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"If not for the Holocaust, there would be as many as 32 million Jews worldwide, instead of the current 13 million, demographer Professor Sergio Della Pergola has written in a soon-to-be published article."
"The success of the American-Israeli alliance demands that both parties be active partners in a complex dance that involves a lot of play-acting—America pretends to rebuke Israel, just as Israel pretends to be restrained by American intervention from bombing Damascus or seizing the banks of the Euphrates. The instability of the U.S.-Israel relationship is therefore inherent in the terms of a patron-client relationship that requires managing a careful balance of Israeli strength and Israeli weakness. An Israel that runs roughshod over its neighbors is a liability to the United States—just as an Israel that lost the capacity to project destabilizing power throughout the region would quickly become worthless as a client.Globetrotting journalist Michael J. Totten, reports from Lebanon:A corollary of this basic point is that the weaker and more dependent Israel becomes, the more Israeli interests and American interests are likely to diverge. Stripped of its ability to take independent military action, Israel's value to the United States can be seen to reside in its ability to give the Golan Heights back to Syria and to carve out a Palestinian state from the remaining territories it captured in 1967—after which it would be left with only the territories of the pre-1967 state to barter for a declining store of U.S. military credits, which Washington might prefer to spend on wooing Iran."
From Omri over at Mererhetoric:Christopher Hitchens recently went to a rally in the suburbs south of Beirut and found Hezbollah ratcheting up its belligerence. “A huge poster of a nuclear mushroom cloud surmounts the scene,” he wrote in the May issue of Vanity Fair, “with the inscription OH ZIONISTS, IF YOU WANT THIS TYPE OF WAR THEN SO BE IT!” Last week James Kirchick reported seeing the same thing at the same rally in City Journal. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time Hezbollah has threatened nuclear war.
Hezbollah isn’t broadcasting this to the world. If Hitchens and Kirchick hadn’t written about it, few would know the mushroom-cloud banner even exists. It’s not so much a threat as it is a revelation of Hezbollah’s dark psyche. But perhaps Hezbollah’s not shouting “nuclear war” for all to hear means its threats are more dangerous than public taunts from the Iranian government. Empty threats and hyperbole are rife in the Middle East. Death threats are rarely carried out anywhere. Most assassins don’t announce their intentions. They kill their victims without warning. Whatever Hezbollah’s mushroom-cloud banner means, we know this much: intimations of nuclear war with Israel are now coming from Lebanon as well as Iran. The worst case scenario — a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv — might be slightly more likely than some of us thought.
Some earlier posts about Israel and Iran are here, here, here, here, and here, and the linkdump is here.US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned against an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, asserting that such a strike would have dangerous consequences, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday. According to the report, Gates explained that a strike was dangerous because it would unify Iran, "cement their determination to have a nuclear program, and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them."This argument is awesome for at least two reasons:
(1) It's unblinkingly stupid. It doesn't matter how many times Iran declares that they'll never give up nuclearization. It doesn't matter how obviously true it is that we can't give them anything they want more than a bomb. It will still be Israeli self-defense that causes them to cross the nuclear threshold. Of course it will be.
(2) It's obnoxiously predictable. Of course the Obama administration is going to tag Israel for the length and breadth of Middle East instability. The only people who really denied that during the campaign were pro-Obama Jewish shills. And I don't think they ever really believed it.
"'Ahmed and Salim,' a provocative, humoristic animated web series created by two Israelis describes the life of two brothers whose father is an arch terrorist. Highly popular series also shocks many surfers."After watching just one episode, "shocks," is putting it very mildly... what's more, boast the animators: "We don't care if people are offended."
"So there we are, sitting at the Shabbat lunch table, guests of friends we hadn’t seen in far too long. We were three couples, all of us immigrants, each with kids, ranging from 22 (with a boyfriend) to 4 (without a boyfriend). And another couple, parents of our hosts, visiting from the States, both of them well known and highly regarded academics. Sometime in the middle of lunch, the mother of the hostess, whose academic interest is “identity,” asks us all, without even a hint of irony or condescension, 'Can you please explain to me why you would choose to live here? What got you to leave what you had and come here?'"(Photo H-T: Muqata)
"Analysts are openly accusing Israel of sponsoring piracy off Somalia waters with the aim of transforming Red Sea into a Jewish lake. The immediate objective of USA, Israel and European countries is to prevent the inflow of arms to Islamist Al-Shabab that is on the verge of snatching power in Somalia and to steal Arab oil. Sea piracy has been blown up into a big threat to oil supplies to the west, Japan, China and others in order to internationalize the issue.I dunno', I hear the dolphins got there first...
"Internationalization of security in Red Sea is being done under the pretext of fighting piracy to safeguard critical seal lanes and choke point of Suez Canal with the help of a combined multi-national naval force.
"Sooner than later, Israel would be asked to take control of this flotilla..."
Read the rest.The fact that you're reading this article is a minor miracle. Think of all the things that needed to fall into place: the computer, the hard drive, the labyrinth of the Internet, the web browser -- even the electrical power driving it all.
There is incredible complexity built into the simple act of reading this article. And yet, we sit before these machines every day without giving them a moment's thought.
Until they stop working.
When that blue screen appears and the computer freezes, we hold our breath hoping that nothing has failed, that we haven't lost weeks of hard work. Only when we reset the computer and it functions properly again, do we let out a sigh of relief, return to work... and take it all for granted again.
The Talmud (Brachot 59b) teaches:
He who sees the sun at its season, the moon at its strength, the stars in their paths, and the constellations in their order, recites "Blessed is the One Who performs the act of creation." And when does this happen? Abaye says: Every 28 years, when the cycle returns and the season of Nissan falls in Saturn, on the fourth day of the week.On April 8, 2009, the eve of Passover, Jews around the world will rise early, gaze at the sun and recite the least-frequently-recited blessing in Judaism: Birkat HaChama, the blessing on the sun. We recite this blessing once every 28 years, and it's coming to your neighborhood very soon. Assuming, of course, that the sun rises that fateful Wednesday the same way it has every day until now...
Passover Preparations 2009 18 03 2009You go there. Now.Spring is in the air and that means it is time to start preparing for Passover, which begins on 8 April. I am not going to be doing a lot of preparation this year, but I have gathered a few interesting recipes for you to consider for your own meal. First, here is a link to all of my Passover recipes from the last couple of years. And, here are some interesting ones for you to try:
