Useful Idiots With PhD's

For the first time in the United States, a group of college professors has launched a campaign for the cultural and academic boycott of Israel, similar to the one promoted in the last few years by British academicians.

The U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel stated that “As educators of conscience, we have been unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel's indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions.”

The idea of this type of boycott emerged in 2001 in Durban at the World Conference Against Racism, where blaming Israel and Jewish control of the media solved all the problems of racial discrimination in the world.

I think that a good response to this campaign would be a Jewish boycott of the universities of the signatories of this petition. Let’s start with the University of Southern California, where David Lloyd, one of the organizers of the Israeli boycott, “teaches” English.

Haaretz article.

Open Letter to a Citizen of Gaza, by Yishai G., Reserve Soldier

Hello,

While the world watches the ruins in Gaza, you return to your home which remains standing. However, I am sure that it is clear to you that someone was in your home while you were away.I am that someone.

I spent long hours imagining how you would react when you walked into your home. How you would feel when you understood that IDF soldiers had slept on your mattresses and used your blankets to keep warm.

I knew that it would make you angry and sad and that you would feel this violation of the most intimate areas of your life by those defined as your enemies, with stinging humiliation. I am convinced that you hate me with unbridled hatred, and you do not have even the tiniest desire to hear what I have to say. At the same time, it is important for me to say the following in the hope that there is even the minutest chance that you will hear me.

I spent many days in your home. You and your family's presence was felt in every corner. I saw your family portraits on the wall, and I thought of my family. I saw your wife's perfume bottles on the bureau, and I thought of my wife. I saw your children's toys and their English language schoolbooks. I saw your personal computer and how you set up the modem and wireless phone next to the screen, just as I do.

I wanted you to know that despite the immense disorder you found in your house that was created during a search for explosives and tunnels (which were indeed found in other homes), we did our best to treat your possessions with respect. When I moved the computer table, I disconnected the cables and lay them down neatly on the floor, as I would do with my own computer. I even covered the computer from dust with a piece of cloth. I tried to put back the clothes that fell when we moved the closet although not the same as you would have done, but at least in such a way that nothing would get lost.

I know that the devastation, the bullet holes in your walls and the destruction of those homes near you place my descriptions in a ridiculous light. Still, I need you to understand me, us, and hope that you will channel your anger and criticism to the right places.

I decided to write you this letter specifically because I stayed in your home.

I can surmise that you are intelligent and educated and there are those in your household that are university students. Your children learn English, and you are connected to the Internet. You are not ignorant; you know what is going on around you.

Therefore, I am sure you know that Qassam rockets were launched from your neighborhood into Israeli towns and cities.

How could you see these weekly launches and not think that one day we would say "enough"?! Did you ever consider that it is perhaps wrong to launch rockets at innocent civilians trying to lead a normal life, much like you? How long did you think we would sit back without reacting?I can hear you saying "it's not me, it's Hamas". My intuition tells me you are not their most avid supporter. If you look closely at the sad reality in which your people live, and you do not try to deceive yourself or make excuses about "occupation", you must certainly reach the conclusion that the Hamas is your real enemy.

The reality is so simple, even a seven year old can understand: Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip, removing military bases and its citizens from Gush Katif. Nonetheless, we continued to provide you with electricity, water, and goods (and this I know very well as during my reserve duty I guarded the border crossings more than once, and witnessed hundreds of trucks full of goods entering a blockade-free Gaza every day).

Despite all this, for reasons that cannot be understood and with a lack of any rational logic, Hamas launched missiles on Israeli towns. For three years we clenched our teeth and restrained ourselves. In the end, we could not take it anymore and entered the Gaza strip, into your neighborhood, in order to remove those who want to kill us. A reality that is painful but very easy to explain.As soon as you agree with me that Hamas is your enemy and because of them, your people are miserable, you will also understand that the change must come from within. I am acutely aware of the fact that what I say is easier to write than to do, but I do not see any other way. You, who are connected to the world and concerned about your children's education, must lead, together with your friends, a civil uprising against Hamas.

I swear to you, that if the citizens of Gaza were busy paving roads, building schools, opening factories and cultural institutions instead of dwelling in self pity, arms smuggling and nurturing a hatred to your Israeli neighbors, your homes would not be in ruins right now. If your leaders were not corrupt and motivated by hatred, your home would not have been harmed. If someone would have stood up and shouted that there is no point in launching missiles on innocent civilians, I would not have to stand in your kitchen as a soldier.

You don't have money, you tell me? You have more than you can imagine.Even before Hamas took control of Gaza, during the time of Yasser Arafat, millions if not billions of dollars donated by the world community to the Palestinians was used for purchasing arms or taken directly to your leaders bank accounts. Gulf States, the emirates - your brothers, your flesh and blood, are some of the richest nations in the world. If there was even a small feeling of solidarity between Arab nations, if these nations had but the smallest interest in reconstructing the Palestinian people - your situation would be very different.

You must be familiar with Singapore. The land mass there is not much larger than the Gaza strip and it is considered to be the second most populated country in the world. Yet, Singapore is a successful, prospering, and well managed country. Why not the same for you?

My friend, I would like to call you by name, but I will not do so publicly. I want you to know that I am 100% at peace with what my country did, what my army did, and what I did. However, I feel your pain. I am sorry for the destruction you are finding in your neighborhood at this moment.

On a personal level, I did what I could to minimize the damage to your home as much as possible. In my opinion, we have a lot more in common than you might imagine. I am a civilian, not a soldier, and in my private life I have nothing to do with the military. However, I have an obligation to leave my home, put on a uniform, and protect my family every time we are attacked.

I have no desire to be in your home wearing a uniform again and I would be more than happy to sit with you as a guest on your beautiful balcony, drinking sweet tea seasoned with the sage growing in your garden.The only person who could make that dream a reality is you. Take responsibility for yourself, your family, your people, and start to take control of your destiny. How? I do not know. Maybe there is something to be learned from the Jewish people who rose up from the most destructive human tragedy of the 20th century, and instead of sinking into self-pity, built a flourishing and prospering country. It is possible, and it is in your hands.

I am ready to be there to provide a shoulder of support and help to you.But only you can move the wheels of history."

Regards,

Yishai, (Reserve Soldier)

The Third Jihad

Attached is the 30 minutes version of The Third Jihad, a film made by Dr. Zuhdy Jasser, himself a Muslim and critic of radical Islam.

The film is an eye opener, but sadly the mainstream media chose to ignore the warnings coming from within the Islamic community and the moderates who resent having their religion hijacked by the Islamofascists.

Click here for: The Third Jihad

Social Engineering in the Guise of Economic Stimulus

Attached is a link to the House of Representatives PDF file of the stimulus bill. I only read some pages of the bill, and will continue reading as much as possible without triggering narcolepsy.

As of now, the bill shows very little economic stimulus and much social engineering stimulus. As reported by Drudge, you can go to page 145 where you will notice that the bill allocates $ 345 million for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

Some additional pork in the bill:

$1.1 billion for Amtrak

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts

$400 million for NASA to conduct climate change research

$300 million for Americorps

$1 billion for the Census

$400 million for localities to buy "green" buses

$650 million for the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program

$600 million for the acquisition of "green" cars

$7.7 billion for the Federal Buildings Fund

The list goes on... ALL of it funding by your hard-earned tax dollars.

I could understand the government spending money on social engineering, but I resent the insult to our intelligence calling it an economic stimulus plan.

Click here for the PDF file of the stimulus bill.

President Obama with Al Arabiya Parts 1 and 2

Yesterday President Obama conducted his first interview with Al-Arabiya TV network. Here are the two links for the two segments of the interview:

Click here for Part I

Click here for Part II

I Deny, Therefore I am

This a report from Jerusalem concerning English bishop Richard Williamson.

Here is the link to see a video of the bishop being interviewed and denying some the most horrendous elements of the Shoah. Click here to see the video.

Let me add that the bishop is also a believer in the conspiracy theories that Kennedy was assassinated by the U.S. Government and that the twin towers collapsed because of an attack staged by the U.S. government.

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and the Simon
Wiesenthal Centre on Sunday slammed a Holocaust-denying English bishop whose
excommunication has been cancelled by Pope Benedict XVI.

“It is scandalous that someone of this stature in the Church denies the
Holocaust,” the institution said in a statement, referring to Bishop Richard
Williamson who has publicly denied the murder of six million Jews during World
War II.

“Denial of the Holocaust not only insults the survivors, memory of the
victims and the righteous among the nations who risked their lives to rescue the
Jews, it is a brutal attack on truth,” Yad Vashem said.

“What kind of message is this sending regarding the Church’s attitude toward the Holocaust?”

The BBC Gets Stuck With a Pro-Israel Pundit

Click here for a fascinating interview conducted by the BBC with retired British Colonel Richard Kemp. It is hard to believe that the BBC did show this interview, but it was probably the fact that it was live that prevented the self-censorship usually exercised by this network from blocking Kemp's comments.

Intimidation as a Tool of Censorship

A chill has descended on Western civilization with another example of how little by little our freedoms are being eroded. The latest example comes from Holland where Geert Wilders, member of parliament and leader of the Freedom Party, has been indicted and will be criminally prosecuted for statements he made and that the Court of Appeals in Amsterdam has deemed as "insulting," and declaring that they "substantially harm the religious esteem" of Muslims.” It is clear that this is another step in the direction of curtailing debate about Islam, and it represents a major victory for Islamic lobbies in the West who are pushing for such legislation in Europe and America.

For those of you not familiar with Wilders, he produced the film Fitna which is critical of Islam, and has been a staunch supporter of Israel and a crusader against the Islamization of the West. This link to The International Free Press Society has some interesting articles on the subject.

Many in the United States would argue that such thing could never happen here. Well, let’s go to this White House website and see what the new administration has in mind for us in terms of civil rights. Among the many civil rights goals of the new administration is the following:

"Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: President Obama and Vice President Biden will
strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by
passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department
of Justice's Criminal Section."

This legislation that expands hate crime will result in the eventual prosecution of people who express ideas that are controversial. Organizations such as CAIR have legal teams ready to jump and sue every journalist, blogger, talk show host, politician or pundit that utters anything they deem as anti-Muslim and "hatefull". The effect of these type of lawsuits is not necessarily to win, but rather to intimidate. Those sued don't have Saudi Arabian financing to survive long trials and pay for expensive lawyers. Expansion of hate crime legislation is one step in offering disgruntled groups the ability to intimidate what should be protected by free speech.

It is ironic that this legislation is proposed and supported by the gay community and many Muslim groups. Strange bedfellows, since we all know how tolerant is Islam when it comes to gays. The rest of the legislation proposed is the typical naive approach intended to protect the helpless workers, criminals and drug addicts. If you have not gone to the above link, now it's a good time to do so. This legislation has always unintended consequences not envisioned by its authors.

Well...the road to hell is paved with good intention. Nothing like a bleeding heart executive and legislature to help pave this road.

An Open Letter to the Palestinians

The following open letter to the Palestinians was written by Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former New York Times Middle East Correspondent and Wall Street Journal Energy Editor for 25 years. He is now a freelance writer based in New York City and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He has written a an open letter to the Palestinians. I wish they would read it.

The War with Israel Is Over - and they won.

Now let's finally move forward. With Israel entering its fourth week of an incursion into the same Gaza Strip it voluntarily evacuated a few months ago, a sense of reality among Arabs is spreading through commentary by Arab pundits, letters to the editor, and political talk shows on Arabic-language TV networks. The new views are stunning both in their maturity and in their realism. The best way I can think of to convey them is in the form of a letter to the Palestinian Arabs from their Arab friends:

Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:

The war with Israel is over. You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children. We, your Arab brothers, may say until we are blue in the face that we stand by you, but the wise among you and most of us know that we are moving on, away from the tired old idea of the Palestinian Arab cause and the eternal struggle" with Israel. Dear friends, you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years.

Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness. At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn't going to get better. Time is running out even for this much land, so here are some facts, figures, and sound advice, friends.

You hold keys, which you drag out for television interviews, to houses that do not exist or are inhabited by Israelis who have no intention of leaving Jaffa , Haifa , Tel-Aviv, or West Jerusalem . You shoot old guns at modern Israeli tanks and American-made fighter jets, doing virtually no harm to Israel while bringing the wrath of its mighty army down upon you. You fire ridiculously inept Kassam rockets that cause little destruction and delude yourselves into thinking this is a war of liberation.

Your government, your social institutions, your schools, and your economy are all in ruins. Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations. Every day your officials must beg for your daily bread, dependent on relief trucks that carry food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while your criminal Muslim fundamentalist Hamas government continues to fan the flames of a war it can neither fight nor hope to win.

In other words, brothers, you are down, out, and alone in a burnt-out landscape that is shrinking by the day. What kind of struggle is this? Is it worth waging at all? More important, what kind of miserable future does it portend for your children, the fourth or fifth generation of the Arab world's have-nots? We, your Arab brothers, have moved on. Those of us who have oil money are busy accumulating wealth and building housing, luxury developments, state-of-the-art universities and schools, and new highways and byways.

Those of us who share borders with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, have signed a peace treaty with it and are not going to war for you any time soon. Those of us who are far away, in places like North Africa and Iraq, frankly could not care less about what happens to you.

Only Syria continues to feed your fantasies that someday it will join you in liberating Palestine, even though a huge chunk of its territory, the entire Golan Heights, was taken by Israel in 1967 and annexed. The Syrians, my friends, will gladly fight down to the last Palestinian Arab. Before you got stuck with this Hamas crowd, another cheating, conniving, leader of yours, Yasser Arafat, sold you a rotten bill of goods - more pain, greater corruption, and millions stolen by his relatives - while your children played in the sewers of Gaza . The war is over.

Why not let a new future begin?

Adios Guantanamo, Ahalan al-Qaeda

In 2007 the United States freed Guantanamo detainee Said Ali al-Shihri, a suspect in the bombing the U.S. embassy in Sana, the Yemeni capital. He was released to Saudi-Arabia, which placed him in a rehabilitation program for Jihadists. Yesterday, while Barack Obama was signing the executive order for closing of Guantanamo, a press release on the Internet announced that the freshly rehabilitated al-Shahiri has been promoted to deputy leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen. Intelligence officials in the United States have confirmed this announcement.

About half of the detainees remaining at Guantanamo are Yemenis who are as open to rehabilitation as al-Shahiri was. Freeing them will result in the shedding of innocent blood. Those who think that bringing those detainees to the United States will not result in many of them being released are naïve or not aware of the power of the ACLU and civil libertarians judges, especially under the current administration.

I do not share the optimism of many on the right who think that the document signed yesterday by Obama will result in studies and more studies, while the detainees remain in Guantanamo indefinitely. In twelve months Guantanamo will be closed, and the ACLU lawyers are already salivating at the prospect of giving the U.S. a black eye and al-Qaeda some of its warriors.

Carter Redux?

Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, has just announced during his confirmation hearings that the United States should seek ways of working with Islamic leaders and countries such as Iran on issues of mutual interest. Furthermore, he is a proponent of applying standards across the government for humane treatment of terrorism suspects, and for restoring America’s moral standing in the eyes of the world. He also backs the closing of Guantanamo Bay prison because if “has become a damaging symbol to the world.”

Having a director of intelligence who is concerned about the perception of the world is not the most constructive way of fighting terrorism. Let us not forget that September 12, 2001 the whole world looked at us with love and affection. But as soon as we started fighting to prevent such an attack from ever happening again, the “world” became upset with our response. I put the word “world” in quotation marks, because it is such a sweeping generalization that it makes feel like grabbing a red pen and crossing it the way I did when a paper submitted by a student had such sweeping statements. For every demonstration against America there were silent millions around the world who supported what the U.S.did. Of course that for a certain sector of the liberal left having the support of Great Britain, Italy, Australia, Poland, Rumania, and Israel, just to name a few, is not good enough. I guess we need the support of Chavez and Castro to make them happy.

I would have liked to see a senator ask Admiral Blair what did he mean by the statement “discussing issues of mutual interest” with Iran? I’ll bet that his responses would have been similar to the responses of another admiral who contributed significantly to the weakening of the CIA, his name was Stanfield Turner, Carter's nominee. With Blair as Director of Intelligence and Leon Panetta at the helm of the CIA, I hope that we don’t end up with an intelligence service that will make us say “Carter Redux.”

Remember the 444 days when the world supported us? We could live without such support.

Where is the vomitorium?

Here is a video that made my skin crawl. The Germans have a word for this type of collective behavior: Gleichschaltung.

What I would like to hear from these narcissists is why didn't they offer their pledges in the last eight years? If America was in such terrible shape under Bush, these pledges would have made more sense then.

I feel like adding a new fixture to my bathroom. The Romans called it a vomitorium.

Hamas's Modus Operandi

This is an interesting video that justifies everything Israel has been doing in Gaza, and shows how Hamas operates. Al Arabiya reporter Hannan al-Masri is caught live on the phone, explaining that Hamas has just launched a missile from the Al Arabiya building.

This is the modus operandi of Hamas. If Israel would have retaliated by bombing the site from which it was attacked, the world media would have condemned it for attacking innocent journalists doing their job.

Al Arabya TV is located in Dubai and is partly owned by the Saudis as a way of competing with al-Jazeera.

What a Country...

CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT OBAMA!

Alan Furst, Master of His Genre

Since I have promised myself a honeymoon period with the new Obama administration and refraining from negative criticism, I decided today to change the topic, moving from politics to literature.

I have just finished reading The Spies of Warsaw, Alan Furst's last novel, which means that I have read each of his books. For those of you not familiar with this author, Furst is probably the greatest author of the historical spy novel genre, and can easily be placed in the company of Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and John Le Carré; although I consider him superior to all of them.

Furst has written eleven novels of the spy-historical genre, and all of them take place in Europe between 1933 and 1942, the period coinciding with the rise of Hitler and the early stages of World War II, when Germany and Japan had reached their aegis as military powers, and the outcome of the war was by no means clear. What makes these novels different is that they are written with a realism rarely seen in this genre. As I have read each novel, I almost visualized the action in black and white as if watching a movie from the period.

The heroes are the men and women who get caught in the Byzantine intrigue of espionage and are rarely willing participants. They are enmeshed in the webs created by intrigue or persecution, and act accordingly. At no point do they emerge as James Bond, but rather as men and women who want to do whatever is necessary to defeat evil, and survive. This last element I see as crucial, since it prevents them from the reckless behavior that characterizes the spies of most novels or movies. They risk their lives because circumstances or mistakes force them to, but never because they want to impress a superior or a member of the opposite sex.

A few of the protagonists appear in more than one novel, and never in more than two. The only recurring theme in each of the novels is a meal at the Parisian Brasserie Henninger in table 14, where the mirror has a bullet hole, remnant of a shootout among Bulgarians in the 1930’s. When was the last time you read a book with Bulgarians among its protagonists? The reader learns to expect these recurring scenes, just as we waited for Hitchcock to appear for a few seconds in each of his movies.

I have done quite a few Internet searches trying to locate this brasserie, but to no avail. I guess the place is a figment of Furst’s imagination, however, it represents so many of the brasseries that existed in Paris during the period described.

Sex in the narrative is also different from the descriptions in this genre. The men and women in Furst’s novels make love as those who are aware that war is about to erupt and don’t expect to survive it. Making love becomes another tool for preserving sanity and to a large extent human behavior.

The descriptions of the locales and cities are so incredibly accurate that every book becomes a European cruise across time. Every scene that takes place in a train station allows you to almost smell the smoke of the steam locomotives. The runs on the nylon stockings, the ancient gas boilers heating the water for a shower, the cigarette smoke, the champagne, the canapés, the waiters with aprons, the cars, the French sentence uttered by nobility, the suitcases; all become part of descriptions that make the scenes as complete as a photograph taken in those days. This is no coincidence, but rather the result of Alan Furst's immersion into the period. He has lived in Paris and is the possessor of an extended collection of books from and about the period he describes. Furthermore, as he stated in an interview, Google helps a lot. All these elements and a lot of talent.

Alan Furst has mentioned that he doesn’t want his novels to be about the 30’s and 40’s, but to read as if they were written in the 30’s and 40’s. He definitely succeeds.

Who Checks the Czechs?

The map of France with a sign stating "strike"


Bulgaria as a Turkish bathroom

Holland covered with minarets

Germany with autobahns

The Controversial sculpture of the maps of European nations

The American media, so far busy with the financial crisis and the canonization of Barack Obama, has not paid too much attention to a very interesting story coming from the European Union and which deserves some degree of publicity.

As all left leaning movements, the EU is keen on the development of art with political and other social redemptive messages. With this in mind, it commissioned a work designed to celebrate the Czech Republic’s assumption of the presidency of the EU. The winner was Czech artist David Cerny, who in his application promised a sculpture completed by 27 European artists. Upon receiving this commission he proceeded to invent 27 names, and together with some friends he created a sculpture that was unveiled in Brussels a few days ago and whose pictures I have placed above. The sculpture was not received with the enthusiasm expected, and even standing meditatively with a glass of chardonnay in their hands, diplomats could not help but complain about an artistic work that, if nothing else, should receive kudos for its humorous take on the history of Europe.

The first and most vituperative complains came from Bulgaria who saw it as, “…a humiliation for the Bulgarian nation and an offence to national dignity." The humiliation was Bulgaria’s map on the sculpture depicting this nation as a Turkish bathroom, referring of course to the many centuries of occupation by Turkey.

Germany’s unhappiness came from the map depicting it as being crisscrossed by autobahns in what some perceive the shape of a swastika. Spain was depicted in concrete to illustrate its building boom, and Denmark was depicted as a cartoon of Mohammed made up of Lego. Holland is covered with minarets, Italy has soccer players, France has a sign saying “strike”, and Poland has a group of Catholic priests raising a gay flag, while Romania is a gigantic Dracula.

The fact that the sculpture was erected at all is an insight into the dangers of bureaucracies, such as the one that is metastasizing in Brussels. Obviously no one had the guts to check the Czechs, with the result being seen now as many European states clamor for the sculpture to be removed.

Personally, I agree that this sculpture is an outrage. If the artist wanted to create something unifying that would have gained the praise of art sophisticates around the world, he should have done something not offensive. Something like a depiction of The Virgin Mary made out of elephant dung.

Another Surprise From Barack Obama

Barack Obama entering Gerge Will's residence

where he had a "very conservative" dinner

Six days to inauguration, and as I and many conservatives get ready to uncover Obama as a Manchurian candidate, he manages once again to throw a curve ball that leaves us scratching our heads and wondering who is the real Barack Obama.

The incident to which I am referring is his dining lat night at the home of conservative icon, columnist George Will. Two additional guests for dinner at Will's residence were William Kristol, neocon editor of The Weekly Standard, Charkes Krauthammer, syndicated columnist and Fox commentator, and David Brooks, conservative columnist with the New York Times.

Did he go because Ms. Will is a great cook or was it because he wanted to hear opposing views? Whichever his reason, he has made many conservatives happy, and readers of the DailyKos unhappy.

We are living in very interesting times.

I just found out that tonight he is dining with liberal columnists.

A Culture of Death and Destruction

The following article was published by The New York Times on January 9, 2009. I am quoting selected paragraphs from a description of scenes in a hospital in Gaza. The reporter is Arab.

The whole article can be read by clicking here.

A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.

“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.

He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”

A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent.

“They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a
martyr, too.”

Over the last few weeks I have read countless articles written by Israelis who are guilt ridden about every Arab child who has died or has been injured, and anxious about the way the world perceives Israel's action in Gaza. This anxiety and guilt is shared by millions of Jews in the diaspora.

But when we read something like the above article, we have to realize that we are fighting an enemy that thrives on death and destruction. If their attitude continues to be the achieving martyrdom, Israel should oblige. Israeli bashers be damned. They would condemn Israel even if Israel bombed Gaza with confetti.

From Europe to Eurabia

A German policeman removes the Israeli flag from a private residence to "de-escalate the situation."
Using water cannons against the demonstrators was out of the question.

GetwayPundit.blogspot.com placed on his blog a picture and video from Duisburg, Germany. He describes the following:

Today, 10.000 people demonstrated against Israel here in my hometown Duisburg
(Germany) to express their solidarity with Hamas. So, my girlfriend and me
put two Israel flags out of the windows of our flat in the 3rd floor. During the
demonstration which went through our street the police broke into our flat and
removed the flag of Israel. The statement of the police was to de-escalate the
situation, because many youth demonstrators were on the brink of breaking into
our apartment house. Before this they threw snowballs, knifes and stones against
our windows and the complete building. We both were standing on the other side of
the street and were shocked by seeing a police officer standing in our bedroom
and opening the window to get the flag. The picture illustrate this situation.
The police acquiesced in the demands of the mob.

Click here for a video of the event.

Professor Bernard Lewis refers to the emerging Europe as Eurabia. This event is a reminder of how right he is. Please notice that the flag was inside the residence of the blogger.

How to Win the PR War in Israel

Keeping the residents of this house in Sderot inside, rather than a shelter,

would have scored a major PR victory in favor of Israel.

I was reading today several articles critical of Israel’s response to Hamas’s aggression in Gaza. All the arguments revolved around the same criticisms: Disproportionate response, humanitarian tragedy and unjustified attack upon Palestinian civilians. So I kept asking myself the question of how does Israel overcome these criticisms in the future, and regain the moral superiority it deserves.

To stop the debate of proportionality, Israel must stop placing its civilians and children in shelters.

The alarms that give residents in Sderot 15 seconds to seek shelter must be removed. Had Israel done so in the past, the 6500 Qassam rockets launched into Southern Israel would have hit homes and schools with civilians and children in them, and many would have died or been maimed, thus, giving CNN, Reuters and Associated Press plenty of pictures of bloody and grieving Israelis, and made the current response more proportional and palatable.

Upon hearing sirens, Israeli children should be taught to run towards open spaces while adults should hide. This would ensure that adults survive and are available to pick up the injured children and run towards foreign journalists. Hospitals can wait. If a child dies, he can be replaced. All it takes is sexual intercourse. Once foreign journalists have taken pictures of the injured or dead child, Israelis have to learn to pass the body to different adults and instruct them on wailing and tearing their hair as if the child was their own.

Another way of regaining moral superiority can be achieved by instructing Israelis on how to deal on the topic of adult injuries in front of foreigners, UN officials and reporters. After injured and dead children have been photographed and filmed, some adults with disabilities should be dragged from their wheelchairs and placed on the shoulders of some screaming young man who should again run towards the cameras. Adults who have suffered spinal injuries, polio, amputations, muscular dystrophy or any form of paralysis are particularly photogenic and very attractive to the BBC, CNN and the New York Times. The disability does not have to be current or war related.

Another measure that would help Israel would be to physically attack and kidnap foreign journalists. This would result in the foreign media placing its journalists in fancy hotels, while Israeli stringers and free lancers would be hired to do the reports and photography, usually sympathetic toward Israel. Since the freelancers would be Jewish, chances are that a few would offer reports critical of Israel. Having a member of the freelancer’s family kidnapped and tortured until the desired report is achieved can easily solve this.

Israel has to take advantage of its technological know how. Simply by using Adobe PhotoShop, a minor explosion can be converted into something resembling Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A bad wound can be cut and pasted into dozens of otherwise healthy people. Google Images is full of gory wounds that are in the public domain.

Finally Jews around the world should go out and demonstrate with signs full of spelling errors calling for all Muslims to be killed and sent to the ovens. The media will ignore this type of vitriol. I don’t know why, but I assume this will happen simply because Muslims carrying such signs have never been on the screens or front pages of the mainstream media. Some day I will figure out why, and I will report on it on this blog.

By these simple measures, in the last few years Israel could easily have achieved a breakthrough in the public relations war. It is true that a few thousand Israelis would have died, but what is a few thousand dead Jews for a people used to losing six million?

Pallywood Revisited

This video was shown by CNN as factual, but was taken off the air when LittleGreenFootballs.com exposed it as a fake. Click here to see the video.

Little Green Footballs has been at the forefront of unmasking the Pallywood fakes distributed to the willing to be duped Western media.

The doctor in this clip Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian Marxist doctor and Palestinian sympathizer. The coincidence of a free lance cameraman capturing the killing of his brother should alert journalists. Furthermore, the cameraman Ashraf Mashharawi runs a business in Gaza hosting websites and runs two websites for......drumroll please....

HAMAS!

As mentioned, CNN withdrew the clip, but failed to issue a retraction or explain the reasons for the removal. Other European networks have shown this clip to European audiences.

One doctor wrote in LGF:

I’m no military expert, but I am a doctor, and this video is bullsh-t. The chest compressions that were being performed at the beginning of this video were absolutely, positively fake. The large man in the white coat was NOT performing
CPR on that child. He was just sort of tapping on the child’s sternum a little bit with his fingers. You can’t make blood flow like that. Furthermore, there’s no point in doing chest compressions if you’re not also ventilating the patient somehow. In this video, I can’t tell for sure if the patient has an endotracheal tube in place, but you can see that there is nobody bag-ventilating him (a bag is actually hanging by the head of the bed), and there is no ventilator attached to the patient. In a hospital, during a code on a ventilated patient, somebody would probably be bagging the patient during the chest compressions. And they also would have moved the bed away from the wall, so that somebody could get back there to intubate the patient and/or bag him. In short, the “resuscitation scene” at the beginning is fake, and it’s a pretty lame fake at that.

So the question is, were they re-enacting the resuscitation scene by repeating their actions on a corpse, because the child had died earlier? It’s likely that the answer is no, that child is still alive, and is just an actor pretending to be a child who was killed. Why do I say that? Because the big guy in the white coat, if he’s really a doctor, nurse, nurse’s aid, EMT, or any sort of health care provider at all would be entirely aware that tickling the boy’s sternum doesn’t really look like actual chest compressions. If the boy was dead, the man would have done a more convincing job in compressing the chest. The taps on the chest that he’s doing are the sort of thing you see in bad TV dramas, when you don’t want to make the poor actor playing the victim uncomfortable by really pushing a on his chest. I think the man in the white coat knows this child is actually alive, and is making the simulated chest compressions gentle so as not to hurt the child. My guess is that he assumed the videographer, like those on better TV shows, would have been smart enough not to film as far down as the man’s hands on the chest.

Tax the Rich

I was listening today to Mayor Bloomberg’s weekly interview on WOR and a couple of things he said caught my mind. Let’s remember than Bloomberg knows a little about economics.

First he said what many of us have known for a long time. Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme in existence and by far it dwarfs the Madoff affair.

The next thing he said was that many couples in NYC are both municipal workers. By today definitions they qualify as rich. Two teachers, aged 40, have a combined income of $200,100. This is without taking into consideration fringe benefits, early retirements, sick days, overtime, comp jobs, sabbaticals et cetera. The same applies to police, firemen and sanitation.

Having worked for the city, and knowing many couples who fit the Mayor’s description, I can't help but smile remembering how many times I heard them demand more taxes for the rich.

An Economic Council at the UN

An economic report from Europe states that German Chancellor Merkel said the International Monetary Fund has not managed to regulate global capitalism, and she called for the creation of an economy body at the United Nations, similar to the Security Council, to judge government policy.

Is she serious? The United Nations having an economic council with delegates from countries with collapsed economies such as Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Chad, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea and many other such examples of failure will judge the value of economic policies for the whole world. I am sure that this will lead to an economy that mirrors the successes of the Security Council in implementing peace and stability around the world.

You don't fight problems created in many cases by economic bureaucracies by adding a new layer. With every bureaucratic strata added to the United Nations, countries lose a little more of their independence and responsibilty. If leaders want to help the economy, let the failures fail, and let the successful reap the rewards of their efforts. A system that despite its cruelty is ultimately efficient.

A global economic council a hundred years ago would have made sure that economies preserve the horse and buggie. After all, millions of persons around the world depended on them for employment and transportation.

Los Angeles Times Offers a Soap Box to Terrorists

The Los Angeles Times has published today a lengthy opinion column by Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook. At the bottom of the column he is identified as the deputy of the political bureau of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement.

What the Los Angeles Times has failed to inform is that Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook is senior member and leader of Hamas who was Specially Designated Terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department in 1995, and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. Government.

So much for the press insistance on keeping the public informed.

Karen Koning AbuZayd

For those who are not news junkies, the name Karen Koning AbuZayd probably means nothing. However, for those who care about the welfare and reputation of Israel, and care about the way information is disseminated by important officials, it is important to know that Ms. AbuZayd is the Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNWRA). It is through her agency that hundreds of millions of dollars are distributed in Gaza and it is UNWRA schools that have become centers of Islamic indoctrination and laboratories for the manufacturing of weapons for terrorists.

I read an article written by Ms. AbuZayd about Gaza becoming a destitute state with the acquiescence of the international community. At no point did she mention the involvement of Hamas in bringing Gaza to the state it is in today. Her UN reports are known to contain one sentence discussing Palestinian violence and several pages describing Israeli responses.

I first came across the name Karen Koning AbuZayd watching a UN press conference on S-Span, wondering who was this woman who managed to distort every statement so as to portray Israel in a negative light. Upon doing some research I found out that she is an American who has been working for may years at the UN and had a B.A. in political science and a Masters in Islamic Studies. Furthermore, she is married to a Sudanese Muslim. Are these elements in her background enough to condemn her as an enemy of the Jewish State? In isolation no, but together yes.

I am sure that Karen AbuZayd is a capable and caring person who could do a terrific job all over the world, but not in the Middle East. If we had a UN spokesperson named Moishe who wore a yarmulke, I am sure that the world would not accept his positive statements about Israel as fair and balanced even if they were. We don’t leave our prejudices and sympathies at the doorway to our offices. In most cases this is not importatnt. However, when working for an organization that must serve as an honest broker and intermediary between warring nations, fairness and impartiality become paramount. Even if every phrase uttered by Ms. Abu Zayd were the truth, and there is much evidence to the contrary, for many of us her cultural background, family ties and education provide enough doubt to make us ponder if she is informing or propagandizing.

With Miguel d’Escoto Brockman as President of the General Assembly, and Karen Koning AbuZayd at the helm of UNWRA, Israel is now facing two enemies: one in Gaza and one on 42nd Street and First Avenue in Manhattan.

Pallywood, the Palestinian Hollywood

In the picture on the right we see a wounded Palestinian being carried into the hospital in Gaza. The picture on the left came later in the day and seems to show the same wounded person with a brown jacket, black pants and black shirt on the floor on the right side of the white covered casualty. His legs seem fine. To the right of the body we can see a smiling Palestinian.

In this three pictures we see child paraded from man to man, and in the bottom picture an additional victim is added.

Thank you Israellycool.com, LittleGreenFootbals.com.

Several websites have once again begun to uncover altered photos from Gaza that have been distributed by Reuters and Associated Press. This is not a new phenomenon. Many of the pictures that came from the conflict in Lebanon had been altered with PhotoShop and superimposed victims; dolls, smoke and other elements that contributed to making the shots more dramatic and Israel look more brutal. The problem now is compounded by the fact that virtually all the photographers hired by news agencies in Gaza are Palestinians who alter their pictures either because of sympathy to the Palestinian cause or because of threats to their families by Hamas.

I will post examples here, and will add them as I find them on the Internet. Please come back to this posting to see updates.

The True Meaning of Jihad

Muslims and their acolytes in the West have been attempting for long time to convince infidels that jihad means inner struggle rather than holy war.

Does anyone believe that this protester in Anaheim, CA is asking Hamas to fight Zionism through inner struggle? I doubt it.

President-elect Barack Obama describes the economy as "bad and getting worse"

From the Associated Press, January 5, 2009: President-elect Barack Obama describes the economy as "bad and getting worse."

Obviously this statement is designed to gain support for his economic policies and force politicians to vote for a stimulus package that when all is said and done will be the largest expenditure in US history.

In reality, Barack Obama should emulate FDR who in his inaugural address gave the "We Have Nothing to Fear Itself: speech. One of the things that presidents have to do is be cheerleaders for the county and in economic matters show optimism. Statements such as the one made by Obama today tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Someone should remind Obama how Carter's "Malaise" speech helped the economy.

Miguel d'Escoto Brockman and the Shame of the United Nations

d'Escoto embracing Ahmadinejad at the UN

Last week I had the opportunity to watch on C-Span a press conference with Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, current President of the United Nations General Assembly and anti-Semite extraordinaire. This U.S. born Nicaraguan diplomat and Maryknoll priest, as well as Sandinista, is well known for his leftist sympathies and for being a virulent critic of Israel and the United States. In the course of this particular press conference he again placed the blame for the current crisis in Gaza squarely on Israel. Even journalists questioned this unprecedented attack by a President of the General Assembly, who, in this position should at least give the semblance of impartiality.

Throughout his career d’Escoto has criticized Israel as an apartheid state, and called for boycott, sanctions and divestment as a method of fighting Israeli policies. In a particularly virulent attack d’Escoto accused Israel of “crucifying our Palestinian brothers and sisters.” This accusation, loaded with double meaning, brought condemnation from many Jewish organizations and a call for his outsting from his current position. Of course all these condemnations fell on deaf ears and he remains in his post. During Ahmadinejad’s visit to the U.N. he was warmly received by d’Escoto, who was also seen applauding Ahmadinejad and embracing him after his speech.

The United Nations is again moving into the ideological positions it had in the 70’s. A test of the Obama administration will be to see how Barack Obama, who in Berlin referred to himself as a citizen of the world, deals with this government of the world. One good start would be for him to join those calling for Mr. D’Escoto to be fired. I will not hold my breath waiting.

A U.N. School Used by Hamas

This video shouws Beit Hanoun Elementary School as is being used by Hamas to launch mortar bombs. Click here to watch the video.

Pilar Rahola

Pilar Rahola

Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist. She is a passionate defender of the United States and Israel and an indefatigable fighter against anti-Semitism. All these despite being ideologically from the left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America. She is the recipient of major awards by Jewish organizations.

I came across this speech and felt that it was worthwhile placing it in my blog. I translated it and assume full responsibility for any errors. If you want to visit her blog, you can do so by clicking here: Pilar Rahola. Some of her articles translated into English.

Why don’t we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona? Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam? Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan? Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel? Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism? Why don’t they defend Israel’s right to exist? Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism? An finally, the million dollar question:Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn’t care.

And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum I hear the left yelling with fervor: “We want freedom for the people!” Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria or Yemen or Iran or Sudan, or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.

The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don’t inform, they propagandize. When reporting about Israel the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against her. At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.

And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: “Our friends are the people of Iran, Libya and Venezuela, oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel.”

In another example, the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Or in my native city of Barcelona, the city council decided to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70’s and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel. And so on and so on.

This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic left, and on issues of the Middle East he is unequivocally pro Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the Middle East, and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it’s a symbol.

Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us will cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages. An yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israeli in the world.

And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.

Conclusion:

I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not as anti Israeli as my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel. To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.

As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles. Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.

The struggle of Israel, even if the world doesn’t want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.

The Muslim in the Airport Terminal

Once again we are bombarded with reports of a Muslim family being kicked out of a plane after passengers overheard them discussing the location of the safest places on an airplane. Given that they look Arab and that the woman interviewed was wearing traditional Muslim garb, one would assume that they would have been more sensitive to the concerns of their fellow passengers and refrained from discussing such topic. This is not the first incident of Muslims being denied the right to fly after being overheard discussing in airports subjects such as security and terrorism.

The first time this happened, I accepted it at face value, the second time too, but by now I begin to detect a pattern. All these incidents seem designed to offer Muslims millions of dollars worth of worldwide free advertising by the mainstream media. Go to an airport dressed as a Muslim Arab, say something that would scare the passengers, get removed from the flight by the airline, get interviewed by security personnel, call the press and BINGO. Immediately reports begin to appear on television, newspapers and magazines. The usual canards about America, racism, intolerance and Islamophobia are spread around the world. And then the apologies begin. The airlines apologize, the security agencies apologize, editorial writers wring their hands in agony. How could we have done this to such nice and innocent family?

Innocent my foot. Look deep into these stories and you will probably find an organized movement utilizing the same method to discredit the United States that is being used in the Middle East to propagate the image of victimhood. Remember the bombarded milk factories in Baghdad, the carefully placed doll in the middle of rubble in Beirut and the smoke superimposed by computer over Lebanon?

If I am wrong and those are innocent victims, then one word of advise to Muslim fliers. When sitting in an airport terminal discuss the superiority of falafel over hamburgers. You might get hungry, but you will reach your destination on time.

More Links From Boca Raton

Downtown Ft. Lauderdale. Decemeber 30, 2008


Downtown Ft. Lauderdale. Decemeber 30, 2008

Downtown Ft. Lauderdale. Decemeber 30, 2008

Sunday we are flying back to New York and Monday I will start writing again. Meantime here are another couple of interesting links.

Today, January 1, 2009, the presidency of the European Union is taken over by the Czech Republic, and already I see reasons for optimism. The administration of President Václav Klaus has been a staunch ally of the United States, a clear and rational voice in criticizing the “Greens” and global warming, and as this report shows, a strong supporter of Israel in this time of crisis and isolation.

Meantime, in Fort Lauderdale, a pro Palestinian demonstration with the typical vicious “nuke Israel” and anti American signs. Thank you Tom Trento for the report.

More voices of sanity on global warming. This time from Ireland's environmental minister.