Remember the time when we accused the Italian ambassador of lying, because he was giving interviews where he promised that European countries would have nothing to do with Hamas? Let's review that particular statement again:

Sounds pretty committed, don't he?

And then there's reality. Meryl gave us a heads up on a post from this morning on Adloyada:

What international boycott is that, exactly? Because so far Hamas officials have met with:
China, Russia, and Egypt - to say nothing of European countries like Sweden, Normay, and Germany. And now they get to add British MPs to their list of enlightened diplomats who are willing to treat genocidal anti-Semites as legitimate leaders.

Previously: Anti-Jewish Violence Skyrockets In Europe - Maybe It's Not Just Anti-Zionism After All, Europe Refuses to Meet Commitments to Protect Israel, Iran Enriches Uranium - Good Job Europe!

Good:

The rest of the article goes through how painless the process was, right down to numerous helpful Israeli bureaucrats (which, honestly, makes the story a lot less credible - and you know what we're talking about). This would be an excellent time for gay rights groups to split themselves off from the anti-Zionist currents of the anti-war left. We'll be anxiously awaiting press releases congratulating Israel on its progressive values and urging other countries in the region to follow its lead.

Ditto for women's rights groups. And religious freedom groups. And most other liberal groups who find their causes championed in Israel and attacked by Israel's Arab and Muslim neighbors.

Except we won't be waiting, because obviously none of those things will happen.

Previously: Academics Who Attack Israel are Brave if Brave Means "Doing Things All Your Collegues Who Agree With You Will Tell You That You Were Brave for Doing", Quick Comparison of Recent Discourse In Gay Rights (Israel vs. Political Islam Edition), Saudi Men Like Islamic Fundamentalism, Positions of Privilege

It was more or less their answer to an Israeli peace gesture:

Obviously, this is a man that needs our full support and who should be bolstered with troops and money. Because he's putting them to good use. Oh - and about that whole "he's a partner for peace" thing:

Let's go over this again: not giving up on refugees means refusing to make peace until three million of the most radicalized, anti-Semitic people on Earth are allowed to flood across the border into Israel proper. Refugees who have been raised for five generations in a climate of anti-Israel incitement and violence.

Abbas is outright declaring that he won't make peace until Israel agrees to its own destruction. There's no subtlety or mincing words about this - the "right of return" is a demand that Israel cease being a democratic Jewish state. It's destruction by demographics, but nobody pretends that it won't be a violent destruction anyway - the chaos and anti-Jewish violence in a world like that would be constant. It would be a world of unending riots and pogroms, at the hands of three million anti-Semitic lunatics. And this is the peace plan of Israel's ostensible partner for peace.

Previously: Palestinian Civil Society Watch - Abbas Sulks A Lot, Fails to Stop Terrorism, Abbas Focuses on What's Important, What The Hell Is Going On At Reuters - Palestinian Moderate Is A "Kingpin" Edition

What an awful - and predictable - thing for Abbas to say:

Remember how just a little earlier today we said that the Palestinians intentionally set the stage for accidents and then use hysterical screams about atrocities to mobilize further violence against Israel? Brutal attacks indeed. Jenin was a war zone where the gunmen hid among civilians and even then the IDF took excruciating care to avoid injuring noncombatants. Beit Hanun was the result of Palestinians lobbing bombs from densely packed civilian areas, and Israel trying to target their building. And we're not sure which particular Ramallah attack he's talking about - there have been so many where the IDF had to go in and pick up terrorists who were plotting atrocities against Israeli civilians.

Anyway, that's beside the point. Here's the moderate Chairman of the moderate Fatah movement - the ones that the US is committed to arming and training - saying that the cutting edge weapons that the US is about to give him are going to be turned against Israelis. So that's going to go well.

Previously: Tell Us, President Abbas, How Can We Help You Today?, White House: Sure Abbas is Powerless, But That Doesn't Mean Israel Shouldn't Give Him Land, Abbas: Recognizing Israel Not Required

It sure sounds like it:

Not that anyone will remember this the next time that some jagoff decides to start a global protest about Israel's "Apartheid Wall". Because why should Israel be allowed to build useful defenses if they inconvenience the Palestinian public that supports suicide bombers and the Palestinian voters who elected a terrorist government? That's just totally unreasonable, right?

Previously: International Law: Protecting Those Who Violate It Since 1950, The Telegraph Celebrates, Excuses Palestinian Atrocities, Is Jimmy Carter Just An Old-Fashioned Christian Fundamentalist, Anti-Semitic Bigot?

Assholes:

"Derailing the peace process"? Why not just say the bombing is bad because it will cause a war in Afghanistan? The peace process doesn't exist right now There is no peace process. The elected Palestinian government doesn't recognize Israel. This bombing had nothing to do with preventing Israel and the Palestinian Authority from striking a deal in the next few weeks - this isn't 1996. This was meant to unify various Palestinian terrorists and get them to focus on killing Jews instead of ignoring Jews (and what a blissful couple of weeks it had been). Do European diplomats actually live in this fantasy world, where there would be peace but for a couple of terrorists? Do they just recycle old condemnations of terrorism, because they really can't be bothered to check why Israelis were killed this time around? This isn't even close.

Previously: EU Really Is That Stupid (Syrian Help In Lebanon Edition), UN: Give Hamas Money. EU: OK., EU: Israel Not Allowed to Set Defensible Borders

"I don't believe them because they are kuffaar and lying is part of their religion... these are pathological liars... we want to do away with the man-made laws... we hate the kufr".

It's not that anyone's shocked that Muslims are advocating conquering Britain through violent jihad, one in which the unbelievers are killed. No one's shocked about the sexism, the homophobia, or the bigotry. But that these things are said openly in one of the bastions of Western tolerance - and that it's continuing without major public action rather than hand wringing - is devastating:

It was such a nice country too.

Previously: British Muslim Leaders Issue Manifesto Calling For "Resistance", Steyn Rolls Up Newspaper, Hits Europe on Nose, Says "No", So, Uh, Britain's Pretty Much Given Up

One of the perennially frustrating aspects of US Mideast diplomacy is how the State Department insist that the best-of-all-Palestinian-evils is someone who should be actively supported. So when it was Hamas vs. Arafat, they supported Arafat - even though Arafat was an unrepentant terrorist. And now that it's Hamas vs. Fatah, they're committed to supporting Fatah with troops and training. We went off about this a couple weeks ago:

And here's an Islamic Jihad terrorist from yesterday, gloating about how they've turned Fatah back toward the worth goal of killing Jews:

Here's an idea: being "more moderate" than genocidal terrorists doesn't actually make you "moderate". That's something that most adolescents can figure out. Yet it seems to escape the nuanced reasoning of most American Mideast analysts.

Previously: Fatah Operatives Launch Rockets At Israeli Schoolhouses, Hospitals, US State Department Shines Again, Oh, So The Al-Aqsa Terrorist Brigade Is Loyal To Abbas After All?

Just to be clear: there are two issues here. One is the manifest global bias that will blame Israel for anything, no matter how absurd the charge. The other is the objective tactical wisdom of staying out of Gaza and the West Bank right now.

Our frustration is with the first element. Israel's hands are often tied when it comes to security, because they know that some event will inevitably be twisted into an excuse for global condemnation. It could be that the Palestinians will intentionally use human shields and then scream about Israeli atrocities if a single civilian is wounded. It could be that the Palestinians will turn mosques and hospitals into bunkers and then scream about Israeli war crimes if Israeli soldiers shoot back at Palestinian gunmen. And it could be that the Palesitnians will bring themselves to the brink of all out war and then, after committing suicide bombings, blame Israel if they go over the edge. These disgusting little tricks have worked again and again, producing UN resolution after UN resolution. The point is simple: Israeli blood is shed because of an international nudge-nudge wink-wink that jeopardizes Israel's international credibility whenever it fires back at terrorists.

Now whether Israel should retaliate for yesterday's suicide bombing - that's another question, and one that we honestly just don't know where to begin answering. Napolean's famous quote, of course, is to the point here: never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. The most straightforward way to justify staying out of Gaza and the West Bank is to say that the Palestinians are spiraling into a civil war and that you don't want to unify them against Israel. But even if a civil war is unlikely (and we think that it's very, very unlikely) - prolonged intra-Palestinian squabbling gives Israelis a respite. Every terrorist fighting with another terrorist is two terrorists not targeting Israeli cafes. Every bullet fired at Fatah or Hamas is a bullet not fired at an Israeli motorist. If Israeli forces think they can actively prevent suicide bombings through surveillance and intelligence, then perhaps there's a justification for letting the Palestinians fight amongst themselves for a little longer.

On the other hand, there's every chance this new round of civil war teasing will be over in a week, and everyone will go back to targeting Israelis. Which, honestly, is about 50/50.

Previously: Hamas Judge Killed By Palestinian Gunmen, Palestinians Targeting Palestinian Ministers, Abbas Is Lying Either To Israel or To the Palestinians - Either Way, It Makes a Peace Deal Impossible

Early reports are that Israel is mobilizing the IDF for operations in Gaza:

For those of you confused by what "a course of action" means, it basically means that the IDF will do nothing:

It's tough to know whether Olmert is maintaining the ceasefire because he just doesn't want to escalate or because Israel can't go into the Gaza Strip while the Palestinians are "on the brink of civil war". Either way, nothing is going to change because of this suicide bombing.

Previously: Terrorists Building Tunnels, Storerooms For War, Palestinians Probably Going about "Democratic State" Thing All Wrong - Letting in Terrorists Instead of Voters (Opps!), Israel Can't Go After Terrorists, But Hamas Is Allowed To Call For Genocide

This week in welcoming our new robotic overlords:

It's like we're trying to get conquered.

Previously: Bad Week For The Future Of Humanity. Great Week For Future Robotic Overlords., "One Day Robots Could Fool Us Into Believing They Are Human", Excuse Us While We Geek Out - God Particle Glimpsed Edition

How has the Arab public become so pathologically, neurotically, genocidally anti-Israel? The constant circulation of age-old anti-Semitic blood libels might have something to do with it:

Yes, that's right. Israel released poisoned balloons meant to kill Lebanese civilians. Because that's totally reasonable - Israel always goes on campaigns to indiscriminately kill civilians, right? That's just what they do. Which is why they need to be wiped out. It all makes perfect sense.

There people are total lunatics.

Previously: Arab and Muslim Conspiracy Theories - Iranian Holocaust Denial Edition, Conspiracy Theories, Holocaust Denial In Arab Media, EU Conspiracy Theories Stupid, Dangerous

Apologists like Juan Cole are fond of writing incoherent posts proving this or that Western "fabrication", which their reality-based followers then pass around the internet with sneers about how qualified the apologists are. One of Cole's more idiotic claims is that Ahmednejad never threatened to destroy Israel. And again:

Probably just mistranslations. Again.

Previously: Juan Cole is Intellectually Dishonest, Part [Insert Big Number Here], Juan Cole As a Study In Pro-Jihadist Faux Liberal Sophistication, Juan Cole - Fraud

Here's a fun game for JBloggers to play. How many articles from major news outlets can you find that correctly link the Al Aqsa Brigades to this morning's suicide bombing but that fail to mention that they are members of President Abbas's Fatah party? We'll start everybody off, with Richard Boudreaux's report for the Los Angeles Times.

The goal is an article that totally fails to note that the "moderate" Palestinian party was involved in this morning's bombing. It's not as easy as it sounds, because you can't just exclude Fatah from the search terms (ie Google News: "eilat 'al aqsa' -fatah") - all of the articles also mention tensions between Hamas and Fatah, so you don't get anything. But we're sure that there are tons of other articles out there like this. Because really - why should anyone need that kind of information? It'll just obscure the main point, which as we all know is: it's all Israel's fault

Previously: LA Times Headline Technically True, Totally Misleading, LA Times: What About All the Good Things Islamists Do?, LA Times Pretty Much Just Making Things Up Now

Well here's something we never could have guessed:

It turns out that dark talk of Jews poisoning Palestinians and running neocon conspiracies don't just sound anti-Semitic - they also inspire anti-Semitism. And if it looks like anti-Semitism, and it acts like anti-Semitism, what's the reason again for not calling it anti-Semitism? Oh that's right - because then rabid anti-Semites couldn't call themselves "anti-Zionists", and excuse their vicious hatred with multiculturalist cant.

Yeah, it was anti-Zionism that got Ilan Halimi killed. "Legitimate criticism of Israel" is what the mostly Muslim immigrants who tortured him to death for three weeks were thinking about. Obviously. These are disgusting and pathetic excuses for the most vicious anti-Jewish violence.

Previously: Europe Refuses to Meet Commitments to Protect Israel, European Definition of Disproportionate - We Think We Get It, Europe Remembers the Holocaust

Could there be a more disgusting:

We've always said that the Palestinians will never go to civil war because every time they get to the brink, they'll be reminded that it's the Jews that they really want to kill. And everyone kind of knows that that's what can really bring Palestinian society together. But it's disgusting to actually hear it being said out in the open - for terrorist groups that Europe fawns over to declare that Jewish lives are so meaningless that they can be destroyed just to remind Palestinians that they're all one big, happy, genocidal family.

Which of course won't stop the press from carrying Hamas's statement that this was in response to unnamed (but simply assumed) Zionist crimes:

Hamas thinks that Jews are filthy Occupiers that should be pushed into the Sea. But if Israel says "well, if you don't like us then we're not going to have anything to do with you" then Hamas... declares that they're going to push the Jews into the Sea. They're well-armed, genocidal, petulant children - and the world caters to them as something in between legitimate statesmen and lambs being led to slaughter.

Previously: Updates About That Other Group of Genocidal Lunatics Currently Shooting, Bombing Israelis, Like Hezbollah, Hamas Uses Children As Human Shields, Treating Genocidal Fanatics Like Statesmen Is A Bad Idea (When Did This Become Controversial?)

We understand that we might have interpersonal commitment issues (or so we've been told), but isn't this advertisement, currently showing on JPost, objectively kind of weird and creepy?

Like in that overly clingy, obsessive girlfriend kind of weird and creepy? Is this just us? Anyone?

Previously: Coulter vs. Clark, Coulter Funny, Clark Not, Tasha and Dishka, Upon Finding Himself Impersonated By An Action Figure, Jack Bauer Tortured The Action Figure To Death. There's Only One Jack Bauer.

And no sooner do we make light of how the Palestinians apparently have too much free time on their hands if they can kill each other and try to kill Jewish schoolchildren, the worst happens:

First thought: When they're not busy killing each other, they kill Jews.

Second thought: What the hell is Fatah doing wasting resources on suicide bombings when they're supposedly about to go to war with Hamas?

Third, much worse, thought: This could easily become how Fatah and Hamas end up settling their differences.

What's the quickest way for a terrorist group to boost their standing on the Palestinian street? Kill more Jews than the other terrorist groups:

Fatah and Hamas have basically fought each other to a military standstill, and honestly they can only go on fighting for so long without needing the US and Europe to give them more money and weapons (through "security aid", natch). But suicide bombings are a ticket to credibility, and a sure way to turn the arms spigot back on - because obviously Abbas will need to give his troops more arms to "bolster himself against the extremists"... who are also, coincidentally, his troops. We've been skeptical about a civil war between Fatah and Hamas because we don't think they have the energy to kill each other without remembering that it's the Israelis that they really hate. But we could easily envision a proxy civil war where the competition is over who can have the most suicide bombings in a week.

And of course, there's the added benefit we were talking about this morning: as long as the Palestinians are on "the brink of civil war", Israel more or less has its hands tied. It can't really go after terrorists in Gaza or the West Bank, because then whatever happens for the next half a year will be blamed on them. It's the same old same old of the US and Europe counseling Israel to "show restraint" while the Palestinians try to get their act together. Once again, Israeli blood will have to be spilled while the Palestinians struggle with how central a role genocidal intentions should play in a future Palestinian state.

Previously: IDF Targets Palestinian Terrorists that Palestinian Authority Won’t Arrest, Email of the Day: Suicide Bombing Was Not Act of Revenge, AP Gives Israel Security Advice, Says Self-Defense is Bad

Honestly, don't these people have anything better to do:

Obviously, Israel can't retaliate right now because the entire world would come down on it for "making the already tense situation between Fatah and Hamas worse". Which essentially means that as long as some Palestinians are busy kidnapping each other, other Palestinians get a green light to try to kill as many Israelis as they possibly can. And therein lies the beauty of international diplomacy: no matter what's going on or who's causing it, there will always be a way that Israel gets screwed.

Palestinian non-civil war? Green light to attack Israel.
Iranian nuclearization? Let's talk about Dimona.
Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq? Maybe it'll go away if the US pressures Israel.

Because that makes sense. All countries are treated like that, right?.

Previously: Double Standard Watch, Jumbo Shrimp, Dry Rain, Government Organization, Un-politicized International Law, Palestinian Goal-Post Moving in Action

And the blame game continues:

Now, we're not saying that Iran and Syria don't have their fingerprints all over Hamas's recent civil war risking ventures (which will inevitably fail to start a civil war, because honestly they're just teasing us - trust us on this). But wouldn't it be nice if once - just once - it was the Palestinians' fault that the Palestinians were killing people? If instead of it being someone else's fault, the actual people doing the actual killing were blamed for their actions? Wouldn't that be something, eh?

Previously: US Government To Give Palestinian Terrorists Cutting-Edge Weapons, Palestinians Commit Several War Crimes in Just a Few Hours. Instead of Reporting That, Reuters Publishes Gripping Tale of Glorious Palestinian Martyrdom (and We're Not Even Exaggerating About That...), Hey Gals, Check This Out - Palestinian Control Of Gaza Not Going Well For Women

UPDATE (05:09 PST) - Reader David points out that this link goes to BBSNews, a lefty outlet out of North Carolina, and not to the BBC. Reader David is right, and we apologize for the error. The confusion was two-fold: (1) we were sloppy, (2) when we Googled Mohammed Omer the first things that he brags about are how he's a regular contributer to the BBC. Which is no excuse for our sloppiness, but does give you some indication of how the mind boggling bias that is BBC Israel reporting filters its way up from the bottom.

ORIGINAL - How insanely stupid can anti-Israel and anti-American reporting get? This stupid:

Yup, Israel and the US got another Palestinian 2 year old killed. Because it just can't be the Palestinians' fault. Not the innocent, sainted, leftist darlings of the peace loving left. The fact that they're killing each other just can't be the result of fundamental and complicated fissures in Palestinian society - a collision of secular Arab nationalism, Iranian exported political Islam, and almost two decades of home-grown incitement. That's not it. It's the Zionists' fault.

"All" is a dangerous word. We advise our undergrads against using it in their papers, because it's almost never true. It sticks out, and tips off the reader that the author is trying too hard to push an agenda. So when Mohammed Omer writes "all these disputes and fighting started" at a particular time - and yet he's demonstrably and egregious wrong in obvious ways - well, he comes off looking like an ignorant, pro-Palestinian hack.

But let's ignore the hackneyed heart-string pulling and demonstrable factual errors (it's the BBC writing about Israel - we're talking about a different set of standards here). So ignore the mind bending paternalism implied in blaming the US for how the Palestinians are acting like well-armed, petulant children. Here's the fundamental question: the US withheld aid from a genocidal Hamas government - so effing what? That's what people are supposed to do with genocidal governments! Why should the US give money to Hamas if Hamas openly declares that they're going to use it to fund terrorism? Hamas refused to recognize Israel which is the only reason that the Palestinians get aid in the first place. This isn't genocidal maniac summer camp. You don't get treated well just for showing up. The Palestinian government led by Hamas made a conscious decision not to meet its treaty obligations, and the US said "well if you're not going to meet yours, then we're certainly not going to fund your terrorism". And then the Palestinians started killing each other. But that doesn't make it the US's fault that the Palestinians are killing each other. It makes it the Palestinians' fault. Because they're the ones who, you know, choose their actions. It's usually cute how the British left can find an anti-Zionist and anti-American angle to everything, but honestly this one is kind of stupid.

Previously: The BBC Lies, The BBC Can't Even Write Coherent Anti-Israel Propaganda, Strange, Vaguely Anti-Israel BBC Headlines Make Them Seem Almost... Reflexively Anti-Israel

And here, to balance out the MTA is run by a bunch of retarded chimps story from earlier, is a story about heroic and efficient LA first responders. From the always interesting LAFD blog:

Previously: PSA: How Not To Burn Your House Down, Black Death Breaks Out In Los Angeles, Dogs OK In LA Bars

Jimmy Carter is an idiot:

Not that anyone on the hard left will ever know, since they're still convinced - in the words of some insipid ZMag anti-Semitic anti-Zionist nutjob - that all non-Jews are second class citizens. Yes, all of them. Even the Cabinet Ministers.

Pathological nutjobs. (h/t: Stan)

Previously: Arab-Israeli Peace in Practice, Hamas Decides to Be Helpful, Illustrates Many Ways International Law is Structured Against Israel, Arab Fifth Column Watch - OK, See, That's Almost Definitionally Treason

People need to get fired:

Probably nothing to worry about. After all, it's not like terrorists ever run dress rehearsals or probe the weaknesses of US public transportation systems. As near as we can tell from an admittedly unscientific survey, Los Angeles must have the dumbest emergency response setup on the planet. The only people dumber than the MTA people trained to detect terrorists are the TSA people working LAX.

One more thing:

For crying out loud, can somebody please be put in charge of something? Please?

Previously: Pelosi To Take Stance On The Side Of Airline Imams?, Airport Security in This Country is a Bad Joke, Are These Union Jobs?

Posted this morning to YouTube and well worth a minute of your time. If you follow closely, there's a special treat for aficionados of Meryl's Israeli Double Standard Time:

Obviously, these people should be treated with kid gloves. Just like John Kerry tells us to (via Giyus, the site structure of which we still can't figure out).

Previously: Another Day, Another Iranian Promise To Nuke Israel (Plus: More Anti-Dem Spin), Olmert's Disclosure Of Israel's Nuclear Capability: At Wost, Harmless, Washington Post: We Were Wrong. Please Bomb Iran and Syria ASAP. Thank You.

At the beginning of the month it was toys:

Now it's pets:

We're not going to go the PETA route and say that it's worse to kill animals than humans because animals are uninvolved in the human-engineered conflict. We'll pose a more modest question: what kind of animal targets children and pets for deliberate destruction? We're not talking rationally on a scale of "well this group deserves this much violence, while this group only deserves this much violence..." Just on a visceral, human level - who the hell hides bombs in pigeon cages and toys? Who the hell wants to murder children and pets? There are very, very deep instincts buried very, very deep in humans that scream against this. In a very clinical sense, you have to be very sick - beyond help - to coldly do something like this.

We're trying to figure out a way that we can blame Israel for what these barbarians do, but we just can't come up with anything. No worries, we're sure that the left side of the blogosphere will come up with some reason.

Previously: In Which Mere Rhetoric Sympathizes With Terrorists, Arab Actor Refuses to Play Jewish Character, Hey Gals, Check This Out - Pathological Islamism in Germany

John Kerry is a member of the centrist DLC wing of the Democratic Party, and is only two years out from being the party's leader. Here's what he said in Davos this weekend while sitting next to the former President of Iran:

Keep in mind that he's talking about the US being "a sort of international pariah" while sitting next to the former President of Iran. Iran of course being the country that is currently under a UN sanctions regime because they're building nukes and promising to wipe out a UN member state. So there's that.

Remember the time that Kerry said that if he was elected, he would either send Jimmy Carter or James Baker to dictate terms to Israel for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal? And then that other time when four out of five American Jews voted for him anyway, because they found that totally reasonable? Good times.

Previously: MR Has A Question For Democratic Jews: Are You Fucking Retarded?, Israelis For Kerry, Jews For Kerry, and Israeli Jews for Kerry, Kerry Declares He Knows What's Best For Israel

Over the weekend, a 6 year old boy was killed in a crossfire because Hamas and Fatah militias. It's been covered in a couple of news outlets, but honestly no one seems to give a damn. This is in sharp contrast to the arguably faked death of 12 year old Mohammed al-Dura that France2 deliberately edited, narrated, and distributed as a perhaps the emblem of the global New Anti-Semitism. The difference? Hysterical anti-Zionists scream that al-Dura was shot by Israelis, while the undeniable truth is that this little six year old was killed by rival Palestinian militias (for what it's worth, al-Dura was probably killed- but it was almost certainly by Palestinian gunfire).

So here's a little Sunday morning quiz for you: will this six year old's death inspire devotional music videos like the arguably staged and definitely not accurately reported death of al Dura? What about cartoons inspire Palestinian children's shows urging Palestinian children to go out and kill Jews? Articles in academic journals?

If not, does that mean that it's not really "the plight of children" that gets people really screaming at those anti-Semitic anti-Zionist "peace" rallies? And is anyone still surprised by this?

Previously: If Anti-Zionism Isn't Supposed to Be Anti-Semitism, Someone Should Probably Tell the Anti-Zionists, Palestinian Government Publishes Holocaust Denial On Web As Part Of ''We?re Not Even Trying To Hide It Any More'' Campaign (Also: The Rhetoric of Anti-Semitism - Introduction), Leftist Public Intellectual Noam Chomsky Demonstrably Wrong About Reality. Again.

You know how you can read something in a newspaper lede and - without knowing anything about the context or the writer - how you can know that something's wrong? Like there's a word that clangs loudly to the ground because it doesn't fit - something that's obviously a hamfisted attempt to frame the story in a particular way? And you can't believe that somebody thought they were being subtle when they wrote it - but it's more aggravating because you just know that they were pleased with themselves. Like the hack who inserted the word "kingpin" into this Reuters lede:

Well that's funny. We've never heard Reuters refer to any political leader as a "kingpin" before. That's a word that they usually seem to prefer for Israeli drug lords and Jewish producers. Never ever ever ever ever for political leaders. And Mohammed Dahlan isn't just any political leader. He's a member of the Palestinian parliament and the presumptive favorite to lead Fatah after Palestinian President Abbas exits the stage. In a story about Hamas thugs fighting Fatah thugs, why would you smear Dahlan of all people?

Dahlan is the closest thing you get to a moderate among Palestinian leaders. Which is to say that while he does occasionally throw around vicious anti-Semitic blood libels (although not enough to reach positions of power in the UN), he is also at least arguably open to recognizing Israel. He's so much a Palestinian centrist that he's regularly vilified as an Israeli-American agent by the Arab media and Hamas. Hamas, in fact, has been trying to kill him for a while.

Why - of all the Palestinian leaders - would you want to frame the story to make Dahlan look like the instigator? We're not ready to declare that this journalist is deliberately trying to make readers view Hamas sympathetically or to minimize Hamas's role for the chaos. But we will point out that Dahlan - who this journalist smeared - is arguably the lead Fatah figure working to undermine the Hamas government.

And so of course the author is Reuters propagandist Nidal al-Mughrabi. We're thinking of adding tags to MR just so we can keep track of this jagoff. Here he is:

* Misleading readers about Hamas's violation of international law
* Being vaguely celebratory about the ambush of Israel soldiers
* Doting on an arch-terrorist that Israel brought justice to
* Defending human shields by calling them protesters
* Calling rockets falling on Israeli schoolhouses a ceasefire (usual warnings apply about how everybody was doing that)

So yeah, that's the guy reporting on Israel for The International Wire That's Still Better Than AP. "Fatah kingpin" indeed. Seriously, who writes that? Who even thinks that's OK?

Previously: http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11272895.html, Reuters Pretends That History Is What Reuters Would Like History To Be, Reuters Has No Idea What's Going on in Israel

We live in an age of hypersensitivity, where individuals and corporations are expected to go out of their way to avoid giving offense. It doesn't matter, incoherent, or hypocritical someone's "identity" is - in our multicultural age, boycotts can be called and threats can be made on the most absurd pretexts. This isn't just about the world exploding when the Pope gave a dry speech about Biblical hermeneutics. It's about Burger King changing the design on their ice cream cones because the swirl looked too much like the word Allah - and someone darkly dropped the word "sacreligious". It's also about Air New Zealand proactively bleeping out the word God from the movie The Queen so Muslims wouldn't get offended.

And in this age of hypersensitivity toward everything and everyone, the Apple retailer in Korea's biggest mall is showing off their tasteful collection of Nazi soldiers::

You can click through for more pics. It's predictably sickening.

Obviously, the most noticeable thing is how this is another point on the graph labeled "the world's increasing and disturbing indifference to anti-Semitism". Jewish sensibilities have become increasingly expendable as quotidian global anti-Semitism becomes more pervasive. But if you don't know that indifference to anti-Semitism is back - well, then you haven't been following the Carter travesty.

But there's another issue that should be raised - the flip side of the world's indifference to Jewish sensitivity is the absurd deference that they give to even the most absurd Muslim claims of intolerance. And the logical conclusion of that is... that the walking on eggshells approach that the West takes to Islam is not driven by anything like "tolerance" or "multiculturalism". It can't be - if that was really what was going on, then all religions would get the same sensitivity. Hell, there's even an argument to be made that Jewish claims of discrimination should be getting more credit: "Nazi displays are anti-Semitic" is a lot more credible than "that ice cream swirl design is sacreligious".

But when Apple resellers are showing displays of Nazis, it makes a mockery of the claim that museums are removing pictures of Allah because of "sensitivity". Of course, the open secret is that no one really takes charges of Islamophobia seriously - that's not what causes them to respond to high-pitched Muslim accusations of intolerance. Rather, they're responding to the subtle (and, frankly, not very subtle) threats of open violence - it's not for nothing that Muslim leaders talk about how sacrilege "may incite violence in the community". But no one wants to admit that they're giving up free speech in the face of violence - so Western leaders call it multiculturalism. But honestly, does anyone believe that any more? It's not said out loud really, but does anyone believe it? And of course Muslim leaders are happy to not declare that the Emperor is an unclothed dhimmi - why would they change anything, when right now they're winning without even having to fight? (via Boing Boing)

Previously: The World's Oldest Hatred: Maybe Not Fashionable, But Not Not Fashionable, Matthew Yglesias: Anti-Semitic Genocidal Maniacs Are Hip, Terrorists Are Fashionable (UPDATED AND BUMPED: Yglesias Article From Today Predictably Anti-Semitish), French Teacher 'Sends' Jewish Student to Furnace

In the midst of the Papal Jihad, a Nigerian Muslim accused his Christian tailor of blasphemy. Before the ensuring riots were over, sixteen churches had been burned to the ground in a mysteriously coordinated campaign:

Hey. If Christians in any country went on a riot of any size and burned any mosques, we suspect we'd still be seeing stories. In fact, we know we'd still be seeing stories.

Previously: Funny or Not Funny (Papal Jihad Edition), NYT Editors Condescend to Pope Benedict XVI, Complain That His Really Good Points Hurt People's Feelings, The Guardian, For One, Welcomes Our New Islamist Masters (Plus: Karen Anderson Our New Most Hateful Journalist. Today)

Khamenei is making Ahmadinejad be more moderate!
Khamenei is making Ahmadinejad be more moderate!
Khamenei is making Ahmadinejad be more moderate!

Awesome! Does this mean Iran's going to start opening up their nuclear facilities and meeting their international non-proliferation obligations? Umm. No, not exactly:

Oh. Well that sucks.

Previously: IAEA Plays Charlie Brown To Iran's Lucy, IAEA: Maybe Iran Is Developing Nukes and Maybe They're Not, The IAEA - What A Bunch Of Idiots

UPDATE: No sooner do we propose that people who dress like terrorists should be circumspect, then we find Yglesias article from this morning. It's the usual nonsense - the pro-Israel lobby prevents anyone from anyone from criticizing them. This argument has always contradictory- if you can publish an article about censorship, then it's not very effective censorship. And in a global environment where Israel is trashed by a UN that it pays dues to with annual events demanding that it cease existing - well, then the "we can't say anything bad about Israel" goes from contradictory to stupid. But now it's just getting pathetic. These over-educated Che wannabes (or is that now suicide bomber wanabes) just want soooo much to be chic resistance fighters. They're willing to pretend that there's this big bad Jewish conspiracy stifling "legitimate criticism of Israel" in America - which is convenient, since that makes them the brave, lone voices of patriotic dissent. How willfully stupid do you have to be to believe that criticizing Israel is brave in a liberal thinktank or on a college campus? Seriously.

ORIGINAL (07:40 PST) - We got this from Anne this morning , who's following up on a MR post we did last September. Our post was about Matt Yglesias saying that Bush should follow the example of genocidal lunatic Ahmadinejad... because Ahmadinejad is hip.

Yglesias is among the elite of the elite of liberal bloggers and grassroots opinion-setters. He's a staff writer for The American Prospect, one of the bastions of contemporary leftist intellectualism. In his own mind he is a serious person - so much so that he modestly subtitles his blog "a reality based weblog".

Though - while being a Nuanced And Serious Person in his own mind (as opposed to the President, to whom he talks down) - he also thinks that it's oh so witty to dress like a terrorist:

Terrorist chic is merely the latest retarded hipster trend to confirm the brutally obvious: spoiled liberal Ivy kids are not ready to talk to adults yet. The Left is not serious. They just don't get things. Like "terrorism is not ironic or cool". They just don't get it. They're in it for the smirks - and for their parochial back-patting sessions regarding their imagined cosmopolitan superiority.

Previously: Liberal Back-Patters Get Dismantled by Real Life Expert, Things That Are Awesome About The Recent "Don't Worry About the Strange, Nazi-Like Iranian Behind the Curtain" LA Times / CFR Article, OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute

You people think you're so clever constantly mocking our creepy obsessions innocent diversions. But that's only because you haven't seen the sheer genius of the newest Tasha video. It becomes positively inspired at about 3:35. You'll see.

You keep up the mocking and next Friday will be nothing but clips of animated talking animals. That, and how Shimon Peres is an Israeli hero. Because we know you love those posts.

Previously: Original Tasha and Dishka Videos, MR Soccer Video Mania, Hey Gals, Check This Out - Joyful Israeli Girls A Stark Contrast To Girls In Arab And Muslim World

Combine our love of the sauce with our insistence that animals are making slow but steady progress in taking over the world. Plus, it's Friday. Perfect:

A fair point. For what it's worth, you can already do this in some Los Angeles hiptard dive bars. Seriously. We were at downtown's Bar 107 last week (our review of the place for Gridskipper here) and some guy just brings in this giant black Labrador. Magic with the women-folk.

Previously: The Coming Battle, Yet Another Reason To Move To Paperless Credit Card Statements, Talking Animals - Not Just For Really Funny Movies Any More

All well and good. But did you know that the policy thus far has been to catch the little darlings and then release them?

Seriously - we're trying to be sarcastic here, but we're just failing. Of course the US has been losing in Iraq - they're capturing their enemies and then letting them go back into the battlefield to try again. It's like a playground game - you get captured, and then there's a pause and everyone goes back to where they started. Except it's a war, and it's against the 21st century's greatest threat to Western civilization. So it's nice that US soldiers are allowed to kill them now. Huge step.

Previously: Hamas Victory - Now Can We Start Worrying About Iran?, Another Holy Month? Are You Kidding? (Also, Some Real News About Iraq), Democratic Leader "Pleased" Israel Has No Plans To Defend Itself From Iran

Usual warnings apply: more interested in killing Jews, not enough energy to conduct a civil war, etc. But since we know that most of you just ignore us when we insist that Fatah and Hamas will never go to full out war - and since we know it makes you happy to think they might start focusing on each other instead of Israeli schoolchildren... well, happy Friday:

Obviously ready for their own state. Honestly, there's nothing these people need more right now than to be given money, weapons, and logistical training.

Previously: Palestinian Civil War Non-Watch - Kidnappings, Palestinian Non-Civil War Watch: Lots Of Shooting, AP: Poor, Downtrodden Palestinians Leaving Their Beloved Homeland

This morning, Drudge linked to a WND article that quoted Carter being a raving anti-Semite:

To say we are skeptical about this article does a disservice to the concept of rationality and doubt. We are skeptical about whether extra-terrestrials have made contact with human beings. That's a correct use of the word "skeptical". Our opinion about this article is closer to what we think about magical fairy dust that would allow us to finish our thesis on time: sure, it'd be convenient if it existed, but it doesn't.

If Carter is anti-Semitic, then it's because decades of old-school Jews Killed Christ evangelicalism has metastasized into a staggering indifference to Jewish sensibilities, causes, and arguments. It's not just that he's a doddering old fool - he's a doddering old fool who seems deeply suspicious of anything that most Jews say. But come on - he's not throwing people off of committees because their names sound too Jewish. Don't be stupid.

That said, he's got one of the loudest megaphones on the planet - so when his rhetoric becomes indistinguishable from that of the New Anti-Semites, the relative exuberance or latency of his anti-Semitism becomes kind of beside the point.

Previously: Carter Should Not Be Accepting Boatloads Of Money From Radical Islamists, Jimmy Carter - Not Necessarily Pro-Nazi, But Not Categorically Anti-Nazi Either, Is Jimmy Carter Just An Old-Fashioned Christian Fundamentalist, Anti-Semitic Bigot?

Unless we're misreading this, UC Davis physics prof John Conway just announced experimental results that seem to indicate a sighting of the Higgs Boson... on his blog (?!). Discovering the Higgs boson, also known as the God Particle, would put the final touches on the Standard Model that describes all known physical particles.

Previously: Nintendo A Cappella, Robots Will Soon Run Things Around Here, ZZZ

We don't think we've posted this one yet. It includes one of the greatest lines ever recored in any Western history book ever:

The line is of course recorded in The Histories, by Herodotus, Book VII.226-227:

You have to read a little between the lines, but we think this article means that VDH will cut you if you trash this movie.

Previously: 300 Trailer, This Will Not Be Our Last Bow, VDH on Israel

Yeah, obviously:

Because we're still kind of bitter about the whole what the hell are Jewish Americans thinking thing, here's your spin on how the two main American parties view the Islamic Republic:

Republicans:

Democrats:

And by "first seek congressional authorization" they mean "first seek and fail to get congressional authorization". But not to worry. We're sure they have a secret plan for dealing with the radical Muslims sending Iran to the brink of all-out war. Maybe they'll even call in Jimmy Carter, since he did such a fantastic job last time.

Previously: Richard Perle: U.S. will attack Iran if it obtains nukes, Reuters Publishes State Department Leak: US Attack On Iran Would Be All-Out War, Iran Admits It Armed Hezbollah, In Violation of Every International Law Ever

Charming:

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