It's Almost Supernatural

Cease...Fire!

2 More boy bombers nabbed at checkpoint

In the fourth attempt in recent months to use children or teenagers to perpetrate terror attacks, two Palestinian ‘boy bombers’, aged 15 and 16, were arrested at the Jalama checkpoint near Jenin in the West Bank on Wednesday. In their possession, IDF troops found 11 explosive devices, including several pipe bombs. A homemade gun was also discovered. A local military commander told The Jerusalem Post that the two had been paid NIS 100 each to detonate the bombs near soldiers manning the checkpoint. The youths said they were asked to bring the weapons into Israel and were intending to make another trip with more weapons.

Marc K has some well constructed thoughts on the checkpoints in Israel and the disputed territories. While acknowledging that they only address the symptoms of the conflict, he concludes that they effectively temper the number of successful terror attacks in Israel and are therefore a necessary burden which Israel and the Palestinians have to bear.

Liberals Unite In Anger Over Honour Killings

Today in Britain, learned academics, consumed by moral outrage over the dark aged practice of Honour Killings, have planned an academic boycott of universities in Arab/Islamic states where these barbaric murders take place.

Sister Shot for Phone Photo

Amman - A Jordanian man shot dead his divorced sister after seeing her photo on his friend's camera-equipped cellphone in the latest "honour" killing in the kingdom, hospital officials said Monday. The unidentified man shot the 31-year-old mother twice in the head Sunday night and then turned himself in to police saying he committed the murder to "cleanse his family's honour". The incident is the fifth example of a so-called honour killing in Jordan this year. Those found guilty usually face sentences of a maximum of one year in jail under Jordanian law. Last month, a man stabbed his sister to death after finding out she had agreed an unofficial marriage with a man who subsequently disappeared. At least 19 women lost their lives in honour killings in Jordan last year, according to the local press.

Update
I was just kidding about the British academics planning a boycott. The link to the boycott is not broken. I deliberately linked to nothing.com.

I didn't think that I would have to point that out ;)

Fight the Jews and Vanquish Them

One of Iran's leading religious authorities, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani, recently made some very unliberal statements about the Jews, according to MEMRI. Hamedani wants you to fight the Jews in order to prepare the ground and to hasten the advent of the Hidden Imam, who according to Shiite belief, is the Messiah.

Last year Hamedani blamed crazy ideas such as Liberalism, Humanism, and Secularism on the Jews.

Unreasoning Hatred Hits New Highs

At a time when Israeli and Palestinian academics are again discussing cooperation the disparaging British academics have voted in favour of further polarising Jews and Arabs by passing a resolution boycotting academic contact with some Israeli universities: Academic Boycott - Bashing Israel.

The vote was cunningly held on the eve of Pesach, so as to exclude any Jewish academics from the conference. Those that planned to oppose the motion such as executive member Alistair Hunter, instead of addressing the conference, were at a Pesach seder, reading all about what it means to be free people.

British academics gathered in the seaside town of Eastbourne, England, for their annual council are not just debating their payslips; international issues are firmly on the agenda as well. Given the profusion of serious human rights emergencies from Sudan to North Korea, one could reasonably wonder which of these laudable concerns has been prioritized by the delegates to the conference of the Association of University Teachers. The answer is: none of them. Sadly, if predictably, Israel has once again been cast as the ultimate global villain. The call to boycott Israeli academic institutions has hundreds of supporters in Europe, nourished by a growing climate of anti-Zionism that is often indistinguishable from anti-Semitism. Since April 2002, when more than 100 academics demanded a moratorium on European funding of Israeli universities, this disturbing campaign has been picking up steam. Cases of discrimination in Britain have included two Israeli academics' firing from the editorial board of a translation journal and an Israeli postgraduate who was refused doctoral supervision because he had served in the Israeli Army. Having failed to win their case at the 2003 conference of the Association of University Teachers, the British boycott proponents are trying a new tack. If the boycotters get their way, a call from Palestinian academics urging a freeze on cooperation with Israeli institutions will be circulated to every British university teacher. The only Israelis who would be exempt are those willing to denounce "their state's colonial and racist policies."

It's Just a Trick

MEMRI report that HAMAS are being tricksy: HAMAS political head - calming down is just a trick.

The tricksy Khaled Mashal, speaking at a convention in Cairo, called the recent Tahdia a trick and said that the resistance will continue as long as Israel exists. Mashal explained that the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is acceptable as long as it is part of a staged solution with the ultimate goal being the liberation of all of Palestine.

Gee...and I thought Hamas were serious about peace.

Arab World Sows Its Own Chaos

Business Day reported on a UN Arab Human Development report for 2004. The report uses an excellent metaphor of a "black hole" to describe the modern Arab state.

“The concentration of power in the hands of the executive — be it a monarchy, military dictatorship or a civilian president elected without competition — has created a kind of political black hole,” it said. “The modern Arab state, in the political sense, runs close to this astronomical model, whereby the executive apparatus resembles a ‘black hole’ which converts its surrounding social environment into a setting in which nothing moves and from which nothing escapes,” the report said.

The report was critical of the Arab world for its lack of freedom, bad governance, and the lack of independence of its judiciary.

“By 21st-century standards, Arab countries have not met the Arab people’s aspirations for development, security and liberation despite variations between one country and another in that respect. “There is a near-complete consensus that there is a serious failing in the Arab world and that this is located specifically in the political sphere”, not in cultural circles, it said. Written by an independent group of Arab scholars and intellectuals, the report, the third in a series of four, was sponsored by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the Arab Gulf Programme for UN Development Organisations. It was prepared before the landmark Palestinian and Iraqi elections in January and well before municipal polls in Saudi Arabia or the recent announcement of presidential electoral reforms in Egypt.

Lovely Neighbours

This is weird, but for the second week running I was unable to find a picture of the Israelis burining a Palestinian flag.

Democratic Rule of War

Left wingers around the world held a rally yesterday to protest against the careless use of arms by Palestinian militants and encouraged them to use the structured tools of democracy in order to achieve their political objectives. "Arms may be used in their resistence against the Zionist occupiers, but not within their own civil society" one of the marchers insisted.

Yeah Right!

Palestinian gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades hold their weapons as they walk with an unarmed Palestinian policeman, left, after stopping traffic in the main square of the West Bank town of Jenin, Sunday, April 17, 2005. Armed Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Jenin fired into the air and threatened to immediately kill members of the Palestinian parliament Sunday, demanding the Palestinian Authority provide jobs to former prisoners and to relatives of people killed during nearly five years of fighting. (AP Photo/ Mohammed Ballas)

MRN Fevered Hallucination Watch

Headine at the Media Review Network: Proponents of Caterpillar shareholder resolution claim victory on International Day of Action Against Caterpillar.

Reality: Caterpillar shareholders reject investigation into the selling of bulldozers to Israel by 97 votes to 3.

If that is how the MRN define victory, then I hope the moonbats keep winning.

The MRN also has alot to say about the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. (View their hateful cartoon on the top right section of their page.) Here's an entertaining snippet from Zakiya Fareed, a propagandist researcher at the MRN.

Besides being a career warmonger, Paul Wolfowitz is also under investigation by US security and counterintelligence agencies for having supplied money, arms, security data and other strategic assistance to none other than his adoptive nation, Israel. This is still regarded as espionage, despite the fact that Israel is the USA’s favourite little nation in the Middle East. Then we can begin with his complicity in the human rights abuses committed both by Israel and by US soldiers in Iraq.

Of course, we should treat their criticism with respect given that they are generally balanced and fair on issues concerning the USA. Dont worry! I kid! I kid!

The loathsome group have still not updated their map to reflect the new route that the Israeli anti-terror barrier will follow. Hmmm...I wonder why...

After Sharon?

Could this man be the next leader of Israel? I refer to Matan Vilnai, one of the strong leaders within the Labour party. He was recently endorsed by the Likud mayor of Sderot, Eli Moyal. I favour those on the right who sympathise with and understand those on the left. Likewise I favour those on the left who sympathise with those on the right. Eli Moyal and Matan Vilnai are two examples of this.

Things change so quickly in Israeli politics. A year ago I was convinced that Labour were dead but suddenly a Labour leader after Sharon's tenure doesn't seem like such an impossibility.

It will be interesting to see whether the Likud can keep it together during the next elections. Don't be too surprised to see them split, with the pro-Sharon pragmatic centrists forming a security conscious, centrist, Mapai type party. Of course, you can't predict anything in Israeli politics. Everything is contingent upon a gargantuan number of unstable factors.

(Links via HeadHeeb)