Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 20, 2009

Michael Oren as new ambassador to US?

Al Quds picks up on a Maariv report (that I couldn't find) saying that the current Netanyahu government is pushing Michael Oren, prolific author and historian, as the Israeli Ambassador to the US.

That would be very cool.

PalArab "moderates" for violence

Ami Isseroff uncovers an amazing editorial at Ma'an:

It is always better when people are honest about their intentions. Therefore, among the (relatively) moderate Arab voices, Ramzy Baroud's article deploring nonviolence (that's right - not a typo) is outstanding.

Baroud, who has been fighting the good fight to drive the Jews into the sea, pulls no punches and leaves nobody with any illusions. In an editorial published by the European funded Maan News service, Baroud expresses his dismay regarding the world support for non-violence. Let's not decry murder, says Baroud.
In recent history, many advocates of non-violence have been celebrated as modern day icons. From Ghandi to King, songs are written in their honor, their life stories fill the pages of our children’s history volumes as noble examples of which everyone must aspire to emulate. Holidays are instituted in their honor and around the world; streets and boulevards carry their namesake.

Why is it that the “establishment” goes to such great lengths to lift up these individuals? Where are the holidays commemorating the life and sacrifices of Malcolm X, where are the stories of Crazy Horse or Geronimo?
Yes! Finally someone said it. Gandhi and King are terrible examples for Palestinian children, who are supposed to be learning to kill Jews. I mean, why is there a Martin Luther King Day, but there is no Genghis Kahn day? The Unibomber doesn't get his own commemoration day either. Why doesn't the world honor real heroes of murder and genocide like Osama Bin Laden or Heinrich Himmler If Baroud had his way they wouldn't honor wimps like King and Gandhi.

Read the whole thing.

Roger Cohen: What, Israel worry?

Roger Cohen's obsessiveness with idiocy continues unabated. Now he is trying to say that Israel's fears are irrational:

How frightened should an Israeli teenager really be, how inhabited by the old existential terror, the perennial victimhood, the Holocaust fear and vulnerability from which Israel was supposed to provide deliverance?

Yes, Israel is small — all the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea is scarcely bigger than Maryland — and its environment hostile. This, as former President Jimmy Carter notes in a fine new book, makes it vulnerable. But as Carter also writes in “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land,” Israel has a “military force that is modern, highly trained and superior to the combined forces of all its potential adversaries.”

Cohen, and Carter, miss the point yet again.

Israel's concern isn't only for the nation to survive, but for its people to survive as well. Just because Qassam rockets and suicide bombings aren't an existential threat doesn't mean they are tolerable, because the quality of life is of paramount importance, not just "the state." The threat to Israel's people is an asymmetric threat from which the IDF's conventional strength becomes far less relevant. Ignoring that threat is rhetorical sophistry.

All the tanks in the world would not have saved the World Trade Center, and neither would have negotiations. Are annual 9/11's a manageable risk for the US? Are such fears irrational?

Cohen then papers over Israel's major legitimate existential fear:

Israel has the most dynamic and creative society in the region, one that does not convict American journalists in shameful secret trials, as Iran has just done with Roxana Saberi; it has never fought a war with Iran; and it knows — despite all the noise — that Persia, at more than 3,000 years and counting, is not in the business of hastening its own suicide through militarist folly.

Besides Iran's attempts to overthrow and take over the Middle East via Hezbollah, via influencing Syria, through agents in Egypt and by sending weapons to and training Hamas, they have a little thing called a nuclear program. Persia didn't pursue these policies - but the Islamic Republic does. And Islamic fundamentalists have the irrationality that makes the concept of suicide bombing desirable.

Perhaps Iran wouldn't directly shoot nuclear bombs to Israel, but how much of a mental leap does one need to imagine them smuggling nukes to Hezbollah or Hamas? How absurd is it to think that Islamists would happily destroy themselves and their people to hurt or destroy Israel? Isn't that their entire modus operandi today?

Cohen goes on to his familiar meme that the existence of Jews living in Biblical Israel is the real threat to the Jewish state, not Iran nor terror nor rockets nor the threat of an Islamist takeover of "moderate" Arab countries. To Cohen, the Jews should only worry about Jews who actually care about their land. Get rid of them, and the threat to Israel would magically disappear, according to Cohen.

In Cohen's bizarre mindset, the only irrational people are the Jews for being fearful that the much more pragmatic Islamists and Arabs will do something - irrational. Nah, that would never happen!

"Imam for Peace" wants all Jews dead

PMW brings us another genocidal sermon from the pragmatists of Hamas:

"Who is it that is leading the world today in the vicious, all-encompassing war against Islam and Muslims? The answer is clear: it is the Jewish nation. It is the Jews who today are leading the all-encompassing war against Muslims...

We, the Muslims, know the nature of Jews the best, because the Holy Quran taught us. The prophetic traditions explained at length to Muslims the true nature of Jews... Their war and their hatred for Muhammad and Islam is in their souls, they are naturally disposed to it.

Israel today lives in the heart of Arab-Muslim territory, and it is a cancer that wants to rule the world. Know, my brothers! The Jews' expansion today brings the dissemination of an ancient thinking...

They argued with Allah's prophet Moses; they wanted to kill Allah's prophet Jesus, and wanted to murder Allah's prophet Muhammad...

The Jews want to destroy every inch ... Perhaps their famous book, which they deny [its authenticity] - known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but we call it, "The Protocols of the imbeciles of Zion" - in this book, my brothers, the Jews set down their plan to besiege the entire world by land, by air, and by sea - conceptually, economically, and its communications, as is happening today...

The Jews' grandeur today, and their ascent to the world's throne, is because America, with all of its power, is ruled by the Senate, I won't say 'American' but rather 'Jewish' [Senate] ... The time will come, by the will of Allah, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth."

PMW notes that this preacher "participated in the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in 2006."

Good news for Binyomin Netanyahu - here's a Hamas member who recognizes Israel as the Jewish State!

Saudi Vice, episode 26: Blind Date

From the Saudi Gazette:

A first date turned into a disaster for a 40-year-old college teaching assistant who was arrested here Saturday for being in illegal seclusion (or Khalwa) with an unrelated woman, authorities said.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, known as the Hai’a, received a report of an unrelated couple inside a mall restaurant and rushed to the scene to investigate, a Hai’a official said.

When the Hai’a asked the man about his relationship with the woman, he showed them his family registry card, claiming that the woman was his wife.

The Hai’a officers then backed off, but they were not convinced. They kept a close eye on the couple.

The academic soon accompanied the woman to a mall gate. Noticing that she was preparing to leave the place on her own, the Hai’a officers stopped him and questioned his relationship with the woman once more.

That was when he admitted that she was his girlfriend.

The man was taken to the Hai’a office where he admitted that he was on his first date with the woman. He told the Hai’a officials that their relationship started through an Internet messenger service.

During the investigation, the man said that he had come all the way to Hail to meet up with woman as a first step toward marriage.

The man was then taken to a police station where he was detained. The woman was released.

Our heroes from the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice know how dangerous mall restaurants can be to the sanctity of women's virtue. Perhaps saying that khalwa means real seclusion is good enough for those Muslim posers in Dubai and Jordan, but our Saudi Muslim vice-cop heroes know that any man within twenty meters of a woman has the potential of ripping her clothes off and violating her right then and there.

And how do they know it? Because that's' what they fantasize about, 24/7!

Other episodes here.

Ahmadinejad: "Zionists control the world!"

More good news from Iran's president:

"Zionists impose their will for looting nations on the world by controlling the world's power centers."

The Iranian president further underlined that Zionists are controlling behavior of the western governments through propaganda and psychological warfare. "

From his mouth to God's ears.

Followup on Yemen "blasphemer" case

I mentioned on Friday about a group of Yemenis who burned the house and two cars of a man they accused of tearing a Quran. (No one seems to be concerned about the fates of any Qurans that might have been burned up in his house.)

Apparently, some of the vigilantes who set the fire were detained by Yemen police.

And this makes many Yemenis angry:

The Parliament on Saturday formed a committee to investigate burning and destroying a house for a man charged by his neighbors of tearing the Holy Quran and disgracing it.

Some MPs condemned incapacity of security authorities to fight vice in the country and focusing only on cracking down protests against any wrong doing or for demanding rights confiscated by powerful figures.

Last Wednesday, tens of people destroyed a house of a man in al-Hasaba zone of the capital Sana’a accused of tearing the Holy Quran. Four men were arrested over the incident.

MPs, politicians and social figures have condemned the detention of citizens over setting fire to the house and demanded their release and bring the man to justice.

That's right - the politicians aren't upset over the burning of a man's house by a mob, but over the possibility that he might have really torn a Quran and the detention of members of the mob!

By the way, since yesterday, the rumors now have added that the man's 75-year old mother ran a brothel. Yesterday she merely was accused of planning to replace a mosque with a nightclub.

Hamas shoots feet of Fatah members in Gaza

Things still aren't too peaceful between the Palestinian Arabs.

From Ma'an:

Unidentified gunmen affiliated with Hamas fired at three members of their rival Fatah party in the Jabaliya area of the northern Strip Thursday night, a Fatah spokesman said.

Fahmi Az-Za'arir said in a statement that the men were taken to Kamal A'dawan Hospital for treatment after being shot in the legs. They were identified as Khaled, Ismail, and Mus'ab Ad-Darduni, all from the same family.

According to Az-Za’arir the attackers drove off on a motorcycle toward the Al-Ihsan Mosque, “which is under the control of Hamas. “

Saeb Erekat not so "moderate" in Arabic

When he is quoted in the Western press, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat comes across as fully committed to peace and the "peace process."

In Arabic, however, he shows that peace is not at all what he cares about.

From WAFA:

[Saeb Erekat] said during his visit to the province of Salfit today, that there will be no peace without full restoration of our national rights, no peace with the presence of the settlements, and [no peace without] the return and compensation for refugees is a legitimate right to be the return of refugees and the creation of an international mechanism to compensate for the tragedy which they were subjected by the occupation.

In other words, Erekat is saying that unless the PA reaches its current maximal demands, it will keep supporting terror. Negotiations are not a give-and-take; they are a means to gain 100% of Palestinian Arab demands, no less - and if Israel doesn't agree, then there will be terrorism and war, fully supported by the PA, forever.

The current relative lull in terror attacks from Fatah is not because Fatah embraces peace; but it is a tactical move to gain concessions from Israel.

MEMRI translates an earlier interview of Erekat where he implies that the current maximal demands are only the beginning:

"It is true that the negotiations continued for many years, but don’t you know that President Yasser Arafat was besieged at Camp David and was killed unjustly, only because he adhered to Jerusalem, and because he refused to let the Israeli measures on the ground give rise to any [Israeli] right or any [Palestinian] obligation? The Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000, and two months ago, brother Abu Mazen [i.e. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud 'Abbas] could have accepted a proposal that talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank, but it is not our goal to score points against one another here.
"Our strategic goal, when we strive for peace, is not to do so at any price. We strive for peace on the basis of an Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 borders, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip geographically connected." […]
"There will be no peace whatsoever unless East Jerusalem - with every single stone in it - becomes the capital of Palestine.
[…]
"Our survival and steadfastness on this land, our wresting of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital - this is what we can achieve in our generation."[…]

Meaning that in future generations, they will attempt to take more.

And he reveals who has been "obstinate" towards peace:

Israeli prime minister Ehud] Olmert, who talked today about his proposal to Abu Mazen, offered the 1967 borders, but said: 'We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage, and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.' Abu Mazen too answered with defiance, saying: 'I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine - the June 4, 1967 borders - without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.' This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign…"

So while the Western press is fixated on Netanyahu's "hawkishness," darling Mahmoud Abbas has shown zero desire to compromise on anything, a position that Erekat fully supports.

This is the so-called "moderate" position of the Palestinian Arabs - a constant war without end as long as Israel does not fully capitulate, and then a lull to be followed by a new war to expel all Jews from "Palestine."

A tiny local story out of Yemen:

Tens of bearded extremists burnt and devastated a house belongs to a citizen called Abdulmalik al-Mansour in al-Hasaba zone today morning.

The attackers accused al-Mansour and his mother of blasphemy. They hold a meeting near the victims house, got a fatwa to execute al-Mansour and his mother and destroy their house. At 5 hour morning the attackers came from al-Eman university and from other mosques in the capital to burn the house, two cars and a motorcycle belonging to al-Mansour before they brought some bulldozer and started devastating the three-storey house.

This has happened few months after the establishment of the vice and virtue committee. The attackers accused al-Mansour of tearing the Quran and walking on it in the mosque. They also accused his mother Makyah of threatening to change the mosque into a nightclub.

The government did not interfere until the attackers did the job burnt the cars , the house and the motorcycle and destroyed the house. By then the security authorities swarm the devastated house under cover. However they did not arrest the attackers they rather arrested al-Mansour, his mother, and children and rest of his family to put them all in the prison of the investigative police.

Relatives of al-Mansour denied that he torn the Koran pages at any time saying that he was a good Muslim and usually pray in the mosque. They also shed sarcasm over the story that his mother threatened to change the mosque into a night club. “There is no night clubs in the country and mother Makyah do not know what the meaning of a night club is, she is a good Muslim but she doesn’t like Salafayeen and that’s why they burnt her house,” Makeya’s relative said.

The attackers claimed they had called on Sheikh ab-Dulmajeed al-Zindani who gave them a fatwa to authorize them kill the family and devastate their house. How ever newsyemen.net website said the website called on Sheikh al-Zindani’s office which confirmed that the attackers had called on Sheikh al-Zindani but said that he did not issue such fatwa.

Last week Some extremists from the same university burgled on to top of a house in al-Khaniq zone north east of the capital where they destroyed satellite dish , stabbing and beating its owner and his son whom they accused of directing the dish to a European satellite to watch porn movies. The authorities arrested some of the attackers but later arrested the victims and put them into the investigative police prison.

It sure looks like Yemenis can do any crime they feel like and get off scot-free as long as they pretend it was done for religious reasons. Pretty nice if you have a grudge against someone - you can guarantee getting that person arrested.

So did Jews pray at the Temple Mount?

I had mentioned on Tuesday that Arabs were freaking out about reports that Jewish groups were planning to ascend to the Temple Mount on Thursday to pray. It turns out that the Israeli police prevented all Jews as well as Muslims under 50 from going there to prevent any riots.

But Ma'an claims that something else happened:

Israeli police officers in charge of preventing extremist settlers from performing religious rituals near the Al-Aqsa Mosque were seen praying there on Thursday.

Settlers had earlier been prevented by Jerusalem police from reaching Lion's Gate near Al-Aqsa on Thursday, yet the police themselves were later seen praying there.

Ma'an's Jerusalem correspondent reported that police removed their uniforms, put on head coverings, and began to pray in the area shortly after preventing settlers from reaching the very same place.

Of course there are no pictures so it is hard to tell whether this really happened or is just an attempt at incitement.

But it shows yet again the bigotry of Palestinian Arabs as they threaten violence if Jews dare consider praying at their holiest site.

Notice also how they define "extremist" Jews - not Jews who want to destroy the mosque, not Jews who threaten to kill all Arabs, but Jews who simply want to pray.

The BBC looks at Jeremy Bowen

The BBC just released a lengthy report that addresses complaints about the accuracy and impartiality of Jeremy Bowen, its Middle East editor.

While the report did find that Bowen did breach its impartiality standards in one case and its accuracy standards in a very small number of cases brought by a complainant, for the majority of the complaints the BBC found that he reported fairly and accurately. (Briefly, the BBC found that Bowen's description of the Six Day War as "“The myth of the 1967 Middle East war was that the Israeli David slew the Arab Goliath. It is more accurate to say that there were two Goliaths in the Middle East in 1967" was not an impartial statement.)

One of the complaints, and the BBC's response, caught my eye.

Bowen, in a different report about the Israeli presence on Har Homa, referred to “the considerable number of Israelis who say that their country’s colonisation of the West Bank has been a national disaster.” The complaint mentioned that a majority of Israelis support settlements in some way and that the phrase "considerable number" was misleading and false.

The BBC's findings show its own bias:

The Committee considered that a “considerable number of Israelis”, did not suggest a majority or imply a figure close to 50%. The Committee then considered the evidence provided to it regarding this comment. The Committee noted that poll findings would suggest that more than 10% of Israelis disagree with the settlements, and the figure could be much higher depending on the precise questions asked. The Committee accepted that it was reasonable to summarise their objections in this way.

The Committee discussed how far it was meaningful to link the extension of Har Homa to Israelis’ opinions of colonisation in the West Bank, given that the Israeli public may distinguish between Har Homa and the West Bank. The Committee concluded that this fact does not alter the meaning of the sentence, namely that announcement that Har Homa would be extended led to consternation among those Israelis who consider the colonisation of the West Bank to have been a national disaster. The Committee considered that this sentence is logical and that there is no evidence that it is inaccurate.

The Committee did not feel that Jeremy Bowen was obliged to mention that the majority of Israelis were in favour of settlements, and concurred with the ECU in this regard.

In conclusion, this element of the complaint was not upheld as a breach of the guidelines on either accuracy or impartiality.

In other words, if 10% of a group believes something, that is considered a "considerable number." Of course, anyone who looks at polls can spin any poll using that criteria to demonize any group of people, because rarely does any poll show that over 90% of people agree with something.

To give a more concrete example, a poll of Muslims worldwide found that 6.5% thought that 9/11 was "completely" justified and another 7% found it "mostly" justified. (This is not counting the 23% who found them justified "in some way.") Would the BBC countenance a report saying that "a considerable number of Muslims justify the 9/11 attacks"?

And in terms of pure numbers, the 13.5% that find 9/11 fully or mostly justified represent over 150 million Muslims, which - by any definition - is a "considerable number," an order of magnitude more than there are Jews worldwide. Yet I cannot imagine that the BBC would ever use such terminology to describe Muslims, which would be far more accurate than the report referenced above.

The reason is obvious: the terminology "a considerable number" implies a number that is large enough to have political clout, at least 30%, and certainly not the 10% that the BBC has decided it implies.

So when the BBC cannot accurately note an obvious breach of impartiality, the entire process is a joke.

(Other posts about Bowen and his obvious bias here and here.)
(h/t Oyavagoy)

UPDATE: See Melanie Phillips.

Have a good Yom Tov!

Two more days of massive caloric intake, prayer, learning some Torah, wonderful afternoon naps and catching up on reading. To be followed by annual the frenzied trip to a local kosher Dunkin' Donuts to get some serious chometz after Passover ends.

So...for those who celebrate it, enjoy the rest of Passover! I'll be back אי"ה Thursday night or Friday morning.

Arabs can't stand Jews wanting to pray

Jews are planning to go near their holiest site and pray on a major Jewish holiday.

Naturally, this is making Arabs furious.

From Ma'an:

Israeli police have warned against demonstrations against a planned settler march ending in Al-Aqsa Mosque where prayers will be performed, sources said Tuesday.

Settlers have said they intend to enter and pray in the Haram Ash-Sharif compound where the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits on Thursday.

Palestine News Network puts things a bit differently:

Israeli extremist organizations are seeking to enter the courtyards of the Al Aqsa Mosque on Thursday.
This latest threats comes within the context of an outright onslaught on the Palestinian heritage, culture and population of the city.
In response the Palestine Liberation Organization has called for Thursday as a day “to defend Jerusalem.” A spokesperson at the PLO told PNN this afternoon that protecting the Mosque is of utmost import. It is hoped that Palestinians will form a ring around the Muslim holy site to protect it from further damage.

Now you can understand the rest of the Ma'an article:

Israeli police also handed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s Consult for Jerusalem Affairs Hatem Abdul Kader an official warning that accused him of intending to create a public disturbance by gathering Palestinians to demonstrate against a planned settler march.
Police said Abd Al-Kader was planning a campaign “of incitement” whose planned actions would “enflame the situations in Jerusalem” and said he would be held accountable for any mishaps.

Abd Al-Kader responded to the warning by issuing a statement saying the warnings should rather be sent out to the settlers.

The police said they would study the case and may only allow the group to visit the mosque and prevent prayers in the area.

Abd Al-Kader said he would welcome any decision to prevent the settlers from praying at the holy Muslim site. He stressed that he was only concerned about the holiness of the space and wanted to avoid any violence in the area.

So Jews want to go to the Temple Mount to peacefully pray. Arabs say that doing that is unacceptable incitement and they will act violently as a result. And then they say that they only care about the holiness of the area and want to avoid violence?

You may recall that in 2000, these same peaceful prayerful Muslims threw bricks from their holy area onto praying Jews below, claiming that the Jews and Ariel Sharon started the violence - by "provocatively" yet peacefully visiting the Temple Mount. And it appears that they are just itching to start a new intifada using the same hollow pretext.

As if more evidence is needed for the sheer bigotry of the current "moderate" Palestinian Arab leadership, earlier the PA cabinet condemned Jews going on the Temple Mount, and added this interesting comment:

Such [provocative acts], according to Palestinian cabinet, are attempts to divide the Al-Aqsa compound and impose a de facto as what they have already done in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in the southern West Bank. These procedures will end up in escalation in the whole region killing the peace process.

Reading ever so slightly between the lines, this means that the current Palestinian Arab government believes that Jews do not have the right to pray at their second-holiest site, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron! The fact that Jews pray there today is considered unacceptable but unfortunately necessary for the time being - but if given a chance the "moderate" anti-semites in the PA would kick every Jew out of Hebron forever and not even let them visit!

Is Muslim prayer ever considered incitement, or is it exclusively Jewish prayer - especially when the Jewish claim to every holy site pre-dates Islam itself by over a thousand years?

The vicious Arab bigotry needs to be exposed for what it is. It is not a defense against violence; it is an incitement to violence and an attempt to minimize any Jewish connection to the Holy Land.

It is also worth recalling that Arabs do not believe that Jews have the right to pray at the Western Wall either. They claim that this is also holy Muslim land and if the PA had its way, Jews would be forbidden from all of Jerusalem. This is not exaggeration; this is what they are demanding. They will tell the West that they will "compromise" and allow Jews to have access to their holy places, but they have said that before - in 1949, Jordan's armistice agreement with Israel included "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." Needeless to say, Jordan reneged on that agreement as soon as it took control of eastern Jerusalem. There is nothing to indicate that the PA, the institution that the West loves to pour billions of dollars into, would act exactly the same way if given the chance.

To deny Jews the right to pray at their holiest site is pure anti-semitism, pure bigotry. No amount of doubletalk about "sanctity" or "peace" or "status quo" can change that naked fact.

What scares the Arabs more than anything is when Jews in Israel start acting like Jews...because they know that their own Islamic claims are but a shadow compared to the Jewish claims to the land.

And this is why the idea of Jews praying on the Temple Mount makes them so upset.

The anti-jihad meltdown

I have been watching with increasing concern the blog war between Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs and Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch.

It is alarming because when two powerful players fight each other, the only loss is to the cause itself.

The details aren't important. Both sides and their supporters have already spent countless hours trying to dig up tenuous connections between the opposition and, absurdly, Nazis and Islamists. As so often happens in situations like these, eventually the hard-core get caught up in minutiae that casual fans quickly lose interest in, to the detriment of both blogs.

I have a simple rule to determine what people believe: read what they write and say. Don't make leaps of logic based on who they associate with. No two human beings agree on everything; that doesn't mean that they cannot talk to each other or link to each other in cyberspace or even say nice things about each other. If someone writes something that is bigoted or racist, call them on it; but don't start making assumptions based on their connections or their commenters.

I have read enough of Robert Spencer's and Charles Johnson's writings to say that they are both against bigotry and they are not racist. The accusations to the contrary are absurd and divisive.

I have also read enough of their writings to say that they are both right about the Islamist threat, period. That is the issue and everything else is a distraction. And today especially, we cannot afford distractions.

The silly game of accusations and counter-accusations has to stop. Disagreements can and should occur, but without the stupid baggage that turns them into wars. There is enough real scary stuff going on out there that wasting time on blog wars ends up hurting everybody.