Friday Afternoon Roundup - The Teddy Bears of Annapolis

The mobs are marching in Sudan demanding Death for a Teddy Bear, but then again is there anything they don't demand death for? In Annapolis Israel is negotiating its own destruction under the watchful eyes of the world. The press is intensifying its assault on Giuliani, employing Village Voice propagandist Wayne Barret to do their dirty work and you know when you're relying on the Voice for your hit pieces and books, you're really going into the gutter.

Meanwhile from Yousef Ibrahim at the New York Sun, Bedouin Darkness Spreads with Oil Money

Do American institutions want to snuggle up with Saudi Arabia and its Dark Age values? They had better think this one through as a tidal wave of money from Saudi Arabia — as well as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait — is crashing into these shores and buying up American assets.

Via LGF, the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick has another good column on Annapolis,

The mood is dark in the IDF's General Staff ahead of next week's "peace" conference in Annapolis. As one senior officer directly involved in the negotiations with the Palestinians and the Americans said, "As bad as it might look from the outside, the truth is 10 times worse. This is a nightmare. The Americans have never been so hostile."

On Thursday a draft of the joint statement that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are discussing ahead of the conference was leaked to the media. A reading of the document bears out the IDF's concerns.

The draft document shows that the Palestinians and the Israelis differ not only on every issue, but differ on the purpose of the document. It also shows that the US firmly backs the Palestinians against Israel.

As the draft document makes clear, Israel is trying to avoid committing itself to anything at Annapolis. For their part, the Palestinians are trying to force Israel's hand by tying it to diplomatic formulas that presuppose an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines and an Israeli acceptance of the so-called "right of return" or free immigration of foreign Arabs to Israel.

The Palestinians are also trying to take away Israel's right to determine for itself whether to trust the Palestinians and continue making diplomatic and security concessions or not by making it the responsibility of outside parties to decide the pace of the concessions and whether or not the Palestinians should be trusted.

Israel Matzav has been doing a great job covering the Annapolis disaster with a series of Must Read Posts

Olmert can't fool all of the people all of the time

How many more Jews will be murdered?

Differences? What differences?

Annapolis payoff: Police recommend closing Leumi case against Olmert

At IsraPundit, Zionism is Beautiful

The Talmud says, “When good will exists amongst brethren, both can dwell together even on the razor thin edge of a sword, but when good will does not exist amongst them, even the full expanse of the earth lacks sufficient space to contain them.”

Israel”, “Jew” and “Zionism” are beautiful words. Yet repetitive racial slurs concerning these words make them sound ugly and pejorative.

Zionism means scorched desert wastelands transformed into magnificent gardens and green farm lands. Zionism means oppressed downtrodden Jews becoming uplifted and able to affirm their continuity from Biblical times. Zionism means Jews living proudly once again in their ancient homeland. Zionism means the collective creativity of Jews of every ethnicity coming together to build a free civilization.

Zionism means the opportunity to enact an ancient dream that will not die. Zionism means establishing a modern civilization that shares a messianic vision of making earth a little more like Heaven. Zionism means sharing Israeli’s blessings with the world.

Lemon Lime Moon writes a post on Who Supports Ron Paul

At Yourish.com, Russia: dead men winning

The news item about the death of Former KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov - one of the instigators and leaders of the failed putsch against Gorbachev in 1991 - didn’t occupy a central place in the media. However, there is some symbolism in this death. Kryuchkov has joined the ghosts, but the ghosts seem to be more and more active in the gray fog that is surrounding the internal Russian politics.

Finally at Boker Tov Boulder, Olmert's New Twist

"The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us," Olmert said, "because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents."

So first Olmert claims that American Jews have no say in dividing Yerushalayim and now it's American Jews forcing him into diving Yerushalayim. What a hypocrite.