... in the Queen's Birthday Awards:
1 Order of Australia Companion in the General Division:
"Rachel Kohn, Mosman NSW. For distinguished service to the broadcast media, particularly radio, as a creator, producer and presenter, and to Jewish Studies."
Kohn, you may remember, ran a long-running series, The Spirit of Things, on the ABC's Radio National. Particularly memorable on that show was her platforming of Aaron Klein, author of a 2007 book with the following, excruciatingly grotesque, title: 'Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew!'
Then there was her 21/9/08 production, Ties that Bind: Jewish Australians and New Zealanders, for the ABC's Encounter program, in which she laments that "in Australia , there's little understanding... of that Jewish loyalty to Israel. Zionism is a term of opprobrium for so many Australian non-Jews," prompting her Rabbi interlocutor on the program to opine that "we're dealing with professional anti-Semites who who cloak their anti-Semitism by being unduly critical of Israel."
Just click on her label below and read the Klein interviews, and my 29/9/08 post The Lies that Blind.
2 Order of Australia Medal in the General Division:
"Robert Magid, NSW. For services to business and commerce, and to the Jewish community."
Now how coy is that description? Magid is the owner and publisher of that thoroughly Zionist rag, The Australian Jewish News.
Just click on his label below and read my 1/4/13 post Robert Magid's Guide for the Perplexed on his bizarre musing, The wrong of return, which appeared in The Australian Jewish News of 22/3/13. And, while you're at it, I suggest you also take in my 22/5/13 post 'When the Chips are Down': A Review on his lame anti-BDS satire, When the chips are down.
Showing posts with label Aaron Klein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aaron Klein. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
From Norman Vincent Peale to Steve Bannon
And from Bannon to Breitbart to Israel:
"It's hard to think of Steve Bannon as a low-profile guy... He is the executive chairman of the hard-right Breitbart News and the US president-elect chose Bannon last week as his chief strategist and senior counsellor... Here are a few things you've probably read about Steve Bannon in the past week: He's a white supremacist, bigot and anti-Semite... He's associated with the 'alt right' movement that, according to the New York Times, delights in 'harassing Jews, Muslims and other vulnerable groups by spewing shocking insults on social media'.
"Bannon is an aggressive political scrapper, but he says his views bear no relation to the media's description... Anti-Semitic? 'Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States of America. I have Breitbart Jerusalem which I have Aaron Klein run with about 10 reporters there. We've been a leader in stopping this BDS movement in the United States, we're a leader in the reporting of young Jewish students being harassed on American campuses, we've been a leader on reporting on the terrible plight of the Jews in Europe.' He adds that given his many Jewish partners and writers, 'guys like Joel Pollak, these claims of anti-Semitism just aren't serious'...
"He acknowledges the site is 'edgy' but insists it is 'vibrant'. He offers his own definition of the alt-right movement and explains how he sees it fitting into Breitbart. 'Our definition of the alt-right is younger people who are anti-globalists, very nationalist, terribly anti-establishment.' But he says Breitbart is also a platform for 'libertarians', Zionists, 'the conservative gay community', 'proponents for restrictions on gay marriage', 'economic rationalism' and 'populism' and 'the anti-establishment'." (The Donald's 'cloven-hoofed devil' has no interest in being the story, Kimberley A. Strassel, The Wall Street Journal/ The Australian, 21/11/16)
"It's hard to think of Steve Bannon as a low-profile guy... He is the executive chairman of the hard-right Breitbart News and the US president-elect chose Bannon last week as his chief strategist and senior counsellor... Here are a few things you've probably read about Steve Bannon in the past week: He's a white supremacist, bigot and anti-Semite... He's associated with the 'alt right' movement that, according to the New York Times, delights in 'harassing Jews, Muslims and other vulnerable groups by spewing shocking insults on social media'.
"Bannon is an aggressive political scrapper, but he says his views bear no relation to the media's description... Anti-Semitic? 'Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States of America. I have Breitbart Jerusalem which I have Aaron Klein run with about 10 reporters there. We've been a leader in stopping this BDS movement in the United States, we're a leader in the reporting of young Jewish students being harassed on American campuses, we've been a leader on reporting on the terrible plight of the Jews in Europe.' He adds that given his many Jewish partners and writers, 'guys like Joel Pollak, these claims of anti-Semitism just aren't serious'...
"He acknowledges the site is 'edgy' but insists it is 'vibrant'. He offers his own definition of the alt-right movement and explains how he sees it fitting into Breitbart. 'Our definition of the alt-right is younger people who are anti-globalists, very nationalist, terribly anti-establishment.' But he says Breitbart is also a platform for 'libertarians', Zionists, 'the conservative gay community', 'proponents for restrictions on gay marriage', 'economic rationalism' and 'populism' and 'the anti-establishment'." (The Donald's 'cloven-hoofed devil' has no interest in being the story, Kimberley A. Strassel, The Wall Street Journal/ The Australian, 21/11/16)
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The Terrorist Whisperer
Thank God for the Sydney Morning Herald's opinion editor I say. He/she knows exactly what the Herald's (dwindling) readership really wants. Namely, stirring tales of derring-do, with catchy titles such as Fanging out with vipers, or I put my head in the croc's mouth and survived... the halitosis!, or Care for a swim in shark-infested waters? Why not?
Which is why, I guess, Anne Speckhard's opinion piece, Inside the homes, heads and hearts of terrorists is both frightening and fascinating, was selected for inclusion in the opinion pages of yesterday's Herald:
"Have you wondered what it would be like to talk to a terrorist? It's hard to imagine just being in the same vicinity of one, let alone staying at their houses, eating with them and having hour-long discussions. Over the past decade, I have been researching the psychology of terrorists and extremists, their supporters, close family members and associates... One of the most common questions people are intrigued to know is: what is it like to talk to a terrorist? It's both frightening and fascinating... The truth is they started out as ordinary people just like you and me... I wanted to understand what takes normal people to put themselves on the terrorist trajectory... I overcame my fear via my fascination with their descriptions of the experiences that drove them into terrorism. In conflict zones such as Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq, many of the traumatic experiences they described were heartbreaking and I could understand (but never endorse) how they were drawn to groups that promised them the possibility of revenge and empowered them after they felt totally overwhelmed by the violence of another... When talking to the terrorists... it was always really useful to go as far as possible into the actual context of their lives... I understood that terrorists view themselves as part of a movement and as soldiers for their cause. They don't see their actions as any more wrong than our soldiers judge their killing in combat was wrong. Of course, there is a huge difference and there is never any justification for terrorism of any type; there is no cause anywhere in the world that justifies targeting and terrorising innocent civilians on its behalf."
Well, I don't know about you, but after reading that I was impressed. What a brave woman is this Anne Speckhard - sorry, Dr Anne Speckhard. I mean, it's a miracle she wasn't eaten alive!
So just who is this Wonder Woman?
According to the Herald bio, she's a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. But not just any old professor - she's an "adjunct associate" professor. Not just a pretty face, eh?
In fact, so impressed was I that I checked out her website and now I'm just itching to get my hands on her latest book: Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militants, Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & 'Martyrs'.
I swear, not since Aaron Klein's Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadis Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! have I been this excited! And when I'm through with that, the very next on my to-read list will have to be Dr Speckhard's Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal's Journey to Coming Out Transgender.
But back to Talking to Terrorists. Just look at the reviews assembled on her website. All 5-star and all by the right people.
A mere sample:
"The embarrassing truth about Terrorism Studies is that most writers on the subject have never met a terrorist. Dr Anne Speckhard is an exception... Nobody has gotten closer to the 'heart of darkness'." - Alex P. Schmid, Director, Terrorism Research Initiative
"She has succeeded in delving into the terrorist mind." - Joe Charlaff, Journalist, Israel
"Anne goes alone and without security into the lion's den to interview her subjects who most often have blood on their hands." - Peter S. Probst, Former Assistant for Terrorism Intelligence, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations & Low Intensity Conflict (OASD/SO/LIC), Former Special Assistant for Concept Development - Office of Special Planning - Office of the Secretary of Defense and Former CIA Officer (Directorate of Operations and Directorate of Intelligence)
"Invaluable to those in the field of terrorism studies, as well as to the general public." - Yoram Schweitzer, Director of the Low Intensity Warfare & Terrorism Project and Senior Research Fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies
"As advisor to Detainee Task Force 134, I watched Anne in action at Camp Cropper, the world's largest detention center. Her empathy, smile, Belgian chocolates, and paper tissues for the occasional tears worked to enlist the cooperation of even the most hard-hearted and unrepentant killers." - Rohan Gunaratna, Author, Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror
Be still, my beating heart. I think I'm in love...
Which is why, I guess, Anne Speckhard's opinion piece, Inside the homes, heads and hearts of terrorists is both frightening and fascinating, was selected for inclusion in the opinion pages of yesterday's Herald:
"Have you wondered what it would be like to talk to a terrorist? It's hard to imagine just being in the same vicinity of one, let alone staying at their houses, eating with them and having hour-long discussions. Over the past decade, I have been researching the psychology of terrorists and extremists, their supporters, close family members and associates... One of the most common questions people are intrigued to know is: what is it like to talk to a terrorist? It's both frightening and fascinating... The truth is they started out as ordinary people just like you and me... I wanted to understand what takes normal people to put themselves on the terrorist trajectory... I overcame my fear via my fascination with their descriptions of the experiences that drove them into terrorism. In conflict zones such as Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq, many of the traumatic experiences they described were heartbreaking and I could understand (but never endorse) how they were drawn to groups that promised them the possibility of revenge and empowered them after they felt totally overwhelmed by the violence of another... When talking to the terrorists... it was always really useful to go as far as possible into the actual context of their lives... I understood that terrorists view themselves as part of a movement and as soldiers for their cause. They don't see their actions as any more wrong than our soldiers judge their killing in combat was wrong. Of course, there is a huge difference and there is never any justification for terrorism of any type; there is no cause anywhere in the world that justifies targeting and terrorising innocent civilians on its behalf."
Well, I don't know about you, but after reading that I was impressed. What a brave woman is this Anne Speckhard - sorry, Dr Anne Speckhard. I mean, it's a miracle she wasn't eaten alive!
So just who is this Wonder Woman?
According to the Herald bio, she's a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. But not just any old professor - she's an "adjunct associate" professor. Not just a pretty face, eh?
In fact, so impressed was I that I checked out her website and now I'm just itching to get my hands on her latest book: Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militants, Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & 'Martyrs'.
I swear, not since Aaron Klein's Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadis Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! have I been this excited! And when I'm through with that, the very next on my to-read list will have to be Dr Speckhard's Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal's Journey to Coming Out Transgender.
But back to Talking to Terrorists. Just look at the reviews assembled on her website. All 5-star and all by the right people.
A mere sample:
"The embarrassing truth about Terrorism Studies is that most writers on the subject have never met a terrorist. Dr Anne Speckhard is an exception... Nobody has gotten closer to the 'heart of darkness'." - Alex P. Schmid, Director, Terrorism Research Initiative
"She has succeeded in delving into the terrorist mind." - Joe Charlaff, Journalist, Israel
"Anne goes alone and without security into the lion's den to interview her subjects who most often have blood on their hands." - Peter S. Probst, Former Assistant for Terrorism Intelligence, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations & Low Intensity Conflict (OASD/SO/LIC), Former Special Assistant for Concept Development - Office of Special Planning - Office of the Secretary of Defense and Former CIA Officer (Directorate of Operations and Directorate of Intelligence)
"Invaluable to those in the field of terrorism studies, as well as to the general public." - Yoram Schweitzer, Director of the Low Intensity Warfare & Terrorism Project and Senior Research Fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies
"As advisor to Detainee Task Force 134, I watched Anne in action at Camp Cropper, the world's largest detention center. Her empathy, smile, Belgian chocolates, and paper tissues for the occasional tears worked to enlist the cooperation of even the most hard-hearted and unrepentant killers." - Rohan Gunaratna, Author, Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror
Be still, my beating heart. I think I'm in love...
Sunday, October 17, 2010
And the winner of this year's Aaron Klein Award...
... for Schmoozing with Tewworists is... Antonio Salas (aka Mohammed Abdullah)!
Not content with serving up Koutsoukis' nonsense, the Fairfax press also saw fit to try us this weekend with When Carlos the Jackal called for a chat (Giles Tremlett, Guardian/Sydney Morning Herald, 16/10/10). Some doozies:
"Few undercover reporters have been prepared to sacrifice as much as the Spaniard who goes by the pseudonym of Antonio Salas. Circumcision was just one hurdle in passing himself off as a radical Islamist and infiltrating the shadowy, interconnected world of international terrorism." Ouch!
"He learned Arabic..." A doddle.
"Salas also wrote out the Koran by hand... 'It helped convince people', he says'." Ah, but did he write it in his own blood?
"We mocked up an apartment in Barcelona to look as though it was in Palestine and took photos." It's amazing how similar apartments look wherever you go, but that camel in the corner fooled those jihadis every time.
"The final part of his cover was to become a pro-jihad journalist, contributing to radical publications. He traveled to the Arab world, from Egypt to Jordan and Lebanon, writing articles that would help seal his militant credentials. 'I even wrote a couple of books', he says." In Arabic!
"Salas picked the Venezuela of President Hugo Chavez as his base. 'I had been told Venezuela was a mecca of international terrorism', he says." And believed every word!
"'The FARC group from Colombia was there, as were people from ETA'." FARC me dead! You mean, FARC and ETA have gone global?
"Numerous other small revolutionary groups had also set up under Chavez's benevolent gaze. There Salas established himself as yet another niche radical - flying the flag for Palestine and running a local branch of Hezbollah." FARC, Hezbollah too? Batten down the hatches. Head for the hills! None of us is safe! From the corporate media...
Not content with serving up Koutsoukis' nonsense, the Fairfax press also saw fit to try us this weekend with When Carlos the Jackal called for a chat (Giles Tremlett, Guardian/Sydney Morning Herald, 16/10/10). Some doozies:
"Few undercover reporters have been prepared to sacrifice as much as the Spaniard who goes by the pseudonym of Antonio Salas. Circumcision was just one hurdle in passing himself off as a radical Islamist and infiltrating the shadowy, interconnected world of international terrorism." Ouch!
"He learned Arabic..." A doddle.
"Salas also wrote out the Koran by hand... 'It helped convince people', he says'." Ah, but did he write it in his own blood?
"We mocked up an apartment in Barcelona to look as though it was in Palestine and took photos." It's amazing how similar apartments look wherever you go, but that camel in the corner fooled those jihadis every time.
"The final part of his cover was to become a pro-jihad journalist, contributing to radical publications. He traveled to the Arab world, from Egypt to Jordan and Lebanon, writing articles that would help seal his militant credentials. 'I even wrote a couple of books', he says." In Arabic!
"Salas picked the Venezuela of President Hugo Chavez as his base. 'I had been told Venezuela was a mecca of international terrorism', he says." And believed every word!
"'The FARC group from Colombia was there, as were people from ETA'." FARC me dead! You mean, FARC and ETA have gone global?
"Numerous other small revolutionary groups had also set up under Chavez's benevolent gaze. There Salas established himself as yet another niche radical - flying the flag for Palestine and running a local branch of Hezbollah." FARC, Hezbollah too? Batten down the hatches. Head for the hills! None of us is safe! From the corporate media...
Monday, March 16, 2009
Oh Dear!
I'd never heard of Aaron Klein until ABC Radio National's Rachael Kohn interviewed him on The Spirit of Things last year. So 'impressed' was I that I devoted 2 posts to the interview: Schmoozing with Aaron Klein! 1 & 2, 2-3/7/08.
Klein, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for worldnetdaily.com, had just authored a book titled Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! His book was about Palestinian 'terrorists' and their wicked ways, and his message was essentially that, whatever the label (Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas, or Islamic Jihad), they're all "pure evil" and killing is "what they do." However, these Spawn of Satan had one, terrible weakness: they simply could not get enough of him. So by cunningly exploiting this fatal weakness, schmoozing with them, and living to tell the tale, Klein was able to reach his counter-intuitive conclusion that 'You gotta talk to the terrorists to know that you can't talk to terrorists'.
Rachael, it seems, couldn't get enough of him either, variously describing him as "exceptional," "intrepid," "courageous," and "frank."
So what's this then? Klein was quietly going about his business at the WorldNetDaily site, sticking pins in an Obama doll and muttering to himself, when all of a sudden he happened to find himself on Fox News courageously and frankly denouncing Wikipedia for censoring the efforts of a certain Jerusalem21, who had been unsuccessfully trying to edit into Obama's Wiki entry information about his alleged links with pastor Jeremiah Wright and 'Weatherman terrorist' Bill Ayers, as well as an allegation that he was ineligible to serve as prez because there is no proof he was born in the US. The Wikipedia administrator had knocked back Jerusalem21's allegations as 'fringe' theories and Klein was angry on his behalf. But all was not quite as it seemed:-
"Klein did not identify who owned the Jerusalem21 account but futher digging by the ConWebWatch blog discovered that the only entry the user had tried to edit other than Obama's was Klein's. Jerusalem21 had created Klein's entry and edited it 37 times, adding several links and pictures. Claims that Jerusalem21 was Klein himself are backed up by discussions by Wikipedia administrators on the talk page attached to Klein's entry. 'It reads as a total puff piece and was obviously heavily influenced by Klein himself and cronies/sockpuppets at WND', one wrote. Further, when questions were raised about the identity of Jerusalem21, Klein edited his original story to remove references to Jerusalem21, replacing them with 'one Wikipedia user'. Eventually, in response to emailed questions from Wired News, Klein admitted that he had a hand in engineering the facts used to stand up his scandal. But he blamed the Jerusalem21 edits on his researcher. 'I am not 'Jerusalem21', but I do know the Wikipedia user (he works with me and does research for me), and I worked with him on this story', Klein said." (Obama Wiki fiddler caught red-handed, Asher Moses, The Age, 11/3/09)
Oh dear!
Klein, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for worldnetdaily.com, had just authored a book titled Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! His book was about Palestinian 'terrorists' and their wicked ways, and his message was essentially that, whatever the label (Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas, or Islamic Jihad), they're all "pure evil" and killing is "what they do." However, these Spawn of Satan had one, terrible weakness: they simply could not get enough of him. So by cunningly exploiting this fatal weakness, schmoozing with them, and living to tell the tale, Klein was able to reach his counter-intuitive conclusion that 'You gotta talk to the terrorists to know that you can't talk to terrorists'.
Rachael, it seems, couldn't get enough of him either, variously describing him as "exceptional," "intrepid," "courageous," and "frank."
So what's this then? Klein was quietly going about his business at the WorldNetDaily site, sticking pins in an Obama doll and muttering to himself, when all of a sudden he happened to find himself on Fox News courageously and frankly denouncing Wikipedia for censoring the efforts of a certain Jerusalem21, who had been unsuccessfully trying to edit into Obama's Wiki entry information about his alleged links with pastor Jeremiah Wright and 'Weatherman terrorist' Bill Ayers, as well as an allegation that he was ineligible to serve as prez because there is no proof he was born in the US. The Wikipedia administrator had knocked back Jerusalem21's allegations as 'fringe' theories and Klein was angry on his behalf. But all was not quite as it seemed:-
"Klein did not identify who owned the Jerusalem21 account but futher digging by the ConWebWatch blog discovered that the only entry the user had tried to edit other than Obama's was Klein's. Jerusalem21 had created Klein's entry and edited it 37 times, adding several links and pictures. Claims that Jerusalem21 was Klein himself are backed up by discussions by Wikipedia administrators on the talk page attached to Klein's entry. 'It reads as a total puff piece and was obviously heavily influenced by Klein himself and cronies/sockpuppets at WND', one wrote. Further, when questions were raised about the identity of Jerusalem21, Klein edited his original story to remove references to Jerusalem21, replacing them with 'one Wikipedia user'. Eventually, in response to emailed questions from Wired News, Klein admitted that he had a hand in engineering the facts used to stand up his scandal. But he blamed the Jerusalem21 edits on his researcher. 'I am not 'Jerusalem21', but I do know the Wikipedia user (he works with me and does research for me), and I worked with him on this story', Klein said." (Obama Wiki fiddler caught red-handed, Asher Moses, The Age, 11/3/09)
Oh dear!
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Schmoozing with Aaron Klein! 2
Continued from my last post...
I'm puzzled as to why the Talking with Terrorists's blurb reckons that Aaron's terrorists have targeted Hollywood "for elimination" when his ground-breaking research actually reveals that they're fans! It would appear that they've been following every twist and turn in the careers of such celebrities as Jane Fonda ("who we all know was involved in Vietnam activism," Aaron! helpfully reminds us), Rosie O'Donnell (Rosie who?), and Sean Penn since the 60s. Jane Fonda, for G-d's sake!: "I asked some of the terrorists... what they thought of the activism by Hollywood, and they loved it, they're emboldened, every time they hear a Hollywood celebrity talk out against the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or go on a solidarity mission [Senator McCarthy must be turning in his grave!] to a terror-sponsoring entity like Iran, like Syria, they're emboldened to believe, because they think that all Americans hate Islam, hate the Middle East, that whenever they get their picture that there are some out there who side with their goals, or at least for the terrorists they believe side with their goals, because to them they're not just looking to get America out of Iraq and Afghanistan or destroy Israel, boost up Iran, these are just their short-term goals and they'll take all the help they can get."
This was a revelation for me, as I'm sure it was for you, dear reader. I had no idea Their Satanic Majesties spent so much time at the movies (the real ones, that is, not that crap from Egypt!). And not only the movies, apparently. Ditto for radio. According to Aaron! they love Madonna and Britney Spears to death! Crikey! What with indoctrination 101 at the madrasa, schmoozing with Aaron!, dodging IDF death squads, reading up on Rosie who?, stalking Britney Spears, going to the movies, shopping around for cut-price bomb belts, wiping Israel off the door mat, and working hard at the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization as we know it, these guys really have their work cut out. They're almost beyond belief.
Also according to the blurb, they've got homosexuality targeted "for elimination." Everything, it seems, except the Israeli occupation. Is there no end to their labors? And how would we ever have known this without the intrepid and courageous Aaron!? You see Aaron!'s been schmoozing with Abu Abdullah, "a senior commander of Hamas' military wing." (And if I may digress here, just thought I'd check out this character among the other A-boos listed in the index of Azzam Tamimi's Hamas: Unwritten Chapters. Nothing! Ditto for Zaki Chehab's Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs & Spies. Thank G-d he's at least made it into Aaron!'s book.) Aaron! quotes AA as saying that unless homosexuals mend their disgusting ways, "they may be sentenced to death." (And if I may digress yet again, Rachael quips, "Well, that would thin the ranks of society, wouldn't it?" Now just how gay does she think we are? Who, dear? Gay, dear? Us, dear? No, dear! How very dare you, Rachael!)
But hang on. I've got this terrible bout of cognitive dissonance, because I remember Rachael describing Aaron in her blurb as an Orthodox Jew, and an adjacent critic's just slipped me this quotation from Israel Shahak's Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel: "Many Israeli rabbis and the Israeli religious political parties in the 1990s reacted sharply against the increased visibility and power of the homosexual and lesbian communities in Israel. According to the Halacha, homosexuality is punishable by stoning... Many rabbis, when interviewed, indicated that they favoured imposition of the death penalty for Jewish homosexual men." (p xviii-xix)
No way could I believe this rubbish. Consult Wikipedia. Aaargh! It seems that "the Biblical book of Leviticus calls the big H an 'abomination' that may be subject to capital punishment, although Halakhic courts are not authorized to administer capital punishment for sexual immorality in the absence of a Temple in Jerusalem." Could it be that Aaron's alleged schmoozing with the Israeli right is designed solely to expose them and thus save Israel's gay community from a right stoning? But what's this? The same adjacent critic's just slipped me an editorial by Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily's CEO, on 'The dirty little secret of America's newsrooms' (25/6/08). Which is? That US "newspapers and broadcast outlets... The Hearst Corp, McClatchy Company, Gannett, National Public Radio, Bloomberg, Washington Post, NBC News, ABC, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and... News Corp," are all dancing to the tune of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, an "arrogant bunch of fascist mind-control freaks." But not, it seems, WND.
And Orthodox Aaron!? In 'Religious leaders: No 'gay pride' in holy city: Rare gathering of Christian, Jewish, Muslim figures blasts homosexual event' (31/3/05), he informs us that "The Rabbinical Alliance [of America]... sponsored a poll," which showed "[n]early 100% of the Orthodox Jewish segments surveyed said they were opposed to [WorldPride 2005]" being held in Jerusalem. Does this mean then that...? But no, Aaron! must surely have been among the 1% Orthodox who defended this celebration of gay pride. Else why would he be exposing the dreadful Abu Abdullah? But then, in another of his reports just slipped to me, 'Israel recognizes homosexual couples: 'Jewish state risks becoming next Sodom and Gomorrah'' (3/7/08), he's schmoozing with an Orthodox rabbi who's predicting that the Israeli Attorney General's decision will excite G-d's wrath, with dire consequences for Israel! Now Aaron's indicated in his interview with Rachael that he's writing a second book about a much greater conflict than that being fought between the Horned and Fanged Terrorist Aliens of Planet Palestine and the gentle, unassuming volk of the Lamb of Israel: that between "the secular and the religious" in Israel. Guess we'll just have to wait and find out whose side he's on - Sodom and Gomorrah's or the Good Good Good Guys of Gush Emunim.
Apparently, it's not just Hollywood wot's giving comfort to these Terrorist Reptiles. The mainstream media's in on the act too! Says Aaron!, "I think a lot of reporters, they don't have a moral compass... I can't say enough that [the terrorists] are looking to spread their belief system around the world, and that Israel is just a stepping-stone... towards the ultimate destruction of the West, then our media... really needs to... change some of their attitudes... if you look at a lot of the editorial blurbs of the major American media outlets, it's no surprise that a lot of them are controlled by liberal editors, the editorial board of the New York Times, the Washington Post, liberal, liberal, and one of the major tenets of liberalism... is that you can sit down and negotiate with your enemy, as an absolute last resort you should use military means... But I think that if most Americans really understood who their enemy is in these terror organisations, really understood that with this enemy there is no dialogue, that with this enemy there is no cease-fire, a cease-fire is a chance to re-load and re-group. That you can't sit down to this enemy, you either win or they're going to try to win."
Now I seem to remember reading such BK! studies as Israel-Palestine On Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (Howard Friel & Richard Falk), which argues that the "NYT's unwillingness to view the conflict through the lens of international law has contributed significantly to both an anti-Palestine bias and an inflated sense of Israeli entitlements," and Muting the Alarm over the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The New York Times vs Haaretz, 2000-2006 (Jerome Slater), which argues that Israel's Haaretz is actually far more critical of Israeli policies than the NYT. Now, however, thanks to Aaron!'s revelations, I can see that these were just part of a fiendish and sophisticated plot by "liberals, liberals" at the helm of the NYT to cover their slimy, terrorist-appeasing tracks. Is there no end to the deceptions and fraud perpetrated by the liberal media? Thank G-d we've got WND to fall back on!
In fact, so powerful is this liberal media conspiracy to aid and abet the Legions of Terror that even Rachael, despite her being in the Top 50 and all, is sucked in! No sooner has Aaron! declared he's for eternal war on the terrorists, than she's babbling, Chamberlain-like, about "the war in Iraq... dissuad[ing] anyone from say approaching this issue in a military fashion." But our Aaron!'s not sucked in by the snakes of the liberal media, no siree, Bob! The courageous, intrepid, unbelievably honest one is prepared to fight the Towelheaded Vermin to the last American soldier: "Yes, there's absolutely no question that America could have won this war a long time ago and why they haven't been using their full military might, rather than restraining the military, I don't know..." Shock & Awe, 655,000 Iraqi deaths and climbing, millions of refugees, and trillions of $$$ - simply not good enough! With the application of "full military might," Yankee Doodle Dandy could've blown Iraq back to the Stone Age where it belongs! And all this while the namby-pamby IDF merely "go from home to home instead of carpet bombing in Gaza, in the West Bank." That, of course, is the appeaser Olmert's doing, and Aaron!, as we know, has fingered his government as one of the conspirators engaged in the awful business of simply handing over the Middle East to the Terrorist Hordes. Hence the importance of his research and his number one finding: You've gotta talk to the terrorists to know that you can't talk to the terrorists.
For me, the high point of Rachael's interview came when she asked Aaron! about his "encounters with Christians in the Middle East." This triggered a veritable flood of revelations, hitherto unrevealed. The persecution of Christians was "a huge story," said Aaron! "Take for example Bethlehem, which is one of the holiest cities for Christianity. It's the site of the Church of the Nativity, which is where Christians believe Jesus was born, and up to about... 18 years ago the Christian population of Bethlehem was about 85%, and then, starting in the early 1990s, suddenly Christians started fleeing Bethlehem, and now actually the Christian population of Bethlehem is about 23%, and actually that counts satellite towns, the actual Christian population in Bethlehem proper right now is 12%, it's dwindling. Why?... what happened was Israel evacuated Bethlehem and gave Bethlehem to Yasser Arafat, gave Bethlehem to the Palestinians as part of the Oslo Accord in the 1990s and as soon as the Palestinians took over, as soon as Yasser Arafat got his hands on Bethlehem, right away you had all of these instances of Christians being persecuted, of Christian women being forcibly converted to Islam, Christian stores being firebombed, of Christians actually coming home at the end of the day, and I witnessed this twice, this happens, it's incredible, they come home and their property is confiscated by Muslim terrorist gangs related to Fatah, to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group. They tell the Christians they have 24 hours to evacuate your home and then get out. That's it. Happens all the time, and the Christians can't go to the police, they can't go to the court system because the courts and the police are controlled by the Palestinian Authority and so you have the situation now where Christians are fleeing left and right." Rachael was so shocked at this tale of rapine and plunder that all she could manage was a strangled, "Why haven't we heard much about this from Hanan Ashrawi?" I too was reeling. I'd been misled.
BK!, I'd read this from the book by the Boston Globe's Middle East bureau chief from 1997 to 2001, Charles M Sennott: "Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, and Beit Jala formed a 'Christian triangle' in the West Bank, containing the highest concentration of the Palestinian Christian population. Roughly 30% of Bethlehem's 30,000 inhabitants were Christian; and Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, each with approximately 12,000 residents, were about 75% Christian. About two-thirds of all Palestinian Christians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem lived in one of these 3 towns." (The Body and the Blood: The Middle East's Vanishing Christians & the Possibility for Peace, p 117) Obviously dodgy figures. Almost certainly a liberal. The very fact that he qualifies the word 'Christian' with the adjective 'Palestinian' is a dead give away.
And this on Arafat and the Christians: "Arafat has always been attentive to the Christian minority within the Palestinian community, and some officials of the Palestinian Authority have criticized him for coddling the Christian minority in a way that causes their ostracization from the larger group. Arafat seems to have a genuine concern for the diminishing local Christian presence as well as a shrewd understanding of Christians' importance to his own political, diplomatic, and fund-raising missions throughout the Western world. Arafat has been attuned to the resonance of Bethlehem and Jerusalem during his frequent trips to France, Italy, and America. On these trips, whenever he spoke of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, he evoked images of Jerusalem's church spires along with the Dome of the Rock. When he spoke in Arab countries, the church spires were more often left out and the Islamic requirement to protect Al-Quds was stressed." (p 69) Mere hearsay, of course. If only Sennott had had the gumption to schmooze with Arafat instead.
And then there's that 2006 poll of Bethlehem Christians, carried out by the Palestinian Centre for Research and Dialogue, which showed that 78% blamed the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem on Israel's blockade, and 73% believe that the Palestinian Authority treats Christian heritage with respect. (http://www.openbethlehem.org/) Obviously, these figures need to be taken with more than a few grains of Dead Sea salt. After all, the mob that did the polling was "Palestinian." And anyway, talking to Bethlehem Christians while they're busy with Muslim home renovators and learning how to don hijabs couldn't possibly lead to reliable results.
Not to mention the following 2006 letter by Open Bethlehem's chief executive Leila Sansour, a Bethlehem Christian, to Texas congressman Michael McCaul on his resolution on the plight of Palestinian Christians: "The resolution seriously misrepresents the situation facing Christians in the Holy Land. [It] ignores the numerous calls from churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem - and the overwhelming body of reports from international human rights organizations - that warn of the devastating effect of the Israeli system of closure, collective punishment and the construction of the wall. In the Holy City of Bethlehem, the wall forcefully expropriates most of Bethlehem's valuable land and historic landmarks, depriving many Christian families of their homes, barring access to family and jobs in Jerusalem and all the lands that are on the other side of the wall. By perpetuating the misconception that it is their Muslim neighbors and the Palestinian Authority who are creating this crisis, rather than policies imposed by the Israeli government, congressman McCaul is entrenching the problems faced by the Christian community rather than helping address them. The Open Bethlehem campaign was created to address the state of emergency in Bethlehem with full support from the Patriarchs of the churches in Jerusalem and all Bethlehem civil institutions." (Congress misled about real threat to Palestinian Christians, http://www.openbethlehem.org/) Well, I never. Talk about propaganda! Aaron!'s got this one pegged: "Actually, every year about Christmastime, right before, every year the mainstream media in America does these stories where, get this, they actually blame Israel. I kid you not, every year, blame Israel for the plight of the Christians in Bethlehem because they say that Israel built a fence that encircles Bethlehem. Actually there's no wall that encircles Bethlehem, there is a fence and part of it's a wall and it's just in one part of Bethlehem that interfaces with Jerusalem..." And Top 50 Rachael didn't pull him up on this, so that's good enough for me.
How to explain the discrepancies between the findings of the above BK! scribblers and those of our Aaron!? There's the inevitable question of liberal bias, of course, with Aaron! correctly pointing out that these hacks have a tendency to leave their moral compasses on the shelf at home. However, I believe that they can largely be explained by a difference in methodology. The above babblings are generally based on such traditional investigative techniques as interviews, polls, and accessing relevant data in libraries and databases, and are generally carried out by experienced and qualified personnel who wouldn't know an axe-grinder if they stubbed their toe on one. Needless to say, this makes their product extremely bora, bora, bora. The result is that the punters have lost all interest - they're switching in droves to WND or FrontPage Magazine or Little Green Footballs. Thanks to Aaron! the old approach to these matters has been superseded by his exciting new strategy of knowledge acquisition, schmoozing, which could perhaps be defined as getting so close to the bastards that you can smell the sulphur. You see, schmoozing cuts right through all that boring and time-wasting academic folderol (after all we are dealing with ticking bombs here), and goes straight to the heart of darkness!
The efficacy of schmoozing is perhaps best illustrated, apart from the revelations already alluded to, towards the end of the interview. Rachael, breathless at Aaron!'s tales of derring-do, asks him if he was ever scared for his life. The self-effacing lad is, of course, as honest as the day is long. "Absolutely," he replies. "There were several interviews in particular in the last two years while writing this book where I really didn't think I would get out alive." Here is his hair-raising account of just one. Aaron!'s moral compass, which he carries with him at all times, had led him to the lair of "the senior leadership of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terror group, the most active Palestinian terror group in the West Bank, with literally the chief of the Brigades No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, it was all the senior leadership, they were all with their weapons, had machine guns..." Presumably the chiefs of Brigades No. 1, No. 5, No. 6 etc, etc were busy with their Bethlehem furniture removal business (Gone Before You Know It! Pty Ltd). He was, of course, accompanied by his long time colleague and research assistant, the equally intrepid and courageous "American radio host" and Professor of Islamic Studies at George Dubya Bush University, Redneck, Kansarse, Rusty Humphries. Predictably, Rusty proved more than a match for the Terrorist Spawn of Satan but, hey, I'll let Aaron! tell the story in his own inimitable (72 virgins x 10) style: "We went in together and during the interview Rusty... kept asking the terrorists to show us where in the Qur'an it says anything about 72 virgins, about suicide bombers who go up to Allah's paradise and get an eternity with 72 dark-eyed virgins, because actually I don't know if you know this, but it's not in the Qur'an, the Qur'an doesn't say anything about 72 virgins and yet the terrorists constantly tell the Palestinian teenagers who blow themselves up that they're going to get the 72 virgins, and so Rusty knew it wasn't in the Qur'an and he kept asking the terrorists who said earlier that martyrs get 72 virgins, he kept asking where in the Qur'an it was located. And I was sitting across the room from Rusty and so I couldn't really nudge him, but the terrorists were getting really agitated and he didn't realise that, they actually kept shooting these angry glances at me, like shut this guy up, tell him to stop asking. And he kept petitioning, 'So did you find the 72 virgins yet, did anybody find the 72 virgins?' He actually had them take out a Qur'an and flip through the Qur'an and look for the 72 virgins, and they kept pointing to different verses that may indicate a virgin or two, but they couldn't find the 72 virgins, and I didn't think we'd get out alive from that interview." What a close shave that must have been!
The point is, but for the intrepidity and courage of these two, we would've just gone on swallowing any old codswallop from these Terrorist Swine. Now, AK!, we know that, as Aaron! says, "at the very foundation of the arguments of the terrorist, there is no argument, there is no foundation, it's not there." I know just what he means.
"Are you going to be more careful in the future?" asks a maternal Rachael in one last, probing question. "Oh yes, absolutely, very careful," responds Aaron!
I somehow think he'll survive, don't you?
Oh, I almost forgot! Rusty's also a renowned singer and songwriter. You can order his CD, Thank Allah I'm a Jihad Boy, from www.talk2rusty.com/store. The lyrics of the title song are informed by the very fruitloops of his joint research with wunderkind Klein!: Life as a terrorist is really laid back/ You find an infidel and give his head a big whack/ See a soldier just shoot him in the back/ Thank Allah I'm a Jihad Boy - Well I got me 5 wives and got me a hooka/When the sun comes up I strap on me Bazooka/ One wife so ugly I'm glad she wears a burka/ Thank Allah I'm a Jihad Boy (Radio host's CD pokes fun at terrorists, 27/10/06, WorldNetDaily.com)
I'm puzzled as to why the Talking with Terrorists's blurb reckons that Aaron's terrorists have targeted Hollywood "for elimination" when his ground-breaking research actually reveals that they're fans! It would appear that they've been following every twist and turn in the careers of such celebrities as Jane Fonda ("who we all know was involved in Vietnam activism," Aaron! helpfully reminds us), Rosie O'Donnell (Rosie who?), and Sean Penn since the 60s. Jane Fonda, for G-d's sake!: "I asked some of the terrorists... what they thought of the activism by Hollywood, and they loved it, they're emboldened, every time they hear a Hollywood celebrity talk out against the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or go on a solidarity mission [Senator McCarthy must be turning in his grave!] to a terror-sponsoring entity like Iran, like Syria, they're emboldened to believe, because they think that all Americans hate Islam, hate the Middle East, that whenever they get their picture that there are some out there who side with their goals, or at least for the terrorists they believe side with their goals, because to them they're not just looking to get America out of Iraq and Afghanistan or destroy Israel, boost up Iran, these are just their short-term goals and they'll take all the help they can get."
This was a revelation for me, as I'm sure it was for you, dear reader. I had no idea Their Satanic Majesties spent so much time at the movies (the real ones, that is, not that crap from Egypt!). And not only the movies, apparently. Ditto for radio. According to Aaron! they love Madonna and Britney Spears to death! Crikey! What with indoctrination 101 at the madrasa, schmoozing with Aaron!, dodging IDF death squads, reading up on Rosie who?, stalking Britney Spears, going to the movies, shopping around for cut-price bomb belts, wiping Israel off the door mat, and working hard at the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization as we know it, these guys really have their work cut out. They're almost beyond belief.
Also according to the blurb, they've got homosexuality targeted "for elimination." Everything, it seems, except the Israeli occupation. Is there no end to their labors? And how would we ever have known this without the intrepid and courageous Aaron!? You see Aaron!'s been schmoozing with Abu Abdullah, "a senior commander of Hamas' military wing." (And if I may digress here, just thought I'd check out this character among the other A-boos listed in the index of Azzam Tamimi's Hamas: Unwritten Chapters. Nothing! Ditto for Zaki Chehab's Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs & Spies. Thank G-d he's at least made it into Aaron!'s book.) Aaron! quotes AA as saying that unless homosexuals mend their disgusting ways, "they may be sentenced to death." (And if I may digress yet again, Rachael quips, "Well, that would thin the ranks of society, wouldn't it?" Now just how gay does she think we are? Who, dear? Gay, dear? Us, dear? No, dear! How very dare you, Rachael!)
But hang on. I've got this terrible bout of cognitive dissonance, because I remember Rachael describing Aaron in her blurb as an Orthodox Jew, and an adjacent critic's just slipped me this quotation from Israel Shahak's Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel: "Many Israeli rabbis and the Israeli religious political parties in the 1990s reacted sharply against the increased visibility and power of the homosexual and lesbian communities in Israel. According to the Halacha, homosexuality is punishable by stoning... Many rabbis, when interviewed, indicated that they favoured imposition of the death penalty for Jewish homosexual men." (p xviii-xix)
No way could I believe this rubbish. Consult Wikipedia. Aaargh! It seems that "the Biblical book of Leviticus calls the big H an 'abomination' that may be subject to capital punishment, although Halakhic courts are not authorized to administer capital punishment for sexual immorality in the absence of a Temple in Jerusalem." Could it be that Aaron's alleged schmoozing with the Israeli right is designed solely to expose them and thus save Israel's gay community from a right stoning? But what's this? The same adjacent critic's just slipped me an editorial by Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily's CEO, on 'The dirty little secret of America's newsrooms' (25/6/08). Which is? That US "newspapers and broadcast outlets... The Hearst Corp, McClatchy Company, Gannett, National Public Radio, Bloomberg, Washington Post, NBC News, ABC, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and... News Corp," are all dancing to the tune of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, an "arrogant bunch of fascist mind-control freaks." But not, it seems, WND.
And Orthodox Aaron!? In 'Religious leaders: No 'gay pride' in holy city: Rare gathering of Christian, Jewish, Muslim figures blasts homosexual event' (31/3/05), he informs us that "The Rabbinical Alliance [of America]... sponsored a poll," which showed "[n]early 100% of the Orthodox Jewish segments surveyed said they were opposed to [WorldPride 2005]" being held in Jerusalem. Does this mean then that...? But no, Aaron! must surely have been among the 1% Orthodox who defended this celebration of gay pride. Else why would he be exposing the dreadful Abu Abdullah? But then, in another of his reports just slipped to me, 'Israel recognizes homosexual couples: 'Jewish state risks becoming next Sodom and Gomorrah'' (3/7/08), he's schmoozing with an Orthodox rabbi who's predicting that the Israeli Attorney General's decision will excite G-d's wrath, with dire consequences for Israel! Now Aaron's indicated in his interview with Rachael that he's writing a second book about a much greater conflict than that being fought between the Horned and Fanged Terrorist Aliens of Planet Palestine and the gentle, unassuming volk of the Lamb of Israel: that between "the secular and the religious" in Israel. Guess we'll just have to wait and find out whose side he's on - Sodom and Gomorrah's or the Good Good Good Guys of Gush Emunim.
Apparently, it's not just Hollywood wot's giving comfort to these Terrorist Reptiles. The mainstream media's in on the act too! Says Aaron!, "I think a lot of reporters, they don't have a moral compass... I can't say enough that [the terrorists] are looking to spread their belief system around the world, and that Israel is just a stepping-stone... towards the ultimate destruction of the West, then our media... really needs to... change some of their attitudes... if you look at a lot of the editorial blurbs of the major American media outlets, it's no surprise that a lot of them are controlled by liberal editors, the editorial board of the New York Times, the Washington Post, liberal, liberal, and one of the major tenets of liberalism... is that you can sit down and negotiate with your enemy, as an absolute last resort you should use military means... But I think that if most Americans really understood who their enemy is in these terror organisations, really understood that with this enemy there is no dialogue, that with this enemy there is no cease-fire, a cease-fire is a chance to re-load and re-group. That you can't sit down to this enemy, you either win or they're going to try to win."
Now I seem to remember reading such BK! studies as Israel-Palestine On Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (Howard Friel & Richard Falk), which argues that the "NYT's unwillingness to view the conflict through the lens of international law has contributed significantly to both an anti-Palestine bias and an inflated sense of Israeli entitlements," and Muting the Alarm over the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The New York Times vs Haaretz, 2000-2006 (Jerome Slater), which argues that Israel's Haaretz is actually far more critical of Israeli policies than the NYT. Now, however, thanks to Aaron!'s revelations, I can see that these were just part of a fiendish and sophisticated plot by "liberals, liberals" at the helm of the NYT to cover their slimy, terrorist-appeasing tracks. Is there no end to the deceptions and fraud perpetrated by the liberal media? Thank G-d we've got WND to fall back on!
In fact, so powerful is this liberal media conspiracy to aid and abet the Legions of Terror that even Rachael, despite her being in the Top 50 and all, is sucked in! No sooner has Aaron! declared he's for eternal war on the terrorists, than she's babbling, Chamberlain-like, about "the war in Iraq... dissuad[ing] anyone from say approaching this issue in a military fashion." But our Aaron!'s not sucked in by the snakes of the liberal media, no siree, Bob! The courageous, intrepid, unbelievably honest one is prepared to fight the Towelheaded Vermin to the last American soldier: "Yes, there's absolutely no question that America could have won this war a long time ago and why they haven't been using their full military might, rather than restraining the military, I don't know..." Shock & Awe, 655,000 Iraqi deaths and climbing, millions of refugees, and trillions of $$$ - simply not good enough! With the application of "full military might," Yankee Doodle Dandy could've blown Iraq back to the Stone Age where it belongs! And all this while the namby-pamby IDF merely "go from home to home instead of carpet bombing in Gaza, in the West Bank." That, of course, is the appeaser Olmert's doing, and Aaron!, as we know, has fingered his government as one of the conspirators engaged in the awful business of simply handing over the Middle East to the Terrorist Hordes. Hence the importance of his research and his number one finding: You've gotta talk to the terrorists to know that you can't talk to the terrorists.
For me, the high point of Rachael's interview came when she asked Aaron! about his "encounters with Christians in the Middle East." This triggered a veritable flood of revelations, hitherto unrevealed. The persecution of Christians was "a huge story," said Aaron! "Take for example Bethlehem, which is one of the holiest cities for Christianity. It's the site of the Church of the Nativity, which is where Christians believe Jesus was born, and up to about... 18 years ago the Christian population of Bethlehem was about 85%, and then, starting in the early 1990s, suddenly Christians started fleeing Bethlehem, and now actually the Christian population of Bethlehem is about 23%, and actually that counts satellite towns, the actual Christian population in Bethlehem proper right now is 12%, it's dwindling. Why?... what happened was Israel evacuated Bethlehem and gave Bethlehem to Yasser Arafat, gave Bethlehem to the Palestinians as part of the Oslo Accord in the 1990s and as soon as the Palestinians took over, as soon as Yasser Arafat got his hands on Bethlehem, right away you had all of these instances of Christians being persecuted, of Christian women being forcibly converted to Islam, Christian stores being firebombed, of Christians actually coming home at the end of the day, and I witnessed this twice, this happens, it's incredible, they come home and their property is confiscated by Muslim terrorist gangs related to Fatah, to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group. They tell the Christians they have 24 hours to evacuate your home and then get out. That's it. Happens all the time, and the Christians can't go to the police, they can't go to the court system because the courts and the police are controlled by the Palestinian Authority and so you have the situation now where Christians are fleeing left and right." Rachael was so shocked at this tale of rapine and plunder that all she could manage was a strangled, "Why haven't we heard much about this from Hanan Ashrawi?" I too was reeling. I'd been misled.
BK!, I'd read this from the book by the Boston Globe's Middle East bureau chief from 1997 to 2001, Charles M Sennott: "Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, and Beit Jala formed a 'Christian triangle' in the West Bank, containing the highest concentration of the Palestinian Christian population. Roughly 30% of Bethlehem's 30,000 inhabitants were Christian; and Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, each with approximately 12,000 residents, were about 75% Christian. About two-thirds of all Palestinian Christians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem lived in one of these 3 towns." (The Body and the Blood: The Middle East's Vanishing Christians & the Possibility for Peace, p 117) Obviously dodgy figures. Almost certainly a liberal. The very fact that he qualifies the word 'Christian' with the adjective 'Palestinian' is a dead give away.
And this on Arafat and the Christians: "Arafat has always been attentive to the Christian minority within the Palestinian community, and some officials of the Palestinian Authority have criticized him for coddling the Christian minority in a way that causes their ostracization from the larger group. Arafat seems to have a genuine concern for the diminishing local Christian presence as well as a shrewd understanding of Christians' importance to his own political, diplomatic, and fund-raising missions throughout the Western world. Arafat has been attuned to the resonance of Bethlehem and Jerusalem during his frequent trips to France, Italy, and America. On these trips, whenever he spoke of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, he evoked images of Jerusalem's church spires along with the Dome of the Rock. When he spoke in Arab countries, the church spires were more often left out and the Islamic requirement to protect Al-Quds was stressed." (p 69) Mere hearsay, of course. If only Sennott had had the gumption to schmooze with Arafat instead.
And then there's that 2006 poll of Bethlehem Christians, carried out by the Palestinian Centre for Research and Dialogue, which showed that 78% blamed the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem on Israel's blockade, and 73% believe that the Palestinian Authority treats Christian heritage with respect. (http://www.openbethlehem.org/) Obviously, these figures need to be taken with more than a few grains of Dead Sea salt. After all, the mob that did the polling was "Palestinian." And anyway, talking to Bethlehem Christians while they're busy with Muslim home renovators and learning how to don hijabs couldn't possibly lead to reliable results.
Not to mention the following 2006 letter by Open Bethlehem's chief executive Leila Sansour, a Bethlehem Christian, to Texas congressman Michael McCaul on his resolution on the plight of Palestinian Christians: "The resolution seriously misrepresents the situation facing Christians in the Holy Land. [It] ignores the numerous calls from churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem - and the overwhelming body of reports from international human rights organizations - that warn of the devastating effect of the Israeli system of closure, collective punishment and the construction of the wall. In the Holy City of Bethlehem, the wall forcefully expropriates most of Bethlehem's valuable land and historic landmarks, depriving many Christian families of their homes, barring access to family and jobs in Jerusalem and all the lands that are on the other side of the wall. By perpetuating the misconception that it is their Muslim neighbors and the Palestinian Authority who are creating this crisis, rather than policies imposed by the Israeli government, congressman McCaul is entrenching the problems faced by the Christian community rather than helping address them. The Open Bethlehem campaign was created to address the state of emergency in Bethlehem with full support from the Patriarchs of the churches in Jerusalem and all Bethlehem civil institutions." (Congress misled about real threat to Palestinian Christians, http://www.openbethlehem.org/) Well, I never. Talk about propaganda! Aaron!'s got this one pegged: "Actually, every year about Christmastime, right before, every year the mainstream media in America does these stories where, get this, they actually blame Israel. I kid you not, every year, blame Israel for the plight of the Christians in Bethlehem because they say that Israel built a fence that encircles Bethlehem. Actually there's no wall that encircles Bethlehem, there is a fence and part of it's a wall and it's just in one part of Bethlehem that interfaces with Jerusalem..." And Top 50 Rachael didn't pull him up on this, so that's good enough for me.
How to explain the discrepancies between the findings of the above BK! scribblers and those of our Aaron!? There's the inevitable question of liberal bias, of course, with Aaron! correctly pointing out that these hacks have a tendency to leave their moral compasses on the shelf at home. However, I believe that they can largely be explained by a difference in methodology. The above babblings are generally based on such traditional investigative techniques as interviews, polls, and accessing relevant data in libraries and databases, and are generally carried out by experienced and qualified personnel who wouldn't know an axe-grinder if they stubbed their toe on one. Needless to say, this makes their product extremely bora, bora, bora. The result is that the punters have lost all interest - they're switching in droves to WND or FrontPage Magazine or Little Green Footballs. Thanks to Aaron! the old approach to these matters has been superseded by his exciting new strategy of knowledge acquisition, schmoozing, which could perhaps be defined as getting so close to the bastards that you can smell the sulphur. You see, schmoozing cuts right through all that boring and time-wasting academic folderol (after all we are dealing with ticking bombs here), and goes straight to the heart of darkness!
The efficacy of schmoozing is perhaps best illustrated, apart from the revelations already alluded to, towards the end of the interview. Rachael, breathless at Aaron!'s tales of derring-do, asks him if he was ever scared for his life. The self-effacing lad is, of course, as honest as the day is long. "Absolutely," he replies. "There were several interviews in particular in the last two years while writing this book where I really didn't think I would get out alive." Here is his hair-raising account of just one. Aaron!'s moral compass, which he carries with him at all times, had led him to the lair of "the senior leadership of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terror group, the most active Palestinian terror group in the West Bank, with literally the chief of the Brigades No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, it was all the senior leadership, they were all with their weapons, had machine guns..." Presumably the chiefs of Brigades No. 1, No. 5, No. 6 etc, etc were busy with their Bethlehem furniture removal business (Gone Before You Know It! Pty Ltd). He was, of course, accompanied by his long time colleague and research assistant, the equally intrepid and courageous "American radio host" and Professor of Islamic Studies at George Dubya Bush University, Redneck, Kansarse, Rusty Humphries. Predictably, Rusty proved more than a match for the Terrorist Spawn of Satan but, hey, I'll let Aaron! tell the story in his own inimitable (72 virgins x 10) style: "We went in together and during the interview Rusty... kept asking the terrorists to show us where in the Qur'an it says anything about 72 virgins, about suicide bombers who go up to Allah's paradise and get an eternity with 72 dark-eyed virgins, because actually I don't know if you know this, but it's not in the Qur'an, the Qur'an doesn't say anything about 72 virgins and yet the terrorists constantly tell the Palestinian teenagers who blow themselves up that they're going to get the 72 virgins, and so Rusty knew it wasn't in the Qur'an and he kept asking the terrorists who said earlier that martyrs get 72 virgins, he kept asking where in the Qur'an it was located. And I was sitting across the room from Rusty and so I couldn't really nudge him, but the terrorists were getting really agitated and he didn't realise that, they actually kept shooting these angry glances at me, like shut this guy up, tell him to stop asking. And he kept petitioning, 'So did you find the 72 virgins yet, did anybody find the 72 virgins?' He actually had them take out a Qur'an and flip through the Qur'an and look for the 72 virgins, and they kept pointing to different verses that may indicate a virgin or two, but they couldn't find the 72 virgins, and I didn't think we'd get out alive from that interview." What a close shave that must have been!
The point is, but for the intrepidity and courage of these two, we would've just gone on swallowing any old codswallop from these Terrorist Swine. Now, AK!, we know that, as Aaron! says, "at the very foundation of the arguments of the terrorist, there is no argument, there is no foundation, it's not there." I know just what he means.
"Are you going to be more careful in the future?" asks a maternal Rachael in one last, probing question. "Oh yes, absolutely, very careful," responds Aaron!
I somehow think he'll survive, don't you?
Oh, I almost forgot! Rusty's also a renowned singer and songwriter. You can order his CD, Thank Allah I'm a Jihad Boy, from www.talk2rusty.com/store. The lyrics of the title song are informed by the very fruitloops of his joint research with wunderkind Klein!: Life as a terrorist is really laid back/ You find an infidel and give his head a big whack/ See a soldier just shoot him in the back/ Thank Allah I'm a Jihad Boy - Well I got me 5 wives and got me a hooka/When the sun comes up I strap on me Bazooka/ One wife so ugly I'm glad she wears a burka/ Thank Allah I'm a Jihad Boy (Radio host's CD pokes fun at terrorists, 27/10/06, WorldNetDaily.com)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Schmoozing with Aaron Klein!
"The Spirit of Things is an adventure into religion and spirituality. It explores contemporary values and beliefs as expressed through ritual, art, music, and sacred texts." (About Us, www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings)
"In a Sydney Morning Herald survey of Australia's top 100 intellectuals, Rachael Kohn was voted in the top 50 (SMH, March 12-13, 2005)." (http://www.rachaelkohn.com/)
"Israel, homosexuality, and Hollywood are targeted for elimination according to the young men from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Aaron Klein, an Orthodox Jew and intrepid journalist, has made it a point to seek them out and get answers to his questions. In this edition of The Spirit of Things you will be amazed at the courage and frankness of Klein as he tells presenter Rachael Kohn about his experiences." (promo for Talking with Terrorists, 15/6/08)
If you thought Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan's Deep inside the plucky country (see my 20/1/08 post, Gullible's Travels) was good, then Rachael Kohn's interview with young Aaron, Talking with Terrorists, is better! In fact the only thing that could top it would be a Greg (JP) Sheridan interview with him. Just imagine: Deep inside the plucky Aaron Klein.
Intrepid and courageous Aaron is the author of what promises to be (I haven't yet had the pleasure of reading it) a scholarly, but entertaining tome on terrorism titled Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem correspondent has apparently gone where no journalist has gone before, deep into the gaping jaws of the global jihad, and lives to tell the tale.
But then you'd expect no less from a WND man. Check out for yourself this Brave New World of journalism aka A Free Press for a Free people. Be tempted by the bodybuilding ads or the Ann Coulter wannabes wearing "conservative t-shirts" (Up Your Arsenal!/I'd Rather Be Waterboarding etc). Go ahead! Get clicking! That body and that t-shirt could be yours! (I've never set eyes on Aaron! but I reckon it must've been his body and his t-shirt that turned Rachael's head.) Or maybe some diverting DVDs? How about "The UFO Conspiracy: Space Travelers or Demonic Deceivers?" Or "Watch Darwin croak on video: New work shows mounting evidence for intelligent design of the universe." Still interested in the nooos? Click on "Today's [1/7/08] WND News Highlights" and read all the news that's fit to slaver over: "Democratic Party official accused in satanic rape, kidnap"; "Obama campaign site: Free Islamic terrorist!"; "Student says 'F... off!' on test, gets better grade"; "Now you can dress like a polygamist, too!" And my own favourite: "Ever want to just scream 'NOOOOO!'? Here's [the] answer to worries over issues like blog support for terrorists": "A blog posting on Sen. Barack Obama's official campaign site has urged Americans to work to release an imprisoned terrorist fundraiser, the New York Times reports there [are] a new contingent of political activists calling themselves 'Hussein', and a group of Hindus is presenting Obama's campaign with an idol of a Hindu monkey-god after hearing the candidate carries a smaller version of 'Lord Hanuman' as a good-luck charm. Ever wanted to scream 'NOOOOOO!'?"
Actually, Aaron! (and Rachael), YESSSSSS!
What's with the Obama angle? Some curmudgeons reckon Aaron!'s got an Obamabee in his bonnet: "Klein made a name for himself by getting terrorists to say nice things about Democrats and allying himself with extremist elements of the Israeli right... Klein originally called Hilary Clinton the 'jihadist choice for president', but when Clinton stumbled, he turned his fire to Obama, attempting to expose his so-called 'terrorist connections'." (Ari Berman, Smearing Obama, The Nation, 13/3/08). Others have been so unkind as to refer to his "long and dubious reporting history at WND." (Terry Krepel, Aaron Klein's Mighty Wurlitzer, http://www.conwebwatch.tripod.com/) Whining liberal scum to be sure. They don't know him as Rachael does. And she's in the top 50! Judging by her interview, I imagine the study of terrorism will henceforth be divided into BK! (Before Klein!) and AK! (After Klein!), the courageous/intrepid Klein! having put it at last on a scientific footing. And just to remind you how primitive and dated some of the BK! studies now are, here's a sample:
"In an investigative report by the Guardian newspaper, the friends and families of 21 suicide bombers were interviewed. It was reported that all the families described the bombers as being influenced emotionally by daily images of killings, sometimes 'breaking down in tears or shouting before their television sets'." (Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers, Mohammed Hafez, pp 48-49)
"'I did this because of the suffering of the Palestinian people. The falling of shuhada [those martyred by Israeli forces]... and the destruction everywhere in Palestine... I did this for God and for the Palestinian people'." (Ibid p 50)
"[O]ne cannot simply disaggregate nationalism and religious revivalism; the suicide bombers are dying for God and country. Religious revivalism, nationalist conflict, and community ties underpin the culture of martyrdom that emerged during the second Palestinian uprising. Organizations drew on these 3 sources of identity to engender the myth of the heroic martyr. These identities were interwoven by militant groups to frame martyrdom as an act of redemption, empowerment, and defiance against unjust authorities. Volunteers for suicide attacks are not brainwashed victims of opportunistic organizations, nor are they manipulated individuals who are fooled by calculating terrorists. Instead, it is more appropriate to say that they are inspired by the opportunity to fulfill their obligation to God, sacrifice for the nation and avenge a grieving people." (Ibid, pp 50-51)
"The bottom line... is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation... Religion plays a role. However, modern suicide terrorism is best understood as an extreme strategy for national liberation against democracies with troops that pose an imminent threat to control the territory the terrorists view as their homeland." (Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape, p 23)
Klein!, the intrepid, the courageous, has consigned such studies to the academic dustbin. He has single-handedly swept aside all distinctions: Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qa'ida, Hezbollah, whatever, they're all just "terror organizations." Movements of national liberation from occupation? Bah, humbug! Terrorists are just natural born killers, "pure evil, [they] exist to kill, like a bird flies, and ice is cold... They kill, that's what they do." And why do Palestinian schmuicide bombers do it, apart of course from being evil, wicked, sinful, vicious, wrong, base, vile, nefarious, malign, malevolent, nasty, and just plain bad?
Aaron! knows 'cause he's been schmoozing with terrorists since he was 19! As the clearly smitten Rachael reminds her listeners at one stage, "'I'm talking to Aaron Klein!, a young fellow who decided that the threats by terrorists to wipe out Israel, America and Western culture were not to be taken lying down." Barely out of coonskin cap and short pants, still at uni (Yeshiva), and he's off to schmooze with al-Qa'ida no less, in Terror Central aka London, no less. Blimey! The CIA may be chasing their tails, but our Aaron!, a mere penniless student presumably, leaves behind his job at Macca's, and manages to smoke out al-Qa'ida faster than you can knock back fries with that. How did he do it? Sadly, Rachael's too mesmerised to ask.
What was that question again? Why do Palestinian schmuiciders do it? Well we know it's not because they're bored with the Israeli occupation because Aaron!'s also been schmoozing with Hamas leader Mahmoud ('I may be busy dodging Israeli missiles, Aaron! me lad, but I can always fit you in') al-Zahhar who tells him "that they're just against the Zionist occupiers, and that they have nothing against Judaism," but the intrepid one just knows (in his bones I guess) that "ultimately it isn't really tue." Still, isn't it funny how all the other terrorists are so "open... about the fact that that their war is a war of culture... of bringing their religion really around the world," but this one isn't. But he is really 'cause Aaron! the brave eventually manages to winkle the truth out of the old scoundrel: "I actually just talked a few weeks ago with Mahmoud al-Zahhar the chief of Hamas on the Gaza Strip*, and he told me that Islam will be spread around the world, that this is the ultimate goal and ideology of Hamas." [*Can't understand why Rachael, one of our top 50 intellects, didn't correct him here. Surely she knows that MZ is actually the Hamas government's foreign minister.]
Anyway, I digress. What was the question again? Ah, why do Palestinian schmuicide bombers do it? Yes, I know, because they can't help themselves, they're all snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails. But, and here's the paradox: although they're evil bastards, they just want to cosy up to God! Yep, that's what "Ahmed... an Islamic Jihad recruit in Jenin" told Aaron!: "[T]his isn't about occupation, it's not about the fact that he lives in poor conditions... he had a fine house and said he wasn't rich, wasn't poor, but he said that he was blowing himself up... because... it's the best way to reach the highest levels... of Allah's paradise." Kids like Ahmed are apparently just putty in the hands of "sheiks/lower-level terrorist leaders" who are "using religion to justify their political aims which is in part to destroy Israel." Carping, canting critics might of course point out that schmuicide bomblings from the secular al-Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine might do it because they find the Israeli occupation a bit of a bore, but who gives a... They're probably on Barack HUSSEIN Osama's payroll anyway.
Define terrorism, Rachael asks. "Targeting civilians for murder to achieve political ends," says Aaron!, but faster than you can mutter 'Israeli state terrorism', he reminds us that "you can't compare terrorists that target women and children, that send schmuicide bombers into restaurants, that shoot rockets from civilian population centres into Jewish homes... to the IDF which really take all precautions necessary to ensure that there aren't civilian casualties."
And how right he is. It's so obviously, dreadfully wrong when Palestinian terrorists target Israeli civilians, but not so when our Israeli heroes kill Palestinian civilians 'cause, gosh, they don't intend to, even though they know they're there, all around, acting as human shields or just getting in the way, damn them. And anyway, the IDF do it cleanly, from a watchtower, from a great height, from way out at sea even, so there's no blood on their hands. And what's more they've got that lovely man from the foreign ministry, Mark Regev, to assure the viewers that there were no Palestinian civilian casualties, only 'collateral damage'.
Rachael asks Aaron! if the terrorists mind him calling them terrorists. But you know who the boss is in this relationship. After all, Aaron!'s been staring down Pure Evil since he was 19 and petrifaction still hasn't set in. The terrorists complain to him that they're not terrorists, but Aaron!'s one tough-talking dude. He won't put up with their whining. He just socks it to 'em, unblinking: "You need to understand that this is the way I think that the West views you. You're just going to have to accept that." And you know what? Aaron! doesn't let on, but I reckon they must just slink off with their forked tails firmly between their legs and their little horns quite crestfallen. And that Aaron!'s not even mad at them! There's only one thing that gets his dander up - the Israeli government! Yep! That's right. Know why? It's 'cause the Israeli leadership, the American leadership and the media are falling over themselves to hand over Israeli "territory" to the terrorists. And you know what that'll lead to: "[W]e're going to have rockets flying into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv..."
No, Aaron!'s not being paranoid. You can see why he's got the shits with the terrorist-appeasing Olmert, Bush and NYT if you read some of his hair-raising despatches at WND. The fiercesome rate at which illegal Palestinian terrorist settlements are proliferating throughout East Jerusalem would be enough to give anyone the wobbles.
In the next exciting episode Aaron! gets stuck into terrorists, the media, Hollywood, terrorists, liberals, terrorists, and more terrorists. Watch this space.
"In a Sydney Morning Herald survey of Australia's top 100 intellectuals, Rachael Kohn was voted in the top 50 (SMH, March 12-13, 2005)." (http://www.rachaelkohn.com/)
"Israel, homosexuality, and Hollywood are targeted for elimination according to the young men from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Aaron Klein, an Orthodox Jew and intrepid journalist, has made it a point to seek them out and get answers to his questions. In this edition of The Spirit of Things you will be amazed at the courage and frankness of Klein as he tells presenter Rachael Kohn about his experiences." (promo for Talking with Terrorists, 15/6/08)
If you thought Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan's Deep inside the plucky country (see my 20/1/08 post, Gullible's Travels) was good, then Rachael Kohn's interview with young Aaron, Talking with Terrorists, is better! In fact the only thing that could top it would be a Greg (JP) Sheridan interview with him. Just imagine: Deep inside the plucky Aaron Klein.
Intrepid and courageous Aaron is the author of what promises to be (I haven't yet had the pleasure of reading it) a scholarly, but entertaining tome on terrorism titled Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem correspondent has apparently gone where no journalist has gone before, deep into the gaping jaws of the global jihad, and lives to tell the tale.
But then you'd expect no less from a WND man. Check out for yourself this Brave New World of journalism aka A Free Press for a Free people. Be tempted by the bodybuilding ads or the Ann Coulter wannabes wearing "conservative t-shirts" (Up Your Arsenal!/I'd Rather Be Waterboarding etc). Go ahead! Get clicking! That body and that t-shirt could be yours! (I've never set eyes on Aaron! but I reckon it must've been his body and his t-shirt that turned Rachael's head.) Or maybe some diverting DVDs? How about "The UFO Conspiracy: Space Travelers or Demonic Deceivers?" Or "Watch Darwin croak on video: New work shows mounting evidence for intelligent design of the universe." Still interested in the nooos? Click on "Today's [1/7/08] WND News Highlights" and read all the news that's fit to slaver over: "Democratic Party official accused in satanic rape, kidnap"; "Obama campaign site: Free Islamic terrorist!"; "Student says 'F... off!' on test, gets better grade"; "Now you can dress like a polygamist, too!" And my own favourite: "Ever want to just scream 'NOOOOO!'? Here's [the] answer to worries over issues like blog support for terrorists": "A blog posting on Sen. Barack Obama's official campaign site has urged Americans to work to release an imprisoned terrorist fundraiser, the New York Times reports there [are] a new contingent of political activists calling themselves 'Hussein', and a group of Hindus is presenting Obama's campaign with an idol of a Hindu monkey-god after hearing the candidate carries a smaller version of 'Lord Hanuman' as a good-luck charm. Ever wanted to scream 'NOOOOOO!'?"
Actually, Aaron! (and Rachael), YESSSSSS!
What's with the Obama angle? Some curmudgeons reckon Aaron!'s got an Obamabee in his bonnet: "Klein made a name for himself by getting terrorists to say nice things about Democrats and allying himself with extremist elements of the Israeli right... Klein originally called Hilary Clinton the 'jihadist choice for president', but when Clinton stumbled, he turned his fire to Obama, attempting to expose his so-called 'terrorist connections'." (Ari Berman, Smearing Obama, The Nation, 13/3/08). Others have been so unkind as to refer to his "long and dubious reporting history at WND." (Terry Krepel, Aaron Klein's Mighty Wurlitzer, http://www.conwebwatch.tripod.com/) Whining liberal scum to be sure. They don't know him as Rachael does. And she's in the top 50! Judging by her interview, I imagine the study of terrorism will henceforth be divided into BK! (Before Klein!) and AK! (After Klein!), the courageous/intrepid Klein! having put it at last on a scientific footing. And just to remind you how primitive and dated some of the BK! studies now are, here's a sample:
"In an investigative report by the Guardian newspaper, the friends and families of 21 suicide bombers were interviewed. It was reported that all the families described the bombers as being influenced emotionally by daily images of killings, sometimes 'breaking down in tears or shouting before their television sets'." (Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers, Mohammed Hafez, pp 48-49)
"'I did this because of the suffering of the Palestinian people. The falling of shuhada [those martyred by Israeli forces]... and the destruction everywhere in Palestine... I did this for God and for the Palestinian people'." (Ibid p 50)
"[O]ne cannot simply disaggregate nationalism and religious revivalism; the suicide bombers are dying for God and country. Religious revivalism, nationalist conflict, and community ties underpin the culture of martyrdom that emerged during the second Palestinian uprising. Organizations drew on these 3 sources of identity to engender the myth of the heroic martyr. These identities were interwoven by militant groups to frame martyrdom as an act of redemption, empowerment, and defiance against unjust authorities. Volunteers for suicide attacks are not brainwashed victims of opportunistic organizations, nor are they manipulated individuals who are fooled by calculating terrorists. Instead, it is more appropriate to say that they are inspired by the opportunity to fulfill their obligation to God, sacrifice for the nation and avenge a grieving people." (Ibid, pp 50-51)
"The bottom line... is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation... Religion plays a role. However, modern suicide terrorism is best understood as an extreme strategy for national liberation against democracies with troops that pose an imminent threat to control the territory the terrorists view as their homeland." (Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape, p 23)
Klein!, the intrepid, the courageous, has consigned such studies to the academic dustbin. He has single-handedly swept aside all distinctions: Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qa'ida, Hezbollah, whatever, they're all just "terror organizations." Movements of national liberation from occupation? Bah, humbug! Terrorists are just natural born killers, "pure evil, [they] exist to kill, like a bird flies, and ice is cold... They kill, that's what they do." And why do Palestinian schmuicide bombers do it, apart of course from being evil, wicked, sinful, vicious, wrong, base, vile, nefarious, malign, malevolent, nasty, and just plain bad?
Aaron! knows 'cause he's been schmoozing with terrorists since he was 19! As the clearly smitten Rachael reminds her listeners at one stage, "'I'm talking to Aaron Klein!, a young fellow who decided that the threats by terrorists to wipe out Israel, America and Western culture were not to be taken lying down." Barely out of coonskin cap and short pants, still at uni (Yeshiva), and he's off to schmooze with al-Qa'ida no less, in Terror Central aka London, no less. Blimey! The CIA may be chasing their tails, but our Aaron!, a mere penniless student presumably, leaves behind his job at Macca's, and manages to smoke out al-Qa'ida faster than you can knock back fries with that. How did he do it? Sadly, Rachael's too mesmerised to ask.
What was that question again? Why do Palestinian schmuiciders do it? Well we know it's not because they're bored with the Israeli occupation because Aaron!'s also been schmoozing with Hamas leader Mahmoud ('I may be busy dodging Israeli missiles, Aaron! me lad, but I can always fit you in') al-Zahhar who tells him "that they're just against the Zionist occupiers, and that they have nothing against Judaism," but the intrepid one just knows (in his bones I guess) that "ultimately it isn't really tue." Still, isn't it funny how all the other terrorists are so "open... about the fact that that their war is a war of culture... of bringing their religion really around the world," but this one isn't. But he is really 'cause Aaron! the brave eventually manages to winkle the truth out of the old scoundrel: "I actually just talked a few weeks ago with Mahmoud al-Zahhar the chief of Hamas on the Gaza Strip*, and he told me that Islam will be spread around the world, that this is the ultimate goal and ideology of Hamas." [*Can't understand why Rachael, one of our top 50 intellects, didn't correct him here. Surely she knows that MZ is actually the Hamas government's foreign minister.]
Anyway, I digress. What was the question again? Ah, why do Palestinian schmuicide bombers do it? Yes, I know, because they can't help themselves, they're all snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails. But, and here's the paradox: although they're evil bastards, they just want to cosy up to God! Yep, that's what "Ahmed... an Islamic Jihad recruit in Jenin" told Aaron!: "[T]his isn't about occupation, it's not about the fact that he lives in poor conditions... he had a fine house and said he wasn't rich, wasn't poor, but he said that he was blowing himself up... because... it's the best way to reach the highest levels... of Allah's paradise." Kids like Ahmed are apparently just putty in the hands of "sheiks/lower-level terrorist leaders" who are "using religion to justify their political aims which is in part to destroy Israel." Carping, canting critics might of course point out that schmuicide bomblings from the secular al-Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine might do it because they find the Israeli occupation a bit of a bore, but who gives a... They're probably on Barack HUSSEIN Osama's payroll anyway.
Define terrorism, Rachael asks. "Targeting civilians for murder to achieve political ends," says Aaron!, but faster than you can mutter 'Israeli state terrorism', he reminds us that "you can't compare terrorists that target women and children, that send schmuicide bombers into restaurants, that shoot rockets from civilian population centres into Jewish homes... to the IDF which really take all precautions necessary to ensure that there aren't civilian casualties."
And how right he is. It's so obviously, dreadfully wrong when Palestinian terrorists target Israeli civilians, but not so when our Israeli heroes kill Palestinian civilians 'cause, gosh, they don't intend to, even though they know they're there, all around, acting as human shields or just getting in the way, damn them. And anyway, the IDF do it cleanly, from a watchtower, from a great height, from way out at sea even, so there's no blood on their hands. And what's more they've got that lovely man from the foreign ministry, Mark Regev, to assure the viewers that there were no Palestinian civilian casualties, only 'collateral damage'.
Rachael asks Aaron! if the terrorists mind him calling them terrorists. But you know who the boss is in this relationship. After all, Aaron!'s been staring down Pure Evil since he was 19 and petrifaction still hasn't set in. The terrorists complain to him that they're not terrorists, but Aaron!'s one tough-talking dude. He won't put up with their whining. He just socks it to 'em, unblinking: "You need to understand that this is the way I think that the West views you. You're just going to have to accept that." And you know what? Aaron! doesn't let on, but I reckon they must just slink off with their forked tails firmly between their legs and their little horns quite crestfallen. And that Aaron!'s not even mad at them! There's only one thing that gets his dander up - the Israeli government! Yep! That's right. Know why? It's 'cause the Israeli leadership, the American leadership and the media are falling over themselves to hand over Israeli "territory" to the terrorists. And you know what that'll lead to: "[W]e're going to have rockets flying into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv..."
No, Aaron!'s not being paranoid. You can see why he's got the shits with the terrorist-appeasing Olmert, Bush and NYT if you read some of his hair-raising despatches at WND. The fiercesome rate at which illegal Palestinian terrorist settlements are proliferating throughout East Jerusalem would be enough to give anyone the wobbles.
In the next exciting episode Aaron! gets stuck into terrorists, the media, Hollywood, terrorists, liberals, terrorists, and more terrorists. Watch this space.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Breathtaking Zionist Hypocrisy
"What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." Hannah Arendt
Whenever Israel boosters open their mouths I am invariably struck by the hypocrisy of their utterances. One such egregious display of this "vice of vices" cropped up on 15 June in Rachael Kohn's introduction to her interview with Aaron Klein, author of Schmoozing with Terrorists, on her ABC Radio National program, The Spirit of Things. I'll be dealing with the interview and its subject in my next post. Ms Kohn's opening remarks, however, merit their own.
Here is how she began: "Recently I returned from Israel, where I met a number of exceptional people, one of whom is the young American-born Aaron Klein, who's the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the news website, worldnetdaily.com. Aaron's claim to fame is that he interviews terrorists, and he's just written a book about it. Now 'terrorist' is a term that I'm well aware has been virtually banned from common parlance, and I asked him about that. Nonetheless, it's his way of naming a threat that's far more real to Israeli citizens, than, say, to academics at Harvard who'd be horrified if they had to be searched by armed guards every time they went onto campus. Or to journalists in comfortable newsrooms who don't live in towns that are continually the object of rocket attacks. They've never known what it's like to do daily tasks that we take for granted, but is [sic] an act of faith for an Israeli, like taking the No. 7 bus on Jaffa Road. Or shopping in the Mahane Yehuda greengrocers market, both popular targets for suicide bombers in Jerusalem."
Overlook Kohn's uncritical use of the 'T' word. Overlook her snide dig at Harvard professor Stephen Walt (who, with co-author of The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer, also recently visited Israel). Overlook her attack on journalists who don't uncritically toe the Israeli line. Just focus on those final two sentences, about Israelis still spooked, if Kohn is to be believed, about the prospect of Palestinian suicide bombings in the buses and markets of Jerusalem. What she doesn't tell us is that long before Palestinian groups turned to such terror tactics, Israeli terrorists of the Irgun variety were pioneering them on Palestinian Arab civilian targets back in the 30s. Here's a partial list of same:-
Bombs in Market Places, Cafes, Homes:
17/3/37 Four bombs thrown into Arab cafes in Jaffa; 1 Arab killed, 10 injured. (Palestine and Trans-Jordan, 1937 - Colonial 146, 1938, p 6)
6/7/38 Bomb thrown in Haifa market place results in 8 Arab casualties. (Keesing's Contemporary Archives, III (1937-1940), 3177A)
14/7/38 Bomb explodes in Arab vegetable market, killing 12 and wounding 29, including women and children. (Ibid)
17/7/38 Three Arabs found murdered in Tel Aviv. Police arrest 5 Zionist Revisionists. (Ibid)
25/7/38 Bomb explodes in Arab vegetable market, killing 39 and wounding 64. (Ibid)
25/8/38 Bomb explodes in Jaffa vegetable market, killing 23 Arabs and wounding 30. (Ibid, 3312A)
27/2/39 Bombs explode in Haifa and Jaffa market places, killing 28 Arabs. (Ibid 3513)
2/6/39 Irgun bombs Arab melon market in Jerusalem, killing 5 and wounding 19. (Ibid 3642B)
19/6/39 Bombs explode in Arab market in Haifa, killing 9 and wounding 24. (Ibid)
3/7/39 Bomb thrown into Arab cafe in Haifa. (Ibid)
Attacks on Arab Buses:
20/8/37-26/9/37 Bomb wounds 2 Arabs. Bombs thrown at Arab buses wound 1 woman and kill another. (Palestine and Trans-Jordan 1937 - Colonial 146, 1938, p 8)
14/11/37 Arab bus shot at in Jewish Quarter. 3 Arab passengers, including 2 women dead. (Ibid, p 9)
4/7/38 Bomb thrown at Arab bus in Jerusalem kills 5 and wounds 7. (Keesing's, III (1937-1940), 3177A)
8/7/38 Bomb thrown at Arab bus in Jerusalem kills 4 and wounds 15. (Ibid)
29/6/39 Six attacks on Arab buses on roads near Tel-Aviv, Rehovoth and Petah Tikva result in 11 deaths. (Ibid, 3642B)
Wikipedia's List of Irgun attacks during the 1930s lists 33 incidents resulting in Arab deaths out of "at least 60 operations... during this period."
Here's the Irgun's truncated account from its website:
"After Ben-Yosef's execution [by the British], the Irgun launched a series of operations against the Arabs. The central acts were the explosions in the Arab markets of Haifa and Jerusalem. On July 6, 1938, a member of the Irgun, disguised as an Arab porter, went into the Arab market in Haifa, placed a large parcel beside one of the barrows in the centre of the market and left. Shortly afterwards there was a heavy explosion, which killed 21 Arabs and injured more than 50. A week later a similar incident took place in Jerusalem. A member of the Irgun concealed an electric mine in the Arab market in the Old City. It exploded shortly after the end of the prayer service in the mosque, when a large crowd had emerged onto the street. Eight Arabs were killed and more than 30 injured." http://www.etzel.org.il/
Here's a quote from historian J Bowyer-Bell:
"On July 4, the Irgun attacked Arab quarters, first in Jerusalem and then in Tel Aviv. Five were killed and 20 were wounded. Two days later an Arab 'porter' carried milk cans into the Haifa fruit and vegetable market. As soon as he found an empty corner, he left his cans and disappeared into the crowd. A few minutes later the cans detonated with a huge roar, spewing fire and fragments into the milling crowd of shoppers. Twenty-three Arabs were killed and 79 wounded. A similar attack in the Arab quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem on July 15 killed 10 and wounded 29 more Arabs. The biggest explosion of all came on July 25, again in Haifa, leaving 39 dead and 46 wounded." (Terror Out of Zion, p 42)
Here's American historian Lenni Brenner:
"Early in September 1937, 13 Arabs had been killed, supposedly in retaliation for the deaths of 3 Jews. By 14 November the Irgun went on the offensive. Several Irgunists were determined to act on their own and the Irgun command headed them off by organizing a wave of operations that resulted in 10 Arabs killed and numerous wounded. Thereafter there were innumerable attacks on purely civilian Arab targets with the high point of the campaign coming in the summer of 1938. On 6 July a milk-can bomb went off in the Arab market in Haifa, leaving 21 dead and 52 injured. On 15 July July an electric mine in David Street in the old city of Jerusalem killed 10 and wounded 30. On the 25th another bomb in the Haifa market killed 35 civilians and wounded 70. On 26 August a bomb in Jaffa's market slaughtered 24 and injured 35." (The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir, p 100)
And just to humanise:
"... a bomb exploded in the vegetable market in Jaffa. It went off early in the morning, when most housewives were milling round the stalls, squeezing the fruits before buying, accompanied by those of their children who were too young or too poor to go to school... The 'bomb' had been an oil drum, packed tight with old bits and pieces of rusty iron scrap and nails and explosives, rolled into the centre of the market place from a lorry which the authorities never traced, enough for every Arab to know its origin. There was a British officer training the extremist Zionists, who until his arrival had never done this sort of thing." (Soraya Antonius, The Lord, p 206)
To paraphrase Ms Kohn: 'Those Palestinians never knew what it was like to do daily tasks that we take for granted, but were an act of faith for them, like taking the No. X bus in Jerusalem. Or shopping in the Haifa greengrocers market, both popular targets for Jewish terrorists in Palestine'.
Whenever Israel boosters open their mouths I am invariably struck by the hypocrisy of their utterances. One such egregious display of this "vice of vices" cropped up on 15 June in Rachael Kohn's introduction to her interview with Aaron Klein, author of Schmoozing with Terrorists, on her ABC Radio National program, The Spirit of Things. I'll be dealing with the interview and its subject in my next post. Ms Kohn's opening remarks, however, merit their own.
Here is how she began: "Recently I returned from Israel, where I met a number of exceptional people, one of whom is the young American-born Aaron Klein, who's the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the news website, worldnetdaily.com. Aaron's claim to fame is that he interviews terrorists, and he's just written a book about it. Now 'terrorist' is a term that I'm well aware has been virtually banned from common parlance, and I asked him about that. Nonetheless, it's his way of naming a threat that's far more real to Israeli citizens, than, say, to academics at Harvard who'd be horrified if they had to be searched by armed guards every time they went onto campus. Or to journalists in comfortable newsrooms who don't live in towns that are continually the object of rocket attacks. They've never known what it's like to do daily tasks that we take for granted, but is [sic] an act of faith for an Israeli, like taking the No. 7 bus on Jaffa Road. Or shopping in the Mahane Yehuda greengrocers market, both popular targets for suicide bombers in Jerusalem."
Overlook Kohn's uncritical use of the 'T' word. Overlook her snide dig at Harvard professor Stephen Walt (who, with co-author of The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer, also recently visited Israel). Overlook her attack on journalists who don't uncritically toe the Israeli line. Just focus on those final two sentences, about Israelis still spooked, if Kohn is to be believed, about the prospect of Palestinian suicide bombings in the buses and markets of Jerusalem. What she doesn't tell us is that long before Palestinian groups turned to such terror tactics, Israeli terrorists of the Irgun variety were pioneering them on Palestinian Arab civilian targets back in the 30s. Here's a partial list of same:-
Bombs in Market Places, Cafes, Homes:
17/3/37 Four bombs thrown into Arab cafes in Jaffa; 1 Arab killed, 10 injured. (Palestine and Trans-Jordan, 1937 - Colonial 146, 1938, p 6)
6/7/38 Bomb thrown in Haifa market place results in 8 Arab casualties. (Keesing's Contemporary Archives, III (1937-1940), 3177A)
14/7/38 Bomb explodes in Arab vegetable market, killing 12 and wounding 29, including women and children. (Ibid)
17/7/38 Three Arabs found murdered in Tel Aviv. Police arrest 5 Zionist Revisionists. (Ibid)
25/7/38 Bomb explodes in Arab vegetable market, killing 39 and wounding 64. (Ibid)
25/8/38 Bomb explodes in Jaffa vegetable market, killing 23 Arabs and wounding 30. (Ibid, 3312A)
27/2/39 Bombs explode in Haifa and Jaffa market places, killing 28 Arabs. (Ibid 3513)
2/6/39 Irgun bombs Arab melon market in Jerusalem, killing 5 and wounding 19. (Ibid 3642B)
19/6/39 Bombs explode in Arab market in Haifa, killing 9 and wounding 24. (Ibid)
3/7/39 Bomb thrown into Arab cafe in Haifa. (Ibid)
Attacks on Arab Buses:
20/8/37-26/9/37 Bomb wounds 2 Arabs. Bombs thrown at Arab buses wound 1 woman and kill another. (Palestine and Trans-Jordan 1937 - Colonial 146, 1938, p 8)
14/11/37 Arab bus shot at in Jewish Quarter. 3 Arab passengers, including 2 women dead. (Ibid, p 9)
4/7/38 Bomb thrown at Arab bus in Jerusalem kills 5 and wounds 7. (Keesing's, III (1937-1940), 3177A)
8/7/38 Bomb thrown at Arab bus in Jerusalem kills 4 and wounds 15. (Ibid)
29/6/39 Six attacks on Arab buses on roads near Tel-Aviv, Rehovoth and Petah Tikva result in 11 deaths. (Ibid, 3642B)
Wikipedia's List of Irgun attacks during the 1930s lists 33 incidents resulting in Arab deaths out of "at least 60 operations... during this period."
Here's the Irgun's truncated account from its website:
"After Ben-Yosef's execution [by the British], the Irgun launched a series of operations against the Arabs. The central acts were the explosions in the Arab markets of Haifa and Jerusalem. On July 6, 1938, a member of the Irgun, disguised as an Arab porter, went into the Arab market in Haifa, placed a large parcel beside one of the barrows in the centre of the market and left. Shortly afterwards there was a heavy explosion, which killed 21 Arabs and injured more than 50. A week later a similar incident took place in Jerusalem. A member of the Irgun concealed an electric mine in the Arab market in the Old City. It exploded shortly after the end of the prayer service in the mosque, when a large crowd had emerged onto the street. Eight Arabs were killed and more than 30 injured." http://www.etzel.org.il/
Here's a quote from historian J Bowyer-Bell:
"On July 4, the Irgun attacked Arab quarters, first in Jerusalem and then in Tel Aviv. Five were killed and 20 were wounded. Two days later an Arab 'porter' carried milk cans into the Haifa fruit and vegetable market. As soon as he found an empty corner, he left his cans and disappeared into the crowd. A few minutes later the cans detonated with a huge roar, spewing fire and fragments into the milling crowd of shoppers. Twenty-three Arabs were killed and 79 wounded. A similar attack in the Arab quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem on July 15 killed 10 and wounded 29 more Arabs. The biggest explosion of all came on July 25, again in Haifa, leaving 39 dead and 46 wounded." (Terror Out of Zion, p 42)
Here's American historian Lenni Brenner:
"Early in September 1937, 13 Arabs had been killed, supposedly in retaliation for the deaths of 3 Jews. By 14 November the Irgun went on the offensive. Several Irgunists were determined to act on their own and the Irgun command headed them off by organizing a wave of operations that resulted in 10 Arabs killed and numerous wounded. Thereafter there were innumerable attacks on purely civilian Arab targets with the high point of the campaign coming in the summer of 1938. On 6 July a milk-can bomb went off in the Arab market in Haifa, leaving 21 dead and 52 injured. On 15 July July an electric mine in David Street in the old city of Jerusalem killed 10 and wounded 30. On the 25th another bomb in the Haifa market killed 35 civilians and wounded 70. On 26 August a bomb in Jaffa's market slaughtered 24 and injured 35." (The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir, p 100)
And just to humanise:
"... a bomb exploded in the vegetable market in Jaffa. It went off early in the morning, when most housewives were milling round the stalls, squeezing the fruits before buying, accompanied by those of their children who were too young or too poor to go to school... The 'bomb' had been an oil drum, packed tight with old bits and pieces of rusty iron scrap and nails and explosives, rolled into the centre of the market place from a lorry which the authorities never traced, enough for every Arab to know its origin. There was a British officer training the extremist Zionists, who until his arrival had never done this sort of thing." (Soraya Antonius, The Lord, p 206)
To paraphrase Ms Kohn: 'Those Palestinians never knew what it was like to do daily tasks that we take for granted, but were an act of faith for them, like taking the No. X bus in Jerusalem. Or shopping in the Haifa greengrocers market, both popular targets for Jewish terrorists in Palestine'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)