How They Voted On Israel’s Self-Defense
Saturday, January 10th, 2009Here’s the Congress members who voted against or “present” Israel’s right to defend itself:
Members Of Congress Who Believe That Israel Has NO Right to Defend Herself
— ANSWERED “NO” 5 —
Dennis J. Kucinich (D – OH)
Gwen Moore (D-WI)
Ron Paul (R – Saturn TX)
Nick Rahall (D-WV)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
—- ANSWERED “PRESENT” 22 —
Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) [Hamas lover – a dangerous leftard)
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
John Dingell (D-MI)
Donna F. Edwards (D-MD)
Keith Ellison (D-Muslim Brotherhood MN)
Sam Farr (D-CA)
Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ)
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Henry Johnson (D-GA)
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (D-MI)
Barbara Lee(D-CA)
Betty McCollum (D-MI)
James McDermott (D-WA)
George Miller (D-CA)
James Moron Moran(D-VA)
John Olver (D-MA)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)
Pete Stark (D-CA)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
I get the Michigan dummies–they have the most Muslims per capita there. But what is up in California?
CNN Has Fact Checkers!
Friday, January 9th, 2009CNN Has Fact Checkers!
Bloggers like Charles Johnson have facts.
Behold! Christians Don’t Hate Jews!–UPDATED
Friday, January 9th, 2009Newsflash, people, Jesus was a Jew, The Guardian’s Howard Jacobson informs us. His real message seems to explain why Jews still fear Christians (and I might add, ignore all the evidence to the contrary and vote for people who actually aren’t pro-Israel and pro-Jew). He says:
It is a question of the deepest interest, how Christians have been able to maintain two parallel but entirely contradictory attitudes to Jews. The one, as described above, the effect of which has been to remove Jews from the sphere of the human altogether. The other, full of piety and respect, expressed in reverence for the Jewish Bible, in tender pilgrimages to the Jewish places of Jesus’s birth and upbringing, and even, in some quarters, in the fond adoption of Old Testament names for their offspring. The mind is a wonderful thing, capable (when it chooses) of entertaining apparently irreconcilable emotions. In this case, it is as though Christians simultaneously know and don’t know that Jesus was Jewish, but in order for the not knowing to win supremacy over the knowing they have had to do mental violence to themselves, of which the collateral victims have been the Jews. [Emphasis added.]
How else does one account for a calumny as grotesque and misapplied as the blood libel – a belief common throughout England and Europe in the Middle Ages and not entirely expunged in some parts of the world today, that Jews kill gentile children for their blood, which they drink or cook with in the course of whatever diabolic things Jews do when worshipping their God. If that is not an unconscious parody of the eucharist, a transference of shame felt towards something cannibalistic at the heart of Christian ritual, blame for which is then laid at the door of the older, crueller, fathering religion, I don’t know what it is.
Explain it how you will, Judaism is Christianity’s guilty secret, and God help whoever happens to be the occasion of a people’s guilt. “When will Jews be forgiven the Holocaust?” asks that dark philosopher John Gray. There is a prior question. When will Jews ever be forgiven giving Christianity its religion?
There is so much wrong with Jacobson’s take, but at essence, he writes like a European Jew stuck in history and explaining why Jews are right to be wary of Christians. Or rather, excusing Jewish bias towards Christians.
There is no question that historical Christian leaders had deep antipathy for their Jewish brethren. One could argue that changing the Sabbath to Sunday was a very real attempt, by Christians, to differentiate from Jews because back in the day, they were persecuted together because they were mostly Jews by birth who became Christ followers. The Gentiles came in later.
Mr. Jacobson clearly, though, does not understand or in some cases, distorts Christian dogma. And even that is difficult because everything from the nature of God to Armageddon is debated by Christian theologians. In essence, he’s debating a caricature of Christianity.
But this is all a diversion. Mr. Jacobson seems to be straining to find a reason why Christians can’t be trusted. It’s their own mental gymnastics that make them Christians to begin with–to believe that Jesus is God’s son. And it’s their own twisted morality that would have blamed Jews for Christ’s death. Therefore, Christians who do support Israel and Jews generally, are just delusional.
And that’s the real issue. In order to justify voting Democrat in the United States, and whomever the secular humanist, politically correct moral equivalence candidate is over in the UK, a Jew has to make Christians into conflicted, unpredictable, Illogical, immoral cartoons. Jews have to make Christians scary in order to turn a blind eye to the true threat before them: leaders who see no good and evil. Well, there’s an evil and the evil is the minority scape goat who makes life difficult because the more violent majority hates them.
I wouldn’t want to be a Jew in the UK or Europe today. Certainly, I wouldn’t want to be a Jew in Paris or Denmark right now. But the threat isn’t coming from the Christians. The threat is coming from the P.C. crowd who won’t condemn violent followers of an unreformed religion: Islam. Please read that sentence again. The threat isn’t even the violent Muslims. Not yet. They still need more numbers. And, as Mark Steyn says, time is on the Muslim’s side. The threat to Jews are those Machiavellian secularists who refuse to name evil when they see it.
The threat is the papers who sanitize phrases and refuse to note that the “youths” are Arab or Muslim. The threat is the schools who refuse to stand up to violent children and parents and protect Jewish children. The threat is the different newspapers too afraid to offend Muslims that they won’t put cartoons in the paper. The threat is the corrupt leaders appeasing terrorists and condemning Israel.
The threat to Jews has not been Christians, certainly not American Christians, for a very long time. And while I think it’s imperative for Christians to know about the Jewishness of Christ, I believe Mr. Jacobson’s angst is misplaced. Right now, the Jews staunchest allies and friends are Christians. It is difficult for some Jews to understand, but it’s actually quite simple. Christians acknowledge that the Jews were God’s people and still are. God loves them and blesses those who bless them and curses those who curse them. Christians who love God, will love the Jews.
Mr. Jacobson operates from an old reality. His suspicion is self-destructive. Many Jews seem to have a certain mind-blindness to the true existential threats before them. It’s time to see the world as it really is. Christians, Mr. Jacobson, are your best friends. It’s time you let go of your prejudice.
H/T Hotair
UPDATED:
I would recommend reading two books that relate to this issue:
David Brog explains why many Christians ardently support Israel and Jews specifically.
Mark Steyn illuminates the actual existential threat. Hint: It ain’t Christians.
Also read Jonah Goldberg’s recent Op-Ed Who Are the Real Nazis? Here’s a snippet:
Perhaps one reason Israel fails at genocide is that it isn’t interested in genocide? That would explain why Israel warned thousands of Gazans by cell phone to leave homes near Hamas rocket stockpiles. It would clarify why, even amid all-out war, it offers aid to enemy civilians.
Meanwhile, calls for the complete extermination of Israel are routine. The Hamas charter, invoking the fraudulent “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as justification, demands the destruction of Israel. Hamas exists solely because it is dedicated to the complete obliteration of the “Zionist entity.” Remove that “principle” and Hamas is meaningless.
A sick mixture of Holocaust envy and Holocaust denial is the defining spirit of Hamas. Indeed, Holocaust denial passes for a scholarly pursuit not just in Gaza but throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world.
Why the obsession with casting the Israelis as the new Hitlerites? One answer is surely that critics know such charges are painful to a country largely born of the Holocaust and marked by its scars. It also grabs attention, galvanizes radicals, vents legitimate frustrations and anger, and helps demonize the enemy and, hence, justify the murder of “Zionists everywhere,” as Hamas often declares in its communiques.
But I think the desire to cast the Israelis as Nazis is fueled, deep down, by the haters’ need to see their own hatreds and ambitions mirrored in their enemy’s actions. Hamas has an avowedly Hitlerite agenda. The only way to make such an agenda defensible is to convince yourself and others that the Israelis deserve it. Hence, Hamas and its allies insist that when they aim rockets at grade schools and playgrounds, they are resisting the “new Nazis.”
Also, for the genesis of liberal thought, read Jonah’s book. It should be required reading:
See also: Infidels Are Cool–great blog detailing the threat. He’s up for a BlogAward!
Enemies of Israel and Freedom
Thursday, January 8th, 2009I can hardly bear to read and hear the news. Israel had been fired upon by Hamas, again, and this time, Israel decided, again, to do something about it (pictures here). As usual, everyone in the world, except, it seems, American conservatives, believe Israel shouldn’t defend her children. They blame Israel for having the temerity to exist or for winning past conflicts or fill-in-the-blank wrong. It’s Israel’s fault.
Israel should crush Hamas in Gaza and end this nonsense once and for all, because Hamas won’t quit. They should win this war. And it is war. And then, or maybe simultaneously, they should crush Hezbollah in Lebanon. And by crush I mean this: kill every fighter and any who sympathize and root out the evil. Take land if they must. Make it their own and clean out the riff-raff. Peace will not come until one side is vanquished. It has yet to happen.
In the meantime, the world’s sentiment and American leftists and the media and Muslims (we had our own anti-Israel rally held by ostensible pro-peace Muslims here in Houston) give proof that democratic ideals only exist in a moral climate. When evil and good get mixed up and when citizens defend, lie and promote evil, the end of a democracy surely can’t be far behind. European leaders moral equivalence is absolutely sickening. And the UN’s existence is a joke. These people, many in number, should be noted and ignored. They are not friends to their own freedom. No one can expect them to be friendly to another democratic nation who fights for hers.
I have a random sampling of what’s being said about Israel. First Kathy Shaidle illustrates the nonsense with a story:
We “stole their land” so now they can murder their kids with impunity:
It was almost a year ago, on Jan. 29, 2008, that an intoxicated Pauchay left his Yellow Quill First Nation home some time after 12:30 a.m., when wind chill values had dipped into the -50 range.
He brought with him daughters Kaydance, 3, and Santana, 16 months, who were dressed only in light T-shirts and diapers despite, the blizzard-like conditions.
Around 5 a.m. local time, Pauchay was found alone and incomprehensible on a neighbour’s doorstep, suffering from hypothermia and frostbite.
He was aggressive, so RCMP went to the house along with paramedics.
Mr. Pauchay was sedated and taken to hospital with serious frostbite on his back, front and fingers.
It was not until about eight hours later that it was discovered the girls had been with him…
What? It’s their culture!
Shame those smallpox blankets were just a myth, eh?
PS: wouldn’t it make for a nice change if the idiots angry about my “tone” in this post had expressed a tenth of that outrage over the deaths of two innocent children at the hands of their drunken, good for nothing father on a crappy reservation?
Oh wait: that would make sense.
Misplaced outrage and moral posturing (with the requisite dollop of personalized white guilt glurge about their kids, who get dragged out with predictable regularity like combination weapons/props — sort of like stuffed dinosaurs, come to think of it…) that’s all unthinking liberals can manage.
Hamas fired mortars from a school. They hid their weapons caches in a place of worship, a Mosque. And yet, we have American Muslim legislators lamenting the bombing of schools and mosques. Gasp! It is fine and dandy to use civilian refuges as cover for one side, but the other side dare not engage the enemy on the field he chooses. Here we have Keith Ellison on Al Jazeera trying to appear reasoned and sounding very much in bed with those who kill their own children for the “cause”.
H/T Dana Report
In Denmark, Jewish parents are urged to take their children out of school for safety. Meanwhile, the Muslim Arab children stay. If a certain group of angry children can’t keep control of their emotions shouldn’t they be the ones going home? No, if you’re Jewish and bullied, you’re expelled. If you’re Muslim and the bully, you’re tolerated. Why? Because everyone is afraid of inciting violence. Why aren’t schools worried about inciting Jewish violence? Actually, if you’re Muslim and violent you’re a “youth“. The destruction of the language is just one more step to muddy the moral waters.
Finally, a question: Why does The world have a “Pornographic Interest in Jewish Moral Failure” and ignore the Palestinian moral failure such as this?
One more thing, speaking of pornography — we’ve all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It’s a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn’t matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I’ll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they’d learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.
Underneath all this nonsense is simple hatred. Antisemitism gets cloaked in noble calls for peace from Israel while the Palestinians are never called to task. The vast majority of the citizens in Gaza voted for Hamas, remember. And rather than reform the government and care for its own people, Hamas has used and abused their own in the service of violence with the express purpose of exterminating the Jews in Israel.
That anyone defends Hamas actions is absolutely disgusting. The people defending evil will always be enemies of freedom–even, their own.
Back From Tribulation Point
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008I’ve been through Hell, Michigan. Now, I can say I went to Tribulation Point. It was a lot more beautiful than one would imagine. Lush forests, the ocean, sandy beach and a coral reef out there somewhere combines to make a fairly lovely trial, if one must have one.
That was two days ago. Today, after getting some LED light therapy (more about that in another post some time), we drove an hour to Long Beach, NSW, Australia. I’ve been struggling to decide which American city Sydney most reminds me of and have finally concluded that Sydney is most like San Diego, California. It has the city and the harbor, but it also has these steep foothills and mountains with homes built up the sides. There are relaxed little border beach towns and then big skyscrapers representing the biggest businesses you can think of downtown in the city. Where San Diego has the perfect weather–warm during the day, dry, and cool at night. Sydney has humidity and a cold, dreary winter. Otherwise, Sydney is a lot like San Diego and San Diego is one of my favorite American cities.
The weather turned out perfect today. We’ve felt a bit Eeyorish–with clouds seemingly following us wherever we go. The same thing happened today, momentarily, and I looked at the gathering clouds with suspicion, thinking that maybe the Sydney landscape viewed us much like the White Mountain viewed Gandalf. Alas, no. The clouds passed and a breezy, lovely beach day ensued.
I saw a real, live burquini today. Yes. I. Did. I took a picture of the woman who swam in a carefree manner even if she labored under layers of clothing in the surf. The menfolk arrived later, surrounded by Western, sinful women in real, live bikinis. Very difficult to be a strict Muslim and do something as simple as going swimming in the ocean. For that reason alone, Islam could not be my religion nor Amishness.
Speaking of conservative religions… I have never gone on the record about this before, but I will now: I’m glad for my Puritanical heritage. Puritans and their whole “cleanliness is next to godliness” obsession were sooooo right. One great thing about Americans is their nearly universal compulsion to be clean. Personal hygiene is imperative. Most days, while walking through my American life, I take clean people for granted. Not anymore. Sharing public transportation–like say tour buses and say, plane cabins–with people from Europe, Asia, and Australia has taught me to have an attitude of gratitude for my American compatriots. It is a problem, fellow world travelers, when you stink at 9:00 a.m. while getting ON the bus before hiking the jungle. If you’re not going to shower, at least wear some deodorant.
Stinky people would not dissuade me from loving this part of the world, though. Port Douglas and Cairn, Australia are a couple of my favorite places. I’m reminded of Key West and Florida in general there. The vibe is laid back and optimistic and friendly. I really wish we had longer in the area. It was so beautiful. I’ll put up some pictures tomorrow.
Yes, I know about Israel and the war. No, I don’t want to think about it. That’s wrong, I know. The whole Middle East is suffering. Here’s my nutshell opinion: Israel needs to deal, once and for all, with the Palestinians. A decisive winner and loser needs to be named. The winner should be Israel. They should stop pulling punches and utterly defeat their enemies. That means it will be messy because the Palestinians fight among families, put rocket launchers in neighborhoods, and don’t care if their own children die–except to use as propaganda. They are cowards and tools of the greater Arab world and they are too stupid to realize that the only way the rest of the Muslim world loves them is as a way to torment Israel. Nothing more. It needs to stop. I hope a decisive Israeli victory will end this. The chronic misery produced by the terrorism and pot shots makes life a perpetual trauma.
Okay, gotta get to bed. I’ll work on more pictures tomorrow. Tomorrow night, we’ll be watching the fireworks ringing in the New Year over Sydney. From what I’ve been told, they are the best in the world. We’ll just see about that. America knows her some fireworks. Fourth of July has always been my spectacle to judge all other spectacles. The Chinese did their over-the-top Olympics ceremony deal, but that was more than a little creepy–what with the million robots I mean people working together as the Borg. I’m all for teamwork, but it’s a fine line before you’re the collective. But I digress. The Sydney fireworks will be something to behold, no doubt, and no tribulation at that.
Mumbai Victims Tortured
Sunday, November 30th, 2008Via InfidelsAreCool who says “evil pure and simple”:
Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: “It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim’s body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words,” he said.
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.
The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.
Corroborating the doctors’ claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. “During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis,” an IB source said.
What? Terrorists don’t follow the Geneva Conventions? Who woulda thunk it.
More here.
Defining Antisemitism
Saturday, November 1st, 2008Defining Antisemitism
Can you be a Jew and be antisemitic? Yes.
Barack Obama’s Advisors, Not His Past Associations, Tell You How He Feels About Israel
Saturday, October 18th, 2008Read this editorial by David Bedein, and I’ll tell you why you should care about Israel after you’ve finished:
Yet there is a way to gain insight into Sen. Obama’s policies towards Israel. Not by tabulating votes on the Senate floor and not by counting how many superlatives that he uses on Israel.
Instead, by paying attention to the three high ranking former U.S. State Department officials whom the Senator has hired: Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross and Daniel Kurtzer. The policy which characterizes all three of them is their consistent promotion of the PLO as a supposed peace partner with Israel for the past 20 years, no matter what the reality was.
This is the threesome that defined the PLO as a peace partner even after the PLO would not ratify the Oslo “declaration of principles” in October 1993.
This is the threeesome that attested to the fact that, in 1996, the PLO had cancelled its covenant to destroy Israel, when it had not done so.
This is the threesome who insisted on arming the PLO to fight Hamas even though the PLO made it clear from the outset that it would never engage Hamas in any full-scale war
And this is the threesome who promote a PLO state, come what may.And this is the threesome who main committed to mobilizing Jewish Americans to support a PLO state, come what may.
From Sen. Obama’s appointment of Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross and Daniel Kurtzer, it is easy to discern where the Senator stands – for the renewal of the Oslo process once again, this time with the teeth of an American administration that would impose a Palestinian state, even though it remains at war with the State of Israel.
The role played by Daniel Kurtzer has not been forgotten – as the man who wrote tough speeches for former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker when he pressured Israel 20 years ago.
What about Sen. Obama’s sensitivity to the consquences of Arab terror?
After all, during his visit to the shell-shocked Israeli town of Sderot near Gaza, he met families whose homes and lives have been devastated by Arab missile attacks.
It was in Sderot where Sen. Obama looked into the eyes of each of these families and told them that he would never forget the consequences of what terror had done to people in Israel.
Yet on the very next morning, Sen. Obama addressed a crowd in Berlin in which he depicted how nations around the world had suffered from the consequences of terror. The senator named each of these nations. Yet he forgot to name Israel.
A short term retention span which deleted Israel as a nation whose people suffered the conseqeunces of terror could not have been a coincidence.
Sen. Obama gives prepared speeches.
The time has come to put aside platitudes and to stop judging Sen. Obama’s attitude towards Israel from those who have endorsed him. His choices of advisors speak for themselves.
Indeed.
But why should an American care about what an American president thinks of Israel? Israel is the lone democracy in a region of the world plagued by dictators and tyrants. Israel promotes things like freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. Israel stands for these freedoms in the face of unimaginable odds. America was attacked on her own soil once, on September 11, 2001 in a spectacular an horrifying way. Israel is attacked every, single, day with little fanfare and even less world interest and yet soldiers on in the dogged pursuit of freedom when they would be well within their rights to obliterate Gaza and those who fund the terrorists there and be done with it.
When an American president pretends that there is equivalence between Israelis and the PLO, say, it reveals his moral compass. It reveals, in fact, that he lacks one. When an American leader views the terrorist organizations as the victims of Israel instead of the arm and tool in the hands of surrounding Arab states who victimize Israel, it further reveals his lack of judgment. And it also reveals how he will view the enemies of America.
If an American president blames Israel for existing and therefore inciting the non-stop terrorism, what will his reaction be to American’s being attacked? Wait, we already know the answer to that. When Americans fight back against terrorists, this is how Barack Obama responded:
