Heretics' almanac

35,000 homeless Palestinians

In the last few weeks, about 35,000 Palestinians have been driven from their homes, left to their own survival skills in outlying areas, several thousand in cities close to the border of Jordan. Jordanian authorities won't accept them.

If you haven't read about this in your local newspapers, there's a reason. Israel has nothing to do with these expulsions - they took place in Baghdad and were perpetrated by the Palestinians' Arab "brothers" who happen to be Shi'ite, whereas most (all?) Palestinians are Sunni. And I suppose Jordan's open borders to Palestinians only faces west.

It might be interesting to compare numbers: how many Palestinians through the years have been expelled from Arab countries vs. from Israeli-controlled areas?

Mostly "amen" to Ben Stein

From a friendly relative of mine comes a version of this holiday Christmas message from Ben Stein, with a dare:

Pass  it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did.  But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

To most of Ben's points of view, I'd add a hearty "amen." It is deeply disturbing to me that people are so caught up in frivolous popular culture at the expense of the many real and serious issues confronting our world today. It ought to matter a lot more that people are killing each other in Darfur (as an example) than whether Jessica is wearing Nick's ring, and what that could possibly mean.

Ørnhøi's dreams and delusions

In what has to be an astonishing display of provincial ignorance, the has-been Norwegian radical socialist politician Stein Ørnhøi told Aftenposten that the foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, needs to learn more about the Middle East. He needs, Ørnhøi says, to learn the difference between the occupier and the occupied, pointing out that Hamas surely will accept Israel's right to exist when Israel accepts the Palestinian right to a state. (Hamas obviously didn't get Ørnhøi's memo).

Ørnhøi is the ignoramus, of course. But what is interesting, or discouraging, is what passes as "knowledge" in the current debate. I agree with Ørnhøi that Støre has a lot to learn, but the foreign minister is still way ahead of Ørnhøi, who seems to get his knowledge from dreams that he has after he's eaten too much too late.

Støre in for mass extraction of teeth

Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre (the first Norwegian FM to have anything approaching foreign policy credentials in years) has recently "clarified" that Norway - presumably in concert with other Nordic countries - intend to "also" make demands of Israel. Specifically, he says that Norway expects Israel to:

• Cease and desist from building the "separation wall" [sic] into "Palestinian" territories
• Stop settlements on the "Palestinian" side
• Refrain from use of violence ("applies to both sides")
• Seek negotiation solutions that move the peace process forward ("applies to both sides")

Støre also thinks that the Palestinians should refrain from violence and accept Israel's right to exist, but says he has every intention of continuing the "cooperation" with Palestinian authorities.

Vive le Riots

I always thought Margaret Thatcher was a little crazy, but you have to give her credit for not allowing herself to be bullied into submission, even when the political costs were high; and especially so on economic issues.

Not so much with Dominique de Villepin. The Napoleon-admirer and proponent of the grandeur of France buckled and gave in to protesters against the new jobs law, thereby encouraging rioting as a political tool for the foreseeable future. De Villepin apparently felt the weight of responsibility for the damage caused by these riots.

Any economist will tell you that the proposed jobs law made a lot of sense and would improve employment prospects for people under 26 who want to work. It would not, however, have made things easier for those who want to put as little effort as possible into earning a paycheck. In other words, they kind of people who will start protesting when they don't get entitlements.

It would appear that there are a number of French politicians that give principle a back seat to convenience. They probably also exist in other countries, but de Villepin is remarkably shameless about the whole thing. "The riots are getting kind of noisy, how do we get them to stop?" seems to be the main question he cared about.

"Open Season on Jews in Sweden"

Read the Wikipedia article on new antisemitism and then this press release from Sweden, which is aptly titled "Open Season on Jews in Sweden."

The highest non-political civil servant on legal matters (one Göran Lambertz) in Sweden doesn't think that incitement to violence is worth investigating if, well, the pretext for such incitement is a political issue.

Lambertz is probably completely wrong on the law, but his morals are completely perverse. There are only two possible implications to derive from his position. Either:

• It is okay to kill - or at least incite to kill - members of an ethnic group if you take sides against that ethnic group in a conflict in which they are involved. If you take the side of the IRA against the Brits, then it must be okay to hope that British subjects anywhere are murdered; if you take the side of the Spanish government against the Basques, Basques anywhere can be pursued. Or:
• Different rules apply to Jews. Swedish law may protect minorities against incitement and bigotry, but Jews should expect less protection.

It is disturbing that such a view could emanate from a governmental official that is paid to be deliberative and thoughtful. Lambertz could only have made this kind of determination if he thought he could find acceptance for it, if he - in other words - thought that the attitude toward Jews in Sweden was already poisoned enough that people didn't care.

And in doing so, he's inadvertently making the case for Israel. It may be time for Swedish Jews to leave Sweden.

The $1.7 million answer to the Ultimate Question - not!

Harvard, the American Heart Journal and possibly a bunch of other people spent $1.7 million on a controlled study to find out whether prayer-at-a-distance improves the outcome for heart patients.  The findings were that patients didn't do any better if prayers were made on their behalf, provided they didn't know about the prayers. Patients who were told they were being prayed for actually did worse, and by an unhealthy margin.

It's as if I can hear the atheists snickering, even though the report go to great pains to point out that this study doesn't prove or disprove the existence of God. William Saletan, smart as always, makes a list of explanations for the result.

Disclosing biases on April 1

It's April 1st, or at least it will be when anyone gets a chance to read this.

Kåre Willoch, the former prime minister of Norway, is concerned that the debate about Israel is getting confused and has made a novel proposal to clarify things for the general public.

"It is important that when people read letters to the editors, op-eds, and even news articles that are favorable to Israel, they understand that such pieces are biased; and more importantly, what the bias is. The press should signal the bias at the outset."

What are these biases?

"There are two main biases," Willoch explains, "either misguided Jews or fundamentalist Christians. It should be crystal clear that no reasonable person could possibly defend Israel's policies, and why we should obviously let the misguided Jews and fundamentalist Christians have the right to express themselves, they should show their colors when doing so."

Willoch's concrete proposal is that the Norwegian press should make a practice of marking everything written in favor of Israel with either a Star of David, or a cross, depending upon the background of the writer.