The Cabal

Red vs. Green Infrastructure

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:16:11 -0600

By

Not all infrastructure has been created equal. Some parts are yesterday, and should be relegated to the famous dust bins of history rather than cemented into our future. Their light is blinking red—stop investing in them, as much as is politically possible. The best examples are those elements of our infrastructure that serve cars and encourage the use of fossil fuels. Contrast them with green industries, led by providers of public transportation and of sustainable energy sources such as ...

Tough Love: The Moral Choices in the Gaza War

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:59:26 -0600

By

One series of questions posed to Israeli soldiers in discussions of war ethics goes something like this: If you were ordered to blow up a house where a terrorist commander was hiding, and you had reason to believe that enemy civilians were in the house, should the order be refused? If you were ordered to blow up the house and you were told that an Israeli soldier was being held hostage in the house, should you agree to do so? If you were ordered to blow up the house and your father was being ...

Hamas Is Not Just a Threat to Jews

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:51:49 -0600

By

I have already tried to show how Hamas has failed the people of Palestine politically, and how even the most optimistic appraisal of the organization's supposed "pragmatism" has failed to pan out, even under exigent circumstances in which pragmatism should surely trump ideological purity. However, lest one come away with the narrow assumption that Hamas's theocratic fascism represents a direct long-term threat only to Jews, I invite you to consider the following speech made by Ahmad ...

‘Israel is an Impossibility. It is an Offense Against God.’

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:10:55 -0600

By

In a blog post at The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg recalls a meeting he had with Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas leader recently killed during Operation Cast Lead. I saw him last in Gaza two years ago, at a mosque in the Jabalya Refugee Camp … He was one of the more Islamically-learned Hamas leaders I’ve met … In particular, Rayyan was interested in the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, with a special interest in hadith that painted Jews in a negative light. And what did this ...

Hamas and Israel: Two to Tango

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:03:33 -0600

By

The first thing to understand about what is going on in Gaza is that it is not the result of a sudden decision or an immediate provocation by one side or the other; this thing has been in the planning by both sides for months. It was only a question of when to trigger events. Since both Israel and Hamas can always be relied upon to overreact to a provocation, thus each side has the ability to effectively schedule the others' overreactions (hence the metaphor of the tango, a form of dance ...

Life in the Tel Aviv Bubble

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:01:13 -0600

By

During wartime, the cognitive dissonance in Israel is overwhelming. I'm typing this piece from the safety and comfort of Tel Aviv, where I went after my neighborhood was struck by rockets. There's a bloody and terrible war happening an hour's drive from here. 19 year olds who would be attending keggers in America are in gunfights with Hamas militants. Little kids are being blown to bits because their next door neighbor launched rockets at Israel a few months ago. There is madness, ...

Nothing Says Lovin'...

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:42:15 -0600

By

Around the world, angry responses to Israel's Operation Cast Lead have, predictably enough, flooded the streets. In Jakarta, protesters carried mock missiles with the quaint message of "Target: Tel Aviv, Israel," while in the UK Annie Lennox for some reason has contributed her two cents. It seems that protest has even spread to the universe of awkward tech geeks looking to escape reality (it is good to see that flags burn just as quickly in cyberspace). But what about in the ...

The Coming Canadian World Domination

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:06:08 -0600

By

As we all know, the Global Jewish plutocracy, having made "the wealth of the century at the expense of the economies of the world," is preparing to put in motion 'war machines' in various hot spots around the globe "in order to control the price of oil, redistribute the world's natural resources and start a new cycle of weapons production." Well, sorry (for all you Johnny Foreigners, "sorry" means "good morning" in Canadian), but that's not sufficiently ...

Confronting Hamas' Genocidal Jew-Hatred

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:51:23 -0600

By

As my colleague Robert Spencer observed, Israeli President Shimon Peres appeared flummoxed by Hamas' intransigence in comments made to Haaretz, reported December 30, 2008. "This shooting has no point, no logic, and no chance," Peres told Haaretz after Hamas' open renunciation of the ceasefire agreement (not to mention its prior extensive violations throughout the course of the so-called "tahdiah"), and brazen resumption of missile and mortar attacks into southern ...

Missives from Gaza

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:57:04 -0600

By

How does it feel to be living in Gaza or have family and friends in Gaza right now? Not many people are blogging from Gaza today because of the lack of electricity. But a little research yielded a few bloggers out there either with personal connections in Gaza or an internet connection. Take a look at these blogs. In Gaza, a Canadian human rights activist named Eva Bartlett: How to explain this feeling? I am physically numb to the explosions, not that i am in any way brave, but just ...

Pride, Fury, Fire

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:48:13 -0600

By

Last week I received a press release from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel about a sharp increase in child burn victims in the Gaza Strip. This was before the Israeli air campaign began. After what's happened in the last couple of days, PHR's email now seems like a message from another historical era, a time so calm that it was a major concern that "In December alone, 16 Palestinians were hospitalized who were burned while trying to heat their homes. Most of the cases reported to ...

The Selfishness of "Pick-and-Mix" Feminism

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:47:10 -0600

By

In a recent article in the Times of London, "The New Feminists: Lipstick and Pageants," the free feminist fighting forces of Great Britain and the United States declared victory. They announced that they will be wearing high-heels and lipstick, joining beauty contests, perhaps also picketing beauty contests, becoming and perhaps organizing models into unions, having babies, (in lipstick and high heels if they so choose), and also holding down demanding jobs in formerly ...

Letter From Beersheva

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:12:59 -0600

By

Below is an urgent email from journalist Neal Ungerleider, who is currently in Beersheva: So it looks like Beersheva is now within range of rockets from Gaza. Two rockets just hit near my apartment— we heard them land audibly and saw the ambulances bringing injured to the hospital. I'm okay and everyone in the apartment complex is safe. Both rockets hit within densely populated areas in central Beersheva. One exploded directly opposite a kindergarten—I'm just happy this happened at ...

The IDF's YouTube Channel

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:47:20 -0600

By

Of course they have one. (For what it's worth, so does the Multinational Force-Iraq): The IDF Spokesperson's Unit is the Israel Defense Forces' professional body responsible for media and public relations in Israel and around the world. This is our new site that will help us bring our message to the world. We are saddened that YouTube has taken down some of our exclusive footage showing the IDF's operational success in operation Cast Lead against Hamas extremists in the Gaza ...

Hamas as a Political Failure

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:46:58 -0600

By

Commentators in the American and European press too often succumb to a solipsistic way of thinking of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as if only one side had any autonomy or agency. The debate between supporters and critics of Israel is typically couched in the same grammar: Either the Jewish state is acting defensibly, in its own self-interest, or it is not. Thus Tom Segev writes in Ha'aretz that while the latest assault on Hamas military and political infrastructure is morally justified, it ...

No Happy Endings in Gaza

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:09:04 -0600

By

I’ve got war refugees in my home today. I mean my daughter’s fellow second-year students from the animation program at Sapir College, located right next to Sderot. The campus is under fire and has shut its gates, so these budding cartoonists are unable to work on their projects or attend their classes. The studies are so intense, and the creative energy so high, that they all look like lost souls when they are denied their storyboards and cameras. Their displacement is nothing compared ...

The Proverbial Chicken Is Coming Home to Roost

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:16:33 -0600

By

It is a rainy Monday night in Jerusalem, day three of the Hanukkah war against the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza. I just met a family from Ein Tzurim that spent the day in Jerusalem. Ein Tzurim is a religious kibbutz located about 23 kilometers northeast of Gaza, by now well within range of the Grad rockets being fired at Israeli towns. The family, along with all the other people living in their part of the kibbutz, was expelled from the Gush Katif settlements in the summer of 2005. They ...

Mick Hume Goes to Sderot

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:28:19 -0600

By

Trawling through the media coverage of Israel’s attack on Gaza, thankfully not every commentator follows the comment/analysis by the Telegraph’s Sean Rayment that Israel is “Addicted to violence”. How Rayment expects to be taken seriously as a supposedly impartial defence correspondent after churning out this nonsense is a mystery to me. Among some media at least, including some perhaps surprising commentators, there seems to be a more nuanced view of events. This morning on the ...

Resources for Bleeding Hearts

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:20:51 -0600

By

Need some help figuring out why Israel's bombing of Gaza doesn't sit quite right with you? Luckily for you, I've compiled some useful resources. - The Palestinian politician's perspective: Here's an article in the Huffington Post by Mustafa Barghouthi, the Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, detailing why Israel's actions are the actions of an occupying power, not acting in self-defense, not simply striking military targets. Barghouthi writes that the attacks are a ...

Hamas, Israel and a Perverse Inversion of Reality

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:07:23 -0600

By

Compare two announcements following Israel's defensive actions against Hamas in Gaza, as reported by the BBC. Here's Hamas: he exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, called for a new intifada, or uprising, against Israel, in response to the attacks. The movement's Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said there would be no white flags and no surrender. "Palestine has never witnessed an uglier massacre," he said. And here's Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: Mr Olmert ...