Monday, July 19, 2010

“Do You Want the Grapes or to Kill the Vineyard Guard?”


Libya (Libya!) schools the rest of the Arab world—and in the process the internecine “Palestinians” themselves—in how to succeed at delivering aid to Gaza if you really, really want to. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Muammar and president of the Gaddafi Foundation, tells Ashark Al-Awsat in a July 18 interview about the deal struck by the Israelis, the Egyptians, and the Libyans to get building materials and pre-fab houses—and $50 million—into Gaza, by diverting the Gaza-bound Amalthea to El-Arish and offloading “around 2,000 tons of aid and a number of Libyan, Arab, and foreign activists” there for distribution through the Rafah and Awja crossings. No blockade running, nor a single armed “humanitarian,” nor a single stabbing, nor a single beating, nor a single death required.

“[As] the saying goes do you want the grapes or to kill the vineyard guard?’ Mr. Gaddafi asks.

We want the grapes, and now we have them, so there is no need to create problems. Our goal was not to confront the Israeli navy, but Gaza reconstruction and helping our Palestinian brothers. . . . This is a lesson for the Arabs, if they knew how to come to agreements and work well, it would have been possible for us to achieve more. . . . I see this as a lesson for the Arabs, it was also revealing about the true position of the Palestinian officials . . . for they let us down. There are conflicts between them taking place at the expense of ordinary Palestinians; everybody wants to see a show or spectacle or confrontation, rather than help . . . they all want to kill the vineyard guard at the expense of getting the grapes. . . . We believe that without work such as that which we are undertaking, the Gaza blockade would continue forever because all Palestinian factions are content with the status quo and the blockade will not be lifted when all Palestinian parties are seeking to exploit the suffering of their people to serve their own political agendas.

Interesting point that, about the exploitation by “Palestinian” parties of the suffering of their own people to serve their own political agendas. Of course one has heard such stuff before, most notably and often from members of the great neocon-Zionist conspiracy—but from the lips of an Arab actually in a position to do something to help? In public? Rarely, if ever at all. As for help, $50 million is a nice little tip—Mr. Gaddafi says it’s just a start—out of the abundant Muammarian coffers, but what of the riyals and dinars and dirhams in the hoards of the oil-drenched Saudi “king,” the gassy al-Thanis of Qatar, and the rest of the members of the Arab League who routinely shed crocodile tears over the fate of those same suffering people? They can’t seem to get their hands out of their own pockets, except maybe when its to fund the fanning out into the world of an extremist Islam, or the killing of one of those vineyard guards.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Headline of the Year (So Far)


From the Yeshiva World News: “Christian President Marries Jewish Congressman to Moslem Political Aide on Shabbos.”


In the name of our Lord, Shalom Alaikum.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Satan's Laughter


Brent Bozell takes after the modern art world’s latest affront to art and our sensibilities, describing an episode of the Bravo show “Work of Art” in which contestants are introduced to Andres Serrano, author of “Piss Christ,” and then sent off to create their own assaultive pieces of revoltingness. This they do with all the alacrity and joy (or lack of it) of all the hairdressers, would-be fashion designers, and pet-groomers who contest for prizes on similar shows, and if you care to know more about the “works of art” they produce, read on in Mr. Bozell’s mind-curling piece. (Noteyou’ll find some disappointment among the judges: not enough semen.)

“There is no outcry,” he concludes, “because our popular culture is thoroughly rotten. There reaches a point where you have to say it: I believe in evil. Satan is laughing.”

It is an appalling show, making no more of art than the mostly-lavishly-gay bunch of groomers who are presumably otherwise out of work make of pet care on the grooming show, with the ludicrous dye jobs and hairstyles they perpetrate against innocent dogs. But I can’t say I can bring myself to agree with him about Satan. I, too, believe in evil, and I’d say Satan’s found a far more mellifluous laughing-ground among the Muslims, who please themselves to bury women up to their heads and stone them to death for “adultery,” murder their own daughters for “mingling,” and practice forms of human sacrifice—selling their sons to Pashtun pedophiles, for one, or celebrating their childrens’ deaths in suicide bombings, for another. To name just a few of the ways Islam holds the Satan laugh hand at the moment. So enough with the wah, wah, wah, Brent. Bad as it may be here at culture-rotten central (or not), it’s worse out there among the practitioners of the culture and religion of peace.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Selective Affinities

Friend of "kings"
Friend of dictators
Friend of communists
Friend of Israelis?