With neighbors like these....Mosaic Magazine - Tunnel Vision

Leave it to the gangsters and thugs from the Hamas in Gaza to never surrender, never quit trying to figure out ways to kill or injure Israelis.

As Israel has feared, building supplies intended for civilian use found there way into a tunnel over 1 mile long from Gaza under the Israeli border to the gates of a Jewish community.  What should one expect from those who brought Israel the saga of Gilad Shalit?

So, Israel will punish Hamas by limiting the importation of building supplies to organizations directly responsible for construction projects.  And they'll still be criticized.

Read the full report here - Mosaic Magazine - Tunnel Vision

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Who's watching the hen house at the White House?

Douglas Murray at Gatestone Institute invites us to Bizarro world [OK, you have to have read Superman comics to know that in Bizarro world everything was backwards] asks:

Imagine that in recent weeks alone, dozens of Muslims around the world had been murdered by Christian extremists armed with suicide belts and similar paraphernalia.

Imagine that at the same time, around other parts of the world, Christian mobs had set fire to, and burned to the ground, the holy places of some of the oldest and most established Muslim communities in the world.

Do you think there would be a reaction to such events? Probably yes.

Would that reaction be wholly negative and unceasing in its condemnation? Probably yes.

Would it be remotely conceivable that a senior U.S. government official or advisor would have used the opportunity to claim that Muslims who had been targeted had brought it upon themselves? Probably no.

Welcome then to the mirror-image of the real-world persecution of Christians that is going on across the globe today.

And say hello again to two of the most appallingly over-promoted and sinister figures involved with the current U.S. government: Mohamed Elibiary and Dalia Mogahed.

Elibiary and Mogahed are shining lights in the Obama Administration's attempts to reconcile America's role in the world with its perceived bias towards thing Western.  Unfortunately, the president didn't pick the best of the best to assist him.

Read the full article - New Extremist Foxes Welcomed into U.S. Chicken Coop and I think you will agree.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Scary plot for a B-movie!

A plot right out of a scary B-movie!

 

 

 

The Only Commonality is Mass Killing

Temptation to compare acts of mass violence around the world is overwhelming.  But as Anat Berko points out, you have to be careful.

Aaron Alexis murdered 12 people and injured at least eight more at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard before he was shot and killed by law enforcement professionals. It is tempting to compare Alexis to a suicide bomber, especially now that we have heard rumors he opened a website under the name "Mohammed Salem." However, clear thinking demands that temptation be resisted. Let me explain why.

As an Israeli criminologist who has studied suicide bombers for almost two decades—making extensive observations of and conducting numerous interviews with those who failed, as well as with those who dispatch the bombers, with family members of suicide bombers and decision makers and elites in their society— I can say with confidence that the differences between mass killers in the West such as Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris at Columbine, and yes, Aaron Alexis at the D.C. Navy Yard, and suicide bombers are categorical and insurmountable.

Commenting on the comparison of events such as Sandy Hook and suicide bombers, she writes

The overriding distinction between the two is their native cultures: the suicide bomber's education and attack preparations are diametrically opposed to that of mass killers, as is their socialization. Suicide bombers are radical Islam's celebrated heroes, its darlings, whose acts are viewed by the larger culture as exemplary and heroic; in contrast, the West's mass killers are aberrant individuals isolated from their resolutely life-affirming culture.

Read the full article The Only Commonality is Mass Killing

Nairobi and other things

It's kind of hard to write about the terror in Kenya.  The disregard for any sanctity of life by the terrorists who perpetrated this act and the people who sent them are beyond words.

At the same time, we see the Palestinians gearing up for a new round of violence directed against Israel.  Two murders of soldiers during the past week, continued incitement in the Palestinian media, and total silence from Palestinian leadership, do not bode well for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Was Rabin right in telling me that the PA leadership is nothing but a bunch of terrorists?  Where are the moderate voices in the West Bank that condemn violence and the glorification of murder?

Well, that's all I have to say right now.
Stephen M. Flatow