Gaza Blues

This past week I was just a few meters from the Gaza border and could see with my own eyes the beautiful villas and high-rises in the Strip. As usual, the media get it all wrong about Gaza - it is not that they are living in rubble, but that they are in a timeout of their own making. 

In case you think that I or the majority of Israelis take pleasure in their suffering, you would be wrong. The distance from Tel Aviv to Gaza is 65 kilometers and the the distance between Haifa and Tel Aviv is 88 km. All of us remember visiting Gaza and long for the relative normalcy that existed prior to the ongoing and unremitting disaster that is the Oslo accords.

Sure, we have never had any illusions about Gazan's love for Israel, but from 1967 to 1992, Gaza was the 4th fastest growing economy in the world - with a per capita GDP higher than Egypt, Jordan, or Syria. Life expectancy was also greater than any of its neighbors and continues that way to this day.

Even after all the wars, the thought of them trapped there and mired in their own anger and victimhood saddens me. All that the current situation does is give Hamas more time to poison people's minds with their insidious indoctrination and lies. If the world really cared about Palestinians and their well-being, then they would not tie Israel's hands but rather support a Mosul type assault on the enclave.

Here is an article by someone who actually spent a week there recently (click HERE)

Do Nothing!

Reading the utter tripe that is the Black Lives Matter coalition platform reminds me of this scene from the Malcolm X movie (see clip).

If this platform/calumny is what one of the leading African-American movements has to say about Zionism - the struggle for self-determination and equality among nations for the Jewish people - then I wish them well. The Jewish community has stood side by side with African-Americans since the earliest days of their struggle for equality and this is just another stab in the back.

From now on and until the black community repudiate the racist and false elements in this platform, I suggest the Jewish community take Malcolm's advice and do nothing to further African-American causes. 

Here is a good analysis of BLM's Jewish problem by Chloe Valdary.

Westerners and their Morality Plays

Over 200 people died in Baghdad in terrorist attacks and not ONE person posted anything regarding this tragedy in FB. Yet, I have no doubt that if two days from now there will (heaven forfend) be a bombing somewhere in the West, there will be slew of postings and memes about how this is nothing compared to the bombings that Iraqis have to endure on a daily basis.

What this proves to me is that Westerners are only interested in victims of terrorism to the extent that it has something to do with them. Or, put in a different way, we out here in the Middle East are not important as ACTUAL human beings, but rather as bit characters in a larger Western morality play.

Civilization and its Discontents? Part Deux

A few days ago, a Kenyan friend of mine commented on the supposed depravity of Western civilization in a Facebook post. According to his sources, in 1938, the Nobel Peace Prize committee found itself deadlocked over whether it should grant the prize to Gandhi or Hitler. As it turns out, this story is actually a fiction concocted by Tariq Ali - the Pakistani-British Leftist "intellectual" (See HERE).

Meanwhile, back in the real world (see HERE):

Archbishop Desmond Tutu touched another tripwire this week by nominating mass-murderer Marwan Barghouti for the Nobel Peace Prize, an act hailed by the Arab press. “Barghouti is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in leading terrorist activities during the first and second intifadas that included dozens of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. He is a former leader of the Tanzim, a militant faction of the Fatah party currently headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, that took credit for many of the murders during the bloody Second Initfada in the early 2000’s. In 2014, he called for the launch of a third intifada,” the Jewish Press reported.

What does this say about African civilization, that a priest will nominate someone who is serving five concurrent life prison sentences after having been found guilty in a court of law for murdering innocent people? Perhaps it says that so long as the person in question is killing (supposedly) "white" people or "colonialists" (i.e. the biggest lie of all), this is actually praiseworthy?  

It is said that even though very few Southern whites were slave owners, they were willing to fight and die for the cause of slavery just so that there would be someone they felt was beneath them. Similarly, it seems extremely fortunate for Africans and aging Leftist "Liberation" theologians of Tutu's ilk that the Jews exist.

We are literally the gift that keeps on giving.  Since Jews supposedly committed deicide and accepted that "His blood shall be on us and on our children!" (Mathew 27:25) we are uniquely evil. Opposing Israel and being anti-Zionist is not just politically correct, it is a church-sanctioned prerogative.

Or as the old saying goes: "The more things change the more they stay the same."

I'm Finally Feeling the Bern

From CNN: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., tweeted: “It’s horrific. It’s unthinkable.”

I am trying to understand - What exactly is unthinkable? That a Muslim terrorist chose to murder innocent civilians? Or that someone who was raised to believe that gay people are an abomination that deserve to die actually acted on his theologically sound (from his perspective) beliefs.

It is precisely because well-meaning but clueless idiots such as Bernie cannot fathom the danger of this barbarism that the Left is on the wrong side of history and will lead us to the abyss. Societies don't just disappear. First they crumble from within.

If this entirely predictable scenario comes off as "unthinkable" to you, then you definitely do not have what it takes to protect the American people in what is, unfortunately, a civilizational struggle.

Brace Yourselves!!!

You are about to be reminded by President Obama that Islam is a Religion of Peace.

By the end of the day his spin doctors will try to turn this into just another abject lesson on the "scourge of gun violence" and the need to curtail 2nd Amendment rights.

Anyone who will dare to say anything else is a racist and an Islamophobe.

Please note that this fact is not up for discussion.

My 2 cents: A society that cannot appreciate its contributions nor identify the threats that it faces is doomed to disappear. A phobia is an irrational fear. I have nothing against Muslims per se, but Islamism i.e. political Islam is a dangerous death cult and a tangible threat to humanity. There is nothing irrational about this fear. Complacency is irrational and primarily harms those Muslims that liberals and progressives think they are protecting.

UPDATE 1: That didn't take long:

"Obama also noted that the worst mass shooting in U.S. history is a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get a weapon that allows them to shoot people in a school, in a house of worship, a movie theater or a gay nightclub."

UPDATE 2: From President Obama's statement:

"We are still learning all the facts. This is an open investigation. We’ve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer. The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. And I’ve directed that we must spare no effort to determine what -- if any -- inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups. What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred."

This is clearly an out and out lie. Mateen declared his allegiance to the Islamic State while on the phone with 911. There is no way that Obama did not know this. Hence his willingness to classify this as a terrorist act. Clearly, he did not say this because he does not want to single out a certain religious group that is implicated in this attack.

The last statement is completely delusional. "What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred." Really? That's it? Just a bad seed, a misanthrope and sociopath who was off his meds tonight? Perhaps the shooter was ideologically motivated? Perhaps Omar honestly and truly believed that what they were doing was Allah's will and hence an act of Love based on their understanding of what God really wants? I am certainly not justifying this barbarism, but it is consistent with a certain weltanshchauung.

So it has apparently become de rigeur following every terrorist attack on the West to point out that "others" in the world have suffered terrorism and that news coverage of one attack and not another is clear evidence of casual racism.

Here’s why I think this is disingenuous (i.e. BS):

1) The only time bleeding hearts bleed for the Ivory Coast or Yemen is AFTER an attack on Paris or Brussels. I have yet to see a “Je Suis Abidjan” or “Je Suis Aden” profile pic in the colors of the Yemenite flag and I seriously doubt that I will. How many people died in Pakistan today and not one person on my feed posted their deep sorrow at this tragedy? (Oh wait, they were Christians – no need to feel sorry for them. I mean, why are they even there?)

2) The articles that are posted on this subject oddly fail to mention that there is a common thread to all of these attacks (Hint: it starts with “Is” and ends with a word that rhymes with “ham”).

3) I find the use of random dead people in Africa to make some snarky political point or to show how "enlightened" you are because you can find Bamako on a map, is basically a form of trafficking in dead people and exploitative.

4) Somehow in the list of attacks that we are so emotionally enjoined to remember, Israel always remains forgotten. Coincidence? Or just casual antisemitism? If you actually feel bad for victims of terrorism around the world and wanted to make a stand against violence, you'd think that Israel would also merit a mention. Then again, I guess some people just have it coming.

HERE is a good example.

Even the NY Times got in on the act Click HERE.

NB: Apparently, the March 8 stabbing death of Taylor Force – a Vanderbilt student who was visiting Israel – is just "violence" does not count as terrorism.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/08/middleeast/israel-violence/