Iron Sheik's Hopeless Meandering

Ali Abunimah helped bring to light the discrimination of a McDonald's in Israel that canned an employee for speaking Arabic on the job. McDonald's-Israel is backing away from that policy while the HQ in the US stands in support. The visionary Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, would have a heart attack from the lack of company unity (as well as too many French fries) if he were not dead already. He is turning over a patty in his grave.

McDonald's is still struggling at the soul over the existential question of all fast food chains: how far to go on this new healthy image kick thing. Inside sources (not the Hamburglar) tell me that Ronald McDonald was in such anguish, he periodically drowns his sorrows in Double Whoppers from Burger King.

I thought McDonald's was going out of its way in years past to appear as multicultural as possible. It even sells the McFalafel in the Arab world and Dearborn, Michigan. McDonald's multiculturalism exists only in the world of urban marketing.

Hizbollah strikes Israeli bulldozer in Lebanon, killing one IDF soldier. Israeli fighter jets attack Hezbollah...no word on casualties.

Frankly, Israel's hypocrisy is rank. If Lebanese or Syrian army bulldozers were moving ten miles with Israel's border, Israel would attack and destroy it as well. Israel must comply with its own standards.

Iran's ruling Conservatives in the Guardian Council revoked its ban on nearly 200 reform party parliamentary candidates. Thankfully, still more candidates, publications, etc. suffer stifling condemnation. Iran has been in the process of reforming for the past few years. Though western pressure is a factor, the more indigenous the movement towards developing its own brand of democracy, the better.

Iran's revolution was a backlash against external interventionism. The more secure the revolution's accomplishments and the more confident it gets as a polity, the better suited it will be towards negotiating its political future. Even the United States did not become an ostensible democracy for more than 120 years after it was founded: when women, minorities, and those without land could actually vote. And this only came after the near-extermination of a people. We still need to get rid of the electoral college, the two-party-system, and the primaries to move towards better democracy. Iranian society has changed by legions since its foundation. I bet Afghanistan would have done the same eventually. I am not sure about Iraq however. They, and we in States, have a long way to go.

Jewish activists critical of Israel get some pretty vile hate e-mail. Deborah Fink helped organize an alternative, politicized Christmas carol concert in Trafalgar square, London and received an angry backlash. Ms Ragen, a freelance journalist wrote in response: "I suppose it's fitting that self-hating Jews will be singing anti-Israel Christmas songs to curry favour with oh-so-genteel British anti-Semites." Other messages were so vitriolic, I fear to repeat them here. Wow.

The Angry Arab News Service - Justifiably angry. Professor Abu Khalil is amazing. I met him at a symposium at G-town in 2000. He ripped on the Gulf countries as their ambassadors in the crowd squirmed in discomfort. Afterwards, I witnessed a Saudi official beg him to visit Saudi Arabia for a mind-changing trip. Without missing a beat, Abu Khalil responded that he knows about their tools of persuasion and wouldn't be making the trip anytime soon.

Daniel Pipes brings it all together: UFO-watchers join blacks, Palestinians, Europeans and the left as the new anti-Semites. Pipes has written derisively about various conspiracy theories while building his own career on alarmism about the Islamist thirst for world domination and the rising tide of new anti-Semitism.