Because no one asks them. Because they are the ones who go out there to do or die.
More info on the LIBI site.
And of course to the better part of them (otherwise it would have been another blog and another readership):
Oh, and Akaky Akakievich - notice the end of that second clip - your learned commentary will be appreciated, since it (the end) stumped me.
Uhu... I guessed that much, so go and read Haveil Havalim #201 - The I-Love-Nauru Edition. It's, like, a wow edition.
The big guns seem to be quieting down, and now we could all return to same old, same old.
Hamas will declare its victory:Turning his attention to Israeli attacks in Gaza, Hamadan added: "Hamas was not hurt…Hamas and the Palestinian organizations continue to rule Gaza. The victims of this war will be the basis for the continuation of the fighting and hostility vis-à-vis the Israeli side."
and threaten to continue fighting:Hamas said on Saturday it would continue fighting in Gaza as long as Israeli troops remained in the Hamas-ruled Strip. "If the Israeli military continues its existence in the Gaza Strip, that is a wide door for the resistance against the occupation forces," Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamada told al-Jazeera television.
How ridiculous is the bragging and how empty the threats are - remains to be seen.
Olmert will declare his victory:On Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared Operation Cast Lead a victory and threw the ball into Hamas's court, declaring the unilateral cease-fire that suspends the three-week operation, the future of which depends on whether Hamas continues to fire on Israel.
and threaten Hamas with dire consequences if they do what they promise.According to what was decided Saturday night, Israel will stop its offensive, but will keep the IDF forces in place, see how Hamas responds and whether an effective mechanism will be set up on the border to stop smuggling.
Likud will open a campaign based on Cast Lead failure to reach the objective of destroying Hamas (that Likud would have been stopped more or less at the same point of fighting is immaterial in politics):The Likud called on the government to continue with Operation Cast Lead until its goals were met, including an "effective closure of the corridor used to smuggle rockets into Gaza. Halting the operation under the current conditions means a second edition of the truce with Hamas. The Likud supports continuing the operation." MK Yisrael Katz (Likud) said the government had failed in Gaza.
Lesser politicos will issue statements of more extreme character:Knesset Member Talab El-Sana (United Arab List-Ta'al) said Israel's decision on a unilateral truce in Gaza was a "publicity stunt mean to reduce international pressure."
Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman said, "Past experience shows us that ceasefires become deathtraps. The nation is lending its support, the residents of the south are standing firm, and only the government is preventing the IDF from finishing the job.
People of Gaza will wake up to see the scenes of destruction and chaos - only to find themselves forced by Hamas gunmen to praise the "victors".
And people of Israel will continue to watch out for the familiar wail of the siren and count the familiar 15 seconds:Palestinian gunmen fired six rockets and three mortar shells into Israel on Sunday morning. One of the rockets hit the Sderot area, another rocket hit a henhouse in a kibbutz and a third one landed near another kibbutz.
And the last, but not the least:The Israeli government declared a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza without making significant progress in the efforts to release Gilad Shalit. The campaign representing the kidnapped soldier's family said Saturday night that "there is a lot of concern in light of the prime minister's statement that he is still committed to do everything to bring Gilad back home."
Does it all look bleak? Because it is. I've promised (see under "Predictions").
So, in short - back to business as usual:
Nothing more to see here, folks - move on...
Cross-posted on Yourish.com.
I don't have a choice now but to quote myself, if only for the reason that I haven't seen somebody else saying this. It was regarding the hysterical shrieking by Naomi Klein ("Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction") that I have asked a fairly simple question: "Don't you feel some words missing in that headline and clamoring to be added - to continue the list of punishments?".
Now this line (of timidity? of fear to get out of the closet? of breaking a taboo? - I wonder) has eventually been crossed - by quite a few of British "intellectuals" in this letter. It starts with:
The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years.I hope I don't have to explain the significance of the number 60 in this quote.
This is what triggered the news. This is the news.
Busted my guts this morning laughing like mad. Thanks (or not?) to Terry Glavin.
Sir Gerald (or in other words, Hon Gerald Kaufman, MP)has already appeared on our radar. What can I say - it has been great fun and real pleasure to view his extraordinary exploits. It is not that easy to find a nincompoop of that order of magnitude and in such an exalted position.
But his latest dazzling fit of intellectual activity (gladly picked up by CNN) easily towers over his previous mental shenanigans.
"The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians," he said.Oh well, this strawman is not a new one, as you can easily ascertain, reading many an anti-Israeli diatribe by miscellaneous thinkers. It would be pointless to ask Sir Gerald to prove this statement, since it's not about proof or veracity. I don't know - the "present Israeli government" exploited several things - like relatively low gas prices (essential to fuel all that military machinery), the Christmas vacation, the wall-to-wall support of the citizenry demanding an end to the budding rocket science in Gaza, etc. But Holocaust? Oh well. I have already told several times that I personally use that "Holocaust guilt" of the gentiles only abroad and only to jump an especially long queue. Of course, Sir Gerald wouldn't listen.
My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town.... A German soldier shot her dead in her bed, he said. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.So who us using Holocaust now, Sir Gerald? This logical ellipse easily wins the 2009 prise for nincompoopery, and we aren't even in February yet! But there is nothing to do: all present and future contenders are left way behind, eating the dust.
Cross-posted on Yourish.com.
I would fly anywhere with Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger for a pilot, that's for sure. Even in a 1935 Dakota with one engine and half of a wing missing.
Saying this and after a hearty sigh of relief, here is something funny and related to the Hudson miracle.
In the wake of the events of 1-15, in which a wedge of Geese brought down a US Airways aircraft, here’s what you won’t be hearing about from the so-called “Mainstream Media”: We brought this on ourselves. After an event such as this one, it’s important to look at the root causes: Why did the Geese attack us? Well, the truth is, for years we have been oppressing the Geese, using them for the fuel they provide for our bodies.Mmm... quite. One of my favorite animals, geese are.
Here:
I hope he didn't get a head cold, it could be a bad thing with all his other ailments. Puffing up like that could blow a few gaskets on a lesser man.
Anyway, I purely love the list of good news he is bringing to his brethren.
Via Adloyada.
Its' probably a Mediterranean thing - to run for sewers when they come for you.
Giuseppe Setola, the Naples Mafia boss who eluded a police raid earlier this week by escaping through a trapdoor in his hideout into the sewers, has been arrested after two days on the run.Hope his prison cell will be more comfortable.
I have reported earlier on two seemingly unrelated activities by Hamas: one that appeared to be a technical glitch that caused a 6 minute Polish porn clip to be aired on Hamas TV, and the other - a threatening SMS that promises IDF soldiers fate worth than death.
Being a simple Hasbarah grunt with limited brainpower and analytical abilities, I want to express my gratitude to Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, thanks to whose penetrating wisdom these two events are now linked.
Yes, being forced to watch Polish porn is an unusually cruel torture that should be immediately listed in one of those interminable Geneva papers. Surely worse than death.
Cross-posted on Yourish.com.
I am copying a post by Iranian (I guess) blogger Azarmehr. Enjoy:
This is such a classic and it reminds me so much of the illiterate thugs that raided the universities in Iran during the 'cultural revolution'. In this clip, the mob leader with the tannoy shouting the slogans, warms up the flock with the usual 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' to begin with but then his zeal takes over his brain cells and he shouts 'Death to Palestine'. Few of the mob twig on and start laughing but the rest simply repeat the leader and shout accordingly 'Death to Palestine'.True, thanks to Azarmehr again. Which reminds me a story I heard many years ago. During one of the interminable May 1st parades on the Red Square (that's in Moscow, then USSR), where every Muscovite was marching with his/her organization, proudly, if unwillingly carrying a placard with this or other prescribed slogan, one citizen decided to show some originality. His placard was saying: "We'll give a crushing answer to the enemies of the world capitalism".
Absolute classic :))
At the beginning of Cast Lead operation, Hamas sent to randomly chosen Israeli citizens a lot of SMSs in garbled Hebrew, here is an example courtesy of Ynet:
Translated into (equally garbled) English the message means: "Rockets on all cities, shelters not protect, Qassam rocket, Hamas."
Inspired by the success (oh well) of this action, but probably worried about the syntax and the style, Hamas abruptly decided to switch to English. Here is a new version:
Sounds like a professional promo of a tourist agency now, have you noticed the improvement? It is also interesting to notice the +44 prefix of that incoming phone number. Of course, this is not a real phone number of a British citizen, rather a virtual number generated for some server that, most probably, either resides in Britain or uses services of an unsuspecting British phone company. And of course, there is no sense in calling that number, as someone in Ynet tried...
But this is not the point of the post. Hamas, unwittingly of course, is enriching Israeli phone companies. The Israeli cellular phone company that provides services to the receiving number, gets its share of the price per every SMS sent from abroad.
And, if the Hamas scientist behind this brilliant idea was able to make a few logical steps based on this fact, he would have understood that, being exemplary taxpayers, the phone companies will transfer a share of the proceeds to the government which, in turn, will pass some of the shekels to the factory that produces bullets for M16 or Tavor or Galil rifles, which bullets may one of these days...
Do you get the hint?
Cross-posted on Yourish.com.
The point-counterpoint game is an endless and, frankly, frustrating business. You rarely gain friends by a prolonged and detailed argument, you frequently gain enemies by a good photography job, especially with all modern conveniences (should I mention the all-powerful Pho.. nah).
A good example of the point-counterpoint game, where the sides are unaware of each other and are talking about roughly the same subject, is in these two IHT articles, published on the same day:
Judging Israel by Geoffrey Wheatcroft
For more than 60 years Israel has shown that it can win every battle by military might. But there is also what the Declaration of Independence calls "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," and the battle for opinion cannot be won by brute force alone.And Israelis are united on war in Gaza as censure rises abroad by Ethan Bronner
Almost 100 percent of Israelis feel that the world is hypocritical. Where was the world when our cities were rocketed for eight years and our soldier was kidnapped? Why should we care about the world's view now?For a change, I will refrain from expressing my own opinion. Just a word of caution: beware of Mr Wheatcroft - he is a sly fellow; don't be deceived by his soft treading. More on Wheatcroft here and here.
