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 (?)

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.

Sorry, force of habit.

What if Israel had done this?

Egypt blocked six senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders from leaving through Rafah Crossing to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, obligatory for Muslims at least once in their lives.

Palestinians local sources reported that Egypt blocked the departure of Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a senior Jihad official in the Gaza Strip.

It also blocked two Hamas parliament members, Zekariah Dugmush - head of the national resistance councils - and two other senior officials.

Maybe the Hamass terrorists—sorry, parliamentarians—can paraphrase a line from Passover: next year in Mecca! Or one from Brooklyn: wait till next year!

Anyhow, why would Egypt behave so insensitively toward its Arab brother?

Maybe this is why:

Gunmen ambushed an Egyptian patrol shortly after it seized contraband cement intended for Gaza, leaving one officer and five soldiers wounded, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

The security source mentioned by The Associated Press said Egyptian security forces were searching for a smugglers warehouse in the mountainous area in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, south of the Rafah border crossing.

The security forces, travelling in a convoy of two armored vehicles and almost twelve police vans, seized 200 tons of cement intended by smugglers to be transported into Gaza via a network of tunnels, according to a local security official.

You move 200 tons of cement through Egypt and you don’t give them a taste of the action? What do you expect?

Actually, I believe I did.

But in addition to an entire society devoted to the cult of death, they’ve made huge contributions too the field of civil engineering:

Mexican troops discovered a 122 yard long tunnel apparently aimed at crossing the U.S. border underground.

Army Gen. Alberto Duarte Mujica says soldiers found the half-built tunnel under a three-story building in the border city of Tijuana.

The army said Sunday that soldiers raided a warehouse where equipment used to build the tunnel was stored, and found 275 pounds of marijuana. They also detained seven men and two women in the Saturday raid.

The wood-lined, 6-foot high tunnel was apparently meant to extend another 144 yards to reach U.S. territory. It was equipped with electrical lights and a ventilation system.

Mexican smuggling tunnel

Palestinian smuggling tunnel

What’s next, Mexican suicide bombers at the mall? Nah, the Palestinians have a patent on that.

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.

Bibi, baby, when ya in town? Call me:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu leaves on Sunday morning for Washington, where he is to address the 2009 General Assembly of the UJC/Jewish Federations of North America the next day.

As of press time, the Prime Minister’s Office said no formal meeting had been scheduled with US President Barack Obama during the visit, which could last through the week. No departure date has been set.

Netanyahu and Obama last met in New York in September on the sidelines of the opening of the United Nation’s General Assembly session.

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[A] number of Jewish leaders indicated that their optimism about a White House visit taking place was waning as the date of Netanyahu’s arrival neared with no meeting being announced.

President Obama seems to want something from Netanyahu in exchange for a meeting—and he does not mean a raisin bagel with a schmear.

It’s not like the Israelis aren’t giving plenty to the Palestinians:

This evening the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria facilitated the entrance of 20,000 does of swine flu vaccination to the Palestinian Authority. This effort, which brought the vaccinations to Ramallah via the Qalandiya crossing, comes a few days before Palestinians will set out to the “Hajj” to Mecca early week and was necessary since vaccination against swine flu is a condition of entrance to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. The Civil Administration places great value on cooperation and coordination with the Palestinian Authority in the fields of health and religious expression.

How many of those 20,000 Palestinians will spend their Hajj praying for Israel to be annihilated in a fiery holocaust? About 19,998 would you say?

Madame Secretary evidently couldn’t tell East Jerusalem from East Jesus—and very likely doesn’t care:

The incompetence of American diplomacy reached a new nadir yesterday in an incident vershadowed by the elections in the US. Hillary Clinton told Al-Jazeera in an interview that the US wants to see an Israeli capital in East Jerusalem. Apparently, the chief diplomat of the United States and the woman who ran on her experience in foreign affairs did not remember that East Jerusalem is primarily Palestinian:

Egypt and other Arab nations reacted with strong concern to remarks Clinton made in Jerusalem on Saturday. She caused a stir when she said with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at her side that his government’s offer to restrain — but not stop — settlement activity in Palestinian areas was unprecedented.

And in a new twist Tuesday, Clinton made what appeared to be an inadvertent slip of the tongue in a television interview with the al-Jazeera network, referring to the goal of “an Israeli capital in east Jerusalem.”

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Two Clinton aides monitoring the interview alerted her to the mistake and that portion of the interview was retaped so she could correct herself.

In other words, she pressed the re-set button.

If it indeed were American policy to recognize the Israeli capital in East Jerusalem, I would be the first to praise the morality and courage of such a decision. But no, they just hit the re-wind button, and erased history.

What a bunch of rank amateurs.

Remember the famous TV blooper about the reporter who instead of saying “high White House source” said “high white horse souse”?

Yeah, well that guy was Edward R. Murrow compared to this guy:

Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom was given a cold greeting in Dimona, where he attended the city’s annual International Conference on Communications on Monday.

Bostrom, who has been severely criticized for an article he wrote in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet alleging that Israeli soldiers had stolen body parts from dead Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, was greeted by a throng of protesters upon his entrance to the hall where the conference was held, and his keynote address was disrupted by catcalls from the audience.

During an interview with journalist and talk show host Yair Lapid, Bostrom defended his article, claiming everything he wrote was backed by evidence.

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“If you had seen what I saw, you would have made the same claims I did. I promise you that the article contains no rumors or lies,” said Bostrom.

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When asked where he got the evidence to make such serious accusations against Israeli soldiers, Bostrom said the fact was that Palestinian families had made the claims, not that the claims themselves were true. Lapid in turn accused Bostrom of being led on by Hamas and becoming part of their propaganda campaign.

I could make the claim that I am the father of Gisele Bündchen’s unborn baby, not Tom Brady, but that doesn’t make it true. (A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, but one too many caipirinhas, and, well, say no more.)

Let’s call this guy SECO, because he’s a Swedish tool.

When Secretary of State Clinton praised Israeli flexibility on relations with the Palestinians (specifically on settlement construction), not everyone was pleased to hear the words coming out of her mouth:

“Why, Mrs. Hillary? How much did the Zionists pay you as a bribe?”

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“Words that treat truth with cruelty and wallow in the swamp of lies, especially coming from a person of senior position, are improper… [such are] the words of US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.”

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Al-Hayat Al-Jadida also ran a cartoon reiterating a longstanding Palestinian claim that the US is controlled by Jews. It shows an Uncle Sam figure looking into a mirror held by a caricature of a hook-nosed religious Jew, wearing a hat with a Star of David. Instead of seeing his own reflection, the American sees the Jew in the mirror.

I love cartoons. How about a couple more?

Hysterical. And they had their intended effect:

Secretary Clinton delivered the following remarks Monday morning at a camera spray upon meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Fassi-Fihri in Marrakech, Morocco:

For 40 years, successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel’s settlement policy. That is absolutely a fact.

And the Obama Administration’s position on settlements is clear, unequivocal. It has not changed. And as the President has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.

Exactly. His noxious, hostile, biased position is very clear, and I’m sure it’s entrenched. Anti-Semitism doesn’t make much of an impression on him.

But you’d think anti-Palestinianism would:

Israel’s harshest critics claim to champion the rights of Palestinians. So we’re curious about the fallout, or lack thereof, from revelations that the Palestinian Authority regularly brutalizes its own in the West Bank while enjoying a steady flow of dollars and euros.

Senior PA official Haitham Arar was quoted in the Daily Mail more than a week ago openly discussing the abuses. That follows a Mail On Sunday report in January that detailed the Authority’s regular use of beatings, whippings, attacks with electrical drills, and other methods of torture doled out to anyone seen threatening the authority of Fatah, the party of President Mahmoud Abbas. Murder and rape are also commonplace.

As Middle East analyst Tom Gross points out, the only news here is that a Western newspaper has bothered to write about it. At least some ink is spilled documenting Hamas’s blunt methods, but much less has been made of Fatah’s abuses since Yasser Arafat took over most of the territory in 1993. What’s more, Western governments support the internecine violence with ever-increasing aid. As of Sept. 15, the European Union had delivered €268 million to the Authority this year, and in July the U.S. extended an additional $200 million.

The money will not stop now that Ramallah is no longer trying to hide the mistreatment. Westminster’s one response has been to quietly send officers to the West Bank to train Authority forces on how not to torture prisoners.

So here’s the state-of-play in the department of moral outrage. When Britain is accused of abetting U.S. interrogations, lawsuits, investigations, and threats to try Tony Blair for war crimes quickly follow. When Israel attacks Hamas in order to end rocket launches on its soil, it risks a session before the International Criminal Court. But when the West funnels billions to a Palestinian government whose abuses are brazen and ongoing, there is mainly silence.

Maybe back when we started this blog, we hoped we could change the way Israel is portrayed in the media. But we’ve matured. Now, all I want is for Israel to take care of itself and its citizens. Play along with Obama if you must, but do not ever think he has your best, or even second-best, interests at heart. He’d sell you down the river faster than you could say “daily humiliation of the Palestinian people.”