30 April 2011

Misunderstanding a headline

BBC today:

No. Not yet. Unfortunately...

29 April 2011

Royal wedding - my favorite picture

The week's Council winners

Here are the week’s full results:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

28 April 2011

On the interconnectedness of it all... to Zionists

When you think that The Guardian cannot get any lower that it already got to regarding Israel... scratch it. I know that I've already used this sentence more than once. I also know that no matter when this sentence is said and no matter how many times it's repeated, Guardian will get lower yet. So, you could do better reading this report by Just Journalism where they take apart a thoroughly vile editorial where Guardian lets its base instincts running wild. Just an example:

One country's ability to bury the evidence of war crimes endangers how civilians are treated in all other conflicts. A single failure of international justice is also a collective one.
Guess which country it is...

So: Sri Lanka, Israel, Guardian... Guardian, Israel, Sri Lanka... Israel, Sri Lanka...

On the other hand, who knows... after all, everything in this world is interconnected. When a butterfly farts somewhere in Tibet, you know what usually happens in London... And all this interconnectedness is orders of magnitude stronger when looking at the Zionist octopus that has its tentacles - well, I shouldn't expand more on something that is clear to any avid watcher of the big Z...

And, since we are rejecting the mere term "coincidence" in our progressive interconnected world, here is another outstanding example of the same phenomenon. Unfortunately, the article and the attached clip are both in Hebrew, but here is the gist: According to the Syria's luminary speaking in this clip, the Syria's current turmoil is not good to Arabs and not good to Muslims. The whole Syrian brouhaha, according to the man, is cooked up by... the Jewish party Shas. Even without knowing Arabic or Hebrew, you can clearly distinguish the words "Shas" and "Yahudi" (Jew) in this clip.

So: Syria, Jews, Shas... Shas, Syria, Jews... Jews, Syria, Shas...

OK, you would say. We all understand the desperation of the murderous autocratic Syrian regime. We know that this vile libel is only one of many thrown in the air by a regime that may very well be on its last legs and thus could be easily disregarded.

I don't really have anything against this analysis. But let's try another ditty then:

Syria, desperation, vile libel, Guardian... Guardian, Syria, desperation, vile libel... vile libel, Guardian, desperation...

Mmm... how does it sound to you?

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

CNBC sees a rise in the underwear area

Which they consider, apparently, good news.

Even during the 2008 downturn, "the underwear area was very strong," Eric Beder, retail analyst at Brean Murray Carret, told CNBC Thursday.
Still, one should take the news with caution, since it's published in "Soft Economic Indicator" rubric.

27 April 2011

Van Jones, Mother Nature and... well, I

Mr Van Jones, who caused a blink on Simply Jews radar, surfaces again, this time throwing his unqualified support behind the Rights for Mother Nature. Since the Internet is choke-full of right wing responses, lead by this Fox article, I wasn't even able to find another point of view on the issue.

In short, Bolivia (don't say that good things don't come from Bolivia, please, I can name at least one other high quality thing), "will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country."

It's yet unclear to me how it will work in reality: e.g. will every bug, tree "and all other natural things" have legal representation? And how about some "natural things" that I, personally, try to kill on sight (sometimes using WMDs), such as roaches, ants etc? And, of course, as some incorrigible right-wingers ask, could we sue Mother Nature back for mayhem it causes from time to time?

Questions, questions. But meanwhile, being excited and inspired by the idea, I declare my personal decision on the subject, which applies only to my own self, of course. I, the undersigned, thereby recognize the rights of Mother Nature (MN further in this document) and various representatives of MN, such as (but not limited to) bugs, invertebrates, lizards, snakes, birds, flowers, bees, stones etc. As far as I am concerned, each and every such specimen is entitled to be represented by an attorney and has the right to remain silent while negotiations on the correct procedure for his/her/its introduction to my digestive tract are in progress.

There is only one non-negotiable stipulation: I am not going to participate in a dialog with any specimen of MN and its lawyer when accompanied by one of the restaurant violinists, origins of which I am unable to define here due to restrictions imposed by the rules of PC speech.

So there.

26 April 2011

Disraeli, move over, Bibi is coming. And more about some women.

As they say, behind every successful man there is a clever woman. While "successful" would be stretching the reality a bit, Bibi is our PM, there is no denying it. However, Dr. Orit Galili, Bibi's adviser, surely exaggerated somewhat saying:

Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu were like Benjamin and Mary Anne Disraeli, noting that the 19th-century British prime minister’s wife helped him edit his books and speeches.
Bibi surely is not Disraeli and I doubt he will ever qualify for such comparison. But I guess, being Bibi's adviser, Ms Galili, just as Bibi's spouse, would like to be a part of something great. Well, duh...

As an aside: I personally don't have any problems with Sara helping out her hubby with some speeches. Anything is better than seeing and hearing Bibi pathetically repeating his "we'll bring the supertanker to solve [substitute here the current problem]" or supporting his vaporous ideas by intricate hand movements. Please be more involved, Sara, it may do some good yet, who knows?


On the other hand, being Bibi's adviser should, I guess, go together with some highly developed sense of discretion. After all, the fact that Sara is doing some of Bibi's homework was supposed to be one of the better kept state secrets:
“It was astounding. Ms. Galili came and ruined a strategy we used for years,” one close Netanyahu associate told Haaretz. “What are we going to do now, say that we lied every time we said she doesn’t intervene?”
Off hand, I would say yes: when you are caught with your pants down, you can blame the manufacturer of your suspenders (or your belt), but your pants are still down, so...

So, four clever women involved in that single story: Ms Disraeli, Ms Netanyahu, Ms Galili and Ms Mualem, who penned this Haaretz article. Good.

And now to something completely different: Aussie Dave, aka Israellycool, has written about Lauren Booth’s Latest Libel. While this post shows Ms Booth for what she is indeed, Dave has omitted one major characteristic of Ms Booth, namely her stupidity. It is not that she doesn't fit these other characteristics in Dave's post, but stupidity is really a great part of her journalistic (at least) body of work. I sometimes wonder whether the famous "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" attributed to Napoleon, shouldn't apply to the lady in question. Of course, it's not that Ms Booth lacks malice, far from being so, but her incompetence (or, better, imbecility) is staggering (another reminder).

Much as I hate to say it: yes, she is a blonde under her recently acquired new garb...

I should clarify here: Lauren Booth wasn't the first to accuse the accursed Zionists of Arrigoni and Mer murders. She, however, was the most verbose and the most vituperative of the celebs on the Zionist case in this matter. Of course, she is considered a kind of celeb only due to her brother in law, but still...

And what do you know: Ms Booth is not alone out there in the stupid celebs ecological niche. Here comes one Inge Höger, German MP of something called "Left party":
The Left party by itself is worth a gander, but apparently Ms Höger is somewhat exceptional even in that team. This time she wasn't very inventive, adopting some quotes from Ms Booth's body of work:
The question one must pose is: Who profits from this terrible crime? First of all, now two of the activists most ‘dangerous’ for Israel, because they were the most engaged, wellknown and noted, are eliminated. The murders of Vittorio and Juliano could also be a means of dealing a serious blow to the international solidarity movement – especially given the upcoming second flotilla and the fact that international activists still won’t let themselves be prevented from going to Palestine.
Not very original, what after all the links above, but being a political figure, she doesn't have to be. As for German daily Die Welt calling Höger a “flawless anti-Semite”: I really wouldn't know, it may be going one step too far. Besides, isn't “flawless anti-Semite” an oxymoron? Like "flawless pimple" or "beautiful turd"?

You tell me. In conclusion: we have four women in the first part of this story and two in the second. I shall stick with the first group, not that there is a choice... oh well.

Let Israel come and take Syria

Let the Jews come – anything is better than Bashar Assad.
I don't know. Maybe we should at that. On the other hand... nah, forget it...

25 April 2011

Caterpillars' Conga line

Shot recently (unfortunately by a PDA) while walking in a forest (click to embiggen).

Never seen anything like this. Any explanations?

23 April 2011

Happy Easter, everyone!

To whom it is relevant, I mean.


And:


Second image comes from here.

Royal wedding guest list

Revealed, and I am not there.

On the other hand, David Beckham is in, so no way I would go anyhow. Nah...

Findalis aka Katie Norcross needs your help

Katie, who blogs at Monkey in the Middle, is in trouble. Do what you can.

Easter eggs? Spring spheres? Nope, spring balls.

This is a smasher, really:

"I went to the teacher to get her approval and she wanted to ask the administration to see if it was okay," Jessica explained. "She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat 'spring spheres.' I couldn't call them Easter eggs."
In reality no one was fooled:
"When I took them out of the bag, the teacher said, 'Oh look, spring spheres' and all the kids were like 'Wow, Easter eggs.' So they knew," Jessica said.
And the reason is clear: how many third graders will grok the word "sphere"?

I propose "spring balls". It matches the tireless spirit of Political Correctness and its results, and hopefully it wouldn't be considered a (hidden) manifestation of male chauvinism.

And don't let me go on - about the Easter Bunny and its PC name...

22 April 2011

Qaradawi, coma and singing women

According to the "Department of Monitoring" of Kavkaz Center (the Chechen terror wing mouthpiece), "Qaradawi has lapsed into a coma and there are no signs of improvement in his health condition".

The event caused Kavkaz Center some hardly hidden satisfaction, judging by the article. One of the reasons:

It is to be noted that in recently, Qaradawi issued fatwas, one after another, that clearly contradict the Sharia. Thus, a Qaradawi's fatwa on permissibility of women's singing caused a wave of denials and disturbances among the scholars of the Al-Azhar University, because the scholars agreed that a woman can sing only in the presence of other women or men who are her mahrams.
Oh well, I guess that the coma of good Dr Sheykh Yusuf al-Qardawi isn't so recent then. Otherwise he wouldn't contradict...

Let's wait for more fatwas then.

The Council Has Spoken!!

Here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

21 April 2011

Helen Thomas - in and out of focus

It will be only human to understand this:

According to a statement by the "Move Over AIPAC" campaign, Thomas was invited to speak at the event, scheduled to take place in Washington D.C. during AIPAC's annual conference in May, but withdrew her participation fearing she will become the focus of the events.
Here is an example of the lady being in the focus:

And here is a rather unfocused version:


Capisce?

The crimes against humanity of Richard Goldstone

In two parts. By Ami Isseroff. Good read.

20 April 2011

Now we are millionaires too

In fact, it has happened yesterday.


The visitor read the post A question of color. Unfortunately,  he/she didn't contribute an opinion on the main question of that post. So it remains unresolved.

No matter. Being a visitor # 1,000,000 is what counts. At least on this here microblog. So, dear visitor from sunny Chula Vista: as a free gift (yep, I shall use this too, if all mass media see it fit), you get access to the Simply Jews blog for the next 12 months gratis*.

(*) Local taxes may apply where appropriate.

Marrickville Council wakes up to smell... no, not the coffee

Some time ago I have posted that one on the subject of Sydney (Australia) neighborhood where its local council, led by Australian Greens, made a point of managing international affairs.

Thanks to colleague Elder of Ziyon, it appears now that the ungrateful population of Marrickville decided that it (the population) had enough of politicking and wasting their money.

The Greens lost to Labor by fewer than 700 votes, in a seat they were favourites to snare. The backlash was quite a shock to the Greens, whose extremist ideological baggage is at last costing them votes.
Now Greens should give some thought to their future. Maybe they should return to saving the whales, reducing the use of detergents and devising a solution for all these farting sheep and cows that destroy the ozone layer...

Charles Manson vs Global Warming

Now it's official. The final argument.

18 April 2011

7 popular myths about the Egyptian revolution

The subject is strangely close to that of Passover, I guess.

Sandmonkey is posting rarely during this days, thus this post is especially important. It shows the difference between the inside view and the mostly uninformed one of the various overseas commentators.

However, I am not sure that Sandmonkey's overly optimistic approach doesn't color his view and his predictions. The power of positive thinking shouldn't be underestimated, for sure, but we shouldn't forget that a view of an intelligent, progressive urban dweller like Sandmonkey is not necessarily shared by the majority of Egyptian population. Whose votes will really count, if we can hope for a truly democratic election.

I will keep my fingers crossed for Sandmonkey and many other like-minded people, even if he sees it necessary to send a barb or two toward Israel (knowing well that the latter has no more power to change the outcome of the election in Egypt than a gnat to change the direction of the Nile).

And let's hope that the next democratically elected government of Egypt will not make sure (like Hamas did) that this election is the last democratic one. And that it will keep to the existing peace agreements.

Via Dick Stanley.

This is not your country, go back to Europe.

Nope. Not what you think. At all. Well, almost at all.

17 April 2011

Hag Pesach Sameach - Happy Passover to all of you!

Tough times are ahead, as it says here:

And, to distract you for a while from the coming tribulations:

Nicolas Cage arrested - but what for?

There is a lot of inconsistencies in this story:

Cage was charged with domestic abuse battery, disturbing the peace and public drunkenness...
To start with, how could he simultaneously be drunk in public and commit domestic abuse: was he at home or not?

Then this picture during the arrest:

Looks like he was asleep when they came for him: so how could he disturb the peace? It is rather the cops who disturbed him while sleeping. Which is a much more heinous offense in my eyes.

Case closed.

15 April 2011

Vittorio (Vik) Arrigoni - murdered by Mossad (of course)

Tragic as the fate of Italian ISM activist was, his body still being warm, his colleagues are already trying to extract some meager political benefit out of this senseless and typically cowardly act.

Two examples only: the histrionics of Salem News - a ravingly anti-Zionist (and frequently simply anti-Jewish) e-rag:

You will note in the video below that Ken O'Keefe, our writer and diehard activist friend in Gaza, does not believe or at least did not, that any Palestinian could be responsible for Vik's death. ... The perpetrators of this crime Ken suggests, were Zionist agents of Israel.
It may be worth your while to watch the embedded clip with the "diehard activist" literally spraying spit when talking about the Zionist entity.

Another outstanding example will be (who but) Mondoweiss whose owners have chosen to host someone named Refaat Alareer with this brilliant turn of speech:
The timing, which comes days before Flotilla II, and the irreparable damage the crime did to Gaza and the Palestinians tell of the Israeli Mossad hand lurking behind the doers.
And there is more, much more of this crap in the muddy waters of the Internet. If you want to see it, of course.

The Council Has Spoken!!

Here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners


Non-Council Winners

Without reading the article

Just looking at this headline:

Philadelphia Condom Campaign Targets Kids as Young as 11

This campaign seems to be 11 years too late...

14 April 2011

Pastor Sizer: crossing the red line of anti-Israeli discourse

There is nothing terribly wrong in being anti-... (substitute you own country of choice). At least where some specific feature of a country is concerned. To give you an example close to home: I am anti-Argentine inclined, but only where football is involved (it's rather a long story for another time).

Now, you would probably agree that in anti-... tendency we should keep to some basic rules of civilized discourse. For example, it's OK to say that Diego Armando Maradona is a cheat and during his career was known to display some unmanly traits. It will be hardly credible and/or civilized, though, to claim that Mr Maradona catches, dismembers and barbecues little children. Alluring as the thought could be, one would be better off not voicing it.

Well, you probably don't remember the good pastor Sizer, the one with some exceptional power over British police. If you don't, you could do worse than going for the last link. It's an exciting story.

But back to anti-Israeli discourse. As I hinted, it's OK with me when a person bashes Israel where Israel deserves bashing. Mind you, being of a somewhat mercurial temper, I am known to indulge in this pastime myself from time to time. Using some un-parliamentary expressions too.

Of course, one would look strange if one were bashing one single country exclusively. Pastor Sizer, for example, has only two kinds of people who are the target of his (rather permanent) displeasure: the Christian Zionists and the State of Israel. You shall see which are his preferred targets almost immediately when browsing his site. And he is kinda obsessive in repeatedly directing his copious streams of fire and brimstone at the two. It could be unhealthy, I guess, but one doesn't argue with an obsession.

Recently, though, our good pastor have overstepped the lines of civilized anti-Israeli discourse, going straight into the twilight zone where one's enemy catches these proverbial kids and... (see above). It started with a site named Allvoices, where a person named Mohamed Abd el Fattah who "is based in Cairo, Kairo, Egypt, and is Anchor for Allvoices" published a news item, ostensibly picked up from Israeli Yediot Ahronot. According to it, Saif al-Islam, son of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, visited Israel to get some military assistance for his daddy.

This news item (written in especially atrocious language, I have to add) was quickly outed as a hoax. To make sure, I have checked Yediot Ahronot English and Hebrew sites too - it is still a hoax. This fact didn't (still doesn't) bother our good pastor, who immediately posted an article on the subject under a telling headline The Ties that Bind: Israel to Libya.What you wouldn't see in this (modified) version of the article, though, is the following, later modified, text (the omitted part is emphasized):

It should come as no surprise that “Saif al-Islam, son of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi” made a surprise visit to Israel last week to buy more weapons for his dad.

He goes to Israel regularly because, according to a senior Middle East Ecclesiastical source, both his mother and aunt are Jewish and live in Israel.

Blood is indeed thicker than water. Perhaps this is why the US is reluctant to impose a ‘no-fly’ zone over Libya.
Thanks to Harry's Place and the ever watchful Seismic Shock fellow, the text was rescued and kept for posterity here. There are also some conclusions re Mr Sizer's somewhat obsessive behavior too...

Of course, the rumors about Jewish roots of the good colonel are not new. However, being a senior Ecclesiastical source himself, pastor Sizer should know that being a Muslim precludes the colonel from being able to carry this second membership card. Oh well, it probably doesn't matter to him. Pastor Sizer was hell-bent to make a point. And, in his righteous zeal, he didn't notice that he is already way past that thin red line...

Blut ist dicker als Wasser indeed. It should also carry some oxygen that feeds, between other human organs, the brain. It seems that our good pastor is lately not exercising enough, depraving his valuable gray cells from this essential nourishment.

Too bad.

Hat tip: Israel News.

13 April 2011

Do you feel these fingers on your throat?

Somewhat grubby and shaky (as in "Parkinson's disease"), but still...

Details.

P.S. For Catch-22 lovers: do you remember that "Major Major and I will..."?

12 April 2011

Hamas, Holocaust and the yellow school bus

A keen mind wouldn't take long to establish the link between the three entities named in the headline of this post. Still, a keen mind could take a break from time to time, and for these I am translating (using Google, of course) an article that so far appears only in Russian.

HAMAS: Israel is lying about the missile that hit the school bus

Hamas has compared the missile fired last week on a bus with Israeli schoolchildren with the Holocaust ... but in the negative, anti-Israeli sense.

In an article published in Hamas daily "Palestine", someone named Ahmad al-Hadidi said that reports of Israeli and other media that the missile hit the bus which transported students after school, are false.

According to the author, the school bus with students couldn't be traveling so far from the location of the settlement. Also, the pictures of wounded students or ambulances that took away the victims were not published.

"Israel is engaged in fraud and making up stories, squeezing out a tear, in order to induce sympathy, just as they exaggerate the Holocaust," - says Al-Hadidi.
Should I add my worthless comments to that? Nah...

Judge Goldstone: the man or the role?

Several widely diverse discussions of Judge Richard Goldstone's personality were already published in the media, and there will surely be more. The aftershock of the WaPo article Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes caused an about turn change of attitude re Judge Goldstone to both supporters and denigrators of Israel. Most of the former welcome his change of position on Goldstone Report and grudgingly acknowledged the judge's honesty. Most of the latter swiftly produced the expected repartee "a Jew and a Zionist", the fact that suited them perfectly earlier, when Judge Goldstone's views were to their liking.

I am reading now an article Setting the record straight on Goldstone by Maurice Ostroff, one of the e-space activists I hold in high esteem. I am in agreement with his statement that:

It is also disappointing to observe the disproportionate amount of conjecture about, and attacks on, Goldstone the man, compared with the paucity of discussion about the actual content of the report and the faulty methodology used in preparing it.
I also cannot disagree with the following:
Those who claim that Goldstone retracted his report in the Washington Post article, or expressed regret at having been responsible for it, have obviously not read the op-ed. The only regret he expressed was that the fact finding mission did not originally have evidence, which has since come to light, explaining the circumstances that led his mission to conclude that civilians in Gaza were targeted by the IDF. This information, he wrote, would probably have influenced the findings about intent and war crimes.
However, Mr Ostroff stops at this point, for some reason passing over an important conclusion: that by retracting the atrocious accusation of intentional killings of civilians, Judge Goldstone effectively discarded the most harmful and libelous part of the report that dwarfed the rest of it.

And strangely, after complaining about paucity of discussions about the report contents, the article itself is dedicated mostly to proof that Judge Goldstone is a reasonable and consistent man, who loves both Jews and Israel, is fair and objective and is not afraid to change his opinion when new facts fall in his possession.

And this is where Mr Ostroff falls in the same trap: discussing the man (where his personality is absolutely irrelevant) instead of the role he played in the Goldstone Report. I think that I could list the salient points of the Goldstone affair:
  1. Judge Goldstone has led a group of prejudiced anti-Israeli committee members in preparation of a report that caused uncounted harm to the State of Israel. Conclusions of the report already served and will serve for a long time as fodder for unbridled anti-Israeli (and, via the usual chain of degeneration, anti-Semitic) propaganda.
  2. The above mentioned retraction by Judge Goldstone, while exonerating IDF and Israel of the severest war crime and giving us all a warm and fuzzy feeling, is hardly having any effect on anti-Zionist public that, as it's already mentioned, discarded the retraction as obtained under Zionist pressure in the best case, or as another Zionist trick by a Jew lawyer in the worst case.
This is the long and the short of it. As for the Judge himself: he may be the best person in the world, a superb lawyer and judge, a great husband, father and grandfather, a thoroughly likeable man and a much desired partner in bridge. All this is irrelevant. History uses very rough brushstrokes, and most of us don't care whether King Herod was a connoisseur of poetry and/or sports or whether Alexander the Great was a considerate father to his offspring. We do remember each of them for something else. Judge Goldstone's role in the creation of the Goldstone Report is the only one that is relevant, and, tragically or not, it puts his name in a list of most reviled Jews in our history.

Too bad.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

11 April 2011

Quick Palestine Quiz

Prepared by Ami Isseroff and originates here.

Attitudes determine political positions and facts, but attitudes are shaped by perceptions, not facts. What facts do people think they know, for example, about Gaza, and are they true?
For most people around the world Gaza is synonymous with poverty and health problems caused by the Israeli “siege.” When British TV Channel 4 wanted to claim Glaswegians were really poor, they claimed infant mortality in Glasgow was (horror of horrors!)  higher than it was in Gaza. According to  Indexmundi infant mortality in Gaza is pretty high, more than 18 per thousand in 2009, compared to 4.22 per thousand  for big bad Israel. But wait, in UK Infant mortality was over 4.8 per thousand, worse than Israel. This can’t be due to an Israeli siege can it?? In Turkey, infant mortality was over 25 per thousand, higher than Gaza! Syria had a similar figure and in Iran, the death rate for new born infants is over 35 per thousand. Yet nobody complained or demonstrated to stop the humanitarian crises in these countries.  While emphasizing the fictional Gaza humanitarian crisis, media, NGOs and the U.N. ignored the absolutely real rocket strikes that come out of Gaza almost daily.

To put this situation in perspective, suppose people in 1944 felt sorry for the poor Nazis suffering under blockade, but were hardly aware of the Nazi rocket attacks?

This short quiz about Palestine and the Middle East will test your knowledge and perhaps change a few perceptions about the conflict.

1. The area of Israel is:
a. Larger than that of France (640,294 Sq km; 247,219 Sq. miles);
b. About the size of France;
c. Much larger than Jordan;
d. Much smaller than Egypt, Iran, Jordan or France; smaller than New Jersey in fact;
e. Larger than Iran.

2. The world’s Jewish population:
a. Exceeds 20% of the world population;
b. Is much less than 1% of the world population – about 15 million or less;
c. Is larger than the population of Iran;
d. Is greater than the population of California;
e.  Is about the size of the world Muslim population.

3. The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine was an act of international law. It pledged to:
a. Turn Palestine into a national home for the Jewish people;
b. Turn Palestine into a national home for Palestinian Arabs that lived there;
c. Turn Palestine into an Islamic Republic;
d. Turn Palestine into a secular democratic state;
e. Hold a plebiscite on the future of Palestine.
4. 19th century travelers to Palestine such as Mark Twain, reported:
a. A thriving and advanced community, where Arabs and Jews lived in peace and harmony, enjoying the benefits of Ottoman rule;
b. An impoverished and depopulated arid wasteland;
c. A large and thriving Jewish community;
d. A thriving Muslim province;
e. A place like any other.

5. The Palestinian Arabs claim to be:
a. Descendants of the biblical Philistines;
b. Descendants of the Semitic Canaanite tribes;
c, Descendants of early Christians;
d. An integral part of the Arab nation, and descendants of Arab invaders;
e, all of the above.
6. The historic capital of independent Palestine was:
a. Jerusalem al Quds
b. Ramallah
c. Nablus
d. Al Khalil
e. There was never an independent Palestinian state.

7. Which is true of land ownership laws?
a. A Christian can buy land and live in Mecca, Saudi Arabia;
b. Arabs cannot own land in Israel;
c. Sale of land to Israelis is punishable by the death penalty in lands under Palestinian Authority  jurisdiction;
d. Muslims cannot register land in Israel;
e. Only the Jewish National Fund can own land in Israel.

8. Who said: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us.” ?
a. Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, in a speech to the American Zionist Organization, 1972;
b. Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense of Israel and former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, addressing the General Staff, 1968;
c. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, in his election victory speech, 1996;
d. Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader, addressing the British Peel Commission, 1937;
e. Abba Eban, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, in a speech in 1981.
9. The infant mortality rate among  Israeli Arabs (“Israeli Palestinians”) is:
a. Slightly less than that in oil-rich Qatar, less than half that in Saudi Arabia
b. The highest in the Middle East;
c. Higher than it was when the British controlled Palestine, before 1948;;
d. Higher than in the Palestinian territories;
e. The highest in the world;

10. The FATAH was founded:

a. At the end of the 19th century, to work for a national home for the Palestinian Arabs, secured in international law;
b. Before 1967, to liberate Palestine from the Zionists by armed struggle.
c. To establish a secular democratic state by non-violent resistance;
d. As a Palestinian social club;
e. In April, 1968, to resist the Zionist occupation:
CLICK FOR the full answer key and explanations for this Palestine Middle-East Quiz
http://zionism-Israel.com/Palestine_middle_east_quiz_ans_I.htm
Abridged answer key

1-d   2-b  3-a  4-b  5-e
6-e   7-c  8-d   9-a  10-b
Background:
1. The area of Israel without the West Bank and Gaza is 22,072 Sq km or 8,522 square Miles. Israel is smaller than Egypt (1002,000 Sq. km; 387,000 Sq mi. ), Iran 1,628,750 Sq km 628,860 Sq mi.)  Jordan (89,342 Sq. km; 34,495 Sq mi) France (640,294 Sq km; 247,219 Sq mi) or New Jersey ( 22,588 Sq km; 8,722  Sq mi). Israel is not a dangerous expansionist country that threatens its neighbors.
Country areas are given here.
.
Country areas are given here.
2. Jews constitute about 0.2% of the world population and are not a powerful and sinister group. The world Jewish population was estimated at under 13.5 million by different researchers. The total world population in 2009 was over 6 billion.
3, The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine declared that Palestine was to be the national home of the Jewish people Israel is the successor state to the mandate. Israel is therefore not an “illegitimate state” as Palestinian supporters often claim.
The preamble to the mandate incorporated The Balfour Declaration:
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,…
4. In the mid-19th century Mark Twain and others usually reported that Palestine was an arid and depopulated wasteland. In Innocents Abroad, Chapter 46, Twain wrote of his visit to Dan, in relatively high praise:
Here were evidences of cultivation — a rare sight in this country — an acre or two of rich soil studded with last season’s dead corn-stalks of the thickness of your thumb and very wide apart. But in such a land it was a thrilling spectacle. Close to it was a stream, and on its banks a great herd of curious-looking Syrian goats and sheep were gratefully eating gravel. I do not state this as a petrified fact — I only suppose they were eating gravel, because there did not appear to be any thing else for them to eat.
In Chapter 48 of Innocents Abroad, Twain describes a visit to Magdala near Tiberias:
MAGDALA is not a beautiful place… The streets of Magdala are any where from three to six feet wide, and reeking with uncleanliness. The houses are from five to seven feet high, and all built upon one arbitrary plan — the ungraceful form of a dry-goods box. The sides are daubed with a smooth white plaster, and tastefully frescoed aloft and alow with disks of camel-dung placed there to dry. This gives the edifice the romantic appearance of having been riddled with cannon-balls, and imparts to it a very warlike aspect…. There are no windows to a Syrian hut, and no chimneys. When I used to read that they let a bed-ridden man down through the roof of a house in Capernaum to get him into the presence of the leader, I generally had a three-story brick in my mind, and marveled that they did not break his neck with the strange experiment. I perceive now, however, that they might have taken him by the heels and thrown him clear over the house without discommoding him very much. Palestine is not changed any since those days, in manners, customs, architecture, or people.
As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the horses’ hoofs roused the stupid population, and they all came trooping out — old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled and scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct and education. How the vermin-tortured vagabonds did swarm! How they showed their scars and sores, and piteously pointed to their maimed and crooked limbs, and begged with their pleading eyes for charity! We had invoked a spirit we could not lay. They hung to the horses’s tails, clung to their manes and the stirrups, closed in on every aide in scorn of dangerous hoofs — and out of their infidel throats, with one accord, burst an agonizing and most infernal chorus: “Howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! bucksheesh! bucksheesh!” I never was in a storm like that before….
…Squalor and poverty are the pride of Tiberias. The young women wear their dower strung upon a strong wire that curves downward from the top of the head to the jaw — Turkish silver coins which they have raked together or inherited. Most of these maidens were not wealthy, but some few had been very kindly dealt with by fortune. I saw heiresses there worth, in their own right — worth, well, I suppose I might venture to say, as much as nine dollars and a half. But such cases are rare. When you come across one of these, she naturally puts on airs. She will not ask for bucksheesh. She will not even permit of undue familiarity. She assumes a crushing dignity and goes on serenely practicing with her fine-tooth comb and quoting poetry just the same as if you were not present at all. Some people can not stand prosperity.
At Ein Dor (Endor) Twain recorded in Chapter 51 of Innocents Abroad:
…we rode a little way up a hill and found ourselves at Endor, famous for its witch. Her descendants are there yet. They were the wildest horde of half-naked savages we have found thus far. They swarmed out of mud bee-hives; out of hovels of the dry-goods box pattern; out of gaping caves under shelving rocks; out of crevices in the earth. In five minutes the dead solitude and silence of the place were no more, and a begging, screeching, shouting mob were struggling about the horses’ feet and blocking the way. ”Bucksheesh! bucksheesh ! bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh !” It was Magdala over again… Dirt, degradation and savagery are Endor’s specialty. We say no more about Magdala and Deburieh now. Endor heads the list. It is worse than any Indian campoodie. The hill is barren, rocky, and forbidding. No sprig of grass is visible, and only one tree. This is a fig-tree, which maintains a precarious footing among the rocks at the mouth of the dismal cavern once occupied by the veritable Witch of Endor…
Not all travelers at all times recorded unfavorable impressions. Some wanted to impress the public with the possibilities if settlement and development, some were awed by the “holiness” of the holy land. But the statistics show rampant, poverty and illiteracy and depopulation. This is suggested by photographic evidence too, as late as the early 20th century.
Before the advent of the Zionists, small communities of Jews lived at the tender mercies of their Muslim neighbors and enjoyed precarious support from the Ottoman government, often bought with bribes. The condition of Jews in Jerusalem in Medieval times did not improve until late in the 19th century. The Jews of Safed suffered a deportation order and the Safed Plunder of 1834.
Bishara Doumani, (Beshara Doumani, “Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900″ Publisher: University of California Press, 1995)  a Palestinian author interested, if anything, in magnifying the Arab Palestinian economy and community in 19th century Palestine describes the soap industry of Nablus. Evidently, this was the greatest industry of Palestine in the largest and most prosperous town. About 20,000 people lived in this city in the 1880s. During the day, the town was filled with farmers and others buying and selling. At night, according to Doumani, the town was empty. This pattern is typical of a medieval European market town. The soap “industry” was based on pre-industrial techniques.;
5. Palestinian Arabs often claim descent from various ancestors, which they argue would give them precedence in rights over the land, supposedly. This is as logical as the Saxon population of England expelling the descendants of the Normans, the American Indians expelling Americans or the Egyptian Copts expelling the Arabs who invaded many centuries ago. In fact, Palestinian Arab origins are various:
  • The Nusseibeh family claim to have come with the Arab invasion under Omar (about 640 AD);
  • The Dajani claim descent from an Arabian knight;
  • The Husseini family probably came with Turkish invaders;
  • The Nashashibi family are descended from Bowmen of Salah Eddin.
  • Izzedin Al Qassam, The Palestinian national hero, was born in Syria.
6. Palestine never had a capital city, as it was never an independent country. The area only achieved independence under the Jews, who made their capital in Jerusalem in ancient and modern times. After the Roman conquest, there was never any independent state in the Levant until the 20th century.
7. Palestinian Authority Law is a continuation of Jordanian law, and provides for the death penalty for sale of land to Israelis.
Land sales in Israel are open to all.

8. Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi an Arab resident of mandatory Palestine, denied the existence of Palestine. Before 1948, most Arabs were uninterested in Palestine as a separate country. Local residents often favored union with Syria.
9. The infant mortality rate among Israeli Arabs (“Israeli Palestinians”) is about 7.7 per thousand, while that among Jewish Israelis is among the lowest in the world, about 3.1 per thousand. This difference has been attributed to deliberate Israeli policy, but Israel has been working hard to close the gap, which is partly due to consanguinous marriages and partly due to poor access of un-liberated Bedouin nomad women to prenatal and perinatal care.
Comparison figures – The infant mortality rate of Israeli Arabs is the lowest it has ever been since public heath records were kept.  It is slightly less than that in oil-rich Qatar (8.2 by U.N Estimate), less than half that in Saudi Arabia (18.8 by U.N. estimate) and less than in Syria (16.0).
10, The Fatah was formally founded in 1964, though it had been organized since 1957.  The Fatah constitution, written about 1964, stated:
Article (6) UN projects, accords and resolutions, or those of any individual which undermine the Palestinian people’s right in their homeland are illegal and rejected.
Article (7) The Zionist Movement is racial, colonial and aggressive in ideology, goals, organisation and method.
Articlele (8) The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.
Article (9) Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious and human obligation.
….
Goals
Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.
Method
Article (17) Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine…
Article (19) Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People’s armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.
In 1964 there were no Israeli soldiers in the West Bank or Gaza, but no attempt was made to set up a Palestinian state on this land. The Fatah, like the PLO, was founded with the aim of eliminating Israel  by violence, as the constitution of Fateh freely attests. Both Fatah and PLO emphasize that the Palestinian struggle is part of the Arab national struggle.

Ami Isseroff
March 30, 2011

10 April 2011

History according to a little fart

It is a long time since this blog checked upon well-being of the little fart aka Mark Elf, he of the toenail nibbling Jews sans Frontiers. The time would have been even longer, had I not stumbled on his amazing letter to The Guardian of April 8, 2011, in which he puts the subject of state legitimacy on a totally new footing. This trailblazing letter is hardly comprehensible, as much of the subject's writing on his own blog. Judge, for example, the following pearl:

While Arab regimes are oppressive to maintain the governments in power, Israel's oppression goes to the heart of its existence as a state to which Jews from around the world have more right to live than the native non-Jewish population.
I have seen Chinese manuals of electronic products that are easier on one's eyes. The letter in general is "oppressive to understand", but it's not that long, so put a stout heart to it, please.

But the part where the revolutionary new approach to history is defined is this one:
Other states have carried out ethnic cleansing in the past. But Israel owes its ethno-religious majority to a recent, current and ongoing campaign of displacement of the indigenous population. That was true of the US, it was true of Australia. It has been true of many states. But Israel's crimes are more recent and, therefore, its continued existence is predicated on its human rights.
In one stroke of his electronic pen, our little fart has exonerated what he calls US and Australia (in reality the British imperial expansion, but what do we know?) from the past sin of ethnic cleansing. Apparently, there is an expiration date on this specific crime. If we take Australia as an example of the little fart's magnanimity, the last recorded mass massacre of Aboriginal population took place in the end of the twenties (last century) although individual cases of wanton murder of Aboriginals continued into the sixties. So, according to little fart's reading of history, limitations period for the crime of ethnic cleansing is about 80 years.

I am not sure what date the little fart puts on that "ethnic cleansing" label (is it 1948 or 1967?), and I leave the "recent, current and ongoing campaign of displacement" (whatever it means) for the readers to untangle. Anyhow, it may mean that, according to the little fart's judgment, we'll be out of the woods in 20 to 40 years. Ain't it a miracle of modern jurisprudence?

Nu, fine, I guess we can wait a bit more. What is forty years compared to the perspective of being excused and accepted by the little toenail biting anti-Zionist AssaJew?

P.S. To give our subject some credit: he realized that his letter is somewhat deficient where its language is concerned. He even dedicated a post to the issue, where, funnily enough, he missed most of the points. Woops indeed...

09 April 2011

Defrocked For Calling A Terrorist….A Terrorist

A priest in Finland faces being defrocked after describing one of the world’s most-wanted criminals as a ‘terrorist’. He was referring to Doku Umarov – the man behind the Moscow metro and airport bombings, among other crimes.


The story of political correctness going wild is amazing by itself. No less amazing, however, is the indignation of the Russian TV (RT channel). The nice folks of RT will do their best to avoid the T-word themselves - of course when the word applies to terrorism-inclined people other than Chechen (and their affiliates) ones.

Is there a lesson to be learned from this story - aside of Finland doing their best to irk the Russian bear? You tell me.

P.S. And yes - Doku Umarov is definitely a terrorist, no question about it...

03 April 2011

Goldstone elegantly reverses

So, what fueled Goldstones turnaround?

That question will no doubt be answered by the Anti Zionist kneejerker contingent with a host of conspiracy theories that will plague the web, (and alternate Guardian universe) for decades.

In itself, the answer lays firmly on the bed of facts that accompanied the IDF’s internal probes and subsequent resulting actions. A first for any modern Army in as much as the minute details of this world opinion and UN driven enema were laid fully open to public scrutiny at every stage.

The recent real world equivalent to the IDF’s public purge was the televised proceedings on British television depicting the manufactured reality show drama concerning the invasion of Iraq, out of which we learned… Gurnisht mit gurnisht garnished on a plate of waffle and turd.

Scouring the web for articles on Goldstones about-turn this morning, one finds a distinct lack of coverage in the British press, with one particular cesspit rendered mute – the Guardian, which made more sales due to their thorough ongoing coverage of Goldstone’s report from its inception (within the cancerous womb of the UN’s tunnel visioned bastard child – The UN Human Rights Council) to the soiled conclusions that were presented as the final report.