Disproportionality of Outrage:

Explaining NGO's Super Pro-Palestinian Lopsidedness:

Via: Z-Blog, this article:

The discussion of armed conflicts, famines and repression elsewhere - Darfur, northern Uganda, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tibet, Burma, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), among other places - seldom rouses such emotions or provokes so many people (including those from the international humanitarian and NGO community) to take to the streets.

This is worth noting because the death-toll in a number of wars around the world since the 1990s alone is much, much higher and the attitude of their belligerents to killing civilians is much, much worse than that in Israel-Palestine. International civil society cares deeply about these other vicious armed conflicts and disasters. It expends enormous effort and resources on trying to publicise them and organise aid for their victims. But the Israel-Palestine conflict, as is evident in the 2008-09 war over Gaza, seems to evoke a disproportionate degree of outrage.

Numbers, and children

Tundra Tabloids blog

So we have to come to some sad conclusions. The Palestinians seem ready to do zilch to protect their children. They'd rather the children be martyred and make good propaganda than to cooperate in saving them. Something we already knew is that Palestinians are not very nice to each other. There seems to be little of the volunteer attitude of taking care of each other that we know from Israel. (I've known for years that even within Israel in Arab villages - where part of the population are "internally exiled" who were evicted from their villages in '48 - these people are still considered refugees and second-class citizens compared to the "real" inhabitants of the villages.)

The UNRWA and Red Cross will not touch a project that might potentially anger their Palestinian hosts - so while they are good at complaining about the humanitarian disaster that Israel has caused in Gaza - they won't move a truck to get children out of the line of fire. Palestinian/Israeli dialogue organizations won't disturb their brotherhood by helping with a project like this. The Palestinians are suspicious and the Israelis won't call them on their suspicions.

I've known for years that any cooperation with Palestinians demands - first-of-all - asking what they want us to do, and then doing it. They don't appreciate it when somebody - on their own initiative offers help. And they mostly don't let facts confuse them - Israelis are fascist racist murderers and they will do everything in their power to be sure their world looks that way.

"Not with Jews"

In the Post newspaper interview, Mr. Erdogan reiterated that his frustration is with the Israeli government, and not with Jews.

Consider some of the comments recorded in this Comment Trail and decide for yourself how Erdogan's extraordinary tantrum and quoting of a well-established antisemite were interpreted by his supporters:

The Furious Passage of Tayyip Erdogan

Erdogan Makes a Fool of Himself, Embarrassing Turkey Publicly

Here is a collection from various media outlets of reactions to Erdogan's royal primadonna tantrum

An Israeli soldier writes to a Gazan

Via: Camera

I swear to you, that if the citizens of Gaza were busy paving roads,
building schools, opening factories and cultural institutions instead of
dwelling in self pity, arms smuggling and nurturing a hatred to your Israeli
neighbors, your homes would not be in ruins right now. If your leaders were
not corrupt and motivated by hatred, your home would not have been harmed.
If someone would have stood up and shouted that there is no point in
launching missiles on innocent civilians, I would not have to stand in your
kitchen as a soldier.



(Read the rest, here)

Why Is Obama re-writing history?

Charles Krauthammer explains:

... Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying "to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,"

... he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to "restore" the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."

Two quotes, one from Obama's inaugural speech, the second from his (somewhat cringing) interview with Al-Arabyia.

To the first statement, Krauthammer replies:

In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The two Balkan interventions -- as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) -- were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?

To the misremembered past in the second statement, Krauthammer responds:

Thirty years ago, 1979, saw the greatest U.S.-Muslim rupture in our 233-year history: Iran's radical Islamic revolution, the seizure of the U.S. Embassy, the 14 months of America held hostage.

Which came just a few years after the Arab oil embargo that sent the United States into a long and punishing recession. Which, in turn, was preceded by the kidnapping and cold-blooded execution by Arab terrorists of the U.S. ambassador in Sudan and his chargé d'affaires.

This is to say nothing of the Marine barracks massacre of 1983, and the innumerable attacks on U.S. embassies and installations around the world during what Obama now characterizes as the halcyon days of U.S.-Islamic relations.

And as for Obama's "grand admonition: "We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name."

Have "we" been doing that, smearing Islam because of a small minority?

George W. Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the fires of Ground Zero were still smoldering, to declare "Islam is peace," to extend fellowship and friendship to Muslims, to insist that Americans treat them with respect and generosity of spirit.

But I wonder, still. It is impossible that Obama is not fully aware of all of the above. I give him huge credit for knowledge and smarts. So what are his intentions by taking this sycophant approach? I'd like to think that this is all about giving the Muslim world an opening, a pull in the right direction. Look at me, he seems to say, a new American president who understands your grievances. I'm conceding to you your need to feel respected and valued. I'm speaking to you as one who shares to some extent your complaints to the US. You have been demanding such acknowledgement for many years now. I've read your media, I've watched your television broadcasts and I've seen the blogs. I know what you long for and I'm granting it to you, now, with hardly any reservations and even against the actual record. Now, how are you going to respond to this new openness? What are you going to do, and say, from your side (the side of the clenched fists) to make this rapprochement possible?

Have we not seen this before, playing on the smaller stage of his election campaign? Remember Rev. Wright? Obama gave two speeches about Wright's excesses. In the first speech, he defended him, he even dragged his old and sick grandmother by way of mitigating for the Reverend's extravagant fulminations. It was only after the Reverend had gone on his damaging media rampage a few weeks later that Obama gave his second speech in which he distanced himself unequivocally from the Jeremiah who had been a father-figure to him.

So I wonder if the same first instincts for generosity and mollification that motivated Obama in the Wright's case are not calculatedly being displayed here in the much larger arena of global politics, and for much bigger stakes.

Remember this interview with Obama, "The easy way or the hard way"? It somehow fits in with my wonderment.

______________

UPDATE:

Fouad Ajami showcases the irony in Obama's position as articulated to Al-Arabyia

The irony now is obvious: George W. Bush as a force for emancipation in Muslim lands, and Barack Hussein Obama as a messenger of the old, settled ways. Thus the "parochial" man takes abroad a message that Muslims and Arabs did not have tyranny in their DNA, and the man with Muslim and Kenyan and Indonesian fragments in his very life and identity is signaling an acceptance of the established order. Mr. Obama could still acknowledge the revolutionary impact of his predecessor's diplomacy, but so far he has chosen not to do so.

Turks:

"no room in the mind for
the exercise of reason,
or even the capacity to doubt" (B. Spinoza)

Harry's Place has the goods:

Haaretz reports:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, red-faced after verbally sparring with President Shimon Peres over the recent fighting in Gaza.

Erdogan was angry after being cut off by a panel moderator after listening to an impassioned monologue by Peres defending Israel’s recent 22-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Erdogan told Peres: “You are killing people.”

Ben Dror Yemini had something to say, sometime ago, about the profoundly hypocritical and crazy audacity of the Turkish PM, here:

Shameless Erdogan

Even the shameless Turkish leader Erdogan, joined the critics of Israel. Shameless, because it behooves him to keep his mouth shut. His country legislated laws that forbid mentioning the crimes perpetrated against the Armenians. If Israel had adopted the Turkish model, a third of all lecturers in the faculties of social sciences and humanities in Israeli universities would be imprisoned, because in Israel inflating the "Nakba" and other anti-Israel rhetoric actually lead to academic promotions...

Let's remind Erdogan of the tens of thousands of Kurds killed or slaughtered in the campaign to keep them quiet and subdued. Let us remind him of Leyla Zana and the short speech she made when elected to the Turkish Parliament. She didn't support terrorism. She didn't praise the lobbing of rockets from Kurdish to Turkish villages. She didn't call the Kurds "Shahids." Nothing like that. All she did was conclude her short speech with the words: "I take this oath for the brotherhood between the Turkish people and the Kurdish people." Her crime? She had made that "terrible" statement, only that final statement, in Kurdish. According to Turkish law, speaking that language is a crime. She lost her parliamentary immunity and was sentenced to 10 years of incarceration. When she wrote something from inside her jail, a further two years were added to her sentence.

Tell this to the Arab members of the Israeli Knesset. If judged according to your own laws, Mr Erdogan, they would all be rotting in jail. Now you are the object of their admiration. Hypocrisy has always been a quality some of them admire most. Now it's your turn, as well.

The shameless Turk quoted Gilad Atzmon. Who is Atzmon? Some answers, here.

Gilad Atzmon once compared himself (humble guy that he is) to Baruch Spinoza. I thought I might remind people what Spinoza thought of Turks:

“In this the Turks have achieved the greatest measure of success. They hold even discussion of religion to be sinful, and with their mass of dogma they gain such a thorough hold on the individual’s judgment that they leave no room in the mind for the exercise of reason, or even the capacity to doubt.”

I would think they are well-matched, the quoter and the quotee.

Privileged Information

(H/T: Middle East forum)

I. According to President Carter, he "spent a long time with President Obama" the evening before the five living presidents met at the White House January 7.. "I would say he was most interested in the Middle East because I had been to that region twice in the previous year and had met with some people that others usually don't meet with as you probably know,".

Ken Stein, who had worked with Carter for many years, asks: "Why does only Carter know about them? "How come they don't tell the rest of the world, how come we don't learn about these things?"

A similar thought occurred to Norm Geras, some time ago:

What about Hamas's founding charter, replete with antisemitic imagery, some of it drawn from the notorious Tsarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? "It's terrible," he says. "I despise antisemitism in anyone. I think anti-Jew is a violation of the basic principles on which my life is built. I grew up with it in the south with anti-black, so I saw the ravages of racial discrimination." But when the charter was raised in those talks with Hamas's top echelon: "They ridiculed it as being ancient, passé, an inconsequential document. But I don't speak for anyone else."

Can it be that Carter failed to follow up here in the obvious way: if the document is no longer of any account, why not revoke it and replace it with something else? Can Hamas have missed this idea? Can Jimmy Carter?


II. I wouldn't attach too much importance to whatever conversations took place between the present and former presidents. Obama is that kind of guy, who wants to collect as many opinions as he can, from a wide range of positions, before he goes on to do exactly what he had determined to do before all that exposure to the diversity of points of view.

How do I know this?

From observation, gut feeling, and this little article written by Cass Sunstein:

He had an important topic to discuss: the controversy over President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance of international telephone calls between Americans and suspected terrorists. ... Before taking a public position, Obama wanted to talk the problem through.

Obama wanted to consider the best possible defence of what Bush had done. To every argument I made, he listened and offered a counter-argument. After the issue had been exhausted, Obama said that he thought the programme was illegal, but now had a better understanding of both sides.

... This is the Barack Obama I have known for nearly 15 years -- a careful and even-handed analyst of law and policy, unusually attentive to multiple points of view.

Sunstein is amazed by Obama's thorough prudence. Unlike "many prominent Democratic leaders" who "had already blasted the Bush initiative as blatantly illegal.", he actually explored the opposite point of view, before joining these leaders in blasting the Bush initiative as illegal...

Holocaust Posturings

Put an end to Holocaust memorials outside the Jewish world, says DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL,| on Wall Street Journal Europe. Who needs these theatres of ritualistic declaration of "never again" when the unspeakable happens, again and again, as an indifferent world looks on, a world for which the value of the Holocaust seems to reside only in its utility as a hammer to bludgeon Israel's insistence on actual "never again"?

Read this:

It's easy to understand why he had wanted to be there: The more crocodile tears people like him spill for dead Jews the easier it is for them to demonize the living ones and avoid being tagged as anti-Semitic. In such hands, Holocaust memorials have become a cover to pound the Jewish state with greater moral authority.

______

And related:

You ought to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why Israel, and only Israel, makes your blood boil and leads you to speak out, even at the risk of grossly distorting both reality and history.

The answer, Ms. Lilleng, should be painfully obvious.

So who broke the ceasefire? (Simply Jews)

Comment Trail

So who broke the ceasefire? (Simply Jews)

Advice for George Mitchell (The Spine)

Anatomy of a slur

It is one of the fascinating aspects of the Internet that it lets you climb into people's minds and check out the furniture. On the Internet most people are much less guarded than they would be if they suspected that their words would be read by many others. The small fora, with their like-minded and few participants provide an excellent venue for venting and opinionating, and re-enforcing each other's false misconceptions with a singular lack of curiosity and awareness of what constitutes verifiable truth and how it is distinguishable from wishful thinking or personal inclination.

Here is an example, which I noted this morning, as I visited my favourite message board for observing the dynamic I described above in real time:

Poster A, speaking in her capacity as the board's one and only "asajew":

"... y'all need to see Jimmy Carter's interview on Charlie Rose tonight. It was jaw-dropping!

Carter...told Charlie that Hamas agreed to a peace with Israel if a referendum were held among Palistinians (both in Gaza and the West Bank)*. And that Egypt was a co-signatory or supporter of that agreement. Carter also said a lot of other things (like, only 1 Hammas missile a month was being lobbied to southern Israel in the past year) that I cannot believe, not-believe, or confirm at this time....

I certainly feel myself that I can't trust ANY "information" I'm being fed on the I/P situation--at this point, not even Carter's version of it. But probably more Carter's than others' because I truly believe Carter doesn't lie (though he may be naive at times).

Having watched the same Charlie Rose programme last night, I know for a fact that Carter never said that "only 1 Hammas missile a month was being lobbied to southern Israel in the past year". He did lament the unfairness of Israel's response (the usual "disproportionality" meme) since only one Israeli was killed by the qassams. This piece of information, too, is an easily exposed lie, considering that "Since 2001, Qassam rockets have claimed the lives of at least 28 Israelis and injured hundreds (as of 9 January 2009)."

So, the asajew spoke and quickly Poster B (who has been known to leave her comments on my blog from time to time) rushed in, not to doubt, examine, check, but to affirm:

Poster B:

Jaw-dropping was my reaction also... it reaffirmed that my confusion about what is going on and who to believe has not been my inability to understand, but because it is all so fucked. I have certainly known there are liars on both sides, but sorting it out has been mind-boggling... and while the last thing I care about is some one calling me antisemitic... It has become a form of censorship because it serves to shut people up and that annoys the hell out of me because there are plenty of good thinkers out there that need to be heard on this issu...

See how it goes? A report based on hearsay that could easily be ascertained through watching the show, as a mistake at best and a lie at worst was not given a moment's reflection before being accepted (eagerly) as truth in reporting (after all, the message was provided by an asajew--case closed), and embellished upon. And then, just by way of covering her ass, Poster B resorts to the well tried- and -tested "Livingstone formulation", which goes like this:

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, wrote: ‘for far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government'.1 The Livingstone Formulation does two things.

Firstly, it denies that there is a distinction between criticism of Israel and demonization of Israel. Criticism of Israeli human rights abuses is not only legitimate, it is entirely appropriate. Demonization, for example, which singles out Israel for unique loathing, or which claims that Israel is apartheid or Nazi or essentially racist, or which characterizes Israel as a child-killing state, or a state which is responsible for wars around the world, or a state which is central to global imperialism, is not the same thing as criticism of Israeli government policies.

Secondly, the Livingstone Formulation does not simply accuse anyone who raises the issue of contemporary antisemitism of being wrong, but it also accuses them of bad faith: ‘the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical...' [my italics]. Not an honest mistake then, but a secret, common plan to try to de-legitimize criticism with an instrumental use of the charge of antisemitism. Crying wolf. Playing the antisemitism card. The Livingstone Formulation is both a straw-man argument and a charge of ‘Zionist' conspiracy. It is itself an antisemitic claim. Its regular appearance is also, in itself, evidence that antisemitic ways of thinking are becoming unexceptional in contemporary mainstream discourse.

And so the world turns, as though the history of the twentieth century never happened.

____________

* Further Clarification: The pledge obtained byCarter did not reflect a new Hamas position, though it's significant that it was made in writing. Hamas leaders have said in the past they would establish a "peace in stages" if Israel were to withdraw to the borders it held before the 1967 Mideast War. Hamas has been evasive about how it sees the final borders of a Palestinian state, and has not abandoned its official call for Israel's destruction.

The Hamas promise does not say who would participate in a peace referendum. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would be far more likely to approve a deal than exiles in camps in Lebanon and Syria, especially if a treaty does not affirm the "right of return" of refugees to homes in what is now Israel.

Listening to the Muslim world

Here is a transcript of Obama's interview with Al-Arabyia, in which he says:

... I told him .. start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues -- and we don't always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen. He's going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response.

A very good idea, listen to what Muslims are actually saying when they say things like this:

These are bodies, these are dead people, these are skulls. These are the bodies of the Jews being loaded like animals. Watch this tractor clearing away the corpses of the Jews, and these are the refugees awaiting their turn to be killed. A German soldier will come now, and you will see a Jewish woman kissing his hand. Notice what humiliation, fear, and terror have struck her. See how much she is kissing his hand. Watch her humiliation.

This is what we hope will happen, but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims.

These are the bodies of the Jews. These are oppressors. Not so long before, they were fighting these soldiers, who are now standing and looking at their corpses.

John Updike, dead at age 76

TNR offers some of his writings

Holocaust Memorial Day

Following a post by a drunk trot here, in which Holocaust Memorial Day, is mentioned by remembering the Jews of Greece who perished at the hand of the Nazis, I thought I might talk a bit about my father-in-law. He is ninety years old and lives in Yehud, a town near Tel Aviv. "Yehud", ironically enough, used to be an Arab village, abandoned in 1948. The irony is in the name of the place, of course. Yehud, which replaced the Arab Yehudiyya (in literal Arabic: "place of the Jews").

My father-in-law was the eldest son in a family of ten. He had parents, three brothers and four sisters. They all lived in Salonika, Greece. The mother was either a Bulgarian Jew or a convert to Judaism, upon her marriage to my husband's grandfather. This detail is not quite clear. She had blond hair and very blue eyes, which my father in law inherited from her. My father-in-law , as a young man of eighteen, was conscripted into the Greek army and sent to the front with Italy. He was due to be released in a few days when war broke out, and he was taken prisoner of war by the Italian army. Along with other Jewish soldiers. Two years in an Italian prison camp and then when the Germans invaded Italy, his Italian guards released all the Jewish prisoners, fearful that the Germans would transport them to concentration camps. They advised them to head into the countryside rather than into the cities. My father-in-law attended this advice. He roamed the Italian countryside for four years, working on farms, anywhere he could find some shelter. He spent a year in the basement of a monastery. Some of those who gave him shelter knew he was Jewish, some did not. When the war was over, he headed back to Greece, to Salonika. He found one sister, who had converted to Christianity and married a policeman. She was saved because her husband's family concealed her identity. The rest of the family had been transported to Auschwitz, and that's the last that was known of them.

He boarded a Jewish Agency ship, which was clandestinely taking Jewish refugees from Europe to British Mandate Palestine. Again he had to put on a soldier's uniform and continue to fight. He was not an educated man, and worked wherever he could find someone to employ him. As a cobbler, a gardener, an unskilled worker, even a shepherd, for a time. He always voted for his economic interests. Whichever party offered him to keep a larger part of his meagre earnings, would have his vote. His two sons were named after his father and one brother. He has six grandchildren.

His memory is as sharp as his eyesight. Only in more recent years has he started talking about his family with strange frequency, taking out and showing whatever faded photos he had salvaged from his old house in Salonika. The surviving sister had two sons who immigrated to Venezuella. The two surviving branches of the family have not kept in touch.

In the post that triggered this little history, the author offers a traditional Sephardic romance by way of a tribute to a vanished community. But my father-in-law, who speaks Ladino, Hebrew, Greek, Turkish, Italian and some French, prefers to listen to rebetico, the music of the Greek urban working class. As do many of the Israeli Sepharadim, such as my parents.

Yehuda Poliker is an Israeli singer of Greek origin, son of Holocaust survivors. One of his first critically-acclaimed musical efforts was a recreation of rebetico in Hebrew. Here he sings "Apple of my eye", a love song, translated and adapted from the Greek.

When I met my husband at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he introduced me to Mikis Theodorakis' "Mauthausen cyclus", a composition describing in music the horrors of the German camp in Austria during WW2.

The ballad of Mauthausen is based on the experiences of the Greek/Jewish playwright Iakovos Kambanellis. He wrote four poems that Theodorakis set to music.

I mention Theodorakis in conclusion to this post and to this day, because it is fitting to do so, because in recent years he went from the gifted and cherished artist who created something beautiful that expressed profound sadness for Jewish fate, to making proclamations of this type:

We are two nations without brothers in the world, us [Greeks] and the Jews, but they have fanaticism and are forceful

Today we can say that this small nation [i.e., the Jews--not Israel] is the root of evil, not of good....

Talking of cycles.

Numbers

Continued coverage of the numbers feuds, from here:

Camera presents the problem:


...an IDF investigation finds that 250 out of Gaza fatalities were civilians, and at least 700 were gunmen. The article states:

The data presented by the Palestinian [sic] is vastly different: Palestinian Groups operating in the Strip have reported 92 of the fatalities as gunmen, 48 of whom were affiliated with Hamas, 32 with Islamic Jihad, 10 with thePopular ResistanceCommittees' Salah a-Din Brigades and two with the Mujahedeen Brigades.

And presents a detailed analysis, here.

As usual with the pro-Israeli website, when it provides data and meticulous dissection of the available statistics, it ends on a note urging further investigation and accuracy in reporting:

Further investigation of Palestinian casualty claims is warranted. As was the case in the summer 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the media is all too willing to repeat the claims of partisan sources that most of the casualties resulting from Israeli actions are civilians despite evidence that these claims are exaggerated and the statistics they cite are manipulated.

It is my opinion that neither Palestinian sources, nor UN sources, nor NGO's, nor the media that repeat the findings from these highly-compromised sources are in the least bit interested in finding out what the factual truth is.

I'd like to draw attention to this part in the Camera analysis:

Among Child Fatalities, an Unusual Proportion are Males Aged 15 to 17

PCHR records 230 child fatalities to January 14. But it gives specific age and gender information for only 172 . Of these 172, 49 (28 percent) are 15 -17 year old males. Considering that this age group accounts for approximately 8 percent of the under-18 population, 15-17 year old males are overrepresented as fatalities. Since Palestinian terror groups are known to have used teenagers from this age category to carry out suicide bombings, it is not unreasonable to suspect that a number of these teenage fatalities resulted from them having participated in combat.

______

It is an important issue. I had an argument a week or so ago with another poster about the exact same subject. I'm going to excerpt only the relevant exchange:

N:

BTW, how does the UN define a child in such circumstances? I once saw an interview with Raghida Dergham of Al Hayat, who defined as a child anyone under the age of 20.

The other poster:

BTW, how does the UN define a child in such circumstances? Stunning.

N: “Stunning." Why? Don't you think it is imperative to know what they speak of when say "a child" if they define a child as any anyone under 20 years old?

According to Raghida Dergham's definition, a sizable part of the IDF is a child army, since 18 year old boys are conscripted as per law. When my father immigrated to Israel, just as the state was born, he was not yet 17 years old and he joined the army. Was he a child? The Hagana accepted 16 year old boys, before the state was born and the law passed. Were they children when they got killed, or armed combatants?

Why do you pretend to be shocked by the coldness of the question? Isn't it the way international laws are configured?

You don't seem shocked when someone reminds you that kindergarten kids in Sderot are routinely targeted for killing.

All you do is cite the number of children killed by Israel, out of the context of other children being hunted down for the kill..

I find that stunningly callous, because you know that these ARE kindergarten kids, every one of them.

What hypocrisy.

The Other poster: What hypocrisy. Let's see. I mentioned the number of children that have been killed in the current military action.

In response… you have claimed that the UN counts all people under 20 as minors

N: This is what I wrote:

"I once saw an interview with Raghida Dergham of Al Hayat, who defined as a child anyone under the age of 20."

This is what you report that I'd written:

"you have claimed that the UN counts all people under 20 as minors"

The other poster:

In the hopes of clearing the confusion somewhat, it looks like the figures are UNICEF's, and that they use the age of 18 as the dividing line between child and adult when measuring things like child sexual exploitation, child soldiers, and casualties. UNICEF also places the child death toll in Gaza at over 300, and the number of wounded children at around 1000.

I do know that at least one IDF sniper has claimed that children over 12 are considered legitimate targets in the occupied territories, so obviously the definition of "child" varies somewhat.

(I have to apologize for the erratic font deployment in my posts lately. My blogger does what it wants and I just have no idea how to set it right).

Israeli Hatred

(Source)

"There is no connection to politics," said Ziv. "We don't represent a side, we just see an immediate need for blankets for people who have nothing to cover them at night and milk for infants who have nothing to eat." [-]

"You feel the humanitarian situation. Most people here say Hamas brought this upon them, but we're still talking about children who we will have to live with in the future. The people who are closest to this should do the most. It's a basic humanitarian act."

Hillel volunteers "have been moving from bomb shelter to bomb shelter almost 24 hours a day for the past month," Mazliah said. "Now, with the limitations forced upon us, we have the privilege of helping civilians who are hostages of Hamas on the other side."

The organizers are careful to keep the initiative apolitical, refusing to divulge the names of groups that are helping to collect supplies. But they add that they are coordinating with official channels.

"The only way to get this stuff into Gaza is through the UN and the IDF, and of course they are part of this," said Ziv.

Not all contributions are accepted, she added. "We have a detailed list from UNRWA, and we're following that. They need baby food, nonperishable food, blankets. Please don't send us toys or clothes. There's simply no room in the trucks."

Here, too.

I'd like to draw your attention to a comment left in response to this report, by Leonard, from Toronto, Canada:

The best way to help Palestinians is that israelis packs their bags and get out of Palestine. No matter how long it will take Palestine will be liberated from the zionist rule. How can you applaud to the massacre of hundreds of kids and women and collect clothes???? BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES AND THIEVES!!! To compound the tragic irony of such a comment, coming from a Canadian reader, I'd like to remind readers of Canada's immigration policies in 1945: "that it was Frederick Charles Blair, the head of immigration in the Mackenzie King administration for actively limiting Jewish immigration from the top. They also claim Blair had the full support of Mackenzie King, prime minister during the war, Canada's high commissioner to Britain Vincent Massey and both Anglophone and Francophone elites in general. ...In early 1945, an unidentified immigration agent was asked how many Jews would be allowed in Canada after the war. He replied "None is too many".

Ambulances for Hamas

The following is a witness account of how Hamas manipulates first aid services for their militant purposes:

PALESTINIAN civilians living in Gaza during the three-week war with Israel have spoken of the challenge of being caught between Hamas and Israeli soldiers as the radical Islamic movement that controls the Gaza strip attempted to hijack ambulances.

Mohammed Shriteh, 30, is an ambulance driver registered with and trained by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

His first day of work in the al-Quds neighbourhood was January 1, the sixth day of the war. "Mostly the war was not as fast or as chaotic as I expected," Mr Shriteh told the Herald. "We would co-ordinate with the Israelis before we pick up patients, because they have all our names, and our IDs, so they would not shoot at us."

Mr Shriteh said the more immediate threat was from Hamas, who would lure the ambulances into the heart of a battle to transport fighters to safety.

"After the first week, at night time, there was a call for a house in Jabaliya. I got to the house and there was lots of shooting and explosions all around," he said.

Because of the urgency of the call, Mr Shriteh said there was no time to arrange his movements with the IDF.

"I knew the Israelis were watching me because I could see the red laser beam in the ambulance and on me, on my body," he said.

Getting out of the ambulance and entering the house, he saw there were three Hamas fighters taking cover inside. One half of the building had already been destroyed.

"They were very scared, and very nervous … They dropped their weapons and ordered me to get them out, to put them in the ambulance and take them away. I refused, because if the IDF sees me doing this I am finished, I cannot pick up any more wounded people. (Via: Normblog)

Perhaps the next time some sanctimonious NGO reports an abuse of human rights by Israel's soldiers in targeting ambulances, people should remember this little bit.

It is quite encouraging to see that finally some Gazans are no longer willing to cooperate with Hamas terrorist practice and thinking. This might well be one of the most important outcomes of this war. Some Palestinians come forward to reveal the depth of Hamas depravity and willingness to expose all civilians to death by Israeli fire.

________

And, btw, here is a statement of inscrutable logic, from former Obama adviser Rob Malley:

"Concerning Hamas, I think that Barack Obama can listen to my point of view, but I don't think that he shares it...Hamas exists and has survived. It's unrealistic to think that you can defeat it with an economic blockade, that you can defeat it with more 'moderate' forces (from the Palestinian Authority of president Mahmud Abbas) or that you can defeat it militarily. These paths have failed in a crushing way...However reasonable they might appear from Washington or Paris, the Quartet's conditions are completely unrealistic in Palestine. No, Hamas will not recognise Israel, neither will it renounce violence. For political reasons, and for ideological reasons. These demands must be translated into concrete and digestible terms.

A problem from hell

Via: Islam in Europe

What happens when you eat a piece of chicken and a bone gets stuck in your gullet, so you can neither swallow nor cough it out? There is pain, fear and extreme discomfort, and possibly a visit to the hospital. This is what came up in my mind when I read the following story. Bear in mind that the Danes are known for their wonderful capacity and practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others, superseding even the Dutch in that respect.

Last semester the Ålholm school decided to split up the third grade according to ethnicity. "Ethnic Danes" and some 'bilinguals' in 3a. The parallel class 3B was filled 100% with Muslim students.

The division upset several of the parents of the Muslim children, but the school isn't yielding.

"Danish parents threatened to move their children to other schools because there were too many immigrants here," says Michael Olesen.

"People are nervous about their children's upbringing. They feel that Muslims belong to a different culture. Muslims are violent and steal more, that's certainly a fact."

Why do you work here really?

"I like the challenge of working in such an environment."

Michael Olesen describes Danes as quite tolerant, "but there's a pain threshold".

"If 30% of the students are made up of immigrants, there's no danger. That's acceptable. When it becomes 40% 'it starts to hurt'. When it's over 50%, yes, then Danish parents feel a threat."

"To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews,
it is the duty of the non-Jews."

Following the rapid accumulation of dire omens from Europe
Spanish journalist, activist and politician Pilar Rahola wrote a resolute defence of Israel and an unwavering indictment of the Spanish Left:


I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not as anti Israeli as my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel. To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.

As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles. Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.

The struggle of Israel, even if the world doesn’t want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.

Unconditional support for Palestinians, and its evil flowers

Fouad Ajami explains:


No other national movement has had the indulgence granted the Palestinians over the last half-century, and the results can be seen in the bravado and the senseless violence, in the inability of a people to come to terms with their condition and their needs.

[-]

Arab poets used to write reverential verse in praise of the boys of the stones and the suicide bombers. Now the poetry has subsided, replaced by a silent recognition of the malady that afflicts the Palestinians. Except among the most bigoted and willful of Arabs, there is growing acknowledgment of the depth of the Palestinian crisis. And aside from a handful of the most romantic of Israelis, there is a recognition in that society, as well, of the malignancy of the national movement a stone’s throw away.

A-propo this:


And the crimes of Europe abusively exploited yet once more so as to sow hatred of the state of Israel

Anti War Rally in Australia

Seems quite dominated with "Peace" banners.

Nilk's photo gallery

Dire Omens

Ynet reports:


I. The overwhelming public support for the Palestinians has prompted the government to cancel the Holocaust Remembrance Day service. This was to be the only public event marking the day, and was scheduled to take place in Barcelona's central piazza.

"Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right," a local City official told Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper.

II. " A Norwegian diplomat stationed in Saudi Arabia sent a mass-distributed email stating that "the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are doing the same thing to the Palestinians, as the Nazis did to their grandparents," using her official Norwegian Foreign Ministry address."

III. In Germany, the Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD - Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) announced it would be mounting a protest march in Berlin on January 27, under the banner of "Stop the Israeli Holocaust in the Gaza Strip."

Here is a reminder of Spain's history with the Jews:

Religion permeated every nook and cranny of Spanish medieval life. Jews were its most natural victims, at the epicenter of religious fervor. In this kind of atmosphere, never safe and always seething with anti-Jewish animus, Jews became increasingly exhausted and demoralized, both spiritually and pragmatically, leading to the mass conversion of the Jews between 1391 and 1492. Amid the murderous mass rioting of 1391 tens of thousands of Jews who faced militant priests and direct threats to their life and property, opted for conversion. The next stage was the establishment of the Inquisition in1482, with its specific mandate to excise from the Church the heretic conversos who were still secretly engaged in Judaizing. Ten years later, the final episode in this drama saw the edict of expulsion of the remaining Jews from Spain, a measure that was calculated at severing once and for all any ties between Judaism and the vulnerable New Christians. The expulsion of the Jews was a traumatic event that sent shockwaves throughout European Jewry as well as Christendom. The toll of that disastrous century came to this: a third of the entire Iberian Jewish population were exterminated in riots, another third accepted Christianity, and the last third, the remaining Jews, were expelled in 1492.

Generations come, and generations go, but Jew hatred lasts forever.

_____

Commenter Lucy affirms all of the above with marvellous shorthand:

"Get over it you criminal whinners" (I noticed that the kind of posters who usually make this type of bellicose comments are chronically prone to misspelling their words and botching their grammar. Why is that, do you think?)

_______

Update

Numbers

Reported in the Jerusalem Post:

On Thursday, Cremonesi published an article in the Italian paper Corriere della Sera, in which he claimed that the Palestinians had distorted their claims, much like in past incidents.

He quoted a doctor at Gaza City's main Shifa Hospital who said no more than 500 or 600 could have been killed in the IDF attacks, and that most were men between 17 and 23 recruited to Hamas's ranks.

Cremonesi, who based his report on tours of hospitals in the Gaza Strip and on interviews with families of casualties, also assessed the number of wounded to be far lower than 5,300, the number quoted by Hamas and repeated by the UN and the Red Cross in Gaza.

"It is sufficient to visit several hospitals [in Gaza] to understand that the numbers don't add up," he wrote.

In the European Hospital in Gazan Rafah, one of the facilities that would presumably be filled with wounded from the "war of the tunnels," many beds were empty, according to Cremonesi.

A similar situation was noted in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, and in the privately-run Amal Hospital, where Cremonesi reported that only five out 150 beds were occupied.

He noted that in past instances, such as in Jenin during Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, there was initially talk of 1,500 dead, which ended up being whittled down to 54, of whom 45 were gunmen.

Cremonesi's report on the Gaza dead was ridiculed by Jaber Wishah, the deputy director of the PCHR, during a telephone interview from Gaza on Thursday with The Jerusalem Post.

"It is completely incorrect," Wishah said. His organization had 45 field workers posted at hospitals and morgues, counting bodies and checking names, he said. They had also gone to the sites of IDF attacks and interviewed the families of the dead, he said.

A lengthy but incomplete report on the group's Web site lists names, ages, and circumstances of death.

In total, Wishah said, his organization - which is independent of both Hamas and Fatah - counted 1,285 dead. Of those, 82 percent, or 1,062, were civilians, he said, while another 168 were policemen who were not engaged in the fighting. That would leave barely 50 Hamas dead - a figure almost identical to Hamas's own claims. He added that among the dead were 280 children and 111 women.

Boos to the Commander-in-chief

Some people have come to believe that President Bush was an enemy of the American people.

Barack Obama thanked President Bush for his service to the USA and for the very helpful and responsive transition work he has afforded to the president-elect. It is something Obama repeatedly affirmed during the three months of transition period. Obama cannot be deaf to some of the ugly rhetoric and radical positions espoused by some of his most fervent supporters. Indeed, he has done everything to distance himself from such voices, and such persons.

This was not a proud moment in a an otherwise a perfect day.

Solomonia offers a way of making some amends for the vulgarians.

And then, there is this, from a grateful nation:

On Monday, Peres called President George W. Bush to bid him farewell. "Had the world acted against Hitler like you acted against Saddam Hussein, millions of lives would be saved," he told Bush.

"You've made an historic contribution to the entire world and to the Jewish people in particular, and we shall treasure and remember it forever," Peres added.

A timely reminder.

Trifles

Simple Jews: Life of a human shield

Ralph Peters: Gaza Lies:

A Hamas terrorist, a UN aid worker and a journalist walked into a Gaza hookah bar. And no one could tell who was who.

Shark Blog: Still upside down

With a third of the world Muslim, and much of that off the rails of rationality, one must expect persistent claims of victory from the likes of Hamas, Hizbollah, and Iran, as well as condemnation from United Nations personnel beholden to the votes they can muster.

Comment trail:

Reading Gaza

Bono: “An Israeli Dream, And Also A Palestinian Dream”

The Palestinians Lost the Battle of Gaza; But They Won the Battle of London

Liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. ... completed

Sunshine, cold blue skies, good vibes and goosebumps, Obama's Inauguration leaves no room for the cynics, the sceptics and the blasé or the indifferent.

A thought occurred to me as I was watching the ceremonies, so redolent in symbolism, that such a day and such a promise and such hopes, and such summoned and offered sacrifices are probably as close to a replication of the first ever inauguration of a US president as can be imagined.

Where the promise of Liberty, equality, and justice for all was only partially promised, and enacted, now it is wholly, and irreversibly completed, sealed, and delivered.

It is Renaissance time for America. Congratulations.

Paving Hell with Good Intentions

"A Drunk Trot" contemplates the intellectual aftermath of the Gaza operation. The author is tortured by how to think right about the conflagration. Whose side should he or shouldn't he support. It appears to be a thoughtful piece, as is evidenced in the commenters' responses to it.

As usual, however, I was looking at it from my unique vantage point and found fault with the thinking. Two points:

I.

A consequentialist would say that all that matters is the consequence of the action, not its intent. I do not agree. Intent matters, it matters a great deal. For instance, in the British legal system we distinguish between murder, manslaughter, causing death by dangerous driving, etc. on the basis of intent. It is also true that our reaction to the early death of someone we loved and the process of mourning and recovery is affected by the nature of the death. An accident is a tragedy, but a murder is traumatic.

In this passage, the author speaks of intent. It's a good enough short overview of the whole of issue of "intent" in the way the law considers it in cases of crimes where life has been lost or endangered. however, this kind of "intent" is used to classify the severity of a crime. No one will dispute the fact that "murder, manslaughter, causing death by dangerous driving, etc." are all crimes. The attempt to decipher intent aims at establishing pre-meditation, passion, carelessness, criminal neglect, etc, by way of determining what kind of indictment is called for, what level of punishment is needed to mend the tear that was caused by this particular crime to the society at large, and to serve justice to the victims.

I guess you see where I'm going with this point. The author has accepted, a-priory, without actually saying so, that the death toll inflicted upon the Palestinian population by Israel's armed forces was a crime. What's missing, or unclear, is a determination of the level of criminality attached to this operation.

This a-priori assumption is further re-inforced by the example furnished:

A drunk driver uses a car because of the expectation that they will not be caught and will not cause an accident. It is a risk, but the odds are on their side. If a child is killed, we vilify and punish the driver, though not for murder. Now imagine that if a drunk driver got in a car knowing that it was certain that they would kill a child and that the child’s death was the inevitable consequence of driving home from the pub. They wouldn’t drive; the intent not to kill would overwhelm the desire to get home without paying for a taxi.

The actions of the IDF in Gaza are thus compared to that of a drunk driver knowing that if he gets into the car, he will, with 100% certainly, kill a child, but does so anyway.

If I heard about a drunk driver knowing his driving would kill a child but goes on to do as he pleases anyway, I would consider him a deliberate murderer. Drinking alcohol is not a right enshrined in any ethical system, nor is it a necessary condition to preserve one's life or protect another's. Quite the contrary. Drunkenness often leads to stupid behaviour, obscure thinking, over-confidence, and more importantly, to easily irresponsible decisions, like driving a car.

In what way can Israel's decision to launch a military operation against Hamas to put a stop to the attacks upon Israeli population be comparable to drinking alcohol before driving?

II.

The author concludes his post by suggesting that "we" which he defines as:

... a left blog, written from different perspectives though sharing some common values; social justice, anti-racism, equality, respect for human life, a hatred of oppression. That’s the side to be on.

not choose any sides but be on their side (Left blog, etc). In other words, since "we" cannot decide, nor should we, who is right and who is wrong in this conflict, considering the Hamas provocations and the IDF's drunken stupor, we will remain on the sidelines and continue to bloviate, which is what we do best.

He doesn't tell us how such a course of action will help Israelis and Palestinians inch their way into a more congenial co-existence. Maybe he tells us that he simply doesn't know anymore, in which case wouldn't it be more prudent just to keep quiet? If one doesn't know which side to choose, then comparing one side' actions as analogous to drunk driving with a fore-thought to kill, seems to suggest his mind is already made up.

Readers of my blog know exactly what I think about the side liners and prevaricators.

Readers also know what I think about the invocation of extreme pity. The author introduces this element at the very end of his piece, by linking to the horror story of a father losing his three daughters in what seems to be an Israeli tank shell. To end on this note is to try to numb the reader to the sequence of causes and affects, and proper intentionality.

I don't know what experience the author has of what a battlefield looks like. Most Israelis have a pretty good notion, having actually lived the reality the shocks him so. Which is why Israel are seeking to make peace, while Palestinians keep electing leaders that only want to make this kind of reality their normal existence.

_________

Update: Terry Glavin posted a link to the same article, and a predictably contentious disagreement ensued (and that's putting it politely).

Obama-Party-thon

You can't turn on the TV these days without being overwhelmed by the joy of preparations for President Obama's inauguration. Americans can be so boundless in their happiness. Can't imagine other people spilling out into streets in the millions, in the freezing cold, to share in the grace of this rare historical moment. Impossible not to become pompous and hyperbolic, too.

It was something of a cold surprise, then, when I read this morning, via normblog, a sneering description of this bubbling American mood. Here are some choice malevolences:

I found American partying to be very much like the origins of the Universe (quite sweaty, fundamentally inhospitable to human beings, absolutely no one playing the four-minute radio version of Alphabet Street). Additionally, the free chocolates were Hershey's Kisses, which are not chocolate at all, but a lie. I have had better parties on my own, in bed, drinking soup. Americans are not, contrary to what they would like to believe, infallible party-throwers.

***

Let's face it, there is a dim part of our minds, raised by Hollywood, that craves the sight of a newly elected black President celebrating his inauguration by ordering in soul food, cranking up the Commodores' Brick House and shouting “Get on down. And that's an order!”

***

So yes. Obama's inaugration party, while not amazing, looks like it will be a fairly creditable effort, notwithstanding just how Beyoncé will be able to “be Beyoncé” - ie, vibrate a magnificent pair of oiled, Amazonian thighs while whooping “What-ho what-ho what-ho!” - in the predicted January temperatures of 0C.

And so on and so forth. Who is this person, this party-pooper, that bends this haughty eye, that curls her dessicated lip, upon the vulgar, upstart colonials? And why the need for all this scorn and derision, on one of history's finer days, as yet unmatched by any of the elegant European countries? Anyone care to offer an explanation to the perplexed?

An interim summary of the Gaza operation

Offered by Shark blog:

Leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, and the Czech Republic came to Jerusalem and spoke in support of Israel's accomplishments and intentions. Earlier in the day Husni Mubarek hosted the same group, along with prominent Arab leaders, and they did not condemn Israel.

Israeli leaders are expressing what seems to be widely felt here: sorrow for the deaths and suffering of non-combatants in Gaza, which is not the same as an apology. Already the government along with numerous volunteers has set up a field hospital on the borders of Gaza to provide treatment of civilians, and screening of cases to be sent for further care in Israeli hospitals.

The army has begun pulling its troops out of Gaza. Not all of them have left, and reservists have yet to be released. Forces are positioned close to the border. Israeli leaders do not enjoy killing, and they do not want to rule a hostile population, but they are not idiots. The IDF has already liquidated one group that fired rockets after the cease fire. It has signaled that it may tolerate some infractions of a cease fire for a short while without a massive response, but there is a limit to its patience.

The scenes of destruction in large parts of Gaza testify to the limits of Israeli tolerance. It will be best for all of us if the leadership of Hamas, Hizbollah, and Iran get the message.

As yet there is no resolution for the Israeli soldier held prisoner by Hamas for more than two years.

*And in Gaza, it's Hamas business as usual...

**Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic: In the comments to the article writes commenter Shriber:
"It appears that Hamas is so outrageous that it no longer provokes outrage. Its madness is accepted factually, in a sexy spirit of realism." The acceptance isn't just based on fatigue it is based on fear. Cowardice motivates the reactions to Hamas. It's the same cowardice that motivated the Poles to leave the Jews to their fate during the Chmielnicki uprising. The same fear which allowed the Germans to swallow up Czechoslovakia in 1938.

The new normal

Ezra Levant warns against hate and Jew-intimidation becoming normalized:

"Calgary's new anti-Semites are much more clever.

They come with names like "Soharwardy" and "Hage", not Long. They speak with Arabic and Urdu accents, not American accents. They wear kaffiyeh scarves, not white Klan hoods. But they are the same damned thing: Jew haters who support violence.

Oh, this isn't a call for a Terry Long-style human rights commission inquiry, or even a criminal "hate speech" charge. They're useless in every way, except as job-creation for second-rate lawyers and bureaucrats, and the new breed of police officer: the multicultural "outreach officer" whose job is no longer to enforce Canadian norms, but to bend them to accommodate Gazan norms. No, any "hate speech" charges would surely fail, as Ahenakew's failed. And they miss the point.

These hate marches call for political and economic marginalization; for a reassertion of ordinary Canadians' civic responsibilities; for a restatement of Canadian values, like Jason Kenney did the other day; and, frankly, for a re-calibration of Canada's immigration policies: more law-abiding peaceful Canadians, less terrorist sympathizers. And I can't think of a value or interest that would be offended by the deportation of non-citizens who fly terrorist flags in Canada (other than the liberal value of civilizational suicide).

But Canadians would rather keep the silence than be galvanized into taking a vigorous stance. It's too much trouble, and very little returns.

"Yanks"

A video was made by one Max Blumenthal showing a pro-Israel rally in New York.

You can watch it here.

(But be forewarned: graphic racist language and blood-curdling incitement to genocide!)

In this clip, Max asks various people he bumps into all kinds of questions about the Israeli operation to strike at Hamas in Gaza.

A poster here was kind enough to transcribe some of the comments he considers most egregious:

Placard: ISRAEL THANK YOU FOR FIGHTING *OUR* WAR ON TERROR

‘We’re here to support Israel ‘because they’re pro-western and everything … Don’t wanna get killed one day by these crazy people.’

MB: How many civilian casualties would it take before you questioned the attack?

A: There’s not a number involved.

Nothing good is going to come out of it unless they keep fighting all the way with it ’til they wipe them all out.

MB: Wipe ‘em all out?

Yeah, they gotta go strong with this.

They are forcing us to kill their children to defend our children!

MB: How is Israel kickin’ Hama Ass?

A: We have a very intelligent way of going about it. Very intelligent. We have the greatest intelligence out there. We try to minilmalise casualties as much as possible. Civilians. We have advanced technology.

MB: Israel knows what schools Hamas is hiding in?

A: Correct

MB: And then they blow up the whole school

A: They, they …

MB: Very intelligent –

A: Yes …

They’re hiding in schools

MB: They’re making bombs under the desk …

Exactly

Those who are dying are suffering G-d’s wrath, but, but, we also believe that when the angel of death comes out he takes everyone in his path.

If Hamas could not differentiate between civilians and army, we don’t need to either. I think we should go with all force, and just go in and k-get them all.

So what if Israel just wiped Gaza off the map? What would be so wrong with that?

Ahhhmmm….

As you can see from the comments on the website where this video is shown, the commenters are outraged and appalled by the explicit racism and hatred pouring out of these Jews, so much so that they are referred to by the blog owner as: "Thick poisonous yank cunts."

A "yank" is an abbreviation of "Yankee" which means: "A nickname for a native or citizen of New England, especially one descended from old New England stock; by extension, an inhabitant of the Northern States as distinguished from a Southerner; also, applied sometimes by foreigners to any inhabitant of the United States."

Since most of the interviewees in this clip are obviously Jewish, and possibly
Chabadniks, I thought it was very sweet and multicultural of Will to designate them as bona fide "Yanks". It bestows upon them a certain all-American toughness and invulnerability, which is quite at odds with their actual pallid, plump appearance and stammering incoherent answers (Ahhhmmm….). With their seventeenth century Polish pale-of-settlement garb, side locks and scant beards, they seem a rather feeble lot, so... ghettoish ... but "posionous"? More like hapless and God-fearing salt-of-the-earth, who are out of their depth when accosted by a doctrinaire Leftist Loon who so clearly wants to shame and humiliate them, for the fashionable sin of supporting and loving Israel. To an arrogant and boorish atheist, such folks always seem stupid, dangerous and incredibly low-life.

I'd like to understand what is it exactly about them, but I mean exactly, that provokes such incontinent loathing? Can he be confusing them with these Hebron yanks??