I am always quietly amused at the self-righteous protests afforded the Gaza population by the vociferous bunch of fruit-loops on the Left. Israel must immediately do this, or that, or indeed t’other; because they (the Israelis) are terrible people, capable of genocidal tendencies, or worse. The Left protests against the Wall, the check-points, the border fences; everything which the Israelis have done to stop suicidal Arab murderers killing Israelis. They protest almost in reflex action at whatever Israel does, because, so they earnestly believe, Israel cannot be trusted; because Israel should be smashed into the dust.

So when the Gazans fall on harder times than usual, with hospitals offered only intermittent power, because the generating stations don’t have fuel to generate electricity on a continuous basis, the ever-ready reflex call is for the Israelis to repent, to lower the drawbridges, to ease the blockade, to let the fuel in, along with the building materials which are said to help rebuild homes; but strangely enough end up going to reinforcing Hamas strongpoints.

The story in the Telegraph lays out the tale of this Palestinian woman badly hurt and disfigured allegedly by a faulty home generator, whose medical treatment is imperilled because her skin grafts cannot be done on a routine basis, mainly because of the regular power cuts, caused by the Generating Stations’ lack of fuel. The blockade certainly does not help, but the new clamp on the fuel is caused because Hamas, the terror group which runs Gaza, states that Fatah, the group which runs the West Bank Palestinian Authority, has made the purchase of fuel too expensive by withdrawing tax exemptions for the badly-needed fuel.

But the real source of my smile is sited right at the end of the Telegraph piece, where the allegedly heart-broken and anguished father of the burnt and disfigured young woman states that :-

“We’re ready to take help from anywhere because the treatment and technology isn’t available here to repair the effects of the burns,” said her father, Abed Rahman Mraleel. “Her beauty has been damaged and it could make her less attractive to marry. In our culture, not being able to marry is a big problem for her.”

I was reading that Israel’s leaders are reportedly unhappy that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are citing concern over Israel being hit by Syrian chemical weapons as a means to galvanize Congressional support for a strike against President Bashar Assad’s regime. I can understand their anxiety about the Obama’s regime sudden concern for Israel

Israel is “discomfited that both Obama and Kerry mentioned Israel as a potential victim of Assad’s chemical weapons,” Israel’s Channel 2 news reported Monday night. Israel, it quoted unnamed senior Israeli officials saying, “is not a victim. We don’t need America to take care of threats to Israel.” Israel’s army, the sources said, was perfectly capable of protecting Israel from any dangers posed by Assad.

I am sure that is the case. But the concerns run deeper than that…

Privately, Israeli leaders are said to be worried that Iran will read the delay in a US-led strike on Assad as an indication of American hesitancy and weakness, with potential implications for the Islamic Republic’s drive to a nuclear weapons capability.

This is the substantive point. Obama’s dithering and failure to lead over something like Syria – hardly a world power –  must cause glee in Tehran. The Mullahs see an amateur in charge in the White House which must embolden them enormously. Israel is right to feel concern,

When a Government proposes a law that infuriates BOTH Jews and Arabs, it must be doing something good. The practice of slitting the animals’ throats and main veins, and allowing them to bleed to death in agony, without the humane stunning or bolt killing which is common practice in most Westernized countries, is of course known as either ‘halal’ for Muslim Arabs, or ‘kosher’  for Jewish observance, methods of slaughter. The fact that the slaughter of animals in this manner is in reflection of religious beliefs is also accepted as a truth.

So when Poland outlaws this method of slaughter, the outcry is both considerable and considered, as the Israelis claim that their actual existence in Poland is threatened, and the Muslims have been howling at the moon quite loudly as well.

But despite the well-catalogued anti-semitic stance of most of Poland’s political class, I reckon that the new anti-halal and –kosher slaughter policy has been implemented for the right reason, which is that meat from a quiet and un-stressed animal  dead through stunning techniques, is infinitely superior to one which has had its throat slit whilst still conscious.

I await the sensible policy of this method of slaughter being banned in the United Kindom; but I will admit I am not holding my breath whilst waiting.

Further to yesterday’s post, I can confirm that contrary to the press statement issued by Cambridge University, Stephen Hawkings HAS chosen to align himself with Palestinians and boycott Israel.  Here is what he has to say for himself..

I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the (sic) West Bank. ‘However, I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. ’Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.’

Since Dr Hawkings is such a big thinker, here is some further food for thought for his mighty brain…..

Personally I have never been that impressed by Stephen Hawking despite the often mawkish adulation but now I am positively unimpressed!

“Physicist Stephen Hawking has dropped plans to attend a major conference in Israel, sparking a new row over treatment of Palestinians. The world-famous scientist had earlier agreed to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference, hosted by President Shimon Peres, in late June, but has now changed his mind.   Israeli officials believe he has joined a boycott organised to protest Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

I note Hawking’s advisers say his sudden non attendance is for “health reasons”. Fair enough, let HIM spell out his rejection of any boycott of Israel. That will prove the suspicions of Israel are unfounded.

In light of the ludicrous promulgation of the “Jews are khazars”, here are a few FACTS!

“The Khazar theory for the origin of the Jews was invented by the womanizing communist intellectual Arthur Koestler in his 1976 book The Thirteenth Tribe. The Khazars, a Turkish polity that came to dominate the Caucuses in the 7th century, disappeared eventually several hundred years later, like many other tribal mini-states established in that area during the period. Some of the Khazar elite supposedly converted to Judaism.

Koestler wrote his book without historical training in the history of the Caucuses and primarily as an intellectual provocation about the history of the Jews.

When he came to the part about the fall of the Khazar empire, he noted that “where the historians’ resources give out, legend and folklore provide useful hints.”

Based on his intellectual exercise, which was grounded in nothing more than whimsical thinking, Koestler concluded: “Here, then, we have the cradle of the numerically strongest and culturally dominant part of modern Jewry.”

Read the rest here!

No, really?

Since the US taxpayer pays for those settlements the President is in a rather strong position to do something about it. He won’t, of course. As dumb as the settlement building policy is, even for those who don’t wish to see Israel wiped out, Washington’s policy towards them hasn’t changed one bit under him.

The matter of military aid to Israel can be seen in its own light, but Obama might do worse than tell Natanyahu that if one more brick is laid in the West Bank then the military aid gets cut back. Even George W Bush criticised settlements as “outposts which need to go”. It’s time we saw some action in that case. It’s time then for presidents to man up and start backing up the peace rhetoric.

So the Obama Administration is really cheesed-off with Israel.

What with the ‘Settlements’, the Wall, the total lack of progress towards the ‘Two-State Solution’ so beloved of the American Left; the infuriating way in which these pesky Jews ignore all the high-minded orders and advice handed out so frequently from the American equivalent of Mount Olympus.

It really does make the Americans wish that they could really do something which would really attract Israel’s attention to the well-founded annoyance of the one Nation whose power, influence and arms have held back the onslaught for so long.

And now they have!

You have to wonder at the sanity of Israel’s governors, as well as if they’ve left nursery school:

Jerusalem Post: Israel okays building of 3,000 units in Jerusalem, West Bank

Israel approved the construction of 3,000 new housing units in Jerusalem and in the West Bank on Friday in response to the UN approving the Palestinian UN bid for  non-member observer state status, government officials stated.

The inner cabinet also decided to give the go ahead for the planning of thousands of housing units in area E1 that connects Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim.

“In the West Bank”, meaning “not Israel”.

A map shows the idea is to join up Jerusalem with a large and existing settlement to the east. Life’s about to become alot more inconvenient for many Palestinians who currently travel through the gap between the two even if they don’t occupy it.

The White House response could hardly be more insipid, describing it as “counterproductive”. It would be counterproductive if Obama were to tell Netanyahu that this isn’t the act of a regime intent on peace, that the move must be reversed, that all settlement building must be halted – or the cash and military hardware stops. Not only would it be a justified response, it would be the right one.

Yes, yes, I KNOW that back in October 27, 2005, Iranian President Ahmadinejad declared in Persian that his country would “wipe Israel off the map.” (Some commentators in the United States, most notably University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, argued that the phrase was a mistranslation and that Ahmadinejad did not have genocidal intent.[1] But, the Islamic Republic’s official English translation rendered the phrase “Israel must be wiped off the map,” [2] and the regime reiterated its English translation on billboards and murals.[3])

BUT leaving that small matter of genocidal intent to one one side, wonder what you make of this?

“Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.”

Rubbish. It HAS to be a mistranslation. Yes, that feels better, doesn’t it? Denial is such an easy alternative to dealing with REALITY.