Diversity—Hamas-Style

And who says that Islamists devalue women? MEMRI has a new video clip up in which several Gazan women promise to become suicide bombers if the Israelis move into the strip. No longer will suicide bombing be monopolized by men. I'm certain that Hamas will also be happy to make use of the mentally infirm, male or female, as well. Hamas apparently has an equal opportunity homicide bombing program. So join me in congratulating Hamas for demonstrating its commitment to social progress and gender equity.

If only the third women on the clip could have made her statement without revealing the fact that she's also a raving anti-Semite. The bolding is mine.

"If one of our men dies, a thousand men will set out in his place. We, the women, will set out. We are the granddaughters of Yassin, Al-Bana, and Al-Qassam. We are all the daughters of Palestine, the daughters of steadfast Gaza. We will set out, booby-trapped. From every home, a bomb will set out, and it will explode among the sons of Zion. We are no less than Fatima Al-Najjar and Rim Al-Riyashi [two Palestinian women who blew themselves up among Israelis]. We will blow ourselves up among those traitors, those apes and pigs."

And why not; that's what they are taught.

It’s the Economy Stupid: Iranian Style

Despite what's going on in Gaza, the "Hot News" today in the online edition of the Tehran Times concerns a forthcoming economic reform plan that will have to "redirect subsidies" because of the collapse of crude oil prices. The Iranians need oil to be selling for about $90 a barrel to meet their economic needs. But oil prices have dropped to under $40 and have so far resisted efforts to coax them back up. Add to that the fact that the Iranian national oil industry is inefficient, and has failed to meet its goals for greater efficiency and higher production, and all is not rosy in Tehran. Iran actually has to import gasoline and diesel fuel. Add to that inflation and rising unemployment.

While Ahmadinejad is trying to keep the focus on Gaza, I find it interesting that the Tehran Times did not see that as the "Hot News."

Redirecting or cutting back on subsidies will not be easy, politically or otherwise. During the debate one Majlis member, Rouhollah Hosseinian, stated that a "subsidy-based economy is like a patient that needs constant injection to continue his life . . . and needs a surgery to return to natural life." His personal view apparently is:
"Today, the subsidies need to be removed to make the national economy healthy." He added: "Currently . . . 70 percent of the subsidies go to 30 percent of people."

Freudian Slip!

An Islamic Republic News Agency Report today (31 December 2008) notes that the Speaker of the Iranian Majlis, Ali Larijani, outlined what he sees as the goal of the Israelis in their attack on Gaza. According to the report, "the Israeli authorities are trying to make the regional states compromise with their regime."

Given the fact that Iran is taking the lead in the international criticism and condemnation of the Israeli strikes, it follows that the Israeli goal of "compromise" is illegitimate. Well, if it's illegitimate to insist that Hamas compromise, then the only legitimate course for the Israelis would be to accept as legitimate Hamas's goals. Unfortunately, Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel.

There's actually no problem here. Anyone who can read knows that Iran, Hamas, and Hizbollah do not accept the idea that Israel has any right to exist. The Iranians can't even bring themselves to mouth the word "Israel." The use the term "Zionist Entity." The elimination of Israel is a clear goal of all three and, as Larijiani has made clear today, any expectation that any Muslim entity compromise with Israel is illegitimate.

So short of packing up and moving to some other location on our planet, what exactly are the Israelis expected to do? What would I do if I were an elected Israeli leader given this reality? In my view, the Israelis are showing, and have long shown, remarkable restraint. But it won't last forever.

Look Out OJ Simpson

This is an interesting picture for several reasons. First, I assume that this gentleman who took part in an anti-Israeli protest in New York the other day is not calling for the execution of "The Juice." Second, he's obviously not too bright. Third, if you look closely you can see that between the large words "To All" and "Juice" someone has scribbled in the word "Zionist."


Why is that significant? Someone, perhaps the protester himself or someone else, noted that the poster as originally written didn't follow the party line and revealed the true feelings of many of those at the march. Calling for the death of all Jews makes you an anti-Semite; whereas it's acceptable to far too many people in the West to call for the death of all Zionists, who just happen to be Jewish. You see, that's okay.

Egyptian Cleric Calls on Obama to Convert!

To Islam, of course. And if he refuses he faces nothing but humiliation, because the world's Muslims seek martyrdom.

Ahmadinejad Discovers the Holocaust!

No, he's not talking about that Holocaust in which six million Jews were slaughtered; Ahmadinejad is talking about the ongoing "holocaust" in Gaza where over 300 Palestinians have died. And what's amazing isn't the Iranian president's moxie, it's that the Western media reports this without comment. The anti-Semities in the Islamic world love to talk about the "genocide" of the Palestinians while sporting placards equating "Zionism = Nazism," usually indicated with the swastika symbol.

The first time I heard someone accuse the Isarelis of "genocide" against the Palestinians was about 1970 or 1971 when I was an undergraduate. In 1967, in the wake of the Six Day War, there were about 1 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Today, forty years later, there are about 3.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and that's not including the Palestinians of the diaspora.

Do the math! After forty years of "genocide," the Palestinian population had increased nearly 400%. During the same forty-year-span, the U.S. population has gone from about 200 million to 300 million, and increase of 50%. By comparison, in 1939 there were about 8.9 million Jews in Europe. Six years later at the end of the Second World War there were under three million still living.

That's what the terms "holocaust" and "genocide" mean in their modern usage. And for the Iranian president and other opponents of Israeli policy to bandy about such terms is both ludicrous and obscene. It was one thing for someone to charge Israel with "genocide" back in 1970, but after forty years and a Palestinian population increase of 400% how can anyone be expected to take the genocide charge seriously?

Iranians Accuse Arabs of Ignoring Gaza Situation

The Tehran times today (30 December) accused the Organization of the Islamic Conference of "forgetting" the Palestinians. The Iranian newspaper noted that OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued "a statement congratulating Muslims on the occasion of New Year 1430 AH but inexplicably ignoring the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the Gaza Strip."

It will be interesting to see if the fissure that exists between Iran with its Gazan proxy and the Arab states widens or narrows over the next week. If the Arabs do not bring pressure on the U.S., so that it brings pressure on Israel to halt the strikes, the Iranians would have the option of upping the ante by instructing Hizbullah to begin its own missile barrage in "solidarity."

The Hamas Outline?

Back in the last century, after a class on the US and the Middle East, I had a short chat with my professor after a depressing lecture on the intractability of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Following a short rehash of his lecture, I asked: “So what is the solution?” He smiled and replied: “Why does there have to be one?”

“So then what do we do?” I asked.

“We manage the situation. Do the best we can to keep it from blowing up.”

Nothing, unfortunately, has taken place to change my mind that he had it right (I have no idea how he’d answer the same question today). And when it comes to Hamas, the fact that there isn’t a solution is even more true.

Hamas doesn’t want a two-state solution. It wants to eliminate Israel as a state. How are the Israelis supposed to negotiate with a movement that doesn’t accept the idea that a Jewish state, within any boundaries, should exist survive in the Middle East? How do the Israelis, or the Americans, treat with a movement that in its charter states that the Rotary Club is part of a vast global Zionist conspiracy?

As I write this post, I’m listening to the TV and I just heard a commentator ask the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. why Hamas would provoke Israel, given the imbalance in power between the two? The answer is simple: because Hamas expects (events will probably show that they know) that political pressures from around the world will ultimately cut short any military operation by the Israelis before they are able to deal a lethal blow to Hamas. From the point of view of Hamas, the more Palestinians who die, innocent or not, the better.

To what point? The outlines of this “resistance” campaign of “martydom” by Hamas is clear enough. Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who led a somewhat comparable campaign in 2006 in southern Lebanon, has provided us with the outlines.

In a speech delivered today by video he told his followers that the strikes were part of a “Zionist-American” plan. In short, it’s our fault, not Hamas’s, which refused to continue the ceasefire and began firing rockets into southern Israel. He also stated that there is “true and full collaboration between certain Arab regimes, especially those who have already signed peace deals with Israel [Egypt and Jordan], to crush any form of resistance.” People in those states need to bring popular pressure against their governments. He also called for the other Islamic states to make the most of the current world situation. “In this period the United States of America and the Europeans are suffering from financial and economic crisis. But we in the Arab world, we have oil, we have money, we have political stands, our governments and regimes with very little effort, can very easily stop the Zionist assault on the people in Gaza.” And if the Arabs remain steadfast, he predicted ultimate victory because “Israel cannot manage wars of attrition.”

That’s what this is, and by “this” I’m not only talking about what’s now going on in and around Gaza. This is the entire strategy of Israel’s Islamist opponents, most notably Hezbullah, Hamas, and their Iranian backers. Each crisis is but an element in the larger “Real War," and to the Jihadists Israel is but one of their objectives. And that will be the theme of this blog.