Category Archives: Israel

Updated: Poor Baby: CNN Bleats About the Bulldozer Terrorist

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Palestinian Authority, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Terrorism

CNN’s Jack Cafferty was not happy with the label Israelis aptly applied to the man who barreled down a busy avenue in Jerusalem in a bulldozer, crushing and killing innocent bystanders: “Palestinian terrorist.” I guess that excessively demonizes this demon.

Cafferty, who features on Blitzer’s “Situation Room” with one of those Magic Daily Questions that must wow viewers, registered his displeasure. He wanted to hear more about what would possibly drive an otherwise good man to be so mean. Hey, ever hear of unadulterated evil? Cafferty then reached for that instant exculpatory construct: the so-called “mental disease.”

The of diseasing of behavior is now so thoroughly ingrained it has usurped right and wrong.

Accordingly, when people perpetrate evil, those who’ve habituated to these false categories toss free will to the wind. Since the Palestinian terrorist did a monstrous thing, liberals attribute his actions to causes. To perpetrate evil, one surely must be “mentally ill.” When a person does good things, those of this lax, irrational mindset attribute his actions to choice. They acknowledge free will and human agency if — and only if — adaptive actions are involved.

Read “Evil, Not Ill”.

Update: The contagion is spreading. MSNBC has placed the word “terrorist” in scare quotes, either “to distance the writer from the material being reported,” or “to indicate that it is someone else’s terminology.” Among MSM twits, “terrorist” is clearly a controversial term for a terrorist. It works for me.

Updated: Israel: Role Model For America

America, IMMIGRATION, Israel

This excerpt is from my new WND.com column, “Israel: Role Model For America”:

[T]he majority that dare not speak its name is on the wane.

“A couple of election cycles down the road and [Anglo-Americans] will comprise less than half the population. If mass immigration continues at current levels, predicts the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2050, approximately 130 million people will have been added to the United States, mostly from the Third World. Embittered Americans may still cling to guns and God, as their founding fathers did, but they will no longer decide elections.

Ironically, Bill Clinton has spoken glowingly about the prospects of the demise of the very historical majority upon which his wife’s candidacy now depends. Likewise, Barack Obama would hardly be inconsolable. If his immigration policies are any indication, McCain, to whom Bush has passed the baton, has also embraced this end-of-days scenario.

Israel hasn’t. The plucky Jewish state can teach the US a thing or two about cultural and creedal survival. Israel has endured to celebrate its sixtieth birthday in so small part because it has rejected American style immolation by immigration…”

Comments are welcome.

Update (May 17): To the extent the discrimination accusations come from elements on the American Right, we must take it to mean that this faction denies Israel the selective immigration policy it advocates for the U.S.—one that favors the founding people.

American Jewry is another faction that contradicts itself on Israel. Jews, who generally defend Israel, like to insist that it is a pluralistic, multicultural society. They ought to practice some honesty. If Jews are prepared to acknowledge Israel has a right to retain its Jewish character and choose who will be admitted to the polity, they must concede the same right to the Europeans and to the English-speaking peoples.

Israel Rights Its Wayward Leaders

Israel, Justice

As Israel celebrates its 6oth birthday, it is also conducting an ongoing investigation into the master of ceremonies: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

This is what I admire about the place in which I grew up: No authority is above the law, especially not the most powerful politicians in the land.

Americans think that because their top-tier leaders remain untouched, they’ve probably above board. Not so: It’s just that the American presidency and the cabinet are impenetrable. They’re allowed to take shelter behind the Scooter-Libby minions who take the fall for them.

Updated: Quote Courtesy Of Clyde N. Wilson

Ilana Mercer, Israel, Just War, War

Professor Clyde Wilson has a post on Chronicles magazine titled “What Is History? Part 11.” Alongside other worthies, the professor excerpts a line I wrote in “Betraying Brave Boys”:

“… a brave nation fights only because it must; a cowardly nation fights because it can.”

My gratitude to Judge Robert E. Reavis for letting me know. Judge Reavis writes:

“Clyde Wilson over at Chronicles has put you in the company of some pretty stout minds and spunky personalities. Of course I think you deserve it but it is good to see others think so as well.”

I briefly interviewed Professor Wilson, a noted Southern scholar, for my review of the film “Cold Mountain,” entitled “Hollywood’s Hateful Hooey About The South.”

With respect to the quote, Israel lived by the tenet it expressed up until its Lebanon Wars; the last taking place in 2006. Following the principle of monkey-see-monkey-do, Israel took a page out of the annals of unjust American wars, and waged such a war against Lebanon.

Update (April 16): In response to our reader’s comment below: As I explained in “Israel Risks Sundering Moral High ground,” a just war is proportional. It means you don’t level an entire country and kill a thousand innocents, because of a localized attack, where 3-4 people were seized. Such an attack is more efficiently and more justly dealt with by “Precision Pac Men.”

Granted, the Israelis were not nearly as unjust as we were in attacking Iraq, but neither were they as righteous as they had been in all past wars for survival. But unlike Americans, the Israeli people responded magnificently in rejecting the onslaught in Lebanon. Their government will not be prosecuting an unjust war anytime soon. That’s more than we can say about ours.