Adventures of the Anti-Semitism Czar

Actually, Hannah Rosenthal is the Anti-Anti-Semitism Czar, according to Jeffrey Goldberg, who finds himself squabbling with Atlantic Monthly colleague Andrew Sullivan:

Why is an American diplomat criticizing a foreign ambassador for his choice of speaking engagements in America? I asked three people who currently work in the State Department if they could recall an instance in which an official of their department ever criticized a foreign ambassador for such a thing -- or for anything -- and they said no. In fact, the State Department is fairly upset at Rosenthal for speaking at all about the alleged political proclivities of a foreign ambassador, not about her specific criticism.

What this is about: Barely a month after being appointed to a State Department post, Rosenthal slammed Israeli ambassador Michael Oren for turning down an invitation to speak to the liberal Jewish group J Street.

Why Sully stuck his nose into this argument: ?????

My suggestion to Jeffrey Goldberg: Ignore Sully. It's a lot easier than you may think.

UPDATE: Sammy at Yid With Lid has background on the Rosenthal dust-up. Anybody surprised to learn that J Street got its start with funding from . . . George Soros?

Armageddon alert? Israelis convene meeting of diplomatic corps

Readers of Middle East tea leaves will want to pay close attention to Kenny Solomon's post at Red State:

Nothing like this has ever happened before with Israel . . . Sure, they called home an ambassador or two for odd expense accounting, a chief of mission for offending some peace-lover via a newspaper quote and maybe even had real problems with a few of the folks they thought were on the side of their own homeland . . . They even had all European ambassadors back a few times for conferences on the Lisbon thing. Every nation holds "home field" events with their foreign staff members.
But nothing like this meeting that started today . . .

He's talking about a conference now in progress where "Israel's ambassadors and consuls general serving throughout the world will discuss broad diplomatic and strategic issues." Every top Israeli diplomat -- all of them.

That which is unprecedented is never routine and seldom insignificant. If the current unrest in Iran doesn't overthrow the Ahmadinejad regime . . . Well, put it this way: If you're the night watchman at an Iranian nuclear facility, make sure you don't miss a payment on your insurance premiums.

The possibility of an IDF strike in the near future? Perhaps more real than we imagine. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but when you see something like this, however, the line between paranoid and realistic becomes blurred.

Thanks to my good friend Nathan Cossey for the heads-up.

2009 Malkin Awards: I'm a FINALIST!

Andrew Sullivan has nominated me four times for the prestigious "Malkin Award" and now I see that I am a finalist for the 2009 Malkin. The competition is tough -- I'm up against Erick Erickson, Michael Goldfarb and Glenn Beck, among other worthies -- but let's be honest: None of them can compete with the Greatest Hypothetical Evah!

"Swear to God, if they ever want a Gentile prime minister, my first order would be to deploy the IDF in a north-south line, facing east. My second order would be 'forward march' and the order to halt would not be given until it was time for the troops to rinse their bayonets in the Jordan. After a brief rest halt, the order 'about face' would be given, and the next halt would be at the Mediterranean coast."

Sully later made that hypothetical hyperbole the basis of accusing me of advocating genocide(!?!), which of course I was not. Peaceful by nature, I grew up a few miles from the ruins of New Manchester Mill -- burned by Stoneman's cavalry in 1864 -- and therefore have always had a keen understanding of what war really means (cf., Hiroshima).

Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah recognize only one definition of "peace": Dead Jews. So when they start blowing up buses and firing rockets at civilians, these terrorist monsters are sending out an invitation to war, and they can't complain about getting an RSVP from the IDF.

Notice that this perspective doesn't require playing moral referee between Jews and Palestinians, or settling the historical grievances between them. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the reality that more than 60 years after Israel declared its independence, her terrorist enemies don't even recognize Israel's right to existence, and endlessly foment hatred against Jews. Ergo, Sonny Corleone in Gaza.

However, you don't have to share my idiosyncratic view of geopolitics to vote for me in the Malkin Awards competition. Any accusation of bloodthirsty warmongering based on that particular quote is invalid under that widely recognized codicil of the Blog Ethics Code known as the Glenn Greenwald Rule:

Anything said while ridiculing Glenn Greenwald is OK, because he always deserves it.

Hurry up and vote for me in the Malkin Awards, and be sure to hit my tip jar, because you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Genesis 12:3.

Is Andrew Sullivan an anti-Semite?

I certainly don't think so, and consider it terribly unfortunate that Sullivan has exposed himself to this damaging accusation through his reflexive enthusiasm for all things Obama -- just as he once was denounced as a "neocon" because of his reflexive enthusiasm for all things Bush.

Sullivan got over his unrequited Dubya man-crush, and maybe his current see-no-evil attitude toward Israel's enemies will fade if Sullivan discovers that his new presidential idol also has feet of clay. So while I have called Sullivan a menace to society and advocated his deportation, he's probably not a Holocaust denier or a peddler of blood libel.

My friend Dan Riehl called attention to this accusation against Sullivan, by way of firing a shot at Conor Friedersdorf. I've fired my share of shots at Conor, but I certainly would never accuse him of Jew-hating. The extremely toxic nature of the "anti-Semite" label is such that I am extremely hesitant to apply it.

Consider the case of Taki Theodoracopulos, for example. Taki has been called an anti-Semite so often that some people accept the accusation at face value. But when National Review published David Frum's "Unpatriotic Conservatives" -- one of many ill-advised editorial decisions in the erratic career of Rich Lowry -- Taki responded in memorable fashion:

If this bum Frum thinks he's the only one who cannot see a belt without hitting below it, he's got another thing coming. . . . He is a cheap Canadian careerist who jumped on the neocon bandwagon and is now using anti-Semitism as a stick to beat us with. Mind you, to be called "unpatriotic" and an "anti-Semite" by this shameless publicity hound has to be a compliment.

Because Taki is independently wealthy, he has no need to fear that his career will be damaged by these accusations, and so he seldom even bothers to notice the charges and only rarely responds to them. This has, unfortunately, resulted in Taki's name being used -- as my own name has sometimes been used -- as a sort of Rosetta Stone that allows liberal mind-readers to decrypt the otherwise Secret Code Of Hate that allegedly unites the Right.

This business of liberals trying to tell conservatives who is "acceptable" has bothered me for years, and I don't like it any better when conservatives play the same game. Despite Frum's misguided centrist tendencies, for example, I have risked my populist street-cred by continuing to be his friend (unlike David Brooks, who is the Living Embodiment Of All Things Unholy.) If I can be Frum's friend, shall I allow him to say that Taki is "unacceptable"?

My own indirect connection with Taki has horrified some of my friends, though the explanation is innocent enough. A couple years ago, I was invited to speak about media bias in a panel discussion of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, where Duke graduate student Richard Spencer was one of my fellow panelists. Spencer subsequently became editor of Taki's Magazine.

When I got an itch to write about "Melissa Beech," who boasted in a Daily Beast column about being a rich man's mistress, it seemed a good time to accept Spencer's longstanding invitation to publish at Taki's (whose proprietor is reputed to have had many mistresses). That first article led to my writing a series a columns about love, sex and marriage at Taki's, a series I hope to continue now that election season is over.

Did I fear the accusation that, by publishing at Taki's Magazine, I was thereby endorsing the alleged anti-Semitism of Taki or some of his magazine's other contributors? Of course not. My philo-Semitic bona fides are so impregnable that I rather suspect Taki and Spencer have caught more grief than I have: "How dare you publish that Jew-loving Zionist fanatic?"

My Zionist fanaticism -- Netanyahu is a pacifist squish by comparison -- once led me to advance a bit of strategic military advice for the IDF, a war-game scenario contingent upon the hypothetical event of my becoming the first Gentile prime minister of Israel.

You might suppose that a thought-experiment so farfetched would be immune to misinterpretation -- as fools often misinterpret hypotheticals -- as wishful thinking, but you would be wrong. Andrew Sullivan gave me a Malkin Award nomination (my third such honor, though I may have lost count) and Sully has subsequently accused me of advocating genocide of the Palestinians.

"Peace Through Genocide" might be profitably marketed as the title of a comic novel by Chris Buckley, or as one of those ironic T-shirt slogans beloved by clever university students, but it clearly has shortcomings as a serious policy proposal.

It should therefore be unnecessary for me to deny that I am advocate of Palestinian genocide but, alas, there is the problem of the irony-impaired Andrew Sullivan, who has spent 15 months fomenting bizarre speculations about Sarah Palin's uterus. To be accused of genocidal hatred by such a notorious fool is an accusation that requires no denial.

Having been slimed by Sully for the indulgence of a far-fetched hypothetical, let me take another wild risk:

If Conor Friedersdorf were a wealthy Greek shipping magnate, so that he could speak his mind without fear of career repercussion, what would he say about Jews?

Nothing bad, I hope, and so I gladly stipulate that Conor Friedersdorf is no more a Jew-hater than Taki.

Or Pat Buchanan. Or Joe Sobran. Or Paul Gottfried. IYKWIMAITYD. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

UPDATE: Ann Altstein Altberg Althouse calls Sully a liar. Sarah Palin's Uterus agrees. Yehuda reveals that Palin's uterus is . . . the Mossad!

Reaganite Republican suspects the Learned Elders of Sullivanism have fomented this blog-war.

Is Obama bungling the Middle East?

Sammy Benoit thinks so:

President Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. While the U.S. continues to press Israel for a settlement freeze (and a freeze on Jerusalem), Obama's strategy is falling apart piece by piece. He has turned the Israeli populace against him and strengthened the hand of Prime Minister Netanyahu. At the same time, he has eroded his own support among American Jews and other U.S. friends of Israel. This is why he has pressured political hacks such as Congressman Steve Israel to lend their names to the anti-Israel group known as J Street. . . .

You should read the whole thing. It seems Obama is repeating the errors of the Clinton administration, trying to make peace with people who don't actually want peace -- unless you define "peace" as the liquidation of Israel, which is the ultimate objective of Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Sammy blogs at Yid With Lid.

Hot Chicks + Guns = Peace!

Let's face it, the Israeli military has got it goin' on:

I'm all about the hot sabra babes. However, in fairness to the daughters of Ishmael, we present Miss Egypt 2006, Fawzia Mohamed:

Rule 5: A Powerful Force for World Peace.

Hope and Change, Middle East Edition

Just as the apotheosis of Obama means we're on the verge of economic recovery -- no matter what the unemployment rate -- it also means that peace is just around the corner:

The status of Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state is a red line that no Palestinian leader is permitted to cross, President Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah faction declared in the West Bank on Saturday.
According to Israel Radio, the Fatah general conference, which convened in Bethlehem for a three-day gathering, adopted a position paper which also states that the Palestinian national enterprise will not reach fruition until all of Jerusalem, including the outlying villages, come under Palestinian sovereignty.
Fatah, which rules the West Bank but was ousted from power in Gaza by the Islamist Hamas movement, also ruled out any interim agreements with Israel.
"Fatah will continue to sacrifice victims until Jerusalem will be returned [to the Palestinians], clean of settlements and settlers," the paper states.

Via Memeorandum. At Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer says:

If Obama can force Israel to make enough concessions, they will surely end their jihad against the Jewish State -- won't they? All the learned analysts are just sure of it, so it must be so.

Right. One of the most stubborn follies of the past four decades -- and I'm old enough to have watched the 1967 Six-Day War on the 6 o'clock news -- is the bien-pensant notion that the essential problem in the Middle East is Israel.

There was a time when nearly all Democrats were staunchly pro-Israel, when even most liberals understood that Arab hatred of Israel was incited by the Soviets as part of a proxy campaign of Third World "wars of national liberation" against the West, and when most people could grasp the significance of the fact that Israel was attacked by enemies armed with MIGs and Kalishnikov assault rifles.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, people in the West seem to have forgotten that history. Now, the American foreign-policy establishment is dominated by alumni of elite "Middle East Studies" programs infested with the likes of Rashid Khalidi and Hamid Dabashi, the Columbia University heirs of Edward Said.

Therefore, "respectable" opinion about the Middle East now endorses the Fatah/Hamas/Hezbollah agenda, which can be summarized in two words: Kill Jews.

The successors of Yasser Arafat have their own American academic echo chamber, so that anyone who opposes their genocidal agenda is automatically accused by "learned analysts" of being an AIPAC stooge. And the Democratic Party is now controlled by what we might reasonably describe as the Sirhan Sirhan Caucus.

If Andrew Sullivan is not stupid . . .

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Pope walks out after Muslim cleric goes on anti-Jew rant during 'interfaith dialogue'

Via Instapundit and Gateway Pundit, the Jerusalem Post:

Chief Islamic Judge of the Palestinian Authority, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, launched a poisonous verbal attack at Israel at a Monday night gathering attended by Pope Benedict XVI. . . .
Taking the podium after the pope without being on the original list of speakers scheduled for the evening, Tamimi, speaking at length in Arabic, accused Israel of murdering women and children in Gaza and making Palestinians refugees, and declared Jerusalem the eternal Palestinian capital.
Following the diatribe and before the meeting was officially over, the pope exited the premises. Army Radio reported that the pope shook Tamimi's hand before walking out.
The Pope was immediately denounced as a "Eurofascist" and a "notorious Pamela Geller sympathizer" by the Little Green Footballs blog.

I might have added that last part.

'My mind immediately focused on Rule 5 . . .'

. . . says Elder of Ziyon, as he brings us Arab babes. So everybody on Rule 5 Sunday must now do a Rule 2 and link him.

Alas, the Elder is insufficiently learned in the sultry ways of the daughters of Ishmael -- or, as I call them, "Gee hotties" -- for he hath neglected the ultimate in Arabic babehood. Gentlemen, in hope of a lasting agreement, The Other McCain is proud to present: Miss Egypt 2006, Fawzia Mohamed:

It's part of my Mideast Piece Initiative, and I think that men of goodwill everywhere will agree that this ought to be occupied territory.

Israeli Cultural Primer

"Quick synopsis of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us; we won; let's eat."

Obama's Durban agenda

Carolyn Glick in the Jerusalem Post:

[S]ince the stated purpose of the Durban II conference is to oversee the implementation of the first Durban conference's decisions, and since those decisions include the anti-Israel assertion that Israel is a racist state, it is clear that the Durban II conference is inherently, and necessarily, anti-Israel. . . .
[B]oth the State Department and the White House must realize that they are powerless to affect the conference's agenda is because that agenda was already set in previous planning sessions chaired by the likes of Libya, Cuba, Iran and Pakistan. And that agenda includes multiple assertions of the basic illegitimacy of the Jewish people's right to self-determination. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Glenn Greenwald: 'No anti-Semite could possibly hate me worse than I hate myself'

Well, that's the subconscious meaning of his latest column in his ongoing effort to win the Nobel Prize in literature with his wicked satire of a stereotypical self-hating Jew.

Now, I am friends with some of the writers Greenwald names as contributors to The American Conservative, a publication to which I have twice contributed myself. I understand well what a world of evil is involved in the business of denouncing as anti-Semites all critics of Israel, all critics of U.S.-Israeli relations and all critics of U.S. Middle East policy. The world is more complex than that.

David Frum has recently expressed regret that he and others paid insufficient heed to Iraq war skeptics, but he's never apologized for his "Unpatriotic Conservatives" smear that impugned Bob Novak among others. Oh, that the Bush administration had included some of those "unpatriotic" voices, to counterbalance the "Cakewalk Ken" Adelmans!

Some would accuse Frum of having been biased on the issue of the Iraq war because he is Jewish and Saddam Hussein was hostile to Israel. Frum would naturally be expected to defend himself as having been concerned only with U.S. interests, and to argue that our alliance with Israel furthers U.S. interests. Many other Americans, Jew and Gentile alike, believe the same thing. The arguments for and against that position have been expounded at great length. That is not a debate I wish to revisit here and now.

What I do want to say is this: If Frum were pro-Israel purely because he himself is Jewish, such a sentiment would be entirely healthy, normal and defensible. I expect Sean Hannity to care more for Ireland than for Iceland, and I expect Barack Obama to care more for Kenya than for Cambodia. The Jew who is proudly Jewish, the Arab who is proudly Arab -- these are men I admire and understand, even if I wish their ancient quarrels didn't continually result in hatred, murder and wars that cause me to pay more for a gallon of gasoline.

By God, I remember when gas was 39 cents a gallon and I believe in my heart that if the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac could live in peace, we would get back to 39 cents a gallon again. (Providing, of course, President Palin's first executive order in 2013 is to round up the environmentalist nitwits and ship them to Gitmo, where they belong.)

On the other hand, if some of the more atavistic descendants of Ishmael continue vowing to kill every Jew they can get their hands on, then it behooves every Jew with any sense of honor to respond: War to the knife, and knife to the hilt.

When you're a Jet, you're Jet all the way. Certainly American Jews can disagree over the wisdom of Israeli policy, considering that the Israelis disagree amongst themselves. But to denounce Israel as guilty of "terrorism" for responding forcefully to repeated rocket and mortar attacks by those Hamas thugs in Gaza, to denounce Marty Peretz's defense of Israel as "uniquely despicable" -- this is what Greenwald has done, and in so doing has covered himself with dishonor.

The effect of Greenwald's discourse is that Israel can undertake no meaningful action against her enemies without being condemned in similar terms. If it were within Greenwald's power to enforce his policy preferences, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and every other half-baked cabal of terrorist crackpots would be able to kill Jews with impunity.

The terrorists have no intent or purpose -- no political philosophy or policy aim -- that cannot be summed up in two words: Kill Jews.

If Glenn Greenwald can't see that, he's blind. And if he sees it, but would deny Israel the right to fight back against genocidal hatred, he's perverse.

But perhaps I've told you something you already knew.

UPDATE: Greenwald (who's obviously got Google alerts for all his sockpuppet pseudonyms) accuses me of "trite little condemnations so predictable and over-used that one almost falls asleep reading them," while mocking as "adolescent" Jeffrey Goldberg's response:

[H]e knows that I'm not a revanchist Zionist, but falsely accuses me of being one anyway. What a putz.

Does that make me a "revanchist Zionist" or what? Swear to God, if they ever want a Gentile prime minister, my first order would be to deploy the IDF in a north-south line, facing east. My second order would be "forward march" and the order to halt would not be given until it was time for the troops to rinse their bayonets in the Jordan. After a brief rest halt, the order "about face" would be given, and the next halt would be at the Mediterranean coast.

That's my "Middle East peace plan," and until it's carried out, there will be no peace.

UPDATE II: Excuse my extremism, but if you're going to conquer the land, by God, conquer the land. This was kind of the point of my citing Sherman in response to Greenwald during the Gaza war. The South, really, should be grateful that men like Grant and Sherman finally determined to win the war. Otherwise, the headlines would still be all about the latest "incident" in Nashville or the "uprising" in Charleston, with the United Nations dithering about whether to impose sanctions and crap like that.

While I'm opposed to federal tyranny -- and boreal supremacy -- you cannot end hostilities fighting by half-measures. A hard war brings a more durable peace. Notice that the Comanches haven't scalped any settlers lately?

UPDATE III: "Words fail." -- Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE IV: Under Rule 2, I'm required to link Donald Douglas at American Power., who is the actual neocon chickenhawk Sully's readers think I am. In fact, I'm just nucking futz, but if you ever hear the Knesset debating whether a Gentile could be prime minister . . . Dude, it's only a hypothetical. Even Likud would never be that crazy.

UPDATE V: Noted Middle East policy scholar E.D. Kain finds me suffering from "both an inherent lack of understanding regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict, and an unhealthy degree of bloody, American-made machismo." Look, E.D., no need to be so coy. If you want to see the notorious Speedo pic, just say so.

UPDATE VI: As someone pointed out in the comments, I did not win the Malkin Award, but was merely nominated. True. You've got to admit, though, The Peace Through Total Annihilation Plan sets the bar pretty high. So I've ordered my gown from Bob Mackie and am practicing my acceptance speech ("I'd like to thank the Academy . . .") in anticipation of the star-studded gala.

Earned my own Memeorandum thread, "Links of the Day" honors at Kingdom of Idiots, "Quote du Jour" at Alas a Blog, and Moe Lane weighs in:

Remind them about their new pro-torture stance! That's always good for extra spittle.

Moe's blog-fu is impressive.

UPDATE VII: Welcome Instapundit readers! What Professor Reynolds may not realize is that if they let me be prime minister, he'll be my defense minister. But first he's got to get himself one of those cool Moshe Dayan eye patches. Because chicks dig that. (And if anybody wants to hit the tip jar, be my guest!)

What the Israeli elections mean

(BUMPED) I don't know, but Noah Millman is doing the parliamentary math. Based on his math, I figure a 65-seat Likud-led coalition makes the most sense. But what do I know?

UPDATE: Allison Kaplan Sommer: "Elections, shmelections!" (Click the link, guys. Trust me.) More seriously, Allison says:

[S]imple arithmetic shows that the right-wing bloc is significantly larger than the left-wing bloc . . .

A Likud-led coalition, it seems to me, would be more stable than a Kadima-led coalition and thus would be in a better negotiating position with the Palestinians, etc. But again, what do I know?

Ceasefire in Gaza

Israel runs out of fish in the barrel:

Israel called off its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, saying Hamas was "badly beaten," but the Islamist group vowed to fight on in a war that has killed 1,200 Palestinians in the coastal enclave.
Within minutes of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announcing that a unilateral ceasefire would start three hours later at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Sunday, several missiles struck southern Israel.
"Conditions have been created whereby the goals set at the launch of the operation have been more than fully achieved," Olmert said in a televised address from army headquarters.
He said Hamas's ability to fire rockets at southern Israeli towns also had been severely limited.

Noah Pollak at Commentary:

Hamas is responding to the announcement with fresh barrages of rocket fire. Israel has recently been under immense international pressure to stop the offensive, including substantial pressure from the U.S. The unilateral nature of the cease-fire should be read in the context of Israel’s (and Egypt’s) desire to avoid direct Israeli negotiations with, and thereby the legitimization of, Hamas. By acting unilaterally, Israel affirms this policy of diplomatic isolation.

The timing of the ceasefire -- two days before Obama's inauguration -- tends to confirm my original gut-hunch feeling that the Gaza war was Israel deciding to give Hamas a good ass-whupping before the beginning of a U.S. administration that Israeli leaders view as pro-Palestinian.

Which is not quite the same as "I question the timing," however. I'm not suggesting anything conspiratorial, just summarizing the most obvious geopolitical considerations involved. And, yes, "ass-whupping" is a phrase you don't see often enough in discussions of geopolitical strategy.

UPDATE: Ehud Olmert:

"Hamas did not foresee Israel's determination and its seriousness in bringing about a change of the reality in the region," he said. "Hamas's leaders did not believe that Israel would launch an operation of this scope on the eve of the elections. Hamas did not foresee the strength of the military attack, and more than anything else, it did not foresee the results," he said.

The results? An ass-whupping for Hamas.

UPDATE II: Hugh Hewitt: You know who this ceasefire is good for? Mitt Romney Benjamin Netanhayu.

UPDATE III: Linked at Cold Fury.

Israel and 'the race card'

Ross Douthat:

It's also worth noting that "race card" debates takes place in a different political context than "anti-Semitism card" debates. In today's America, there simply aren't any major political actors taking explicitly racist/segregationist positions, and in recent national elections the race debate has largely moved beyond even the arguments over racially-charged issues like busing, affirmative action and crime, and into the realm of symbolism and subliminal messaging. The debate over Israel, on the other hand, takes place in a context in which explicit anti-Semitism - anti-Semitism as policy, that is, and with at least a somewhat eliminationist edge - is a live and potent political force

I would argue that anti-Semitism is increasingly tolerated for the same reason that anti-white rhetoric and anti-American rhetoric are tolerated. Whatever that reason is, these phenomena are clearly related, since you see so many people like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright dealing in all three.

The Jew, the white man, the American -- we are equally scapegoated by the same people. There is a Camp of the Saints situation developing, and those creating this situation are the Wrights and their abettors.

UPDATE: Daniel Larison sees matters otherwise, and I'm really not in an argumentative mood now. Perhaps he should take it up with Phyllis Chesler.

Gaza update

Jules Crittenden suspects Glenn Greenwald of self-parody, although Greenwald's latest is actually one of his more rational exhalations. Perhaps his encounter with Hugh Hewitt steadied him. Or maybe he saw the light via the Sonny Corleone analogy. At any rate, there is no shortage of cruel irony in the latest news:

At least thirty people were reportedly killed and 53 wounded in an explosion in a UN-run school in the town of Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinians. The IDF issued a statement saying the school grounds were used by terrorists to fire mortar shells at the troops.
Troops inside Gaza The infantrymen returned mortar shell fire into the school grounds, the army said. Defense officials told The Associated Press that booby-trapped bombs in the school triggered the secondary explosions which killed scores of Palestinians on the site.

So, the United Nations builds a school in Gaza, which Hamas converts into a mortar base. (Michelle Malkin shows that this has been going on for months, and Ace has related thoughts.) As good an argument for defunding the U.N. as I've heard lately (of course, there are no bad arguments for defunding the U.N.). Other recent items:

• Steve Emerson ponders the "I (Heart) Hamas" bumper stickers plastered all over the New York Times coverage of the Gaza war.
• Egypt's Hosni Mubarak comes out forcefully against Hamas.
• Richard Cohen comes out forcefully against Hamas. (Nearly as surprising as Mubarak, although Cohen probably does not risk assassination by taking an anti-Hamas stance.)
• Ed Morrissey examines the parasitical nature of Hamas.
• Philip Klein explains how Israel protects its civilians.
• The war has achieved a basic military objective, namely disruption of the Hamas command-and-control structure. It appears that Hamas operations are now being directed from Syria.

Muqata has comprehensive coverage.

Sonny Corleone in Gaza

From my latest column at Pajamas Media:

By going into Gaza in Sonny Corleone fashion, Israel aims to ensure that the Hamas attacks -- as cowardly as Carlo's battering of Sonny's sister Connie -- are permanently ended.
Of course, Hamas being Hamas, they will never stop trying to kill Jews. Fans of The Godfather will recall that Carlo, being Carlo, chose a coward’s revenge by betraying Sonny to rival mobsters, so that at last Michael Corleone assigned Clemenza to deal decisively with Carlo.
If this analogy can be stretched a bit more, then, where does Glenn Greenwald fit? He's Connie pleading frantically on behalf of her abusive husband: "It was my fault! … I started a fight with him. … Sonny, please don't do anything. Please don't do anything." This is what the Blame Israel First crowd always says whenever Israel responds to repeated attacks by striking back against the terrorists. Always the demand is that Israel should make concessions, always condemnation is reserved for Israel's defenders who are, Greenwald assures us, "guilty of insufficiently weighing the deaths of Palestinian innocents."

Please read the whole thing. Video of the famous encounter between Sonny and Carlo:

Greenwald vs. Goldfarb

UPDATED & BUMPED: Ace of Spades weighs in:

The idiot Sullivan even calls Greenwald "fearless" for taking an anti-Israel position which not only won't lose him any readers, but is common wisdom among the liberal establishment.

Read the whole thing. I borrowed Ace's shtick today and got an Instalanche with it, so if you don't read the whole thing, the terrorists win.

UPDATED (AGAIN): Reliapundit delivers a barrage of facts with Black Hawk minigun ferocity.

PREVIOUSLY: Glenn Greenwald today accuses Michael Goldfarb of bloodthirstiness in the death of Nizar Ghayan (or Nizar Rayan, as some have it). Goldfarb's offending post was not a mindless advocacy of violence, but rather a reflection on the fundamental difficulty of fighting a fanatical enemy:

The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions. Or maybe not, and the only way to stop Hamas is to eliminate its capacity for violence entirely. Or Israeli leaders can just try to find a diplomatic solution -- as a majority of Democrats apparently favor. It worked so well with the last cease fire.

The notion that the obliteration of Ghayan's entire family might "give his colleagues at least a moment's pause" is enough to inspire 1,500 words of Greenwaldian gibberish, including a shot at Glenn Reynolds for displaying a "wretched mindset" by suggesting that the Israelis are "civilized people and not barbarians." One mercifully brief slice of moonbat pie:

If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings: as "barbarians" -- just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats -- then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer. For people who think that way, arguments about "proportionality" won't even begin to resonate -- such concepts can't even be understood -- because the core premise, that excessive civilian deaths are horrible and should be avoided at all costs, isn't accepted. Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives? How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?

Wait a minute: Who is ultimately responsible for the plight of Gazans? Has it been non-stop misery since 1967? Or at some point over the past four decades, did the Palestinians in Gaza actually have a better life under Israeli occupation than they have had under Hamas rule?

This war was not caused by any genocidal ambition of the Israelis, but by the genocidal ambition of Hamas. Excuse me for repeating myself:

You cannot negotiate with a shark. To the extent that Hamas represents any coherent political philosophy, that philosophy can be summed up in two words: Kill Jews.

And, to further repeat myself, the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas by a landslide majority. The Gazans fully intended that there should be consequences to their election of genocidal terrorist leaders and their only disappointment is that the consequences are not (yet) what they intended, namely the death of every Jew in Israel.

You will perhaps be surprised (or perhaps not) that Greenwald imagines it is supporters of Israel who need a lecture about "excessive tribalistic identification." Sending suicide bombers to obliterate Shiri Negari and 18 other passengers on bus 32A -- that's not "excessive," eh?

UPDATE: "Jihad to its maximum degree" -- Right. Like they haven't been trying hard enough to slaughter the infidels. There is kind of a "Black Knight" quality to this.

UPDATE II: Fausta Wertz has a post showing how the genocidal Hamas mentality has spread to the streets of America. "Death To All Juice!"

UPDATE III: At NRO, Gregory McNeal notes that IAF is delivering phone warnings to targets, compared to the 15 seconds of "Code Red" warnings for Israeli civilians targeted by Hamas:



Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom has related thoughts.

UPDATE IV: The Times of London:

Israeli troops fought heavy battles with Hamas fighters in two densely populated Gaza towns today as the Army sought to split the strip into three sections to cut off the Islamist group's supply lines. . . .
The Israeli strategy of splitting Gaza into north, central and southern sections mirrors a similar tactic employed when settlers used to come under attack in the strip.
It enables the military to stop Gaza City being supplied from the south, stops Hamas movements and gives troops distinct areas to clear.
Israeli troops also took up positions in the old Jewish settlement of Netzarim which controls the main north-south road.

Hmmm. It's almost as if the Times were suggesting that Israel's erstwhile policy of territorial settlement was vital to the embattled nation's self-defense. Nah, couldn't be . . .

UPDATE V: A pro-Israel rally . . in France? Somewhere, a French intellectual is muttering to himself, "If only we could have kept the Vichy for another few months . . ."

UPDATE VI: MK Ham: "The Guardian is now eulogizing terrorist leaders in official 'obituaries' chock-full of euphemisms and moral equivalence. Not news stories, but obituaries."

Israeli air strikes kill cute kittens and Hamas terrorist leaders

But mostly Hamas terrorist leaders:

Senior Hamas terrorist Hussam Hamdan, who was in charge of Grad-type rocket launches into Beersheba and Ofakim, was killed in an IAF strike on Khan Yunis on Sunday afternoon.
Another senior Hamas terrorist, Muhammad Hilo, was also killed in the same airstrike. Hilo was in charge of the Hamas special forces in Khan Yunis.

Via Memeorandum, with a hat-tip to Ace of Spades for the headline style.

UPDATE: From the Israeli military Web site IDF Spokesperson:

• Between Israel’s evacuation of Gaza and the election of Hamas (Aug. 15, 2005 - Jan. 25, 2006), there was an average of over 15 rocket and mortar attacks a month.
• Between Hamas’ election and Hamas’ forceful takeover of the Strip (Jan. 25, 2006 - June 14, 2007), there was an average of over 102 attacks per month -- an over 650% increase.
• Between Hamas’ takeover and the start of the Tahadiya (State of Calm), (June 14, 2007 - June 16, 2008), there was an average of over 361 attacks per month -- an increase of an additional 350%.
• On Nov. 4-5, Israel launched Operation "Double Challenge", targeting a tunnel Hamas was building as part of a plan to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
• From the end of Operation "Double Challenge" until the end of the Tahadiya, (Nov. 4 - Dec. 19, 2008) a period of only a month and a half, there were 170 mortars, 255 Qassams, and 5 Grads fired upon Israel’s civilian population centers.
• Since the end of the Tahadiya (Dec. 19, 2008) until the beginning of Operation "Cast Lead," (Dec. 27, 2008) a period of little more than a week, there were approximately 300 mortars and rockets fired onto Israel.

Which is to say, Hamas deserved an ass-kicking.

UPDATE II: Utterly predictable Hamas response:

Hamas officials called on Palestinians to rise up against Israel with suicide attacks and vowed to make Gaza "a graveyard" for Israeli soldiers.

Right. Holed up in their bunkers, Hamas leaders vow to fight to the last Palestinian civilian.

UPDATE III: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Professor Reynolds gets an additional mention in the related post, Greenwald vs. Goldfarb.

UPDATE IV: Linked by Lawhawk at LGF. Thanks.

UPDATE V: Thanks to commenter Mike for pointing out the secondary explosions caused by cute kittens in Gaza:

UPDATE VI: Yes, DoublePlusUndead, I am a moron. And, in related news, don't mess with Sonny Corleone's sister.

UPDATE VII: Linked by the Smallest Minority and MacsMind. Thanks.

UPDATE VIII: Also linked at Pirate's Cove, A Blog For All and Random Thoughts. Thanks to all.

UPDATE IX: Linked by The Sundries Shack, which reports that sheep are sleeping easier in Gaza tonight.