The Watcher’s Council

This week’s Watcher’s Council results are in and quite a contest it was! We had a great crop of entries, even beyond our usual high quality. Believe it or not, we had a 5 way tie going on in the Council category that was only resolved by one of the last votes in.

The big story this week has been the ‘Palestinian’ attempt to violate the agreements they signed both in the Road Map and the Oslo Accords by getting the UN to unilaterally declare them a state. This week’s winner, The Colossus of Rhodey’s, Let me tell ‘ya something, takes a strong look at the real nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict in view of the current circus at the UN.

Here’s a slice:

You can’t get more moronic than the absolute cretins who continually criticize Israel about their “occupation” and “harsh” treatment of the Palestinians … yet either completely overlook how the Palis (and their Arab allies) feel about, and treat, Israelis and Jews in general … or just refuse to address it. I’m serious. These people have serious flaws in their basic moral structure.

The catalyst for this post is two-fold. First is this Jay Nordlinger piece:

I was talking yesterday to a friend of mine about the Israel Philharmonic’s experience at the BBC Proms. Demonstrators refused to let the orchestra proceed with its concert. My friend said, “Were they pro-Palestinian?” I said to her, “Well, I would call them anti-Israeli.”

I am pro-Palestinian, and so is Natan Sharansky — and so is Bibi Netanyahu. We want Palestinians, and everyone else, to live in peace and freedom. We are so pro-Palestinian that we actually think they should be free of dictatorship, tyranny, want, squalor, and lies. Something like 1.5 million Arabs — “Palestinians,” if you like — live in Israel. (It used to be that the only “Palestinians” were Jews. The Israel Phil. began life as the PSO, the Palestine Symphony Orchestra.) When Palestinian homosexuals and other “undesirables” flee for their lives from the West Bank or Gaza, where do they flee? You bet.

“Pro-Israeli” and “pro-Palestinian” — very unhelpful terms. Decent people are pro-everybody. But these terms are unavoidable, I suppose, like those other unhelpful terms “pro-war” and “anti-war.” We’re all anti-war (except for psychopaths): Some of us think that this or that war is necessary and justified, some of us don’t.

Precisely. How would history have been different if the Palestinians accepted the 1948 UN Partition Plan? There was the ever-sought after “two state solution” right then and there. But no; though imperfect (as all plans are), the Plan fairly dealt with increasingly difficult issues that the British had gotten weary of (hence, their turning the hassle over the then-nascent UN). What we had was one side accepting the plan and beginning to make their new sovereign home, and the other shunning it — and then teaming with numerous surrounding countries to obliterate the other new sovereign state. That’s right — obliterate.

And this was just the beginning.

Jews, hundreds of thousands of who were forced to flee their homes in myriad Arab countries as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict, settled elsewhere — many in Israel. But the Palestinians? Two of their “friends” gobbled up the territory allotted for them (as per the Partition Plan) after their unsuccessful attack on the new Israel. Then, the Palis weren’t accepted by their Arab “friends” if they wanted to resettle there. Like … why?

The history since then, as any fan of history knows, is one of continued Arab aggression towards Israel, and one of continued Israeli survival and victory. 1967 and 1973 were the other two “big” conflicts, but there have been many more “smaller’ skirmishes in between and beyond. But the utter idiocy of those believe there is some sort of … “equivalence” between Israel and the Palestinians continues to know no bounds.

We actually did have a tie between two fine entries in the Non-Council category, Fat Man On A Keyboard’s Decline And Fall submitted by Simply Jews, a critique of journalist John Pilger and Barry Rubin’s A New, Selective ‘Semi-Antisemitism’? Only Jews Opposing Obama Are Evil, Greedy, and Have Dual Loyalty submitted by Bookworm Room, a look at the Left’s latest bit of Alinskyite labeling, this time of Jews who are belatedly questioning President Obama’s policies on Israel.

Both pieces were well written, but I put on my Watcher’s hat and ultimately awarded the prize to Rubin’s piece as the stronger of the two.

Here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!