“If they kill us all, will you do something then?”
Guess who said it, and guess whom he was making his plea to.
Iran claims to have sent a second monkey into space and recovered it safely.
The story remains unconfirmed, with a number of significant questions, including this fact: “[T]he success of the first monkey flight was disputed when a different animal was shown in images released after the landing.
The same thing happened after the claimed first Iranian monkey mission in January, which also remains unconfirmed.
Another day of reckoning looms: Israel today issued a strong warning about the possibility that Iran could have enough uranium within a month to produce a nuclear bomb.
“We have made it crystal clear – in all possible forums, that Israel will not stand by and watch Iran develop weaponry that will put us, the entire Middle East and eventually the world, under an Iranian umbrella of terror,” Danny Danon, Israel’s deputy defense minister told USA TODAY.
This is not good. For Israel, Iran is a real and present threat. They have made it repeatedly clear that they wish to destroy Israel. Soon, very soon, they will have the capability. For Israel to stand by and let them get that capability would be insane.
What Israel can do, however, is unclear. As strong militarily as Israel is, it does not really have the ability to invade Iran and destroy its developing nuclear facilities. I fear that the only choice it might have is to use its own nuclear arsenal to hit Iran first.
As I said, this is not good. The options before us are truly frightening.
I wrote these following words three years ago on the anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. I think they are worth repeating again, especially considering the confusing debacle of this administration’s Syria policy these past few weeks, and the continuing violent and oppressive behavior of the Islamic revolutionaries in that country.
My words on September 11, 2010:
The President has asked us to consider today “a national day of service and remembrance”. Though the sentiment seems reasonable, I must respectively disagree.
September 11 should not be turned into a day to celebrate volunteerism or service or American charity. Though these values are profound, important, and an expression of much of what makes our nation great, they are not why we remember September 11.
We remember the evil acts committed on September 11, 2001 in order to remind us that there is evil in the world.
We remember these evil acts so that we will have the strength to fight that evil, with every fiber of our being.
We remember those who died in order to prevent future attacks and further deaths.
We remember so that no one can ever try to make believe these events did not happen.
We remember so that no one can spread the lie that the perpetrators were something other than what they were: Men who had decided to kill in the name of Islam, based on what they believed their religion taught them.
And finally, and most important, we remember the horrible events of September 11, 2001 so that those innocent murdered souls — whose only crime that day was going to work — will not have died in vain.
In comparison to the ruined economies of the Arab Spring — tourism shattered, exports nonexistent, and billions of dollars in infrastructure lost through unending violence — Israel is an atoll of prosperity and stability. Factor in its recent huge gas and oil finds in the eastern Mediterranean, and it may soon become another Kuwait or Qatar, but with a real economy beyond its booming petroleum exports.
Israel had nothing to do with either the Arab Spring or its failure. The irony is that surviving embarrassed Arab regimes now share the same concerns of the Israelis.
Read it all. It gives you a different but (I think) more accurate perspective on the chaos in the Middle East.
An upside down world: A disabled security guard was fired for asking a Muslim woman to remove her veil.
The dispute occurred in May when Krause asked a Muslim woman to remove her face scarf thinking he was enforcing the mall’s no-mask policy. Instead of just reprimanding him after informing him that the woman’s veil was a vestige of her religion, Krause was fired after the woman filed a lawsuit of her own.
Without doubt there are real security concerns when someone arrives wearing a full face mask. Muslims might claim this is part of their religion, but it has been used too often by Islamic terrorists to do terrible harm. Moreover, there is real dispute within the religion whether such veils are required.
Finally, from a western perspective requiring women to be masked seems oppressive, even if they choose to do it.
The religion of peace: Islamic gunmen kill ten mountain-climbers in Pakistan.
The world upside down: Even as the IRS was harassing any nonprofit using the word “patriot” in its name, it was rubberstamping exemptions for “Islamic” groups, even those that have violated laws and are thought to have links to terrorist organizations.
O goody: Republican Lindsey Graham said today that he’d be willing to censor our mail if he thought it would help catch terrorists.
“In World War II, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we’re all in. We censored the mail. When you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. When a letter was written back from the battlefield to home, they looked at what was in the letter to make sure they were not tipping off the enemy,” Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is.”
This guy hasn’t a clue. The example he gives does not apply, as a military officer is under a different set of rules than ordinary citizens. If we do as he suggests, we will lower ourselves to the level of the thugs and dictators and bullies we supposedly oppose.
Then again, I’m not sure we haven’t done this already.
A message to moderate Muslims.
What we need is a Muslim backlash, and we need it now. You may be a moderate, peaceful Muslim, but there’s nothing moderate or peaceful about your religion, and you know it.
The bigots who preach in your mosques, who take sustenance from your religion, are hiding behind you. And your silence is helping them to do it. If your mosque is letting anyone preach hatred and violence on its premises, you have a duty to call the police. And the police have a duty to take off their politically correct-tinted glasses to go into that mosque, without removing their shoes, and arrest that person. Anything less than this, and you’re on the wrong side.
As always, Pat Condell puts it bluntly but honestly. If Islam is being hijacked by radicals, as so many politically correct people claim, than the religion can easily be saved if the reasonable people within stand up to them. If they don’t, however, they tell us that the religion isn’t being hijacked. It is radical, and violent, and should be shunned and opposed by all reasonable people worldwide.
The 100 words used on the web that Homeland Security considers dangerous and thus a justification for spying.
Working for Islam: An attorney for the Obama Justice Department is warning Americans they could be prosecuted if they use social media to criticize Muslims.
In other words, Muslims can commit murders and terrorists acts, but don’t you dare say anything bad about them or else the Obama administration will come after you. And based on the IRS scandal, they are very much willing to do it.
From Palestine’s moderate leader: Palestinians who murder Israeli Jews cannot be punished.
Large majorities in the Muslim world want the Islamic legal and moral code of sharia as the official law in their countries.
While the poll included many encouraging things, I found this to be its most disturbing statistic:
Suicide bombing was mostly rejected in the study by the Washington-based Pew Forum, but it won 40 percent support in the Palestinian territories, 39 percent in Afghanistan, 29 percent in Egypt and 26 percent in Bangladesh.
Name for me any other culture or religion in the world today where more than a quarter of the population thinks suicide bombings are a good thing.
Barbarians: Islamic militants threaten and beat parents in Pakistan for having their children vaccinated against polio.
Whose side are they on? An anti-semite who also wants to see 9/11 repeated yearly has been chosen by the Obama administration to receive an “International Women of Courage Award.”
Surprise surprise! Hamas breaks truce and fires rocket from Gaza into Israel.
The question is worth asking, based on the described series of attacks. Too bad it is considered racist to ask it.
The day of reckoning looms: A new U.N. report states that Iran has moved another step closer to building its own nuclear weapon.
One of the plaques inside the Peace Forest
Just after the 1967 war, a strip of land in Jerusalem that had been part of no man’s land after the city was divided following the 1948 war was turned into a Peace Forest to symbolize “the hope for peace and serenity between all Jerusalem’s residents.” Located on a hillside that overlooks the city, the Jewish National Fund sponsored a campaign to have the site landscaped elegantly, with a promenade and a series of architectural observation points, each designed differently as if their architects were competing with each other for the most creative structure.
In 2003 my oldest nephew was married from the highest point on this hillside, just above the Peace Forest, with the entire city of Jerusalem as the backdrop. At the time there was a catering hall at this location, and it seemed to them to be a perfect place to tie the knot.
» Read more
It is often claimed by those who oppose Israel that it is an apartheid state that imprisons its Arab population, both in Israel itself as well as in the West Bank and Gaza.
Like much that is said about Israel, however, this claim has little to do with reality, and in fact, as I said yesterday, turns reality on its head.
Inside Israel, Arabs have the option (though some have decided not to take it) of becoming full citizens. Thus, not only are Israeli Arabs among the most prosperous Arabs in the Middle East, they have more rights under the Israeli democratic government than most Arabs in every other Arab country. They can vote, and have even served as elected members of Parliament.
Compare that with the way Arabs treat their religious minorities. Jews are of course forbidden. Christians meanwhile are fleeing the Islamic Middle East because of its persecution of non-Muslims.
» Read more
What is a West Bank settlement? If you read the press, it is a place where Israeli Jews have moved in and stolen the land of Arabs in order to occupy their land unfairly. It is a place where Arabs are forbidden, where apartheid has been established against the indigenous population.
Not only are these statements false, they actually turn reality on its head.
In my two visits to Israel I have stayed or visited four different West Bank settlements, and in each place my first impression was that I was visiting a typical American gated community, a suburban community run by a home-owner-association (HOA). You enter by driving through a gate where an attendant waves at you as you go by. He doesn’t stop you, because he either knows you or he has profiled you and sees no reason to ask you any questions. Once inside the roads wind about, passing individual homes or apartments. At the center of the community is a recreation center, often with a pool and library, where events are held and people go for entertainment.
The gated community of Alon Shvut, south of Jerusalem in the West Bank.
In my visit to Israel this past week, I spent almost all my time in the West Bank. In all, I have now either stayed in or visited a total of four West Bank settlements. In addition, while there I also did some sightseeing in Jerusalem and elsewhere. From this short experience I have gleaned some very fascinating facts, many of which are very surprising, though they shouldn’t be as they are facts that in many cases are fundamental to understanding the long-running and seemingly unsolvable Middle East conflict.
In the next few days I will post a series of short essays describing my experience and thoughts, with this essay being the first.
First and foremost, the assumption everyone makes about the West Bank and Israel is that it is a very dangerous place, especially for Jews. This assumption is entirely false. It is so false it is downright laughable.
» Read more
After a long flight beginning yesterday I am finally back in Tucson. I have a lot of clean up work to do, but I will be posting a series of short essays about what I saw and learned while visiting Israel, beginning either later tonight (if I can stay awake) or tomorrow.
I would have posted some of these essays during my visit, but my old laptop finally died on me early in the trip. Time to buy a new one.
The day of reckoning looms: Iran could have the bomb within six months.
An image mismatch raises questions about Iran’s monkey in space.
This is my second visit to Israel and the second time I have stayed in a residence in the West Bank. Both times the experience has been quite different than what anyone who reads the modern press would expect. It is nothing like what you think.
Also, I have been delving into the background of both settlements, from this visit as well as my last visit back in 2003. Not surprisingly, the facts have little to do with what the press generally reports. And even when they do report honestly, they simply do not provide the important information that would provide some proper context. I myself have been astonished today with some of what I learned, as it was completely unexpected. For example, do you know that many of the land records for here in the West Bank are still kept in Istanbul, Turkey?
As I mentioned previously, however, it is difficult to post here in Israel. Though the internet service is fine, my laptop is beginning to show its age and to function too slowly for this work. Also, I want to include pictures, and I won’t be able to add them easily probably until I get home.
So stay tuned. It will be worthwhile reading.
Bad news: Polio virus from Pakistan has been found in Egypt.
The importation of the virus into Egypt is another setback for the global program, which has finally been making significant progress in the past 2 years, with polio cornered in just three endemic countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. (India has now gone 2 years without a single case of polio.) Of the three, Pakistan was doing especially well in knocking out the virus, but the program there has recently been disrupted by the targeted assassination of nine polio workers in December and early January. Those killings, widely condemned, have stoked fears the virus will regain strength in Pakistan and then reinfect polio-free countries. “This is proof positive of long-distance importation from Pakistan, and there may be more,” Aylward says.
But don’t worry: the Muslim Brotherhood have us covered! “Experts are worried, Bari says, because Egypt has scaled back its national polio vaccinations campaigns from twice to once a year during the turmoil of the revolution.” [emphasis mine]
