Bloodthirsty Liberal

Ah-one, ah-two, ah-one-two-three and:

“Daddy gave me a present, a machine gun and a rifle.
When I am a big boy, I will join the Liberation Army.
The army of [Izz Al-Din] Al-Qassam (Hamas),
which has taught us how to defend our homeland.
Our homeland is precious, precious.
We [are] victorious, victorious over America and Israel.
[Improvises:] Son of a bitch - what brought you to this land?”

I always thought Izz-Al-Din was a pitcher for the St. Louis Browns in the 30s, but maybe I’m thinking of his brother Dafhi Din.

Now, about that cursing:

It is worth noting that the two hosts, the young girl Saraa and Nassur, an adult in a bear costume, approved of the boy’s choice of song and let him sing it. Only when the boy cursed(”Son of a bitch”), did the young girl cut him off, pointing out that the “program is a program for children, not for anything else.” The objection was to the boy’s cursing, not to the content of the song. The adult inside the puppet ended the exchange by defending the boy: “He didn’t say anything else, Saraa. He said the truth.”

There’s a guy in there?

Be my guest, Yogi. Don’t let the shrapnel hit you in the ass on your way out.

For many Palestinian children the answer is: a Jackson Pollack (not Jackson Pollack himself, but one of his splatter paintings).

In the most recent episode of the show Tomorrow’s Pioneers, the child host asks a 10 year-old girl who phones into the program whether she had been afraid of dying during the 2009 Gaza War.

…

Host to girl on phone: “How was it for you during the [Gaza] war [2009]? Were you afraid that you would die, that you would leave this world?”

Girl: “No. I wasn’t afraid. I wished for Shahada (Martyrdom) — Shahada for Allah.”

Host: “How wonderful. Even this little girl - how old are you?”

Girl: “Ten.”

Host: “[She] is not more than ten years old, and wants to die as a Shahida (Martyr) for Allah. We all wish for this [Shahada].”

Here’s the vid (lower the sound—it’s way overmodulated). Check out how excited Falafel the Bear gets (or whatever his name is). But the other two kids sitting there look like they’re making a hostage tape.

Keep that title handy. Something tells me we’ll be seeing a lot of it. (Something tells me we already have.)

Today’s installment:

At a Hamas ceremony honoring the families of the martyrs in Jabaliya, in the Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the families said: “We are willing to sacrifice our children, ourselves, and our money to say ‘There is no god but Allah’ and to free the homeland.”

But can you blame ‘em?

Israel has complained to the US administration that the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are engaging in incitement by honoring a woman responsible for the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, and calling the men who killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai last month martyrs.

Israel’s complaint came, ironically, shortly before US Middle East envoy George Mitchell heaped praise on Fayyad and Abbas Wednesday night during a US television interview.

Twice during the interview, on the Charlie Rose show, Mitchell called Fayyad an “impressive leader” and said that he and Abbas represented “strong and effective leadership for the Palestinian people.”

God, what an idiot.

Far from being punished for ram-rodding their children into the cannon’s mouth, they are rewarded for it. I blame them first, their enablers second, and Israel not at all.

Another in the occasional briefs on Israel’s official, stated policy of treating Palestinians as some sort of lesser being. [For those blind to irony, duck! That was a big, steaming pile heading right at you.]

Today, December 11th 2009, a newborn baby girl suffering from a heart condition was transferred to the Tel Hashomer hospital in Israel from the Nasri Children’s Hospital in the Gaza Strip for immediate medical treatment.

The Head of the DCO in Gaza, Col. Moshe Levi said: “The District Coordination Office routinely coordinates and absorbs the many patients that are transferred from the Gaza Strip into Israel for medical treatment. This incident is an example of the many incidents that the DCO deals with on a daily basis and acts to help and save human lives in the humanitarian framework of the State of Israel. We view this with much importance and concentrate many efforts in the humanitarian realm and the transfer of patients from the Gaza Strip to Israel for medical treatment.”

In 2009, ten thousand sick patients and their escorts were able to leave the Gaza Strip in order to receive medical treatment within Israel and the Judea and Samaria region.

Yes, yes, very charitable, we’re sure. But we all know Israel does this sort of thing only to harvest the organs of Palestinian children. [See irony warning above.]

Ten thousand patients? And have we been told about a single one on the evening news or in the pages of the major newspapers? [No irony here, if you’re unsure.]

If you’ll pardon the hackneyed expression, what if Bush had done this?

Obama had quite a whirlwind day Thursday – he signed the Nobel guest book, huddled with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, met with King Harald V and Queen Sonja, and delivered an acceptance speech after he was formally presented with the prize. He also joined the king and queen at an evening banquet.

But he skipped out on several other activities, including lunch with the king, a news conference at Oslo’s Grand Hotel, CNN’s traditional interview with the prize winner and a “Save the Children” benefit concert, where organizers replaced him with an Obama cardboard cutout. Obama also won’t be around for Friday’s Nobel Concert.

Skipping out on a Nobel Concert? Outrageous! You just can’t hear Grieg’s Piano Concerto enough times (actually, you can).

I just want to know where we can get a Obama cardboard cutout. It’s almost benign:

If Tiger were truly advising President Obama, he’d never have blown off the event. So many cute blonde girls: a target-rich opportunity.

But let’s get serious (for once), and have a brief look at yet another speech by the Great Orator himself, mmm-mmm-mmm:

I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize - Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela - my accomplishments are slight.

Aw, come on, Barack: Arafat and Carter, Gore and El Baradei. You’re right where you belong.

I am satisfied that he justified the necessary use of war at a peace prize ceremony—even if CodeSkank must be gagging up a hair ball—but I wish he’d stop inflating his own importance:

Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago - “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.” As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak -nothing passive - nothing naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

Aren’t we all people “who stand here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work”? Didn’t his life and death transform all of America? Can’t his model serve as an inspiration to me? My first sports heroes were (by sport) Roberto Clemente, Bobby Orr, Paul Warfield, and Bill Russell—a Puerto Rican, a Canadian, and two black men, a veritable United Nations of Hall of Famers. But it wasn’t intentional or self-conscious. I just wish President Obama stopped reminding us so often of his Historic Importance (nce-nce-nce).

I don’t have the stamina to go much further, but one last point:

[E]ven as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

You “ordered” Guantanamo closed? That’s like saying I “ordered” Pamela Anderson to disrobe. Neither is likely to happen any time soon (thank God—such human degradation and disfiguring should not be made widely known lest it inflame the public).

And I’m too tired of the torture argument to take it up here. We are just lucky that the Bush administration was in power when it was. And we’ll just have to survive this one as best we can.

What, you don’t get Palestinian TV’s Pioneers of Tomorrow on basic cable? Where do you live, a cave?

Child host Saraa Barhoum: Today, we will talk about education in Islam, and how we teach our children values, morality, and good manners, Nassur.

Teddy bear Nassur: That’s right, dear children. Saraa, perhaps we will watch a cartoon, and see how children are being educated.

Saraa Barhoum: Okay, let’s watch the film, and then we will return. Stay with us.

[…]

Film shows a Jewish boy walking along and dropping a bill of money. An Arab boy stops and picks it up.

Arab boy: Hey, stop.

Jewish boy: Yes, what is it?

Arab boy: You dropped some money. It’s yours.

Jewish boy: Oh? It’s really mine. Tell me, who are you?

Arab boy: Me? My name is Muataz, and I’m a Palestinian Arab.

Jewish boy: You’re an Arab? Are you sure? And a Palestinian, on top of it?

Arab boy: Yes, I’m sure. Why?

Jewish boy: But we were taught at school that the characteristics of the Arabs…

Flashback to a classroom

Teacher: My dear children, the characteristics of the Arabs are: They are cross-eyed, their faces are pockmarked, their noses are crooked, they have evil features, their moustaches are curly, they have deformities, and their teeth are yellow and rotten. These Arabs are barbaric. If they see you, they will kill you. That’s why we should get rid of them, before they kill you.

…

Jewish boy: Can I ask you a question?

Arab boy: Go ahead.

Jewish boy: Why did you give my money back to me, when you could have taken it?

Arab boy: That’s what our religion teaches us – honesty.

Jewish boy: But my big brother told me…

Flashback to the boy sitting with his big brother, who is telling him a story

Brother: Let me tell you, dear, the Arabs are evil thieves. Let me tell you a story about the Arabs. Long ago, the Arabs were…

Jewish boy (talking to Arab boy): But I see it’s not like that. Where do you live, and how did you get here?

Arab boy: I used to live on this land, which you people plundered. We used to have a garden and a beautiful home, but…

Jewish boy: But what? Go on.

Arab boy: But you bulldozed our garden and destroyed our home. You killed my father and my mother in order to build this wall. I live over there, beyond the wall, with my grandmother.

Jewish boy: But my father used to tell me that the Arabs slaughtered us, and that they wanted to kill every single Jew.

As always, the Jewish position is grounded in historical fact—at least they had the decency to present that.

But let’s not skip the heartwarming close of the show:

Saraa Barhoum (to boy in studio): Tell me, Ghassan […] Yes, go ahead.

Nassur: Can you remember a day in which you were sad and you cried?

Saraa Barhoum: For example, when somebody dear to you died.

Ghassan: When my father beat me.

Saraa Barhoum (laughing): Well, everybody… Obviously, your father wanted to teach you something.

Nassur: Did he beat you only once?

Ghassan: No, a lot.

Saraa Barhoum: Because he wanted to teach you manners and… If you made a mistake, you need to do better next time.

Call me a nasty zionist bigot, but I can’t help wondering if generations of Palestinian/Arab terrorism aren’t more related to child abuse like beatings and watching Pioneers of Tomorrow than they are to anything Israel has been slanderously accused of.

Meanwhile, on the other channel:

Following are excerpts from a TV children’s show, in which children learn about Palestinian suicide bomber Wafa Idris. The show aired on Al-Quds TV on December 1, 2009.

TV Host: Wafa went to her work as usual, but obviously, she took a day off, and left. Why? Because the time for the heroic operation had come.

Boy: Where was the operation?

TV Host: In Jerusalem. On her way to West Jerusalem, everything she saw encouraged her to commit martyrdom.

[…]

Second boy: Wasn’t Wafa afraid among the occupiers? Didn’t she hesitate?

Of course not. She wasn’t afraid, and she did not hesitate, because she placed Allah between her eyes and in her heart. She would always remember Allah and would crush her fear. If fear wanted to come near her calm and peaceful heart, she would get ready to enter Paradise, knowing that she would be among the living, who are sustained [by God]. Who are they? The martyrs.

[…]

Today, Wafa will not treat the wounded in Ramallah. Why? She will go to Jerusalem, and there will be many dead and wounded there, but not from among the Palestinians. They will be from among the Zionist soldiers.

[…]

Wafa fulfilled her wish by successfully carrying out her martyrdom operation. The result was that she killed an Israeli soldier and wounded about a hundred. Why was Wafa martyred? So that the flower of the homeland would not wither.

But there’s always a slow one in the bunch:

Young girl: I want to become a doctor like Wafa, so that I can help the wounded.

TV Host: Allah willing, we will all become like Wafa Idris. We will treat the wounded, and Allah will grant us martyrdom.

Doctor? You want to be a doctor? Don’t waste your time or your money, honey. Strap on the vest, and sashay your way into a crowd of Jews. The rest will come easily to you, just as it did to dear Wafa.

More like January-December:

The Saudi daily ‘Okaz reported on August 25, 2009 that the father of a 10-year-old girl had removed her from her aunt’s home, where she had been hiding for 10 days, and brought her back to her husband, who, according to the girl’s relatives, is 80 years old. In an ‘Okaz interview, the husband stated that he was not yet 80, accused the girl’s aunt of interfering in his private life, and claimed that according to the shari’a his marriage is legal as long as the girl’s father consents to it. He explained that the girl’s father had first offered him his older daughter, but when the latter refused, the father had suggested the younger one, and he had agreed, since when girl was shown to him, he couldn’t see anything to prevent their getting married.

But don’t worry. The Saudi Human Rights Commission (you read right) is on the case, claiming ” such marriages were detrimental to the minor’s emotional and physical health, and harmful to society. Al-’Abdallah further stated that underage marriage violated the rights of the child as set out in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Saudi Arabia is a signatory, and which defines anyone under 18 as a minor.”

Huh.

Well, if the Saudis want to join the modern world and recognize the rights of the child (and, dare we dream, the rights of women, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, et al), I have only two words in response: howdy Saudi.

President Obama’s movement to install socialized medicine is hemorrhaging moderate Democrat and Republican members of Congress. Who’s he gonna call?

Exploited children!

You can vote for your favorite pieces of Goebbelsian propaganda, but know that Organizing for America (Obama’s brown shirts) has employed a panel of expert judges to pick the best one, among whose luminaries we find: Wi.llia.m (or however he spells it), David Plouffe, Seth MacFarlane (of Family Guy), Rosario Dawson (from Rent), John Cho (from Harold and Kumar), and Olivia Wilde—what? Olivia Wilde? The Olivia Wilde who sends me subliminal love notes during episodes of House?

My Olivia Wilde?

Why didn’t somebody say something? Now I don’t know what to think.

So let me offer a hint to the producers of these little Triumphs of the Will: next time, pick mangier kids. These kids look too healthy, too well fed and cared for to make your point. Look in the DC schools. Without vouchers, the poor kids there are doomed.

Ask what you can do for me:

I think the White House and Obama fouled this up from the beginning, making it look much more political than necessary, and gave their critics a boatload of ammunition with which to attack them. The speech, included in its entirety below, turned out to be entirely innocuous. But by asking teachers to impress upon children the need to “help President Obama,” they made it look blatantly political. They seem to have forgotten that they’re the public servants, and that the people do not live to serve political masters. As Frank Wilson puts it in another context, Americans see themselves as citizens, not subjects, with the President only of a higher rank for the temporary period of time that we put him there. This has been incompetently handled from beginning to end, including the highly embarrassing scheduling that inadvertently excluded millions of students from the speech.

…

Update II: I’ve run the speech through a word frequency counter and found the following results:

56 iterations of “I”
19 iterations of “school”
10 iterations of “education”
8 iterations of “responsibility”
7 iterations of “country”
5 iterations each of “parents”, “teachers”
3 iterations of “nation”

In other words, Barack Obama referenced himself more than school, education, responsibility, country/nation, parents, and teachers combined. And to think that people accused Obama of self-promotion!

That’s outrageous! I want Congressional hearings:

The controversy over President Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush’s speech — they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush’s appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. “The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC,” Ford began. “As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.”

Obama got caught with his metaphorical dick in his hands, and has tried to paper over a blatant political appeal with a flimsy excuse for a pep talk. And even then, he can’t bring himself to speak for the nation. He believes he is the nation.

Folks, we won’t get the satisfaction of seeing this man exposed for the collectivist fraud that he is. Too many powerful institutions are invested in his reputation and his legacy. But more people are wising up every day. And when Obama’s vision of the social contract is repudiated once and for all, the media will wail and gnash their teeth—to no avail. May he enjoy a long lifetime as the youngest ex-President ever.

I am writing from Camp Intifadah:

Welcome to Camp Hamas

100 thousand kids and youth spent their summer vacation training in 700 Hamas training camps. The camp’s curriculum includes firearm training and military drills in order to nurture the next generation of militants.

…

700 summer camps, for children and teenagers, operated this summer by terror organizations along the Gaza Strip - operating under the slogan - A “Victory for Gaza - The Glory of Jerusalem”. The camps are operated by the Hamas in order to encourage the next generation of this organization. In the same area many summer camps are operated by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) - the main “competition” of Hamas’s summer camps. The Hamas reacted by presenting the UNRWA camps as “child corrupters”, trying to discourage the parents from sending their kids to the foreign aid organization’s camp.

How would the UN corrupt Palestinian children?

I hope you’re sitting down:

Hamas condemned the United Nations on Sunday over the international body’s apparent plan to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust.

A spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which educates some 200,000 refugee children in Gaza, said the Holocaust was not on its current curriculum. He would not comment on Hamas’ statement that it was about to change.

Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews “a lie invented by the Zionists,” the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior UN official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in UN schools.

Note that this implies (and is confirmed later in the article) that the UN currently doesn’t even come near mentioning that “Zionist lie”, the H-word.

But I bet you already knew that.