Israpundit

FOX NEWS

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government has endorsed a decision to relocate and compensate thousands of Arabs who moved to the northern city of Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein’s campaign to push out the Kurds, the justice minister said Saturday. The decision was a major step toward solidifying the status of the disputed oil-rich city.

Those who choose to leave will be paid about $15,000 and given land in their former hometowns.

Turkey and the Sunnis are very unhappy. This means that the Shiites and the Kurds have decided to include oil-rich Kirkup in Kurdistan.

Another article.

By Ted Belman

In the comments to Worldview of Israel’s elites is gutting Israel, I challenged Felix Quigley to define his term “left”, “socialism” and “socialist”. He has yet to do this.

Now YNET has an article, Left, Right and Iraq war which agrees with me that “Traditional definitions of Left, Right no longer applicable”.

[..] President Bush’s rivals are accusing him of the war’s bloody cost, but they stay away from dealing with the ideology that guides it. Those espousing this ideology – categorized as an insane offspring to the family of right-wing views - believe that freedom is what all people in the world care about most. Give them freedom and they will sprout democracy, become peace lovers and prosper as do the peoples of the West.
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by Bill Levinson

The British hostages in Iran should feel no shame whatsoever for telling their kidnappers whatever their kidnappers want to hear, and they should have every confidence that the entire civilized world knows exactly what is going on. In retrospect, similar advice or even orders should have been given to American service personnel like John McCain, who were physically abused for refusing to make false statements against the United States: tell your captors whatever they want to hear, and don’t worry about it hurting your country.

The Hague and Geneva Conventions require prisoners of war to give their captors only their names, ranks, and serial numbers. The fact that the British hostages have given the Iranians more, in terms of “confessions” that they entered Iran’s territorial waters, plus Iran’s televising their pictures (it is a war crime to humiliate prisoners of war by broadcasting their pictures) has already told the civilized world what is going on. Iran obviously threatened its prisoners with physical abuse, and they need not be ashamed of complying with this pirate “nation’s” demands under duress. (more…)

Kenneth R. Timmerman writing in NEWSMAX quotes an Israeli politician who states that Israel will be at war by summer.

Israel will be at war by summer, a prominent opposition member of the Israeli Knesset told NewsMax in an exclusive interview this week.

“We have no choice. We will have to do it,” said Dr. Arieh Eldad, member of the opposition National Union Party.

In a wide-ranging interview during a Passover visit to the United States, Dr. Eldad explained that Israel was facing a new strategic threat, caused in part by its own failure to deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the impression of weakness last summer’s failed war created in the minds of Israel’s enemies.

“Hezbollah is becoming stronger every day,” he said. “They are rebuilding their ammunition stores, their medium and long missiles. They are going back to their bunkers in the south of Lebanon.”

Israel has “no choice” but to launch a pre-emptive war…

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By Israel Zwick, CN Publications,

(Author’s Note: The Socratic Method is a technique which utilizes a series of questions to expose inadequacies and inconsistencies in the beliefs of an interlocutor. Ultimately a new and better hypothesis is formed. The technique is commonly employed in legal education, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and forensic investigations. Peter Falk humorously employed this technique in his popular TV detective series, Colombo.

In the following fictional article, a spokesman for the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, IMFA, uses the technique with a reporter from the BBC at a press conference)

IMFA: Now that I have explained my government’s opposition to the Saudi Peace Initiative because it omits dialogue, negotiation, and regional cooperation, I’ll take some questions. I’ll start with Richard from BBC.

BBC: Sir, why is the Government of Israel (GOI) opposed to dismantling the illegal Jewish settlements that were built on occupied Palestinian territory?

IMFA: I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question. Could you please explain it?
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