Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 13, 2009

Let's do some Gaza math

The PCHR just released a report saying that in Gaza, 960 of the dead were civilians and 474 were "fighters" or Hamas "police officers."

As we've seen, the PCHR is hardly accurate in its description of who is a civilian. But we can assume that their tally of women and children victims are accurate. So therefore this is a curious statement:

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR) investigations reveal that throughout the course of the assault, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) used excessive, indiscriminate force, in violation of the principle of distinction. This claim is evidenced by the disproportionately high rate of death amongst the civilian population, when compared to that of resistance fighters.

OK, let's look at the numbers, according to PCHR.

PCHR says that 280 of the victims were children and 121 were women. If we assume that none of the 15-17-year old "children" were in fact "fighters," which is clearly not true, and if we assume that half of Gazans are under 18 (the median age is 17.2) and that half of Gazans are male and half female, and if we further assume that there were 20,000 fighters, then according to PCHR's own figures:

"Combatants" and Hamas police were 35 times more likely to be killed than civilians.
Adult males were 8.5 times more likely to be killed than adult women.
Adult males were 7 times more likely to be killed than children under 18.

When the PCHR lists the dead's names next week, we can look at how many of the "children" were in fact males between 15-17.

Given that the terrorists were completely integrated into the civilian population, without uniforms, this is hardly evidence of "indiscriminate" force. On the contrary, it proves great care on the part of the IDF to target terrorists.

Parsing the PCHR a bit more indicates that they are not counting Hamas or Islamic Jihad members to be "combatants" if they were not actually shooting at the IDF at the time of their deaths. For example, it appears that if the IDF would shoot at an unarmed terrorist a minute after he shot a rocket into Israel, the PCHR would classify him as a "noncombatant." The PCHR made no attempt to determine whether any of the dead were members of terror groups, only if they were (what PCHR defines as) active "combatants." The PCHR also counts Nizar Rayyan as a civilian. The real numbers of terrorists killed is clearly much higher than what PCHR claims.

Putting these facts together, one can see not only PCHR's bias but also the fact that the IDF actions were anything but "indiscriminate."

[It is also interesting that between the end of the war and now, the PCHR death figures went up from 1285 to 1434, but the number of women went up by only 10 and the number of children stayed exactly the same. It is an amazing statistical feat that 139 of the 149 newly-discovered dead were adult males.]

Yes, anti-Zionism really is anti-semitism

I mentioned earlier that a new "Arab quartet" was started yesterday, with the leaders of Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait holding a summit to come up with a unified approach to Arab issues. And the only issue they mentioned explicitly was the "Palestinian issue."

Interestingly enough, when it comes to actually helping Palestinian Arabs, their Arab brethren fall consistently short.

While Gaza - an area proudly run by an unrepentant terror group who cheers the deaths of civilians - received pledges of some $5 billion to rebuild, another set of Palestinian Arabs who were caught in a war and who suffered (percentage-wise) much greater damage have been all but ignored by the Arab world. In this case, I'm not talking about the few thousand Iraqi Palestinians who lost their homes after being chased out of Iraq by resentful native Iraqis, but about the Lebanese Palestinians whose camps were destroyed in last year's fighting between the Lebanese Army and terrorists in the camps:

The United Nations has laid a foundation stone at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon to mark the formal start of reconstruction there.

The Palestinian refugee camp was destroyed in heavy fighting between Islamist militants and the Lebanese army in 2007.

Some 400 people died and 30,000 Palestinians were displaced.

But there is not enough money to rebuild completely, and some of its residents booed as work began.

As the first stone in the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared was laid, some Western diplomats admitted the occasion was not as positive as the organisers had hoped.

The UN's relief agency for Palestinian refugees (Unwra) has only managed to raise $43m (£31m) to rebuild the camp - a tiny fraction of the $430m needed.

Lebanon's rich neighbours in the Gulf have not delivered the funds they pledged.

Only 50m (165 feet) away from the VIP guests, several hundred Palestinian refugees booed from behind barbed wire.

Displaced by last year's fighting between the army and the Islamic militants, these refugees now live in the areas around the camp, surrounded by the rubble of their homes.

They say they worry about whether the international community will ever find the money to rebuild their homes.

But even if they do, Mahmoud, like many here, says it will not solve their problems in Lebanon.

"This is not life, this is not life. We need to change this country. We have no rights here, we have no rights. We need life. Where is the life? Here, no life."

There are more than 200,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, living in 12 camps across the country.

Palestinians have been here for more than 60 years - since the creation of Israel - but they are still barred from at least 70 professions, have no access to state education or healthcare, and cannot move freely or buy land.

Compared to the entire Palestinian Arab population of Lebanon, the war last year was far more devastating than the Gaza war was for Gazans. The average Palestinian Arab in Lebanon was five times more likely to lose their home and twice as likely to be killed compared to Gazans.

Yet the world pledged billions for Gaza and only a tiny fraction of that for Lebanese Palestinian Arabs.

What could account for the incredible discrepancy between the attention and money given to Gaza and that given to Lebanese camps?

When Jews are involved in killing Palestinian Arabs - no matter how justified their cause, no matter how defensive the actions, no matter how careful they are to avoid civilian deaths - there are cries of "genocide" and "holocaust." Europeans go out of their way to show empathy to the Arab victims. People contribute cash and aid. Nations pledge billions. Prominent politicians and poets and others rush to show their support. Everyone loves Palestinian Arabs - when they are perceived as the victims of Jews.

Yet when Arabs are killing Palestinian Arabs, the world sympathy for Palestinian Arabs dries up completely. No screaming headlines, no money, no charity drives, no European bleeding hearts, no Gulf states sending convoys of medical aid, clothing and building materials. No one castigates Lebanon in the UN for explicit discrimination against a minority group of 200,000, most of whom were born in that country, and their refusal to let them own land, take many jobs or become citizens. No boats of activists are being sent to Lebanon to bring public attention to a problem that really does need public attention. No countries say they will arrest any Lebanese officials who visit as "war criminals."

How much starker could the hypocrisy of "human rights advocates" be? How much more obvious can it be that a significant percentage of people who claim to care about Palestinian Arabs are, in fact, anti-semites who cloak their hatred of Jews in the mantle of "human rights"?

When Alice Walker, Lauren Booth, and George Galloway decide to visit Palestinian Arabs suffering under oppression in Lebanon, and they speak out about that oppression, then they can claim to be compassionate. When Caryl Churchill writes a play about Lebanon, talking about how Arabs pretend to care about their Palestinian brothers while actively working to keep them second-class citizens, then she can claim not to be anti-semitic. When the nations of the world decide to have a "donor's conference" to raise billions for Palestinian Arabs who have been victimized by their own people, then they can claim to be fighting for human rights and justice.

But until that happens, there is only one logical reason that all these people pretend to be fixated on Gaza, and it is not to help the Paletinian Arabs there. Deep down, they are itching to blame the Jews. They feel deeply that those Jews who are so sanctimonious, who claim to be the "chosen people," who claim to be moral, need to be taken down a peg. They love the delicious and manufactured irony of Holocaust victims turning into oppressors. The unfashionable hate of Jews has been replaced with the vary fashionable hate of the Jewish state and all its actions. Above all, they love to paint the Palestinian Arabs as the Jews of the 21st century, suffering under the Nazi-like Zionist regime, pretending that Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto with heroic Arabs fighting for their very dignity.

I know I am painting with a broad brush here. Certainly there are people who are honest in their criticisms of Israel and who criticize others as well. But the acid test of whether a critic of Israel is acting based on morality and not anti-semitism is by seeing what they say - or ignore - about Lebanon.

By that standard, there are precious few legitimate and honest critics of Israel.

(BBC article h/t Andre in the comments)

The Arab world isn't embarrassed at all....

I've mentioned many times before about the plight of Iraqis of Palestinian Arab descent who are stuck in refugee camps between Iraq and Syria. Arab countries have refused to help them, so the lucky ones are getting resettled in Iceland, Brazil, Chile, and Canada.

But one Arab country has offered to take all of them in: Sudan. In an effort to divert the world's attention away from the genocide in Darfur, Sudan has offered to house the Iraqi-Palestinian refugees, and the refugees are considering it:

A delegation of Palestinian refugees stranded on the Iraqi-Syrian border visited Sudan recently to discuss possible resettlement there.

The deputy head of the Refugees Affairs Department in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Muhammad Abu Baker, said that refugees from Al-Walid Refugee Camp went to Sudan in hopes of moving there.

Abu Baker told Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad that four representatives of the refugees met with a committee that is working on arranging the move to Sudan. The committee includes representatives of the PLO, the Sudanese government, and the UN High Commission for Refugees.

The delegation also met with an aide to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, Uthman Isma’il, and looked at examples of the mobile homes the Palestinians could move into in the capital, Khartoum.

Abu Baker explained that this visit came in application for a resettlement agreement between the PLO, Sudan and the UN. Under the proposed terms of the agreement the Palestinians would reside “temporarily” in Sudan.

According to Abu Baker, the Sudanese government promised the Palestinians that they will enjoy full civil rights in Sudan, including the right to employment. “The Palestinian refugees moving to Khartoum will live as Sudanese people do,” the report said.

With the obvious exception, that is consistent in the Arab world: no citizenship for anyone who can be called a "Palestinian." Ever.

Our of all the oil-rich Gulf countries, out of all the Arab countries who host hundreds of thousands of descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees, the only one that offers any semblance of help for these people is genocidal Sudan. Yet the PLO doesn't castigate the Arab countries - their caring brethren - for treating 2000-3000 people like dirt. Gazans live in luxury compared to these real refugees from Iraq, but there are no Arab charities helping them, no Arab calls to take care of them, no outraged international conferences about their plight.

The reason, of course, is because their plight has been created and extended by Arabs - and Israel cannot be blamed.

The Arab world does not betray even a hint of embarrassment about how they treat their so-called brethren, nor over the idea that Sudan is the only Arab country that (cynically) offers to help.

For a society that is based on honor and shame, it is notable that the Arabs have no shame at all when it comes to abusing their own.

Possible "honor killing" in West Bank

From Ma'an:

A young man from the West Bank town of Habla, south of Qalqiya, strangled his younger sister to death on Wednesday night before handing himself in to the police.

Qalqiliya police said the body of the 18-year-old girl in Habla. The police said that the 21-year-old suspect went to the police station in Qalqiliya and confessed to the killing.

Of course, the reason he did this must have been because of the "occupation," according to Amnesty International.

Together with a student being stabbed to death yesterday and a Gaza man being stabbed to death on Monday, the 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 53.

US Mideast policy based on wishful thinking

From VOA, about how the Obama administration is overhauling Mideast policy:

Senator Kerry says there has been a tectonic shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Kerry says the rise of Iran following the war in Iraq has created an unprecedented willingness among moderate Arab nations to work with Israel.

"So there is a new reality - moderate Arab countries and Israel alike are actually more worried together about Iran than they are about each other. As a result, they are now cooperating in ways that were unimaginable just a couple of years ago. The truth is that an international initiative to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is an essential building block of stability in the Middle East. If we succeed, Arab moderates will be stronger and Israel will be much more likely to take the risks for peace," he said.

There is no doubt that Arab nations are concerned about Iran. But they seem to consider something else to be their top priority. From the Saudi Gazette:

A summit here Wednesday by the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Kuwait saw the emergence of a new “Arab Quartet” that pledged the beginning of “a unified approach in Arab politics.”

[Their] statement reported by SPA said “the leaders consider their meeting the beginning of a new phase of relationships in which the four countries will serve Arab causes through cooperation and serious, continuous work for the welfare of Arab countries, and through a unified approach in Arab politics on essential causes, topped by the Palestinian issue.”

In fact, that was the only issue mentioned in the press release.

So on what does Senator Kerry base his thinking that the Arab nations consider Iran to be more pressing than the sixty-year old "Palestinian issue" that they themselves work assiduously to prolong?

Last month we mentioned that a child, during a live call-in segment of a popular Iranian children's TV show called Uncle Pourang, said that his stuffed monkey was named "Ahmadinejad."

Now it turns out that the Iranian leaders, whose sense of humor is so finely tuned that they find the Holocaust to be funny, were not amused - and they canceled the show after seven successful years:

The final episode will be screened next week after a successful seven-year run.
A conservative website, Jahan News, quoting "reliable sources," said the decision was prompted by the "high financial and spiritual damage" inflicted by live broadcasts. Stopping short of identifying the president by name, it highlighted an incident in which "a child in a live telephone line compared its doll to one of the well-known authorities and managers".
The incident is believed to have been the last straw following several other naive indiscretions by callers, which caused acute embarrassment and offended Iran's religious conservative mores.
In one instance, Farziayi was left open mouthed and groping for an appropriate response when, after asking a participant to hand the phone to his mother or father, he was told: "They are in the shower."

Maybe Hamas' "Pioneers of Tomorrow" will be syndicated in Iran to replace "Uncle Pourang."

A Muslim poem to women

Autotranslating poetry is always dicey, but the intent of this poem in the (relatively secular) Firas Press is very clear. I kept the parts that didn't translate.

The title of the article is "To every woman...."

The name of God the Merciful
From Imam Ali bin Abi Talib, peace be upon him said:

I entered and Fatima Zahra peace, the Messenger of Allah may Allah bless him and his family and peace

Found a strong cry cry, so I said: Here I come, my father, my mother, O Messenger of Allah, what Obkak?! He prayed

Allaah be upon him and his family and peace: "O Ali: the night a family saw me to the sky in the women of my

I remembered the agony of severe and just as I saw the severity of Amabehn

I saw a woman hanging her head her hair is boiling brain

And I saw a woman hanging herself and her throat was in intimate

And I saw a woman hanging Butdia

I saw a woman and eat her flesh and fire glow from beneath

I saw a woman and had to pull her legs shackled and had been highlighted by snakes and scorpions

And saw a blind woman in the coffin of the brain fire out of her head and thighs of her body is heartbreaking

Aljmaa and leprosy

I saw a woman and hold her legs in the fire

And I saw a woman cut off her body at the top of meat and Mwka Bmgard of a fire

I saw a woman and burning her face and hands and is eat Oamaaiha

I saw the woman and the head of a pig's head and her body and the body of a donkey by the AA of the body color

And I saw a woman in the image of the dog and the fire and the intervention of her rectum outside of her mouth, and the angels

Beating on her head and her body with excerpts from the fire

Fatima said: Suffice Kara and my eyes told me what was their work, and walking up to him and put God

This suffering, he said may Allah bless him and God and peace: Oh, my intention

The outstanding hair it was not covered [to be hidden from] men

The tongue was outstanding hurt her husband

The outstanding Butdia it was not for her husband's bed

The outstanding Berglha [she went] out of her house without her husband's permission

Those that eat meat Jsha it was adorned her body for people

The strain, which hands and legs shackled to a shed by snakes and scorpions, it was a few Ablution [not ritually washing in proper times]

Dirty saliva and not from janaabah Ngtzl and menstruation and do not underestimate the Taatnzv and prayer

The blind and dumb and Kherads they were giving birth to their husbands of adultery Vtalguenh Boenaq

Those that had lent money to the meat they were pimping Palmgard

The head of a pig's head and her body was the body of a donkey, it Nmamp Kmabp.

The picture of the dog and the fire and the intervention of her rectum outside of her mouth it was Ma'lep

Nuahh.

Then he said may Allah bless him and his family and peace: and angered me to a woman and her husband, a woman may Tuba

... By her husband ...
Ratified by the Messenger of Allah may Allah bless him and God and peace.

Please dissemination Hmaalrsalp oblivious to all the Muslim God may give
And to all Muslim believers, to stabilize the debt
Oh God, Oh God, I was led to

In other words, the poet saw a vision of women being horribly tortured in hell, and then Fatima helpfully explained exactly what the women's sins were that would make these punishments appropriate.

The funny part is that many of these sins apply to men as well (ritual washing, eating improper meat, adultery) yet only the women are singled out for the gruesome punishments in this poem.

No doubt this is because of the "occupation."

Bang your head against a wall before reading this

From IMEMC, also in Palestine Today (I couldn't find the Yediot article):

Israeli media sources reported on Thursday that Israel is planning to return to the Palestinian Authority light weapons and munition it confiscated during the so-called “Operation Defensive Shield” military assault Israel carried out in 2002.
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted a political official in Israel stating that Israel previously agreed to transfer thousands of light weapons to Palestinian security personnel.
The sources added that “it is not by accident that this decision was made after US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, visited the region”.

I can only hope this was a Purim spoof that was misinterpreted by the Arab media.

Amnesty blames Israel for PalArab abuse of women

Amnesty International just came out with a report called Challenging Repression, on the state of human rights defenders in the Middle East and North Africa. While the report does detail abuses of human rights activists in all the countries in the region, what it says about Israel shows once again that Amnesty has deep biases.

The most egregious example can be seen in this passage:

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the impact of occupation has been felt by women human rights defenders in a particularly acute way. Their long efforts to end gender-based discrimination have been thwarted by a sense that the primary need is to bring an end to Israeli occupation. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, stated after her visit to the OPT: “the deepening of the conflict in the OPT and the expansion of the tools of occupation has weakened the negotiating power of Palestinian women to challenge the patriarchal gender contract which has, in part, become a defence mechanism to keep the society intact”.

In a place where, as described by the Special Rapporteur, the “increased transgression of [Palestinian] land has left honour as the only viable ground for the preservation of societal identity – to the detriment of women”, women human rights defenders have found it increasingly hard to promote the principle of gender equality. Indeed, women human rights defenders who have advocated law reforms and supported victims of domestic violence have themselves been targeted by state agents and others. As a result, these activists have been gradually sidelined.

This is an amazing passage. Amnesty, without any evidence whatsoever, claims that Palestinian Arab men abuse women because they have no energy left for equal rights due to the oppressive "occupation."

You see, the reason that Palestinian Arab women cannot be treated equally is because the "occupation" makes it difficult for misogynist Palestinian Arab men to listen to their side of the story. The men need to abuse women as a "defense mechanism" - they have become so emasculated by the "occupation" that they have no choice but to take it out on their wives and sisters!

The poor Palestinian men, according to Amnesty and the Special Rapporteur, are doing a noble thing by abusing women - it is how they keep their "societal identity." If they would start treating women with respect, they would have nothing left - first they lose their land, and then they lose their very identities as misogynists!

The next logical step is honor killings.

Obviously this is all Israel's fault. If only Israel would do the right thing and give them a state, then the Palestinian Arabs would treat women just as well as their brethren in Egypt and Saudi Arabia do.

And of course, Israel is darkly accused of "targeting" women's rights advocates. No names given, no specifics offered, no idea what exactly is meant - but clearly Israel is no better than any of its neighbors in human rights in its "targeting."

Furthermore, this is the only part of the section on women's rights advocates that talks about abuse of women, something that is not in the scope of the report. There is nothing in the report about "honor killings" or anything similar; the rest of the section talks about human rights workers being abused, not women. Only when Israel is mentioned is the abuse of women mentioned.

It is a large report, and Amnesty is not sparing in its criticism of other countries. But this passage, and others in the report, show that Amnesty is hardly objective when it comes to Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

Why Arabs cannot understand Purim

What does Purim celebrate?

Wikipedia says "Purim is a festival that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them."

Judaism 101: "It commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination. "

Jewish Virtual Library: "It commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination."

Notice what Purim isn't. It is not celebrated as a military victory. Jews aren't celebrating the death of Haman and his allies. While Haman's death is an integral part of the Purim story, and it was necessary for him to die in order for his decrees to be countermanded, we do not specifically cheer Haman's death except as to its role in the salvation of Persian Jewry. From Judaism's perspective, it would have been preferable if the Jews had not been in danger at all (and if they would have repented on their own and not as a result of the direct threat to their lives.)

Purim is a joyous holiday in that it does not celebrate death, but the saving of lives.

Sometimes, war is necessary and lives have to be lost for others to be saved. Arabs tend to celebrate the (real or perceived) defeat of their enemies, and they assume that Jews are doing the same thing on Purim and Chanukah (and Yom Yerushalayim and Yom Ha'atzmaut.) This is exactly wrong: the Jews are celebrating their survival and, yes, their victory - but not the defeat of their enemies. The two are obviously related but the mindset is completely different.

One celebrates life and the other celebrates death.

Chanukah represents a spiritual victory more than a military victory; Yom Ha'atzmaut represents the revival of a millennia-old dream of Jewish nationhood on its own land; Yom Yerushalayim celebrates the return of Judaism's holiest city to Jewish control. All of these events would have been preferable had no blood been shed. The defeat of enemies is not what is being celebrated; that is a necessary evil, not a cause for cheer.

Though of course Jews take undeniable pride in military victories, they would prefer that the engagement never happen to begin with.

Arabs cannot wrap their minds around this idea. For them, military victories are proof of their manhood, a source of "honor," and, for Muslims, proof of their belief system being superior. Conversely, military defeats are shameful and indicate a problematic belief system, as why would Allah allow his people to be so dishonored? The point is the utter defeat - and more importantly, the humiliation - of their enemies.

This is why Arabs cannot understand Purim, and they cannot understand Jews. They project their own belief system and the honor/shame culture on their enemies. They cannot conceive that the defeat of one's enemies is not the overriding goal of an embattled and surrounded people. All of the vitriol heaped on "Zionists" about their supposedly racist and genocidal goals is nothing more than Arab projection of their own belief system on Jews.

And, as Adin Steinsaltz notes, there are only two ways for Jews to counter the anti-semitism of both Haman and Hamas:

The conclusion of this is that we only have two possible responses. First, we can do our best, as was done in the days of Esther and in other generations, to defend ourselves against evil and fight it. This needs to be done in any case, even if only to gain a respite from the outbreaks of hatred.

The second possibility is to laugh. Laugh not only about the defeat of our enemies, but also about the absurdity, ridiculousness, and inherent contradictions of anti-Semitism. The laughter does not mean that there is an answer, yet this is our way of declaring that we have removed ourselves from the irrational interaction of hating Haman. We laugh at Haman, Ahasuerus, and all their successors, because after all we shall prevail and stick around, and they shall become the subject of jokes.

This is what Purim is about - celebrating Jewish survival. Our enemies' defeats are incidental, and eventually comedic, but they are not central.

"Jews desecrate Al Aqsa Mosque" - by their very presence

At the end of an article about Israeli security in Jerusalem during Shushan Purim, Palestine Today writes:

In the region around the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque there is a state of high tension, uncertainty and caution that Jewish groups will enter the Mosque and desecrate its dignity and prestige.

They are not worried about "Zionists" taking control of the Temple Mount. They are not accusing Jews of impacting their freedom of worship. They are not saying that these groups will scrawl graffiti, or tear up Qurans, or throw stones at Muslims in the mosque.

To them, the very existence of Jews in the most holy of Jewish places is, in itself, a "desecration."

Freeman proves the points against him

Chas Freeman couldn't resist proving his critics correct in his withdrawal statement from consideration as NIE head:

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.
There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.

In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent. The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read. The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds. Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.
Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies. I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one else's, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself. I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.

Here is his statement - in context - blaming the nefarious "Israel Lobby" of a carefully controlled and centrally managed campaign on behalf of a foreign power for "libeling" him. It is yet another manifestation of the anti-semitic canard that the Jews control America. He has the audacity to say, publicly and in the pages of countless newspapers and magazines, that his anti-Israel statements are not permitted to be said in this country.

He says that he never accepted money from Saudi Arabia or China directly for lobbying on their behalf. That is probably true. Their influence on him may have been less direct (he clearly has business dealings with them) and it is possible that his reprehensible views predated his accepting business ties with them. But his hypocrisy is crystallized in this statement where he claims that he is only being a patriotic American by advocating pro-Saudi and pro-Chinese policies - yet when people advocate and lobby for Israel, they must all be working for a foreign government and cannot possibly be patriotic Americans.

This is the classic accusation of dual-loyalty, and if he wants to make it publicly then he has no right to be so insulted when others make the exact same accusations of him.

Beyond that, the campaign against him was no more virulent than that against any high-profile political nominee from any party. As ABC's Jake Tapper writes:

What's perplexing about this that so much of what critics objected to were Freeman's statements, in full context. His record was picked apart like that of any other controversial nominee -- sometimes fairly, sometimes not so -- but only in Freeman's case does the nominee make an allegation that a foreign power was lurking nefariously somehow behind it all.

But Freeman would no doubt dismiss this criticism - because, to him, Tapper is one of those dual-loyalty Zionists who are clearly paid by Israel to attack Freeman.

Purim Open thread

It is the first day of the Purim Open, and the crowd is hushed as Rabbi Weissschwartz is putting for a birdie...which is remarkable, considering that this is a tennis match.

Feel free to post any narishkeit in the comments.

UPDATE: Cool....I was quoted in James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" column in the WSJ Online.

MEMRI brings us another insane Egyptian cleric, who says that the girl on the Starbucks logo is none other than Queen Esther!

Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi, which aired on Al-Nas TV on January 25, 2009.
"Today, I would like to talk about the Starbucks coffee shop. Starbucks is to be found in Mecca, in Al-Madina, opposite the King Abdul Aziz Gate in Mecca, opposite the Al-Majid Gate in Al-Madina, as well as in Cairo. Starbucks is to be found everywhere, with this logo. This is the Starbucks logo.
"Has any of you ever wondered who this woman with a crown on her head is? Why do we boycott Starbucks? I will tell you, so you will know why you should boycott this company, and what this logo stands for.
"The girl in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther. Do you know who Queen Esther was and what the crown on her head means? This is the crown of the Persian kingdom. This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia." [...]
"King [Xerxes] gave an order that the seven most beautiful girls in the kingdom be brought to him. So they held contests and auditions, and selected the seven most beautiful virgins, one of whom was the Jewish Esther, whose uncle, Mordechai - or actually, it was her cousin’s brother - was a villain.
"It was Mordechai who hatched this plot. Esther was one of the seven girls brought before King Xerxes in the palace. When Esther, who was very beautiful, was shown to King Xerxes, she captured his heart, and he chose her to be his queen. He placed a crown on her head, and the crown you see here [Higazi indicates the Starbucks logo] is the crown of the kingdom of Xerxes, and this is Esther, who became Queen of Persia, instead of Queen Vashti."[...]
"Can you believe that in Mecca, Al-Madina, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait, and all over the Islamic world there hangs the picture of beautiful Queen Esther, with a crown on her head, and we buy her products?
[...]
"We want Starbucks to be shut down throughout the Arab and Islamic world. We want it to be shut down in Mecca and in Al-Madina. I implore King Abdallah bin Abd Al-‘Aziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques: It is inconceivable that in Mecca and Al-Madina, there will be a picture of Queen Esther, the queen of the Jews."

It saddens me that Muslim clerics on TV are so nutty as to make it impossible to spoof them. They always seem to come up with something even crazier than any comedian could credibly make up.

(h/t Sammish and Reuven Koret in the comments)