A visit to two Israeli hospitals

We often have a hard time understanding the terror attacks on Israel and what they mean. I don't know if this 2002 Larry Miller article from the Weekly Standard makes the current war any clearer, but it does put a human face on the war and the threat Israel faces. The article is one of my favorites, and here's an excerpt:

As I said, I went to two places to meet the terror victims. One was in Tel Aviv. I met an emergency room doctor, a woman, whose husband was killed a year ago in a bombing. She has two children. Had. Now she has one. She was on duty, weeks ago, in the middle of the night (Don't they call that the graveyard shift?), the night a disco was bombed. Maybe you heard about it. The victims were brought to her hospital. To her. Her daughter was one of them. Now the mother is a patient. "It was good of you to let her tell you her story," the head of the place told me. "It's therapeutic." Good of me? What do you say to that? "I'm glad I could help so much. Gotta go now. Soon I'll be back in the hotel room."

Then we went to Hadassah Hospital, in Jerusalem. This is the hospital where they brought the victims of the bombing at Hebrew University. I met a woman who had been having lunch that day, in the Frank Sinatra Commissary (really) with her daughter, a student. An "A" student, the mother told me. It wasn't possible for the daughter to tell me, since they were still trying to put her back together. At this writing she's still alive, thank God. Just. An "A" student, the mother kept saying. She was the lucky one, whatever that means. Hey, what's that on the table? Oh, it's a cup with the nails they took out of me. Some are still inside. They can't take them out yet. Oh. Okay. Gotta go. Wait, go in there, here's someone else, the brother of someone else, the fiancee of someone else, the father of someone else. Thank you for letting them tell their stories. Yes, I know, it's therapeutic.

Downstairs, before we left, the head of the hospital, an Israeli named Audrey, was showing me the children's waiting room. I couldn't help but notice, all around, an Arab woman with her son, an Arab family over there checking in, Arab children playing with the toys while waiting. The doctor saw the look on my face and laughed. "Oh, yes, we treat everyone." I guess I was astonished. She just shrugged. "We're Jews. This is how we live. It's also for the future. They're not going anywhere, and we're not going anywhere. There will eventually be peace. There has to be." When? A month? A year? A hundred years? More? She didn't know. I had to say it. You're incredible. You take everyone, you treat everyone, no one goes first, no one goes last, you just go in order of who needs help. That's, like, Mother Teresa stuff. "We're not saints, we're just doing our jobs. It's not easy, I admit. And it gets hard when they cheer when the bodies are brought in." I looked at her. What did you say? She sighed. "Yes, it gets hard when they cheer."

Children should find other reasons to count to fifteen

Live broadcasts from Bethlehem

IPrayTV.com is live-streaming from the Nativity Square in Bethlehem at 12:00 noon central time and showing the Mass at 3:30 PM Central. (Registration required.)

Hussein and Israel

Okay, Ed Garvey makes a funny observation.

Candidate Obama joked at the Al Smith dinner that whoever "gave me my middle name (Hussein) wasn't thinking about my candidacy."

Lots of bigots tried to swift boat Barack on Ayers, socialists, Saul Alinsky and his middle name. None of it stuck. In the last desperate weeks of the campaign, John McCain came unglued about a videotape supposedly held by the L.A. Times showing a speech by Obama praising a Palestinian scholar--OMG!

Obviously the McCainsters were playing to Jewish voters in Florida to support a steady friend of Israel, McCain, not some guy with that name and possible hidden anti-Israeli sentiments. Will we ever forget the "Who is Barack Obama" postcards and TV spots?

Fast forward. Obama's first appointment is, I'm not making this up, a guy whose middle name will settle any argument. Rahm Israel Emanuel. Talk about your middle names.

Garvey then goes on to criticize Rahm Israel Emanuel for being too much of a political moderate. Does that make Garvey an anti-Semite?

As a descendant of Israel Wigderson, I take any criticism of Israel personally.

Great moments in duhhh

We begin this week's search for the Idiot Politician of the week with Mike Huckabee's attempt at off-the-cuff humor at the NRA convention:

Oh yes, assassination jokes are hilarious.

Meanwhile, Senator Barack Obama had his idiot moment this week when President Bush, speaking before the Israeli Knesset, criticized those who would appease terrorists. Senator Obama quickly stammered, "I will not!" reminding anyone and everyone that, yes, he will.

Onward and downward, the California State Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that because they like gay marriage California will have gay marriage even if the voters overwhelmingly enacted a law against it by referendum and even if nobody had magically found this right in the California previously. What a cruel trick the California court is playing on homosexuals as their ruling will hardly be the final word on the subject. Californians will likely amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage, just like Wisconsin.

That underlines the problem of judicial activism. Quite often the judges hope to be the final word and end the democratic process. This November will State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George do his best Snidely Whiplash impression when he utters, "Curses, foiled again!"

Libertarian candidate for president Bob Barr fell from the idiot tree and hit every branch on the way down when he endorsed the California State Supreme Court decision. Hey Bob, wait until some state is forced to recognize California's temporary gay marriages. Then you get to explain how the judiciary of one state can create laws that are contrary to the legislative process and the will of the public in one state and then be binding in another state overruling it's legislative process and the will of it's people. Where's that libertarian commitment to federalism, separation of powers and republican principles?

Did you know California has a Republican governor? Some actor. After vetoing two bills to legalize gay marriage, Governor Schwarzenegger now supports the court ruling. Let me get this straight (no pun intended), he's opposed to the legislature passing a law legalizing gay marriage but he supports the courts overstepping their authority? And while he's "personally opposed" to gay marriage, he'll actually fight the movement to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage.

Speaking of the California legislature, they actually debated whether or not the Red Menace is about to overthrow the government, and whether the Commie bastards should be teachers and school janitors.

"The state has every right to hold school employees accountable for their political standing, especially if that employee belongs to an organisation that favours the violent overthrow of the government," Denham said during the debate on the bill.

Denham said that it's also "reasonable that use of public school property should be limited to groups who support our democracy and do not advocate the overthrow of government by force, violence or other possible means."

Look. I saw the Hunt for Red October. We won. They lost. When the commies are safe enough for Elaine Benes to date, they're safe enough to teach in the classroom.

ELAINE: So how was work? Another day, another dollar?
NED: I guess.
ELAINE: Oh well nothing wrong with that. Gotta make those big bucks. . . . money money money money money money money . . . ha ha ha ha ah . . . are you a communist?
NED: Yes, as a matter of fact I am.
ELAINE: OH, AH! OH! WOW! WHOA! A COMMIE! Wow, gee, man it must be a bummer for you guys what with the fall of the soviet empire and everything .
NED: Yeah, well, we still got China, and Cuba,
ELAINE: Yeah, but come on . . .
NED: I know it's not the same.
ELAINE: Well, you had a good run, what was it 75, 80 years? Wreaking havoc, making everybody nervous.
NED: Yeah, we had a good run.
ELAINE: Well, so enjoy yourself. (clink glasses) ha ha uh ha

Besides, I really doubt too many of them are trying to overthrow the system that gives them tenure, health benefits, and state government pensions.

We can't let this week go without mentioning the idiocy of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne who put the polar bear on the endangered species list. As Henry Payne at National Review Online points out, Kempthorne is just flat out wrong when he says this will not be an excuse to use the Endangered Species Act to set US climate policy. If global warming is supposedly endangering the polar bear (even if it's current numbers are at a record high) then the action plan needed to save the polar bear will necessitate setting US climate policy accordingly. Kempthorne's brain must be frozen.

Proving all politics are loco, two politicians had a moment of no common sense editing between initial thought and uttering speech. Waukesha School Board members Frank Finman and Kurt O'Bryan were singled out by the Waukesha Freeman for being, well, idiots.

Here’s what Finman said:

“I look at my two children in the school district, I see my 11th-grader, who I think is going to escape out the door before the roof caves in. And I look at my eighth-grader and the education she’s getting, and compare that to the education her older sister’s getting, and they aren’t even comparable.”

Escape before the roof caves in? We’re picturing a scene from the new Indiana Jones movie. Finman might be trying to make a legitimate point, but it just isn’t constructive for a school board member to characterize his own school district that way.

O’Bryan went even further:

“If we all agree that our backs are against the wall, then I think we should pursue (a referendum). The scenario you have to give them is that it’s either this or it’s this. One option is the referendum and the other is to shut this district down, which this board has the power to do.”

That, of course, is absurd. No one is shutting down the school district.

We realize these board members were trying to make a point that the district is in dire financial shape. In fact, it’s safe to say O’Bryan, Finman and the rest of the school board care very deeply about the district. These comments are likely meant to create a sense of urgency – perhaps panic – and motivate the community to action.

Whatever the motive, these school board members crossed the line by unfairly trashing the district they are supposed to serve. Citizens deserve better than these juvenile scare tactics from their elected representatives on the board. These board members are only going to turn people off with comments like these and hurt the cause they are championing.

At least these guys aren't listening to advice from former Governor Tony Earl (D).

Former Gov. Tony Earl says he did nothing wrong in helping an acquaintance land a top legal job at the Department of Workforce Development.

Earl says he didn't know the hiring scandal had cost taxpayers $346,000 in legal settlements with candidates passed over for the job as the state's top unemployment insurance lawyer.

Earl says he has known Daniel LaRocque "since he was a youngster" and was friends with his father and uncle.

Earl says he called his former policy director, Hal Bergan, to put in a good word for LaRocque. Bergan was the Workforce Development official in charge of the hiring.

A hearing examiner who reviewed the case said Bergan broke department rules in hiring LaRocque, who got the job based on political connections.

Yo, Bergan, when the former governor calls next time, do yourself a favor and have to go to the bathroom or something. That reach out and touch someone cost the taxpayers a big chunk of change, you idiot. You just made the Idiot Politician of the Week. Say, "Gee, thanks Tony."

One among the dozen

Idiots, idiots everywhere. On the way home this evening I saw one idiot behind the wheel of a car honking her horn because the six cars in her lane weren’t moving. When they did move, they didn’t move fast enough for her and she honked her horn again. This time the car in front of her stopped and someone got out. Since we were east of 124th street, I didn’t stick around to see the end.

There were idiots abroad. Former Chief Idiot Jimmy Carter became a useful idiot for terrorists when he declared he had achieved peace in our time. Fortunately Hamas was more truthful than Jimmy when they pointed out that they did not accept the right of Israel to exist and that they would only offer Israel a ten-year truce provided Israel retreated to it’s (strategically untenable) pre-1967 borders. After said truce Hamas would go back to killing Israelis until the last Jew was gone.

But this week the idiots were out in force in Milwaukee County where the County Board had to vote 45 times to elect a new chairman. The new chairman is the same as the old one, violent slumlord Lee Holloway. Brian Fraley has the twelve who voted for Holloway on the final ballot.

1. Gerry Broderick
2. Toni Clark
3. Elizabeth Coggs-Jones
4. Marina Dimitrijevic
5. Lee Holloway
6. Willie Johnson Jr.
7. Christopher Larson
8. Theo Lipscomb
9. Michael Mayo Sr.
10. John Thomas
11. John Weishan Jr.
12. Peggy West

But we can’t have 12 idiot politicians of the week, can we? And we won’t. Supervisor Lipscomb voted “present” the entire time until the final vote because he didn’t feel it was right for a newcomer to make such a choice. Of course, when he ran for the office it was assumed by his constituents that they were asking him to precisely do that – make choices. And not later – now. Had he voted earlier, he could have broken the tie for second place, forcing the run-off between Holloway and Schmitt that much earlier. But he failed to do the one task his constituents required of him causing the whole embarrassing mess to drag out that much longer. What’s worse, when he finally made a choice so many hours after it all began, he made the wrong choice, making the whole affair that much more embarrassing to Milwaukee County.

So congratulations Supervisor Lipscomb. On the job less than a week and already you are the Idiot Politician of the Week. Who would've thought your constituents would miss James White as their supervisor?

Hey, idiots. The first rule of comedy is that cancer isn't funny.

Time for this week's Idiot Politician of the Week. Yep, we're moving it to Friday to give them a chance to repent over the weekend.

We have a few nominees this week that could win the prize almost any other week if we're weren't talking about politicians.

We start this week with international affairs, specifically former President Jimmy Carter's love affair with radical Palestinian terrorist groups. Carter is about to go on a trip to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to talk with the leaders of Hamas. Just a warning to Jimmy. These Muslim fundamentalist extremists tend to take a rather dim view of homosexuality, so don't go laying a Carter-Loves-Brezhnev on them or they might just stone you. Since we doubt you're going to avoid asking them to stop firing rockets at Israel, could you at least ask them to stop killing Palestinians that disagree with them?

Closer to home some idiocy is even criminal. Kenosha County Executive and former Sheriff Allan Kehl has chosen option "B" for living off the taxpayers for awhile - as an inmate at a federal prison near you. As former State Senator Cathy Stepp put it, "I mean really, accepting money in a bag in someone's garage?! Even drug dealers are more sophisticated than that today."

This is your brain. This is your brains on drugs. This your brain if you're a politician accepting bags of cash in your garage.

Sometimes I feel like I'm writing less of a blog than I am a sort-of political Darwin Awards segment. This week's winner comes from the "I could have been a contender until I started poking fun at cancer" category. State Representative Sheldon Wasserman must've fallen off his bicycle one too many times without a helmet to not try to stop his fellow liberals from scoring the biggest "own goal" of the November election cycle so far. Democrats are putting around the story that State Senator Alberta Darling is too ill from surviving breast cancer to mount an effective re-election campaign this year. Of course, it's not true. It's also a pretty low and slimy political stunt. I don't think Democrats would have been too happy about if the situation was reversed and it was Republicans spreading the story about Attorney General Lautenschlager two years ago.

Think about how twisted this double-standard is.
Lautenschlager (D): brave, courageous.
Darling (R) : Too ill to serve.

Wait until the women in the senate district find out that Wasserman's political allies were trying to use breast cancer as an issue in the campaign. Wait until they hear Doctor Wasserman's allies were using someone's health as an issue in the campaign.

The moment Wasserman saw the mention of Darling's health in Milwaukee Magazine he should've told his side to cool it. He claims he didn't know.

Well Sheldon, you're the Idiot Politician of the Week. If you don't know what's in the press about your own campaign, if you don't know what your own side is doing, then you're the idiot. And if you did know, then you're a slimy idiot at that.

(Send your nomination for the "Idiot Politician of the Week" to Jamesmdw@yahoo.com. The idiots will be identified every Friday.)

Former President Jimmy Carter to meet with Hamas

According to Newsmax.com, Al-Jazeera is reporting former President Carter is going to meet with the leader of Hamas.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter plans to meet Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria next week, despite U.S. efforts to isolate the Islamist Palestinian group, Al Jazeera television said.

The meeting was expected to take place in the Syrian capital Damascus on April 18, and may also include former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

"Senior Hamas officials have confirmed the Carter meeting but declined to speak on camera out of both political and security considerations," Al Jazeera said on Thursday.

Washington shuns Hamas as a terrorist group and has joined Israel in supporting efforts to isolate it.

For the first time a leader of Hamas will not be the person in the room most dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

Wait until Alan Dershowitz hears about his trip.

The Holy Sepulchre

See highlights from the history of the Holy Sepulchre at this site.

Built by Emperor Constantine in 335 A.D. on the very site of Christ's resurrection, the Holy Sepulchre houses the Calvary or Golgotha and the tomb of Christ. The building was destroyed in successive wars, transformed in the Persian period and finally rebuilt by the Crusaders.

During restorations following the fire of 1808 and the earthquake of 1927, it was possible to determine the topography of the Golgotha and the tomb of Christ.

The Holy Sepulchre has private and communal areas. The former are given to the seven communities who share the church while the communal areas are under the authority of the Armenians, Greek Orthodox and Latin churches.

A two million dollar renovation project of the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre was completed at the end of 1996 with inauguration ceremonies on January 2, 1997.

I was really too young and immature to appreciate it when I toured the church nearly 23 years ago. What I do remember is that the tour ended outside facing the Holy Land Souvenier Shop, and also how crowded and small parts of the church were. Perhaps when the kids are older my wife and I will go back.

An Easter message from Rome

What an amazing Easter Vigil in Rome. What a message the Pope has sent to the world, reminding everyone that all are welcome to join the Church.

VATICAN CITY - Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel."

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Allam has been a figure of some controversy in Italy, and due to threats against his life he has police protection.

"Having been condemned to death, I have reflected a long time on the value of life. And I discovered that behind the origin of the ideology of hatred, violence and death is the discrimination against Israel. Everyone has the right to exist except for the Jewish state and its inhabitants," he said. "Today, Israel is the paradigm of the right to life."

In 2006, Allam was a co-winner, with three other journalists, of the $1 million Dan David prize, named for an Israeli entrepreneur. Allam was cited for "his ceaseless work in fostering understanding and tolerance between cultures."

Via Dolorosa

From Voice of America:

Thousands of pilgrims from around the world crowded the narrow cobblestone streets of Jerusalem's walled Old City for the traditional Good Friday procession. Some of them carried large wooden crosses on their shoulders as they walked along the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, the route that Jesus is believed to have taken to his crucifixion.

They visited the 14 Stations of the Cross on a warm and sunny spring day, singing hymns, praying and reading passages from the Gospels.

"Being in Jerusalem is like being in the exact place where everything happened, getting to imagine as best as we can, being on the ground that Jesus walked on, where he died on the cross and was risen for our sins," said Jila Sadihi, who came from the U.S. state of Texas. "And it's absolutely amazing. I'm very blessed to be here."

One of the more humorous anecdotes I have from my trip to Israel in 1985 was the sale at souvenier shops of dirt from the Via Dolorosa. Of course, the Via Dolorosa is paved.

Before you mourn Rachel Corrie

What is the best way to remember someone who could objectively be called anti-American and pro-terrorist? Some would celebrate her life in a play.

Planet Madison is the latest stop for the play, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie." Rachel Corrie was killed when she attempted to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying tunnels used for weapons-smuggling for terrorists in the Gaza Strip (not protecting a Palestinian home as has been often mis-reported). Despite being a young radical who kept herself warm by burning the American flag while waiting to participate in anti-Israel propaganda, her myth - her supposed martyrdom - has resulted in a play.

Forgotten are the victims of the Rachel Corries of the world. After all, as they give aid to terrorists, the terrorists have leave to strike at the "other Rachels" that will not be so fortunate to become international martyrs, have plays written about them and leftwing foundations named after them.

Tom Gross remembers the other Rachels, tragically cut short by those celebrated and defended by the Rachel Corries of the world.

Rachel Thaler:
RACHEL Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following a suicide bomb attack on a crowd of teenagers on 16 February 2002.

Even though Thaler was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live, her death has never been mentioned in a British newspaper.

...But Rachel Thaler, unlike Rachel Corrie, was Jewish. And unlike Corrie, Jewish victims of Middle East violence have not become a cause célèbre in Britain. This lack of response is all the more disturbing at a time when an increasing number of British Jews feel that there has been a sharp rise in anti-Semitism.

Thaler is by no means the only Jewish Rachel whose violent death has been entirely ignored by the British media. Other victims of the Intifada include Rachel Levy (aged 17, blown up in a grocery store), Rachel Levi (19, shot while waiting for the bus), Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Passover meal), Rachel Charhi (blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children), Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons aged 5, 13 and 16 while at home), Rachel Ben Abu (16, blown up outside the entrance of a Netanya shopping mall) and Rachel Kol, 53, who worked at a Jerusalem hospital and was killed with her husband in a Palestinian terrorist attack in July a few days after the London bombs.

Corrie’s death was undoubtedly tragic but, unlike the death of these other Rachels, it was almost certainly an accident. She was killed when she was hit by an Israeli army bulldozer she was trying to stop from demolishing a structure suspected of concealing tunnels used for smuggling weapons.

Unfortunately for those who have sought to portray Corrie as a peaceful protester, photos of her burning a mock American flag and stirring up crowds in Gaza at a pro-Hamas rally were published by the Associated Press and on Yahoo News on 15 February 2003, a month before she died. (Those photos were not used in the British press.)

Today we're living in the aftermath of the most recent attack on civilians in Israel whose only crime was to be in the wrong place in the wrong time. A Palestinian gunman attacked a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight students and wounded nine others. Among the wounded is a 14-year-old Canadian citizen, Nadav Eliayahu Samuels.

Nadav Eliayahu Samuels was shot several times in Thursday's attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, the CBC's Peter Armstrong reported Friday from Jerusalem.

Samuels — who holds Israeli, Canadian and British citizenship — is listed in critical but stable condition with multiple gunshot wounds and is heavily medicated, Armstrong said.

...Samuels' father said the boy was in the library at the time of the attack and hid under something.

He said the boy was shot in the feet and legs, while the hospital said he suffered gunshot wounds all over his body, including the stomach.

The gunman was later shot and killed by an army officer on the scene.

Israeli officials said the victims, who were laid to rest Friday, were aged 15 to 19 except one, who was 26. One of the victims was identified as 16-year-old Avraham David Moses, an American citizen whose parents moved to Israel in the 1990s.

Will someone write a play about young Avraham David Moses? Surely 16 is more tragic than 23, and he had no choice in the matter. How widely will he be mourned beyond Israel? After all, he was an American, too.

They carried the body of Avraham David Moses, 16 years old, on a stretcher down the slope of the vibrant green cemetery here, shaded by tall pines, overlooking a valley, in utter silence.

The boy was wrapped in a black-and-white prayer shawl, and as the pallbearers slipped him into the grave on Friday, the long silence was broken by quiet weeping and occasional sobs.

Men recited psalms and Naftali Moses, the boy's father, his garments torn in grief, said the Hebrew prayer for the dead, his voice breaking, before moving back up the slope to the parking lot, through a somber line of mourners, men on one side, women on the other.

Delineating civilization

Aimée Kligman discovers the line seperating the civilized from the uncivilized in the wake of an attack on a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary:

When people die on their side of the fence, no one in Israel starts to dance and distribute candy in the street. This is the basic difference between a civilized response to death and a terrorist response to death.

Dershowitz at Brandeis

I just watched on C-Span Alan Dershowitz's response to former President Carter at Brandeis University. It will be on again Sunday, January 28 at 9:45 am EST and Monday, January 29 at 12:15 am EST. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in what's happening in Israel.

Here's an excerpt:


By the way, Dershowitz repeats his offer of $15,000 to anyone who can find a prominent Jewish leader that equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

Update! Yid with Lid has Dershowitz's own reaction to the speeches at Brandeis.


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