'New Historian' glum over national survival prospects vis a vis Iran

Text: "Mahmoud Ahmedinejad showing the West
what both a peace sign and middle finger look like
when they're being developed separately."

"Glum?!" Did I write "glum" up there? Shyeah - professional discretion my *** - make that a notch short of suicide...

Benny Morris is considered the most influential and prolific member of the New Historians, a controversial group of scholars who have challenged much of the received wisdom of the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Warning: Benny has penned a serious downer of a read ahead. But read it anyway.

One bright morning, in five or ten years' time, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran's acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Ahmedinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go ahead. The orders will go out and the Shihab III and IV missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa, and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel's half dozen air and (reported) nuclear missile bases. Some of the Shihabs will be nuclear-tipped, perhaps even with multiple warheads. Others will be dupes, packed merely with biological or chemical agents, or old newspapers, to draw off or confuse Israel's anti-missile batteries and Home Guard units.

With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 8,000 square miles), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel. A million or more Israelis, in the greater Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem areas, will die immediately. Millions will be seriously irradiated. Israel has about seven million inhabitants. No Iranian will see or touch an Israeli. It will be quite impersonal.

Hmm... Maybe this will cheer up ole, Benny...

Earlier posts about Israel and Iran here, here, here, here, here, and the linkdump is here.

(Google) bombing Olmert

Taking a page from google bombs in the past such as this one and this one, an Israeli blogger initiated a google bomb against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Go to Google and type in "Kishalon Harutz" - "Utter Failure" - (this only works in Hebrew fonting, by the way), Google's Israel portal will send you to the Prime Ministers Office.

Try it here.

"Eye" know! Maybe it had something to do with Olmert's "blepharoplasty."

(H-T: The View From Here)

Israeli medical clowning degree no laughing matter (hyuk, hyuk)

Laughter is the best medicine - an old saying, but one that the University of Haifa is taking seriously by introducing Israel's first degree program - and perhaps the only degree in the world - in medical clowning.

"It's a kind of start-up actually," said Herzel Ziyoni about the pilot program being offered by the university's Department. of Theater.

Though the hospitals accept the presence of medical clowns, they don't consider them part of the staff. The students hope that the new degree program will change this situation.

The laff riot continues here. "Paging Dr. Patch Adams..."