Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

The most moral army in history

The world is not shy about complaining about Israel's supposed barbarity as it fights against those who want to destroy every Jewish man, woman and child in the Middle East. Israel should not be shy about letting the world know that no army in history had ever cared more about protecting enemy civilians during wartime than Israel.

A Palestinian child and two teens, ages 10, 15 and 16, were killed in Monday’s Israel Air Force attack in Gaza, along with two Islamic Jihad members. Children were also among those wounded in the strike.

Security sources said that while the attack will be investigated, the targeted killings will continue, and IDF officials said there is a significant drop in the number of innocent civilians hurt during the army’s anti-terror operations.

Commander in Chief of the Israel Air Force, Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shakedi, said Tuesday that the Air Force has been successful in reducing the number of civilian deaths in targeted killing operations, stating that in 2005 one civilian was killed in every 28 attacks, as opposed to 2003, when a civilian was killed once in every 12 IAF targeted killing operation.

Speaking at a Tel Aviv University conference titled “Aerial Strength,” Shakedi said, “We are making every effort so innocent civilians will not be harmed, but nothing can be guaranteed here. This is a war with weapons involved.”

During his speech Shakedi presented a number of videos displaying accurate Air Force strikes in Gaza, during which no innocent civilians were harmed. He added that Air Force attacks are accountable for the deaths of 54 percent of all terrorists killed in 2006, a significant rise from years past.

Only one in every 28 aerial attacks end up with a civilian killed? That is not just interesting, it is astonishing. Even the one in 12 in 2003 is unprecedented in history.

The modern rules of war were written only in the last century. Until then, civilians were not protected at all. But Israel goes way beyond Geneva, in fighting a war against an enemy that ignores Geneva altogether. (By the way, reading the Conventions is a worthwhile exercise - the Israel-bashers deliberately use the language of Geneva when blaming Israel for imagined war crimes.)

Some wars are moral. Israel's war against Arab terrorists is one of them. But what is extraordinary is not the justice of the fight, but the lengths that Israel goes to protect the general population of the enemy, even while the enemy uses that very same Jewish morality against Israel by deliberately hiding among the civilians they pretend to defend.

And it is clear that Israel is still innovating methods of reducing collateral damage even beyond the accomplishments made so far.

Israel's friends should not be defensive when the IDF and IAF are accused of atrocities. They should be pro-active in showing the hypocrisy of a world that demands perfection from Jews when no one - not Americans, not Canadians, not the French or British - have ever fought a war with as much care about the enemy's civilian population. Ever.

While on the Hollywood topic....

A very good article on the same theme from National Review Online:

Prior to and during Sunday night’s Academy Awards, Hollywood luminaries were busy patting themselves on the back for their courage in honoring films depicting two gay cowboys as star-crossed lovers, a gay writer as a soulful artist, a transsexual as a responsible parent, a Palestinian suicide bomber as a thoughtful, conscience-driven activist, greedy oil company executives as, well, greedy oil company executives, and Senator Joe McCarthy as (gasp) a threat to American civil liberties. As George Clooney, who had a hand in both the oil-industry-bashing Syriana and the McCarthy-bashing Good Night, and Good Luck, recently noted, “People in Hollywood do seem to be getting more comfortable with making these sorts of movies now. People are becoming braver."

No doubt about it. Hollywood is now ready to tackle any subject. With that in mind, I’d like to propose a handful of titles for next year.

Che, the Later Years: Following on the success of The Motorcycle Diaries, this sequel would pick up with Che Guevara’s life after he joined forces with Fidel Castro in Cuba. It would include scenes of Che presiding over firing squads after the overthrow of the Batista government and setting up Cuba’s labor-camp system, which was used to imprison not only enemies of the revolution and political dissidents but homosexuals and (later) AIDS victims. The film would also highlight Che’s literary growth from a casual diarist to a political theorist: “Hatred as an element of struggle, unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine — this is what our soldiers must become . . .”

The Jihad Momani Gesture: The film would cover one week in the life of the unfortunately named Jordanian newspaper editor, who, during the Islamic cartoon riots earlier this year, was fired for reprinting the offending images of Mohammad: “I was trying to calm [the rioters] down,” he explained, “to tell them these cartoons are not the end of the world, that insults have happened before and will happen again. The cartoons are silly. They don’t deserve such an intense reaction.” Two days after his firing he was arrested. He currently faces three years in prison for violating Jordan’s press law, which outlaws insults to Islam.

Brokeback Sharia: This would be a tearjerker about true love in the face of social conformity and family pressure in the grand Hollywood tradition of Titanic and, well, Brokeback Mountain. It would recount the doomed affair of two gay Iranian teenagers who fell in love in the summer of 2005, were arrested by the religious police, then publicly hanged to death for the crime of homosexuality.

The Uneasy Rest of Jesse Dirkhising: A graphic horror film, along the lines of Silence of the Lambs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it would tell the story of the last hours of young Jesse’s life — a life that ended in September 1999 when he was abducted by two gay men, Joshua Brown, 22, and David Don Carpenter, 38, who drugged the 13-year-old, bound him with duct tape and gagged him with his own underwear, sodomized him with foreign objects, and repeatedly raped him. They administered an enema of Brown’s urine, then took a break and went to the kitchen for sandwiches. The seventh grader stopped breathing while they snacked. He died of suffocation.

Ambush at Gush Katif: This film would dramatize the 2004 roadside attack in Gaza on a car driven by Israeli social worker and expectant mother Tali Hatuel. Two Palestinian gunmen rushed the vehicle and discovered that the driver was a pregnant woman — whereupon they pumped bullets into her stomach and face . . . and then pumped bullets into the face of her 11-year-old daughter . . . and into the face of her nine-year-old daughter . . . and into the face of her seven-year-old daughter . . . and into the face of her two-year-old daughter. The attackers were eventually shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. The next day, two Palestinian organizations, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committee, both claimed credit for the attack, and the official Voice of Palestine Radio called it a “heroic operation.” As an epilogue, the film would segue to the funeral for Hatuel and her daughters — which was interrupted when two more Palestinian gunmen, disguised as women, made it to the perimeter of the cemetery and opened fire on the mourners, including women and young children, who were sent scrambling behind parked cars and concrete barriers. Both gunmen were again shot dead by Israeli soldiers on hand to protect the crowd . . . and Islamic Jihad again claimed credit for the incident.

True, none of these films would likely be a runway box-office hit. But that shouldn’t matter to a courageous artist like George Clooney. They’d be truthful. And that’s what really counts, isn’t it?
So how about it George? Ready to break out the checkbook for any of these babies?

Fighting for the honor of a female camel

This is one of the more novel defenses of insane Muslim cartoon rioting I've seen so far: (from MEMRI, of course!)

Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi cleric Sheik Muhsen Al-'Awaji, aired on Ein TV on February 26, 2006.

Sheik Muhsen Al-'Awaji: Before Islam, the Arabs fought for 40 years to defend the honor of a female camel. This was in the Busous War. A female camel was humiliated, and a 40-year war ensued to defend its honor. So what about the honor of the Prophet?

Interviewer: Are you proud of this?!

Sheik Muhsen Al-'Awaji: I am proud that honor and nobility always characterized the Arabs, and then came Islam to reinforce these traits. I'm not saying I'm proud of a war over a female camel's honor, or that I would call to wage a war to defend the honor of a female camel... But since this was done for the honor of a female camel, do not rebuke someone who would do anything to defend our beloved Prophet Muhammad.

But then again, who wouldn't defend a noble beast with such incredible medicinal properties?

The NYT and Hollywood: ya gotta laugh

The New York Times really supports free speech, except when it is certain kinds of speech.

The polemics and outrage in the theatrical community last week after the New York Theater Workshop postponed its production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" might have been as intense as the uproar the company feared had it actually presented the play.[...]But what made it a more volatile act was that by declining for now to offend with the play, the theater violated the most sacred principles of our artistic temples.

Those principles are: Thou shalt offend, thou shalt test limits, thou shalt cause controversy. If there is an artistic orthodoxy in the West, it is that good art is iconoclastic and provocative, and that any pull back from this orthodoxy is cowardly and craven. In this distended context, the New York Theater Workshop's act was heretical.

Isn't it wonderful to know that the New York Times is courageous enough to defend a play that promotes someone who supported terrorists and insulted America publicly?

Somehow, the "newspaper of record" cannot find the newsworthiness of some cartoons that spawned months-long deadly riots to actually show what the Muslims are rioting against - but that's not heretical, that's being "sensitive."

Sort of like the Oscars last night congratulated themselves incessantly on taking on important social issues, being brave enough to stand up to a Republican administration that they accuse of censorship but not once mentioning Theo Van Gogh, a real filmmaker who was really killed for actually making a film that was really important - and even feminist. You see, bravery against fictional censorship is to be celebrated, but actually sacrificing your life for an ideal that Hollywood does not currently support is not worth mentioning.

It's easy to be brave and to defend free speech when there is no real threat to you for speaking your mind. Stay in your circle of same-thinking pals, trade stories about how you each faced down the leashed barking poodles and congratulate yourselves on your fearlessness. Maybe in a few decades they'll show a film montage about you in front of a room of people in tuxedos and evening gowns who consider themselves brave.

Insane Muslim protestors of the day (3/5)

Hate Denmark!
Love Prophet!
Crush America!
Save Islam!

All catchy slogans. "Crush America" is my favorite because it fortuitously allows the entire expression to be stressed on every other syllable, making it easier to chant mindlessly when joining thousands of other drones in pretending to defend the honor of a man who died 1400 years ago.

I particularly like the woman whose glasses appear to be on top of her burqa. The woman next to her, showing her face in merely a chador, is of course doomed to eternal hellfire.

Reuters loved this rally so much, it decided to go for a Pulitzer by doing some photo manipulation to make a mass of morons look cool:

And yes, all of these idiots are still protesting some cartoons published in an obscure Danish newspaper last September.

HH LX

Life-of-Rubin hosts this weeks Haveil Havalim #60, featuring the week's best JBlogosphere postings.

My post on Muslim riots in the 1930s is on the list. Soccer Dad asked me to also nominate my link to the video of the Japanese version of "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof. I didn't see it there but it is fun to watch, anyway. (Also, I need to give a hat tip to Junior Elder who found that for me.)

The Haveil Havalim is very good, and is worth it just for the single link Chaim threw in to this video. I had frankly never made the connection between MBD and Genghis Khan before, and Daughter of Ziyon is anxious to learn an entirely new set of dance steps to a classic "Jewish" song.

Check it out!

Iranian cleric: "We intend to conquer the world"

Tehran, Iran, Mar. 04 – A representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran University declared on Friday that Islam must “conquer the world” by defeating the West.

Hojjatol-Islam Alireza Panahyan, who was delivering the pre-sermon speech at this week’s Friday prayers in the Iranian capital, said that the West was trying to put fear into the hearts of Muslims through “torture and nuclear weapons”.

“We intend to conquer the world without [nuclear] weapons. Such weapons are not needed to set the stage for the return of the [Shiite messiah] Mahdi”, Panahyan said.

He called on Muslims to overcome their fear of the West’s might.

“If you do not fear and take a stance, they will not be able to say anything and will try not to get into a fight with you, because they know that they will lose”, he said.

It is not always fun being right.

When Islam goes out of the religious sphere and into geo-political Islamo-fascism, it is a threat to the entire world and should be treated as such by the entire world.

Hat tip: Val

Iranian missiles now can reach all of Europe

LONDON [MENL] -- Iran has launched a missile designed to have a range of 4,000 kilometers.

Western intelligence sources said the Defense Ministry presided over the launch of an intermediate-range missile in January 2006. The sources said the launch was the first of what they termed a Shihab-4 ballistic missile based on a Soviet-origin platform.

The missile was fired and reached a distance of nearly 3,000 kilometers. The sources said the missile was destroyed in mid-flight, but the trajectory indicated that the projectile could have reached a distance of 4,000 kilometers.

'It looks like the test was meant to see if the separation and guidance systems were working,' an intelligence source said."

According to on-line distance databases as well as eyeballing a map, this means that almost all of Europe is in range of Iranian missiles, and in a short time, of Iranian nuclear bombs. Even if the estimate is off by a few hundred kilometers, if you assume that Syria would gladly host Iranian missiles then all of Europe is still in range. (Parts of Spain and Ireland may be out of range.)

But I'm sure the UN will take serious measures against Iran real soon now. Maybe even a non-binding resolution. That'll show them!

I'm sure glad that they told me that they are holding a "peace rally" because I might have thought otherwise, based on things like this at the same rally:

Or maybe "peace" has a different meaning in Arabic.

More fun photos from cartoon protests/rallies around the world:

Doesn't it look like she's saying she loves "alll Jews"?
She loves us! How sweet! Just make sure that she stays away from the mullahs who don't like seeing red hearts on Valentine's Day.

Finally, here are some fans of George Bush in Pakistan:

Go Bush!

A Moderate Muslim manifesto

Unrelated to the manifesto against Islamic totalitarianism, this one is more religious-oriented and quite sensible. How many Muslims hold by the beliefs written therein is the $64,000 question.

Either way, it is good to see some Muslims taking the problem of extremism seriously.

A Muslim Manifesto
By Mustafa Akyol & Zeyno Baran
"Who are the moderate Muslims, and why do they not speak up?" After being asked this question over and over again since 9/11, particularly after the Danish cartoon crisis, we decided to propose the following Muslim Manifesto:

Recently, the disrespectful cartoons about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) published in Jyllands-Posten resulted in an extreme reaction among many Muslims worldwide. While we understand the feelings of our co-religionists, we strongly urge them to refrain from rage and violence.
A zeal for Allah is rightful only when it is expressed in an enlightened manner, since Allah himself has ordained a restrained response. When the early Muslims were mocked by their pagan contemporaries, the Koran ordered not a violent backlash, but rather a civilized disapproval: "When you hear Allah's verses being rejected and mocked at by people, you must not sit with them till they start talking of other things." (Koran 4:140) The Koran also describes Muslims as "those who control their rage and pardon other people, [because] Allah loves the good-doers." (3:134) Therefore all demonstrations against the mockery of Islam should be peaceful. All critiques of Islam should be countered not by threats and violence, but by rational counter-argument.

We also believe that terrorist acts can never be justified or excused. None of the challenges Muslims face, such as oppression or military occupation, can justify attacks against non-combatants. In the Holy Koran, Allah orders Muslims to "never let hatred of anyone lead you into the sin of deviating from justice." (5:8) The true Islamic sense of justice is well-established in the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh); even in time of war — let alone peace — Muslim soldiers should never "kill the old, the infant, the child, or the woman." Those who do so are not martyrs, but cold-blooded murderers.

Supported by the Koran's affirmation that "there is no compulsion in religion" (2:256), we cherish religious liberty. Every human has the right to believe or not to believe in Islam or in any other religion All Muslims furthermore have the right to reject and change their religion if desired. No state, community or individual has a right to impose Islam on others. People should accept and practice Islam not because they are forced to do so, but because they believe in its teachings.

We support and cherish democracy — not because we reject the sovereignty of the Almighty over people, but because we believe that this sovereignty is manifested in the general will of people in a democratic and pluralistic society. We do not accept theocratic rule-not because we do not wish to obey Allah, but because theocratic rule inevitably becomes rule by fallible (and sometimes corrupt and misguided) humans in the name of the infallible God.

We accept the legitimacy of the secular state and the secular law. Islamic law, or sharia, was developed at a time when Muslims were living in homogenous communities. In the modern world, virtually all societies are pluralistic, consisting of different faiths and of different perceptions of each faith, including Islam. In this pluralistic setting, a legal system based on a particular version of a single religion cannot be imposed on all citizens. Thus, a single secular law, open to all religions but based on none, is strongly needed.

We believe that women have the same inalienable rights as men. We strongly denounce laws and attitudes in some Islamic societies that exclude women from society by denying them the rights of education, political participation and the individual pursuit of happiness. Like men, women should have the right to decide how they will live, dress, travel, marry and divorce; if they do not enjoy these rights, they are clearly second-class citizens.

We believe that there is no contradiction between religious and national identities. Any Muslim should be able to embrace the citizenship of any modern secular state while maintaining feelings of spiritual solidarity with the umma, the global Muslim community.

We regard Christianity and Judaism as sister faiths in the common family of Abrahamic monotheism. We strongly denounce anti-Semitism, which has been alien to Islam for many centuries but which unfortunately has gained popularity among some Muslims in recent decades. We accept Israel's right to exist, as well as the justified aspiration of the Palestinian people for a sovereign state and hope that a just two-state solution in Israel/Palestine will bring peace to the Holy Land.

In short, we strongly disagree with and condemn those who promote or practice tyranny and violence in the name of Islam. We hope that their misguided deeds will not blacken our noble religion — which is indeed a path to God and a call for peace.

We encourage Muslim political, social, community and business leaders to contact us at info@muslimmanifesto.org to sign onto the Manifesto so that the authentic peaceful and civilized message of Islam will be heard.

— Mustafa Akyol is a writer and journalist based in Turkey; Zeyno Baran is director of International Security and Energy Programs at The Nixon Center.

Unfortunately, there is no web site at the muslimmanifesto.org address yet.

I guess I'm going to hell

From Jerry Falwell's website:

Earlier today, reports began circulating across the globe that I have recently stated that Jews can go to heaven without being converted to Jesus Christ. This is categorically untrue.
[...]
While I am a strong supporter of the State of Israel and dearly love the Jewish people and believe them to be the chosen people of God, I continue to stand on the foundational biblical principle that all people — Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Jews, Muslims, etc. — must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to enter heaven.

Damn it!

Insane Muslim protestors of the day 3/2

The cartoon protests seem to be slowly dying down, but people have to protest against something, right?

Here are some interesting veiled women who call Bush a terrorist but think Osama is just dandy!