Fuck You, Hizballah

"Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you." - Deuteronomy 16:20

"I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not celebrating, I'm goddamned rejoicing!" - Steve (Daniel Craig) in Munich (2006)

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It's been nearly sixty years since the State of Israel declared its independence, and as Hizballah's warnings following the assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh clearly demonstrate, the world still has yet to be made safe for Jews and Judaism. Muslims can harp on all they like about Islamophobia, but when have they ever been as persecuted or pursued as we Jews have? In fact, I would say it is patently hypocritical of them to complain about anti-Islamism when the Arab-Islamic world is a bastion of anti-Semitism of the nastiest, Nazi-esque sort.

There are certain people the world is better off without. Saddam Hussein was one such individual, and Imad Mughniyeh was another. That one ended his life hanging from a noose in Baghdad while the other was blown to smithereens in Damascus makes no difference to me; each time, I've shed no tears over their passing from this world into the next...they've joined Hitler and Milosevic in Hell.

Would it have been better for "Hajj Imad" Mughniyeh to have been captured, tried in a court of law, convicted (as he surely would have been) and then executed? Maybe, but we'll never know - Syria gave the mass murderer sanctuary. Normal routes to justice could not be...pursued. By anyone but the Syrians. And unless they broke character, they wouldn't do in such a valued, revered ally (unless, of course, they could spin it a certain way).

Now, Hizballah has threatened to strike out at Jewish and Israeli targets worldwide in retaliation for Mughniyeh's death. "Let this war be open," Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah informed his supporters - and the world. He has not declared a new war, but rather issued a call to arms for the continuation of a war which began years ago (and not with the Second Lebanon War of 2006). As a result, security measures, which already tend to be high at Jewish and Israeli-connected locales, have been beefed up once again.

Once again. Once again, Jews are supposed to fear for their lives and the lives of their children. Jewish houses of worship, centers of learning and love of God, are once again in danger of being attacked by those waging a modern Crusade against the infidel Zionists and their compatriots. Once again, Israel has gone on high alert. Once again, we wait for the blood of innocents to be shed so that the blood of murderers can be seen as having been avenged.

I haven't the slightest doubt that Hizballah has the operational capabilities of striking anywhere it wants to: When you get right down to it, Tucson is just as vulnerable as Jerusalem (andy you don't necessarily have to remember the 9/11 terrorists' and Hamas connections to this city), or New York. My concern is not localized, though; a terrorist attack against Jewish targets in South America, or Africa, or Europe is really an attack against Jews everywhere.

We might not all agree on the applicability of certain religious laws or interpretations of Torah, and we may differ markedly when it comes to our support for, or affiliation with, the State of Israel. Our stand on intermarriage can cause serious rifts within our families, and end friendships with fellow members of the tribe.

Back in ancient times, in our own Promised Land, we Jews weren't immune from civil war.

In modern times, we've come pretty close to picking up where they left off.

However, those differences between us matter little to Hizballah, al-Qaeda, Hamas, et al. Just as it was with the Nazis, to them a Jew is a Jew - Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, unaffiliated or even atheist. Islamist bombs are blind to the arbitrary fault lines between and within a people. Terrorist-launched missiles can be aimed, but rockets don't discriminate as to who they kill and who they spare.

But while we're reminded once again that it's dangerous to be a Jew - if it's ever been safe - I can't say I'm not proud to be Jewish.

"Justice, justice shall you pursue..."

And justice has been done.

Fuck You, Hizballah.

I designed this flag, by the way. Months ago.

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RELATED LINKS

Jews worldwide urged to be on their guard after assassination

Hezbollah Chief Declares War on Israel After Militant Commander's Death

Israel embassies on high alert following Mughniyah killing

U.S. Official: World 'Better Place' With Death of Hezbollah Figure

Whining About Winehouse, the Grammys

In my honest opinion, celebrating Amy Winehouse is akin to democratic politicians celebrating dictators, or U.S. soldiers celebrating terrorists. Regardless of talent, when you reward a human for her self-destructive tendencies - call me cynical, but I seriously doubt Winehouse won those Grammys despite her erratic habits - the message being sent is that it's okay to be a druggie who skips shows, so long as you can write songs and sing 'em.

Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter, in the end. Except for all the musically-talented kids who'll OD because the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave 'em a pass to do so. We so frequently publicly reward that which we inwardly deplore, and still people wonder how it is that terrorists can scare us as they do. Gawrsh, it's a mystery!

And let me tell you something else: The years Norah Jones and John Legend won their Grammys, the hype surrounding them made those awards quite predictable. The same went for this year: I knew beforehand that the Recording Academy was going to set on a pedestal a singualr personality, and anyone who knew that could also read the tea leaves and would've been able to tell that someone was likely going to be Amy Winehouse. Remember, we're not talking about the people celebrating the music; we're talking about insiders celebrating insiders, just like at the Oscars.

They'll pick who they want, not who we want (even if, sometimes, those preferences do coincide).

You wanna know the great thing about the Recording Academy? They think we were born yesterday. Of course, we're too busy prostrating ourselves before them to take the time and use the energy to disabuse them of that notion. If you ask me, given what we know about her and the way she acts, Amy Winehouse was just as shocked as Captain Renault in this classic scene (one of my favorites in any movie) from Casablanca:

What's So Different About Israel?

Yesterday in New York City, the United Nations Security Council met to discuss Israel's imposition of a blockade on the Gaza Strip, a meeting most vociferously called for by the Arab League but supported by much of the so-called civilized world. And as tens of thousands of Gazans poured over the Egyptian border into the Sinai Peninsula, following the destruction of security barriers by Palestinian terrorists at the Rafah checkpoint, in Geneva the troubled United Nations Human Rights Council decided to stick with tradition - the vilification of a single country, and a democratic one at that.

The Human Rights Council condemned Israel for the most recent measures it had taken to protect itself from rockets being fired from Hamas-ruled Gaza. Predictably, the UNHRC failed to condemn the rocket attacks which sparked the blockade. When it comes to Israel, the UN and its organizations rush to lynch the Jewish State without a second thought; when it comes to Sudan - you know, where genocide is taking place in Darfur - the UNHRC can only express "deep concern".

Why must Israel countenance what no other country is expected to tolerate?

Moscow last week reiterated its right to use nuclear weapons to defend itself against threats to the Russian Federation and its allies...serving us a possible reminder in the process that Russia doesn't believe it can count on its conventional forces to do the job. Even with all the noise these days about Iran's suspected nuclear weaponization programs and U.N. sanctions against Tehran, I don't hear above the din a questioning of the Islamic Republic's inherent right to self-defense. China has reserved for itself the right to take military action against Taipei should an already independent and democratic Taiwan publicly declare its independence from the Communist regime in Beijing.

When Argentina's military junta occupied the Falkland Islands in early 1982, Britain responded to that surprise invasion of a U.K. Overseas Territory by sending the Royal Navy to retake the islands. Just a little over a month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States were in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Northern Alliance to overthrow a Taliban that had given aid and sanctuary to Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda operatives.

If rockets were being fired daily from Saskatchewan into northeastern Montana, you can bet the United States would consider sending warplanes against suspected launch sites if the Canadian government refused to act to stop the missile firing. If suicide bombers were flowing into Arizona from Mexico and blowing themselves up at the Tucson Mall or Arizona Mills, you bet your ass Washington would make demands of Mexico City that, if not heeded, would lead to an occupation of Mexican territory and checkpoints manned by U.S. soldiers charged with the task of preventing the entry of terrorists into America (but not the entry of illegal immigrants).

Continual Palestinian rocket fire against Israeli border towns, the Kassams emanating from the Gaza Strip which are aimed primarily at Israeli civilians, consistently fails to produce Security Council action. No one outside of Israel but America seems to care when the missiles are aimed at the Jews. But the world community almost immediately calls for UNSC action when an Israeli blockade against the Hamas-ruled territory is declared and enforced by the politicians in Jerusalem and the generals in Tel Aviv. The EU deplores Israel's "collective punishment" of Gazans, wilfully ignoring the 60+ years of "collective punishment" of Israelis and Jews by the Arab world.

"Hypocrisy" is too kind a word to apply to such phenomena; in this case I prefer the actual scientific-technical terminology, viz. "bullshit" or "complete bullshit."

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Think I'm exaggerating about the United Nations Human Rights Council's tendency to single out the Jewish State at the expense of, well, its mandate? The United States' ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, spoke last year of the "council's relentless focus during the year on a single country - Israel," noting the Council had failed "to address serious human rights violations taking place in other countries such as Zimbabwe, the DPRK (a.k.a. North Korea), Iran, Belarus and Cuba."

Even the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, lamented the UNHRC's bias in June 2007, with his office releasing the following statement: "The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world."

Now, I do give the world some credit - it pays lip service to an Israeli right to self-defense. But, but, it then condemns every measure Israel can come up with in service of that aim.

Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations states that "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."

Since the current system of international politics results in the Security Council only very rarely taking measures "necessary to maintain international peace and security" as far as the "Arab War against Israel" is concerned (and UNSC decisions are more apt to exacerbate rather than alleviate the problem), I'd say that nothing in the U.N. Charter prevents the government at Jerusalem from defending the State of Israel - a Member of the United Nations - and its people, Jews and non-Jews alike, however that government prefers to do so, from all threats faced by the Jewish State.

Looking over the course of the past seven years or so, we see that the world thinks Israel shouldn't use missiles to defend itself, nor should it send troops into the West Bank, Gaza Strip, or southern Lebanon when its security is threatened. When Israeli soldiers are kidnapped, Israel is supposed to trade 100 or 200 living terrorists for the corpses of 2 or 3 Israeli soldiers - yeah, 'cause those kidnapped soldiers are usually killed before they're handed back over to the Jews. Israel isn't supposed to maintain checkpoints between Ramallah and Bethlehem, or build a security barrier - to keep out suicide bombers, see - on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

So many governments have a conniption fit when Israel actually does something to defend itself that its easy to suspect those countries secretly wish the world's only sovereign Jewish State - or, at least, its military - didn't exist. Without Jewish sovereignty, and Jewish nukes, it would be easier to kill us en masse, wouldn't it? Just ask the Nazis.

You know, it's worth remembering that the Romans weren't too keen on the idea of Jewish sovereignty or self-defense either, when they controlled Judaea, Galilee and the surrounding areas. Any time the Jews got uppity, the Legions went to work.

History is rife with examples: The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans (mocking him - or justifying his execution - as the "King of the Jews"), the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE (toward the end of the first Jewish War against Roman occupation), and the renaming of the Land of Israel as "Syria-Palaestina" by the Roman Empire (following the Bar-Kochba Revolt, the second major Jewish rebellion against the rule of Rome) in the 2nd-century CE.

That last one, boy...we're still dealing with its consequences, aren't we?