Category Archives: Israel

Double-standard time

That’s what Meryl Yourish calls the double standard the world applies to Israel. Every other democratic country has the right to defend itself from attacks. Israel doesn’t. Indeed, the obvious instigator of the attacks becomes at worst a controversial player. Thus the daily’s report this morning on yesterday’s JCC rally, which Mr. B. and I found to be part information, part religious service, is shocking in its timidity: the fulltime religion reporter feels she has to attribute every sentence and make clear that the Jewish views are outliers. This is Hamas we’re talking about, people, a terrorist organization with a service club’s veneer. Where are your guts? Where is your humanity? Whose side are you on? Bleh.

MORE: Whatever, military strategist Edward Luttwak, himself something of an outlier, has a refreshing view: that the idea that Israel might as well quit Gaza because they can’t win is b.s. He says Israel essentially won the 2006 battle with Hezbollah and is winning this one with Hamas. Krauthammer agrees.

Mitznefet

Those strange, floppy "shower cap" helmet covers that IDF infantry wear were introduced in 2006 as a way to cut the contours of an ordinary helmet when seen by a sniper or other enemy soldier in urban as well as rural terrain. It’s said they were also a reaction to the Israeli use of new U.S. Kevlar helmets, which were too Nazi-like in appearance for the Israelis. Curiously enough the mitznefet, or "clown hat," as the cover is called in Hebrew, even has an ancient Jewish religious significance.

Solidarity

Israel_flags.jpg

It’ll be interesting to see whether the new Obama administration continues Bush’s support for Israel’s campaign against Hamas after his inauguration in a couple of weeks. Optimists cite Barry’s previous remarks condemning the Hamas rockets, but he’s well known for turning on a dime.

Al Q is already blaming him for Gaza. Whether that matters to him remains to be seen.

I don’t get a lot of commenters, as you can tell. So I haven’t drawn the foul-mouthed anti-Semites that other pro-Israel blogs have. But I drew a stranger the other day with a relatively mild rebuke of US support for Israel. I thought about it, but I decided there’s plenty of places for that in Big Media and elsewhere on the Web. This is my private turf and I’m declaring it an Israel no-bashing zone. If you want your comment deleted and you banned permanently, like he was, just try me.

Meanwhile, there’s an Israel support rally at the JCC on Thursday. Mrs. Charm will be working, so I’m taking Mr. B. I got the above banner from their email announcing it. Should be interesting. The JCC is gated, with armed security guards who I’m sure are nervous despite Austin’s relative calm. This is, after all, prime time for jihadis and assorted scum who’ve been popping up around the country defacing synagogues and so forth.

But, for the first time in such a conflict, we have the alternative of Pajamas TV from Jerusalem.

The media war

Hamas knows it cannot beat the IDF militarily so it must try to do so in Big Media, particularly using gullible, if not converted, organizations with permanent, sycophantic staff in Gaza, such as BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera to convey the Hamas propaganda.

It is chiefly photos of bleeding children and wailing women. Of course they are may be real and unfortunate. But the journos never seem to ask how they got that way. Hamas blames bloodthirsty Israelis. But Hamas, itself, created the situation by shooting thousands of rockets into Israeli cities and uses Palestinian children and women as shields, puppet tenants for their ammo dumps, to produce the needed pictures.

Too little of Big Media isn’t seems interested in the story about the rockets terrorizing Israeli children. The Israeli government builds shelters for them and doesn’t use them as shields. So no pictures of them bleeding, and no coverage, no interest from the coifed, empty-headed journos. It’s hard to believe that a war can be won this way. But it sure better change. If Israel can be destroyed like this, so can all of us.

UPDATE: When a fuzzy-minded liberal like Alan Colmes does get his "disproportionate response" ears pinned back by a warrior, it’s a treat to see.

That U.N. “school”

You can believe Al Reuters, which never stops shilling for the jihadis, when it says the school was a hiding place for refugees frightened from their homes. Or you can take the IDF’s word, which is that it was another Hamas ammo dump with an active mortar tube and rocket launcher. I’ve made my choice.

Israel: land of Odin and Thor

David Bogner has a discerning eye for the detail behind the facade, and here he  finds the inherent bias in Sky News’ presentation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict readily apparent for all to see.

MORE: To paraphrase one of David’s commenters, any decent person would feel comfortable in the presence of any armed member of the IDF. Even a child would feel safe. Decidedly not the case with any Arab Palestinian with an AK-47.

SSgt. Dvir Emmanueloff, R.I.P.

SSG Emmanueloff, a 22-year-old infantryman of the Golani Bde, apparently is the first IDF KIA in the Gaza ground operation, at least according to the IDF’s English-language site. Others have been seriously wounded. May there be no more, though that isn’t very likely. This war that the Hamas terrorists have started isn’t a game.

UPDATE:  Alas, there have been four more in quick succession. Small numbers to us are big numbers to little Israel.