Tuesday, August 4, 2009

1. My Approach to Blogging - I am certainly not infallible, but I try my best to be as accurate as possible when posting stories to this blog. I try to use what I think are reputable sources, and then always try to double-check those sources. Here is an example of the process I go through.

I first learned about this story from Seraphic Secret (note - none of which follows is even the remotest criticism of that site). Nothing really unusual, right? Hamas sponsors a mass wedding - big deal? The grooms are accorded priority, but that isn't unusual in an area under the control of Islamic fundamentalists. The completely gratuitous and completely irrelevant last paragraph that quotes the casualty figures from Operation Cast Lead almost passes without notice. But there is an important element apparently missing from the story. The 450 brides are supposedly children. If that is correct, the "missing element" is important because it shows the depraved mentality of Hamas (like we needed any confirmation of that), but even more important because it shows the way that the underlying facts in a news story can be manipulated and cleansed to be more or less benign.

I was ready to blog about it in less than complimentary terms. But some people suggest that the story is inaccurate - look at the update at the bottom of the following post and the comments posted below.

In any event, I have related this to you so that you know that I always try to be as accurate as possible - there are enough myths and inaccuracies about the Middle East that we need not add to them. (PS - I am not turning into a "Hamas-ite"!!)

By the way, if I make mistakes, please point them out to me in a constructive manner.

2. So Will This (the story, not the picture) Make Anyone Sit Up and Howl? Islamic extremist calls on Queen to be prosecuted for genocide.

3. What Else is New? - Ayman- al Zawahri: Israel must be wiped off map.....though most of its enemies deny it even exists.....

4. The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse - Watch Out for "The Elders"

5. Oops - Iran plane was carrying arms for Hezbollah.

6. Even a Stopped Clock is Right Twice a Day - A UN report that does not criticize Israel? Holy cow! Declining conditions can't rouse Arab world from its slumber.

7. More on (Moron?) Mary Robinson - Mary Robinson’s Medal for Bush Bashing? Also, see this piece.

8. Last One to leave the UK, Turn Out The Lights (Part ?) - So the whole world, including very big players in Iran, know that the Iranian election was rigged. They also know that there was terrible repression of those who sought to protest it. But when there's a "coronation", you have to go, right? Couldn't Britain, the home of the Magna Carta and (over the years) countless other examples of the rule of law have boycotted the formal endorsement of "Madman I'm-a -dinner- jacket"? Please....

Also, this is interesting - The status of Israel and of Jews in the UK - I know that they are on the ground there, but are they right or do they suffer from Stockholm Syndrome?

9. Which Leads Me To - It’s All Appeasement, All the time. Why?

10. Hey, Mr. President - Are You Listening? - Jordan rejects call to improve ties with Israel - and these guys have a peace treaty with Israel.

11. My Money's on Stupid to Win and Malicious to Place - Are Western Leaders Stupid or Malicious in Letting Iran Go Nuclear? Also see Anne Bayefsky, "Waiting To See"

12. Campus Update - Columbia Tenures an Israel-Basher.

13. Blood Libels - End the blood libels against Israel & the IDF.

14. Gerald Steinberg - Right on, as usual - Ideological dead-enders defend Human Rights Watch.

15. Another Israeli Innovation - Is it possible to reassemble a shredded document? Unshredder is an Israeli company.

16. Dog Days of Summer - On a lighter note - August: Let's get rid of it. Where stories like this, which give a new meaning to grip it and rip it, have a life all their own.

17. It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times - Some thoughts as to the best coaches of all time, and the worst.

18. Not That There's Anything Wrong With That - I was/am a huge Seinfeld fan. So this is good news - ‘Seinfeld’ reunion comes together on new season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’

Saturday, August 1, 2009 (motzei Shabbat)

1. Have They Even Heard of Israel? - I'm more than used to the Palestinians and their supporters either twisting or manufacturing facts, but the United States? If you go to this website - Consulate General of the United States Jerusalem - you would almost never know that some place called Israel even exists.

2. Freedom of Speech - Which apparently means that we have to listen to them (leftists, radicals, etc.) but they do not have to return the favor. A very disturbing, but not at all surprising, story from the UK. War on Want, a.k.a. War on Israel. As a follow-up, here is a primer on the new Ben White book that Jonathan Hoffman was protesting - A Beginner’s Guide to Ben White’s false apartheid analogy.

3. In the Same Vein - The ACLU vs. The Gideons. In this case, Christianity in schools in America is fair game to attack, but as the article points out, Islam in schools in America is not.

4. "Gates-Gate", Canadian Style - Whatever happened in Cambridge, whomever you believe - this story from Canada puts it to shame. If the facts as set out are accurate, then with all due respect to whomever, this is one of the stupidest things I have read in while - Phony courts, phony racism.

5. What's Good for the Israeli Goose..... - Is not good for the Saudi Gander. To my mind, this "incredible" story - Saudis reject US appeal for confidence building gestures - is a direct result of the manner in which the Obama Administration has dealt with the Middle East. Let me get this straight - everyone wants Israel to back off on Gaza, back off on Lebanon, back off on settlements, back off on Iran, back off on who knows what else - but no one wants to give anything in return. And the Saudis tell the United States, which is likely the largest single security backstop for Saudi Arabia, that it won't put anything on the table, so to speak.

I'll go out on a limb and make this wild prediction - in the future, nothing meaningful, reliable or verifiable will be coming in return from the Palestinians, the Saudis or anyone else in that neighborhood. I find it very hard to believe that they want peace on anything but their terms, which is 100% for them and nothing for Israel.

6. But Let's Run and Embrace Them - This Washington Post editorial just compounds the previous story - The Road to Damascus. If the Obama Administration was serious about achieving peace, wouldn't it make more sense to make such aid conditional on Syria (in this case) doing something positive?

7. Mrs. Robinson - Mary Robinson is one of many women who have risen to high ranks in the diplomatic and legal world. She is clearly a highly educated and accomplished woman. A former President of Ireland, she was also United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. Problem is, she is also rather anti-Israel (like her no-doubt soul-mate former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour).

Yesterday, the United States awarded Mary Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. The award has sparked more controversy about the Obama Administration and its relations with American Jews and with Israel. Here is a detailed article from the American Thinker blog with numerous links to follow. And here is the White House response.

Bottom line to me - she was in charge of Durban I, and we all know how that turned out.

I will throw her this bone however, which comes from the great work that Hillel Neuer does at UN Watch and surprised the heck out of me.

8. Presumably, It's A Start - Not something one sees everyday, and it comes with a subtitle whether the criticism went far enough, but - Muslim Leader Condemns Terrorism.

9. The National Post - This newspaper is often accused of having a blind, pro-Israel approach to issues. Here is proof to the contrary - Innocent till proven guilty. I normally agree with the National Post, but not this time.

10. Che Guevara - Shirts bearing his image are everywhere. He has been the subject of recent movies like The Motorcycle Diaries and Che (Part One and Part Two). But who is he? And would the people who wear those ubiquitous shirts care? Would they wear shirts bearing likenesses of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao - and would they even know who they were?

In any event, I came across this story from a few months ago -Poland 'to ban' Che Guevara image - a great web-site (well, I like it - www.thepeoplescube.com) - as well as this story - Don't Know Who He Is But He Sure Sells a Lot of T-Shirts.

11. How We Got Here - You may recall that some time ago former Bush senior adviser Elliot Abrams exposed the lie that was the suggestion that there were no informal arrangements between the US and Israel. He is back in today's Wall Street Journal with a very important follow up column.

12. No Time to Travel? - Here's a fast trip to Los Angeles - free and you don't even have to leave the comfort of your home!

Los Angeles: in motion from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

1. I Can't Get Over This - I'm sorry to be harping on this, but this really gets me upset - Fear and Self-Loathing at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Once you have seen the shameless and completely undeserved canonization of Rachel Corrie (tasteless alert - known in some circles as St. Pancake), I know where you can go for a bite afterward. Words fail me!

2. Or This... - Zionist Conspiracy in the death of you-know who (and I don't mean Jesus). How can someone just say this stuff without anyone jumping down his throat with both feet? Is this free speech? Maybe I should ask the ACLU. No - I won't bother.

3. Good Idea - Army to shun human rights conference on Gaza campaign - why indulge another group of people that only want to unfairly criticize the IDF - and, what a surprise, they are Jews to boot. Maybe someone should actually thank the IDF for keeping some very bad people out of Israel.

Many of you probably remember the famous trial scene in A Few Good Men. When I first saw the movie many many years ago, I loathed Colonel Jessep, the character played by Jack Nicholson. But now I am not nearly so sure.

I have never served in the military, so what follows is conjecture. I believe that the art of maintaining a disciplined yet appropriately efficient and (where necessary) lethal army is a difficult task, especially in a democracy. I am fairly certain that all kinds of very difficult choices need to be made extremely quickly with less than perfect information. Mistakes, sometimes tragic ones, happen. While I agree that the IDF (or any other military) must be held to account when it makes such mistakes, I firmly believe that any investigation must be conducted with extreme fairness with considerable regard to the context, and that any criticism or punishment found necessary has to be meted out very carefully. Monday morning quarterbacks are great, but we are not talking about criticizing a mistake in a football game. Demanding adherence to unrealistic standards is unfair, and likely serves to weaken the military.

How would you balance the views of Colonel Jessep with those of Lt. Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise)?

4. What is it with These People? - Every summer, it seems that some anti-Israel resolutions make it onto the floor of the United Church convention. I am not saying that the United Church as an entity is anti-Israel - I suspect that the group responsible is some sort of (lunatic?) fringe that is obsessed with tearing down the Jewish State and that knows Roberts Rules of Order fluently. So while I will refer you to this article as background - United Church's Israel proposal worries Jewish groups - I am not sure that it is entirely accurate because I think that it suggests that the entire United Church is to blame. That said, this article in defence does not give me much comfort either.

It would be interesting to see what other types of "crazy" resolutions make it to the convention floor. It would also be interesting to learn who in fact is behind these resolutions and how they manage to advance them seemingly every year.

In closing, here is an editorial on the subject from the Montreal Gazette.

5. Where's the Uproar? - American Thinker: Palestinian Rights: A Warning

6. The Beer Summit - The Beer Summit with the president, the prof and the police took place today in Washington. Here are some last thoughts on this crazy story from Mark Steyn, as well as a great cartoon - which reminded me of the following great Miller Lite commercials.

7. Obama and Israel - good pieces from Yossi Klein Halevi and Aluf Benn.

8. Iran - Beer Summit or not, Iran remains a critical issue. Here are two pieces - one from Inside Iran and one about the US perspective - which sort of reminds me of the phrase "we're from the government and we're here to help" - scary words indeed!

9. Ominous Signs from the UK - Anti-Semitic Attacks Double in 2009

10. Orthodox Judaism and The Role of Women - It will be interesting to see where this goes - Rabbi initiates women-friendly synagogue.

11. Settlement Background - Jerusalem Issue Briefs-The U.S.-Israeli Dispute over Building in Jerusalem: The Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood.

12. S'derot - Some People Do Not Get It - In the Line of Verbal Fire.

13. Religion of Peace, Huh? - I have a broad sense of humor that, shall we say, leans toward the ribald. That said, Sacha Baron Cohen's humor has never resonated with me. But I would not kill him over it - Terrorist threat to Sacha Baron Cohen over Brüno ridicule - I would just not go to his movies.

14. Academic Freedom, Huh? - Vicious Jew-Hatred Wins Center Stage at UC Irvine.

15. Hamas and Holocaust Denial - Alan Dershowitz writes about the new "culture war" being waged by Hamas - and how it leads to Holocaust denial.

16. UNIFIL - The Useless Nations (or an arm thereof) strikes again. Israel angry at UNIFIL chief for meeting with Hizbullah.

17. Funny Quote - this quote, attributed to longtime Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, always seems to be apt - "If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."

18. A Cartoon in Closing - I love The New Yorker cartoons.

Tuesday, July 28 2009

1. Academic Freedom - Ever since my personal experience at St. Thomas University in March 2009 when a group of self-proclaimed anarchists hijacked a public lecture by Dr. Yossi Olmert, the topic of academic freedom has been of great interest to me. I will readily admit that I am not an academic and that I do not necessarily understand the way that things are done in that world. However, I get very tired very quickly when people try to hide behind the fig leaf of "academic freedom" in order to explain away some very egregious behavior when it comes to criticism of Israel, the likes of which would not be tolerated with respect to other subjects. With that background, I refer you to A Misreading of Academic Freedom.

2. Leonard Cohen and Ramallah - I almost automatically disagree with whatever Rick Salutin, a columnist with the Globe & Mail, puts to paper. I have had email exchanges with him that have been frank but polite (in both directions), but we just see things completely differently. His piece in Friday's Globe & Mail - Mr. Cohen doesn't do Ramallah - caught my eye. I do not agree with much of what is in the piece - especially the outrageous suggestion that the banning by Israel of references to the "nakba", the Palestinian adjective of the calamity or the catastrophe for the results of the 1948 War of Independence is the Israeli/Palestinian equivalent of holocaust denial. However, in a couple of spots he does almost seem to try to approach some middle ground. I guess that in certain ways the piece confuses me - what are your thoughts?

3. Jordan and the Palestinians - In their rush to condemn Israel over the "occupation" of the West Bank, a lot of people forget some very basic facts. Such as, for example, Jordanannexed the West Bank after the 1948 War of Independence. Or that in September 1970, Hashemite King Hussein moved to quash the militancy of Palestinians living in Jordan, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people - mostly Palestinian (giving rise to the Black September terrorist group). Now comes this story - would Israel get away with anything like this?

4. Muslim Scholars - Muslim Scholars Must Decry Violent Teachings - I'm not holding my breath.

5. Dershowitz and Philips - Professor Alan Dershowitz and journalist Melanie Phillips are each ardent supporters of Israel. Recently they clashed over the question of President Obama's attitude toward Israel, and, in particular, Israel's settlement policy. Here, in some depth, is Alan Dershowitz vs. Melanie Phillips. In addition, here are some other important items on US-Israel relations - U.S. wants 'comprehensive' Mideast peace deal, The Rosett Report » Apologizing for the Wrong Thing, Madame Secretary, and Wrong, Mr. President — Jewish Settlements Expedited Peace Talks.

6. Anti-Semitism - I am not a big fan of a Jewish person who loosely plays the anti-Semitism card - too many people have fought against and/or been negatively affected by that terrible prejudice for someone to jump on for a free ride. So based on what I know about the situation with the rabbis who were arrested last week in New Jersey - this article - US rabbis' arrest motivated by anti-Semitism in FBI - does not impress me at all. Especially when you read Solomon Dwek: The Rabbi's Son at the Center of the Corruption Probe. Here is a good column from the Jerusalem Post - When Righteous Stumble - which reminds us that none of us have the right to be smug and that none of us is infallible.

7. Operation Cast Lead (again!) - The UN commissioned Goldstone Report on Israel's actions in Operation Cast Lead will be released in another month or so, likely to the usual screams of condemnation from the usual quarters - Proactive Israel prepares for Goldstone report. It is good to see that Israel recognizes the need for a proactive approach to what will, almost certainly, not be a complimentary report. With that in mind, this opinion piece - Our troops come first - is very important.

8. Film Festivals, Videographers and so on - Saturday evening I posted a piece about the disgraceful Rachel Corrie film being shown at a Jewish film festival in San Francisco. Add to that disgraceful film this YouTube sensation - Spawn of Sid. Personally, give me Sderot Children to Feature in First-Ever International Feature Film any time.

9. Jewish Cemeteries - I have long been involved with the Cemetery Committee and the Chevra Kaddisha at my synagogue. This story therefore caught my eye - Offering TLC for Jewish Cemeteries.

10. "Gates-Gate" - Some further and hopefully final thoughts about the "Chaos in Cambridge", or the "Hullabaloo at Harvard" - VDH's Private Papers::What Was That 'Stupidly' All About?, and History and Race: The Gates Affair.

11. On the Topic of Peace Partners - More stuff, straight from the horse's mouth - PMW Bulletins - is anyone listening about how Arafat deceived the West?

12. I Guess that Beauty Comes from Within - From within the burka I guess - Saudi beauty queen wins without showing her face. This is going out on a limb, but I could probably win a beauty contest if I did not have to show my face.

13. Gee, At Camp Kadimah, All We Did Was Sing and Dance - More peace partners in training - Gaza campers stage 'Schalit abduction' at ceremony.

14. Was This In The Stimulus Bill? - After all the items I have posted lately about the real mentality of the so-called Fatah peace partners, this seems very much out of step - U.S. announces $200 million in aid to Palestinians.

15. A Light Note - A Great McDonalds ad featuring Larry Bird and Michael Jordan - nothing but net!