Zion. An island of sanity in an ocean of savagery.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
End of an era
I buried my grandfather today. He celebrated his 101st birthday 3 months ago. He was a tough old man, I can say that about him. The best thing that can be said about him though, is that he sired my father. He didn't do a very good job of being a father to him, but MY dad grew up to be a good one to me. My dad only lived for 53 years, which is way too short for such a brilliant, nice, funny, strong and tough man. The world became a lesser place when he died, and it isn't just me saying that. Such sentiments are not heard about my grandfather. He was a bitter, cynical man, he was cruel to his kids and cold to his grandkids. I won't even go into his really bad side. There was a lot to explain this unpleasant part of him, he had a very hard and difficult life almost from the moment he was born, and I totally understand how he got to be the way he was. But I don't have to like him, and I never did. My dad only got be 53, and there was no one on the planet who disliked him. More than 400 people attended his funeral. My grandfather was 101, and barely 20 people showed up, including his estranged family. I guess the good really do die young.
Still, without him, I would not have been. He married a gentile, and it turned out that was what saved him when his six brothers and two sisters were deported to Germany with all of their children. One brother and one niece returned, out of all of those families with children. My grandpa was never in real danger in the war, and neither were my father or his siblings. And so a few of my once large extended family survived, and eventually I was born, and then I had beautiful sons myself. All because of an almost random choice for a non-jewish wife.
Rest in peace, granddad. You more than earned it, I guess.
Now that Israel has lost its UN Security Council guardian, nothing stands in the way of a global war against Israel. This war will not (at first) be fought with guns, but with economic means. Then, when Israel is thought to be weak enough, the world will sit by while the Arab hordes attack the jews and finally finish the job Hitler so clumsily left undone.
I have been ranting and raving against the Israeli dependance on the US for a long time now. I had many reasons for doing so, but I have to admit, I never envisioned a US president who would abandon the jews without even attempting to extort them into doing something they didn't want to do. Obama just hates them, and doesn't need 'disobedience' as an excuse for sanctions.
So now the situation is like this. The UN SC will vote the way the Arab and non-aligned countries desire, and the US will too, or at best they will refrain from using their veto like they used to do when Israel's interests were at stake. From now on, anything is possible, and likely.
An American boycott is now a realistic option. And Israel has nowhere else to turn. Worse, there is no telling what Obama will do for the Arabs and countries like Iran and Turkey - he has already shown strong tendencies to throw Israel under the bus in the name of peace in the Middle-East, and to curry favor with the Islamic world in general. As far as the US are concerned, Israel's only hope is the elections in three years, and an Obama defeat. But three years is a long time to go when Hezbollah is stronger than it has ever been, Iran is closer to nukes than ever before, and even Egypt is opening the borders with Gaza, as Hamas has requested. The Arabs may well attack when they feel sure Israel will not receive military or economic aid from the US, and help from any other quarters was never expected to begin with.
From where I am sitting, Israel is turning into Masada. It's not a position anyone should want to be in, but the irony is that the dependance on the US is exactly what led to this predicament. Israeli fear of being cut off by the US caused its leadership to act like serfs to the Americans, which led the latter to an attitude of arrogance and superiority, instead of one of friendship and alliance. Until Obama, US presidents treated Israel and its interests as something to be played against the Arabs for favors and bargains, something one doesn't do to a friend and ally. Now there is an administration led by a man who feels he can get those favors and bargains by bowing and kowtowing to the Arabs, a man who doesn't think he needs Israel even for this demeaning role. Israel is now no longer even a mixed blessing, in the eyes of Obama the country is baggage, a jinx, the cause of strive and violence.
So, how is this going to play out? First, more censure at the UN SC. More 'relief' convoys will follow, and Israel has no choice but to stop them, with predicable consequences. Then, when Israel ignores the UN SC censure, actual sanctions will follow, and the US will not veto unless Israel makes concessions that threaten the country beyond any speculation. It will be caught between a rock and a very hard place. Israel cannot survive economic sanctions for long, but neither can it go back to the Armistice borders of 1948 and expect to live long.
This is the time to declare to the world that consequences be damned, Israel will steer its own course (as it always should have). If the world is indeed unanimously intent on the destruction of the tiny jewish nation, there can never be any other outcome, and nothing Israel can do will make any difference. The only variable will be the Western nations, Europe and the US in particular. Will they let the jews perish as they did in World War two? I know how Obama will vote, and the same can be said for many European leaders. But will the peoples of Europe and America stand by AGAIN while a second Holocaust takes place?
"Our countries are bound together by shared values, deep and interwoven connections, and mutual interests," he added. "Many of the same forces that threaten Israel also threaten the United States and our efforts to secure peace and stability in the Middle East. Our alliance with Israel serves our national security interests.”
“As we continue to strive for lasting peace agreements between Israel, the Palestinians, and Israel’s neighbors, all sides should understand that our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable and that no wedge will be driven between us. We will have our differences, but when we do, we will work to resolve them as close allies.”
Talk is cheap, treacherous liar. You treat the Prime Minister of your so-called 'close ally' like shit, and no wonder since you treat your other allies (Britain, France) like shit too, while dealing with despots and tyrants like they are your homies.
Obama, you are full of shit. Time for the rest of the world to wake up and smell it too.
Great column by David Solway on FrontPageMag. I'm as far from a religious person as you can get, but when you sum up all the things Obama has done to destroy America, it's hard to escape the idea of him being Evil Incarnate:
What have you done? You have elected a president on the strength of an ellipsis, neglecting to fill in the three dots trailing after his every echoing jingle—“Yes we can”…what? You have credited a nimble spinner of tales, a pretty fellow with no significant experience of the real world of risk, hard work and the hazards of survival, a thug with a beguiling smile. You have elevated to the highest office in the land a man without discernible qualifications who is plunging the nation into unredeemable debt for generations to come. You have installed possibly the most consummate liar in POTUS history, who breaks campaign promises as if he were cracking eggs for the skillet and changes his mind almost daily like a weathervane on steroids. You have put your trust in an intellectual lightweight and geopolitical bungler who makes Jimmy Carter look like a paragon of acute intelligence, moral substance and rare diplomatic foresight. [Emphasis mine - Ed]
What have you done? You have bought into a fraudulent narrative. You have made a Faustian bargain with a suave Mephistophelian who offers hope and change but delivers instead inevitable suffering and a violated people. As in all such compacts, the price for a brief state of euphoria is subsequent prolonged distress. You have given carte blanche to a man with a personal dossier blacked out in many places like a letter from the front, so as not, apparently, to divulge sensitive information. You have raised among you a man whose friends and influences would surely have precluded him from meriting your confidence had you paid attention to plain facts rather than to quasi-mystical incantations. You have anointed a man with a sinister agenda. You have voted for your historical nemesis who with his every move and decision renders you increasingly insecure in a violent and unforgiving world.
But we can all pray he suffers a fatal aneurysm some time soon. Or maybe he has terminal colonic cancer and doesn't know it. Please read Benny Morris in the Telegraph today.
Obama's deliberate coldness toward America's traditional ally has not been lost on the Israeli public. He spoke in Cairo last year to the Muslim world, while avoiding a "balancing" visit to Jerusalem. He pettily humiliated Netanyahu during last week's visit to America (on the evening of their meeting, Obama left Netanyahu for more than an hour stranded in the White House while he dined without his guest). Nor will Washington's overbearing tone be quickly forgotten.
This man is a dedicated enemy of Israel. Something needs to happen.
Little Green Footballs gone completely over to the Dark Side
In a previous post I already pointed out that Charles Johnson had all but abandoned the path of sanity. And lately, on any random day, his site has nothing but anti-rightwing posts, anti-creationist ranting and some musical interludes. Oh, and every once in a while, a pro-Israel post. Thank god for small mercies. He's firmly on the anti-Rush Limbaugh bandwagon too. But not a word about Anita Dunn. Wanna know about them? Read Mark Steyn's latest.
The Left can do no wrong. The Right can do no right. How do you call a person who works like that?
Charles Johnson of LittleGreenFootballs was once a lefty. It took the deaths of 3000 people in the New York WTC in 2001 to bring him to his senses and smell the roses: The world is under attack from a fascist totalitarian ideology. That was 8 years ago. Charles has been leaning more and more in the direction where he naturally resided once, the left. Half of all the space on his blog is dedicated to something very few people really care about, the evolution VS creationism debate. Charles can get all hysterical about it, and between the lines it easy to read the type of alarmism that lefties get aroused to if you dare doubt the veracity of the theory of evolution.
But what's finally turned me off - and I was a big fan of Charles Johnson and LGF - is his onesided coverage of Geert Wilders and his politics. And Charles now feels slighted by the fact that Geert Wilders did not take the trouble to answer a personal letter from Charles the Great. In this letter, Charles expresses his concern about the political allies Geert Wilders chooses, or appears to choose. The sycophants at LGF do nothing to bring some sense into this uni-directional discourse, quite the opposite, they cheer him on. If Charles Johnson says it, it must be so.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, by any meaning of the word. He is strongly in favour of human rights and a proponent of minority rights. It is exactly these values he is defending in his battle with islam, and he is alone in seeing islam for the fascist ideology it is.
As a Dutchman myself, I cannot believe my good fortune in having Geert Wilders, at a time when everyone else who ever spoke up has either been murdered or cowed into submission and silence. Geert Wilders is the only thing standing between a semblance of freedom and surrender to the barbarians. And a large and growing segment of Dutch citizens recognize this.
Charles Johnson sees more enemies on the US rightwing of politics these days than he does on the leftwing. He can't help but find mostly good things to say about Obama, a man who can only be described as the greatest threat to freedom the US has ever seen. Johnson picks fights with conservative talkshow hosts, but is silent about the leftwing useful idiots, who outnumber the conservatives in the media five to one or worse.
It wasn't always so. Charles Johnson seemed to have made it to the ranks of the sane and the clearheaded. It's a shame you almost but not quite made it Charles. I'm especially sorry for your hundreds of thousands of subscribers, who of course will blithely follow you wherever you lead them.
The Geert Wilders movie has been published at last.
Geert Wilders, Dutch politician and leader of the Freedom party has made a movie about the koran. It promised to be critical of the holy book of islam, and the entire world was in an uproar even before anyone had seen it.
Nothing proves the intolerance of islam as much as its reaction to an unseen movie. Global rioting, censorship, law suits, death threats, economic boycotts, flag burnings: Islamic countries making demands on the West, and the West showing beyond a shadow of a doubt that it has no spine.
Dutch broadcasting corporations all refused to air the movie. Network Solutions (Wilders' Internet provider) took the the site off the air after receiving complaints WHEN THE MOVIE HAD NOT EVEN BEEN VIEWED ONCE.
Wilders has now published it through LiveLeak. Please watch, and learn.
Hamas claimed it fired two Katyushas last night and another today aimed at Ashkelon, a port town about 10 miles from the Gaza Strip that is home to strategic fuel depots and electrical stations that supply power to most of southern Israel. ... President Bush visited the region last week to encourage the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to continue negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. According to diplomatic sources, Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams met today as the rockets were landing in Sderot and Ashkelon.
A more severe form of cognitive dissonance I have never seen. Negotiate giving ever more land away with the people who've been trying to kill you for decades, while they are bombarding you daily with ever more sophisticated rockets.
We search the purses of little old ladies so that recent immigrants from Saudi Arabia named "Mohammed" wearing massive backpacks don't get singled out.
