Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘meryl yourish’

Reports out of Egypt that Hamas is going to agree to a long-term truce with Israel for Gaza.

Read between the lines. We have:

• The truce being contingent on the re-opening of border crossings. Translation: Hamas is low on weapons supplies, and wants a time-out with easy access to re-arm.
• An expiry date on the truce of 18 months, after which all bets are off and the whole song-and-dance will start all over from scratch.
• Hamas doesn’t refer to this as a “truce”, but as the Arabic word “hudna”, which has a completely different meaning. It’s got nothing to do with a desire for reconciliation; instead, it’s viewed as a tactical move.
• And of course, no deal for the release of Gilad Shalit.

But we all know what will happen. Hamas will announce the truce with great fanfare. It will then blatantly proceed to ignore and violate the truce daily. Israel will close its eyes as long as possible before finally having no choice but to respond. And then the world will universally condemn Israel for “violating the terms” of the truce.

I wonder if Meryl Yourish will launch another Shudna Watch in her blog?

I nearly forgot. Luckily, Meryl reminded me. I had chicken for lunch, so I guess I participated.

By the way, for anyone interested in why I support this day, or why I hate PETA so much, read this.

Webb versus Allen is still too close to call.

But never mind those clowns. Personally I think the winner should’ve been Meryl Yourish.

Lisa recently moved to her new blog home. She’s got photos of her daily life after Ariel Sharon’s stroke. Sometimes pictures really do say a thousand words.

Meryl has numbers proving conclusively that the so-called “truce” was a myth all along. She’s been saying that since it started. Nobody’s been listening. I’m betting not too many people will now. Read her post anyway.

Closer to home, there’s no shortage of election coverage and commentary. But here’s something you don’t see every day: David Janes apparently wants to be Prime Minister. And he’s laying out his platform, piece by piece. I can’t say I agree with everything he says, but at least he’s refreshingly honest. Bloggers for PM!

Pauline cast her ballot in advance polling, for the eminently logical reason that Montreal weather is unpredictable at this time of year. If I find myself unable to vote on Monday because of an ice storm, Pauline, I give you permission to say “I told you so”.

That must be the new quote, replacing “if it bleeds, it leads”. Because Meryl wonders how it’s possible that one of the most wanted terrorists in the world was captured and nobody’s talking about it:

The most feared terrorist in Asia, Azahari bin Husin, the man responsible for the two Bali bombings and an attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta, has blown himself up after being cornered by police in East Java.

Meryl, I see your question and raise you this one: How is it that I only found out about it through reading your blog?

Reuters top stories? Nope. AP? Not a chance. CNN? Andrea friggin’ Yates is a lead story but no sign of the news about bin Husin.

I guess successes in the vastly unpopular War on Terror would be conterproductive. Failures sell many more papers, right? Especially when Bush can be blamed for them.

Meryl has Hamas’s answer to those who dared hope that the Gaza withdrawal would be a step towards peace:

Hamas leaders vowed to continue fighting Israel as tens of thousands cheered and waved the group’s green flags and masked gunmen hoisted assault rifles, rockets and anti-tank missiles.

“We will not rest and will not abandon the path of Jihad and martyrdom as long as one inch of our land remained in the hands of the Jews,” said Raed Saed, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza City, using the Arabic term for holy war.

“We are celebrating our victory in Gaza and now we are headed toward Jerusalem, Nablus, Akko, Haifa, the Galilee and all of Palestine,” he said.

“Sharon, you should know that we will win – the only language spoken will be the language of weapons. We are young people who aspire to die for Allah and for the weapons we are carrying.”

Catch that language? Jerusalem (not “East Jerusalem”), Nabulus, Akko, Haifa, the Galilee and all of Palestine.

For the uninitiated, that means Israel.

I was cautiously optimistic at the start of the pullout plan, figuring that Sharon had a strategy and that this could at the very least break the stalemate and get Israel out of a region it didn’t want in the first place. I have to sadly concede that those opposed to the plan were probably right – not for religious or ideological reasons, but because it set a very dangerous precedent in rewarding terrorism.

Just when the violence was starting to wane, just as the Palestinians were starting to believe that maybe their approach was a mistake, the Gaza pullout handed them a victory to re-energize their ranks and start up the bloodshed all over again.

I’d hoped I was wrong about that. It sadly appears that I was right.

The situation in Gaza post-pullout is pretty much what most rational people predicted, and is a shattering disillusionment for those who’d held out hope that the pullout would jump-start the peace process.

Meryl, of course, is all over the story – here, here, and here are a few recent postings. And Lynn had no illusions to begin with, but as she well knows, there’s no joy in this version of “I told you so”.

The Palestinians have been handed a huge opportunity in Gaza to prove to the world that they’re ready for a state. And of course, this opportuity is being squandered, just like all those that came before it.

In the news:

A Jewish settler in the West Bank has been indicted by an Israeli court in the shooting deaths of four Palestinians in northern Israel earlier this month.

News you’d never see:

A Palestinian terrorist in the West Bank has been indicted by a Palestinian court in the shooting deaths of four Israelis in northern Israel earlier this month.

What is it that Meryl always calls situations like these? Oh yeah, IDST: Israel Double-Standard Time.

Imshin says we should not avert our eyes. She’s probably right. Israelis – and those of us who consider ourselves in solidarity with Israel – need to be engaged during this painful time of disengagement.

But Meryl describes perfectly how horribly difficult it is:

I have found myself unable to read the stories, or watch the news reports, or even think very much about it, because no matter whether or not you agree with the removal of the settlements, if you have a heart, you cannot but be upset to see people uprooted forcibly from their homes.

I cannot watch Jews fight Jews and remain dry-eyed. I can’t even read about it and not choke up. And I find that I cannot write very much about it, either.

[ . . . ]

Here is what I think is going to happen in the next few months: The terrorist attacks will continue, redoubled, as soon as Mahmoud Abbas feels comfortable enough with doing so. Israeli will not invade Gaza in response; world opinion will prevent her from doing so. The terrorism will move to the West Bank, as the IDF already realizes. Rockets will fly at Israel proper. The world will tell Israel to “show restraint.” The UN will condemn any Israeli actions.

Nothing will change. Nothing. The Bush administration has proven that they believe in the Exception Clause when it comes to condemning terrorism against Jews. I’m not buying this op-ed in the Times; Zev Chafets is an optimist, and he is overlooking the Exception Clause. The EU and the UN are still slaves to Arab oil, Arab money, Arab voting blocs, and their own barely-repressed history of anti-Semitism. They still refuse to fully condemn Hamas and Hizbullah, whose leaders have a new rallying cry, and who insist they are winning the battle with Israel.

Did I say nothing will change? That’s wrong. Israelis will no longer be murdered in the Gaza Strip. But only because they aren’t there.

These days, I find I’m just as pessimistic as Meryl. And equally unable to write about it.

Courtesy of Meryl Yourish:

On the serious side, it appears that W. isn’t going to get the fact that Ma’ale Adunim is a neighborhood of Jerusalem, not a “settlement” in the West Bank (think Queens in NYC for a comparison, or the south side of Richmond, which is actually fifteen minutes away from downtown yet is still part of the city, and I have the tax bills to prove it), and then tell the PA to eff off. Because Ariel Sharon isn’t giving it up, nor will the rest of Israel.

Jerusalem was out of Jewish control for nearly two millennia. We will never willingly give it up again, since we had the proof during Jordanian control, when they were legally obligated by treaty to let Jews worship at the Western Wall and did not, that the Arabs cannot be trusted to let Jews worship at our holy sites — even though Jews have let Muslims worship at theirs since 1967, and indeed, enacted a law protecting all holy sites.

In fact, the Jordanians destroyed much of Jewish Jerusalem while they were in control.

Here’s the thing: The Arabs lost the war. Now they lose some territory. It happens. Deal with it.

Ah yes, cause they’ve been “dealing with it” oh-so-well for all these years.