Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Weasel watching

I want to thank those on the Watcher's Council who have nominated articles of mine for the weekly Watcher of Weasels awards. (Presumably, the nominators are AbbaGav and/or Soccer Dad.)

This week, I was nominated for "Archaeological Temple Artifacts Drive PalArabs Crazy".

Last week, I was nominated for "Very Interesting Arabic Editorial in Falasteen" (which Carl very nicely wrote about.)

I was nominated in the past as well, for "Abbas Is Now the 'Political Wing' of Hamas" and "The Perfect Weapon".

Though I haven't won yet, I appreciate the nominations and votes from the august Council members.

West ignores Qods Day threats in Iran - against America

From the New York Sun:

It is disturbing when the entire leadership of one nation, along with hundreds of thousands of its citizens, comes out with celebrations and parades every year that call for the annihilation of another country.

It is more twisted that no world leaders or international bodies, including the United Nations, have denounced the activities surrounding Quds Day, an Iranian holiday introduced by Ayatollah Khomeini that is marked on the last Friday of Ramadan.
Isfahan University's Mechanical Energy College took first place in a Quds Day competition for its design of a pilotless plane that can be used for "suicide attacks." The director of the Iranian Broadcasting Organization of Music Production, Mohammad Mirzamani, composed a symphony dedicated to "the victory over the Zionist regime," and the country's religious Web logs were told to report on all the festivities.
Iranian press outlets featured hundreds of photographs from the celebrations in Tehran. Among the notable scenes captured were children in Condoleezza Rice costumes; effigies of President Bush, Prime Minister Olmert, and Prime Minister Blair being lit on fire and dragged through the streets; the burning of American and Israeli flags; and hundreds of posters of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah featuring the caption "I swear to Allah that Israel is weaker than [a] spider house." The posters called for a boycott of such "Israeli" goods as McDonald's, Kit Kat bars, Intel, L'Oreal, Nestlé, Disney, and Marlboro.

Mr. Ahmadinejad delivered his Quds Day speech under a banner that read, "Israel must be wiped off the face of the world." He described the holiday as "a day for confrontation between the Islamic faith with the global arrogance."

The words "the Zionist regime is a cancerous gland that needs to be uprooted" were written in a communiqué from the Iranian Foreign Ministry in honor of the holiday. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held a meeting for other Islamic countries' ambassadors to Iran and told them that Israel's existence would be shattered and that death bells were tolling for the Zionists. At the meeting, the Palestinian Arab ambassador to Tehran, Salah Zawawi, said, "The day for the liberation of Quds Day is close at hand."

A who's who of the Iranian leadership marched in the main Quds Day parade before crowds chanting "death to Israel" and "death to America." The marchers included a former Iranian president, Mohammed Khatemi, and a spokesman for the parliament presidency board, Mohsen Kouhkan, who predicted a quick "final and total defeat of America and the Zionist regime."

The chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, praised "the fasting people taking part in the rally [who] are chanting slogans such as ‘death to America' and ‘death to Israel.'"

"The world arrogance and Zionism today are shivering from Muslim vigilance and are on the threshold of annihilation," he added.

Information Minister Hholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei explained that the holiday "is a proper occasion for people to declare their hatred of America and Israel," while a representative of the Islamic Consulate Assembly, Ahmad Pish-bin, promised that the "final defeat for world arrogance" is coming. ["World arrogance" is the consistent keyword for the United States. -EoZ]

We have a nation of 70 million people being incited daily to a holy war against America, but to refer to their leaders as "evil" gets nothing but smirks from the oh-so-sophisticated intelligentsia who patronizingly say that the world is much more complicated for simple concepts like "good" and "evil."

A couple of weeks ago, on Bill Maher's program, Danielle Pletka mentioned that Iran has threatened America. Maher said she was wrong, and that it only threatened Israel, and when she reiterated it he said "I missed that one," while Ben Affleck kept on getting crazed looks in his eyes as he whined that the world is "complicated". The audience was equally clueless - because the media completely ignores things like these massive rallies in Iran, or spins them as being only anti-Israel.

Of course, these same supposed sophisticates are targets as well. But they prefer to read the NYTimes over the NYSun, and any news that doesn't make it in the Times is not fit to print.

Hezbollah deputy: "Judaism is great, but Jews are pretty bad"

Good thing we have Hezbollah experts to clear up these terrible misconceptions.

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Sheik Naim Qassem, which aired on Al-Kawthar TV on October 17, 2006.
Interviewer: Do you distinguish between Judaism, as a monotheistic religion, and Zionism, even though many Koranic verses refer to the Jews in a somewhat negative manner? They are depicted as miserly and cowardly, as the murderers of the prophets, as people who violate agreements, as usurers, or as people who use corruption to achieve their ends. Do you distinguish between Zionism and Judaism?
Sheik Naim Qassem: When the Koran talks about the Jews, and says: "You will find that the people most hostile to the believers are the Jews and the polytheists," it is describing the general condition of the Jews. In general, the Jewish path in history is replete with problems, such as hostility, slander, schemes, and conspiracies, going against human reality, and so on. When the Koran talks about the Jews, it is not referring to Judaism. Judaism, as a divine message, is part of the holy writings. Therefore, when the Koran talks about "the People of the Book," it is referring to the Jews, the Christians, and others of the People of the Book. Therefore, today, when we face the Israeli entity, when I when we concentrate on Zionism, and we refer to this entity, which was established through plunder, and to these Jews who defend this entity, we do not mean to get into a cultural or intellectual debate, which might conceal the facts. Today, if we say "the Jews," some will say that we refer to the religion, whereas we are referring to the people called Jews. We are not referring to their religion, but to them themselves. Therefore we often use words like "the Zionists" and "the entity" because we do not recognize it to be a state, and we do not recognize that they have such a right. As you know, to this day Israel has no [official] borders. Therefore, we prefer to talk about an "entity" and not a state. We prefer to talk about "Zionists" and "Israelis," instead of "Jews," to avoid confusion. Yet there is nothing wrong with using the term "Jewish entity" when referring to the sinning Jews who cause harm to humanity.

Half of young PalArabs want to get the hell out

The current Christian Science Monitor mentions that one third of the Palestinian Arabs and over half of the younger PalArabs want to emigrate to somewhere else.

A growing number of Palestinians are openly saying they'd like to leave the West Bank and Gaza if given the chance, raising concern about the possibility of a Palestinian brain drain. The sentiment, which flouts the long-held Palestinian belief that Israeli occupation can only be resisted by staying put, is yet another indication of the deepening despair since Hamas was elected to run the government.

Birzeit University pollster Nader Said, who has monitored emigration attitudes for 12 years, says the percentage of Palestinians willing to relocate once hovered just below 20 percent. When that figure jumped to 32 percent in a September survey, Mr. Said says he was shocked.

Even more telling, adds Said, is that the percentage surges to 44 percent among Palestinians in their 20s and 30s. Among young men, it surges beyond 50 percent.

Malik Shawwa, a consultant specializing in obtaining Canadian visas, says his workload has jumped by two-thirds over the past seven months as more Palestinians ask about leaving. "This is the most important subject in the Palestinian territories," he says. "It's not just a matter of a lack of jobs. It's the situation. They're not secure. They don't trust the government."

It seems that a mere generation of Palestinian Arab history is not enough to instill a deep love of the land. (The majority of today's self-proclaimed "Palestinians'" families emigrated to the area from other countries in the early 20th century in reaction to the phenomenal economic growth as a result of the Zionists.)

As I have mentioned before, most PalArabs just want to live in peace and dignity anywhere, and their "leaders" have a vested interest in keeping them miserable and close to Israel because their goal has nothing to do with what is best for the Palestinian Arabs themselves and everything to do with keeping themselves in power and trying to destroy Israel.

As it stands, if Palestinian Arabs would be welcomed with open arms and equal rights in other Arab countries or elsewhere, a large number would emigrate tomorrow. The idea that they can only be in Palestine is a fiction designed to pressure Israel. And the entire Palestinian Arab media machine is dedicated to this fiction.

It is ironic that supporters of the terrorists will write long articles about the "right" of PalArabs to "return" to Israel but will actively work against their right to move anywhere else in the world.

UPI has a reading comprehension problem

In an interview in Der Spiegel, Mahmoud al-Zahar reiterates Hamas' opposition to recognizing Israel. He makes it very clear that he is against Israel's existence and even suggests that Jews all pack up and move to Europe.

But notice how UPI synopsizes a portion of the interview:

In an interview, Mahmoud al-Zahar acknowledged there were differences within Hamas on the issue of recognizing Israeli sovereignty, "But the big majority supports the resistance" to a two-state solution.

Notice what UPI puts outside the quotes - it thinks that "resistance" means political resistance to a two-state solution. (And the sentence can also be read to mean the exact opposite, that they support the resistance in order to achieve a two-state solution.)

Anyone who ever read anything about Hamas (or any PalArab organization) knows that "resistance" means "terror attacks" (as well as attacks against the IDF, as they never distinguish between the two.)

For UPI to downplay a Hamas official's clear threat to destroy Israel is reprehensible.

Haveil Havalim #90 finally out!

It may be late, but it is great!

Soccer Dad hosts this week's Haveil Havalim, collection of the best of the JBlogosphere. He also kindly included 2 of my 3 posts on "Qods Day."

Check it out!

Pseudo-scholarly Jew-hatred

It is worth skimming this long, boring and heavily footnoted article in the far-left "People's Voice" webrag. (It evidently also was propagated to Al-Jazeerah.info.) Written by Curtis Maynard, one of those people whose entire existence seems to depend on vilifying Israel and Jews in articles written for publications that will publish anything, it breaks no new ground, but it shows that Jew-haters will desperately try to justify their hate with an avalanche of footnotes that they think can substitute for thought.

The author starts off by admitting that the dictionary definition of anti-Semitism is indeed Jew-hatred, and then goes on to disagree with the definition because Arabs are semites. One wonders if he uses "awful" and "awesome" as synonyms.

The writer then descends into absurdity, where he reviews a book by Joseph Bendersky that describes the latent and explicit anti-semitism of the US Army in the first half of the 20th century. Maynard mentions some of the generals who made statements against Jews, including Patton, and then expands it to other prominent Americans who made bigoted statements as well.

Maynard then quotes a critique of that book that mentions the background of the Army's anti-semitic statements, putting it in the context of the times. In no way was the critique itself anti-semitic, from what I can tell.

But Maynard then goes off into bizarro land, saying that if this book was subject to scholarly criticism, then somehow Jew-hatred must be justified. He brings as "proof" the more recent letter written by "5000" Russian "academics" that recommended closing all Jewish institutions in Russia (it was in fact 500 Russians), and then he ends off his huge article with this whopper:

In the end, the reader should take into consideration the fact that numerous seemingly intelligent, educated and patriotic Americans have believed that Jews for whatever reason have accumulated a considerable amount of influence in the United States and elsewhere around the world in a variety of different ways, through banking, the stock market, the news media, government, etc… it is up to the reader to decide if each and everyone of them was a complete crackpot, crank, racist and/or anti-Semite.

In the end, this 7500 word article boils down to the argument that "thousands of Jew-haters cannot be wrong."

More tellingly, the cartoon that was used to illustrate the article subconsciously shows the truth about today's anti-semitism far better than any number of quasi-intellectual arguments:

Naked Jew-hatred still exists, today, in the US. And its proponents are not shy about expressing it and justifying it. Just like the expression "anti-semitism" itself was coined to create a pseudo-scholarly aura around what was simply hate, so do today's anti-semites use the pretense of scholarship to justify their poisonous opinions.

Anti-semitism as a career move

A well-known Jewish Israel-basher and anti-semite, Gilad Atzmon, has generated some controversy by playing jazz saxophone at a club in England.

Thinking himself hilarious, and perhaps showing some Borat envy, he created a fictional character named Artie Fishel who is his caricature of everything wrong about Jews. Artie believes that jazz was created by Jews and anyone who denies it is an anti-semite:

Artie: What do you mean? Are you a Jazz denier? Don’t you know that where jazz is coming from? Jazz is Jewish, Zwing is Jewish. Just get use to it. Do you want another Shoa, and then the another Schindler Liszt? Let’s stop right there. We ask for our music back, no more, no less.

Angie: But, Artie, jazz had its origins in America dating back to a time when former slaves were free to – never mind. Why don’t you introduce us to the musicians in the Promised Band?

Artie: Of course, I love to talk about us! I, myself, play the Zaxophon und Schwartzephon, what some people call the misery stick, what the goyim call clarinet. From time to time I zing as well. Hoy, I have such a beautiful voice, don’t you think so? Angie, why do you laugh? Don’t you like my voice? Anyway, you are an anti Semite. Actually I don’t really care what you think.

Angie: Come on, just get on with introducing the band, please.

Artie: On Droim we have Peter Foreskin. What a wonderful drummer! He is so violent, and angry, and aggressive and relax and quiet and he never, never, never misses the one, and even when he does occasionally misses the one, we always follow him, because we are so tune to each other. This is all due to our Kosher brotherhood. I tell you, once you go Kosher, Zwing is no torture.

Angie: And who is the bassist?

Artie: Hoy, Jaco Pastrami on the Boss. What a great player! The technique, the intonation, I tell you, he sounds like melting Philadelphia cream cheese mixed with smoke salmon.

Shimshon Gib Shoin on Gitoyer. Believe me, once you listen to him, you forget Hendrix and Clapton. Gitoyer is a Jewish instrument. It is noisy, but it can cry and break your heart as if a pogrom is going on.

Angie: Wow! Shimshon Gib Shoin is that good, eh? But the "gitoyer" is not a Jewish instrument, Artie.

Artie: What do you mean ‘not Jewish’? So what is it? Marrocan? Jordanian, Yeguslavian? Every people has its musical instrument so why we the Jews cannot have the Gitoyer? Aren’t we people like other people?

Atzmon is parlaying the criticism leveled at him from the Board of Deputies of British Jews into press releases and articles pushing his "Artie" album. Essentially, he is using his reputation as an anti-semite to make money, in much the same way that Holocaust deniers have.

And his anti-semitism and single-minded anti-Zionism is so extreme that other Marxists and far left moonbats have distanced themselves from him.

As the Jerusalem Post reported:

The Observer newspaper reported in an article in April 2005 that at a conference at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, Atzmon said, "I'm not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act." He also repeatedly spoke of Jewish and Zionist influence around the world and referred to the US as the "Jew-nited States of Jew-merica."

In April of this year, in an article called "Self-Haters Unite," he wrote: "It is always the proud self-hating Jews who transform Jewishness into an ethical message." "Jews are capable of anything. They run the show, they own the world, and they are brutal, monstrous cannibals," he added.

Sue Blackwell, a Birmingham University academic who led the 2005 campaign to boycott Israeli academic institutions, has blacklisted Atzmon. On her Web site, in the aptly named section titled "Nazi Alert," she has severed all ties to him, saying: "Some notorious far-right individuals and organizations are jumping onto the Palestinian bandwagon in an attempt to hijack the cause of the Palestinian people for their own anti-Semitic ends."

Atzmon also peddles conspiracy theories. In a 2005 address at the Marxism conference in London he said that MI6 and the CIA were there among the IDF units who "flattened Jenin Refugee Camp" in 2002 and that Israeli officers were advising the American and British armies in Basra and Fallujah.

The article goes on to mention that Atzmon has praised Holocaust-denial materials on his website.

In the case of pathetic people like Atzmon, Norman Finkelstein, Uri Avnery and others, it seems likely that their views have become more extreme over time as they see that the neo-Nazis and far Left embrace them so wholly (Jews who criticize Jews serve to inoculate the Left from charges of bigotry.) They literally become famous for their extreme hate. Fame feeds their egos and they keep going.

In this case, Atzmon decided that his career as a jazz musician would benefit as well from trafficking in anti-Jewish stereotypes. I don't know whether he is truly as ideologically far out as he says he is, but it is clear that when it comes to pursuit of money and fame, he is willing to trade on his Jew-hating reputation.

What is the truth in Beit Hanoun?

This morning, 7 Palestinian Arabs were killed and more injured in Beit Hanoun. The same story is covered in wildly different ways by different media.

Reading the PalArab news in Arabic, as usual, one thinks that the IDF just came to Beit Hanoun for no reason and started firing indiscriminately.

The PalArab English news admits that Israel may have been targeting some terrorists from the PRC.

Haaretz quotes PalArab residents who claim that the IDF opened fire on "militants" who were paying a condolence call. The terrorists fired initially at another family, thinking it was an internal feud, and then shot towards the IDF.

YNet quotes different PalArab sources saying that the IDF only started firing after they accidentally thought that gunfire between the two warring families were meant for them.

The Jerusalem Post says that all seven people killed were gunmen, including a senior PRC member responsible for rocket launches.

So what is the truth?

My guess is that the YNet account is closest, and that not all of the victims were from Israeli fire, based on a quote in Haaretz: "When the smoke cleared, seven Palestinians were dead and
some 20 wounded, a Palestinian Health Ministry official said, blaming IDF gunfire for all the casualties and basing his account on information from ambulance crews at the scene." The Palestinian Health Ministry is known to lie and will definitely cover up any internal PalArab fighting.

So in the end, we know that all seven of the dead will be blamed on Israel, and no one will bother finding out the truth since the propaganda is so much more valuable.

UPDATE: Haaretz now reports that witnesses said six out of the seven were armed.

WAFA: Arabic news completely different from English news

WAFA is the "Palestinian" news agency, and, like the "Palestine News Network," its webpage is available in English, Hebrew, French and Arabic.

And, just like with PNN, they actively censor any news in English that makes Palestinian Arabs look bad.

Today's example: The English webpage has articles about Israeli harassment of PalArabs at checkpoints, a story talking about how the Rachel Corrie play is a smash hit, and a story from ISM about a PalArab man who will not tell his kids that Israel destroyed their house because he doesn't want them to hate. All stories tailor-made for propaganda purposes to put the best possible light on PalArabs and the worst on Israelis - which means it is not "news" at all.

But when one looks at the autotranslated Arabic site, things get a little more interesting:

Masked gunmen killed 25-year old Atta Faraj in the Gaza Strip.
Unidentified gunmen killed Alaa Mubarak in Tulkarem, apparently a Hamas member.

Also, yesterday, "gunmen" on motorcycles killed someone who was autotranslated as "struggling Douglas" in Jericho.

Thanks to the Arabic news, we reconfirm that Palestinian Arabs violently murder each other daily, with no arrests, and very little coverage even by their own press (the Jericho murder wasn't mentioned in any other news source I could find.)

Our PalArab violent self-death count since late Operation Summer Rains began is now at 124.

"Palestine News Network": English vs. Arabic

The "Palestine News Network" publishes editions in English, French, Arabic and Hebrew. Interestingly, the article selection is different in different languages.

For example, the Arabic site mentions a wave of car thefts in Bethlehem. The English site does not (nor does the Hebrew.)

The Arabic site mentions the murder of a Fatah terrorist by "unknown masked men" and the violent reaction by Fatah against Hamas, torching cars and shooting at houses. The English site ignores that.

(The PalArab self-inflicted violent death count is now at 121.)

Archaeological Temple artifacts drive PalArabs crazy

A few years ago, in a major crime against history, religion and archaeology, the Waqf in Jerusalem excavated and trashed tons of material from the most valuable archaeological site on the planet, the Temple Mount. It was a clear attempt to erase any shred of Jewish history from the area so the Muslims can continue to lie about the supposed ancient mosques that they claim were there, a story that gets mosre insane with each passing year.

Since then, many volunteers have been sifting through the rubble, finding priceless antiquities. I quoted an article last year about it, and now more has been found. From Ha'aretz:

By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

The project of sifting layers of Temple Mount dirt has yielded thousands of new artifacts dating from the First Temple period to today. The dirt was removed in 1999 by the Islamic Religious Trust (Waqf) from the Solomon's Stables area to the Kidron Stream Valley. The sifting itself is taking place at Tzurim Valley National Park, at the foot of Mount Scopus, and being funded by the Ir David Foundation. Dr. Gabriel Barkai and Tzachi Zweig, the archaeologists directing the sifting project with the help of hundreds of volunteers, are publishing photographs and information about the new discoveries in the upcoming issue of Ariel, which comes out in a few days.

The bulk of the artifacts are small finds - the term used for artifacts that can be lifted and transported, rather than fixed features. The dirt was removed in the course of excavating the mammoth entrance to the underground mosque built seven years ago in the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount. The Waqf and Islamic Movement in Israel separated dirt from stones, then used the ancient building blocks for rebuilding, in case the police barred construction materials from being brought in.

Most of the finds predate the Middle Ages. The finds include 10,000-year-old flint tools; numerous potsherds; some 1,000 ancient coins; lots of jewelry (pendants, rings, bracelets, earrings and beads in a variety of colors and materials); clothing accessories and decorative pieces; talismans; dice and game pieces made of bone and ivory; ivory and mother of pearl inlay for furniture; figurines and statuettes; stone and metal weights; arrowheads and rifle bullets; stone and glass shards; remains of stone mosaic and glass wall mosaics; decorated tiles and parts of structures; stamps, seals and a host of other items.

The sifting project is precedent-setting: This is the first time dirt from any antiquities site is being sifted in full. Among the many volunteers are soldiers, tourists, high-school students and yeshiva boys. Visitors over the past few months have included ultra-Orthodox MKs and rabbis, who usually steer clear of archaeological digs.

When the dirt was originally trucked out, the late director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Amir Drori, termed it "an archaeological crime," and the attorney general at the time, Elyakim Rubinstein, said it was "a kick to the history of the Jewish people." Now it turns out that the dirt removed from the Temple Mount harbors thousands of small finds from diverse periods.

...The most striking find from this period is a First Temple period bulla, or seal impression, containing ancient Hebrew writing, which may have belonged to a well-known family of priests mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah.

Many other findings date from the Persian period (Return to Zion), Hasmonean, Ptolemaic and Herodian periods, as well as from Second Temple times. Second Temple finds include remains of buildings: plaster shards decorated a rust-red, which Barkai says was fashionable at the time; a stone measuring 10 centimeters and on it a sophisticated carving reminiscent of Herodian decorations; and a broken stone from a decorated part of the Temple Mount - still bearing signs of fire, which Barkai says are from the Temple's destruction in 70 C.E.

The project has also yielded artifacts from the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Early Arab periods. According to Barkai, the Byzantine finds radically alter the assessment that the Temple Mount was empty at that time.

The Muslim reaction in the Arabic papers is predictable. Notice his title, which may or may not be an accurate translation from Google of an al-Hayat article:

Sheikh Taysir Al Tamimi, the Chief Judge of Palestine, chairman of the Supreme Council for the Elimination of Forensic and preacher of Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi reports of the allegations and claims Israeli official in archeology found relics of the structure of Jews under the foundations of Al Aqsa Mosque in 1999, He described the allegations as sheer lie and a falsification of historical facts, If this claim is true for the established minimum and Agaadoha Since then, archaeologists have announced that the Jews repeatedly not finding any trace of their alleged temple, or of Jewish history in Jerusalem. Despite this, they decided to continue the excavations in order to undermine the foundations of the mosque and causing the collapse of its architecture.

"Supreme Council for the Elimination of Forensic?"

Notice the bald-faced lies: it was the Arabs who excavated under the Temple Mount, and archaeologists all agree that the Second Temple existed at that site (although there is still controversy about the First Temple) - let alone that the city was a Jewish city at that period.

Palestinian Arab TV is repeatedly broadcasting even more absurd claims, such as that no Jews were in the area until the 16th century and that the Western Wall was built as part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (which was built 11 centuries later!) And it gets even better:

In a previous interview with WND, Kamal Hatib, vice-chairman of the Islamic Movement, claimed the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built by angels and that a Jewish Temple may have existed but not in Jerusalem.
"When the First Temple was built by Solomon – God bless him – Al Aqsa was already built. We don't believe that a prophet like Solomon would have built the temple at a place where a mosque existed," said Hatib.

"And all the historical and archaeological facts deny any relation between the temples and the location of Al Aqsa. We must know that Jerusalem was occupied and that people left many things, coins and other things everywhere. This does not mean in any way that there is a link between the people who left these things and the place where these things were left," Hatib said.

These are the lies that get broadcast and printed in Islamic media every day, not to mention printed in their textbooks.

When truth is held in such low regard, how can anyone believe anything these clowns ever say?

A little more media bias

Omri notes the bias at the LA Times in reporting on Hezbollah firing cluster bombs all over northern Israel.

LAT was only slightly worse than most news outlets, and even the HRW report itself compares Hezbollah cluster munitions with Israel's:

“We are disturbed to discover that not only Israel but also Hezbollah used cluster munitions in their recent conflict, at a time when many countries are turning away from this kind of weapon precisely because of its impact on civilians,” said Steve Goose, director of Human Rights Watch's Arms Division. “Use of cluster munitions is never justified in civilian-populated areas because they are inaccurate and unreliable.”

"Not only Israel..." In other words, we expect immoral acts of war from the Jewish state, but we are shocked that our heroes in Hezbollah would lower themselves to that level!

While it is not known when and how Hezbollah obtained these foreign-made cluster munitions, and while Hezbollah used far fewer cluster munitions than Israel did in the recent war, the new findings raise serious concerns about the proliferation of these weapons to non-state armed groups, as well as states.

So the LAT was just taking the lead from a hugely biased "human rights" organization, that took two months to realize that damage like this was not caused by a crude Qassam-like rocket:

But the Gold Star for media bias in this case goes to AFP, who put this photo out on their wire in response to the report:

Members of the Mine Action Group (MAG) search for cluster bombs in southern Lebanon, on October 9. A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report has said that Hezbollah fired cluster munitions into northern Israel during this summer's 34-day war with the Jewish state.(AFP/File/Marwan Naamani)

That's right...to illustrate Hezbollah's use of cluster bombs they had to find a file photo of people looking for Israeli explosives.

I guess it would just strain their resources too much to call up an Israeli stringer to shoot a photo of a damaged building in Kiryat Shmona.

Happy Jerusalem (Qods) Day! - part 3: Jerusalem in Islamic Art

After scouring the Internet, here is every picture of Jerusalem that I could find from Islamic sources before the 20th century:

And here are a very tiny number of the pictures of Jerusalem done in Jewish art:

Wall painting by Eliezer Zusman Katz in the synagogue of Unterlimberg, Germany, 1739 (extant)

Wall painting in the Nicolina Synagogue, Jasi, Romania. The building was destroyed a few days after the photograph was taken

This MIZRACH - SHIVITI is an early American papercut,made in the U.S.A. in 1861. The upper frame contains a gate, presumably that of the Temple in Jerusalem. It carries the inscriptions: "This is the gate to God", and above it, in two separate medallions, "I have set the Lord always before me." As a Mizrach, it would always be placed o the wall of the house facing Jerusalem.

The Second Temple in Jerusalem, wood-cut from the 19th century.

From the 1695 Amsterdam Haggadah, the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Ahmadinejad threatens the free world. Isn't that cute?

The problem with the prevalent Western liberal attitude is that it cannot accept the existence of a fundamentally irrational player on the world scene. If one believes that all problems can be solved through negotiations, as the EU, UN and American Left do, then one must also believe that the other side is always rational and has the roughly same value system that you do.

So the head-in-the-sand crowd will always insist that if only we keep talking like civilized humans, the other side will act reasonably - because that's what we would do, and we are all the same under the skin, let's sing Kumbaya together in four-part harmony.

Ahmadinejad's outrageous pronouncements have become so commonplace that the Western press seems to be treating him more like an eccentric Kaddafi than a Hitler. Let's look at what is happening, just today:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called the U.N. Security Council and its decisions "illegitimate."

Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands gathered at a pro-Palestinian rally in the capital Tehran Friday that “Israel no longer has a reason to exist, and will soon disappear. The Zionist regime, thank God, has lost all reason to exist”.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Europe on Friday it was stirring up hatred in the Middle East by supporting Israel and said it “may get hurt” if anger in the region boils over.

“You should believe that this regime (Israel) cannot last and has no more benefit to you. What benefit have you got in supporting this regime, except the hatred of the nations?” he said in a speech broadcast on state radio.

“We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt,” he said.

"You imposed a group of terrorists ... on the region," he said, addressing the US and its allies. "It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

"Nations will take revenge," he told a crowd of thousands gathered at a pro-Palestinian rally in the capital Teheran.

Iran, nearing a confrontation with the West over its nuclear program, has developed a missile called "Zelzad 1." Its namesake is a Koranic verse that tells of a conflagration which precipitates Judgment Day. The missile is emblazoned with the slogan: "We will trample America under our feet. Death to America."

The fasting people taking part in the rallies are chanting such slogans as "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" to express their hatred of the world hegemonic powers.

By the way, the last sentence was repeated verbatim in no less than 11 different articles from the Iranian press.

So, we have a man who is openly pursuing nuclear weapons, openly threatening the Western world and openly laughing while the EU and UN continues to try to "negotiate" with him, buying him all the time he needs to turn Iran into a superpower.

He also knows that by repeating his ideas about Israel and America over and over again, he will get gullible "open-minded" Westerners to eventually think, "Say, let's investigate if what he says is true." It is not a huge leap from Ahmadinejad's words to those of Walt and Mearsheimer.

Ahmadinejad's threats cannily exploit the Left's fear of conflict. If supporting Israel will inevitably lead to war, and war is to be avoided at all costs, then maybe it is better not to support Israel. All the pseudo-intellectual anti-Zionist rationalizations follow from the primal fear of conflict. The Left's antipathy towards Israel is not from naked anti-semitism nearly as much as out of this fear.

It is another variant of the century-old threat of the mythical "Arab street" which worked so effectively with Britain and its White Paper as to result in the deaths of untold thousands or millions.

Oh, we will talk a good game, saying how unacceptable it is for Iran's president to speak like this. But we won't actually do anything, just as we didn't do anything about North Korea despite a decade of warning.

Short-term self-interest of the West is the greatest ally that Ahmadinejad has.