Yes He Does!

Not surprisingly, few Western newspapers reported this story because they don't believe that Abbas could really mean what he said.

I believe that this denial stems from several factors: 1) A strong desire for things to work out; 2) An inability to appreciate the fact that not everyone in the world shares our humanistic and enlightenment values. This leads to what Salman Rushdie called "soft prejudice" or the inability to believe that the "other" could really mean what they say. It is prejudice because it stems from a patronising attitude. It is dangerous because it inevitably leads to cognitive dissonance.

This, in turn, leads Westerners to not report these stories or to write them off as sops for internal consumption that should not be taken too seriously.

Yet, the very fact that these statements are most often made in Arabic to Arabic news outlets and not in English to Western audiences should actually set off alarm bells.

For starters, it is much easier to lie in a language that is not your mother tongue. Foreign languages simply do not have the emotional resonance and are not as fraught with meaning as one's mother tongue. Anyone who has learned swear words in a foreign language understands this dynamic.

Secondly, the fact that these statements are primarily for internal consumption suggests that Abbas and others who employ this tactic are aware of what they are saying and how it will "play in Peoria"

So, without further ado, this is what the "moderate" Abbas said to the Jordanian newspaper Al Dustur (emphasis mine):

...Abbas said that he is against an armed conflict at this time, but things may differ in the future.

Abbas, a leading figure of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was quoted as boasting about the fact that he was the one to "fire the first bullet of the resistance" back in 1965, adding it was the PLO that taught many around the world "how to resist, when resistance is most effective and when it is not."

"I had the honor to lead… we taught everyone, including the Hizbullah, the ways of resistance. They were all educated in our training camps."

According to al-Dustur, Abbas does not demand of Hamas to acknowledge Israel, but rather wants it to join a government which will negotiate the recognition.

"I demanded that a unity government be formed, to negotiate with Israel… that is what I told Syrian President Bashar Assad – and he backed me up.

"Hamas entered an election based on the Oslo Accords, which recognize Israel. I am not the only one pushing for such recognition, the Arab initiative – which is a consensus in the Arab and Muslim world – calls for it as well."

The Palestinian president also said he objects to Israel's definition as a Jewish State: "We negated the concept in the Annapolis peace conference and it almost ended because of it… they wanted us to state we recognize Israel as a Jewish State in the closing statements, but we wouldn't hear of it."

So, please remind me what exactly is the difference between Hamas and Fatah? Clearly their differences are over tactics and strategy and not over substance.

Time to Start (Re)Producing

While the Jerusalem Post seems to be heartened by the fact that Jews are the highest earning group in the United States, I think that the findings of the Pew Forum are actually quite discouraging. Jews are now the second most educated group (after Hindus) and Jewish birth rates are the LOWEST for all religious groups.

Aside from the obvious fact that this does not bode well for Jewish continuity in America it brings to mind a group of rich, spoiled people living lavishly in big empty homes.

According to the report the Mormons, followed closely by Muslims are the two groups most likely to have children in their homes. The above photo is of a Mormon family.

Jews are the highest-earning religious group in the United States, with 46 percent of the working population earning a six-digit figure every year, according to a study released this week.

In terms of annual earnings, the only other group to even come close to the average Jewish income was the Hindus, with 43 percent earning over $100,000.

The study, conducted by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, also showed that, after Hindus, the Jews were the second most educated religious group in the US. 35 percent of Jews were found to have done at least some graduate work, as opposed to 48 percent amongst Hindus.

The survey found that Jews were aligned with the national averages in terms of marital status and divorce rates, but showed that the Jewish birth rate was the lowest among religious groups, with 72 percent of those polled replying that they had no children.

JTA Reports that "Jews are tied with Mormons as the sixth largest faith group, each claiming 1.7 percent of the country’s adult population." How long do you think that will last?

Not Stunde Null

Stunde Null or "zero hour" is what the moment that the Nazis capitutated is called in Germany. From the German perspective, this reflects the sense that the Nazi era ended and a new era commenced from that moment.

A group of German academics are peddling a "manifesto" that they have written which contends that:

"... German responsibility toward the Palestinians is "one side of the consequences of the Holocaust which receives far too little attention." The paper goes on to argue that it was the Holocaust which Germany perpetrated that brought about "the suffering that has persisted [in the Middle East] for the last six decades and has at present become unbearable."

As I have already argued here in this blog, the notion that Israel was created as a consequence of the Holocaust is historically false. If you are bent on looking for ultimate causes, then the British Mandate from 1922 was set up with the express purpose of establishing a national homeland for the Jewish people. This, in turn, was the result of decades of concerted efforts by many Jews from across the political spectrum to regain our national rights over our land. And this was the result of several hundred years of politcal as well as several thousand years of religious Zionism.

If anything, the Holocaust did two things: 1) It proved definitively that the Bundist notion that rather than run away from our problems it was our responsibility to "Make Europe better for the Jews" was fundamentally flawed and; 2) It added to the sense of urgency on the part of Jews to regain our homeland.

The United Nations, which ALSO passed a resolution creating the state of Israel BASED ON the League of Nations Mandate specifically instructed members not to take the Holocaust into consideration during the deliberations.

So, sorry folks, but this did not start with you, and you should keep your noses out of our affairs.

Dubious Distinction

According to Phillip Jacobson, who recently spent three days in Sderot and reports on the harrowing experience for the Daily Mail:

Sderot has a unique civic claim: on a rocket-per-head-of-population basis, it is the most targeted town in Israel, indeed the world.

It is more than six years since the first rocket was launched from Gaza.

Since then, well over 2,000 Qassams – named after a fiery Muslim preacher – have landed in or around the town killing 13 people (including four children) and injuring several dozen more. Since the beginning of this year, at least 300 rockets have been fired.

While the media has constantly asserted that the source of Palestinian anger is this, that, or some other Israeli action, it never asserts the reverse. When Palestinians were blowing themselves up on a daily basis, the media did its best to understand the phenomenon. Their conclusion? What did Israel expect when Israel was occupying Palestinian lands? What did you expect, when Israel had so "humiliated" the Palestinians?

Well, since then Israel ended the occupation and an entire Israeli population has had their homes turned into a battlefied. Where are the apologists now? Why is no one prognosticating dire warnings about what this may lead the residents of Sderot to do? Will anyone defend the residents of Sderot if they take the matter into their own hands? Or do they deserve what is happening to them and thus do not even deserve our compassion and comprehension?

The fact that almost no Western reporter has bothered to do what Mr. Jacobson did - spend three days in the line of fire - sadly leads me to the conclusion that this is, in fact, what most reporters think.

Hands-On Judaism

One of my best Friday night Shabbat meals ever was in Thane, India about 5 years ago. After prayers at the local synagogue, I was kindly invited to dinner and had the unrivalled opportunity to learn more about the small Indian Jewish community.

Even better, I had the chance to eat delicious curried goat! When I asked where they had gotten Kosher goat meat, I was told by my host that he had shechted (ritually slaughtered) it himself earlier in the day.

Now that is what I call hands-on Judaism!

Here is a nice recent article on the Indian Jewish Community in the United States.

Here is an article Indian theater production of Fiddler on the Roof in Hindi!

Have You Heard?

Here is something that will never make the evening news. From the website Ya Libnan:

The state-run National News Agency reported that Abbas Abbas, 13, was shot and seriously wounded by Syrian border guards ( Hajanah) at the Grand River borderline in north Lebanon. He died later from his wounds at the hospital in
Akkar.

Apparently, Lebanon is trying to get Syria to demarcate their mutual border and the Syrians are not too keen to do so. In fact. only yesterday Syrian troops invaded Lebanon:

The Syrian intelligence forces and Syrian border guards invaded Lebanon yesterday and stormed the house of Hussein Ali Aldedda and fired three bullets at him wounding him in his hand, elbow and hip, before withdrawing back to the Syrian territory according to the Arabic daily Al-Nahar

Aldedda ( 41) lives in the Bekaa region , inside the Lebanese territory near the Syrian border. No explanations were given for the Syrian actions.

Where Up is Down

Clearly irony is something that is completely lost on the Syrians. The same group of thugs who have most recently systematically killed 10 politicians and journalists in Lebanon are lecturing the world about terrorism and peace. According to Walid al-Moualem, a Syrian government spokesman:

"Whoever wants peace does not commit terrorism..."

If only some of our politicians could be convinced to think this way!

Of course, then he goes on to say:

"The fighter Imad Moughniyah was the target of lots of intelligence agencies. He was a backbone of the Islamic resistance."

Killing an active fighter in the "resistance" can hardly be called terrorism. After all, when a soldier is killed in battle, that is not an act of terror - that is part of their job description.

The attempt to label the act a "crime" is even more absurd:

"As a state, we will irrefutably prove the party involved in this crime and who stands behind it. An investigation is ongoing,"

The real crime is that an individual who was wanted for his crimes by no less than 42 countries was walking freely in Syria.

The notion that he was somehow "off limits" because he was not in Lebanon when he was killed is also really rich. Especially coming from a group that blew up an Embassy and a Jewish Community Center in Argentina and has threatened to repeat these crimes in the near future.

Bush is a Terrorist

According to Osama Bin Laden's son, his father is no more a terrorist than President Bush. As he points out, his father does not feel that he is killing innocent civilians. This is not because his father is a bloodthirsty madman, but rather stems from his reasoned position regarding the culpability of all Americans. After all, if they pay taxes to the American government they forfeit the right to consider themselves either innocent or civilians.

Worse, as Omar Bin-Laden notes, the American people voted for Bush twice, so what do they expect? That this ignores the minor fact that the team which carried out 9/11 attacks were already preparing in the summer of 2000 - prior to the US presidential elections - is completely inconsequential. Who can argue with retroactive guilt? (Actually I kind of want to agree with him on this one - "Down with the Tyranny of the Time-space Continuum!")

I also really liked the part where he compares Osama to Gerry Adams and the way the "hard-hitting" reporter nods in agreement with him about not only Adams, but about Bush being a terrorist. Check out the video).

You should compare this video with the one he gave a few weeks ago for CNN. In that one, he was interviewed with his well spoken and attractive British wife. They speak about their desire to promote peace by sponsoring a race across North Africa. There is nothing offensive in that video. Unless, of course you find it offensive that Osama Bin Laden's son seems to be living in the lap of luxury and not languishing in Guantanamo.

Coitus Interruptus

Called "Sex in Sderot", the following link uses humor and shock value to get its point across.

All's Fair in Law and War?

The next time someone begins to rant and rave about how Finkelstein or Walt & Mearsheimer have been "silenced" by the Israel Lobby, think about Mark Steyn and the many others mentioned in the following article who are really on the front lines defending Free Speech. Here is an excerpt:

The Islamist movement has two wings -- one violent and one lawful -- which operate apart but often reinforce each other. While the violent arm attempts to silence speech by burning cars when cartoons of Mohammed are published, the lawful arm is maneuvering within Western legal systems. Islamists with financial means have launched a legal jihad, manipulating democratic court systems to suppress freedom of expression, abolish public discourse critical of Islam, and establish principles of Sharia law.

The practice, called "lawfare," is often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning and undertaken as a means to intimidate and bankrupt defendants. Forum shopping, whereby plaintiffs bring actions in jurisdictions most likely to rule in their favor, has enabled a wave of "libel tourism" that has resulted in foreign judgments against European and now American authors mandating the destruction of American-authored literary material.

Like the commercial airliners that were turned into bombs on 9/11, these legal Jihadis are trying to turn our court system on its head and to use our own laws against us.

A MAJOR PLAYER on this front is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a wealthy Egyptian who
resides in Saudi Arabia. Mahfouz has sued or threatened to sue more than 30 publishers and authors in British courts, including several Americans, whose written works have linked him to terrorist entities. A notable libel tourist, Mahfouz has taken advantage of the UK's plaintiff-friendly libel laws to restrict the dissemination of written material that draws attention to Saudi-funded terrorism.

Of course Saudi Arabia - home to a majority of the 9/11 bombers - has officially been at the forefront of spreading the lie that the Mossad was behind the attacks. Unfortunately, it appears that the Saudi courts are not as open to libel cases. by foreigners. Apparently this is just one more example of the one-way street that the West is expected to traverse in order not to hurt Muslim sensibilities.

Faced with the prospect of protracted and expensive litigation, and regardless of the merit of the works, most authors and publishers targeted have issued apologies and retractions, while some have paid fines and "contributions" to Mahfouz's charities. When Mahfouz threatened Cambridge Press with a lawsuit for publishing Alms for Jihad by American authors Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, the publisher immediately capitulated, offered a public apology to Mahfouz, pulped the unsold copies of the book, and took it out of print.

Shortly after the publication of Funding Evil in the United States, Mahfouz sued its author, anti-terrorism analyst and director of the American Center for Democracy, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, for alleging financial ties between wealthy Saudis, including Mahfouz, and terrorist entities such as al Qaeda. The allegations against Ehrenfeld were heard by the UK court despite the fact that neither Mahfouz nor Ehrenfeld resides in England and merely because approximately 23 copies of Funding Evil were sold online to UK buyers via Amazon.com. Unwilling to travel to England or acknowledge the authority of English libel laws over herself and her work, Ehrenfeld lost on default and was ordered to pay heavy fines, apologize, and destroy her books -- all of which she has refused to do. Instead, Ehrenfeld counter-sued Mahfouz in a New York State court seeking to have the foreign judgment declared unenforceable in the United States.

Ironically, Ehrenfeld lost her case against Mahfouz, because the New York court ruled it lacked jurisdiction over the Saudi resident who, the court said, did not have
sufficient connections to the state.

The article goes on to cite many other examples of lawsuits aimed at silencing critics. Oddly, neither Finkelstein - who just returned from meetings in Lebanon with Hizbullah, nor Walt & Mearsheimer - who have made a fortune out of being "silenced", have been dragged through courts.

It's All Your Fault!

The Danish Police uncovered a plot to kill the cartoonist who displayed the above image of the Prophet Mohammed with a turban bomb. There is nothing terribly surprising in this development. In fact, even the local Islamic community is not at all surprised by this. As their spokesman noted:

``We have warned that the situation could get out of control,'' Kasem Said Ahmad, a spokesman for a Muslim organization, the Islamic Community in Denmark, told TV2. ``We want a decent tone between Muslims and Danes. But we maintain our view that the cartoons were provocative.'' (Quoted in Bloomberg)

Nowhere in this statement is there even one iota of self-reflection or (heaven forfend) condemnation of this plot. Rather, Mr. Ahmad clearly believes that the Danes brought all of this upon themselves. Even worse, there is self-righteousness, victimhood, and a not so veiled threat. I am definitely not hearing an appeal to cultural relativism or a spirited defense of Danish national traditions (such as Freedom of Speech).

Of course, this will all be a moot point once Sharia is imposed.

(Hats off to the Danes who have chosen to print the cartoons today in their newspapers to protest this very real provocation.)

Please be Considerate

I could not help but think of this cartoon when I read in the Telegraph that the Iranian envoy to Spain appealed to Human Rights organizations to show some cultural sensitivity. Specifically:

"Our laws allow for the amputation of the hand that steals. This is not accepted by the West, but the field of human rights should take into account the customs, traditions, religion and economic development," he said in comments reported by the newspaper El Mundo.

"Some laws are needed to preserve the health of society, if not, it would be in danger."

No doubt there will be many cultural and moral relativist that will heed his call.

For those who feel that Sharia is "unavodable", they may want to ponder the fact mentioned in the article that:

Iran has the second highest number of recorded executions in the world after China, according to Amnesty International.

In fact, as Amnesty reported just last month:

As nine women and two men in Iran wait to be stoned to death, Amnesty International today called on the Iranian authorities to abolish death by stoning and impose an immediate moratorium on this horrific practice, specifically designed to increase the suffering of the victims.

Going Whole Hog

OK, so they are probably not riding around on Hogs in Gaza (mostly because Hamas would not allow such sacrilege). Yet here comes some independent Palestinian confirmation to my earlier contention that some expensive purchases were made by Palestinians while they were in Sinai. Clearly not everyone is poor and starving:

Hundreds of motorcycles were reportedly brought in from Egypt by Palestinian teenagers after the border breach in January. Most of the motorcycles are still unregistered and the drivers untrained and unlicensed.

Sadly,

Abdel Salam Haniya, a traffic police officer in the allied police, said that eight people have died and more than 70 others have been injured since the toppling of the Egypt-Gaza border wall.

Being Conned

Barry Rubin offers some important insights on how things look and how they play out in reality. He interestingly suggests that the lens through which much of Middle East posturing can be understood is that of the con man. Compare this to what I wrote about Roger Cohen below:

In a con-game, a malefactor gains the mark's confidence in order to rob him. Classic examples include selling swampland as vacation homes or the internet scam of posing as a distressed African official who promises rich rewards in return for a loan.

The victim is fooled by the promise of big gains if he only trusts his partner and gives up his own assets. Contrary to folklore, the best way to cheat someone is not to offer them something for nothing - that's too obvious - but to pledge something dreamy tomorrow in exchange for getting something very real right now.

THE PATTERN goes like this:

Step One. They say: We have been your victims so you must make up for it. Our violence has been due to our grievances. You must deal with the root causes of problems. In short, you owe us big time. Pay up to show you have changed your ways.

A common Western response: Following our usual style of self-criticism and trying to do better, we acknowledge fault and do nice things to build credibility with you. Then you will like us better, trust us more, and make a deal.

Proper analysis: Such behavior not only convinces the Middle East side that the West is weak, scared, and surrendering but it is also taken as an acknowledgment of guilt. Grievance and outrage, in this context, are bottomless pits. Playing this game establishes a terrible relationship along the lines of˜probably the worst thing Shimon Peres ever said - our task is to give, their job is to take. This pattern never gets broken.

Correct response: If you have grievances, have suffered, and root causes must be resolved then it is in your interest to make and implement an equitable, workable deal. You are not doing us a favor by making peace, stopping terrorism, or being moderate. It is in your interest and you must show credibility, too. If it is true that you are so terribly suffering, then you are the ones with an incentive to compromise.
Things are the exact opposite of what you say.

Step Two. The con-game's siren call goes this way: If you only take risks and build confidence through concessions you will gain great rewards.

A common Western response: What do we have to lose? Since we don't remember what happened last time this will probably work. We can alleviate suffering, prove we want peace, there's no harm in talking. We can be the great heroes who brings peace, and so on.

Proper analysis: I do remember what happened the last half-dozen times I fell for this trick. In addition, a careful examination of your ideology, regime interests,
statements to your own people, media incitement, and power structure show me
what to expect: little or nothing.

Correct response: If you won't acknowledge all the times I took risks before and they came back to bite me (Oslo agreement, withdrawal from south Lebanon, withdrawal from the Gaza Strip) and you didn't keep your commitments (or act the way I expected) why should things be any different now? I've proven good faith now it is your turn.

Manchurian or Mensch?

Paul Krugman and Roger Cohen fight it out over Obama on the pages of the New York Times.

In an article titled "Hate Springs Eternal", Krugman accuses the Obama camp of verging on a cult of personality and implies in the process that there is no substance there. Even worse, he compares Obama to President Bush, which in Obamaland (read the article) is probably the worst epithet that he could come up with short of comparing him to Mississippi's civil rights era Governor Wallace:

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

Cohen, in his article, "No Manchurian Candidate" demonstrates once again that he is not only living in la-la-land, but that he can not help but be patronizing.

I believe Barack Obama is a strong but not uncritical supporter of Israel. That is what the Middle East needs from an American leader: the balance implicit in a two-state solution.

He implies that Israel does not know what's in its own interests and needs armchair intellectuals like Cohen or foreign policy (idealists? novices?) such as Barak Obama to sort it out and put it on the right path. Aside from the fact that this stinks of Marxist notions of "false consciousness" that permeate the "progressive" mindset, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated that if a peace partner emerges it can and will make difficult and painful concessions for the sake of peace. In both the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties Israel gave up hard-won territories for the sake of peace - even though it was clear from the start that it would be a cold peace.

What exactly did the Egyptians give up? Their claim to Gaza? Well they are most welcome to it. Israel withdrew over two years ago and Hamas seems interested in such an arrangement. For some reason the Egyptians have not been so keen.

Cohen is not only implying, but also saying that if only Israel were pressured a bit more by the United States to soften its stance and sign a peace with the Palestinians (at all costs) that the conflict could be brought to closure. This is not only naive, it is discriminatory because it holds Israel to a different standard than it holds its neghbor, and it is patently wrong because it is based on the false premise that Israel, by virtue of its unnatural existence, lacks legitimacy and is the root cause of the conflict. Otherwise, why should Israel be the one forced into making concessions? Worse than patronizing, Cohen's article is offensive.

If this is Obama's position and these are the people supporting him, then you can be certain that if he is elected President, there will be rejoicing in the Arab street the likes of which we have not seen since 9/11. Who knows, perhaps someone will even have the perspicacity to put up a sign that says, "Mission Accomplished"?

Settlers or Residents?

The Jerusalem Post reports that:

Sheikh Abu-Hader Ja'abri, the head of a prominent Palestinian clan and a relative of a former mayor of Hebron, and the head of the Abu Sneinah clan, Haj Akram Abu-Sneinah met with the head of the Kiryat Arba settlement council, Zvi K'tzubar, and the heads of Jewish settlers in Hebron. The two sides declared their goal was to restore peace and security to the city, known to Jews as Hebron and to Palestinians as Al-Halil.

"We don't see you as settlers but as residents," Sheikh Ja'abri, the head of a prominent clan in Hebron, is quoted as telling his Jewish interolocutors. "Hebron is ours just as it is yours."

Interesting that a Muslim leader in Hebron recognizes the historic Jewish connection to Hebron. A connection that goes back to the days of Abraham - who is buried there. Now if only the media outlets who insist on calling for a Judenrein West Bank would change their tune.


Not surprisingly:

"In response to news of the meeting, Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, released a leaflet calling for Ja'abri's assassination, according to Army Radio."

Please note that this threat emanates from the West Bank and from a Fatah organization. Are we really supposed to believe that the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas is so different from Hamas, when such threats emanate from territory under his control and from forces loyal to his organization?

The Devil Marches

The Forward ran an article this week on the carnival activities in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It is a long-standing tradition to parade in the town dressed up us Jews while mimicking supposedly Jewish character traits such as peddling, haggling and stinginess.

The festival usually involves a parade or circus, with attendees in masks and costumes. But in Vilnius — commonly known to Jews as Vilna — participants traditionally dress and act “as Jews,” a feat that generally calls for masks with grotesque features, beards and visible ear locks and that is often accompanied by peddling and by stereotypically Jewish speech.

During the festivities children go door to door asking for treats and reciting the following rhyme:

"We’re the little Lithuanian Jews/We want blintzes and coffee/If you don’t have
blintzes/Give us some of your money.”

According to the author, it rhymes in Lithuanian.

In Kaunas (Kovno to Jews) there is even a "Devil's Museum" where thousands of masks of devils are displayed. It was only then that I realized that the archetypal image of the devil - crooked nose, beard, horns, tail, and large pointy ears - is a caricature of what some would argue are quintessentially Jewish traits.

The devil's horns and tail? Yes, the devil's horns can be interpreted as either originating in Michaelangelo's Moses or one could attribute it simply to seeing a Jew from behind during prayer. Devout Jews often cover their head with a large prayer shawl (Tallis) which would make the phylacteries that stick out look a lot like a horn from a distance. Anyone who is familiar with what happens to a Tallis kattan (small prayer shawl that is worn as an undergarment) when it bunches up in the back will have no problem imagining where the notion of a tail comes from.

Clearly there is an entire discussion regarding ethnocentrism, cultural relativity and national traditions that I will defer for another time.

What do the Terrorists Really Think?

If you want to know what people think, one way to go about finding out would be to actually interview them. While this seems like a no-brainer, it is rare to find many articles on the Middle East where this is actually done.

Here is a review of a new book called Schmoozing with Terrorists by Aaron Klein that brings up some good points and raises some important questions. Some excerpts:

The Arab Palestinian leaders with whom Klein spoke are very candid about their dreams not only to wipe out Israel, but to establish a worldwide caliphate. Their plans for American society should awaken anyone who thinks the Arab terrorists are only Israel's problem. And it should also smack awake all the moral relativists who equate Israel's security measures with hegemonic brutality.

A deputy commander of Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Nasser Abu Azziz, explained to Klein that when sharia law is imposed in Western countries, "these sick people [homosexuals] will be treated in a very tough way," explaining that the Islamic leadership will "prevent social and physical diseases like homosexuality." All the terrorists whom Klein interviewed agreed that homosexuality would not be tolerated in the US once Islam rules.

And homosexuality is not all they condemn. The failure of western women to conform to Islamic standards of dress will reap harsh responses including, if necessary, torture. Sheik Hamad, a Hamas cleric, said those women who refuse to cover themselves in conformity with Islamic values would be punished either by imprisonment, whipping or stoning.

The "Halal Hippies" and "Cafe Latte" crowd would do well to at least consider the possibility that these leaders are not being misunderstood but know exactly what they are saying and really mean what they are saying.

Our mass media - whether it be news or soap operas - are everywhere in the world and there are many in the Muslim world who are dismayed by what they see. To me this not only implies that they have a better sense of us than we have of them (albeit through the distortions of the media lens), but that they feel that their way of life is endangered and are motivated to defend it - even if that means taking the battle to the enemy. Add to that Muslim millenarian visions of the inevitably that the entire world will eventually accept their faith and you have a pretty scary cocktail.

Klein was told by Abu Ayman, the commander of Islamic Jihad in Jenin, that Muslims are strictly forbidden from becoming suicide bombers if they are motivated by anything -- including desperate poverty or revenge for Israeli wrongdoing to this individual -- other than love of Allah. When Klein pointed out to a young man in training to become a "martyr" CNN's claim that suicide bombing was motivated by poverty and despair, Abu Ahmed was visibly affronted and called it "Israeli propaganda."

The most bizarre and brazen interview Klein describes is with Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, the chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most important clerics in the Middle East. Tamimi lectured Klein that "there is no Jewish historic connection whatsoever to the Temple Mount or Jerusalem," and that the "Jews came to the [Temple area] in 1967 and not before."

Tamimi responded to Klein's recitation of archeological findings and historical connections: "These archeological things you cite are lies." Tamimi simply erases Judaism's connection to the Holy Land by ignoring irrefutable and concrete evidence of inconvenient facts.

This only goes to show that the notion that economic development will dampen ideological fervor is misplaced. I am all for economic development, but humans are not automatons who respond blindly to cost-benefit analysis. Economics is a social science and this false assumption about the root causes of Palestinian militancy is one of the reasons there has been no peace and also one of the reasons economic sanctions literally never work as an instrument of foreign policy. That is true no less in the case of Gaza than in the case of Iran.

The second point raised here also demonstrates that Facts have no bearing on ideological worldview. In fact, it is a great testament to the human mind that ideology trumps reality.

If these murder merchants happily speak at length about their desire to murder and torture those who don't fit their religious profiles, why are the rest of the hundreds of journalists who call Israel their beat unable to obtain the same information? Do they prefer to stick with the standard mendacious narrative, either because they believe it or because they are too afraid to approach the terrorist leadership? Neither answer says anything favorable about the press corps.

Second, why are all those on the political left, those who identify themselves as advocates for minorities, so convinced that Israel is the villain and the Arab Palestinians are the victim? Anyone who claims to favor women's rights, gay rights, ideological tolerance, freedom of the press, of speech, of association, of religion, in fact, nearly all of the icons of the political left, should logically support the Israeli narrative. Instead, most of those in this country who fit the profile of the left support the Arab Palestinian narrative. Yet Klein's interviewees freely articulate their categorical rejection of the ideas these groups hold dear. And when these people categorically reject an idea, we're not talking polite disagreement over cocktails: we're talking beheading in the town square, as Klein's interviewees state in plain English. Yet these groups -- QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terror) is my own personal favorite -- continue to support terrorists who would happily slaughter their western advocates if they attained the power they seek.

These are often the same people who supported Communism - even after they were confronted with Stalinist atrocities or the killing fields of Cambodia. It goes back to my point above regarding ideology trumping reality but also has to do with an obsessive insistence on supporting the underdog - regardless of whether they are right or wrong. That this is a natural consequence of post-modernist and relativist thinking goes without saying.

Surprise, Surprise!

To kick off the new format, here is an interesting article that I think should call into question some of the prevailing assumptions regarding Palestinians and Gaza. According to the AP story "Travel Brings Surprises to Gazans":

A little travel has gone a long way toward changing perceptions in Gaza.

After excursions to Egypt across a border breached by Hamas militants, some Palestinians pepper their local Arabic dialect with Egyptian expressions while others say they are shocked by the poverty there.

In fact, the economic situation in Gaza and the West Bank is not only better than in Egypt, it is better than in many Arab countries. From 1967 to 1993 (the period of Israeli occupation) the territories had the fourth fastest growing economy in the world.

Thanks to the Second Intifada and a Palestinian leadership bent on confrontation, the economy has deteriorated considerably since Oslo. Nonetheless, it is still better than in countries such as Egypt. Even with the Israeli economic blockade. Check out the UNDP HDI stats if you do not believe me (Palestinian Territories rank 106 and Egypt ranks 112).

Said Mohammed stood in a Gaza City market, next to his pickup truck with red Egyptian license plates. From the back of the truck, two men, who had paid Mohammed to deliver the cargo, sold Egyptian-imported smoked herring to curious residents. ...

"I've always wanted to see Palestine anyway," said a smiling Mohammed, a slight dark man with black eyes. Pointing to cars crowding a nearby street, he said: "I thought conditions here would be harder than this. I thought people would be starving."

The fact that Mr. Mohammed thought he would witness starvation in Gaza is a testament to how effective the Palestinian propaganda machine is and how well the Arab and Western media play along with it. Even worse, I would argue that this is a symptom of the disease called "Holocaust inversion" - an attempt by Israel's enemies to paint Israel as the Nazis and the Palestinians as no different than wartime Jews trapped in concentration camps and slowly dying of starvation.

A common quip is that Hamas should drop its "Save Gaza" slogan, coined in response to Israeli border closures, in favor of "Save El Arish" - in this case, from Palestinian shoppers.

Still others jest that Egyptians will storm Gaza if the breach is sealed because the Palestinians have picked them clean.

For seriously impoverished and starving people, it appears that Gazans seem to have had no problem coming up with the necessary funds to go on a shopping spree.

Change in Direction

Clearly, I have done a poor job of maintaining this blog. Partly it is because I was incommunicado in India for six weeks in December and January, but mostly it is because I have been thinking about how much time I want to spend blogging and what kind of blogging I want do.

What I realized was that, whether or not I post to the blog, I am constantly scanning the web for articles that address the issues that interest me or articles that I feel are not getting widely distributed. In particular, I always have an eye out for insightful and in-depth articles that question the prevailing wisdom and its underlying premises.

Often I send out or receive such articles and find that I end up discussing their contents over e-mail with my close friends. So, rather than produce original articles for the blog or carry out private conversations over e-mail, I decided to switch over to the tried and true method of posting a news digest (with my occasional comments) for your review.

Hopefully this will prove to be a better way to share ideas and perhaps even spark some discussion!