Sunday, July 11, 2010

Soccer Dad

Soccer Dad

Why was octavia nasr fired?

Posted: 11 Jul 2010 06:00 PM PDT

There is currently a rumor going around that CNN reporter, Octavia Nasr was fired for a uncritical eulogy she tweeted for recently departed Sheikh Fadlallah. Don't get me wrong, Nasr clearly showed a bias that is all too prevalent in the MSM. It is mindset that romaticizes terrorists and finds the West (and Israel) a constant source of misery in the world.

In 1972, one of the first major terror attacks on Israel was carried out by Black September, a branch of the PLO, killing 11 Israeli Olympic ahletes at the Olympic games in Munich. Martin Peretz has, on more than one occasion, recalled how Peter Jennings portrayed the attack. Here is one presented at Honest Reporting.

"I first saw Jennings on ABC when, as a young TV journalist, he reported from the Munich Olympics. And I was filled with disgust that his subsequent career has only deepened. At Munich -- I still remember it, 30 years later -- Jennings tried to explain away the abductions and massacre of the young Israeli athletes. His theme: The Palestinians were helpless and desperate. Ipso facto, they were driven to murder. That's life..."

Ten years later Israel was fighting the PLO in Operation Peace for the Galillee and the Washington Post's correspondent, Edward Cody, wrote a front page eulogy for a PLO terrorist (Soldier or Terrorist; July 7, 1982):

The Army communique was matter-of-fact: Israeli troops on patrol in southern Lebanon had discovered the hiding place of two "terrorists" in a house near Sidon and killed them both. There were no Israeli casualties.

One of the "terrorists," the communique added, was the Tyre region commander for Fatah, the leading Palestinian guerrilla group, and had participated in training and preparations for a number of operations against Israel including the coastal road assault of 1978 in which more than 30 Israelis were killed.

He was identified as Azmeh Seghaiyer, whom I had known since 1975 in the early days of the Lebanese civil war. In repeated contacts with Azmeh during the past seven years--in those Dodge City days and most recently in Tyre a few weeks before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon--I always thought of him as an honorable military officer in the closest thing the Palestinians had to an army.


(emphasis mine)

Since the Oslo Accords, the process of showing deference, if not respect to Fatah has only intesified. And in recent years, the respect accorded to Hamas and Hezbollah has similarly increased.

Five and a half years ago in the runup to municipal elections in the Palestinian territories, I blogged about a Washington Post article that painted an oh so reverential portrait of the Hamas candidates running for office.

Ahmad Ayyad, candidate No. 3 on the Islamic bloc's slate, ran down a list of what he considered to be Abu Dis's most pressing needs: new roads, services for women, public parks, a central slaughterhouse that would abide by health codes.

His full beard signaled his affiliation with a radical Islamic movement that rejects the existence of Israel, but Ayyad also sounded like a garden-variety grass-roots policy wonk who said he wanted to "bridge the gap between the citizens and the local authorities."

Notice how "rejects the existence of Israel" is just an unobjectionable part of the "policy wonk" persona that the reporter wished to promote.

A year later (the no longer updated blog) Mediacrity observed:

So instead of calling Hamas and Hezbollah what they plainly are -- terrorists -- the Times waters that down by making that oft-proven fact an "opinion" of third parties. Note also this bogus claim of "complexity" being used as a fig leaf to whitewash Hamas' true nature. What's so "complicated" about groups that murder civilians?

Oh, and I might add that Bronner specifically released the above for public consumption. A day or so after receiving this note from Bronner, my reader -- a conscientious chap -- specifically asked if he could disseminate it. Bronner's response: Yes.

Now, think about all this for just a moment. By that same "logic," Al Capone would not be a racketeer and murderer in Times articles but simply "considered a racketeer and murderer by the U.S. Justice Department" because he ran soup kitchens for the poor during the Depression.

By the same token, Al Qaeda would fall out of the Times terrorist rankings if it set up a nice hot-lunch program for the kids in Baluchistan.

Some people might call the Times's thinking on this point "morally equivocal." I prefer the term "stupid." I actually have another description in mind as well, but this is a family blog.

Similarly, I blogged at the time that the editors of the Washington Post were promoting the election of Hamas, ignoring the obvious problems with giving more power to Hamas.

The Washington Post and New York Times have, in recent years, opened their op-ed pages to leaders of Hamas. Officials of these newspapers defend these decisions, lest their opinion pages be too onesided or that it's impossible to report fairly about the Middle East without being criticized by pro-Israel activists.

I suppose that worst example of this admiration for a terrorist is the fawning bestowed upon Samir Kuntar. Before his release, Edward Cody (again!) wrote a pathos inspiring article from the viewpoint of Kuntar's family, glossing over the heinous nature of his crimes - those were "Israeli accounts" :

Al-Qantar has written thousands of letters home. He was allowed to make five-minute telephone calls in 2003 and again last year. But the family -- Bassam, his 86-year-old mother, a brother and three sisters -- has little else to remember him by. He had already fought against Israelis when they invaded southern Lebanon in 1978. But when he left on the raid the next year, he was still a youth, not yet out of high school.

(emphasis mine)

At the time of his release, Kuntar's crime was described as having "gone horribly wrong" by the New York Times, as if the intentional murders of girl and her father were accidents and not the premeditated acts of cruelty they were.

And after he was released, the execrable Dion Nissenbaum sat down to have a friendly chat with this monster.

Offensive as it is was Ms. Nasr's treatment of Fadlallah more outrageous that the sympathy that news stories in major newspapers showed for the remorseless Samir Kuntar?

Furthermore as I pointed out before, The Washington Post, in a news story, portrayed Fadlallah in much the same as Nasr did and the Post also included him in their "On Faith" web section. In both cases the reasoning was that Fadlallah reached across religious divisions.

Octavia Nasr's tweet was problematic, but I suspect that she wasn't fired for it. The problem wasn't the tweet itself, but that her expression of admiration for Fadlallah is so prevalent among members of the media. The unwelcome attention probably hastened an action that was already in the making.

Michael Young recently wrote in Out of the box or out of their minds:

But let's be more specific. Hizbullah, at least its leadership and security cadre, is an extension of Iran. The party is there primarily to defend and advance Iranian regional interests, even if Tehran has anchored Hizbullah, or allowed it to anchor itself, in the Lebanese Shiite condition. That means that Hizbullah will never defy Iranian directives when it comes to matters as fundamental as the United States or Israel. As for Hamas, its ultimate ambition is to seize control of the Palestinian national movement, supplant Fatah, and redefine the conflict with Israel in terms the movement prefers. Both groups believe in what they're doing and regard "resistance" as an ideal, one lying at the heart of a worldview defined largely by their religion. Where they have been pragmatic - for example by participating in national elections - they have been so for tactical gain, in order to enhance their authority and rework the political environment in their favor.

When these groups see Americans, not least American soldiers, contorting themselves to justify flexibility toward militant Islamists, they assume, rightly, that their political strategy is working. And if a strategy is working, why do anything to overhaul it?

This belief that being more open minded towards extremists not only doesn't have the supposed effect of moderating them, it has the effect of encouraging their militancy. This is the perverse legacy of the enlightened open-mindedness of our champions of the first amendment.

Crossposted on Yourish.

What Is "Shifra's Arms"--And Why Are Jewish Abortion Activists In An Uproar?

Posted: 11 Jul 2010 01:37 PM PDT


"There are two ways to terminate a pregnancy -- abortion and giving birth."

Erica Perlman, head of Shifra's Arms

 

To find out what Shifra's Arms is all about, check out their website. The following is from their About page:

In Shifra's Arms is a DC metropolitan area based nonprofit organization. We exist to mobilize the American Jewish community to assist women facing unintended pregnancies. We know that many women do not feel free to choose parenting or adoption. when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, and therefore feel they must abort.In one study, 64% of American women who aborted reported being pressured by others to abort and 84% reported that they did not receive adequate counseling prior to aborting (1). Additionally, research has found that college campuses in particular are very unlikely to provide support for pregnant students and this lack of support becomes a pressure to abort; about a third of abortions take place amongst college-aged women (2).


We believe that women should never feel forced to choose between having a great future and giving birth. We aim to empower women to create great futures for themselves whether they choose to become parents themselves or place their child with loving adoptive parents. We seek to listen and to serve with love and compassion and without judgment.

If you are facing an unintended pregnancy, we can confidentially help you learn about your choices and the support that is available before you decide. We can connect you with valuable and practical resources that will assist you in becoming a first time parent or expanding your existing family, or choosing and entrusting another caring and loving family to adopt your child. We will help advocate for you if you are currently in school and need support to finish your pregnancy and stay in school. In the end, we respect that its your choice that determine your future and no one can or should make that choice for you.

Read the whole thing.


There are a number of groups that do what Shifra's Arms does--the only thing that makes this group different is that it focuses on the Jewish community.


And apparently, that is enough.

Enough for it to become the target of some very sharp attacks from Jewish abortion activists.


In Jews Go Nuts over a Counseling Group for Pregnant Jewish Teens -- Really, Jennifer Rubin writes

Well, to those who shudder at the notion that abortion may have adverse psychological consequences or that an abortion is not any bigger deal than have your nails done, Shifra's Arms is an anathema.


In a piece by the Jewish Weekly, critics pounced. Alyssa Zucker, professor of psychology and women's studies at George Washington University, asserted "while these organizations say they are about choice, they are really not. Their goal is to convince women not to have abortions." Nancy Ratzan, the president of the National Council of Jewish Women, declared that Shifra's Arms's website "looks like it fits the model that targets young women in a deceptive way. ... [We are] greatly concerned about pregnancy crisis centers and their focus to limit women's choice and undermine the rights of women."

In the context of the past, when abortions were illegal, dangerous and difficult calling abortion 'a right' had a point, but in the context of today when abortions are a well-known option, referring to abortion as a right in the context of the equally appropriate choice of adoption has a chilling effect.


But then again, that is the point. According to that piece in the Jewish Weekly:

It's not uncommon for medical professionals and abortion rights activists to accuse crisis pregnancy centers of misleading women on the risks of abortion.


In Montgomery County, one center is suing the county over a new law requiring CPCs to post clearly that they do "not have a licensed medical professional on staff" and do not provide abortions or provide referrals to abortion clinics.

When it comes to abortion, we have an agenda battling against an opposing one of adoption--and not about giving equal voice to 2 different choices.


by Daled Amos

Nicholas kristof: child abuser

Posted: 11 Jul 2010 10:16 AM PDT

By his latest column, I have to designate NYT columnist a child abuser.

I brought my family with me on this trip, and my kids experienced the gamut: we were stoned by Palestinian kids in East Jerusalem, and tear-gassed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank.

So he goes on a family vacation and puts his family at risk. That is not responsible.

But then again he didn't take his family to protest for Kurdish nationalism. That would have been dangerous (via memeorandum).

On March 21, 2010, the Syrian security forces opened fire with live ammunition on a crowd of 5,000 in the northern Syrian town of al-Raqqah. The crowd had gathered to celebrate the Kurdish festival of Nowruz. Three people, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed. Over 50 were injured. Dozens of injured civilians were held incommunicado by the authorities following the events. Some remain incarcerated. This incident was just one example of the repression taking place of the largest national minority in Syria - namely, the Syrian Kurdish population.

My Right Word makes two other points regarding Kristof's column.

UPDATE: Legal Insurrection in the brilliantly titled Everybody must get stoned:

This is an improvement, though. Before the security barrier was constructed, Kristoff and his family would not have been able to eat in a restaurant, or ride a bus, or attend a Bar Mitzvah ceremony in Israel without fear of an imminent explosion.

I've cited the statistics before. From 452 Israelis killed in 2002, terror attacks within Israel are down almost to nothing as a result of the security barrier and Israeli military actions in the West Bank and along the Gaza border.

If a true non-violent Palestinian movement arises, it will be only because the alternative no longer is available.

A man of great understanding, not

Posted: 11 Jul 2010 03:41 AM PDT

Robert Mackey of the New York Times's The Lede blog weighs in with Online Praise for a Cleric Draws Fire, Again. To Mackey, what's (distressing) news isn't that supposedly objective people (in this case a diplomat) praised a terrorist leader, but that Israel objected to it.

A British diplomat's words of praise for a Lebanese cleric who inspired the founders of Hezbollah disappeared from her blog on Thursday after Israel's foreign ministry expressed outrage.

In a blog post headlined, "The Passing of a Decent Man," Britain's ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, mourned the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the country's leading Shiite cleric.

Mackey uses the occasion to reprint Ambassador Guy's eulogy in its entirety. He offers no rebuttal to the eulogy. One may assume that Mackey agrees with Guy's assessment.

Further he uses the opportunity to castigate Guy's and Ocatvia Nasr's critics.

In his obituary for the cleric, my colleague Thannasis Cambanis wrote that his writings and preachings inspired "a generation of militants, including the founders of Hezbollah," but argued that he was not a leader of the group.

Ayatollah Fadlallah was often mistakenly identified by Western governments as the spiritual guide of Hezbollah, the militant Islamist organization that was founded in 1982 with Iranian help and that spearheaded a violent campaign against Western and Israeli targets in Lebanon. But his relationship with Hezbollah was much more complicated and far-reaching. He never considered himself to have any authority over the group and denied any operational links to it.

Now he wasn't a leader of Hezbollah and he was "mistakenly identified" as its spiritual leader. Well how did Hezbollah view Sheikh Fadlallah? My co-blogger, Judeopundit actually looked it up on Hezbollah's Al-Manar website. This is from the Al-Manar eulogy for Sheikh Fadlallah.

Dubbed by the media as the "Spiritual Leader" of the Islamic resistance "Hezbollah," in Lebanon, Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlullah inspired the leaders for the resistance group, and served as a highly influential beacon of truth for all the oppressed peoples of the world.

Even with the use of quotes around "spiritual leader," the opening paragraph claims that he "inspired the leaders of the resistance movement." That's not really complicated. Even if he had no operational role in Hezbollah he inspired them. That would seem to qualify as a spiritual leader.

Mackey may think he's proven Nasr's and Guy's critics wrong, but he hasn't looked to see what Hezbollah claims, nor has he adequately parsed his colleague's self contradictory words. Maybe he wants to highlight another example of terrorist intent in Lebanon?

Al-Manar TV (Hezbollah): "Ayatollah Fadlullah: 'Hezbollah's Spiritual Leader'"

Posted: 11 Jul 2010 02:52 AM PDT

Here is Al-Manar's eulogy article. Funny how nothing that Octavia Nasr and others find redeeming about him appears here, isn't it?

Dubbed by the media as the "Spiritual Leader" of the Islamic resistance "Hezbollah," in Lebanon, Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlullah inspired the leaders for the resistance group, and served as a highly influential beacon of truth for all the oppressed peoples of the world.

From the pulpit of the Imam Rida mosque in the Bir al-Abd neighborhood (Beirut's southern suburb), Sayyed Fadlullah's sermons gave shape to the political currents among mainly the Muslim Shiite sect, from the latter half of the 1980s till the last days of his life.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 was a watershed event for the Lebanese, mostly the Shiites living in the south, and the public career of Sayyed Fadlullah. The beginning of Hezbollah as an armed resistance movement dates back to that Israeli invasion.

"What martyrdom is greater than making yourself a human bomb detonating it among the enemy? What spiritualism is greater than this spiritualism in which a person loses all feeling of his body and life for the sake of his cause and mission?"

This quotation and many others fumed the flame of the resistance ideology.

He supported the ideals of Iran's Islamic Revolution and advocated the corresponding Islamic movement in Lebanon. In his sermons, he called for armed resistance to the Israeli occupations of Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, along with opposition to the existence of Israel.

He once said that the slogan "land for peace" was a betrayal of Palestinian blood and of the sacred cause of Palestine."

"Israel poses a great danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our modern nation, especially since it embraces a settlement-oriented and expansionist idea that it has already begun to apply in occupied Palestine and it is extending and expanding to build Greater Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile," Sayyed Fadlullah said in one of his lectures.

Sayyed Fadlullah often explains that Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all Divine religions, however he always differentiated between a Jew anywhere in the world and another Jews who comes to Palestine and take part in the occupation of this Arab land.

"All of Palestine is a war zone and every Jew who unlawfully occupies a house or land belonging to a Palestinian is a legitimate target. There are no innocent Jews in Palestine. They kill many of our women, children, and elderly people. They destroy our homes. They confiscate our water and freedom."

In an interview with Al-Manar TV on March 21, 2008, Sayyed Fadlullah stated:

"The Hebrew state is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary - 60 years since it plundered Palestine - in a festival, which will be attended by the countries of the world, most of which still support the Zionist state and consider the resistance movement to be terrorism. This is what led German Chancellor Merkel to visit that plundering country, which extorted and continues to extort Germany, using as a pretext the German Hitlerist-Nazi past, and the placing of the Jews in a holocaust. Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this holocaust beyond imagination."

BOYCOTTING AMERICAN AND ISRAELI GOODS

There are also other kinds of resistance than the armed struggle. "Boycot" was the main weapon against the oppressors to press them economically. Sayyed Fadlullah played a major role in issuing a Fatwa to boycott Israeli as well as American goods.

"All American and Israeli goods and products should be boycotted in a way that undermines American and Israeli interests so as to act as deterrence to their war against Islam that is being waged under the pretext of fighting terrorism. This boycott should become an overwhelming trend that makes the US and Israel feel that their economies are in a real and present danger."

His viewed the American administration as an "arrogant state that supports the Zionist entity."

"I have not found in the whole long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict even one neutral American position. America now is following a policy worse than that of the British and French colonials," he said.

Sayyed Fadlullah was a main supporter of Iran's Islamic regime and its struggle against global hegemony. He once stated that Iran was standing alone with the Palestinian people and supporting their struggle.

To show support to Iran's civilian nuclear program, he asked why the Bush Administration and his Western allies were mum on the possession of weapons of mass destruction by the Zionist regime. "Does the possession of nuclear weapons by the Zionist regime--a potential threat to the region--makes sense?" he asked.

In his latest meetings with Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sayyed Fadlullah called for unity among the Lebanese to confront a psychological war with Israel, and stressed preparedness on all levels to prevent this enemy from making political gains.

The Grand Ayatollah also called for unity to ward off Israeli attempts to widen the gap among the Lebanese through accusations to the Hezbollah leadership and the party's arms of being the reason behind a possible large-scale war on Lebanon.

"Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlullah"

This name will always be remembered as the most important Shiite cleric to emerge in Lebanon and gain reverberation in the world. His theological and political influence has been profound and considerable not to the Shiite sect, but to Muslims and Christians as a whole.

Our favorite professor of Political Science at University of California Stanislaus complains about "l'affaire Octavia Nasr":
In the US, you may only expressed sympathy and admiration for Jewish and Christian religious figures. Muslim religious figures are all a bunch of terrorists, Sunnis and Shi`ites alike, regardless of views.
"Regardless of views"--nice touch.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Iranian State Media supports Holocaust deniers

Posted: 11 Jul 2010 01:26 AM PDT

Click to enlarge


The next time I post one of those articles that appear frquently in the Iranian Press featuring some Iranian Jewish leader who declares that the Jews of Iran love Khomeinism and hate Israel, remember that the Iranian Press also prints stuff like this:

Gerd Hosnik, an Austrian historian which has questioned Holocaust will appear before a court by the next ten days.

According to Austrian News Agency (APA), public prosecutor's office has argued Hosnik's two new books as the case of 'crime'.

In 2009 Gerd Hosnik had been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Hosnik has questioned the authenticity and dimensions of gas chambers and the killings of six million Jews during the World War II.

Wikipedia on Gerd Hosnik:
Gerd Honsik (born 10 October 1941 in Vienna) is an Austrian writer and lyric poet, and a prominent Holocaust denier. [1]. He is a nephew of former SS commander Amon Goth.

Honsik's activities have included being a functionary in the Austrian "Volksbewegung" ("People's Movement"), also known as "Volksbewegung gegen Uberfremdung" ("People's Movement against Foreign Infiltration") and "Auslander-Halt-Bewegung" ("No More Foreigners Movement"), as well as in Germany's far-right NPD party. He was the founder of a militia group, the Nationale Front, which according to its manifesto carried out activities to effect "the abolition of the system".

He has also appeared under the pseudonym "Gerhon Endsik", an anagram of the syllables of his name extended by two letters, intended to allude to the (politically charged) German term Endsieg ("final victory").

Iran's kind of guy--and they'll soon have nukes.

Crossposted on Judeopundit
Posted by Soccer Dad at 10:13 PM

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