Soccer Dad

Olmert Gives Us Appease Of His Mind

There is something about Prime Minister Olmert that makes you wonder if he is really saying these things that are attributed to him.

For example, just take a look at his latest comment:

Meeting last night with European Union ambassadors at the home of the Finnish Ambassador, Olmert said, "We are slightly disappointed by the continued Kassam firings by the Palestinians. I very much hope that the Palestinians will fulfill their obligations and cease their fire."

"I am sure that the European Union will greatly appreciate Israel's approach in keeping the ceasefire," Olmert said.

On the one hand, this comment surprises on a number of levels:

• Olmert is "slightly disappointed" that after killing 2 Israelis this month and having promised to stop firing Kassams into Israel, that Abbas' "peace treaty" was broken almost as soon as it was supposed to take effect?
• He hopes "very much"--but does not demand--that the Palestinians keep their promise?
• And Olmert is sure that the EU will "greatly appreciate Israel's approach in keeping the ceasefire"--if Olmert could hold off from being so obsequious, he might realize that ignoring missiles and letting the Palestinians walk all over you does not qualify as "an approach".

But on the other hand, this comment fits perfectly with other comments Olmert has made since becoming Prime Minister which demonstrate a persistent and determined willingness to surrender that is frightening:

• "He [Abbas] will be surprised when he sits with me at how far we are prepared to go. I can offer him a lot."
• Olmert claimed that Israel's success in Lebanon will create "new momentum" for his plan to unilaterally withdraw from most of Judea and Samaria.
• "I am still proud to say that I was among the initiators of the Disengagement."
• "There is an honest, real will on my part to give a lot and receive little in return."
• "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies we want that we will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies."

This is the Prime Minister of Israel.
This is the reason Israel needs new elections.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Olmert

Islamic minority rights.

In today's Washington Post Nawaf Obeid, a mouthpiece for the Saudi Government weighs in with a threat "Stepping into Iraq." Hilariously at the end there's a disclaimer that Obeid's essay reflects on his view and not those of the Saudi government. I googled his name and it certainly appears to me that he's at least an apologist for the Saudi government if not representative of that government.

The gist of Obeid's essay is to say that if the United States quits Iraq before the Sunnis there are protected, it will be up to Saudi Arabia to step in.

As the economic powerhouse of the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam and the de facto leader of the world's Sunni community (which comprises 85 percent of all Muslims), Saudi Arabia has both the means and the religious responsibility to intervene.

No doubt they will protect the Sunnis, but what then of the Shi'a if Saudi Arabia steps in? Earlier Obeid wrote:

Major Saudi tribal confederations, which have extremely close historical and communal ties with their counterparts in Iraq, are demanding action. They are supported by a new generation of Saudi royals in strategic government positions who are eager to see the kingdom play a more muscular role in the region.

Because King Abdullah has been working to minimize sectarian tensions in Iraq and reconcile Sunni and Shiite communities, because he gave President Bush his word that he wouldn't meddle in Iraq (and because it would be impossible to ensure that Saudi-funded militias wouldn't attack U.S. troops), these requests have all been refused.

Funny, did Saudi Arabia intervene when Saddam was massacring Shi'ites and Kurds in 1991? Minimizing sectarian tensions must include allowing Sunnis to take out their frustrations on Shi'ites, but not vise versa. I guess being the majority sect in Islam has its benefits.

The beginning of the article establishes the Saudi's great knowledge of the region.

In February 2003, a month before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, warned President Bush that he would be "solving one problem and creating five more" if he removed Saddam Hussein by force. Had Bush heeded his advice, Iraq would not now be on the brink of full-blown civil war and disintegration.

And those sectarian divisions would be under control whether the Shi'a wanted it or not. Right?

At least Shi'ite scholar Fouad Ajami acknowledges the nobility of the mission to oust Saddam. (via memeorandum) And he says that there's no going back. The history of Sunni domination of Shi'a is over or ending.

We can't shy away from the very history we unleashed. We had demonstrated to the Arabs that the rulers are not deities; we had given birth to the principle of political accountability. In the same vein, we may not be comfortable with all the manifestations of an emancipated Arab Shiism--we recoil, as we should, from the Mahdi Army in Iraq and from Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut--but the Shiite stepchildren of the Arab world have been given a new claim on the Arab political order of primacy and power. In the annals of Arab history, this is nothing short of revolutionary. The Sunni Arab regimes have a dread of the emancipation of the Shiites. But American power is under no obligation to protect their phobias and privileges. History has served notice on their world and their biases. We can't fall for their legends, and we ought to remember that the road to all these perditions, and the terrors of 9/11, had led through Sunni movements that originated in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Terror and ruin can come in Sunni and Shiite drapings alike.

I'm not totally comfortable with this. There is real reason to fear Shi'ite Iran. And it's impossible not to see that self-interest in Ajami's essay. Still it lacks the cynicism of the Obeid piece and makes it clear that the Saudis aren't simply concerned with the power of the radical Shi'ites, but are concerned that Shi'ites are not powerless anymore.

UPDATE: Buzztracker.

What's behind olmert's peace offer?

Yes, it's another ceasefire.

Though it is clearly being used by the Palestinians to re-arm (just as Hezbollah's using the respite up north to re-arm).

And though the Gazans continue to observe the ceasefire in the breach. (Note to headline writers: firing on your enemy during a ceasefire doesn't "endanger" the ceasefire, it "violates" it.

And yet, PM Olmert decides to ignore the violations and make an offer of peace to the Palestinians. (How was his previous peace offer greeted? Not auspiciously.)

Could it be that PM Olmert is acting the part of the battered girlfriend? (Sort of like Barak engaging in the Taba negotiations in early 2001, just 4 months after Arafat launched his terror war.)

Or is something else going on?

The New York Times reported that Bush [is] Asking Arab Friends for Iraq Help. (via memeorandum)

In return for helping on Iraq, the Sunni Arab countries have asked the Bush administration for a new push toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Mr. Bush has largely shied away from that longstanding demand, but things may be changing.

Ms. Rice may add two stops — Ramallah, in the West Bank, and Jerusalem — to her itinerary this week, administration officials said. While her schedule has not been made final, Ms. Rice is considering meeting with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president.

Ms. Rice has argued in favor of stepping up work on the Israeli-Palestinian front, and several times this fall she has seemed to be on the verge of a major peace initiative, only to be overtaken by other crises.

If I remember correctly, then-PM Sharon's support for disengagement came at a time when American pressure was expected. So Sharon pre-emptively introduced his idea in order to forestall that pressure.

If that's the case surely PM Olmert can read the writing on the wall too. Surely he knows the price that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia asked of the United States for helping out in Iraq. Surely he also knows that the peace process is something Secretary Rice is pushing.

Though the offer of a re-started peace process looks like its rewarding terror when offered during a violated ceasefire, there may be something more going on. In this case the United States bears a lot of the blame too.

The Bush administration could point to the Egyptian and Saudi role in the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000 and tell those countries that if they really wanted peace there was a time to support the peace process. Their active work against compromise undermines their credibility in demanding help now.

During the last few days, a number of Arab leaders like Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudia Arabia and President Mubarak have joined with Mr. Arafat's domestic opponents in Islamic militant movements to weigh in on the issue. They all but threatened Mr. Arafat with political excommunication if he accepted Prime Minister Ehud Barak's proposals for administrative control over parts of the city and access to -- but not sovereignty over -- the major Muslim sites.

The Jersualem Post also observes that

The same goes for the Arab world. Olmert, it should be noted, cited "positive" aspects of the Saudi plan that he had previously dismissed. What Olmert also should have done is more directly challenged these governments to lead the way in encouraging the Palestinians to engage with Israel by setting a positive example themselves.

Rather than constantly trotting out anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, these states could start warming diplomatic contacts, eventually leading to exchanges of visits between Israeli and Arab leaders. If the Arab states were serious about peace, what better way to strengthen the Palestinians who want to engage Israel in earnest?

Some other positive steps the Arab world could take would be to drop its opposition to Israel's being in the regional group in the UN; drop its objection to the Magen David Adom as an internationally recognized symbol of the Internatinal committee of the Red Cross and perhaps even talk about compensating Jews from Arab lands for the property that was confiscated by the Arab regimes from them before they were expelled.

Egypt should be called upon to stop the arms smuggling into Gaza. Syria could demand that its client terror groups release Shalit, Goldwasser and Regev in advance of any Israeli confidence building measures.

There are plenty of goodwill gestures the Arab world could make to show their sincerity in helping the Palestinians. Asking American to turn up pressure on Israel is their typical dodge. Unfortunately too often America sees its role as "honest broker" involving putting pressure on Israel.

Not responding to these Arab demands gives them a level of credibility that they don't deserve.

It's not that I'm against peace, it's that no similar overtures come from the Arab side. Until the Arab world has something specific to offer Israel - as specific as what they demand of Israel - their quest for a revived peace process can't be taken seriously. If they aren't forced to build Israel's confidence their cynical demands for pressure on Israel should be summarily dismissed by the United States.

The news suggests that the Bush administration has failed to do this.

That is unfortunate.

Technorati tags: Israel, Ehud Olmert, Iraq.

Chocolate babka

The division of (cooking) labor for Shabbos, is that my wife makes the main course and a couple of sides. I do the Challahs - yes, it's sacrilegious but I use a bread machine for the kneading and I can't braid properly - the soup, the cholent and the potato kugel (though a slightly different recipe).

Our eldest, almost 16, has taken it upon herself to make the desserts. She has no fear of multiple bowls. And I love the stuff she bakes. She regularly makes the birthday cakes for the family.

For Shabbos though, I enjoy a chocolate dessert. (Actually I enjoy chocolate every day of the week.) I used to drive my wife crazy because sometimes she'd want something different for dessert. Funny but except for the 5 year old I don't think any of my other children have descended into chocoholism to the degree I have.

Still our eldest tries to keep her father happy. Lately she's been endeavoring to discover new recipes and try them out on us. I'm all too happy to be the guinea pig. (Or just regular pig.)

Lately she's been undertaking even more ambitious desserts. A few weeks ago it was a delicious trifle. But two weeks ago she made my (new) favorite. A chocolate babka. It's great.

The picture above is of the first one she made. That's only about 7/8 of what she made. Though she followed the recipe the dough expanded too much and some of it separated and ended up on the oven floor. I think the secret to this babka is the chocolate crumb mixture that she sprinkles between the dough.

Great stuff.

Now I have to go exercise.

Technorati tags: Chocolate, Babka, Shabbos, Dessert.

Whining, women and blogs

Daled Amos wonders if marriage inhibits blogging.

There's quite
a bit
of anecdotal
evidence to
the contrary.

The same goes
for children.

Technorati tag: Blogging.

The problem with hate crimes

A few years ago the great social scientist James Q Wilson wrote an essay about hate crimes. Hate and Punishment. (The article originally appeared in 1999.) The gist of his argument that, legally, motive should make little difference in determining the punishment for a crime.

Suppose there were three men named Furrow, each of whom killed from a different motive. Alfred Furrow shot a letter carrier because he had taken out a life-insurance policy on him and wanted to collect the benefits. Buford Furrow shot one because he disliked people of different ethnic backgrounds. Charles Furrow shot one because he wanted to prove to fellow gang members that he was a tough guy.

Legally, these crimes are identical. That is, they all constitute premeditated murder. Each Furrow not only intended to take a life, he thought through the murder in advance. To prove this in court, a prosecutor must show, usually from inferences based on the defendant's conduct, that the killer deliberated about his actions and acted in accord with those deliberations. The intent of each Furrow was the same.

The result is the same regardless of motive and ...

Hate-crime laws are an effort to make the subjective motive matter. But why should it? Why should hating immigrants be a worse motive than stealing money or earning entree into a criminal gang? The proposed Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 tries to answer that question by saying that "Congress finds" that hate-motivated violence "disrupts the tranquillity and safety of communities and is deeply divisive" and that it is "a relic of slavery." Congress, of course, has no evidence that either of these statements is true. If people killed others in order to gain money or strengthen gangs, as in fact they do, this would affect the safety of communities and would be deeply divisive at least as much as, and probably more than, killing others because of what they look like. And since the hate-crimes bill would impose tougher penalties on murderers who attack people because of their religion, national origin, gender, or disability, as well as their race or color, it cannot be that the law intends to correct the defects of slavery.

(What happens if a robber, in middle of an armed robbery calls his victim nigger or kike or mick? Does that automatically change the robbery into a hate crime?)

And yet the assumption of those who pay attention to hate crimes as a barometer of the health of our society it is blacks who suffer from them the most. Consider the recent good news that the number of hate crimes in Maryland was down in 2005.

Police agencies across Maryland reported 195 hate crimes in 2005 — a noticeable decrease from previous years, according to a recent FBI publication.

That number represents a major drop in the number of hate crimes in Maryland since 1995, when the state experienced 353 such incidents. It’s also a drop from 2004, when police reported 245 hate crimes in Maryland.

So what does the NAACP (or a spokesman) say about this?

“I don’t see this as any great improvement,” Odoms said. “A hundred and ninety-five hate crimes is still 195 hate crimes. And this year it seems like they’re going on a rampage, trying to make up for last year. They’re more visible.”

Odoms pointed to several high-profile hate crimes in the Baltimore metropolitan area in 2006 as evidence that they remain a major problem in Maryland.

This summer vandals chemically burned white supremacist slogans and symbols into eight Ellicott City lawns.

The Baltimore City branch of the NAACP also received a letter filled with white powder in July. The FBI later analyzed the letter and told branch President Marvin “Doc” Cheatham Sr. that it was filled with racial slurs as well as death threats, Cheatham said.

First a little perspective. Maryland has a population of a little more than 5,600,000 and there were 195 hate crimes reported in the state for 2005. In contrast the city of Baltimore that has between 600,000 and 700,000 people had close to 300 murders last year (and every year going back to 2000. The murder rate in the 1990's was even higher.) The majority of those victims are black. And yet the problem facing the NAACP is hate crimes? Not the pedestrian drug crimes?

One problem of the designation of hate crimes is that the definition is used to emphasize a problem that, fortunately, is in decline.

In reporting hate crimes, the assumption is that blacks are the most frequent victims. Numerically, that may be true. However, at the risk of getting involved in comparative victimology, according to the 2005 statistics Jews were twice as likely to be victims of hate crimes as blacks. (There were roughly 3 1/2 times the number of hate crimes directed against blacks as Jews; but Jews are 1/7 the number of blacks in the United States.)

Some of the antisemitimism is overt and rarely does it raise the same sort of outrage as does anti-black racism. On campuses it can be quite outrageous as Candace de Russy reports at the National Review. (h/t Colossus of Rhodey.Hube )

For example, as highlighted by Mal Kline, the University of Pennsylvania Muslim Student Association hosted “Reverend” William W. Baker of the racist and anti-Semitic organization, the Populist Party. Speaking before the Christian Patriot Defense League in Missouri, Baker had earlier voiced “his disgust at traveling to New York City, getting off the plane to meet ‘pushy, belligerent American Jews.’” Penn spent five thousand dollars on the MSA event, where Baker got star billing.

For all the outrage about Trent Lott returning to a prominent role in the Republican Senate hierarchy, there is little outrage of Jim Moran's continued presence in Congress or the continued deference shown to Al Sharpton by the Democratic party and the MSM.

While I am bothered by antisemitism, I also realize that it isn't a large problem. While antisemitic feelings are more prevelant (and in some cases respectable) than I like, for the most part it doesn't lead to action.

It's terrible that prejudice and hate still exist in our open society. Still it's not possible to eradicate them completely. But they are diminishing problem and should be recognized as such. As a society we shun such irrational behavior and refuse to make it acceptable. That's a great accomplishment and should be kept in mind whenever hate crimes are discussed.

What Is A "Jewish Vote"?

During the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities in Los Angeles last week, Jonathan Rosenblum conducted an experiment that indicates the future of Diaspora support for Israel is in danger.

I spoke to a group of about 30 students at the University of Pennsylvania. In the course of the talk, I asked how many were pleased with the recent election results. All raised their hands. Then I asked how many thought that Democratic control of the Congress would be better for Israel. No hands were raised. One student did opine that American support for Israel is bi-partisan, and another argued that American pressure on Israel to be more forthcoming vis-à-vis the Palestinians is in Israel’s long-term interests.

"Correct me, if I’m misstating this," I said, "but Israel simply did not factor into your voting." No one protested. The results of my informal poll mirrored those of a 2004 poll that found Israel to be a major factor in the vote of only 14% of American Jewish voters.

Rosenblum notes that these were students who were in a program that requires a commitment to some form of Jewish learning at least twice a week, and were studying at the most Israel-friendly of America’s elite campuses.

In light of this, take a look at a post on the NJDC website where they had a link after the election to the results of a CNN poll that indicated Jews Vote Democratic 87%-12%

But what does that mean? Is this really a cause for celebration? I saw one letter to the editor of my local Jewish newspaper that was enthusiastic about the election results because the new Congress would pursue the Jewish view of stem cell research and a number of similar issues. There was no mention at all of what the implications of the elections were for Israel.

Did that 87% that voted for the Democrats really represent the Jewish vote, or just the vote of the majority of Jews who vote the liberal line? If indeed these Jews who voted for Democrats did not see Israel, her security, and her future as a consideration in how they voted--then how is that a Jewish vote?

Does voting the liberal line on issues in and of itself constitute a "Jewish vote"? Is that all there is to the Jewish vote? If so, what do they make of the vocal liberal anti-Israel protests which accuse Israel of apartheid and call for her destruction.

In the months leading up to the election, the RJC came out with a number of powerful ads that claimed that the Republican Party was a stronger friend of Israel than the Democrats. In response, the NJDC made much of the story they ‘broke’ that:

to put it bluntly, AIPAC rejects the premise of the RJC'S massive ad campaign and indicates that, unsurprisingly, Israel has nothing to fear from a Speaker Pelosi -- indeed, she, like the Democratic Party itself, is a stalwart supporter.

To put it equally bluntly, does the NJDC honestly believe that AIPAC was actually going to openly endorse one political party over another in an election? Is there any doubt that they would sidestep the issue and proclaim both parties to be friends of Israel?

It takes more than an endorsement from AIPAC to counter those ads.

Bottom line, a Jewish vote for a Democratic candidate was in no way a betrayal of Israel, and there is plenty of room to argue about just how much of a friend of Israel Bush has been—especially during his second term.

However, it is valid to question just what are the implications of such a large Jewish vote for the Democrats—not only for Israel, but for Jews as a whole. Based on Rosenblum’s observations, the implications are not all positive.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Democrats and Republicans

A good stern talking to

The editors of the New York Times apparently believe that what's needed to counter Syrian and Iranian adventurism in the Middle East is ...
a good stern talking to.

From The Road To Damascus

Whenever such talks are proposed, Mr. Bush and Mr. Olmert point out the many objectionable policies of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. That misses the point. Diplomacy is not simply a matter of rewarding countries that act the way Washington likes. It can also be a useful tool for trying to induce countries like Syria to behave more constructively.

From A discredit to the UN

Those critical reports and follow-ups were the most useful thing the old unreformed commission used to do. The problem was that many other deserving targets were shielded by their diplomatic allies. Moving away from the practice altogether would be a decided step backward.

From Another Killing in Lebanon

This page believes that the United States needs to begin a dialogue with Syria, about Iraq and regional peace. But President Bashar al-Assad needs to understand that neither the tribunal nor Lebanon’s independence will ever be on the bargaining table. Europe, Russia and all of Syria’s neighbors need to join Washington in delivering that message.

Taking the first and third editorials, the Times is adamant that the United States must talk to Syria and let it know that it's behavior is unacceptable. That will get the chinless dictator to mend his ways won't it? The middle editorial finds that the most useful function of the UN's Human Rights commission as previously constituted was that it would issue reports! (To be fair that editorial mentions the anti-Israel bias of that instution.) Gee I'm sure that Syria and the rest of the world's human rights violators are just quaking in their boots. I mean, if the Times is encouraging talk to expose their nefarious deeds they might just be voted of power. Or something.

When I read New York Times editorials, I"m often overcome by the same curiosity expressed by Frasier Crane to Cliff Claven:

Hello in there Cliff. Tell me, what color is the sky in your world.

(Irrelevant trivia tangent: IIRC correctly Frasier asked the question to Cliff in response to Cliff claiming to be descended from the Romanoffs. What irony do we learn about Frasier regarding this later in his own series.)

(Especially) In comparison, the Washington Post's editorial page seems like a font of sage advice. In response to Hezbollah's efforts to destablilize Lebanon at the behest of its Syrian and Lebanese masters, the Post's editors wrote in Lebanon's new crisis

The response to this vicious campaign should be the same concerted multilateral action that followed Mr. Hariri's assassination last year and that forced Syria to withdraw its army from Lebanon. First the Security Council should act swiftly to establish the tribunal and begin criminal proceedings. It should also consider other actions against Syria, including sanctions, if Syria continues trying to block the formation of the tribunal and sponsoring political violence in Lebanon. At the same time, Security Council action against Iran for its refusal to suspend its nuclear program is long overdue; governments that are holding it up, beginning with Russia, must be forced to choose between supporting sanctions and breaking off strategic cooperation with the West. Until Iran and Syria are made to pay a price for their attempts to radicalize the Middle East, they will have no incentive to rein in clients such as Hezbollah.

Though the editorial doesn't talk about military action to contain Iranian and Syrian threats it at least calls for sanctions; not just talk in response to their sabre rattling.

And again the Post asks in Needed: A Big Stick

What's more, no attempt to reason with Mr. Assad and the Iranian mullahs will succeed unless they perceive that the United States and its allies wield sticks as well as carrots. As long as the Bush administration is unable to win U.N. Security Council approval for sanctions against Iran -- or impose them through an ad hoc coalition -- Tehran will have no incentive to make concessions. Mr. Assad will demand that the West concede him Lebanon and call off the murder investigations that would likely implicate him -- unless he worries that his failure to cooperate will result in fresh international sanctions against Syria.

Again, it would be nice if the Post were advocating military threats. Unfortunately, due to the unpopularity of the war in Iraq it's hard to imagine the United States, much less the world community, to summon the will to threaten and, if necessary, take the necessary military actions to deter Syria and Iran. Maybe that's why the Post is sticking to sanctions. Sadly that might be all that is possible right now.

(Second irrelevant trivia tangent: JoshuaPundit termed the latter Post editorial as a "Flying Pigs moment - nicely illustrated too. What Lewis Carroll poem is the source for the concept of "flying pigs?" What is the actual terminology?)

Or maybe the Post also eschews a military response to the very real threat that Syria and Iran pose to the Middle East. Back in August it was hailing the toothless UN ceasefire in A Month of War for ending Israel's justified response to Hezbollah terror

Secretary General Kofi Annan deplored how long it took for the Security Council to act, but it may be that the damage inflicted on Hezbollah during a month of fighting is what led it to accept the terms of the resolution. Alternatively, the militia may calculate that it can accept and ignore the terms -- that no Lebanese army or international force will dare prevent its rearmament and its return to the Israeli border. If so, it will be up to Lebanon's government, the United Nations and the European nations expected to supply troops to prove the militia wrong.

By taking the initiative out of the hands of Israel and putting it into the hands of the Europeans, the UN ensured that Hezbollah could re-arm against Israel and strong arm Lebanon. What was needed was not a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah but the destruction of Hezbollah - or at least its military capacity. That didn't happen and that's what's allowed Iran's puppet to continue destabilizing the Middle East.

Hopefully, the Washington Post is starting to see the light and will be more aggressive in its prescriptions to stop Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. What won't work is the NY Times prescription of a lot more talk and a lot less action.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Technorati tags: New York Times, Washington Post, Iran, Hezbollah, Syria.

Huffing against israel

A couple of bloggers have recently pointed out the anti-Israel, if not antisemitic, bile that is on display at the Huffington Post.

Israel Matzav points to an essay by a Professor Mark LeVine that accuses Israel of being behind the Gemayal assassination. The essay appeared at the History News Network and at the Huffing and Puffing Post.

The comments at the latter are largely laudatory. Or were until one of the commenters noted that the learned professor had mixed up his Chinese philosophers. One commenter Jeffepops punctures some of the LeVine's conjectures with some nice reductio ad absurdum argumentation:

Just invent another Israeli (Jewish) conspiracy theory to explain it. I mean, what has the Mossad had to do lately, since undertaking the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers?

Israel is probably behind the Iraq insurgency, secretly pitting Shiite against Sunni. Really.

It's all there in "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Just ask Mel Gibson.

Another commenter who blogs at the morbid sounding, The Autopsy, reduces LeVine's argument to easy to understand playground mentality.

Syria is in a strong position. Therefore they can afford to take a stronger stance in influencing Lebanese politics. It's typical thug mentality. In order to prevent me from acting like a thug, you have caved to my actions. So, since I am in a stronger position, I will do more to see just how much I can get away with.
It's also how a toddler behaves if you don't set strong limits.

These voices of sanity are comforting given the pure hatred that is evident in so many of these posts. But at the Huffing and Puffing Post, voices of reason are in the minority.

In Dersh under Attack, Pillage Idiot notes that Alan Dershowitz's rebuke of Jimmy Carter inspired quite a bit of hatred too.

Some choice ones that I noted off the top of the bat -

Another defender of Israeli agression and relentless killing. We keep seeing the remorseless killings everyday on our TV and people like Mr. Dershowitz have to keep defending this regime... As if the Israeli government spokesman's propaganda pieces are not enough.

and

Why can't you admit that Israel is one of the last bastions of overt aparthied in the world. In Israel, there are the jews, and everyone else is a second class citizen.

and

Yes, Jews have lived in those places for a long time, but they weren't displaced and massacred wholesale, as was the case in 1948. And gee, I wonder why Jews were expelled from Arab countries after 1948?

Reading this garbage inspires two thoughts:
1) There's an option to mark comments at the Huffing and Puffing Post as abusive; it appears that abusive is the norm. So is this meant as praise.
2) (along the lines of Pillage Idiot's thoughts) I suspect that the people making comments are not the denizens of a bar in Tuscon.

(Once final note: This Professor Mark LeVine has collaborated on a book called Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation with actor Viggo Mortensen! Fortunately Gimli joined the Fellowship of the Ring, else Aragorn may well have turned on poor Frodo for occupying Sauron's ring.)

UPDATE: More at Memeorandum.

Crossposted as Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Technorati Tags: Huffington Post, Israel, anti-Israel.

Partisanship - fact and opinion

Fact:

Over the past four years, every move in Annapolis was viewed through the lens of this year's governor's race and the Democrats' attempts to make sure Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s first term would be his last. But with no obvious successor to the Senate presidency, that sport has been replaced by a new intrigue, and even if it doesn't capture the public's attention like a governor's race, it could become just as heated.

(Source: Miller vacancy creates vacuum, Baltimore Sun, Nov 26, 2006)
Opinion:

Instead of gaining seats in the General Assembly, Republicans merely held their own in the state Senate and lost six seats in the House of Delegates. Leaders of the party's legislative caucus are being asked to abandon their shrill partisanship in favor of a more conciliatory posture.

(Source: In GOP's tumble, a loss for Maryland, OP-ED by C. Fraser Smith, Baltimore Sun, Nov 26, 2006)
Sometimes even the Baltimore Sun can separate fact from opinion.

Technorati tags: Maryland Politics, Baltimore Sun.

Haveil Havalim #95 is UP!

Smooth Stone slings Haveil Havalim #95 your way. Please check out the many wonderful post's that Smooth's sent your way.

FIND OUT ABOUT:
How Iran is following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany.
The Bar Mitzvah boy who had to confront tragedy.
The Jews of Finland.
And a lot more!

UPCOMING EDITIONS:

#96 - Dec 2, 2006 - Soccer Dad plans to host.
#97 - Dec 9, 2006 - Jack's Shack has graciously offered to host. e-mail him at talktojacknow at sbcglobal dot net.

I have a couple of volunteers in the works including for #100. I just have to confirm.

In addition to e-mail you may submit entries to Haveil Havalim using the submission form over at BlogCarnival. Or feel free to e-mail me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

Also if you'd like to host an upcoming edition e-mail me at the above address.

Remember, that while the hosts and hostesses of Haveil Havalim do a wonderful job of editing and searching for interesting posts, they can't see everything. If you want a better chance of being included in Haveil Havalim please submit one or two posts for inclusion.

Listed at the Truth Laid Bear Ubercarnival.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

Most recent editions of Haveil Havalim at Blog Carnival
#22 Mystical Paths
#21 Rabbinical Authority Consortium of HACKers
#20 Shiloh Musings
#19 Devarim
#18 Soccer Dad
#17 Mystical Paths
#16 Critical Mastiff
#15 Soccer Dad
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
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Orioles get 'parameters and concepts'; astros get lee

Last year Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun wrote

Each winter we hear it from agents and other teams: "The Orioles were interested, but they didn't get back to us." Or, "They just weren't as aggressive as the others." Or the real killer, "They are very difficult to deal with." As an outstanding attorney, Angelos has made a career of being cautious and deliberate. No one ever forces his hand. It's not a bad business strategy, either. But there comes a time when you should move swiftly so you don't alienate others.

(The link no longer works. I previously linked to article here.)

Now the Baltimore Sun reports that the Orioles never actually negotiated with Carlos Lee but ...

The Orioles never made a firm offer to Lee, but they discussed "parameters and concepts" of a deal, according to Duquette.

That's right the Orioles discussed "parameters and concepts." I suppose that's the minimum a team can do so it doesn't have to tell its fans "We were just sitting on our hands doing nothing as other teams signed the players who were our biggest priority for next year."

The headline is precious:

$100M puts Lee in Astros' orbit as O's concede

It really doesn't sound like the O's were ever much in the running. Don't you have to be in the game to concede?

I don't mean to imply that the Orioles would have gotten out of fourth place if they'd signed Lee. I'm just frustrated that year after year we see the same failure to sign anyone of significance. (The one exception was Miguel Tejeda.)

The O's want us to believe that they have great prospects and then they trade one to the Yankees for broken down starter Jaret Wright in the hopes that Leo Mazzone can revive his career again. (Just like Mazzone was supposed to shave .50 runs of the team's ERA last year.) I'm not knocking Mazzone, his record in Atlanta speaks for itself. But he needs talent to work with and the O's don't have enough.

The O's don't have a lot of homegrown talent, and yet they trade some of it for "experienced" but not great players (Benson, Wright). They don't sign players of significance. They have no plan to get better and are stuck in fourth place purgatory with no route out.

Technorati tags: Baseball, Baltimore Orioles.

Land claims for peace now

There is little to add to what co-blogger Daled Amos wrote about Peace Now's land grab or what fellow Maryland Blogger Alliance blogger Maryland Conservatarian has pithily observed about the attentant media coverage: Israeli Critics criticize Israel.

Steve Erlanger of the New York Times publicized Peace Now's press release

After noting that Peace Now is an advocacy group, Erlanger observes

The figures, together with detailed maps of the land distribution in every Israeli settlement in the West Bank, were put together by the Settlement Watch Project of Peace Now, led by Dror Etkes and Hagit Ofran, and has a record of careful and accurate reporting on settlement growth.

"Careful and accurate?" Leading up to this declaration Erlanger had described the process by which Peace Now had obtained its information from someone inside the government. Clearly they received from someone who shares their ideological convictions and who reads the data and understands the law the same way they do.

But there's more to Peace Now than its reporting on Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, which is freqently disputed by the residents themselves. The group has advocated making peace with the Palestinians and has been wrong about quite a bit. Leaders of Peace Now declared, for example, that Yasser Arafat was ready to make peace; something that his subsequent actions showed to be false. If one considers Peace Now's investment in Arafat as an indication of its political judgment, what exactly makes their legal judgment any more reliable?

Clearly Erlanger shares their premises; but that shouldn't be the determining factor in writing about news. Peace Now has issued another one of its biased reports and the media was perfectly willing to act as its megaphone, giving it publicity that it couldn't have bought.

There is another side to this issue that Peace Now doesn't address. Land ownership really isn't clear at all.

It's nice of Erlanger, for example to note:

Mr. Dror also said that sometimes Palestinians would sell land to Israelis but be unwilling to admit to the sale publicly because they feared retribution as collaborators.

According to Jordanian law and a law passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council (though apparently never signed by Arafat) the selling of land to Jews is a capital crime. This law was taken seriously.

Two Palestinians, suspected among other things of selling land to Jews, were killed in the West Bank under suspicious circumstances. In 1997 PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein announced that the death penalty would be imposed on anyone convicted of ceding "one inch" of land to Israel. A Palestinian land ownership law that was passed by the Palestinian Council and is awaiting Arafat's approval forbids Palestinians from brokering or facilitating the sale of Palestinian land to non-Palestinians and provides that such activities be considered "high treason." The PA has arrested and continues to hold several suspected land dealers for violating the Jordanian law in force in the West Bank that prohibits the sale of land to foreigners.

On April 6, Mohammed Anqawi, age 50, was found shot to death near Ramallah. Anqawi was suspected of selling land to Jews and collaborating with Israel, and family members say that he had been summoned to Palestinian intelligence headquarters in Ramallah immediately prior to his death. The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group accused the PA of murdering Anqawi. On April 7, Riboi Musfi Awad was found dead in an Israeli-controlled area near Ramallah. Awad, who was reputed to be a collaborator, had been shot in the head. Palestinians say that he had been summoned to Palestinian police offices to discuss allegations that he sold land to Jews. Palestinian authorities say that because the body was found in an Israeli-controlled area, they did not investigate the death.

(Though they in now way emphasize this application of a Nuremberg type law, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported on these murders.)

Yisrael Medad (of My Right Word) wrote in the Jerusalem Post

A few months after my family and I moved to Shiloh in 1981, I witnessed a microcosm of the land problem between Jews and Arabs. A section of land was to be put aside for security purposes and, as the legal procedure dictated, the mukhtars of nearby villages were informed and asked to make sure that any resident claiming private ownership rights should show up on a certain day to stake his claim.

Sure enough, at the appointed hour, seven Arabs walked onto the area and then were asked to stand on what each claimed as his private plot. Within minutes a difficult situation developed when two villagers stood on the same fertile section, insisting that each owned it. A minute later and they were throwing stones at each other.

We, the residents of Shiloh, the IDF officers and legal officials all stood around amazed. In the end, with no documents, no tax receipts, no maps nor any other reliable proof of ownership, the land was confirmed as "state land" and assigned to its new use.

With no records, competing claims and fear of death it's hard to take Palestinian land claims at face value. Yet that's what Peace Now and its many allies did. And by the way, if Peace Now gets so exercised about the taking of private Palestinian land, how do they feel about the taking of private Jewish land?

The following is from Peace Now's Settlement in Focus about the Etzion Bloc (Gush Etzion.)

In January 1927, a group of ultra-orthodox Jews from Jerusalem, accompanied by a few Yemenites who had immigrated to Palestine for religious reasons, moved to an area south of Jerusalem. The small community was called “Migdal Eder,” named for a site mentioned in the bible (Genesis 35:21). This early community did not flourish, mainly due to economic hardships and escalating tension with neighboring Arab communities. In 1929 Arab riots broke out and the community was destroyed. The inhabitants of Migdal Eder were saved by the villagers of the neighboring Palestinian village of Beit Umar but were not able to return to the land they left behind.

In the early 1930s the land which had been the site of Migdal Eder was purchased by Shmuel Yosef Holtzman in order to establish a Jewish community in the area between Bethlehem and Hebron. Holtzman named the community “Kfar Etzion” (from his own name, Holtzman – in German “holtz” means “wood”, which translates to “etz” in Hebrew). This second attempt to establish a Jewish foothold in this area was once again derailed before any significant Jewish presence was achieved, this time in the course of the 1936 Arab uprising, which led the inhabitants of Kfar Etzion to abandon the area. Most of what Holtzman and his partners had constructed was subsequently demolished by the Arabs living in the area.

Jews again attempted to settle the area between 1943-1947, resulting in the establishment of four Jewish communities (Kfar Etzion, Ein Tzurim, Massu'ot Yitzhak, and Revadim). All four were destroyed in the course of the 1948 war, and the entire area came under Jordanian rule. From 1948-1967, the loss of the four Jewish communities of Gush Etzion was one of the most painful traumas in the Israeli collective memory.

Almost immediately after Israel gained control of the West Bank in June 1967, a new and successful initiative to settle the area was launched. In September 1967, Kfar Etzion became Israel’s first settlement in the newly-occupied West Bank. Among the group that founded the new Kfar Etzion were descendents of the people who fought (and many of whom died) in the area in 1948. They justified the establishment of the settlement on the argument that they had a right to return to land from which they had been violently uprooted 19 years earlier – a rationale that the government of Israel eventually accepted (even while denying any similar right of return to Arab civilians who had fled or been expelled from communities inside Israel during that same war). In this way, Kfar Etzion was not only the first Israeli settlement in the West Bank, but it was also the precedent for what would become the settlers’ favored – and highly successful – tactic: establish facts on the ground and then demand, and receive, government approval.

So here's Peace Now's brief history of the Etzion Bloc. One would assume that an organization that is dedicated to the proposition that the acquisition of land by force is inherently illegitimate would apply that principle in all cases. But in the case of the Etzion Bloc, Peace Now turns the proposition around and asks why Israeli didn't allow the "right of return" for the Arabs who lost land in 1948. But isn't there a difference when the aggressor loses his home and when victim of aggression loses his home? Such subtleties are beyond the scope of Peace Now's ideology as its clear in the case of Arabs and Jews, Peace Now favors the aggressors.

Technorati tags: Peace Now, New York Times, Israel.

The sun's crocodile tears

New Maryland Blogger Alliance blogger, Howard County Maryland Blog highlights an editorial in the Sun that I also found troubling. In Free Advice he notes that the Sun effectively advocates Republicans becoming more like Democrats in order to have a say in governing Maryland. HCMB rightly rejects this advice

Let me ask, how many Republican candidates for Governor or President has the Baltimore Sun endorsed? Very few in the past 50 years. To paraphrase: Would Peter Angelos take advise from George Steinbrenner on how to beat the New York Yankees?

The editorial, Picking up the Pieces makes a number of faulty diagnoses too. For example

But what has worked for the Republicans nationally - tough talk and a socially conservative agenda - doesn't fly here, at least not in statewide contests. It's telling that the two biggest successes for Maryland Republicans this year, the election of county executives in Anne Arundel and Harford, represent the triumph of can-do pragmatists. Neither John R. Leopold nor David R. Craig could ever be considered a zealot. The question is, will others follow their lead?

But what was Governor Ehrlich? He had a solid record behind him and yet the Sun didn't endorse him. And he is hardly an ideologue.

Consider this: in order to embarrass Ehrlich, Maryland's General Assembly overrode a number of his vetoes in the last legislative session. The Maryland Court of Appeals - dominated by Democratice appointees - threw out three of the most significant bills passed over the governor's overrides. The problem in Annapolis wasn't that Governor Ehrlich was too partisan, it was that the General Assembly was too partisan.

The Sun agrees too much with the most extreme elements of the Democratic legislature and that's why it can't see the truth. (It hurts that Ehrlich made a fool of the Sun in court too, no doubt.)

The Sun continues

As if on cue, Mr. Leopold has shown his intent to govern Anne Arundel in a bipartisan fashion. On Thursday, he named Democrat Dennis Callahan, a former mayor of Annapolis, as his chief of staff. He also plans to retain a substantial number of department heads from his Democratic predecessor, Janet S. Owens.

And didn't Governor Ehrlich reach out too? He most certainly did. One of the most prominent members of his transition team was Wayne Curry the former Prince George's County Executive. (Oh by the way where's the political diversity on Gov-Elect O'Malley's team?)

For the Sun, cooperation means the Democratic way or now way. Even the Washington Post, in endorsing Governor Ehrlich for a second term recognized this.

More worrisome yet is the fact that an O'Malley victory would herald a return to the brand of one-party Democratic rule that has served the state poorly in the past. Mr. Ehrlich, for all his faults, has shaken up the old guard in Maryland politics -- while appointing plenty of Democrats to his cabinet and judgeships. If he were wise, he would use a second term to start anew with the legislature and build on his record of achievement.

The Baltimore Sun showing no respect for true bi-partisanship doesn't consider this a problem.

The Sun's conclusion, again, insults our intelligence.

Over the past dozen years, Republicans have shown they can raise money, run credible races and even win a governorship in a state that is dominated by Democrats. Much can change in four years. The political tsunami could just as easily run the opposite way. But the unique challenge for Republicans here will be to field candidates with a Maryland sensibility, particularly on social issues.

Governor Ehrlich had a solid record of accomplishment and was popular statewide - he had a popularity rating of over 50% - showing that he appealed to most of Marylanders and yet he couldn't win when faced with a competent campaigner. The election results demonstrated once again that Maryland is a single party state. The Sun can expect that over the next four years much of its left wing and pro-union agenda will be implemented with no brakes. The election of 2006 bodes ill for the state of Maryland. The Sun is too deeply embedded in its liberal cocoon to see otherwise.

UPDATE: I forgot to cite Monoblogue's excellent number crunching on this topic. He's not nearly as pessimistic as I am. OK, he's a lot more optimistic than I am about the situation for Republicans in Maryland. And read the comments too. This guy should be writing for a newspaper. (No that's not an insult; I mean to say he would raise the level of punditry by a lot.)

Technorati tags: Maryland Politics, Maryland Politics.

Council speak 11/24/06

The Council has spoken!

The winning Council post of the week was the American future's "Rules of Engagement in Iraq" in which he wonders if the American rules of engagement hamstring the U.S. Army from actually accomplishing its goals. And he wonders why abide by such strict rules of engagement when our actions are not going to win us approval from the international community anyway.

The runner up "Media Icons" by Done with Mirrors discusses the famous Eddie Adams picture of South Vietnamese Gen Loan executing Nguyen Van Lem. Done with Mirrors notes that the picture became emblematic of the Viet Nam war and helped undermine American support for the war. He presents a picture of a North Vietnamese atrocity that isn't as well known and the background of the execution that mitigates Gen. Loan's actions somewhat. Eddie Adams, unlike today's journalists and editors, regretted the effect of the photograph.

Of non-Council posts Congressman Conyers and Islam by Daled Amos won. It's an overview of the congressman's efforts to stand up for Islam and asks why American Muslims require such special consideration.

The Runner Up was American Thinker's Democrats' Bait and Switch Electoral Strategy, which shows how quickly the Democrats fled from their anti-war stance when it came to governing, even though the anti-war position is apparently what won them back Congress.

Technorati tags: Watcher's Council.

In all the wrong places

In Just an antisemitic laugh? Hardly, Charles Krauthammer takes issue with Baron Sasha Cohen's impetus for making his movie Borat.

Krauthammer reacted to a statement made by Cohen defending his movie

Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Borat, revealed his purpose for doing that in a rare out-of-character interview he granted Rolling Stone in part to counter charges that he was promoting anti-Semitism. On the face of it, this would be odd, given that Cohen is himself a Sabbath-observing Jew. His defense is that he is using Borat's anti-Semitism as a "tool" to expose it in others. And that his Arizona bar stunt revealed, if not anti-Semitism, then "indifference" to anti-Semitism. And that, he maintains, was the path to the Holocaust.

Krauthammer, though, writes that Cohen is looking for antisemitism in all the wrong places.

Baron Cohen could easily have found what he seeks closer to home. He is, after all, from Europe, where synagogues are torched and cemeteries desecrated in a revival of anti-Semitism -- not "indifference" to but active -- unseen since the Holocaust. Where a Jew is singled out for torture and death by French-African thugs. Where a leading Norwegian intellectual -- et tu, Norway? -- mocks "God's Chosen People" ("We laugh at this people's capriciousness and weep at its misdeeds") and calls for the destruction of Israel, the "state founded . . . on the ruins of an archaic national and warlike religion."

Krauthammer further observes

Yet, amid this gathering darkness, an alarming number of liberal Jews are seized with the notion that the real threat lurks deep in the hearts of American Protestants, most specifically Southern evangelicals. Some fear that their children are going to be converted; others, that below the surface lies a pogrom waiting to happen; still others, that the evangelicals will take power in Washington and enact their own sharia law.

This view is common among certain groups within the Jewish community. Consider an analysis written by James D. Besser from 2 years ago Should Jews oppose Evangelical help? Besser whose analyses are picked up by quite a few American-Jewish weeklies writes

The Jewish community is caught between Christians who love Israel, but maybe for the wrong reasons, and who vehemently oppose almost every domestic position of the Jewish majority, and Christians who continue to be important partners on the domestic front, while embracing a particularly virulent anti-Zionism.
...
Their support for Israel has been welcomed by single-issue pro-Israel groups, but its prophetic basis remains a source of deep concern for many Jews. Some are justifiably scared that these Christians might wield their considerable political influence to help advance apocalyptic beliefs that insist war is inevitable and peace efforts are a trick of the devil. That’s what Robertson seemed to suggest when he said that taking land from the Jews and giving it the Palestinians was “Satan’s plan.”
...
Some of the Jewish leaders who blithely overlook the prophetic foundation of evangelical love for Israel now demand an end to dialogue with the mainline Protestant groups that still want peace, not Armageddon, in the Middle East, however unbalanced their political attacks on Israel.

Besser's reports are a staple of American-Jewish newsweeklies. The problem is that he is an unabashed Democrat and completely in line with the thinking of peace now. I don't know how many people read him uncritically, but I have to think that his opinions (he rarely reports without a healthy dose of his own opinion included) resonate with a portion of Amreica's Jewish community.

David Brog who has written a book about evangelical support for and of Israel though, has a more benign view of that support.

Evangelicals who support Israel most certainly do want to convert people. Evangelicals who don’t support Israel also want to convert people. The mission of sharing the “good news” of Jesus Christ is central to being an evangelical. But it is important to note that this is not about converting just the Jews—Christians want to share their faith with Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and their Christian friends and neighbors who have yet to be born again.

The important question is this: Is evangelical support for Israel merely a tool in the effort to convert the Jews? Is this merely some scheme to soften the Jews up so that they can better sell Jesus to them? And the answer to this question is absolutely not.

If anything, the opposite it true. I and others who have worked with Christians in support of Israel all report that no one has ever tried to convert us. In fact, Christians who support Israel tend to know more Jews and to understand their sensitivities better than Christians who do not. Thus, they have learned that Jews find “Jesus talk” offensive, and they tend to leave it out of the dialogue.

Krauthammer concludes

It is very hard to be a Jew today, particularly in Baron Cohen's Europe, where Jew-baiting is once again becoming acceptable. But it is a sign of the disorientation of a distressed and confused people that we should find it so difficult to distinguish our friends from our enemies.

It would appear that Baron Sascha Cohen has adopted the alarmist view of evangelical (and general Christian) support of Israel and ignored the danger of the real antisemites and anti-Israel crowd.

It's a shame that at a time when Jews are more threatened in Europe than anytime in the past 60 years and that the threat to Israel from Iran is increasing that many Jews look to find fault in their allies rather than taking a cold hard look at their enemies.

UPDATE: Done with Mirrors brings a news story to support Krauthammer's argument and concludes

There is no question that racism and anti-semitism are alive and well in America (Michael Richards and Mel Gibson, anyone?), and there's no excusing that. But, as Krauthammer points out, let's not lose all sense of proportion about where the real threats to Jews--and other minorities, as well--lie.

Disturbingly Yellow - who comments below - takes issue with Krauthammer. Based on his knowledge of Baron Sascha Cohen's repertoire, he argues that Cohen's comment wasn't meant as narrowly as Krauthammer interpreted it.

Krauthammer is a great political thinker. And in today’s politics, much of the news he comments on is formed though the spectrum of nations and separate societies and their relations to each other. Had Krauthammer gone in without the reflex of viewing matters through that busy lens and watched through a common human perspective, he may agree with Cohen’s defense: indifference to anti-Semitism was the path to the Holocaust. That doesn’t mean Cohen claims the American heartland is the “locus” of Jew hate. It doesn’t mean that Cohen is more alarmed by drunken ramblings of hoaxed American fraternity members than pro-Hezbollah parades in London. It means that the funny and passive types of ignorance found in the US humans against Jews, gays, foreigners humans are the path to not so funny and active types more prevalent in Europe the world.

Regarding Crablaw's comments, I haven't seen the movie either. (Nor do I have any desire to see it, especially after reading his synopsis.) But Krauthammer was commenting on Cohen's statement, about the importance of his movie.

Technorati tags: Borat, Israel, Antisemitism.

Peace Now Makes A Land Grab Of It's Own

"Peace Now," the internationally funded foreign agent in Israel see (see 'Peace Now' Could Teach Hamas A Thing Or Two), has made its latest move on behalf of its paymasters to disrupt and discredit Israel.

Peace Now on Tuesday submitted a complaint to Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz accusing the government of conducting a "systematic and institutional land grab" in the West Bank by building most of the settlements on land owned in part by individual Palestinians.

The complaint followed publication of a report by Peace Now entitled "Breaking the Law in the West Bank," in which the organization charged that about 40 percent of the land occupied de facto by the settlements was privately-owned Palestinian land.

Despite the obvious biases of Peace Now, the government is looking into the accusation. Meanwhile, the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is getting ready to respond and Council head Benzi Lieberman said they will produce a report of their own to debunk the Peace Now allegations. Lieberman said they plan to hold a press conference in the coming weeks to expose the inaccuracies in the Peace Now report.

Of course, that delay gives Peace Now the time they need for the results of their report to sink in.

According to the Jerusalem Post:

According to the report, Palestinians own almost 40% of all the land on which the settlements were built. This includes 86.4% of Ma'aleh Adumim, 44.3% of Givat Ze'ev, 47.7% of Kedumim and 35.1% of Ariel.

There are four types of land ownership in the West Bank - state-owned land, "survey" land, whose ownership is in dispute between the state and Palestinians, land owned privately by Palestinians and land owned privately by Jews.

Until now, the common understanding has been that since 1979, when the High Court of Justice overruled a military order to seize land for military purposes in order to establish the civilian settlement of Alon Moreh, all subsequent settlements were to be built on state-owned land.

Etkes told reporters, "for the first time, we can prove this isn't true.

Responding to Peace Now's claims, Yisrael Medad, a volunteer spokesman for the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, disputes the methodology of the report.

Among the points that Medad makes:

• While the report claims that only 1.47% of the land at Karnei Shomron is Jewish-owned, in actuality almost all the area of the community is Jewish-owned as is the land at Etz Efraim community--indicating that Peace Now is discounting land purchases made by Jews.

• There are Arabs who have sold land but then claim otherwise because they don't want to be murdered for selling land to Jews.

• The pictures on the Peace Now website of the land supposedly owned by communities on the West Bank are misleading: "There is a vast difference between the area displayed and the actual area zoned at various government ministries and civilian administration offices. The boundaries are arbitrary, usually delineated by patrol roads which do not reflect on the actual property definitions."

• The State of Israel appropriated private land until 1979. Karmiel was built this way and even the Ein Kerem neighborhood of Jerusalem benefited from such classifications. But Since, then, however, no Arab private land has been used for the Jewish communities.

• The Arabs have claimed for 50 years that they own 93 percent of the land which became the State of Israel--of which 43% was privately owned. The remainder of the land was identified then as the Sultan's Land. According to this claim, Jews owned but 7%. Peace Now has resurrected this claim.
• According to Article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate:

  the Administration of Palestine... shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency... close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes.

  As a result, the vast majority of the area in Judea and Samaria are lands under the direct control of the State--this is an issue expanded upon later in this post.

More than being a question of needing clarification, the Peace Now report contains factual errors-- as outlined in CAMERA's critique of the Peace Now report.

Peace Now admits that they are unfamiliar with the data that was leaked to them that was “updated to the best of our knowledge through 2004.”Likewise, they do not know for sure neither the authenticity nor accuracy of the information. A fact that did not stop them for using and publishing the data.

Peace Now brags that the data they received "served as a reference for attorney Talia Sasson when she prepared her government-mandated report on the outposts – a report which has been widely publicized and discussed"-- these were apparently unauthorized outposts, built without the necessary permissions from the proper authorities. However, contrary to Peace Now’s claim, in reality Ms. Sasson found that that the use of these private Palestinian land for outposts was not due to the theft of land, but instead to errors in the maps.

The errors in the Peace Now report are the result of mistakes in the crucial definition of terms.

According to the report:

Since 1967, Israel has made use of Ottoman legislation dating back to the middle of the 19th century in order to declare land to be “State land.” According to that law, all lands are considered "State Land" unless proven otherwise. To formally register land as private property, one must cultivate it for at least ten years. If the land is not registered, one would be considered the owner as long as he cultivates it and pays taxes on it. If the land is not cultivated for three successive years, it may become the property of the Ottoman State, i.e. "State Land".

While the phrase "has made use of" implies underhanded exploitation, the fact is

Israel was and is obligated under international law, in particular the Hague Regulations of 1907, to maintain the legal system in the territories, and to respect, "unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." Thus it was not, as Peace Now clearly implies, an Israeli subterfuge ("Israel has made use of Ottoman legislation") to apply the pre-existing Ottoman – as well as British and Jordanian – laws in the West Bank.

A second error Peace Now makes in the very same paragraph is in their mistaken claim that land must be cultivated for 10 years. According to the Ottoman land law that is used there is a category of land known as mulk--private land, where ownership is not related to cultivation and would revert to state ownership only if the owner died intestate.

A third error made in that same paragraph is that land which is cultivated for 10 years does not become private Palestinian land as Peace Now mistakenly claims. Instead, land acquired through cultivation is considered according to the Ottoman Code as at best miri land--land in which a person acquires a limited right of use. Contrary to Peace Now, such land remains the property of the state, and its reversion to the state is not limited to a failure to cultivate. Miri land is by definition state land.

A fourth error is the Peace Now claim that while prior to 1968 the land registration was open to Palestinians but not since. CAMERA quotes from a court case that proves that is not true

A fifth factual problem is a category of land which the Peace Now report neglected to mention altogether. Under the Ottoman Code, there is a category of land known as mewat ('dead land') which is applicable to the West Bank--unallocated or waste areas outside of inhabited areas which can be cultivated by special effort. Such development requires prior permission from the State. CAMERA quotes from a British Mandate source that clarifies:

Practically all the unoccupied land of Palestine is mewat and cannot be occupied without the permission of the Government.

CAMERA finds that:

much of what Peace Now is terming “private Palestinian land” is in fact state land because it is mewat, and has been considered so for generations. The land on which Ma’ale Adumim was built, for example, was more than a mile and a half from the built up area of the closest Arab village, Al ‘Ayzariyah; the land was also rocky and on a ridge, and had therefore never been inhabited or cultivated. It was therefore clearly mewat land which belonged to the state and not to any private owners. [emphasis added]

Thus, land which was once in the category of miri but later was abandoned or fell into disuse would lose even its limited rights--but Peace Now considers this land to still be private Palestinian land.

CAMERA concludes based on the Ottoman Code in effect and other documentation that:

There can be no doubt, however, that the majority of land that Peace Now calls “private Palestinian land” is in fact mewat, or waste land, and therefore permanently in the public domain, with not even rights to cultivate.

Peace Now's report is riddled with factual error and omission of key law. One can only hope that as the facts come out they will be given the same exposure as the Peace Now report.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Peace Now and West Bank and Gaza and Yisrael Medad and CAMERA.

An idea that was hackneyed ten years ago

Newsweek columnists Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey offer A Modest Proposal how "President Bush can help stabilize the entire Middle East." Wouldn't you know it? It's by "...concentrating on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

The Bush administration's approach to what is left of the Palestinian Authority remains mired in its anti-Hamas stance. The Bush administration considers Hamas a despicable terrorist group that glorifies mass murder. But it isn't rocket science to figure out ways to sidestep the Hamas government—through Fatah (its old rival), the United Nations or nongovernmental groups. It is in nobody's interests—including Israel's—for Gaza to continue its descent into gangland anarchy. It's also in nobody's interests to give up on the plans of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to withdraw from parts of the West Bank.

I can't get over this sentence:

The Bush administration considers Hamas a despicable terrorist group that glorifies mass murder.

Does that mean that Wolffe and Bailey don't consider Hamas a despicable terror group? And bypassing Hamas will accomplish what? Fatah is run by a Holocaust denier and has its very own affiliated terror group. A high commissioner of the UN just visited Israel and refused to meet with the families of the kidnapped soldiers. And NGO's like Human Rights Watch regularly hold Israel to some impossible level of conduct and rarely condemn the terrorists whose attacks precipitated the Israeli response. (This week's condemnation of Hamas using citizens as human shields, is an exception.)

And why is it in anyone interests for Israel to continue withdrawing territory captured in 1967? Israel withdrew from Gaza strengthening Hamas. Israeli withdrew from its longterm but temporary deployment in Lebanon and strengthened Hezbollah.

Bush doesn't need to approach the Palestinian situation alone. He should do so together with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia—and he could use it as a template for cooperation elsewhere, such as Iraq and Iran. He may not succeed in bringing peace to the Palestinians and Israelis. But the process itself would boost Bush's low standing in the region and his ability to achieve his goals, especially in Iraq. The lesson of Lebanon, and of Bush's second term, is that the United States is far more powerful when it works with its friends on the world's toughest challenges.

Ah but the effort won't be alone. The United States should get help from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis contributed a "peace plan" to the Middle East that makes specific demands of Israel and makes vague promises in return. Egypt has been allowing the smuggling of arms into Gaza. And now they're going to help make peace between Israel and the Palesitnians?

So say the United States solves the Israeli/Palestinian conflict how is that going to stop the Sunni/Shi'ite killings? How is that going to rein in the Iranian designs on the region (if not the world) especially the power of its puppet Hezbollah and ally Syria now attemtping to destabilize Lebanon?

Wolffe and Bailey have the answer: with a template of co-operation.

Historically templates of cooperation have been very effective in bringing peace and order to the world. Wasn't it a template of cooperation that caused the Axis to surrrender in WWII? And wasn't it a template of cooperation that prevented Saddam from obtaining nuclear weapons, ejected him from Kuwait and finally ousted him from power in Baghdad?

This article is so incredibly hackneyed, it wasn't original ten years ago. But ten years ago, maybe you could still argue that solving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict could yield dividends elsewhere. Now the only conclusion you can draw is that pushing for its solution is likely to make matters worse.

Why the focus on Palestinian Israeli peace as a starting point? Because it's the one place where diplomatic pressure works. That's because Israel has an elected government that's accountable to the people and the Israeli people want peace. A government deemed as working against peace won't survive. (Netanyahu did more for peace than Arafat by any measure and yet since the Clinton administration - and many others - deemed Netanyahu obstructionist, his government fell in three years.)

But no matter how much the Israeli government changes either due to pressure or due to its own convictions, Israel will never get peace until the Arab world changes its view of Israel.

Right now Israel has changed politically to the point that the current ruling party, Kadima, is considered centrist. Yet there is little to distinguish Kadima's views on peace from the views of the extreme left in Israel of fifteen years ago. For better or for worse, Israel has changed politically. These changes are dramatic.

On the Arab side the lack of change; the lack of any sense of accomodation is striking. In his column this week Daniel Pipes wrote

Ninety-two percent of respondents in a recent poll of one thousand Egyptians over 18 years of age called Israel an enemy state. In contrast, a meager 2% saw Israel as "a friend to Egypt."

These hostile sentiments express themselves in many ways, including a popular song titled "I Hate Israel," venomously antisemitic political cartoons, bizarre conspiracy theories, and terrorist attacks against visiting Israelis. Egypt's leading democracy movement, Kifaya, recently launched an initiative to collect a million signatures on a petition demanding the annulment of the March 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

Also, the Egyptian government has permitted large quantities of weapons to be smuggled into Gaza to use against Israeli border towns. Yuval Steinitz, an Israeli legislator specializing in Egypt-Israel relations, estimates that fully 90% of PLO and Hamas explosives come from Egypt.

Cairo may have no apparent enemies, but the impoverished Egyptian state sinks massive resources into a military build up. According to the Congressional Research Service, it purchased $6.5 billion worth of foreign weapons in the years 2001-04, more than any other state in the Middle East. In contrast, the Israeli government bought only $4.4 billion worth during that period and the Saudi one $3.8 billion.

Keep in mind, Pipes's description isn't of Syria. Or Saudi Arabia. But of Egypt, a country that signed a peace treaty with Israel over a quarter of a century ago. Peace was deemed so important that Egypt was granted $2 billion in aid annually and is considered friendly to the United States even though it votes against American interests over 80% of the time in the UN.

And pay attention to what Pipes wrote about the democracy movement in Egypt. It too is anti-Israel. The democracy movements throughout the Arab world are the same. They're for more open government, but maintain the same antipathy to Israel, but are hailed in the West for the former while the latter sentiment is discretely ignored.

In fact the big problem in the Middle East is that the United States (and the West) has been too tolerant, if not indulgent of Arab/Islamic antisemitism (and its political manisfestation in its opposition to Israel's existence.) It's great to encourage the political opening of the Arab world, but if those agitating for opening are just as closed to Israel's existence as the current elites, there is little hope that any solution will be any more successful than Oslo.

In the United Nations the Bush administration has made of stating clearly that any one-sided resolution condemning Israel will earn an automatic veto in the Security Council. The American ambassadors have successfully implemented this policy and Israel's enemies and critics still cannot find it in themselves to attempt any evenhanded resolutions.

The leadership the Bush administration needs to show, is not what Wolffe and Bailey call for, but a concerted effort to stand up for Israel (and the West). The Saudis who are cited as possible helpers in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict put an empty "peace proposal" on the table four and a half years ago.

Why not demand that the Saudis implement some real confidence building measures. Ask that the Saudis take the lead in the Arab of pushing for Israel to be included in the same regional group in the UN as the Arab world. Israel's exclusion from the regional group is the reason it has been denied a seat on the Security Council. Ask the Saudis to lead the Arab world in dropping their opposition to accepting the Mogen David as a protected symbol of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

For too long the agitation for Palestinian rights has allowed the despotic Arab world to escape responsibility for the tyranny under which most of its population lives. (And they get "legitimacy" for the cause by citing the democratic voting in the UN; the same mechansim they deny their own people.)

If the Arabs want to change they can. It won't be as easy as pressuring Israel for more concessions. But it will be more effective. It will have to be.

And please don't tell me that Sunnis and Shi'ites will stop killing each other if only the United States solves the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

UPDATE: A featured post at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: A number of comments on this article here. Garry Weinstein's is excellent.

Technorati tags: Israel, Peace Process, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Daniel Pipes.

Battlestar Israel: Palestinians and Cylons

Jonah Goldberg of The Corner is a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, and in a post on Tuesday Goldberg revealed some of the background behind one of the characters:

It’s revealed that Admiral Adama once led a "black-op" to investigate whether or not the Cylons were preparing for war. He sent a stealth pilot past the agreed-upon armistice line. The ship was fired upon and a couple years later the Cylons returned, murdering billions of humans in an attempt to completely wipe out the entire human race.

From this set of facts, Adama concludes it's all his fault because he led the mission that proved the human race really were "war mongers" in the eyes of the Cylons.

Goldberg takes issue with the broader moral implications of Adama's sense of guilt as applied to the world at large

The idea that the human race had it coming from the Cylons is moral flapdoodle (and flatly unbelievable; the creators seem to think decent humans would be deeply conflicted about declaring total war on a bunch of artificial lifeforms who slaughtered 99% of humanity). Similarly, the suggestion that the we are solely to blame morally for the war on terror because a bunch of psychopaths take offense at what we do is idiotic. Sure, we can debate whether this or that policy is defensible, wise, just etc. But this "Why do they hate us?" piffle is so morally unserious it's horrifying how widely held it is. It's also incredibly vain. It assumes that everything is about us — that terrorists aren't fully human moral actors and therefor responsibility for their actions lies with us.

For Goldberg this attitude is comparable to the "Why do they hate us?" approach of many in the US, who are ready if not downright eager to blame the US for the actions of the terrorists. In the same way, many place the responsibility for the murders committed by the Palestinian terrorists squarely on the shoulders of the Israelis themselves.

Palestinian-as-victim has now been adopted and expanded to the point that now the Muslim world is the victim of Western oppression:

1. Israel and the US are portrayed as oppressors of Islam and of the Muslim world at large.
As many as 10 million Muslims have been killed in the past few decades—by other Muslims. The Muslim world, however, would have us all believe that the real threat and oppressor in the region is Israel, though during all the wars starting from 1948 only 60,000 have been killed by comparison.

Similarly, the Muslim world has had to deal with the imperialist expansionism of France, Great Britain, and Russia who exercised both influence and control in the region—yet it is the US who is portrayed as the Great Satan.

2. Islamist terrorism against both Israel and the West is being justified.
The polls out there are showing that Muslims really believe the claim that Islam is under attack and support the terrorist attacks, both in Israel and in Great Britain. Islamist terrorists are murdering people by the thousands each year, yet Muslims claim that they are the ones being victimized. Israel is both condemned for being the cause of the terrorism and for over-reacting when she responds to the attaks.

3. Both Israel and the West accept the guilt trip and concede accordingly
From England in particular we hear about legislation to protect Muslims from attack—at the same time that free speech is curtailed in the process. Piglet is banned and police must show special sensitivity when arresting Muslims—as if Muslims as a group were a specially religious group. The US is not far behind. Rep. John Conyers wants to pass legislation banning religious hate crimes, while marking Muslims in particular for such treatment. Meanwhile, CAIR provides numbers for the alleged rise in anti-Muslim attacks: numbers that have been document as sloppy and exaggerated.
Meanwhile, in Olmert defends the Disengagement and at every opportunity talks openly of his willingness to make broad concessions to the ‘moderate’ Abbas whose men still go around killing Israeli civilians.

Daily we see the results of the manufactured claims of oppression by the Muslim world.

This week, Mme. Arbour, the former Supreme Court of Canada justice visited the bombed-out house of a family in Beit Hanoun, where she declared that local Arab civilians suffer from "catastrophic human-rights violations." Yet, after witnessing two Kassam missile attacks on Sderot, she refused to condemn the Arab attacks on Israeli civilians, and refused to meet with the families of the three kidnapped IDF soldiers.

Goldberg actually understates his case. He questions the judgment of the creators of Battlestar Gallactica that humans would be conflicted about declaring total war on the murderers of a large portion of humanity. One would think he has not been paying attention to the bend-over-backwards gymnastics of the Israeli government in avoiding an all-out attack in Gaza to defend against the Kassams. On Wednesday, the Israeli Cabinet decided to use targeted assassinations against Hamas while at the same time declaring up front that she will not target the leadership of Hamas which is making the decisions

Flapdoodle is putting it mildly.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Moslems and Terrorism and Islamists

Talk's not cheap

Yesterday morning I listened to CBS news and heard that all was good in the world.

Walid Moallem, the highest level Syrian official to visit since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, on Sunday denounced terrorism in Iraq even as Washington mulled its own overture to Damascus for help in ending Iraq's violence.

The visit was "groundbreaking" and all that. Moallem also said all the right things including that the United States had to leave Iraq.

AbbaGav noticed in the Ha'aretz report of the likely American "overture" to get Syria to stop allowing terrorists to cross its border into Iraq, Syria was likely to demand a price.

As Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem was expected begin a landmark visit to Iraq on Sunday, Damascus was reportedly set to demand that Washington press Israel over the issue of return of the Golan Heights, as the price of its cooperation with the Bush administration on Iraq,[...]

This is, to say the least, disconcerting, because it's happened before. Michael Young wrote yesterday

If so, it wouldn't be the first time for Mr. Baker. In 1990, he was a leading light in President George H.W. Bush's administration, which ceded Lebanon to Syria in exchange for President Hafez Assad's agreement to be part of the international coalition against Iraq. An inveterate "realist," Mr. Baker is not likely to balk at negotiating with Mr. Assad if it means the U.S. can buy some peace of mind as it transforms its presence in Iraq. His proposal is unpopular at the White House, and last week Mr. Bush made that known to Mr. Baker and his colleagues. However, because of his electoral defeat, the president, pressed by a Congress avidly searching for new ideas, might find less latitude to ignore Syria down the road.

(Christopher Hitchens recalled the same thing here.)

But I have a question. During Moallem's trip to Iraq, Iraq and Syria re-established diplomatic relations. Well and good. When did they break them off?

Syria broke diplomatic ties with Iraq in 1982, accusing Iraq of inciting riots by the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Damascus also sided with Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Trade ties were restored in 1997.

In 1990, then, when the United States was enlisting the help of the international community in ejecting Saddam from Kuwait, Syria and Iraq were already on the outs for the better part of a decade. And yet the United States apparently agreed to acquiesce to Syria's fifteen year old occupation of Lebanon. Clearly the United States attacking Saddam helped Assad, but Assad still demanded a price for his cooperation even though that cooperation served his interests!

At least for now President Bush doesn't seem inclined to listen to the conventional wisdom and engage Syria and Iran.

Lee Smith though, argues that it may not matter whether or not the president actually listens to the advice.

Of course, James Baker's Iraq Study Group does not make foreign policy (or not yet anyway) but the fact that it's out there is injuring our position in the region. Americans believe, correctly, that diversity of opinion is one of the strengths of pluralist, liberal democracies. But diversity of opinion doesn't help in the Middle East, where authoritarian regimes interpret it as confusion and lack of resolve. Professional diplomats speak glibly about having to "talk to" our enemies; it suggests they sometimes forget that it is our enemies with whom they are so eager to talk.

In explaining why he started the Oslo process, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin said

You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.

But what if those unsavory enemies are looking for a public relations boost? What if those enemies are not trustworthy? Do negotiations with them, then, really help the cause of peace? Or does it benefit the enemy at no cost?

In the arena of war and peace, talk often is not cheap.

UPDATE: The Glittering Eye concludes

If I were a member of the ruling clique of one of Iran’s neighbors, I’d be pretty busy right about now figuring out how I could pacify my own native Islamists and offset the increased Iranian influence.

Commenter isirota1965 reports that Syria's taking a page from OJ and is looking for the killer of Pierre Gemayal. (No doubt for the killers of Rafiq Hariri and Pierre's uncle Bashir too.) No wait, Syria's located the murderer: Israel.

Technorati tags: Iran, Syria, Iraq, James A. Baker, Walid Moallem.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Baker dozin'

Carla Anne Robbins an editorial observer for the New York is Waiting (and Hoping) for James Baker. She isn't just waiting and hoping, she's dozin' and dreamin' for a James Baker that never really existed. Her essay says more about her than it does about him. Early on she writes

When I traveled with Mr. Baker as a member of the State Department press corps, it was evident that he was a good secretary of state, but far from perfect. Like his boss and best friend, President George H. W. Bush, Mr. Baker lacked the vision thing. He failed to foresee the murderous passions unleashed by Yugoslavia’s breakup — and then declared that the United States did “not have a dog in that fight” — or that oil wealth and autocrats couldn’t forever contain the anger roiling the Middle East.

I'd give lower marks for other things that he failed to foresee. He failed to foresee allowing his ambassador to encourage Saddam might embolden him to attack Kuwait. He failed to see that leaving the Shi'ites to Saddam's tender mercies would after encouraging them to revolt and then not protecting them would be a disaster.

She also remembers

But Mr. Baker was a brilliant and indefatigable deal maker, willing to talk to anyone if it could get him to yes. He flew overnight from Yemen to Colombia trying to persuade all 15 Security Council members to vote for the Persian Gulf war, and sat down in New York with the Cubans. (Final tally, 12 to 2, with one abstention.) Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s president then, sent troops to fight in the war— on America’s side.

Afterward, Mr. Baker ping-ponged across the Middle East trying to broker a peace deal. The strategy was pure Baker: get everybody face-to-face in an ornate room — preferably with the whole world watching — and the next time any of them got angry they’d think about calling a meeting rather than ordering an invasion.

Flying from Damascus to Jerusalem to Cairo to Jeddah, I groused about diplomacy-by-epiphany. And in the end, there were many meetings and no peace. But there was also no war between Israel and its neighbors throughout the 1990s.

Well he didn't try to engage every country. One in particular he saw as a candidate for pressure.

There was evidence from the beginning that this U.S. administration was going to push Israel hard. Back in February 1989, in his first interview as Secretary of State, James Baker explained to Time magazine that diplomacy was like a turkey hunt. Paraphrasing: "You have got to fatten up the turkeys. I have this assistant who puts out the feed, he fattens up the turkeys, you get them good and fat, and then you shoot them." When asked what country he had in mind, he answered "Israel!"

But bullying Israel didn't work. Israel did make concessions. And if you compare the political posiition (in terms of some sort of peace process) of the centrist Israeli government currently in power with the Israeli Left of 1989 (when Baker started serving as Secretary of State for the first President Bush) you could probably argue that there isn't much difference between the two. (Even the "right-wing" Likud of today probably has more in common with Peace Now or Meretz of 1989 than with the Likud of the same time.)

And is Israel more secure? Is the Middle East less volatile? Israel has changed and conceded a lot. The Palestinians have been more than happy to receive land and money from Israel, but they've been rather reticent in even saying the right things about coexistence, much less doing anything about it.

Robbins laments that under the current President Bush

... no effort to bring Israelis and Palestinians together in any room — ornate or not.

The problem is that while James Baker was bold enough to tell AIPAC that Israel needed to abandon the idea of Greater Israel, there has been no one insisting that the Palestinians (and the Arab/Muslim world in general) give up the dream of greater Palestine. In the end peace can only come when Israel's neighbors accept its legitimacy. No amount of pressure on Israel will bring the Arab/Muslim world around.

Robbins's memory of an indealized James Baker may make the former diplomat seem like a far better diplomat than anyone currently serving under the current President Bush. In reality his record is somewhat more mixed than Robbins acknowledges.

UPDATE: Bret Stephens wrote an excellent refresher for those who are nostalgic for Bush 41 (via memeorandum) and specifically James Baker. For one thing he gives the specifics of the first Bush administration's mistakes in the Middle East

For its efforts, the Bush administration brought Arabs and Israelis together for the Madrid Peace Conference, which set the groundwork for the Oslo Accords. These were touted as historic achievements, but for Israel it meant more terrorism, culminating in the second intifada, and for the Palestinians it meant repression in the person of Yasser Arafat and mass radicalization in the movement of Hamas. Worse, Mr. Baker fostered the fatal perception that the failure of Arabs and Jews to make peace was the root of the region's problems, not a symptom of them, and that the obstacle to peace was intransigent Israel, not militant Islam. Bob Gates later gave voice to that perception when he wrote, in a 1998 New York Times op-ed, that the road to Mideast peace must "not kowtow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's obstructionism."

Michael Young in an eerily prescient essay also noted

It was music to Syrian President Bashar Assad's ears to hear James Baker, the Republican co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, advocating dialogue with Syria and Iran in an interview last month: "I don't think you restrict your conversations to your friends." The Iraq Study Group's report, expected in the coming weeks, will possibly include such an invitation. Syria's Lebanese foes fear they will pay if the U.S. and Damascus cut a deal.
If so, it wouldn't be the first time for Mr. Baker. In 1990, he was a leading light in President George H.W. Bush's administration, which ceded Lebanon to Syria in exchange for President Hafez Assad's agreement to be part of the international coalition against Iraq. An inveterate "realist," Mr. Baker is not likely to balk at negotiating with Mr. Assad if it means the U.S. can buy some peace of mind as it transforms its presence in Iraq. His proposal is unpopular at the White House, and last week Mr. Bush made that known to Mr. Baker and his colleagues. However, because of his electoral defeat, the president, pressed by a Congress avidly searching for new ideas, might find less latitude to ignore Syria down the road.

In addition Christopher Hitchens concludes

In 1991, for those who keep insisting on the importance of sending enough troops, there were half a million already-triumphant Allied soldiers on the scene. Iraq was stuffed with weapons of mass destruction, just waiting to be discovered by the inspectors of UNSCOM. The mass graves were fresh. The strength of sectarian militias was slight. The influence of Iran, still recovering from the devastating aggression of Saddam Hussein, was limited. Syria was—let's give Baker his due—"on side." The Iraqi Baathists were demoralized by the sheer speed and ignominy of their eviction from Kuwait and completely isolated even from their usual protectors in Moscow, Paris, and Beijing. There would never have been a better opportunity to "address the root cause" and to remove a dictator who was a permanent menace to his subjects, his neighbors, and the world beyond. Instead, he was shamefully confirmed in power and a miserable 12-year period of sanctions helped him to enrich himself and to create the immiserated, uneducated, unemployed underclass that is now one of the "root causes" of a new social breakdown in Iraq. It seems a bit much that the man principally responsible for all this should be so pleased with himself and that he should be hailed on all sides as the very model of the statesmanship we now need.

I'll admit that my dislike for James Baker is based on his documented antipathy for Israel. But his record isn''t nearly as successful as his fans would have us believe.

UPDATE II: Even as I bash him and his administration, it is nice to see that ex-President Bush stands up for his son.

Technorati tags: James Baker.

Council speak 11/17/06

The council spoke last Friday and with a tie-breaking cast by the Watcher himself, JoshuaPundit's March of Folly won the competition for best council post. In a nutshell, JoshuaPundit argues something I wanted to blog about but haven't (yet) and that the Republican loss this election may be tied to the Bush administration's failure to communicate. An excellent read!

Second place was newcomer American Future's The Politics of Iraq in which he argues that Republican loss does not necessarily portend disaster.

Among non-council posts the winning entry - again by virtue of a tiebreaker - was Why intellectuals love defeat at TCS Daily.

The runner up was Have you a daughter? at Reconquista, which was about the status of women in Islamist societies.

Finally, even if you're not a member of the Watcher's Council, you may submit a recent post for consideration by following the instructions here.

Technorati tags: Watcher's Council.

Taking umbridge

Well the trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is out. The release date is still 8 months away, July 13, 2007.

Here's the Yahoo! site. And here's the official American site.

And here's the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator.

I don't find this trailer as exciting as I found the one for The Goblet of Fire. (Isn't eight months early for a trailer?)

Technorati tags: Harry Potter.

Haveil Havalim #94 is UP!

What's John Conyers after?

Where should the Jewish community focus its charitable efforts?

And let's not forget Zachary Baumel!

Crossing the Rubicon3 has crossed into her third incarnation and hosted Haveil Havalim #94 today where you can to find out answers to the questions above and a lot more. She did a great job and it's well worth your while to check it out. Besides you have an extra off day this week, so when you're not eating turkey or watching football, check out some more of the best of the J-Blogosphere.

UPCOMING EDITIONS:

#95 - Nov 26, 2006 - Smooth Stone gives it a shot for the first time. e-mail at one_smoothstone at yahoo dot com.

#96 - Dec 2, 2006 - Soccer Dad plans to host.

I have a couple of volunteers in the works including for #100. I just have to confirm.

In addition to e-mail you may submit entries to Haveil Havalim using the submission form over at BlogCarnival. Or feel free to e-mail me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

Also if you'd like to host an upcoming edition e-mail me at the above address.

Remember, that while the hosts and hostesses of Haveil Havalim do a wonderful job of editing and searching for interesting posts, they can't see everything. If you want a better chance of being included in Haveil Havalim please submit one or two posts for inclusion.

Listed at the Truth Laid Bear Ubercarnival.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

Most recent editions of Haveil Havalim at Blog Carnival
#22 Mystical Paths
#21 Rabbinical Authority Consortium of HACKers
#20 Shiloh Musings
#19 Devarim
#18 Soccer Dad
#17 Mystical Paths
#16 Critical Mastiff
#15 Soccer Dad
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#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

Bolton for the door

According to the Moderate Voice.Joe Gandelman President Bush has failed his first test of bipartisanship

In other words, repeated attempts to get Bolton in place by political consensus (a vote) failed so Bush did what he has done in other vital policy decisions that could and/or should have involved Congress: he just used executive power to the fullest to do it anyway, not bothering with a trifling thing such as garnering widespread political support....which coincidentally ensures that decisions enjoy widespread accepted legitimacy and don't polarize.

Gandelman is at least gracious enough to note that Bolton hasn't destroyed the UN. But how has President Bush failed the test of bipartisanship by forwarding Bolton's name again? The whole Senate was never given the opportunity to vote on him. The Democrats and two Republicans held up his nomination in the Foreign Relations committee instead of allowing it to a floor vote where he, undoubtedly, would have won. (And I see that not every contributor at the Moderate Voice is in agreement.)

Martin Peretz wrote:

But the fact is that Moynihan and Bolton were cut from the same cloth: a bit pugnacious in their patriotism, realistic about the moral and practical limits of world-organization diplomacy, clear-headed about the fact that some nations sitting across the table from us at the United Nations are actual enemies. Bolton understands, as Moynihan did, the futility of the U.N.'s. grand bureaucracies and plastic procedures. When there is a crisis, the U.N. apparatus is mobilized to pass a resolution. A resolution is almost the be-all and end-all of the United Nations. No one seems to pay much attention to the consequences or whether there are consequences at all. Like Resolution 1559, passed two years ago. It stated quite clearly what was supposed to happen in southern Lebanon — namely, the disarming of Hezbollah and all other militias. And let us not forget its requirement that the secretary-general make a report "within thirty days" on progress toward the resolution's goals. Of course, he couldn't have reported more than nothing. This instance of impotence is not an exception to the rule; it is the rule.

An honest U.S. ambassador recognizes the logic of U.N. decision-making. Fred Iklé called it "semantic infiltration." You undermine your position by adopting your adversaries' language. What the U.N. is most often discussing is wording — wording that bridges positions. But these wordings that bridge positions are, as Moynihan understood and Bolton understands, often deep falsifications.

Outside the Beltway.Steven Taylor argues against confirming Bolton. I understand his point about minority brakes on majority action, and if Bolton had been fillibustered, I could accept that point. But Bolton wouldn't have been fillibustered, which is why the his nominaiton was killed in committee.

Republicans, in general, have been more deferential to Democratic presidential power than vise versa. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was overwhelmingly confirmed and didn't face the kind of challenge that John Roberts and Samuel Alito faced. (And she certainly didn't suffer the fate of Robert Bork.) I'm not sure that I buy into the hypocrisy charge.

Is Bolton replaceable? No doubt he is. But will his replacement be as effective?

Bolton hasn't just been an effective proponent of American policy (at least as represented by the Bush administration) he has also been an advocate for change at the hopelessly corrupt UN and a voice speaking up against the genocide in Darfur. The Heritage Foundation has a nice roundup of the work he's done and how effective he's been. (via Crossing the Rubicon3 via the Democracy Project)

But if the UN is hopelessly corrupt why is the identity of America's ambassador there so important? Because if there's any hope that the organization will be changed it will have to come from American pressure.

Right now the organization is dominated by dictatorships who see some sort of moral vindication by voting in majorities though it is a right they will never grant their own people and the bureaucrats who enable them. This status quo should be challenged and, if possible, be reversed.

Appointing Bolton isn't an ideological issue. It's an issue of an effective appointment being allowed to finish the job he started. Apparently the Democrats aren't interested in looking at results but on their own preconceived notions. Good for Gates of Vienna for working towards his appointment.

One last note. The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) recently launched a PR campaign claiming that the Republican Jewish Coalition was putting partisanship before Israel. Why has the NJDC been quiet on one of the most pro-Israel Amdassadors to the UN the United States has ever had? Surely if supporting Israel crosses partisan lines, Bolton deserves the support of pro-Israel Democrats. I see that Marvin Schick has changed his mind. Surely some other pro-Israel Democrats could acknowledge the same.

UPDATE: Fellow Maryland Blogger Alliance blogger, Kevin Dayhoff gives a nice local flavor to the Baltimore native John Bolton's confirmation troubles at the Tentacle.

Technorati tags: John Bolton.

The Moslem Charade

When Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero claims that "peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene," he is not saying anything new that has not been parroted by a host of leaders of other countries.

This raises the question of whether these leaders are merely ignorant of the facts or trying to run away from them.

After all, how else to explain how you can blame Israel for the Islamist terrorist attacks this year. I mean, isn't it a bit far fetched to say that Israel is responsible for Muslims who murder innocent civilians not only in Israel but also in...

Afghanistan, Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Chad, Chechnya, Dagestan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Ingushetia, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mali, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Philippines, Russia, Somali, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, USA and Yemen.

That is a total of 34 territories with approximately 5,736 murders and 7,265 injured victims.--go to The Religion of Peace for the gruesome details behind the murders and injuries of the victims.

An article in Maariv A Homemade Genocide, points out that if you calculate all the Arabs killed from all the Arab-Israeli conflicts--

The total count reaches about 60,000 Arabs killed in the framework of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Among them only several thousand Palestinians, although it is because of them, and only them, that Israel is the target of the world’s anger. Every Arab and Muslim death is regrettable. And it is okay to criticize Israel. But the obsessive and demonic criticism emphasizes a far more amazing fact: The silence of the world, or at least relative silence, in the face of the systematic extermination of millions of others by Muslim and Arab regimes.

Here are some of the numbers

Country	Muslims Killed
Algeria	500,000 to 1 million in the war of independence from France; 100,000 in the civil war in the 90’s.
Sudan	2.6 million to 3 million
Afghanistan	One million to one and a half million, as a result of the Soviet invasion; about one million in the civil war.
Somalia	400,000 to 550,000 victims in the civil war.
Bangladesh	1.4 million to 2 million killed by Pakistan
Indonesia	400,000 killed, with an additional 100,000 to 200,000 in East Timor
Iraq	Iraq Summary: 1.54 million to 2 million victims. Iran Summary: 450,000 to 970,000 victims.
Lebanon	130,000
Yemen	100,000 to 150,000 fatalities
Chechnya	80,000 to 300,000 fatalities

In 1983, in a chapter he added to his book The Arab Mind, Rafael Patai lists Muslim vs. Muslim conflicts that took place from 1970 through 1983 alone:

1. Intermittent disputes involving border warfare and assassinations between South Yemen on the one hand, and North Yemen and Saudi Arabia, on the other since the early 1970's. A brief but fierce border war between the two Yemens took place as recently as March, 1979.

2. A major and bloody, albeit brief, conflict between Jordan and Palestinian guerrillas in 1970, complicated by Syrian intervention.

3. Fighting between the Kurds and the Iraqis, which lasted several years.

4. A bloody conflict between Northern and Southern Sudan, 1956-1972.

5. Clashes between South Yemen and Oman, linked to the Dhofar rebellion, 1972-1976.

6. A tripartite conflict between Algeria on the one hand and Morocco and Mauritania, on the other, over the control of the former Spanish Sahara, beginning in 1976 and subsequently transformed into guerrilla warfare against Morocco by the Polisario, the freedom fighters of the Western Sahara, supported by Algeria and Libya, which was still in progress in 1982.

7. Intermittent hostility, and actual border fighting, including air attacks, between Egypt and Libya in 1977.

8. The Lebanese civil war, which began in 1975, involving two outside parties, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization, still unresolved in early 1982.

9. The invasion of Chad by Libya in 1980.

10. The war between Iraq and Iran, which began in the fall of 1980, in which Iraq is supported by Jordan and Iran by Syria, making it in effect, an inter-Arab conflict. It was still in progress in early 1982.

11. In February, 1982, a conflict flared up between the Syrian government and Muslim fundamentalists in the Syrian city of Hama, in which several thousands were killed and major parts of Hama were destroyed. [p.357-358]

The Maariv article mentions that:

Since WWII, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the national conflict with the lowest number of victims, but with the world’s highest number of publications hostile to Israel in the media and in the Academia.

So what is going on? Why is Israel not only being singled out for condemnation, but being blamed as the source for unrest in the Middle East and terrorism around the world?

The article uses words like "obsession," "anti-Semitism," and "cover up"--among others--in trying to explain the obvious bias and the obfuscation of the modern history of the Middle East and of the current war between Islamists and the West. Moslems, for the most part, refuse to accept responsibility for the heightened tensions. Instead, they are ready to blame others while twisting any criticism for the obvious ties between Moslems and the current terror threat into an attack upon Islam. Democracies are reeling under the threat of growing Moslem majorities who refuse to assimilate into the culture and speak of imposing Islamic law. The right of Free Speech has become paralyzed as it is successfully limited as to where it can be applied.

But the only consistent action the West has managed to take with all the threats it faces is to gang up on Israel and try to force a peace down it's throat that will do nothing to resolve the problems facing Israel, the Middle East, or the West as a whole.

Enough of the charade.

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Moslems and Terrorism and Islamists

To tide you over ...

Haveil Havalim this week is scheduled for tomorrow at Crossing the Rubicon3.

Next Sunday's host is Smooth Stone so get your submissions in.

In the meantime if you're interested in roundups of the J-Blogosphere, check out the Best of ... collection at Jack's Shack. It's a self selected group of bloggers' favorite posts.

During the week bloggers SerAndEz and Judeopundit often have roundups so those are good places to check between Sundays. (I loved Judeopundit's announcement for last week's Haveil Havalim. I also appreciated Bagel Blogger's clever graphic for the occasion. (If you regularly have roundup of Jewish or Israel related blogs, let me know so I can update the list.)

And while she doesn't have regular link roundups, The Ignoble Experiment often updates and reviews her blogroll.

Plus last week saw the twelfth edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival. KCC is the brainchild of Shiloh Musings.

Check out the insanity at today's Carnival of the Insanities. (Yes I had an entry in it.)

Technorati tags: Blog Carnivals, jewish blogs.

I thought that o'malley was getting rid of special interests

In his commercials targeting Gov. Ehrlich, Gov. elect Martin O'Malley hit the governor for his support of special or corporate interests. I was intrigued by this bit I read about O'Malley's transition team.

Featured on the panel are current or former officials with three powerful unions that backed O'Malley's gubernatorial bid but have met a cold reception from the executive branch during Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich's tenure: the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Service Employees International Union Local 1199 and the Maryland State Teachers Association.

The labor groups were visible supporters of the mayor's campaign, providing him with well-funded get-out-the vote efforts that contributed to O'Malley's surprisingly large 7-percentage-point victory last week. Many polls and pundits had been predicting a tight race.

Union members hope the new administration is sympathetic to their goals. The service union is pushing to restore a law that requires large employers - notably Wal-Mart - to spend more on employee health care. Teachers want pension improvements.

Well union members need not worry about O'Malley's support fort he Wal-mart bill. He and fellow candidate Doug Duncan both tried to score political points against Gov. Ehrlich by declaring that they'd have signed the bill that Ehrlich vetoed. In doing so both demonstrated their ignorance of economics.

Of course there's also the question of how O'Malley can criticize Gov. Ehrlich for being too close to special interests, when he himself owes unions - special interests by another name - big time, and is apparently in lockstep with their priorities?

Technorati tags: Martin O'Malley, Unions.

The great space elevator

When I first heard of this story, I thought it was crazy. What? You push a button and go through the roof into outer space like Charlie and the great glass elevator?

(No, I'm not familiar with the Arthur C. Clarke story that apparently inspired the ideas. But there was a really awful episode of Star Trek Voyager that took place aboard a space elevator. I kept hoping that somehow Neelix would get shoved out an airlock to certain death so there'd at least be something I'd enjoy.)

Apparently NASA's been thinking of this for awhile.

While the field seems to be dominated by individuals there's at least one company that has its sights on fielding a space elevator by 2002 called LiftPort.

But I don't think they'll run into any vermicious knids.

Technorati tags: Space Elevator, NASA, liftport.

Only a political failure

Interesting, Charles Krauthammer blames the American failure in Iraq on ... the Iraqis. In Can the Iraqis Keep Their Republic? (or here)

Nonetheless, the root problem lies with Iraqis and their political culture.

Our objectives in Iraq were twofold and always simple: depose Saddam and replace his murderous regime with a self-sustaining, democratic government.

The first was relatively easy. But Iraq's first truly democratic government turned out to be hopelessly feeble and fractured, little more than a collection of ministries handed over to various parties, militias and strongmen.

The problem is not, as we endlessly argue about, the number of American troops. Or of Iraqi troops. The problem is the allegiance of the Iraqi troops. Some serve the abstraction called Iraq. But many swear fealty to political parties, religious sects or militia leaders.

Are the Arabs intrinsically incapable of democracy, as the "realists'' imply? True, there are political, historical, even religious reasons why Arabs are less prepared for democracy than, say, East Asians and Latin Americans who successfully democratized over the last several decades. But the problem here is Iraq's particular political culture, raped and ruined by 30 years of Saddam's totalitarianism.

Krauthammer goes on to argue that the United States should encourage the disintegration of the political Shi'ite hegemony in the current government. Only after a new broader based coalition is formed might we start to see the politcal situation stabilizing.

I don't know if I buy Krauthammer's faith in the political process solving many problems in Iraq. I find Daniel Pipes's prescription for a "benevolent strongman" to be more convincing.

Daniel Pipes still subscribes to this notion. (Just as attractive as he found the idea two years ago.) The Pipes approach of focusing on stability before democracy is very appealing. Pipes felt that the first elected president of Iraq, Ayad Allawi, would serve well in the capacity of a benevolent strongman who could stabilize the country and prepare it for democracy.

Interestingly, while pointing to American mistakes in Iraq, neither Krauthammer nor Pipes sounds like he's panicking.

UPDATE: via Memeorandum Don Surber makes an excellent point about expectations past

Consider the "success" in Kosovo. We bombed the hell out of what was once Yugoslovia 8 years ago. Is it a flourishing democracy now? Hell no. It still has problems.

It's also worth remembering that when NATO fought against Serbia to save Kosovo, NATO targeted the civilian in order to force the political leadership to surrender.

Don Surber also asks

I am puzzled. Arabs and Muslims seem quite capable of adapting Western technology. They desire our computers, our nuclear weaponry and even our plastic surgery. But they seem ignorant of what makes these great things possible.

Why is it that they have not seen clear to adopt the foundation for all these great discoveries -- this age of invention -- this unlocking of the secrets of the universe -- is our democracy?

Technorati tags: Iraq, Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes.

Pillage idiot's a jester

This is great!

UPDATE: While we're on the subject of funny photos, check out this classic at Crossing the Rubicon3.

And while we're on the topic of Jimmy Carter, Pillage Idiot recommends HotAir's synopsis that includes a link to the book review by Jewish Current Issues at American Thinker that, remarkably, was picked up by Martin Peretz.

Technorati tag: Democrats.

Oj simpson vs. celebrity a

I understand the outrage over the OJ Simpson's book deal and TV tie in. I really do. I certainly understand Fred Goldman's outrage and anger. And the anger of the Brown family. However I'd like to compare OJ to another celebrity who got away with murder. We'll call him celebrity A.

OJ Simpson	Celebrity A
murdered two people	hundreds killed at his command or instigation
got a book deal	received a Nobel peace prize
promised to find his wife's killer	promised to stop terror
escaped in a Bronco	enjoyed the company of a hyena
lives off a generous pension that is immune to the judgment against him	received and embezzled millions in foreign aid
mocked by late night talk show hosts	given a state funeral

You've probably figured out that celebrity A was Yasser Arafat who departed this life two years ago.

Yes the News Corporation's decision to give OJ a book deal and then promote it with a TV is morally indefensible.

But OJ's horrific crimes in no way compare to Arafat's absolute and ongoing evil. But where was the outrage (except from the pro-Israel crowd) when Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize? Where was the outrage when world leaders flew from all around the world to his funeral?

Be shocked and be outraged at OJ's return to the spotlight. But realize that the situation is not nearly as outrageous as the many honors the world bestowed upon Yasser Arafat, an unrepentant terrorist.

Technorati tags: OJ Simpson, Yasser Arafat.

Borei minei v'samim

My father taught me a nice custom some time ago. He embalmed an essrog.

An essrog (citron) is one of the plants that is used during prayers during the holiday of Sukkos (Tabernacles). But after Sukkos, what can you do with an essrog.

Some people make jelly out of it.

Others, like my father, embalm it.

I believe I've seen a process of embalming an essrog that involves making some sort of perserving liquid to soak the essrog in prior to inserting the spices. But I'm not so fancy.

I take a nail and puncture the skin of the essrog. Then, I take cloves of allspice and insert it into the hole.

As you can see in the pictures, I did the embalming at different times. The earlier work was done on the left side, where the cloves are more closely packed. After puncturing the essrog, the juice escapes (some of which is absorbed into the cloves.) The right will shrink over the next few days now that I've punctured that side.

I did the first part with our seven and five year old children.

After the essrog has been embalmed another one of the arba minim (four kinds - of plants) can be added to the mix. The pleasant smelling hadassim (myrtle branches) maintains a nice smell even when dried. But it also absorbs odors. The combined essrog-hadassim-allspice combination is very nice.

So why do this?

Because once we've fulfilled the obligation of using the essrog over Sukkos, it's preferable to use it for another observance rather than discarding it. After Shabbos (the Sabbath) during havdalah (separation) it is customary to make a blessing and smell spices. The embalmed essrog is a very pleasant to observe this mitzvah.

The smell of an embalmed essrog does fade over time. Adding hadassim each year though, keeps a smell around.

Hopefully I can get the children to decorate the plastic container.

Technorati tags: Essrog, Sukkos, Judaism.

Palestinian independence now and then

Leave it to the scholarly Elder of Ziyon to recall that Nov 15 was Palestinian Independence day.

In the first part of his post, EoZ deconstructs some of the more absurd claims from the Palesitnian Declaration of Independence. Though he did leave out the following ...

The rights of minorities will duly be respected by the majority, as minorities must abide by decisions of the majority.

Given the exodus of Christians from the PA ruled areas, this claim of respect for minorities is a further sign of a farce. (And what sort of respect for minorities can there be if the same statement that promises them protection also says, in essence, the majority reserves the right to dictate how you will live, with no regards to your aspirations. But I didn't notice the internal contradictions in the statement when I first saw it.)

If you read the Declaration of independence and are impressed (or bewildered) by the flowery language, you might not be surprised to learn that it was written by (or inspired by) an academic. Jerome Segal, a philosophy professor at the University of Maryland claims that

... his essays in Palestinian and American papers played a catalytic role in the PLO's decision to issue a Declaration of Independence and launch a unilateral peace initiative.

(I believe that I'd read elsewhere that Segal had a hand in writing the document, but I can't find any such claim now.)

After explicating select sections of the Declaration, EoZ rightly observes

For over a year, not a single Israeli soldier stepped foot in Gaza. For over a year, the PalArabs had every opportunity to prove that they were not a nation of terrorists and criminals, but that they were a peace-loving and progressive people. For over a year, they could have built industry and an economy. They had industrial zones they shared with Israel; they had greenhouses that brought in millions of dollars in revenue bought by American Jewish money, they even had a border crossing with Egypt that was not being monitored by Israel directly where they could import and export goods and services. They had an election where they could have voted in a government that cared about their day-to-day lives.

Each and every opportunity was not only wasted, but turned into a means to terrorize and wage war against Israel. Gaza is now a lawless wasteland, far worse than when it was under the dreaded "occupation." The only manufacturing industry of note in Gaza is the Qassam industry.

Eighteen years ago, much of the world hailed the Palesitnian Declaratoin as a sign that the PLO had accepted Israel and renounced violence. At the time, Charles Krauthammer observed that they had done nothing of the kind. ( The Ball's still in Arafat's Court, The Washington Post, Nov. 18, 1988)

"In Algiers tonight, the Palestinian National Council voted to reject terrorism, declare an independent Palestinian state and for the first time to recognize Israel's right to exist." So announced ABC News on Monday, Nov. 14. ABC likes to call itself "uniquely qualified to bring you the news." And it does require unusual gullibility and ignorance for a news organization to issue a report so false. But in mis-covering Algiers, ABC was not alone. All the other electronic media that I sampled --Story No. 1 is the PLO's "rejection of terrorism." The PLO has renounced terrorism dozens of times. Like the alcoholic who is an expert on giving up drink since he has done it so many times, the PLO has done it again -- and with the same sleight of hand. It used the oldest PLO ploy on the subject, couching any apparent rejection of terrorism in the context of relevant U.N. resolutions defining terrorism. Since these U.N. resolutions say that national liberation movements have the right to acts of "struggle" and "resistance," and since every act of murder and butchery ever committed by the PLO has by (PLO) definition been an act of "struggle" and "resistance," the PLO has therefore never engaged in terror. Nothing to renounce. QED. The Palestinians' rhetorical rejection of terrorism at Algiers was thus both customary and empty. It was certainly not news.

No matter how many times various Palestinian leaders had co-operated enough for the word "peace" to be put into their mouths, the actions of the Palestinians have never matched even the most generous construing of their words. What EoZ observes is what happens when people deluded themselves.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Technorati tags: Palestinians, Independence, Jerome Segal, Israel.

Taken for a ride - my only in israel story

West Bank Mama wanted "Only in Israel" stories. She didn't require that they not have been previously published. Here's mine.

Published in the May 2003 issue of Where, What and When

Since returning from my family’s recent trip to Israel, I’ve been asked (in different forms) is “What’s different about Israel?” In other words given the current situation (or “matzav” in Hebrew), how has Israel responded.

The most obvious change is the ubiquity of security guards. They are more commonplace than I recall. And stricter, too.

One night I entered a store and was questioned in extremely fast fashion. I missed the question. I didn’t get the question until I heard “ekdach” (pistol in Hebrew), and answered negatively. Subsequent encounters with security guards made it clear that I was probably being asked “Yesh lecha neshek?” (“Do you have a weapon?”)

Another possible sign of the situation is the attitude of cabbies. Cab drivers often offer clues as to the atmosphere in their country of residence.

It’s true that I’ve never used taxis the way I used them in this visit, so I have no basis of comparison. Still I can speak for the attitudes of taxi drivers in April 2003.

Maybe it’s the dearth of tourists. Maybe it’s a simple realization that it is more effective have a customer than simply having a succession of one-time fares. Cab drivers now seem intent on cultivating a clientele. Most are quite friendly too.

Many cab drivers had business cards and others, even if they didn’t, would ask that we call them in case we needed another ride.

My first driver was Yaakov, the son of Moroccan immigrants; a friendly driver who took me from Bet Shemesh to the airport to pick up my rental car.

After discussing Yaakov’s past – he previously had worked for the JNF ( or KKL) and helped develop properties into parks – we started talking current events.

Since, during the previous week, Baghdad fell to American forces we talked a bit about that. He surprised me, for when I mentioned that the pulling down of Saddam’s statue reminded me of the fall of Ceausescu in Romania, he told me that he visited Romania with some friends a few years ago. But he told me that Ceausescu was succeeded not by democracy but by a mafia.

He also offered his thoughts on Iraq. He thought that there would be an improvement in Iraq for Israel but that Arabs were incapable of democracy as we know it.

Before I left the cab, he offered to wait until I had rented the car so I could follow him back to Bet Shemesh. I told him that it wasn’t necessary. (Despite my misgivings, I had no difficulty finding my way back to Bet Shemesh.) He also asked me to consider using his services in the future and handed me a business card.

Yaakov’s initiative paid off quickly. While at the rental agency I discovered that I didn’t have my passport. The agency kindly informed me that without my passport they couldn’t rent the car. So I called Anne and asked her to come with my passport. I suggested that she call Yaakov. (I had a little delay before renting.) He had returned to Bet Shemesh by the time I talked to Anne and he drove her to the airport.

Bet Shemesh is the home to Monit Bet Shemesh (Bet Shemesh Taxi). This fleet of red and white minivans seems to have an impressive operation. The cabs mostly run between Yerushalayim and Bet Shemesh.

In Yerushalayim, they are based right near the bus station. The cost of a trip to Bet Shemesh is lower than that of the bus. And you don’t have to wait for a bus; just for a cab to fill. That happens on a regular basis.

In Bet Shemesh they are a phone call away. Or if you’re waiting for a bus, one of these taxis is likely to be scouting the bus stops before the next scheduled bus arrives.

On our final Friday morning in Israel Anne and I, and our two daughters were headed into Yerushalayim and that’s exactly where a driver found us – waiting for a bus. We said we’d be willing to go as a sherut (shared taxi – cheaper but would take a little longer) and got in.

As our driver drove through Bet Shemesh trying to fill his cab with other riders to Yerushalayim, he made a few stops. At one another man approached the driver’s window with two big shopping bags. The man and the driver had a spirited discussion. Judging by his response, our driver lost the argument. The man handed him the bags, and our ride continued.

A short while later we saw another Monit Bet Shemesh heading toward us. The cabs approached and stopped. Our driver opened the window and handed the other driver a small bag from one of the shopping bags. This happened another time or two before we left Bet Shemesh and we were curious. We asked the driver what was going on and he simply informed us that it was Friday, seemingly unwilling to volunteer any more details.

Later I got the courage to probe a bit. “Are those challahs?” I ventured. “Sandwiches,” he replied. And we didn’t discuss the matter further.

The Friday sandwiches remained a mystery for another few days until our trip home.

During her annual stays in Israel, my mother has become friendly with Mr. Alfasi, a driver of a Monit Bet Shemesh. Given the need of getting 15 Gerstmans to the airport to go back to America, my mother hired him to take us.

There’s a reason Mr. Alfasi gets along with my mother. He is quite friendly and very helpful. I decided to take advantage of his good nature and asked him in my best Hebrew, “What’s the story of sandwiches on Friday?”

Mr. Alfasi laughed and told us that there was Yemenite woman who had two sons working for the company. Every Friday she made sandwiches filled with Yemenite delicacies for all the drivers. “Charif (very spicy)”, Mr. Alfasi added. The woman’s kindness didn’t go unappreciated, every holiday the drivers got together and got her a gift.

Maybe the friendliness isn’t just a ploy; maybe driving a cab draws in genuinely friendly people. Overall I found cabdrivers to be an unexpected pleasure during my time in Israel.

Technorati tags: Only in Israel.

Crude homemade rockets

Yesterday Meryl Yourish took issue with the way the media portrays attacks on Israel from Gaza.

Say, those “crude, homemade rockets” that “rarely do any damage”?

They killed a woman, and cause the loss of both legs of a 24-year-old man. These people, however, have no names in the AP report.

But these attacks from Gaza mustn't be viewed simply for the limited (though sometimes catastrophic) damage that they caused. Like the sporadic attacks on the north by Hezbollah from 2000 - 2006, the continued attacks must be viewed as a statement of hositility and intent to attack more aggressively in the future. Minimizing these attacks as is done in the media only ignores the growing threat coming from Gaza.

Israel vs. The Alliance of Civilizations

The UN has assembled the Alliance of Civilization to resolve the conflict between Muslim and Western civilizations. Its conclusion: it doesn't exist...and it's Israel's fault anyway.

A UN-sponsored group called the Alliance of Civilizations, created last year to find ways to bridge the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies, released a first report Monday that says the conflict over Israel and the Palestinian territories is the central driver in global tensions.

"Our emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not meant to imply that it is the overt cause of all tensions between Muslim and Western societies," write the report's authors, a group of academics and present and former government officials from 19 different countries. "Nevertheless, it is our view that the Israeli-Palestinian issue has taken on a symbolic value that colors cross cultural and political relations ... well beyond its limited geographic scope."

So that is the source for the 6,584 killed and injured by Muslim terrorists around the world since 9/11.

Actually, it's not all Israel's fault--that would unfair.
No, it's America's fault too.

Criticism of US policies, though at times oblique, is a major feature of the document and hits on themes that have angered representatives of the Bush administration in the past. For instance, in a discussion of Al Qaeda's attack on the US on Sept. 11, the report states: "Later, these attacks were presented as one of the justifications for the invasion of Iraq, whose link with them has never been demonstrated, feeding a perception among Muslim societies of unjust aggression stemming from the West."

A copy of the report is available here. The report includes suggestions and ways to implement them--and many of the ideas are really thoughtful, such as the need to ensure accuracy in the media.

But it is hard to take the report seriously when you read things like this:

4.4 The partition of Palestine by the United Nations in 1947, envisaging the establishment of two states - Palestine and Israel - with a special status for Jerusalem, led to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, beginning a chain of events that continues to be one of the most tortuous in relations between Western and Muslim societies. Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories and the unresolved status of Jerusalem - a holy city for Muslims and Christians as well as Jews – have persisted with the perceived acquiescence of Western governments and thus are primary causes of resentment and anger in the Muslim world toward Western nations. This occupation has been perceived in the Muslim world as a form of colonialism and has led many to believe, rightly or wrongly, that Israel is in collusion with “the West”. These resentments and perceptions were further exacerbated by Israel’s disproportionate retaliatory actions in Gaza and Lebanon. [emphasis added]

o Again with the "occupation"--putting aside the control that Palestinian Arabs now have in Gaza as well as Yehudah and Shomron: since Palestinian Arabs never had sovereign control over those areas, they are indeed disputed, but not 'occupied'.

o Israeli occupation of "other Arab territories"? It's not clear which area, acquired in which defensive war, is being referred to. (Shaba'a Farms? Golan?) But the language used is not only vague but needlessly provocative as well.

o Jerusalem--considering the context of the paragraph, is the report seriously suggesting that Israel is the cause of the existing tension in that area, or that if only given the chance the Wakf would be happy to share control?

o 'Disproportionate' actions in Gaza and Lebanon--along with "occupied" and "unresolved status of Jerusalem"--the newly favored buzzword for those that put the onus for peace on Israel.

Which raises the question of who is part of this Alliance of Civilizations?

The report is the result of a UN-sanctioned "High Level Group" meeting of some twenty "eminent personalities" that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed last year. The group, which was cosponsored by the Prime Ministers of Turkey and Spain and included among its authors Nobel Peace Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami, issued the final report on Nov. 13 at its final meeting in Istanbul.

Co-sponsored by the Prime Ministers of Turkey and Spain? Oh, you mean these guys:

Prime Ministers Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey called on the international community to act urgently against Israeli attacks on Palestinians. “It’s not possible to accept what’s happening in Palestine. Innocent people, women, children and old people are killed,” Erdogan said during a news conference.

“The world can’t stay silent against these atrocities, against this use of excessive force,” he said. Zapatero underlined the necessity of an “urgent” intervention by the international community to stop Israeli bombings of the Palestinian territories.

Lost somewhere in there is the outrage at the Palestinian bombing of Israelis.

Well, at least Nobel Peace Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu is on the team. Mort Klein even has a helpful list of Tutu quotes:

o "Israel is like Hitler and apartheid"

o Tutu accused Jews of exhibiting "an arrogance--the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support,"

o Tutu has claimed that Zionism has "very many parallels with racism."

o Tutu said that "the Jews thought they had a monopoly on God; Jesus was angry that they could shut out other human beings." In the same speech, he compared the features of the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem to the features of the apartheid system in South Africa.

And what about former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami? Amir Taheri saw Khatami's visit to the US in September as

an opportunity for the U.S. media to ask Khatami about the atrocities committed by his administration, including the assassination of dissidents, the arrest and torture of thousands of people, including trade unionists and student leaders, the closing of over 150 newspapers and magazines, the banning of hundreds of books and dozens of films, the arming of the Hezbollah in Lebanon, shipping weapons to Yasser Arafat's terror units and Islamic Jihad, and providing the Jaish al-Mahdi in Iraq with money and arms.

So much for the 'eminent personalities' in this group.

As John Hood points out, according to the report:

There is no clash of civilizations, no fundamental tension between modern, industrial societies with free institutions and a largely pre-modern, un-free Islamic world. Thus, terrorism and the threat of nuclear proliferation within and from Islamic countries are not serious threats to life and liberty, and don't deserve all the attention and preventive action from the U.S. and its allies.

Alliance of Civilizations?
Sounds more like Dalliance of Civilizations.

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: UN and Alliance of Civilizations and Bishop Desmond Tutu and Israel and Mohammad Khatami

Congressman Conyers and Islam

John Conyers, D-MI, is likely to become new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Last year, just for practice, he held a mock impeachment hearing of President Bush in anticipation of the real thing.

But Conyers has other plans as well--especially on behalf of his Muslim constituency. Just take a look at his House Resolution 288:

Text of My Resolution Regarding Religious Intolerance

I received a large number of comments, and quite a spirited debate, concerning my resolution opposing religious intolerance, including desecration of the Quran. I appreciate all of the comments, both those supporting and opposing my actions. I continue to believe that given recent events, it is worthwhile for the Congress to actually express its support for the freedom of religion. The resolution was drafted to oppose all religious intolerance. To the extent it mentions the Quran and Islam specifically, that is obviously to respond to those who believe our nation would tolerate disrespect of that religion or its holy book. Clearly we should not, at least in my opinion. [emphasis added]

Here is the actual text of Resolution 288, as it appears on Conyers' web site, seeking religious tolerance for all religions while placing a heavy emphasis on protection of Islam :

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives condemning bigotry and religious intolerance, and recognizing that holy books of every religion should be treated with dignity and respect.

Whereas believers of all religions, including the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, should be treated with respect and dignity;

Whereas the word Islam comes from the Arabic root word meaning “peace” and “submission”;

Whereas there are an estimated 7,000,000 Muslims in America, from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, forming an integral part of the social fabric of America;

Whereas the Quran is the holy book for Muslims who recite passages from it in prayer and learn valuable lessons about peace, humanity and spirituality;
Whereas it should never be official policy of the United States Government to disparage the Quran, Islam, or any religion in any way, shape, or form;

Whereas mistreatment of prisoners and disrespect toward the holy book of any religion is unacceptable and against civilized humanity;

Whereas the infringement of an individual’s right to freedom of religion violates the Constitution and laws of the United States: Now, therefore, be it

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) condemns bigotry, acts of violence, and intolerance against any religious group, including our friends, neighbors, and citizens of the Islamic faith;

(2) declares that the civil rights and civil liberties of all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith, should be protected;

(3) recognizes that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, as any other holy book of any religion, should be treated with dignity and respect; and

(4) calls upon local, State, and Federal authorities to work to prevent bias-motivated crimes and acts against all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith.

The problem is that there is no reason to single out Islam as being especially deserving of respect and tolerance.

o For 2005 the FBI report on bias attacks indicates that 68.5 were anti-Jewish while only 11.1 were anti-Islamic. In other words, when it comes to bias attacks--Jews are far and away the group that is in greater danger and more in need of protection

o For 2004, the FBI report indicated that 67.8 were anti-Jewish and 12.7 showed anti-Islamic bias. This indicates that the trend shows that while anti-Jewish bias attacks were slightly up--anti-Islamic attacks actually went down.

o An investigation by Daniel Pipes of the anti-Islamic bias attacks reported by CAIR in 2004 showed "sloppiness, exaggeration, and distortion." Two of the claims were actually cases of arson by Moslem store owners themselves, using the story of anti-Islamic bias to cover what they had done. The American Thinker describes a third such case. Other reported attacks lacked evidence or were actually reported by CAIR twice. Further incidences of falsified accounts of Muslim hate crimes going back to 2003 can be found on Michelle Malkin's blog: Myth of the Muslim hate crime epidemic and More Muslim hate crime myths. A report on NPR investigating the reporting of bias crimes in general noted that

any bias incident, from a Muslim being yelled at from a passing car, to a Muslim being profiled on a plane, can wind up in CAIR's report

Yet it is understandable that Conyers would go out of his way to assuage his Muslim constituency.

Far out of his way.

As already noted, Conyers has met with Mohammed Ali Elahi, who has ties with Hezbollah, and has received money from the American Muslim Council, which has openly supported Hamas. In 2005, Conyers sponsored a resolution condemning Narendra Modi, chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat--which led the US government to refuse him entry into the US. The reason given for the condemnation was that in 2002, a Muslim mob burned a train, killing 58 Hindus. As a result, anti-Muslim riots broke out and some Muslim and human-rights groups said Modi failed to stop the violence. Conyers claimed to have taken his cue from CAIR, whose own background reveals ties to terrorism

*Four of CAIR’s officials have been charged with terrorist activities, in relation to Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Two of those officials are behind bars in the United States; the other two have been deported. One of them, Ghassan Elashi, was just sentenced, this past Thursday, to seven years in prison. Another CAIR official was listed by the U.S. Attorney’s office as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

*CAIR has solicited money for two terrorist “charities” which were shut down shortly after the attacks on 9/11 for raising millions of dollars for Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Leaders of both these organizations were representatives of CAIR.

*CAIR has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit put forward by the family of the former Chief of the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Section, John P. O’Neill, for his murder during the 9/11 attacks.

*CAIR’s parent organization, the Islamic Association for Palestine, in 2005, was shut down after it was found liable for the murder of an American boy, David Boim, during a Hamas terror operation in Israel.

Conyers claims that his resolution singles out tolerance for Muslims "obviously to respond to those who believe our nation would tolerate disrespect of that religion or its holy book." Such a straw-man argument, especially in light of the numerous bogus reportings of anti-Islamic bias crimes by CAIR does nothing for furthering the respect that is supposed to be the goal of Conyers' resolution to begin with.

If anything the resolution--with its call that "it should never be official policy of the United States Government to disparage the Quran, Islam, or any religion in any way, shape, or form" implies a chilling effect on open discussion and debate.

How odd that Congressman Conyers, who stages a mock impeachment of the current President of the United States, should suddenly get cold feet when it comes to discussing a religion whose more extremist followers have declared war on the West.

by Daled Amos

Thanks to Little Green Footballs, Atlas Shrugs, Pajama Media, Memeorandum and JoshuaPundit for the link!

Technorati Tag: John Conyers and CAIR and Islam

Making mischief in the middle east

Israeli opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu is raising the alarm about Iranian ambitions in the Middle East (and the world.)

"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs," Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly, repeating the line several times, like a chorus, during his address. "Believe him and stop him," the opposition leader said of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."

While the Iranian president "denies the Holocaust," Netanyahu said, "he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."

Netanyahu spoke of the need to strike at Iran's nuclear facility.

Speaking on Army Radio on Tuesday, Netanyahu hinted that Israel possesses the military capabilities necessary for curbing by itself the Iranian nuclear threat, declining to specify what these entail.

The Likud chairman said "I don't want to analyze the capability required to eliminate [the Iranian] threat, but this capability exists," when told by host Razi Barkai that Israel lacks the ability to eliminate Tehran's nuclear program by military means.

"This capability is eroded over time, and if we wait years then obviously this capability would not exist anymore ... but right now I disagree with the claim that nothing can be done against Iran," he added.

When asked if Bush could afford embarking on another "military adventure" after Iraq, Netanyahu said acting on the Iranian nuclear program would not be adventurous but necessary.

The question about another military adventure for the United States at this point is valid. Given that the Bush administration just received a rebuke from the American public about its war in Iraq, the possibility of President Bush rallying the nation for another war is just about nil.

In the current edition of Commentary Arthur Herman wrote, "Getting Serious about Iran - A military option" (link good until the end of 11/2006) that suggests a plan of attack that doesn't require a strike against the facility itself. Prof Herman argues that Iran's most significant current threat is conventional not nuclear right now and proposes

The first step would be to make it clear that the United States will tolerate no action by any state that endangers the international flow of commerce in the Straits of Hormuz. Signaling our determination to back up this statement with force would be a deployment in the Gulf of Oman of minesweepers, a carrier strike group’s guided-missile destroyers, an Aegis-class cruiser, and anti-submarine assets, with the rest of the carrier group remaining in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Navy could also deploy UAV’s (unmanned air vehicles) and submarines to keep watch above and below against any Iranian missile threat to our flotilla.

Our next step would be to declare a halt to all shipments of Iranian oil while guaranteeing the safety of tankers carrying non-Iranian oil and the platforms of other Gulf states. We would then guarantee this guarantee by launching a comprehensive air campaign aimed at destroying Iran’s air-defense system, its air-force bases and communications systems, and finally its missile sites along the Gulf coast. At that point the attack could move to include Iran’s nuclear facilities—not only the “hard” sites but also infrastructure like bridges and tunnels in order to prevent the shifting of critical materials from one to site to another.

Above all, the air attack would concentrate on Iran’s gasoline refineries. It is still insufficiently appreciated that Iran, a huge oil exporter, imports nearly 40 percent of its gasoline from foreign sources, including the Gulf states. With its refineries gone and its storage facilities destroyed, Iran’s cars, trucks, buses, planes, tanks, and other military hardware would run dry in a matter of weeks or even days. This alone would render impossible any major countermoves by the Iranian army. (For its part, the Iranian navy is aging and decrepit, and its biggest asset, three Russian-made Kilo-class submarines, should and could be destroyed before leaving port.)

The scenario would not end here. With the systematic reduction of Iran’s capacity to respond, an amphibious force of Marines and special-operations forces could seize key Iranian oil assets in the Gulf, the most important of which is a series of 100 offshore wells and platforms built on Iran’s continental shelf. North and South Pars offshore fields, which represent the future of Iran’s oil and natural-gas industry, could also be seized, while Kargh Island at the far western edge of the Persian Gulf, whose terminus pumps the oil from Iran’s most mature and copiously producing fields (Ahwaz, Marun, and Gachsaran, among others), could be rendered virtually useless. By the time the campaign was over, the United States military would be in a position to control the flow of Iranian oil at the flick of a switch.

_____________________
An operational fantasy? Not in the least. The United States did all this once before, in the incident I have already alluded to. In 1986-88, as the Iran-Iraq war threatened to spill over into the Gulf and interrupt vital oil traffic, the United States Navy stepped in, organizing convoys and re-flagging ships to protect them against vengeful Iranian attacks. When the Iranians tried to seize the offensive, U.S. vessels sank one Iranian frigate, crippled another, and destroyed several patrol boats. Teams of SEALS also shelled and seized Iranian oil platforms. The entire operation, the largest naval engagement since World War II, not only secured the Gulf; it also compelled Iraq and Iran to wind down their almost decade-long war. Although we made mistakes, including most grievously the accidental shooting-down of a civilian Iranian airliner, killing everyone on board, the world economic order was saved—the most important international obligation the United States faced then and faces today.

In essence his argument is to bankrupt the mullahs in charge of Iran. It may be more technically feasible than attacking the Iranian nuclear facility, but it still doesn't address the question put to Netanyahu. How would President Bush garner the necessary political support to take such bold action?

Meanwhile Iran's beefed up its proxy Hezbollah. The Times of London reports that Hezbollah's arsenal in southern Lebanon has now been restocked, and then some.

FOUR months after Israel launched its onslaught against Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrillas are back in south Lebanon stronger than ever and armed with more rockets than they had before the conflict, according to Israeli intelligence.
During the month-long war, which began on July 12, Hezbollah fired 200 to 250 rockets a day into Israel, killing 43 civilians and terrorising much of the north of the country.
“Since the ceasefire, additional rockets, weapons and military equipment have reached Hezbollah,” said an Israeli intelligence officer. “We assume they now have about 20,000 rockets of all ranges — a bit more than they had before July 12.”

And it isn't just that Hezbollah has re-armed, it is on the verge of dominating Lebanon politically too, as Right Wing Nuthouse observes

If the Shia ministers cannot be coaxed back into the government, Lebanon is in deep trouble. It isn’t likely that the March 14th forces would agree to new elections (the result of which probably wouldn’t change the parliamentary lineup very much) and Nasrallah cares little for democracy anyway. What Nasrallah wanted he got – a confrontation with the government that will now move to the streets. And that’s where his Iranian trained fighters, mostly absent from the war with Israel this past summer, will be used to great effectiveness. The other sectarian militias have no force comparable to the highly trained and motivated core of Hizbollah fanatics. Nor do they have much in the way of heavy weapons. Hizbollah has all the support they need from Syria and Iran in the form of money, weapons, and diplomatic cover. And if fighting does break out, Hizbollah may cruise to a quick victory.

So Israel's failure to deal a decisive blow to Hezbollah is coming back to haunt it. There was a need for Israel to win and cut off Hezbollah's head, it didn't. (In part Israel was too spooked politically to apply the necessary force militarily. Toward this end the media played a significant and malignant role as Little Green Footballs notes in The Media are the Enemy - via memeorandum )

And Hezbollah isn't the only terror organization under the Iranian thumb. Iran is reportedly attempting a takeover of Al Qaeda.

Right now with the political leadership of the West either too timid or too weak, Iran is building its military capabilities. Diplomatic engagement hasn't worked yet and isn't likely to work. But the will to confront Iran militarily doesn't seem to exist either. The clock is ticking and the West better wake up.

Technorati tags: Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel, Iran.

Council speak 11/10/2006

A few days late and just before the new entries are announced, here are the results of last week's voting. The full results are here.

The winning post was Right Wing Nuthouse's Irony so Thick You Can Bathe In It about the revelations that Saddam had was actively pursuing a nuclear program and the outrage that this was revealed. Right Wing Nuthouse gores the oxen on both sides.

Tied for second place were Why Not Turkey? by American Future and Damned Fools by Done with Mirrors. The former examines the contradictory free and not-so-free impulses demonstrated by the modern Turkish government. The latter is, essentially, the previous week's You would weep updated for the present and shows a foolish American consistency when it comes to confronting our enemies.

In the non-council section, Rants and Raves received the tiebreaking vote of the Watcher for the Demand for Perfection that illustrates the fallacy of allowing the better becoming the enemy of the good. (Or however you wish to say it.)

The runner up was Q and O's Discussing the developing role of the media during times of war, which is a commentary on James Q. Wilson's excellent The Press at War.

As always, if this looks like and you have a blog and you'd like to participate to get yourself some added exposure, click here and learn how you can get your post considered.

Technorati tags: Watcher's Council.

Though insincere ...

Nice to know: Palestinians shift leaders in bid for aid

The probable new prime minister, Mohammad Shabir, is a former head of the Hamas-sponsored Islamic University in Gaza, but is not considered an active member of the party. The selection of an independent Islamist, say analysts, helps Hamas save face, while allowing the new Palestinian government more flexibility to meet the requirements of US and European donor nations and restore the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance.

Here too: Candidate for Palestinian Premier Emerges

A former university president in the Gaza Strip emerged Monday as the top candidate to head a Palestinian national unity government now being assembled in a bid to end the economic sanctions that have crippled the Hamas-led administration.

The point of this exercise is nothing more than a cynical attempt to get money so Hamas can stop smuggling the money in.

Of course it's all about the money, not about moderation: Hamas says new government won't recognize Israel.

The ruling Islamic militant group Hamas said on Tuesday a planned Palestinian unity government would not recognize Israel or accept a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

The stance could undercut Palestinian efforts to ease an eight-month-old Western economic boycott by forming a unity cabinet more acceptable to Israel and its closest ally, the United States.

The United States and its partners in the Quartet of Middle East mediators imposed the boycott to pressure Hamas, which took control of the Authority in March, to recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence and accept existing peace deals.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the program of the proposed unity government between Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction "will not recognize Israel and will not include accepting the two-state solution."

"We reject the two-state solution, which is the vision of U.S. President George Bush, because it represents a clear recognition of Israel," Barhoum said.

One hopes that President Bush understands this and doesn't give into pressure:
Bush Faces New Calls to Shift Policies On Mideast

In London, meanwhile, Blair suggested a desire for a more aggressive Western initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a key to tamping down violence in the region, a recommendation that is also reportedly under consideration by the Iraq Study Group. Blair said that resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute, stabilizing Lebanon and pressuring Iran to halt its support of militants are key to helping reduce bloodshed in Iraq.

"A major part of the answer to Iraq lies not in Iraq itself but outside it, in the whole of the region where the same forces are at work, where the roots of this global terrorism are to be found, where the extremism flourishes," said Blair, Bush's closest international ally on Iraq.

Giving Hamas legitimacy on the basis of cosmetic change will neither help the peace process nor help with Iraq. If the United States goes "wobbly" on this it will only encourage the terrorists.

Alternatively, if Hamas feels the need to "change" however superficially, that's a sign that pressure is working. (I don't believe for a moment that Fatah doesn't have access to millions. It's just that they have no interest in using it for their people.) That's all the more reason to maintain the pressure not to relieve it by declaring that Hamas has now come around. Ignoring Arafat's continued terror didn't help in the past. Ignoring Hamas's true intent won't help now or in the future.

Technorati tags: Israel, Hamas.

Remembering ellen willis

Ellen Willis died last week.

I found an interesting essay by Dr. Willis at her NYU website, Is There Still a Jewish Question? Why I'm an Anti-Anti-Zionist

My point here is not that Israel should be exempt from anger. Israel is a nation-state. As such it has military, political, and social power. In the exercise of its power, it must be held accountable for its actions. Its misuses of power must be censured and opposed. The victims of its power can hardly be expected to be other than enraged. Yet as a Jewish state, Israel is also subject to layers of irrational anger, whether from antagonists who will not settle for a negotiated peace but demand that the foreign body be expelled, or from political critics who conjure up a monster that rivals Hitler. Israel's power, too, has been exaggerated, contingent as it is on the support of the United States: in the period of economic troubles, foreign adventurism, and revived protest we have entered, who knows what America will look like a few years from now, what our aims in the Middle East will be, what trade-offs we will make?

I am obviously not in agreement with everything she wrote in the essay. However I give her a lot of credit for noticing that criticism of Israel contained not a small amount of antisemitism.

As I've mentioned before I remember her mostly for her article "Next Year In Jerusalem" from the April 1977 issue of Rolling Stone. The article was about her brother, Michael's, journey to Orthodox Judaism through Aish Hatorah and her experiences in Israel talking to the people from Aish. I haven't found the article online, but it was reprinted by NCSY.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear that any of the mainstream obituaries like the one in the NYT mentioned her encounter with Aish Hatorah.

What made "Next Year in Jerusalem" fascinating is that Willis struggled with the idea of becoming Orthodox herself. In the end she couldn't reconcile a woman's role in Orthodox Judaism with her own feminist beliefs, but it seemed that she gave the idea some thought.

In addition her portrayal of the Orthodox lifestyle was sympathetic. She may not have been willing to accept it herself, but she was impressed with what she saw. "Next year in Jerusalem" is what I'll remember Ellen Willis for.

Technorati tags: Ellen Willis.

One-sided diehl

I'm not sure what to make of this. Annan updates Beilin on soldiers in Lebanon

General Kofi Annan said that one of the problems in the negotiations for the release of the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers in Lebanon is the demand for Hizballah to return them alive.

(UDATE: I haven't seen this report anywhere else. It makes me suspicious as to its accuracy.)

If true, it's outrageous. Is it that Annan considers it a problem that Israel wants Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev returned alive? Or is he just relaying Hezbollah's sentiments?

Still it's absurd that the UN is involved in negotiations and not condemning Iran, Syria and Lebanon every day that the soldiers are not returned. Remember Hezbollah violated an internationally (UN) sanctioned border to capture the two of them from the soil of a member state. And Annan is carrying out negotiations with these terrorists as if he were negotiating the terms of forced retirement.

The anti-idiotarian Rottweiler has its own vicious take on the report.

Those Pesky Jooos and Their Unreasonable Demands

And where's Yossi Beilin's outrage?

Speaking of outrageous, Jackson Diehl has a positively absurd suggestion as to how Bush and Olmert could help each other. After going through the political troubles each leader is having he proposes that Olmert make another bold move that could help them both.

What's possible? From the American point of view, the obvious answer is a major Israeli effort to encourage the formation of a responsible Palestinian government. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate, has been negotiating with the militant Hamas movement for months about a "unity" coalition made up of technocrats. Israeli officials tend to dismiss the effort as doomed. But what if Olmert were to spell out an aggressive Israeli plan to work with such a government? The plan could start with restoring the Palestinian tax funds that Israel collects but has impounded, and move on quickly to the release of Palestinian prisoners and talks about a negotiated version of the West Bank withdrawal Olmert proposed.

Among some senior Israeli officials a different but even bolder idea is being quietly kicked around: the opening of a dialogue with Syria. The idea is to flip Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; to induce him to drop his alliance with Iran and join the moderate Sunni alliance that is quietly lining up against Tehran. The Bush administration is loath to talk to Assad, partly because previous efforts have failed and partly because of what he wants from the United States, which is acquiescence to renewed Syrian suzerainty over Lebanon.

So let's see, Diehl wants Israel to support an effort by Arafat crony who never lifted a finger for peace to create a new government with Hamas. That will accomplish exactly what? Granting legitimacy to a terror organization that is dedicated to Israel's destruction?

And a dialogue with Syria. Supposedly Syria is anxious to open a dialogue with Israel and Diehl thinks that Israel ought to bite. How might this work?

Israel cares less about who rules Lebanon. And it has something Assad wants at least as much: the Golan Heights. The Syrian president has been saying for months that he is ready to open talks about a swap of the territory for peace, a deal that his father came within inches of closing 6 1/2 years ago. Until recently Israel had little incentive to make that bargain with Bashar Assad. But the rise of the Iranian threat in the past year has changed the calculus for at least some of Olmert's advisers.

Now this is a very sly way of explaining what happened 6 1/2 years ago. As I recall Diehl's own paper reported that Assad Sr. was leery of deal with Israel because Israel would want normalization with Syria. Apparently like getting back its soldiers alive, Israel having normal relations with its northern neighbor after ceding to it strategic territory is an unreasonable demand. I'm still not sure what Assad Sr. did to get this deal done. I do remember that President Clinton went to Geneva to present PM Barak's offer that included Israel withdrawing from all of the Golan except for a few meters along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, but even that wasn't enough for Assad who refused to budge.

In other words it wasn't that Israel and Syria were deeply involved in negotiations that just missed because of some mis-dotted i's and miscrossed t's. No, it didn't work because Israel failed to meet 100% of Syrian demands. It's funny how everywhere else peace is the result of compromise and negotiations, but for Israel it requires following the absolute demands of its enemies. In other words, for Israel peace sounds a lot like unconditional surrender rather than the end of a process of reconcilliation.

Diehl recalls some other bold moves made by the United States and Israel.

What's needed is a game-changing initiative that would break the momentum of Iran and its allies, and energize demoralized Arab moderates -- like Ariel Sharon's 2003 proposal to withdraw from Gaza or Bush's June 2002 endorsement of a Palestinian state.

So President Bush in 2002 finally made explicit what was implicit since (at least) 1993, that the peace process should end with a Palestinian state. Did the Palestinians then organize to create the political mechanisms for running that state? Or did they take this declaration as encouragement to continue their efforts to destroy an existing state?

And PM Sharon did carry out his plan to evacuate Gaza. But that strengthened Hamas and made them even less likely to compromise. With no Israeli presence in Gaza - and Israel even ceding the Philadelphi route giving up some of its security - the Palestinians took advantage to smuggle and build even more weaponry with which to attack Israel.

So does Diehl really expect that an Israeli proposal to withdraw fully and completely from the Golan will somehow cause Syria to moderate and pull it out of Iran's orbit. The evidence from the past suggests that a withdrawal from the Golan would serve to tell Iran and Syria that this past summer's war did its job and wore Israel down. It would make even more resolute in their mischief making. Just as the withdrawal from Gaza did to the Palestinians.

Technorati tag: Israel.

Haveil Havalim #93

Well it's Haveil Havalim time. Much to my frustration, Verizon's been balky most of the day. Finally it appears to be working. (But don't blame me if I copy and paste this before saving just in case.)

The Election

The Town Crier, writes an extensive rebuttal to the Republican Jewish Coalition ad campaign..

NJDC happily claims that the campaign backfired and shows that Jews voted overwhelmingly Demcoratic.

Israel Matzav notes similar results but is not happy with them Once again Jews vote against their own interests.

Crossing the Rubicon3 presents slightly different data coming from (and spun by) the Republican Jewish Coalition.

JOSHUAPUNDIT already sees the ground shifting in the American Israeli relationship.

KesherTalk has a link filled postmortem, plus some of her thoughts. As far as Jonah Goldberg's suggestion. It won't work; black bear season just ended in Maryland.

CrossCurrents discusses accurate and inaccurate characterizations in the midst of an election campaign.

Personal pain and illness

AidelMaidel is back in the game. And not just blogging as she Faces fears. We'd like to wish her, hatzlachah in her search and may she find the happiness she is looking for.

In the Ties that Bind, Elie's Expositions examines the binding of Isaac in the lifght of his own experience.

A Balesboosteh anxioisly awaits Ambers's surgery. Here's a precious picture of Amber.

Letters of Thought visits his friend Yosef, who is suffering from Leukemia, in the hospital.

Kristallnacht

Bagel Blogger report on The Fate of a family living in Munich before the start of WWII.

A fistful of Euros tells of the opening of the new Synagogue in Munich.

Daled Amos writing here recounts medical ethicist Dr. Fred Rosner's recollection of Kristalnacht.

Pride

Life in Israel presents shooting yourself in the foot.

West Bank Mama takes pride in keeping the private, private.

Am Echad expresses his feelings too.

Obtuseness and outrageous

Writing here, Daled Amos discusses the difference between Nazi and suicide bomber costumes.

Deja Vu thinks that Amy Gutmann should resign.

Dhimmi Watch has an address by Bat Yeor.

Kesher Talk criticizes Vanity Fair's profile of Ismail Haniyeh. What's wrong with that? The guy's mainstream. He gets his op-ed published in the Washington Post and his assistant just got his op-ed published in the NY Times. The guy is totally mainstream. Some people are just too easily offended.

Judeosphere demonstrates that Walt and Mearsheimer are doing for "realism" what the segregationists did for states rights.

Non Ashkenazi Jews

West Bank Mama asks why we don't know their stories?

Aishel davens at his first hard core Sephardi (actually Iranian) Minyan.

Elder of Ziyon reports that hundreds of Bnei Menashe are making Aliyah. But Israel must keep quiet.

Beit Hanoun

Israel Matzav discusses how Israel manages - once again - to lose the media war.

Simply Jews writes on another way to use women.

Shiloh Musings doesn't care.

Israel Matzav reports that Egypt isn't just standing aside but actively helping the smugglers.

Mere Rhetoric has been covering the media and international dishonesty regarding Beit Hanoun like no one else. Start here and work back.

Misc

BeyondBT celebrates 100 years of the Mishneh Brura. More at Crosscurrents.

Contrary Don Radlauer whose blogname is now too long to write out takes a page or three or four from Polonius and asks for narratives of Israel's history. In six words. How about "Israel wins. Israel condemned. Israel concedes?"

DAG protests his poor treatment and broken promises by his boss.

Simply Jews applauds Minister of Environment Gideon Ezra for his excellent smog reducing idea.

TBIFOC has a loving tribute to the late Yasser Arafat as it might have been penned by Kofi Annan.

Meryl Yourish fisks the Financial Times history of Israel.

The Ignoble Experiment reports on a symposium about what to do about the Iranian nuclear threat. More here.

Me-Ander offers thoughts on drying washes and the month of Cheshvan.

Jewish Blogmeister wonders how his daughter's going to turn out.

Bec's Universe addresses the confusion she is having with her Aliyah Application.

Boker Tov Boulder records her thoughts about an interview with Sharansky co-author and Israeli (oleh and diplomatJ) Ron Dermer.

Me-Ander remembers R' Shlomo Carlebach.

Jewish Blogmeister has his Kosher Food Wrapup. Soucnds like an excellent entry for the Kosher Cooking Carnival. Get your entries in!

UPCOMING EDITIONS:

#94 - Nov 20, 2006 - Crossing the Rubicon3 (Note the new name and URL) e-mail at gailmail at gmail dot com.

#95 - Nov 26, 2006 - Smooth Stone gives it a shot for the first time. e-mail at one_smoothstone at yahoo dot com.

In addition to e-mail you may submit entries to Haveil Havalim using the submission form over at BlogCarnival. Or feel free to e-mail me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

Also if you'd like to host an upcoming edition e-mail me at the above address.

Remember, that while the hosts and hostesses of Haveil Havalim do a wonderful job of editing and searching for interesting posts, they can't see everything. If you want a better chance of being included in Haveil Havalim please submit one or two posts for inclusion.

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Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

Most recent editions of Haveil Havalim at Blog Carnival
#22 Mystical Paths
#21 Rabbinical Authority Consortium of HACKers
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#19 Devarim
#18 Soccer Dad
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#15 Soccer Dad
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#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

John Conyers: Is President Bush The Only One He is After?

Among the concerns as a result of the twin Democratic victories in both the House and the Senate is the possibility that they may go after President Bush and attempt to impeach him. A major force behind that effort would be Representative John Conyers. Actually, if successful, this would not be Conyers first attempt to impeach Bush.

Back in June 2005, Conyers held a mock impeachment hearing of President Bush over the Iraq War. The Washington Post was the only one who reported at the time about the anti-Semitic turn:

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."

At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

Later, NJDC helpfully came out with a number of Democrats who condemned McGovern's statement. Among the condemnations, was one by Conyers himself:

"Let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive."

But not so fast. Perhaps the anti-Semitic comments by McGovern should have been expected. Perhaps the anti-Semitic literature passed out by Democratic activists should have been nipped in the bud. The American Thinker believes that the anti-Semitism that was voiced by McGovern should have been expected:

In fact, the activist groups that watched the meeting at the DNC, and handed out the moonbat conspiracy literature blaming Israel for 9/11, were there as guests of the DNC. No one at the DNC can claim that they were surprised that the “hearing” in Congress or the advocacy in their office took on an anti-Semitic slant. McGovern’s views are well known (that is why he was invited by Conyers, presumably), and the activists were handing out their anti-Semitic literature openly to everyone in sight in the DNC office. Except for the fact that Dana Milbank, the Washington Post reporter, (and no friend of the Bush administration for that matter), described what actually went on in his Washington Post article, this story never would have surfaced and in all likelihood, no apologies would have been offered. That is, I think, because for an increasing share of the activist members of the Democratic Party, no offense to any of this would have been taken.

So now that the Democrats have control of both houses of Congress, and Conyers is the likely chairman of House Judiciary Committee, just what can be expected. Investor's Business Daily has an idea.:

Conyers, who runs an Arabic version of his official Web site, does the bidding of these new constituents and the militant Islamist activists who feed off them. They want to kill the Patriot Act and prevent the FBI from profiling Muslim suspects in terror investigations. They also want to end the use of undisclosed evidence against suspected Arab terrorists in deportation proceedings.

And the 77-year-old Conyers has vowed to deliver those changes for them.

According to IBD, Conyers will be helped by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who also wants to criminalize the profiling of Muslim terror suspects and "correct the Patriot Act".

Conyers ties to his Muslim constituency are solid and his representation of his constituency's interests is nothing new:

Conyers is one of the top recipients of donations from the Arab-American Leadership PAC. And not surprisingly, he has a long history of pandering to Arab and Muslim voters.

During the first Gulf War, for instance, Conyers fought FBI outreach efforts in the Arab and Muslim community in Detroit that were designed to gather intelligence on potential cells and protect the home front. Conyers and other Detroit-area Democrats at the time, David Bonior and John Dingell, threatened to hold hearings unless the FBI stopped counterterrorism interviews.

The FBI met with them privately to explain the national security benefits of outreach, but could not allay their concerns. In the end, the FBI backed off. Today, Hamas, Hezbollah and the al-Qaida-tied Muslim Brotherhood are all active in the area.

In return, Conyers, has been honored by the Muslims in his community as well. Debbie Schlussel wrote back in 2004:

Take the June 13 Muslim American Society fundraising dinner for Islamic Relief, a charity with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Conyers and his wife were the guests of honor. They watched and clapped as the Sanabel Al-Quds "dancing" troop from Milwaukee—featuring boys as young as seven—sang in Arabic of martyrdom and jihad for Allah and Palestine. They didn’t need to understand Arabic, as the young boys used a rifle to simulate killing and pistol-whipping, simulated throat-slittings and beheadings, and dishonored the American flag.

She also notes that Conyers has met with Imam, Mohammed Ali Elahi, who has ties with Hezbollah. Conyers has received money from the American Muslim Council, which has openly supported Hamas and in June 2001 Conyers asked President Bush to "begin an investigation of Israel's use of American supplied military equipment in the series of recent retaliatory strikes now taking place and in other previous activities in which this equipment may have been used."

Given the opportunity, Conyers may very well go after Bush.
It is an open question what is in store for Israel.

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: John Conyers and Democrats and Israel

Minor tremors

Yesterday William Safire came out of retirement to analyze the "Thumpin'"

Despite the pervasive weariness with the war and the high tide of irritation at Bush’s steadfastness; despite the general disgust at the policy paralysis and ethical laxity in the wake of muscle-bound one-party control — the result was only the average loss of House and Senate seats of the party in power midway in the second term of a president.

A political shakeup every dozen years is a necessary cathartic for the two-party system. What’s more, the rightward cast of many Democrats in the freshman class is hardly bad news for conservativism. And the heartening victory of Joe Lieberman over the angry far left in liberal Connecticut augurs a renewal of a brief period of bipartisanship at the water’s edge.

Charles Krauthammer looks at the results quite similarly

The fact that the Democrats crossed midfield does not make this election a great anti-conservative swing. Republican losses included a massacre of moderate Republicans in the Northeast and Midwest. And Democratic gains included the addition of many conservative Democrats, brilliantly recruited by Rep. Rahm Emanuel with classic Clintonian triangulation. Hence Heath Shuler of North Carolina, antiabortion, pro-gun, anti-tax -- and now a Democratic House member.

The result is that both parties have moved to the right. The Republicans have shed the last vestiges of their centrist past, the Rockefeller Republicans. And the Democrats have widened their tent to bring in a new crop of blue-dog conservatives.

That last bit is interesting. Does that mean that Michael Steele doomed his bid for the Senate by running away not just from President Bush, but also by running away from the conservative label?

And both Safire and Krauthammer read the Rumsfeld resignation the same way.

Months ago, he had made provision for that “new direction” response — a phrase acceptable to hawks provided the direction is not out, quick — in the post-election report to be made by James Baker and Lee Hamilton’s Iraq study group. The report should give cover to increased pressure on elected Iraqi leaders to confront the urgent needs of nationhood.

By placing Robert “Fresh Eyes” Gates, a former C.I.A. chief, on that panel, Bush paved the way for Donald Rumsfeld to absorb the need of opposition politicians for bureaucratic punishment. The loyal SecDef’s resignation after the poll results was Bush’s act of contrition.

and Krauthammer

Because both houses have gone Democratic, the election is correctly seen as an expression of no confidence in the central issue of the campaign: Iraq. It was not so much the war itself as the perceived administration policy of "stay the course," which implied endless intervention with no victory in sight. The president got the message. Hence the summary resignation of the designated fall guy, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

There are a few observations worth making

1) The son of a Redskins legend lost. (George Allen) And the guy who was once supposed to be the Redskins savior (but never was), won. (Heath Shuler)

2) Lincoln Chaffee lost (and might lose his Republican label too) but the Democrats might have picked up a lot of mirror images of Chaffee along the way.

3) Talks shows who say that Republicans lost but not conservatives might be right. But if the Republicans become the party of conservatives only, it could be a disaster.

UPDATE: More at BuzzTracker.

Bolton nomination

Israel Matzav has the news that President Bush has sent John Bolton's name back to the Senate for confirmation.

I'm glad then that I sent the following e-mail to Senator-elect Cardin.

Dear Senator Elect Cardin, Congratulations on your victory in the election yesterday. While I see that you have been very supportive of Israel in the past, I would like you to consider using your new status to ask your future Senate colleagues who are currently serving on the Foreign Relations Committee to allow a floor vote on Ambassador Bolton. The Senate as currently constituted would likely confirm Bolton; it is a position he deserves. In the course of his recess appointment, Ambassador Bolton has faithfully carried out the Bush administration's policy of vetoing resolutions against Israel. In addition he has spoken out strongly against the anti-Israel attitudes that prevail at the UN. I know that you've condemned the antisemitism at the UN in the past. Now I'm asking to you do something concrete to fight it. I understand that such a request could put you at odds with your party's leadership. It would, however, signal a strong commitment to Israel and the cause of freedom.

One of the reasons I regretted Cardin's win is that I'm reasonably certain that his opponent would understand the importance of the Bolton nomination. Here's what Michael Steele had at his website. (thanks to my father for saving it)

Since the earliest days of our nation and through the insidious, irrational genocide of the Second World War, America has opened its arms to Jewish immigrants. In the face of ancient hatreds and militant threats, the United States stood with the Jewish people to bring to the Middle East a revolutionary democracy: a vibrant nation we call Israel. Our partnership with Israel today is as strong and as critical to peace in the world as it has ever been. At a time when so many of Israel's historic friends are abandoning her people for the sake of domestic political opportunism, I will work to provide a clear voice of support for strengthening the diplomatic, defense, and economic ties between our two nations. I will work to secure the United Nation's recognition of Israel's right to those privileges granted to other members of our global community - including full rotating membership on the United Nations Security Council. As a democratic nation, Israel is entitled to the same rights to preserve its sovereignty that we enjoy in America: the right and responsibility to its citizenry to control the border, and the right to respond to unprovoked and deadly attacks against on their own soil. I believe we must call upon our own government, those represented in the United Nations, and those all across the globe to afford Israel the same respect and deference given to every other sovereign and legitimate state.

Cardin didn't have anything about Israel at his campaign website. However on his congressional site he has plenty of citations where he offered his support for Israel.

So if you live in Maryland and you're interested in seeing John Bolton confirmed, send an e-mail to rep.cardin at mail.house.gov. Include your name and address so he may respond.

In fact anyone with an incoming Democratic senator, consider contacting him (or her) and ask him (or her) to request that they ask their colleagues to free the nomination.

Atlas Shrugs has a list of the Democratic Senators holding up the nomination in the Foreign Relations committee. Feel free to contact them too, especially if you're one of their constituents.

Technorati tags: John Bolton, The Senate.

Dr. Fred Rosnner--Kristallnacht: Personal Reflections

I received the following email at work:

This past Shabbos, at Shalosh Seudos in Young Israel of Far Rockaway, Dr. Fred Rosner, a renowned authority on Medical Halacha and the Rambam, discussed Kristallnacht, which happened 68 years ago today (11/9/38). Dr. Rosner was a child when his family, living in Berlin, experienced first-hand the brunt of Nazi cruelty. Dr. Rosner titled his talk, "Kristallnacht: Personal Reflections". Please pass this on, and share this with others. Many thanks to Golan Ben-Oni for his help in transcribing Dr. Rosner's heartfelt address.

---------------

November 9th, 2006 is the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht. On that night in 1938, the Nazis unleashed gangs of storm troopers to carry out widespread attacks on Jews, Jewish-owned property and synagogues throughout Germany and Austria. At least 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps at Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau. Hundreds of synagogues were set on fire or completely demolished and thousands of shops and homes were destroyed, looted, set on fire or otherwise desecrated. Among them were my family's house and store on Dragonerstrasse. Our belongings were thrown out onto the street, our piano was smashed, our cabinets broken and our store produce ruined.

This was Kristallnacht, the night during which the German Reich sent its well
organized and heavily armed storm troopers all across Germany and Austria to kill Jews and destroy Jewish property. These were carefully planned atrocities meant to terrorize the entire Jewish population. Synagogues were burned, windows were smashed, homes were ransacked and Jews were rounded up, beaten and killed. There was no place to hide.

The Nazis called it Kristallnacht — night of shattered glass — an almost poetic
appellation for that night of arson and terror and murder. But another horror of that awful night was what happened around the world. Nothing! No one cared. No country in the world was willing to accept even a fraction of the several hundred thousand German Jews. Even the United States of America closed its doors and the Jewish people were shut out in their greatest hour of need.

Many years ago, President Kennedy visited Berlin. At the "wall" he made a
famous speech in which he said "Ich bin ein Berliner." He had no right to say that. But I do. I was born in Berlin on October 3, 1935 into a very large family, my father being one of ten siblings and my mother one of six siblings. On October 28, 1938, less than two weeks before Kristallnacht, my father and my paternal grandfather were deported to a concentration camp in Poland called Zbancion (Neu Benshen) from which my grandfather never returned.

In Berlin on the night of Kristallnacht, my maternal grandfather witnessed the
window and chandelier breaking and subsequent burning and total destruction of the synagogue across the street from his apartment on Grenadierstrasse. He saw the Torah scrolls, Bibles, prayer books and other sacred objects thrown onto the street, doused with gasoline and set on fire. He collapsed in a state of shock, lapsed into a coma, never regained consciousness and died several monthslater. He lies buried in what was East Berlin, in the famous Weissensee Cemetery.

Less than a month after Kristallnacht, on December 8,1938, my brother, sister
and I were taken by train to the German-Holland border where we miraculously were able to cross into Holland. Two hundred children and no adults were on that last train from Berlin to Holland.

On April 18, 1939, my brother and I were shipped to England with the
"kindertransporf where we spent the entire war in relative safety. England did not accept girls at that time; as a result, my sister remained in Holland but was later smuggled to Belgium by a Christian family that pretended she was their daughter. Here she joined my mother who had also smuggled herself to Belgium to escape the terror in Berlin. In the Spring of 1939, having bribed his way out of the Polish concentration camp with his gold watch, my father returned to Berlin, traced my mother and sister to Belgium and joined them there. As a result, my parents and sister were hidden "underground" in Belgium by several Christian families, moving from hideout to hideout every few months to remain ahead of the Nazis who were constantly searching for Jews. Most of my parents' numerous brothers and sisters and their children as well as my two grandmothers were apprehended in Antwerp, Belgium and deported to the
concentration camps in Theresenstadt and Auschwitz from which they never returned, Several hundred members of my family were murdered in Auschwitz. Only a handful survived to be liberated by allied forces. To this day they have concentration camp numbers tattooed on their forearms and horrible memories indelibly and forever emblazoned in their hearts and minds.

My parents and sister were liberated by American forces in the summer of 1944
in Brussels, Belgium. My brother and I in England had lost contact with them for eight years and were unaware of their exact whereabouts or whether they survived at all. A British soldier who landed in Normandy, France with the allied forces took temporary leave from his army unit to go to Belgium to search for my parents and sister. Miraculously, he located them in Brussels and shortly thereafter, my brother and I were reunited with them in 1946. Three years later we emigrated to the United States. On July 1, 1949, we arrived in New York harbor and were greeted by the Statue of Liberty. We adopted the United States of America as our homeland, became citizens, and have lived here ever since. My parents made aliya after my father's retirement.

Exactly fifty years after Kristallnacht, I received an invitation from a group of
German Jewish physicians to lecture at the First International Jewish Congress on Medicine and Halakhah in Berlin. I would like to tell you how I wrestled with the decision to accept or decline that invitation. I asked myself: Why should I accept the invitation to participate in this Congress on Medicine and Jewish Law? Why should I return to the city in which I was born but from which I was forced to flee at the tender age of three years? Why should I return to Berlin exactly fifty years after Kristallnacht which my family and 1 lived through? Many years ago, I swore never again to set foot on German soil, never to purchase German products, never to ride in a German car, never to read a German book, never to listen to German music, never to enjoy anything German. I steadfastly refused repeated offers by the Berlin municipality for an all-expenses-paid seven-day excursion to Berlin — an offer extended to all Berlin natives who were forced to flee their birthplace from the Nazis. Why did I accept the invitation of the organizers of that International Jewish Congress on Medicine and Halachah (Jewish Law)? What rational thinking or divine inspiration or guidance motivated me to return to Berlin in November, 1988, fifty years after I fled that city, exactly fifty years after Kristallnacht, the first all out assault by the Nazis on the survival of the Jewish people?

Before answering that question, let me tell you that in the United States, I have
been privileged to pursue a career in academic medicine. As a physician, I regard with abhorrence the participation of Nazi physicians in the medical or medicalized killing of millions of Jews and others. The heinous acts of medical experimentation and torture chronicled at the Nuremberg trials had a chilling effect on the world at large and the medical profession in particular. In his book, The Nazi Doctors, Robert Lifton recounts in great detail the medical horrors at Auschwitz and the involvement of German physicians in the torture and killing of thousands of innocent human beings. The Nazis began with a program of sterilization and "euthanasia" under which German physicians
actually carried out the murder of countless children and adults considered "unworthy of life," because they were physically or mentally ill, or socially undesirable, such as Jews, and climaxing with Auschwitz where doctors performed selections, both on the ramp among arriving transports of prisoners and later in the camps and on the medical blocks.

In Auschwitz, doctors supervised the killing in the gas chambers and decided
when the victims were dead. Doctors ordered and supervised, and at times carried out, direct killing of debilitated patients on the medical blocks. At the same time, they kept up a pretense of medical legitimacy, signing false death certificates listing spurious illnesses. Doctors consulted actively on how best to keep selections running smoothly; on how many people to permit to remain alive to fill the slave labor requirements of the I.G. Farben enterprise at Auschwitz; and on how to burn the enormous number of bodies that strained the facilities of the crematoria.

Then there was a radical escalation in both the vision and technology of mass murder at Auschwitz where Jews, Gypsies, and others were subjected to sterilization by injection, radiation, or surgery, to the injection of vaccines made from dental infections, to massive bleedings for blood-group experiments, to the use of human flesh for culture media and the making of lampshades and tobacco pouches, to brainwashing with chemicals, to deliberate infection with typhus, to the application of toxic substances to various parts of the body, to vivisections and to mass killings by phenol injections, gassing, shooting, and other cruel and inhumane methods. How many of my relatives were used to make lampshades or bars of soap? My twin cousins, who survived Auschwitz, were designated for human experimentation by the infamous arch-evil Doctor Joseph Mengele, known as the "angel of death”. He had a passionate fascination with twins whose lives had existential value. Twins were given desirable jobs and were not harmed because they were needed for Mengele's experiments and were kept alive for his anthropological research. About fifteen percent of the twins were killed, some as a consequence of the experiments performed on them. These experiments and killings were only a small part of the role Nazi doctors played in Hitler's Final Solution. In fact, doctors supervised the entire killing process at Auschwitz from beginning to end. How were physicians, sworn by oath and conviction to ease suffering, transformed from healers to systematic killers?

With this background, I again ask: why did I return to Berlin fifty years after Kristallnacht which I personally experienced as a young child? Why did I return after I foreswore never again to set foot on German soil? In fact, I had to assemble a Bet Din (Court of Law) to be “matir neder” or to absolve me of my vow never to return to Berlin or Germany. As an author and lecturer, I did not until very recently write or lecture about my personal experiences during those dark moments in Jewish history. The pain and anguish has not subsided over the last fifty years.

Throughout all those years I did not ever discuss the Holocaust even with my children and the few surviving members of my family including my brother, sister, and twin cousins. The fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht with the terrifying sound of synagogue windows and chandeliers being broken in every Jewish community in Germany and Austria compelled me to reassess my long silence.

When I received the invitation to participate in the International Jewish Congress
on Medicine and Jewish Law in Berlin, I did not know how to respond. My sister said:

"Absolutely not! Under no circumstances should you go back to Berlin, ever." My
brother said: "You're not going as a tourist. You are going to strengthen the Jewish community there, so go." When I consulted my father, he did not say yes or no but only responded: "If you go, visit your grandfather's grave in East Berlin"

I returned to Berlin for two reasons. On pure rational grounds, I went to Berlin to visit and pray at my grandfather's grave. It is the only grave whose location is known of all the members of my family who perished in the Holocaust. To me that grave symbolizes by grandmothers, uncles, aunts and countless cousins who perished in Auschwitz and who have no known graves. To me that grave also symbolizes the six million Jews and four million others who perished at the hands of the Nazis and who have no graves; no graves to visit and no tombstones to pray at. At my grandfather's grave, I came face to face with my past, fifty years later.

The second reason I returned to Berlin was to give strength and encouragement
to the small Jewish community of physicians of Berlin, a mere shadow of its previous glory of the 1920s and early 1930s. The fledgling Jewish community in Berlin might be compared to the dried bones which the prophet Ezekiel brought back to life, a symbol of the revival of the Jews and the Jewish state, as discussed in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 92b), From the ash-piles of old there arose a new Jewish community. From the recent piles of bones and limbs there was a rebirth of a German-Jewish community. From the emaciated bodies and darkness of their collective graves, a new light began to shine
forth. God's sacred spirit once again rests upon German Jewry.

During the darkest moments in Jewish history, the Divine Presence shows itself to comfort the Jewish people and promise them better times ahead. Even during the destruction of the Holy Temple, God was already planting the seeds for it’s rebuilding.

In Lamentations 2:8 it is written that while the Lord intended to destroy the wall of the Temple, He was simultaneously measuring the wall. Why was God measuring the wall as He was destroying it? One usually measures when one builds, not when one destroys. The answer is that God's love for his people is manifest even when He is angry and punishing them for their sins and transgressions. While allowing the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jews to occur, He was already laying the groundwork for the return of the Jews from exile and the rebuilding of the Temple.

On Kristallnacht, over a half century ago, God already planted the seed for the rebuilding of His people after the Holocaust. I and others, the remnant of that generation, and our children and grandchildren, must help Judaism to re-flourish. Although Israel and the United States are presently the great centers of Torah learning and practice, other fledgling Jewish communities throughout the world are growing in numbers and in depth of commitment to their heritage. These communities need assistance from their brethren throughout the world. That is the second reason why I went back to Berlin.

Less than a month from now, Jews celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, commemorating the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks. The light of Judaism, as the light of the Hanukkah menorah, shines forever. Its brightness may at times be dimmed a little as it was a half century ago, but the flickering flame is never extinguished. The Third Reich has come and gone and the miracle of our generation is that the Jewish people are still here as they have been for thousands of years. I returned to Berlin to help revitalize that flame and keep it shining brightly. The Nazis were unsuccessful in their attempt to blot out the light of the Jews.

Jewish physicians practicing medicine in Berlin today according to the highest
Jewish ethical and professional standards are in sharp contrast to the Nazi doctors who supervised medicalized killings. I returned to Berlin to show support for my Jewish medical colleagues in the conduct of their lives as committed Jews. I returned to Berlin to visit my grandfather's grave and to remember the atrocities that were perpetrated against my family and six million other Jews. The story needs to be told, and retold, to honor those who became its victims.

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Kristallnacht and Holocaust

The don of dons

I know that Donald Rumsfeld isn't a popular fellow these days. Still he's one member of the Bush administration that I've liked since September 11, 2001.

Why September 11?

I remember waiting a while before I heard what happened to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. There were mentions of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Powell. But no mention of Rumsfeld.

I figured that the news wasn't saying anything because the plane that hit the Pentagon had injured him, or worse.

I was very relieved when I heard he was OK.

I don't know when it was that I heard what he was really up to that day. This guy isn't made of the same stuff I am. Nearly 70 years old at the time, he was helping the rescuers getting the injured onto stretchers.

Mr. Rumsfeld was in his office on the third floor of the outer ring when he heard and felt the crash on the other side of the building. The 69- year-old former Navy pilot was jolted and rushed to the scene. "He went outside the building and was helpful in getting several people that were injured onto stretchers," said a Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley. "He was out there 15 minutes or so helping the injured."

Then Mr. Rumsfeld headed to the National Military Command Center, the secure operational nerve center below his office, even though it was permeated with smoke. There, Mr. Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard B. Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and other top military and civilian aides remained sequestered through the day to discuss military options.

I know that personal courage isn't proof that he was doing his job correctly. Still I'm unimpressed with the many complaints against him. He sought to change and changed a bureaucracy around. There were people with interests in keeping things as they were. He was bound to step on lots of toes and bruise lots of egos. There are plenty of long knives out for him and I think that makes many of the criticisms of him suspect.

I read an excerpt of Bob Woodward's book in the Washington Post. In it about five people now take credit for claiming they told Rumsfeld that he didn't have enough troops. But we have no context. Did he have just these five advisors? or did he have more? If he had more people that those five isn't it possible (or even likely) that these five were in the minority and that they were overruled because Rumsfeld got more advice from those who disagreed with their position. Just because a majority of Woodward's self promoting sources foresaw the eventual chaos in Iraq, doesn't mean that everyone did.

There's another reason I'm such a big Rumsfeld fan. It's this news conference.

My feeling about the so-called occupied territories are that there was a war, Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved in it once it started, they all jumped in, and they lost a lost of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict. In the intervening period, they've made some settlements in various parts of the so-called occupied area, which was the result of a war, which they won.

They have offered up -- successive prime ministers have offered up various portions of that so-called occupied territory, the West Bank, and at no point has it been agreed upon by the other side. I suspect it will be, even in my lifetime, that there will be some sort of an entity that will be established. Maybe it will take some Palestinian expatriates coming back into the region and providing the kind of responsible government that would give confidence that you could make an arrangement with them that would stick. It may be that the neighboring countries, Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia and others, will have to assist in providing a degree of accountability.

"So-called occupied territories." I'd be impressed if Israeli government officials used this terminology. And he caught some flack for it, but was unapologetic.

DD: You said it twice in the same series of remarks. You used the expression "so-called".

DR: Fair enough. I was in a meeting, and I was asked a question, and the phrase came out.

DD: But is it what you think that they're so-called occupied, or do you think they're occupied and should be given up?

DR: I think that that's what a negotiation is going to solve. I mean, that is what the negotiation is about. Obviously Israel has offered to give back a major portion of the occupied territories. We know that. The agreement was there. It could have been solved if Arafat had accepted it. He didn't.

DD: But your use of the word "so-called".

DR: If it bothered you, then don't use it.

DD: It's not me it bothers. It's the other Arab states it bothers.

DR: Well, don't you agree that the purpose of a negotiation is to decide those things? It seems to me that's fairly reasonable. Israel has offered to give up a major percentage of the occupied territories.

(Jack Kemp, for what it's worth, had a nice defense of Rumsfeld.)

Finally now that Rumsfeld is out and Gates is apparently in is this a signal of change?

Michael Rubin has questions about Gates.

Had they done so, they might not conclude that the solution in Iraq lies with further engagement of Iran and Syria. Rather than inject a "new approach" to U.S. strategy, the Baker-Hamilton Commission's recommendations resurrect the old. In May 2001, Hamilton co-chaired an Atlantic Council study group that called on Washington to adopt a "new approach" to Iran centered on engagement with Tehran. And, in 2004, Baker-Hamilton Commission member Robert M. Gates co-chaired another study group that called for a "new approach" toward Iran consisting of engagement.

The problem is that this "new approach" hasn't been good for U.S. national security. After Secretary of State Madeleine Albright extended an olive branch to the Islamic Republic in March 2000, the Iranian leadership facilitated anti-U.S. terrorists. As the 9/11 Commission found, "There is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers."

It's been known that some time after the election President Bush was going to look into the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group after the eleciton. Dr. Gates was a member of the ISG, so it makes sense that he would be brought into government in some capacity.

But it looks like the administration isn't just considering a new course in Iraq, but that it might be considering going back to the old ways of thinking about foreign policy.

Source: Cheney stuck by Rumsfeld

But a source told NBC News’ military analyst Bill Arkin that prior to the election, Vice President Dick Cheney argued with other politicians over whether Rumsfeld should stay. White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and others said Rumsfeld should be removed, the source said. Both sides agreed the decision would be made after the election, when Bush would make the final call based on how Republicans did.

According to the source, Bush agreed Rumsfeld should be removed after seeing election results favoring Democrats. Cheney then lost another argument, protesting Gates’ nomination as Rumsfeld’s replacement.

Despite the absurdity of the charge, Cheney and Rumsfeld have been called the administration's "neo-conservatives." If Cheney wanted someone else and was overruled, it's one more sign that Gates's ally James Baker is gaining influence.

Not surprisingly David Ignatius likes the change.

Robert Gates will bring to the job the attentive style of a listener. He rose at the CIA in the 1980s by making himself indispensable to his boss, William Casey. He was the brightest Soviet analyst in the shop, so Casey soon appointed him deputy director overseeing his fellow analysts. I once waded through Gates's graduate dissertation for his doctorate in Soviet studies at Georgetown. It was a work of solid, earnest scholarship -- good, but not flashy. Rumsfeld might have described it as a long, hard slog. But it illustrates Gates's best qualities: his intellectual seriousness, his professionalism, his lack of "side," as the British say of good civil servants.

Gates represents the return of Bush 41 people and ideas to the Bush 43 administration. The elder Bush rescued Gates after he was rejected as CIA director in 1987 because of his role in the Iran-contra scandal, bringing him to the National Security Council staff and then appointing him CIA director in 1991. Gates is not a turfy person -- he works well with others -- a quality that Rumsfeld often lacked.

I am not happy with this change, though it may well have been politically necessary.

UPDATE: KesherTalk has a nice roundup of thoughts on Rumsfeld. (h/t Boker Tov Boulder)

Here is the record of Donald Rumsfeld. (1) Tried to take a top-heavy Pentagon and prepare it for the wars of the postmodern world, in which on a minute’s notice thousands of American soldiers, with air and sea support, would have to be sent to some god-awful place to fight some savagery—and then be trashed live on CNN for doing it; (2) less than a month after 9/11 he organized the retaliation against al Qaeda in the heart of primordial Afghanistan that removed the Taliban in 7 weeks, when we were all warned that the U.S., like the British and Russians of old, would fail; (3) oversaw the removal of Saddam in 3 weeks—after the 1991 Gulf War and the 12-years of 350,000 sorties in the no-fly-zones, and various bombing strikes, had failed. (4) Ah, you say, then there is the disastrous 3-year insurgency—too few troops, Iraqi army let go, underestimated “dead-enders” etc.?

But Rumsfeld knew that in a counterinsurgency (cf. Vietnam 1965-71) massive deployments only ensure complacency, breed dependency, and create resentment, and that, in contrast, training indigenous forces, ensuring political autonomy, and providing air and commando support (e.g., Vietnam circa 1972-4) is the only answer—although that is a long process that can work only if political support at home allows the military to finish the job (cf. the turn-of-the-century Philippines, and the British in Malaysia). He was a good man, and we were lucky to have him in our hour of need.

Victor Davis Hanson defends Rumsfeld's record.

Technorati tag: Donald Rumsfeld

Where Would You Find A Palestinian Technocrat, Anyway?

It sounds like the US is on the move again, considering setting up a Palestinian government that will make peace possible:

The Bush administration is in favor of the establishment of a "government of technocrats" in the Palestinian Authority in place of the current Hamas government, a senior American official told Israeli reporters Tuesday.

Wikipedia defines a technocracy as

a government or organizational system where decision makers are usually highly skilled in fields of management or any other field. A technocratic government therefore is a government by experts.

Putting aside the Palestinian 'Brain Drain', if there indeed are Palestinians who are highly skilled and capable of leadership--where have they been hiding till now, and how are they going to be enticed to join a government that has no record of success?

Then again, it's not as if the new government would be required to do much.

He said the U.S. is concerned about the lack of a Palestinian partner for peace talks with Israel, and expects a new Palestinian government to accept the conditions set by the Quartet (the United Nations, U.S., Russia and the European Union)- renouncing violence, recognizing the right of Israel to exist and upholding existing agreements.

Based on past experience, all that would be required is to accept the conditions: renouncing violence, recognizing Israel, and upholding existing agreements--it's not as if anyone will insist they actually fulfill the conditions.

After all, that's Israel's job, as in allowing the US to arm Abbas' men and allowing the Badr Brigade--former members of the PLO (Haaretz helpfully refers to them as PLO activists)--to enter Israel from Jordan.

The official said the U.S. was fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself, but that a military strategy was not sufficient and had to be accompanied by a diplomatic component.

Diplomacy, when applied to Israel, does not mean negotiations; it means concessions--especially when the US has a particular goal in mind.

[The official] added that it was a waste to invest time in setting up a new government that would not accept these principles.

Apparently the US is ready to dirty its hands and get more actively involved in the Palestinian election process--not just be satisfied with a 'democratic' election. But with Democratic gains in the US elections, 2 years left in the Bush administration, and the American preoccupation with Iran and any number of other hot spots, the goal in the Palestinian territories is unlikely to be anything ambitious--just a recycling of the previous Abbas administration, and more demands for confidence-building measures from Israel.

In the end, it won't be anything we haven't seen before.

Update: For an idea of what to expect from the White House and new Congress, see Israel Matzav's post Bad For The Jews.

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Abbas and US and Palestinians

Two months

I'm a bit late with this.
Sunday night/ Monday morning 1:15 AM she turned nine weeks. Her English birthday was Shabbos (Saturday) and her Hebrew birthday was Thursday.

When she was two or three weeks old, I could cradle her in my arms and walk her to sleep in the dark. But in recent weeks that's changed. If I hold her like that now her eyes stay open, taking in the sights - even in the dark. She's interested in her surroundings.

She's also heavier. About 10 1/2 pounds at her weighing today. (She had a brother who was that size at birth!) According to the doctor her size (height and weight) is average. When I walk around with her for a while, I do feel it. Not like a month ago.

Funny thing though, when she's upset sometimes she prefers to be cradled; sometimes she likes to be on my shoulder and sometimes she prefers to lie and snuggle next to me. Perhaps it's different actions for different causes; but I dont know. If she has different cries to tell she's gassy, dirty or hungry, I haven't deciphered them yet. (Yes, if she's hungry I'd feed her.)

She does sleep better now. Usually about 5 hours.

And in the past two to three weeks she's started treating us regularly to those wonderful toothless smiles. I'm not sure what makes her happy. Though I like to think that when I coo "Pretty girl" repeatedly she likes it.

But one thing she doesn't like - my beard. I love the feel of her soft cheek against mine. But when I've tried it, she's started crying. I think that's a treat I'll have to forego.

She can grab and hold my finger. More of her motions seem deliberate. Though I've had some difficulty getting her into her sleeping bag as she seems to enjoy pulling her feet out before I zip it up. My wife enjoys watching me struggle getting the little feet inside.

Previous baby post: One Month.

The asylum that is maryland

When your governor is popular and successful what do you do? You replace him with an average mayor.

I'm not one of those who feels that O'Malley is a poor mayor. But a great mayor he isn't either.

O'Malley took over Baltimore from Kurt Schmoke who was a disaster. But promising improvements and actually implementing them are two separate things.

He promised to cut the murder rate to below 175 and never managed to. I believe he could and should have reduced the murder rate in the city to about 60. (New York City with 10 times the population of Baltimore has a murder rate of 600 - 700 a year. Giuliani brought it down to that range from 2100+ in two or three years.) The problem is that the changes in policing that were necessary for such success would have undermined O'Malley's political support and he was never willing to buck that support.

In his victory speech (as well as his commercials) O'Malley talked of taking Maryland in a new direction. Except most Marylanders were happy under Ehrlich. The economy was doing well. Unemployment is below the national average and the state's population is growing. (The city's population continues to dwindle. Not as fast as it had been; but the city continues to lose population.)

And yet there was a percentage of the electorate that said that it was happy to vote against the governor they liked. It makes no sense.

Michael Steele ran an excellent campaign. Somehow he positioned himself as an outsider and exuded likability. Congressman Cardin who beat him ran an extremely negative campaign. Cardin came accross as bitter and vicious. And yet that was sufficient. Given the relative experience of the two candidates, I suspect a well run campaign would have been a landslide. (I guess that Cardin could still end up 10 points ahead of Steele in the end.) But Cardin got the coronation he thought he deserved even if the road ended up being slightly bumpier than he anticipated.

And in my district, John Sarbanes rode his family name to victory. A typical liberal with no real distinctive ideas, Sarbanes expects to fix all sorts of problems. I've mentioned this before but let him tell you his goofiest idea (or at least the goofiest one that I saw):

I support the creation of an impartial scientific body to assess the effectiveness of expensive new treatments and technologies, to make recommendations to public and private insurance carriers regarding the appropriate use of such technology. A national body to impartially determine the effectiveness of new treatments and drugs would ensure that technology was not stifled but would help prevent technology and its cost from overwhelming the health care system.

He's going to create a commission to determine the best (or only) medical technologies to support. Sounds like central planning to me.

But these are some of the people in charge now. And let's not forget the worst legislature in the country. Three times these legal eagles overrode vetoes signed by Governor Ehrlich only to have their ill-considered bills overridden by the courts - whose judges were mostly appointed by fellow Democrats.

In one case the bill was construed as an attempt to delegitimize Governor Ehrlich's eleciton on the basis of unsubstantiated charges of misconduct by two of my "representatives." (Scroll down to "The Path Trod 41 Years Ago")

Finally we have slots. As a proof that the legislature has absolutely no principles, be ready. One of the first orders of business this upcoming dismal January will be a slots bill that will pass. It will pass because House Speaker Busch's opposition to slots was only based on his interest in obstructing Governor Ehrlich.

So due to the voters of our state; we will have one of the most ideolgical leftist state governments in the Union. We can expect the legislature to revive versions of the Wal Mart bill and other anti-business measures. The inmates have won. The state has lost.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Maryland Politics.

Dis-enfranchised

Reliving 1998.
As a Republican in Maryland I am disenfranchised.
On the state level I am represented by four Democratic party hacks - State Sen Lisa Gladden who won her seat through an antisemitic campaign, and delegates Jill Carter, Nathaniel Oakes and the throroughly dishonest Sandy Rosenberg.
The average mayor of Baltimore has now been projected to unseat the remarkable Republican governor. (He will be replaced by a clueless city council president.)
And a viscious uncharismatic congressman has beaten a talented charismatic challenger.
And my new congressman will be someone who won on name recognition and the promise that he can legislate what avenues of research drug companies may pursue.
Bummer.
I am furious.
What an awful night. And 4 long years ahead.
UPDATE: Aishel informed me that the Washington Post withdrew its projections of O'Malley and Cardin winning. If this reversal holds it will feel good, not just having the smug smile wiped off of Cardin's face, but the egg that will be all over the MSM for its off the mark projection.

However, I have to be realistic. I ran the numbers and compared to 2002 Ehrlich is running behind his numbers (percentages) from everywhere of four years ago. Right now, I'm not inclined to celebrate.

UPDATE II: By now it looks final. Anthony Brown's victory speech was gracious and impressive. Gov. elect O'Malley's less so.

Technorati tags: rel="tag">Election 2006, Maryland Politics.

Population Transfer Has A History

Population Transfer In Perspective

By Dr. Alex Grobman

In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Minister for Strategic Affairs said that the primary way to achieve peace in the Middle East would be for Jews and Arabs - including Israeli-Arabs - to live separately. “Minorities are the biggest problem in the world," he claimed. Asked if Arab Israeli citizens should be removed, he said: "I think separation between two nations is the best solution. Cyprus is the best model. Before 1974, the Greeks and Turks lived together and there were frictions and bloodshed and terror. After 1974, they constituted all Turks on one part of the island, all Greeks on the other part of the island and there is stability and security."

When reminded that they were removed forcibly from their homes, he replied, "Yes, but the final result was better." Later, he explained, "Israeli Arabs don't have to go…. But if they stay they have to take an oath of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish Zionist state."

Lieberman’s remarks set off a firestorm of criticism in the Knesset and around the country. Whether you support Lieberman or find his proposals abhorrent, they should be seen with a historical perspective. After World War I and II, transferring populations was considered legal and moral, and the most favored response to inter-ethnic strife. This is no longer true. Population transfer is now seen as illegal and a crime notes Eyal Benvenisti, professor of Law at Tel Aviv University.

As Benvenisti points out, the first population-exchanges involved Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. The Treaty of Nueilly of November 27, 1919 provided for 46,000 Greeks from Bulgaria and 96,000 Bulgarians from Greece to switch countries. After the defeat of the Greek army in the Greek-Turkish War following World War I, and the Turk assault against Greek communities in Turkey, Greek refugees began fleeing their homes in Turkey. Greece and Turkey exchanged of populations with about 2,000,000 Greeks, who were Turkish citizens, and about 500,000 Turks, who were Greek citizens.

The exchange of populations had worked so effectively, Benvenisti observed, that in post-World-War II, the Allies decided to transfer 15 million Germans living in Eastern Europe, primarily in the Eastern part of Germany, after it had been granted to Poland. According to the Potsdam Declaration, Germans living in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria were to be transferred to Germany "in an orderly and humane manner.” Although the West attempted to ease the transition, there was much distress suffering and large numbers of deaths. After the borders in Europe were redrawn, smaller transfers were made in parts of Central and Eastern Europe.

Population transfer was also used to settle the inter-religious enmity between Hindus and Muslims in British India in 1947. Once it became clear the communities could not live together, the sub-continent was partitioned into two states -- India and Pakistan—requiring the resettlement of millions of people.

Mass transferring of populations by states is no longer acceptable. When Turkey invaded Cyprus in July 1974, Turkey was condemned for the large numbers of Greek and Turkish Cypriots who were displaced after being forced to flee from their homes. After atrocities were committed in the former Yugoslavia, people began using the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe the uprooting and displacement of populations, which was identified as a war crime. A process that was sanctioned, if not legal in 1948, is now regarded as criminal.

The most recent example of forced mass transfer, Benvenisti continues, occurred in Cyprus with the Greek-Cypriots and the Turkish-Cypriots. After Turkey invaded and occupied the northern part of the island, more than 200,000 Cypriots fled or were relocated across the "Attila Line," set up by the Turkish military. Greek-Cypriots left the Turkish-occupied zone, while Turkish Cypriots escaped to the north, where they moved into homes abandoned by Greek-Cypriots. The Greek-Cypriot refugees resettled in the southern part of the island, a number on property owned by Turkish-Cypriots. The right to recover property and the right to return are two of the key obstacles to settling this dispute.

The need to separate Arabs and Jews or transferring Palestinian Arabs to another Arab state is not a new idea. In 1937, the Peel Commission concluded, “An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are incompatible… Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State.”

If partition is to succeed, the Commission said, drawing new boundaries and establishing two separate states will not be sufficient. “Sooner or later there should be a transfer of land, and as far as possible, an exchange of population.”

For numerous reasons, transfer never took place. In his book on the international proposals to transfer of Arabs from Palestine, Chaim Simons found that a number of leading Zionist leaders entertained such ideas, as did president Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, Czechoslovakian President Benes, and three Nobel Peace Prize winners Sir Norman Angell, Christian Lange and Philip Noel-Baker.

Dr. Grobman’s book Nations United: How the UN Undermines Israel and the West will be published by Balfour Books in late November.

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Population Transfer and Ethnic Cleansing and Israel and Palestinians

No noose is good noose?

The editors of the New York Times who opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein by force are unhappy with the death sentence pronounced against the former dictator.

Regrettably, yesterday’s sentence to death by hanging in a case involving the execution of 148 Shiites in the 1980s fell somewhere short of that goal. Mr. Hussein got a fairer trial than he ever would have allowed in his courts. But Iraq got neither the full justice nor the full fairness it deserved. President Bush overreached in calling the trial “a milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.”

On the other hand after considering all that was wrong with trial Anne Applebaum - who argues that many similar problems plague tribunals in the aftermath of any tyrant - writes in Justice in Iraq.

And yet, in the end there is only one standard by which the trial of Hussein and other Baathist leaders should be judged: Did it or did it not compile a true record of Hussein's crimes -- a record that in some distant, future, peaceful Iraq, will be available to help Iraqis understand what took place during Saddam Hussein's reign? Though it is unfashionable to write anything positive about Iraq right now, the answer is that it did. The crime for which Hussein was condemned -- the torture and execution of 148 people in the small town of Dujail more than two decades ago -- was well documented . Witnesses and archives were produced. Cross-examinations were held.

In August the Iraqi court started hearings in a second trial , this one designed to examine the Anfal campaign of 1987-89, during which Hussein murdered up to 180,000 Kurds. Already, some dozen witnesses have testified about what they saw when Hussein, at the height of the campaign, unleashed chemical weapons on whole Kurdish villages. Large parts of Shiite and Sunni Iraq are hearing these stories for the first time. Listening to them may someday, in that distant, future, peaceful Iraq, help them to understand what Kurds experienced under Saddam Hussein's reign and help them to achieve some kind of reconciliation.

It appears that the Times, which last week confirmed that Saddam was indeed seeking nuclear weapons at the time of his defeat, cannot acknowledge any positive outcome of the war in Iraq. Anne Applebaum doesn't argue that everything has gone right, but at least can accept that some things have including holding a tyrant to account.

Technorati tags: Saddam Hussein, Iraq.

The real steele

Jay Bryant calls it the most important race for the Senate. It is the contest between Representative Ben Cardin and Lieutentant Governor Michael Steele here in Maryland.

What have Maryland blacks gotten for their loyalty to the party? Virtually nothing. Oh, sure, they get representatives to legislative offices in districts where they have the overwhelming majority. Occasionally they get to be Mayor of Baltimore - although the current mayor is white, and running for Governor, something no black mayor could even seriously consider.

I think this overstates the case a bit. Del. Anthony Brown, the candidate for Lt. Gov. running with Mayor O'Malley is black. And I'm not sure that Kurt Schmoke couldn't have run for governor - if he hadn't done such an awful job of running Baltimore city. It's better off having him running a law school instead.

That's the other reason Steele's election is so critical, to Republicans and black voters. In the entire history of the United States, only five African Americans have served in the Senate: three Republicans and two Democrats. And in these post-civil rights times, it is only fitting to ask why the party for whose candidates 90% of black voters regularly cast their ballots has not done better. Indeed, if you believe in affirmative action, as Democrats say they do, then there should be ten or eleven black Democratic Senators at any given time these days. Whereas in fact there has never been more than one.

That is something to wonder about. African Americans are represented in nearly every other office in the United States (except for the top two), why not the Senate?

I'm not convinced of Bryant's analysis of the situation - that blacks have been kept out of the top jobs in Maryland and therefore there's resentment that's cause some prominent African Americans to cross party lines.

What I am convinced is that if Steele wins (by no means a likelihood at this point) it may cause other African Americans, especially in Maryland, to reconsider their choice of party. If he loses, I don't see this election being especially important.

Adam Schaeffer's Why Steele will win, and Blackwell won't does an excellent job of reviewing Steele's campaign strategy. An insider, he has successfully cast himself as the outsider.

Michael Steele has run a campaign against "Washington" because he's 2 to 1 down in party registration, and he needs a credibility that's above partisanship to win in such a Blue state. The Republican Party in the abstract has been his biggest obstacle to victory, and Steele has worked hard and successfully to cultivate his image as an independent man. His ads are a perfect blend of the light and serious, with an independent styling emphasizing the cool, strong colors of Democratic blue and steel grey to echo his name. He has cultivated credibility with unusual endorsements for a Republican, from people like Russell Simons, who has put a lot of his money and time into urban registration and get-out-the-vote drives. And this week he was endorsed by former and current Democratic officials from Prince George's county - home to a huge number of African American and traditionally Democratic voters. Steele is selling himself, first and foremost. And he's coming across as a fresh-faced reformer who is confident enough to buck both parties.

Consequently Joel Himelfarb doesn't think that Steele will be the most reliable conservative in the Senate. Not that that would be bad from Maryland.

In reality, Steele is a moderate who would probably vote with conservatives some of the time, whereas Cardin will vote with Ted Kennedy virtually all of the time. By far the most fascinating thing about Michael Steele is his ability as a black Republican to bring out the ugliest tendencies of the political left. Four years ago, Democratic partisans threw Oreo cookies at him during a Baltimore debate in an effort to remind voters that Steele isn't an "authentic" black. Senate President Miller suggested that he was an "Uncle Tom." The Baltimore Sun editorialized four years ago that the only thing Steele brought to the Democratic ticket was the color of his skin. A Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee aide was fired after illicitly obtaining Steele's credit records.

On the other side, the Washington Post (as I discovered form Fox News) took the unusual step of endorsing Cardin a second time with a withering attack on Steele in the Saturday paper. The editorial calls Steele an empty suit.

Despite his efforts to construct an image as an independent-minded newcomer, there is nothing in Mr. Steele's past -- no achievement, no record, no evidence and certainly no command of the issues -- to support it.

The problem is that Ben Cardin is a newspaper's dream candidate. He is a policy wonk. He legislates. He even occasionally reaches accross the aisle to get Republican support. It's the sort of thing that makes editors' and reporters' pulses quicken. The idea that someone without that experience could challenge Cardin is an anathema to the newspapery types.

But check out Steele's website. It has ideas not just slogans. Surely Cardin has some faults. On Meet the Press he couldn't respond to Steele's charge that if the U.S. retreats from Iraq the situation will be even worse. He was unprepared.

Or did the Post consider that in 1991 he voted against that war too? (In 1992 he opportunistically distributed handbills in our area promoting candidate Clinton whose special quality was - that he supported the first Gulf war.) So his problem with the use of force isn't that he had doubts about Bush 43's plans but that he is against any war started by a Republican. (I don't recall that he objected to the NATO war against Serbia.)

Cardin is a lot more partisan and less thoughtful than the Post is willing to admit.

For me I'm willing to believe that legislative ability is overrated. What a Senator will vote for or against is important. I agree with Orson Scott Card that there is only one major issue this election, and that is the war on terror. Ben Cardin does not recognize that there is this struggle going on (you won't find any mention of the war on terror in Cardin's "issues" section; Michael Steele does (He does not use the term "war on terror" in his issues section but refers to the terror threat and the necessity of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.)

About a month ago I was a bit uncertain of who I would support. While I felt closer to Steele philosophically his sometimes clumsy attempts to distance himself from Republicans put me off. But Cardin's excessively negative campaign of the past month has convinced me that he offers me nothing. He pushed me away. (Granted I don't think that his ad campaign was designed to capture hesitant Republicans but I can't imagine that his constant negativity didn't alienate some of his target audience either.

Technorati tags: Ben Cardin, Michael Steele, Election 2006, Maryland Politics.

New media folks get validated by the dead tree media

Yesterday the Examiner (Baltimore) published a long awaited profile of Maryland bloggers by business columnist Dan Gainor, Ranting and raving for the whole world to see. (More about Gainor.)

As members of the new media us bloggers shouldn't be impressed by mention in an old media publication. But approval and attention seekers that we are (OK, at least that I am), we're tickled to see our names in print.

Especially I'd like to call you attention to the fact that a number of members of the Maryland Blogger Alliance (present company inclucded) were cited in the article. The others were Kevin Dayhoff, Jousting for Justice (Stephanie Dray), Baltimore Reporter (Robert Farrow) and Crablaw (Bruce Godfrey).

Another couple of bloggers I'm familiar with were mentioned in the article too: The Hedgehog Report (David Wissing) and AlanLaz.

It's a nice rundown of a number of Maryland based bloggers. And of course it's nice to be quoted. My favorite line in the article was from Kevin Dayhoff: "Pray for my wife."

As they say "Read the whole thing."

And thanks to our wise and urbane leader Pillage Idiot for founding and maintaining the Maryland Bloggers Alliance and giving us some extra visibility.

Technorati tags: Baltimore Examiner, Dan Gainor, Technorati tags: rel="tag">Election 2006, Maryland Politics, Blogging.

Democrats And Jews Should Not Take Each Other For Granted

Democrats go European

by Jonathan Rosenblum
Jerusalem Post
November 3, 2006

Israelis would like to believe that American support for the Jewish state is strong, bipartisan, and will ever remain thus. Contrary to that happy scenario, Israel definitely has a dog in next week's American midterm elections.

Deep ambivalence toward Israel has infected the Democratic Party. A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll comparing voter attitudes on the war in Lebanon and toward Israel shows Republicans to be far more supportive of Israel than Democrats: 54% of Democrats advocate that the United States adopt a more neutral - i.e., less pro-Israel - stance to the Middle East, as opposed to only 29% of Republicans. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans felt the Israeli bombing in Lebanon was fully justified, as opposed to only 29% of Democrats. A recent Zogby poll showed that almost exactly the same number of Americans believe that an "Israel lobby" influenced America's entry into the deeply unpopular war in Iraq.

Those who hold this view are found overwhelmingly in the Democratic Party. Key Democratic constituencies are deeply ambivalent about Israel. African Americans are three to four times as likely to hold anti-Semitic views as whites, and that may be reflected in the votes of the Congressional Black Caucus on Israel-related issues.

Past labor leaders, like Lane Kirkland, were strongly internationalist in outlook. Today, however, the union movement is primarily concerned with globalization, and has become increasingly isolationist in orientation, with a concomitant resentment of any military or foreign aid spending that reduces domestic spending.

The teachers' unions provide much of the manpower in Democratic campaigns, and their membership - once heavily Jewish - increasingly shares the views of the college professorate, whose materials are seeping more and more into high school texts.

No mainstream Democratic spokesman or candidate would follow party senior statesman Jimmy Carter in labeling Israel an apartheid state or blaming it for most of the ills of the world, but such views are prominent in the Democratic blogo-sphere, which plays an ever-more prominent role in Democratic campaigns and candidate selection.

After spending several months campaigning for Senator Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut, Lanny Davis, former special counsel to president Bill Clinton, revised his lifelong view that intolerance and hate speech are more likely to be found on the Right. In a piece in The Wall Street Journal, Davis provided a sampler of the anti-Semitic attacks on Senator Lieberman posted on some of the most widely read and influential Democratic blog sites.

Lieberman was accused of supporting the war in Iraq so that American soldiers, not Israeli ones, would die. One post on Daily Kos, the most influential Democratic blog, read, "Jews only care about the welfare of other Jews... Ignore all the Jewish propaganda about participating in the civil rights movement of the '60s."

A reader at Huffington Post opined that Lieberman "cannot escape the religious bond he represents. His wife's name is Haggadah or Diaspora or something you eat at Pesach."

A post on MoveOn.org, which spearheaded the presidential campaign of Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, read: "(I)t's those GREEDY PIGS who own our mainstream media who are placing RELIGION/POLITICS (ISRAEL) and CORPORATE GREED above the best interests of the American people (peace, democracy, clean air, healthcare, etc.). As we've already agreed, most of these GREEDY PIGS are Jewish."

Fifty percent approved of this post. By contrast, only 21% agreed with a post pleading to eschew such "abhorrent anti-Semitic trash."

MUCH MORE significant than the anti-Semitic rantings, however, are the congeries of attitudes that increasingly characterize party leaders, even as they profess strong support for Israel. Those attitudes might be summed up in one word: European.

In the recent Senate hearings on John Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic standard-bearer, repeatedly criticized Bolton for the fact that America is consistently the odd man out at the United Nations, and stands outside the consensus of our European "allies."

One shudders to think where Israel would be if the United States ceased to be the "odd man out" at the UN. Recall that six of those so-called European allies, including France, voted in favor of a resolution of the UN Human Rights Commission specifically legitimizing terrorism against Israeli citizens to further Palestinian liberation.

The Democrats' bible, The New York Times, editorialized during the Lebanon War that the Bush administration's refusal to join the Europeans in calling for an immediate cease-fire gave the lie to its professed multilateralism. An early cease-fire would have handed Hizbullah a huge propaganda and moral victory.

Increasingly the American Left shares with its European counterparts a naive Enlightenment belief that all problems can be solved by rational men sitting around a conference table. In that view, all men are basically interested in increasing their allotment of material goods, and all conflicts can be resolved by slicing the pie slightly differently.

In this happy world, talk is always good, and military action, unless sanctioned by the UN, is always bad. Democrats have long ago cast off the UN skepticism of four-term Democratic Senator and former UN Ambassador Daniel Moynihan. So enamored are they with the idea of the UN that they forget it maintains an entire bureaucracy devoted specifically to anathematizing Israel and portraying the Palestinians as the world's most oppressed people.

Republican Senator Rick Santorum, who seems headed for defeat next week, has taken the lead in labeling Islamofascism the primary threat to Western civilization. Democrats, like the French, disdain such talk of a conflict of civilizations as simplisme, just as they once found risible president Reagan's "Evil Empire" and President Bush's "Axis of Evil."

For Israelis, however, Islamic fanaticism is no joke.

One final question: Which party is more likely to act to prevent Iran from testing the calculus that it can destroy Israel with one nuclear missile, while 15 million Iranians will survive Israel's counter-strike? The Republicans under George W. Bush or the Democrats?

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Elections and Democrats and Israel and Republicans and Jews

Council speak 11/03/2006

The council has spoken, on late Thursday night ...

The winning council post is Who is the perp? by Gates of Vienna. The post looks over various bits of evidence from a disturbing case and concludes that the father wasn't guily of mutilating his daughter. Unfortunately, it appears that justice was not done.

Runner up was You would weep by the Done with mirrors about how the United States fought the pirates and apparently snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The winning non-council post was Isis' Guide to Sensible Islam Posting taking issue with the way many in the blogosphere cover Islam.

The runner up was Michael Fumento's Covering Iraq: The Modern Way of War Correspondence that takes issue with the way the MSM covers the war in Iraq.

If you are ready, willing and able to participate and you're not a member of the Watcher's Council, here are the rules for getting your post considered by the Council.

Technorati tags:

Maryland political trivia

Check out Dan Rodrick's Election quizzes. Fascinating stuff and, for the most part, non-partisan.

Now here's some of my own.

Maryland Conservatarian observed

The anecdote repeated publicly (not just in conversations) was that Martin O’Malley’s mother personally requested from Scott Rolle his signs for her yard. Is Mrs. O’Malley supporting the Republican candidate for AG?

I thought I knew why. And now I've confirmed it.

Gansler and O'Malley have something of a history. Gansler knocked on doors in Baltimore on behalf of then-Councilman O'Malley in the 1994 election. Then, in the 1998 Montgomery County state's attorney election, Gansler beat O'Malley's father, Thomas O'Malley, who was running as a Republican. Now effectively running on the same ticket, both Gansler and O'Malley hope the fact that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1 in Maryland will catapult them into office.

Thomas O'Malley was a Democrat for most of his life. I believe he became a Republican in order to run for office. Still, as I recall Thomas O'Malley was a political ally of Paul Rappaport and supported him in his Senate bid against Sarbanes in 2000.

Tecnnorati tags: Maryland Politics.

My fantasy ad for lt. gov. steele

The latest polls have Lieutenant Governor Steele closing in on Representative Cardin. Still the gap seems a bit large to overcome. As I did with Governor Ehrlich, here's my idea of a commercial for Michael Steele.

Hi, I'm Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele.

I am running for the open Senate seat representing the state of Maryland.

My opponent, Representative Ben Cardin, has served in the state and national legislatures with distinction for 40 years. And yet, instead of running a campaign on the strength of his record, he has run a mostly negative campaign against me.

I wasn't born yesterday, I know that politicians use negative campaigns because they're effective. What bothers me is why an accomplished legislator like my opponent seemingly is running on little else.

Why not highlight some of his accomplishments?

For example, five years ago Representative Cardin reached accross the partisan aisle and authored a bill with Reprsentative Portman of Ohio to expand retirement options for the American people? Why doesn't he emphasize this shining example of bipartisanship?

Instead he runs on his support for stem cell research as if he supports it and I don't. But I do support adult stem cell research. Unlike embryonic stem cells, adult stem cell research has yielded actual therapeutic results. And when it came to voting for funding adult stem cells research, Representative Cardin voted against the bill.

Over the past four years I have served all the people of Maryland. Visiting cities, counties and communities I learned the diverse interests, issues and needs of the people of this great state. To me, Maryland is more than a drive down the tree lined parkway to DC. It is my home state and the state I hope to represent in the United States Senate.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Michael Steele, Maryland Politics.

Haveil Havalim #92 is UP!

Just to show you that blogging isn't all fun and games, Jerusalem Board Games hosts Haveil Havalim #92 this week. It's not just fun and games; it's a carnival too! Check it out and learn about Jerusalem Board Games and scores of other Jewish and Israel related blogs!

UPCOMING EDITIONS:

#93 - Nov 12, 2006 - Soccer Dad e-mail at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

#94 - Nov 20, 2006 - Crossing the Rubicon3 (Note the new name and URL) e-mail at gailmail at gmail dot com.

#95 - Nov 26, 2006 - Smooth Stone gives it a shot for the first time. e-mail at one_smoothstone at yahoo dot com.

In addition to e-mail you may submit entries to Haveil Havalim using the submission form over at BlogCarnival. Or feel free to e-mail me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

Also if you'd like to host an upcoming edition e-mail me at the above address.

Remember, that while the hosts and hostesses of Haveil Havalim do a wonderful job of editing and searching for interesting posts, they can't see everything. If you want a better chance of being included in Haveil Havalim please submit one or two posts for inclusion.

Listed at the Truth Laid Bear Ubercarnival.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

Most recent editions of Haveil Havalim at Blog Carnival
#22 Mystical Paths
#21 Rabbinical Authority Consortium of HACKers
#20 Shiloh Musings
#19 Devarim
#18 Soccer Dad
#17 Mystical Paths
#16 Critical Mastiff
#15 Soccer Dad
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#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

My fantasy ad for gov. ehrlich

I know it's late in the campaign. There's a commercial I've been thinking about writing. I really like the governor's latest commercial. Positive, focusing on his accomplishments. My idea was to focus on the growing economy, to turn "corporate interests" into an asset and to call Maryland's economically ignorant General Assembly to account.

Hi, I'm Governor Bob Ehrlich.

My opponent has accused me of siding with corporate interests against the families of Maryland. This is a distortion of my record.

I have encouraged the growth of business in Maryland. More business means more jobs for Maryland's families.

My economic record is an unqualified success. Over the past four years, Maryland's workforce has grown by more than 100,000. And Maryland's economy has provided jobs for them. The economy has also provided jobs for more than 10,000 people who had been unemployed, leading to the lowest level of welfare caseloads in 40 years.

Four years ago you, the voters of Maryland placed your trust in me to provide good jobs for you. I have done that.

It hasn't always been easy. The General Assembly that is beholden to special interests has passed laws that discourage the growth of business and the economy. Twice they've overridden my vetoes to pass laws that not only were bad for business but so poorly conceived that they were struck down by the courts.

One of the results of Maryland's economic success over the past four years is that the state's population continues to grow. People from all over move to Maryland to share in our prosperity. They are voting with their feet.

I'm now asking you to show your trust in me one more time. Go to the polls and vote for me, Gov. Bob Ehlrich to ensure that Maryland continues to grow and provide for its citizens.

The latest polls show Mayor O'Malley with a slim 1% lead. Hopefully the governor can pull this out and save us from our legislature.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Robert Ehrlich, Maryland Politics.

Abridged Version of Obsession: Radical Islams's War Against The West

This is a 12-minute ABRIDGED version of the multi-award winning documentary, Obsession: Radical Islams's War Against The West - a new documentary that exposes the threat of Radical Islam.

This abridged version of the movie gives an overview of the scope of the film and the threat of Radical Islam.

The film and filmmakers have been featured on major CNN, MSNBC, Fox TV and other top US radio & TV talkshows.

Below, there is also an interview by Glenn Beck, US Radio Talk Show Host & CNN Headline News host. In September, Beck interviewed Kopping about the movie.

To view these interviews, as well as clips from the film, visit: www.ObsessionTheMovie.com.

The movie is also being featured a one hour show on cable--Sunday, November 5--on FNC TV (Fox News) at 1:00AM, 5:00AM, 4:00PM and 10:00PM

----------

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Islamism and Suicide Bombers

Ahmadinejad's game

Cry Bones is concerned that regarding Iran, "The Clock is ticking"

Elder of Ziyon rejects the idea that Ahmadinejad is irrational. He might well be a megalomaniac, but he has ambitions that might be outsized, but are not insane. And he is biding his time to achieve a political goal.

Ahmadinejad is not acting as the head of state of Iran; he is acting as the putative leader of the Muslim world. He has that pesky Shiite/Sunni thing to overcome but for the most part he is ignoring the differences between Muslims and focusing on the commonalities.

His seemingly irrational statements about Israel, the Holocaust and the US make much more sense when one realizes that his audience is not Iranians but a billion Muslims. If he can unify them behind him, he effectively becomes the superpower.

LawHawk observes that we must pay attention to Iran's military maneuvers as Iran flexes its military muscle.

It will be interesting to see if the Iranians pull out any new tricks from their playbook such as showing off those new minisubs, long range missiles, or shkval rockets. These kinds of wargames tend to provide more insight into the military preparedness of Iran than otherwise possible. It also bears noting what the Iranians said the last time they engaged in these activities.

At least, JoshuaPundit notes, the administration is keeping tabs on the political machinations of Iran and its puppets.

For a start, the White House formally accused Syria, Iran and Hezbollah of plotting to overthrow Lebanon's Siniora government.White House spokesmouth Tony Snow cited "mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah, and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government.

"Truth is,Iran's proxy Hezbollah, as Sheik Nasrullah famnously said is Lebanon. president Michael Aoun has been in the Syrian's pocket for quite some time, and Hezbollah ad theior sister militia, Amal control enough of the Lebanese government to veto any actions they want.

The WAPO article linked makes reference to Hezbollah demands for early elections in order to establish a national unity government eith `veto power.' In actuality, theyalready have that..and early elections are just designed to finish the process of an Iran/Hezbollah takeover.

Will Israel, the United States and the world allow these threats to materialize. Or will they take the necessary actions diplomatically, and, if necessary militarily to stem Ahmadinejad's ambitions. Or will they just hide under the sheets and pretend that nothing is wrong?

Technorati tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, Terrorism, Lebanon, Hezbollah.

Ehrlich rally in pikesville sunday

via Aishel

Please join the community rally in honor of the Governor!
Place: Club Center - adjacent to Blockbuster on Reisterstown Road, at the old Joan & Gary’s Bagels
1496 Reisterstown Road, near Old Court Road
Time: Sunday, November 5 from 10:00 am to 11:30 am
Meet and greet, schmooze with the Governor, enjoy Kosher Bagels!
This is a critical event and an exciting opportunity - It is vitally important that our community have a strong turnout.
Please make sure to attend this very important event!

Four years ago Joan and Gary's was the scene of a rally too.

Technorati tags: Robert Ehrlich, Maryland Politics, Election 2006.

Referendum on history

Helen Thomas declares confidently The vote will be on the War

The war in Iraq is the issue in the critical Nov.7 election - and it should be.
Voters surely will want to have a say on the national policy that has taken a huge human toll of casualties, both American and Iraqi , and is draining the U.S. treasury.
Although they are not on the ballot, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are running scared, with Bush warning that the Democratic approach means that "the terrorists win and America loses."
It's a rare opportunity to weigh in on the nation's foreign policy and to send a message to the president who led the country into an unnecessary war.

Charles Krauthammer differs. In a Duel, but not decisive (or here) he argues that the losses that Republicans are facing fit with past historical patterns

What to say about such a victory? Substantial, yes. Historic, no. Before proclaiming a landslide, one has to ask Henny Youngman's question: "Compared to what?" (His answer to: "How's your wife?") Since the end of World War II, the average loss for a second-term presidency in its sixth year has been 29 House seats and six Senate seats. If you go back to Franklin Roosevelt's second term, the House loss average jumps to 35. Thus a 25/6 House and Senate loss would be about (and slightly below) the historical average.

and that in quite a few cases, the reasons for a Republican loss are not attributable to the war in Iraq.

Yes, the campaign has been nationalized. But will the results be? In the House, a good five seats (Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Don Sherwood, Mark Foley, Curt Weldon) are likely to be lost to scandals having nothing to do with Bush or Iraq. Of the losing Senate races, only Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania can be said to be dying for the sins of their party.

The other races, if lost, will be lost largely for local reasons. In Ohio, the state is rocked by an enormous Republican scandal at the gubernatorial level that is taking the whole party down with it, Sen. Mike DeWine included. In Montana, Conrad Burns is in trouble because of his association with Jack Abramoff, not George Bush.

In Virginia, a state that should not even be in play, George Allen has run the worst campaign in living memory, stumbling onto one ethnic land mine after another -- "macaca," the Yiddish mama, N-word allegations. And in New Jersey, the one Democratic seat that could conceivably go the other way and save Senate control for the Republicans, the drag on Sen. Bob Menendez is the very nonnational issue of official corruption.

("Macaca," it would appear, is this year's equivalent of "putzhead.")

So not too much should be read into the results:

The election will be a referendum of sorts on Iraq. But it will be registering nothing more than uneasiness and discontent. Had the Democrats offered a coherent alternative to the current policy, one could draw lessons as to what course the country should take. But if either friends or enemies interpret the results as a mandate for giving up, they will be mistaken.

One thing that Krauthammer mentions, is that both Mayor O'Malley and (though Krauthammer didn't mention it) Representative Cardin have been running against President Bush much more than their own opponents (Gov Ehrlich and Lt Gov Steele.)

In particular, I've been very put off by Cardin's ads. Here's a guy with tremendous legislative experience and his commercial don't focus on his accomplishments, but on portraying Michael Steele as being in President Bush's pocket. The stupidity of Cardin's campaign strategy is one reason the race appeas to be so close.

Cardin's strategy is reflective of the Democratic failure to promote any national agenda during the campaign. He may win, but his mandate will not be clear.

See Buzztracker.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Charles Krauthammer.

The Difference Between Nazis and Suicide Bombers on Halloween

From Democracy Project:

Penn President Poses with "Suicide Bomber"

University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann threw her annual Halloween costume party at her home Tuesday night. Among the guests was Saad Saadi, who came dressed as a suicide bomber, complete with plastic dynamite strapped to his chest and a toy automatic rifle. Worse, Gutmann posed with Saadi!

An obvious question: would Gutmann have posed with a guest--or even allowed him into her house--if he'd dressed as Adolf Hitler or a Nazi SS officer? A KKK member?

But in modern liberal circles, posing as a Palestinian suicide bomber (see his kefiya) is just fine. After all, he mainly tries to kill innocent Jews.

Volokh's Conspiracy does not see this as a big deal and compares it to dressing up as a Nazi:

Now there is a more complex argument, I suppose, that could be made: wearing a costume suggests that the depicted person's activity is a laughing matter. I take it that this would be a possible objection to people's dressing as Nazis for Halloween. I should say that I wouldn't object myself to people's dressing as Nazis for Halloween; still, I assume the sensible argument wouldn't be "by dressing as a Nazi you're endorsing Nazism" but "by dressing as a Nazi you're suggesting that it's OK to use Nazis as a subject of light-hearted fun." Yet even this isn't that persuasive an argument in my book. There are contexts in which light joking about suicide bombers or Nazis might be strikingly inapt; a Halloween party, on the other hand, doesn't seem to me to be one.

Instapundit counters:

The Nazi analogy is, I think, a poor one. Nazis are a vanquished former enemy. Suicide bombers are a current enemy. Could that be a relevant difference?

I think the gut negative reaction to this is based on something simpler--

There is a consensus that Nazis who murdered millions were evil.
Therefore: To dress as a Nazi is not taken as a 'statement' of approval--so it is assumed as a parody on Halloween, though perhaps not at other times.

There is no consensus, but instead a significant number of people who claim, that the suicide bombers who go around blowing people up are really freedom fighters.
Therefore: To dress as a suicide bomber therefore can imply a stand in that debate, or at least as condoning it--especially when standing next to an authority figure.

Daled Amos

Update: According to The Daily Pennsylvanian:

Engineering senior Saad Saadi came dressed as a suicide bomber, or, as he alternately titled the costume, a "freedom martyr."

That certainly clarifies his intent.

UPDATE by Soccer Dad: linked by memeorandum or, more specifically, here.

Technorati Tag: Halloween and Suicide Bombers and Terrorism and Islamic+Jihad

Spoiling the dividers

Yesterday, quoting commenting on a Jacob Sullum article in Reason, Outside the Beltway asks "Is divided government better?"

So OTB asks

Again, though, many of these decisions were being made during the post-Jeffords defection period when the Democrats seized control of the Senate. And, anyway, does Sallum really believe that a Congress controlled by Democrats would be less likely to pass increases in social welfare programs? Or that they’d suddenly stop inserting outrageous earmarks into the budget? Really? Thought experiment: Imagine a world where Robert Byrd was chairman of the committee in charge of allocating highway monies.

Though it's 6 years old Mickey Kaus may have an answer. In Don't Rush Me Part I Kaus argued (using a decision matrix) that the best arrangement for fiscal sanity is a Republican Congress and a Democratic President.

He may have a point.

It's been said that the power to tax is the power to destroy. What isn't said is that the power to spend is the power to get re-elected. Given that a Democratic president is more likely to govern by proposing domestic spending initiatives, a Republican Congress would be inclined to restrict his ability to do so (and thus restrict his popularity). Whereas if both the presidency and congress are represented by the same party neither one will be inclined to limit spending as both will want to expand programs to boost their chances for re-election.

The only problem is why a Republican president with a Democratic congress wouldn't be as effective at keeping spending down.

Technorati tags: Politics, Democrats, Republicans.

We have two houses don't we?

Brian Mann complains that the Republican may, in the end, Win Small

Majorities in Congress aren’t formed by the national zeitgeist, as Mr. Rove cheerfully points out. They are built one race at a time. And in dozens of close contests this fall, the outcome will be determined largely by one often-overlooked minority group: the mostly white and mostly conservative voters who live in America’s small towns.

Residents of rural areas make up only a fifth of the country’s population. That’s a little less than African-Americans and Hispanics combined. But unlike voters in those minority groups, small-town whites are often kingmakers in national politics.

In 2004, they voted for George W. Bush by nearly a 20-point margin. Newspapers ran headlines that baffled their urban readers: “Rural Values Proved Pivotal,” “Conservatives in Rural Ohio Big Key in Bush Victory,” and “G.O.P. Won With Accent on Rural and Traditional.”

This year, those same right-leaning small towns make up a major voting bloc in a half-dozen make-or-break Senate races, like those in Missouri, Montana, Tennessee and Virginia. They also dominate battleground House districts throughout the country, from Idaho to northern New York. If rural America embraces Republicans with the same fervor it did two years ago, Democrats will almost certainly be denied a majority in the Senate and may fall short in the House.

Mann objects to this

In part, the electoral importance of small towns reflects a profound rural bias hardwired into our political system. The Constitution grants two Senate seats to each state regardless of its population. As a consequence, a majority of senators are elected by voters in 26 sparsely settled states that together contain less than 18 percent of the country’s population.

A few decades ago, this uneven distribution of power didn’t matter, because rural states regularly divided their votes between the two major parties. But in recent years, low-population states like Alaska, Kansas and Wyoming have voted as a conservative bloc, favoring Republican candidates by overwhelming margins.

Of course that's why nationally we have a bicameral legislature. One house, the Senate is based on states; the other Congress is based on population. Ideally, the House serves to ensure that no population is unrepresented; and the Senate ensures that no State is unrepresented. If the Democrats don't take back the House, it's not due to any "rural bias." They just didn't make their case effectively to enough of the population.

But let's consider the other side of things. Take the state of Maryland. In 1994 candidate Ellen Sauerbrey won 21 of 24 jurisdictions and lost the race for governor to Parris Glendening. Why should 3 jurisdictions dictate their view of governance to the other 21? Isn't that a sign of urban bias?

Currently Governor Bob Ehrlich is in a tight race to retain his office against Mayor Martin O'Malley of Baltimore. Ehrlich has been endorsed by newspapers all over the state (including, surprisingly, the urban Washington Post), from the mountain areas to the west to the shore in the east. Clearly he is pursuing policies that benefit many different types of communities. And yet he may well lose to his opponent whose strength is mostly in urban areas.

If the prognosticators are correct, Mann needn't worry, as the Democrats will almost certainly take the House. But the point of his complaint is silly. The founding fathers sought to balance the interests of the populations versus the interests of the states. Having a bicameral legislature gives Congress the chance to check the outsize influence of the less populous states in the Senate.

UPDATE: Maryland Conservatarian who critiques op-eds in the Washington Post so I don't have to, now applies his skills to the NY times. I had only concerned myself with Mann's argument against the Constitution's implementation of America's governing bodies. But that didn't address the complete op-ed. Maryland Conservatarian addresses why Mann feels as he does. It's because Mann vehemently disagrees with the views of rural America and that those views are outside the mainstream. What's mainstream, Mayland Conservatarian's glad you asked.

Listening to the left and its public faces in Congress, you’d think that same-sex marriage was something all decent Americans agreed on; that Abortion on demand was a mainstream thought; that the second amendment was an anachronism the majority eagerly sought to mute; that true Christians could be only be liberals; that Bush and Cheney were the true terrorists and that unchecked immigration was a national blessing.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Congress, Senate.

Maybe ...

Maybe if the Times didn't offer platforms to terror supporters, they'd get more love from bloggers?
via memeorandum.

Technorati tags: New York Times, Media.

Arafat denial

In a recent letter to the Washington Post, Walter Reich recounts why he was sacked as head of the United States Holocaust Museum.

When I learned of the invitation, I objected that the museum shouldn't be used as a prop for a photo op. The invitation was, in my judgment, aimed at convincing American Jews, who mistrusted Arafat because of his support for terrorism during the years after the Oslo accords, that he genuinely felt the pain of the Jewish people and could be trusted to keep any word he would give in his upcoming negotiations with President Bill Clinton. I said that exploiting the memory of the Holocaust victims to sway public opinion in the service of achieving diplomatic objectives was unconscionable. I pointed out that Arafat had been invited to Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to and museum about the Holocaust, but hadn't been interested in going there -- even though he was living in nearby Gaza.

Technorati tags: Yasser Arafat, United States Holocaust Museum.

Ehrlich closing?

Not surprisingly the Baltimore Sun didn't show the same intellectual honesty that the Washington Post did and endorsed Mayor O'Malley for governor. The first few sentences of the final paragraph beg for a response.

Mr. Ehrlich wants voters to believe he would have accomplished much more if only the Democrats in the General Assembly had not thwarted him at every turn. But that's not much of an excuse for the inertia of the last four years. Governors from California to Virginia have overcome such political barriers. They show flexibility, build coalitions and strike compromises.

Why could Warner in Virginia work with his legislature and not Ehrlich? Three words: veto proof majority. The legislature didn't work Gov. Ehrlich because it didn't have to. The flurry of bills passed and vetoes overridden at the beginning of the most recent legislative session is a testament to the out of control General Assembly. What's more three of the overrides were subsequently reversed by the courts. What Maryland has is an arrogant legislature, certain of its power and unwilling to bend. As Governor Ehrlich has presided over a growing economy in which more people are employed and fewer are unemployed than four years ago the General Assembly has overridden vetoes that threaten that growth. Having a Govenor who operates with the same economic ignorance as the general assembly will endanger that growth.

Despite the endorsement, the Sun reported that its latest polls showed that Governor Ehrlich had closed to within one point of Mayor O'Malley. Unfortunately the paper's reporters couldn't resist a little bit of politicking for the mayor as Maryland Conservatarian notes.

The Baltimore Sun continues to justify my claim that it is the worst big-city newspaper in America.Today, they report that here in Maryland, the Governor’s race is a tossup.
“The Maryland governor's race is a virtual tie less than a week before Election Day, as Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s relentless attacks on Mayor Martin O'Malley's record on crime and schools have eroded the Democrat's support in the Baltimore suburbs, a new poll for The Sun shows.”

I’m guessing the Sun is just PO’ed because their own relentless attacks on Governor Ehrlich apparently aren’t as effective as the ones they highlight the Governor is making on Mayor O’Malley.

It's not like O'Malley isn't running a negative campaign. It's also odd that the Sun would bring up the negative ads when in the past week or so Ehrlich's been featuring ads touting his accomplishments. Ehrlich is running on his record; even if the Sun won't acknowledge it.

(Crablaw makes an interesting observation. I think what he's getting at is this: Is Steele having success with African-Americans that is having a negative effect on Ehrlich?)

Real Clear Politics is encouraged but notes that 2006 has challenges that 2002 didn't have. More coverage here.

In general Free State Politics offers his endorsements and predictions. And Monoblogue has his rundown of the issues in the Gubernatorial and Senate races.

Technorati tags: Robert Ehrlich, Martin O'Malley.

Yossi Sarid Seems To Kerry On

Arutz Sheva reports:

As Israel approaches the national memorial day commemorating the 1995 murder of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, the Gesher Organization asked Israelis what event caused the greatest rift in society.

The Rabin assassination came in second, while Ariel Sharon's destruction of the Jewish communities in Gush Katif came in first.

But apparently Yossi Sarid is intent on seeing the Rabin assassination claim its rightful place as the event that has caused the greatest rift in Israeli society.

In Thursday's Haaretz, Said writes

Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Friday that one in every three Israelis supports a pardon for Rabin's assassin, and that one in every two religious right-wing Israelis favors his early parole. Your eyes burn in their sockets as you read this news, as you refuse to believe what you are reading. Yet, why should we be surprised? The spirit of amnesty is drifting down from the upper echelons of Israeli society, slowly descending to the lower ones. The rabbis who encouraged the assassin, explicitly or implicitly, long ago received their pardons. Those who stood on the balcony at Jerusalem's Zion Square the night that bloodshed was sanctioned inherited Rabin's place, and were later even declared his ideological successors - the last "Mapainiks."

Although the assassin was apprehended and sent to prison, because he was the one who fired the three bullets, those who drew a bull's-eye on Rabin's back and told him that the prime minister was a permissible target have never been forced - perish the thought! - to account for their actions.

For a another perspective of the Rabin assassination Israel Matzav has posts here and here.

Sarid's attacks on the rabbis reminds me of John Kerry's comment about the US soldiers in Iraq--except for 2 differences.
1. Sarid is not telling a 'joke'--he means every word.
2. Unlike in the US, in Israel there will be no wellspring of condemnation and demands for an apology.

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Yossi Sarid and Yitzchak Rabin and Israel

Old friends

Hat tip to an old friend Elie's Expositions.

I'm Bookends!
Which Simon and Garfunkel album are you?

Earlier I took the test and came out with Wednesday Morning 3AM. I didn't see myself as that album. The title song - a contemplation of a petty criminal awaiting his imminent arrest - was great, as was the Sounds of Silence. Both were redone for Simon and Garfunkel's second album, the Sounds of Silence.
Wednesday Morning 3AM became the jarring Somewhere they can't find me and The Sounds of Silence had a drum track added and became the version that was released as a single.

Bookends was Simon and Garfunkel's next to last album. The best songs were Fakin' it, At the Zoo and A Hazy Shade of Winter. I'd guess that Mrs. Robinson was the most popular song on the album though.

And the oddest song was probably Punky's dilemma which started "I wish I was a Kellogg's Corn Flake ..."

Technorati tags: Simon and Garfunkel.

If ... you must 11/02/2006

If you haven't read My Daughter's Birthday Party Gifts at Daled Amos; you must.
AbbaGav's been there. And there's Barbie too.

If you haven't read PsychoToddler's Aggravating Assault; you must.

If you haven't read about the Most Disappointing Ice Cream at Me-Ander; you must.
Here's the full scoop.

If you haven't read View from a Height's Finally Snow; you must.
Or at least look at the stunning pictures.

If you haven't seen Spring Solutions at Not Quite Perfect; you must.
Also stunning.

If you haven't read Dr. Helen's Daylight saving-time and Seasonal Affective Disorder; you must.

If you haven't read In Context's Hello Moon; you must.

If you haven't read Ohmigod its TRAIF! at Yourish; you must.
She's being pigheaded. :-)

If you haven't read Jack Shack's Vampires are mathematical impossibility; you must.

If you haven't read Alamanac of Miscellaneous Merriment's Wicked Witch Day; you must.

If you haven't read about Math Geeks winning the Lottery at Jack's Shack; you must.

If you haven't read A Bad Hand at Baseball Crank; you must.

If you haven't read Boring Post Season at Baseball Musings; you must.

If you haven't read How the Cardinals Shocked the World at The Hardball Times; you must.

If you haven't read Why exactly should Israel give the Golan back to Syria at Mere Rhetoric; you must.

If you haven't read Hizbullah Co revamping business model at Israel at Level Ground; you must.

If you haven't read the Busy Life of Mahmoud Abbas at Elder of Ziyon; you must.
Apparently the guy really pushes (and opens) the envelopes. But is that a reason we should be boosting his military power?

If you haven't read Zionaphobia at Judeosphere; you must.

If you haven't read Roger L. Simon's Wolf Blitzer speaks lies to power; you must.
What exactly is Al Qaeda's media strategy?

What dreams may come?

Ahmed Yousef dreams about peace. In Pause for Peace (h/t Elie's Expositions) he writes

HERE in Gaza, few dream of peace. For now, most dare only to dream of a lack of war. It is for this reason that Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace.

And by what mechanism does he propose to reach a "lasting peace?" By a hudna of course.

A truce is referred to in Arabic as a “hudna.” Typically covering 10 years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences. The Koran finds great merit in such efforts at promoting understanding among different people. Whereas war dehumanizes the enemy and makes it easier to kill, a hudna affords the opportunity to humanize one’s opponents and understand their position with the goal of resolving the intertribal or international dispute.

Very noble.

Except.

Backspin points out

The Guardian reports that Yousef is stumping for the hudna in the UK as well. His sales pitch doesn't mention the Hamas covenant, which explicitly calls for Israel’s destruction. Even the IRA wasn't interested in destroying Britain.

Backspin also links to an HonestReporting report on hudnas

When Yassir Arafat infamously invoked Mohammad's hudna in 1994 to describe his own Oslo commitments "on the road to Jerusalem," the implication was clear. As Mideast expert Daniel Pipes explained, Arafat was asserting to his Islamic brethren that he will, "when his circumstances change for the better, take advantage of some technicality to tear up existing accords and launch a military assault on Israel." Indeed, this is precisely what occurred in Sept. 2000 when Arafat & Co. lauched a terror
assault upon Israeli citizens.

As for Hamas, they have proven time and again their commitment to a tactical hudna — replenishing their strength during the quiet periods, then returning with increased deadliness. As recently documented by The Washington Institute, Hamas agreed to no less than ten ceasefires in the past ten years, and after every single one returned freshly armed for terror. Hundreds of Israeli citizens have paid for these hudnas with their lives.

Similarly, Israel Matzav quotes an expert who observes that a hudna is war preparing not peace making move

Actually what Yousef is describing is what's called a 'cease fire' or a 'truce' in western parlance. The problem is that he has mischaracterized the true nature of hudna. In a blog post in August, I cited an article by Tashbih Sayyed, the Editor in Chief of Pakistan Today and The Muslim World Today, President of Council for Democracy and Tolerance, an adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute, and a regular columnist for newspapers across the world (in other words - the elusive 'moderate Muslim') (which I can no longer find at the original site) which described how Islam uses a hudna...

Foreign Policy Passport debunks Yousef's straw man argument

That "some" he references seems like a code word for pro-Israel and Israeli hardliners, right? After all, Israel Defense Forces Southern Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant recently told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hamas is developing a formal anti-tank unit.

But among those "some" is Musa Abu Marzouq, the former head of Hamas's Political Bureau. In a 1995 interview he told Khaled Hroub, a Palestinian journalist and author of the 2002 book Hamas: Political Thought and Practice, that hudna is an acceptable means to achieve an "interem solution" that creates a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, but "the best method in practice to achieve progress beyond the interim solution ... is jihad and armed resistance." Hroub's research shows that Hamas considers hudna a means to avoid direct conflict with Israel, while giving Hamas the chance "to alter the balance of power" in order to achieve its ultimate solution, a Middle East without Israel. Hudna doesn't guarantee the resumption of violence, but it also doesn't take it off the table.

Even progressive talk show hosts Bruno and the Professor find the claim a bit dubious

You can go to work on the subway, feeling satisfied that peace is at hand as you read an encouraging op-ed in the Times by the Hamas Prime Minister, then read the news from Israel that Hamas is organizing a full-fledged army complete with battalions and divisions.

So what do we have? A newspaper that, last week, objected to Israel's bringing a legitimate political party into the government, now allows a representative of a terrorist party to propogandize in its pages.

Just like when the Washington Post gave a platform to Yousef's boss, Ismail Haniyeh, a few months ago, the New York Times can't defend itself by claiming its promoting debate. It is giving a platform to a terrorist.

Case closed.

Yousef claims that he hopes to dream. Given his Hamas affiliation what dreams - if any - does he hope to allow Israelis to have?

More at memeorandum.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Technorati tags: Israel, Hamas, Hudna.

It's the fault of democracy

Robert Samuelson tells us what's wrong with the country What if we're to blame? ( or here.)

Public opinion also marches in many directions at once.

Americans favor balanced budgets. But in 66 years of surveys, taxpayers have never said their income taxes were too low. A Gallup poll in April found that 48 percent thought their taxes too high; and only 2 percent too low. Americans also think government spending is hugely wasteful. But locating that waste is hard. A recent Fox News poll reported that only 19 percent favor cuts in Social Security, 21 percent in health care and 25 percent in defense.

Or consider energy. Americans crave cheap gasoline. Unfortunately, that increases our oil demand -- which conflicts with our desire to reduce oil imports. Or immigration. A recent Pew Research Center survey said that 52 percent of Americans think immigrants are "a burden because they take jobs and housing.'' But only 27 percent would require illegal immigrants to go home and only 40 percent would reduce legal immigration.

Facing such inconsistencies, how can government make sensible policy? Not easily.

It's not that we don't know what we want; it's that what we want too many different and - often - inconsistent things. Infinite Diversity (results) in Infinite Confusion.

Technorati tags: Democracy, Robert Samuelson.

Watchers of weasles 11/01/2006

The Watcher of Weasels has this week's nominations up. Here are the Council nominations.

AbbaGav considers the depths to which the media sinks to make an issue of torture.

The question actually asked here is getting remarkably close to "have you stopped beating your wife" levels of unanswerability. Of course the Vice President went out of his way to make his answer clear. Could simple honesty and clarity be enough for the press and left-leaning organizations to understand? No I don't think so, and the administration didn't think so either. Which is why some further clarification was needed to make sure no one misrepresented Cheney's answer as being connected to the specific issue of "water boarding" which is apparently the torture du jour in some parts:

The American Future worries about the American present; specifically how to vote. On one hand the war in Iraq has not been prosecuted well, on the other, what message would he send as a voter if the Democrats win?

But the other members of the Axis of Evil—Iran and North Korea—are still out there, and they are more dangerous now than they were two years ago. Iran is closer to having the Bomb and North Korea has conducted a nuclear test. Because it has been mismanaged, the duration of the Iraq war has been far greater than was anticipated. As a result, our armed forces are stretched thin and, perhaps more importantly, the American people have little stomach for another military action, no matter how necessary it may become. Out of both military and political necessity, Bush the unilateralist has become Bush the multilateralist. Some might say he's become positively Clintonesque. As someone who doubts the efficacy of diplomacy not backed by the credible threat of force, this greatly concerns me.

Done with Mirrors follows up last week's post by the Glittering Eye on piracy, with a previous example of an American failure of nerve and the subsequent price paid. What's next if America's nerves fail now?

But the Marines' victory, when it came, was almost an embarrassment to the administration, since the diplomats were working things out smoothly with the tyrant, agreeing in principle, haggling over prices. They made sure Eaton and his followers never had a chance. The administration not only paid ransom, it accepted a treaty with a clause that set a going ransom rate for U.S. prisoners, thus encouraging the pirates to try to take more of them.

The Education Wonks write about the Florida Legislature's decision to reverse last year's legislation allowing students to brink knives to school and wonders

Just out of curiosity, I wonder what percentage of the Sunshine State's lawmakers send their own offspring to private schools?

Gates of Vienna considers a case of a husband accused of mutilation but suspects that something else is going on. One doubt:

I’ve looked at some of the blogosphere’s reaction to this trial, and it seems to be generally assumed that this is a case of Shar’ia law at work. However, there is no indication that this man is a Muslim; Ethiopia has a mixture of religions, and is about one-third Muslim.

The Glittering Eye considers the Hungarian revolution and the Beirut marine barracks bombing and the similar American response to each. (For some reason I can't copy and paste an excerpt.)

JoshuaPundit considers a parable of Rats in the Kitchen. Surrender is not an option.

Today marks the anniversary of two incidents that I think bear some reflection. It’s the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. It’s also the anniversary of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing in which 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers were killed by a suicide bomber. If you’re not familiar with either or both incidents, I’m not going to bother recapping them here—go the links I’ve provided. The picture above is of a demonstration at the outset of the uprising which took place 50 years ago today.

Rhymes with Right thinks that the overreaching of the New Jersey Supreme Court in the matter of gay marriage has given the GOP an issue to run on.

Now the problem here should be obvious to anyone who isn't looking at the decision from a "results-oriented" perspective. The justices do not find a right to gay marriage in the state's Constitution -- and then go on to overturn the status quo anyway on vague theory taht "the status quo is intolerable". They order that the legislature act in 180 days to create gay marriage -- in fact, whetehr or not they do so in name. And the minority dissented not because of this radical judicial activism -- no, they don't feel the court was activist enough! they wanted teh court to create gay marriage and implement it through judicial fiat! In both cases, however, they ignore th specific policy decisions of the state legislature to NOT create gay marriage when they passed a domestic partnership law.

Right Wing Nuthouse criticizes George Allen's latest attack on James Webb. He'd rather see an eventual concilliation between those two candidates like a reconcilliation that took place over 200 years ago.

In the end, Jefferson and Adams healed the wounds from that campaign and, in the most remarkable of exchanges in the history of American letters, explored the philosophy and politics that made up the basis of the grand experiment in democracy in which they both played such a vital role. Their letters – affectionate, teasing at times, and thoughtful – prove that even the rankest of political enemies can find common ground if a modest effort is made.

Shrinkwrapped critiques "Flags of our Fathers". (for some reason I can't copy text from Shrinkwrapped either.)

Sundries Shack writes about John Kerry reporting for foot in mouth duty.

There’s just no way at all that a veteran who once accused his compatriots of war crimes before Congress would ever accuse them of being stupid. Oh no. That would be beyond the pale. And how dare those mean ol’ Republicans make up some controversy just because he offhandedly accused your friends and family of being undereducated dunderheads!

My contribution is The best hasbarah

Technorati tag: Technorati tag:Watcher's Council.

Islamism or: How They Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

In The Crisis of Islam, Bernard Lewis writes:

There are several forms of Islamic extremism current at the present time. The best known are the subversive radicalism of Al-Qa'ida and other groups that resemble it all over the Muslim world; the preemptive fundamentalism of the Saudi establishment; and the institutionalized revolution of the ruling Iranian hierarchy. All of these are, in a sense, Islamic in origin, but some of them have deviated very far from their origins.

Just how far they have deviated is discussed by Noah Feldman, an American author and professor of law at the New York University School of Law. He also worked as an advisor in the early days of the Paul Bremer transitional team in Iraq for the writing of the country's then unwritten constitution. In an article for the New York Times magazine, Islam, Terror and the Second Nuclear Age, Feldman touches on the attempt to justify suicide bombings in Islamic law.

Basically, Islamists have solved the problem of the apparent contradiction between suicide and suicide bombings by redefining these bombers--despite the blatant contradiction with the standard definition of a martyr as being killed by someone other than the martyr himself.

That leaves the problem of justifying the killing of women and children, which seem to clearly go against Islamic law.

“A woman was found killed in one of the battles fought by the Messenger of Gd,” runs a report about the Prophet Muhammad considered reliable and binding by the Muslim scholars. “So the Messenger of Gd forbade the killing of women and children.” This report was universally understood to prohibit the deliberate killing of noncombatant women and children. Some scholars interpreted it to mean that anyone incapable of warfare should be protected and so extended the ban to the elderly, the infirm and even male peasants, who as a rule did not fight. Muslims living among the enemy were also out of bounds. These rather progressive principles were broadly accepted by the Islamic legal authorities, Sunni and Shiite alike. For well over a thousand years, no one seriously questioned them.

Even Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, the Lebanese cleric who approved the attack on US Marines in 1983 said the 9/11 bombers were not martyrs--but "merely suicides."

At first, the sanctioning of the killing of women and children in Israel by suicide bombers developed almost on its own.

The equivocation by Muslim scholars with respect to the technique of suicide bombing reflected the reality that throughout the Muslim world, Palestinian suicide bombers were by 2001 identified as martyrs dying in a just cause. This, in turn, was the natural outgrowth of the decades before suicide bombing, when Palestinian terrorists were applauded for killing Israeli civilians, including women and children. Given that embracing Palestinian suicide bombing had become a widespread social norm, it would have been essentially unthinkable for an important Muslim scholar to condemn the practice without losing his standing among Muslims worldwide. In the Islamic world, as in the U.S. Supreme Court, the legal authorities cannot get too far away from their public constituency without paying a price.

What happened, in other words, is that without the scholars paying too much attention to the question, the killing of Israeli women and children had become a kind of exception to the ordinary laws of jihad.

It wasn't too hard to widen the loophole to include more than just Israelis.
o Israeli women could be killed because they served in the army.
o bin Laden claimed attacks on American were allowed because they were defensive in nature, since Americans were occupying Saudi soil
o Later, killing American civilians became justified because they freely voted for the government and were thus liable for its policies
o Muslims worldwide are under attack and they are therefore allowed to use all means necessary to defend themselves--even those that violate the Islamic laws of Jihad.

The underlying basis for permitting the killing of women and children boils down to it's right because it's necessary: the basic argument used by the West in modern warfare--particularly the nuclear bomb--has been adopted by the Moslem world, just as it has adopted the technology of mass destruction.

Feldman concludes that:

it is an unavoidable fact that the classic restrictions on the killing of women, children and Muslims in jihad have been deeply undermined in the last decade.

Which is why we need real moderate Moslem leadership to take a stand--something that we are not going to see from organizations like CAIR.

Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Islam and Islamism and Suicide Bombers and Islamic Law .