December 2010 Archives

See you next year!

An expose in the Washington Times by Ben Birnbaum brings us more egg for the face of J Street's Jeremy Ben-Ami: Jewish group pays PR firm co-owned by its president - J Street 'self-dealing' seen as 'very messy'

Read the rest.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

Israelis are known for being gloomy about the political situation. In fact, they generally enjoy criticizing things (themselves above all). As a result, Israel's enemies often make the mistake of underestimating the country's ability to endure, struggle, and prevail.

A typical example came in a recent Arab newspaper article that claims the serious fire in northern Israel was a sign of the country's collapse. Not so fast!

So when very positive economic figures are released for 2010, Haaretz, the left-wing newspaper, has to put its own spin on them.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

One of my earliest memories was of my grandfather sitting in his armchair, smoking his Camels and reading his Yiddish newspaper, the Forward (פֿאָרװערטס). It was a big deal in our neighborhood one day when he was elected to a post in The Union, and a tiny picture of him (with Camel, of course) appeared in its columns.

The Forward was always a socialist paper, but that was before this necessarily implied anti-Zionism. Today the Forward rarely misses an opportunity to dump on Israel. But I'm still shocked when what is supposed to be a responsible newspaper prints something which is obviously, demonstrably false:

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

Since I have written about how easily fooled Western politicians, officials, journalists, and academics are by Middle Eastern radicals, I'm going to try to provide examples in a regular feature called Dopes of the Day. This is a good starting point. (Be sure to read this article to the end to find out about both Dopes of the Day.)

There is a newspaper in Lebanon called al-Akhbar. Curiously, while other newspapers are in decline or starved for funds, al-Akhbar is expanding. The New York Times reporter fell for the foolish notion that this newspaper is some model of independence and enterprise. In fact, it is not exactly a secret in Lebanon that it is a hard-line, Syrian backed newspaper that repeatedly slanders the moderate forces there as well as delivers propaganda for Hizballah. And that's where the money comes from.

So the Times is cheering a Syrian propaganda operation just as, not long ago, the Guardian went into rhapsodies about a supposedly wonderful publication in Turkey that is a front for the Islamists and producing false material that enabled the regime there to throw innocent people into prison on trumped-up charges of conspiring to overthrow the government.

Any serious investigation should have shown the true nature of al-Akhbar but the reporter couldn't even find anyone to quote on this point, apparently not even trying to produce a balanced article, much less an accurate one.

It shouldn't be a surprise, but it always is. Richard Goldstone's defenders complain that his detractors a) Don't present any facts, and b) attack Goldstone in a personally abusive manner.

They do this by a) Showing they haven't independently examined the facts, nor do they present any, and b) attacking Goldstone's critics in as base an ad hominem manner as possible.

So goes the latest from Letty Cottin Pogrebin appearing in The Forward who plays precisely true to type. (Why The Forward is printing such tripe is an open question.) A book-length treatment is promised/threatened. Those who have been around for awhile, and followed the construction of the Understanding the Goldstone Report web site will understand how infuriating this is.

Elder of Ziyon unloads in The Forward comments:

Omri Ceren has a great treatment at Contentions: Goldstone Book Author: Critics Refuse to 'Discuss the Contents of the Report', and Carl in Jerusalem: The Forward lies in defense of St. Richard

Update: And don't miss this dump-truck full of substance from Daled Amos: Neither Letty Cottin Pogrebin Nor Goldstone Have Read The Rebuttals Of The Goldstone Report [h/t: SoccerDad]

[The following, by Adam Levick, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

H/T Pretzelberg

Imagine you're a comedian, and you want to tell a political joke. But, as politics is such a sensitive topic, you want to take care not to alienate your fans. What do you do? Well, you'll likely decide to use, as the object of your mockery, a safe target - someone beyond the pale, like a totalitarian dictator or egotistical tyrant. Kim Jong-il, Omar al-Bashir, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad come to mind.

The Guardian's Culture Guide, on Dec. 18, which contained celebrity end-of-year lists, included this one, on "Reasons to be cheerful" by British comedian Mark Steel, who wrote his as a poem. The last zinger included this gem:

Uh oh:

I agree with the stoning, if only because he has butchered a perfectly good song.

[h/t: Nappy]

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

I have a problem with this.

Gil Troy denounces what he calls "Zionist racism":

First of all, I want to say that Troy is a Zionist and I often entirely agree with him. But this is unhelpful.

I really don't want to get too deeply into a dissection of the concept of 'racism', but there is one thing that is essential to it: it is dislike or maltreatment of an 'other' simply because he is an other. And that's not what's going on here.

Interesting article at The New York Times on the rise of the ethnic museum and how they may have a tendency to stretch or twist honesty to fit a certain narrative: To Each His Own Museum, as Identity Goes on Display. Two examples:

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

Haven't you heard, Israeli democracy is in danger. That's the latest media talking point on Israel. And where is the threat to Israeli democracy coming from? From its democracy. Confused? That's probably because you think that the word 'democracy' has something to do with the popular vote and the right of every person, irrespective of their religion, country of origin or accent to vote for the party of their choice. As misguided as the vote may be. When it actually means the right of media pundits, academics and elitist judges to dictate how the country is run based on the values of a entitled upper class scrambling to hold on to power.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

The Egyptian government so arranged the parliamentary elections that the share of seats held by the opposition declined from 20 percent for Muslim Brotherhood supporters alone to only 3 percent for all of the half-dozen opposition parties put together. In other words, the regime didn't just steal the election--which it does regularly--it over-stole the balloting. One can sympathize with the idea of the current government of President Husni Mubarak not wanting the revolutionary Islamists from taking power, and one can understand how the regime wants a nice stable situation for the succession next year presumably to Husni's son Gamal.

But they overdid it.

What is worrisome here is that by showing the Muslim Brotherhood that even if it bows its head to repression (with 1,000 members arrested in the days leading up to the election) it won't even get the tiniest crumbs from the government. And that seems to mean--judging from Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi's hardline statements even earlier (see here and here)--that the group may step up efforts to overthrow the regime. There's no question of violence in the near-term, but what about four or six or eight years down the road, especially if Gamal falters as president or the ruling elite splits in factional disputes.

A reader sent this in as a suggestion and I thought, hey, why not? These are not necessarily Hasbara videos, just fun stuff (OK, some "hasbara," or at least useful in that direction, is still in there). Here are ten. Email or comment to suggest others. Maybe I'll set up a poll, or maybe we'll just forget the competition part and enjoy the videos again:

Sexy beach dancers flash mob in Tel Aviv, Israel:

We Con the World:

Rock the Casbah, Hebron:

The enemy within: Islamic Movement uses questionable tactics to retake possession of sacred sites

This isn't the only spot where this is going on.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

News item:

"Where Do You Get Off"

With all the solicitations for funding I'm sure we're all receiving this time of year, it seems particularly timely.

[h/t: Nappy]

[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]

I wonder how the Good and ASHamed Jews and their fellow travelers are going to spin this one? A cry for help from a socially progressive liberation moment cruelly ignored by the world? A natural response to the pretension of Jews to have their own country? A generous peace offer sickeningly manipulated and distorted by the Zio-Nazi propaganda machine?

Read the full story here.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

Some of my readers are always bothered when I say that mistakes in Western Middle East policy are caused by stupidity and ignorance--abetted by ideology--and want to argue that the shortcomings are due to deliberate sabotage or evil intentions (often against Israel).

I can certainly understand why people think such things. But almost forty years of studying the Middle East and Western policy toward it have shown me hundreds of times that foolishness, misunderstanding, wishful thinking, and naivete are powerful forces in international affairs. As the great statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand put it almost two centuries ago, "This is worse than a crime, it's a blunder."

Remember that we are dealing here with people (policymakers, journalists, academics) trying to function across cultural, experiential, historical, linguistic, and usually religious lines. And what is their biggest handicap at present? Why, the very denial that such lines exist! Once you accept the assumption that everyone is basically alike in their thoughts, dreams, goals, and world view, you have no hope whatsoever of understanding anyone who has a different standpoint.

[By Ira Sharkansky, via email]

Mahmoud Abbas has marked the Christmas season by proclaiming once again that he will permit no Israelis in his State of Palestine. In an earlier version he said that he would permit no Jews, but handlers had him revise his comments in a direction thought to be politically correct.

The recognition of his state is not sweeping the world, but is moving across South America. Ecuador has joined Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia in recognizing a Palestinian state with the borders of 1967 and its capital in Jerusalem.

So far there are no reports of frock-clothed ambassadors wandering the streets of this city with credentials in hand, looking for the Palestinian Presidential Mansion, or a place to establish an embassy.

The Palestinian who serves as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, called for understanding between Jews and Muslims, as well as a spirit of peace between the faithful of all the monotheistic religions.

One of the Patriarch's monsignors should whisper to Mahmoud Abbas that he is not serving the aspirations of the Church by comments about expelling Jews or Israelis.

Abbas' handlers might also advise him that talking about a Palestine that is Judenrein is not the way to calm Israeli Arabs who worry about Jewish politicians who would transfer them and their towns to Palestine.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

There's lots more, too. The story of the Palestinian 'Jesus' is here, and more examples of invented history are here,  as recorded from the official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV station by Palestinian Media Watch.

Cats love kotatsu:

Have a lovely evening! We hit the Chinese buffet when they opened at 11:30am and tanked up. Now everything is in place, beer is popped, feet are up...

Hope you get some good stuff!

(Now it's time for some Battlefield: BC Vietnam.)

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

News item:

There are good arguments that the settlements are quite legal in international law. In any event, such a decision could not be made by a political body, like the Security Council. It would require an impartial court to consider the legal issues, which of course doesn't exist.

Maybe it is finally time for Israel to consider leaving the UN.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

There is a guy named Dan Friedman who sends me (and numerous others) several e-mails a day. He is very, very right-wing, in his American politics and his views on Israel. I'm sure a lot of people dislike him, but he's got a great sense of what's important.

He often spots interesting things, like this Newsweek interview with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman -- another smart guy that a lot of people dislike -- in which Lieberman talks about land swaps:

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

If I had to pick one sentence to show what's profoundly wrong with Middle East coverage in the Western mass media, this is the one I'd choose. It's in a New York Times article entitled, "Israel: Tensions Rise Along Gaza Border" by Isabel Kershner. I'll put the sentence in bold:

"A rocket fired from Gaza fell close to a kindergarten in an Israeli village on Tuesday morning. Earlier, the Israeli Air Force struck several targets in Gaza in retaliation for a recent increase in rocket and mortar shell fire. Small groups appear to be behind the fire, but Israel says it holds Hamas, the Islamist organization that governs Gaza, responsible."

Why does this bother me so much? Because it seems to symbolize how the West--oh so well-educated, sophisticated people--fall for every trick, no matter how simple, of the terrorists and totalitarians of the world and do their propaganda work for them.

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

It wasn't long after Obama's victory that liberals began trying on patriotism like an old ill-fitting coat, admiring themselves in the mirror, and even denouncing conservatives as unamerican (yes it happened). Caught in the afterglow of their win, basking in the radiance of their man addressing the country, beaming down from the carefully arranged set pieces and choreographed events, guzzling the myth like hopeandchangey brew-- they could almost believe that the great clock of history had wound back to the Kennedy Administration. Before the Vietnam War or the shot in Memphis that killed Martin Luther King. That golden moment between FDR and LBJ, only briefly broken by McCarthyism and Ike, when hating your country hadn't yet become the mandatory liberal position. When it was still possible to look up admiringly at the flag and be a liberal, even if Phil Ochs and the SDS might mock them for it. When America to them was still the hope of the world, not the shame of the world.

[The following, by A. Jay Adler, of Sad Red Earth, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

Back in May I wrote about Gita Saghal and her eventual resignation from Amnesty International because of its unseemly association with Moazzam Begg and his Cage Prisoners organization. You can catch up on that story here, too. Now, Harry's Place reports on one of the AI and Cage Prisoners poster boys, Abu Rideh, a UK resident who was under a restrictive "control order" from 2005-09, until AI's "action file" campaign was successful in winning Rideh's release.

Mahmoud Abu Rideh

According to HP:

A few days ago, The Daily Telegraph reported:

HP gives a full account of what AI had every reason to know about who Rideh was. My May post was entitled "The Future of the Human Rights Movement." For a movement as resistant to self-examination and altered behavior as any nation its organizations report on, that future continues to look a sorry one.

[Further on this: On "martyrs" and enablers]

Here's a good video of Philippe giving his presentation about a month ago for the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, LA:

From the video description:

[The following, by Israelinurse, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

Since the publication last week of CiF Watch's special report on the situation in southern Israel, further escalation has occurred, but a search on CiF's Middle East section - as well as the Guardian's World News, Israel, page - this morning shows a total absence of any attempt whatsoever to inform Guardian readers of these significant changes.

Would one of you Israelis please tell your PM that it's OK to smile while wishing people a Merry Christmas? I mean, I know the guy has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he's very seriously working for peace and all, but lighten up for a minute OK?

It's that time of year again! Honest Reporting has come out with their Dishonest Reporter Award 2010. Can you guess who the grand prize winner is? Here's a hint. It's not an individual person, and it rhymes with "slime."

Here are some of the sub-categories:

• Poison Pen Award: Jeff Danziger
• Least Reliable Source: Muawiya Hassanein, Gaza Health Ministry
• Most Disproportionate Photography: Reuters
• Most Peerless Medical Review: The Lancet
• Media Manipulator of the Year: Dahi Khalfan
• Worst Obituary: Octavia Nasr
• Most Ironic Unintended Consequence: Electronic Intifada
• Most Overdue Resignation: Helen Thomas
• Photography Tip of the Year: The Guardian
• Most Undeserving of Honor: Paul McGeough
• Special Achievement in Swinging to Extremes: Jane Corbin, BBC Panorama

Enjoy!

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft with the 335th Fighter Squadron releases flares during a local training mission over Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., Dec. 17, 2010. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Michael B. Keller, U.S. Air Force/Released)

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

President Obama announces US endorsement of UN indigenous peoples declaration, at White House Tribal Nations Conference Dec. 16, 2010.

In 2007, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 61/295, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This past week, the US endorsed the resolution, after initially voting against it along with Australia, Canada and New Zealand. All four nations have now endorsed it, making it unanimous.

The intent is purportedly to protect people like Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians against exploitation and denial of rights by the majority culture. In fact, it represents a breathtaking invasion of the sovereignty of any nation that contains a subculture that defines itself as 'indigenous'.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

The U.S. weakness in countering Iran and other radical forces in the Middle East is beginning to bear poisoned fruits. Jordan is already moving toward getting on Iran's good side; Lebanon has been captured by the Iran-Syria camp; Turkey has moved into its orbit, becoming an ally of Iran and Syria, while the Obama Administration only emphasizing how important the relationship is with that country despite differences (that is, the Turkish regime sabotaging U.S. interests repeatedly.

Now Qatar--which hedges its bets between cooperating with the United States on basing rights, sponsors the radical anti-American al-Jazira network, and works with Iran on regional issues--has also moved closer to Tehran. Qatar participated in joint war games with Iran and has now invited Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops for a visit including five warships to inspect Qatar's defenses. Deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards' navy, Alireza Tangsiri, said, "Such programs will definitely pave the way for mutual cooperation."

You bet.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

The favorite argument of the Left is the demographic argument: that unless Israel gives up the territories, it must choose between its democracy or its Jewish character. Either Israel lets all those Arabs vote or it doesn't. Therefore, Israel must 'make peace' and give up Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem.

But analysis shows - and I'm not going to repeat it here, I and others have explained it thousands of times - that giving up land won't bring peace, that the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and indeed the great majority of the Palestinian Arab population see Israeli concessions as indications of weakness and stepping stones to the ultimate replacement of Israel by an Arab state. The kind of settlement Barack Obama and the Europeans want to see would simply set the stage for yet another war.

The two-state solution, in other words, is a mirage. There could be two states (for a while), but it wouldn't be a solution. So what to do?

Rick Richman at Contentions:

I believe this explanation makes sense, though Richman offers another interpretation, more personal to Obama:

I'm not sure how much I go along with this sort of Obama personality analysis, but the fact that it's fairly clear that the US Government knew that Zelaya was no good but went to bat for him anyway does nothing to dispel the notion that our behavior toward Honduras was a shameful chapter in US foreign policy history. If the administration were casting ideology -- and morality -- to the wind in order to score realpolitik points and demonstrate that they could achieve something with a former Bush foe, they certainly made a hash of both the politics and the morality.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report. An earlier version appeared at Pajamas Media.]

There's a lot of interesting material in the Pew Foundation's latest poll of the Middle East, a survey that focuses on attitudes toward Islamism and revolutionary Islamist groups. The analysis that accompanies the poll, however, is not very good, so here is mine.

For example, in evaluating attitudes toward Hamas and Hizballah, Pew says that they receive "mixed ratings from Muslim publics [while] opinions of al-Qaida and its leader, Usama bin Ladin, are consistently negative...."

Really? Well, in Jordan, for example, 55 percent say they like Hizballah (against 43 percent negative) while 60 percent are favorable (compared to 34 percent negative) toward Hamas. Yet this is even more impressive than the figures indicate. Jordan is a staunchly Sunni country whose government opposes the ambitions of Iran and Syria. Hizballah is a Shia group which also is an agent of Iran and Syria. For a majority to praise that organization--conscious of strong government disapproval--is phenomenal.

NSFW:

And this street shoot-out, too:

[The following, by Richard Landes, is crossposted from Augean Stables with minor formatting edits.]

(My apologies for taking so long to post this. I wanted feedback from friends on my treatment of Tikkun Olam which is not an area of any expertise for me. I wrote this during the Thanksgiving break, but only post it now. I do think, however, that the issue I treat here is not going away.)

A good friend sent me the following piece by Bradley Burston with the comment: "It expresses how I feel." I find it so pervasively flawed that I have difficulty taking it seriously. But if my friend can (and he's one of the smartest people I know), then I have to, and it does raise, however poorly, a whole range of key issues. So, with great reluctance (because there are more interesting texts to sink one's teeth into), I fisk below.

First, a brief introductory note: One of the key contentions of Burston and the people he likes (J-Street, Jewish Voices for Peace, Young Jews for Peace, etc.) is that a) they love Israel and b) they know the best way to peace which, since Israel won't take that path, they must force upon her. Now all these groups locate along the "left" political spectrum differently. NIF disapproves of BDS but funds groups who do; J-Street disapproves of  BDS even if they associate with people who do; Jewish Voices for Peace and Emily Schaeffer (below) support BDS in many forms.

[The following, by AKUS, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

In a recent article, A perfect example of the Guardian's appalling myopia, I pointed out how the Guardian overlooked a key event in a visit by a group of boys (no girls) from Gaza to the USA, and, specifically, the UN building in New York:

A Guardian video entitled, "Documentary follows 15 boys from Gaza on trip to US" contained the subtitle:

Oh, very well done:

[Via Randy Barnett]

[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]

Beware contemporary historians who are busy rewriting the history of the Jews, especially in Morocco, to make it seem that Jews and Muslims always lived together in symbiotic harmony. This little gem, written by a 17th century English visitor called Addison (no philosemite, he), was unearthed by Elder of Ziyon blog. It conveys the impression that Jews were little more than slaves: "The Present State of the Jews," by Lancelot Addison, written in 1676:

[The following, by Matt, is crossposted from Huffington Post Monitor.]

To Whom It May Concern,

Hello, my name is Matt and I have been a loyal reader of the Huffington Post for two years now. I enjoy the HP's variety of articles, and in particular the World and Sports sections. I personally think you should cover the successes of the New England Patriots in more detail, but that's not why I'm writing to you today.

I was reading a blog post by MJ Rosenberg and I became very concerned about the ideas written "in between the lines" of the post. Rosenberg wrote about a recent bill passed through Congress condemning the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, but the focus of the blog post was on AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what AIPAC is, but I should point out that AIPAC members and lobbyists are all Americans. Something to keep in mind going forward.

What was truly disturbing about Rosenberg's post came towards the end, when he wrote his thesis statement:

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

Liberals have never been too fond of democracy. Even when they win elections, they prefer to treat those victories as "historic events" that are almost supernatural in nature, to avoid dwelling on the fact that what really happened was that the votes were counted, and they racked up more than the other side. Instead they condescendingly describe their victories as a sign that the country has reached a new level of ethical and intellectual awareness. Like a kindergarten teacher handing out gold stars, liberals pat the country on the head (at least the right parts of it) for making the right decision.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

The French news agency AFP is reporting that France is giving the Lebanese army 100 anti-tank HOT missiles in February to be used by the military's Gazelle helicopters. There are no conditions attached to their use.

Israel is concerned about the deal. In November, the U.S. government lifted a freeze on $100 million in aid to Lebanon when that government--which is basically though not completely controlled by Iran, Syria, and Hizballah--promised that it would not give arms to Hizballah and would try to keep that group from controlling the border and attacking Israel.

The story of the ordeal itself is absolutely horrific:

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

Moty and Udi remind us of a point that I've made before, and just the other day Daniel Gordis expressed it beautifully. He writes,

[Update 12-20-10: PMW reports that their account has been re-activated! (Probably due to the overwhelming attention the issue garnered.)]

This is outrageous. From Palestinian Media Watch:

The work that PMW does is indispensable. And let's be clear here. PMW has not been posting terrorist snuff films. I wouldn't expect YouTube to allow bloody beheading videos. What PMW does is important educational work, translating mainstream Palestnian Arab sources in their own words and making them available to the general public. No other video hosting site can get the word out as effectively as YouTube.

PMW posts this material to denounce it and to speak out against it, not to promulgate the hate. Their important work on YouTube must continue.

Just a quick note that spammers have killed my commenting script. Actually, my web host turned off my commenting script because (I think) that so many spammers are hitting the site trying to get comments through that it's causing undue server load. If you've noticed the steady stream of spam comments that I've been swatting for the past few months, well let me assure you that many, many more are trying to get through for every one that does.

When comments come back up (I will update this post when that happens Back Up), unregistered (anonymous) comments will no longer be accepted. You will need to log in either with an account you register here, locally, TypeKey, OpenID, or LiveJournal. Note that you can still be "anonymous," it's just that you will have to be logged in to comment. This will hopefully keep down server churn until I figure out another solution.

It's all quite silly, since the intent of spam comments is to steal my hard earned Google influence and bump the spammer's ranking up, yet no link in comments ever does so, since they all get 'rel="nofollow"' added to them automatically. Rel="nofollow" added to your link code tells the major search engines "Don't look at this link. Don't count it when determining your rankings."

Another good thing ruined by spam.

On another subject, if you are a Steam user (it's free even if you're not yet), I have one more guest pass for the full version of Killing Floor available on a first-come first-served basis. That means you can play the full game for free until January 15. I've played it just a little, and while it's no Left 4 Dead, it's certainly good for a few giggles. Just email/Twit/whatever me and I'll send off the guest pass.

Mick Hartly conveys the news.

The thing to me about Beefheart is his accessibility -- it sounds exactly like the kind of crap my friends and I would produce doing overdubs on cassette tape in the basement back in the day.

[The following, by Ben Cohen, is crossposted from Z Word.]

In 1716, Francois de Callieres, an emissary of King Louis XVI, made this pithy observation about powers great and small in one of the foundational texts of modern diplomacy, On the Manner of Dealing with Princes:

As a remedy, de Callieres insisted that negotiations must be continuous, so that, at the end of a process that is likely to be complex and tortuous, all parties understand that it is in their respective interests to compromise. However, when it comes to the U.S.-led effort to bring peace to the Middle East, de Callieres's insights, long embedded into the norms of modern diplomacy, are being displaced by that "smallest of sovereigns," the Palestinian Authority.

Here's an after action report of the Boston BUYcott in response to Code Pink's shenanigans at Lord & Taylor, Boston (see: Boston BUYcott Israel Alert! Shop Lord and Taylor & Ahava). Sounds like it was extremely effective. If I were Ahava, I'd find a way to funnel funds to Code Pink. It's good for sales. This is written by our own Happy & Proud (slightly edited by me):

[The following, by Matt, is crossposted from Huffington Post Monitor.]

Our old buddy MJ Rosenberg has published his first blog post in quite a while, and I can't say I missed him. In this post, he's going with what he knows best, complaining about AIPAC and its hold over America, sorry I mean America's government, sorry I mean some Senators and Congresspeople. Maybe at some point Zach or I will have time to do a full fisking of his work, but I wanted to at least show you the parting thought:

[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

Turning up the volume on Jewish refugees has shaken avowed anti-Zionists like Ms Shabi out of their comfort zone: a second set of refugees, they fear,  has popped up to challenge the Palestinians' hitherto exclusive monopoly on victimhood.  Except that these Jewish refugees have not suddenly popped up. They and their descendants comprise 50 percent of Israel's Jewish population. They have been in the background all along, these silent, reproachful reminders of a great and unacknowledged historical injustice. Just because the Arab world has chosen to deny or falsify their narrative,  the media have chosen to ignore them, and successive Israeli governments have made the monumental mistake of not making a public issue of them - does not mean that these Jews do not deserve recognition and redress.

[A satire, by Ann Green.]

Friends! Comrades! Womyn united across cultures!

I am empowered once again to send along our annual inclusive greetings at the approach of the Winter Solstice. We in the Hyphen-Hyphen Family continue do our part to make a less warming world, to honor the voices of the voiceless and to celebrate diversity with redistributive justice and net neutrality for all! This year we're gifting everyone with carbon offsets for whatever holiday they choose or don't choose to celebrate. Not only is this the best thing we can do for the environment, but there's no need for wrapping paper! Also, with not one incandescent light bulb left in our home and the first emergency mercury sweeper system in the neighborhood, we feel we have a lot to be proud of.

My husband Alger is optimistic about his on-going quest to heat our home by a combination of solar panels and windmills. The roof is a bit crowded, but, like all great endeavors, it will take some time to work out the kinks. Havana wasn't built in a day, you know! Maybe it would be easier if we didn't live in a condo. Solar power to the people! He also continues to work on his project to make our cat Chomsky hypoallergenic.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

This one is just too good (h/t: Lenny Ben-David).

News item:

Makes sense, right? It wouldn't exactly promote peace if an Arab state were suddenly declared within some arbitrary borders (the 1949 armistice lines are exactly that). There would be no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, no land swaps for the large settlement blocs, no agreements to guarantee Jews access to holy places, no security arrangements to prevent 'Palestine' from inviting Iranian troops for 'protection', and more. And it would violate numerous UN resolutions, the Road Map, and the Oslo agreements.

The fact that it was unanimously adopted by the House shows how noncontroversial it is.

Why, only someone who really wanted to hurt Israel would oppose it. Even the most pro-Arab House members didn't. But guess what?

[The following, by Charles Jacobs, appears in this weeks' Jewish Advocate in edited form.]

Reports surfaced last week that stuxnet, the computer virus mysteriously implanted in the computers running Iran's nuclear sites, is still wreaking havoc, despite claims by Teheran that it has been contained. No one knows for sure how much damage is being done, or if it can be stopped, or who in the first place infected Iran's mass-death program -- but Israel is a prime suspect. When it was found that the name of a key file in the computer worm's code is easily a cognate for Queen Esther, many imagined that the Jewish genius who delivered the poison pill to the Persian plotters did it while poetically recapitulating the Purim story -- in malware. Compared to that feat, the wiki-leaks gambit is child's play, simple pilferage.

But even if this is true, and Jewish technological genius can thwart or mitigate a looming disaster - just as her military genius has done in the past - we cannot afford a truly needed rest, because the sobering reality is that Jewish technological and military prowess has proved inadequate, necessary but not sufficient, to safeguarding Israel. For her long-term security, what matters is how the Jewish state is viewed and valued in the world, especially in the Jewish community, and the skill set required for this fight -- what we now called "the information war" - seems congenitally absent from the Jewish collective. Far from being geniuses, when it comes to rhetorical combat with Israel's defamers, or creating a culture of discourse that is honest and fair, world Jewry seems, tragically, imbecilic. Compared to almost every nation on earth, but particularly compared to her adversaries and accusers, Israel is a stellar state. Yet she is branded and portrayed in the media, on campuses, and in increasing swaths of civil society in the West, as among the cruelest of nations. How can this be?

I think the dynamic is something akin to the virus that flummoxes Iran's computers. Jews may be susceptible to a particular type of rhetorical virus -- so devastating that once implanted it prevents them from acting in their own self-defense and turns otherwise eloquent people into stuttering blockheads. The worm is simple, and ancient. It's called "accusation." Accuse the Jews. Accuse them unfairly and with such disproportionate frequency that anyone who wishes to can see there's an agenda at work that has little to do with the actual charges raised. Accuse the Jews and they instinctively, like moths fly to candles, do the stupidest: they start believing they can cleverly explain themselves, and convince their accusers of their innocence and goodness. Powerful stuff, this cognitive malware.

I bring this up because the Jewish Week's editor, Julie Wiener just reported that the major Israel Advocacy organizations have done a major re-think and are now calling for a "more open, critical approach to teaching about Jewish state." "Even centrist players," Weiner wrote, "like Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the David Project and people in the Jewish federation system are calling for more open, critical discussions about Israel." Why? Because much of our youth feels that Israel Advocacy as it is now taught, makes them "check their liberalism at Zionism's door."

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

A question:

Dear Professor Rubin,

I've been following you for quite some time now, and as a result read your quite frequent analysis of the West's misunderstanding of the Mideast. While it's very tempting as an explanation, as an economist I find it hard to accept. It requires to assume that everyone in the policy establishment of the West is a nave. While a lot of them probably are, there must be some rational reason for why they are doing this. One such reason could be that people in general, including in Israel, find it very difficult to accept the notion that some problems don't have a solution. At least not in the short run. But I suspect there are other reasons, of a political nature. You'd probably be much better than I at spotting them.

Response:

Of course you are right. The Western mentality and the diplomatic process don't like to say that problems don't have a solution.

But I also make a distinction between understanding the issue and implementing a policy. In other words, the problem could be:

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

When you replace the morality with class warfare, you also replace good and evil with poor and rich. Actions are no longer good or bad, except within the context of class. Murder is a crime for the rich, but not for the poor, or the rich who claim to be fighting for the poor.

The practical application of this form of left-wing morality is all around us. When justifying terrorism, the left argues that the terrorists are deprived, but the soldiers who shoot them are depraved. The Israeli civilians who are murdered by terrorists are depraved, on the other hand the poor starving Hamas supporters of Gaza are only deprived. The left holds that the root cause of terrorism is deprivation. On the other hand those who fight terrorists are depraved, because they kill them, instead of giving them what they want and ending their deprivation.

[The following, by Zach, is crossposted from Huffington Post Monitor.]

Remember those commercials which say that "we all do dumb things?" It was for insurance or somesuch? Anyway, countries do dumb things as well, it is just that usually it doesn't make front page news in the Huffington Posts' "World" section. That is, unless that country is Israel.

So what happened this time is that Palestinian firefighters were invited to attend an Israeli ceremony honoring them for their efforts, but due to what appears to be a technical error they did not receive security permits to cross from the West Bank into Israel. How did the Huffington Post headline this story? Palestinian Firefighters Barred from Israeli Fete. This headline is not even close to true: They were invited to the fete, but they were barred from entering the country. In fact because the Palestinians could not come the event was canceled and postponed to a later date. Is that the behavior of a country that wanted specifically to exclude the Palestinians? Now, let's take a look at how was interviewed in the Huffington Posts' version of this story:

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

Here's an old joke that applies to the contemporary Middle East. The Lone Ranger was a Western lawman who chased bad guys with his friend, a Native American named Tonto. One day, they were surrounded by dozens of Native American warriors.

The Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and said, "Don't worry! We can fight them off."

Tonto replied, "What do you mean `we,' Paleface?"

Or, in other words, if your friend decides he can't rely on you to get him out of a jam he can always change sides.

Which brings us to Jordan. Let me begin by telling a story I've never recounted before. The year is 1990, after Iraq has invaded and seized Kuwait. I'm sitting in a meeting with some high-ranking Jordanian military officers and officials (don't ask, it's a long story).

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

When you're in a hole, stop digging

A few weeks ago I wrote about the incredible behavior of the IRS in seeking to deny tax-exempt status to the pro-Israel organization Z Street (see "Obama and Nixon would agree on this").

Z Street sued the IRS, claiming in part that

Now the IRS has responded, and their response is even more incredible. Here's an excerpt:

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

Following in the footsteps of Chavez and Castro, Argentina and Brazil's regimes have declared that they recognize Abbas' Palestinian Authority "as a free and independent state within the borders defined in 1967". The Palestinian Authority is of course neither free nor independent. It's a dictatorship that refuses to hold free elections. Or any kind of elections at all. It has neither freedom of speech nor freedom of religion. Or any kind of freedom at all.

Explanation: It is the tallest rocket in active use. The Delta IV Heavy is the largest of the Delta series, packing the punch of three rocket boosters instead of the usual one. The resulting rocket, the most powerful in use by the US Air Force, is capable of lifting over 23,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, comparable to NASA's Space Shuttle. Pictured above is the second launch of the Delta IV Heavy from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA in 2007, and the first night launch. Complex service towers are visible to each side of the soaring rocket. The rocket successfully lifted a reconnaissance satellite to low Earth orbit. The Delta IV Heavy has since completed several more successful lift-offs, while its next launch is currently planned from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA, next month.

[The following, by Adam Levick, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

My thanks to Jonathan Hoffman for reminding me that Jody McIntyre is still very much in the thick of the hard left set in the UK.   When I was last following McIntyre, he was dumped from his gig as official blogger for a journal called Ctrl.Alt.Shift - the "hip" youth publication of Christian Aid.

Apparently, even the viscerally anti-Israel NGO, Christian Aid, couldn't defend McIntyre's ugly invectives against the Jewish state when it was exposed by The JC (as well as my essay in, believe it or not, Comment is Free).

PACBI. Note that's .com, NOT .org. It's a new site:

Yup, it's like that.

I haven't loved everything this guy has come out with, but this is a good one:

[h/t: Zvi]

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

The following was published in Hadassah Magazine in an attempt to write a very brief article that included all the most important things someone needs to know in order to understand the current Israel-Palestinian conflict. I reprint it here for your convenience with some additions and alterations.

When people ask me why the Arab-Israeli conflict is so misunderstood, the best and simplest way to explain is by citing the central problem; the contrast between reality and what seems logical to those who live in a far-off land that operates by different political rules, have little knowledge of the issues, or have drawn their information from media accounts.

[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]

Matti Haroun...cut off at the conference

We Jews are always complaining, aren't we, about how hard it is to get our side of the story across - especially in the media and the universities. But sometimes all it takes is someone to seize the initiative, and in the most unlikely of places.

Michelle Huberman did just that - and soon had a virulently hostile audience of SOAS students of the Israel/Palestine conflict almost eating out of her hand.

[The following, by Adam Levick, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

I was sharing a ride with a Jewish colleague during the height of the 2nd Intifada in 2002 - a terror war against the Jewish state that would claim over 1100 Israeli lives - and discussing the increase of anti-Semitic acts around the world triggered by the conflict when she exclaimed, "Ariel Sharon is causing anti-Semitism."

Of course, what she was talking about was the upsurge in anti-Semitic violence directed towards Jews in the European diaspora while Israel was fighting Operation Defensive Shield.  My colleague eventually apologized for her remarks -  as, perhaps, it occurred to her how insensitive she sounded - but that visual is still emblazoned in my mind:  A Jew living quite comfortably in safety and affluence in the United States bemoaning the defensive actions of the world's only Jewish state in a war against foes openly committed to her destruction.

I recalled that conversation when I first learned that Mick Davis, head of the UJIA (United Jewish Israel Appeal), the leading fund-raising organization in Britain for Israel, said the following:

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

It's fitting that No Labels, the new group launched by liberal Republicans and not very conservative Democrats, kicked off with Mayor Bloomberg, a liberal who ran as a Republican, because the Democratic line was already taken. Almost as fitting was the appearance of other transparty types like Charlie Crist and Mike Castle, who were Republicans until they lost a party primary, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who was a conservative Democrat until a disgraced governor picked her to be New York's Senator, and Governor Manchin, who beat the landslide by desperately grabbing his gun and acting like a right wing caricature long enough to win reelection.

H/T to Mal for the video of this exceptional person with a real spirit of community. Yoel Zilberman formed a cadre of volunteers who patrol the land inside Israel's internationally recognized borders to prevent damage to life and property. The perpetrators are Bedouins and others:

The story is amazing if not surprising at all. The authorities don't want to be bothered. No bureaucrat wants to take responsibility. The government doesn't want the hassle, and the international NGO infrastructure is standing by to take the side of the lawbreakers against the property owners. Sound familiar?

The the that I kept wondering was what do they do if they confront or catch someone? Certainly if violence occurs the defenders will be blamed.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

History does not simply repeat itself, wrote Karl Marx. It often happens that a phenomenon's first round is a tragedy; the second round is a farce. So is it today as thousands of young people devote themselves to extreme left-wing causes, including the destruction of their own countries, democracy, and liberty, all in the name of some utopia that will never be attained and in a struggle that will make human life worse.

Here is how, Bertram Wolfe, one such person of that earlier first-round generation later wrote of his infatuation with Communism in the 1920s and 1930s:

"Dreams of cosmopolitanism and internationalism...in an ever more open society, dreams of...curbs upon dictatorial power and autocratic power, dreams of the final abolition of serfdom...of a greater respect for human life and human dignity, of gentler and juster laws, equal for all and binding on all, dreams of liberty, equality and brotherhood and of a new humanity, free in spirit and intelligence, free in critical inquiry mastery to an ever greater extent of nature, of man's own nature, and his social institutions."

[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]

It is [almost] exactly 50 years, on 11 December 1960, since Algerian Arabs attacked the Great Synagogue in Algiers. They had been incensed by the visit of General de Gaulle and violence by the 'pieds-noirs' (Algerians of French descent) and the OAS. The Algerian Jews had hitherto tried to remain studiedly neutral between the FLN fighters for independence and the pro-French paramilitary (OAS). Now they understood that their bread was buttered on the French side. Two years later, almost the entire Algierian Jewish community fled, nearly all to France.

[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]

Gideon Levy says that...

1. The deficiencies in Israel's firefighting capacity shown up by the Mount Carmel fire are firm evidence that Israel has no military option against Iran.

But might not the opposite argument - that the weaknesses shown up by the fire are now likely to be addressed and Israel will therefore soon be better placed to strike than it was before the fire - be just as valid?

It does not come as much surprise does it? Sweden suicide bomber: Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly was living in Britain

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

If conservatives rally around the flag in times of crisis, liberals rally around the clique. Their assurance that they are right coming from three little words. "Everybody I Know." The crazies clinging to their guns and religion might have voted for the Republicans, but everybody I know voted progressive. Some wingnuts might not believe in Global Warming, but everybody I know does. Some greedy people might want tax cuts, but everybody I know thinks taxes are too low.

Here's an interesting new site with a particular focus on J Street: Jikileaks, Looks like a one-stop-shop for all your J Street information. Needs a little design help, but it's the content that counts.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

'Cultural performance' by al-Ashtar theater group at UN on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. UN photo.

This is going to be an easy post for me to write, since I will let my friends at our United Nations write most of it for me:

[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

So welcome back, Saeb. I see your latest article for CiF, on Dec. 10th, marks the 62nd anniversary of the passing of UN Resolution 194, which you misinterpret as promoting the 'right' of return of the Palestinian Arabs displaced during Israel's war of independence. There is no such right.  True to form, you are back with a whole new set of half-truths and omissions.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report. It appeared originally at Pajamas Media.]

No serious thinker has done more harm to the Jewish people than Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings were an important inspiration for Adolph Hitler and Nazism. Yet far from being an antisemite, Nietzsche was one of the most pro-Jewish German writers of his time. How can this paradox be explained and does it have any lessons for the present day?

Nietzsche was friendly to the Jews but when he got caught up in his theories he said things which because of the way they were expressed inspired antisemitism, something Nietzsche never expected to happen. Like Voltaire he criticized the Jews for creating Christianity but made it sound as if they were a cabal responsible for everything evil in the world over which they were supposedly trying to seek control.

Sandy Ravage is a heck of a Modern Warfare 2 player...

Yes, computer gaming commentary can be good. Makes me want to play, though MW2 is a bit frantic for my taste.

Here, have a random collection of GIF's:

Ever wonder what happens when alligator goes up against electric eel?

Now you know.

In one of the most enthusiastically multi-cultural countries, one of those rushing quickest to abrogate their own culture in deference to someone else's...Blasts linked to Afghanistan kill one in Stockholm

Recent video I took of a presentation Vilks gave is here.

AP report at JPost here.

Gateway Pundit has some stuff, including some pics and video.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

Yesterday in my review of  Jonathan Spyer's The Transforming Fire, I mentioned Roger Cohen and Peter Beinart as examples of writers who don't have a clue about Israel. On cue, Cohen -- who is actually worse than the others, really quite vicious -- wrote his weekly Israel-bash in which he quoted Beinart approvingly!

I think I understand what the problem is with Beinart, Cohen et al. I touched on it yesterday when I talked about the new elite that is taking up the burden of maintaining the Jewish state, as the tired left-wing establishment contents itself with sniping from the pages of Ha'aretz (read the review, if you haven't already).

Here in America the sniping comes from people like Beinart, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) and of course J Street (also praised by Cohen this week). And what they are all saying is that Israel isn't 'liberal enough' for them. They tend to focus on the conflict between the "Women of the Wall" and Orthodox Jews, Israel's stubbornness in not bowing to Arab demands for settlement freezes, the alleged 'racism' of Avigdor Lieberman and his Russian immigrant supporters, discrimination against and mistrust of Arab citizens, the growing influence of ultra-Orthodox haredim, and the more prominent position of -- gasp -- observant Jews -- in the army.

Three members of one of the most blood-thirsty terror groups are hanging out in broad daylight in the middle of Jerusalem, given shelter by the Red Cross and giving press conferences no less, and the Israeli government isn't doing anything about it because no bureaucrat wants to take responsibility. If only the world were a simpler place: Bickering over Hamas MPs use of Red Cross office as HQ

Read on. Even the Red Cross says they have no immunity from arrest there.

Can you imagine three Jew-hating terrorists hanging out in a Jerusalem Red Cross office and pontificating about Human Rights? The world is indeed turned upside-down.

The Thomas Klocek case at DePaul University has now come to an end. You may remember it all started almost six years ago, when adjunct professor Thomas Klocek engaged in defense of Israel with members of DePaul student groups Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead, resulting in them complaining that they were victims of racism and hurt feelings. Klocek was canned and subsequently sued the university.

While experiencing some initial success in court, the process has run its course and not to Klocek's satisfaction. We wish him well and congratulate him for fighting the good fight.

Marathon Pundit has the final chapter: Justice denied for former DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek

When I first started in the family business, whenever there was trouble, a problem with a customer or supplier, a screw-up, an argument, the solution was simple...call dad. Dad, can you handle this? Dad, there's an angry customer on the phone....etc. Finally came the day when dad, both of us a little older and me more confident and he less so, would say to me, "Could you handle this one for me?"

When I started, I was simply not ready for prime time.

Barack Obama is two years into the Presidency and he's still calling Big Daddy to come save him. This is just downright embarrassing, and quite frankly a little disturbing. Jon Podhoretz describes the scene:

Video at RealClearPolitics. Story at New York Times:

The '08 election left this country rudderless. We're strong enough to survive it, but it's not a comfortable feeling.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

I think this lead from Jackson Diehl's Washington Post article says it all:

"The latest collapse of the Middle East peace process has underlined a reality that the Obama administration has resisted since it took office--that neither the current Israeli government nor the Palestinian Authority shares its passion for moving quickly toward a two-state settlement. And it has left President Obama with a tough choice: quietly shift one of his prized foreign policy priorities to a back burner -- or launch a risky redoubling of U.S. efforts."

Since I've been trying to explain this for about ten years it's gratifying to see others getting the point. It's pretty remarkable that only after two years has the Obama Administration perhaps begun to get the first point: peace is not in the cards. One might also hope that it won't take ten years to understand that the reason for this situation is that the Palestinian Authority doesn't want peace.

[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]

Unbeknown to many, there was once a community of Jews living in the Sudan. This community, like most living in Arab countries, was driven to extinction in the last 50 years and its descendants dispersed to Israel, France, Switzerland the US. But an earlier community, before the arrival of the British, was decimated when Jews were forcibly converted to Islam.

The modern community grew and thrived after the British under Lord Kitchener reconquered the Sudan in 1898. The country came under Anglo-Egyptian rule. Some converts returned to Judaism.

One of the few books on the modern community of the Jews of Sudan was written by Eli S. Malka, who at the age of 87, realised that the history of the Jews of Sudan would be lost unless he put pen to paper. Eli Malka, the son of Solomon Malka, chief rabbi from 1906 to 1949, served as honorary secretary, president and member of the Executive Committee of the Sudan Jewish Community for 30 years until his final departure in 1964.

[The following, by Adam Levick, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]

I recently commented to a colleague that, though I've worked professionally fighting anti-Semitism and advocating on behalf of Israel for many years - and there weren't many distortions, lies, or agitprop that I haven't seen - I still haven't lost the ability to, at times, still become outraged by the relentless venom that's constantly directed at the Jewish state.  Mya Guarnieri's  CiF piece, "Israeli rabbis' racist decree strikes at the soul of Judaism," represents such a case.

Let's begin with the title, "Israeli rabbi's racist decree strikes at the soul of Judaism," and examine what it is meant to evoke. As we learn by reading the essay, her commentary pertains to 50 or so rabbis (including Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu) who signed a religious decree forbidding Jews from selling homes or land to non-Jews. So, from a totally non-binding decree, which (though clearly discriminatory) has no weight whatsoever in the context of Israeli civil law, we are provided a hyperbolic headline which would suggest that what's at stake is nothing short of the "soul of Judaism." As if Judaism itself is on trial.

They're calling for an organized effort for tomorrow, Thursday. If you can't make it, show up any time and buy some stuff. Show up on Saturday for a really good time. Details:

[The following was sent in by a friend for posting.]

In the crowded 2010 field of Chanukkah videos aiming to go viral, why did America fall in love with 14 boys from Yeshiva University singing "Candlelight"?

And we did fall in love. It sold enough downloads to hit the top of the Billboard charts, ranking No. 2 in Comedy Digital Tracks and No. 19 in Holiday Digital Songs.

Jews had barely had time to light the first candle before the response videos began to appear. Doting parents posted videos of toddlers dancing to the song. Garage bands covered the tune. Parodies appeared. Bloggers and Youtube viewers admitted to clicking repeat until their fingers grew numb, offered to convert, proposed marriage and swooned over the "cutie" at 0:36. Bloggers claimed to have the hots for these yeshivah boys in white shirts and neckties. And some of these swooning bloggers were girls.

Journalists loved them because at this time every year some hapless reporter has to come up with a fresh Chanukkah story. This video was God's gift to journalists. Still, why this story? Why not any of this year's other Chanukah videos?

For one thing, it is not about Christmas. Chanukah songs usually are about Christmas. John Stewart and Stephen Colbert's wistful duet, "Can I Interest You in Hanukkah?" sold Chanukah as an "alternative to Christmas." Adam Sandler's "Chanukah" was about Jewish kids who feel like " the only kid in town without a x-mas tree." Even Matisyahu seems to spend December dreaming about Santa Claus.

Not the Maccabeats. Thes don't see Chanukkah as a pallid, Jewish imitation of Christmas. They see Chanukkah. And we love them them for that.

These boys are singing Chanukkah in the authentic American day school tradition, featuring Maccabees with aluminum foil shields and sugar-powdered doughnuts that spurts jelly onto your lap. Yes, Maccabees. Chanukkah songs rarely have Maccabees. They have dreidels, candles and latkes. South Park's take on Chanukkah songs pretty much pegged it. It leaves you wondering why anyone bothers with this second-rate holiday. The Macabeats song leaves you smiling.

The Maccabeats get extra points for putting the Greek Philosophers (0:19) back into the Chanukkah story, but where they really score is on the authenticity meter.

What, you ask, is authentically Jewish about a Chanukkah song set to Taio Cruz's Dynamite? Its the fact that a Jewish boy named Immanuel Shalev could listen to Cruz's lyrics and think "I flip my latkes in the air sometimes sayin ayy ohh spin the dreidel."

The boys in this band are genuinely bi-cultural. Jewish is not merely something they do on Saturday, it is half of their intellectual vocabulary. They know Rabban Gamliel as intimately as they know John Lennon. And they like Rabban Gamliel as much as they like John Lennon.

Singing live on CBS on the fifth day of Chanukkah, they described themselves as "a bunch of fun, energetic guys, who take life seriously, but don't take themselves too seriously, and who are proud of their heritage."

Nice boys who are proud of their heritage, take life seriously, and know how to have fun. How profoundly American. No wonder we love them.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

Every so often there is a report that Hamas is moderating, or that what appear to be exhortations to genocide against Jews in the Hamas Covenant are just religious rhetoric. Some say we should bring Hamas into 'peace' negotiations, or encourage them to reconcile with Fatah and rejoin the 'Palestinian Authority' (PA). After all, didn't the 'Palestinian people' give Hamas a majority in 2006 elections?

The economy in Hamas-controlled Gaza is "heading for 8% growth this year" mostly due to foreign support. Life is good in Hamastan:

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

If you want to understand how the debate goes in the Arabic-speaking world and the ways liberals there try to get across their message, there's nothing better to read than Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed's article, "Erdogan...Fulfill Your Promises." It's also very easy to misunderstand this kind of talk so let's go through it together.

Rashed is one of the Arab world's best journalists and is a liberal-minded reformer, as much as one can be while working for media owned by Gulf Arab shaykhs. He is now general manager of al-Arabiya television network, set up by the United Arab Emirates partly to counter the more radical (and Qatar-owned) al-Jazira network. He is also former editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned al-Sharq al-Awsat which may be the best Arab-language newspaper nowadays.

Yet so powerful is the dominant radical ideology that here's what Rashed has to do in order to express his views:

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

As I predicted here ten days ago, the Obama Administration has now given up attempts to get Israel to agree to a three-month freeze of construction on existing settlements.

Here is the most fascinating sentence in the New York Times' coverage:

"Officials said the administration decided to pull the plug because it concluded that even if Mr. Netanyahu persuaded his cabinet to accept an extension -- which he had not yet been able to do -- the 90-day negotiating period would not have produced the progress on core issues that the administration originally had hoped for."

Translation: They decided that a three-month freeze wouldn't do any good. In other words, as I've been saying since October, the administration put forward a policy that made no sense, offering big concessions in exchange for getting something worthless.

Four U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet aircraft fly over mountains in Afghanistan on Nov. 25, 2010. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Andy M. Kin, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

Desmond Tutu is a Patron of the Cape Town Holocaust Centre and the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre? Apparently, yes. Here's a petition asking for him to be removed. Visit it for the details.

New York:

Excellent speech by Huckabee, filmed by Elder, via Carl:

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

The Gaza Strip is doing really well economically and the Hamas regime seems set to go on forever. It's raking in the aid money but every dollar and every project is shaped to ensure that Hamas remains in power, can return to violence in future and...wreck everything again.

"There are a slew of products here, and beautiful restaurants. Is this the Gaza we have been hearing about?" asked a Sudanese official arriving there, as quoted by the Palestinian news agency Maan. "Where is the siege? I don't see it in Gaza. I wish Sudan's residents could live under the conditions of the Gazan siege."

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

News item:

It's not clear yet if this is true or, if so, the details.

[The following, by Ben Cohen, is crossposted from Z Word.]

No accusation is apparently too low for the PA. After 40 Israelis died rushing to rescue Palestinian inmates of the Damon Prison from the forest fire engulfing the north of the country, a PA Minister made the following remarks on PA TV:

More - if you can bear it - at the invaluable Palestinian Media Watch.

Excellent gallery of the attack that started it all at The Big Picture:

The speech:

And here is a cool timeline of events.

Interesting to note: We fired the first shot.

Lovely people these "pro-Palestinian" protesters. Sporting events seem to be a favorite target. You would think it might not be a great PR move considering the events of Munich, but since when would that stop them? Despicable: Palestinian protest disrupts fencing event in Spain

Another favorite target is cosmetic counters, but sometimes those fight back.

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

The Washington Post's editorial, "Mr. Mubarak vs. Mr. Obama," has two passages especially worthy of notice.

Among U.S. daily city newspapers, the Post has been the best generally at understanding the serious trouble created by the Obama Administration's mistakes and misunderstandings. In this editorial, it urges the U.S government to get tougher with Egypt over human rights' issues there, especially in regard to the parliamentary elections.

What interests me most, though, are two specific statements. Here they are:

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

Recently a nice Muslim fellow from Chicago by the name of Mohammad Alkaramla was convicted of sending bomb threats to a Jewish High School. Like most serial killers, his neighbors described him as peaceful and friendly. Just the sort of chap you want to invite to a barbecue or a bombing. His defense was that he wasn't threatening to kill Jewish students because he was the follower of a bigoted religion, but because he was upset over his ex-wife leaving to return home to Jordan.

The littoral combat ship Pre-Commissioning Unit Fort Worth (LCS 3) launches into the Menominee River during the ship's christening ceremony in Marinette, Wis., Dec. 4, 2010. Outfitting and testing of Fort Worth, the Navy's third littoral combat ship, will continue at the facilities of Marinette Marine Corporation until it is delivered to the Navy in 2012. (DoD photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin/Released)

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

It is likely that over the next ten years, the network news will cease to exist entirely. CNN is going through the stages of a prolonged death spiral. Local affiliates are cutting back on TV news. Copps' public comments on the BBC indicate that he will pressure television stations to run news programs. According to Copps, the stations use airwaves that belong to the American people and are therefore obligated to serve the public interest.

This Washington Post editorial setting the record straight (for the umpteenth time) on the affair couldn't have been good for the monument Wilson/Plame egos: Hollywood myth-making on Valerie Plame controversy

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

The statement above -- which was misquoted in the English edition of Benny Morris' book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 to precisely reverse its meaning -- has more or less characterized the approach of the state of Israel to its Arab minority since Israel's founding.

Unfortunately, it seems, more and more, that that minority doesn't agree that there is room for both peoples.

By now everyone is aware of what's going on with the horrific fire in northern Israel. The JPost's front page is covered with it right now.

Here are a few links for those wishing to help with their money:

Act for Israel has a donation page set up here.

The Jewish National Fund has a special page here, and their usual tree donation page (useful for later), here.

The Jewish Community Federation has a page, here.

I guess she's taken back her apology: Defiant Helen Thomas defends remarks that led to exit

You can say it's no big deal, she's just an old lady, a bit tetched in the head at this point, but the fact is this is nothing new. She's been dragging the worst part of her Arab ancestry -- the Jew-hate part -- around with her for a long time.

Update: Ed Driscoll has much more, here.

A new song for the season. Enjoy:

Matisyahu was interviewed on NPR about the song and himself: Matisyahu: Light A Fire For Hanukkah Music

[h/t: Fred]

Have you seen it?

I watched it the other night on National Geographic Channel. Highly recommended. It's refreshingly non-political. It's a must see just to get the smallest taste of what these guys are doing for us out there. It's available at Netlfix.

Here's a short, "The Sal Giunta Story," by the makers of the film. Giunta got his medal for actions taken during events that are covered in the Restrepo film:

[The following, by Charles Jacobs, is crossposted from The Jewish Advocate. Jacobs, among other things, exposes the hypocrisy of some people at Temple Beth Avodah in Newton for complaining about Jeremy Ben Ami's being kept out of a speaking date there. Jacobs discloses that he himself was kept out of the venue by some of the same people now screaming free speech.]

That ripping sound over at the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) is the Big Jewish Tent tearing at the seams. Last week, Jewish Boston woke up to discover that J Street has membership status at the JCRC. Even some of the folks who fund JCRC didn't know.

J Street, seen by many as an anti-Israel group that falsely proclaims itself "pro-Israel, propeace," snuck quietly through the back flap of JCRC's tent almost a year ago by special arrangement: While every other Jewish organization must pass through a vetting process to ensure it is what it says it is, J Street never applied for membership, never had to submit to an examination of its funding, support and mission, and never faced a vote. It simply merged with Brit Tzedek v' Shalom, a minor left-wing "peace group" that was already a JCRC member - but one which, to its credit, is not funded by George Soros and Arab groups.

From this week's The Jewish Advocate, criticism of J Street from a somewhat and pleasantly surprising source, Rabbi Harold Kushner (no conservative):

[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]

Almost a decade after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government seem unable to tell the differences between moderate and radical Muslims, much less understand that it should support the former against the latter group. So when the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom visits a mosque, you just know this nice gesture will be directed toward...a very extremist mosque with close ties to the number-one terrorist targeting America right now.

Such was the visit of Ambassador Louis B. Susman to the East London Mosque on November 29, as--in the words of the mosque's press release--"part of President Obama's outreach program to Muslim communities." Susman expressed "great admiration" for the mosque, invited young members to apply for free trips to the United States through the embassy, and told the mosque's leaders:

"I go away from each of these meetings of dialogue, learning something new every time."

Unfortunately, there is quite a lot that Susman didn't learn about the mosque, all publicly available facts one would have thought might have led the State Department to choose someplace else.

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

The first night of Chanukah marks the beginning of a holiday that for many of its celebrants has no identity, that celebrates 'celebration', with no thought to what it is celebrating. For many Americans, Chanukah appears to overlap with Christmas. But there is no similarity between the two other than the season. The more appropriate analogy is to the 4th of July overlaid with Thanksgiving, a celebration of divine aid in a military campaign against tyrannical oppression.

[The following, by Vic Rosenthal, is crossposted from FresnoZionism.]

The main thing I've learned from the WikiLeaks documents is that I was wrong about Barack Obama. I'd thought that he was putting the screws to Israel in order to appease the Arab world, particularly the Saudis. Apparently not. David Horowitz puts it very well:

Remember? He was caught on camera taking cash bribes. It's now ex-Councilor Turner.

It couldn't happen to a nicer Jew-baiting, Hizballah-loving, American military-hating, Communist ass. Jail time, please. (Or he could actually win re-election. I kid you not.)

[The following, by Daniel Greenfield, is crossposted from Sultan Knish.]

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil" Isaiah 5:20

Every conspiracy theory by Anti-War activists and 9/11 Truthers has one thing in common. It calls good, evil... and evil, good. Its overriding message is that America is the center of all the world's evil. We are the imperialists. We are the colonizers and the occupiers. When terrorists kill us, we're the ones responsible. Either because we angered them, or because secretly we were the ones who did it. When we die, it's because we're sheep who deserve what we get. When we fight back, it's because we're amoral monsters.