"I am trying to build relationships with other governments in preparation for a Democratic takeover," Dean said. "I want to make clear that there is an opposition in America and that we are ready to take power and that when we do, we are going to have much better relationships with them."

Those are the words of Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic Party. If you didn't know any better, it would sound like the rhetoric of a Latin American General preparing for a coup.

The days when the Democratic party was pretending to engage in bipartisanship are long over. The Democratic leadership has gone Carter style openly cutting deals with America's enemies.

Nancy Pelosi, who has kept a resolution in support of the captured British soldiers from coming to the floor, will be going for a meet and greet tour of Syria, a totalitarian regime which is supplying many of the terrorists murdering American troops.

No doubt while meeting with Assad, Saddam's former ally whose regime routinely tortures and murders dissidents, Pelosi will personally pass along Howard Dean's message of how eager her party is to take power and collaborate with them.

With Farrakhanite congressman Ellison in tow, Pelosi can demonstrate how we're already elected one racist Muslim to congress as proof of their commitment to endorsing terrorism.

One wonders where Pelosi's tour will take her. Will she be shown the prisons where thousands are tortured and kept in horrific conditions? Will she be shown the workings of the Mukhbarat secret service that is used as the instrument of terror by Assad's regime? Will she, like the former Pope, stand silently as Assad again suggests that Muslims and Christians unite to kill the Jews? Or as Hillary Clinton did while Suha Arafat was spouting her hateful rhetoric?

In 1983 Senator Ted Kennedy sent along a letter to the Soviet leadership offering his collaborating in helping Soviet dictator and former KGB chief Yuri Andropov undermine Reagan and the United States government. Kennedy included the names of other Democratic politicians who would be willing to help. Kennedy is still in office and the new generation of Democratic politicians is still working harder than ever to collaborate with our enemies.

- IsraPundit describes them as "Congressmen for Another 9/11" and that may not be far off.

"As reported by American Congress for Truth, H.R. 1401, the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007, passed the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation immunizes citizens from being sued for reporting, in good faith, suspicious activities like six imams chanting to Allah in an airport, arranging themselves on a passenger airplane the way the 9/11 hijackers did, and then asking for seat belt extenders for possible use of weapons against the flight crew or other passengers. See below for the list of House members who, by voting against this legislation, were effectively voting in favor of another 9/11."

The congressmen listed here including plenty of New York congressmen, including some who have been reasonable about the War on Terror in the past. Their votes against this piece of legislation is simply madness. The majority of Democrats even those like Murtha, who have become fixtures of the anti-war movement voted for it. Yet Congressman Nadler (The Waddler), Elliot Engel, Steve Israel, Nita Lowey, Carolyn McCarthy, Carolyn Maloney and others voted bafflingly against it.

Some of these congressmen represent lower Manhattan. Others represent New York City. Few if any New Yorkers, except on the far left, would support their votes on this.


- Linda of Something and Half of Something has tagged me, with the Thinking Blogger award.

* Gates of Vienna always has important news and commentary, with a focus on what's going on in Europe, a place that's more likely to be the focal point of the next wave in the War on Terror, than the middle east.

* Linda's own blog, Something and Half of Something doesn't overdo commentary, but delivers biting content to the point.

* CosmicX brings in his own perspective of life from Israel and a balanced take on the world around him.

* IsraPundit delivers a lot of content and a wide survey of the news along with unique commentary.

* LemonLime Moon cuts through straight to the chase and can get to the point while I'm still writing the first page of the introduction.


- Reb Chaim HaQoton brings us a press release from Agudath Israel on the War.

"Since September 11, 2001, the United States has been involved in a war against forces of evil and terror. These forces pose a grave danger not only to the United States and its allies in the Western World, but also to our Jewish brethren in Israel and across the globe.America’s efforts in Iraq have been part of this larger battle. While, in retrospect, the planning and execution of some of these efforts may have been less than perfect, there have also been significant achievements. The bottom line, at this time, is that the stakes in Iraq remain high, and that there still remains much to be done.

Agudath Israel of America believes that President Bush is entitled to great deference in his ongoing efforts to stabilize the situation in Iraq. Such deference is appropriate both because of the constitutional authority that inheres in the President’s position as Commander in Chief, and also because of the moral authority the President has consistently displayed in leading the battle against international terror.

We feel compelled to express our views at this time because the Union for Reform Judaism, purporting to have arrived at its position through an application of “halachic norms” and “Jewish values,” has publicly proclaimed its opposition to the President’s policies in Iraq. This group is entitled to its own organizational position, but that position is neither a legitimate expression of halachic Judaism nor reflective of authentic Jewish values."

Finally Three videos of Homesh. This is a video tour of Homesh before the expulsion.



The second dealing with the Expulsion.



The third is the return to Homesh during Chanukah.



Shabbat Shalom

From: Andrew Whitley
To: Sultan Knish
Subject: Correction

Sorry to disappoint you. Fox News - once again - got it wrong. There has been no pull-out of UN staff from Gaza following the attack last Friday on the Director of our Gaza Field Office - and there is no intention to pull out. UNRWA operations in the Gaza Strip, supporting over a million poor Palestinians, continue as normal. Suggest you get a more reliable source next time.


Andrew Whitley
Director
UNRWA Representative Office
(212) 963-2255 (office)
(917) 470-5256 (mobile)
e-mail: whitleya@un.org



From: Sultan Knish
To: Andrew Whitley

The report comes via Fox News with the AP which itself specifically cited Ging as saying that a pullout was being considered. So clearly there was indeed such an intent. Considering that the UN has pulled its foreign personnel (the handful still left) several times before after violent incidents, it's a quite credible story and neither Fox nor the AP has issued a correction. And it's rather well known that UN officials in Palestinian areas have certain "credibility" problems.

But if the pullout hasn't happened yet, it's only a matter of time till one of the poor Palestinians does something to insure a pullout. Then your foreign personnel can always go back within the Green Line and operate safely from there under the IDF's gracious protection. While the Islamic Jihad\Fatah operatives on your payroll will commandeer what remains of the Gaza UN staff and UN vehicles will stick to carrying bombs and mortal shells.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Now as you can tell from the snide borderline unprofessional tone of Andrew Whitley's email, he's far from an employee just doing his job. There's some Fox News bashing, which is typical enough in leftist circles, but not the sort of thing the director of the UNRWA Representative Office should be openly engaging in.

Andrew Whitley has however been extensively involved in Pro-Palestinian advocacy. The UNRWA's staffers are heavily filled with locals who have open ties to terrorist groups. The UNRWA is the second largest employer in the West Bank and Gaza, after the Palestinian Authority itself. (And the PA's budget for paying its employees comes from the same place as the UNRWA's, foreign donors, and also directly from the UNRWA as well.) Essentially the UNRWA subsidizes the facade of the Palestinian Authority.

Andrew Whitley himself has signed at least one petition against Israel and is always ready to rush out with a statement bashing Israel at every opportunity. In his position Andrew Whitley has served as the propaganda megaphone for a body that is supposed to be apolitical, but is in reality anything but.

While Israel continues shipping large amounts of food and water to Palestinian areas, the Olmert regime has cut off supplies of food and water to the returnees to Homesh.

When supplies to Palestinian areas are at all delayed, there is a great international outcry that Israel is starving the Palestinian Arabs, even though Israel has no further reasonable responsibility to continue providing food, water and electricity for people dedicated openly to killing them. There is of course no outcry when Israel denies basic necessities to the returnees to Homesh. Because they are after all the victims of Islamic terrorists, not terrorists. Food and water are considered a human right for terrorists. But not a human right for Jews.



The returnees to Homesh have celebrated the first Brit (circumcision) since the Expulsion by a family which had been expelled from Homesh and lost their father, as well as a Sheva Brachos (seven days after a wedding) under the shadow of preparations by Olmert's police to expel them again.

What is their crime? Are they seizing territory from Hamas? Even that is in doubt, because despite the decades of whining about lost homes and keys and reclaiming Palestine, the Palestinian Arabs have not flocked to settle the communities of the expelled Jews. Instead they've trashed them, used them as dumps and rocket launching pads. They have done everything but actually live there. They have clearly shown that they have no use for the land and the land has no use for them. The land waits for the return of its residents, into whose hands G-d had given it.



The Israeli press, beholden to this corrupt government, screams about the illegalities and crimes of the settlers. What is their crime? Living on land that even Hamas has no use for, except to shell Tel Aviv. Photos from Homesh show a clear view of Tel Aviv 20 miles away. Is Olmert's government and the editors of Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post so eager to have Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad Katuyshas set up there, instead of the homes of Israeli families?

While Israel sends immediate aid to the Palestinian Arab sewage disaster, water and food are cut off for the returnees to Homesh. When Arab terrorists drown in their own filth, Israel runs to help. When the pride of its nation comes to reclaim its land, Olmert sends out a force of thousands to surround them and cut them off. So too may this government be cut off and may we all return to our land, all of our land, forever again.

Every time there's an anti-war rally, the media is quick to rush in with coverage of ordinary folks next door, typically interviewing a soccer mom's who usually a librarian or in some branch of the civil service who will then give the usual canned answers about not wanting her kids to die in a senseless war. (Though the odds of her kids winding up in the military are far smaller than them winding up smoking pot at the Burning Man festival.)

What the media doesn't tell you is the truth about the extremist groups behind these rallies, like ANSWER. What they don't show is the sheer hatred of America, of Israel, of the troops at those rallies. The 9/11 Truthers, the Keffiyahs and the hateful slogans and chants. Instead they will claim that those rallying love America and care about the troops. Here is how much they care.

Above you will see a US soldier being burned in effigy while the crowd chants, "Bye, Bye G.I. In Iraq You're Gonna Die." And below you'll see a sampling of snapshots from anti-war rallies, courtesy of Little Green Footballs and ZombieTime.

Just don't question their patriotism.

Its residents had been expelled, their homes demolished, now thousands have returned and the Israeli flag flies over Homesh again. Their shirts bear the message, "Homesh - The Beginning." Military and police forces have surrounded the area and Olmert has stated that no one will be allowed to remain.

With Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now holding at a miserly 7 percent approval rating, with polls showing the vast majority of the country demanding his and Peretz's resignation and with the phony Kadima party he and Sharon created now likely to get about as many votes as the Marijuana Party, this corrupt government continues to dig its claws into the state of Israel and refuses to leave.

Throughout Israel marches and protests continue demanding Olmert's resignation. On Friday hundreds or reserve soldiers and families of soldiers wounded and killed marched to Golda Meir's grave to demand that Olmert follow in her footsteps (after the Yom Kippur War) and resign.

"Eliphaz Balua, the father of Nadav who was killed in Lebanon, read a letter he wrote to his son: "It hurts me not just because I lost you, but because of an entire nation who lost its direction and because her leaders who cannot take responsibility and say 'we were wrong, we need to go home'," he said."

Elipaz Balua has also announced a hunger strike near the Knesset until Olmert resigns. "A cynical prime minister who doesn't pay heed to the demands of 97 percent of the people... who has drowned us in a sea of corruption and despair the likes of which we have never known. He has not freed us from the burdens of his sins, nor from those of the defense minister he appointed as an act of contempt to the entire nation."

While Peace Now (the EU backed organization which ranks Olmert's wife and daughter among their members and has close ties to Peretz) has attempted to smear the marchers and protesters as part of a "right wing conspiracy", the truth is that they come from all sorts of political backgrounds and many from no political backgrounds at all. They are ordinary men and women, many who have lost their children to the corrupt incompetence of the Kadima Mafia, and want an end to it.

Olmert and Kadima only continue to dig in and act as if nothing is wrong. After giving Halutz up as the sacrificial lamb, they manufactured a fraudulent sex scandal to force President Katsav out of office and replace him with Olmert ally, Shimon Peres. The fraudulent scandal was also meant to distract the public from Olmert's own miserable failures.

From Hevron where Olmert's left wing Peace Now allies are constantly plotting new provocations against the Jews living there to the West Bank, where the thoroughly corrupted police forces are already threatening violence against the peaceful non-violent march to the settlement of Homesh, which was illegally ethnically cleansed of Jews as part of the Disengagement, the wicked do not rest.

The Jerusalem Post, which under Sharon has become little more than a shrill propaganda organ for anything the Kadima Mafia does, runs an entire article smearing the marchers.

"Israel Police were gearing up over the weekend for expected violence on Monday as thousands of right-wing activists are scheduled to try and march to the former northern Samarian settlement of Homesh..."

Now who could that "expected violence" possibly be coming from?

"Security sources said they hoped the event would not turn violent but that they were prepared to use force to uphold the law."

In other words it will turn violent when Olmert's police thugs decide to assault non-violent protesters marching to a settlement on the grounds that they're breaking the law.

"We will do everything possible to prevent the events of Amona from recurring," a police source said. "But the organizers should know that violence against security forces will not be tolerated."

Except of course at Amona and elsewhere the violence has come from the security forces. And in the previous paragraph, they had already threatened to use violence.

"IDF sources slammed event organizers, saying that the military and police would have to divert "precious resources" from training and anti-terror operations to deal with the illegal march.

"Soldiers who need to be in training are going to have to instead deal with these right-wing activists who are breaking the law," an officer said. "Especially following the Lebanon war, we would have expected the organizers to understand that our time and resources are precious."

Of course these sources go unmentioned, as is the fact that there is no justification or need to use the IDF against Israeli citizens who are engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. There is no need for the IDF to "deal with this," that is a purely political decision made by a corrupt undemocratic government which is trying to suppress a peaceful protest and shift the blame for its actions on to the protesters.

"On Thursday, Asst.-Cmdr. Kobi Cohen, police chief in Samaria, warned would-be participants that they would face strict penalties if they participated in the event and were arrested."

Of course Peace Now protesters who violently riot and assault police officers and IDF soldiers to support Arab terrorists never face strict penalties. At most some are briefly detained. But then they're allies of this corrupt government. And this will go on until this government is finally overthrown.

The media trajectory of computer technology has gone something like this. One brand name is embraced as a trend and all the media's collective hype machine focused on it. The internet has seen an acceleration of these brands and the media's lazy reporting gives us months of stories created entirely through the following formula.

Brand Name + Anything = News Story

There have been plenty of brands that have held this dubious honor. Microsoft. Apple. Yahoo. Google. The IPod. MySpace. And now the latest and nearly the most irritating of them all, YouTube.

And so we get an endless barrage of news story about Youtube, the way we did about Myspace not so long ago and the IPod before that. Reporters can now browse Youtube, dig up a video and treat it as news. Any story involving politics or business that has a video placed on Youtube about it, also whirlpools it in as news.

The latest and phoniest of the bunch is a campaign commercial produced by an employee for a company working for Obama's campaign that casts Hillary as Big Brother in a remix of the classic Apple 1984 commercial (complete with trendy IPod.)

The news media promptly went nuts going on about the brilliance of the anonymous creator of the commercial, arguing that it was going to change politics forever. Now the Obama Hype Machine is already so extreme on the best of days that news stories about him read like puff pieces put out by hired flacks.

Consider the SF Gate which spewed forth the kind of over the top praise of Obama and the video, that not even the most deranged hack on the payroll of the Obama campaign should be capable of producing.

"It may be the most stunning and creative attack ad yet for a 2008 presidential candidate -- one experts say could represent a watershed moment in 21st century media and political advertising."

Let's consider this for a moment. The 2008 race has barely begun. We're just into 2007. Describing it as the most stunning and creative attack ad of a race 2 YEARS AWAY makes as much sense as those critics who describe a movie released at the beginning of the year as THE GREATEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR.

Not to mention that reworking an existing attack ad is hardly "stunning" or "creative." It's actually mediocre. Stunning and creative would require coming up with your own original material.

Not satisfied with this though, in the very first paragraph the story insists that the ad is a "watershed moment for 21st century media. Why is it a watershed moment?

Because Obama's campaign produced a viral video based on a remix of a famous commercial from two decades ago that's been parodied endlessly since then. Plenty of companies have "dropped" viral videos anonymously on Youtube to build buzz. The entire LonelyGirl15 debacle stemmed from just such a venture. In fact Gore had already been hit with an anonymous attack ad via Youtube last year, that turned out to have originated from an organization.

In other words Obama's brilliant and creatively stunning ad is actually following in the footsteps of something a conservative think tank did last year.

"The compelling "Hillary 1984" video recently introduced on YouTube represents "a new era, a new wave of politics ... because it's not about Obama," said Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank on politics and new media. "It's about the end of the broadcast era."

Get real. The end of the broadcast era doesn't come with a commercial that the Obama campaign was too cowardly to take credit for. Not one based on stolen footage that it's safe to say it didn't pay for. Nor one that required old line media hype to popularize.

"It puts Hillary spouting cliche nonsense to the drones -- while a fresh face breaks through," he says. "It's old versus new."

And nothing says new like ripping off a commercial from the era of the Reagan administration, that's become iconic and been parodied more times than Jimmy Carter. After all you've got to appeal to the kids with a commercial that aired when they were 7.

But watch the media pile on the hype. "Yet the groundbreaking 74-second pitch..." "The video is a sophisticated new take..." "is followed by the dramatically emerging logo" "the video is "very powerful" in its efforts" "Hillary 1984" could have the iconic power with the 21st century political generation that another classic political ad called "Daisy" represented to Baby Boomers" "the expertly created video remix."

Possibly at some point we also learn that the Hillary1984 ad can cure all known diseases, raise the dead and smells fragrant even after seven days. The avalanche of media hype, that was obviously orchestrated, is still continuing on ad nauseum, with the media giving the Obama campaign a pass, despite the self-evident fact that they produced the spot and that Barack Hussein Obama, a Presidential candidate, publically lied about it.

Scandals like that have brought down politicians before, but not the media's favorite , Obama. Had an employee of the Bush Campaign put out an ad like that, the media would have been all over it, instead of blowing air kisses as they've done here.

- Iran has seized 15 British sailors who were patrolling and boarding ships entering Iraqi waters. Iran has done this before and this is yet inevitably another ploy to humiliate the already weakened British presence while weakening the patrols that might help prevent weapons from reaching Iran's Shiite terrorist allies in Iran.

Hostage taking is something the Iranians are quite experienced at and rather than becoming a cassis belli as it should be, it will give the iranians leverage to undermine the patrols further.


- Meanwhile a German court took yet another step toward Sharia when a judge quoted the Koran to argue that wife beating was legitimate in a Muslim marriage.

"The woman had filed for immediate divorce on the grounds that the husband, also of Moroccan origin, regularly beat her and threatened to kill her. The claims were backed up by a police report. But the female judge, who has not been named, made clear in a letter that the wife’s bid had little chance of approval because, according to her, Islamic law allowed a man to strike his wife."

While this has been swiftly condemned, that is only the tip of the iceberg because the reality is that a "different law" that treats people differently based on their "cultural norms" and accepting abuse, intolerance, anti-semitism, vandalism and hooliganism as acceptable from Muslims and yet unacceptable from non-Muslims.

- Ruth Matar of Women in Green writes on "Rape as Resistance."

Ruth Matar (Women in Green) Jerusalem

Dear Friends,

In today’s Jerusalem Post (March 22, 2007) there is a worrisome article by Yisrael Medad, entitled “Raping as ‘resistance’”. A gang of Arab youths have committed a series of rapes in the Galilee area. According to this gang, the rapes were perpetrated as a form of nationalist vengeance against IDF operations in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

The innocent young Jewish girls are physically attacked and violently raped. Their sole “provocation” is being Jewish!

Humanitarian groups in Israel and abroad, which define themselves as Liberal or Left, have been rightfully vociferous in condemning rape used in the course of war, as in Bosnia, Rwanda, the Congo and Darfur.

Why the apparent silence when Jewish women are raped?

- Withdrawal from Gaza, a new documentary about the ethnic cleansing of the Jews of Gaza will be screened. Clips of footage are available here. The trailer can be seen here and they're well worth watching because the media has only provided us with short canned excerpts. (Via Boker Tov Boulder, Via Jewish Current Issues)

- KeliAta makes a good point, "Well, in Israel and to a leser extent the United States post September 11, there is another possibility for all of the fear and legitimate anger besides racism and PTSD--REALITY. Natural survival instincts. Israel does face daily kassams, kidnappings, and suicide bombings from Arabs, so the fear and anger they experience is realistic. Their fear could be an internal warning that something is wrong. Threat management expert Gavin deBecker believes our internal warning cues are important to our survival. He calls it the "gift of fear."

Most Americans are on guard following the murder of 3,000 people by Arab/Muslim terrorists that they, we, witnessed, either directly or on television. So are Americans racists when Imams behave suspiciously on an airplane? Or has the September 11 attacks and their emotional trauma instilled in us a survival instinct?"

Sultan Knish continues to undergo regular improvements and adjustments. On the top right you'll now find a spinning globe that covers the visitors to the blog geographically. You'll also see the beginnings of a marquee covering breaking headlines.

All the work of Lemon Lime Moon, whose talent for blog design and custom image creation has helped make this possible. For anyone looking to make a customized blog, avatars or any other images, her rates are reasonable and her talent unambiguous.

Ready Andy has reminded me that there is a lack of Amona videos up and that some of those I've linked to no longer work. Part of the upcoming site maintenance will be to overhaul and fix the Amona section which has been neglected.

(Note to:"YFeder", please verify your email subscription to the blog or let me know if you don't want it, so you can be removed from the list.)

Shabbat Shalom and enjoy your weekend

The head of Islamic Jihad in the United States, Sami Al-Arian is on a hunger strike. Following in the footsteps of such great men as Al-Sharpton and Marwan Barghouti, last seen covertly stuffing his face when he thought no one was looking, Al-Arian is serving an 18 month sentence for refusing to testify before a grand jury.

CAIR, The Council on American-Islamic Relations is "calling on American Muslims and other people of conscience to write letters in support of Dr. Sami Al-Arian." Muslims are apparently by default people of conscience. Witness Al-Arian who raised money for terrorist attacks and the murder of men, women and children and is now putting on a show over an 18 month prison sentence, which he earned himself by refusing to testify in the first place. His victims would certainly be happy to take his place, if they were still alive.

Of course his situation is so tragic that his wife informs us that he "sounds fine and doesn't intend to give up his nearly month-long hunger strike." Rush the ambulances right over.

Meanwhile left wing and liberal groups continue to shamelessly defend and agitate on behalf of Al-Arian. Islamic Jihad is an Islamist organization, like Hamas. Its goal is an Islamic state. Liberals who defend Al-Arian are also defending a religious Jihad, rather than a secular nationalistic terrorist campaign.

The very same people who rant about theocracy in America are aiding those who are trying to implement it in Israel.

It's ironic that the leader within a terrorist organization responsible for the murders of people is trying to gain sympathy by merely fasting. This is part of a pattern by terrorists, in Israel, in Guantanamo Bay, in England by IRA terrorists of throwing hunger strikes to appear as martyrs while their sympathizers clamor about their victimization.

Not eating for them is a choice. They are in prison where they're fed better than much of the world is and they throw hunger strikes for political reasons. Their victims have no such choice. They're dead, murdered and cannot eat. It is a truly warped mind that sympathizes with the hunger striking terrorists rather than their slain victims.

First 24. Then 300. It must be something about TV shows and movies with numbers in them that upsets Muslims. (They seem okay with 23 though)

Iran, proud member of the Religious of the Perpetually Enraged, is currently enraged over 300, a movie based on a graphic novel based on a famous historical event that portrays the Persian empire badly.

Now keep in mind that Iran is as much a Persian nationalist venture as it is a Muslim theocracy. Persians are a minority in Iran, oppressing the majority Azeris, but Persian language, culture and history dominates the Iranian population with the force of law and Persians have clear advantages when it comes to their careers, positions and social standing. Iran's ruling class therefore have as big a stake in Persian nationalism as they do in Islamic theocracy.

Considering the general lack of accomplishment by your average Middle-Eastern state, which would look more like Sub-Saharan Africa, if it wasn't for the oil and the dueling superpowers courting them for their support, they need to believe that they're the descendants and heirs of great civilizations.

Egypt postures as the descendants of the Empire of the Pharaohs, even though Arabs and Egyptians are separate peoples and the Arabs were simply mixed breed nomads who took over the region.

Lebanon, Jordan and Syria all appropriate the heritages of peoples who came before them and whom they uprooted and massacred and then massacred all over again during the rise of Islam. They appropriate the history of peoples they had nothing to do with. (This puts into perspective how Palestinian Arab spokeswoman Hannan Ashrawi could claim Jesus was a Palestinian.)

The Persians of Iran need to insist that they're the heirs of the Persian Empire and claim credit for its achievements, yet paradoxically modern day Islamic Iran ruthlessly persecutes the Zoroastrians and other remaining people who actually believe in the religions of the period of the Persian Empire.

This cognitive dissonance though does not interfere with Iran's outage over 300, claiming that it is made by Warner Brothers, "a studio owned by a rich Jew." (Iran has yet to enter the 20th and grasp the concept of a multinational corporation. For the record Time Warner\AOL's current CEO is Wayne Pace and as Adam Sandler puts it, Not Jewish.)


There's even an Iranian petition demanding an apology for Warner Brothers' "irresponsible, unethical and unscientific actions." The petition contends that, "its broadcast guarantees the violation of undeniable international legal rights."

"It is a proven scholarly fact that the Persian Empire in 480 B.C was the most magnificent and civilized empire," the petition goes on to say. Apparently its writer is unclear that magnificent and civilized are adjectives and scholars cannot prove that an empire was the most magnificent and civilized.

"While announcing our disgust at such a heresy, we demand an immediate historical review and quick apology from the responsible people." Or presumably beheadings will follow.

But it's the petition signatures that provide us with the delightful treasure trove of illiterate Muslim insanity prized by any true collector. Enjoy.

pedram - i hate 300 movie.

Mohamad - This is a lie through their teeth!

maherian - Iran hase old nation aroud the worldwith best people

habib amini - Right will not remain always bihind of the cloud.

molla - not true!!!!

mostafa{BAHRAM} - It is a big lie &canared .non of the in the world stupid dont belive to this lie of course maybe Warner brothers! It is a calumniation about IRANIAN culture.the people of the world shouldnt allow to U.S.A. diplomats to became them teh tool in their hands.We campain opposite of Warner brothers CO. DOWN WITH TO Frank Miler&jak snayder(director)&Warner brothers.

Holywood is a position and home for capons & gays & les. The U.S.A.& West unions are gay activitis but the lier say KHASHAYAR SHAH(king of IRAN) was a gay. It is shamed lie!!!!!.

KHASHAYAR SHAH&DARIOSH(his father)&KOROSH(his grand father) are holy king for IRANIAN because they are messanger of human lawying&kind&peace and a beauty life for human in the world. They damaged slavesing but in the past age (about 150-200 years ago) we have saw slaving in U.S.A.(even maybe today!). I please from the people of the world search about IRAN culture&history more and dont accept some lie about IRAN&.tanks. send your proposition.

masoud - WE HATE YOU LIERS

Nader - You proved how jealous americans are of the great civilization we have. Of course a person who was born a country with 400 years of history whose incestors were wild indians is not qualified to make a film. (Ralph?)

alireza - I expect immediate apology

Ali Doroudian - Don't forget in Iran there was no slaves till now, even in big Hakhamaneshi empire, Big king Sirous (KOUROSH) is the holly profit of yahoods and release many body from ductatories on that times.

saber - IRAN is country of compassion (and keeps proving it with all that killing)

Sanaz - Never Forgive You

mohammad farahani - 300 Versus 70 Million (Yeah Mohammed, that's exactly the idea. 300 win.)

Arya Nouri - Persia my land, origin of humanity, civilizations and culture. If the Islamic Arabs didn't burn all the Persian libraries we wouldn’t be here fighting for the fact that Persians were the most civilized people in the world not only since the Persian Empire but even before that. Don't blame WB. Thanks, you Muslim m______; hope you burn in the hell you've brought to our beautiful land.

PARSA - YOU ARE VERY TRAITOR

saman - PERSIAN WERE THE FIRST NATION PUBLISHED THE FIRST LAW HUMAN WHEN GREEK WAS IN ACT OF EATING THEMSELVES IN DARK AGE OF EUROPE (Saman is obviously a history major)

Dariush - If persian kings in past years were barbar so why my father named me with glory "Darioush" ,its better to think about it

Garry Bert - I'm a historian,don't Lie me please! (This a triple score for a Muslim pretending to be both a Westerner and an historian)

sani - down whit xahunism,israil (Whaaa?)

mahyar - we are not as like as you , we invite you to visiting our museums and studying about our brilliant histories.and then your shying is enough for us.

Bita from Washington DC - Art is not a tool to uneducate people! We're living in 21st century, It's time to stop being fool! (Time to stop being fool!)

Mohammad Sadegh Shafiee - THis is outrages and disgusting, but with this kind of movie you can not buy the dignity for bruthless and inhuman Roman Empire and their goddess that you try your best in US to replicate, still nothing has change you may have state of art technology and strip dancer all over your street but still the sun rise from east not pervert and imporal west. (So that would be Japan, right?)

Saeed - This Film is not SQUARE (No, it's GROOVY)

Abi - after Borat Nothing surprises me, It is sad.

Wolfgang Lindner - In Germany, as well as many other European countries, thousands of people walked out of the theatres in the opening of this movie to show our protest against American’s obvious attempt to look down on cultural values of a nation! We are with you Persians! American’s are doing to you what they have done to us, the French, the Italians and even the Greeks who are supposedly the winning party in 300! (Well with the French and Italians on your side, plus the Greeks, how can you lose? Cheer up Iran, the Germans are rising... after they already paid for their tickets.)

nooshin - big history liars!!!

Hamed Zeraat - Western binary oppositions will certainly fail ! (0100110001110001)

Amirhossein Pourmokhtar - This the country,where i was born and bread (And still rising)

arash - YOU SEE THAT IRANIANS ARE SO POLITE!!!WE NEVER USE BAD WORDS AGAINST OTHERS!!!BUT SOME OF YOU USE BAD WORDS AGAINST US!!!IT IS EXPECTED!!!BEACAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE CULTURE!!!!SO SORRY FOR YOU!!! JUST PERSIA!!!!!

mahsa - u can not distroy our old civilization....u (zionists )are savage every body knows that what u are doing with palestine people

rasoul ranjbar - dead with america

roya - death to all the zionist on the world (gotta go with what you know)

boohooiran - allah told me he is a scientologist. he told me he switched because the scientologist chicks are hotter. and he gets to hang out with tom cruise and katie holmes.

Hedyeh - It's not fair to picture persians like this, THe population of people in iran is now 70 million!!!! not years ago!!!!!!

hamed - Shame on you Hollywood!Once you will pay for this HARD!

ARMAN FOROUHARFAR - DONOT MIX DIRTY POLITITION WITH IREANIANS' NATIONALITY

mahnaz - please don't show this move

Apu Nahasapemapetalam - What an AWESOME MOVIE! I am so glad that I take every movie I see seriously and to be Historically accurate. Though they probably should have gotten that Harry Potter guy to help them fight, he's cool, wish I could meet him. But wow, I didn't know Iran is such a HORRIBLE place to be, that sucks for them though they should take better care of their magic rhinos though.

Afshin Taghechian - There must be an explanation and apology.

Tara - Warner Bros, how can you tell such a BIG LIE to the people of the world? where is your humanity & morality??!

rozita - we must show our history in movie too.we should show them their history too.they have shown the reality of themselves.the have found that iran has the best history & civilization but they want to hide it & change the thought of peaple all over the world (Coming soon to theaters, "Iran Greatest World Civilizationionings Ever: The Movie.")

behnam - i am very angry as i can not say any thing (a delightful paradox)

Prof. Ali M. Oskoorouchi - I am not sure if I can hide the truth about unprofessional practice of Warner Bros., when questioned by our students in class

Parsa - We are opponent about producting and showing the "300" film ,because this film unreal and affrontive for Iranian .

Mahyar - My fellow Persians this battle depicted in the 300 did take place at a ratio of over 3:1. But that's not to say that the movie had the right to completely disregard the reasons for the formation of the empire and the impact of this unification. We have only ourselves to blame for allowing the Muslims to burn down our libraries and render the interpretations far from the truth. The best thing you can do to preserve what remains of out history is to find a Quran and burn it; trust me there's nothing more satisfying. As a former muslim I grew up in and around mosques and was brainwashed by the best. I am thankful everyday for having the vision and the ability to see beyond mohammads arab, selfish, and brutal ideals and sales pitch. Be Persian, Always!!!

Mahdi - shame on zionist movie maker company

Fathemeh Bahremand - If you are in need of true historical stories i can offer you free of charge

shakoor - nothing only all thing for money!!!!

RAMIN JAFARY - you son of the beach

SHIVA - KHAK TOO SARETOON!

(luckily a Western liberal comes to apologize for us all)

TomTom - Ohh My God... I don't know what can i say... JUST, I'm so sorry...

After the latest Lebanon fighting, Helen Freedman of AFSI wrote a piece warning that much of the Federation raised funding for Israel would actually be going to Arabs.

"So you thought your money was going to the Jewish children and their parents who spent the past summer in bomb shelters. Or you believed that your donation was going to rebuild homes in the north of Israel that had been destroyed by Hezbollah rockets.

Did you think that a huge part of your donation would be given to the very Arabs who supported Hezbollah and danced on their rooftops in celebration whenever word came of Jewish soldiers or civilians killed? Probably not," Freedman wrote.

The UJC mainly met the whole thing with a shrug. The UJC is a money making machine which pays out 6 figure salaries to hundreds of executives nationwide. It's a massive bureaucracy that funnels huge chunks of money into their own programs and grants.

Some Zionist bloggers wrote up a letter condemning Freedman for actually suggesting that money for the victims should go to loyal Israeli citizens, rather than to the Arabs, who repeatedly demonstrated their support for Hezbollah's campaign and even when their own children died, still blamed Israel.

Snoopy the Goon, wrote up the following, "The majority of Arab citizens are loyal tax paying citizens of the State of Israel and the stories about them dancing on the roofs and cheering Jewish deaths are, most probably, a sad result of lumping all Arabs together. Indeed, the manifestations of happiness mentioned by Ms. Freedman were observed in the West Bank and Gaza. But in any case these manifestations are not relevant where humanitarian assistance is concerned.

We support the policy of UJC and other Jewish organizations to provide assistance to all the citizens of Northern Israel. We believe that this is the best way to win hearts and minds of Israeli Arab, Druze and other minorities and to show the world that Jews will not begrudge help to their fellow non-Jewish Israelis in the time of need."

Solomonia, Lisa on the Face and some others joined in praising the Snoopy letter and condemning AFSI's article as disgusting.

At the time I wrote up a rather bitter reply, saying, "Are we to be known as the sort of people who stop donating money to the people killing us? A thousand times nay! We should give them even more money! Personally I say we should double our donations for every time they cheer on the terrorists. Maybe triple. That will show them.

Surely after a while these loyal citizens of Israel will get so fed up with our generous donations, that they will abandon all support for terrorism and finally at last the joyful day will have come when we will have at last won their hearts, minds and livers ushering in that New Middle East."

Suffice it to say the hearts and minds of Israeli Arabs have officially not been won despite all the money pulled away from the victims of the violence, to those who sympathized with its perpetrators.

"A Haifa University study showed that 49.7 percent of Israeli Arabs justify the kidnapping of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev by Hizbullah. The study also showed that 48.2 percent of Israeli Arabs justify the rockets launched by Hizbullah into Israel."

Half the Israeli Arab population openly supporting the enemy is a hard number to wish away. It's not a handful of misreported Palestinians dancing in the West Bank, as the Snoopy letter claimed. It's fully half the population. Assuming that most surveys underreport views that are illegal, terroristic or criminals, it's likely to be a good deal more than that.

Possibly the Israeli Arabs in question might not have been as willing to sympathize with the Hezbollah position if eager American Jews hadn't thrown money to smooth away their wartime losses, but even that is doubtful.

Arabs who took losses in the war routinely blamed Israel. An Israeli Arab Knesset Member boasted that he had suggested the kidnapping idea to Hizbullah. The Arab Deputy Mayor of Haifa was fired for openly supporting the terrorists.

The reality is you don't win anybody's hearts and minds with giveaways. It doesn't even work that well on six year olds. It certainly doesn't work on hostile populations who have real nationalistic and religious reasons for hating you. It didn't work in Vietnam. It didn't work in Iraq. It's simply not going to work. Period.

The United States rebuilt Europe twice and we're more hated there, than we are anywhere outside the Muslim world. You don't win hearts and minds of a hostile population, you simply eliminate the alternative possibilities for them besides loyalty. Then you can treat them fairly as they deserve. Anything else is a foolish and self-destructive squandering of resources. In this case one that deprived loyal Israeli citizens, Jewish and Non-Jewish of post-war aid and instead redirected them to the people who hate us in the plantitive hope that maybe now they won't hate us so much anymore.

Either way we should help our own, rather than helping a hostile population embedded among us. There are Holocaust survivors living in Israel who cannot afford proper dentures. There are children still going hungry and the economic situation in the Negev is terrible. The residents of Gush Katif who were forcibly expelled from their homes are living in refugee camps. Throughout all this it is inconceivable and indefensible that tons of aid was sent to Indonesia, which aids Hamas, and that aid money from American Jews was diverted to aid a domestic enemy.

"UN Pulls Staffers From Gaza After Gunmen Try to Kidnap Mission Chief

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The United Nations yanked its refugees mission from Gaza after three masked Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a vehicle carrying the chief of the mission and tried to kidnap him, sources tell FOX News.

Gunmen blocked the car of mission chief John Ging, head of U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, and fired 11 bullets at his car as he tried to drive off. The United Nations told all foreign staff members to leave Gaza immediately, a U.N. source told FOX News."

We here at Sultan Knish who have waited for a long time to see the end of the UN Occupation of Gaza are pleased to see the withdrawal of UN personnel. This attack was clearly a way for the Palestinian people to demand an end to their decades long oppression under the shiny blue boot of the UN and in protest against such violations of international law as providing them with free food, housing and other aid.

It's now time for the UN to ask itself the very serious question, "Why Do They Hate Us?"

Could it be the dorky blue helmets? The constant enabling of terrorism? The occasional child sex abuse scandal that plagues UN personnel, much the way ticks plague dogs?

Clearly there must be a reason. After all we know that the noble and glorious Palestinian people whose ancient history dates back in the mists of time to 1969 do not simply attack people with provocation. No they must be driven to it by deprivation and great suffering. Also possibly indigestion.

However a partial UN withdrawal is clearly inadequate. The UN must remove all of its personnel from all Palestinian territories. This includes the historical Palestinian territories of Norway, Sweden and France, where millions of Muslims are continuing to struggle for the liberation of these ancient territories.

As the UN no doubt wishes for a quick end to the violence, a partial unilateral withdrawal cannot hope to end this fighting. Instead the UN must open negotiations and learn what further concessions will properly appease the historical grievances of this made up nation.

After the controversy over Muslim cabbies at the Minnesota airport refusing to transport passengers who are carrying alcohol and similar issues arising with Muslim cabbies refusing to transport blind people with seeing eye dogs, we now have the case of a Muslim cashier at Target who refuses to scan pork products.

Incidents like this serve as a back door for the imposition of Muslim law on Americans. If the majority of cabbies at an airport are Muslim, then carrying alcohol on your way home becomes a difficult proposition that you might as well give up on. And those who choose not to buy the alcohol, are now abiding by Muslim law. Those who are hiding it, are recognizing Muslim law while trying to avoid it.

If a store hires enough Muslim cashiers, the store may effectively not sell pork, since it won't be scanned and will create a hassle that will slow down lines. If the store stops selling pork products, it has defacto complied with Muslim law.

The argument used in defense of such actions is religious tolerance, but this entire situation emerges from the same basic misunderstanding of religious freedom and tolerance, that is at the heart of the inverted Western response to Muslim aggression.

Tolerance is not a one way street. It is a social pact in which we both agree to tolerate each other. If I tolerate you but you do not tolerate me, I no longer have any obligation to tolerate you. I would be very foolish to continue doing so, since that will only perpetuate the problem.

Tolerating intolerance is a contradiction in terms. Tolerance does not, contrary to its modern day liberal definition mean accepting everything as right without judgment, it means simply not interfering with one another. Any person with strong beliefs rejects some behaviors and values that others hold. Tolerance minimizes the clash between them.

Personally I wound find it a moral and religious problem to sell certain products. Which is why I wouldn't take certain kinds of jobs. If on taking a job I found that it required me to violate those values, I would leave. But I wouldn't employ the job as my religious bully pulpit. There are Catholic and Christian Pharmacists at Target and other stores who refuse to sell birth control products. Without commenting on the merits of the issue, if you take a job serving customers, then you either serve them or you find another job in a pharmacy whose beliefs are compatible with yours. Or open your own pharmacy.

Religious tolerance for employees means employers accommodating holidays and religious observances. It cannot however mean employees having a blank check to selectively discriminate against customers based on their religious beliefs. We'd quickly end up subject to dozens of religious beliefs we don't personally share.

It's perfectly okay for any group or religion to reject alcohol or pork or any substance or act for themselves, but they have no right to impose that rejection on others. When they do, tolerance ends and intolerance begins. I respect the rights of Muslims and Mormons not to drink alcohol, I respect the right of Witnesses to reject blood transfusions. I deny that they have any right to impose these beliefs on me or anyone.

Modern liberalism has created its own Orwellian Newspeak, redefining tolerance to mean the coercion to accept as legitimate the views, lifestyles and attitudes of those deemed to be politically correct. America's tradition of religious tolerance was an explicit rejection of religious coercion. What Muslims want however is not tolerance, but religious coercion dressed up as tolerance. In the name of tolerance, Muslims are demanding the right to enforce their own laws on others. The end result of that is the ultimate intolerance, a Muslim theocracy run under Sharia religious law. The Founders rejected the state church that England had planned. Liberal distortion of their creed is instead paving the way for a state mosque.

- The Jewish Press Media Monitor has named Sultan Knish in its list of web choices for 2007, along titans like Little Green Footballs, Seraphic Secret, Mediacrity and IsraPundit and it's a real honor to be included in such company.

- Senator Obama apparently described Senator Edwards as "kind of cute," making you wonder if Ann Coulter wasn't so far off the mark. It's unknown if this Senatorial Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name will play a role in the campaign, with Obama perhaps offering to give Edwards a back rub during the debates or asking if he'd like to have coffee with him during the Iowa primaries.

What this really means is that between Hillary, Obama and Edwards, there isn't a single heterosexual front runner for the Democratic nomination. This can open up the field for Senator Biden to run under the slogan, "Joe Still Likes Women." (Via Lemon Lime Moon)

- The situation with Israel's Arabs is growing worse. As David Bedein writes via IsraPundit,

"Last summer, the elected officials of the Israeli Arab members of the Israeli Knesset Parliament showed support for Hezbollah's missile attacks on Israel. Some high-ranking security officials said that the turn of events within the Arab minority constituted "the real, long term strategic threat" to the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state."

This is of course inevitable. Outside of some Bedouins, Druze and Christian Arabs, few Arabs believe they have any stake in the survival of Israel. And even for those, life in Israel much like life in the West is an uncomfortable accommodation. Arab life is rooted in extended families and much of the Israeli Arab population has families in Jordan, Syria and Egypt. This is a particular issue with the Druze.

Pile on the growing takeover of Sunni Mosques by Saudi backed Imams and the spread of Shiite radicalism, Arab Muslims in Israel are being fed the same poison as in the West, with the same results.

The real problem has been caused by Oslo. Israeli Arabs might choose to go with a winner, but never with a loser. Given the choice between an Israeli identity that surrenders to Arab terrorists and a Palestinian identity which celebrates killing Israelis, the choice for any Middle Easterner is obvious.

- For anyone who still hasn't seen the shocking Memri video of a Palestinian TV broadcast that involves the children of a suicide bomber, it's the most important Memri video you'll ever see that reveals the true depth of evil of the enemy. I am reminded that in the Hebron massacre, Arab children stabbed the bodies of Jewish victims with knives to see if they were still alive and if they were, called on adults to finish the job.

How do Muslim terrorists work to avoid scrutiny on flights from crews and passengers?

The answer is a multi-pronged approach. First Muslim passengers repeatedly engage in suspicious behavior and test crew procedures and weaknesses, including coming within inches of actually breaking into the cockpit.

These serve two purposes. First they actually test possible approaches for another hijacking and identify weak spots in the security. And since these are dry runs that don't culminate in an attack, they also dull crew alertness by crying wolf so many times that when the real attack comes, no is paying attention anymore.

Secondly, when the detentions and interrogations come to nothing (since any real pressure of a Muslim during interrogation has been identified by our liberal moral voices as the worst atrocity in human history) and the Muslims involved promptly run to the newspapers crying discrimination. Sometimes they file lawsuits.

This has the effect of intimidating airlines into making apologies for their own security. The ultimate intent is to pressure airlines into warning their own crews to have a high tolerance for suspicious behavior from Muslims and not to react to anything short of outright assault. In other words to return to the state of affairs before 9/11. A necessary state of affairs for Muslim terrorists who have found post 9/11 alertness too much of an obstacle to a successful operation.

"The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is advising the imams, is also calling for congressional hearings and promoting federal legislation to "end racial profiling" in air travel. If the legislation passes, airport personnel who disproportionately question passengers who are Muslim or of Middle Eastern origin could be subject to sanctions."

If they can get the congressional hearings they want and with a Democratic congress, they just might- they can let their liberal friends on Capitol Hill use a nationwide bully pulpit to threaten airlines with various political consequences. Airlines who care more about profit than airline security, like JetBlue, will quickly climb on board.

With the crew taken out, that leaves the passengers, which Flight 93 demonstrated, should not be counted out. That's why the famous Flying Imams lawsuit will target the passengers who reacted to their suspicious behavior.

"But the most alarming aspect of the imams' suit is buried in paragraph 21 of their complaint. It describes "John Doe" defendants whose identity the imams' attorneys are still investigating. It reads: "Defendants 'John Does' were passengers ... who contacted U.S. Airways to report the alleged 'suspicious' behavior of Plaintiffs' performing their prayer at the airport terminal."

Who are these unnamed culprits? The complaint describes them as "an older couple who was sitting [near the imams] and purposely turn[ed] around to watch" as they prayed. "The gentleman ('John Doe') in the couple ... picked up his cellular phone and made a phone call while watching the Plaintiffs pray," then "moved to a corner" and "kept talking into his cellular phone."

In retribution for this action, the unnamed couple probably will be dragged into court soon and face the prospect of hiring a lawyer, enduring hostile questioning and paying huge legal bills. The same fate could await other as-yet-unnamed passengers on the US Airways flight who came forward as witnesses.

The imams' attempt to bully ordinary passengers marks an alarming new front in the war on airline security."

Using their massive legal resources and with the aid of organizations like the ACLU, they can intimidate passengers who might otherwise notice any suspicious behavior. The message is, "Speak Up and Get Sued." This is the final step of reverting to a pre 9/11 mentality by conveying the message that the safest thing is to just be quiet.

If the passengers and crew on a plane can be intimidated, then once again Muslim hijackers can expect a free hand, while the authorities bend over backward to avoid giving the appearance of discriminating against them. And they will have successfully paved the way for another 9/11.

Confronting evil takes responsibility. Not responsibility for the actions of others. Not responsibility for offending the perpetrators, for being insensitive to their poor childhoods and their government's World Bank debt. Responsibility means being responsible for protecting yourself and your neighbors and the greater families or your country and community. That does not necessarily mean physical force, it means being responsible by fighting for the policies that will protect them.

Liberalism has distorted responsibility into a guilt complex for the hatred that others feel for us. The tenets of liberalism say that hatred against the privileged is by definition legitimate and justified. Once liberalism has defined being privileged as being a member of any society that functions sufficiently well to provide clean drinking water for its citizens and protection against being gunned down in the street by roving gangs, it turns out that we are all privileged and therefore deserve the hatred levered against us. This is the warped philosophy behind the left's response to crime, violence, terrorism and war. But it is thoroughly wrong.

We are not responsible for their hatred. We are responsible only for protecting ourselves against it. Hatred is the responsibility of the hater. Murder is the responsibility of the murderer. When we take someone else's responsibility on ourselves, two things happen.

First by taking responsibility for something we cannot control, we waste our energies and do nothing to address or resolve the problem.

Secondly, we remove responsibility from the only person who can control it, we give him absolute freedom from his responsibilities. He becomes free to rob and kill and do as he likes, because his victims are responsible now, not him.

All totalitarian systems remove individual responsibility, replacing it with obligation. Responsibility requires informed individual judgment. Obligation simply means doing what you're told.

Nanny states treat everyone as irresponsible. Every package needs a dozen warning labels, because people can't be expected to understanding anything on their own. Every person needs to sacrifice the bulk of their earnings to the government, which will administer and use it for his benefit, because he cannot possible use it for his own benefit. Nanny states centralize authority, while decentralizing responsibility.

Instead of holding you responsible for what you do, liberalism holds you responsible for what you are, for your race, for your gender and your earning power. Like all socialist systems, it despises individuals and accepts only classes and categories. It has no place in it for a black man who successfully started his own business and earns $220,000 a year. Such a person should not exist and therefore does not. A class is in the end a caste system, manufactured by socialist rhetoric and enforced by a system of thought that in the manner of 1984, rejects even the understanding of things outside its categories.

Liberalism celebrates the irresponsible, the addict, the criminal and the terrorist and justifies him by arguing that he is not responsible for what he does. By contrast governments and police and the victims of terrorism are always responsible and for that responsibility, they are penalized for their own supposed crimes and for the crimes committed against them by the irresponsible.

The best way to oppose a system that mandates irresponsibility, is with responsibility. Firstly by helping others, not merely charitably, but in helping them become responsible for themselves. Secondly by rejecting illegitimate attempts to shift responsibility for the actions of others onto you. This false responsibility is the basis of liberal morality and it is where the line can and should be drawn to oppose and undermine this competing moral system.

We are not responsible for the actions of Muslim terrorists. We are only responsible to stop them.

We are certainly not responsible for how much "they" hate us. Whether the they are the Arab street, Europeans or the people of Papau, New Guinea. Their hatred is their choice. We are not responsible for their emotions. Their emotions are not proof of their rightness. The truth is most of the world hates most of the rest of the world. That is not our problem.

We are not responsible for the actions of muggers, murderers, child molesters, rapists. Only they are responsible for their crimes. Not us. Not some nebulous definition of society. The perpetrators are responsible.

We are not responsible for obesity, anorexia, violence in schools, a gun culture or global warming. Some of these are phony crisis' concocted by think tanks and used by the press to beat us over the head with on a daily basis and make us feel guilty and unworthy as a society. We are not responsible for them as problems, we are only responsible to the extent that we can help ourselves and others live better lives. We are not responsible for nebulous social ills or things that have been defined as social problems. We are only responsible to the extent that we can help others who need our help and raise our children and grandchildren well.

We are not responsible for the beliefs of others that we have committed offenses against them. We are not responsible for the jealousy of others because we live better than them. We are not responsible for the beliefs of others that by eating meat or driving to work, we are perpetrating horrible cruelties and destroying the planet. These people are in any case hypocrites and their beliefs are devoid of any real grounding.

This is not though about irresponsibility. It is about responsibility. It is about eliminating the things we are not responsible for, to focus on what we are responsible for.

Taking responsibility should never be an act of guilt as liberalism treats it, but an act of courage. It means participating in the building of better families, better communities and better systems. It is a creative act and a willingness to shoulder a workload, not because of some offenses committed by your ancestors in the past or because living better is itself an offense, but because it is an integral part of living life well.

Taking responsibility is not a guilt trip, but a choice. Defeating evil, defeating Islam, will take a cultural victory. Not by a culture crippled by false liberal morality and guilt, but by a truly responsible culture, standing up to an irresponsible one and for once, holding it responsible.

That will be our victory.

Barry Chamish's latest venture is peddling a book called "Bye Bye Gaza" about the Disengagement. He's selling it for $12.50 for an E-Book and an outrageous $60.83 for a paperback edition.

The description for the book reads: "Chamish worked hard to help save Gaza, but to no avail. His futile efforts led to uncovering plans for the further destruction of the heart and soul of Israel, its people, and its borders - and the demise of those who stand in the way."

Barry Chamish did not work to "save Gaza." Instead he showed off photos of a supposed secret army base and warned people not to sign petitions against the Disengagement, because the government would "use them against them."

Some people might be misled into thinking that buying this book in any way helps those evicted from their homes. Be aware, IT DOES NOT. This is another Barry Chamish scam and the only thing Barry Chamish cares about is profiting from selling his books to anyone.

Barry Chamish peddles the idea that Jews were behind the Holocaust and has attended at least one Holocaust denial conference to sell his books. He's peddled the idea that Israel was behind 9/11 and has attended a 9/11 Deniers Conference to sell his books. He's also peddling books that claim that UFO's are kidnapping and raping Israeli women. Barry Chamish is utterly shameless and will try to fill every niche, selling to both Anti-semites and Zionists.

Here is what Barry Chamish actually said about the Jews of Gush Katif.

"So stop looking for handouts. Stop the sob stories of being forced out of hotels you thought the government was going to actually pay for. Quit the tales of misery and alienation."

"This is one of the better appeals for money for the Gush Katif refugees. Don't give them a nickel!"

"But more to the point: Screw You, Gush Katif."

"Nobody admires a beggar for long."

"I further warned, that anyone who propped up their misery through charity would be dooming the refugees to permanent poverty. I wish it wasn't true, but all media reports illustrate that in just three months, the once thriving residents of Gush Katif have sunk into violence, despair, divorce, drug abuse, crime and hopelessness."

"After the deluge, a friend of mine told me she had spent the day helping the Gush Katif refugees, bringing them food and setting up their computers. I asked her, "Are you nuts? You're not helping them, you're helping the "government" of Israel. They got them into this mess, now they can get them out of it. Learn from the Arabs already. Do not rehabilitate the refugees."

Had enough? We aren't done yet.

In a shameless display of greed, Barry Chamish followed his call against donating to the refugees of Gush Katif with a call for donations... to himself.

That's what anyone who buys Bye Bye Gaza will be doing, donating to Chamish's alcohol and lawyer fund. At 63.50 dollars a pop.

While Arutz 7's Tamar Yonah continues giving her old college buddy airtime, the reality is Barry Chamish is a fraud who panders to Anti-semites and in the end is only out for himself. Beware of him and beware of buying anything from him.

Whether or not "How The Jews Can Combat Persecution." was actually written by Churchill himself or ghostwritten by his ghostwriter who may have been an Oswald Mosley supporter, there is nothing extraordinary about it. It is unfortunately a normative view by a European of the time. Similar and harsher views can be found commonly expressed throughout American and British publications of the time.

Part of the Jewish amnesia toward history is to retroactively transform major historical figures into friendly ones. This is a necessary amnesia for many because it is rather difficult going through a history book, the bulk of whose inhabitants despise you. It is however utterly disconnected from reality.

The attitude of the allied leaders toward the Jews, FDR, Harry Truman, Churchill and DeGaulle ranged mostly from distaste to a general belief the Jews were up to no good. The broad open minded views of a Theodore Roosevelt or a Woodrow Wilson toward the Jews, were not present here. It is a sad testament that of the four leaders listed above, Churchill was undoubtedly the least judeophobic. Certainly well below Truman or DeGaulle. That is the reality of the time.

The concession of European intellectuals of the 19th and early 20th century was to revise the former ecclesiastical view that Jews deserved everything they got, by suggesting that Jews were only partly responsible and thus splitting the difference between the pogromist and the Jew. In an intellectual culture so mixed up that it treated crime and poverty as genetic diseases, your circumstances defined you. If a family was poor, it was a failing that was in the blood. If Jews were persecuted, then clearly it was a failing that was in them. Many still think that way and not just about the Jews.

(Raped women are to blame for being raped. Westerners are thieves because their societies are prosperous and the third world is impoverished. The amount of worldwide hatred for America is treated as proof that America is at fault. After all if so many hate us, clearly we must be to blame. This is the exact same logic that was used toward the Jews.)

When the Nazi persecutions began, the European and American response quite often split the difference. The Nazis were behaving badly, but the Jews had clearly done something to merit it. It was just a matter of determining what. The modern republic beginning with France offered Jews rights in exchange for assimilation. Many Jews had taken that bargain (though of course as in Spain and Germany they found that assimilation did not end anti-semitism, only ushered in a new and deadlier phase) but the Russian immigrants escaping the Czars and the Soviets for the most part had not yet gotten the chance to decide. And so they were held accountable for failing to assimilate.

A generation later their children would be held accountable for assimilating too well and becoming doctors, politicians and lawyers. This is the typical Catch 22 Jews face when dealing with demands produced by the inherent irrationality of bigots who try to peg their bigotry onto something specific, but their demands can never actually be met. If the Jews live apart, then they're clannish. If the Jews integrate, then they're pushy and taking jobs away from the natives and oppressing everyone. If the Jews assimilate, they're trying to pretend to be like us.

Churchill was merely echoing Napoleon and a thousand others before all the way back to medieval times, with a modern day intellectual gloss on it. In the war that would follow, England and America would do their parts to obstruct the Jews escaping Hitler for safety. Their biographers, particularly Martin Gilbert for Churchill, has worked tirelessly to paint Churchill in the most positive light on the matter of Jewish refugees and Israel, but the reality of the British government's policy remained unchanged.

England actually diverted Lend-Lease ships to patrol the waters to make sure Jewish refugees did not reach Israel, as this would upset the Arabs and British colonial plans for the Middle-East. FDR ignored and dismissed information about the Holocaust, calls to condemn it, calls to bomb the rails leading to concentration camps and calls to aid the rescue of Jews, until the war was already all but over. Truman would top FDR by playing for Jewish votes in public and railing at Jewish refugees in private. Idiot Jewish liberals would hail and idolize both men, who wouldn't have let them lick their boots unless an election was coming up.

The simple reality is that FDR and Churchill were both great men (one a liberal and the other a conservative) and in their own way great leaders, though also responsible for great failures. They built a cult of personality around themselves, that was not altogether unmerited, because they saw what most did not and stayed the course in fighting Hitler when it was unpopular and saw the war through to the end. They deserve credit for that and they may well have saved civilization in doing so. As a byproduct they also saved the remainder of the Jews. This was however a mostly accidental byproduct and they had little to no interest in it.

They were great men, but they were not our great friends. They viewed us, much as the world views Israel today, as a nuisance that causes problems which it would be easier for everyone's sake if it simply did not exist. When Churchill stated that the solution to the Jewish problem was the end of an individual Jewish identity, he was repeating an idea that had been long around. In its modern form, this idea states that things would be better off for the Jews and everyone else if Israel did not exist and the violence against them would end. In its form at the time, it stated that things would be better off for the Jews and everyone else if the Jews did not exist, and the violence against them would end. The problem, when it is honestly stated, is not what Jews do, but that Jews continue to exist at all.

Churchill's ideas are not shocking. They were typical. They may still be more typical today than we realize, once you understand the extent to which Israel has come to symbolize a Jewish individual identity and Anti-Zionist has become a politically correct substitute for Anti-Semitism. They date back to virtually every political leader who has ever tackled the Jewish problem. Pharaoh after all complained about a numerous people that were a separate nation within Egypt. In Persia, Haman whispered to Ahasverosh about a nation dispersed among his lands that keeps its own laws. Those same ideas and thoughts recurred from land to land and nation to nation. G-d had set the Jewish people apart and that has never sat well with any prince or leader. "You Shall Be My Servants," G-d had said, and what great political leader has not envied G-d's prerogative?

It was the end of the 18th century and soon would come the beginning of the 19th. A new age that it was believed would usher in a world of transformation. The old tyrannical monarchies would fall and the success of the American revolution would be replicated across Europe.

First in line was France. The French revolution was heralded by America's revolutionary Francophiles such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Support for the French revolution was identified with support for a broader revolution for mankind against tyranny and oppression. Much as the liberals of the 20th century would inflexibly commit themselves to supporting the great evil that was Communism, in the name of human progress- American liberals of the 18th would do for the French revolution.

Democracy was the goal. Freedom for all men. A new age.

At first the prospects seemed good. The American Revolution's chief propagandist, Thomas Paine, joined the National Assembly (even though he barely spoke a word of French.) George Washington wrote letters of advice to the hero of two revolutions, Lafayette, his surrogate son.

If the attitude is reminiscent of anything, it can be reminiscent of American troops entering Baghdad, coming to rebuild Iraq and idealistically bringing democracy to an oppressed people. Or liberals rejoicing in the Russian people overthrowing the Czar and creating a government of the workers. And then as now, idealism gave way to baffled horror, as the killing began.

The tide of blood began. Talk of liberty and freedom went on and so did the blades of the gullioutine. The revolution had begun to devour its own children. Many Americans looked away horrified, incapable of comprehending what had happened. After all the American experiment had encountered its share of troubles yes, the Whiskey Rebellion, Aaron Burr and the Federalist debates were notable early highlights, but nothing like this.

What Americans then and what Americans now had failed to understand that democracy is a tool. A means not an end. Used correctly democracy can create a republic of free men invested with rights and responsibilities. Used incorrectly democracy can lead to political bloodbaths, anarchy or a genocidal madman.

As in the 18th century, Americans continue to view democracy as a messianic ideal that will transform humanity. It may. In time. The reality though is democracy is simply a method of achieving political consensus. It is the fairest method we know and the least likely to be abused. But every method of government is also inherently unfair and abusive. It is the nature of the citizenry and the political class that determines whether its outcome is good or evil.

The fundamental error then and now in messianically embracing democracy as an ultimate good, is that we contrast it with tyranny as the ultimate evil. We falsely assume that tyranny is evil because it is undemocratic. While that is one aspect of tyranny's evil, the overall evils of tyranny come from abuses, atrocities and oppression. Democracy is not a perfect cure for those things. To the extent that its leadership is corrupt or void of empathy or committed to political philosophies that harm some in their society, the democracy they run reflects that.

Democracy and freedom are not the same thing. Just ask a Southern slave. Democracy and equality are not the same thing, just ask a white college student applying to college.

Democracy as we apply it is an outgrowth of ideals and ideas within Western culture and European history. Transplanted into another society, the effects are unpredictable. But beyond all the idealistic rhetoric, boiled down simply, democracy says that you don't have to kill in order to be treated fairly. You don't have to kill to survive, if your beliefs are different from the people running things. You don't have to kill to have your rights protected. You don't have to kill to have a voice in the way government is run. You can vote. You can lobby. You can protest without being shot down in the street.

This is not always the case even in democracies. That has not and is not always the case in America. But it is the case overall and that has been enough to keep things going. It combined with hefty doses of government welfare and a growing respect for human life has been enough to keep things going. It and the general exhaustion in the West for any more wars and killing has been enough to keep things going.

That is the reality. The myth of democracy as a near-religious icon has been what has blinded Americans time and time again when democracy was offered to other nations and peoples and those peoples shrugged and said "Who needs it" and went on killing anyway.

Democracy only works in a culture where different sides can agree to vote it out, instead of fight it out. Democracy only works in a culture that values human life enough to pull back from the brink and settle things by slandering each other in the press. Democracy only works in a culture where each other side believes the other side is wrong, but not so wrong they have to be wiped out and kept from any role in the country's future.

Where those conditions do not obtain, THERE WILL BE NO DEMOCRACY. It does not matter how many troops you send in. Not unless you are prepared to use those troops to slaughter every faction that is not prepared to lay down arms and accept the results of the voting booth, not caring what devastation we produce in the process. We are not prepared to do that and until we are discussing bringing democracy to Iraq or any Muslim country is a dead end.

Democracy will not produce Muslim countries that will respect human rights. Democracy is a truce. In a Muslim country it's an armed truce while both sides prepare to kill each other. Don't believe me? Look at Democracy in Lebanon or Gaza? That's what democracy looks like in a country where both sides care more about winning than about their own people.

Want a best case scenario of what democracy looks like in an unstable society? Take a look at Latin America. Want a worst case one, look at Russia.

Russia abandoned its brief flirtation with democracy in favor of a new dictatorship. Russia is never going to be a democratic country, simply because Russia has always been run by powerful cliques inserted into a rotten bureaucracy. Russia's democracy was simply more of the same. So was Communism. So were the Czars. So is Putin.

It's the same government with a different name, because it's the same society and culture. Governments don't define a society and a culture. A society and a culture define the government.

Colonial America had many of the same characteristics as Post-Colonial America. The Revolution simply gave Americans legal independence, a national government and the ability to set our cultural norms into law.

European democracy set the cultural norms of Europe into law. Namely a massive state bureaucracy, a static culture and tolerance of most things so long as they don't interfere with business as usual.

Iraqi democracy set Arabs norms into practice. Be loyal to your tribe and faction. Kill your enemies before they kill you. Attack anyone who shows weakness. Lie about all of the above until you believe it yourself.

Iraq or any Arab country will change when enough of its citizens desire it. Not until then, unless we're prepared to engage in the kind of force it takes to break their society down and rebuild it in our own image. It's possible but we won't do it, because we are who we are and they are who they are.

Our democracy is a great and wonderful thing. But it is not the cure for the world. It is who we are. It is a part and parcel of our Americaness. We cannot give it to another people unless they want it and are willing to accept it. And most will not, until they learn for themselves there is a better way.

Too often in our history we have chosen to believe that democracy is the innate condition of mankind when tyranny is removed. We believed that removing Louis or Saddam or Nikolai, would usher in democracy, freedom and human rights. But tyranny is the innate condition of mankind. Thousands of years of history indisputably back it up. Democracy is an ideal to be reached up for. Not something that emerges when the ground is cleared of tyranny.

Societal virtues cannot be given as a gift. They must be acquired by dedicated striving. When a people is ready to reach for self-improvement, they may have what we have. But until that day if we are to hold on to what we have, we must be prepared to defend ourselves against them and put our trust in destroying their threat potential through arms, not in rebuilding them into a virtuous society.

While the Bush Administration has very clearly committed itself to salvaging Iraq at any cost, including negotiating with terrorists and possibly striking a deal with Iran, and the State Department under Condaleeza Rice has returned to the same default mode it was in Pre 9/11 emphasizing negotiations and diplomacy over everything else and sending the message that the United States is unable and unwilling to stop Iran-

-the real hope for stopping Iran may lie elsewhere entirely.

Iran's emerging nuclear capability poses a great threat to Israel, to the United States, to Russia and to its Sunni neighbor states, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf kingdoms.

Russia has chosen to profit by building up Iran's nuclear capability, arrogantly assuming that Iran won't turn its attention to the Muslim republics under Russian influence, including portions of Iran.

The Sunni Arab kingdoms who have seen the start of Iran's influence tear apart Iraq and begin to tear apart Lebanon as well, have no interest in allowing the same thing to happen in their countries. The growth of Shiite influence in the Middle-East creates the conditions for a region wide Muslim civil war, that will make the current fighting in Iraq look like a light sporting event.

Egypt and several Sunni countries have already launched domestic Anti-Shiite propaganda campaigns. Saudi Arabia has conducted backdoor negotiations with Israel and a report in the Daily Telegraph states that Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to allow Israeli overflights of their territory. Considering the depth of hatred in Saudi Arabia and the UAE for Israel, this should be startling. That it is happening at all demonstrates the extreme seriousness with which the Sunni states take the situation.

Arab dictators tend to be a lot more bloody minded and ruthless when it comes to making the hard decisions these days, than Western leaders. They know that if the West doesn't stop Iran, the next stage of the war will be in their borders, and it will not be a war anywhere as clean as the wars with Israel were; but a bloody horrific campaign filled with every weapon from suicide bombers to nuclear weapons.

The Bush Administration has lost its appetite for suppressing genocidal middle-eastern madmen, but the liberation of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam may well have helped trigger a regional civil war, that is forcing Arab regimes in an unexpected direction, a quiet alliance with their worst enemy.

For most Purim is a joyous holiday, a time of celebration, a carnival for kids and a time to eat, drink and be happy.

Even with the reading of the Megillah and the well known story of Purim, many don't properly appreciate what Purim really is. Purim is a holocaust. A holocaust didn't happen, a genocide deferred. We know that intellectually, but we often forget it emotionally. It's easier not to think of such things. To focus on the salvation, the downfall of Haman, rather than what could have been and what has recurred throughout Jewish history.

It is easier to be merry and look away from the abyss.

For Western Jews in some ways, every day is Purim. Whatever difficulties our lives hold, they are still an incredible festival compared to the lives of our ancestors in exile for the last two thousand years. It's easier to celebrate, to shop and work and live our lives, looking away from the horror.

The horror comes from understanding how close to the knife's edge we really live. It's difficult to live with that knowledge. It's much easier to reduce it to words, to formulas we recite. Worse yet it's easier to go into denial. To insist that it is no longer an issue for us and in the ultimate triumph over reality, to invert it all backward and insist that not only are we not in danger, but we are the danger. And there the triumph of liberal denial is complete.

In the feasting and drinking, there is a certain Carpe Diem, a need to seize the joy of the moment, because we know all too well, that tomorrow the catastrophe may come. Drinking and celebrating becomes another form of denial, another way of looking away from the abyss. So is the collective amnesia that often grips Jews when it comes to history. The patterns of assimilation and self-hatred and self-destructive behavior. After all if the abyss is already there, you might as well jump into it.

As impossible as it can be to contemplate the Holocaust retroactively, it is sometimes even more difficult to see that while men in neat clothes plotted the annihilation of millions using neat charts and figures, Jews around the world went on living their daily lives, celebrating their holidays and looking away from the abyss.

In most cases there was nothing much they could do anyway that would have made any difference. Europe would soon be overrun. America was closed and the State Department was working hard to insure that Jewish refugees would be kept out of nearby territories too. England had blocked escape to Israel and Russia was almost as much of a death sentence as Germany. And so millions of Jews went on living their lives, until the machinery of Nazis transported those unlucky enough to be living on the wrong side of the ocean, into the maw of the system that would break them down, reduce them to living skeletons and often as not, kill them.

When faced with an overwhelming horror and shock, another thing people do is isolate it. How many people really accept the reality another 9/11 attack will happen. How much of the anti-war movement ballooned through the ranks of those eager to blame America and shoulder responsibility for crimes against Muslims, because that would give them control over the attacks. Once they confessed and expressed their full hatred for the government, certainly such attacks would not happen again. As Michael Moore put it, why didn't the hijackers strike a state that voted for Bush? The phenomena behind Jewish self-hatred is hardly unique, when millions of Americans suffer from it too. If more people prefer to watch the Anna Nicole Smith circus, rather than the war, it's just another way of looking away from the abyss.

Today men in rooms somewhere in the Iranian Republic are working on their plans for mass murder. The targets are still uncertain, the means yet undeployed but the final disposition is increasingly clear. Whether millions of Americans or Israelis will die, the consequences will be horrific if we look away from the abyss. If we assume someone somewhere is doing something about it. If we assume that the worst cannot happen.

The worst has happened. It will again. History testifies to that.