Billions in aid, cutting edge weaponry, and Israeli security concessions that haven't been seriously considered since the least realistic days of Oslo - great job guys:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took a newly conciliatory tone toward his Hamas rivals in a major policy speech Monday, calling for a "new page" in relations between the bitter enemies. "There is no way for any party here to be an alternative to the other, and there is no room for terms like coup or military takeover, but only for dialogue, dialogue, dialogue," Abbas said, referring to Hamas' violent rout of his Fatah forces and takeover of the Gaza Strip in June. Speaking to a crowd in the West Bank at a rally marking the 43rd anniversary of Fatah, Abbas called for "a new page, writing in its lines a credible agreement based on partnership, on life, on our homeland and our struggle to liberate it."... Abbas spoke very differently as recently as November, when he called for the overthrow of Hamas in Gaza after Hamas forces fired on a huge Fatah rally in Gaza City, killing eight civilians and wounding dozens.

Of course he spoke differently in November. Back then he was still pretending that he'd use Israeli security concessions and billions in global aid to dismantle Hamas's terrorist network. Which is just like reconciling with Hamas's terrorist network, except the opposite.

Saudi Arabia has been pushing hard to reunite Hamas terrorists with the rearmed and refreshed Fatah soldiers (so we're glad that the State Department invited them to Annapolis - that's working out well). And Fatah lawmakers had already dropped the pretense of opposing Hamas weeks ago, declaring that they're diplomatically and militarily united with their "bitter enemies". So this is just Abbas making the unofficial Fatah policy official. Shocking, that.

References:
* Abbas calls for dialogue with Hamas, new elections [JPost]
* Fatah: We're Going To Use Our New US And Russian-Supplied Weapons To Fight With Hamas Against Israel (Plus: Hamas Upgrades, Stockpiles Their Qassams) [MR]
* Hamas And Fatah: Any Compromise On Any Part Of Jerusalem Is Treason (Plus: Blair: Peace Deal Within A Year) (Updated: Eloquent And Prescient Reuters Picture Of The Year) [MR]
* Saudis: Now That Abbas Is Getting Land, We're Going To Reunite Fatah And Hamas (Plus: They Didn't Even Have Their Ear Pieces In At Annapolis) [MR]

Previously:
* State Department Deliberately Circumvents Anti-Terrorism Laws, Funds Hamas
* Palestinians Prepare For Peace Conference With Ten Terrorist Plots
* Hamas: Oh By The Way, We're Totally Going To Ignore Annapolis When We Roll Over The West Bank

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

Just in time for the stellar Specter-Kennedy team that's in Damascus to make peace. Because why not:

A Syrian criminal court on Monday convicted a political activist of insulting the regime and contacting ''hostile parties,'' and sentenced him to one and a half years in prison, a human rights group said. Faiq al-Mir', a member of the outlawed Syrian Democratic People Party was arrested in December 2006 after visiting Lebanon to offer condolences to the family of assassinated Lebanese politician George Hawi, a critic of Syria's role in the neighboring country.

We're doing such a great job in the Middle East. A totally, totally awesome job. Everything is under control.

Is anybody in charge around here? Anybody? Because either Specter and Kennedy are conducting their own foreign policy, which would be retarded, or the State Department convinced the Bush administration that it was a good idea to send these two clowns to Damascus with peace overtures. Which would be retarded.

References:
* Specter and Kennedy go on a road trip to Syria [Hot Air]
* Syrian court sentences political activist for insulting regime [YNet]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - Peace Deal Rumors Are Suspiciously Incoherent
* Iran, Hamas, And Islamic Jihad Meet In Syria To Plan Mideast Turmoil
* State Department Gets Bright Idea: Let's Screw Israel Even More By Bundling Syria Into The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process

Arieh Eldad is right to call this idiotic, even while he's (again) totally out of line for calling on Israelis to physically resist the decisions of a democratically elected government. Because the decision is totally idiotic:

In a letter addressed to Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon and Minister of Housing and Construction Ze'ev Boim, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that all construction plans for settlements in the West Bank must receive his authorization and the approval of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. "Any new construction, expansion, confiscation of land, the issuing of housing tenders and all other acts related to the Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria will not be advanced or carried out without authorization," the prime minister said in the letter. Sources in the PM's Office said the letter came as a follow-up to the government's announcement from November 19, 2007 regarding Israel's commitment to freeze all construction in the West Bank as specified by the US-backed Road Map for peace initiative.

That's kind of reasonable. After all, Fatah has been holding up its end of the bargain by dismantling terrorism in the West Bank territories that it controls. Except for the part where Dan Gillerman has expressed Israel's opinion that Fatah is not holding up its end of the bargain by dismantling terrorism in the West Bank territories that it controls. Except for that part.

References:
* PM Olmert: 'Yesha Construction Stops Here' [INN]
* Olmert to ministers: No settlement construction without my authorization [YNet]
* PA:"The Group Seeks to Sabotage Peace negotiations " [Turkish Weekly]

Previously:
* PA Police Officers Rolling In Millions Of New US Aid, Murdering Israeli Civilians
* Palestinians To Get 25 Cutting Edge, Helicopter-Busting APCs
* Fatah Soldiers: Yeah, We'll Kill Moderates Who Negotiate With Israel

The Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israeli hikers last weekend are bravely hiding in hospitals:

Palestinian sources reported Friday evening that IDF forces entered the al-Ahli hospital in Hebron to search among its patients for the Palestinian gunmen involved in the killing of two Israeli hikers earlier in the day. According to the report soldiers entered the hospital and are examining patients ID's in an attempt to track down the cell members... A senior Islamic Jihad official told Ynet that the commander of the shooting attack is Samar Nabil al-Natsheh, a senior member of the al-Quds Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Jihad. Samar is the son of Nabil al-Natsheh, a prominent businessman and senior Hamas leader in Hebron. The Islamic Jihad confirmed that the attack was carried out in conjunction with Hamas.

We expect the international community will soon condemn the Palestinians for their war crime of hiding in hospitals. Right after they condemn the Palestinians for their war crime of attacking civilians.

Incidentally, great job by Fatah in using their billions in anti-terrorism and development aid. It's almost like Fatah's declarations of military and diplomatic unity with Hamas is preventing them from stopping attacks coordinated by Hamas. Nice to see Annapolis is paying dividends.

References:
* Troops hunt for terrorists in Hebron hospital [YNet]
* Fatah: We're Going To Use Our New US And Russian-Supplied Weapons To Fight With Hamas Against Israel (Plus: Hamas Upgrades, Stockpiles Their Qassams) [MR]
* Hamas And Fatah: Any Compromise On Any Part Of Jerusalem Is Treason (Plus: Blair: Peace Deal Within A Year) (Updated: Eloquent And Prescient Reuters Picture Of The Year) [MR]

Previously:
* Tuesday Headline Link Dump - Palestinians Set Peace Process Conditions And The Israeli Right Implodes (Plus: There May Be No One We Do Not Hate)
* Hamas Has 200 Tons Of Explosives That The US Gave To Fatah (Plus: Egypt Says It's Israel's Fault)
* Fatah Moderates Respond To Billions In Aid By Stressing Unity With Terrorists

Because why not, ya know?

The revelation from an American bio-defense analyst living in Europe that Syria is ready to respond with biological weapons of mass destruction if the U.S., Israel or Europe attack Iranian nuclear installations has again brought forth the reality that such weapons in the hands of our enemies represent an intolerable threat to our national security. According to Jill Bellamy-Dorsey, who currently directs the Public Health Preparedness program for the European Homeland Security Association under the French High Committee for Civil Defense: “Syria is positioned to launch a biological attack on Israel or Europe should the U.S. attack Iran. The Syrians are embedding their biological weapons program into their commercial pharmaceuticals business and their veterinary vaccine-research facilities…” she said.

That's totally fair. Or at least as fair as Saddam Hussein attacking Israeli in 1991 in response to a war launched against him by traditionally Christian and currently Muslim countries - an attack that James Baker prevented Israel from responding to. The problem with these genocidal lunatics is that they can't even be original any more. They've been so open for so long about the means and the goals of their genocidal lunacy that they've run out of room for innovation.

And remember how the State Department tried to prevent Israel from taking out Syria's nuclear bomb production facility earlier this year? That was pretty awesome.

Finally, feel free to click through and read the whole article. It's an exposition on how the US is terrifyingly vulnerable to bioterrorism - plots that Palestinian leaders and Arab regimes have been planning for decades. Happy new year.

References:
* America's Bio-Terrorism Nightmare [Analyst Network]
* Syria's Been Building Their Nuclear Reactor Since 2003 And The State Department Still Tried To Stop Israel From Taking It Out (Plus: Awesome IDF Bombing Raid Just Got Filled With Even More Awesome) [MR]

Previously:
* Syria Modernizing Its Airforce With Russian Help - War With Israel On The Horizon
* Mass Graves Created By Syria Found in Lebanon, Israeli Arabs Don't Care
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Says They're "Actively Preparing For War With Israel"

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

That's a bold and innovative idea:

Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin on Sunday warned against relaxing criteria for releasing Palestinian prisoners in return for kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldiers. In a special meeting with cabinet ministers and security officials, Diskin lashed out against Ofer Dekel, Israel's chief negotiator for securing the release of abducted soldiers, claiming Dekel backed criteria that were too lenient. "Diskin wanted to keep the criteria as they are because when they [the Palestinian prisoners] get out of jail, he'll have to deal with them," a government source said. "On the other side, Dekel is interested in reaching a deal and believes criteria should be eased." During the meeting, Dekel's stance was apparently backed by IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the source said. An attempt by Vice Premier Haim Ramon to broker a compromise between the two camps failed and the meeting was adjourned without reaching an agreement.

There seems to be a kind of peace process model where people who don't have to deal with the terrorism situation later make concessions so they can claim credit for a peace deal now. Call it the State Department model of world peace. Meanwhile Olmert is calling on Palestinian to dismantle terrorism themselves, lest he not offer money and security concessions to them for a couple of days. Because Palestinian negotiators take him totally seriously, and they have no experience waiting out those kinds of idle threats.

References:
* Diskin and top negotiator clash over prisoner release criteria [Ha'aretz]
* Olmert Presses PA to Take Steps for Fighting Terror [Arab News]

Previously:
* Olmert Releasing 2000 Prisoners To Placate Crybaby Palestinian Thugs
* Hamas: One Israeli Boy Is Worth 450 Palestinians
* Olmert Releasing Prisoners Now So He Won't Have To Release Them Later

The much vaunted Fatah moderates that Israel will be handing land to are ending 2007 are doing super:

Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, on Sunday called for the murder of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad for "collaboration" with Israel and the US. This was the first time the group has openly called for Fayad's assassination. In the past, the group distributed leaflets strongly condemning Fayad and calling for his dismissal.

Fayad has been under heavy criticism from some Fatah leaders and activists, who accuse him of denying them public funds and plotting to undermine Fatah's grip on power. Other Fatah leaders have also accused Fayad of seeking to consolidate his power with the hope of replacing Mahmoud Abbas as PA president. The threat was made in a leaflet distributed by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip. Some Fatah officials in Ramallah sought to distance themselves from the threat, claiming that the leaflet had been forged. They even went as far as accusing Hamas of being behind it. The command of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip calls on all its elements and striking forces in the West Bank to immediately eliminate the so-called Salaam Fayad," the leaflet said. It claimed that Fayad's Ramallah-based government was working for Israel and the US... It also called to fire PA Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya for announcing that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank had been dismantled.

Fatah officials in the West Bank have been overstating the degree to which they've dismantled violent anti-Israel terrorist cells that operate under their own umbrella? Just so they can keep accepting Israeli security concessions and international aid in the context of peace talks? That's original.

References:
* Aksa Brigades calls for Fayad's death [JPost]

Previously:
* Olmert Releasing 2000 Prisoners To Placate Crybaby Palestinian Thugs
* Palestinians Prepare For Peace Summit By Shooting Israeli Civilian In West Bank (Plus: Two Dozen Rockets And Mortars Hit Israel Monday)
* Bush To Put Some British Guy Who Ignores Israeli Security Concerns In Charge Of Mid-East Peace Process

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit

Holy fucking shit:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday welcomed Israel's decision to drop plans to construct a new neighborhood in the Atarot section of East Jerusalem, the AFP reported on Friday. "I think it's a good step," Rice said after a Housing Ministry official said that plans for the project had been dropped. Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim had given the green light for the plan, despite the fact that senior American officials say Israel had promised not to move forward with the project. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office distanced itself Wednesday from a Housing Ministry decision to begin planning a new Jewish neighborhood in area.

We quit.

UPDATE: No, we're not really quitting. It's a generic expression of exasperation. Your emails are very touching though.

References:
* Rice welcomes Israeli decision to nix building plan in E. J'lem [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* State Department Sophistication Very Close To Triggering All-Out African War
* State Department Strategy Of Shielding Hezbollah During Lebanon II Working Out Great As Presidential Elections Postponed Again
* State Department Tries To Cleanse Obviously Illegal "No Jews Allowed" Application But Is Too Fucking Stupid To Turn Off Track Changes

We've been nuking literally dozens of vulgar anti-Semitic comments every few weeks since we posted that breathtaking example of Iranian anti-Semitism. We're going to start posting the nuked comments here so there'll at least be a record of those cretins' viciousness:

generalmike133: even jews had!! who financed hitler? who provided fuell?
persiandudeee: lol awsome video, it's true jews are using the "holucust" as an excuse but the real truth is that the jews were actually nazis themself:D Hitler hisself was also a jew:D

They really believe that, and there are more of them every day.

References:
* Vicious Iranian Anti-Semitism [photonh2o / YouTube]

Previously:
* Ron Paul Supporter: No Jew Money Here
* Compare And Contrast: Israeli FM Greets Ramadan By Attending Meal With Muslim Leaders. Hamas Greets Yom Kippur With Music Video About "Chunks Of Flesh Of Jews"
* We Get Mail - Pro-Holocaust YouTube Cretin Edition

From what liberal sophisticates tell us, this has nothing to do with Islam. It's just a cultural practice. Except for the part where according to top Islamic authorities it has everything to do with Islam:

A top Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said on Wednesday that women in Iran who do not wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf, should die... "I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive," he said. "These women and their husbands and their fathers must die," said Hassani, who is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in eastern Azerbaijan.

Well that kind of sucks. We wonder if this is the same guy who makes mistakes about how jihad is just an inner struggle of self-overcoming. Top Islamic are making those kinds of mistakes all the time.

References:
* Iran: Top cleric says women without veils must die [AKI]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Islamism in the Netherlands
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You're A Feminist Who Thinks That The Koran Should Give Women Rights, You May Have To Die
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Enlightenment Breaks Out With Sexy Burkas, Theologically Correct Wife Beatings, and Books!

Hey, you know how Democratic leaders and liberal foreign policy experts have been insisting that Ahmadinejad is a tool that we don't have to worry about? Turns out that's not true:

It's a big week for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For the first time in his life, the Iranian president joined millions of other Muslims in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Images of a serious and unusually well-groomed Iranian president consulting the Koran in Iran before boarding his plane to Saudi Arabia have appeared in the world media... Ahmadinejad is the leader of the Shiite Islamic Republic, a country that has jolted the entire Middle East and frightened its Sunni neighbors in recent years with its push for Shiite political and religious superiority. That push is being accompanied by patient work on a nuclear program and ingenious deception and time-delay tactics to keep Western critics at bay. Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni bloc, is one of Iran's frightened neighbors. And yet, it was Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah who made the surprising friendly gesture, inviting Ahmadinejad to Mecca for the Hajj.

Oh, and it also turns out that - despite expert opinion to the contrary - Sunni and Shiite Muslims can overcome their sectarian animosity enough to see themselves toward uniting. Who knew?

References:
* Gulf states are scared [YNet]
* Bill Richardson: Ahmadinejad Is Nothing To Worry About, We Should Engage Iran [MR]

Previously:
* Religion Of Peace Hosts Peaceful Pilgrimage Where Peaceful Sunnis And Shiites Unite To Chant About War And Genocide
* Smug Condescending Sophisticates Admit They've Been Lying Through Their Teeth About Israeli Security I - UN Admits Hezbollah Is Rearming
* Josh Marshall, Liberal Sophisticate: Conservatives Should "Grow Up" About Ahmadinejad's Desecration Of Ground Zero

The 2007 UNICEF photo of the year:

The image hardly fits our idea of the happy couple's wedding picture - but this haunting photograph taken in Afghanistan graphically captures life for millions of girls given in marriage while under age. It shows Mohammed, 40, with his new 11-year-old wife, Ghulam. Taken by US photographer Stephanie Sinclair, it was named Unicef Photo of the Year yesterday. Some 60million girls worldwide are married while still under age, according to the children's rights agency.

At least he married the poor girl. In Iran, the growing industry of sharia-approved "temporary marriages" allows girls as young as nine to be enslaved, raped, and then dumped back into brothels. Why as young as nine and not eight or ten? We're obviously not Islamic scholars, but if we had to take a guess...

Incidentally, we were trying to Google a story about how Iran's clerics exploit temporary marriage to score underage girls when they travel around the country. We know it's out there but we didn't find it. Instead we came across this 2000 New York Times story about how temporary marriages are a progressive measure being pushed by "odd mix of feminists, clerics and officials". Title of the story? "Love Finds A Way". Really. At least now we know how to be sophisticated about this charming cultural practice.

References:
* Under-age marriage picture wins UNICEF prize [Metro UK]
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Iran Has Legal Slavery And Rape Of Prepubescent Girls. They Call It "Temporary Marriage". [MR]
* Criticism of Muhammad: Aisha [Wikipedia]
* Love Finds a Way in Iran: 'Temporary Marriage' [NYT]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You're A Maid In Saudi Arabia, You Might Have To Be Tortured And Mutilated
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - John McCain Responds To Code Pink's "We Should Surrender To The Most Vicious Sexists On The Planet" Platform [Videos]
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - You're Too Dirty To Walk On Saudi Arabia's Sidewalks

A couple well-aimed missiles, and suddenly they're gentle little kittens, albeit ones who will want a small window right before the official declaration to fire a couple pot shots at Israeli schools and hospitals:

On Islam's most important holiday, the leader of Gaza's Hamas government appealed Wednesday for a cease-fire with Israel and said his people—battered by Israeli military strikes and international sanctions—are greeting this year's feast with "tears in our eyes." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman said there could be no deals with Hamas until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel, though one Cabinet minister said Israel might consider outside mediation with the Islamic militants...

The appeal from Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas government in Gaza, came in a phone call to an Israeli TV reporter, said Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu. It followed a two-day air assault by Israeli forces that killed 12 Gaza militants, two from Hamas and 10 from Islamic Jihad. Israel "should stop its attacks and siege," Nunu said. "Then a truce would be possible, and not unlikely."

You know who opposed those Israeli air strikes? The most moderate wings of Fatah. It's almost like they're not really interested in seeing Israel actually reduce violence against Israelis. For what it's worth, Israel has the capacity to effectively eradicate the leadership of terrorist groups when it chooses to. We'd tell you to ask the leaders of PFLP but you can't.

References:
* Hamas Calls for Truce With Israel [AP]
* Fatah Moderates Respond To Billions In Aid By Stressing Unity With Terrorists [MR]
* Palestinian terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is destroyed [Facts Of Israel]

Previously:
* Compare And Contrast - Actors In Israel Kids' Show: "I Love You", Little Girls In Hamas Cartoon: "We Long For Martyrdom... Our Death Is Happiness" [Videos]
* Iran, Hamas, And Islamic Jihad Meet In Syria To Plan Mideast Turmoil
* Palestinians Prepare For Peace Summit By Shooting Israeli Civilian In West Bank (Plus: Two Dozen Rockets And Mortars Hit Israel Monday)

Can't you just feel the peace and love in the air? Fatah's most moderate leader is screeching about how Israel is trying to deny Gaza Palestinians their right to fire rockets at Israeli schools and hospitals. Incidentally, that's not sarcasm - Fayyad really is their most moderate guy. Think about that:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called on the international community Tuesday evening to intervene and put a stop to Israel's strikes in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has launched a series of airstrikes in Gaza in the past two days against Qassam cells responsible for rocket attacks on Israel. The strikes left 11 Islamic Jihad militants dead Monday... Fayyad recently concluded a round of reportedly positive talks with Israeli leaders, and a successful fundraising campaign for the Palestinian Authority in Paris.

Looks like Saudi Arabia's efforts to reunite Fatah and Hamas may be paying some dividends. Good thing that the State Department invited them to Annapolis, a conference that was specifically sold as a way to isolate Hamas and bolster Fatah. At least Fatah representatives cooperating with Hamas by endorsing their bargaining positions and promising to use security assistance to fight with them against Israel. Because if that was happening it would make the peace process look kind of stupid and counterproductive.

Apparently this is what peace is going to look like - the Palestinians get literally billions in aid and then turn around and demand that they literally be allowed to bomb Israelis. This is beginning to seem eerily familiar.

References:
* Fayyad urges world to stop Israel's 'crimes' in Gaza [YNet]
* Saudis: Now That Abbas Is Getting Land, We're Going To Reunite Fatah And Hamas (Plus: They Didn't Even Have Their Ear Pieces In At Annapolis) [MR]
* Hamas And Fatah: Any Compromise On Any Part Of Jerusalem Is Treason (Plus: Blair: Peace Deal Within A Year) (Updated: Eloquent And Prescient Reuters Picture Of The Year) [MR]
* Fatah: We're Going To Use Our New US And Russian-Supplied Weapons To Fight With Hamas Against Israel (Plus: Hamas Upgrades, Stockpiles Their Qassams) [MR]

Previously:
* Condi: Palestinians Are Like Oppressed Blacks In The Jim Crow South (Plus: Hamas: "No Room For Jews" In Israel)
* West Bank Palestinians Embrace Peace By Smuggling Pipe Bomb, Throwing Molotov Cocktails At Civilians (Plus: Gaza Palestinians Still Just Firing Mortars)
* Palestinians Intentionally Creating Humanitarian Crises In Gaza By Refusing To Accept Israeli Fuel

Yeah, well:

Britain's Office of National Statistics says the name of the Muslim prophet is on the verge of becoming the most popular name for newborn boys in the United Kingdom. While Jack has reigned supreme for the last 13 years, Britain's growing Muslim society has rocketed their prophet's name -- including all spelling variations -- into second place. If the trend holds, Mohammed should pass Jack next year. The 2001 national census in the United Kingdom put the Muslim population at 1.6 million, but officials concede that number is greatly outdated.

We wouldn't read too much into this - maybe it's really hard to come up with an Arabic version of Jack. That would be important, you see, since
* forty percent of British schoolchildren don't speak English at home. And we always thought that France would be the first theocratic Muslim regime to get the bomb.

References:
* Move Over Jack, Mohammed's About to Pass You as U.K.'s Most Popular Boys Name [Fox News]
* We're Going To Miss Westminster Abbey - English Is A Foreign Language To Forty Percent Of British Schoolchildren (Plus: Brits Begin To Seriously Contemplate Life Under Sharia Law) [MR]

Previously:
* We're Going To Miss Westminster Abbey - Teachers And Students Forced To Be Sexist, Dress Like "Asians" To Celebrate Muslim Holiday (Plus: British Mosques Filled With Hate Literature)
* We're Going To Miss Westminster Abbey - Sharia Courts Established In Britain
* We're Going To Miss Westminster Abbey - No Really, We're Going To Miss It

This is exactly what happens in the Vatican on Christmas and in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur. Exactly:

Filled with the spirit, Iranians chanted anti-US and anti-Zionist slogans at holy event. Iranian Republic News Agency reported: Disavowal of Pagans ritual ended in this sacred desert on Tuesday by issuing a five-article final resolution which stressed on unity among all Muslim nations. The ceremony was attended by a huge group of Iranian pilgrims who chanted anti-US and anti-Zionist slogans.

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei offered this blessing to the Hajj pilgrims, via IRNA: "Today, the treacherous enemies of the Muslim Ummah are the organizers of the hegemonic centers and expansionist and aggressive powers which consider the Islamic awakening as a great threat to their illegitimate interests and their oppressive domination over the Muslim world. All the Muslim nations led by their political and religious authorities, intellectuals and national leaders need to form a united Islamic front against this invading enemy with full strength.

You know what's so weird about this? We were totally convinced by the assurances of foreign policy elites and think tank sophisticates that Sunnis and Shiites hate each other way too much to cooperate against the West. They're very different you see. Not so different that they won't funnel money to each other and cooperate on international terrorism. But still very different.

References:
* Iranians Chant "Death to America" & "Death to Israel" at Hajj Ceremony in Saudi Arabia [Gateway Pundit]
* Leftist Sophistication Watch: Shiites And Sunnis Do Work Together, Iran Admits Funneling Money To Hamas [MR]

Previously:
* Smug Liberal Sophistication Untroubled By Undeniable Evidence That Hardliners Are Winning In Iran
* The Denial of the Obvious By Reference to the Irrelevant: Center-Left Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics
* Leftist Sophistication Watch: Shiites And Sunnis Do Work Together, Iran Admits Funneling Money To Hamas

Lots of people are having fun with the entirely predictable but still totally batshit crazy DKos comments about the fire in Cheney's office. But for truly heavy-handed ugliness, check out this contribution from a thread about Lieberman's endorsement of McCain:

Is Lieberman a Democrat NO !
Is Lieberman a Republican NO !
Lieberman is a Likud Jew.
They are the hated ones from Germany.
They are the German/Jew Fascists.
They are the ones that make it bad for the
"good Jews" in this World.
If you want to know what Lieberman is going
to do next, see which way the wind is blowing---
in Tel Aviv.

Number of top-tier Democratic Presidential candidates who declined to attend this year's YearlyKos convention: 0

References:
* re: White House Fire [NRO Corner]
* Fire in Cheney's Office Causes Leftists to Rant Uncontrollably [LGF]
* Shanda! Lieberman embarrasses his friends. [DKos]

Previously:
* [Video] What You Get When You Vote For Democrats - Empowering Conspiracy Theory Wackos
* Isn't It About Time For Democratic Jews To Stop Electorally Empowering The Ahmadinejad-Supporting Left?
* Hysterical Liberal Calls To Ban Coulter Somewhat Inconsistent With Their "Free Speech" Celebrations Of Ahmadinejad's Columbia Appearance

Of course they are:

Palestinian petrol distribution companies refused to receive the amount of fuel from Israel's Dor company as a form of protesting the Israeli reduced its fuel supplies to Gaza. Palestinian said on Sunday that most of the service stations in Gaza Strip have run out of fuel, especially the diesel as Israel started to reduce Gaza fuel deliveries... "The reduction of fuel is unjustifiable and irresponsible," the union said. "It causes negative effects on all sectors of life, especially on the health and education systems." The union said the local petrol companies have refused to receive what Israel is sending "in order not to be partners in punishing the Palestinian people because these quantities are insufficient."

Actually that's not quite right. There was more than enough fuel handed over to keep the health and educational systems going - it just wasn't enough to keep both those systems and terrorist operations running smoothly. So naturally the Palestinians in Gaza stole the fuel from the hospitals to use in Hamas "operations" against Israel. Priorities, priorities.

Running list of ways that Gaza Palestinians are trying to create a humanitarian crisis so they can demonize Israel:

* Stealing fuel from hospitals for Hamas "operations"
* Banning Israeli food aid
* Intentionally not requesting medical aid
* Closing crossings to block medical aid
* Shutting down medical clinics of Fatah-affiliated doctors
* Using roadblocks to stop ambulances
* Keeping crossings closed to prevent family reunification

Running list or organizations that have reiterated and reprinted their "it's Israel's fault" fabrications and helped them demonize the Jewish State:

* The UN
* The Associated Press (joined a second time by the UN)
* Reuters
* The Red Cross
* The Washington Post

References:
* Palestinian refuse to receive fuel from Israel [Xinhua]
* Hamas Intentionally Creating Humanitarian Crises In Gaza By Stealing Fuel From Hospitals For Their "Operations" Against Israel [MR]

Previously:
* Boston Globe, Trying to Whitewash Hamas, Contradicts Itself. In Same Sentence.
* Hamas: Oh By The Way, We're Totally Going To Ignore Annapolis When We Roll Over The West Bank
* It's Official: Egypt Embracing Hamas Through Contacts, Prisoner Releases

Oh that's totally reassuring. We don't know why we were worried at all:

Vice Premier Haim Ramon signaled on Sunday that Israel intends to hold on to all Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, including Har Homa, where Israel plans to build 307 new housing units, a plan that has drawn scathing US criticism. Ramon said Israel should make it clear that it intends to turn over Arab neighborhoods of the city to Palestinian control, but would retain Jewish neighborhoods, including those built in east Jerusalem... Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki denounced Ramon's statement and its timing: On Wednesday, negotiating teams from both sides are to sit down together for their first formal talks in seven years. "These statements place obstacles before any serious attempts by Palestinian negotiators on Jerusalem," Malki said. "They aim to create confusion and change the course of negotiations before they begin. They try to pressure Palestinians and the international parties to think of Israeli needs before they begin."

We have a different idea: how about instead of giving large parts of Jerusalem up to a population that has repeatedly elected intransigent war governments, Israel doesn't give large parts of Jerusalem up to the Palestinians? Or counter-proposal has two benefits over the Olmert government's idiotic proposal: (1) it doesn't put Hamas a few kilometers from the Western Wall and (2) it doesn't force a bunch of East Jerusalem Arabs to live under Palestinian rule against their will. We're not sure if there's an actual majority of East Jerusalem Arabs who want to live under Israeli rule, but it's certainly a huge swath. Luckily pesky things like "majority rule" don't really matter any more - if they did, everyone would have to accept that the Palestinians aren't really interested in peace since, you know, a majority of them keep voting against it.

And don't you just love how any time Israel lays out a position or takes an action it's instantly an "obstacle" or a "risk" to negotiations? The Palestinians hold the peace process hostage to an all or nothing agreement while openly stating that they'll accept nothing less than all of East J'lem including full sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Hamas legislators, with not exactly muted support from Fatah, declare that any compromise on any part of Jerusalem is high treason. But let Israel suggest that they want to hold on to the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem - and everyone throws up their hands in exasperation and acts like they're wasting their time even talking to these intransigent Zionists. This should be called the "State Department definition" of Israel-Palestinian negotiations - mostly because it is.

References:
* Ramon: We'll keep parts of e. J'lem [JPost]
* Abbas: "If You Don't Give Me Everything I Won't Accept Anything" [MR]
* Compromise Palestinian Style - We Get Everything, You Get Nothing [MR]
* Palestinian Demands Overwhelming Rice's Ability To Pressure Israel [MR]
* Hamas And Fatah: Any Compromise On Any Part Of Jerusalem Is Treason (Plus: Blair: Peace Deal Within A Year) (Updated: Eloquent And Prescient Reuters Picture Of The Year) [MR]
* Rice Explicitly Sides With Palestinians On East J'lem, Lashes Out At Israel For "Prejudging" [MR]

Previously:
* Palestinians Hold Funeral For Peace Process [Video]
* Olmert Releasing 2000 Prisoners To Placate Crybaby Palestinian Thugs
* Israeli Security Foils 7 Suicide Bombings From Fatah-Controlled West Bank

Peacefully killed and mutilated, mind you:

Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday... "The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. "Those who are behind these atrocities are organized gangs who work under cover of religion, pretending to spread the instructions of Islam, but they are far from this religion," Khalaf said.

Why do we have a feeling that "those who are behind these atrocities" would beg to differ? And that several hundred million of their friends scattered throughout Asia and Europe would similarly decline to assent to this lay theology? And yet - this guy is on the front lines risking his life to fight back against Islamic thugs trying to drag his country into the dark ages, which we're douchebags in an LA studio taking pot shots at his soundbites. And yet again - isn't it a little suspicious that the Religion Of Peace narrative appeared in the AP lede to frame a news story that's actually about how it's not? If you click through make sure you check out the very, very bottom quote - just like with the the Iranian woman who was suicided by police, the debate revolves around the proper punishment women should recieve for violating sharia law rather than the existence of the laws themselves.

References:
* Vigilantes kill 40 women in Iraq's south [AP]
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You Sit With Your Fiance In The Park, Iranian Police May Have To Strangle You To Death [MR]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Iran Has Legal Slavery And Rape Of Prepubescent Girls. They Call It "Temporary Marriage".
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Pathological Islamism in Germany
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Your Saudi Husband Isn't Allowed To Beat You In The Face Because It "Makes Your Face Ugly"

There was a time when we were like "this is boring - we're just writing the same post over and over again." But now that US intelligence analysts and diplomats are finding new ways to constantly screw up or new concessions that they imagine Israel should offer, we're kind of pining for the old days. Which were like two months ago.

* Hey, remember how the FBI and CIA got infiltrated by a Hezbollah spy who never should have been given clearance for anything? Remember how two days ago Atlas blogged some reports that the mole outed FBI informants and undermined anti-terror efforts? Where'd that story go?

* One Jerusalem's most recent video in their ongoing work to save Jerusalem:

* Rick Richman follows up on Anne Lieberman's extensive roundup of PA-targeted aid from the last two years. Apparently electing an intransigent genocidal regime openly committed to the destruction of Western ally - pretty good way to get aid.

* Augean Stables humiliates Israeli peacenik Uri Avnery. This one's long but most of the takedowns apply to each and every one of Avnery's articles. The opening quote from Avnery - "of course he used me" - is particularly money. Click through to find out who "he" was.

We don't know if the thing about the door is true (we wouldn't be surprised) - but this certainly happened. As Tzipi Livni was rushing back to her hotel to make it home before the Sabbath, Condi Rice was violating every norm of diplomatic decorum:

While Livni was making her panicked way to the Brussels Hilton, a professional colleague, Condoleezza Rice, was making hers to the Joseph Luns Press Theater, where she revealed publicly what she had told Livni privately: Don't build at Har Homa, Rice said. Don't expand the settlements, don't obstruct the political process. That's contemporary diplomacy for you: Even before the Israeli foreign minister had had a chance to update her ministry officials as to the content of her conversation with her American counterpart, Rice took pains to broadcast to the whole world, and particularly to the Palestinians, that the conduct of the Israeli government after Annapolis is continually being monitored... Another colleague of the two women, Sergei Lavrov, took advantage of his turn in the Luns Theater to emphasize another message: In the post-Annapolis period, Russia sees great importance in encouraging Israel-Syria talks "about the Golan Heights." Lavrov described the goal of this type of communication - that is, the price Israel will pay has already been determined

Couple this with State Department careerists who are worming their way into the intelligence community and undermining efforts to keep Iran from getting the bomb, and it may well be the case that the State Department is now independently pursuing a comprehensive, multilevel anti-Israel agenda. And they're not being particularly bashful about it.

References:
* United States: State Sponsor of Judeophobia [INN]
* Ballistic in Brussels [Ha'aretz]
* WaPo: NIE Conclusions Were Engineered By Easily Identifiable, Hysterically Anti-Bush State Department Washouts [MR]

Previously:
* Condi: Palestinians Are Like Oppressed Blacks In The Jim Crow South (Plus: Hamas: "No Room For Jews" In Israel)
* US Joins Rest Of World In Offering Biased Anti-Israel UN Resolutions
* Mere Rhetoric: Search Results

We were wondering why they even bothered showing up to Annapolis since they didn't even bother putting their earpieces in...

Maybe it's there somewhere in our dreary mainstream media, but it wasn't until I read Allison Kaplan Sommer's description of Israeli reaction to the Annapolis conference on Pajamas that I noticed what is by far the most telling detail from that event: The Saudi Foreign Minister didn't even bother to put on his ear phones for Olmert's speech. Well, how despicable is that! Not as despicable as the sick, misogynist Saudi culture itself - very little could be - but a plenty could indication of the values and character of the Saudi leadership. In other words, somewhere south of Attila.

... but now we realize that if everything goes right, they'll encourage Israel to give land to Fatah literally at the same time that they're pushing Fatah is to hand it over to Hamas's hands:

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are pushing Hamas and Fatah to meet in an effort to resolve the deep rift in the Palestinian movements, as Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal visits Riyadh this week... A Fatah leader in the West Bank, Hatham Abed al-Kadr, said Sunday that Egypt has been in contact recently with Fatah and Hamas officials in attempt to bring the two sides for a meeting in Cairo after the culmination of the Eid al-Adha (Festival of the Sacrifice) in about two weeks. According to al-Kadr, the Egyptian mediation was aimed at opening negotiations between Hamas and Fatah.

Hey, remember how Annapolis was supposed to actually isolate Hamas? And how Abbas is getting millions in security assistance from the US and billions in aid from the Europeans and cutting-edge weaponry from the Russians - all to use against Hamas?

If Fatah isn't going to use all of that against Hamas - hey, you don't think they'd openly come out and say that they're going to use it to fight with Hamas against Israel do you? (h/t on the ear pieces absurdity: Soccer Dad)

References:
* Saudis welcome Meshal in bid to broker new Hamas-Fatah talks [Ha'aretz]
* Annapolis: Saudis without Ear Phones [Roger L Simon]
* PA Police Officers Rolling In Millions Of New US Aid, Murdering Israeli Civilians [MR]
* PA Police Getting More Than $5 Billion In New Aid To Use Against Israeli Civilians, Lose To Hamas [MR]
* PA To Get 25 Shiny Helicopter Busting APCs Next Week [MR]
* Fatah: We're Going To Use Our New US And Russian-Supplied Weapons To Fight With Hamas Against Israel (Plus: Hamas Upgrades, Stockpiles Their Qassams) [MR]

Previously:
* Smug Condescending Sophisticates Admit They've Been Lying Through Their Teeth About Israeli Security II - State Department Admits That Their Fatah Security Assistance Is An Abject Failure
* Dozens Of Fatah Police Officers Defect To AQ (Plus: Israeli "Goodwill Gesture" - 300 Palestinian Policemen To Deploy Around Nablus)
* Ha'aretz Headline: "Israel to go on high terror alert due to Annapolis peace summit"

Remember when UNIFIL commander Major General Claudio Graziano condescendingly mocked Israelis for saying that Hezbollah was rearming and reasserting its authority? Remember how he did it while lecturing the Israelis about how security overflights to protect their citizens were totally unnecessary? His exact line was "we are physically patrolling every corner of southern Lebanon and if there was a bunker [system] we would have found it." The UN has already admitted that that was a bit of a fib, albeit months after anyone with eyes could tell that the Hezbollah was in control because their banners and troops were everywhere.

But the sheer beauty of this is simply staggering. Physically patrolling every corner did you say?

The commander of UNIFIL's forces in Lebanon, Major General Claudio Graziano of Italy, was recently stopped by Hizbullah militants at a checkpoint in Beirut to prevent him from gathering information on the terror group's activities in the capital's south.... the militants acted under direct orders from senior Hizbullah officials. UNIFIL is tasked with keeping Hizbullah weapons out of the area south of the Litani River, and a number of confrontations between the sides have been reported in the past few months... Hizbullah continues to operate unabated in other parts of the country as well. A senior Lebanese official said recently that the countries that sent contingents of soldiers who make up the international force do not want it to expand its activity to the border with Syria due to the region's "sensitivity".

They condescendingly instructed Israel that they would take it from here, except they won't because they're terrified of actually having to engage Hezbollah. UNIFILS's job, as A Blog For All points out, is to enforce UNSC 1701's provisions calling for Hezbollah's dismantling. We would add that the resolution also calls for UNIFIL to assist Lebanon in ensuring that there is "no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon" and that UNIFIL is "to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this includes the existence of checkpoints with armed troops enforcing Hezbollah's authority. The checkpoint Hezbollah used to block the UN from discovering violations of UNSC 1701 is already a blatant violation of UNSC 1701. So perhaps Graziano has at last encountered a tiny bit of evidence that maybe Hezbollah is not following the UN and State Department's instructions? UNIFIL's operations are a model of anti-Israel diplomacy in process and outcome, stacked with pro-Hezbollah collaborators, human shields, and useful idiots. The organization should be disbanded now.

Incidentally, great job State Department!

References:
* Katyushas Hit Israel Two Days After UNIFIL Commander Promises Peace [MR]
* Smug Condescending Sophisticates Admit They've Been Lying Through Their Teeth About Israeli Security I - UN Admits Hezbollah Is Rearming [MR]
* State Department, UN Make Things Up To Coerce Israeli Concessions, Scapegoat Israel When Plans Fail (Plus: Hezbollah Now Openly Bragging About Using Civilian Human Shields) [MR]
* Report: UNIFIL chief in Lebanon stopped at Hizbullah checkpoint [YNet]
* Classic Confrontation [A Blog For All]
* Text: UN Lebanon resolution [BBC]
* Take Away Hezbollah's Collaborators, Human Shields, And Useful Idiots. Disband UNIFIL Now. [MR]
* Hezbollah's New Museum Is Breathtakingly Ungrateful For Massive US Help During Lebanon II [MR]

Previously:
* Memo To Foreign Policy Sophisticates - You'd Sound A Lot Less Stupid If You Stopped Mixing Your Condescension With Demonstrably False Fantasies Of Competence
* UN Report: UNIFIL Sucks. They Totally, Totally Suck.
* UNIFIL Spy Ship Disrupts Electronic Signals Across Israel (Plus: Syria Confirms It Was A Nuke Facility)

Totally moderate pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails, of course:

A Palestinian man carrying a pipe bomb and two knives was arrested Saturday evening at the Hawarah checkpoint south of Nablus. Sappers detonated the bomb in a controlled explosion, and the man was taken in for interrogation by security forces. In another incident in the West Bank, Palestinians threw six Molotov cocktails at an Israeli car traveling near Ramallah...Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired three mortar shells at the western Negev.

Guess those "humiliating" weapons checkpoints that human rights groups whine about might actually be necessary for, you know, checking weapons. Could it be that the Israelis are more concerned with security than with erecting some kind of weird sadistic regime that doesn't exist outside the minds of Jimmy Carter and his anti-Semiticish friends? Which is, admittedly, a lot of minds. Three billion at a minimum. But not very good ones.

References:
* Troops arrest Palestinian carrying bomb [JPost]

Previously:
* Celebrity Concerts For Israeli-Palestinian Peace Canceled Because Of Terrorism Threats
* Fatah: We're Going To Use Our New US And Russian-Supplied Weapons To Fight With Hamas Against Israel (Plus: Hamas Upgrades, Stockpiles Their Qassams)
* More Democrats Repeat Anti-Semitic Canards, Embrace Particularly Anti-Semitic Sounding Parts Of Walt And Mearsheimer

We haven't randomly expressed utter disdain for what passes as Palestinian pop culture. So here's a video of child jihadists lately. Charles has more information on this TV program, which is called "The Gifted". Of course it is:

Obviously, what they really need is a state.

References:
* Hamas Video: A Two-Year Old Jihadi [LGF]
* Hamas Indoctrinating Toddlers [InvestigativeProject / YouTube]

Previously:
* More Hamas Mickey Mouse Fun - Video And Comments From Moderate Democrats Added [Video]
* Stupid Campaigns and Stupid People
* UN: "Distractions" Are Causing Gaza Students To Flunk Math And Arabic [Videos]

You can now add stealing fuel from hospitals to the list of ways that Hamas is intentionally engineering a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip:

The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry on Thursday accused Hamas of robbing fuel stockpiles in two hospitals in the Gaza Strip. A statement published by the ministry claimed that Hamas had been stealing fuel from the European Hospital in the Strip for use in the group's operations. "The fuel was supplied to hospitals in order to satisfy their needs, in wake of the blockade imposed on Gaza following Hamas's takeover," continued the statement. For three days, Hamas has been preventing Gaza fuel companies from receiving fuel allocations sent from Ramallah. According to a Palestine Press news agency report, Hamas was stealing fuel and medical supplies sent from the PA Health Ministry in Ramallah to Gaza hospitals. Reportedly, Hamas had been using the fuel for cars belonging to senior group officials and the medical equipment was being transferred to hospitals under Hamas control.

Already on the list:
* Banning Israeli food aid
* Intentionally not requesting medical aid
* Closing crossings to block medical aid
* Shutting down medical clinics of Fatah-affiliated doctors
* Using roadblocks to stop ambulances
* Keeping crossings closed to prevent family reunification

Organizations that have blamed Israel in one way or another for Hamas's actions:
* The UN
* The Associated Press (joined a second time by the UN)
* Reuters
* The Red Cross
* The Washington Post

No doubt when Israel cuts off the Gaza Strip's fuel supply so that Hamas can't steal any more of it, Israelis will get blamed for refusing to literally supply gas to its enemies' soldiers. Of course they will.

References:
* PA: Hamas stealing Gaza hospitals' fuel [JPost]

Previously:
* Global Outcry As 4 Palestinians, 2 Civilians Killed In Hamas-Fatah Firefight
* Midday Tuesday Link Dump - Palestinians Kill Palestinians, Blame Israel; Palestinians Kill Israelis, Blame Israel; Red State Bans Ron Paul Crazies, etc.
* Global Outcry As Palestinian Work Accident Kills Gaza Women, Four Year Old Girl

Original: Wait. If the Palestinians have declared that any compromise on Jerusalem is quite literally treason...

The Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council is pushing through a bill that would make it illegal to make any concessions on Jerusalem. The bill, which passed its first reading on Thursday, also defines such concessions as a crime of high treason. Presented by Hamas legislator Ahmed Abu Halbiyeh on behalf of two parliamentary committees - the judicial committee and the committee for Jerusalem affairs - the bill is expected to pass in second and third readings in the coming days... However, many Fatah legislators have made it known that they too support the law, which states that Jerusalem is a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic city and that it is totally forbidden to give up or conduct negotiations about any part of the city.

... then how could Blair possibly believe that there's a just around the corner?

A deal on Palestinian statehood by the end of next year is realistic but a fully functioning state will take longer, Middle East envoy Tony Blair said in an interview on Thursday. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed in Annapolis, Maryland last week to try to reach a peace treaty creating a Palestinian state by the end of 2008, although doubts remain over the plan's viability. "I think a negotiated settlement is possible in 2008," Blair told France 24 television. But he added: "It will take some time for that negotiated settlement to be put in place fully." Political negotiations could be concluded next year but work had to be done to transform the Palestinian areas from territories into a working state, he said.

Oh.

We do love how Western diplomats say that "both sides" need to make "painful concessions." As if the Palestinians are actually giving up something that they already have or could ever get on their own. The Israelis are expected to give up land and their stubborn insistence on bringing to justice people who have been engaged in a genocidal campaign of murder against their civilians for decades. The Palestinians are expected to give up their decade-long genocidal campaign of murder, in exchange for which they get amnesty for their past crimes and a whole lot of land that they never could have gotten themselves or from their Arab brothers. How painful.

Update: One of the Reuters pictures of the year, shamelessly ganked from this post at Boker Tov Boulder. The caption reads: "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas R and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stand in front of the black stone inside the Kaaba in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, early February 9, 2007. (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)"

Were we you, we would be expecting to see this as a slightly cropped headline pic pretty often from now on. Not because of the homo-eroticism - which we could honestly give a fuck about - but because two people who are this close are not going to come to blows when the alternative is to turn their guns on Jews. Cf. the time in January when Abbas begged the Palestinians to stop killing each other and instead turn their guns on Jews.

References:
* PLC passes law to make any concessions on J'lem illegal [JPost]
* Blair: Deal on Palestinian state possible in 2008 [Ha'aretz]
* Blair: Israelis Need To Make "Psychological Shift" By Giving Up Stubborn Insistence On History, Experience, Reality [MR]

Previously:
* Fatah: We're Going To Use Our New US And Russian-Supplied Weapons To Fight With Hamas Against Israel (Plus: Hamas Upgrades, Stockpiles Their Qassams)
* State Department Gets Bright Idea: Let's Screw Israel Even More By Bundling Syria Into The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
* Tuesday Headline Link Dump - Palestinians Set Peace Process Conditions And The Israeli Right Implodes (Plus: There May Be No One We Do Not Hate)

A small minority of fanatics within a much larger global religion of peace are sending free-thinking women into hiding all over the planet. In India, a feminist wrote an autobiography that got banned and sent her into hiding. She was eventually forced to cave in just to keep not being dead. Check out what was so wildly offensive to Islam that she was threatened. You'll never guess:

Controversial Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasreen has said she will withdraw some "controversial" lines from one of her books. The lines are from Dwikhondito (Split into two) which, some Muslim groups say, are derogatory to Islam. The book was banned by the government in India's West Bengal state where a quarter of the population is Muslim. There have been violent protests against Ms Nasreen by Muslims in West Bengal's capital, Calcutta, recently. She has been moved from one city to another in the last few days for her own safety after these protests and is now lodged in a safe house in the capital, Delhi... Ms Nasreen told TV channels on Friday that she would be dropping some lines from Dwikhondito, her 2003 autobiography... Critics have accused the writer of calling for the Koran to be changed to give women greater rights, something she denies. Ms Nasreen fled Bangladesh in the early 1990s after death threats and has spent the last three years in Calcutta after a long stay in Europe.

So she allegedly attempted to tweak Islam to modernize it and lessen the pathological sexism rampant across the Muslim world. And she's spent decades in hiding because of it. Doesn't this kind of bode ill for the people who insist that, er, we can tweak Islam to modernize it and lessen the pathological sexism rampant across the Muslim world? (Via JammieWearingFool)

References:
* Taslima Nasreen removes comment

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Muslim Women Divided On Whether To Obey Oppressive Or Really Oppressive Muslim Dress Codes [Video]
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You're A Maid In Saudi Arabia, You Might Have To Be Tortured And Mutilated
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Israeli Biotech Industry Skyrockets As Women CEOs Lead the Way [Video]

Oh shove it:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Israel on Friday that its plan to build 300 house units on land captured in the 1967 Six-Day-War threatened U.S.-backed efforts to reach peace with the Palestinians. "We are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties and this doesn't help to build confidence," she said in rare U.S. criticism of Israel. There should not be anything which might prejudge final-status negotations," Rice said after talks with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on the sidelines of a NATO meeting. "It's even more important now that we are on the eve of the beginning of the negotiations. I made that position clear," she told a news conference. Israel has issued a tender for the construction of some 300 units in Har Homa, one of several residential districts that have been built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war.

The weird thing is, this seems exactly like prejudging final status negotiations. Maybe there's a way to interpret "the Palestinians say that this is theirs and so we think you should default to their position" as something other than a prejudgment, but, um - isn't that like its definition?

Fatah leaders declared that they're going to fight alongside Hamas, but that was apparently not so out of line that it warranted a "this hurts confidence" finger-wagging. But let Israel build on land that most Israelis want to keep in a final peace deal and suddenly Annapolis is in immediate danger of total collapse.

References:
* Rice warns Israel against East J'lem construction [Ha'aretz]
* Fatah: We're Going To Use Our New US And Russian-Supplied Weapons To Fight With Hamas Against Israel (Plus: Hamas Upgrades, Stockpiles Their Qassams) [MR]

Previously:
* Condi: Palestinians Are Like Oppressed Blacks In The Jim Crow South (Plus: Hamas: "No Room For Jews" In Israel)
* State Department Gets Bright Idea: Let's Screw Israel Even More By Bundling Syria Into The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
* Rice Gets Advice From Jimmy Carter And James Baker On How To Pressure Israel

That strategy of leashing the IDF during Lebanon II to protect the Siniora regime is really working out great:

Parliament on Friday again failed to meet on electing a new president, as Lebanon's factions deadlocked over a tangle of issues, including an amendment to the constitution and the shape of a future government... But installing Gen. Michel Suleiman as president requires an amendment to the constitution, which currently bars a sitting army commander from holding the post. The feuding factions cannot agree on how to change the constitution. In a perhaps even tougher obstacle, Christian opposition leader and presidential hopeful Michel Aoun, is demanding a "political understanding" on a future Cabinet to replace that of Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora before he will allow a vote on Suleiman. The opposition demands 45 percent of the seats in the next Cabinet and a "compromise prime minister" to head the government, said Ibrahim Kenaan, a member of Aoun's 23-member mainly Christian bloc. Government supporters were refusing to discuss the demands, he said Thursday.

Aoun is the Christian fig leaf of Hezbollah, willing to tear his country apart in pathetic attempts to garner the tiniest extra bit of power. His hand was strengthened last August when elections meant to bolster the oh-so-moderate Siniora somehow went awry and ended up bolstering Iranian proxies. Weird how that keeps happening in regions of the world where foreign policy sophisticates insist there are a ton of moderates.

Incidentally, wouldn't the State Department look really silly if they decided to give Lebanon cutting edge military technology and training just as the government fell to Iranian proxies? That would be both totally unforeseeable and totally unprecedented, huh?

References:
* Hezbollah's New Museum Is Breathtakingly Ungrateful For Massive US Help During Lebanon II [MR]
* Lebanon Presidential Vote Postponed [TIME]
* Hizballah's Christian Soldiers? [TIME]
* List of Things That Would Cause Us to Have More Sympathy for Lebanon's Prime Minister [MR]
* Pentagon Gets Brilliant Idea: Let's Give Lebanon Cutting-Edge Military Tech, Training [MR]
* Hezbollah Recruiting Thousands Of New Soldiers Thanks To US Diplomatic Failures, Lebanese Electoral Crisis (Plus: State Department Wants To Repeat Same Plan In West Bank And Wants Your Feedback) [MR]
* Hamas Has 200 Tons Of Explosives That The US Gave To Fatah (Plus: Egypt Says It's Israel's Fault) [MR]

Previously:
* Surprisingly, Hezbollah Failing To Play Constructive Role In Lebanese Politics
* Our Favorite Part of this AP Story is the Phrase "Hezbollah's representative in Iran"
* Lebanon Threatening To Go To War With Israel Over Israeli Border Violation That Didn't Happen

Hamas just upgraded their Qassams and built them up into a stockpile so that they can launch a Hezbollah-like saturation bombing of Israeli civilian centers. Over the past few months they've prepared an elaborate bunker system to slow any Israeli retaliation and inflict maximum casualties:

When firing rockets is politically inconvenient, Hamas hands them over to smaller organizations such as the Islamic Jihad, various Fatah factions and the Popular Resistance Committees to launch them in its place. In previous periods of escalation between Israel and Hamas, such as last year's Independence Day, Hamas fired almost 300 rockets in a few days before running out of supplies. The defense establishment is now concerned that Hamas may accumulate several hundred or even thousands of rockets, building up a large arsenal. Under this scenario, Hamas would be able to fire hundreds of rockets a day at Sderot for several days, prompting Israel to take extreme measures.

And you know who's going to help them? Help them despite being given $410 million in new US security assistance, $5 billion in European aid, and cutting edge APCs from Russia to "bolster Abbas against Hamas"? Of course:

The officials told The Jerusalem Post that the talks, which are due to begin next week, according to the Annapolis peace conference, would be called off if the IDF invaded the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Kadoura Fares, a top Fatah operative in the West Bank, confirmed that his faction was planning to fight alongside Hamas's forces if the IDF sent troops into the Gaza Strip. Earlier this week, the Post revealed that Fatah leaders had decided to join with Hamas to fight against the IDF inside Gaza. "Fatah will fight alongside all the Palestinian groups against the Israeli army when it invades the Gaza Strip," Fares said. "In such a case, Hamas won't be left alone in the confrontation with Israel."

On the plus side, if the Israelis want to know anything about the weapons being used against them they can just ask Russia or the US State Department for the schematics.

Oh, and just for completions' sake:

At the meeting, Abbas, too, expressed deep concern over reports that the IDF might attack the Gaza Strip. He warned that such a move would deal a severe blow to efforts to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. He added that the PA had appealed to several countries, including the US, to exert pressure on Israel to refrain from launching a military operation.

Naturally.

References:
* Defense officials concerned as Hamas upgrades Qassam arsenal [Ha'aretz]
* Hamas Has Smuggled 112 Tons Of Explosives Into Gaza, Preparing Bunker System For All Out War (Plus: Israel Suspends Decision To Cut Fuel On Humanitarian Grounds) [MR]
* US Unveils $410 Million's Worth Of Assistance That Will Shortly Be Seized By Hamas [MR]
* PA Police Getting More Than $5 Billion In New Aid To Use Against Israeli Civilians, Lose To Hamas [MR]
* PA To Get 25 Shiny Helicopter Busting APCs Next Week [MR]
* PA: Gaza op would ruin peace plans [JPost]

Previously:
* Abject Failure Keith Dayton Moves Goalposts To Justify US Security Assistance, Lets Abbas Try Again
* Simple Equation - More Aid To Palestinians Means More Murders A Year Later
* PA Police Officers Rolling In Millions Of New US Aid, Murdering Israeli Civilians

Even assuming that the analysis itself was solid - which it wasn't - how does a reasonable human being admit that Iran has a fully-constituted weapons-level nuclear program and then decide that they're not a threat? When the report came out, Cliff May got an email about how the conclusions were engineered by two State Department washouts who had managed to grab control of the report. Yup:

Critics of the NIE have seized on the fact that career government officials who had battled with conservatives earlier in the administration on policy issues have now migrated to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which coordinated the writing of the estimate. "The problem is not the nature of the intelligence, it's the nature of the presentation. This NIE was presented with a clear intention to deceive and to redirect foreign policy," wrote Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute, in an e-mail. "I have no doubt that these people believe they are protecting the nation from the President, but our constitution doesn't contemplate the non-proliferation center at the ODNI governing U.S. national security policy."

Sure they've endangered the entire planet by handcuffing the Commander in Chief in an ongoing proxy war against a genocidal regime that has repeatedly declared its intention to use nuclear weapons against a US ally. But at least they landed a sucker punch against conservatives! Career government officials indeed.

References:
* Obligatory Followup To Obligatory Post About The NIE Report - The NIE Unbelievably Punted On The Single Most Important Iranian Nuke Question (Plus: Israel Looking To React Now That Bush Is Handcuffed And Iranian Hardliners Are Crowing About Victory) [MR]
* Obligatory Post About The NIE Report - Anti-War Partisans Switch From Sophisticatedly Undermining War Effort To Being The Bestest And Most Objective Analysts Ever. Except Not. [MR]
* Review of Iran Intelligence to Be Sought [WaPo]

Previously:
* Syria's Been Building Their Nuclear Reactor Since 2003 And The State Department Still Tried To Stop Israel From Taking It Out (Plus: Awesome IDF Bombing Raid Just Got Filled With Even More Awesome)
* US State Department Has Been Funding Hamas Terrorists For Years. No Kidding.
* State Department Tries To Cleanse Obviously Illegal "No Jews Allowed" Application But Is Too Fucking Stupid To Turn Off Track Changes

Remember these things from a couple of weeks ago? They're here:

Following a slight delay in delivery and despite opposition from within the IDF, Israel will facilitate the transfer of 25 armored personnel carriers next week to Palestinian Authority security forces in Nablus. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the shipment two weeks ago over the objection of his own security forces,... This is the first time the PA will receive armored vehicles since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000. In 1995, PA security forces in the Gaza Strip received 45 BRDM-2 vehicles, all later destroyed in Israeli air strikes

What do PA forces in Nablus need these APCs for anyway? Are they doing a lot of fighting against Hamas soldiers dropping NBCs out of helicopters (from which, admittedly, the BTR-80s are very good at protecting soldiers). Because if something like that was happening, we think we would have heard about it.

A few years from now, we'll be reading headlines about how Israel had to destroy these APCs because they were being used against Israelis. And then a few years after that we'll be reading headlines about how the Palestinians are being given another new shipment of cutting-edge APCs. Because the Palestinian people, they desire peace you see.

References:
* Palestinians To Get 25 Cutting Edge, Helicopter-Busting APCs [MR]
* Palestinians to get 25 armored vehicles [JPost]

Previously:
* US To Hamas Arms Trasnfer Watch - Abbas Support Low
* Hamas Has 200 Tons Of Explosives That The US Gave To Fatah (Plus: Egypt Says It's Israel's Fault)
* Dozens Of Fatah Police Officers Defect To AQ (Plus: Israeli "Goodwill Gesture" - 300 Palestinian Policemen To Deploy Around Nablus)

At the risk of repeating ourselves, the main intelligence question is not whether Iran suspended its program in 2003 (if they did, that would obviously be a huge victory for the Bush doctrine). The question is whether, after suspending it in 2003, the Iranians went ahead and restarted it later. Israeli intelligence is totally convinced that they did. Given the spin that this report is getting on the left, it is utterly staggering that exactly the question that the NIE punted on:

The United States National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) ranks its findings in descending order: "almost certainly," "very likely," "probably/likely," "even chance," "unlikely," "very unlikely" and "remote possibility." When the American intelligence community determines "with high confidence" that the Iranians have frozen their military nuclear plan, this is based, according to its own testimony, on "high-quality information." When it states, at the level of "moderate confidence" only, that the program has not been renewed, it is relying on information that is "plausible but not of sufficient quality."

From the standpoint of whether it's necessary to preempt Iran, the intelligence should have led to analysts to highlight the danger of Iranian hardliners in control of a fully functioning nuclear cycle:

"We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so," stated the gloomy American assessment. The Israeli report that has not been written would have phrased it thus: We assess with high confidence that American intelligence is again finding it difficult to distinguish between the important and the trivial. We assess with high confidence that the Iranians are playing tricks on it. We assess with moderate confidence that in the current circumstances President Bush has lost his ability to act with the necessary determination.

Given that the announcement of the report has Ahmadinejad literally crowing about victory, we don't think that "emboldened" is an inappropriate description for the hardliners who have already been taking over the regime and putting apocalyptic lunatics in charge of nuclear negotiations.

The NIE analysts had to punt on the "OK, what happened after 2003..." question. They didn't ask the basic "OK, if Iran can build nuclear weapons what are the odds that political trends will make them..." question. This would be suspicious even if it hasn't been common knowledge for years that parts of the military establishment would do everything in their power to handcuff the Bush administration:

The Saudis don't need water. Pathological anti-Semitism is apparently more than enough to slake their thirst:

Arab officials have rejected a UN proposal to set up a regional environmental training center in the Middle East because it would include Israel, a Saudi official said Wednesday. Prince Turki bin Nasser, Saudi official in charge of environmental affairs said the United Nations should establish an Arab-only environment training center instead. "Arabs do not need training from Israel," Turki said following one-day discussions of Arab League nations' environment ministers in Cairo. He added the Arab governments would discuss the proposal further with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

A quick dip into the MR archives suggests that - shockingly - the Arabs very much do need training from Israel:

Israel's nanotechnology program got a significant boost recently, with the first meeting of stakeholders in the Nanotechnology Clean Water Initiative. The Initiative - the result of combined efforts by Dr. Uri Sagman, Prof. Samuel Pohoryles and former prime minister Shimon Peres - has, for the first time, brought together major Israeli university researchers and global industry principals to work on nanotech-based solutions to the water shortage in the Middle East... From all reports, the Forum was a success, igniting practical interest among all its participants, and moving one step closer to Peres' vision of Israel as a world leader in nanoscience-based clean water technologies... if we build a society that emphasizes rationality, science, and technology rather than mysticism, violence, and death we can actually solve our problems instead of reverting back to primitive 9th century agrarianism.

Not even the Saudis are stupid enough to think that they wouldn't benefit enormously from Israeli technology and expertise. Which, by our count, leaves exactly one explanation for their refusal to accept aid from the Jewish State. This reminds us of the time that Iran rejected Israeli aid after their massive 2003 quake. And that other time when Pakistan rejected Israeli aid for a week and then made them smuggle it in through 3rd parties after their 2005 earthquake. And that other other time when the State Department rejected Israeli aid after Katrina. Self-destructive pathological anti-Semites.

References:
* 'Arabs do not need training from Israel' [JPost]
* Science and Progress Solve Stuff [MR]
* Figures. [MR]
* Pakistan Reluctant to Accept Israeli Disaster Aid, Just Like US State Department [MR]
* State Department Anti-Israel Ideology Gets Silly, Kills Americans [MR]

Previously:
* Anti-Semitism As Obsession (The "What Would Make You Care About That" Question)
* 'Arabs do not need training from Israel'
* Israeli Public Diplomacy Expert : British Boycott Is Vicious Anti-Semitism

First of all, even if the entirety of the NIE report was sound, it would still be a justification for preempting Iran. The report says that Iran has the capacity to build nukes. It's just that apparently they aren't interested in building them right now. Which would be great, except for how Iranian hardliners are taking over the regime and putting madmen who want to end the world in key nuclear decision-making posts.

Moreover the report is predictably unsound. US military personnel in various echelons have been saying for a couple years that they'll do anything - including bureacratic slowdowns and outright disobedience - to prevent military action against Iran. Diplomatic and military pressure is being brought to bear domestically and internationally against intelligence-gathering operations that may uncover an Iran bomb. But supposedly this report - which, though it contradicts previous reports - is suddenly the true one. Except for the part where that makes no sense:

Israeli officials yesterday disputed the conclusions of Monday's surprise U.S. assessment of Iran's nuclear program, citing "clear and solid intelligence" that Iran is continuing to develop nuclear weapons to threaten Israel and Europe. "We have no doubt," said one Israeli official, who requested to remain anonymous. "If one looks at the investment, if one looks at the nature of the project, if you look at the cost to the Iranian economy, there is no logical explanation other than that the Iranian program is not benign."

And except for the part where this is an example of exactly the kind of politicized action that military officials have indicated they're willing to take to stop an attack on Iran. Exactly the kind:

A friend, formerly at the CIA, tells me that while this NIE: does confirm Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons in 2002 and 2003, its conclusions that as to why it may have stopped the program and why this halt may have continued are debateable and speculation. These KJs [Key Judgments] have too much political spin. This assessment was strongly influenced by two hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials who oversaw it, both former State officials who fought tooth and nail against Bush WMD policies, especially Iran.

But let's imagine that the analysts who controlled the wording have the best intentions - which they don't. This is still woefully stupid analysis: the new conclusions are based on a grumpy Iranian military officer complaining that Iran's nuclear program was suspended in 2003. Which is totally true - except for how after the suspension they went ahead and restarted it. Printing things that are technically true but crucially incomplete as part of an effort to mislead Americans into underestimating the threat of political Islam - it's like the LA Times editorial board took over the US intelligence apparatus. Which they might as well because US intelligence about Iran sucks - ergo the spectacle of political machinations completely reversing the NIE in the span of four months.

References:
* Great News: USAF Accidentally Put Nuke-Tipped Bombs On Bombers, Flew Them Across The Country, And Left Them Unguarded For More Than A Day (Plus: Will USAF Pushback Prevent Bush From Attacking Iran?) [MR]
* US Forces Israel To Ground Cutting-Edge Spy Satellite [MR]
* Re: Iranian Nukes [Cliff May] [NRO The Corner]
* Israel challenges report on nukes [Washington Times]
* U.S. Finds That Iran Halted Nuclear Arms Bid in 2003 [WaPo]
* Israel Unconvinced Iran Has Dropped Nuclear Program [NYT]
* John Bolton discusses the NIE on O'Reilly [ roguesquadron123 / YouTube]
* Lessons of Iraq Aided Intelligence On Iran [WaPo]
* Smug Liberal Sophistication Untroubled By Undeniable Evidence That Hardliners Are Winning In Iran [MR]
* Super! Iran's New Nuclear Negotiator Dedicated To Bringing About The End Of The World. Yes, Really. [MR]
* A word from Mark Falcoff on the NIE [Power Line]

Previously:
* Purdue Nuclear Strategy Expert: Bomb Iran Now
* Washington Post: We Were Wrong. Please Bomb Iran and Syria ASAP. Thank You.
* Iran Speeding Ahead Toward Bomb - Has Heavy Water Reactor

At first blush this doesn't really seem security related. Except: these are the people in charge of airline security across the board. And they've got the IQ of houseplants:

The TSA is testing a new level of security screening at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and it requires you to take every electronic component out of your carry-on luggage and put it in a separate bin, reader John tells us. He writes: "According to the TSA this is a new test program designed to speed up the screening of carry on-baggage..." "...but, based on my observations, it's not real clear on how this is going to speed things up as each bag had to be passed through the X-Ray, all of the electronics people forgot about removed and placed in a separate tray, then both the bag and the tray X-Rayed again.

These people's instinctive idiocy is going to get us killed. In the meantime, TSA incompetence entertainment:

It'd be more funny if it was less true.

References:
* New TSA Screening: Empty Out All Your Electronics [Consumerist]
* Reporters Expose Security Lapses By Smuggling Bomb On Plane, Blowing It Up [The Onion]

Previously:
* Q: Could Airport Security Suck Worse?
* HuffPo Blogger: Replace TSA With Blackwater Ops
* LAX TSA Misses 75% Of Fake Bombs, Lets People With Bad Boarding Passes On Airplanes

Via Neatorama, we get has this picture of a mini-LED Hanukiah. They have it labeled as a Menorah - which it's not - but it's still quite neat:

All of you non-secular folks are likely praying for a miracle post Annapolis. We, on the other hand, are more or less praying for an uncorked bottle of wine. Priorities. Happy Hanukkah.

References:
* Mini-LED Menorah [Neatorama]

Previously:
* Neat - New Director's Cut Of Blade Runner Available For Preorder [Video]
* Israeli Hottie Wednesdays - Moran Atias. OMFG. [Video]
* Neat - Israeli Sand Art [Video]

In a heartwarming turn of events, rigidly anti-Israel UN diplomacy apparently insanetranscends national boundaries:

The United States on Friday withdrew a UN Security Council draft resolution endorsing the Israeli-Palestinian Annapolis agreement after Israeli leaders objected to it. The move came just a few hours before the Security Council was to vote on the resolution... The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, first brought up the resolution in a closed-door Security Council session on Thursday. Afterward he told reporters that his fellow diplomats had expressed support for it. Qatar's UN Ambassador, Nassir Al-Nasser, the only Arab member of the Security Council, also praised it.

And people say that the State Department doesn't know how to reach out to Europe and the Middle East.

References:
* U.S. takes back UN draft due to Israel's objections [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* Take Away Hezbollah's Collaborators, Human Shields, And Useful Idiots. Disband UNIFIL Now.
* The UN Has Been Screwing Israel For Decades
* State Department, UN Make Things Up To Coerce Israeli Concessions, Scapegoat Israel When Plans Fail (Plus: Hezbollah Now Openly Bragging About Using Civilian Human Shields)

We don't know why Abbas didn't have them air this on the actual day of the summit. It would have been just so perfect:

Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for its people of a world without Israel. An information clip produced by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics and rebroadcast today on Abbas-controlled Palestinian television, shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned into a Palestinian state.

Eh. It's not like Abbas is going to have the time to win the Palestinian public over to a two-state solution. Even if he wanted to. Which he Day after Annapolis: Palestinian Authority TV shows" Palestine" map erasing Israel [PMW]
* Pro-Abbas Forces Unable To Stop Anti-Abbas Riots That Kill 1, Injure More Than 60 [MR]
* Bonus Outrage: Abbas Rejects Two-State Solution, Eilat Bombing Happened After Israel Released Money To Him Anyway [MR]

Previously:
* Wednesday Palestinian Violence Updates (Plus: Rice: "No Greater Legacy For America" Than Palestinian State)
* Olmert Releasing 2000 Prisoners To Placate Crybaby Palestinian Thugs
* Palestinians Prepare For Peace Conference With Ten Terrorist Plots

Displaying an almost superhuman determination to overcome expectations after his monkey army idea, he's actually getting crazier:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Tuesday an International Islamic court be formed to prosecute international criminals. He made the suggestion in his opening speech at the first meeting of judiciary heads of the Islamic states, started in Tehran this morning. "An international Islamic court should be established to prosecute international criminals, war criminals and those who fearlessly violate others' rights and bring threats and bitterness to their lives," said the president.

We're not really all that opposed to this idea. Think of it as playing Hamas to the International Criminal Court's Fatah. Not more extreme: just more honest.

References:
* MR Makes Its Point - Ahmadinejad (Metaphorically) Wants Monkey Army [MR]
* President proposes formation of Int'l Islamic Criminal Court [IRNA]
* Safeguards in International Law - Yeah, We Were Just Kidding About That [MR]

Previously:
* Bill Richardson: Ahmadinejad Is Nothing To Worry About, We Should Engage Iran
* Iran: Israeli Self-Defense is a Cause for War
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Ahmadinejad Secretly A Pervert?

This is beginning to wear thin:

The September launch of an Israeli spy satellite from India, which now faces months of postponements, was canceled due to "last-minute" pressure by the United States, the Indian press reported Monday. The TecSar satellite - developed and manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) - initially was supposed to be launched in September, on the heels of the June launch of the Ofek 7 spy satellite. It is the first Israeli satellite with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capabilities, a technology that allows the camera to take pictures of targets in all weather conditions... Once in space, officials said, the TecSar would be by far the most advanced Israeli satellite. In addition to the Ofek 7, Eros B and the Amos 1 and 2 (both communication satellites), Israel operates the Ofek 5 spy satellite, successfully launched in May 2002. IAI plans to launch the Amos 3 in the coming months.

The JPost caption says that the satellite was supposed to monitor Iran. So on one end US diplomats and bureacrats are manipulating US intelligence to prevent the US from taking out Iran's nuclear facilities. On the other end they're outright undermining the Israeli intelligence that would be handed over to the Americans to justify either an Israeli or American attack.

Maybe the State Department is afraid that Israel won't even bother giving them the heads up if they launch a preemptive strike against Iran. Last summer Israel presented the US with evidence that Syria was actually in the process of building a nuclear bomb, the State Department tried to stop them from attacking anyway. That Israel attacked anyway - and that Syrian silence proves they were right to do so - speaks volumes. (h/t: Jerry L)

References:
* 'US halted launch of Israeli satellite' [JPost]
* Re: Iranian Nukes [The Corner]
* Was Syria Actively Building - Or Storing - A Nuke In The Operation Orchard Facility? [MR]
* Syria's Been Building Their Nuclear Reactor Since 2003 And The State Department Still Tried To Stop Israel From Taking It Out (Plus: Awesome IDF Bombing Raid Just Got Filled With Even More Awesome) [MR]

Previously:
* US Public Diplomacy, Tact Don't Extend To Israel
* State Department Tries To Cleanse Obviously Illegal "No Jews Allowed" Application But Is Too Fucking Stupid To Turn Off Track Changes
* State Department Sophistication Very Close To Triggering All-Out African War

Apparently the $410 billion bump that Bush is giving Abbas isn't enough to buy all those helicopter busting APCs that the PA needs to... er... shoot down Hamas helicopters? Well fuck:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's government will ask donors in Paris this month to provide $5.5 billion in aid to strengthen the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, Palestinian officials said on Sunday... Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will ask donors at the Paris conference, scheduled for December 17, to provide $5.5 billion in aid over three years. The request is based on an economic plan for 2007 to 2010, a senior Palestinian official told Reuters. The conference is the first forum for international donor states to make pledges to the Palestinian Authority since 1996, officials said.

Because when we think "perfect time to pour money into the PA", obviously the answer that springs immediately to mind is right now. It looks like they're going to get most of it, too.

Sure that sucks if you don't like it when security forces riddled with Al Qaeda defectors and open terrorists get billions of dollars for weapons and training. But look on the bright side: this presents a valuable new wrinkle for peace process-related gambling. Anyone can put down an over/under on how long Abbas has before he gets rolled by Hamas. For true Mideast news junkies, maybe the bet should be how much aid gets to the PA before Hamas rolls them and the West has to go through the motions of reimposing sanctions. Or better yet: how much money Fatah police officers will be able to use to murder Israelis before Hamas grabs it and uses it to murder Israelis.

References:
* US Unveils $410 Million's Worth Of Assistance That Will Shortly Be Seized By Hamas [MR]
* Palestinians To Get 25 Cutting Edge, Helicopter-Busting APCs [MR]
* Palestinian Authority to ask for $5.5b in aid at Paris donors conference [Ha'aretz]
* Pro-Abbas Forces Unable To Stop Anti-Abbas Riots That Kill 1, Injure More Than 60 [MR]
* U.S. takes back UN draft due to Israel's objections [Ha'aretz]
* Dozens Of Fatah Police Officers Defect To AQ (Plus: Israeli "Goodwill Gesture" - 300 Palestinian Policemen To Deploy Around Nablus) [MR]
* PA Police Officers Rolling In Millions Of New US Aid, Murdering Israeli Civilians [MR]
* Hamas Has 200 Tons Of Explosives That The US Gave To Fatah (Plus: Egypt Says It's Israel's Fault) [MR]
* Bush Launches Final Status Talks: "I Don't Think It's A Risk To Try" (Plus: Anti-Abbas Riots Spread Through West Bank) [Video] [MR]

Previously:
* State Department Deliberately Circumvents Anti-Terrorism Laws, Funds Hamas
* Palestinians Prepare For Peace Summit By Shooting Israeli Civilian In West Bank (Plus: Two Dozen Rockets And Mortars Hit Israel Monday)
* Palestinians Prepare For Peace Conference With Ten Terrorist Plots

Hey, what do you think the odds are that PA police officers made use of some of that $410 million in new aid that Bush gave the PA to murder an Israeli civilian:

Palestinian policemen were behind the shooting attack last week which killed Ido Zoldan, a 29-year-old father of two from the settlement of Shavei Shomron, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Sunday night. Zoldan was killed last Monday night - the day before the Annapolis summit began - when shots were fired at his car as he drove past the Palestinian village of al-Punduk. The three members of the cell were Palestinian policemen and members of the Palestinian National Security Force, in which Israel and the United States have been investing as part of the international effort to strengthen Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah government. Defense officials said the weapon used in the attack had not been supplied to the Palestinians by Israel since it did not belong to the official Palestinian security forces. The officials said, however, that the IDF expected the political echelon to rethink its policy of strengthening Abbas in light of the fact that his policemen were involved in terrorism.

Yeah, good luck with that. If the dozens of Fatah police officers who defected to Al Qaeda didn't cause Olmert to rethink his policies, a few "rogue" PA officers certainly aren't going to do the trick. And even if Olmert tried to scale down the suicidal and obviously futile pro-Abbas policy, the Bush administration would force him to immediately ramp up his support. After all, there's a legacy at stake.

References:
* PA police behind Ido Zoldan's shooting [JPost]
* Dozens Of Fatah Police Officers Defect To AQ (Plus: Israeli "Goodwill Gesture" - 300 Palestinian Policemen To Deploy Around Nablus) [MR]
* Bush Launches Final Status Talks: "I Don't Think It's A Risk To Try" (Plus: Anti-Abbas Riots Spread Through West Bank) [Video] [MR]
* Pro-Abbas Forces Unable To Stop Anti-Abbas Riots That Kill 1, Injure More Than 60 [MR]

Previously:
* Ha'aretz Headline: "Israel to go on high terror alert due to Annapolis peace summit"
* Palestinians To Get 25 Cutting Edge, Helicopter-Busting APCs
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Saudi Arabia Too Busy At Annapolis To Stop Their Wahhabist Judiciary From Lashing Gang Rape Victim 200 Times

And the outbreak of total batshit craziness shows no signs of abating:

How batshit crazy are they? Tough to say with reporters being removed from the areas of the demonstrations:

On Friday hundreds of angry protesters, some waving ceremonial swords from trucks equipped with loud speakers, gathered outside the presidential palace to denounce Gibbons - some calling for her execution. The demonstrators swore to fight in the name of their prophet. The palace is on the same street as Unity High School, where Gibbons taught grade school students. Those who named the bear were 7 years old. A heavy police presence was maintained outside the school, but no demonstrators were there. Armed with swords and sticks, the protesters shouted: "By soul, by blood, I will fight for the Prophet Mohammed. Western journalists who attempted to talk to the protesters were ushered away by men in plain clothes.... Leaflets distributed earlier this week by Muslim groups condemned Gibbons as an "infidel" and accused her of "the pollution of children's mentality" by her actions.

Watching fanatics flood the streets day after day screaming for the execution of a schoolteacher, however, is apparently just fine for children's mentality.

For completion's sake, here's a link to a story about a Western journalist and blogger who thinks that the teacher should have been more sensitive to Islamic sensibilities in Sudan. Here's another one.

References:
* Sundanese On The Verge Of Lynching British Schoolteacher, Firebombing School Because Of Dreaded Teddy Bear Of Blasphemy [MR]
* Thousands of Islamic fanatics wielding knives demand jailed teddy bear teacher is executed [Daily Mail]
* UK bid to win Sudan pardon for teacher [CNN]
* ChiTrib Blogger Asks if Sudan Teddy Bear Case Sent 'Fair Message' to Be 'Sensitive' [Newsbusters]
* Video: Whoopi, Sherri wonder — why didn’t the teddy-bear teacher respect Islamic customs? [Hot Air]

Previously:
* Toronto Sun - Previously Unexplored Stupidity As A Justification For Anti-Papal Riots
* The Guardian, For One, Welcomes Our New Islamist Masters (Plus: Karen Anderson Our New Most Hateful Journalist. Today)
* If Britain Won't Stop Radical Islam, Why Should Radical Islam Stop Being Radical?

We should definitely listen to Democratic foreign policy sophisticates and engage these charming, charming people. They can almost certainly be reasoned with:

Baniyaghoub's ordeal started on the morning of October 12 while sitting with her fiance, Hamid Chitsaz, in a park in the western city of Hamedan. Officers arrested the couple because they were not legally related and not entitled to be alone together under Islamic law... Baniyaghoub, 27, a graduate of Tehran University's elite medical school, was a GP in a remote village in one of Iran's poorest regions and had ambitions to qualify as a heart specialist or urologist. Her fiance worked as a radio presenter with the state broadcaster IRIB. Nevertheless, they were sent before an Islamic judge who ordered their detention.

Chitsaz, who has since lost his job over the matter, was released after his family paid bail. But Baniyaghoub was detained overnight... By the time her father... arrived to secure her release, Baniyaghoub was dead. A medical report stated she was strangled. Officials claimed Baniyaghoub, a devout Muslim who prayed every day, was consumed by shame over her crime and used a chair and a piece of textile to hang herself from a beam in her cell. Baniyaghoub's family say she would never have taken her own life, not least because of her strong Islamic faith, which taught her to regard suicide as a sin. Moreover, they argue that she had a legal right to be with Chitsaz because the couple had undergone sigheh, a Shia custom of temporary marriage recognised by the Iranian authorities. She would therefore have felt no shame in their relationship.

(1) According to Iranian officials, this educated woman was so Islamic that she had to violate Islamic law by killing herself to overcome the shame of violating Islamic law by being seen in public with her fiance. This seems to us to paint a rather unflattering picture of Islamic priorities, no?

(2) Just as with the insanity around the dreaded teddy bear of blasphemy, at least a part of the surreal effect comes from how the debate is about the application of the law, not the existence of the law itself. Presumably things would somehow be different if there had been no temporary marriage - then locking them up for being together in public might have been OK.

(3) "Temporary marriage," by the by, is a set of juridical and extra-juridical customs and norms that allow powerful men in Iran to enslave and rape prebuscent girls.

References:
* Bill Richardson: Ahmadinejad Is Nothing To Worry About, We Should Engage Iran [MR]
* Young woman doctor who fell foul of Iran's 'love police' was strangled [Guardian]
* Sundanese On The Verge Of Lynching British Schoolteacher, Firebombing School Because Of Dreaded Teddy Bear Of Blasphemy [MR]
* Crisis, day two: Teddy bear blasphemer fired, grilled for five hours, facing sedition charge [Hot Air]
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Iran Has Legal Slavery And Rape Of Prebuscent Girls. They Call It "Temporary Marriage". [MR]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You Complain About Getting Gang Raped In Saudi Arabia, They'll Double The Lashings To Punish You More
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Academic Feminism Not Doing Much To Stop Teenage Girls From Being Lost In Pakistani Poker Games
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Your Saudi Husband Isn't Allowed To Beat You In The Face Because It "Makes Your Face Ugly"

The spread at the beginning of the game was 29.5. You people can have your "ancient religions". We have found a new object of worship, and his name is LeSean McCoy.

References:
* Pitt throws curveball at BCS with win over No. 2 WVU [ESPN]

Previously:
* Pitt In Big East Finals
* Pitt Love, Anti-Dhimmitude Edition
* Pitt Love, Most Livable City In America Edition

[Cross-posted to Icon Index Symbol]