Comedy Gold: Al Jazeera Reporter – “We’re Under Attack” by IDF (Video)
Published September 6, 2009“It’s OK, It’s Not Fatal”
While ranting & raving and perhaps giving the most blatantly bias one sided version of long ongoing events I have ever seen on TV, this Al-Jazeera english reporter comes under what can only be described as a monstrous offensive push by the IDF. You can’t see the 25 tanks & dozens of helicopters circling for the kill but if you close your eyes & imagine real hard they are there!!!!
Loaded Weapon
Her report armed up with loaded words, ‘criminal’, ‘illegal’, ‘land seizures’ etc lauds the weekly and often violent Palestinian demonstrations at Bil’in as a ’resistance symbol’. The whole thing is rather pitiful.
These weekly demonstrations often resort to violence with rocks, molotov cocktails etc.. Not too mention Palestinians trying to and sometimes breaching the border illegally by attacking or storming the security fence. Which as one can see is far from very menacing overall, a stark contrast to the image normally portrayed in international media of hulking concrete walls & barriers..
In reality over 95% of the barrier as it is often called is fencing exactly like this, less than 5% is made of concrete walls. But why let reality or anything else get in the way of good propaganda (er..) I mean good TV. A number of IDF soldiers have been injured at the site previously by these sanguine and friendly Palestinians ‘freedom fighters’, this is also one of the spots where Boash the Skunk – Israel’s non lethal ’dead animal excrement smelling’ spray is often deployed.
Too bad we couldn’t get that on camera this day. Then this would have really been a keeper! The whole thing wraps with a whine over the massive concession of halting new settlement construction by Israel which is apparently not good enough for our ‘peace partners’.. Who can go to hell as far as I’m concerned personally.
2 CommentsLaLaLand: Opposition Leader Livni Has Seen Better Weeks
Published September 5, 2009
Kadima GoldenGirl needs some polish
Things started off well enough this week for Mrs Livni. She was as happy as a peacock eating dinner with Madonna in Tel Aviv this week. This garnered her the most attention she’s been able to muster herself in weeks and she sure does love attention. The international superstar later visited Netanyahu’s home to light Shabbat candles (no, I’m not referring to Livni).
But the fun ended quickly in Kadima faction meetings, replaced by some blistering criticism..
The Kadima faction’s pre-Rosh Hashana gathering at the Knesset on Wednesday turned out to be not very festive, as party head Tzipi Livni endured rare criticism from someone other than her number two in the party, MK Shaul Mofaz.
Mofaz was joined in criticizing Livni’s management of the party by MKs Avi Dichter, Ze’ev Boim, and Gideon Ezra. The main issues of dissent were the handling of the party’s finances and a change to the party’s constitution that was enabled by temporarily removing regional council heads from Kadima’s governing council.
Sixteen MKs came to a meeting of Kadima’s house committee on Thursday during which party spendings were discussed. The MKs demanded greater transparency and complained that the budget for 2009 had still not been passed in September.
“If she doesn’t start considering the others in the party and stop thinking Kadima can be a one-woman show, she is going to have a real problem,” a Kadima MK who supports Livni said Thursday night. [...]
You see while Livni is living it up, Kadima is in debt and facing serious budget concerns. Almost 40 million Shekels worth of it with little winning party results, and even weaker opposition to show for it. Here’s a sample of her latest opposition statements and they show Livni living in a sort of LaLaLand as her colleagues have protested..
“Israel’s leaders, the elected government, in my opinion, still hasn’t made a choice between two different outlooks. One, Jewish existence in every part of Israel, and two, the existence of a Jewish democratic state,” she said in a speech at an IDF pensioners’ event. [...]
“In our time, we built in Jerusalem and the settlement blocs, they never liked it, but it was never the core of the debate between Israel and the world,” continued the opposition leader. “That was because they believed us and understood that our way was not one of biding time and trying to survive. With these attempts to survive and please everyone, we won’t preserve Israel’s interests and what is important to us, and we won’t progress at all.”
Huh? What is Livni rambling about here? The reason this has become the ‘core of the debate’ is President Obama and his need to create an artificial crisis with Israel for his own political purposes.. Not too mention his slimy move to totally disregard American / Israeli agreements – Which provided Madame Livni with the ability to see expansion ‘in her time’, and which were negotiated by Ariel Sharon when she was pretty much a nobody.
Nor was there ever any EU, or American celebratory cheering going on for settlement issues either despite these agreements. As usual Livni seems to coast along in a form of dream state above it all. I guess she has already forgotten Condi Rice’s vehement statements & threats to herself & Olmert over Jerusalem construction last year. Convenient. It’s all very slippery & slimy and it is a pattern for Livni. She boasts of clean hands & change, but the only thing she often changes are the facts and history – Usually to suit her megalomaniacle ‘me me me’ needs.
Country fairly united
Netanyahu has done a good job building strong consensus and boxing Livni out of any coherent position of opposition. Kadima is in trouble, so is Livni. It’s time to wake up from the reverie. Apparently many in Kadima feel the same. The Power of Me got Livni nowhere, how’s about she start looking out for the rest of us a bit? Maybe with some responsible, coherent opposition in the form of supporting the will of the People of Israel instead of courting celebrities like Madonna or Obama.
Watching Weasels: Feeling the Love in a Non-Council Nomination This Week (Updated Council Results)
Published September 3, 2009Can Mahmoud Abbas graduate from ‘Utterly Useless’ to full fledged ‘Weasel’? (UPDATED BELOW with the COUNCIL’s VOTE)
Many thanks to Senor SoccerDad for his nomination of Occupation Vocation: Palestinian Peace of the Not So Brave to the non-council category this week over at the Watchers of Weasels.
Every week the tasty blogs on the Council vote on a mix of their own & 3rd party blog posts for pre-eminent Weasel bragging rights.. In all truth it’s one of the best ways to drill down to some of the more interesting posts of the week from some fantastic blogs. I always appreciate an occasional appearance, last time round thanks to the Council votes I managed a second place tie - But I had a real powerhouse in the mix imho and one of my own favorite posts nominated.
Looking over this week’s non-council nominations in the running..
It’s going to be another uphill climb because the competition quality is high! Get your dose of great reading with this week’s tally, courtesy of the Council Chief - The Weasel Watcher himself, who’s now incidentally blogging more and more on the top topics of the week.
A nomination pays hefty dividends. Last time round I got into the council picks the selections made it all the way to worldnetdaily as a short brief on what’s good on the net, generating some tasty traffic beyond that of the blogs in the roundup, these critter watchers have some serious clout.
Council Submissions
- Joshuapundit - Ted Kennedy Stumbles Offstage
- The Provocateur - Going Viral
- The Glittering Eye - Healthcare As a Right, Again
- Rhymes With Right - Arlington National Cemetery Desecrated By Burial Of Traitor
- Soccer Dad - The right to a Jewish state
- Bookworm Room - Hollywood’s Perverted Patriotism
- Right Truth - Answers about release of Lockerbie bomber lead to more questions
- Mere Rhetoric - Auto Industry Insider Explains How C4C Distorted The Market, Wiped Out Rebates, And Cemented Japanese Dominance
- The Colossus of Rhodey - “Change” is right
Non-Council Submissions
- The Watcher – Sherman Frederick @ Las Vegas Review-Journal - Enough is enough, Harry – Stop the childish bullying
- Joshuapundit – Jerome Auerbach/WSJ - Remembering The Hebron Massacre
- The Provocateur – The Corner - Re Will on Afghanistan
- The Glittering Eye – zenpundit - Apocalyptic Vision
- Rhymes With Right – Betsy’s Page - The perfisy of Senator Kennedy
- Soccer Dad – The Hashmonean - Occupation Vocation: Palestinian Peace of the Not So Brave
- Bookworm Room – Big Hollywood - Mr. President, Please Don’t Bogart the Blunt
- Right Truth – Infidel Blogger’s Alliance - Perhaps the Best Political Editorial from a Newspaper Evaagh !
- Mere Rhetoric – Claudia Rosett / Forbes - The Age Of The Celebrity Tyrant
- The Colossus of Rhodey – Foreign Policy - Is a Green World a Safer World?
Best of luck to all the Council members & non-member posts.
COUNCIL VOTE UPDATE: Results are in!
Joshuapundit steals the show on the council side, I think this is two weeks in a row too. Not bad at all with a whopping three points which is pretty tough to do. On the non council side Harry Reid takes a bruising with 1st place : )
For the Hashmonean a not stellar but decent 4th place tie outside the winners circle. There were a bunch of posts tied ahead too in 2nd place with strong numbers - I can think of worse things in life than tying for 4th with the likes of Mark Steyn however. Big Thanks to the Council for another super weasel watch, another batch of top quality posts and their consideration!
Epic Fail: Abrams Blasts US Syrian Appeasement Policy
Published September 2, 2009Obama’s Open Hand to Nowhere Results in Predictable Syrian Slap to the Face
Bush’s Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams takes us there blow by blow, courtesy of the ever delish Weekly Standard..
The Obama administration has been trying out a new policy toward Syria since the day it came to office. The Bush cold shoulder was viewed as a primitive reaction, now to be replaced by sophisticated diplomacy. Outreach would substitute for isolation. Thus there have been six visits to Damascus by high-level administration officials, including two by George Mitchell. Moreover, the administration has signaled that its handling of export license applications for Syria will be more “flexible” than that of the Bush administration, which tried to deny every shipment it could.
Well, the returns are in. Within the past week, Iraq has withdrawn its ambassador from Damascus and accused Syria of involvement in terrorist incidents in Baghdad. Iraqi TV has also aired a confession by an accused al Qaeda terrorist, a Saudi who claimed he had been trained in Syria–by the Asad regime’s intelligence services. Nor is this all. Syria continues to support Hezbollah’s blocking of the formation of a government in Lebanon, backing Hezbollah in its demand for a “blocking third” that would prevent any decisions Hezbollah opposes in any new Cabinet. The Palestinian terrorist groups remain headquartered in Damascus, and under no visible restraints. And on August 19, President Bashar Asad paid a visit to President Ahmadinejad in Tehran, to showcase his support of the latter during the current Iranian political crisis. [...]
You can smell the generous dollop of sarcasm Abrams drops on us with his ‘sophisticated diplomacy’ shot above, as soon as I read that I knew I’d be blogging about this one. I love that! Critics will point out that Obama has in theory maintained the ‘US tough guy stance’ toward Syria by renewing American Congressional sanctions slapped on the regime by the Bush Administration, albeit minus the now granted gift of export licenses mentioned above for technical parts & other goodies. Further, the argument inevitably leads to critics saying the Bush strategy did not produce desired results, so ‘hope & change’ was needed.
More Yummyness..
To this criticism Abrams fires off an unexpected volley, the Bush strategy was too tame & weak. With evidence pouring in that Syria has been for years now allowing the open flow of men & matériel to Iraq with the goal of fighting Americans, Abrams counters that a more aggressive strategy would have been effective and that the tools – A massive US military presence along the border regions with Iraq were close at hand.
Hawks Speaking Out
Which brings up another related manner. VP Cheney’s recent comments to Fox News Sunday which carried a not so subtle undertone. The second half of the Bush administration’s two terms exhibited a much weaker foreign policy stance across the board. One which clearly created debate within the administration with Cheney and hawks lined up versus Condi Rice and the organs of State.
We can deduce without much trouble where Elliott might fall opinion wise. Cheney himself spoke about Iran, but this weakened stance exhibited itself in relation to Syria & North Korea, and finally in the Annapolis process as well which was clearly Condi’s baby. This weakness was most especially pronounced & came to the fore clearly when Condi lobbied to have America halt Israel from successfully striking the Syrian illicit nuclear program, which was frankly a stunning bit of appeasement that Bush thankfully resisted.
Realists vs NeoCons
It all comes full circle. Abrams speaks about the lack of moral clarity we’re now seeing under President Obama in relation to Syria, but just as glaringly we have also seen it in relation to Iran. Where Obama shamefully sacrificed American ideals to appease a brutal and vicious Iranian Revolutionary Guard military coup in order to prop up his already failing strategy on that front too.
The new Obama policy has produced no change in Syrian conduct, but it has produced a change in American behavior: Now we have even lost the moral clarity with which America used to speak about the nature and actions of the Asad regime.
But that is in essence the great American dilemma right now isn’t it?
With realists driving American foreign policy; Freedom, American values and sacrosanct American ideals which are the basis of neoconservative policies have taken a back seat to cold often faulty calculating ‘realism’. Screw Democracy, it’s now a moment by moment mish mash of washed up, moraless, academia induced nonsense. There’s no map or guiding principles. In short – An epic fail in both result and what has been sacrificed.. The American moral high ground.
1 CommentDivergence on Iran: Obama Needs to Play Catch-up With Americans; As Usual
Published September 1, 2009He’s President of The United States of America, Not MoveOn.Org
New polling out confirms previous American attitudes on Iran & reveals yet another core issue on which the President is seemingly off the mark compared to his constituents, the American people. But first, the previous numbers relating specifically to striking Iran militarily.
In May I posted about Rasmussen polling which showed American support for Israel vs Iran was going up, in contrast to the harsh tones coming out of the Obama Administration relating to Israel..
With the screws ever tightening between Washington & Jerusalem and Obama looking to seemingly squeeze the Jewish nation, Americans polled show increasing support numbers for their ally Israel facing an Iranian threat. Rasmussen reports a fairly dramatic 7% poll lift for Israel since last summer on the question of military force, and the USA coming to assist Israel should we be forced to strike..
Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans say that if Israel launches an attack against Iran, the United States should help Israel. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% believe the United States should do nothing while just 2% believe the U.S. should help Iran. Last summer, just 42% said the United States should help Israel while 46% said the nation should do nothing.
Sixty-four percent (64%) of Republicans say that the U.S. should help Israel as do 50% of those not affiliated with either major political party. A plurality of Democrats (44%) say that the U.S. should do nothing. [...]
On the question in general of American priorities, again our allies showed strong predilection for stopping Iran, and not just for Israel’s sake. Americans polled previously viewed Iran as the number one foreign policy threat to the United States of America specifically due to the nuclear threat.
Stopping Iran is considered by American voters top priority, and this informed public has come to the realization it may be up to its ally Israel should other efforts fail. If that is the case, Israel requires both American moral support & assistance which numbers show are forthcoming overall from our American friends on the military front.
Sixty-six percent (66%) of all voters now say that preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons is more important than preventing war between Iran and Israel. That’s up fourteen percentage points from 52% last July.
Just 23% now say preventing war between Iran and Israel is more important than stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons
Iran is racing ahead toward nuclear weapons.
With Obama’s Administration lording & linking Palestinian issues over Israel as a pre-requisite for assisting its ally, these numbers and American opinion are crucial. If we are forced to strike, the chances of success are magnified exponentially with our ally’s quiet assistance. Israel has already made major concessions in the quest for peace under Netanyahu, but to date we have not seen Obama become more forceful on Iran despite the glaring failures apparent to all with his much hyped ‘engagement strategy’.
New Numbers Show Americans Again Standing Up to Iran – Where is Obama?
On the topic of averting strikes through strong non military means involving sanctions or fuel blockades, Americans speak out loudly in overwhelming numbers leaving the President in their dust & significantly out to lunch for months now. The Israel Project has new polling out which confirms trends seen previously via Rasmussen’s polling.
According to a new poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and commissioned by The Israel Project:
• 81 percent of American voters believe Iran is a serious threat to U.S.
• Two-thirds support proposal to “prevent any company doing business in the United States if that company provides Iran with refined petroleum.”Washington, D.C. – A new bipartisan poll (Word document, PowerPoint) commissioned by The Israel Project (TIP) shows that an overwhelming number of Americans (81%) believe that Iran poses a serious threat to the United States, and that the international community should prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (86%).
Further, Americans agree (84%) that “even with all the problems the nation faces here at home, we must still work hard to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”
TIP Founder Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi noted that, “While we may be mired in a recession and focused on the nation’s health care debate, there is no lack of concern among Americans about the potential threat posed by a nuclear Iran.”
Among possible approaches to deal with Iran, Americans favor a combination of approaches — supporting opposition groups in Iran that are working for democracy and human rights (86%), initiating direct talks between the U.S. and Iran (76%) and expanding UN economic and diplomatic sanctions (81%).Most interesting was the two-thirds support given by Americans to a proposal to “prevent any company doing business in the United States if that company provides Iran with refined petroleum.” [...]
Indeed, it appears that for Americans – Whether it be strong upped sanctions & possible fuel blockades; or supporting Israel if it feels the need to avert an existential Iranian nuclear threat.. The support is there and often overwhelmingly so.
As I posted previously, there are Senate & House bills proposed which allow the President to implement precisely these forms of sanctions awaiting Obama’s go ahead. They have been sitting around since April in the drawer.
Meanwhile, pressure is brought to bear on Israel as opposed to on Iran?
This has been the case for 7 months now despite the evident failures this strategy has produced. Why is the American President so divergent from the American people on these issues? What has he been waiting for?
Obama made so much of former President Bush’s inability to admit he was wrong while out on the campaign trail. Yet the not so new any longer American President shows a surprising amount of ego & arrogance when he has to date exhibited.. More of the same.
When do we get to see Mr. Gibbs stand up at the podium and tell the American people & the rest of the World that the President’s engagement strategy has to date failed, and that instead of blindly appeasing Iran; the President is going to try appeasing the American people a bit instead?
1 Comment
That's me, I'm part of the vast global Zionist Conspiracy you often 'read' about ;)
