SuperComment

Wake up!

2008-09-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

You are so confused it is hard to know where to start. I'll just go in order...

1) What you term "religiosity" is not a base impulse. Gasping for breath after being submerged in water is base impulse. Eating when you're hungry is a base impulse. Protecting your children from attack is a base impulse. Maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain are base impulses. Having sex whenever your hormones demand is a base impulse.

Saying a blessing before eating is about delaying your base impulse (to eat when hungry) in order to thank G-d for the food and acknowledge that this is His creation. Wrapping tefillin every day, an inconvenience for which there is no "rational" explanation, goes against the base impulses of a human being.

Your "wherever my heart sees fit I will go" humanism is much more base than "religiosity". I don't know about other religions. We Jews have 613 commandments to follow. They haven't changed in 3000 years. Only an ignoramus would say that complying with them - a challenge every Jew struggles with daily - is a "base instinct".

Eating food without acknowledging G-d is a "base instinct". Animals, for example, don't say a blessing before eating, and they are not instructed to do so. It takes much dedication and personal refinement to achieve a state of sensitivity where you realize that eating without a blessing to G-d is a crass state of being.

Judaism is about elevating an individual above nature, above the animalistic "base instincts", to connect with G-d, and to transform nature in service of G-d.

2) In ages past, you and I probably *would* have to be killing one another

G-d forbid, why would you say such a thing?! Where is this anger coming from? Why do you wish to kill me? The only one mentioning violence, over and over, is you!

3) You are not well read on the story of Hannukah. I'll have to break down your points into several portions:

a) The Greek Hellenists were not atheists, they were polytheists. The Jewish revolt came not because of "atoms", but because the Hellenists started erecting shrines to idols throughout the land, even in the Holy Temple!

The Hellenists were religious. They accepted the Jewish G-d. Their point was, you Jews are right, there is a G-d of gods. But there is also a god of the earth, and a god of the sun and a god of the trees. They were willing to accept the Jewish G-d, as long as the Jews accept all their gods in return. Moreover, they enforced their polytheism with military force!

It's true, some Jews were lured to hedonism and polytheism at this time. Yet the Jewish nation did rebel, starting with the Maccabees. They weren't the Taliban of their time! They were fighting a war to preserve the spiritual integrity of the Land of Israel and the Jewish people.

b) You chose the wrong person to BS with the "atoms" argument. The philosophers of antiquity had no modern understanding of atoms. Atomism deals with abstract, philosophical notions of a building block of reality. Epicurus, for example, believed that the difference between gods and humans was that the souls of gods adhere to their bodies without escaping while the forces holding human atoms together cannot hold the soul forever.

This was not the Bohr model or Molecular Orbital Theory! These people had no idea what they were talking about.

Furthermore, reading traditional Greek philosophy, after being acquainted with Jewish mysticism is like getting a Ph.D and going back to kindergarten. The questions Greek philosophers raise are not only answered by our tradition, the very premises on which those questions are made are invalidated by even a Jewish child's understanding.

It is only your ignorance and arrogance that holds you back from learning the basic tenets of your own, incredible heritage, which has withstood 3000 years without a single successful challenge to its foundation, and which grows, from "strength to strength", year after year, as the sun rises and falls on all others.

It is an injustice that you, as a Jew, spend time with this nonsense of people playing guessing games about the nature of existence when your own identity is interwoven with the fabric of creation!

600,000 Jewish heads of household, along with families numbering in the millions, stood Mt. Sinai and mutually witnessed an event unparalleled in the history of humanity. Nature itself bent on one knee. Not for one man did this occur, not in a dream; the entire world knew, in life, that the Jewish people were born! Fear descended upon the world of the Jewish people, for the knew that we carried the name of G-d.

Through our own mistakes, expulsions, dispersions, pogroms, assimilation and genocide we have survived, not just as a people, but as a nation united with our heritage and our inheritance. What other people have this history? What other people can claim such miracles? Wake up!

Your ignorance of your own people, your own inheritance needs to end. It's time to grown up and take responsibility for your own learning, for your own yiddishkeit.

Layering Narrative

2008-08-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

whoever gains the most was the most likely culprit

This is a very "Arab street" mindset. Not only is it "contestable", as you said, [Name], it is also easily manipulated.

For example, for any given action or event, there may be multiple beneficiaries. There is no doubt that a dozen nations, organizations, even individuals benefited from the extermination of Mughniyeh - Syria, Israel, the US, Iran, Saudi... perhaps even factions and individuals within Hezbollah.

Whatever the truth, whether it was a Syrian down payment for peace talks with Israel, a Mossad/CIA hit team, Saudi agents taking a hit at a top pawn of Iran or even members of Hezbollah who hated Mughniyeh... perhaps Mughniyeh supplied weapons to the Chechens, and it was the Russians who caught up with him.

There is simply no way for us to know for sure, without entering this data into a geopolitical context, and this is where manipulation becomes not only possible, but useful.

It is useful for Israel to have the Arab world fear the long reach of Mossad hit teams. It is useful for Syria to blame Israel for the hit, giving Damascus plausible deniability in front of Hezbollah and the Arab world. It is useful for Hezbollah to blame everyone else, in the hope of deflecting attention from fractures in its organization... and so on.

Given all this, I have found that Arabs, the average person, not those in a position to understand the proper context, are unique in their ability to compartmentalize information - thus preventing its synthesis, and the formation of a single coherent narrative. At least this is how it appears from without.

This can be very confusing for outsiders, and I am speaking as someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, where people knew how to read the news and were no strangers to compartmentalizing between public and private.

For example, take the attacks by Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq in Jordan a couple of years back that resulted in massive civilian casualties, all Muslim. I remember quite clearly reading editorials in Amman discussing how Muslims could not have been responsible for such horror, and that only Jews could have resorted to such brutality.

This was a popular sentiment, as usual, that Mossad and the CIA, disguised as al Qaeda, were bombing Muslims in the Middle East to divide them, and bombing the West to provide a pretext for invading Muslim lands.

I remember polling conducted within months of the attacks where up to half of the population believed that Israel/US/West was responsible. What was stunning, however, was that, simultaneously, something like 80% of Jordanians now rejected terrorism as a tactic, even when conducted by Muslims against the Jews/US/West.

There is a disconnect there. On the one hand, it is almost a matter of civic duty to publicly demonstrate Arab/Muslim unity and denounce the Jews/US/West for murdering Muslims. On the other hand, there is a private layer of understanding that Muslims were responsible, and that terrorism is an unacceptable form of violence.

Something similar occurred in Lebanon. Publicly, many Sunnis and Christians were denouncing Israel's bombing campaign; privately, many were outraged that Hezbollah asked no one before plunging the country into war, and were hoping the Jews would bloody Hezbollah and thus weaken it's growing power.

So, while I understand your desire to "speak in probabilistic terms", I also know that most average people, particularly those on the ground, linked by family and tribal structure, intuitively understand the situation and who is responsible for what.

When it comes to Arabs, you can often learn more listening to gossiping women than reading the most respected editorial writer.

Investing in the Right Future

2008-08-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

A better future for everyone lies in unlocking the gates to Gaza and allowing us to learn and gain exposure to the broader world – with all of the challenges, controversies and diverse perspectives it offers.

That's cute. Maybe we should also allow Iranian students to study nuclear physics at MIT? "The poor boy only wants to learn computer science, you heartless Firouz!" Half the top leadership of al Qaeda learned engineering and medicine. This did nothing to civilize their brutality, but entrenched and structured their hatred and vitriol with intellectual rationality.

Why was Abed denied, when others were not? Why is there "secret evidence" on Abed, and not on the half dozen Gaza students who continued on their Fullbright dreams? "Secret Evidence"? Not so secret, since it was shared with US officials, who denied him the visa, not Israel.

Could the secret evidence against me have been extracted through the torture of some young Palestinian?

What about torture of an old Palestinian? It doesn't really matter, does it? Torture is wrong. Of course, it also works.

This reminds me of a documentary about the original PLO women fighters; the ones who were the first to start bombing Israeli buses and gunning down families in their sleep, back in the 1960s. Back then Palestinian society was not violent and would often turn them in to avoid trouble with Israel.

She explains quite clearly how the PLO used terror attacks against Israeli civilians to trigger a disproportionate Israeli military response, and then capitalized on the resulting anger among the people to recruit angry young men.

In any case, the former PLO woman tells how when she was finally captured, Israel knew she had hidden weapons and explosives somewhere, but they did not know where. They beat her, but she would not say anything.

Then they sat her down an a desk, made her some tea, brought in another PLO woman fighter and beat the second woman in front of her.

Finally the Israeli interrogator ripped the second woman's clothes off and raped her with something like a bat or a baton. That's when the first PLO woman had enough and told Israel everything: where she hid the weapons and the explosives and all her friends who were waiting in Jordan with orders to attack so and so, on this date and on that date. And this is what she admitted on camera! Who knows what Israel finally got out of her.

Gruesome? Yes. Brutal? Barbaric? Inhuman? Yes. Then again, no one asked her to murder innocent people. Fuck her and fuck her friend. The only thing that matters is the interrogation was successful, and innocent people, who did not choose that life, were saved.

The only thing I could think of after the movie ended was, torture works!

Was my “crime” sharing a classroom or a lunchtime conversation with someone Israel believes poses a danger?

Now we're getting somewhere. He knows EXACTLY what's going on, and what "secret evidence" Israel has on him. I am willing to bet he chose his words specifically to create doubt about the details of the evidence Israel has on him. Perhaps he was approached by terror groups at a lunchroom or classroom, and asked to perform some tasks for them in America. Whatever it is, he knows exactly.

Granting students from around the world scholarships to study at America's best universities is a privilege. This country is fully capable of making the right decisions about who it should invest our finite resources and human capital in.

I have no doubt there are some bright Georgian students, who are not at war with the West, who did not participate in terrorist activities, nor supported terrorist groups, who will certainly not be using their future skills for Jihad.

In fact, there are even some Gazan students who, too, meet such criteria.

Fidaa Abed is just not one of them.

As for Lebanon

2008-08-15T11:27:00.001-07:00

Lebanon deserved hell for sheltering the PLO. Syria, Jordan and Egypt did not put up with that bullshit - they understood the destabilizing force that Arafat represented and exterminated PLO members with ruthless efficiency. Yet Lebanon allowed them to set up bases, from which they repeatedly attacked Israeli villages over a 10 year period, often murdering entire families in their sleep.

Ever heard of the Coastal Road Massacre?

You can thank Afatrat for dragging Lebanon into 30 years of war. The only thing Israel did wrong is in not pursuing the PLO into Beirut and exterminating them there and then, instead of accepting the exodus to Tunis. This was Sharon's mistake; he should have completed his mission.

The reason for 20 years of Israeli occupation was that the objectives of the Israeli operation were not completed. To this day, there remains a hostile force on Israel's border committed to murdering as many Jews as it can.

Let's hope two years of Ashkenazi's leadership have borne fruit. The next Israeli leader will need a 21st century army that can finish the wars of the 20th century.

Tripods

2008-08-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

Do you justify murder based on doubt?

You, [Name], justify the indiscriminate murder of Jews for no other reason than they are Jews, and then you dare challenge "murder based on doubt"? When Hamas launches a rocket at Jewish civilian population centers, there is no doubt this act is intended to murder civilians. Your cousins target Jews by design. Every morning they wake up and think, "How can we kill the most Jews today?"

You have no problem with that. That's resistance. But an Israeli tank crew mistaking some guy two miles away in a truck with a tripod pointed in their direction as hostile... that's outrageous! A war crime! A journalistic Holocaust, right [Name]?

In a war zone, doubt can get you killed. The troops in that tank identified a hostile threat and engaged it. In a war where the enemy does not wear uniforms, where children and the mentally disabled are sent out strapped with bombs - another of your esteemed resistance tactics - plastering "TV" on your vehicle means nothing. That's what happens, "cause this is war, and people will die, innocent ones too".

4thQuarter

Raw, brilliant music that I highly recommend, if you can still get their CD. I think the group dissolved when they were redeployed back in theatre.

As for tripods, let's do this:

Hezbollah truck with rocket launcher.

What would this look like from 2 miles away?

More pretty tripods.

and of course, the perennial favorite...

The most famous tripod of all.

Of Mythos and Reason

2008-08-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

I didn't notice who the author of this post was when I first began reading. I was on the verge of leaving a comment praising the writer for the most coherent, levelheaded argument since I've been reading [Blog Name]...

...but then [Name] decided to go off the deep end and start accusing the usual suspects - America, Israel and a newcomer to Arab scapegoat-itis, Ukraine.

[Name]!!! You're so tantalizingly close to becoming a rational human being, an intelligent one at that, able to evaluate information and draw reasonable conclusions.

But then something kicks in; something deep inside you that forces you to question your logic and undermine your reason... and inevitably, inexplicably, unreasonably and unjustifiably blame it all on America and Israel.

With one hand, you profess a desire to rise above the "Arab street", and the backwardness of its mythos. With the other, you pull yourself right back into the very swamp you intellectually reject and detest.

I am certain you've recognized this pattern in yourself. You are too impregnated with Western deconstructionalism to have not done so.

A New Challenge

2008-08-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

By "challenge", I meant a challenge to American interests. So, you're right, substantial numbers of our forces are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the outcome of Iraq is all but assured. Even were our forces to be run out of that country tomorrow, unlikely as that seems, our primary strategic challenge there - and the focus of GWOT - was al Qaeda, and it is defeated.

As for Afghanistan, everyone accepts that Afghanistan is more or less pacified to the extent that it can be with the forces deployed. The challenge is not in Afghanistan, but rather from opposing forces based in Pakistan, where we are not deployed, and have no intention to be deployed. In addition, these opposing forces (the Taliban) are indigenous and ethnic in nature; their focus is on dominating Afghanistan as they once did, not using Afghanistan as a launchpad for challenging American policy elsewhere - as al Qaeda did.

In other words, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to establish theatres to challenge al Qaeda's power base and sanctuary in the Arab and Muslim world. This has been achieved. The remnants of al Qaeda and its affiliates will take some time to be fully extinguished, but our primary war aims have been achieved - al Qaeda has lost the ability to function effectively as a transnational organization with a coherent geopolitical agenda.

Our victories over al Qaeda have exposed us to new challenges, both arising from indigenous forces resisting the projection of our power in their respective regions - Iran and Pakistan. However, these challenges are not connected to GWOT; indeed, both nations have generally, if peripherally, supported our efforts in GWOT. They are now resisting our secondary objectives - the transformation of the region into one that is a conduit for American interests and power.

So, again, I would argue that GWOT has concluded. We certainly are dealing with the consequences of GWOT policies, but these are askew to our original intentions. Iran and Pakistan are real challenges, but of a secondary and self-limited nature. They do not seriously threaten the American strategic equation, though they may contest our regional posture.

In contrast, the challenge to Eastern Europe - the rise of the Russian bear - is a more fundamental American interest, and one with broad consequences for our nation and our allies. History has shown that a Russia that is confident, able to project power and insulate itself with satellites and client states, is a Russia which will come crashing into truly vital American interests.

The Russian Trap

2008-08-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Georgia did initiate the attack on the province of South Ossetia with bombings of government buildings and other civilian targets.

Things are not as simple as that. South Ossetian forces and non-uniformed Russian instigators have been shelling nearby Georgian villages for weeks and conducting irregular attacks against Georgian forces permanently deployed near South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia had prepositioned substantial forces to bases in the region in order to take advantage of an inevitable Georgian response to these provocations. Russian military hackers were actively disrupting Georgian government websites and communications since mid-July.

Russian media propaganda - all Russian media is now under direct or indirect government control - had prepared the country for a "peacekeeping mission" and "war of liberation".

Georgia fell into a trap; that much is clear. To blame her for initiating this war is uninformed.

The Pendulum Swings

2008-08-14T00:21:00.000-07:00

I believe Europe's response vindicates my judgement.

We have the Foreign Minister of Britain suggesting that Russia be removed from the G-8, with the opposition leader actually advocating this to be implemented. We have the French President - France currently holds the EU Presidency - engaged in week-long shuttle diplomacy between Tbilisi and Moscow. We have the heads of state from Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Latvia - all states on Russia's periphery and, historically, under Russian domination - converging on Tbilisi to stand together with the Georgian President in a show of solidarity for Georgia's territorial integrity. We have the heads of NATO, EU, OSCE and UN roundly condemning, threatening and pleading with Russia to cease the most robust excercise of "hard power" on the European continent in a generation.

States which can act don't plead. Europe is defenseless to Russia's regional ambitions, addicted to Russian oil and gas and helpless on a coherent strategy moving forward. The only force which can tie Europe together - indeed, to avoid the disintegration of generational transnational institutions in the face of Russian resolve - and to confront the Russian bear is the United States.

I cannot overemphasize the dramatic demonstration of power that Russia's invasion represents. Don't misunderstand; Russia has been internally stronger for some time now. All that has changed is the merging of perception and reality. There is fundamentally nothing preventing the Russians from exercising such "peacekeeping missions", known in the West as "regime change", to protect sizable Russian populations in the Baltics, Ukraine and beyond. This knowledge will begin to shape and transform Europe, particularly a dozen nations comprising Eastern Europe, who have more than once experienced the delight of Russian tanks in the capitals, and it will bind American policy to contain Russian ambitions and nullify Russian power.

Russia will not win this Cold War, just as it lost the last. The world has changed, and so has Russia. It is no longer an empire, able to command seemingly limitless resources in pursuit of its geopolitical goals. Nor can it escape its own demographic weakness, or its need to integrate with the global economic system.

No, Russia will fail. The history of Russia is a pendulum, swinging from expansion to contraction and back. Russia will fail. The only question that remains is, what cost will the West incur, what generational challenge will we overcome, to ensure that failure and entrench it in the international system.

Fighting Facts

2008-08-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

at least it gave you the opportunity to dive head-long into your Holocaust-justifies-everything mode

Is this cookie cutter response really necessary, or justified? Talk about bigotry! You compared the Palestinians in the West Bank to Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. I felt it necessary to inform your ridiculous, shallow and propagandistic analogy, which is the result of sheer, willful ignorance. Nowhere did I say that "Holocaust-justifies-everything". You could have just responded with, "you're right, it wasn't a good analogy", instead of continuing this meaningless ping pong match.

In fact, let's try it. I'll give you a chance to say, "it wasn't a good analogy", and then I'll proceed to your other points. There is a difference between fighting a war and fighting facts. We should all abstain from the later.

Georgia's Last Gasp

2008-08-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

The Russian invasion of Georgia is the most fundamental change in the world since 9/11. We're looking at a complete collapse of two decades of Western foreign policy, not just in the Caucuses, but on Russia's entire periphery. The entire premise of the post-Cold War world is that Russia is weak, unable to project power outside its borders, and that the West - America - will protect the newly liberated former Soviet satellite states.

Russia has now demonstrated that it can bring 300 main battle tanks and 500 armored personnel carriers to any border on its periphery, with half those forces combat ready and moving within 12 hours and engaged in competent combined arms combat. Georgia is mostly mountains and gorges; the steppes of central Europe are a cakewalk in comparison. One week after defying Russia - tomorrow - the Georgian president will either be dead, facing war crimes charges in a Russian court, or being airlifted to exile in Turkey.

Meanwhile, the American President has not so much as left the Olympic Games in protest of the invasion and submission of an American ally. This is not a message that will be lost on the region.

The West will regroup to adapt to the earthquake this event represents in regional geopolitics. Those countries of the former Soviet Union now in the Western orbit - members of NATO and the EU like Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, etc. - will immediately begin a process of armament and reinforcement with American bases. America will now be the guarantor of Eastern Europe against Russia, as it was the guarantor of Western Europe against the Soviets.

The Europeans, led by the British, French and Germans, will initiate a process of trans-national consolidation of national armies - the development of a continental European army, under the aegis of NATO.

The global war on terror is over. We won.
The second Cold War has just begun.

Real Extermination

2008-08-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

As I stated in another comment, I think it takes a European to understand the concept of real extermination.

I was speaking about this very subject with a Palestinian friend this weekend. He asked me about the Russian invasion of Georgia, since I'm from the area and understand the mindsets better.

We spoke about it at length, and I mentioned to him that in the first day or war in Georgia, 1500 people died, and those are the ones that were counted! In the 2006 Lebanon War, 1000 people died in 30 days, and that was considered a catastrophe, an atrocity, a massacre! Who has even mentioned such a thing with regards to Russia and Georgia? One apartment building in Qana is bombed, and it's considered a massacre. Russia has been rocketing entire cities, for days. So has Georgia. Where is the Arab League denouncing the loss of civilian life? Where is the outrage from [Name] and [Name], demonstrating their supposed conviction that each life is equal.

One Palestinian is shot in the foot with a rubber bullet, resulting in no serious injury, and they write a post about it! 1500 human beings are murdered in a rain of rockets, and Kabob does not even make a brief mention of this. So much for "all life is equal", eh [Name]?

Both Russia and Georgia are using multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) against civilian cities! We're not talking precision IAF F-16 strikes with laser guided bombs.

They're using the unguided Katyusha rocket that Hezbollah loves, except that the Russian and Georgians are not firing 1 or 10 of them at a time; they are firing 1,000 at one time, 10,000. Saturation artillery bombardment is a key feature of Soviet combat orthodoxy. No one even bothers to ask who they are shooting at. If they don't use X amount of rockets every day they will be accused of not performing their duties.

I gave him an analogy: if a Russian general had to report to his superiors that in a particular theatre, only 1500 people had died, he would be sent to Siberia, to dig for gold, in permafrost, with his bare hands.

It would be assumed that he is a coward who is refusing to fight the war. It doesn't really matter if it's 1500 Russian soldiers who died or 1500 enemy soldiers who died. The fact that only 1500 died means there is no action on the battlefield! It's simple dereliction of duty!

On the other hand, we have Hamas fighting Palestinian clans in Gaza, killing 4 people there and 6 people there, and that is considered a "war"?

In WWII, the Russians wouldn't even consider themselves "engaged" with the enemy until 10,000 soldiers were fertilizing the fields. How else are you supposed to get a sense of the battlefield? You send a few thousand here, a few thousand there, and you see where they start dying. Then you know where the enemy is.

So, naturally, Europeans are very confused when Palestinians claim "genocide" and "massacre". 10 people is not a massacre. 100 people is not a massacre. 10,000 people... you're getting warmer, but only within a 48 hour period. 25,000, 50,000... now you're talking real numbers.

To make a long story short, I think we found where the perspectives diverge. When Europeans think of war, they think of extermination: 10,000 killed from a nation of 50,000,000 means 49,990,000 left to go.

Arabs don't think in terms of extermination, generally speaking; they think in terms of blood. You kill one person, you've started a war with their entire clan that is obligated to avenge their blood.

But that entire clan might only be 6,000 men. There is not a national mentality that says the entire nation must fight to the death. There is no concept of total war.

Real genocide is practically unheard of, and when it actually happens (such as in Iraq, Syria or Jordan), it is so swift, so brutal, that no one in the blood line is left alive to avenge. Individual clans looking to avenge "blood for blood" are not very efficient at fighting nation states with faceless armies of soldiers.

The Warsaw Ghetto Comparison

2008-08-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

So, those Jews in the Warsaw ghetto who decided to try to overthrow the Nazi control of the city were actually racist fascists implementing the practice of genocide?

Are you really going to compare the West Bank with the Warsaw Ghetto, [Name]? That's a new low, even for you. Yes, the West Bank is JUST LIKE the Warsaw Ghetto. We can see this clearly from the facts:

Between 1941 and 1943, starvation, disease and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps dropped the population of the ghetto from an estimated 450,000 to approximately 71,000. In 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto was the scene of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first urban rebellion against the Nazi occupation of Europe.

Are you satisfied that your comparison is perhaps the most obscene ever devised on Kabob? I'm not. I think we need to press this point, to make it clear to you the difference between being exterminated in propaganda, and being exterminated in reality.

Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 253 kcal, compared to 2,325 kcal for gentile Poles and 5,613 kcal for Germans.

253kcal converts to 253000cal or 253Cal (big "C" - the unit of energy most commonly associated with food in America). One McDonalds Hamburger is 250Cal. One large Sprite, 32fl oz, is 310Cal! These people were on a diet of 253Cal for YEARS! That sounds EXACTLY like the West Bank, right, [Name]? I thought so. No, I'm not done yet, you little bitch.

Over 100,000 of the Ghetto's residents died due to rampant disease or starvation, as well as random killings, even before the Nazis began massive deportations of the inhabitants from the Ghetto's Umschlagplatz to the Treblinka extermination camp during Operation Reinhard.

Rampant disease and starvation resulting in the deaths of 100,000 in one year are commonplace in the West Bank, right [Name]? But "how low is low enough"? Let's find out!

Between Tisha B'Av (July 23) and Yom Kippur (September 21) of 1942, about 254,000 Ghetto residents were sent to Treblinka and murdered there.

Sorry, I need to translate for Palestinians. Your people start shooting at each other because someone insulted someone's wife's cooking, 8 people die, and you call that a "clan war". Europeans fight REAL wars, for extermination. Real extermination, not the propaganda version you are used to.

By the end of 1942, it was clear that the deportations were to their deaths, and many of the remaining Jews decided to fight.

Just like in the West Bank, right [Name]?

According to the official report [during the final battle, April 19-23rd] at least 56,065 people were killed on the spot or deported to Nazi concentration and death camps, mostly to Treblinka.

That's four days of fighting. 56,065 people... dead. Can you conceptualize that number, [Name]? Let me help you. The population of Jenin is 35,760. The population of Qalqilya is 44,700. The population of Tulkarm is 59,000. Make a mental anchor. That's how many Jews died fighting in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 4 days; the entire population of Tulkarm. We're not even talking about the concentration camps; this is just the battle in the Ghetto.

You're so concerned for your people, so mortified that Israeli factories are powered by the burning bodies of Palestinian children, that you choose to resist! To fight! Right [Name]?

You wrap yourself the mantle of freedom and justice, going so far as to claim that YOU are fighting in the tradition of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising!

I think it takes a European to understand the concept of real extermination. Perhaps that is the issue. When Arabs talk of exterminating Jews, they mean "well stab a few helpless Jewish kids, shoot some rounds in the air, maybe fire off a few rockets at Jewish cities", and then we will go have dinner at Uncle Saed's.

When Jews hear Arabs talking of exterminating Jews, they think "they want to kill us to the very last Jew". Of course, real extermination of Jews in Arab lands is also not unheard of.

The Nimr Report

2008-08-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

Since Nimr couldn't match this most obscure post, I've taken it upon myself to issue the First Edition of The Nimr Report (TNR).

TNR will be issued whenever Nimr posts on an obscure, irrelevant topic, with the aim of educating him, and the rest of [Blog], on how to spot stories relevant to at least 0.0001% of humanity.

Today's TNR is all about Racism. That's right, boys and girls, a favorite topic for the [Blog]Crew and its staunch Kabob Comments Resistance Committees (including myself, Firouz, [Name], [Name], [Name], [Name] and... the incorrigible Anonymous).

Specifically, the subject at hand is the UN Conference on Racism, aka Durban II. We have a report from Joel Brinkley, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford University:

I confess I had forgotten about the U.N. World Conference against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, on Sept. 8, 2001. It turned so quickly into a racist, anti-Semitic hate-fest that Secretary of State Colin Powell stood up and walked out.

The indignant commentary was just getting started when the Sept. 11 attacks swept the coverage away. The event was largely forgotten.

I bring it up now because they’re at it again. The United Nations has scheduled a sequel, dubbed Durban II, to take place in Geneva, Switzerland, next spring. (This time, Durban’s city fathers refused to host it.) And if the 2001 event proved to be an embarrassment for the United Nations and the world, the next one promises to be a shameful travesty that will light up cable news, late-night TV talk shows and multi-media blogs for weeks.

Worse, the event is certain to cleave an even deeper divide between the Arab states and the rest of the world. It’s pre-ordained.

...continue reading.

This concludes the First Edition of The Nimr Report.

Grow a Couple

2008-08-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

Simply defaulting on "you must be anti-semitic" is a childs argument.

Oh, and this entire time I've been confused. Now I understand. When Hamas fires rockets at Sderot, they are aiming for the Druze, or perhaps the Bedouin citizens of Israel, not the Jews.

When al Aqsa Martyrs sends a terrorist to murder Jews at a religious school, they really meant to kill students at the Muslim school next door. Damn that Mapquest!

When a homicide bomber is dispatched to murder Israelis, he goes to the closest Israeli Arab village to detonate his vest.

You're ridiculous.

Israel is a Jewish state, with an 80% Jewish population. This war started with Palestinians massacring Jews in Hebron, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa... The Arab slogans of 1948 were not "Drive the Israelis into the sea!"

Palestinians are fighting Jews, not Druze, not Bedouin, not Israeli Arabs, not Christians, not Baha'i, not the thousands of foreign laborers.

You are fighting Jews and the state that Jews created.

Yet another cowardly attempt to discriminate between killing Jews and anti-semitism. You want to kill Jews. That's a fact. You are against (anti) Jews (semitism). Be proud of your anti-semitism. What difference does it make that "anti-semitism" has a bad rap. You are not responsible for Hitler's actions. Your beef with the Jews is completely different.

Grow a couple and be honest, be proud. Just don't be a coward. How can anyone respect you or what you have to say in such a case.

Sand in the Fingernails

2008-08-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

I understand it's difficult for some here to read, much less comprehend, all of my commentary on this blog. For the benefit of those who missed it the first time, the "demographic time bomb" is not an issue I am concerned with. It means nothing to me, frankly, though I understand the premise for it fully. It's a tool of debate, nothing more.

I've written extensively on this subject in commentaries spread around this blog, and preserved for my personal use here. My comments:

You were discussing the "demographic time bomb". I reject the notion that Palestinian infants constitute a threat to Jews in Israel. The very idea is racist and unjust at its core.

Palestinian adults strapping themselves with bomb belts and firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli populations centers constitutes a threat to Jews in Israel. This threat is real, and should be dealt with.

I know, the "demographic time bomb" is such a perfect weapon... but not against me. Have as many kids as you want. It's a blessing for Ishmael.

Teach them to hate and murder Jews, G-d forbid, and their lives will be as wasted as the previous generation.

For those of you with an Islamic education, I'll make this simple. In a Palestinian blood feud, numbers matter. Against the armies of the Living G-d, the King of Kings, it is sand in the fingernails.

Family Comes First

2008-08-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

You guys are funny.

It's a very simple concept, [Name]. I'm surprised, having explained it to you three times now, that it has still not sunk in.

Me: "There will be no concessions on preserving Jewish life."

You: "Sorry, there is no point in arguing any further with a facist."

Me:"The situation is clear for both of us. I will not compromise on securing Jewish life, and you will not compromise on retaining the option to end Jewish life."

You: "You can't even see the above line is fascist, racist, supremecist, because you're blinded by your own bigotry. You clearly believe that Jewish is more important than Palestinian, Arab or African life."

Shall we repeat this game? I'll remind you that there will never be a compromise that endangers Jewish life. You will respond how unfair it is that I won't let you kill Jews, and how I am a Nazi for not allowing you to kill my people.

This game will continue, until you do what I suggested days ago: "Reconsider your posture so that Jewish life and Palestinian human rights are not mutually exclusive. This is the basis on which I view the situation."

So long as you wish to endanger Jewish life, your rights mean nothing to me. It is not merely a matter of my personal preference. It is a matter of Halacha. If you have an issue with it, take it up with G-d.

You can call me whatever name you wish. The Jews are not leaving. You can start another intifada. The Jews are not leaving. You can beat your wife until she is blue. The Jews are not leaving.

Until your people accept that retaining the option to murder Jews is unacceptable, your people will remain behind the Security Barrier, living with checkpoints, rubber bullets and the occasional airstrike.

There is no Jewish law on Palestinian demographics. The only law of relevance deals with preserving life, all life, starting with Jewish life.

That. Means. You're. A. Fascist.

When you go to a hospital, do you visit every single patient? No, that's ridiculous! You visit your family member who is sick first. Does that make you fascist? Does that mean you don't care about others? Family comes first. I never thought I would have to explain that to a Palestinian. You are a Palestinian, aren't you, [Name]?

There will be no compromises on the safety of my family.

It's your life wasting away. Sad, I know, but your choices have consequences. The Jews are not leaving. That's all there's to it.

A Shmuck with a Keyboard

2008-08-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

Jews living in palestine, NATIVE jews, had a right to call palestine their homeland as much as the palestinians do.

Who asked you where Jews can and can't live. Who asked you where they did or did not come from. Who are you to tell Jews, who have survived 3000 years, intact as a people, what their identity is. You're nothing; some shmuck with a keyboard, pretending to be Muslim.

It's unbelievable, the charges of racism and fascism that fly out of you people, while your own hatred, desire for violence and murder against Jews is preserved intact and unadulterated.

And that's all it is, simple hatred. You long for the time when the Jews were your dhimmies, subservient and at your mercy, and the hardest decision you had to make was, to pogrom or not to pogrom.

This situation will NEVER happen again. EVER. EVER. You will NEVER control the fate of the Jews. E.V.E.R.

When we want your opinion on who is a Jew, or where Jews can live, or what our history is, we'll give it to you.

We actually have a history, unlike other cultures, who suddenly discovered their nationhood in the 1960s.

A hundred years ago the villages in Judea and Samaria were still fighting blood feuds amongst each other and defending themselves against marauding Bedouins. You were nothing but villages and clans. The only thing that defined a common identity was that these clans don't have a direct blood link to the Prophet, which pretty much made you the toilet of the Arab world. Not much has changed.

Dissecting History

2008-08-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

Considering the most serious archeologists in this regard – Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman

This is a joke, right? Finkelstein is, by far, a minority opinion among Judaic archaeologists. He'll say anything to get his name in the paper. You could have tried for a more respectable archaeologist, if only to build your credibility, but you just couldn't help yourself.

place the TOTAL number of people in "Canaan" at a MAXIMUM of 100,000 at the time of the supposed Exodu (of which there is zero archeological evidence), then your holy book is inaccurate to the point of absurd.

I think I'll trust three separate censuses of the Jewish people, that they took themselves, in real time, than the opinion of someone working with incomplete facts, and with a political bias, 3000 years later.

There are a few historians who say the Nazi camps could only hold 100,000 people at most, and only 10,000 were gassed. Are you going to quote them next?

Can't your God count?

I think Najah was right, you are angry and bitter. Trying to fight history will do that to you, I suppose, and I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Gaza's Obama Contribution

2008-08-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

What astounds me most about this story is that so much money would be given from such a poor place.

You'd be surprised how much money it costs to fund a war machine against Israel. Fear not, Saudi and Iranian oil money, trafficked into Gaza in suitcases, paid for those t-shirts.

In Gaza, 70% of the nonrefugees make less than $1.20 a day. This fact makes alone this story a bit hard to believe. Perhaps it was orchestrated by anti-Obama folks.

That's quite a reach, [Name]. You're stretching yourself into absurdity. No conspiracy is too far fetched, so long as Palestinians are the victims.

The donations came in between Sept. 20 and Dec. 6 and virtually all of the money, about $33,500, was returned by December 6. But the refunds weren’t reported to the Federal Election Commission due to a technical error, campaign officials said.

That's the end of the story.

Some Palestinians tried to buy a ton of Obama t-shirts directly from the campaign, probably to resell in WB/Gaza or elsewhere in the Middle East. They probably didn't even know they were funding his campaign and were just trying to buy authentic Obama shirts for resale.

The Palestinians I know would never give up their hard earned money this way. If Hamas was behind this, they would use the money to pay their forces, not fund a political campaign halfway around the world. $33k is nothing. A government like China can funnel millions into a candidate's campaign, as they did in the 90s with Clinton, and have some effect. $33k is about half the cost of one of the big rallies Obama does once a week. That enough for a year's worth of maybe one full time paid staffer, out of the hundreds that he has. It's nothing.

There was no conspiracy. The money was being refunded back almost immediately. If someone was trying to set Obama up, they would have done something more elaborate, like bundling campaign contributions through CAIR, or whatnot.

Let's be honest. [Name] is writing about this because there is an expectation among many of you Paliphiles that this country hates Palestinians and Arabs, and Obama being connected with Arabs in any way will be viewed as a negative for his campaign. She was railing against that, not the details of this particular situation.

That's why she - not to recycle a verb - bundled the story with Mazen Asbahi.

Be a Man

2008-08-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

Me: "There will be no concessions on preserving Jewish life."

You: "Sorry, there is no point in arguing any further with a facist."

That says it all right there.

The situation is clear for both of us. I will not compromise on securing Jewish life, and you will not compromise on retaining the option to end Jewish life.

Why do you feel the need to start defending yourself? It is such a weak path to take, and unnecessary. You're doing this for yourself, for your children, for your people. Retaining the option to murder Jews is part of how you view yourself. Be proud of who you are.

You're certainly not going to see me risk the lives of my people because someone who wants the option to kill my people called me a racist for wanting to protect them.

I have priorities in this world, and so do you. Don't be so defensive. You are who you are.

I'm sick and tired of all the pansy-ass Palestinian men on this blog. You're all so confused about your identity. You want to retain the option to kill Jews, and yet you are afraid of being seen as anti-semitic. How can anyone respect this? Stand your ground. Be men, not kharoufs.

No Concessions

2008-08-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

If this is a pledge the Palestinians have made - that they must have the ability to threaten Jewish life - then there is nothing to discuss.

Your desire to maintain the option to murder Jews, indiscriminately, is not a basis for anything, except Israeli security operations.

You're right, [Name], there is nothing further to discuss. A spade is a spade, and you, [Name], wish to murder Jews.

Just remember this now, and always, "There will be no concessions on preserving Jewish life."

The Ultimate Equity

2008-08-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

It is a mistake to view the existing situation through a prism of blaming the "settlers and hawks".

This is a common theme - "If only moderates and liberals in Israel held the reigns, we would have peace..."

They have, for decades. Olmert is a moderate. Israel was ruled by huge liberals up to the 2nd Intifada. Even Bibi was dovish in dealing with the Palestinians.

You have an expectation that a liberal or moderate Israeli leader, in the face of 5000 rockets being fired indiscriminately out of Gaza, will apologize for the Nakba, release all Palestinians convicted of murder and terrorism, open Gaza's borders and send Hamas a fat check for all the pain and suffering.

Sharon, the hawk, the bulldozer, removed settlers from Gaza, not a liberal.

The Gazans are under a self-imposed siege that has reduced them to little better than stone-age living, yet still they do not surrender. Why would you expect Israelis, with a $200Bil economy growing at 5% a year, to surrender when faced with 5000 Qassams?

The only thing those Qassams do is create more "settlers and hawks".

I won't preach to you further, except to say that this is a flawed logic that needs reevaluation on your end. "Settlers and hawks" are not the root here.

To restate an earlier point, "Some on this blog consider the preservation of Jewish life to be at odds with Palestinian human rights."

If this is a pledge the Palestinians have made - that they must have the ability to threaten Jewish life - then there is nothing to discuss.

My people are, for the most part, safe. I will not risk or sacrifice Jewish life for a semblance of "fairness" in a negotiating position.

You believe that the demographic threat gives you leverage to exact concessions at the expense of preserving Jewish life. I reject your leverage.

There will be no concessions on preserving Jewish life.

Reconsider your posture so that Jewish life and Palestinian human rights are not mutually exclusive. This is the basis on which I view the situation. It is the ultimate equity.

The Definition of Verified

2008-08-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

A census is the definition of verified.

Which is more absurd:

1) 603,550 heads of household (established by census) and their families, numbering in the millions, communally experienced a singular, supernatural event, and passed this knowledge down from father to son.

or..

2) 603,550 heads of household (established by census) and their families, numbering in the millions, communally came up with the concept of G-d and an elaborate story to go with it. Not just the Written Torah - the 5 books of Moses - but the Oral Torah that came with the Written Torah - another 30 odd volumes of oral Torah encapsulated in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud.

If you actually read the written Torah, much less the oral Torah, you would know that every argument and disagreement, every stumble and sin the Jews went through is exposed and documented, in detail.

Perhaps you are not familiar with the old adage of what happens when you lock two Jews up in a room, you get three opinions.

To think that millions of people would not have said, "wait a minute, what the fuck are we doing making up a crazy lie to tell our kids, and their kids", is absolutely absurd.

In 3000 years of history, Jews have quarreled over every letter of Torah. Every argument, including the accepted opinion and the minority opinion, has been preserved. Sects have broken off, including the Karaites (who only accept the Written Law - the Pentateuch, the 5 books of Moses) and Samaritans, who do weird things like ">engrave their mezuzas above their doors, instead of on the door frame.

Yet not a single sect - all of which are minor and anomalous in themselves - rejected Mattan Torah, the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people.

In 3000 years of Jewish history, not a single letter of Torah has been misplaced or rewritten. We know this because when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, preserved for 2000 years, they were identical, letter for letter, to the Torahs we use in a synagogue today. This is a massive document with no vowels and no punctuation, yet every single letter was preserved!

Yes, I think it's more likely that millions of Jews experienced a communal revelation of G-d, instead of embarking on a massive, comprehensive conspiracy to lie to themselves and their children.

Tea and Knafa

2008-08-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Can't we find another alternative that has new clean blood, neither Fatah or Hamas will bring us any good

[Name], you mean you want to overthrow and exterminate BOTH Fatah AND Hamas? That's what you will have to do for your "national unity" plan to work, of course, since they won't let go of their hard earned power easily.

All you will end up doing is creating yet another armed faction. But hey, then you can have three governments - one each in Gaza, Judea and Samaria!

The division of the Palestinians is real, based on sound geopolitics, not emotions. You're not going to fix these rifts with tea and knafa.

Seven Noahide Laws

2008-08-06T08:26:00.001-07:00

603,550 Jewish heads of household, and their families, numbering in the millions, collectively experienced the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Name another event, in the history of mankind, with so many verifiable witnesses.

What is the biggest march in history? A million people? Two million people? Imagine 3, 4 million people, all experiencing the same thing. Now try to convince them they all had a collective hallucination. If the foundation of history is human witness, then Mattan Torah is more grounded in history than perhaps any other event.

We know exactly how many individuals there were, because a census was taken (actually, three of them in the 13 months after the Israelites left Egypt).

I'm angry that people in the 21st century, the beneficiaries of centuries of scientific advancement, still believe that men with beards in clouds tell them what to do.

I am also angry that some people think there are bearded men in clouds. Any idiot, including you, can look at the clouds and disprove such a belief.

No one is asking or telling you to believe in G-d. I was speaking to those who do. For you, perhaps the physical world is confusing enough, without having to deal with its spiritual underpinnings, and that's your path.

The world was formed precisely to conceal G-dliness within creation, within physicality. You see a physical world, and so do I. This is how we are built, and no one is asking more of you.

I don't know about Islam or Christianity, but Judaism is based on action. Not meditation on a mountain top or seclusion in a monastery, but action in the real world. Not lofty ideals, but their implementation - the perfection of our physical world through natural means. We Jews were given 613 mitzvot, or good deeds, to perform in the world.

You don't have to be Jewish to be a good person. What you must do, however, is act like a good person.

We are fortunate to live in a time when the essential morals of monotheistic faith - what the Jews call, the Seven Noahide Laws - have completely permeated our society and civilization, making basic adherence to them a matter of accepted routine. More is not required of you.

Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

My mother says he was married to a Jew, which is interesting, given that he is generally regarded as anti-semitic. He claimed to be a Zionist, in that he sympathized with the Jewish people's desire for a state, but wrote exhaustively, later in life, on the role that Jews played in the Revolution and Red Terror, in particular their massively disproportionate representation in both the upper echelons and mid-level administrators. While acknowledging that many Jews were victims, he persists in asserting certain facts - such as that 3/4ths of the Cheka was Jewish - which leave no doubt in the mind of an average Russian who was the real culprit in establishing and enforcing a state of violent repression and totalitarianism.

Solzhenitsyn was a master at purging the Russian soul. The bitter Tzarist era he compares favorably to the brutality of the revolution. Stalinist purges are divorced of their innumerable enforcers, as the enforcers are then purged, and who can blame the dead, or name them. In all, he levies charges against an organism of state organs, but not the armies of nameless bureaucrats and paperpushers that fed the meat grinder, and oiled its many moving parts. There has never been a single prosecution since the collapse of Communism - not one, and Solzhenitsyn never called on the state to open its files. New gulags would then have to be built to contain the millions who did the work of the people, less with efficiency than with earnest zeal.

Perhaps it is the final irony that his parting legacy to a new Russia - absolution - is borne on the backs of those who suffered not less, but proportionally more. Surely he must have realized that a nation cannot forge ahead, with vigor, mired in its ghosts. This it the Russia Solzhenitsyn wanted - strong, enduring, poetic. It is a strange love affair of Russians and Russia. We define our civilization by the people who inhabit it - America is the people of America. Devoid of Americans, America has no meaning, no purpose. Russia is a distinct entity, a romance for its people to enter into; a romance that is real, and often tragic, yet Russia itself persists, timeless.

A One State Lament

2008-08-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

It will mean Arabs [and Jews] can buy land anywhere they choose. It will mean Arab towns and villages get the same access to water, education, road networks, electricity... It will mean Arabs will form political parties to contest elections and form governments...

And I support all this. It's not going to be an easy transition, but it is a real alternative. We can be solving old problems for the next 60 years, or creating new problems for 60 more years.

For Arab Israelis, all the things you've cited are in effect by law, if not in implementation, and it is only a matter of time before implementation catches up with the law. To categorize Israeli society or the Israeli government as monolithic disregards truth for the sake of ideological clarity.

I think it's ridiculous that there are still some Arab Israeli villages without running water and sanitation. There is a reason why those choices were made, and not all of them were based on racism, although some were. I don't see a need to punish people who are peaceful and law abiding.

I also think it's ridiculous Arab Israelis aren't forced to serve in the IDF like the Jews and Druze are. They are reaping the benefits of living in a stable, secure country, but have to contribute nothing to it, while Jews and Druze citizens give the military 2-3 years of their life.

With their knowledge of Arabic and Palestinian culture, as well as familial links, they would be much more effective at maintaining peace in the territories while political negotiations continue.

There is much to discuss, but once again, [Name], [Name], [Name], et. al. are not interested in actually developing the One State. They prefer to speak of it vaguely, as a weapon to scare liberal Jews with the "demographic bomb".

I have made my priorities crystal clear. The preservation of Jewish life is the foundation for any real discussion, and from my perspective, supersedes every other issue in importance.

Some on this blog consider the preservation of Jewish life to be at odds with Palestinian human rights.

I don't see how the ability to threaten Jewish life is a "Palestinian human rights issue", but this is a choice for Palestinians to make.

As for your demographic comments... "experts" have been predicting the demographic time bomb to go off in Israel since before it was created. The situation was much worse in 1929, I assure you.

As I said, I am not concerned with this. It is a tool of argument, nothing more. Palestinian children do not scare me; Palestinian adults with bomb belts do. Not every Palestinian is as interested in a fair democratic society for both Arabs and Jews, as you say you are.

Closet Commies and the Opium of the Masses

2008-08-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

israel isn't our neighbor nor of our religion thus they are foreign

That's interesting. You're not a real Muslim. No muslim would call a Jew foreign, and certainly not a Palestinian. That's like saying sand is foreign to Saudi, or cedar is foreign to Lebanon. You're not a real muslim.

Perhaps what you are trying to do is pretend to be a Muslim, to have some sort of perverse credibility in espousing your vile desire to exterminate Jews. Pathetic.

You were born a Christian, but the concept of "an eye that sees and an ear that hears, and all your deeds are recorded in the Book" scares you, because of how much you jerked off as a child, or maybe your pastor abused you, so now you're a socialist atheist prick who needs to reinvent himself to make his point. At least be proud of who you are.

[Name] may be a radical anti-semite Islamist, and I am an observant Jew. We may fight one other in war one day, chas v'shalom, but at least we know where the other stands.

You're a snake who believes nothing. Your concern for Muslims is about as skin deep as your desire to control them.

all the people you consider arab and muslim are one

Oh, thanks for clarifying that up. I had it all wrong, thinking that Sunnis consider Shia apostate dogs and Shia thinking that when their Imam Ali comes, all Sunnis will burn in the fires of Gehenom.

It can get confusing, you know, with all the Sunni-Shia ethnic cleansing and mass murder in Iraq and Lebanon and whatnot.

As for you all being one, the Palestinians I know would rather marry their daughters off to Jews than to Kuwaitis, and forget about Shia - they are considered lower than dirt.

You're not a Muslim. No Muslim would speak with such ignorance.

Playing with Propaganda

2008-08-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

Human rights organizations with more credibility than you have documented the policy of deliberate attacks against civilians, including kids, by Israel.

What a remarkably disturbed, paranoid and dishonest individual you are. Human rights organizations with more credibility than you have documented individual and isolated cases of abuse and attacks againt civilians, including kids, by Israelis - soldiers and civilians. In no way has any credible organization claimed that it is the policy of the Israeli government or the Israeli Defense Forces that such abuse and attacks are standard or acceptable practice. In the scope of hundreds of thousands of daily interactions between Israelis and Palestinians, such cases constitute a minuscule percentage.

Israeli civil societies has worked to lower this percentage further, as evidenced by rejection and refutation of such incidents by the highest levels of the Israeli government. The Israeli system works. Your attempt to extrapolate the actions of a few individuals to hundreds of thousands of Israelis involved in security operations on a daily basis, in the midst of a complicated military and socio-political context, can only be described as propagandist, having little to do with reality.

Let's take an example...

I provided you with an interview by an Israeli journalist with an Israeli sniper published in an Israeli newspaper documenting the policy of shooting kids over the age of 12

Actually, you didn't. You posted a link to an anti-Israel site which does not provide a link back to the Haaretz article, and only posts a short snippet from the interview. I could not find the original Haaretz article, but I did find it reprinted.

Really, this goes to the bottom of everything you have sited - a selective us of facts for propaganda purposes. I don't blame you; it's convenient and fits readily into a preconceived agenda.

Let's suppose you are an honest person, with an honest desire for intellectual honesty. Your goal is not propaganda, but truth.

Read that article to me and tell me if it provides any missing context to the short snippet of the "interview" you were just referring to.

I want an honest response. You can skip the rhetoric. It's just you and me now; almost no one will read this far down, and this post will be cycled off the front page in a day or two.

Iraqi KFC

2008-08-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

A KFC Restaurant in Fallujah!

Who would have thought in 2004, when the city was reduced to rubble in a firestorm of airpower, IEDs, snipers, ambushes and RPGs, that four years later, American soldiers would be making quick stops for chicken value buckets.

Palestinian Civil War

2008-08-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, the police force in Gaza surrounded an area of the Sheja’iya neighborhood... demanding the residents give up men wanted in connection to the bombing.

This could have been written by Haaretz describing an IDF operation anywhere in the territories.

The residents refused and a gunbattle ensued, leaving 3 policemen and 6 residents dead. Fatah in the West Bank saw it as a massacre. Hamas says it was simply trying to apprehend suspects who refused to give themselves up.

Look, [Name], Hamas killed innocent civilians! Hamas surrounded a civilian area and began shooting wildly into people's homes, businesses, restaurants, schools, mosques! That's a WAR CRIME, [Name], right?! Where is the outrage? Where are the claims of disproportionate force? Where are the accusations of collective punishment?! Where is your credibility? Where is your honor?

The gunbattle concluded with the police and Hamas fighters securing the area...

Are you telling me the area wasn't "secure" before this gunbattle? It was perfectly secure for the people who lived there. The resistance in this area was brutally suppressed by Hamas, who made the area secure for themselves! Where is your credibility, [Name]? Where is your honor?

...making several arrests...

Hamas is not running a police force, [Name]. They are running an illegal militia. Thus, these "arrests" are illegal, [Name]. They are indefinite detentions, with a high probability of torture for those detained. Where is your credibility, [Name]? Where is your honor?

...and uncovering large weapons caches of mortars, automatic weapons and explosives

[Name]! You mean to tell me that the Palestinians have "caches of mortars, automatic weapons and explosive"?! I thought they were helpless, occupied people without so much as food to feed their starving children. Where did they get "large weapons caches"? Who paid for these "large weapons caches"? Against whom were these "large weapons caches" meant to be used?

Where is your credibility, [Name]? Where is your honor? You have neither, you racist apologist for hatred and violence. The violence you so desperately seek to channel at Jews is now devouring your own society, your own people.

Yes, I'm loving this. After seeing Palestinians butcher my people for two decades, it's good you get a taste of your own medicine. But if you think this situation is short lived, you are delusional.

The West Bank and Gaza are more divided than ever - politically, economically, even culturally and religiously. Politically cleansing each territory of the opposition is not the way to build consensus.

There has been no attempt at reconciliation, and there will not be one. This is power politics, not Sesame Street. A basic rule of Arab society is that those who amass power do not let go until it is pried from their cold dead hands.

For all intents and purposes, there are now two "Palestines". Enjoy your civil war.

Demographic Time Bomb, Round 2

2008-08-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

let me get this straight...

1) You claim others are racist
2) You try to threaten others with a "demographic time bomb" based on the high fertility rates of your race
3) You apparently think the only thing a woman is good for is having your children

You're a racist, sexist anti-Semite, and if you play your cards right, you'll be married to a woman who beats you mercilessly for having such a small, limp... well, you get the idea.

You're just hilarious to talk to, [Name]. You have such a lack of understanding of how a democracy works. You think that if the Palestinians were annexed and given one vote they would all vote one way - to wipe the Jews out the next day.

The Palestinians can't even decide between Hamas or Fatah! They are one of the most fractured people in the world. The Palestinians are just 4 million people, and they have 20 different terror groups.

Nevermind, you say, they will all unite, for one time in history, and vote together to wipe out the Jews. Really? And what will be the day after they wipe the Jews out? Another Palestinian civil war for the spoils? You're insane. No thinking Palestinian is going to do this, when the benefits of living in Israel and cooperating with Jews will vastly outweigh the alternatives.

Think of the million Arab Israelis now. If they all decided to pick up knives and start murdering Jews, they would be impossible to stop. They don't do this. They have bills to pay and weddings to attend, movies to enjoy and girlfriends to fuck. They couldn't care less about your nonsense for destroying Jews. They want to live as human beings and enjoy life.

I believe in One State because I believe in those things which you claim to believe, while secretly wishing to genocide my people.

Thoughts, like actions, [Name], have consequences. They are not harmless; they change individuals, and they change the world. If you want your children to fight and die, just because G-d endowed you with a small Iraqi Kabob and you want to prove that size doesn't matter, that can all be arranged.

What a waste of life you are.
A waste of life.

The Demographic Time Bomb

2008-08-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

Ahh... now I understand. You were discussing the "demographic time bomb". I reject the notion that Palestinian infants constitute a threat to Jews in Israel. The very idea is racist and unjust at its core.

Palestinian adults strapping themselves with bomb belts and firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli populations centers constitutes a threat to Jews in Israel. This threat is real, and should be dealt with.

Israel was the Jewish homeland before the State of Israel was created. The land of Israel will forever be inalterably linked to the Jewish people.

Every religion in the Western world, including Islam, has noted that the Jews are G-d's chosen people, that the Land of Israel is unique, in that it was given to the One People by the One G-d, forever.

The Arabic name for Jews, itself - Yehud - encompasses the oneness of G-d and the Jews.

To deny this runs counter to Islam, Christianity and G-d.

My job is not to build the next and final Jewish kingdom. We have a Moshiach to do that, may he come speedily in our days. It says that when Moshiach comes, the nations of the world will all work together to reestablish the Jewish kingdom and help gather in the exiles (the Jewish Diaspora).

You, yourself, [Name], will work to bring Jews back to Israel, not in disgrace and humiliation, but with joy; knowing that you are performing the will of your Creator.

My job is to ensure the safety of the Jewish people until Moshiach comes.

The Jewish laws governing the Jewish community's actions in ensuring its security are equally valid whether in Israel or in East Timur.

Jewish security will come at the expense of Palestinians, should they choose to threaten Jewish life, as they have insisted on doing for decades.

Were the Palestinians to make a compact with the Jewish people, as now the Druze, Baha'i and Bedouin have done, Jewish security will equate with Palestinian security and prosperity.

It is a choice. A national choice.
A fork in the road, eh [Name]?

Settlement and Peace

2008-08-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

At Camp David, Barak was willing to give up 98% of the West Bank for a Palestinian state, including East Jerusalem and all but the biggest settlement blocks, exchanging Israeli territory for these. Included were entire Jewish cities and suburbs, with tens of thousands of middle class homes - property valued at in the billions, if not the tens of billions.

The response was the 2nd Intifada.

Ariel Sharon, of all people, led the destruction of all Israeli settlements in Gaza, and the evacuation of their Jewish residents to Israel proper.

The response was nearly 5000 rockets, mortars, kidnappings, IEDs, snipers, civil war and the continual build of up a sophisticated terror infrastructure that is taking pointers from Hezbollah and aims to use Gaza as a launchpad for further attacks against Israel.

Mind you, the Gaza withdrawal was to be only the beginning. The Israeli government under Olmert was planning a broad based evacuation of all but the biggest Israeli settlement blocks behind the Security Barrier - a policy that would have effectively ethnically cleansed Jews from the West Bank. The Israeli left led this notion of "separation for a generation"; it is now dead.

Needless to say, given the Palestinian response in Gaza, no Israeli leader is going to place Israel's biggest population centers within range of Palestinian rockets and mortars based in the hills of Judea and Samaria. No one in Israel trusts the Palestinians anymore, not even the left.

The only way to end this war is to expand broad based and simultaneous Jewish settlement of the entire West Bank. Judea and Samaria have always been the heart of Israel, and they will thus remain.

Palestinians have no more right to a homogeneous apartheid homeland than Jews do. As you say, 1/3rd of the West Bank is now settled by Jews. All that's necessary is ink on paper.

One state. Stop fighting it.

Oh, and [Name], stop advocating the indiscriminate murder of Jews. This, as with the murder of any innocents, will not be tolerated in One State Israel. I know it's a change for you, but I believe you will be a better human being for it.

I take a three week break from Kabob - having personally witnessed [Name] running from the One State he preaches with his tail between his legs - only to find [Name] embroiled in a defense of his virulent, brutal anti-semitism. That's what happens when all you care about is scoring points.

The Long War

2008-08-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

Israel snipers do shoot kids on purpose

This statement is not supported by facts, and is thus not legitimate. You use Islamist and Palestinian propaganda to justify your viewpoint. If you can't demonstrate a minimal of credibility in exposing your views, they are not worth commentary. I'm sure Hitler had his rationalizations, as do you, but that did not make his quest to kill millions legitimate, and neither is yours.

their orders allow them to shoot any child above the age of 12

What is reprehensible is that Palestinians would employ their children in committing war crimes.

Palestinian children 'dream of martyrdom':
Arab psychologist says more than half want to strap on bombs

In two separate incidents this month, armed Palestinian youths have infiltrated Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip

Palestinian kids raised for war: Taught to hate, kill Jews through 'Sesame Street'-type TV show

Jerusalem cleric praises child 'sacrifices': 'The younger the martyr, the greater and the more I respect him'

Palestinian TV urging children to kill Dead 12-year-old in paradise beckons kids to martyr themselves

Hillary decries brainwash of child 'martyrs': Senate panel watches video evidence of Palestinian indoctrination

Palestinians glorify child 'martyrs': Mother only wishes a different son had died

Kids get martyr message in music video: Palestinian release coincides with textbook teaching children to aid terrorists

Mom of martyr: Sacrifice more of my children: See clip of women celebrating, praising Allah for death of sons

By the way, I would like to applaud you for caring so deeply about Palestinian children. Perhaps you will join me, then, in condemning the alarming gendercide of women, particularly young girls, in the West Bank and Gaza. We're at an average of 32 official "honor killings" per year, as of 2007, although I've seen unofficial estimates running into 90 such "incidents", every single year.

Even were we to take your ludicrous, propagandistic numbers into account, it would still be the Palestinians who kill more of their own children, by a 5-1 yearly margin.

No wonder the kids are desperate to run head first into Israeli bullets. Their alternative is to be raped, murdered and buried in the back yard by their own relatives!

23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the [first] intifida, with nearly one third sustaining broken bones

What "Save the Children" did not say, was how many of these beatings were the result of "normal" parenting on the part of the Palestinians. Palestinians beat their kids. Mercilessly, relentlessly, and sometimes for no reason. Just talk to a village Palestinian about their childhood. Beatings by both parents, relatives and complete strangers are both "normal" and accepted.

I suppose that's for the lucky ones, who aren't raped, murdered and buried in the back yard!

6,500 to 8,000 children were wounded by gunfire during the first two years of the Intifada

What the report did not say was who fired the weapons that resulted in children being wounded. Again, you don't know Palestinian society. Ask any Palestinian who grew up in the 1st or 2nd Intifada. They will tell you it is a common passtime for kids to pick up unspent bullets on the ground, put them between two rocks, and hit the bullet from behind until it detonates, shooting the slug randomly.

Nor are Palestinian children exempt from stupidity on the part of Palestinian adults. These actions include

1) firing rifles off into the air randomly every time they want to act like "real men". Those bullets have to come down somewhere.

2) Improperly manufacturing bombs and rockets to be fired at Israel, with the result being that the bombs explode prematurely and the rockets fall short of murdering the Jewish child in Sderot and instead murder the Palestinian child in Beit Lahia.

3) Shooting at Israeli military forces in the presence of children, and often using children as human shields to avoid IDF retaliation.

Are you now going to argue that *30,000* Palestinian kids were beaten by the Israelis by accident, many of them so savagely that a third of them suffered broken bones?

No, I'm going to state you have no understanding of Palestinian society. Breaking the bones of a child during a parental beating is not uncommon, especially in the more felahe villages.

What kind of a mind does it take to rationalize the deliberate shooting and savage beating of children? I cannot see anyone with any trace of morality, ethics or human conscience supporting horrific crimes against children like this. Within our culture, those who harm children are considered the lowest of the low.

I agree wholeheartedly! Let's put a stop to Palestinian abuse, beating and murder of children in the West Bank and Gaza! Start the petition, and I'll sign. I'm sure uncle Jihad in Jabaliya will read this petition, before he beheads you.

Hamas is the legitimately elected representative of the Palestinian people, and there are many who would regard the PNA under Abbas as exactly the kind of Quisling government I mentioned before.

Strange. Hamas did win the parliamentary elections, and you consider that vote legitimate. Abbas won in the presidential elections, and you do not consider that vote legitimate. I am starting to suspect you have a special place in your heart for Islamist terrorist organizations responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians, including entire busloads of Jewish children. You were all for protecting children just a second ago... maybe it's because these children are Jewish, that you support their murderers? Just a thought.

In any case, the PNA President, not the legislature, is responsible for declaring a state of war with Israel. The PNA has condemned terrorist acts against Israelis, thus robbing these murderers of legitimacy.

The appointment of a Quisling government does not rob an occupied people of the right to resist that occupation.

The PNA was not appointed, all of it, was elected by a majority of the Palestinian people in free and fair elections. Again, you believe elections are only fair and free if Islamofascists who wish to murder Jews are elected. Interesting.

So long as they are not targeting civilians, using disproportionate force or violating the rules of war, any armed resistance by Palestinians is legtimate.

This is simply not the case. Palestinians outside of official security forces have no legitimate right to engage in violence or combat, whether against their own people, or anyone else.

violating the rules of war

Not declaring yourself to be a combatant in an armed conflict is against the rules of war. Firing bullets, rockets and mortars at civilian population centers is against the rules of war. Murdering civilians with homicide bombers is against the rules of war. Hiding amongst a civilian population with the intent of evading an opposing military force is against the rules of war. Using children to perpetrate terrorist violence is against the rules of war. And that's just the beginning...

There has been no specific UN resolution or any other action under international law prohibitting the Palestinians from resisting the occupation.

Just because Evil has broad-based support does not make it less Evil. The Palestinians, at least the ones who matter, are engaged in a war of extermination against the Jews. That they are supported by Arab bretheren - all of which are one party dictatorships - who launched and financed a half dozen wars of extermination against the Jewish state is not surprising.

The world has done little to promote Palestinian sovereignty other than drafting a handful or unenforceable UN resolutions. The US by contrast has given billions in aid and free weaponry to Israel.

Tell that to the US, EU, UN, UNRWA, Arab League... Tens of billions have been spent on the Palestinians from all corners, especially the US and EU, with little to show for it. Indeed, Israel itself donated weapons to the PA security forces in the 1990s! It is not the fault of donors that this money and resources are continually siphoned to private Palestinian pockets and terrorism and war against Jews in Israel.

Both Fatah and Hamas have openly stated they are willing to recognize the existence of a Jewish state on the territory that was stolen from the Palestinians prior to 1967 either as is or in exchange for recognition of a fully indepedent Palestinian state.

We'll let Hamas speak for itself:

After talks with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Hamas' exiled leader Khalid Meshaal said Monday the militant group has no plans to recognize Israel.

"We agree on the [Palestinian] state with the borders of June 4, 1967, Jerusalem as its capital, fully sovereign without settlements, the right of return, but without the recognition of Israel," Meshaal said at a news conference in Damascus, Syria.

So much for that theory, but thanks for trying. You're an appologist for Islamofascist terrorists. Sleep well.

Israel has one of the most powerful armies in the world, nuclear weapons, and the mindless, unquestioned support of the US and its military.

Thanks for the compliments. The Jews worked hard to ensure that "Never Again" meant "Never Again", whether by Hitler's SS or Arab armies.

The idea that some kids with rocks resisiting the theft of their land consitutes a threat to Israel's self-determnination is mental derangement of the "I think I'm Napoleon" variety.

Which is why i think it's silly that you continue to claim this. Decent people don't throw rocks, and they don't send their children to throw rocks - that goes for anyone, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Druze, etc. The Palestinians have elected their government. Any violence initated outside the authority of that government is illegitimate, whether committed by hardened Palestinian terrorists or 16 year old kids who have been brainwashed to worship those terrorists.

International law does not recognize the right to territorial acquisition through war.

Huh! You don't say. Tell that to the Arab armies that invaded the nascent Jewish State in 1948. I suppose if the Arabs had prevailed, they would have shortly returned the land to the Jews, right?

Furthermore, Jewish armies, acting in wars of self-defense, annexed previously Arab land in the 1948 War of Independence and other combat actions which followed on Israel's periphery. These annexations were recognized as legitimate by the international community. Thus, your demand that Israel withdraw to 1967 borders. Why stop there? Demand a return to 1948 borders!

The fact is, annexation of territory is an accepted part of international law, when such annexation is recognized by the international community.

The fact that Israel is determined to emulate the Nazis in so many ways doesn't make their actions legal.

That's an interesting statement, coming from an individual who acts as an appologist for Hamas, an organization sworn to exterminating the Jewish State as its foundational purpose and charter. Very interesting.

Murdering Palestinian kids using and military force

Already debunked. Using children in combat is a war crime. Killing or detaining children being used by the opposing force to commit war crimes is not a war crime; it is a legitimate act of self-defense.

to annex territory are also a war crimes

Already debunked. Annexing territory is legitimate, as proven by Israel annexing all the land it now posesses, up to 1967. This land, including West Jerusalem, is considered to be completely and legitimately under Israeli sovereignty, though it was conquered in defensive wars.

every war crime the Israelis suffered has been the result of their attempts to steal Palestinian land

So you admit the Jews of Israel have been under relentless attack, and have had war crimes committed against them, repeatedly. We are making progress.

The Jews were usually treated with dignity and respect in Muslim lands prior to the advent of Zionism and indeed dominated trade in commerce under the Ottomans.

Oh, how little ye' knows...

Violence against Jews in Muslim Lands:

Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination and degradation of the Jews.

When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results: On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.

Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.

Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.

Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).

As distinguished Orientalist G.E. von Grunebaum has written:

It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.

The situation of Jews in Arab lands reached a low point in the 19th century. Jews in most of North Africa (including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Morocco) were forced to live in ghettos. In Morocco, which contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic Diaspora, Jews were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of straw when outside the ghetto. Even Muslim children participated in the degradation of Jews, by throwing stones at them or harassing them in other ways. The frequency of anti-Jewish violence increased, and many Jews were executed on charges of apostasy. Ritual murder accusations against the Jews became commonplace in the Ottoman Empire.

By the twentieth century, the status of the dhimmi in Muslim lands had not significantly improved. H.E.W. Young, British Vice Consul in Mosul, wrote in 1909:

The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed.

The danger for Jews became even greater as a showdown approached in the UN over partition in 1947. The Syrian delegate, Faris el-Khouri, warned: "Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world."

More than a thousand Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting during the 1940's in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen. This helped trigger the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries.

-----

This would seem a long enough rebutal of your lies, distortions and outright drivel. You have shown yourself to be ignorant of the facts, uneducated in International Law, unfamiliar with either Palestinian culture or Jewish-Muslim history, and outright supportive of Islamofascism's aim to exterminate Jews.

You're a disgusting peace of work, and it has been my pleasure to tackle and overcome your particular brand of evil.

Fork in the Road

2008-07-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

Note that you followed the outline I drew up perfectly:

Me: You will reply with: how dare you justify human rights violations committed by the IDF, for which there are no excuses

You: the IDF does target civilians. There is simply no way Israel would have killed more than 2,000 Palestinians civilians since 2000 by mere accident. Anyone who claims that Israel did not "target" one of them has a tough case to prove.

Me: You believe Israel is an occupying Apartheid state.

You: Israel knows that as a belligerent occupying force

Me: We'll do the dance, with onlookers throwing their five cents in about how I am a racist colonialist Zionist

Onlookers: The IDF was created precisely to kill non-Jewish civilians... That you refuse to recognize that is an acknowledgement that the only lives that matter to you are Jewish lives... And with that, nothing you have to write on here should be considered new, thought-provoking or even intelligent.

Do I hear an echo?

You've got to admit, I called it pretty well. I can call the rest of this dialogue equally well, but this is not why I am here. I'm here to put a fork in the road.

The point of me stating all these things in advance is that I understand your position, and that of everyone else here, and I could explain it far better and with more eloquence than the vast majority of Arabs on this blog, or indeed, the activist community itself. I've been around the block.

If I was insecure about my beliefs, I would come to a Zionist blog with witty little posts and commentators echoing my beliefs in an echochamber of irrelevance. Sound familiar?

As I've written about in the past, though I have lived on multiple continents, I am not a "citizen of the world". To me, the opinions of the international community are not simply irrelevant, they are meaningless. The same community that stood by while my family endured horrors and genocide that no one should have to endure; Not 2000 killed in 10 years, under mixed circumstances. 2000 killed in 10 seconds, having just been forced to dig their own graves. The same "international community" that is standing by while millions of others around the world are truly being exterminated, without so much as a UN representative to take pictures. My priority is not someone's notion of peace, nor someone's notion of justice. That is a useful construct when engaged in propaganda, for both of us, but that's not why I'm here.

Let me clear the air to avoid ANY confusion on the part of everyone reading: To me, Palestinian rights are negotiable; Jewish life is not. I value Jewish life more than Palestinian rights. Rights are paired with responsibilities, and those who demand the first, must accept and honor the second.

As I spoke about in a separate comment, every activist comes to a point where they need to make a choice. Do I score that one extra point, or I engage in a real conversation, based not on spouting propaganda, but rising to a shared intellectual honesty.

I've met Palestinian "one staters" before. I'm close friends with some. They have great ideas of how they can use "one state" to score points in an argument about human rights, occupation, etc, but most have not actually considered the results an implementation of this idea will have on Palestinian society. Have you? Do you understand what will happen to the felahin when Chassidic Jews, black hats and all, purchase homes in the villages? We Jews have survived 2000 years of living as aliens amongst those who hate us, pogrom us, expel us and kill us. We can deal with it. Can your people deal with it? Can your culture deal with it? Your society? What becomes of a Palestinian village that is 51% Jewish? What will it do to your people's identity?

As you can tell, I'm a one stater too, perhaps for different reasons. A part of me wants to rip your comments to shreds, and from what you've read of my comments in the past, you already know that would take a good sized essay; I don't shirk from volume. So why should we spend more time ripping one another's comments, when we both know we can do it. There's no challenge in that, and there certainly is no future. Based on what we both believe, [Name], one day, it is possible that your family will live next to mine. You say that you want to make this happen, and so do I.

Here's the fork in the road: You can keep scoring points; little insignificant points that make other Arabs and their western supporters feel good, but do not change a thing in the real world.

Or, you can live up to the ideals you claim you believe in, and start building the one state, for both of us. How you do this while maintaining credibility in the eyes of the many voices here who would much rather log on twice a day to score a point is your problem. If you can't solve that, then we can't solve anything.

You expect 5 million Jews and 5 million Palestinians who don't know each other to make a pact for national unity, in our lifetime, with minimal life lost on all sides. Prove it. Start right now.

Shabbat is coming and I need to get ready. Perhaps one day, you'll see me taking my kids to shul on a Friday night. It all depends on what kind of world you want to build.

Have a good weekend.

Life is at Stake, Not Peace

2008-07-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

[Name], I've been around the block.

We can rehash this for a few days of back and forth. I would start with: how dare you compare the PIJ, a terrorist group that attempt to change Israeli government policy by targeting innocent Israeli civilians, to the IDF, which goes to extreme measures to minimize civilian casualties in a complicated urban guerrilla warfare environment, all in an effort to protect innocents

You will reply with: how dare you justify human rights violations committed by the IDF, for which there are no excuses

We'll do the dance, with onlookers throwing their five cents in about how I am a racist colonialist Zionist, and I'll reply that they are supporters of terrorism and Islamofascism...

Let's just skip this part and end at the stalemate. You believe Israel is an occupying Apartheid state. I believe Israel has acted to protect its people in the face of decades of Palestinian initiated violence.

You believe the United States should abandon its special relationship with Israel, begin a special relationship with the Palestinians and start pumping billions into their armed forces so that they can carry out a REAL war against the Jews and kill them all once and for all.

I believe the United States should continue strengthening its ties to Israel as a natural, ideological ally, and supporting it as a force multiplier and stabilizing force for American interests in the region.

There are some on this blog who believe that Palestinian terrorism is justified. They believe those who detonate explosives at a cafe, indiscriminately killing innocent people, are heroes, martyrs. Perhaps they believe there is no such things as an innocent Israeli (by which they really mean, an innocent Jewish Israeli, or simply, an innocent Jew). Not only do they believe it is a justified action, they enjoy when it happens, and wish that it would happen with greater frequency. With every terror action, their heart quickens just before they read of the death count.

These are vicious people. In Soviet Russia or Communist China, they could be reeducated in concentration camps, but we have no such options. The only alternative is to kill them if and when they turn their beliefs into actions.

I don't know you personally, and I don't know any of the other people on this blog. I don't know what you really believe; perhaps time will fix that.

I have never met a Jew who relished the killing of Palestinian terrorists, and certainly not the death of Palestinian civilians. Perhaps there are some, but I have never met them, and I have met many Jews - from tank commanders to doctors, fighter pilots, engineers, special forces, chassidim, hippies, businesss executives, Rabbis, students, housewives, American, Yemeni, French, Russian, Iraqi, Israeli, Brazilian...

I have never met such a Jew.

We don't pass out candy when the IDF kills a 18 year old with a bomb belt, on his way to murder our people. We don't celebrate in the synagogues when a misdirected IDF tank shell destroys a family in Gaza. These things just don't happen, in my experience.

Some think it is a sign of weakness, or speaks to the guilt we feel for the violence we inflict on others. That's not it. I've never felt guilt, not when a Palestinian home is demolished, not when Palestinian innocents are killed, and certainly not when the life of someone who wishes to harm innocent people is ended.

I can't speak for other Jews, so I will speak for myself. When I hear of olive trees being overturned, I think to myself, what a waste. When I read of Palestinians taking apart their street lamps in Gaza to build Qassams, I think to myself, what a waste. When I see pictures of a homicide bomber with his lower torso blown off, lying dead in the dirt, I think to myself, what a waste. When I think of [Name]'s friend, sleeping in his cell right now, what else can I think but what a waste. What a waste of life. What a waste of energy, of talent, of potential. What a waste of creation.

Were I in charge, I would have done some things differently. There are some in the IDF who believe their job is to punish Palestinians, instead of defending Israeli lives. They are a minority, and I have never met them, but I believe they exist. I'm outraged when the IDF conducts actions which are counterproductive to its mission, or when weak Israeli leaders give terror an inch, condemning more lives to waste, and endagering their own people, not to mention the lives of others.

So here starts your argument... If you would only return to the 1967 borders, you can have peace. Really? What kind of peace will that be? The kind of peace we have with Egypt, where you can count on one hand the number of Egyptians who have come to Israel on vacation, despite a "peace" lasting 40 years? And how many Egyptians would not mind going to war with Israel today, if they thought they could win? How many Egyptians are not learning in schools, not to mention their state controlled media, after 40 years of "peace", that the Zionists are pigs and monkeys who will one day be exterminated?

This is the kind of peace you want, a 10 minute drive from Tel Aviv? You can keep your "peace".

When your people held Jerusalem in 1948, they did not let us pray at the ruins of our temple. They mortared Jewish neighborhoods and tried to starve the Jewish holdouts in a siege. A return to the '67 lines means a return of millions of Jews to the mortar, rocket and sniper range of your people. And who will police those hills and protect Jewish civilians? You? Which you? Islamic Jihad? Al Aksa Martyrs? Hamas? PFLP? Who will we hold accountable when you kill our people? Which Palestinian will guarantee the security of Jewish lives, in perpetuity? Until you have an answer, you can keep your "peace".

This is not about the holiness of the land, though it is holy. It is not about the Jewish love for the land, though it has been tied by G-d to the essence of our existence and purpose in the world. It is not about rebuilding a Jewish Kingdom, for Mashiach is not yet here.

All the promises of piece in the world, all the handshakes, all the UN resolutions, all the smiles mean nothing to me, nor to the absolute majority of Jews, if Jewish life is in danger. As I have learned, and as we all know, Jewish life is in grave danger the moment those who wish to end it are given the opportunity to do so.

This is the lesson of the Shechem (Nablus) Yeshiva massacre in 1996, when fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed and sixty other Jews were wounded by arms which Israel had just given to the PA police force as part of the "peace process".

Peace is not a goal. It is a byproduct of an unalterable state of preservation of life, on all sides.

Land under Israeli control guarantees the most life, if imperfectly. Land under Palestinian control guarantees the loss of life, Jewish and Arab. This has been the reality in the past, and it stands unchallenged to this day.

The very reason for Palestinian resistance to Jewish settlement of the West Bank is precisely why it must be done, peacefully, but firmly, broadly, and unconditionally. Complete Jewish settlement of the West Bank means the end of incitement, the end of propaganda, the end of war, and the onset of unshakable, inalterable reality. Until Palestinians internalize that their future lies in coexistence with Jews, there will continue to be those among them who endanger and waste all our lives.

Life is at stake. Not peace.

Speaking of Unjust Imprisonment

2008-07-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Mo, you seem to care quite a bit about unjust imprisonment. Yet, I don't recall you ever mentioning the fate of Gilad Shalit, no older than your friend, who has now been imprisoned by Hamas for two years in truly inhumane conditions, "without access to his family or lawyers or access to any charges against him", not the puny 5 months that your friend is doing in Club Israel.

I'm tired of taking our boys back in bodybags because your cousins didn't can't get laid and need to prove how big their dick is.

You started a war, and now you whine about it. Why don't you go fuck yourself.

A Learning Experience

2008-07-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

Congratulations, [Name]. Your friend has been identified by the IDF or Shabak as possessing certain leadership qualities that required some face to face time.

Nothing will happen to him, and no one will touch a hair on his head, as long as he is not suspected of having information relevant to ongoing operations.

You're right, the charges are trumped up. Imagine, however, Israeli agents approaching your friend in the light of day and asking him to come to Israel so that they could get to know him better. The next day he would be accused of collaboration with the Yehudim.

This way, Israeli intelligence can establish a historical and psych profile of your friend, without risking his life at the hands of Palestinian terror factions.

If anything, this is a sort of promotion of your friend's status, as everyone know that Israel only takes individuals it feels are leaders, or future leaders.

Having spent six months in jail, your friend will come out a national hero, having spent time with other Palestinians of "high interest" and ready to plunge into Palestinian political life.

He is going through a scary time, no doubt, (an education time, as well) but if he is not engaged in something serious, he will not be mistreated or "stressed" unnecessarily.

I'm sure he will be debriefed several times as to the status of political parties at Birzeit, the power of various factions on campus, other students who he feels may have a bright political future, etc.

Unfortunately, such detentions are one of several tools used by Israeli intelligence to tap into the pulse of Palestinian life.

By the way, I'm assuming he was not just turned in to Israel by Palestinian informants, who are rampant throughout the West Bank. They are paid for tips and information, and some abuse this process to accuse innocent people, or those they have a problem with.

The Israel Option

2008-07-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

The one certainty we have is that Israel has no intention to attack Iran in the near future. They did not announce when they struck Libya, or Iraq, or Syria just last September.

If there is one thing the Israelis are good it, it's operational surprise, and you don't get that by announcing it on CNN.

If they do strike, it will be interesting to see what unconventional twist they can pull off. There was an article in Haaretz that was withdrawn within hours of the Saudis telling Israel they would not mind seeing the Iranian facilities bombed.

If Israeli aircraft are given permission to operate out of Saudi, that would greatly increase the Air Command's options.

Let's say Iran has 10 facilities that need to get bombed (the number is probably more, but let's just say it is 10). That's a hell of a strike package to execute.

3 bombing aircraft per site = 30 aircraft.

2 supporting air superiority aircraft per site = 20 aircraft.

1 jamming aircraft per strike package = 10 aircraft.

We're already at 60 aircraft, and this does not include refueling aircraft, search and recovery helicopters and special forces teams on standby (possibly out of Kurdistan), etc.

This would basically consume the Israeli Airforce's frontline aviation squadrons.

It's a logistical nightmare. Furthermore, to what extent would Israel with to eliminate known Iranian IRBM's, to limit the damage of a counterattack? That would require more aircraft.

But this is all conventional thinking. For all we know the Israelis will send in 100 special forces guys to abduct or "neutralize" 50% of the Iranian nuclear scientists and technicians. That would do more to set their program back than bombing hardware.

For now, at least, Israel is making noise because it wants someone else to take care of this problem. I have no doubt they have operational options on the table, but they're not going to broadcast them to BBC.

US-Iranian Negotiations, Part 2

2008-07-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is exactly how actors build leverage in complex negotiations - they identify the other's weaknesses and exploit them as bargaining chips for things that they want.

The Iranians should know that should they choose to raise the level of violence in Iraq through their "special groups", or the passing of more weapons to Shiite gangs, that we have the ability to destabilize their nation without overt military action.

You forget that a mere two years ago, Iran felt itself on the cusp of achieving regional hegemony. Had the US withdrawn from Iraq, Teheran may have accomplished its objectives.

To claim that America is a hegemon that everyone takes seriously, regardless of circumstances, disregards the facts. Since the US invasion of Iraq, the Iranians were developing the very type of leverage over our interests in the region that you would now deny us. They funded, staffed, trained and supplied their own terrorist militias in Iraq, and contributed to destabilizing our position in Afghanistan as well.

For too long we ignored their growing ability to direct events in Iraq, but the rise of Iran-backed Shiite militias in 2006 exposed their policy of undermining our interests and those of the fledgling Iraqi state as coherent, developed and well advanced.

We have spent the past two years scrambling to develop our own leverage, without which negotiations would have yielded nothing but a surrender of American forces in Iraq.

1) Most importantly, we made peace with the Sunnis and built them up into half-credible army, demonstrating to Iran that we were willing to resume a policy of blocking Shiite expansion with a strong Sunni military force on their border. This is their nightmare - a resumption of the Iraq-Iran bloodbath of the 1980s.

2) We began to target and engage their "special groups" operating in Iraq, capturing their operatives and untangling the networks they had put in place.

3) Having unified the Sunnis under our banner, we focused on the Shia, who had by this time devolved into inter-Shia rivalry and open warfare. The Badr Brigades and their political wing had by this time been largely incorporated into the Iraqi Army and government agencies, but ISCI was facing a direct challenge from Sadr's Mehdi army, which had been organized and supplied by Iran.

The Iranians wanted Sadr to have a bigger piece of the political pie in order to have more direct control over Iraqi government affairs. ISCI, which dominated the government and army, refused.

As the interests of the Iraqi Shia and the Iranians diverged, we exploited the situation to launch a joint war on the Mehdi Army, Tehran's primary conduit for manipulating events in Iraq.

With the Mehdi army being drawn and quartered, and gaining nothing from Shia fighting Shia, Tehran ordered Sadr to Iran and declared a ceasefire to salvage whatever of his organization and political capital remained.

For the next year - 2007 - locked in stalemate, and with leverage on both sides, we began negotiating with the Iranians. This was a main contributing factor for the reduction of violence. The Iranians held back their militias and allowed the government to exert more control over the country, with our support.

Meanwhile, we and the Sunnis wiped out al Qaeda, which had spent the previous three years butchering the Shia in their thousands.

Our negotiations with the Iranians are at an advanced stage. No one is going to get everything they want, but we will both avoid our worst case scenarios. Iraq will be a US-supported Shia government, strongly influenced by Iran, but not dominated by it.

We avoid an Iranian puppet state that can flex its muscle across the Gulf, and the Iranians avoid another Saddam on their border.

As the negotiations progress, it sometimes becomes necessary for one side to remind to the other that it can still achieve the other's worst case scenario, but this is just a tactic designed to further negotiations, not to detract from them.

As I said, I am betting that Iran will reach an agreement with the US on ALL issues - Iraq, nuclear, etc. - before Bush leaves office. It may not be a Camp David style accord, but it will happen. After both sides have put in this amount of work, it would be foolish for the Iranians to roll the die with a new President who needs to prove himself.

US-Iranian Negotiations

2008-07-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

1) Iranians are supplying Shiite militias with weapons, training and revolutionary guards "special groups". The reason Iran has done these things is to consolidate its control over Shiite factions in Iraq and develop leverage over American forces by managing the level of violence.

What is your problem with American forces developing similar leverage against the Iranian state by supporting oppressed, aggrieved minorities within Iran? I thought you were all for "freedom fighters".

This is a complex game. For you to cast it in such simplistic, anti-American terms demonstrates a stunning lack of understanding and a palpable pro-Iranian bias.

You are way off the mainstream of public opinion in the Arab world at large, which is deeply concerned about recent Iranian assertive aggression and has coalesced behind America in countering this threat.

2) You should consider that the Hirsh article is just one in a long string of leaks from the Administration in an attempt to shape Iranian behavior, seeing how it came in a week when both Israel and the US were raising the rhetoric of war.

The next week, it was leaked that the Administration would be willing to open an American consular office in Tehran, and would invite Iran to do the same.

Obviously there are behind the scenes negotiations between us and the Iranians on the long term status of US forces in the region, American interests, Iranian ambitions with respect to their neighbors, their nuclear program and their long term security.

Public leaks by both sides are made in an attempt to manage public perceptions and gain leverage in the negotiations process.

Ahmadinejad's government is under intense attack within Iran for leading the country to the brink of war and near total international isolation.

I am willing to bet the Iranians know they will get bombed if they don't make a deal, and it appears they would rather make a deal with the devil they know - a weakened Bush - than try their hand with a new, emboldened American president after the elections.

They made that mistake before, betting that Reagan would be weaker than Carter. They were wrong, with devastating consequences for their nation, as Regan began arming Iraq as a buffer to Shiite power, and Saddam then proceeded to butcher the Iranians for the next decade.

They'll make a deal with Bush before the end of the year.

Persepolis: A Movie Review

2008-07-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

I heard the book was better, but I am not a fan of the graphic novel.

The movie was alright; watched it with a few friends less "engaged" on international affairs, just to see what their reaction would be.

They enjoyed it more than I did. Everyone thought "Eye of the Tiger" was the highlight of the movie.

I thought they would spend much more time on the situation inside Iran. Instead, the entire movie is filmed or drawn as a series of flashbacks, and the volume of material means that parts which are meant to be emotional and intense appear forced.

The first quarter of the movie was difficult to get into - you felt like a rock getting skipped across the water. You are introduced to 20+ people, who are then killed off, imprisoned, etc., but of which you never hear again. This stripped any hope for an emotional attachment to the characters.

The only point of bringing them up was to deliver a message about how people were suffering, first under the Shah and then under the Islamists, but, again, it felt like they were trying too hard and the message seems forced.

Perhaps the deficiencies in the film are unique to the genre. Live actors may have better communicated a range of emotion and information that was missing of simplified in the cartoon.

I was a bit disappointed; it was my turn to pick the movie. Kite Runner was the last one I picked, which everyone enjoyed, and I felt like this was a step down.

Just to add, what I was really hoping for in wanting to see this movie, was the transition from revolution to Islamism. Iran was a vibrant nation with a millennial old class of intellectuals. To think that it could be stripped of its civility and human capital so quickly... this is what interests me, in particular, how this was accomplished.

In every revolution gone wrong, there is a moment, a series of fateful decisions which will utterly change the course of events. In Russia, Germany, Cuba, Iraq... in every revolution you have those who are willing to give their life to build a just, fair society. And yet, so often, the more nefarious elements are successful.

How this happens, from nation to nation, revolution to revolution, is both different and similar, and frightening.

On Iran, Revolutions and Communists

2008-07-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

As has been made clear by the US, EU, Russia, IAEA, UN Security Council, Israel, the Arab League, and individual leaders from around the world, whether Iran is bombed is a choice for the Iranian people and their selected representatives.

Having just seen Persepolis, it is amazing that the present generation of Iranian leaders would wish to return their country to a state of siege, bombardment and death.

It is especially surprising, given the desire on the part of the international community to solve this diplomatically, offering Iran massive financial and technological incentives to merely suspend enrichment of weapons grade uranium.

Nevertheless, if bomb we must, then bomb we will.

It is interesting to note that all you commies support the Islamist fanatics in the Iranian leadership. There were once Iranian commies, too, but they were put to death soon after the revolution.

It is like this in every country where true believer communists, invariably educated in Moscow, start a revolution; they are the first to die, be it Russia, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq or the West Bank.

It never fails; they are ready to spill their blood, and the totalitarian dictators that take over are happy to oblige. As anyone who has read "Archipelag Gulag" knows, the first cattle cars are always full of the true believers, many of them willingly led to slaughter.

High Flying Creativity

2008-07-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

The Syrians need to get creative, like Palestinians in Gaza, and start throwing their "political prisoners" off rooftops.

I will never get over that.

Of all the atrocities I have read, that was one of the most savage. To shoot someone in the head is one thing; to rape them is another. To pick them up in your hands and throw them off a high rise... that's simply another ballgame.

Arab Pets

2008-07-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

A lot of Muslims have pets.

Yes, I just heard a segment on NPR about Saudi pets yesterday - Sri Lankan and Malaysian women who come to work as house maids and are locked up for years, beaten, raped, denied their wages or the ability to leave.

The Malaysian embassy has a shelter housing 200 women at any given time who managed to flee their "owners", but this is just the tip of the iceberg, since most of these women are never let out into daylight.

There was a case recently of a woman who was beaten badly. She managed to get out of the house and run to a hospital. There was gangrene on her fingers and toes from repeated beatings and they had to amputate them.

Her "owners" confessed to beating her and there was a "fair and balanced trial", covered extensively by the media. The "owners" were let go, without even having to pay her for years of backwages, and the woman was sent home empty handed... well, she didn't actually have hands at this point.

Such pets are common not only in Saudi, but throughout the Arab world. I think Palestinians prefer Russian girls.

The Yishuv and the Falsity of Apartheid

2008-07-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

Orthodox Jewish birthrates exceed that of Palestinians. You better make your peace now. Orthodox Jews are like Arabs - they don't see individuals, they see communities.

Israel today may tear down the home of a Palestinian terrorist. The Israel of tomorrow, with a majority Orthodox Jewish population, will hold everyone in the village accountable as a community.

If you want a real war, try starting one with Orthodox Jews. They will kill all your men and women and take the children and cattle as servants. Let me rephrase, you should NOT start a war with Orthodox Jews. Jewish Law - Halacha - relating to warfare is very clear as to how Jews must deal with those who threaten Jewish life; there is no mention of mercy or surrender in that context. I pray it never comes to that.

Jews owned approximately 5% of the land that ebcame Israel in 1948.

Yes, Jews owned just 5% of the land, and Arabs could not accept even that 5%. They pogromed Jews in villages and cities on a regular basis, often with support of the British.

The Hagganah was created because the Jewish community was being attacked by Arab gangs, and the British police refused to interfere or protect the Jewish population.

Once Arabs started a war, any territory that Jews captured no longer belonged to its original owners.

Er, the settler movement on the West Bank and later Gaza arrived in July 1974. That's 34 years of being colonising racist thugs, not 60 years of being neighours.

Jews have been living continuously in the West Bank for 3000 years, until Arab gangs raped, looted and killed them in Hebron, Jerusalem, etc.

Even before the settler movement, it was a common thing for Jordanian or Egyptian or Syrian trained Palestinian terrorists to infiltrate a kibbutz and murder a Jewish family in their sleep. To this day if you visit some of these small communities which were once on the border, they had to build watchtowers and trenches to protect the community from Arab attack.

Regarding your statements about water rights, roads, etc., there was a reason why they were built. The Jews built on a path of least resistance. The other roads in the West Bank lead through Arab villages. When Jews traveled on these roads, they would often be attacked, the army had to be called in, it was very messy. The thought was that building roads around Arab villages instead of through them would reduce the violence by keeping the two sides separate. It was not created for Apartheid; it was designed to reduce tensions between the communities by limiting their interaction.

As you yourself said, any Israeli can travel on these roads, be they Jewish, Druze, Israeli Arab, Muslim or Christian. The point was to stay out of the villages and avoid tensions. You can spin it however way you want, but this was the intent.

As for water and other resources, these problems stem from separate and competing interests for Israel in the West Bank. On the one hand, Jews went to the West Bank and started large communities, and demanded regular government services - sewer, water, electricity, etc. In fact, such migration was encouraged to provide Israel with strategic depth in a future Arab conflict.

On the other hand, Israel never thought it would rule the West Bank and have to provide utility services for the Palestinian population. As with Sinai, it assumed the West Bank would at some point be returned to Jordan, who would then be responsible for dealing with the population. However, in 1985, Jordan explicitly abandoned any rights it had to the West Bank and left Israel holding the bag.

Then the Palestinians demanded independence, and got, in large part. After Oslo, it was assumed that now the Palestinians would be responsible for their own government services. Of course, the PLO and Fatah just stole the billions pumped into the West Bank from abroad and did little to build a public utility infrastructure, much less manage it properly.

Then the Palestinians started yet another war, and now the thinking was... they don't want to be ruled by us, they don't want their own state, they don't want to build a decent society, they just want to fight us. Throw some bombs at them and put up a wall so that we don't have to deal with them anymore.

The Security Barrier is no more apartheid than the security barrier in Northern Ireland or Cyprus, or now Iraq. It was the path of least resistance - to separate the communities and prevent constant violence. And it works! Violence is down dramatically from its height in 2002-04.

Were Palestinian terrorist organizations to continue being able to attack Israel in a meaningful way, we would continue to see forceful military response on the part of the IDF, leading to more casualties and hostilities on both sides.

The Security Barrier was a pragmatic step to a resumption of normalcy, so that the next generation could try again without a recent biter legacy of violence.

I can see how from a Palestinian activist perspective, it was useful to frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of Apartheid and resistance to colonialism. However, this characterization does not represent reality, and has become a hindrance to meaningful dialog on the subject. That is, if anyone still cares about dialog.

Every activist reaches a point where the ultimate, positive resolution of the issue is of secondary importance to the activism itself. They find new reasons to continue "the struggle", because they have lost their identity and purpose - they are defined by the act of activism itself.

At that point, a peaceful resolution of the conflict doesn't really matter - what matters is to somehow continue the fight. This may be the case for some on this blog.

Neighbors

2008-07-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Jews bought every inch of land in which they lived up to 1948. By waging war against them, you have voided your rights to the land, and by continuing to wage war, you continue to do so.

The Jews in the villages are "armed colonising thugs" because after 60 years of being your neighbors, every Jew on a moshav or kibbutz knows someone who was stabbed, beaten, stoned, murdered or raped by an Arab, and they refuse to be your next victim. You expect them to offer you tea and biscuits after six wars and constant threat of Arab violence?

using an apartheid system to expand their presence

Isn't it fun to play up that double standard? Israel is a free society with a substantial Arab minority, yet they are the Apartheid state. Palestinian society is "pure", homogeneous and tribal, yet they are the "agents of tolerance". Whoever framed this issue first was brilliant.

I just want you to know there are many Jewish villages in the West Bank that would rather live under Palestinian rule than evacuate behind '67 borders. I don't know where you are, [Name], but [Name], you better get used to them.

Enjoy living with hundreds of thousands of Jews. We'll see how many rights you extend them, how quickly they will be connected to your failing social services, and how much money you will allocate to them from your national budget.

You haven't dealt with statehood yet. You think you can do better than Israel? Enjoy.

Violence against Women

2008-07-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Your insinuation that the presence of shelters for women is a negative mark on the society is outrageously stupid!

Protection of women is a positive sign in society. Just because there are no such shelters in the West Bank does not mean Palestinian women are not getting beaten, raped and killed - it simply means they have no options but to accept their abuse.

Similarly, the Israeli statistics you site have been demanded by Israeli society as a metric for how to deal with the problem. Imagine getting accurate statistics on abuse of women in the West Bank, where they have NO protection under the law - civil or tribal. How many Palestinians even WANT to know what the statistics are in their community for spousal abuse?! In many Palestinian villages, beating your wife is a perfectly natural event that no one would even think twice of.

The point is not that violence does not happen against women, whether in Israel or in the West Bank or in Chicago.

The point is: you don't care about violence against women in the West Bank and Gaza. You don't care about this violence because you see nothing particularly wrong with it; at best, it is an inconvenient distraction to your war against the Jews.

Once again, you've demonstrated your genuine hypocrisy on human rights. Once again, you have demonstrated a lack of credibility to speak of human rights with authority and moral clarity.

Regarding Batshit

2008-07-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

You people dare speak of discrimination of Arabs in Israel, while demanding racial purity for your own failed society.

Jewish villages will expand. Jewish families will continue to pour into the West Bank and build homes, farms, and technology incubators. Jews will continue to thrive in Israel. All of it.

You have been fighting us to the point that your people now eat, sleep and breathe batshit, as you so eloquently put it. So keep fighting. With your violence you nullify your claim to the land.

Palestinians and Rational Thinking

2008-07-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

The Palestinian have lost every single war they started, whether in Israel, Lebanon, Syria or Jordan. What makes you think this "violent resistance" will accomplish anything besides leading to more suffering for Palestinians?

It must make you feel good half a world away, know that the "struggle" goes on; communists are always ready to sacrifice other people's lives for their cause.

If I were a Palestinian on the ground, I would be pressing that "peace now" button until my fingers bled. Then again, no one ever accused Palestinian leaders of rational thinking.

Arab Sensitivity

2008-07-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

Arabs are so sensitive to everything. Any verbal insult is an attack on their honor, dignity, ancestors, religion... when really an insult just gives them leverage to demand what they want, be it a humiliating apology, concessions, etc.

The Jews are Here

2008-07-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, your people make all this both possible and easy to justify with your rockets, bulldozer attacks, mass shootings, stabbings and yes, even the homicide bombing.

The reason there are no bombings or major acts of terror is that the Israeli military enmeshed itself into the very fabric of Palestinian life. It's painful for your people; everyone knows this, but the moment we let go of your throat you will stab us, as you always have.

Jews are there to stay, and the expansion of Jewish villages will continue. Even after a "peace accord" is signed, Jewish families will move to Arab towns and villages and buy up property, which they cannot do now due to discriminatory and racist Palestinian property laws.

Your people's fate is now inextricably interwoven with Jewish refugees from around the world, returning to Israel, their home and their G-d given birthright.

I would strongly recommend that you welcome them not with suspicion, hatred and violence, but with open arms and traditional Palestinian hospitality. That way there need not be dispossession of land, or murder, or terror.

The Palestinians, of all Arabs, always knew the Jews would come back. They lived amongst our ruins and graveyards; they knew. Now the Jews are here, and how you choose to deal with them will impact how your people are treated in kind.

I wish this choice was presented to the Arab leadership of Palestine in 1890, but back then the Jews were seen as the scum of the earth, the landless, indigent gypsies of the Middle East.

My how things have changed.

But you can choose now, right now.
Choose wisely.

Independence Day

2008-07-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day, Everyone!

As an immigrant to this country, like many of you, I owe it a debt of gratitude and love that I can never fully repay.

Every time I fly back to the States, no matter where I am coming from, I feel this country's vitality, the sense of infinite possibility. Everywhere else in the world, you are weighed down by the burden of history. In America, you are empowered by the future.

Corny, but true.
G-d bless America!

Obama Fatigue

2008-07-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

As I wrote elsewhere, American foreign policy is beholden to events and static geopolitical interests, an inertia that NO President can or will ignore, for it underpins the core principles of our civilization.

I was thinking this morning about how much the media is covering for Obama, and how much effort this has required in the year or more of his candidacy. This reminded me of how they covered for Clinton, and how "Clinton fatigue" led them to savage Clinton in the last six months of the primary campaign. They day the Media gets sick of covering for Obama - "Obama Fatigue" - is the day the long knives come out.

The same goes for all you activists who adore Obama. The moment you realize that you are tired of covering for him is the day you will hate him for lying to you and manipulating you so along. I think, partly due to the duration of the primary season, and also to the stratospheric hopes that some liberals had vested in Obama, that moment is coming sooner than later, and perhaps even before the election.

Obama, Iraq and American Foreign Policy

2008-07-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

Let's be serious. Obama is not going to take US troops out of Iraq, despite his primary season rhetoric. He will leave 40-60,000 troops in place to protect Saudi Oil fields, American interests, to continue "hunting down terrorists" and to threaten Iran.

He will not be the president to simply give up a trillion dollar, decade long enterprise to establish American hegemony in the Middle East, as the Iraq war has accomplished. The Middle East is the new Europe of 1945, and America will be staying for at least another 100 years, one way or another.

Obama has said as much, and the coming trip to Iraq will introduce him to the US commanders on the ground, and Iraqi politicians, who will "convince him" that "a small, limited, but long term US presence is necessary".

This was the policy of the Bush Administration in March 2003, except they thought they could get back down to this level by Christmas.

You are naive if you think there is a REAL difference between Obama and McCain on foreign policy. Listen to what Samantha Power said before she was booted for saying too much. The campaign sent her to Europe where she was telling stunned socialists that there will be no change in American foreign policy, but now Europe will be forced to contribute troops and money.

Obama will not change US foreign policy; he will simply provide a fresh face and a more effective message delivery.

He said last year that he is willing to invade and nuke Pakistan if necessary. This is your progressive champion?

It seems from the outside that a US President can do whatever he wants on the world stage. However, in reality, the course of American foreign policy is dictated by events and static interests - national security, military primacy, global economic liberalization, etc.

Smackdown

2008-07-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

You don't care about the US political system. You only care about how you can exploit it to help Palestinians.

Not mine, but it should have been.

Special Interests and Government

2008-07-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

The idea that a freshman senator from Illinois who never worked in a coal mine, ran a coal mine or invested in a coal mine knows how to write legislation that can have dramatic disruptions to the coal industry is absurd.

Of course private interests help craft legislation. They intimately understand their business model, and how it can best be adapted in the face of a desire for more government control.

The goal of government is not to snuff out industry - aka Communism. Nor is it to force corporations "to work" for the state - that's called FASCISM, kids.

What made this country the engine of the world economy is free enterprise and minimal government intervention. With economic prosperity comes the rest.

The real danger is not from capitalism, but from the collusion of capitalism and government to suppress competition and innovation, and reward incompetence and greed.

Case in point: the ethanol lobby. You've got a bunch of political hacks who came up from Iowa and Wisconsin without so much as a business degree or a savings account and decided to enrich themselves by catering to the Agriculture lobby, entrenching government subsidies that disproportionately benefit the biggest producers at a time of record crop prices. These subsidies have destroyed the family farm and have enriched Big Farma, while pushing up the cost of oil and basic consumer foods.

Another point: the bailout of the Wall Street banks. In a free economy, the market would make adjustments based on losses due to inefficient investment strategies, but with the government and the Fed propping up this nonsense, it is only allowed to continue unabated.

The Nature of Government

2008-07-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

It's true that people who get into politics tend to drift more left wing in general. However, the reason for this is not at all positive.

People in government begin to see government as a tool with which to solve every problem, and naturally wish to expand the authority of government (i.e. their authority) to make this possible.
They forget or choose not to remember that they were not elected or selected to expand their own authority, merely to effectively manage the affairs and duties of their office.

It takes a very special kind of person to go to work every day with the spirit of making his job obsolete. The War on Poverty has lasted for 40 years now, with little to show for the trillions pumped into subsidizing hundreds of thousands of middle class civil servants, who have only helped to perpetuate poverty, despite their good intentions.

This is why government programs never shrink; they expand, even in the face of failure, for the only solution these people understand to any problem is... more government.

Reframing the Argument

2008-07-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

For Palestinian, the bulldozer is a symbol of Israeli aggression. One assault with a bulldozer by a Palestinian does not change that.

How many assaults with a bulldozer by a Palestinian will it take to change that?

Breaking Balls

2008-07-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

A thin-skinned Iraqi... go figure.

A female Arab friend of mine thinks Arab men are so thin skinned because their mothers and aunts treat them like G-ds. When her brothers would fart, her aunts would say, "It's like dew, it's like heavenly dew!"

If you can't stand the heat go dig a hole and pop your itsy bitsy Iraqi Kabob in it!

Arab men can be the most sensitive, most easily offended people I've ever met, or in this case, flame-warred with.

Like I said, I have several female Arab friends who think it's a mommy complex.

When you are raised at the age of 6 with grown women making tongue in cheek jokes of your sexual prowess, you can get a big head.

With a few male exceptions, I think Western-educated Palestinian women are uniquely suited to effective propaganda; they are absolutely gifted at it. I have a theory about this... but it would take too long to explain.

The men... not so much.

Human Rights Ping Pong

2008-07-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

[Name], you shoveled that excrement out of view with the grace of a rampaging elephant.

The only reason we know of the Israelis beating the Palestinians is that a Jewish organization distributed cameras precisely to document such "incidents".

According to you, Israelis beating Arabs is a heinous act of barbarism. Arab fathers, brothers and uncles murdering their women and burying them in the back yard are mere "incidents".

Clever. Let's face it, you don't really have a problem with honor killing. You are fighting a war to exterminate Jews. You simply don't have time to worry about backward cultural traits of your own people.

We haven't even gotten to the Arab homosexuals yet, all of which flee to Tel Aviv when they are discovered by their Arab brethren, lest their blood is used to fertilize the fields.

No, [Name], I don't think people have the right to beat one another with bats. I thought we covered this stuff in kindergarten; I did, at least. In the short term, these people should be prosecuted. In the long term, Israel should annex the West Bank and Gaza, and extend its civilian authority to those areas, giving everyone protection under the law and legal recourse to wrongdoing.

[Name], you're making my point for me by treating honor killings like a joke. Imagine if I were to start joking about going over to Arura with a few buddies to beat Palestinian farmers. The fuckers have only one eye as it is, it being Arura, maybe we can take out the other one! What's the matter, [Name], you don't like jokes?

Murdering innocent girls and women is no joke; honor killings are wrong, and a stain on your people.

Your demands for "human rights" fall on deaf ears so long as you pursue only those "human rights" which are convenient in your war against the Jews.

You are a hypocrite, but I believe you can be a better human being, if you try. Try, [Name]. Try.

The Israel-Hamas Ceasefire

2008-07-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

The rockets launched at Israel in violation of the truce were part of a long standing Palestinian tradition of "testing" agreements with Israel.

After all, if Israel said, "it's just a few rockets, no big deal", then why not have a "truce" with a daily barrage of Palestinian rockets maiming, killing and terrorizing Israelis.

This situation further underscores the futility of making agreements with Palestinian terror factions, which are neither unified nor coherent, nor trustworthy.

If Hamas is not in control of its territory to prevent rocket launchings, then it has no business making a deal on behalf of Gaza.

The logic behind [Name]'s argument is off base.

1) On Sunday, Israel delivered substantially more supplies than at any other point in months, and expected to continue meeting its obligations per the truce agreement with Hamas and Egypt.

2) Islamic Jihad launched rockets at Israel ON A COMPLETELY SEPARATE ISSUE, having nothing to do with the level of supplies Israel was delivering. Islamic Jihad launched the rockets out of revenge for a prior incident.

3) Just yesterday, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades launched mortars at Israel, even though Hamas has been begging all the groups to stop violating the ceasefire. Al Aksa Martyrs declared they did so in order to force Israel to extend the ceasefire to the West Bank. Palestinian logic for you - start shooting to make peace.

Israel's obligations are not under discussion here. The inability of Hamas to control a dozen different terrorist groups within Gaza is what remains the central issue to any lasting agreement. If Hamas makes a promise and that promise is broken the next day by a group it does not control, that makes the promise worthless in the first place.

The Palestinians are more fractured than ever, which is just fine as far as Israel's geopolitical interests are concerned - the Palestinians have selected these various terror factions to represent them, and such are the consequences of choosing the rule of thugs and terrorists.

Palestinian Activists and the War Against Jews

2008-07-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

The Palestinians have lost every war they started, with disastrous consequences for their always fractured society. The population is growing Islamist, identifying more with the Arabs to the east than with their own heritage. The fellahe class is evaporating into the modern world, and with it, Palestinian identity, which was once inseparable from the land.

These city Arabs who think themselves enlightened enough to speak for the Palestinian people have never picked an olive in their life, nor could they survive a day of real work in the field, nor do they see such a life as befitting their "laptop and thesaurus armed Marxist of the world" status. Their hands are too frail to turn a millstone and their spirits too impetuous to weave a quabbeh. The men would be ashamed of donning a bisht on hot summer days, and I have yet to see a Palestinian woman abroad sporting a shambar. No, the image of resistance they hold dear is the keffiyeh, which is not Palestinian, but Arab.

[Blog Name] is a relic of a bygone conclusion - the death of Marxism - and no amount of posts by [Name] or [Name] or even the great [Name] will resurrect past glory, when Soviet trained Venezuelans joined with Cubans and East Germans to fight the IDF in Lebanon.

Your death knell pangs of agony are read by fellow brethren and sympathizers, sitting in American Starbucks, sipping their lattes. They know nothing of Palestinian society as it is, or was, nor do they care, nor do you, and that is the biggest defeat of all. You have become so consumed by hatred, so occupied by vengeance and so ashamed of your own rich heritage, that you have perverted your identity to one of endless struggle against the longest surviving people in the history of humanity - the Jews.

The enemies of the Jews have been of greater mettle and resources than you, and all have found themselves in the proverbial heap of history.

If only someone would make a list of the nations that crowd this heap, you would find yourself in unwelcome company. Perhaps you think yourself to be special - indeed, you are. So were the Amalekites, Moabites, Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Phillistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hellenists, Romans... an inexhaustive list.

If you really want to be special, if you truly wish to be unique, you will stop fighting "the ranks of the living G-d", and thus ensure your survival. After all, Marxists are nothing if not intrepid scholars of history.

Torture Works

2008-07-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

For you to say that "torture does not work" is misleading, because you have not defined its meaning. Cutting off people's fingers may produce mixed results and result in some degree of misinformation. Stress positions, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and other soft measures to psychologically break down the prisoner are proven techniques, with a track record of success when used by professional interrogators around the world.

That's really they key here - professional interrogators. An army captain on the battlefield may be more inclined to punish a just-captured prisoner than be concerned with the intelligence value the prisoner may represent, and is certainly not trained to efficiently extract information. A professional interrogator is specifically tasked with obtaining useful intelligence, and duly trained to accomplish this task.

This isn't an episode of 24 where Jack starts shooting people through the hand and twisting their fingers back. Professional interrogation takes time, considerable planning and coordination.

For anyone interested, I'd recommend reading "The Interrogators: Task Force 500 and America's Secret War Against Al Qaeda". You can find it on Amazon.

Since you brought up McCain... as a captured navy aviator, he was not tortured to extract useful intelligence that the Vietnamese could exploit to further the war. He was tortured as punishment, and to elicit cooperation in furthering North Vietnamese propaganda. In his book, he describes an especially horrid four days of severe beatings that, to this day prevent him from lifting his arms above his head. He finally broke and agreed to film a propaganda video... “I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.”

This is VERY different from the mission tasked to American interrogators, and given the fact that al Qaeda is on the verge of defeat around the world, evidence that our guys know what they're doing.

From Iraq to Afghanistan to Victory

2008-07-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

Though Iraq was the most important theater in this war for several years running, I agree with you that the focus has shifted dramatically in recent months to the Afghan-Pakistan border areas. Stratfor.com, a private intelligence/analysis service once wrote an excellent piece on the dynamics of the Afghan war. Send me your email address; I'd like to send you a copy of the article.

From my perspective, Afghanistan is of far less strategic importance than Iraq. For al Qaeda to have conquered a nation with the second highest known oil reserves in the world... we would be in "deep doodoo". Nevertheless, as the focus shifts back to Afghanistan and we draw down our commitments in Iraq, we will bring additional forces to bear on that theater, in concert with NATO. As the Stratfor analysis indicates, if you thought the situation in Iraq was bad, Afghanistan is an absolute long term nightmare.

It is no accident that Petreaus has been promoted to head of CENTCOM. He went from being in charge of the Iraq theater to overseeing strategy for the entire region. We will see if he can develop a strategy to pacify Afghanistan the way he did in Iraq, by coopting ethnic groups into cooperation with the United States.

However, it's important to realize that the war in Afghanistan is of a different nature than Iraq. The Taliban were never an international player with strategic reach; they hosted one - al Qaeda. Although our long term dream may be the creation of a democracy in Afghanistan, our priority and focus must be on making whatever deals are necessary (such as we did in Iraq) to wipe out our primary threats - the leadership team that developed al Qaeda into a strategic threat.

The Taliban don't need to go to Gitmo; they are an Afghan problem. I think the day is coming, soon, when a semi-official declaration of al Qaeda's defeat will occur, more likely by them, actually.

The War on Terror

2008-07-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

Let's define our terms. When I speak of our nation at war, I do not mean that our goal is to prevent any lone lunatic from committing mass violence. This is impossible, and we have our own domestic terrorists to prove it.

I do not believe we are in a clash of civilizations. Seven years ago, there was an entity, a transnational organization, which planned and executed an attack on this country, as part of a greater plan to force an American withdrawal from the Middle East, overthrow Arab regimes which have traditionally relied on American protection, and thus recreate the Islamic Caliphate.

Grandiose those ideas may sound today, but it was merely two years ago that al Qaeda in Iraq declared an Islamic Caliphate, replete with a governing structure, Sharia courts and tax system. It is fortunate that we found a general in Petreaus who developed a strategy to reverse the course of war in Iraq and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Al Qaeda's vision, so close to fruition, has now been relegated to the dustbin of history.

With our successes in Iraq have come successes by allies - such as the Saudis - to cut off funding for al Qaeda and its affiliates. The Saudis really only began this when they themselves were bombed, repeatedly. The Arab world has never been so hostile to Islamic extremism as it is today, in no small part due to our intervention in Iraq.

Instead of fostering radicalism, our invasion and occupation demonstrated the savagery of the enemy and exhausted their credibility on the street as a legitimate alternative to westernization (or as the Arabs prefer to call it: modernization).

The inability of Al Qaeda nodes to conduct any meaningful attacks against us or our regional allies demonstrates the degree to which their capabilities have been degraded. This is not the same organization that executed so efficiently on 9/11, with such geopolitical savvy in Madrid, so stealthily in London, or so brazenly in Riyadh or Istanbul.

Their inability to reconstitute and retaliate demonstrates that the pressure we and our allies have put on their organization is perhaps beyond that structure's ability to adapt.

So what does any of this mean?

One terrorist attack that kills 3000 people is a pinprick. It means little to a country of 300 million. The power of terrorism is in the geopolitical implications behind its execution; terror is a tactic used to achieve geopolitical objectives.

In the case of al Qaeda, the objective was to drive American power from the Middle East in order to weaken, destabilize and ultimately to destroy Arab governments, in order to create an Islamic Caliphate on the ruins.

No one goes to war without a plan, and al Qaeda was no different. They believed they could execute all of the above and achieve their ultimate objectives. Today, they are further from their objectives than ever. Even if they could nuke one of our cities, what would it really change on the ground? They have lost the Arab street, and with it, any hope of gaining power.

In other words, a terrorist organization is only effective to the extent that its actions can effect geopolitical change. Once their ability to effect this change is reduced or eliminated, they have little rational incentive to continue fighting.

We are clearly coming to a point when al Qaeda cannot effect geopolitical change through its actions. Perhaps it can strike back, but my suspicion is that if they had a plan, they would have acted on it sooner than later. The longer they hold back, the more losses they incur.

With their defeat, we win the war. Then you can try them...

US Supreme Court Ruling on Enemy Combatants, Round 2

2008-07-14T10:31:00.001-07:00

We should hold Kabul Trials, but only after the war has been won, as was the case in WWII. Certainly you will agree that it would have been outrageous to attempt prosecutions of Nazis in the context of war, while Hitler's armies were still in occupation of Europe.

Suppose the Americans had sent in paratroopers to capture an SS general and return him to the US for interrogation. We didn't have exact information about his crimes; whatever hodgepodge intelligence was gathered would have been invalid for presentation in US courts. Does that mean we would have had a duty to release him back to his command, so that he could continue to wage war against us?

This is what you are proposing, and what the court has accepted, albeit in a split decision that may be reversed in the near future, depending on the outcome of the presidential election.

The US is engaged in a war with people that, were they to be released, would resume plotting and waging war against us. These are not a handful of Nazi generals whose armies have been vanquished and who have accepted defeat; the enemy we face needs only a handful of recruits and box cutters to murder thousands.

You have noble thoughts of justice and law, but you must realize that others are more than happy to exploit of your ivory tower ideological boundaries, with disastrous consequences. As Lincoln understood, our laws exist to serve human beings, not the reverse.

Lincoln and Habeas Corpus

2008-07-14T10:29:00.000-07:00

As for "American" laws, you forget that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in 1862, which resulted in some 13,000 people deemed "dangerous" or "subversive" to be arrested, tried by military tribunals, and many were executed. When the courts declared these actions unconstitutional, Lincoln ordered the Army to disobey the court, which it did.

Furthermore, in freeing the slaves (which were considered property at the time), Lincoln nullified the rights of property owners to their possessions, a basic tenet of Common Law.

We do not think of Lincoln's actions as brutal or unconstitutional today. Indeed, he is regarded as one of three "greatest" presidents, alongside Washington and Roosevelt, who also acted as they had to in time of war.

Lincoln's basic argument in suspending habeas corpus was that one could not expect the Constitution to be used in dealing with those who wished the Union destroyed, the Constitution with it.

Prescient indeed.

In fact, we saw the arrest and trial of individuals (copperhead democrats, etc.) who advocated for soldiers to desert the Union lines! In other words, Lincoln ordered them arrested, and some were executed, not for what they DID, but for what they SAID, a First Amendment right!

It was not merely common people arrested, either. Fearing that the Maryland legislature would vote to withdraw from the Union and join the Confederacy, Lincoln had the army arrest and detain, indefinitely, 9 members of the Maryland Senate! Elected Representatives were denied the right to represent their constituency! Democracy itself was flaunted!

The Union survived. Lincoln is a national hero.

Draw your lessons.

Jewish Law on Enemy Combatants and Detainee Rights, Round 3

2008-07-14T10:26:00.001-07:00

[Name], [Name], [Name], [Name], and everyone else reading...

It is heartening to see that the spirit of liberty and law is so ingrained in our generation, that so many would readily grant its most precious tenets to those few who wish nothing more than to destroy them. Though I disagree strongly with some of your assertions, we are truly fortunate to live in a system where such dissent is possible, and where scholars better equipped than you or I can lock in legal battle on our behalf, and on the behalf of the nation.

As Jews, we have an exceptional obligation to observe and promote the rule of law, for Jewish law has been the anchor of our faith and identity for some three thousand years.

You wouldn't build a house without first creating a blueprint. We say that the Torah is the blueprint for G-d's creation of the world. Thus, while laws created by man are designed to deal with reality, the Torah, as a blueprint, actually is used to bring reality into being. The laws of Torah are just because they are based on absolute truth, ingrained in the very essence of creation.

As Jews, having been given the Torah at Sinai, we have an additional obligation: while we respect and uphold the rule of just law as created by man, we must understand and promote the will of G-d through our personal actions, and the Torah laws on which those actions are based - what we call Halacha, or Jewish law.

While a heated argument has raged on this note, [Name] and I have been privately discussing some of the Jewish legal issues I brought up earlier, and what our responsibilities are as Jews in a time of war - both to our people, the innocents, and the enemy.

[Name] has taken upon himself the task of finding a qualified Halachic authority, who can help us to unravel and understand the Jewish laws pertaining to the issues many of us discussed earlier. As Jews, it is in our tradition to argue, forcefully, even. We do this not to further ourselves, but to increase the light in a sometimes dark world, to further justice, truth and peace - G-dliness.

I, for one, am anxious to hear what this Halachic source has to say.

US Supreme Court Ruling on Enemy Combatants

2008-07-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

Again, if these were criminals, they would be tried, convicted and punished.

These are soldiers, not criminals. You can't punish soldiers.
You can kill soldiers, capture and hold soldiers until the end of hostilities, interrogate captured soldiers for whatever battlefield intelligence they have or release them.

The idea that they need to be punished in the context of an ongoing war is fundamentally at odds with reality. Perhaps, after the war is over, there may be some rationale behind trying, convicting and punishing individuals who have acted particularly heinously in wartime.

Think of it like this, by giving these enemy combatants rights, you give ALL enemy combatants these rights, even those NOT in our custody. So, we can't kill bin Laden even if we knew where he was, because he has the presumption of innocence before the law. We can't kill him; we must capture him alive, at great risk and low potential for success.

Imagine if cops went on a rampage and started shooting suspects, instead of detaining them for trial by jury. Outrageous, right?

But this happens in war all the time. There is no evidence brought in a court before someone shooting at our guys is killed. We just go and kill them, no warrant or anything. War is not a civil exercise.

Extending these rights to enemy soldiers means that this is not a war, and our soldiers can't just go kill them, because there is a presumption of innocence, followed by a trial by jury. Until they are convicted, they are INNOCENT, even if they are shooting and killing us! Either we capture them alive, or we die.

This is crazy! And this is what the court has basically said.

Jewish Law on Enemy Combatants and Detainee Rights, Round 2

2008-07-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

[Name], though I value your opinion, in this case, your initial post and the response you have offered to my critique are deeply lacking. It is regrettable that, in the heat of debate, you have neglected the time honored tradition of intellectual honesty.

Your points, one by one:

1) I brought to this argument the halachic concepts of "pursuer", "self defense", "obgligatory war", "authorized war" and directly referenced Nachmanides to refute a statement that you had made. I would feel extremely confident were you to bring in a halachic authority on who is being more accurate, you or I.

2) You have done exactly that - conflate terrorists with illegal aliens. This is utterly unjustified, and you have yet to apologize, to my knowledge. Many illegal aliens in this country are otherwise completely law abiding, hard working people. To equate them with terrorists who wish to murder innocents is reprehensible.

Moreover, their status in Jewish law is clear - enemy soldier. Jewish law makes no distinction between uniformed and non-uniformed soldiers. Even were they to be innocent civilians, our actions would be absolutely justified. In the context of war, Jewish law authorizes the killing of civilians when it is not avoidable (i.e. when civilians have not fled from the field of battle, such as during the siege of a city). Halacha even permits the taking of enemy civilians as slaves, depending on the type of war in which we are engaged. How much more so, then, is it justifiable to detain individuals from the field of battle, in the context of an ongoing war, in order to accurately determine their intentions, when lives are at stake.

You have refused to provide a single halachic source that would indicate we must treat enemy soldiers as common criminals. The reason why the commentators derived the rules of war is precisely to differentiate between what is right and just in a time and place of war, and a non-war, civilian setting.

3) Both "pursuer" and "self-defense" apply to this conflict. You should confer with a qualified rabbinical authority. There are very few exceptions under which non-Jewish or secular states may participate in a war, from a halachic standpoint.

4) I have addressed parts of this above. These individuals are not accused of any crimes - they are enemy combatants until such time as they are no longer deemed to be, with no limit to their detention. These are soldiers, not criminals.

To apply civilian law in this case is a true travesty of justice that perverts the entire system. What next? Will you handcuff our troops to their humvees and have them get a signature for every bullet expended? After all, you assume that these individuals must be provided rights, the first of which is a basic assumption of innocence. What right do our troops have to engage in war against those who are presumed innocent until convicted by a jury? Preposterous! It is a massive overreach by the judiciary, which you support. These people are planning war, and you are playing games.

In the words of our sages, "He who is compassionate to the cruel, ends up being cruel to the compassionate."

5) Really? Did the nation of Amalek receive a fair trial? Was there a trial before their men were slain on the field of battle, their women and children exterminated, their king hung? What of the other Seven Caananite nations? You are utterly confused on the halacha in this case, I assure you. The only reason I chose to comment is to avoid a confusion of Jewish Law.

I urge you to evaluate the world in which we live not through the lens of emotion, but Torah and Halacha.

Separately, from a secular standpoint, to put it in the words of many honorable Americans, you have a pre-911 mentality.

Jewish Law on Enemy Combatants and Detainee Rights

2008-07-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

How dare you conflate those who plot and attempt to murder civilians with otherwise innocent foreign nationals who crossed our borders in search of a better life?! You should be ashamed of yourself - a law school student, at that!

Those who wage terrorist war against this country only have two options - high explosive or full metal jacket. Find me a single widely accepted halachic ruling which says otherwise. If on the off chance that an individual is captured on the field of battle - in the context of an ongoing war - there is nothing preventing his execution, indefinite detainment, or forced extraction of battle critical information (which will certainly shorten the war and thus save innocent life).

Everything I have stated above falls under the laws of the "pursuer" and the rules of self defense, clearly delineated in halacha. It is questionable if non-Jewish or secular states have any halachic basis to fight war, period.

On the question of leaving a 4th side open in a siege, Nachmanides clearly states that this is only applicable in "authorized" and not "obligatory" wars (which really only pertain to a Jewish nation). In "obligatory" wars - such as those that preserve the life of Jews, our allies, or possibly other innocents - we are not allowed to give the enemy a chance to flee, but must destroy them, without mercy.

The only thing that is cut and dry about this is that you've confused everything. This case certainly has nothing to do with illegal aliens, and your injection of that issue into the note is completely irrelevant.

Moses would spit, a lot, and then hit you with a stick, before he hugged you and explained everything.

Welcome to SuperComment!

2008-07-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am creating this blog to fulfill a specific task, that of documenting my commentaries from around the Intenet. I am a prolific blog reader and socio-political commentator. Though I have blogged myself, in the past, I have recently chosen to abstain from maintaining my own blog, as I would devote myself to it religiously, neglecting my other responsibilities. I remain, however, an avid reader of blogs, and often choose to comment on a wide variety of issues - especially pertaining to American foreign policy, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Jewish law (Halacha) and religious observance. When I do comment, I often express ideas and form arguments with a structure, style and substance I wish to preserve; thereby the need for this blog.

As this blog was created for my benefit, and you, reader, are an intruder in my revealed psyche, I will not link to my commentary at its point of origination. In part, this will also help maintain my anonymity. I often comment on blogs that are hostile to my beliefs, and whose writers or readers may feel the desire to threaten me. Should you discover my identity, I ask that you inform me, and keep this information private, lest you endanger my well being. As you may come to see, preservation of life is a bedrock on which I have structured many an argument.

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