“Peaceful” Stone-Throwers

I was recently asked about an incident that had allegedly occurred in Gaza that put Israel in a bad light. The person who asked the question has been consistently critical of Israel. At that point, I hadn't been aware of the incident, and I still haven't checked the facts. But my immediate response was to ask my friend what he knew exactly. As it emerged, he knew about as much as I did - zilch. He'd heard in the media that Israel had acted in some inappropriate way and someone wasn't happy about it and that was good enough for him. Apprarently some people naturally expect Israel to be the oppressive aggressor.

Here's an article from CAMERA that highlights media "savvy":

Fox News Channel's coverage from the West Bank on a Friday in mid-July left some viewers a little puzzled. First, the station broadcast footage of Palestinians hurling rocks toward Israeli troops. A minute later, a Fox correspondent in Israel, Reena Ninan, told viewers that the demonstrators were actually "peace activists." And after another minute, she relayed the Palestinian claim that Israel used "extreme force" when it fired tear gas because the protesters did not even throw stones — just before the footage of Palestinian stone-throwers again appeared on television screens...Read more


Asia Times Online:

Has it all come to this? The wars and invasions, the death and destruction, the exile and torture, the resistance and collapse? In a world of shrinking energy reserves, is Iraq finally fated to become what it was going to be anyway, even before the chaos and catastrophe set in: a giant gas pump for an energy-starved planet? Will it all end not with a bang, but with a gusher? The latest oil news out of that country offers at least a hint of Iraq's fate...Iraq on track to its true destiny

DAMASCUS - Attacks on six churches in Iraq early this month and the targeting of Christians across the country have served as a microcosm of the difficulties facing Christians in the Middle East today. Migration, whether forced or to pursue a better life and employment opportunities elsewhere, has seen Christian numbers in the Middle East drop dramatically....Middle East Christians hit the road


Lori's links and comments:

Netanyahu: ‘Jews Can Buy in East Jerusalem; Arabs Can Buy in West Jerusalem” ,

Blair hails Israeli/Palestinian Start up,

US May Allow Building in Return for Setting Borders,

Israel to U.S.: Keep Out of Jerusalem,

Jews to Reclaim Land in Jordan? ,

Qatar Sheikh Funds Hamas to Buy Jerusalem Buildings,

Islamist Movement: The Temple Will Never be Rebuilt,

Iraq wants urgent water talks with Turkey, Syria,

Erdogan to make surprise trip to Syria,

Aly Gomaa’s WMDs,scroll down

Understanding Russia,

Russia & China warn US: Israeli attack on Iran means world war,

Russia set to build up its naval facilities in Syria , "Russia has reportedly been involved in talks to establish naval facilities in Yemen, Syria and Libya, among other countries in the Mediterranean."

British Journalists March for Palestine

From Pajamas Media:

Did you like the film Groundhog Day? Well, even if you didn’t you will know what I mean by a “Groundhog Day” sequence of events. Two years ago I wrote in my diary about my anguish and hurt over the behavior of my fellow journalists at an NUJ (National Union of Journalists) magazine branch meeting. You may ask, “What is a good conservative lass doing hanging out with a trade union crowd?” Okay, I admit: I am a union member in Britain because I do think we workers need protection. In fact, that is why I think the NUJ exists, but every time I go to a meeting the obsession is not jobs or wages but — you guessed it — evil Israel!..Read More

...One has to be struck by the remarkable animus toward Israel demonstrated by some of the leaders of this administration, as by various pundits and politicians. It is quite astonishing to see the Obama White House dispatch waves of diplomats to make nice to Iranians–at the very moment that Tehran is stepping up the violence against Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan–while sternly warning Israel not to “surprise” us by taking action against the fanatical ayatollahs who have vowed to destroy the Jewish state....The Ancient Evil

A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel


FrontPageMag:

Muslim Persecution of Christians


Joel Rosenberg:

THE BIG DAY


Lori's Links & comments:

Thirteen Ton Temple Corner Stone to Be Presented to the People of Israel ,

Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement Documentary 34:42 min,

Attention English speakers: Israel wants you to teach their over-crowded classes ,

Pope: Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land must make peace,

Roman mayor visits Israel,

ElBaradei: Israel would be 'utterly insane' to attack Iran,

Turkish PM: Islamophobia is a crime against humanity,

Turkish president urges Israel to accept Syria's overtures,

Pentagon Preparing For War With The Enemy: Russia,"Withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty signified a switch to the testing and deployment of a global missile defense system, with a view to fully removing the deterrent potential of China, and partially that of Russia.

Boo: Iran existential threat to Israel,

Hamas reiterates its refusal to recognize Israel,

IAF Chief: 'Iron Dome' Price Tag 'Not So Terrible' ,

US declines to disclose Middle East peace plan,

Deal or no deal: Israel will go it's own way,

How does an Israeli diplomatic visit to the U.S. work? ,

Netanyahu 'won't back Palestinian state' in US,

Assad doesn't want actual peace,

Peres: Time is ripe to advance Mideast peace,

Boo urged to speak from Mosque,

US has new Mideast peace plan: Jordan king,

US to Israel: Tone down rhetoric on Iran,

Whose side is Boo on? ,

Pakistan vows to attack Bin Laden lair ,

GPS-linked lethal security device,

European countries sign gas pipeline deals with Russia,

Putin urges Turkey to maintain high levels of trade,

Russia ready to help build 4 nuclear plants in Turkey,

EU regions do not beg for funds,

EU seeks to extend global reach,"...Solana is ... EU's veteran High Representative for Foreign Policy. Members of his team talk confidently of the EU as an indispensible power, whose crisis management is needed to deal with the world's big conflicts and disputes, wherever they occur.

The 10 Regions according to EU,

Around the globe, religious freedom under assault,

More headlines, and news from Joel Rosenberg

The international Religious Left has very little interest in human rights or religious liberty in the world, outside territories occupied by or supposedly victimized by Israel. Never critical of radical Islam or Arab regimes, groups like the World Council of Churches (WCC) have an obsessive interest in the plight of Palestinians, whose plight would otherwise bore the WCC, if Israel, and by extension, the U.S., could not be blamed. Concern about Palestinian Christians?


From Joel Rosenberg:

BUILDING A GLOBAL MOVEMENT TO BLESS ISRAEL: Updated

MORE EX-MUSLIMS WILL CELEBRATE EASTER THIS YEAR THAN ANY OTHER TIME IN HISTORY...Praise God!


Lori's links & comments

Iran says it controls entire nuclear fuel cycle

Peres: Iran aspires to 'control Mideast'

Peres makes rare hint at possible strike on Iran

Iran offers to train Afghan police in drugs fight (oh, sure)

U.S. does not see Iran's nuclear claims as rebuff

Iran open for nuclear dialogue with world powers organized by J. Solana

Fed contractor, cell phone maker sold spy system to Iran

U.N. draft demands enforcement of North Korea sanctions

China foreign exchange reserves at $1.954 trillion

U.S. leaning toward taking part in Durban 2 summit

Islamic Bloc Wants to Set Up its Own Human Rights Body

Syria on BO & Israel

BO team readying for confrontation with Netanyahu

Egypt's Mubarak: We won't allow destabilization

Arab foes of U.S. warm to BO, old allies wary

We need a total opt-out from 'EU militarisation

The Road To Tyranny Is Not Dependent On BO and The BO/Netanyahu End-Times Tipping Point

Making the U.S. subservient to 'global governance'

LA Times Un-Solves the "Jewish Problem"

The very fact that this type of debate is being conducted in our supposedly enlightened West is instructive...

The Los Angeles Times published on March 15 two Op-Eds about Zionism. One, by Judea Pearl, argues that anti-Zionism is hateful and a "dangerous threat to lives, historical justice and the prospects of peace in the Middle East." The other, by Ben Ehrenreich, argues that, "put simply, the problem is Zionism," and calles for an end to the Jewish state.

By hosting on its opinion pages this type of debate on Israel's existence, the Los Angeles Times unfairly applies a different standard to the Jewish people and Israel than it does to other nations and nation-states. It outrageously casts self-determination as something that perhaps should be taken away from the Jews. In doing so, the newspaper moves to un-solve the "Jewish problem" that, after thousands of years of persecution, pogroms and mass murder against the Jewish people (and after scores of years of struggle by early Zionists seeking an end to this oppression), was finally and all-too-belatedly solved with the realization of Jewish national rights in their ancestral homeland, Israel. read more

Some articles to track...

The Obama-Muslim Brotherhood Policy

Say it ain't so...I thought all they wanted was some land and peace...

Fatah: We Do Not Recognize Israel

Scapegoating the 'Israel Lobby'

Latest from Joel Rosenberg

RUSSIA TO PROPOSE NEW GLOBAL COMMON CURRENCY: And the Kremlin is not alone

NETANYAHU BEGINS FINALIZING GOVERNMENT: Stopping Iran and “toppling Hamas” top priorities

Lori's links and comments

At G20, Kremlin to Pitch New Currency

Foundations join forces with Alliance of Civilizations

Solana urges Israel to stop illegal settlements

17 G-20 members have taken protectionist steps

Assad: Olmert agreed to give up all of the Golan

Syria's Assad ready to mediate with Iran: report

Lebanese leader: "If Syria signs peace deal with Israel, so will we"

Russia signs deal to supply Iran with air-defense missiles

Russia to deploy new warheads in December

Russia signs visa-free agreement with Argentina

Russian-Chinese exercises to be held in China in summer

Russia could become Cuba's main oil sector partner

Serdyukov Warns of U.S. Buildup "..US beefing up its military presence near Russian borders.." ?

Top UN official accuses US of demonizing IranUh, they don't need our help

'Israel could attack Iran with missiles'

Iran increasing pro-Hezbollah activity in South America

MUST READ: Embracing of Shariah

IDF chief gave U.S. fresh intel on Iran nukes program

US Blocking Visa for Netanyahu’s Security Advisor

IDF to US: Israel Closing In on Taking Military Aim at Iran

Azerbaijan votes on scrapping presidential limits

Israeli Spy Chief: Time Running Out

Iran has “crossed the technological threshold,” Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, head of Israeli Military Intelligence, told the Israeli cabinet this week. “Iran is continuing to amass hundreds of kilograms of low-enriched uranium, and it hopes to exploit the dialogue with the West and Washington to advance toward the production of an atomic bomb.” ...read more


Jimmy Carter’s Second Draft

Former President Jimmy Carter has clearly been chastened by the criticism of his last error-laden text, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (Simon & Schuster, 2006). His follow up book, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work (Simon & Schuster, 2009), is much more moderate in tone. Nevertheless, the text is still, in essence, an extended attempt to deceive its audience about issues of central importance to the Arab-Israeli conflict...read more


More from Joel Rosenberg

52% NOW BACK FORCE TO STOP IRAN FROM GETTING “THE BOMB”: Meanwhile, Russia and China building closer ties with Iran


Lori's latest news links and comments:

Russian senator critizes N. Korea rocket launch plans

Turkish official lauds ties with Israel

Turkmenistan leader pledges to build ties with Russia

Syria: Damascus getting courted from all sides

Iran, China sign $3.2 billion gas deal

Nasrallah vows Hezbollah will never recognize Israel

Russia weighs Cuba, Venezuela basesRussia and the West "It was Russian soldiers who liberated Auschwitz" ???

Could Moscow become an international financial center?

Bin Laden: Conquer Jordan after Iraq, or something

Golden Report: A Very Hot Summer

Lebanon's Suleiman to visit Paris for talks with Sarkozy

New website of **Russian/EU Club***presented in Paris ...

and here it is ...

the merge?

Sarkozy to open first Gulf military base in Abu Dhabi France restricts international corruption investigations "Earlier this week, UK-based NGO Global Witness named several French banks in a report unveiling their connections with corrupt regimes in Africa and Central Asia"

Merkel Confident G20 Summit Will End in Global Agreement

G-20 officials pledge "whatever action necessary" to restore global growth

Madagascar opposition gives president 4 hours to quit

Madagascar's president defies ultimatum

Iraq's president to retire from office next year

Pakistan information minister resigns to protest restrictions on media

World Agenda: Have Zimbabwe's generals sidelined Mugabe? This article explains what happened politically just before Tsvangirai's "accident" that killed his wife.

Kyrgyzs opposition says Sadyrkulov death political murder

The Syrian Fool’s Errand

By Bruce Thornton

FrontPageMagazine.com Tuesday, March 10, 2009

True to his campaign promise to restore diplomacy to its rightful place in American foreign policy, Barack Obama is initiating “discussions” with Syria intended to resolve a whole host of divisive issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the conflict with Israel, and the festering problem of the Palestinian Arabs. Presumably, Syria “wants to engage,” according to Martin S. Indyk, Clinton’s Middle East peace negotiator, though The New York Times story did not tell us why Syria should talk now. Nor are we told what boon we can offer that could change Syria’s behavior, which includes murdering Lebanese politicians, funding and supplying Hamas and Hizbollah, and helping jihadists make their way to Iraq.

The implication of this latest news is that the previous administration, filled with unilateralist, trigger-happy neocon cowboys, worsened the crisis in the Middle East by refusing to talk with countries like Syria. This bit of received wisdom, like most liberal dogma, is misleading at best. For decades, Israel and the United States have talked with Syria, all to no avail. As Bret Stephens documents in the latest Commentary, “when it comes to the Syria track, the U.S. and Israel have walked down this road before, again and again, almost always with disappointing results.” Stephens’ survey of these efforts reveals a stark truth: talks with Syria will fail because the whole premise of these talks, that Syria sincerely wants peace with Israel, is flawed, as the record of Syria’s previous negotiations––filled with escalating demands, calculated snubs and insults of U.S. and Israeli politicians, and arrogant dismissals of generous Israeli offers––confirms...read more


Article by Phyllis Chesler:

The Tide Turns: Jews and Christians Standing Together Against Anti-Semitism.


Melanie Phillips:

Note: Sizer is building a formidable reputation as an activist anti-semite.

Last weekend the Revd Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water appeared at an anti-Israel meeting with an Islamist called Ismail Patel. Patel has not only accused Israel of ‘genocide’ and ‘war crimes’ but considers Disney to be a Jewish plot and supports Hamas, Iran and Syria.

Sizer is a virulent opponent of Christian Zionism and of Israel, which he has said he hopes will disappear just as did the apartheid regime in South Africa. He has also applauded Iranian President Ahmadinejad for having ‘looked forward to the day when Zionism ceased to exist’.

Beware the new axis of evangelicals and Islamists


Things that make you go hmmm dept....

Obama's Outreach to Adversaries Takes Unexpected Turn With Taliban Approach

Lori's news links

World's biggest banks to meet in London

Developing world may need $700 billion: World Bank

U.S. officials find "common ground" in Syria

Obama not to deliver anticipated address on Islam in Turkey

Turkey says ready to host further talks between Syria and Israel

Morocco severs relations with Iran

Iran test-fires new missile

Tehran using nuclear talks to buy time for bomb

Gas Drilling Begins Off Hadera Coast

Op piece: Obama vs. Judea & Samaria

Hizbullah officials: Syria has betrayed us

Exclusive from Joel Rosenberg

On Monday night, something remarkable is going to take place in the capital of Syria. More than 1,100 senior Syrian government officials, journalists, business leaders and religious leaders — Muslim, Catholic and evangelical Christian — will attend the gala premiere of a major motion picture entitled Damascus, written, produced and directed by entirely Arab Christians. The film, part documentary and part narrative drama, tells the story of how Saul of Tarsus — one of the first prominent persecutors of Christ-followers in the Holy Land — himself became a follower of Jesus during a miraculous encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and eventually became known as the Apostle Paul, going on to write much of the New Testament....

EXCLUSIVE: CURIOUS DEVELOPMENT IN SYRIA

More headlines and articles to track

Even when defending her people against continous rocket attacks, it seems that Israel can never do enough to satisfy her critics:

Indicting Israel for Self-Defense

Moral Blindness on Gaza

The McGirk Affair: Claims of Cold-Blooded Executions Not Credible

Germany wasn't the only place where Jewish ethnic cleansing was praticed. A priest looks at history:

Priest uncovering beginnings of Final Solution

Thanks to Lori for the following links:

UN says Hamas seized food aid and blankets

Isreal wants EU, US navies to seize arms ships

Time running out for attack on Iran: Israeli expert

Topple Iran to end global Jihad

President Obama seeks Russia deal to slash nuclear weapons

Palestinians showcase new rocket

Obama held secret talks with Syria and Iran, weeks before election

Israel fears Syria might aid Hizbullah

Israel: We're on a collision course with Syria

Senior Iranian official: Obama presidency won't change our ties with U.S.

Obama 'guarantees' West Bank withdrawal

World powers urge Iran to cooperate with nuclear program

Six-nation talks on Iran take place in GermanyTrans-Atlantic relations (Mitchell & Solana)

Iran launch could mean EMP weapon

US Special Forces Launch Raid Inside Syria

Oct. 27….(Breitbart) US military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as “serious aggression.” A US military official said the raid by Special Forces targeted the foreign fighter network that travels through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military’s reach. “We are taking matters into our own hands,” the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids. The attack came just days after the commander of US forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an “uncontrolled” gateway for fighters entering Iraq. A Syrian government statement said the helicopters attacked the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, five miles inside the Syrian border. Four helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown and fired on workers inside, the statement said. The government said civilians were among the dead, including four children. A resident of the nearby village of Hwijeh said some of the helicopters landed and troops exited the aircraft and fired on a building. He said the aircraft flew along the Euphrates River into the area of farms and several brick factories. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said it summoned the charges d’affaires of the United States and Iraq to protest against the strike. “Syria condemns this aggression and holds the American forces responsible for this aggression and all its repercussions. Syria also calls on the Iraqi government to shoulder its responsibilities and launch and immediate investigation into this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria,” the government statement said. The area targeted is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which had been a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money coming into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency. Iraqi travelers making their way home across the border reported hearing many explosions, said Farhan al-Mahalawi, mayor of Qaim. On Thursday, US Maj. Gen. John Kelly said Iraq’s western borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan were fairly tight as a result of good policing by security forces in those countries but that Syria was a “different story.” “The Syrian side is, I guess, uncontrolled by their side,” Kelly said. “We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement.” He added that the US was helping construct a sand berm and ditches along the border. “There hasn’t been much, in the way of a physical barrier, along that border for years,” Kelly said. The foreign fighters network sends militants from North Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East to Syria, where elements of the Syrian military are in league with al-Qaida and loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, the US military official said. He said that while American forces have had considerable success, with Iraqi help, in shutting down the “rat lines” in Iraq, and with foreign government help in North Africa, the Syrian node has been out of reach. “The one piece of the puzzle we have not been showing success on is the nexus in Syria,” the official said. The White House in August approved similar special forces raids from Afghanistan across the border of Pakistan to target al-Qaida and Taliban operatives. At least one has been carried out. The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has been cut to an estimated 20 a month, a senior US military intelligence official told the Associated Press in July. That’s a 50 percent decline from six months ago, and just a fifth of the estimated 100 foreign fighters who were infiltrating Iraq a year ago, according to the official. Ninety percent of the foreign fighters enter through Syria, according to US intelligence. Foreigners are some of the most deadly fighters in Iraq, trained in bombmaking and with small-arms expertise and more likely to be willing suicide bombers than Iraqis. Foreign fighters toting cash have been al-Qaida in Iraq’s chief source of income. They contributed more than 70 percent of operating budgets in one sector in Iraq, according to documents captured in September 2007 on the Syrian border. Most of the fighters were conveyed through professional smuggling networks, according to the report. Iraqi insurgents seized Qaim in April 2005, forcing US Marines to recapture the town the following month in heavy fighting. The area became secure only after Sunni tribes in Anbar turned against al-Qaida in late 2006 and joined forces with the Americans

Syria's Choice

From FrontPage Magazine:

Syria's Choice

By Hassan MneimnehThe Weekly Standard Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Seven years after 9/11, Washington policymakers remain fundamentally confused about the nature of Islamist extremism, the ideas behind it and the states that manipulate it. In few places is this problem more obvious than in the U.S. relationship with the secular Assad regime in Syria.

After the most recent iteration of the on-again off-again Washington-Damascus relationship—a meeting between the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—Muallem described the meeting as a "positive beginning of a dialogue" while the state-controlled Syrian press heralded it as the United States coming to its senses and joining Syria in the fight against the common threat of radical Islamism. Never mind that some of those radical extremists threatening us are in the employ of the Assad regime and may well have been behind a recent bombing in Damascus that killed 17. Never mind, also, that the price that Syria is actively seeking for its promise of cooperation is the restoration of its influence on Lebanon—a dominion that it had to abandon in the aftermath of the Cedar Revolution of 2005.

Read the full article here.

March 1936 All Over Again

By Dr. Earl Tilford

FrontPageMagazine.com Friday, October 10, 2008

Near the conclusion of Tuesday night’s second presidential “town-hall” style debate, a questioner from the audience asked each candidate what he would do if Iran attacked Israel. Both candidates gave somewhat vague replies, focusing on the traditionally close relationship between the United States and Israel. In any event, if Iran ever attacks Israel, other than through its Lebanon-based surrogate Hezbollah, it will be with nuclear-tipped missiles, in which case Israel will be obliterated before the United States can respond.

The more pertinent question for the candidates is, “What will you do if and when Israel carries out a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities?” At that point both deterrence and appeasement will have failed.

Read the full article