Wednesday, November 29, 2006

An other one sided cease fire


This blows my mind. Where were AP photographers when the Isreali woman was hit by a katyusha rocket last week while at the market? Nowhere! Now, the Israelis are breaking up a group of angry, dangerous rioters in the West Bank and once again we have a Yahoo News compilation of more than 300 photos!


Get a load of this from the A(w/t[-MM**])P:
JERUSALEM - Israel’s deputy prime minister on Saturday said Israel should assassinate Hamas’ leadership, ignore the moderate Palestinian president and walk away from international peace efforts, the latest in a string of hard-line positions voiced by the newest member of the Cabinet.
The comments by Avigdor Lieberman came as the rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, continued talks on forming a unity government. President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah hopes the coalition deal will enable him to revive peace efforts with Israel.


Basically, the AP completely ignores the fact that the Palestinians haven’t stopped BOMBING Israel regularly and that Hamas’ policy hasn’t changed.

They still want the Jews dead.

They keep referring to Mahmoud Abbass as a moderate.

What does that mean?

He only wants to kill most of the Jews instead of all of them?

Listen to what Lieberman says. He’s absolutely right:
Speaking to Israel Radio, Lieberman said he believes the Palestinians are not interested in setting up their own state, but rather in destroying Israel. He said Israel must abandon past peace deals, known as the Oslo accords, and the road map.
“A continuation of Oslo, of the road map … will lead us to another round of conflict, a much more bloody round, and in the end to an even deeper deadlock, and it threatens our future,” he said.
He dismissed Abbas, elected president in 2005, as an ineffective leader who should be ignored, and said Israel must get tougher with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups, particularly their leaders.


It is blatently obvious the Palestinians have no interest in setting up their own state. Look what they did when Israel gave up Gaza along with the region’s viable plant export industry:
NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - Palestinians looted dozens of greenhouses on Tuesday, walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip.
American Jewish donors had bought more than 3,000 greenhouses from Israeli settlers in Gaza for $14 million last month and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who brokered the deal, put up $500,000 of his own cash.
Palestinian police stood by helplessly Tuesday as looters carted off materials from greenhouses in several settlements, and commanders complained they did not have enough manpower to protect the prized assets. In some instances, there was no security and in others, police even joined the looters, witnesses said.

Who Said The Cold War Was Over?

Detectives will fly to Moscow and Rome this week in an attempt to unravel the mysterious radioactive poisoning in London of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian defector.
Senior security sources in Britain suspect that Russian agents — possibly a rogue unit — were behind the sophisticated nuclear weapons element used to commit the murder.

Ok Mel...?


Books..


Jesus of the week


Good morning!


Monday, November 27, 2006

A jackpot, a Black and a Jew.



Nidra Poller’s account:EASY PREY IN PARIS


PJM in SeattleNovember 25, 2006

The “Celebrations”In which a French policeman protects a Jewish fan of Israeli soccer team assaulted by Paris St. Germain hooligans. Score: 1 dead, 1 critically injured. National state of anti-Semitic denial continues in France unabated.PJM’s Paris editor Nidra Poller’s continuing coverage of events in France. 24 November 2006The news broke with typical French fuzziness: a plainclothes policeman, who came to the rescue of an Israeli pursued by 150 enraged Paris St. Germain fans, fired into the crowd killing one assailant and critically wounding another. The incident occurred after the Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer team beat Paris St. Germain 4 to 2 at the Parc des Princes stadium near the bois de Boulogne. The first image that came to mind was punk jihadis—the kind who burn buses and smash policemen’s heads, and may also be PSG fans—hot on the heels of an Israeli, breathing smoke and lusting for blood. And finally a policeman does the sensible thing, and shoots before getting his head bashed in. But now what? Won’t the banlieue explode before midnight? This is the incident they all dreaded.Then the first details squeezed through the tight net that separates a radio broadcast from The Facts: in fact, the bad guys are hooligans from the notorious Kop de Boulogne section of the stands (the punk jihadis occupy the “Auteuil” section at the opposite side of the stadium). Skinheads, racists, high voltage trouble makers, many of them affiliated with the unsavory Front National. By midday TV newsrooms had pulled up archive footage of previous exploits too numerous to mention. Typical hooligan stuff. Plus a new incident that occurred this morning when about forty of the same stripe turned up at the Camp des Loges where the team was training. An official came out to “dialogue” with them (you know, that is the French solution for all the world’s ills) and they attacked him and whoever else they could punch or kick, including journalists and cameramen, before they were subdued. Were they arrested? Come to think of it, I don’t know. Probably not. One of the punchers was a husky black guy. You’ll soon see why I mention this un-PC fact.The plainclothes policeman who protected the Hapoel TA fan is a French Caribbean, Antoine Granomort. He is presently in police custody, as are five of the hooligans, accused of various charges including racist and anti-Semitic insults. It looks like the policeman will be acquitted on grounds of self defense. But who knows, he might fall into the hands of a judge who has used up his leniency on head-busting racaille and decides to crack down on a “trigger-happy” policeman. Like the French Ministress of Defense who wants to shoot down Israel airplanes flying over Lebanon.The dead fan, 25 year-old Julien Quemener, and the injured fan, 25 year-old Mounir Bouchaer, were both known as “card-carrying” members of the “Boulogne Boys.” The latest reports say the policeman only fired one shot; the bullet went through Bouchaer’s chest, piercing a lung, and straight into the heart of Quemener. Which would tend to confirm the policeman’s declaration, that he fired upward at a sixty-degree angle, aiming at someone who was about fifty centimeters to a meter away from him…After carefully gathering and crosschecking every available scrap of information, this is the closest I can get to an accurate account of the chain of events.Yanniv Hazout—Israeli or more likely a Jewish Frenchman carrying or wrapped tifosi-style in an Israeli flag—was leaving the stadium with four or five friends when a gang of about 150 men described as PSG fans started to chase them. (This was the clue I missed before my morning coffee; the gang was never described as “youths.”) Philippe Broussard of l’Express, former sports journalist and expert on hooliganism, who witnessed the attack, describes the crowd as an extremely violent dangerous horde, shouting racist and anti-Semitic insults. One source claims that Yanniv and his friends decided to break up…but I find that hard to believe. I’ll have to wait until the Jewish media get the full story on that. Yanniv was alone when Broussard saw the policeman trying to protect him, telling him “stay behind me, stay behind me.” Someone else describes Yanniv pulling the policeman’s sleeve, trying to guide him over to a McDonald’s on the far side of Porte St. Cloud Square.Granomort, who is assigned to the transport brigade, was not on duty at the stadium that night. One report says he was watching over the parked police cars. Hopefully he will tell his side of the story when he is released from police custody. Knowing what we know of people battered senseless or kicked to death, of policemen ambushed, attacked with iron bars, getting their heads smashed, we can measure the courage of Antoine Granomort who risked his life to protect a young man bearing an Israeli flag in Paris in this day and age.He could have left Yanniv to his sorry fate. No one would have blamed him. Who would have even known there was a plainclothes policeman in the vicinity?Granomort tried to hold the attackers off with tear gas. He emptied his canister. They advanced, undaunted. They knocked him down, or he tripped and fell. He was kicked in the head and groin. Did he get up, or shoot from the ground at someone who was about to kick him senseless? No reliable eyewitness testimony has been made public on that detail. He says he warned them that he was a policeman. Then fired one shot.He and his protégé ran into the Macdonald’s on the other side of Porte St. Cloud Square. The enraged mob followed them. Smashed the windows. The policeman, the Hapoel fan, and a few customers ran to the second floor of the restaurant.Broussard speculates that the mob didn’t come into the restaurant because they were afraid they would be trapped inside. Maybe, maybe not. Were they actually thinking anything? They shouted racist and anti-Semitic insults. Granomort called for help with his walky-talky. Someone said “he’s a cop.” Does this mean they didn’t know before? It’s hard to describe the words and deeds of a mob, even if you are on the scene. Did they all belong to the Kop de Boulogne? Did they know someone had been shot, did they hear Granomort say “Police! Stand back!”? Some of them smashed the windows of the Mcdonald’s and some pasted Front National Jeunesse stickers on what was left of them. And one, shown only from feet to shoulders, gave his version to a TV reporter. He said “we,” not “the horde,” and made “us” sound far too reasonable to be true.Tonight a small crowd gathered outside the Parc des Princes stadium to honor the fallen fans. Quenemer’s best friend looked right into the camera, all pain and loss and crying for justice. Justice, unfortunately, may well be more of the same stomping, smashing, thrashing.Claude Barouch, president of the UPJF (Union des patrons et professionnels juifs de France) was at the stadium last night. Of course. He was surprised by the low level of security for a high risk game. Fifteen thousand Jewish fans of an Israeli team. No frisking, no ID control. Député Claude Goasguen drafted a bill last year to combat violence in stadiums. He would like to see it strictly enforced. Interior Minister Sarkozy promised results. The president of PSG, sitting in front of a red background printed with alternating Nike swishes and “Fly Emirates,” made an empty non-committal statement at a brief press conference. He would like this problem to disappear and leave the box office in peace. But something tells me this is one more ongoing thing that is going to just keep going on.And the French are always bad mouthing Americans. We’re the brutes, the gunslingers, the world class stompers. Michael Ledeen told me last spring that he bought season tickets to the baseball games. Good family fun. People of all sorts and stations in life, peaceably assembled.What did Paris do to deserve this inopportune clash of civilizations?UPDATE 25 NovemberOk, now we have all done some in-depth investigations. I’ll begin with my own. Eyewitness—a young security guard in front of a synagogue Saturday morning. Of course he had seen the PSG-Hapoel game. The atmosphere was okay during the game…there were so many Jews. But when we came out of the stadium they were harassing us, roughing us up, calling us “sales feujs” [dirty kikes], taunting, “Where are your flags, huh? Afraid to show them now?” It was going on all over the place. The CRS [riot police] just stood there and watched.He saw the beginnings of the incident at Porte St. Cloud…and didn’t linger. There were no problems in the metro because there were so many transportation security police. He wonders…if Hapoel had lost the game would the PSG fans have been so aggressive?Interviewed by the AFP, Patrick Bittan, martial arts instructor at the GIGN [elite commando force of the Gendarmerie] gives a more dramatic description of Jews forced to pass through tightly structured gauntlets. “They asked if we were Jewish, or just said ‘Jew’ to see how we reacted, they looked in people’s bags to see if they had an Israeli flag, something Jewish. I saw two or three guys really get hit.”The missing link. And yet it’s so obvious. Of course it was not one incident, not one or even five Hapoel fans, it was Jews in general who were hassled. Libération reports that the kops of Boulogne, who usually pick fights with the banlieusards of the Auteil tribune, forgot their rivalry and went after the Jews. Rumors had circulated that the Betar and the Jewish Defense League were going to arrive in force. Yeah, sure. That’s what the K tribe said when they marched into the Jewish quarter in paramilitary formation. So the skinheads and the punk jihadis had to rough up Jews to prevent a Betar-JDL massacre?Yanniv Hazout was interviewed on TV. All they showed was his jeans and shoes—Nikes or Adidas, I couldn’t tell. He expressed his gratitude to the policeman who rescued him. Just looking at his shoes you could tell the young man was still in shock from his brush with death. Hazout says Granomort shouted loud and clear that he was a policeman, and ordered the mob to back off. He showed his gun. Someone mocked him, “it’s not a real gun.” They thought they had easy prey, a jackpot, a Black and a Jew. Granomort warned several times before shooting.The mother of Julien Quenemer, who worked as a home appliance technician, swears that he was not a hooligan, didn’t pick fights. Mounir, of Moroccan origin, had moved from Paris to the provinces. A friend says he wasn’t violent. It was a mob, and whoever got shot it wasn’t someone in the fifty-fifth row who just happened to be passing by. All kinds of nice kids from decent families who got good grades in school burned cars and attacked policeman last November.Countless eyewitnesses quoted in the media today concur. It was a savage horde, they were out of control, they shouted “dirty Nigger, dirty Kike, we’re going to kill you.” Some reports say they also shouted “Le Pen for president.” I don’t know why that seems comical. One young man explained that the PSG fans weren’t really out to do a pogrom on Jews, they were just fed up because the team lost but, he added, there was an undercurrent because of the “extreme right, and sympathy for the Palestinian cause.”Interior Minister Sarkozy met with all concerned parties this morning and solemnly swore to impose draconian measures on soccer clubs and their fans. In case of non compliance, they will play to empty stadiums.Ségolène Royal said “Amen.”And Antoine Granomort, presented to the court as a material witness (and not charged with involuntary manslaughter as originally expected), has just been exonerated on the grounds of self-defense and released.The PSG fans who threw punches yesterday at their team’s training camp, left a graffiti on the wall, promising that justice will be done. Their idea of justice is what we would call revenge. Will they now accept the verdict of the court? Or will our hero, Granomort, have to face that mob again, and again?

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Greetings from Darfur...



...and from the Sudanese Government.
Hong Kong, November 19, 2006The great Nicholas D. Kristof in the New York Times dated november 12, 2006 (Bandages and Bayonets) keeps telling us about the horror of the Darfur conflict:"In diplomatic circles, the Sudanese government can be wonderfully polished as it scoffs at accusations of genocide and denounces calls for U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.In isolated villages, everything is more straightforward — like the men in Sudanese military uniforms who on Tuesday captured Abdullah Idris, a 27-year-old father of two, in the fields as he was farming. They tried to shoot him in the chest, but the gun misfired.“So they beat him to the ground,” explained Osman Omar, a nephew of Mr. Abdullah who was one of several neighbors who recounted the events in the same way. “And then they used their bayonets to gouge out his eyes.”Mr. Abdullah lay on his back on a hospital bed, his eye sockets swathed in bandages soaked in blood and pus. A sister sat on the floor beside him, crying; his wife and small children stood nearby, looking overwhelmed and bewildered. He was so traumatized in the incident that he has been unable to speak since, but he constantly reaches out to hold the hands of his family members..........The most painful sight I’ve seen here isn’t Mr. Abdullah’s bloody face, but the expression of disgust on his children’s faces as they stare at him. You see that, and you can’t help feeling equal horror and disgust — at our shamefully weak international response, which allows this first genocide of the 21st century to drag on and on. "With compliments of Sudanese government.....

Via collateral-interference

Say no to dirty hair


Jesus of the week


Victor David Hanson-Israel



We are witnessing strange things about Israel. Columnists this year wrote about it being a “mistake.” And for the first time emboldened Islamic leaders talk seriously not about restoring lost land on the West Bank and the Golan Heights, but of “wiping” it off the map entirely.
The Lebanon war saw not just slanted coverage, but outright falsification and lying from the major Western new servers—many of them served by local stringers who provide on the ground propaganda and faked photos. And now the Holocaust has been reinvented, as the old idea of a safe haven for the survivors of the Third Reich has been transmogrified into “a one bomb state.” Mein Kampf is translated as “Jihadi” on the West Bank and sells briskly. We are seeing a venomous anti-Semitic hatred in the Arab-supported state papers that the world has not witnessed since the 1930s and 1940s.
Back home, the Left/Right split on Israel has also been turned upside down. If you wish to read sick hatred about the Jewish state go to the leftist blogs or the campuses, not the Montana badlands. Somehow the Palestinians have reinvented themselves as liberal victims of Western, white male imperialists. Thus, in the manner of Blacks, Chicanos, Gays, and Women they are deserving of the usually accorded sympathy for their oppressed status—never mind the Islamists’ gender apartheid, religious intolerance, homophobia, and fundamentalism that should be so repugnant to the liberal mind.
Now more than ever Israel is nearly all alone—and so serves as a barometer in the West of true liberal courage of conscious. It has no oil, no international terrorists, no large population, no real material advantages and no threats to be made in the most crass sense.
Instead, it is a humane liberal society, an atoll of reason in a surrounding sea of autocracy. So it is the perfect litmus test for the Westerner: on the one hand is principled support for an embattled democracy; on the other, is easy appeasement that wins applause from millions, eases concerns about oil and terrorism, and offers cheap relief of elite guilt by trashing the very Western culture that rewards us all. Tragically, most leftist elites these days fail the test. Somehow, especially in Britain, they put themselves on the side of illiberal groups like Hamas or the Palestinian Authority whose history is antithetical to very notion of tolerance.
Now we have yet again the ubiquitous Jimmy Carter. Not content with a failed Presidency, he is determined to turn his legacy into even a greater failure, lecturing us in his new book about an apartheid Israel.
Unlike blacks in his own Georgia of the 1950s, Israeli Arabs vote and enjoy civil liberties, perhaps a million of them, with another 100,000 plus as illegal aliens. In fact, they enjoy rights not found in other Arab countries, inasmuch as Jews treat Arabs inside their own country not just better than Arabs treat Jews (they ethnically cleansed 500,000 from the major Arab capitals in the 1960s), but in the sense of civil liberties better than Arabs treat Arabs.
Carterism is a new postmodern pathology in which smug piety, dressed up in evangelical new-age Christianity, pronounces from afar moral censure on the more righteous party—on the theory that acting well but not perfect is worse than acting badly. Carter reminds me of the timid parent who spanks hard the good son for the rare misdemeanor because he takes it with silence while giving a pass to the wayward son for the daily felony because he would throw a public fit if corrected.


Via PAF 2.0

Sunday morning


Thursday, November 16, 2006

Moving stuff..




primaires au PS,derniere ligne droite


Unholy Alliance Revisited



The big news last weekend was the "surprise" appearance of Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala at the political convention of the Front National, the party of Jean-Maire Le Pen. First of all, he arrived with Farid Smahi (in gray suit), an Arab member of the party. Smahi, an Algerian, has been collaborating closely with Le Pen since 1997 and for a while was a regional councillor. He claims to be against dual nationality and says one cannot be loyal both to France and another country. However he has been accused by the Socialists of working closely with Islamic leaders, thereby creating one prong of a three-pronged collaboration - a sort of troïka - consisting of religious fundamentalists, the extreme Right (Le Pen) and the extreme Left (Dieudonné et al...)This appearance by the French comedian re-ignites memories of last May, when the first rumblings of collusion between Le Pen and "Dieudo" were made public. At the convention on Saturday November 11 Dieudonné tried to give the impression that he had "reformed" saying that he had been manipulated by anti-racist groups and that he had been warmly welcomed by the FN.Later he said that Le Pen would most likely make it to the second round of the voting . "I am for a coming-together, to stop with all these ethnic tensions, so that we can have peace."For his part Jean-Marie Le Pen said, "If I needed one vote to be elected, I would be happy for it to be Dieudonné's."In the videos that are circulating Dieudonné is soft-spoken and plays up the "need for unity" theme. The French websites are all interpreting this event in their own way, and according to their own perspective. Occidentalis is not surprised at Le Pen's "coming out", since they have always maintained that Le Pen is in the habit of creating unholy alliances just before elections. They have also maintained that Le Pen does not really want to win, but merely tries to manipulate voters to vote for the establishment candidate. Vox Galliae, a pro-Le Pen site, claims the 3-day convention was an unqualified success, attended by 22,000 people. The "Lepenistes", in general, see no harm in the comedian's presence and the Left is sorry Dieudonné has been duped.Philippe de Villiers, however, did not mince words. He lashed out at the event, calling it a set-up and expressing his relief that he never united with Le Pen, as many thought he would.I tend to feel the idea of a troïka is accurate. Assuming Le Pen becomes president, is he going to start deporting Algerians, blacks, Muslim fundamentalists who helped put him in power? I doubt it.If he loses, he (or his daughter Marine) will continue to cultivate the complicity with Muslims and blacks, in opposition to President Sarkozy, who will no doubt bend to the will of the non-French elements out of sheer pressure from what has become a more than critical mass of invaders living comfortably on French soil.There are several videos of Le Pen delivering his keynote address at the convention. Click here for the last part, that includes a rousing Marseillaise.Galliawatch has published 3 major articles on Dieudonné: the first a rundown of his place in French politics, the second his diatribe against Julien Dray, a French Jewish politician (socialist) who blamed the riots of last year on Dieudo's influence, and the third entitled "Unholy Alliance" about the reported collusion. Click the link below for the photo.
Link

Via galliawatch

Good morning Jerusalem

Little Green Football was an inspiration for this blog so...



Today's ride: about 3 miles across jerusalem from home to work, the bus drivers haven't managed to kill me yet...

From toy to reality


and you didn't believe in miracle!!

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Painted from picture?


FAMOUS PAINTERS COPIED PHOTOGRAPHSNo invention of the Industrial Revolution influenced Impressionism more than the camera. Most of the Impressionists had cameras and experimented with their new images.Photography inspired impressionists to capture the moment, but did you know that some of the most famous paintings of Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec or Paul Gauguin were inspired on an original photograph?

AMERICAN BLACK BOX - 2 JANVIER 2007

Le dernier journal de Maurice G. Dantec est aussi le premier véritable manuscrit maudit de ce début de 21ème siècle. Véritable ligne de poudre explosive traversant le réel jusqu'à la charge, ce texte sera enfin rendu public dès le 2 janvier 2007 par les éditions Albin Michel. Intemporelle, la série du Théâtre des Opérations continue de séduire toutes les générations avec des tirages en constante augmentation, avec des propositions internationales de traduction - édition et qui fera l'objet d'une adaptation sur scène dès l'année 2007. Cette série en trois volumes s'achève ici avec un journal qui aura fait les titres de toute la presse depuis près de trois ans. Tour à tour accepté par Gallimard, puis refusé car jugé trop sulfureux, il passera par les éditions Flammarion dont le service juridique ne cessera de vouloir censurer des dizaines de pages de ce dernier tome du Théâtre des Opérations. Aux tentatives de conciliations des avocats de Flammarion, Maurice G. Dantec répondra magnifiquement, à chacune de leurs interventions sur le texte : "JE DENIE A QUICONQUE LE DROIT DE M'IMPOSER CE QUE JE DOIS PENSER". Patrick Raynal (ex-Directeur de la Série Noire et éditeur de Dantec chez Gallimard) prit même la peine, de son côté, d'assurer ironiquement " que de son vivant, jamais un éditeur ne pourra publier un telle bombe". Les éditions Fayard et Albin Michel s'arracheront le manuscrit qui atterrira finalement rue Huyghens, au prix d'une lutte de près de deux mois. Sans cesse repoussée pour des motifs d'actualité, sa publication est aujourd'hui officielle et ponctue une aventure écrite sous l'étendard des pressions judiciaires et d'un écrivain qui n'aura jamais cedé.

2 JANVIER 2007
http://www.mauricedantec.com

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Licking


Dirty war

Some more stuff we won’t have to worry about as soon as John Bolton is gone: Seizures of radioactive materials fuel ‘dirty bomb’ fears. (Hat tip: Doss.)



SEIZURES of smuggled radioactive material capable of making a terrorist “dirty bomb” have doubled in the past four years, according to official figures seen by The Times.
Smugglers have been caught trying to traffick dangerous radioactive material more than 300 times since 2002, statistics from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) show. Most of the incidents are understood to have occurred in Europe.
The disclosures come as al-Qaeda is known to be intensfiying its efforts to obtain a radoactive device. Last year, Western security services, including MI5 and MI6, thwarted 16 attempts to smuggle plutonium or uranium. On two occasions small quantities of highly enriched uranium were reported missing. All were feared to have been destined for terror groups.

Via igf

They're here!!!!


Talking of meat...


Uncovered meat


Misogynistic jihad-promoting Australian Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hialy has withdrawn all of his pseudo-apologies, and now says he won’t resign.
EMBATTLED Muslim cleric Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hialy has vowed he will not resign, complaining he is a victim of media propaganda and exaggeration.
The cleric has been under pressure to step down since he sparked outrage with his comments, in a Ramadan sermon in Sydney in September, likening immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat, and suggesting they invited sexual assault.
Asked on the Nine Network’s Sixty Minutes program tonight whether he had thought about resigning since news of his comments broke, Sheik Hilaly said: “Confronted with this campaign against me, no”.
“I accept the challenge and I’m not going to give in against any power,” he said through an interpreter.
Sheik Hilaly complained that his comments about women had been taken out of context.
“I am outspoken, and I have the courage to say the truth,” he told interviewer Ray Martin


Via lgf

Bravo à la France

La France a été l'un des seuls pays membres permanent du Conseil de Sécurité à voter la résolution diffamante à l'égard d'Israël, samedi soir.
La Russie et la Chine aussi.

Vous savez, ces deux pays démocratiques qui utilisent le dogme "liberté-égalité-fraternité" pour massacrer les Tchétchènes et les Tibétains...
Mais où ai-je la tête ?

La France trouve que le Hezbollah (ci dessous) est un parti politique


et défend le Hamas (ci dessous), devenu la tête du gouvernement palestinien.


Mais comme le disait Pétain...


Et ils l'ont cru...
Via Le blog Drzz

Monday, November 13, 2006

introducing the next post...


how to...


no title


Jesus of the week


Ahmadinejad – preneur d’otage?

Une nouvelle image d’un Ahmadinejad en preneur d’otage relance le débat entamé en juin dernier:
Des photographies de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad en preneur d’otage apparurent peu après son élection à la présidence de l’Iran, le 25 juin 2005. Une image d’Associated Press montrait un homme qui ressemblait beaucoup à une version plus jeune de l’Ahmadinejad actuel tenant par le bras un homme aux yeux bandés, apparemment cinq jours après la prise d’assaut de l’ambassade américaine à Téhéran, le 4 novembre 1979.
Cinq ex-otages américains confirmèrent qu’Ahmadinejad était bien l’un des ravisseurs. William J. Daugherty, un ancien officier des services de renseignement, déclara qu’il avait vu Ahmadinejad huit à dix fois au début de sa captivité: «Je l’ai immédiatement reconnu. (…) Je me souviens si bien de sa haine des Américains. Elle émanait de tous les pores de sa peau.»
Le correspondent de la BBC John Simpson se souvint avoir vu Ahmadinejad sur l’aire de l’ambassade. Abholhassan Bani-Sadr, un ancien président iranien exilé depuis longtemps, affirma qu’Ahmadinejad «n’était pas au nombre des décideurs, mais il était parmi les hommes à l’intérieur de l’ambassade.»

Mais le bureau d’Ahmadinejad démentit ces allégations et d’autres preneurs d’otages, dont certains sont aujourd’hui des opposants politiques d’Ahmadinejad – avec parmi eux Mohsen Mirdamadi, Hamid Reza, Abbas Abdi, Mohammad-Reza Khatami et Saeed Hajjarian Jalaiepour – confirmèrent sa version. Un ex-otage américain nia qu’Ahmadinejad ait été l’un des ravisseurs. Amir Taheri, le rédacteur en chef d’un quotidien de Téhéran du temps du Shah, conclut: «Il est pratiquement certain qu’Ahmadinejad n’a pas été directement impliqué dans l’épisode de l’ambassade américaine.»
Ainsi, l’affaire resta peu concluante et finit par s’estomper. Ahmadinejad a cependant bien été un membre du comité central du principal groupe d’étudiants à l’origine de la prise de contrôle de l’ambassade, l’«Office de consolidation de l’unité entre les universités et les séminaires théologiques». Son rôle précis dans la prise d’otages reste trouble.
Une nouvelle image découverte par le Kommersant relance le débat en fournissant une indication selon laquelle Ahmadinejad n’était alors pas un agent politique de cabinet, mais bien un preneur d’otage muni d’une arme automatique. La personne sur cette image diffère de celle figurant sur le cliché d’Associated Press, mais si Ahmadinejad peut être identifié et accepté comme preneur d’otage, cela aurait deux implications majeures dans le contexte actuel sensible des relations entre les États-Unis et l’Iran.
Ahmadinejad sur l’image découverte par le Kommersant,et aujourd’hui...

D’abord, cela ferait remonter à la surface, surtout pour les Américains âgés de plus de 40 ans, l’humiliation profonde et durable de la prise d’otages de l’ambassade entre 1979 et 1981, avec pour corollaire probable un durcissement de l’attitude des États-Unis vis-à-vis d’un gouvernement dirigé par Ahmadinejad et occupé à fabriquer des armes nucléaires. Les préoccupations actuelles suscitées par ses intentions seraient aggravées par un regain de méfiance.
Ensuite, bien qu’Ahamdinejad soit un politicien puissant et dynamique, il a de nombreux opposants à domicile à qui ce nouvel élément pourrait fournir de nouvelles preuves exploitables politiquement de son extrémisme, de son imprudence et ainsi de son inaptitude à gouverner le pays.
Toutefois, compte tenu de la réception très tiède réservée à l’image qui fit surface en juin 2005, je m’attends à ce que l’information contenue dans cette photographie soit également bloquée. Le mécanisme de la politique internationale va probablement trouver cette histoire déplaisante trop inopportune pour être assimilée.
Source: Daniel Pipes & Kommersant (quotidien moscovite)

Paris brûle-t-il ?

Le ministre français de la Défense, Madame Michèle Alliot-Marie, a relaté hier devant les députés une "catastrophe évitée de justesse par nos militaires" – ce sont les mots qu’elle a utilisés - qui nous aurait fait passer "à deux secondes", le 31 octobre dernier, d’un échange de feu entre le contingent français et l’armée israélienne.

Selon le ministre, "des (chasseurs-bombardiers israéliens. Ndlr) F-15 se sont présentés en piqué puis redressement immédiat, ce qui est, d’une façon extrêmement claire, une posture d’attaque". Madame Alliot-Marie a poursuivi, devant les parlementaires, sa narration circonstanciée de ce fait de presque-guerre avec Israël dans des termes presque-militaires : "Nous avons été amenés, dans le cadre de la légitime défense, à enlever les caches de nos batteries de missiles et, à deux secondes près, il y avait un tir contre les avions qui menaçaient directement nos forces".

Madame Alliot-Marie a ensuite tiré des conclusions opérationnelles très énergiques de cet incident : "Ceci n'est pas tolérable. Nous sommes effectivement, là, dans le risque d'un incident extrêmement grave. Nos militaires se trouvent, dans ces conditions, dans les règles où ils doivent appliquer les tirs de légitime défense".

La situation qu’elle a décrite au Palais Bourbon procède effectivement de la "légitime défense", comme le ministre n’a pas manqué de le mentionner dans son intervention. C’est important, car la manœuvre des avions israéliens qu’elle a révélée donne le droit aux militaires tricolores de faire usage de leurs armes, ce, en application du mandat qui leur a été confié par le Conseil de Sécurité. Cette autorisation de faire feu n’est cependant pas applicable lorsque les appareils de la Khel Avir (l’Armée de l’Air israélienne) se contentent de survoler le territoire libanais. Même si ces vols vont à l’encontre des dispositions de la résolution 1701.

La première chose qui a surpris les analystes de la Ména, lorsqu’ils ont pris connaissance, ce matin, du contenu de ce passage du discours de Madame Alliot-Marie, c’est qu’elle avait prévu une situation de ce type le 20 octobre déjà. Elle s’exprimait alors devant les journalistes, dans l’enceinte du complexe de l’ONU à Manhattan. C’est à croire qu’elle avait eu une prémonition, puisqu’elle avait souligné la dangerosité des circonvolutions des jets israéliens dans l’éther libanais : "Elles sont dangereuses", avait prévenu Alliot-Marie, "d'abord parce qu'elles pourraient être interprétées comme hostiles par les forces de la coalition, qui pourraient être amenées à riposter dans des cas de légitime défense, et il s'agirait d'un incident très sérieux".

Et sur le caractère extrêmement préoccupant d’une confrontation armée entre deux puissances nucléaires, comme le sont la France et Israël, madame le ministre a indéniablement raison. Dès les premières déclarations des officiers français, qui avaient menacé leurs vis-à-vis israéliens lors de leurs rencontres périodiques, notre agence avait souligné en rouge l’étendue de ce risque, en publiant un article intitulé "La France fabrique un réel danger de confrontation armée avec Tsahal". Encore était-ce deux jours avant la menace du général français de la FINUL, Alain Pellegrini, aux termes de laquelle "(…) l’emploi de la force pourrait être envisagé dans l’avenir, si les tractations diplomatiques ne parvenaient pas à empêcher les incursions". C’était trois jours avant l’intervention d’Alliot-Marie à New York et celle du président Chirac, un peu plus tard. Nous avions tiré la sonnette d’alarme bien avant que le gouvernement français ne s’empare du dossier.

Depuis la déclaration d’hier, la légèreté de la démarche dudit gouvernement nous interdit. Car voilà… au fait… l’incident retracé, dans le détail, par le ministre français n’a jamais eu lieu !

Interpellée par notre agence, l’Armée de l’Air israélienne nous a immédiatement fait tenir cette double annonce : A) Nous n’avons aucune trace de l’incident (relaté par Alliot-Marie) dans nos Logs (rapports de vols). B) Nos appareils interviennent au Liban pour y effectuer uniquement des vols de reconnaissance (à haute altitude. Ndlr) et ne se livrent pas au genre de missions décrites par le gouvernement français (missions d’attaques au sol).

Comme cette mise au point provenait de la branche aérienne de l’armée d’une nation qui, selon les media et agence de l’Hexagone, passe le plus clair de son temps à prendre du plaisir humilier ses voisins, à assassiner ses enfants et à manipuler l’opinion internationale, nous avons pris les devants et appelé nos contacts, au sein même des forces de l’ONU, à Naqura, au Liban voisin.

C’est là que cela se gâte pour Madame le ministre… J’ai parlé personnellement durant près de deux heures avec les responsables de la communication de la FINUL, ainsi qu’avec des officiers supérieurs de ce contingent, y compris des Français. Tous sont en état de choc absolu : ils n’ont jamais entendu parler de l’acte de guerre décortiqué par le ministre de la Défense devant l’Assemblée nationale. Pas plus le 31 octobre qu’à aucune autre date. Cet incident n’a pas eu lieu, et je peux ajouter que les affirmations intempestives de leur ministre de tutelle crée un malaise certain auprès du contingent français, de même qu’entre icelui et ceux de certaines autres nations dont les soldats sont présents au Sud-Liban. "Personne qui ait la tête sur ses épaules ne devrait lancer des accusations infondées de ce type, lorsque nous faisons face à une armée de la puissance de Tsahal", ai-je entendu dire, "la coopération avec les Israéliens est parfaite, efficace et franche", a conclu le même interlocuteur, "sans problèmes !".

Nous cachons les noms des intervenants afin de ne pas leur créer de problèmes, ce qui n’est ni notre but ni notre vocation. Il va de soi, cependant, que si l’Etat français persistait dans sa version des faits, nous pourrions décider de citer nos sources. Car, de plus, les responsables des relations de la FINUL avec la presse nous ont répété plusieurs fois, et avec force "que le mandat qui régit leur intervention n’autorise pas les Français à tirer sur les appareils israéliens".

Alors, que cherche le gouvernement français en diffusant ces dangereuses affabulations ? La confrontation militaire avec l’Etat hébreu ? Pour quoi faire ?

Il n’existe pas de réponse sensée à ces questions. Ce qui nous amène à envisager sérieusement un "dérèglement" fonctionnel du chef de l’Etat français, doublé d’une fixation quasi hystérique contre les Israéliens et, peut-être, d’un agrégat avec les Israélites. Cette confidence d’un officiel canadien, présent récemment au Sommet de la Francophonie, qui s’est tenu à Bucarest, tendrait à l’envisager : la France y avait proposé que la Francophonie émette un communiqué pour exprimer sa solidarité avec les victimes civiles libanaises de la dernière guerre. Le ministre canadien, surpris, intervint alors pour rappeler que cette confrontation avait également fait un grand nombre de victimes civiles de l’autre côté de la frontière. De discussions animées en désaccords avec M. Chirac, qui ne démordait pas de son idée initiale, faute de pouvoir se mettre d’accord, on se décida à diffuser un avis insipide qui faisait la critique de la guerre.

Mais suite à cette altercation, le président français s’est mis à parler sans cesse du voyage qu’il prévoyait d’effectuer au Québec. Le ministre d’Ottawa lui fit courtoisement remarquer que la Belle province faisait partie intégrante d’un pays qui se nomme le Canada, et qu’il était peut-être plus élégant de faire état d’une visite prochaine dans cet Etat. Le pensionnaire de l’Elysée, en fin de bail, fit la sourde oreille et se mit, de plus belle, à évoquer son futur périple au Québec…

A la frontière israélienne, il s’agit de bien plus que d’une passe d’arme sémantique. Nous fûmes les premiers, alors que les canons du conflit libanais ne s’étaient pas encore tus, à évoquer le risque disproportionné représenté à nos yeux par la proximité immédiate de militaires français et israéliens, vu l’état de l’hostilité déclarée du gouvernement tricolore à l’encontre d’Israël. Aujourd’hui nous disons qu’il faut sérieusement penser à remplacer le contingent français par des soldats d’une nation à la politique moins partiale. Rapidement, avant que les pertes de contrôle du genre de celles de Madame Alliot-Marie ne nous fassent basculer dans une confrontation périlleuse et totalement inutile ! Si Sarkozy est élu, il sera toujours temps de redéployer l’armée française – et ses excellents éléments – face à Metula. Mais qui sait, c’est peut-être cette vision, pour lui apocalyptique, d’un remplaçant métèque qui met Jacques Chirac et ses rares clones restants dans un état pareil…

© Metula News Agency

Ed Koch: "Rational People Will Say No"



An excellent piece by former New York mayor Ed Koch, on the incident in which Palestinian women came to the aid of terrorist gunmen holed up in a mosque, and were fired upon by IDF soldiers: Israel Must Defend Itself. (Hat tip: Newsbeat1.)
This is what’s at stake, in a battle with an enemy that is willing to violate all norms of civilized behavior, including the de facto, harshly pragmatic rules of war, because they feel nothing but contempt for the West’s ability to respond to their power play. They do it in the open and even tell our media about their plans, knowing that it won’t affect their ability to operate.
On my radio program last Friday night, a caller denounced the Israeli military for shooting Palestinian women who sought to shield the holed-up gunmen occupying the mosque.
The Arab world and others hostile to Israel have already denounced the Israelis for shooting at these women. The Times reported, “Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, angrily called for the international community to ‘come here and witness the daily massacres that are being carried out against the Palestinian nation.’”
The obvious purpose of the confrontation between the women and the soldiers was to create Palestinian propaganda that could be used to discredit Israel. On my radio program I asked what are the Israeli soldiers to do, stand there and be killed?
Are the militants to be allowed to escape and engage in terrorist actions on another day, killing Israeli civilians and soldiers?
Are Palestinian women to be allowed, because of their gender, to help the Palestinian terrorists with impunity?
I think rational people will say no.
I believe rational people will agree with an Israeli spokesman quoted in the Times. “‘The fighting around the mosque is not something we wanted,’ said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry. ‘But international law is clear: when combatants take control of a religious site and begin firing, it becomes a legitimate target. They broke the sanctity of the site.’”
Similarly, as the Times reported, “One marcher, Suhad el-Masri, 28, said she and several of her relatives had been carrying abayas and scarves to give to the men. ‘We took them so they could disguise themselves as women and escape,’ she said. Her sister, Hiba Rajab, 20, was shot in her legs and left arm; her wounds were considered serious.”
These women broke the commitment that women will not participate in acts of violence and thus not be fired upon. As recently as Nov. 7, the Times reported that in Gaza, “Mervet Masoud, an 18-year-old Palestinian woman, blew herself up near several [Israeli] soldiers, killing herself and slightly wounding one soldier . . . [She] said in a video released by Islamic Jihad after her attack, ‘Consider me a martyr . . .’”
There will undoubtedly be continuing efforts to delegitimize the very existence of the state of Israel by supporters of the Palestinians. While some decent people decry the shooting of Palestinian women, they are silent in the face of the horrendous carnage inflicted by Islamic suicide bombers in Iraq who are killing and maiming innocent Iraqi civilians every day, many women shopping at local markets.
The explosions are the handiwork of Iraqi Sunni and Shia militants engaged in their escalating civil war.
I asked my radio caller what would he do in this Gaza event. He said he didn’t know and had no suggestion other than not shooting the women.

How could any of them be wrong?

The more lurid Palastine sympathisers have it that the, "Judeo-Nazi army commits huge massacre in Gaza".Thus we have writer Khalid Amayreh declaring that the "Israeli occupation army on Wednesday killed at least 25 Palestinian, mostly women and children in northern Gaza and the West Bank, apparently taking advantage of international media preoccupation with the mid-term American elections."We also get "medical sources in Gaza" saying that Israeli tanks fired artillery shells on densely populated residential neighborhoods in northern Gaza, killing and maiming "dozens" of innocent men, women and children.An eyewitness who identified himself as Abu Yousuf said he saw a decapitated child's head. "It was a real massacre. We are talking about heavy artillery shells weighing hundreds of pounds hitting homes packed with women and children. Even the Nazis didn't do that. It was like a slaughterhouse, only here we have humans instead of animals."Another witness, Ra'ed Hasanin, accused the Israeli army of "indiscriminately, knowingly and deliberately slaughtering our children very much like the Nazis killed Jewish children at concentration camps. The Nazis may have used gas chambers to kill their enemies. But the Nazis of our time, the Jews, are exterminating Palestinian children, using artillery and warplanes. The result is the same, the mentality is the same."Even from the completely impartial BBC we get Attaf Hamad, a "22-year-old eyewitness" cited as telling Reuters: "It is the saddest scene and images I have ever seen. We saw legs, we saw heads, we saw hands scattered in the street".




But have we been here before? There is the Grossman story, the Battle of Jenin, Pallywood, the Al-Dura case, the Gaza beach shelling, the Lebanon ambulance hoax, Reutersgate and, of course, Qanagate.




Are we then supposed to believe everything we are told about this incident? Do we even have a right to raise even the mildest query – such as asking about the curiously undamaged room (pictured) in which a shell exploded.

Are we allowed to ask whether the blood in the streets was absolutely genuine - and human? And is it permitted to wonder whether the grieving relatives are actually related to the victims?Or is it the case that, with Reuters, AP, AFP and the rest of them all there, everything has to be above board. How could any of them be wrong?
Via http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

Sunday, November 12, 2006

ap/afp/reuters/yahoo-news-at-it-again





En revanche, on ne verra sans doute guère d’images de la maison d’un membre du FPLP totalement détruite aujourd’hui à Gaza à la suite d’une explosion accidentelle. Et il faudra fouiller les blogs israéliens pour découvrir l’une ou l’autre photo d’amateur des 14 (quatorze) roquettes palestiniennens qui tombèrent aujourd’hui sur le territoire d’Israël.


Thursday, November 09, 2006

iGod


Pictured from painting?


Heeuuhh..


Try this at home


Via ILYS

painted from picture?


Requiem pour un Massacre




Les évènements au Proche Orient vont vite !
Une femme c’est faite sauter à Beit Hanoun il y a quelques jours, Tzahal a quitté la ville en fin d’opération « Nuages d’Automne » laissant quelques 55 terroristes armés sous terre et les Palestiniens ont redoublé leurs tirs de roquettes.
Sur Askelon et sur tout le Nord du Néguev.
Réplique de l’artillerie israélienne et des civils sont touchés dont des enfants.
Dix huit palestiniens ont été tués cette nuit dont 5 terroristes en Judée Samarie.
Les Palestiniens crient, de nouveau, au massacre, eux qui tirent des roquettes dans le but avoué, déclaré à haute et forte voix, de tuer le maximum de civils !
Ils réussissent biens les Palestiniens, le Hamas en particulier, à tuer des civils.
Mais les leurs.
En effet ces roquettes Kassam ont fait plus de victimes palestiniennes à ce jour que de victimes israéliennes.
Que ce soit en tirant sur leur propre population - erreur de tir - ou dans les réponses israéliennes !
Pourtant la solution est simple pour arrêter le carnage et les Palestiniens l’ont entre les mains : il leur suffit d’arrêter ces tirs sur les villes et villages israéliens, en territoire souverain israélien !
Mais pour cela il leur faut reconnaître l’Etat Hébreu –
comme on dit dans la presse franchouillarde : au contraire il ne se passe pas une journée sans déclarations excitées d’excités armés et cagoulés ou de « politiques » pour la suppression, par les armes, de l’Etat d’Israël.
C’est dire que nous sommes loin des « droits légitimes du peuple palestinien » exigés à Oslo et acceptés par Israël !
C’est dire, aussi, que nous sommes loin des « droits légitimes du peuple juif » jamais reconnus, même à Oslo, par les Palestiniens !
Les réactions israéliennes au « massacre » restent les mêmes : les parlementaires arabes et de la gauche ajoutent leurs voix au chœur du Hamas et d’Abbou Mazen.
Quant à Peretz et Olmert, ils s’aplatissent en genue-fléxions et en commission d’enquêtes.Pourtant il est temps, pour le leadership israélien, de dire la vérité : des erreurs de tirs arrivent et il y en aura toujours ! Si l’ont veut les éviter, aux Palestiniens d’arrêter immédiatement les tirs sur Israël et son territoire souverain !

Ce qu’il faut savoir (je mets en gras):
Depuis qu’Israël s’est retiré de la bande de Gaza en Août 2005, plus de 1100 roquettes Qassam sont tombées en Israël. En 2006, plus de 800 roquettes ont atteint Israël et blessé à ce jour 202 Israéliens. Les tirs de roquettes sont quasi quotidiens.
Et:
Le Hamas est parvenu à surmonter un obstacle technique qui l’empêchait de stocker les roquettes Qassam et le forçait à les lancer peu après leur fabrication. Désormais, les explosifs peuvent se conserver et le Hamas est en train de constituer des stocks considérables de milliers de roquettes, les explosifs passant en contrebande à grande échelle via le sud de la bande de Gaza. Ceci constitue un tournant stratégique, le Hamas pouvant décider de déclencher une attaque massive de Qassam contre Israël, à la façon dont le Hezbollah a agi cet été.

Via BAF & PAF

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Van Goth

le court-métrage de Theo Van Gogh et Ayaan Hirsi Ali, est maintenant sous-titré en français. Pour le voir, c’est ici.


-Theo van Gogh: '72 goats?'

-The devil: 'We were expecting your assassin to be here as well.'

Jesus of the week


Pressure on Pope


Why is all the pressure on the Pope, and why do the "two new developments" listed below put even more pressure on him? Why isn't there pressure on the Turks to behave with a modicum of rationality and decency?
"Pressure on Pope to rebuild ties with Islam," from Reuters, with thanks to Mackie:
PRESSURE is growing on Pope Benedict XVI to use a trip to Turkey this month to rebuild badly strained ties between the Vatican and the Muslim world.
Two new developments last week – a shooting incident at the Italian consulate in Istanbul and news that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan would not meet him during his visit – have given an added edge to the visit from November 28 to December 1.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Pride and Prejudice



I bumped into a bunch of English guys last night in Mike's Place, three seconds after I'd bought a soldier on leave from Lebanon another beer.
For once they weren't a group of football fans, UN soldiers or journalists travelling together, so everyone had opinions of their own. One preached 'when in Rome...' (like I needed to learn it?) and another expressed similar sentiments in a more modern way, aka 'when in New York...'
We were discussing the Gay Pride march, which was to have been held in Jerusalem and now is not.
The Third Man, being non-Jewish and new to the area, felt strongly that the Gay Pride parade should've been allowed in Jerusalem. 'Why not Tel Aviv?' I asked - Tel Aviv is far more European than Jerusalem will ever be. 'That's no challenge, obviously,' the American Jewish visitor sitting behind me offered.
Probably that's the entire reasoning behind this particular issue.
The Third Man certainly thought so, but his response to that idea and mine were so far apart that we found each other offensive, even though we'd both played by the rules of social engagement.I think having a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem at present would open the town up to overt violence all over again, as opposed to the bubbling undercurrent of potential violence we all know and love. The effort to prevent the parade united Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders here.
Now that is an achievement; in Israel we hear next to nothing about these moments of unity between religions, but briefly there was peace... peace in a stranglehold maybe, but still peace...He thinks having a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem will normalize the city, make it part of the world. Hm. Yeah actually so do the rabbis, priests and imams. That's why none of them want it. How's a man to make a living?... nah, it really would be offensive to them, as it would to many sectors of the population living here. Including me, and please don't bother telling me I'm anti-gay, because I'm demonstrably not. I just think if I'm treading on someone else's toes it'd be polite to move away, is all.Inevitably, Daniel said to me (much, much later) he was all for hosting the Gay Pride march in Jerusalem. 'If you need to say something you should say it loud'. 'But in Jerusalem?'
- I'm shocked. Heck, I might be a goy but I don't even eat pork in Jerusalem, it would feel so wrong. Jerusalem is a beautiful princess in bondage gear, waiting hopefully for her Prince Charming to come back. And there you have it, in a nutshell.The debate isn't about whether you are for or against gay activism; the debate is about whether you see Jerusalem as a symbol, or as a city much like any other. Seeing her as a symbol doesn't in any way preclude knowing Jerusalem as a city, but it's the one thing the various religious factions here share and understand about one another, without effort. Treating her as a secular city means ignoring that other reality; it effectively means sidelining the religious population, of all persuasions.
While that may be a road to a secular peace, it doesn't take into account the history of the city, or its social make up, or its physical situation on the borderline between East and West. It assumes that everyone else is - or should be - prepared to leave God out of the equation. In Jerusalem, that's quite an assumption to make.
I'd join that march - in Tel Aviv.

from