Segacs’s World I Know

To all the people complaining about the new carry-on restrictions on airplanes: shut up!

What do you think the friends and family members of the victims of 9/11 would say if we asked them whether they would have put up with the inconvenience of extra security regulations on 9/10?

Amazing how, now that one of the worst terror plots in history seems to have been foiled, all anyone can focus on is how they’re being inconvenienced. Instead of blaming the airlines, the security personnel, and the government officials, maybe people could try directing their anger and frustration at the terrorists for a change?

Meryl gives it a D. Allison believes Ehud Olmert’s days as PM are numbered. In an op-ed in Ha’aretz, Moshe Arens claims that Israel’s war was too much for its leaders to handle. The Jerusalem Post reports that Hezbollah has been strengthened immeasurably. Yoram Kaniuk in Ynet writes that the IDF lost this war and wasn’t up to the task. The general consensus is that the cause was just but the execution was severely flawed.

Israel didn’t achieve any of its continually-revised objectives.

Get back the kidnapped soldiers? Nope.

Destroy or then weaken Hezbollah? The opposite happened – Hezbollah has been strengthened in popularity among a Lebanese population who largely rejected them before. So much for the naive goals at the start of the war that had Israeli leaders actually believing that the Lebanese citizenry would take up common cause with Israel.

Disarm Hezbollah? On paper, yes. In practice? I don’t think anyone is quite that naive. And with Iran and Syria emboldened, this does not bode well for the near future.

Encourage the Lebanese army to implement 1559 and take control of southern Lebanon? On paper, maybe, but in practice, Saniora has become more of a puppet of Hezbollah than ever before.

Install an effective neutral peacekeeping force as a buffer? Instead of NATO, Israel got stuck once again with a crippled UN force that is more likely to be part of the problem than part of the solution.

World opinion? No comment. Things weren’t good, but then, they were never good on that score even beforehand.

Sure, the Israel cabinet is spinning the cease-fire as good news. What else can they do? But there will be a lot of tough questions being asked in the days ahead.

Israel had no choice: it was attacked and had to respond. But it isn’t always enough to be right. You have to be right, and you have to win.

The good news is, hopefully – hopefully – thousands of Israeli soldiers can come home, and thousands of civilians can return to their homes. In the short term, there’s no doubt that everyone wanted to see an end to this crisis – civilians in Israel and Lebanon alike were paying far too heavy a price. But the long term is worrying.

Pessimism when it comes to the middle east is hard to avoid, and I’m not really in the mood to play silver-lining today.

All right, that’s it: It was one thing when it was just getting Google to censor search results or other such “minor” infringements on freedom of speech. But now China has gone too far: It’s restricted the Simpsons:

D’oh! China has banished Homer Simpson, Pokemon and Mickey Mouse from prime time. Beginning Sept. 1, regulators have barred foreign cartoons from TV from 5 to 8 p.m. in an effort to protect China’s struggling animation studios, news reports said Sunday. The move allows the Monkey King and his Chinese pals to get the top TV viewing hours to themselves.

Foreign cartoons, especially from Japan, are hugely popular with China’s 250 million children and the country’s own animation studios have struggled to compete. Communist leaders are said to be frustrated that so many cartoons are foreign-made, especially after efforts to build up Chinese animation studios.

The most ironic part of this news story? That China, a Communist nation, is really doing nothing worse than what the CRTC does here in Canada. Ain’t it great living in such a free country?

A plane flying from Montreal to Washington, D.C. was diverted to Baltimore. Details are sketchy. There’s no word yet on whether there was any connection between this and the foiled British terror plot.

Update: Seems it was a false alarm. But nobody was taking any chances yesterday.

British authorities claim that they have foiled a terrorist plot to blow up major transatlantic airlines:

The threat level to the UK has been raised by MI5 to critical after the arrests in London, High Wycombe and Birmingham.

Critical threat level – the highest – means “an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK”.

Three US airlines are believed to have been targeted.

Mr Reid said had the attack gone ahead it would have caused a loss of life of “unprecedented scale”.

Scary stuff.

We’re going to be hearing a lot of skepticism and moonbat conspiracy theories in the next few days. But I’d much prefer to deal with those than with the innocent loss of life that could have resulted here. In six months, probably nobody will remember this – but better that than a repeat of 9/11.

Looking to read about something other than the Israel-Lebanon war? Visit New-at-This in Healthcare, a brand-new blog by a good friend of mine who is a medical student here in Montreal. Let’s give her a nice warm welcome to the blogosphere, shall we?

Update: More friends getting into the spirit of things. Here’s another from the nursing student perspective.

I guess Nasrallah is catching onto the fact that rockets landing on Arab-Israelis in Haifa isn’t exactly boosting his popularity in the Arab world. Now, he wants to get them out of the way, presumably to make it easier for him to kill Jews (but of course, it’s the Zionists who are the racists here… riiiiightttt…):

“I have a special message to the Arabs of Haifa, to your martyrs and to your wounded. I call on you to leave this city. I hope you do this. … Please leave so we don’t shed your blood, which is our blood,” Nasrallah said.

As usual, Meryl says exactly what I would’ve said, only better:

You know, the last time Arabs in Israeli territory were told by outside “leaders” to pull up stakes and split for a few weeks, they wound up as permanent refugees, pathetic puppets of the Arab League, and terrorist recruiting fodder for 58 year-

Ahhhhh… now it’s starting to make sense.

And in 50 years, there will be human rights groups around the world demonstrating againt the “Jews who forced the Arabs out” of Haifa.

Imshin is fed up, and writes why:

I started this blog in 2002 because I was so upset about the lies being told about Israel all the time. Lies being told and being believed.

I don’t care any more. It doesn’t matter. We’ve always had to look out for ourselves. Today is no different.

[ . . . ]

Brave kids are fighting for us in Lebanon, getting wounded, getting killed. Whole families have been sitting underground for weeks, many others are refugees. People are being killed and wounded in their homes, thousands of homes have been destroyed. By an organization described by some foreign media as a ‘resistance movement’. Resistance against what exactly?

Against Israel’s existence. They are quite clear about that.

The situation is that Lebanon has to burn right now if Israel is to survive. I’m sorry for the people on the other side, but that is the way it is. Us or them. In that respect we are not doing nearly enough for the enemy to get the picture. No, for the enemy to cease to be.

So I’m supposed to be bothered about the usual lies being told about us by our enemies, those who wish us to cease to be? Excuse me if I don’t give a $%^&!

Read the whole thing.

It’s one of the most popular beach, sand and sun destinations for Australians, New Zealanders, and backpackers in general. But Fiji, where I spent a few hours on layover just a few months ago, is sending out a message: Israelis not welcome (via Meryl):

Three Israeli backpackers were evicted from Fiji after a Muslim immigration officer ruled that they had humiliated Palestinians during their military service in the territories.

The three – Amit Ronen, Eldar Avracohen, and Nimrod Lahav – left Israel in February for a tour in Australia.

In July they decided to spend a week in Fiji. On July 13 they arrived at Fiji airport where a surprise awaited them.

“We gave our passports to the officer, and when she saw we are Israelis she asked for ID cards. We told her we don’t understand why we need ID cards and she responded shouting: ‘You know very well how to ask Palestinians for IDs and humiliate them for three years.”

That’s what Avracohen wrote in a complaint letter he sent to Israel’s Ambassador to Australia Nati Tamir.

The three were held at Fiji airport for six hours and officials rebuked their pleas to be allowed to make a phone call.

Armed policemen took them to a cell at the airport where they spent the night before being sent back to Australia.

Catch that? A night in jail with no phone call, for having done absolutely nothing besides present a passport that happened to be from Israel.

There are a zillion Israeli backpackers in Australia right now. I ran into them in just about every hostel, on every bus, and in every tourist site imaginable. A fair number probably travel to Fiji on a regular basis. Fiji’s economy is largely tourism-based, and they depend on this business. I hope this story reaches the backpacker community far and wide, and that travellers of all stripes band together to refuse to go to Fiji until a suitable apology is issued. (Judging by the antisemitism too prevailant in the backpacker community, though, I wouldn’t hold my breath).