August 1, 2014 Can Humpty Dumpty Put the Ceasefire Back Together Again? From the “Jerusalem Post”: While Obama suggested neither the US, nor the Israelis, are sure of exactly who perpetrated the attack– Hamas, so far, has denied holding an Israeli soldier in its custody – he said that Hamas’ ability to enforce a cease-fire relies on its ability to monitor the tunnels it has built to […] Blog
August 1, 2014 Sacrificed on the Altar of “Civilization” The conservative columnist Ramish Ponnuro suggests Palestinian civilians are not “bad guys.” He erects a straw man by selectively quoting some speakers at pro-Israel rallies revving up the crowd, and then sort of accuses historian Benny Morris of being a barbarian for suggesting that Israel, somehow, sometime, will have to crush Hamas for the Jewish […] Blog
July 31, 2014 Benny Morris Predicts the Next Gaza War An important, depressing piece by Benny Morris, founder of Israel’s Revisionist historians who no longer subscribes to pro-Palestinian Revisionism. I fear he’s right that Israel has already lost the current war politically, no matter the military outcome. I disagree only in that I think that the next war will involve a second front with Hezbollah–and […] Blog
July 30, 2014 Congratulations Are In Order Congrats to Batya Ungar-Sargon in “The Tablet” for demolishing the agitprop widely circulating on the Internet absolving Hamas from responsibility for the kidnap-murder of the three Israeli boys that started the current Gaza War. See “Did Israel Say Hamas Didn’t Kidnap Its Teens? No,” http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180617/did-israel-say-hamas-didnt-kidnap-its-teens-no?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=0abbc40465-Tuesday_July_29_20147_28_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-0abbc40465-207025897 Postscript: See on Hamas’ links of the kidnap-murderers, see the […] Blog
July 29, 2014 Tilting at the Windmills of John Kerry’s Mind I suggest that Barbra Streisand, no doubt a John Kerry admirer, be invited to the State Department to sing her version of “The Windmills of Your Mind” (English lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman). No need to update the lyrics: “Like a tunnel that you follow To a tunnel of it’s own Down a […] Blog
July 29, 2014 Apologies to the “New York Times” To paraphrase the Quran, if you hit a donkey over the head with a thick board, even that benighted creature will eventually see the light. For recent examples from the “New York Times”: Jodi Rudoren, “Tunnels Lead Right to the Heart of Israeli Fear,” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/world/middleeast/tunnels-lead-right-to-heart-of-israeli-fear.html?_r=1 Rukmini Callimachi, “Ransoming Citizens, Europe Becomes Al Qaeda’s Patron,” July […] Blog
July 28, 2014 UC Davis: The Louis D. Brandeis Center Approach to Preventing Threatening, Anti-Semitic Behavior When three Jewish students tried to speak at a November 2012 protest against Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense on the University of California, Davis campus, they were silenced with shouts of “Leave our space!” “Shame on you!” and “Long live the intifada!” The harassment only got worse. The protesters then started chanting “F**k Israel” and […] Blog Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism
July 27, 2014 The Horror of War and the Stench of Hypocrisy The “Wall Street Journal” recently ran what might be called a “war is hell” op edit page. The top half was devoted to Peggy Noonan’s reflections on WWI which ended forever “gentlemen’s wars”—first on the Western Front where Germany unconscienceably invaded neutral Belgium and “raped” its civilian population (though the numbers were paltry by WWII […] Blog
July 26, 2014 Gay Paree As the foreign ministers of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Qatar, and Turkey meet in Paris to discuss possible extension of the Gaza humanitarian cease-fire, nobody has remarked that Turkey’s participation–given Prime Minister Erdogan’s recent characterizations of Israel as “worse than the Nazis”–is about as fair and helpful as Mussolini’s participation in Munich. Reports […] Blog
July 25, 2014 Mideast History According to John B. Judis In the latest “New Republic,” Judis explains that the Palestinian leadership has wanted peace since 1973, but peace was spurned–not only by the Israelis–but by “the American Secretary of State,” i.e., the Jew Kissinger. Blog