We're All Blue and White

Today is Yom HaAtzmaut, Independence Day. On this day, 60 years ago, the State of Israel reconstituted itself as a modern nation-state. It's been a bumpy ride, but it looks like Israel is here to stay.

So get the flag out, show your pride, and remember the bumper sticker I saw last week: Kulanu kachol v'lavan!

We're all blue and white!

Musings on Rembrance

Last Thursday was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. It's the day set aside by the State of Israel to remember the victims of the Holocaust. It's a national day of memorial.

We mark it with solemnity. Most of the Israeli TV stations go off the air, and the rest show histories, documentaries, or memorial services. The evening before, there is a national memorial ceremony, and in the morning, at 10, the civil defense sirens, all over the country, sound for 2 minutes, and everyone stands to attention, and remembers. It doesn't matter what you're doing when the sirens sound; you stop, and stand in silence.

A friend of mine from the States recently sent me this article from the Ann Arbor News:

Holocaust myth of 'passive Jews' contradicted by researchers

Today, as Jews observe Yom Ha Shoah, the remembrance of the Holocaust, I hear again the question, "Why didn't the Jews resist?'' and I am angry. The myth of "the passive Jew'' has joined the folklore of bigotry along with the myth of "the happy Negro'' in the pre-Civil War South.
...
Although armed resistance was rare before 1942, when the truth about the camps leaked into the ghettoes, nonviolent resistance was common. Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer cites a study of 73 Jewish councils in southeastern Poland, which showed that 45 resisted, even before they knew their lives were in danger. Resistance included refusals to hand over names of people, money and clothing to the Nazis. Sixteen of the chairmen of the councils were later executed; five others committed suicide. More than 40 ghettoes in Eastern Europe had armed underground units.
...
But Jewish resistance failed. Lack of arms was one reason. Lack of contact between ghettoes and with Jews on an international level was another. Also, the Jews were being systematically starved. According to Bauer, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto lived on 336 calories a day, a third of which was smuggled in by children who were shot if they were caught. No social or medical services were available.

It's an interesting article; go ahead and read it all. It stuck in my mind, and struck me especially poignant as I was walking Big Girl home from gan that day. She's 5, and I didn't know how much of Yom HaShoah I could explain to her. She explained it to me, though.

"Abba, today, when we heard the wee-ooo, we all stood like this [she stood to attention -M] and did not talk because it's a day to remember that meah v'shesh [106 -M] Jewish guys died because of the Germanim [Germans -M], and we are very sad."

Sometimes, gan makes things too easy on a parent, even if Big Girl can't quite grasp the difference between 100 and 1 million (let's face it, after 'a lot,' the size of the number sort of loses its meaning...). I asked her what else she knew.

"Abba, the Jewish guys died because we did not have a tzavah [army -M] and they weren't strong. But now we have a medinah [national state -M] and a tzavah, and no one will make it happen again."

We talked about the shoah a lot more, on the walk home and later in the evening when my wife got home from work, but those were the important points, and even a 5 year old could understand them. When we didn't have a country, we were vulnerable; with a country, we are strong.

Yom HaShoah is set on the anniversary of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, when the tattered remnant of the Jews of Poland decided that enough was enough, raised the Star of David over their couple of city blocks, and defied the full might of the Third Reich.

They were slaughtered, of course. They had little food, and fewer weapons, and in their 4 weeks of resistance they managed to kill 100 German soldiers, while the ghetto was wiped out. They had no illusions about their resistance; they were taking the Samson Option, without divine strength, and they knew it. They knew how it would turn out.

We honor their memory, and the memories of all who died in those years, and we hold the solemn public ceremonies and sound the sirens and stand for our moment of silence to show the world and ourselves just how much we remember and honor the fallen, but all of that is a window trapping.

We honor their memory when we teach our children that now we have a tzavah, and a medinah, and that there is no reason to be afraid anymore. We honor their memory when our children learn that resistance is active, and lives must be lived, and defended.

The Really Good Meme, Redux

Well, it was bound to happen: I was tagged again, this time by Snoopy the Goon, over at Simply Jews. Skate on over and read his blog; it's a good one, and if you like my politics, you'll love Snoopy's...

Anyway, to the tag:

Last June, I posted a Really Good Meme, about books. Today's tag is a variant of that one. Normally, I wouldn't do the same tag twice, but it's a good one, I enjoyed it, and it's been almost a year. So, here are the rules:

1) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Find the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences.
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

And now, going to page 123 of the nearest book on my desk, we find the 6th, 7th, and 8th sentences:

Polaris was up there, and Mars. It seemed to the gunslinger that, if he closed his eyes he would be able to hear the croaking of the first spring peepers, smell the green and almost-summer smell of the court lawns after their first cutting (and hear, perhaps, the indolent clicks of croquet balls as the ladies of the East Wing, attired only in their shifts as dusk glimmered toward dark, played at Points), could almost see Aileen as she came through the break in the hedges--
It was not like him to think so much of the past.

Yeah, I've been reading The Gunslinger again. It's easily the best of Stephen King's Dark Tower books, and I come back to it every couple of years.

The five people I'm tagging are:
Edith, Jeff at ONAF, Jim in Texas, Donald at American Power (Don, great blog, but lighten up!), and Angel at WHT.

And for everyone else, what are you reading? Go ahead post your own answer in the comments. This is actually a fun meme, and there's no reason to limit to the people who actually get tagged.

Correcting Carter's Gratuitous Errors, OR, "Let Them Eat Peanuts!"

Jimmy Carter's fact-finding study mission to the Middle East has ended, and he's heading home. He leaves behind a mission that came to an abject failure, not least because the former President failed to learn or study anything that did not accord with this preconceived notions.

The full extent of Carter's mendacity has been covered elsewhere, in excruciating detail, so I'm only going to focus on one particularly egregious mistake in the learned peacemaker's statements. You can find it here:

Former US President Jimmy Carter says Palestinian Authority Arabs living in Gaza are being “starved to death” by Israel.

Carter made the claim speaking with students at the American University in Cairo on Thursday, saying that Gaza Arabs are receiving fewer calories per day than people in the poorest regions of Africa.

“It’s an atrocity, what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza,” said Carter. “It is a crime… I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on.”

Before I continue, I want to direct the atention Mr. Carter's attention to two photographs I found online. First, here are starving children in Zimbabwe:

As you can see, and as I would hope Mr. Carter can see, too, these kids are desperate enough for food that they are scrounging around in a garbage dump looking for eggs. That's hunger; that's the edge of starvation.

When we compare them with Palestinian youths in Gaza, this is what we see:














Not only do the Palestinian kids appear to be active and well nourished, but they also seem to have an advocate looking our for their welfare, in a brave Hamas soldier getting ready to defend them, as he sets up his mortar anti-tank missle launcher among them. [Thanks to Snoopy the Goon for the correction. -M]

Sarcasm aside, I think we can see the difference in priorities between those who are truly starving, and those who are whining to get attention. Carter, however, cannot, and like so many useful idiots, he's prepared to believe whatever Hamas tells him.

And what Hamas tells him is all he actually knows about Gaza, because he didn't go there:

The former president has not actually visited Gaza; Israel declined to authorize his use of the Israel-Gaza crossings and there were no indications he requested an entry from Egypt. [emphasis mine -M]

Carter also neglects to mention that during his very hug fest with Hamas, those same good folks were busy attacking the Nahal Oz fuel depot and the Kerem Shalom border crossing. There is a reason why the Gaza border is closed, and it has nothing to do with the shipments of fuel and food that go through.

The Best Fried Matzah You'll Ever Have

Well, it's Pesach. This is one of my favorite holidays. I've always loved the combination of ritual, storytelling, and company that makes the seder, and I must admit, I even like matzah.

So we were with friends for the seder. It was a great time. There were over 20 guests, mostly fellow Anglos, but also some Russians and sabras, not counting the dozen or so little kids, and the whole thing was conducted in a mix of Hebrew and English (each language followed by the appropriate translations). When we got home at midnight, Big Girl was still awake. Sabra Girl had passed out two hours earlier. New Baby woke up on the way home, ready to play.

Anyway, to the title of this post:

Take 5 pieces of regular matzah (even shmura matzah will work) and crumble them into a large mixing bowl.
Add just enough hot water to cover the crushed matzah, and let it stand for 5 minutes. Drain the water.
Crack four eggs into the bowl and mix thoroughly. Add cinnamon and mix again.

Melt two pats of butter in a non-stick pan. Pour the matzah mix into the pan and let it sit until it's firm. Flip the whole thing (in one piece), and let it cook until the inside is just starting to dry out.

Put it on a serving plate, and take it to the table. Serve hot, with melted butter, and jelly or honey. Serves four.

Even Big Girl eats this, and she's a picky 5 year old, so it must be good.

B'teiavon, u'l'hitraot!

Why Is this Night Different from All Other Nights?

Don't even ask that right now. Please.

We're cleaning the kitchen for Pesach today. Sometimes, I wish the Jewish tradition had thought to combine Pesach and Sukkot, so that we could just sell the whole house as hametz, and go live in a tent for a week.

So to all my Jewish readers out there, hag Pesach kasher v'sameach!

And for my non-Jewish readers, you all have a great weekend.

I'll be back on Monday. Maybe.

L'hitraot!

Personal Politics

I read World Net Daily (OK, I skim it, and try to bypass the nutso-bonkers articles, which I'll admit is getting more difficult lately) on a semi-regular basis (see my previous parenthetical), but the other day I found a column by Dennis Prager that really struck home. While I don't agree 100% with his positions and reasons, his column does a good job of describing the disaffection and disconnection I have felt in regards to the Democratic Party:

The Democratic Party's preoccupation with the question of when America will leave Iraq rather than with how America will win in Iraq reminds me of how and why this nearly lifelong liberal and Democrat became identified as a conservative and Republican activist.

I have identified as liberal all my life. How could I not? I was raised a Jew in New York City, where I did graduate work in the social sciences at Columbia University. It is almost redundant to call a New York Jewish intellectual a liberal. [I was born in the East, and raised in Metro Detroit. My degree is in political science and history. -M] In fact, I never voted for a Republican candidate for president until Ronald Reagan in 1980. But I have not voted for a Democrat since 1980. [The first election I could vote was 1992. I voted straight Democrat until 2000, when I started voting every open office individually, but still voted 85% Dem. -M]

What happened? Did I suddenly change my values in 1980? Or did liberalism? Obviously, one (or both) of us changed.

...liberalism's moral compass broke. It did so during the Vietnam War, though I could not bring myself to vote Republican until 1980.... [I've noticed this over the last 5 or 6 years, and am coming to the same conclusion that Prager reached in 1980. -M]

...I had always identified the Democratic Party and liberalism with anti-communism. Indeed, the labor movement and the Democratic Party actually led American opposition to communism. It was the Democrat Harry Truman, not Republicans, who made the difficult and unpopular decision to fight another war just a few years after World War II – the war against Chinese and Korean Communists. It was Democrats – John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson – who also led the war against Chinese and Vietnamese Communists. [I always identified the Dems with pushing a social agenda. This past Congress, however, I was repulsed by their disregard for everything except obstructing Bush. I don't like him, either, but we need to work with they guy.... -M]

Then Vietnam occurred, and Democrats and liberals (in academia, labor and the media) abandoned that war and abandoned millions of Asians to totalitarianism and death, defamed America's military, became anti-war instead of anti-evil, became anti-anti-communist instead of anti-communist, and embraced isolationism, a doctrine I and others previously had always associated with conservatives and the Republican Party. This change was perfectly exemplified in 1972, when the Democratic presidential nominee, George McGovern, ran on the platform "Come home, America."

This in turn led to the liberal embrace of the immoral doctrine of moral equivalence. As I was taught at Columbia, where I studied international relations, America was equally responsible for the Cold War, and there was little moral difference between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. They were essentially two superpowers, each looking out for its imperialist self-interest. I will never forget when the professor of my graduate seminar in advanced Communist Studies, Zbigniew Brzezinski, chided me for using the word "totalitarian" to describe the Soviet Union. ["Moral equivalence" just leads to Jimmy Carter hugging Hamas terrorists and paying homage to Arafat's grave. Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I don't think that cold blooded, genocidal murderers are equivalent to me, or to any civilized person, in any way! -M]

I recall, too, asking the late eminent liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, in a public forum in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, if he would say that America was, all things considered, a better, i.e., more moral, society than Soviet society. He said he would not.
...
Identifying and confronting evil remains the Achilles' heel of liberals, progressives and the rest of the left. It was not only communism that post-Vietnam liberals refused to identify as evil and forcefully confront. Every major liberal newspaper in America condemned Israel's 1981 destruction of Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor (in which one person – a French agent there to aid the Israeli bombers, and who therefore knowingly risked his life – was killed). As the New York Times editorialized: "Israel's sneak attack … was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression." [But they never said anything like that in regard to Iraq's attack on Iran in 1980, or the bilateral use of chemical weapons in that war, which generated a justifiable fear that Iraq would use nuclear weapons if it had them. -M]

Most Democrats in Congress even opposed the first Gulf War, sanctioned by the United Nations and international law, against Saddam Hussein's Iraq and its bloody annexation of Kuwait. [And now they argue that we have to get the UN imprimatur for every action. Please, choose one or the other, but be consistent.... -M]

And today, the liberal and Democratic world's only concern with regard to Iraq, where America is engaged in the greatest current battle against organized evil, is how soon America can withdraw.

There were an even larger number of domestic issues that alienated this erstwhile liberal and Democrat. But nothing quite compares with liberal and progressive abandonment of the war against evil, the most important venture the human race must engage in every generation. [That's the language my grandparents used when they talked about "the War," and it's a language I have rarely, if ever, heard my parents use. We had a whole generation miss the basic fact that there are some actual moral absolutes. -M]

Sorry to throw such a lengthy quotation at you, but if you fast forward his experiences by 30 years, you'll get a good idea of where I stand. I knee-jerk voted for Gore in 2000, held my nose and voted for Kerry in 2004, but I absolutely cannot bring myself to vote for any of the current crop of Dems, except maybe for Joe Lieberman.

And he has to run as an independent, because he's not far enough to the left for ideological roots.

Whatever happened to the days when there truly were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, and the word "liberal" meant adherence to the concept of a social conscience, and to using the State for the betterment of society, rather than sticking to the far left of the political spectrum?

And this is what to think about, as head towards another national election cycle. And I do mean "we," because even us ex-pats can vote in the national races, and I intend to do so.

Defending the Indefensible, OR, Peanuts Cause Brain Cell Loss

In Yahoo news today, I found this lovely article about former President Jimmy Carter, and his Hamas legitimation trip, and I just can't help but comment.... Let's take a look, shall we?

Former President Jimmy Carter said he feels "quite at ease" about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel.

Amazing. A terrorist group, responsible for hundreds of rocket attacks against unarmed, unwarned civilians, who's charter calls for the indiscriminate murder of all Jews, and which knocked down a foreign border!, puts Carter "at ease." Well, if you can judge a man by the company he keeps, then I suppose this says a lot about Carter, and his moral compass....

"I feel quite at ease in doing this," Carter said. "I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."

Of course, because we all know how well they honor even their own "unilateral cease fires!"

I wonder if Jimmy ever considered that Hamas might not be interested in peace, but is more interested in shooting rockets at people? It must be nice, living in Jimmy's world, with the sky always clear, and the sun always bright....

Asked whether it was right to meet a group that has not renounced violence or recognized Israel, he said, "Well, you can't always get prerequisites adopted by other people before you even talk to them."

But that, of course, is exactly what everyone wants Israel to do, even the PA "moderates:"

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly will break off peace talks with Israel, unless Israel comes through with concessions by April.

And here we are in April, and good ol' President Carter is off to have "talks." Of course, they won't actually be any sort of negotiation, because Carter has, well, ZERO authority to treat with anyone on any sort of diplomatic subject. But I'm sure that Mashaal (you know, the guy who thinks indiscriminate rocket attacks are A-OK) will come out looking good, because he got to talk to a real, live, President.

I wonder, though, just how brave is Mashaal, that he exhorts his terrorists to go and fight Israel, while he hids in Syria? Kind of like Hezbollah's Nasrallah, constantly declaring victory by video conference, because he won't leave his bunker. Yeah, these brave Jihad leaders seem real keen to have the other guy be the suicide bomber.... And Jimmy Carter feels perfectly at ease with them. Heck, even Condoleeza Rice can't believe him:

"I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace," Rice said Friday...

And it's not just the terrorists that Carter seems to cozy up to:

As president, Carter led the boycott of the Moscow Olympics in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. "That was a totally different experience in 1980, when the Soviet Union had brutally invaded and killed thousands and thousands of people," he said, rejecting the idea of boycotting the Beijing games to protest China's crackdown in Tibet.

Perhaps he should get his eyes checked, if he can't see what's been happening in Tibet for the last few decades. But then, he's cut such an impressive figure since 1980, hasn't he? He'd've been better off sticking with Habitat for Humanity, and maybe leaving a decent legacy.

Nope, it's much better to hang out with terrorists.

"I've been meeting with Hamas leaders for years," Carter said.

Yup. You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.

Drills

Since Sunday, Israel's Homefront Command has been conducting nationwide civil defense drills. Their purpose is to test the planning and preparations the Army and Government have been making should another war break out.

This is a really good idea. I remember how, during the Lebanon War two years ago, it seemed that there was no central plan to open bomb shelters, distribute food supplies, or even just check up on local residents. It's good to see that the higher ups are finally adapting to the change in conditions.

So what does a nationwide civil defense drill mean for a civilian like me? Oddly enough, not too much. Last month, the city finished the renovations on the miklat (shelter) in our building, and a couple of weeks ago the lady in the apartment next door came by, explained that she's now the city's representative in our building, and collected some information from us (names, ages, number of kids and their names and ages, emergency contact information) so that the city would be able to distribute resources in the event of an emergency. And yesterday, they sounded the civil defense sirens at 10am.

That part touched everyone, because they sounded the sirens through the entire country, except for Sderot and its environs. Big Girl told us all about it the night before.

"Abba, pretend that the kitchen is a machsan (storeroom, which is how her gan uses the miklat), and the couch is the class, and it's tomorrow when the siren will go 'Wee-ooo wee-ooo,' and this is what we will do." And then she walked very slowly, with her arms at her sides, from the couch to the kitchen, where she sat down.

Yesterday, on the way home from gan, she told me more: "Abba, today we heard the sirens, and everyone went into the machsan. Really. And no one was scared, and our teacher told us that if we hear the sirens again, we have to go into the machsan and not be scared and listen to the grown ups."

I think that Big Girl has definitely learned everything she needs to know about sirens and bomb shelters. I wish she didn't need to learn it, but I'm glad that she's had a chance to practice. There was a good article in the Jerusalem Post about this, in relation to Israel generally.

And since we're on the subject of drills, my wife and I took Big Girl and Sabra Girl to the dentist this morning. What a thrill.

Sabra Girl didn't like the look of the dental chair. She cried, she screamed, she glommed onto ema and wouldn't let go. Eventually, my wife sat on the chair, Sabra Girl sat on her lap, and the dentist looked at her mouth and teeth. All good.

Big Girl was another story. She was a little scared, but she's been to the dentist before, so she knew it would be OK, and was able to sit still for it. They did X-rays.

Now, it seems to me that dental X-rays on a 5 year old are a little extreme. It's not like the teeth are permanent or the jaw has stopped growing, or anything, so whatever X-ray they do will be completely obsolete within a year. But it gets better: they recommended 8 fillings, a root canal, and crown.

Yeah, that was my reaction, too.

Big Girl is 5 years old. What kind of (Little Shop of Horrors dentist) idiot recommends extensive, and painful, dental work on a 5 year old?! I can understand the fillings. If she's got some small cavities, we shouldn't let them get worse. That's easy.

But a root canal? And a crown? On a 5 year old? That's 2000 shekels worth of extensive, and painful, dental work on a tooth that will fall out, no matter what we do or do not do, within 5 years? That's crazy, and I told 'em that. Fortunately, I told 'em that in English rather than Hebrew, so my wife was able to say, very nicely and politely, that we need to think things over and get back to them.

Which really means that we'll be getting a second opinion. And if Big Girl has a tooth which needs that much work, we think it'll be better, and much less traumatic for the kid, just to have it pulled.

And we're going to make some changes at home, too: less candy, and closer supervision of tooth brushing time. Oh, the joys of parenthood.

Triggers

You can never go back there again...

...Except when you do:

Last Friday, we had our normal evening routine: a good Shabbat dinner, followed by bedtime for the kids and together time for ema and abba. It's a good way to finish a week. And that night...

...I woke up in the middle of the night, caught in the most vivid dream I've had in years. Lying awake in the dark, I was sure that I was 10 years old again, that the last 25 years had been a dream, that I would roll over and find myself in my old room, that I would reach out and touch my old desk, that it would be a lazy Sunday morning in my youth....

...And then I realized why: I was hearing the distant strains of a piano, playing those old piano-lesson stand-bys, Heart and Soul and Fur Elise, and it had triggered memories of waking late and hearing my mother playing the piano in the living room at the other end of the house, the notes coming faint and distant to me through sleep and closed doors, but this time, the piano was upstairs, in an apartment above us, although the sound was no different, and the memory was so strong....

...And when I reached out, I found my wife, and my new baby, and came back to the present with a wonderful gift.

Fun and Cynicism with the News

Oh, it's a day... I woke up this morning when Sabra Girl came into our room and said, "Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba!"

"What is it?" I asked her, with one only one eye open, thinking she just wanted to snuggle, because she's a snuggly two year old.

"Abba," she said, with that little toddler lilt-n-laugh, "I got kaki!"

Lovely. That's how you always want to start the morning, you know?

The everything worked out, and the kids got off to gan or metapelet, and my wife went to work, and I sat down in the back office of the apartment to get to my work, and the day went on, and Earth kept speeding through space, and so on and so forth.

And later, I read the news. Wow, some of the headlines were too much, even for a cynic like me. Like this one, from the Jerusalem Post:

Al-Qaida's Zawahri says group doesn't kill innocents

Ok, so after I stopped laughing, I started reading:

Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri responded to criticism Wednesday about the organization's notoriously brutal tactics, maintaining that it does not kill innocents, in hour and a half long audio response to questions submitted to the movement on extremist Web sites.
...
"We haven't killed the innocents, not in Baghdad nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else," he said according to the English transcript which, like the audio message, appeared on Web sites linked to the group.

He might gave felt a little guilty about fibbing so baldly, because he went on to add this:

Zawahri said: "We promise our Muslim brothers that we will do the best we can to harm Jews in Israel and the world over, with Allah's help and according to his command."

Zawahri reassured many of the questioners, who seemed worried about the direction of the organization, that the global jihad was on track and would soon expand elsewhere.

"I expect the Jihadi influence to spread after the Americans' exit from Iraq, and to move towards Jerusalem," he said to those asking when attacks on Israel would take place.

Now there are some things I want to bring to your attention:

First, he said al-Qaida's mission is to harm Jews, not just in Israel (where we're evil Zionist occupiers, you know!), but anywhere in the world! Gosh, sounds peaceful and tolerant, right?

But second, look at his justification: "with Allah's help and according to his command." He's couching this is a religious imperative, not just for al-Qaida, but for all muslims. Kill the Jews. Not "Help the Palestinians get a state," not, "Bring justice to the oppressed," (he never mentions that at all), but "Kill the Jews."

That's the mindset of the enemy. That's what we're facing; that's what Israel stands against, as the vanguard of the Western world.

Now I was also wondering about this claim that Al-Qaida has never killed "innocents." What does he mean by an "innocent?" And his group did claim responsibility for September 11; weren't there at least a few "innocents" among the 3000 people they killed then?

Zawahri did have something to say about that:

"If there is any innocent who was killed in the Mujahideen's operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity," Zawahri added.

Hmmm.... Crashing airliners into buildings really can't be done unintentionally, so I guess he thinks it was "necessary" to kill 3000 people in one blow. So much for never killing innocents.

But even if you say, "Well, he was attacking America! He doesn't see America as innocent," I will still ask you, "What about this?"

The Iraqi military says a suicide bomber has attacked a checkpoint near Mosul, killing seven people and wounding 12.

The U.S. military confirms the Wednesday night attack but puts the toll at five dead and 19 wounded.

The blast occurred in the Addayah area about 20 miles west of Mosul while Iraqi soldiers were checking vehicles. The dead include a woman and a 5-year-old child.

Mosul is believed to be the last major urban center where al-Qaida maintains a substantial presence.

Again, hmmm.... Al-Qaida, known to use suicide bomber tactics, is active in an area where a bomber just blew up a bunch of people. His own people.

But they don't kill innocents. I guess that 5 year old was a vicious occupier....

And speaking of vicious occupiers, take a look at this:

PA police officer Na’al Yassin was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years at the IDF’s Salem Military Court in Samaria Wednesday for murdering Border Police Officer Yossi Tabijah in September, 2000.

The murder took place on September 29, during a joint PA and Israeli patrol mandated by the Oslo Accords outside the PA-controlled city of Kalkilya. An Israeli and PA jeep were parked next to each other when Yassin came out of the jeep, yelled Allahu Akbar and began firing inside the Israeli vehicle at the two Border Police inside. Tabijah was killed and his fellow officer was badly wounded in the attack.

At his trial, Yassin expressed confidence that he would be released from prison as part of a future deal and assured those present that he would kill Israelis again. He also said: “If you want peace, go back to Europe.” [emphasis mine -M]

And Yassin is one of the PA cops who's supposed to be stopping the terrorists. You'll pardon me, I think, if I say that this guy is emblematic of the problem Israel faces in "negotiating" with the PA. With "moderates" like these, who needs "extremists?"

Now I can't just end a post on something so somber, so let's take a quick look at the crime blotter, and see a real crime against humanity:

Israeli police are on the lookout for a thief with a super-sized chocolate craving.

The robbers broke into a factory in the northern Israeli city of Haifa late Monday and walked away with nearly 100 tons of chocolate spread.

Now, I like chocolate. A lot. But this thief had a serious jones on:

Moshe Veidberg, one of the company's owners, told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot it would require five large trucks to transport the stolen chocolate, which he valued at roughly $415,000.

That was back in February. There has been a new development:

Police have cracked the case of the theft of 100 tons of chocolate from a Haifa factory last month and found the goods in the storeroom of a Galilee Arab. Factory representatives identified tons of containers of chocolate spread as the stolen merchandise.

Personally, I think he ought to be sentenced to eat it. All of it. Without dental care. Good thing I don't sit on a bench, hey?

So just what is chocolate spread, for all you non-Israelis out there? It's the 5th food group here. Little kids love it. It's spreadable crack. Take a look:
Yeah. That's what Big Girl always wants to take to gan, for lunch. Great.

L'hitraot!