Obama's War — US vs IS

Barack Hussein Obama (BO) has declared war, more or less, on the Islamic State (IS).

Obama's war is bit confusing.  He's getting the US into Iraq when his whole Presidential purpose was to get the US out of Iraq?
Does he want to be as popular as Tony Blair?
Or is he just jealous of all the attention that Bibi Netanyahu has been getting ?

Anyway, when the bombing gets going everybody will forget about Israel and the bombing of Gaza.  And Israel will have a better set of political arguments.

After all, ISIS has not sworn to destroy the US, the way Hamas did to Israel.  Another benefit for Israel, is that those who have been claiming, that peace in the middle east hinges primarily on settling the Arab-Israeli dispute, will now have to shut up.

Also,  a  new topic for the headlines:  US vs IS.
It kinda scans.

I think the US will defend Jordan, Kurdistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.  It will also do something regarding Syria, but I don't think the US will be a reliable ally for the Assad family, who are buddies with Iran.  Iran benefits from the US intervention, and gives nothing in return, so I think a good US war leader would manage to screw Iran, even though it is an ally, because it is also an enemy.

But Obama has not been working on making himself a good war leader, and it's not the sort of thing that happens by accident.  As a result, Iran may manage to outsmart the US and the western non-proliferation movement.  This is not good for anybody.  For these reasons, and to oppose  the Finlandization of Iraq by Iran, I think the Iranian regime must be knocked down, and maybe knocked out completely.  This makes it all a multi-way war.  And if the US is getting involved in a multi-way war, a land war in Asia, then a Machiavelli is required, not the ghost of Woodrow Wilson.  Although I might settle for a Bismark.

Like Golda Meir said: "The Muslims are trying to destroy each other — I wish them both the greatest success".  So this is Obama's opportunity to get in there and start up an even bigger inter-Muslim civil war.   By the time they're all done with each other, there won't be a man standing.  Or so we hope.

The war in Syria has claimed the lives of 100 times as many as died in the recent war in Gaza; But apparently that's not enough to do the job.

Prediction:  Somebody will say this is the Biblical "War between Gog and Magog".  Somebody always does.

My own suspicion is that it was really Saudi Arabia that pushed the panic button.  The US and SA seem to have a secret mutual defense pact.  The US leap to stop Saddam Hussein and, later, to depose him, makes more sense if the Saudis had the right to call on US help for defense.

Of course, it could simply be corruption.  All the recent US Presidents have warm, cordial, friendly, cooperative, genial, benign, chummy, and supportive relationships with the Saudi Royal family.   BFFs, really.  No money changes hands, of course.  That would be unethical.

Presidents are sometimes known by the promises they break.  Here's a promise from Obama: "It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil".

Can You Read Latin?

A three-hundred year old book has been found with a census (of some kind) of old Palestine, the Holy Land.

You can read it (in Latin and Greek) on Google Books, or at Archive.org.

The author, Adriaan Reland, either went to the Middle East himself, or stayed home in the Netherlands, depending on where you read about him.

I can't find the translation, but another blogger says he stumbled onto the book in a bookstore, and it verifies the claim that there were extremely few Arabs in Palestine in 1695.

Also, not one place-name in Israel is linguistically Arabic, and there was no Palestinian people or nation.

I wish I could read Latin.

Here, read the blog yourself.

Update:  Apparently nobody has actually read the book.  I find that this makes me very skeptical.

85,000 Videos Released. Some of the Best. Must See.

British Pathé released 85,000 old newsreels to YouTube.  Bloggers and researchers have gone through the list as best they can and here are some about Israel/Palestine in the 20^th century on the ElderOfZiyon blog.  Truly great stuff.

If you go through the few selected videos, you'll notice the tiny size of the prayer area in front of the Western Wall (called "Wailing Wall" in the newsreel).  It's since been fixed.

Perhaps the most significant (so far) is this video, "Arabs Declare Holy War":

"Two states are being born", the narrator intones.  If only he knew.

At the opposite end of the importance scale, the filmmakers realize the only thing that shows up clearly on film are the various hats:

I watched a bunch of the films.  The silent films taught me something: You can't tell which side is which without either a narrator or clearly marked hats.  You can't even tell which war, which continent, or which year.  There is no way to tell aggressor from defender, winner from loser.  You can tell forest from desert.

For talking films, the strongest effect of the visual is to make the sound of the narrator authentic and believable.  You think you're seeing what is being said.  Sometimes you are, sometimes you aren't.

American Dr. Ralph Bunch, UN mediator, tells us "The war is over in Palestine", proving the effectiveness of the United Nations.  A lot of wisdom in 19 seconds:

A lot of wisdom, that is, if you can read between the lines.

50 Years Ago — A Scandal?

There was a sort of scandal 50 years ago in which Israel was accused of stealing uranium from the US.  If there was a final resolution, it is still classified.

This month, the US government is applying pressure to Israel on the Middle East Peace Process negotiations, and purely by coincidence, out pops an article in the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists rehashing that old controversy.

I have no idea myself, of course, of what happened to the uranium.  I doubt it would still be in condition to explode a bomb.  Uranium decays, that's part of the point.

If you have the uranium, or know where it is, please leave a comment, below.

Passover

Passover started in 2014 on Monday night, April 14^th.  And it ends Tuesday evening, April 22^nd, (Earth Day).

UPDATE:  In Israel it ends a day earlier, on the evening of Monday, April 21^st.

I've been making Matzo Brie.  It's a fried mixture of eggs, milk and crumbled matzo.  Discovery: It is possible to get it wrong.  Hint: Using a blender to crumble the matzo is not a good idea.  It needs a little texture.

The Seder was pretty multi-culti for an Orthodox Seder.  Dutch, Serbians, and Israelis. 

New York Times Confuses Israel and Iran.

They both start with the letter 'I', so I guess that's enough for the illiterates to get confused.  In a silly opinion piece, a joint effort by an Iranian and an Israeli writer quotes Israeli politician Moshe Yaalon when he said that Secretary Kerry was “obsessive and messianic”. Harsh words, to be sure.  But just compare that to Iran's "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!".  I can catch the nuance of difference.  Can you?  Why can't the New York Times?

More deeply, I think these public intellectuals knew they needed to say something so outrageous that even the New York Times would carry it.  So they did.

I for one am insulted at being likened to the Ayatollahs.  Wouldn't you?

Another small nuance:  The Ayatollahs Islam requires world conquest.  Judaism, even it's most radical form, does not.  Can you see the implications for US foreign policy?  For Israeli policy?  Is it too hard to see the difference?

Anonymous vs Israel

The hackers at Anonymous decided to hack into a bunch of Israeli websites, in support of terrorism as a general principle.  One problem with this news story is that I can't find any mention of it on the Anonymous Facebook page.  Other sites have the same story too, such as Russia Today.  Russia Today, the World's Foremost Authority.

The website of the attack seems to have been counter-hacked by Israel, and has stayed that way for several days.

On the other hand, this OpIsrael web site is up and running, and lists websites it says it has hacked.  I checked a few of their claimed victim sites and they were up and running fine.

Part of the Anonymous group is called AnonGhost, and they have an anti-Israel movie on YouTube.  It has good sound effects but doesn't say much.  Sad flute music.  Funny, they leave out the scenes where the Arabs launch rockets, and only include shots where Gaza people are running from artillery or rocket hits.

After the weapon strikes, the locals all run towards the site.  They must know that there isn't any likely follow-on strike.

This really isn't guerrilla war.  I call it slow war.

Peace Talks Circling the Drain — Flushed?

To the surprise of nobody, the Peace Process is lost at sea, somewhere near that Malaysian airliner.

There was a plot twist at the end, though.  Netanyahu the Likudnik was putting pressure on Mahmoud Abbas to extend the peace talks.  I don't know anybody who predicted this.  So maybe the Arabs do have the upper hand at this point.   We'll have to watch and see.

Abbas himself just turned 79 last week.  How many more years will he be running the PA?  And who's next?

The PA itself is apparently gone, though.  They've replaced it with a new Arab "State of Palestine".  The current agreements, are only between Israel and the PLO.  Abbas is also head of the PLO.  Will the PLO be dissolved too?

Abbas and the new fake Palestine will get all kinds of lovely paperwork from the UN, and they'll display it proudly and have high-level announcements, and meetings.  And then...   What?   A big strawberry from the Israelis.

The rubber hits the road when Abbas starts importing weapons 'Legally', probably into Gaza.  Israel will stop it.  Then what?  War?  More likely, Abbas will set up mutual defense treaties with a number of states that are already at war with Israel.  This could include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria (ha!), and probably Iraq.   I foresee longer speeches.

They're also threatening to tie up Israel in the ICC.  At worst they can prevent some Israeli leaders from travelling to some parts of the world where they don't want to go anyway.  Britain and the US aren't likely to go along.

Maybe somebody will disband the UNRWA and make the new Palestine take in all the descendents of the refugees.  A fine kettle of fish for Abbas then.  He'll probably retire the next day.

Maybe that's it!  Netanyahu could have been planning this from the beginning.  Once there is a state of "Palestine", there's no excuse for having all those refugees.  Heck, Lebanon could just get rid of their problem by demanding the people in the UN camps be repatriated.  Let's keep this idea our secret for a while, until after Abbas has joined those 15 UN organizations.

If the new Palestine announces its intent to liberate the rest of Israel for the Arabs, I think it would be a declaration of war.  That plus a few rockets coming from Gaza might be enough to start the real thing.  But even the Big War in Europe started with a phony war for nearly a year.

On the other hand, Israel could ask for a do-over.  Israeli diplomats have just ended a strike and Israel hasn't been playing with a full team.

This whole thing could spiral out of control.  Or just be intercontinental flatulence.