By Debbie Schlussel
For years, feminists have been telling us that we must spend more and more money on girls in public schools because they are “behind” boys in science and math. And, for years, though it violates federal law against gender-based discrimination, our government and academia have responded nationwide, with girl-friendly and girl-specific seminars, tutorials, and other programs to get girls on par in the two academic areas where they do not dominate boys.
Well, now, despite feminist yelling and screaming, girls are dominating math and science, too. And boys? Well, now they’re behind in everything. At least, that’s the case when you look at the prestigious Seimens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, in which awards were announced yesterday in New York City.
Lots of media outlets are reporting that girls swept the competition:

Siemens Science Competition Grand Prize Winners
Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff

Girls walked away with top honors in both the individual and team categories.
The individual grand prize of a $100,000 scholarship went to Isha Jain, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pa., for research into bone growth. Results of the nine-year-old competition were announced on Dec. 3. As winners of the team grand prize, Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, N.Y., will split a $100,000 scholarship awarded for their research on tuberculosis. . . .
[Jain] and her fellow champs beat out 1,641 students and 1,361 projects, persevering through grueling local and regional competitions. . . . Sponsored by the Siemens Foundation, the contest was started in 1998 after Siemens (SI) lost its bid to take over the original Westinghouse Science Competition, which was first held in 1942 and is now known as the Intel Science Talent Search (INTC).
Women lag far behind men in professional math, science, and computer fields, an issue that became the subject of renewed debate in 2005 when then Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested the lack of top female scientists may stem in part from biological differences between men and women. Jain vehemently disagrees, but acknowledges with some annoyance that “the guy-to-girl ratio in math and science competitions is absolutely ridiculous. It’s usually seven or eight guys to one girl.” [DS: Um, this is a free country. If they’re not interested, they’re not interested.] The results of this year’s Siemens Competition may signify that more girls are “finally stepping up to the plate and are more than capable,” Jain says. “And I’m proud to be a part of that.”
Siemens Foundation President James Whaley says the percentage of girls entering the competition has increased each year; this year, 48% of the contestants were female. Eighty percent of this year’s competitors were from public schools, and one team of finalists consisted of home-schooled girls. Many of the schools whose students were represented also have close ties to nearby universities or research labs. “There are very few [high] schools that have the resources or labs to support this high level of research,” Whaley notes.

So, what was it that feminists were squawking about regarding the “bias against girls” in math and science? I’d say it’s a bias in favor of them at this point.
Time to swing the pendulum back to, hopefully, arrive at some balance. Maybe if they got rid of this math and science feminism and spent equally on everyone and used the excess to support labs and advanced science for everyone, America would not repeatedly be behind other major Western industrial countries in math and science.

By Debbie Schlussel
To my Jewish Friends & Readers:
I wish you a Chag Chanukah Sameach [Happy Chanukah]! Thanks to all of you who sent e-cards and e-mail wishes to me. Right back at ya.
I always spent at least one of the nights of Chanukah lighting the Menorah (candelabra–on Chanukah, it has 9 prongs for candles; see below) and saying the Chanukah blessings with my late father. This is the first Chanukah without him, so this holiday–one of my favorites–will be bittersweet. But we both loved this holiday because it is a celebration of the Jews–under siege and with all odds against them–vanquishing their enemy.

Today, that enemy–Islamism–is not just the Jews’ enemy. It is the enemy of us all. Will we receive the Chanukah-style miracles against it that our necessary for its defeat? Well, we Jews believe that G-d helps those who help themselves. He helped the Maccabees, but it was they who took the initiative to fight. Today, I see very few Maccabees and way too many Hellenists–those who allied with the Greek oppressor in the Chanukah story.
Last year, I received an e-mail message from my friend, the great American patriot, Ruth S. King. Her message which embodies my sentiments to all of my readers, regardless of faith, so I republish it here, as I did last year:

I’m never a hundred percent sure of how to spell it, but I do know that it is a holiday of triumph of good versus evil and Jews versus their oppressors. May you and all those you love have a healthy and wonderful holiday. May we prevail over the millions of enemies we have. May America and Israel survive in strength, deterrence and determination. And, a special thanks to those not of our faith whose friendship and support are crucial and inspiring.

Amen.
A little more about Chanukah: The eight-day Jewish holiday starts at sundown tonight, the first of eight nights and days. And I cannot wait to light my Menorah (the 9 candle candelabra–the ninth one, the “shamash,” lights the other eight).
Contrary to Hallmark and American Greetings, Chanukah (also spelled a million other ways as Ruth King notes above; see explanation, below) is NOT a major Jewish holiday. But it has been “elevated” to one, due to its close proximity on the calendar to Christmas. Still, it is the magnificent story of the will to survive coupled with so many miracles. It has so many lessons for the fight we face against extremist Muslims all over the world.
Here is more from my previous recounting of Chanukah from last year. Sadly, so much of it remains an “evergreen”:

The Chanukah story is that of the Maccabees, who were vastly outnumbered by the Greeks, but valiantly fought them anway . . . and beat them. We are constantly told the figure of 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. But if we don’t fight their extremism and their wish to take over the world and just give up, we won’t win.
And Chanukah is the story of the fight for religious freedom. Matityahu (Matthew) the Maccabee, and his son Judah (after him), led a revolt against Antiochus Epiphanies, the Greek leader, who wanted the Jews to give up their religion and assimilate.
Like today, in those days, there were many Hellenists, Jews who wanted to assimilate and give in to the Greeks. Today, they are my fellow co-religionists–parties with names like Sharona Shapiro, Brenda Rosenberg, and the Jewish Community Council of Metro Detroit–who cozy up to extremist Muslims in Dearbornistan who support Hezbollah, HAMAS, Holocaust denial, and Ahmadinejad.
There are other Hellenists like Brian Moskowitz a/k/a “Abu Moskowitz,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent in Charge for Michigan/Ohio who on a regular basis panders to the most extremist, terror-supporting Muslims he can find. For a raid, last week, of an Islamic organization, ACCESS–the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services–he instructed agents that they could not wear their normal tactical gear or use long guns and rifles, as they always do, when rounding up Hispanics and other illegal aliens. He told them to wear khakis and professional dress and use pistols. “Because we can’t scare the Muslims”–that’s the goal above and beyond the safety of agents and the preservation of our national security.
But there are plenty of non-Jewish Hellenists in our society, too. They are people like Daniel Sutherland–who’s made it his job at Homeland Security to help our Islamofascist enemies and advance their causes.
They are reporters like Rick Hampson, who wrote a front page USA Today story, this week, about how persecuted Arabs in America are (they were all Muslim in the story, no Christians). The article, filled with inaccuracies and false information, spoke of how Muslims are afraid to apply for hunting licenses. Hello . . .? Muslims generally don’t hunt–because the food they’d kill isn’t Halal. A real reporter would look into this instead of taking their Chicken Little “the sky is falling on ‘innocent’ Muslims” word for it.
But not the Hellenists. Our modern day Hellenists–the modern day liberal enablers of extremist Islam–are helping the modern day Antiochus Greeks. Time for us all to be the Maccabees. And put an end to this stuff.
The mighty Greek Empire fell, and so will extremist Islam . . . if we have the will to survive before it’s too late.
***
We light the Menorah–one candle for each of the eight nights–to symbolize the miracle that, once the Maccabees defeated the Greeks, a bottle of oil that was supposed to last only one day, lasted for eight days, and the candles of the Menorah in the Jewish Temple miraculously burned for eight days, while new oil was made.

Chanukah Dreidel

On Chanukah, Israelis eat jelly donuts, called “sufganiyot,” and the rest of us eat fried potato pancakes, called “latkes.” We also play a game with a spinning top called a “dreidel,” with Hebrew letters on it that stand for the phrase, “A great miracle happened there [or here, if you’re in Israel].”

***
From Shraga Simmons and Shimon Apisdorf at Matityahu’s Revolt:

The name “Maccabee” is an acronym for the [Biblical] verse “Who is compared to You among the mighty, oh Lord” (Exodus 15:11).

***
I’m frequently asked why Chanukah is spelled so many different ways in English. That’s because transliterating Hebrew into English is all phonetic and yields no one certain result.
***
More on Chanukah from Judaism 101, Matityahu’s Revolt, and the Constantia Hebrew Congregation of Capetown, South Africa.
Happy Chanukah!

Temple Mount Faithful Light Chanukah Menorah in Israel
(Part of the Jewish Temple–the most holy part–has a mosque built on top of it.)

By Debbie Schlussel
My apologies, dear readers, for not having put up any new material, thus far, today. My Internet access was down until mid-day, at which point I was in the middle of two movie screenings, the awful “Charlie Wilson’s War” and the laudable anti-Islamist Iranian animation, “Persepolis.” Reviews of those to come later. Stay tuned.
I’m in the process of putting new stuff up, and I thank you for your patience, understanding, continued interest, and loyal readership.

By Debbie Schlussel
Last week, I told you about how the American Anthropological Association defamed and condemned America’s troops and told anthropologists who help our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan avoid harm that they are “unethical.”
Now, there’s more pan-Islamist absurdity courtesy of the national trade group of this overrated group of people who dedicate their careers to studying how many times someone in ancient Rome went to the bathroom and whether Saladin’s fighters wore boxers or briefs.
Reader Ari alerts us that the AAA (as I wrote before, the automotive AAA should sue for defamation) now claims that those who condemn female genital mutilation–practiced mostly by Muslims–are “guilty of ignorance and cultural imperialism.”

American Anthropological Association:
Academic Tools of Islamic Barbarism Against Women:
Yes, we all misunderstand this barbaric practice against women because we–not they–are backwards and intolerant. The New York Times resident libertarian, John Tierney writes that, Saturday, the AAA hosted two African Muslim women who underwent and support female genital mutilation and will “debate” the matter:

Should African women be allowed to engage in the practice sometimes called female circumcision? Are critics of this practice, who call it female genital mutilation, justified in trying to outlaw it, or are they guilty of ignorance and cultural imperialism?
Those questions will be debated Saturday morning in Washington at the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting. Representatives of international groups opposed to this procedure will be debating anthropologists with somewhat different views, including African anthropologists who have undergone the procedure themselves. As the organizers of the AAA panel note:

The panel includes for the first time, the critical “third wave” or multicultural feminist perspectives of circumcised African women scholars Wairimu Njambi, a Kenyan, and Fuambai Ahmadu, a Sierra Leonean. Both women hail from cultures where female and male initiation rituals are the norm and have written about their largely positive and contextualized experiences, creating an emergent discursive space for a hitherto “muted group” in global debates about FGC [female genital cutting].

Surprise!–and not noted by the NYTimes’ Tierney or the AAA–both Njambi and Ahmadu are Muslim.

Dr. Ahmadu, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, was raised in America and then went back to Sierra Leone as an adult to undergo the procedure along with fellow members of the Kono ethnic group. She has argued that the critics of the procedure exaggerate the medical dangers, misunderstand the effect on sexual pleasure, and mistakenly view the removal of parts of the clitoris as a practice that oppresses women. She has lamented that her Westernized “feminist sisters insist on denying us this critical aspect of becoming a woman in accordance with our unique and powerful cultural heritage.” In another essay, she writes:

It is difficult for me – considering the number of ceremonies I have observed, including my own – to accept that what appears to be expressions of joy and ecstatic celebrations of womanhood in actuality disguise hidden experiences of coercion and subjugation. Indeed, I offer that the bulk of Kono women who uphold these rituals do so because they want to – they relish the supernatural powers of their ritual leaders over against men in society, and they embrace the legitimacy of female authority and particularly the authority of their mothers and grandmothers.

Gee, I can’t wait until the American Anthropological Association’s next “debate”: “The Joy of Jewish Cooking: Was Gassing of Auschwitz Inmates a Misunderstood Humanitarian and Sanitary Practice?”
Sadly, the normally reasonable Tierney (although he is against immigration reform) agrees with these intellectually-challenged apologists, er . . . A(nthro)POLOGISTS:

If I were asked to make a decision about my own daughter, I wouldn’t choose circumcision for her. But what about the question raised by these anthropologists: Should outsiders be telling African women what initiation practices are acceptable?

Well, John, if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t choose the ovens for her. But what about the question raised by the anthropologists: Should outsiders have told the Nazis what national “sanitary” practices were acceptable?
Should outsiders tell Saudi Arabia that it’s wrong to sentence a gang-rape victim to lashes? I mean, don’t they have a right to choose their own discipline of the “whores who asked for it”?
Should outsiders judge HAMAS and Fatah on homicide bombings at pizza joints and cafes?
We can tell Israel what to do with its borders and national security–important national sovereignty issues. But on female genital mutilation, we must remain mum? HUH?
Let’s be intellectually honest about this. A group of American academics is legitimizing forced, barbaric Islamo-fascist castration of women. Period. These girls are very young and don’t have a choice. Most of them don’t want to be “circumcised.” Just ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It is torture, plain and simple.
Remember, the most famous anthropologist in history was Margaret Mead. And she fabricated that for which she was most famous–her entire study on Samoans’ uninhibited sexual practices. A complete fraud.
Some things never change. Phony, yesterday. Phony and apologist for America’s enemies, today.

By Debbie Schlussel
Since “Lions for Lambs“–the first movie he’s directed in eons–is a total bomb at the box office, Robert Redford is taking a different tack: Attack the Jews.
In fact, at next year’s Sundance Film Festival in January, Mr. Redford is hosting a Palestinian propaganda movie that is being billed as one of several films that “approach serious topics in a lively way.”
It’s called “Slingshot Hip Hop,” and it’s about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as seen by Palestinian rappers, or as USA Today falsely puts it, “a fresh examination through the unlikely lens of Palestinian rappers.” Sundance has picked the movie as “an Official Sundance Film Festival Selection,” meaning it will be promoted big-time by Sundance to all of the Hollywood elites and celebs parading around Park City, Utah, early next year and that liberal film critics there will give it high marks. That means the movie will certainly get a distribution deal (sadly, guys like Mark Cuban will jump at the chance to spread this propaganda).

Palestinian Propagandist Jackie Salloum:
Her Anti-Israel Agit-prop is Welcomed @ Sundance
Attention: Sundance and USA Today (that means you, reporter Anthony Breznican), there’s nothing “fresh” about attacking Jews and Israel on film. And–based on the trailer (which I won’t give the honor of posting here or a link)–it’s actually the same old, same old rotten, rehashed “The Jews took our Olive tree orchard, the Jews took our land, the Jews are killing us” BS with some dumb rap and American football jerseys mixed in. (Troy Aikman should sue for defamation.) In fact, based on the propaganda-filled trailer, this movie will not be anything close to an “examination.”
And it’s old news. The movie’s website says the movie is “Coming in 2005,” which means it was shot some time in 2002-2004. Um, it’s almost 2008. If this is “fresh,” I’d hate to see the expiration date on these people’s food. Obviously, no-one cared about this tripe-on-film until Robert Redford swooped in to save the day for Islamic terrorists. Can’t do it with a pure fiction propaganda film like “Lions for Lambs”? Try, try again with a fake-umentary on the Palestinians and that big, bad wolf–the JOOOOOOS.
And as for rappers, not sure how that’s “unlikely,” as we know that Muslim terrorists–including Palestinian ones–have been very active both here and abroad in using rap and the hip-hop culture to spread their tripe.
And then there’s the slingshot analogy. You know–David v. Goliath. Except that Israel, smaller than the State of New Jersey, is the David, amidst the Goliath of 22 Arab nations and many more Muslim ones who are funding and supporting the Palestinians against them.
“Slingshot Hip Hop” is directed and produced by Palestinian/Syrian Dearbornistani Jackie Reem Salloum, a woman with which I’m very familiar. I had the “privilege” of seeing her “art” in a temporary 2005 anti-Israel, anti-Semitic “art” exhibit, “Herstory,” at Dearbornistan’s Arab American National Museum (which is funded with MILLIONS of YOUR TAX DOLLARS). She had pop art exhibits of Israeli-operated Caterpillar bulldozers “killing” Palestinians and other similar propaganda fare. (One American flag-burner, Rachel Corrie, was killed by a bulldozer–which was about to take down a Palestinian terrorist weapons-smuggling house–when the driver didn’t see her and she saw him but stayed to protect the terrorists. That’s called natural selection. And over this one incident, Israelis are now “murderers by bulldozer.”) Just how much of your tax dollars went to pay her for that “art”? How much went to fund “Slingshot Hip Hop”?
(Other “art” in the exhibit included recorded interviews with Palestinian women in the Detroit area telling us how the Israelis attacked their families and a video about how Israel “massacred” hundreds in Jenin (only 26 actually died, much of them from fellow Palestinian fire) donated by the Islamic Nurse Ratched, Najah Bazzy who announced that she “is embarrassed to be an American.” Bazzy has consequently been repeatedly feted by the left-dominated Detroit Jewish Community.)
This “movie,” Jackie Salloum’s “Slingshot Hip Hop,” will be no different. In fact, based on the trailer, it’s far worse. Sadly, Ms. Salloum is ardently promoted by . . . The Voice of America?!–also funded by your taxes. And Sundance loves her celluloid agit-prop. In 2005, the film festival screened her “Planet of the Arabs,” as an “Official Sundance Film Festival Selection.”
So, where’s the balance at Sundance? Will there be any pro-Israel or anti-Islamist movies? Answer: No. They don’t believe in balance at Sundance, just as there wasn’t any in Bobby Redford’s “Lions for Lambs.” And that’s why “Slingshot Hip Hop” is an “Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2008.”
Two things I hate: Rap and the Palestinian terrorist cause. I’m sure it will be a huge hit on-screen . . . with liberal movie critics. With movie-going audiences, not so much.
As for Israel and those who are against Islamic terrorism, well, their cause is just. They don’t need to package it inside of a silly media genre that is all the rage among idiots.
More evidence that exporting American “culture” to our enemies doesn’t make them our friends. It only gives them a new way to more effectively market their propaganda to us.
And apparently it worked . . . on Robert Redford and his friends at Sundance.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: “O Jerusalem” REVIEW ADDED. SCROLL DOWN. ****
Because the big box office openings were last Wednesday for the Thanksgiving weekend, the only two releases that are out this weekend in wide national review are “Redacted” and “O Jerusalem,” both boring propaganda films filled with lies and other deception. “Awake,” also out today, was not screened for critics, usually a sign that it’s a clunker. And now, on to the agit-prop on film a/k/a “high quality Bin Laden cinema”. I will review “O’Jerusalem,” the other propaganda-piece, later today:

Redacted Poster By David Lunde/Lundesigns
* “Redacted“: I was the first conservative blog to expose and oppose this film, back in February. And I’m glad to see that it bombed in the major cities in which it debuted, two weeks ago. My initial thoughts on this movie were right on target, and actually an understatement of how harmful and outrageous this film is. The movie, directed by Brian DePalma, reaches most of the rest of the country today.
After I wrote about this movie, Executive Producer Mark Cuban told me it’s actually a “very patriotic movie” and invited me to host a screening of it for conservative bloggers. I am glad that I did not do it and that it never took place. This movie is an abomination. It is disgusting. It is defamatory. And it is a lie. If this is a “ver patriotic movie,” according to Cuban, I wonder what if he thinks there are any very anti-American movies, which is what this actually is.
I can see Osama Bin Laden using this movie as recruiting propaganda without the need to edit it. It is that bad. It presents every myth about America you’ve heard in Bin Laden videos, as fact.
The movie isn’t just against the troops. It tells us that the kidnapping and torture/beheading murder of our troops by Al-Qaeda is justified. The rape of a 15-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder of her and her family by two Marines is the reason they do this, we are told. But there has only been one of these anomalous actions by a few renegade troops. How many beheadings and dismemberments have there been just because the victims are Americans or Westerners? What’s your justification for that, DePalma and Cuban?
Throughout this 93 minute film, America’s soldiers are portrayed as low-class, callous, stupid losers who chose the Marines “to stay out of jail”. They are crude, inhuman, and disgusting. They are racists who most refer to Iraqis as “SandN-ggers” and perverts whose reading material consists mostly of hardcore porn. Heck, even their playing cards are naked women.
Oh, and the movie is narrated, not in English, but IN FRENCH. Figures. Whenever our soldiers speak English, there are French subtitles. That tells me for whom this movie was made–not Americans, who are avoiding this defamatory celluloid like the plague, but the French, who hate us and have a significant and growing percentage of their population (over 20%) that is Arab Muslim.
The French female narrator tells us–again, in French–that 2,000 Iraqis were killed by Americans at checkpoints and that only 60 were actually terrorists. Then, she tells us, no U.S. soldiers were ever charged for these deaths. Um, maybe that’s because the Iraqis acted like terrorists and rammed through the checkpoints without stopping. This is war, and people–innocent people get killed when they act stupid.
Instead, we are shown a car that rams through the checkpoint without stopping, the U.S. Marines shoot it up and kill a pregnant Iraqi woman being driven to the hospital by her brother to have her baby. It’s not his fault, we are told, because he thought the soldiers were waving him on.
Then, we’re shown the soldier who shot up the woman. He’s the same one who will, later in the film, rape and murder an Iraqi 15-year-old girl and murder her family. Flake, as he is called, says he is happy he just made his first “SandN-gger” kill. “Killing them is like gutting catfish . . . like stomping on cockroaches” he brags. He says he joined the Marines because before that his only life activity was “getting drunk and trying to stay out of jail.”
In several scenes, amidst prominent shots of soldiers reading porno mags, we see a prominent Confederate flag behind the bed of one of the rapist/murderer soldiers. He and the other soldiers who commit these heinous acts resemble Chris Farley and Pauly Shore. The ringleader, the Pauly Shore character, sounds so much like the comedian, if you shut your eyes, you’ll think you’re back in the ’80s watching a racist, scumbag version of his defunt MTV show. Do you think our soldiers represent Chris Farley and Pauly Shore-esque loser clowns? DePalma and Cuban apparently do.
We see various scenes of them harassing the 15-year-old Iraqi girl and her sister or friend (it isn’t clear) at checkpoints on their way to and from school. They feel them up and brush their genitals against them, and then laugh about it. One of the soldiers, the Chris Farley character takes her to a private booth to do it. Is this really how they think all of our soldiers behave at checkpoints? As murderers and child-molesters? Apparently so, because that’s what we’re shown for “checkpoints.”
Then, there is the rape/murder scene. It’s very graphic and disgusting. But before that, we’re shown that the soldiers planned it ahead of time because:

My f-cksteak needs some p-ssy . . . . There is nothing like some sweet haji ass that’s gonna get my plumbing back in order.

And this gem:

Vaporize every last SandN-gger.

Remember, we don’t really know the details of what really happened at the rape/murder, which I condemn 100%. So, all of these conversations and situations are imagined and made up, which they note at the beginning of the film. Fabricated anti-American propaganda.
Yes, “Redacted” is everything you’ve feared and worse. It is the most blatant propaganda I’ve seen coming out of a major studio in Hollywood yet.
And it’s an hour and a half of aiding and abetting the enemy. In some circles, that’s called treason.
Skip this perversion and defamation of our soldiers, AT ALL COST.
* “O Jerusalem“: This anti-Israel movie which–worse than morally equivocating Israel with Palestinian terrorists and other Muslims who went to war against Israel upon its independence–rehearses all the old anti-Israel canards. You’ve heard them before: That Israel took this Muslim’s land and that Palestinian’s land, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam. Not a shred of the real story is involved. And the movie is long, boring, and–above all–completely silly.
And that’s no surprise, given that the movie is taken from the best-selling 1972 fiction novel of the same name, “O Jerusalem,” written by a French anti-Israel writer, Dominique LaPierre, and the anti-Israel former UPI and Newsweek Mid-East Bureau Chief, Larry Collins. No surprise, this movie is as slanted as his “news” coverage was and was written in part to negate growing support for Israel with its win in the 1967 Six Day War. And, yes, it is fiction–not just the story, but the “facts” provided throughout this clunker.
And–another non-surprise–the movie is directed by French Arab, Elie Chouraqui. The plot: Well, I’m not sure what it is, other than to propagandize against Israel’s founding and the right of the Jewish people to their historic homeland in Israel. At the beginning, we are introduced to a liberal Jew, Bobby, his extremist Jewish friend, and–of course!–the most moderate and reasonable of the three major characters, a Palestinian whose family is losing their land to the Israelis with the declaration of Israel. Also not surprisingly, he’s played by Said Taghmaoui, who played an Islamic terrorist in “Sleeper Cell.”
All three characters go to Israel, and we are shown the “unfair” bombing of the King David Hotel. It was not only “fair.” It was necessary, and adequate warning was provided. Those who blew up the hotel gave several warnings by phone and dropped leaflets that they were going to bomb it–none of which is shown in this movie (of course not). The movie, of course, does not show that prior to the bombing, the British, who were headquartered there, deliberately arrested thousands of Jews with no basis, to help the Arabs. The British had also raided the Jewish agency and shared intelligence info siezed from it with the Arabs. Finally, the British refused to let Jews immigrate in any significant numbers, while pogroms resulting in their murders occurred in Poland, etc.
Throughout the movie, and at its conclusion, we are lectured by Bobby, the Jewish lead of the movie, that war begets terrorism, killing begets killing. So, Israel should have never become a state and the Jews who’ve been there for thousands of years should just roll over and die and hand it all over to their Islamist persecuters? That’s the overwhelming message of this movie.
Major battles for Israel’s independence and heroic scenes are reduced to a few stragglers on a street duking it out with nice Arabs. Arabs Muslims are shown as friendly and loving towards Jews, until Israel declared itself a state. That’s simply false. There were Arab pogroms against Jews all before Israel became a state, including famous attacks in the 1920s, etc.
Shame on Tovah Feldshuh for portraying the late, tough Golda Meir in this false movie. Feldshuh has made a fortune honorably portraying Meir in a one-woman show on Broadway, but this more than negates that. Ms. Meir is turning over in her grave, as is David Ben-Gurion–also defamed in this silly, makeshift propaganda “film.”
Low quality HAMAS/Fatah cinema.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Former Republican Congressman and Clinton House Impeachment manager Henry Hyde died, early this morning. Sadly, some prominent conservatives are remembering this cretin as a great man. He was anything but. They are misinformed, and that includes the very Islam-addled National Review Online, which did ZERO research in rushing to gush over this man.
Here are the facts about Henry Hyde:

Henry Hyde Hearted Islamic Terrorists, Incl. Sami Al-Arian
* Throughout his career and as House International Relations Committee Chairman, he was one of the most vicious enemies of Israel on Capitol Hill, constantly trying to impede Israel’s right to defend itself and constantly harassing Israel in every way possible. That would explain the many campaign contributions he got from Muslims and Islamists. Many people felt he was anti-Semitic. And, based on his behavior and statements throughout his career, I believe they were right.
* He was one of the most prominent defenders of Islamic terrorists and terrorist groups in Congress.
* I exposed to America (here and here) that Hyde took thousands in money from Islamic Jihad front man and convicted terrorist, Sami Al-Arian. The money was laundered through Al-Arian’s wife, Nahla, who did not have a job. Al-Arian’s thousands in campaign contributions to Hyde, David Bonior, Cynthia McKinney, and other malefactors in Congress far exceeded what his income as a University of South Florida professor would allow (and it is apparent the money really came from the Saudis and Islamic Jihad). That Hyde received this money–among these other infamous names–bears out the saying about “the company you keep.”
* Because I exposed Hyde’s contributions from Al-Arian, he sicced his Committee Communications Director, Sam Stratman, to harass me. Stratman called me repeatedly, screaming and yelling at me over the phone and calling me a “perfumed icepick.” My crime: disclosing that Henry Hyde took money from Sami Al-Arian and letting America know.
* In return for the money, as House Judiciary Chairman, Hyde held hearings for the purpose of getting rid of laws (signed by President Clinton) allowing the use of secret evidence against terrorists. He invited Al-Arian and his wife, Nahla, to testify and gushed over them. He encouraged them to tell us how “harassed” and “discriminated against” they were. Hyde opposed most domestic counterterrorism measures.
* Hyde also repaid Al-Arian by objecting to an Oct. 3, 2001 Congressional screening of “Jihad in America,” featuring Al-Arian’s “activities.”
* Eventually, after Al-Arian was finally indicted in 2003, Hyde sent out widely regurgitated (in AP, Reuters, etc.) press releases claiming he gave Al-Arian’s contributions to charity. But when I spoke with Hyde’s press secretary, she could not point to a single charity or amount that Hyde had given to eliminate the Al-Arian contribution (not that it mattered, it was too late). She admitted to me that the press release was a fraud, designed to relieve Hyde of the negative press he received over the contribution. “Well, Congressman Hyde gives to charity all the time, so we considered his past charity giving to be included when we wrote the press release,” she told me.
To remind you, Sami Al-Arian masterminded homicide bombings. One of his “productions” resulted in the murder of an American, New Jersey college student, Alisa Flatow. Yet, Henry Hyde went out of his way to help this Islamic mass murderer.
This is the real Henry Hyde, the man so many conservatives who claim to be against terrorism are praising. As President Bush said–but didn’t mean–you’re either on our side or the terrorists’ side.
Throughout his career, Henry Hyde was on the terrorists’ side. That President Bush gave him the Medal of Freedom is disgusting.
**** UPDATE: One of my undercover informants tells me:

At an August 2000 American Muslim Alliance event, Sami Al-Arian told me that he had Congressman Henry Hyde in his pocket. He said Hyde was helping him defeat the Secret Evidence Provision of the 1996 Anti Terrorist and Effective Death Penalty Act.

Forget Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Al-Arian and Mr. Hyde are a whole lot scarier. And real.

By Debbie Schlussel
So much for President Bush’s so-called “No Child Left Behind Act.” Looks like he and his Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings focused so much on silly programs and meaningless benchmarks that fourth-graders around America were, indeed, left behind.
Test results from a global reading test show that U.S. fourth-graders have lost ground in literacy compared with children around the world. The students did about the same as they did in 2001, with no improvement over the six-year span, despite gazillions of dollars and “increased emphasis” on reading under the No Child bill.

Failure: When Your “Education” Secretary is Too Busy Doing This
More proof that George Bush’s Ted Kennedy-style spending on education gets Club Ted-style “results” (Kennedy was kicked out of Harvard for cheating). The “No Child” bill requires annual testing in reading, but, as always happens, teachers teach to the test, and their kids don’t really improve their reading skills. It’s a rote waste of time, as these results show after five years of the No Child boondoggle.
On the exam, America’s fourth-graders–while doing better than the international average–scored lower than their counterparts in ten countries, including Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, and three Canadian provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. Previously, Russia, Hong Kong, and Singapore were behind the U.S. And, gee, they don’t have a “No Child Left Behind” bloating whale of a spending bill.
Maybe Margaret Spellings should spend a little time on the only “R” of “the three Rs” and less time appearing on televised game shows (“Jeopardy”–no surprise that she lost to “Lenny” from “Laverne & Shirley”), in White House videos with Barney the dog (for which her appropriately-named press person, Trey Ditto, sent me a ludicrous press release), and fighting for the Title IX rights of lesbian athletes to annihilate college football and formerly Olympic-medal-winning men’s swimming and diving.
More key data from the test:
* “Girls scored higher than boys in the United States and all other countries except for Luxembourg and Spain, where the boy-girl scores were the same.”
That means that, like the U.S., we’re seeing a trend in neglecting boys and promoting girls in education. We see it in college admissions–overwhelmingly female, declining male presence in college student bodies–again, overwhelmingly female, and many other areas of academia. But, hey, there’s no provision addressing that in the No Child bill. Maybe that’s a good thing, given the poor results of the program.
* “Background questionnaires administered to students, teachers and school administrators showed that the average years of experience for fourth-grade teachers in the United States decreased from 15 years to 12 years between 2001 and 2006. The international average was 17 years.”
No comment needed. We’re behind thanks to teachers unions and bloated Bushie bureaucrats (like Secretary Spellings).
* “Among jurisdictions that took the test in 2001 and 2006, scores improved in Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Singapore, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.”
Hmmm . . . They improved, and we didn’t. What are they doing that we aren’t? I’d bet their education officials aren’t appearing in silly videos and on game shows, for starters.

Strange Priorities Equal Failure in Schools:
Woman in Ugly Jacket is Incompetent Ed. Sec. Margaret Spellings

By Debbie Schlussel
These “Letters to the Editor” from Monday’s Wall Street Journal are in response to an op-ed piece written by Jeff Robbins which appeared in the paper, last week. His op-ed was good. These letters are great, and I republish them here in their entirety (the best is the last one by Charles Plushnick of Brooklyn):

Jeff Robbins’ article “The Perils of Engagement” (op-ed, Nov. 21) should be a “must read” for the secretary of state, members of the State Department and our enlightened media. Mr. Robbins would do us all a great service if he publishes a follow up scholarly article on why the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, who escaped to Israel leaving all their possessions behind, are no longer refugees, while the Arabs who became refugees as a result of their violent rejection of the U.N. partition plan for two states, one Jewish and one Arab, are still living in refugee camps supported by the U.N., even at a time when, as Mr. Robbins reminds us, Arab countries are awash with petrodollars.

This is “Peace” in the Middle East

The so called moderate Palestinian leadership, to this day, refuses to accept the fact that Israel was created as the only (tiny) Jewish state in the world, pursuant to the U.N. resolution of 1947 and Israel’s war of survival and independence.
Ezekiel Bahar
Professor
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, Neb.

****

One wonders whether the “poor choices” made by the members of the Arab League since 1948, so well described by Jeff Robbins, were actually intended to have the continuous irresolution we have witnessed. Mr. Robbins correctly asserts that a Palestinian state could have been formed by the League during the 1948-67 period, yet there was no attempt to do so.
More puzzling, however, is that since the 1967 war, Syria has been the only League member demanding the return of captured territory, the Golan Heights. When Egypt, and later Jordan, entered into discussions with Israel culminating in peace treaties, neither demanded a return of the territories they administered prior to the 1967 war as necessary conditions for their agreements to peace settlements.
Not only would that have been consistent with the League’s current demand for an Israeli return to the pre-’67 borders, but its consummation could easily have resulted in Egypt and Jordan collaborating in the formation of a new Palestinian state out of their returned territories. Since this condition never occurred, calling it a “poor choice” rather than a deliberate choice by two League countries not really wanting a new Palestinian state seems now to be obvious.
Bertrand Horwitz
Asheville, N.C.

****

Mr. Robbins assumes that the Arab World and Palestinian leadership want to improve the lot of the average Palestinian; not true. He assumes they want to solve the Palestinian refugee problem; not true. He assumes they want to live in peace with Israel; not necessarily true.
If PLO leaders wanted to improve the lot of the average Palestinian, they would not have started an intifada that resulted in numerous hardships and ill feelings between them and Israel. If they cared about the refugees, they would have resettled them decades ago, throughout the world and Arab world.
It’s time to look at the true goals of the Palestinian and Arab leadership. First and foremost they want to remain in power. One must look at their culture and understand what they find of value and what they don’t. Then and only then will peace become a reality.
Charles Plushnick
Brooklyn, N.Y.

AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.

By Debbie Schlussel
Recently, I wrote about press accounts claiming that Israelis were becoming extremist–and it was feared that Ehud Olmert would be assassinated–all based on the “extremist” behavior of Israeli soccer fans booing when an announcer tried to memorialize the death of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.
As I wrote then, if booing is a sign of extremism, they need to check out a Bears-Packers game, filled with thousands of “extremists”. You can hardly blame a people constantly under attack for booing a man who entered into an agreement which set off more than a decade of fresh homicide bombings, home and land giveaways after forced evacuations, etc.
Apparently, not only were the boos reported by the Mainstream Press as “evidence” of extremism (and “evidence” of an assassination plot), but an Israeli court ruled that the booing fans’ team, Beitar, was required to play to an empty stadium for two games.

Beitar: Soccer Team’s Fans Can Now Boo Failed Israeli PM
Now, though, that’s out the window. Carl in Jerusalem has been following the story from day one and has the latest details. Amazingly, the left-wing Israeli courts actually got it right this time. As I always say: Broken clock. Twice a day.
I can’t wait ’til they boo Olmert and the Annapolis BS. Given what is coming out of the “Peace” conference so far, I can already hear the booing.
Israel . . . the “Jewish” State where Jews’ civil rights are negated in favor of PC treatment for Muslims, left-wing politicians, and empty peace/suicide treaties.
If it can happen to them there, it can definitely happen to us here. And it already is.