In My World (Not IMAO's world, dammit, *mine*)

UN condemns Jews

The UN condemned the Jews today for putting a strain on the Palestinian economy. "Bombs and bullets are expensive, and martyrs never work again," said a UN official. "If only the Jews didn't have to be blown up, or if they were less resistant (making the process cheaper), then the Palestinians could be truly prosperous."


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Merry Christmas

So what am I gonna do on Christmas? That's easy! I'm going to link to Setting The World To Rights.

Why, you ask? Well, to anyone who doesn't already read it, you can take this as a great gift. (A Christmas gift, even.) The site is simply fantastic, and now you shall enjoy it too.

What, you ask, is so special about The World? Well unlike most blogs, there are not glaring gaps in The World's understanding of the world. Obviously all left-wing blogs don't get something or other, but the right-wing ones mess up too. They commonly oppose contraception or abortion, endorse ageism, endorse anthropomorphism, take an anti-rational approach to the question of religion, appeal to authority, or commit various other errors on issues that are understood by many people today. The World doesn't do any of this. It gets all these issues right, and many more.

Here are a few recent posts:

- The World invents amusing conspiracy theories -- why should the loonies have all the fun?

- The World understands environmentalism.

- The World understands the difference between animals and humans.

- The World understands political correctness.

- The World understands the history of Israel. (And also supports Israel, but not in the history, which is written without moral judgment.)

Oh yeah, one more thing. I comment at The World, and you wouldn't want to miss out on that ;-)


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it may be xmas eve, but the jews are still controlling the content of my blog

ok found another israel/palestine article (man I'm good). link

Uganda still supports Palestine despite opposing two UN resolutions condemning Israel, Minister of State for International Affairs Tom Butime clarified yesterday.

The world is strange.

On December 4 the United Nations took its annual vote on seven resolutions concerning Israel. Eight countries voted against and 155 voted for a resolution on Jerusalem, declaring that Israeli actions to impose laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City are "illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever."

I suppose this means it's not illegal to assault visiting Egyptians.

The resolution criticised governments that have set up diplomatic missions in Jerusalem and called for international actions to guarantee freedom of religion and access by all people and nationalities to the holy city.

Sound strange? I thought so too. But then I set my crack team of researchers on the matter. (Didn't you know all right-wing blogs are supplied with crack teams of researchers by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?)

They discovered that a 1947 UN resolution internationalised Jerusalem. So Jews have no right to be there -- even in the Western half. Hence, no one puts their embassies in Jerusalem. (Except a couple rogue countries.)

They further found out the US doesn't have an embassy in Jerusalem even though Congress mandated one and Bush promised one in his election campaign.

The eight countries that voted against were the United States, Israel, Palau, Nauru, Costa Rica, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Uganda.

I notice the list doesn't include: Britain, Australia, New Zealand.

Uganda also abstained on another resolution to refer Israel's construction of a security wall in the West Bank to the International Court in The Hague. Eight countries voted against the proposal while 74 abstained and 90 voted in favour.

Send the security fence [I can change words too, not just the BBC :-)] issue to the International Court in The Hague? LOL. Good luck with that.

"On some resolutions that are straightforward, we voted for them, like the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people," said Butime.

Such as the rights to own and use machine guns, to move around at night with no questions asked, to incite violence freely, and to transport terrorists in ambulances.


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

title here

Read this:

Another element that I must tell you about how the terrorists used people, used children. A few days after the battle ended, we saw a 6-year-old child with a little bag going in the camp. One of the soldiers asked him, "Listen, what do you have there in the bag?" and so he dropped it and ran away. The bag included three booby-traps. Six years old. Now obviously this child went back to his family or wherever. A six year old cannot understand a lot, but obviously he understood it was not a good thing to do, but it is unbelievable the use of children.

The other experience that we had was with two old women and one man. At every house that was in the end destroyed, we called upon the people, once and twice and three times, to come out - the ones who do not want to fight. We said, "Please come out". Obviously in some cases some people came out, and in one case two old women and one man came out of a house, with their hands up. Just behind them there was a terrorist who shot at the soldiers and afterwards detonated explosions. So you know, people talk here about all kinds of moral elements, accusing the Israeli army. I am very proud of the moral values of every specific soldier, the most simple soldier in our army.

and this (same source):

I will tell you about one case. There was one house in this very area, in this area from which about ten terrorists were shooting at us. This whole house was basically booby-trapped - it was like a minefield. We sent two of our very special units to explode the booby-trapped front of this house, because it was impossible in any other way from a military point of view, to overcome these terrorists. When our two soldiers from the very special unit came close to the house, they saw that there were one woman and two children, and they did not put the explosives under the house, and did not blow up the house. While they were withdrawing back to their forces, one of them was seriously wounded, the other not very seriously.

The IDF is not just humane. It's too humane. They should have killed them, not aborted the mission. Or better yet just bombed the house in the first place without going too near. It had ten terrorists shooting from it for crying outloud.

PS sheesh

An IDF video disproves incriminating media claims from the day before, yet many outlets ignore or bury the new information

Read the source, which is itself sourced, if you don't believe it.


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Why I Oppose Porn

I saw some interesting arguments in favour of porn, but what are the arguments against porn?

- Of course, as we all know, pornographers killed Jesus.

- Porn is inappropriate for adults who already know how to have sex.

- Porn is inappropriate for children who don't need to know how to have sex yet.

- Porn encourages masturbating, and there's the classic discovery that masturbating makes your palms hairy. We should cut that problem off at the source and ban porn before anyone gets aroused alone.

- Speaking of cutting things off, porn makes it four times more likely that you accidentally cut off your penis.

- Banning porn gives the government something to do. You wouldn't want bored cops without a stash of confiscated porn wandering around the streets, would you?

- Porn is demeaning to men, because most of it is made for men as if to say, "we know it's only men who have trouble getting laid".

- Gay porn is a minority, which makes gays feel like a minority, which is hurtful.

- Porn encourages people to wear out their dicks at an early age with excessive masturbation.

- Porn provides loud orgasms which keep the neighbors up.

- Porn disrupts the process of sexual fantasising by replacing individual, creative, personal fantasies with store-bought, mass-produced, stereotyped ones.

- Most people are stupid. Most people like porn. Therefore porn is obviously stupid.

- Porn can be shocking, which increases the risk of heart attack.

- It's a fact that 93.2% of porn stars are 87.4% more likely to use illegal drugs.

- It's a fact that if 98.1% of them weren't porn stars, they'd be too poor to buy drugs.

- And lastly: Porn depicts sex, which is gross.

So get out there and join an activist group to stop porn before it's too late!


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (8)

UNobserver.com about as principled as UN

Another day, another google news search. Top one was this.

According to a new report released today by B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, the IDF violates the right of residents of the Occupied Territories to obtain medical treatment. The security claims cited to justify this violation are dubious.

Well that sounds pretty bad. Let's see if it's true.

Dozens of staffed checkpoints and some 600 physical roadblocks have been set up within the West Bank in the framework of Israel's siege policy.

"siege policy" -- LOL. so biased.

These obstacles to movement restricts the access of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to medical treatment.

ok if that's their case, they are official dipshits.

International law is unequivocal on matters relating to the protection of medical teams. Medical personnel are not to be unnecessarily delayed or harmed, unless they participate in military activity. In effect, the IDF is collectively punishing hundreds of thousands of civilians by preventing access to basic medical treatment.

Wait just a second. I seem to recall that Palestinian terrorists use ambulances to transport weapons and personel. They would also pretend to be sick if that'd get them past security. So being careful with ambulances and people who claim to be sick isn't unnecessary.

Any use of ambulances for non-medical purposes is a grave violation of international law.

While the IDF justifies routine delays of ambulances based on the claim that Palestinians use them for military purposes, they have only presented one such incident. Regardless, individual cases of misuse of ambulances does not justify the sweeping policy described in this report.

It doesn't? What are they supposed to do? Only screen some ambulances?

And only one incident? Let's check that out. Google for: palestinian ambulance terrorism

The top hit is Explosives Found in Palestinian Ambulance (Note: incident was March 27, 2002)

One down, one to go.

How about this from June 11, 2002:

Yesterday afternoon security forces stopped a Palestinian ambulance traveling on the main road between Gaza and Khan Yunis for a routine check and arrested a Palestinian fugitive inside pretending to be a patient.

OK, they're already filthy liars, but of course there is plenty more. Like this from April 21, 2002:

"There was no situation where we did not allow people to get into the hospital. Every ambulance that wanted to get into the hospital could go every time. We did check the ambulances. The reason was that the hospital was used to hide highly wanted terrorists. On one occasion one of our doctors checked one of the ambulances. According to what the Palestinian doctor said, there was one severely sick person lying inside. And then we looked at him -- there wasn't a scratch on him, he just had an intravenous, just taped to his shirt, not even inserted in his veins. And this was one of the highly wanted terrorists...

back to the article:

B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights call on the security forces to:

· Remove all the siege checkpoints;

· Allow Palestinians to receive medical treatment quickly and without delay;

· Refrain from humiliating or abusing medical personnel.

Translated, they are asking the IDF to let terrorists murder Jews more often.

Oh dear, after that they link to Al Jazeera complaining about Jenin.

Here's info on Jenin.


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (3)

Sadly the USA isn't Perfect

(If you don't see quotes in both blue and red backgrounds, hit refresh.)

Four days ago Sharon gave a speech that Woty and I thought was good. But what did the US government think?

I've found two articles to analyse with very different takes. Quotes from this one by the BBC will appear with a light red background. Quotes from this one by the JPost will appear with a light blue background. (Note: Both articles came out the same day.)

US warns Israel over 'separation'

The United States has warned Israel against taking any unilateral measures to separate itself from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

White House 'very pleased' with PM's speech

Oh dear, that's quite a difference. Either someone is pretty damn biased, or the US is sending mixed messages (which would be bad).

I'm going to go through the JPost article first.

"We were very pleased with the overall speech," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said regarding Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's remarks at the Herzliya Conference.

The White House on Friday modified its appraisal of the speech, offsetting published accounts that focused on McClellan's admonition Thursday that Sharon should not try to impose a settlement on the Palestinians without negotiations.

The State Department echoed the White House praise, although deputy spokesman Adam Ereli also cautioned Israel against acting without consulting the Palestinians on issues that ought to be resolved through negotiations.

So far it sounds like the White House is sending mixed messages. Dammit.

Sharon said that while Israel is interested in conducting direct negotiations, it will not be held hostage by the Palestinians. "I have already said we will not wait for them indefinitely," he said.

The JPost article quotes Sharon's speech heavily. Skimming to find more about the US reaction now.

Sharon defined the goals of disengagement as reducing terrorism as much as possible and granting Israelis maximum security to improve the quality of life and strengthen the economy. He stressed that the unilateral steps will be fully coordinated with the US.

"We must not harm our strategic coordination with the US," he said.

Sounds good, but is it true?

Also, 'unilateral steps ... coordinated with the US'. Heh.

Sharon began his speech, which was shown to the US administration before delivery, by pledging his allegiance to the road map and President George W. Bush's vision of a two-state solution.

Wait a second. We saw the speech first! Does anyone really think they showed us the speech, we said we hated it, then they read it including claims about cooperation with the US? If we'd found the speech unacceptable, at the least it would have dropped claims of US support and coordination, if not changed more drastically.

What, then, is the BBC talking about? Well, let's see:

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had outlined a "disengagement plan" in case the roadmap peace plan failed.

But the White House said the US was committed to a negotiated settlement between the two sides under the American-backed roadmap.

I loath the BBC. They twist everything. First, the "disengagement plan" does not signify the roadmap has failed; it is a temporary, reversible measure to improve security until Palestinians do their part of the roadmap. It protects Israelis from Palestinian foot-dragging.

Next, the BBC tries to play this as if Sharon was contradicting the White House ('but'), and even against a negotiated settlement. But if you read Sharon's speech this is clearly false.

This doesn't yet reveal anything about the US reaction to the speech, but it does reveal BBC bias.

Palestinians and Jewish settlers have denounced Mr Sharon's proposed steps.

Fuckers! There's really nothing else to say. They try to paint Sharon as a lone figure denounced by Palestinians and Israelis alike. But this is just Jewish settlers who are mad that Sharon is willing to dismantle any settlements at all. In other words, the Jewish settlers' opposition to Sharon (which is of the disapprove of one policy sort not the the man is thoroughly evil sort) is because he is too moderate and too willing to make concessions for peace .... which is the exact thing the BBC complains Sharon isn't.

The United States "would oppose any unilateral steps that block the road towards negotiations under the roadmap that leads to the two-state vision," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

"A settlement must be negotiated and we would oppose any Israeli effort to impose a settlement," he said.

Notably these statements don't actually contradict anything Sharon said in his speech. (Unilateral withdrawal is entirely different from imposing a settlement on the Palestinians.) But then why is the US saying them?

In a long-awaited speech on Thursday evening, Mr Sharon said Israel would take the initiative if the Palestinians did not begin disbanding militant groups as required by the roadmap plan.

(Emphasis mine)

Is that really what the Sharon said? To get rid of militants?

Well, telling Safari to find the words 'militant' or 'militants' in Sharon's speech comes up with nothing. Damn liars.

Mr Sharon said Israel "will greatly accelerate" building a controversial barrier in the West Bank, which Israel says is vital to stop Palestinian militants crossing into Israel to carry out attacks.

But in the speech it actually says, "Israel will greatly accelerate the construction of the security fence." Notice how the BBC closed their quote after three words and filled in the rest with their own words that were not a fair paraphrase of what Sharon said. Damn liars.

Palestinians condemned Mr Sharon's speech as unacceptable.

"I am disappointed that he is threatening the Palestinians," said Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei.

"We are committed to the roadmap," he added.

LOL. Sure. And why does the BBC repeat such lies, when it doesn't even like to quote Sharon for more than three words?

Nabil Abu Rudeina, an advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said Mr Sharon was trying to tear up the roadmap.

"These declarations represent nothing new and amount to a rejection of the roadmap.

This is worse than the previous one, but don't think it's over yet. Next the BBC asked what Hamas thought. Literally.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, called Mr Sharon's plan "a delusion to fool the world".

I can't help but wonder every time a Hamas spiritual leader is quoted: if they were close enough to ask him questions, couldn't they have shot him?

"Sharon is asking Palestinians to raise white flags, to surrender. This is totally rejected by our people. We will not surrender and our people will defend themselves," he said.

And Yassin says Sharon is delusional...


Anyway, despite the titles, neither article focussed on the US reaction all that much. From what I can tell, the US did send some mixed messages, as agreed in both articles. This is bad. The US ought to be supporting Israel unequivocally.

The JPost acknowledged the US ambiguity and pointed out the positive bits of the US reaction too, and pointed out that the US saw the speech before it was given. Mostly it just quoted Sharon, who actually gave the speech. So I'd say the JPost article was pretty fair.

On the other hand, the BBC article was biased through and through. It had nothing positive to say, mostly quoted anyone willing to say something bad about Sharon, and lied. Which isn't the biggest surprise in the world, but still... sheesh

If you liked this piece, go here for more of my thoughts about Israel (it's a category archive).


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