Let My People Go.

In case you don’t recall, this is an American slave spiritual. Here, enjoy the Louis Armstrong rendition and savor the irony.

What do you think – is it more a total ignorance of world history, or an unreasoning hatred of Israel, that makes her unaware of how completely ridiculous her idea is?

What are we willing to give up in order to appease a bunch of murderous thugs who approach the world with a pocket full of Semtex and say, “Do — and don’t do — what I want or I will blow myself and you to smithereens”?

How about nothing? Does nothing work for you?

h/t Israel Matzov.

Bullies use a form of terrorism. They apply violence, secure in the knowledge that even if they get caught, the system will join them in punishing a victim who fights back. A victim, especially one physically more powerful than his abuser, who complains to the authorities is typically blown off. All violence is wrong, so don’t defend yourself. But we won’t defend you, because we need to catch him in the act. He’s smaller than you, so you can’t retaliate. Just ignore him and eventually he’ll stop. Other kids actively or passively join the bully out of disgust because they despise a weak target, or fear because they don’t want to be next. School staff generally know exactly what’s going on, but don’t act on that knowledge. It’s mystifying that they demand restraint from the victim instead of the offender, but it happens all the time. The victim knows that any punishment will be disproportionate to the crime: the bully uses physical violence, but will be punished non-violently with detention or suspension. Being uncivilized works greatly to the bully’s advantage, and being civilized is disadvantageous to the victim. It’s an elegant construct.

Casey was bigger and stronger, and had the power to defend himself through – reportedly – years of abuse, but didn’t use it until Monday. He finally decided that the punishment would be worth the “crime” of defending himself. Predictably, both boys were suspended, although the attacker’s sentence was 21 days to Casey’s four. So Casey won, after a fashion – but in the end, it was being uncivilized that paid off for him.

Israel goes through that process repeatedly. Complaints to “the authorities” – the United Nations – are blown off or even mocked. The media hall monitors often actively or passively side with the bullies. The terror attacks continue while concessions are demanded from the victim. So after enduring hundreds of small-scale terror attacks in the form of rockets and suicide bombers, they send in the military to administer a body-slam to the Palestinians.

These are good short-term solutions to bullying. In Casey’s case, he may have intimidated them enough that it won’t start again. In Israel’s case, for the moment, it stops after a sufficiently severe retaliatory attack. At least until the rest of the world hammers Israel for defending herself and demands that she submit to ongoing terror attacks by giving up even more land. That obviously did not work when Israel left Gaza to the Palestinians, but the world demands it, regardless.

Sufficient public scrutiny could have broken Casey’s bullying cycle. What if he’d pulled a James O’Keefe and worn a hidden camera to school, documented both the bullying and the administration’s passivity in the face of it? What if he’d given the video to the school district, the press, and published it on Youtube? Enough people probably would have been shamed so that the problem would finally be addressed. It’s unlikely Casey had the resources for such a “sting.” Luckily, abusers were bold enough to film their attack and stupid enough to let the film get out. The school’s staff has now been publicly shamed and is more likely to deal with the bullies. Sunlight disinfects.

Unlike Casey, Israel does have the resources to get the truth about Palestinian barbarities out there. And the more that Israel can get the truth out about the Palestinian barbarisms, the media’s complicity, and the United Nation’s ridiculous response to the whole mess, the more likely that pressure will finally be brought to bear against the Palestinians to seek peace instead of – as the charter for Hamas, the democratically elected Palestinian government, states – the total destruction of Israel.

Why hasn’t Israel done that so far? This interview with Israel’s Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein explains why – and why that policy has been changed since the Fogel family was horrifically murdered last week by Palestinian terrorists. The brutal terror attack included stabbing a three month old baby girl and four year old boy to death. Along with their twelve year old brother and parents.

Edelstein explains:

Recently, a kind of dialogue has emerged to the effect that IDF soldiers are clearly murderers, rapists and looters. This is the feeling that exists around the world and I’m not speaking about [just] the Palestinian Authority. In this atmosphere, of wild incitement against and demonization of Israel, there needs to be a shocking reaction [to the attack] that will cause people to recognize the reality here. We are not doing this out of hysteria and panic, but in a thoughtful way – to convey this image to the same people who think that words do not kill.

I don’t think that every politician who says that Israeli policy is militant incites murder, but the cries that Israel is “an apartheid state” and “a state of occupation” can lead murderers to think that, by carrying out their murderous crimes, they are freedom fighters.

Do you know if the media around the world used the photos?

The emphasis is on the foreign media. I know that in Israel, apart from a few people for whom not everything makes sense, you don’t have to convince anyone to use horrific images. I also knew that because of the disaster in Japan and the barrage of reports from there, it would not be a lead photo on the front page of The New York Times. The possibility that the images would not be published was also considered. But the mere fact that an editor or senior analyst would receive the photos and look at them and carry out a discussion – I’m certain that this had an effect, and these are the people who shape public opinion. I am sure that whoever has not lost their humanity, will in the future be more careful with regard to Israel.

In the event of another terrorist attack, should we expect the publication of such photos?

Definitely not after every attack. First of all, the family’s wishes will be the determining factor and every case will be considered separately. But at the same time … we will have to think about the specific sort of documentation. The photos taken this time were taken for the purpose of the investigation, not for the needs of the press. Next time – let there never be a next time and let it never happen – I hope we will be prepared with a photographer who has a media-oriented approach, instead of an investigative focus.

This has the potential to be a real game-changer. The Pallywood propaganda machine has done a fine job of painting Palestinians as helpless victims. The public relations fiasco when the IDF boarded the Gaza aid flotilla was instructive. The IDF had filmed the whole thing and they released the video, establishing conclusively that the people on the ship were not peaceful activists seeking to deliver aid. The media uproar toned down considerably after the videos were released. It is still a truism on the left and in Islamic circles that IDF brutally attacked innocent peaceniks, but who are you going to believe, them or your lyin’ eyes? The Palestinians and their supporters may screech like a goth in the sun, but let the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, come out and we’ll see who can best live with it.

John Hawkins at RWN interviewed him and he’s as direct as ever:

Rumsfeld on the rules of engagement: I remember being one time with a commander out, way out in the fringes near the border in Iraq, and he was giving me a report. He told me that his people had been attacked from the Syrian border and then he very proudly said that he responded proportionately. I remember going back and talking the General Casey in Baghdad and saying George, here’s a man who thinks that he’s doing the right thing by responding proportionately. Now what’s that mean? That if you are on the Iraq side of the border and there are some people on the other side of the border firing at you with mortars, rockets, automatic weapons, RPGs, you name it – and he thinks his job is to respond proportionately? That means eventually, some of our people are going to get killed. The people shooting are already in a defensive position. So if you respond proportionately, they fire three things, you fire three things back. Does that make any sense? It makes no sense to me. You ought to kill them.

I love that – it’s so obvious, and yet it’s just the sort of statement to make liberal heads explode, especially because we’re all so conditioned to think that a “proportionate response” is appropriate. It’s a ludicrous concept – Winston Churchill would laugh out loud at the idea. Proportionate responses are what you do when you want to prolong a war; Israel is proof enough of that. If you want to end a war, you surrender. When you want to win a war, you don’t respond proportionately. You respond by killing the enemy and breaking his will to fight. Rumsfeld’s directness and common sense are a breath of fresh air. Read the rest of the interview here; I may have exaggerated a bit when with the post title “hilarity ensues” but it’s still an enjoyable interview.

Liberals who shriek at the thought of the American government conducting rendition can’t muster up any sympathy for Galid Shalit.  Liberals who demand women be permitted to serve in combat are silent in the face of the abuse of women under sharia law.  Liberals who weren’t particularly outraged when Russian tanks rolled over the Georgian border to South Ossetia weep for “occupied Palestine.”  Liberals who are exquisitely sensitive to “hate speech” somehow managed to overlook Palestinian ululations of joy and dancing in the street when they learned of the 9/11 attacks.  Liberals who decry “Faux News” don’t even blush at the blatant propaganda emanating from Pallywood.

That’s why I find the frustration expressed by this editor from the New Yorker so tiresome:

“Even people like me, who understand that not only one side is responsible for the conflict and that the Palestinians missed an historic opportunity for peace in 2000, can’t take it anymore.”

Mom wants her nap and the older brother had better just give the younger what he wants.  As Bill Cosby put it, she doesn’t want justice.  She wants quiet.

“She is not very intelligent or practical and is lacking in shrewdness and cunning,” he wrote on Jan. 26, 1944. “She has a bad memory, is inaccurate, and scatterbrained.” He went on to describe her as a “very feminine and immature” person who was too inexperienced for deployment.

Maybe there was a shortage of women spies in WWII, or maybe she impressed someone else a bit more, because she was sent out in spite of the bad review.  And then Eileen Kearn collected data, transmitted it without detection, and helped coordinate munitions and resistance forces in France until she was captured and tortured by the Gestapo.  She was 23 years old.

She revealed no information, and was sent to Ravensbruck detention camp in Germany – from which she escaped with two others. Then she met up with the liberating American troops – who detained her with the Nazis until an English officer turned up and confirmed her story.

After all that… she lived quietly according to the secrecy agreement she had signed, telling no one of her amazing exploits. Only after her death was her story revealed. (Video here.)

Merkel demanded that Muslims living in Germany also conform to “fundamental German values,” saying there was no leeway on the issue.

Good for her.  Especially given it was in response to the President of Germany’s assertion that “it’s not only immigrants who are responsible for integrating but also Germany.” (Merkel is the Chancellor.)  To suggest that the host country is responsible for integration – in the sense that it must change to accommodate visitors – is foolish.  A much more sensible view is that the host country is responsible for integration in the sense that it should insist that immigrants integrate.  Given the rash of honor killings in Germany, it should be an easy choice to make.

And that’s the tragedy of terror attacks.  God forbid my son in law is killed in Iraq – but he’s a soldier, taking a soldier’s chance.  Every morning he gets up and is aware of the risks of simply being in that country.  (Although we’re all very thankful that it’s a good deal less risky than it was in 2006.)  All throughout the 1990s, America suffered terror attack after terror attack… but all overseas, and in our insular thinking, we weren’t really that involved.  What did some buildings in Africa have to do with us?  The Cole was a tragedy, but it was so far away, and it was the military, after all.  Ah, but 9/11 brought it all the way home.  That’s when we began to understand what Israelis have known for years.  We’re really not safe at all.

In addition to stealing the lives of nearly 3,000 people, jihadists stole our childish, false sense of being safe and sheltered.  We’ve been called upon to understand that yes, there really is a group of people – and we can argue about how many people comprise that group, but they undeniably exist – who want us dead because, as bin Laden and others put it,

Carrying out terrorism…is one of the tenets of our religion and Shari’ah…This war is fundamentally religious…Under no circumstances should we forget this enmity between us and the infidels. For the enmity is based on creed. — Osama Bin Laden

We don’t make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity. — Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad

We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you. – Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah

We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets in this fatwah. – Osama Bin Laden

One may not make a [peace] treaty with an apostate, nor grant him safe passage or protection. According to Allah’s religion, he has only one choice: ‘Repent or be killed.’ — Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi

(Quotes from the Gitmo Cookbook.)

They really are at war with us, and the level of war which we return to them varies wildly. We are subjected to often misdirected, unevenly applied, and contradictory rhetoric that fails to warn us of the dangers and stir us up to effectively resist. The idea that Americans need to constantly be petted and sheltered with pablum like “Islam is a religion of peace,” as though we’re not bright enough to comprehend that there are denominations and degrees of literalism in the practice of Islam by a billion Muslims is tiresome. And the longer our leaders fail to lead in this area, the longer the war will drag on.  The only thing that will really stop it is a Muslim reformation, and so far, instead of applying pressure to Muslims to reform their faith, we reward and empower the most radical among them, making life ever harder for the moderates.

Some nut in Florida threatens to burn a Koran.  Rather than shrugging and saying, “Yeah, that’s how we roll here, deal with it.  Just like we don’t go completely bananas every year when the Saudi government shreds and burns confiscated bibles, you can just suck it up.” Instead, we have even the President and pretty much every political leader begging him not to because, “mustn’t upset the Muslims or they’ll riot and kill!”  They extort us into complying with sharia law by threats of bad behavior.  And we are ever more tolerant of it, though no such respect is shown us in kind.

Until we figure out how to fight it, it’s going to be a very long war, and more innocents like Rudy Mastrocinque and the other 2,995 who died nine years ago will be victims of it.

“Can you imagine what this will do to our image around the world?” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. “And the additional danger it will add whenever there is an American presence in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

I’m not sure, but I think that must mean Mr. Hooper is Islamophobic. After all, he just suggested that Islam is more violent than other religions. That exercising free speech about Islam in one country would cause Muslims in other countries to kill people not involved in the original “offense.” Oops! Religion of peace, much?

Of course that’s the standard, and conflicting, line. Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say otherwise, we’ll kill you. The only reason people like Mr. Hooper are permitted to have it both ways is a press which is both fearful (remember the MoToons?) and sycophantic where any culture but American, or any religion but Christianity, is concerned.  It’s tiresome.

And yes, as Volokh points out, he’s using threats to achieve ideological goals – and affirming exactly what the Dove World Outreach claim about Islam.

Added: and at JihadWatch, “moderate” Mulims pull a Dr. David Banner: “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”