Barak: Negotiations with Syria central Israeli policy goal (or, Ehud Barak: King of the One Liners)

Good evening folks and thanks for coming...Please, take my country!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...........

"One of Israel's central policy goals is to launch peace negotiations with Syria and to see Damascus abandon the cycle of extremism,"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...........

"Israel is the most powerful country in the region, and this is what will ultimately allow it to strive to attain (peace) agreements."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...........

"We consider Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Fatah as partners for peace"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...........

Oh...wow...whew...oh man...thanks Ehud, I really needed that!

It just goes to show that in the hands of a true master a played out joke will become funny again if he bides his time for a while before going at it anew.

Some words on the Frank Yehudi perspective:

I get a substantial amount of email from people wanting to understand exactly what my perspective is all about. I’d say that there is about a 50-50 split between the people who either don’t totally understand what I am communicating but find it compelling nonetheless, and people who incessantly challenge my Frank disaffirmations—like do-gooder DLT zombies. The former is of the benign inquisitive sort while the later is the type of soft and spongy zombie of which the establishment has made its bread for many many years.

Needless to say, not everyone can handle the Frank Brass Tacks Tachlis.

When I say that there’s little in Israel that I believe in, I mean that I no longer see this country through the Oleh tinted perspective that I once did and have since come to conclude that there isn’t any greater hope/glory/redemption (what have you) to be had for this country or people beyond the best of what we currently enjoy.

I don’t believe in any of the spooky religious pronouncements or grand political schemes vainly proliferated by this establishment and its hangers on.

They are, very Frankly, feeble self-deceptive tools employed by those who would rather live a pleasantly deluded life guided by a sort of inane positivistic hope and reliance in the Government’s, military’s, and Religion's ability to solve our more alarming concerns, which only serves to numb the legitimate threat of impending doom that hangs above them that much further.

I find thoroughly revolting both traditional Jewish “pragmatism” and Israeli political shenanigans, but I am even more exacerbated by the unalterable and unwavering willingness of the tiny Israelis to stand for it all.

In my view, Israel is a country beset internally by deluded factions and externally by determined aggressors. Israel is beset inwardly and outwardly by a clash of civilizations.

Israel is on the whole a nation of individuals beleaguered by distorted psyches as a result of the refugee/elitist dichotomy that has dominated its socio-cultural evolution. As I have posted before, the vast majority of the Israeli population today is either (essentially) refugee or the immediate descendants of refugees. Furthermore, when I review the groups those people belong to I see that the differences between them are not so much cultural but civilizational. And, that amongst WW2 refugees, Sephardi, Yemenite, Ethiopian, or Russian refugees the only commonality that can exit amongst them is the refugee experience itself—a condition each civilizational subgroup answers with its own unique cultural response, yet remains inherently and invariably dominated by the selfish needs for sustenance and security, and is precluded by divisiveness.

There can be no cultural melting pot in this mess; it is simply too multi-civilizationaly faceted and inherently divisive in its nature to allow for any successful melting into a cohesive culture, and more so, the nature of the Israeli electoral system perpetuates and aggravates that divisiveness to such a degree that it completely undermines any hope that democracy could have of creating a commonality among those groups of use in managing this country’s present lingering threats.

[If you are a proponent of a particular grand religious or political scheme of any kind (other than leftists who thrive on the establishments crookedness) then you should take a look at this situation and ask yourself: Can a cultural or political cohesion ever develop out of such chaos? Can these groups be expected to maintain similar ideas relating to politics, identity, culture, or nation? Can “Judaism” or “Zionism” maintain any shared meaning (even a vague one) amongst these groups? Can such fragmentation, such cleavages, aggravated by the establishment itself and inherent within the system by which we choose our national leadership and agenda ever get things close enough to being right to count? I say no.]

Now, as if this weren't bad enough, consider that this complex circumstance is managed under the auspices of amateurishly bureaucratic Israeli governmental institutions— themselves beset by inefficiency, prejudice, and cronyism—which in itself isn’t unique, but under the circumstances described above only serves to aggravate things immeasurably more so. But more, the system itself is beset by illiberal elitist leftist oligarchical European Ashkenazi crypto-fascio-crats who dominate the government, media, academia, industry, and therefore are the primary shapers of policy on the governmental level and public opinion amongst the bewildered and oblivious plebian refugees that compose the population. These crypto-fascio-crats are no less divided, in terms of politics and identity and are therefore no aid to any of these struggling groups so desperate for some form of leadership and guidance.

Were this all to occur on an isolated tropical island that had no more to worry about other than mild changes in the weather or how fast the grass grows then the outlook would not be so bleak. But, Israel is under siege by maximalist enemies (punctuated by the lying/cheating nature of Arabic culture) who not only root for its destruction but also quite effectively dedicate the resources to guarantee that eventuality. In light of this, the amount of time that this “project” (as some have so cutely put it) has to endure the growing hell-bent Moslem cancer that spreads along Israel’s borders threatening holocaust in the forms of Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah murdering innocents, fifth column Israeli Arabs, Moslems in the Knesset free to make mendacious and inflammatory pronouncements with utter impunity, etc. is not an issue that I can engage with cute optimism or positivistic delight. It makes Frank mad.

They Moslems are wolves and we have mad ourselves into their pray through endless efforts at appeasement and placation to their agendas—mainly through the Israeli establishments choice of policies that are so transparently and shamelessly crafted in order to appease both the violent bloodlust of the Moslems and the arrogant disdain of the establishments European idols in whose image they fashion themselves culturally and socially. (As I see it, these policies are in part just a further expression of the establishment apparatchiks yearning for the approval and validation that their European Masters have so cruelly denied them over the centuries).  

I have no hope in the Pseudo-Realist parties maintaining the status quo--pick your poison, whose only value exists within just how revolting and threatening they are in the eyes of the establishment. 

The natures of the social cleavages, establishment, the enemy who has besieged us, mechanics of the governmental institutions, and the distorted psyches of Israelis as a whole leave the prospect of a hopeful future quite dim—apart from a host of other strangulating factors.

I don’t see any hope for change in this country other than by way of massive nationwide social revolution directed towards the downfall of the establishment and the elitist class of the Israeli 300 once and for all. But this will not happen. Things will not improve. They will gradually come apart, seam by seam until it is all no more—perhaps for another 2000 years or so.

For as it has been written:

This should be unacceptable to us; this is obscene - how can we not cry out in protest? Six million souls look down on us and cry because six million wasn't enough for us to have learned our lesson.

Truer words...


Enjoy the Frankness!

Link Shout Out!

I want to send a shout out to the most recent Frank linkers, who are all awesome and well worth your time:

• Atlas Shrugs 2000

• Israel Jewish News

• The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy

• The Nescient Shibboleth

Famous last words???

"This reminded me of the days before (former Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin's murder. It's unfortunate that that there is a public which cannot put limits form itself. I only came to pay my respect to the murdered, not to engage in politics"

This is so utterly ridiculous.

Aside from the hypocrisy (you know, her party being the leading force for lending terrorists and terrorism unprecedented respectability in the “free world” in a most unrestrained fashion), I want to know when statements like these will actually start to turn into famous last words???

It is my sincerest hope that the Lovable Freedom Fighting Moderate Peace-loving Democratic Moslem’s of this region will make the Knesset their next target for an attack--specifically on a day when the most high chief establishment apparatchiks actually make it to work, (the minor ones can get a pass, I’m not completely heartless ya know!).

I would be giddy in anticipation over the comments spewed from those halls of ill repute after such an enormously entertaining event takes place!

I wonder then if we will hear cries like:

“They are trying to undermine the rule of law”

“This attack was aimed at undermining the peace process”

Or, like the one quoted, which every establishment MK joke just lusts after. Every member of Labor must relish over the opportunity to say: "This reminds me of the days before Rabin's murder”. I wish whoever said that would have to eat those words.

F**k their sanctimony.

People like this are amongst the most vulgar and entertainingly sick people in this country. They never let any event (even tragic) pass without sticking their F*****g faces into the mix in order to foster divisiveness within this sorely psychologically distorted nation and I root for their destruction.

Enjoy the Frankness!

The Problem with Dati Leumi Types

The problem with Dati Leumi types (DLT’s) is that they are entirely non-threatening. Nobody is afraid of the Dati Leumi as a movement or individualy and so no one takes them very seriously, neither politically nor on any other level.

You might think that the combination of “nationalism” and “religion” would make for a potent combo in the Israeli political scene, but I’m here to tell you that the movement’s parties are a big ZERO in that realm. They have no power and only a very minimal political draw, mostly attracting feeble minded knitted Kippa wearers, naïve/clueless uninformed yeshiva types, and deluded run of the mill Oleh types.

I perceive the vast majority of Dati Leumi types as effeminate white toast wimps who sit on the jock of this country’s elitist oligarchical leftist illiberal crypto-fascist establishment like a wart on a toad’s backside. I have never met a dedicated DLT who I thought could put up a serious fight against a determined aggressor or beat me at poker. So I fear none of them and I’m sure nobody else does either.

Like court Jews in ghetto shtetl Europe, the Dati Leumi movement has made the Establishment its bunk mates time and time again even in the face of impending tragedy for itself. The prime example of this is of course Gush Katif where their parties sat in the government until forced out like a penniless junkie from an opium den.

All of the weeks before that stupid travesty the DLT’s sat around talking about how they would celebrate a great feast after the disengagement would fail to come to pass through some divine miracle. But, in the end they did nothing to lend credibility to their ideology. AND I think we all knew that that is exactly what was going to happen.

During the ignoble fall of Gush Katif all the DLT’s did do was cry and cry pseudo-hysterical tears like children being dragged out of a candy store. The men wept on the shoulders of the soldiers who came to destroy their homes and disinherit their families from their hard built communities, begging and pleading with similarly pathetic soldiers not to go through with their orders.

To top it off, you had one of the movement’s eminent religious leaders, quintessential establishment tool Shlomo Aviner, viciously attacking praiseworthy protesters who were doing no more than trying to substantiate through action the very belief system of which he is presumably a proponent, i.e. safeguarding the Land of Israel from its own ruin.

It was pathetic.

It was a joke.

Orange Shmorange.

The actions that some of their Johnny come lately leadership took in Amona is entirely unimpressive and without merit. I scorn those politicians to such a degree that they couldn’t begin to earn the privilege of my sympathetic contempt even on their best day.

DLT’s lack the fiery passion and guts required to really inspire the masses with respect for their principles, which they fail to lend credence to at every juncture tested.

They are disrespected across the spectrum by any and all natural allies. Hareidim view them as lacking in religious conviction. Secular Zionists view them as politically clueless. Kahanists view them as weak. I invoke these groups not as support for my views (because I have no faith or trust in any of them) but rather to indicate just how truly lame they and all of their ridiculously side-locked hill dweller sheep herding pseudo-radical offshoots really are.

I hurt having to write this due to all I have gained personally from the beauty contained within many of their truly great Rabbi's teachings. But this statement needs to be made.

It is truly a dream of mine to see every DLT unleash the type of hell upon this system that the establishment’s media mouthpieces have so falsely and ridiculously predicted it capable of for so many years. But, this will never happen.


Enjoy the Frankness!

Engaging Doomsday

We are all afraid to see the third commonwealth collapse. And believe it; if it happened twice it can happen a third time. However, we cannot fear it so that we refuse to fully engage our vile nemeses head on. Our nation simply cannot afford to await the bitterness of a foolish death without taking the fight to the F’n Iranian puppet masters once and for all rather than sustaining this fixed delusional focus upon their proxies.

Nevertheless, it’s clear to me that the Israeli elitist oligarchical leftist illiberal crypto-fascist establishment, within whose laps the core of our states power rests, is incapable of fully engaging this crisis because:

• Engaging Iran as the primary state culprit behind the conflict in our region lays waste to the idea that Palestinian statehood will bring an end to the conflict here, which has been the bedrock of their political agenda for the last 20 years.

• As I have written before: In any case, no matter what develops we can only be certain that our "leadership" will make the wrong choices, or at very best begin to approach a decent policy only to fumble the ball early on, never to recover it.

• Even if we were to engage Iran and win, we are guaranteed to screw up the endgame by failing to permanently prevent the local Moslem's from being courted by any potential future benefactors waiting in the wings after the Great Persian Father has been removed from the equation. Unless of course, the elitist oligarchical leftist illiberal crypto-fascist establishment is undone and it’s suicidal doctrine of Moslem appeasement is exposed as well.
  

But that aside, do you want a really good reason for Israel to attack Iran in any case?

Here you go:

I would rather us not give the smug effeminate exile drunken Hareidim of the Diaspora the opportunity to say: "See, We told you we were right! The Talmud says Jews shouldn’t even live in Israel..." Which is indeed something our incineration at the hands of the Iranians would allow them to do, AND I for one do not wish to stand by idly and give them that opportunity!!! Damn Straight!

Here is a pretty good, if not basic, article on engaging Iran:

The Iranian-Israeli War

When will Israel and Iran go to war? They already have.

By Yossi Klein Halevi

Immediately after the massacre of eight students in a yeshiva library in Jerusalem last week, speculation began within the Israeli security establishment and the media about who had dispatched the lone murderer. Was it Hamas? Hezbollah? Perhaps a new, unknown organization claiming to act on behalf of the "liberation" of the Galilee? In fact, the speculation was pointless. Regardless of the affiliation of the actual perpetrator, the ultimate responsibility for this attack, as for almost all the terror attacks on Israel in recent years, lies with Iran.

Click here to read more...

Drafting yeshiva students is not the issue!!! (Or, more mind numbing BS from the halls of our establishment’s loyal opposition)

"It's not a matter of numbers, but of ethics," Steinitz said. "I can accept that a few hundred scholars would be selected to study, as in the time of David Ben-Gurion. But the current situation of thousands of ultra-Orthodox boys not serving in the IDF is intolerable and should be changed, not because we urgently need more soldiers, but because we need the feeling that all sectors are sharing in the mission of protecting our homeland."

Ethics??? Sharing??? The ethics of sharing??? Are you F’n kidding me?!

This is just more BS to busy the plebes with so that are minds are kept too occupied to actually consider just how badly this country’s elitist establishment is screwing and exploiting us at any given time--which is the only real issue at hand.

The number of soldiers that share in the burden of protecting this country is an absolutely meaningless issue. It plays no role in this country’s poor morale or in its entirely flawed policy and security decisions. If you think it does then you are just another feeble minded Israeli clone who has yet to open his eyes to the reality of this failing “republic” and its intensifyingly desperate spin down the drain. Which, in lack of the ability to actually change or improve for the better I can only find solace in its increasingly amusing character.

BUT, just to point out how stupid we are, when it comes to the ethics of sharing and the intolerable status quo that prevails in our midst then how about a bit of sharing in the few places it really would matter, like:

The top economic percentile sharing in a greater wealth distribution and closing this country’s incredibly widening disparity of income??? It is appalling that 36% of this country’s workers are making under 3000NIS/month.

AND:

The breaking of public and private monopolies, from the electric company, to publishing, print and electronic media. Let’s not forget to include in that batch the privatization of ports and government-controlled industry, which result in the strangulation of our quality of life and economy through insane union strikes and low industrial productivity. Let them share in the ownership (or at least justifiable wage and competitive production standards) with workers and the benefits of making these sectors more transparent and service oriented with the public at large. Let's not even start talking about the banks...

OR:

The Knesset sharing its power by allowing us to elect our own representatives individually, rather than engaging in the farcical political pageantry of this country’s bitterly flawed “democracy”. And if not that much, the Knesset could at least give us tax payers a break and stop some of its ridiculous spending, for example on the farcical MK personnel allotments under the title of "voter spending budget" that MK's recieve in order to spend what often amounts to many peoples annual salaries on connecting with their voters, which is just another huge lump of BS, you know, since they aren't accountable to us voters to begin with?! What a joke.

AND JUST MAYBE:

The Supreme Court sharing its method of choosing its members (at least with elected officials) rather than choosing their own members based upon ideological parity and caste, while they go gallivanting about this country carving up laws as if it were their own personnel piece of steak.

In short, how about some social, economic, and political reform?

These are issues that really matter. THEY ARE KILLING US. But in order to keep us plebes mentally weak and occupied they foster social tension amongst us by taunting us with empty meaningless ideas like “sharing in the mission of protecting our homeland” and sending our young men to act as bullet catchers for this country’s corrupt regimes insane policies, based completely upon Olmert’s (and all those establishment tools who came before him) self-serving struggle for political survival. In a sense you could say that Olmert’s decisions to send our young men out to die is something of a marketing decision--necessitated by his and his predecessor’s similarly stunningly selfish marketing decisions.

As I have written before, the apparatchiks use concepts such as these (and Zionism) as crude manipulative tools in order to turn us into busy workers ants that will not contest the true evil and decadent nature of this establishment and its self-perpetuation. To them we are all just barbarians who must be guided into the light by hook or by crook--while they make a shekel or two on the deal.

As if the orthodox are the real culprits in this behind this country’s downfall…I wish people like Steinitz in the alleged “opposition” would have the guts to ignore irrelevant issues and call this country’s illiberal crypto-fascists for exactly what they are and use all of their local and international resources to not only defeat them politically but to utterly crush them in oblivion.

Doomsday for Israel? Negotiations With Hamas? More Piecemeal Conflict? Hezbollah Strikes back? US Military Involvement? you decide...

Here are two articles with  opposing view points on the matter of a Hamas
Hezbollah combined attack strategy.  Israeli leaders interpretations of events to come no doubt presents a variety military, diplomatic, and political ramifications for everyone involved.

What will happen? 

Decide for yourself:

Article 1, from the Guardian: Faced with a doomsday scenario, Israel must sit down with Hamas

Article 2, from Strategypage : Hamas Seeks a Blaze of Glory

In any case, no matter what develops we can only be certain that our "leadership" will make the wrong choices, or at very best approach a decent policy only to fumble the ball early on, never to recover it.

Jonathan Rosenblum on the Supreme Court

Jonathan Rosenblum is good.

Here is a great piece he wrote on the Supreme Court, undressing that institution and its members down to what they really are: Sanctimonious Illiberal Crypto-Fascist Oligarchs:

Our Illiberal Court

by Jonathan Rosenblum
Jerusalem Post
March 4, 2008

"The Supreme Court has been widely regarded as Israel's most stalwart liberal institution since Barak took over as its president in 1996," wrote Calev Ben-David last week in these pages. Had he described the Court as Israel's most left-wing institution he would have been on safer ground (though all those academic departments in which a traditional Zionist can never gain appointment might contest the title).

One can be both left-wing and fundamentally illiberal. European human rights councils and university speech codes that would forbid quoting the Koran, in the name of protecting against Islamophobia may be left-wing. But they are not liberal.

Plato will never be listed among the philosophers of liberalism. Yet under Barak, the justices assumed the role of Platonic Guardians, or, in former Court President Moshe Landau's description, "governing elders." That task, Landau added, is one for which they had no training and showed little aptitude.

Click here to read more...

Article: "Diplomacy: War and piecemeal"

Here is a Jpost article from the Friday edition that sheds a little bit of light on the piecemeal factor I have been talking about.

It cannot be understated just how demoralizing this type of war fighting can become on troops and commanders, as well as citizens. It will result in a reverse attrition in terms of morale, upon us. Decisive action is required to reach even minimal goals and Olmert has been completely incapable of achieving them in any form. He has failed time and time again in two separate theaters of combat--pointlessly risking our civilian soldiers lives. 

Imagine the same piecemeal strategy employed against Iran (which is what is happening based on the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah are both Iranian proxies). I can see Olmert sending bombers out over Iran just to call them back as they are about to drop their payloads just so he can announce on TV: "See we could destroy their weapons if we wanted to, now they will see just how serious we are and destroy them themselves. Now they have seen our power!"

Ridiculous.


Diplomacy: War and piecemeal

By Herb Keinon

Throughout a tense and dramatic week - a week of battles in Jabaliya and Grad missiles falling on Ashkelon - the government's leaders have repeatedly deflected questions about Israel's tactics and strategy in the Gaza Strip by saying they don't want to give the enemy any foreknowledge of what the country will do.

"Everything is possible: aerial and ground raids, special operations and other operations; everything is up for discussions," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday. "We will not be revealing what we are considering, or when, because we don't want to give our enemies the chance to prepare," he continued.

Fair enough. But there is one collateral problem: Not only is the enemy confused; so are the country's citizens. If asked what their government was trying to do in Gaza this week, most people would probably say the policy was aimed at protecting the citizens of the South and stopping the rocket fire. But follow-up questions - whether Israel was trying to topple Hamas; whether Israel wanted to go back into Gaza; whether Israel was aiming not only to stop the rocket fire, but also end the massive arms buildup there - would probably be met with befuddled looks, a scratch of the head, and a goofy "I dunno."

Click here to read more…

And the beat goes on...

"The attack drew international condemnation, including from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel said that the attack would not derail peace talks."

Uhhh…

There is so much that is F'd up with this bite of information that I really don’t know where to begin...it is simply the absolute height of absurdity in every notion of the word and therein encapsulates the hysterically insane and psychologically fraught nature of this country’s distorted national psyche.

In case I haven’t made this clear, the people of Israel have been so intellectually and morally disarmed by this country’s ruling class for so many years in its efforts to sustain its dominance over the people that Israelis are by and large incapable of drawing healthy conclusions on political/national issues.

The elitist oligarchs have kept this state’s proverbial body strong and mind incredibly weak, so much so that even in the face of yesterday’s travesty many Israeli’s will take solace in the ridiculous notion of a condemnation made by either terrorist icon Abu Mazen or the “international community”.

The state of Israel is like a man being devoured by a pack of hungry wolves who pleads with them not to devour his vital organs in the off chance that they will just eat his legs instead and leave the rest of him alone--stupid and dying.

I would also like to add that I will remain unimpressed by any “reprisal” made by Israel as a result of this attack on us--if there should even be one. Don’t let any cheap action on this government’s behalf buy you off either.

I would like to end with a prayer:

GD Bless The Souls So Brutally Taken From Within Our Midst, On Our Watch, As result Of Our Pathetic Inadequacies As A Nation, And May He Avenge Their Cruel Slaughter For All To Behold If Shall We Fail To Do So.

F**k Olmert!

The full scale tragedy of tonight's events have yet to unfold, however one thing remains abundantly clear: our enemies must pay for this blood and yet, they will be rewarded instead.

They will and so will all of our other enemies. Anyone who suggests talking instead of domination on any and all fronts is a f**king waste of life.

More than that, our enemies will be rewarded as will those who reward them, with continued power and continued strangulating control over this nation.

I can scarcely endure the deterioration of this country any longer. A country with as much potential as Israel for being a guiding force to the world, that yet remains incapable of realizing that mantle can only be referred to as evolutionarily inadequate.

This country has become the f**kin' abyss. 

F**k Olmert, F**k the Arabs, and F**k the capitualtors.


Kahane Tzadak...more and more every day.

Earthworm Olmert!

Does it escape everyone but me that these two are virtually indistinguishable?!

Israeli Cab Diary: The Non Sequitur Cab Battle

OK, so I order a cab for what should be a normal ten minute drive and it shows up late as usual, but then…

I get in the car, the driver, a Sephardic man in his late forties with nose hair protruding in sickening bushes from both nostrils says:

I don’t know what do about it, you know, I mean I can see but I just can’t see that well when I’m driving. If I get too close too something just tell me. I can see but not when I get to close to things, so the doctor wants me to wear these glasses but they are so expensive, you know the brand I’m talking about…what’s it called…um…you know…just tell me already…um…well anyway he gave me an interesting thing with it, here, you know, to clean the glasses with, but who needs it. Here look at it, it’s in the glove box, I’ll find it for you…Ok here it is, do you know anything about this kind of stuff? Well in any case my son is in Jenin you know and he’s a great kid he’s been there for a few days. What do you say about that? Kids are so spoiled today. The fact of the matter is you have to understand the way UEFA works, the rules are very detailed and its crazy you know? Wow, I saw this awesome car, a Ferrari, but I would just smash it to pieces I don’t know how though, that’s just the way it is though in this city…

I could barely contain myself. But I thought, what am I gonna do, just sit here and listen to this guys Non Sequiturs without throwing a few back of my own like some kind of wimp?

I make it a point to never back down from a Non Sequitur cab battle challenge.

So I spit this at him:

Well I got to tell you, a tiger just escaped from the San Diego Zoo and its going crazy, killing people and other nonsense, eating ice cream and the such, you know what a tiger does to ice cream, tears it to pieces and leaves you bloody to die, one guy got his leg torn right off, but that’s nothing where I’m from there’s already a meter of snow on the ground, a meter, wow, but here it’s a sunny day, I don’t understand how it works, and I’ve got to tell you I don’t let anyone get in my way when I have to piss, if you’re there you’re in trouble…but you know how it is, my shoulder hurts and I cant carry stuff, so everyone on the road can go to hell with the penguins who I F’n hate anyway…you know what I mean…

He answers back:

Those damn fire trucks…

And there I was. Bested by a true genius in his element. It was beautiful.

All I could add was:

Touché sir, touché…

And it was over, just like that...I was served.

My friends, you might think that a Non Sequitur cab battle is harmless fun, but  I'm here to tell
you that she is a soulless temptress to be respected and feared. 

But I already know what you're thinking, if it weren't for the honor I too would have forgone the pleasure.

More American Hypocrisy

People's beliefs in the amusing notions that the US wouldn’t stand by and watch Israel go down in flames and that Fatah is a force of moderates/peace partners are for me reminiscent of hamsters running a wheel, no matter how fast those beliefs get them no where they keep going and going and going...

Fairly decent article that touches on both issues and upon Hamas' use of American weapons seized in the takeover: 

Will the State Department Side with American Terror Victims or Yasser Arafat?
As Abbas brags about Fatah’s terror legacy, we wait and watch.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

After nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered in the atrocities of September 11, 2001, President Bush boldly announced that the United States would not distinguish between terror networks and the regimes that support them. They would all be regarded as hostile and dealt with accordingly.

What a sad commentary it is that, less than seven years later, we are left to wonder whether our State Department will stand with the American victims of terror or join forces with the other side: a regime with a long, remorseless record of practicing terrorism, preaching terrorism, and murdering Americans.

Click here to read more...

Talk about Piecemeal Conflict...

This is spectacularly amusing!

Olmert is already pulling out. "That fast?", you ask? Indeed that fast. Seems almost a bit premature, doesn't it?!

He's attempting to micro manage the conflict to protect his image. Olmerta's (kind of like Omerta, but his code of silence is in never admitting he made a mistake, which if he did might balance out his favor a little in more feeble Israeli minds) goal here is redemption. He wants to redeem his failures in Lebanon by doing the exact apposite of everything he did there--or so he will portray. But since he is a crummy leader and a crummy poker player too  he F'd up again by allowing Hamas to declare a victory over Israel.

I cant wait for his pathetic spin on the issue that will probably transmogrify over the next several days if not weeks in ever more feeble attempts to justify his leadership.

Even if he goes back in, he will never get passed the shame of this premature withdrawl, which any man who is half his salt knows is a garaunteed recipe for...well... you get the idea.

Here is more validation for me:

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5078 

Israeli troops abruptly withdraw from Gaza. Seven-story Ashkelon building hit by Katyusha Monday

March 3, 2008, 11:59 AM (GMT+02:00)

Shortly after Israel’s withdrawal, Monday, March 3, the Palestinians stepped up their cross-border attacks. One of three Katyusha rockets fired from Gaza at Ashkelon hit a seven-story building sending a dozen people into shock and sowing wide panic in the city of 120,000. Four missiles exploded in the Eshkol farmland area south of Sderot, while mortar fire was aimed at Sderot, Kibbutz Yad Mordecai, Nahal Oz and Netiv Ha’asara.

DEBKAfile reports: Prime minister Ehud Olmert suddenly decided on the pullback of Israeli ground and armored units from northern Gaza before dawn Monday before they reached their goal of halting Palestinian fire. Stage one of Operation Hot Winter was announced at an end. He was later attacked by members of the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee for aborting the operation in contradiction of the pledges he and the defense minister made Sunday. Both had vowed that military ground action would press on until the Hamas missile-rocket offensive against Israeli civilians was stamped out.

Up until late Sunday night, Qassam rockets continued to explode in Sderot and surrounding villages and Katyusha rockets in Ashkelon at the average rate of 50 per day since Wednesday. The three-day Israeli infantry, tank and air incursion left more than 100 Palestinians dead, most Hamas combatants, some civilians and children. Two Israeli soldiers were killed.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report: Aborting this action in mid-stream leaves Israel with the options of air, surface missile and artillery raids - or short, shallow forays – all of which have long proved ineffectual.

Olmert’s order to the Israeli ground force to turn around and withdraw in mid-offensive was astonishing and unprecedented. Senior officers fully expected the Palestinian Hamas terrorist leaders to rush into declarations of victory and claims that they had beaten the Israeli army into a retreat. And indeed, Hamas staged a victory march in Gaza City later Monday.

Our political sources disclose that Olmert, during his absence in Tokyo last week, was far from happy with the way acting PM Tzipi Livni and Barak handled the sharp spike in Palestinian missile attacks. He felt they had caused an unnecessary escalation of the crisis to the point that a major military operation became unavoidable.

Olmert insisted that short, sharp military strikes would have defused the crisis and obviated the need for a broad military offensive in Gaza, which he had consistently prevented.

By aborting the operation Monday night, he rapped them both and also moved to put down the incipient revolt in his government and Kadima party, spearheaded by two senior ministers – Avi Dichter, internal security and former Shin Bet chief, and Shaul Mofaz, transport, ex-defense minister and chief of staff. Both publicly urged a stepped-up ground offensive to crush Hamas rule of Gaza, arguing that all other tactics - military, sanctions and siege - had failed.

DEBKAfile’s political sources report that Hamas won useful points in the propaganda war by getting images and footage of Palestinian women and children casualties of Israeli strikes onto TV screens and front pages way ahead of the suffering of Israeli civilians from the gratuitous Hamas blitz.

This eased the way for Washington to lean hard on the prime minister to break off the operation. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened to call off her visit on Tuesday, March 4, and laid the blame on Israel for the breakdown of peace talks with the Palestinians, although it was Mahmoud Abbas who formally suspended all contacts with Israel. She accused Israel of undermining the Bush administration’s entire Middle East strategy. Olmert found it politic to bow to this pressure.

The Israeli news obsession

I’m sick of the Israeli news obsession.

Every hour on the hour Israeli radio breaks for a news update, which 9 times out of ten is identical to the previous 10 hours of news. Yet lo and behold, no matter where you are as soon as the broadcast begins every last Israeli stops and listens intently with a deliberately strained concentration projected from their concerned faces.

It makes me sick.

If you’re in an Israeli friends car or cab the driver will turn up the sound to their highest audible threshold and give you a loud SHHHH if you're not quiet enough for them to consume their tenth helping of news that day. Same thing goes in the Makolet, the car mechanic, or the Steakia.

Half the time the news is about complete and utter bullshit:


“Madonna is in town (she likes Kabala, which is Jewish so that means she must like us, yay!)…Leo is in town (he is dating an Israeli, which means he must like us and our country, yay!)…Israel didn’t make it to Eurovision (Europe hates us, oh no! What will we do?)…The Oscar awards were given out last night (Beaufort didn’t win, oh well, at least we made it to the big house of our gentile master)…”

[Israelis care entirely too much about ridiculous pop culture. It is sickening.]


Or


“Terrorists killed Jews today (Again!)…Rockets “landed” (or exploded) in Sderot (they are never fired or shot a us from an enemy determined to kill us)…Olmert is under investigation…(big F**king surprise)…”

[Same shit different day]

Often times I’ll tell the person I’m with exactly what the news announcer is going to say verbatim just before the broadcast starts so that I wont have to endure this tortuous experience yet again—but it never works.

So I ask why, why must you listen to the same news 20 times in a row?

The answer:

“Because in this country you never know what’s going to happen minute to minute, we could be at war before you know it.”

To this I ask:

Have you ever voted for any Israeli party or Prime minister (for those few years when it was separate and the illusion of choice was more pronounced) that supported talks with Arabs, or the Oslo process, or one that supported withdrawals and beatings of right wing activists, or one who wanted to disengage Jews from their homes?


If yes then I say:

“Oh yeah, then F**k you, you earned this bad news you sanctimonious son of a b**ch!

If they say no:

F**k them anyway, anyone who is stupid enough to get their news from the army censored, highly sanitized, non threatening Israeli radio broadcasts is a worthless human being who should not be allowed the option to vote in the first place.

There is absolutely no reason to consume any of the Israeli broadcasted or printed media other than to learn just how badly we are doing. It is an utter joke. Moreover, the deliberate concentration Israelis pay to their radio broadcasts is something I find incredibly amusing. If they only took voting as seriously as they take these stupid excuses for information then this country might look a little bit different.


BTW—And, if you listen to Israeli news then F**K you too! You’re a worthless scumbag.

Aiming For the Brain

Whereas "aiming for the brain" is an effective way of temporarily limiting capabilities it does not solve the strategic problem in the long run. It's like using a band-aid to heal cancer: not going to work.

It’s really just another form of the age old tactic of keeping the body (of the general populace where the terrorist recruits come from) strong and the mind (their current terrorist leadership/infrastructure) weak, all in the hopes of eventually breaking the peoples will to support terrorist groups and getting them to the negotiating table—but in the entirely misguided, inconsistent, and poorly strategized Israeli way.

Below is an article from Jim Dunnigan's site that goes into a bit of depth on the current Israeli military tactics.

I am reposting this assessment in its entirety, but you can find it at:


 http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20080228.aspx

February 28, 2008:

As a democracy, Israel cannot ignore threats to its citizens. So the continued rocket attacks on southern Israel create a public outcry for a solution. Moving Israeli troops out of Gaza three years ago was supposed to be a solution, but it wasn't. Israelis can access Palestinian media, and all they see is the same old "kill the Jews and destroy Israel" propaganda (from both Fatah and Hamas, although the Hamas stuff is more strident and abundant.) So Israel is increasingly applying the same tactics in Gaza (go after the terrorist leadership and technical experts) that worked to stop the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign that began in 2000 (and was defeated by 2005). Even most pacifist Israelis have given up on trying to make deals with the Palestinians. There are too many Palestinian factions, conditioned by a century of "kill the Jews" propaganda, that will not abide by any deal, and will keep trying to kill Israelis.


Defensive measures often have serious limitations. For example, the Palestinian rocket attacks on the town (Sderot) closest to Gaza, continue to kill and wound and Israelis. The "Iron Dome" anti-rocket system Israel is building will not, it turns out, protect Sderot, because the town is too close (two kilometers) to where the rockets are launched. Iron Dome is designed to take down missiles fired from at least four kilometers away. That might change, because the basic problem is time. Missiles fired from two kilometers away arrive in 9-10 seconds, which is before Iron Dome can react. Some Israeli army commanders want to reoccupy part of northern Gaza, to force the Palestinians to launch their rockets four kilometers from Sderot. In the last year, these rockets have killed two Israelis, and wounded dozens more. Israeli attacks on the terrorist groups responsible have left over 300 Palestinians dead. The Israeli shift to mainly targeting the terrorist leaders and technicians has the best chance, in the near term, of crippling the Hamas attacks. The increased Israeli attacks are apparently the result of improved intelligence within Gaza, probably the result of Fatah ordering its supporters there to aid the Israelis in targeting the Hamas leadership.


In the meantime, Israel continues its blockade of Gaza, allowing only food and medical supplies through. This has made Gaza Palestinians angry, but also apathetic and fearful. Hamas is running a police state, so the feelings of the average Palestinian have little impact. The blockade has enraged many Europeans, who are calling for diplomatic, economic and legal moves against Israel for "war crimes." Many Israelis see this as the old European anti-Semitism, which led to the Nazi mass murder of six million Jews during World War II (with the cooperation of officials and citizens in many European countries). But the Palestinians see such support as one of the few weapons they have left. However, an increasing number of Arabs are getting tired of the Palestinian inability to work out a peace deal. These Arabs have come to recognize that the Israelis are trying harder to make a deal than the Palestinians are. Moreover, Arabs public opinion has turned against the Islamic terrorists, mainly because of the murderous tactics used by Islamic terrorists in Iraq, and elsewhere in the Arab world. The Palestinians are running out of allies, and options. It's the Palestinians who are best able to control the radicals, whose violence is preventing any peace deal from being made, or kept. Fatah is trying to organize a "resistance" against Hamas, within Gaza. But so far, Hamas has proved too powerful for that to work. But after a few months of concentrated Israeli attacks on Hamas leadership, that may change.


Fourteen members of the Al Asqa Martyrs Brigades "escaped" from a Palestinian prison in the West Bank. The men were terrorists working for Fatah, and had been in jail for a month. Such incidents are all too common, and are the main reason Israel does not trust Palestinian efforts to crack down on terrorism. The terrorists were supposed to spend three months in a Palestinian prison in order to get taken off Israeli lists of known terrorists. But the men, who can leave the prison during the day, say the living conditions are not adequate and refuse to abide by the deal.


Meanwhile, Fatah accuses Hamas of allowing al Qaeda to set up shop in Gaza. Hamas denies this, but more non-Palestinian Islamic terrorists are showing up in Gaza, which has become one of the few sanctuaries in the world for these guys. Groups claiming to be allied with Al Qaeda are openly operating in Gaza.


In Lebanon, Hizbollah is still fuming over the recent killing of terrorist leader Imad Mughniyeh in Syria. Now Hizbollah threatens to make attacks against Israeli targets outside of Israel. This has not been done much in the past because Hizbollah relied on fund raising and recruiting among Moslems (especially Shia) living outside the Middle East (especially in the West). But in the past few years, Western counter-terror efforts have cracked down on both of these activities anyway. So there is real fear that the furor over Mughniyeh's death will encourage Hizbollah to branch out into international terrorism. The downside of this is increased international efforts against Hizbollah. Logic, however, does not always play with Hizbollah and the Islamic radicals in the Iranian government who provide money and weapons for the Lebanese based Hizbollah. Then again, the Iranian Islamic radicals are on the defensive at home, where Iranians are increasingly angry over how the religious dictatorship has mismanaged the economy, and stepped up use of religious police to enforce rules on how people are supposed to live (no entertainment, dress codes for young men and women, press censorship, etc). Going international with their terrorism would be a big mistake for Hizbollah, but they just might do it.

Holocaust Shmolocaust!

"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."

                                                -- Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai


I'll say it again: Holocaust Shmolocaust.

After the last several years of Israeli piecemeal military/police actions no enemy of Israel can be expected to take these words seriously. Israel is dominated by piecemeal war doctrine that makes it incapable of fighting and winning a protracted conflict, much less eradicating an enemy threat.

According to this theory, Israeli “leaders” (fearing potentially destabilizing international or local criticism of their governments drawn by taking action against terrorists) wait until enough Jews are murdered in high profile slaughtering (not those pesky low profile events that don’t make CNN) before they feel confident enough to temporarily disrupt Arab terrorist capabilities.

Frankly, not a single military action in the last 30 years has fallen outside of the Israeli piecemeal paradigm and neither will any action taken against Gaza.

Israel desperately requires a strategic goal in this conflict here folks and it assuredly ain't got one better than nitpicking through Gaza on the hunt for “militants” and “activists” and taking them out in residentially merciful, martyr status inducing, precision attacks.

Pushing all of Gaza’s inhabitants onto the Sinai Peninsula through the open border is a strategic aim worth having. Combing through Gaza like a school nurse in a kindergartners hair in hot pursuit of lice is not a goal, it’s a pathetic tactic best left to the nurses.

The entire notion is a ridiculous and pathetic joke. We shouldn't have left Gaza to begin with, Olmert shouldn't be in office, and no IDF soldier should be forced to risk his or her life because of this stupid prime minister and his stupid predecessor’s insane self-serving policies.

I would love nothing more than to see all of the men deployed lay siege to Olmert’s office, the Knesset, and supreme court until the people in those offices agreed to take up arms and fight Hamas on the front lines.

Ultimately, even if Hamas is wiped out--which is more than doubtful, a vacuum will remain in its place eventually to be filled by another "Islamist" organization waiting in the wings to take its place, which it inevitably will.  Their major claim for leadership will be that Fatah is no more than an Israeli pawn and must be opposed. Not ironically, this will again sway many distorted Israeli psyche's into thinking that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and hail Fatah still as a partner in peace as they do now with Abu Shmazen.


Additionally, something else that really grinds my gears:

Something that few may point out is the cultural double standard to be evoked by the utter absence of broad reaction to Villainous Vilnai’s statement by the Israeli media.

Had anyone identifiable with the right wing dared to use the “H” word in the same sense the media would have publicly flogged them until the cows came home.

Not Vilnai though, an establishmentarian apparatchik if there ever was one. He gets a free pass.

Imagine Bibi making the same statement. Every hack Israeli publication would have vilified him by drawing comparisons to Hitler and denouncing him as a Nazi racist till the very end. To be Frank, they would have been as merciless as hungry Russians in a pork store.

It makes me sick.