Soccer Dad

Big dud?

Perhaps I'll regret posting this, but I"m wondering if my children won't be in for a big diappointment today. Weather Underground as of now (~6:15 AM) is listing at most (severe) light snows over the state of Virginia. Chesepeake VA is listed at 43 degrees and having heavy rains. Most other places with preciptation seems to be light. Chesepeake's on the Atlantic begging the question if the storm has tracked farther east than originally projected. Indeed if the current radar image from the National Weather Service is accurate, it appears that most of the moisture is out to sea.
(A number of the above links are dynamic and will change over the course of the day.)

Haveil Havalim #11

Kesher Talk has put together a wonderful compendium of kesharim (links?) that will keep you talking for the next week with Haveil Havalim #11. I'm still looking for a nominee or volunteer to host next week's (3/6/05) Haveil Havalim (#12).
DovBear has graciously agreed to be next week's host. E-mail him with your suggestions at yourfavoriteblogger at hotmail dot com.

If you are a blogger and wish to host Haveil Havalim please e-mail me with a request at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

Previous Haveil Havalim:

#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz

PIJ or Hezbollah

Roger L. Simon writes that the difference between Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad have been difficult to discern. He points to Captain's Quarters (and disagrees with CQ) that they are distinct terror groups.
Yes, Hezbollah has been distinct from PIJ and other terror groups, but as Matthew Levitt pointed out a couple of years ago in "Hezbollah's West Bank Terror Network", Hezbollah, no longer defending itself against Israeli strikes in Lebanon has taken the opportunity to branch out.

Following the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, Hezbollah shifted its resources to the Palestinian front. It's television station, Al-Manar, increased its daily broadcast hours from four to 24, spewing forth a relentless stream of incitement against Israel. It also dramatically increased its support for Palestinian terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Hezbollah was involved in three major attempts to smuggle arms to the territories. In January 2001, Israel intercepted a ship carrying a large load of weapons, the San Torini, that had embarked from Lebanon. A year later, Israel intercepted the Karine A, which embarked from Iran with a Hezbollah-trained crew. In May 2003, Israel seized an Egyptian fishing boat, Abu Hassan, attempting to deliver explosives from Lebanon to Gaza. One member of its crew, Hamad Masalem Mussa Abu Amra, was a Hezbollah explosives expert. Other efforts were made to smuggle weapons into the West Bank via Jordan.

Although Levitt writes that Hezbollah has more recently attempted to build its own organization in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, I've seen reports that it continues to assist Hamas and PIJ.
Aaron Mannes also wrote this about 15 months ago:

Hezbollah tutored al-Qaeda in blowing up building, simultaneous attacks, and agent handling. But I think Hezbollah is going to take a lesson from al-Qaeda. One of Bin Laden's talents has been taking control of local Islamist terrorist groups and making them part of al-Qaeda. The best example was in Algeria where in the late 1990s the Armed Islamic Group (GIA, remember educated Algerians are French-speakers, the group' actual name is Groupe Islamique Arme), was so brutal that some of its commanders wanted to break away. Bin Laden took advantage of this rift and helped the dissident commanders form the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC - Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat). The GIA declined and the GSPC grew rapidly with Bin Laden's support. But most importantly, the extensive terror networks among the Algerians in Europe fell under control of al-Qaeda.

Hezbollah may be attempting a similar stratagem with the Palestinian groups. First it established warm relationships with any willing Palestinian organization, readily stepping across religious-secular and Sunni-Shiite barriers. Hezbollah has provided training and support since the late 1980s. In the al-Aqsa Intifada Hezbollah has been particularly generous - teaching the Palestinians how to destroy Israeli tanks and build lethal explosives (the bomb used in the March 2002 Passover Massacre may have used Hezbollah techniques.) Hezbollah has also been building its own cells in the West Bank, Gaza, and among the Israeli Arabs.

Now, with the local leaderships decimated and in hiding, Hezbollah has both the reputation and infrastructure to begin directing Palestinian activities on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank.

This article in Ha'aretz from 2/24/2005 suggests that Hezbollah is attempting to co-opt the existing terror groups in Israel:

The Shin Bet security service revealed Thursday it arrested an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade cell commander suspected of responsibility for a number of terror attacks funded by Hezbollah, Israel Radio reported.

An indictment was filed against Salem Buaqna, a resident of the northern West Bank village of Zeita, for establishing a terror cell following Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

The cell focused primarily on ambush and shooting attacks targeting Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The suspect reportedly planned to carry out a terror attack on a synagogue.

In 2004, Buaqna, also known as Abu al-Eid, appealed for assistance to one of the Palestinian militants who had earlier been involved in the siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. A short time later, a Hezbollah operative named Kais Obeid contacted Buaqna and promised him funding for his operations.

It's clear that Hezbollah is involved in territories (to be) controlled by the PA. And apparently still is involved in strengthening the existing terror groups in those areas.

F. Robby's humor

Baseball Musings was surprised to learn that Frank Robinson is a practical joker. That jogged my memory. I searched for "Orioles" "kangaroo court" and "Frank Robinson" and came up with a few selections. Here's an article from USA Today with a HoF photo of a bewigged Frank Robinson holding court. A large part of the article focuses on Robinson's activities as Supreme Kangaroo. It's fun reading.

Was Bilam a prophet?

Quoting from memory, DovBear recently told us that the accepted (Jewish)view that Bilam was a prophet was not as unanimous as many thought. Toward that end he quoted the classic commentator Ramban (Nachmanides) from memory on the question. DovBear wrote that the Ramban on Bamidbar (Numbers) 31:8 states that the Jews could not have killed a prophet of Hashem (G-d). While the dissenting view of an individual commentator, even one of the stature of the Ramban, wouldn't necessarily change a consensus. I thought it would be interesting.
So I looked up what the Ramban wrote. I couldn't find his commentary on that possuk (passage). My best guess is that DovBear remembered a commentary who surprised him by asserting that Bilaam was not a prophet and ascribed it to the Ramban. (I've done things like that.) Or that the Ramban mentioned it in another place.
However during my search I found another Ramban, that says explicitly that Bilaam was indeed a prophet. That was on possuk 24:1 in Bamidbar. I'm curious now, to whom was DovBear referring?

Opportunity, not motive

One of the most perverse aspects of the reporting on the Middle East is the ascribing of motives to terrorists. Tonight I turned on CBS News at 5PM to hear commotion and the announcement of breaking news. When the correspondent named was Robert Berger, my heart sank. Here we go again. Israel withdraws its forces from Palestinian areas and the security is degraded. The result is that terrorists take advantage.
But here is how Robert Berger reported it (in similar words), "Militants attempting to derail the two week old truce." There's only motive. But that's not why they attacked; they attacked because they could. Because there was an opportunity to kill Jews. Whenever Palestinians kill Jews it's for a reason; a motive. Means and opporunity are ignored.
The same happened in 1996. After Israel withdrew from 6 cities in late 1995, a few months later there was a wave of terror. It didn't happen as revenge for killing "The Engineer". It wasn't Hamas's attempt to derail the peace process either. It was the opportunity presented by Israel's withdrawal and the replacement of Israeli troops with PA security who were uninterested in preventing terror.
It's the opportunity, stupid.

PM Sharon has a negotiating partner

The tone of the LA Times editorial, "Brave Use of Land-for-Peace" is generally admiring of Israel. Nonetheless, I find it somewhat troubling.

The Israeli Cabinet's approval Sunday of the eviction of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip was a bold demonstration of what has long been considered the basic framework to settle the Israeli-Palestinian clash: trading land for peace. But the good news was blunted by the Cabinet's decision to redraw Israel's borders to include major West Bank settlements on land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, setting a worrisome precedent.

First of all, there's no reason Israel shouldn't hold onto some of the land it liberated in 1967. Or is the editorial arguing that Israel should withdraw from French Hill and Ramat Eshkol? Furthermore, it may be the cabinet decided to include some communities outside of the Green Line inside the fence, but it adjusted the path of the fence to stay closer to the Green Line, effectively ceding another 13 or so percent of Judea and Samaria to the PA.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's push to dismantle the 21 enclaves in the Gaza Strip acknowledges the toll imposed on Israel to defend several thousand settlers in the midst of more than 1 million Palestinians. Yet it is a courageous move in the face of opposition from many in Sharon's own Likud Party and a number of settlers who consider the territory to be God-given land; extremists have vowed to resist the planned removal this summer.

There are other reasons to be hesitant to withdraw from Gaza. As the PA has shown it is not a reliable fighter against terror. So the Israeli presence in Gaza isn't simply a matter of protecting Jews from terrorists; it'a matter of protecting Sderot and Ashkelon from Kassam missiles.

The Cabinet also approved removing four settlements in the West Bank, but Israel plans to retain bigger towns there. President Bush last year changed U.S. policy when he recognized "new realities on the ground" that justified Israeli retention of major population centers in the West Bank. But on Monday in Brussels, Bush pushed Israel to ensure that it does not retain land in a pattern that leaves Palestinians with a group of unconnected territories. Bush will have to keep prodding Sharon on that point; a Palestinian checkerboard state that prevents farmers from reaching their plots or workers their jobs would not be viable.

Of course as noted in a previous posting, if you look at the maps that Barak was offering Arafat, that included 8% of Yesha in Israel's hands, the PA's terrirtory was contiguous; certainly 3%, the amount of Yesha not included in the fence won't significantly affect the contiguity of the Palestinian territory.

Among the West Bank cities that Israel plans to keep is Maale Edumim, near Jerusalem, with its tens of thousands of settlers. The Cabinet included Maale Edumim when it approved routing of the barrier being built to protect Israel against suicide bombers. That defies the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which last year declared the wall's placement an illegal annexation of land. Israel rejected the ruling, which was only advisory. Still, the Cabinet shifted the barrier so as to seize less Palestinian territory. To compensate for Sunday's land grab, Israel should consider giving Palestinians some of its own vacant territory.

Land grab? Israel has now reduced its claim to Judea and Samaria to 3%. That's less than Barak was offering in 2001. So for 4 years of violence Israel gives the PA more land that it would have received without the violence and still should compensate the PA further? They've got to be kidding.

Israel freed 500 Palestinian prisoners Monday, another move that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, successor to Yasser Arafat, can claim as evidence that stopping assaults on Israelis brings reciprocal benefits. Sharon's meeting with Abbas two weeks ago, the planned withdrawal from Gaza and the ending of assassinations of Palestinians whom Israel considers terrorist leaders have laid the groundwork for an eventual lasting peace. Sharon still has to convince his opponents, and Abbas needs to keep radicals in check, but the progress since Arafat's death is most welcome.

Well yes, Arafat is dead. That helps. But what's remarkable about this article is that is long about what Israel must or should do to help Mr. Abbas but has little to say about Mr. Abbas's obligations.
Though President Bush's gratuitous comments about Israel allowing the PA's territory to be contiguous got the applause and hoseannas, it was preceded by:

Palestinian leaders must confront and dismantle terrorist groups, fight corruption, encourage free enterprise, and rest true authority with the people. Only a democracy can serve the hopes of Palestinians, and make Israel secure, and raise the flag of a free Palestine.

And how seriously does Abbas take that obligation? When he spoke to Steven Erlanger of the NY Times "Abbas sees end of war with Israel," he said:

Abbas said the war with the Israelis would be over "when the Israelis declare that they will comply with the agreement I made in Sharm el Sheik, and today our comrades in Hamas and Jihad said they are committed to the truce, the cooling down of the whole situation, and I believe we will start a new era."

Right he said that he was having his police disarm and jail all members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad until they stand trial. Not. But maybe that was a mistake. Maybe Abbas was misquoted. Maybe not. Here's an interview with Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: What can you offer Hamas and the other groups in return for demilitarization?

Abbas: We were successful in negotiating a stop to Israeli military operations against the militants of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We now want to integrate these fighters into our own security forces, which will change the entire atmosphere. Hamas also wants to participate in the parliamentary elections in July, and already achieved some successes in the municipal elections in the Gaza Strip a few weeks ago. We are aiming for political pluralism with a broad spectrum of parties -- ranging from the left to the religious parties, as is the case in Israel.

And that last part. Hamas is equivalent of religious parties in Israel? Come on.
Actually the interviewer from Der Spiegel seems a bit touger than Erlanger:

SPIEGEL: That sounds good. The reality, however, is that immediately following the summit in Sharm al-Sheik, Hamas fired mortars and missiles at Israeli settlements.

Abbas: That's behind us now. We took harsh measures against the officers within our security apparatus who failed to prevent the attacks. In addition, there have been serious talks with the armed factions of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al Aqsa Brigades. During those talks, all parties renewed their pledge to adhere to the ceasefire.

The rockets, in any case, were in response to incidents during which the Israeli army shot two Palestinians. I would say that our side now has things under better control.

Right he fired the officers who failed to stop the fire and made nice to the terrorists who fired. And Israel claimed that the man who was killed was an infiltrator and the girl who was killed was almost certainly out of the range of Israeli guns.
I like Charles Krauthammer a lot and I hope he's right. But he didn't address the threat of the Kassam missiles or the failure of Abbas to dismantle terror groups.
As we saw during Oslo, there is an inclination to treat PA wishes as requirements while failing to hold the PA to its basic requirements toward Israel. There is also a tendency to treat Israli "occupation" as the same or worse than Palestinian terror. There are many imbalances here. And they disturb me. The LA Times editors failure to balance each side's obligations is one more reminder that in many eyes, no matter what Israel does it will never be enough.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong, maybe PM Sharon does indeed have a peace partner. ;-)
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Quick hits

This week's Carnival of the Vanities is at Pundit Guy. There were a few items worth mentioning.

The media was all hot for a special prosecutor to investigate the leak of Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak. Now Libertarian Leanings notices that media's no longer so keen on the investigation because their own have been targeted. Similar thoughts at OpinionJournal. The whole seems like a non issue to me. I forget where I saw it but in all likelihood when Robert Novak heard that the administration sent Wilson to investigate he wondered why the administration would send someone so opposed to its policies. (It's worth noting that Novak himself was against the war with Iraq. He often defends Saudi interests.) Whomever he talked to said, didn't you know, his wife recommended him? And what people forget is that last July Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post reported that many of Joesph Wilson's charges against the administration were unfounded.

Similar to my Taxman contribution to CotV, Coyote Blog notes that governments often regret taxing behavior that they seek to regulate. The taxes work, killing a revenue stream. Just like the jokers who now want to start taxing the miles driven to make up for "lost" taxes caused by hybrid drivers.

Locusts and Honey arguest that the views of the anti-Israel left are repugnant. But he claims that they are just that, anti-Israel and not antisemitic.

Rather, the Left hates Israel because it is Western, not because it is Jewish.

It's a provocative statement (I mean that in a good way), but I'm not sure that I buy it. After all as Locusts and Honey acknowledges the Left is allied with the Arab cause that includes the killing of Jews.

Clarity and Resolve asserts that "Israel is Just." And he backs it up. He's right of course. The problem is that the world's moral center is so confused that it's necessary to make such a statement.

Michael Freund looks at a recent Gallup poll showing that Americans support Israel by a wide margin. Gallup's information used to be free and for as long as I traced it, roughly 3 - 4 times as many Americans stated that they sympathized with Israel as sympathized with the Palestinians. That ratio has largely held reqardless if the popularity 30% Israel/ 10% Palestinians or as it is now 52% Israel/ 18% Palestinian. But I think Michael makes a mistake when he writes:

What is truly extraordinary about the results is the fact that despite the widespread bias of the mainstream media, the overwhelming majority of Americans still side with Israel. It is almost as if the steady diet of anti-Israel propaganda being fed to the American public by various media outlets has little, if any, real impact on their world-view.

If the media weren't biased the ratio would have been 6 or more to 1 favoring Israel. And there wouldn't be as many who blame both sides (or none) for the problems in the Middle East.

Lately I've found myself enjoying the ruminations of Parsha Blog on the Parsha (the weekly Torah reading) and other subjects of Jewish interest. In particular I was impressed with his arguments against Marc Shapiro's critique of the Rambam (Maimonides). I couldn't put my finger on what bothered me of what I'd read of Dr. Shapiro's work. I think that Parsha Blog did an excellent job of identifying the problem. Another post I enjoyed was his analysis of the issue of pre-nuptial agreements and why it is correct for Rabbi Elyashiv to stand on his principles.

The Hedgehog Report reports that Montgomery County Executive, Doug Duncan is starting to hit Baltimore Mayor Martin O"Malley for his wishy washiness on slots. The Washington Post as THR notes noticed it too. (And later on, THR mentions that Duncan is also criticizing the state of education in Baltimore City.)
The Washington Post editorial is important for another reason. Both the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post are opposed to Governor Ehrlich. Each will be doing its utmost to portray him in a negative light. But until the primary each paper will have a different agenda. Each will be working to promote its native son. The Washington Post will be campaigning for the executive of the neighboring jurisdiction as the Sun will be campaigning for the mayor of the city it serves. So the Washington Post's editorial criticizing Mayor O'Malley's stand on slots is the first salvo in that war. Expect Sun editorials to dilute their opposition to slots when discussing O'Malley vs. Duncan.

Dov Bear guesses the ages of Jewish (?) Bloggers. Here, here and here. A former roommate of mine once argued that it made sense to guess who was on the other end of the line (before Caller ID). Either you were right or you were wrong. If you were right, the person would be impressed; if not, he/she would forget. It's a no-lose proposition. The same pretty much applied here. Those about whom DB was correct (like me) are impressed, the others are amused. I thought it was a nice riff off acknowledging another blogger's special birthday!

Crossing the Rubicon2 has an item on Houston Hate Crimes. It's worth noting that since the FBI has started keeping hate crime statistics antisemitic incidents occur about 1/3 the frequency of anti-Black incidents. Given the relative populations of both groups, that would mean that the frequency of antisemitic incidents is twice the frequency of anti-Black incidents. What's missing though is some sort of measure of severity. If most antisemitic incidents were against property and a higher percentage of anti-Black hate crimes were against people that would say that we shouldn't be as concerned about antisemitic hate crimes. However if the breakdowns are similar there's cause for concern. I'm not saying that we have to leave the US on the next flight. (Not that that's a bad idea :-) Just that the problem of antisemitism in the United States is more significant than many people realize.

Inconvenience vs. security

One would think by now, that any reasonable observer of the Middle East would consider Palestinian violence the major stumbling block toward peace. One, however, would be wrong to believe that. Still, for many people, the main stumbling block is Israeli settlements. Yesterday's Washington Post editorial, "Words to be Measured" is a case in point:

Mr. Sharon's cabinet has approved the completion of Israel's border-like security fence, which by the end of this year will enclose about 7 percent of the West Bank and tens of thousands of Jewish settlers with Israel. Mr. Sharon's undisguised aim is to freeze that status quo indefinitely, leaving a permanent settlement to a future generation.

That's why it's significant that Mr. Bush underlined his commitment to a "lasting resolution" in the near term and effectively dismissed some of Mr. Sharon's ideas. Mr. Bush said that Israel "must freeze settlement activity," something it has never done; he said that a Palestinian state "of scattered territories," which Mr. Sharon has long envisaged, "will not work." If an Israeli-Palestinian settlement is to be achieved soon, Mr. Bush will have to press those principles on an Israeli leader he has never seriously challenged. By articulating them before European leaders, and at a moment when he could have limited himself to cheering on the recent progress, he ensured that he will be measured on whether he follows through.

The editorial paid brief lip service to the notion that Mahmoud Abbas brazenly states that he will co-opt terrrorists, not fight them. What's disturbing is that once again Israeli actions are considered to be possibly the sole impediment to peace.
Take a couple of other factors into account and this concern is even less understandable. In a decision that smacks of virtual surrender Israel responded to the International (Kangaroo) Court of Justice that its advisory opinion against the security fence is faulty because it's based on old data. What't that old data? The plan for the fence to exclude 16 percent of Yehuda and Shomron has now been adjusted, as per the legal opinions of Attorney General Mazuz and will now only exclude 3.3 percent. It's outrageous that Israel's government is acquiescing to the validity of the Palesitnian claim. The government should have persisted in its insistence that the fence was a defensive measure whose most effective path had been carefully considered and that the saving of lives outweighed the inconvenience to Palestinian farmers. It should have continued pointing out that the terror war the PA - of whom Mahmoud Abbas was a leading figure - launched a terror war against Israel in violation of international law and that the fence was a necessary countermeasure to protect Israeli citizens. Now that the government of Israel has accepted the premise of the Palestinian claims against it how can it defend keeping the Etzion Bloc or Maaleh Adumim? Or even Ramot and French Hill?
To give you an idea of how much (or little) 3.3% of Yehuda and Shomron is consider the maps of Israel's Camp David offers that were rejected by the Palestinians as reproduced by It's Almost Supernatural. The third map, the one that shows Clinton's ideas has Israeli ceding 95% of the territory in Yehuda and Shomron. It's clear from that map that if Israel redraws the fence there will be no "scattered territories." Palestine would be one contiguous territory. (The President was also wrong to emphasize this.) What is not clear is whether Mahmoud Abbas will fight terrorists or merely co-opt them. His own stated intention is the latter and it concerns no one.
Meanwhile Israel's unrecognized generosity remain unrecognized. Does the new route make a difference? No.

"I expect the Israeli members of the Geneva Initiative to honor what we agreed on - the Green Line," declared the man who was one of the Palestinian stars of the initiative's publicity campaign in Israel. "Any move eastward of the Green Line means that those who are talking about peace are not serious, they do not believe in two states."

First of all Yossi Beilin and the rest of his accomplices and cheerleaders in the "Geneva Initiative" should consider that their efforts were antidemocratic and undermined the government. That statement, by a member of Fatah, shows the danger of the initiative. When Israel doesn't withdraw to the Green Line it will be cited a causus belli to once again justify terror against Israel. Even Israel's surrender to 3.3% won't be good enough.
Once again this demonstrates that the main impediment to Middle East peace is Palestinian violence and threats of violence. The Washington Post and the President should have been very clear that Palestinian dissatisfaction is not a justification for violence but, alas, neither were. They were rather more concerned with Palestinian inconvenience.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

In the news

It doesn't happen often but I actually know some people who have been in the news. Not front page news, but news nonetheless.
Yesterday my mother informed me that my college friend, Victor Urecki was in the Baltimore Sun. Well I did a little searching and discovered that he was in a lot of newspapers courtesy of Reuters. Victor - Rabbi Urecki - got his youth group to hold an "Apprentice" type competition to raise funds for tsunami relief. That wouldn't necessarily make it into the news. This is from the account in his hometown Charleston Daily Mail and why the endeavor was newsworthy:

The teens came up with the initial plans for raising the money. They sold raffle tickets at $5 a pop for chances on an iPod. They held a silent auction in conjunction with an invitational basketball tournament at the synagogue on Jan. 30. The teams did all the legwork of collecting items for the auction, sponsors for the tournament and donations for the cause.

The total of nearly $23,000 far surpasses their initial goal of $5,000.

As the amount collected for tsunami relief continued to climb, Urecki sent a letter to Donald Trump announcing the endeavor and its success.

Trump wrote back.

On another light note, our friend and neighbor Andrea F. was acknowledged (once and twice) in Chayyei Sarah.

In a much more serious occurrence, Avi Shapiro, the brother in law of Nancy Morgenstern, quoted in Ha'aretz is the brother of a friend of mine. (via Israelly Cool!)

I'm still waiting for the Baltimore Sun to publish its story about the Aliyah of Willow Tree's new neighbor. It was supposed to have appeared in January. (He's in here someplace.)

Shoes for freedom

via Roger L Simon: Manolo believes that economic freedom is a cornerstone of all freedoms. Of course he may have his selfish reasons for believing this.
Chayyei Sarah, take heart, buying shoes isn't selfish, it promotes freedom!

Whither Sharon

One of the more remarkable political stories of Western style democracies, is he story of Ariel Sharon. Declared "indirectly responsible" for allowing the massacres at Sabra and Shatila in 1982, Sharon was forced to resign from government. But after wandering in the political desert for nearly twenty years, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister in 2001. His return to politics - and to the top of the political game - has to be one of the great comebacks in annals of democratic politics.
The question is, how did he do it?
My answer has always been that - despite holding positions that some consider extreme - he has been a builder of consensus. He played a role in the creation of the Likud party. He also secured Hareidi support for Netanyahu in 1996. Without that support, Netanyahu never would have won. Perhaps I only was only looking at two data points. On the other I could think of no other reason that he seemingly had a measure likability that even the Left would not deny.
Consequently I've been bothered by his approach to disengagement. It's not just that he's embarking on a policy that in any other context would be deemed immoral. It's that he hasn't even sought a consensus on the subject. The one vote he took - of the Likud membership - he promptly ignored. Yet he refuses to strengthen his position.
Like Rabin before him he seeks to take a controversial measure but without building a necessary public support.
After Oslo, I heard Yechiel Leiter speak. He praised America's founding fathers for insisting on a special majority of approval for treaties. He said that if such important matters required more than just 50 percent for such important matters it would serve as a check to the government. It would also help ensure that the government would use its good sense when making treaties and would give greater legitimacy to these document. In contrast, approval for Oslo II came from a sneaky legislative maneuver. (Long gone too was the promise that Rabin would not negotiate with the PLO.)
But the approach of Yitzchak Rabin has been the approach of Ariel Sharon. Instead of ensuring that his controversial policy would have the widest public support, PM Sharon has acted if he's scared of the public. (And he too, came to power by rejecting the policy he now embraces.)
I think that a referendum would be useful. For it could shore up the PM's support. Sharon has never gone to the people and made his case. This would force him to. And I don't agree with the nasty sentiments of Ha-Sheretz Ha-Aretz:

The government of Israel is the body that decided to establish the settlements, even assisting them with taxpayers' money (without a referendum), and it is the body that is now deciding to withdraw from some of them. If the settlers are demanding a referendum in the Messiah's name, there is no point in discussing the issue with them, since no decision will satisfy their faith. If they are asking because of their misery, they ought to be reminded that there are many in Israel who are more miserable, but are not receiving financial compensation for their misery or for the fact that they have no roof over their heads. And if the settlers are arguing in the name of democracy, they must once again be told that the decision to remove the settlements of Gush Katif was made by the cabinet and Knesset - and in a far more open and democratic fashion than the decision to establish them was.

It's not just an issue of democracy. It also is a matter of political support. Yet its more important for Ha-Sheretz Ha-Aretz to trumpet its victory over those it disagrees with and despises than it is to build support for a policy it supports. A little humility would be in order for editors of Ha-Sheretz Ha-Aretz for weren't they among those who kept insisting that Yasser Arafat was part of the solution? How many people died because of policies Ha-Aretz thought was correct a decade ago and didn't have to undergo the rigor of a referendum? One would think that those who were so wrong would have developed a slight sense of shame.
Again why hasn't PM Sharon sought to gain more public approval of disengagement? And why does he go about it in a way ensured to be ever more divisive?
A couple of writers have recently tried to decipher the Prime Minister. Zev Chafets, who in the past has shown himself to be somewhat perceptive wrote the very silly "Follow the Leader" in the NY Times last week.

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Follow the Leader
By ZEV CHAFETS

Published: February 15, 2005

RIEL SHARON is not a Christian. He doesn't believe that the meek will inherit the earth. He doesn't love his enemies. Put him on the road to Damascus and he is more apt to channel George Patton than Saul of Tarsus.

Lately, though, Mr. Sharon seems to have undergone some sort of conversion. He's become a proponent of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. He's willing, even eager, to withdraw Israelis from settlements he himself helped build in Gaza. He's authorized the release of Palestinian prisoners. Last week, he went to Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, and, with the whole world watching, warmly took the hand of Mahmoud Abbas. It wasn't the first time Mr. Sharon had been photographed shaking hands with a Palestinian leader, but it was the first time he ever looked happy about it.

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Just after that meeting, Palestinian terrorists fired mortars at Israeli settlements in Gaza. In the past, Mr. Sharon would have replied with a barrage of missiles and harsh words about Palestinian perfidy. This time, he turned a pudgy cheek.

Some believe that Mr. Sharon - the symbol of intransigent hawkishness - has seen the light of nonviolence. (Mr. Abbas, in an interview this weekend, said that Mr. Sharon is speaking "a different language.") But this misunderstands the man and the moment. Ariel Sharon hasn't found a new language or a new religion; he has simply embraced a new leader: George W. Bush.

Mr. Sharon is often portrayed as a Machiavellian geo-strategist. But he is no visionary. In more than 50 years in public life, he has never uttered a thought larger than "Charge!" He is, in fact, a born trouble-shooter, the brilliantly effective clenched fist of a string of mentors stretching from Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, to the 43d president of the United States.

In Chafets's argument, Sharon is the puppet of others. Now it is the vision of President Bush he fulfills. I don't buy it. This is a man who always led others. I believe he's changed his mind. But I don't believe that he only functions as another's fist.
Michael Oren's "True Colors" rings truer:

By talking right but acting pragmatically, Sharon was adhering to the classic Mapainik tradition. Yet, in addition to its distinctive stands on territorial and security issues, that heritage also had a peculiar relationship with democracy. In contrast to Revisionists and Likudniks, who traced their intellectual roots back to nineteenth-century Central European liberalism, Mapai's founders came from the revolutionary turmoil of turn-of-the-century Russia, with its preference for proletarian dictatorships. In Israel, the nonreligious right has always been the champion of individual freedoms and the rule of law, while leftist leaders were notorious for pushing through their personal agendas, irrespective of democratic norms. The young Ben-Gurion, who modeled himself on Lenin, rejected the liberal constitution proposed by Herut shortly after independence. He waged a war against Egypt in 1956 without so much as informing the Knesset.

In his disavowal of democratic institutions, Sharon is much less a Likudnik than a Mapainik. Several ministers insinuated that he executed Israel's ill-fated 1982 invasion of Lebanon almost unilaterally, without fully consulting the cabinet. Similarly, Sharon was accused of singlehandedly allocating vast sums for the construction of roads and settlements in the territories. And today, Sharon is once again revealing his Mapainik relationship with democracy. His decision to disengage from Gaza is based on the practical realization that the majority of Israelis are no longer willing to defend the settlements there and that Israel's occupation of the Strip only strengthens Palestinian demands for the creation of a binational Arab-Jewish state. Evacuating Gaza also enables Sharon to test the willingness and ability of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to crack down on terrorism before Israel proceeds to negotiate the future of the West Bank and Jerusalem--all policies unacceptable to true Likudniks like Begin and Benjamin Netanyahu, who could be pragmatic under U.S. pressure but would never give up on the idea of a Greater Israel.

Were he in power today, Ben-Gurion would have done exactly the same as Sharon. Ben-Gurion also would not have let opponents in his own party, or in society at large, stand in his way. Sharon, too, has trampled over detractors--first by inviting a Likud referendum on disengagement, then by ignoring its results when he lost. He has since rejected all suggestions of holding a national plebiscite on withdrawal. In fact, Sharon is proceeding with disengagement while enjoying a majority of only two votes in the Knesset, both of which he purchased from ultra-Orthodox parties by agreeing to fund their religious schools.

According to Oren, Sharon's political heritage is that of Mapai that includes a tendency to ignore democratic niceties in order to accomplish what he wants.
(About twenty years ago Sidney Zion observed in an article that then PM Begin, when he came to power, surrounded himself with the generals of the Haganah - Dayan and Weizmann - instead of his old comrade in arms. This would seem to fit Oren's thesis at least indirectly.)
So how does one go from enthusiastically supporting the enterprise of settling Yesha to marginalizing those who listened to his exhortations? And how does one who always seemed to work toward consensus now reject that approach in the most abject of ways?
Willow Tree is distressed over a report that Israel is specifically training non-Jewish policemen to handle the evacuation of Jews. As the country releases terrorists who were not fortunate enough to kill anyone despite their best efforts, turns on legitimate protesters with a vengeance. Hearkening back to the days of Avishai Raviv a government agent has reportedly crossed the line from spying on political opponents to delegitimizing them. Finally the government will prevent legitimate protest against its policies by declaring communities in Gaza to be closed military zones.
Ariel Sharon has gone against his history by seeking to uporoot Jews from their homes. Homes that he once encouraged them to inhabit. And instead of seeking consensus to support him, he only seeks to stifle to dissent. Frankly I find the latter a lot more disturbing than the first. And even more mystifyting.

Haveil Havalim #10

Biur Chametz burned the midnight oil and leavened Haveil Havalim #10 with some of the best Jewish and Israel related blogging of the past week. (Due to a vacation and server problem, I'm a day late with this!)

Next week's hostess is Kesher Talk. E-mail her judith at yehudit dot org with your nominations and/or suggestions for this upcoming edition of Haveil Havalim (#11). If you send me an e-mail, at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com I will forward it to Judith. Please get your suggestions in by Wednesday.

If you are a blogger and wish to host Haveil Havalim pleast e-mail me with a request at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

Previous Haveil Havalim:
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz

The effects of Israeli counterterror efforts

In "Why the Palestinians Came to the Table" Charles Krauthammer wrote:

Was not Barak the good guy? And Sharon the tough guy? Surprise. Arabs respect toughness. Sharon launched a massive invasion of the Palestinian territories after the Passover massacre of 2002. Western experts and the media were practically unanimous that this would achieve nothing.

Completely wrong. In fact, it is precisely Israel's aggressive counterattack against Palestinian terrorists, coupled with the defensive fence (which has prevented practically all suicide attacks wherever it has been built), that has brought us to this point of hope.

As the fence is extended, the Palestinians see the strategic option of terror gradually disappearing. Moreover, Israel's successful military offensive demonstrated to the Palestinians that the premise of the second intifada -- that a demoralized and terrorized Israel would essentially surrender -- is false.

A similar point was made by Jonathan Chait in "No Pain, No Gain in the Middle East":

Well, guess what? The Americans and Israelis demanded Arafat's removal. And credible Palestinian leadership did step forward. To be sure, luck — in the form of Arafat's timely death — intervened. Still, we now can see that negotiating with Arafat would have been folly. And President Bush, despite his many — almost innumerable — failings, deserves enormous credit for backing Sharon despite intense international pressure.

The doves got it so wrong because they fundamentally misread the situation. The idea that harsh Israeli counter-terrorist measures must inevitably backfire is rooted in the view that the Middle East conflict is a "cycle of violence." (No doubt you've heard this phrase countless times.) According to this theory, Palestinians attack Israelis because Israeli repression makes them desperate and angry. More repression creates more desperation and anger, which creates more terrorists. Yet the last Palestinian uprising began as a response not to excessive Israeli strength but to a perception of Israeli weakness.

In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak withdrew his army from Lebanon in response to continued attacks. Later that year, he made concessions to Arafat in a noble but doomed effort to sign a peace accord. Arafat interpreted both these things as a sign that he could win even more concessions by unleashing a terrorist campaign.

Sharon's counteroffensive stymied Hamas and the other militant groups and proved to many ordinary Palestinians that they couldn't bleed Israel back to the bargaining table. Indeed, Palestinians came to realize that their uprising was inflicting far more pain on them than on Israel. That doesn't make the suffering of innocent Palestinians any less tragic. But it does suggest, cruelly, that some pain was probably necessary not only to stop terrorist attacks but also to persuade the Palestinians to elect a moderate like Mahmoud Abbas, who would renounce violence.

It must have quite painful for Chait to have to admit that. But as much as I'd still express serious mistrust of Abbas - as Krauthammer does - I think this is correct. What's odd is that this is not conventional wisdom. Most commentators seem to attributed the current thaw between Israel and the Palestinians on Arafat's death. Krauthammer was right in calling that a necessary but insufficient condition for negotiations. Others, though, do all they can to muddy this point - that Israel's counterattacks and wall were necessary to get the Palestinians to seek peace.
Hirsh Goodman of the Jerusalem Report is one. On All Things Considered, this is what he attributed the seeming Palestinian interest in calm (via IMRA):

Yes, there's no question about it, this is the real turning point. And I think the four years of fighting have made it a real turning point. It's a horrible thing to say, but sometimes wars are necessary. And I think that this war's allowed Israelis and Palestinians to speak eyeball to eyeball rather than the Palestinians being on their knees and us dictating an agreement to them.

This is truly chilling. The Palestinian needed to feel like equals? Former PM Barak didn't do that?
Eyad Sarraj, considered a moderate in Gaza wrote:

I have spent many years observing Hamas at close range as it has grown from a small Islamic religious movement into a major army. I have been debating politics with its leaders and members for a long, long time. That experience leads me to believe that Hamas will very soon transform into a political party and will seriously contemplate taking over the government by democratic means.

There are sound reasons for my optimism. The first is that Hamas finally has an incentive to halt terrorist activity. For years, its raison d'etre has been military action. But Hamas has just achieved an astounding victory in municipal elections in the Gaza Strip, winning 70 percent of the seats in local councils. Fatah, the ruling party that had long dominated the political scene, was roundly defeated. Hamas has a guaranteed political future when it chooses to abandon the armed struggle.

Furthermore, close observers have noted important signs of change within Hamas over time. From remarks made by its spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, before his assassination last year, we understand that Hamas is now prepared to accept a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And as the recent elections showed, Hamas now participates fully in the democratic process -- something that it once called a Western conspiracy, and even a sin.

Hamas is becoming more organized, more sophisticated and more confident in itself. For example, in the first intifada, Hamas was quick to charge people with collaboration with Israel and to kill them. That was a sign of insecurity. The Hamas of today pledges not to kill fellow Palestinians, but instead urges the Palestinian Authority to enforce its laws.

Hamas was moderating? Killing is a sign of insecurity? Hamas was forced into moderation with the successive killing of its two leaders. But it still regrouped for further terror attacks. Still it has been seriously weakened. Under Arafat it was operating with impunity.
Krauthammer and Chait have it right. The PA was forced to moderation by the Israeli counterterrrorism efforts. Whether that will lead to actual peace is an open question. It was the reason that anything happened at all.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Occupied in thought

This past week the former Prime Minister of Lebanon - and one-time Syrian ally - Rafik Hariri was killed. Suspicion for his murder immediately fell upon Lebanon(ed. should read "Syria". Thanks Biur!). This led to acknowledgement of 14,000 (or so) Syrian troops in Lebanon. Their presence is rarely referred to as an "occupation."

This article in the Washington Post "Blast Kills Ex-Premier In Lebanon" states:

Hariri, 60, was a self-made billionaire who spearheaded the renovation of Beirut's war-battered downtown. His assassination comes as Lebanon prepares for parliamentary elections, scheduled to begin as early as April, that could usher in a government more strongly opposed to Syria's decisive influence in Lebanese political affairs. Syria maintains an estimated 15,000 troops in bases on the outskirts of Beirut and in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The only reference to "occupation" in the article is a quote from Maronite newspaper publisher - not an independent observation of the reporter.
The reporter also mentions the Taif Accord, alas he doesn't describe it as a 15 year old agreement of the Arab League to end Lebanon's occupatoin by Syria!
And even if the Post felt that it had some constraints about using a loaded word like "occupation" on its news pages, it should have had no compunction about using the term in its harshly critical editorial about Bashar Assad and his country. Yet the word is nowhere in the editorial.

A search using the NY Times search facility of "+syria +occupation" for the past week yielded 9 results. For just "+syria" there were 42 results. Of the results showing "occupation," most were not using the term as part of the report, only in quoting or citing someone else. (These searches are good for Feb 20, 2005.)
One by Nir Rosen, wasn't about Syria but talked of the American occupation of Iraq. One here, is a Reuters story that recounted the Israeli occupation of Lebanon:

Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, is now a formidable Lebanese political party as well as an anti-Israel guerrilla force that still controls much of southern Lebanon since Israel ended its 22-year occupation of that part of the country in May 2000.

The death of Mr. Hariri, a wealthy Sunni businessman who had opposed Syrian domination of the country, caused an outpouring of public grief mixed with anger against Syria, which was automatically held responsible for the killing by many Lebanese.

Only in Thomas Friedman's "Hama Rules" was the term "occupation" referring to Syria's activity in Lebanon in the writer's own voice.

This begs the question of these news organizations. Why was it so easy to throw around the term "occupation" as an indictment when referring to Israel's defensive positions in Southern Lebanon - lacking the Israeli presence Hezbollah has expanded its activities, not disarmed - but so difficult to use that term regarding Syria? Syria's presence in Lebanon, was offensive, longer, and more brutal than Israel's and yet it is never described as "occupation." Even after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon stripping Syria of any pretext, the term "occupation" has been used sparingly in news reports.

Here's an article that explains why the brutal Syrian occupation was really less severe than Israel's security zone in southern Lebanon:

Syrian troops first entered Lebanon in strength in 1976 to help restore order after a year of civil war. Syria's fortunes in Lebanon waxed and waned with the flow of conflict, but by 1989 it had secured a position as the dominant power broker.

During the 1990s, Syria's influence in Lebanon was all-pervasive except in a strip of southern Lebanon occupied by Israel. While Lebanon possessed all the trappings of independence, most analysts say that real political power lay with Damascus. Syria views Lebanon as an economic asset and a necessary bulwark against Israel.

Despite the presence of some 25,000 Syrian troops in the early 1990s (since reduced to about 14,000 soldiers), Damascus's influence was subtler than Israel's military occupation of the south, analysts say.

"Syria's role has been apparent at all levels of Lebanese society and government," says Mr. Young, the political analyst. "Unlike Israel, Syria is not regarded as a formal enemy, which made it easier for them."

The withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon in May 2000, and the death a month later of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, led to calls for a redressing of Lebanese-Syrian relations.

Got that? Syria's role "all-pervasive" but it was "subtler" than Israel's defensive position in southern Lebanon. Makes sense to me! (the Mr. Young quoted here is a contributing editor to Reason Magazine. This article though, doesn't seem to be excusing Syria the way the quote in the ABC article seems to.)
And of course the "news station" Al Jazeerah knows who really killed Hariri:

Hariri’s killing, like so many of those in Iraq, is the work of either the Israeli dark ops or American mercenaries who have been hired out to kill people who are progressive in the Arab and Muslim worlds. That is why in Lebanon today, people know that it was not some dissident “Islamist group” (that no one has heard of, nor does anyone believe actually exists) who allegedly took credit for the deed, and in Iraq, where the religious leaders among the Sunnis and Shi’is are telling their people not to revenge themselves on one another, because they know the killings are professional jobs being done by people from outside Iraq. The parallels are evident to experts, but these experts will not be allowed on American media. But, Professor Rima Allaf, of the Royal Institute in England is correct, this was the work of an intelligence agency—and we damn well know who the only two would be—because they are the only two to gain by this deed, Israel or America.

The refusal to call Syria's presence in Lebanon an "occupation" is arguably responsible for allowing it to continue. It may not be a journalistic sin on the order of Al Jazeera's but it certainly allows one to ask about the objectivity of those covering the Middle East. Now the term should be very easy to use, but apparently few are still willing to use it.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Apologizing for tyranny

What happens when you apologize for Arab tyrants?

I've been traveling to this lovely city of minarets, nestled between a large mountain and the desert, since 1970. Today, I see Damascus poised on a knife-edge between a palpable sense of new excitement and a strong sense of fear. Much of the excitement stems from the hopes foreconomic and political liberalization sparked by the new-generation president, Bashar al-Assad, inaugurated in 2000 after the passing of his father, the previous president. The fear stems from the prospect that a US-led war on neighboring Iraq would create regional turmoil.

Signs of the nation's renaissance include the adoption of new means of communication by many. There's been a steady growth in Internet access, and Syrian studios now produce a lot of the Arab world's TV programming.

Syrians particularly like watching TV during Ramadan. This year, there was a new series called "Spotlight" that intrigued viewers by poking an unprecedented amount of fun at Mr. Assad. In one episode, he was portrayed as bumbling and wooden at an Arab summit, while his Lebanese counterpart sycophantically agreed with everything he said.

They get disappointed:

After his father's June 2000 death, Bashar announced that he would reform Syria and build a better society for the impoverished residents of his country. Intellectuals, writers, journalists, and the curious took advantage of what has since become known as the Damascus Spring and began to assemble in public halls and private homes to discuss reform and civil society. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. Many Syrian intellectuals argue today that the Damascus Spring was a trap set up by the new Assad regime to identify those who might not be fully loyal to the next generation of the Assad clan. Nevertheless, these forums catapulted a new generation of Syrian leadership to prominence and provided the latest windows into currents of Syrian reformist thought.

National's journal

Well newspapers are starting to get into blogs. The Washington Post is starting one for the Nationals - Nationals Journal. (Apparently it's the papers second blog; after Joel Achenbach's "Achenblog.") Alas so far, the blog by Barry Svrluga hasn't been terribly interesting. The best item has been a brief profile of former first round draft pick (1996) Seth Greisinger. The most interesting point in the profile is learning that his favorite book is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand just a week or two after her 100th birthday.
Why doesn't someone mention that Frank Robinson is returning to the park where he hit two consecutive grand slams back in 1970?

After 20 years

This week the Florida Supreme Court threw out the law designed to protect Terry Schiavo. I have mixed feelings. I don't think that laws should be written for a single case. On the other hand I find her husband's actions unconscionable and see no reason she should be euthanised. Here's an interview with Wesley J. Smith, who has written extensively on her case for the Weekly Standard, that appeared on Newsmax.com. Now as Carnival contributor SmarterCop noted, another woman woke after twenty years. I don't know that the cases are necessarily comparable. And even Sara Scantlin's family acknowledges that she will never fully recover. Because there's no indication of the relative seriousness of brain damage in each case there's no way of knowing if Terry Schiavo is more or less likely to show the same kind of dramatic reversal. Still doesn't a miracle in one case suggest that it could happen in another? Isn't it wrong to forestall that possibility by starving Terry Schiavo?

Of Carnivals and Vanities

I've received a few e-mails from bloggers whose submissions were apparently filtered off into my junk-mail folder. Check out the update at the end of the Carnival.
Kesher Talk has graciously agreed to host the Feb 27 Haveil Havalim. Incidentally, Kesher Talk apparently anticipated Haveil Havalim by about 2 years! Of course as Kesher Talk notes and Biur Chametz and Crossing the Rubicon2 have noted, "futility of futilities" might be a better translation than "vanity of vanities".
Finally I see that one of my CotV contributors, Conservative Cat has a Carnival submission form!

The taxman cometh

For some reason or another many in the political class can't break their addiction to taxes. Hurt by the prospect of more citizens acting responsibly and buying hybrid cars that use less fuel California and Oregon are considering "mileage taxes." Everyone pays for the mileage they drive regardless of whether they're driving gas guzzlers or not. You see states need those gas taxes for highway projects. (But they won't need as much money to clean up/fight pollution either!)
Makes me think of this:

If you drive a car,
I'll tax the street.
If you TRY TO SIT,
I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold,
I'll tax the heat.
If you take a walk,
I'll tax your feet.

Then there was this ode to property taxes in the Washington Post, "Assess This." The author David Brunori can't praise property taxes enough. For instance:

The property tax is simple to administer and to pay. We don't spend a lot of time on it. There are no forms to file, and no accountants need be hired. And it can't be evaded. This helps minimize the government's administrative costs. But honest taxpayers should appreciate it as well.

Earlier in the article Brunori had mentioned that in the past property taxes were poorly administered:

And the system was plagued for much of the last century by shoddy administration, which meant that identical houses were sometimes assigned vastly different values. Though most of those problems have long since been addressed, the property tax remains an object of public scorn.

Well actually that's been my experience. And several times within the past fifteen years, so it's not exactly ancient history. Here are my gripes:
1) We bought our house in 1991. Six months later we received a tax bill with an assessment that was 40% higher than what we paid for the house. We went downtown for an appeal with an assessor. He rejected our appeal. So we had to go downtown a few months later for a hearing before the assessment board. My wife brought the documents showing how much we paid for the house and the board accepted our proof, knocking our assessment down to the purchase price. So I had to take off parts of two days of work to get the correct result.
2) The second time we were assessed at about 10 - 15,000 dollars more than we could have sold our house for. So instead of going downtown we filed our first appeal by mail. It was rejected. So we appealed the next time before the board. We showed that houses comparable to ours had not risen in value and that the ones that had additions and thus were no longer comparable. The assessor representing the state said that we were the ones who had to prove that the other houses had additions. (What about due process? Wasn't that the state's burden!?) Additionally we showed that the houses that were truly comparable had sold for little more than we bought our house for. The data was from the previous 3 years, as per the state's guidelines. That argument was rejected (arbitrarily) because those sales occurred too early in the cycle. (Nothing in the guidelines suggested that proximity to the appeal was necessary.) Our appeal was rejected and the too high assessment stuck for the next three years.
3) The next time I decided to appeal our too high assessment, our first attempt, by mail was rejected. The next time I went to an appeals board. I had photographs showing that a higher priced house had an addition that mine did not. I showed that the calculation for our property area was wrong. None of it mattered. The appeal was rejected. (The one mistake I made was referring to a previous ruling of the appeals court. A friend with a nearly identical house used my materials fight his appeal succesfully. I referred to my friend's result. I wasn't supposed to do that. Still I had plenty of evidence that the assessment was too high.) When I lost I decided to appeal to the tax court. Before I was scheduled to be heard in tax court, I received a phone call offering to split the difference. Apparently the state does all it can to avoid going to tax court. While the assessment was too high, it was not unreasonable.
Remarkably, the two assessments I've had since then have been low even though property values (especially last year's) were rising. I don't understand how that happened. But it just underscores the arbitrary nature of the assessment process. The fact that there are no papers to fill out gives the government a lot more control over the process, fair or not.
I've thought about what to do about this sort of abuse. One possibility is to make an assessment the equivalent of an offer. A homeowner would have the option of paying the tax bill or selling his house to the state. Of course I doubt people would just move and the state doesn't need to become a big property owner.
The better approach might be to consider the value of a house when it is sold. Assume a straight line appreciation and calculate the yearly taxes based on that. If the sum paid is greater than the sum calculated, the homeowner would be refunded the difference. (If I don't pay the required tax the state will penalize me. Why shouldn't the state have to repay me if it takes too much for taxes?) Hopefully the threat of having to repay taxpayers for abuses would serve as a rein on arbitrary assessments. Might this be too much work? This sort of calculation could easily be done with a spreadsheet.
The gist of Mr. Brunori's article though is that the better quality of services paid for by property taxes repays a homeowner by making his property appreciate in value. Again, from what I've observed I don't find this terribly convincing. I live in Baltimore City where the property tax rate is twice that of surrounding counties. Yet the schools and services of the city are far inferior to those the neighboring jurisdictions. Appreciation in home prices is less due to the services than to sociological phenomena. For example, Baltimore is considered a very desirable location for Orthodox Jews. So in my neighborhood there is great demand for houses and the prices are spiralling ever higher and higher. But that has nothing to do with our higher rate of property taxes or lower quality of services.
If the assessment office heeded its own regulations I might accept Mr. Brunori's arguments. But from my experience there's been nothing fair about the process. Worse, I suspect that most people don't fight unfair assessments so the state usually wins without a fight.

Carnival of the Vanities #126

Welcome to Carnival of the Vanities #126.
Before we start out little excursion around the blogosphere there are a few things to get out of the way.
First of all thanks to Silflay Hraka for originating Carnival of the Vanities and giving lesser known blogs a chance to shine!
Thanks to last week's host, Coyote Blog for his tips on how to best host CotV. I'd also like to thank Chronicles of a Medical Mad House for promoting Carnival of the Vanities along with the medical version of CotV, Grand Rounds!
Next week's host is Pundit Guy. His submission guidelines for the 127th Carnival of the Vanties are here. e-mail him with your nomination at bill at punditguy dot com.

Upcoming hosts of the Carnival are:

March 2nd - Belief Seeking Understanding
March 9th - Solomonia
March 16th - Bird's Eye View
March 23rd - CodeBlueBlog
March 30th - Eric Berlin
April 6th - Incite
April 13th - Yea, Whatever

If you're a blogger and you wish to host a future Carnival contact bigwig AT nc.rr.com from Silflay Hraka. If you're a reader make a note to check these sites so you may be edified!

This has been a lot of fun putting together. I got to read lots of interesting blogs during the week. Alas I'm not creative enough to do themes so this will be pretty straightforward. One other caveat: if you sent me a nomination and don't see it. Don't get mad. Send me an e-mail and I'll include. One problem with Hotmail is that it tags an awful lot of e-mail as spam. I found a number of submissions in my junk e-mail. I believe I retrieved them all. If I didn't please let me know.

A Little Reason gives a blow by blow description of the Juan Cole/ Jonah Goldberg kerfuffle. (Wow I get to use that word. I hope that James Taranto hasn't copyrighted it!) Plus he adds his own comments! Cole's comment, by the way reminds me of a question someone asked me 20 some years ago. What is the second most democratic country in the Middle East? The answer, then, was Iran even though it was already being ruled by the Mullahs. Despite the controls, Iran still had multiple candidates, something that no other Middle Eastern country (save Israel) had at that time.

Ashish's Niti wonders what would have happened if the Iraqi election had been held before the American election.

Politics of CP refutes the notion that Brit Hume, Sean Hannity etc. are misrepresenting the words of FDR. He sees no other way to understand FDR's words than meaning some sort of private account.

Pratie Place recounts her experience in attendance at the Triangle Bloggers Conference 2005. Follow her link to NC Blogs. It shakes my prejudice that either Tennessee or Minnesota should be the capital of Bloggers USA. (More here from Silflay Hraka.)

Damn Hippies considers a pair of Howards. One is a newcomer to his blogroll. The other is the new chairman of the DNC. He welcomes the former but doubts that the latter will welcome him to his party.

Smallest Minority comments on a number of items from news and comment he saw recently in "FEAR, the Philosophy and Politics thereof." It is critical of those who consider "gun nuts" beyond the pale.

Solomonia attended two talks by the remarkable (is that too tentative a description?) Natan Sharansky at Harvard. Former dissident, current politician. And now Presidential inspiration. Read Solomonia's description of the first talk and if you want you can also listen to the speech (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) Not many people attended the first talk, but through the magic of the internet hundreds or more can read Solomonia's account or hear the speech.
The second talk was better attended. Solomonia also has audio files of that talk and provides a link to the video from the event.

I remember once on "Home Improvement" Tim needed a photograph of his wife for a surprise birtday party. Since he didn't think ahead he blew up her driver's license photo. Needless to say it didn't go over well. King of Fools though, is no fool. He decided to post a flattering photograph of his queen on his blog (along with some commentary) in honor of Valentine's Day.

One of the things I like about blogging is how someone picks up on a seemingly innocuous news item and finds something profoundly wrong with it. Brian J. Noggle saw this item and wondered if the government's solution is possibly worse than the problem.

The People's Republic of Seabrook finds something positive about Castro's Cuba.

Spirit Fingers offers a quiz to see if you need to lose weight. And shares with us the positive results of those who follow her plan.

Tex the Pontificator considers what to do with North Korea.

Multiple Mentality's Sethual Chocolate has some strong opinions about the current situation in the Middle East. So do MM's forum members.

Can a movie that ends with a mushroom cloud be a happy movie? Idler Yet says "yes." And lists five movies that fit the bill. (I knew one of them. But then I suppose that just about everyone knows that one.)

Banana Oil fantasizes that not producing a movie may be the happiest ending of all!

The Big Picture contemplates the danger that Saudi funded mosques present and suggests that we contact our representatives to bring diplomatic pressure to bear against the Saudis. Ironically I just received an e-mail with a link to an article in Ha'aretz on the same subject.

Following in the footsteps (or missteps) of Jeff Gannon, MadKane aspires to a White House press pass.

Anyone can make a suggestion to Best of the Web Today. But not everyone gets nominated to become President of the NAACP. LaShawn Barber did. Even if it was only in a comic strip!

Biur Chametz contemplates laundry of the past and laundry of the future. About the latter: if you're about to do a load and discover that you're spouse/significant other/POSSLQ forgot to restock the supply of detergent, well, it might not be a problem in the future!

Dissecting Leftism tackles anti-Americanism, German superiority, environmental silliness and more in his Tuesday roundup.

QandO Blog dissects (American) leftism and wonders if it represents a coherent set of beliefs.

Wicked Thoughts considers some wicked (British) slang.

Rightwing Nuthouse dissects the Virginia legislature and wonders if it isn't filled with certifiable loons.

Conservative Cat considers the Bush administration's foreign policy for its second term. This article by Max Boot (LA Times, requires free registration) illustrates one of his points. Meow.

Last week's CotV host Coyote Blog wonders why someone talking with a journalist can simply say "timeout" (sort of) and have his remarks considered private. He also considers the possible consequences of various recent media missteps.

At L&N Line, Mike wonders how to prioritize his charitable giving.

Opinionated Bastard considers the Cold War and the 6 Day War and faulty valves. I feel a little uncomfortable, though, with the way he describes people of my faith. And one point that's interesting to note about the 6 day war was that Israel had a spy, Wolfgang Lotz in Egypt who identified for Israel every plane Egypt had in the Sinai. Israel only hit the genuine articles and didn't hit any decoys.

Tim Worstall recounts what happened when a British pilot decided to make an unauthorized trip to see his girlfriend.

Amateur Megalomania wonders what effect the blogosphere will have on our political alignments. Michael Barone has a slightly different take.

The Smarter Cop wonders why the Democrats still don't get it.

Rogue Pundit contemplates naturally occurring polution and writes that this requires more research.

Interested-Participant reports on a recent effort in Russia to outlaw Jewish organizations.

Business of Life contemplates Lent and labyrinths.

Blog d'Elisson shares with us his entry in the "Blogging for Books" contest in which he recalls a chance he took in "Letting go the Tree."

Before we go, I'd like to toot my own horn. A few months ago I started (along with some blogging buddies) a Jewish and Israel Carnival "offspring" called Haveil Havalim. The most recent is here. The next Haveil Havalim is at Biur Chametz. Also if you're interested in Jewish/Israeli blogs check out the results of Israelly Cool's JIB Award voting. You might find something new and interesting to read and enjoy.

UPDATE: Two bloggers who apparently got shunted off to the spam filter have notified me. Thanks guys and sorry I missed you.
BlueStateRed rightly criticizes a Rhode Island State Senator for introducing legislation that is of dubious value. Of course the Senator has to do this because of something called job security. After all, he needs accomplishments to point to when he runs for re-election for another term of pointless legislating (or grandstanding.)

Setting the World to Rights disputes the Belmont Club's assertion that the media are Orwellian. Setting the World to Rights asserts that there's enough diversity in the media so that there could never truly be a "memory hole." More disturbing Setting the World to Rights also notes that BC quoted the Institute for Historical Review - a Holocaust denial outfit - to make its point.

Revealed Truth recounts the outrageous tactics employed by those Iraqis that Michael Moore praises as the equivalent of colonial time Minutemen.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I linked to the wrong post by Revealed Truth. (Well it wasn't wrong, it was also worthwhile!) Anyway here's a link to "The minutes of this week's meeting of the Fidel Castro Fan Club..."

Well that wraps up the 126th edition of Carnival of the Vanities. I hope you enjoyed the "rich bloggy goodness" of the Carnival. While you're here, check us out. If you like what you read come back; we'd be thrilled to have you.

Have a great day!

A murder in Halhul

Biur Chametz is concerned that the Israeli government is going down the path it went down in 1995, in delegitimizing its opponents. The impetus for his concern is what has now turned out to be a false story about Finance Minister Netanyahu being attacked at a wedding. He was heckled, for sure. But he was not attacked. (No matter what the Jerusalem Post says in its editorial.)
The passing of Adir Zik last week brought this question to mind again:

Who instructed Avishai Raviv to take credit (in the name of his "Jewish" organization Eyal) for the murder of an Arab in Halhoul (which was later found to have been perpetrated by an Arab)?

I've previously posted on this topic. Thanks to Biur, you can follow a link to articles about Avishai Raviv's involvement in besmirching the Right in Israel. To my mind reaction of the Labor government the murder of an Arab, Salman Zamareh (or Azamareh) on Sept 7, 1995 should have been a great scandal. But like everything else having to do Avishai Raviv, it's been buried.
Zamareh was killed by several assailant wearing Israeli army uniforms. Shortly afterwards a caller claiming to be from the extreme Israeli organization Eyal took credit for the murder. The problem was that there was no organization Eyal, it was one man, Avishai Raviv, a GSS agent charged with keeping his eye on violent members of the Israeli Right.
That didn't stop government ministers, including some who almost certainly knew that Raviv was Eyal.

Benny Begin MK said that in their propaganda campaign against the Likud and the current prime minister, Labor and Meretz have made use of slogans that we now know were instigated by Avishai Raviv. Begin added that Yossi Sarid needs to do a little soul-searching of his own. When Arabs were murdered in Halhoul three years ago, the Eyal group, of which Raviv was the head, boasted that it was behind the deed. Sarid called for the expulsion of the entire population of Kiryat Arba. When it later turned out that the murders were committed by Palestinian neighbors of the victims, Sarid did not apologize, and declared: "I did not cast aspersions on upstanding people. In Kiryat Arba, there are no upstanding people." Begin summed it up on Wednesday night: Sarid was a member of the ministerial committee responsible for the Shin Bet; his response at the time was a blatantly cynical act.

That wasn't Caroline Glick but Uzi Benzamin of Ha'aretz. Another columnist from Ha'aretz, Reuven Pedatzur, quoted by The Jerusalem Report's Yossi Klein Halevy, noted that the GSS had been corrupted too:

Reuven Pedatzur, a columnist who specializes in security issues for the daily Ha'aretz, claims that three days after the Halhoul murder, senior Shin Bet officials briefed Rabin's cabinet about the incident. According to Pedatzur, the officials lied -- stating that signs pointed to right-wing Jewish involvement, and citing Eyal as a prime suspect. "The Shin Bet knew for certain that Eyal, which was run by the Shin Bet, didn't commit the murder," wrote Pedatzur in a Ha'aretz column last year. And, Pedatzur insists, the Shin Bet could have told the ministers the truth, that Eyal was not involved, without compromising agent Raviv. By deliberately exposing the right to left-wing political attack over this incident, he concludes, "the Shin Bet apparently crossed the line into dangerous involvement in the political arena."

(Thanks to Biur Chametz for the valuable link at which I found these articles.)
I realize that governments often take actions that go against the law. Usually the consequences, if any, are minor. But in this case, in 1995, the government's actions interfered in a murder investigation. In Israel, there are presumably criminal statutes governing such actions, yet no one has been called to account. No one cared much if the Right was smeared even if it involved a felony.
While searching for items about the murder in Halhoul I found this:

Sept. 8: Salman Azamareh is shot and killed by masked men near his home in Halhul. Radical settler groups, 'Eyal' and 'David's Sword' claim responsibility.

That's from a Palestinian website so it won't surprise you when I tell you that the arrest of the actual perpetrators isn't mentioned. But when American papers followed up on the murder it wasn't more than a paragraph or two from wire services. The murder though got reported by first line reporters about how it portended the rise of a violent Right. No newspaper I'm aware of spent anytime trying to correct the false impression the original story made.
It appears that the false charges are starting again. Hopefully the government will realize how terrible it is to slander a sector of its citizens. But if 1995 is any lesson the government won't learn and many innocents will be marginalized.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Revisiting a schoolyard killing

Earlier (here and here) I discussed the killing of Norhan Deeb. I thought the case was settled when the Jerusalem Post reported that a Palesitnian had been arrested for her murder. I even wrote to the ombudsman of the NY Times asking why the Times hadn't reproted it. The ombudsman got back to me and informed me that no one had been arrested.
Backspin has now linked to a very good article in the St Petersburg Times that examines the circumstances surrounding the girl's death. One of my early takes on the shooting was that the Israeli troops were too far away to have shot the girl. (Different accounts place the Israeli position as 600, 800 or 900 yards away. And Reuters reported that the soldiers weren't even in a position to see into the school yard.)
I think that these four paragraphs tell the story:

Yael Hartmann, a spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces, said the IDF never received any information that a Palestinian had been arrested. However, she added, the army is convinced Norhan's death was caused by Palestinian gunfire.

"There is no possible way it could have come from a bullet of ours," Hartmann told the Times.

The nearest Israeli outpost to the school is 900 meters away (some 2,950 feet) but the maximum range of bullets used in the soldiers' M-16 rifles is 350 meters, Hartmann said. According to the soldiers' log books, no Israeli troops were shooting in the area around the time of Norhan's death, she said.

Hartmann said the Palestinian Authority did not respond to an IDF request to help investigate Norhan's death.

The Israelis were not in range to kill Norhan Deeb even if they wanted to. It was physically impossible. The Palestinians had not desire to solve the murder because the myth was more important than the truth. (Just as it was with Mohammed al-Dura.) I wish that the Times would follow up like the St Petersburg Times did. I believe that the balance of the evidence supports the Israeli version and it behooves media to be at least as skeptical of Palestinian myths as they are of Israeli intentions. Short of an arrest by the Palestinians, I don't expect that the NY Times will have much further use for the story.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

I get around

Not a bad day or so.
I get mentioned by a couple of my colleagues.
Biur Chametz let everyone know that my comments are enabled. (And I didn't have to take steroids to do that.)

Crossing the Rubicon2 had some nice words about Haveil Havalim #9.

Then I got a credit in Best of the Web Today along with bloggers LeShawn Barber and Judith Weiss.

And even rarer, I rated a mention in Instapundit. It would have been nicer to get a link out of it, but I can't complain. FWIW DefenseTech isn't impressed with the drone story.

And finally, if you're a blogger. Remember I'm hosting Carnival of the Vanties Wednesday, so send me your best post of the week at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com so I can include it. I'll take them for sure until 6PM Tuesday, later if I can.

Smearin' Sammy

Baseball Musings criticizes the Chicago Tribune for its relentless criticism of Sammy Sosa:

Folks, you've made your point. Sammy has nothing to do with the Cubs anymore. You traded him for nothing, and no amount of negative publicity is going to change that or make the Cubs any better. Cubs fans aren't going to be loyal because the scourge of Sosa has been removed. They'll be loyal because you win. And if they see Sosa having a great year in Baltimore and the Cubs struggling to stay above .500, they're going to start wondering if the wrong person was run out of town.

But take my word for it, in 7 to 10 years when Sammy is a first ballot electee to the Hall of Fame, the Tribune will be trumpeting the great years Sammy had in Chicago and probably have a commemorative issue in his honor. After all then Sammy as hero will sell, and papers are nothing if not moneymaking operations.
How do I know? Because the Baltimore Sun was like this when it came to Eddie Murray. The Sun (or more precisely its columnists) ran Eddie out of town. While it became more respectful of Eddie when he came to Cleveland, the Sun was absolutely Eddie's biggest fan when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. All the nastiness conveniently forgotten.
I was going to comment how the Baltimore Sun surprisingly didn't seem to be boosting the Sosa deal and speculate that the Sun was covering for its corporate parent the Tribune Company that also owns the Cubs. But the nastintess that Baseball Musings pointed to was originally reported for the Sun! This is really astonishing. That the paper of the city where the star is headed is engaged in such attacks on the new star! (About the nicest piece on Sosa was Laura Vecsey's fun "Love Machine" column.)
I guess that the Sun needs to run interference for its parent company. How better to protect the Tribune for its stupidity than to show a lack of enthusiasm for Sosa in his new hometown.

More on O'Malley/Ehrlich

A commenter on my earlier post asked:

You say that O'Malley simply has to make the smear conection to Ehrlich, but isn't it possible that that is what happened to O'Malley?

Frankly I don't think that Ehrlich had anything to do with the smear. Despite what the Baltimore Sun alleged (with no supporting evidence) in its editorial and Michael Olesker's attempt to establish a pattern, there's no evidence tying Ehrlich to the rumor.
The most interesting aspect to the rumor - which I agree was a terrible thing - is that there's a possibility it was first popular in Democratic circles. A caller to the Sean and Frank show last week said he first heard it a year and a half ago from a member of Baltimore County's Democratic Central Committee. I think that Sean added that he had heard it from some Democratic Montgomery County officials. If so it would suggest that people supporting Doug Duncan started the rumor.
Again I don't blame O'Malley for being outraged. I'm just suggesting that his choice of target for that outrage is cynical.
I wrote earlier that I expected the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post to run with this story in order to damage Ehrlich politically. Neither has disappointed.
In an editorial "Dirty tricks redux" and a column by shunned columnist Michael Olesker, "'Dirty tricks' allegations dot Ehrlich's past", The Sun is anxious to tie the Governor to the rumor about O'Malley. But allegations (and not all of those items cited by Olesker constitute dirty tricks anyway) do not equal proof. It is highly irresponsible for the Sun to make the accusation absent any hard evidence. But then that's why the Sun has found a reporter and a columnist, Olesker, banned.
On its editorial page, The Washington Post has bigger fish to fry than the rumor, but at least it is honest enough to admit in "Mr. Ehrlich's 'Grim Reaper'":

The operative, Joseph Steffen, a close associate and aide to Mr. Ehrlich for a decade, resigned from his state government job after learning that The Post planned to publish a story about his role in spreading the rumor on a conservative Web site. He insisted that in targeting Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat positioning himself to run for governor, he was acting alone and not on Mr. Ehrlich's orders; the governor agreed. There is no evidence, so far, to the contrary.

I think that the Post here, should have offered a criticism of the Sun for its reckless editorial charge. But even though the Post will almost certainly prefer Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan over Mayor O'Malley, I suppose that the overall goal of unseating Governor Ehrlich next year takes precedence.
But the next few sentences tell what's really bothering the Post (the Sun covers the issue too):

The broader question is whether Mr. Ehrlich is seeding Maryland's agencies of government with other political hacks like Mr. Steffen, whose job description as spokesman for the state insurance administration obscured the fact that he seems to have acted for years as the governor's hatchet man, or, as he described himself, a "Prince of Darkness."

Later the Post backs up the charge:

Democrats say scores or hundreds of state employees may have lost their jobs in this manner at the hands of Mr. Steffen and other agents of the governor who infiltrated agencies of state government. Mr. Ehrlich and his aides have denied it, insisting no Maryland state workers have lost their jobs for being Democrats.

If the Democrats' assertions that workers were vetted for loyalty are true, it may or may not have been illegal -- Maryland governors are empowered to hire and fire more than 7,000 state workers who serve at the pleasure of the executive.

Scores or hundreds? How many of those 7000 have been fired? The Post and the Sun both quote an Ehrlich spokesman who put the number at 284. Yes that's scores and even hundreds. But as a percentage it's 4%. Has either paper done the digging to confirm or contradict that number? I hardly think that an executive who retains 96% of those appointed by a previous administration is carrying out a witchhunt.
The end of the Sun article is interesting because it takes the view of a public employee's union at face value:

Unionized employees also are concerned.

The governor's budget eliminated 134 filled positions as of June 30. Sue Esty, a lobbyist for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has asked some of those workers to go to Annapolis to protest.

They have refused, she said, because "they've been told if you speak out, you'll be fired sooner."

"To be fired and to still be afraid to speak out is a clear indication of what has to amount to a reign of terror," Esty said.

I don't know anything about this planned protest. However if it's during work hours it very likely violates terms of employment. I wish that there was some reporting done on this subject. But I guess it was more important for banned reporter David Nitkin to leave readers with the "reign of terror" impression.
Incidentally, there's an item toward the end of the article:

Another controversial figure is Craig Chesek, a former Ehrlich district staffer. He has worked in the state Department of Natural Resources and the state Public Service Commission, agencies where many workers have been fired despite solid qualifications and long service. Several workers at the PSC have filed lawsuits, saying they were improperly terminated.

Chesek declined an interview when contacted yesterday, saying he had been told by Ehrlich not to speak to a Sun reporter. "I recognize the directives of the governor," he said.

Then go to the end of the article and there's a line:

Sun staff writer Ivan Penn contributed to this article.

Now Governor Ehrlich banned state agencies from talking to the main reporter on the story, David Nitkin. But if another reporter was working on the story too, why didn't the Sun have him, Ivan Penn, call Chesek?
The Sun with its wild accusations and its dishonest reporting has earned the scorn of Governor Ehrlich. While the Washington Post is not much better, it still has shown some honesty that the Sun is incapable of.

Havei Havalim Edition #9

Next week's host is Biur Chametz. Let him know about the best of the Jewish/Israel blogosphere during this week at biur_chametz at yahoo dot com or let me know at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com and I'll forward it to him. If you are a blogger and wish to host Haveil Havalim please let me know!
Jewish Super Heroes
Fred Lapides, a former co-poster at Israpundit now has his own site Israelpundit where he introduces us to some new Jewish Superheroes. Though the characters he created were not necessarily Jewish, Stan Lee definitely is. He talked with Bob Simon of 60 Minutes Wednesday about his suit againt the company he built, Marvel Comics to get a larger share of the profits of the Spiderman movies. Lee, however, is apparently better off - even without these profits - than were Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, the creators of Superman, who unsuccessfully sued DC comics for royalties after, years earlier, signing away their rights for a mere $200.

The issue of creator's rights is a recurring theme in the world of comic books. Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster's fight for creator's rights became well known to the general public when the Superman The Motion Picture hit theaters in the late 1970s. The creators were destitute, having sold the rights to the character decades previously, for a paltry 200 dollars. DC Comics won the lawsuit, but with stories circulation of the famed creators of Superman on disability or bagging groceries at a local supermarket, DC began compensating the creators, avoiding a public relations nightmare.

(Incidentally the above cited article also notes that Steve Ditko the artist who co-created Spiderman likely would not get anything for Spiderman because at issue was a contract Lee signed apparently giving him rights to profits from the movies.)

Jewish Super Self-Loathing
The Volokh Conspiracy is all over Eric Alterman for asking "Are Holocaust Victims Tantamount to Bigots?" That's a simplification of Alterman's view, but, shockingly, not by much. And chief conspirator, Eugene Volokh, is none too impressed with Alterman's defense either.

Jewish Super Bowl
Which team were Jews supposed to support in the Super Bowl. Biur Chametz (quoting the Jerualem Post) argues that we should have supported the Patriots, because owner Robert Kraft supports Israel. However it's possible that the Eagles are the "team of the book." Do pictures lie?
(Thanks to Crossing the Rubicon2 for pointing out that the source of the picture was Bangitout. No I didn't notice the website name on the picture. And thanks to Aishel for telling me how I could tell that the picture was Photoshopped. By the way, Aishel hasn't blogged in 2 months. I know he got married. But what are his priorities anyway?)
Actually the picture isn't as crazy as it seems. A friend pointed out that late in life Reggie White - once a member of the Eagles - studied and learned Hebrew so he could understand the bible in its original language:

So Reggie White, former football player, went to Israel and began studying Hebrew. This wasn’t a whim and it wasn’t a fad like Madonna and her acolytes diving into the waters of the Kabbala. It was a man with questions determined to go to the source to get answers.

If he could read the scriptures in Hebrew, he felt, he could decide for himself what they meant.

Beginning Aramaic
Rishon-Rishon discusses how Bereshit is translated into Aramaic. ("Bereshit" is the first word in the Torah in Hebrew. Usually it is translated as "In the beginning.") In a follow up post he also discusses how the great exegete Rashi interprets the word. Finally he gives an introductory course in comparative Hebrew and Aramaic.

Ending Aramaic
Presence writes about a recent NY Times article noting the completion of Artscroll's translation of the Talmud. Presence asks, though, is this really a translation or something else? And his observation about the photo is quite amusing. It's worth noting that an a few weeks there will a world wide celebration for completing the 11th cycly of Daf Yomi - literally a page a day - of the Talmud. My father-in-law was impressed with the New York Sun's reporting of the completion of Artscroll Talmud.

All Wet
Chayyei Sarah garbles an apology. And check out the comments. They reminded me of a few stories:
1) A woman giving directions in Hebrew ending with telling the person to turn at the "mamzer" (bastard) instead of "ramzor" (traffic light).
2) Our 12th grade Rebbe told us a cautionary tale of the Yeshiva boy who wanted to show off his Hebrew skills. He saw a young woman and asked her for the time, "Ha-yesh lach ha-zman?" She responded "Ha-yesh lecha ha-kesef?" (That's "Do you have the time?" and "Do you have the money?" The proper question would have been simply "Mah ha-sha-ah?" [What is the time?])
3) Though this wasn't a mistake I was once in a car with a group of Israelis (they were Yeshiva students going from KBY to Haifa) listening to a Pirchei tape. It was a Rosh Hashanah tape so the boys were singing "Hayom Haras Olam." (Today is the birthday of the world) Yes that's the proper Ashkenazic pronunciation, but in a Sephardic pronunciation it would be "Hayom Harat Olam." To the Israelis, the boys were singing "Today is the destruction of the world."

Music News
You have to scroll down a bit but Kausfiles reports that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is suing an effort to create an online Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Kaus is sympathetic to the suit.

Would that Hall of Fame (if it survives) feature a certain former camp counselor?

A Jewish Joke
Pratie Place tells an old Jewish joke.

Where I come from
Crossing the Rubicon2 has a nice post of the Jews of the Ukraine ('Fiddler on the Roof Jews". Since that's where my father's family came from, I'm especially interested. My father's family came from a different part, what is now the northwest corner of the Ukraine, but still nice to read about.

Anti Semitism Watch
In a column about the failure of western law enforcement agencies to call certain acts of violence terrorist violence, Daniel Pipes notes that Toronto police have been hesitant to declare a murder of an Orthodox Jew a hate crime. Paul at Bloghead though, notes that trial for the murder of David Rosenzweig is starting this week. He presents facts that suggest that it was not a hate crime.

The Israel News of the Week
That would be the Summit in Sharm al Sheikh.
Beforehand Biur Chametz offered a sober list of a number of items to watch (and watch for). One item of particular note. Biur wrote:

Summits sure ain't what they used to be! Remember when a summit meant Kennedy-Khrushchev, Nixon-Brezhnev, Reagan-Gorbachev? Sharon-Abbas-Abdullah-Mubarak is an important regional powwow, but a summit? I think not.

According to Roger L. Simon (quoting the always interesting sometimes correct Debka), these four are the reason that this summit might be important:

A new Middle East Club of Four came into being. With a good measure of audacity and inventiveness, this bloc could dictate the next steps towards lifting the Israel-Palestinian dispute out of its stalemate - or even play a role in other conflicts, such as Lebanon and Iraq. Mubarak hinted as much in his closing speech when he urged Israel to embrace Syria and Lebanon in its peace diplomacy. This call was taken as a token response to a request from Syrian president Bashar Assad to raise the Syrian issue at the summit. In fact, the Egyptian ruler was already beginning to weave other regional issues in with the conflict on the table.

Meanwhile Clarity and Resolve offered his own sobering post-summit analysis.

Secular Blasphemy, a few days later, with the benefit of some post-summit movement offered a similarly dismal but slightly more optimistic assessment.

Willow Tree's outlook is dismal and not the least bit optimistic. Read her ironically titled "Mercy."

Meanwhile over at the Counter-terrorism blog, Matthew Levitt offers his thoughts on Hezbollah's efforts to disrupt peace and links to an article where he sees some good happening.

Ever cognizant of the mood on the Palestinian street, Hamas is traditionally more aggressive when support for its attacks is high among Palestinians.

(And yes I must give credit to Thomas Friedman for mentioning this. Though I objected to this reasoning when it came from Friedman. Maybe he's right. Ocean Guy, though, is skeptical as to the value of Abu Mazen's election.)

Dov Bear offered his thoughts and an open-thread for comments on the cease-fire. I just ask Dov Bear (and skeptic) when, over the past eleven years, have the Palestinians demonstrated good faith? If it's now, it's the first time.

Now that we have peace, It's Almost Supernatural wants to know if a photograph of newly minted Palestinian police remind us of anything.

While many are talking about the end of the violence, Solomonia is looking at its start. In a couple of posts (here and here)he notes that the Mohammed al-Dura hoax has hit the mainstream. An article in the NY Times (originally reported in the IHT) tells of how some skeptics have tried to get at the truth. Solomonia aslo quotes Transatlantic Intelligencer, here and here, on the subject. It's nice that the media is looking into this well after the damage was done.
But one of the most effective pieces of information debunking the propaganda was put out very quickly by Israel. It showed an aerial view of the Netzarim Junction as well as the positions of the Israeli army and the Palestinian attackers. 2 things are clear from the picture. 1) The only position that appears to have a direct shot at the al-Duras is a Palestinian position. 2) How in the world was there a cameraman in the position to photograph the al-Dura's? He would have been in the line of fire. Had any responsible media organization checked the Israeli photograph, they would have asked a lot of questions. Rather they chose to publicize (and legitimize) the Palestinian grievance.

David, David everywhere
Read Treppinwitz's story about remembering a friend's brother. Then read Israelly Cool!'s perspective.

Shabbat Shalom
Michael at Kosher Eucharist had a good Shabbat. He enjoys watching children with peyot and tzitzit.

Refuah Shlaima
Roger L. Simon had a gall-stone attack and is having his bladder removed. He seems to be in good spirits. No blogging for now.

Previous Haveil Havalim:
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz

Legal limits

Andrew Cochran over at the Counterterrorism Blog recommends a new blog, Patriot Debates presenting a debate over different elements of the Patriot Act. It's hosted by Stewart Baker.

Cautious Optimism

Daniel Pipes, who initially supported Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister, thought that the PM lost his way when he proposed the "disengagement plan."

Some analysts consider Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza to be one of the leading obstacles to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. . . .
First, it assumes that Palestinian Arabs seek only to gain control over the West Bank and Gaza, whereas overwhelming evidence points to their also aspiring to go further and control Israel proper. Therefore, pulling Israelis from the territories does no good.

In fact, it probably does harm. Imagine that Israelis were uprooted and the Israel Defense Forces pulled back to the 1967 boundaries — what then? Messrs. Friedman, AbiNader, and Kucinich assume the Palestinian Arabs would be grateful and reward Israel by tending to their own gardens, permitting Israel quietly to go its separate way.

But I expect a quite different reaction: Palestinian Arabs will see a pullback signaling that Israel is weak, appeasing, and vulnerable. Far from showing gratitude, they will make greater demands. With Jenin and Ramallah in the maw, Jerusalem will be next on the agenda, followed by Tel Aviv and Haifa.

And later when Israel swapped prisoners for dead soldiers with Hezbollah, he lamented "Hezbollah's Victory; Israel's Decline." Pipes, in short, believes that Israel will only achieve peace through strength and victory.

I have little patience for conventional wisdom from terror appeasers like Fawaz Gerges:

But if history serves as a guide, no major progress could be achieved in Israeli-Palestinian peace-making without active engagement by the president and his senior aides. The weight of the presidency is vital to a breakthrough there.

Abbas cannot go home empty-handed and negotiate with Hamas and Jihad for a permanent cease-fire. Public opinion polls show clearly that Palestinians do support Hamas and Jihad's armed campaign against Israeli military occupation. Abbas has to convince Palestinian public opinion that his vision and path will ultimately bring peace and independence, not Hamas or Jihad's.

It is crucial that Israel act now to release Palestinian prisoners (who number around 8,000), withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities and towns, and begin to dismantle settlements on the West Bank. A viable peace settlement is the safest way to marginalize Hamas and Jihad and ensure Israeli security in the longer term.

Actually most progress is made without the involvement of the United States. President Bush's hands off approach is far superior to Bill Clinton's active involvement. All that Clinton's involvement meant was that Arafat needed to do nothing but wait for Clinton to pressure Israel. And the success or failure of peace efforts depends less on what Israel does or doesn't do than in a sea change of attitude among the Palestinians.

Secular Blasphemy wonders if good intentions (from a flawed individual) are enough.

That brings us to today's Charles Krauthammer column, "Why the Palestinians Came to the Table."

Arafat's death was a necessary condition for hope, but not a sufficient one. It was necessary because Arafat had the power to suppress and literally kill any chances of peace. But his passing would have meant nothing if it had not occurred at a time when the Palestinians finally realized that Arafat's last great gamble, the second intifada, was a disaster.
The reason history does not always repeat itself is that the interval in between often leaves its mark. The Palestinians know that Arafat's war left them a legacy of death, corruption, misery, international isolation and social ruin as the myriad militias he created roam the streets, terrorizing their own people. That is why they elected Mahmoud Abbas, who campaigned against the intifada.

He gives a lot of credit to the election. He gives credit to the death of Arafat. He also gives credit to Israel's war against the Palestinian terror infrastructure and the security fence.

Completely wrong. In fact, it is precisely Israel's aggressive counterattack against Palestinian terrorists, coupled with the defensive fence (which has prevented practically all suicide attacks wherever it has been built), that has brought us to this point of hope.

(Krauthammer was an "early adopter" of the idea that the fence was a good idea. Even if not everyone agreed.)
Again it is the Palestinian actions or inactions that will prove whether or not this cease fire will work. Abbas has said all the right words, done some of the right actions and he's not Yasser Arafat. He's also clearly not as weak as many suggest. There's a lot more for him to do.

O'Malley in the news

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley is in the news. And it's not all good. First of all there's the matter of unfounded rumors that he's had an affair with a television reporter and separated from his wife. Understandably he's quite indignant:

Rumors about O'Malley's marriage have been widespread, but he spoke about them publicly for the first time yesterday. The mayor, who has been married for 14 years and is the father of four children, said in an interview that he has never cheated on his wife.

"I have always been faithful to my wife, from our first date to this date," O'Malley said.

The rumors appeared to have no effect last fall when O'Malley handily won a second term as mayor. But over time, O'Malley said he came to believe that the rumors were spread to thwart his gubernatorial ambitions. About 18 months ago, he said he first caught wind of a story circulating about how he had fathered a child with a local television news reporter and separated from his wife. Initially, the mayor said, he believed the story would "be a strange phenomenon that would just sort of blow through."

However I think he's being a bit cynical when he blames Governor Ehrlich for having anything to do with the rumor. Ehrlich fired the aide who was associated with spreading the rumor.
Yet O'Malley's gambit appears to be working:

Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery) said he will ask top lawmakers to grant him subpoena power to conduct hearings into what he called "the Watergate-style dirty tricks" used to smear O'Malley, a Democrat who is laying the groundwork to run for governor in 2006.

"I really think people ought to be hauled in here, put under oath and asked to explain what went on," Frosh said.

He doesn't need to prove that Governor Ehrlich is responsible for the rumor in anyway. He just needs to have people make the association. The Democratic leadership in Maryland will do the dirty work and no doubt the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun will play along.
The Sun helpfully chimed in with a disgraceful editorial today:

This much is certain: Mr. Ehrlich knows when it's time to distance himself from a blown campaign operative. He disavowed the actions of longtime aide Joseph "NCPAC" Steffen as soon as the press got wind of them. Mr. Steffen repeatedly posted messages on a popular political Web site detailing some salacious (and untrue, but why would that stop a zealot?) rumors about the mayor. When confronted by a reporter, Mr. Steffen promptly resigned. Mr. Ehrlich now says he was fired.

But does anyone believe that the smear campaign against the popular Mr. O'Malley, a potential candidate for governor in 2006, isn't politically motivated? Here's what Mr. Steffen told The Washington Post when asked if his postings were part of an organized effort to keep anti-O'Malley rumors afloat: "No comment." What does this mean? Probably this: Mr. Steffen is willing to admit to his libelous postings; he's not ready to rat out others.

Or as Steffen (or someone claiming to be Steffen) posted on FreeRepublic (via the Washington Post):

"I didn't start any rumor, I was commenting on rumors that were out there," NCPAC wrote Tuesday night. "Given the volatility of the situation -- and knowing the blowback potential on the Governor -- I opted out rather than letting him bleed further at the hands of O'Malley."

In another posting, NCPAC said that by "inadvertently opening up the Governor as a target," he had made "a mistake, one for which I am willing to take full blame and consequence."

Steffen shouldn't talk to reporters. There may be legal action so his silence is understandable. (The Washington Post still seems to report that Ehrlich fired Steffen and that Steffen didn't voluntarily leave when confronted by a reporter.)

I realize that O'Malley is concerned with his run for Governor next year. But he might well be Governor now. The reason he isn't is because all of Maryland's leading Democrats prevailed upon him three years ago to sit out the race. Ehrlich beat the uncharismatic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, but not by much. A more charismatic candidate, such as Mayor O'Malley may well have kept the State House in Democratic hands. He really should show more bitterness toward his fellow Democrats. But bashing Ehrlich could be a very good strategy.

Of course this isn't the only issue that has O'Malley in the news.

Nope he's not just taking on the Governor. He's taking on the President. He compared President Bush to terrorists for his budget:

"Back on September 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of America's great cities. They did that because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most," O'Malley said. "Years later, we are given a budget proposal by our commander in chief, the president of the United States. And with a budget ax, he is attacking America's cities. He is attacking our metropolitan core."

O'Malley seemed to be aware that he'd gone too far so he backed off a bit:

In an interview, O'Malley said he "in no way intended to equate these budget cuts, however bad, to a terrorist attack."

"The point I am trying to make is, for America to be strong, we have to strengthen our cities. Because we're in the middle of a war, we need to be strengthening and protecting our cities, not weakening our cities. Two of our cities have already been attacked in this war."

However as Jim Geraghty points out, this wasn't the first time that the Mayor made this comparison:

"I remember after the attacks of September 11, as mayor of the city, I was very, very worried about al-Qaeda and still am. But I'm even more worried about the actions and inactions of the Bush administration." (Doug Donovan, "O'Malley Takes The Heat For Remarks About Bush," The Baltimore Sun, 7/1/04)

(Thanks to Powerline and Michelle Malkin for their background.)
The Baltimore Sun had no editorial condemning O'Malley's remark.
I've had the opportunity to see O'Malley twice in person and he seems like a nice enough guy. However his accomplishments in Baltimore have been modest. The murder rate has fallen slightly from the level it was at under Kurt Schmoke's mismanagement of the city, but it is still way too high. He also was an early supporter of Howard Dean, falling for the fake hype surrounding that candidate. It doesn't say much for his political judgment.

Is Angelos becoming a Republican?

Wizbang! asserts that Judith Regan did well to release Jose Canseco's book a few months after the election. After all one of the former Bash Brother's most damning accusations is that President Bush as owner of the Texas Rangers knew of steroid use among ballplayers and did nothing about it. Wizbang! figures that many of the 48% of those who voted against the President will be eager to snatch up a book that further demonizes the President.
There is however one Democrat who doesn't seem to be amused.
In defending his Cuban born player, Rafael Palmeiro, Peter Angelos defended the President too:

"No purpose is served in giving audience to these type of claims in view of Major League Baseball having stepped to the plate with the encouragement of President Bush in addressing the steroids issue," Angelos said in his statement. "To suggest, as Canseco allegedly does, that President Bush, as the Texas Rangers managing partner in the early 1990s, 'must have known about the steroid use on that team' is a desperate ploy to sell a book. What credibility does such a person deserve?"

Angelos has been quite active in Maryland's Democratic party for quite a while. He gives generously to Democratic candidates. And the Democratic powers have been good to him, such as making him the lead lawyer for the states tobacco lawsuit. (The legislature turned on him, but he still did quite well from the settlement.)
Back in November, after Angelos's family bought the Rosecroft Raceway, it bacame clear that Angelos would support slots, a pet project of Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich against the wishes of many of Maryland's most prominent Democratic politicians:

A representative of the new owners of Rosecroft Raceway said yesterday that they hope to build a hotel and offer thousands of slot machines at the racetrack, a plan likely to prompt fierce opposition from Maryland lawmakers and Prince George's County leaders opposed to legalizing slots.

Gerard E. Evans, a lobbyist for the family of Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, which has agreed to purchase the racetrack in Oxon Hill, said he was "very confident" that Angelos's long-standing political ties would make lawmakers more likely to support slots legislation.

Finally, there's the split between Angelos and Democratic Baltimore City Mayor Martin O'Malley.

Angelos also criticized Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley claiming the mayor is in effect looking away from the interests of the city because he has aspirations of running for higher office.

Angelos took a verbal shot at the mayor by saying "I shouldn't have been too harsh with Mayor O'Malley since his expertise is limited to hiring police commissioners." Baltimore has had four police commissioners since O'Malley took office 4 years ago.

Angelos also accused O'Malley of pitching to the Washington suburbs with regard to a baseball team possibly moving there. Angelos says the mayor has given the public the impression that he is not really concerned with the economic value the Orioles bring to the city.

Look at the record: Peter Angelos has split with a Democratic Mayor, allied himself (on a single issue) with the Republican Governor and defended the integrity of a Republican President. Might Angelos be thinking of switching parties?

Kinky Rubicon

Is there a "Kinky"-er blogger than Crossing the Rubicon2? I think not.

The disappointment of David Ignatius

In "Which Foreign Policy?" columnist David Ignatius wonders if the crazy neo-cons will still be running the Bush adminstration's foreign policy or will the more sober realists? He considers the following "hopeful" developments:

Yet there are reasons not to take these bold words entirely at face value. Behind the rhetoric, the changes of personnel in Bush II seem, in fact, to be turning Bush more toward the neoconservatives' rivals, the foreign policy school known as the "realists." At the State Department, Condoleezza Rice has been signaling that she wants to follow Colin Powell in the GOP foreign policy mainstream; meanwhile, the leading neocon at State, Undersecretary John R. Bolton, is expected to leave that post soon.

I think he might be in for a disappointment. This is what Dr. Rice said yesterday:

Our charge is clear: We on the right side of freedom's divide have an obligation to help those unlucky enough to have been born on the wrong side of that divide.

That sounds awfully neo-conny to me.
I thing that Mr. Ignatius may be disappointed over the next 4 years.

Nothing succeeds like failure

In an editorial praising the administration's appointment of Lt Gen William Ward to assist with restructuring "A Welcome Appointment", the editors of the New York Times write:

General Ward, the deputy commander of the United States Army in Europe, doesn't come with quite the panache or stature of a Henry Kissinger or a George Mitchell, who have both tried their hands at shuttle diplomacy in Israel and the Palestinian territories. He's not even an Anthony Zinni, the retired marine general who spent a year as the special envoy, making fruitless trips to the region before stepping down in 2003. In fact, General Ward has zero political credentials, long a requirement for making deals in a region where both sides tend to want to talk only to the top-level types they believe can bring home agreements. Yesterday, critics of President Bush's shortsighted hands-off policy in the Middle East peace effort were already characterizing the appointment of General Ward as a ploy to inoculate the president from complaints that America doesn't give a whit about whether the Palestinians ever get their own state.

Some, or all, of that may well prove true, especially if Mr. Bush fails to back up General Ward the way he failed to back up General Zinni.

The failure of General Zinni was due to President Bush's failure to back him up?
General Zinni made three trips to the Middle East from November 2001 to March 2002. Each time his arrival was marked by the IDF pulling back from positions it had taken up to fight terror. Each pullback was greeted with an increase in terror against Israeli civilians.
Don't believe me? Here's what some astute observers wrote back in 2002 just after Gen Zinnia had returned for the third time:

After sounding out Israeli and Arab leaders, it concluded that a new Zinni mission might save lives and check the current slide toward all-out war. General Zinni's main task will be to work for a cease-fire and an eventual resumption of peace talks. Earlier efforts were thwarted by violence, for which the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, bears primary responsibility.

Who wrote that? Why it was the editors of the NY Times in "A New Urgency on the Mideast" March 18, 2002. (A lot of the rest of the editorial was nonsense, I'm just quoting you the good part.) Within a week of Gen Zinni's arrival in March 2002, ten people were killed in two suicide bombings. Another week later thirty more were killed in the infamouse Park Hotel bombing.
In other words as Israel acquiesced to American demands to let up its defense against terrorism in order to promote the peace process the terrorists with the acquiescence and likely connivance of Yasser Arafat struck severe blows against Israel. That's why Gen. Zinni's missions failed. Not a lack of support from the President.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Why not?

Dov Bear asks rhetorically of today's summit AND WHY COULDN'T THIS HAVE HAPPENED THREE YEARS AGO?
There is an answer to this question.
Yasser Arafat was still breathing.
Sheikh Yassin and Dr. Rantisi hadn't yet had their Hellfire retirement parties.
But there's a lot more to go. Abbas has to prove that he's sincere and that he will actually do what he is obligated instead of pleading weakness and otherwise making excuses.
Dov Bear's commenter skeptic makes a number of mistakes. The peace process didn't fail because PM Rabin was assassinated. After Rabin was assassinated the peace process intensified. Israel withdrew in quick succession from Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, Ramallah, Kalkilyah and Bethlehem and Shimon Peres took over the lead in the polls over Binyamin Netanyahu. (Netanyahu passed Rabin in popularity right before Rabin was killed. The assassination was used to smear the Right in Israel and gave Labor a big boost in popularity.)
It was only after the terror of Feb-Mar 1996 that Netanyahu started to become competitive again.
Though that terror was alternatively attributed to the peace process being to successful (Hamas was about to be marginalized and thus had to derail the peace process) or as revenge for killing bomb maker Yihye Ayyash, the real reason was that 3 month earlier Israel had given control of 6 cities to the PA that did nothing to impede the development of a terrorist infrastructure. Thus once Israel lifted the closures in February the terror started.
The conventional wisdom placed too much emphasis on motive and not enough on means or opportunity. That's why the test for this summit will be seen in 3 - 4 months.
And Netanyahu didn't derail the peace process no matter how many times skeptic, Dennis Ross or Jim Hoagland make that claim. If anything he made the peace process palatable again and made the one concession Labor couldn't muster the support to implement - withdraw from 80% of Hebron.

Call for Carnival of the Vanities #126

I am scheduled to host the 2/16/05 version of Carnival of the Vanities.
Please e-mail me with your nominations at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com
Please include CotV or another reference to the Carnival in your subject line.
If there is a relevant topic please include that too, in case I decide to categorize.
The information I'd like is your blog name and URL. As well as the title of the specific post and its URL. Thank you very much.
Also, this Sunday I am hosting Haveil Havalim or "Vanity of Vanities" a carnival of Jewish or Israel related posts. So if your post qualifies and you'd like me to also include it on Sunday in Haveil Havalim, please indicate that in your e-mail. (You don't have to be Jewish to be included in Haveil Havalim!)
Finally I'd like to acknowledge Sliflay Hraka for creating the Carnival and giving lesser known blogs a chance to shine.
This week's carnival is at Coyote Blog.

Saudis vs. terror

As you know Saudi Arabia is sponsoring a conference on terrorism to which Israel was not invited.

This is priceless:

Also attending are the United Nations (news - web sites), the European Union (news - web sites) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, whose secretary general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, called on the UN to "issue a resolution prohibiting the linking of terrorism with any religion."

I guess if you believe that you'd also flunk this quiz.
And it's not just me, a Western Jew who believes that:

" Obviously not all Muslims are terrorists but, regrettably, the majority of the terrorists in the world are Muslims. The kidnappers of the students in Ossetia are Muslims. The kidnappers and killers of the Nepalese workers and cooks are also Muslims. Those who rape and murder in Darfour are Muslims, and their victims are Muslims as well. Those who blew up the residential complexes in Riyadh and Al-Khobar are Muslims. Those who kidnapped the two French journalists are Muslims. The two [women] who blew up the two planes [over Russia] a week ago are Muslims. Bin Laden is a Muslim and Al-Houthi [the head of a terrorist group in Yemen] is a Muslim. The majority of those who carried out suicide operations against buses, schools, houses, and buildings around the world in the last ten years are also Muslims.

. That's Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, former editor of the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. Maybe he's western, but he still understands something of his co-religionists.

Abdullah said the fight against terror was linked to the fight against arms smuggling, drug trafficking and money laundering.

And perhaps curtailing telethons:

The Saudi Committee for Support of the Al-Aqsa Intifada recently raised nearly $110 million in a charity telethon, and some of this may have been transferred to the Hamas, Fox News reported. "There are troubling aspects as to how that telethon money would be distributed," admitted U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said he would raise the telethon issue with Saudi officials.

The Washington Times reported on April 9 that the Saudi Arabian government has already paid out $33 million to families of Palestinians killed or injured during the Intifada, and in December earmarked another $50 million for payments. The Saudi Committee for Support of the Al-Aqsa Intifada distributes payments of $5,333 to the families of the dead, with no distinction in compensation to families of suicide bombers and those killed by Israeli military action, the paper said.

Heads roll

Saudi Arabia just executed a woman. The first woman this year. Was this the guy who did the honors?

Good sport

While many fellow bloggers who are up for the JIB awards are selfishly promoting themselves for an award, ( like me or here, here, here, here, here for example. But vote for me!) Rishon-Rishon understands that this isn't about winning or losing, it's about discovering the diversity of the Jewish blogosphere. In that spirit he has links to every single finalist. So go there and check out the links. And vote for me!

New in fashion, new in cleaning

If you get yourself Israeli fashions with the made latest technological advances - a fine wash and wear suit or sweatless sweat socks - whatever would you wash them in? How about in detergent-less water?

Disturbing the peace process

Apparently Ariel Sharon is disturbing the peace process:

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) accused the Palestinians of doing little to combat "terror", adding a note of discord to an otherwise positive atmosphere ahead of next week's peace summit.
"The Palestinian side hasn't done a thing except to deploy its forces in Gaza before taking significant steps in the war on terror," Sharon said in a telephone conversation with his Norwegian counterpart Kjell Magne Bondevik, details of which were released by his office.

So Sharon's statement, not Palestinian non-compliance is the problem.
In a related note the planned Israeli release of 900 convicts is apparently not enough:

The prisoner issue is one of the most emotionally charged on the Israeli-Palestinian agenda, and a large-scale release would boost Abbas' efforts to negotiate an end to the armed Palestinian uprising.

Israel holds more than 7,000 Palestinians prisoners, many of them arrested in the current round of fighting.

Palestinian officials have complained that Israel's decision to release 900 prisoners is insufficient. They are pushing for the immediate release of some 400 prisoners convicted before 1993, when Israel and the PLO signed a mutual recognition agreement.

Hisham Abdel Razek, Palestinian Cabinet minister in charge of prisoner issues, said that if Israel does not ease its criteria, it could hurt Abbas.

Yes it's emotionally charge. But does it help the cause of peace?
IMRA tells us:

Israel Radio defense correspondent Carmella Menashe reported this morning that there is wall-to-wall opposition in the Shabak (ISS) to large prisoner releases.

Opposition includes not only the senior officials but also the people working in the field.

The Shabak officials cite two major consequences of the release program:

A decline in deterrence: terrorists considering action will assume that if they are caught that they can expect to be released in a future round of releases rather than remain behind bars.
A significant increase in skill level of the terrorists in the field: the terrorists receive considerable training from their colleagues during the course of their time in prison in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks. Israel's experience with past releases is that the released terrorists substantially strengthened and improved the ability of the terror groups they returned to carry out attacks against Israel.

The Shabak officials warn that the release would mean that the Herculean efforts of the Shabak to capture the terrorists would be for naught and suggest that Israel wait to see what happens with PA compliance before taking this step.

The reason that prisoner releases are so important is because they're part of the Palestinian effort to whitewash their crimes against Israel. So they say that these releases are important. Israel then is in a quandary. Oppose the releases and oppose "peace." Or give in.
Another possibility would be for Israel document how many released terrorists returned to terror. Alas it seems that Israel's main consideration is to avoid being seen as obstinate, regardless of the conseqences.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

The lies Jazeera told me

Over the years there's been a tendency to soft pedal what Al Jazeera is. Here's Michael Moran of MSNBC, "In defense of Al Jazeera":

On the shallower media outlets around the U.S., al-Jazeera suddenly found itself being equated with the former Communist mouthpiece Pravda or Hitler’s National Zeitung.

The truth could hardly be more different.
Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same journalists I saw weeping in London that day, including Azar. It is the lone Arabic broadcast outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually every government in the Middle East.

Here's the Committee to Protect Journalists:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by reports that U.S. officials pressured Qatar in an attempt to influence the news coverage of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel.

Following a meeting yesterday in Washington, D.C., with U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell, Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani acknowledged that U.S. officials had asked him to use his influence to rein in Al-Jazeera's news coverage.

The U.S. government apparently feels that Al-Jazeera's programming has been unbalanced and anti-American, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Sharon Waxman in the Washington Post though took a refreshingly more candid approach:

But what kind of news is it? Al-Jazeera, for all its innovation, slick graphics and flashy logos, is not an Arab version of CNN. From watching the network for any length of time, it's clear that al-Jazeera takes a consistently hostile stance toward the United States. In al-Jazeera's world, the Taliban is invariably an underdog force, the United States looms as an occupying power, and Egypt and other moderate Arab states have knuckled under to the superpower's pressure. The channel's other central topic is Israel's persecution of Palestinians, a constant litany of suffering and aggression. Otherwise there is little on al-Jazeera except sports.

Any news organization is, in part, a product of its native culture. All American-based news networks, for example, make the unspoken assumption that the state of Israel has a right to exist and that Osama bin Laden is evil. In the Arab world, that looks like bias.

But critics of al-Jazeera, including many Arab journalists, say that even when such cultural disparities are taken into account, its credibility is hampered by slanted coverage and a tendency toward sensationalism. Those critics say al-Jazeera is tailoring its approach to suit the preconceptions of the Arab audience.

More typical of the coverage of al-Jazeera in America is shown in this review of "Control Room" in the Washington Post:

Noujaim's approach harks back to that of her mentors, the legendary documentary makers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Using lightweight video cameras, Noujaim's team gathered hundreds of hours of raw footage at CentCom headquarters and at the al-Jazeera offices in Doha. She followed three major characters: Samir Khader, a senior producer at al-Jazeera, his colleague Hassan Ibrahim and Marine Lt. (now Capt.) Josh Rushing, the CentCom press officer assigned to work with Arab media.

Khader emerges as the droll philosopher, a chain-smoking realist given to the existential insights one expects from a Parisian cafe denizen. Ibrahim, an English-born journalist of Sudanese descent who came to al-Jazeera from the BBC, is an amiable goad to his colleagues, and to Rushing, whom he manages to convince that, while perceptions may not be reality, they matter. And Rushing is an earnest foil, holding his ground when it comes to spelling out the American line but increasingly open to and conflicted about other perspectives.

Noujaim constructs her movie around several central episodes of the war: al-Jazeera's decision to show civilian casualties and the capture of American troops, the bombing by coalition forces of al-Jazeera's Baghdad office, which killed journalist Tariq Ayoub, and the fall of Baghdad, which profoundly demoralizes some of the al-Jazeera journalists.

Western journalists are presented as prey to distractions such as the Lynch rescue and mindless non-stories. When CentCom journalists are introduced to the famous deck of cards bearing pictures of top Iraqi leaders, there's desperation to get copies. But CentCom has none to offer, which leads to an apparently rare moment of confrontation between the reporters and the military.

"You kept hearing, 'This is a picture story,' " says Noujaim. "The cards were something that could be easily shown on television. All of the sudden their bosses were calling up. They don't want one station to get it before another. It felt crazy and absurd."

The choice of what to show, and what not to show, becomes the central issue facing both Western media and al-Jazeera. For Khader, the senior producer at al-Jazeera, his newsroom's focus on the humanitarian cost of the war was central to an Arab perspective that is, in journalistic terms, no less biased than an American perspective.

But this treatment of al-Jazeera is dishonest. It isn't simply another way of looking at things. It is poison. Keep in mind that the Palesitnian police already arrested someone for killing the schoolgirl last week. Yet even now this is how al Jazeera reports the killing:

Ten-year-old Nuran Iyad Dib went to school as ecstatic as any schoolgirl should be. But this crisp winter day was special: she would receive her bi-annual report card.

As it turned out, she passed with flying colours, which meant a gift from her parents, who had been saving up their dwindling funds for this occasion. The teacher's comment on top of her report read: We predict a very bright future for Nuran.

But Nuran would have no such future, and her gift lies abandoned in a corner of her family's grieving home. On the afternoon of 31 January 2005, Israeli sniper fire ripped through her face as she stood in her school's courtyard, lining up for afternoon assembly.

al Jazeera wants to be treated as "journalism." And many in the west apologize for it. But there's no excuse for this sort of incitement. (Backspin observed that Reuters noted that Israeli soldiers had no clear view into the schoolyard.) This is propaganda, not journalism. To apologize al Jazeera's excesses is to excuse them.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Haveil Havalim #8

This week's host is It's Almost Supernatural. He's done a great job getting the best of the Jewish/Israel blogosphere together. Check him out and read sites you haven't seen before.
Since I don't have any volunteers, I'll be your host next week. Hopefully exposing you to many wonderful sites around the Jewish/Israel blogosphere. (I'm also scheduled to be doing Carnival of the Vanities this week - starting Tues. night/Wednesday. If you want to double dip send me your best entries and I'll put them in both!) Please indicate what you're nominating yourself or others for in the Subject line.

As alway, feel free to e-mail me with your suggestion for entries (whether or not you're a blogger), or to be a future host (if you're a blogger) at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

And a deeply felt thanks to the many talented bloggers who have helped get this initiative off the ground!

Previous Havalim:
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz

The more things change

From Secular Blasphemy, this is new:

Abu Mazen's security forces have reportedly arrested three top terrorists after an attack on the IDF.

From Mere Rhetoric, alas, this is not:

The Palestinians yesterday rejected an Israeli offer to release 900 prisoners as a gesture to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, calling the proposal "insulting."

From March 10, 1997, "PA plans to reject Israeli pullback Redeployment terms rouse ire" by Jeffrey Heller (Reuters)

PA peace negotiator Saeb Erekat also slammed Israel's decision Friday to hand over 9 percent of the West Bank as a violation of a September 1995 peace agreement. Mr. Arafat has called the move an Israeli trick.

The PA insists that under the 1995 deal the first redeployment, expected this week, was to cover 30 percent of the area still controlled by Israel in the West Bank. But Israel has said a U.S. note attached to a deal signed in January put the extent of the pullback at the discretion of Israel.

Israel has already handed over 3 percent of the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai said he expected detailed withdrawal plans for the pending redeployment from mainly rural areas of the West Bank to be submitted for his approval today. He told Israeli radio the pullback "would begin immediately afterwards."

And Lally Weymouth in the Washington Post, "Terror in the Path of Peace" (April 10, 1997) described it as such:

Netanyahu next announced -- without consultation with the Palestinians -- the extent of Israel's first redeployment of troops from the West Bank (the Oslo accords stipulate there are to be three redeployments). Netanyahu offered to turn over 9 percent of West Bank land to the Palestinian Authority; only 2 percent, however, was to come from so-called Area C -- land occupied by Israel in 1967 and still under Israeli control. Arafat, who had expected as much as 30 percent of the land,spurned Netanyahu's offer.

U.S. officials were not impressed by Netanyahu's move, in spite of the fact that it represented the willingness of a Likud prime minister to give up what his party regards as sacred territory. One U.S. official remarked that the Israeli prime minister had promised to vacate 10 percent of the West Bank and that Washington had expected more of Area C to be included in the package.

In an attempt to be "even-handed," the United States sent a delegate to a conference convened by Arafat in Gaza. It was a mistake, as it allowed Arafat to believe he has options other than negotiating directly with Israel. Nevertheless, the United States stuck by Israel at the United Nations, vetoing two resolutions that condemned Jerusalem's behavior.

Ocean Guy is understandably upset.

The pattern shows us the Arabs will take everything they can get, while doing nothing to further peace, then they'll blame the Jews for destroying the peace process and will start another war/Intifada. It's worked well for tem so far... as long as you forget about the millions of Palestinian Arabs living being kept in poverty and ignorance while the thugs in power enrich themselves.

If anything is to be different it will have to be the Bush administration. The examples above I cited about the redeployment had the Clinton adminstration betraying its commitment to the Israeli government at the time. Will the Bush adminstration back Sharon or not? Will Dr. Rice prevail upon PM Sharon to release the prisoners Abbas wants to keep the illusion of movement alive or will she turn to Abbas and say "Nice start. But you need to stop being so easily insulted. Israel had good reason to jail those men. Israel is doing all it can to support you, you need to keep your own basic obligations instead of imitating Arafat."
Crossposted on Soccer Dad and Israpundit.

A good outcome

I had felt that there was little point in disputing the ban on Rabbi Slifkin's books. I thought that agitating in the blogosphere served little purpose. My feeling was - and I wish I'd posted this earlier - would have been to get someone who had credibility with the Gedolim issuing the ban and was also conversant in science to intercede on Rabbi Slifkin's behalf.
I think that the ban was the result of trusted confidants of one or two of the Gedolim involved giving his/their view that Rabbi Slifkin's books contained heretical thoughts. The Gedolim trusted their sources reading of the books and issued the ban.
Therefore I figured the way to reverse the ban was to have someone equally as trusted to make the case for Rabbi Slifkin. And according to Bnei Levi, that is exactly what happened.

According to my sources, R' Elyashev has backed down on the ban on R' Nosson Slifkin's books after speaking to R' Aharon Feldman. As reported earlier, R' Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel / Baltimore, flew to Israel this past week to defend R' Slifkin's books. Now it seems that he was travelling not only on his own behalf, but rather as an emmissary from the entire American Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. He gave a message to R' Elyashev that the American Gedolim have examined these books and have found no heresy. R; Elyashev has agreed and is backing down. There is no word on when and how a retraction will be issued.

My candidates would have been Rabbi Doctor Avraham Avraham or Rabbi Emmanuel Feldman, but what's important is that someone took this initiative to reverse the damage. (Incidentally, as far as I could tell from Rabbi Slifkin's website, he still has an Ohr Sameach e-mail address. Rabbi Aharon Feldman used to be Rosh Yeshivah of Ohr Sameach before returning to Baltimore a few years ago.)
via Bloghead, refuah shlaimah.
UPDATE: In retrospect, it looks that this was something that the Yehupitzer Rav was suggesting a few weeks ago.

JIB awards

As you can see to the left, I am a finalist for both "Best Politics, Current Affairs, and Academia Blog" and "Best Post by a Jewish Blogger" (for "Glatt Kosher Cheese Steaks") Voting starts Monday February 7 and ends Sunday February 13. If you enjoy this blog please vote for me. You may only vote once.
Israpundit to which I contribute is up for Best Group Blog as well as a number of other nominations. (Best Israel Advocacy with many other worthy nominees and Best Politics, Current Affairs, and Academia Blog
May I also suggest that you check out other categories and find the best of the Jewish blogosphere.

Parka flap

Not surprisingly, Michael Getler. the ombudsman of the Washington Post has given Robin Givhan a pass for her criticism of Vice President Cheney's wearing a parka to the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. Writes Getler:

My view is that the image was fair game for a fashion columnist and that Givhan's explanation provides a look at how critics bring their critical eye to all kinds of situations in ways that often look harsh to those who disagree or disapprove. I would, however, have voted for a call to the veep's office to see if there was some special reason for that outfit. When I tried, officials would talk only off the record. My best guess is simply that it was very cold.

I wish that Cheney's office had responded. But there's more here than simply a fashion columnist having her say. For one thing, it appeared in the Washington Post, imbuing with a special authority. It launched tens of news articles about the criticism that VP Cheney faced for his decision to wear a parka. Did the criticism come from a wide range of people, or was it simply people quoting Givhan? From what I could tell, the latter was true.
Second of all, once Givhan was shooting down VP Cheney's excuse - he wore a dress topcoat to the inauguration - she had an obligation to make sure that her criticism was on target. (For example was Auschwitz colder? Did that make a difference?) Once she was questioning the Vice President's credibility it was no longer simply a fashion criticism.
But Getler's job has never been about assuring accuracy or fairness. It's always been about justifying reporters to us folk who are simply too unsophisticated to understand what journalism is about.

New Doubting Thomas

I've just posted a new "Doubting Thomas" entry.

Get out of jail free

Yahoo News! has a headline, "900 Palestinian Prisoners to Gain Freedom". "To gain freedom?" How's that going to happen? Actually Israel agreed to grant them their freedom. But Israel's role in this is minimized. Alas this is a typical treatment of this "confidence building measure."
Consider a recent observation of Morton Klein:

It is also noteworthy that Palestinian Arab leaders have dismissed this prisoner release as "cosmetic." They clearly don't view this as a "goodwill gesture" ..."

And the Jewish Virtual Library notes:

Even a limited prisoner release represents a risk that Israel is taking in the interest of peace. In the past, released prisoners have returned to terrorism and committed new crimes against Israelis. It will be a major test of the PA's commitment to peace, and its authority, to insure that people freed by Israel do not resort to more violence.

By releasing prisoners Israel is taking a risk. (I know that there have been cases where prisoners released by Israel have returned to terror. I haven't been able to find specific examples on the internet.) Israel is also doing something that isn't required of it according to the terms of the peace treaties. (Yes Oslo mentioned prisoner releases but it was meant for those involved in political activity.) Prisoner releases have morphed from a confidence building measure to a requirement that isn't even appreciated.
The media doesn't appreciate it. And neither to the Palestinians, though they demand this Israel to carry out this voluntary measure before they will consider carrying out their obligations.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

When do we forgive? When don't we?

In "Remembering Phillip Johnson" Anne Applebaum wonders why someone's Nazi sympathies isn't always a disqualification.

But his death makes me think that the rest of us should occasionally reflect a bit harder about why we find it so easy to condemn the likes of Prince Harry, a silly, thoughtless boy, and so hard to condemn Philip Johnson, a brilliant, witty aesthete. Or why it was thought scandalous when an allegedly anti-Semitic Ukrainian businessman was allowed to ride on Colin Powell's plane to Kiev last week, while Johnson, who once wrote a positive review of "Mein Kampf," lectured at Harvard University. Or why the Nuremberg tribunal didn't impose the death penalty on the urbane Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, or why the Academy Awards ceremony in 2004 solemnly noted the death of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's filmmaker, or why Herbert von Karajan, a Nazi Party member who never apologized at all -- party membership, he once said, "advanced my career" -- continued to conduct orchestras in all the great concert halls of Europe. We may think we believe any affiliation with Nazism is wrong, but as a society, our actual definition of "collaboration" is in fact quite slippery.

I remember a few years ago the EEO office at work put up a display for Women's History Month. I was shocked and offended that one of the women honored was Leni Riefenstahl. I left an irate message on the voice mail of the EEO office and they changed it and put up a sign that they hadn't intended to offend anyone. (They put up Margaret Bourke-White instead, I think.) But what were they thinking? Riefenstahl didn't kill anyone, as far as I know and wasn't even charged with war crimes but she was "Hitler's fillmaker" producing propaganda to bolster the Nazi regime.
(The materials for the display came from a clearinghouse, so the ignorance wasn't simply a function of the local EEO office's ignorance. Anyone purchasing the materials would have gotten Riefenstahl.)
And why isn't support for Nazism a disqualifying sin when it comes to "peacemakers?" Mahmoud Abbas didn't just dally with Holocaust denial, he wrote his "thesis" on the subject? Holocaust denial made Austria a pariah because it included Joerg Haider in its government.
Applebaum concludes:

In the end, I suspect the explanation is simple: People whose gifts lie in esoteric fields get a pass that others don't. Or, to put it differently, if you use crude language and wear a swastika, you're a pariah. But if you make up a complex, witty persona, use irony and jokes to brush off hard questions, and construct an elaborate philosophy to obfuscate your past, then you're an elder statesman, a trendsetter, a provocateur and -- most tantalizingly -- an enigma.

Seems reasonable to me.

This paper may be hazardous to your health

"Sun exposure, a major factor in skin cancer, may aid victims" - Headline Baltimore Sun February 2, 2005.

The return of Ahmed Chalabi

Remember this?
Or this?

Yet when it comes to terrorist plots, he seems to have given credence to the views of some fairly flaky ideologues and charlatans. Writing recently in The New Yorker, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh alleged that Cheney had, in effect, become the dupe of a cabal of neoconservative full-mooners, the Pentagon's mysteriously named Office of Special Plans and the patsy of an alleged bank swindler and would-be ruler of Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi.

Well Chalabi might be making a comeback. I first realized it in Fouad Ajami's article "A New Iraq" :

There is of course a Shiite slate, the United Iraqi List: it has the subtle endorsement of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The moving force behind that list is Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress. The American regency broke with Mr. Chalabi, but he has found a big new role for himself. This is a broad political coalition, which includes powerful Shiite movements like the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party. It is a sure thing that this list will fare well in Sunday's election.

Aaron Mannes, a supporter of Chalabi sees this as a good thing:

Had the United States backed Ahmed completely, it is possible that the reconstruction of Iraq would have gone better. But at the same time, Ahmed would have been easily criticized as an American agent. Now, having been dumped by the U.S. (undeservedly in my opinion) he will come to power as part of a popularly elected coalition. Calling him an American agent will no longer be credible. But, whatever the politics de jour Ahmed believes in liberty and democracy and will steer Iraq in that direction. He may not be an ally in lockstep with U.S. interests - but he will be a true friend who shares core American values.

Lucky U.S. and lucky Iraq.

UPDATE: Though this has nothing to do with Chalabi, I give due credit to Thomas Friedman for a very good column at Doubting Thomas.

Not quite an instalanche

Still it's nice to be acknowledged.

E - 5?

Over at Baseball Musings, David Pinto has posted the "Probabilistic Model of Range, Third Basemen". I was surprised to see that Melvin Mora was toward the top of the list. (Range refers to the percentage of plays that a fielder *should* have made. David's way of determining range is not the same as other measures of the skill.)
I recall that when David did his range rankings for shortsops that Miguel Tejada, that Tejada didn't come out so well. This was also a surprise.
It's also worth noting that for the Yankees, A-Rod, the 3rd baseman did well the shortstop Jeter, did not.
A-Rod and Mora have something in common: They're both ex- shortstops. (Though it's been awhile since Melvin played shortstop.) I'm wondering if there's an aggressiveness that shortstops have that third basemen don't usually have. So both of them got to balls to their left, that normally would have shortstop plays thus increasing their range and decreasing the range of their shortstops? (Or maybe generally, shortstops are quicker than 3rd basemen.)
I realize two players constitute a very small sample size, so it may be impossible to draw any conclusions here.

A Fish Story

Yesterday Media Backspin covered the death of a Palestinian girl that was originally blamed on Israel. The Reuters report cited by HR had the Israeli's 600 meters away from the school where the girl was killed.
The Chicago Tribune put the Israeli position 800 yards away.
Al Jazeerah had the soldiers 900 meters away.
My knowledge of firearms is limited, but the distance Israel was from the school should, by itself, given credence to the Israeli version.
Still despite placing the Israeli soldiers nearly a kilometer away from the girl Al-Jazeerah still "reported":

Witnesses said Nuran Did was lining up with classmates to enter the school when she was shot from the Israeli occupation force's Termit post, about 900m away.

The NY Times reported the story here with the Israeli denial. It also included the item from the AP in the middle of this article without the Israeli denial. The Times referred to the killing of the girl again today but not the fact that a Palestinian had been arrested.
Big surprise, the UN blames Israel. (via IMRA)
UPDATE: Honest Reporting has a communique on the subject.

On Monday (1/31), 10-year-old Nuran Deab was struck by a bullet in southern Gaza and died shortly thereafter. The IDF immediately suggested the gunshots may have come from nearby Palestinians firing celebratory shots in the air. Further, Reuters stated that 'it did not appear that Israeli soldiers some 600 meters away could have seen into the [school] compound from their position behind high walls.'

Despite this, many news agencies were quick to promote the Palestinian version of events, backed by the UN:

And this begs the question: How often does the media promote the Palestinian/UN version of events regardless of the truth? In this case proof of the Israeli army's version came quickly, but that's not always so. Usually the false impression is the one that stays and no correction is made. (Although if Israel turns out to be wrong, the media don't let the matter die, as in the case of stretcher Israel claimed was a missile. When the Israeli army acknowledged that it might have been wrong it was widely reported.) This is one of the reasons that Israel comes out looking bad due to poor reporting.
Initially I credited the Media Backspin item to Honest Reporting.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

O's financial woes

From yesterday's Washington Post:

The deal has already had an impact at the box office. The Orioles said they sold 5,000 season ticket plans this weekend -- ten times as much as a typical winter weekend at Camden Yards.

Same paper next item:

Orioles owner Peter Angelos met in Milwaukee yesterday with Selig and MLB President Robert DuPuy in an ongoing effort to reach a financial agreement to offset the effect of the Washington Nationals.

I'm not happy with the Sosa deal from a strategy standpoint. It looks like the Orioles did it more to make a move than to address any specific need. (Although in fairness it appears that the Orioles interest in Sosa has been longstanding this winter; perhaps they were just waiting for the Cubs' price to go down.)
But on paper the trade looks good. The fact that the O's got a good reception at the box office for the deal is one reason to judge it positively. There's a lesson in that. If the O's put a good team on the field, people will be happy to support them.
That's what makes the meeting with Selig so unseemly. The Orioles' popularity and marketability is more dependent on Angelos than it is on MLB. If Beattie and Flanagan were drafting and developing players well, the fan base would be supporting the team enthusiastically. The O's should own this market. That they don't, is the fault of Angelos who hasn't decided on a plan how to run his team for over a decade now. When will Angelos get that?

Iraqi Election Footnotes

Secular Blasphemy)(channeling Instapundit channeling Ann Althouse )

The NYT item I linked below had a very positive headline: "Amid Attacks, a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Closed Streets." Too good, obviously, for the party line, so the editors changed it to a more glum "Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24."
Obviously, even that wasn't negative enough. It is now changed to "Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Reportedly Kill Several Dozen."

Apparently too much good news for some.

But according to Roger L Simon there's been a couple of intriguing Letters to the Editor at the NY Times. Nice to know that the Times occasionally allows opposing viewpoints.

Crossing the Rubicon2 notes that Putin and Gorbachev have reacted quite differently to the Iraqi reactions. And neither chose the side of the debate one would have expected. Actually Putin's response is a lot more understandable. Whether he truly supported elections or not, as a leader of a country Putin has an interest in cultivating possible allies.

UPDATE: Noah Shachtman at Defense Tech who is no fan of this administration (and acknowledges as much) gives gracious recognition to President Bush and his government in "Something Beautiful":

In Iraqis, the White House saw a group who couldn't wait to grab control of their lives, after so many years without leverage at all. The President's people were right. And, as a result, something beautiful happened on Sunday.

Benefit of the doubt for the UN, not the US

Dov Bear is doubly incensed. He's incensed that VP Cheney wore a parka to the Auschwitz ceremony. He's further incensed that Jewish supporters of the current adminstration aren't.
Here's his response to Israelly Cool's defense of the VP:

Also, Cheny was at the inauguration earlier that week -where it was absolutely frigid - dressed quite approiately and respectfully. Are you telling me that a man as wealthy as Chenny couldn't find a tailor who could put him in something warm that was also dignified? Please. This business about him "just wanting to be warm" is laughable. You can be warm and look proper at the same time.

Anyway, Dave, Chenny isn't the only leader to have toured Aushwitz, and you and I both know he could have dressed warmly without also looking like a fool.

Of course there's a reasonable question as to why the Vice President dressed differently from everyone else. Dave (at Israelly Cool) had observed:

It should be noted that Cheney did not merely show up for the ceremony, but actually toured Auschwitz. Perhaps that is why he wanted the warmer clothing. Or perhaps because he has been suffering from well-publicized health problems.

Dov Bear never addressed these issues.
Someone touring Auschwitz for 90 minutes would dress differently from the way someone attending a shorter ceremony might.
Though I haven't found anything conclusive I've found that people with heart problems often take blood thinners that make them feel colder than the rest of us. I've also found some that some people with pacemakers have trouble breathing when cold. In both these cases, what I've found hasn't been overwhelming, but still, something to consider.
The biggest question is that if the cold bothered Cheney, why didn't he dress warmly instead of formally at the inauguration?
Of course the inauguration was first. What if he decided to brave it at the inauguration and then discovered it put him at risk? Additionally, Auschwitz was 10 - 15 degrees colder than Washington was on inauguration day. The intensity of the cold could make a difference.
Of course there's a bigger question here. Who was outraged? Robin Givhan, fashion critic of the Washington Post was. Guess what else? Every article that mentioned "outrage" over VP Cheney's attire referenced the Givhan article. In other words, the offense of a single fashion critic became the general outrage that all of sudden became news. (Search Yahoo! News for "Cheney and Parka.")
Givhan's criticism was disrespectful and over the top. It also was written from this side of the Atlantic. And it was the source of all the outrage. Several news stories noted Cheney's style of dress but none criticized it until Givhan's screed.
Finally the American delegation included not only VP Cheney, but also the only Holocaust survivor serving in Congress, Rep. Tom Lantos. Rep. Lantos has not been quoted anywhere criticizing the Vice President.
This "scandal" has been manufactured by the MSM. The outrage did not originate in Poland but at the Washington Post. And it spread through the echo chamber of the liberal media eager to score a few points against the Vice President.
Dov Bear also accuses Clifford May of "lying." May at one point referred to Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and accused him of "deriding Americans as 'stingy...'" And Dov Bear contends that since Egeland's statements never specifially mentioned the United States May was lying.
I fell for the bait and attempted to show that Egeland really did accuse America of being stingy. I have not found that yet. But what is true, is that America is part of the "donor community" and if Egeland was calling the donor community "stingy" he was calling all of its members stingy. This is simple logic. (May was making the point that Egeland was hypocritical because Egeland refused a contribution from Taiwan lest it offend China.)
I did, though, go searching through the UN's website to find the original transcript of Egeland's remarks and it is nowhere to be found. There is a summary from that day's (12/27/04) press briefing but not the complete remarks. And of course there were subsequent items where Egeland claims to have been misunderstood (here and here.) The degree to which Egeland protests the way his remarks were understood suggests that there was reason to believe that he had directed them against the United States. But that proves nothing. Of course I trust UN officials (with good reason) less than Dov Bear trusts Clifford May.
Did Jan Egeland single out the United States? Apparently not. Did he criticize the United States as part of the donor community. Definitely.
Finally I owe Dov Bear an apology for being suspicious of his kind words about my blog. Since he'd been so snarky about Jewish Republicans (and/or conservatives) I assumed his words were meant condescendingly. He wrote that he meant them.
Finally, Dov Bear, don't think that we Jewish conservatives came to our positions without thinking. We've thought a lot about the issues. We clearly see things differently from the way you do. But that doesn't make us knee jerkers. Give us at least a little credit for having thought though our positions.