This article by Winston Pickett was originally published in the UK Jewish Chronicle.
Now that the latest terror threat has been neutralized - with a little help from the Saudis - we’ve entered the predictable post mortem phase. This is the political scrum in which government, security, intelligence and law enforcement authorities scramble to apportion blame and devise strategies to keep air travel safe.
Continue reading ‘Jews, not Israel, are the Islamists’ Target’
There’s a long interview with Felipe González, the former socialist prime minister of Spain, in El País today. In it he speaks of an opportunity he spurned to carry out a targeted assassination of the leadership of the Basque terrorist group ETA.
Continue reading ‘Felipe González And Targeted Assassinations’
Over at The Tablet and in the context of the attempt to bomb synagogues in Chicago Lee Smith writes:
Terror, violence, and bloodshed against Jews now come pre-packaged with a sanctimonious justification. It’s not seen as crazy, sick, irrational violence. It’s political violence. Terrorist violence is irrational and incomprehensible-unless the victims are Jewish. Why do terrorists bomb America, bomb London, bomb Madrid, bomb Casablanca, burn Mumbai? Because they’re crazy, that’s why. With the Jews, well, there’s the occupation. There’s Israel. There’s America’s support for Israel. Terrorism may be abhorrent, but when it comes to the Jews the terrorists themselves have a lot to be angry about. Accordingly, we’re supposed to regard these acts with both horror and reason at the same time-”sure, it’s not pretty, but we get it.” In other words, terror against Jews may produce violence and bloodshed, but not moral revulsion.
The Basque terrorist group ETA announced a ceasefire at the beginning of September and, as I described here, the response from the Spanish government was to tell the nationalist gunslingers where they could shove it.
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Perhaps it’s a perverse way of marking the upcoming first anniversary of the stolen election - Iran’s Bank Melli has opened a “women-only” branch in Mashhad.
While promoting “virtue” at home, Bank Melli has attracted more critical scrutiny abroad. In 2007, the bank was designated by the US government for its involvement in Tehran’s nuclear program and for providing banking services to the Revolutionary Guard and the Qods Force. Here’s more detail:
Even if the Ramat Shlomo announcement and its aftermath is a salutary reminder of the old Yiddish proverb about not spitting in the well you drink from, that should not be the only lesson we draw from this week’s events.
Continue reading ‘Meanwhile, in Ramallah…’
The repellent George Galloway turned up in Boston this week, raising money for Hamas. Via Solomonia, a video of the crowd greeting him.
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This is a guest post by Kenneth Bandler of AJC.
Wrapping up his whirlwind Latin America tour, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must have been very pleased that he had cancelled his previously planned visit to Brazil in May. No doubt his host, Brazilian President President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is similarly delighted. Each is enjoying international attention as leaders in their respective regions of the world.
This is a guest post by David Adler.
“My children were crying on top of my wife’s body.” That’s one of many quotes from survivors featured in “Terror in Mumbai,” a new HBO documentary narrated by Fareed Zakaria. It’s solidly in the running for the most profoundly disturbing hour of television I’ve ever seen.
Continue reading ‘“My children were crying on top of my wife’s body:” Remembering Mumbai’
Hugo Chavez has been namechecking those great figures past and present who inspired him.
In a speech to international socialist politicians, Mr Chavez said “Carlos”, a Venezuelan, was not a terrorist but a key “revolutionary fighter”.
Mr Chavez also hailed Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
Mind you, given that Venezuela in ten years could well look like Zimbabwe does now, I guess there’s a logic to it.
It all rather makes you want to sing the chorus of this song.
This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna.
A joker once suggested holding a conference with the purpose of abolishing all conferences. That witticism notwithstanding, I took up my invitation to attend the conference hosted organized by the International Press Institute and the Center for International Legal Studies entitled, “The War on Words: Terrorism, Media and the Law.” At this gathering of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy, one could learn a lot.
To my knowledge, no independent sightings have been confirmed, but according to his website, the pro-Hamas British MP George Galloway is currently on a speaking tour here in the US.
“The case of ‘Hezbollah’s man in New York’ offers a compelling glimpse into the expansive world of 21st-century terrorism, where democratic free speech rights are exploited by terror groups as part of their war against the West,” writes my colleague Kenneth Bandler in the New York Post. Read it all.
Canada is not British, nor European, nor Yankee, and in all the foreign and domestic sniggerings, objections, protests and complaints about the way Canada and its officials have handled the Galloway file, you will have to look very hard before you find one - just one - that does not wholly depend upon an embarassing error of fact, a delusion, a conspiracy theory, or an outright lie.
Terry Glavin gets it absolutely right, here.
“There really hasn’t been a totalitarian regime in the last quarter century to which Galloway has failed to lend his support,” observes Michael Weiss in a robust defense of Canada’s decision to refuse entry to George Galloway, Saddam poodle and British MP.
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