Grasshoppa

Gone away...

I'm leaving for Montreal tonight, and won't be back until Tues afternoon, so for all 5 of my readers, don't expect any updates for a few days.

Stand and Deliver

Sometimes I believe that the more you write on a particular topic, the greater the chance of making a mistake. (Maybe that’s why I generally don’t write long essays on this blog). A case in point is Steven Den Beste’s latest essay that critiques the conclusions made by a Harvard University study of states’ merit based scholarships to college.

I agree with Den Beste in that merit based scholarships should be awarded to those students who have earned them based on academic excellence. As far as I’m concerned if a student has both the brains and work ethic s/he should be given a scholarship (if such scholarships exist) regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual-preference, etc. etc. I remember back when I was a senior in high school feeling particularly resentful towards those institutions that made no secret of their preferences for “under-represented minorities.” I turned down one particular prestigious school because they would have paid for me to visit had I been a minority and/or female. But I digress.

Returning to the matter at hand, the results shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, it’s much easier to excel at academics if your family is comfortable if not wealthy. More often than not, middle class (and up) families have the means and the support structure that allow kids to focus on school. Moreover, children of such families attend schools (whether public or private) which are decently funded and staffed and at least aren’t falling apart. However, I suspect that for a large number of children of poor families, their situations aren’t as rosy. From what I understand, many of these kids have to overcome some difficult obstacles (taking care of younger siblings, living in crime-ridden neighborhoods, living in broken family homes) just to get through the day, let alone trying to get an education. Coupled with terrible schools which are falling apart, staffed with incompetent and/or disinterested faculty and lacking in basic education materials, it’s almost impossible for these disadvantaged kids to compete. Unfortunately, a large proportion of minority communities fall into this category, thus producing a small percentage of students that qualify for merit based scholarships.

This is where I believe both Den Beste and the study are mistaken. It’s easy to profess a love for the worth ethic, but it’s hard to pull oneself up by the bootstraps if you don’t have any. Additionally, it’s pointless to dole out scholarships to students who aren’t qualified in order to satisfy a quota to make things look hunky-dory and “equal.” Instead of trying to treat the symptom (i.e. lack of minority scholarship recipients) it’s far better to remedy the cause. Yes, to some degree, I would claim that the lack of achievement of minority students is cultural based but I would also claim that a large part of it is environmental. Trying to learn from incompetent teachers in overcrowded, dilapidated, schools is practically a Sisyphian task. Sadly, there is a paucity of Jaime Escalante’s in this world and governments would do better to try and recruit teachers of his ilk, who are motivated and competent, rather than funding unqualified students to attend college. I believe that if state and federal funds were directed towards improving the physical school environment as well as towards recruiting good teachers (and letting the local school districts develop their curricula), you’d see more minorities receiving merit based scholarships.

And finally, it’s rather inconsistent to emphatically state “there are no groups” and then go on to imply that black kids don’t do well because they think it’s too white to do well in school. Which is it? Are black kids a group or are they individuals. You can’t have it both ways.

The schools of Hamas

According to Stephen Brown of Frontpagemag, the Chretien government has declined to include Hamas in its list of terrorist organizations namely because

"Hamas has a charitable wing that runs schools and hospitals in the Gaza strip and West Bank; only its military wing, he says, should be sanctioned. "

Indeed, Hamas does fund schools and let's read what they teach:

From a Ma'ariv article (translated on Tal G's site):

Kindergartens in Gaza teach children Jihad against Israel, justification of the Ramallah lynching [in Oct 2000], admiration of the Hizbullah, and the continuation of the Intifada. The children receive these lessons in Israel-hatred at the independently-run education network of the "Islamic Charitable Association", which is responsible for the education of some 5000 children.

At the graduation ceremony of one of the most recent kindergarten classes, the children burned the Israeli flag and cried: "In the name of the Shahid (martyr) Mohammed al-dura and the Shahida, the infant Iman al-Haju, we promise to continue with the Jihad, the resistance and the Intifada". One of the girls raised her hands high, hands dipped in red paint, in the manner of one of the perpetrators of the Ramallah lynching, whose hands were covered in blood. One boy, dressed as the secretary-general of the Hizballah, Hassan Nasrallah, made a speech in which he said: "The Palestinians will not be alone in their battle against Zionism. Hizbullah is with them, always" - which earned him much applause. Children carried toy rifles, and some had Keffiyehs over their faces.

An internal document of the (Israeli) Government Operations Coordinator in the territories, which came out recently, analyzed the expressions of hostility in the Association's kindergartens. The document determines that the Islamic Association's network of kindergartens serves as a firm base to incite young children against Israel. The document warns that these kindergartens constitute for the Hamas the ideological basis for future suicide bombers.

The Association's website documents the ceremony of the 11th class to graduate these kindergartens. Participating at the ceremony, which took place at the Shati refugee camp on the Gaza coast, were 1650 children and thousands of adults.

The children were dressed in army fatigues. Around the podium where the ceremony took place hung flags of Hizballah and the Islamic Association, pictures of martyred children, and slogan. One of the latter cried: "The blood of the children and the martyred of Palestine will be a curse to haunt to Zionist criminals".

The ceremony started with the reading out loud of passages from the Koran by one of the children. Afterwards, a platoon of five-year-olds staged a military parade, armed with plastic rifles. Two of the children carried a model of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. One of the marchers stopped and cried, "Do Sharon's tanks, missiles and mortars frighten you?". His friends answered in unison: "No, no". He continued: "The Zionist bombings do not frighten us. Our people will not bend". Later, the children burned the Israeli flag, and one child impersonated Hamas' leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

The Islamic Association of Gaza is the largest charitable organization in the Gaza Strip of the religious stream. It was founded 26 years ago, and at its head is Sheikh Ahmed Bahar, a member of Hamas. It operates tens of kindergartens in Gaza, helps needy families and orphans, and supports poor students and martyrs' children. Additionally, the Association facilitates blood donations, operates a medical clinic for a nominal fee, and also a sports club, best known for its successful volleyball team.

The Association subsists upon donations and the nominal dues of its members.

Last year, their institutions were visited by representatives of a Swedish NGO and of an South African Islamic delegation. Non-profit organizations in Italy and the US donated computers and VCRs.

Sheikh Bahar said at the ceremony that he places the responisbilty on the shoulders of the Palestinian mothers to "Raise the children on the teachings of Islam, love of Jerusalem and Palestine, and love of Jihad and resistance"

And then as they say, a picure is worth a thousand words (the commentary was added by Yori over at USAJewish and is obviously not accurate. It was the only good set of photos I could find however...):

Mr. Chretien must be proud of the lessons these Hamas funded schools are teaching.

Mazel Tov

Some good news in blogland, Spoons is engaged to someone he met through blogging. I guess it was a matter of time and it just goes to show what an instapundit link will do.

The sound of straw men dying.

TAPPED says,

"The only people hot to fight this war are a bunch of nerdy chickenhawks brandishing grandiose plans to remake the Middle East. Tapped is still of draft age, even if Richard Perle isn't."

And Pejman expends about 1000 words completely missing the point. While TAPPED's snarky comment distracts from the real issues underlying the prospect of yet another Gulf War, there IS something rather vexing that many of those who are calling for war with Iraq and/or are in power to make such a decision, somehow managed to find ways avoiding military service when it was their time and duty during the Vietnam War.

Nevertheless, a lack of military service should not disqualify a civilian leader from making such decisions. However, such a leader should weigh this decision carefully before rushing to war.

But frankly, (and not surprisingly), this repsonse rings hollow. Serving in the military should not be thought of as merely a way to pay the bills. All of those who voluntarily enlist should and must know that they may be called to serve in life threatening situations. And furthermore, while invading Iraq will be far from a walk in the park, it also isn't tantamount to an inevitable doom.

Question of the day.

According to a recent Gallup pole, 59% of the American public support an attack on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. My question is what percentage of the American public could find Iraq on a map?

MEMRI strikes back

Yigal Carmon, the president of MEMRI, lays the smack down on Brian Whitaker in a nice rebuttal of his "Selective MEMRI" piece.

Na na, hey hey, kiss them goodbye

The people of Georgia have spoken and they've said,

Buh bye, Cynthia.


Buh bye, Bob.

It's worth noting CNN's sping on the McKinney defeat:

"In her loss, McKinney joined Rep. Earl Hilliard, Democrat of Alabama, as the second black lawmaker targeted by Jewish groups to lose a re-election bid in the post-September 11 era. Fueled by contributions from the Jewish community, Majette raised more money than the incumbent. "

Translation: " "That ain't nothin'. Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S."

Connect the Jew

Now I understand why Brian Whitaker did not respond to my letter. He was too busy playing connect the Jew. Is it not hypocritical for the middle east commentator of the Guardian, who runs the Arab Gateway website, to cry about an apparent pro-Israel bias of various think-tanks?

Don't do us any favors

The UNRWA is patting themselves on the back for hiring its first Israeli citizen. Of course, the devil is in the details, and in this case it's Allegra Pacheco. In case you have no idea who Pacheco is, think of her as the female Adam Shaprio.

To wit:

In an interview posted on the Indymedia Web site last month, Pacheco said she became an Israeli citizen in order to be accepted at the Israel Bar, a decision she described as one of the most difficult in her life. "I'm not a Zionist, and taking on Israeli citizenship is the most Zionist thing a Jew can do. I sat on that for several months.

"Do I take on Israeli citizenship and become a lawyer and then I can help in a very concrete way? Or do I not take on citizenship and then I won't be a lawyer and I could be active but less effective? It was the lesser of two evils. I felt I made the right move. As a lawyer, I felt I had a stronger platform for helping people."

Nothing like hiring an Israeli citizen who hates the idea of Israel and only sought citizenship to aid Israel's enemies. The UNWRA should have saved everyone the trouble and just hired someone from Hamas

Please don't feed the trolls

If you want to see what happens when people respond to a troll, look no further than this thread. And to think, I started it all. I'm a baad baad boy.

More Altered Logic

In typical fashion, Eric Alterman firmly places his lips on the voluminous ass of Marwan Barghouti who is being put on trial in Israel for well, being a terrorist. Alterman states:

"Marwan Barghouti, as I understand it, plans and helps execute attacks against Israelis only in the occupied territories, where right-wing and opportunist Israelis have chosen to put themselves and their families at risk on land to which they have no legal or moral right. He has expressed a willingness to negotiate peace based on Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967borders. He is, in other words, the very definition of a freedom fighter; a violent one, to be sure, but fighting a violent enemy. If Israel were to come to its senses, he is the kind of leader with whom it would need to make peace. But like Hamas, Ariel Sharon prefers war and occupation to peace and compromise and in seeking to try one of the other side’s more moderate leaders for murder, seeks to destroy any hope for the former, thereby presenting himself as the champion of the latter. It is a horrifying spiral of death with Sharon and company leading the whirlwind. The blood of many, Jew and Arab, is on their hands."

Let me dissect this:

First, notice how Alterman immediately dismisses the deaths of those Israeli civilians who were killed in territories merely because they are "right wing" or "opportunistic." Indeed, he subscribes to the theory espoused by Barghouti and his ilk that these Israelis are legitimate targets because they have "no moral or legal right" to live there. Well, Eric, what gives you the legal or moral right to live in the US? After all, the entire United States was established through conquest and killing of the Native American population. Aren't you, living on the fruits of such conquest, just as morally and legally guilty as they are? Come one Eric, put your money where your mouth is and move to where your ancestors came from.

Second, note the description he applies to Barghouti ("freedom fighter", willing to negotiate based on the '67 borders, etc.) that make him qualified to be a peace partner. Now let's go back in time say, to 1993, where we found another "freedom fighter" willing to negotiate peace based on the 1967 borders. That potential partner? Arafat. We've seen the results of negotiating with him.

Third, Alterman has criticized Israel for assssinating Palesitnian terrorists and now he critcizes Israel for putting Palestinian terrorists on trial. This leaves one option - surrender - an option I'm not so sure would bother Alterman.

Update Matthew Hoy finds some other problems with Alterman's entry, namely that the Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades didn't limit themselves to attacks within the territories.

Let's not get cocky(!)

Nick Denton thinks that the US should send an all-female invasion force into Iraq. Matthew Yglesias agrees.

Now before we all hop on this feminist military bandwagon, let's pause and look at what history has to say. According to a UK Defense Ministry Report discussed in this article:

"Only two major nations have used women in close-quarter battle: the Soviet Union in World War II and Israel in its 1948 war of independence. In both instances, said the report, the nations were fighting for survival and in both cases the practice was abandoned immediately after their wars ended. Of possible particular relevance to Western troops fighting Arab or Muslim forces, the report noted, was Israeli evidence that Arab troops appeared to fight harder once they knew they were being attacked by women because of their culture of shame in being bested by women."

Seeing as how we'd be fighting Arab troops, the lesson provided by Israeli women in combate seems relevant. I have little doubt that Iraqi troops fighting their hardest would defeat a female US invasion force, but why give the Iraqi military any sort of motivation that could be used to their advantage? If we do invade Iraq, then let's do it without arrogance and overconfidence.

The Guardian vs. MEMRI, Part III

Honest Reporting does a little digging about Brian Whitaker, the author of the MEMRI critique in the Guardian, and finds that he runs the Arab info siteArab Gateway. It's not wonder why Whitake despises MEMRI - it exposes the evil underbelly of the Arab world that he works so hard to promote.

By the way, I still have yet to receive a response to my letter from Whitaker. I do hope he responds because I truly am interested in hearing what he says.

The Guardian vs. MEMRI, Part II

As WarBloggerWatch's latest wunderkind, Amir Butler swallows Brian Whitaker's article hook line and sinker, only to be taken to the woodshed in his comments section. How discouraging it must be to so thoroughly disabused in one's first blog post. Actually, disabuse it probably the wrong word seeing as how Amir still believes what he wrote, just like he believes Afghanistan was better off under the Taliban, despite Bruce Rolston's evidence of the contrary.

What's in a name?

Just call me Dawnelle Sha'Neequa Washington. Now go let Mo'Nique work her magic on you.

PR Genius

If you've been watching TV even a little bit, you've probably seen Jordan's King Abdullah being interviewed or giving a tour of his country. First it was the Today Show and then last night I saw a one hour special about Jordan on the Travel Channel. The show began with King Abdullah decked out in a leather jacket cruising along a desert highway on his Harley. Now is that PR or what? I mean wouldn't YOU want to visit a country whose leader rides a Harley, flies a Blackhawk helicopter, sky-dives and hikes in the desert? King Abdullah puts the Saudi hired Qorvis Communcations to shame.

The Guardian vs. MEMRI

In the Guardian, Brian Whitaker questions the ever useful MEMRI bascially because it's run by Israelis who don't translate enough Pro-Arab pieces. In response, I wrote the following letter to Mr. Whitaker:

Dear Mr. Whitaker:

Your recent column about MEMRI was distressing, although, given the journal for which you write, hardly surprising. Indeed, I find it somewhat ironic that a journalist for a journal that proudly puts itself squarely in the corner of one side of the Israeli/Arab conflict would complain about the partisanship of another organization that has never claimed neutrality.

You claim that because MEMRI is a non-profit organization, it is essentially supported by US taxpayers by virtue of its tax-exempt status. This is some rather twisted logic since MEMRI obtains its funding from donations, not taxpayer financed government grants. The link is indirect at best, yet it is one you chose not to apply to Ibrahim Cooper and his Council on American-Islamic Relations, another non-profit (and hence tax-exempt) organization. Are you trying to claim that tax-exempt status is only insidious when given to pro-Israel organizations? And by the way, asking Ibrahim Cooper to comment on the work of MEMRI is like asking Saeb Erekat to comment on the policies of Ariel Sharon.

However, MEMRI’s tax status does not in anyway invalidate their work, so allow me to address to more important points. It appears to me that your assessment of MEMRI’s work is at least as selective as you claim MEMRI to be. I agree that a large part of MEMRI’s translations shed a rather unflattering light upon the Arab/Islamic Media (and Arab/Islamic world in general), however you ignore much of their other work that demonstrates a plurality (albeit a small one) of opinion in the Arab media. A causal perusal of the MEMRI’s special dispatch archives comes up with “Liberal Columnist Calls on Hamas to Stop Terrorism,” “Leading Islamic Clerics Come Out For Reform in Arab-Islamic Society,” and “An Arab Diplomat on the Need to Replace Jihad With Social Development.” I would hardly places these articles in your second category (serving Israeli interests), as it seems to me if anything, they serve the interests of humanity. In addition, I will grant that MEMRI has translated far fewer Hebrew articles, however, the need for such translations is not nearly as great. The reasons are twofold:
First, while the two most popular dailies (Ma’ariv and Yediot Ahronot) are not available in English, many (Ha’aretz, the Jerusalem Post) do have English version. Moreover, sites like Jewsweek.com and Israelinsider.com do provide some translations from time to time. Indeed, the most radical Israeli media outlet, Arutz Sheva, has an English version on line, for the entire world to see.
Second, given the microscope that Israel has been placed under recently, an Israeli journalist (if you’re pardon the expression) couldn’t take a dump, let alone write a controversial article) without it being beamed across the world.

Nevertheless, what I find most disturbing about your piece is that the aforementioned issues (plus a couple of others) bother you more than the fact that the pieces that MEMRI translates even exist in such numbers. The fact that some of the most disgusting writings don’t even merit a blink in the Arab world doesn’t seem to faze you either. That MEMRI scored a propaganda coup over Saudi Arabia by translating the piece in Al-Riyadh about the Purim blood libel causes you more discomfort than the fact it was published in the first place. In fact, you more or less give the author and the editor of Al-Riyadh a free pass because a) the editor was on vacation and b) Arabs are apparently ignorant of Judaism and Israel (and this is ok). Would you give your editor a free pass if the Guardian published some similar tripe while he/she was on vacation? And regarding b), based on your article, you’d think that this example of Arab “ignorance” and downright anti-Semitism was insignificant. Yet, this is the exact same sickness that came into play at the Durban anti-racism conference where highly educated Arab lawyers gave out pamphlets that conveyed the very basest of anti-Semitic accusations. Why is it allowable for Arab anti-Semitism to be dismissed as the ignorance of the noble savage while Western anti-Arabism must be combated at every turn? And by the way, when you point out that MEMRI erred in describing Al-Riyadh as a government paper, you should know that it is a difference without distinction given the large degree of censorship exercised by the Saudi government. Moreover, you should also know, that MEMRI cited a BBC article as the basis for the claim of Al-Riyadh being a government paper.

In short, Mr. Whitaker, while you try to cast aspersions on the people and motivation behind MEMRI by playing connect the Jew, you never once claim that MEMRI’s translations are invalid or flawed nor do you even comment on the fact that the articles that MEMRI translations even exist in such large numbers. Do you not think it important that the non-Arabic speaking world know that government censored Egyptian columnists give praise to Hitler yet at the same time deny the Holocaust happened? Shouldn’t the world know that the defense minister of one of Israel’s most implacable enemies wrote a book claiming the Passover blood libel to be true, a book that is now being made into a movie? I could go on, but the list is far too long, and that, above anything else should bother you the most.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to a response.

Respectfully yours,

Geoffrey Meltzner
Boston, USA

I will post a reply if and when I get one.

Menlo-ism

Avoid this:

and this:

but never forget this:

Migration complete

Ok, so I've moved my blogger archives over to MT. So far so good, although some of my entry titles are a bit screwy.... However, I shall persevere!

Today we arwe herwe to cewebwate mawiage

Mazel Tov to Stephen Green and his soon to be wife for their impending marriage.

FUBAR

Wow, this template is a screwed up. Please stand by until I figure out why...

I'm back

After a month long hiatus, I'm back baby, and better than ever. Beware