Oh, I feel SO much better now: The Iranians aren’t going to create nuclear weapons because their ethics don’t allow it. Yes, really. They say so. So all those “death to Israel” demonstrations? The calls to erase Israel from the map? The destruction of the Zionist entity? Don’t worry. It won’t be by an Iranian nuke. Because their ethics won’t let them.
Ransom paid, they’re coming home: Apparently, the right price has been reached. The hapless hikers, who have been imprisoned in a hotel for the past two years. Yes, really, read the article—you get total bushwa like this:
He said Fattal and Bauer are enjoying “very good conditions here in prison … it’s like staying in a hotel.”
A hotel where you’re regularly abused, sure. I know of people who stay in those all the time. Oh. Wait.
So, the price of the release? Half a mil each. But of course, we don’t know what the Obama administration has done behind the scenes.
This is why I keep reading Jeffrey Goldberg: He gets some things wrong, but he also gets things very right. Goldberg puts the blame on Israel’s troubles squarely where it belongs: On Israel’s enemies.
If at first you don’t succeed: The Palmer Report declared the blockade of Gaza legal. (So does international law.) But that’s not good enough for the UNHRC, which brought in five “independent” experts—just like the UNHRC is an independent body, not an anti-Israel arm of the UN—to declare the blockade illegal. Now Erdogan will claim the UN backs him on his demands for Israel to remove the blockade. Watch. And speaking of watch, I’m betting UN Watch will have an article on how much the “independent” experts have already shown they hate Israel. More later.
Disgusting: NBC profiles Mad Mahmoud. I’m betting one of the major media networks would have profiled Hitler in the 1930s if we’d had TV back then.
A bad omen for Obama: A Jewish Democrat lost the Congressional seat formerly held by Anthony “Someone hacked my Twitter account and sent naked pictures of me!” Weiner in NYC. Really. A kippa-wearing Jewish Democrat lost in New York. This is good news for those of us who hope the Republicans nominate someone who won’t scare the independents next November. The spin.
With regard to Goldberg, is this flying moment or does he just change colours when he writes for the Atlantic?
But still he leaves the ending a mess. Arik Sharon is to blame for leaving Gaza but the Israeli voters are to blame because they don’t want to experiment again hoping for a different result with this time Tel Aviv and infrastructure within mortar range let alone Grad rockets.
By the way he left out Barak pulling out of Lebanon; and look what that got the Israeli voter. How many border incursions and rocket fire leading up to 2006 did Goldberg neglect to blame on him?
Oh dear I left out “pig” from the flying moment.
Then again it could be misconstrued as a PC moment. :-)
As for Iran and the ethics of the Ayatollahs there, I didn’t know they had any. Quelle surprise!
The Iranian Mullahs must laugh their asses off every time they tell Westerners that their nuke program is a peaceful one for nuclear energy production only. How they keep a straight face when they tell that whopper is a mystery. If that was the case they had no reason to hide the program, because as signatories of the Nonproliferation Treaty they could carry out such a program with perfect propriety. Yet they hid it for 18 years until a bunch of emigres outed it. That behavior alone shows that their program is aimed at nuclear weapons. Of course, there is also their constant boasting about how they will incinerate Israel once they get their mitts on a nuke.
Too bad we can’t arrest Gorilla Boy, when he comes to New York to brag and thump his chest, on the charge of incitement to genocide, genocide being a crime under international law. Instead, Columbia U will give him a party and a podium. Again.
I still don’t think Goldberg is as bad as some think he is. No, I don’t agree with everything he says, but I’d rather have him than an asshole like Noam Chomsky. Or that Tikkun Olam jackass.