In Green

10:31pm: Israel fights back.
But since this is patently unacceptable, the UN Security Council is holding an emergency session "at the request of the Palestinians and their Arab supporters who want the U.N.'s most powerful body to condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza and call for a cease-fire."

The Israeli response must be succeeding with incredible speed and efficacy, given how the UN consistently speaks up in the nick of time to stop Israel from completing an effective defense.

Bias? What bias?

10:54am: A college student is dead
In our country we have shootings. Sick individuals, depressed individuals, angry individuals. Unexpected rampages on campuses. People die and it's a tragedy.

In Israel they have Islamist Arabs in Gaza launching rockets at Israeli cities. There's a college (Sapir) that keeps getting hit. Dozens of rockets have struck buildings, the quad, the athletic facilities. Their top-floor classrooms are vulnerable and off-limits by order of the IDF. Exams are punctuated by explosions. Students keep getting treated for shock. Miraculously, no one's been killed.

But that's no longer true. Because today, Sapir College's luck ran out.

9:33pm: The PLO is considering declaring independence if the Jews don't surrender immediately. I mean, if Israel doesn't stop keeping its citizens safe and allowing Jews to build new homes. I mean... well, something along those lines, but I'm fairly sure it's Israel's fault, whatever it is.

However, in a fascinating development, Saab Hairycat pointed out that the PLO already declared independence in 1988. How on Earth did I miss it?

It brings up the same curiosity I had when Hamas contemplated declaring independence: Does that mean our cuddly, peaceful, combustible next door neighbors plan to do things like earn their own money, provide their own electricity, empty their own sewers, filter their own water...?

But we shouldn't set our expectations too high now, should we?

9:46am: Some restrictions apply.
Israel will hit everyone who attacks it: Olmert

Except, of course, those with whom he's established diplomatic relations.

Challenge for Mr. Olmert: Lie less obviously. I shouldn't be in a position where every time you make a statement I snort at it. Honestly, man.

12:13pm: Lo! They have a flag!
Well, this is interesting: Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia

Yet again calls into question our comfortable impression, deep inside our safe, treaty-bound, unchangeable-or-so-we-think western end of the western world, that global upheaval is dead and the world's political geography is more or less permanently set according to the decisions of a European-American populace (Thanks, David!) that has, at long last, tired of war and settled down to an eternal pax americana.

Of course in doing so we've forgotten that there are other people on Earth who haven't tired of war, probably never will, and don't particularly want to share their planet with us...

1:19pm: Again.
Israel Hit by First Suicide Attack in More Than a Year.

Fatah-affiliated Arabs from Gaza. Snuck from Gaza into Egypt, from Egypt into Israel. Blew up a shopping center, killed a woman and wounded 11 others.

And what an incredible coincidence -- Hamas blows open the border with Egypt and Fatah uses the opportunity to murder Israelis. Who says the coalition government can't work?

Anyone else noticing that the moment any restriction on "Palestinians" is relaxed, Israel suffers -- and the moment any wall containing them comes down, JEWS DIE?

10:04pm: Some of the sweetest words of the last eight years:
"...the president completes his seventh and final State of the Union address."

Thank heaven.

6:33am: Billions of people and trillions of dollars and they STILL haven't succeeded in wiping us out?
בושה וחרפה for Arab pride!

"The U.N.'s top human rights body on Thursday condemned Israeli military action in Gaza and the West Bank."

Canada voted against. European countries abstained. The US isn't even a member.

So how, O! how did it come to pass that the highly respected UN High Commission on the Destruction of Israel and the Jews Human Rights Council passed yet another resolution reaffirming its commitment to Arab aggression against Israel?

Not altogether difficult: the idea "was proposed by Arab and Muslim countries and passed by 30 votes in favor, one against and 15 abstentions." So, there you go. In case you'd been under the impression that the UN in any way gives a voice to the western world.

10:25am: From my Google news alert:

Chomsky: Palestinians punished for not obeying Israel-US orders
Tehran Times - Iran
It had almost nothing to do with Israel-Palestine. It was an effort by Bush and Rice to line up the ""moderate"" Arab states -- that is, ...
See all stories on this topic

Like a bad play... all the actors are there, in the only venue that'll have them.

8:30pm: Pulling out the collective
Hamastan shells Israeli city of Sderot, knocks out power lines:

In a single barrage on Thursday afternoon, terrorists in Gaza fired six rockets at Jewish communities in the western Negev. Three of them landed within the town of Sderot and three others fell in empty fields outside the town. One rocket hit an electricity pole, causing a blackout in a few dozen homes. (here)

...not collective punishment.

Israel supplies less fuel to Hamastan to discourage shelling of Israeli cities:

Israel began restricting fuel supplies to Gaza in October as part of a sanctions package designed to pressure Islamist Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket salvoes. [...] Kanaan Abeid, the authority's Hamas-appointed deputy chairman. . . predicted "technical problems with the transformer equipment, as well as humanitarian crises".(here)

Continues Reuters, this "could amount to illegal 'collective punishment'," according to "critics."

So, that's fair. It ain't moral equivalency if they ain't pretending it's equivalent, right?

11:41am: Israel Beiteinu, pushed hard enough, have finally shown a
measure of fortitude and withdrawn from the flailing, failed Olmert government. We're left waiting for Ovadia Yosef to stop nosing around between Olmert's aft cheeks. But keep passing Shas government handouts, and spineless they will stay.

10:11am: It occurred to me the other day that if the present Israeli administration had held power in 1948 we would not have a State of Israel, and definitely no Jewish state. They are a disaster and a disgrace to their country, to the Jews, and to every last ideal of Zionism.

What's funny is that, even if the Olmert/Livni defeatist duo had been "leading" in '48, there wouldn't have been a 23rd Arab state either - because the land in which the '48 Jews had the audacity to defeat the attacking Arab whor... er, hordes, would simply have reverted to the ownership of Egypt and Palestinian Jordan.

One wonders how much longer the experiment will last.

1:32pm: Not a prayer
Not exactly breaking news: Jews are still not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Even alone. Even without any religious paraphernalia. Even without making any prayer-like motions. Even by just moving their lips in a manner consistent with prayer. And if they do so they are still, of course, subject to arrest by the Jewish State.

'cuz you know, it might tick off the Arabs and would certainly "serve as a provocation, resulting in disorder, with a near certain likelihood of subsequent bloodshed" - i.e. more anti-Jewish riots by Arabs, despite their otherwise cuddly, peace-loving attitude towards coexistence with us Jews.

Well, makes sense to me. And comparatively speaking, also, it's really just fine: After all, in Saudi Arabia you're subject to arrest just for being Jewish. So we can draw from this the following conclusion: It is less illegal to be Jewish in Israel than it is in Saudi Arabia. Awesome.

. . .

It's been a while since I posted here. I started a new job, got so aggravated by politics that I just didn't want to deal with it, etc., etc. But the time has come to start again, because there's too much going on to ignore it any longer.

Oh, and happy new year!

9:53am: The blameless victims
I'm listening to C-Span (a first for me) because I want to hear Bush speak (also a first) and was lucky enough to catch a call-in from a pro-Iranian-nuclear-holocaust guy (with an Arabic accent... so... not so much of a first) who felt that, indeed, as I'madinnerjacket said at Columbia yesterday despite its irrelevance to the questions to which he was responding, that - since the Zionist abomination State of Israel clearly exists only because of what the Germans did to the Jews during the Holocaust (which, of itself, in the way we understand it, of course, didn't happen, and anyway was carried out by the Jews in a devious plot to sacrifice half of their global population for the sole purpose of justifying their incursion into and occupation of the sovereign nation of Palestine [British colonialism, anyone? No? Ottoman, maybe? Crusader? Roman?] and oppression [Jews finally get to oppress someone else, weee!] of its rightful owners) - "Palestinians" shouldn't be punished "for a crime they didn't commit." The problem is that, well, they did.

The Christian world stood by and watched as Iran Germany worked to exterminate the Jews, but the Arabs took a more active approach. They went to Berlin and offered to help.

8:17am: Post Flurry
...and away we go, making up for lost time:

"There is no better blood than the blood of Jews" could almost be a grudging compliment, but the warm and fuzzy feeling fades when the leading half of the sentence is "We are a nation that drinks blood, and-" Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to kill Jews and drink their blood (fava beans, anyone?) but historically speaking the slaughter always seemed to be enough. Ordinarily this kind of sustained genocidal policy would tend to make one question the wholesomeness of the religion behind it but we, as westerners who proudly uphold the right of others to deny us our own rights, clearly can't do that (even for a religion that funds its terrorism with drugs and uses its protected-by-the-West holy books to ship them. On a related note, you might check out Daniel Pipes' take on whether banning Islam would be productive or not). Meanwhile Hamas instituted a ban on public prayers organized by Fatah, which is fine, but can you imagine what would happen if westerners pulled a stunt like that? As a matter of fact, the only western country I can think of offhand with a statutory ban on prayer by a distinct religious group is Israel, where it is illegal for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. Where, incidentally, work is proceeding to eliminate troublesome archeological evidence that Jews were on-site centuries before Al and Mo (remember the Allah-Mo?) invented the world's most lethal religion. Which, again, is fine. We know we were there. We know it because we'd already been conquered or kicked out of Israel several times in the millenia before Mohammammammed met his ass.

We now arrive at the second paragraph, which is a literary device designed circa 1973 to ease the transition to the third paragraph in the absence of a truly great segue, which I don't have. The third paragraph, as we will see, is critical to writing - especially when said writing goes on for longer than two paragraphs.

I feel it's worth noting a difference between our society and their society. In our society we have dumpsters on which kids are enjoined not to play lest they fall in, get month-old Chinese food all over them, and then go home and smell up the house. In Israel you have an oversensitive army entreating the people in Gaza to please, please, please keep their kids away from terrorists' rocket launch sites because "it is dangerous to be near or play near Kassam rocket launchers." Yes, and don't spray WD-40 in your eyes while holding a lit match between your teeth. This is a Bad Idea.

Fourth paragraphs, like second paragraphs, came about as segue substitutes. Essentially it's the odd paragraphs that must have content (seeing as how if your first paragraph has no content you're unlikely to be able to publish it anywhere other than the New York Times) and even paragraphs, by nature of their intermediate placement, just pad the odd paragraphs. Of course the standard keeping odd paragraphs content-free can be ignored by sufficiently skilled writers, and with that in mind I'll mention that "Palestinian refugee camp" in Lebanon - remember it? - that the Lebanese army has finally succeeded in conquering, killing well over 100 "Palestinians" in the process. No complaints yet from the UN, but that's probably because this happened north of Israel's northern border rather than south of it.

Moving on, the BBC is running workshops for "Palestinian" "journalists" to teach them the intricacies of broadcast-quality antisemitism. And Arabs in Darfur, having made made significant headway in their genocide of everyone else, are now focusing on killing each other. And while we're on the subject of Arabs, a question: If you rape a camel, is it really cruelty to animals? Assuming it's a girl camel, that is.

Okay! I think I'm about done, so let's finish on a good note: E. E is a good note, a fine one indeed, and is the easiest to play on a guitar because there are two of it.

Final thought: The Washington Post, though it may despise Israel, admires the due process Israel grants "even non-citizens captured outside the country and designated unlawful combatants". For all the love it gets us, though, the moral high ground may not be worth the lives it costs to maintain.

And that, if you've gotten this far, is all... for now.

9:35pm: 'dolf and Mo
Who said Islam and Nazis enjoy a mutual affinity?

Mohammed's hostility to the Jews had one result: Oriental Jewry was completely paralyzed. Its backbone was broken. Oriental Jewry effectively did not participate in [European] Jewry's tremendous rise to power in the last two centuries. Despised in the filthy lanes of the mellah [the walled Jewish quarter of a Moroccan city, analogous to the European ghetto],[45] the Jews vegetated there. They lived under a special law [that of a protected minority], which in contrast to Europe did not permit usury or even traffic in stolen goods, but kept them in a state of oppression and anxiety. If the rest of the world had adopted a similar policy, we would not have a Jewish Question [Judenfrage].... As a religion, Islam indeed performed an eternal service [to the world]: it prevented the threatened conquest of Arabia by the Jews and vanquished the horrible teaching of Jehovah by a pure religion, which at that time opened the way to a higher culture for numerous peoples ....[46]

Johann von Leers, Nazi propagandist cum Egyptian propagandist, cited over here in a long, long, long (think I-80) essay by Joel Fishman titled "The Big Lie and the Media War Against Israel: From Inversion of the Truth to Inversion of Reality." Worth a read. Mark the bit above about "the horrible teaching of Jehovah by a pure religion." Allah not selling well? Kill the competition.

11:55am: Hams alone
Hamas, the Islamofascist terror organization that was democratically elected by "Palestinian" Arabs and then one-upped that mandate by conquering the Gaza Strip by force and ejecting or lynching those who opposed and whose name becomes "Hams" if the second A is removed, is apparently airing aspirations of declaring independence. Not from Syria and Iran, which supply their weapons and other warmaking supplies. Not from Al-Qaida, which works alongside them on Islamic terrorism. Not from Europe, which pays for their gas. Not from the UN, which after the Arab world is the second most enthusiastic supporter of their goal to destroy the Jews. And certainly not from the Jewish State, which supplies the bulk of their power, fuel, food, dry goods, and is the best scapegoat they could ever have asked for in a world that's finally getting over its distaste for antisemitism.

Perhaps, then, from Fatah? From the other local Arabs who have different political views? It just seems that declaring independence generally refers to breaking away from the de facto control of those upon whom one depends - hence the term - and not simply from the less loved half of your population. Of course there's the possibility, the vaguest of chances, that Muslim politics don't mesh perfectly with Western ideas of the same... but nah, they're probably the same, we're just letting our Islamophobia run away with us.

But the fact, as I've said before, is that there would be nothing more strategically useful to the fight against Islamic terror than a standalone Hamas political entity. Fighting a war against an enemy state offends Western sensibilities less than fighting against an enemy embedded in a state that won't admit its part in the hostilities.

Oh, and the "We are Muslims" hijacker from yesterday is - surprise - a "Palestinian" and is linked - surprise - to the September 11th attacks.

11:47pm: The gravest threat
And then there's the Al-Qaida cell that hijacked a Turkish airliner this morning and, rather than more traditional threats like "I have a bomb!" or "You have offended Mohammammammed, infidel!" simply announced... wait for it... wait for it... "We are Muslims." Which is rapidly turning into a phrase that should, if heard, be interpreted as quickly as possible into running for your life. (This came by way of Jihad Watch and LGF.)

Reminds me very much of the guy who killed and ate one of the Queen's mute swans in Wales a few months ago. Found by police with "blood on his shirt and white feathers in his beard," he proffered the most eminently reasonable explanation: "I'm a Muslim, I'm fasting. I needed to eat." But was it halal, buddy?

11:24pm: Gazim still gasless, seeking beans
EU delays fuel payments to Gaza Strip! Gasp! Those evil Europeans, so graceless as to not pay for fuel for the Arabs in Gaza! The NERVE!

So the Gaza power plant ended up shutting off all of its generators and a number of Gazim lost power. Most still have power, of course, because most of Gaza is hooked up to the Israeli or Egyptian power grids. But that notwithstanding...

Hamas is charging Fatah with "inciting" the Europeans not to pay for the fuel by telling them that Hamas took over the power plant, a charge Hamas denies. "No, we captured by force all of Gaza EXCEPT the powerplant," said an imaginary Hamas spokesterrorist. And by the way, has it occurred to anyone else that by merely removing the second A from "Hamas" one ends up with "Hams"? Fascinating, I feel...

In any case Fatah reps counter-claimed that Hamas "had 'occupied' the electricity company and stolen its money." Ah. Well. That sure comes as a surprise.

It turns out that the fuel for Gaza's power plant is - see if you can follow this - ordered by the PA/PLO/Fatah, paid for by the European Union, and supplied by an Israeli company to a power plant controlled by an Islamofascist terror group. Thereby allowing the surrounding Arab nations to control the Arabs in Gaza while making Europe pay for it and blaming the Jews for any foul-ups. It's genius, in a very Arab sort of a way. Attention, Nobel committee: take note!

6:25pm: The Brits pay for this, you know
Guess which pro-terror organization went on a propaganda spree on Wikipedia, anonymously editing over 7,000 articles including one in which it changed the horribly unfriendly word "terrorists" to the infinitely more cuddly term "freedom fighters"?

Will a list of such organizations help you guess? Okay, here: PLO, ISM, CAIR, Al Jazeera, Hezbollah, Hamas, BBC...

Hm.. did I make that too obvious?

6:06pm: More, more!
I'm catching up on all my reading, all those things I would have blogged about over the last week if I had gotten around to it.

Here's some semiotics: Dennis Prager on Why 'Islamophobia' is a brilliant term.

And there was a piece on Jihad Watch on how Jihadis and their supporters have figured out how to apply Hitler's propaganda techniques to bash anti-Jihad types, but it seems to have gone away for some reason.

5:47pm: Man, I'm voracious today!
I just keep posting! It's madness! MADNESS!! And so is this: In Scotland, "Doctors and health workers have been banned from eating lunch at their desks - in case it offends their Muslim colleagues." Found on LGF and plenty of other places.

5:39pm: More than just virgins
Grab an assault rifle, burst into a bat mitzvah party, and murder six Jews and you can have a soccer tournament named in your honor by Fatah. You know, Fatah, the non-terrorist terrorist group. They are our friends. They just have trouble showing it.

5:30pm: The good stuff
Here's a couple of things from the past week or so that you might not have seen:

Good things
Weizmann Researchers Identify Mechanism Behind Spread of Cancer

Israeli Manure Power Plant Combats Greenhouse Effect

A somber thing
Bodies of 5 soldiers missing in 1948 identified

Funny things
both pertaining to Arafat, funnily...
Relics of a 'beloved' leader - looted from Arafat's house, one of his old outfits was then sold for the princely sum of $47. Also stolen: Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize. No word yet on its street value.

Suha Arafat kicked out of Tunisia on account of her conduct. "Suha," who until last year lived in Paris without her gay husband (until he died of AIDS, that is) "is believed to have struck a deal with Arafat's successors according to which she will receive about $22 million a year."

4:17pm: Muslims, not beasts

"Allah wants to spread [Islam] throughout the world, and to rule the land it its entirety. . .
There are rules of shari'a in everything. We have counted almost 70 rules about how to urinate and defecate. [Pretty cool, eh? -ed.] In contrast, how do those beasts in the West answer the call of nature? They stand in front of other people, in toilets at airports and other public places. They do not care about covering their private parts. Even their underwear is colored and not white, so it can conceal all that filth."

Which would explain why our non-Western friends don't seem to feel any need for deodorant. Because they keep their underpants sparkling clean and in Allah's view that's quite sufficient, thank you.

See here.