Israellycool

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Shire Network News has just released our show for this week. The interview is with Prof Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. This is the second part of his interview.

Both last week and this we make extensive reference to Israel’s 60th and this week’s show includes what I believe to be one of the finest recordings of Hatikva performed by the Israeli Philharmonic. You can find the full recording on an exceptional boxed set here.

This week’s show can be found here:

Podcast says Happy Birthday Israel

and here is a link to last week’s show:

Podcast says peace in Israel, are we there yet?

Today in the Wall Street Journal Bret Stephens writes well as usual. And reminds us of a time when journalists actually did work for a living with some numbers he quotes from back at the start of the current war against Israel. Not that I need tell this audience Israel is not genocidally killing people, but perhaps it will help you all when talking to those who don’t get it.

Israel’s 60-Year Test - WSJ.com

… In May 2002, at the height of the so-called al-Aqsa Intifada, I reviewed Israeli and Palestinian casualty figures, sticking to Palestinian sources for Palestinian numbers and Israeli sources for Israeli ones. Much was then being made in the Western media of the fact that three times as many Palestinians as Israelis had been killed in the conflict – evidence, supposedly, that despite the suicide bombings, lynchings and roadside ambushes perpetrated daily against Israelis, Palestinians were the ones who really were getting it in the neck.

But drilling down into the data, something interesting turned up. At the time, 1,296 Palestinians had been killed by Israelis – of whom a grand total of 37, or 2.8%, were female. By contrast, of the 496 Israelis killed by Palestinians (including 138 soldiers and policemen), there were 126 female fatalities, or 25%.

To be female is a fairly reliable indicator of being a noncombatant. Females are also half the population. If Israel had been guilty of indiscriminate violence against Palestinians, the ratio of male-to-female fatalities would not have been 35-1.

A Dutch journalist is held up for a few hours at the airport on her way into Israel for security checks and already, in her head, she’s writing the story of how bad it must be for a Palestinian. But then reality bites. Read the whole thing, extracts below.

Five hours at Tel Aviv airport BY NICOLIEN DEN BOER IN ISRAEL

It’s 4 a.m. at Tel Aviv Airport and this is the third time I’ve been questioned so far. My passport has stamps from various Arab countries: Dubai, Yemen and archenemy Syria. Finally I get my passport back and am allowed to enter.

If they treat me, a Dutch woman like this, what’s it like for a Palestinian? I’d started going on about getting the Dutch embassy involved. I even rang them up - they were closed, of course. But a Palestinian wouldn’t have any embassy to call. I’m trying not to think in simplistic terms of ‘good guy, bad guy’, but it’s difficult.

I save my complaint for the government press office in Jerusalem, where I go to pick up my press card the next day. “Security measures,” is the explanation I get from the press officer, a tired looking woman by the name of Pnina Aizenman. “What do you think it’s like for us, waking up each morning and never knowing what the day will bring?” she says, clearly referring to Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilians.

While Pnina’s busy getting my press card ready, I take a look at the photos of children and a newspaper article on the wall behind me. The article is about a woman who lost her mother and her five-year-old child in a Palestinian suicide bombing. The name of the woman is Pnina Aizenman. I get the shivers. “That’s you,” I stammer. “Yes. Do you understand now what I mean by security measures?” she replies. I suddenly feel ashamed that I’ve just been complaining about being kept waiting for five hours when this woman’s life has been totally wrecked by a bomb. (Radio Netherlands)

This week’s Shire Network News has just been released and comes with its own scoop. Ezra Levant is this week’s show talking about his interrogation at the hands of a Human Rights Tribunal in Canada. He exclusively reveals that his interrogator has asked to be removed from the case because of the public scrutiny she is receiving.

Podcast reveals resignation of State interrogator. Hooray!

I missed out on linking last week to Shire Network News. We’ve just released the second part of our interview with Mark Steyn. You can find the show via the links below:

Part 1: Podcast reveals smiley-face fascism in Canada

Part 2: Podcasts asks who will rid us of this turbulent priest?

Mark is talking about the crazy Human Rights tribunals in Canada that are taking him to task because of the “offence” caused by the publication of extracts of his book, America Alone.

1 dead, dozens wounded in Palestinian-Egyptian clash on Gaza border - Israel News, Ynetnews
Egyptian forces fired live bullets at the crowd, wounding several, witnesses said. Bullets landed close to an AP staffer on the Gaza side of the border. Later, Palestinian gunmen fired back. It was not immediately clear if the gunmen were from Hamas. Police from Hamas were next to the border at the time.

Back to sleep everyone, Palestinian killed by Egyptian , not an Israeli. Live fire into crowds of people doesn’t matter as long as it’s not the IDF.

It hasn’t turned up on PMW yet and when it does I’ll link to it but in advance of that, this is such important news I felt I had to bring it to you.

NEWSFLASH - NAHOUL THE BEE IS STARVING TO DEATH!

Nahoul is on his deathbed and receiving visits from all his (curiously) human family. He has been reduced to a state of (rotund) starvation by the cruel, monstrous, war criminal Zionist, evil Jew regime of the Israelis. His (surprisingly) well fed looking family can do nothing to alleviate his suffering.

It’s hard to believe. Animal abuse in Palestinian society but this time it is clearly Jews to blame so that is OK.

NEWSFLASH ENDS

Footage was shown on Israeli TV News, I didn’t have a translation I could understand but the pictures were clear enough for kids. Oh, and yes, our favourite young pioneer girl was back as anchor.

Aussie Dave says: But I just wrote he was happy. Faulty intelligence?

I’m a little late posting the plug for the latest Shire Network News. It was a long show but might provide a little humorous diversion from the nonsense that is the Winograd Report. And how on earth did they manage to release it on a day of snow in Jerusalem?

Podcasts asks if Liberals are Fascist?

Jonah Goldberg is the guest on Shire Network News this week. His new book, Liberal Fascism, is causing a bit of a stir among liberals who don’t understand. Just don’t understand is how that sentence was meant to end. There is a whole blog about the books reception set up at the National Review.

You can buy his book from Amazon.com via the following link: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

This week’s guest writer on Blog News is Right Wing Duck. You can sometimes find him on IMAO. Let us know what you think.

Also this week we once again hear from Evan Sayet who’s got Bill and Hilary in his sights again.

Meryl Yourish is giving her liberal perspective on Fascism.

Doug Payton is considering what sort of culture bans ever reference to pigs. And Cowboy builders. You can find background here.

This week’s Winston Churchill quote is from The Gathering Storm:

Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of Communism… As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into even more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction.

We’ve just released another episode of Shire Network News. This week’s interview guest is California-based filmmaker, Chris Burgard, whose documentary about the situation on the US-Mexico border is winning awards and pissing off all the right people.

We also have a very strong piece about Sderot from Meryl Yourish. You might want to listen.

For more details and to find a player follow the link to our site:

Podcast is securing our borders.

Only in Israel would the prize for the winning team in a weekly Survivor challenge be a Shabbat Dinner with Challah, honey, wine and Shabbat Candles for the whole team.

And only in Israel would the winning team share that prize with the losers because Jews don’t stop other Jews from eating a Shabbat dinner.

Yup I’m still stranded in Israel but it isn’t so bad. Come visit some time.

As the “road to Annapolis” (as all the TV news broadcasts here in Israel have been subtitled for the last few weeks) marches to it’s sorry end, I bring you something that Winston Churchill wrote while furiously warning that letting a militaristic Germany re-arm was global suicide:

“Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness. A sincere love of peace is no excuse for muddling hundreds of millions of humble folks into total war. The cheers of weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to echo, and their votes soon cease to count. Doom marches on.”

Do I need to labour the point?

And on a lighter note,

Giant Israeli flag breaks world record for largest in world

Filipino entrepreneur and evangelical Christian Grace Galindez-Gupana said she decided two years ago to produce a giant Israeli flag as a testament to her love for Israel and the Jewish people, and as a celebration of 50 years of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Israel.

“God spoke to me in thunder and lightening,” Galindez-Gupana said. “The Lord said, ‘Make the flag of Israel, the standard of my people.’”

This week my usual gig, Shire Network News, is hosted completely by Tom Paine, it’s original host. I’ve been too busy this week. I have to say that gives me the rare pleasure of listening to the show just for fun and I can safely say (because I’m not on it) that it sounds great this week.

If you’ve never listened, give it a go, you might find some of the things we talk about coincide with your interests as a reader of Israellycool.

Podcast joins the Army

Shire Network News, the Anglosphere’s premier anti-Jihadi podcast is back, and this week we take a uniquely personal look at how one person has decided to take action.

Reut Cohen, a previous guest on SNN, has decided she is joining the US Army, much to the shock of some of her friends. She speaks to us about the reasons for her decision, and the reactions she’s received - not all of them positive.

We’ll also hear from Meryl Yourish about a new theory of political discourse she’s come up with that seems to have something to do with Dennis Leary.

And Doug Payton shows us how to combat Global Warming by eating kangaroos. Or something. I wasn’t really paying attention, you know, being up on this roof scanning the horizon for the rescue choppers coming to carry me and the rest of the Secret Zionist Neo-Con agents of AmeriKKKan imperialist hegemony to safety in the wake of the Australian election result.

You DID remember to have Pacific Command send a carrier battle group to pick me up in case John Howard lost the election, didn’t you?

There’s also plenty of Blog News, featuring rioting Muslim extremists, Jihadi bombers, Chuck Norris guarding the US Mexican border and (shudder) Helen Thomas. Isn’t she dead yet?