Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

Hi there - I've been busy and unable to post to my blog for the last week.





2. Roman Polanski - This story has attracted a lot of recent attention. For those who do not know, in 1977, Polanski was arrested and pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, a 13-year-old girl (he was 44 years old at the time). After a 42-day psychiatric evaluation, Polanski fled to France, and has had a U.S. arrest warrant outstanding since 1978, and an international arrest warrant since 2005. Polanski for many years avoided visits to countries that were likely to extradite him, such as the United Kingdom, and travelled mostly between France, where he resides, and Poland. As a French citizen, he was protected in France by the country's limited extradition with the U.S. On September 26, 2009, he was arrested, at the request of U.S. authorities, by Swiss police, on arrival at Zürich Airport while trying to enter Switzerland to pick up a lifetime achievement "Golden Icon Award" from the Zurich Film Festival.

The arrest triggered a massive campaign of support from people in the entertainment industry, but also considerable backlash from people who, in my opinion, have a better moral compass. I mean the story is that the guy raped a 13 year old girl after plying her with champagne and pills.

Here are a variety of reactions:
I am not surprised that a large portion of the so-called Hollywood and artistic elite have rallied in support of Polanski. They seem not to be able understand black and white issues of morality - they rally behind murderers and terrorists without any compunction - so why should they think that there is anything wrong with raping a 13 year old girl and then fleeing to avoid justice? What the hell goes through Whoopi Goldberg's mind when she said that what Polanski did was not "rape-rape"? Or through the mind of the sister of Polanski's tragically murdered wife Sharon Tate when she said "[t]here's rape and then there's rape"?

I feel very sorry for Polanski's tragic background prior to the rape - but he does not get a free card as a result of that or his celebrity. And where are all these celebrities for all the other cases where men have been accused of rape or some other such serious crime - oh, they weren't worthy for what reason?? PUH-lease




3. Talk About The Pot & The Kettle - Tories' Israel policy damaging: UN rapporteur Embassy - Canada's Foreign Policy Newspaper. Are you kidding me?


4. Here Is A Better Example About What The Tories Stand For - Harper exposes the Jew haters Lorrie Goldstein Columnists Comment Toronto Sun - and here is the Michael Coren article referred to in Goldstein's column - Michael Coren: Israel through a distorted lens - Full Comment. Jews in Canada are a small minority that do not control any serious voting blocs in the Canadian electorate. I believe that Harper and the Tories take their stand on Israel because they think it is the right thing to do - how's that for moral clarity?


6. More Inglorious Basterds - Jew Süss in Reversüss

7. Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran.... - Speaking of the beat going on....I know that there are a lot of links....



5. Special Additional Iran Section - When the French (cheese-eating surrender monkeys - oops - did I say that out loud?) tell the US to get tough, something is wrong.....Investors.com - President Gets French Lesson To Remember, Beef-Eating Surrender Monkeys, and Matt Gurney: Why can't America be tough, like France? - Full Comment.

6. Is Ahmadinejad Jewish? - Similar to the unsubstantiated rumors about Adolf Hitler being Jewish, here is a weird story - Ahmadinejad was born a Jew Middle East Jerusalem Post.


7. Good Thing I Cannot Afford A Porsche - Porsche's Past: The Dark Pre-History of the World's Favorite Sports Car - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International


8. The Perfect Antidote To Boycotts - Sara Saber-Freedman: BUYcott Israel - Full Comment

9. Goldstone - This is another continuing story:
10. Gee, Thanks - You Guys Are Not So Bad After All - Hamas: Prayer book to be handed to Shalit - Israel News, Ynetnews -wow, these guys should get some sort of award.

11. Or Maybe You Are - Puppets preach hate on Hamas TV






14. Trouble in the North? - Lebanon suspects mass infiltration of Islamist terrorists - Haaretz - Israel News - surely, not with UNIFIL (a branch of the Useless Nations, after all) on the case.



16. Another Incredible Accomplishment - How did she find the time between war-mongering and oppressing the Palestinians - wow- multi-tasking! Nobel Prize winner Yonath is 'happy and shocked' Science and Environment Jerusalem Post. PS - as an important side note - a Halifax native also won a Nobel Prize in physics - see this story (and an Israeli was a nominee in the Physics category).


17. Where Is Turkey Headed? - Opinion: An open letter to my Turkish friends Op-Ed Contributors Jerusalem Post

18. Credit Where Credit Is Due - Here's a shout-out to my buddy ML - the Minnesota Twins overcame an incredible deficit to catch the Detroit Tigers and then beat them in a one-game playoff.

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Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

1. Goldstone Report - I have written before of the fantastic work done by Hillel Neuer of UN Watch. Here is another example.

Geneva, September 29, 2009 — The U.N. Human Rights Council plenary witnessed a dramatic face-off today when the head of its controversial "fact-finding" mission on Gaza -- in which Israel was declared guilty from the start -- was unexpectedly confronted by one of his own witnesses. In a surprise appearance arranged by the Geneva human rights organization UN Watch, Dr. Mirela Siderer -- an Israeli doctor who was brutally disfigured in 2008 by a rocket attack fired from Gaza into her Ashkelon medical clinic -- pointedly accused Goldstone of ignoring her July oral testimony in his report, and of failing to disclose material information concerning the prior statements of the Human Rights Council and panel members declaring Israel guilty in advance. The speech was published in full today by Canada's National Post, and covered widely in Switzerland, Israel and worldwide. Sitting on the dais, Goldstone was visibly shaken by Dr. Siderer's challenge and scrambled for a copy of her speech. His response to the plenary ignored 7 of her questions, and inadequately responded to the 8th. (my emphasis)

If you go to this page, you will see a link to the video of the confrontation.


2. A National Treasure - about the only good thing about the CBC, in my opinion - Rex Murphy on Canada’s Walk-out at the UN (sorry about the picture, Rex - could not resist)




4. Really Really? Report: Mel Gibson Wants Antisemitic Rant Off His Record – Forward.com - Hey Mel, you can take it off your formal record all you want, but the world knows what you are - remember, "a drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts." And what exactly did you do to Danny Glover to make him sign his name to the TIFF Declaration?

6. There's Something Weird About This - given the huge role of German U-Boats against the Allies in World War II - AFP: Israel gets two more German submarines


8. Want to Do Something About Boycotts of Israel? Try this great Canadian initiative - go here to sign up.


9. Sorry - have to say the "I" Word - Iran - today's links


11. In Memory of Those Who Died in 1973 to Defend Israel - Air-raid sirens filling the sky | In the spotlight | Jerusalem Post. 2,688 Israeli soldiers died in the war - a true Israeli national tragedy - for some unknown reason, in my mind I always contrast the figure (which I realize represents 2,688 individual persons with parents, spouses, children and grandchildren) with the 57,420 British casualties (including 19,420 dead) on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1917 - not to suggest in any manner that the sacrifice was in any sense proportional, but more to wonder aloud how any nation could sustain such casualties and keep fighting.




14. Interesting Conference #1 - Check out this very worthwhile event taking place in Ottawa on October 27th.




18. NFL Football - If you follow the NFL, you will know that on October 5th, Minnesota will play Green Bay. Big deal? Yep - it's the return of Brett Favre, whom many in Green Bay used to idolize but now think is a traitor. Emotions will be very high - should be a great game. And how are Packers fans doing - some have not moved on (like whoever designed this)


but some have moved on.....

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Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

1. Goldstone Report Moves On - As noted in a previous blog entry, the Goldstone report is now being "debated" by that most impartial, transparent and virtuous of world bodies - the United Nations Human Rights Council. My sense is that the "debate" that can be expected is solely as to how to sanction Israel. Even B'tselem, the left wing Israeli human rights group criticized the report (in part) - B'tselem says Goldstone report is wrong | Israel | Jerusalem Post


Here are a number of other posts on this subject:

So now that the situation has been allowed to develop (deteriorate is a better word to use), how can it be neutralized? I had this discussion with a fellow congregant at synagogue on Yom Kippur - and it appears that the only certain thing is that the solution is not easily apparent. Military action against the Iranian facilities is a difficult option - it seems clear that this is not just a case of replicating Israel's pinpoint raid on the Osirak reactor in Iraq - the distance is much further, the Iranians are anticipating an attack whereas the Iraqis were pretty much asleep at the switch, the facilities are spread out and well-protected.


I do not doubt that the IAF could hit the targets, but the question is what damage they will effect and what losses are likely. Here is an interesting article from the spring 2007 edition of the International Security journal that examines the likelihood of success from a military perspective.

My sense is that in order to really cause major harm to the facilities and significantly set back the Iranian nuclear program, there would have to be a ground component to the operation - such as was apparently the case in the destruction of the nuclear facilities in Syria a year or so ago. This would make the mission much more risky and raise the spectre of serious losses. As good as the various special forces of the IDF might be, this ain't the movies, where James Bond, Jason Bourne or Rambo can go into a seriously hostile environment, wipe out all the defenders and accomplish the assigned task.


So what to do? We had the pleasure of hosting Kadima Party MK Nachman Shai in Halifax recently. He spoke convincingly of the seriousness of the Iranian threat. When asked what he thought should be done, he simply more or less said that there could be many ways to stop the program.

To be clear - he (I assume deliberately) did not say anything specific, but I believe that he meant tactics such as - in no particular order - (a) sanctions, (b) targeted killings of people in the nuclear program, (c) targeted killings of the Iranian leadership, (d) seeking the overthrow of the regime from within, (e) diplomacy, and (f) seeking to deny or delay the supply of essential materials to Iran.

Here is commentary on the sanctions issue - ANALYSIS / Why is Israel suddenly praising Iran sanctions? - Haaretz - Israel News. Targeted killings evokes memories of Gerald Bull - may he not rest in peace. Diplomacy? Dealing with Iran will require diplomacy with a hard edge - The Globe and Mail Regime change from within? here is a piece that suggests that what might be most devastating to Iran is a well organized and funded human rights campaign.


My final thought for the day on this issue, which clearly will be at the forefront as the days pass, is to think back to the situation with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Hitler and his henchmen had made their intentions regarding many issues - specifically regarding Jews - perfectly clear. The West had many chances to stand up to the Nazis and stop them, but Hitler's bluster and bravado and his contempt for international treaties and law, compounded by the weakness, fatigue and moral failure of France and Great Britain (in particular) resulted in the Nazi ascendancy over Europe.

"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"


Six years later, 6,000,000 Jews and millions more Russians, Poles, French, Brits, Yanks, and others were dead and large parts of Europe has been utterly devastated. Shall we dither and allow history to repeat itself?

3. From Jabotinsky to Netanyahu - American Thinker: Two Jews



5. Big Deal - Egyptian minister declares 'culture war' on Israel - Israel News, Ynetnews - at the rate that the Arab world, let alone Egypt by itself, produces legitimate cultural works - this will be a short war. This pledge by the sore loser of the UNESCO election rings very hollow.



7. A Friend Indeed - Canada shows the way

8. Settlements and Their Legitimacy - want to argue facts? OK - then read this.

9. OK, Like We Need Something Else To Threaten Us - Time for Straight-Talk About Assimilation – Forward.com





12. BESA Paper - a new paper from the wonderful BESA Center at Bar-Ilan University (which I visited in May) about President Obama and Israel - BESA Center for Strategic Studies.

13. History Lesson For The President - American Thinker: The History Lesson Obama Missed


15. Kafka - The Trial: Fight for Kafka's Papers Winds through Israeli Courts - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International. Perhaps a weirdly appropriate since the adjective 'Kafkaesque" can be defined as follows:
The term, which is quite fluid in definition, has also been described as "marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity: Kafkaesque bureaucracies" and "marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger...
- aptly descriptive, in many ways, of the world today.


16. JCPA - A new paper from the wonderful Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (which I also visited in May) - Institute for Global Jewish Affairs – Global Antisemitism, Anti-Israelism, Jewish Studies.


17. Savage Satire of the Sappy Morning Shows - from The Onion:


18. Do You Remember the Heinz Ketchup Ad That Used the Carly Simon song "Anticipation"? It would apply here as well.

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