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.