forgive a single anti-Semitic act. We cannot put it aside, and we take firm steps against such acts. But I also want to emphasize: I sometimes read Israeli newspapers and get the impression that in Israel they say that anti-Semitism in Belgium and other states is growing. That is absolutely not true."

    . What makes the bile rise up in your throat is that he thinks that just because he "doesn’t deny it" he thinks that he’s a saint or something. And if that doesn’t get you, the disgusting "oh, you Jews are so paranoid with your anti-Semitism and your newspapers" certainly will. "Absolutely not true" is an awful strong statement. Unfortunately, I think that there are some Jewish schoolchildren who can't ride the subways in Brussels who would beg to differ with his confident characterization.
    Omri | |

    Except For The Part Where He Committed Treason, He's Totally Trustworthy

    Well, I'm satisfied and reassured:

    Mordechai Vanunu denies that he knows additional secrets about Israel's nuclear capability... Vanunu's denial represent his first response to reports that security officials and prosecutors have been discussing the possibility of placing restrictions on him when he finishes his jail term in two months.

    How about this - since between the prosecutors and Vanunu, only the prosecutors have yet to commit treason, it's their word that we'll be taking instead.
    Omri | |

    Sigh

    It's probably the fence's fault:

    An explosion detonated on a bus in Jerusalem Sunday morning, killing several people and wounding at least 40 people, according to Israeli police and ambulance services.
    Omri | |

    Neat

    You try repairing a golf-cart sized robot sitting idle on another planet. Then complain to me that getting your new digital camera to appear in the Windows File Explorer is just too hard.
    Omri | |

    Another One May Come Home Under Sharon's Watch

    This would be too good to be true:

    Egypt and the United States are trying to arrange a multi-stage deal in which Israeli Azzam Azzam will be released from an Egyptian prison, in return for the release of approximately 40 Egyptians held in the US facility at Guantanamo Bay. The report was published in the Kuwaiti paper Al-Qabas.
    Omri | |

    Yawn. Another Israeli-Syrian Peace Proposal

    The UN is again sticking their anti-Semitic, interfering, busy-body nose into the Israeli-Syrian conflict. I've read the press releases on this, but no one can give me a good answer for why Israel should give up the Golan Heights for a Syrian peace deal that gets Israel absolutely nothing - Syria isn't even in control of Hezbollah any more, so they can't even promise an end to fighting on the northern border. Losing a war you started (again and again) is not like pissing your parents off – you don’t get your toys back if you behave yourself for two or three years. It’s an uncomfortable fact, but Syria has nothing to offer Israel any more. If they want a peace deal, great – they can pay shekels to vacation in the Golan just like everyone else has to.
    Omri | |

    Surprise - It's the Jews' Fault!

    Give me a break. Emphasis mine:

    The mayor of The Hague, W.J. (Wim) Deetman, believes Israel's embassy here is trying to undermine arrangements that have been instituted to maintain public order...
    The embassy, Deetman claims, has jeopardized these arrangements by relaying pictures of 927 terror victims to the "Christians for Israel" organization.
    The mayor has tried to stop the Christian group from holding a quiet march in The Hague on Monday. The organization plans to have vigil participants hold the portraits of the terror victims provided by the Israeli embassy.
    In Deetman's view, the pictures will spark confrontations with pro-Palestinian demonstrators and thereby disrupt public order. In Deetman's view, the pictures will spark confrontations with pro-Palestinian demonstrators and thereby disrupt public order

    Meanwhile...

    Meanwhile, preparations for the ICJ hearings were underway on Saturday in the Netherlands, as thousands of Palestinians staged noisy street demonstrations across the West Bank to protest the construction of the fence.

    What's tomorrow’s headline going to be? "Jews blamed for starting Hague riots because they insisted on being so damn Jewish"? Or do you think not, because that's too long to fit into a headline?
    Omri | |

    The Israeli-Arab Time Bomb

    There is a part of Alpher's article that discusses a facet of Israeli political discourse that I haven't really seen discussed before:

    Some settlers point to internal Israeli demographic projections that purport to show that the Israeli Arab population (Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship who live within the State of Israel) will on its own become a majority within the country in some 50-70 years, in order to argue that even a two-state solution cannot preserve Israel as a democratic Jewish country (a position reinforced recently by Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stated that it is the Israeli Arabs who constitute the "real" demographic problem), and that the only answer is therefore transfer or disenfranchisement of all Palestinians west of the Jordan River.

    Alpher, of course, has no sympathy for this argument - if maintaining a Jewish demographic majority is impossible even by granting Palestinians a state, then not only does transfer emerge as the only solution, but giving up even an inch of land will weaken Israel for the war that would inevitably follow such a transfer. Very few people want to believe that this description is true.
    Unfortunately, Alpher's rebuttal is absolutely incoherent. But it's incoherent for a very particular reason - he can't accept that Arab hostility toward Israel is intractable rather than the result of political dynamics. Rather than admit this possibility, he panics and makes all kinds of unfortunate arguments:

    This position appears to be fundamentally inaccurate, for several reasons. Firstly, in the Israeli case, long-term demographic projections have frequently proven unreliable - witness the fact that Israel's minority population has for decades, due to Jewish immigration, remained at around 18 percent of the total (and its Muslim population less than 16 percent, despite predictions that it would grow radically.

    If that's the case, then his entire argument for why a two-state solution is impractical yet necessary collapses:

    The growing demographic-geographic threat to Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state is of strategic proportions. There is something cruelly paradoxical in its emergence at a time when most of the strategic threats Israel has faced over the years have been somewhat mitigated.

    In fact, it's very, very strange to see Alpher undermining demographic projections, and it's indicative of how lost and panicked he is confronting this argument. Undermining demographic projections is usually something you see the right doing in order to argue that the demographic threat is overstated and that the occupation does not present any urgent demographic problems. It's suprising to see and Israeli of Alpher's Leftist credentials trying to mobilize this strategy for his cause, but it's indicative of his inability to integrate the reality of Arab-Israeli hostility. His other two answers are actually worse:

    Secondly, an agreed two-state solution should allow and persuade Israel to give greater equality and even autonomy to its Arab minority, thereby hopefully generating stability and prosperity and slowing the Arab birth rate. Indeed, Arab-Israeli agreement on a two-state solution, including the concept of a Jewish state, might include the redrawing of borders so as to include several large Israeli Arab towns within the Palestinian state, and could conceivably persuade some radical Israeli Arabs to emigrate there in order to fully realize their Palestinian national identity.
    Thirdly, even in the current difficult times, only a minority of Israel's Arabs indicate in polls that they would feel greater loyalty to a Palestinian state (if and when it exists) than to Israel.

    These two arguments, which I have taken entirely from the original article as is (that is, one really does follow the other) are in blatant contradiction. If Israeli Arabs don't feel any loyalty to a Palestinian state, then they won't accept being placed on the eastern side of a new border and they won't emigrate there to realize their (ostensibly nonexistent) Palestinian identity. The more probable outcome is that they'll demand to stay on Israel's side of the border, and then continue trying to destroy the state from within (more on that later today - Israeli-Arab electoral patterns are infuriating, but that's a different rant). When I talk about the Israeli Left's doublethink (the ability to hold two absolutely contradictory opinions and believe them both), this is what I mean. They'll throw up even incoherent arguments if those arguments seem on some level to respond to the Right.
    But ultimately, Israeli Arabs can be assimilated and integrated into Israeli society, but this task will require political will and focus. Politicians who go overseas and advocate terrorism must be disqualified from office. Alpher's solution accomplishes the opposite - it drains political will by devastating Israeli morale in the form of an unbalanced peace deal with the Palestinians and it hurts political focus by attempting to convince Israelis that the Arab-Israeli problem is a function of the Palestinian-Israeli problem and so can be solved by dealing with the latter problem.
    In fact, Alpher's advocacy of autonomy smacks vaguely of racism - are the Arabs in Tel Aviv Israelis or not? If they're Israelis, then they should be integrated and assimilated. If they're not, then there should be no problem deporting them when they openly preach terrorism against Israel (no nation-state is precluded from declaring anyone within its borders persona non grata). For the record, I advocate the former and not the latter. Alpher's solution - to pretend that an impossible peace deal with the Palestinians would achieve the counter-intuitive result of convincing Israeli Arabs that Israel is here to stay - is a dangerous distraction from either solution.
    Omri | |

    Give Them A State...

    ... in 50% of the West Bank and all of Gaza. That, at least, is the solution that Yossi Alpher deems absolutely impossible in his long (and I mean very, very long) piece in Ha'aretz. And it is the solution that, I think, is the only hope of stemming the bloodshed in Israel.
    There's a lot going on in this article, but Alpher's basic argument is that a two-state solution is becoming increasingly unlikely because:
    (a) The Palestinians will not accept a state unless it's borders closely follow the Green Line
    (b) Israeli settlers will make it politically impossible to give the Palestinians a state with borders that closely follow the Green Line
    If a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians does not emerge in the near future, he argues that the situation will continue to deteriorate until it becomes a full-blown regional war that triggers international intervention. However, his recommendations beg the very fundamental question that he is supposed to be presenting a political solution for - specifically, whether there can ever be a two-state solution that is acceptable to the Palestinians. If there is a negotiated settlement that, as Alpher implies, is publicly popular but politically difficult, then he is a lone voice crying out in the wilderness for a solution to the senseless bloodshed. But if there is no solution that the Palestinians will accept short of the eradication of the Jewish state, then Alpher is (for the second time in as many decades) a dangerous siren call of appeasement that will lead to more violence and hopelessness.
    For all his left-of-center advocacy, Alpher does occasionally have to acknowledge the reality that has shattered the Israeli Left - the Palestinians really, really, really seem to not want peace.

    The Palestinian Islamist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad - their popularity growing throughout the intifada years to encompass around one-third of the Palestinian population - reject the notion of any non-Muslim sovereignty at all in historic Palestine. At best, they would acquiesce in a negotiated two-state solution as a tactical and temporary measure...
    Indeed, nearly all Palestinians, following Yasser Arafat's lead at Camp David and Taba, also insist that Israel accept at least in principle the right of return of the 1948 Palestinian refugees to the Jewish state... And they deny the Jewish historical narrative according to which the Temple Mount

    Instead, he falls back into the fetishistic habits that he and his Oslo brethren developed during the 1990s - even while he knows that the Palestinians do not want peace, he wants to act as if they do, and so he'll accept even the barest whisper of a hint as absolute proof. All so that he can blame Sharon for the current impasse:

    From 1950 to 1967, a Palestinian state was not even on the Arab agenda, while Israel expressed a readiness to turn the armistice lines (Green Line) with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into official borders within the framework of peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt, the two countries occupying those territories. Only in 1988 did the Palestinian National Council, meeting in Algiers, ratify 181 for the first time and endorse a two-state solution.

    And...

    Within the PLO-led Palestinian mainstream, which still officially advocates a two-state solution, the territorial ideas of Sharon and the settlers are a non-starter.

    Reality check -

    A White House document obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, in effect blames the Palestinians for the violence which is now moving into its third year, charging that the Palestinian Authority and the PLO have not taken steps to stop terrorism, HA'ARTEZ reported. The failure to stop the violence has thrown into question the Palestinian Authority's acceptance of Israel, the 12-page report says.

    Of course, what Alpher won't - perhaps can't - admit is that the PLO never really wanted peace. That what is most fanciful and conspiratorial may be the truest; that Arafat used the Oslo years in order to conduct a systematic induction of Palestinian society and especially of Palestinian youth into a death cult that sees the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews as ends in themselves; and that during the whole time, Arafat was openly proclaiming this plan to the entire world and bragging about how the West was so weak and naive that they wouldn't step in to stop him.
    I almost sympathize with people like Alpher - it must be very, very difficult to keep up this mental charade - it must take a lot of energy. Because the stark results - an entire generation of Palestinian youth that openly repeats the death-cult slogans that they heard on Palestinian children's television as they were growing up - is not only staring everyone in the face (as it was during the Oslo years as well), but is now to be found in the charred remains of Israeli busses and cafes. That's much harder to ignore.
    And yet he does his best to keep it up:

    It is important to note at this point that, according to all available survey data, a majority or at least plurality of both Israelis and Palestinians continues to prefer a two-state solution to all alternatives.

    I would like to see the survey data that he's referring to. All of the survey data and reporting that I've seen goes the other way. I wonder if he's thinking of a particular poll, which is why he had to qualify his claim with the weird phrase "at least a plurality" - don't we have data on this?
    Alpher is right that a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians is politically impossible, but he's right for the wrong reasons. He thinks that it's impossible is because the settlers in the West Bank will never allow a political decision mandating their evacuation to pass, and that even if one did pass they would fight rather than leave.

    Nor are they likely to agree easily to move - in fact, a few thousand of them are so extreme that they might use the weapons they have been issued for self-protection, to fight Israeli security forces who seek to remove them.

    But even he admits that...

    In the best case, the settlers and the hard right will agree to compromise with the mainstream and endorse a unilateral partition scheme that may involve the removal of some settlements, but will in fact seek to compel the Palestinians to acquiesce in a system of semi-autonomous enclaves surrounded by "security" fences and by the remaining settlements... This corresponds with the ideas for limited unilateral redeployment currently being discussed by PM Sharon and others on the right.

    So here is the situation - the Palestinians will never accept any measure of any Jewish state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean (they refused, even at Taba - hell, lets be honest, even in Geneva - to give up on the Right of Return). Yet Jewish settlers will accept a limited withdrawal to defuse the demographic time-bomb, and in fact they'll accept the limited withdrawal that's on the table today. It seems that once Alpher gives up his delusion that the Palestinians can ever be brought around to cease fighting Israel, Sharon's plan emerges as the only realistic alternative to the status quo. But of course, this is precisely what Alpher refuses to give up:

    Yet unless Israelis can convincingly demonstrate a state-level capacity to roll back the settlement movement, and Palestinians can prove a capability of stopping violence and respecting the Jewish nature of Israel, and unless the two peoples get better leadership, the two-state solution is liable to be seen in historic perspective as a very brief episode in the tragic annals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - despite the support of a broad majority of Israelis and Palestinians.

    This so-called insight is nothing more than the old Leftist canard - "if the people lead, the leaders will follow." The problem is not Israeli leaders, and it's not even Palestinian leaders any more (maybe 10 years ago Arafat was leading the Palestinian people to extremism, but today if anything it's the other way around). And Alpher admits that Israelis have already mobilized the political will to roll back at least some settlers, whereas the Palestinians have demonstrated less the zero desire to either stop the violence or to respect the Jewish nature of Israel. The blame for the current violence does not lie equally with the Israelis and the Palestinians, and so the solution cannot come equally from both. The Palestinians are a lot farther from peace than the Israelis are, and pretending otherwise will not bring anyone any closer to a solution.

    UPDATE: Saul Singer puts it much better:

    There are, however, some fundamental points that Sharon has not conceded, and that much of the Zionist Left implicitly has: that the bet on Yasser Arafat as a pragmatic negotiating partner failed, that so long as the Palestinians refuse to abandon the demand of "return" the two-state solution is beyond grasp, and that settlement blocs that do not interfere with Palestinian continuity should never be dismantled and should define the ultimate borders of the Jewish state
    Omri | |

    They Should Upgrade To FreeBSD

    You know, when our kernel melted down yesterday, we just chalked it up to bad luck. If only we knew what really causes computers to die. Wouldn't ya know, it's the Jews:

    [Islamic Jihad] accused American and Israeli groups Saturday of hacking into its Web site and destroying it.
    Omri | |

    Shouldn't They Be Out Protesting Disengagement?

    Ultra-Orthodox Jews threw rocks at Shabbat drivers for the first time in over a year, injuring a young woman. This is why the Left should support West Bank settlements - it gets these lunatics out of Jerusalem. On a more positive note, this hooliganism shows that Sharon's disengagement plan has begun working - secular/religious conflict between Jews is clearly the single best indicator that things are quieting down on the security front, right?
    Omri | |

    What's Good For the Goose...

    Israel's clumsy counter-propaganda campaign at the Hague continues. A lot of the stuff they're doing (showing off blown up busses) is macabre and amateurish, but this struck me:

    The ICJ has rejected the request of terror attack victims to participate in the hearings, Israel Radio reported Saturday. The Court said the victims do not represent a state.

    Maybe I missed a memo, but that Palestinians don't have a state yet either, do they? Have we really gone so far that now the world-as-the-Left-wants-it-to-be has replaced the world-as-it-actually-is for the purposes of international law?
    See what you think:

    The World-As-the-Left-Wants-It-To-Be: International law is a neutral juridical norm that dispassionately decides issues of fact and law exclusively between states and not, say, whatever cause celebre has captured the Left's attention that week)
    The World-As-It-Actually-Is:

    Palestinian delegates in The Hague on Saturday took part in lectures arranged by European non-government organizations… Legal arguments against the barrier were also presented… an art exhibit titled "artists against the fence" was opened to the public.


    The World-As-the-Left-Wants-It-To-Be: The Security Barrier is an apartheid project undertaken by racist Israelis against Palestinians who are committed to non-violent protest
    The World-As-It-Actually-Is:

    Meanwhile, in the West Bank… the main protest was staged in Nablus, where 2,000 demonstrators marched in the streets, among them dozens of masked militants who fired shots in the air.
    Omri | |

    Jason Alexander Talks To Genocidal Students, Promotes Peace

    So Jason Alexander is coming to Israel on One Voice's dime to promote whatever new peace deal the Israeli Left is in is favor of this week (everything is negotiable, except the Right of Return, East Jerusalem, all of the West Bank, and reparations for refugees). A main part of his little self-congratulatory tour of duty involves going to the places where you can always find starry-eyed young idealists, the University:

    To promote the initiative, Alexander is to meet with Israeli student leaders at Bar Ilan University and Palestinian student leaders at Bir Zeit University.

    "Student leaders at Bir Zeit University." Sounds innocent enough, right - meet with students from both sides of the conflict, hear young peoples' views, etc. Except that student leaders at Bir Zeit tend to have a slightly skewed opinion of what counts as peace:

    The campaign for the student government council at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah featured exploding models of Israeli buses and claims of prowess based on Israeli casualties... In voting Wednesday, Hamas won 25 seats of the 51 on the council...
    At a debate, the Hamas candidate asked the Fatah candidate: "Hamas activists in this university killed 135 Zionists. How many did Fatah activists from Bir Zeit kill?"
    The Fatah candidate refused to answer, suggesting his rival "look at the paper, go to the archives and see for yourself... Fatah set up models of Jewish settlements and then blew them up with fireworks... Hamas countered by blowing up models of Israeli buses.

    I wonder if Jason Alexander will bring up the explicit genocide advocated in Hamas's charter when he meets with their student "leaders." Somehow I doubt it.
    Oh, one more thing. Emphasis mine:

    The campaign was so focused on violent activities that officials at the university -- considered the most liberal of the Palestinian higher education institutions -- were nervous.
    Omri | |

    Sharon – Brilliant Tactician or Really Brilliant Tactician?

    Sharon's gamble seems to be paying off:

    The United States would agree to transfer settlers from the Gaza Strip to the main settlement blocs on the West Bank.

    If this works out, it would be an incredibly brilliant tactical move on Sharon's part.
    Omri | |

    CSM Scoop: Powell More Moderate Than Wolfowitz

    The Christian Science Monitor has a very Christian Science Monitor-ish article on rifts in the President's foreign policy team - it has the appearance of nuance and balance, the tone of a high-minded foreign policy discussion, and the substance of a USA Today process story. They actually do one thing very well: they move past the "Bush lied" canard and recast the debate over Iraq as a debate about the merits of preemption, which is what it should be. But after that, it's all about jockeying for positions in the next administration and how the conscience of the administration (Powell and Rice) took a bruising because of the evil neo-cons. Most curious line:

    [Powell] wants it remembered that he's the one who convinced the president to go to the UN before going to war.

    I would think he’d want to be remembered for his successes, not for convincing the most powerful office in the world to appeal to Sudan, Libya, Syria, and the rest of this planet’s enlightened countries to liberate the Iraqi people.
    Omri | |

    People Who Live In Glass Context Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones

    Usually, I wouldn't bother fisking a college newspaper's opinion column. But since (a) we have the Pitt News on our blogroll so I feel kind of responsible, (b) it's a slow news morning (Kerry wins another race and more flu cases in Asia - be still my beating heart), (c) I hate to see my alma mater's paper fall to these depths, and (d) this article contains some very, very typical idiocy that you see elsewhere that can make it an instructive case study in how to take apart lies about Israel, I'm going to go ahead and blog it. And let's be honest: it's either blog this or do something productive, so it's a pretty easy choice.
    So, with these things in mind, let's meet today's guest. One Kevin Funk, who's clearly not the honors-caliber student that Pitt is trying to attract nowadays. His main point is that the US media doesn't present the context for Palestinian deaths. The problem with getting through his (and I use this word generously) opinion, is that it's so filled with factual inaccuracies and snide insinuations that you sometimes lose track of the fact that he's a flaming hypocrite. I'll try to help keep you focused as we go through the article:

    Thursday, Jan. 29, a Palestinian detonates a shrapnel-packed explosive on a crowded Jerusalem bus. He kills 10, plus himself. He wounds 50 more.
    Even more tragic than this reprehensible act is the fact that, as wrong as it is, it is dwarfed by Israeli crimes.

    Technically false. According to Amnesty International Palestinian terrorism constitutes a crime against humanity, which is a juridical category of the most severe magnitude. Israel has yet to be formally accused of crimes against humanity by anyone who, well, knows what that is (Al Jazeera editorialists don't count - they don't exactly have much game on international law). But that's not the point.
    The Palestinians, incidentally, also regularly violate international law by using children as soldiers, treating civilians as human shields, utilizing ambulances as combat vehicles, and storing weapons in mosques. But that's not the point either.
    The point of this post is context and hypocrisy. So lets see what context he provides. Civilian vs. Combatant deaths? No. Accidental vs. Intentional Deaths? Not so much. Remember, the distinction between targeting civilians versus targeting terrorists is the heart of the moral case for Israel's self defense - and fortunately it's an intuitive distinction that's very, very hard to answer. Ergo the "maybe if I don't talk about it people won't notice it" strategy that this rhetorical genius uses. Hypocrite.

    As the BBC reported -- apparently, foreign media outlets try to give context -- at least 2,600 Palestinians and 875 Israelis have been killed since the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada -- Arabic for "uprising" -- in September 2000. For the math-impaired, this means that Palestinian deaths -- at least 439 of which were victims younger than 18, according to Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem -- outnumber Israeli deaths three to one.
    If this sounds new, thank the press.

    Sigh. Where to begin?
    First of all, it's factually misleading. It wasn't the BBC that compiled these statistics it was a report from If Americans Knew, a Berkeley based group (I know, I know - he says "reported" - but his point is that everyone on this side of the Atlantic is hopelessly biased). Their website is here. Lets talk about it for a sec. They present some charts proving that Israelis are evil. They say that "Israel has been targeted by at least 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none" - without mentioning that the UN is structurally biased against Israel and makes it the only country on the planet, among dictators, thieves, tyrants, and murderers, that is banned from sitting on the Security Council. They say that "920 Israelis and 2,706 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000" - without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. They say that "The Israeli unemployment rate is 10.4%, while the Palestinian unemployment is estimated at 37-67%" - without mentioning that every time Israel tries to let Palestinians into Israel, a suicide bomber attacks and they have to shut down the border crossings again. They say "106 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 513 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000" - without mentioning that many of those children died while being used as human shields by Palestinians, and at least some of them died as suicide bombers themselves. So lets be careful with the whole "foreign media outlets try to give context" thing, shall we?
    So that's hypocrisy in his source. Now lets talk about his own hypocrisy. For some real statistics, we go over to the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism for a look behind the numbers. Now, while If Americans Knew (gosh, the name just reeks of professionalism and legitimacy, doesn't it?) does indeed have bar graphs, the ICT does some actualnumber crunching. This is where I go off on guy's sanctimonious little line about "the math-impaired." It's true that numbers help us understand things - but something that every first year stats student learns (you know, the non-math-impaired among us) is that numbers can be deceiving and you can't just take two numbers and conclude that you have meaningful results - only ignorant ideologues do that. So the ICT actually did some analysis and came up with the following (and I urge you to click through to their site - their analysis is imposing):

  • The usual fatality count quoted in news articles presents an inaccurate and distorted picture of the al-Aqsa conflict, exaggerating Israel’s responsibility for the death of noncombatant civilians... our database shows a total of 603 Israelis killed, compared to 1596 Palestinians... numbers in general agreement with media reports... But such numbers hide as much as they reveal: They lump combatants in with noncombatants, suicide bombers with innocent civilians, and report Palestinian “collaborators” murdered by their own compatriots as if they had been killed by Israel. Correcting for such distortions, we can arrive at a figure of 617 Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel, compared to 471 Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians.
  • While Israeli fatalities in the al-Aqsa conflict have consisted of 80 percent noncombatants... Palestinian fatalities have consisted of more combatants than noncombatants
  • The “combatant gap” – that is, the “excess” of Palestinian combatants killed by Israel over Israeli combatants killed by Palestinians – has continued to grow over the life of the conflict.
  • If we restrict our view to each side's noncombatants killed by the opposing side, the gap in the percentage of females among those killed is even wider: 40 percent of Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians have been female, compared to 8.4 percent of Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel... In absolute terms, many more Israeli females have been killed than Palestinian females. If we include combatants and fatalities for whom responsibility is unclear, 70 Palestinian females have been killed; the corresponding Israeli figure is 190... Restricting ourselves to cases where clear responsibility can be reliably assigned for noncombatant deaths, we see that Israel has been responsible for killing 52 Palestinian noncombatant females, while Palestinians have killed 187 Israeli noncombatant females – more than three times as many

    • And so on... The cool thing about this part of the fisking is that it points out that this guy is not only a hypocrite because he intentionally takes figures out of context to demonize Israel, but he's also a flaming idiot when it comes to math. Want to read his line again? "For the math-impaired, this means that Palestinian deaths... outnumber Israeli deaths three to one. " Snide little hypocrite. Moving on.

    According to a recent study of Middle East coverage in the San Jose Mercury News -- a representative part of that intractable U.S. liberal media -- "the killing of an Israeli was over 19 times more likely to show up in a front-page headline than the killing of a Palestinian." Nor was the paper likely to mention who's footing the bill -- only 1.1 percent of articles mentioned U.S. aid to Israel. Similar figures exist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
    This may explain why only 12 percent of respondents in an August 2002 poll correctly identified Israel as "mainly to blame for the violence."

    Sure it's clunky and awkwardly written. But we're past that by now.
    First, I actually remember when this poll came out, and the significant result was that "When asked who is mainly to blame for the violence in the Middle East, those who blame both equally has increased from 26% in July last year to 44% today [August 2002]." Now, you're thinking - "what? this guy insists on context, but then makes it seem as if the media is fooling the public into supporting Israel?!?! What a flaming hypocrite!!" And I sympathize. But I'm afraid it gets worse.
    You see, they count each causality for their figures, not each attack!! That means that, for instance, when there's a spectacular suicide bombing in Israel and 50 people die, it makes the front page and each of those people get counted individually!! I know, I know - can you believe the mendacity?
    Read it again: "math-impaired." But wait - this next part is even more sanctimonious and snide.

    Those of us concerned with reality may also be interested in a larger view of human rights in the Occupied Territories.
    With all the subtlety of a G Unit album, Israel is building a "security fence," which, as even the hawkish New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says, "is apparently part of a broader [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon plan to unilaterally create an interim Palestinian state in about 50 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and leave Israel with the rest."

    So Kevin Funk, who I imagine is at most a B-/C+ humanities undergrad at Pitt, authoritatively describes Tom Friedman as a hawk while telling the rest of us to be "concerned with reality." His opinion of "reality" can be usefully contrasted with that of Dr. Cori Dauber (Phd, Northwestern), arguably the leading security studies media analyst in academia, who takes it as a given that Tom Friedman has a basically liberal bent.
    "Concerned with reality." Is there a name for Funk's combination of flaming ignorance and sneering self-righteousness? Please email me - I'm running out of synonyms for "idiot."
    I won't get into the land-grab issue. It would involve introducing some background to the Israeli/Arab conflict that is found nowhere in this article (why introduce nuance, right?), which would be satisfying, but might get in the way of highlighting over and over and over again how this hairpiece is wrong about even the things he does write about.

    The list of abuses goes on, from Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement that have "crippled the Palestinian economy" (over two-thirds of Gaza Strip residents now live in poverty), to the "war crime" of the destruction of more than 4,000 Palestinian homes in the last three years.

    Do you wonder why war crime is in scare quotes? It's because Israel's house demolitions are so specifically targeted against terrorists that they don't rise to the level of collective punishment, which is what is necessary for a war crime. So when Funk says war crimes, he actually means not war crimes. I know, it gets confusing (for those of you keep track at home, this is the point in the article where he actually crossed the line from blatant hypocrisy to out-right lying).
    And although I suppose it's overkill by now, it's probably also worth noting: (a) that Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement have been repeatedly lifted and re-imposed after suicide bombers slipped out within a couple of days (it took me 30 seconds on Google to confirm this with specific examples from Bethlehem and Tul Karm - so you can see what kind of research a Pitt News opinion writer is obligated to do these days), and (b) that the threat house demolitions directly stop terrorist bombers from killing Israeli schoolchildren.

    Lest we operate under the delusion that this constitutes yet another instance of a faraway people who suffer through no fault of our own, a glance at the downright insulting U.S.-brokered "peace process" is in order.

    Lest we operate under the delusion that this constitutes yet another instance of a faraway people who suffer through no fault of our own, a glance at the history of the Middle East shows not that the vast majority of the Arab world has rejected peace in the past, but that the vast majority of the Palestinian public supports continued war with Israel even if they were offered peace again.

    The United States, furnishing Israel with around $3 billion each year in military aid, has single-handedly rejected dozens of U.N. Security Council resolutions on the conflict that are accepted virtually unanimously throughout the world.

    Ahh. The United Nations.

    The fate -- and the blood -- of the Palestinian people lies in our hands.

    I agree. For instance, if Clinton had never brought Arafat to the White House, just think how many lives could have been saved. If Carter had never pressured Begin to give up the Sinai, Israel would have a self-sufficient economy and not even need U.S. loans.
    Of course, it's probably unfair to use historical examples. For brave activist students like Funk, the Middle East conflict didn't really begin before he picked up his first International Socialist Organization pamphlet as a starry-eyed college first-year.
    Even his signature is annoying:

    To preempt accusations of anti-Semitism, Kevin would like to say that only people with strong fascist tendencies equate the criticism of a government with the criticism of a religion.

    First of all, I'm not sure what the reference to fascism here is supposed to do. I think it's a word he learned as a synonym for "bad." I'm also getting increasingly tired of the Left's criticism-stifling strategy of fighting the straw-argument of anti-Semitic accusations (it's a weird reversal - they bait or accuse their opponents of accusing them of anti-Semitism so that they can get indignant about being called anti-Semites). But Funk isn't anti-Semitic. I don’t think he’s capable of anti-Semitism - that would require conspiracy theories, which in turn require cognitive integration of facts, which requires at least a bare minimum of fidelity to the way the world actually is rather than the way Kevin wants it to be.
    So, in the interest of restoring the Pitt News to a level of respectability, I’ll review the relevant and necessary facts that the paper should remember: (1) Either Kevin Funk is criminally ignorant or he's a flaming hypocrite. Either way, he should be forced to pass a series of basic aptitude tests before being allowed to publish again. (2) Penn State still sucks.
    Omri | |

    Why We Hate Reuters

    Every first year media student - hell, every third grader - knows that tone matters. So it's difficult not to suspect less than noble motives when Reuters describes the anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate groups, as a "Jewish pressure group" (you know all those Jews, with their dark plots and their secretive influence). Keep in mind that this is the same news organization that describes the Council on American Islamic Relations as "America's largest Islamic civil liberties group" (see here and here for examples). CAIR of course has been repeatedly and conclusively linked major international terrorist organizations. The ADL, alternatively, has no such ties - and yet it is a shadowy and illegitimate pressure group while CAIR is apparently fighting the good fight. I guess when you don’t think Jews should have civil liberties, it makes no sense to describe pro-Jewish organizations as civil liberties groups.
    Omri | |

    It's Uranium Enrichment, Charlie Brown

    The IAEA continues to play Charlie Brown to Iran's Lucy:

    The UN nuclear agency has found undeclared components in Iran compatible with advanced uranium centrifuge designs, stoking Western concerns that it may be developing nuclear weapons.

    I'm curious about this sentence - do Western concerns that Iran is developing nukes need stoking? I mean, is there anybody in the West who doesn't know that Iran has a Manhattan Project? I mean, other than like infants maybe.
    Omri | |

    Edwards For President?

    First, IsraPundit picks up on Edwards's support for Israel. Then the Creator of Worlds comes out with what is without a doubt the funniest thing I've seen on the blogosphere in a long, long time (even better than Dean-o).
    Omri | |

    Red Cross Condemns Israel, People Who Haven't Even Heard Of The Red Cross Still Not Surprised

    The Red Cross, an organization that won't accept Israel as a full member, nonetheless has the chutzpa to condemn the security fence that Israel has to build because the Palestinians, who the Red Cross has no problem accepting as full members, keep trying to smuggle suicide belts in ambulances.
    Omri | |

    Now I'm Suspicious

    Generally, I use whatever Terje Larsen says as a heurestic for deciding what is suicidal for Israel, so this statement makes me very suspicious:

    United Nations Mideast envoy Terje Larsen on Wednesday praised Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan... During a closed Security Council session, in which he submitted a monthly report on the situation in the territories, Larsen said that no Israeli prime minister has ever had the courage and the vision to say that he would evacuate settlers.

    Which of course immediately raises a number of questions* including but not limited to:

  • (1) Does he think that he can use the disengagement plan to shove a larger peace plan down Israels throat?
  • (2) Will he succeed?
  • (3) Could it be the case that he is such an utter and complete failure because he seems not to know about the Camp David Accords, under which Shamir evacuated 40,000 settlers from the Sinai?
    Israeli Arabs, on the other hand, are pissed that they may have to join a new Palestinian state. Maybe they should stop electing political representatives that advocate it, then.

    *Answers: (1) There is not the slightest doubt, (2) 50/50, (3) Yes, although picking just one reason why Larsen is an utter and complete failure is a Sisyphusian task.
    • Omri | |

    What If The UN Held A Kangaroo Court And Nobody (Except Depraved and Vicious Tyrants) Came?

    Most even ostensibly civilized countries have agreed to sit out the ICJ's politicized hearings on the security barrier. Thirteen countries will however show up to make an impassioned case for human rights and freedom, including Sudan, Algeria, Malaysia, and Cuba. This is just so surreal that even sarcasm fails me - governments that fund slavery, stone women to death for adultery, publicly announce in diplomatic forums that Jews control the world, and kill people for challenging government policy are going to be lecturing Israel on human rights. Tell me again about the legitimacy of international law, France.
    Omri | |

    American Library Association: Zionism Is Racism

    From the people who brought you the argument that John Ashcroft suppresses free speech but Cuba is a haven for free speech and animated public debate, we now have the argument that Zionism is racism:

    [On] the Internet... When young people aren’t getting their sex education off XXX-rated sites, they’re learning politics from the Freeman Web page, or race relations from Klan sites. There is no quality control on the Web, and there isn’t likely to be any.

    The Freeman Center for Strategic Studies is a major Houston based nonprofit that regularly publishes articles by, among others, Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post goddess), Daniel Pipes (Cold Warrior and enemy of idiotarians everywhere), Louis Rene Beres (Princeton PhD and Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University), and Paul Eidelberg (Bar Illan University lecturer and director of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy). The Klan, of course, is a virulently anti-Semitic hate-group that publishes nothing legitimate by anyone worth reading. So there's that difference, at least. Sure, the Freeman Center's webpage has annoying Java animations and looks like it was designed by someone's 7 year old nephew, but that certainly doesn't rise to the level of, say, brutal public lynchings.
    My concern is not so much that the ALA is a case-study in nonchalant and routine Leftist anti-Semitism. It's that nobody cares.
    Omri | |

    Israel: We're Ending The Occupation, Palestinians: We're Still Going To Try To Kill You

    Isi Leibler points out the obvious:

    As our unilateral withdrawal is about to be implemented the Palestinians are openly proclaiming that terrorism will be intensified, not bothering to hide their objective: the elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the region.

    His solution is to explain this blatantly obvious fact to the world and to demonstrate Israeli resolve by annexing swaths of the West Bank. The Gaza for Yesha trade-up is probably Sharon's plan anyway, and for a better explanation of the way that this would play out on the Palestinian street, see Caroline Glick's much better column on this question from a couple weeks ago.
    Omri | |

    He ''Slipped Down Some Stairs''

    I like how Pakistan doesn't even try to come up with believable excuses:

    Pakistan's top scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan who was involved in clandestine nuclear sales to other nations has reportedly suffered a heart attack. Dr Khan is under treatment at his residence and his condition is stated to be critical," a local daily quoted officials of Khan Research Laboratories' hospital as saying.

    The question is: has Pakistan just tortured him close to death in an attempt to get information, or are they interested in killing him precisely in order to prevent information (about the complicity of high-ranking Pakistani officials in his nuke sales) from getting out? Or both?

    UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the headline to this story, in The Times of India, is priceless: "Nuke peddler suffers heart attack"
    Omri | |

    Europe - Slightly Less Odious Than Before

    The Jerusalem Post has a roundup of the sparring that went on at the Israeli-EU conference yesterday. Italy apparently played the embarrassed wife to France's belligerently drunk husband, arguing after an incoherent tirade by former French Prime Minister Rocard that "Don't forget that Europe is wide, it is not made up of three countries but of 25... These 25 will not accept the lead of three countries [Germany, France, and Britain]." The Jewish World Review's Joel Mowbray implicitly responds that Europe is just as "morally bankrupt as ever.
    You often hear memes in the press to the effect that the Middle East situation is a result of how "religion breeds intolerance." And yet it is the most orthodox Catholic country in Europe that is one of Israel's most reliable allies, and it is the more secular countries that are being swept by waves of the New Anti-Semitism. It is not religion as such that breeds intolerance, but particular strands of particular religions that make anti-Semitism a foundational part of their worldview.
    Omri | |

    We're Back

    Wardrobe malfunctions kept us offline for a week. Apologies all around.
    Omri | |

    I Have A Theory

    I’ll preface this post by saying that I’m usually pretty skeptical about conspiracy theories. But…
    As is quickly emerging from the blogosphere, this Kerry / blonde story has been out there for years. It inevitably would have broken. Of all of the times that it could have possibly broken, this was the single best time for Kerry. He’s just gotten everyone to withdraw from the race except the guy who he’s cut a deal with to be the VP and some crazies who have no chance of winning. But, we’re still media-and-other-wise in the primary season and not yet in the Presidential season (or if we are, that season started on Sunday with the Bush interview). This story, which was going to come out one way or another, came out in a way that now provides literally the maximum amount of time in between the instant when Kerry became unbeatable and the Presidential election.
    So again, I’m usually pretty skeptical about conspiracy theories… but is there a chance Kerry leaked this himself?
    Omri | |

    Blame Canada

    From the country that brought you surging anti-Semitism and the idea that Jewish victims of bus bombings deserve it if they live in the West Bank, we have this stunning poll:

    In order to spur parties to a peace settlement in the Middle East, would you: Cut off aid to Israel 9511 votes (39 %) Cut off aid to the Palestinians 7180 votes (30 %) Cut off aid to both 5924 votes (24 %) Continue the present course 1617 votes (7 %)

    In honor that poll, we're holding our own poll.
    Which of the following do you believe is most likely, on any given day, to use massive Canadian and EU aid to bomb busses and cafes:

  • Yasser Arafat
  • Abu Ammar*
  • The Palestinian Authority
  • The Israelis, who have bombed neither busses nor cafes
    The last time someone seriously tried to cut off military aid to Israel was in the opening days of the October 1973, when the Arabs celebrated their peaceful holiday of Ramadan by respecting other cultures' sensitivities and launching a surprise attack during Yom Kippur. That led Golda to almost nuke Damascus out of desperation, as Israeli soldiers were being overrun, tortured, and executed on the Golan (this is why you always hear lots of calls for Syrians to be tried in Belgian courts for war crimes, and by "always" I mean "never").
    But I digress.
    In the last week, only one party involved in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has conclusively been proven to take aid (which is what this poll is ostensibly about) and use it to stymie a peace settlement (hint: it wasn't Israel). And yet more Canadians have concluded that a peace settlement would be helped by cutting off aid to Israel than to the Palestinians. Whatever could their motive be?

    * Yes, I know. Go look it up.
    • Omri | |

    Microsoft Joins Red Cross As Raving Anti-Semites?

    The question mark up there in the headline is because I can't believe that this is true. The Red Cross saying that the Star of David is equivalent to the Nazi swastika I'm willing to buy - but this Microsoft thing just seems weird.
    (Via LGF. In fact, Charles was on fire yesterday - go the site and read all of the Thursday stuff).
    Omri | |

    The World's Short Memory

    Remember how, after Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah was supposed to disarm? Instead of, say, infiltrating Jerusalem and trying to orchestrate suicide bombings? Cause if you do, you should let Europe know, since it seem to have slipped their mind. Incidentally, this story says she was using her Red Crescent to slip in and out of the territories smuggling terrorist information. Think that'll draw a Red Cross condemnation? Hint: no.
    Omri | |

    The Kerry Hack Job

    The Telegraph is running the line that Drudge’s Kerry story (although I’m not sure I’m still allowed to call it that, since every blog post is pointing out that the blogosphere had it first) is the result of Republican dirty tricks. I dunno about that. I won't lie - this is a fantastic political rumor, and I'm dying to know who leaked it to Drudge. The smart money is on Chris Lehane (not exactly a revelation), who, as one blogger put it, had access to Kerry's counter-oppo research back before he got fired and, is, well, a prick. Nuff said. But in any case, I don't think Rove did it. Let's examine the facts:

    1) This thing broke around 9am PST yesterday, which is in the middle of the East Coast's lunch hour. That's in the middle of exactly nobody's news cycle. The English, Canadian, and Indian papers are all over the story this morning though, which shows that it was broken at exactly the wrong time.

    (2) As of right now (almost 5am EST the next day), it has yet to be picked up on the web (according to Google News) or in print (according to Lexis) by a single major domestic news organization. As near as I can tell through Google News, only the Las Vegas Review-Journal even has a mention of it, and that's under the no-Kerry-news-here-folks headline of Nevada's Republicans hear from 'Bush's political pit bull'. Slate's got it, but for them any anti-Kerry news announcement that doesn't include singing telegrams and a sky-writer to announce the bad news counts as "muted". And of course the blogs are all over this, but that’s the point - no one under, say, American libel laws, is covering this. No CNN, no MSNBC, no Fox News. That means that the biggies are resisting the urge even to run this as a process story (e.g. "should the press be spreading all these completely unsubstantiated Drudge's rumors?"). What kind of self-control is that taking, and how many times has the word "lawsuit" been used in editorial rooms in the last 24 hours?

    (3) It doesn't help Bush right now. It makes more sense to wait until the convention when Kerry is officially nominated.

    (4) And this doesn't help Bush in another way - the alternative to Kerry is Edwards, who is by all accounts a tougher candidate.

    (5) Bush's dental records are still on the CNN frontpage (I like Rush's approach of demanding pay stubs as proof that Kerry wasn't having an affair).So if this was meant to distract the press from Bush’s potential draft-dodging, it failed.

    Now maybe this will somehow get legs - Drudge is kinda backtracking but still insisting that Kerry will have to respond soon. Regardless, it seems unequivocal that the initial salvo failed. Which is why I think that the Telegraph is wrong - it couldn’t have been Rove. Only a Democrat could have taken such a great story and screwed it up so badly. A Republican would have done this right.

    UPDATE: The baffling media silence (at least on this side of the Atlantic) seems to be confirmed by Drudge's link dump this morning, which has 6 external links only one of which is domestic (and that's to a process story about... Drudge, although it does have the money line "[Teresa Hienz] told Elle magazine that she warned her first husband on the subject of adultery: "If you ever get something, I'll maim you. I won't kill you. I'll maim you."").
    Omri | |

    IAEA Plays Charlie Brown To Iran's Lucy

    Aww... The IAEA is feeling betrayed:

    "This is the smoking gun," said Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. "They lied -- again."

    Seriously, how much evidence does it take before the IAEA will admit that Iran is building nuclear weapons?

    Diplomats said in Vienna Thursday that UN inspectors sifting through Iran's nuclear files have discovered drawings of high-tech equipment that can be used to make weapons-grade uranium... Preliminary investigations by the inspectors working for the IAEA indicated they matched drawings of equipment found in Libya and supplied by Khan's network... The diplomats... said Iran did not volunteer the designs... they said, IAEA inspectors had to dig for them.

    Literally the next paragraph is:

    The diplomats emphasised that - despite calling into question Iran's pledge to be fully open - the find did not advance suspicions that Tehran was trying to make nuclear weapons.

    WHAT?!?! They found plans to make nuclear weapons - the same plans that everyone else trying to make nuclear weapons has!!!! Is the claim is that they were in contact with Khan (nickname: "The Father Of the Islamic Bomb") to figure out how to get electricity? Memo to the IAEA - his nickname is not "The Father Of the Islamic Way of Extracting Electricity From Nuclear Fuel". Do you know why? Because he built bombs!!!! Does a nuclear weapon actually have to grow legs, walk up, and introduce itself before the IAEA will acknowledge it - "good morning, I am an Iranian nuclear weapon"?!?! At this point, I'm willing to entertain the notion that it's the IAEA itself that’s building bombs for Iran. I'm just out of other explanations.
    Omri | |

    What A Dumb Idea

    What a stupid idea:

    Yemen's President, Ali Abd Allah Salih is calling for the [Arab League] to be replaced with an Arab Union, which he says would boost effectiveness on the world stage.

    Don't these people read the news? Even the Europeans have realized that the Union is not exactly grand.
    More to the point, the entire foreign policy of many Middle East Arab states is oriented toward regional hegemony - this was Nasser's goal, this was Hussein's goal, and that is Iran's goal. I can't see them giving that up.
    Omri | |

    American Academic: Suicide Bombings Against Non-Jews Might Possibly In Some Cases Be Slightly Immoral

    Carlin Romano (official title: Philadelphia Inquirer Book Critic, unofficial title: Dumber Than a Second Year Comp Lit Post-Grad) has a a newspaper book review that my high school English teacher would’ve rejected for being nothing more than a chapter by chapter summary. I'm going to let the ticky-tacky grammatical errors slide (although I wasn't joking when I said that this is something that a high schooler could have written… better). Instead, I'm going to try to figure out what this could possibly mean:

    Since suicide bombing looks like a growth industry among political insurgents, is "innocence" increasingly a defunct moral concept? Should one support the Palestinian resistance to Israel despite its triggering of a worldwide, copycat degradation of innocence?

    The message seems pretty clear - as long as it's just Jewish babies that are being killed, then there's no question that one should support the "Palestinian resistance." It's only when "political insurgents" start to kill non-Jewish babies that it becomes a moral problem. Although in all fairness, it's not really the Philadelphia Inquirer's fault that their book critic thinks that it’s OK to blow up busses. I imagine that it’s pretty hard to find anyone who can write about Derrida (and I do love the tablets down from the mountain move of putting the word deconstruction in scare quotes) who has not so infested by the moral equivocation of the Academic Left that they’ve lost any sense of proportion or basic decency.
    Omri | |

    Where's The Blogosphere?

    This is the most dramatic silence on a major issue from the blogosphere since Saddam's capture - and this story broke late morning!! Courtesy of Strathlachlan :

    At the moment, much of bloggerdom appears to be silent. Either they're getting real work done or waiting to see which direction things turn. As of 1 PM there's no word from Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, or David Weinberger on the story. More importantly, I don't see anything from Mickey Kaus, Joshua Marshall, or Eric Alterman. Nothing from Jim Romenesko either but Andrew Sullivan has a very brief mention of the Drudge story in the Daily Dish.


    UPDATE: Richard, who is very, very British, has an interesting theory to explain the blogosphere's silence.
    Omri | |

    The Representative Government of the Palestinians

    The only place in the world where you'll find a sham trial more shameless then the ICJ's hearing on the security fence: the Palestinian territories:

    US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer... criticised the hastily convened military trial. The diplomat said any trial should not be held behind closed doors and the charges should be tougher.

    I guess it could be worse for the four guys that they're trying to railroad - at least they haven't been summarily executed yet (although that kind of makes sense - you don't get lynched by Palestinian mobs for killing Americans, only for not killing Jews).

    Also on Tuesday a Palestinian resistance group said it had killed a man accused of collaborating with Israeli security forces.
    Omri | |

    Pakistan's Chomsky

    A couple months ago, in an instant of such momentous stupidity that it bears repeating, Noam Chomsky insisted that there is no anti-Semitism in the West. Rather, it seems that everything that we call anti-Semitism - synagogues that get burned in France, Jewish kids who can't ride the subway in Belgium, and Jewish Presidential candidates that get yelled at to "go back to Tel Aviv" in the United States - are really just criticisms of Israel. Apparently, the Zionists are trying to get you to think that those things are anti-Semitic so that they can bully into silence the brave men like Chomsky who would bring to light the atrocities of the Jewish state.
    Apparently, there's also no anti-Semitism in Pakistan:

    "This is also an unsubstantiated assumption based on the misunderstanding of our society. Anti-Semitism is not widespread in Pakistan. We don't have a Jewish community. True, here and there there are marginal expressions of anti-Semitism, as there are in many societies in the world... mainly in the Christian world. Most people in Pakistan, certainly the elite, the educated, know very well how to distinguish between Israel and Judaism. Criticism of Israel and Zionism cannot be defined as anti-Semitism.

    So: (a) educated Pakistanis (b) know the difference between Israel and Judaism and (c) don't participate in anti-Semitism. Which I suppose makes it difficult to understand why Daniel Pearl was brutally decapitated by London School of Economics graduate Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh after being forced on camera to admit that because he was an evil, conspiring Jew. Clearly an expression of anti-Zionism committed by the ignorant.
    Omri | |

    Ha'aretz Moves The Goalposts For The Arabs

    The Arabs don't have to bother moving the goalposts on Israel - we do it just fine all on our own:

    Even after a full military and civilian withdrawal from Gaza, the Palestinians will have excuses for war, but Israel's duty is to narrow as much as possible those reasons. Leaving the IDF in Gaza would be a job half done - the settlements would disappear, but the occupation would remain.

    Notice the implicit assumption here – that there can ever be anything that justifies the terrorist onslaught against Israeli civilians that the Palestinians call a "war." That assumption, to the extent that it is allowed to guide reaction to Palestinian atrocities, is probably even more dangerous than the disgusting, explicit advocacy of the editorial – that it is Israel's duty to keep playing the impossible game of appeasement. Think about that for a minute - the Ha'aretz staff is so far gone that even while they explicitly acknowledge that it is impossible to meet Palestinian demands, they still consider it Israel's duty to weaken itself trying.
    Omri | |

    This Still Counts As News?

    Lexicologists have worked out a new definition for "gullible":

    Undeclared designs for an advanced centrifuge used to enrich uranium have been found in Iran, anonymous diplomats reported on Thursday. The discovery seriously questions Tehran's cooperation with the International Atomic Agency.
    Omri | |

    EU Discovers That Arafat Is A Terrorist

    You'll hardly need us to come across this story today, but it's worth posting:

    The German daily Die Welt reports that the European Commission's Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has concluded that tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, donated by the EU to the PA has been utilized for terrorist operations against Israel.

    I'd like to reiterate this point: The Europeans have discovered evidence that may potentially imply that Arafat is a terrorist. Nobody finds it ironic that these are the same people who condemn the Americans for "not understanding" the Middle East?
    Oh, and the evidence that the Europeans based their findings on came from documents seized during Operation Defensive Shield - an operation that the Europeans condemned:

    The Israeli documents had been presented to the EU's Commissioner for External Affairs Chris Patten last year. Patten, however, refused to recognize their authenticity and denied they established that Arafat was using EU funds for terror attacks.

    See no evil...
    So the EU has now admitted that tens of thousands of euros went directly towards the murder of Israeli civilians. It's official. It's open. Think it'll change anything? Think anyone will even in the slightest bit be held responsible?

    UPDATE: For instance, AllahPundit leads with it today.
    Omri | |

    Neutrality Doesn't Apply To Jews

    This is one very good reason to be suspicious of international organizations:

    Israel has never been admitted to full membership in the International Committee of the Red Cross... The pretext thus far was Magen David Adom's refusal to replace its red Star of David with either the cross or crescent... Only the Jewish state's first-aid services are required to operate under the emblems of others, which are either historically or currently inimical to its citizens.

    But the Star of David (arguably the oldest national-religious symbol currently in use in the world) is just an excuse:

    Top ICRC officials recently told MDA delegates that it would take "progress in the peace process" to persuade member states to approve the MDA's inclusion and recognition of its emblem.

    What is ostensibly supposed to be the world's most neutral international organization - an organization that 176 nations are members of and that has in the past accepted even the Iranian Red Lion and Sun - is demanding that Israel appease its enemies in order to be recogized. You might think that Israel is in the wrong on virtually every international issue, but surely the organization that is literally built on neutrality shouldn't be taking sides.
    And the most frustrating thing is that some people still think that if Israel meets this or that demand, it will get legitimacy. As if the peace process is not just an excuse - as if the Red Cross did not deny Israel membership well before 1967 (in 1949 to be exact). If Israel was actually to make sustained progress on the peace process (whatever that means), does anyone doubt that the Red Cross would move the goalposts again (to paying impossible reparations, or to allowing Israeli Arabs to secede, or to whatever).
    Not angry enough? How about the fact that...

  • The Palestinian Red Crescent repeatedly has been nailed for using ambulances to transport explosives and suicide belts (up to and including hiding them under pregnant women - the possibility of speed bumps apparently never occurred to these geniuses).
    One and only one of the following is true:
    (a) The Red Cross condemned the Palestinian Red Crescent for this blatant violation of international law and every humanitarian norm
    (b) The Red Cross revoked the membership of the Palestinian Red Crescent for this blatant violation of international law and every humanitarian norm
    (c) The Red Cross condemned Israel for stopping and searching the ambulance in which the explosives were found

  • In March 2000, ICRC ex-chief Cornelio Sommaruga opined "If we're going to have the Shield of David, why would we not have to accept the swastika?" Cornelio was later tapped by the UN for the Jenin fact-finding mission, which Israel then in-explicably labeled as biased.

  • Palestinians routinely target Magen David Adom ambulances. There's a Dejafoo cookie in it for anyone who can find any Red Cross statement about this war crime routinely committed by Palestinians.
    • Omri | |

    UN Backs Anti-US Cleric, Says ''Oh Come On, As If There Was Ever Any Question''

    The UN has sided with Sistani in his on-going quest to throw the US out of Iraq and plunge the entire country into civil war and the entire region into chaos. And of course, if the US is forced out by international pressure or failure of will, everyone will crow about how the US plan to bring democracy to Iraq failed.
    We should stay there until such time as the Iraqis are willing to choose a government to our liking - and if they don't get it right the first (or second, or third) time around, we should annul it just like we did to Japan and tell them to try again. I'm only being half-sarcastic about this - the success of Iraqi democracy is much too important to be left to the Iraqis. But I have confidence in the Iraqis - they'll catch on eventually.

    UPDATE: Do you think there's anything behind the fact that the Boston Globe headline for this story was "U.N. team meets top cleric but fails to work out differences over vote" but the NYT headline was "UN Aide Backs Cleric, Not US, on Iraqi Elections"? As in one looks like no one is supporting the US? The more things change...
    Omri | |

    Well, Now That They Have Berlin Back...

    Funny:

    German police seized a 10-ton armored personnel carrier that two men had put up for auction online

    Funnier:

    The tank can be driven on German roads with a proper permit.

    Of course it can.
    Omri | |

    What If The UN Held A Kangaroo Court And Nobody Came?

    This would be an unusually defiant act on Israel's part:

    Ehud Olmert... said during a visit to Poland that for the moment Israel has no intention of participating in the ICJ's February 23rd hearing. Shalom met... with Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Singh, whom he reportedly persuaded not to send a representative to the ICJ hearing.

    Good. Why lend an air of credibility to faux legal proceedings that are actually noting but thinly-disguised political smear campaigns?

    UPDATE: It's official - Sharon tells ICJ to shove it
    Omri | |

    Palestinians Use Children As Human Shields, Nobody Notices. Seriously.

    LGF has a picture worth substantially more than 1000 Words. Go look.
    You'll be shocked - there's a kid actually standing in front of an anti-tank rocket being shot through his legs at Israeli infantry. Make zero mistake about it - this is why Palestinian kids are accidentally killed by the Israeli military during anti-terror operations. There are also some comments worth reading (although some are typical LGF crazy), including the first one which asks "Do you suppose it ever occurs to them that their entire strategy hinges on the assumption that their enemy is more civilized than they?"
    Omri | |

    Rumsfeld Defends Israel, Europeans Not So Much

    Donald Rumsfeld is a pretty funny guy:

    Israel is a small state with a small population. It's a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood [in which many have]... opined from time to time that they'd prefer it not be there and they'd like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn't been put in the sea

    That seems pretty clear. The Europeans disagree, and of course fetishistically insist that context doesn't matter and that Israel should give up its nukes. Context, cause and effect, and above all else consequences don't matter when all you care about is process. The Europeans are willing to try to stick Israel to the letter of international law even when the spirit of that law - self defense - would be endangered by the subsequent situation, in which the Arabs might a conventional attack because they would think that it could succeed or they might launch a non-conventional attack because they would think that Israel would have no way to retaliate.
    Omri | |

    Someone Seems A Bit Touchy

    Alex Beam is a dead tree journalist quite relieved that he can now officially announce that his job is still meaningful:

    What is that whooshing sound that you hear? It is all the hot air escaping from the self-styled "blogosphere."The blogosphere is the alternative reality Internet world, supposedly populated by vast communities of keyboard tappers linked by the World Wide Web. This campaign season, for the first time, the blogosphere had its own presidential candidate: Howard Dean... I am a pundit and a -- oh, never mind. It's impossible to get off the Howard Dean Spams America mailing list.

    Which means that it's standardized test time here at Dejafoo. Ready?

    This article betrays:
    (a) A realization that the blogosphere presents a serious challenge to the credibility of traditional media
    (b) A realization that the blogosphere presents a serious challenge to the relevance of traditional media
    (c) An astonishing lack of any realization about anything having to do with the blogosphere

    Dean was the presidential candidate of the blogosphere?!?! Isn't the virtue of traditional media that it's supposed to have editors and fact-checkers?
    I would comment on this section of the article, but I think that its offensive stupidity kind of speaks for itself:

    Now, hilariously, 99 percent of the Internet commentariat, my friends the "bloggers," spend all day spitballing, commenting upon, and stealing the content of papers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Globe.

    We're sorry that we're stealing your content Mr. Beam. But it's just so good... so accurate... so official and legitimate - we can't help ourselves.
    Omri | |

    Israelis Respond To Earthquake

    First, let me comment that most people in California wouldn't bother getting out of bed for a 5.0 earthquake. More amusingly, here is part of Allison Sommer's reacted to this morning's earthquake:

    I just called my son's teacher's cell phone, and she said the kids were at recess out on the schoolyard, and they were too busy running around to tell that anything happened.

    In Israel, the Revolution will be text-messaged.
    Omri | |

    Israelis Massacre Palestinian Protesters Deploying New, More Peaceful ''Anti-Tank Rocket'' Protest Tactics

    Sometimes (albeit substantially more than the Left would have you believe) Israelis with something less than an adequate appreciation for either human life or rhetorical nuance will hold up signs like "don't throw stones - you won't get killed." That's clearly out of line. However, what happened in Gaza this morning involved much more than throwing stones:

    The sounds of the fierce battle reverberated throughout the Gaza City neighborhood of Shajaiyeh as dawn broke. The army described the scene as a "true battle zone," saying the firing was "hysterical."

    The Palestinians have already gone ahead and labeled this battle, which involved anti-tank rockets being fired at Israeli infantry, as the "Alshijaiya Massacre". Unfortunately, it’s almost certain that this label will turn out to have even less legs than the "Jenin massacre" ("unfortunately," because it's always fun to watch the international press hurriedly backtrack after falling for Palestinian propaganda).
  • The Palestinians promise to try the killers of the American convoy that was trying to hand out scholarships to poor Palestinians kids. Of course, they're not going after the people who actually did it. But look who is:

    [One of those killed was] Hamas member Abu Skheila... he was involved in the bomb attack on a US diplomatic convoy in Gaza last October

  • Hamas immediately announced that the gloves are off. Just like they do every, single time.

    We announce for all our cells that all options are open for them to strike the face of the enemy and attack it everywhere in Palestine"

    And yet, how much do you wanna bet that the LA Times will manage to blame the next bus bombing on Israel and to paint the Palestinians as victims?

  • Do you ever notice the Palestinian authority is constantly "revive the peace process" right before an Israel anti-terrorism operation seems to spoil everything? Even while they're openly announcing more terrorism. And do you ever notice how no one in Europe ever seems to care about the contradiction?
    • Omri | |

    The Internet Will Not Be Politicized

    Did I miss a memo? When did the Palestinians get their own TLD country-code? I thought those were reserved for, you know, countries.
    Omri | |

    Too Perfect

    Sometimes, jokes tell themselves: Palestine wants to become an EU member

    Update From Stan:
    So Palestine wants to become part of the EU? If this happens, hopefully the EU will have some FP influence on Palestine and steer Palestine away from being an Anti-Semetic-hell-bent-on-the-destruction-of-israel "Entity" Oh.... Wait a minute... n/m
    Omri | |

    Hey Gals, Check This Out

    You’d think that even the most ignorant cultures in the history of the universe would still have a pretty good understanding of how human pregnancy works, because after tens of thousands of years of the same nine month cycle over and over again, you start to get the basic gist of things. Not so much, actually.
    Late last year, a Nigerian woman was saved from being stoned for adultery only because she became pregnant within two years of divorcing her husband and Shar'ia law holds that "babies can remain in gestation in a mother's womb for five years, opening the possibility that her ex-husband could have fathered the child."
    OK, you’re saying - so they have no grasp of a biological fact that has been confronting humans since we climbed down from the trees. But it’s an innocent mistake, especially if their ignorance is keeping women from getting stoned. If you are thinking that, shame on you - you should know better by now:

    Amnesty International said capital punishment in [Nigeria] curbs women's rights... One of the convicted was a woman charged with a capital offence of culpable homicide, after allegedly having had a still-born baby.

    I have a radical suggestion: it may not be "capital punishment" that is curbing women's rights in Nigeria. It could be something else. Just a thought.
    Omri | |

    Neat

    I'm about a month behind on this, but I forgot to blog it the first time that the press releases went out. A company that focuses on the "emerging field of brain computer interfaces... allow[ing] for the creation of direct, reliable and bi-directional interfaces between the brain, nervous system and a computer." Where do you go to work in the morning?
    Omri | |

    The Representative Government of the Palestinians

    A couple days ago, I kind of half-sarcastically talked about how the four Palestinians arrested for bombing the American convoy were probably being railroaded - because what would you expect from Arafat and his cronies?
    By half-sarcastic, I mean "prescient in an overwhelmingly obvious and banal way":

    The Palestinian Authority's sham "trial" of individuals who may have been connected to the murders of three Americans last year "does not meet serious standards of justice," a U.S. State Department official [said].

    At some point, it becomes beside the point to make this kind of stuff up. We passed that point a long, long, long time ago.
    Omri | |

    What Is To Be Done

    In his review of Frum and Perle's new book, Fareed Zakaria poses a question that indexes a problem in both liberal and conservative discussions of Iraq specifically and the Muslim world more broadly:

    In explaining Middle Eastern terror [Frum and Perle] begin by asserting that ''the roots of Muslim rage are to be found in Islam itself.''... The urge to be politically incorrect actually subverts their main argument. If Islam is the problem, how is democracy the solution?

    The solution must be to support moderate Islam until such time that '"secular democracy" is no longer a contradiction in the Muslim world. However, the point remains - a democratic revolution in most of the Middle East today would be an Islamist one.
    Omri | |

    How Do You Say ''Ungrateful Bastards'' In Arabic?

    We already know that being a world leader in women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, and judicial independence isn't enough to make Israel attractive to the Left. I wonder if the fact that Israel is so democratic that it lets Arabs sit in the Knesset and make laws even when their party is involved in suicide bombings will help convince the Left of Israel's progressive credentials (incidentally, it's always a fun game to watch oh-so-well-read Chomskyites on American campuses find out for the first that Arab parties sit in the Knesset). Somehow I doubt it.

    Police and the Shin Bet uncovered a terror infrastructure involving Israeli Arabs from the village of Reine near Nazareth that was funded and assisted by the Hizbullah. Two cell members, brothers from the village, who are members of the Balad political party, were arrested in the early stages in setting up the cell, thus thwarting their plans to launch suicide bomb attacks against Israel.

    The irony, of course, is that Hezbollah ever succeeded in making Israel into an Islamofascist haven with a Syrian political system, these guys would be in a dark room somewhere right now, getting their toenails pulled out. This is before we get to the discussion of things like "political parties," which are anathema to the Arab world.
    Omri | |

    Israel Perpetuates Cycle Of Violence

    Israeli leaders killed an Islamic Jihad terrorist earlier today. The coverage of this incident in the New York Times is brought to you by the letter D (for "described as a terrorist") and the number 25 (the minimum number of people that he was directly responsible for murdering). For some reason, the Greg Myre at the times seems unable to connect these two things, and he almost seems genuienly confused as to why Israel would want to slander a freedom-fighting "militant" as a "terrorist".

    The two militants were seriously wounded, and one, Aziz al-Shami, died of his wounds, witnesses and doctors at Shifa Hospital said. The Israeli military described Mr. Shami as "a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist."

    And you know you're going to be hearing about how this is going to cause the Palestinians to become violent when all they really want is peace and harmony:

    "I condemn this attack, which is a new Israeli attack aimed at escalating the violence," [Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia] said from the West Bank town of Ramallah... The Palestinians have complained the assassinations prevent implementation of the internationally drafted roadmap peace plan, since they make it nearly impossible to convince freedom fighters to sign up to a ceasefire.

    You think people will mention this:

    Before yesterday's operation, Islamic Jihad was planning a major attack in Israel... Islamic Jihad has never restrained its terror activity...

    Nah.
    Omri | |

    Necessity, Invention, and Filthy, Lying Terrorists

    Before Wednesday: For four months, the Palestinians could not find the murderers of three American diplomats:

    Rajoub told reporters... "[Y]ou should know that we have the commitment and we have the interest to solve, to arrest, to send those guys to the court"

    American diplomats remained moderately unimpressed:

    It is inconceivable that [the bombing happened] ... without the knowledge of the Palestinian Authority.

    Inconceivable - adj. impossible to comprehend.
    And so we have.... Wednesday:

    The United States is using political and financial "blackmail" to pressure the Palestinians to arrest those behind the deadly bombing of an American diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip, [Rajoub] said Wednesday.

    And suddenly... Saturday :

    Four Palestinians were charged yesterday with planting explosives that killed three American security guards traveling in a diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip last October. The four men, who appeared before a hastily convened military court in Gaza City yesterday.

    Gosh, it's almost as if they knew all along who was responsible for the attack. Or, these guys are getting railroaded - it's hardly beyond the realm of consideration that the corrupt terrorists at the very top of the PA are willing to railroad the innocent civilians that they get international aid to govern in order to protect their own worthless hides.
    Omri | |

    Hey Buddy, Where's My ''Even-Handedness''?

    For years, the press has used the canard of "even-handedness" to paper over Palestinian atrocities by equated Israeli self-defense and Palestinian aggression. So you'd hear a lot of world-weary resignation about "the cycle of violence," followed by pithy sanctimonious maxims like "in a conflict like this, there's enough blame to go around."
    That strategy apparently got boring, so now the press has slipped into just openly blaming Israel for the whole thing. I got this off Lexis - it's from the Inter Press Service 02/05/04:

    Since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, over 2,600 Palestinians and more than 825 Israelis have been killed in the violence. The continued Israeli repression and the assassinations of Palestinian leaders have, in turn, triggered a rash of suicide bombings against Israelis.

    At a minimum I think they should have to try harder to mask their hatred of the Jewish state, if only because clumsy hack-jobs are inelegant and embarrassing for the rest of us to even read.
    Omri | |

    More Trading Up News

    The rumors that started a couple of days ago are now official - Sharon is looking to trade up Gaza for the West Bank:

    Under an emerging plan to dismantle settlements, Israel is considering moving Gaza Strip settlers to West Bank areas that Israel wants to annex under a final peace deal, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman said Friday.
    "We are doing checks, including that the (Gaza) settlers will be evacuated to the settlements that will certainly remain with us under a final status agreement, such as Maale Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion," PM's spokesman Assaf Shariv said Friday, referring to the three largest blocs of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
    Sharon - who announced earlier in the week plans to dismantle 17 Gaza Strip settlements and some West Bank communities in the next two years - is looking at several options and will present them to US officials, the spokesman added. "
    Omri | |

    Palestinians Parch Themselves, Blame Israel

    We already know that everything bad that happens in the territories, from Palestinian collaborator lynchings to malnutrition caused by Arafat's embezzling is Israel's fault. So it's really important to be suspicious when something isn't outright blamed on Israel, because that means that it's sooooo clearly the Palestinians' fault that not even the most creative conspiracy theorist can spin a convincing story.
    In an article that concludes that we are approaching ''unavoidable conflict'' because of Palestinian water shortages (what're they gonna do? Attack Israeli civilians?), Mark Zeitoun uses a peculiar passive grammatical form:

    The groundwater of the Gaza Strip is shallow and easy to pump but increasingly contaminated by untreated sewage and seawater.

    You'd almost think that the groundwater is contaminating itself with untreated sewage and seawater. Well, unless you knew that untreated sewage and seawater don't really have arms or legs or really any of the other human characteristics needed to contaminate groundwater. Then you'd probably suspect that Gaza's groundwater has been trashed by irresponsible Palestinian over-pumping and the dumping of raw sewage on sand dunes. And of course, you'd be right.
    Omri | |

    They're Not Even Good At Anti-Semitism

    The thing that pisses me off about the Left as much as anything else is their sheer inconsistency.
    One minute it's "minority and women's rights are important" and the next minute it's "we should respect cultures that turn women and minorities into subhumans." Here in the States, sometimes it's "the First Amendment is absolute" and other times it's "the Constitution is a living document." In Europe, before it was "you have to wear this Star of David" and now it's "you're not allowed to wear the Star of David":

    A municipally employed teacher in Kristiansand has been prevented from wearing a Star of David around his neck. Kristiansand Adult Education Center, where the man works, ruled that the Jewish symbol could be deemed a provocation towards the many Muslim students at the school.

    It seems to me that if they're going to be raving anti-Semites, they should at least have to be consistent. (Via LGF)
    Omri | |

    Fiction / Real Life

    So yesterday I half-suggested that Jewish campus groups should respond to egregiously nauseating pro-Palestinian street theater by constructing a model of a bombed-out pizzeria.
    Today, well, see for yourself:

    Israel's Zaka (Disaster Victims Identification) organization announced Friday that it would place a terrorist-bombed bus outside the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The burned-out bus was the target of a suicide bombing, in which 11 people were murdered in Jerusalem last week.
    Omri | |

    Gaza For Yesha: More Intrigue

    If Sharon can trade up Gaza for major portions of the West Bank, even the more-than-a-little-right-of-center Caroline Glick would support him. He'd clearly love to be able to pull it off, so the real question is whether or not he can do it (and whether he even thinks it’s worth a shot):
    The official position is no:

    Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Friday that... Sharon's plan for unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians would not come at the expense of... the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

    But Ha'aretz's veteran diplomatic correspondent says maybe:

    Sharon wants U.S. approval to expand large West Bank settlement blocs that are intended to be annexed once a permanent peace agreement is reached in exchange for evacuation of most settlements in the Gaza Strip
    Omri | |

    Where They Watching the Same Press Conference?

    JPost:

    Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is unlikely to be indicted in a bribery investigation involving him and his son, Gilad, since police are convinced there is insufficient evidence to press charges against him, police sources said on Thursday.

    Ha'aretz:

    Senior police officials do not believe the case against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should be closed, and there is certainly room for the prosecution to consider indicting him, police sources said last night following a two-hour interrogation of the premier. The officers added that they doubt the results of yesterday's interrogation will change the minds of the senior prosecutors who support indicting Sharon.

    In case you're hoping against hope, no, sorry, ''last night'' means ''Thursday'' in this context.
    JPost mentions the two Supreme Court decisions that would pretty much force Sharon to resign should he be indicted. Ha'aretz mentions that the worst case scenario for the State Prosecutors is indictment without conviction. Neither explicitly ties those two facts together. If Sharon was indicted but acquitted, there would essentially have been a coup against the government - a sitting Prime Minister would have been forced to step down under false pretenses. The damage to Israel's political institutions would be incalculable, which is why this issue is so touchy. That’s why he probably won’t be indicted, contrary to Ha’aretz’s massaging of quotes. Besides, prosecutors will get another chance at him in the upcoming Cyril Kern affair (in which, lets be honest, it kinda seems like he’s guilty).
    Omri | |

    Islamic Jihad Playground Tactics

    There's an old trick on the playground that goes something like this:
    (1) Child A commits to doing X for some random reason (going to the sandbox, leaving the swing set, whatever)
    (2) Child B demands that Child A perform X, and then indicates that should Child A perform X, Child B will have asserted domination over Child A by forcing Child A to perform X
    (3) Child A is now a double-bind - either don't do X (which Child A wanted to do) in order highlight Child B's lack of power, or do X and risk being humiliated.
    Of course, the real dynamic at work is actually that Child B is desperately attempting to appear as something other than impotent and dismissible. But that doesn't make Child A's decision any easier. Something similar is going on in Israel right now, with the Islamic Jihad suddenly undertaking massive strikes from the sea aimed at (what else?) pushing the settlers out of Gaza. They've tried it before and gotten just absolutely housed by the Israeli navy (incidentally, the subject of the Israeli navy's recent modernization - both conventional and non-conventional - is a subject that needs to be written about more. Not only has Israel probably completed its nuclear triad by loading subs with nuclear armed cruise missiles, but the navy has also been boosting its conventional capability in order to participate in land-based warfighting from the Mediterranean. But that’s another topic).
    So Islamic Jihad will now claim to have pushed the Jews out of Gaza by attacking from the Sea. Which actually does make the Gaza withdrawal a question of deterrence, whereas it actually shouldn’t be. Which actually does tie Sharon’s hands. Gosh, it’s almost like the Palestinians don’t want peace.

    UPDATE: In her opinion piece this morning on this subject, Caroline Glick demonstrates that Fatah is also jumping aboard this ''we made them do it'' bandwagon, which of course makes it harder for Sharon to withdraw:

    Proving this point, Fatah terrorists told Ma'ariv on Wednesday, "Sharon refers to this as a withdrawal. We call it a capitulation. He wouldn't retreat of his own free will. This decision was made because of the will of the Palestinian people."

    Great.
    She also asks:

    Now that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has embraced the Labor party's platform of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, it is necessary to ask, how could Israeli forces have possibly thwarted this plot [by Islamic Jihad to attack Gaza from the sea] if they weren't operating in the Gaza Strip?

    It seems to me that if there were no Israelis in the Gaza Strip, there wouldn't be any Israeli targets to attack in the Gaza Strip. Maybe I'm overanalyzing. And if weapons got into the Gaza Strip it still wouldn’t matter all that much, because no attacks manage to get out of there, what with the almost impenetrable wall between Gaza and the rest of Israel (Years of fighting: 4. Attacks from the West Bank: 300+. Attacks from Gaza: 1).
    Omri | |

    Chechens vs. Kaiser Soze, Advantage: Not Chechens

    Different world leaders have different characteristics that get attached to them:
    Bush -- Reckless Cowboy.
    Blair -- Eloquent Statesman.
    Putin – Absolutely F’ing Terrifying.
    Seriously, that man must have ice water for blood. He’d nuke a city without blinking if he thought it was necessary. When he walks into rooms, candles blow out and mirrors crack. There are times when I’ve seriously entertained the prospect that he might actually be a member of the undead. He’s just that scary.
    The last time that Chechen terrorists mixed things up in Moscow, he did the "gas an entire theater" equivalent of shooting the hostage. Now, an explosion has rocked Moscow and early reports indicate terrorism. Gee, with the entire world watching Iraq and the United States itself in the midst of an election cycle, do you think he might respond?

    UPDATE: Incidentally, and for those of you who didn’t get the Kaiser Soze reference, do yourself a favor and go rent The Usual Suspects. You'll understand.

    REAL UPDATE: AP is now reporting that it was terrorism.
    Omri | |

    Unicorns, A Coherent Republican Base, and Santa Clause

    The conventional wisdom in Washington (and, well, everywhere else), is that the Republican base is pissed off. That may be the case - it's certainly the argument that Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, et al have been making. And the polls showing conservative opposition to the President's Medicare and Immigration packages leave little doubt that there's a significant amount of displeasure being aimed at Bush (and, as the Washington Times article points out, at Rove).
    What this means is up in the air. Again, the conventional wisdom is that an upset GOP base will be reflected in poor turnout, which is what did Bush I in. There're a couple of reasons to believe that that's not necessarily true:

  • It's a Washington Times (or whoever) staff writer versus Karl Rove. Karl Rove is one of the most ruthless political minds of our era (think Dick Morris but with a spine and without the toe sucking thing). The Washington Times staff writer is a Washington Times staff writer. Now, more important people than Washington Times staff writers have been talking about how pissed off the GOP base is, but all of them are also not Karl Rove. The analysis then proceeds in much the same way.
  • There's definitely unhappiness - Glenn Reynolds for one says that the mailing lists are all in an uproar. But the degree of that unhappiness measured against the rest of Bush’s platform is difficult to measure (church/state blurring, No Child Left Behind, and yes, gay marriages). Even the polls about what the degree of unhappiness all on it's own are questionable at best - '' ''I just got the results of a poll in our district, and it's 2-to-1 against the president's immigration plan,'' a House member said confidentially.'' In the words of C.J. Craig: "a blind quote[?]... we're just assuming you made it up". Indeed.
    The obvious thing to do would be for Bush to appeal to social conservatives in order to avoid having them stay at home (because fiscal conservatives tend to be politically active one way or another – the social conservatives are the ones who actually sold his dad out). And the obvious way for Bush to appeal to social conservatives would be on gay marriage. On the other hand, Sullivan has some interesting analysis about why the White House won't come out in favor of a Constitutional amendment. Lets hope he's right - not only would it be politically suicidal (his analysis on this is tight - you should read it), but it's just the wrong thing to do. So the questions are whether Bush feels the need to revive his base (and neither he nor Rove seem to feel that he does – he just keeps pumping out fiscally irresponsible, socially liberal policies), and if he does feel that way, how’s he going to do it without alienating the center?
    • Omri | |

    Think This'll Come Up In The Election?

    AP is reporting:

    At least three times in his Senate career, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry has recommended individuals for positions at federal home loan banks just before or after receiving political contributions from the nominees, records show.
    In one case, Kerry wrote to the Federal Housing Finance Board to urge the reappointment of a candidate just one day before a Kerry campaign committee received $1,000 from the nominee, the records show.

    Yet the Kerry campaign has a spirited defense:

    "One has nothing to do with the other," said Marvin Siflinger, who contributed around the time of Kerry's Oct. 1, 1996, recommendation that he be reappointed for another term to the board. Kerry's office, like the nominees, insists the timing of the donations and the nominations was a coincidence.

    What is it they say about impropriety versus the appearance of impropriety?
    Omri | |

    Evenhandedness Doesn't Extend To Jews

    There are some things that spin themselves. This is one of them:

    For the past three years/// the Minneapolis Star Tribune has consistently refused to apply the word 'terrorism.' One of the paper's editors explained their 'evenhanded' position...
    In the case of the term 'terrorist,' other words... may be more precise and less likely to be viewed as judgmental. We also take extra care to avoid the term 'terrorist' in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...

    Except... (wait for it... wait for it...)

    On Jan. 31, the Star Tribune ran a profile of a local priest, Michael Ovikian...
    Ovikian was eating in the basement of the King David Hotel when Zionist terrorists struck... the terrorists sneaked in the northern end dressed as delivery people...
    So the Star Tribune, which has maintained a 'non-judgmental' refusal to call Palestinian terror by name, determined that the King David bombing was, in fact, 'Zionist terror'. This, despite the fact that (unlike any Palestinian terror) the Irgun issued specific warnings of the impending strike against the British command at the hotel [which was a military target -- Omri], and that civilians were not intentionally targeted.

    And people wonder why "evenhanded" is considered a code-word for "anti-Israel". (Via Allah Is In the House)
    Omri | |

    Its The Fence's Fault

    Uri Dan has an heartful post about the impending Gaza withdrawal. He comes down right where every reasonable person should - pain at the need for relocation, but determination regarding its necessity.
    Moreso, the following is important to bear in mind when you hear people talking about how it is Israel that is destroying the viability of a Palestinian state:

    The Palestinian situation is hopeless. There are 13 organizations that are both political parties and militant bodies controlling military forces. They have personnel in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Palestinians from the Gaza Strip leave through tunnels to Egypt, then go on to Lebanon to train with Hizbullah. They return to Gaza carrying arms from Lebanon.
    Omri | |

    How About Some Realistic Street Theater?

    The USS Clueless passes on a story about LeHigh University, where a tasteless ''satirical'' art display defames President Bush and his cabinet. Usually at this point I'd rant about how the Left's self-reflexive and insular way of performing dialogue with itself is not only nauseating but also politically disastrous, but that's getting kind of tired. Plus, the conversation has progressed on the blogosphere, with John Weidner suggesting that conservative students should respond by putting up their own satire, and describing how this strategy has succeeded in the past.
    At Pitt the International Socialist Organization holds an annual Day O' Anti-Semitism, where they put up roadblocks and harass students to show ''what it really feels like to be a Palestinian.'' I used to suggest that our Hillel should respond by creating a model of a bombed out pizzeria surrounded by turned-over strollers and screaming ambulances to show ''what it really feels like to be an Israeli.'' That was always deemed way too depressing and inappropriate, and was shot down in favor of the far less controversial and far more popular ''game day and Bisli'' alternative. Still, I think the idea has some merit. Another idea is to create a mock ambulance and use it to try to smuggle a bomb through the checkpoint, but that’s probably too subtle.
    Omri | |

    My Geek Heart Bleeds

    This is disappointing. But alas, celebrity will do that to you. (Via Suburban Blight)
    Omri | |

    Brits Try To Hide Disdain For Jewish State, Fail

    You know how not every criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic? What about a hypocritical focus on Israeli tactics that are both justifiable (if not necessarily justified) and don't come anywhere close to the level of what's done in other countries? Then is it OK to call it anti-Semitism?
    This is infuriating in its gall and rank hypocrisy:

    Members of the British parliament's Select Committee on International Development have called on the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair to consider "economic pressure on Israel to ease movement restrictions which are crippling the Palestinian economy and causing soaring poverty."

    Remember - this is a government that supports continuing to fund Yasser Arafat, who either gives the money to terrorists (which is what necessitates the movement restrictions - because the Palestinians then try to smuggle those weapons in ambulances and hide them in holy places that Israel doesn't have access to once they get there) or keeps the money for himself (which is what causes the soaring poverty).
    It would be slightly (but only slightly) less infuriating if the Brits' claim was in any way coherent:

    The authors of the report stressed that, although they are "highly sympathetic to Israeli safety concerns - it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is a deliberate Israeli approach of putting the lives of ordinary Palestinians under stress as part of a strategy to bring the population to heel. Certain security measures, including the construction of the security barrier and movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians, are completely undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state."

    First, let's be clear: they're not sympathetic to Israel's safety concerns. But even if they were, the security fence does not undermine the viability of a future Palestinian state (seriously, ideology aside, I don't know how people can reasonably argue that separation undermines Palestinian independence - which is of course why this claim is often asserted but rarely explained). And even if it did, undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state has nothing to do with the "soaring rate of poverty" that Palestinians currently suffer. It's like they don't even have to make arguments any more - they just get to say security fence and movement restrictions and that automatically is the cause of every ill experienced by every disenfranchised group in the world. I'm waiting for the editorial that blames the trampling in Saudi Arabia on the security fence for inflaming Islamist passion. Has Tom Friedman decided on his column for this week yet?
    Omri | |

    Trade Gaza For The West Bank (Again?!?!)

    Ha'aretz has columns about the relationship between Gaza and the West Bank going in opposite directions today. Israel Harel writes:

    Ginot Aryeh... Givat Haro'eh, [and] uprooting Gush Katif [in Gaza]... will be offered as sacrifices to President Bush. Sharon will notify him that this is only the prologue... that will precede the main event: the uprooting of settlements in Judea and Samaria.

    Aluf Benn writes:

    Sharon is prepared to pay with the evacuation of Gaza for American consent to Israel's continued control over a large part of the West Bank. That is why he instructed his national security advisor, Giora Eiland, to chart security lines that Israel could hold for years, "until there is a partner."

    Harel is a former chairman Council of Settlers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (and token settler advocate at Ha'aretz). Benn is the senior diplomatic correspondent for Ha'aretz. Since both authors conceded that the question of the West Bank is a question of Bush and Sharon's relationship, I tend to default to the guy whose job it is to know about Bush and Sharon's relationship.
    However, Benn does remind the reader that this kind of plan has failed before in the most spectacular ways:

    Sharon is trying to follow in the footsteps of Menachem Begin, who conceded Sinai so that Israel could stay in the West Bank; Ehud Barak, who left Lebanon in order to perpetuate Israel's control of the Golan; and Shimon Peres, who championed "Gaza First" and a deferral of a solution in the West Bank and Jerusalem. All of them enjoyed success in the short term, but left diplomatic time bombs for their successors.

    What he doesn't even mention is that it wasn't just Begin who counted on trading the Sinai for the West Bank. Remember that Begin called Sharon to make sure that Sharon wouldn't outflank him on the right, and Sharon signed on to the deal specifically on the Sinai for Yesha logic. And now he's trying it again. What's the definition of insanity?
    Omri | |

    Likud Central Committee: We're Stupid, Not Suicidal (Or Are We)

    As per my post from a couple days ago, Yossi Verter (who cheated by cutting and pasting his way to two stories in this morning's Ha'aretz for the price of one) writes:

    It is highly doubtful that the public would again give Sharon and the Likud 40 Knesset places. The threat is directed inward. History shows that prime ministers do not go willingly to early elections, but are instead dragged there, kicking and screaming, after they have lost power. Even Peres need not worry. The surveys show Labor under him gaining seats.

    The other suggestion I made in that post was that I doubt that Sharon could get through the Likud primaries. Every newspaper in Israel, both on the left and the right, albeit for different reasons, is delighting in the troubles that Sharon is getting from inside the Likud. But no one is talking about his chances in a primary. It could be because more than just the Likud central committee votes in primaries and Sharon remains popular outside the central committee, but (a) his poll numbers in general have been slipping and (b) I've seen zero numbers on that question one way or another.
    Omri | |

    Sure He Gets An ''A'' For Effort, But Still...

    Shouldn't you have to achieve at least the tiniest bit of success in your campaign before politically correct peacenik busybodies, intent on intervening in situations that they have neither the perspective nor the discernment to grasp, will try to declare you Leader of the Millennium. Let me be clear - I genuinely admire his efforts, I genuinely admire his commitment, and I genuinely admire him - but I think that Ariel Sharon has done more to make peace a real possibility than all of the projects aimed at promoting Arab/Israeli dialogue.
    Omri | |

    Travel To Pakistan, Sell The Bomb To Crazies, Win Fame And Fortune

    In this country, selling secrets to other countries - even to allies (Jonathon Pollard, line 1) - is considered treason. Selling nuclear secrets is the height of treason. Not so in Pakistan:

    Pakistani newspapers called for a pardon for Khan, who founded the covert nuclear program in the 1970s to produce a formidable military deterrent against the Islamic nation's bitter rival India. Pakistan conducted a successful test in 1998.

    Think about this the next time you hear the leftist canard that the US is the worst rogue regime in the world or the most irresponsible proliferator.

    UPDATE: And of course, Pakistani nuclear scientist pardoned...
    Omri | |

    Fetishistic Disavowal

    I usually argue that international law works through a certain fetishistic disavowal - people know that the international system is overwhelmingly biased against Israel, but everyone is expected to act as if it is not. So even when the President of Lebanon dances with Hezbollah, even when voters in the UN won't condemn the murder of Jewish children purely because those children are Jewish, even when an anti-racism conference turns into a Nazi hate-fest, and even when a country that openly sponsors terrorism and is in a state of war with Israel sits on the Security Council - still, Israel is expected to behave as if international law is this unbiased and neutral.
    However, as demonization of Israel becomes more routine and anti-Semitism becomes more acceptable, even this veneer of legitimacy is being tested:

    The International Court of Justice rejected a request by Israel to remove one of the 15 judges who will hear the controversial security fence case when it comes before it on February 23.
    The decision to keep Judge Nabil Elaraby on the bench surprised Israel...
    Israel contended that Elaraby... in an August 2001 interview with an Egyptian newspaper, had been "actively engaged in opposition to Israel" and in particular in matters relating to the fence.

    He’s on record in opposing the fence politically, but he's going to be impartial. Just like Syria on the Security Council. Seriously, they're not even trying to hide it any more.
    Omri | |

    Inmates Demand To Run the Asylum, Peres Hits Them On Nose With Newspaper, Says ''No''

    First, the good news:

    The Labor Party on Tuesday voted to extend Shimon Peres' term as party chairman until December 2005 by a majority of 61 percent.

    That's a huge relief - I was genuinely concerned that Labor was going to screw this up like they screwed up electing him President (although it's tough not to see the hand of fate in that one - the state needed him a little bit later as Foreign Minister during the diplomatic nightmare that was the beginning of the current Intifada).
    Now for the humorous part. Sometimes people kind of perform the answers to their own questions:

    The Labor Party convention got off to a spirited start on Tuesday when MK Eitan Cabel called on the elder statesman to stand down..."Make way for the young, let us lead the party"…
    Cabel was called to order and the head of the party's constitution committee... demanded that he clear the podium. Cabel however refused... Attempts by... MK Avraham Shochat to convince Cabel to stop, also failed. Cabel only finally stepped off the podium when Libai threatened to call in the ushers to force him off the stage.

    I wonder why Peres thinks that Labor still needs an elder statesman guiding it. Anyway, extending Peres's term is good for Labor and good for Israel.
    Omri | |

    It's Somewhere Towards The Back

    A little while ago I had a post about MoveOn's childish little "Mooommm CBS won't play with me" whine. The quick story is that CBS was violating MoveOn's First Amendment rights by refusing to sell them sports during the Super Bowl. I blogged it, made some obligatory comments about how the Left seems to think that the right to free speech means the right to be heard, and left it at that. Now I've found out that on the even of the Super Bowl, MoveOn sent out another email which included an unusual talking point:

    * It's about free speech. The First Amendment doesn't mean a whole lot if we're denied access to the airwaves. CBS has a constitutional obligation to air opposing points of view.

    Excuse me, but WHAT? Where did they find that in the Constitution? This kind of analysis is one of those things that can't really be just ignorance. I mean, sure it's partly ignorance (you can't know too much about the Constitution and believe that this is a reasonable thing to say), but there's something else there. Stupidity? Ideology? I have no idea - I'm open to suggestions though.
    Omri | |

    Just So We're Absolutely Clear

    In case any of Sharon's coalition partners were getting any ideas:

    Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is vowing to form a new Israeli government if his coalition partners try to block his plan to evacuate almost all the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

    It's a bluff. Sharon can't call new elections - even if Likud was to win more seats than it currently has (questionable), and even if Ben-Eliezer was to win the Labor primary (50/50) and commit himself to either forming or participating in a unity government (almost certain), it would be the end of Sharon's political career. Ignore the legal problems - everyone in Israeli politics does it, and no one really cares. There's no party in Israel for Sharon to lead! Likud would reject him - there's no way someone running on a platform of evacuating settlers gets through the Likud primaries. Labor obviously wouldn't take him. He's often talked about forming a centrist party with the other Last Great Zionist, Shimon Peres, but Peres will never leave the Labor party even if Sharon was (and he is) willing to let the Likud finally fall into the abyss of incompetence and corruption that he is single-handedly keeping it out of.
    So I think he's bluffing. On the other hand, the opposition may force his hand by collapsing the government (which would be stupid, since (a) 59% of the Israeli public supports the evacuation and (b) they'd get Bibi, since whoever wins the Likud primary is going to be Prime Minister and the other Likud candidates are all tainted as far as Likud primary voters are concerned by Sharon's evacuation plan).
    And coalition games may become a moot issue anyway:

    Labor Party lawmakers hinted Tuesday that if Prime Minister Ariel Sharon goes ahead with his plans to evacuate Gaza Strip settlements, the party would have little choice but to enter into a coalition government with the prime minister.

    Sharon and Peres leading the state at the head of a secular coalition. It's every Israeli centrist's dream come true!
    Omri | |

    The World's Short Memory

    One of the things that I insist upon again and again is that the world has a very short memory for the promises that it makes to Israel. It has developed into an interesting dynamic, kind of an unspoken understanding. The world promises Israel that, in exchange for concessions, the Arabs will stop attacking, the Arabs say that Israel will find no peace, everyone understands that the Arabs are not bluffing but everyone acts as if they don't. In fact, Israel is expected to behave as if it's "in" on the secret, and is in fact criticized for behaving otherwise even when everyone knows that the promise of peace for concessions is a lie. Lebanon, again, is an example.
    Israel withdrew under UN auspices, and in exchange Hezbollah was supposed to disarm and the Lebanese army was supposed to be deployed to the South in order to fill the power vacuum (the UN was supposed to deploy troops there too, but all they've ever done is - I'm not making this up - film the Hezbollah kidnapping and then hide the tape from Israel for several days so that Israel would lose the initiative to respond). So Lebanon was supposed to take on Hezbollah and ensure that the terrorist group ceased killing Israelis.
    Compare that to yesterday:

    The Lebanese government's support for Hezbollah was demonstrated yet again by the Lebanese president's participation in Nasrallah's celebrations in Beirut the other day. They have learned that they can let Hezbollah operate freely in southern Lebanon, that they need not move the Lebanese army into the areas evacuated by the IDF and the SLA, that they do not need to stop Hezbollah's activities in the Bekaa Valley.

    Again, the world has a very short memory for the promises that it makes to Jews.
    Omri | |

    Spooks Got It Right, Still Sound Silly Talking About It

    Via VokaPundit, a story of Cold War sabotage that caused the largest non-nuclear blast in history and crippled the Soviet computer infrastructure. It's interesting, but my favorite part is the line "we added what geeks call a "Trojan Horse" to the pirated product"... Reminds me of Austin Powers: "It's a "laser""
    Omri | |

    Seriously, Ya'll Need To Calm Down

    HomelandSecurity.com (quite properly dubbed by Allah himself as the World's Most Alarmist Website) continue in their quest to maximize the amount of anxiety I have in my life.

    31 January 2004-- A confluence of information and events appear to be making the next 72 hours perhaps the most critical time for terrorist attacks in the US since the attacks of September 11th, 2001. The next 72 hours is the IMMEDIATE window of concern, although our short-term concern extends through the end of the Islamic year 1424 (February 21st, 2004).

    Someone really needs to give these guys some Xanax or something. Seriously.
    Omri | |

    Anti-Semitism as Anti-Zionism


    This is meant to be the first of two or three posts discussing the way that anti-Semitic rhetoric functions in today’s political discourse, using Mark Glenn’s disgusting piece of Jew-hatred, published by the Palestinian Authority (your development assistance dollars at work) as a starting point. The introduction can be found here.
    It is hardly a new observation that critics of Israel sometimes step over the line into open anti-Semitism. Or even that anti-Semites have been consciously and intentionally clothing some of their Jew-hatred in the sheep’s wool of anti-Zionism (for the purposes of this discussion, I'll bracket the question of whether the Left's rabid anti-Zionism - picking out Jews as the only ethnicity on the planet to not have a right to self-determination - is inherently anti-Semitic).
    The strategy is to smuggle in anti-Semitic rhetoric as legitimate in polite politial discourse by tangling it up with anti-Israel rhetoric. Anti-Semites can get away with alot by making a claim about Jews but by changing the word "Jew" to "Zionist."

    Hundreds of movies have been made by an entertainment industry, for decades now firmly in the hands of Zionist interests.

    The point is obvious: The word Zionist doesn't really fit there. He meant Jew, and moreso it's obvious he meant Jew. But herein lies the trick - if Glenn were to be accused of anti-Semitism for this line, he would cry foul, insisting that he was being accused of anti-Semitism simply because he was criticizing Zionism or the State of Israel.
    The scandal about Amiri Baraka is an excellent illustration of this strategy. Baraka, you'll remember, was the New Jersey Poet Laureate who took the myth that was at the time running rampant through Arab newspapers - that there were no Jews in the World Trade Center on 9/11 - changed the word "Jews" to "Israeli," and put a line about how Israel told all the Israelis to get out of the World Trade Center in a poem (rebound to West Wing: "when you vet your nominees, do you go so far as to actually talk to them?"). He later presented this as proof that Israel knew about the bombing: an Israeli firm "must have had Mossad input because they vacated one week before September." "Must." Clearly. And of course, when accused of anti-Semitism, he argued that he was being targeted because of anti-Israel political ideology and angrily insisted that "criticizing Israel does not mean you're anti-Semitic." And don't think that he was the only one who managed to spin his anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism simply because he used a word that everyone understood to be but was not literally "Jew" - Pravda's headline was "State Poet Asked to Resign for Criticizing Israel."
    The answer to this is not simple - of course people can criticize Israel and not be anti-Semitic. But that doesn’t mean that someone can’t be anti-Semitic while criticizing Israel. To put it another way, some people who criticize Israel and are accused of anti-Semitism are innocent, but that doesn't mean that anyone accused of anti-Semitism is innocent because they're criticizing Israel. When something clearly doesn’t fit (like claiming that 4,000 “Israelis” didn’t show up to work at the WTC, when the popular myth talks about 4,000 “Jews”), it can reasonably be called out for anti-Semitism.
    There is an even more subtle way of smuggling in anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Israel arguments. Instead of tangling the two together in the same statement, which leaves the possibility of untangling them, anti-Semites will make criticisms of Israel that play upon anti-Semitic canards.
    Take, for example, the oft-sited complaint that Israel sucks the US economy dry by taking the money of Americans. This is on it's face an anti-Israel argument. But it also does persuasive work by evoking an anti-Semitic trope. There is more going on in that statement than just a straight-forward criticism of Israel. Ditto for arguments about shadowy Jewish cabals that have hijacked the US government.
    What’s going on under the surface is that the anti-Semitic tropes that are being invoked are doing rhetorical and persuasive work for the author. The theme of greedy Jews works to sustain what the author is trying to accomplish. These rhetorical moves thus need to be called out in the same way that we would call out more open anti-Semitism - the purpose is the same, and the effects are the same.
    Omri | |

    Search Terms of the Day

    At 7:24am PST, Google referred the following search terms to this humble site:
    "The+Halliburton+Conspiracy"
    Hello, whoever you are. You should know that we award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
    Omri | |

    Well Then. (or: Holy @!$#% !%#@).

    So, um, this should be big:

    Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday afternoon confirmed that he had given the order to plan for the evacuation of all or most of the Gaza Strip's 17 settlements without waiting for a peace deal with the Palestinians.

    And yet again proving why he is indeed one of the two Last Great Zionists...

    The members requested that the Likud faction vote on the plan. Sharon responded by saying that "even if the entire faction votes against me, I will stick with what I believe is the right thing to do."


    UPDATE: OK, I've gotten over my initial shock and I think I'm reading to make some comments. There's very, very little analysis on this yet, so I'm kind of expecting that some of my uncertainties (for instance, about the exact status of how the new no-confidence law works) will be answered as the day goes on and people start tracing this thing out:
  • I hate to be flippant about this, but it's Gaza. Who cares? There's no real Biblical significance to it. It's a cesspool of illiterate, fanatical terrorists (as opposed to the highly literate ones in Fatah). I keep reading people say it's crucial to Israel's security, but no one is willing to tell me why. It's not like Israel needs strategic depth from Egypt (I suppose there is something to be said that right now the tunnels coming from Egypt are terminating inside of Gaza instead of in the Green Line, but that's only because they're not applying themselves yet. There's nothing about having a settler presence in Gaza that makes it easier to locate tunnels - it's not like the tunnels are going underneath the settlements!)
  • The fate of Sharon's coalition is anyone's guess at this point. I don't think that the National Religious Party will stay in the coalition. It's true that the religious parties got smacked down the last time they tried to bail during the last government, when Sharon humiliated them by calling their bluff and forcing them to come back to the government, but the reason they came back was to keep him to the right on security issues. But if NRP leaves, I don't think that would necessarily bring down Sharon's coalition. Legislatively, we can safely assume that Labor will provide a safety net in the Knesset for anything having to do with the peace process. Electorally, the new law states that no-confidence votes are forbidden unless the party bringing the vote can present evidence that they can form a stable coalition - which is numerically impossible under this Knesset.
  • Does Sharon know something we don't about his immediate future? Could this be one final stab at securing a legacy before the Appel case breaks?
  • Will the Palestinians screw this up and make it impossible for Sharon to withdraw? As the Magic 8 Ball says, Signs Point To Yes.

    ANOTHER UPDATE: Ha'aretz doesn't have a story yet (What's taking them so long? I can hear the meeting now... "How do we spin this against Sharon? :ets throw it around the room") but their update is worth reading since you might as well start getting a feeling for the biggest story of the month now. Money quote:

    "I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza," Sharon added.

    Meanwhile, I suppose it's early enough to start the blog roundup. AK Sommer is thumbs-up while IsraPundit is literally speechless. (this will not be a happy day for them).

    MORE UPDATES: Ha'aretz has (*achem* a day late) some ideas about Sharon's motives that confirm some of my guesses:

    A third said Sharon is gambling on everything. Even if forced to quit following an indictment, he wants to be remembered in history as one who initiated, on the eve of his political death, a political move.
    • Omri | |

    Bounce Bounce Bounce

    Andrew Sullivan joins just about every other human on the planet (except, again, the Saudis, who claim that since most of those pilgrims weren't authorized to be there anyway, it's not really anyone's fault but their own) in disgust and bafflement regarding the trampling at the hajj. Oxblog says that because Sullivan didn't discuss the totally unrelated sermon that happened later, here's wrong. LGF preempts, saying that that speech wasn't quite as liberal as AP, Oxblog, and everyone else is claiming it was.
    Omri | |

    Disgraceful

    The Mooney paper has an article about Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon that discusses two points that are worth keeping in mind:

  • Israel’s disgraceful abandonment (without a doubt one of the darkest and most shameful moments in the nation’s history) of the South Lebanese Army which fought and died for almost 20 years to protect Israeli civilians living in the north
  • The overwhelming failure of the withdrawal to secure peace or quiet for Israel
  • The complete and total lack of goodwill that even complete capitulation and acedence to the world's demands managed to garner Israel (this one is really just a few words in the article, but it's a very important point to keep in mind when you hear people talk about how Israel will gain international legitimacy and protection if it brings itself into line with what the whims of the world community).

    (Hat tip: IsraPundit)
    • Omri | |

    Hey Gals, Check This Out

    It's rare that I get to use the same post to criticize the primitive tribalism of much of the Muslim world and the disgusting moral relativism in American academia that tells us that we're not allowed to criticize "the unique ways of knowing and doing in non-Western cultures."
    In Italy, Dr. Abdulcadir is all torn up inside by the women and girls who come to him scarred and often very ill because of the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation. He came up with what the New York Times described as an unusual step

    He publicly proposed that the hospital where he works let him perform a much less severe version of — or alternative to — female genital cutting. His goal, he said, was to ease the physical toll of a tradition that was not going away...
    "Whether they live in Italy or Britain of France or America, they don't want to let go of their traditions," he said as he sat in his office on Monday afternoon. "So I'm trying to give them a way to save that tradition."

    I kinda disagree. See, I don't want to save a tradition that disfigures and mutilates women in order to mark them as humiliated for life. Call it my "hegemonic Western norms." And yet…

    Health officials in the region of Tuscany are seriously considering that question and have yet to reject his proposal.

    We really do live in a world turned upside down, don't we? I have a different way for dealing with disgusting practices that ninth-century immigrants won't give up - you make those practices illegal, and then you throw them in jail until they stop. Listen, respecting other cultures is all well and good, but certainly we can all come together on this? Can't we?

    A front-page article in the Turin daily La Stampa on Jan. 23 asked why a symbolic alternative to genital cutting would validate that practice any more than the symbolic consumption of the body of Jesus at a Catholic Mass would validate cannibalism.

    Oh, I can clear that up - you see, it has to do with the part where no one gets disfigured by communion. Sure, no problem - glad I could help.
    I'm sorry, I just can't pretend that these people are our quirky little neighbors with their quirky little customs - these aren't wooden shoes that we're talking about.
    Omri | |

    I Think She's Blushing...

    Is there anything I can say about this that won't get me into trouble? Is it just me, or does this kind of thing seem to be turning into kind of a theme for Allison (check out the Jan 28 post too, to see what I mean)?
    Omri | |

    Support A Conservative Blogger Against a Hateful, Resentful High School Facist Pissed Off At the World Because She's An Unemployable Waste Of A Human Being

    Admittedly, I have no formal training which would qualify me for being a hateful, resentful washup intent on destroying students' self-esteem, innocence, and joy in learning high school teacher in America (caveat: I had several high school teachers who I still adore; I have friends whose parents are high school teachers and who are clearly devoted to their students and their profession; all of these people are exceptions to the useless idiots drunk on their own power that the bureaucratic morass that we call an educational system has produced). Nonetheless, I have some experience teaching high school kids, and I'm pretty sure that I've never been so far gone that I thought it was a good idea to laugh at personal views expressed by a student. The only person who would do so is someone who is so deeply insecure in their own views that they become so infuriated when challenged that they need to completely humiliate the challenger in order to validate their own poorly-justified beliefs.
    But that is exactly what seems to have happened to Cecile du Bois, a bright and charming high school student who, when intentionally baited and (upon declining that bait) heavily pressed by her English teacher to talk about affirmative action, gave an impassioned thumbs down. Not only was she openly laughed at by her teacher (and I have to emphasize here again, because this is infuriating - what kind of pathetic failure of a human being has to laugh at a student to make a point), but she was intentionally ridiculed in front of the class. The teacher did everything possible to isolate her, to make her feel bad for being "weird, and going against the flow." No wonder teachers' unions are opposed to vouchers - then they'd have to justify their teaching habits instead of just enforcing them through public humiliation.
    Read the whole thing, and feel free to express your outrage and support. And keep reading her blog - it'll give you hope for the future.

    Update from Stan: I think there are times when it is acceptable for teachers to laugh at high school students. Not for their views. But like if they were to catch on fire from a Bunsen burner, then after they've recovered (and only then) is is appropriate to laugh. Or if they were to get their fingers caught in some gears in shop class - then it's OK too. I did that, and now there is now a comic strip on that machine that instructs students to "not be like Stan."

    Update from Omri: Which is good, cause I think we all concluded long ago that your only purpose in life is to serve as a warning to other people, so it's good that you're getting on top of that.

    REAL UPDATE: Wow - never let it be said that there's no such thing as bad publicity: Instapundit and one very, very angry little puppy have also picked up this story.
    Omri | |

    Trample a Fellow Muslim for Allah

    OK, that's callous. But is it any more callous than this:

    Nearly 250 Muslim worshipers died in a hajj stampede Sunday during the annual stoning of Satan ritual in one of the deadliest tragedies at the notoriously perilous ceremony... Hajj Minister Iyad Madani said "All precautions were taken to prevent such an incident, but this is God's will. Caution isn't stronger than fate,"

    You know, to get rid of their sins, Catholics talk to their priest and Jews throw some bread into the water. Admittedly not as cool as an "annual stoning of Satan" ritual, but then again we don't have this:

    Last year, 14 pilgrims were trampled to death during the ritual and 35 died in a 2001 stampede. In 1998, 180 pilgrims died.

    I was also going to go off on a rant about how stupid it is to have something that can be accurately described as a "notoriously perilous ceremony," but that’d be insensitive.
    Omri | |

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    • Omri Ceren is a PhD candidate studying Rhetoric at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. He lives in downtown Los Angeles.

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