IRIS Blog

Here's an exception to the old saw that "no one wishes on his deathbed that he had spent more time at the office." When this fellow realized his fatal error, those were his precise thoughts:

Blast at Palestinian Militant's Gaza Home Kills One, Wounds 20

Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Anass said Ala al-Hessi, 30, a member of Islamic Jihad's armed wing, was killed Monday and 20 others were wounded in Shati near Gaza City when explosives al-Hessi was handling went off.

This is the best news about the Israeli electorate I have heard in a long time, but it doesn't square with the previous survey known as the election. Every party (e.g. Shinui) and candidate (e.g. Netanyahu) associated with the free market was trounced:

About a third of all Israelis are content with their standard of living. This was revealed as part of the Social Responsibility Index at the Haifa Conference on Social Responsibility at the University of Haifa yesterday. The Index, which was presented by Prof. Arye Rattner and Dr. Meir Yaish of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Haifa, reveals that 38.7% of Jewish Israelis are generally content with their lives. 35% of Jewish Israelis expressed contentment with their employment situation while 28% of the Arab-Israelis did. Over all, 31% of Jewish Israelis and 25% of Arab-Israelis expressed contentment with their standard of living. 16% of both groups expressed satisfaction with their salaries.

The Social Responsibility Index also reveals that 56% of both Jewish and Arab-Israelis believe that the way to get rich in Israel is through deceit and corruption. Only 9% of the Jewish poll respondents believe the government is doing the right things and only 11% believe that the government makes decisions that benefit the general public. Among Arab-Israelis, 8% believe that the government operates properly and 7% believe that the government makes decisions that benefit the general public. Only 5% of Israelis are content with the political system.

These numbers are staggering, and it probably explains the factionalist results of the previous election. When people don't trust the system in general, they tend to vote for narrowly defined interest groups to protect "their own."

The Index reveals that the majority of the Israeli public supports a neo-liberal economic policy. "The Israeli public believes equality means equal opportunity and justifies the existence of inequality which results from a lack of skills or individual drive to get ahead. The public's idea of the social service network that Israel is expected to provide looks more like the American model that provides limited socio-economic support than the Scandinavian model that provides widespread, total socio-economic security," said Prof. Rattner.

Private Property Law Puts China One Step Closer to Free Market
An imporant contribution of Milton Friedman is that the free market catalyzes political freedom

Europe's Dirty Little Secret on Global Warming
Like recycling, it will make people feel like they are doing something, without making an iota of difference in reality

The EU anti-terrorist monitors at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt are looking to formalize one of their main tasks--fleeing for their lives from the terrorists their nations support. Of course, their sanctuary is Israel, their countries' whipping boy.

As the Rafah crossing deal was being negotiated, I warned that this was an absolute fraud. Unfortunately, the terrorists aren't going along with the charade, and they see the infidels as prime targets:

Fearing for their lives, European Union monitors stationed at the Rafah Crossing that connects the Gaza Strip and Egypt have asked the defense establishment for help in drawing up escape routes from Gaza in the event of an attack on the border terminal....

The monitors, led by Italian Maj.-Gen. Pietro Pistolese, have raised concerns in recent weeks for their safety following a series of threats to their lives. An Israeli defense official told the Post that several weeks ago a large bomb was discovered on a route used by the monitors to drive through Gaza.

Later this week, the head of the Defense Ministry's Military-Diplomatic Bureau, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, is scheduled to sign an agreement that will extend the monitoring team's mandate by another year. It was initially signed following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
("No!")

Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")

When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")

Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")

Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the braaaave, Sir Robin!

-Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Some blogs are predicting that this will be the next big 'Islamophobia' incident trumped up by CAIR. An veteran US soldier shot a Middle Eastern man outside of his apartment after he claimed two men rushed him. He asserted that they harrassed him previously; they claimed they were just minding their own business and had never seen him before.

The attackers made a big mistake, however, in using a typical Middle Eastern big lie:

"Bualsafared said neither he nor his friend...knew anything about Perkins before he confronted them as they walked by his apartment."

Big lies are easy to disprove in court. I will therefore predict at the outset how this will end.

All it will take to prove their mendacity will be a single eyewitness to their earlier abuse. Nearly as effective would be a contemporaneous witness to Craig Perkins complaining about them.

Here's a link to a similar story, an Iraq medal-winner ambushed by four men at a bar.

More evidence of Israel's Big Problem. Of course, the Leftist judiciary will shield him from any consequences.

MK Ibrahim Sarsour (UAL-TA'AL) drew the ire of right-wing Knesset members on Sunday when he called for "Muslims and Arabs" to "liberate Jerusalem.

Why is this only a concern of the "right-wing?"

Speaking at the "Jerusalem First" conference in Ramallah, the lawmaker emphasized the importance of Jerusalem to Islam, and called on participants to "act together to become a torrent on the road to liberation."

"Just as the Muslims once liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders, so must we today believe that we can liberate Jerusalem. It is not an impossible dream," he said.

MK Muhammad Barakei (Hadash) accused Israel of trying to "empty Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants." Calling Jerusalem a "national issue, not just a religious issue," he called on Palestinians to take cohesive, immediate action to "reclaim the city."

Extremist Students Take Over Mosque

Saudi Embassy in Australia Accused of Paying Imams' Salaries
Part of the non-stop Saudi proselytization effort for jihad throughout the West

Palestinian Gunmen Attack UN Convoy
In response the UN threatens to consider whether to pull out. Seriously

TV Documentary: Egyptians Shot Israeli POWs in 1973
"Dozens, if not hundreds. "

Sun's Pulse 'Points to Rain'
Unlike the Global Warming computer models, which make no testable claims in the near future, this one asserts that it can even predict the weather. It can also explain why it's getting hotter on SUV-free Jupiter

Abbas Has Become Hamas, by Uzi Arad
In retaliation, Israel will do nothing

Israel's generous welfare state does not appear to have generated much gratitude:

More than a quarter of Israel's Arab citizens believe the Holocaust never happened, and nearly two thirds of Israeli Jews avoid entering Arab towns, a poll by an Israeli university showed Sunday, demonstrating the poor state of relations between the two communities.

The poll, conducted by Sami Smoocha, a prominent sociologist at the University of Haifa, showed a wide gap of mistrust, anger and fear between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens.

In its most dramatic finding, the poll showed that 28 percent of Israeli Arabs did not believe the Holocaust happened, and that among high school and college graduates the figure was even higher - 33 percent....

Among Israeli Jews, 63 percent said they avoid entering Arab towns and cities, and 68 percent fear the possibility of civil unrest among Israeli Arabs....

Asked about the war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon last summer, nearly half of the Israeli Arabs polled - 48 percent - said they believed that Hezbollah's rocket attacks on northern Israel during that war were justified, even though numerous Arabs were killed and wounded in those attacks.

While 89 percent said they viewed the IDF's bombing of Lebanon as a war crime, only 44 percent said they saw Hezbollah's attacks on Israel as such. Hezbollah pelted northern Israel with nearly 4,000 rockets.

Half of Israeli Arab respondents said Hezbollah's capture of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a cross-border raid was justified. That incident sparked the 34-day conflict.

In a press release accompanying the poll's publication, Smoocha expressed surprise at the results.

"One would have expected more pro-Israeli results among Israeli Arabs due to the uniqueness of the most recent war: a war with no involvement of the Palestinians, a war in which the lives and belongings of Israelis were endangered, a war against an Islamic fundamentalist group that most of them don't support," Smoocha said.

Perhaps that "lack of support" is somewhat limited. In any case, they may be anti-Semitic, but they aren't suicidal:

62 percent worry that Israel could transfer their communities to the jurisdiction of a future Palestinian state....more than two thirds said they would be content to live in the Jewish state, if it existed alongside a Palestinian state

How does a culture get to a point in which eight women in one family are murdered by male family members in a period of seven years? This professor courageously speaks out, risking serious increases in his life insurance premiums:

About Palestinian children
"The message to Palestinian children is that if you use violence...you can achieve influence and you can achieve rule."

"A whole generation was raised on the denial of the 'other' and erasing him completely, and to the possibility of killing him without any restraint or problem.?

About Incitement against women and others
"There are Imams who incite to killing: killing of women, beating children, killing the 'other.'"

"What happened in Palestine in the last years is speech incitement of the highest degree. Violence speech of the highest degree in mosques, and occasionally in the media, from many politicians."

"There is no denying that crime, in general, needs environmental conditions, and especially environmental conditions of violence and environmental conditions of incitement speech."

About Palestinian Violence
"There is a kind of conspiracy not to punish the criminals. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the recent struggle between Fatah and Hamas? Who will punish those who gave the orders? Who will punish those who committed [the crimes]? Who will punish the people who remained silent...?"

About Palestinian Authority leadership
"The next government [of Hamas with Fatah]?is a crime against Palestinian society."

"The prime minister and many of the ministers and security apparatuses are the ones who eased and facilitated?the killing of hundreds of Palestinians."

"Who will punish those who caused the killing of these children, these women, these men?this is a political crime of the highest level."

Click here to see the video.

The most frequent message being repeated this month in Hamas' new Al Aqsa Satellite TV broadcasts is a statement by Ahmad Yassin, founder and former head of Hamas, made in 2005 in response to Israel's plan to evacuate Israeli towns in Gaza.

Yassin's message was that the Palestinians had found the key to destroying Israel. Since terror was forcing Israel to leave Gaza, the Palestinians only have to keep up the terror in Israel's other cities and Israel would run from those as well.

Non-Muslim minorities are fleeing every Muslim-majority area in the world. Christian populations, in particular, are in steep decline. Jews are the only exception. Unfortunately, Israel's leftist leadership has been doing the jihad's work in forcibly evicting Jews from their homes and in paying jizya (a special tax for non-Muslims in order to enact the Koran's prescription of "feeling subjugated").

Update: Reader Sam points out that media darling Ahmad Yassin was killed in an Israeli targeted assassination. Leftists predicted a spasm in local violence and international diplomatic losses as a result. In reality, it mainly caused Hamas leaders to go into hiding for a time.

There will always be killings when terrorists are put in charge of a government. The spin, for the forseeable future, will always be that this is part of the looming Hamas-Fatah "civil war." It's a no-lose situation--someone's personal rival gets eliminated, and Western money responds generously to the lie that Fatah will moderate Hamas:

Despite the formation of a Palestinian Authority unity government, a PA Intelligence officer affiliated with Fatah was shot and killed Friday morning in the village of Deir el-Balah, in the Gaza Strip.

Israel Radio reported that armed Palestinians, whose identities were unknown, stopped the vehicle in which two PA Intelligence officers were traveling.

After a brief argument with the gunmen, both officers were dragged out of the car and shot.

The story of the Hamas-Fatah "civil war" recently caused Israel to pay $100 million to Fatah "to fight Hamas," which was quickly revealed to have been paid to Hamas. The most suspicious part of the likely scam are the "kidnappings." Keep an eye out for those: twelve in yesterday's news. Remember, these are the people who brought us funerals with actors in the guise of corpses.

There is no lack of infinitely gullible Israeli leftists willing to continue the charade.

Moshe Freedman, a leader of the Neturei Karta who kissed Ahmadinejad at the Holocaust denial conference in Iran, was beaten up by the chairman of the organization that collects body parts of suicide bombing victims for a respectful burial. Unmentioned in any of the stories about the Neturei Karta is the fact the group was discovered to be on Arafat's payroll.

Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, chairman of ZAKA and former operations officer for the Ultra-Orthodox community, hit the Jewish man who kissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was reported on Monday.

The violent incident occurred last Friday in Poland during a mass visit of Orthodox Jews to the country in order to honor Hassidic Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk.

When the visitors arrived at Lizhensk on Friday morning, they heard that Moshe Arye Freedman, a member of the fanatic anti-Israel group Neturei Karta, was present as well. Freedman recently made headlines when he was photographed kissing Ahmadinejad during the Holocaust denial conference in Teheran three months ago.

Meshi-Zahav, along with another ZAKA member, quickly located Freedman and set upon him, punching the man, kicking him and breaking his glasses.

Israel paid $100 million to Abbas to "fight Hamas." Guess where the money went?

I have been comparing the Israeli leadership to the lovable chowderheaded Wise Men of Chelm, but I now think this is unfair.

To the Chelmites.

Israeli Diplomat: "Abu Mazen Lied to Us Thrice"

Abu Mazen's third lie was revealed in the Maariv newspaper yesterday (Thursday). The paper reported that tax monies Israel handed over to Abbas, based on a clear understanding that they would not reach the Hamas government, in fact made their way to Hamas.

Abbas, viewed as a "moderate" by the United States and the international community, "is not trustworthy," the Israeli diplomat concluded.

However, when he meets with Olmert this Sunday, PA sources say he plans to ask the Israeli leader not to torpedo the PA unity government's activities - even though it was conceived in contrast with Abu Mazen's promise to Israel. He also intends to request of Olmert not to pressure the international community to continue its economic siege on the PA - despite the fact that previous monies given to PA were given to Hamas.

Abbas reportedly plans to say that if Olmert does not come through on the above requests, the ceasefire in Gaza will be in jeopardy. Israeli sources say the ceasefire is already all but non-existent, and that in any event, Hamas is massively building up its arms arsenal for a confrontation with Israel.

Clearly, this Israeli official is not an IRIS reader, or he could have read a year ago how Israel would fund Hamas. He could have also read that the universally reported "Hamas-Fatah Civil War" would probably be revealed as a scam.

Update: Hamas confirms the news.

The problem with government programs is that they are easy to scam, like handicapped parking licenses and humanitarian aid to terrorist areas.

Students are finding easy access to medical marijuana cards and presenting those cards to school authorities as a legitimate excuse for getting high.

But, where are the cards coming from?

This is a copy of the letter sent home to parents of students in the Grossmont Union High School District.

Seems there's a new excuse for getting caught high on campus these days:

"It's not a get out of jail free card at all."

Catherine Martin says even though medical marijuana is legal in California, the law doesn't apply to schools which are subject to federal law.

The district also says the students most recently suspended for being high with cards in hand - didn't have major illnesses.

"Students are getting them for things like sleeplessness and stress - it just draws into question how easy is it for people to get their hands on these cards."

According to the district attorney's office, it's extremely easy if you know where to look.

"The cards these kids have, I've not seen them are issued by Doctor's offices or clinics that sell cards."

"During a series of recent under cover sting operations, DA investigators identified a handful of San Diego Doctors who prescribe marijuana to just about anyone, so long as they have a symptom and money. One of those Dr's runs this business. MediMar."

Another great moment in government:

A pensioner has been threatened with prison or a ?50,000 fine if he takes windblown sand back to the beach where it came from.

Arthur Bulmer?s seafront garden became carpeted after a week of storms swept tons of sand from the beach across the road.

It seemed like common sense to shovel it into his wheelbarrow and take it back, load by load, to its rightful place.

But the local council did not share Mr Bulmer's idea of logic.

Doing that, they told him, would class as fly-tipping, for which the maximum penalty is a ?50,000 fine or six months in jail.

Oh, and he would also have his wheelbarrow confiscated.

This reminds me of Christopher Hitchens' recent "orgy of lawlessness" in New York, where it is illegal to sit on a milkcrate or have an empty ashtray at one's workplace. Soon it may be a criminal offense to cross the street wearing headphones.