Israel has taken steps to correct some of the failures of organization, training, and logistics that occurred during last summer’s war in Lebanon. Our security correspondent says that reserve training for combat units has been greatly increased, and equipment and supplies in the units’ warehouses has been replenished. “There’s no more budget problem for the army”, he reports.
Tell us again about the enormous power of the Jewish lobby in the US:
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during his visit to Israel that Washington has decided to sell Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs to Saudi Arabia, Haaretz has learned.
A recent discussion in Washington raised the possibility that Jerusalem would ask the U.S. not to sell the satellite-guided smart bombs to the Saudis, but it was decided to reject this request…
Defense Minister Amir Peretz expressed Israel’s opposition to the sale of the weapons to Saudi or other Persian Gulf states during his visit to the U.S. a few weeks ago. Peretz said Israel was concerned the weapons might fall into terrorist hands. Israel also argues that the presence of such weapons in the Arab countries undermines Washington’s pledge that Israel will enjoy a qualitative edge in the region - attained mainly by the possession of advanced weaponry…
Washington has rejected such requests from Israel before: surrounding the sale of AWACs and advanced F-16s to Saudi Arabia, and Harpoon missiles to Egypt. — Ze’ev Schiff in Ha’aretz
Technorati Tags: Israel, JDAM, Saudi Arabia
I haven’t written about the boycott of Israel voted by the British National Union of Journalists, because it seemed to me that everyone was doing it, including the woman I believe to be the best blogger in the UK, and possibly the world, Melanie Phillips, who wrote:
The Palestinian journalists’ union, of course, demonstrated against the Palestinian Authority because Johnston was kidnapped by Palestinians. The NUJ apparently cannot grasp quite how demented it is, therefore, to boycott Israel because of the kidnap of Alan Johnston. If something nasty happens in the Middle East, they think Israel is the only party to be blamed. If Palestinians kill Jews, blame Israel. If Palestinians kill Palestinians, blame Israel. If Palestinians kidnap a British NUJ member, blame Israel. And if Palestinian journalists protest to Palestinians about the kidnap by Palestinians of a British journalist, those Palestinian journalists are to be ‘rewarded’ by — a boycott of Israel.
But there’s more to the story than just another few idiots and a boycott.
Kate Burton, who was once held hostage by the gangsters of Gaza, has appealed for the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston. In a classic display of Stockholm syndrome, Burton writes of her own captivity:
I can only say that beyond the actual denial of our freedom, those who held us treated us with the utmost respect, and gave us everything we needed in an attempt to maintain our physical strength as well as our morale and psychological well-being.
Our kidnappers constantly repeated the fact that the respect I had earned in the Gaza community deserved the same respect from them towards us.
Yes, these psychopathic murderers certainly deserve respect. But anyway, now Burton uses the best argument she can muster: let Johnston go because he is on your side, and most importantly — you wouldn’t want to be compared to Israel, would you?
When no-one else was covering the reality of what is going on in your world, Alan was there.
He described the sonic booms after the disengagement, the electricity shortages after the power plant was hit, the constant and never-ending closures that affect every part of your lives, the massacres, the medical patients suffering at Rafah crossing…
He was telling your entire story to the world, piece by piece, and now there is no-one left to tell it.
If you continue targeting foreigners such as Alan Johnston I fear you are doing the same that Israel did when its troops killed Tom Hurndall, Rachel Corrie and others.
Kate, I think you are not doing Alan justice by writing your message on the BBC website. I think the best thing would be for you to return to Gaza and talk face to face with these fellows who respected you so much and who so much deserve all of our respect.
I’m sure you’ll be able to convince them.
There’s been a lot of discussion of Heinsohn’s so-called “youth bulge” theory — the view that “an excess in especially young adult male population predictably leads to social unrest, war and terrorism, as the “third and fourth sons” that find no prestigious positions in their existing societies rationalize their impetus to compete by religion or political ideology”.
Here’s how they get their start:
KILI FAQIRAN, Pakistan (AP) - The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive’s head to cries of “God is great!” and hoists it in triumph by the hair.
Technorati Tags: terrorism, Pakistan, beheading, heinsohn, youth bulge
By Vic Rosenthal
Another Friday in Bil’in:
Two border policemen were lightly wounded on Friday after left-wing protesters pelted them with stones in the West Bank village of Bil’in, near Ramallah.
Some 200 Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners were gathered in the village for the weekly protest against the building of the security fence, despite the area being a closed military zone. — Jerusalem Post
Several demonstrators were injured including Mairead Corrigan, who received the Nobel Peace prize in 1976 for her activities in Northern Ireland. Tito Kayak, Puerto Rican activist involved in the Vieques protests against the US Navy, was arrested for climbing a tower where the army had placed security cameras and attaching a Palestinian flag. Bil’in is the place to be this year for everyone who is or aspires to be a human rights activist.
These protests have been ongoing since January 2005. The organizers claim that they are nonviolent, but obviously they are not. Some of the groups that have participated along with Palestinians are Gush Shalom, Anarchists Against the Wall and of course the International Solidarity Movement (the folks who were responsible for the death of Rachel Corrie).
On June 5, 1967, almost exactly forty years ago, Israeli planes destroyed most of the Egyptian air force on the ground, both beginning and in essence ending the Six Day War in a few hours.
Most observers and historians have seen this attack as a justified response to acts of war by Nasser, and a legitimate preemption of a massive Arab attack on Israel.
As the author of this shocking piece says, very few have heard of this incident. I certainly hadn’t. It’s time to unseal the archives.
By Robert J. White-Harvey, in the Jerusalem Post:
On May 3, 1945 - in the worst friendly-fire incident in history - Britain’s Royal Air Force killed more than 7,000 survivors of Nazi concentration camps who were crowded onto ships in L beck harbor, Germany. The ragged masses that had survived the Holocaust stood no chance against the guns of their liberators.
This tragic mistake occurred one day before the British accepted the surrender of all German forces in the region. Reports of the incident were quickly hushed up - as a jubilant world prepared to celebrate the Allied victory in Europe.
Despite the bitter irony of dying in hellish fires on sinking ships just hours before liberation, the tragedy was quickly forgotten or resolutely ignored. The anniversary of this dark day will soon pass by again - largely unnoticed or unmentioned.
Technorati Tags: Holocaust, friendly fire, L Beck
Does this sound like an excess of nationalistic fervor, or something else?
ISTANBUL, Turkey - Assailants tied up three people at a publishing house that distributes Bibles in Turkey and then slit their throats Wednesday, adding to a string of attacks apparently targeting the country’s tiny Christian minority.
By Vic Rosenthal
Can this be believed?
In an interview with Washington Post columnist Robert Novak published on Monday, Hamas Education Minister Naser al-Shaer was quoted as saying that “previous attempts at peace were ruined by suicide bombers. Now, we look forward to a sustained peace.”
Stories like this one more than make up for the ones about greed, arrogance, and hatred:
JERUSALEM (AP) - Liviu Librescu survived the Nazi Holocaust. He died trying to keep a gunman from shooting his students in a killing spree at Virginia Tech — a heroic feat later recounted in e-mails from students to his wife.
Librescu, an aeronautics engineer and teacher at the school for 20 years, saved the lives of several students by using his body to barricade a classroom door before he was gunned down in Monday’s massacre, which coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Take a good look at this fellow and his fashionable comb-over. He’s Alan Hart a British journalist, and author of the book “Arafat, Terrorist or Peacemaker?” One reviewer said that Hart’s Arafat was “a man of courage tempered by warmth and sensitivity”, which may give you an idea of which side of the question he comes down on. His latest book is a two-volume opus called “Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews”, and this time the title leaves no room for speculation about his point of view.
