Israel catches some contraband at a West Bank crossing
You never know what might be in those humanitarian shipments.
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You never know what might be in those humanitarian shipments.
Israeli commentator Uri Elitzur contributes an outstanding, all too bitterly true op-ed about the reasons Israel is not likely to win a fight against terror even though it has the capability to do so.
The below is from Tom Gross's Media Blog on National Review Online (scroll down to December 24). Where did Saudis get such attitudes? Their education and their media.
Poll of Saudis: Don't like Jews and Christians, want Israel destroyed and Saudis to have nuclear weapons
Opinion polls among Saudi citizens are extremely rare. This survey was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow by D3 Systems of Vienna, Virginia and KA Europe SPRL. Interviews were conducted by phone from a facility in a country neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The
survey was conducted in Arabic, among a random national sample of 1,004
Saudi Arabian nationals aged 18 and older. Among the results:
Please
tell me your opinion of each group of people. Is your opinion very
favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very
unfavorable?
Iranians
Very Favorable 23.4%
Somewhat Favorable 27.9%
Somewhat Unfavorable 15.5%
Very Unfavorable 24.0%
Refused 2.5%
Don't Know 6.7%
Jews
Very Favorable 2.1%
Somewhat Favorable 3.9%
Somewhat Unfavorable 7.0%
Very Unfavorable 81.7%
Refused 4.1%
Don't Know 1.1%
Christians
Very Favorable 13.7%
Somewhat Favorable 25.5%
Somewhat Unfavorable 14.0%
Very Unfavorable 40.3%
Refused 2.5%
Don't Know 4.1%
If
all diplomatic means fail to stop the Iranian government from
developing nuclear weapons, would you favor the United States and other
countries accepting a nuclear-armed Iran, or would you favor the United
States and other countries taking military action against Iran to try
and prevent the Iranians from having nuclear weapons?
Favor US Accepting A Nuclear Armed Iran 26.6%
Favor US and Other Countries Taking Military Action to Prevent Nuclear Armed Iran 38.1%
Refused to answer 19.9%
Don't Know 15.4%
Please listen as I read the following statements and tell me which is closest to your own opinion?
I would favor a peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel, if an independent Palestinian state is established.29.6%
I
oppose any peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel, and I favor
all Arabs continuing to fight until there is no State of Israel in the
Middle East 51.3%
Refused to answer 13.2%
Don't Know 5.9%
Do you favor or oppose the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia developing nuclear weapons?
Strongly Favor 34.7%
Somewhat Favor 17.3%
Somewhat Oppose 12.1%
Strongly Oppose 19.1%
Refused to answer 9.3%
Don't Know 7.5%
It's sad when another one of the jazz titans passes away. Among the modern jazz pianists I most enjoy listening to Peterson. He's of course most notable for high-energy, bluesy playing and he has a certain language that could be perceived as repetitive if you don't love it. As it happens, I love it and never get enough of it--the same way you don't get used to hearing French if you love the way it sounds. Peterson was also capable of playing beautifully on ballads though he did so less often. Here is some of his great playing with the two bassists he was most associated with, both of whom have also passed on. The music of such titans will not pass on and will stay around as long as people want to hear wonderful playing.
This is incontrovertible truth and reality, while the "Annapolis peace process" hobbles along.
The term "Arab-Israeli conflict" is a confusing misnomer. The right term is "jihad against Israel." Of the three Arab parties with which Israel has signed peace agreements, Jordan, to the best of my knowledge, is not currently waging the jihad against Israel (it already hadn't been for years at the time the treaty was signed). Egypt is. As for the PLO/Palestinians, they clearly are:
Fatah is planning to mark its 43rd anniversary this year with a new poster that presents all of Israel as Palestine.
. . . the poster features a map of Israel that is entirely draped with a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.
It also carries a drawing of a rifle as a symbol of the "armed struggle" against Israel.
The poster, which has been endorsed by the Fatah leadership, has already been posted on a number of Fatah-affiliated Web sites....
Those who want to keep perpetrating the pernicious nonsense of a two-sided "conflict" will keep doing so despite repeated incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, it's necessary to believe that there's some value in presenting the truth, even if the truth has little or no apparent impact in the practical sphere.
When I started this blog I saw it as an opportunity to write not only about the jihad but also about other things, as I still sometimes do. But the jihad against Israel, and Israel's struggle to survive against it, became the dominant subject. Survival tends to predominate over other concerns. Not only the survival of the country but of individual citizens is unnecessarily threatened every day because of policies (U.S., Israeli, European) based on a cowardly, corrupt, inexcusable clinging to falsehoods.
Israel's former head of Military Intelligence, Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, gave the "the angriest and most detailed assault by an Israeli
expert to date" on the NIE report on Iran.
Outlining the report's dire results so far, he said its
sanguine assessment had not been contradicted around
the world, that Russia had announced it would complete work on the
Iranian Bushehr reactor, that China had signed an economic agreement with Iran relating to energy that had
been on hold for six months, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
had received a personal invitation to Mecca from Saudi King Abdullah,
that Egypt last week sent its deputy foreign minister to Iran on the
first official visit since 1979, and that Ahmadinejad might himself be
invited to Egypt. His conclusion, he said, was that the NIE had
removed any military option for the Bush administration in thwarting
Iran, weakened international support for tougher sanctions, and reduced
the likelihood of Turkey and moderate Sunni nations building a
coalition against Teheran.
In short, "ironically," he said, the NIE "opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions." ... Ze'evi-Farkash fumed that the NIE's report was
"political" - designed to deprive President George W. Bush of the
justification for military intervention.
Nice list of results. But there are more:
"America can't act," he said, "and it's much harder for Israel to act as long as the US is in Iraq" - since Israeli action would be seen as having tacit American support. And he said the blow to the sanctions effort was devastating, precisely when it seemed that sanctions were going to have a real impact.
The question is whether the report was really a move against Bush or something he "set up," or at the very least is not displeased with since he was bowing out of pursuing a realistic strategy anyway.
Funding the Palestinian Authority correlates with increased terrorism--this is not just a guess or an assertion, but an empirical fact.
Official Palestinian Authority TV broadcasts blatant anti-Israeli and anti-American incitement to the Palestinian Authority population. They know they can get away with it--most recently, to the tune of $5.6 billion--
"Quartet envoy Tony Blair has said he will make an appeal at the [PA donors'] conference [next week in Paris] to raise $5.6 billion from the international community for a three-year program to cover the PA's massive deficit and begin economic and other development programs...."
Massive deficit? If billions of Western aid dollars have already poured down the drain of PA corruption . . . send more. Maybe it will help fund some more TV shows.
This is the title of a very worthwhile article of about 10 pages by Philip Carl Salzman in the new issue of Middle East Quarterly. Among other things it explains why the "Arab-Israeli conflict"--the Muslim-Arab tribal siege on Israel--will not stop and is not susceptible of resolution. Is this a counsel of despair? No, Israel could cope with and deter the siege much better by adopting policies based on strength and pride instead of submission. If Israel can't regain its pride we're in for a rough ride here.
