Kesher Talk: 04/27/2003

Saturday, May 03, 2003

Eat out for Israel. Sorry for the short notice, but I just found out about this program. Today, May 4th, these participating restaurants will donate 10% of their earnings to Israel. If you live in NYC, LA, Miami, Houston, or Livingston NJ, check it out.

Naive terrorist sympathizer dupe Dept. I wrote a lot about the Rachel Corrie incident as it unfolded, so I should be on top of the latest suicide bombing by British citizens who had ties to Corrie's handlers, the ISM. But I have had bronchitis all week, so I'll let these folks carry the ball.

UPDATE: An Israeli calls the local ISM office, pretending to be an anti-semite sympathizer. *Chortle.* (Blogspot screwed up as usual - scroll to "A Prank Call.") And it turns out one of the splodeydopes worked at Heathrow Airport for two years! (via LGF comment thread)

Shavuot count-down: Day 17 of counting the Omer. Using Kabbalistic symbology for counting the Omer - the days between the 2nd night of Pesach and the start of Shavuot - tonight begins the Tiferet of Tiferet: Compassion in Compassion. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:

True compassion is limitless. It is not an extension of your needs and defined by your limited perspective. Compassion for another is achieved by having a selfless attitude, rising above yourself and placing yourself in the other person's situation and experience. Am I prepared and able to do that? If not, why? Do I express and actualize the compassion and empathy in my heart? What blocks me from expressing it? Is my compassion compassionate or self-serving? Is it compassion that comes out of guilt rather than genuine empathy? How does that affect and distort my compassion? Test yourself by seeing if you express compassion even when you don't feel guilty.

(More on counting the Omer here)

Friday, May 02, 2003

Right of Israel to exist Dept. I got into a blog thread discussion with an unreconstructed anti-Zionist Jewish ignoramus. (I'm not just calling him an ignoramus because he's anti-Zionist, he's really been operating in some protected backwater of political thought where citing Israel Shahak doesn't get you immediately laughed out of the room.) Anyway, all the old anti-Zionist canards get aired and lots of links are supplied, so if you enjoy this kind of thing, take a look or even join in.

Shavuot count-down: Day 16 of counting the Omer. Using Kabbalistic symbology for counting the Omer - the days between the 2nd night of Pesach and the start of Shavuot - tonight begins the Gevurah of Tiferet: Discipline in Compassion. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:

For compassion to be effective and healthy it needs to be disciplined and focused. It requires discretion both to whom you express compassion, and in the measure of the compassion itself. It is recognizing when compassion should be expressed and when it should be withheld or limited. Discipline in compassion is knowing that being truly compassionate sometimes requires withholding compassion. Because compassion is not an expression of the bestower's needs but a response to the recipient's needs.

(More on counting the Omer here)

Good argument against globalization. As if SARS wasn't bad enough, China now has a serious mullet infestation. (via LGF comment thread)

Thursday, May 01, 2003

Shavuot count-down: Day 15 of counting the Omer. Using Kabbalistic symbology for counting the Omer - the days between the 2nd night of Pesach and the start of Shavuot - we have travelled through all of the combinations of the 7 lower sephirot with the sephira of Gevurah. Tonight we begin 7 days of combining these sephirot with the sephira of Tiferet, starting with Chesed of Tiferet: Lovingkindness in Compassion. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:

Examine the love aspect of compassion. Ask yourself: Is my compassion tender and loving or does it come across as pity? Is my sympathy condescending and patronizing? Even if my intention is otherwise, do others perceive it as such? Does my compassion overflow with love and warmth; is it expressed with enthusiasm, or is it static and lifeless?

(More on counting the Omer here)

Civil liberties coalition. Venerable 1st Amendment activist Nat Hentoff writes about

the growing coalition between conservative groups and such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way

to slay the many hydra heads of the Patriot Act. He also notes that this mainstream bipartisan resistance to weakening of the Bill of Rights is not getting much media attention.

What a wondrous thing is the world wide web! Dept. This guy is selling some car stereo speakers, and he knows his customers. (via HerDomain email list)

In honor of May Day.

I became a Marxist out of sheer perversity.

writes Janet Daley, and goes on,

Well, perhaps that is unfair to my adolescent self: it was a mixture of conscientiousness and perversity. The official atmosphere in the California high school where I spent my junior and senior years was—hard as it may be to imagine this now—hysterically anti-communist. This was 1961, but the sixties as we know them had not yet begun.

This vivid memoir in the latest City Journal reminds me of a cross-blog discussion several months ago about the antiwar left's association with Marxism. David Adesnik of Oxblog and yours truly pointed out that many civil rights activists had Marxist backgrounds because at that time Marxists were the only ones organizing for those ideals.

. . . from the turn of the century up to WWII, if you thought segregation and Jim Crow were wrong, if you thought women should be able to get birth control and credit in their own names, if you didn't think Modern Art was the harbinger of social chaos, and if you wanted to find others like yourself and maybe even do something to further your ideals, you ended up hanging out with Communists. That's where the action was. . . . After WWII, the abuses of the Soviet system were becoming clearer, but if you came back from the war to legal segregation, women forced out of jobs, and Cold War hysteria about sex and literature, where were you going to go?

Today, there are a few more options for those who want to make the world a better place without having to pay lip-service to unworkable economic theories and brutal totalitarianisms, although - as A.N.S.W.E.R., the engine behind the antiwar movement shows - Marxism still owns most of the market share in "social activism."

Read the Daley piece, and also this critical response from Amygdala's comment thread, where I first saw the link.

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Wrong paradigm Dept. Latest antiwar gasp for relevancy.

Be part of a national anti-war action on May 14. Screen "Dr. Strangelove," and raise money for groups still working hard for peace, justice and relief in Iraq.

Pre-emptive strikes. Cowboy diplomacy. Men conspiring in the War Room, bent on world domination. Weapons of mass destruction. And most terrifying of all, an invasion begun for one overwhelming reason: precious fluids. . . .

On May 14, put on a screening of "Dr. Strangelove" – in your living room, at the local theater, on campus, on your laptop, anywhere you can – and say no to unilateral invasions, to endangering our troops for the sake of oil, to flouting international law and the world community in the name of empire. [ How many inaccuracies can you find in this paragraph? - JSW ] Follow the film with discussions, forums, debates. Keep talking. Keep acting. Let’s give new meaning to the old Strategic Air Command motto, "Peace Is Our Profession."

It's a great movie, and I guess it's a more constructive action than getting naked and spelling out peace, but why do I keep thinking of that old computer cliche "garbage in garbage out"?

Shavuot count-down: Day 14 of counting the Omer. Using Kabbalistic symbology for counting the Omer - the days between the 2nd night of Pesach and the start of Shavuot - tonight begins the Malchut of Gevurah: Nobility of Discipline. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:

Discipline, like love, must enhance personal dignity. Discipline that breaks a person will backfire. Healthy discipline should bolster self-esteem and help elicit the best in a person; cultivating his sovereignty. Does my discipline cripple the human spirit; does it weaken or strengthen me and others?

We have now moved through all of the combinations of the 7 lower sephirot with the sephira of Gevurah. Tomorrow begins the week of Tiferet.

(More on counting the Omer here)

Carnival Time. The latest (and voluminous) Carnival of the Vanities is up at Clubbeaux. I submitted the "Israel WMDs" controversy post. Lots of good stuff, so head on over there.

Mike's Place. The website of the bar that was bombed in Tel Aviv yesterday.

BTW, rage-inducing news item of the year:

JERUSALEM - International mediators launched a long-awaited Mideast peace plan Wednesday, hours after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in and a suicide attacker linked to his political party killed three bystanders in Tel Aviv.

One wonders if the EU assholes have any sense of irony or appropriate behavior at all.

The violence posed an immediate challenge to Abbas, who has vowed to crack down on militia groups operating outside the law.

Yeah, right. Is that Vow #32 or Vow # 33? I haven't been keeping track.

Formally setting in motion the new peace initiative, U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer delivered the plan to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) at Sharon's home, Israeli diplomatic sources said.

Can you imagine? The blood isn't dry yet and the "Quartet" is on Sharon's doorstep with their reward for Palestinian terrorism. I hope Sharon tears it up in Kurtzer's face.

The so-called "road map" plan — which envisions a Palestinian state within three years — was presented to Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah later in the day by United Nations (news - web sites) envoy Terje Larsen.

If that weasel had any self-respect, he would be too embarrassed to show his face anywhere in the Middle East.

Excellent fisking of the road map.

Mike Hawash, part 2. I mentioned the Mike Hawash case previously. Hawash has finally been charged. The charge is onspiracy to levy war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda and conspiracy to contribute services to al Qaeda and the Taliban. There is a new statement on his website.

A public service announcement: we at SR have absolutely had it with Blogger. Consequently, we are trying to raise some, um - what do you call it...oh, yeah, money. We are trying to raise some money which would enable us to switch to MT, by covering the hosting, domain name and whatever other geeky expenses may come up in the process. The tip jar is at the top of the front page - you cannot miss it. And thank you.

And another one: a new group blog, Free Speech, is looking for contributors. If you are interested, go and send Del an e-mail.

Allison has written an overview of Israeli English-language blogs, and she is lucky enough to have been able to do it as part of her day job. Go check it out. Hopefully, next such overview will include your's truly..

UN Secretary Kofi Anan, ever so busy: After a speech in Geneva, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan left immediately for the UN's New York headquarters.

He cut short his European travel to deal with "current developments" in Iraq and other places.

He rushed back to New York because, while traveling, he can't be nearly as ineffective as he is in his office at UN headquarters.

(by Mike Sultan)

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Shavuot count-down: Day 13 of counting the Omer. Using Kabbalistic symbology for counting the Omer - the days between the 2nd night of Pesach and the start of Shavuot - tonight begins the Yesod of Gevurah: Bonding in Discipline. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:

For discipline to be effective it must be coupled with commitment and bonding. Both in disciplining yourself and others there has to be a sense that the discipline is important for developing a stronger bond. Not that I discipline you, but that we are doing it together for our mutual benefit.

(More on counting the Omer here)

Shocking CIA report: "Syria harboring more than 15 million known Arabs"

Taking responsibility for libel. So last week rumors were floated in the blogosphere about a nastiness Israel is claimed to be planning, but - unfortunately for the rumor-mongers - said nastiness is physically impossible, and very out of character for Israel.

Another rumor has recently been floated about Israel, accusing her of another nastiness almost as impossible to carry out, and just as out of character. But this rumor was not confined to the blogosphere - it resulted in a petition signed by over 1000 academics. A petition full of "may" and "could" and "might." No evidence, just rumor and supposition.

Of course, Israel never perpetrated this nastiness, and even the victims-to-be stopped worrying about it. but the stench of the rumor continues to linger, as rumors do (think of all the people who still think there was a massacre at Jenin or that the IDF killed Muhammed al-Dura).

Martin Kramer points out how many of the signatories are professors of Middle East Studies.

These people have (once again) brought shame on their discipline. Those among them who claim special expertise on Israel and its policies have discredited themselves as interpreters and teachers of that country's politics and society. And they are now collectively in the moral position of owing apologies to the Israeli people and the Israeli government—of Ariel Sharon. I suggest they make them at the next MESA conference.

Hmmmm. If you see any winged porcines flapping their way across the sky, let me know.

Monday, April 28, 2003

Shavuot count-down: Day 12 of counting the Omer. Using Kabbalistic symbology for counting the Omer - the days between the 2nd night of Pesach and the start of Shavuot - tonight begins the Hod of Gevurah: Humility in Discipline. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:

The results of discipline and might without humility are obvious. The greatest catastrophes have occurred as a result of people sitting in arrogant judgement of others. Am I arrogant in the name of justice (what I consider just)? Do I ever think that I sit on a higher pedestal and bestow judgement on my subjects below? What about my children? Students?

(More on counting the Omer here)

Alex posted some of the following in Russian: I googled for an English version, and found it here:

Yossel Rakover's Appeal To G-d

In the ruins of the Ghetto of Warsaw, among heaps of charred rubbish, there was found, packed tightly into a small bottle, a testament, written during the ghetto's last hours by a Jew named Yossel Rakover. Some extracts are written below:

"I am proud that I am a Jew not in spite of the world's treatment of us, but precisely because of this treatment. I should be ashamed to belong to the people who spawned and raised the criminals who are responsible for the deeds that have been perpetrated against us or to any people who tolerated these deeds.

I believe that to be a Jew means to be a fighter, an everlasting swimmer against the turbulent human current. The Jew is a hero, a martyr, a saint. You, our evil enemies, declare that we are bad. I believe that we are better and finer than you, but even if we were worse, I should like to see how you would look in our place!

I die peacefully, but not complacently; persecuted but not enslaved; embittered, but not cynical; a believer, but not a supplicant; a lover of G-d, but no blind amen-sayer of His.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our G-d the Lord is One. Into your hands, O Lord, I consign my soul."

Tonight, and tomorrow is Yom Hashoa - The Holocaust Day.

Update: I would like to thank Michal Cahlon for alerting me to the possibility that the piece is most likely a literary fiction. I find it very powerful nonetheless.

Snapshots of Baghdad.

. . . . there's a fag stall of all flavours every 10 metres and almost as many sidewalk vendors of alcohol: Johnnie Walker, Dimple, Bells, Absolut, all $25 (U.S.) a bottle. Suddenly, tubs of ice-cold Heineken and Amstel have appeared, replacing the Turkish-brewed Efes Pilsener that was the suds-of-choice (actually, no choice) in Saddam's hermetically sealed Iraq.

Where did all this contraband come from, almost overnight? But then Iraqis, after 12 years of United Nations-imposed sanctions, have become expert at smuggling and bootlegging. Oil, spirits, what's the dif?

. . . There was a time — and many Baghdadis will remember it, or have a vestigial sense of it — when this Westernized capital was a racy metropolis indeed. Before it became, in the last decade of the Saddam regime, a sort of Albania of the desert, all greasy gloom and dreary, Baghdad knew how to frolic.

Yeah, baby!

. . . and here's another Baghdad slice-of-life from Toronto Star reporter Rosie Di Manno.

At one local police station the other day, reporters found a stash of curious documents. Nothing earth-shaking, just a list of local barbers and hairdressers, all of whom had to sign agreements with the authorities in exchange for their licences promising to provide to security agencies all the idle gossip overheard in their establishments: Who might have made a disparaging remark about Saddam's wife, who was rumoured to have a little too much money in her handbag, whose son had perhaps slipped out of the country — anything that might be used to threaten and punish.

The regime survived so long because it made tattle-tales and conspirators out of everybody. Iraqis were enslaved by their own betrayals and the conviction that all others were doing the same. There were jins — mean spirits — down every telephone line and telex machine. This is my favourite story: A United Nations worker from Ethiopia phones a colleague in New York, switching in mid-conversation from English to his native Amharic. At which point a voice cuts in, instructing the gentlemen to "please continue in a language we can understand.''

The stories of Iraqi oppression under Saddam keep coming. I missed this plea for the war from last month, by the Prime Minister of a Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

I found few people in Britain interested in the horrors of Baathist Iraq. The Baghdad regime was touted as a secular bulwark against radical Islamic Iran. The persecution of the Kurds was an embarrassment. But some principled people, mainly left-wing, understood our plight. While others funded Saddam, our allies pointed out the inconsistency of calling for democracy in eastern Europe while supporting a murderous dictator in the Middle East.

Where are these friends now? Regrettably, many are denouncing a war that would liberate Iraq. Like those who shunned us in the Eighties, some of our former friends find the martyrdom of the Iraqi people to be an irritant. They avert their eyes from the grisly truth of our suffering, while claiming concern at the human cost of war. The cost to Iraqis of sparing the Baathist dictatorship is rarely calculated.

I hope someone posts all the URLs of these exhortations by Kurds and Iraqis - it would be a pretty damning sight.

Another milestone. Kesher Talk has just banned its first troll. For a blog with comments, this is something of a rite of passage. You attract enough visitors, eventually people start hanging around who just want to generate a lot of outrage and don't care how they do it. Then you pay out the rope for awhile, and eventually you decide you've had enough.

The troll in question was not banned because particular political beliefs, nor because he/she repeatedly insulted the writers of this blog. The troll was banned because he/she repeatedly misrepresented what someone else had said, often by using selective quotes. In other words, the troll didn't fight fair. (Kind of like Aziz Poonawalla and tacitus, but as kings of their own blogs they get to write the rules there.)

If you fight fair, you can say anything you want in the comments on this blog.

A Mighty Wind. This is the funniest thing I have read in a while. It's basically about pomo academics being demoralized by the war. The last line is the best, but here's a warm-up:

Then a student in the audience spoke up. What good is criticism and theory, he asked, if "we concede in fact how much more important the actions of Noam Chomsky are in the world than all the writings of critical theorists combined?"

After all, he said, Mr. Fish had recently published an essay in Critical Inquiry arguing that philosophy didn't matter at all. Behind a table at the front of the room, Mr. Fish shook his head. "I think I'll let someone else answer the question," he said.

So Sander L. Gilman, a professor of liberal arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, replied instead. "I would make the argument that most criticism — and I would include Noam Chomsky in this — is a poison pill," he said. "I think one must be careful in assuming that intellectuals have some kind of insight. In fact, if the track record of intellectuals is any indication, not only have intellectuals been wrong almost all of the time, but they have been wrong in corrosive and destructive ways."

Mr. Fish nodded approvingly. "I like what that man said," he said. "I wish to deny the effectiveness of intellectual work. And especially, I always wish to counsel people against the decision to go into the academy because they hope to be effective beyond it."

Is this scene right out of a Christopher Guest movie or what?

(via Shoutin' Across the Pacific)

The Jewish unemployed? Say what? Aren't we supposed to be a rather wealthy crew? Isn't that part of the reason Jewish philanthropies are losing out in gifts as modern Jews turn their eyes on broader secular charities?

And yet, JTA reports the Jewish jobless are on the rise. Not that they have any evidence, mind you:

Though the numbers of the Jewish unemployed are not documented, Jewish vocational services across the country have seen a huge increase in clients seeking job counseling. And Jewish social-service agencies are finding themselves inundated with new demands, from requests for psychological counseling to assistance for basic needs.

Hmm... extrapolate from anecdotes and cry havoc? Better yet, blame it on government "cuts":

But the agencies are facing a double challenge — serving a larger, higher-skilled clientele at the same time that government funding has been slashed.

This is just insulting. Jews as an ethnic/religious group prospered in America and other nations by helping themselves. We did not demand or expect any help from the government. When we are among the most prosperous people in our country, and living in the most prosperous country in the world, why must anyone beg for government funds? And why on earth are Jewish agencies dependent on government money? Am I the only person who finds something wrong with this picture?

Sunday, April 27, 2003

Shavuot count-down: Day 11 of counting the Omer. Using Kabbalistic symbology for counting the Omer - the days between the 2nd night of Pesach and the start of Shavuot - tonight begins the Netzach of Gevurah: Endurance in Discipline. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:

Effective discipline must be enduring and tenacious. Is my discipline consistent or only when forced? Do I follow through with discipline? Am I perceived as a weak disciplinarian?

(More on counting the Omer here)

War-related URLs. As I've said before, timely stuff goes to Command Post, stuff with shelf life goes here.

I've always voted Democrat. But. Heh.

This site is sort of a clipping service for stories about Iraq Reconstruction architect General Jay Garner.

In the interest of inter-cultural understanding, the BBC contributes a handy guide to Iraqi non-verbal expressions like hitting toppled statues of Saddam with shoes.

DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.

Junk science, big lies, and consensual reality. This is a chronological record of a controversy which arose this week over Aziz Poonwalla's post about Israel's WMDs.

Initially, Aziz Poonwalla poses a simple question, with a complicated answer about which reasonable people can disagree: Why does Israel need WMDs? And indeed, some of the commenters attempt to respond to that question, pro and con. However, near the end of his post he inserts a bit of unsupported rumor that recalls the centuries-old pattern of blood libel:

and perhaps even more alarmingly, Israel may be developing what can only be called a Weapon of Mass Genocide (WMG) - a bioweapon targeted at Arabs which would leave Jews unaffected.

If you don't understand the reference or think the comparison is overblown, you are not alone. But keep reading, because that's what Joe, Diane, Aziz, Ikram, Charles, Meryl, E. Nough, Tacitus, Laurence, and many others started arguing about. Ultimately - as Joe Katzman and Armed Liberal point out - this controversy is about consensual reality: if we do not live in a world where verifiable facts have the same influence on everyone, what do we have left?

(In this debate which ranges over at least five popular blogs and many commenters, most of the action is in the comment threads, so be sure to read them. And if you want to know what I think, look for comments by "Yehudit.")

Aziz's original post: Why does Israel need WMDs?

Comment thread on Aziz's post.

E. Nough responds. (Since Blogspot has been refusing to link to permalinks for about 3 weeks, scroll down to entry for April 19th.) (I'm not giving a link specifically to E's comments, since they don't add any information to the debate.)

Joe Katzman responds to Aziz at Winds of Change. (Scroll down for comment thread.)

Aziz responds to Joe, and tries to wring a little sympathy by portraying himself as the victim of undeserved slurs by Meryl, Laurence and Diane. (Well, Laurence is the proud master of over-the-top undeserved slurs, but read Meryl's and Diane's comments and decide for yourself whether Aziz characterizes them fairly.)

Comment thread on Aziz's post.

Meryl's response.

Laurence's response focuses on projection: Are the Arabs in fact doing what they are accusing the Jews of doing? And gives some examples. From his comment thread (scroll down):

Amer al-Saadi, Saddam's chief negotiator in the discussions with UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, was once himself the head of the poison gas programme and used to have excellent contacts in Germany. His well situated family still lives in Hamburg. Germany had the technology, and it had manufacturers who didn't ask why Iraq needed such big fertiliser plants, so al-Saadi sent his buyers to Germany. At one of the meetings the Iraqis remarked: "You have so much experience with using gas to kill Jews." And asked bluntly: "How can we make use of that to destroy Israel?"

Meanwhile Aziz goes looking for support from the scientific community. He asks for comments from Gene Expression, a science blog. (In addition to the post itself, scroll way down past two posts on SARS for the comment thread, which includes two long technical comments on the feasibility of the genetic bomb.)

Aziz then goes to Trash Talk, a web forum that debunks junk science.
Moderator's laconic response to Aziz: The last time we discussed this myth.
At some point Meryl shows up and tells everyone in the thread what Aziz's agenda is.
Aziz responds with a link to a speech by a Jew telling us that we are too quick to charge anti-semitism. (As you read the various posts and comments, you can judge for yourself whether a charge of anti-semitism is unwarranted.)
Moderator's laconic response: "Nice to have you visit, Meryl. I propose this thread be consigned to Mixed Nuts."
Aziz continues to try to get the answer he wants, while other participants respond that he is "trying to prove a negative." Finally one responds:

Aziz,

I guess the good news from your perspective would be that it doesn't have to work - it just has to be loudly proclaimed "not impossible", and developed into a mantra to that effect. Thus, the Arab street may remain inflamed enough to promote continued justification for their own genocidal agendae, and can cite the mantra whenever challenged on any moral basis.

I don't speak for the board, and am commenting here strictly as a member - but I don't appreciate your obvious attempt to parlay the hard-earned objectivity of many members of this board into rationale for your apparent scare campaign. The fact that nobody here is calling you a nutbar outright, is far from acquiescence to the practical possibility that anyone anywhere is actually attempting to develop such "genetic weapons".

Joe responds again, sounding a bit peeved. (Scroll down for comments.)

Joe devotes a post to my example of fantastical Arab rumors about diabolical Jewish medical plots. Scroll down to comments and you will find the URLs for the "sex chewing gum" story and similar accusations against Israel. Joe comes up with the slogan: "DEMOCRACY! WRIGLEY'S! SEXY!"

Winds of Change contributor Celeste Bilby weighs in with a few more "big lies." Scroll down for comments which point out some truth in some "big lies."

Little Green Footballs links to the story. (200 comments last I looked - make yourself a pot of tea while the page is loading.) Joe and Charles show up in each other's comment threads. Someone points to an article about Jewish genetics. Someone else points to an article in the Arab press debunking the junk science.

In Cairo, Ahmed Mostagir, a specialist in genetics, said the production of such a weapon is theoretically possible, but it will not be able to distinguish between Arabs and Oriental Jews. "This new technology is an offshoot of genetic engineering," Mostagir said. "If the British newspaper's report is correct, this means that Israelis have made extensive studies on Arab and Jewish genes, and reached the conclusion that the Arabs have certain genes which the Jews do not have, and which could be targeted by a genetically-engineered virus."

Mostagir explained that 99.5 per cent of the genes of all the peoples of the world are identical. Genetic differences do not exceed one half per cent. But since many Jews have Arab origins, "they too will be victims of this horrible ethnic bullet," he said.

In other words, what most of us arguing against Aziz said. A very determined troll keeps throwing out "William Cohen" and "Jane's Defense" and gets repeatedly hammered. There are several learned explanations of the science involved. I point to a lengthy discussion of the original question. And there's much much more.

At this point Joe, Charles, Porphyrogenitus, and Diane have all recounted - in various threads - similar previous bad experiences trying to debate an issue with Aziz.

Joe links to Charles and has some more thoughts. (Scroll down for comments.)

Tacitus - excuse me, T a c i t u s - comes to the aid of his buddy Aziz with a pompous post with a pompous title ("An Open Challenge to Pro-Israeli Partisans"). (Scroll down for comments, almost all of which disagree with him.)

Grasshoppa weighs in with many links on fantastical rumors about evil Jewish doings, and a story about real Israeli scientists trying to cure a blood disease of Palestinian children and being hampered by the European academic boycott.

That's all for now, but check back.

UPDATE: Little Green Footballs links to this post. Thanks, Charles!

Meryl responds to Tacitus again.

Meanwhile, Thomas Nephew has some windy and vague speculations on the ethnobomb rumors.

Trivial Pursuits has some comments. (Scroll down for post.)

Junkyard Blog embeds this debate in speculation about how many moderate Muslims there are, and how moderate are they?

And here is Meryl again:

Like, Joe was reading a post by Aziz, and Aziz was like, whoa, Israel is making an Arab gene bomb, and Joe was like, whoa, Aziz, that's a load of crap and, like, dude, anti-Semites use that line and Aziz was like, no, Israel is making a gene bomb, dude, and Joe was like, take it back, dude, or we're not gonna be buds anymore. So then Diane and Judith said, whoa, dude, those are anti-Semitic lies, and Aziz said, dudes, why are you all ganging up on me? . . .

There's more. Dude.

And a final salvo from Meryl.

Oh wait. We're not done. Or rather, I think we're all done except for Aziz. Aziz, that horse is not getting up again anytime soon. That horse has rung down the curtain and gone to join the choir invisibule. You can stop beating it so hard, because that. Is. An. Exhorse!

This sentence caught my eye: "I do not expect any Jew to denounce WMG any more than I expect any muslim to denounce terrorism." I'm sorry you have such low expectations, Aziz, but every Jew in the blog discussion did denounce WMG, whether you expected it from us or not. And the fact that you don't expect any muslims to denounce terrorism . . . well, that's sort of the problem, isn't it?

Then there's this one: More gobbledegook about the science of ethnobombs, then a little zinger at the end: "That Rabi and Szilard and Einstein, all Jews, could be on opposite sides of that debate 60 years ago also seems to insulate any Jew today from pressure to condemn new technologies today." I'm not even going to try to figure out what that means in English.

Aziz's most recent post. Does it make you dizzy, Aziz, to spin that fast?

And Martin Kramer takes aim at the latest rumor.

And Joe has some tips for defusing conspiracy theories.

And Armed Liberal revisits the original question (remember the original question?): Does Israel have a right to WMDs?

Learning from each other. The US Armed Forces have looked to Israel for expertise in urban fighting and US police forces have also looked to the IDF for training in handling terrorist attacks.

But Israel returns the favor.

"I am jealous of them [U.S. military]," Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, head of the Israel military's C4 directorate, said. "They have advanced in areas that we were leading in only a few years ago. They have the ability to put everything together in command and control. Our navy and air force have systems. but we have to integrate them."

Officials and military commanders agreed that the U.S. war in Iraq overshadowed the 1967 Israeli victory over four Arab countries, including Iraq. They said the United States sustained about 100 casualties in three weeks of fighting that resulted in the capture of Baghdad and most Iraqi cities. In contrast, about 600 Israeli soldiers were killed in the six days of the 1967 war, most of them in the ground battle with Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula.

Primary lessons seem to be: avoid direct engagement with the enemy, establish superiority with technology, and integrate all forces to work seamlessly together.

International Academic Friends of Israel. Remember Mona Baker and the campaign to boycott Israeli academics? The bad news is that, although they are controversial, boycotts continue.

Indoor Biotechnologies Limited, a British biosupply company, is contemplating not providing products or information to Israeli scientists. Norwegian scientists refused to provide chemicals to Israeli genetic researchers in direct contravention of accepted scientific practices.

Dr. Yoren Yiftachel of Ben-Gurion University sent an article he co-authored with a Palestinian to the British journal Political Geography. The article was returned, unopened, with a note saying the publication could not accept an article from Israel.

Steps to have Israel join several large European scientific projects have been postponed until further notice — for example, accepting Israel as a member of a particle acceleration project at the CERN laboratory in Geneva.

"Every year we send most of our research papers abroad for refereeing," says Professor Paul Zinger, the outgoing head of the Israel Science Foundation. "We send out about 7,000 papers a year. This year, for the first time, we had people writing back - about 25 of them - saying, 'We refuse to look at these.'" At the Academic Study Group on Israel and the Middle East, a fund for joint projects between Israeli and British universities, the number of people applying for grants has fallen by a third. "There is a palpable slowing down of academic activity," says John Levy, who helps run the fund. "We're not even attempting to set up [joint] workshops. What we're encountering is very many people who are saying, 'Can we simply delay matters?'"

. . . the nature of Israel's academic pre-eminence makes it vulnerable to a boycott. "We are top of the world league with Switzerland and, I think, Sweden for the proportion of research projects that are international collaborations," says Zinger. "Close to 40% of papers published in Israel involve cooperation abroad." For complicated and expensive scientific research, there is often no alternative; yet for the weightiest historical and political reasons, campus links between Israel and its Arab neighbours have always been limited. Instead, Israel has developed academic connections with the west, and Europe in particular - which has its own equally weighty historical reasons, notably the holocaust, to treat it generously. Israel receives subsidies from EU funds for scientific research, the only non-member state to do so. "In the most recent four-year framework programme, we paid in €150m," says Zinger, "and we got research grants of €165m."

The good news is that a professor at Columbia University has set up an organization to counter the boycotts called International Academic Friends of Israel. Dr. Andrew Marks, a cardiologist, hopes to

raise funds to support academic and scientific conferences in Israel, promote networking opportunities for young Israeli researchers now denied such contacts, and publicize Israel’s scientific and academic achievements around the world.

What is the special relationship between Britain and Syria? It is not strategic. According to Barry Shaw, it is economic and personal.

The linchpin is London-based multi-millionaire, Wafik Said, a Syrian who holds Saudi citizenship. Said arranged a massive defense contract between Britain and Saudi Arabia known as the Al-Yamamah project.

Said has earned millions of dollars from arms deals between Britain and Saudi Arabia. Said is also a close friend of Bashir Assad. He is one of the biggest investors in Syria. He, together with Rafik Harari, the Lebanese Prime Minister, and a firm called Barakah (thought to be linked to Al-Qaida) set up a consortium two years ago for investing in Syria.

Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Britain owe something to Wafik Said who is using his connections not only for economic reasons but for diplomatic purposes as well. These connections assure Bashir Assad of British support, even in the face of heavy American pressure. Only last week Assad received a reassuring phone call from Tony Blair. This was quickly followed by Britain's Foreign Minister dismissing U.S. accusations against Syria.

Kesher Talk

Saturday, May 03, 2003

Friday, May 02, 2003

Thursday, May 01, 2003

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

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