Israellycool

When Hollywood actor Paul Newman died a little over a month ago, I noted that even the Iranians marked his death.

Now Iranmania is reporting that they are holding a film festival in his honor.

Iran’s 27th Fajr International Film Festival will commemorate the late American actor Paul Newman, the secretariat of the festival announced in a press release, MNA reported.

Several films in which Newman starred will go on display during the festival, which will be held from February 1 to 11, 2009 at various Tehran theaters.

Born in 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, Paul Newman acted in more than 80 films. He produced ten films and was the director of six movies.  He was one of the few actors who successfully made the transition from 1950s cinema to that of the 1960s and 1970s.

He went on to become one of the top box office draws of the 1960s, starring in such classic films as “The Hustler”, “The Prize”, “Hud”, “Cool Hand Luke”, and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.  He also produced and directed many high quality films, including “Rachel, Rachel” for which he received an Oscar nomination for best picture. Nominated nine times for best actor, he finally took one home an Oscar for his performance as an aging pool shark in “The Color of Money”.

A caring and supremely generous man, he is the founder of “Newman’s Own”, a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which the philanthropic movie icon has donated to charity.

On September 26, 2008, Newman died at his longtime home in Westport, Connecticut, of complications arising from lung cancer.

No word yet on whether they will be screening Exodus.

Why is it that people pick their nose in full view of everyone else when they are in their car? Do they believe that their car windows are opaque and that others cannot see them up to their wrist? Or there something about being in your car that makes you feel untouchable, or at least impervious to the stares of others?

In an MSNBC report on some Muslim reactions to the Mumbai terrorist attacks:

Many Muslims said they are worried such carnage is besmirching their religion.

“The occupation of the synagogue and killing people in hotels tarnishes the Muslim faith,” said Kazim al-Muqdadi, a political science lecturer at Baghdad University. “Anyone who slaughters people and screams `Allahu Akbar’ (God is Great) is sick and ignorant.”

I would have thought the killing of people in aforementioned synagogue would also have tarnished the Muslim faith. But what do I know? I’m just a Jew.

And further on in the report:

“I think that Muslims should raise their voice against such actions. They should forge a coalition to fight such phenomena, because it harms them and damages their image,” said Ali Abdel Muhsen, 22, a Muslim engineering student in the West Bank city of Nablus.

How about because it is morally reprehenisible?

Yes, clearly there are Muslims out there who condemn such attacks since they tarnish the image of Islam. What I want to hear more of are Muslims who condemn such attacks because they are plain wrong.

The Mumbai terrorists reportedly gave some special attention to their Jewish victims (hat tip: LGF reader Anand).

They said that just one look at the bodies of the dead hostages as well as terrorists showed it was a battle of attrition that was fought over three days at the Oberoi and the Taj hotels in Mumbai.

Doctors working in a hospital where all the bodies, including that of the terrorists, were taken said they had not seen anything like this in their lives.

“Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing,” a doctor said.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: “It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim’s body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words,” he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

Corroborating the doctors’ claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. “During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis,” an IB source said.

It is also said that the Israeli hostages were killed on the first day as keeping them hostage for too long would have focused too much international attention. “They also might have feared the chances of Israeli security agencies taking over the operations at the Nariman House,” he reasoned.

No doubt just a “theatrical statement of hate….cynically exploiting anti-Semitism in order to further inflame world opinion and curry favor with the Muslim jihadi set.”

..their brethren in Lebanon show their solidarity

A Palestinian sprays gasoline on an Israeli flag using his mouth, during a protest demanding an end to a blockade on the Gaza Strip by Israel, in Ain el- Hilweh refugee camp near the port city of Sidon, southern Lebanon November 29, 2008.

Ha’aretz reports: Palestinian Authority enjoys record incoming tourism

Meanwhile, Israel is not-so enjoying the incoming Qassams.

Trust it to Richard Silverstein to get everything wrong about the Mumbai Chabad House massacre (note: I am providing the link to his post because it is blog etiquette. But I discourage you from clicking on it since the extra traffic will only embolden him).

It is without question deeply disturbing that terrorists based in the Indian Muslim community (given the uncertainty regarding the origin of the terrorists - different reports suggest they were Pakistani or British Muslims - how Silverstein can confidently reach this conclusion is beyond me - ed.) would adopt a new strategy of targeting Jews and Israelis for attack (what is ‘new’ about this strategy? - ed.) whereas before their targets were purely Indian.  It is surely a ratcheting up of the conflict between India and Pakistan, since it appears that all or some of the militants were motivated by the Kashmir conflict between those two countries.

The militants clearly wanted to make a theatrical statement of hate and succeeded “admirably” in just the way that the PLO did when they first began hijacking and blowing up airliners in the 1970s.

Who was the intended audience?  Of course, India. The terrorists were reminding the Indians of the continued cost of stalemate in Kashmir.  The message too was to Pakistan saying that the group behind the attack was not willing to give up on the Kashmir struggle. That it wouldn’t give up on the “brothers” living under Indian occupation there.  Of course, there was a message to the U.S. which, as the Times pointed out in a story yesterday, has been cajoling the Pakistani military to “pivot” away from India as its major foe and turn instead to the Taliban in the NW Provinces.  If Pakistani elements were involved in the Mumbai attack, as India’s prime minister has alluded, then this would be a message from either the Pakistani ISI or the Pakistani Taliban that they refuse to allow such a change in Pakistani interests.

The Times quotes Tzipi Livni saying:

“We know that the targets there that were sought out by the terrorists were Jewish and Israeli targets as well as targets that are perceived as Western targets — American and British.”

She added: “We need to understand that there’s a world here, our world, that has been attacked. And it doesn’t matter if it’s happened in India or somewhere else. We have here radical Islamic elements who do not accept either our existence or the values of the Western world. And only when incidents of this sort occur is it suddenly understood from conversations with leaders from around the entire world that we are actually party to the same battle.”

Actually, this is completely the WRONG lesson to learn.  Despite the fact that Jews were attacked, the fundamental conflict appears to involve Kashmir, and by extension Indian and Pakistan.  In other words, this is a regional conflict.  Not an Armageddon conflict between the forces of evil and good represented by the “western world” and “radical Islam.” This is precisely how the extremists on both sides, both Jewish and Muslim, would like the world to see the conflict since it confirms their apocalyptic, blood-soaked world-view.  But if we are to maintain any semblance of balance and reason in viewing incidents like this one, we must understand where the real cause of conflict lies.

At worst, the attackers are cynically exploiting anti-Semitism in order to further inflame world opinion and curry favor with the Muslim jihadi set.

As for Livini’s bogus rhetoric in which she insinuates the Israeli-Arab conflict into a world death struggle between Islam and the west, it’s cheap and misleading.  Israel’s ultimate conflict has nothing to do with radical Islam and everything to do with its Occupation and oppression of the Palestinians.  The solution to this conflict has nothing to do with eliminating radical Islam, jihad or Muslim terror.  It has everything to do with resolving a political and national conflict.

Livni, just like Sharon after 9/11, falsely wishes to hitch Israel’s wagon to a cause everyone in the west understands.

My reference to the Occupation above started me thinking about Pakistani Muslims’ resentment against India regarding the Kashmir conflict.  Here too, Muslims believe that India is occupying land that should be Pakistani.  In effect, the Kashmir conflict may be the last vestige of the 1948 events leading to the independence of India and Pakistan.  Kashmir festers like a 60 year old wound untended and unhealed.

In just the same way that Palestinian terrorists, when they mount their deadly attacks against Israelis, warn Israel that there can never be peace until their greivances are addressed and resolved, so the Indian or Kashmiri terrorists were broadcasting a message that Indian must address this issue or forever face the menace of domestic terror.

I want to make clear that I am not making any judgments about which side in the conflict over this territory is in the right and which in the wrong.  I’m not well-versed enough to do that (it hasn’t stopped him from making judgments about the Middle East conflict, despite his manifest ignorance on this topic - ed.)

Yes, that’s right. The terrorists went out of their way to locate the rather nondescript Jewish Chabad house, which was located on a narrow street in a mixed residential/commercial area, just to send a message to India, Pakistan and the US.

How can one person be so wrong all of the time?

Perhaps Silverstein believes that should things progress to the point where he has Islamic overlords, they will look favorably on him for his previous support.

However, I assume even they don’t have much use for Jewish sycophants.

Yesterday, when the world was witness to the worst of humanity, it was also witness to the best.

A nanny, who saved a two-year-old toddler from Mumbai’s Nariman House, escaped from a terrorist attacking the house, who opened fire in her direction, by slamming the door in his face.

She and another employee of the Jewish centre at Nariman House had gone downstairs to the larder after dinner when they heard explosions, the nanny, identified only by her first name, Sandra, said in a newspaper interview yesterday.

“The noise was very loud,” said Sandra, who has been working for the Israeli couple who have run the Jewish centre in Mumbai for the past year.

“We understood immediately that there was an attack and that there were terrorists,” she said.

Before she and the male employee could hide in the larder, one of the gunmen saw them and opened fire in their direction.

“I don’t know how I managed to react so quickly, but I closed the door in his face. We were saved. He must have thought we escaped through some back door, but there is no such door,” Sandra said.

The two hid in the room until late the next morning, hearing gunfire and explosions. “I was very scared, but I was even more scared for the baby,” Sandra said, adding that she had put two-year-old Moishe to bed earlier in the evening.

“A lot of hours went by. We stayed like that until 11am and then, suddenly, I heard Moishe. He called me: ‘Sandra! Sandra! Sandra!’

“I decided to go upstairs despite the shooting and find him. The guy who was with me didn’t want me to go upstairs, but I was scared that if Moishe kept calling me, somebody will hear him, get to him and harm him.

“When I got upstairs all the terrorists were apparently on the roof. I found Moishe standing next to his parents. Everything was full of blood. I grabbed him, went outside the room and ran outside.”

For those of you hoping for me to provide some updates or clarity on the situation in Mumbai, I am going to disappoint. Quite frankly, I am in no mood to do so. Instead, I am going to rant.

I am quite aware that the terrorists murdered people from all parts of the world, and my heart goes out to the all the victims and the loved ones they have left behind. But I am going to focus on the Mumbai Chabad House massacre in this post, because as a Jew, I am taking it rather personally.

Islamic terrorists deliberately chose a Jewish - not Israeli like some in the media are reporting - target and murdered 8 people in cold blood, including a Rabbi and his wife. They would have seen the bookcases filled with prayer books, photographs of the young Rabbi and his family, seen that this was a place of peace and worship, yet still murdered them.

I sometimes feel like a broken record saying this, but the Islamic terrorists do not do what they do because of some injustice inflicted on them. They do not do it because of supposed Israeli atrocities against the palestinians (about which no-one in the Arab world really cares). They do it, because they want to establish a global Islamic Caliphate and impose Sharia law on societies currently based on Judeo-Christian principles. And rejecting this truth will not protect you from a terrible fate should these terrorists achieve their ultimate goal.

It is no coincidence that the terrorists target Jews. Evil will always target Jews because we represent G-d in the world. It was true with the Nazis, and it is true with Islamic terrorism, the new Nazism. We have the task to be a light unto the nations, and even when though we may not always be completely successful, we have not done such a bad job. Especially when you look at the amazing work performed by a Jewish organization such as Chabad.

Those of you reading this have two choices. You can agree with what I am saying, and help fight the terrorists. Or you can reject my words, and be part of the problem. And when I talk of fighting the terrorists, I mean waging a war against them online, and throwing your support behind Israel and democratic countries under attack. It means telling those referring to themselves as “palestinians” that they will never get a state while they support terrorism. It means supporting governments who crack down on terrorists and do not appease them.

I pledge to continue the fight against terrorism and those who support it, while trying to spread goodness through the world by increasing acts of charity and lovingkindness, like the Chabad victims of this attack.

If you are with me, let’s do this together.

If you are against me, then you can go to hell. Which I assume you won’t mind since that is precisely what you’ll get with a global Islamic Caliphate.

My father-in-law Marty Roberts is back from the podcasting wilderness, returning with a new show after an 8 month hiatus.

Check it out here.