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.