Posted 9/27/2002 07:17:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Don't miss Mark Steyn.

Listen up, folks: Don't beat yourselves up, there's plenty of crazy Saudis willing to do it for you. I don't have a problem with attempts to identify the ''root causes'' of 9/11, only with the particular root cause everyone settles on--to wit, poverty. The late Osama bin Laden was a wealthy man. Loaded. Mohammed Atta and most of the other killers belonged to the privileged middle class. Omar Sheikh, who kidnapped and beheaded the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, is a British ''public'' (i.e., private) schoolboy and graduate of the London School of Economics. Saddam Hussein's personal fortune is estimated at $7 billion, a career in public service in Baghdad being rather more lucrative than one in, say, Copenhagen. And let's not forget the representative two or three hundred Saudi princes currently accompanying King Fahd on his convalescence in Spain. A lucky London escort agency has landed the contract for servicing the Saudi swingers: The gals all have to be blond and they're replaced every two weeks, having been thoroughly, er, exhausted by then.

Posted 9/25/2002 06:03:00 AM by Ocean Guy
The translation is on the iviews site, but Salama A Salama's article originally appeared in Egypt's Al Ahram Weekly. This part could not have been too popular:

The sad fact, however, is that the image of Arabs and Muslims cannot be revamped, regardless of how many millions we spend, so long as the political and human situation in the Arab world remains unchanged. Unfortunately, neither our regimes nor populations appear to have fully grasped the extent of the uphill struggle we face. Our public elections are still won by landslides of the 99.9 per cent sort. Phone tapping and police surveillance is common, and as an inevitable result individual freedoms are curtailed. Restricting press freedom continues to be seen as a cornerstone of political life. The culture of fanaticism and terror still has supporters in our midst. Corruption is so deep-rooted that judicial processes are proving incapable of curtailing the problem, let alone eradicating it. Democracy and the transition of power by peaceful means are distant dreams.

Whatever we do, our PR makeover is unlikely to succeed. However hard we try, the world knows too much about us.

Posted 9/25/2002 05:54:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Moderate Islam Watch

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown doesn't like double standards in the Muslim world. He also thinks that more dialogue is needed with Moderate Islam:

Looking at our ever more perilous world, where new chasms open up daily between Islam and the West, you would think that politicians, non-governmental organizations and worthy bodies committed to building civic, non-violent societies would make it their priority to engage with European Muslims, particular those with reformist sentiments and agendas. The shock waves which have followed since the Salman Rushdie affair in 1988, culminating in the attacks on 11 September, should have told perceptive people that without deep, genuine and informed political and intellectual engagement with enlightened Muslims, chaos, and further chaos, is guaranteed...

...To ignore reformist Muslims is to abandon hope for any of us in the future. What do I mean by reformist? I mean people who see that there are universal principles of rights, freedoms, democracy and justice which apply as much to Muslims as others. I mean people insulted by the idea that they must be "tolerated" and who have the brains and guts to engage fully as democratic citizens.

I mean risk takers such as Zaki Badawi, the wise Egyptian head of the Muslim College who offered Salman Rushdie sanctuary in his home in the week following the fatwa. Or Ghiyassudin Siddique, leader of the once infamous "Islamic Parliament", who today boldly attacks the Government as well as the treatment of women in many Muslim families. I mean young Muslims like the young university student, Sama, who wrote to me last week to say: "I think we must be brave enough to say that no religion can continue to be relevant if it remains ahistorical. We live in a world where certain important values were not part of that old world. We must adapt or die."

What is the double standard that Mr Alibhai-Brown is talking about?:

I have had it with apologists who think that Muslims, whatever they do, only do these foul things because they are upset, humiliated, angry, despised and maltreated. There is no excuse big enough to explain the actions of cold-eyed slaughterers who descend on helpless Christians in Muslim states; the men who cut the throat of Daniel Pearl, the young Jewish American journalist; the grisly crowds in Nigeria who want to stone to death a young mother; the gang rape of children which is ordered as "punishment" by Muslim tribal leaders in Pakistan; the people who danced in the streets to see exploded bits of Americans and others.

I cannot stomach Muslim leaders and writers who jump up when there are signs of injustice against us (discrimination against Muslims is a serious problem, no doubt about that) but who never speak out to denounce outright the various discriminations which ruin the lives of common people (regardless of color or creed) in various parts of the world.

He's right, of course. These moderate muslims must take some of the responsibility in letting themselves be heard just as we need to share that responsibility by offering fora for their views to be heard .

Posted 9/25/2002 05:36:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Moderate Islam Watch

From MEMRI, we have translations from the London Arabic Daily Al-Hayat, which talks about hte Arabs' role in missig the opportunities of camp David. One interesting contention:

"Since regional tensions, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, were one of the fronts of the Cold War, when the reorganization of the world began... the military (ex-revolutionary) Arab democracies suffered from pressure caused by this reorganization – for example, with the erosion of national sovereignty, the free market, the globalization of human rights, the [establishment of] international courts, and the rise of the era of the peoples. The Arab regime tried to create a kind of new Cold War, by forming an alliance with Islamic fundamentalism and establishing a new shadow empire in Central Asia."

Posted 9/21/2002 07:13:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Don't miss the post and discussion about AIDS Activists hindering their own cause over at The Daily Pundit. As usual, Bill Quick and his readers are the best read of the day.

Posted 9/20/2002 06:37:00 AM by Ocean Guy
What is the real message in Rumsfeld asking Israel not to respond? It is probably an unreasonable request. If the 'invavsion' is very quick, there may be a benefit to both us and Israel if they show some restraint. But, beyond a couple of days, I'm not sure it makes any difference in the way anyone sees things. How much more can the Arabs be incited against Israel? Not responding would simply be a sign of weakness which serves no purpose. I'll be looking for more discussion on this one. I had been under the assumption that Israel will certainly retaliate....

Posted 9/20/2002 06:14:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Maybe now he'll be elected to the Hall of Fame. The "World's Fastest Man" is gone.

Posted 9/20/2002 05:53:00 AM by Ocean Guy
How can anyone negotiate a peaceful co-existance with those who do not value life? This infuriates me.

Posted 9/19/2002 06:29:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Another Islamikaze strike.

Posted 9/19/2002 06:26:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Here's the deal. Iraq, through Tariq Aziz, says they will allow the inspectors, clearly giving the EUnuchs the impression that they are willing to cooperate. What I don't like is the US response. The President and his minions, together with the media, all whine, "Nuh-UH, they don't really mean it, they'll fool us again, they can't be trusted."

Instead, the President ought to, or rather should have, quietly assembled an acceptable team of Inspectors. He should have worked with Security Council members to get a qualified team, acceptable to all. They should have been mustering UN equipment, including helicopters and MASH type mobile quarters and anything else they need, to make the team self sustaining. It doesn't appear they have done any of that.

So here's how they should proceed. Then they should load the equipment and inspectors on a few big aircraft, and fly them to Baghdad. While they are enroute the President can announce to the world his gratitude to Iraq for co-operating with the UN, with all of the appropriate overstated, flowery, complimentary language. He should end his announcement by saying the inspectors will be landing in 2 hours.

Instead of whining about what Iraq is likely to do, and wasting precious time, take advantage of what they said they will do. Flush the liars out, regain the upper hand. We’ve GOT the invitation, give them the freaking RSVP and GO.

Posted 9/17/2002 07:25:00 PM by Ocean Guy
It's fitting, Arafat defeats himself. By using suicide bombers he ultimatley commits political suicide.

Posted 9/15/2002 12:26:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Bruce Hill, at War Now, is a self-proclaimed reformed 'lefty.' Today he posts an entire article by James J. Cramer in which he wholeheartedly agrees. The Making of a Hawk

From:

Until 19 Arab hijackers killed thousands of Americans a year ago, I thought the world was a pretty safe place. I favored a smaller military, an open and free society and a rigorous support of the Bill of Rights, one that would guarantee privileges to all who lived in this country -- yes, even the aliens among us who struggled so hard to get here.

I believed that if we could get Arabs and Israelis together in a room, we could solve that crisis, just as the Northern Irish crisis was defanged through negotiation and patience. I even thought we would see peace, a world dominated by a Pax Americana, in which economic growth would lead to a safer, stronger community that would be safe for my children and their children and their children's children. I love you, you love me, we are a happy family, this land is your land, this land is my land; you get the picture.

To:

I now regard our great bulwark of laws that protect individual rights against the right of a potential intrusive government as a plaything of our enemies. I regard the defenders of the Middle Eastern status quo, where the hijackers got their sponsorship as appeasers, as the kind that Winston Churchill faced in Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement policy. I regard the dissent from the war effort against the nations that hide and nurture Al Qaeda terrorists as a flirtation with treason. And I think the way to remember the dead is not so much to view them as the casualties of a horrid moment but as a precursor to what will happen to you and me if we act as if this were a matter of law enforcement for a free society.

Stop the mourning, and start the bombing, if you want it in the plain Wall Street way we are taught to express ourselves. If we act like this is business as usual, just another enemy like the Soviets during the Cold War, or yes, even the Nazis of World War II, we will be playing into precisely the hopes of the terrorists: that we approach their unconventional American genocide with a conventional, and ultimately, Vietnam-like, war effort, one that ends with us exhausted and them triumphant.

Bruce, like Mr. Cramer, like many others of us, have had reality smack us between the eyes. It struck hard enough to make us realize that idealism is not enough, caring is not enough, good intentions are not enough, intelligence is not enough... The fact remains: Evil exists and no amount of education or 'enlightenment' will make it go away.

Like Many, I was once a 'lefty'. Maturity, experience and tragedy combined to change that. Reality struck the first time 30 years ago on September 5, 1972 when the Olympic games were hijacked by evil, but the blow was indirect. It struck again on November 4, 1979 when the American Embassy in Tehran was taken and even though I was a young Naval Officer, I held to my idealistic views.[I did not vote for Ronald Reagan.] But on October 23, 1983 reality struck the blow that changed my perspective.

On that day 241 US Servicemen, including dozens I knew, were killed by a suicide bomber. They were killed in a place I had been sitting just a couple of weeks earlier. They were Peace Keepers, not combatants, part of the Multi-National Peacekeeping Force, and they were senselessly murdered. The murderers were the same people who had dealt both the first and the last blow of reality to my liberal ideals.

I know it’s a good thing that there are so many liberals who still hold fast to their idealism. For that shows me that there are still many who have not had life changing confrontations with evil. I wish I was still a part of that group. Our Republic and its democratic values allow idealism flourish, and I’m proud to be one who has served and fought to protect it. The Idealism – Realism dichotomy makes our society strong. But, it’s certainly frustrating when so many intelligent people are blind to the realities of the world.

As Mr. Cramer writes:

And then, on Sept. 11, a quarter of a mile away from where I was sitting, something occurred that was so horrific, so despicable, so evil and so darned foreshadowing of the future, that I realize in retrospect that I was a dreamer, an appeaser and, alas, a fool. In my lifetime we, as a people, have had enemies who wanted to win us over to their ways, enemies who wished we would change our culture and enemies who would fight our soldiers if we fought theirs.

It’s almost sad that another idealist was lost. But as long as we maintain our underlying idealism as we confront the reality we face, we’ll be fine. The events of September 11, 2001 have changed our world. Our success will be measured by the manner we deal with its message and with its consequences. In Mr. Cramer’s words:

In years to come, there will be people who stayed pacifist or ignorant or oblivious to what has happened, and they will be looked upon in later history as cowards or dreamers or fools. And then there will be the people who saw Sept. 11 for what it was, a declaration of war against us, and acted accordingly. I want nothing more than to be in the latter camp, if only because yesterday was and always will be Sept. 11 until our enemies are vanquished.

And in the end I hope we can all be idealists.

Posted 9/14/2002 03:39:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Susanna Cornett has posted a letter from a friend to a TV station about the events of 9/11 and the one year anniversary. So head on over to cut on the bias and read it.

Posted 9/13/2002 06:17:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Lynn B. puts an incredible claim In Context. An article in Haaretz, The Massacring of the Truth, by Amnon Rubinstein, points out the outrageous claim made by some Palestinians, that

no Palestinians had spread false rumors of a massacre in Jenin and that the "myth" of the Palestinians accusing the IDF of a massacre was part of an anti-Palestinian plot.

Lynn B. has everything in a neat package.

Tal G also mentions it.

Posted 9/12/2002 10:41:00 PM by Ocean Guy
"Sleeper" agents, operatives who blend in to America and wait for years before striking, are a necessary component of many terrorist actions. But how do these Sleepers manage to avoid detection? Recently released excerpts from Osama bin Laden's pamphlet, the Sleeper's Handbook, detail the chilling sophistication of our enemies and their terrifying familiarity with Western Culture.

Posted 9/12/2002 10:34:00 PM by Ocean Guy
MEMRI has an anthology of Arab clippings which continue to deny Arab involvement in the 9/11 attacks on the USA. The Arab press, in seeking legitimacy for their accusation, quotes authorities like David Duke:

"There are two solid pieces of evidence indicating the Mossad's prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks." He goes on to enumerate: "Having only one Israeli casualty among the 4,500 dead at the WTC is simply a statistical impossibility," and "The Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, also confirmed the prior warnings to Israel… an Israeli communication company, Odigo, with offices in both the World Trade Center and in Israel, received a number of warnings just two hours before the attack"

And Thierry Meyssan the French author whose best seller claims that no plane hit the Pentagon:

"It was not logical," Meyssan claimed, "that a plane could enter Pentagon airspace without being shot down. Moreover, a photo taken a few minutes after the event showed no evidence of fire, and there was also no hole in the building where the plane had allegedly penetrated it." Meyssan depicted Osama bin Laden as a CIA agent who had been treated in an American hospital in Dubai two months before September 11. There, he said, bin Laden had been visited by a top CIA official.

Read it if you can stand the obscenity.

Posted 9/12/2002 10:20:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Don't miss William Safire's column today on The Split in the Saudi Royal Family.

One faction is headed by Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto monarch today, backed by most of the Faisal branch of the royals; one Faisal is foreign minister. Abdullah, while no moderate, recognizes that Saudi girls will have to get some education, and I'm told he worries that the Palestinian dream of taking over Israel is dragging out a war that will one day trigger an internal Saudi explosion.

The opposition within the House of Saud is the Sudairi branch, headed by Prince Sultan, now the defense minister (and father of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar, a k a "Mr. Smoothie"). Sultan has a brother in charge of internal security, has control of oil and gas production and is locked into both the influential bin Laden family and the radical Wahhabi imams. Sultan spells trouble.

The rivals are both past their prime: Abdullah is 79, Sultan only a few years younger. The betting is that when the ailing King Fahd, now 83, dies, the Sudairis will let Abdullah become king, stepping up as crown princes are supposed to — on condition that the Faisal branch agree to appoint Sultan to be Abdullah's crown prince and successor.

But Abdullah knows he won't be king for long and does not want to pave the way for Sultan and his ultra-conservative Wahhabi backers. (Office politics are complicated everywhere.)

Go read it all.

Posted 9/12/2002 07:30:00 AM by Ocean Guy
I'm sure this will be everywhere, but I wanted to blog it for myself. It is the text of Binyamin Netanyahu's speech that was cancelled due to Palestinian rioting in Montreal. The opening line:

I have come here to voice what I believe is an urgently needed reminder: that the war on terror can be won with clarity and courage or lost with confusion and vacillation.

Please see Middle East Realities for a first hand account, photos, and much more.

Posted 9/11/2002 08:25:00 AM by Ocean Guy
There is a lot to laugh at over at Amish Tech Support, but there's somthing else too.

Posted 9/11/2002 07:32:00 AM by Ocean Guy
It's not unbelievable, though I wish it was: more election problems in Florida. Here in North Florida they switched to the simpler optical scanners instead of the slick touch screen monitors. The touch screen monitors, by one report, took almost 6 minutes to set up and boot up.... there were problems. As in most of the state there were few problems to report, but oh how the problems were highlighted by their sheer stupidity. More...

One precinct's poll workers didn't realize they had to turn the machines on delaying poll opening by 90 minutes. More than one precinct had no poll workers show up and other volunteers had to be found to get the polls open. One local precinct gave voters the wrong ballots, and many voters weren't sharp enough to realize they had the wrong party's ballot. Thankfully someone was,

"The names [on the ballot] were slightly familiar, but I didn't find most of the people I was looking for," said Stephen Bowen, among those who brought ballot problems at East Pointe Baptist Church in Arlington to the attention of election officials.

Other precincts closed at the originally scheduled time, ignoring media and voters’ reports that the governor had ordered the polls to stay open until nine. The local news interviewed one such precinct supervisor sometime past 7, after she had turned voters away. Her response was that the last official word she got was the polls close at 7pm..... I guess the governor isn't official. But then she had the audacity to blame the media for spreading the word that the polls were open till nine..... That was unbelievable. Still More...

Another precinct didn't have any Republican ballots, machines crashed at another but the best story was an interview with one of the gubernatorial candidates, Daryl Jones, who had boasted, during the campaign, of all his work in election reform. I'll post a link as soon as I find it. But here's some more...

The sad part of the story is that virtually all of the problems were in precincts that had problems in the 2000 General Election. Then Polling place workers in some areas were instructing everyone to, "Make sure you vote for someone on every page." Too bad there were two pages of presidential candidates and well over 10,000 over-votes were cast aside. Perhaps there was too much effort in the Get Out the Vote drive and too little effort into even minimal training for poll volunteers.

Whatever the problems, it appears we are in for a couple of more days in the spotlight for what Congresswoman Corrine Brown called yesterday's "Widespread election irregularities." Janet Reno will likely contest the election results... Stay tuned this could get interesting.

Posted 9/10/2002 06:53:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Today is Primary Day in Florida. We have a phenomenon here that goes with the polls opening that I've not seen many other places.... The living campaign sign.

During most of the day today, especially during the rush hours, Candidates, Families and Campaign workers will be holding small campaign signs, standing on street corners, waving at passing cars... all while wearing Big Idiot Grins. If nothing else, the spectacle may remind a few people that it's Election Day, but generally I don't understand it. The thing is everyone does it, nobody wants to be left out.

The busiest intersections may have two or three competing camps... Candidate for state legislature, his wife, school age children and his Mom, all in their Sunday best, standing in the heat or rain, smiling, waving, flashing a thumbs up for a tooted horn, in 'Car Door to Car Door Campaigning.' It's comical. It's kind of a miniature political convention. In fact, every once in a while a candidate with a large family invades and occupies an entire major intersection. Not all are so well supported, we'll also see a Lone Campaigner or two. Maybe the loners are the judges, the independent ones, but that's just speculation, I've never paid close attention. I'll just enjoy the little bit of people watching that the event gives us, and wonder, "Do Living Campaign Signs exist anywhere else?"

Posted 9/09/2002 07:10:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Martin Peretz helps make the case for action in Iraq.

It is not the pursuit of good government, however, that has put this country on a collision course with the leadership in Palestine and Iraq. Our motives are more fundamental than that: The U.S. government has made a decision that it will not permit either mass terror by Baghdad or random terror by the many Palestinian militias to set the norms of how others, in the region and beyond, live or die. This is the critical principle underlying our Iraqi policy and our Palestinian policy. It is, at root, a statement about how we define civilization and how we defend it from its unconventionally armed discontents.

Posted 9/09/2002 07:07:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Stating the obvious, Daniel Pipes says More Americans have been killed by militant Islamics than any other enemy since the Vietnam War. He calls it a mistake that Americans largely ignored the 800 lives lost between Novermber 1979 and 9/11.

Interestingly, a Marine sergeant present at the embassy that fateful day in November 1979 agrees with this assessment. As the militant Islamic mob invaded the embassy, Rodney V. Sickmann followed orders and protected neither himself nor the embassy. As a result, he was taken hostage and lived to tell the tale. (He now works for Anheuser-Busch.)

In retrospect, he believes that passivity was a mistake. The Marines should have done their assigned duty, even if it cost their lives. "Had we opened fire on them, maybe we would only have lasted an hour." But had they done that, they "could have changed history."

Standing their ground would have sent a powerful signal that the United States of America cannot be attacked with impunity. In contrast, the embassy's surrender sent the opposite signal - that it's open season on Americans. "If you look back, it started in 1979; it's just escalated," Sickmann correctly concludes.

It makes you wonder...

Posted 9/06/2002 02:50:00 PM by Ocean Guy

L'Shana Tova....

Posted 9/06/2002 10:55:00 AM by Ocean Guy

I hesitate to post this because it's so long, but since it's not available except as an e-mail, and that I find it interesting, I'll paste it all. The substance of the debate is so familiar:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon provided the public with the real reason for Israel's descent into the Oslo disaster. In a speech that he delivered to the first grade in the Ben Zvi School in Ramleh, on the occasion of the opening of the school year, he said: "Israel is the only place in the Middle East, and possibly in the world, in which the first word taught in school is 'shalom' [literally, peace, in the Hebrew for welcome to the first grade - shalom kitah alef]." his seems to be a fine and moving thought. But there's a catch to it.

We all agree that it is good to teach Israeli children that "peace" s an exalted value. The problem begins when the educational system - that is dominated by the left, even when the right is in power - distorts the meaning of the word "peace" for its political purposes, and keeps from our children information about the true meaning of the word shalom that is to be found in the Jewish sources. And so the word "peace" has become synonymous with total capitulation to the demands by the enemy, for the handing over of regions of the homeland to the enemy, for waiving the values of Judaism. Israeli children who study in the State
educational system sing ad nauseum "Shir ha-Shalom" [the "Song of Peace"], and at times are even exposed to the verse "Oseh shalom bi- mromav - May the One who makes peace in the heights make peace for us, and for all Israel. Now say: Amen" - but they do not learn the warnings by our prophets against a false peace.

Who in the State educational system has learned of the admonition by Jeremiah (6:14): "They offer healing offhand for the wounds of My people, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace"? There, and in other passages, the prophet Jeremiah warns the people of Israel against false leaders and prophets who delude the people that there will be peace, and lull the public with false promises that, even if the situation seems difficult, there is no need to worry, the evil will not come(sounds familiar and up to date?). The prophet Ezekiel also warns us time and again: "the prophets of Israel who prophesy about Jerusalem and see a vision of shalom when there is no shalom" (13:16).

But most Israeli schoolchildren do not receive this important information from our sources. Their minds are poisoned by the lies and false hopes that the leftists drum into them from the first to the twelfth grades, through very "special" politicized textbooks. Dr. Yoram Hazony, the President of the Shalem Center, has been warning for years against the quiet de-Judaizing revolution that is underway in Israeli schools and universities. We all recall the uproar about two years ago regarding a new ninth grade history book that was written in a post-Zionist and anti-Jewish spirit. The problem, however, is not any specific book.

As Hazony explains, in an article that appeared in the New Republic about two years ago ("Who Removed Zionism from Israel's Textbooks ?"), the real problem is those academics who decide about the curriculum of the educational system. People such as Israel Bartel and the historian Moshe Zimmermann admit in interviews with them that they brought about a revision in the entire educational system. According to them, it was necessary to give new meaning to Jewish history, and to downplay its value and importance!! The fact that these anti-Jewish individuals continued to be active, even when the right was in power, is an unforgivable crime. Because of them, the emphasis in Israel in recent decades has been on universal history, and not on Jewish history. The study of the Jewish people, of Jewish culture, and of the State of Israel appears in the curriculum, but only in marginal chapters, in a sea of chapters on Greek, African, Brazilian, and American culture, and who knows what else.

The Israeli-Arab conflict, as well, is explained in the history books from a "universal" perspective, so that the Israeli pupil does not
identify with the Zionist pioneers who established the State of Israel, but - at best - feels neutral towards the subject, and - at worst - because he did not receive the proper tools and the information concerning the special bond of the people of Israel with Eretz Israel, identifies specifically with the Arab side.

And so, because of the distortion of the meaning of the word "peace" and all that this implies, a new generation has grown up in Israel in the past twenty years, one that has undergone brainwashing, one that received a spoilt education that undermines the basic principles of Judaism, and our right to our land. This is the generation that allowed its leaders to sign the cursed Oslo accords.

Let us not deceive ourselves: even those who received a Zionist State-Religious education have been adversely influenced by the
entire Oslo atmosphere that polluted our air in the last decade, not only in the textbooks, but also in the state media. How many young people who belong to the national camp are really capable of debating with "Peace Now" people and win the debate by refuting all of their lying slogans? Have our young people, who complete the twelfth grade and enter the world at large, received the tools and the information to reject the incorrect claims that are disseminated in the media, in the university, in the army, and everywhere else, such as: "According to international law, the presence of Israelis in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is a violation of international law"? Or another widespread lie: "The settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are situated on occupied Arab land." Or, who knows that the slogan "The Jewish people never had any historical connection to the Gaza district" is a total falsehood? How many of our young people are capable of facing a leftist and, based on clear and accurate information, convincing him that the word "Israeli occupation" is total nonsense and that in fact the opposite is true: it is the Arabs who occupy our Jewish land! Or that the concept "Jewish state" is not a "racist" concept, as the extreme left claims?

In the past two years, the two years of the bloody Oslo War, the Jewish people has sobered up and understood that the education that it received was warped education for a false peace. The Education Minister, Limor Livnat, announced the introduction of a curriculum that will impart more Jewish heritage, more Zionism, and more Judaism to our children, but it will take many years until this moderate program will have an effect, if at all.

What is needed now is renewed and expedited education that will correct the educational distortion that was committed, and that will give our young people the tools to face the many challenges, with strength and vigor. Already this year, we can, and must, begin to initiate classes with the participation of both parents and their children, beginning from the ninth grade and up, in which they will make up the material that they never received: Bible, Jewish history, Zionist history, our right to Eretz Israel, refuting the lies of our enemies - the list goes on and on. Gandhi (Rehavam Ze'evi),HY"D, always recalled to us the verse: "May the Lord grant strength to His people, may the Lord bestow on His people shalom" (Psalms 29:11). First we must see strength and vigor, and then and only then shalom will come. Only if we give our children a more Jewish education, will, with God's help, a new generation grow up in Israel, with greater strength. A generation that will no longer fall into the trap of a false peace.

Posted 9/06/2002 10:24:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Shlomo Ben-Ami argues that Force Won't Work in the war against Islamists. He's absolutely right that force, alone, will not solve the problem. He's also right in saying that the "war" is a long-term problem that will take years to realize a modern Islamic society. My fear is that Americans will not be patient enough to follow through with the required effort. While Ben-Ami says:

THE SOLUTION does not lie in vying for supremacy over the rival bloc, or in the kind of arms race that broke the USSR's neck. We are dealing with Islamic civilization which for centuries has failed in finding its way to socioeconomic modernity or democracy; a civilization that has not been able to develop a civic society and freedom of speech, and which is rebelling now against globalization perceived as the reflection of American cultural hegemony. No force of any kind will solve the complex problems of Islam and Muslim societies. This was as true before September 11 as it is now: the solution has to be a long-term one, rooted in a historical perspective of changes of regime, economic development, the emergence of a middle class, and gradual adaptation to a culture founded on trust, transparency, and a civic society.

It will take years.

The emphasis placed by the Bush administration on the need for democracy in the Arab world is, in principle, the correct approach. But in practice, it becomes apparent that there is very little maneuvering room for change; moreover, American policy is woefully inconsistent. Democracy is not a matter to be decided by presidential decree. Democracy emerges from depth processes. In the Arab and Muslim world, the alternative, unfortunately, does not lie between democracy and dictatorship. The only alternatives are secular dictatorship such as those of Hosni Mubarak, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Mohammad VI, Muammar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, and Saddam Hussein - or Islamic democracy, i.e., a fundamentalist regime.

Ben-Ami seems to assume that those of us who support the application of force to the problem are looking for a quick fix. He is wrong.

My fear is that, in the end, Americans will lose their patience because they want instant gratification. Our clash with Islamism is not a short term problem, we will not see a quick resolution. A decisive application of overwhelming force will only be the first step in a process that will take years, even a generation. Without application of force the Arabs continue their attempts to recapture some sort of nebulous lost honor. Without that application of military strength, nothing changes.

Force is not the solution, it will not solve the centuries old problems in the Middle East. However, force is necessary to change the circumstances and to produce conditions that will allow the changes to take place. We must be steadfast in our determination to follow through on the change.... It will take years.

Posted 9/05/2002 09:57:00 PM by Ocean Guy
One Battle may be over, but the war continues. If Zev Chafets is right and The Intifadah's Over and the Israelis Won, the opportunity should not mean relaxing vigilance.

Posted 9/05/2002 09:58:00 AM by Ocean Guy
The following article is part of a blogburst - a simultaneous and cross-linked posting of many blogs on the same theme. This blogburst commemorates the Munich Olympics Massacre which began in the dawn
hour of September 5th, 1972. Go to the The Index of the Munich Massacre Blogburst to find links to all the other articles.

September 5, 1972
Even before the events of September 5, 1972, the XXth Olympiad was the most memorable gathering of the World’s athletes in modern history. Mark Spitz won 7 gold medals, more than any athlete in history in a single Olympiad. Olga Korbut won gold and the hearts of the world with a virtually perfect performance. The USA basketball team lost the Gold to the Russians in a controversial 3 seconds. But these performances, as memorable as they are, were completely overshadowed by the events of this date thirty years ago. Today we remember the lives lost and the shattered innocence during those Games.

September 5, 1972 is the day the PLO introduced themselves to me. I saw them on TV only as heartless, selfish, evil criminals. As a young teen I didn’t really know what a terrorist was until their masked figures appeared on our TVs and shattered my naivety. Those PLO terrorists wanted to bring attention to their “cause”. They got my attention, all right but they got no sympathy for their cause. In destroying the showcase event of International cooperation, they gave up any chance of getting my sympathy for whatever ‘cause’ they claimed to stand for. They were simply criminals, dangerous, evil criminals.

The Olympic Games were, for many, a respite from Cold War tensions. They were a peaceful, exuberant gathering of athletes beyond the politics of a bi-polar world. The Olympic spirit is illustrated by this story, told by Ankie Spitzer in One Day in September by Simon Reeve. Ankie’s husband Andre was the Israeli Fencing Coach… one of the 11 murdered.

…with Andre in his element as a participant in a uniquely international event. He was a man who passionately believed the Olympics could break down national barriers, and after one of his competitions he spotted members of the Lebanese team and told Ankie he was gong to say hello to them.
Ankie had immediate reservations. “I said to him,” ‘Are you out of your mind?! They’re from Lebanon!” Israel was in a state of war with Lebanon at the time.”

“Ankie,” said Andre calmly, “that’s exactly what the Olympics are about. Here I can go to them, I can talk to them, I can ask them how they are. That’s exactly what the Olympics are all about.”

“So he went…towards this Lebanese team, and…he asked them, ‘How you’re your results?’ and ‘I’m from Israel and how did it go?’ And to my amazement, I saw that the [Lebanese] responded and they shook hands with him and they talked to him and they asked him about his results. I’ll never forget when he turned around and came back towards me with this huge smile on his face. ‘You see!’ said Andre excitedly. ‘This is what I was dreaming about, I knew it was going to happen.’ ”

Andre’ realized his dream and then had it shattered.

Many, many dreams were shattered as we listened to Jim McKay, the voice of The Wide World of Sports, and the voice of the Olympics, relay the tragic events. Mr. McKay’s innocent joy in athletic competition was ripped from him, just as it was from us, as he was forced into focusing on the horrible crime as America, in shock, watched and waited. Innocent enjoyment evaporated into fear and anger as those evil figures murdered eleven people simply to get some attention.

Andre Spitzer….. Yossef Romano….. Moshe Weinberg….. Jacov Springer….. Amitzur Shapira….. Eliezer Halfin….. Zeev Friedman….. Yossef Gutfreund….. Mark Slavin….. Kehat Shorr….. David Berger All murdered.

During a visit to Munich in 1983, I took a ride on a bus that passed the Olympic Stadium. Before we came upon the stadium I was presented with a haunting view of a group of Apartment buildings which I immediately recognized as the one time Olympic Village. I was surprised by the depth of emotion that the sudden memory of the murders and the events from 11 years earlier. One of the emotions that grabbed me was fear. I felt fear at being reminded of the evil people involvedin the horrendous act. This tiem it was on a sight seeing tour instead of watching TV, but once again innocent joy was replaced by fear and anger. That flash from the past brought me starkly into the present. My short visit to Munich was just a short diversion on journey way to Beirut.

I was heading, for a short time, to be a part of the multi-national Peacekeeping force deployed in Beirut. The fear I felt that day in Munich was a fear and loathing of the evil methods and evil leadership of the PLO. Those senseless murders in 1972 were just the beginning of a different evil, a more violent and vicious campaign of terror whose epicenter, in 1983, had moved to Lebanon… and I was on my way there.

In 1972 I was introduced to the PLO by watching masked criminals on TV in Munich. In 1983, while standing in Munich, I was reminded, not only of the Olympic murders, but that the murderers, the PLO, were the same people who would soon be posing a threat to my life. Suddenly the Munich terror was very real to me.

Today, thirty years later, I hope the events are real to you. I hope you take the time to remember the lives lost, the families torn apart, and the collective loss of innocence we all experienced as a result of that one day in September 1972.

Posted 9/03/2002 09:14:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Yisrael Medad thinks that D-Day is fast approaching for Yassir Arafat...

...and the Palestinian leadership. It is the responsibility of those countries that pressured Israel to accept the Oslo process to now pressure the Palestinian Authority. They must be made to understand that either they change direction or they will lose all ability of ever achieving any of the goals they set for themselves over 40 years ago. D-Day for Arafat is that day when he adopts a four-pronged program of denouncing, disarming, disbanding and democratizing. Read it all.

Posted 9/03/2002 09:06:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Jeff Jacoby has some harsh words for the President. This is why:

All of these fuel American antipathy toward Saudi Arabia. But more significant perhaps than any of them is the widening realization that the values and aspirations of Saudi society are fundamentally at odds with the values and aspirations of our own. Virtually everything our civic culture venerates - religious and political tolerance, freedom of speech and expression, constitutional self-government, liberal democracy, sexual equality - Saudi culture abominates. The Saudi princes run an intolerant and repressive totalitarian theocracy - backward, bigoted, and closed. There may be no country on earth with which we have less in common. Read the rest...

Posted 9/02/2002 07:24:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Thanks to Meryl, I'll never again think of my favorite Southern Pines in the same way,