October 2010 Archives

The first thing I want to point out is that this story is getting very little general media coverage.

On the question of what the UNESCO board referred to as the "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel's Tomb," the board voted 44 to 1 with 12 abstentions to call the site "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories and that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities is to be considered a violation of international law."

"The attempt to detach the people of Israel from its heritage is absurd," Netanyahu said in a statement released last Friday. "If the places where the fathers and mothers of the Jewish nation are buried, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Leah and Rachel some 4,000 years ago are not part of the Jewish heritage, then what is?

The "unilateral action" to which UNESCO is referring is Israel's inclusion of these pivotal places in a list of Jewish heritage sites published last winter.  And while the lack of broad coverage doesn't make the UNESCO declaration any less repulsive, it may reflect on the seriousness attributed to it by rational people not immediately affected.  Really, who cares what UNESCO says?

The trend exemplified by such perfidious proclamations, however, is cause for concern.  For more on that, see my post on the earlier salvo in this particular battle, from back in February when the Heritage Sites were first announced.  And don't miss this graphic commentary at FresnoZionism (via Solomonia).

And now for some local politics.

This is rich.  I just came upon this annotated quote from Joe Sestak last winter when he was running against Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary.

This is funny.  Or interesting.  Or both.  Or maybe none of the above.

Move over America. Israel is joining the tea party.

A new grassroots effort is beginning that is modeled after the American conservative social movement. The Israeli version promises to be just as patriotic, just as provocative and just as antagonistic to US President Barack Obama.

You say you'll try harder, but I think it's just too late.  The car is ..., well, still in the ditch actually headed toward the cliff.  So we're applying the brake.

They're gonna get you.



Repetitive, yes.  I know.

It's a few days old, but worth a little more attention.  Yes, Rachel Maddow has apologized, sort of, for claiming that former Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX), had "advance notice" of the Oklahoma City bombing.  That rumor, perhaps nurtured by a difference in time zones between the fax's place of origin (Augusta, MI) and Oklahoma City, was put to rest within days of the bombing.  But, somehow, it just slipped out of Maddow's mouth this past Wednesday.

There are a few serious problems with Ms. Maddow's hyperventilated non-apology, not the least of which is that she used it to drag fantasmagorical political fear-mongering to what may be a new low.  And her attempt to characterize the accusation as an "editing error" doesn't fly.  In an "editing error," one might leave out a word or two or read one word in place of another word, or even add a word that doesn't belong at all.  Here's the quote:

Those two [Reps. Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman] were so close to the militia movement in this country that Mr. Stockman actually received advance notice that the Oklahoma City bombing was going to happen.

That's an editing error?  Are we to believe that she actually meant to say something more like this?

I got this one from my mom.  It's a keeper.



Shabbat Shalom.

... but never did.

CBS "60 Minutes" Joins the Arab Propaganda Bandwagon on Jerusalem

This is beyond appalling.  Don't take CAMERA's word for it.  Watch the video.  When it comes to blatant, brazen, fact-challenged Israel bashing, Al-Jazeera has nothing on Leslie Stahl.  This one demands a response, folks.


The Toomey-Sestak debate

There's another one tonight.  Now that I've started this, I realize I still don't want to talk about it.  No one can possibly listen to Joe Sestak try to talk for more than a minute and still believe they're dealing with a rational, serious candidate for public office, let alone a sitting Congresman.  But Joe nevertheless seems to be pulling off his signature eleventh hour comeback.  Sometimes, you can fool most of the people most of the time.  Hopefully, not enough.
 

Kathleen Parker's pox on both political parties

"[F]arce has become the new reality," she says.  And so it has.  (Parker's been on a roll lately.)  No matter how many clue-by-fours you whack them with, politicians, pundits and political parties always seem to lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of Americans shy away from extremes.  Especially when the finish line is in sight.  And calling your opponent an "extremist" won't win you any points if you and your colleagues are seen as exhibiting and/or defending extremism yourselves.


The lone Arab soldier

This one was actually from last week.  But it's a very interesting story about Hisham Abu Varia, the first Arab-Israeli IDF officer.  A profile in stamina, courage and integrity.  We wish him all the best.


There's one more.  It's going up as a separate post.

I don't think NPR quite realized the shit storm it was going to kick up by firing Juan Williams.  And as if the knee jerk PC pink slip wasn't bad enough, the CEO of NPR followed it up with this

His feelings that he expressed on Fox News are really between him and his, you know, psychiatrist or his publicist or take your pick ...

She has since apologized, publicly (but so far not personally to Juan).

NPR has never succeeded in pretending to be even a remotely balanced or non-partisan organization, so I'm not nearly as shocked or outraged over this move as a lot of people seem to be.  They've apparently been itching to purge their ranks of the renegade Williams ever since he started moonlighting at Fox News.  But as one of the few token minorities to be found in NPR's visible ranks, they may have figured it wasn't worth more of this sort of bad PR.  Until now.

Juan has a bright future at Fox, where his balancing point of view is actually welcome (even if sometimes belittled).  Fox News' gain, NPR's loss.  I tend to watch Fox News a lot more than I listen to NPR, so even though I think he's a bit loopy at times, I look forward to seeing more of him.

Since some are trying to spread confusion on this point, I want to point out that Juan's comments were clearly intended to be a confession of his own natural fears and concerns, which happen to be shared by many Americans, whether they like it or not.  He wasn't suggesting that Muslims should "go home" or that they've taken over the media.  If you think there's any comparison between Juan's remarks and those of Helen Thomas or Rick Sanchez, I suggest you watch the whole segment, and listen to them in context.

Finally, there's a lot of hype out there about defunding NPR.  It's an old saw without a lot of teeth.  But even if it did manage to gain some traction, never fear.  NPR can always turn to Soros.  In fact, it seems they've already done that.

He shouldn't have.  He said he wouldn't, and he shouldn't have.  But he did. 

"I made this message clear in quiet ways last month, and I am saying it here, now, in public: If the Palestinian leadership will say unequivocally to its people that it recognizes Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, I will be willing to gather my government and ask for another suspension of construction for a limited time," Netanyahu said.

So now we know (though we certainly knew before and didn't need this confirmation).  From here, I honestly don't see where the "peace process" has to go.

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority on Monday rejected a demand earlier by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in exchange for an extension to a settlement freeze.

Again, this isn't news.  One would hope this development leaves Obama in a bit of a quandary.  If there are ever to be "two states for two peoples," then it's sort of essential as a threshold issue that both "peoples" recognize each other's right to self-determination in their respective "homelands."  Of course, factually, historically, objectively, only one side has a legitimate claim to such status, so it's doubly ironic that that's the only side that's agreed to recognize the claim of the other.

It's way past time to drop the curtain on this farce.  But of course that can't be permitted to happen, at the very least not before the U.S. mid-term elections.  So the actors will continue to strut around the stage, some under pressure and some just because they like to strut.

Speaking of which, Ehud Barak once again reminds us why he was never fit to be the Prime Minister of Israel and is even less so now.

The land referendum bill that was passed by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation on Monday raises questions about the government's desire and ability to lead the peace process, according to a statement released by the Defense Ministry.

The statement comes as a reaction to a bill, passed during a special meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Legislation on Monday, which requires a national referendum in any instance in which Israel agreed in diplomatic talks to hand over areas that have been annexed (i.e., Jerusalem beyond the Green Line) or to which Israeli law has been extended (i.e., the Golan Heights).

Barak calls the safeguard "unnecessary."  Of course he does.  Because it was his reckless offer at Camp David in 2000 (rejected by Arafat) that inspired the referendum initiative in the first place.  To him, it's always made perfect sense that such profound concessions be made, if the government is "serious" about "the peace process," by executive fiat and without the consent of the hoi polloi.

I'm so sick of the misinformation and abuse from all sides on this issue.  Some day, once it's sufficiently far behind us and no longer a convenient political football, the American public might have the stomach to swallow a dim glimmer of how close we came to plunging into the abyss in 2008 (and most certainly would have had it not been for the TARP). 

It seems the Washington Post gets it.

Goodbye, TARP. Good riddance -- and thanks.