Name:     Michael L. S.   [E-Mail]
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Shalom, shalom. Interesting news from Eretz Yisrael yesterday.

First, Duvdevan and Tzahal forces apprehended the Fatach-Tanzim terrorist leader of Beit Lechem and his aide who were wanted for carrying out several homicide bombings in the past couple of years The two were seized at the Holy Family maternity hospital where they had also hidden a large cache of weapons, consisting of machine guns, AK-47s, rifles with telescopic sights, a huge amount of ammunition, cellphones and assorted paraphernalia. This just to remind all the Jew-haters out there who cry murder when we operate against hospitals that hospitals, as well as ambulances, are very actively used by terrorists in their genocidal deeds. Congratulations to Shabak for another job well done.

Then Egyptian military forces uncovered and assisted in obliterating two weapons-smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Aza. It looks like even the Egyptians have had enough of Palestinian terrorist antics. And of course, now there's proof from "the other side" that Tzahal's operations earlier this year in Rafach when Palestinian property was demolished in the search for such tunnels was no a sadistic rampage but a genuine military operation.

MEMRI brings us an interesting translation of an interview with Dr. Sa'ad bin Tefla (former Kuwaiti journalist and comms minister) in which he talks about the Arab culture and its putative propensity of violence. If you don't read anything else this week, this is well worth it; only a few paragraphs. Dr. bin Tefla reminisces about the civil strife in Algeria and pre-war Iraq which claimed hundreds of times more victims than the casualties the Palestinians sustained in the self-initiated "intifada". He reasons that this shows that the "occupation" and Zionism cannot logically be the source of violence and deprecation of the value of life in the Arab society. He could also have mentioned the massacre in Chama when the Syrians offed as many fellow Arabs (almost all civilians) in twenty-odd days than Israel killed as collateral damage in almost four years. Or the Black September when 15,000 Palestinians were murdered by the Hashemite Jordanian forces. Well, it took four decades for an Arab to say what Dr. bin Tefla did but hey, better late than never, right. After all, the Europeans were slaughtering each other for over a millennium before the EU was formed and, with it, peace brought permanently to that continent.

And finally, young Gal Fridman won gold yesterday in the wind-surfing competition at the Athens Olympics. It is Israel's very first Olympic gold. Mazel tov, Gal! The first gold medal at a major tournament was won for Israel by pole vaulter Alex Averbukh a couple of years ago at the European Athletics Championships. Poignantly, the ETA took place in Muenchen (Munich) thirty years following the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists in that very place. As the flag of the State of Israel was being raised to the tune of HaTiqvah, it is difficult to conjure up the emotions that must have been swelling in Alex. He will be competing in the pole-vault finals tomorrow so we wish him bonne chance!

Next time: how the chairman Arafat's Palestinian authority calculatedly libels Jews and brainwashes its people into anti-Semitism.

L'hitra'ot...

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I was going to write something more intellectual but it's too late and I'm terribly sleepy, so a joke from LADYBWEAR instead:

"A team of archeologists were excavating in Israel when they came upon a cave. On the wall of the cave were five symbols in this order of appearance: a woman, a donkey, a shovel, a fish and a star of David. It was considered a unique find, estimated to be over 3,000 years old. Archeologists came from all over the world to study these ancient symbols.

"After months of study they held a big meeting to discuss the meaning of the symbols. The president of the society of archeologists pointed at the first drawing and said: 'This looks like a woman, therefore this race was family oriented and held women in high esteem. You can also say they were intelligent, as the next symbol resembles a donkey, so they were smart enough to use animals to help them till the soil. Further proof of their high intelligence is the fish symbol which means that they had a secondary food source in case of famine The last symbol appears to be the star of David which leads one to suppose they were Hebrews.' The audience applauded enthusiastically.

"But a little old man stood up at the back of the room and said: 'Idiots!! Hebrew is read from right to left; so the message reads: Holy mackerel, dig the ass on that woman!'" =))))))))

Have a shabat shalom...

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Shalom and a belated shavua tov!

A thousand and a half Palestinian security prisoners began a hunger strike a couple of days ago demanding better conditions. In particular, they demand unlimited family visits, access to computers and unlimited use of cellphones.

Hm... Let's see... Britain, for instance, has probably the most liberal prison system in the world. But even there and even in the most relaxed category D jails inmates do not have such liberties. Category D (open) prisons accommodate the most menial of "offenders", people who can leave the compound during the day and return in the evening. They can also work "outside". These Palestinian prisoners, however, are terrorists: individuals who did or conspired to do serious murderous acts against the Israeli people. Such scum would in Britain languish in category AA prison and in the US in Guantanamo. Forget cellphones, they'd hardly be allowed to have a towel. Therefore, not only are these demands unreasonable, they are downright ludicrous!

But the strike won't last long. Our authorities have, as always, devised an ingenious and rather humorous way to break the strike: katzinim will be barbecuing meat below these prisoners' cell windows, as well as leave steaks, falafel and baclavas on their window ledges. =)) You couldn't make it up!

Meanwhile a terrorist severely stabbed a shoter in East Yerushalayim yesterday. The stab wounds were to the neck and the aim was to slit the mishmar's throat. However, even so seriously wounded, the hero shoter managed to draw his handgun and fire four bullets into the assailant before collapsing. The terrorist animal was shot dead. Barukh haShem!

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Remember a few days ago how the governments in the US and England whipped up hysteria by saying there was an increased chance of a "terrorist" attack? Of course, the media bought it like idiots and just added oil to fire by making it headline news and showing piglets prancing around like dickheads in their helmets and kevlar on the streets of New York and London. And what was this "threat" information based on? Why, sources from the "intelligence," bien sur! Now, would that be the same "intelligence" which initiated an illegal aggression of Iraq and tried to justify it with total lies? Yes, the same.

Standard.

I have to bitch about something that really infuriated me yesterday (well, earlier today). I was doing one of my relatively frequent deep scans of the hard disk drive and whaddaya know: it turned out I had spyware residing on it. I knew how I'd gotten it--I had no-one but myself to blame. So, I followed the directions for removing it which basically consisted of a clean uninstall using the Add/Remove Programs panel. I thought that was it and just did another scan to make sure, being the perfectionist that I am (or as some may put it: being pernickety). But lo and behold, the son of a bitch was clocked again! I was astounded, so I went to the Internet to find out about this knave. (BTW, it's eZula Toptext and probably 99 out of a hundred of you have it installed on your computers, too.)

In short, I stayed up till Five in the morning like a total loser utilizing all the expertise I have and at least fifteen different programs to eradicate that mother. It really monumentally pissed me off. The reason UNWISE hadn't removed it was that the bastard retains a downloader/installer even AFTER uninstalling the program the regular way. This downloader/installer is invoked by a piece of code on a page or something of the sort (no-one seems to know for sure) and it then reinstalls eZula without any action or knowledge on your, the user's, part! It is not too pernicious compared to spyware in general: it won't steal your passwords or credit card numbers, etc. But it does transmit unknown information to a third-party server whenever you send an HTTP request (ie. click on or activate a hyperlink). The worst part is that it acts as a process of Internet Explorer and so firewalls cannot stop it using normal settings. If you are infected, first try to follow the instructions on the web page I gave you above. If it doesn't take care of the matter, try spyware removal programs. If all fails, the simplest way is not to remove but "castrate" it. To do this, activate program component control on your firewall (you DO have a firewall, right?), close any instances of Internet Explorer, delete Internet Explorer from your firewall list of trusted programs, reopen it and start surfing. You'll get a deluge of alerts from various MSIE components trying to access the Internet. Vet them making sure one of them is not eZula, TopText, HotText and similar and when you come across one of them, permanently deny it access. My method is too complicated to explain because eZula files change names and there's no way of knowing what monikers the ones on your computer have assumed.

Now here is what really incenses me beyond measure: it's bad enough that an advertizing company not only initially installs something on your own machine without your knowledge--I mean, if you take cold-callers, spam and so on, the advertizing industry is not the most scrupulous of sectors anyway--but very calculatedly and dastardly LIES to you about what it does to your very own computer!!! It piggybacks on one of your most used programs, usurps your Internet connexion (and slows it down, of course), and generally abuses your machine by doing things to it only you, the owner, should have the right to do. If it were a Microsoft component required for smooth operation of your OS, it would be understandable. But it isn't: its sole purpose is to force advertizing down your throat. And the worst, most aggravating facet of this is that what eZula are doing is COMPLETELY IN ACCORDANCE WITH LAW!!! They are happily based in the US, wheeling and dealing, getting revenue from partners, infesting our computers with sleazy crap and no-one can do anything to them! That's the US for you, where the companies, not consumers, are king.

Shalom shalom...

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Shalom. An offshoot of Chairman Arafat's Fatach terror organization, the al-Aqsa brigades, carried out a terrorist attack on a machsom in the vicinity of Jerusalem earlier today. Thanks to the efficacy of our anti-terrorist barrier for which we were rapped by the despicably anti-Semitic UN and ICJ, Palestinian terrorist cowards now execute their murderous deeds in Yesha itself. Yesterday they "bravely" attacked an automobile and bus transporting people (civilians) to work. Is it any surprise these chickenshit scum ignored Tzahal jeeps which regularly patrol the road in question and instead sought to murder innocent civilians? Hardly.

The machsom assaulted today was one of the main crossings for Yehuda Palestinians who work in Israel proper. And this attack today will now very probably result in Tzahal making another incursion into PA-administered territory, demolition of the terrorist's property and a certain closure of this machsom. And now tell me: WHO is responsible for the perpetuation of this conflict, and WHO is responsible for the hardship the Palestinians are forced to endure? Of course, the world will overlook this act of terrorism and instead bitch at us when we close the machsom, accusing us of exacerbating the already dire welfare of the Palestinian people. Well, fuck you.

And yet another level-headed and sober move by the European Union today; this one really boggles the mind but then we shouldn't find anything the goyim serve on us astonishing anymore. Barely a few weeks after EU's foreign minister tactfully told us he would dictate to Israel what to do whether we liked it or not, the EU decided to bestow no less than € 1.6 million on the Palestinians who had their houses demolished in Aza this spring. Read the HaAretz report here. Now, bear in mind two things here: (a) Tzahal demolishes Palestinian property if they same is owned by perpetrators of lethal terrorist acts and/or if that property is used directly or indirectly in perpetration of terrorist acts (ie. if it serves as a weapons cache, sniper nest, hideout, conceals weapons smuggling tunnels and similar), and (b) the EU has to date not given a cent to VICTIMS of Palestinian terrorists, whether it be Israelis or Palestinians themselves.

Let's even leave aside that this move removes pretty much the only disincentive to commit terror acts, ie. the knowledge that your family will have nowhere to live if you murder innocent people, but the way in which this move was announced speaks volumes. Again, Israel was violently upbraided by the Europeans who haven't experienced terrorism, let alone a war, in decades. So yes, vituperate the victim of multiple aggressions which is trying to protect itself, reward perpetrators of murderous terrorism and then say you want to be an honest broker in the Middle East peace process. Well, bite me. I'm almost beginning to wish for another Madrid, this time in Bruxelles. But I don't, I'm not like the Europeans and it's not all the same to me if innocent people are murdered by a brainwashed, crazed, fanatical maniac. I hate to repeat myself but history has shown that not for a single generation were Jews really tolerated anywhere in Europe--certainly not truly accepted--so we have to always remember that we are strangers everywhere but in Eretz Yisrael. And should we give a shit that this same Europe which has been busier persecuting us than doing anything else ever since the ancient Greeks' era (except maybe slaughtering each other over transubstantiation and supererogation {grin}) is now not letting us live peacefully in our own land?! Absolutely and resoundingly no!

By the way, anyone noticed the recent events in Sudan? You know, the Arab militiae's incessant raids on refugee camps where they engaged with great gusto in plundering, looting, raping, exiling and murdering the destitute people who were forced to move from their habitations several times already in their lives. Or is that irrelevant because these bestialities are not perpetrated by Jews? A bit of posturing by the UN is all we've gotten so far. Why is that? Any guesses?

B'hatzlacha...

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Heye shalom!

Today was interesting and amusing as days go. First, I discovered a very funny blog. One of the last entries was about religion so that tickled my interest. It's not as serious as my pearls of wisdom but it makes up for it with humor. Following is an excerpt that cracked me up. Find the entire blog here.

"Things I have to steer clear of when talking to my mother: religion, politics, health care, actually basically anything all. All I am allowed to say to her is "Yes, Mom I agree with you." ERG! Okay so like I was watching this thing on ABC about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and De Vinci. Okay the reporter on that was like biased, geez. Aight, so I think there's a possibility that Jesus was married, and my mom freaked out. She said I have to pray because like demons are in my mind. WTF? Okay so what if Jesus was married, would that now make his teachings invalid? What some holy man can't get laid? I don't see the big deal about some people thinking he's married or had a relationship with a woman. My mom said she knows Jesus wasn't married because he talked to her uhhhhh... what are you smoking? I told her it was a lie and it was satan talking to her. haha. You can't believe all the stuff a church or the church tells ya. Like didn't they say the world was flat and everything revolved around it?"

Bitchin'!

OK, and then I saw a rather conspicuous advert for a shareware program on a site. Unfortunately, I didn't save the site's URL but I managed to track it down today. Get this:
"Media Detective is a software tool for helping you remove pornographic media from your PC. Media Detective scans media files on the computer, such as pictures and movies, to check whether they contain adult content. This is accomplished by opening and inspecting the files for skin tone present. The files are then rated according to their potential for obscenity and are displayed."


Jesus H. Christ!! What is THAT all about??! Are those guys for real!?! What is it with the humankind (well, the "western" part of it anyway) and nudity/pornography? I see the centuries of religious infestation of the European mind and the current rampage of religious zealotry in the US still play a huge role. We're supposed to be a progressive society and there's outcry at the sight of a naked boob. For crying out loud! Yes, there'll be the usual screams of "But think about the children!!" That's pathetic: hiding behind the welfare of children to propagate one's own bigotry and dogma... When did seeing a naked woman or man harm anyone, old OR young? And yes, even if it's scenes of sex, so what? What POSSIBLE basis is there to claim seeing pictures of such acts is undesirable for children?! It's prudishness and obsession which make people write such programs that are inauspicious to the development of a society.

(And yes, I know it's not just some in the "west" who have such attitudes but eg. Muslims as well. I just like to think that while the Islamic society is at the stage Europe was at a few centuries ago, the "western" world has moved on from such mishegoss.)

And finally, I received my new router yesterday and went about installing it today. It's a nice, wireless number, very well designed and obviously of good quality. I configured it very easily even though I'd by mistake purchased the German version. It will support three computers when I fully implement it (today was just the testing stage). In short, it worked perfectly and it was a cinch getting it to. The biggest problem was my inanity which saw me nearly punching thru a fridge door in anger at a problem whose solution was all the time staring me right in the face. But isn't it always like that... {grin}

There's another part to this story, to wit, the whole exercise will have cost me less than € 130/- (I still have to procure a PCI wireless adapter for my desktop). Now, after I had gotten broadband around the middle of June I enlisted a couple of companies to devise a wireless solution for my apartment which would network my two laptops and a desktop. Even though I made this move I had figured out myself beforehand that all that would be required would be a wireless router which would serve as a wireless access point and hence act as a kind of bridge between the modem and the machines. Having done some research I knew getting a wireless router would not set me back more than € 100/-. Can you then imagine my reaction when one of the companies gave me a quote for, get this: € 1,120/- (one-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty euros)! (The other one took too long to get back to me so I told them to save it.) € 1,120/-!! I still can't get over it. Immediately I began schwitzing like a pig reckoning: had I missed something, were my dreams far costlier than I had even thought to imagine? It soon became apparent I hadn't and they weren't. These schnooks presumed to charge me for PCMCIA cards which were very happily already ensconced in the notebooks I had or was about to get--that's € 200/- right there! Then there was the router but also a separate wireless access point! € 350/-. Installation of all that shit: € 200/- (ten minutes' work at most). Then sales tax and some other crap. I thought they were kidding but they were deadly serious. I told them to shove it and did it all myself for a tenth of their proposed cost. I always had that nagging doubt at the back of mind: AM I missing something here? But now I know I wasn't and am even more pissed off with them for having tried to pull a fast one like that. Thank goodness I'm at least well versed in computer technology so I knew better and didn't fall for it. But imagine how many people get taken in like that...

So the moral of this story is: remember there are assholes out there who will stop at nothing to rip you off anyway they can.

B'shalom...

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Shalom, shalom and shavua tov!

What great news from Eretz Tzion today: according to Misrad HaTayarut, over 1.5 million tourists will visit Israel this year which will be over half the pre-2000 (record) level and a marked improvement on the past three years. If you're toying with the idea of being one of the million and a half, visit the Ministry for more information.

* * *

I meant to write about the following days ago but never got round to it. Well, a couple of weeks ago (9 Av/July 27) was Tisha b'Av, ie. the Fast of Av. That day is the culmination of three weeks of remembrance of and mourning for the disasters which have befallen the Jewish nation over the millennia, especially the two destructions of the Temple (by the Babylonians and Romans) which both transpired in the month of Av, as did other calamities such as the expulsion of Jews from Spain. But what I want to point to is a passage from haTanakh written by Zekharia haNavi which I came across by happenstance. Perek 8:


Bear in mind, that was written right after the return from the first exile in Babylon when the very nation needed to be rebuilt. But it also had a prophetic meaning. It came before the catastrophes which one after another came upon the Jews: the virtual annihilation at the hands of the Romans; the pogroms in Xian Spain (several times), Ireland, England, France, Poland, Belarus, the Baltic states, Russia; Shoah in which 75% of European Jews were wiped out; the million Jews refuged from the Arab world; the perpetual conflict in the Middle East...

And yet, the prophecy came true: Yerushalayim IS the capital of Eretz Israel, old women and men DO sit in the city's parks and children DO play on its streets. Amazing when you think about it. Barukh Atah, Adonai, Melekh haolam!

Kol tuv.

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You know what they say: with friends like these... Get this: the general assembly of the US Presbyterian church has voted to divest from only one country in the world. No, it was not China, which has occupied Tibet for half a century and continues to deny basic human rights to its own citizens. No, it was not Iran, which threatens nuclear holocaust, executes dissenters and denies religious freedom to its minorities. No, it was not North Korea, Libya, Russia, Sudan, Cuba or Belarus. It was--you guessed it--Israel: the only democracy in the Middle East and America's most reliable ally in a troubled part of the world. Alan Dershowitz comments on this decision in his LA Times article.

Bear in mind that the Presbyterian church is one of the strongest Xian organizations in the US. When I rail against Xian fundamentalism and evangelical movements I am always reminded by readers how staunch allies of Tzion particularly these groups are. Well, in your face: this proves, for who knows which time, that we can NOT trust anyone but ourselves. It was ludicrous to think otherwise even while we and these particular fundamentalist Xians WERE bedfellows--after all, how can you trust someone whose ultimate wish/goal is to see you convert to Xianity?!? Yes, it is good to have supporters from various circles and we should welcome their support. But let's not get too cozy with them or forget that at the end of the day it is only "we and ourselves". If our supposed friends can buy the bullshit that "the occupation is the root of terrorism", never mind the crap Alan relates in his report, then is it any wonder the historically Jew-abhorring Europe or anti-Semite-saturated United Nations seemingly spend most of their time pillorying Israel?

* * *

A privacy newsletter I've been receiving for years now carried a snippet last week about the ICJ's decision concerning Israel's anti-terrorist barrier (read MY comment on it here), and it ended the piece with it's own op-ed which I quote verbatim: "[The organization's] comment: And people wonder why some are blowing themselves and others up?"

Saying something like that is just so fucking stupid that I don't know where to BEGIN debunking that or similar remarks along the lines "Palestinians use terrorism [or even milder: "militancy"!!!] because they are desperate, poor, outgunned" or any number of affecting epithets. Cherie Blair said this a couple of years back, the ignorant cow. There are retards who go as far as comparing Palestinian terrorists to the French Resistance!

Somebody pass the sick bag and make it a super-size one. So, the Palestinians have to be the most woebegone, impecunious, oppressed, despondent, desolate, doomed and endangered nation ever to have existed on the face of this planet. Forget the starving Ethiopians, the Sierra Leonean amputees, the Sudanians who are exiled from their temporary homes several times a year, the abducted Ugandan children who are doped up and turned into child warriors, the Kashmiri women who have acid thrown in their faces if they don't cover the same, the Tibetans who've been living under real and UNPROVOKED occupation for much longer than the Palestinians, the Saudis who are lashed, mutilated or murdered by the state for the smallest and inadvertent infractions of the most punitive code ever to have been devised in the world, the rural Indians who have no choice but to work in sweatshops for 18 hours 365 days a year and STILL cannot feed themselves, let alone their families. No, forget all of them and many more, and let's talk about the Palestinians.

The Palestinians are a new concept: dating back to the late 1970s when it became obvious Israel would not be defeated militarily and that self-determination is a tried, tested and effective notion. If you look at all contemporary records in existence, you will see nowhere any mention of "Palestinians" as a nation or national group. Up to and in 1948 they were Arabs, just as were Egyptians, Syrians and Iraqi. The pan-Arabist conscience was very strong. Then seven Arab states attacked the nascent Medinat Yisrael thinking to obliterate it. They miscalculated, got burned and created several hundred thousand Arab refugees in the process. In the intervening years the fedayeen militiamen executed daily raids into Israel, killing, torching and abducting. Following incessant provocations from Syria, Egypt and the fedayeen, Israel conducted the Six-Day War and occupied Yesha. THAT is when the occupation began, in other words, twenty full years following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and the Arab world. So no, you Presbyterian dickheads, terrorism did NOT start with the occupation and therefore the occupation is NOT the root of terrorism.

Fast forward thru the Arab aggression in 1972 when they thought they'd sneak one in on Yom Kipur, and Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon (which was already ravaged by a ten year civil war started by Arafat after he had been kicked out of Jordan where he had tried to stage a coup d'etat), and the period when the Arabs of Aza reached the second highest life-expectancy in the Arab world after Israeli Arabs, and we come to the Oslo Accords and, in particular, 1996. In 1996 Tzahal withdrew from ALL Palestinian authority areas, to wit, THE OCCUPATION ENDED. It was the first chance for the Palestinians to build that state of theirs they had so long supposedly longed for. To this end Arafat got billions of euros from the EU, US and other supranational associations. What did other nations do when they gained independence, especially after a long and hard struggle? Well, Slovenia just joined the EU and Croatia will do so in a couple of years' time. East Timor is silently building up its economy and society, following twenty-eight years of brutal repression. And the epitome of a long and hard struggle, Israel, grew into the most prosperous and advanced-in-every-respect country in the wider region. What did the Palestinians do, or more precisely, their leadership? They continued churning out hate-filled anti-Semitic rhetoric, arming the infinite terrorist factions, lining their own pockets with foreign donations and aid, denying the existence of Israel in schoolbooks and the media and generally acting as if nothing had changed. They did absolutely diddly-squat to improve the lot of Arabs living under PA rule, especially people who were existing as refugees in squalid camps for almost half a century. This was the time for the Palestinians and their elected leader, chairman Arafat, to show they are capable of extirpating terrorism and building a new state based on democracy (even if it be of the Arab type) and rule of law.

What happened instead? When push came to shove at Camp David and Arafat was given the opportunity to end the war, establish a sovereign Palestinian state and run it, he baulked. Running an actual country rather than a regime whose sole purpose is conducting warfare against Israel was something Arafat could not do. So he abandoned Camp David with the excuse that he didn't like then Rosh haMemshalah Barak's offer (he never tried to renegotiate or propose a counter offer though which is further evidence he was not interested in ending the conflict for good, there and then, and achieving what he SAYS has always been the Palestinian dream: a state in Yesha). He went back to Ramallah and itched to resume the conflict. For this he used the then retired politician Ariel Sharon's visit September 2000 to the holiest site of Judaism: the Temple Mount which is also the site of the al-Aqsa mosque. This visit was putatively a provocation which warranted the discontinuation of all negotiations with Israel and resumption of a veritable war which has claimed four thousand lives since. Before and since that September 2000, with and without the occupation, Arafat, his cronies and the entire PA has not done absolutely anything to help improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians. They have very slyly and calculatedly kept these people in penury, squalor and with their minds focused on nothing but the unnecessary conflict with Eretz Tzion and blamed the latter for the former.

So: first of all, the Palestinians are NOT the most desperate, oppressed, impoverished, blah, blah, blah people in the world--far from it. Secondly, Israel is NOT to blame for whatever state they are in. Thirdly, the conflict did NOT start with the occupation. Therefore, you have to be a mightily fucked-in-the-head imbecile to contend that homicide bombers and other terrorists murder innocent people in Israel because they are desperate by reason of the occupation. Either that, or you're an anti-Semite and biased against Jews whatever the actual state of affairs is.

As far as the French Resistance comparisons, puh-motherfucking-lease. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the French Resistance blew up bridges, railroad lines, factories, convoys and military installations, not pizzerias, cafes, kindergartens, shopping malls and buses in Berlin. Nor do I remember the French Resistance using 10-year-olds to smuggle explosives thru enemy checkpoints. Nor do I recall the French Resistance using children as human shields, getting them to "throw rocks at tanks" (as if) while the Resistance "fighters" (my ass) stood behind them and shot from real hardware. But hey, I could be wrong. Maybe the French Resistance WERE chickenshit cowards who sniped down babies in buggies, stole childhood from their offspring by inculcating lethal hatred in them and murdered civilians while forgoing obvious military targets.

Somehow, I don't think so.

Have a shavua tov l'hitraot.

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Tzahal has produced an excellent video detailing all one needs to know about the anti-terrorist barrier. Hey, if you don't download a single other video this year, get this. (And that includes those cheap porn "preview" videos.) This one really is worth it if you have ANY interest in the problems of the Middle East.

See the video


And on a somewhat related notion, a Palestinian "ambulance" driver was arrested earlier and is now in Shabak's custody. He tried to pass a machsom near Sh'chem (Nablus) with his Red Crescent vehicle when Tzahal's spanking new explosives detector went off. The guy had traces of explosive in his "ambulance." This, of course, comes on top of innumerable examples of Red Crescent vehicles being used for terrorist purposes, whether to transport terrorists and explosives or to commit homicide bombings. So, when another asshole comes to you and bitches about the "evil Jews not letting thru Palestinian ambulances", point them to:

• Explosives Found in Palestinian Ambulance,


• Palestinian Misuse of Medical Services to Further Terrorist Activity,


• IDF arrests Palestinian ambulance driver carrying explosives,


or this latest incident:


• Palestinian ambulances used to transport bombs.

Not the best of notes to end the week on but nevertheless have a shabat shalom.

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Shalom aleichem!

You may know that as of lately, particularly post-9/11, there has been a rather heated up debate going on in parts of the Arab world. The protagonists of change who mostly utilize the Internet are the Arab version of the Anti-Defamation League or those opposing creationist "science" in the US. Of course, they are weak both numerically and in terms of strength but nevertheless they have attracted fierce opprobrium from the fundamentalist, nationalistic and authoritarian circles. (For an example of the level and content of these debates, see the latest MEMRI piece: it features a rant by Dr. Faysal Al-Qassem (conservative) and the response by Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi (liberal).)

I won't attempt to scrutinize Al-Qassem's call-it argument but one thing I will comment on because it is relevant to us in Israel and the so-called "western" world. He said: "How is it that the neo-liberal Arabs call for tolerance while taking the lead in accusing [others] of heresy? Doesn't liberalism advocate acceptance of others and interaction with all factions?" So, he is putting to us that a liberal professes to be tolerant, therefore they have to be tolerant of ALL, ie. something along the lines of Voltaire's famous "Je hais vos idees mais je me ferai tuer pour que vous ayez le droit de les exprimer." In the same vein I got a multitude of comments from diverse Jew-haters a couple of years ago when I was campaigning for the Italian government to rescind permission for a Shoah-denial "conference" to take place. My word, the torrent of accusations: I'm against freedom of speech, I'm against freedom of association, I'm against freedom of expression. Name a freedom, I was against it.

Was I? No. But I recognize and accept that any freedom is absolute so long as exercising it is not transcended by its negative impingement on another individual, part or whole of society. Freedom of speech is already rightly curtailed: there are provisions against hate-speech, incitement, libel and slander, criminal provocation, etc. Why are you not allowed to say n*gger? Because the upset your saying so is likely to cause to an "officious bystander" is of more precedence in a civilized and progressive society than your right to say it. It not just actions likely to offend or defame but also actions aimed at altering the character and fabric of the society, be it demographically, intellectually or integrationally. And so if your speech has the potential effect of altering people's understanding of historical facts with a view to getting them to change their views about the subject(s) of those facts, the likely result is more perilous to the society than abridging your right to propagate such speech. Concretely, seeking to convince people that haShoah never took place is designed to change the wider public's perception of Jews for the worse (not just portray us as liars and profiteers but feed that into the various wacko theories about the Institute's involvement in 9/11 or our absolute domination of banks, this military, that government, the Earth's orbit around the Sun and whatnot). Given the humankind's experience of what happens when goyim's view of Jews is negatively changed, banning attempts to convince people that haShoah did not occur is preferable to risking even just a lot of hurt and upset, never mind another Kristallnacht.

You may retort: shouldn't people be allowed to make up their own minds? In an ideal world, yes. But we all know this is not it. In a perfect world, the vast majority of people would invest the time to undertake a thorough study of both or all points of view regarding an issue. They would studiously and impartially examine the evidence for, against and otherwise and be intelligent and critical enough to make up their own minds. And even once they did make up their own minds, they should be advanced enough not to act rashly, with bile, intolerance or belligerence. But as we all know, that simply does not happen. We saw what such propaganda can occasion; and I'm not even talking about the Nazi Germany. Think of Rwanda and the Tutsi "cockroaches" or Yugoslavia with Milosevic's "all Serbs in one state" or Tudman's "red devils" or indeed al-Queda and all the "infidels". This may sound patronizing but people do not have the time, desire, sense of urgency, responsibility or even intelligence to do this for every contentious issue. (That is why pure democracy could never work in practice but more on that some other time.)

So, in response to Al-Qassem's postulate, being a liberal does not entail accepting, let alone fraternizing, with elements which are deliberately pernicious vis-a-vis an individual or (part of) society, never mind those who actively seek to change the very character of that society into what is generally perceived as a retrograde direction.

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