Bloodthirsty Liberal

Common Nonsense I

With a nod to Thomas Paine and Aunt Agatha, whose idea this is, a new occasional series. Let Aggie explain: “Have you considered a feature that runs occasionally, of snotty, arrogant, condescending lefty comments? Like the stuff coming to me from the DNC, like what can be heard on NPR anytime, day or night, like the breathtaking arrogance of Bill Keller at the NYTimes? Could be fun.” Oh, it shall be, Aggie. And who better to inaugurate the fun than that stuffed white suit, that Mark Twain wannabe, Garrison (Don’t Call Me Gary) Keillor?

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

It’s better when bigots are as talented as Keillor. Hairy-backed swamp developers and aggressive dorks: that’s a nice way to refer to fifty-one percent of the electorate. But you go on thinking (and writing) that way, Bemidji Boy. As long as you can dismiss disaffected Democrats (like Aggie and I) and others who just can’t but into Democratic delusions, you’ll keep losing elections. I don’t know which is better for the country: a hopeless Democratic Party which empowers the Republicans by virtue of its own irrelevance, or a Democratic Party which is mature enough to express its differences with President Bush and the Republican majority in a manner that still puts national security first. Right now, an endorsement from the New York Times is toxic to the mind of the country at large. I doubt the Democrats are aware, or could understand why.

The F-U nited Nations

Boy, you just can’t take your eyes off the UN for one second. Look what they did when my back was turned.

Aunt Agatha writes: “How many people have been murdered in Darfur? In the Congo? How many rights violations occur in China, N. Korea, elsewhere? How many honor killings in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen? But the UN, like a faithful lover, only has eyes for Israel. Why do we give them property in the United States to spread their Jew hatred? What is the point of the UN?”

That would be a rhetorical question. The point of the UN is to give pipsqueak dictators and genocidal maniacs strength in numbers to spread their pathological hatred. It says so in the Charter.

The new UN Human Rights Council voted Friday to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session.

The resolution, which was sponsored by Islamic countries, was passed by a vote of 29-12, with five abstentions. It effectively revives a practice of the UN’s dissolved Human Rights Commission, which also reviewed alleged Israeli abuses every time it met.

Israel protested Friday’s vote, calling it a perpetuation of “the old infamous habits” of the widely discredited commission.

The resolution requires UN investigators to report at each council session “on the Israeli human rights violations in occupied Palestine.”

The resolution also said the council “decides to undertake substantive consideration of the human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories at its next session and to incorporate that issue in its following sessions.”

One of the United States’ main criticisms of the 53-nation Human Rights Commission that was replaced this year by the council was that it spent one week of its annual six-week session criticizing Israel and made other frequent attacks on the Jewish state.

“Voting in favor of this draft resolution will lead you directly to the old infamous habits of the commission,” Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon told the council. “Voting yes essentially means that no lessons have been drawn. It means that there is no fresh beginning.”

Besides Arab and other Muslim countries, “yes” votes were cast by African nations, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia and Sri Lanka. Canada and European Union members on the council voted against it.

The United States is not a member of the council and, like Israel, was unable to vote.

On that Roster of Shame, I am most ashamed of India. They do a lot of business with Israel and have every reason to know what it’s like to be a democracy surrounded by Muslim dictatorships. But there are only degrees of despicability here. They all suck.

The Burden of Being Right

Caroline Glick isn’t right just now; she’s been right all along.

Since replacing Ariel Sharon in office last December, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has refused to permit a large-scale IDF incursion into the Gaza Strip. The hundreds of rockets, mortars and missiles that have rendered the Western Negev’s population and economy hostage to Palestinian rocket crews could not budge him from his refusal to take the war to the enemy. Indeed, for months he ignored the pleas of residents of Sderot and told the IDF to suffice with artillery fire into empty fields and aerial bombings of terrorists en route to launching rockets.

The fact that Israel’s intelligence collection capabilities in Gaza were grievously undermined in the aftermath of last summer’s withdrawal; the fact that IDF commanders acknowledge that more weaponry has been brought into Gaza in the past ten months than entered in the previous 38 years, made no impression. Repeated reports of Al Qaida opening shop in Gaza and of Iranian Revolutionary Guards units training Fatah and Hamas members in the destroyed Israeli communities were dismissed as unimportant, irrelevant and insignificant.

Olmert refused to send forces into Gaza to contend with the transformation of Gaza into a strategic threat to Israel because doing so would involve acknowledging that his plan to retreat from Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem will turn Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Hadera, Afula and Beersheba into frontline communities. He refused to send forces into Gaza because doing so would demonstrate that Israel cannot defend its cities from their outskirts.

He refused to send forces into Gaza because it would involve an acknowledgment that Israel is at war and that the war cannot be ignored by building walls or inciting the public against Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria.

He refused to send forces into Gaza because doing so would be tantamount to admitting that all territory abandoned by the IDF is taken over by Israel’s enemies.

He refused to send forces into Gaza or take concerted action against Palestinian terror leaders because, as the nasty upbraiding that Israel suffered Thursday at the hands of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues at the G-8 showed, the international community sees Israeli counter-terror operations in the aftermath of the withdrawal from Gaza as no more legitimate than its counter-terror operations before the withdrawal.

So does the fact that this week Olmert finally permitted forces to reenter Gaza mean that he now gets it? Does Olmert’s decision to arrest Hamas parliamentarians and government ministers in Judea and Samaria in spite of Condi’s objections signal that he has accepted that Israel must destroy its enemies’ capacity to attack its territory, its forces and its citizens? Does the fact that Olmert ordered IAF jets to overfly Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s palace mean that he understands that the war being fought against Israel is part of the global jihad? Unfortunately, a close look at Olmert’s counter-terror measures makes clear that, no, in spite of the wailing of the international press corps, and the whining of the State Department and its European and Russian counterparts, in fact, Olmert still refuses to get it.

Olmert and his associates in the government have pointed their fingers at Hamas blaming it for the Palestinian guerrilla attack on Israeli territory Sunday morning while ignoring Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah terror group’s equal share of culpability. It was Fatah, not Hamas that kidnapped and murdered 18-yearold Eliahu Asheri. It is Fatah that is threatening to blow up Israeli embassies abroad. It is Fatah that is threatening to renew shooting attacks on Jerusalem and attack Israel with chemical and biological weapons. It is Fatah that is threatening to kill the IDF hostage Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

Suffice it to say that she does not believe Olmert gets it yet. But she can take now joy in being right. The consequences of Olmert being wrong are too catastrophic for Israel.

UN, as in UNhinged

The bodies of Israeli citizens and soldiers are not even cold from their murders, and the UN is screaming about electricity:

Hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis after the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and Israel’s response, the top UN humanitarian official said Thursday.

Israel’s bombing of a power plant Tuesday night cut 40 percent of power to the Gaza Strip and threatens to leave many of its 1.4 million civilians without water, Jan Egeland said.

Egeland called the power plant bombing a violation of humanitarian law that brought needless suffering to innocent civilians. More than 130 wells can be powered by fuel, but diesel supplies could run out in three days because Gaza’s borders have been sealed, he said.

Egeland was equally critical of the Palestinian side, saying the kidnapping of the soldier on Sunday “was the worst possible thing at the worst possible time.”

No deaths or serious injuries have been reported in any of the attacks since the operation began. But Egeland said 10 of 16 international staff with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in the Gaza Strip had to withdraw because of security concerns.

One soldier dies, or 1.4 million Palestinians have dry throats: what a moral dilemma. Either release the soldier and everybody drinks, or don’t and nobody does. Three days seems like enough time to come to a decision

But we’ve been promised a humanitarian crisis in Gaza for months now. Where is it? I, for one, want to see if it will make the Palestinians behave like a civilized people. Nothing else has.

The Foul Stench

That fetid wind blowing from the east is not the smell of low tide–it’s Europe talking:

France called on Israel on Friday to free arrested Hamas ministers and said both sides must move to reduce escalating tensions.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said France fears that the situation will “feed an escalation and strengthen the most extreme elements, which is doubtless not Israel’s objective.”

France does not want the situation to lead to “the weakening and, even less so, the disappearance of the Palestinian Authority,” Mattei said.

“The Israelis must be very vigilant about the consequences of their actions,” the spokesman said during a regular press briefing, adding that Israeli restraint in the situation “is desirable.”

“A de-escalation must be started,” Mattei said.

Referring to the eight Palestinian ministers and 56 other Hamas officials captured by Israel, he added, “We await the liberation of these political officials.”

Freeing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit would also clearly favor a de-escalation, he said.

The most dangerous place in the world is not in Gaza right now, but between those wretched anti-Semites at the UN and a microphone:

The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to convene on Friday night (Israel time) to discuss the recent escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the ongoing IDF incursion into the Gaza Strip and the massive arrests of 64 senior Hamas officials on Thursday.

Iran and Algeria requested the meeting, for the purpose of issuing a condemnation against Israel.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials were working with the United Nations delegation in order to prevent such a condemnation.

On Thursday night, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, to discuss recent events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She related Israel’s position on the continuing incursion into Gaza and the widespread arrests of 64 Hamas officials on Thursday morning. Livni emphasized Israel’s right to self defense.

Earlier in the day, the G-8 foreign ministers’ summit of developed countries that convened in St. Petersburg, expressed grave concern at the deterioration of the conflict. The diplomats meeting in Russia condemned the arrests and called upon Israel to show restraint.

Hey, those Hamas fucks are still breathing, aren’t they? That’s restraint, if you ask me. Each time they exhale adds more CO2 to the atmosphere.

Seriously, Israel shouldn’t be talking about self-defense anymore. That cruiser has already put to sea. The only question left is how much of Gaza will be left when Israel is done converting it to a demilitarized zone. Keep the beaches (it’s hard to fire missiles from the choppy surf), but pave or mine the rest. Qassam missiles are still landing every day, even as this crisis threatens to explode. Where’s the restraint there?

Global Warming Happens Annually

It’s true; you could look it up. I have decades of records which prove–PROVE–that the climate warms every April (June this year). The sun beats down, the air hangs heavy, oceans warm, ice melts–it’s a terrifying prospect. And it happens every year. How much longer can this go on? Pretty smart move by Al Gore to release “An Incoherent Truth” at this time of year. Trouble is, it’s not quite that simple

[This appeared in the 6/26 Wall street Journal, but is not available online without a subscription. Hence, I will quote sparingly]:

There Is No ‘Consensus’ On Global Warming

By Richard S. Lindzen

[…]

So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the “consensus.” Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore’s preferred global-warming template — namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore’s movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.

They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don’t know why….

A general characteristic of Mr. Gore’s approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended — at least not in terms of the actual science.

A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the orderof one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and theearly ’70s, increased again until the ’90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.

So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.

First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists –
especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a “moral” crusade.

Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce — if we’re lucky.

Mr. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

Even in recorded history (the whole of which is a blink of the geological eye) the earth has been significantly warmer and colder than it is now. Now is nothing but a snapshot, a borrowed moment. Our coastlines and our ice caps are not ours to keep, but come and go as Mother Nature pleases. I am all for cutting back on fossil fuels, but not because of any threat of a runaway greenhouse effect. For that, there is no evidence. Dirty air, acid rain (which is reversible, it turns out), and Saudi radicalism (which may not be) are reason enough to get green. Al Gore lost me in 2000; he’s so Y2K.

Free Tibet (Vacations)

Forget Israel, baby. China really knows how to occupy:

China unveils an engineering marvel this weekend — a railway to Tibet that features high-tech systems to stabilize tracks over permafrost and cabins enriched with oxygen to help riders cope with high altitudes.

Yet, as with so much else in China’s often harsh 56-year rule over Tibet, the 710-mile-long railway to the Tibetan capital has drawn controversy even before the first train departs Saturday.

Tibetans loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama and other critics say the $4.2 billion railway is part of a campaign by Beijing to crush Tibetan culture by encouraging an influx of Han Chinese, China’s majority ethnic group.

And environmental groups worry about the railway’s impact on the Tibetan highlands.

The train “will mean more environmental destruction for Tibet, more unemployment for Tibetans and of course our culture will be devastated,” said Ngawang Woeber, a member of Gu Chu Sum, a support group for former Tibetan political prisoners based in India.

Pro-independence groups plan to wear black armbands in protest and demonstrate outside Chinese embassies Saturday, a campaign they call “Reject the Railway.”

You know, that and the bumper stickers just might do it. I realize that asking Tibetans to fight for their country is like asking Shakers to have sex: it’s just not them. But if the Chinese intend ethnically to cleanse Tibet–and I believe they do–what do the Tibetans intend to do about it? And what do they want from us? If it’s just the armband and bumper sticker approach, thanks, I’ll pass until they’re more serious.

WMD in Gaza?

So the Palestinians claim to have fired chemical warheads at Israel:

A spokesman for gunmen in the Gaza Strip said they had fired a rocket tipped with a chemical warhead at Israel early on Thursday.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the claim by the spokesman from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement.

The group had recently claimed to possess about 20 biological warheads for the makeshift rockets commonly fired from Gaza at Israeli towns. This was the first time the group had claimed firing such a rocket.

“The al-Aqsa Brigades have fired one rocket with a chemical warhead” at southern Israel, Abu Qusai, a spokesman for the group, said in Gaza.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army had not detected that any such rocket was fired, nor was there any report of such a weapon hitting Israel.

Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. But is anyone else curious about the link between the alleged shipping of Saddam’s WMD to Syria and Hamas’ headquarters in Damascus? If the Palestinians do have chemical weapons, they could have come from a number of places, I suppose, but the Saddam link is certainly plausible.

Scenes From the Palestinian Liberation XL

What’s it been, two weeks, since I had one of these? Too long.

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Field Update
26 June 2006

A 13-year-old child was killed and three others, including a child, were injured in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in a number of incidents in which weapons were misused or mishandled.

PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 03:00 on Sunday, 25 June 2006, Anas Mohammad Khayri Abdel-Jabbar Yassin (13-year-old resident of Asira El-Shamaleyya, northwest of Nablus) was killed by a bullet to the chest.  He was hit by a bullet fired into the air by a gunman at a wedding in the village of Barqa.

Quaint custom.

At around the same time, Haytham Samir El-Agha, a 17-year-old resident of El-Qarrara town north of Khan Yunis, was admitted to Naser Hospital in Khan Yunis.  He was suffering from shrapnel injuries to both hands, caused by the detonation of a homemade bomb he had mishandled in a field near his home.  His condition was described as moderate.

At approximately 11:50 on Thursday, 22 June 2006, Mazen Saber Haboub, a 33-year-old resident of Jabalia refugee camp, was injured by a bullet from an unknown source, while walking near Sheikh Zayed housing project to the east of Beit Lahya.  He was taken to Kamal Odwan Hospital for treatment, where his condition was described as moderate.

And at approximately 22:00 on the same day, Ahmad Haidar Saqer, a 23-year-old resident of Khan Yunis, was injured by a bullet to the left leg.  The bullet was fired during a wedding celebration for one of his relatives.  Saqer was taken to Naser Hospital for treatment.

But wait! That’s not all. If you act now you also get this appalling, criminal behavior:

Field Update
27 June 2006

Over the past week, armed clashes between armed groups and security forces have escalated, leaving seventeen Palestinians injured, one injured seriously.  Five people were also kidnapped and three vehicles were blown up.

PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 11:30 on Tuesday, 27 June 2006, an exchange of fire took place between members of the Preventive Security and members of Hamas in the Unknown Soldier Square in Bani Suheila.  The clash resulted in the injury of Suliman Khalil Abu Libda (50) by a bullet to the right leg, while he was about to leave his house.  He was taken to Naser Hospital in Khan Yunis for treatment, where his injury was listed as moderate.

At approximately 02:00 on the same day, unknown assailants detonated an explosive device in a vehicle belonging to the family of Colonel Fayez El-Aydi, who works in the Force 17 Apparatus.  The vehicle was parked under the residential building, where he and his family live, in the Tal El-Hawa area of Gaza City.  The vehicle was completely destroyed.  In addition, damage was incurred to a number of nearby apartments.  It is noted that one of the Colonel’s sons works in the Preventive Security.

At approximately 02:00 on Sunday, 25 June 2006, gunmen arrived at the house of Mahmoud Mohammad Abu Salah (a 23-year-old resident of Greater Abasan, east of Khan Yunis), who works in the Naval Police and is a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (the armed wing of Fatah).  They burned Abu Salah’s car and fired shots at the house.  He sustained a minor shrapnel injury to the right side.

At approximately 14:00 on Saturday, 24 June 2006, gunmen kidnapped Saqer Mohammad Hashem El-Saftawi, a 33-year-old resident of Nusirat refugee camp, who works in the Palestinian Police Force.  They also kidnapped his assistant, Eyad El-Dabba, a 38-year-old resident of the El-Sabra area of Gaza City.  Both men were kidnapped near the Islamic University in Gaza City and were taken to an undisclosed location.  In his statement to PCHR, El-Saftawi accused members of Hamas of kidnapping him and his assistant, and subjecting them to interrogation and beatings with gun buts.  After that, both men were handed over to the members of the Ministry of Interior Executive Force, who handed them over to the Ministry of Interior at midnight.

At approximately 17:30 on the same day, gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades kidnapped Moussa Abu Ma’rouf (19) and Abdallah Abu Ma’rouf (18) from the Jourit El-Luot area of Khan Yunis.  Both men are Hamas activists and were kidnapped in the center of Khan Yunis.  They were taken to a social club run by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and were released at approximately 19:00.

At approximately 22:30 on the same day, masked gunmen traveling in a car fired at Abdallah Mohammad El-Qarra (24), while he was in his grocery shop in the Abu Mostafa area of Greater Abasan.  He was hit by bullets to the chest and legs.  He was taken to Naser Hospital, where his condition was described as serious.

At approximately 09:30 on Friday, 23 June 2006, masked gunmen traveling in a car kidnapped Ahmad Hussein Safi, a 24-year-old resident of Khan Yunis and a member of the Preventive Security Apparatus, while he was walking near his house in the city.  Safi managed to escape his captors and call his colleagues, who came to his rescue.  Both sides exchanged fire.  An unidentified civilian was injured in the exchange.

At approximately 07:00 on Thursday, 22 June 2006, armed clashes erupted between members of Islamic Jihad and members of the National Security , near the government compound in the city of Jenin.  The clashes resulted in the injury of three members of the National Security Forces….  

PCHR’s preliminary investigation into the incident indicates that the clashes erupted when a vehicle refused to stop at a roadblock erected by National Security Forces.  The security forces fired at the vehicle and injured Ala Yaser El-Ghul (22) with a bullet to the abdomen and Mohammad Ahmad Biekawi (19) with a bullet to the leg.  The clashes resumed at approximately 13:30 the next day.  No injuries were reported in the second incident.

At approximately 01:30 on Thursday, 22 June 2006, unknown assailants threw a hand grenade at the house of Khaled Mohammad Abu Hilal (43), the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior and National Security.  No injuries or damage were reported.  The house is located in Jala Street in Gaza City.

At approximately 22:00 on Wednesday, 21 June 2006, unknown gunmen fired shots near the house of Sa’id Rashid El-Najjar (35) in the Qiezan El-Najjar area of Khan Yunis.  El-Najjar works in the General Intelligence Service.  Two of the house guards and a woman who was nearby were injured.  They were taken to Naser Hospital for treatment, where their conditions were listed as moderate….  

At approximately 23:00 on the same day, an explosive device was detonated in a vehicle belonging to Yaser Hussein Dahlan (32), who works in the Ministry of Civil Affairs.  At the time, Yaser, his mother-in-law and Ahmad Abu Shouqa (28) were in the car.  Abu Shouqa is Dahlan’s friend and works in the Preventive Security.  The incident took place near the headquarters of the Preventive Security in the Tal-El-Hawa area of Gaza City.  The three sustained injuries and were taken to Al-Quds Hospital for treatment.  Their injuries were described as moderate.

And at approximately 23:20 on the same day, members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and members of the Executive Force traveling in a car exchanged fire in central Khan Yunis.  Ali Mohammad Shurrab (22) was injured by a bullet to the right leg.  Wa’el Othman El-Qassas (25) was injured by shrapnel to the right foot.  Shurrab was a bystander and El-Qassas a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.  Both were taken to Naser Hospital for treatment.  Shurrab’s injury was described as moderate and El-Qassas’ injury was listed as minor.

Butwhatever you do, don’t call all this bloodshed senseless. It may have some purpose, after all:

The Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades are claiming that they kidnapped an Israeli on Wednesday.

They claim the man is in his 60s and from Rishon Lezion.

The claim is being investigated.

The Palestinians can’t kill each other fast enough for my liking.

Sonic Booms, and Others

Israel, trying to get Syria’s attention:

IAF planes flew over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s palace in the city of Latakia in northwestern Syria early Wednesday morning, officials revealed on Wednesday evening.

The IDF said the flyover, carried out by four planes flying in a low-altitude pattern, was a part of an overall IDF operation aimed at pressuring the Syrian leadership to expel Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Mashaal from Damascus.

According to Israel, Mashaal has been calling the shots out of the Syrian capital and orchestrated the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

Syria responded by saying that its air defenses opened fire on the warplanes, forcing them to flee.

State-run Syrian television said two Israeli planes flew near Syria’s Mediterranean coast early Wednesday but did not mention Israel’s announcement that the planes swooped low over the summer residence of Assad.

“The overflight by two Israeli planes near the Syrian shores is an aggressive act and a provocation,” the television news said, quoting an unindentified Information Ministry official.

It said “national air defenses opened fire in the direction of the planes, and they dispersed.”

“If the goal of this (overflight) is to blame the political leadership of Hamas for the abduction of the Israeli soldier, then israel is making a big mistake that is goes beyond logic,” the ministry official said, according to the TV report.

The IDF raised the alert on its positions along the northern frontier out of concern Hizbullah would attempt to shell northern Israel in retaliation for the flyover. The alert was also raised in light of the situation in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier, Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that Mashaal, was a target for assassination due to his ordering of the kidnapping of Shalit.

“He is definitely in our sights … he is a target,” Ramon told Army Radio. “Khaled Mashaal, as some who is overseeing, actually commanding the terror acts, is definitely a target.”

What do you want to bet that Boy Assad needed a change of undergarments after the Israeli flyover?