Morning briefs/links

Yesterday, the PLO mission in Washington placed their flag outside their building. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), new Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reacted appropriately.

Raising this flag in DC is part of the Palestinian leadership’s scheme to manipulate international acceptance and diplomatic recognition of a yet-to-be-created Palestinian state while refusing to directly negotiate with Israel or accept the existence of Israel as a democratic, Jewish state.

IsraeliGirl interviews Professor Dina Porat about anti-Israel rhetoric, Muslim propaganda and anti Semitism. It is nice to see a pro-Israel blog move do MSM-style interviews, and IsraeliGirl has already done a few.

Backspin notes that Great Britain's bizarre advertising rules now seem to force the Daily Mail to advertise visits to "the Holyland," Jerusalem, Galilee, the Dead Sea - but never mentioning any country's name. My suggestion is the use "The Land of Israel" which is completely accurate and shouldn't run afoul of any rules.

Jenny Peto, the person who wrote a master's thesis with the general theme that all Jews are racists, says that the controversy over her paper has strengthened Canada’s Palestinian Arab solidarity movement. Now, one might wonder, why Palestinian Arabs regard brazen anti-semitism as beneficial to their cause?

Haaretz has a decent op-ed - by an Arab, naturally - saying that Tunisia will not herald any real change in Arab regimes:

The Arab world has a ready explanation for all its troubles: a Jewish, Zionist and imperialist conspiracy. Expressions of this conspiracy include distributing chewing gum that causes sexual arousal in women, an intent to corrupt Arab culture and society, and dispatching guided sharks to attack tourists on the Sinai coast in order to destroy Egypt's tourism industry. Spreading infantile tales such as these is a type of opium for the ignorant masses, who seize upon the "Zionist conspiracy" and fall into a stupor. In the Arab world, the "Zionist conspiracy" opiate provides an easy and safe way to avoid genuinely confronting the problems at home.

I didn't talk about "BraGate" but one can find opposing viewpoints from an Israeli Jew - on Al Jazeera's side - and an Israeli Arab! (h/t L. King)