If Europe is no longer Europe

In a famous essay published March 13, 2003 in the Wall Street Journal, The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt, Oriana Fallaci maintained a “scandalous” thesis:

Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors. It lodges thousands of Islamic terrorists whom governments don’t know how to identify and control. People are afraid, and in waving the flag of pacifism [...] they feel protected.

Although she was talking about the war in Iraq, her words fit almost exactly what is going on in these very days in two European countries, the Netherlands and United Kingdom.

Last Wednesday a Dutch court ordered the criminal prosecution of Geert Wilders, a Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), for his “anti-Islamic hate speech,” that is for his statements against Islamofascism, considered “insulting” by the Court itself. So, as my friends of www.actforamerica.org put it, the message is clear: it’s okay for a radical Muslim to call for your death, but don’t you dare criticize the Muslim for doing so.

Expectedly, “the Jordanian group ‘The Messenger of God Unites Us’ greeted the news with much happiness,” Klein Verzet (a Dutch blog in English) reports. And as it was not enough the State of Jordan

has issued a request for Wilders' extradition to stand trial in Jordan for blasphemy of Islam, a crime for which Shari'a law declares the penalty to be death. The Dutch parliament has taken the extradition request very seriously, and has shut out Wilders from all multi-lateral negotiations. As a precaution, Wilders no longer travels abroad unless he can obtain a diplomatic letter from the destination state promising he won't be extradited. For years now, Wilders has lived under looming death threats complemented by the threat that any day, Interpol might issue a warrant for his arrest at Jordan's behest.
[…]
What a difference a few years make. When we started this blog, the Dutch had a reputation comparable to the Danes. But now it seems that the Netherlands has joined the madness of the UK, France, Sweden and Norway, in their mad dash to destroy the spirit of the native people, for diversity's sake.

Well, actually, in the meantime two Dutchmen, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, were being murdered for their outspoken opposition to Islamization in the Netherlands.

Let’s now talk about what is going on in the UK. Last Friday the Evening Standard reported that

Douglas Murray, a self-confessed “neo conservative”, was due to chair “Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?” at the university tonight — 24 hours after the end of a week-long sit in at LSE in protest at Israel's attacks on Gaza.
The commentator and author, who is the director of conservative think-tank the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “This is back to the bad old days of the LSE — where the most violent get to dictate people's education. It is worse than censorship — it's intimidation.” The debate, which is set to go ahead, is between Dr Alan Sked, a senior lecturer in international history at the university, and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a Muslim writer and lecturer.
The LSE asked Mr Murray not to attend in the interest of public safety as his presence could provoke further unrest. A spokesman added: “He has spoken at LSE in the past and will be welcome to do so again in the future.”

By the way, as a British journalist noted (Phyllis Chesler reports), the London School of Economics had no such fears when known “members of Al-Mujaharoun, a pro-terror Islamist organisation,” spoke there. “The presence of the group was announced in advance, but that was OK with the School. Presumably that was because it was also OK with the Islamic campus ideologues in front of whom it cowers.”

And here is what Melanie Phillips and Oliver Kamm have to say :

MP :

Another victory for the forces of darkness, thanks to the pusillanimity of the LSE which, finding itself on the battlefield of the war to defend civilisation, has run up the white flag.

OK :

The LSE's conduct is cowardly and unconscionable. A university is a place for the untrammelled discussion of ideas. The LSE has curtailed the ability of one invited guest to contribute to a discussion - as chairman of a debate and not even as a speaker - because of a presumed threat of violence arising from the offence he might thereby cause. I've seen the LSE's internal correspondence on this. It refers to complaints made about Douglas's views on Islam. It seems that Douglas has been disinvited because of the effect on the sensibilities of students - or on "campus relations", as one particularly arch piece of misdirection has it - at a time of Middle East conflict.
[…]
It is the LSE's responsibility - stemming from its function as an institute of learning - to rescind its decision, allow the event to take place as planned, and to send down any student who tries by violence or threat to prevent a guest from speaking.

Perhaps Oliver is wasting his breath with his call for the LSE to think again, and Melanie is right: they raised the white flag on the crumbling building.

Is Obama a neoconservative?

“With Barack Obama about to become president, is there any chance neoconservatives will finally return to the roost?” Gabriel Schoenfeld asked in the Wall Street Journal. If only a month ago the question would have seemed preposterous, now, according to Schoenfeld, it shouldn’t any more. And there are solid arguments for that. Obama’s insistence on the theme of “personal responsibility,” for instance, which is one purchase point for the original neocons, when they were still Democrats, back in the 70s. And what about his belief in the need for supporting and encouraging fathers’ active participation in parenting?

It was, after all, alarm about the disintegration of black families in the 1960s that helped propel rightward the liberal pillar -- and neoconservative founding father -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Four decades later the same problem afflicts the urban underclass. Mr. Obama's photogenic First Family serves as a more potent counter to the allure -- such as it is -- of the ghetto lifestyle than any policy initiative ever cooked up in a neoconservative think tank.
But the incoming president -- himself the son of a single mother -- not only walks the walk, he talks the talk. During the campaign he boldly told an African-American audience that "We need fathers to realize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception. . . . What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any fool can have a child. . . . It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

Furthermore, Obama’s foreign policy echoed many longstanding concerns of the neocons :

Even on foreign policy, Mr. Obama has an opportunity to build a coalition with hawks. Ironically, the surge in Iraq -- which Mr. Obama irresponsibly opposed -- may allow for a safe American withdrawal on something approximating the timetable he has called for. His emphasis on winning in Afghanistan and cleaning out the al Qaeda redoubt in Pakistan is common sense. His pledge not to permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons differs not a whit from President Bush's policy.
And with regard to the Gaza conflict, it is also welcome to recall that, touring the embattled Israeli town of Sderot during the campaign, Mr. Obama stated -- in words that neoconservatives are now quoting aloud -- that "if missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that."

Would Obama really do much that was different from the Bush administration? Ron Radosh asks in his blog. He reports that a left-leaning journalist, TNR’s John B. Judis called Obama’s Inaugural Address “a disappointing hodge-podge,” “too abstract” and neither “original nor compelling.” He didn’t like the call to get rid of “worn-out dogmas,” fearing, as Radosh puts it, that Obama was just not talking about those of the right.

Judis was also disturbed when Obama said that “Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” Judis writes: “This strikes me as either boilerplate or an exaggeration of the danger posed by al Qaeda. It is reminiscent of George W. Bush and his catch-all war on terror. Obama and the country clearly face grave problems overseas; but they can’t be reduced to a ‘far-reaching network.’” Really?? And reminiscent of Bush? This, as we know, is about the nastiest smear a liberal could make against Obama.

When all this is said—and much more might be said on the subject—how can we help asking ourselves whether Obama is “a liberal mugged by reality?”

A morning with Cyrano

I went to the theater this morning with a bunch of my 16/17 year old students to watch the famous play by Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, in French, its original language. It was well performed by a French professional theater company, and most students seemed to have enjoyed the experience. As for myself, my school French turned out to be very poor, but I had no problem with the below quoted and sublime passage ...

Un baiser, mais à tout prendre, qu’est-ce ?
Un serment fait d’un peu plus près, une promesse
plus précise, un aveu qui veut se confirmer,
un point rose qu’on met sur l’i du verbe aimer;
c’est un secret qui prend la bouche pour oreille,
un instant d’infini qui fait un bruit d’abeille,
une communion ayant un goût de fleur,
une façon d’un peu se respirer le coeur,
et d’un peu se goûter, au bord des lèvres, l’âme !


A kiss, when all is said,—what is it?
An oath that's ratified,—a sealed promise,
A heart’s avowal claiming confirmation,—
A rose-dot on the ‘I’ of ‘adoration,’—
A secret that to mouth, not ear, is whispered,—
Brush of a bee’s wing, that makes time eternal,—
Communion perfumed like the spring’s wild flowers,—
The heart’s relieving in the heart’s outbreathing,
When to the lips the soul’s flood rises, brimming!

Act III, Scene ix

Airline passengers: In whose hands?

The crash of US Airways 1549 into the Hudson River in New York City has inspired a former professional military pilot an interesting post. Airline passengers normally don’t spend much time thinking about who are sitting in the front two seats of the airplane, but they should ...

Liberal or Conservative?

My favorite passage of President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address is this:

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

Is that a liberal or conservative point of view? Let me not answer this question, neither did I want to ask you for an answer: whatever I or you might say in response would be both right and wrong, in my opinion. Perhaps the reason why I like that passage is just because of the impossibility of giving a uniquely satisfying answer to that question.

Fiat-Chrysler alliance

Chrysler’s troubles worsened last fall when the meltdown on Wall Street hit. So most analysts said the US automaker had little hope of surviving as a standalone company, and Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) said the company needs to “merge or go away.” Italy’s Fiat, in turn, has its own troubles, but it is still true that it is at the moment the stronger of the two and a recognized world leader in the area of innovative and environmentally friendly products, thanks to its chief, Sergio Marchionne, who has pulled the company back from the brink collapse since taking over in 2004. So, in an attempt to revive two of the world’s storied auto makers, Fiat and Chrysler decided to lend a hand to one another. And the Americans will soon be reaping the benefits and the healthy rewards of driving small vehicles, while the Italians will experience the excitement of driving large, gas-guzzling cars … Well, actually, not exactly I’m afraid. See here and here for details.

If Obama lives up to the dreams

“There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American,” Barack Obama told the Washington Post last week. “I mean,” he added, “that’s a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn’t underestimate the force of that.”

“Neither would I,” writes Jonah Golberg in today’s Los Angeles Times. Nor would I, if I may say so myself. In his column Golberg explains “what Obama brings to conservatives,” and argues conservatives out of trying “to belittle the importance of this milestone,” because “this is simply a wonderful—and wonderfully American—story,” and “any political movement that is joyless about what this represents risks succumbing to bitter political crankery.”

And this is how he concludes his remarks:

If Obama lives up to the dreams of his biggest supporters in writing a new, post-racial chapter for America, he will have at once done more for America than any Democratic president in generations. But he also will have cut the knot holding much of the left together. As an American and as a conservative, I certainly hope that’s the case. He’s already made a good start of it just by getting elected.

A thorough reading of Goldberg’s piece is highly recommended. (Thanks: Sandra K. S.)

'I love President George W Bush'

Terrorists are “very brilliant and educated,” the Dalai Lama said yesterday delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, “but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed.” That’s why, he added, “it is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence.” 

Those words, uttered in a moment of the highest international tension because of the events in Gaza, may sound very meaningful to them who have ears to hear.

On the same occasion, the Dalai Lama had also kind words for the outgoing President of the U.S., George W Bush: “I love President George W Bush,” he said leaving the audience stunned and recalling how he and the US President instantly struck a chord in their first meeting. “I told him ‘I love you but some of your policies I oppose’,” he added.

What shall I say? I wonder if the Tibetan spiritual leader could have ever spoken more highly of one of the most hated world leaders in history. My answer is, “probably not.” And I think I know why, as well as President-elect Barack Obama, who said last Friday on CNN that George W. Bush is a good guy. “If you look at my statements throughout the campaign, I always thought he was a good guy, I mean, I think personally he is a good man who loves his family and loves his country. And I think he made the best decisions that he could at times under some very difficult circumstances.”

Well, if these are the premises, I think history will be fair to George W. Bush.

Hamas infiltration into UK state agencies?

This comes from Britain, but it could just as easily have come from almost anywhere else in Western Europe or North America, and it is a shocking news: Treasury official Azad Ali, president of the UK Civil Service Islamic Society, complained in his blog about the British government’s response to “the Zionist terrorist State of Israel,” and said there was “much truth” in an interview with an Islamic extremist who said it is his religious obligation to kill British and American soldiers in Iraq.

Furthermore, despite the fact that until a few days ago he was regarded as a moderate Muslim who could help tackle Islamic fanaticism in Britain, he attacked moderate British Muslims as “self-serving vultures, feeding on the dead flesh of the Palestinians.”

As it was not enough, as a former chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum and the current head of its counter-terrorism work-team, he works with the Home Office, senior police officers and the Security Services—of course his aim is to combat extremism ...

This, according to Atma Singh (Ken Livingstone’s former adviser and Mayor of London contender 2012), who first acquainted me with this stuff via email, highlights “what I revealed about Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into UK state agencies and specifically in the Mayor’s Office under Ken Livingstone,” as well as “true nature of such Islamism turning into an advocacy force for terrorism.”

Meanwhile Azad Ali was suspended from his senior government job, and Tory MP Patrick Mercer, an adviser to Security Minister Lord West, questioned how this man could continue as a civil servant. But two British blogs don't agree with Mercer (nor with Azad Ali):

Harry's Place ...

Don’t get me wrong. Azad Ali’s politics are disgusting.
However, he has made absolutely no secret of them, at any point. Quite the opposite. The Islamist groups with which he has been involved proudly proclaim their support for jihad, in pursuit of the creation of a nightmarish theocratic state.
Nevertheless, despite his politics he has become the civil service’s “go to” Muslim representative of choice. I would like to believe that Gus O’Donnell was shocked - shocked! - to find that the man with whom he and his civil service and the police force have been turning for strategic advice on “Muslim policy” is a vicious extremist. If nobody in the civil service and the police force realised what this man’s politics were, then they must have been blind and utter fools.
I believe that the opposite is true. I think that Azad Ali was engaged with, precisely because of the nature of his affiliations, and his connections with organisations like the East London Mosque, which is a base for Jamaat-e-Islami. Now that his activities have been exposed in the Mail on Sunday, they have cut him loose.

And pickled politics ...

Azad Ali certainly holds some unattractive political views.
[...]
Azad Ali didn’t start writing Islamist material on his blog on Satuday December 27, the day Israel launched its air attacks on Gaza. What we should be asking is how Azad Ali managed to be selected as the Islamist of choice for so many government departments for this long.

How to save a friend from metal rock

What would you answer if someone—an Indian friend, for instance—asked you for a sort of introduction to Western music? And how would you act if you were willing to save him from metal rock? Well, you might want to explain to him that one of the characteristics of Western music is polyphony, and that this whole thing, of combining different melodies together, began in the Middle Ages, possibly by chance, and progressed in the subsequent centuries. Then you might want to tell him that Western music can also be monodic, the opposite of polyphonic … Or you might want to take a look at this post “before” giving a definitive answer. The latter is the option I would recommend ... ;-)

Thank you

Yesterday the winners and the final ranking of the finalists of the 2008 Weblog Awards were announced by the organizers. Wind Rose Hotel didn’t win in its category, but I’d like to thank each and every one of you, anyway, my dear and loyal readers, for taking the time to vote for me. I really appreciated your support and, in many cases, your personal encouragement.

However, believe me when I say that having been a finalist was great reward in itself. During the days of voting this blog had thousands of new visitors from all over the word, dozens of new links pointing to it, and as many new subscribers to its feed. In other words, I am very happy to have participated in such an important competition and I like to thank the organizers who made all this possible. It was a great experience!

Anno Zero: niente martiri, prego ...

L'ottimo Luca Ricolfi ha scritto su La Stampa di oggi che è “sbalordito” per quanto ha visto e ascoltato ieri sera ad Anno Zero. L’articolo merita di esser letto e meditato, e personalmente vorrei aggiungere che sono grato a Ricolfi per averlo scritto e per aver interpretato perfettamente lo sdegno del sottoscritto e di innumerevoli altri telespettatori.

Sbalordito per la partigianeria della trasmissione, accuratamente costruita per vedere le buone ragioni dei palestinesi e ignorare quelle degli israeliani. Sbalordito per il pochissimo spazio concesso al ragionamento e l’enorme spazio lasciato alle viscere. Sbalordito per la strumentalizzazione del genuino e umanissimo dolore di due ragazze, una palestinese e una israeliana, cinicamente buttate nell’arena come fanno gli organizzatori di combattimenti fra galli. Sbalordito per l’incapacità di Santoro di ascoltare una critica (a mio parere giustissima, ma comunque cortese e civile) all’impostazione della sua trasmissione. Sbalordito per la violenza con cui il conduttore, abusando del suo potere, ha più volte coperto la voce di chi esprimeva, o meglio tentava di esprimere, opinioni non conformi (Lucia Annunziata, prima; Tobia Zevi verso la fine della trasmissione). Sbalordito per le parole sprezzanti con cui Santoro ha risposto alle argomentazioni di Lucia Annunziata, accusata di ripetere «le solite scemenze» su Annozero, e addirittura di voler acquisire meriti presso qualche potente (presso chi? che cos’è questo modo obliquo di alludere?).

Che altro dire? Bah, niente, niente di niente, nel merito, è perfetto così. Ora mi auguro soltanto una cosa: che Berlusconi e gli altri della maggioranza non trasformino un’altra volta l’ignobile personaggio in un martire. Lo lascino stare, semplicemente. La sua punizione è esistere, la nostra soddisfazione ignorarlo. Che importa se il conto lo paga il cittadino contribuente? Con tutti gli sprechi di questo Paese, non meno scandalosi, non meno vergognosi, questo non ci farà andare in rovina (non più degli altri, cioè). Consideriamo la questione-Santoro alla stregua di uno dei tanti Enti Inutili, che sono lì da 50 anni e tutti lo sanno, e noi continuiamo a pagare, pagare ... Qualsiasi cosa, ma niente martiri: gliela darebbero vinta un’altra volta, e questo proprio non possiamo permettercelo.

Why should Hamas want a truce?

A few hours ago exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal told Arab leaders, in an emergency summit on Gaza, in Doha, Qatar, that his group would not accept Israeli conditions for a truce. It’s bad news, but there is nothing surprising about that. What could be slightly surprising, instead, is that Khaled Meshaal also accused Israel of waging war against all Palestinians, including women and children. Why surprising? Simply because the accusation can backfire on Hamas, if only for the fact that a specular purpose can be traced back to Hamas charter itself:

Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”

As it was not enough, this document includes reference to the notorious anti-Semitic forgery 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' that is to say the myth of a Jewish plan to dominate the world (via Norm):

Today it is Palestine and tomorrow it may be another country or other countries. For Zionist scheming has no end, and after Palestine they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates. Only when they have completed digesting the area on which they will have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion, etc. Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there.

And that’s how the whole matter is summarized by Hamas charter:

Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.

So why on earth should they want a truce “before” they wipe out their hateful enemies from the face of the earth? And, what is more, why should they want to stop the suffering of so many people in Gaza when their sacrifice is being used to disseminate hate propaganda against Israel?

Galileo, 400 years later

2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei’s first observations at the telescope, and will be celebrated all over the world as the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The two-day official launch of IYA are taking place in Paris (January 15-16), but Tuscany will play a very special role in the yearlong initiative, as the birthplace and home of the great physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who is considered the father of modern observational astronomy, or simply the father of modern science.

In fact, as part of the celebrations, a new museum will be opened in Tuscany, where guided observations of the night sky and three exhibitions, part of 12-million-euro “Galileo Package,” will be also held. But the biggest show of the year will be a multimedia event at Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi, starting from March, entitled “Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope.”

It’s curious that even Pope Benedict gives the impression of being well prepared for this appointment. “The great Galileo said that God wrote the book of nature—he said in his homily for the feast of the Epiphany—in the form of the language of mathematics. He was convinced that God has given us two books: the book of Sacred Scripture and the book of nature. And the language of nature – this was his conviction – is mathematics, so it is a language of God, a language of the Creator.”

Well, the days of the controversy between the Catholic Church and the Tuscan astronomer about heliocentrism are long over. Who does not remember when, back in 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed “regret” for how the Galileo affair was handled at the time, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary? But it is also worth recalling that all traces of official opposition to heliocentrism by the Church disappeared in 1835 when these works were finally dropped from the “Index of prohibited books.”

Yet, in a speech delivered at the Sapienza University of Rome on February 15, 1990, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger quoted a statement by the famous philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend: “The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune.”

Once again, the truth seem to lie in the middle, despite all extremist philosophical and cultural views, as even secularist and atheist Beltolt Brecht guessed in his famous play Life of Galileo. That’s why it is to be hoped that celebrations won’t be transformed into the umpteenth occasion for a confrontation between secularists and their religious counterparts.

It's time to see the Eternal City

The Eternal City, the largest archaeological site in the world, is unsurpassed in it’s architectural splendor. Take this mini Grand Tour on Cnn.com/Travel (source: Oxford Archaeological Guides: Rome, Oxford University Press, 1988), and you will enjoy the stunning view of the Roman Forum: the temple of Antonius and Faustina, the Temple of Vesta, in which a sacred flame was tended by the Vestal Virgins, the handmaidens of the hearth goddess of the Roman state, and that of Romulus, Pons Fabritius—that is the oldest working bridge on the Tiber, built in Julius Caesar’s time—and the Pantheon, originally built as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt circa 126 AD during Hadrian’s reign, and more recent architectural masterpieces.

Otherwise, if you are a history and architecture lover, but are more techno-oriented at the same time, you can enjoy Rome as it looked in 320 AD and fly down to see famous buildings and monuments in 3D. Just download Google Earth at http://earth.google.com/, then select the “Ancient Rome 3D” layer under “Gallery.” Some of the buildings even have interiors. Read this November 12, 2008 New York Times article to learn more, or watch the video below.

Bush's farewell interview

It was aired yesterday on Fox News Sunday, and it was what we might call a “farewell interview” (here is the transcript) with the outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, perhaps something like a moral testament. “We’ve got to be compassionate conservatives,” he said using the same phrase he used during his 2000 campaign.

It’s very important for our party not to narrow its focus, not to become so inward-looking that we drive people away from a philosophy that is compassionate and decent, […]. We should be open-minded about different people’s opinions.
We shouldn't have litmus tests as to whether or not you can be a Republican. And we should be open-minded about big issues like immigration reform, because if we're viewed as anti-somebody — in other words, if the party is viewed as anti-immigrant — then another fellow may say, well, if they're against the immigrant, they may be against me. We've got to be a party for a better future, and for hope.

“We’ve got to be open-minded, compassionate conservatives,” that’s what some of the Bush administration’s efforts, such as expanding the federal government’s role in education through the No Child Left Behind Act and proposing an easier path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, were all about. But that’s also what have come under fire right from some of Bush’s fellow Republicans, though evidently of different school of thought.

Was that internal confrontation only a prelude to the “final battle” which could be fought in the months and years ahead within the GOP?

Who is to blame for Gaza?

“Israel hasn’t killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israel didn't kill them.
Hamas did.”

This is a must read, in my view: Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of Looking For Trouble, in the New York Post: (thanks: Sandra)

There is no moral equivalence between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers. There is no gray area. There is no point in negotiations.

Hamas is a Jew-killing machine. It exists to destroy Israel. What is there to negotiate?

When Hamas can't kill Jews, it's perfectly willing to drive Palestinian civilians into the line of fire - old men, women and children. Hamas herds the innocent into "shelters," then draws Israeli fire on them. And the headline-greedy media cheer them on.

Hamas isn't fighting for political goals. "Brokered agreements" are purely means to an end. And the envisioned end is the complete destruction of Israel in the name of a terrorist god. Safe in hidden bunkers or in Damascus, the Hamas leadership is willing to watch an unlimited number of civilians and even street-level terrorists die.

[...]

All Israel can do is to fight for time and buy intervals of relative calm with the blood of its sons and daughters. By demanding premature cease-fires and insisting that we can find a diplomatic solution, we strengthen monsters and undercut our defenders.

And don't believe the propaganda about this conflict rallying Gaza's Palestinians behind Hamas. That's more little-brown-brother condescension, assuming all Arabs are so stupid they don't know who started this and who's dragging it out at their expense.

Gaza's people may not care much for Israelis, but they rue the day they cast their votes for Hamas. Hamas is killing them.

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How Leftists turned out to be humans

At last they got it right, and the old motto “better late than never” definitely applies here: Left and honesty, in Italy, are not synonymous, not anymore. So spoke the Economist, despite its distrustfulness, if not its ill-concealed hostility, towards Silvio Berlusconi and the ruling center-right coalition, and despite what Walter Veltroni, leader of Italy’s main opposition Democratic Party, recently asserted about his own party (“a party of good people”).

Italy’s center-left, writes the Economist, may be “a bit dull and worthy, and somewhat tarnished by the communist past of many of its leaders (including Mr Veltroni),” but “it has always seemed fundamentally honest.” Yet …

in little more than a month, that benign view has been swept away in a slew of prosecutors’ warrants and summonses. On January 5th the centre-left mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, unveiled a new and reshuffled city administration. There were six new faces in her 16-strong team. Four of their predecessors had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in what prosecutors claim was a plan for the “systematic looting” of public funds. A fifth had committed suicide after he too came under investigation for corruption and other alleged offences.

The scandal in Naples, which revolves around a €400m ($545m) public-services contract, is the most substantial but by no means the only one to have assailed the opposition. Since the end of November, centre-left politicians have been put under suspicion, or even arrest, in seven other cities and regions.

So, yet another myth—and that of the honesty of the left was a very though and persistent one—has been swept into the trash can. Not that, of course, such scandals are in my opinion a good thing in themselves, nor do I rejoice because my political opponents are in a very bad fix. Rather I rejoice because, if political myths can be understood as “narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world,” as political philosophy scholar Chiara Bottici puts it, they—or at least a certain kind of them—often are nothing more than “comedy of misunderstandings.” That is to say that they are more or less useless, if not pernicious, and that we can do well without them.

But that of the honesty of the left wasn’t the only myth to collapse, there was also that of the honesty of Italy of Principles, the party led by Antonio Di Pietro, a former prosecutor who leapt to national prominence in the days of Mani pulite (“clean hands”), the nationwide Italian judicial investigation into political corruption held in the 1990s, which led to the demise of the so-called First Republic, resulting in the disappearance of many parties. In fact, Mr Di Pietro too has now had his wings clipped:

His son, Cristiano, a provincial lawmaker, quit the party after he was caught up in the Naples sleaze inquiry. Transcripts were leaked of telephone conversations in which he seemed to be asking for jobs and advancement for his friends.

Who would ever have predicted that? Very few, actually. I mean, very few would have thought that things came before the courts—not just that the left might be involved in bribery or other official corruption, and believe me, there is a difference …—, given that both the left and Di Pietro’s party had always been in very good terms with the judges. But things have changed in the last couple of years, and some taboos seem to have fallen away in certain public realms, especially in the judicial one. That’s also why what looks like bad news could actually turn out to be a very exciting time, even though not for the left itself, nor for Di Pietro. Yeah, now everybody knows—even the Economist (better late than never!)—that they are humans, too, after all.

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Sarah Palin's interview

I must confess that I still cannot make out how it could have happened that, during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, so many intellectuals, academics and mainstream media so often showed their bias and a certain distrustfulness towards Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Ok, I thought at the time, they may want to be non-bipartisan, they have the right to be non-neutral in the presidential race, but they could be more decent and less black and white …

“If she were Obama’s Veep, would she have been savaged?” asks today Melissa Clouthier in her awesome blog—by the way, she is one of ten finalists for the Best Individual Blogger in the 2008 Weblog Awards, and also my favourite one in that category. Well, my answer is, I don’t think so. Not at all.

That is also why the video below is, in my humblest opinion, very, very interesting. It offers excerpts from Sarah Palin’s interview with filmmaker John Ziegler, for his forthcoming documentary “Media Malpractice,” in which the Alaska Governor, for the first time at length, takes on the media coverage of her and the 2008 campaign. It’s a rather shocking record of a media assassination—of Sarah Palin, her character and family—which remains “one of the greatest public injustices of our time,” as Ziegler puts it on his website.

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Islamizing Europe

Let’s update my previous post by linking to the Times and the Daily Mail, which reported about what happened last Saturday in Milan and Bologna, as well as about the Vatican’s reactions.

In particular we learn that the Vatican yesterday expressed its “unease” at the hundreds of Muslims who gathered in prayer outside the the Duomo in Milan and the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, with thousands of prostrate Muslims facing Mecca. In an interview with the Vatican’s official newspaper Osservatore Romano, Cardinal RenatoMartino, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said: “For me the sight of people at prayer does not trouble me, it is good that people pray. But what really troubled me and left me uneasy was the fact that Israeli flags were burnt and there were slogans, all manifestations of hate and which followed a prayer session.” “What matters is the spirit in which one prays—and prayer excludes hate,” he added.

Monsignor Luigi Manganini, archpriest of Milan cathedral, said in turn he could imagine the Islamic reaction if Christians prayed en masse outside a mosque (well, er, actually I think there are very few people who would have difficulty in imaging what would have happened …).

We also learn that the rally in Milan was led by the city’s Muslim Imam Abu Imad, who, as MP Maurizio Gasparri noted, has been convicted in Italy of terrorism related offences, and that, according to the Imam, the demonstration had ended up on the cathedral square “by chance” at the hour of prayer, “and so we prayed, there was no provocation or insult intended,” he said. Fantastic.

Yet, Gasparri thinks that “when 10,000 Muslims arrive in front of Milan Cathedral, led by an Imam who has convictions for terrorism then public order needs to be looked at,” and that “it is evident that this was intended as a threat and the decision to pray and hold the rally in front of the Cathedral is very significant.”

Who do you agree with? Abu Imad or Gasparri?

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