Woody Allen’s prescient 1966 take on the Palestinian State question:
Majah: Good afternoon. I am the Grand Exalted High Majah of Raspur, a nonexistent but real-sounding country.
Phil Moscowitz: Uh-huh.
Majah: Yes. We’re on a waiting list. As soon as there’s an opening on the map, we’re next.
From ‘What’s Up, Tiger Lily?’. His first, and funny film. They aren’t any more. But sometimes that’s just the way the Jell-O judicates…

Why write it yourself when Den Beste says it perfectly for you?
– There will be a Palestinian State.
– If it is to happen without triggering a far worse war, it must happen after the current Palestinian culture of death and conquest is destroyed.
– The question is what it will take to destroy that culture.
Note: Just noticed that N.Z. Bear made pretty much exactly the same comment here. Charles Fort raises an eyebrow…

JULY 4 WARNINGS??
A lot of news coverage on potential Islamicist threats to US targets on July 4 (see this CNN article); something jogged my memory, and it occurred to me:
July 4 is also the date of the famous Battle of Hattin/Tiberias, at which Saladin defeated Guy, King of Jerusalem and his army of Crusaders and effectively ended the Frankish occupation of Palestine.
Since we know Al Queida knows their history, I’d be definitely be in Condition Yellow that day.

I’ve read Cold Fury for a while, and only through boneheaded oversight haven’t put a link to him up. I’ll fix that this weekend.
Found this today, in response to the Asparagirl hooha. Go read the rest, it’s great.

No matter how Churchill might have felt in his darker private moments during WW2, he never gave in to the kind of defeatism implicit in Jeff’s reading of Brooke’s post. If he ever even expressed the smallest navel-gazing doubt, I’ve never heard about it. Maybe my knowledge of the man isn’t what it should be, but it seems to me the free world needs all the Churchills it can get; it always does, but especially now. There are quite enough doomsayers out there on the left side of the political equation, and they neither need nor deserve any encouragement from the rest of us. They can’t be allowed to win the day, because if they win, all of us lose. ALL of us.
The great conflict of our age will be resolved. Whether it will be resolved in a way favorable to freedom and the advancement of the human spirit or to repression and religious despotism will be decided by our own resolve both as a nation and as individuals. In fact, in the end they’re one and the same thing. Those of us who truly believe in freedom must not give up. It’s that simple. If our leaders lose sight of the objective, they must be brought back around or they must be replaced. The leaders must themselves occasionally be led.
The last few months have been especially frustrating, with Bush failing to adequately support Israel as they fight what we all know is the same war he once seemed so committed to. There have been a few encouraging signs of life lately, although not near enough yet, as far as I’m concerned. The rest of the world condemns every reflexive move Israel makes if such moves threaten to make the enemies of freedom, whether in Ramallah or Jenin or Riyadh or Damascus or Cairo, slightly uncomfortable. A great many opinion-shapers and world leaders appear to be wearing some sort of strange blinders which allow them to see fault only on Israel’s side and enabling them to ignore the most elementary lessons of history. The idea of a Palestinian state has become something of a fait accompli in certain quarters, without regard to what form such a state might take, the effect it might have on Israeli security, and even whether such a thing is historically justified or not.
And meanwhile, not just coincidentally but as a result, the suicide-murderers have continued to wreak their bloody havoc. The people who put these simple-minded dupes up to their despicable acts are not stupid; in fact, they are descended from a line of Machiavellian tribal despots stretching far back into human history who know how to manipulate events and gullible people and who have no moral strictures against using any means whatsoever to hold onto power. Dishonesty is merely another tool of statecraft for them. They know that there are some fools in the world who, whether motivated by pity or something more sinister, will want to buy the particular brand of snake-oil they’re selling. And as long as that remains the case, they’ll keep right on peddling it. It’s their only hope.
But I think their hope might just be fading. Call me a Pollyanna if you like (yeah right), but I’m beginning to feel in my gut that the more astute among the Arab world know the tide is turning against them and their phony concern for the “rights” of the Palestinians. I don’t have anything to back that up with, but I feel that way just the same. With each new round of outrages the Palestinians lose a little more sympathy, because each time the veil of lies their leaders hide behind is lifted a little higher, and sympathy is what they absolutely must have to continue to survive. It’s the one thing they cannot live without. It’s hard to claim to occupy the moral high ground when you’re murdering children, and it’s even harder to maintain the illusion that you care about morality at all when the world sees you murdering children every damned day.
So we all need to hold onto that anger. Losing our sense of outrage over, well, outrageous acts is not something we can afford to do. Not now, not ever. Because as long as we still have the capacity for outrage, we can still win this war.

I had hopes that GW had some Churchill in him, at the State of the Union Address back then. I stopped calling him “shrub”, and everything. I’m still hoping, but I’m an optimistic bastard by nature. For a while, anyway.

Just coming out of the post-general anesthesia/day of painkillers haze; I stopped the painkillers (anyone want a month’s supply of Vicodan?) before I went to bed because they make my brain turn into sludge and make me want to throw up…I’ve broken my nose before, so it’s not all that big a deal.
Started me thinking about the Dawn/Eric Olsen dialog about their child’s birth and the hassle they had between them. First, I think it’s amazingly cool that partners can sit down and be so publicly honest; something tells me that’s a very strong relationship.
My take on the whole childbirth/drugs thing was settled during the Lamaze class I went to with my first wife for our Biggest Guy’s birth. The moms were all talking each other up about ‘making it through’ drug-free as we husbands all looked nervously at each other in the background. Then one mom…a pert young actress we called ‘Annie Hall’ at home, looked around the room and explained: “most of my adult life I’ve been trying to get good drugs. Now, the first time I really get to take them for any kind of a reason, you’re telling me I shouldn’t?”
Biggest guy was with an epidural; Middlest Guy was born so damn quickly the OB never even got there…the nurses delivered him without drugs or complications. Littlest Guy was induced after about twelve hours of desultory labor, so epiduraled there again.
Fundamentally, childbirth is amazingly physically and emotionally stressful; I give incredible honor to the women who go through it, and I’m jealous at the same time. I can’t imagine what it must be like outside a modern hospital…
Notice that I didn’t try and talk the surgeon out of giving me a general yesterday…but believe me, I felt miserable yesterday, and the pain/discomfort today is much less than the nausea-stupidity/discomfort yesterday.
BTW, the war on drugs is a farce. I’ll add that to the in-box and see what I can do.

Today’s Screed

I’ve been looking at the last few day’s blogs, and at some responses to them, and have come to the conclusion that I’m being too superficial. Max can’t find much to take exception to, but also thinks I’ve dodged some of the hard questions, and in looking back, I think he’s right.
If Howard can think I’m a conservative, I’m not making my points.
I have to take a day or so off to get my sinuses roto-rootered, so while I’m in dreamland, I’ll think of some ways to make my points more substantive.
Yasir, please try not to blow up any more kids while I’m away, OK?

Joe Katzman has a Churchill quote that sums it up neatly.

Just got this month’s Atlantic magazine, with the brilliant article on clearing the WTC site by Langewiesche, and discovered this gem of an article on Arafat by David Brooks.

He has proved to be a mediocre guerrilla leader and a terrible administrator but a brilliant image crafter and morale builder. Early in his career he dressed in Western suits; it was at the 1956 International Students’ Congress in Prague that he first publicly wore a kaffiyeh, or head scarf—a gesture that caused an immediate sensation among the Westerners in attendance. (According to Aburish, each morning Arafat would spend nearly an hour folding his kaffiyeh so that when it hung to his shoulders it resembled the map of Palestine.) The army fatigues, the pistol, and the three-day beard came later, but, like the kaffiyeh, all were carefully considered symbols. Arafat’s greatest moments have always been publicity coups—appearing on the cover of Time in 1968, speaking at the United Nations in 1974—rather than military victories. His primary goals have always been to create and nurture what might be called the Palestinian brand and to rally the Palestinian psyche around himself.

and

He and his army have brought disorder wherever they have settled. In 1969 they based themselves in Jordan, where they soon began terrorizing the local people, running extortion rackets against businesses, and undermining the Jordanian regime. Black September followed in 1970: Jordan’s King Hussein launched a huge and bloody war against the Palestinians, killing thousands and leading to the expulsion of Arafat and his army. The same sort of thing happened in Lebanon a decade later, with Palestinian thugs looting banks and destroying the local government. The Syrians finally came in to restore order, in what became known as Black June. Arafat has somehow survived his many crises—battles with the Jordanians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Lebanese Christians, and, of course, the Israelis. And each time, instead of being held even partly responsible for the widespread suffering his actions have caused his people, he has been lionized as the figure who will someday bring deliverance from that suffering. This is a monumental political achievement.

There’s more, go read it.

File13’s Amish Tech Support will put everything in perspective.
How would you negotiate with the people who do this as a matter of course? I used to support the idea of a Palestinian state. I used to be irritated at Israel for all the things they did in the name of ‘security’. I was the political audience Arafat played to.
Not any more.
Thanks to Kathy Kinsley.