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It's Friday!

Meshugga Beach Party time:

Netanyahu: Arabs Do Not Respect a Weak Prime Minister

"Arabs do not respect a weak prime minister," opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday following the Annapolis summit, which he described as "a failure."

He said there was "a virtual element" to the conference. "It was as if we were talking peace with a courageous partner but (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud) Abbas has difficulty ruling his own mukata," Netanyahu told Army Radio.

Netanyahu went on to say that the PA president had not stepped down from any of his demands, adding that "he even wants to join Gaza and the West Bank through the Negev."

The opposition leader said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had made concessions "before Annapolis, during Annapolis and after Annapolis," referring to the supply of armored vehicles to PA forces, to Olmert's refusal to demand that Palestinians stop terror and incitement before negotiations begin, and to the prime minister's comments earlier Thursday that Israel would be "finished" if a two-state solution was not reached.

Olmert made the latter comment in an interview with Haaretz, saying that the alternative to the creation of a Palestinian state is a South African-style apartheid struggle.

"The day will come when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights," the prime minister had said. "As soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished."

Referring to the interview, Netanyahu said: "Israel is not finished. It continues and will continue to exist. Reconciliation will not come from a position of weakness; a position of: 'I will accept all your demands or I will disappear into the sea.'"

He said this was not the way to achieve peace, adding that "Arabs don't respect a weak prime minister."

"Tell me one thing we gained at Annapolis?" Netanyahu continued. "We allowed the Palestinians to avoid fighting terror, a condition set in the Road Map. Abbas now doesn't need to do anything. This is the opposite of what is required for peace and security."

Link

Unfathomable

Muslims are marching in protest against the 15-day sentence received by the British teacher who allowed the children in her classroom to name a teddy bear Mohammed.  They want her to be shot instead:

Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.

Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after allowing children in her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

She was sentenced to 15 days for insulting religion, and she will then be deported.

The Foreign Office was in contact with Sudan's government overnight and is due to repeat demands for her release. 

The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers to denounce the sentence as too lenient.

The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.

Marchers chanted "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".

There are simply no words.

I Found This Picture on the Internet

And I decided to name the teddy bear Mohammed.  In fact, I have decided to name all of these teddies Mohammed, too.

Here's a video about teddy bears named Mohammed:

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To the Mohammed police: Come and get me.

Two Chicks in Need of Reality Pills

"Stop treating me as a pariah," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Arab delegates at the Annapolis conference on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

Livni and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to the summit's attendees in a closed-door session following the televised addresses by American, Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Many of these represented Arab nations that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

"Why doesn't anyone want to shake my hand?" she asked in a dramatic address to the assembled representatives. "Why doesn't anyone want to be seen speaking to me?"

Dutch European Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans, who gave the paper details of the meeting, said the Arab delegates "shun her like she is Count Dracula's younger sister."

Livni had failed in attempts to set up meetings in Annapolis or Washington with colleagues from the Arab world, even though the summit was designed to show international support for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal had stated before the conference that he would not shake the hands of Israeli delegates, dismissing what he called theatric gestures.

Ms. Livni:  Whining is not the correct response.   Tell them to kiss your Jewish ass and walk the hell out.

"Like the Israelis, I know what it is like to go to sleep at night, not knowing if you will be bombed, of being afraid to be in your own neighborhood, of being afraid to go to your church," she said.

She added, however, that as a black child in the South, forbidden to use certain water fountains and shunned from certain restaurants, she was also in a good position to understand the feelings of the Palestinians.

"I know what it is like to hear to that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian," she said. "I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness."

Ms. Rice: No one gives a rat's rear end about how you "feel" or anything else that more appropriately belongs on Oprah or Dr. Phil.

But putting that aside, the way you are drawing a picture of moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians just helps demonstrate to the Pals (Who, by the way, are no friends of the US.  Nope, not friends of the US at all.) how well their lies and propaganda  are working.  

Selling Our Souls to the Devil

"It's a sad day for American financial markets when you've got to turn to Abu Dhabi to get bailed out." 

In the 72 hours prior to yesterday's Annapolis conference, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired six Kassam rockets and over a dozen mortar shells at Israeli towns and cities throughout the Negev.

Jerusalem was placed on high alert on Sunday, with roadblocks and checkpoints set up at the various entrances to the city, after intelligence reports indicated that two terrorists were on their way to the capital to carry out a mass attack.

And in Hebron, a young Palestinian armed with a knife was caught at the Tomb of the Patriarchs planning to stab the first Jew he could find.

Phew -- after all those decades of bloodshed, it sure sounds like reconciliation is finally at hand.

...If our Arab foes won't shake hands with us and won't even recognize us, then what are the chances that they will truly wish to live in peace with us? Or, as Alice herself put it, "It's the stupidest tea party I ever was at in all my life!"  -Michael Freund

Invented History

Arab propaganda has been successful in presenting a picture of the Palestinian people as the helpless and innocent victims of Israeli aggression -- potential friends of America who have been alienated by America’s support for Israel and its failure to support a Palestinian national state. This decision is itself the result of a “Jewish Lobby” run by “neocons” and “receiving its orders” from Israel. The fact that Palestinians are now led by two terrorist organizations, Fatah and Hamas, is also blamed on Israel and the United States rather than on the Palestinians who elected terrorists as leaders.

According to Palestinian revisionism, the Palestinians lived from time immemorial in historic Palestine, a veritable paradise of flourishing orchards and fertile vineyards, teeming with happy peasants. Then, the evil Zionists came and, with the support of the British, stole the Palestinians’ land, exiled their people, and initiated a reign of terror and ethnic cleansing that has not abated until this very day.

Goebbels died 60 years ago, but his core propaganda strategy lives on in the Great Arab Lie that there exists a Palestinian people who have suffered great injustices at the hands of Israel, the UK, and the USA. Arab leaders know that if they just keep repeating the same lie often enough, eventually people will believe it -- and the greater the lie, the more readily will people believe it.

...To justify to the world their ruthless mass murder of Israeli civilians and their undying hatred of the West, these leaders needed to invent a bizarre and apposite reality. Slowly but surely, the reality of the “little David” Israel assailed by the “giant Goliath” of the entire Arab world has been reversed. Now the “Goliath” Israel is depicted as the racist, apartheid, war-mongering, oppressive, illegal occupier Jewish State, regional superpower, hell-bent on the destruction, indeed, the genocide of the poor, defenseless Palestinian people -- the Middle East’s new “David.” This grotesque fiction could be foisted upon the world only if there were indeed a “little David” for Goliath Israel to oppress; only if Israel’s combatant in the conflict were not the entire Arab world, but rather some poor, enfeebled people who could mount no real defense against the Jewish superpower, but nonetheless had a stronger claim to the land of Israel than Israel itself.

Thus the PLO, under the tutelage of the KGB, invented “The Palestinian People.”

This propaganda war has developed a mendacious narrative which works in two directions at once. On one hand, Arab propaganda sources claim the Canaanites were Palestinians; Abraham was a Palestinian; so were David, Solomon, and even Jesus. And the Jews were interlopers, invaders, and conquerors in the days of Joshua, just as they are now.

On the other hand, Israel is discredited and delegitimised in the present by the endless anti-Israel resolutions in the UN, orchestrated in large part by the Arab bloc and their Russian (formerly Soviet) mentors; and by the constant clamor of Arab states to the world at large, promoting the risible assertion that Israel is the aggressor. This occurs even though Israel has sued for peace after winning each war, Israel has agreed a dozen times over to the creation of a Palestinian state on part of its land, even as Hamas’ qassam rockets fall daily upon innocent Israeli civilians, even as Hezbollah declares vociferously its goal of the annihilation of world Jewry, and Iran looks forward perpetrating a nuclear Armageddon in order to create a world without Israel. If only Israel were destroyed, they assert, then the entire Middle East would know peace.

This mendacious narrative is stalwartly bolstered by a growing host of pseudo-academics in Western universities, and by a cadre of Western journalists, who churn out books and articles that effectively rewrite history and archaeology in order to erase Israel’s connection to the Holy Land and thus deny both the Christian and Jewish historic and religious roots in the Land of Israel.

This propaganda campaign to legitimize the 60-year-old Arab war against Israel and to create the fiction of the “Palestinian people” as the poor oppressed victims of imperialist colonialist Israel, illegally occupying “Historic Palestine,” is a veritable war against History. It deals in lies, just the kind of lies Goebbels had in mind. And the biggest lie of all is the existence of a “Palestinian People.”

More.  Much, much more.

Push the Button

The group's name is Teapacks and they are from Sderot, the favorite target city for Hamas qassams fired from Gaza. Push the Button was Israel's entry into the 2007 Eurovision song contest and was considered somewhat controversial due to the subject matter.

Annapolis Opening Remarks

I watched the speeches online at CNN.com.  Unfortunately, it was impossible to understand/hear Abbas's translator.  According to the JPost:

In his opening speech at the Annapolis conference, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that any Mideast peace deal should ensure that Palestinians have east Jerusalem as their capital.

He also called for a halt to Jewish settlements in disputed lands.

Bush essentially said nothing outside of "glad to be here, glad you are here, historic opportunity, it's time for peace, safe home for Israelis, Palestinians, it won't be easy," etc etc. and I don't think Olmert did either. I listened pretty carefully and heard no mention of Jerusalem in his speech.  He did talk about the three Israeli soldiers, Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who are still being held hostage.

Olmert looked exceedingly happy about the photo ops involved. Big happy handshakes with Bush and Abbas while facing the cameras. Abbas didn't look nearly as excited as Olmert, though he perhaps did warm up a bit as things progressed. I will say one thing for Olmert, he is very emotionally expressive and came across as being very sincere.  But I kept wondering, who is going to be buying what he's selling?  Not the ones who really need to, such as Hamas and co. And there is that problem of Jerusalem which no amount of warmth or sincerity on his part is going to solve.

Both Olmert and Abbas gave Tony Blair hugs as they walked out afterwards.  Popular guy, Blair.

Oh yes, and of course "they" (you know who they are) are going to jump all over the fact that Bush had trouble pronouncing both Abbas and Olmert's names.

This didn't take long - Hamas rejects Abbas's speech and threatens violence - gosh, already injecting ugly into the warm, fuzzy, photo-op-handshake, peace-fest:

Watching on TV Tuesday as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appealed for peace with Israel at the beginning of a Middle East conference in the United States, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza rejected his call and said Abbas speaks only for himself.

The spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, watched the opening speeches at his office in Gaza City. He said Abbas "has no mandate to discuss, to agree, or to erase any word related to our rights." Barhoum said Abbas went to the conference "without any support from his people. He is isolated (and) represents himself only."

Barhoum expressed disappointment in the participation of Arab nations in the summit. Their presence is seen as support for renewed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Instead, Barhoum indicated that Hamas would continue its violence against Israel. "We will use all the tools of resistance to achieve our rights," he said.

The Forty Year Approach to Jerusalem

I found this hidden gem in Bookworm's comments.  She writes:

I’m...worried that the usual pattern will emerge, of giving the Palestinians a reward before they change their behavior. With half of Jerusalem sitting on the table, how about this: if the Palestinians and surrounding Arabs/Muslims can go for 40 years without attacking Israel, they can get control over half of Jerusalem. I choose the number 40 deliberately because, in the Bible, that’s the number of years it takes for a tainted generation to die out and a new one to arise to take its place. Actually, I believe two things: (1) the Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians will never be able to go 40 years in peace, no matter how much they want Jerusalem; and (2) 40 years isn’t long enough to deplete the hatred inculcated in those cultures. But it’s a starting point for negotiation, as opposed to “we’ll give you half of Jerusalem, in return for your promise to be good.” After the chortling Palestinians/Muslims/Arabs says yes to this one, they’re going to line up to re-sell the Brooklyn Bridge to America and Israel, over and over again.

The Untouchables

Not only will Faisal not shake Olmert's hand, but:

Saudi Normalization with Israel Forgotten - David Horovitz
As Arab League foreign ministers and officials were convening for consultations ahead of the Annapolis summit at the Saudi Embassy in Washington on Monday, Israeli journalists were somewhat unceremoniously escorted off the premises. At a press briefing held at the embassy by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, the best I could do was to ask one of the American reporters to put a question on my behalf to Faisal: "What steps are you prepared to take right now toward normalizing ties with Israel?" His answer: "None." Faisal elaborated that the Arab peace plan makes plain that "normalization will come after peace is established." And peace, he went on, entailed full Israeli withdrawal. The Saudi foreign minister also said the Arab presence at Annapolis was not about producing a concerted front against Iran. "We have to worry about Israel first," he said.
    Diplomatic sources have said that the Saudis don't want any contact whatsoever with the Israeli delegation at Annapolis, and therefore the respective delegations will even use different doors to enter the meeting room. (Jerusalem Post)

Operation "Autumn Storm"

With the opening of the Annapolis Conference, Palestinian organizations in the Gaza Strip are sending a clear message to those gathering in Maryland.

Tuesday morning the Popular Resistance Committees announced the beginning of operation "Autumn Storm" in which the organization plans to launch rocket attacks at Sderot and the western Negev during the conference.

Meanwhile, fighting in the field has not ceased for a moment: in the last 24 hours at least eight Palestinians have died in a string of clashes with the IDF, including attempts to launch rockets and plant bombs near the border.

"The Annapolis Conference has been called the Autumn Conference, and leaves fall in the autumn; therefore, our missiles will also fall on Israel," said a PRC spokesman, explaining the name. "We are sure that the masks will fall of the faces of the conference participants, and all will see their conspiracy against the interests of the Palestinian people." 

The spokesman, who calls himself Abu Abir, said that the missiles — which already began falling Tuesday morning — "will carry a message to all the world that the conference does not represent the Palestinian people and will only cause damage and increase the Palestinian's burden. We are also sending the message that whoever participates in the conference from the Palestinian side barely even represents himself.

...This is our way of saying that the Palestinians will never recognize Israel, neither as a Jewish state nor as anything else."

*********************************************************************

Palestinian Rocket Fire Continues
Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket that landed in Israel's western Negev on Tuesday. (Jerusalem Post)
    See also Since June, Every Three Hours Palestinians Fire Rocket into Israel (IDF Spokesperson's Office/IMRA)

Citigroup to sell $7.5 billion stake to Abu Dhabi

Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is selling up to 4.9 percent of itself for $7.5 billion to the Gulf Arab emirate of Abu Dhabi, giving the largest U.S. bank fresh capital as it wrestles with the subprime mortgage crisis and the resignation of its chief executive.

The capital injection will shore up Citi's balance sheet, which has been hurt by some $6.8 billion of writedowns and losses in the third quarter, and the potential for another $11 billion in the fourth quarter.

Citi is paying a high price for the capital injection by selling mandatory convertible securities to Abu Dhabi which pay a fixed coupon of 11 percent. That is above the average yield on U.S. junk bonds, which is 9.4 percent according to Merrill Lynch data.

Analysts at Royal Bank of Scotland said in a note that Citigroup was paying a "high price," but that the convertible notes would help boost the bank's core capital.

The sale to the $650 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, may also signal the freefall in U.S financial stocks is close to ending, analysts said.

"Citi is big, it's widely followed, and when people see confidence in it, it should mean something," said Bo Brownstein, an analyst covering financial stocks at Cambiar Investors in Denver, Colorado.

The dollar rose against the yen on the news, and Japanese bank stocks also rallied. In Tokyo trading, Citi shares (8710.T: Quote, Profile, Research) fell 4.2 percent for the day, but had been trading even lower before news of the Abu Dhabi deal.

Family ruled Abu Dhabi -- whose citizens number no more than 400,000 -- will be Citi's largest shareholder. The investment reflects the increasing financial might of oil-producing countries, which have benefited from a five-fold increase in the price of crude oil during the last six years.

Gulf investors have announced more than $70 billion of foreign acquisitions this year, more than in the previous two years combined. 

Devil.  Selling. We are. Our souls. To the.

The Division of Jerusalem....Announcement Today?

Carl of Israel Matsav studies the evidence and draws a conclusion.

Annapolis Debacle

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has agreed to attend the Annapolis conference, but is refusing to shake Olmert's hand. The response from Olmert:

"I won't extend my hand to whoever isn't ready to shake the hand of the people of Israel," Olmert said, referring to the Saudi foreign minister. "But I am happy he is here."

Faisal isn't worthy of Jewish phlegm, let alone a handshake and Olmert is a world class Stepin Fetchit Uncle Tom putz for putting up with this indignity.  He should refuse to sit down with anyone who will is unwilling to make a simple gesture of politeness and courtesy to a Jew. Guilt, shame, bowing and scraping - what a way to begin a negotiation.

Just as Frank Gaffney has called it in today's Washington Times, the Annapolis conference is nothing but a gang rape, and Israel's leader is too much of a wuss to even scream:

Despite official efforts to low-ball its significance, Miss Rice's conclave is shaping up to be a gang-rape of a nation on a scale not seen since Munich in 1938, when the British and French allowed Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to have their violent way with Czechoslovakia.

This time, the intended victim is Israel. As with the effort to appease the Nazis and Fascists nearly 70 years ago, however, the damage will not be confined to the rapee. The interests of the Free World in general and the United States in particular will suffer from what the Saudis and most of the other attendees have in mind for the Jewish State — namely, its dismemberment and ultimate destruction.

Millions of Americans have lately been introduced to the Saudis' attitude toward gang-rape, pursuant to the theocratic code known as Shariah that they seek to impose on us all. We learned that a 19-year-old Saudi woman identified only as the Girl of Qatif was kidnapped and raped by seven men. The rapists were to receive prison sentences and whippings. The woman was sentenced to receive 90 lashes for the crime of sitting in a car with a male who was not a relative. When she had the temerity to appeal her barbaric sentence, it was increased to six months in prison and 200 lashes.

There will, of course, be no punishments for the perpetrators of the coming gang-rape of Israel at Annapolis. To the contrary, the Bush administration feels deeply indebted to the Saudi foreign minister for his participation and that of a representative of a country Miss Rice's department lists as a state-sponsor of terror: Syria.

In fact, as an inducement for attending, a host of nations who have never formally and concretely abandoned their historic determination to bring about Israel's liquidation have been assured by their U.S. hosts they will be able to use this event to promote their agendas. As one American official blithely put it: “No one's microphone will be turned off.”

...The bigger problem is that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seems disposed to go along with the emerging “international consensus.” Indeed, Mr. Olmert has already signaled a willingness to compromise his country's future security and integrity as a Jewish state in the hope of rescuing his failed premiership and avoiding prosecution for corruption. For their part, his people seem to be sleepwalking, unable to believe every one of their longstanding national requirements (for example, a unified Jerusalem, secure borders, no “right of return” for “refugees,” etc.) is being abandoned in the pursuit of a “peace” no one can seriously believe is in prospect from the Saudis and their friends.

Undermining the Bush Doctrine

Andrew McCarthy writes that the conference is "crushing for Bush supporters" and wonders what happened to the Bush Doctrine:

Seduced by the fantasy of peace-loving Palestinians, the president and his top diplomats have made creation of a sovereign state for these blood-soaked jihadists the bedrock of our Middle East policy — thus undercutting any credibility the Bush Doctrine may have had. Remarkably, the State Department tells the New York Times that its game-plan for the farce is to commit both Israel and the Palestinians “to carry out long-postponed obligations included in the first stage of the 2003 peace plan known as the road map.” On the Palestinian side, the primary obligation was to end terrorism. That’s precisely the same promise the terror master and Palestinian founder Yasser Arafat gave to President Clinton after the first and before the second Intifada.

The promise is never meant and never kept because it cannot be. At the existential core of Palestinian identity is the belief that Israel — the “Zionist entity” — is an illegitimate interloper which must be purged from Muslim land. So ingrained is this conceit that, in reality, the Palestinians are not even attending the farce. The terrorist organization they knowingly and willfully elected to represent them, Hamas, is boycotting Annapolis as a waste of time, a diversion from the jihad.

Instead, Palestinians are nominally represented in the proceedings by Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor as leader of the Fatah party and the State Department’s favorite “moderate.” So the delusion that the Palestinian people want peaceful cohabitation in Israel is layered over by the delusion that Fatah is a credible peace partner. The cherry on top is that Abbas is both inclined and able to deliver on the obligations of peace.

It is madness. Palestinians are reared from birth to abhor Israelis. A dehumanizing hatred pervades their media, education system, and society at large. Their national monuments glorify suicide bombers. That, indeed, is why recent polling shows that 75 percent of Palestinians, including a whopping 93-percent of young Palestinian adults (aged 18 to 25), deny Israel’s right to exist. It is also why they chose Hamas when given the chance.

The alternative, Fatah, could be thought “moderate” only in the sense that Hitler would be a moderate if you compared him, say, to Satan. By its constitution, Fatah calls for the “eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence[,]” through an “armed revolution” which is to be the “decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence” — a revolution that “will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.” To effectuate the armed revolution, Fatah maintains its own terrorist wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which works closely with Iran, Syria, and other jihadist organizations.

...Simply stated, the farce is crushing for Bush supporters. This administration is hellbent on granting statehood to savages who worship “martyrdom,” who have bombed their way to the table, and whose non-negotiable demand — a “right of return” to Israel for millions of migrant Palestinians — would sound the death-knell for a civilized democracy that is our only true friend in the region. So desperate is the administration to show “progress” and “engagement” that it is placing its chips on an unreconstructed terrorist organization, Fatah, that fails the most basic tests of sovereignty — able neither to control its own territory nor to acknowledge the right of a neighboring sovereign to exist. And in executing the strategy, the administration is betraying the principle that state sponsors of terror like Syria must be eradicated or reformed, but never embraced — the only roadmap to real peace.

Read the whole thing

The same theme was echoed in an interview of Caroline Glick by NRO's Kathryn Lopez:

Lopez: All things being what they are: If there’s a single good that can come of this conference, what would you urge the U.S. that it be?

Glick: The only good thing that can come from this conference is that President George W. Bush recognizes the harm that Rice is doing to the U.S.’s national-security interests by undermining the Bush doctrine. From the six-party talks with North Korea to her bizarre and dangerous decision to attempt to appease Iran by holding talks with the millenarian theocracy in Iraq; supporting the EU’s failed nuclear diplomacy and authorizing the U.N. Security Council to (mis)handle Iran’s nuclear-weapons program; to her seeming obsession with establishing a pro-Iranian, jihadist Palestinian state before the end of the Bush presidency; to her unpardonable neglect of Iraq, Rice has taken a knife to everything Bush has staked his presidency on.

If the failure of Annapolis causes the president to distance himself from Rice and end her foreign-policy supremacy, then in retrospect, the conference may have been worth the effort.


Lopez: What’s the Bush legacy in the Mideast likely going to be?

Glick: If Bush reins in his appeasement-mongering secretary of State and returns to the guidelines for U.S. foreign policy that he set out in his first term, then his will be a revolutionary legacy of freedom in the Middle East. The promising situation in Iraq, if allowed to progress will indeed bring about the first Arab democracy. Were the president to liberate the Palestinians from the tyranny of their terror leaders and antagonists in the Arab world, he could set the conditions for true peace between them and Israel. If he were to reignite his call for freedom and empowerment of liberals in the Arab world and if he were to make good on his pledge to support Iranian democracy activists, he would leave the region and the world safer, freer and less threatening than he found them when he assumed office.

If, on the other hand, he continues to empower Rice to undermine all he has fought for his legacy will be one of cowardice, betrayal, and failure.

Read the rest

Re: The Annapolis Talks

Captain Ed, conservative blogger extraordinaire, says:

Many people wonder why any talks get held at all, but this conflict won't end in a military settlement, unless Israel gets vanquished. With the Arab nations surrounding Israel, its best option for peace is a negotiated settlement that puts Egypt and Jordan at the head of the Arab coalition enforcing its commitments. None of the nations in the area will allow Israel to sweep the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank, and Israel won't annex the territories and give the Palestinians a vote in Israeli government. A sturdy settlement for peace is Israel's best hope, and the US its best guarantor.

Maybe, maybe not.  See: 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973.

Isn't Israel better off acting as if they are coming from a position of strength rather than as a supplicant?  Negotiating and giving in have won them absolutely nothing.

Few Things Make Me Feel More Senile...

...than Musical Monday.

Look Who Wants the US to Stay

Iraq's government is prepared to offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq and preferential treatment for American investments in return for an American guarantee of long-term security including defense against internal coups, The Associated Press learned Monday. 

New York Times 6 Month Study

The New York Times: April-September 2007 - Summary of Findings:

• Balance: Despite an evenly balanced selection of stories on Israel and the Palestinians, the New York Times gave far more weight to Israeli military incidents in text location, headlines and photo selection than to Palestinian attacks. More than 60% of images sympathetic to one side or the other favored the Palestinians.
• Consistency: Israeli and Palestinian actions were not treated consistently in choice of language. Israel or the Israel Defense Forces were the subject of strongly worded, direct headlines in 18 out of 20 cases (90%). However, in the 20 cases where the Palestinians were responsible for attacks, the language was mostly passive and the group responsible was only named in eight instances (40%).
• Context and Accuracy: Inaccurate statements or important context that would give readers a fuller picture of news events was often omitted. Terms such as "militants", "occupied territory," and "illegal settlements" were used without providing a proper explanation.

Findings in Depth:

I. BALANCE:

An important indicator of bias, balance means the news source gave equal weight to conflicting claims over a period of time. Both subject matter and style are important factors in weighing bias.

During the time period under review (April 1 through September 30, 2007), we analyzed a total of 121 articles whose dominant focus dealt with Israel or the Palestinians, including 40 that focused on a violent attack or military action by Palestinian terrorist groups or the IDF. Some described events between Israel and Palestinian groups and others described internal Palestinian fighting. We found that reporting favored the Palestinian side through both text priority and selection of images.

Text Priority:

In articles that reported on violent actions, Israeli moves were almost always reported first, regardless of whether they occurred prior to or in response to a Palestinian attack. Only later -- lower down in the article -- was there mention of the cause of the Israeli action. By placing accounts of Israeli military actions before those of Palestinian attacks, the Israeli actions seem to lack justification.

For example, the article "8 Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza Kill at Least 7" opens with this paragraph and photograph:

Israel moved a small number of tanks and soldiers over the Gaza border and hit Hamas with eight airstrikes on Thursday and early Friday, killing at least seven Palestinians.

Only after this does the reader see:

Some 14 rockets fired by Hamas militants in Gaza on Thursday landed in Israel, 6 of them near Sderot, a border town, the Israeli Army said. The government bused some Sderot residents to hotels in what it called a respite, not an evacuation.

While the reporting is technically accurate, the fact that Hamas fired rockets at Gaza is overshadowed by the description of the Israeli response. In fact, 20 out of 24 articles describing fighting between Israel and the Palestinians lead with the Israeli action, regardless of which action took place first. This style of reporting gives the reader the impression that the Israeli military attacks occurred much more frequently than the Palestinian ones. In truth, during this time period, there were weekly (and often daily) actions by both sides. Although Palestinian casualties were higher, the number of rocket attacks against Israel was far greater than Israeli responses. Proper balance would have made this clear.   

Photographs:

Editors have many choices which photographs accompany news articles. We looked at the photographs that ran with the New York Times' articles and found that there seemed to be an inappropriate and unbalanced emphasis on either Palestinian suffering or Israeli military operations. The Sometimes the photos which accompanied the articles did not even feature the primary content of the article. For example, on May 17, the Times published "Unity Fractures as Palestinians Battle in Gaza." The primary thrust of the article described fighting between the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah organizations. Yet, the photo chosen to accompany the story showed an Israeli attack. 

For our study, we focused on images that clearly favored one side or the other. Images of Palestinian suffering or Israeli attacks favor the Palestinian side. Images of Israeli suffering or masked Palestinian terrorists encourage understanding of the Israeli perspective. Of the images showing one point of view or the other, over 60% were pictures that evoke more understanding or sympathy for the Palestinian side. The viewer thus gets the impression that there are far more Israeli military strikes against Palestinian civilians than Palestinian rocket attacks.

Read the rest

90 Seconds of Your Time to Keep Jerusalem United

On November 26th, world leaders will congregate in Annapolis to once again seek concessions from Israel and declare that Jerusalem should be divided, with part becoming the capital of a new, Hamas-controlled Palestinian terror-state. Israel should not be pressured by the United States, least of all while facing terrorism, rocket attacks, and hate, and while its kidnapped soldiers remain hostages.

You can help.

(Hat tip:  Bookworm)

Haveil Havalim

A very timely and important edition of Haveil Havalim is posted at SoccerDad.  Find out the latest information and analysis re: the Annapolis conference, Al Dura and more.

The Perils of Engagement - Jeff Robbins (Wall Street Journal)

• If history is any guide, next week's meeting in Annapolis will yield unsatisfactory results, Israel will be blamed for failing to make the requisite concessions, and the Bush administration will be criticized for its "failure to engage." The problem is that all too often, those who blame the U.S. for failing to deliver Mideast peace are some of the world's most culpable enablers of Mideast violence - and those who are themselves actually responsible for erecting the fundamental roadblocks to a resolution of the conflict.
• It was the Arab bloc, including the Palestinian leadership, that decided to reject the UN's 1947 partition of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish, living side by side. Instead it invaded the nascent Jewish state rather than coexist with it, spawning the conflict that has so burdened the world for the last 60 years.
• We are also not responsible for the Arab world's choice not to create a Palestinian Arab state in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, when it easily could have done so - before there were any Jewish settlements there to serve as the public object of Arab grievance.
• Nor can the U.S. government under President Clinton be criticized for failing to pursue Yasser Arafat with sufficient solicitude between 1993 and late 2000. The Clinton administration was, after all, the most ardent of suitors of the Palestinian leader - only to be forced to watch Arafat reject an independent Palestinian state in all of Gaza and virtually all of the West Bank.
• It was the Palestinian leadership, not the U.S., that decided in the fall of 2000 that, rather than accept an independent Palestinian state, its wiser course was to launch a four-year bombing campaign against Israel's civilian population. The result was not merely over 1,100 Israeli civilians killed, but several thousand Palestinians dead, as well as a shattered Palestinian economy and the decision by Israel to begin construction of a security barrier in July 2002.
• When Israel withdrew from all of Gaza in 2005, the Arab world had the opportunity for a fresh start there - to create a measure of hope for a population whose suffering long predated any Israeli presence. Instead, the Hamas-dominated Palestinian leadership opted to begin and then intensify an aggressive missile-launching campaign against Israeli civilian centers.
• Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, whose treasuries overflow with petrodollars, are in a position to invest heavily in Gaza, create economic opportunities for its destitute population, and dilute the toxin-filled atmosphere there. They have not done so. The Egyptians are in a position to act decisively to stop the flow of rockets, bombs and other arms from Egypt into Gaza, where they are used to attack Israeli civilians. They have not done so.

  The writer was a U.S. Delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission during the Clinton administration.

A New Haven for Terrorists

The only Palestinian state that can possibly come from Condoleezza Rice's zealotry is one that will be a dagger pointed at the heart of Israel and a new safe-haven for terror aimed at the United States and other Western nations.

The Hatred That Never Dies

A new study of German teens shows clear signs of anti-Jewish sentiments.

In talks with teens around Germany, the Berlin-based Amadeu-Antonio Foundation, which works against racism and xenophobia, found that a large number of the teens believed Jews must have done something to deserve being persecuted during the Third Reich.

The results of the study, titled "I have nothing against Jews, but ...," were presented Tuesday by sociologist Barbara Schauble during "Action Weeks against Anti-Semitism." Scheduled to end Friday with commemorations of the 69th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms against Jews and Jewish property, the action weeks include discussions with eyewitnesses, theater and film presentations, and other programs.

For the study, researchers interviewed some 20 groups of Germans aged 13 to 19. More than half reportedly agreed that Jews have too much influence on world events. Interviewers concluded that an educational offensive is urgently needed.

According to news reports, many German teens believe the stereotype that Jews are rich. Many explained that they had learned this in schoolbooks, which, for example, suggest that the National Socialists persecuted Jews because they were suspected of manipulating the financial markets.

More than 20 percent rejected the statement that "Jews living in Germany should have the same rights in all respects as other Germans.

******************Fearfulness and trembling come upon me
Horror has overwhelmed me
And I said, O that I had wings like a dove,
Then would I fly away, and be at rest.
                              Psalms 55:6-7

Just what part of No Jews Allowed didn't you understand?

Debbie Schlussel writes:

You'd think that Condi Clueless a/k/a Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice would be sensitive to redlining and restrictive covenants. You'd think that someone who is familiar with old school policies in some neighborhoods and businesses of "No Blacks Allowed" would be against "No Jews Allowed."

But you would be wrong.

Today, if there were signs up--or even secret policies--of neighborhoods not allowing Jews or Blacks to live in a certain neighborhood or to build a new home there, the Justice Department would be on their rear ends like Rosie O'Donnell on a slice of pizza.

But, in Israel, well . . . the U.S. has a different policy. And Clueless Condi is the chief architect and enforcer of the Nazi-like Judenrein policy.

No Jews Allowed. No Jews Allowed. Just what part of No Jews Allowed didn't you understand?

That's the policy Clueless Condi is shouting at Israel, these days. You'd think a woman of color would be sensitive to--no, outraged by--bigoted real estate policies.

But you would be wrong.

In fact, she's the chief perpetrator. She's demanding it and pressuring Ehud Olmert to stop allowing Jews to build and own homes in the so-called "West Bank" (but no corresponding requirement of Arabs and Muslims to stop building and buying homes in Israel), in advance of the dumb Bush last attempt at a Nobel Peace Prize a/k/a The Annapolis Conference, next week.

Meanwhile, in exchange for the pleasure of acquiescing to the Condi-demanded bigoted housing policy, Israel gets the privilege of . . . releasing 441 murderous terrorists into the general population?! GUH-Reat deal. It's the kind of deal they gave Jews in the concentration camps, wherein they could turn in their fellow Jew to his/her death in exchange for a piece of bread.

Read the rest.

Lovely

Anti-Semitic Palestinian Cartoons Appear Regularly - (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
    Coarse anti-Semitic cartoons drawn by Palestinian cartoonist Alaa' Allaqta appear regularly in Hamas' newspaper, Felesteen, on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad website, and in Saudi Arabian and Qatari newspapers.
    His cartoons, which recycle anti-Semitic motifs, have recently been part of a propaganda campaign against the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and the upcoming Annapolis meeting.

F'ing hypocrites.

Let My People Go

As I read these reports this mornng, I found myself thinking about the Israeli response and the approaching conference in Annapolis:

• Israeli Motorist Murdered in West Bank Terrorist Attack - Efrat Weiss
  Ido Zoldan, 29, of Shavei Shomron, was murdered Monday near the Palestinian village of Funduk in the northern West Bank after terrorists opened fire from a passing car. Zoldan was survived by his wife, Tehila, and his two small children, three-year-old Aharon and one-year-old Rachel. As the Annapolis peace conference gets closer, the Israel Defense Ministry has in its possession five specific warnings on attempts to carry out terrorist attacks, in addition to dozens of general warnings. (Ynet News)

• IDF Foils Terror Attack on Israeli Community Near Gaza - Hanan Greenberg
  At 11:30 p.m. on Monday, IDF soldiers spotted three Palestinians climbing on the security fence in an attempt to infiltrate the community of Netiv Ha'asara, located just north of Gaza. IDF forces opened fire and killed the three would-be attackers. A spokesman for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the infiltration attempt and said, "It was planned to be a suicide attack."  (Ynet News)
• Israeli Border Community Hard-Hit by Palestinian Rocket Fire
  Public Security Minister Avi Dichter on Sunday toured Moshav Nativ Ha'asara, a border community which has been particularly hard-hit by the continued Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza. "I live only ten kilometers away from here," he said. "We need to halt the rocket fire by controlling rather than taking control. It's not enough to deal with the rocket fire - we must also deal with the independence of Hamas, which is smuggling in weapons such as anti-tank missiles similar to those Hizbullah used against us in Lebanon," he said. "Hamas is turning into a terrorist army. It is arming and building up in every way like an army. I suggest a three-part plan: An operation against the continued rocket fire, action against Hamas gaining strength, and an operation to end Hamas' ability [to wage war]." (Jerusalem Post)
      See also Palestinians Fire Mortar Barrage at Israel - Shmulik Hadad
  Palestinians in Gaza fired 20 mortar shells that landed in Israel's western Negev on Monday afternoon. Nine of the mortars landed near the Erez crossing, by the Gaza security fence, damaging a number of cars. (Ynet News)

What's the plan? What statement will be made to give the Palestinians great pause before ever doing such things again? A prisoner release?

Israeli Cabinet Approves Release of 441 More Palestinian Prisoners in Pre-Annapolis Goodwill Gesture (Jerusalem Post)
    The Israeli cabinet approved on Monday a list of 441 Palestinian prisoners to be released ahead of the Annapolis conference.
    The move is intended as a goodwill gesture to Mahmoud Abbas.
    On Tuesday, Prime Minister Olmert will meet Egyptian President Mubarak in Egypt to coordinate positions ahead of the Annapolis meeting.

I don't live in Israel, maybe I have no right to comment - but I think "goodwill gestures" such as this are a big mistake.

Something in it all, however, reminded me of the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt, and God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart. 

So many chances have been given to the Palestinians and they have not taken one step toward peace. Annapolis is one more chance.

Beware the Sea of Reeds...

The Approaching Annapolis Fiasco

Bret Stephens in this morning's WSJ on the "peace" conference in Annapolis:

Why...hold a conference at all? The short answer is that Condoleezza Rice demands one, and she has spent countless hours over eight mostly fruitless trips to the region this year trying to arrange it. But this hardly addresses the deeper mystery of why this administration has gotten itself caught in the Venus flytrap of the Arab-Israeli conflict, after vowing not to do so, and why it has done so with a degree of ineptitude that recalls the dimmer moments of the Carter administration. Maybe it's a matter of bureaucratic inertia. Or maybe it's about being seen to try. Or maybe it's the kind of fourth-quarter, fourth down Hail Mary pass that appeals to a secretary of state with a mania for football and a thin record of accomplishment. Then again, maybe it doesn't really matter.

But look on the bright side: Annapolis may yet serve us well as an object lesson in how diplomacy--the competent kind--just isn't done.

Read the whole thing.

The Al Durah Case - - UPDATED

I've been meaning to write about this subject, but it's big and complex and I just haven't had the time to get thoughts together and do it justice.  It is the story of a great lie; the death of a young Arab boy and his father, falsely blamed on Israeli brutality. It was spread far and wide in the media and used as propaganda against Israel.  At last, now vindication has occurred - but will it be reported as widely and vigorously as the original untruth?   Oceanguy has written an excellent summary of the story with supporting links. Don't miss it.

Update - commentary from David Frum:

The Al-Dura Affair - David Frum
A 55-second film clip that purports to show the shooting death of a 12-year-old boy at a Gaza crossroads was broadcast on France's TV 2 on Sept. 30, 2000. Yet evidence has been gathering for years that the shooting of Mohammad al-Dura was entirely staged. The 55-seconds are not a continuous sequence, but are made up of six distinct pieces spliced together. There is no shot of the boy actually being hit, nor is there any sign of blood. Nor does the father make any move toward his son. The crowd in the background cries out that the boy is dead before he falls over. Video of the incident taken by other photographers shows passersby walking unconcernedly between the crouching al-Duras and the Israeli post from which the bullets were supposedly fired. (National Post)

Also:

France 2 Cooks the Raw Footage - Nidra Poller (Pajamas Media-Canada)

Telling it Like it is

Norman Podhoretz responds to Andrew Sullivan.

Oh Shut Up

Calling King Carlos:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened an OPEC summit on Saturday with a chilling warning about US$200 oil if the United States attacks Iran in a speech that also urged the cartel to be more political.

Show me one text of Palestinian history, or any book on their literature, their politics, their sports, their customs, their dress, their recipes, their jokes, etc, written before the 1970s. Where is there a book on the poetry of Palestine, on their legends, their children’s fables, their songs? Is it possible for a unique people to exist who do not leave a record of themselves in some such way? But in fact, that record only came into being after 1967 when Israel conquered the territories. Only then did the Arabs of the area first begin to speak of themselves as Palestinians, as a unique people deprived of their nation. - A comment on a must-read post

Annapolis "Peace"

The Annapolis peace conference will be a farce, plain and simple.  I don't understand where Rice, Olmert or Bush are coming from, pushing for a peace settlement with a Palestinian leader who does not have control over the Palestinian people. Abbas can't (won't?) even stem the flow of rockets being fired into Israel on a daily basis - how can he negotiate for peace? 

And what sort of a peace conference begins with pre-demands being made and concessions being given before even sitting down to talk? Where are the Palestinian concessions? Just this past weekend:

Palestinian Rocket Attack Destroys Five Cars in Sderot - Mijal Grinberg
A Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza set fire to five cars in Sderot Saturday morning. At least 10 Kassam rockets and mortars were fired by Palestinians in Gaza at Israel during the weekend. (Ha'aretz)
    See also Palestinian Rocket Lands Near Ashkelon Neighborhood - Shmulik Hadad
A loud explosion rocked Ashkelon's southern neighborhoods Monday morning as a Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza landed south of the city. Several rockets have been fired at Ashkelon over the past two weeks. One of the residents living nearby said that "the explosion was so strong my house trembled. We are used to Kassam rockets, but far from here, in the industrial zone. This is the first time the rocket lands so close. It was terrifying." Security sources said that the firing of rockets at the Ashkelon area has recently become more accurate. Several rockets landed near strategic facilities in the city over the past few weeks, one of them causing damage. (Ynet News)

The US is pressuring Israel and Olmert is a weak leader. I just don't know what Condoleezza Rice is doing, and it appears, neither does she.

The US calls for Israel to release more Palestinian prisoners, ignoring the meaning and consequences for the Israelis:

Protestors gathered at the Rose Garden opposite the Prime Minister's office Monday morning to demonstrate against the government's decision to release hundreds of Palestinian Authority terrorists ahead of next week's planned Annapolis summit.

Among those participating in the protest were Rabbi Dov Lior, who is Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba and a member of the Council of Rabbis in Judea, Samaria and Gaza as well as several Knesset Members. The officials were joined by families of victims of terror and by families of the Jewish activists who remain incarcerated for nationalist activities.

One of the demonstrators was Yisca Lieberman, whose father Rabbi Hillel Lieberman was murdered by Arab terrorists near Joseph's Tomb several years ago. She said she appealed to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter to explain the logic of freeing terrorists who planned to murder Israelis while not freeing Jews who were incarcerated for lesser offenses but added, "No one cares."

What I am afraid of:

1.  Israel will be forced by the US into making unbalanced concessions - similar to those in the past which have led nowhere.

2.  Rocket attacks on civilian targets in Israel will continue.

3.  Palestinians, supported by the entire Arab world, will continue to battle Israel via terror and media propaganda.

4.  Israel will receive zero credit for any concessions it makes.

5.  Responding to Palestinian aggression out of self-protection, Israel will continue to be called the aggressor. 

6.  Antisemites will have a field day when it all falls apart, blaming Israel. They will continue to dissemble, insisting it's not that they hate Jews, it's Israeli government policies they hate.

7.  Israel will be placed in a more precarious position as a result of this "peace process" farce.

The best case scenario as a result of Annapolis will be that things remain exactly the same.

The worst case is anyone's guess.