The Last Exile

My hasbara credentials should be readily apparent for even the most casual readers so what I want to say might strike some as odd but there is a Hello Uncle Erwin letter allegedly written by Amir – an Israeli naval commando who claims to have first hand knowledge of the attempted lynching on the Mavi Marmara in the flotilla of fools making the rounds of the blogsphere. And I quote:

“Hello Uncle Erwin,

This is Amir writing you after reading what you sent to my father, Eitan. As you know, it was my unit and my friends who were on the ship. My commander was injured badly as a result of the “pacifists” violence. I want to tell you how he was injured so you could tell the story. it shows just how horrible and inhuman were the activists. My commander was the first soldier that rappelled down from the helicopter to the ship. When he touched ground, he got hit in the head with a pole and stabbed in the stomach with a knife.

When he drew out his secondary weapon-a handgun (his primary weapon was a regular paintball gun: “Tippman 98 custom”) he was shot in the leg. He managed to fire a single shot before he was tossed from the balcony by 4 Arab activists, to the lower deck (a 12 feet fall). He was then dragged by other activists to a room in the lower deck were he was stripped down by 2 activists. They took off his vest, helmet and shirt, leaving him with only his pants and shoes on. When they finished they took a knife and expanded the wound he already had in his stomach. They cut his ab muscles horizontally and by hand spilled his guts out. When they finished they raised him up and walked him on the deck outside. He was conscious the whole time. If you are asking yourself why they did all that, here comes the reason. They wanted to show the soldiers their commander’s body so they will be demoralized and scared. Luckily, when they walked him on the deck a soldier saw him and managed to shoot the activist that was walking him down the outside corridor. He shot him with a special non-lethal bullet that didn’t kill him. My commander managed to jump from the deck to the water and swim to an army rescue boat (his guts still out of his body, and now in salty sea water). That was how he was saved. The activists that did this to him are alive, now in Turkey, and treated as heroes.

I’m sorry if I described this with too many details, but I thought it was necessary for the credibility. Please tell this story to anyone who will listen. I think that these days you are one of Israel’s best spokesman.

Thanks uncle Erwin, Shabbat shalom!
Amir

Gruesome,nu? There is no shortage of barbarism in the world – decades before the Chen-chen’s thought of Beslan; the Palestinians had already carried out Ma’alot. I remember very clearly what occurred under the Ramallah sun which began in the Palestinian Authority police station, but more importantly, I remember clearly and how badly – it ended for the two IDF reservists.

What happened on the Mavi Marmara wasn’t pretty by anyone’s standards but I remain highly skeptical of this account and believe its the work of a Hasbarist run amuk. I admit the writer had me right up until the jump. Why? Well, quite frankly, I have seen individuals with intestinal injuries of the sort where the bowels are hanging outside the body. No one so injured in such a manner as described would be able to swim to safety. Shock is the body’s instinctive response to sever trauma and it shuts the down all but the most basic levels in literally minutes. Swimming requires a complex coordination of not only the body but the mind. The mind might be willing but the nature of shock would have shut down all cooperation within the body. Somebody has spent too much time watching re-runs of Die Hard and such like movies.

I have no idea who started this chain email which is now being posted on blog’s all over the world as the G-d’s honest truth. There might even be elements of truth intertwined within the tale the letter writer tells but the letter is a lie and a fake. And a lie is a lie and serves no one well. There are enough lies already told in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to keep historians busy for the next ten generations that we do not need to add more to it. The truth, simple and unadorned, should suffice.

To the bloggers who are swept up in this and who have an invested interest in promoting this letter as truth on your blog I suggest that you remember – it is your ability to think critically and pause before you hit the publish button on your blog that separates you from animals who react to any stimuli from pure instinct alone.

I made a comment at Jay Currie’s place and suggested the need for Israel to reach out to other countries with UN Security votes – specifically China and Russia. Now comes the NY Times running an article discussing the current state of China-Israel relations. It’s a good read with little conclusion other than Israel is just a small country but what it does make an important point. And a point I have been trying to emphasize to my readers for years. Namely that, for alleged benefits Israel receives from the American alliance; the Israelis pay a high price for this alliance and quite often the White House stifles Israel from effectively developing a truely made in Jerusalem foreign policy. NY Times:

When it comes to tangible goods, Israel sells China irrigation systems, high-tech products and telecommunications equipment. Trade between the two countries reached $4.5 billion last year, up from $3.8 billion in 2006, but three-fourths of that is Chinese exports to Israel. The imbalance would be less pronounced if not for the two-decade-old American-led embargo on arms sales to China that has stymied Israel’s most lucrative export. In private, Israeli officials express frustration over the ban but they acknowledge that their relationship with Washington trumps the desire to do more business with China.

Oddly enough, the close ties between Israel and the United States have become something of an Achilles heal for the Jewish state. During the 1990s, when Beijing was diplomatically isolated after the violent crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese sought closer relations with Israel because they thought it might bring them closer to the United States. “This was an illusory period during which China thought the Jewish and Israeli lobbies could open doors for them in Washington,” said Yoram Evron, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies.

Israel’s outsized allure also stemmed from China’s regard for the country’s military prowess and a deeply held affection for Karl Marx and Albert Einstein, cornerstones of a Chinese fascination with Jews.
How much they value the relationship with the United States was underscored in 2000, when under American pressure Israel canceled a $1 billion arms deal, years in the making, to sell China an advanced airborne tracking system. Even though Israel later agreed to pay a $350 million penalty, the diplomatic damage was immense — and then compounded in 2005, when Washington blocked another Israeli arms deal with Beijing involving drone aircraft.

The American-Israeli alliance has entered into a bit of a rough patch and I am deliberately understating this state of affairs but this current rough patch will be looked back upon fondly and nostalgia by Jerusalem – if the Obama Administration wins a second term. Jerusalem needs to look much further afield and act as if the Obama Administration has already won a second term.

I have been informed I’m being a little uhm…harsh. Normally, I would just shuck it off but it comes from someone whose opinion I value so I gave it a little thought. I suggest you put it down to my inner Jew/Russian-Israeli/Judeo-Nazi. Mostly, why I am reacting the way I am is because I remember Jenin and the terrible aftermath in the media and with government after government condemning the Israelis over the alleged massacre which turned out to be nothing more than a shoot-out between IDF soldiers and a group of hard core terrorists.

In fact, I remember watching Larry King who gave an entire show over to the rantings of Queen Jordan who proclaimed the number of those murdered by the IDF was in the thousands. At the end of the brouhaha, the count of the dead numbered approximately 75 and came down to 23 for the IDF and 52 Palestinian. If the IDF was the force for nefariousness which its strident critics suggest it is; a well aimed missile would have taken out the lot without the shedding of a single IDF soldier’s blood. It was insistence of the IDF command to go in and fight house-to-house in the hopes of preserving civilian lives which was the path which lead to the death of IDF deaths.

The Jerusalem Post carries an interview with two of the naval commandos but I am going to quote from a small part near the end. I suggest you read it all and see how it jibs.

Based on preliminary results of its investigation into the navy’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which ended with nine dead passengers and more than 30 wounded, the IDF said on Thursday that the commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, most of whom were found without IDs but with thousands of dollars in their pockets.

The group was well trained and was split into a number of squads of about 20 mercenaries each distributed throughout the upper deck, the IDF said. All of the mercenaries wore gas masks and ceramic bulletproof vests and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades. The IDF’s understanding is that the mercenaries mainly chose dual-purpose items of this sort rather than guns, since opening fire would have made it blatantly clear that they were terrorists and not so-called peace activists.

Nevertheless, the IDF suspects that the group did have some guns of its own. Israeli forensic experts who examined the ship found casings belonging to a weapon that was not used by the commandos, and the Turkish captain of the ship later told the IDF that the “mercenaries” threw their weapons overboard after the commandos took control of the vessel.

I would like to point out that the IDF mission, while regrettable that the commandos were injured and lives were lost, did not fail. The IDF’s mission was to stop the flotilla which it did. While there are those who will protest that the successful mission was a public relations disaster and a screw up of nearly biblical proportions I would like to point out the knee-jerk quality and mass hysteria of the criticism which came immediately and without even the merest examination of the evidence. I would say this suggests that any Israeli action would have been met with the same mass hysteria and the baying for Israeli blood. The world only likes and revers dead Jews.

Like it, love it, or hate it; Israel is not like any other nation.

The Winnipeg Free Press carries a report on statements issues by Roman Catholic Primate Oulettle (yes, that’s exactly the title given, which has to be the strangest use of the word primate considering the rejection of scientific evolution by the Catholic church. The gist of his point was abortion is always wrong, wrong, wrong and under any circumstances.

I get that, but if the catholic bishops ever had a hope of influencing people like me – who can come up with all kinds of scenarios where abortion can be perceived as a best case scenario; it would help if the catholic clergy stopped carrying the public water on this issue.

The optics are just too bad and downright sinister – given the Roman Catholic clergy has been filled, staffed and enabled serial pedophiles who have preyed mercilessly on children for generations to have any moral authority left to speak out against morality of abortion.

Hat tip: Unrepentant Old Hippie

If I ever get around to getting my license and buy a car; remind me never to call and ask State Farm for a quote. Toronto Star:

When Kim Flemming arrived home from work on March 23 and let the dog out, she didn’t know these were the last few moments she would see the family’s beloved yellow Lab alive. Twelve-year-old Jake loved to roam the area around the Flemmings’ Leslie St. home in Aurora. “Next thing I knew there was a knock on the door and a gentleman said, ‘Do you have a dog? He’s on the road,’ ” Flemming recalled. “This lady had hit him. I got to the road and he was dying. He died in my arms.”

About two months later, on May 17, Flemming received a bill for $1,732.80 from State Farm Insurance. The letter, which included five pages of documentation and three pages of photographs, explained that State Farm had received a claim for damages from the driver. “Our investigation into this matter has found you to be 100-per-cent responsible. As such, we are looking to you for reimbursement,” the letter stated. The bill included the cost of parts and labour for fixing the bumper, as well as the cost of a rental car. “We’ve lost part of our family and now we have to reimburse this insurance company? It brought back the grief for us all,” Flemming said.

State Farm interviewed the driver, police and other witnesse, said spokesman John Bordignon, adding that Canadian courts have found that the rules of negligence apply in such cases. “This is an incredibly unfortunate circumstance, but we’re going by the precedent that we have. We see no negligence on the part of the driver and according to law, we believe the owners were negligent in the sense that they could have made sure their dog wasn’t free on the roadway,” Bordignon said. “By law, we have a right to pursue our customer’s interest in this matter in terms of the damage to the vehicle.”

State Farm has told the Flemmings it can pursue costs through their homeowner liability insurance, rather than through them personally, Bordignon added. Asked how a case involving a pet would differ from one involving a pedestrian or cyclist, Bordignon responded: “We look at each case on its individual merits. We have to consider the rights of our customers who incurred damage or injury, but depending on the situation all circumstances are looked at before any decision to subrogate is made.

I guess I should have called this the Law is an Ass Part XXXXX. Imagine a driver of a vehicle hits and kills your child who was jaywalking. Then the insurance company sends you a bill for damage to the vehicle. How long do you want to bet before it happens? And yes, I do think its reasonable for a dog owner in a small town goes home and lets her dog out to take a run around the neighbourhood. That’s suppose to be one of the joys of small town living…

Yesterday the City of Toronto issued their first heat alert warning for the season – and the second today.

In fact, the hot weather is predicted to last for the next few days and my brains are officially fried. Why? Because I have a landlord who is a complete asshole who insists on following the letter of the law so my heat will not be shut off until June 1st. Apparently, he once got sued for turning the heat off to early and now he refuses to see reason or budge. It is not only that my heat is on but the furnace is at a temperature which heats my apartment as if its -20C outside rather +30C. When I got up this morning the temperature in the kitchen read 44C.

I can’t cook, fix my hair or apply eyeliner. This weekend the only time my hair wasn’t soaking wet was when we were holed up in my bedroom (the only place with air conditioning) or outside. We have been living on bread, fruit and raw vegetables which is okay and all – but there is a limit to how much raw broccoli and salad I want to eat. The tribe hates pasta so forget the more interesting salads. Besides, anything which takes more than 5 minutes to prepare – well, let’s just say I am so unmotivated to make anything which requires extended visits in my kitchen inferno.

Of course, all my computers are located in the heart of the inferno. I have argued, I have begged and pleaded. I have tried appeals to common sense, reason, and logic – all to no avail. He won’t budge and oddly enough, his particular form of assholery is also shared by such publicly funded institutions like Toronto Community Housing for refusing to turn off the heat in all the units under their control and the Toronto District School Board for refusing to turn on the air-conditioning in schools which have no windows that open in their classrooms – it’s the law – the municipal code etc.,

This has made me think about the whole concept of ‘reasonableness’ on both a practical and legal level. So much of any given law weighs or turns on a course of action based on what a ‘reasonable’ individual would do under any said circumstances. All of which brings me to the Crown’s dismissal of Michael Bryant’s charges.

I never thought there was a reasonable chance of conviction as long as the Bryant maintained one simple statement; I was afraid for my life. Nor was I surprised by the police laying the charges against Bryant for Sheppard’s death. Standard procedure, law and all that. What did surprise me was the Crown’s decision not even to bring the matter to trial suggesting there was no ‘reasonable’ measure of conviction. I have seen criminal matters proceed with the filmiest circumstantial evidence possible, and still, the Crown has still elected to roll the dice. I once asked a Crown why he elected to try a defendant under ‘questionable’ circumstances. He replied he believed a trial wasn’t only the defendant’s day in court but an opportunity for the victim of a crime to seek justice – and who was he to deny the victim his day?

Was Bryant’s actions reasonable? Or was there another course of action he could have chosen to take? What would a reasonable individual due under the circumstances? And what of the Darcy Sheppard and his rights?

It is like some people are born under such a dark cloud that reasonableness, much like justice, remains just as elusive in life as it is in death.

There is just something about camel stories. A little remarked news story out of Israel. Ha’aretz:

A soldier from the ultra-Orthodox Nahal Haredi battalion of the IDF shot and killed a camel belonging to a Bedouin in the northern Jordan Valley on Friday. According to first reports, the shooting of the camel occurred after a dispute broke out between three IDF soldiers and the camel’s owner.

The soldiers left their base without authorization and entered the al-Malih Bedouin encampment. There they struck up a conversation with the owner of the camel. At a certain point, the conversation became confrontational and the soldiers got angry. As they left, one of the soldiers shot the camel.

You have to admit its rather a remarkable turn of events. The camel owner complained to the civil administration and an investigation is underway. There aren’t many details released to date but I suspect this is more to this than is reported and I kind of wonder if this has anything to do with the camel shooting.

Since the Palestinian desire to kill Jews through imploding on Israeli buses, nightclubs, shopping malls and markets has been thwarted by the various security measures various Israeli governments have implemented (the security barrier, checkpoints, and drastic reduction of work permits allowing Palestinians freedom of movement into pre-1949 Israel etc.,) there is this notion out in the wider world which gives all appearance to believing the lack of successful attacks launched by the Palestinians against Israeli civilians somehow equates into a lack of desire or motivation on the part of the Palestinians to launch so-called ‘resistance’ operations. Although this couldn’t be further from the truth which is the so-called ‘resistance’ continues to launch operations against Israeli civilians – abet in a far less spectacular way than a bus or store bombing but often with just as deadly intentions.

Arutz Sheva carries the personal account of an Israeli civilian, a father who was simply driving his car to take his children and wife for a Shabbat celebration last Friday.:

This is what happened: we were on our way for a Shabbat at the pre-military academy in Neveh Tzuf. After taking the turn at the “British Police Junction” I began thinking, for no apparent reason, about some of the well-known shooting attacks that took place on the roads, and about families that were wiped out by terrorists. I remembered the Tzur family (ambushed by terrorists who murdered two of them, a mother and her son, near Beit El, in 1996), the Hatuel family (ambushed by terrorists who murdered five, a mother and four daughters, near Gush Katif, in 2004), the Schijveschuurder family (five of whom were killed in the Jerusalem Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in 2001), not without asking myself why these negative thoughts were appearing just now…

About two kilometers west of the junction we reached a curve where one must slow down. Suddenly I heard shots from very close range. I shouted to my wife: ‘they are shooting at us, get down!’ and I slammed down the gas pedal in order to get out of the kill zone. But then I saw that the engine’s power had died and that it simply was not responding. I shifted to lower gear and pumped the gas pedal but the engine was dead. The first bullet had cut the radiator pipe, penetrated through the manifold into the engine, exited with a bang through the oil sump and hit the asphalt below. In one second, the oil spilled out of the engine and it died.

A terrible feeling of helplessness. We are inside a tin box that is slowly rolling along. The terrorists continue to fire at us in a controlled fashion, one bullet every two or three seconds. With me in the car, which has turned into a death trap, are my wife and four agitated children who could get hit at any second. A true lose-lose situation: I can’t stop the car and charge the terrorists with my gun because then the full car remains exposed like a duck in a shooting range. I can’t escape because the motor is gone.    

I figured that the shooting was coming from the mountain’s extension south of the road and so I turned hard to the opposite lane in order to reach the slope and get out of the Palestinians’ range. When the car stopped I got out quickly, took out the kids and threw them into the bushes on the mountainside. The little one started shouting “mommy” and ran to the center of the road with me following her, lifting her up and simply throwing her to her sister. Only then did I cock the handgun and start looking for the terrorists. I surmised that they would be drawing near in order to confirm the kills and so I began advancing in their direction so as to prevent them from reaching the family. I was trying to plan how to conduct an effective battle with ten bullets in a small Glock 26.

You can read how it ends by clicking on the Arutz Sheva link but this isn’t the first attack or even the last but merely one out of many.

Here is a headline one does read every day courtesy of the Jerusalem Post:

Saudi woman beats cop

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition.

But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping. A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix. For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.

According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

Good on her and I hope my sisters-in-Saud take her example to heart. A good thumping in the mud is what every religious thug-a-crats deserve regardless if their Jewish, Christian or Muslim.

The joy is simply never ending for Toronto citizens caught in the G-20 Summit Zone. Did I mention Toronto didn’t ask for this and the Chief of Police had requested a different venue; one that was easier to protect, guard and would not disrupt the maximum possible number of citizens trying to go about their daily lives? There is an irony to having to advise parents to find new daycare arrangements for their children during the summit when the Harperite agenda is centres around improving the quality of maternal health and children’s lives….that must be for other people.

This really is a must read from the Jerusalem Post because the implications have serious ramifications on the ability for Abbas to make any kind of deal with Israel.

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat finds Israeli Prime Minister’s speech during Jerusalem Day ‘disgusting’ for acknowledging the central role Jerusalem has historically played in Judaism.

Manhigut Yehudite – (the Jewish Leadership) outreach video ‘Awakenings’ can be viewed online here. It’s alright as far as it goes but I found the soundtrack was just too annoying…

Sarah Honig on French friendship and Barry Rubin on the Russians.

Just to bring the links a little closer to home Shalom Life carries a report on the city of Vaughan’s (a bedroom community north of Toronto) attempt to end ‘home based shuls’ or the death of a minyanim. A public hearing is scheduled for June 1st.