Tel-Chai Nation

Michelle Malkin discusses how the anti-war moonbats seem to be enjoying the reports of the body count in Iraq reaching 2000 this week, simply so they can find yet one more umpteenth excuse to protest the war, but not for concern for the troops. Quite the opposite, so that they can do their darndest to support the terrorists trying to take over the country.

Caroline Glick discusses the right strategy in dealing with Syria, and also in dealing with the PLO.

Diana West discusses Dubya's bizarre announcement of the White House's including a Koran in its library. As she says here:

Is it just me, or does the president's gesture of inclusion sock the rest of us in the head? Peaceful Muslims aside, the Koran is indisputably the favorite book to twist for the extremist agendas for Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the killers of Daniel Pearl, Hamas bus bombers, London Underground bombers, and anyone who has ever hidden an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on an Iraqi road to kill or maim an American soldier -- none of which is the best recommendation for White House honors.

But maybe the president meant he would now be reading the Koran. He could start with Chapter 5, Verse 32, which he's taken to quoting as, well, chapter-and-verse evidence of Islam's aversion to bloodshed -- always skipping the fatal exception. Bush will say: Killing an innocent human is like killing all of humanity, and then leave it at that. My translation of the Koran says: "... whosoever kills a human being, except (as punishment) for murder or for spreading corruption in the land, it shall be like killing all humanity." Easy guess that among Bush's Ramadan guests were a few who consider Americans guilty of murder, Israelis innocent of nothing, and both, as non-Muslims, complicit in "spreading corruption in the land" -- and thus deserving death, dismemberment and banishment as outlined in Chapter 5, Verse 33.

See also One Jerusalem's entry on the subject, which I also posted about.

The Washington Times (also via One Jerusalem) writes a very good editorial this week that discusses the fact that the PLO is also guilty of murdering American citizens, including three US citizens during October 15, 2003:

Three of these Americans -- John Branchizio, 37, of Texas, John Linde Jr., 30, of Missouri; and Mark Parsons, 31, of New Jersey -- died in an Oct. 15, 2003 bombing of a U.S. diplomatic convoy travelling in Gaza. The perpetrators used a remote-controlled explosive device which they activated once the Americans were in range. The vehicles, all of which had diplomatic license plates, were traveling on a road that had been closed to Israeli traffic. In other words, this was no case of mistaken identity; the killers knew that they were targeting Americans and they killed them. Moreover, in the weeks leading up to that attack, the Palestinian media intensified anti-American incitement, which included calls for the destruction of the United States and denunciations of this country as Palestinians' "No. 1 enemy."

Here is also an entry on the subject from the blog of Michael Freund, who wrote the column in the Jerusalem Post that that Wash. Times discusses in their own editorial. Plus, here's a discussion on the subject from the Free Republic.

Here's an article from Asharq Alawsat (Hat tip: Sudan Watch) in which Mary Brazier discusses how Sudan is very crucial to the stability of Africa as a whole.

Tom Gross writes a very good article over at Front Page Magazine on how the MSM has no genuine interest whatsoever in Jews who've been victims of terrorist attacks, and in the UK, no mention whatsoever was given by the MSM about Rachel Thaler, a teenager who lived in Britain.

Plus, here's the latest installment of FPM's War Blog.

On FOX News, via the AP wire, it's asked as to who's running Syria. The answer is none other than Bashar Assad, but, as they point out, he's trying to convince the world that he's not mainly in charge when it comes to his own country. And if I'm right, Patrick Seale, a British "expert" on Syria who was really a "toadie" for the previous Assad, may be trying to confuse things here when he says that:

"Is Bashar totally in power? That is a difficult question to answer, but there certainly are centers of power around him, including some within the family," said Patrick Seale, a British expert on Syria who has written extensively about Hafez Assad.

It'd be much more satisfying if these "experts" would just be willing to confront the hard-hitting Q&As seriously, and be willing to admit more clearly that Bashar Assad is the sole one who's truly in charge of the country. Either way, Mr. Seale is just not reliable when it comes to these kind of questions on autocratic countries like Syria.

From the great Front Page Magazine: the mind of Bashar Assad.

It doesn't surprise me in the least that he's no different from his predecessor.

From the Jerusalem Post:

"...the retreat is heating up the political climate within Israel, bringing back the dangerous mood of exaggeration, incivility, hostility and even lawlessness. The prospect of thousands of Israelis evicted from their homes under threat of force is rudely interrupting what had been a trend toward a more healthy atmosphere during the relative calm of 2001-03."

One of the worst things about the Oslo agreement was that it had the effect of encouraging hostility and division amongst Israelis left and right. Sharon's willingness to go ahead with this kind of trash only serves to encourage more of such.

And, from the NY Post, on Syria's claim it'll withdraw its troops from Lebanon:

"The announcement was made in Damascus by U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara, who insisted the withdrawal would satisfy all the requirements of a Security Council resolution enacted last year.

Not so fast.

For one thing, that resolution also requires the dismantling of independent militias operating inside Lebanon. And as the Israeli foreign ministry notes, "The only militia of any significance in Lebanon today is Hezbollah" — the terrorist organization responsible for scores of anti-Israeli attacks.

And Hezbollah has made it clear — as recently as last week — that it will only disarm when it chooses to disarm, which won't be any time soon.

Moreover, there may be some serious Syrian subterfuge at work.

The Daily Star, a Beirut newspaper, reports: "Syria is setting up a secret intelligence operation outside Beirut and is working through its allies in Lebanon" — i.e., Hezbollah — "to maintain its influence over the country even after it withdraws troops."

The paper finds that "Damascus is bringing in officials who will not be recognized in order to staff its hidden presence in Beirut's suburbs." Israeli intelligence officials reportedly have confirmed that Syria has expanded its civilian intelligence forces.

None of this is surprising. Even with the dramatic spread of the pro-democracy movement in the Middle East (personified by the 500,000-strong Beirut protestors demanding Damascus' withdrawal), the speed with which Syrian President Bashar Assad agreed seemed a tad suspicious.

But if it's true that the withdrawal announced so dramatically over the weekend constitutes a sham, that will constitute a new and more immediate challenge, to both Washington and the United Nations."

True, but personally, I wouldn't count on the UN, what with all their scandals and such, to make any convincing effort to ensure that Syrian announcement of retreat won't just be a sham. Most likely that all they'll really do is produce a lot of hot air talk in place of a demand that they comply.

Earlier item from April this year: On WorldNetDaily, we discover that in Britain, the Association of University Teachers wants to blacklist any Israeli professors and universities who refuse to condemn their country's policies towards Arabs, while at the same time leaving out any whose positions coincide with theirs. And the ones whose positions match theirs are "conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state's colonial and racist policies."

This pretty shows how Britain, and even much of Europe, are running the gauntlet of throwing away democratic values for the sake of their own blind, childish bigotry.

As Joseph Farah points out here in defense of Israel:

Let me give you my perspective on this action – the perspective of an Arab-American.

Israel is not a colonial state. It is not a racist state. The Arabs who live in Israel are among the freest Arabs in the world.

Every so-called "Palestinian" college has been created and funded by Israel. There were no Palestinian colleges or universities before 1967. And that is with good reason. Before 1967, there was no such thing as a Palestinian national identity. That notion was invented by Yasser Arafat and his allies post-1967 so they could pursue their plan to eradicate the Jewish state and the Jewish people of the Middle East by posing as victims rather than persecutors.

You can see just how well that insidious plan is working among Europe's hateful, anti-Semitic pseudo-intellectuals. It's working to perfection.

The victim is being blamed for the crime.

Blaming the victim is an act very commonly used in the UK, if anywhere, in Europe. And they almost deliberately act oblivious to the fact that the Arab population here, as Farah points out next:

The AUT's indictment of Israel is short on specifics – with good reason. There simply is no case to be made that Israel is oppressing Arabs, that it is making life unbearable for them, that it is the worst place on earth for them.

In Israel, Arabs vote in free elections. They hold office. They protest. They freely publish newspapers attacking the government.

Arabs don't do this in any other state – with the possible exception of newly liberated Iraq.

In Israel, Arabs are even permitted to teach their revisionist history lessons. They are free to teach the most vile kinds of hatred against Jews and Israelis – even receiving subsidies for those lessons from the suicidal, self-loathing, politically correct and intellectually incorrect Israeli government.

Yet, none of this matters in the rarefied atmosphere of Europe's perverted academic culture.

If you ask me, by refusing to pay any attention to the fact that the Arab population here DOES have democratic rights, all that the UK and other parts of Europe are doing is insulting the very community whose side they claim to be on. Speaking of which, they also do so by ignoring how the PLO, by contrast, has been opressing its subjects in all these years that they've been running their little dictatorship in Gaza and Judea, which includes both committing and allowing other terrorist gangs to commit violations human rights, such as what was reported here, in this article written by Daniel Pipes:

Shortly after Yusra Azzami, 20, strolled with her fiance and her sister on the beach in Gaza last week, vigilantes from Hamas formed suspicions that she was engaged in "immoral behavior." They followed her, shot her dead as she sat in her fiance's car, dragged her corpse out and mutilated it savagely with clubs and iron bars.

Does the UK ever care when obscene crimes like that occur?

In this thoughtful op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, a professor from the Haifa University explains how the boycott of the university by a bunch of British ones is based upon libel.

The University of Haifa--my university--is a different story. This model Jewish-Arab institution, a most unlikely candidate for boycott, was declared to be untouchable by the AUT "until it commits itself to upholding academic freedom, and in particular ceases its victimization of academic staff and students who seek to research and discuss the history of the founding of the state of Israel."

The story embedded here is well worth telling, but not in the way the AUT tells it. "On May 15, 2002," the AUT boycott document declares, "Dr. Ilan Pappe, senior lecturer in Political Science at Haifa University, was sent a letter notifying him that he faced trial and possible dismissal from his position. . . . These accusations related to Dr. Pappe's efforts to defend a 55-year-old graduate student, Teddy Katz, whose Master's thesis was under attack by an Israeli veteran's organization because it documented a massacre of 200 unarmed civilians by the Haganah (the pre-state army of Israel) at a village called Tantura, near Haifa."

This, to put it plainly, is false. Mr. Katz's thesis was based almost solely on transcriptions of oral interviews he conducted with elderly Palestinian former residents of Tantura, who allegedly witnessed a massacre of their kin by Jewish soldiers. When veterans of the Israeli army force that attacked Tantura sued Mr. Katz for libel, a district court ruled that the empirical evidence was grossly manipulated in the course of transliterating the tapes. Mr. Katz had put words in the mouths of his interviewees that were never uttered. He agreed to apologize to the veterans, telling the media that radical activists--including Dr. Pappe--had led him astray.

Frankly, if that's how Britain's education reps are going act, then I'd suggest not attending any of their universities in retaliation for their discriminatory nonsense. In fact, as a prominient Arab-American professor once pointed out when discussing Columbia in NYC, most people he knows usually know to stay away from their own biased campus.

Labels: anti-semitism, islam, londonistan, misogyny, msm foulness, racism, syria, terrorism