Dishka's total lack of interest while she flips through the book is all kinds of disaffected hipster awesome:

Exit question: is it really the case that the only problem in our life is that we're not the guy dancing with Tasha? Could be, could very well be.

Shabbat shalom everybody

References:
* Lip sync is dead [tasha / YouTube]

Previously:
* Video: Tasha Fridays, Two For One
* Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Mmmm. Beer.
* Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Go Cry, Emo Kid [Video]

Here's the really unseemly thing about these vicious, genocidal Islamic lunatics - total ingrates:

What does a misguided American administration have to do to get some love from these people? They kept Israel leashed during the entire war - no attacks on Lebanese infrastructure being used by Hezbollah, no attacks against Hezbollah infrastructure that was connected to the government, etc. Israel couldn't get Nasrallah while he was in Beirut because Israeli attacks on Beirut were - wait for it - being strongly condemned by the State Department. And still nothing.

Not that we're surprised. If Hezbollah ever acknowledged that the IDF would have dismantled them but for the US, people might ask just how close the IDF actually came? Answer: very close. So close that Nasrallah is not sure he wants to test his luck again. Of course, Iran might make him anyway - depends on how much heat they're feeling for their nuclear program - but wouldn't someone who's constructing a slick museum about his "divine victory" want to ride Allah's good graces all the way into Tel Aviv?

Incidentally, there are some particularly zealous anti-Israel leftists who really, really wish that Hezbollah had achieved a great military victory. You know what the problem with that is? The part of history when Nasrallah was crawling to Arab leaders begging them to have the US call the IDF off.

References:
* Hezbollah's Creepy New Museum [TNR]
* Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win [MR]
* Nasrallah: Hezbollah Doesn't Want Another Great Victory Over the Zionists [MR]
* Hezbollah to Arab Countries: We're Losing the War. Quick, Someone Impose a Ceasefire. [MR]

Previously:
* Mere Rhetoric: Nasrallah Is More Honest About Iran Than The British Press
* Hezbollah To Lebanon: Nice Country You Got Here... Be a Real Shame If Anything Happened To It
* Olmert: Hezbollah Got Trounced

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers
* Israpundit

Allah reports that there are to be house parties held throughout the land in celebration. MR will even be holding our own house party in support of the campaign. Except by "house" we mean "bar" and by "party" we mean "tab". But it will be in support of the campaign - upon that you can rely.

Hey, what do you think the odds are that the AP writeup included a drive-by slam at Jeri Thompson? Answer: Yes:

"Consternation about the active role of Thompson's wife, Jeri."
"Consternation about the active role of Thompson's wife, Jeri."
Where have we seen that line before?

Oh yeah, earlier this week when the AP used the exact same line to trash Jeri. This isn't scandalous or anything, but it does show a certain degree of total mind boggling laziness on the part of AP hacks. If you're going to try to get a meme to congeal, the least you can do is not use the exact. same. line. We're not asking for objectivity here. Just a little effort.

Seriously - this line was so obviously a poorly written awkward smear that we bolded it the last time that the AP dropped it into their "news reporting". And now they did it again - because apparently no anti-Republican smear is too ham fisted to use just once.

References:
* Report: Fred plans to announce plans to announce — on September 6th; Update: Confirmed [Hot Air]
* Thompson to Announce Bid Sept. 6 [AP via Forbers]
* Fake Fred! Campaign Launch Video Hits YouTube - Complete With Charming "He's A Nazi" Clip [MR]

Previously:
* Stupid Journalism Tricks: The NYT's Atttack On Jeri Thompson Is Sexist Even Though They Quoted Other People
* NPR In Denial About Sexism On the Left, Gets MR Exactly Wrong On Jeri Thompson
* Meet Jeri Thompson, the Powerful Republican Consultant That Grassroots Liberals Will Be Attacking As A Bimbo

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

Did the Democrats really stack the GAO surge report by asking if the Iraqis had "completed" the benchmarks? Really?

We're inclined to agree with Hitchens that you don't just quit because things are going poorly...

... but that doesn't excuse this transparent - and, frankly, pathetic - little stunt. How did they possibly think that they could get away with this? How are they getting away with this? Chalk another one up for the contemptible misery of the domestic political press corps.

More and more of our commentary on Democrats is getting reduced to just an disbelieving "really?", italicized for emphasis. This could be because our writing has deteriorated or it could be because Democratic stunts are becoming ever more shameless. Probably little of column A, little of column B.

References:
* A Pathetic Preemptive Strike [Weekly Standard]
* Hitchens on Iraq [Hoover.org / Google Video]
* This Is Simply Surreal. Congressional Democrats Are Refusing To Support the British Hostages Kidnapped By Iran. [MR]

Previously:
* [Video] What You Get When You Vote For Democrats - Empowering Conspiracy Theory Wackos
* Tell Me Again About How Democrats Can Be Trusted
* Memo To Democratic Jews: "US Engagement In The Peace Process" Is Bad For Israel, Barack Obama Edition

Wrap your mind around this: the NYT is actually not burying the lede on the IAEA's report of massive Iranian advancement in the development of weapons-grade nuclear material. Of course, just about everybody else has found an anti-American, pro-Iranian spin in the report: "yeah, but they're slowing down the new ways that they're violating UN resolutions". But for some reason, not the NYT. Wonders never cease:

Then they go on to say that the rate of increase is slowing, which they understand is not particularly comforting. If Iran keeps slowing down in how fast they're violating UN sanctions, they might almost not be building any more centrifuges after they reach 25,000 or so! super!

But compare the NYT's take - which does nothing except point out that Iran is continuing to engage in activities that violate UN sanctions, but is violating them in new ways more slowly - with the reports from other MSM sources:

AP: UN agency hails Iran's nuclear progress
PRNewswire: Latest Report From IAEA on Iran: a Reason to Ratchet Down Threatening Rhetoric
IHT: U.S. and ElBaradei at odds over Iran's nuclear program
Fars: IAEA Report Dismisses US Charges against Iran

The Fars report is expected of course. But it's still kind of eerie on how the spin from most Western media sources exactly matches the spin of the Iranian state-controlled press. And by "eerie" we mean "predictable."

Then again, does the AP really count as "Western" any more?

UPDATE: The NYT is getting all kinds of "credit where it's due" accolades from the center-right blogosphere this morning. Eh. Must be a Friday.

References:
* Iran Expanding Its Nuclear Program, Agency Reports [NYT]

Previously:
* Are You Kidding?!?! AP Coverage Of Israeli Hit On Hamas Terrorists Is Frustrating.
* AP: IDF Murders Civilian Who Innocently Wandered Up To His Roof In the Middle Of A Firefight
* Associated Press: "We are all Hezbollah" is Not Anti-Israel

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

It's Friday, the real news is depressing, and this has a connection to our most recent alma mater. Plus it brutalizes the LA Times, which around here makes it pure media critique gold:

Multiple links embedded in the original, but we're going to make you click through as a small way of making up for our somewhat lax interpretations of fair use. The problem with those Annenberg School sinecures, by the by, is that eventually they expect you to produce something. Trust us on this. You can put it off for a year or two, but eventually they make demands for "papers" and "progress toward your [sic] PhD." Or so we've heard.

References:
* Who Has to Try to Kill Themselves in this Town to Make the Front Page? [Kausfiles]

Previously:
* Slate's Negative Review of 300 Provides Countless Reasons To See The Movie
* I Wish I Had An LA Times Subscription, So I Could Cancel It
* Maybe the Dumbest Slate Headline Ever

We know that AIPAC has been under a ton of pressure lately, what with all their studious and correct not caring at all about Walt and Mearsheimer's "the Jews have brainwashed good Christian boys and girls" hysterics. And so we've made this:

This map starts at AIPAC and goes to the row of Israeli markets and bakeries on Fairfax. Inside these markets and bakeries there are shelves and shelves of decent hummus. If you're from AIPAC, nota bene: this hummus does not resemble the "hummus" from your events in appearance, texture, color, or taste. This is not a coincidence. You're welcome.

References:
* Israel And AIPAC: We'll Respond To Walt And Mearsheimer When Their Vicious Anti-Semitism Gets Sophisticated Or Relevant (Plus: MR Is Suspicious About Leftist Pro-Mearsheimer Enthusiasm) [MR]

Previously:
* Sen. Clinton Takes Temporary Hardline Stance Against Iran... At AIPAC Meeting
* FBI Sets Up Jews, J. Edgar Hoover Proud
* Anti-Israel Censorship Watch - Walt and Mearsheimer Redux

Hey, just in case anybody is keeping track at home - yes, Palestinian terrorists are still trying to commit mass atrocities:

The soldiers of every other country on the planet would have shot the boy dead where he stood rather than risking their own lives. Every other country on the planet. The French? You think the French would risk their precious little hides just to prevent a teenage boy from killing himself? Let alone soldiers from the vast majority of the Arab world, who last we checked were strafing Palestinian refugee camps with helicopters to the total silence of the rest of the world. As to who cares more about the lives of Palestinian kids:

That incident was reported across the planet, by the by, as an implicitly vicious attack on Palestinian children. The part about how Hamas had assigned them to pick up rocket launchers so that they could be reused to attack Israeli schoolhouses and hospitals - that part got left out a bunch of times, mysteriously.

References:
* IDF troops foil suicide attack near Gaza border [JPost]
* Lebanese helicopter strafes militants [JPost]
* World Approves Of Israeli Defense Minister's Promise: We Will Kill 10 Terrorists For Every Soldier Killed, "Negotiations Are Out Of the Question" [Video] [MR]

Previously:
* Palestinian Tech Innovation: New And Better Suicide Belts
* Children Suicide Bombers
* AP Bias Alert Level: Obvious (Grandma Suicide Bomber Edition)

This appeared in the Hot Air headlines earlier this week, and is hereby rescued in all of its sheer awesomeness:

The Danger Room article goes on to point out that defense companies have been promising us these things for three decades, and that we shouldn't expect any field-operated laser rifles any time soon. Which is kind of like giving a kitten a cute little ball of string and then taking it away, all while pointing and laughing. Sadists.

References:
* Tactical Laser Flashback [Danger Room]

Previously:
* Thursday Military Tech - Soldiers In South Korea's Automated Army
* Thursday Military Tech - Self-Healing Invisibility Shields
* Thursday Military Tech - Blowing Things Up From the Inside Of A Helicopter

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

We'd like to thank the State Department for keeping the IAF leashed during Lebanon II, the United Nations for stopping the war just as Israeli soldiers were getting poured across the border, and pretty much everyone else for the fantastic job they've been doing with Iran:

Of course, any significant Hezbollah attack would now also send the IAF to Syria's doorstep. So at least Russia's not also pouring offensive and defensive weapons into Syria. We're not too worried. The UN was very clear that they would prevent any arms smuggling to Hezbollah, if only Israel agreed to withdraw behind the border.

References:
* J'lem worried by Iranian owned anti-ship missile [JPost]
* Syria Modernizing Its Airforce With Russian Help - War With Israel On The Horizon [MR]

Previously:
* And the Wheels Come Off - (3) Russia
* Russia: Hamas and Hezbollah Aren't Terrorist Organizations. We Have No Objections in Principle.
* Lebanon PM Has a Plan - Israel Will Stop Defending Itself, and Then Hezbollah Will Be Disarmed By the Make Believe Army that Exists Only in His Mind. Brilliant!

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers
* Israpundit

Sometimes when Iran talks about wiping out six million Jews, it seems like 1938. Sometimes when they're rebuilding their military and bringing it to par with the rest of the planet, it's more like 1933:

Happy Thursday.

References:
* YouTube - Iran unveils 'smart bomb' [StefanSchmiederer / YouTube]

Previously:
* Iran Test-Fires Dozens Of Nuke-Ready Long Range Missiles In "Great Prophet" Exercises
* Iran Elected To UN Human Rights Council, Appointed To Plan Anti-Racism Conference. Hey, Why Not?
* Purdue Nuclear Strategy Expert: Bomb Iran Now

Mainstream Israeli hip hop expressing themes of socio-economic egalitarianism and justice that the international left should be quite supportive of. For some reason they're not. Instead, millions and millions of ostensible social leftists march in the streets hysterically screaming about how the Jewish State has to be destroyed. Must be objective and dispassionate anti-Zionism driving the whole thing:

Translation note: "ha matzav" is "the situation," which is roughly idiomatic for "this situation in which the Palestinians and their Arab allies refuse to stop trying to wipe out millions and millions of Israeli Jews".

References:
* Subliminal:Live From Day to Day Chai Mi Yom Leyom (Eng subs) [davy1031 / YouTube]

Previously:
* The Kids, They Love Themselves Some Israeli Hiphop [Video]
* Afternoon Zionist Hip Hop - Divided and Conquered [Video]
* Miri Ben-Ari and Subliminal: God Almighty When Will It End [Video]

Pop quiz: what does Hamas hate more than "having their own people die slow, painful deaths"? If you answered "doctors", you're the big winner. Except in a particularly sad and tragic way:

Here is where we'd predict that Israel is going to get blamed by the UN, Red Cross, and global media for the soon-to-be-declared "Gaza health care crises". But we're going to try to avoid that: it's the obvious prediction, it's obviously going to come true, and then we'll have to hunt down this post for a "we told you so" follow-up. And those are both time consuming and depressing.

Then again, the new tags system makes things a little easier. One click on "intentional-humanitarian-crisis" - boom, instant crowing. Immediately afterwards: anger, sorrow, and vodka as the natural reaction to how blatantly Hamas can civilians and how predictably Israel gets blamed.

PS - Ibrahim Barzak (not our favorite person) got through an entire article without blaming Israel for something that's obviously not Israel's fault. Golf clap.

References:
* Hamas Shuts Fatah-Linked Gaza Clinics [AP]
* So This Is What Hamas Means By "Respecting Past Agreements" (Bonus: AP's Ibrahim Barzak Whitewashing Palestinian Terrorism Again?) [MR]

Previously:
* UN And "Gaza Businessmen" Agree: It's Israel's Fault That Hamas Has Intentionally Created A Humanitarian Disaster In the Gaza Strip By Blocking Food and Medical Shipments
* AP: Yup, Humanitarian Crisis Intentionally Caused By Hamas Is Still Israel's Fault
* Hamas Blocks Israeli Food Shipments, Intentionally Starves Gaza Civilians To Create A Humanitarian Disaster - Again!

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

Because honestly, why wouldn't they?

Here's a video we haven't posted in a while. It randomly came over the YouTube feed this morning, so why not:

Luckily, the mid-level career civil servants at the State Department are sophisticated enough to understand all the benefits of funding people who openly declare themselves to be mortal enemies of the US and its allies.

References:
* Report: U.S. Funding Hamas Groups (8/28/07) [The Bulletin]
* Cruel twisted evil Palestinians cheering 9/11 [rachdingue / YouTube]

Previously:
* US State Department: Lebanon Is Not Responsible for Hezbollah
* The State Department - Traitorous Incompetents or Incompetent Traitors?
* US State Department: By "Shun" Terrorist Governments We Mean "Not Shun"

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

We're kind of fibbing in the hed, since that quote is only in reference to a specific part of the project. But if you want to get a sense for the incalculable loss that the human history will suffer - again - if they allow millions of Jews to be overrun, get to at least the middle where they go through the dozens of Israeli contributions to the current work at CERN. And if you have a couple more minutes, the very typical Israeli back and forth about budgetary matters is pretty amusing:

Takeaway 1: That basic faith in the progress of science and light and humanity - obviously the result of a warlike culture that needs to be cut off from the rest of the planet because they're just so damn Jewish evil.

Takeaway 2: When they say "scientists from all over the world," don't you think they're being just a touch overgenerous?

References:
* Scientists trying to reconstruct the Big Bang [DsuperJew / YouTube]

Previously:
* Neat - Israeli Nanobots To Revolutionize Medicine
* Israeli Universities Apparently Oppressing Other Universities in the Middle East
* Hey Ireland, Shove It

Two things. One: remember when Comedy Central wouldn't allow Matt and Trey to show a cartoon of Mohammad and everybody was like "this is an example of creeping sharia" and then it turned out that much of the media ended up self-censoring even the most benign Islam-related jokes? And how that last part was right now? Two: turns out, they really just hate Family Guy:

Manatees with idea balls, by the by, may be the funniest thing in the history of television. We will gladly defend that assertion.

References:
* Video: Steyn on the Opus non-controversy and “creeping shari’a” [Hot Air]
* Cartoon Wars (Exclusive [IGN]

Previously:
* This Will Not Be Our Last Bow
* PBS Documentary Controversy Demonstrates Why Bipartisan Screams Of Bias Do Not Mean That A Program Is Balanced. Or Wasn't Hijacked By Soft Islamists.
* Sephardic Rabbi Inadvertently Becomes Metaphor for Clash of Civilizations. Not in a Good Way.

Oh come on:

We're not saying that he's not Europe's second-best hope when it comes to growing a spine and holding on to what's left of its Western legacy - here's another article from yesterday that implies that he very much is. But really? Here's an article that the GLORIA Center's Barry Rubin, he of "knows something about Syria" fame, put out yesterday:

The article goes on from there. Suffice to say: engagement with Syria will not make them less crazy. It might, however, be just enough to get Syria not to attack the UNIFIL troops that France - brimming to the hilt with machismo - put in Lebanon to "sort things out". And now France has to go begging not to be attacked. This all seems familiar, somehow.

References:
* France's Sarkozy raises prospect of Iran airstrikes [Reuters]
* France tells Europe to pull its weight on defense [Reuters]
* Engage, Moderate, Split [GLORIA]

Previously:
* France To Disarm Hezbollah
* Israel Politely Requests That UN Allow UNIFIL Soldiers To Do Their Damn Jobs
* France to Lead UNIFIL

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

Seriously? This is what we're supposed to be caring about now? Memo to Abe Foxman: not your job. We don't care where anyone falls on this resolution. Right or wrong, totally symbolic or genuinely meaningful. We don't care. It might even feel very good in that insipid identity politics standing in solidarity with the oppressed kind of way, but it's not your job. Doesn't Mel Gibson have a movie or something coming out? What about evangelical Christians? If they're trying to help Israel, you better tell them to knock that off. Tool:

This and making lewd comments about pregnant ultra-orthodox schoolteachers. That's what we've got today. Can this month just end already please?

References:
* Israel must get US Jews to back down, Turkey's envoy tells 'Post' [JPost]
* It's Tuesday, So the ADL is Concerned About Evangelical Christians [MR]

Previously:
* UC Irvine Gives Interview to Anti-Semitic Hate Group, Wonders Why Everyone Thinks There's Anti-Semitism on Their Campus
* ADL Thinks Real Hard, Identifies Religious Threat to American Jews - Christians!
* Evangelical Support for Israel - It's Not Because They Hate Jews

Hot:

Yeah, we have the same problem. Anyway, a couple of questions:

(1) Is Shas still in the government? What do these people do - other than like undermining principled centrist governments and taking money from left-wing coalitions, the latter in exchange for providing Knesset safety nets for misguided peace deals?

(2) Is there any way we can get this young woman's contact info?

(3) Shouldn't Shas be undermining Israeli democracy or something? Honestly, punishing women for being "immodest" - that's not really helping the "West vs. Islam" image that we've been trying to push.

References:
* Shas preschool seeking to fire teacher for 'immodest behavior' [Ha'aretz]
* Shas Has Brilliant Idea About How They Would Run Things If Israel Wasn't A Democracy

Previously:
* Ha'aretz Confused About Just How Great Peretz Is - Great or Super Great?
* Israeli Politics Roundup - 2007-05-07 - It's Futile No Confidence Motion Day In the Knesset
* Seriously, Get A Hobby

You have to hand it to them - the extra cleverness of the registered 'imwithfredblog' username adds a touch that would otherwise be lacking from this political smear job. Inquiring minds want to know:

(1) who in the Thompson campaign needs to get fired for not having the basic common sense to snap up relevant domains and usernames?
(2) Is this evidence that the Thompson campaign isn't ready to launch?
(3) Are they ever going to be ready to launch?

In other Fred-related news, it seems like the press has finally settled on an anti-Jeri meme they're ready to go with:

So that settles that. This lovely little editorializing brought to you by the good folks at the Associated Press. And it's brought to you despite the fact that - as Allah pointed out yesterday - the recent news out of the campaign implies that her power is not really all that. Eh. They don't really worry about accuracy when they report the news - why should it be a concern when they're commenting while they're pretending to report the news?

References:
* Fred Thompson Campaign Launch Video [imwithfredblog / YouTube]
* Thompson Loses Another Staffer From Would-Be Campaign
* Journalists Confused - Is Jeri Thompson A Dumb Bimbo Or An Evil Genius? [MR]
* Fred thinking about October now?

Previously:
* Meet Jeri Thompson, the Powerful Republican Consultant That Grassroots Liberals Will Be Attacking As A Bimbo
* Stupid Journalism Tricks: The NYT's Atttack On Jeri Thompson Is Sexist Even Though They Quoted Other People
* NPR In Denial About Sexism On the Left, Gets MR Exactly Wrong On Jeri Thompson

Of course it was:

Israeli concessions on cultural rights spur Islamist aggression against Jewish legitimacy. Israeli concessions on cultural rights spur Islamist aggression against Jewish legitimacy. Israeli concessions on cultural rights spur Islamist aggression against Jewish legitimacy.

There are tribes of natives living in the Amazon who have never heard of Judaism, Israel, or the Temple Mount who still understand the current religious and cultural situation better than Israeli concession negotiators.

References:
* Archeologists slam authorities over Muslim dig [JPost]

Previously:
* The LA Times: "Islam gets concessions; infidels get conquered." Ummm... Wow
* Wonderful Story Of Jewish-Muslim Cooperation On Temple Mount Destroyed... By Radical Muslims
* Hamas Trying To Infiltrate Temple Mount

Of course it was:

Security concessions to what counts as the Palestinian center spur armed attacks against Israeli civilians. Security concessions to what counts as the Palestinian center spur armed attacks against Israeli civilians. Security concessions to what counts as the Palestinian center spur armed attacks against Israeli civilians.

This is like potty training a peace negotiator.

References:
* Sderot: Man moderately hurt by Kassam rocket [JPost]

Previously:
* Palestinian Civil Society Watch - If We Asked You "What Do Death Threats Really Mean", Would You Call Us Sarcastic?
* High Ranking Member of Moderate Fatah Party Wishes Every Day Was 9/11 (Bonus Outrage: US Trained Him!)
* Tell Us, President Abbas, How Can We Help You Today?

We were talking to a pro-Israel activist a few days ago, and they were trying to convince us that Olmert had the capacity to really screw things up before the release of the Winograd or the restoration of sense to Israeli politics forced him out of office. We rolled our eyes because - honestly - Olmert? He's got the political capital of like, us. Turns out, screwed again!

Yeah, we've got nothing. Our understanding of the situation is that not even the Palestinians wanted to be given control of West Bank towns, because they know that they really suck at controlling West Bank towns. Oh well - and least Hamas will have somewhere to set up headquarters when they begin to roll through what's left of Fatah's infrastructure.

Here's the AP article via the WSJ. Abbas has apparently declared that he won't be satisfied unless Israeli concessions on land and prisoners are also coupled with concessions on refugees - and you know what that means.

You know what sucks about this idea? Everything. The next few months are going to be awesome.

References:
* Israel offers Palestinians control of Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin [JPost]
* Abbas and Olmert Meet to Discuss Agenda for Planned Peace Conference [WSJ]
* Arab League Refuses To Drop "Mandatory Israeli Suicide" Demands From Saudi Plan [MR]

Previously:
* Funny Anti-Olmert Commercial From Israel [Subtitled Video]
* Olmert Releasing Prisoners Now So He Won't Have To Release Them Later
* Olmert's Disclosure Of Israel's Nuclear Capability: At Wost, Harmless

OK, so you're going to hate this. Like really, really hate this. Not because it's pro-peace - which is a message that we of course endorse - but because of the really, really stupid way that it's pro-peace. Like cringe-worthy stupid. Like John Lennon "peace is here if you want it" soppy can't-we-all-just-get-along stupid. But it prominently features Sivan, who is currently sitting on top of MR's musical crush list. Ergo:

Serious takeaway: the group of rappers up on stage, by the by, are from the TACT label - the single biggest and most popular Israeli music label ever. They're singing about peace and stopping holy war. Now here's the Frontpage article about the overwhelming dominance of jihadi themes in popular Islamic hiphop. Obviously, the leftist sophisticates are right: it's not anything about Islam, it's religion in general that's the problem.

References:
* TACT FAMILY LIVE IN ISRAEL!!!!!!!! MUST SEEE [xomszrona1 / YouTube]
* Jihadi Rap [Daveed Gartenstein-Ross / FrontPage]

Previously:
* Shabbat Beauty - Zionist Hip Hop In Remembrance Of Yaakov Paz. A Momentary Song" [Video]
* Mere Rhetoric: Afternoon Zionist Hip Hop - Divided and Conquered [Video]
* Zionist Hip Hop - Shai 360 During Taglight 2007 [Video]

In a way they're absolutely right: when it comes to anti-Semitism Walt and Mearsheimer are total amateurs. They're still running the "we're being silenced argument" - even fanatical anti-Semitic imams have figured out that they sound silly screaming that from the podiums of talks they've been invited to give.

Anyway, JPost has a pretty decent article about how AIPAC and the Israeli government intend to counter Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israeli Lobby (subtitle: "how the Jews came from across the ocean, corrupted good Christian Americans, and tricked them into betraying their country"). The basic strategy: do nothing. Israel can't go around countering the claims of every vaguely disgruntled, largely discredited academic who discovers that "hey, these Jews make pretty good scapegoats". It's got all of its resources tied up dealing with the ones who are already on UN committees:

If you believe that Walt and Mearsheimer are beyond the reach of reason because reason has nothing to do with their book - and Walt and Mearsheimer are obviously beyond the reach of reason because reason has nothing to do with their book - then this seems like a pretty good strategy. What are you going to do? Point out that the US has acted against Israeli interests dozens of times? Talk about how the first crack in the wall of contemporary Israeli deterrence came when Bush I wouldn't let Israel respond to Iraq's missile launches? Go over the total inanity of their observations ("well no you see Professors, actually all interests have lobbies in Washington, DC - so the existence of a pro-Israel lobby isn't proof of anything at all"). How about this: if they really think that's a good argument, they take a junior high social science class and then, when they've learned about our three branches of government, we'll have a talk with them.

Now the conspiracy theory nuts will say that AIPAC isn't responding because they're scared of the overwhelming truth of the book (the classic claim of the irrelevant lunatic: "they're only pretending to ignore me because they're scared of me"). But if AIPAC answered all of the claims, then the conspiracy theory nuts would point to the organized public campaign - which would come complete with true rebuttals from politicians - as proof of AIPAC's power. That's the essence and the beauty of conspiracy theories - they already account for everything that might be used as disproof.

After the jump: how to see if your average anti-Israel academic is a provably anti-Semitic fraud.

We're going to have more on Dr. Aryeh Eldad tomorrow. Suffice for now to state the following: (1) he's very smart and (2) he's not as religious as his membership in the National Union might imply. One might even go so far as to say that for political purposes, he's not religious "at all". Which is not to say that he doesn't occasionally need to calm down. But dumb he is not.

The smartest and most careful part of this video comes in when the interviewer tries to bait him into using the "Islam is a cancer" metaphor and Dr. Eldad says "that's a bad metaphor and I won't use it". The most entertaining part is how it takes him just over a minute to bring up the Clash of Civilizations. The entire eleven minutes is very smart, but make sure that in the middle you pay attention to the way that those evil Israeli Zionists medically work on their enemies:

The terrorists "couldn't understand why we are trying so hard to save his life". Obviously, the Israeli medical complex is a target of global boycotts because the human rights advocates are dispassionate and objective. And obviously the fact that Palestinians use ambulances to move weapons but are still the darlings of the international left has nothing to do with a double standard, and that double standard has nothing to do with latent anti-Semitism.

References:
* Israel Illuminates the Islamist Global Crusade [R286 / YouTube]
* More Hypocrisy From Anti-Israel Medical Boycott Advocates [MR]

Previously:
* Tragedy Fails to Stop European Hatred, Palestinian Attacks Against Israel
* Israel Tops World In R&D Investment, 2nd In Education [Video]
* British Doctors Don't Like Israeli Doctors Because... Well, For Some Sort Of Reason

The woman is just painfully hot. If you can speak Hebrew, you'll benefit by having the volume up. But it's not really a requirement:

And now, by way of what the dictionaries refer to as "contrast", here:

Is this where we talk about how politically left US feminist groups march arm in arm with anti-Israel lunatics? Or would that be to imply that they're driven by something more than dispassionate anti-Zionism, which as we know is just the strategy that the "neo-conservative Likudniks" use to silence "legitimate criticism of Israel"?

References:
* Bar Refaeli at Night Show [pussycaty / YouTube]
* Wife Beating Justified [covertone81 / YouTube]

Previously:
* Israeli Model Wednesdays - Photos: Israeli Model Bar Refaeli In SI Swimsuit Edition
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - You're Destroying Indonesia With Your Skimpy Clothing and Your Premarital Sex
* Israeli Hottie Wednesdays - The Ultimate Bar Refaeli Sports Illustrated Montage, Plus Interview In A Bikini [Video]

We're guessing that this is old, but it's new to us. And it has the line "there is no blood better than the blood of Jews," and so up it goes. Here's one of the men that Jimmy Carter calls a "so-called" terrorist. He kind of seems like "really" a terrorist to us, but we also think that Israel has the right to exist so what do we know:

Why do we post stuff that just confirms what everyone reading this already knows? In this case, mostly so we have a punchline to go to next time Iran or the Palestinians put on a kids program that talks about how Jews drink the blood of little kids. Also because we figure that there'll be an article or two this week about how the world wants to give Hamas money (because Hamas can be reasonable, obviously) - and if we get lazy we can be like "does the food aid involve Jewish blood, or do they have to get that themselves with the security aid"?

References:
* Hamas vows to 'drink' Jewish blood [IsraelMonAmour / YouTube]
* Jimmy Carter: Hamas Made Up of "So-Called Terrorists" [MR]

Previously:
* Leftist Sophistication Watch - Where's All That Hamas Law And Order We Were Promised?
* AQ Complains That Hamas Is Not Insane Enough
* Like Hezbollah, Hamas Uses Children As Human Shields

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

There's a bile-inducing pamphlet being passed around the left, the point of which is that an anti-Israel boycott just around the corner. It's what you'd expect, but if you want to track them down this Google News search will produce four or five different versions. The main point is that the pro-boycott vote by British journalists - where they blamed Israel for interfering with the work of reporters in the Gaza Strip and West Bank - was a dramatic turning point. We're not sure about the conclusions of the article. But it's undeniable that the votes of British journalists had a drip-drip-drip effect on global sentiment - the kind of "change what people can reasonably say out loud" tactic that Ahmadinejad has exploited so successfully to deny the Holocaust.

It's also undeniable that there's something a little strange about the obsession that British journalists have with the Jewish State. For instance, if they were genuinely concerned about reporters - well, one would think that this might matter a little bit more:

The reason British journalists are targeting Israel is because Israel is the one interfering with reporters in Gaza and the West Bank. Obviously.

References:
* Gaza journalists decry threats, by Hamas, Fatah [JPost]
* British Journalists Put Holocaust Denial On The Spectrum Of Respectable Positions [MR]

Previously:
* More Hypocrisy From Anti-Israel Medical Boycott Advocates
* Suspiciously Inconsistent British Boycott Of the Day - British Journalists Not Boycotting the Side That's Actually Interfering With Palestinian Reporters
* Israeli Public Diplomacy Expert : British Boycott Is Vicious Anti-Semitism

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

We were going to do a post about how CNN shouldn't be giving Khaled Meshaal an opportunity to propagandize because he's actually an evil genocidal terrorist who wants to wipe out Jews and Christians. Then we were going to nuance it by talking about how the best argument for interviewing him is that it "lets Americans see what he really believes" - and how that argument is false because Hamas terrorists use these Western media opportunities to lie. Example: how the whole point of this article is that Hamas is willing to accept Israel.

But you know what? Screw it. Check out the very first paragraph and then try to convince us that one of the following is not true: Cal Perry (a) has delusions of grandeur or (b) has the IQ of a houseplant or (c) both:

Yes, total mortal danger of an impending Israeli missile strike. You know those Zionists - never know what innocent journalists they could kill next. Gotta be on the lookout!

Never mind that an Israeli attack on Syria would trigger a potentially unconventional war that would leave tens of thousands of Israelis dead. Never mind that Iran has publicly promised to back Syria in any conflict, which means that Israel would probably hit Iran before an attack on Damascus - which they can't do right now. Never mind that the interview is happening during the day - not an optimal time for a surprise attack - and is happening in a civilian building - not a high value target for a first strike - and is happening in a location that is secret - which means "you can't find it".

Cal could still die "at any second" from an Israeli strike. Obviously. What a total moron.

Also: the rest of the interview sucks. Don't bother.

References:
* Face-to-face with top Hamas leader in secret location [CNN]
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Aims Chemical And Biological Weapons At Israeli Cities, Complains That Israel Might Attack It To Prevent It From Launching Chemical And Biological Weapons [MR]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - Head Of Syrian Intelligence Pushing Assad Toward War
* Syria Modernizing Its Airforce With Russian Help - War With Israel On The Horizon
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Aims Chemical And Biological Weapons At Israeli Cities, Complains That Israel Might Attack It To Prevent It From Launching Chemical And Biological Weapons

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

We try to keep the discourse on this blog relatively elevated. But no:

Sigh.

References:
* U.S. military regrets giving Afghans 'blasphemous' balls [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* It Turns Out, There IS A Way For Israeli Drivers To Suck More. Literally.
* Quick Roundup of Things That International Political Islam Has Accomplished Today
* Israeli Ambassador Found Naked, Drunk, Bound, and Gagged

You can be cynical and be like "it's just a puppy." You can also admit that there's a lump of coal where your heart should be:

As we said - coal.

References:
* Dodger the Puppy [phillystarr99 / YouTube]

Previously:
* Sunday Cute - Dolphin Lulls Naive Biped Into False Sense Of Security [Video]
* Sunday Cute - Pit Bull and Ducklings With Sub-Optimal Survival Instincts [Video]
* Sunday Cute: Playful Kittens [Video]

Now she's just fucking with us:

Does that young woman's mother know she's putting videos like this up on the Internet?

References:
* Stills From Life [tasha / YouTube]

Previously:
* Video: Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Valentine's Day
* Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Go Cry, Emo Kid [Video]
* Tasha and Dishka Fridays - What Kind of Tasha and Dishka Fan Are You? [Video]

The Cold War people - it's going to come back, and it's going to bring back some stability to this crazy little rock we call home. Can you feel the stability coming?. Single largest post-Soviet Russian airshow. Period:

That kind of half-curious half-intrigued look on Putin's face? He's thinking "I wonder how many nukes that thing can carry. And how many Chechen civilians it could kill. Quickly." (h/t: Merav)

UPDATE: We've got Putin at an air show.Hot Air dumps Putin as a gay icon into their headlines. When we say that we're a more shrill, less funny version of Hot Air - this is what we're talking about.

References:
* Photos: Largest Post-Soviet Airshow [ABC News]

Previously:
* Putin Goes After Chess Master, Opposition Politician Kasparov
* This Summer's War With Syria - Assad To Respond To Tribunal By Trying To Kill Jews
* We Heart Putin - Banning the BBC Edition

If we cared just a little bit more - or had just slightly more credibility on US Jewish issues - we would try to demagogue the hell out of this:

But that shouldn't stop any of you who are so inclined. Here's the "umm... that seems a lot like anti-Semitic hypocrisy" angle. Or, if you don't want to one, may we suggest something like "of course the former Democratic congressman who's supposed to be fighting for American Jewish education rushed to take all the blame and admit he was totally wrong - that's exactly what CAIR would have done, except the opposite"?

Or, if you want to take the ADL-sanctioned "absolute separation between church and state" route - there's this. Which is the same as this and this.

References:
* U.S. school stops Hebrew classes for promoting Judaism [Ha'aretz]
* CAIR Goes Back to School [Frontpage]
* Arizona Public Schools Teach Islam [LGF]
* Islamic Proselytization in US Public Schools [LGF]
* Spreading Islam in American Public Schools [LGF]

Previously:
* American Reform Judaism Still Failing To Transform Barnes and Noble Self-Help Section Into Vibrant Religion
* It's Tuesday, So the ADL is Concerned About Evangelical Christians
* ADL Thinks Real Hard, Identifies Religious Threat to American Jews - Christians!

Natch:

Yeah, well. What're you gonna do, ya know? Here's a link to last weekend's YNet story about Iran's new emphasis on how Jews are like Satan. And here's a picture of a cat with a piece of toast on its head:

Whatevs.

References:
* Iran on anti-racism committee [YNet]
* Iran: Israel the standard bearer of Satan [YNet]

Previously:
* The UN Has Been Screwing Israel For Decades
* Iran Urges Terrorists to Attack Israel, UN Too Busy Condeming Israel to Notice
* UN Sec-Gen Is Either Lying Or Very, Very Stupid

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

This is buried in the middle of JPost's stories from yesterday, and we can't find it anywhere on YNet and Ha'aretz. We don't think there's anything about it on any of the JBlogs, although we only did a basic keyword search. All of that is weird, because it seems like it changes the entire dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process - all of which relies on the West being able to pressure Israel into pretending that there is a partner for peace on the Palestinian side willing and able to make peace.

You know who won't be sad to see him go? Meryl. And you know why she might be right? Because of who Abbas would choose to continue his legacy:

That's too bad. The rest of the article talks about how there's a leadership battle gearing up within the Fatah ranks. Israel should let Barghouti out of jail, on the condition that he promises to mix it up with the rest of the Fatah young guards. Just for the fun of it.

Bonus question: will this really effect security guarantees to the Palestinians, or will the US always find some way to justify continued security assistance even to unrepentant terrorists? Yes, Ms. Geller has her hand raised.

Related link we couldn't find any other way to include: Aussie Dave. Heh.

References:
* Mahmoud Abbas, moderate, peacemaker, and LIAR [Yourish]
* Point of Clarification [MR]
* US Training Islamic Jihad [Atlas]
* Separated at Birth [Israellycool]

Previously:
* White House: Sure Abbas is Powerless, But That Doesn't Mean Israel Shouldn't Give Him Land
* Tell Us, President Abbas, How Can We Help You Today?
* Hamas: AQ Not In Gaza. Abbas, AQ Kidnapping Victim Alan Johnston: Yes They Are

As part of our effort to reduce bandwidth costs and traffic (sigh - if only we had those problems), we present another "hey, maybe the disengagement wasn't a totally awful idea" post. This one involves the idea that Hamas's takeover of Gaza isn't really popular... with Hamas:

On the other hand, (a) rocket fire still continues and (b) it's not like the rest of the world is bailing on Hamas. Much the opposite. Europe is again on the verge of recognizing Hamas - which they were about to do anyway when Hamas spoiled everything with their little rampage last June. (we don't know why Hamas didn't wait a week, get EU funding, and then take over the Strip - it would have been so perfect). And of course, the American left has never wavered from their "we should recognize Hamas even though Hamas won't recognize Jews" position.

So it's not like the disengagement really helped Israel all that much. Although that, in turn, begs the "withdrawal inevitable" question - which is a separate debate. But in the meantime, ruminate on this: the Hamas guy who has been defending Hamas's genocidal agenda for the better part of a decade is more critical of Hamas than are Europeans and American leftists.

Exit "but, but the NYT told us the opposite" graph:

Let's open negotiations with them - it'll work out really well. The LA Times promises.

References:
* Haniyeh's spokesman quits citing Hamas policy [JPost]

Previously:
* What's All This Talk About A "Hamas Coup"? Hamas Was Democratically Elected To Control the PA, Remember?
* Hamas Blocks Israeli Food Shipments, Intentionally Starves Gaza Civilians To Create A Humanitarian Disaster - Again!
* Like Hezbollah, Hamas Uses Children As Human Shields

We've been hearing a lot of "at least Hamas has brought law and order to the streets of Gaza." Yeah? Let's see how that's going:

Notice that even the relatively uneducated Gaza residents - with their relative lack of Western media - know enough to think that the center-left "Shiites and Sunnis don't cooperate" meme is idiotic. So there are two ways to take this post. One is to play up the education angle, and punchline with something like "apparently even the most hysterical criticisms of the American educational system are true: a total lack of schooling really does leave you smarter than any amount of what passes as advantaged education." The other way is to go with the Western media angle, and make is something like "we're not saying that the absence of CNN and the NYT makes Gaza residents not totally misguided about the reality of the Middle East. That would be a post hoc fallacy, and we've got exams on argumentation theory coming up later this afternoon. But there does appear to be, as the social scientists say, something of a correlation".

But like we said, it's going to be a pretty long day for us. Plus, it's way too early in the morning to be making tough decisions. So on this one, you get to choose your own adventure.

References:
* Rowdy Fatah supporters scuffle with Hamas men at Gaza demonstration [JPost]

Previously:
* Leftist Sophistication Watch: Shiites And Sunnis Do Work Together, Iran Admits Funneling Money To Hamas
* Persecution Of Baha'is In Egypt and Iran Fails To Gain International Attention [Video]
* Shii

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

It is a central tenet of any psychological or behavioral theory that human beings crave stability and predictability. So much do we need to rely on patterns of cause and effect that we will actually create illusions for ourselves so that what we think we see matches up to what we expected to see. That's just how we're hardwired.

Except - apparently - the reality based center-left community of self-styled sophisticates. For them, reality appears to be a constant unfolding of the unexpected. For a decade they've been telling us that Iran can be reasoned and bargained with - or, at worst, starved out. Turns out, not so much:

We're being a little unfair to the left, of course. In a pretty mundane sense - but also in a pretty technical sense - their expectations (which also happen to look a lot like their ideologically-driven unlimited faith in negotiations) more or less do line up with what they understand about Iran's nuclear ambitions. But that balance hasn't been achieved by adjusting the expectations to match reality.

References:
* Officials: Grim intelligence report on Iran coming [USA Today]

Previously:
* Purdue Nuclear Strategy Expert: Bomb Iran Now
* Mathematical Proof That Negotiating With Iran Is Stupid. Not Wrong. Stupid.
* Iran Gets Pretty Close To Openly Threatening Violence Against UN. UN Threatens Iran With Another Resolution.

The full Walt and Mearsheimer book is out today, over a year after the pair first radically distanced themselves from the rest of the academic world by putting their disdain for the Jewish State into print. Do you think they took so long with the second half of the book because they had trouble translating it out of the original German?

Here's the New York Times story. It is different in absolutely no way from what you expect it to be. This is where we'd usually link to some careful point by point refutation of their scholarship, but honestly... eh. Why go through the motions of even pretending that reasons or arguments have anything to do with the on-the-ground dynamics of anti-Israel animus?

When a distinguished professor insists that he believes in an untenable conspiracy - one that happens to sound remarkably similar to vicious anti-Semitism - because of laughably disprovable assertions like "Al Qaeda's grievances regarding US/Israeli ties are suppressed by the US media"... You're supposed to do what? Show him the thousands of articles in the US media about the degree to which US/Israeli ties are a motivation for Al Qaeda? When he utters insipid nonsense like "you can tell that Israeli interests are hostile to the US because if they weren't then Israel wouldn't need a lobby"… you're supposed to do what? Bring in a 16 year old high school student to tell him that every interest on the planet is represented in DC - and on both sides of every issue?

This isn't about arguments or evidence. These are not naturally stupid people - they must have a sense of their position. And if they don't - if they're really that deep in conspiracy theory "we're the sane ones everyone else is crazy" land - then whatever has made them stupid is far beyond the reach of mere logic. After the jump, our one year transition from "aww... they're just pitiable, declining academics" to "they're Jew-baiting so that they can win the adoration of rank bigots".

We deeply covet this:

Make sure you stick around till the very end for the most spectacular dance party ever. When they finally launch their attack, will we even want to oppose their cuteness?

References:
* Keepon dancing to Spoon's "Don't You Evah" [wired / YouTube]

Previously:
* Thursday Military Tech - Automated Attack Drones That Can Stay In the Air For A Day. What Could Go Wrong?
* Neat - Israeli Nanobots To Revolutionize Medicine
* Bad Week For The Future Of Humanity. Great Week For Future Robotic Overlords.

Cross-posted to:
* Icon Index Symbol

Of all the nuanced responses that glib leftism has developed so that cocktail party LA Times readers can remain in denial about the scope of the Islamist danger, perhaps none are more annoying than the smug little "there are different kinds of Muslims." It hits all of the wrong buttons: it caters to the left's self-declared sophistication, it pedantically points out a distinction that doesn't matter, and it exemplifies just how stupid they think the center-right is - because obviously no one would suggest that Iran and Hamas collude if they knew Sunnis and Shiites are different kinds of Muslims.

If Sunnis and Shiites aren't supposed to work together, someone should probably let them know:

Oh well, it's not like Barry Rubin knows anything about Syria, right? It's not as if he just published a book on the topic or anything like that.

References:
* Nationalists Versus Islamists: The Middle East's Core Issue [GLORIA]
* The Truth About Syria by Barry Rubin [Amazon]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Aims Chemical And Biological Weapons At Israeli Cities, Complains That Israel Might Attack It To Prevent It From Launching Chemical And Biological Weapons
* This Summer's War With Syria - Peace Deal Rumors Are Suspiciously Incoherent
* This Summer's War With Syria - Peace Deal Rumors Are Suspiciously Incoherent

Suddenly - 200,000 deaths later - global media outlets are all abuzz with the atrocities being committed in Darfur. And wouldn't you know it, it's Israel's fault that people are getting killed:

There still appears to be some confusion about what exactly is going on in Darfur - some sort of violence that seemingly came out of nowhere apparently. Just some folks fighting, ya know? Certainly no religious motive for the massacres.

Although - the Sydney Morning Herald does mention a certain Abrahamic religion four times, including in the lede. But that religion isn't Islam. Want to take a guess what religion it is? The religion that they drop four times in association with the massacres in Darfur? Come on, guess. You'll never guess.

Never mind that the truth of this debate is that most of the refugees are economic refugees. When there's an anti-Israel angle to be had - especially if it can be used in some way to blame Jews for the violence perpetuated in the name of a certain other religion - then you can be quite sure that global media outlets will find it.

We're thinking of trying to convince the UN and global media outlets that the Jews are secretly behind Iran's nuclear program. That thing would get shut down in a week. (h/t: Deb)

References:
* News results: [Google News]
* Israel deports Sudanese refugees [SMH]
* Sudanese refugees fear deportation [JPost]

Previously:
* Boston Globe Notices UN Is Not Entirely Fair To Israel (Plus: Lebanese Muslims Pissed That Even Israel Is More Humane Than Syria) [Video]
* The Significance Of the Pope's Visit To Turkey - Not That Much, Actually
* At This Point, Journalists Are Literally Just Going Through The Motions Of Covering Up Their Bias

Somewhere, Ann Coulter is really psyched:

You just know that production is going to get contentious: "OK Janeane - point me to the part of the script that says 'in this scene, Janeane's character slips information to America's terrorist enemy.' You can't. You know why? Because it's not in the script. Stop improvising!"

References:
* Time right for Garofalo on '24' [Hollywood Reporter]

Previously:
* Jason Alexander vs. The Field of Statistics
* Mainstreaming Of Anti-Semitism, Hollywood Edition
* Hollywood Helps Out In the Middle East

This video begins with Tasha waking up in bed. Alone. What a crime:

No, not all the musical selections are what we would call "above par". And the part where she does the robot - questionable at best. And yet, the video still retains a certain something.

Note the tags on the bottom of these entries. Watch what happens if you click them. Like magic. Shabbat shalom everybody.

References:
* Tasha and music 2 [tasha / YouTube]

Previously:
* Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Hollywood BFF Edition
* Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Go Cry, Emo Kid [Video]
* Video: Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Valentine's Day

So of course Europeans are beginning to make noises about how the world simply has to appease Hamas and flood the Gaza Strip with money and resources. And of course a lot of those noises have to do with how AQ simply just can't be in the Gaza Strip and - if they are - they simply just can't have any ties to Hamas. And of course that's totally wrong:

A secular and democratic Palestinian state is just around the corner. All they need is a little tender loving care. Also: money and weapons.

References:
* Middle Israel: Europe's Islamic dissonance [JPost]
* "The Army of the Nation" - Another Al-Qaeda Affiliate in the Gaza Strip [JCPA]

Previously:
* AQ Complains That Hamas Is Not Insane Enough
* NBC Beirut Chief: AQ Fighters Making "Alamo-like last stand"
* Hamas: AQ Not In Gaza. Abbas, AQ Kidnapping Victim Alan Johnston: Yes They Are

Of course it is:

No matter what side you're on, you have to appreciate the sheer elegance of using a phrase like "Israel cites attempts by Palestinians to attack" the roadblocks - as if, you know, of course the evil Zionists would say something like that. It's an every so slightly inaccurate way to describe what's really going on - which is that Hamas outright declared that they will kill thousands of Palestinians by bombing the hell out of the crossings if Israel opens them. Why would Hamas openly threaten to kill thousands of their own civilians? Partly because they're confident that the AP will report it - with an air of skepticism - as " Israel, which cites attempts by Palestinian militants to attack them."

You can also file this article whereever you keep your collection of AP stories that mention the lack of food in Gaza but forget to mention that Hamas has banned Israeli produce.

References:
* Gaza power station halts electricity supply due to fuel shortage [Ha'aretz]
* Hamas Blocks Israeli Food Shipments, Intentionally Starves Gaza Civilians To Create A Humanitarian Disaster - Again! [MR]
* UN And "Gaza Businessmen" Agree: It's Israel's Fault That Hamas Has Intentionally Created A Humanitarian Disaster In the Gaza Strip By Blocking Food and Medical Shipments [MR]

Previously:
* Palestinians Reject Israeli Humanitarian Efforts - Easier to Demonize Israel That Way
* Vulgar Palestinian Propaganda Succeeds with International Media - Again!
* Would Palestinian Officials Intentionally Starve Palestinian Civilians Just So They Could Demonize Israel? We Think They Would...

First of all, we heart him because he's bringing back the Cold War and we miss the Cold War. More entertainingly, he's bringing it back with style. We didn't even know you could do this:

That is quite simply outstanding.

References:
* Russian air patrols 'a show of might' [BBC]
* Russia: BBC broadcasts taken off air [JPost]

Previously:
* The Cold War Is Back
* Putin Goes After Chess Master, Opposition Politician Kasparov
* Putin Wins Russian Politician Of The Year

Happy Friday:

But Syria would get dismantled in a ground war against Golani tank brigades.. and the IAF would level Syrian C3I facilities in something like a day and a half... and the IDF might get pushed back at first, but just like in 1973 they would be able to push back toward Damascus... And yet, there's something that makes the Syrians think that they can accomplish great things even while all this is happening. And those great things appear to be killing lots of Jews:

How bad could the campaign get? The money lines from the stories coming out earlier this week were "destructive force large enough to damage entire blocks of buildings" and "missiles numbering in the hundreds within an hour". And that's before we even begin to calculate the enormous damage that the UN would do nothing to stop Hezbollah from inflicting.

But hey, at least there's still a way to blame Israel for all of this. We're not exactly sure what it is, but we're confident the UN will figure it out when Israeli schools and hospitals start getting saturation bombed.

References:
* Report: Syrian general pushing Assad toward war [Israel Today]
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Aims Chemical And Biological Weapons At Israeli Cities, Complains That Israel Might Attack It To Prevent It From Launching Chemical And Biological Weapons [MR]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria, Iranian Coordination Edition
* Syria is Hiding Weapons in Civilian Aid Convoys. Of Course They Are.
* Syria Modernizing Its Airforce With Russian Help - War With Israel On The Horizon

Another soppy and kind of pathetic screed is making its way across lefty boards and listservs, bemoaning how hard it is for anti-Israel activists and academics like Walt and Mearsheimer to get a fair hearing these days. Our version was forwarded from AcademicsforJustice@yahoogroups.com - because it's important that the few, lonely anti-Israel academics scattered in dark basements across America's college campuses look out for each other. But you can also find a copy forwarded to this newsgroup by NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL. Charming and interesting, the kinds of people that make common cause these days:

Yeah, it's really hard out there for anti-Israel academics. If this morning's Google News roundup is any indication - "Is It Time to Rein in AIPAC?", "Courting and Countering the Christian Zionists", etc - Walt and Mearsheimer are in actual, physical danger of literally drowning in positive coverage. And drowning is bad.

Previously:
* Brown University Outrage: Anti-Israel Academics Organize Conference To Attack Pro-Israel Critics, Shut Out Pro-Israel Speakers and Students
* Walt and Mearsheimer's Best Defense For Their Anti-Semitic-ish Accusations Is In Trouble
* Mark Steyn Mocks, Laments James Baker

Here's a little bit of technical advice for anyone running Movable Type: if you have more than a year of archives, don''t put a "monthly archive" list in the sidebar of individual posts. Otherwise you'll start getting server timeouts during site rebuilds because each post will bombard the server to demand url information. Then you could end up trying to upgrade to fix the problem, then reverting, then upgrading, then reverting and corrupting your whole database - until finally you've lost a month of your life debugging and rebuilding because you were too dumb and/or lazy to go through the templates and figure out what the problem was. At least that's what we've heard can happen. Hypothetically. It's not like anyone around here is stupid enough to do that.

If you subscribe to MR, we're pretty sure that the transition to Feedburner went fine and that you're seeing this in your RSS. Which also means that we've pretty much used up all of our karma for the day - good thing there're only 19 hours to go. If you can't see this in your RSS reader, of course, we apologize - but if you glance slightly to your right you'll see the orange radio-looking button thing that will cure all your troubles.

Now for a quick tour of the new design:

(1) MR now has extended entries. This will prevent our multi-page "what did the Pope really mean" posts - not exactly the bread and butter of the MR demo - from crowding out our "the Palestinians have found a new way to ruin their society, and the UN is blaming Israel" posts.

More changes after the jump to the extended entry (see what we did right there?)

Charles Johnson always talks about how he has to softly cajole the LGF server hamsters to get them to cooperate when the site has technical hiccups. That's kind of like what we've been going through with MR's corrupted Movable Type backend - except instead of hamsters we have emaciated rats and instead of being gentle we're at a point where we're going to audition them for a Hamas children's show (content warning for sadistic cruelty to animals):

Before that happens - we're going to take the site offline, make some changes, and see if we can't talk some reason into the obstinate little beasts. As part of the upgrade, we're going to move our RSS feeds over to Feedburner. In theory, you should not notice the changeover. A couple of lines in Apache's .htaccess file are supposed to make the switch totally transparent. In practice, we anticipate results closer to "how the UN manages Palestinian refugee camps" than "something that works".

So: if you are reading this in your RSS reader after 9am PST and you still do not see a more recent post - titled something like "MR Outage Over, RSS Switchover Complete" - then something has gone awry. You will need to manually resubscribe by going directly to the page and clicking on what should be a very large RSS button on the sidebar. Apologies in advance.

References:
* MR Tech Update - MT Must Die [MR]
* PETA Springs Into Action, Drafts Strongly Worded Letter to Hamas [LGF]
* Cruelty to animals on Hamas TV [pmwvideos / YouTube]

Previously:
* Bad Week For The Future Of Humanity. Great Week For Future Robotic Overlords.
* Israeli Hottie Wednesdays - The Ultimate Bar Refaeli Sports Illustrated Montage, Plus Interview In A Bikini [Video]
* CNN Tries To Describe Maxim's Israeli Hottie Issue, Fails To Adequately Convey Sheer Hotness [Video]

The slow transition from "Jeri Thompson is a bimbo" through "isn't it totally weird how lots of people may or may not think Jeri Thompson is a bimbo" to "Jeri Thompson is an evil genius" is almost complete:

You can see the tension - is she an interfering wench or the next leftist Darth Vader photoshop? It depends on how well the Thompson campaign does. If the left can't explain Thompson's popularity (because why would anyone support Republicans?), the meme will slide to "evil genius". If the Thompson campaign flounders, the ostensible progressives on the left will be more than happy to settle for "see, we told you she was a sorority girl gender traitor bimbo".

Seething and resentful hypocrisy - always in fashion.

References:
* NPR In Denial About Sexism On the Left, Gets MR Exactly Wrong On Jeri Thompson
* Stupid Journalism Tricks: The NYT's Attack On Jeri Thompson Is Sexist Even Though They Quoted Other People [MR]
* Who Will Be the Karl Rove Of the 2008 Campaign? [WaPo]
* Estrich: Lonely older women might take revenge on Jeri by voting against Fred [Hot Air]

Previously:
* Fred Thompson On How To Be A Careful Conservative
* Meet Jeri Thompson, the Powerful Republican Consultant That Grassroots Liberals Will Be Attacking As A Bimbo
* Yet Another Democratic Leader Meets With Yet Another Totalitarian Thug Dedicated To Wiping Out Israel

Maybe they're Episcopalian:

No worries. The French Jewish community have nothing but faith in their police, government, and society. Nothing but full faith:

Jews are being targeted throughout Europe, and they're terrified of describing the attacks lest they invite more violence. Netanyahu's slogan about Iran is "it's 1939 and Iran is Germany," and that's kind of unsettling - but in an uncertain world where everything is always in flux, isn't it comforting to know that France is still France?

References:
* Men yelling anti-Semitic slogans beat Jewish woman near Paris [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* Krauthammer Says He Dislikes France, Presses Continue Running
* France: This Time, Hezbollah Violence Is Not OK
* France Identifies the Real Threat To the Lebanon Ceasefire: Israel.

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

This might seem kind of confusing...

... until you realize that Hezbollah got trounced in last summer's war. Two things saved Nasrallah last time around: (1) the international community stopped Israel just as Olmert started pouring in troops and - far, far more importantly - (2) the US kept Israel from unleashing the IAF's full might because the State Department didn't want to destabilize the Siniora regime.

Maybe Nasrallah is afraid that the State Department has caught on to what everyone always knew - de facto protecting Hezbollah during the war guaranteed that Nasrallah would live to overthrow Siniora later. Maybe he's afraid that he won't be able to hide behind the US's fear of instability and the UN's skirts. But we kind of doubt it - say what you will about him, Nasrallah is not stupid. And thinking that the world would sit back and allow Israel to defend itself - that's pretty stupid.

References:
* Nasrallah: Hezbollah doesn't want another war with Israel [Ha'aretz]
* Hezbollah Gloats - We Spent A Month Hiding Behind the UN's Skirts, So We Won! [MR]

Previously:
* The Lebanese Prime Minister is Either a Simpering Imbecile or a Shameless Liar
* Lebanon Play Acts At Being A Grown-Up
* Lebanon PM Has a Plan - Israel Will Stop Defending Itself, and Then Hezbollah Will Be Disarmed By the Make Believe Army that Exists Only in His Mind. Brilliant!

Posted here here purely as red meat. Self-loathing Oepidal weirdo Avraham Burg on Hebron rabbis and aggressively delusional Amira Hass on l'affaire Weiss. Now, we're not fans of Hillel Weiss and our antipathy towards Hebron settlers sometimes borders on outright loathing. And yet, those people aren't terrorists. Simple test: has Hillel Weiss gone out with a suicide belt to become a glorious child-killing martyr? If not, then he's not a terrorist. It might seem a little muddy, but it's actually a relatively clear bright line - you're not a terrorist if you don't, you know, try to kill civilians and stuff.

But lest we allow you to leave with a self-satisfied "well, what do you expect from the Israeli left" - we're pretty sure that "fight the terrorist Hebron rabbis" is at least as well represented in Israeli public discourse as "arrest the Oslo murderers". And neither is particularly persuasive.

References:
* Time to attack [Ha'aretz]
* High Court has been wrongly besmirched [Ha'aretz]
* The Israeli Far Right Is Doing Its Part To Encourage Reasoned Public Disputation (Plus: Is Bibi Disconnected From Judaism?) [MR]
* Jews Who Are Celebrating a National Tragedy [MR]

Previously:
* Amira Hass: I Just Can't Figure Out Why Palestinians Want To Kill Jewish Kids
* Amira Hass Justifies the Disengagement. Kind Of.
* Israeli Rightists Prepare to Cut Nose, Spite Face

That's really what we're supposed to call this idiocy?

They were going to call it the "Tunnel for Peace and Prosperity", but Hamas already trademarked that for their new terror tunnel out of Gaza - which, by the by, got dismantled yesterday.

And yet, this is still not even close to the dumbest thing Aso has ever said about the Middle East. And no worries, - peace is already on the horizon:

... but then added that it would involve magic unicorns, pixie dust, and UN resolutions blasting Israel for imagined human rights violations. And at least one of those things is easily manufactured - some would even say common.

References:
* Officials from Israel, Japan, Jordan, PA discuss economic cooperation in Jericho [Ha'aretz]
* IDF uncovers Gaza tunnel intended for terror attack [Ha'aretz]
* Dumbest Quote About International Diplomacy. Ever. [MR]

Previously:
* The UN Has Been Screwing Israel For Decades
* UN: Murder of Jews Not Really Our Problem
* Israel Politely Requests That UN Allow UNIFIL Soldiers To Do Their Damn Jobs

Oh really?

Actually, Israel tried to reopen the crossings to send in food. But Hamas has banned all Israeli produce from the Gaza Strip - sixty trucks of produce went to waste just that day. Why would Hamas intentionally starve their own civilians? Because they want to hurt Israeli farmers and they know Israel will get the blame anyway. It's like a win-win-lose, and they don't particularly care about who's losing. They've also set up roadblocks to block medical aid. That doesn't really do anything to hurt Israeli farmers - but hey, at least Israel gets demonized. And sometimes, that's more than enough.

At least the UN and the AP are refusing to reward Hamas's tactics by scapegoating Israel.

References:
* Gaza economy shrinking under Hamas [JPost]
* Hamas Blocks Israeli Food Shipments, Intentionally Starves Gaza Civilians To Create A Humanitarian Disaster - Again! [MR]
* Hamas Trying To Turn Gaza Into A Humanitarian Disaster - They're Stopping Gazans From Getting Medical Aid [MR]

Previously:
* Hamas: AQ Not In Gaza. Abbas, AQ Kidnapping Victim Alan Johnston: Yes They Are
* Hamas Victory - Now Can We Start Worrying About Iran?
* Would Palestinian Officials Intentionally Starve Palestinian Civilians Just So They Could Demonize Israel? We Think They Would...

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

The IDF is finally beginning to consider doing the minimum to respond to months of rocket fire against Israeli schools and hospitals. There is a brutal firefight going on in the Gaza Strip right now. Israeli soldiers are being engaged by Hamas soldiers and Islamic Jihad terrorists who are armed with weapons that have shockingly - shockingly - slipped into the Strip in the last month or so. A single airstrike took out six Islamic Jihad members - these are not random terrorists firing from the inside of windows. These are organized armed units firing rockets and automatic weapons at armed Israeli units.

And then there's this innocent civilian. According to the AP, he just happened to wander onto his roof - where snipers hang out - at the time of the firefight. He was then gunned down by heartless Zionists:

You think he was up there fixing his satellite dish or something?

We're even more impressed by the AFP version of events, which fails to mention that this undoubtedly innocent man just happened to be on a rooftop during a firefight. AFP stringer Sakher Abu El Oun gallantly limits himself to merely noting that, you know, those Israelis - they kill civilians.

UPDATE: Well, look what made it into the JPost rewrite of the AP story that somehow failed to get into either the main AP or AFP versions:

Wonder how that slipped through.

References:
* 4 Palestinians Killed in Israeli Raid
* Six Palestinians killed in Israeli Gaza incursion

Previously:
* AP Headline and Lede: Syrian War Against Israel Would Be "Resistance"
* AP: Poor, Downtrodden Palestinians Leaving Their Beloved Homeland
* Associated Press: "We are all Hezbollah" is Not Anti-Israel

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers
* Israpundit

Likud primaries are going on right now, with results expected shortly (11:00pm Israel time is... let's see... carry the one - should be in about two hours). So you can come back in two hours, or you can not care at all since Bibi is obviously going to win. His camp says that they're not sure yet because of the low voter turnout, but come on:

When reached for comment, Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly surprised to learn that he was not - as he had previously assumed - "Jewish". Now Feiglin would say that he means "actually really really super Jewish". Which is a kind of weird to us, because we had always assumed that a man of Feiglin's delicate theological sophistication would treat "being Jewish" as kind of a binary "you are or your aren't" thing. Like the rest of the universe does.

Anyway, Likud primary voters aren't stupid enough to choose a scary hardliner who is unelectable when they can choose a slightly less scary hardliner who is marginally electable. We think.

References:
* Likud primaries: 30% vote so far [YNet]

Previously:
* Israeli Politics Roundup - 2007-05-07 - It's Futile No Confidence Motion Day In the Knesset
* Israeli Politics Roundup - 2007-05-08 - Yeah, So That Happened
* Israeli Politics Roundup - 2007-06-13 - Labor Primary Voters Are Total... Oh Forget It (Updated: President Shimon Peres)

Priorities:

The British government is paying for someone to sue the British government to stop arms sales to Israel. That, brothers and sisters, is some solid work right there. If you click through, make sure you find the place where being "oppressed" has become an actionable legal category within British jurisprudence. Insipid multicultural convergence.

Anyway, this "regional tensions" thing is not just an excuse, it's an excuse that's so transparently false that you begin to suspect that Britain wants people to know that it's intentionally setting itself in opposition to Israel. No one really knows anything for sure about Middle East military dynamics, except this one single thing: every time that a hostile Arab state reaches military parity with Israel, they take it as an invitation to start a war. Say what you will about the grand contours about deterrence theory. Say what you will about who starts wars and which side is right. But as a matter of undeniable historical fact, military parity between Israel and its Arab enemies is correlated with acts of war against Israel by its Arab enemies (closing the Straits, crossborder attacks, invasions, etc). To intentionally undermine Israeli conventional superiority in the name of ensuring regional stability - listen, this is so laughable that it's not even worth going on a tirade about how this only makes sense if you assume that Israel is actually militarily adventurous, which only makes sense if you've let vicious hatred take you far, far afield from reality.

The other neat thing about weakening Israel's conventional arsenal? It forces them to rely more heavily on nuclear weapons, both in terms of actual warfighting (if they get overrun) and in terms of the threshold for the weapons' use (to prevent same). Well played, Britain, well played.

Anyway, here's today's British sharia update. We're going to miss Westminster Abbey.

References:
* UK blocks Israel arms deals [JPost]
* NHS staff told to eat away from desks for Ramadan [Scotsman]

Previously:
* We're Going To Miss Westminster Abbey - Sharia Courts Established In Britain
* War On Britain's Jews [Video]
* Bibi: "This Is Not One Of Britain's Finest Hours" [Video]

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

They're not even being subtle about it:

... "to make up for the failure of last summer's war." It's like they've already printed the press releases that the NYT and LAT will then print up as sophisticated and nuanced insights into the domestic Israeli political situation.

Ah well. At least Syria hasn't weaponized their biological stockpile, supplemented it with chemical munitions, and aimed the entire thing at Israel's dense population centers. That's the kind of thing that's likely to cause Israel to preemptively strike Syria's military targets in order to save the lives of literally tens of thousands of Israelis.

Hey, you don't think that Assad is intentionally stoking Israeli security fears on one end and then bleating pathetically to the world about the mean and militaristic Jews on the other? That would be dishonest. To say nothing about what it would imply about the international community's balanced and even-handed approach to Middle East peacemaking... Anyway, happy Monday:

Let's get the UN in on this. They're peacemakers.

References:
* Syria now capable of sending chemical and biological warheads to Israel [Israel Insider]
* IDF assessment: Syria thinks Olmert wants to launch war [JPost]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - Peace Deal Rumors Are Suspiciously Incoherent
* This Summer's War With Syria, Iranian Coordination Edition
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Says They're "Actively Preparing For War With Israel"

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

They're Israeli-Arab citizens and they're from the party of the oh-so-moderate President Abbas. Say, you don't think this story's going to get any play on the right-of-center JBlogosphere do you?

There was even (entirely fabricated) controversy about the reactions of trained Israeli security personnel who actually turned out to be too restrained - at the cost of Israeli lives.

If it turns out that this was somehow connected to the disengagement, we're writing off the entire thing as a right-wing hoax. Some stories too-perfectly exemplify everything that's wrong with vicious attacks on Israel - whether those attacks be of the armed terrorist or muddle-headed humanitarian kind.

References:
* Israeli-Arab group claims J'lem attack [JPost]
* Israeli Arab terrorist group 'ready for attacks' [WND]

Previously:
* Israeli-Arab Fifth Column Watch - If Israelis Support People Who Want To Wipe Out Israel, Is It Still Treason If Those Israelis Happen To Be Arab?
* Israeli-Arab Fifth Column Watch - AP Has Very Little Idea What's Going On In Israel, Still Manages To Convey That Lots Of Israeli-Arabs Are Holocaust Deniers
* Israeli-Arab Fifth Column Watch - Knesset Takes First Steps Toward Addessing Fifth Column

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

Recipe for contemporary American Reform Judaism:

(1) Take one spoonful of dispassionate lifecycles modeled on already secularized left-wing American Christianity (confirmation classes... really?)
(2) Add a healthy dose of insipid field trips designed to reinforce the fashionable catechisms of the political left ("today we're going to get in touch with God by recycling - yay!")
(3) Add a pinch of muttered and half-understood rituals grudgingly conducted three or four times a year
(4) Glaze the entire thing with empty slogans from the Barnes and Noble New Age section ("sure, sure sweetie... you just understand God in your own way, all that's important is that you feel spiritual")

Of course, that recipe only feeds like five or six people. Luckily, that shouldn't be a problem:

There are two impressive things about that "it's because they already come from intermarried families" explanation. First, it kind of begs the "how'd they get into an intermarried family in the first place, rabbi" question. Second, it is the single dumbest way to account for the findings. Not to be pedantic, but if the researchers controlled for family background then the family background of the children shouldn't be an issue (today's lesson is brought to you by the letter D for Definition of "Control"). And if the researchers didn't control for family background, then they should give back their research money so it can be spent on something that will produce more robust intellectual results. Like tarot cards.

But of course researchers at the intellectual center of Reform Judaism have to say it's something other than Reform's approach to Judaism. Because the alternative is that the show-up-on-Yom-Kippur-but-don't-take-anything-too-seriously model of religion is fundamentally flawed. American Reform Jews are fed a steady diet of the dumbest and emptiest multicultural slogans - even receptionists who put motivational "Hold On" stickies on their computer monitors roll their eyes at lines like "it doesn't matter what you believe, just that you believe" or "the most important thing is to feel spiritual."

Then Reform religious leaders say "this is why you should be a Jew" and Jews rightly say "well, those reasons are all stupid so if that's the best you've got..."

If you want someone to embrace a religion, you have to tell them that the religion is better and truer than, say, cheap spiritual taglines printed on Starbucks cups. Not to give away the ending, but starting off with "you should embrace your own personal understanding of Jewish theology and ethics unless it's something the Bush administration agrees with" is not a sound basis for the formation of belief.

Make sure you get to the part of the story where the Reform scholar explains that children need less time in Sunday school and shul because those things are failing to convince kids that Judaism is a good idea. Pay special attention to how memorization is supposedly counterproductive because students don't understand why they should learn about the Jewish intellectual tradition. Obviously, the problem is with the idea of memorization and not, say, with Jewish teachers who can't or won't give a justification for studying Jewish teachings.

Insipid New Age nonsense. Of course they think yoga studios are an adequate substitute for shul. Of course they do.

References:
* Sunday school doesn't deter intermarriage, new US study finds [JPost]
* MR Responds to Haaretz Commenter on Reform Judaism [MR]

Previously:
* MR Has A Question For Democratic Jews: Are You Fucking Retarded?
* Republicans and Democrats Both Talk About Jews Making Money. What's The Difference?
* The Democratic Party and American Jews: The Divorce Is Going To Be Ugly

Do you ever wish you were a left-wing blogger, so that you could call this guy a wanker and have people smirk at the sophisticated irony of your idiotic and simplistic attempt at public discourse? Alas, around these parts we prefer to maintain a more elevated discourse.

What a douchebag:

The Mapai party, for those of you just joining us from home, no longer "exists." As such.

But nice to see the Israeli right has matured not at all during the month we were gone. On that topic, incidentally - we imagine that this is a lot more entertaining for us than it is for some of you. This is where we would put a lolcat with a worried expression on its face and an "oh noes" caption, but we're sandbagging that for the next time that Abbas threatens to cut off negotiations with Israel.

References:
* Professor says leftist 'terrorists' made him apologize for comments [Ha'aretz]
* You Can't Say That - De Hartog Should Have Slapped Yacov Cohen Twice For Calling Him A Nazi [MR]
* Feiglin blasts Netanyahu HQ location [JPost]

Previously:
* Israeli Rightists Need To Stop Defending Ron-Tal
* Oh God. Not the Peres Is a Traitor Debate Again.
* Israeli Troops Are Not Nazis, Criticism Of The Right Edition

And after almost a month, we're finally back. We'd like to thank everybody for the public expressions of sympathy and good will. Which is to say, Anne is the one we like and the rest of you are dead to us.

We've been functionally offline for almost a month so it'll be another day or two before we figure out what's happening in the world. Olmert didn't do anything stupid like unilaterally releasing a bunch of terrorists while at the same time failing to respond strongly to multiple, aggressive Arab territorial grabs did he?

References:
* Quote of the Day: The Problem Is [Boker Tov Boulder]

Previously:
* Mere Rhetoric Is Shutting Down Until Mid-August
* Tasha and Dishka Fridays - April 20th Edition
* Israeli Hottie Wednesdays - Hey, That Maya Buskila Girl Is Kind Of Cute [Video]

We're not going to be formally back to blogging until late this weekend or Monday, but this just came into our inbox. We have no idea how accurate it is, but Allen and David are not among the more over-excitable bloggers in the world and so we figure we should pass it on:

Nothing on the national news yet as far as we can see, but we assume that One Jerusalem will be blogging updates - and that if it's on local NY news then the rest of the blogosphere will have it in a few minutes as well. Or at least, it will be on the right side of the blogosphere while the left side questions the timing and declares that there can't possibly be a threat (hopefully, at least as far as the latter point goes, they're right). There's nothing much we can contribute to this since we're limited to national stations, so you should head over there for updates.

UPDATE: Via Hot Air, the link to local New York news - "an unverified radiological threat was made against New York City Friday". One Jerusalem has also updated to say that Bloomberg's keeping the threat at Orange for now, so hopefully nothing will come of this...

References:
* New York Dirty Bomb? [One Jerusalem]

Previously:
* OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Mark Steyn
* One Jerusalem Conference Call - Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay
* One Jerusalem Conference Call: Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu