Soccer Dad

Council speak 05/10/08

The Council has Spoken.

The winning entry this week was JoshuaPundit's Who cares about Israel anyway?, explaining exactly why we should care about Israel. The runner up was Right Wing Nuthouse's cautionary Party like it's 1968 all over again, in which he argues that Republican should see 2008, the way the Democrats experienced 1968.

The winning non-council entry was Losing our spines to save our necks by Sam Harris (and entered by JoshuaPundit) about the dangers of angering certain Muslims. The runner up was Iraqis Begin to 'Despise' the Mahdi Army in Baghdad's Rusafa District from the Long War Journal.

Congratulations to all the winners!

If you're a blogger and you like what you see, please consider submitting your own post to the competition. Just follow the rules here.

watcher's council.

Cabrera's improvement

Daniel Cabrera this year so far:

Daniel Cabrera the past two years:

In 2006 and 2007 he had WHIP's in excess of 1.5 both years. This year he's down to a respectable 1.2. His strikeout rate is down a little this year and he doesn't have a great K/BB ratio. He has a very low batting average allowed and that's what's seemingly makes the difference this year.

Given that currently the Orioles have the most efficient defense, perhaps the difference with Cabrera over past years is that the team is doing a much better job of preventing batted balls from becoming hits.

I had intended to credit Rick Kranitz and observe that he was able to make Cabrera effective where the great Leo Mazzone couldn't. But maybe it's the Orioles defense that deserves the lion's share of the credit.

Of course if he continues to pitch like last night (6 strikeouts, no walks, three hits) then it will be a sign that the improvement is more than just good fielding.

Baseball, baltimore orioles.

The hobgoblin of david ignatius

Yesterday David Ignatius wrote:

The game-changing events in the 2008 campaign are issues of war and peace. Both may be in play between now and November, in ways that add extra volatility to the presidential race.

And of course the "game changing" event in the Middle East that he refers to is peace:

The other wild card in the campaign is, happy to say, the possibility of Middle East peace negotiations. Bush administration officials continue to insist they have a chance of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement while Bush is in office. By this, they mean an agreement on paper -- one that would codify the outlines of the two-state solution that was negotiated but never finally concluded during the last days of the Clinton administration. This "shelf agreement" could be endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and provide a baseline for continuing talks next year about implementation.

A peace agreement -- even one that has no practical effect on the ground -- would be a feather in the cap for President Bush. But its political benefits for the GOP would be limited. Even a full-fledged peace treaty between Egypt and Israel failed to save Jimmy Carter from defeat at the polls in 1980. In that election, as perhaps this year, the Iranians played the role of spoilers.

Finally, there are noises offstage from Israel and Syria about a possible peace treaty. This would be the ultimate pragmatic bargain -- Israel likes the stability that Bashar al-Assad's military regime provides in Damascus, and it regards Syrian hegemony in Lebanon as an acceptable and perhaps desirable price. An important feature of the Syrian-Israeli dickering is that they have used Turkey as the key intermediary. If Turkey can broker peace between these two, it would reattach Ankara firmly to the Arab world for the first time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.

Why Syria's hegemony over Lebanon is acceptable to Israel, Ignatius doesn't bother to explain. Still the visions of an Israeli surrender of territory really excites him.

Daniel Pipes thinks a little caution is in order.

The Middle East's deep and wide political sickness points to the error of seeing the Arab-Israeli conflict as the motor force behind its problems. More sensible is to see Israel's plight as the result of the region's toxic politics. Blaming the Middle East's autocracy, radicalism, and violence on Israel is like blaming the diligent school child for the gangs. Conversely, resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict means only solving that conflict, not fixing the region.

To David Ignatius and many other Middle East navel gazers, an Israeli-Arab peace treaty (no matter how useless) will be a transformative event. To Daniel Pipes it is the transformation of the Middle East that is a prerequisite for peace.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel

Dissecting hillary

Jay Cost (a self described contrarian) doesn't think that it's over yet. He doesn't think that Sen. Clinton has much of a chance. However, he sees her possible salvation in the popular vote totals.

So, here's my question. What happens to "It's Over" if Clinton pulls a 40-point victory in West Virginia on Tuesday, then follows it up a week later with a 30-point victory in Kentucky? If these states turn out in the same margins that states since March 4th have averaged, that would imply a net of about 290,000 votes for Clinton. That puts her within striking distance of a reasonable popular vote victory. "Over" will be over as we turn our attention to Puerto Rico.

There are good reasons not to take Puerto Rico lightly, even though the press has continued to do exactly that. I would note: (a) Puerto Ricans vote in large numbers (2 million in the last gubernatorial election); (b) Puerto Ricans have never had this important a role in United States presidential politics; (c) Puerto Rico's politics is focused at least partially on how (if at all) to adjust its relationship with the United States; (d) Puerto Rico's is an open primary, and the residents of the Commonwealth, who are United States citizens, do not see themselves as Republicans or Democrats.

The inference I draw is that Puerto Ricans could turn out in huge numbers. If they do, and they swing for Clinton in a sizeable way, the popular vote lead could swing, too. Add 290,000 votes from West Virginia and Kentucky to 250,000 votes from Puerto Rico, account for expected losses in Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, and you get Clinton leading in many popular vote counts, some of which are really quite valid. If she has one of those leads when the final votes are counted on June 3rd, the race will go on to the convention.

Cost goes onto argue that he doesn't think this is likely, but using demographic data from other states argues that the scenario is plausible.

(I'm sure that Fiery Spirited Zionist is happy to read this!)

On the other hand Charles Krauthammer writes in Too late to the duck hunt (or here) that it's too late for Senator Clinton.

It wasn't until late in the fourth quarter that she found the seam in Obama's defense. In fact, Obama handed her the playbook with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Michelle Obama's comments about never having been proud of America and Obama's own guns-and-God condescension toward small-town whites.

The line of attack is clear: not that Obama is himself radical or unpatriotic, just that, as a man of the academic left, he is so out of touch with everyday America that he could move so easily and untroubled in such extreme company and among such alien and elitist sentiments.

Clinton finally understood the way to run against Obama: back to the center -- not ideologically but culturally, not on policy but on attitude. She changed none of her positions on Iraq or Iran or health care or taxes. Instead, she transformed herself into working-class Sally-get-her-gun, off duck hunting with dad.

However

The lightness in Hillary's step in the days before Indiana and North Carolina reflected the relief of the veteran politician who, after months of treading water, finally finds the right campaign strategy. But it was far too late. And the gas tax overkill, one final error of modulation, sealed the deal -- for Obama.

If Krauthammer's correct, then:

There's only one remaining chapter in this fascinating spectacle. Negotiating the terms of Hillary's surrender. After which we will have six months of watching her enthusiastically stumping the country for Obama, denying with utter conviction Republican charges that he is the out of touch, latte-sipping elitist she warned Democrats against so urgently in the last, late leg of her doomed campaign.

That's important because as Ross Douthat observed (via memeorandum)

There are two important points to be made about these numbers, and the deeper reality they reflect. The first, which you hear around these parts a lot, is that the GOP is now a working-class party (with class defined by education and culture more than income, just to be clear; there are plenty of skilled craftsmen who make more money than teachers and journalists and academics), and that it needs to start acting like one if it's going to rebuild its shattered majority. The second is that the GOP can't only be a working-class party; just as the famous Judis-Texeira emerging Democratic majority is built around the mass upper class and the poor but depends on winning some working-class votes to put it over the top, so any future "Party of Sam's Club" Republican majority is going to need to win back at least some of the mass-upper-class votes that the party has hemorrhaged during the Bush years.

Sen. Clinton's success in portraying Sen. Obama as out of touch and elitist should resonate with Republicans. If Sen. Obama's the nominee he's not going to attract with a lot of Republican voters. Sen. Clinton will have to unmake the image of Sen. Obama that she created to challenge him for the nomination.

Follow the useful idiots

There's a group called Follow the Women that's organized a bike ride through the Middle East in the name of peace. Here's what a participant wrote last month:

Nearly 250 women, representing 30 nationalities from mostly Europe and the Middle East, but also the United States and Canada, arrived in Beirut last week for the third "Follow the Women" bike tour, which winds through Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and - Israeli government permitting- the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Started in 2004. One of the founders is a British woman named Detta Regan, "Follow the Women" is not a race, but a bike tour where women ride in the name of female empowerment and the aim of expressing solidarity with the Middle East. It is also a good place to break down cultural stereotypes and experience woman-to-woman diplomacy, away from official government positions and media hype.

Most of the Western women I cycled with expressed surprise at how calm Beirut is, and how beautiful. "It's nothing like how it is in the news," the British woman next to me exclaimed.

Note that the group didn't plan to show solidarity with the women of Israel. And also note that now that they are in Syria, things aren't so calm in Beirut anymore. And it's their current host who's fomenting the violence.

The utter cluelessness of these women was described nicely recently by Bret Stephens:

For reasons both telling and mysterious, Israel has become unpopular among that segment of public opinion that calls itself progressive. This is the same progressive segment that believes in women's rights, gay rights, the rights to a fair trial and to appeal, freedom of speech and conscience, judicial checks on parliamentary authority. These are rights that exist in Israel and nowhere else in the Middle East. So why is it that the country that is most sympathetic to progressive values gets the least of progressive sympathies?

How welcome do you figure this woman would be in Tehran or Gaza?

But let them ride their bikes and give cover to the tyrants who are fomenting the strife in the Middle East.

Crossposted on Yourish.

follow the women.

Ninety four years ago

It wasn't Hallmark. It was President Wilson who created Mother's Day.

The idea for a “Mother’s Day” is credited by some to Julia Ward Howe (1872) and by others to Anna Jarvis (1907), who both suggested a holiday dedicated to a day of peace. Many individual states celebrated Mother’s Day by 1911, but it was not until Wilson lobbied Congress in 1914 that Mother’s Day was officially set on the second Sunday of every May. In his first Mother’s Day proclamation, Wilson stated that the holiday offered a chance to "[publicly express] our love and reverence for the mothers of our country."

Thanks to Wolf Howling ) (see comments below) that the House Republicans are now objecting to President Wilson's recommendation.

mother's day.

Ninety three years ago

The outrage that led the United States to enter World War I

Lusitania, the Cunard Liner under British registration, was sunk off the Irish coast by a German submarine on May 7, 1915. In the sinking, 1,195 persons lost their lives, of whom 128 were U.S. citizens.

That doesn't mean that President Wilson didn't try diplomacy first.

After prolonged negotiations, Germany finally conceded its liability for the sinking of the Lusitania and agreed to make reparations and to discontinue sinking passenger ships without warning. The immediate crisis between the United States and Germany subsided. The incident, however, contributed to the rise of American sentiment for the entry of the United States into World War I.

Did you feel it?

Map courtesy of the USGS

The above map shows the areas where Tuesday's earthquake centered near Annandale Virgina was felt. People actually felt it not far from where I work, but as far as I can tell no one at work felt it.

The USGS reports on the history of earthquakes experienced in Virginia. The earliest recorded one was:

On February 21, 1774, a strong earthquake was felt over much of Virginia and southward into North Carolina. Many houses were moved considerably off their foundations at Petersburg and Blandford (intensity MM VII). The shock was described as "severe" at Richmond and "small" at Fredericksburg. However, it "terrified the inhabitants greatly." The total felt area covered about 150,000 square kilometers.

Still quakes in the area are rare:

They occur about once per decade, although some decades have none and the 1990s had three. None are known to have caused damage since the arrival of European colonists. The corridor is between more seismically active regions to the southwest and northeast, and residents of Washington or Baltimore have felt several earthquakes that caused damage in those other, more active regions.

Because quakes around here are rare, it's hard for scientists to pinpoint exactly which fault is at fault.

At well-studied plate boundaries like the San Andreas fault system in California, often scientists can determine the name of the specific fault that is responsible for an earthquake. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this is rarely the case. The Washington - Baltimore urban corridor is far from the nearest plate boundaries, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea. The urban corridor is laced with known faults but numerous smaller or deeply buried faults remain undetected. Even the known faults are poorly located at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few, if any, earthquakes in the urban corridor can be linked to named faults. It is difficult to determine if a known fault is still active and could slip and cause an earthquake. As in most other areas east of the Rockies, the best guide to earthquake hazards in the Washington - Baltimore urban corridor is the earthquakes themselves.

UPDATE: The Learning Channel has an earthquake simulator called Make a Quake that allows you to test different building and ground configurations with different level earthquakes.

earthquakes.

Today's insult

The Washington Post's Griff Witte, takes a device from Reuters and focuses on two men who, like Israel, were born in 1948. One is Israeli and one is Palestinian. In Born at the dawn of a new state

Witte is careful to emphasize the success of the Israeli with the haplessness of the Palestinian. But I guess it comes to the final two paragraphs:

With Nablus under Israeli military siege, Zaharan rarely leaves the city, and he has not been inside Israel since 1980. But if he had the chance, he knows exactly what he would say to any of his former Jewish neighbors about the past 60 years.

"I would say to him, 'Your life hasn't changed in the way my life has. You've made it. You've succeeded,' " he said. "And I would want him to say back to me, 'I recognize your rights.' "

As if Israel hasn't recognized his rights. Maybe not to return to Jaffa from where his family fled as it waited for the mighty Arab armies to destroy the nascent Jewish state so it could return. But certainly Israel has made greater efforts to create a Palestinian state than any other country in the world, only to find its efforts dismissed as not enough.

In the end there will be no Palestinian state unless the Palestinians choose to create a functioning government and society.

Update: The article contains the words "checkpoints" and "siege" but not "terror."

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel

Strategic planning for the rich and famous

Making up somewhat for yesterday's insult, The NYT today reported on At 60, Israel Redefines Roles for Itself and for Jews Elsewhere.

The conference seems like an extravagance:

But there is another form of celebration planned, and its sponsors believe it says something about the national character: a three-day conference of some of the best minds from around the world on some of the biggest challenges facing humankind — and especially the Jews — in the coming decades.

“The brain enriches the pocket, not the other way around,” Shimon Peres, Israel’s president and the patron of the conference, said in an interview. “We are a small land and a small people, but we can become a daring world laboratory, and that is our desire and plan.”

Nearly 700 guests are expected to take part next week in 35 discussion groups. They include statesmen like Henry A. Kissinger, Vaclav Havel, Tony Blair and Joschka Fischer, but also Sergey Brin of Google, Terry Semel of Yahoo and Rupert Murdoch, along with seven Jewish Nobel laureates and President Bush.

It's a chance, I suppose, for these people to act important. I have doubts that much will come of this conference outside of some really nice sounding declarations.

Still:

In fact, what are billed as global challenges — terrorism, Iran — seem to be somehow especially Jewish and Israeli ones. The organizers say this is not coincidental or unusual and point as an example to Hitler, who posed an enormous threat to the world but focused particularly on the Jews.

“Cataclysms always seem to affect Jews first,” remarked Stuart E. Eizenstat, a senior official in the Clinton and Carter administrations, who wrote an essay that forms a basis for the conference. “Go back to the Black Plague. It was not a Jewish issue, but it had particular impact on Jews because they were blamed for it.”

Not surprisingly the Arab leaders who were invited haven't accepted yet. In a triumph of absurd hope, the organizers anticipate that a few might be able to tear themselves away from Naqba celebrations to join a discussion on the future of the Jews (that would rather deny.)

However cynical I am about the value of the "strategic planning" likely to emerge from the conference, it reflects an important reality.

Today Israel’s Jewish population of 5.5 million is the world’s largest, just ahead of that of the United States, which is slowly declining through low birth rate and intermarriage.

Israel is, more and more, the center of the Jewish world.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

In honor of yom ha'atzmaut

Yid with Lid has put together a special one time carnival celebrating Israel's 60 years. Broken down into four categories: Israel in my heart, Israeli history, Israel's accomplishments and Israel's challenges he presents some of the best J-bloggers (and others) expressing their feelings over this milestone birthday of the Jewish state. Please give it a read.

And while you're at it, please check out today's Dry Bones.

UPDATE: There are few excellent essays about Zionism that I'd like to call your attention to. One is The end of Zionism? by Yoram Hazony from 1995. (It actually appeared in one of the very first issues of the Weekly Standard.) The other is Charles Krauthammer's At last Zion, also from the Weekly Standard, celebrating Israel's 50th anniversary. Finally there is Martin Peretz's The god that did not fail that is something of an ideological history of Zionism.

israel.

The necessary jewish state

A few days ago Media Backspin asked What is Israel's Greatest Accomplishment?

I was in grade school when the 6 Day War was fought. I remember seeing a film strip soon after. It was quite impressive. Though, as a 6 year old I don't think I comprehended the miraculous nature of the victory.

I was a teenager at the time of the Entebbe rescue. That was very exciting. I was fascinated by the level of planning that went into the raid and how it was executed nearly flawlessly.

I was spending a year studying in Israel when I heard that Israel destroyed a reactor in Iraq. I thought I'd been misinformed. Israel had been running raids over Lebanon, surely Israel hit a target in Lebanon. But no, it was Baghdad. I only recently raid a full account of that raid. Again it was an amazing, no, miraculous operation. It made the Gulf War in 1991 and the subsequent Iraq War in 2003 possible. Despite the criticisms directed at Israel, the destruction of the Iraqi reactor is an event that has changed history dramatically, including the eventual defeat of a brutal tyrant.

And of course going to a site like Israel 21c, I see how Israel leads the world in many areas of technology. If I go to the MASHAV website, I can see how Israel lends a hand to other countries (with little or no credit.)

As exciting as all these were, the action that makes me most proud has been the rescue of Ethiopia's Jews, Beta Israel. Operations Moses and Solomon overall rescued about 35,000 Ethiopian Jews and brought them to Israel. I'm not going to pretend that everything's been perfect since then. The assimilation of the Ethiopians hasn't always been smooth. However it's the ultimate example of why Israel exists.

Jews were in danger. People don't remember but at the time of Operation Moses Ethiopia was one of the most brutal regimes in the world. The government of Haile Mariam Mengistu forced relocations of the country's population creating a famine that killed millions. The thousands saved by Israel, might well have died. Instead Israel rescued them, giving them a second chance.

Over the past 20 years, the center of the Jewish world has shifted slowly towards Israel, where the largest population of Jews in the world now resides. We are witnessing "kibbutz golyos" - the ingathering exiles - in our time. It may not be dramatic, but it is happening.

Attacks on Israel's legitimacy, are attacks on the Jewish people. Similarly doubts raised about the Jewish connection to the land, reject the notion and history of the Jewish nation.

In bringing the Jews of Ethiopia to Israel, Israel showed its commitment to a threatened Jewish community. Israel didn't just show that it's the Jewish state, but also why the Jewish state is necessary.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

Projecting from primaries

via memeorandum

In Feel the Mittmentum in Indiana!, Will Bunch writes:

But seriously, what to say about 5 percent of Indiana Republicans still voting for Romney, a candidate whose following was about as fanatical as supporters of the Los Angeles Clippers or the Florida Marlins. For all the punditry concern about division on the Democratic side -- and it is a legitimate issue -- I think the enthusiasm gap for John McCain is even more palpable.

Consider this: Indiana is a crossover state, and polling suggests that roughly one-in-10 of the 1.2 million voters in the Democratic primary was actually a Republican -- or 120,000 people. If that's correct, then in rough numbers a total of 530,000 Republican Hoosiers voted yesterday -- 320,000 who backed their party's candidate, John McCain, and 210,000 who voted for someone else. How many of those 210,000 will back McCain in six months?

In Maryland in 2002, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend won the Democratic nomination against a little known challenger Robert Fustero: by a margin of 434,948 to 108,659.

The Republican nominee Bob Ehrlich won 92% of the vote in his primary, a total of 229,927 votes, or slightly more than twice as much as his opponent's little heralded rival.

Yet in the general election Ehrich beat Townsend by 879,592 to 813,422 in heavily Democratic Maryland. The analogy isn't perfect, but it does illustrate a point: trying to project general election results from primary results is a fool's errand. It's also why I give little credence to items like this:

And in Indiana, for example, less than half of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters said they would support Mr. Obama in a general election, while one-third said they would vote for Mr. McCain. About one-fifth of Mr. Obama’s supporters in Indiana said they would vote for Mr. McCain in a general election should Mrs. Clinton get the nomination. Many of those Democrats can probably be expected to stay with their party in the end, but the figures suggest the intensity of the passion dividing Clinton and Obama supporters at the moment and the challenge facing the eventual nominee in uniting the party.

The dynamics of primaries and general elections are different. The relative lack of interest in McCain is likely because the Republican race is all but decided. That interest will likely return when there's something at stake in November. Similarly, Democrats who are frustrated now, will probably rethink whether they really wish to send a Republican to the White House in November.

Will Bunch is reading too much into the Indiana results.

john mccain.

Unhappy 60th

The New York Times isn't likely to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary with unadulterated joy, so it features an article showing how Israeli Arabs feel, After 60 years, Arabs in Israel are outsiders:

As Israel toasts its 60th anniversary in the coming weeks, rejoicing in Jewish national rebirth and democratic values, the Arabs who make up 20 percent of its citizens will not be celebrating. Better off and better integrated than ever in their history, freer than a vast majority of other Arabs, Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens are still far less well off than Israeli Jews and feel increasingly unwanted.

On Thursday, which is Independence Day, thousands will gather in their former villages to protest what they have come to call the “nakba,” or catastrophe, meaning Israel’s birth. For most Israelis, Jewish identity is central to the nation, the reason they are proud to live here, the link they feel with history. But Israeli Arabs, including the most successfully integrated ones, say a new identity must be found for the country’s long-term survival.

The question is to what degree is that outsider *status* enforced by the Israeli majority, and to what degree is it self-imposed.

While the reporter, Ethan Bronner writes about land issues, he also acknowledges

Antagonism runs both ways. Many Israeli Arabs express solidarity with their Palestinian brethren under occupation, while others praise Hezbollah, the anti-Israel group in Lebanon, and some Arabs in Parliament routinely accuse Israel of Nazism.

Still the focus on land is something that's bothersome. Barry Rubin in his recent debunking of an AP "celebration" of Israel's 60th wrote:

Yet most countries are founded on expropriation, often of Jewish property. For example, Oxford University, where recently debates were conducted calling for Israel's destruction, was started on property stolen from Jews expelled in 1290. Far more recently, many Arab states received a huge infusion of capital from the expropriation of Jewish property after Israel's creation. Does France's or Britain's or Belgium's independence day require discussion of colonial depredations? We don't read articles that Japan's independence day is blighted by Chinese or Korean suffering, though the Japanese did engage in mass murder of those people. What about the fact that every country in the Western Hemisphere is based on the suffering of the indigenous natives? Or even in the case of Russia, given Czarist and Soviet behavior? In no case, however, is far worse behavior said to have poisoned any other country's very existence.

A few months ago, David Hazony presented a survey showing that Israeli-Arabs are integrating into Israeli society at a higher rate than most would assume and that the Israeli-Arab members of Knesset are a lot more hostile to Zionist enterprise than those who elected them.

This is something that Bronner does address:

Arabs here reject that idea partly because they prefer the certainty of an imperfect Israeli democracy to whatever system may evolve in a shaky Palestinian state. That is part of the paradox of the Israeli Arabs. Their anger has grown, but so has their sense of belonging.

In fact, the anxious and recriminating talk on both sides may give a false impression of constant tension. There is a real level of Jewish-Arab coexistence in many places, and the government has recently committed itself to affirmative action for Arabs in education, infrastructure and government employment.

“We know that they need more land, that their children need a place to live,” said Raanan Dinur, director general of the prime minister’s office. “We are working on building a new Arab city in the north. Our main goal is to take what are today two economies and integrate them into one economy.”

It's a difficult issue that's handled reasonably well. Still why is this the article that defines Israel's 60th anniversary for the NY Times?

It also wasn't enough for critics of Israel. Mondoweiss writes:

The new historians suggest that Zionists did plenty of attacking on their own. This account is, plainly, one-sided.

Weiss is wrong in suggesting that Bronner is unfamiliar with the new historians. He wrote a positive review of the movement in the Times a few years ago.

Israel is a great success story, thriving in the face of adversity. In fact one of its great accomplishments was integrating the Jews who were forced from Arab lands. It's a shame that the media is seemingly incapable of accentuating the positive.

Submitted 05/07/08

This week's Watcher Council nominations have been submitted.

Death and the Madam - Done With Mirrors expresses his contempt for media navel gazing over the death of the "DC Madam."
Obama As Marley - Wolf Howling provides a thorough debunking of Sen. Obama's attempt to distance himself from Rev. Wright. He even provides a speech that would have constituted an honest attempt to explain why he differed from the Reverend. See Something Wasn't Wright about why Oprah Winfrey left the Trinity Church. (via memeorandum)
Whither? - The Glittering Eye takes issue with a column by the world's most overrated columnist, Thomas Friedman. He argues that the aspects of American society that Friedman finds so messy are those that make our country great. He also rips the notion that Singapore is a more advanced society than America because it has a nicer airport than JFK. (I thought that was pretty silly too.)
Al Gore Won Florida in 2000 - The Colossus of Rhodey writes about a segment on TV where a law professor stated that Al Gore won Florida in 2000. He patiently explains that according to most counts - including the count that the Gore campaign requested - Bush won, albeit by smaller margins.
It's Too Late To Turn Back Now - Rhymes With Right shows, by comparing Sen. Obama's two major speeches about Rev. Wright, that what really offends Sen. Obama about his (former) pastor is that the former pastor insulted him. As Rhymes with Right observes, it wasn't about principle, it was about his own ego.
Are You Ready To Be a Democrat? - Bookworm Room shares an e-mail she got about how to be a Democrat. It's very funny. In the mid 70's Commentary Magazine had a symposium about what it means to be a liberal or a conservative. Bookworm Room's list reminds me of the one by Max Frankel, then an editor at the NY Times, which pointed out inconsistencies in both positions.
Fatal Energy Policies - Cheat Seeking Missiles, like the Glittering Eye, takes apart a Thomas Friedman article. In this case he argues that Friedman's brief for developing alternative energy is correct in part, but that it's limited by Friedman's own (leftist) prejudices.
Merit Pay Chronicles: A Teacher Speaks! - The Education Wonks highlights an article complaining that those who develop educational policy don't know enough about what it is to be a teacher.
Random Thoughts - Hillbilly White Trash addresses a number of issues succinctly, including the Democratic primary race, Rev. Wright, global warming and metal detectors at courthouses.
Who Cares About Israel, Anyway? - Joshuapundit makes an impressive case that Israel is deserving of special treatment.
Party Like It's 1980 All Over Again - Right Wing Nut House argues that the political signposts show a lot of similarities between now and 1980. That isn't good for the Republicans. I don't want to admit that he's correct (and disagree with him on a few points) yet his post is sobering. See also The Shrinking Republican Base.
I Have a Nightmare- In my post I look at the implication of Rev. Wright's speech before the NAACP in Detroit. He wants to go back in time.

My non-council submission this week is Confederate Yankee's Another Gaza Media Moment
about the killing of a woman and her children by a secondary explosion and how poorly the media covered it.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

Palestinians cry "canton"

One aspect of Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians that's constant is that whatever Israel offers will be dismissed as an insult or some other epithet.

Now that negotiations are coming down to nitty-gritty details like borders, the cries start anew. The Jerusalem Post reports:

"Today, it's clear to us that Israel has no intention of withdrawing from all the territories that were occupied in 1967," said one official.

"If the Israelis and Americans think that they will ever find a Palestinian leader who would accept less than the 1967 borders, they are living under an illusion."

Another top PA official said that maps presented by the Israeli government to the Palestinians in the past few weeks showed that Israel is planning to retain control over nearly half of the West Bank and large parts of eastern Jerusalem.

The Israeli maps, he said, "turn the Palestinian communities in the West Bank into cantons surrounded by Israeli military bases and large settlement blocs."

The official added: "We have made it clear to both the Israelis and Americans that they should throw away these maps. No Palestinian will ever agree to the presence of settlements or Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. This is in violation of [US President George W.] Bush's vision of two states living next to each other in peace."

First of all, even George W. Bush's vision of two states doesn't specify the boundaries. If the boundaries are unacceptable to them and the Palestinians refuse to make peace, then they're the ones who are are refusing to abide by the president's vision. Maybe they think they have a good reason for doing so, but they'd still be the ones preventing an agreement.

Then there's this:

"The Israeli government is not serious about the peace talks," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official closely associated with Abbas. "We don't believe that we can reach an agreement [with Israel] before the end of this year."

Abed Rabbo accused Israel of "deceiving" the Palestinians by continuing to build settlements while talking about the need to reach a peace deal.

"Israel does not want to change its policy," he added. "Israel wants to continue settlement expansion and the construction of the separation wall."

These statements are clearly designed to elicit Amerian pressure on Israel. By mentioning "the end of the year" - President Bush's goal - Abed Rabbo is effectively asking the Americans to get Israel to agree to the Palestinian demands rather than attempting to compromise.

The Spine observes that in Belfast, it's the separation wall that is widely credited with keeping the peace. (He also points out that the "cantons" charge is false.) But in the Middle East the "wall" becomes one more brickbat to toss Israel's way. Israel Matzav contrasts the (strategic) pessimism of the Palestinians with the expressed optimism of the Israelis.

(via memeorandum)

Of course the real problem might be that Israel wants to hold on to anything.

"The PLO is the sole legitimate representative [of the Palestinian people], and it has not changed its platform even one iota. In light of the weakness of the Arab nation and the lack of values, and in light of the American control over the world, the PLO proceeds through phases, without changing its strategy. Let me tell you, when the ideology of Israel collapses, and we take, at least, Jerusalem, the Israeli ideology will collapse in its entirety, and we will begin to progress with our own ideology, Allah willing, and drive them out of all of Palestine."

(h/t Daled Amos)

But maybe Israel should at least fight for the life of Imad Sa'ad. I don't know that he really helped Israel, but that's what he's been convicted of. For all I know he looked at someone wrong and got denounced.

However, if Palestinians are executed for helping Israel fight terror, while terrorists are lionized the peace process is a sham. (Another deadly activity for Palestinians is selling land to Jews. Getting killed for real estate transactions is hardly conducive to coexistence.)

Still this is a point Israel ought to pursue. After all the PA considers terrorists worthy of release, Israel should, at least, demand freedom for someone who's been convicted of helping not harming.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

It's unwinnable if you don't fight to win

In War of the rockets, Jackson Diehl writes:

For months now, Israel has been mired in an unwinnable war against Hamas and allied militias in Gaza, who fire missiles at civilians in Israel and then hide among their own women and children, ensuring that retaliatory fire will produce innocent victims for the Middle East's innumerable satellite television networks. A growing number of the militiamen have been to Iran for training, and some of the missiles they launch are Iranian-made. Their objective is obvious: to exhaust Israelis with an endless war of attrition while making it impossible for Israel's government to reach a political settlement with the more moderate Palestinian administration in the West Bank.

First of all, when Diehl writes "unwinnable" he means "unwinnable using current tactics." There are those who disagree that it's unwinnable.

Senior IDF officers serving in Gaza are frustrated over what they describe as the army’s lack of resolve and limited action against terror emanating from the Strip.

“This week I returned from another standby shift at the combat helicopter base where I do my reserve duty,” lit.-Col. N told Ynet. “Again we did nothing, despite a Qassam and mortar barrage fired by terrorists at the entire sector.”

N says that he feels obligated to warn that the IDF is not doing enough to counter terrorism from Gaza.

“The Gaza Strip is a narrow area, almost entirely closed off, the terrorist forces are relatively small and their weapons – although they are improving every day as a result of our lack of action – still don’t constitute a significant threat to our forces.

(h/t Meryl)

Also Hamas's objective isn't to prevent a peace agreement, it's objective is to kill as many Israelis as it can.

I don't think that Hamas opposes a peace agreement with Israel as it will undoubtedly give it more power than it already has. Hamas knows that Israel is anxious to conclude a deal with Abbas, regardless of the rockets. It persists because it knows that Israeli responses generally mean that Israel must defend itself usually to the scorn of the world. So Hamas not only get to kill Israelis, destroy their homes but gets a bonus too.

Given that the explosion in Gaza has now been shown to be the result of a secondary explosion not an Israeli missile, Diehl should have acknowledged as much at the start of his article.

In both these assertions, Diehl is imposing his own views onto events.

Elder of Ziyon outlined the evidence. Yaacov Lozowick wrote about why it's important. (The NYT deserves credit for reporting this result too.)

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

Entebbe audio

Israel has released some audio of the Entebbe raid. Ynet provides the audio and a transcript.

The missing passenger was Dora Bloch who had been taken to the hospital. After the rescue she was killed.

(h/t Jack's Shack)

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel

Honoring survival

In Honoring Survival, and Gifts to a Nation Isabel Kershner writes about a new exhibit at Yad Vashem devoted to the Holocaust survivors who escaped to Israel.

The gray walls of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial here, have long documented the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis against Europe’s Jews. Now, an oddly vibrant exhibition at the memorial is telling a less known story of the renaissance of the survivors in Israel and the extraordinary role they played in shaping the character of the new state.

“My Homeland: Holocaust Survivors in Israel” opened in late April, in time for the 60th anniversary this week of Israel’s founding. Instead of gas chambers and ghettoes, it showcases designer beachwear and boldly colored posters that promoted potent Israeli symbols like the airline El Al.

Though she reports (without documentation)

Of 250,000 survivors in Israel today, 80,000 or more are said to be living on or near the poverty line.

Overall

... experts say the suffering of those left behind in their old age does not negate their immigration success story.

“The story of the Holocaust can be told from many different angles,” said Hanna Yablonka, a historical consultant to the exhibition. “To me, one of the most important aspects is the question of where you take such a huge disaster. You can turn to revenge, or to building.”

This was a particularly apt story:

“We came with nothing, without money, with nowhere to live,” Mrs. Gottlieb recalled, after viewing a movie about herself in a corner of the exhibition an hour before the official opening. “The first two or three years were very, very hard,” she said.

Petite and manicured, in a black pantsuit and sensible leather shoes, Mrs. Gottlieb recounted in still-halting Hebrew how she and her husband opened a raincoat factory like the one they had left behind in Europe. But for months “we saw no rain, only sunshine,” she said. So they founded Gottex, a swimwear company that quickly grew to become a leading Israeli brand abroad.

Mrs. Gottlieb, the company’s chief designer, would sometimes tell of an ugly memory from the past, said a grandson, Danny Shir, 37, like when she hid herself and her children in a pit behind the house of their gentile host after seeing a Nazi with a pistol outside.

Another remarkable aspect of the story is that of the estimated 500,000 survivors who made it to Israel, half are still alive.

I guess it would be snide to observe that the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are not also called Holocaust survivors.

In related news, Smooth Stone observes that Yad Vashem has put many of its photographic library online.

Crossposted on Yourish.

yad vashem, israel.

Abbas To Execute Arab For Fulfilling Agreement With Israel (Updated)

...cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on counterterrorism is a precondition under agreements for the relinquishment of land for a Palestinian Arab state. Eli Lake

Appeal Is Made to Bush To Save Arab Accused of Helping Israel Famed Refusenik Issues a Call To Save an Arab

By ELI LAKE

An officer in the Palestinian Authority’s National Security Forces, Imad Sa’ad, is led away after being sentenced to death by a Palestinian military court on April 28 for collaborating with Israel, court officials and security sources said.

WASHINGTON — A Palestinian Authority police officer accused of helping Israel with counterterrorism is facing death at the hands of a firing line unless a last-minute appeal to President Bush can save him.

The cause of the police officer, Imad Sa'ad, is being championed by a woman who became famous as a political prisoner in the Soviet Union before she moved to Israel in 1987, Ida Nudel. It comes as Secretary of State Rice this weekend arrived in Israel for another round of diplomacy aimed at creating an independent Palestinian Arab state before the end of the Bush presidency.

The case raises questions about the intentions of Prime Minister Abbas's Fatah government in the West Bank. Mr. Sa'ad, a former member of the Palestinian Authority's national security forces, is accused of providing the Israel Defense Forces with the whereabouts of four accused Palestinian terrorists Mr. Abbas's regime was unwilling to hand over to the Israelis. In a court in Hebron he was convicted of being a collaborator. But cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on counterterrorism is a precondition under agreements for the relinquishment of land for a Palestinian Arab state. What's more, the sentence against Mr. Sa'ad was meted out by a judge from Fatah, which is Mr. Abbas's Palestinian faction and the one that Ms. Rice hopes her diplomacy will strengthen against Hamas, the Iranian-backed terrorists who now control Gaza.

Secretary Rice in Ramallah yesterday praised Mr. Abbas, and particularly his leadership of the security services. "It takes some time to deal with the effects of the Intifada, but a lot of it has to do with responsible actions by the Palestinian government and the Palestinian Authority which are really now in place," she said. "And because of that, I think you are going to see improvements on the West Bank."

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: From Muslims Against Sharia

Muslims Against Sharia condemn, in strongest possible terms, death sentence for Imad Sa'ad, which shows the true nature of the Palestinian Authority. If Mahmoud Abbas and the P.A. were serious about combating terrorism, they would not be sentencing their security officers to death for counter-terrorism efforts.

Muslims Against Sharia call on the American government to cease all aid to the Palestinian Authority if Mr. Sa'ad's sentence is carried out. Imad Sa'ad is a true hero of the Arab people and the American government should demand his immediate release.

by Daled Amos

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Abbas.

Too early

In McCain Jindal, William Kristol sounds some caution:

Still, Obama is the likely Democratic nominee. Some conservatives are giddy at the thought — kidding themselves that the general election will therefore be easy, that Obama will be another Dukakis. I was struck, though, in several conversations this week with McCain campaign staffers and advisers that they’re pretty sober about the task ahead. About the Dukakis analogy, for example, one McCain aide said: If in 1988 Ronald Reagan had had a 30 percent job approval rating, and 80 percent of the voters had thought we were on the wrong track, Dukakis would have won.

Still I'm not at all convinced by his recommendation:

Maybe that’s why, in separate conversations last week, no fewer than four McCain staffers and advisers mentioned as a possible vice-presidential pick the 36-year-old Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal. They’re tempted by the idea of picking someone so young, with real accomplishments and a strong reformist streak.

It might also be a way to confront the issue of McCain’s age (71), which private polls and focus groups suggest could be a real problem. A Jindal pick would implicitly acknowledge the questions and raise the ante. The message would be: “You want generational change? You can get it with McCain-Jindal — without risking a liberal and inexperienced Obama as commander in chief.” I would add that it was after McCain spent considerable time with Jindal in New Orleans recently, and reportedly found him, as he has before, personally engaging and intellectually impressive, that the campaign’s informal name-dropping of Jindal began.

Jindal's got to be tempting. And I'll acknowledge that he's accomplished more than most politicians have in entire careers. (He reformed Louisiana's health care system.) Still I think that Baseball Crank is correct:

No Rookies: On the other end of the spectrum, a large part of McCain's argument, especially against Obama, will be that McCain is experienced, battle-tested, and ready to take the now-proverbial 3 a.m. phone call. But as I noted above, given his age, he'll be undercutting that argument if his running mate doesn't also clearly pass that 3 a.m. test - and that means no first-term Governors or Senators, no Lieutenant Governors or state legislators, no business people without government experience. It has to be someone who has more experience and credibility than the Democrats' presidential nominee.

(Read the whole thing.)

john mccain.

Careening towards peace

Why does it seem that when "peace" finally gets closer, events tend to become more chaotic.

Even as Secretary Rice goes to the Middle East to attempt to get a "peace deal" between Israel and the Palestinians, there is a lot that is out of her hands. Of course she can try to ignore what's going on, so that she still gets a piece of paper in the end. Unfortunately for that result, it's not supposed to be a "piece" deal but a "peace" deal, the latter being a lot more difficult to achieve (though the former is actually more common).

Right now the investigation surrounding Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert politically endangers the Israeli leader currently necessary for the deal.

via memeorandum

The NYT reports Political crisis overshadows Rice's trip

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a series of talks on Israeli-Palestinian peace here on Sunday, saying she believed an accord was attainable by year’s end. But the process was overshadowed by an intensifying police investigation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel.

Ms. Rice, who arrived here from a conference in London that focused on international donations to the Palestinian Authority, has held meetings with Mr. Olmert; the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas; and other top officials from both sides. In brief statements so far, all have been tight-lipped.

Abbas reportedly was happy about his meeting with Sec. Rice.

And the other event that's beyond the scope of what can be achieved in term of peace: Hamas attacked the Nachal Oz fuel terminal again. For all the complaints of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Hamas seems so unconcerned that they'll cut off their gas to spite their constituents. I guess they figure they can count on the world's outrage if Israel (reasonably) halts further shipments. (Hamas knows that they can count on the UNRWA.)

Still as Israel Matzav points out, PM Olmert has proved pretty resilient in the past:

For those of you who think this is the end of Olmert's government, please don't be overconfident. First, we have thought several times over the last two years that the end was nigh and unfortunately, it was not. Second, even if the Knesset disbands and elections are called, Olmert will remain in power as a caretaker unless he is forced to remove himself due to the criminal indictments (in which case Livni would take over, which might even be worse). During that interim period Olmert and Livni may continue to negotiate our future away. Ehud Barak tried doing that eight years ago at Taba while he was facing a special election. We're still suffering the consequences.

Martin Peretz writes:

But everybody understood and really understands that Israel would retain a few large settlement blocks and the land between Jerusalem and the 40,000-plus people in Ma'aleh Adumin. A "return to the 1967 borders" is a slogan. It is not a peace map. First of all, those are not borders. They were never recognized as borders by any of the Arabs; they were fragile cease-fire lines. Second of all, history doesn't stop for the convenience of the Palestinians. They have to deal with history as it was made, mostly because these Palestinians hope a