August 2005 Archives

Many thanks to the numerous bloggers who responded to my request to link the interview I posted below by either linking, expressing an intention to link or providing me with some public or private positive feedback. Those who have done any of these things shall be blessed in the afterlife with 144 amazing "body-servants" comprised of your choice of gender and mix of sexual experience level. (beat that!) Seriously, I'm connected. I can make it happen and will.

It's not too late to get in on some of that. The post will be there for awhile.

(Regular blogging will resume very shortly. Being the link pack rat that I am, I may be posting a few links to stuff that's a day or two old, but bear with me, there's sure to be some fresh as well.)

Edit: BTW, I sent notices to everyone on my blogroll plus a few others who have taken to sending me pointers without ever bothering to link (shame, shame), so if you didn't get it, please don't feel slighted. I either had the wrong email or the note got stuck in a spam trap.

Boston University History Professor Richard Landes discusses his new media watch-dog project, the performance of the press, the rise of anti-Semitism, Pallywood, and more

--

"I've got to tell you about the dream I had last night..."

I'm in the passenger seat of Richard Landes' car. We're running a quick errand before we sit down for our interview.

"I'm driving along in my car and I pull into a parking garage where I don’t have a permit...suddenly I notice there's something moving all over the floor...It's rats! The floor is covered with rats. And suddenly, I realize I'm not in my car, I'm on a motorcycle. They're all around me, climbing on me and when I try and pull them off I can’t."

He's clearly been giving his new project, in which, he, a medieval historian, is parking in the media’s garage, a lot of thought.

We're heading over to an office to deliver a video tape of a debate the professor has just participated in. He leans over to me, this self-described Man of the Left, and says in a confiding tone, "Of the three participants...I was the right-winger." He rolls his eyes.

That's the state of things in 2005, where a guy who simply wants the truth to be told, who wants a little fairness -- fairness for the Jews, for Israel, for America...and for the Palestinians, too -- can be considered "right wing."

"I'm not about truth per se," he's quick to correct me. "I'm for honesty -- that's something different. Look, the post-modern argument is that there is no such thing as objective truth. Right? Everybody's got a story. Ultimately in a sense they're right, because if you're only going to say things that are objectively true, that are not contested, that are not dependent on people's perceptions, then you're only going to say, for instance, 'the man died.' You can't even say, 'that man killed him,' much less, 'he murdered him.' OK? You could say, 'he killed him,' if, say, you got a picture of him slicing the other guy's head off. If you say, 'he killed him,' we're still in the realm of objective truth. Everyone's going to agree. But murder? That's motive, and motive is a judgment call.

So 'objective truth' means we pass no judgments. Now I personally think that if you can't pass judgments, you're not going to last long. It doesn't say much about you as a moral being."

"I had a student who came to me the other day during office hours. He's doing a paper on the Nazis. He's writing a bibliographical essay and there's a book he's describing, and his summary says something along the lines of, 'This was a very interesting book, but it's pretty biased and I don't know how much I can rely on it, but there are still some facts I can use even though most of it is biased.'

What's its bias, I ask him? 'Well, it's very critical of the Nazis.'" Landes laughs and shakes his head.

"Where did we go wrong?"

"The point is that objectivity is a trap. There have to be judgments. We have to pay attention to different narratives and so-on, yes. I'm post-modern in that sense, but I don't think that because there's no objectivity, there can't be any honesty.

And honesty is what's gone out. The radical-relativists say, 'Hey, the Palestinians have their story.' Well I say, sure they have their story, and by all means listen to it. But how accurate is it? Just because you need to listen to it, doesn’t force you to believe it."

We stop the car to drop off the video tape. We're in the elevator and he asks me, "Did you ever think it would get this bad? The anti-Semitism?" I shake my head.

"I think it's amazing the kind of explosion of anti-Semitism you've been seeing," he continues, "and not just in the Arab World. I mean, you know, everyone knew it was there. Everyone knew belief in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the like was wide-spread, but the outpouring and the hysteria that's been happening, and the resonance they've gotten in Europe has been really..." He trails off.

"You know you can date things that way. Before the year 2000, Alan Dershowitz was writing about the disappearance of the American Jew partly because anti-Semitism was over -- people were saying that anti-Semitism was fading. In 1998 or 1999 very few Jews would say that our existence was threatened...but since 2000...it's different.

Suddenly it's hitting home to a lot people who never thought about it before. No, it's not just hitting home, it's hitting! Most people had no idea there was this much resentment, that the Brits and the French were only waiting for an excuse..."

Our errand run, we park over on Harvard Street in Brookline to sit down and start a more formal interview. Starbuck's is too loud for my recorder, so we find a quieter bagel shop. Coffee and muffin in hand, we pull up at a small table and I hit record.

Solomon: Tell me a little about your new web project, 21st Century Media Group.

Landes: We hope to be a media oversight venue for discussing how the media processes the information they gather and how they present it to the public as news. We'll take significant news events and present them as dossiers to the public for discussion, using for grist as much primary source material as possible, starting with the Pallywood discussion.

S: What is Pallywood?

L: It's a play on the expression Bollywood, the designation of India's film industry, based in Bombay. It identifies a practice among Palestinian journalists to turn staged drama into news. This fictional news industry then feeds Western news reporting, who don't seem to suspect they're being duped.

The expression acknowledges that the active, if still young, film industry of Palestinian culture, especially since the advent of cultural autonomy with the Oslo Accords in 1993, has already made a distinctive contribution to global culture.

S: Isn't the expression disrespectful...mocking?

L: On one level, not at all. Most national film industries would love to have the success in the larger world media that Pallywood has achieved. Pallywood is a distinctive and powerful national product. But on the other hand, because it identifies Pallywood as part of a campaign of disinformation and propaganda, why should we respect that, rather than criticize it? As for mocking, at a basic level Pallywood is a joke played by the Palestinians on the West, and one can see it in the smiles on the faces of by-standers as they walk away from these staged scenes.

S: So you'll be posting raw footage for visitors to view for themselves? Visitors to the site can see the "rushes" from which their news was prepared?

L: Yes. We'll post the raw footage from Palestinian cameramen working for major Western news agencies at Netzarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000 and possibly the next day. The visitor can view these videos for themselves and start to form their own impressions, then they can hop in and start reading our analysis and participating in the ongoing discussion. They'll have the chance to form their own impressions first.

It'll be like having a look behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.

[The rest of this interview is contained in the extended entry. If you're accessing this entry from the main blog index, click the link below this line to continue reading.]

On the same day that the New London The Day was printing Susan Ives' sympathy for Gaza column, the Danbury News Times was printing straightforward propaganda.

In an article entitled One summer in Gaza - Danbury man sees Palestinian side of conflict, writer Heather Barr profiles a fellow named Chris Towne. Chris appears to be one of those well-meaning young people who go to "Palestine" to see things for themselves, but have absolutely no background with which to frame what they're being fed, so the only thing they accomplish is making themselves conduits for terror-enabling propaganda.

Chris's story reminds me of this earlier entry: Missing History at the ISM where I posted about an International Solidarity Movement terror dupe named "Kera" who was filing dispatches from the Middle East -- in this case from Zippori, where she was bemoaning the co-opting of Arab place names by the Israelis, in spite of the fact that she was probably within walking distance of Jewish ruins a couple of millennia old. That didn't matter. She wasn't there for the truth. She simply swallowed and regurgitated the info fed to her by her Arab handlers that she had neither the knowledge nor the will to contradict.

So it is with the News Times and their fawning story on Palestine travel diarist, Chris Towne. There's not much point in quoting the piece, suffice to say we've read it all before -- all the credulous propaganda that's fit to print, where we experience the horrors of the Apartheid Wall and life with home demolitions (why the homes are demolished, we're not told), where every Palestinian is an adorable orphan and terror against Israelis doesn't even rise to the level of being a phantom of a thought.

Chris, we are also informed, keeps a blog. I found this entry particularly illuminating:

That "Palestinian town" of Shefa Ammer is also known as Shfaram, and those "Palestinians" he killed are more commonly known as "Israelis." A more canny observer would have realized this, a less canny one would simply re-post the PA press release.

At least, that's what it felt like reading a couple of articles in Connecticut newspapers yesterday.

The first is an op-ed appearing in the New London paper, The Day, by San Antonio Express columnist, Susan Ives. It's a real tear-jerker of tale of whoa of the residents of Gaza. Like all of its type, Arab suffering is shucked of its context -- in the Ives world, Jews are violent land-hungry conquerers intent on causing suffering. Their activities -- as a reaction to Arab terror -- are not described in any other way. Further, Arab poverty is clearly framed as Israel's doing -- Arab societal dysfunction and closures and joblessness resulting from terror don't enter the frame.

Low Expectations In Gaza

And who started that intifada? Who kept it going?

If the Israelis come back, it will be because they have to, because the Arabs could not keep their own murderers in check. That will hardly be Israel's fault -- and there will certainly be no "settlers" to blame -- but don't expect Ives or The Day to tell you that.

This provides me a good opportunity to convey another recent example of The Day's shilling for Jew haters.

Let me walk you through this. I'll provide the info, and you can draw the conclusions.

I have posted previously on The Day's, printing of op-ed pieces by an activist of Al-Awda, the Right to Return Coalition -- a radical group who's purpose is the destruction of the State of Israel, and which has been reported as distributing anti-Semitic literature at their events. Hassan Fouda is Chair of the Connecticut chapter.

Here's the thing. When The Day prints Dr. Fouda's pieces, they don't identify his political affiliation. Instead, they merely identify him by the rather truncated tag-line -- "Hassan Fouda lives in Groton."

It is a clear violation of journalistic ethics for a paper to print an opinion piece by an interested party, but not name that interest. Someone at The Day is clearly so embarrassed that they're giving print space to an Al Awda activist that they'll violate ethical standards to keep from admitting it. Sadly, they're not so embarrassed that they don't print his pieces altogether. Let's be clear: Hassan Fouda isn't being published because he lives in Groton. He's being published because he's an official of a radical group...but the paper doesn't think you need to know that.

My previous post on this is here: Journalistic Irresponsibility -- Pipes strikes back...again. I noted some of this then, on the occasion of the publication of an attack piece by Fouda on Daniel Pipes, and my reprinting of Pipes' response to Fouda's distortions. The original op-ed piece is no longer available on The Day's web site, but the entire sequence -- including the original op-ed, Pipes' response and Fouda's reply -- is available here, at the web site of Mazin Qumsiyeh, another Al Awda activist (who, according to Palestinian Arab, now anti-terror activist Walid Shoebat, was himself involved in terrorist activity as a youth as reported at Frontpage).

Interestingly, the radicals are more forthcoming than The Day itself. While Qumsiyeh reprints the entirety of Pipes' reply, The Day itself only posted a highly truncated version. And then, in what appears at this point to be bowing to the radicals' complaints, they removed even that from their site. Here is a snip of a screenshot from The Day's corrections page as it appeared with the edited Pipes response early Sunday morning according to the Google cache of the page. The screenshot is necessary because the page changed and even the cache no longer shows the Pipes response. Here's a shot of the page as it appeared at the time I composed this section of this post, sans Pipes.

Got that? I know it's confusing. Here's the sequence in bullet form:

• The Day publishes Al Awda op-ed slandering Pipes.
• Pipes responds with letter
• Newspaper shows letter to Fouda for response, but goes ahead and publishes part of Pipes letter on corrections page anyway
• Newspaper for some reason bows and removes correction

Now did the Pipes response just time out and fall off the page, or did they remove it? Why doesn't The Day think that Hassam Fouda's affiliation is relevant? I have sent an email to the paper asking for clarification of these points, but received only silence, so right now I assume the worst -- they print the radical view without identifying the radical, then fail to give the object of the smear the space to rebut.

Why does this matter so much? What do I care about journalistic ethics at a Connecticut newspaper? I couldn't care less about The Day. I do care about what's considered a mainstream idea, however, and that's bigger than The Day. Printing pieces written by unidentified Al Awda activists like Fouda, or the hiring by two Chicago NPR affiliates of an Islamist like [6/25/08: name removed by special request] or the carrying of pieces by fellow-travelers like Susan Ives, takes the mainstream line of thinking of a place like Saudi Arabia and begins to transpose it here. The Day and NPR are giving mainstream cover to far out ideas rooted in hatred and fertilized in dysfunction.

Due to length, I've decided to split "Palestine Day in Connecticut" into two parts. I'll have part 2 (much shorter, I expect) up in a bit.

Bloggers with their own radio talk-shows. Basically, you download an audio file from them and listen to it at your leisure. I'm a bit late in giving this a try, but I've recently listened to podcasts by IsraellyCool, a couple from The View From Here, and just now one from Silent Running (which mentions this blog).

Someone said recently, referring to Podcasts, that "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 people," but it sounds as though a lot more than 15 people are listening to these things, and I have been pleasantly surprised by their professionalism. You might want to give them a try.

Blogger Anthony Perez-Miller of Andunie (one of the coolest lookin' blogs in the sphere) has taken advantage of the Army's increased enlistment age and is off to Basic Training...at the age of 40. Good luck, Anthony!

(His explanation is here.)

Click picture for a larger version.

Previous:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Blogging may be slightly spotty for the next couple of days, in spite of having a few things burning a hole in my inbox wanting to be posted, as my wife and daughter just got back from visiting family in Nara, Japan for the past six weeks. Y'know, have to fulfill those familial responsibilities and all...

Here are a few shots of my daughter frolicking with the deer that run free in Nara. Yes, they're real wild deer (although very used to humans, of course), and you can purchase special deer cookies to feed them -- like a petting-zoo without fences.

Did any Rush listeners out there happen to be listening to Rush about an hour ago? I got in my car and it sounded like he was reading sections from my Cindy Sheehan post, A Judenhass Horse -- that or he was looking at another site or source that had sections of it (I know it's been all over the place). Just wondering if he mentioned this site (probably not or my hit counter would be a lot higher) as I missed how he started.

Palestinians: Israel poisoned Gaza land

The Jews are stealing water AND SAND no less. Everyone knows there's a sand shortage in the Middle East, after all. "They keep the good sand for themselves!"

This is, of course, the absolutely not out of the ordinary kind of weird bizarro-world slander Palestinian Arab officialdom crank out on a regular basis. But maybe there's a reason this time beyond the usual hate-product. Maybe they're actually trying to keep people away from the settlements so that they can pretend to at least keep some sort of order on the thing. If so, how strange is that? What kind of society is this? It's like some ancient chieftan manipulating his primitive tribe with fear of the ooga-booga poison. What must the Palestinian elite think of their people?

(via Dhimmi Watch)

ANONYMOUS HEROES

by Tom Glennon

The main stream media, television, newspapers, and even news web sites and e-zines are neglecting meaningful stories that are critical to American morale as the War On Terror progresses.

All of the media are very quick to report each American casualty, killed or wounded, as well as Iraqi and Afghani civilians killed or wounded by the terrorists. Every bomb that disrupts the rebuilding of Iraq's and Afghanistan's infrastructure gets prominent attention. Any misconduct by American military personnel, whether real or imagined, is blared in headlines from coast to coast. Off the wall protesters, making unwarranted charges either against our government or our military, are featured newsmakers. Politicians disparaging our military with spurious charges are assured of a forum that makes the evening news cycle. With all of this, is it any wonder that many Americans are confused or misled about our progress in dealing with those who threaten us?

I have four very simple questions, which all of the media should know, yet I am confident that NONE can answer.

How many Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, or Distinguished Service Crosses have been awarded since operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq? What are the names and actions of those receiving this medal? How many Unit Citations and Unit Commendations have been awarded since operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq? What units received these, and what were the actions of those receiving this recognition?

Either these awards for valor are presented at secret gatherings in undisclosed locations, or none of our military have performed any deeds of heroism in Afghanistan or Iraq. Or is it possible that the media is only interested in reporting news that is negative, and are not reporting details on commendations for bravery? We know how many Purple Hearts have been awarded, since the media keeps close count of casualties. We know how many terrorists attacks have occurred in both theaters of operation, as the media keeps close count of these on a monthly basis. However, any heroic actions by our troops, and recognized with commendations for valor, are regularly ignored by all of our media. Whether these actions resulted in inflicting enemy casualties, or were actions that saved others from harm, they are not
considered newsworthy.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, writing at the Counterterrorism Blog has the goods on some of the anti-Semitic Muslim literature distributed widely in American prisons. Further, exhortations to Jihad are not exactly something we should be thrilled to have felons spending their time consuming.

The disturbing goods are here: Radical Indoctrination in the U.S. Prisons

Not to worry, though. Gartenstein-Ross informs us that MPAC says there's nothing to worry about.

It's at Fox News, which we usually expect better from, but it's actually an AP report. Take a look at this brain-dead headline:

Four Palestinians, Jew Killed in Violence

Yes, these are the kinds of deaths you see chalked up on those score boards that compare the number of Israeli and Palestinian deaths -- you know, the ones that show more Palestinians killed than Israelis and thus purport to show the moral culpability of Israel as being the more aggressive killer.

As always with these things, you have to read beyond what the AP wants you to think, the impression they want you to take away, and into the facts embedded in the text.

It turns out the four Palestinians were Islamic Jihad terrorists killed in a shoot-out with Israeli forces, while the Jew was an innocent civilian knifed to death on the streets of Jerusalem. Imagine your innocent loved one's death was put up as an equivalency this way. How would you feel?

Here is more information on the Jerusalem attack.

You may say that the AP, with their headline (and this is habitual), is merely trying to maintain neutrality. I say that maintaining a neutral stance between these two circumstances is not neutral. It is an advantage for the terrorists.

I thought this was a very clever observation noted in yesterday's Best of the Web...

Martin Peretz sounds like a blogger, deconstructing the The New York Times' editorializing on the Gaza pullout. He also mentions the book I'm reading now Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper by Laurel Leff, which I'm thinking of writing a review of when I finish. It will certainly be a long review. The book is full of interesting tid-bits and almost impossible to extract short excerpts from.

The paper of record sneers at the Jewish residents of Gaza

Girlz with Gunz

JPost: Gaza women join Hamas fighters

Add a layer of velcro to the finely combed sand that abuts the Security Fence and all should be well as far as infiltration goes.

(hat tip: Miss Kelley)

Diana Applebaum: Our Own Worst Enemies

I was on the web site of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles reading an article about anti-Semitism at U C Irvine where Muslim cleric Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a recidivist guest speaker of the Muslim Student Union, has been talking about the “apartheid state of Israel” and warning Muslim students against interacting with “Zionist racists.” Jewish organizations have not attempted to stifle Malik Ali, merely they have asked for the University administrators to state publicly that this sort of language is anti-Semitic, which University officials have declined to do.

While I was reading this, a sidebar flashed a photo of young men in knitted kippot holding automatic weapons. The caption read, “Let the Gaza Disengagement Fail.” I scrolled up and realized that the full caption read “Don’t Let the Gaza Disengagement Fail.” The photo of the gun-carrying Jews alternated with a photo of head band-wearing jihadis brandishing automatic weapons.

It is the kind of moral equation between Jews armed in self-defense and Arabs armed to murder Jews that I am ordinarily tempted to consider unfair to the point of being borderline anti-Semitic. Jihadis, after all, belong to organizations that deliberately plan and carry out the random mass murder of civilians. And although we have now witnessed lone-wolf Israeli terror attacks on Arabs, there is nothing in Israeli society comparable to the well-funded, broadly-supported terrorism of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade. Nothing. Any organization claiming that these two threats are equivalent, is suspect of bearing an irrational animus against Jews.

The ad was sponsored by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom. Brit Tzedek claims to be “deeply committed to Israel's well-being,” others call them “Anti-Zionist Zionists.” The Forward (a proudly left-wing newspaper) describes Brit Tzedek as part of “A new generation of left-wing Jewish groups siding with the Palestinian cause.” Certainly, you have to doubt the judgement of an organization that can blithely equate the religious Jewish settlers who peacefully evacuated Gaza this week, with the jihadis who filled the streets of Palestinian towns brandishing weapons and celebrating the evacuation as a victory for the terrorists who have murdered innocent Jews.

MEMRI: Deputy Head of the Palestinian Clerics Association, Sheik Muhammad Ali: Muslims Should Liberate Andalusia. The Jews Belive in Prophet Muhammad's Prophecy and Began Planting Gharqad Trees That Will Protect Them on Judgment Day

Ali makes it clear that peaceful settlements are not the preference. "Killing is involved." He explains it all right here -- "once Dar al-Islam, always Dar al-Islam." Clearly, with guys like this running the show, there's no hope for peace and no use for compromise. One inch is too much to compromise. It's a theological imperitive.

Suicide bombers don't murder because they're opressed, or there are checkpoints, or because there's a well here, and not a well there. They murder because they have this man and what he is espousing -- openly, to an enthusiastic interviewer who plays the good student -- as teachers. Watch the video.

Now, lest that put you in an over-foul mood, thinking that the entire disengagement has been without purpose, let's take a look at two op-eds appearing in Asharq Alawasat that, while every sentence wouldn't be as I would write it, are certainly something worth reading. Both links are via Crossroads of Arabia.

The Damaging Parade, by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, General Manager of Al -Arabiya television:

and Living for God, by Ahmed Al-Rabei

Mary, posting at Dean's World, links to Colt's interview with former Arab News editor, John R. Bradley on the ocassion of the release of Bradley's new book on Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia Exposed. Very interesting interview, and I have added the book to my Amazon wish list.

The interview is here.

The thread at Winds of Change with an interesting discussion including participation by Bradley is here.

Finally, a review of the book by John Burgess of Crossroads of Arabia is here. Burgess found the book of value, but has several substantive criticisms.

"Extremism"

From MEMRI's interesting collection of Reformist Cartoons

What's interesting is that many of them use the same common anti-Semitic tropes and devices, this time turned on the 'terrorists.' Forgive the scare-quotes, but while some of these surely and sincerely represent the same deffinition of the word that you or I would recognize, some just as surely do not.

Few things present the delightful hypocrisy of the limousine liberal set better than this image of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. -- having taken his private jet into town no-doubt -- abusing his title as an "environmentalist" to campaign against a clean energy project for no better reason, let's face it, than the windmills will appear in (not even obscure) Uncle Teddy's view. These super-rich brats support every program imaginable as long as it affects someone else -- affirmative action when they know their own kids will never need to compete against its recipients for school placement, a job or aid, welfare when they don't live anywhere near the neighborhoods destroyed by it, tax increases when another few grand a year is a drop in the bucket in their incomes.

But along comes something that affects them -- and not even them, but just their view...their VIEW, and it's a whole other story. They'll dig so deep for justifications they'll strike oil before they come up with anything of substance.

Cape Wind is like shining a portable x-ray on the Kennedy Clan and fellow travellers. The film results are not pretty.

Cape Cod Today: Strange Boatfellows Clash in Nantucket Sound:

And of course, don't miss Jonah Goldberg on this issue. A mighty wind:

Do not miss Lisa Ramaci-Vincent's (Steven Vincent's widow) utter groin to gullet eviceration of Juan Cole's comments on the death of her husband. I've no doubt Steven would have loved it.

(via LGF)

Particularly when it conflicts with their politics. Diana Muir writes at The American Thinker of the contrasting ways the Times reports the facts depending on whether they approve of the implications of the find or not. Very interesting. Everything's politics. Even archaeology, especially when the press allows themselves to be used for the purpose by crediting the uncreditable -- in this case Arafat's whole-cloth rantings, now folded into the Palestinian Arab national narrative, that the Jewish connection to Jerusalem is a myth.

The Postmodern New York Times

The Canadian business school that had a tasteless (at best) reference to Abu Nidal in it's coursework has done the right thing and changed the question.

This one's a little old -- over a week! -- but I just noticed it and thought it deserved some attention. Colbert King wrote in the Washington Post warning the mainstream left off of the divestment issue. Interesting because it comes from a mainstream Democrat viewpoint, pointing out how fatally divisive this issue is amongst traditional left-of-center allies.

Washington Post: Making an Investment in Unity

It's quite good, and worth reading in full. The mainstream left ought to avoid the temptation to align themselves with feel-gooders talking about divestment, who's roots are really in a far more radical place. They also ought avoid trying to use the far Left for its energy, while hoping they can keep the uglier aspects sanitized and out of sight -- Cindy Sheehan and her friends being a prime example.

I was also particularly pleased to see King quoting from a MEMRI report, the same one I posted a screen-grab of back here.

Excellent. Seeing this in the Washington Post coming from a "liberal" is a great sign.

Here's one to get your blood boiling. It appears that the International Freedom Center at Ground Zero is still under a cloud of controversy. This time, an international body of such museums which has a hand in advising the IFC is calling upon the museum not to be too "America-centric."

NY Daily News: Another insult to America's heritage at Freedom Center

As this generally isn't one of "those blogs," I'll spare you the language that flashed through my mind as I read that. It went something like "The f*** it does!"

Catfish reports back on what he saw in his trip down to the professional protests in Crawford. Interesting stuff.

(via Daisy Cutter)

A lenticular cloud.

Al Dura lives on in the pages of the New York Times in this piece by a Palestinian Arab talking about how images of the Gaza pullout are playing on Arab television:

Live From Gaza: A New View of Israel by Daoud Kuttab

One of my previous posts on the controversial al Dura video is here.

And how's this for an equivalency:

Get that? A parent using their child to appeal to a sense of mercy and guilt reminds Palestinian Arabs of their own use of their children to pursue a life of bloody murder. Good grief.

Update: Other reactions at The American Thinker and Mediacrity.

Haaretz: Like singing for the family

Perhaps it was just anti-Zionism.

(via Norm)

I'm pretty sure Dana Milbank means this article as an attack on Judge Roberts, it is Dana Milbank after all, but it sure doesn't sound bad to me.

Imagine, Roberts felt that Reagan shouldn't be giving any special recognition to Michael Jackson. Seems Roberts didn't like Jackson, even back then, and he felt it jeopardized the dignity of the office. Sounds about right to me (and I've never been a Jackson hater).

They are really digging to find dirt on this guy, Roberts, but as usual, it just reflects poorly on the mud slingers.

Roberts's Rules of Decorum - No Hobnobbing With Celebs, and Absolutely No Michael Jackson

I enjoyed this little snip of political wisdom in Norm's profile (Norm's 100th!) of Kevin Drum:

Heh.

Jonathan Edelstein has an excellent post up on the special legal status of Palestinian Arab refugees. A very important issue. Recommend you take a look.

Different Rules

Yesterday I finished watching Downfall, the story of Hitler's last days in the bunker as told through the eyes of his young secretary. German language with subtitles.

Excellent. Strong recommendation to rent.

I suppose the one danger, and it is ideological, is that it does tend to "humanize" Hitler. He was human, after all, and the uninformed (and there are many uninformed people out there, don't kid yourself) could wind up feeling a bit too much sympathy for these characters without the background knowledge of just how evil they really were.

Nevertheless, that aside, this is an excellent film.

I have just now finished watching Oliver Stone's Alexander. Holy crap. Two hours and fifty-five minutes of my life...MY LIFE...down the shitter. If only the writers had been in the bunker chomping cyanide capsules. How in the hell do you screw this story up? They found a way.

There was a little, itty-bit of cool battle scene which only went to show what the film could have been, but there is so much wrong here I don't know where to begin. (Oh, there were also a couple of naked breasts which is almost always a good thing, but come to think of it, there were more naked breasts in Downfall -- seriously.) Utter boredom made of one of history's greatest characters. Unbelievable.

Words that went through my mind as I watched: "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"

Recommendation: Avoid.

I kid you not. Writing in The Christian Century ("one of the largest of independent religious journals of opinion" with a circulation of about 30,000), former editor James M. Wall tells us:

Is that how you would describe them? "Nongovernmental groups"? Wall goes on to lament (quoting no less a moral authority than Juan Cole) that only a few news outlets reported this news. If it was because they took the sympathies of terrorist groups less than seriously that can only be to their rare credit. That Wall cannot even refer to them for what they are -- terrorist groups -- is a mark against his.

According to CAMERA, The Christian Century, and James Wall in particular, have a long history of anti-Israel bias and obsession. The Christian Century's focus is on service to the "mainline" Protestant denominations -- a laundry list of groups passing anti-Israel resolutions of late -- and, according to the CAMERA report, had a hand in the formation of the far-Left leaning National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.

Wall's opinion piece gives us a rare and direct glimpse inside the mind-set of these groups and denominations, and begins to give us a clue toward what's making them tick. It is a farrago of wrong-headedness on a foundation of discredited authority. The piece is deserving of a right fisking -- ironic, since one of Wall's "authorities" in the piece is none other than The Independent's Robert Fisk himself -- apparently a favorite of Wall's.

Says Wall: "...The narrative also insists on a connection between Islam and terrorism, even though suicide bombing is anathema to Islam..."

That certainly is a relief. Now if someone would only explain that to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Via UCCTruths, this op-ed from a Presbyterian pastor:

Presbyterian Church is unfair in targeting Israel for divestment

(Emphasis mine.)

The UCCTruths web site posts a previously confidential email he obtained (naughty, naughty...but there it is) from Rev. John Thomas, President of the United Church of Christ, responding to the internal outrage caused in great measure by the UCC's passage of an anti-Israel divestment measure, and particularly with the way it was passed in what many within the denomination considered an under-handed manner. From the email (emphasis is mine in all quotes):

One may reasonably wonder what the "right signal" was that he intended to send. Don't worry, Reverend, we got the message. We got the message just fine.

Further, Dexter Van Zile has responded with his usual eloquence to an apologia from Peter Makari which appeared in the Cleveland Jewish News. Makari has been a prime-mover behind several of the divestment efforts.

Van Zile:

Finally, on the Anglican front, a piece highly critical of divestment has appeared in the Anglican Church Times -- a publication I'm given to understand is not normally Israel friendly. The item, Anglicans have betrayed the Jews, is not available on the web site, so I have included it below in the extended entry. Sadly, since it is written by a Jew, many will overlook the substance, but the fact that it appears at all is a positive.

Max Boot makes some very interesting points in these comments on the Gaza pullout.

Hamastan? Gaza pullout is worth the risk

Did you hear? American racism radicalized ideological Bin Laden Godfather, Sayyid Qutb. Yeah, it's true. At least according to Naomi Klein. The depths to which the far-Left searches for self-loathing and self-justification never cease to amaze. Not only is American foreign policy to blame for our ills, but our domestic nature, too, is what we suffer for. Fortunately, we have Robert Spencer to set the record straight.

Did American Racism Cause Jihad?

Robert Spencer has a great sense of humor, although the incident itself, of course, is not funny:

Missiles Fired at U.S. Navy Ship in Jordan

We're going to be treated to a whole lot of this sort of insightful (or inciteful) political cartooning in the coming days. The trouble is, the people drawing this stuff have no idea what they're witnessing on television. They only take it in at the most superficial level and so they spit out the most childish interpretations.

This looks exactly like the kind of crap we see churned out of the Middle East on a continuous basis, only this one's not coming from the Middle East, it's in the Hartford Courant.

My emailer's letter to the Courant:

For those of you wondering how much of the world is viewing the images of disengagement, here is a decidedly unscientific sampling of a few posts from a non-political BBS I frequent:

"Isreali soldiers removing Isrealis from Gaza :O Hope this goes some way to finally getting a peacefull settlement in the area. After watching the scenes on TV and seeing fat screaming women, I was left feeling that it may have been better if the settlers were removed using tanks and bulldozers so that they knew how the Palestians felt when it was done to them 38 years ago ;)"

"Also they could just use helicopter gunships to blow them all up if they don't move."

"Whoever thinks Israel is doing this for peace has got their head in the sand. They're doing this for Israel, not for Palistinians, not for peace."

That's two Brits and a Canadian for those keeping score. The analysis is about as deep as that cartoon, but that's as deep as most people will take it. Take it as you will.

Update: Mediacrity bestows The Julius Streicher Memorial Award upon cartoonist Bob Englehart.

The video.

Some folks would like to bring wild elephants, lions and cheetahs to the American plains.

National Geographic: Lions, Elephants to Roam the U.S. Plains?

Yeah, like maybe we'll just have to get used to being eaten or trampled from time to time -- all for the sake of re-introducing creatures that were never "introduced" in the first place (the species are all "sorta similar" to types that were here in ancient times).

I dunno. Good luck to them, but maybe history and nature have moved on.

The Rewilding Institute.

Ronald R. Griffin: She Does Not Speak for Me, My son died in Iraq--and it was not in vain

and

CNN: Marine's mother: Support the fight

But I can't quite put my finger on why. Oh yeah:

From MEMRI's dispatch, Al-Arabiya TV Special on the Culture of Martyrdom and Suicide Bombers

The above is from a film of a Hizballah (a group DePaul professor Norman Finkelstein considers "heroic") parade in Lebanon for the celebration of "Martyr's Day."

Here are a couple of children who's dad volunteered to blow himself up. They are watching the video Hizballah was thoughtful enough to make, broadcast and provide a copy to the family:

Remember, that little girl is in the den of their house, sitting with the family, watching video of dad blow himself up with a bunch of other people. If that doesn't chill your bones, I don't know what will. That's some good mothering right there.

Hey, and here's moderate Muslim leader and friend of London Mayor Ken Livingstone (and early supporter of the Boston Mosque) explaining how it's OK to kill yourself among Israeli civilians -- because, of course, there are no Israeli civilians, and it's not really suicide:

Finally, here's Hamas, who I'm given to believe represent a fairly high percentage of public opinion amongst the Palestinian Arabs. But don't worry, I hear they run schools. Of course, I'm not exactly sure what it is they teach, since this image is from one of their in-house training videos:

There's much more in the MEMRI report.

Pop quiz: The above quote is taken from:

a) A training manual for aspiring terrorist mathematicians, or

b) A Canadian University's real estate exam?

The answer is here.

This is what we like to see. John Bolton has been making his voice heard on the UN funding of Palestinian propaganda. (Previous item: UN cash for propaganda redux)

NY Sun: Funding of Palestinian Propaganda By U.N. 'Unacceptable,' Bolton Says

It doesn't matter what gets said. The problem is systemic. Even if there were real interest in enforcing accountability, and I doubt there is (why would an unaccountable bureaucrat volunteer to make their life more difficult?), there's likely little way to watch how the money is spent or audit it after it's paid out, anyway. And if it's misused? So what? What consequence will there be? A cut in aid to the PA? Don't make me laugh.

Guest poster Tom Glennon laments the loss of his Democratic Party. There's a lot of that going around.

Dude, Who Stole My Party?

by Tom Glennon

I have a confession to make. It should be made public now, before Dan Rather and the 60 Minutes Team shows up at my door with documents about my past that, although forged, are still accurate. I admit, now and publicly, that I was a Democrat, for more years than I should have been.

I was born just after World War II ended, so I am in the front line of the 'Baby Boomer' generation. Growing up Catholic in Chicago, of Irish and German heritage, I was of course brought up to be a Daley Democrat. The most powerful person in my neighborhood wasn't the Mayor, Governor, or President. Neither was the Alderman, Senator or Congressional Representative. Not even the Parish Priest was the most powerful or influential person to my family and all the others in my near North neighborhood. No, the person most recognized as a person of authority and influence was the ward heeler, our Democratic Precinct Captain.

Have a streetlight out? Need a job for your brother-in-law, so he and your sister can move out of your attic? Garbage pickup missed your house? Local bully picking on your child? Son needs a recommendation to get into a Union Trade School? All of these problems, and more, were within the purview of the Precinct Captain. He had the 'clout' (a Chicago word often misused and misunderstood by persons without a Chicago background) to get things done for you. Your only responsibility was to turn out and vote on every Election Day, and be sure to vote correctly.

Actually, there were three political parties in Chicago back in the forties, fifties and early to mid sixties. You could belong to the Conservative Democrats, Moderate or Centrist Democrats, or Liberal Democrats. I don't think I heard anything about the Republican Party until I entered High School. Local politicking was fun, because there were so many cat fights between the three Democratic Parties. However, when it came to election time, the votes went to the Democratic candidate for whatever office was being contested, whether he or she was a Liberal, Moderate or Conservative. Accommodation, compromise and reality checks with the actual voters eventually arrived at platforms and candidates that were acceptable to all views within the Chicago Democratic Party.

Israpundit has posted an excellent essay on the divestment issue from an internal Christian perspective by Paul C. Merkley, a retired Professor of History from Carleton University. It's lengthy, but well done as either a good place to start on the issue, or for those who already feel well informed.

IT IS ABOUT ISRAEL’S RIGHT-TO-LIFE

Very worth reading in full.

On a related note, and as a reminder that there are many, many strong voices of sanity coming from within the churches, I found this web page by a Presbyterian Church(USA) member who is obviously a dissident regarding his church hierarchy's anti-Israel positions. A very nicely done page and worth a click.

As though they've ever stopped. And why not? It worked once.

JPost: Gaza Hamas head: Israel not honoring ceasefire

Don't worry, Cindy Sheehan has jumped the shark for me, as I hope she has for others, but I did find this interesting enough to post about. Through my referrer logs, I found a commenter at the Conservative Underground BBS noting:

So sometime between Saturday, when the page was cached, and Sunday afternoon when I saved a copy of the code (but before I had made my post), the CPH changed their link from the mainstream, but decidedly non-political, American Gold Star Mothers, who are clearly trying to stay clear of the circus...

...to Cindy Sheehan's own Gold Star Families for Peace, which takes a decidedly different tone:

Take it as you will.

Here's much more on the little mention of the UN's bankrolling of Palestinian Arab propaganda efforts buried in the New York Times piece I mentioned yesterday.

NY Sun: United Nations Bankrolled Latest Anti-israel Propaganda

That, of course, is nothing new.

Yet another opera with singing terrorists. (Previous: Killing Leon Klinghoffer Again) (via Dhimmi Watch and others)

Suicide bomber opera implodes

Funny how "artists" who are supposed to be so sensitive to the world of emotion so often miss that.

The BBC review laments that the show didn't develop the conspiracy theory angle more fully.

Tigerhawk has a thoughtful post on some proposed legislation that should worry us all.

Interesting stuff.

Sky News: HITLER BEATS BLAIR IN POLL

I am happy to report, however, that Tony Blair beats Adolph Hitler like a redheaded step-child in a Google Fight, and don't even get me started on the results of an AIM Fight -- ugly, just ugly. Sadly, an Aim Fight of "Blair" v. "Hitler" has different results, but clearly the judges are biased.

Earlier, Palestinian "gunmen" kidnapped a French cameraman:

Reuters: Palestinian gunmen kidnap France TV journalist

So France is now threatening the PA that they better do something:

JPost: France threatens to stop aid to PA

But I thought we couldn't expect the PA to control the terror gangs? Imagine that, holding the PA responsible for law and order, and actually threatening consequences if they don't perform. Why didn't someone think of that earlier (he asked rhetorically)?

OK, in this case, it's both.

Looks like someone has explained to Cindy Sheehan that some of the things she's been saying (and perhaps the people she's been associating with) are seriously limiting her usefulness as more and more catch on.

All Headline News: Cindy Sheehan Denies Anti-Israel Remarks.

The letter is certainly consistent with other things she's said, such as her statements noted in this Frontpage report:

I enjoyed Fareed Zakaria's The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad well enough. Decent food for thought on the limits and uses of democracy, but Zakaria's op-ed in today's Washington Post is wrong-headed and seems to be colored more by the desire to be "not a neo-con" than by clear-thinking.

Zakaria feels we have little to lose by giving more with Tehran, pointing out that there really are very few other options.

Talk to Tehran

Zakaria enumerates a number of "sticks" toward Tehran that haven't or won't work in order to sell his view that what we need to exercise now is the softer touch. It does not inspire much confidence that when he gets to his prescription, he first looks to Mohamed ElBaradei for a hook...

"[B]etter relations with the United States..." It sounds kind of warm and fuzzy doesn't it? But what would that mean, exactly? This is a country that just elected -- a better word would be "installed" -- a master terrorist as its president, and who's governing philosophy continues to revolve around the cult of martyrdom. It keeps its people enslaved to a bunch of Stalinists in black robes and hopes to spread its philosophy world wide. What would change in that with "better relations" other than strengthening that self-same regime. What profit in selling the rope with which to hang ourselves?

I can think of several worse things. First of all, clearly we have been floating offers, either through back channels or by taking a back seat and letting the Europeans do their best. It doesn't seem to be working.

Second, changing to an appeasement course at this time makes us look like weaklings, and rewards nuclear sabre-rattling while making it appear that we care about only one thing -- nuclear proliferation -- while being willing to ignore all the rest, including repression at home, sponsorship of international terrorism, killing our guys in Iraq and destabilization of our friends. That is something we should not do and will only garner us more of the same. Playing the proliferation card would become and purchase of indulgences for a laundry-list of other sins.

Third, if we facilitate an Iranian nuclear program, they could very easily cheat on it, or allow us to take them right along to the end, whereupon they kick out the inspectors, stop cooperation and go the final stretch hurdles to a bomb. We might never even know they succeeded until yes, a mushroom cloud appears delivered by a terrorist with unclear ties.

Not every situation in the world has a clear solution. Perhaps that's how things are with Iran as they are with North Korea. As there is little to be gained and much to be lost by appearing weak, far better to stick to our principles and bide our time. Perhaps a solution will present itself. That's far better than strengthening our enemies -- and they are unlikely to become our friends any time soon, nor should they be.

Perhaps some day, some of the international bodies, the NGO's, religious groups and "peace" organizations, will stop obsessing over Israel and searching for American oil conspiracies, and put some pressure on the terror enablers who really are in it for the oil, like Russia and China. They may also some day be convinced to pressure a terror exporter like Iran.

As that would mean that all the dilettantes and peace posers would have to get serious all of a sudden, I'm not optimistic that will happen any time soon. In the meantime, we'll just have to continue being vigilant. It's not easy, and it's not comfortable, but there aren't a lot of better options available.

PA police absent as `death squad' beats up Beit Lahia resident

Banners for the conquest. Buried in this New York Times article which is for the most part a lot of pooftery about the problems Palestinians have had at the hands of their Jewish neighbors (the fact that these problems are always the product response to Arab terror attacks is mentioned, but only as a muted after-thought):

Gazans Harbor Modest Dreams Amid Concerns

Lovely.

Here's an excellent backgrounder y Suzanne Gershowitz and Emanuele Ottolenghi on Europe's Problem with Ariel Sharon. Worth reading now, or bookmarking for later. Very difficult to excerpt. Here's the start...

As mentioned in the entry below on the Philistines, in ancient times, the Babylonians conquered Judea and carried off much of its Jewish population. While many of the Jews eventually returned, many stayed behind, making the Iraqi Jewish community one of the most ancient continuously existing communities in the world. At the time of the First World War, Baghdad's population was approximately one third Jewish. In the late 1940's, there were approximately 150,000 Iraqi Jews. The ethnic cleansing that began in the late '40's and '50's has left that number at no more than a few dozen individuals today. See: The Jews of Iraq

This JPost article describes the Museum of Babylonian Jewry, Back to Babylon:

I'm not sure how many Iraqi Jews would want to return, even if they could get their property back. I doubt very many. They've moved on and done great things as part of the Israeli melting-pot. Live in the present, look to the future, remember the past. Iraqi Jews lived in tent-cities for a few years as they made the transition. Some other groups could take a lesson.

Arthur Chrenkoff has Part 33 in his ongoing series of reports of the Good News from Iraq.

It's long.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the theats of Sharia to Women's Rights in Iraq...and Canada...

OpinionJournal: Unfree Under Islam

Hirsi Ali's web site is here.

Some very interesting information on the "Foreskin People" (seriously, read on) in this article about archaeology confirming biblical accounts. Let me emphasize that I find the use of ancient history to justify modern political claims to be marginal, but since the Arabs have adopted the lack of any Jewish connection to the land as part of their national myth, and are in the process of erasing the evidence, stories like this take on a far more interesting and significant meaning.

As a side note, it would appear the dig director is none other than Aaron Meir of Bar-Ilan University, who was kind enough to allow me permission to re-print his review of Nadia Abu el-Haj's book, here: Applauding the destruction of Joseph's Tomb at Columbia?

Haaretz: Dig backs biblical account of Philistine city of Gat

MEMRI: Commander of Arafat's Presidential Guard Munir Al-Zu'bi: Arafat May Have Been Poisoned by a Laser Beam, a Handshake, or a Kiss

Maybe it was an AIDS laser beam.

ITN is running an online poll:

Under "Global Conflict" you will see that one of the items is the widely discredit Muhammed al-Dura video, which ITN credulously describes thus:

Considering all of the evidence which has come out subsequently, this is an outrageous description. It's undoubtedly an influential picture, but not under that description.

Be sure to go to the site, click on Global Conflict and then vote -- I would say for anything else, but it's probably wiser to cluster on one choice. I would suggest "Twin Towers." It's a better choice, anyway.

You've got to be a Harvard professor in order to take a half a page of newsprint to say absolutely nothing, and that's exactly what today's Boston Globe does with this Op-Ed from Professor Herbert C. Kelman, Beyond the Gaza disengagement. Professor Kelman seems to be one of those rosy-sighted people who've been out to lunch for the past few years. Even the Geneva initiative's rotting corpse (good riddance) is exhumed and dusted off for a quick cameo. Bostonians seeking to understand the issues involved in the disengagement are completely ill-served by the Globe's printing of this piece.

In the past few days we've seen Mahmood Abbas giving speeches to the effect of "Today Gaza, tomorrow Jerusalem": (This is too good not to quote)

We've seen Hamas holding open press conferences announcing they have no intention of disarming:

And now Thousands of PLO "Fighters" are scheduled to be moved from Lebanon to Gaza following disengagement. Tell me, will they have a stabilizing or a de-stabilizing effect do you think?

But who is the first person who's motives Professor Kelman mentions we should be skeptical of? Ariel Sharon, of course:

One problem never makes an appearance: Palestinian Terrorism and irredentism. Instead, we get a lot of stuff about coordination -- too late now and an impossibility due to Arab refusal to deal in good faith -- and some airy prescriptions at the end about the keys to peace being something about feeling each others' pain, recognizing each other's ties to the land, rights to live in peace and a little compromise all around.

Gee y'think?

They're still celebrating their own suicides, professor. Ariel Sharon isn't the problem, nor is his willingness or unwillingness to compromise. It's time for the Palestinian Arabs to demonstrate that they deserve a state and want peace. So far there is no evidence to that effect.

Who you consider "extreme" all boils down to your own perspective. The Forward's blog, Philologos, has an interesting examination of where Reuters stands. I suspect it applies for many other outlets as well.

Phililogos: Ultra-problematic (Requires registration.)

Further on the post below, Not a Saint, let's take a look at the horse Cindy Sheehan has tied her cart to, the Crawford Peace House [Note: The CPH people have deleted the material mentioned in this post from their page, but I have the original. Here is the Google cache a screenshot of the page as it was. See the update at the bottom of this post.]. They claim to be a house of peace, and Cindy Sheehan's agenda would seem to be centered on the War in Iraq, but even a cursory look at the CPH's web page shows a clearly different agenda. As I write this, the word "Iraq" appears on CPH's front page a total of ONE time. The number of times a certain eastern Mediterranean country's name appears? Seventeen times. And the single essay on the page is about...Iraq? No. It is about the world's true demon, root of all evil, Israel.

The first photo is one of a Mr. Eugene Bird giving a speech with a Palestinian flag waving next to him. Who is Mr. Bird? According to Honest Reporting, Bird is President of the Paul Findley founded anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Council for the National Interest, a group which seeks "to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of a foreign country, namely Israel." He also writes regularly for the Saudi shilling, and need I mention anti-Israel, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs -- where old Arabist diplomats who've gone native go to die.

Bird is known for blaming Israel for the Abu Ghraib abuses:

Do I need to mention that Bird is a big fan of divestment, and uses all sorts of strained narrative reasoning to justify himself? He also thinks what we really need is -- not Syrian, not Saudi -- but an Israel Accountability Act.

By the way, if you want a report on the demonstration these pictures are apparently from, you can get it at this Indymedia site.

The second photo on the CPH site shows a man holding a sign which appears to show the ever shrinking borders of "Palestine." What do you think the protester thinks would be a "just solution" to this shrinkage?

The third and fourth pictures are of protesters carrying the mother of all anti-Israel banners, which also looks like it blames the Jewish State for the region's strife. As an emailer wrote to me, "This is a group that appears to think that it was Israel that started the wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. Remember when Polish tanks invaded Germany on Sept 1, 1939? Remember when the United States bombed Pearl Harbor? Cindy Sheehan's friends probably do."

Finally, we have a photo of radical Leftist Professor Robert Jensen, who's list of hits include:

Ward Churchill Has Rights, and He’s Right

and, Get definition straight on Palestinian ‘terrorism’

and, U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts

On and on in that vein...

Finally, as so often with these things, take a look at the final picture on that Indymedia page. It shows the only American flags (and Israeli for that matter) on display at the demonstration -- put up by the obviously non-plussed regular citizens of Crawford. As is so often the case with these things, the oh-so patriotic protesters wouldn't even think to display them.

Cindy Sheehan's sacrifice is unfathomable, but as an adult, responsible for her own actions, her politics and public statements are open to examination because she has put them out there, and as I said at the beginning, she has tied her cart to a decrepit, decidedly Judenhass horse.

Update: Of course, the Crawford Peace House is only the most recent Judenhass horse Mrs. Sheehan has tied herself to. Here she is lecturing college students along with convicted terror-enabling lawyer Lynne Stewart in a sweatshirt advertising the virulently "anti-Zionist" United for Peace and Justice.

As I said in my first post, the media was never interested before in the real agenda of groups like ANSWER and UFPJ, so don't expect them to show any interest now aside from the dog and pony show gloss on the streets of Crawford. It fits their agenda too neatly for them to ruin it with any real reporting -- far easier just to re-print the live-action press release crafted for the consumption of a lazy press who'll never dig for themselves.

Update: Looks like the Crawford Peace House people have changed their page to expunge the material criticized in this post. Wonder if they check their referrer logs? Anyway, I saved a copy of the page as it was when I wrote the post and will post it if necessary. In the mean-time, here is the Google cache showing the original. Since the cache has changed, here is a screenshot of the page as it was (assembled from three images for easier scrolling).

Update2: Welcome Power Line readers...and LGF Lizards, too.

If I may, some visitors may also be interested in this recent post on a very loosely related topic -- the destruction of the archaeological record under the Temple Mount. It's an issue that hasn't gotten anywhere near the attention it deserves: Murdering History in the Dark. The post contains a few scans that I'm not aware are available anywhere else on the net at the moment.

A final (I hope) Update: There was another interesting, but probably unrelated, change to the CPH page that readers may find interesting. I have noted it here.

OK, one more Update (8/18/05): A commenter points out that the front page material was moved to one of the inside pages. It is still available here.

Far be it for me to underestimate the MSM's ability to gloss over and hide the more extreme views of people who can be used for the MSM's own political agenda -- witness the absolute non-reportage of the large "anti-war" demonstrations organizers' ties to extreme Left groups -- but I think the era of Cindy Sheehan is reaching its limit. Not only because the press is likely to start realizing that they're overdoing it, even by their own standards, but her activities are now turning into what's more accurately described as "antics," and because the more she speaks, the more difficult it is becoming to keep a gloss on what she says (and what the group that's using her stands for). Omri at Mere Rhetoric and Israpundit notes the following quote:

You can almost feel the news producers cringing.

I've never linked to Wonkette before, in fact, I'm not sure I've ever read Wonkette, but this extract posted at Winds of Change is spot-on (I, like Armed Liberal who posted it, agree with it all aside from what she says about the Administration):

Never underestimate the American people's ability to "get it." Cindy Sheehan is pretending to wish to speak to the President again, but most people understand that she's made it clear there's no point to it.

She lost her son. That buys a LOT of leeway, but when you use that loss for politics, and you start spouting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and you start saying things that some people feel puts other kids lives at stake, you start squandering that good will and may even start calling down for a bit of tough love.

Let Cindy Sheehan practice her free speech, but please beatify someone else.

The Boston Globe comes out on the right side of the divestment issue.

Divestment's downside

There are measures of both.

John Podhoretz is sounding warning bells about getting too far out on a limb with the Able Danger stuff:

We May Owe Them A Big Apology

Read it all and remember that we should all know by now to take two or three or ten deep breaths before believing news that may be bit...too interesting to be true. Yes, the jury's still out, but that's all it is.

Update: But on the other hand, there's still this: DID THE BERGEN RECORD BREAK SOMETHING HERE?

The ELCA was today scheduled to be the latest in a string of Protestant denominations to adopt resolutions condemning Israel's Security Fence. Most of the resolutions passed so far have been noxious resolutions noted for their one-sidedness and blindness toward Arab responsibility. In more than one case, more modest resolutions have been set aside at the last moment in favor of resolutions containing more ideologically and morally blind language.

I have it on good authority that the resolution that passed today was, while still imperfect, modified in negotiations by an interfaith group and is a "darn sight better" than the original proposal. This looks to be at least a bit better news than we have been used to.

Will post more information when I have it.

Update: Here is the Reuters report: U.S. Lutherans criticize Israeli security wall

Here are a couple of quotes from an email I received:

Listen to the Iranian nuke negotiator bragging that their negotiations with the Europeans bought them enough time to complete their projects. It's actually quite chilling to watch a representative of one the world's leading terror states lay it out straight that he lead the West around by the nose and got everything he wanted, complete with uranium gas all nicely stored away. He could be puffing himself up a bit, but frankly, there's little reason not to believe it all.

MEMRI: Chief Iranian Nuclear Affairs Negotiator Hosein Musavian: The Negotiations with Europe Bought Us Time to Complete the Esfahan UCF Project and the Work on the Centrifuges in Natanz

This weekend will mark the Jewish Holiday known as Tisha B'Av -- literally the Nineth of Av in the Hebrew calendar. It's a solemn day, a fast day, a historical day. Here is a list of the events that occurred on this day in history, lead notably by the destructions of both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem 490 years apart.

This post is my submission to Kesher Talk's blogburst [The blogburst index is up now. Go have a look. There is a ton of good info and commentary collected there.] on the subject of the holiday and the destruction of the Temple Mount antiquities. I will leave the entire text here on the front page of the blog for a little while before I edit the post and move most of it into the extended entry to save readers some serious scrolling.

There are any number of subjects that have the ability to get my blood up. If there weren't, it would be tough to find things to blog about. But short of stories about living people being killed, there are few that get my blood up as much as this one -- the deliberate destruction of antiquities, the deliberate erasure of all humanity's birthright in our shared history, the deliberate attempt by the Palestinian Arabs to create their own history by bulldozing and denying someone else's. And that this historical revisionism via TNT should be aided and abetted by Western academics with political axes to grind is salt in the wound.

I have stated before, and on my about me page, that I am not a particularly conventionally religious person, but this year Tisha B'Av takes on a bit more significance. They are burning the history books. No, they are tearing out the pages and inserting new ones made from whole cloth. The Temples are being destroyed again, and the world is silent. At least the treasures taken in the Gardner Museum heist have some hope of recovery. History's story written in the stones of Jerusalem is lost for all time and to all future generations once it's been crushed to dust.

At least the Bamiyan Buddhas were granted the dignity of being blown up in the open air, where their destruction could be filmed and the Taliban condemned. They stared out from their rock wall and looked us all in the eye as if to say, "Aren't you ashamed that you're allowing this to happen?" That image, and theirs, is left with us.

The progeny of Arafat do their dirty work below ground. Out of sight of humanity, they murder history in the dark. Their victims are unseen and unknown by anyone but the killers. The story they could speak forever silenced, crushed to rubble and thrown in a garbage dump. At least we had a chance to meet the Buddhas. Humanity's Jewish history is being slaughtered in the womb.

--

Adding insult to injury is the manner in which academia is complicit in the act. The Palestinian Arabs have raised to high art the act of devising and enforcing their own "national narrative," mobilizing their academics and backing them with official propaganda. Woe be to those who don't toe the line. Treason to the national cause can be met with a quick trip by the feet up the light pole. Sari Nusseibeh, head of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem was lucky. He spoke out against the academic boycott by British Academics against Israel and the PA merely called for him to be dismissed (according to the Al Quds site, he's still there).

The PA itself is known for propagating whoppers. Remember this nonacademic laugher from back in May, Some People Will Believe Anything -- wherein the PA Minister of Health was retailing the idea that Israel had dumped 80 tons of nuclear waste around Arab population centers? More recently, I was looking through PA press-releases and came upon this odd item: Israeli Bulldozers Destroy Remains of Byzantium Church in Gaza

This story is pure fantasy and projection. If such a thing happened, the Israeli academic community and the Antiquities Authority would be screaming about it -- a community with true divergence of opinion where dissonance exists and is sometimes its own reward, and so tolerant that some people who probably should be gotten rid of aren't.

Why the whopper, then? Do they really think anyone is going to believe it? Sadly, some will, but really, the author just feels it adds ammunition for the rest of the piece, something based on a relatively legitimate controversy:

In fact, the Israelis are considering carefully removing some mosaics from such a site to prevent them from falling prey to the Gaza chaos. Rather than just tell the truth about the issue, the PA just makes something up to, in their view, give more weight to their complaints. Why not? They know they'll never be called on it. Rather than have an honest debate, they choose to demonize.

--

Speaking of Al Quds University, let's look for a moment at what passes for scholarship there, and note how it serves as just another tool for Arab political goals -- no matter the extent to which the truth needs twisting. An unattributed essay introduction to the Old City of Jerusalem on the university web site makes the Arab narrative clear -- only the Arab narrative exists, anyone else's is fantasy. From Jerusalem, the Old City An Introduction:

Read it all and confirm how divergent this supposedly academic narrative is from what you know to be true. You don't have to be self-conscious of not being expert yourself. Sometimes the common sense shines daylight where PhD's lose themselves in the fog.

No wonder Israeli archaeologists are sifting through the rubble at garbage dumps for what remains after the Arabs get through with what's under their charge -- there is no respect there for anyone else's history. They know that the description in the Al Quds essay is nonsense, but they're doing their best to make it come true, or at least hide the contrary evidence as quickly as possible -- by pick, shovel or bulldozer.

And yet it's not just Arab academics coming from second-rate institutions that are guilty. There's a sort of radical chic going on here among Westerners when even visiting Columbia scholars like Claire Smith and the international Archaeological organization she heads would rather issue specious condemnations against Israelis rather than face the facts of the real destruction going being perpetrated by those who's contemporary political claims she prefers to support.

Don't expect a change any time soon. The toleration for violence -- against history, against the living -- in the name of nationalism, as long as it's the right type of nationalism, is well-respected even in the West. Witness the rising star of Professor Nadia Abu el-Haj, who's book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, I posted a review of here. Here is Abu el-Haj applauding the destruction of Joseph's Tomb as an expression of Palestinian Nationalism in the concluding paragraph to her book:

Of course, Jewish "nationhood," the tie to the Holy Land, and Zionism specifically, long pre-date the Israel Antiquities Authority. But don't think that will stop academics like el-Haj from providing the intellectual cover (so called) for Arab destructiveness. In spite of this, el-Haj seems to find no difficulty in gaining employment at numerous top-flight American universities.

--

Let's look at one final specific example that I believe is somewhat metaphorical for the entire debate. It's a micro example of the wide-spread and intentional Arab destruction of Palestine's Jewish past.

Here is a picture, scanned from a 2001 edition of Biblical Archaeology Review, of the inside of the Great Mosque in Gaza:

Mighty stone architecture, indeed. Note the inset. Here is a close-up:

That's a sketch of an inscription located high up on a column and carved into the stone itself. It's a Byzantine-era inscription that says "Hannaniah son of Jacob" in Hebrew and Greek. Hannaniah is presumed to be a construction donor.

The columns were originally part of the structure of a Byzantine-era Synagogue, you see. No one is sure what happened to the Synagogue, but the crusaders came along later and re-used some of its columns for the construction of a church, including the column upon which this inscription rested.

Later, the crusaders were kicked out and the church became the Great Mosque of Gaza. Here is a scan of a sketch showing the menorah inscription more in situ:

Note the carving high up on the column. There Hannaniah's inscription sat for the better part of 1500 years, until the day that someone decided that the creation of another modern Arab nationalism was more important than a bunch of old stones.

Whereupon, some time between 1987 and 1993, someone took a tall ladder...and chiseled it off.

--

In spite of the clear Jewish connections to Gaza, the modern State of Israel is perfectly willing, indeed, willing to go to extraordinary lengths, to withdraw itself from Gaza and turn over governance to an Arab entity.

In spite of the fact that the Arabs, even and perhaps especially in modern times, have never shown reliable respect for the holy places of others -- having used the Western Wall for a trash heap, destroyed synagogues in the Old City and burned holy sites -- nevertheless, the Temple Mount remains under control of the Islamic Waqf and Israeli archaeologists remain meticulous in their respect for mankind's heritage.

Yet the world, and most shamefully Western academia, remain silent to the intentional destruction of history for political purposes being perpetrated daily in areas under Palestinian Arab control. Saying the most outrageous things is one thing -- such as Arafat's insistence, now parroted by Palestinian Arab academics and infecting Westerners who should know better, that there is no historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem at all -- but remaining silent to such an offense to reason carries its own odium. How much worse then is the actual and intentional destruction of the physical evidence of yesterday? How much worse to say nothing of it and pretend it isn't happening.

It is, and the world is quiescent...as history is silently strangled.

I haven't posted yet about the remarkable "Able Danger" revelations -- that defense officials had knowledge of the presence of the 9/11 terrorists in 1999, but were prevented from forwarding their findings to the FBI -- but here's a speculative post that ties the new information to Sandy Berger's socks. Worth a thought: A Motive For Berger's Bizarre Behavior?

(Via Roger L. Simon)

Martin Peretz has just been on fire. Here he is highlighting the real sacrifices and risks being made and taken by Israelis with no reasonable expectation of reciprocity.

TNR: ISRAEL RESPONDS TO ISRAELI TERRORISM. Positive Reaction

Read it all.

Watching the sabres rattle...

Rumsfeld: Iraq bombs 'clearly from Iran'

"Notably unhelpful." You might say. But you know, if we were to do something about it, people would blame Rumsfeld.

CAMERA's Snapshots blog catches the Chicago Trib repeating a PC(USA) press-release verbatum in a news story:

Take a look at the Snapshots entry for the parallel.

Not only does the Trib repeat a press-release without so noting, but the facts are wrong:

In better news, Connecticut paper, The Day, which has previously published Op-Eds from representatives of terror-supporting group, al Awda, does better today with this piece, Presbyterian Do-Gooders Are Sabotaging Mideast Peace:

Daveed Gartensteen-Ross's latest in the Weekly Standard exposes al Qaeda's latest attempts and "divide and be appeased." Is anyone buying? Sadly, probably yes.

Al Qaeda's False Offer of Truce

You know, in the good old days, the CIA would have taken care of this guy already. Is Valerie Plame still available? He'd never see it coming.

Chavez: U.S. will 'bite the dust' if it invades

Youth activities sure do take an odd turn when Socialism is involved.

The Star Tribune's reader rep is to be applauded for getting it mostly right on the use of the term "terrorist":

On the other hand, an emailer informs me that the response from the editors of the paper to their request that the use of the term "terrorist" be more consistent resulted in a reply indicating that they have no intention of changing their current uneven standards, for which they should be condemned.

Previous related posts: What Kind of People Edit the Boston Globe? and Washington Post takes on the T word.

Via LGF, where Charles notes:

Here's the transcript from MEMRI:

What's going on? I think people looking for rational explanations, solutions and common ground with people so bound, tortured and lead by the clearly irrational are barking up the wrong tree. In order to find common ground, you're going to have to start accepting some of this narrative yourself. Now I don't know about you, but I respect myself far too much to compromise to that extent.

Update: Tigerhawk also comments.

Tough to blame this on the Israelis. Sure glad the occupation is ending. Now life will get much better...oh wait...

Haaretz: International Red Cross suspends activity in Gaza over security situation

You don't say.

Update:

CNN: Abbas calls for calm ahead of Gaza pullout

Did he say "pretty please?"

I wouldn't sweat that too hard. The world hasn't ever shown much interest in whether or not the Palestinian Arabs merit a state or not.

You don't say. Now about that tactical redeployment...

One of the greatest, and most difficult to erase, myths of the second Intifada was surely the so-called Jenin "massacre" -- an incident that had already become reality without any members of the press ever setting foot in the place. It's one of those litmus tests you can apply to any piece that mentions it. If the author uses the term "Jenin massacre" as a statement of fact, they are stating their politics up front (and you can likely dismiss much of the rest).

Here is a fascinating reminder of what happened and how the IDF screwed up the public relations effort written by one of the people responsible.

TNR: THE LESSON OF JENIN. Bad Information by Jacob Dallal

Daniel Pipes: ‘Today Gaza, Tomorrow Jerusalem’

Jerusalem Newswire: Bombshell: Egypt can freely arm PLO after pullout

The title of that second article is slightly overwrought, but the fact is that even supporters of disengagement like myself must admit that it amounts to little more than a tactical redeployment.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

My father, like most servicemen during WW2, credits the atomic bombs with saving his life. Guest blogger Tom Glennon shares his thoughts.

My Greatest Generation

by Tom Glennon

They are all gone now, except the youngest, my Uncle Bobby.

Dad was in the Coast Guard, considered too old for active Navy duty. Uncle Roy was in the Navy, as was his brother Wally. Their youngest brother, Bobby, was a Marine pilot. He had begun flying at fourteen, using the money from the job my Dad got him at a drug store to pay for his flying lessons. Sneaking off to Palwaukee airport outside Chicago, where a sympathetic World War One veteran gave a young boy a chance to learn to soar with the eagles.

Wally and Roy served on aircraft carriers, with the hope they could watch out for their younger brother. But Bobby flew off fixed bases in the Pacific, flying the top line F4U Vought Corsair. What Wally and Roy wound up watching were Kamikaze pilots trying their damnedest to kill them. Uncle Roy had back problems the rest of his life from one of those pilots.

Dad went first, while I was still in High School. Uncle Wally was next, a few years after Dad. Uncle Roy held on until after I was married, and had transferred away from Chicago. But I went back, with my then small children, for his services. Two of my nephews blew taps at the cemetery. It was the first time I remember my retired career Marine Uncle Bobby crying. He is in North Carolina now, still playing his beloved golf, and still referring to my Aunt Helen as his bride.

Christopher Hitchens asks many good questions:

Well, yes, actually. The pathology and self-conviction run so deep at this point, that those who have themselves convinced that Iraq was no threat to us, that Saddam wasn't interested in WMD, that the carnage there is only a by-product of the Coalition presence, that the problems in Iraq would disappear coinciding with their disapperance from the front-page of the local papers -- these people who's numbers are far from insignificant -- do, indeed, believe that a failure to leave Iraq in a stable state and an immediate and unconditional withdrawal would be nothing worse than a black eye for George Bush personally. And that is not, for those so convinced, an undesirable outcome. Believe it.

To Winds of Change for placing Solomonia on their list of "top prospects" (Starting Pitcher, Right Handed -- scroll down in the right side-bar to see). I'm not sure exactly what it means, or how I merited it, but I take it it's a good thing, so thanks very much. Winds of Change is a top blog.

Honest Reporting has a quiz on some of the facts of the Gaza pullout. It's actually pretty interesting.

In a prior post, I noted that the Disciples of Christ had refused to hear from a suicide-bombing survivor, Tzippi Cohen, prior to their anti-Security Fence resolution. Ms. Cohen wanted to address the group for one to three minutes. Her request was denied.

I asked rhetorically at the time, "I wonder if Sabeel...managed to get their word in..." Wonder no longer. Anti-Semitic outfit (yes, they are anti-Semitic) Sabeel did get their word in, as extra time was made available specifically for their representative.

JPost: Disciples of Christ to Israel: Drop dead

The fact that the DoC wouldn't hear from Cohen for a short few minutes on procedural grounds would be inconsiderate. The fact that they made accomodation and exception for a Sabeel rep instead is shameful.

Sounds like El Arish, a town in northeast Egypt, is both benefitting and suffering from the combination.

NYT: Egypt Uncovers a New Source of Extremism in an Unexpected Place: Northern Sinai

Three guesses as to what Gulf State it is, and the second two don't count.

JTA: Play on terrorist attack provokes ire (no permalink, but here is the full piece)

Indeed. You can listen to samples of the music at Amazon here (Where the customer reviews are decidedly more positive than others I have found). Here is a snip from a review of the film adaptation. Yes, so help me, there is a film adaptation.

I am almost tempted to rent it, but life is too short.

From Jay Nordlinger:

I remember an incident when I was a young, rebellious college freshman. I was at a party, and there was this guy there I knew to be kind of religious and politically active. I forget exactly what I said, but I was needling him in some way, trying to get a rise out of him just for fun -- I might have said something about why should I care about being Jewish, or worry about persecution, after all I wasn't religious at all...something like that, I forget exactly what I said. I do remember his answer, though, because it's a good one and I remember it to this day. He said, "No one asked Leon Klinghoffer if he was a good Jew or a bad Jew before they shot him and tossed his body into the sea."

I thought that was a pretty good answer.

That's one of the things that hearing the words "Leon Klinghoffer" makes me think of.

The thing this opera makes me think of is, "How must the family feel?" I found only vague references (derided by composer Adams) to the daughters being less than pleased.

The terror-dupes from the International Solidarity Movement, Boston-branch, are on summer holiday in the Holy Land and sending back reports about their experiences. An emailer has forwarded me one such letter that's illustrative of the level of scholarship and reportorial skill present in the campers, who seem to have left their critical faculties back in Boston -- rendering the author's use as a propaganda tool high and a conveyor of reliable information low...just the way the ISM likes them.

In a report entitled "A Visit to the Spring of a Raised [sic] 1948 Palestinian Village" By Kera, the author writes:

She presumably means the place known as Zippori or Sepphoris, an ancient city that pre-dates the Arab conquest by centuries -- to approximately the second century B.C. That's why the Israelis gave it the name it has -- because it has always had that name, even before "Kera's" hosts conquered it for themselves and their current efforts to erase its ancient, non-Arab, history.

Here is one of those rodents of unusual size that people trying to ignore the truth miss at their peril:

That's a portion of the mosaic floor of Zippori's ancient synagogue dating back to approximately the 5th Century. Zippori has a long, varied history that poor Kera is kept completely ignorant of. Remember this the next time someone tries to appeal to their own authority as someone who's actually been to and seen "Palestine" and wants to tell you everything you need to know. It's all very nice, but did they actually know what the hell they were looking at?

More information on ancient Zippori (Sepphoris) can be found here, here, here, here and here.

Plenty of information on the clearly varied cultures of Zippori all preserved by Israeli archaeology. Learn at home what Kera travelled all the way to the Middle East to miss.

Via Spartacus, here is one of the better articles I have read concerning Steven Vincent's work and the circumstances surrounding his death.

Times Online: Death of an idealist

The Palestinian Authority has a response to the fascinating find of Davidic-era ruins in Jerusalem -- they don't believe they exist.

Ministry of Antiquities: King David's Palace Uncover Groundless

Ah, that's what we like to see...pronouncements by an Antiquities Authority based on good, solid examination of the evidence. "Examination of evidence? We don't need to see no stinking evidence! We have the Palestinian National Narrative (TM)." And some members of the archaeological community excoriate Israel for being politically motivated? That's rich.

"It added that what raises doubt is that these diggings are being carried out discreetly." You don't suppose that's because the Palestinian Arabs have a tendency to organize rioting and threats of violence when reality threatens to intrude on their story-line?

Stuff like this always reminds me of that scene in The Princess Bride... You can pretend to create your own reality all you want, but somehow the real one is always out there ready to bite you on the ass.

"Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist."

Salman Rushdie writes of a need for a real Islamic reformation in today's Washington Post. It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's a snip:

The Right Time for An Islamic Reformation

WaPo: North Korea Nuclear Talks Adjourn Without Agreement

We do fear insane Stalinist states with nuclear weapons, of course. Sometimes living with fear is about the best you can do.

How serious are these talks, really? With China and South Korea both not particularly thrilled with regime change in the North?

Will Spotts points out that the Presbyterian Church (USA) has disclosed the first companies it will be targeting for what it calls "constructive engagement." Will calls it a hit list which is about right. The surprise member of the fellowship is Citigroup, which may have been a part of the money funnel to terror groups -- clearly a sop to those who claim the effort is all one-sided.

The rest of the list includes -- cue fanfare -- Caterpillar! ITT Industries, Motorola and United Techologies. Reading the list it becomes even more clear how little real effect divestment will have. Untangling the specific practices that the PC(USA) objects to in most of these companies (particularly Citigroup) would be pretty difficult, even if the companies in question really cared to do so. That once more indicates the real danger of divestment is not in the economics, it's in the delegitimization of Israel's efforts to defend itself, and even the existence of the state itself. Any real action by the PC(USA) is quite a distance down the road given what they describe as the process here. It's just a puppet show -- a chance for some functionaries to justify their expense accounts. The only real effect is to give ammunition to the West's deadly enemies. Israel would certainly be suicidal to remove their security fence. It's just not going to happen.

Also consistent with PC(USA)'s efforts to back its misguided policy with some good old-fashioned propaganda, they accompany the article on divestment with an article on a group of Presbyterians meeting to show support for the effort before the committee responsible for making the decisions. All those appearing in the article support divestment and lament the poor deluded souls who just don't understand how True and Good they are -- by all reports a majority of Presbyterians left unmentioned in the article.

One particular bit is nicely revealing of the real, larger goals of the divestment backers that go beyond just a simple peace:

Which begs the question unasked, of course: What would Ms. Nemr consider "Just?" I think we can imagine some of the answers.

Which begs my answer, a quote I came across recently:

The word "Justice" as it is often used by members of the far-Left and those speaking of Israel is a word we ought to be very suspicious of -- certainly enough to ask for some definitions so we can understand each other. Is the Presbyterian News Service afraid of us knowing the answer?

Update: Via Meryl, this New York Times article: Threat to Divest Is Church Tool in Israeli Fight which concludes lamely thus:

In fact, Jewish groups are growing increasingly bitter and disillusioned at the lack of any give at all in their many head-to-head meetings. The PC(USA) (and others) have shown dialogue to be completely fruitless.

And what gives with the head of the AJC trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit:

In fact, the proposed UCC resolution was more even-handed, but the UCC brass abused their parliamentary prerogatives to discard it and substitute their far more objectionable version. They also passed a resolution condemning the fence no matter where or how it was built. Is there something in the water at AJC? First Larry Lowenthal in the local office, now this. Perhaps Elcott was selectively quoted or misunderstood.

I was getting ready to finish my day and close up the office when the phone rang this afternoon. It was my next-door neighbor.

"Sol...ummm...there was just a tornado that came through here, and it knocked a whole bunch of trees over [it had barely rained where I was two towns over]...don't worry, your house is fine, but your rabbit-hutch got knocked over and the rabbits got out. I put it back up and I found the big gray rabbit, but I can't find the white one...sorry."

Holy crap. This is eastern Massachusetts FFS! A tornado?!

So I close up shop and start my drive and I'm thinking I'm going to be calling my wife later -- she's away in Japan visiting family -- and tell her, "Well...I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is that the house is fine. The bad news is that Pooh-chan got carried away by a tornado."

I can't wait.

So I get home and it's unreal. There's no problem anywhere, but in all the backyards on our side of the street there are trees down all over the place. The grass is matted down all in one direction and there are leaves and vegetation plastered all over one side of all the houses, cars and fences where the wind pushed it. Absolutely bizarre.

There was good news, though. Rabbit inventory. One big gray (tramatized and wet) in the hutch:

And there, cowering nearby under a tree, is Pooh:

After a little run-around through the trees, she was recovered, safe and sound.

Still, I friggin' tornado?

Jim Davila has an excellent post that has all you need to know (including the appropriately placed snark backed by solid knowledge of the subject) about this new Jerusalem archaeological find. Is this David's Palace? Maybe, maybe not. It's looking like an interesting find in any case.

I got an email alert yesterday from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to the effect that "An AWOL Israeli soldier killed at least three people in a terror attack on a bus in an Israeli Arab town." I thought, well, they're kind of jumping the gun a bit, aren't they? Isn't this really a murder -- vicious and brutal, no doubt, but surely not terror? We wouldn't want to assign that word to every act of violence or it loses its meaning. Perhaps they're playing a game of "more condemnatory than thou." Indeed, they are, and I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing -- it's certainly politic, if not completely accurate. So far the murderer, who's name I won't bother repeating, has not been shown to be acting out the wishes of any group -- something that would make this more clearly a terror attack.

Nevertheless, every sector of Israeli society, from top to bottom, has taken the opportunity to condemn without equivocation what this trash has done. Ariel Sharon said the incident was "a criminal act of a bloodthirsty terrorist targeting innocent Israeli civilians," and the perpetrator will not be buried in a military cemetery (he was an AWOL soldier) as both authorities and families of others buried there won't have it. Sharon is also calling for the act to be considered a terrorist one so that the victims get insurance payments from the national victim fund.

I won't bother providing links to the Palestinian Arab reaction when one of their's murders Jews -- the occassional off-hand condemnation, usually addressing the tactic rather than the act, the lauding in official media, the celebratory posters and namings...the contrast couldn't be and won't be more stark.

How bizarre, then, to receive this email from the Free Muslim Coalition, "Free Muslims calls on American Jews to Condemn Israeli Terrorist." One moment I think the FMC is an interesting organization that "gets it," the next they send out something silly like this. Do they actually believe there are going to be any American Jewish organizations who support this act of clear murder? Really? And here's the weird part:

Why call out those two guys? Is there any indication that they would support such an act as this, or is this more simple projection, albeit from an unexpected source, as we all know that Muslim group after Muslim group has refused to unequivocally condemn terror acts against Israelis? How about giving it a day to see what the groups and individuals say? Or are they (the FMC) just getting this out as fast as possible to give the impression that Pipes and Emerson and others had to be dragged into it? That's what I'd suspect. And is Daniel Pipes really a Jewish leader? Eh, I guess so. Is Emerson even Jewish?

Update: Omri hits all the notes with appropriate links here.

[Previous post here]

Last night I woke up around 5am as I am often wont to do. I knew I wouldn't fall right back to sleep, so rather than reach for a book or turn on the TV like a lot of normal folk would do, I decided to wander downstairs and flip on the computer -- check email, surf a few blogs, check a BBS or two and then head back to bed. It's not an infrequent ritual for me.

That's when I saw the news that Steven Vincent was dead. It really hit me and I knew I had to get a post up or I wouldn't be able to go back to bed. Still, what to say? That same feeling hit me that always hits me when commenting on really serious events -- how petty, how trite anything I might say on this little blog would sound...what can I say? I'm not family and no one's asking me for a eulogy. The one guy who could possibly read what I had to say and care is the one who's dead.

At the same time, I also saw that fourteen Marines and their translator were murdered. Is it really seemly to express such great sorrow over the death of one man when we know that the evils of the world swallow good people without number on a daily basis without filling its belly? Isn't it a bit maudlin to write overwrought prose for one man in view of all that? Intellectually, I understand that we always feel more for the deaths of people we've had some sort of contact with than those we don't know. That's just a fact of human existence. You can't feel the same toward the misfortune of strangers that you feel toward those you have some connection to. Intellectually, I understand that shouldn't be a source of guilt. But still...when it comes time to put pen to paper...there's a pause there.

Still, Steven Vincent, like all men, was an individual. To me, a reader of his and someone who had at least a minimal personal contact with him, he was an individual and deserves to be remembered and honored as one. The fact that we can't do it for everyone doesn't mean we shouldn't do it for someone when we can.

So, having spent much of the day thinking about this, I wanted to say just a couple more things than I did in the minimal post I put up just past dawn this morning.

I want to start with a short anecdote. I'm going to leave out a lot of detail to get as quickly to the point as I can. When I was a young college student not so many years ago, I was part of a group trip to Bangkok. One day, with most of the group gone home, I did what I often do when travelling. I stuck a Baedeker map in my pocket and went out to walk and see what I could find. Now those of you with some travel under your belt know how "foreign" a place like Thailand is. Everything is different -- the people, the customs -- you realize how far from home you are very, very quickly. In a way you may as well be on another planet.

Long story short I ran into a Thai fellow. He spoke very good English and he really shmoozed me. I knew he was some sort of scammer, but I opted to play along with it to see where it lead. At the time I was in pretty good shape and figured if worse came to worse, I'd just keep him close and if anything happened I'd kick the shit out him and take off.

But the environment was on his side. We got into a tuk-tuk (small 3-wheeled Thai taxi) and headed out to somewhere in the Bangkok suburbs to supposedly meet his family. As we rode a funny thing happened. The farther out we got, the farther away from the hotel we got, the more small streets we went through, and neighborhoods we passed, the more I lost my sense of where we were, the more I got that feeling that my tether was getting tighter and tighter. Here I was in a place where no one knows me or my language, where I don't know the customs, and where in any confrontation between me and the locals, the police will be on the other guy's side. The farther we went, the less control I felt, and the more it was surrendered to my host, at who's mercy I increasingly was with every grind of the tuk-tuk's engine.

In the end, nothing horrible happened. The guy got me to "donate" $20 to help his "sick mother get some surgery" she needed, and he put me on a tuk-tuk back to the hotel.

The point is that that feeling of powerlessness has stayed with me to this day -- a lesson well learned.

That feeling was revisited to me on a consistent basis reading Vincent's book, and his dispatches written since his return to Iraq. I think that's why it drew me in so well. Vincent didn't, as a rule, travel with the troops. He was mostly on his own, making connections as he went. He was truly at the mercy of the Beast -- a man virtually alone, like a latter day Sir Richard Burton. I admired that. I've had a nagging feeling of dread reading his dispatches. I could almost feel the thumb of fate, of anarchy, of evil -- whatever you want to call it -- poised over he and his guide, "Layla," every step of the way. Could he feel it too? He lived at the sufferance of forces that crushes individuals like insects without even noticing. Every day in country was a tempation of fate.

I read his stuff and thought about that and at the same time felt a bit self-conscious -- was it really that bad? Am I just falling into my own trap of imagining romantic risk where it really didn't exist. I wish I had been wrong.

Finally, the thumb came down and crushed him.

He didn't have to be there. He didn't have to take the risks he took. He didn't have to go back, and no, I don't believe he went there just for his next book and a few extra bucks in his pocket. He was there for a purpose, a good purpose that he was honest and up front about. He cared about what he was writing about. He cared about Iraq, and America and all the things we hold valuable.

If he had just been on a job and gotten killed, that would have been a tragedy. The fact that he went, and the way he went when he didn't have to makes him a hero.

If there's anything to be salvaged here, it may be that his death not only brings to a larger audience the things he was writing about -- a melancholy salvage at best -- but brings before the klieg lights what people trying to make a difference in unfree, dangerous societies risk every day. From Iraq, to Egypt, to Palestine and beyond -- in five continents there are people putting their lives at risk trying to expose corruption, change old societal ways and fight the good fight with a thumb poised over their heads.

How fortunate we in America are, and how truly rare and miraculous our freedom and safety is in the world. How difficult it was to get here.

I think Steven Vincent would have wanted us to remember that.

Tom tells me he's spent the past week playing Grampa and avoiding following current events. Looks like his return to news watching has him thinking the MSM may not be telling it like it is.

-Sol

This Just In

by Tom Glennon

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"We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you the following breaking news."

Reporter
"A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security has informed this reporter that the threat level indicator has been raised to Orange, based on reports that four Amish men from Lancaster Pennsylvania are being sought as potential suicide bombers." "It was reported that a particularly virulent sermon by one Elder Yost, expressing views determined as 'anti English', may have prompted the young men to take action against."

Station News Anchor
"Uh, John?" "I think you have the wrong copy" "The report you are reading is marked Draft." "I think you have a newer version of the announcement."

Reporter
"Sorry Brian, you are right." "Here we go". "A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security has informed this reporter that the threat level indicator has been raised to Orange, based on reports that four Boy Scouts from Troop 213 in Pleasant Hill Iowa are being sought as potential suicide bombers." "It was reported that at a particularly virulent Court of Honor, the Scoutmaster mentioned the twelfth point of the Scout Law, that a Scout is 'Reverent". "As the Troop is sponsored by Charity Lutheran Church, it is feared that the Scouts are going to target any non Lutheran group."

Station News Anchor
"John?" "I think you are referring to copy marked Revision 1." "Please see if you have the newer copy."

Author Steven Vincent, who's wonderful book, In the Red Zone, brought us such an important perspective of post-invasion Iraq, and who's blog and dispatches since his return to the country have brought us such an important, important viewpoint, has been found shot dead. My thoughts go out to his family. This is just terrible, terrible news.

BBC: US journalist shot dead in Iraq

Reuters report here.

Steven sent me a very nice email after he discovered my review of his book, and some time later passed the baton to me in one of those book polls that make the rounds. Those may sound like very frivilous little connections, but they certainly meant something to me at the time, especially because there's relatively little contact that usually comes in on this end, particularly on the part of the pros. They were thoughtful little paybacks for some of the effort that goes in here from a guy that didn't have to be bothered.

He was an incredibly brave man. His family must be beside themselves.

His last piece in National Review is here. His last piece in the New York Times is here.

The Times' story of his death is here. And more here.

Update: I have added another post here.

Yes, I will at some point be displaying ads on the side-bar as I will be signing on with the Roger L. Simon, Charles Johnson spearheaded Pajamas Media. I've resisted taking ads to this point as I didn't think there was sufficient revenue in it to bother and didn't want the look of the blog to take a hit, but I think this one is interesting. Not only are they going to go after a better "class" of advertisers, but there will also be an aggregating part of the deal that will hopefully, maybe, get some of my writing (when I actually write stuff) out in front of some eyes where it could make a difference (like get picked up maybe?). That's the real attraction for me, as the money at this point is nothing that would make your jaw drop -- in fact, with my finances, I've already spent it...many times over. But who knows but that down the line it may get more lucrative, and I look at this as something of an investment.

I used to think ads were the worst thing to have on a web page, but now I'm starting to think they can even give a site a more serious, professional look in a way -- as long as the ads aren't too chintzy looking.

So while some people have objections, I'm willing to go along for the ride for awhile.

Update: Pieter has some worthwhile thoughts from a business perspective.

Charles Johnson catches mainstream British Muslim group MPACUK not only posting a typical anti-Semitic screed (Zionists Behind Terror Attacks), but hot-linking the Judenhass graphic that accompanies the article straight from the Nazi site they got it from.

George Galloway on Arab Television:

This is astoundingly overt incitement to violence. Who needs Madrassas when we have Respect? The degree to which we in the West tolerate what ought to be considered treason is either a reflection of our greatness or sheer suicide. I cannot imagine what I would be thinking had I lost a loved-one anywhere in the War on Terror (loosely defined).

(via Harry's Place, which appropriately titles their entry McHawHaw on tour)

Well, he can always seek asylum in Israel. This doesn't bode well for the Crown Prince's future claim to the throne...

365Gay: Qatar Crown Prince Outed

Religious authorities are predictably displeased:

FoK (Friend of Ken Livingstone) Yusuf Al-Qaradawi chimes in predictably:

Sheik Qaradawi is widely considered a "moderate."

Indeed.

This is a truce? Someone should inform the media.

Haaretz: Shin Bet: Despite truce, Palestinian terror hits 18-month high

They're afraid of more finds like this:

The Sun: Royal Seal Supports Biblical Depiction of Jerusalem (in full):

Now, modern political claims need to be based on far more complicated factors than what ancient archaeology shows, so such a find in and of itself is not necessarily dispositive of anything with to regard people living today. But it is a factor, an important factor, in being honest about history and who lived where and when. People who are anxious to destroy or deny the evidence of thousands of years past -- the heritage of all mankind -- are not likely to be honest about the history of fifty years ago, or even last week, for that matter.

Jews and those of Jewish decent have been on the forefront of a large number of new ideas and concepts down through history. It's been a point of pride for those who have a Jewish self-identity, as well as a source of danger, as the "Jewish connection" is always sought after, found and used as another bludgeon against them by the anti-Semite. Jews have been at the van of both Capitalism and Communism, for instance -- there's no escape.

In spite of the fact of Jewish involvement in the forging of many of mankind's conceptual stepping stones into modernity, there is one the Jews need not take credit for -- Suicide Murder. Sadly, no one has told the London Times. I'm not sure what the motivation is for this type of article. I suppose it's meant as some sort of mitigator for the clear horror of the martyrdom movement -- that really what we're seeing is something with deep roots -- and guess where those roots began? Why with the Jews, of course. Now why do you suppose the author would stretch to make such a connection?

Biggest suicide wave in a bloody 2,000-year history

Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica responds:

Jim has a post on a column based on a similar type of fallacious argument, here: HOMICIDE BOMBERS -- BLAME THE JEWS? And Christians.

The entire text of that Atlantic article I linked to here (about Arafat and his legacy) is available here without subscription.

A collaborative writing effort gone awry. Very funny.

The much-maligned Newsweek deserves credit for this article debunking recent studies purporting to report the extent of civilian casualties in Iraq -- particularly Iraq Body Count and the widely discredited Lancet study.

Truth is the First Civilian Casualty

Via Tran Sient's Watch who writes: I can’t believe its Newsweek.

It's about time, and it's absolutely shameful that he had to be appointed in recess.

I was asked to participate in this, John Hawkins' latest poll. We were asked to submit an unranked list of up to 20 "Conservatives" (loosely defined) who most annoy us. There are some surprises on the list, I suppose from bloggers further to the right who put people on their list for the RINO factor. I mean, come on, who doesn't love Arnold? And John McCain at #2?! Here is my list, which I did on the quick to avoid over-thinking, with the final results in parentheses (near as I can remember -- I have the list on another computer):

Patrick Buchanan (#1)
Robert Novack (#11)
Justin Raimondo (didn't make the final list)
Michael Scheuer (didn't make the list and I didn't expect him to)
Karen Kwiatkowski (not on the list -- this one's obscure)
Ron Paul (not on the list. To be honest, I don't know enough about him and maybe should have left him off.)

I basically picked a bunch of names from what I perceive to be the paleo or loony-Right. If I'd thought about it more, I would have added Michael Savage (#5), and maybe, maybe Bill O'Reilly (#6) and Sean Hannity (#9) -- not because they're bad sorts, but because even when I agree with them, I want anyone but them arguing my side of an issue.

Voinovich (#14) and Chafee (#18) would also have been good adds.