Our old pal Nasrallah up in Lebanon appeared in public for the first time in a long time according to recent news posts. Not to rehash all the old news about how Israel messed up in not being able to lay proper waste to this man in the LW2 and also to avoid thinking too deeply on Shabbat morning, I simply point out the grusome macabre scene which must have acompanied this comment:

Our mujahideen used to fight these Zionists, killing them and collecting their body parts. I am not talking about regular body parts. I tell the Israelis, we have the heads of your soldiers, we have hands, we have legs

I am pretty sure that Islam forbid cannibalism, so the only reason they could have been collecting Israeli body parts is to haunt the people left on this side of the war. I also wonder, since Islam and Judaism are so close, if they have the same prohibition on touching dead things that we do. In either event this is pretty gruesome and disgusting. Imagine if you will, the scene is Lebanon, a couple summers ago…

Hey Abdul, is that a Jew finger?

Oh yes my brother, Achmed, it is a Jew finger and we must collect it to properly show we have the fingers of our dead oppressors!

What a great idea, I have a Ziploc right here! We will put it next to the keys to the house in Jaffa we will return to one day!

Ah, yes, this Jew finger will bring down the Zionists once and for all!

I mean really….

From YNet this morning, an uplifting and thoughtful decision on gender roles:

…prominent Zionist-religious leader explained that women are allowed to study specific verses from the Gemara, which deal with “subjects related to them,” but they “shouldn’t study Gemara like men.”

What is there to say about this? I do indeed believe in family roles, but the issue isn’t who does the job it is getting the job done. Who cares if the man takes care of the children, makes Shabbat meals, and mends ballet dresses while the wife reads Gemara, davens, and reads from the Torah? For that matter who cares if there are 3 wives and 1 husband, or 3 husbands? Kids need all the input and supervision they can get to offset the degenerate culture they grown up in.

Worst of all, crap like this makes middle of the road Jews move more off the road and gives 100% secular Jews another reason to dismiss their faith as anachronistic.

Can we get past some of the old-school bullshit? Oh and in case you don’t know who the Zionist-religious folks are, they are the ones who brought you the settlements.

My opinion is pretty clear on this. Stop acting up and you will have a nation lickity-split. I have written about ‘The Arc‘ and other rumination about the Palestinian issue. It has come up recently in the guise of 40th anniversary celebrations of the 6 Day War from The Economist to a read of Time from the week after. I bet I am not the only one who wishes the war went to the next logical step: integration. But a reminder of why it didn’t is available from StandWishUs.com. Take a quick read from the Hamas Charter:

With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others…They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

Want to take a stab at who the “they” might be in this? Hold on I have to file my horns down, then I can answer. Ok done. This is all really simple. People hate Jews, as Mamet says, and the Arabs are poor losers in wars they started. So Fuck you. ✡

But it kind of sucks too. I just did a quick lunchtime read of the The Iraq Study Report and the situation is not looking too good for Iraq. I wish I could say I was amused, even sarcastically bemused, at the smug sense I get while reading. Everything those of us on my side of the war debate have been saying for years is 100% justified - no make that 100% correct. We win. HA HA. Ok that is enough, because almost a million people are dead, wounded, and crippled.

There are 4 key parts to the report that I want to highlight:

• The insistences on the need for broad ranging diplomatic consensus. Thank you for telling us something we didn’t already know, or should I say, have been saying for YEARS.
• As noted just about everywhere, James Baker is not a Jewophile. Recall him saying: “Fuck the Jews. They don’t vote for us anyway.” No, you do not recall that? This will help.
• The mention of Israel and Syria is, in my opinion, appropriate, however, you have to keep Baker’s love for Jews in mind and read the conditions carefully. Syria would basically have to cease to exists as it does today - stop being a pain in Lebanon, stop smuggling arms into Iraq, stop being a pain to Israel. After a page of “only ifs” then you get to the point that Israel should give up the Golan. There are 2 major reasons for Israel to keep it: military importance and water. (I will dismiss the Zionists reasons for keeping it, for now.) If Syria is a friend, maybe the military importance diminishes. Water, on the other hand, is in short supply over there. It would benefit all those involved to start to own up to the major role water rights play in the region.
• The mention of a need to bipartisanship from these people is simply offensive.

Keep these items in mind as you read yourself into a rage.

This on the wire:

UN criticizes Israel for Golan Heights annexation
Human Rights Council passes two resolutions criticizing Israel, but keeps its record intact of singling out no other country for human rights abuses

Hmmm, what do you think? 6 months in existence and the first thing this tribunal takes on is Israel? Not China, not any African paragon of civility? But Israel.

This is seriously boring and predictable. When will it end?

Will you say this is antisemitic or no this is anti-Zionist or what? Which lable should we put on it so it isnt just Jews complaining or so that it isnt Israel claming it is being beatne up on?

I am willing to listen if someone can explain this to me.

Read this, the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Why was I reading this today? I forget, but I was curious about this moment in history. Notice this:

The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.

Notice the use of the third person. Not even once does this document say ‘we’ or ‘us’. Odd, since so much of what it written about Jews by Jews purposefully uses the first person.

Also, note the seeds of what was to come:

WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

No Zionist rah-rah here today. Just primary document research I wanted to share.