Bloodthirsty Liberal

Well, maybe not, but that’s next:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Tawfiq Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee, which aired on Abu Dhabi TV on November 15, 2009.

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I want to make one thing known to the whole world: Israel is doing one of the most dangerous things possible. It seeks to lead Palestinian society to [sexual] harassment, in order to turn it into a social phenomenon that will destroy Palestinian society.

Interviewer: What exactly do you mean? Could you clarify this?

Tawfiz Tirawi: What I mean is that [Israel] recruits some lowlife, and sends him with instructions to harass his sister or his mother. This is not done in order to obtain information, but in order to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian society.

From my observations about Palestinian society, this nefarious plan is working to perfection. Well done, Israel!

Have at it, boys.

If it was true that “only Nixon could go to China”, I wonder if it’s true that “only Obama could create Eretz Israel”.

It’s heading that way:

Abbas’s attempt to vault towards statehood on his own, with utter disregard for Israel and its position, is a sure enough sign that he wishes to bury any chance of returning to talks.

For far too long, Israel has been overly vulnerable to such machinations and games. By leaving the status of Judea and Samaria open for discussion, the Jewish state has given the Palestinians too much leeway for mischief-making and malice, which they have only been more than happy to exploit.

In light of Abbas’s latest charade, it is clear that Israel needs to put an end to this farce, once and for all.

We need to send a clear message to our foes, one that will put them on the defensive and strengthen Israel’s hand. And there is no better place to start than with our own unilateral measures, chief among them the annexation of all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

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In recent days, a number of leading Israeli politicians have thankfully begun to voice such proposals. The talented and articulate environment minister, Gilad Erdan of the Likud, told Israel Radio on Tuesday that if the Palestinians adopt a unilateral stance, then Israel should also consider “passing a law to annex some of the settlements.”

Likewise, Likud MK Danny Danon called for annexing all of Judea and Samaria with the exception of the Arab-inhabited cities.

And they’re not the only ones:

It’s time to end the confusion and ambiguity over what rightfully belongs to the Jewish people. This is not a matter to be decided by the US, EU, or UN. Or is it?

Demanding that Israel stop all construction in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem implies it’s all “illegally occupied.” But, then, to whom does it belong? What are Israel’s legal and historic claims?

Jewish reverence for Jerusalem is special because it is the spiritual center of the Jewish people; but Jews have no less affection for and identity with hundreds of historic places throughout Judea and Samaria. The Land of Israel isn’t an amusement park of sentimentality, or Hollywood of memories and museums. It is at the core of Jewish consciousness.

Sacrificing some communities in order to save others, amputating hilltops and settlements to assuage Arabs and the international community only encourages more radical demands and undermines Israel’s raison d’être. There is, however, an alternative.

The State of Israel can and should change its archaic and ambiguous position and extend full sovereignty to all Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria, including State Land and areas necessary for defense and security.

As noted in the post below, Israel’s insistence on negotiating fair and reasonable borders, rather than withdrawing to the 1967 (temporary) borders, is based on international law as solid as any that I know of. If the Palestinians won’t recognize that—indeed, if they’re about to blow the whole negotiating process to bits—I feel it’s way past time for Israel to settle its own affairs, deal with its own security and defense, and define its own statehood. The Palestinian “threat” to do the very same thing would seem to acknowledge the action as valid.

And it’s not as if we’re talking a lot of territory:

The bulk of the land annexed would be at Israel’s narrowest point, the “Auschwitz border” that Abba Eban spoke of. Again, the history justifying such a declaration is indisputable (again, see below).

Praise be to President Obama for peeing in the soup, and forcing both sides to making unilateral declarations. Israel might have to name a street or a square in Ma’aleh Adumim after him.

Barack Hussein Obama Park (?)

While this administration has an attack of the vapors every time a Jew builds a potting shed anywhere near Jerusalem, it might be worth recalling exactly what the UN said at the time the Israelis and the combined armies of the Arab nations ceased hostilities.

NB: I don’t give a [bleep] what the UN said—then, now, or ever—but since so many other people seem to put so much stock in what a pack of anti-Semitic tyrants has to say, we might as well see what the pack of anti-Semitic tyrants actually said:

Israel held that the withdrawal phrase in the Resolution was not meant to refer to a total withdrawal. Following are statements including the interpretations of various delegations to Resolution 242:

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Lord Caradon, sponsor of the draft that was about to be adopted, stated, before the vote in the Security Council on Resolution 242:

“… the draft Resolution is a balanced whole. To add to it or to detract from it would destroy the balance and also destroy the wide measure of agreement we have achieved together. It must be considered as a whole as it stands.

…

It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1947, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary… “

Mr. Michael Stewart, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, in a reply to a question in Parliament, 9 December 1969:

“As I have explained before, there is reference, in the vital United Nations Security Council Resolution, both to withdrawal from territories and to secure and recognized boundaries. As I have told the House previously, we believe that these two things should be read concurrently and that the omission of the word ‘all’ before the word ‘territories’ is deliberate.”

Mr. George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, on 19 January 1970:

“I have been asked over and over again to clarify, modify or improve the wording, but I do not intend to do that. The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. “I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said ‘Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied’, and not from ‘the’ territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.”

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Mr. Arthur Goldberg, US representative, in the Security Council in the course of the discussions which preceded the adoption of Resolution 242:

“To seek withdrawal without secure and recognized boundaries … would be just as fruitless as to seek secure and recognized boundaries without withdrawal. Historically, there have never been secure or recognized boundaries in the area. Neither the armistice lines of 1949 nor the cease-fire lines of 1967 have answered that description… such boundaries have yet to be agreed upon. An agreement on that point is an absolute essential to a just and lasting peace just as withdrawal is…”

President Lyndon Johnson, 10 September 1968:

“We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbours involved.”

There’s reams more, none of it tyrannical or anti-Semitic, all documented, all genuine.

The demand that Israel return all land the stupid, [bleeping] Arabs lost after trying to ambush Israel is based on fiction.

FIC-TION.

Which makes the obsession by the Obama administration on ghettoizing the Jews either pure ignorance or pure something else—and we’d better pray for ignorance.

They’ve got to be carefully taught:

A televised memorial ceremony for Yasser Arafat included a video clip of Palestinian children delivering messages in honor of Arafat. It is noteworthy that even though this clip was prerecorded and edited, the organizers of the PA’s official ceremony chose to include hate speech and libels that demonized Jews and glorified violence and Martyrdom. [What do you mean “even though”? Should read “especially though”. Ed.]

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This children’s section in the special memorial indicates the PA’s success in transmitting to the next generation of Palestinian children hate libels that demonize Jews. Including these hate messages in the ceremony also shows that the PA approves of, and wants to publicize, the values of hatred, violence and Martyrdom that the children have adopted.

The following is the transcript of excerpts of the children’s messages:

Ceremony host: “Blessings to Yasser Arafat, and here are messages from the children of Palestine.”

Boy: “I was very, very sad when Arafat died as a Shahid (Martyr), because he was a good man and he was a fighter. He did things through struggle, he participated in the struggle and did not make peace and so on. He wanted to fight.”

Boy 2: “Yasser Arafat was a very, very important president. He stood up to all the enemies and was not afraid of anyone. And anyone who approached - he managed to stop him. All the Jews and the Israelis and the people who are against us, were afraid of him. When he died, he died of poisoning.”

Girl wearing pendant in the shape of Israel: “I say that he died from poisoning by the Jews. That’s what I say.”

Boy 3: “Arafat used to say: “They want me dead, they want me prisoner, but I say to them: Martyr! Martyr! Martyr!”

Girl 2: “He [Arafat] was our former president. He was under siege in Ramallah, and when he was under siege we were very upset. The Jews poisoned him and I hate them very much. Allah will repay them what they deserve.”

Boy 4: “He [Arafat] died from poisoning by the Jews. Well, I don’t know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews.”

Boy 5: “They destroyed his whole house and he was left in one room and in the end the Jews poisoned him and blamed someone else.”

Poisoned? If you call contracting a fatal disease from allegedly boning virile young Arab men poisoning, yeah I guess he was poisoned. Allegedly.

Just as we learned the Pledge of Allegiance and My Country Tis of Thee as children, the children of the nascent Palestinian state have learned “The Jews poisoned him and I hate them very much. Allah will repay them what they deserve.”

As they sow, so shall they reap. Which is why the Palestinians will end up killing themselves before Allah gets around to dealing with the Jews.

This wouldn’t bring us to 57 states, President Obama’s count, but it would be a start:

Palestinian officials said Sunday they are preparing to ask the United Nations to endorse an independent state without Israel’s consent because they are losing faith in the peace talks.

All right! Statehood here we come! Not exactly “we hold these truths to be self-evident” or “we the people”—but “gissa state” has a nice ring to it.

I bet the international community is lining up to hug their Palestinian brothers and sisters.

What say you, Europe?

The European Union rejected requests Tuesday that it support a Palestinian plan for gaining recognition as an independent state at the UN Security Council without Israeli consent.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, told reporters “the conditions are not there as of yet” for such a move. “I would hope that we would be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state, but there has to be one first, so I think that is somewhat premature.”

Huh? The Palestinians just declared a state, or close to it—what’s stopping you from recognizing it? Maybe this made sense in the original Swedish.

Let’s ask some people closer to home.

The United States would veto a Palestinian declaration of statehood in the United Nations Security Council, U.S. senators visiting Israel said Monday.

They said the threat by Palestinian officials to take the issue to a United Nations resolution was a waste of time and would go nowhere. They urged Arab states to stop it. “It would be D.O.A. - dead on arrival,” Democratic Party Senator Ted Kaufman (DE) told a news conference in Jerusalem. “It’s a waste of time.”

Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT), an independent, said “an essentially unilateral” declaration of statehood was the one thing that would not move the stalled peace process forward.

“I hope and presume that the United States would veto such a move if it ever came to the Security Council,” Lieberman said.

Yea, well, Kaufman and Lieberman… you wouldn’t expect them to be very welcoming (if you know what I mean, nudge-nudge).

Surely our own State Department would welcome the development. They’ve been yammering on about it forever.:

U.S. Department of State
Ian Kelly
Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

…

MR. KELLY: Well, I don’t think that - I’m not aware that they have come to us seeking our opinion or our approval. I mean, our position is clear. We support the creation of a Palestinian state that is contiguous and viable. But we think that the best way to achieve that is through negotiations by the two parties. And we understand that people might be frustrated, but we would - we just, as I say, we - it is our very strong belief - we are convinced that this has to be achieved through negotiation between the two parties.

Contiguous? Is he aware that Judea and Samaria can’t be contiguous with Gaza, unless someone cuts a channel through Israel? Is that what he’s suggesting?

Or maybe he means a long, thin strand of land from Gaza down the Sinai to where it meets Jordan at the Gulf of Aqaba, and then up to the Palestinian communities of Judea and Samaria.

We could call it the Jump Rope State.

So how come nobody’s jumping at the opportunity?

Here’s one clue:

While Palestinian officials continued to threaten Sunday to unilaterally declare independence, one senior Israeli defense official summed up the growing assessment in the defense establishment by saying, “Just let them try.”

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One official gave the water situation in the West Bank as an example. While Israel has recently come under growing international criticism for allegedly denying Palestinians adequate access to water, according to Israeli officials the situation would be far worse without Israeli assistance.

“The Palestinian Water Authority wouldn’t last a day on its own.”

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Another example focuses on security cooperation, which has significantly increased over the past two years, since Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip.

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[W]henever PA President Mahmoud Abbas travels outside of Ramallah to another Palestinian city, the IDF, Shin Bet and Civil Administration are all involved to coordinate and ensure his safety.

“When Abbas travels it is like a military operation,” one officer explained. “Everyone is involved since the PA forces cannot yet completely ensure his security.”

Palestine can’t become a state because its neighbors won’t give it the land; it can’t feed, hydrate, or defend itself; and nobody—but nobody—wants it to become one.

Nobody but me, I guess. I say if Somalia and Biafra can be states, why not Palestine? They’d starve, die of thirst, and kill each other off in weeks, but at least they’d be free. How cynical of the world powers to deny them their inalienable rights.

Let Bloodthirstan be the first to recognize the Warring States of Palestine (surely its official name). If they move straight from independence to civil war, we say never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Israeli fencer Daria Strelnikov won the gold medal at the cadet’s fencing world championship in Austria Saturday night. However, as the 14-year-old athlete stood at the podium waiting to hear the Israeli national anthem, she was greeted by a disturbing quiet.

Strelnikov and a fellow teammate on the podium decided to fill in the silence by singing Hatikva themselves. They were joined by their coach, and other supporting voices in the crowd.

Shouldn’t the Austrians be ashamed? Shouldn’t they apologize?

Don’t hold your breath.

- Aggie

Israel fires BBs at protesters:

IDF troops used ammunition equivalent to live bullets against protest?rs at Ni’ilin on Friday, a site where a weekly protest by Palestinians and left-wing activists from Israel and abroad are held against the West Bank security barrier.

The military ordinarily only uses protest-dispersal means such as tear gas canisters and a recently introduced “skunk bomb” which is harmless but exudes a pungent stench.

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A rioter at Friday’s protest said the military fired ‘tutu bullets’, small metal pellets similar to those fired by BB guns but of a larger caliber (0.22 inches vs. the BB gun pellets’ 0.177 inches). The man said ‘tutu bullets’ have not been used against protesters since May.

While the Palestinians fire something a bit larger:

Just as IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi spoke of the quiet in the South being a testament to the success of Operation Cast Lead, tensions threatened to flare once against on the Gaza front, with Palestinians firing a Kassam rocket into Israel after the IDF killed a suspected terrorist near the border fence.

The rocket landed in an open area in the Sdot Negev region, causing no casualties or damage.

IDF soldiers shot the suspected terrorist dead early Friday morning, thwarting an apparent bomb plot near the Gaza fence.

Who’s the criminal?

According to a press statement issued by left-wing NGO Betselem on July 9th, IDF Judge Advocate General Brig.-Gen. Avihai Mandelblit said in response to a query from the organization that ‘tutu bullets’ are not considered a protest-dispersal means.

Mandelblit told Betselem back in July that the rules for using ‘tutu bullets’ are “restrictive, and parallel to the rules of engagement when using live ammunition.”

Whatever that means, but I think it’s bad.

Look, I’ve been shot by a BB and I’ve smelled skunk. The BB stung like hell, but the pain was gone in seconds. I’d take 50 BBs over a skunk any day.

And I’d take 50 skunks over a missile fired at my family.

So maybe I’m the criminal.

That would be an offensive statement in any context—perhaps no more so than as official (if anonymously so) US government policy:

The feeling in Washington is that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been trying to maneuver the US administration over the past few weeks, and we cannot accept that, an unnamed US diplomat told Army Radio on Wednesday morning, in what may have constituted an explanation to the possibly punitive blackout imposed on the details of the Monday night 100-minute talk Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.

The official went on to cite Netanyahu’s conduct in press briefings, presumably those following meetings with Obama and other high ranking White House officials in the past, as evidence of the prime minister’s attempt to sway opinion.

The diplomat also mentioned the prime minister’s apparent efforts to pressure the US administration through Washington lobbying.

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Yet another unnamed US official was quoted expressing dissatisfaction with Netanyahu over what the Israeli leader said, or rather did not, in his address to the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual General Assembly on Monday.

“We had an idea that he might bring something out to push the process forward,” the Wall Street Journal quoted the official on Tuesday in referral to an Israeli settlement freeze. “But he’s kept it in his pocket.”

Netanyahu will be meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday and stress Israel’s willingness to make great efforts to achieve peace.

I never thought I’d be relieved to see an Israeli leader talking to a French leader. But these are strange times.

To start, how rich is it that this administration doesn’t like being outmaneuvered in the press? Ha! Very rich indeed.

But also, what did they expect Netanyahu to do, saw a woman in half? Sing “Lady of Spain?” He’s the leader of an imperiled and unfairly treated nation, not a vaudeville act. Name me another where every zoning decision, every shovel of earth comes before the UN Security Council for examination.

Israel knows it has to survive varying degrees of hostility in every administration. (In his diaries, even Reagan acknowledged having the same enemies as Israel, but still never wrote warmly and rarely respectfully of PM Begin) As storms go, however, the Obama administration is a big blow, and Israel will need to sail carefully. These people aren’t content with petty jealousies—they think big, radical, transformative. That kind of thinking is not safe for anyone, especially Israel.

Now I feel bad.

Our intransigence, our insistence that Israel’s security be guaranteed, our call for the Palestinians to cease not only their terror but their incitement to terror—and all our other petty demands have made Tom Friedman upset:

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has become a bad play. It is obvious that all the parties are just acting out the same old scenes, with the same old tired clichés — and that no one believes any of it anymore. There is no romance, no sex, no excitement, no urgency — not even a sense of importance anymore. The only thing driving the peace process today is inertia and diplomatic habit. Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left the realm of diplomacy. It is now more of a calisthenic, like weight-lifting or sit-ups, something diplomats do to stay in shape, but not because they believe anything is going to happen.

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This peace process movie is not going to end differently just because we keep playing the same reel. It is time for a radically new approach. And I mean radical. I mean something no U.S. administration has ever dared to do: Take down our “Peace-Processing-Is-Us” sign and just go home.

Whoa, them’s fighting words. (Get it?)

I think Friedman is in a snit because he signed on to the Saudi so-called peace plan with the biggest, most flourished signature since John Hancock’s—and it ain’t worth the paper it’s written on:

For those whose memories do not extend all the way back to 2002, the Saudi plan was promoted by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who claimed he and one of the Saudi royals had a Vulcan mind-meld moment and that the result was a peace plan that fell onto the Saudis’ desks like manna from heaven. For Friedman, it was a typical piece of self-promotion but for the Saudis it was a gift from the Times that kept on giving. In 2002 ,the Saudis had a big public relations problem stemming from the 9/11 attacks. Due to our typically parochial view of the world, most Americans identified the oil-rich Kingdom with Al Qaeda. But rather than change their guiding philosophy, the Saudis decided that it would be smarter to earn some good PR by pretending to make peace with Israel. And with an assist from the feckless Friedman, that’s just what they did.

Their peace plan did say they would recognize the State of Israel; that was certainly progress. But the details of their plan (which they have consistently said were not negotiable) also called for complete Israeli withdrawal from every centimeter of disputed land that Israel took in 1967, and recognition of the Palestinian “right of return.” Following through on the latter would flood Israel with millions of descendants of refugees from Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. So, despite the sweet talk, what the Saudi plan really calls for is two Palestinian states, albeit one with a sizeable number of Jews living there. In other words, the Saudi initiative is no peace plan at all, that is as long as you think Israel has a right to be the one Jewish state on the planet amid the 22 existing Arab countries (in most of which, including Saudi Arabia, Jews are not permitted to live).

What a spoiled brat.

Here’s my peace plan, first proposed by Golda Meir:

“Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”

Until that day comes (as if), Friedman is right: let’s let Israel be Israel and butt the hell out.

I have to apologize for our appalling lack of grace and manners in observing the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the hostages in Iran, and our administration’s craven response—then and now—to that brazen violation of international law.

Thank goodness Caroline Glick did it for us:

[T]housands of Iranians in cities throughout the country took advantage of the regime’s planned demonstrations celebrating the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy in Teheran to protest against the regime. These regime opponents willingly placed themselves in front of the batons, tear gas cannons and guns of Iranian regime goons to protest June’s stolen presidential election and to call for the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime of tyranny and its replacement with a democracy.

The protesters turned regime supporters’ calls for “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel” into big, deadly jokes by calling out, “Death to the Dictator” (that is, supreme ruler Ali Khamenei) and “Death to Russia.”

Far from embracing the regime’s 30-year war against the US and the nation-state based international system, representatives of the “Green Revolution” asked the US to forgive Iran for taking 52 US Embassy personnel hostage in 1979.

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The Iranian opposition movement announced weeks ago that its members would be out in force at the anniversary rallies on Wednesday. And on Wednesday, the protesters begged the world for support. They called out to US President Barack Obama, “You’re either with us or with them.”

But Obama - in full appeasement mode - issued a statement ahead of Wednesday’s “Death to America” rallies announcing, “We do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs.” That is, when asked to choose between Iran’s freedom riders or their oppressors, he chose the oppressors. The US is with the mullahs against the Iranian people.

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Obama said, “I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect… We have recognized Iran’s international right to peaceful nuclear power. We have demonstrated our willingness to take confidence-building steps along with others in the international community. We have accepted a proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet Iran’s request for assistance in meeting the medical needs of its people. We have made clear that if Iran lives up to the obligations that every nation has, it will have a path to a more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community.”

And when Khamenei responded to Obama’s obsequious bowing and scraping by saying that negotiating with the US was a “naïve and perverted” enterprise, the Obama administration had nothing to say.

Well, what is one supposed to say in response to a bitch slap? “Ow” just doesn’t sound like a leader of the free world.

But then, neither does Obama:

Early Wednesday morning, IDF naval commandos boarded the merchant ship Francop and diverted it to the naval base at Ashdod. There the IDF displayed its cargo of 3,000 rockets and various and other sundry ordnance useful only to terror forces.

The Francop originated in Iran and was intercepted en route to Iran’s Hizbullah proxy force in Lebanon via Iran’s Arab toady Syria.

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Wednesday’s raid has had no discernible impact on American policy. The US did not denounce either Syria or Iran for breaching the UN Security Council resolution barring Iranian arms shipments as well as the Security Council resolution prohibiting nations from arming Hizbullah. The US did not state that in response to what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called a “smoking gun,” it will reconsider its decision to send an ambassador to Damascus or its commitment to appeasing Iran through its nuclear talks in Geneva. The only thing a State Department official could bring himself to say was that the US is concerned about “Hizbullah’s efforts to rearm in direct violation of various UN Security Council resolutions,” and remark that the groups remains, “a significant threat to peace and security in Lebanon and the region.”

Do we sound like a reliable trustworthy ally? Not to me, either.

William F. Buckley famously announced at the founding of the magazine National Review that he intended to “stand athwart history, yelling Stop”. It’s a nice image, but I feel it needs to be set on a small river, approaching a waterfall. Aggie and I (and most readers) standing and yelling, but I think history is moving in the wrong (and very dangerous) direction.