President Clinton invited this man to the White House:

But hey, at least the peace deal that Clinton worked out is going well. If he hadn’t help turn Arafat from an international terrorist to an international star, peace may never have taken hold in the Middle East.

Previously: This Is How the Palestinian Authority Will Dodge Its Treaty Obligations. Again., EU Discovers That Arafat Is A Terrorist, Turns Out, Arafat Wasn't Really Interested in Peace After All

This got all kinds of play last week, but:

Imagine what would happen if a Muslim was told that he couldn't carry the Koran into Britain because it contradicts Anglicanism. The cries of "Islamophobia" would be deafening. Or if a Muslim was told that he couldn't carry the Koran into Israel because it contradicts Judaism. The cries of "apartheid" would be similarly raucous.

But a Christian can't carry a Bible into Saudi Arabia, and everybody just kind of shrugs and says "well what do you expect - they're extremist Muslims". And we have no problem in theory with this answer, since it's more or less true - Saudi Arabia is politically Islamic, and people apparently just kind of expect them to discriminate against Christians and Jews.

Previously: It Turns Out, There IS A Way To Read the Koran Non-Peacefully, OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Robert Spencer, Hey Gals, Check It Out - Neanderthals Literally More Progressive Than Saudi Clerics

Uri Avnery needs a reality check. He wrote an article about how Israelis need to start thinking of themselves as Asian rather than European. How dumb is this article? Here's the lede:

And here's what Wikipedia has to say about the Asiad:

So Avnery opened up an article complaining that Israelis don't feel like part of Asia with a regional Asian sports competition that Israel wasn't invited to, held in a country that Israelis can't enter. We wonder why Israelis don't feel welcome. It might also have something to do with Israel repeatedly petitioning to be allowed into the Asia Regional Group in the UN, and the Arab and Muslim countries consistently refusing. The consequence, of course, is that Israel remains the only country on the planet that in principle can never sit on the UNSC. Again, we wonder why Israelis don't feel like part of the community of Asian nations.

And that wasn't the dumbest part of the article.

We were going to find some really obnoxious and outrageous statement from Ahmadinejad and juxtapose it with Avnery's stupid "the Iranians would have to be crazy to use a nuke". Or maybe that comment by Rafsanjani that the Iranians will nuke Israel as soon as they can because the retaliation would only take out a small part of the Muslim ummah. But we lost heart somewhere in the middle.

The reason that there's "this fear of annihilation... in the 59th year of the state" is because Iran is trying to get a nuclear weapon in order to wipe out the Jewish State. That's obvious to anyone not totally blinded by blame-Israel ideology. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

Previously: Iran Anti-Holocaust Conference - Pervasiveness as Legitimation, OneJerusalem.org Conference Call with Senator Rick Santorum, Memo To Diplomatic Sophisticates: Ahmadinejad Did Not Get The Part Where You Meeting With Him and Being Nice To Him Was A 'Criticism'

Yesterday, Palestinians continued to "threaten the fragile/shaky ceasefire" by launching rocket number sixty-something into Israel. This time they managed to put two Israeli schoolboys on their deathbeds. Having to do something (but not wanting - God forbid - to break the ceasefire), Olmert ordered the resumption of attacks against rocket launching crews. For the last month, rocket launching crews have been able to fire at Israeli schoolhouses and hospitals with impunity. Here's how the BBC is covering the decision.

Headline: Israel to resume militant strikes Now you might be thinking that this implies that the Israeli strikes are militant. You might be thinking this because you have a basic understanding of English grammar. The BBC, of course, would claim that this is just an accident and that they meant "militant strikes" to be "strikes against militants". Of course they did.

Lede: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ordered a resumption of military strikes against Palestinian militants firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. Less than one in ten newspaper readers ever get past the lede of an article. So that means that only one in ten readers has a chance of learning that this is actually in response to Palestinians almost killing two little boys, after about a month of Israel letting them do whatever they want.

Second paragraph: Mr Olmert said troops had been instructed to "take pinpoint action against rocket-launching squads" after two Israeli boys were hurt in a strike. Ah, finally - we learn that "two Israeli boys were hurt in a strike". No mention of the fact that they're in the hospital, and that they still might die. Just the minimum so that the BBC can maintain plausible deniability about being biased.

And so on.

Now there's of course the broader question of why the Palestinians are being called "militants" instead of "terrorists", since they were clearly firing at civilians. Here's where we part with most of the pro-Israel blogosphere. We actually endorse referring to Palestinian and Hezbollah forces as militants. We're even open to going further and calling them soldiers. They're the de facto armed forces of the Palestinian and Lebanese governments. So let's call them that. Those governments, as a matter of official policy and international law, claim to be under occupation and in a state of war with Israel - and their proxy armies are waging that war. They're not committing terrorism by targeting Israeli schoolchildren. They're committing war crimes.

Previously: The BBC Lies, BBC Slips, Proves Liberal Gaza Occupation Fetish, BBC Misleads in Article, Clarifies in Sidebar, Regarding Israeli Settlements

76 percent of Russians apparently believe that Putin is Russia's politician of the year:

That apparently means that 24 percent of Russians have a highly underdeveloped survival instinct... This poll is absurd anyway: to be a politician, there has to be a chance that you'll lose an election. Otherwise you're a dictator that sometimes leaves ballot boxes out in the open for people to put slips of paper in. We're closer to being "Russian politicians" than Putin is, and we are neither Russian nor running for any Russian office.

Previously: Putin Goes After Chess Master, Opposition Politician Kasparov, Chechens vs. Kaiser Soze, Advantage: Not Chechens, Now You've Gone and Done It

We're trying to get caught up on the last two weeks of news, and we're three days late on this story, which we found through Lynn. It seems that certain high-ranking Egyptian officials have some maverik opinions on the disposition of land in Israel:

The open secret, of course, is that this official apparently agrees with the vast, vast, vast majority of the Arab world - that all of Israel is Palestinian land, and Israel should be wiped off the map.

For the record, the Camp David Accords stipulate - explicitly - that Palestinian rights are to be resolved by negotiating over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Eilat, of course, is neither in the Gaza Strip nor the West Bank. That means that all the other parts of the treaty - stuff like committing to recognizing each other's sovereignty over each other's territory - are supposed to kick in. This isn't nitpicking - stating that the Palestinians have a right to Eilat makes a mockery of the "peace" part of Camp David - which is, under "land for peace," what Israel was supposed to get by giving up the resource-rich Sinai Peninsula. That's the problem with these treaties - Israel gives up something tangible like land or resources, and in return doesn't even get the appearance of peace.

Jimmy Carter, incidentally, won the Nobel Peace Prize for establishing Camp David as the framework for peace between the Arabs and Israelis. Good to see that it's holding up as well as all of his other helpful interventions into Middle East politics. Although he'd probably blame the whole situation on Israel, for having the nerve to demand that Egypt live up to its treaty obligations.

Here's a little brainteaser for the afternoon: what would happen if a high-ranking Israeli official came out and said that parts of the Sinai Peninsula were actually Jewish land? Not Israeli land, mind you - just land belonging to the Jewish settlers that were removed under Camp David. They want to come back and form their own state now. Do you think that the Egyptians would be as quiet as the Israelis are being?

Previously: Carter Backs Out Of Defending His Book. That Doesn't Seem To Exactly Enhance His Credibility, Ya Know?, US Continues to Exercise "We Were Just Kidding" Clause for Israeli Treaty, Human Rights, WaPo Discovers Egyptian Anti-Israel Movements, Gets Story Wrong Anyway

CNN is reporting that former President Gerald Ford has died.

Previously: This Will Not Be Our Last Bow, Disaster

When you're allowed to fire dozens of rockets at schoolhouses and hospitals, eventually you start killing children:

But hey, maybe if everyone is really nice to the Palestinians they'll stop trying to kill Jews. It's worth a chance, right? It's not like they've done anything to make us think that won't work. Oh, except two days ago the Quartet announced that they were starting to give the Palestinians aid again, right in the middle of the sixty-something post-ceasefire Palestinian rocket barrage.

So this is example number a billion that says that maybe the Palestinians just really hate Jews, and that's why they're trying to kill them. And this time, two 14 year olds may have to die because the international community decided to give the Palestinians yet another chance.

Previously: "Fragile Ceasefire" Watch: 6 Rockets Fired By Palestinians Today, 61 Total, Palestinian Suicide Bomber Threatens Fragile Ceasefire, Which of the Following Can't Be Trusted to Obey a Ceasefire?

Hey, do you think that Reuters deliberately put a shamefully bad picture of the Pope on the wires...

... or do you think that this just slipped through the vaunted multiple layers of editorial control that they're so well-known for? Or maybe they didn't have a single other picture to run (what? did they fire their Photoshop guy?)

UPDATE: Actually, screw it. Say what you want about the Pope. From this point on, he's dead to us. " Don't worship technology" - what kind of craziness is that?

Previously: Global Jihadists Will Take Any Excuse To Kill Infidels, Mere Rhetoric Really Likes the Pope, Yes, the Pope Is Catholic - His Argument vs. Hitchens's Straw-Version of His Argument (Plus, We Ask Hitch To Come Home)

These are just not serious people. They're moral exhibitionists who use their herd-reinforced sense of superiority to cover over the nagging suspicion that they're not as good and smart as their parents always insisted:

They're not exactly the intellectual left, but they certainly think they are. And we have yet to hear anyone on the left disabuse them of that notion, in the way that right of center bloggers call Christian extremists to task. Which they do regularly.

Previously: Liberal Academic Middle East Experts Seem To Know Nothing About The Middle East, The Essential Stupidity of Leftist Displays of "Solidarity", Iranian Fascists Censor Bloggers, Illustrate Difference Between Actual and Imaginary Fascism

You'll forgive us some unseemly schadenfreude, but it's the LA Times:

Wartzman was part of the staff awarded the Pulitzer in 2004 for the LAT's Walmart investigation. We actually have no idea what his stance on Israel is, or how his leaving will effect the LAT's editorial line (guesses: left of center; not at all). But that's no excuse not to point out that the Los Angeles Times's Middle East coverage is beneath reproach.

Previously: Mona Gable, HuffPo Blogger And LA Times Contributor, Is A Shrill And Hysterical Idiot, What Bad Anti-Israel Argument Will the LA Times Come Up With Today?, At This Point, Journalists Are Literally Just Going Through The Motions Of Covering Up Their Bias

We don't usually just pass on condescending, schoolmarmish safety tips, but the LAFD blog (which, it turns out, is really quite good) seems quite insistent on this question. And since we give broad deference to first responders:

Don't be stupid.

Previously: You Can Repent Through Sukkot? What?, USC Muslim Student Union Slips Into Open Anti-Semitism, Even In Hollywood, Moral Equivalence Is Stupid

FYI:

Israel better not take any action against Palestinian terrorists. They might do something crazy, like firing rockets at Israeli schoolhouses and hospitals. Or something.

Previously: Palestinian Suicide Bomber Threatens Fragile Ceasefire, Hezbollah "Stretches" Ceasefire, Israel "Breaks" It (Also: Lebanon Uses Pathetic Excuse to Not Do What They Were Already Not Doing.), UN Reports 'Promising' News for Ceasefire

It's really amazing how little self-awareness some journalistic outlets have. We live in an age of widespread media criticism, where many media consumers have a working understanding of how news gets produced. You'd think that by now, anyone with a brain would have given up on trying to slip in the "[insert journalist’s opinion here], experts say" headline. As Mickey Kaus has noted:

The only thing that could possibly be more embarrassing than a transparently biased "experts say" headline is when those experts are so obviously wrong that they must have been cherry-picked. Let's pretend that it's OK for a journalist to go out and pick "experts" on only one side of a debate, because somehow the journalist has unilaterally divined that those "experts" are right. Surely that has to be the minimum standard - because if the journalist is headlining with one-sided "experts" who are wrong, then it's begins to sound dangerously like fibbing. Which you still get fired for, right?

So in the last few hours, Ethiopian troops have begun to score major victories against the Somali, Al-Qaeda backed Islamists who instigated a war against them. That's the story that Reuters is running. It's also the story that Xinhua is running. In fact, that's the story that just about everyone is running..

But not the Seattle Times. Instead, they found experts who - having looked at Al Qaeda losing in the last day or so - have concluded that Al Qaeda is actually winning. Brilliant!.

With due respect, they must not be very good at either predicting or evaluating events in their region of expertise. Given their obvious lack of insight, one wonders what the Seattle Times found so attractive about their opinion.

Previously: AFP anti-Israel bias Reaches Sublime Proportions, AP Bias Alert Level: Obvious (Grandma Suicide Bomber Edition), European Media Bias - Really?

This article betrays jawdropping stupidity on just so many levels:

So British officials don't want terrorists to slip into the country behind the cover of veils, but unions are objecting. Apparently until now, whenever they needed to check whether a veiled traveler matched their passport, security personnel just took the traveler's word for it. Begging the question: does anyone in Europe actually do their damn job? Anywhere? Seriously, we're actually curious.

Previously: OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Mark Steyn, Europe Refuses to Meet Commitments to Protect Israel, The Significance Of the Pope's Visit To Turkey - Not That Much, Actually

If there was a war being waged on Christmas in the US, it would be stupid, politically correct excess. After all, December 23rd-ish to December 26th-ish is Christmas time, and all things being equal we prefer to be merry rather than unmerry. But, honestly, we've been getting wished Merry Christmas more than enough - while buying gas, activating a credit card, and canceling our AOL subscription, all in the last 24 hours. So we don't think that America is suffering from a deficit of Merry Christmas's.

The situation in Kuwait, however, is not so copasetic:

When we read sentences like "political Islam is sharply increasing its presence in mainstream politics", we're reminded of fashionable Middle East experts like Juan Cole - fashionable experts who smugly write things like "PS As for Friedman's main point, that Muslims haven't done a good job of fighting jihadi ideology and terrorism, it is bizarre." Could anyone remind us why these people have any credibility at all, given that most of the things that they say are, you know, wrong?

Previously: "Muslim Division" Meme: Not Wrong, Just Stupid, MR Begs the Main Stream Media: Please Go Back to Lying to Us, Fox News: No One Else Is Fair Or Balanced Either

Oh this is just great:

But the United Nations is working to decentralize nuclear power, making sure that dozens upon dozens of countries develop civilian nuclear facilities. Because as long as there are good intentions and appropriate safeguards, nothing bad can happen. On the plus side, at least there will be a precedent when Iran announces that they too have "misplaced" some of their highly enriched uranium, and that it "may" have gotten into the hands of terrorists.

Previously: Israeli-Pakistani Relations? Probably a Good Idea., State Department Anti-Israel Ideology Gets Silly, Kills Americans, Progress in the world's most dangerous place

Charles Krauthammer brings fingers to keyboard, producing all that will ever need to be said about American hegemony:

Read the whole thing. Consider it five hysterical minutes away from your relatives. We're very sure that they're very pleasant... but still. (h/t: MR reader Daniel).

Previously: Krauthammer Says He Dislikes France, Presses Continue Running, How Should a Conservative Feel About Disengagement?, Hollywood Helps Out In the Middle East

We don't even want to think about the kind of hits we're going to get because of that subject line, but here you go:

We got this video from Anne, who passed it on with the message "here's a companion piece to those two Israeli teenage girls you like so much: yeshiva boys". Yeah, because this video is exactly like two hot Israeli twenty year olds flouncing around. Exactly.

What's next? People sending us pictures of Sacha Baron Cohen in his neon thong, because it's "a companion piece" to the Atlas Shrugged bikini vlog? Sigh.

Speaking of which, obligatory link to phish bowl bikini vlog mashup.

Previously: Hey Gals, Check This Out - Feminism Sweeps Pakistan, We Get Mail – We're Forced To Explain Why Happiness Is Good, Hey Gals, Check This Out - Joyful Israeli Girls A Stark Contrast To Girls In Arab And Muslim World

When courts in the United States need to decide philosophy of science issues - say, whether Intelligent Design is science or not - they call in the best recognized experts from all over the world. When Libyan courts need to decide philosophy of science issues... well, things aren't as well-oiled:

But seriously, what are the findings of Oxford scientists when primitive mobs are screaming for justice in the streets:

But maybe if we're really nice to these people, they'll be really nice to us. Especially when we send them our doctors, who they can then scapegoat and kill.

Previously: Russian Medical Advances In Poisoning, Israelis Treat Palestinian Woman In Hospital, She Returns To Blow It Up, Radical Muslims Seem To Lack Irony Gene

More on this will be forthcoming over the weekend we imagine, but for now just know that political Islam in Somalia is working out as well as you'd expect:

At times like this, it's critically important to remember that anyone claiming that there's anything expansionist about political Islam is just a bigoted Islamophobe. There is absolutely no connection. None.

And if you forget that, just remember what the LA Times told us when Islamists took over the Somalia capital and assumed more or less formal control of the country: "Islamists Sow Calm, and Concern, in Southern Somalia". We, on the other hand, reacted to the story by declaring the Islamist takeover a "kind of modern-day Islamist Domino Effect". So we think we should get some points for being more right than the LA Times, since they said "calm" and we said "continued Islamist warfare and spread". Not too many points though - because only an idiot or an ideologue would have predicted anything differently.

Previously: Global Jihadists Will Take Any Excuse To Kill Infidels, Moral Equivalence In Shooting Of Somali Nun, Somali Supermodel Having A Rough Time Convincing People In "Women Are People Too" Campaign

Good riddance to bad rubbish:

Oh wait. You didn't know that Turkmenistan was effectively a slave state ruled by a megalomaniacal lunatic? And that he routinely imprisoned and tortured people who didn't meet his whimsical conditions for what counted as a good and bad person? Don't worry too much about it - we're pretty sure that the tens of thousands of human rights activists who march against imagined Zionist crimes don't know much about it either. But hey, at least their reasons for screaming hysterically about the evils of the Jewish State are totally reasonable and rational, right?

Previously: American Liberal Activists Are So Cute, With Their Smugness And Their Superiorty And Their Not Being Very Smart, International Law: Protecting Those Who Violate It Since 1950, They're Terrorists Not Activists

One more thing from that Sunday Telegraph article that we blogged a couple of minutes ago. Let's do a little compare and contrast between "reality" and "what anti-Semitic anti-Zionist leftists wish reality was".

First, "reality" from the Sunday Telegraph:

And now, "what anti-Semitic anti-Zionist leftists wish reality was", courtesy of Noam Chomsky - with a focus on Britain:

If someone keeps trying to downplay the reality of anti-Semitism so that they get a pass on their very-anti-Semitic-sounding statements, does that make them complicit in anti-Semitism? Or do they still get a pass because their oh-so-rare anti-Israel position is "brave"?

You know, it seems increasingly that Noam Chomsky is considered an "intellectual" only because he advocates vicious anti-Israeli positions that leftists really want to believe are "intellectual". Because the things he says certainly aren't true or borne out by facts. So that can't be the reason.

Previously: Clowns. Total Clowns (UN Speakers Edition), Noam Chomsky Is On Google Video, Still Sounds Kind Of Like A Terrorist Sympathizer, Pakistan's Chomsky

It turns out - shockingly - that Muslims aren't the ones who are most likely to be targeted by hate crimes in Britain. Who knew:

Question: how is it that the continent of origin of the attackers - and the language they speak in - is recorded, but the police report refuses in absolute terms to speculate as to the religion of these seven attackers? Doesn't that seem relevant for determining elements of the crime like, you know, motive? We just can't imagine what religion these anti-Semitic Pakistani Arabic speakers could have been. Maybe they were part of the large population of Arabic-speaking Pakistani Quakers that inhabit the inner cities of Britain.

Previously: British Moral Exhibitionism Strangely Directed Mostly At Israeli Leaders, British Journalists Put Holocaust Denial On The Spectrum Of Respectable Positions, British Muslim Leaders Issue Manifesto Calling For "Resistance"

Wow. Really?

No... the furor erupted because he published slanders about Israel that are demonstrably wrong and - literally, it appears - indefensible when challenged. The use of the word apartheid is one of those things - especially because Carter writes in his book that Israel is actually not like South Africa - but it's only a small part of it. The bigger problem is the rewriting of history that he does - and that any anti-Israel psuedo academic has to do - to make it seem like Israel isn't interested in peace.

Previously: We're Considering the Possibility that Walt and Mearsheimer Might Not Be Faking Their Ignorance, Carter is Blindingly Clueless, Jimmy Carter: Hamas Made Up of "So-Called Terrorists"

This one's just for fun:

Meanwhile, anyone who was even remotely pro-Israel insisted that the unity government would fail because - really deep down - a lot of Palestinians just want to murder Jews. It didn't seem to matter how far left people were - if they were honest about the situation, they knew in advance that it would fail one way or another. But not the director of Columbia University's Middle East Institute. He looked at the same set of events and announced that they could be quite significant, and a source for optimism.

Now that we know who was right and who was wrong - again - please remind us why these people have any credibility at all. Other then the fact that they feed subtle and not so subtle anti-Israel "expert opinion" to journalists and academics alike...

Previously: Academics Who Attack Israel are Brave if Brave Means "Doing Things All Your Colleagues Who Agree With You Will Tell You That You Were Brave for Doing", Walt and Mearsheimer's Best Defense For Their Anti-Semitic-ish Accusations Is In Trouble, Juan Cole Is So Incoherent That We Have To Believe He's Doing It On Purpose - Global Wave Of Moderate Islam Edition

Well here's a description of the Al-Aqsa Brigrades we haven't seen in a while:

In fairness - and we certainly have our issues with Nidal al-Mughrabi - he's usually pretty good about identifying the link between (moderate) Palestinian President Abbas and the (moderate) open terrorists that represent him. But we're not sure that we've come across "loyal" in a long time - usually it's much closer to the AP style "pro-Fatah" designation. But as the press rushes to assure the world that all Palestinians are loyal to Abbas's (moderate) proposals, we might expect to see this word a little more often.

Indeed - all Palestinians are loyal to politicians who advocate peace with Israel. Except for the majority of them who voted last time around for the terrorists who rejected peace with Israel. They probably kind of disagree.

Previously: International Media: "But Saadat is a Grandfather!" Also, BBC Tells Demonstrable Lie About Past Kidnappings, Makes Up Conspiracy Theory, and Says "Foreigners mostly live harmoniously among the Palestinian population", European Media Bias - Really?, Here's the Thing About the Anti-Israel Media: They Lie - Hezbollah Hides Among Civilians Edition

Yes, yes very suggestive:

It'll blow over in a couple of weeks. Seriously: they just don't have the energy to keep it up. If they had that kind of energy, they'd have a state by now. Although if anybody on the right wants to declare this a civil war and draw the obvious conclusion - that Sharon was right when he said that giving the Palestinians Gaza would demonstrate that they can't run a state - your politely written admission of error can be mailed to the address on the sidebar.

Previously: Palestinian Non-Civil War Watch (Bonus: It's the Jews' Fault. Of Course It Is), Define "Failure" Please, Arab Fifth Column Watch - Israel Shouldn't Lock Up Terrorists Edition

Our read of Ahmadinejad is that he has a demagogue's instinct for persuasion, even if he is the stupid taxi driver that Chris Hitchens takes him for. He knows - either explicitly or implicitly - that more than half the fight is over what people are allowed to say out loud. Once someone introduces a topic, they can get condemned as much as their opponents have the time and energy to denounce them - but they point is that they establish themselves as worthy of being addressed. At that point, unless the condemnations are so strong that they're effectively cowed into submission, they've effectively moved the line on what counts as 'just another opinion on the political spectrum'. Ahmadinejad has always insisted that his brand of crazy is a very deliberate strategy - and there's no reason to believe that he's just blustering about that. His goal has always been to make Holocaust denial 'just another position' - not an accepted one and not even one that people agree with. But nonetheless, all he wants to do is put it on the spectrum of theories.

This morning, CAMERA has a devastating post about the International Herald Tribune's coverage of the Holocaust denial travesty in Iran. The tone and framing of the article pretty much proves that Ahmadinejad has succeeded:

Ahmadinejad doesn't have to convince people that he's right. He just has to establish an environment where he's one of the people that you have to address, and he's won the battle to make Holocaust denial respectable. Who could've guessed that it'd be the British press that first grants him an open win?

Except anyone who knows anything.

Previously: If Britain Won't Stop Radical Islam, Why Should Radical Islam Stop Being Radical?, Britain Can't Beat Even Especially Stupid Islamism, Britain Presents Innovative Plan For Restarting Peace Process

Honestly, we don't understand how we haven't come across this before. We can only assume that none of our readers have ever seen it, since we have faith that one of you would've emailed us a link:

We think the middle bridge is a little much, but on balance: yes, it's art.

Previously: It Turns Out, There IS A Way To Read the Koran Non-Peacefully,
Yes, the Pope Is Catholic - Shut Up, He Understands Islam Better Than You Do,
Pipes: Koran Not Self-Explanatory

They've been keeping this up for almost a week. Truth be told, we're kind of impressed. We didn't think they had that kind of energy:

Hey, you know what's not going to happen? There's not going to be a civil war. If nothing else, eventually everyone will get together and agree that it's all Israel's fault. In the last lines of the story, Nidal al-Mughrabi (who we think is kind of a biased hack) can't stop himself from doing even the stupidest and most irrelevant anti-Israel scapegoating. Just to go through the motions, you know:

Because that's totally relevant to the story. Or because those "demands" were sooooo unreasonable.

Previously: Reuters Gives Advice: Want To Dampen Muslim Extremism? Support People Who Want To Commit Genocide., Beit Hanun Meme Watch - "Israeli Terrorism" - Want To Guess Who Reuters Is Willing To Label A Terrorist?, Reuters Headline On Pro-Hezbollah Protests (Hint: You're Not Going To Be Surprised)

This is getting kind of absurd:

Here's what we just can't understand: was anybody under the impression that Israel doesn't have nuclear weapons? More specifically, that Israel doesn't have about 150-200 nuclear weapons in silos around the Negev, on airplanes that can be scrambled in minutes, and inside submarines sitting at the bottom of the Persian Gulf? Anybody? Of course not. Even Shimon Peres - who, say what you will, is the guy who actually invented Israel's doctrine of nuclear ambiguity - thinks that it's pretty much done its job.

We also want to point out that the phrase "Egypt has repeatedly called" doesn't go with the phrase "renewed pressure". Israel is already under constant pressure to open up Dimona. Israeli leaders have correctly pointed out that the IAEA has no jurisdiction there because Israel is not an NPT signatory. That hasn't stop people from pointing out that Israel should pretend as if they agreed to be screwed by international law in yet another forum.

You know how we know that? Because the new realist Secretary of Defense laid the groundwork for it three days ago:

Plus, bracketing everything else - he's just right. It is obviously different for Israel to have nuclear weapons - which reasonable people understand are for deterrence - and for Iran to have nuclear weapons - which even their "moderates" declare will be used to wipe out Israel. Good for him for saying it out loud, and if the deck wasn't already stacked against Israel than that would be the discussion. Let's stop having the discussion about whether Israel has nuclear weapons and start having the discussion about why Israel needs nuclear weapons. And that discussion is so one-sided that anyone who disagrees would have disagreed anyway and is well beyond the horizon of rational dialogue.

We don't understand what's so mysterious about Olmert's actions. One day the ISG gives a stamp of approval to the idea that a Palestinian right of return is within the horizon of what's negotiable. The next day the new SecDef declares that as far as his office and US foreign policy are concerned, Israel has nukes.

There's nothing to be gained by holding on to a doctrine that (a) nobody believes anyway and (b) doesn't stop diplomats from acting as if it's not true. So let Olmert throw Israel's nuclear weight around a little bit. It'll do Iran some good to be reminded that they really are ushering in the end of the world if they try to fulfill their dream of another Holocaust. Which is exactly what Louis Rene Beres has been saying for about half a decade - and he (a) assumes that the Iranians are batshit crazy and (b) has studied about a billion more nuclear war games than the people taking pot shots at Olmert.

Previously: American Library Association Compares Pro-Israel Scholars To KKK, Nuke War Games Prove We Might All Be Screwed, Olmert: Israel May Or May Not Have Nukes

You thought that this was going to be another post about how stupid the ADL is for making a big deal about the Passion, which was all in all not a terrible rendition of a particular kind of - admittedly heretical - Catholicism. Alas, this one is about Jews dumber than Abe Foxman. This is from the Jewish Journal, an outlet with which we've had run-ins before. At one time, we briefly considered not totally hating them because they've published Rick Richman of Jewish Current Issues, who is brilliant, a local, and far too good to us. But sorry, this kind of stuff is just too stupid:

(1) "Rip out" is two words, not one big word.
(2) It's not called "skipping-in" by anybody, let alone teenagers who use any kind of slang. This is pathetic.
(3) If it was called "skipping in", that also would be two words.
(4) Idiot.

Where do they get these guys?

Previously: Liberals Find a Jew Hater They Feel Safe Criticizing, It's Tuesday, So the ADL is Concerned About Evangelical Christians, Hollywood Outrage Update

AP writer Sarah El Deeb does her best to pull your heartstrings about the awful situation that the Palestinians have brought on themselves by voting in a terrorist government and then starting a war with Israel. Yeah, seriously, we're crying on the inside:

We're actually being kind of unfair to Ms. El Deeb. This is a pretty well-balanced article, with the exceptions of the "homeland" headline and snarky reference to the "the fenced-in strip". In fact, reading it again, we feel almost guilty about maybe laying it on a little too thick in our own hed. But it's the Associated Press, so can you ever really be too sarcastic about their anti-Israel bias? You might not now what anti-Israel nonsense they're up to today, but they certainly do.

Bonus question: if Sharon's "take Gaza and choke on it" strategy turns out to have been a moderate succeed in the medium term, do we get refunds on the hours upon hours of time we spent answering angry emails?

Previously: Associated Press: "We are all Hezbollah" is Not Anti-Israel, AP Headline and Lede: Syrian War Against Israel Would Be "Resistance", The AP Lede On the Lebanon Tribunal Is Rank Bias

Kneejerk exaggeration in the form of moral equivalence. Check.
Accusations of Bush administration shadiness where anyone who's not a total moron can tell that things were totally above board. Check.
Blindingly obvious contradictions and logical incoherence? Check.

And that's just the first four paragraphs.

First of all, Bush banned photos out of respect for the families. So that they didn't have to see their son's coffins on TV. We would say that "even smart leftists agree with that", but it's not something you agree or disagree with - it's the terms of the debate. The entire dispute is about balancing the "public's right to know" with "respect for the families". This woman is not even in the dialogue. She's just pulling things out of thin air and expecting her audience to overlook the fact that there is no connection from one sentence to the next. Just a series of idiotic accusations that sound properly leftist.

Speaking of idiotic accusations - "some secret database"? Yeah, the list of soon to be graduating high school students is soooo secret. The only people who have access to it are the US federal government, every college in America, most testing bureaus in America, and any several commercial high school honors societies. She'll understand that next year when her son starts getting letters in the mail from every second-tier college in America next year. Assuming that she can produce offspring capable of matriculating, which at this point we're kind of skeptical about.

Holy shit this woman pisses us off.

And that's before we get to a letter offering her son the chance to serve his country being equivalent to a mail bomb. Rarely do you see dumb liberalism so nakedly on display.

Incidentally, one of top posts at the HuffPo this morning: Nathan Gardels about how Jimmy Carter is "taking on Israel's apartheid policies" Mind you, even Carter admits - in his own damn mistitled book - that Israel's policies are precisely not like South African apartheid. They might just become that way, maybe someday. And yet here we have an ostensibly educated and rational person acting like he hasn't even read the book, but he's just agreeing with it because it's anti-Israel.

No, but really. The traditional alliance between American Jews and the political left is working out great. Lets do it for half-century.

Previously: Jews Now Being Blamed by Media for Harassing Nonexistent, Modern-Day Joseph and Mary, Note to Liberals: You're Not Smarter Than Everyone Else. Really., Even the Funny Liberals (Implicitly) Lie About Israel

There may still be rational people out there who think that Baker-Hamilton is not totally idiotic. Those people don't include Middle East experts, the Iraqi President, Kurdish fighters, or hard-core liberals. But maybe they exist somewhere.

You know who's totally sympathetic to the ISG though? Ahmadinejad :

Yeah, we're sure they'd be thrilled to help. And you know who's - if anything - even more psyched about the idea of humiliating the US and undermining Israeli security? Peace Now, made up of people who think that the Peace Process didn't work out because Israel wasn't nice enough to arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat:

Actually, the Baker-Hamilton Commission does not endorse a two-state solution at all. It demands that Israel address the so-called Palestinian right of return, which is of course the exact opposite of a two-state solution - tantamount to the destruction of Israel. It doesn't call for Israel to embrace the invasion of the Jewish State by three to four million genocidal maniacs - it just quietly points out that this is something Israel will have to recognize as a legitimate negotiating position. So the Palestinians get to start off threatening genocide, and Israel has to start off begging to be allowed to keep the borders they've had since right after the founding of the state.

We don't know whether Peace Now only included the passage about a two-state solution because they just read the executive summary or if because they're pathetically trying to lie. The result is the same (h/t: MR reader Deborah)

Previously: James Baker Stays True To Form, Recommends Undermining Israel, Mark Steyn Mocks, Laments James Baker, Mathematical Proof That Negotiating With Iran Is Stupid. Not Wrong. Stupid.

We love the fact that extremist activity is a crime in Russia, but their foreign policy holds that anti-Israel terrorists are resistance fighters. Anyway, this is what we call a "slide into totalitarianism":

We know what Putin is trying to accomplish, and we regret to inform him that it's not going to work. If he wants the Baker commission to start appeasing him, he's going to have to try much, much harder to be an unapologetic warmongering fascist. We suggest threatening to wipe out millions and millions of Jews. It worked for Ahmadinejad.

Previously: Memo To The World: Ahmadinejad Is A Genocidal Lunatic About To Get Nukes, The Russian Legal System Is Kind Of Silly, Chechens vs. Kaiser Soze, Advantage: Not Chechens

It's not even news any more:

Not to worry though. The Council on Foreign Relations and the LA Times have declared that he's probably just kidding about all that genocide stuff. So that's a huge relief, because for a second we thought that someone might actually be crazy enough to murder six million Jews.

Previously: AbbaGav's Inspired Description of Ahmadinejad, Juan Cole - Anti-Semite?, Soon to be Nuke-Armed Iranian President Really Is That Crazy

One Jerusalem arranged a bloggers' conference call this morning with their Chairman, soon to be Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Natan Sharansky. Sharansky, of course, is all kinds of important - author, former minister, Congressional Medal of Freedom recipient, human rights advocate, etc etc. Bloggers on the call: Jerry Gordon (IsraPundit), David Bogner (Treppenwitz), Anne Lieberman (Boker Tov, Boulder!), Chad (Granddaddy Long Legs), and Joel Rosenberg (Joelrosenberg.com) Allen Roth (One Jerusalem) was also on, in his usual role as ringmaster. As always, the audio recording will be up on the One Jerusalem frontpage later in the day.

Minister Sharansky tore into the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group in response to the opening question from Allen Roth, and he did it with a fervor and a clarity that's genuinely rare. When you're going over this call, you shouldn't settle for reading a transcript. Go and download the mp3. It's almost an experience to listen to Sharansky talk informally. You're listening to a true believer - and you just might find yourself getting convinced.

Regarding the substance of the ISG, he made a point that is so overwhelmingly obvious hat we literally cannot imagine what an answer to it might be: giving the Golan back to Syria will do absolutely nothing to get Sunnis and Shiites to stop killing each other in Iraq. They're not fighting over anything having to do with Israel, they're fighting over control of Iraq. It's our job to come up with even absurd arguments, and we've just go nothing - we don't know how you answer this. And remember - stabilizing Iraq is what the ISG is actually supposed to be focusing on. And there's this simple point: Israel has nothing to do - absolutely nothing - with the motives for the sectarian conflict in Iraq. It's so obviously true, and the ISG analysis is so fundamentally flawed. Experts analyzing Baker's obsession with Israel are starting to pile on:

The lunatics literally threatening the free world do not care about the so-called plight of the Palestinians. Even if they did care about the Palestinians in a broad sense, the sectarian extremists tearing Iraq apart - the ones who the ISG are supposed to be dealing with - are certainly not killing each other on account of Israel. Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not alleviate the threat to the West or stabilize Iraq. It's not unfair to ask, therefore, why James Baker and his realist friends seem so intent on undermining Israel.

As to the rest of the call, you really should go and download the mp3. Seriously. The man sparkles with passion and belief. You can hear it. So one last teaser to get you to the One Jerusalem page: Minister Sharansky said explicitly - explicitly - that the best Israeli intelligence indicates that Iran will pass the nuclear point of no return within a year. This is the intelligence that was ahead of the rest of the West on Russian arms sales by about a decade. So that's comforting.

Previously: OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Robert Spencer, OneJerusalem.org Conference Call with Senator Rick Santorum, OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Mark Steyn