Category Archives: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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.

Huckabee’s Hardcore On Israel

Elections 2008, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

I’ve been extremely critical of Huckabee. See “Ron Paul’s Electability” and “Huck’s For Huck—Paul’s For America.”

But I think I’ve just come across the only policy position Huckabee has professed that I rather like. Dr. Daniel Pipes disagrees:

“[T]rue connoisseurs of the Republican candidate for president are still wrapping their arms around this foreign policy insight delivered in a September interview:

‘If there is going to be a Palestinian state, it needs to be on land that doesn’t threaten the existence or security of Israel. There is a lot of available real estate around the world that would not be a direct threat to Israel’s security.’

James D. Besser, who conducted this interview, added that ‘Huckabee declined to offer suggestions about where that [real estate] might be.’ Uganda or Birobidjan, perhaps? (December 24, 2007)

Here Huckabee sounds just like the Likud Party once sounded. That may not be very pragmatic, considering that the Right in Israel perished a shot time ago, but why is it a bad thing?

Huckabee is certainly in line here with evangelical thinking—and my own. Come to think of it, I think I’ve just stumbled on the first Huckabee-held policy position that I like: quit pushing for statehood for these radical people.

Imagine Israelis Seeking Redress from Palestinians

Conflict, Ethics, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

A Palestinian child was injured in an Israeli missile attack launched against a Jihadi in Gaza, that place where all is sweetness and light. The child is paralyzed, and Israel, rightly, has sponsored her care, until now. The Israeli Ministry of Defense wants the child to return to the Palestinian territory. I don’t believe it will come to that. The liberal courts will side with the child. Already a plethora of Israeli human rights organizations is working on her behalf.

Imagine, will you, the reverse situation. An Israeli survivor of a Palestinian suicide bomber wants the PA to treat life-long disfigurement and pain caused by shards of shrapnel, ball bearings and nails embedded in flesh and bone for life. Can you imagine Messrs. Abbas and Hamas of the PA assuming such moral responsibility? Not to mention that, other than cutting-edge killers, there is no state-of-the-art anything in the PA, much less medicine.

The Palestinian Appetite For Destruction

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East

Societies are only as good as the individuals they comprise. And individuals are only as good as their actions. Overall, Israeli society is superior to Palestinian society because, like America, it is peopled by individuals who make possible a thriving civil society. Yet to Bush, the latest chaotic chapter in the annals of the M.O.P.E (Most Oppressed People Ever) is an ‘exciting moment.’ It has inspired in him visions (or hallucinations) of “two states living side by side in peace.” Bush’s appetite for destruction must be even healthier than that of the Palestinians.”

In this week’s WND essay, which led the Commentary Page, “The Palestinian Appetite For Destruction,” you can read about how Abbas intends to consolidating his street cred with the Palestinians, why Carter has a point; Bush ought not to be favoring any of the Palestinian Black Shirts. There is also a juxtaposition of Israeli society and the savage society adjacent to it, and the manner in which the two Palestinians and Jews have responded to historical challenges.