Aesopian media and the Pollard-Dreyfus Affair

Somebody may think that either my paranoia grows or I am becoming too painfully nostalgic about the Soviet Union. You can decide whether it is either, both, or something else entirely. Here is the preamble to the story.

It's no news that in the Soviet Union a writer would seldom attempt to publish anything openly against the regime in the open media. It would be unreasonable: the media was completely state-controlled. Nothing would be published, but the writer would be ruined. Those who could not take it anymore had three options. The easiest was to write "into the desk", with no hope for that to be published. Another was to try to somehow publish a disloyal piece abroad. That was difficult: one had to have means of transporting the manuscript.  Contacts with a foreigner who could potentially take the manuscript out of the country were risky for both him and the writer. The writer had to be well known indeed for such an attempt to justify the effort and risk, which was exceedingly seldom. Smuggling out and publishing an openly critical piece abroad could end the writer's career in the USSR. Exile abroad would then be the best outcome, but not necessarily so good for the writer whose main audience and perhaps livelihood would be left behind. Samizdat and Tamizdat did help in keeping such a publication from being self-defeating, but not entirely: very few people had access to either. Also, one had to, again, be famous enough to be exiled rather than imprisoned or subjected to "psychiatric" treatment and forgotten, if not simply killed by the KGB. The other possibility, especially for well established authors, was to use the so-called Aesopian language or some such subterfuge that formally was not an overt anti-Soviet offense. Those works would be published in some journal targeting mostly intelligentsia, both because nobody else could understand the complexities of the writer's thinking, metaphors and allusions, and because, to do its job, intelligentsia needed some valve to let out steam that accumulated in any sentient being in a totalitarian state. This would both flatter the said stratum of the socialist society and give it an illusion of freedom and a pleasant feeling of being in opposition, but safe. "Кролики и удавы" (Rabbits and Boa Constrictors) by Fazil Iskander comes to mind, published in the journal "Юность" (Youth), one of such safety-valve journals. It was, however, 1988 already, perestroika, when the moribund trinity of the Party, State, and KGB was hardly trying to maintain what was left of the Communist anti-utopia. It had been published in 1982 in America, probably after sitting for some time in Iskander's desk, but being truly an Aesopian allegory perhaps did not qualify as an openly "anti-Soviet propaganda" to criminally persecute the well-known author.

Why, one might ask, am I rehashing the Soviet experience? Definitely not nostalgically. One reason is that The New York Times published a book review today with a sentence in it exactly like those you could see in one of such journals. A single sentence. The book is about Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus, a French army captain and a Jew, was in 1894 wrongfully accused of treason, dishonored and imprisoned on Devil's Island, a penal colony where most of the prisoners died of diseases and hardship. I have not read the book and do not know whether it discusses one of the outcomes of the Dreyfus Affair - Theodor Herzl's understanding that Jews needed a state of their own to survive. The review does not mention that. What it does mention in that one sentence is that Dreyfus's "prosecutors claimed, as more recent governments have done, that national security forbade them to reveal secret evidence that would have been decisive if known, and he was convicted all over again." This vague "more recent governments" begs the question which ones. And about whom and what - it seems unlikely that it's still about the Dreyfus Affair. And why not respond to these obvious questions right there, in the review. All that seems to be left to anybody's guess.

In the Soviet Union, it would be for intelligentsia to read between the lines, admiring the courage of the writer who managed to get a "seditious" statement through censorship unnoticed and unmolested. Intelligentsia was supposed to critically evaluate the actions of the government - emphasis on "critically". I am not certain if there is a similar, however vaguely defined, wide social group here in the US. People of the so-called intellectual occupations here tend to unquestioningly support the Democratic Party, hence the respective governments, and frequently focus on non-political matters otherwise. The uncritical loyalty to the Party, combined with hatred toward anything perceived to be "the other", is sometimes terrifying. Politically, their general orientation is overwhelmingly to the left, which is alike that for "intellectuals" in the pre-Bolshevik Russia, but rather unlike that in the post-Lenin/Stalin Russia. Those who lived there have already been to where the left direction takes the nations. In fact, the demagoguery that the Party employs is also often reminiscent of the pre-revolutionary Russian left's: Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader (the one who has been satisfied that Obama is "light-skinned" and has "no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one"), freely injects in his speeches the classic Communist class struggle language - "rich and powerful" vs. "the masses".

Being on the left calls for supporting everybody "poor" against the "rich", which includes "Palestinians" against Israel. It does not matter why they are poor, and whether they are even really poor. Inasmuch as Israel is capitalist, rich and powerful, she is the predator and the Arabs are the prey to care about or, rather, to feel good about caring. Israel is at fault regardless of history, facts and logic - unsurprisingly, just like the Jews... I was going to say, "used to be", but not really. It's quite easy to see, without invoking Occam's Razor, that "Israel" is a useful substitute for "Jews" in this modern progressive climate. Not only "Israel" makes antisemitism "legitimate", it allows full participation in Jew-bashing for the self-hating left-leaning Jews without the need to join the Communist Party, as they had to before. To be sure, atheism, particularly anti-Judaism, usually remains de rigeur, as it was with Communists.

Hatred for Israel, the cover for antisemitism, is where the left and the right converge, like Chomsky and Jim "f... the Jews" Baker. You still wonder whom the "more recent governments" treated about as horribly as the French did Dreyfus? I hope it will not be a surprise that the name I read between the lines is Jonathan Pollard. An Israeli spy who stole for Israel secrets from the US Navy Intelligence for which he worked. Neither the author of the review nor I are first to draw this comparison. An article did that in 1991. Yes, there is a difference: Dreyfus was absolutely innocent, but Pollard did indeed engage in espionage. There is, however, another difference: in contrast to Dreyfus, who did have a trial, however unfair, Pollard was never tried. He pleaded guilty in passing information to an ally with no intent to harm the US. The US government horribly violated that plea agreement. Dreyfus had been accused of treason - Pollard never was. Dreyfus had been accused in spying for an enemy - Pollard spied for a friend, after its friend refused to give Israel information it was entitled to. Israel was not being informed of Iraq's poison gas supplies. When Pollard asked why, the response was, "Jews are too sensitive to gas." 

Zola's letter helped to liberate Dreyfus, but no author, including juridical celebrities like Dershowitz, has been able to do anything for Pollard - the US republic seems to be less sensitive to protestations than the French democracy. People of conscience in the whole world, including Russia, commiserated with Dreyfus, but nobody hears about Pollard, forgotten as are other Jews in captivity (Gilad Shalit's name was hardly mentioned when the Gazans' culinary "sufferings" were recently lamented by the world community). No other spy caught at working for an ally in the US has ever got anything close to Pollard's life in prison - many of those who spied for enemies received shorter sentences and more lenient treatment. 

Pollard's imprisonment was the result of an event identical to what had happened during Stalin's purges: Pollard was buried by the fiat of the Politburo, namely Caspar Weinberger, a true criminal, whose secret memorandum was the only grounds for that. Nobody still knows what was in it - for the "reasons of national security", just like with Dreyfus. The promise of freedom for Pollard has served the Clinton government to extort concessions from Israel that were harmful to her - the promise, on which the US again reneged, like it did on other promises to Israel (e.g., understandings between Sharon and Bush that, according to the current openly anti-Israel Obama government, never happened). Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Williams famously wrote his dissent about "a fundamental miscarriage of justice" in Pollard's case. It seems, however, that no justice was carried at all nor is expected to be. The meek Soviet-like hints at the continuing injustice is the only thing the mainstream "intelligentsia" media is apparently capable of. In the Soviet Union, such hints were bravery. In America, they are closer to disgrace.

Geese and the Muslim civilization

An interesting film has made its way into the Uncharted Forest. Titled 1001 Inventions, it features "Oscar-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley". Copyrighted and bearing a "Not for reproduction" sign, it is reposted many times on YouTube with the titles like "THE BEST THING WEST DO ABOUT ISLAM" (sic). It does indeed come from the West, namely from the UK, from "a global educational initiative that promotes awareness of a thousand years of scientific and cultural achievements from Muslim civilisation from the 7th century onwards, and how those contributions helped build the foundations of our modern world." It is made in collaboration with the British "Jameel Foundation", which can be traced to an apparently Saudi gentleman, Abdul Latif Jameel, about whom "HRH Prince Saud ben Abdul Muhsin" said, "My friend, Engineer Mohammed Jameel, is considered a first-class community servant." The servant may be not that upstanding though, because his business has been monitored by the Saudi authorities "to trace whether they were being used, possibly unwittingly, to siphon money to terrorist groups". An English court in 2002 judged the Wall Street Journal report about that to be a defamation and awarded damages to Mr. Jameel, but that decision was later annulled by a higher court.

The film is made in the traditions of Harry Potter and National Treasure, with magic and ghosts of ancient inventors in turbans, and fairy-tale-like soundtrack. Whiffs of smoke containing drafts of things like airplanes and space shuttles appear in the air, giving an impression that they were thought about by the Muslim Leonardos. It sounds like we owe so much to the "Muslim civilisation".

With all the effects, however, it sounds about as convincing as the Soviet propaganda about how everything was first invented in Russia. But, with all the effects, it is much more pathetic than the Soviet propaganda. First, regardless of whether all the content is factually true, it is uncertain whether you can ascribe all these ancient inventions to the "Muslim civilization", or whether Islam had anything to do with those inventions, like, for instance, Judaism had to do with the "Jewish" discoveries, because of the spirit of intellectual inquiry and the value of education in the Jewish culture. Related to that, not all the famous ibn's and Abu's of that civilization were Muslim, even though they lived in the countries conquered by the Muslims. And not all Muslims associated with a discovery necessarily made it. Another difference is that at least the Soviets made their propaganda themselves for themselves. Here, the film  borrows a Western school setting - imaginary Western at that, a la Harry Potter's Hogwarts school, with a British actor suddenly turning into somebody donning a fairy-tale "Islamic" garb (is he possessed by some incubus - and why does he disappear at the end instead of just turning back into a British librarian?), to reveal the facts known from the Western history books - to what exactly audience? Is this part of the concerted and desperate effort to make Muslims feel good about themselves - the task that is assigned now even to NASA? Is it in hope that, reassured in this manner in their worthiness, Muslims will stop thinking about their more traditional means of reassuring themselves - by jihad, murder, terror and conquest? It was not by gentle persuasion and awe of the Muslim "1001 inventions" that "For a thousand years, Muslim civilisation stretched from southern Spain as far as China", as the website puts it.

The film originates from the exhibition in the British Museum, and "was created by the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation  (FSTC), a British based non-profit, non-religious and academic organization. Working with world’s leading academics, 1001 Inventions engages with the public through educational media and interactive global exhibitions, in order to highlight the shared cultural and technological inheritance of humanity." Not much about humanity in that film - none but the Muslim religion is mentioned, although the website gives a brief nod to "highlight the scientific and technological achievements made by men and women, of different faiths and cultures that lived in Muslim civilization".

The most pathetic thing about this, however, is the very fact that to prove their worth (to whom?), Muslims or their enthusiastic British fans cannot appeal to anything but "their" achievements of many centuries ago. In a fable, geese who did not want to become a meal argued that because their ancestors had saved Rome they were exempt. The argument did not work for the geese, if you are unfamiliar with the fable. The Islamic culture of today has so far brought into the world medieval mentality, mass murder, barbaric executions of innocents, female genital mutilation and enslavement, global blackmail and suppression of free speech, wars, rebirth of genocidal antisemitism and other similar achievements that no feel-good 1001 Inventions film or NASA Muslim outreach can fix - neither to convince Westerners nor to mollify the jihadis. The 1001 Nights was at least fun to read.

An obscure folio, evolution, and Islam

Rabbi Hillel first introduced the Golden Rule - in its negative and feasible form, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow" (Jesus, many years later, reportedly put the rule in its positive form). R. Hillel considered this main rule of social behavior to be as important as to summarize the entirety of the Torah. He also famously said, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" (Pirke Avot, 1:14). As befits a true genius, these sayings have universal applicability. That is probably why they also apply to the half-selfish topic of this entry. It concerns a monograph, The Science, Treatment, and Prevention of Antisocial Behaviors (Vol. 2), published six years ago. The monograph is not advertised - there is not even an editorial review on Amazon.com (and it was not originally sold there) - because, as the publisher once explained to me, the book does not target general audience but is intended for policy makers, experts, etc. I am not sure whether this is the best policy even for the alleged target audience. The book ranks 3,163,794 in Amazon.com sales, which likely means that it sells less than one copy a year - and there should definitely be more interested  experts than that.

How do I know? Why should I worry? And how R. Hillel's maxims are relevant? It is obvious that antisociality contradicts the Golden Rule. As for Hillel's triad, I contributed a chapter to that book, and it's about time another couple of people found out about it. Admittedly, it is not popular science, but it is not a trigonometry textbook either, and some information in it may be of interest to an educated reader. 

The chapter (Chapter 4) has a vague, or rather too generic, title, Evolution, Genes, and Environment - Neurobiological Outcomes. It does deal, however briefly, with all these areas as pertains to antisocial behavior. What the title does not immediately reflect, however, is one of the sections, which is germane to the general direction of this blog. The section is titled Logic of Suicide, Mass Murder, and Altruism. In addition to the general issues relating evolution to these titular phenomena (it is not straightforward and requires some discourse, for instance, how suicide can be "beneficial" from the evolutionary standpoint), it includes a discussion of Muslim "martyrdom". The discussion addresses the role of the uniquely human function of the human brain, metaphoric thinking, truly amalgamated in the Muslim tradition with reality, in simulating reproductive benefits in the acts of self-destruction. Considering that this amalgamation results in the suspension of the powerful self-preservation instinct in shahids, the murderous "martyrs", it is not surprising that regular human sympathies are suspended as well. That point is highlighted by the scarcely noted in the media but telling story of how schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia were forced to die in fire by the "religious" police: the girls were pushed back into their burning school because they did not have a chance to put on their abayas, black robes worn over dresses. The text explains sex differences in suicidal terrorism and the mechanisms of xenophobic indoctrination. It compares the eusocial behavior of Hymenoptera insects (such as bees) and the boundaries of altruism in humans, relaxed to malignancy by both Islamic metaphors and material gains of the families of suicidal murderers. Some attention is paid to the contribution of the media in poisoning the information space with lethal misinformation that cannot in principle be remedied by truth even if it were to follow, which it seldom does. 

Despite the rather grim picture arising from this discussion, the conclusion is cautiously positive: "the history of cultural evolution leaves some hopes for the future of sociality. In particular, one of the trends that has expressed itself in the religious codes corresponds to the extension of inclusive fitness to the group, tribe, state and alliance levels. Torah in Leviticus (19:18) commands, “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord”—the word “neighbor” covers all humans (Hertz, 1980). The same metaphor that allows inclusive fitness [the summary effect of all factors that promote or hinder reproduction of the individual's genes] to cover non-relatives in aggression and underlies xenophobia, can thus be turned into its [truly] prosocial form. This creates an opportunity for the fulfillment of Darwin's dream of humans' extending their “social instincts and sympathies” to “all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him,” and then to “the men of all nations and races” (The Descent of Man). We may soon find out whether this conclusion is too optimistic and a much darker evolutionary outcome is on the horizon.

Maimonides and the Gazans

A respectable blogger, William Jacobson (Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion), has recently noted that he was right predicting that lifting the Gaza blockade would be detrimental to Hamas because it would take away the need in a source of its business - the tunnel trade. Indeed, now that the blockade is lifted, it is reported that "Hamas panicked". I disagreed, however. Although there may be some revenue difficulties because of a drop (likely temporary) in the tunnel traffic, the key personnel is unlikely to suffer. Although that personnel may be interested in revenue, the main goal of Hamas in its volatile environment is  maintaining its hold on power. It is power that makes Hamas's income possible. That power is always under threat - not only from the "moderate" terrorists of Fatah, but also from the less prominent jihad warriors always yelping on the periphery and waiting for their turn.

It may well be that lifting the blockade slightly diminishes a source of Hamas's income, but in that part of the world it is symbolic victories that matter most. Symbolically, lifting the blockage is Hamas's, Turkish Islamic and leftist victory, ultimately helping Hamas. Besides, I am sure that the US help to Gaza will take care of any fiscal shortfall for Hamas. See, "Obama described the situation in Gaza as 'unsustainable'." Naturally, he promised to sustain the Hamas electorate with an infusion of $400 million. This is because, in the endless wisdom of the White House, the terror-supporting Gazan people "deserve a better life and expanded opportunities". The UK government has also squeezed its pockets to promise "an extra £19m in aid" - not that it has not given anything before. The poor philistines can always count on generous donations. In fact, they receive the greatest amount of international aid of any entity in the world. We should not also underestimate the help from Hamas's brothers in faith, Iran, Syria, and other anti-imperialist donors. Terror and jihad have been a lucrative business ever since Muhammad started it from Medina.

But let's get back to the more reliable source of income for the work-loving Gazan population that prefers destroying hothouses (which used to provide a quarter of produce in Israel and were given to Gazans free) to growing vegetables. Namely, the alms, a.k.a. international aid. Aid is charity, one of the commandments in Judaism. The Hebrew word is tzedakah, translated as righteousness, clearly an important issue for a religious person. Rambam, which is the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, known to Gentiles as Maimonides, the great Jewish lawmaker and Torah commentator, considered eight gradations of tzedakah, called Maimonides' Ladder. The rungs of the ladder are viewed from the perspective of the charity's worth to the giver's righteousness (obviously, it is the giver who is righteous, not the taker) - they are levels of giving, but the scale is the usefulness to the taker. Donations are good, but better if the donor is anonymous, to an unknown recipient, before being asked, particularly via a public fund. The highest rung, however, is a rehabilitating kind of charity, such as an interest-free loan that would allow an individual to stand on his own feet. Clearly, of all forms of charity, this is the best to the recipient. By contrast, the worst must be a charity that deprives the individual of initiative, of incentives to improve, ultimately of the future, and makes him feel humiliated.

This, worst, is the kind of charity that is served to the Arabs of Gaza and of Judea and Samaria. The kind of charity that requires no accountability or work, allowing the Arab leaders to steal as much they wish, and their subjects to enjoy their miserable lives, exercising their "idleness, uncertainty and despair". With the feeling of humiliation whipped up by the leaders to support the crowd's rage they could channel to their benefit. Misled by Hamas's "victory" in lifting the blockade to allow more handouts in. Always blaming Jews for this parasitic existence, while supported in that murderous self-pity by the New York Times and world media, "flotillas" and "human rights" organizations, governments and intelligentsia. Murderous, because that self-imposed and artificial beggar status and humiliation are translated into rockets targeting Jewish kindergartens and suicidal murderers' bombs in Jewish discotheques. 

Parasites lose their organs, as they lose their need in them. Professional beggars, if not lacking extremities, frequently pretend they do - it's easier for them to be disabled than to lose their income. The endless unconditional charity, with no accountability and no need to make something of themselves, exploits "the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen" (John Stuart Mill, "The Principles of Political Economy"). Disabling and killing Arabs softly by charity just to prove that Jews (a.k.a. Israelis) are bad, the world prepares "Palestinians" for another explosion under the guidance of their chosen jihad chieftains - leading them from spiritual death to "work accidents" to Israel's inevitable response to banditry and terror. 

July 19, 2010. - The shockingly "unsustainable"  situation in Gaza has just reached a new level of "uncertainty and despair" with opening a luxury mall. Please urge President Obama not to procrastinate with his life-supporting donation of $400 million, lest "Israeli men's trousers at an attractive price" are not affordable to some Gazan sufferer. 

July 20, 2010. - What a horrible thing - to be right so often. Reena Ninan, the Fox News reporter covering Israel (with dirt), has just reported about that mall (some "news"), and  commented that salaries may be too low to afford everybody  in Gaza to buy everything in this mall.  A young round-faced Gazan man (clear signs of starvation) was on hand to authoritatively confirm the hardships. I couldn't hold my tears. Considering that salaries in Gaza are paid by Hamas, there is no doubt where you and our generous President should urgently send money.

Religion of Peace in its own words

As reported by MEMRI, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi called upon Muslims to sacrifice themselves in order to achieve their rights: "We must revive what the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al-Bana, called 'the death industry'." That's what I call eloquence - "revive... death"! "Industry", of course, brings to mind the mass enterprise of the 1940's, in which the predecessors of the current philistines, headed by the genocidal Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, took some part - much as they could. The Sheikh suggests that "[Israel] must be eliminated, as it was founded on the basis of thievery..." He calls for jihad at "all levels – military, political, economic, cultural, and religious." Sheikh Yousef wants Allah  to "help him fight the Zionists and cause loss of life among them, and that he be hit by a bullet that will separate his head from his body" (I'd add that the order should be reversed if Allah is listening).

Now, the Sheikh is the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. See - scholars. He is a scholar. Who am I to believe regarding the proper Muslim thinking - him or George W. "Islam is religion of peace" Bush? I'll take the good Sheikh's opinion on what Islam is every time - over that of Bush or even Barack Hussein himself (although I am not sure how much the latter's opinion on the existence of Israel differs from Yousef's). On one point I agree with the Sheikh wholeheartedly - with his laments on that "there is a group among us still chasing the illusion of peace." Except, of course, he exaggerates in the flowery Oriental fashion the influence of that group among the umma  - there is no such group there (otherwise we would hear about it, wouldn't we). As much as we, on the other hand, want peace, it cannot be bought by concessions and the immoral "land for peace" principle. This principle started World War II. History has proven that it's a folly time after time.

Dershowitz's choice

I have again come across a pre-election piece by Alan Dershowitz, placed by him in Huffington Post, and thought that it is helpful to understand the convoluted rationale of well-intended people who elected Barack Hussein. It shows how wrong assumptions and unidimensional thinking can drive one to wrong decisions, and, at the same time, help explain the problems we suffer from these decisions.

Let's suppose Dershowitz was indeed so credulous as to decide that Obama "strongly supports Israel" based on the information that "[d]uring the debates each candidate has gone out of his and her way to emphasize strong support for Israel as an American ally and a bastion of democracy in a dangerous neighborhood". Considering that pre-election verbiage is well known to be unreliable, mildly put, while Obama's associations with antisemites and Israel-haters had been well known, Dershowitz would have to be daft to buy it, which he is not. He must have known - but disbelieved - that Obama's professed love for Israel is opportunistic and false. It was and is true, however, that, as Dershowitz wrote, "Obama's views on Israel will have greater impact on young people, on Europe, on the media and on others who tend to identify with the liberal perspective." That's exactly what Obama's views, turned into his anti-Israel policy, do now, supporting the rise of antisemitism on campuses and in the world. It is because of his policy that his support in Israel dropped to the unprecedented 4% - not because of his middle name as he put it, slandering Israelis as racists.

The problem with Dershowitz is that the falsity of attributions and predictions that he made was obvious at the time when he wrote his Huff piece to anybody whose critical abilities were not suspended. It is unfortunate that they were suspended in so many, and so many usually smart and well-informed people were and are guided by the left ideology and wishful thinking. Then again, whole nations were blinded by them, leading from one disaster to another.

Peace pardnership

As we find out for the umpteenth time, our "peace pardners" the philistines are really not. They are ready to wage war against Israel once Arab countries get to that. A friend commented that this is another example of taqiyya on the part of Abbas, a lie Muslims are supposed to be free to use when dealing against the kuffar, unbelievers. I think, however, that people have to be intentionally blind to buy this kind of taqiyya, or have concerns that override Israel's (and ultimately, this civilization's) security. Muslims have to be either exceptionally stupid to think it's believable, or simply realistic, knowing that however stupid and improbable their lie is, it is good enough to be either believed by the "international community", or used by the latter as another pretext to punish Jews for what they have never done - from killing Jesus to contemporary blood libels. No need to try hard.

If we, you and I, can get enough information from open public sources to detect damn lies of our "peace partners", shouldn't those having access to intelligence know a bit more? What additional proof is needed that whatever verbal concessions are given by them in English, they translate into their opposite in Arabic or, at best, are abrogated at the first opportunity - just as this is prescribed by Muhammad? Allah himself used to abrogate Koranic suras once they would become inconvenient to the ingenious "prophet" - remember the "Satanic verses", not the Rushdie book, but the actual Koran 53:19-20? Arafat openly called the Oslo accords Hudaybiyyah peace, referring to the 10-year truce that Muhammad signed with the Meccans when he was too weak to fight them, only to violate it in two years when he was ready to attack them. Why the hell wasn't Arafat and his gang immediately kicked out at least after that? The consequences of Oslo had been obvious to so many before Israel reimported sworn enemies and bandits. ZOA, for instance, of which I am a member, was against it, as it was against the abhorrent self-imposed ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Nobody among the decision-makers listened. Nobody does. I am afraid, nobody will. We are governed by people lacking not only morality, but also knowledge and the intellect to use it.

As I write this, I am listening to a Fox News report (courtesy of the ever-smiling Reena Ninan) of the "discrimination" against "Palestinians" buying real estate in Jerusalem. Of course, the "fair and balanced" reporter asks only a complaining Arab - of course, Abu Abdullah, looking so noble, decent and peaceful - how he suffers, with no possibility of finding out what the criminal Zionists think about that. I am not holding my breath for Fox News, bought by the memorable prince al-Waleed (who also helps families of suicidal murderers a little), to decry the discrimination against Jews buying land - not just in any of the 22 Arab states, but from a "Palestinian", who would be executed by the "peace pardners" if he decided to sell any. After all, the Jews got their land as stolen by the Europeans from the "Palestinian" natives, a payment for that dubious Holocaust. Just ask Barack Hussein. We know to whom he thinks Jerusalem belongs.

CNN's condolences to terrorists

HonestReporting.org informs of condolences to Hizballah that CNN's Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs, Octavia Nasr, expressed on her Twitter page: "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot.." One wonders what the other Hizballah giants she respects, considering that there are so many to choose from. What fatwas of the "giant" Fadlallah does she particularly admire - those to sanction suicide bombings of American and French peacemakers in Lebanon in 1983 or other "martyrdom operations"? Here is his learned opinion on them:

The martyrdom operations have had quite a significant role in our Jihad movement and modern history. We have clarified, from a juristic viewpoint, that these kinds of operations are not heresies in Jihad issues, because Allah did not specify to us the means for Jihad. Any means that aims at strengthening the legitimacy of war without offending a major human value is considered Jihad.

Therefore, we do not need special juristic evidence that legitimizes these kinds of operations to conform with the martyrdom path if the war was legitimate. Yet, we have to know where this Jihad method lies, and what are the major causes that it serves. Or, is it some kind of propaganda that serves narrow and minor causes.

Sounds like the definition of the Communist morality: everything was moral that served the interests of the "proletariat". Such was the "spiritual" advisor to Hizballah. See, an organization of mass murderers usually needs a spiritual advisor or two - probably because humans need to suspend any vestiges of morality to get involved in mass murder en masse, and this requires a moral sanction from a "spiritual" advisor. On occasion, the murder-gang chieftain can perform a dual function of a Fuehrer and a high priest, like it was with Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. By tradition, long-term cults like Islam sometimes require a "Grand" ayatollah for that. Shiites are old-fashioned like that, as opposed to more democratic Sunnis, where somebody like Sheikh Usama can do both killing and preaching. On the other hand, when Shiites get to rule a state, like ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did, they also combine both functions, and he was not even "Grand", I think. A question is, why our own head of state, Barack Hussein, needed a "spiritual guide" who is little different from Fadlallah? 

One thing is clear. Even if Ms. Nasr gets fired from CNN (you know, because of  the all-powerful Zionist lobby and its faithful servants), she will have no difficulty finding a job with another media "source" in the US. Or, worst comes to worst, in Europe, which has stopped pretending that its hate for Jews, albeit cowardly called "Israel" nowadays, was quenched by the genocide of the Shoah. Or, absolute worst (or is it actually best?), in a Muslim country, where such pretending is not only not needed, but may even be punished. I'd suggest Lebanon, Ms. Nasr's, Nasrallah's, Fadlallah's and Hizballah's homeland.

July 8, 2010. - Ah, Zionist lobby, why are you so omnipotent... The poor Ms. Nasr did get fired. Her "experience and deep knowledge of the Middle East" and " 2006 Excellence in Journalism award from the Lebanese-American Chamber of Commerce" and "CNN World Report’s 2003 Achievement Award for her numerous contributions to the program" (read her stellar bio) did not help. Neither did her helpless attempt to "explain" how Fadlallah, who, in her own words, was "spiritual leader" of Hizballah when it "bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 299 American and French peacekeepers", still deserved to be "revered across borders". She says, "I lost family members in that terror attack". Perhaps herein lies the true explanation of her position. Perhaps those family members were not the peacekeepers, but those Lebanese relatives of hers who were "spiritually guided" by this worthy "descendant of the prophet" to blow themselves up to murder the peacekeepers. It is telling that her defenders, commenting on her hardly apologetic "explanation," invariably and passionately hate Israel. Well, they really should not be upset for Ms. Nasr. As mentioned above, she is certain to land a job where her nuanced treatment of spiritual mass murder guides will be appreciated.

Builders of the future

Today's quote of the day from President Obama (town hall meeting in Racine, Wisconsin):
"We can return to what we know did not work, or we build a stronger future. We can go backwards, or we can go forward. And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward in this country" (I heard it on TV, but copied the text off the site Organizing for America, whatever it means).

For those who have not lived in the unlamented Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, "building a stronger future" may sound either awfully nice or awfully hollow, depending on the part of the political spectrum one fits. For those who have spent any conscious years in the Motherland of the World Proletariat, among the Vanguard of Progressive Humankind,  these words sound as coming from a nightmare. We, who did live in the Soviet Union, have heard the phrase about building a future since we started hearing anything. The self-name of the Soviet people was Builders - of Communism, of the bright future, of the better (best) society - always moving forward. During the Demonstrations of Laborers on the 1st of May holiday - for which mass "spontaneous" expressions of building enthusiasm the masses were "organized" by their employment places,  - the announcer's voice from the megaphones on the lamp posts thundered, "Long live the great Soviet People, the Glorious Builder of Communism". The "glorious builders" joked, "yeah, long live the great Soviet people, the eternal builder of Communism." As for moving "forward", that is, in the direction of "catching up with and overtaking America" (an official slogan of Khrushchev's era), the joke was, "Why is the glorious Soviet people trying to catch up with and overtake America, which uncontrollably rolls to the abyss?"   

Sure I know that the right wingnuts like myself always try to scare Americans with their paranoid fantasies of socialism in the land of the free. Perhaps we indeed are a bit scared - at least those who have the Soviet Union as the reference point for political events and phenomena. Some of us wingnuts, however, may be scared justifiably. Arguably, we are finely attuned to detect anything that may pave the road to the bright socialist future, including the use of familiar cliches and newspeak we are so used to. The 60's Soviet  placard on the left, with the large ДОГНАТЬ и ПЕРЕГНАТЬ at the bottom,  "catch up with and overtake", quotes Lenin: "Either to perish, or to catch up with the leading countries and overtake them economically... Either to perish, or to rush full steam forward." Sounds a little familiar? The Soviet people did go forward. The future was great.