Soccer Dad: Around the web, 9/29/05

September 29, 2005

Around the web, 9/29/05

Elder of Ziyon notes that there's an effort to publicize the plight of Jews who were forced from Arab lands. He notes an irony:

It always amazes me to see how much attention the world pays to Palestinian refugees and their descendents, and how little to the larger number of Jewish refugees, direct victims of bigotry by Arab nations.

When you have that sort of imbalance it leads to jobs like the one held by John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. Daled Amos wryly notes that the exaggerated emphasis on Palestinian refugees necessitates that:

... he only reports on human rights issues as they apply to Israel's actions, and not the Palestinian Arabs.

And that also means that Israeli actions are judged not by whether they conform to previous agreements but whether Israel's enemies judge them to be sufficient. As Biur Chametz observes:

Take the Golan Heights, for example. Or eastern Jerusalem. No country recognizes Israel's sovereignty over them, despite decades of formal annexation to Israel. And no country will until our enemies do. Until such time, they're on the negotiating table, whether we like it or not.

(emphasis mine)

IOW, the lack of peace in the Middle East is due to giving those least committed to co-existence veto power over the peace process.

In Fracture Lines, Indepundit tells of the discovery a Bush bashing Jewish man makes:

JAMAL KANJ, a fiery Palestinian from a group called Al-Awda, takes the podium. �We Palestinians,� he begins, �have been subjected to GENOCIDE at the hands of the Israelis for generations." He rants on. "In 1948, they forced us out of our homes, and today we must DRIVE THE JEWS FROM PALESTINE!�

Suddenly, a middle-aged man wearing a black �F the President� T-shirt rushes the stage, screaming at Kanj, �I�m TIRED of this CRAP! You people keep bringing this up! This is supposed to be an ANTI-WAR rally, not an ANTI-ISRAEL rally!�

Kanj yells back, into the microphone. Others in the crowd stand up and join in the shouting match.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has arrived in San Diego.

This could be described as a Michael Lerner Moment. Not that t-shirt guy or Lerner actually internalize the lesson they learned; at least they had a flash of recognition about the nature of their allies.

Yesterday, Gov Blanco was in D.C. asking for help from the feds.

This brought up two thoughts.
1) She apparently reads (though we don't know if she pays for) John Tierney as Just One Minute notes, in anticipation of Hurricane Rita she announced:

''If some people insist on staying -- perhaps they should write their Social Security number on their arms with indelible ink..."

2) Congressman Bobby Jindal wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal describing his experiences getting help for his constituents after Katrina. Instead of asking for help, Rep. Jindal secured the help, from private industry:

My office became so frustrated with the bureaucracy that we often turned to private companies. They responded more quickly and flexibly.

After our staff visited communities to assess local needs, Budweiser delivered truckloads of water and ice. Ford provided vehicles for search and rescue. Every company we contacted provided goods and services without compensation.

This can-do attitude made an impression on KesherTalk:

The guy who didn�t get elected governor of Louisiana talks about red tape. (You know how many of us were so relieved after 9-11 that Gore didn�t become President? Well, this is the same story in reverse. If Bobby Jindal had won the governor�s race in Louisiana, many more people would be alive today.)

Doing a riff on a comment I made, Serandez introduces a new way to attract interest to a growing blog: a self carnival.

Finally, Not Quite Perfect celebrates her 200th post with an awesome "fireworks' display.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Katrina, fractals, blogging.