Category Archives: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

UPDATE III: An Act Of War? (Reuters Doctors Images, Allegedly)

Iran, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jihad, Journalism, Media, Terrorism, War

Is it a prelude to an act of war? If I didn’t know better, that’s what I’d call the threat Iran has issued to send its Iranian Revolutionary Guard to escort ships attempting to break through the blockade of Gaza. Were I a resident of Israel, I’d be nervous.

But of course, I know better. After all, it would be perfectly proper, and in keeping with US sovereignty, were Turkish “activists,” escorted by the Iranian military, to wash up on American shores. I’m glad I got that straightened out in my own mind.

FOXNEWS:

Israel will do “whatever it takes” to defend itself from terrorism, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. said Sunday, without elaborating what actions would be taken in the face of a potential Iranian Revolutionary Guard escort of ships to break through the blockade of Gaza.
Ambassador Michael Oren said Israel is “open to any ideas to somehow deal with the Gaza situation” but dropping the blockade is unlikely since that would mean allowing thousands of rockets to arrive in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

UPDATE I (June 7): WINNING THROUGH WEAKNESS. Daniel Pipes’ keen analysis of the strategy involving the “Amity Armada” is particularly insightful:

“One of the most important rules for a strategist is not to be put on the defensive. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, developed this concept into a doctrine of forward defense that brilliantly served his state in its early years.

Eventually, however, Israel’s enemies realized that they could not win a conventional war. Instead of launching planes, tanks, and ships at the Jewish state, they turned to other means – weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and (most recently) political delegitimization. Delegitimization turns the rules of war upside down: in particular strength is weakness and public opinion has supreme importance.

Israel’s command structure, having mastered the old ways of war (the ones that lasted to 1973), has shown utter strategic incompetence at the new ways of war (in place since 1982). The new rules require an agile sense of public relations, which means that a powerful state never physically harms, even inadvertently, its rag-tag political adversaries.”…

[snip]

Where Pipes and I depart is in that, finally, after decades of bumbling, I see an Israeli public-relations sea change. Michael Oren accounts for 90 percent of it.

UPDATE II: Nebojsa Malic’s take on the winning-through-weakness strategy:

“Israel has a powerful conventional army, navy, air force, and most likely even nuclear weapons (though not officially acknowledged). It has defeated Arab armies on numerous occasions in open warfare, and has successfully fought terrorism and insurgency through special operations. So those who wish it destroyed came up with a way of turning that strength into a weakness: cast themselves as innocent, unarmed, helpless victims and howl as loud as possible about being abused by that very Israel whose strength no one can dispute.”

UPDATE III (June 8): Fox News reports:

“In one photo, an Israeli commando is shown lying on the deck of the ship, surrounded by activists. The uncut photo released by IHH shows the hand of an unidentified activist holding a knife. But in the Reuters photo, the hand is visible but the knife has been edited out.”

The blog ‘Little Green Footballs’ challenged Reuters’ editing of the photo.

‘That’s a very interesting way to crop the photo. Most people would consider that knife an important part of the context. There was a huge controversy over whether the activists were armed. Cropping out a knife, in a picture showing a soldier who’s apparently been stabbed, seems like a very odd editorial decision. Unless someone was trying to hide it,’ the blog stated.”

Update III: Thomas Tomfoolery (& Jewish Stupidity)

Anti-Semitism, Democracy, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Judaism & Jews, Political Correctness, Pop-Culture

“Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.”
~Ann Coulter, February 23, 2005

Ms. Coulter got called a racist for that mild dig at Thomas. And she’d be called an anti-Semite if she came out with this Thomas tomfoolery:

UPDATE I (June 6): I don’t know what is more pathetic, Thomas or the organized Jewish response to her. More later.

UPDATE II (June 7): The reason the weak, uncharismatic Democrat Lanny Davis is so popular with Demopublicans is that he is, well, weak and inconsequential.

Now he wants to muscle the outlets that make use of this ancient idiot Thomas’ output. (Why does he not petition her syndicator to drop her, and hire this Jewish Woman–your host? Thomas has had a good run. It’s time for new blood.).

Of course the the old sow is apologizing; the public apology is a ritual as meaningful as are tears on Oprah.

Why extract this meaningless muttering from this woman?

As I once wrote, “It’s bad form to coerce or manipulate people into liking, hiring, renting, or apologizing to you. So long as haters keep their mitts to themselves, insulted parties should, if anything, rise above the fray, act graciously—even turn the other cheek. Subjecting people who don’t like you to reeducation programs smacks of busybody social engineering.”

Thomas may be a fool, but Davis and Ari Fleischer are incorrigible, pushy purveyors of political correctness.

UPDATE III: Robert Glisson is sad to see a woman who had it all blow it away. Sympathies here are misplaced.

And why on earth? Although I liked some of Thomas’ anti-war sentiment—has it been up to snuff with Obama?—I’m thrilled that the cow has been put out to pasture. She’s had a good run. When else, but in the age of mass mediocrity, would such a banal bitch obtain such iconic stature?

Update III: Thomas Tomfoolery (& Jewish Stupidity)

Anti-Semitism, Democracy, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Judaism & Jews, Political Correctness, Pop-Culture

“Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.”
~Ann Coulter, February 23, 2005

Ms. Coulter got called a racist for that mild dig at Thomas. And she’d be called an anti-Semite if she came out with this Thomas tomfoolery:

UPDATE I (June 6): I don’t know what is more pathetic, Thomas or the organized Jewish response to her. More later.

UPDATE II (June 7): The reason the weak, uncharismatic Democrat Lanny Davis is so popular with Demopublicans is that he is, well, weak and inconsequential.

Now he wants to muscle the outlets that make use of this ancient idiot Thomas’ output. (Why does he not petition her syndicator to drop her, and hire this Jewish Woman–your host? Thomas has had a good run. It’s time for new blood.).

Of course the the old sow is apologizing; the public apology is a ritual as meaningful as are tears on Oprah.

Why extract this meaningless muttering from this woman?

As I once wrote, “It’s bad form to coerce or manipulate people into liking, hiring, renting, or apologizing to you. So long as haters keep their mitts to themselves, insulted parties should, if anything, rise above the fray, act graciously—even turn the other cheek. Subjecting people who don’t like you to reeducation programs smacks of busybody social engineering.”

Thomas may be a fool, but Davis and Ari Fleischer are incorrigible, pushy purveyors of political correctness.

UPDATE III: Robert Glisson is sad to see a woman who had it all blow it away. Sympathies here are misplaced.

And why on earth? Although I liked some of Thomas’ anti-war sentiment—has it been up to snuff with Obama?—I’m thrilled that the cow has been put out to pasture. She’s had a good run. When else, but in the age of mass mediocrity, would such a banal bitch obtain such iconic stature?

UPDATED: Saint Mandela & The Gaza Amity Armada

Christian Right, Crime, Glenn Beck, History, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jihad, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality, Racism, South-Africa, Terrorism

The excerpt is from my new, WND.COM column, “Saint Mandela & The Gaza Amity Armada”:

“‘One of the worst human rights violations in the world today’—this is how Nelson Mandela has characterized Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, and the defensive actions the Jewish state’s soldiers were forced to take on board a Gaza-bound ship. The Mavi Marmari was one in a flotilla of six ostensible aid ships headed to Gaza in contravention of the naval blockade.

And I know this how? Norman Finkelstein, another of Hamas’ effective spokesmen—left-liberal, Jewish academics often are—has galvanized Mandela for moral suasion in condemning Israel’s actions.

The fact that Mandela made the condemnation in his capacity as a member of the UN’s ‘Committee of Elders’ was supposed to further bolster Finkelstein’s position (made on ‘Russian TV’). According to Finkelstein, this particular coven includes another international holy man, Desmond Tutu (in my upcoming book, “Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post Apartheid South Africa,” I tell of the time I took afternoon tea with Tutu himself).

This is important, why? Because, even more than the Dalai Lama, Mandela is considered the moral compass of the world by the philosopher kings of this country— beauty pageant contestants, contemporary conservative and liberal pundits (ranked here from most to least intelligent).

Look, I too condemn the Israeli commandos—for sliding one-by-one into a snake pit seething with poisonous reptiles.

The complete column is “Saint Mandela & The Gaza Amity Armada.”

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UPDATE (June 4): A more impassioned defense of Israel as Glenn Beck’s I have not heard since Alan Keyes’ magnificent display of outrage, on MSNBC, at the reality in the human heart a suicide bombing bespeaks (Keyes was fired shortly thereafter).

Glenn’s Israel narrative of June 3 (here) arises deep from within a pure Puritanical heart exquisitely attune to the historical “Hebraic bond,” and to morality.

I’ve said it before, Glenn (overall) is great.