Here and There, Jan. 4

The Marin County Naked Women plan to march naked down Market Street in San Francisco on Jan. 18 to express solidarity with Saddam Hussein. And I plan to be there for the parade. I'm contemplating going naked except for a Saddam mask and holding a sign that says "Thanks for your support". And in any event I'll be taking pictures. Lots of pictures.

An alert reader in the LGF comment section reports that the Tallahassee Democrat suspended a reporter for using "strong language" in an e-mail criticizing Arab nations for the way they've reacted to Israel.

Political writer and columnist Bill Cotterell, in an e-mail exchange, wrote "Except for Jordan and Egypt, no Arab nation has a peace treaty with Israel. They've had 54 years to get over it. They choose not to."

and

"I don't give a damn if Israel kills a few in collateral damage while defending itself. So be it."

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations sent an alert to its members calling the remarks anti-Muslim and anti-Arab, and the paper capitulated to pressure from the Islamo-fascists at CAIR. But I say Cotterell deserves a commendation, not a reprimand.

European moral equivalence seems to be an old phenomenon. The French and British were sympathetic to the South during the American Civil War, partly because they needed cotton. And partly because

the ruling classes in [Europe] sympathized strongly with the Confederacy... The South was, after all, an aristocracy... Europe's aristocracies had never been happy about the prodigious success of the Yankee democracy.

That sounds a little like the unelected panjandrums in today's EU. In 1862 and 1863 France tried to broker a negotiated settlement to the conflict (meaning that the Confederacy would be preserved). This reminds me of the current French government, with its oil and weapons merchants, that wants to preserve Saddam's regime.

Civil Rights Activist Sharpton Seeks White House says the headline. Civil Rights Activist? Sharpton's only connection to "civil rights" is that he was found liable for defaming Steven Pagones in the Tawana Brawley hoax.

Jimmy Carter wins the Little Green Footballs Idiotarian of the Year Award (the "Fiskie"), which by extension should also apply to the Nobel "Peace" Prize committee. Be sure to see the award cartoon by the improbably named Cox and Forkum.

Moral Equivalence Alert Reuters reports (actually it's their Gaza correspondent Shahdi al-Kashif doing the reporting) that

Israeli bulldozers destroyed at least two buildings in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, despite U.S. concerns that a recent spate of house demolitions could fuel the conflict with the Palestinians.

Whatever the U.S. concerns are, the only thing that "fuels the conflict" is Arab rejection of Israel's existence.

Tension has heightened recently following a spate of house demolitions by Israel and the killing on Thursday of an elderly Israeli man by a militant group linked to President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

Nice attempt at moral equivalence. The people whose homes were destroyed are terrorists and those who harbor terrorists. The elderly Israeli man was killed on his way to donate clothes to poor Arab children.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 04, 2003 12:49 PM