World News Archive

Weekly TOCS, “Anglo Appeasement” At 6:30pm PDT, Cameron In Turkey, Obama On Proximity Talks, Etc.

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We’re back on our regular schedule this week, with the promise of an additional show some time tomorrow to round out the month. Today’s top story – after we get through the opening segment and what promises to be a barn burner of an Iran segment – is Cameron’s anti-Western, anti-Israel obsequiousness in Ankara. He went there, he described a Palestinian territory with a gigantic mall and a higher standard of living than Turkey as “a prison camp,” and then he openly groveled. I can’t decide if the money line was “this is a vital strategic relationship for our country” or “Turkey shares our determination to fight terrorism in all its forms,” but in any case the sun has pretty much set on the British Empire. Bummer.

Jihadist On Libyan Gaza-Bound Ship: “We’d Love To Die As Shahids” [Video]

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Libya has apparently decided that, if they’re going to have a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, they’re going to own it. So in between using the UNHRC to spread antisemitic organ harvesting libels, they’ve dispatched a ship in the direction of Gaza. This is actually the second time in three years that they’ve tried to break the Israeli blockade, the intention being to establish a pipeline between Hamas and their Tehran sponsors and to build an Iranian port on the Mediterranean Sea. Because the Iranians, they’re humanitarians too.

Global Outrage Erupts After French Fisherman Harpoon Activist Trying To Save Endangered Bluefin Tuna

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Just kidding, obviously.

The weird thing here, is that I was told that attacking “nonviolent activists” on the high seas is a sure way to infruiate the world. Maybe if this Greenpace “activist” had been trying to brain the French fishermen with metal pipes – as opposed to merely trying to free some endangered fish – maybe then we’d be seeing some outrage about how they mothereffing harpooned him:

Helen Thomas Forced Out For Ruining Journalists’ Respectable “Anti-Israel” Facade. She Shouldn’t Have Been.

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For what it’s worth – and like fellow Big Journalism contributer Jeff Dunetz – I don’t think Helen Thomas should have been forced out. Now that she’s resigned, the story will wither away. And with it will wither discussion of how antisemitism is not only pervasive in some liberal elite media circles, which is what Jeff ran down, but also how it manages to make itself respectable.

First a very thin silver lining, which is that Hamas is going to be grumpy:

Video: New Close-Ups Of Peaceful Gaza Flotilla Brutally Attacking IDF Commandos

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Keep in mind that the commandos had been ordered not to use their handguns without prior permission, something that’s coming in for more than a little criticism right now since four of them are in the hospital. Here are the “humanitarian activists” that the international community is currently wringing its hands over:

For completion’s sake, here’s CAMERA dinging this morning’s deliberately obtuse NYT article by Isabel Kershner. The article parroted the leftist meme of the moment – trotted out by the head of the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Commission – that Israel had no right to intercept the Flotilla on the high seas:

Turkey: You Know, Israel Really Needs To Take The Blame For That War Party We Sent Their Way

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Oh please:

Around 10,000 Turks marched in protest from the Israeli consulate in Istanbul to a main square, chanting, “Murderous Israel you will drown in the blood you shed!” following the deadly IDF raid on the Gaza aid flotilla Sunday night. The protesters earlier tried to storm the Consulate building but were blocked by police… “Damn Israel!”, “A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, revenge, revenge!” chanted the protestors, carrying Turkish and Palestinian flags, as they marched towards the square, an AFP photographer reported. “Close down the Zionist embassy,” read a banner carried by the crowd.

Gaza Flotilla’s Spring Break Intifada Goes Awry, Turns Into Ambush Meant To Kidnap And Kill Israeli Commandos [Gallery]

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From this…

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… to this:

That explains how things turned so ugly so fast. The Israelis are not particularly fond, especially where Gaza in concerned, of attempts to kidnap soldiers. Not that there wasn’t a link between the underplayed “Spring Break” part of the trip and the much-discussed “trying to murder Jews” segment:

See what I mean, though, about these ISM Walter Mitty types being in way over their heads?

So A Bunch Of Stoners, Some Hamas Thugs, And Two Well-Armed Antisemites Float Into A Blockade…

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Here’s the thing about violently confronting the military of a nation that’s under existential threat from genocidal enemies on multiple borders: things sometimes get out of hand.

There isn’t any humanitarian disaster in Gaza. There never has been, despite Hamas’s best efforts to create one. So Israel naturally assumed that the motivations of the Gaza Flotilla were less than pure. Still the Israelis went out of their way to avoid voilence. After all, most of these tools are basically on Intifada Spring Break. This is what they do. They travel to Gaza every couple years to slum it in Western-style hostels, living out their fantasies of glorious anti-Zionist resistance. And while they know that they’re not in any real danger from the IDF, it’s fun to pretend that they’re actually challenging the global Zionist war machine or whatever.

Merely Tweeted, “Super-Nuanced Plan To Fix Greece…” Edition

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Highlights, lowlights, links, and sophisticated insight into Europe’s demographically-driven welfare-soaked economic collapse, from the Mere Rhetoric Twitter stream:

My super-nuanced plan to fix the Greek, Spanish, and Italian economies: GO TO WORK

No one is showing up to work in Greece this morning and that’s… news?

Two diffs Gaza/Auschwitz: (1) world ignored Holocaust, pour billions into Gaza (2) Auschwitz actual genocide. Hypocrisy + lying!

Goldstone on the case, yes? |RT @BreakingNews: Sudan army says they seized key Darfur rebel stronghold killing 108 http://bit.ly/96CeVp

Antisemitic filthbag @JewWatchUSA stopped following @mere_rhetoric. We were having such a good time. Kind of hurts, ya know?

Israel Publishes Gaza Travel Guidebook For Pro-Hamas Freedom Flotilla

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FROM: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
TO: Free Gaza Freedom Flotilla
RE: Gaza Tourism Guide

Dear Crazy People,

We’ve been given to understand that you intend to stage another media stunt, wherein you’re again going to float some empty ships – they may be full this time, they were mostly empty last time – in the general direction of the Gaza Strip. Your hope is apparently that your cameramen will capture the Israeli reaction and edit it into an overreaction or, failing that, simply reprint your feverish fantasies with slack-jawed credulity. Again.

Watchers Council – What American Universities Will Tolerate These Days…

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Each week, in a contest for the week’s best post, every member of the Watchers Council nominates one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members. Last week’s top posts all focused one way or another on pedagogy and education, per the results overview posted on the Watcher of Weasels page:

I know it’s not high school, but there’s lots of crap going on in higher education, whether it’s excusing genocidal convictions as part of essential debate or believing that only certain folks have the necessary understanding to lead, our colleges are less devoted to education than in indoctrination.

Chavez Alternating Between Playing Traffic Cop, Blogging, And Assembling Global Anti-American Coalitions

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Some day – after Venezuela has become one of the two dozen rogues to go nuclear in a post-American world – this kind of stuff will seem a lot less funny. Ditto for Chavez’s obsession with his hugely popular Twitter stream, which he keeps trying to push on Castro and Morales and which may be managed by as many as 200 people, and with the blog he’s launching today.

But for now – can you believe that we’re losing to this clown:

Great News: Newly Minted Iranian Ally Brazil May Be Developing Nukes

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Brazil – the other new Iranian ally that, along with Turkey, has rebounded aggressively against US global leadership since the ascension of smart diplomacy – might have a secret nuclear weapons program. I don’t know how secret it is given that Brazilian officials have been talking about building nukes for at least a year, but apparently State hadn’t gotten the memo or something. So it was a secret:

Khamenei: You Know Who’s A Really Good Guy? Mugabe.

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Zimbabwe was a central part of Iran’s abortive campaign to join the United Nations Human Rights Council – a particularly ironic dimension given how Mugabe barred UN torture investigators from the country last year – so it’s only fair:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has commended President Robert Mugabe for resisting alleged political interference by the Western powers, pledging Tehran’s continued support for Zimbabwe. Speaking with President Mugabe in Teheran on Monday on the sidelines of summit of the Group of 15, an offshoot of the Non-Aligned Movement, Khamenei also applauded what he called strong, deep-rooted and friendly ties between Iran and Zimbabwe, which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited last month, making similar statements.

Unreal: Comedy Central Game Has “ISRAEL” Hunting Down Cartoons After Lying “Jew Producer” Fails

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It’s a web-based game named “I.S.R.A.E.L. Attack,” which Comedy Central is using to advertise the DVD for their Drawn Together cartoon. The intro begins with a shadowy large-nosed villain screaming at “Jew producer” – a whimpering, milquetoast liar – for not having killed the Drawn Together characters. Then he dispatches a blue and white robot named ISRAEL to hunt them down and “erase them all forever.” It’s already been played over 36,000 times, which is about 35,750 more than I thought it’d get played when the story broke a couple weeks ago. I guess no one was offended.

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