Two can play the moral superiority game.

Hamas grew in popularity among Palestinians because of the humanitarian assistance it offered people (medical clinics, schools, etc.) while Yasser Arafat and his henchmen were busying lining their pockets.
Now Israel, in a shrewd move, seeks to play that same card against Hamas:

[A]s he prepared to leave Sunday for his first meeting as prime minister with President Bush, Mr. Olmert was also eager to short-circuit criticism of Israeli restrictions on the Palestinians since the militant group Hamas took control of the Palestinian government and to show that Israel was not prepared to see Palestinians suffer. …

“We will pay if necessary out of our own pockets,” he said, and get what is needed directly to the hospitals “as soon as possible,” circumventing the Hamas government. “We wouldn’t allow one baby to suffer one night because of a lack of dialysis,” he said.

Hamas isn’t too happy:

Hamas on Sunday stated that Israel did not have the right to use money taken from Palestinian taxes - not even in order to buy medical supplies for Palestinians.

Hamas is unhappy because this will make Israel look benevolent. Can’t have any of that, now, can we?

I’m not sure this is a point New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis wanted to underscore in her paean to the poor struggling foreign fims that are trying to emerge from under Hollywood’s big, bad shadow,** but she let it slip in a squib about Richard Linklater’s forthcoming Fast Food Nation:

when it comes to critiquing America, few do it better than outraged Americans

So true.

And so old.

(But something tells me Linklater’s movie isn’t a hate-fest, either***)

————

**This piece from 2003 (”We Aren’t the World”) is fairly convincing about the fact that America’s culture is no longer the dominant one across the globe and that it will decline with increased globalization—a view endorsed by Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur.

Kapur believes that “American culture has been able to dominate the world because it has had the biggest home market.” But the growing commercial importance of Asia — China, India, Japan — along with the larger markets of the Mideast and North Africa will change that, he argues. In other words, cultural globalization is far from a recipe for American dominance; it is an opportunity for other cultures and markets to assert themselves.

***The trailer looks great, and I love Richard Linklater. I once went to a panel discussion and asked him whether he’d ever make a sequel to Before Sunrise

and whaddaya know, but he went and did it with Before Sunset:

A young New York City police detective recently gave testimony in the trial of Shahawar Matin Siraj, a Pakistani immigrant who was charged with trying to blow up a Manhattan subway station in 2004. The New York Times reports:

The detective, a Muslim who came to America from Bangladesh when he was 7, testified that he was a 23-year-old college graduate when he was plucked from the academy in October 2002. He took an apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where, he testified, his assignment was to be a “walking camera” among Muslims there….

The detective’s testimony indicates the depth of ongoing anti-terrorist undercover operations in New York. (No surprise there, although I’m pretty sure they will become controversial and politically charged sooner or later.)

The Times report continues, with a description of the detective, who was undercover for two years (emphasis mine):

He said, “I was told to act like a civilian — hang out in the neighborhood, gather information.”

He said he was told “never to push for information,” but instead to “take a back seat” and “observe, be the ears and eyes.”

A slight man in a gray suit, a white shirt and a rust-colored patterned tie, the detective said he had never before testified in court. In fact, his youth and, perhaps, naïveté were in evidence at several points in the morning, including when he said he had never heard of suicide bombings before Mr. Siraj raised the subject, one he seemed to discuss often.

Mr. Stolar seemed incredulous. “You had never before heard of suicide bombings taking place in Israel?” he asked.

“I grew up with a very peaceful religion,” the detective responded. “All of these comments — radical beliefs — came to me when I took this assignment.” He added: “Where in Islam does it say you can blow up a train station?”

Indeed. And this shows once again, for those who need reminding, the extent to which Islam has been twisted by perverts for their own political—or nihilistic—ends.

And once again I say: this is not a clash of civilizations. This is a fight within Islam itself.

Glenn Reynolds links to this article in the Washington Post, which details the anti-Western, anti-modern, anti-anything-that-isn’t-Wahhabism horrors to be found in the texbooks of Saudi Arabia (something that was supposed to have changed after 9/11 but has not—what a surprise).

[The] indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to “spread the faith.” …

FIRST GRADE
” Every religion other than Islam is false.”

“Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________.”

FOURTH GRADE
“True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly.”

FIFTH GRADE
“Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives.”

“It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam.”

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But propaganda is propaganda:

Anonymous
Rudeness is born of weakness & shows you are wrong, 1966


Solovyev, M.
We’ll Multiply The Wealth Of Our Beloved Homeland, 1962

Solovyev, M.
Hybrid Seeds - A Guarantee Of High Corn Crops!, 1956

Anonymous
We greet our teachers!, 1966

Suryaninov
All To The Elections!, 1956

Gore is a bore:

And he’s a scold:

Mr Gore said the world faced a stark choice between the end of civilisation and a future for its children….

Mr Gore said global warming was a “challenge to our moral imagination to understand it and then to respond to it urgently”.

Apparently, he’s also got an idiot for a film publicist. There is a pledge drive on the website for An Inconvenient Truth. Visitors are asked to pledge to go see the movie (aka “the truth“):

Make a difference when you pledge to SEE THE TRUTH on opening weekend in your city. Your pledge will send a message to the world that global warming is a genuine threat to our planet.

Paramount Classics will donate 5% of ticket sales from AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH to the
ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION.

To pledge, simply fill out the form below and click SUBMIT AND PLEDGE NOW. Then, keep your promise to the planet and see AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH on opening weekend. If you select “Remind Me”, we’ll even email you a reminder. For Group Sales, please click the GROUP SALES button below.

fyi: as of this writing, they have received 87, 645 pledges out of a hoped-for 1,000,000.

The same pledge campaign is part of Laurie David’s “Stop Global Warming” campaign, which I made fun of in “No one likes a Cassandra.” (She is also one of the producers of the Gore film.)

Is it just me or is this a bizarre marketing concept? What is the target demographic of this campaign? What kind of audience are you after that needs to sign a pledge before making the huge commitment to see a movie?

I mean, if you’re going to go to the trouble to make a movie, shouldn’t it, you know, be something that people want to see? on their own?

Ana Marie Cox detects a slightly more sinister agenda (emphasis mine):

Viewed through the optimistic lens of the post-premiere chatterers, An Inconvenient Truth is intended to be a political biography whose power comes from the film’s terrifying argument about global climate change: Elect me or we will all die.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

Most of the folks on Chris Matthews’s show this morning thought Gore has a fair shot at the nomination (they were otherwise tepid). But they all agreed that the climate is “anyone-but-Hillary.”

I don’t see the support from the party. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I’m no politico. The political climate is so unstable and unpredictable—Ray Nagin won the mayoral race in New Orleans!—that it’s fair to say anything could happen.

I hope it’s not Gore. ‘Bye for now, Al.