So, is Adelson’s money buying Newt’s support of Israel?

Not hardly. One of my readers did a little research and sent me a few helpful links. (Thanks!)

Look at this article from 1998 in the San Francisco Jewish Weekly, titled Resignation of Newt Gingrich means Israel is losing a friend. For those of you readers who can’t do difficult math, that article was written more than 13 years ago, which means Sheldon Adelson’s money played no part in Newt’s opinion on Israel. So far, the best the Forward can come up with is Adelson’s money contributed to Gingrich’s group in 2006. Whoops. That’s eight whole years after we read this:

A Jewish Democratic politico said of Gingrich’s pro-Israel credentials, “I don’t think Newt is acting. I’d like to say he’s full of it, but he isn’t. Yes, he was trying to out right-wing the right-wing Jews, but he’s a true believer. Livingston may say what AIPAC wants to hear, but it’s not in his kishkes. He’s not a true believer.”

Really? A Democrat called Gingrich a right-wing Israel supporter in 1998?

But wait. There’s more! In 1998, Gingrich also called Jerusalem “the united and eternal capital of Israel”

Oh, pshaw. There must be some way Adelson’s money influenced Gingrich’s opinion. Maybe he’s so rich, he has a secret time machine and he went back in time to convince Newt to support Israel?

Or maybe Newt’s been a supporter of Israel for decades. (Also, Newt is pretty damned close to getting the Yourish.com cherished Master of Juvenile Scorn™ designation.)

Speaker Newt Gingrich said today that the White House was trying to blackmail Israel by pushing it toward the negotiating table, but President Clinton said he was only trying to bring about fruitful talks on Mideast peace.

”It’s become the Clinton Administration and Arafat against Israel,” Mr. Gingrich said at a news conference. ”The Clinton Administration says: ‘Happy birthday. Let us blackmail you on behalf of Arafat.’ ”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Forward itself discussed Gingrich’s ties to Israel in the 1990s (buried, of course, in page two of an article using the Gloom-and-Doom Machine profiling his ties to Adelson). On the first page, they date the Adelson-Gingrich relationship back to 2007. This, kiddies, is how you get away with saying that your article is objective because it mentioned the recent and more distant relationships. It is also what is known as “slanting.” But the most important takeaway here is just what I wrote the other day: The only reason the liberal media is jumping all over the Gingrich-Adelson relationship is because Adelson is a Jew who is supporting a conservative Republican, rather than the liberal media-slash-Jewish establishment’s approved causes–which would be liberal Democrats.

Haim Saban influencing Bill Clinton? Not a problem. Sheldon Adelson is contributing to Newt Gingrich’s campaign? OMG, he’s a conservative, somebody stop him!1!!

Your objective media, exposed.

Cross-posted.

Rebel forces and armed civilians are rounding up thousands of black Libyans and migrants from sub-Sahara Africa, acccusing them of fighting for ousted strongman Moammar Gadhafi and holding them in makeshift jails across the capital.

Virtually all of the detainees say they are innocent migrant workers, and in most cases there is no evidence that they are lying. But that is not stopping the rebels from placing the men in facilities like the Gate of the Sea sports club, where about 200 detainees – all black – clustered on a soccer field this week, bunching against a high wall to avoid the scorching sun.

Charming. I await the outraged statements from the EU, the UN, and various human rights organizations. Any minute now.

The rebels’ National Transitional Council has called on fighters not to abuse prisoners and says those accused of crimes will receive fair trials.There have been little credible evidence of rebels killing or systematically abusing captives during the six-month conflict. Still, the African Union and Amnesty International have protested the treatment of blacks inside Libya, saying there is a potential for serious abuse.

Aladdin Mabrouk, a spokesman for Tripoli’s military council, said no one knows how many people have been detained in the city, but he guessed more than 5,000. While no central registry exists, he said neighborhood councils he knows have between 200 and 300 prisoners each. The city of 1.8 million has dozens of such groups.

Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi told reporters this week that he’d visited several detention centers and found conditions “up to international standards.”

“We are building a Libya of tolerance and freedom, not of revenge,” he said.

Sure. Tolerance. Freedom. Not revenge. Because a tolerant, freedom-loving nation totally rounds up people just because of their skin color and puts them into detention camps. For no reason other than their skin color. Look how tolerant the Arab Libyans are to their darker-skinned Muslim brethren:

In the Khallat al-Firjan neighborhood in south Tripoli, Associated Press reporters saw rebel forces punching a dozen black men before determining they were innocent migrant workers and releasing them.

The Gate of the Sea club near Tripoli’s fishing port became a lockup Monday night, when residents rounded up people in the surrounding area.

Guards at the club said they looked for unfamiliar faces, then asked for IDs. Those without papers or whose legal residences were distant cities were marched to the club.

This week, an armed guard stood by a short hallway that led through two metal gates onto a soccer field surrounded by high walls. There was no roof, so the detainees clustered against the wall to get out of the heat.

Totally up to international standards, holding detainees without charge and making them stand in a soccer field in the desert sun. And look at how perfectly logical the charges are:

In an office nearby where sports trophies still lined the shelves, Ibrahim al-Rais, a 60-year-old fisherman, acted as prison director. A bag held wallets and IDs taken from the captives. Another was stuffed with cell phones, which occasionally rang.

He acknowledged that many of the detainees were likely innocent migrant workers stranded in the country but he insisted that a “big percentage” were mercenaries.

“These people were fighting against our people,” he said.

Substitute Palestinians and Israelis for black Africans and Libyans, and imagine the world’s outrage. Israeli Double Standard Time is in effect. But don’t worry! It only occurs on days that end with a “y.”

Cross-posted.

It’s a very important poll, you see. Of course the AP should cover it. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

But there’s another very important poll that no new organization outside of Israel is covering. It’s the one that says 6 out of every 10 Palestinians reject the two-state solution, sharing Jerusalem, or indeed, the existence of a Jewish state. Note the wording that was rejected: It could not be any clearer.

Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”

Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected it.

What about the idea of phased destruction that Yasser Arafat said all along was the goal of the Palestinian Authority? Well, the Palestinians are still on board with that.

Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.

It isn’t Israeli hearts and minds that need changing. It is the Palestinians. And settlements don’t seem to be the real obstacle to peace. Look at these findings:

Asked about the fate of Jerusalem, 92% said it should be the capital of Palestine, 1% said the capital of Israel, 3% the capital of both, and 4% a neutral international city.

Seventy-two percent backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage, and 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.

These findings were utterly ignored by the mainstream media. Time Magazine’s Karl Vick, who authors most of their anti-Israel fare, could find only good things to say about the poll, with a few exceptions:

Palestinians are trudging down the same long road as Israelis. Yes, they want peace. No, they don’t think the other side will play ball. So for now their priority is private life: Getting food on the table and keeping the kids safe. That, at least, is the picture painted by a new survey of 1,010 Palestinians interviewed face to face in both the West Bank and Gaza over the last two weeks. It was conducted by a Palestinian firm working for Stan Greenberg, famed as Bill Clinton’s pollster but who did this work for The Israel Project, a well-funded private U.S. group that promotes the positions of Israel’s government.

Note how he dismisses the pollster’s work because of the group that hired him to do it. Note also that he utterly dismisses the work of The Israel Project by claiming it is a shill for the Israeli government. I’m going to guess he never describes a single pro-Palestinian group as one that “promotes the positions of the Palestinian Authority.”

No wonder his blog is called “Global Spin”. Witness:

But by the same 2 to 1 margin they also oppose the two-state solution that’s been the stated goal of negotiations. Most prefer ending up with a single state, in which Palestinians presumably would outnumber Jewish Israelis. The poll numbers shift some (to 44 percent positive) when the question becomes whether they “will accept a two-state solution.” Greenberg says the difference is simply a matter of asking what people want versus what they can live with. “I polled in Great Britain a lot during the negotiations on Northern Ireland,” he says. “What people say they want and what people will ultimately agree to are two different things.”

Yes, it’s “presumable” that a single-state solution would make Jews the minority in their own homeland. The question of how they become a minority is not raised. Violence? Pshaw. All they really want is to make money. Funny how that’s now a desirable goal. This, remember, is the same Karl Vick that wrote about how Israelis aren’t interested in peace, only in making money. It’s amazing how he can spin the data and discredit the pollster, who is used frequently by Democratic organizations (and who is praised to the hilt when not working for The Israel Project).

Reuters and the AP didn’t bother writing up the results of this poll. The AFP whitewashed it, completely ignoring the information above. It would change the current media narrative that it is Israel obstructing the peace process. Publishing news about this poll would force the mainstream media to acknowledge that after 63 years, the Palestinian Arabs still want the end of the Jewish state. They still deny that Jews have a 3,000-year history in Israel. And they believe that Jerusalem must not be shared.

If it were Israelis polled who said that they wanted a Greater Israel from the river to the sea, no Palestinian state, and no peace with the Palestinians, this poll would be approaching 5,000 news items on Google News. I could find only three more: Vick’s drek, a Turkish news source, and a New York Post blog item.

Once again, we see the very active anti-Israel media bias in action. The media never defy the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of The Palestinians.” Note the whitewash and spin in the quotes above. This is why Israel’s reputation in the world is so awful.

This is why I write my blog, and why I’m coming off my retro-blogging hiatus for this one post. This is the news that the anti-Israel media does not want you to know.

Spread the word.

Cross-posted.

The media put forward all charges of Israel committing war crimes. Take the Mavi Marmara incident. How many articles did you read about whether or not Israel committed war crimes against the passengers (those beacons of peaceful protest that only recently repeated their commitment to destroying Israel)?

Take a look at what Britain’s foreign minister had to say about the deliberate targeting of a school bus.

Earlier, British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the anti-tank missile attack on a childrens’ school bus in the Negev, calling it a “despicable” and “cowardly” act.

“I unreservedly condemn today’s attack from Gaza on a bus carrying school children in southern Israel. The initial reports we have received suggest the bus was deliberately targeted and that a 16-year-old boy has been critically injured,” Hague said.

“This is a despicable and cowardly act that stands in stark contrast to people’s desire for peaceful reform across the region. Violence will never deliver peace,” Hague continued.

Only a week ago, Hague’s office released a report on the world’s 26 worst human rights violators. Israel was in the report, along with 25 actual human rights abusers. If, as Hague says above, he has reports that Hamas deliberately targeted the school bus (which it did), then this is not a “despicable and cowardly act.” It is a human rights violation. It is a war crime. And yet, Hague doesn’t use that language to describe it. Why is that? Why is it that his office can slander Israel as a violator of Palestinian human rights, but it can’t call a war crime a war crime? The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime. Hamas deliberately targeted a school bus full of children (it hoped).

Don’t hold your breath waiting to hear Hague condemn Hamas war crimes. He’s too busy accusing Israel of them. As for the EU, well, there isn’t even a mention of Hamas in Catherine Ashton’s rote condemnation of “violence.” It’s as if the rockets launched themselves. And mention of a school bus? Surely you jest.

“I strongly condemn yesterday’s mortar and rocket attacks out of the Gaza strip, which once again hit the innocent civilian population and which must stop immediately,” she said.

“I am deeply concerned by the current escalation of violence,” the 27-nation EU’s foreign policy chief said in a statement.

“I also deplore the loss of civilian life in Gaza and call on Israel to show restraint.

No, the label of war crimes is never attached to actual war crimes perpetrated by Palestinians against Israelis. That label is reserved for Israel only, especially when Israel is doing no such thing.

We must once again call on a refrain we got too tired to use recently. What time is it? That’s right, it’s Israeli Double Standard Time. But don’t worry. It only occurs on days that end with a “y.”

Cross-posted.

In this one, “get the bastards” is obviously a prelude for inviting the other side to sit down and have a meaningful dialogue about politics, without any eliminationist rhetoric.

In this example of left-wing civility, a sign proclaiming “The good in this country will prevail” libels half the voters in the nation—but don’t worry, it’s only the half that voted for Bush. (The evil half. Obviously.)

And here, a young woman cleverly assigns to all people who voted for Kerry a hatred for George W. Bush. Because obviously, if you voted for the guy running against someone, you simply must hate his opponent.

This is the civility of the left that pundits like Paul Krugman wish us to achieve. This is the left, the side that never uses hateful language or violent rhetoric. No, only right-wingers use hateful language and brutal imagery when describing the politics of the other side.

Oh. Wait.

These images took me all of five minutes to find. And according to the FAQ, none of the images above violate the rules governing which pictures will be included on the site:

We will reject your picture if it is too hateful or hostile. We are about courtesy and communication, not insults and recrimination. You may hate Bush or think his supporters are idiots; we prefer not to give voice to such sentiments.

Really?

So I guess “hate” isn’t really “hate-hate.”

Big Brother would be proud.

Cross-posted.

To compete with UPS, FedEx in Yemen changes motto to: “When it absolutely, positively has to kill Jews overnight.”

The stupider members of the anti-Israel left pointed to al Qaeda’s naming of Israel’s “occupation” as one of the reasons they attacked us on 9/11. The fact that they mentioned Israel after the attack never seems to matter, but I’d like to see them spin this attack on Jewish synagogues in Chicago as the result of building in suburbs of Jerusalem. (Some will, I know, but again, they are the stupider members of the anti-Israel left.)

These were real bombs. There was a SIM card and electrical circuit in at least one of them. The bombs were made out of PETN, the explosive of choice for underwear and shoe bombers. They were heading towards Jews—on a Friday.

Ms. Harman, who was briefed by John S. Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, also said that both packages contained computer printer cartridges filled with the explosive, with one using a cellphone as a detonator and the other a timer.

[...] Counterterrorism officials declined to identify the synagogues to which the suspicious packages found in Dubai and Britain were addressed; they did say they did not include KAM Isaiah Israel, which is across the street from Mr. Obama’s Hyde Park home.

So it wasn’t a plot to kill Obama. It was a plot to kill Jews. Did they think they’d strike on a Friday, when synagogues are filled with Jews? Was their plan to have the packages in the offices on a Saturday, also a high-attendance worship day? Or did they just pick a day, any day, and any Jew would do?

We’re not just the canaries in the coal mine. The very existence of Jews is an affront to Islamic terrorists and extremists. The existence of the State of Israel stands in stark contradiction to their promise that Muslims will reign supreme over the rest of the world, and Israel’s victories in every war since 1948 stick in the craw of the Muslim supremacists. (Let’s call a spade a spade—that’s what al Qaeda are, Muslim supremacists.)

Yeah, sucks to be them.

I suspect Chicago Jews will worship this morning a little more nervously than the rest of us. And the Jewish populations in big cities all over America will be a little more careful from now on. They’ve targeted us specifically. Not Zionists. Not Israelis. American Jews.

I live in a little podunk town near a small city with a small Jewish population. Odds are very high that al Qaeda doesn’t even know the name of my city. So no, I’m not scared.

I’m just angry.

Time to reflect on six years of teaching little Jews to become big Jews, which is my best weapon against the Jew-haters. I’m throwing a party in a few weeks and will be seeing many of my former students. Al Qaeda’s legacy is hate and fear. Mine is knowledge and pride in being Jewish.

I think I win.

The resemblance doesn’t mean that Beck wants to take us back to the days of segregation. It means the opposite. Crying “socialism” is what conservatives do before they yield to change. It’s a stage in the process of defeat. But the process doesn’t end with defeat. It ends with absorption. It ends with the political descendants of George Wallace embracing the legacy of Martin Luther King. Beck today is just catching up to where King was 50 years ago. That’s because King was in the front of the civil rights bus, and Beck is in the back. And it’s a really slow bus.

It’s amazing how the left refuses to acknowledge the bigots in its own history. The above shows how Saletan is trying to pawn off Wallace’s inheritance on conservatives and Republicans.

Say, Bill? Wallace was a Democrat. His political descendants voted for Obama. They’re not Republicans. In fact, Republicans were instrumental in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed over Democratic obstruction.

The most fervent opposition to the bill came from Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC): “This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress.”[7]

After 54 days of filibuster, Senators Everett Dirksen (R-IL), Thomas Kuchel (R-CA), Hubert Humphrey (D-MN), and Mike Mansfield (D-MT) introduced a substitute bill that they hoped would attract enough Republican swing votes to end the filibuster. The compromise bill was weaker than the House version in regard to government power to regulate the conduct of private business, but it was not so weak as to cause the House to reconsider the legislation.[8]

On the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) completed a filibustering address that he had begun 14 hours and 13 minutes earlier opposing the legislation. Until then, the measure had occupied the Senate for 57 working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the bill’s manager, concluded he had the 67 votes required at that time to end the debate and end the filibuster. With six wavering senators providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71 to 29. Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the 37 years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.[9]

If you want a really unbelievable look at who the party of racists was, check out the stats of who voted for and against the bill. Republicans were generally 80/20 in favor. It was a Republican who used parliamentary procedure to get the bill away from the Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee so that it could be voted on.

But God forbid Saletan go against the narrative that conservatives and Republicans were the real obstacles to civil rights in this country. Because everyone knows it’s they who are the real bigots. Well, everyone in the liberal media, anyway.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

“There is no crisis in Israel-US relations because in a crisis there are ups and downs,” Oren told a a closed briefing to senior officials in the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s North America Branch and research division, Yedioth Ahronoth’s Itamar Eichner reports.

If this is true, twenty years of listening to Reverend Wright absolutely made their mark.

Oren noted that contrary to Obama’s predecessors – George W. Bush and Bill Clinton – the current president is not motivated by historical-ideological sentiments toward Israel but by cold interests and considerations. He added that his access as Israel’s ambassador to senior administration officials and close advisers of the president is good. But Obama has very tight control over his immediate environment, and it is hard to influence him.

“This is a one-man show,” Oren is quoted as saying.

Even worse:

Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Toronto Saturday.

“The two leaders had a wide-ranging and candid discussion between allies that addressed Iran’s nuclear program, Middle East peace, the flotilla incident, Afghanistan, the PKK and terrorism,” according to the White House readout of the conversation.

Why do I get the feeling that the meeting wasn’t a lot of Obama telling Erdogan to stop the anti-Israel incitement and own up to the fact that his people instigated the attack? By the way, could Israel-Turkish relations get any worse? Yes, yes they could.

Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for the most anti-Israel president in decades. Will American Jewish leaders wake up and realize that Obama is not their friend?

Cross-posted at Yourish.com.

The tea-party movement takes its name from the mob of angry people in Boston who, in 1773, committed a zany criminal stunt as a protest against taxes and the distant, out-of-touch government that imposed them. Two years later, the revolution was under way and—voilà!—democracy was born out of a wild moment of populist insurrection.

Except not, because in 1787 several dozen coolheaded members of the American Establishment had to meet and debate and horse-trade for four months to do the real work of creating an apparatus to make self-government practicable—that is, to write the Constitution. And what those thoughtful, educated, well-off, well-regarded gentlemen did was invent a democracy sufficiently undemocratic to function and endure. They wanted a government run by an American elite like themselves, as James Madison wrote, “whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.” They wanted to make sure the mass of ordinary citizens, too easily “stimulated by some irregular passion … or misled by the artful misrepresentations” and thus prone to hysteria—like, say, the rabble who’d run amok in Boston Harbor—be kept in check. That’s why they created a Senate and a Supreme Court and didn’t allow voters to elect senators or presidents directly. By the people and for the people, definitely; of the people, not so much.

So much for progressivist thinking, which used to be all for the little guy versus the elite. What about that “speaking truth to power” thing? Apparently, that only works when there is a Republican in power. When a Democrat is in power, it’s all about how the American public is just too stupid and angry to understand what’s good for them.

As for that “rabble who’d run amok in Boston Harbor”—not so much. Even Wikipedia acknowledges it was not an angry mob. Angry mobs don’t stop to disguise themselves as Indians.

While Samuel Adams tried to reassert control of the meeting, people poured out of the Old South Meeting House and headed to Boston Harbor. That evening, a group of 30 to 130 men, some of them thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the three vessels and, over the course of three hours, dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water.[58] The precise location of the Griffin’s Wharf site of the Tea Party has been subject to prolonged uncertainty; a comprehensive study[59] places it near the foot of Hutchinson Street (today’s Pearl Street).

But here’s a better source. It’s an eyewitness account from a Boston newspaper:

Previous to the dissolution, a number of Persons, supposed to be the Aboriginal Natives from their complection, approaching near the door of the assembly, gave the War Whoop, which was answered by a few in the galleries of the house where the assembly was convened; silence was commanded, and prudent and peaceable deportment again enjoined. The Savages repaired to the ships which entertained the pestilential Teas, and had began their ravage previous to the dissolution of the meeting–they apply themselves to the destruction of the commodity in earnest, and in the space of about two hours broke up 342 chests and discharged their contents into the sea.

A watch, as I am informed, was stationed to prevent embezzlement and not a single ounce of Teas was suffered to be purloined by the populace. One or two persons being detected in endeavouring to pocket a small quantity were stripped of their acquisitions and very roughly handled. It is worthy remark that, although a considerable quantity of goods of different kinds were still remaining on board the vessels, no injury was sustained; such attention to private property was observed that a small padlock belonging to the Captain of one of the ships being broke another was procured and sent to

There is also this partial list of the Boston Tea Party “angry mob”. Paul Revere was a member of that “mob.” You may remember him as one of the men who warned of the pending British movement. The phrase “One if by land, two if by sea” is probably how you were taught the story. Funny how the names of the “angry mob” have come down through the centuries to be enshrined in American historical societies, and yet, no one else is calling them an angry mob.

Finally, this statement by Anderson is incomplete:

Two years later, the revolution was under way and—voilà!—democracy was born out of a wild moment of populist insurrection.

Except not, because in 1787 several dozen coolheaded members of the American Establishment had to meet and debate and horse-trade for four months to do the real work of creating an apparatus to make self-government practicable—that is, to write the Constitution.

Democracy was not born out of the Constitutional Convention alone. It was also born out of the arms, the blood, and the sacrifice of the patriots who fought in the Revolutionay War, most of them—the overwhelming majority, one would have to say—not “coolheaded members of the American Establishment.” But it’s always that way: Wars are not fought by the elite. That’s numerically impossible. They’re fought by the “angry mobs.” Except they’re not so angry, and they’re not mobs.

The Constitution that the Founders created starts with the words “We the People”—not “We the elite.” People like Anderson seem to have a real problem with that.

I don’t.

Cross-posted.

AP’s mission is to be the essential global news network, providing distinctive news services of the highest quality, reliability and objectivity with reports that are accurate, balanced and informed.

And yet, in today’s news analysis about the Democrats bad week, Charles Babington wrote, and his editor let stand, this insult to the Tea Party movement that has swept America:

Also, it’s not clear that Republicans can tame and harness the volatile “tea bagger” activists. The fiercely independent conservatives helped Brown win in Massachusetts, but they triggered a damaging right-wing split in a special House race in New York last year.

The fact that they put the epithet in quotes indicates that they know full well that “teabagger” is a vulgar term. I never knew it existed before the so-called objective media types (we mean you, Anderson Cooper) were calling Tea Party activists “teabaggers.” It is a deliberate insult. It is not the way an objective news organization should describe the millions of Americans from all walks of life who attended rallies and town halls to protest the expansion of government by this administration and congress.

The AP owes the Tea Party movement a retraction and an apology. And I really think that the people who don’t like the Tea Partiers (see, that wasn’t too hard to call them, was it?) should stop mainstreaming “teabagger.” It’s childish and reflects more poorly on those that use the word rather than on those they are insulting.

Act like an objective news organization, AP. Don’t mainstream “teabagger.”

Cross-posted.

David Brooks‘ column of two weeks ago stated this elitism so clearly that we simply couldn’t miss the tone of contempt from the elite to the rest of us. In his view, apparently, Americans who disagree with his “educated class” are petulant teenagers. The fact that they may have legitimate reasons for disagreement? Pshaw. They aren’t smart enough for that.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

The reaction to Brown’s win? More elitism. Here’s what Patrick Kennedy, Teddy’s son, had to say:

“It’s like in Roman times, they’d be trotted out to the coliseum and the lions would be brought out,” Kennedy said Tuesday night. “I mean, they’re wanting blood and they’re not getting it so they want to protest. And, you know, you can’t blame them. But frankly, the fact is we inherited this mess, and it’s becoming ours.”

Get it? Americans don’t want to vote for the politicians they feel respond to their needs. They’re just voting against Coakley because they want heads to roll. It’s a reaction, not an action. The fact that voters might be voting for candidates who are giving them what they want doesn’t seem to have entered this entitled, second-generation, wealthy politician’s mind. Apparently, the only Americans who vote with their heads are the elites. The rest of us? Well, bread and circuses, dontchaknow.

Kennedy typifies the Obama crowd: Elitism and a blame-Bush mentality, all rolled into one. And they don’t understand average Americans. Here’s more from Brooks, making you think he may be starting to think twice about the, ah, “uneducated” class:

Go out and say that maybe it’s not a great idea to pass the most complicated and largest piece of domestic legislation in a generation when the American people don’t like it. Show doubt. Don’t show arrogance. If President Obama comes out swinging, it will be his Katrina moment, the moment when the elitist tag will be permanently hung around his neck.

But then he slips right back into elitist mode:

Sometimes you can get away with running directly against public opinion, but it is a very risky maneuver.

Show humility, Democrats, there is some chance that American voters may not be complete idiots.

He’s joking, you say. He’s being sarcastic. Really? I wouldn’t be so sure. Read the part again about why the Tea Party movement is against government health care legislation. We are petulant children. We are against things because they are for them. It’s our lack of “education,” I presume. Or at least, Brooks’ kind of education, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t count my state college (Montclair State, NJ) education.

And there are still more examples. Here’s Terry McAuliffe on why Massachusetts didn’t seat Martha Coakley:

“We have to keep our focus on job creation. Everything we have to do is related to job creation. We have to do a much better job on the message. People are confused on what this health care bill is going to do.”

Translation: Americans are too stupid to understand the health care bill. And it’s what the Obama administration’s message will be. Let’s hear from David Axelrod:

“We are the party in power, and as such there’s an element of responsibility assigned,” he said. “I think people need to know that their challenges and their concerns are the focus of our work every day.”

It’s not the message. It’s the fact that they haven’t done a good enough job selling the message. That’s what you’ll be hearing for some time, apparently.

Finally, along comes Anthony Weiner, Democratic Representative from New York, who does understand the message of Massachusetts:

“When you have large numbers of citizens in the United States of America who believe this is going in the wrong direction, there’s a limit to which you can keep saying, ‘Okay, they just don’t get it. If we just pass a bill, they’ll get it.’ No, no. I think that maybe we should internalize that we’re not doing things entirely correctly.”

Representative Weiner gets it. Whether or not his fellow politicians do remains to be seen.

As for Congress and the Obama administration: Will they stop belittling the voters that sent them to Washington?

Of course, they can continue mocking politicians who drive a pickup truck. Americans will keep voting for the truck drivers, and the political elite will finally understand the message that we are sending them. The chant that went up in town hall meetings all over the nation last summer didn’t register with most of our politicians then. But I’m pretty sure Congress is hearing it now. Remember it, politicos, because you work for us.

Crossposted on Yourish.com.

Only nine years ago, I voted for Al Gore and the straight Democratic ticket in New Jersey—line A all the way, as the slogan went. (Funny how even though the position of Line A was a coin flip, the Dems had Line A almost every single year I voted in NJ.)

The question is, who changed: Me, or them?

Well, I’ve changed. I have become more centrist, and less willing to part with my hard-earned dollars because a politician says he can spend my money better than I. I’m definitely tired of state-run charity programs for the perpetually unemployed. Or the state wanting to run my healthcare. (Or, for that matter, auto companies and banks.)

But there were two major turning points in my march towards the center. The first came on September 11, 2001. The second came in the bloody Israeli spring of 2002. That was when I realized that the left-leaning crowd that I ran with didn’t think that Israel had the right to use military means against the Palestinians to stop the terrorists. That was when I realized that the left-leaning crowd that I ran with were justifying Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis by using the excuse that the Palestinians were oppressed. That was when I realized that the left-leaning crowd I ran with was full of anti-Semites who call themselves anti-Zionists.

They didn’t really change, though. Their thoughts on Israel were always there, just never in evidence, as it wasn’t an issue until Yasser Arafat waged his terror war after turning down the Clinton peace proposals. That was Israel’s fault too, of course. Just like many people thought that we brought 9/11 down on ourselves. I couldn’t stand that line of thought.

So I started frequenting the right-leaning blogs, because at least there, I found people who were willing to call a terrorist a terrorist, and who don’t think that Israel is to blame for all the world’s ills.

I was embraced by the right, even though I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m still pretty much a social liberal, and even though I am an avowed feminist. But I have more in common with Michelle Malkin these days than I do with Al Gore, and I do not agree with everything Michelle says. I don’t think she has a problem with my disagreement. The crew at Michelle’s and Hot Air have been linking my posts for years, and have given me access to The Green Room. My liberal blogger friends are mostly gone, still horrified that I’m a Zionist and that I voted for George W. Bush in 2004. And especially that I haven’t come back to the fold, and returned to voting Line A all the way.

Yeah, not gonna happen. I don’t want my taxes raised. I don’t want socialized healthcare. I don’t want more regulations. And I don’t want this nation turning into a nanny state. The status of the U.K., with its 24-hour surveillance cameras and lack of individual rights, horrifies me. You are not even allowed to defend yourself against an intruder in your home in Great Britain. A year and a half ago, watching the neighborhood I lived in go to seed, I bought a handgun for protection. I couldn’t do that I’d have to get a permit for it in New Jersey, but Virginia is a much more sensible state.

I’ve gone against my New Jersey upbringing on about gun control, too. And I’ve moved toward the center on so many issues that I no longer consider myself a liberal. So let’s just say it’s Line B for me, unless the Dems have a revolution and move towards the center and give me reason to vote for them again.

I won’t be holding my breath.

Cross-posted.

But if there’s anything scaring me these days, it’s the blatant use of celebrity opinions with regard to [the correct version, FYI] health care reform. I am appalled at the obviously widespread school of thought among the glitterati that those of us who don’t appear in cheesy horror flicks and bad 1980s TV series care one whit about what actors actually think.

Like Robert Englund, who slams those of us opposed to socialized health care as fearmongerers and liars:

If we’re going to achieve effective health care in this country, we need an honest public discussion based on facts: how do we pay for reform, how will it work, who will be covered?

These are important issues than cannot be solved while lobbyists, pundits and “tea-baggers” are muddying the waters by marketing fear. The only people who should be scared by health care reform are those who make a profit off of other people’s suffering and illness.

And, of course, he has to slam the Tea Party movement, the only truly grassroots political movement in America today, with the sexual insult made popular by a man who has probably done a whole lot of teabagging on his own. But to get back to the parody:

Other things that frighten me:

I’m scared by the enormous amount of chutzpah put out by the Hollywood community—like, the ones who popularized bottled water now freaking out at the number of plastic bottles of water consumed by their fellow Americans.

I’m scared by the celebrity slamming of Soccer Moms and SUVs, even as these people use their private jets, are brought to the studio by limousine (no doubt consuming their top of the line bottled water during the ride there and back), who slam the American working and middle class and then pretend that their own children ever walked to school from their L.A. mansions. (As for the mocking of the Blackberry and GPS—from a Hollywood actor/director/producer? Is he kidding us?)

I’m scared by the ease with which the Hollywood elites embrace the nanny state, and then wonder why children have lost their sense of adventure. It’s because the nanny statists have put so many regulations on what people can do, the outdoors is practically forbidden to the rough-and-tumble kids of yesteryear. You think kids are growing up on the internet? No. They’re growing up with the internet, which is an entirely different concept. But how would Freddy Krueger know anything about kids outside of his own sphere, which is the rarefied air of the Hollywood elite? Real world kids? They’re a whole ‘nother species.

Finally, one thing that’s not scaring me is the way children are managing to be raised quite well without ever knowing there was a scary guy in a mask named Freddy Kreuger, and an actor who conflates his popularity as an Freddy with the conceit that people care what he thinks about things that are not movies.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com.

Consider Fox’s Web story on the episode. It quotes five people. Two of them work for Fox. All of them assert that administration officials are either wrong in substance or politically foolish to criticize the network. No one is cited supporting Dunn’s criticisms or saying that it could make sense for Obama to challenge the network’s power. It’s a textbook example of a biased journalism.

Meanwhile, ABC presented what was essentially an infomercial on Obamacare earlier this year. A CNN reporter went off on the people she was supposed to be objectively interviewing, and ultimately lost her job—probably because she’s not supposed to be so overt in her liberal bias. But that’s objective journalism. (Say, did ABC present the other side of the healthcare debate in its informercial? I’m thinking not.)

That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox’s model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn’t just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.

That’s amazing… Fox is not only responsible for tilting itself right, but it is also responsible for the leftward tilt of the other cable news networks. But that’s not the biggest load of bull in the piece. This is:

What’s most distinctive about the American press is not its freedom but its century-old tradition of independence—that it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups. Media independence is a 20th-century innovation that has never fully taken root in many other countries that do have a free press. The Australian-British-continental model of politicized media that Murdoch has applied at Fox is un-American, so much so that he has little choice but go on denying what he’s doing as he does it. For Murdoch, Ailes, and company, “fair and balanced” is a necessary lie. To admit that their coverage is slanted by design would violate the American understanding of the media’s role in democracy and our idea of what constitutes fair play. But it’s a demonstrable deceit that no longer deserves equal time.

I have three words in response: William Randolph Hearst.

Hearst’s reputation triumphed in the 1930s as his political views changed. In 1932, he was a major supporter of Roosevelt. His newspapers energetically supported the New Deal throughout 1933 and 1934. Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the President vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill. Hearst papers carried the old publisher’s rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editorialists and columnists who might have made a serious attack. His newspaper audience was the same working class that Roosevelt swept by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. In 1934 after checking with Jewish leaders to make sure the visit would prove of benefit to Jews, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press. “Because Americans believe in democracy,” Hearst answered bluntly, “and are averse to dictatorship.”[6]

A century-old tradition of independence? The deuce you say! (That’s a line from the 1930s. Or thereabouts.)

Weisberg is absolutely entitled to his own opinion. But he is not entitled to his own facts, and he is making those facts up out of whole cloth. There was no objective press in the 1930s, and the myth of the unbiased media is a new one, from less than fifty years ago, and I think it was spread by the media people themselves. The phrase “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America” was uttered by Lyndon Johnson after an editorial by the CBS anchor about Vietnam in 1968. Somehow, that doesn’t strike me as a century of unbiased media. The media was anti-Vietnam, anti-Richard Nixon (well, so was I, but that’s beside the point), pro-Democrat, anti-Republican, and absolutely not objective. It has had the illusion of objectivity for decades, and that illusion is courtesy of its own teachings in journalism schools, where, somehow, the professors manage to insist that the mainstream media outlets are all paragons of objectivity and unbiased reporting. The fact that everything skews liberal and Democrat is pooh-poohed as the ravings of the “vast, right-wing conspiracy”—the one that caused the Clinton impeachment.

And of course, Weisberg’s answer to the Fox News so-called bias? For “respectable” reporters to stop appearing on Fox at all.

By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations.

Apparently, editing Slate and creating the “Bushism of the Day” column—which ran even after George W. Bush was no longer in office—is considered legitimate news. But having opinion shows that run counter to the mainstream media’s wishes? Well. That’s just plain un-American.

Really, Newsweek is just embarrassing itself by running tripe like this.

Cross-posted.

A 13-year-old girl cannot consent to having sex with a 44-year-old man. In fact, a 13-year-old girl is not old enough to consent to having sex with a 30-year-old, a 20-year-old, a 14-year-old, or even another 13-year-old. It doesn’t matter that Polanski plied the girl with alcohol and drugs. It doesn’t matter that he claims he didn’t know how old she was.

It’s the fact that a 13-year-old child cannot consent to having sex, for the obvious reason that the child is thirteen years old.

It’s reprehensible that Whoopi Goldberg said “not necessarily” to the question “Would I want my 14-year-old daughter having sex with somebody?” The answer should be a plain, simple: No. Absolutely not.

When Anne Applebaum says that the child asked permission to be photographed in the jacuzzi, she implies that that was asking permission for whatever happened next. What happened next was rape. It frankly wouldn’t matter if the child’s mother had been right there and given explicit permission for Polanski to have sex with her daughter—the fact that the child cannot consent still applies.

There is no defense of this case whatsoever. There is no, “Yes, he did a bad thing, BUT” leading into a long-winded treatise on how the poor man has suffered all these years by not being able to come back to America, and is forced to live a life of luxury in Europe.

My heart bleeds.

It’s the consent. A thirteen-year-old child cannot consent to sex. Period.

Cross-posted here.

Once again, he used the argument that there is some kind of moral equivalency between Israeli settlements and Palestinian incitement. If you dig just a little, you find that “incitement” includes the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to have a single map of Israel in its textbooks, its constant Jew-hatred in its official media, statements, and even sermons, its referrals to “Palestine from the river to the sea” (that would be where Israel is currently), and the utter refusal by the Obama administration to note that the PA reinforced its anti-Israel charter and also added more anti-Israel conspiracy theories, such as the one that Israel poisoned Yasser Arafat.

We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.)

But why do they only call on Palestinians to “end incitement”? Because, as the narrative goes, oppressed people cannot be held responsible for the terror attacks that continue every single day, by Palestinians in the West Bank, not Hamas—and so, Obama does not call for attacks on Israelis to end. Because they don’t exist.

Note the language of the next section. It could have been written by Obama’s friend and supporter, Rashid Khalidi:

The time has come — the time has come to re-launch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees, and Jerusalem. And the goal is clear: Two states living side by side in peace and security — a Jewish state of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people. (Applause.)

And here’s the most anti-Israel statement ever uttered by a sitting president:

Now, I am not naïve. I know this will be difficult. But all of us — not just the Israelis and the Palestinians, but all of us — must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we will only lend it lip service. To break the old patterns, to break the cycle of insecurity and despair, all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private. The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. (Applause.)

That’s a hat tip to the Stephen Walt School of OHMIGOD, Israel Lobbyists Control the Government!. That’s the implication that people are afraid to speak out against Israel, because we all know what happens to people who do that. They get on the New York Times bestseller list. Just ask Jimmy Carter, and Walt & Mearsheimer. I wonder what their lecture fees are now? Probably even higher since Walt is writing for Foreign Policy. Oh, the horrors of being silenced by The Israel Lobby. Book deals, lecture tours, income level rising—yeah, that scary lobby keeps everyone, even the president of the United States, from speaking out against Israel. Like, say, at a venue of, oh, the United Nations. Saying publicly what “everyone” was only able to say privately before today, apparently.

Note the second half of the bolded quote above: “the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.” Mahmoud Abbas could have written that. Obama doesn’t actually delineate what these rights are, but these words are usually followed with “a return of all refugees,” as well as “an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.” (And as I have noted many times in the past, they don’t say “east Jerusalem.” They say “Jerusalem.” That would be what Obama was talking about when he insisted it’s time to rush ahead to “final status” issues. Only they’ve been renamed.

The time has come — the time has come to re-launch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees, and Jerusalem.

“Without preconditions” appears to be aimed at the Palestinians, who have dug in their heels since Obama’s Cairo speech. As Barry Rubin points out:

As I keep stressing the ONLY reason there have been no negotiations for six months—a point the media never points out—is that Obama introduced the demand that Israel freeze all construction on settlements. This issue had never prevented talks before but once Obama raised the ante, well the Palestinians couldn’t be less militant than America’s president.

It also wouldn’t be an Obama speech if he didn’t try to make his copyrighted approach to evenhandedness. So, in return for the Israel-bashing above, what must the world do? Why, stop bashing Israel. Recognize Israel’s legitimacy. Because it’s not like the UN’s establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 was enough to do such a thing. So the reverse of America doing no favors for Israel by being a staunch ally? Well, it’s obvious:

And — and nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks against Israel over constructive willingness to recognize Israel’s legitimacy and its right to exist in peace and security. (Applause.)

Get it? The flip side of America’s support for Israel is the UN General Assembly, using organizations like the UN Human Rights Council (which Obama has had us join) singling out Israel, and pretty nearly only Israel, for criticism.

Obama uses his compare-and-contrast one last time, by talking about the price paid by Israelis and Palestinians. Note the extreme contrast, which goes hand in hand with what I wrote yesterday about the risk being all on Israel:

It’s paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night. It’s paid for by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own.

The girl in Sderot may be murdered in her sleep by Hamas rockets. Or a shot fired at her car while driving with her family near a Palestinian town. The price paid by Palestinians? Well, kids in Gaza don’t have clean water because Hamas keeps stealing the pipes to make rockets to rain on children in Sderot. Yeah, that’s a pretty equivalent risk situtation for each side.

His claim to evenhandedness is absurd. There is no comparison between having “no country to call his own” and fearing death in your bed at night. One of these things is not like the other.

I didn’t care for the James Baker crew of the Bush 41 White House. I didn’t care for Reagan’s Baker-inspired Israel team, either. But neither Bush nor Reagan seemed willing to abandon one of America’s staunchest allies. Israeli soldiers trained American troops in house-to-house city fighting, to better survive and win in Iraq. Israel shares intel on America’s enemies with us, and gave us invaluable information on Soviet weaponry during the Cold War. If America called, Israel would be there—and yet, Barack Obama is throwing Israel under the bus. The most pro-Palestinian president ever is turning out to be the most anti-Israel president ever.

His friend Rashid Khalidi must be a happy, happy man today. I sure would love to see the tape the LA Times refused to release. I think it would explain a lot of the UN speech.

Cross-posted here.

Plans to set up a tent and allow him to stay at a Libyan-owned estate in the upscale community of Englewood, New Jersey, located 12 miles north of Manhattan, were attacked Monday by neighborhood residents and public officials, particularly after the hero’s welcome Libya extended last week to the lone man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103.

Why is Gadhafi coming to America? To address the UN next month. Last year Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, this year the Gadhafi—who’s next? Idi Amin is dead, but I’m sure that they could find someone equally as evil.

Even Shmuley Boteach doesn’t want him there.

Shmuley Boteach, an orthodox Jewish rabbi, family counselor and star of the mainstream television series “Shalom in the Home,” lives next door to the Libyan estate.

He was initially supportive of the idea of Gadhafi coming to the US, but that changed after the release of al-Megrahi.

“I don’t want him as a neighbor,” said Boteach. “The events of the past few days have changed everything. Gadhafi has shown his true colors.”

The fight has been joined by Senator Frank Lautenberg. But I’m going to make a prediction: The State Department is going to allow the dictator in NJ, even though when the estate was bought, then-mayor (and now Congressman) Steve Rothman fought having the dictator stay there.

Rothman was mayor of Englewood 26 years ago when the city learned the Libyan Mission to the United Nations had purchased the Palisade Avenue estate. He said local officials worked out a deal with the US State Department limiting its use to the recreational activities by the ambassador and his family. Gadhafi was expressly forbidden to live there, he said.

Adding insult to injury, the Libyans pay no property taxes to the town, either. So if the dictator does stay, Englewood will be paying for the extra police that will be needed to protect him.

Soon after the purchase, Libya sought to be exempt from local property taxes, prompting a long court battle with the city. A federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled in favor of Libya in 1985. Englewood officials estimate that the estate would have generated more than $1 million in property taxes by now.

I can’t believe I’ve found yet another reason to loathe the UN. I didn’t know that their ambassadors could purchase property in the U.S. and not pay taxes. It’s just us citizen schlubs who have to do things like that.

I’ve got a simple slogan for the people of Englewood: Libyan, go home.

Cross-posted here.

Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin said: “It’s deeply unpleasant and sad to see such a strong propaganda machine using centuries-old anti-Semitic images in an apparent attempt to get an obviously topical issue off the table.

[...] Helin called it an opinion piece raising questions of Israel in the context of a suspected link to Israel in that US case. He denied any suggestion of anti-Semitism from his paper.

Oh, so now it’s an opinion piece. Good tactic. The author has stated that he doesn’t know if the charges are true, but he decided to go with them anyway. And neither he nor his editor think that charges of anti-Semitism are in order. Why, they wonder, are Israelis so touchy? This is just a criticism of the IDF. Right?

Take a look at this image of Der Stürmer. This is the classic blood libel against the Jews, that we drink the blood of Christians and use it in our rituals. (Larger image in my previous post.)

Copy of blood libel from Nazi propaganda paper

Now, why on earth would we accuse a Swedish newspaper of using anti-Semitic blood libel tropes in its story about the IDF kidnapping Palestinians and stealing their organs?

The Swedish Foreign Ministry is doubling down on the freedom of speech aspect while ignoring the “lying about the IDF” aspect. Witness:

Sweden’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday said a response by the Swedish Embassy in Israel to a report by the Aftonbladet news saying IDF soldiers killed Palestinians in order to harvest their organs does not represent the government’s stance.

The embassy had stated that the report was “appalling”. But the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman said, “The embassy in Tel Aviv responded in accordance to Israeli public opinion, however the Swedish government is committed to freedom of the press.”

[...] Another Swedish government spokesperson, Anders Jorle said, “The Foreign Ministry would not have acted in the same way” as the ambassador.

Interesting response. Especially when you consider the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s response to another controversy, this one regarding cartoons about Mohammed.

On February 5, Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laila Freivalds stated the following in an interview:[24] We support the freedom of speech, that I think is very clear. But at the same time it is important to say that with this freedom comes a certain responsibility, and it could be objectionable to act in a way that insults people.

There was also the Swedish government’s response to a political party in Sweden holding a Mohammed cartoon contest in response to the Mohammed cartoon controversy. One of the cartoons displayed on the website portrayed Mohammed as a dog.

A Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman told Sweden’s English-language The Local that the diplomat had apologized for any hurt feelings the publication may have caused.

Freivalds shut down the website and later lied about it, which ultimately caused her resignation. But note the difference in tone about the freedom to offend—it’s different when offending Muslims, apparently.

Let us compare and contrast. On the Mohammed-as-dog cartoon:

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Björkander told The Local it had been a “misunderstanding” on the part of the Pakistanis to conclude that the government fully shared the views of the Muslim community.

Björkander added, however: “The Chargé d’Affaires said he was sorry if the publication had hurt Muslim feelings.”

On the publication of a false story that the IDF kidnaps Palestinians and steals their organs:

But the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman said, “The embassy in Tel Aviv responded in accordance to Israeli public opinion, however the Swedish government is committed to freedom of the press.”

She added that Israel had not issued an official complaint on the report.

Another Swedish government spokesperson, Anders Jorle said, “The Foreign Ministry would not have acted in the same way” as the ambassador.

Barry Rubin wrote a tongue-in-cheek essay that has a solution to all of Israel’s problems: Jews should act like Muslims, and riot and protest violently every offense, real or imagined. The sad thing is: He’s probably right about the results. Just look at the difference between Sweden’s response to this issue. If Sweden were as scared of Jews as they are of Muslims….

Cross-posted to Yourish.com.