Bookworm Room

The choice before the Cambridge Debating Society was whether one should choose war to stop Iran from going nuclear, or simply accept a nuclear Iran.  Douglas Murray offers a devastating rebuttal to those who say, “Who cares if Iran goes nuclear?”  The 11 minute video starts out good and, halfway through, gets great: Hat tip:  [...]

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American universities pay lip service to multiculturalism and inclusiveness, but one of their despicable secrets is that, while conservative and Jewish speakers are ignored or shouted down with no push-back whatsoever from the university administrations, pro-Palestinian speakers are given a bully pulpit.  The worse their rhetoric — the more anti-inflammatory and antisemitic — the more [...]

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Would anyone care to explain to Mr. Bookworm the difference between an extremist sect breaking its country’s laws by discriminating against women, and a country that has as an integral part of its law and culture murderous attacks on women, “witches,” children and gays? He professes to be bewildered.

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There is a tendency to imagine politics as a straight line, going from Left to Right, or statist to individualist.  I think, though, that it would be more accurate to imagine it as a curve, with the two ends sometimes straining to meet each other.  Ron Paul’s libertarianism, which includes a Truther strain, deep hostility [...]

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Another powerful Danny Ayalon video.  Watch it, then, please, please, please share it with people. (Or view it here if it doesn’t load on my webpage.) Incidentally, will it make you feel better to know that Danny Ayalon, reciting just the facts set forth in the above video, is causing some embarrassment for the UN, [...]

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“Facts are stubborn things.”  — John Adams. “Ideologues are even more stubborn than facts.”  — Bookworm A few nights ago, Mr. Bookworm watched the movie Shattered Glass with the children.  It’s a fairly good retelling of the way in which Stephen Glass, a young feature writer at The New Republic, wrote a series of fraudulent [...]

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Others have said it, but I like best the way Evelyn Gordon said it.  After confirming the historic accuracy of Newt’s claim (namely, that Arabs moved into the land at the end of the 19th century, rather than having lived there since time immemorial), Gordon goes on: One might ask why this should matter: Regardless [...]

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I’ve never doubted Obama’s fundamental anti-Israel beliefs, nor have I ever thought he’s on a right, or even a sane, track in the Middle East. As much as anything, though, my feelings regarding Obama’s Israel/Middle East attitudes were predicated on a gut attitude resulting from his pre-presidency friendships and his execrable Cairo speech. Now, though, [...]

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Ignore the fact that the Qur’an is drenched in Jew hated.  Ignore the fact that, since Islam came into being, it has alternately treated Jews as second class citizens or actively tried to slaughter them.  If you can ignore those realities, you too can be an American ambassador in the Obama administration.  You get bonus [...]

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There’s just something awesome…a je ne sais quoi..about Israeli humor in the face of adversity. For all you Dylan fans…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nbA0h0WfA4U     A Ka-nife?

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Bruce Kesler spoke with Jonathan Spyer, who wrote Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict.  Despite the current upheaval in the Middle East, and its attendant rise in antisemitism (which is impressive, considering its previous high level), Spyer is sanguine, and even optimistic.  Check out Bruce’s post and see what you think.

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Wouldn’t you like to have lunch with this guy?

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Over the years, I helped win at least two major cases because I re-framed the debate.  In one case, a will contest case, the opposing party claimed that our client, a housekeeper, had committed fraud and elder abuse in order to inveigle a little old lady into leaving the housekeeper a substantial chunk of the [...]

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What Israelis would like to say: And what Netanyahu, with courage and honesty, actually said at the UN:

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Bill Whittle narrates this clear summation of 20th and 21st century relations between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.  It does not reflect well on the Arabs:

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North Korea assumes presidency of U.N. arms control conference http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/29/north-korea-assumes-presidency-of-u-n-arms-control-conference/#ixzz1Ql1gXN44 “Bare months after the U.N. finally suspended Libya’s Col. Muammar Qaddafi from its Human Rights Council, North Korea wins the propaganda coup of heading the world’s disarmament agency,” the executive director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer said in a statement protesting the move. “It’s asking [...]

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If you haven’t listened to Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, you must.  And I mean listen.  I’m usually a speech reader, because I read quickly, and seldom have the time or the patience to sit down and listen to someone give a 45 minute speech. In addition, some speakers have so many rhetorical tics and twitches [...]

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Israel as the next Saudia Arabia?   According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, Israel’s unusually large and high-quality shale oil reserves may yield as much oil as all of Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576242420737584278.html   These discoveries are in addition to of Israel’s recently diclosed gas reserves, also anticipated to be [...]

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Poor Cassandra was cursed by the Gods with the gift of making accurate prophecies that no one would believe.  The disasters she foresaw always came true, but she was helpless to stop people (and nations) from racing towards their doom.  The endings were always so terrible — and Cassandra was herself swept up in them [...]

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In honor of Mubarak’s strategic retreat to Sharm El Sheikh, here is the anthem of the 1967 War, which saw Sharm El Sheikh end in Israel’s hands, a situation that lasted up until Egypt got it back in 1982, as part of the peace treaty:

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I struggled for a few minutes to find a clever title for this post that would convey the volume of information I’m about to download from my brain, but realized I couldn’t.  A laundry list description will just have to do. You see, last night, I had the pleasure of attending a Hanukkah party that [...]

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Sometimes, a reader leaves a comment that is too good not to elevate to post status.  This time, it was Spartacus, writing in response to my question about real ways (not stupid, embarrassing, intrusive ways) to improve airport security: *** A childhood friend of mine got married in the Tel Aviv area in 2002. By [...]

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Yes, you read that post caption correctly.  British Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge, in a speech in the House of Lords, claims that terrorism around the world is Israel’s fault, because Israel treats the Palestinian’s badly: On the issue of world conflict prevention, Tonge then said: “It is a disgrace to us all that problems such [...]

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Judo, which I don’t do, is a beautiful martial art predicated on using your opponent’s own momentum against him.  Gabriel Latner, a 19 year old Canadian, has proven himself to be a master of intellectual judo.  You can read here the overall context within which he exercised his intellectual martial arts; and here you can [...]

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[Despite being about the pompous and boring Tom Friedman, this is not an appropriate post for the under-18 crowd.] I don’t think that there’s any doubt BUT that Tom Friedman is an idiot.  His worship for Communist China — which in typical Friedman fashion routinely takes the form of acknowledging its failings, yet nevertheless lusting [...]

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