Smooth Stone

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This paper investigates the ways in which terrorism is linked to education and poverty using data newly culled from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) documentary sources. The paper presents a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in terrorist activities by members of the Hamas and PIJ between the late 1980s and May 2002.

The resulting evidence suggests that both higher education and standard of living are positively associated with participation in Hamas or PIJ and with becoming a suicide bomber, while being married significantly reduces the probability of participation in terrorist activities.

Read it and weep, arabist apologists.

A groundbreaking discovery in the field of artificial intelligence, conducted by two Tel Aviv University academics, and Israeli research into treating Parkinson’s disease, have been selected as among the past year’s greatest advancements in science by the leading journal, Scientific American.

The alleged “great Arab nation” has once again demonstrated just how very misanthropist it is. For the first time in Israel’s history, she initiated and authored and submitted a UN resolution. The resolution would encourage able nations of the world to develop farming technology for developing countries.

There were 118 votes in favor and 29 abstentions, with no opposing votes. So who didn’t vote for it?

Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Darussalam, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Yup, you read it correctly. Those who didn’t vote were none other than Jew-hating, theocratic, fascist, jealous, unevolved mostly Muslim nations who never helped anyone do anything – ever – and instead, gained its own enterprising status in the world largely from riding on the coattails of the hard work and endeavors of Jewish and Christian scientists, researchers, oil engineers, and doctors.

Ironically, South Africa abstained, considering it would have been the main beneficiary of the resolution. But we already knew that South Africa and Muslim dictators are in bed together, united in their Jew hatred. So, I say, let them starve.

A “possible” hate crime, via WINS:

Four Jewish subway riders who wished other people “Happy Hanukkah” were pelted with anti-Semitic remarks before being beaten, police and prosecutors said. The incident was being investigated as a possible hate crime. The four were on a train in lower Manhattan on Friday night, during the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, when they were approached by a group of 10 people who offered holiday greetings. The victims responded, “Happy Hanukkah,” and then were assaulted by the larger group, police said Tuesday. Police caught up with the train one stop later, in Brooklyn, and arrested eight men and two women, ages 19 and 20. They were arraigned Saturday on charges of assault, menacing, riot, harassment and disorderly conduct, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said. They all pleaded not guilty. The case was being handled by the office’s civil rights bureau, and charges could be upgraded to hate crimes, prosecutors said.

One of the men charged, Joseph Jirovec, pleaded guilty last year to attempted robbery as a hate crime and was awaiting sentencing, prosecutors said. Jirovec, who is white, was part of a group that yelled racial epithets and assaulted two black teenagers in Brooklyn, prosecutors said. Jirovec’s lawyer, Peter Mollo, said Tuesday it was very unlikely his client would attack another person for being Jewish.

“His mother was Jewish,” Mollo said. “It’s very unlikely he would do something like this at all.”

From Jerusalem, Earthly and Heavenly, via Daily Alert:

Jerusalem does not rely upon natural wonders, outstanding weather or unusual surroundings for its attraction. It is holy, mysterious, the soul of Jewish history and longing. To see Jerusalem as a piece of real estate, a place on the map, is not to see it at all, let alone appreciate its role in Judaism and Jewish life and thought. The driving force behind Zionism, even in its most secular format, was the hunger of the Jewish people for Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the emotional battery that charged all of the movement of the return to Zion by Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Deconstructing apartheid accusations. Listen well, “Bishop” Tutu. From The Question of a Freed Slave:

Simon Deng, a former jihad slave in Sudan and now a human rights activist, has written a remarkable protest to Bishop Desmond Tutu over the bishop’s rabid prejudice against Israel which he accuses of “apartheid”:

“The State of Israel is not an apartheid state. I know because I write this from Jerusalem where I have seen Arab mothers peacefully strolling with their families – even though I also drove on Israeli roads protected by walls and fences from Arab bullets and stones. I know Arabs go to Israeli schools, and get the best medical care in the world. I know they vote and have elected representatives to the Israeli Parliament. I see street signs in Arabic, an official language here. None of this was true for blacks under Apartheid in Tutu’s South Africa.”

From MFA: The Tomb of Queen Helene of Adiabene, the largest tomb in Jerusalem, is located north of the Old City. It has a long, wide staircase leading down to a large courtyard (27 x 26 m.), all cut into the rock below the surrounding surface area. The facade of the tomb itself has two Ionic columns supporting an architrave adorned with carved leaves, and above it, a frieze decorated with a bunch of grapes and acanthus leaves. The entrance to the burial cave, which contains several chambers, is blocked with a large rolling stone. One of the decorated sarcophagi bears the inscription “Queen Tseddan.” The tomb is ascribed to Helene, Queen of Adiabene (in the north of modern Iraq), who converted to Judaism in the first century CE and built a palace in Jerusalem. According to Josephus Flavius (Antiquities of the Jews 20: 95; The Jewish War 5: 55, 119, 147) she died in Adiabene but her remains and those of some family members were transferred for burial in the mausoleum she had built for her family in Jerusalem.

From Excavation in Jerusalem Unearths Ancient Mansion:

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Wednesday that the mansion it has been uncovering in Jerusalem may have been a palace belonging to Queen Helene of Adiabene. Helene built grand residences in the area of the City of David. The excavation has uncovered five-meter-high walls with stones weighing hundreds of kilograms, halls preserved to a height of at least two stories, a basement with an arched ceiling, and remnants of colored frescoes and ritual baths.

From Commonalities between Anti-Semitic and Anti-Zionist Discourse:

Anti-Zionism is not in principle anti-Semitism, but it is time for thoughtful minds to be disturbed by how much anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism share, how much the dominant species of anti-Zionism encourages anti-Semitism. And so:

If you judge a Jewish state by standards that you apply to no one else; if your neck veins bulge when you denounce Zionists but you’ve done no more than cluck “well, yes, very bad about Darfur”; if there is nothing Hamas can do that you won’t blame ‘in the final analysis’ on Israelis; then you should not be surprised if you are criticized, fiercely so, by people who are serious about a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians and who won’t let you get away with a self-exonerating formula – “I am anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic” – to prevent scrutiny. If you are anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic, then don’t use the categories, allusions, and smug hiss that are all too familiar to any student of prejudice.

My beloved readers, don’t let your heart be troubled. Read the article in full; your heart will be lightened. Via INN:

The New Jewish Congress was launched in Jerusalem on Tuesday – the same day as the Annapolis summit, whose defeatism it seeks to fight.

Organizations, speakers and supporters from across the spectrum of nationalist, right-wing and religious thought were present at the Renaissance Jerusalem Hotel to take part in the opening sessions. Though many of the participants have been at many right-wing gatherings before, a sense of cautious enthusiasm that “this could really be it” was palpable.

The plenary session was chaired by Congress co-organizer Prof. Hillel Weiss of Bar Ilan University. Others responsible for organizing the Congress were Katy Cohen and Prof. Arieh Zaritzky, while a fourth co-organizer, Dr. Gadi Eshel, read aloud the Congress charter, entitled: “The Eternal People in an Eternal Covenant in the Land of Israel.”

Excerpts.

For more information, send an email to info@tzibur.org. I did.