[In the 1948 War of Independence, which had all the Arab nations massed at 650,000 Jews] Israel prevailed, another miracle. But at a very high cost — not just to the Palestinians displaced as a result of a war designed to extinguish Israel at birth, but also to the Israelis, whose war losses were staggering: 6,373 dead. One percent of the population. In American terms, it would take 35 Vietnam memorials to encompass such a monumental loss of life.

You rarely hear about Israel’s terrible suffering in that 1948-49 war. You hear only the Palestinian side. Today, in the same vein, you hear that Israeli settlements and checkpoints and occupation are the continuing root causes of terrorism and instability in the region.

But in 1948, there were no “occupied territories.” Nor in 1967 when Egypt, Syria and Jordan joined together in a second war of annihilation against Israel.

Look at Gaza today. No Israeli occupation, no settlements, not a single Jew left. The Palestinian response? Unremitting rocket fire killing and maiming Israeli civilians. The declared casus belli of the Palestinian government in Gaza behind these rockets? The very existence of a Jewish state.

Israel’s crime is not its policies but its insistence on living. On the day the Arabs — and the Palestinians in particular — make a collective decision to accept the Jewish state, there will be peace, as Israel proved with its treaties with Egypt and Jordan. Until that day, there will be nothing but war. And every “peace process,” however cynical or well-meaning, will come to nothing.

On a more serious note, Harold Kildow looks at the larger meaning of Aliza Shvarts’ execrable “art” project which purported to show the results of serial abortions, and serves up his own ruminations with a link to Roger Kimball’s excellent comment on the same subject.

UPDATE:  And yet another blatant Obama lie — although this one may be because Obama, who claims an audience didn’t applaud, is so used to screaming and swooning that he’s incapable of even acknowledging polite applause.  (H/t:  Danny Lemieux.)

What the defendant needs to do, and often doesn’t do until the eve of trial, is look at his own facts in a vacuum, without the throbbing background drumbeat of the plaintiff’s complaint. In every case in which I’ve taken the time to do this, and do it well, I’ve discovered that there is a completely different narrative theme available to the defendant — not one that is merely reactive and defensive, but one that stands on its own as coherent, believable (and often winnable) story. If I can get out from under the plaintiff’s tale, either the plaintiff loses entirely, or the plaintiff’s margin of victory shrinks substantially.

I wish the Republican party would figure out that the same rules of behavior should apply in this political race. Right now, in full gangbusters mode, the Democrats are marking out the battlefield. “Bush lied.” “Cheney is evil.” “We’ve lost in Iraq.” “Global warming and polar bears.” “Pathetic, maltreated illegal immigrants.” “Economic despair.” The Republicans are in a pure, panicked reactive mode, either desperately distancing themselves — “I never liked George Bush, either” — or trying to coopt the Democrats — “I’m more green than you are.” John McCain is no exception.

The Republicans need to take a deep breath, convene in a smoke filled back room and come up with their own story, untainted by the Democratic world view. Not surprisingly, because he is, after all, a lawyer, Hugh Hewitt completely understands this. The other day, when I had a rare moment alone in the car — meaning I could listen to grown-up radio — I caught Hewitt expounding on the pure conservative messages that the Republicans should be hammering home without fear. I’ve never figured out how to link to podcasts, so this is how you find it: Go here, and look for Hugh’s May 14 show, hour 2.

What Hugh has to say all comes out in the first ten minutes of that segment, and it’s very much worth listening to. Even if you don’t agree with everything he says, what stands out is that he’s envisioning a message that comes, first and foremost from the Republicans, without first being past through the Democratic filter. That’s how you win.

Right now, Republicans are in a losing posture, not because they have a bad message, but because they have no message at all. They look like cornered rats, trying to confuse the cat into thinking they’re something other than a tasty meal. They need to come out like gangbusters too, loud and proud, with a message that resonates with ordinary Americans. Right now, the Democratic message is resonating, but that’s primarily because there’s nothing else out there to stop those sound waves from vibrating around in the political ether.

The alert among you will have noticed by now that what all these spiritually uplifting leaders have in common. They are all Democrats. Never in any of the chapters of this hagiography does a Republican, a conservative, appear in a remotely similar light. These alien creatures by contrast have always been portrayed as cartoonish representatives of the Dark Side of humanity, or, if they were really lucky, simply idiots, failed B-movie actors and irredeemably ignorant hicks with embarrassingly neanderthal views on women, religion and communism.

It’s been a while coming - neither Al Gore in 2000 (before the luminescence created by his recent joint Nobel/Oscar triumphs) nor John Kerry in 2004 quite fit the bill. But it’s fairly clear now that, with the near-certain nomination by the Democrats of Barack Obama everything is in place for the media to indulge in one of the greatest, orgiastic media fiestas of hero-worship since Elvis Presley.

You will not see a finer example of the genre than the cover story of this week’s Newsweek, which was entitled “The O Team”. This rhapsodic inside account of Senator Obama’s campaign reads a little like a cross between Father Alban Butler’s Life of St Francis and the sort of authorised biography of Kim Jong Il you can pick up in any good bookshop in Pyongyang.

Mr Obama is portrayed throughout as an immanently benevolent figure. Not human really, more a comforting presence, a light source. He is always eager to listen to all aides of an argument, always instilling confidence in the weak-willed, resolutely sticking to his high principles and tirelessly spurning the low road of electoral politics. I stopped reading after a while but I’m sure by the end he was healing the sick, comforting the dying, restoring sight to the blind and setting prisoners free.

You must read the rest of Baker’s article. It’s beautifully written and it perfectly nails the scary way in which the media worships their latest savior. And if you haven’t watched the video I recommended in the preceding post, you’ll definitely want to after having read Baker’s article.

UPDATE: If you have the stomach for it, in light of the above opinion piece, you’ll enjoy this perfect example of AP hagiography — er, I mean, an AP news report — about Obama:

Is Obama, with his incandescent smile and silky oratory, a once-in-a-century phenomenon who will blast open doors only to see them quickly close on less extraordinary blacks?

Or is he the lucky and well-timed beneficiary of racial dynamics that have changed faster than most people realized, a trend that presumably will soon yield more black governors, senators, mayors and council members?

Presidential campaigns have destroyed many bright and capable politicians. But there’s ample evidence that Obama is something special, a man who makes difficult tasks look easy, who seems to touch millions of diverse people with a message of hope that somehow doesn’t sound Pollyannaish.

Please forgive me while I abandon my keyboard a moment and fall down and worship at my Obama-shrine.

H/T: Best of the Web

Barack Obama has the top of the Democratic ticket all but sewn up, in spite of having spent more time campaigning for president than serving as a U.S. Senator or doing anything else to prepare for the job, with the possible exception of networking among fellow congregants in a large church with the blessing of a fundamentally unserious pastor (anyone who regards “social justice” as an adequate paraphrase of the gospel is a disciple, however well-meaning, of Karl Marx).

With the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama will join the likes of John “Cambodian Christmas Hat” Kerry, Al “Invented the Internet” Gore, Bill “Better Put Some Ice on That” Clinton, and Michael “One-Man Parole Board” Dukakis, all of whom were brutalized by partisan pundits for faults that would have been apparent to anyone doing even a cursory background check.

By the way, given Obama’s “Yes, we can slogan,” am I the only one who finds it vaguely disturbing that this most immature of political candidates has as his slogan a theme that most parents will recognize as the chorus from the theme song for Bob the Builder, a show aimed at the toddler set?

Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American US military recruiters love.

“I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school,” the now 24-year-old told AFP.

Yup — that’s our military: poor and stupid Southern crackers, leavened, I’m sure, by poor and stupid urban blacks. It’s amazing that the military isn’t one giant race war run by idiots. If only it weren’t for the truth about the military’s real composition.

With regards to the AFP, I can only say what Daffy Duck would say: “You’re dethpicable.”

UPDATE:  SSG Dave left a link here to a post he did on Chiroux’s media stunt.  I focused solely on the media angle but, had I taken the time and given the matter thought, I would have said everything SSG Dave, only not with such passion.  He is, after all, serving in our military, while I’m just sitting in the ‘burbs opining about the military.  You should read his screed.

The WSJ’s editors take on the election ramifications of the decision — a bit of unexpected, and undeserved, good luck for Republicans in a terribly managed campaign season.

As was to be expected, National Review quickly put together a whole catalog of articles about the ruling, with thoughts from the editors themselves, William Duncan, Maggie Gallagher, and Ed Whelan.

All of the above articles on the subject make clear that the case is a bit of judicial legerdemain, creating entirely new rights where none existed before, so as to bypass the troglodytes who troop regularly to the voting booths.  Marvin Baxter, a dissenting associate justice, sums up in a nutshell everything that is wrong with the Court’s opinion (and this holds true whether or not one agrees with the Court’s outcome):

“Nothing in our Constitution, express or implicit, compels the majority’s startling conclusion that the age-old understanding of marriage — an understanding recently confirmed by an initiative law — is no longer valid. California statutes already recognize same-sex unions and grant them all the substantive legal rights this state can bestow. If there is to be a further sea change in the social and legal understanding of marriage itself, that evolution should occur by similar democratic means.” (Emphasis mine.)

Hate John McCain as much as you like — and he’s doing his dangerous maverick thing again which deserves condemnation — but if you want to try to keep more activist judges from getting on the US Supreme Court, gamble on him. I can guarantee you that, no matter how “mavericky” McCain gets, a President Obama, working with a Democratic Senate, will put on the Supreme Court justices who will make your head spin.