Garbanzo Toons

Random Takes on Israel

Oh, those poor, poor Gazans! Or at least that's the story we're told.

But in reality,

* While prominent Western media continue to lead their viewers and readers astray with accounts of a non-existent “mass humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, fancy restaurants (video below) and an Olympic-size swimming pool open there

* Most Israeli towns don’t have Olympic-size swimming pools

* Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live a middle class (and in some cases an upper class) lifestyle that Western journalists refuse to report on because it doesn’t fit with the simplistic story they were sent to write

* If you drop into the Roots Club in Gaza, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, you can “dine on steak au poivre and chicken cordon bleu” (video, photos below)

Check this out for the promised videos and photos.

And while this video was done for laughs, (make sure you watch the song parody that begins about half way through) there is truth in it. That's what makes good satire.



And finally, here is a Democrat I would vote for if I lived in his district.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) — one of Israel's staunchest defenders in Congress — wants Americans who were aboard the Gaza flotilla ships prosecuted.

On a conference call organized by The Israel Project on Friday, Sherman said that any U.S. citizen aboard the ship should be considered aiding Hamas, an Islamic extremist organization that controls Gaza. The U.S. State Department considers Hamas a foreign terrorist organization.

The online foreign policy publication Lobelog reported:

On a press call hosted by a pro-Israel organization, Rep. Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, told reporters that he intends seek the prosecution of any U.S. citizens who were aboard or involved with the Freedom Flotilla.

“The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 [PDF] makes it absolutely illegal for any American to give food, money, school supplies, paper clips, concrete or weapons to Hamas or any of its officials,” Sherman said on the Israel Project call, conflating Hamas and Gaza’s civilian population. “And so I will be asking the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what was clearly an effort to give items of value to a terrorist organization.”

Sherman also said that he plans on working with the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that any non-U.S. citizen involved with or aboard the Flotilla are excluded from entering the U.S.

The one from my district has been in Congress much too long and I have to wonder if he is supporting this stance.

My wife and I were in New York City over the weekend. We walked past an anti-Israel demonstration in Union Square. I was trying to be a good husband and walk right past these Hamas-supporting tools. My wife was a better wife than I was a husband as she let me stop and argue with them for a bit. I didn't press it. I cut my confrontations much shorter than I wanted to. But I appreciate the fact that she let me release some of my anger at these morally deluded fools who have no idea what freedom is, what it isn't, and what we need to do to keep it.

Labels: Brad Sherman, Congress, Gaza, Gaza Flotilla, Hamas, Israel, Israel advocacy, New York City, Palestinians

posted by Harry @ 4:19 PM