“Paula Hancocks of CNN and her bureau beau assumed their standard position when breaking the news of Israel’s raid into Gaza to retrieve a kidnapped soldier and two civilians: face to Mecca and keister up in the air.
The CNN flacks did not exactly set the scene for the operation, although, to be fair, they mentioned in passing one disquieting possibility: Israeli’s obsession with never leaving men, dead or alive, in enemy hands…
CNN also alluded to rising tensions caused by Qassam rockets, fired daily by Gaza’s goons into the Western Negev city of Sderot. In the event you were lulled into thinking, foolishly, that this was good enough a reason for the Israeli operation, Hancocks provided a much-needed corrective: The homemade Qassam is quite harmless; Toys “R” Us will soon be incorporating these babies into their Family Guy Box Set…”

Read the complete column, “Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us,” here.

“Paula Hancocks of CNN and her bureau beau assumed their standard position when breaking the news of Israel’s raid into Gaza to retrieve a kidnapped soldier and two civilians: face to Mecca and keister up in the air.
The CNN flacks did not exactly set the scene for the operation, although, to be fair, they mentioned in passing one disquieting possibility: Israeli’s obsession with never leaving men, dead or alive, in enemy hands…
CNN also alluded to rising tensions caused by Qassam rockets, fired daily by Gaza’s goons into the Western Negev city of Sderot. In the event you were lulled into thinking, foolishly, that this was good enough a reason for the Israeli operation, Hancocks provided a much-needed corrective: The homemade Qassam is quite harmless; Toys “R” Us will soon be incorporating these babies into their Family Guy Box Set…”

Read the complete column, “Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us,” here.

In “From Russia With (Less Than) Love,” I asked—and answered—the question as to why Russia and Israel don’t cooperate more. For one, both nations live adjacent to terrorist entities—the Russians to Chechnya; the Israelis to the Palestinian Authority. Putin must put up with Shamil Basaev (a Chechen terrorist and advocate of an Islamist state in the Northern Caucasus); Israelis have to contend with the new Dalai Lamas of Gaza (Hamas).

And both Israelis and Russians “are hectored by elements in the Bush and Blair administrations and the Europeans about granting statehood to their terrorism-endorsing neighbors. Against insuperable odds, both are expected to trust terrorists and their fan base to stop butchering babies and embrace Jeffersonian democracy and a Bill of Rights.”

Note the consistency of my position: Assailed by savages, Russia and Israel have my sympathies and support on this front.

A year later, Taki, a moldy scribe, with life tenure in various publications, makes a similar point in The American Conservative (TAC). He is smarting over the administration’s double standard: “American policy makers” are “bear baiting” Russia about its mistreatment of Chechen jihadists, whom the administration (as I pointed out) lionizes. Chechens are freedom fighters, but the Palestinians are terrorists? What’s up with that, he wants to know.

This is rich because Taki’s writing is laced with exactly the same illogic:

In fawning, radical-left fashion, he and TAC finesse everything about the savage and dysfunctional Palestinian society, yet evince a loathing of all things Israel. Or, if a little honesty pierces the fog, and they acknowledge the facts on the ground, it is invariably to blame Israel, Ã la the left’s theory of culpability. Apparently, if not for Israel, a veritable economic oasis and a culture of life would flourish where a black hole now threatens to collapse upon itself.

Yes, this is rich because it exposes Taki’s inability to detect the same category of contradiction he rightly accuses the administration of in his and The American Conservative’s oeuvre.

That’s good for a laugh.

UPDATED (8/24/018): Praised by a cult.

Singular indeed. If not wrong, #Taki wrote this a/b my birthplace, RIP, #SouthAfrica: 'the greatest triumph of chatter over machine-gun clatter. life goes on much better than before' (2006). This when I was chronicling #FarmMurders. A dilettante fit for an atrophying cult. https://t.co/Qadz191ZP8

— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) August 25, 2018

The Boston Globe assures readers that “in the Arab world, Zarqawi tactics bred disgust.”

“If you are fighting foreigners, how come you kill 5,000 [Iraqi goons have killed multitudes more than that] or other innocent civilians and only a few Americans?” asks Bashar al-Akhras, whose “father was killed in the November 2005 suicide bombings of three Amman hotels, claimed by Zarqawi as retribution for Jordan’s support of US policy in the region.”

“His extended family,” Akhras relates, “consists of hard-working Palestinians who live across the Arab world and are bystanders in the war between Al Qaeda and the United States.”

So Akhras disagrees with the Mayor of London’s favorite “progressive” theologian, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi draws a sharp “moral distinction” between suicide bombings against ordinary Londoners (not good) and those against ordinary Israelis (perfectly good). He is not alone among Muslim ulama (scholars).

I’m eager to hear this lad extend his indignation and disgust to the slaughter by terrorists of all civilians—Jordanian, Iraqi, American, and Israeli.

It would be good too if the press avoided sweeping, unsubstantiated and unqualified generalizations.