All Around The Mulberry Bush

Walid Phares can hold your attention, for sure.

Radical Islamist terrorists aren’t fascists- so says the leader of a Muslim group that will host Iran’s Mohammed Khatami. His predecessor, Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, advocated using

Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix is extracted from the region and the Muslim world

How civilized. Khatami refused to condemn those remarks or disassociate himself from the remarks.

Nice.

Asking- not demanding, but asking immigrants to learn the English language, might be enough to set off race riots.

Fascinating article in the LA Times, about the current and coming Shia-Sunni conflicts, and how Iranian and Shia influences in the Middle East are reasons to look ahead.

And now, ‘Storm Rooms‘ for sale at Home Depot.

Preying on Amreicans soldiers- at home. How $500 loans become $2600 burdens- fast. Outrageous!

The Apes In Tuxedos And Hypocrites At The LA Times

Rosa Brooks, of the Los Angeles Times, isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, to be sure. That fact of life is cemented with a preposterous column, Criticize Israel? You’re An Anti Semite!

In her column, Ms Brooks comes to the defense of whiny (and now certified victim) Ken Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. Why? Because in her mediocrity, Ms Brooks has declared that Mr Roth is the victim of unfair treatment. In Ms Brooks world, any and all criticism of Israel merits attention- and any and all criticism of Israel by organizations such as Mr Roth’s Human Rights Watch, is legitimate and honorable.

Mr Roth’s treatment at the hands of his critics, is particularly hurtful. Why? Because his father is a Holocaust survivor.

That’s right- having a parent that is a Holocaust survivor, or being a Holocaust survivor, bestows a kind of knighthood, an honorary award of credibility to those who criticize Israel.

Here’s a newsflash, Ms Brooks. There are more Holocaust survivors and children of Holocaust survivors that will defend Israel than will condemn her- not because they will defend Israel against any and all criticism, but rather because of the hypocrisy of her critics that bestow a special status of ‘criminality’ to Israel than they do to crimes committed by tyrannical regimes driven by violence.

Now, Ms Brooks is humble. We need to trust her because she reluctantly offers up her bona fides as credible critic. She states she was a ‘paid consultant’ for Human Rights Watch. With astonishing and blatant hypocrisy, Ms Brooks notes

In July, after the Israeli offensive in Lebanon began, Human Rights Watch did the same thing it has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Congo, Uganda and countless other conflict zones around the globe: It sent researchers to monitor the conflict and report on any abuses committed by either side.

Ms Brooks goes on to note criticism of Hizbollah by Human Rights Watch and then the criticism of Israel, as if there were some kind of equality.

Ms Brooks continues on with more mindless drivel, that she contends supports her idiotic position. She goes on to take umbrage at the criticism of Ken Roth (like John Kerry’s purple hearts, Mr Roth never loses an opportunity to remind the world he is a child of a Holocaust survivor, or have ot6hers do that for him).

The backlash was prompt. Roth and Human Rights Watch soon found themselves accused of unethical behavior, giving aid and comfort to terrorists and Anti-Semitism.

Ms Brooks, like many in her profession are not aware that the Emperor of Political Correctness and Moral Relativism, has no clothes.

In 2005, we wrote,

SC&A received an email today from an alumnus group, asking us to help support the AUT boycott of Israeli universities and professors. We were outraged and wrote a letter of rebuttal. We have rewritten the letter in a format more suitable for an SC&A post.

There is a boycott of university exchanges with Israeli institutions, instigated by the AUT (Association of University Teachers) of Great Britain. The boycott has generated a lot of controversy and press. The AUT says the boycott is an expression of anti Israel sentiment- that is, anti-Zionism- relating to the ‘occupation’ and is in no way an expression of Anti-Semitism. That of course, is ridiculous. The entire supposition is based on a lie. This particular expression of Anti-Zionism is indeed Anti-Semitism.

To be sure, Israel, as a nation, is not above reproach. There are policies that deserve renunciation and reconsideration. Nevertheless, to single Israel out from the body of world nations that have for decades and longer have been far more repressive than Israel has ever been as an expression of ‘anti-Zionism’ is patently anti-Semitic. Indeed, it is incumbent upon free nations to criticize those policies they find offensive. Criticism is one thing. Demonization is quite another.

What comes to mind is the utter hypocrisy and duplicity of these AUT academics. Where was the boycott of Russian universities, considering the atrocities in Chechnya? Where is the boycott of Kuwait after the expulsion of 350,000 Palestinians? Where is the boycott of Syria, after the slaughter of 10,000-30,000 in Hama and the occupation of Lebanon? How about boycotting China for human right’s abuses that are legendary? How about Castro’s Cuba?

Again, criticism of Israel is one thing- that is, a free exchange of ideas, a back and forth. There is none of that. There is simply a closing of doors and a cessation of communications. SC&A wonder why Israel is singled out for such treatment. What is it about Israel that is so special? Why is Israel treated so differently? Simply put, it is Anti-Semitism. To point to Israel as the worst human right’s offender in the world is laughable. There are tens of millions of women that have suffered FGM- and the world, for the most part, remains silent (SC&A wonder how quiet the world community would be if Jews were committing these atrocities).

One remark we read resonated with us. Simply because many people close their minds or accept something as truth, is not an expression of democracy. It is an expression of mass prejudice and stupidity. Just because it is au courrant to say criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, does not make it so. It an absurd and skewed look at reality. Criticism of Israel has become anti-Semitic because there is a different standard of measurement for Israel than there is for any other country (the same applies to the US. When America is criticized, is also by a different yardstick).

One more, Jews are being ‘ghettoized’- this time, in their own country. Now before anyone goes off half-cocked, Israel is as legitimate a country as any other (probably more so than some of her neighbors). Here’s the rub: Virtually every country in the world was founded on the basis of conflict. There it is folks. Reality. Whatever your country of origin, it’s very existence today, is as the result of conflict. That said, take your sanctimonious opinions and feelings about Israel out of the mix. The criticism of Israel under the guise of ‘outrage’ at the ‘treatment’ of the Palestinians or the ‘violation of human rights’ is a laughable outrage. As we noted earlier, the ‘occupation’ of the Palestinian territories has been the most benign occupation in history.

The old canard of ‘ethnic cleansing’ is often touted as the goal of Israeli policies in the region. That is simply a tired excuse, hauled out, when legitimate argument cannot be made.

Ethnic cleansing is what occurred in East Timor, when the Christians were slaughtered by Muslims, or forced to convert at ‘edge of sword’- and were forcibly circumcised. Ethnic cleansing took place when the GIA in Algeria raped and murdered children as a matter of course- because the GIA wished to instill it’s own version of Islam. Ethnic cleansing has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands in Darfur (you know, the place Israel’s critics don’t give a damn about)- women raped to the music of singing Arab women. Hundreds of thousands- if not millions- dead, and nary a word from the AUT.

The death toll as a result of the intifada? Just over 3,000 Palestinians in the five year period from 2000 to 2005.

Lets be clear. The hatred of Jews pre-existed the establishment of the State of Israel. What Israel is facing now is a continuation of a long honored tradition- excoriate the Jews, any way possible. Those that profess to be anti Israel only, have been given a gift, of course. They can spew their Anti-Semitism because they can make the claim they are protecting an ‘underdog,’ the Palestinians, from the ‘evil’ machinations of the Jewish lobby, Jewish ideology and the Jewish State.

It bears to remember that the Arab world had no part in the persecution of Jews in Europe (though they certainly did an admirable job of it in the Arab countries). The Muslim community, if they chose, could point to the Christian world and say, ‘This is your shame, not ours.’ Instead, they celebrate and identify with the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis and even glorify the evil, pining in their writings, ‘If only Hitler had finished the job.’ Of course, the AUT remains silent. Of course, the AUT obsessed over Israel, the pariah state.

We wonder why.

When the likes of Ms Brooks cannot divine a difference between Hizbollah, with their committed and stated anti Semitism (Nasrallah has often referred to Jews as ‘descendants of apes and pigs’) and Israel, she- and they- are either a liars or idiots. When Mein Kampf is a best seller for decades, we would like to know why the likes of Ms Brooks ignore that fact and the implications of that truth- and what those truths have to do with the facts on the ground even as they unfold. We would like to know why some forms of racism are given a pass, Ms Brooks.

Nasrallah himself noted, that

“…if they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.“

Those remarks- and other virulently anti Christian remarks- were published by the Lebanon Daily Star.

When Ms Brooks and her ilk devote more column inches to the perpetrators of far more vicious crimes and atrocities, then- and only then- will she and others like her have the credibility they so desperately seek in criticizing Israel. When Ken Roth can distinguish between combatants who drop leaflets urging people to leave prior to bombing civilian targets days before bombing them, and the global purveyors of terror, hate and genocide, then and only then will he have the right to claim a moral high ground.

Until that time, Ms Brooks, Ken Roth, Human Rights Watch, et al, are poseurs, pretenders who carry the flame of hate and call it a flame of freedom and morality. They are hypocrites, not unlike the apes in tuxedos that think they can pass themselves as anything but what they are.

Until such time as Ms Brooks and her ilk take the initiative and reclaim the kind journalism that is not so beholden to an ideology, or a committed to an agenda at the cost of truth, journalists will remain marginalized and not trusted, as polls continue to show.

They will remain apes in tuxedos.