Al-Zawahiri releases his latest video

“You have to choose between one of two methods to deal with Muslims: either on mutual respect and exchange of interests, or to deal with them as if they are spoils of war,” al-Zawahri said. “This is your problem and you have to choose yourself. But you must know that we are a nation of patience and endurance. We will stand firm to fight you with Allah’s help until the last hour.”

As he advises us how to stop the Jihad...

...thousands of Muslim women in Woodbridge, NJ and Dearborn, MI spent the morning not being stoned to death. Instead, they went mall shopping and stopped for lunch at Panda Express, where they enjoyed a scoop of chow mein, an egg roll, and a medium Diet Pepsi.

Professor Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State University goes against the grain among Muslims. Specifically about whether the Holy Land/Promised Land was given to the Jews.

Professor Mohammed almost sounds like he is ready to throw himself into battle. "I show Muslims who use religious arguments that they don't have a case. Even the Koran, the basis of our religion, states explicitly that this is land that belongs to the Jews."

He says this about Moses and the Nation of Israel being denied entrance to the Promised land for Forty Years...

The word "ordained" is a translation of the Arabic word katab, a strong imperative that implies compulsion, orders and the determining of fate. "If Allah katab the Holy Land to the Jews, then it is theirs unless stated otherwise - and it is not stated otherwise in the Koran," explains Prof. Mohammed. The continuation of the koranic story, which is based to a large extent on the biblical story, is that the Children of Israel refused to enter the land that was promised or bequeathed to them. They were afraid to do this because it was inhabited at the time by "a nation of giants" that frightened them. Because of their refusal of Moses' call and their cowardice, the land was forbidden to them for 40 years and they lost their way without the guidance of the Prophet Moses. From that moment, they were considered a nation of criminals who defy divine will.

"[Their Lord] said: "For this land will surely be forbidden them for forty years that they will wander in the earth, bewildered. So grieve not over the wrongdoing folk" (verse 26; Pickthall). Prof. Mohammed stresses that this refers to a period of 40 years only. "They received punishment for their sins - a prohibition limited in time on their entry to the land. This makes no difference to the principle whereby the land was intended for them," he says. "The establishment of the State of Israel is the expression of the fact that the Jews desired to return to their land. The State of Israel was established thanks to the `Jewish jihad,' and the acts of terror that are being carried out by Palestinians inside Israel are not jihad because this is not their land."

In the Jerusalem Post, Uriel Heilman profiles Alon Pinkas and his thoughts on American Jewry.

he said, today's 24-hour TV news coverage has not been beneficial to Israel, where truth often lies in nuance, not image. When footage of a Palestinian boy standing in front of an Israeli tank gets flashed across the networks, it is a losing battle trying to explain that there are Palestinians with rocket-propelled grenades ducking behind the boy and that the tanks have been sent there because of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

"When that kid is the footage that controls the news cycle, you will see that picture again and again and there is nothing you can do about it," he said. But where anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment is perhaps strongest in the US, on college campuses, Pinkas said a lot more can be done. But it's not Israel's responsibility
.
"Where the hell has American Jewry been?" Pinkas said with a flash of anger when asked why Israel hasn't made deeper inroads in generating sympathy for its cause at US universities. "If a Jewish kid goes to UW [University of Wisconsin] or Cornell or USC [University of Southern California] and they are not knowledgeable about Israel," he said, "why is this Israel's responsibility?"

"Rather than play foreign minister and go to the world's capitals and deal exclusively with anti-Semitism," he said, referring to globe-trotting American Jewish organizational officials, "they should focus on educating American Jews."

Happy Turkey Day ... For a light-hearted look at the language of giving thanks, I'll send you to last year's post about the Hebrew word, Hodu.

Thanksgiving = Hodu = Turkey

Not to be missed is Julie Burchill's latest in the Times Online, My nation of heroes, my chosen people . . .From this:

And the puzzle comes back to this — why do these people, above all others, inspire such ludicrous, ceaseless, surreal loathing? Why is it that one of my sweetest, youngest, most educated friends said to me one night, not even drunk: “Come on babe, admit it — don’t you ever EVER think that if the Jews had never existed how much easier life would be?”...

...It didn’t take a genius to see that the more Jews stood up for themselves, the less the world liked it, whereas other races were cheered on and drooled over as “freedom fighters”, no matter how bloody their hands got, I reflected. Could it be that anti-Semitism in England in particular was based on the fact that we had gone in the opposite direction to the Jews — from powerful to powerless — and felt great resentment about this fact? After all, they’d had a good deal more than loss of empire to deal with in the 20th century — the loss of one third of world Jewry, for instance.

to this:

But mainly I loathe the EU as I believe it to be a massive threat to what remains of the world Jewry which its leader, Germany, did so much to destroy. I cannot trust an organisation which has a belligerent Germany, aided and abetted by his vicious short sidekick, France, at its head — especially when that Germany is increasingly painting itself as the real “victim” of the Second World War. And it’s not just them, it’s us — in 2003 an EU survey claimed that six out of ten Britons believed Israel to be a threat to “world peace...”, whatever that is.

One of the most brutal episodes of palestinian violence is remembered through this photo:

Finally, the man in the photo, Aziz Tzalha, is sentenced to life in prison... a sentence far more comfortable than he deserves.

Other photos from the incident can be found here, along with the frightening and revolting eye-witness account by a British photographer, Mark Seager...

read more »

On the pessimistic reporting from Fallujah:

But the news organs that liken temporary terrorist success in Mosul (the police stations they overran were recaptured the next day) with what happened to the terrorists in Fallujah is false equivalence of the worst kind. If I find a quarter in the street, it doesn't make up for having lost $1,000 in a poker game the night before.

The resistance has suffered a loss of more than 2,000 combatants, out of a total force estimated by U.S. Central Command at about 5,000 (other estimates are higher) as well as its only secure base in the country. But both the Arab media and ours emphasize that the attack on Fallujah has made a lot of Arabs mad. By this logic, once we've killed all the terrorists, they'll be invincible.

Hat Tips to Powerline and to Real Clear Politics.

Maybe, just maybe, things in Korea may be changing for the better. But on the other end of the Axis of Evil, Iran is taking up too much space in the newspapers. And most of the news is frightening. Read all of Caroline Glick's column, as she explains why, thanks to our Eurabian friends in Britain, Germany and France, "the diplomatic option of dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program no longer exists"

The Weekly Standard this week explained that light water reactor fuel of the type that the Europeans have agreed to give Iran can be used to produce bomb material within nine weeks. Since the IAEA inspectors only visit Iran every three months, it would be a simple matter to divert enough light water fuel to produce a bomb between inspections. And so, the agreement itself holds the promise of direct European assistance to Iran's nuclear weapons program.

While the Europeans were congratulating themselves for their feckless diplomacy, the Iranians were taking to the airwaves and arguing that they gave up nothing in the deal and received everything. Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said the suspension of nuclear activities would last only until Iran and the Europeans reached a long-term agreement. For his part, Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani said that enriching uranium is "Iran's right, and Iran will never give up its right to enrich uranium."

From Forward:

Intelligence sources told the Forward that Hezbollah had initiated a string of recent provocations on Israel's northern front, after a long period of quiet, as a response to "pressures" being exerted on the Shi'ite militia. These include Western pressure on Iran, its main patron, over its nuclear program, and on Syria, its other patron, over its links to terrorists. Most of all, though, the sources say, Hezbollah and Iran fear the prospect of Palestinians halting terrorism and reaching a deal with Israel.

And from the NewYork Times

On the other hand, many in the administration say that Iran is not likely to enter into talks with the United States, as the Europeans want, because the revolutionary clerics who control the government are unalterably opposed to engaging with a country it considers the enemy.

"You can't call yourself a revolutionary regime and also negotiate with the Great Satan," said an administration official.

The Mullahs in Iran never miss a chance to declare their hatred and eternal enmity with the USA. We should be listening more closely.

Accountability.

It looks as though there is renewed energy for the Road Map to Peace. Let us not forget that the FIRST step, which the palestinians never even made an effort at achieving. In Phase I the Palestinians immediately undertake and unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below..."

Will more international aid make that happen? History tells us it won't, still, we have to try.. But if we're going to pump more cash into a chaotic and corrupt leadership, we ought to DEMAND transparency and expect positive action.

We must demand accountability for the $70 Million gift [ Or is it $20Million?] we are about to give to the palestinians to help them get ready for elections. It's certainly possible, if not likely, that the gift will be a huge waste. will it contribute to Arab terrorism?

In addition to viewing elections as a tool for creating a Palestinian partner for peace negotiations with Israel, the Bush administration and its international allies believe the voting will trigger a process of reform and democratization that could transform the troubled Palestinian society.

"There are a lot of critical byproducts here," he said. "It's an opportunity for the Palestinians, regardless of the peace issue, to clear out a lot of corrupt officials, to clean house."

But vigorous housecleaning might be needed before elections are held, to ensure their fairness. Palestinian society is in a state of chaos, with local militias and armed gangs imposing terror. The level of lawlessness was evident last week, at Arafat's funeral, and this week, when armed Arafat loyalists sprayed bullets at a mourning tent in Gaza while the presumed successor of the deceased leader, Mahmoud Abbas, visited the site to pay condolences. One of Abbas's bodyguards and a Palestinian security agent were killed, and more than a dozen people injured, in what Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, insisted was not an assassination attempt.

At least some on the palestinian side give us a glimmer of hope...

Palestinians are also viewing the next few months as key to the fate of the territories, said Ziad Asali, president of the American Task Force on Palestine, a pro-Palestinian Washington advocacy group. "The next two months are crucial and there is so much to do in so little time," Asali said. "If we get it right this time — all of us: Americans, Israelis, Palestinians — we may have hope for a better future. But if we don't get it right this time, we will all be at fault."

One of the posts I held during my Navy career was as the US representative to a NATO committee. I worked out of the Pentagon but made frequent trips to NATO HQ in Brussels... [Even then the French were arrogant and uncooperative... Yes, even during the middle of the Clinton Administration, amidst the world-wide respect and adoration that we are told President Clinton brought to America...]

In a very small way, I was part of the process to expand NATO to include former Eastern bloc States. Among my committee, over a few beers at Le Roi d'Espagne [Nicknamed The Pigs' Bladders for it's unusual decor] we even mentioned the possibility of Israeli participation... something I thought was and would be impossible.

Well, the door might be opening... just a little...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has invited Israel to take part in a series of multinational military exercises and anti-terror maneuvers, in what marked the first time the Israel Defense Forces receives such an invitation.

America is far from perfect. But, the society that tolerates this behavior is simply sick... That society, which tolerates, nurtures and encourages this sort of murderous cruelty and represents a segment of Islam that is seemingly growing and spreading, is truly broken.

Gail vents, and speaks for me.

I hate what they have done to us - I hate that in fighting them, we have to hate them. I hate that it has caused us in our own country to argue with one another. That the fight is used by those who don't like America to like us even less. That we have to even think about such things as human beings decapitating one another. But the worst part is how hardened we have to become in order to fight them. They have stolen our safety, our peace of mind and our innocence.

There will be no going back for my generation. Once, all we needed was love, but we've had to learn that love offers precious little protection from men who would use commercial passenger jets filled with innocent people as missiles to destroy us, who cut off heads without blinking an eye and murder defenseless women who only wish to help them.

For the moment, this site is/was hosted by Jace Herring and Bloghosts. They're closing up shop. It's a shame, they were very good.

I understand through another customer of theirs that Jace recently had a bad accident. Still... I wish someone at Bloghosts would answer the mail or at least update their website to let us know what's going on. I need their cooperation in moving my domain to another host, but I'm not getting any feedback from them. Does anyone have any suggestions? Are any other Bloghosts folks having luck getting any response from them?

In the end, history will show Arafat for the murderous criminal he was. But how will history look at us as we go through the next few days? With glowing tribute after glowing tribute being paid to the father of Middle East Terrorism, we'd do well to look critically at Arafat's life and legacy.

In an absolute must read, Alan Dershowitz writes about part of that legacy:

Yasser Arafat was the godfather of international terrorism who dashed his people's hope for statehood, stole billions of dollars intended for the relief of their suffering, and indoctrinated their children with so much hatred that they willingly turned themselves into human bombs.

He did manage to leapfrog the Palestinian cause over equally or more deserving causes – such as Tibetan freedom, Kurdish independence, and Basque statehood – by wielding three immoral weapons: first, international terrorism on a scale previously unknown to the world; second, an alliance with oil-rich states willing to extort support for his cause by energy blackmail; and third, exploitation of international anti-Semitism against the Jewish state.

Arafat was personally responsible for the murders of thousands of innocent Israelis, hundreds of innocent Americans, and countless others. Like other ethnically motivated butchers before him, he delighted in killing Jewish children, as he did in several well-planned attacks on Israeli schools and nurseries. He also personally ordered the murder of hundreds of his own people who disagreed with him or collaborated with Israel. Never a man to tolerate dissent, he employed bullets rather than arguments to respond to his critics.

Arafat was the inspiration for Osama bin Laden, because he proved to his eager student that terrorism works and that terrorists can be praised and rewarded by a craven world, as Arafat was by so many for so long...

...The world made a terrible mistake by not treating Arafat as a criminal.

read more »

If Yasser Arafat "personified the palestinian struggle", or if he embodied the cause of the Palestinian people, then the palestinians are in trouble.

Until the end, unwilling to compromise, Arafat maintained his preference for violence. At every chance, Arafat chose killing Jews over making peace with them. He turned his back on every concession from Israel and encouraged his minions to murder... And in the end he died a lonely, pathetic, and irrelevant old man.

Is that what the Arabs choose as the symbol of the palestinian people; a corrupt, cruel old man whose only respect came from the violence and terror he heaped onto Israel, onto Jews, onto his own people and onto the world?

Never Forget
the evil this man stood for.
Never Forget
he forever denied us Peace.
Never forget
the thousands he murdered.
Never... Forget.

Never Forget,
Munich 1972.
Never Forget,
The Embassy in Khartoum.
Never Forget,
The Achille Lauro.
Never Forget,
The Maalot Massacre...
... of School Kids.
... Twenty-one... innocent... School kids,
Murdered on Arafat's whim.
Never... Forget.

Never Forget,
The countless others...

...Never... Forget.



In the coming days we'll be bombarded with the chimerical heroism of this cruel, corrupt, and evil man... It's already started. NPRs' Morning Edition was singing his praises this morning, ruining my drive to work... Thankfully, he's STILL Dead.

Iran's nuclear weapons'program is not the only worry being caused by the mullahs' actions. The Iranians are expanding their hostilities against Israel.

On Wednesday, the Arab-language Al-Shark Al-Awsat newspaper, which is published in London, quoted a senior official in the Revolutionary Guards as saying that the drone was one of eight Iran-produced unmanned airborne vehicles that the country gave Hezbollah in August.

Iran also supplied Hezbollah with surface-to-surface missiles that have a 70-kilometer range, according to the report...

...The Iranian activity can be regarded as a clear-cut case of aggression against Israel.

What makes it unusual is that Iranian military experts from the Revolutionary Guards sent their people to a third country to act against Israel. They have usually supported Palestinian terror groups with money or weapons, but in this case, Iranians were involved directly in launching the drone and preparing it for its mission...

...One of the Iranian conditions for the supply of the drones was that Hezbollah get clearance from Tehran before any launch.

The launch and other military activity shows Iranians are in Lebanon, under the patronage and cover of Hezbollah, doing whatever they want.

Now, more than 25 years after Islamists declared war against the United States, we are still incapable of recognizing the enemy.

I've been keeping my eye out for studies on the Florida Jewish vote, and got this report from the Luntz Research Companies via e-mail.

We conducted an immediate post-election survey of 484 Jewish voters (+ 4.5%) to determine exactly what impact the Jewish vote had in these two states. We found a clearly defined improvement in the Jewish vote for President Bush – significant enough to helped push the President over the top in each of these states. In 2000, Bush received just 19% of the Jewish vote – less than one Jewish vote in five nationwide.

This time, in 2004, fully one-fourth (25%) of the Jewish population in Ohio and Florida voted for Bush. While still among the more reliable voting blocs for Democrat candidates, Bush clearly increased his share of Jewish support in the two states where it mattered most.

What is clear from the post-election survey is that the Jewish vote defies the stereotypes of the past. It is far from monolithic. Instead, it consists of diverse populations of Jews who differ in their priorities, their religiosity, and starting this year, their political preferences.

1. The more religious you are the more likely you were to vote for Bush. The Bush vote is – first and foremost – a religious Jewish vote:

• Forty percent (40%) of Jews who attend synagogue weekly voted for Bush. By comparison, just 18% of the Jewish population who rarely or never attend religious services voted for Bush.
• More than two-thirds (69%) of Orthodox Jews voted for Bush, compared to 23% of Conservative Jews and just 15% of Reform Jews.

Not voter fraud, but just as dishonest:

Election frauds are nothing new and neither are political frauds in general. The oldest fraud is the belief that the political left is the party of the poor and the downtrodden.

The election results in California are only the latest evidence to give the lie to that belief. While the state as a whole went for Kerry, 55 percent versus 44 percent for Bush, the various counties ranged from 71 percent Bush to 83 percent Kerry. The most affluent counties were where Kerry had his strongest support...

...Such people may speak in the name of the downtrodden but they themselves are often people who have time on their hands to nurse their pet notions about the world and their fancies about themselves as leaders of the poor, saviors of the environment or whatever happens to be the Big Deal du jour.

Osama bin Laden is not someone embittered by poverty. He is from a very rich family and has had both the time to nurse his resentments of the West and the money to organize terrorists to lash out in the only way that can give them any significance.

The belief that liberal, left-wing or extremist movements are for the poor may or may not be the biggest fraud but it is certainly the oldest.

Is there a chance the Dems might recognize this?

The darker side of me laments that his death was not more torturous and painful. I'll be keeping my hateful thoughts private, although I'll be gleefully reading what Lair and others have to say.

Arafat will be missed by very few... even his friends will be glad he's gone. Maybe his death will mean less work, but regardless, today, thanks to Meryl, the MDA gets a little more money.

Excuse me while I go pass out sweets.

UPDATE 1:10
Brain Dead, Brain Schmead.... he's been brain dead for decades.

UPDATE 1:15
Clinically, Schminically.... he's still never going to wake up.

Yasser Arafat, the 75 year-old Palestinian Authority Chairman, was determined to be clinically dead in a French military hospital, Israel's Channel 2 TV reported after 7 p.m.

UPDATE 4:45
Critical Schmitical... Lair is right... watch out for the rioting on the Temple Mount tomorrow...

Ebullient? Effervescent? Exuberant...? Well, I'm not. I'm just not all that optimistic because in the end, with the re-election of the President nothing has changed. It does mean we'll have a President unencumbered with campaigning... not worried about getting re-elected... but the bottom line is: nothing has changed. There is still much to do.

I am breathing a sigh of relief that these SFSU Arab students don't have the added encouragement that a Bush defeat would have given them. Their brash and brazen actions are bad enough as it is. Meryl has the scoop, and will have more to say soon.

The President has a tough challenge ahead of him: unifying the country. With no campaigning to do, I hope the real Bush will finally emerge, is that is the uniter that he was as Governor. He cannot do that if he mistakenly takes this election as a mandate for his entire agenda... the exit polls will show him how dissatisfied many of us, if not most of us, are. Here's blogger/columnist Mark Lane on the results in Florida. His comments on the difference between the Conservative and Liberal bases are almost too true [I think you can drop the word Christian and not lose the point]:

Christian conservatives remain a big factor and they are the model interest group: you don't have to give them anything to get their support; you merely have to talk the talk and blame the liberals and the judges when you don't deliver. Liberal interest groups, by contrast, get restless the moment they figure out they're not getting anything back.

These are not the kind of victories that make for a mandate. Not that that will stop anybody. These are not home-run-in-the-ninth victories. These are error-in-the-10th victories.

With 31% of the precincts reporting the President has 56% of Floridas' vote... They haven't called it for Bush yet, but it won't be long.

The home county: with 200 out of 285 precincts reporting, Bush has 61%

UPDATE:With 83% reporting bush is up 52-47, statewide. Kerry has to make up 250,000 votes to reverse the outcome.

The Martinez-Castor Senat Race is way too close to call.with less than 25,000 votes separating them.

We also voted on Eight Constitutional Amendments, three worth noting: We voted to increase the minimum wage, we voted to require parental notification for abortion, and we voted to limit the percentages paid to lawyers in Medical liability cases.

A Jacksonville man voted by absentee ballot... or so he thought.

On Friday a local TV station did a story about some absentee ballots that are being thrown out by the Election Canvassing Board [206 ballots out of 50K]. Missing signatures and signatures that don't match the registration forms were cited as the most common reasons for disqualification.

One man, who didn't wish to be identified, learned Monday that his ballot was rejected because his signature did not match the one on file.

"I have been voting for a number of decades and this is the first time I voted absentee, hopefully to resolve not being counted. And now, I'm in a situation of not being counted," he said.

Eyewitness News Investigator Jim Piggott asked Interim Supervisor of Elections Bill Scheu if the man's signature could be verified and his vote be counted. Scheu said no.

"People would say that is unfair," Scheu explained. "Voting is a serious process. The sanctity of the ballot has to be maintained. We can't have people coming in and changing their signature."

Over the decades, the man's signature has changed, but knowing it, and knowing his ballot was disqualified, means nothing... His vote still won't count.