The Iconoclast

"Porson called on a friend, who was reading Thucydides and wished to consult him on the meaning of a word. Porson, hearing the word, repeated the passage. His friend asked how he knew it was that passage. 'Because,' said Porson, 'the word occurs only twice in Thucydides, once on the right hand, and once on the left. I observed on which side you looked, and therefore knew the passage to which you referred."

     (E. H. Barker, Literary Anecdotes and Contemporary Reminiscences, 1852)

That's my kind of reader.

I used to live, with my parents, on Porson Road, named after the classicist so often in his Cambridge cups.  Once after a rainy day, I chose to rode my bike, in the subsequent mud, right across the Peterhouse Playing Field that lay in the back of the houses on our side of Porson Road. The man in charge of the grounds came running after me. He was very cross.

There was of course Charles Enderlin, and the scandal of the Mohammed al-Doura business. That has been taken exposed by Philippe Karsenty in France and David Landes in the United States, and the whole dismaying tale set out by James Fallows in "The Atlantic" a year or two ago.

Now those beastly Israelis possess an army that in fact is giving lessons in exactly how to do it, under the most hellish conditions, and the israeli army is in fact behaving more carefully, with greater solicitousness for civilians,  than any comparable Western army (forget about the non-Western armies) has shown itself capable of doing in similar circumstances. Think, for example, of how in Mogadishu the Americans mowed down -- and I'm not criticising this example or the others that followed, just noting them to give some perspective and sense of proportion -- about a thousand Somalis, many of course "civilians" though "civilians" who were delighted to drag through the streets the mutilated bodies of American soldiers. Think of what the British did in the urban warfare of Aden town -- and had to do, given the murderous attacks on British civilians -- led by Colonel Colin Mitchell, "Mad Mitch"  of the  swirling bagpipes that scared the Arabs out of Crater.  Think of the French fighting the FLN's terrorists in the Arab quarters of Algiers and Oran. Think of how many civilians have been killed by American, British, and other Western troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan. And not only is Gaza urban, and not only does the enemy, Hamas, always and everywhere fire from among civilians, and behind civilians, and live among them, and store its weapons in mosques, schools, apartment houses, but Hamas is, like Hezbollah and the PLO, a great master of re-cycling corpses for the cameramen, foreign and domestic, and of course simply totes up all those who die of causes having nothing to do with the war (accidents, disease, old age) as "civilian casualties" (and over two weeks, in a population of 1.5 million, that ordinarily would account for several hundred deaths).

But French television does not wish to discuss that. It wishes to put Israel in the permanent dock, to pillory it before the public. And what better way than to use the method of Al-Jazeera, and show, over and over again, the same hospital wards, the same supposedly heart-rending (there isn't a wet eye in my house) scenes of suffering by "innnocent" "Palestinians." So someone had the bright idea to to show an explosion, at the Jabaliya "Refugee Camp," with lots and lots of victims, and to bill it as part of Operation Cast Lead. They showed it. They thought they had gotten away with it. Unfortunately for them, the Israelis  and those who rightly support them are, after the Mohammed al-Doura business, after that same Hezbollah man who kept appearing with the same child's corpse, at different times in different places for photo ops of a presumably new victim each time, now more wary. And so the French television station was forced to 'fess up.

Here's the story: 

French TV claims photos from 2005 showed damage from Israel's Gaza operation

By Haaretz Service

French public television network France 2 on Tuesday revealed they had aired photographs that allego Tuesday that they had "made a mistake by airing those pictures, which he said depict events edly showed destruction caused by the Israel Air Force during Operation Cast Lead, which were in fact taken during a different incident in 2005, one in which Gaza civilians were killed by an explosion caused by militants in the Strip. The footage aired on Channel 2 on Tuesday afternoon showed dozens of dead bodies, including Hamas gunmen and citizens, which the channel said were killed by an IAF bombing raid on January 1st. It later came to light that the channel had instead aired footage of the devastation caused after a truck full of explosives blew up in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp. A news editor at France 2 told Le Figaro Tuesday that they had "made a mistake by airing those pictures," which he said depict events from 2005.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmYQplpOzgk&feature=related

Jeffrey Goldberg, writing in "The Atlantic," after years of befriending "Palestinians" and being so carefully neutral in his reports on the Arab war -- the Jihad -- against Israel, finally is prompted to make a few things clear: 

"Hamas terrorists unblinkingly and ostentatiously use their own civilians as human shields. I've seen this up-close, and it's repulsive. One story the media isn't telling, because it's impossible to get this story in these circumstances (especially because Israel stupidly won't allow foreign reporters into Gaza) is how much resentment the Hamas policy of using Palestinians as human shields causes among Gaza civilians. Early reports indicate that Hamas mortar teams were firing from the UN School. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

One more thing, speaking of pornography -- we've all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It's a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn't matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I'll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people. "
 

And man, and beastie. From the BBC:

As the production line grinds to its own industrial beat, it's clear that music formats don't get any more physical than this.

Downloads and iPods are all very well, but for many musicians, your latest song just hasn't been released until it's been forced on to a small, grooved plastic disc at a pressure of more than 2,000 lb per square inch.

The Wombats and Franz Ferdinand are among the artists whose seven-inch vinyl records are being sleeved and boxed at the Portalspace factory in Hayes, on the edge of west London.

As it happens, they are the latest in a venerable tradition.

The 45 rpm single is about to reach its 60th anniversary and despite repeated predictions of its demise, sales are rising once again.

Have a feel of that," says a passing engineer, handing over a white vinyl off-cut that has just been trimmed from the edge of a newly-manufactured disc.

It is warm to the touch - literally hot off the presses.

"That'll warm you up on a cold day," he says. "And we can recycle that and use it again."

ABC reports the usual threats from al Qaeda:

Osama bin Laden's top deputy in al Qaeda has released a new tape in which he threatens the United States and vows revenge for the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza.

"We will never stop until we avenge the death of all who are killed, injured, widowed and orphaned in Palestine and throughout the Islamic world," said Ayman al-Zawahiri in a new 10-minute audio recording released today on extreme Islamist Web forums.

The message is entitled "The Massacre in Gaza and the Siege of the Traitors".

Zawahiri refers directly to President-elect Barack Obama saying he has partnered with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom Zawahiri labels as a traitor to Islam.

"What you are facing today is just occupation and settlement that is limited to one area or one country, but is part of a series in the Crusaders war against Islam," says Zawahiri. "These air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and from Hosni Mubarak, the traitor who is the primary partner in your siege and murder."

To the Palestinians he says: "Be strong and persist in the way of Jihad. The whole Muslim ummah is united with you."

He also vows to carry out al Qaeda's repeated threat that the United States will not live in peace until Palestine does.

"We are at work to carry out the promise of our fighting sheikh Osama Bin Laden (may Allah protect him) who promised that America will not live in peace in their dreams before we live in peace in Palestine, and until all the forces of the infidels leave the lands of Muhammed," Zawahiri says.

The Copenhagen Post website was cancelled for 5 days after New Year and with no explanation I feared that this valuable English language site had closed. But it has been revamped although the archive is not currently available.
A Number of school administrators have come forth in recent days to confirm that they recommend Jewish children should not enrol at their schools.
According to school administrators, law enforcement officials and social workers, the on-going conflict in Gaza has led to heightened tensions between Jews and Arabs - particularly Palestinians - here in Denmark.
And although few headmasters of schools have faced the situation, most of those at schools with a high percentage of children of Arab descent say they try to prevent Jewish parents from enrolling their children there.
On Monday, headmaster Olav Nielsen of Humlehave School in Odense publicly admitted he would refuse Jewish parents' wish to place their child at his school.
The comments were made following an incident last week in which two Israeli citizen's were shot and wounded at a city shopping centre. Police believe the incident was a reaction to the Gaza conflict.
Other headmasters have now come forth to support Nielsen's position, adding that they are putting the child's safety first.
At Caroline Skole in Copenhagen's Østerbro district, video cameras watch over the playground and entrances of the school, which is surrounded by a 2.5 metre-high barbed-wire fence.
One parent whose child goes to the Jewish school said thinking about the extra security can be disturbing at times, but she felt it was necessary.
Rabbi Bent Lexner called the headmasters' concern 'theoretical. In reality, Jewish parents would never try to enrol their child in those schools.'
As I am sure that the Jewish children and their families behave impeccably. Surely it should be those children who are likely to threaten their safety who should be excluded?

This is a Times of Malta video showing Muslims protesting the Israeli action in gaza yesterday evening.
Around 200 Muslims in Malta this evening protested against the Israeli attacks in Gaza. They met under the City Gate Bridge and started their protest with prayers.
Most of them carrying posters and some the Palestinian flag, the protesters walked to the Palace, chanting, mostly in Arabic, all along the way.
In English they called out “Stop your occupation, stop your aggression” and “free free Palestine, occupation is a crime”.
What the report does not say, but this is clear on the tape, and was clearer still to some witnesses who write in the comments column is that the Arabic phrase was "Allah Akbar" and that, according to one witness "Islam will prevail" and "Mohammad and Jesus are both prophets" was also chanted.
There is a strong opinion expressed that Malta has stood so firm in the past against Islam that such things should not be seen or heard on the streets of Valletta; neither should the protestors have been allowed to carry the Maltese flag.

Remember Karlheinz Stockhausen saying that 9/11 was "the finest work of art ever"? He should have stuck to making music. On second thoughts...

This is what Damian Thompson calls "murder as metaphor", which, he argues, is "invariably misleading, opportunistic or insensitive". From his blog Holy Smoke:

A Holy Smoke reader has just drawn my attention to an incredibly fatuous comment about the 9/11 atrocities by the Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, a biblical scholar not known for his modest appraisal of his own abilities.

"The last four months," opines the bishop, "have done, in economics, what September 11 2001 did in the world of power: provide a moment when the abstract analysis offered by postmodernity suddenly became concrete."

[...]

As an evangelical, Wright takes pride in defending the literal truth of various biblical claims - the Second Coming, for example. But, like so many clergymen-academics, he can't resist the odd little postmodern swagger. Listen to this prize nonsense:

Homelessness turns out to be an apt metaphor for a rootless, shifting globe. The grand narratives that have sustained us and given us hope have broken down. ‘Truth-claims’ disappear into a puff of smoke and a hall of mirrors. Even the idea of ‘myself’ means less and less, both to the catastrophic and growing ‘underclass’ and to those who possess everything except the one thing that matters.

‘Homelessness’ is a metaphor, in short, for that odd but prevailing condition some call postmodernity. But it is also a metonym: a single feature of our global plight which stands appropriately for the whole, in a world where millions find themselves exiled from landscapes and ecosystems which made them who they were.

Grand narrative, eh? And metonym! This is worse than +Cantuar at his windiest. Say what you like about Rowan, but at least he doesn't sound like a first-year undergraduate who's just discovered Derrida.

Murder as metaphor is grotesque but it is not the worst of it. I would like to think that those who make odious comparisons between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto are indulging in simile. But sadly they mean what they say.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey was holding a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday.

Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela.

Authorities detected the equipment during a search of 22 containers labeled 'tractor parts,' Tosun said. They were brought to Mersin by trucks from neighboring Iran, he said. Turkey's Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way.

'Experts from Turkey's Atomic Institute determined there were no traces of radioactive material, but said the equipment was enough to set up an explosives lab,' Tosun said. 'We have asked the military to send experts to determine whether to resume the shipment.'

Some barrels, labeled with 'danger' signs, contained chemicals. Tosun said details were still unclear.

An Iranian embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the shipment contained 'nothing important.'

And from the containers came a curious sound.

This was mentionioned by Hugh elsewhere this morning. I have this report from the Daily Mail which goes into more detail that that of the Peninsular on line of Qatar which only reported the statements of an MEP of the Northern League.
The Vatican today expressed its 'unease' at the hundreds of Muslims who gathered in prayer outside a Catholic cathedral during a Gaza protest rally.
Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, spoke out after photographs of Muslims kneeling in front of Milan Cathedral, towards Mecca, were published in Italian newspapers.
In an interview with the Vatican's official newspaper Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Martino said: 'For me the sight of people at prayer does not trouble me, it is good that people pray.
'But what really troubled me and left me uneasy was the fact that Israeli flags were burnt and there were slogans, all manifestations of hate and which followed a prayer session.'
There were similar scenes outside a cathedral in Bologna where local bishop Ernesto Vecchi also strongly condemned the sight of Muslims kneeling in prayer.
He stormed:'This was not prayer. This was a challenge - not just to the cathedral but to our very system of democracy and culture. This is confirmation that there is a project to Islamise Europe.'
The rally in Milan was led by the city's Muslim Imam Abu Imad who has been convicted in Italy of terrorism related offences - a fact noted by MP Maurizio Gasparri.

The centre right politician said:'When 10,000 Muslims arrive in front of Milan Cathedral, led by an Imam who has convictions for terrorism then public order needs to be looked at.  It is evident that this was intended as a threat and the decision to pray and hold the rally in front of the Cathedral is very significant.  Italy, unlike many Arab countries, is proud of the fact that it allows religious freedom but fundamentalists must not be allowed to gather and present a possible threat.'
Tonight officials in Milan and Rome said they were investigating the rally and would be speaking to organisers as they had not been given permission to stop in front of Milan Cathedral during the rally.
Basically they transformed the Cathedral Close into a mosque.
Picture from the Italian paper il Giornale

Here's a headline you can find right now if you click on Google News: 

"Israeli shelling kills dozens at UN school in Gaza"

What would be your first thought? You would think: dozens of schoolchildren have been killed. And at a neutral "UN" school, no less.

Of course you would be wrong on both counts.

First, it is not a "UN school" but rather, an "UNRWA school." And what is UNRWA? It is now, and has been for decades, an organization run entirely by local Arabs and a handful of others such as John Ging, fervent in their support for the local Arabs and characreized by their complete want of sympathy for the "plight" --  not of the "Palestinians" for they've got plenty of sympathy there, but of Israel, an Infidel nation-state in the midst of  an Arab and Muslim sea, as an intended victim of violent Jihad that can only be permanently staved off, and not ended.

Second, however, and more important, school was not in session. It was not a building full of schoolchildren. So far all we have heard only about the first few killed, and all of whom appear to be young men, roughly of the age 18 to 25. It is hardly inconceivable, it is very conceivable, that members of Hamas ran to the school as they have run into mosques, or hospitals, or a few years ago, ran into that church in Bethlehem, where they proceeded, over many weeks, to terroritze the Christian clerics, eat up all the food, vandalize a great deal of the interior, and then, to show their spirit of convivencia and deep appreciation of Christianity, defecated all over the church floors.

Let's just wait to see who was hiding in that "U.N. School" and what the Israelis, who have a sometimes maddening habit of telling the truth and even, of accepting responsiblility for incidents that many of them were sure they bore no responsibility for -- when in doubt, Israel likes always to take the blame at once and only later, possibly, to provide the full, exculpatory dossier, when it is too late to affect or change public opinion. Think of how slow the Israelis were to investigate the Al-Dura frame-up, even though, at the time, many in the Israeli military said it was not possible, given the location of the nearest Israeli soldiers, the lines of fire, the barriers, the position of Mohammad al-Dura, for Israeli to have been responsible for his, Mohammad al-Dura's, death -- assuming that he did in fact die, for which there is no evidence.

Let's see how many of those in that school building were Hamas members and how many "innocent civiliians." 

More than a month before Israel re-entered Gaza, John Ging was claiming, as he has been claiming uninterruptedly for years, that the situation in Gaza is "very desperate at the humanitarian level." No one ever seems to ask him if he is familiar with how real refugees -- refugees from the Arabs, for example, such as the black Africans in Darfur and Chad -- live, for unlike the Gazan Arabs, they are not permanently on the international dole, and do not have cell-phone and DVD stores as can be found in Gaza. Nor do they spend their time constructing hundreds of tunnels through which perhaps 10,000 rockets, and a great deal of other war materiel of the most advanced kind, has been smuggled into Gaza. Nor does Ging show any recognition of just how crazy it is, how intolerable it is, to demand that Israel should in these circumstances, with the steady buildup of war materiel and the steady showering of rockets deep into Israel (yes, it's not only Gaza that is "tiny" and "overcrowded" and whose people "cannot get out" but that fits the nation-state of Israel in the Middle East -- "tiny" and "overcrowded" and its people "held prisoner" because to be an Israeli and to travel to any circumjacent Arab land is to court death.

Here's some of that interview from November 21, 2008: 

John Ging: The situation is very desperate at the humanitarian level, I mean people have been stripped of their dignity here, it is a struggle to survive for every body. 750,000 of the people here in Gaza are children of the one and half million population.

Today we have good news: the crossings have opened to allow in vital humanitarian aid an fuel, so we now look at this as the first step in a positive direction, we hope.

EI: Have they actually been reopened today?

JG: Yes, yes, yes this morning the fuel has come in for the power plant, our trucks are coming in with food aid, and wheat is coming in for the mills.

It's a small, very small quantity that is coming in, but it's the first resupply in over a week, and the situation, as I say, had become very desperate, and we hope, now, that it's, as I say, the first step back to a positive situation here.

EI: You as UNRWA, which provides services to more than 700,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, how do you deal with the frequent humanitarian crisis with Israel closing the border crossings from time to time?

JG: We are finding it increasingly difficult. It was unprecedented that we ran out of food, which we did over 10 days ago. The closures are becoming more and more restrictive, the situation here is getting worse and worse. Sadly, it's not new news from Gaza, bad news from Gaza does not get headlines any more, that's part of the problem. But there are a million and half people living here; all the time the situation is becoming more and more difficult for them.

They are paying a very heavy humanitarian price for the actions of extremists, firing these rockets into Israel, which we condemn outright. But, there was five months of a ceasefire in the last couple of months, where the people of Gaza did not benefit; they did not have any restoration of a dignified existence. We in fact at the UN, our supplies were also restricted during the period of the ceasefire, to the point where we were left in a very vulnerable and precarious position and with a few days of closure we ran out of food.

There has to be a change in approach, a change in a policy, we now, hopefully, enter a new period of the ceasefire. Good news for the civilian population in Israel, no more rockets being fired. Now we want to see the civilians here in Gaza benefit from the ceasefire, so that they have restored to them a dignified existence, which is very simple, open the crossings, let people move freely, allow exports, allow imports, create confidence among the population that this the way to go. No violence, security, peace and so on.

EI: Which party do you blame for the ongoing conditions, bearing in mind that Israel three weeks ago carried out attacks on Gaza, prompting Palestinian resistance factions to respond by firing homemade rockets?

JG: this is a conflict and there are two parties to the conflict, now the bottom line is that all parties, have their responsibilities and they have international legal responsibility to protect the civilians, who are innocents in this conflict. I am seeing here first hand, that the innocent civilians, 750,000 children in Gaza, are paying a severe humanitarian price for the political failure that has given rise to this conflict and for the conflict itself. So, what we need to do is we need to focus all sides on their responsibility and the responsibilities are very clear: to end violence and to get us back on a track, where the conflict can be resolved through a political process.

Each side has their clear responsibilities in that regard and their actions have to be held to account to international legal standards."
 

How thin, how wan, how unfelt his carefully-expressed false sympathy for Israel, a name which he cannot even bring himself to utter. Instead, he says that "there are two parties to the conflict"  and "now the bottom line is that all parties, have their responsiblities and they have international legal responsiblity to protect the civilians...the innocent civilians, 750,000 children in Gaza....paying a severe humanitarian price for the political failure that has given rise to this conflict and for the conflict itself....the conflict can be resolved through a political process." 

No, this conflict has no end and cannot be resolved. If John Ging has never read the Hamas Charter, he had better do so. If he has not read the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira, there's still time. He doesn't want to. His mind is made  up. He's with the Arabs and the Muslims. He really doesn't think -- don't believe any of his wan pretenses otherwise -- that Israel has a right to defend itself effectively against rockets flung at its cities. He doesn't think Israel should exist. He is so deeply moved by the "plight" of the 'Palestiians' and has no desire to learn about the texts and tenets of Islam, the history of the Jews and of the many other non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities, and what they have endured over the past millennium under Muslim and Arab rule, or even about the history of the war -- the Jihad -- being waged on Israel by every possible instrument, and especially by means of poisonous propaganda campaigns in which John Ging has steadily been determined to participate.

And that's it, for John Ging.

Would the ACLU sue for a person wearing a JihadWatch T-shirt, I wonder? I know of one incident in which a person waiting in a terminal to pick up a friend was asked to remove his JW shirt. Bloomberg:

An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday.

Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York's JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.

"The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling," said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.

Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: "We will not be silent." ...

From the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report:

The American Muslim Taskforce (AMT), a coalition of U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations has written a letter to President-elect Obama identifying themselves as “Muslim leadership” and alleging that the U.S. government has engaged in “COINTELPRO” campaigns against the U.S. Muslim and Arab communities, referring to a series of covert and often illegal projects conducted by the F.B.I. from 1956 to 1971 and targeting political organizations. The letter also demands a series of policy changes from the Obama administration:

We…wish to see you instruct senior officials in your administration to reinstate roundtables with Muslim leadership for all departments, such as State, Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services,” said the American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT). Unveiling the “American Muslims in the American Mainstream,” open-letter in a press conference on Monday, December 29, AMT chairman Agha Saeed said the incoming Obama administration needs to take notice of the American Muslim community. “Ninety-five percent of Muslims voted on the day of election,” he stressed. “That was the highest voter turnout of any community in America.” An AMT poll found that 89 percent of Muslims voted for Obama while only two percent voted for Republican candidate John McCain. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), affirmed that US Muslims are “capable” and ready to help bring the change Obama has promised during his campaign. “American Muslims are [a] vibrant community and we would like to be part of that change.” State Senator Larry Shaw, the longest-serving Muslim elected official in the US, agreed. “Within the Islamic community in America are untapped resources,” he said. “We are very highly competent and capable people who can head any secretary department or deputy department or senior-level management.” The United States is home to between six to seven million Muslims. Change Policies The Muslim organizations urged President-elect Obama to change some of the unpopular Bush policies. “As you assume your new duties, there are some areas we hope you will list among your priorities,” read their open-letter. “This includes restoring due process, objective justice, repealing manifestly unconstitutional clauses of the USA PATRIOT ACT, ending COINTELPRO campaigns against Muslim and Arab American communities, and ensuring that our nation rejects the use of ex post facto laws.

The AMT was founded in February 2004 by a coalition of U.S. Muslim Brotherhood groups to “encourage community-based Muslim political participation and to defend against the erosion of civil liberties in a post-9/11 social environment.” At that time, the coordinator, of the AMT was identified as Agha Saeed chairman of the American Muslim Alliance (AMA) which in turn was part of the American Muslim Political Coordination Council, both organizations representing earlier U.S. Brotherhood electoral coalitions. The new organization aid that it was committed to holding voter education and registration drives, encouraging Muslims to work in political campaigns, hosting candidates’ town hall meetings, issuing candidate scorecards on issues of importance to the Muslim community, and to forming coalitions with like-minded groups. In 2004, the AMT drew national attention when it endorsed Senator John Kerry (Dem) for President and criticized President Bush for being “insensitive to the civil liberties and human rights of American Muslims, Arab-Americans and South Asians” and to treating American Muslims “like second-class citizens.” The AMT today is comprised of the most important U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations including the Muslim American Society (MAS). Council On American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle Of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society Of North America (ISNA), Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the Muslim Student Association (MSA).

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

"GAZA (Reuters) - Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip killed more than 30 Palestinian civilians on Tuesday, medical officials said, and international efforts to secure a ceasefire focused on an Israeli demand to prevent Hamas from rearming.'

Let's improve on this.

For

"GAZA (Reuters) - Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip killed more than 30 Palestinian civilians on Tuesday, medical officials said, and international efforts to secure a ceasefire focused on an Israeli demand to prevent Hamas from rearming.'

Read

"GAZA (Reuters) - Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip has undoubtedly led to some unintended but also unavoidable civilian deaths among Gazan Arabs, who though they have been repeatedly warned, by leaflet and individual phone calls, have not always heeded warnings, and in some cases are not being allowed to leave by Hamas gunman. There has also been a settling of scores with executiion by Hamas of Fatah supporters. And as is known from the previous behavior of both the PLO and Hezbollah, the Arabs like to "re-cycle" corpses, and those who die natural deaths also are used to swell the numbers of "civilian deaths." At this point, and in these conditions, and with this record by the Arabs and Muslims kept vigilantly in mind, it is impossible to know how many civilian casualties there are, but one thing is clear: the Israelis began with a pinpoint bombing campaign of Hamas centers, have taken on the task of urban warfare rather than simply flatten areas as they could, and as in Jenin, are going to sacrifice the lives of their own soldiers in order to minimize the chances of hitting civilians, some of whom, though clearly not all, may fit the description of "innocent civilians." 

The latest claim by the Gazan Arab "medical officials" is that "Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip killed more than 30 Palestinian civilians on Tuesday." Meanwhile, "international efforts to secure a ceasefire focused on an Israeli demand to prevent Hamas from rearming.'

Longer, I know, but much better. Reuters could have made the space. Perhaps Nidal al-Mughrabi was merely being thrifty.

"Gaza's population has been reduced to a "subhuman existence" where basic humanitarian needs are going unmet in the face of rapidly deteriorating conditions, according to a senior UN official.

An Israeli economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, has produced shortages of fuel and basic supplies and has closed most private businesses and pushed up poverty rates.

John Ging, director of operations in Gaza for the UN Refugee and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees, said the crisis and continuing toll of civilian deaths were feeding a "growing sense of injustice" among Gaza's population.

"It is a disaster for everybody because it's touching everybody in every aspect of their life, from the moment you get up in the morning until you go to bed at night," he said. "The way things have been reduced here, there's a very sub-human existence for the general population."

Israel has significantly reduced the amount of fuel it sells to Gaza and there are now such shortages of diesel and petrol that many cars run on cooking gas or vegetable oil and that many schools can now longer bus their pupils to class. "

Yes, a "humanitarian crisis" and a "subhuman existence" where there isn't enough gasoline for cars to run -- we all know how important it is for people leading a "subhuman existence" to be able to drive their cars without having to worry about filling up -- says John Ging.

John Ging, please be vigilant to note, is the "director of operations in Gaza for the UN Refugee and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees" (not that the Gazan Arabs are "refugees" -- most of them are the descendants of descendants of those who arrived with Mehmet Ali's army in the nineteenth century, and many others having arrived in the first decades pf the twentieth century, from Egypt , and they were in Gaza in 1948, and even under the absurd definitiion, imposed by the Arabs and "supported" by the Islamintern- ruled U.N. (and by such people as John Ging, who offer a useful non-Arab public face or facade for  UNRWA which is otherwise entirely run by, staffed by Arabs who may be able to use the word "U.N." but are entirely in the camp of those conducting war -- Jihad -- against Israel. 

When did John Ging declare that the Gazan Arabs were leading a "subhuman existence"? Was it yesterday? Was it the day before yesterday, because of those beastly Israelis and the monstrous "humanitarian crisis" they had caused? No. The paragraphs above were published on May 12, 2008. As we all know, as every educated person knows. the Israelis -- though under no obligation to keep supplying electricity to 1.5 million people, and food, and medicines, and other goods and services -- have continued, right through the war being waged on Hamas right now, to supply 500 trucksworth of goods, and it is the members of Hamas who are refusing to distribute the goods, and doing everything they can -- staging all sorts of things at hospitals and elsewhere, most of it perfectly transparent, and no different from what Hezbollah did in Lebanon in 2006 or what the PLO did in Lebanon in 1982, or for that matter what Arabs and Muslims have done, to a lesser, and less-practiced degree, in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever Infidels fight back against them. Think just about the electricity. Here is Israel, with seven million people, and no natural resources, being asked to continue to supply electrciity to 1.5 million people whose main goal in life, it appears, is to participate, directly or indirectly, in the attempt to kill Israeli men, women, and children, and to eliminate forever the Jewish state of Israel. This is the unambiguous aim of Hamas, and Hamas was voted for by the majority of Gazan Arabs. And the Slow Jihadists of Fatah differ from  the Fast Jihadists of Hamas not in ultimate goals, but only in matters of tactics and timing. 

I heard John Ging on the BBC just now. He was offering the same absurd and dire remarks about the "incredible humanitarian crisis" and even though the little matter of those rockets sent by the dozens into the cities and towns of Israel was raised (the BBC interviewer decided to pretend to be fair -- after all, the BBC knows how many people are disgusted with its coverage, and it has now and again to throw them something), Ging dismissed it, merely repeating the idiotic phrase about "military action never solved anything." Vraiment? It stopped Hitler. 

I don't want there to be a "special hell" for people as meretricious and vicious as the likes of John Ging. I want something done about him now. I want him, and all of his fellow travellers, booted out of the U.N.. Let them go to work,  without any camouflage or phoniness, for the Arabs directly, instead of as "U.N. employees." Truth, for god's sake, truth in advertisiing. That's all one asks. Here is John Ging, Defender of the Faith -- the Faith being Islam. And the cause being the "Palestinian people" which, like Ging himself at UNRWA, is merely a deliberate re-packaging to fool the Infidels, for the Jihad against Israel is not about the soi-disant, recently-invented (after the Six-Day War) "Palestinian people" at all, but about removing from the midst of Dar al-Islam the intolerable Infidel nation-state that makes so many Arabs and Muslims unable  to enjoy life, unable to savor anything as long as that  Infidel state exists.

I should add that John Ging has his admirers. Hamas certainly finds him a swell fellow. And so do those who like to think that Israel, supplying electricity, water, thousands of tons of goods and services of every kind, every week,  and even admitting for critical care -- right now, at this very minute -- dozens of Gazan Arabs for medical treatment --  has "created" in Gaza "a concentration camp." Some concentration camp, where one side supplies the other with the wherewithal to live, and in return gets rockets steadily fired at it, in ever-increasing potency, and hundreds of tunnels are dug to bring in thousands upon thousands more of the most advanced rockets that Syria, and beyond Syria Iran, can supply.

No, there are those who are great admirers of John Ging, who think he's a real straightforward fellow. For example, here's someone deeply impressed with John Ging:

http://www.nodo50.org/csca/agenda08/palestina/arti355.htmlI 

I, and I trust you, are also deeply impressed with John Ging -- but in a different way.  

Magnus Linklater in The Times (my emphasis):

I  cannot understand why England, with its great heritage of bloodlust, war and unruly sex, should have come up with something so wimpish. Look at the national dances of other countries, and see the way they celebrate romance - whether fierce encounters between the sexes, or great victories on the battlefield.

In Georgia they have a splendid thing called the Khorumi, where 30 or 40 dancers re-enact the country's warlike past, with the men as the victorious soldiers and the women supplying - well, the reward. In Cuba they have the rumba, its meaning unmistakable; and what about the tango of Argentina, the nearest thing to sexual congress you'll see outside the bedroom?

For those of us brought up north of the Border, dance means something altogether more passionate. We hurl our partners across the floor in the Duke of Perth, indulge in sexual threesomes in the Dashing White Sergeant, imitate battle manoeuvres in the Reel of the 51st Division, and use real swords in a dance which is ultimately about eviscerating your enemy. In morris dancing they have clogs.

How did the English end up with something so wet? It is said that the origins of morris dancing go back to the Moresca which celebrated victory over the Moorish armies in the 15th century. Versions of it can still be seen in Spain, where it is a proper sword dance. But if this is the case, why did the English substitute sticks for swords, and little bells for the sound of clashing arms? The result is anodyne to the point of narcosis.

Pull the other one. It's got bells on it.

Those who use the word "disproportionate", a word used in a military context only of Israel, seem to lack - of all things - a sense of proportion. David Aaronovich in The Times:

For months - years even - the historical twinning that some campaigners have chosen for the situation in Gaza has been with the Warsaw ghetto. There'll probably be a sign up soon, because in the past week Ken Livingstone, the activist-musician Brian Eno and George Galloway have all made the comparison.

“Gaza is a ghetto,” said Mr Livingstone, "in exactly the same way that the Warsaw Ghetto was, and people are trapped in it”; while Eno predicted: “They [the Israelis] will continue to create a Warsaw Ghetto in the Middle East.” The less-restrained Mr Galloway pronounced: “Those murdering them [the occupants of Gaza] are the equivalent of those who murdered the Jews in Warsaw in 1942.”

Busy people sometimes hurry their reading. Mr Galloway, for example, may only have skimmed the day-by-day reports made by SS Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop on the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. On the third day of the operation Stroop tells how “large numbers of Jews - entire families - already on fire, jumped from the windows. We made sure that these, as well as the other Jews, were liquidated immediately.”

Stroop's operation was made necessary because the inhabitants of the ghetto took up what few arms they had, having already seen more than half their number transported to extermination camps - a figure which, if translated into Gaza terms, would mean the deliberate killing of 500,000 Palestinians.

A year earlier in this place that was, pace Livingstone, “exactly” a ghetto in the same way as Gaza, the death rate from starvation and disease was more than 4,000 a month - the equivalent of 12,000 in the Gazan “ghetto”. On these grounds alone, never mind any others (rockets, Hamas, etc), we may conclude that Gaza 2009 and Warsaw 1943 have very little in common.

So why the philistine insistence on this particular match? Partly, I imagine, so that the matcher can mention the “irony” of Jews supposedly doing to others what the Nazis “did to them” - as if there weren't a thousand other closer, but far less narratively satisfying, comparisons.

Comparisons of Israelis to the Nazis are so grotesque that Aaronovich and others should not need to dignify them with a response. But the obvious appears to need stating.

Tiberge at Brussels Journal writes:

Demonstrations that make the car burnings of New Year's Eve look like a school picnic have been taking place all over France.

According to Le Parisien, 21,000 persons demonstrated in Paris against the Israeli offensive in Gaza. A few hundred attempted to get into the Israeli Embassy but were stopped by police barricades around Place Saint-Augustin and Boulevard Haussmann. Many were wearing a kaffyeh and chanted slogans such as "We are all Palestinians, Israel: Assassin". "Gaza, Gaza, we are with you".

Some vandals threw chairs taken from cafés at the riot police, who, in turn, used tear gas. Some climbed on top of cars; public property was destroyed; two Israeli flags were burned; on Boulevard Haussmann three cars burned, about 15 others were turned upside down, then pillaged; storefronts were broken.
A Swiss source, 20 Minutes, says that 20 persons were arrested. With the demonstrators from the start were Olivier Besancenot, leader of the LCR (Communist Revolutionary League), and Marie-George Buffet, leader of the French Communist Party.