"Dead Jews Aren't News"

Tom Gross has a must-read piece in today's Spectator, on the remarkable focus of much of the world's media on the poor, depressed terrorists and their fellow enablers, as opposed to their victims. The empathy extended to Rachel Corrie is especially sickening:

But ultimately the play, and many of the articles about Corrie that have appeared, are not really about the young American activist who died in such tragic circumstances. They are about promoting a hate-filled and glaringly one-sided view of Israel.

The Nobel Disgrace

My friend Jay Nordlinger has probably the best line yet on this year's Nobel laureates:

Harold Pinter won the literature prize, and here the Nobel committee performed almost a parody of itself: They picked the most anti-American, most unhinged writer they could find, and one whose literary gifts are less than Dantesque. Or rather, they picked the most anti-American, most unhinged writer they could find whom they had not already honored.

As for the Peace Prize, awarded to the Mad Mullahs' best friend:

This is not only a parody, but a cruel joke, and an insult, and a disgrace. The IAEA may not be damnable, although that is debatable. But it is virtually impotent, and to accord it this great honor is appalling.

What else can one do or say? How about quoting Margaret Thatcher::

We speak of peace, yes, but whose peace? Poland's? Bulgaria's? The peace of the grave?

Good Fences...

... can lead to staggering hypocrisy. No, it's not just Spain, trying to keep out
poor souls looking for a better life - now Egypt is at it too.

OK, so this sort of behavior is hardly surprising for Israel's oldest enemy, which also happens to be, according to the great Victor Davis Hanson, an Afghanistan of the mind.


For our fellow German-speakers - my friend Martin S. Hagen has a good summary here.

It's Easy If You Try...

In what will probably go down in History as the first sensible and humane decision by a Syrian official, its Interior Minister pulled the plug. On himself.

Imagine all the people...
... living life in peace...


(Via friend and fellow warrior Statler).

Si Vis Pacem...

To all those who thought and feared that the IDF's spirit, courage, audacity, cunning, and boundaryless confidence had vanished and gone - Fear Not.

They seem to be back, epitomized by its current Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz. His interview in today's Jerusalem Post is a must-read:

If they escalate terrorism, we'll escalate our actions to counter terrorism. And in the end, we can reduce terrorism to almost zero. I'll never say absolute zero, but close. And the fact is that in 2004, terrorism dropped to the lowest levels in four years. And the same in 2005.

Furthermore, this is exactly the right message to send to those EUroweenies who would imprison every Israeli who ever defended his country against Hitler's grandchildren:

IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz almost dares someone to invite him to London.
He's even prepared to sit in jail to prove Israel is legitimate in its war on terrorism.

Next Year in Teheran?

Mark Helprin (II)

This is one of the most important pieces on the War On Terror, and it excels even by Mark Helprin's out-of-this-world standards:

Let Us Count the Ways.

Mark Helprin

Speaking of the greatest (were we?), Mark Helprin now has a web presence. It is an honor to have someone of his ilk in my link collection.

His Biography speaks for itself:

Born in 1947, Mark Helprin was raised on the Hudson and in the British West Indies. After receiving degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, he did postgraduate work at the University of Oxford, Princeton, and Columbia. He has served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force. He was published in The New Yorker for almost a quarter of a century, and his stories and essays on politics and aesthetics appear in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New York Times, The National Review, American Heritage, Forbes ASAP, and many other publications here and abroad. Aaron & Helen L. DeRoy Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, contributing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, former Guggenheim Fellow and Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute, and Adviser on Defense and Foreign Relations to presidential candidate Robert Dole, he has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award, the Prix de Rome, among other prizes. Translated into more than a dozen languages, his books include A Dove of the East & Other Stories, Refiner's Fire, Ellis Island & Other Stories, Winter's Tale, Swan Lake (With illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg), A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case, A City in Winter and The Veil of Snows (both with illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg), The Pacific & Other Stories, and Freddy and Fredericka.