Readers of the Jerusalem Post react to the appointment of Mahmoud Abbas (“Abu Mazen”) as Palestinian Prime Minister:
Sir, – Many media and public figures are bubbling over with praise for Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, for the reason that he is a “moderate.” Shimon Peres says he is a man we can talk to.
However, “The haji: Arafat’s new prime minister” (March 10) notes that Abu Mazen is a Holocaust revisionist. Thus were his name Irving or Zundel, our reaction to him would be disgust. We also hear that Abu Mazen’s moderation and disavowing of violence apply only to those Jews living within the Green Line; for Jews on the other side he advocates death. We furthermore read that Abu Mazen’s objections to violence stem not from any moral or ethical scruples, but solely because violence is not in the interests of the Palestinian people.
So how is it this man elicits so much admiration? Perhaps it is blind faith, or desperation. Or weariness of the struggle. Perhaps it is fantasy and daydreams. Perhaps it is madness.
Whatever it is, let us at least have the courage to recognize evil and reject the notion of making a deal with the devil.
YEHUDA DANZIGER
Efrat
Unfortunately, thanks to the media, terms like “moderate” and “extremist” tend to get distorted and thrown around. The most moderate Palestinian leader has been involved in terrorism; conversely, even the so-called “extremist” Jewish settlers are for the most part just quiet people trying to raise their families and live their lives. When the international press touts Abu Mazen as a hero, and at the same time slams Ariel Sharon, we know there’s something off-kilter. It’s about time we had the courage and moral fortitude to recognize it.
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Blogging’s been light the past couple of days due to a hectic schedule at work and my midterm this evening. Should be back to normal soon.
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Jean Chretien said yesterday that war in Iraq is not necessary, because Bush already won:
A war against Iraq over banned weapons is not necessary because the U.S. has already won, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told ABC Television in an interview broadcast Sunday.
He said credit should go to President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for putting pressure on the Iraqi regime by moving 250,000 troops into the Gulf region.
“The president has won,” Chretien said in an interview taped Saturday for the ABC news program This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “I have no doubt about it. He won.”
The danger of delusional victory is that it has a way of coming back to bite you in the ass. Say the world agrees with Chretien and decides that Iraq has been successfully contained and disarmed. Say they then decide to back off. Everyone will be happy, under the delusion that they made peace . . . but saying it’s so doesn’t make it so, as we’ll find out all too soon when Saddam launches one of the many weapons he keeps claiming not to have against the Western powers who were so cheerfully sure of their victory.
In 1991, everyone thought we won too, remember? So the cardinal rule was broken: nobody bothered to finish the job. That’s why we’re now in this mess, twelve years later.
Chretien may enjoy living in la-la-land. But it’s the Americans who are the realists here. They know that victory isn’t just a declaration on a TV show; it involves a price. And unlike Canada, they have the moral fortitude to be willing to pay it, if necessary.
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Bernard foot-in-mouth Landry is in trouble again, this time over a comment he made that is being viewed as insulting to women:
Yesterday as a three-day policy convention of his Parti Québécois to prepare for the coming election wound to a close, Landry was caught by a Radio-Canada camera saying he would rather meet with the chairman of Sun Life than with women’s groups. Landry’s words were captured as he reluctantly voted for a resolution calling for a law requiring that 50 per cent of candidates in an election be women.
“It’s for the women’s groups,” Jocelyne Gadbois, a member of the PQ executive, explained to Landry.
Landry turned to Gadbois and said, “I would rather meet the chairman of Sun Life.”
In 1978, shortly after the National Assembly adopted the PQ’s Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, Sun Life moved its head office from Montreal to Toronto, saying it couldn’t work with the language law.
This barely a month after his “birdbrain” comment got him in trouble with poverty groups.
It seems to me that if the PQ wants to win this election, they need to muzzle Landry and lock him up.
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I love this weather! Beautiful sunny winter day . . . a bit chilly, but tons of fresh white snow that just fell last night piled up everywhere. The kind of day that used to have me bolt out the front door when I was a kid to build a snow fort on the front lawn.
I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t have winters like these.
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Israel killed a Hamas leader today: Ibrahim al-Maqadma, a founder and top military strategist of the group of terrorist bastards responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocent Israelis (including the sixteen who died in Haifa on Wednesday).
Ibrahim al-Maqadma, 51, was a founder of Hamas and the most senior Palestinian militant to be killed by Israel in a 29-month-old Palestinian uprising. Tens of thousands marched in his funeral in Gaza City, demanding vengeance.
[ . . . ]
Maqadma was known to be the top commander of Hamas’s military apparatus, which has waged a suicide bombing campaign against Israel since the signing of interim peace accords with the Jewish state in 1993.
[ . . . ]
Hamas’s military wing ordered its cells to take revenge, including killing Israeli political leaders. The Palestinian Authority strongly condemned Maqadma’s “assassination” and said it would hold Israel responsible for its consequences.
Yeah, they’ll vow “revenge”, which they’ll then try to extract on more innocent civilians. And the world will, as usual, hold the assassination of a murderous terrorist morally equivalent to the murder of high school kids.
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Woke up this morning to a phonecall from my friend in Haifa, with some horrible news: it turns out her brother lost two close friends in Wednesday’s bus bombing.
Tal Kehrmann and Elizabeth Katzman were best friends. The girls were high school students who were on their way home from looking at costumes for a play. One was close friends of my friend’s brother, the other was best friends with his girlfriend.
It makes me horrified and angry. Of course, every innocent victim of terror has friends, family, and people who care about them. Who the hell gave anyone the right to take away their lives?
You can’t worry constantly, and when a terror attack happens on the other side of the country, or even the other side of the city, most Israelis mourn but then go on with their daily lives. When it happens two minutes from your home, and takes friends from your community, it’s different. My friend takes that bus regularly. It could just as easily have been her on the bus on Wednesday. Instead, she’s fine but her brother had to attend the funerals of two of his friends. Where’s the sanity? How do they live like that? How do they cope?
And so, I file this away under T for Tragedy and start my day. How many more friends will they have to lose before the madness stops?
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A Palestinian-American was just acquitted of sending online death threats to Jews.
A federal court jury found Fowad Assed, a Palestinian-born U.S. citizen living in Brooklyn, innocent of sending threatening e-mails, referring to three messages to the Jewish Defense League that threatened bombing businesses in Borough Park, a heavily Jewish neighborhood.
Assed, 33, never denied sending the e-mails, which were sent to the militant Jewish group the day after the Israeli army declared it was going after Palestinian groups following suicide bombings.
Defense Attorney Deborah Colson had argued that while the messages might be offensive, Assed was exercising his rights to free speech.
One e-mail stated: “If you kill an Arab today over there, we will kill a Jew in the U.S. … We should go to 13th Avenue in Brooklyn and set bombs in the stores there.”
Times like these test our desire for certain freedoms. In Canada, Assed would almost certainly have been convicted under hate legislation. But in the U.S., he’s apparently free to threaten to blow up as many Jews as he wants.
Of course, that’s the whole point, right? Once you start curbing your enemies’ freedoms, you’re also giving them leverage to curb yours. Deny freedom of speech to the devil, and he can turn the tables right back on you. And the true test of a democracy’s commitment to freedom is whether it grants that freedom to its most flagrant and despicable abusers. Fowad Assed being a case in point.
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Terrorist attack in Kiryat Arba:
At least three people were killed and eight wounded Friday night by armed terrorists who infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.
[ . . . ]
Reports said the terrorists managed to infiltrate the settlement by dressing as religious Jews. They managed to enter a building in the settlement, where they opened fire and threw grenades.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The shock waves still haven’t worn off from the bus bombing in Haifa on Wednesday, and now this. Sincere condolences to the victims and their families.
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Of all the warnings of the dangers of online dating, I must admit this is a new one on me:
Dozens of young Iranians have been detained for “unlawful actions” after using a website to arrange dates, officials say. A militia commander said 68 men and women were arrested in the capital Tehran, according to a report by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna). The Basij militia also detained the operators of the dating website, Irna said.
Correspondents say the Basij enforce Iran’s strict morality laws and often raid mixed parties and gatherings, but this is the first time an operation against internet users has been reported.
General Ahmad Rouzbehani told Irna: “Some people were using an internet site to allow girls and boys to talk and arrange meetings in a place in north Tehran where they had illegal relations.
(via Kathryn at The Corner).
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