Week ending July 28, 2012

I'm only going to point to 4 articles this week.

The first article is an interesting analysis of the what may happen in Lebanon following the demise of Assad in Syria. The situation is, of course, complex. On the one hand, Hizbollah owes most of its strength to the arms it had received and continue to receive from Syria. Of course, most of them really are from Iran, but Syria is the key link in the supply chain. On the other hand, Hizbollah is now the most powerful and best armed group in Lebanon, and the Shiite community that they are associated with constitute probably about half the current population of the country. Of course, as usual, NONE of the outcomes are particularly positive for Israel.

Another big item in the news this week was the refusal of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to accept a minute of silence in memory of the Israeli athletes brutally murdered by a terrorist attack at the Munich olympics, 40 years ago. The craziness around this has been absolutely astounding! They claimed that they refused this because it would "politicize" the Olympics. What b***s***! They had no problem with remembering the victims of 9/11, which had absolutely NOTHING to do with the Olympics. THIS massacre, however, happened specifically AT the Olympic Village, and Olympic players and their coaches were explicitly targeted! This, in reality, was an attack on the very spirit of the Olympic Movement itself.

This brings us to our next article. The president of the Palestinian Olympic Committee sent a letter congratulating the IOC on their decision, saying that a moment of silence remembering these athletes would be "racist"! Huh?!? One could certainly argue that the attack ITSELF was racist, since it targeted Israeli athletes. But then a moment of silence would actually be blow AGAINST racism!

Of course, as our article point out, the REAL reason that the "Palestinians" are opposed to any kind of memorial is that they do not consider the attack terrorist or even bad. In fact, to them, it was a "glorious operation", something which they continue to glorify. Peace, peace, who wants peace? Certainly not THEM!

The last 2 articles are both on the topic of Judea and Samaria (the territories misleadingly named "The West Bank" by the Kingdom of Jordan during their illegal occupation of the area from 1948 to 1967).

The first article of these two points out that, while far from ideal, the status quo (i.e. the current situation there) is better liked by nearly anyone who is directly affected by it than any "2-state solution" that could conceivably replace it. This, of course, is very disturbing to people for whom such a solution is the only possibility, but these people generally are not really aware of the actualities of the territories. If you happen to be one of these people (and most people outside the immediate area are), you should read this article carefully and become more enlightened.

The last article is about Sheikh Farid Khadar Al Jaabari, a very important Muslim Arab leader in Hebron. Although he is NOT a Zionist, he actually believes in coexistence with the Jews and is very much a pragmatist. His ideas certainly are much more grounded in reality than most others and would be much more beneficial for both Israel AND the Arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria. I think they merit serious consideration.