Asparagirl on her feelings toward the Palestinian Heros:
And so I'd like to extend my hearty, personal, sincere thanks to the Palestinian Authority, to Hamas and Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad and the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and of course to the Al-Aqsa Brigade, perpetrators of that charming massacre in Netanyia just the other day. You guys did what I thought was utterly impossible: you made a mostly secular American chick proud to be a Jew. You got me to actually care about what happens in some oxymoronic God-forsaken Holy Land. You made me think about how I can help people with whom I have almost nothing in common except for our common history of being hunted and hated. You made me honored to support a people who believe in democracy and an open society, people who won't kill based on race or religion but who will kill and be unashamed to do so to defend those freedoms, to defend their right to exist. You gave me back a piece of my identity and heritage that was on the road to being assimilated right out of my All-American Girl life. You created a miracle; you made me give a shit. You made me a Zionist.
And for that, I really truly want to thank you guys. Personally, if possible. With a clear shot and several rounds of ammo. Careful with the head shots, Asparagirl. You'll have the Washington Post on your butt. The difference between them and us (us in this case being not only Jews but Judeo-Christian culture, of which I partake despite my happy-go-lucky agnosticism) is one of civilization. It's not Muslim vs Jew or Muslim vs Christian, but Old East vs New West. We used to be a lot more like them; ask any Albigensian or Morisco. We progressed and they didn't. Not only did they not progress, they've dug in their feet and refused to. They prefer the "Hatred of the Other" route to "Do What You Want, Just Don't Bother Me," prefer the pogrom to the agreement. Hitler to us was an aberration, a monstrosity; to them he had a lot of good points. They are our enemy because they have made us their enemy. And our other enemy is the man or woman of our own culture who refuses to accept the Evil they embody.
The biggest screw up that the PA made is in not trying to split the Israeli Left from the Likud right. With Peres in Sharon's government, there are only two Israeli governmental options: a unity government under Sharon or a Likud government under Netanayhu. As long as either option has 65%+ electoral support, Israel isn't going to go soft on PA terror attacks. Jews are going to be Jews first, and nice guys last. Gideon and young David become the motifs of the day. When the peace is finally negotiated, it will either due to a military solution, and possibly mass deportations one way or another, or due to both the Palestinians and Israelis offering each other options. The latter diplomatically simply isn't happening now, and that is a function of both sides' monolithic "unity" governments. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/31/2002 12:32:00 PM
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An Islamic advocacy group seeks to raise $1 million for a legal defense fund to assist people alleging civil rights violations since the Sept. 11 attacks. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations announced Saturday it was creating the fund. It wants to reach its $1 million target by the end of this year by collecting private donations nationwide. "After Sept. 11 there was a lot of backlash and abuse of human rights, and many people who needed help could not get help," said Nihad Awad, the council's executive director. "Their rights were thrown away because they didn't have money. It's our duty to provide legal services and representation to these people." It's terrible there are those incidents against innocent Muslims in the USA. Even worse incidents never happen in Muslim countries because they're so civilized and tolerant, of course.
Note how this moolah isn't going out of the US anymore. If the CAIR had kept sending support to Mideast jihadis the IRS would have pulled their tax exempt status soon. Now the mucky mucks at CAIR will still be able to pull in big salaries from charitable donations. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/31/2002 12:20:37 PM
Mullahs gotta eat, too. Posted by Fred 3/31/2002 1:45:19 PM
I wouldn't be surprised to learn (some years from now) that the money CAIR collects goes to furnish an Asian cave or two. I don't think the IRS is that good at what they do. Posted by Anonymous 3/31/2002 9:43:12 PM
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One of four Pakistani crewmen who jumped ship in a Virginia port was arrested Saturday in Texas. Ahmad Salman's arrest was based on leads developed by Immigration and Naturalization Service investigators at a bus station in Norfolk, Va., Those leads took INS special agents to Philadelphia and eventually to San Antonio. After being put under brief surveillance, Salman was arrested at midday without incident at a San Antonio apartment building where he was staying with an acquaintance. Well, isn't that special? Normally we don't approve of hitting a suspect in American custody very many times, but it's probably pretty essential that we get the entire story from Mr Salman, just to make sure.
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Pakistan's unelected military ruler Pervez Musharraf is to announce a referendum to ask whether he should continue as president following parliamentary elections in October."I want to know whether or not the nation requires me," the News daily quoted Musharraf as telling editors of Pakistan's national dailies late Saturday. The News reported the president said he would put a direct question to the country's people: "Do you want me to continue as president for five years or not?"
No date was given for the referendum. Musharraf pledged complete transparency in holding the poll saying he would ensure it was fair, free and credible, the report said. Since Qazi hates the idea, this'll be more opportunity for rioting and random killings. I've come to the conclusion that Perv's about as useful as a bosom on a bull - what must the Pak in the Street think of him?
I certainly hope there won't be a fair, free, or credible elections in Pakistan. The natives would most likely elect Osama bin Laden as president, with Mulla Omar as his assistant. Posted by Anonymous 3/31/2002 9:46:11 PM
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The Angolan army and the UNITA rebel movement signed an accord to end a devastating civil war that has claimed more than 500,000 lives since 1975. Saturday's peace deal resurrects a 1994 accord signed in the Zambian capital Lusaka and sets out modalities for disarming UNITA fighters, assigning them to cantonments across the country and integrating them into the government army. The prospect of peace emerged after the battlefield death on February 22 of UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. His second in command, General Antonio Dembo, was also killed in the same battle. "The two sides pledge to put an end to hostilities and restore peace throughout Angolan territory," read the accord signed by deputy army chief of staff General Geraldo Nunda and the commander in chief of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), General Abreu Kamorteiro. "I am certain that this act will reestablish definitive peace in Angola," Kamorteiro said at a ceremony at army headquarters in Lwena attended by top commanders of both the army and UNITA. Whoa! That's pretty unexpected, isn't it? I mean, that never happens, does it? Just because Savimbi was iced? They killed Mussolini and the Fascisti keep right on, didn't they? And Hitler? Doorknob dead, and the Nazis kept up their resistance. And the Palestinians, with poor old Arafat, colder than a mackerel, and what did they do... Oh. He's not dead. Well, you know what I mean.
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The Sudanese government army said it had repulsed an attack by the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), denying the SPLA's claims to have ousted Sudan's army from a key oil-producing region. "The outlaws on Friday made an attempt to recapture Nial Dhiu and the armed forces stood up to the attackers and inflicted heavy losses on them," General Mohamed Beshir Suleiman told reporters.
The spokesman said the rebels' victory claims were "false. "It has become a habit of the outlaws that every time they are defeated, they make a media row as part of a psychological warfare," Suleiman said. Sudan's main rebel movement had claimed to have killed more than 300 government soldiers and recaptured a strategic outpost in the important oil producing Nial Dhiu region Friday. Suleiman said Sudan's army had "all oil-producing areas ... fully secured."
"The remaining outlaws took to their heels and the armed forces are still pursuing them," he added.
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A suicide bomber exploded in a crowded restaurant near a shopping mall in the northern port city of Haifa on Sunday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 40 in the fourth Palestinian attack in Israel in five days. Unofficial police reports said at least 14 people were killed. There were rival claims of responsibility by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The blast went off early Sunday afternoon in the Matza restaurant, near a gas station and just outside the Grand Canyon shopping mall. The explosion was so powerful that it blew out large parts of the roof. Smoke was drifting from the building, and glass shards were scattered across the ground.
Izzedine al Qassam, the armed wing of the Hamas militant group, claimed responsibility for the terror attack on the restaurant and identified the bomber as a man from the West Bank town of Jenin. The way to deal with this is to take out the men behind the bombers. I read somewhere (I'm sorry, I forgot whose blog...) that it takes 70 people to put together a suicide bomb mission. The boomers need to be supplied with the explosives, they need a ride to their (very final) destination, their families need taken care of when they're expended, they need all sorts of logistic support. Providing that support should bring with it a death sentence. Making war by hit men is considered barbaric; I'd take it over boomers in restaurants and at aid stations, at Bat Mizvahs and Seder dinners any day. And behind the logistic network are the men running Hamas - Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa and Tanzim - Marwan Bargouti, and the PFLP - Ahmad Sa'adat. If these men wanted to die they'd have exploded already. So kill them. As soon as they're replaced, kill their successors, too. We know it works. Just ask UNITA.
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After a nervous night surrounded by Israeli tanks and troops, Adam Shapiro left Saturday with a delegation of humanitarian workers. Shapiro, a 30-year-old volunteer medic, had entered the compound on Friday afternoon in an ambulance to evacuate Arafat guards wounded in exchanges of fire in the Israeli assault. Shapiro then made a relieved a telephone call to his family in New York City. "He said 'I'm out! I'm out! I'm out!'" said Shapiro's brother, Noah. "And, see? I got this medal from Yasser Arafat in the War Against the Jews. Mom was really proud of me!"
For years he worked for Seeds of Peace, a group that tries to foster understanding by bringing Jewish and Palestinian children together at a summer camp in Maine. Shapiro headed the group's Jerusalem office for two years, leaving last fall to join the International Solidarity Movement, which opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Although the Israeli military later provided food, mineral water and candles to the building, Shapiro said that when he left, conditions were grim. Am I the only one who doesn't see a difference between him and Johnny Jihad?
Lindh had a gun. Shapiro didn't. Lindh is in jail. Shapiro isn't.
Both are idiots. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/31/2002 12:14:19 PM
So I'm not alone... Posted by Fred 4/2/2002 5:38:06 PM
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Arab leaders Saturday condemned Israel's siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, as protests denouncing the military action were held in several Middle East cities. In Cairo, as the Arab League held an emergency meeting to discuss the rising tensions in the region, university students and other demonstrators called for Arab nations to do more to support the Palestinians and for death to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called the Israeli action against Arafat's compound "a very serious development," and said it imperils the Saudi Arabian peace proposal adopted by Arab leaders Thursday, which offers Israel peace in exchange for lands it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War. "The initiative is there, but we cannot talk about it now while the tanks and troops are seven meters from President Arafat's room," Moussa said. "If this is the Israeli response to our initiative, then it is for you and the world to know who is on the side of peace, and who is on the side of aggression." We'd never say the Saudi peace initiative was a propaganda ploy. Well, maybe we would. But we'd never say this operation is geared toward destabilizing Israel. Oh, all right. Guess we would.
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Palestinian duceYasser Arafat remained penned up in his office Saturday, surrounded by Israeli troops and trying to keep up his staff's morale. In an interview from his West Bank compound in Ramallah with Fox News Channel's Rita Cosby Saturday evening, Arafat said, "We will never surrender." He doesn't really think he's toast. But I don't think he's thought out a next move, either...
Arafat said it was ridiculous for Israel to demand that he crack down on terrorist attacks and militant extremists given his current circumstances. "This is clear ... how a person in complete seige haven't (sic) a telephone to speak or contact or give orders," he said. "This telephone which I'm speaking with you, I don't know when it will be cut." It was apparently ridiculous for them to demand that he crack down before his pee-bug was in the wringer, too. So when would be a good time?
When asked if Arafat feared for his life, he said the "problem is not my life, the problem is what our people are facing, what are (sic) our authority is facing, what the whole region is facing." He doesn't think they have the nerve to take him out. If they did, he'd be a hero to the boomers. He's counting on that. Really counting on that.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, speaking on Israel Radio as the fighting took place, said: "Our decision not to harm Arafat still stands. There's no change. We don't want to turn it into a world war, into a regional war. We don't want to turn the entire world against us." As long as they have the lily-livered Peres they won't...
The Israelis apparently are doing their worst to Arafat: cutting him off from phoning up CNN whenever he wanted to pitch about how malevolent Sharon's policies are. I wonder if this is just by cutting Arafat off from new phone batteries or by actively jamming the phone links. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/31/2002 12:24:38 PM
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Something nasty happened on the fourth floor of the British Council building on a hilltop in downtown Ramallah. The bodies of five Palestinian police officers lay on their backs and sides. They had been shot in the head or neck, yet most of the blood on the wall near them was splattered no more than two or three feet high, according to a reporter who saw the scene. Looks like amateur forensics coming up. Lessee, here. Could it be a case of one-round splitting headaches? Possibly. It could also, and I'd guess more likely, be a case of five guys, possibly wearing body armor - no mention of that in the article - firing from a crouch. Head shots aren't real difficult across the width of a room, and only idiots stand up in front of God and everybody like they they do in the Rambo pictures. Unless they've just kicked open a door, of course, in which case it would leave the Israelis standing, the Palestinians crouching, with a downward trajectory for some pretty quick-taken rounds.
The killings at the British Council have struck particular fear in Palestinians because they suspect the men were assassinated. Israeli officials said the men were killed in a "close firefight." The Palestinians jump at the assassination charge at every opportunity. So is it really a wolf this time? Which side of the heads did the bullets enter? I've always found that a fairly obvious clue. In fact, it's the first one I'd look for. The Post writer and his "witness" don't seem to have looked...
On Friday, at least 19 police officers with the National Forces, a unit that handles traffic and border duty for areas under Palestinian jurisdiction, had taken refuge in the building. Traffic cops? Why execute traffic cops? Would you recognize the last guy who gave you a ticket?
That night, Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers roared up to the seven-story structure, built in the mid-1990s, when peace between Israel and the Palestinians appeared likely. At 10 p.m., gunshots sounded. Maher Shalabi, Abu Dhabi television's bureau chief in Ramallah, waited in his office on the sixth floor until dawn today while the building shook from the blasts of stun and anti-personnel grenades and the sharp staccato of rifle and machine-gun fire. Shalabi said an Israeli soldier searching the television offices told him, "We killed five police." This morning, Shalabi discovered the bodies on the fourth floor. Ever notice how tanks and APCs always "roar" or "rumble"? Just an observation on the vagaries of journalistese. Anyway. So the "witness" might be, shall we say, partisan?And he didn't actually witness anything? Why tell him you'd killed five coppers if you had something to hide? That'd be pretty stupid. And they weren't shooting people indiscriminately, 'cause they didn't shoot Mr Shalabi.
Shalabi said the five men had been hiding and were executed or shot when Israeli soldiers rounded the corner into the hall. There were no signs that the Palestinians had fired from their last position. Their bodies were found in the hallway in front of offices of the Center for the Dissemination of Democracy, but it did not appear that they had tried to take refuge there. "You see these five, and you know it is useless to fight, useless not to fight," Shalabi said. Witnesses said 14 other policemen surrendered, and the Israelis drove them away in armored troop carriers. So I'm tromping through the darkened hallway of an enemy building full of fanatical Bad Guys and I come upon five guys crouching in the dark. And I have my shootin' arn with me because I'm not an idiot. Do I say, "Hi, fellows. Howzit goin'?" Or do I blow 'em away. Lemme think real hard, here... And the other 14, who surrendered, were loaded into the paddy wagon and taken away. Guess they didn't engage in the kind of behavior that draws return fire.
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Israeli forces last night said that they would force their way into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafatâs office if he did not hand over a number of his aides. Arafatâs defiant response was to declare that he would fight to the death. Despite calls from world leaders, including those of Britain and France, for Israeli ârestraintâ, and a United Nations resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from Ramallah, the Israeli siege increased in its barbarism and intensity. Yasser Arafat has never been so isolated, or vulnerable. He is once again a hero in the Arab world.
Israeli soldiers late yesterday advanced to within a few meters of the rooms where Arafat is trapped. Members of the Force 17 body guard, contacted by mobile telephone, said the Arafatâs bodyguards had been asked by to surrender. âPresident Arafat has no communication with the outside world, all the phone lines are cut. The situation is very dangerous,â said the senior official, who asked not be named. The propaganda points counter's just climbing all the time...
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Charles at LGF points to this comforting comment by Fatah:
"Only the Americans can stop this massacre. They can stop the massacre with one phone call. If there is harm to one hair of the head of Arafat, the United States should protect its interests all over the world. We are not like bin Laden, but we have our own style." In what way aren't they like bin Laden? Same kind of bloodcurdling threats, same declaration of war on us...
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Reid Stott dissects the exploder campaign with a knife that's entirely too sharp:
"It's a verbal continuation of the same strategy, one that is not only morally bankrupt, but defies logic. Kids who've just barely become teens are murdered at their bar mitzvah because from 1947 to 1967 no Arab state created Palestine, and since then Israel has done the same.
It's like the plot from a bad David Lynch movie that no one will ever understand, but still has to watch every day.
'As Ismail Haniya, a Hamas leader, said in The Washington Post, Palestinians have Israelis on the run now because they have found their weak spot. Jews, he said, "love life more than any other people, and they prefer not to die." So Palestinian suicide bombers are ideal for dealing with them. That is really sick.'
I'm reminded of a quote from some Taliban or Al Qaeda member back in October. It was something about how the Taliban would win because 'Americans love life, and we love death.'
Be careful what you wish for." Read the whole thing. Like I say, too incisive. I'm a blunt instrument kind of guy myself...
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An explosion, apparently detonated by a suicide bomber, went off Sunday at an office for paramedics in the Jewish settlement of Efrat in the West Bank. Four people were wounded, including one who was in serious condition, medics said. One of the wounded apparently was a paramedic in training. The explosion went off less than two hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded restaurant in the port city of Haifa, killing himself and at least 12 other people. Medics are unarmed, y'see.
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Link via Tim Blair:
Israeli soldiers encircling the headquarters of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, traded fire with his defenders yesterday as Israel defied a United Nations call to lift the siege. Israeli military commanders warned that Mr Arafat's life could be at risk, in spite of orders not to hurt him. They could not rule out Mr Arafat's being harmed unintentionally by a stray bullet.
Mr Arafat's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, told CNN that Israeli forces were trying to punch their way into a new area of the battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "They tried several times to storm the western gate," he said from inside the compound. "The confrontations are still going on. A lot of people are injured. They are denying ambulances to go out. The situation is very dangerous."
A defiant Mr Arafat said he had "one choice, to be a martyr. We will never surrender. We are in complete siege." You heard it here... er, there first.
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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared Sunday his nation was at war with terrorism, following two suicide bombings earlier in the day that killed at least 14 people, as Israeli forces forged ahead with military operations in the Palestinian West Bank. "Citizens of Israel, the state of Israel is in a war, a war against terrorism," Sharon said in a nationally televised address. "It's a war that has been imposed upon us. It's not one that we have chosen to undertake. It is a war for our home."
As he did in a similar speech in December, Sharon blamed Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat for attacks against Israeli civilians and dubbed him "the enemy of Israel and the enemy of the free world." For his part, Arafat -- pinned by Israeli forces at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah -- portrayed the Israelis as the aggressors and called on "international forces" to end "this military escalation against our people." This will cause the Euros to howl. I just hope the USA backs them to the hilt, because it's a war we're fighting, too. And it's not a war we're guaranteed to win, so we need our allies. If we lose, the Dark Ages are back for another thousand years.
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In Ramallah, under Israeli control since Friday, dozens of European peace activists, their arms raised and holding white flags, marched past Israeli soldiers surrounding Yasser Arafat's office to join the Palestinian leader, saying they would stay with him as human shields. We're sure the Israelis will be blamed if these goobers end up decomposing. Some people are just plain stupid.
The Ramallah-based International Media Center said 10 members of an international group who marched into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound in the city were arrested by the surrounding troops, and that 33 others remained inside. The army earlier said Ramallah was a closed military zone and that non-residents, including foreign journalists, would be removed by force "if necessary." It said the foreign detainees were being held at a nearby base and could be prosecuted. Good idea. Lock them up and leave them there until you can get around to them - say, after peace has been restored in the Middle East.
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At least one soldier was killed and several others were wounded during a clash yesterday, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front said. Fighting erupted at about 11 a.m. when troops of the armyâs 601st Brigade attacked an MILF position in Barangay Whal, said separatist spokesman Eid Kabalu. He said the attack was also another violation of the standing cease-fire agreement that government and MILF officials signed last year. He said the ground assault was preceded by shelling of several dozens 105 mm howitzers and 81 mm mortar bombs. Kabalu said the defending MILF forces, a unit of the 204th Brigade and led by Commander Teng Jikiri, managed to repulse the soldiers after an hour of fighting.
The last line should have been a give away, but the original story coming out of the ARAB NEWS gives the whole matter a tinge of the fantastic to it. I'd suspect a more realistic accounting was that the 601st lined up its artillery and shot off its ammo at the Moros, and then skedaddled. Bravery, on either side, was not an issue. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/31/2002 12:43:19 PM
Yes, but the Saudis do so love their pet separatist movement. Duh, I wunner where their dough comes from? Posted by Fred 3/31/2002 1:40:43 PM
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
