scaramouche

...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

Happy trails: I will be on hiatus for the next two weeks. I hope to be back in the saddle (sorry, that horsey letter to the Star got me feeling all Dale Evans-ish) by Monday, April 16.

Chag sameach and happy holidays to all my constant readers.

 

posted by: scaramouche at 13:38 | link | comments (2) |

A horse of the same old colour: An editorial in the Globe and Mail rightly assails “A flawed Arab plan,” but according to an editorial in the clueless Toronto Star, “Arab peace offer (is) worth second look.”

It is? It wasn’t even worth a first look when the Saudis concocted it back in 2002.

 

Here’s some of the peerless reasoning for which the Star is justly famous and which it uses to make its case:

...By accepting the Arab League principles as the basis on which to at least reopen talks, Olmert would give away nothing on the security side, where Israelis have legitimate and serious concerns. Israel wants to redraw the 1967 frontiers in places to improve its security, insists on safeguarding Israel's historical claims in Jerusalem and rejects a massive influx of Palestinian refugees that would threaten the Jewish character of the state.

The Arab offer rules out none of this. It calls on Israel to withdraw to the June 4, 1967 lines, but a withdrawal need not preclude a negotiated adjustment of those lines. It calls for a "just solution" to the issue of Palestinian refugees who fled various Arab-Israeli wars, without explicitly demanding a "right of return." And it calls for a Palestinian state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital, something Israel has offered in the past.

For Israel, spurning the offer outright would mean more lost time before inevitable negotiations get underway and painful concessions are made. Why not sign on now, in principle, and with appropriate reservations, and work on the details? Why not work with Egypt and Jordan, which have diplomatic ties with Israel, to seek common ground?

Olmert could count on strong support from U.S. President George Bush, from the UN and from Europe for relaunching the peace process.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered greatly during the 40 years since the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Neither side wants to continue this impasse for yet another generation. Which is why Olmert should give this Arab peace initiative a second look.

And here’s the letter I sent in response:

 

In exchange for an offer of “peace”, the Arab League wants Israel to withdraw to borders that would make it virtually indefensible and allow millions of Palestinians demanding their so-called “right of return” to come flooding into Israel in sufficient numbers so as to transform the world’s only Jewish state into yet another Arab one.

 

In other words, the Arabs are seeking to do through “peace” what, in going on six decades of Israel’s existence, they have been unable to do through warfare.

 

In ancient times, such an offer was known as a “gift horse.” And Israel would have to have be insane or suicidal to say “giddyup.”

posted by: scaramouche at 13:21 | link | comments |

"Peace," Islamic style: The Arab League summit didn’t succeed in putting forward a realistic peace offer—more like the same old formula whereby Israel would willingly collude in its own demise. However, it did succeed in showing that the only kind of “peace” the Arabs are interested in the one that pertains once Muslims are firmly in charge (as is only right, according to Islamic teachings). It also revealed the threadbare nature of the Saudi-American “alliance”—a marriage of expedience that the Saudis seem to be looking to annul. From TIME: 

The Arab League summit that concluded in Riyadh Thursday re-affirmed the body's peace offer to Israel, but it hardly suggested the sort of "bold outreach" to the Jewish State for which U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been lobbying. Indeed, the summit appeared to reveal a yawning gap between the outlooks of the U.S. and its key Arab ally, summit-host Saudi Arabia.

 

Although on her latest Middle East shuttle she managed to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to agree on holding regular meetings, Rice's efforts to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace are looking more like crisis management than visionary deal-making. She had hesitated to spell out exactly what she meant by "bold outreach," but had urged the Arab leaders heading for Riyadh to not merely to endorse a formula for peace — the Arab League's Beirut initiative, first adopted in 2002, calls for full peace and normalization of relations if Israel withdraws from Arab lands occupied in 1967 — but also to provide a mechanism through which Arabs and Israelis could begin discussing the formula. "Regional states," she said, "should participate actively in diplomacy to advance the achievement of peace."

 

Rice seemed to be expressing the hope that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, who she praised as the author of the 2002 Arab initiative, would authorize direct Saudi-Israeli talks. When asked by a reporter whether it was time for the Saudis to meet the Israelis face-to-face, Rice replied, "I would hope that every state will search very deep to see what it can do at this crucial time to finally end this conflict."…

 

Faint hope, Condi. Time to put down the Sharanksy and Lewis and pick up some Spencer and Ibn Warraq. All will be revealed therein.

posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments |

Wrong turn: The French, as clueless as ever, are drawing the wrong lessons from their own benighted history. According to an article in the International Herald Tribune, they are viewing their struggle against incipient Muslim domination as being akin to Vichy France’s persecution of the Jews:

…[Nicolas] Sarkozy, who largely has avoided the suburbs during his campaign, has criticized immigrants and their offspring who resist the French model of integration, saying it is unacceptable to want to live here without respecting and loving the country or learning the language.

 

But when he announced his proposal on television this month, it was met with a firestorm of criticism. Royal called the plan "disgraceful," adding, "Foreign workers have never threatened French identity."

 

"Indecent," was the reaction of Azouz Begag, the minister for equal opportunities. "I'm not stupid, and neither are the French," he said. "It's a hook to go and look for the lost sheep of the National Front," Le Pen's party.

 

Simone Veil, a beloved former minister and a Holocaust survivor, found herself denouncing Sarkozy's idea shortly after she endorsed him for president. "I didn't at all like this very ambiguous formula," she told the magazine Marianne. She said that a ministry for immigration and "integration" would be a better idea.

 

But Sarkozy is convinced he is right. When asked about Veil's reaction, for example, he replied tartly, "Everyone has the right to his or her own opinion."

 

Sarkozy's proposal has revived bad memories of the Vichy era. The idea of a national identity ministry has been compared to the General Commissariat of Jewish Affairs, which was created with ministerial rank under Vichy in March 1941.

 

"Only Vichy developed administrative structures in their efficient way to defend a certain concept of 'national identity,' " the columnist Philippe Bernard wrote in Le Monde last week. He said that the commissariat, "even before being a tool in the service of the policy of extermination, responded to the objective of purification of the French nation."

 

Some politically conservative Jewish voters, who were planning to vote for Sarkozy because of his staunch support of Israel, say they now are considering shifting to Bayrou...

 

 If that’s the case, then more fool them. They, too, cannot comprehend that Vichy France was a willing puppet of the Nazis, and that Nicolas Sarkozy offers them the last, best hope to stave off the Islamic-fascist conquest of Europe. Without him, I’d say it’s game over for France and its Jews.

posted by: scaramouche at 22:59 | link | comments (1) |

Dazed and confused: They held hands. They stopped and smelled the roses together. But now George Bush is all confused because his “good friend,” Kind Abdullah, is sending him some decidedly mixed signals. From VOA News:

The Bush administration Thursday expressed surprise, and said it was seeking clarification, over remarks by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah at the Arab League summit that the United States role in Iraq was an "illegal foreign occupation." U.S. officials meanwhile are welcoming the Arab League's relaunch of its 2002 peace initiative for Israel. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

Officials here are not depicting downplaying the remarks of the Saudi king as a problem in relations with Saudi Arabia, a key Middle East ally of the United States.

But they say they will contact the Saudi government over the comments, and are defending the legality of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee appearance, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, said the United States was "a little surprised" to see the remarks, and will ask for clarification.

At a news briefing, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said there was no reason to believe that King Abdullah has been misquoted in the comments he made to the Arab League summit on Wednesday, and that the U.S. interest in an explanation is understandable.

"We certainly had not seen that particular phrase before coming out, talking about illegal occupation," he said. "I think it only stands to reason that we are interested in understanding better what exactly King Abdullah meant by that phrase."

"We are operating under [U.N.] Security Council resolutions in Iraq, as well as with the invitation of the Iraqi government," he added.

McCormack said the United States and Saudi Arabia have a shared interest in an Iraq that maintains its territorial integrity and stability, and that one indication of Saudi support for that was its participation in the recent Iraqi "neighbors conference" in Baghdad, in which Iran also took part.

He also stressed what he termed the excellent personal relationship between King Abdullah and President Bush and said that overall ties between the two countries are good and sound…

That is, as sound as relations between egregiously oily Wahabi supremacists and the foremost impediment to global Islamic primacy can be.

posted by: scaramouche at 22:38 | link | comments (1) |

Only Huma: Hillary Clinton’s right hand man is a woman, one about whom even her close personal friends, like designer Oscar de la Renta, don’t know too many details. But according to Oscar, Huma Abedin, considered by many observers to be Hillary’s “secret weapon,” is Muslim and “very conservative”—and he doesn’t mean conservative in the Republican sense. He doesn’t know too much about her, though “because Huma is not such a talkative girl.” The story about Huma in the New York Observer fills in some of the till-now sketchy details:

The back story, as it were, begins 32 years ago in Kalamazoo, Mich., where Ms. Abedin, who declined to participate in this article, lived until the age of 2. Her family then relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she lived until returning to the States for college. She attended George Washington University. Her father, who died when she was 17, was an Islamic and Middle Eastern scholar of Indian decent. He founded his own institute devoted to Western-Eastern and interfaith understanding and reconciliation and published a journal focusing on Muslim minorities living in the diaspora. Her mother, a renowned professor in Saudi Arabia, is Pakistani.

I suggest that any pro-Israel Jews inclined to support Mrs. Clinton's presidential bid first insist that her closest, most influential advisor answer the following questions:

1. Where do you stand on the issue of Wahabism?
2. Where do you stand on the issue of Jewish sovereignty in Israel?

posted by: scaramouche at 21:42 | link | comments (1) |

European vacation: The Ceeb website has some helpful hints to help you stretch your dollars in Eurabia, should you decide to visit the Islamo-infidel continent in the the next few months.

My days of trekking through Europe are long since past, however, I have a few of my own suggestions to help those still eager to perambulate the continent’s picturesque highways and byways:

 

• Make sure to visit one of the many “no-go zones” in France, Belgium, Sweden and other Eurabian countries. Restaurants in these areas are a real bargoon, and you’ll be treated to some exotic local colour that you might otherwise miss if you stayed exclusively in the infidel cultural zones.

• For a roaring good time, drive your rental car into these neighbourhoods and watch as the local lads set it ablaze during one of their nightly car-b-cues. And don’t forget your marshmallows!

• Try to take in as many art museums as possible. In coming years many of the great works of Western civilization on display there may be removed because they are what many Eurabians like to call “un-Islamic.”

• If you don’t want to stir up local “youths,” you’re advised not to wear t-shirts with any of the following messages: “Honk if you love Jesus”; “Am Yisrael Chai!”; “Allah Snakbar”; “I heart Dick Cheney”; “Apes and Pigs Rule!”; “George ‘Wonderful’ Bush”;  and, last but not least, “There is a religious plot to control the world, only it’s no secret and it sure ain’t Jewish.”

• To help ensure you return home alive and in one piece, don’t wear any religious symbols that would tie you to the seminal monotheism; you know which one I mean.

posted by: scaramouche at 20:05 | link | comments (1) |

Roll over, Lord Nelson: Melanie Phillips is less than impressed by her nation’s response to Iran’s piracy:

Admiral Lord Nelson must be revolving in his grave. While on patrol in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq, 15 Royal Marines and sailors were seized by Iran on a trumped up charge that they had entered Iranian waters.

Six days on and there is no sign of their release. On the contrary, Iran has stepped up its aggression, threatening to charge the kidnapped marines with espionage and even denying them British consular access.

We have been here before. Three years ago, six Royal Marines and two sailors were abducted from the same waterway and held for three days before being released.

And this time, the crisis is potentially far more serious. There is every prospect that these hostages will be used as bargaining counters to force the release of five Iranian Revolutionary Guards who were captured in Iraq by American troops earlier this year.

Yet in its response to these events, Britain seems to be in some kind of dreamworld. There is no sense of urgency or crisis, no outpouring of anger. There seems to be virtually no grasp of what is at stake.

Some commentators have languidly observed that in another age this would have been regarded as an act of war. What on earth are they talking about? It is an act of war. There can hardly be a more blatant act of aggression than the kidnapping of another country’s military personnel.

What clearly does belong to another age is this country’s ability to understand the proper way to respond to an act of war. When his Marines were seized by the Iranians, the commander of HMS Cornwall, Commodore Nick Lambert, did nothing to stop them and later said it was probably all a misunderstanding. If Nelson had been such a diplomat in such circumstances, Trafalgar would surely have been lost.

Our Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the Government had been ‘disturbed’ by the incident. The Prime Minister took three days to say that the seizure was ‘unjustified and wrong’ and mouthed platitudes about the welfare of the detainees. Yesterday he talked severely of ‘moving to a new phase’.

My goodness, the Iranian regime must be shivering in its shoes. With what contempt they must regard us — a country that stands impotently by while its people are kidnapped and then does no more than bleat that it is ‘disturbed’.

What on earth has happened to this country of ours, for so many centuries a byword for defending itself against attack, not least against piracy or acts of war on the high seas?..

Two words: self-loathing.

Two more words: civilizational angst.

posted by: scaramouche at 14:32 | link | comments |

Sorry seems to be the hardest word: Iran threatens that if Britain kicks up a “fuss,” it won’t be getting its sailors back any time soon. Here's the statement I imagine the mullahs would like the Brits to make, but one which, it they stick to their guns, they won't:

"We, the less powerful buddy of Great Satan, are extremely, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly contrite for having strayed into the waters of the glorious Islamic republic, a nation which, as everyone knows, is righteous, splendiferous and pure, and one which has every right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and is not, repeat, not building nuclear weapons in order to annihilate Israel.

Our bad."

posted by: scaramouche at 14:18 | link | comments |

The Fatah Godfather: Reuters headline—Abbas warns of violence if "hand of peace" rejected.

Sounds like he's making the Jews an offer they can't refuse.

Ehud Olmert better check his bed tonight. There might be a horse's head in it.

posted by: scaramouche at 14:00 | link | comments |

Local shmocal: Today’s Harpoon Siddiqui is so convoluted that I don’t have the patience to try to untangle it. Let’s just say it has something to do with oppressed Thai Muslims, and how their struggle is entirely local and has absolutely no connection to—what’s that expression Harpoon is apt to shun?—oh, yeah, the global jihad. However, even though the Thai Muslims are acting locally, that doesn’t mean they’re ignoring the larger, um, global issues. During his recent excursion to the area—grist for his recent similarly impenetrable pieces—Harpoon had the chance to interview a Muslim (Arab?) Thai academic who apprised him of some local global concerns.

…"There's no evidence of any external involvement in the bombings and killings," wrote the ICG in May 2005.

The assessment has since been echoed by others, most notably a fact-finding mission from the Organization of Islamic Conference, the 57-member group of Muslim nations.

A similar view is offered by Imtiyaz Yusuf, professor of philosophy at Assumption University in Bangkok, author of Understanding Conflict and Approaching Peace in Southern Thailand .

In an interview here in Kuala Lumpur, he told me:

"The Americans seem keen to link the Thai rebellion to Al Qaeda. The Western media want to connect it to the Middle East. But the evidence is very weak. There is radicalization but it is not connected to Al Qaeda.

"The Thai Muslims did raise their voice against the Arab/Israeli dispute, and also about the Afghan and the Iraq wars. And Islam is indeed expressing itself after 30 years, with some vociferous voices."

But the rebellion is local, with links to fellow-Malay Muslims across the porous border to Malaysia.

"It is possible that some who may be involved in the rebellion do cross the border, and that some Malaysians fund the rebellion," says Yusuf. "The Thai government complains to Kuala Lumpur to do something."

That's like Baghdad and Washington blaming Iran and Syria for the mess of their own making in Iraq. Or, Kabul and Washington blaming Pakistan for the mess in Afghanistan.

So you mean even though they’re tucked away in a small corner of South Asia, Thai Muslims are consumed by thoughts of the Arab/Israeli dispute? Guess they’re not as parochial as they seem.

 

Harpoon concludes on an ominous note, warning of how a “local” jihad can suddenly merge with the larger jihad.

There's thus no end in sight to a local conflict which was posited as part of the "war on terrorism" and has indeed become a jihad with potential appeal to jihadists everywhere.

I know Harpoon is trying to scare us into backing off, but he’s actually succeeding in showing that the jihad is indeed global, and that it’s not going away any time soon.

 

Oops!

posted by: scaramouche at 13:50 | link | comments |

A fly in the unguent: Uh oh. It looks like the Arab League summit which was supposed to sign off on that Saudi-sponsored “peace plan” has hit a bit of choppy water. (The plan in a nutshell: commit suicide, Israel, and you can have “peace.") Now King Abdullah seems to be backing off, not only from the “peace plan,” but from his “ally,” George Bush. From the L.A. Times via the Seattle Nation & World:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Bush administration attempts to revive Arab-Israeli peace talks and influence regional developments suffered a setback Wednesday as leaders at an Arab League summit, including the heads of state of several U.S. allies, condemned U.S. foreign policy.

Saudi King Abdullah II condemned the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq, and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa lamented "the absence of honest mediation" in the Arab-Israeli conflict, a shot at U.S. officials perceived as too pro-Israeli.

"In our beloved Iraq, blood is shed among brothers under ... illegitimate foreign occupation and detestable sectarianism that raises the threat of a civil war," the king said.

Experts on the Saudi kingdom were divided over the significance of Abdullah's comment, with one cautioning against reading too much into it and another calling the statement extraordinary, since the Saudis have officially recognized the Iraqi government and accepted post-invasion U.N. resolutions regarding Iraq.

Once among the Bush administration's most trusted allies, Abdullah has bucked the White House in recent months, inviting U.S. foe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Riyadh and cajoling the United States' Palestinian ally, Mahmoud Abbas, into joining a coalition government with Hamas, which the State Department lists as a terrorist organization…

Actually, I think the King’s words speak volumes about where his true sympathies really lie—and, despite having strolled hand-in-hand through the garden with Dubya that time, for obvious reasons, they’re definitely not with the U.S.

posted by: scaramouche at 12:58 | link | comments (1) |

Doctor in the house: Miriam Garfinkle is a vocal Toronto physician who is extremely upset about the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, a situation she blames almost entirely on, guess who?, Israel. Here’s how Dr. Garfinkle and another self-described “health care professional,” Reem Abdul Qadir, laid out the problem in a recent article:

…As Canadian health care professionals, we are deeply troubled by the situation and worried for the future of the people of Gaza and especially these children. What will the long-term effects be of this endless trauma? What can we, as Canadians and health care professionals, do about it?

Resilient health care providers on the ground, like Dr. Mona El-Farra and Dr. Eyad El Sarraj, have been struggling to provide adequate grassroots primary health and mental health care in Gaza for years against these mounting odds. We have worked with a group of Palestinians and Jews in Toronto to organize a fundraiser to support the health care operations in which these physicians are involved. We are also insisting that the Canadian government restore and indeed increase its funding to Gaza.

We also demand that Israel stop its continued methods of collective punishment of civilians in direct contravention of international law. Ultimately there can be no solution to this horrific situation until there is an end to the military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, which continues and indeed escalates, despite the 2005 pull-out of Israeli settlements.

There is both a public health and mental health crisis unfolding in Gaza at a breakneck pace. As human beings, as Canadians, as Jews and Palestinians, we all have a moral obligation and vital stake in protecting these children and giving them access to a viable future. The alternative is unthinkable.

And here’s Garfinkle’s letter that appears in today’s Globe and Mail under the heading “Growing crisis”:

 

The sewage disaster in Gaza (Deluge of Sewage Kills Five in Gaza Village—March 28)is the result of a deteriorating public health system and growing humanitarian crisis to which many people have been trying to draw attention. I hope that now Canada will finally see the need to help.

 

In fact, Canada has been helping, sending millions of dollars intended for humanitarian relief. Dr. Garfinkle is labouring under the misimpression that the crumbling infrastructure is ours and Israel’s fault. But since the problem that led to the disaster was pointed out to Palestinian authorities years ago when they were flush with our shekels, it’s evident she should be pointing her admonishing finger in another direction.

 

No doubt Dr. Garfinkle’s heart is in the right place. However, that’s the problem. Her compassion has apparently affected her powers of reason, compelling her to collectively blame the Jews of Israel for a problem that is exclusively Arab in origin. Meanwhile she considers as “collective punishment” Israel’s decision not to fund a regime which remains committed to its destruction.

posted by: scaramouche at 12:40 | link | comments |

Don’t want to live like a “refugee”: An (imaginary) alumnus of the ’48 "naqba" sings a familiar Elvis tune:

I ran away in ’48, man.

They told be I could come back.

But almost sixty years later

My “right of return’s” not on track.

 

They promised me I’d
Return to splendour

In Palestine.

The Jews’d be dead now.

The land’d be mine.

 

Still got the keys to my door, man.

I haul them out once a year.

You know that I’m keepin’ score, man,

And my intentions are clear.

 

They promised me I’d
Return to splendour

In Palestine.

The Jews should be dead now.

The land should be mine.

 

I banked upon the intifada

To scare the dhimmis away.

But even with all the sha-hids

The Jews decided to stay.

 

I promise that I’ll
Return to splendour

In Palestine.

The Jews’ll be dead soon.

The land’ll be mine.

posted by: scaramouche at 20:05 | link | comments |

Revolting “youths”: “Youths” of unspecified background are up to their old antics in Paree. This time about 100 or so are reported to have gone bananas at the Gare du Nord. Apparently, they were upset because police were so brazen as to ask a passenger to “show his ticket.”

Quel horreur!

 

Reason enough for the “youths,” already plenty mad at French authorities, especially Nicolas Sarkozy, to flex their youthful muscles.