After over eight years of fairly consistent, almost always daily blogging, I’ve decided to sample what it would be like to just exist without reading and looking at everything with an eye to posting. It’s time to take back some of the time I spend here and see what else I can do with it.

There are a number of other reasons, but I’m not in the mood to philosophize about the whole thing at the moment. I wanted to put this post up rather than continue to only sort of update the site properly. I like to do things right or stay home, so here it is.

Thank you to the many, many people who have made this site a regular and even daily stop. Thank you to the many people who have donated or used my Amazon links. (BTW, if you gave recently and feel shorted, let me know and I will be happy to refund your donation.) Thank you to everyone whose acquaintance I have made, either in person or electronically and who has made this site worth running all this time.

I would suggest keeping yourself subscribed in a reader or by email, since I may decide in a short while that this should just become an Emily Litella moment. Some habits are hard to break. (Besides, I already know I filmed an appearance by Andy McCarthy last night in Stoughton, and will be posting the video as soon as I process it.)

I am not dropping off the grid, merely doing a strategic repositioning as it were. See you around. ttfn

I’ll start by getting this out of the way. Although I continue to believe that Terry Jones is a certified nutcase (for any number of reasons), I simply do not find myself outraged, sickened, disgusted or even dismayed by his burning of a copy of the Koran. I’m frankly tired of everyone prefacing their comments on the event by declaring that they are. But, of course, it’s their right to be, and to say so. It’s just that you have to wonder exactly why.

Jews, I think, would generally be offended by the burning of a Torah. Christians, likewise, can and do take offense at the defilement of their scriptures. When something you hold dear, something you deem sacred and worthy of great respect is treated with disdain, it’s only natural to react with revulsion, even anger, maybe even rage. The differences in the ways Jews and Christians act out their offense in today’s world versus the ways Muslims do has been addressed at length and that’s not where I’m going here. Instead, I think it’s relevant to take a look at the intent that, as a general rule, accompanies such acts of blasphemous vandalism, and how that intent impacts our reactions.

In popular culture, it seems de rigueur these days to demonstrate a flagrant disregard for traditional norms, and because we live in a society in which Christianity is one of the paramount recognized symbols of tradition, Christianity and its icons are habitual targets.  And so we have a plethora of disrespectful if not outright blasphemous references, caricatures and depictions of holy figures and symbols in art, literature, theater, television and film.  These are, for the most part, intended as demonstrations of the author’s “liberation” from binding norms, of independence and “open-mindedness.”  They are sometimes attacks on institutions and rituals and even on authority figures.  But they’re rarely either calls for or simple substitutes for outright violence against the people who make up the Christian community.

Not so the burning of bibles, or of churches, or the arrests and persecutions of Christians qua Christians in Muslim countries, which manifest a very different kind of hostility toward both the religion and its practitioners.  Such acts should generate not only outrage, but serious concern, on the part of Christians and non-Christians alike.

The burning of Torahs or of synagogues, on the other hand, even in the West is much less frequently a form of cultural expression.  More often than not, it’s part of an episode of vandalism that may or may not be (but usually is) directed against the Jewish religion or the Jewish people as a whole.  When it is, it also should be a matter of serious concern to the community at large.

Note that Terry Jones didn’t burn (or threaten to burn, or advocate the burning of) a mosque. Jones didn’t advocate or condone violence against Muslims. What Jones did was to hold a (not entirely un-serious) mock trial in which, I must say, he at least attempted to elucidate just what it was about the Koran that violated the norms of civilized discourse and behavior, according to his and his church’s understanding of those norms. As a consequence, he directed the destruction of a copy of a book. A book that’s supremely holy to vast numbers of people, yes, an act that was understandably highly offensive to most of those people, yes, but a book. Not a building, not a human being.

This is an important distinction, especially when, in the name of that book, actual buildings and actual people are being destroyed all over the world with nary a peep from the same observers who cannot even bring themselves to denounce the murders of innocents in Afghanistan without denouncing Pastor Terry Jones in the next breath.

Personally, I find Jones’s little production to bear more similarity to some of the deliberately provocative street theater in which Western religions are often mocked and ridiculed (with utter impunity) than to the vicious religious attacks on persons and property for which most of the world only occasionally seems to summon up sufficient revulsion to be noticed.  I think we need to get our priorities straight.

Shabbat Shalom.

School bus struck by laser-guided antitank rocket fired across Gaza border

When I heard that Hamas had fired an antitank missile across the border directly at an Israeli school bus, wounding the driver and critically injuring a child — only the fact that the bus was otherwise empty prevented an even more horrendous outcome — I thought: they want a war. The fact that the attack was accompanied by a barrage of at least 50 rockets and mortars fired at Israeli towns and cities reinforced that assumption.

You can easily imagine their thinking: if a bus full of Jewish children goes up in flames, Israel will have to take the bait. But the last war was painful for Hamas. Why would they want another go-around?

I wasn’t surprised to see that Barry Rubin agrees with me that Hamas is looking for trouble. But here is his analysis of why:

The recent upheavals in the Arab world have emboldened revolutionary Islamists and Hamas most of all. Its close ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, can operate freely in Egypt. There is much support for Islamism in the Egyptian army. And even the “moderate” presidential candidate Muhammad ElBaradei said that Egypt would go to war if Israel attacked the Gaza Strip.

Does Egypt want war with Israel? Of course not. But Hamas calculates–and, of course, it often miscalculates–that crisis with Israel will increase its support from Egypt and perhaps even create a situation where Cairo intervenes on its side on some level.

At a minimum, thousands of Egyptian volunteers, mobilized by the Brotherhood, might fight on its side, money would be raised in Egypt on its behalf, and large amounts of arms would flow across the border. Then, too, international public opinion could be mobilized against Israel with tales–often phony–of atrocities as happened last time. And the Palestinian Authority (PA), ruling the West Bank, could be shamed and subverted. While the PA can claim to be delivering some prosperity–which the West thinks is all people care about–Hamas can deliver heroism and jihad.

Rubin also points out that since the fall of the Mubarak regime, the border between Egypt and Gaza has been wide open, with weapons — like the antitank missile used in today’s attack or the Iranian Grad missiles fired at Ashkelon, etc. — freely flowing into Gaza.

Hamas thinks it can’t lose: either (1) the IDF will smash back into Gaza, and Hamas — with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood help — will be able to put up a vicious fight, perhaps even drawing the Egyptian army into it, perhaps triggering a two-front war with Hizballah in the north. Or (2), Israel will content itself with limited retaliation, and Hamas can continue gaining points in the Arab world for its effectiveness at killing Jewish children with impunity.

Today’s attack was not random: it was a bright yellow school bus, and a laser-guided missile. The creature that pulled the trigger knew exactly what he was doing.

Hamas has already taken credit for the attack with the following statement:

Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza targeted with number of mortar shells the nearby Israeli settlements, bus driver and other Israeli settler were injured after a shell targeted their bus driving in the southern Israeli kibbutz of Sa’ad April 7, 2011.

Not that it matters, but the ‘settlements’ in question are inside the 1949 armistice lines, and ‘the other Israeli settler’ is 16 (some reports say 13) years old.

But you say, doesn’t it look bad to kill children?

Not to many Palestinian Arabs:

Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their children – Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and three-month old baby Hadas – were murdered in the Israeli town of Itamar on March 11.

“63% of the Palestinians oppose and 32% support the attack in the Itamar settlement in the West Bank in which a family of five was murdered.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, official PA newspaper, April 7, 2011] — PMW

Just one out of three! Imagine my relief.

By calling its dead “holy fighters,” Hamas obliquely acknowledges that the Israeli attack was on a legitimate military target. And by stating that that it intentionally attacked a school bus, which is clearly a civilian target, Hamas has admitted to committing a war crime.

It doesn’t get any clearer than this.

Hebrew inscriptions on the ceiling of the Yefren synagogue

With thanks: Avril

A 2,000-year old synagogue in the Libyan town of Yefren is said to have been destroyed in the fighting now raging between President Gaddafi’s forces and Nato-supported rebels.

This BBC report yesterday quotes a rebel fighter named Aydress. Aydress claims that Colonel Gaddafi’s forces used rockets, missiles and anti-tank weapons to bombard the town of Yefren. They destroyed a mosque and a ‘Jewish place of worship’, 2,000 years old, he says.

Yefren is a Berber town in the West of Libya famous for its troglodyte caves.

According to the Lonely Planet guide to Libya, the synagogue served the Jewish community up to 1948. (Many of the town’s Jews went to Moshav Usha near Haifa). The ramshackle interior contains six arches and six windows (the number represents the six points of the Star of David) surrounding a raised platform. The ceilings are adorned with Hebrew inscriptions and Hamza hands.

This video takes you on a guided tour of Jewish Yefren. You can see the cemetery, the metal door with its ‘menorah’ leading to the synagogue, and the inscriptions inside. (With thanks: Anonymous commenter)

In a cross-border raid from Lebanon on May 15, 1974 gunmen from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), affiliated with the PLO, took 102 students and their teachers hostage in the northern Israeli town of Ma’alot, which the children from Safed visited during a school trip. Some managed to escape by jumping out the windows, but when the IDF special unit assaulted the building, the terrorists detonated hand grenades and sprayed the 14-16-year olds with machine-gun fire, killing 21 and wounding 66. On June 1, 2001 an Arab suicide bomber blasted himself and yet another 21 Israeli teenagers in the “Delphinarium” disco in Tel Aviv. In 2002 the Chechen terrorists have chosen the Moscow Dubrovka theater as their site during the “Nord-Ost” musical based on the novel The Two Captains by Veniamin Kaverin, a favorite travel adventure story for the young audience.

On September 1, 2004, amid the “Day of Knowledge” festivities, at least 32 heavily-armed, masked terrorists held hostage 1,200 children, their relatives, and their teachers inside School No. 1 in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia, in the former USSR. This terrorist act yielded at least 334 dead, among them 186 children; over 700 were wounded. Violence against children soared to a new level.

Beslan is a town of relatives; everyone has familial ties to everyone else. Even distant family members are very close, so much more the siblings, little ones are frequently left in the care of their older brothers and sisters. In this traditional community, for decades people live on the same street or in the same house and are more than neighbors: they spend a great deal of time socializing, celebrating birthdays and holidays together; they have common troubles and memories; their children grow up as playmates and “share moms.” Prisoners inside the school constituted approximately 3.3 percent of Beslan’s 35,500 inhabitants, but by orchestrating the holdup, the extremists aimed at every household and the locality as a whole: by murdering and maiming hundreds of children, they mutilated the town.

Psychologists who have been treating victims in Beslan have designated it as a “special place,” a “death space” or “zone,” analogous to “zones of sadness,” which instantaneously mushroomed from Ground Zero into areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn, as far as Staten Island and New Jersey on 9/11. In Beslan, one and all have experienced dying and bereavement and are suffering from collective traumatization, as well as individual intense post-traumatic stress and anxiety disorders. Their sense of time is broken into “before” and “after” the violent incident, to which the residents refer as “the event” or simply as “that” (as in “when that happened”). Everyone agrees that “Beslan is a very sick place.”

Parents took the bodies of their children murdered in Ma’alot for the burial in their home-Safed; the “Delphinarium” and the Dubrovka carnages horrified, yet did not stop the lives of citizens in metropolitan Tel Aviv and Moscow. But Beslan became a closed “infected sphere,” explain the locals; it is like living in a cemetery.

The town of Sderot is the Israeli “trauma zone.” With few fatalities, it is not a site to pick up sensational news items; random and inaccurate Hamas qassam fire from Gaza has become almost a regular event. The shelled town is another instance where, overlooked by most observers, modern terrorism has reached a new phase by specifically targeting children.

There is a “Qassam generation”–kids who over the last eight years have been growing under the rockets, terrorism being the hallmark of their daily life. A Sderot child is aware of the location of every bomb shelter on his way to a local store; some prefer to walk forty minutes to school every morning instead of ten because the circuitous route has better protection; others argue that the safest way is to run all the way. During periods of heavy shelling, parents keep them at home for days or entire weeks; even during ceasefire school attendance is sparse, often as low as 60 percent. Like children in Beslan, their peers in Sderot react emotionally to loud noises, such as those of a thunderstorm or even a voice.

Every playground is equipped with protective shield. Some slides and climbing walls are under metal covers; the make-believe tunnels and labyrinths are made of concrete pipes, so that small children could play inside in relative safety. Each child has his own sophisticated routines and safety rituals for performing most ordinary tasks; in that generation, there is no one who has not been deeply traumatized by habitual threat of violence. “Qassam” is the word always in people’s minds and on the tip of the tongue: when a science teacher asked her little students why a lizard needs its scales, everyone in class knew: “Against the Qassams!”

The “death space” that the terrorists have succeeded in creating in Beslan by way of the massacre of children, in Sderot has been systematically constructed over the course a decade. The Qassam rockets are very imprecise and do not inflict great casualties, but as it turns out, not much bloodspilling is necessary to keep the town population in perpetual fear, as long as it is sustained over a long time and reinforced systematically. “A present for the start of the new school year,” the Islamic Jihad website flaunted the terrorists’ September 2007 missile attack, which sent twelve kindergarteners to the hospital for shock treatment.

Sderot is damaged with collective anxiety. At present, the full extent of the trauma is known only indirectly; for example, by evidence of symptomatic panic, tenseness, insomnia, nightmares, diminished concentration and ability to perform regular tasks, periodic aggressiveness, depression, as well as high percentage of powerful tranquillizers prescribed to town residents; psychiatrists have classified dozens, if not hundreds, as handicapped. Mass fear is not a cut-rate sacrifice, when the devotees of death are incapable of showing themselves as free-handed as they had proven to be in the Ossetian town at the other end of the world. And, having demonstrated quite a commitment to destruction in the designated “fear zone” of Sderot, the terrorists have also tried their hand at transforming larger communities into similar sectors of terrorization in the cities of Beersheba, Ashkelon and, recently, Jerusalem. On March 6, 2008 students were massacred in Merhaz HaRav. Two weeks ago, most of the wounded were teenagers: a bomb was set to detonate at a bus stop at 3pm. when children return from school. Yesterday the terrorists fired an anti-tank weapon at a school bus.

Health and safety of children are among the very few impervious values in our skeptical post-modern reality. Terrorism came to direct itself specifically against that which remains ethically and socially sacred, revealing itself as a brutal form of counterculture. Its proponents inevitably had to strike against children — the quintessence of vitality, of sparkling aliveness, the most vibrant and spontaneous of the living. They are the very life that is being sacrificed because the terrorists “love death.”

All references are from Anna Geifman, Death Orders: The Vanguard of Modern Terrorism in Revolutionary Russia (Praeger Security International).

Have Iran and revolutionary Islamists gained in recent months? Yes, since Islamism is advancing at the expense of declining Arab nationalism as well as other reasons.

From the Muslim Brotherhood’s perspective gains have been made for its branches and allies in Egypt (which also helps their ally Hamas), Jordan, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia.

That doesn’t mean they will take power now but these groups are all stronger than they were at the end of last year.

Iran has benefited by gains made in Bahrain (though Saudi intervention blocked its clients from taking power), Lebanon, and Yemen along with indirectly in all of the other places except Syria. Moreover, Tehran can take satisfaction in the removal of Egypt, its most important Arab foe, from the anti-Iran and pro-U.S. category to, at best, a neutralist stance.

And all Islamists can take pleasure in the dramatic decline of U.S. credibility and alliances, with Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, and probably soon Yemen no longer cooperating with U.S. policy at all.

Let’s list the main aspects of U.S. policy:

–It is now in no way opposed to Muslim Brotherhoods or Hizballah being in government and has helped create a situation in Egypt where the Brotherhood is making a bid for leadership.

–Backing for all practical purposes Syrian repression of its own democratic upsurge because it sees dictator Bashar al-Assad as a “reformer.” (Ironically, Mubarak was much more of a reformer than Assad, at least on social and economic issues.)

–Doing nothing about Lebanon, where Hizballah and its allies have gained power, making the country a satellite of Iran and Syria;

–Thinking that the Turkish regime is just fine, in fact a model for other countries (which is strange since the regime is now an ally of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah);

–Highly critical of Bahrain’s suppression of its opposition (part of which is pro-Iranian);

–Intervening in Libya, an operation to which none of the Islamists are opposed because they hope to benefit from it. In addition, the U.S. forces could get bogged down in there. Isn’t the Libya war just another version of the invasion of Iraq except with less rationale, less to gain, and more to lose?
–Distancing itself more from Israel than any previous administration has for the last 50 years.

–Refusing to back the Saudis, having created the worst friction in the history of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

What’s there for a revolutionary Islamist not to like? Obviously, they’d like an end to U.S. sanctions on Iran and other things but, generally speaking, American policy is terrific from their standpoint.

Let’s take a quick country-by-country survey:

Bahrain: The regime has used repression, Saudi intervention, and offers of compromise well to split the moderate (which wants a fairer share of power for the Shia majority) from the radical opposition (which wants a pro-Iran Islamist republic. Minus one point for Iran, no thanks to U.S. policy.

Egypt: The Brotherhood is far more powerful than ever, will win about one-third of parliament probably; will shape Egypt’s cultural, educational, intellectual, and religious atmosphere; and can now help Hamas. Egypt is no longer in the anti-Iran and pro-Western camp. Two points for Brotherhood, two points for Hamas, one point for Iran. Minus two points for U.S. interests.

Gaza Strip: Egypt has turned from enemy to ally. Arms and terrorists flow in freely. Two points to Hamas and one each to Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran. Minus two points for U.S. interests: Hamas and revolutionary Islamism get stronger; future Israel-Gaza or even Arab-Israeli war is more likely.

Jordan: While the monarchy should survive, the Brotherhood there is more active and demanding. It also undermines another anti-Iran Arab state that is pro-Western. Two points to Brotherhood and one each to Iran and Hamas.

Lebanon: Everyone seems to forget Lebanon, which went from having a moderate government friendly to the West to being a country now largely controlled by Hizballah and other Syrian clients and in the Iranian-Syrian sphere. The moderates (Christian-Sunni allied forces) tried to build protests against the new regime but failed. One point to Iran. Minus one to the United States.

Libya: Hard to say since the opposition is complex. On the other hand, it is not clear that Western interests will benefit and the impact of the Western intervention is unclear. While Muammar Qadhafi was historically an anti-Western sponsor of terrorism, he hasn’t caused much international trouble in recent years. No points awarded yet.

Palestinian Authority/Peace Process: The Palestinian Authority knows that it will never face a rebellion from being too hard-line but only if it is perceived as too moderate. If the peace process wasn’t dead before, it certainly is now. One point to Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran. Minus one to the United States which has now sabotaged once again its own peace process effort.

Saudi Arabia: While the anti-regime effort in the kingdom hasn’t gotten far, the Saudis feel that their relationship with the United States and the West is undermined and that they need to appease Iran and Syria. Plus one to Iran. Minus one for United States.

Syria: This is also complicated. Syria is an ally of Iran, Hamas, and Hizballah. Thus, its destabilization is not in their interests. But what if an Islamist government comes to power, probably a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated one (though non-Brotherhood Islamists could also play a leading role Minus one for Iran and Hamas, but plus one to the Brotherhood.

Tunisia: While Islamists are weak in Tunisia, the fact that they can operate legally now and that Tunisia will probably move into a neutral-type stance is a gain for Islamists and a defeat for the West. Score one point for Brotherhood and Iran.

Turkey: The Turkish regime, which may well win reelection later this year, is now an ally of Iran, Syria, and Hamas. One point to each. Minus one for the United States.

Yemen: In Yemen, all politics is local But the destabilization of a country that has at least partly cooperated with the United States against terrorism is to Iran’s strategic advantage, whether or not it has influence on some of the domestic rebels. Score one for Iran. Minus one for the United States.

Extra credit: Tensions make oil prices rise, providing more money to Tehran. Score one for Iran.

Obama Administration Factor: The United States has lost four friendly regimes–Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey (some would add Yemen)–as well as the confidence of three others–Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia (one might add Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates). With the Palestinian Authority seeing that it can–and in some ways must–ignore U.S. requests to do anything, that is another defeat. For general loss of credibility, minus one for United States.

For failing even now to understand the material in this article–and thus by not recognizing defeats or errors being unable to correct them, another minus one for the United States.

Totals:
Muslim Brotherhood: 8
Iran: 8
Hamas: 6
United States: -11

A new state-funded synagogue in Baku has just opened to much fanfare. The opening in the presence of the Israeli ambassador and distinguished state officials, is indeed cause for celebration – where Jews in other Muslim republics are dwindling fast, the Jews of Azerbaijan are thriving:

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The opening of the new synagogue building for Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan, built with government funding in less than six months, took place on April 5. The crowd of attendees was so large at the opening ceremony in central Baku that the police had to block traffic.

Before the ceremony, the chairman of the Mountain Jews community in Azerbaijan, Semyon Ikhiilov, welcomed the distinguished guests. He gave a brief tour of the building, which was built in the historic Jewish district of Baku. Everyone was awed by the sanctuary, with its high ceilings and windows, an ornate ceiling, a luminous chandelier, comfortable seating, and an impressive Aron Kodesh (Torah ark).

Read article in full