| Anti-semitic comic book: "Foreskin Man" (updated) Posted: 03 Jun 2011 02:30 PM PDT This is un-freaking-believable - a comic book where the villain is a bloodthirsty rabbi called Monster Mohel who wants to circumcise boys, and is stopped by the heroic Foreskin Man. Here are a few panels:
Yes, the heroes kidnap the baby so he can be brought up in the correct, non-Jewish way. Which just goes to show that many of the"anti-circ" fanatic are motivated by good old fashioned Jew-hatred, and not out of any concern about innocent babies. (I'm not posting the link here, but it is easy enough to find.) (h/t Levi) UPDATE: The Jewish Journal talks about it in today's issue. The backers of a ballot initiative in San Francisco aiming to ban circumcision in that city have consistently maintained that their efforts are not anti-Semitic.
But the "Foreskin Man" comic book, which was written and edited in 2010 by the founder of a San Diego group supporting efforts to ban circumcision in San Francisco and Santa Monica, gives further credence to the accusation that so-called intactivists are in fact motivated by anti-Semitism.
"The imagery in 'Foreskin Man' is functionally Anti-Semitic," Abby Michelson Porth, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), said. "The motives of the proponents of this ban are questionable given their direct connection with "Foreskin Man."
The story told in the second issue of "Foreskin Man," which is available on its website, centers on the story of Sarah and Jethro Glick and their newborn son. Sarah thought that she and her husband had agreed not to circumcise their son, but Jethro had other plans. He secretly invited the villain, "Monster Mohel," to circumcise "little Glick."
On the website foreskinman.com, Monster Mohel, a bearded man with a black hat on his head and a tallis around his neck, is described this way: "Nothing excites Monster Mohel more than cutting into the penile flesh of an eight-day-old infant boy." (h/t DWM) 
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| Hezbollah: Solving Mideast problems is predicated on destroying Israel Posted: 03 Jun 2011 01:30 PM PDT From Now Lebanon: Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Friday that "there cannot be any solutions [in the Middle East] before resolving the problem of Israel's existence."
"We are convinced that unless we resolve the problem of Israel's existence in the region, there cannot be any solutions," Qassem said according to a statement issued by Hezbollah.
He said that "the Resistance cannot back down," adding that "those who are calling to abolish it are calling for abolishing Lebanon."
He also said that Israel "is the enemy of the Arabs and the Muslims…and is the source of every crisis in the region and in our country."
Qassem added that the "oppressive rulers" in the Middle East "are the creation of Israel." Doesn't Hezbollah sound a lot like those Arab dictators everyone is now against who blame all their problems on Israel? 
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| IDF video of 2010 flotilla timeline Posted: 03 Jun 2011 12:20 PM PDT The IDF put this out a couple of weeks ago: From the YouTube description: The film, based on findings by the Eiland Team of Experts, breaks down the events of the flotilla using a timeline that alternates between 3D models and footage captured throughout the incident.
The events leading up to and throughout the flotilla incident are recounted in the video, as presented by the team of experts led by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland in the IDF's internal inquiry.
The first phase of the operation: The IDF relayed the message that the flotilla ships were in an area of a maritime closure, and offered the ships to transfer their cargo from the Ashdod Port to the Gaza Strip. The Sofia ship did not respond at all, while the other ships responded with refusal and/or profanity.
The IDF forces were divided and each group boarded a different ship. The soldiers arrived at the Mavi Marmara at 4:28 AM, but could not board the ship due to metal objects being thrown at them. After an unsuccessful attempt to board the ship by smaller boats, a helicopter arrived at 4:30 AM with 15 IDF soldiers. The first rope dropped by the helicopters was tied by the demonstrators to the deck of the ship in order to prevent the soldiers' descent.
Soldiers that descended down the second rope were met by 2-4 demonstrators each who wielded knives, axes, and metal poles. The second soldier to descend was shot in the stomach by a demonstrator. The soldiers who were in danger of their lives were forced to use their live weapons. Five soldiers were injured by stabbing, blows and live fire by the demonstrators. Within seconds of boarding the ships, three soldiers were thrown off the deck by demonstrators. The injured were dragged to the hull of the ship.
A reinforcement of soldiers arrived from a second helicopter, which was also attacked by demonstrators, and the soldiers are met with violence when they attempt to access the lower deck of the ship.
At 4:46 AM a third helicopter arrives to the Mavi Marmara, and the two groups of soldiers combine forces on the ship roof and descend to the other parts of the ship, where they are also met with lethal violence, and thus respond with live fire.
Many of the demonstrators enter inside of the ship as the smaller boats arrive at the side of the ship, however some still violently attack the incoming boats and the soldiers respond with live fire.
The Commander of the Special Navy Forces boards the ship, and while evaluating the forces, it is discovered that three soldiers are missing. The missing and injured soldiers are discovered to have been abducted by a number of violent demonstrators, who abandon the soldiers and run back into the ship when fired at.
Two of the injured soldiers jump off the ship so that they can be picked up by the IDF boats. The third injured soldier is on the bow of the boat and slipping out of consciousness. IDF soldiers remaining on the boat come to his aid.
At 5:17 AM the situation is evaluated and some of the findings: live fire was used by demonstrators towards IDF soldiers who were on the ship, including one soldier who descended down the rope and was shot in the abdomen. Live fire by the demonstrators was also aimed at the soldiers on the small Israeli Navy boats next to the Marmara. The first occurence of live fire was that used by the demonstrators. In addition, a gun with emptied magazines was found in the hull of the ship.
IDF forces had boarded the other ships without incident. Treatment and evacuation was carried out for the injured soldiers and demonstrators alike. 38 injured were airlifted, 7 of them soldiers.
The three soldiers who had been attempted to be kidnapped and were taken to the hull of the ship were witness to an argument between the violent demonstrators, and other passengers of the Marmara who asked the violent demonstrators to cease their violent activity.
24 of the injured passengers were diagnosed at the Ashdod Port and treated in hospitals in Israel.
After the operation ended, the ships arrived at the Ashdod Port accompanied by Israeli Naval forces. An intelligence investigation following the flotilla incident found that 40 of the IHH activists previously boarded the Marmara ship from Istanbul before joining the others.
The 8 of the 9 demonstrators killed were members of the IHH or other allied groups. Around half of those killed had declared in front of their families their aspiration to die as martyrs ("shahids"). Footage on the Marmara shows that the violence had been prepared: metal poles and chains were prepared, slingshots, buzzsaws, gas masks, tear gas, bulletproof vests, knives, and more. A briefing had taken place before the IDF had boarded the ship, with the leader of the violent demonstrators telling the group to attack the IDF soldiers at any cost. The exchange of messages between the IDF and the Mavi Marmara starting at around 7:00 is especially illuminating, as the "peace activists" reply back with " Shut the f**k up", " Go back to Auschwitz" and " We're helping Arabs go against the US; don't forget 9/11, guys." 
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| A "spontaneous" rally in Iran Posted: 03 Jun 2011 11:25 AM PDT For humor, it's really hard to beat the Iranian FARS news agency. Here's a short article from today: Scores of Iranian students staged a rally in front of the UN office in Tehran to protest at the massacre of peaceful protestors in Bahrain and Yemen other Islamic countries in the region.
The students chanted various slogans such as 'Allaho Akbar', 'Down with the USA', 'Down with the Zionist regime' to voice their support for people in Bahrain and other Islamic countries.
The protesting students asked UN and the international community to take legal measures against the ongoing crimes in Bahrain and other Islamic countries.
Iranians from all walks of life have staged numerous rallies during the last few weeks to shout their support for the popular uprisings in the Middle-East and North Africa and to condemn suppression of peaceful protests by dictatorial regimes in the region. How exactly does chanting "Down with the USA" and "Down with the Zionist regime" show support for Bahrainis? And why, one wonders, are there no rallies in Iran to support the Syrians against their oppressive regime that is killing them by the hundreds? 
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| Lebanese "Naksa" rallies canceled Posted: 03 Jun 2011 10:30 AM PDT From AP: Palestinian organizers in Lebanon who had planned a march to the border with Israel early next week say they have canceled it.
The organizers say that Sunday's planned march marking the 1967 Arab-Israeli war's anniversary would be replaced by strikes across all 12 of Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps. Now Lebanon adds: On Friday, the event was cancelled because the army had yet to grant protesters permission to approach the border, possibly as a result of the violence at last month's rally there. I had reported that this seemed likely yesterday.
Meanwhile....strikes in Lebanon to protest Israel?
Works for me. They can do that every day. I'm sure it will help the Lebanese to love their Palestinian Arab "guests" even more than they already do. 
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| Idiotic analogy of the day Posted: 03 Jun 2011 09:22 AM PDT From Bob Burnett in the HuffPo: Since 1948, when the United States recognized the state of Israel, twelve US presidents have shaken the hands of Israeli leaders and pledged "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part." Sadly, this once happy marriage is in trouble. It's time for the US to reconsider its commitment to Israel.
During the last week of May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington, making visible the cracks in the US-Israel marriage that had long been apparent to diplomatic observers. The analogy is ridiculous - unless you are dying to see a "divorce." Israel and the US have common interests and goals. They have more in common, in fact, than the US has with most countries. That's what makes them allies! Allies are not "married" to each other. The US does not always agree with its other allies in Europe and North America, and has serious disagreements with its putative Arab and Islamic allies in the Middle East. If Israel is "married" to the US, then are Canada and Great Britain jilted lovers? By framing the straw man argument in such a fashion, Burnett sets up his "solution" - divorce. The US is in the position of a husband who, after a long relationship, finds that he and his wife have grown apart. Is it better to separate and face lives of painful isolation or should the couple stay together for "appearances"? That's the dilemma America faces. Our marriage with Israel no longer works. The policies of the current Israeli government are detrimental to the best interests of the United States. Of course, Burnett came up with his "solution" before he came up with any of his "evidence" - tedious, tendentious arguments that note that Israel and the US sometimes disagree. As if that never happened before: US/Israeli relations were much worse in 1956 and in 1981. There is another illuminative angle to this article. If you actually accept Burnett's stupid analogy, it tells us a lot about Burnett. From Burnett's perspective, he must believe that the US would be better served by "marrying" someone else. Who might that be? People who openly insult the US all the time? An Arab world whose alliance with America is based on backing the strong horse rather than any shared values? We also learn that Burnett's concept of marriage is very skewed. If one is to believe Burnett's analogy, then the wife in the marriage must always do what the husband wants, or else he will divorce her. This is not marriage - it is slavery. If Burnett's real-life marriage is anything like his published ideas about marriage, I feel very sorry for his wife. 
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| Reports: 67 more killed in Hama, Syria today (UPDATE: 130 killed) Posted: 03 Jun 2011 08:23 AM PDT Al Arabiya reports that at least 67 demonstrators were killed in Syria today when Syrian security forces opened fire on crowds of protesters in Hama. There were many protests throughout Syria today, but the Hama rally was much larger than usual: more than 50,000 people were there. There were reports of protesters being killed in other sections of Syria as well: 8 in Al Joura, several in Aleppo, one in Homs. The rallies also reportedly reached Damascus. UPDATE: New reports say 130 killed, 350 injured in Hama - the site where some 20,000 people were wiped out in 1982. 
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| Latest Latma (6/3/11) Posted: 03 Jun 2011 07:29 AM PDT A little Palestinian Arab history lesson.... 
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| Intra-Hamas split seems to widen Posted: 03 Jun 2011 06:26 AM PDT Palestine Press Agency quotes London-based Al Hayat that the much reported split between the Gaza leaders of Hamas and the Damascus political leadership continues to widen. The latest salvo, according to the report, comes from Khaled Meshal, who heard that his Gaza rival Mahmoud al-Zahar was going to meet with a Swiss group. Meshal told the Swiss that Zahar does not represent Hamas, but only the Damascus leadership does. Meshal then went on to deny that there was any split in Hamas. If Hamas can't even gets its own act together, how real can the "unification" with Fatah be? 
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| Michael Totten in Hebron Posted: 03 Jun 2011 05:34 AM PDT Earlier this week Michael Totten wrote a nice article about the Jews of Hebron, from a perspective that one rarely sees in the general media. Here's a part: Last summer I visited Hebron, one of the darkest and most hate-stricken cities in the West Bank, a place most tourists visiting the Holy Land for a sun-drenched Levantine holiday would not dream of setting foot. Six years ago I took my mother to Beirut and even down to Beaufort Castle overlooking Hezbollahland and the Israeli border area, but I would not take her to Hebron. This is a city where a few hundred Jewish "settlers" make their home at the bottom of valley surrounded by Palestinians who have been trying, sometimes violently, to drive them out for a very long time.
Eve Harow drove me there. She works as a professional tour guide and knows the area well.
"Hebron's a tough place," she said. "I could never live there." She agreed, however, to take me in her car.
Eve is a tough lady, but Hebron is tougher. She, too, lives in a settlement in the West Bank, not in Hebron, but in a "mainstream" one, Efrat, a small California-style town in the Gush Etzion bloc that functions more or less as a suburb of Jerusalem. You can drive from one to the other in just a few minutes.
'What do you think of Hebron?" I said to Eve as we headed south out of Jerusalem. Like so much of the Middle East, it's a problem without a solution that makes me want to throw my hands in the air and give up.
"It's a microcosm of the Middle East," she said. "It really is. There are a few Jews and a lot of Arabs. If Jews are not allowed to live there because they were once driven out, then that validates the ethnic cleansing of 1948. Ethnic cleansing is wrong no matter who is the focus. We didn't throw the Arabs out when we came back in 1967 even though they thought we would."
Most communication between humans is non-verbal. It's conveyed through body language and is the same across cultures. I wasn't imagining the hatred directed at me from some of the Palestinian men on that road. It was obvious.
I am not paranoid around Arabs, not after having lived in an Arab country. Nor am I paranoid around Palestinians. I've met too many to count in Israel and was never once stared at in a hostile manner in Ramallah, perhaps because it was obvious, at least to some, that I was American and not Israeli, at least while I was walking around and talking to people. On my way into Hebron, however, no one could have known that I was American. Thanks to the plates on Eve's car and the glass between me and them, they naturally assumed I was Israeli. And I felt their hatred as though it were heat.
Just a few weeks after I left, several Israeli civilians in a car much like Eve's—including a pregnant woman—were shot to death on that very road by Palestinian gunmen.
he introduced me to David Wilder, a spokesperson for Hebron's Jewish community. He grew up in New Jersey, but has lived in Israel for 35 years. He first visited during a one-year program in college and said it changed his life, so he came back after he graduated and has been there ever since.
"When we came back in 1967," he said, "we had reasonable relations between Jews and Arabs again. There were business relationships, personal relationships. We could walk around the city unarmed and there were no problems. Things weren't all lovey-dovey, but people got along. Things started to change in a bad way during the first Intifada in the late 1980s. The PLO began rounding up Arabs who were seen talking to Jews and accusing them of being collaborators, so pretty soon the Arabs stopped talking to us."
While it's not true that the first Intifada consisted entirely of civil disobedience and rock throwing, the second Intifada was nevertheless much worse than the first. The second consisted almost entirely of suicide bombings and rifle attacks. The road from Jerusalem to Gush Etzion was ferociously dangerous, but Hebron degenerated into a war zone.
"They shot at us for two and a half years from the hills around us," David said.
"What did they use?" I said. "Sniper rifles? Regular rifles?"
"They shot at us with both," he said. "A sniper shot and killed a baby in the head right on this street. They shot into my apartment a number of times. We warned during the Oslo Accords that if Arafat was given control of the hills around us that we would be shot at. People said we were panicking, that we were hysterical, but we were right." Totten received complaints about this piece, especially about not mentioning Baruch Goldstein's massacre in Hebron and not demonizing the Jewish "settlers" he interviewed. So he wrote a follow-up where he regrets the omission of Goldstein, but he puts it in the correct context: Jewish terrorism doesn't take up a large space in my consciousness for a reason that I trust is obvious—it's rare. Goldstein shocked and appalled almost every Jew in the world when he murdered those people. One of their own became a full-blown no-way-to-whitewash-it mass-murdering terrorist. He was killed when some of his would-be victims beat him to death, but had he survived, the Israelis would have thrown him in a cage and left him there for the rest of his days.
All cultures produce murderers, all cultures produce political extremists, and all cultures produce individuals who combine the two into deadly concoctions. Israeli society, though, does a pretty good job policing these people and ensuring that their following is both miniscule and marginalized. So I'm not particularly concerned about the moral health of Israeli society, and I'm entirely unconvinced that the defective people it does produce are numerous or dangerous enough to prevent peace in the Middle East.
Palestinian society produces far more violent extremists, and they hold a massive amount of power in Palestinian politics. There is no getting around this. Hamas rules the entire Gaza Strip with an iron fist and is now part of a "national unity government" with Fatah, a party founded by Yasser Arafat that has no shortage of terrorists among its own ranks.
The Sunni and Shia militias that engaged in murderous sectarian "cleansing" operations against each other in Iraq were more or less equivalent morally, so I described them as such when I filed reports from Baghdad. The violent Israeli settlers in Hebron—and there are some—in no way compare to the Palestinian terrorist organizations that waged such massive and relentless campaigns of mass murder that it took the powerful Israeli army years to put them down.
There's a serious asymmetry between the two sides, and that's why I don't place an equal amount of emphasis on the amount of criminal violence each side commits. Jews and Israelis everywhere recoil in horror from the likes of Baruch Goldstein, but public squares in Palestinian cities are named after suicide bombers and other killers of innocents.
I am well aware of the caricature of Israeli settlers as bigoted thugs, and I'm likewise aware that some of them fit that description. Some have attacked not only their Palestinian neighbors, but also Israeli soldiers.
The two Israelis I interviewed, though, don't fit that description. I hardly know David Wilder, but we talked for an hour on tape and he didn't say anything racist or brutal. I'm courteous enough not to libel him as a bigot just because he's a spokesperson for Jews living in Hebron. I may not have gone to journalism school, but I'm pretty sure the demands of my profession don't require me to do such a thing.
And I personally know Eve Harow well enough that I can say with confidence that she's not a bigoted thug. I can't very well denounce her as one just because that's a fashionable stereotype I'm obligated to feed. Read both of the articles to see what the mainstream media doesn't dare to touch. 
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| Syrian children talk about the massacres Posted: 03 Jun 2011 04:28 AM PDT A very emotional video that was uploaded by a Syrian dissident whose Twitter handle is 3ayeef, translated into English: The very last quote, even if it is from a child, is most interesting. Is Israel enforcing a de facto no-fly zone over Syria? (h/t IsraelMuse) 
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| Who's lying - Ban Ki Moon or the PLO? (Or both?) Posted: 03 Jun 2011 03:21 AM PDT JPost reports: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday voiced his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but said that the matter is in the hands of the UN General Assembly, Palestinian Authority officials quoted him as saying.
The officials said that the secretary-general, who met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Rome, also expressed hope that members of the UN would show understanding for the Palestinian statehood bid. The UN website says: The Secretary-General met today with H.E. Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority.
The Secretary-General expressed his concern at the lack of progress in the Middle East peace process, but said that he had been encouraged by the vision laid out in U.S. President Obama's recent speech on the Middle East.
President Abbas briefed the Secretary-General on efforts to form a new Palestinian Government. The Secretary-General noted that Palestinian reconciliation should be based on PLO commitments and Quartet principles. He said the reconciliation effort should be given a chance.
The Secretary-General said achieving the goal of an independent, viable Palestinian state was long overdue. The Secretary-General thanked President Abbas for outlining Palestinian thoughts and plans on working toward statehood and on what was required for a return to negotiations.
The Secretary-General stressed that now, more than ever, it was important that the Palestinians and Israel engage in real, genuine and meaningful negotiations. The Secretary-General said he knew it was the Palestinian National Authority's priority to return to negotiating table. So did Ban Ki-Moon say that " the matter was in the hands of the UN General Assembly"? The UNGA cannot establish a state and it seems unlikely that Ki-Moon would say otherwise. The UN press release certainly says nothing of the sort. On the other hand, Ki-Moon is clearly lying when he says that it is " the Palestinian National Authority's priority to return to negotiating table." This entire UN exercise is their attempt to avoid going to the negotiating table. Furthermore, the UN press release implies that the PNA has been doing negotiations, when in fact it is the PLO that has been - the PNA is strictly limited to domestic governing, not foreign affairs. When Abbas meets with internationals, it is as a representative of the PLO, not the president of the PA. So to answer the question - both of them are liars. (h/t Mike) 
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