Kudos to the Guardian for publishing this comment by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. It's only too bad that something like this has to be written by a rabbi and not a regular Guardian columnist. I think the most compelling section is this:
"Anti-semitism is so emotive a topic that it helps to perform a thought experiment. Suppose someone were to claim that there is a form of prejudice called anti-kiwism, an irrational hatred of New Zealanders. What might convince us he was right? Criticism of the New Zealand government? No. A denial of New Zealand's right to exist? Maybe. Seven thousand terrorist attacks on New Zealand citizens in the past year? Possibly. A series of claims at the UN Conference against Racism in Durban that New Zealand, because of its treatment of the Maori, is uniquely guilty of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, accompanied by grotesque Nazi-style posters? Perhaps.
A call to murder all those with New Zealand loyalties even though they were born and live elsewhere? A suggestion that New Zealanders control the world's economy? That they are responsible for Aids and poisoning water supplies? That they arranged the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre? That they are a satanic force of evil against whom a holy war must be fought? By now we have moved from criticism to hatred to evil fantasy. But delete "New Zealand" and insert "Israel" and "Jews", and all these things have happened in the past year. What more has to happen before an impartial observer concludes that anti-semitism is alive and well and dangerous?"
Read it and then ponder this:
"What disturbs me is that, were this cumulative hate to be directed against anyone else, the left would be the first to protest. Have we learned nothing from history? An assault on Jews is an assault on difference, and a world that has no room for difference has no room for humanity itself."
I offer this without comment. I can't help it, I'm a man. Check Kylie Minogue out.
Cheers to the Grammys The soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou" was chosen as album of the year; an excellent choice. I love this album and often find myself humming "A man of constant sorrow" while I work. I wonder why?
Weird, just plain weird. Someone did a google search on "cochlear implant" + hobeika and arrived at this blog. I'm not surprised that the person ended up here, but I am curious as to why someone would do a search on those two strings? Did Elie Hobeika have a cochlear implant?
We're "oversensitive." Normally I try not to do much blog cheerleading but I can't help but compliment Christopher Johnson for his critique of this editorial at the Guardian. However, there is one point he missed, and this one really stuck in my craw. It's this line:
"Fears about a rising tide of anti-semitism in western European countries, including Britain, stem in part from an over-defensiveness among non-Israeli Jews who dislike what Mr Sharon does, but resent the current torrent of inter national criticism even more."
Oh, it's all clear now!! We non-Israel Jews aren't worred about the Synagogue torchings, the attacks on school busses, the threats to Jewish school groups who want to see Harry Potter. We're just oversensitive. Thanks for clarifying that, moron.
Another blog added. Check out Pejmanpundit. He now graces the links on the right.
The Instapundit mentions this anti-Drug War ad put out by the Libertarian party without so much as a comment. However, I can't help but comment.
The ad features a photo of Drug Czar, John Walters, and his this text posted next to him:
"This week, I had lunch with the president, testified before Congress, and helped funnel $40 million in illegal drug money to groups like the Taliban."
Then below it we have:
"The War on Drugs boosts the price of illegal durgs by as much as 17,000 percent - funneling huge profits to terrorist organizations. If you support the War on Drugs or vote for politicians who wage it, you're help support terrorism. Get the facts at www.LP.org/drugwar"
Now, I don't have a problem attacking those ridiculous Super Bowl ads which more or less equated drug use with terrorism, but the attack should be truthful, not misleading as this one is.
Let's assume that the Taliban made their $40 millions off of opium and its derivatives (i.e. herion) since Afghanistan has been notorious for its poppy produciton. This ignores the fact that at least for some time, the Taliban banned poppy growing, but there is some evidence that the Taliban was involved in the drug trade. In any case, opium and heroin would have been the drugs of choice. Most proponents of drug legalization support legalizing marijuana and hashish (a la Amsterdam). Presumably, according to the logic of this ad, legalizing these drugs would hurt terrorists in Mexico and Canada who grow marijuana (who I've heard have teamed up to form the Axis of Stoned Evil), but would leave groups like the Taliban and say, FARC in Colombia completely unscathed. Thus the question arises, does the Libertarian party serious support legalizing hard drugs such as opium and heroin (and cocaine for that matter)?
I looked to the LP website on the ad for some answers and all I found was:
"It's time to treat drug abuse as a medical problem, not a law enforcement problem. It's time to redeploy our police and soldiers to defend Americans against the threat of terrorism. And it's time to take away the inflated profits that terrorists use to finance violence, destruction, and death."
I didn't find that paragraph to be of much use. I can understand wanting to treat drug abusers instead of throwing them in jail, but what about the dealers and smugglers of opiates? Is the LP seriously advocating legalizing these dangerous drugs? If so, then I think they're nuts. If not, then this ad is just as disingenuous as the government ads they're criticising. And last I checked, two wrongs don't make a right.
Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Theo Fleury is threatening to retire if he doesn't get more "respect" from NHL officials. Please don't tease us like this, Theo.
Go figure. According to Arabicnews, Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction has warned Saudia Arabia about meddling in the struggle of the Palestinian people. According to the central committee of the Palestinian national liberation movement,
"this initiative [of Crown Prince Abdullah] and other settlement initiatives with Israel are but a new stab against the struggle of the Palestinian people and their uprising and legitimate rights...
"Did Saudi Arabia give up its demands to border areas under disputes with brotherly Arab states, so as it permits itself to propose initiatives that give up the territories occupied since 1948 and serve Zionist and American schemes and conspiracies at a time when Palestinian Intifada and resistance are increasing and the 'enemy' suffers a deep strategic crisis."
Notice the meat of that statement: territories occupied since 1948. Once again we see that in the eyes of the Palestinians and most likely the greater Arab world, Israel itself is seen as an unjustifued occupation. The West Bank and Gaza strip are just the tip of the iceberg. This is nothing new and it should be crystal clear to anyone who even skims the Arab Press that Israel is still seen as in illegal colonial outpost of the West. (as an aside, notice that you don't need MEMRI to "spoonfeed" us these articles. They're freely available on Arabic press websites). Even the "moderate" Faisal Husseini referred to the Oslo Process as a trojan horse so as to give the Arabs a foothold in the territories in their struggle to erase Israel from the map.
Nevertheless, European diplomats and bleeding heart Jews and Israelis still are willfully blind of what's being said in the Arab world and cling to this false hope that if only Israel would end the occupation, all will be well. I, too, am all for ending the occupation, because Israel cannot continue to exist governing a people who refuse to be governed by it. However, doing via Abdullah's plan is an experiment whereby Israel gives up tangible and spiritual assests in return for a guarantee. This is an experiment that would not pass an human studies committee review, for ignores the following:
"The statement indicated that the Saudi initiative drops and ignores the right of return for more than five million Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their territories"
Thus, as I've mentioned before, the Abdullah plan is useless unless those Palestinian refugees are addressed. And until the so called "right of return" is dropped, there will be no peace.
Another good reason for this website. According to UPI:
French diplomats are boasting of their latest role in the tangled diplomacy of the Middle East -- providing prison transport. Worried that a Palestinian mob might try to break into Nablus prison to free the three militants arrested in connections with the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, Yasser Arafat's security forces decided to transfer them to jail in Ramallah. But aware that the prison van carrying the three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine would be a juicy target for an Israeli missile, they asked the French consul in Jerusalem to lend them his diplomatic car. They also informed the Israelis that Tawfik Tirawi, head of the General Intelligence forces on the West Bank and one of the few top Palestinians still on speaking terms with the Israelis, would join the convoy.
(via kesher talk.)
Some historical perspective on Prince Abdullah's "peace proposal". This is from an article that was published in the Jerusalem Post seven years ago:
Shomo Gazit, The Jerusalem Post February 14, 1995. Page 6
A MONTH ago, the mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdel Aziz Bin-Baz, handed down a religious ruling to the effect that Islamic law does not rule out peace with Israel.
However, under pressure from extreme Islamic circles, especially in Egypt, the sheikh was forced to retract. What he had intended, he explained, was to declare that "peace with Israel is permissible only on condition that it is a temporary peace, until the Moslems build up the [military] strength needed to expel the Jews."
I'm sure this is what Abdullah has in mind.
Israel denies reports of plans to avenge Daniel Pearls killing I say too bad. It probably would have been the best chance to get those bastards.
The philosopher in me Here are my results from the ethical philosophy selecter. I'd comment on the results, but since I never studied much philosophy (much to my detriment) I can't.
1. Spinoza (100%)
2. Aquinas (92%)
3. Stoics (80%)
4. Cynics (79%)
5. Nietzsche (74%)
6. Sartre (74%)
7. Augustine (72%)
8. Bentham (70%)
9. Aristotle (68%)
10. Ockham (68%)
11. Kant (67%)
12. Mill (60%)
13. Rand (59%)
14. Epicureans (54%)
15. Hume (54%)
16. Plato (52%)
17. Prescriptivism (48%)
18. Noddings (44%)
19. Hobbes (42%)
Go figure. I've noticed an uptick in the number of hits I've been receiving today and I was wondering why. Is it my sharp wit? My astute analysis? My heartfelt posting below? No, of course not. It's because I saw Noam Chomsky get into his Audi. Maybe I should look into a job in celebrity watching. After all, I ran into Alan Dershowitz at the Harvard Hillel last night. Apparently, he was going to give a defense of Haman. No joke.
A time to remember. I've thought long and hard about making this post, but I think it's worth making. Moreover, I think this will probably be the most important post I've ever made, at least from a personal point of view. If you do read this, all I ask is for respect and understanding.
Tonight begins Purim, the Festival of Lots, the most joyous holiday of the Jewish year. However, for my girlfriend and her family, it will always be a time of sad rememberence. On Purim, in 1993, my girlfriend's brother, Jason (known by his Hebrew name, Yehoshua, in Israel), who was two days shy of finishing his enlistment in the IDF, was hitchhiking from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv when he was kidnapped and then murdered by 3 Palestinians dressed up as religious Jews. I for one, never had the pleasure and priviledge of meeting her brother. All I know that he was a man dearly loved and looked up to by his sister, a man who moved to Israel because he believed in Zionism and believed that as a Zionist, he had to live in Israel. He gave up his easy life in Canada to study at a yeshiva in Israel and to serve in its army. In the end, he gave his life for his beliefs.
I offer the following two links which I stumbled on one day. The first one comes from another Canadian who was friends of friends of my girlfriend's brother. It was written back in 1994, at the beginning of the Oslo process. The pertinent part is at the beginning:
"Some troubling news reached me recently. In all the magnanimity that Yitzchak Rabin has shown to his good friend and confidant, Yasser Arafat, in recent months, Rabin promised to release five thousand Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons back into Palestinian communities in the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area. Coupled with this promise to Arafat was a promise to Israelis that none of the released prisoners had committed security offenses. When the opposition called Rabin's bluff, the promise was clarified such that none of the released prisoners had committed murder.
It recently came to my attention, however, that among thsose released toward the end of May was the murderer of Yehoshua Friedberg, ob"m. I am certain that Yehoshua's murderers were not the only murderers released. But this particular case is of specific interest to me as Yehoshua was my own age, and of the same community as me.
Yehoshua Friedberg was born and raised in Montreal, not far from where I was born and spent the first few years of my life. While I did not grow up in Montreal, many of my friends from there knew him personally. Yehoshua went through the religious school system in Montreal, and upon completion, left for Israel to study in a hesder yeshiva and complete military service as a foreign volunteer. He was planning to enter the officer's training course, and was three days short of completing his initial enlistment, when he was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists and shot with his own weapon. His body was dumped by the side of a highway where it was found three days later after a massive manhunt by Israeli General Security Service personnel.
Members of the community in Montreal, as well as relatives and friends in Toronto were in shock. Israeli law enforcement officials promised the family that Yehoshua's murderers would never again see the light of freedom. Sixteen months later they are free to kill another Israeli soldier.
Yehoshua was the embodiement of true Zionism. He left the comfort of a safe North American city with a sizeable and influential Jewish community so that he could contribute to the defense and development of the Jewish state. He enrolled in an institution of higher religious education to further instill himself with the traditions that are meant to guide Jews and Israelis, and then set out to defend those traditions and those people simply because he was one of them.
Yehoshua gave his life for his people and his country, and he did so voluntarily. Yitzchak Rabin has now seen fit to forget all that Yehoshua gave. His contributions were ultimately meaningless to Rabin, and that is one of the many tragedies of the Rabin regime."
The second link is a sort of eulogy given by Yaffa Ganz who aparently was at the funeral. Of the two posts, this one was more touching, for I was able to read an outsider's view of what my girlfriend and her family had to endure. At the end of Ganz' writing are some comments from people that knew him. I will only post Ganz' words:
I once went to a funeral -- a Spring funeral -- at the Military Cemetery in the city of Jerusalem. An Israeli soldier had been killed. Another name was added to a list, a long list, of Jews who have given their lives in the past fifty years so that the Jewish State of Israel might live.
I didn't know this particular soldier, but it didn't matter. He was one of ours -- our children, our soldiers, our sons, our people. His name was Josh.
He had come to Israel alone, from Montreal, and had joined Tzahal -- the Israel Defense Force. Now his parents, stunned, bewildered, jet lagged, disoriented, had hurriedly come to join him one last time -- for his funeral.
The mother who brought forth a child from her womb would now return him to the womb of the earth. The father who dreamed of escorting his son to the marriage canopy, now followed him to the grave.
He was so young, their son. Old enough to be a soldier; old enough to have made Aliya; but barely finished with the business of being a boy. He thought he was returning to his ancient homeland to begin a new life. How could he know he was coming home to end his short sojourn in this world?
The funeral should have taken place a week earlier, but it took four or five days to find his body. You see, Josh had been kidnapped and then brutally slaughtered by terrorists. Then a huge snow storm in Canada grounded all planes. No one knew if his parents would arrive on time.
So thousands of strangers came in their place. They did not know Josh personally, but they claimed him as their own, perhaps because he had come to them alone. Like our father Abraham, Josh had left the safe and familiar to follow his God and to join his people in the Promised Land.
He wore their khaki uniform and stood side by side with his brothers and sisters, willing to endanger his life and, if need be, make the ultimate sacrifice for their welfare. In ancient Egypt, Pharaoh had buried Jewish infants in the walls and monuments memorializing Egypt's dead. Now, Jewish soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a living wall to protect Jewish children and keep them alive. Josh stood with them.
He was kidnapped, tortured and killed because of a khaki uniform, a blue and white flag, a Star of David. Because "in every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us." Because he was a glowing, living stone in our protective wall. Because he was a son of Abraham, a son of the covenant, a Jew in a Jewish land.
His parents spent twenty years or so raising him -- through fevers and vaccinations and summer vacations and birthday parties and worries and hopes -- many, many hopes. They were all laid to rest on that gray, spring afternoon in the Holy City of Jerusalem.
I was swept along in the sea of silent marchers. They edged silently forward, crunching the gravel of well tended paths beneath their feet. The air was heavy with their silence and their sighs. All along the paths they sighed. Old people and young. Thousands and thousands of them, parents carrying babies, students holding books, soldiers toting guns.
They stopped before the freshly dug gravesite and the sweeping, communal sigh was heard again. They huddled together, each one alone, before that awful gap in the ground. The earth lay open and exposed, its surface turned back like flaps of skin on a human chest, ready for surgery. Was the gaping hole a wound in the heart of the Land? Or had the Land opened its heart to embrace yet another son and gather in his war-torn body as his soul journeyed onward? No one spoke. There were no words. Only heavy, heart-weary sighs.
The almond trees were in bloom. Frothy-white blossoms covered the mountaintop like spring brides hovering over still, sleeping grooms. Life and death mingled like old friends at a party. For some, life in all its turbulence would, meanwhile, go on. For others, time was forever stilled. The exact date was etched on stone.
Even the birds were still that day. Hundreds of trees grace Har Herzl and thousands of birds daily fill the mountainside with their music. But that day all were strangely mute. Suddenly, one lonely songbird pierced the wall of silence with a stunning serenade.
"Do not despair! This is not the end! A soul has returned to his Maker, but there is still work waiting to be done, worlds to be built, songs to be sung. The world is alive with the promise of spring. God wills that Life go on!" Josh was no more, but Am Yisrael Chai -- his people -- are alive.
The crowd listened to the Kaddish prayer and said a hushed, muted "Amen." And they sighed.
It is not easy to carry the burden of the Land of Israel. It is no simple matter to be deserving of this ancient, holy, demanding Homeland. For the Wandering Jew, even a small plot of land, just big enough to hold a military coffin, comes with a steep price. Even when the land is ours.
The cemetery is peaceful, quiet, very beautiful. The mountain is terraced with waves of neatly tended, low, square stones, each one lovingly landscaped and decorated, bordered with bright flowers and green plants. Each stone is carefully lettered with a name, parents' names, date of birth, place of birth, date of death. The letters are silent, but the stones cry -- for those who died so that after two thousand years, the Jewish people might finally live -- in peace -- in their own Promised Land.
Those who lie here have a right to this lovely hill, this exclusive piece of land overlooking the Holy City of Jerusalem. They have paid for it with precious life's blood. And we have a right to our Promised Land. But there is a price, even for a promise. When, I wonder, will the price be paid in full? My eyes wander across the seemingly endless rows of stones. They fill with tears.
It begins to rain. Even in heaven, the tears will flow.
I am off now to hear the reading of the Megillah, about how once again someone sought to destory the Jews, only to fail. 9 years ago, they destroyed one Jew. Today they continue to try to destroy us. But they too will fail.
The cost of living Jewishly. Howard Fienberg over at Kesher talk brings up this study from the AJC about the costs of living Jewishly. I've only scanned it quickly, and I need to read it more thoroughly, but my first impression is that they have not looked into how much more it costs to keep kosher. Kosher food (especially meat) is often twice the price of non-kosher meat and makes keeping kosher difficult, especially for those Jews who are not well off. (Yes, they do exist). I will, however, reserve any further judgment until after I've read it thoroughly.
Reason #1 not to piss off a Quebecois. Roger Guignard, who was unhappy with a settlement he received after someone drove a car through his store, posted a sign in front of his house denouncing that settlement. For his efforts, he was fined $100 for violting a bylaw prohibiting any advertising in residential areas. Mr. Guignard refused to pay the fine and fought the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. His battle cost $100,000 and his marriage, but he won, winning a battle for free speech for all Canadians. It's heartening to see someone give up almost everything he has for his convictions, but at the same time it's discouraging to see that court battles cost so much and take so long. In my opinion, this is one of the worst aspects of the court systems in today's democracies.
Ha! This must be one of the funniest blog posts I've seen yet. It is an excellent example of what happens real life collides with blog life. Libertarian Samizdorks! Ha!
File under "Waste of Space." David Plotz takes down Puff Daddy or P Diddy or U don't know diddly or whatever his name is nowadays. All I can say is "why?" If P Diddy is nothing more than mediocre as Plotz claims, then what do you call the critic that expends so many words on him? And while I'm at it, what do you call the critic of such a critic?
Sigh. Well, the American team was thoroughly embarrassed as the Candians won 5-2. As in the women's game, the Canadians showed more desire and set the pace of the game. So congratualtions to the Canadians. I wouldn't mind the loss so much if I didn't have to suffer the indignity of my girlfriend and her family gloating over the victory, and over the fact that that asshole, Theo Fleury has a gold medal. At least NY Islander, Michael Peca got one too.
P.S. By the way, if you're reading this Damian, not all American hockey players were rich prep-school kids. I went to a public high school and we played in a converted airplane hanger where the fog used to roll in if the humidity got too high.
I am still recovering. I saw Noam Chomsky in the parking lot last night. He drives a red Audi A4, which depresses me because *I* want an Audi A4. *sigh* Oh well.
Pakistan's Musharraf pledges to 'liquidate' Pearl killers. I fully applaud this language, but I wonder if there will be an outcry from the Euros and Arabs about such "targeted killings." Frankly, I'd like to see them behead the fuckers and then stick their heads on pikes sitting in front of the WSJ offices.
All talk, no action. Despite all that military experise and knowledge over at Libertarian Samizdata, their HQ has been infiltrated by a lefty Yank who has managed to hole himself up in one of their guest rooms. The situation is so dire that they're calling in their Irish reinforcements. Frankly, I don't think anything short of a guest appearence by Natalija Radic is going to get him out.
Breen does it better. I am not the only one who can't stand the substitution of "uh huh" for "You're welcome." Moira Breen get's ticked off too... and she expresses herself so much better than I do.
And this little piggy was used to cover a dead terrorist. In one of the more amusing stories to come out of the Middle East, a group of settles covered the body of a terrorist in pig fat and pig skin after he murdered 3 Israelis. Sickenly, but not surprisingly, the Arab MKs were more disgusted with this act than by the terrorist's murders:
Ahmed Tibi said, ""This is a pig-like act of a man who is not worthy of being a rabbi," while Abdel Malek Dahamshe added, "The ethical inferiority and lowliness that the settlers have reached is intolerable. This is an act of first-degree desecration of God's name... It is especially shocking to think that a rabbi did this."
Actually, I'm surprised that a Rabbi or any religious Jews would touch pigskin.
Anyhow, at least a Jewish MK had a good reply:
MK Tzvi Hendel said, "If these primitive murderers stuff their brains with nonsense about Paradise and who-knows-how-many virgins waiting only for them, then they certainly believe in the other nonsense that being buried with pigskin blocks their way to Paradise."
Congrats to the Canadian women for defeating Team USA and winning the gold medal in women's ice hockey. It was a painful game to watch because it was plainly obvious that the Canadians wanted this game so much more than the Americans. There is no doubt in my mind the Canucks deserved to win, especially after killing off so many penalties. Speaking of penalties, the refereeing was awful - there were so many calls made that shouldn't have been made, and so many calls that should have been made that were let go. I realize it more or less works out in the end, but when you make so many bad calls, it really calls into question the ref's ability and in this case, impartiality (the ref was American). Anyhow, the biggest downside of the Canadian victory was when my Canadian girlfriend called me to give me a Nelson Muntz "ha ha".
Update: now it seems there's a blogger feud between Damian "Nanook" Penny and Pejman "Cleatus" Yousefzadeh over olympic hockey. All I can, Damian, is that you better pray that Brodeur doesn't pull a Salo against Belarus.
Nice shootin', Tex. In a moment that would make pro-gun activists proud, a woman shopping in a supermarket apparently saw a terrorist trying to set off a second explosion and shot him twice in the head from close range. The terrorists father claimed that his son wanted to be a martyr. I guess he got his wish.
And in other news, Noam Chomsky has come out in support of the War on Terrorism. Post Zionist historian, Benny Morris, claims that there can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians so long as the current Palestinian mindset does not change. Ordinarily, an Israeli blaming the Palestinians is no big surprise, but Morris has been a vocal critic of Israeli policy and has even served jail time for refusing to serve in the West Bank, making his critcism bordering on extraordinary. The entire article is worthy of being read, but I think the following section is the key:
"At the end of the day, this question of legitimacy - seemingly put to rest by the Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties - is at the root of current Israeli despair and my own "conversion". For decades, Israeli leaders - notably Golda Meir in 1969 - denied the existence of a "Palestinian people" and the legitimacy of Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty. But during the 1930s and 1940s, the Zionist movement agreed to give up its dream of a "Greater Israel" and to divide Palestine with the Arabs. During the 1990s, the movement went further - agreeing to partition and recognising the existence of the Pales tinian people as its partner in partition.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian national movement, from its inception, has denied the Zionist movement any legitimacy and stuck fast to the vision of a "Greater Palestine", meaning a Muslim-Arab-populated and Arab-controlled state in all of Palestine, perhaps with some Jews being allowed to stay on as a religious minority. In 1988-93, in a brief flicker on the graph, Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organisation seemed to have acquiesced in the idea of a compromise. But since 2000 the dominant vision of a "Greater Palestine" has surged back to the fore (and one wonders whether the pacific asseverations of 1988-1993 were not merely diplomatic camouflage).
The Palestinian leadership, and with them most Palestinians, deny Israel's right to exist, deny that Zionism was/is a just enterprise. (I have yet to see even a peace-minded Palestinian leader, as Sari Nusseibeh seems to be, stand up and say: "Zionism is a legitimate national liberation movement, like our own. And the Jews have a just claim to Palestine, like we do.") Israel may exist, and be too powerful, at present, to destroy; one may recognise its reality. But this is not to endow it with legitimacy. Hence Arafat's repeated denial in recent months of any connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, and, by extension, between the Jewish people and the land of Israel/Palestine. "What Temple?" he asks. The Jews are simply robbers who came from Europe and decided, for some unfathomable reason, to steal Palestine and displace the Palestinians. He refuses to recognise the history and reality of the 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the land of Israel. "
In short, there can never be peace because the Palestinians, and I believe, the greater Arab community still don't believe Israel has a right to exist. It's encouraging to see someone like Morris to recognize what many of us have said all along. One can only hope that the likes of Hubert Vedrine and the rest of the cadre of EU ministers follow in Morris' footsteps. (via little green footballs
The idiocy of zero tolerance. This website features a collection of horror stories from various parents of children who've been victims of their school's Zero Tolerance Policy. It's a depressing website, and I want to write more about this, but I'm too tired for now.
NY Times to Israel: Sha Still. Ok, well not in so many words, but today, the NY Times graces us with not one, but TWO columns arguing for Israel to accept Saudi Price Abdullah's plan for a basis for peace. It seems to have escaped both the Times' editorial staff and Henry Siegman that Abdullah has decided not to give his speech about this proposal to the Arab League next month. Instead, the Saudi government prefers to leak its ideas to the NY Times. This tactic is a brilliant PR move: it makes the Saudis look like they're genuinely interested in peaceful co-existence with Israel thus satisfying the Western media and governments, yet because they have not made an official proposition, they don’t have to worry about being held to their “proposal”. A shining example is this bit in Siegman’s piece:
“And on Tuesday, Saudi officials told me that normalization of relations with Israel does not preclude Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall in the Old City and over Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. They also indicated that Saudi Arabia would not object to the transfer of small areas of the West Bank to Israel in return for qualitatively and quantitatively comparable territory to be transferred by Israel to the Palestinians, provided such an exchange is the result of a freely negotiated compromise.”
In essence, Israel should jump at the Saudi proposal because some unnamed Saudi officials told the esteemed Henry Siegman that the Saudis could accept Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem. I’m sure the Israeli people are sleeping better knowing this.
Noticeably absent is any comment over the Temple Mount: the most contentious part of Jerusalem. Nor is there any mention of “right of return” issue for Palestinian refugees, which in the end, is what brought down the Camp David negotiations. So in the end, we are right back where we were at Camp David and later at Taba, except that now Israel has to deal with daily terrorist attacks against its civilian population. It’s no wonder the Israeli government responded with a “yawn”.
Fortunately, they're a bit saner over at the National Post where they at least realize that the Abdullah/Friedman/Siegman plan would require Israel to give up virtually all territory conquered in the 1967 war for, in essence, a slip of paper.
Apparently, this is an American thing, since I didn't really notice it until my Canadian girlfriend pointed it out. And now, it annoys me to no end. It's when I say "Thank you", and someone can only find the energy to mutter "uh huh", or "yep", or "mm hmm". Is it so hard to say "You're welcome", or "No Problem", or "No Prob", or "Anytime?" Geez.
The prescience of Tom Friedman.. In his fawning interview of Saudi Prince Abdullah, Tom Friedman writes:
"Well, I said, I'm glad to know that Saudi Arabia was thinking along these lines [in terms of a peace agreement], but so many times in the past we've heard from Arab leaders that they had just been about to do this or that but that Ariel Sharon or some other Israeli leader had gotten in the way. After a while, it's hard to take seriously. So I asked, What if Mr. Sharon and the Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire before the Arab summit?"
"Let me say to you that the speech is written, and it is still in my drawer," the crown prince said.
And it looks like it's going to be staying there, since
"Abdullah told The New York Times in remarks published Sunday that he had prepared a speech to deliver to the Arab summit next month making the offer but had decided not to give it because of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies against the Palestinians."
Well, Tom, you were right, it is hard to take seriously. But then again, we knew that already.
Yes, yes, I know you all missed me, but I am back now from Pittsburgh. Stay tuned for more wonderful blogging.
Lack of posts. I apologize for the lack of posts but I'm still working on this manuscript and haven't had the time to blog. Stay tuned for new stuff starting Tues.
Israel vs. South Africa. An interesting article written by a South African resident of Israel who served and then refused to serve in the South African army. I'd comment on this article, but I don't have the time since I have a deadline to finish a manuscript. Nevertheless I hope people take the time to read it, regardless of your stance on the Middle East.
*Blush* I'm almost embarrassed to relate this story, but while I was perusing my site statistics, I found that someone found my blog by doing a search on :
british lovely girls in panties
I feel like I've been outed for something I haven't done...
Oh, and the funniest part? The person was from Saudia Arabia. I guess they don't have many lovely British girls in panties over there.
New links added. I've added Heretical Ideas and Protein Wisdom to the permanent set of links on the side. I've also changed it so that clicking on those links no longer opens them into a new window. I figured that if you want to move onto someone else's blog etc. you no longer want to have this blog open. However, all links within the main blog text will continue to open in new windows, so that you can compare my pithy comentary with the link I reference.
I'm sure you are all happy to know this.
Iron Mike needs a shrink. Frankly, I think he needs a form of euthenasia, but this psychiatrist disagrees and thinks that Mike Tyson needs forced psychiatric care:
And as a psychiatrist who for 25 years has worked with terribly troubled people, I have patiently waited for some sporting or legal authority to force Tyson to get the help he so desperately needs.
Yes, so that you can make millions of dollars treating him, no doubt.
Senior Kuwaiti quits DC post after meeting with Israelis
. According to the Jerusalem Post, Shafiq al-Ghabra said he had resigned as head of the Kuwait Information Office in Washington in protest over the accusation that he was normalizing relations with Israel. Kuwait refuses to normalize relations with Israel until Israel settles things with Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians. The idea of Kuwait being concerned about the welfare of the Palestinians is just plain silly considering they kicked them all out of Kuwait after they sided with Saddam Hussein back in 1991.
And they say Jews have all the money. A Tel Aviv couple was held for allegedly selling their newborn baby girl for $200 in order to pay off a debt. Rumor has it that the creditor's last name is "Rumplestiltskin."
Like Shaggy says, it wasn't me! According to JTA:
Hezbollah denied Yasser Arafat´s charge that it was responsible for a ship carrying 50 tons of weapons captured in the Red Sea. The ship´s captain, a member of the Palestinian navy, said that high-ranking Palestinian Authority officials had commanded the smuggling operation of the Karine-A freighter, which Israel intercepted on Jan. 3. The United States has demanded that P.A. President Arafat explain the incident. On Thursday, days after reportedly telling Bush that he took responsibility for the affair, Arafat said Palestinians had no connection to the ship, which he claimed was bound for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. Hezbollah dismissed the claim. Israel says Hezbollah and Iran aided the Palestinian Authority in the smuggling.
Guess Hezbollah doesn't want to get caught in US and Israel crosshairs.
Al Jazeera, the mouthpiece for Arab anti-Semitism. Al Jazerra's talk show, "The Opposite Direction" discussed whether or not Osama bin Laden has helped or hindered the cause of Islam with Abdallah Bin Matruk Al-Haddal, a Saudi
preacher from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Saudi. Here is a tranlsation of some fine things he had to say:
"I don't believe that the attack on America [on September
11th] was perpetrated by bin Laden or the Muslims. I think
differently. I believe it was a scheme. What is happening
now is a continuation of an ancient attack. It is a
continuation of the Jewish deception and the Jewish-Zionist
wickedness which infiltrates the U.S.... I am surprised
that the Christian U.S. allows the 'brothers of apes and
pigs' [meaning the Jews] to corrupt it. [The Jews] have
murdered the prophets and the messengers. [The Jews] are
the most despicable people who walked the land and are the
worms of the entire world. They are all evil. And why?
Because they are deceiving and plotting aggressors..."
Brothers of apes and pigs? But surely he must know that pigs aren't kosher! And besides, if we Jews are merely brothers of those animals, how could we be smart enough to pull off such a conspiracy??
"...The American people is a people that is being led by
the media and TV culture. If a wicked Jewish crook begins
saying that the Muslims are oppressors, it has an influence
on the Americans. The media in America is in the hands of
the Jews and behind it there are the Jewish Zionists'
despicable fingerprints that change reality. "
Mr. Al-Haddal, surely you know that your own government admitted that 15 of the hijackers were Saudi nationals, all of whom were Muslims. It doesn't take a "Jewish Media Conspiracy" for Americans to realize that they were attacked by Muslims. The truth speaks for itself.
"They [the Jews] have even deceived the Christians about their own religion. Did you
know that the person who forged the Christian religion is a Jew?"
Wow, we Jews truly are gluttons for punishment. Not only do we try to eliminate a major world religion with over 1 billion adherents, we also "forged" another major religion whose history is rife with brutality towards us. Unless of course he's referring to Jesus, who everyone knows was Jewish, and someone whom Mr. Al-Haddal accuses Jews of not respecting.
Thank you Mr. Al-Haddal, for your thoroughly enlightening statements.
No Jews allowed. That supposedly moderating and modernizing country, Iran, has rejected Britain's newly appointed ambassador because he is a Jewish MI6 spy. The fact that David Reddaway is neither Jewish, nor according to the Foreign Office, a spy, won't get in the way of Iran's decision.
Another legitimate act of resistance.. A bunch of Arab youths attacked some Israeli civilians who were walking along a tourist promenade in Jerusalem. So brave those teenagers were, stabbing a bunch of tourists.
Robert Fisk shoves his head up Hezbollah's ass. No doubt the beating he took from those “righteous” Afghans softened his head enough to facilitate this maneuver. In this article we are privlidged to hear what a paradise southern Lebanon has become:
In the "centre for world terror", the Lebanese farmers are guiding their ploughs through fields, gently flicking sticks over the necks of their horses.
I wonder if PETA will have something to say about that stick flicking?
Lebanon is where Iranian Revolutionary Guards are supposed to have been pouring in from Tehran. The country's National Symphony Orchestra has been playing Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saens. And down here on the border with Israel, where 8,000 new missiles have supposedly arrived for the Hizbollah, the women are drying tobacco leaves in the sun.
Oh, I see how it works, because the Lebanon National Symphony Orchestra is playing such fine classics, Iranian troops and missiles could not have been entering southern Lebanon. Why? I'm not sure, but maybe it's because those military types don't like classical music played.
Still the Israelis claim that Iran or Mr bin Laden or Syria are turning Lebanon into a "terror-centre" or – this from Mr Peres again -- a "powder keg".
The reality is quite different. The border hasn't been so quiet in 25 years. Save for a brief attack at Shebaa farms, a terrain of abandoned fields belonging to Lebanon but occupied by Israel since 1967 (the UN says its fate should be decided at a peace conference and puts it on Israel's side of the Blue Line) the only action has been in the air.
You mean that brief attack in which the Hezbollah kidnapped 3 Israeli soldiers while the UN Peacekeepers looked the other way? Or was it the one that killed an Israeli soldier and prompted Israel to destory a Syrian radar installation. And of course you're referring to those Shebaa Farms which were always a part of Syria until Israel caputred the Golan? The ones that, according to the 1949 Armistance Declaration Line, is not a part of Lebanon. I realize this is difficult for you to grasp while you have your head shoved up someone's ass, but it's plainly obivous that this "Campaign for the Shebaa Farms" is clearly a Syrian concontion to keep pressure on Israel and to justify its occupation of Lebanon. After all, what justification could Syria have for maintaining 20,000 troops and backing the Hezbollah, if Israel is no longer occupying Lebanon?
Each time a contrail whispers up the pale blue skies towards Beirut, the Hizbollah bang away with their old gun above Kiryat Shmona. They have sent some splinters into the gardens of a kibbutz but it's the sound that is meant to impress. The 57mm rounds, fired from a relic of Stalingrad vintage, explode with a powerful detonation. If Israel's pilots want to rattle the windows of Beirut with their sonic booms, the Hizbollah are saying, then Israel's citizens can endure a few noisy explosions in the sky.
General Gaby Ashkenazi was enjoying his Israeli Northern Command's annual dinner when the first reports came in of "three loud explosions" over Kiryat Shmona. Some Israeli children were sent into shelters. The Hizbollah were accused of breaching the Blue Line agreement with their airbursts – it was indeed a violation, just like the Israeli overflights – but no- one was hurt. It's a dangerous game. If just one splinter hits an Israeli, shells will come whiffling back across the border.
Yes, it's wrong to do reconaissance flights over the Lebanon border, but it's ok to fire some rounds over a civilian village, as long as the civilians are Israelis, right Bob?
A security source in southern Lebanon believes many of these tales are being generated by a private Israeli website. "There's an ex-journalist who runs it and every time he's told that Mr bin Laden's in Beirut or Iranians are swarming through the Bekaa, he puts this stuff out," the source said
A security source in southern Lebanon? What security, Hezbollah? Do you actually think a Hezbollah member is going to tell a reporter that al-Qaeda fighters are in there midst? Obviously that beating didn't knock any sense into you, Bob. By the way, I wonder which website that source is talking about... Debka per chance? Does anyone actually take what Debka says at face value? If so, then they're bigger morons than Bob Fisk.
Mr Harri, the Prime Minister, has reason to be worried. Lebanon is $32bn (£23bn) in debt and the Americans aren't encouraging anyone to bail him out. The Hizbollah have gone back on the US "terrorism" list. The American ambassador to Beirut has been telling Mr Hariri's government to send its soldiers to the border and take over from the Hizbollah – which is what Israel wants
Oh no, God forbid that a soverign nation disarm a paramilitary terrorist group with in its borders and take control of its southern border, because that would satisfy that evil Zionist government.
Another peaceful day on the border, disturbed only by the hum of a generator in the Israeli blockhouse. No Osama bin Laden, no al-Qa'ida, no powder kegs, no missiles, no Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
The centre of world terror is quiet today.
Ah ha, see? Because Bob hasn't seen any al-Qaeda members, or Katyushas, they must not be there. Thanks Bob, I like the residents of Kiryat Shmona, feel so much better now.
Paging Jack Ryan. The Tampa police department released the suicide note found on the body of Charles Bishop (how did it survive?) after he crashed his plane into the Bank of America tower in Tampa. The last paragraph says,
"Osama bin Laden is planning on blowing up the Superbowl with an antiquated nuclear bomb left over from the 1967 Israeli-Syrian war."
Think the kid read The Sum of All Fears?
About time. Finally admitting to something we all know, Saudi Arabia finally admitted that 15 of the 9/11 Hijackers were Saudi ctizens. Rumor has it that next, the Saudis will recognize that the world is indeed round.
Forced secularism. Another girl was suspended for wearing a headscarf to school in Singapore. Apparently, while Muslim can wear headscarves to work, girls cannot wear them to school because it breaks the school uniform code and "underscore[s] ethnic differences." This is an interesting controversy, but I fail to see the harm of girls following their religeous/cultural norms in school. Just as girls shouldn't be forced to wear the scarves, they shouldn't be forced to take them off either.
The latest fashion trend - trailer park trash. In a stunning display of decadence, Christian Dior is marketing their "trailer purse" which goes for the meager price of $2000. I'd write more about this, but I'm off to K-mart to buy all their stock on purses and ebay them off as Christian Dior knockoffs.
Profile me, please! An interesting op-ed in the New York TImes by a Lebanese-American makes the case for profiling passengers, especially of Middle-Eastern descent, on airline flights. The final two paragraphs are the most instructive:
"Security officials need to keep an open mind about national origins. There will be more Richard Reids and John Walker Lindhs, who will not be found through profiling. Yet it is a fact that the particular terrorist group sworn to our destruction, Al Qaeda, is made up largely of Middle Easterners. It is not unreasonable to direct increased attention to passengers with some connection to the Middle East.
Arab-Americans like me want to be safe when we fly. Cooperating with security procedures, even when we suspect that we are getting more attention than our fellow citizens, makes sense. Does anyone really want a security official to hesitate before stopping a suspicious passenger out of fear of an accusation of bias."
This topic has been hashed out several times in the world of blogdom, so this column is a bit on the late side (not surprising for the NYT, especially if you read smartertimes.com). However, it is interesting seeing something like this written by an Arab-American, espcially given the ranting and raving of CAIR. But then again, maybe we shouldn't be surprised - Arabs want to fly safely too.
The difficulties of serving in the territories. In one of the more evenhanded articles I've seen on the subject, Amos Harel describes the dilemmas faced by IDF soldiers in the territories and how sometimes split second decisions lead to the deaths of unarmed Palestinian teenagers.
Consider this incident:
A day before the interview, there was an incident close to the village of Ussarin, near Nablus. A 15-year-old unarmed Palestinian youth, Louis Adli, was shot dead. The shooter was a reserve officer. The incident took place in the late afternoon two kilometers east of the Tapuah junction. Israeli settlers driving on the road reported that stones and Molotov cocktails were being thrown at cars on the road. An army squad went to investigate.
The soldiers - two company commanders from an reserve armored battalion, a medic and another soldier - were in a jeep that was hit by a large rock when they arrived on the scene. They got out of the jeep and started moving toward four youths who were throwing stones from a nearby hilltop.
A., a company commander from a kibbutz in the north, said in the debriefing that the stone-throwing continued despite the fact they were approaching the youths. "I understood they were trying to draw me into an ambush," he said. So, he fired warning shots in the air. Suddenly, 20 meters away, a person jumped up from behind a rock. The officer, who said he felt his troops were in danger, fired two shots from 20 meters away. The boy was hit in the head and fatally wounded. He died later at Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer, where an army helicopter evacuated him. The other youths ran off.
Now consider this incident which occurred 3 months earlier:
Three months ago, near Kafr Tel, a few kilometers from Ussarin, reserve lieutenant Eyal Sela went to check a report of suspicious Palestinians on a hilltop. The observation post reported the Palestinians were unarmed, and Sela's force did not take any special precautions. But when he approached, the Palestinians drew guns and shot him dead. During the ensuing firefight, Sela's soldiers killed three of the Palestinians.
The two situations were similar, if not identical, so it's not surprising that given what happned near Kfar Tel, that the soldier who shot the teenage was fearful of being shot and fired first. But perhaps the most telling part of this article says it best:
In the days before the current armed intifada, it would have been relatively easy to judge the incident at Ussarin. There was no standing order about firing on stone-throwers - the chance was minimal that there might be an armed Palestinian hiding in the area.
Mubarak agrees with Abba Eban. Egyptian president (for life), Hosni Mubarak mentions several opportunities to secure their own country that the Palestinians have missed over the past 50+ years.
Do as we ask, not as we do. From JTA:
Some 40 youths attacked a group of Jewish students leaving school Jan. 31 in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. According to witnesses, the assailants, many of whom covered their faces with Palestinian scarves, sprayed mace in the faces of several of the Jewish youths. The French authorities are investigating the incident, and have yet to label it anti-Semitic. A week earlier, a school bus carrying Jewish children was stoned as it passed a housing project in the nearby suburb of Aubervilliers. .
Do you remember when, immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, Arabs and Muslims all over the world were pleading with Americans and Westerners in general, not to attack innocent Arabs and Muslims who had nothing to do with the attacks? I sure do. But obviously, it's ok for Arabs to attack Jews in Europe who have nothing to do with what's going on in Israel because they have a legitimate right to fight the occupation.
Libertarian weirdness. Some weird stuff going on over at Libertarian Samizdata. Libertarians as vampires? And as pagan goddesses? Interesting, very interesting.
Movin' on up. Many thanks to Moira Breen for making this blog one of her "Blogs of the Week." For those of you coming here via her site, welcome, and please come back often.
Justice, Palestinian style. According to Reuters, 15 Palestinians dressed as police entered a Palestinian courthouse in Jenin, took custody of three 3 prisoners, brought them into a bathroom, and executed them. I'm waiting for the international outcry against these assassinations.
Talk about shooting youself in the foot. Today, a member of the human rights group, B'Tselem, which works for the Palestinian cause was wounded when Palestinian gunmen strafed his car in the West Bank. I wonder if this will be a wakeup call for this guy because maybe now he realizes that no matter what he thinks, as a far as the Palestinians are concerned, he's just a Jew. (via USAJewish)
[Update: well it turns out that the B'Tselem activist was in fact an Israeli Arab, not a Jew. It doesn't make the incident any better, but it does make my last sentence above rather foolish]
Pats win!! Pats win!! Wow, that must have been the most exciting Super Bowl I've ever seen!! Fittingly the Patriots won with a full team effort and as I was discussing with my friend, it must have been difficult to pick and MVP. I voted for Vinatieri, but I guess no one wants to give the MVP to the kicker. Still, I must wonder, what will all of these Boston sports fans do now that they can't whine about the Patriots and baseball doesn't start for another few months?
Has PETA heard about this? A British Chef had sex with a goat in front of a trainload of passengers. Upon seeing him sex up the goat, two people pinned him down until the police came. According to the vet who examined the goat, the goat was "subdued" but wasn't suffering long-term injury (how does he know if he examined the goat right after the assault?). According to Mr. Horny, he is gay...which demands the question, if he is gay, why did he do a female goat?
Mr. Den Beste, meet Mr. Hobbes. In his latest essay on the differences between American and European approaches to politics etc., Steven Den Beste writes:
The Founders in the United States began with a different concept: the government of the United States would govern because it was granted that power by the people of the nation. That concept was not present in England at that time; it was a theoretical possibility, but never anything which had been tried out at such a scale before.
The last sentence of that paragraph is half true, at best. I am not expert enough to argue the theoretical underpinnings of the British government at the end of the 18th century. However, I do know that the concept of governing by consent of the people was present in England at the time and in fact was explicitly discussed by a British philosopher, Thomas Hobbes in his tome, Leviathan
In Hobbes' discussion of "the Commonwealth" in Chapter 18 he writes,
"A commonwealth is said to be instituted , when a multitude of men do agree, and covenant, every one, that to whatsoever man, or assembly of men, shall be given by the major part, the right to present the person of them all, that is to say, to be their representative; every one, as well he that voted for it, as he that voted agasinst it, shall authorize all the actions and judgments, of that man, or assembly of men, in the same manner, as if they were his own, to the end, to live peacebly amongst themselves, and be protected aginst other men.
The consequences to such institutions, are: From this institution of a commonwealth are derived all rights, and faculties of him, or them, on whom the sovereign power is conferred by the consent of the people assembled." [Emphasis mine].
Hobbes wrote his treatise over a hundred years prior to the writing of the US Constitution, thus it is very likely that the Founders, being well read and learned men, had read Leviathan and were aware of the idea. So while this concept mat not have been in use in England, it was surely around.
And they call Americans ignorant of history. Martin Thomas discusses how just military tribunals would be in the trials of Al-Qaeda members. Because I'm no legal expert, I won't deign to debate his argument. However, when he screws up American history so badly, I tend to question his ideas. Right in the first paragraph he writes:
"Governments are capable of making mistakes," a disembodied voice intones in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, "and this is one of the biggest mistakes made under the American constitution." On display are pictures of detainees, cooped up behind chain-link wire fencing. But these are not al-Qaida nor Taliban: they are people of Japanese extraction who were rounded up under the presidential order of Theodore Roosevelt. It was a knee-jerk response to Pearl Harbour.
Theodore Roosevelt?? Is it that hard to remember that it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt that was the president of the US during WW II? If you can't remember FDR's first name, shouldn't the initals FDR indicate to you that his first name wasn't Teddy? I'm not sure who I want to smack more, Thomas, or his editors.
Then there's this:
Military commissions have been known in the US for a long time. Remember the Alamo? Commissions were employed in the war with Mexico in 1847.
The battle of the Alamo occurred in 1836, during the war between Texas and Mexico, before Texas was a part of the US. I realize that this may be a lesser known aspect of US history, but if you're going to try and be cute with famous phrases, you should use them correctly.
You know, there's a website called smartertimes.com. I'm thinking I should start smarterguardian.com. What do you think? Email me and let me know.
[edited on 2/1/02 at 7:09 pm]
Necks how I love thee. Sorry for the paucity of posts, but I'm knee-deep in analyzing Neck Frequency Response Functions. Fascinating, isn't it?
Our good Saudi Friends. This article, which is a translation of one found in the German Die Welt, claims that Saudi businessmen were behind the funding for the purchase of the Karine A. Apparently, the money for the purchase of the ship and the arms on board were transferred via Islamic charities in Jeddah. The article states that such a large transfer could not have been done without the approval and knowledge of the Saudi government.
Moreover, the Saudis are helping the US in its fight against Al-Qaeda by allegedly paying for the transport of Al-Qaeda fighters to Syria and Lebanon so that they can be smuggled into the Occupied Territories to fight for Arafat.
And so it goes. If this article is true, then two things are apparent. One, the Saudis are two-faced backstabbers who foment terrorism throughout the world, and two, Al-Qaeda prisoners should not be accorded POW status because once released they will seek out other places to practice their terrorism