How do morons get newspaper columns?

I was reading the Newark Star Ledger on the train today and saw an op-ed piece trying to rip the Bush adminstration for comparing Islamic fundamentalism to fascism. Since I think that the parallels are quite striking, I was interested in seeing how this liberal columnist would differentiate between them.

It turns out that this was more of a lesson in willful deception and misdirection than in any logic.

The anti-fascist oxymorons
Paul Mulshine

MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell was chatting recently with President Bush's counselor Dan Bartlett about the administration's recent effort to recast the so-called "war on terror" as a remake of World War II.

"Well, I think what you saw today, Norah, was a very specific articulation of the type of enemy we're here to face," said Bartlett. "What the sound bite you used by the president demonstrates is that the ideological struggle of the 21st century, the terrorist organizations that we're after in this war on terror, is very similar to ideological struggles that we faced during World War II when we fought Nazism and communism."

I ran this by Murray Sabrin, the Ramapo College professor and sometime libertarian candidate for various offices.

"What a nitwit!" said Murray. "These people are incredibly stupid. Now they're telling us we fought the Russians in World War II. You can't make this stuff up."

No, you can't. It's not merely that the Bushies have no idea who the enemy is in this current war. They can't even decide who the enemy was in World War II. In fact, they seem not to have the slightest clue to the history of that era.

Mulshine's main complaint seems to be that Bartlett said that we fought communism in World War II, during a Hardball segment, and therefore he extrapolates from this that the administration "can't even decide who the enemy was in World War II.." And he needed to interview a libertarian professor to make sure that, indeed, we didn't fight communists during World War II.

Unfortunately, if one looks at the MSNBC website, you will see that the quote is slightly incorrect:

BARTLETT: Well, I think what you saw today, Norah, was a very specific articulation of the type of enemy we are here to face. As the soundbite you used by the president demonstrates, is that the ideological struggle of the 21st century, the terrorist organizations that we are after in this war on terror is very similar in ideological struggles that we faced during World War II and when we fought Nazism and communism.

That little word "and" sure makes a big difference. I wonder if Mulshine will retract his entire column, based on this lie - and it almost had to be a lie, because unless he transcribed Hardball himself, he must have copied and pasted the quote from the MSNBC website and deleted the "and."

But let's look at the rest of his argument:

Later in that same interview, O'Donnell played a clip of Donald Rumsfeld:

"Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else's problem," said Rumsfeld. "I recount that history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism."

It is in fact true that in the run- up to World War II many argued the fascist threat was exaggerated. But here's the problem for Rumsfeld: They were almost entirely conservatives. The Republicans, chief among them Sen. Robert Taft, were isolationists.

"The president intends to get us into war," said Taft in October 1941. "He doesn't want it now, but step by step he'll lead us in."

It was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who were hot to trot against Hitler. The Republicans wanted to stay out of the war. It's not hard to see why. They were right-wingers. Up until Pearl Harbor, they thought the threat to America from the Soviets was greater than the threat from the Nazis.

But to hear Bush tell it, you'd think the exact opposite was the case. "The world ignored Hitler's words and paid a terrible price," Bush said the other day, ignoring the unpleasant fact that "the world" in question was made up al most entirely of conservative Republicans.

So Mulshine is not arguing that Bush is wrong, just that Bush is defending the actions of 1940's era Democrats and warning against the actions of the Republicans of the time.

He goes on from there, arguing that true conservatives would not act the way that Bush is acting. But he never addresses whether it is wrong to look at Islamic fundamentalism as the enemy, or as comparable to fascism - which is of course the entire point of Bush's latest talking points. In his rush to prove that the "Bushies" are morons, Mulshine completely ignores the real issue.

UPDATE: Mulshine answered my email with a transcript from the Federal News Service that shows his version of the conversation. He adds:

Note that even with the “and” the quote was nonsensical since there was no time other than World War II when we fought Nazism.

Without seeing the interview itself I cannot determine which is the correct quote. I have no reason to disbelieve his quote from FNS is accurate (one must subscribe to see it.)

Mulshine's note is weak, though, because in the context of "Hardball" (as opposed to a press conference or a speech) this does not betray a lack of knowledge of World War II and he based his entire column on the "fact" that Bartlett and by extension the Bush administration is ignorant of history.

I tend to doubt that the FNS transcript is as accurate as MSNBC's, but even if it is, the fact that Mulshine chooses to interpret it as an indication of mass idiocy of the Bush administration rather than a simple slip of the tongue in the heat of the moment during an interview speaks volumes about his interest in the truth.

And if he was interested in the truth, he would have acknowledged the discrepancy and offered to act as a reporter and find the actual tape, with an eye towards correcting his column. While I am wrong in assuming malicious motives to his quote, and I am happy to print his answer to me, I would have been far more pleased to see an indication that he had an interest in clearing this up, rather than implying that his transcript is more accurate than MSNBC's.

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Today's GoozNews

Today's GoozNews includes a selection of articles from Iran Focus, a very interesting news source:

The Supreme Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps accused the Bush Administration and the Israeli security service Mossad of ordering the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC.

“The events of September 11 were ordered by U.S. [officials] and Mossad so that they could carry out their strategy of pre-emption and warmongering and unipolarisation in order to dominate the Middle East”, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi told military commanders on Tuesday. His comments were reported by the state-run news agency ISNA.

General Safavi said that Iran was the leading force of the “Islamic world”. “The geographic heart of the Islamic world is in Mecca and Medina. But, the political heart of the Islamic world is in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is the flag-bearer of the front of Islamic awakening and the fronts of the awakening of third world nations”, he said.

He accused Washington of plotting a “cultural” attack on Tehran by setting up new radio and television stations broadcasting into Iran, supporting dissident groups, and stepping up intelligence operations. “Therefore, the armed forces must be completely prepared in order to combat any forms of foreign and domestic threats”, he said.

The IRGC’s primary task is to export the Islamic revolution to Jerusalem via Baghdad.

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one of many officials who stem from the IRGC.

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 05 – A man was hanged in public on Monday in one of Iran’s most volatile provinces.

The man, identified as Gholam-Reza Rigi, was publicly hanged at dawn in the town of Saravan, the official news agency IRNA reported.

He was accused of drug smuggling.

Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling.

Tehran, Iran, Jul. 29 – Iran will soon launch new women’s only parks in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran.

The City Islamic Council in Qom announced that it had put forward a plan to segregate four of the city’s parks.

In August, the National Women’s Council announced that a sex-segregated park was under development in the north-eastern city of Mashad.

The development of sex-segregated parks was given a big boost after hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guards commander, became Iran’s president. Prior to his rise to the presidency, Ahmadinejad was the Mayor of Tehran. One of his first decisions in the city hall was to order gender segregation on elevators.

London, Jul. 27 – A young woman is at imminent risk of execution by stoning for adultery, according to the international human rights group Amnesty International.

Ashraf Kolhari, a 37-year-old mother of four has been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for five years, Amnesty said in a statement on Thursday.

“On or around July 2006, she received the order for the implementation of her sentence, and is reportedly due to be executed by stoning by the end of July”, the rights group said.

Kolhari had an extra-marital affair after her divorce request was rejected by the court, reportedly on the basis that she had children, and therefore had to resume living with her husband, the statement said.

“She was sentenced on two charges; the first was for participating in the murder of her husband, for which she received a sentence of 15 years imprisonment; the second was for adultery as a married woman, for which she was sentenced to execution by stoning. Article 83 of the Iranian Penal Code stipulates that the penance for adultery by a married woman with an adult man is execution by stoning”, it said.

The woman wasn't executed in the end after human rights organizations made a stink, but the law is still on the books in Iran.

And apparently, adultery is a more serious crime than murder in Iran.

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Latest Israeli high-tech achievements

I have been hearing about "digital ink" for years but hadn't seen any real applications until now:

Digital billboards are the next step in the evolution of signage - displaying still pictures or video footage that can be updated wirelessly and remotely with different images for different locations and at different times. But until now, strong sunshine reflecting off an outdoor digital billboard has completely obscured the picture and dazzle passers-by. Companies have spent millions trying to overcome this problem.

Israeli start-up Magink went back to the chemistry lab to come up with new digital ink technology that actually uses sunlight instead of fighting it. The first network of billboards was erected by JCDecaux, the largest outdoor advertising company in Europe and Asia, on the boulevards of Cannes for the 59th Film Festival, and Magink's technology is soon to be seen on London's streets too.

"The concept is quite simple. In a few years from now, any surfaces that are in the urban environment will have something more than paint," explains Ran Poliakine, founder and vice-chairman of Magink, sitting in the company's Israel headquarters in the Neve Ilan Communications Center, just outside Jerusalem.

"They will have a pattern or design that will change, something more intelligent than paint. Many people talked about it, but what we do is for the first time achieving something that is actually working: the world's first full-color digital ink displays."

The uniqueness of Magink's technology is that it is reflective, just like paper. "If you have a laptop outside, it is difficult to see," Poliakine told ISRAEL21c. "The light from the laptop has to fight with the sunlight. But with a real book, the better the light is, the better you see. We are similar to printed paper but it is not static. You can enjoy the best of both worlds."

[...]
The molecules of this material are in the shape of a helix - a spring or spiral (like our DNA, which is two spirals twisted together). If the spiral-shaped molecules are lying down, light goes straight through them. But if they are standing up - and they can be standing upright or at various angles - and different amounts of pressure are put on these spirals, squashing them more or less, light is reflected, at different wavelengths depending on the pressure applied and the angle. Different wavelengths mean different colors, and this creates digital ink: sections of a billboard are squashed at different pressures and reflect different colors. Take this to the pixel level - each pixel's-worth of molecules is squashed a different amount - and you have a high-quality, full-color image.

"It is a breakthrough in terms of chemistry," says Poliakine.

The billboard is created by putting a layer of paste a few microns (a millionth of a meter) thick of this organic material between two sheets of something that conducts electricity, at least one of them clear, such as glass. An electric field is then applied which puts pressure on each molecule and determines its color. One revolutionary aspect of this is that once the electric field has been applied to get the molecules into the specific set of colors for a particular image, the electricity can be switched off.

"Energy is only needed again to change the image," explains Ben Shalom. "This means no power consumption at all."

A typical LED sign needs around 4000 watts per hour per square meter - Magink's digital ink, for full video display with the same frame rates as television, only requires 60 watts for the same time and area.
[...]
And this is only the beginning, says Poliakine. The palm and laptop computer market is something for further down the line, and, Magink's digital ink "could be used for smart homes, you could create the painting on the PC or another interface and the digital ink will recreate it on the kitchen wall," he enthuses. "It's not a big TV, it's 'paper'."

In the light of the major recall of batteries by laptop manufacturers, this looks very promising:

Scientists at Tel Aviv University have developed new technology to greatly improve battery performance and decrease the risks associated with the lithium-based batteries currently used.

Batteries are the bottle-neck for electronic devices' ability to operate effectively, the project's head, Professor Menachem Nathan told Israel21c.org. Mobile devices need more and more battery power, and consumers are seeking products that take the shortest amount of time to charge.

The demand has resulted in lithium-heavy batteries that heat to high temperatures, posing a fire hazard. "The problem we're dealing with here is the flammability of lithium batteries. There have been a few dozen cases - especially in laptops - of them bursting into flames," Nathan said. "It's not really a new problem. It has existed since lithium batteries came into being, but it's only come to the forefront when Dell made the recall - it became a bit more public."

"The development of our technology wasn't actually geared to solve the flammability issue - it was just a side effect. Our battery is simply safer due to its structure. We meet another demand of fast charge/discharge. With more and more powerful laptops, batteries are quickly discharged. And people are not going to wait a long time to recharge them, they want it done fast. So at the same time, it is recharging faster, and the way the battery is built works against flammability danger, making it safer."

The new "nano-battery technology" was developed by teams at Tel Aviv university over three years. It is made up of a number of tiny batteries positioned in such a way as to provide a large amount of electrical power without the risk of overheating. "We have thousands of miniature batteries which are interconnected," Nathan said. "The basic unit is a 50 micron diameter battery - about the thickness of a strand of hair. In comparison, the diameter of a triple A battery is about three millimeters - ours is .003 mm - about a factor of a thousand."

The nano-batteries have also proven to operate without a loss of capacity or stability after hundreds of charge/discharge cycles.

Nathan estimates that the batteries will enter the market within four years. The project is currently seeking interested companies to fund the continued research and production of the technology.

And what article about Israeli scientific achievements would be complete without something that will save lives?

Israeli team solves problem of reclogged coronary arteries
Sep. 05 - Restenosis (the reclogging of coronary arteries) affects as many as 40 percent of patients who have undergone angioplasty. Now biomedical engineering researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have suggested a revolutionary technique to prevent restenosis after supportive metal-mesh stents have been inserted by angioplasty. The technique, whose award of a US patent was announced on Monday, can also be applied to "any drug" that works best in a specific site of the body, including anti-cancer medications, the researchers say.

Angioplasty - a minimally invasive cardiological intervention in which a tiny deflated balloon is inserted into clogged arteries in the heart and inflated to open blockages and position a stent inside the weak arterial wall to keep it open - results in blockages in more than a third of patients. The cause is not new fatty plaques in the same spot of the arteries, as had been thought, but the growth of tissue in the endothelium of the vessel. Doctors regards this as a "tumor" that has to be treated with medication to prevent uncontrolled growth of the tissue. But anti-tumor drugs cannot be taken systemically to affect the whole body, because the growth is local.

In the new technique - the patient swallows a completely neutral "pre-drug" amino acid that causes no side effects and can be taken as long as needed. This amino acid activates a specific enzyme in a special stent, serving as a "factory" for the anti-clogging drug as long as the amino acid is consumed. The amino acid is a natural component of every protein and is contained in soya and milk products, among others, thus it can be safely consumed. The patient stops taking the amino acid six months after angioplasty, when there is no longer a risk of uncontrolled tissue growth inside the artery.

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Today's photo bias

I always browse the wire-service photos to see how the mainstream media are covering major stories. As readers of this blog know, this is a good way to uncover bias and worse.

Since the cease fire, I have seen a steady stream of pictures such as this one:

Lebanese youths are silhouetted as they climb on the shaded rubble of a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which was destroyed by an attack by Israeli forces during the 34-day Hezbollah-Israeli conflict, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006. The densely populated residential area was bombed repeatedly by Israeli forces during the recent conflict. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Notice the problems: dramatic silhouettes, small against the seemingly huge amount of rubble; a caption that highlights that Israel bombed a densely-populated residential area without mentioning that Hezbollah's headquarters were deliberately placed in that same densely populated residential area, or the fact that Israel dropped leaflets repeatedly warning residents to get out.

In other words, the only context provided by the caption writer is designed to make Israel look like it deliberately targeted people in a city. And the photographer framed the picture to give the exact same impression.

Here's something more subtle:

Lebanese men, who did not wish to give their names, stop their work to pose for a photograph as they redecorate a third storey apartment in a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which was damaged by an attack by Israeli forces during the 34-day Hezbollah-Israeli conflict, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006. The densely populated residential area was bombed repeatedly by Israeli forces during the recent conflict. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this photo from a news perspective. It shows people rebuilding, which is a fine and interesting topic. Of course, it includes the exact same biased caption that the previous picture did, but the picture itself is not framed to cause bias against Israel.

But there is still a problem. Israel suffered many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage as well, and the residents in the north are rebuilding their homes too. Thousands of houses and buildings were damaged or destroyed.

Where are those pictures?

They simply don't exist. Since the cease fire, we are still treated to daily images of Lebanese suffering, three-week old damage, and even funerals (which is very interesting, since Islamic law requires burial as soon as possible after death.) But the wire services do not find any parallel Israeli pictures to be worth photographing. Undoubtedly Lebanon suffered more damage than Israel, but for some reason the damage that was done as a result of targeting terrorists is considered newsworthy three weeks after the fact but the damage that came as a result of thousands of missiles deliberately targeting civilians is yesterday's news.

News is framed by the medium that captures the news. Wars fought without any video will not get the same coverage on TV as wars that include dramatic footage. Bias is inevitable based on availability of reporters, footage and photos.

But here, it is not that no AP stringer exists in Northern Israel. It is not that no equally dramatic pictures could be taken within the hour. It is simply that the media does not deem Israeli suffering and rebuilding to be newsworthy, today, while Lebanese suffering and rebuilding is worthy of dozens and hundreds of pictures - today.

That is just as much of a bias as purposefully posing pictures for dramatic effect. The goal is not to reflect reality; it is to shape it.

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Kofi wants more talks with Iran. And then some more.

The ineffectual leader of an ineffectual organization has just made another ineffectual statement:

The world should not isolate Iran over its nuclear program, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in an interview published Tuesday. Annan, however, said Tehran must take steps to reassure the international community that it is not aiming to build an atomic weapon.

"The international community should not isolate Iran," Annan told the Madrid daily El Pais in an interview during his stop in Doha, Qatar, after visiting Iran over the weekend.

Annan has made clear he wants a negotiated solution to the impasse, which deepened after Iran ignored an Aug. 31 UN Security Council deadline to stop its uranium enrichment program. That set the stage for possible UN economic and political sanctions.

Annan said confrontation with the Security Council "will not be in Iran's favor or that of the region." The UN chief on Sunday met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who told him that Iran favored talks over its nuclear program but would not halt uranium enrichment before entering negotiations as demanded by the West.

Like the professional diplomat he is, he allowed Iran to decide exactly what it wants to do and he then supports them publicly, as they defy the deadlines that his organization set. Years of stonewalling and lying and deception by Iran are rewarded by Kofi Annan, as he gives the Iranians exactly what they want - more time to develop the atom bomb.

One can be sure that after Iran's first nuclear bomb test, Annan will favor continued negotiations and assurances that Iran has no plans to use it against any other nation, except Israel. But only a small one.

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Today's Hezbollah staged photos (9/4)

Hezbollah cannot easily stage pictures anymore - there are too many reporters who can roam freely in Lebanon again - but some stringers sure seem to be willing to do Hezbollah's propaganda job for them..

Today's featured photogapher is Mohammed Zaatari, who contributes these:

Lebanese Kamila Hassan stands in the backyard of her house in the village of Blida, near the southern town of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 4, 2006, in front of parts of exploded and unexploded Israeli ammunition that her son Hassan has collected following the 34-day long Hezbollah-Israeli conflict. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

So her son collects bombs that have not yet exploded, she allows him to place them in her backyard, and reporters come over to photograph them? Nah, this doesn't sound contrived at all!

And, exhibit B:

Lebanese woman Zeinab Beydoun sits in her house that was damaged in an Israeli attacks during the 34-day long Hezbollah-Israeli conflict in the southern town of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 4, 2006. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Let's see - the fighting ended over two weeks ago, and she likes to sit in her house without picking up a single piece of rubble, or putting any plastic over the giant hole in her wall. (Or looking towards the cameraman who is inside her house.)

She must be friends with the revelers at tea party.

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Mazel tov!

To Soccer Dad!

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Leftist anti-semitism on Australian campuses

From The Age:

An unholy alliance

Barney Zwartz and Adam Morton

Anti-Semitism is reportedly on the rise across university campuses. Has political opportunism unleashed the devil?

Daniel Wyner is used to robust debate. A senior figure in the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, he moves around Melbourne campuses arguing for Israel. But he was taken aback recently when a Monash lecturer confronted him, almost incoherent with rage, and called him a Zionist oppressor and f---ing racist.

"He kept going on his rant and rave. He wasn't Muslim or Arab. He may or may not have been a member of the arts faculty, and I may or may not have followed him back into the office to find that out." The incident highlighted what many Australian Jews claim is a distinct rise in temperature on campus but the hostility has not come from Muslims.

"I've been at La Trobe, Deakin and Melbourne too. The problems, the anti-Semitism, the vilification we feel as students on campus are coming almost entirely from the left. The Socialist Alternative (a left-wing student group), they just latch on to a cause which isn't theirs to try to make it their own by twisting it," Wyner says.

Jewish groups claim some of the more radical left-wing groups are trying to exploit tensions in the Middle East to foment trouble on campus and increase their own numbers. An example, Wyner says, was the recent visit to Melbourne University by the Israeli ambassador: Socialist Alternative members disrupted the meeting and were asked to leave by the Lebanese students' society.

In Sydney last month, a Jewish student was pushed to the ground and others spat on. At Monash, a Young Liberal member staffing a stall supporting Israel was grabbed by the throat and threatened, while the table was kicked over.

At Melbourne University, security staff had to keep apart the Students Against War and Racism and a group of mostly Liberal Club members waving Israeli flags. Tensions flared, insults were traded and observers said only a handful of guards prevented the conflict becoming physical. The vice-chancellors of both Melbourne and Sydney universities called for calm, saying that while vigorous debate was acceptable, vilification was not.[Notice how even in this article, this paragraph was written as if the Zionists were equally guilty. -EoZ]

Grahame Leonard, the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, says July had the most anti-Semitic incidents since records began in 1945. At 141, the total was 60 per cent higher than the previous record.

"Generally it's low severity — phone calls, graffiti, hate emails — but there are some violent incidents. The big growth was in Victoria, and many of these incidents were on campus."

In Sydney some Jewish students feel so intimidated that they are wearing hats over their kippahs (skull caps). In Melbourne they are more defiant, but they are concerned.

"There's a real feeling of threat," says Deon Kamien, Victorian president of the Union of Jewish Students. "It's not something I can put in words. A lot of students who would feel very comfortable wearing a kippah or T-shirt with Hebrew words on it now feel they are being targeted as Jews — not supporters of Israel, but Jews. When they walk past socialist stalls (on campus) they are called f---ing Jews."

Kamien says that where previous conflicts have been about politics, this time it's turned racial. "The leftists have completely blurred the line between politics and religion and have misunderstood the situation. They've got hung up on the Middle East and absolutely hung up on Jews. What we are seeing is nothing more than anti-Semitism."

Jewish community leaders detect a rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout the West. They pinpoint a couple of key reasons: the inoculation effect of the Holocaust is disappearing over time, so that dinner-table anti-Semitism is re-emerging. People who don't like Jews feel more comfortable about expressing it.

Second, they say, Israel provides a convenient excuse. They accept that most criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, but say it can provide a convenient cover for attacking Jews generally. A red-line warning for the Jewish community is when critics compare Israel to the Nazis. You don't use a Nazi slur if you know what the Nazis did, and if you do know and use it, that's inexcusable, they believe.

...A Christian observer at Melbourne University, who did not want to be named, certainly thinks that's the explanation in this city. He says "Jew-baiting" is rising, as opponents try to turn anti-Israel sentiment to anti-Jewish. "Socialists bait Jewish students. The intention is to get Jewish students to fight back so they can use them. It's a deliberate incitement of people's emotions to generate conflict."

The Socialist Alternative tactics are outlined in an in-house publication.

Discussing an incident at Melbourne, when a socialist stall was overturned, Daniel L. says the best response is to "immediately make a huge fuss — denounce them loudly, screaming ‘you're a murderer, you support George Bush's war, you support killing innocent people in the Middle East, you're fascist scum' and so forth. When we did this it had a huge polarising effect with people coming up afterwards to show their support. Often this was from the point of view of freedom of speech, rather than a willingness to support fighting Israel. But that doesn't change the fact that it is excellent terrain for us."

One writer, Vashti, says "two young Lebanese guys came up and asked if they could beat up the Zionists".[But I thought that the Muslims were not involved? Were they Christians? -EoZ]

Daniel says of this: "They knew which side they were on and were willing to fight. We do not want to start fights with the Liberals ourselves, but if Lebanese people do it's a good thing and we're f---ing well with them."

...

Has the left used racism? This is being debated inside the left, as shown by an exchange in late July on a group email list run by the National Union of Students. Chris Di Pasquale of the RMIT Student Union wrote that Zionists at Melbourne and Monash universities "felt the need to reassert their racism and fetish for genocide and mass slaughter of Arab people", calling security and the student union to shut down socialist stalls.

National Union of Students president Rose Jackson wrote that this was a racist remark that would be extremely hurtful to some people in the student movement. While she opposed the war in Lebanon, "you do not need to resort to this type of distressingly hateful name-calling to show people that you are left-wing and radical. There will come a point (if it has not already been reached) where suddenly people in the left will feel they can get away with anything when talking about Israel and the Israeli people. Where no comments or insults are off-limits."

As she wrote, she knew she was inviting attack. She didn't have to wait long. Heidi Claus, the union's Victorian education officer, replied: "WHAT THE!!!!!!!! Rose Jackson you are an apologist for the racist state of Israel and fundamentally uninformed."

Claus claimed that the apartheid state of Israel was set up on the blood of the Palestinian people, and there would never be peace while Zionism or Israel continued to exist. It was Jackson, in fact, who was racist because she equated the Jewish people with Zionism which itself was anti-Semitic. She concluded: "I demand an apology from you for your racist filth and an apology to Chris and Socialist Alternative for your blatant slander."

And what would an article like this be without getting the Muslim side? Here's a textbook example of fictional "Islamophobia.":

Omran says there has not been a single report of Muslim students being intimidated, but Muslims are nevertheless increasingly frustrated. "They feel the world is walking all over them, that Muslim blood is very cheap, of less importance, that there's a blatant attempt to demonise anyone of Islamic faith by politicians or certain parts of the media. This can only lead to radicalisation, and we should look forward to more extremism."

As is inevitably the case, Muslim groups use real anti-semitism to play the victim role, even when they can walk around campus as proud Muslims without fear while the Jewish students feel they have to hide their identities. (The article does quote the Muslims as being against extremism, but the sense one gets is that this is more for self-preservation rather than ideology.)

The point is, though, that Jew-hating bigots routinely use Israel as an excuse to make their filth socially acceptable, all the while claiming that they are not bigots at all. (This was recently shown in Britain as well.) And instead of marginalizing this blatant hate, the Left as a whole has embraced this attitude, seemingly to recruit more to their side.

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Hot time in "Palestine" this weekend!

You'll need a scorecard for this one, but it ended up with 29 injuries and one death on Saturday:

PCHR's preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 20:00 on Saturday, 2 September 2006, a member of the Abu Nahia clan took refuge in "Diwan" of Sowali clan after he was beaten by members of the Barbakh clan. The incident was instigated by a dispute in the crowded Sea Street in Khan Yunis. Members of Barbakh clan gathered around the diwan, located in Jamal Abdel Naser Street, and threw stones at it requesting that Abu Nahia is handed to them.

Members of the Ministry of Interior Executive Force arrived at the scene to break up the dispute. A confrontation developed between the force members and Barbakh clan members. The confrontation developed into hand fights and rocks and empty bottles were thrown. The situation escalated into an armed clash that spread to the vicinity of Naser Hospital in Sea Street, and continued for 3 hours. During the clash, members of Barbakh clan burned a jeep belonging to the Executive Force that was parked in the hospital yard. The Executive Force brought the situation under control. Barbakh clan gunmen withdrew after the Executive Force detained two members of the clan.

The armed clashes resulted in the death of a member of the Executive Force called Khayri Abdel Aziz Abed Soboh, a 23-year old resident of Khan Yunis. He was killed by a bullet in the neck. Twenty-nine others were injured, including 5 children and 3 members of the Executive Force.[1] The injured were taken for treatment in Naser Hospital and the European Hospital in Khan Yunis. The injuries were light to moderate.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, a teachers' strike ended up with those peaceful PalArab bullets again:

NABLUS, West Bank - Masked militants trying to keep students away from school during a politically charged Palestinian teachers' strike on Sunday shot and wounded a 12-year-old boy.

Palestinian teachers began striking Saturday, the start of the school year, to demand full back pay and regular salaries from the Hamas-led government, which has been financially crippled by six months of international sanctions.

Most schools throughout the West Bank remained closed, some by force, as the strike continued.

At least three masked militants stood outside a school in the northern West Bank city of Nablus and fired in the air to keep children away, witnesses said.

Stray fire hit a 12-year-old boy, Issam Ghannam, in the abdomen, witnesses said.

Well, what do you expect? It was an accident! How often does firing in the air result in children getting hit, anyway? Besides all those weddings and funeral celebrations, that is. (And of course they were firing in the air - we have witnesses!)

We also have this incident I missed last week, where those renowned Palestinian Arab police decided to kill someone they suspected of stealing a car, so the PalArab self-death count since late June, that I am aware of, is now at 66.

Sounds like these guys are more than ready to build a state of their own! They obviously care about education, gun control and ties to their clans. What more can you ask?

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HH85 is here!

Daled Amos hosts this week's Haveil Havalim #85, and it is another great collection of the week's best posts in the JBlogosphere.

I am honored that two of my posts were chosen, and that was (as usual) withotu self-nomination. Although if I had thought about it ahead of time, I probably would have nominated my first post of the week, a rare non-political post.

Check it out!

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The Azzam video - prelude to attack?

DUBAI, Sept. 2 (Reuters) — Al Qaeda, in a video posted Saturday on the Internet, called for President Bush and non-Muslims, especially those in the United States, to convert to Islam and abandon their “misguided” ways, or else suffer the consequences.

The main speaker on the tape was identified as Azzam the American, an Islamic convert from California also known as Adam Yahiye Gadahn who is wanted by the F.B.I. for questioning.

In the video, he was introduced by Al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian.

The American, speaking in English, said, “To Americans and the rest of Christendom, we say either repent misguided ways and enter into the light of truth or keep your poison to yourself and suffer the consequences in this world and the next.”

The Counterterrorism Blog has a quick analysis, saying it is a prelude to "Future Jihad."

This is somewhat reminiscent of Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush, in which he called on Bush and Americans to convert to Islam, although not as explicitly. Nevertheless, as Jihad Watch mentioned at the time,

In a Hadith, Muhammad tells his followers to call people to Islam before waging war against them:

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)

In light of that, this letter could be -- but is not necessarily -- a prelude to an attack.

Perhaps we should look at this video the same way.

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UN to Israel: Guilty until proven innocent

Today the UN named a panel to investigate Israel for human rights abuses in Lebanon. But you need to check out the resolution of the UN "Human Rights Council" commission on Lebanon that started this panel to begin with:

[T]he Human Rights Council, among other things, strongly condemns the grave Israeli violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law in Lebanon; also condemns massive bombardments of Lebanese civilian populations, especially the massacres in Qana, Marwaheen, Al Duweir, Al Bayadah, Al Qaa, Chiyah, Ghazieh and other towns of Lebanon and the displacement of one million civilians; further condemns the Israeli bombardment of vital civilian infrastructure resulting in extensive destruction and heavy damage to public and private properties; further condemns the Israeli bombardment of vital civilian infrastructure; calls upon Israel to observe the principle of proportionality and refrain from launching any attack that may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life; calls upon Israel to abide immediately and scrupulously by its obligations under human rights law, in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and urges all concerned parties to respect the rules of international humanitarian law, to refrain from violence against the civilian population and to treat under all circumstances all detained combatants and civilians in accordance with the Geneva Conventions; and calls upon Israel to immediately stop military operations against the civilian population and civilian objects resulting in death and destruction and serious violations of human rights.

So far, this is a typical one-sided anti-Israel resolution. As can be expected from the joke that is the UN, the word "Hezbollah" is not mentioned in this resolution (although the press release contains what may be a Freudian slip: Lebanon told the meeting that the Government of Lebanon did it endorse the operations carried out by Hezbollah." Presumably they meant "didn't endorse.")

Also, notice that this Council goes way beyond the Geneva Conventions in saying that Israel, and only Israel, may never attack any other country if there is the slightest chance that an innocent person may be killed even accidentally. Even for the UN, this is breathtakingly bigoted.

But look at how this august Council created the panel announced today:

The Council also decides to urgently establish and immediately dispatch a high-level inquiry commission comprising eminent experts of human rights law and international humanitarian law, including the possibility of inviting the relevant special procedures to be nominated to the commission to, among other things: investigate the systematic targeting and killings of civilians by Israel; examine the types of weapons used by Israel and their conformity with international law; and assess the extent and deadly impact of Israeli attacks on human life, property, critical infrastructure and environment...

In other words, "We know that Israel (and Israel alone) is guilty of human rights abuses, genocide, ethnic cleansing, pedophilia, blasphemy, violating the entire Code of Hammurabi and eating non-Halal foods. Now we will launch a full investigation to see exactly how guilty you are."

And this is the organization that promises that it can be objective in its expanded role in Lebanon.

UPDATE: Maybe the UN really does believe that no one is allowed to defend themselves. (Hat tip Soccer Dad.)

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Nasrallah's "regret" rings hollow

Something does not add up.

"If I knew the process of capturing [these soldiers], even with a 1% probability, would lead to a war like this, and then if you asked me would you go and capture them, my answer would be, of course, no — for humanitarian, moral, social and security reasons," said Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of the Shiite Muslim militant group.

"You ask me if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."

What the MSM's forgets in the glare of the Lebanon conflict is that only two weeks earlier, Israel invaded Gaza for the exact same reason - a kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in Israeli territory.

Nasrallah knew this on July 11, of course. And it is hard to believe that his kidnapping was not in some way a reaction to the Gaza kidnapping - perhaps to humiliate Israel when the IDF couldn't find Gilad Shalit, perhaps one-upmanship towards the Sunnis in Gaza.

Many people are guessing what Nasrallah's speech means - it seems clear that it is at least partially a reaction to the Lebanese backlash against Hezbollah, as its claims of victory ring hollow to those hurt by the war - but what is certain is that, given the context of how this war started, he is lying now.

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The intelligence minister with no intelligence

The "Intelligence Minister" of South Africa, Ronnie Kasrils, has written another anti-Israel screed filled with half-truths and falsehoods.

Sometimes one can read these articles from respected government figures and conclude that they are just mislead or uninformed. This is clearly not one of those cases. From this and other articles, Kasrils takes at face value any wild Arab claims and dismisses any Israeli statements.

Some of his falsehoods:

In fact, from the onset, Zionism aimed at the dispossession of the indigenous population so that Israel could become a wholly Jewish state.

While there were some Zionists that felt this way, it is clear from contemporaneous accounts that the Zionist leadership did not want the Arabs in their territory to leave. This is a common lie used to create the "Israeli apartheid" fiction of which Kasrils is so fond.

With the illegal Jewish settlements, security road network and the construction of the monstrous wall around the militarily occupied West Bank, the remaining Palestinians are ghettoised within 12% of their original territory. This dispossession is reminiscent of apartheid and its 13% of Bantustan homelands. For many this is the fundamental cause of the conflict.

He fails to mention that before 2000, these Palestinian Arabs had jobs, good medical care, prospects for their own state, and a booming economy. Their decision to start a war with Israel, made by Kasrils' friend Arafat, is what made their lives hard. This simple fact is somehow never mentioned by those who like to throw "facts" around.

Lebanon, too, has been a part of Zionist annexation plans. Israel long regarded the Litani river to its north as its natural border, and constantly sought to turn the country into a Christian bulwark against the Muslims. It invaded in 1948, 1978 and 1982 and stayed in the south until 2000, before being driven out by Hizbullah. In that period Israel provoked civil war, connived in massacres, created a proxy army in the south, and still holds on to strategic farmland.

More lies than I can count, but briefly: No one ever considered Lebanon a part of modern Israel*, no one of importance ever wanted to annex it, encouraging the Christians of Lebanon to maintain their power is hardly "annexation", and the "strategic farmland" was never Lebanese. This paragraph makes crystal clear that truth is not on Kasrils' agenda.

What lies behind Israel’s latest aggression? Could such a disproportionate response really have been because of the abduction of two soldiers? There have been constant border skirmishes. Israel could have responded with local action or the prisoner exchange sought by Hizbullah. The dogs of war were let loose instead.

He follows this with paragraphs of strawmen and then "suggestions" of a pre-planned US/Zionist plot to take on Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. He utterly misses the point, which his friends in the Israeli peace camp understood:

When Israel did what the world asked, and withdrew to a UN-drawn border, that was still not enough for the Hezbollah terrorists. Their attacks proved that territory is not their incentive - it is the destruction of Israel. Those who advocate Israeli withdrawal from territories will always emphasize that if attacks continue, Israel would be justified in fighting back. Kasrils' paragraph above proves that this is just a lie - that no matter what Israel does to defend itself, it will be criticized.

Then comes the obligatory Nazi analogy, couched in terms to protect Kasrils from saying that he believes it himself:

Like Gaarder, we must call baby killers “baby killers” and declare that those using methods reminiscent of the Nazis be told that they are behaving like Nazis.

This is almost too obscene to comment on, but when Kasrils sees Israel stripping all Israeli Arabs of their citizenship, when he sees a government-approved Kristallnacht, when he sees Israeli gas chambers and crematoria killing tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs every day - then he might be able to spout such racist and bigoted garbage. Until then, it shows that he is a first-class supporter of terror and genocide against Israeli Jews.

(*Hat tip to Elie for correcting a mistake. See comments.)

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Hezbollah child abuse - recruiting 10 year olds as martyrs

MEMRI translated an article from an Egyptian newspaper that shows the sickening depths to which Hezbollah goes.

Don't hold your breath for Amnesty International to call it a war crime, or for the UN to call it immoral. They save such words for people they don't like.

Hizbullah Recruits Children Barely 10 Years Old

According to Roz Al-Yusuf, "Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000 innocent children aged 10-15 to form armed militias. Before the recent war with Israel, these children appeared only in the annual Jerusalem Day celebrations, and were referred to as the 'December 14 Units,' but today they are called istishhadiyun ['martyrs']..."

"Hizbullah has customarily recruited youths and children and trained them to fight from a very early age. These are children barely 10 years old, who wear camouflage uniforms, cover their faces with black [camouflage] paint, swear to wage jihad, and join the Mahdi Scouts [youth organization]...

"The children are selected by Hizbullah recruitment [officers] based on one criterion only: They must be willing to become martyrs."

The Children Train to Become Martyrs

"The children are educated from an early age to become martyrs in their youth, like their fathers, and their training is carried out by the Mahdi Scouts youth organization... [This organization], which is affiliated with Hizbullah, teaches the children the basic principles of Shi'ite ideology and of Hizbullah's ideology... The first lesson that the children are taught by Hizbullah is 'The Disappearance of Israel,' and it is always an important part of the [training] program...

"The Mahdi Scouts organization was founded in Lebanon on May 5, 1985... According to the organization's website, the number of [scouts] who had undergone training by the end of 2004 was 1,491, and the number of scout groups which had joined [the organization] was 449, with a membership of 41,960. According to the organization's most recent statistics, since 2004, 120 of its members have been ready to become martyrs.

"The organization's goal is to train an exemplary generation of Muslims based on the [principle of] 'the rule of the jurisprudent' [a founding principle of the Islamic Revolution in Iran], and to prepare for the coming of the Imam Mahdi [the Shi'ite messiah]. Its members, including the children, undertake to obey their commanders, to bring honor to the [Muslim] nation, and to prepare themselves for helping the Mahdi [when he comes]."

"A Nation With Child-Martyrs Will Be Victorious"

According to the article, Na'im Qasim, deputy to Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, said in an interview on Radio Canada: "A nation with child-martyrs will be victorious, no matter what difficulties lie in its path. Israel cannot conquer us or violate our territories, because we have martyr sons who will purge the land of the Zionist filth... This will be done through the blood of the martyrs, until we eventually achieve our goals."

TIME magazine mentioned the Mahdi scouts a few weeks ago. Wow, that salute looks familiar.

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