Soccer Dad

Der Spiegel: "Contestants to Compete for Donated Kidney in Dutch TV Show"

How would you blog about this story? Would you merely express shock and outrage? Make up other possible game shows? Write an eight-pargraph essay explaining why this is not perhaps such a good idea? Embed a link in the word "yuck"?

A Dutch television company is to broadcast a unique game show where three chronically ill contestants will compete for a kidney donation. German commentators agree that the show is scandalous -- but argue that the real organ donation situation in the Netherlands is even more shocking.

From the people who brought you "Big Brother" -- the show where you can win a kidney.

In "The Big Donor Show," which is to be aired Friday in the Netherlands on the private television station BNN, three seriously ill patients who are waiting for kidney transplants will compete for a donated organ from a terminally ill 37-year-old woman identified only as "Lisa."

The show, of course, has the interactive elements common to reality TV shows. Lisa will interview the three contestants, and viewers will then be able to vote by mobile phone text message for the person who they feel best deserves the life-saving transplant.

Lisa herself will make the final decision about who will get one of her kidneys -- which will be transplanted while she is still alive -- based on the contestants' history, profile and conversations with their families and friends. However some observers have raised the question of whether the kidney will even be suitable for transplantation, seeing as Lisa is suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. Normally donated organs come from healthy individuals.

Unsurprisingly, the show has sparked controversy in the Netherlands and beyond.[...]

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Update: It's a hoax.

Global warming vs. global jihad

The Washington Post reports in Obama and Romney lay out positions on Iraq and Beyond that presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney have laid out their foreign policies in an upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

Sen. Obama's views are described

In his article, Obama cites Democratic icons Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy as leaders who managed in "moments of great peril . . . both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation."

Expanding on issues he first raised last month before the Chicago World Affairs Council, the senator from Illinois adds "a warming planet" to an otherwise conventional list of security threats that include global terrorists, proliferating nuclear weapons and "weak states that cannot control their territory."

After a U.S. withdrawal pushes Iraqi leaders toward political accommodation, he says, the new president should make a commitment to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "a task that the Bush administration neglected for years." Obama calls for a dialogue with Iran and Syria, noting that "our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries . . . is failing. Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly."

Pretty conventional stuff, although I suppose that President Truman who went to war in Korea wouldn't necessarily see the advantage to talking to the likes of Syrian and Iran today. And, of course, he believes that threatening (and carrying out) a withdrawal will magically make the government of Iraq competent. He also ignores the fact that despite its heavy investment in Israeli-Palestinian peace the Clinton administration had nothing to show for its investment.

On the other hand Gov. Romney sees the jihadist threat as the main one facing us today.

Romney presents a somewhat narrower vision, echoing Bush in describing "the jihadist threat" as "the defining challenge of our generation." Repeating a speech he gave last month at the George H.W. Bush presidential library, Romney outlines four "pillars" of action, beginning with enhancement of the military. In addition to 100,000 more troops, the former governor of Massachusetts calls for an annual increase of $30 billion to $40 billion in the defense budget and pledges to spend at least 4 percent of the gross domestic product on defense.

Romney's second pillar is energy independence, a process that he says could take at least 20 years and should include increased domestic production with more offshore drilling, more nuclear power and a "fuller exploitation of coal," along with increased energy efficiency. "At the same time," he says without mentioning global climate change, "we may well be able to rein in our greenhouse gas emissions." He calls for a "far-reaching research initiative" to create cleaner energy.

Pillar three is the creation of joint commands, along the lines of the military's, to coordinate the use abroad of nonmilitary resources in health, education, law enforcement and diplomacy. Interagency regional commands, headed by "heavy hitters" with independent budgets, would supervise activities the way the military's regional commands do.

The fourth is a reexamination of U.S. alliances, leading to a greater focus on defeating radical Islam and establishing intelligence and law enforcement networks. Romney says that as one of his first presidential acts, he would call for a "summit of nations" to support moderate Muslims around the world.

The devil, of course, is in the details. How will Romney fund his increase in defense spending is a very real question.

If the article accurately portrays each candidate's views then it would appear that Sen. Obama has an advantage in specifics. On the other hand, a vision is what's needed at this point. While I'm not sure I buy into Romney's energy independence, he recognizes the Islamist threat and that is the difference between him (or most Republicans) and Sen. Obama (or most Democrats). Lacking that understanding of that threat to the West is the biggest failing of the Democrats. (Sen. Obama talks of the war vs. Al Qaeda, but it's more than just Al Qaeda.) The biggest global threat that Obama sees is global warming, a concern that I don't share with him.

Mitt Romney, Barach Obama, Foreign Policy.

Removing splinters

From Trudy Rubin

The tragic situation on the West Bank and in Gaza also reflects a total U.S. misunderstanding of the region. The death of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, a man unable to embrace the role of statesman, offered the White House the last best chance to encourage a two-state solution. It passed up the chance.

Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Palestinian Authority were weak, but Abbas was committed to two states, side by side. Had Gaza been returned to him via peace talks, his Fatah party would have been strengthened - and Hamas undermined. Instead, the United States backed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza. This bolstered Hamas's argument that its violent tactics had driven out the Israelis.

The undercutting of Abbas led to the predictable disintegration of the Palestinian Authority. Even as President Bush was telling Americans that Gaza would morph into a model democracy, its impoverished society was collapsing. Its people, desperate for services, voted in a Hamas government.

Forgetting for a moment whether or not Abbas is truly committed to two states, there is so much wrong with these paragraphs, it's hard to know where to begin. The problems didn't start with Arafat's death. They started with ... Arafat.

Rubin, and others like her, hitched their hopes to an unreformed terrorist. Abbas wasn't weak because the return of Gaza was unilateral. He was weak because he and Fatah were corrupt. They were corrupt because they were treated as indispensable even as they demonstrated their bad faith again and again.

One of the less commented aspects of George Tenet's book has been his assessment of Arafat.

Still, he says that the White House was right not to push for greater diplomacy with the Palestinians once Bush entered office, as it was apparent little could be done with Arafat in power.

"He got what he could from us [through the Oslo process], and from that point on gave little back," Tenet says. "Therefore - and it was a view I supported - there would be no more letting him in the front door." Despite his critique of Arafat, Tenet acknowledges that on a personal level, "I couldn't keep myself from liking him."

(The media anxious to use any stick with which to beat President Bush only use Tenet's book to dispute Bush, not to support him.)

The splinter groups that Rubin laments as being central to the disintegration of the Middle East were pioneered by Fatah. Once Fatah saw that terror worked it served as a model for its many imitators and wannabes. Rubin ought to look in the mirror is she wishes to see who is responsible for the splinter groups.

Arafat learned very quickly that as long as he was considered indispensable for peace it allowed him to accumulate wealth, prestige and power, all in the noble cause of self determination. Those who gave him a free pass are the ones responsible for the predictable failure of the peace process. Once Arafat was free from any responsibility except to say that he wanted peace, he took full advantage. Peace became defined as anything Arafat wanted, and Israel, if it objected became the obstructionist.

Earlier Daled Amos linked to an excellent article analyzing the spell Arafat had over the West.

TERRORISTS CAN WORK through language, as did Richard until he had access to violence, or through violence alone. What makes Arafat's career in terror so remarkable is that when he has had limited access to violence, he has been able to use the very means Richard did to convince his enemies not to run him through.

Arafat has been able to paint himself and the Palestinian people as victims because, lacking a conscience, he could glibly encourage Palestinian children to stand as human shields for his snipers. Fighting such an enemy so pricked the conscience of Israel that many Israelis felt they could not live with themselves--even though they knew that Arafat was manipulating them. This was another reason the Israelis ignored common sense, and decided to give in to the Oslo illusion that Arafat could be trusted.

It is interesting that the person who finally defeats Richard III in Shakespeare's play, Richmond, is the one key character who never talks to Richard or gives him a hearing, and thus never comes under his spell. To talk to Arafat, which is what all pundits say must be done to bring peace to the Middle East, is precisely the wrong move, for there is no dialogue with a man without a conscience. Another wrong move is the game of decriminalizing Arafat. By refusing to punish him for horrendous crimes, as a serious nation would, Israel leaves the world, the Arabs, and itself with the sense that maybe his crimes can be justified, and its own attempts to restrain him from further criminal acts are criminal excesses in themselves. Israel would do better to relentlessly show the world pictures of Arafat's victims, including the American ambassador he assassinated.

Note that Tenet, even while blaming Arafat, found that he liked Arafat personally. Sure, Israel's withdrawal from Gaza (and before it, its withdrawal from Southern Lebanon) didn't help the cause of peace in the Middle East. But the splintering occurred way before then. It occurred when Arafat was legitimized. Those who - like Trudy Rubin - supported the cleansing of the world's leading terrorist are the ones who are guilty of enabling the splintering that she faults the Bush administration for causing.

Diplomacy, offered by Rubin as a possible solution to the problem is splintering, is what caused it in the first place.

Yasser Arafat, Terrorism.

The reason ...

My wife doesn't allow me to post any identifying information about my children on my blog. The reason is this.

In her high school track and field career, Stokke had won a 2004 California state pole vaulting title, broken five national records and earned a scholarship to the University of California, yet only track devotees had noticed. Then, in early May, she received e-mails from friends who warned that a year-old picture of Stokke idly adjusting her hair at a track meet in New York had been plastered across the Internet. She had more than 1,000 new messages on her MySpace page. A three-minute video of Stokke standing against a wall and analyzing her performance at another meet had been posted on YouTube and viewed 150,000 times.

"I just want to find some way to get this all under control," Stokke told her coach.

Three weeks later, Stokke has decided that control is essentially beyond her grasp. Instead, she said, she has learned a distressing lesson in the unruly momentum of the Internet. A fan on a Cal football message board posted a picture of the attractive, athletic pole vaulter. A popular sports blogger in New York found the picture and posted it on his site. Dozens of other bloggers picked up the same image and spread it. Within days, hundreds of thousands of Internet users had searched for Stokke's picture and leered.

Al Qassam Brigades Information Office: "Abu Obaiada: The Zionist entity have to forget Shalit for ever"

The British University and College Union just voted to boycott Israel, thereby expressing solidarity with the Palestinians. Let's hear from the party the Palestinians elected to lead them, shall we? The interviewee is Hamas spokesman Abu Obaiada (or Obaida):

The politicians in the Zionist entity have plans to execute more bloody operations against the brigades and Hamas, what can you say about that?

Theses Zionist decisions are clearly failed. The Zionist forces in the last weeks executed its air strikes against civilian sites or internal security devices like the executive force. The Zionist entity is flopping. He has nothing to do in Gaza and he has to give up. The Zionist forces failed in Gaza before. We will respond to any aggression not with just the rocks but with every available mean.

What do you think about targeting the executive force sites?

It natural for us to be targeted by the Zionist forces. Because we present the head of the resistance in the Palestinian lands. This caused a panic for the Zionist state. In the issue of the executive force, it is the only Palestinian police force formed by Palestinian agenda. It is not applied Zionist agenda so it will be targeted and that consider as an honor to its members.

What if the Zionist entity executed its threatens and assassinated your leaders, How your response will be look like?

surly the Zionist army may committed crimes against our leaders. But note that when the resistance was in its beginnings, it was a real threat on the Zionist entity. We will use the martyrdom operations, rockets, and may something's you will hear it soon. We stressed that these assassinations will increase the ability of survive to the Palestinian people and Hamas.

What about Shalit?

Abu Obiada direct message to the Zionist entity have to forget Shalit for ever if it assassinated one Hamas leaders. But the surprise was that he said "May be before Shalit released, some of his friends will be with him".

Do you have the intention to improve your resistance means?

We are working to improve our resistance means as we promised our people. The Zionist sanction to the Palestinian people give us strong that our method is right. And our rockets will be more accurate and more influencing.

What about the martyrdom operations in the occupation land in 1948?

Of course, the martyrdom operations didn’t need just to political or military decision. Also it needs to define the circumstances on the ground. Some times there is decision to launch martyrdom operation but the execution delayed. That revert to the circumstances on the ground and the target kind.

I assume that means "Hell, yeah!"

Recently you talked about improving Qassam rockets and you said that it’s a matter of time that the will reach Asqlan, Do you have rockets reach to Asqlan?

In this issue, we said about reaching the rockets to Asqlan that it’s a matter of time. And we are working to develop our resistance techniques and means.

What is your message to the Zionist entity?

Your leadership is don’t know what it is doing. Destroying the rockets, building, and even the leaders martyrdom didn’t make us retreat. It will give us more strength and power to continue our struggle against the Zionist entity and protect the Palestinian people.

"Your leadership is don’t know what it is doing." That's eminently quotable.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Arafat and Richard III: Implications For Israel

I have never found a description of the West's blindness to evil as compelling and unsettling as this article written in April 2002

Evil's Advantage Over Conscience
Why the West gives Yasser Arafat endless second chances.
by Norman Doidge

...When dealing with Arafat, even the foes of terror become inconsistent and incoherent.

The archetypal releaser of Arafat is a leader who has criticized him many times, has shown himself capable of the assertive use of deadly force in other situations, and, like Reagan, Bush, Begin, Sharon, Rabin, and Barak, has criticized others for letting terrorists go free. The typical, last-minute liberator is a reluctant and soon-to-be-regretful redeemer, who has often battled terror. Usually, he is utterly disquieted as he finds himself letting Arafat off, but he feels trapped by some force larger than himself. Something always seems to happen so that the knowledge that it is dangerous to let such men go unpunished is not translated into effective action. It is as though these leaders come under a spell.

This "spell" is part of a dynamic that operates when the evil being confronted is brazen and relentless, and it occurred when the first President Bush let Saddam Hussein off at the end of the Gulf War. The fact that Bush allowed Saddam to escape a just defeat when he was all but conquered is crucial: The person who decides on the ill-advised release does not act from a position of relative weakness. Neville Chamberlain and the others who released Hitler--another representative of brazen evil--at Munich did so before the Fuhrer perfected his war machine. It is as though there were an unwritten psychological law that evil at its most shameless--the most barbaric murder of children and civilians, the most outrageous claims and lies--is somehow, in the minute before midnight, to be treated as an exception worthy of reprieve.

In each historical instance, there is of course a political imperative that is cited to justify snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. In Arafat's case, the political imperative has turned out each time to be based on a flawed calculus. In March, U.S. pressure on Israel to loosen its hold on Arafat was justified in the name of shoring up Arab support for Washington's new effort to topple Saddam. That Arab support did not materialize, any more than Oslo's promise had. In fact, Washington's Arab "friends" declared at the Beirut Arab summit that any attack on Iraq was an attack on them. To which Secretary of State Powell replied that Arafat, a man who had boasted of killing the American ambassador and his assistant in Khartoum, was no terrorist.

THE STUDENT of human nature who seems best to have recognized the importance of this bizarre dynamic, in which a conscientious hero proves unable to finish off a foe he knows to be evil, was none other than Shakespeare. Indeed, the Bard was obsessed with understanding the phenomenon. Hamlet hesitated to bring Claudius to justice, and he paid with his life and the lives of those he loved. But it is in "Richard III" that one can learn most from characters who see evil, yet freeze at the key moment. The principal characters are fully aware of Richard's undeniable evil, yet they let him have his way despite themselves. Richard is the most systematically evil character in all of Shakespeare's plays. "I can smile, and murder while I smile," he says, swearing that he will outdo all the villains of history "and set the murderous Machiavel to school."

The most important thing Richard knows is that while conscience allows us to understand ordinary crimes, it actually blinds us before the most extraordinary ones.

The idea that conscience blinds us, making us less able to oppose evil's most brazen forms, is deeply disturbing, for conscience is the sine qua non of civil society. Conscience is supposed to be the faculty that helps us become aware of our effects on others and our motives towards them, notably our baser motives. In Elizabethan English, "conscience" is an equivocal word that can mean either that faculty that allows us to feel guilt or "awareness," as in "consciousness." When Hamlet says, "Conscience does make cowards of us all," he means consciousness, by making us aware of the possibility of death, makes us cowardly.

But conscience, designed to ferret out evil within, can also actually narrow our awareness of evil. This happens, according to Freud, because the person with a conscience learns to repress automatically his own most destructive inclinations so as not to act on them. He becomes ignorant, for example, of the thrill of evil that a sadist like Richard III feels when he plays God and exercises the freedom to kill whomever he pleases. But the cost of repressing one's most destructive feelings is an inability to understand, without significant effort, those who give these feelings free rein.

This is seen over and over in "Richard III," especially in Richard's seduction of Lady Anne, whose husband he has murdered, and it is seen over and over in our dealings with terrorists. Richard actually gets Anne to drop her sword when she's about to kill him. Anne, although she knows Richard is evil, cannot see that he has no conscience. She tells him he should hang himself for what he has done. She keeps missing the point. He feels no guilt. Eventually, she marries him, and he murders her.

Conscience, when it is functioning well--automatically and without the intervention of reason, so that we do the right thing without thinking--is not simply rational. It is a force, a blunt instrument before which the conscientious person is guilty until proven innocent. As the preventive agency in the mind, conscience blocks first, thinks later. Men like Arafat and Richard know this. That is why both men constantly charge others with crimes--to paralyze them. Both know it doesn't matter whether the charges are false. Richard brazenly accuses Anne of inspiring the murder of her husband, as Arafat accuses the West of causing terrorism.

...Law, in the democracies, is like a civic conscience, and like conscience, it is the bluntest of instruments. Because law, in democracies, is made by the people, it has their respect. Democratic citizens are prone to the illusory hope that the law can be applied successfully in international affairs between regimes regardless of whether they are democracies or tyrannies, strong or weak. The name for this hope is "international law." But because the law in tyrannies is ultimately the product of one man's whim, a mere vehicle of the preeminent will and power, it cannot restrain the preeminent will and power. Conscientiousness in no way attaches to the law in tyrannies. International agreements with tyrants are meaningless, yet pursuit of such agreements is precisely what the State Department is now endorsing by trying to get Israel to sit at the table with Arafat.

...It is interesting that the person who finally defeats Richard III in Shakespeare's play, Richmond, is the one key character who never talks to Richard or gives him a hearing, and thus never comes under his spell. To talk to Arafat, which is what all pundits say must be done to bring peace to the Middle East, is precisely the wrong move, for there is no dialogue with a man without a conscience. Another wrong move is the game of decriminalizing Arafat. By refusing to punish him for horrendous crimes, as a serious nation would, Israel leaves the world, the Arabs, and itself with the sense that maybe his crimes can be justified, and its own attempts to restrain him from further criminal acts are criminal excesses in themselves. Israel would do better to relentlessly show the world pictures of Arafat's victims, including the American ambassador he assassinated. [Emphasis added]

Many of the Sichos Mussar of Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz tz"l were translated by ArtScroll. In The Ability to Adapt, Reb Chaim writes about the importance of adapting--and when it is a danger that drains you of the ability to take decisive action:

The Gemara (Sotah 13a) tells of Esav contesting the title to Yaakov’s burial plot, the Cave of Machpelah. When Yaakov died and was brought to Canaan for burial, Esav came and protested that the plot of land belonged to him. A debate ensued and it was decided that Naphtali would return to Egypt to retrieve the deed certifying Yaakov’s purchase of the plot. A deaf grandson, Chushim the son of Dan, who was present at this scene, inquired as to the cause of the delay. When they told him, he exclaimed, “What? And until the deed is brought, grandfather is to lie in degradation?” Whereupon he killed Esav.

Why was it that Chushim, a grandson, was more concerned about Yaakov’s honor that Yaakov’s own children? The answer is hinted at in the Gemara by its reference to Chushim’s deafness. All the brothers had been slowly drawn into the argument with Esav, gradually dulling their sensitivity to their father’s shame. Chushim, being deaf, was completely unaware of the litigation. When he was abruptly informed o f the situation he cold not contain his wrath, and killed Esav instantly. [p. 62-3]

There is a time when that wrath is justified. Whether we are dealing with listening to Esav, talking with King Richard III, or diplomatic negotiations with Iran, Syria, and Hamas--the results of talk have been the same.
Doidge writes:

Not all criminals are equally brazen. Arafat seems to have the power to neutralize the very foes who see him as most evil, perhaps because they, by virtue of seeing him as virtually the devil incarnate, attribute to him a kind supernatural indestructibility. Such superstition has made many who are far more powerful than Arafat hesitate to end his career.

Arafat's career ended with a whimper instead of a bang. Israel cannot afford to assume the same will be true of all of her enemies.

The irony of course is that blogging about the situation, the danger, is nothing more than continuing the conversation that has outlived its usefulness.It is not the blogging that is necessary, it is action.

Along these lines of not being derailed by false morality and conscience, this is the lens through which to view what is being proposed by former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu to Olmert:

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.

Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life.

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses." [emphasis added]

It's time.

Crossposted at Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Norman Doidge and Arafat and King Richard III and Shakespeare.

Today's featured carnival

Remember Haveil Havalim is today's featured carnival at BlogCarnival. It's the third time HH has been so honored.

Haveil Havalim is the Jewish/Israel related blogging carnival. Use the widget above to view recent editions or submit relevant posts the upcoming edition scheduled for this Sunday.

Insufficient other means

When I saw the title of a recent article in the NY Times, Israelis Don’t Want Gaza to Be Their Next Lebanon, I was thinking, sure, no one wants a terror organization to build an arsenal and threaten his territory. This must be about the political pressure to strike at Hamas and not allow it the freedom to build its threat against southern Israel.

Well, this was the NY Times, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, it was not the focus of the article.

The Israeli government is feeling constrained by its own weakness and damaged credibility. If it goes into Gaza too hard, it will be criticized for trying to overcompensate for its failures last summer against Hezbollah. If it acts with too much restraint and caution, it will be criticized for being intimidated by its failures last summer against Hezbollah.

“We don’t want to invade Gaza in a big way,” a senior official said. “But stalemate is impossible. We hope that a political process will prevail because we don’t want to be dragged into what Hamas wants us to be dragged into. But events will dictate. If a Qassam rocket lands on an Israeli kindergarten, all bets are off.”

. . .

But trying to calibrate the amount of military pressure that might persuade Hamas and the Palestinians to stop the rocket fire and recreate a working cease-fire over Gaza is not an easy calculation.

Military pressure? That's precisely the problem. Instead of trying to win the war and eliminate the threat, Israel's really approaching war as "a continuation of politics by other means. Instead of trying to defeat the enemy Israel's trying to discourage the enemy and remain popular doing it.

The idea that killing the leaders of Hamas is a "harsher measure" shows a distinctly political approach to war. The leaders of Hamas (even the so-called "political wing") are the enemy. They deserve no immunity. They are organizers. Eliminating them, will help reduce the threat. (The same argument can be made for Fatah too. But I'm not even pretending that anyone considers Fatah "militant" anymore.)

Erlanger even pointed to the limitations of this approach in Lebanon: Graveyard of Israeli politicians

It was Barak who suddenly pulled out of Lebanon in 2000 to concentrate - in vain - on efforts to make peace first with Syria and then with the Palestinians. But his was a unilateral act, and neither he nor his successors reinforced it with the retaliation he had promised Hezbollah if it violated the border.

Well yes, if you stop harassing your enemy and allow him to rebuild you are asking for trouble. (With Erlanger the fact that the withdrawal from Lebanon - and Gaza for that matter - was unilateral is part of the problem. As if the bilateral Oslo Accords and subsequent retreats made Fatah lay down arms.) One would hope that Israel has learned this painful fact from last summer's wars.

UPDATE: The problem underlying Erlanger's report and Israel's political leadership is that there seems to be a hesitation whether Israel ought to be defending itself. And it's a pervasive impression. Consider a recent editorial in the Baltimore Sun, Fighting in Lebanon

The government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is asserting itself - as it must to protect this fledgling democracy.

...

The fighting outside the refugee camp underscores why the policy must change. The Siniora government, already embroiled in a political fight with elected representatives of Hezbollah, can't afford a second prolonged conflict. It must defeat the insurgents before the violence spreads.

For the Baltimore it is self evident that Lebanon must defend itself, apparently regardless of cost. But as I noted recently in a letter to the editor that same presumption (that it has the right to defend itself) does not apply to Israel.

Israel, hamas, gaza, lebanon.

Take this job ...

The Baltimore Sun's David Steele doesn't think that the Orioles ought to hire Davey Johnson. In "Office needs to tell Johnson Thank you but no thank you" Steele writes

If you hear it once a day, you hear it a thousand times from the increasingly unfaithful: Everything was just fine while Davey was here, and everything has stunk since he left. Even if Johnson's departure didn't directly cause the Orioles to slowly sink to the bottom, it sent up the first real warning flare that something was terribly amiss in the House of Angelos - that the honeymoon was pretty much over.

Burying that hatchet would go a long way toward healing the rift between Baltimore and the Orioles, or at least delay it from becoming a canyon.

It wouldn't do that as well as winning would, though.

And if the prodigal manager does come marching through the gates, he'd better start winning, and winning fast - or else the clock will start ticking on his honeymoon, too.

Which means the Orioles had better be absolutely, positively, lead-pipe-lock sure that the manager really is the problem. Not just a problem. The problem.

This isn't 100% correct. The Orioles were already in decline in 1996. At that time Gillick was much better in building a team for the present than for the future. During Johnson's tenure as manager, the Orioles staved off decline. But the main point, that if the problem isn't just the manager don't change him, is valid.

Thomas Boswell made a similar argument in Orioles Have to Learn To Lay Off the Change-Up

Once again, when a relief pitcher torches five games in two weeks or two players scuffle in the dugout, it's the manager's fault. Welcome to dysfunctional business as usual by the Warehouse. The crazy kids run the family, not the parents. The chain of command is a pretzel. Winning and losing isn't as important as who gets the blame. And, often, the best man takes the fall.

Before the Orioles brass decides whether to dump the competent, honest Perlozzo alongside the managerial carcasses of Ray Miller, Mike Hargrove and Lee Mazzilli, it should look at the team's long dismal history of similar decisions. Since '85, a span in which Baltimore is 186 games under .500, the franchise has had 11 managers in 23 seasons. If Perlozzo doesn't survive this season, he'll be the eighth Orioles manager I've covered who got fired within months of finally furnishing his office. Johnny Oates was so fretful he didn't truly unpack his memorabilia until his third season. Perlozzo, in his 12th year with the organization and third year as manager, has seen it all.

Well put. Though if you're arguing about Perlozzo's competence pointing out that he overused Baez when Baez was floundering sort of undermines the point.

It turns out that Davey Johnson wasn't much interested in the job anyway. In a tirade worthy of Curt Schilling Johnson told Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post

"I don't even know that he's on the hot seat," Johnson said. "I don't even know why we're having this conversation. I guess there's nothing to write about, so you guys start dreaming up stuff. I wish him the best. I'm not going to lend any credence to that.

"That's why people write, because they dream up stuff and want to put pressure on people. Leave me out of these sordid little games you play."

Though Roch Kubato of the Sun takes a shot at Johnson's response because

keep in mind that Jeff Zrebiec's story in yesterday's edition of The Sun stated that the Orioles had internal discussions about Johnson. It's pretty hard for the guy to dispute that statement. How would he know what's being said inside the warehouse?

Well that's a very good reason for Johnson to shoot down the rumors. If unnamed sources are bandying about names as replacements for the current manager, the potential replacement ought to be emphatic that he's not been contacted. Those unnamed sources were (intentionally or not) undermining Perlozzo.

After the 1994 season, it was rumored that Angelos wanted a big name manager for the team, perhaps even Tony LaRussa. Then it turned out that Angelos (or a representative) had actually contacted LaRussa. Angelos realized then that if it was public that he was seeking a replacement for the late Johnny Oates, it would be classless to leave him twisting in the wind, so he fired Oates at that point.

Johnson, who presumably was once friendly with Perlozzo - and maybe still is - was right to berate Kilgore. He was standing up for the manager.

Related thoughts at Beltway Sports Beat.

I previously commented on Perlozzo's tenuous position here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad and OTB Sports.

Davey Johnson, Baltimore Orioles, Sam Perlozzo.

Turkish Punch, Assad as Sorcerer's Apprentice, and other Liveliness

Asharq Alawsat has a number of important articles today. Two involve the continuing spread of Al-Qaeda and other fundamentalisms in Lebanon and beyond with Bashar Assad in the role of Sorcerer's apprentice. Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, often a voice of reason, worries that Syria is "Sleeping with the Enemy":

Everyone knows that bolstering and raising fundamentalist movements in our region, whether Sunni or Shiite, will result in destructive chaos and inevitable conflict by its very nature.

From Morocco to Saudi Arabia, the examples that attest to this are numerous.

What has also confused many is Damascus's ability to use these extremist movements in confronting the Americans in Iraq, controlling Lebanon, or running the conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories. No matter how strong Syria's belief is that it is safe from these groups, Damascus needs to realize that these fundamentalist movements are like Black widow spiders that can not befriend. As a matter of fact, armed Sunni fundamentalist groups consider the Syrian regime to be infidel. They might take notice of it tomorrow and even turn on it . . .

Perhaps Syria itself is not aware of how big of an achievement it is utilizing these groups in three different geographical locations. Practically, Syria is the side that has defeated the United States in Iraq more than any other country in the world by systematically and continuously opening the door to extremist groups, thus inflicting tremendous losses to the US military operation in Iraq in a manner that no politician in the White House had predicted. Using these same means, Damascus has proved -- but to a lesser extent -- that it is capable of influencing the situation against Israel. This influence could have been greater had it not been for the red lines that Israel has drawn as to the extent of loss it is willing to bear, and for its inattention to any laws in retaliating against what it considers the source of danger to its security.

"Considers"? If he is stressing the enormity of the forces being wielded by Assad, how can Israel not be threatened?

As for Lebanon, it is an unstable region that can easily be ruined, although difficult to control. Through its alliances, Syria is capable of disrupting the official situation despite its inability to take over the entire Lebanese map. Damascus is now an expert in dealing with all fundamentalist jihadists both Sunnis and Shiites alike. However, sleeping among these spiders is a risk. There is no difference in goals between an armed Sunni fundamentalist movement in a Palestinian camp in Lebanon and an armed Shiite movement in Beirut's southern suburb except in their religious principles. Allowing Hezbollah to carry and store weapons under any pretext will justify the armament of others under the pretext of fighting the Israelis; something that happens once a year, while these weapons are used on a daily basis within the framework of internal balances. [...]

Along similar lines, Tariq Alhomayed, AA's Editor-in-chief suggests that we (never mind who "we" is) should share "Nasrallah's Fears!":

. . . why is Sayyid concerned?

Don't you like that? We world-arrogance types should also start referring to Nasrallah by his first name.

The presence of Bin Laden's followers in Lebanon, undoubtedly, will place the resistance, Hezbollah, and its arms in a critical position and in a crisis. Sayyid knows very well that even if it benefited from Iran and Syria, Al Qaeda is an archenemy of the Shiaa, which is manifested in Iraq. Al Qaeda even explicitly declares the Shiaa as infidels and its enmity towards them surpasses their enmity towards Israel, which is stated in Al Qaeda literature.

Sayyid knows that Al Qaeda will not carry out suicide attacks in central Beirut in protest against Haifa Wahbi but rather against Israeli troops. Then, out of the common logic in the Arab world, the question will be; do we side with Al Qaeda or Israel? And this is a train of thought that Sayyid knows too well. It is the same logic that caused intellectuals of various trends, governments and Arab fundamentalists to take the Sayyid's side when he embarked on the venture of kidnapping the two Israeli soldiers last summer.

Who knows? There may be an attempt to rationalize the devil, Al Qaeda. Hezbollah was one day labeled a terrorist organization and some of its members, even in its Shura council, are wanted by a number of Arab states for involvement in assassination attempts and for inciting disorder in the 1980s and early 1990s.

More important is the dispute with Hezbollah over its legitimacy and that of its arms, which is resistance to the Israeli enemy. Al Qaeda would then be competing with Sayyid in his own turf and in his own trade, implying that the Sunni giant emerged from the magical lamp in Lebanon . . .

Also at AA today, a piece from the "the first deputy general guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood" (that "we" thing again) and the article that goes with that picture of Turkish parliamentarians punching each other out.

Crossposted at Judeopundit

4 signs my 5 year old is a chocoholic

1) Dessert is her favorite course at the meal. (h/t my wife for fixing the misspelling.)
2) She sees in every piece of Matza an opportunity for chocolate spread.
3) When I show her the ice cream I just bought on sale, and she recognizes the package of "Double Fudge Brownie" she says "oooh, my favorite."
4) When we go to Rita's she keeps on drinking my "Death by chocolate" Misto until finally trading me her pedestrian chocolate custard for the rest of my Misto.

Have you seen the warning signs in your child?

Chocolate

Talking with the bad guys

Back in early 2000, Henry Siegman wrote a lengthy essay in Foreign Affairs, Being Hafiz Assad in which he argued that Assad was ready to make peace with Israel. Foreign Affairs website summarized the article like this:

Unleashing Hezbollah, stalling talks, and having the state-run media spew anti-Israel vitriol hardly seem pacific, but Syria's dictator has a consistent if chilly peace strategy.

The argument was absurd. The three actions taken by Assad and discussed by Siegman all showed that he wasn't interested in peace. Yet by Siegman waving his hands and declaring Assad was interested in peace, somehow we were supposed to believe that the belligerency against Israel was somehow a mask for his real intentions.

Not surprisingly, the elder Assad died shortly after the article appeared. He never concluded a peace deal with Israel.

This sort of misplaced optimism in the benign intentions of tyrants continues. The big news of the day is that the United States is now talking to Iran about stabilizing Iraq.

In briefings to reporters afterward, the chief negotiators -- U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker and Iran's ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi -- said the talks focused solely on Iraq and did not stray into the contentious areas of Iran's nuclear program or the recent detentions of four Iranian American citizens by Tehran.

In other words, in areas where the United States had a grievance against Iran, the American government was quiet. To David Ignatius that's a good thing, as he believes that it's important for the U.S. to Countering Iran's Distrust.

Iran hates negotiations. That's another truth that mind readers can discern. Tehran was so uncertain about who should meet with Crocker that its ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, had to return home for consultations. The Iranians don't like having to take positions before there is a consensus within the ruling elite, and on the question of dealing with America, a battle still rages. Pragmatists in Tehran quote former secretary of state Henry Kissinger about shared U.S. and Iranian national interests. But hard-liners associated with the Revolutionary Guard insist that any dialogue with America is a potential trap.

In other words by negotiating with the Mullahs, the United states is punishing Tehran. What an excellent idea.

But as JudeoPundit observed, Tehran doesn't seem to believe that it's being punished. Instead of reading tea leaves and seeing what he wants to see, Judeopundit actually checked a government controlled publication and found this.

Through its dominant presence in the four-hour negotiations in Baghdad, Iran showed that it has no fear of talking with the United States. If the members of the U.S. delegation adopt a fair approach and commit themselves to negotiations on an equal footing, and, instead of the usual U.S. posturing, engage in real negotiations and speak as clearly as the Iranian negotiators, then additional meetings would also be possible.

By foregoing discussions of Iran's nuclear ambitions or the arrests of American citizens, the United States has ceded all the initiative to Tehran.

Darrell Issa is undeterred by Syria's mischief. He thinks talks are important regardless and presents the Case for talking to Syria.

So why should the United States talk with a dictatorship that supports terrorism, stokes conflict in the Middle East and fails to meet the commitments it makes? What positive results could this month's meeting between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Syrian counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, possibly yield?

During my last trip to Syria, in April, I had the privilege of meeting some of the brave men and women who are pushing to reform the Syrian government. Foremost among them is Riad Seif, a former member of the Syrian parliament. Seif was a prominent Damascus businessman until he became disillusioned with corruption and began calling for change in the 1990s. The regime responded by heavily taxing his factory and driving his business into the ground. When that failed to silence Seif, the regime arrested him. Although Seif was released from prison last year, he still is banned from voting, running for office or traveling. Nonetheless, Seif continues to lead a coalition of opposition groups.

The work of Raid Seif and others like him offers the best hope for reform and deserves U.S. support. Damascus has done its best to stifle efforts to create a prosperous and just Syria, routinely jailing those who call for change or sending the secret police to harass activists and their families.

So talking with Syria, according to Issa will strengthen the reformers. Good thought. Except there's evidence to the contrary. Barry Rubin recently wrote:

Released after four years in 2006, Homsi immediately left the country, saying there was no possibility of changing the regime by reform and that any criticism would bring more imprisonment. He wrote Pelosi a letter urging her not to visit Syria as such a step would only strengthen the regime. Last week, the government seized all of his assets in the country, leaving his family destitute.
Kamal Labwani, head of the Liberal Democratic Gathering, visited the United States in 2005, including meetings with human rights' groups and a trip to the White House. He told the Americans he saw that he would be arrested once he got back home. Sure enough, the Syrian police grabbed him at Damascus airport in November 2005.
But he was not tried. After all, the regime reasoned, perhaps the United States might get even tougher with Syria if they repressed a man who had just been a White House guest. Last week, confident that the current administration and its presumed Democratic successors were caving in, the government sentenced Labwani to life imprisonment, "kindly" commuted to 12 years with hard labor. The charge? "Inciting a foreign state to attack Syria."

In general he concludes

The lessons about these regimes' extremist behavior should be clear by now. When the West extends its hand in offered friendship, they interpret this as hands raised in surrender.

Cheat Seeking Misslies argues

One of the controversial and much-trounced points of the Iraq Study Group that I've always agreed with is the need to open talks with Iran. I'm not hopeful that they'll go anywhere, but not talking isn't going anywhere either.

And with the Bush admin at the table instead of Kerry, we can be fairly sure the talks will proceed as they should, with a near-complete lack of trust and a near-fanatical commitment to verification.

I'm sure that there are circumstances where such talks can help. But when the United States avoids the topics that Iran (and Syria) wishes to avoid and fails to apply pressure to these regimes, it only serves to strengthen the bad guys. It looks as if the U.S. is talking softly, but that there's no big stick apparent.

Iran, Syria, Diplomacy.

Tehran Times: "Iran gains the upper hand"

Fox News analyst Alireza Jafarzadeh provides a good summary of why the current negotiations with Iran are a bad idea:

Iran's long history at the negotiating table shows that it is not in the United States' interest to agree to any of Tehran's demands.

Already, there have been indications that Iran is not taking the talks seriously. When direct talks were first announced earlier this month, Iran announced that it would send the deputy foreign minister to participate. Days later, Iran stated that the job would go instead to its ambassador to the United Nations. Soon after that announcement, Iran once again downgraded its representative, stating that its ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, would lead the Iranian delegation. Kazemi Qomi himself has a long history of inciting instability in Iraq, as a former commander of the Qods Force.

Even if the regime does reverse this tactic and treat the talks seriously, it will do so without any intention of acting on any commitments it makes. On nearly every major negotiation, and especially on the nuclear issue, Iran has come to the table only to rebuff all requests made of it, or to afterward disregard any commitments it makes. For the mullahs in Iran, every inch that the U.S. concedes is interpreted as a sign of weakness that further emboldens the Iranian ruling clerics, and invites more terrorism and sectarian violence.

The following item from Iran's government-controlled Tehran Times (via Mehr News) demonstrates that the Mullahs are already openly crowing that their hand has been strengthened. Note the usual references to plots and conspiracies and Point 4 (about the Little Satan):

Yesterday, Iran-U.S. talks on Iraq, which officials from the occupied country also attended, came to a conclusion with the sum total of reports indicating that the Iranian delegation had higher morale and gained the upper hand by proposing creative plans to improve the security situation in Iraq.

A few points should be noted in regard to these negotiations, which will be continued, according to the U.S. ambassador:

(1) Following the United States’ repeated unofficial requests for talks with Iran, which were made through various diplomatic channels, Iran stated that only an official request would be studied. The U.S. then submitted such a request through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Given that Iran conditioned the negotiations on two points -- a strict focus on Iraq’s security and the presence of Iraqi officials as the third party -- in practice it was Iran that set the agenda. Thus, Iran forced the U.S. to turn its “need” for talks into a “will”.

(2) It is clear from the statements of U.S. officials, including the article by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns published in the Boston Review yesterday, that the main reasons for this “need” are the U.S. entrapment in the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan, internal disputes in the U.S. government, Israel’s humiliating defeat in its 33-day war against Hezbollah, and other regional and international problems of the United States. The acknowledgment of the stability of Iran’s political system in upcoming decades and the need to alter regional policies through the establishment of diplomatic relations with Tehran by the occupants of the White House came as a surprise. These are the same people who failed in their use of sanctions, military threats, and international pressure meant to undermine Iran.

(3) Iran’s wise decision to insist on the presence of Iraqi officials in the negotiations proved that Iranian foreign policymakers disdain from cutting bargains over the security and national interests of neighboring countries and Muslim nations of the region, including Iraq. The fact that Iran, after avoiding direct talks for 28 years, sat at the negotiating table with the United States, indicates the importance of Iraq’s stability and security for Iran. Although Iran’s position in the region is different than other countries’, it emphasized the importance of cooperation between Muslim countries of the region to ensure regional security.

(4) Iran also has a greater goal. The stability of Islamic countries would weaken the position of Israel because the Zionists can only secure their interests by fomenting disputes among Islamic countries and entangling them in wearisome insecurity. In addition, the stability of Muslim nations would lead to a greater awareness of Tel Aviv’s conspiracies.

(5) By accepting the U.S. call for negotiations, Iran has also responded to the frequent requests of various Iraqi parties and political, religious, and national figures. Iran could not remain indifferent to the increasing insecurity and economic problems of Iraq and the fact that the Iraqi people have been unable to lead normal lives. The frequent expressions of appreciation by Iraqi officials, including the fact that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki thanked Iran yesterday, prove this.

(6) Through its dominant presence in the four-hour negotiations in Baghdad, Iran showed that it has no fear of talking with the United States. If the members of the U.S. delegation adopt a fair approach and commit themselves to negotiations on an equal footing, and, instead of the usual U.S. posturing, engage in real negotiations and speak as clearly as the Iranian negotiators, then additional meetings would also be possible.

(7) Contrary to the views of Western analysts, in these trilateral talks with the U.S., Iran deliberately avoided discussing Tehran-Washington problems because linking the problems of the Iraqi people to Iran-U.S. disputes would undermine regional trust and Muslim unity. Indeed, Iran-U.S. disputes are so vast and diverse that discussing these matters would require many prerequisites, including a decision by the White House to end its hostile policies toward Iran.

(8) Although the wall of Iranians’ mistrust of the U.S. can be breached, it is so high that it can not be destroyed through a single session of talks and the exchange of a few smiles. People like Mr. Nicholas Burns should acknowledge that writing an article is not a solution for their “need”. In order for the two countries to sit at the negotiating table in the future and settle their disputes, there is one major prerequisite: the U.S. government must take concrete steps to end its covert and overt plots against Iran’s national interests.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

AFP: "Bulgarian Nurses Acquitted of Slandering Libyan Policemen"

This just kinda restores your confidence in the system. Via Naharnet:

A Libyan court acquitted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor on Sunday of charges of slandering policemen by protesting that their confessions had been extracted under torture.

At a hearing lasting less than a minute during which the six defendants were not present, judge Salem al-Homari announced they had been found not guilty and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the legal costs.

The five nurses -- Kristiana Valcheva, Nassia Nenova, Valia Cherveniachka, Valentina Siropoulo and Snejana Dimitrova -- and doctor Ashraf Ahmed Juma had faced a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

The six have already been in custody for eight years and were condemned to death in May 2004 on charges of deliberately injecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV, which can cause AIDS, at a hospital in the city of Benghazi.

The verdict was upheld last December but a final appeal, originally set for earlier this month, is due to open soon.

The accused said that their "confessions" in the HIV trial were forced from them under torture, including beatings, electric shocks and being threatened with dogs.

The medics, largely viewed as scapegoats by the international community, maintain their innocence based on testimony by foreign health experts who said the AIDS epidemic in Libya's second city was sparked by poor hygiene.

The six foreigners had also filed civil suits against 10 Libyan police officers, accusing them of torturing them. But a Tripoli court acquitted the officers, some of whom then accused the nurses of slander.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Asharq Alawsat: "Al-Jazeera Defends Fatah al-Islam"

As Zionist control of the media approaches totality, the Islamophobic neo-con site Asharq Alawsat smears Al-Jazeera, that bastion of objective journalism:

On the fourth day after the outbreak of fighting in Nahr al Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, ‘Al-Jazeera’ started its evening bulletin by stating that the report about to be aired included exclusive footage from inside the Palestinian camp, which conveyed the magnitude of the killing and revealed the extent of "human suffering" experienced by its inhabitants.

The footage, which was aired after, showed images of Fatah al Islam fighters stationed in their positions and firing at targets that were clearly members of the Lebanese army.

The tape did not present any images that reflected the suffering of Palestinian civilians; instead, it showed the fighters hiding behind their arms while they chanted repeated phrases in overlapping voices, such as 'idols' and 'infidels'. They were also seen exchanging information about the location of their 'brothers', their fellow comrades.

Once again, 'Al-Jazeera' channel displays no hesitation in playing the same role that it mastered in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, namely, the official spokesman of fundamentalist groups.

It soon became clear that the Fatah al Islam fighters were dealing with a 'friendly' camera, not one that represented a neutral press. Immediately an ambiguous line appeared concerning the relationship between takfiri [Muslims holding other Muslims to be infidels] groups who's profession is to engage in killing rampages, indiscriminate murder and blowing themselves up on the one hand, and a channel that has managed, ever since its inception, to ignite an Islamist following of growing influence. [...]

Five paragraphs remain of the article. You have your orders.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Musical Monday 05/28/2007

In last week's Haveil Havalim, Jack's Shack wondered where A Whispering Soul was. Would he return? Who knows?

But one thing I missed about A Whispering Soul, was his Musical Menu Mondays in which he'd offer up a story, a recipe and song lyrics for his readers to identify. Well, all I have here are song lyrics. The first two establish the theme. The rest have a common thread or two relating to that theme. Identify the songs and the theme. (Though I used Google to help me get the lyrics right, no fair using Google to identify the songs. I don't know lyrics the way A Whispering Soul does!) No guarantees that this will be a weekly feature.

1) My dreams they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be ... (corrected, see comment #3 below)
2) You're out riding fences ...

3) I'm looking for the king of 42nd Street
4) the tracks he saw while on his way to Andy's house
5) he was a future ex-husband ... can't you see?
6) we never saw 'em comin' til they read us both our rights
7) learned a lesson 'bout messin' with the wife of a jealous man
8) When two men go out to face each other, only one returns
9) I needed money 'cause I had none
10) little sister don't miss when she aims her gun
11) His name was Rico, he wore a diamond.
12) She dealt two cards, a queen and a three
13) Cause he was in the mood for a little confrontation.
14) he knows just exactly what the facts is
15) reflexes got the better of me
16) The silicon chip inside her head Gets switched to overload
17) A scene badly written in which I must play

UPDATE: 18) ... playing poker on a losin' night

I forgot to mention that A Whispering Soul didn't object to my co-opting his idea. Thanks.

And whoops, I see the lyrics to 4 and 10 are for the same song.

Song Lyrics, Popular Music.

The damascus index

Years ago, Morton Kondracke developed the Tirana index. This index was popularized by Charles Krauthammer. In a column 20 years ago (January 9, 1987) Krauthammer described it like this:

In 1982 Albania held an election, which Communist Party chief Enver Hoxha won by 1,627,959 votes to 1. A decisive victory. It suggested to me at the time a key to what political philosophers had long been seeking: a reliable tyranny index The Tirana Index (named after Albania's capital) holds that repressiveness correlates with electoral success. The higher the score rolled up by the ruling party in elections, the more tyrannous the regime. At one end of the spectrum are places like Albania, the Soviet Union and Syria, where 99 percent of the vote is the norm. At the other end are free-wheeling semi-anarchies, like Italy, where it is unsafe to drive and where the ruling party never gets half the vote. In between lie orderly democracies like the United States (winning margins of 60 percent, tops) and moderate autocracies like Mexico, which will broach 70 but not much more for fear of embarrassment to all concerned.

A few weeks ago, the Tirana Index met yet another challenge. In the midst of a severe food and energy shortage, Rumania held a referendum. The result: 17,699,772 Rumanians voted yes, no one voted no. A shutout. A perennial contender for the honor of most repressive regime on Earth (in Rumania, typewriters must be registered with the police) had conducted what may be the most perfect election yet.

When you read the NY Times account of Bashar Assad's campaign for another term, it's hard not to be struck by the surrealism of the spectacle.

Only a year ago, Mr. Assad faced so many troubles that some Syrians began questioning his political survival. His troops had been forced out of Lebanon, his government faced accusations of collusion in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, and the Bush administration had imposed sanctions that affected everything from the fleet of Boeings in Syria’s national airline to medical equipment. Waning oil reserves hinted at economic collapse, and the European Union delayed signing a much-needed trade agreement.

But as he prepares for a so-called national referendum in which he is certain to be overwhelmingly re-elected for a second seven-year term, Mr. Assad seems very much in control, with his rivals isolated, his critics increasingly in prison or fearing retribution, and international pressure eased. He has consolidated power around his immediate family and rewarded loyalists. And he has continued to reap the benefits of Washington’s troubles in the region. In Lebanon, the anti-Syrian March 14 movement, which helped force Syria out, has seen its political fortunes plummet, mired in unrest.

Only a year ago, Assad looked like he was on the outs. Of course, had he exited the scene, it likely would have been at the end of a rope or the wrong end of a rifle. He would not have been voted out of office.

The Times then reports the observations of a newspaper editor. In most countries, he would be a standard source to contribute observations about the political climate in his country. But this is Syria, so the editor is the editor of a government run newspaper. So the quote is not unlike getting a movie review from the producer of the film.

Co-blogger, Judeopundit actually adds some serious reporting to the events, by uncovering news of President Assad's latest election squeaker.

Rhymes with Right recalls a bit of related history, from M*A*S*H

As a kid, i remember watching the show MASH. For some strange reason, one of the lines that stuck with me over the year was one by Radar, who announced that a party was because "Syngman Rhee 's been elected dictator again."

(via Buzztracker)

Bashar Assad

Embattled

I suppose that for the rest of Sam Perlozzo's tenure as the manager of the Baltimore Orioles the adjective "embattled" will regularly be attached to his name. I'm not sure that it's fair. Certainly when Perlozzo took over, nearly two years ago, there was a feeling that his time had come. At the time, Thomas Boswell wrote

In a sense, Perlozzo has stood in uniform, face pressed to the candy store window, ever since. Now, at 54, in one of those moments of pure baseball justice, Perlozzo is being allowed inside. The candy's all his now. He's manager of the Baltimore Orioles, at least for the last 55 games of this season. Nobody ever deserved a turn at the wheel more than Sam.

The names that Perlozzo has worn on his chest include Reno, Tidewater, Toledo, Little Falls, Lynchburg, Hawaii and Jackson. Once, he was even a Yakult Swallow in Japan. Perlozzo hasn't taken that uniform, which defines him, off his back for the last 28 years. But sometimes, those uniforms haven't returned all the affection he bestowed on them.

However I might want Perlozzo to succeed, he hasn't. His handling of the bullpen - especially his reliance on Danys Baez who's allowed the winning run way too many times to earn any degree of confidence from the team. (Allowing him to pitch the ninth with a six run lead was not a bad idea though.)

It's not good that he appears to be losing the clubhouse.

Perlozzo has been under fire recently because of several in-game managing decisions and clubhouse unrest. On Friday night, third baseman Melvin Mora became the third Oriole to publicly criticize the manager after he learned from a reporter that he was not in the starting lineup.

Until Perlozzo's predecessor, Lee Mazzilli was fired mid-season, the team under Angelos had never fired any manager mid-season. (In retrospect, was Mazzilli that bad? Boswell got in his digs. OTOH, in 2004 the Orioles had two months of success and in 2005 three great months. Both times the hope faded quickly and the season ended as most Orioles' seasons have ended for the past decade - in 4th place ahead of only Tampa Bay.)

Ideally, I'd hope that the team would wait out the season. The Orioles do not have the offense to win much more than 81 games, so changing managers isn't going to be the difference whether or not the team reaches the post season.

According to the Pythagorean projection the Orioles are only 1 game below their expected record. So Perlozzo, despite his mistakes, can't exactly be called a disaster.

Also with the pitching going well - especially reclamation project Jeremy Guthrie - can the team afford to alienate its most valuable coach, Perlozzo's friend and pitching coach, Leo Mazzone? Mazzone came to Baltimore to be his friend's right hand. Would he stay with the team if Perlozzo left? The team's better off waiting out the season.

Unfortunately with the latest buzz, I don't think that Perlozzo will last the season.

According to two club sources, the Orioles will give serious consideration to bringing back Davey Johnson if Perlozzo is let go during his second full season as manager. Johnson's highly successful two-year run as manager ended in 1997 when he abruptly resigned because of a conflict with owner Peter Angelos after the organization's last winning season.

Johnson, who couldn't be reached to comment yesterday, was 186-138 with the Orioles in 1996 and 1997 and directed them to back-to-back American League Championship Series. He hasn't managed in the majors since leading the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

He was the bench coach for the U.S. team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic and is managing the American team in its quest to qualify for next year's Summer Olympics.

To this point, the Orioles, according to sources, have not had significant discussions with Johnson or any other potential candidate, including former Florida Marlins manager Joe Girardi, who also is well-regarded by team executives.

Angelos didn't return calls seeking a comment, but one club source said the owner is intent on giving Perlozzo every opportunity to get the team back on track. The Orioles entered last night's game with the Oakland Athletics a season-high six games below .500.

I have no idea who those two club sources are. Flanagan and Duquette refused to discuss Perlozzo on the record. Did they speak off the record too? Once names like Davey Johnson and Joe Girardi are being discussed it's not a good sign.

Perlozzo, certainly has his faults as manager. And as much as I wish that Davey Johnson hadn't been shown the door, I don't see what he can accomplish with the season underway. (He quit when Angelos refused to extend his contract.) Let Perlozzo finish out the season, then sort things out. Frankly, the Orioles have bigger problems than their on-field management.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad and OTB Sports.

Baltimore Orioles, Sam Perlozzo, Davey Johnson.

Haveil Havalim #118 is UP!

Haveil Havalim #118 is UP! at Esser Agaroth. And it is rather high end. Definitely worth quite a few Shekels and a look on your part!

Submit your blog article to the next edition of haveil havalim
using our carnival submission form. (This makes things a lot easier for the host than e-mailing links.)

I have been informed that BlogCarnival will be featuring Haveil Havalim as its Carnival of the Day this Wednesday, thanks to all the participants who have made this honor possible - for the 3rd time!

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: haveil havalim, blog carnival.

UPCOMING EDITIONS

June 3 - #119 - Soccer Dad (or volunteer)
June 10 - #120 - Soccer Dad (or volunteer)
June 17 - #121 - Soccer Dad (or volunteer)

I'd like to thank the wonderful folks at BlogCarnival for this wonderful Blog Carnival Widget that gives information on upcoming hosts and past editions.

Thanks for participating, reading and keeping Haveil Havalim going!

However is someone decides that he/she wants to host in the future let me know at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com or use the BlogCarnival Contact form.

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.

Why can't a Zionist be more like Iran?

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
Why can't the Zionists be like Iran?
Iran is so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you're Mugabe, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't the fake regime be like that?

Why does every one do what the other does?
Can't a Kuffar learn to use his head?
Why do they do everything the Big Satan does?
Why don't they grow up, well, like the Imam instead?

Why can't the Zionists take after Iran?
Iran is so pleasant, so easy to please.
When they take you hostage, you're always at ease.

Would you be slighted if I put your name in quotes?

GHOLAM-ALI HADDAD-ADEL:
Of course not.

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
Would you be livid if I had a centrifuge?

GHOLAM-ALI HADDAD-ADEL:
Nonsense.

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
Would you be wounded if I spoke of wiping you out?

GHOLAM-ALI HADDAD-ADEL:
Never.

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
Well, why can't the fake regime be like you?

Some Basij commander may shout a bit.
Now and then, there's one who's less than sublime.
One perhaps whose vigilance you doubt a bit,
But by and large we are a world paradigm!

Why can't the Zionists take after Iran?
'Cause Iran is so friendly, good-natured and kind.
A better ally you never will find.

If I hosted the First International Congress on the Culture of Resistance would you bellow?

GHOLAM-ALI HADDAD-ADEL:
Of course not.

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
If I denied your silly Shoah, would you fuss?

GHOLAM-ALI HADDAD-ADEL:
Nonsense.

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
Would you complain if Nasrallah was my fellow?

GHOLAM-ALI HADDAD-ADEL:
Never.

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
Why can't a Zionist be like us?

[dialog]

DOCTOR AHMADINEJAD:
Why can't the Zionists be more like Iran?
Persians are decent, such regular chaps;
Ready to help you through any mishaps;
Ready to buck you up whenever you're glum.
Why can't a Zionist be a chum?

Why is thinking something Zionist never do?
And why is logic never even tried?
Martyring Palestinians is all they ever do.
Why don't they straighten up the mess that's inside?

Why can't a Zionist behave like Iran?
If I had usurped the Al-Buraq Wall,
Been made a Pariah by one and by all;
Would I start weeping like a bathtub overflowing,
Or carry on as if my home were in a tree?
Would I launch jets and never tell me where they're going?
Why can't a Zionist be like me?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

If you happen to see the most dearly nation in the world

This little nugget is from Fars News, and its real title is "Iran to Set a Paradigm for Other Nations." I included the link so that I won't be accused of making up the article, but you might want to avoid clicking on it: The Fars News site resizes your browser window and who knows what else. Not to worry--what follows is the complete article:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stressed that his country would turn into a paradigm for the other world nations, saying that the bullying powers will have to taste the bitter flavor of such an incident in future.

"Certain powers have mobilized all their potentials, including their instruments of psychological warfare, to exert pressure on Iran to make it give up divine servitude and become their slave," Ahmadinejad said while addressing a congregation of the people in Aran and Bidgol town in Iran's central province of Isfahan on the third leg of his 29th tour of the different provinces of the country.

He further stressed that such a wish may never come true for the world powers.

"Iranian people believe in God only and are not fearful of you. This nation will set a paradigm for the world nations and become the most dearly nation in the world by resisting against your arrogance and expansionism and you will, God willing, taste the bitter flavor of what you are fearful of," the president continued.

Nothing quite punctures hyper-bravado like awkward English.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Who do you think is going to win the election in Syria?

Bashar Assad is up for, ahem, re-election. According to the New York Times:

Many expect the referendum to be a turning point, but they differ on its direction. Some hope that Mr. Assad will begin changes and pardon the imprisoned advocates of change; others fear the referendum will further embolden the government to take an even tougher line domestically and cement its position.

“The regime has total power in the country,” said Riad Seif, a former member of Parliament and an opposition figure. “It controls the economy, the Ministry of Information, and it has hundreds of thousands of secret police. They can use all these tools to achieve their goals.”

The Times article also reports "sparse" attendance at the "kickoff party" of Assad's "re-election campaign." Something must be amiss somewhere, however, since according to the Syrian Arab New Agency support for Assad looks like this:Any uncertainty is bound to be cleared up, of course, by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting:

Syrians go to the polls on Sunday in an ellections which will give President Bashar al-Assad another seven years in office.

See, they're predicting the outcome of the election without reservation. They must have access to accurate polls.

The Syrian Arab Republic's parliament unanimously approved the candidature of the 41-year-old president for a second term until the year 2014.

The ruling Baath Party has called on voters to give a resounding "yes" to a new mandate for Assad.

In july 2000, after the death of his father Hafez, Bashar was voted to office by the Syrian people, receiving a 97.29 percent support.

He'll beat that this time. I just know it.

Update: IRIB reports "Syria vote for Assad unprecedented."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Yiddish-died-and-we-revived-it Watch

A current title at Northern California Jewish News proclaims "Yiddish revival celebrated at U.C. Berkeley conference." I'm all for Yiddish revivals, but I wonder if a conference can pull one off single-handedly. What classes can you now take in Yiddish at U. C. Berkeley?

As a child and then a teenager in Hartford, Conn., Len Goldschmidt heard a lot of Yiddish around the house . . . And when he moved out, he left the language behind.

“I wanted nothing to do with it while I was growing up,” Goldschmidt recalled.

But times change. And so do people.

Last week, the Oakland man spent two days at a Yiddish conference at U.C. Berkeley.

“I realized that there was a very vibrant Yiddish and Jewish community here, and so I became interested again,” he said.

The annual Yiddish conference brought together members of the local and global community for two days of learning about and in Yiddish.

“The conference is one of the few sources available to the general public that can enhance people’s awareness of the beauty, richness and literature that was a part of Jewish life” before World War II, Goldschmidt said.

What happened then, I suppose, is that secular Jews stopped speaking it. Frum Jews don't count.

Professor John Efron started the conference five years ago when he was the head of the Jewish studies department at Cal. He currently teaches in both the history and Jewish studies departments and directs the Institute for European Studies.

“Yiddish is an enormously important language,” he said. “It was part of people’s daily speech and also the language of a very high level of scholarship.”

U.C. Berkeley is one of the biggest centers for Yiddish studies in the United States. It is also one of the few universities that studies Hebrew and Yiddish together.

“That’s really important. Most places regard them as separate,” Efron said of the element that makes Cal’s program unique.

I wonder what this means. Studying Yiddish and Hebrew texts in the same class?

Scholars from around the world attend the conference, often to present their doctoral research.

“It’s the only annual Yiddish studies conference in the world,” Efron added.

Aya Elyada, a graduate student of German Jewish history at the University of Tel Aviv, delivered a presentation about Christian literature on Yiddish in the German-speaking world. Since this is the focus of her doctoral research, she’s lived in Munich for the past two years. For Elyada, the highlight of the conference was hearing a lecture delivered completely in Yiddish.

“It is not often that one gets to hear an entire academic lecture and discussion in Yiddish,” she said. “And of course, it proved that Yiddish is indeed a suitable language for scholarship.”

Glad that was cleared up. The world is, of course, full of institutions in which classes on scholarly subjects are conducted in Yiddish. They are called yeshivos.

Goldschmidt looks forward to the Yiddish conference each year as an opportunity to return to the language of his childhood. Plus, he said, “I can tell a joke in Yiddish and people will get it.” [...]

He could just go to the mikveh on Shabbos morning . . .

Crossposted on Judeopundit

CAIR No Longer "America's Largest Civil Rights Group"

Militant Islam Monitor.org quotes an interview by Ahmed Bedier, CAIR communications director, on Hannity and Colmes where Bedier claims three times:

To be fair, the first time, Bedier modestly limited CAIR to merely being "America's largest Muslim civil rights organization."

But now that the PEW survey has come out and we know that CAIR, which still touts itself on its website as "America's largest Islamic civil liberties group"--has been wildly exaggerating how many Muslims there are in the US (7-8 million million instead of 2.35).

This is consistent with another area where CAIR has not hesitated to carelessly exaggerate numbers out of proportion: anti-Muslim hate crimes--

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.

Investor's Business Daily, in an editorial reacting to the survey notes the amateurish CAIR poll that first created the myth of CAIR influence--and then points out how impotent CAIR truly is:

It's telling that CAIR did not link to the Pew study or any press coverage of it on its Web site. CAIR derives its power from the size of its potential membership. The bigger it is, the more clout it has in Washington and the corporate boardroom.

Until now, the perception was that CAIR spoke for several million Muslims and could rally them to boycott a company or to vote as a bloc to swing an election if it didn't get its way. Officials feared the group because they thought it could marshal an Islamic juggernaut. The threat alone has caused many to back down from criticism or policies CAIR didn't like.

But it was the Wahhabi lobby's big lie. CAIR couldn't deliver even 2 million voters if it tried. According to Pew, just 1.5 million Muslims are of voting age.

There is no big Muslim lobby, just CAIR's big, hollow PR machine.

Easy come, easy go.

By Daled Amos

Technorati Tags: CAIR and PEW Sruvey.

Council speak 05/25/2007

The council has spoken about another excellent week of entries and determined the winner to be Joshuapundit's Israel Faces Its Choices In Gaza about how nearly all of Israel's choices now are bad ones. The runner up was Right Wing Nut House's Musings on a Late Spring Afternoon about how nearly all of America's choices now are bad ones.

Among the non-council members, the winner was Tigerhawk's On dehumanizing the enemy in war and the Nature of Victory. During WW II Walt Disney produced pro-Allied cartoons. Dr. Seuss also provided propaganda. Nowadays, the corporation bearing Disney's name distributed Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." The runner-up was my nominee, Seraphic Secret's The InBetween War which is about nearly all of Israel's choices now are bad ones.

With all that gloom and doom why not check out Rachel's Helpful Guide to Online Dating: For Men? Even if you don't need the advice, it's still a riot.

Watcher's Council.

Idol news

It's not something I usually pay much mind to. I've never watched American Idol and can't say I have much interest in it. However this is something that I never much thought about.

When the sixth season of American Idol ends tonight with the crowning of a new winner, no one will mourn its departure more than local TV station executives such as Bill Fanshawe.

For five months, Fox's megahit talent show has boosted late local news ratings on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings by an astounding margin - in some cases by more than 300 percent. Indeed, the show, which this year commanded an average nightly audience of 29.8 million, is so powerful that it has reshaped some local Fox newscasts.

"American Idol has a huge impact on local news - and it's not just here, but across the country," says Fanshawe, general manager of Baltimore's Fox 45. "We draw audiences for our late news on Tuesday and Wednesday nights after Idol that are sometimes three- or fourfold what we normally do."

I guess I never understood how popular American Idol is. And given that FOX is often on the UHF station, this is especially significant in making the network more than just an also-ran. It also cuts into the primetime ratings of the other networks which are still running primetime shows at 10, when FOX ends its programming for the night and goes to news.

For context there's this:

"In its heyday [during the 1980s], when NBC had that strong Thursday night of comedies, and then when ER was dominating Thursday nights at 10 o'clock in the 1990s, you would see significant benefit for the local stations," says Preston Beckman, executive vice president of strategic program planning at Fox. "But there's never been anything like this show, because for one thing, it's on two nights a week. So, stations get a chance to have a Tuesday and Wednesday pop for their newscasts."

American Idol, Nielsen Ratings.

Doughoregan manor

This is fascinating.

A 30-year agreement that has prohibited development on an 892-acre portion of historic Doughoregan Manor is set to expire tomorrow, paving the way for hundreds of new homes on one of the largest tracts of undeveloped land in Howard County.

The property is a remnant of a once vast Colonial estate of more than 10,000 acres. The manor was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971.

Doughoregan Manor, in western Ellicott City, was the home of Charles Carroll of Carrolton and is the only home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence still in family hands.

The end of the agreement with the Maryland Historic Trust, known as a historic easement, allows descendants of Carroll, the Declaration's only Catholic signer, to follow through on plans to develop some of the land to pay for the restoration of their 20-room mansion and 30 other historic buildings while preserving family ownership.

First of all, it's amazing that even one family of a signer is still in possession of its estate 230 years after the signing. I would have thought that such estates, such as Mt. Vernon or Monticello would have become property of a charitable trust or the National Park Service.

I'm not going to pretend that I know all the issues - neighbors are said to be concerned about the infrastructure. But from the standpoint of the family it seems like a reasonable trade off. A little less land, but the ability to retain the mansion.

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Howard County.

Success in se asia

In the May 2007 issue of Commentary, writing about the successes the War on Terror has enjoyed in Southeast Asia, Joshua Kurlantzick in "Where the war on terror is succeeding" writes:

STILL, THERE are important lessons to draw from this relative success story. What the U.S. and its allies have done in the region might well be replicated elsewhere, not only in a deeply problematic country like Pakistan but also in the Muslim Middle East--at least in those countries where the regime itself is not the major threat.

For one thing, in Southeast Asia the U.S. moved quickly to help local forces stand on their own; from the start, the struggle against Islamism was a genuinely collaborative effort. Moreover, American forces have eschewed the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that could allow Islamist terrorists to cast their fight as a struggle against a foreign crusader. Southeast Asian politicians have been able to avoid charges of becoming American stooges.

Could a leader like Pervez Musharraf, who has allowed al Qaeda and the Taliban to gain a sanctuary in northwestern Pakistan, be persuaded to cooperate more fully with Washington? Obviously, the threat that Musharraf faces is more lethal and comprehensive than the one in Southeast Asia, but there is reason to think that, with quiet support and encouragement, he might take a more active role in undermining the Islamists. If, for instance, the Pakistani government were to make a point of regularly screening footage of native-born suicide bombers, emphasizing the numbers of fellow Muslims they have killed, the impact on public opinion might resemble that in Southeast Asia. Something similar happened in Jordan where a 2005 attack on a hotel in Amman, which destroyed a Jordanian wedding party, helped turn public attitudes against radical Islamists.

Another thing working for Indonesia (but not necessarily the rest of Southeast Asia) is Nahdlatul Ulama an organization of Moderate Muslims some 40 million strong. As Bret Stephens describes the group in The Last King of Java

Suppose for a moment that the single most influential religious leader in the Muslim world openly says "I am for Israel." Suppose he believes not only in democracy but in the liberalism of America's founding fathers. Suppose that, unlike so many self-described moderate Muslims who say one thing in English and another in their native language, his message never alters. Suppose this, and you might feel as if you've descended into Neocon Neverland.

In fact, you have arrived in Jakarta and are sitting in the small office of an almost totally blind man of 66 named Abdurrahman Wahid. A former president of Indonesia, he is the spiritual leader of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), an Islamic organization of some 40 million members. Indonesians know him universally as Gus Dur, a title of affection and respect for this descendant of Javanese kings. In the U.S. and Europe he is barely spoken of at all--which is both odd and unfortunate, seeing as he is easily the most important ally the West has in the ideological struggle against Islamic radicalism.

It may not be the tactics that are winning in Southeast, but a constituency that is willing to accept the war on terror. This is not something that necessarily translates to other parts of the world.

But then, Kurlantzick, isn't arguing that he's isolated all the elements of success. Certainly it's well worth trying similar strategies elsewhere.

War on Terror, Indonesia.

Counterpunch: "Zionism and the Doctrine of Election"

This little David-Duke-esque article was approvingly picked up by Al Arab, which is where I noticed it.

[...] When the Palestinian resistance dashed these hopes, the Zionists quickly made plans to evict them from their lands by force of arms. Indeed, in 1948 the Zionists nearly implemented their totalitarian vision when they expelled some 800,000 Palestinians, leveled their towns and villages, and made sure that they would never return to their homes in the Jewish state of Israel. This may have been troubling to some, but Zionists steeped in Jewish sacred history knew that their Lord had urged even more radical measures when their ancestors were taking possession of Canaan.

The theology of chosenness offered another advantage; it did not limit Zionist ambitions to Palestine alone. The Lord's promise was not restricted to Canaan; in a few more generous verses, He had expanded the Jewish inheritance to include all the lands between the Nile and Euphrates (Genesis: 15.18)." With present-day borders, this expansive Israeli empire would include Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and perhaps more. If the Zionists could successfully use the Bible to claim Palestine, they could invoke the same divine authority to claim the rest of the Arab Middle East as well. In the middle of the Suez War in 1956, Ben-Gurion told the Knesset "that the real reason for it [the Suez War] is 'the restoration of the kingdom of David and Solomon' to its Biblical borders. At this point in his speech, almost every Knesset member spontaneously rose and sang the Israeli national anthem."

The doctrine of election did not merely set the Jews apart from other nations; it also set them above other nations. Over time, this has encouraged racist tendencies. Since the Jews were the chosen instruments of God's intervention on earth, this was interpreted by some Jewish thinkers to mean that Jews were not subject to the laws of nature and society. In other words, as long as the Jews believed that they were acting as instruments of God's will, they did not have to follow the laws of gentile nations. As Israelis have moved to the religious right, a shift propelled by the rationale and experience of Zionism itself, Zionist advocates have shown an increasing willingness to justify their human rights abuses as a Jewish prerogative. As Zionist plans continue to be challenged by their victims, the 'chosen people' slowly but surely take on the hues of a 'master race:' they begin to imagine that they have the power to legitimize their actions by merely willing them into existence.

The author, M. Shahid Alam, "professor of economics at Northeastern University," seems to have first-hand experience on the subject of "willing" things "into existence." That seems to be what he has done with most of his facts.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Summing up the libby affair

Lessons of the Libby affair by Brian M. Carney from the May 2007 issue of Commentary.

And yet there was no conspiracy. What there was, instead, was a concatenation of fecklessness, and worse, on the part of those around Libby at critical junctures.

In the wake of Wilson's op-ed, the administration rapidly backed away from the sixteen words even though Wilson's charge did not match what the sixteen words actually said. This backing-away then fueled the sense, especially in the media and among Democrats in Congress, that intelligence had been politicized to justify a premeditated war. In turn, George Tenet's mea culpa laid the groundwork for the baseless claim that Valerie Wilson had been "outed" by the administration in revenge for her husband's op-ed. After all, a White House that would lie the country into war would hardly hesitate to compromise national security to get back at one of its critics. And then, having undermined its own credibility about both the original intelligence and Valerie Wilson's role in gathering it, the administration agreed to play along with the notion that the Wilson "scandal" was a serious matter of national security rather than what it was: a convenient political weapon in the hands of Bush's opponents.

This is a very concise summary of the Joseph Excellent Adventure. I'd argue that Carney hasn't assigned nearly enough blame to the media, who were all too credulous in accepting Wilson's words - whether about Niger or about the "outing." The White House should have shoved back a lot more strongly and openly against Wilson. Unfortunately the administration was cowed by the media and refused to make its best case. It cost a lot in terms of credibility and ability to govern effectively.

Lewis Libby, Joseph Wilson.

IRNA: "Ahmadinejad: Israel's repeated mistakes to spark nations' wrath"

Yet another example of Ahmadinejad's bellicose rhetoric towards Israel:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Thursday that the Zionist regime will face other nations's anger if repeats its past mistakes such as Lebanon's invasion.

Addressing large groups of provincial residents on his 29th provincial tour, Ahmadinejad said the Zionist regime should not think that it can pave the way for a repeated attack on Lebanon by assassinating the Palestinian leaders and crackdown on the public.

"Thanks God Almighty, the world nations and Palestinian people have become aware," he said, adding, "Any repetition of the mistakes will make regional nations angry and result in elimination of the Zionist entity."

Touching on the 60-year crimes of the Zionist Regime, including massacre of women and children at their houses and making the Palestinians homeless, Ahmadinejad noted that big powers do not oppose such actions and support the illegitimate regime instead.

Advising the Zionists to stop 60 years of massacre, assassination, crime and aggression, he said, "If you do not stop massacring, regional nations will soon come on the scene and eliminate you criminals."

Let's see, how did Juan Cole put it? "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Unionized hydrants

I didn't think that Best of the Web Today would use this, but he did.

Even the Hydrants Are Unionized "Nearly 10 Percent of Hydrants Don't Work, Union Says"--headline, Washington Post, May 18

(h/t Pillage Idiot)

Boggles the mind

Last week Jerusalem Board Games gave an overview of Boggle: Review and Variants. Right now I'd say that Boggle is my favorite word game.

Word games were something I played quite a bit growing up, especially with my mother and brother. Although Scrabble was originally our favorite, at some point our favorite game was Perquackey.

Perquackey consisted of 13 dice with letters on them. Players would take turns throwing the dice and spelling words with the resulting letters. Until a person scored 2000 points he would use only 10 dice and could make 3 letter words. Each player had to make 5 words of each number of letters. (5 3 letter words, 5 4 letter words etc.) If a player made a singular word, he could not also use the plural if that involved adding an "s." When the player had finished making 5 three letter and 5 four letter words he'd get a bonus.

The game went until 5000. After a player reached 2000 he was vulnerable and would add the 3 red cubes (all consonants.) Once a player was vulnerable, 3 letter words were no longer allowed and if he failed to achieve a certain score (I think 500) he'd lose points. Usually it would take about two turns to go past 2000 and maybe anther turn or two to get to 5000.

Other than at my parents' house I don't think I've seen Perquackey any place in recent years.

At home we have Big Boggle and I very much enjoy playing against my 16 year old. We've been playing against each other for 5+ years now and she's gotten very good. I'd see we split about half our games. (Usually she'll win if it's just 4 and 5 letter words and I'll win if I find some giant words.)

I can't, however, much agree with this.

People with "Scrabble" like vocabulary are always going to wipe the floor with other players.

It's not the big vocabulary that wins; it's the ability to see words out of the same letters. For example, if you have a square with "M" "T" "A" and "E," you know that you can spell meat, mate, tame, and team. That's the important skill in Boggle. (It's very much a Perquackey skill.) The less common words (in my experience anyway) don't make a difference. It's being able to recognize words in their scrambled form, which I think is a separate skill.

I'm very impressed with my daughter's doggedness in Boggle. Originally she was quite at a disadvantage. But she persevered, learning the tricks of the game. Sometimes I'd give myself a handicap (only use 4 or more letters but allow her 3 letter words) but after awhile she wanted to play on the same level as me. About two years ago, she started beating me with greater frequency. Now, as I mentioned above, we split the games we play pretty evenly.

A few months ago I played a game with a number of adults. I'm pretty sure she would have beaten all of them had she played. She's learned very well and I'm very proud.

Boggle, Word Games.

The silent iconoclasm

Friday's Washington Post featured a hagiographic treatment of Rachel Carson, "An Environmental Icon's Unseen Fortitude" in honor of her 100th birthday. Carson, who died in 1964, is widely credited with starting the environmental movement with the publication of her book "Silent Spring" that led to the banning of the pesticide DDT.

The problem is that in recent years there's been a re-thinking of DDT and it's introduction is being encouraged (in limited circumstances). Why? Because it fights the mosquitoes that cause malaria. Rich Karlgaard writes (h/t Instapundit)

Buried in paragraph 27, and paraphrasing the Congressman, The Washington Post concedes that "numerous" deaths might have been prevented by DDT.

Let's stop here. Any curious reader would ask, Just how "numerous" is numerous? Wouldn't you ask that question? The Post never asks that question. Why?

Because the answer devastates Rachel Carson and her followers. According to these CDC figures, malaria kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year.

Every year, 800,000 small children die from malaria, a disease once nearly eradicated. Ponder that.

(Actually it was State Senator who also happens to be a physician, not a Congressman.)

So more than forty years later, Carson's efforts can be shown to have had a negative effect, yet the Washington Post barely recognizes that, focusing instead on her heroism. But why doesn't the Washington Post acknowledge the problem with Carson's work more explicitly? Is environmentalism such a faith that it requires unthinking devotion?

And if environmental dogma is so important what does it say about a liberal newspaper ability to report accurately on other environmental matters (or even scientific matters like embryonic stem cell research)? The dogma apparently does trump the science. Funny, but I thought it was conservatives who put ideology ahead of facts.

It also makes me wonder about another famous person who was profiled on the front page of Friday's Washington Post, Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz has now been forced to resign his position as president of the World Bank because of a manufactured scandal involving his lady friend. He had asked that she be re-assigned but the Bank's board of directors directed him to handle the personnel matter and then accused him of favoritism.

The article on Wolfowitz starts off with some nice observations about the man and acknowledges the Wall Street Journal's defense of him. But then the long knives are out.

The immediate cause of Wolfowitz's resignation was a pay deal he ordered for Shaha Riza, a bank employee with whom he was romantically involved. But the public vitriol that poured from the bank once his fall began in late March with revelations about the deal underscored wider problems.

Far from respecting the bank, member governments and staffers charged, Wolfowitz surrounded himself with doctrinaire former White House and Republican officials and gave them wide authority. He altered long-standing policies and imposed new ones without consulting the staff or member governments. He risked the bank's credibility and the future of the poor countries it serves.

A turning point came last month when Wolfowitz's handpicked managing director, New Zealander Graeme Wheeler, told him he should resign for the good of the institution. In a signed letter to the Financial Times, more than three dozen former top bank officials described his signature anti-corruption initiative as "implemented with no consultation, and little transparency or apparent consistency." Employees wore blue ribbons supporting "good governance," a signal that they wanted Wolfowitz to go.

Proof of Wolfowitz's estrangement from the bank came when he hired a famously aggressive lawyer to fight for his job and warned that if he were fired, the bank's reputation would fall along with his own.

Imagine that, Wolfowitz implemented an anti-corruption initiative without consulting his betters! I can understand that the World Bank may think that it has all the money in the world to play with and that corruption may therefore be tolerated.

Wolfowitz's predecessor, James Wolfensohn, invested hundreds of thousands of his own money in Gaza greenhouses that were later destroyed by the people he sought to help. If his stewardship of other people's money was as poor as his stewardship of his own, it would explain why an anti-corruption drive might ruffle more than a few feathers at the World Bank.

Yet, Wolfowitz had his supporters such as Nuhu Ribadu

FOR the past few weeks, the world has been riveted by the difficulties of Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, regarding a potential conflict of interest involving the salary of his partner, also a senior official there. With the bank’s board deliberating this week over how to handle the charges, the controversy now needlessly and regrettably threatens Mr. Wolfowitz’s presidency, which has been largely defined by his energetic support for a new Africa that is struggling to emerge.

Over the last two years, Mr. Wolfowitz has effectively directed the bank’s energies toward fighting poverty and improving human life. He is a champion of using international development institutions to deal with some of the world’s major problems. And he has been a steadfast supporter of the efforts of African organizations to rescue our people from the scourge of misrule, which leads to poverty, disease and early death.

Over the last three years, Nigeria, once the emblem of outlandish corruption, has become a leading reformer, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which I head, has been at the cutting edge of these efforts. The enormous challenges we face would have proved almost insurmountable without external help, especially from the World Bank under Mr. Wolfowitz.

If one were really cynical, one would say that there's a tinge of racism to Wolfowitz's forced resignation. After all he championed a better Africa, but invested European interests wouldn't have that.

But more generally, will we, in forty years, see an article in the Washington Post revering Wolfowitz for his anti-corruption efforts? Will he be viewed as martyr to selfish interests in the future? My guess is that we won't see any such article in a liberal newspaper, as Wolfowitz is not a liberal icon. He will alway be viewed as "doctrinaire."

Iconoclasm is defined by Wikipedia as "...he deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture's own religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually for religious or political motives." Liberalism has no room for iconoclasm. It accepts only blind obedience and no skepticism.

I suppose that there is some of that in any set of political beliefs, in conservatism too. In liberalism today there's a tension because of the certitude of its correctness and its claim to openmindedness. The canonization of Rachel Carson despite the evidence she was wrong and the skepticism directed toward Paul Wolfowitz, though he may well be right is consistent with this certitude.

I used to call this "liberal orthodoxy," but others gave it the name "political correctness." And it is one of the reasons I got turned off to liberalism 20+ years ago.

UPDATE: I edited this and changed a few things to sharpen my point. This post is slightly different from the original.

Environmentalism, Rachel Carson, Paul Wolfowitz, Liberalism.

"I.R. of Iran, commanding center of awakened nations" --or-- Ayatollah borrows Kim Jong Il's speechwriters again

I love the smell of Supreme Leader pronouncements in the morning. From IRIB:

Islamic Revolution Leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei told a thousands-strong student audience Monday that the spirit of Basij (Qoranic diligence) takes credit for the hope and endurance of the Iranian nation, adding that across the large battleground of wills and prudence in the world, the same spirit helped transform the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic into a commanding center for awakening of the world nations to stand up to America's hegemony.

My little daughter walked past the computer as I had the original article in front of me with the Ayatollah's picture. "Who is that?" she asked. "A very silly man," I replied.

The IR Leader said the essence of Basij equals the readiness to cater to different revolutionary needs at any time or situation whatsoever, adding that any one who enshrines the essence enjoys the spirit, wherever he is located: in student associations or in non-academic surroundings including state departments, nationwide factories, the Islamic jurisprudence centers, or any other places.

Ayatollah Khamenei accredited the nation's preparedness in every situation with the national achievements in the past 27 years.

"The present world's political arena hosts a huge complex war of will and prudence and the point of fact is that the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic of Iran has played and continue to play a determining role in this arena so that one can say the Islamic system has already set off a strong bomb in the world of politics far more powerful than the bomb used by America in Hiroshima," Ayatollah Khamenei said.

Raising the superpowers-minded dichotomy of dominance-seekers-subdued countries in the world, Ayatollah Khamenei said, "In the world of politics, America has acted in a way that even the Europeans cannot afford to make a notable say of their own. However, the Iranian nation by its measures and positions has questioned the overall platform of the dominance-seeking power consequently affecting the bystanders of the colossal political conflict which are the nations. For the arrogant American government the reality has proved more bitter than any other poison."

In the same regard, the IR Leader said that the awakened nations of Palestine, Lebanon, Latin America and other points of the world took inspiration from the innocent perseverance of the Iranian nation and the firmer-than-steel resolve of the honorable Imam Khomeini the departed and resourceful reserve must be cherished.

Ayatollah Khamenei urged the youths and the other individuals in society to pick a due knowledge about the current global political situation.

"In the nations' battle against America, the Islamic Republic has turned into a commanding center for the nations so that despite the imbalance of power and abilities of the opposing parties, Iran could changed the situation in favor of the front of nations through its Allah-inspired resolve and prudence to the extent it even enjoys an equal standing vis-a-vis the rival," Ayatollah Khamenei added.

Ayatollah Khamenei noted that faith, revolutionary spirit, and religious motivations have produced a powerful Islamic Republic of Iran against America, adding that the heart and soul of the Iranian nation are intertwined with the revolution and for the same reason everywhere and every time necessary the nation will take on the field to defend Islam, the revolution and the country.

"The reality arises from the power of religion in firming the nations," the Islamic Revolution Leader underlined.

Gotta have firm nations.

Ayatollah Khamenei underlined the role of the students, especially the Basij-grown students in enhancing the commanding position of the Iranian nation as unique.

As regards the role of the Basij-grown students in national affairs, Ayatollah Khamenei reminded his New Year Day's statement in which the honorable alerted about enemy efforts to disrupt the country's economy to present the creed-following administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as incompetent, adding the student Basij associations can help thwart the ploy by assisting the administration to promote its performance.

Ayatollah Khamenei also alerted about another enemy effort namely to hinder Iran's scientific growth and trouble national unity and Islamic harmony, adding that the Basij-grown students can take an active and influential role to foil such attempts.

The IR Leader underlined necessity of full alert on the part of the students, adding, "Such alert should not be summarized in renouncing America alone, rather it takes a more profound concept in light of the enemy's complicated and mainly hidden political and cultural programs."

If he only knew. If he only knew.

"Sometimes the enemy in order to have its plan at full strength lurks to hear some one making a rightful comment. For that reason, we must strictly take vigilance not to allow enemy to abuse an statement," Ayatollah Khamenei urged, adding that to meet the requirement one should know the enemy and avoid careless conduct.

Ayatollah Khamenei called the student Basij association a bi-faceted association, having connection with both the academic surrounding and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) which represents valiant revolutionary resistance.

Ayatollah Khamenei underscored insight as the prime requirement for the association, urging it to acquire a dynamic mind through thought-making and theoretical projects so that it could assess the country's situation aside from political factions and so become able to take its obligations.

Ayatollah Khamenei urged the audience to pay special attention to their academic lessons and morality adding that the association must acquire a thought room, recruit in a proper manner and preserve its organizational unity.

Concerning the involvement of the students in political affairs, Ayatollah Khamenei said "The Basij-grown students could not and should not go unheeded towards political matters rather it should remain full-energy and avoid heedless manners. However, avoiding heedless treatment does not require ignoring the enemy's complicated projects thereby the student Basij must keep path with full alert and vigilance."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

IDIC

A few weeks ago, Colossus of Rhodey.Hube reported on a recent study that finds that NBA referees are - prejudiced. Not in any conscious way mind you. He even proposes a solution to the problem.

Hey, let's apply an education "solution" to the NBA problem here: Multicultural training for all NBA referees. [White] refs need to realize that what may be a foul in white culture isn't necessarily a foul in black culture. After all, since blacks tend to play more "street ball" when growing up, that kind of play tends to be more "freelance," hence a bit "rougher." Fouls aren't called as often. Therefore, white refs need to consider this before blowing the whistle against a [black] player.

Kidding aside, one question is how the league will deal with the problem? How will those diverse front offices deal with the challenge before them? That's right, on the heels of the study showing that the league's refs are (unconsciously) biased came another study showing that the league front offices are the most diverse in all of sports. As Richard Lapchik an author of that study writes:

We correctly laud the progress made by the NFL with its recent head coaching hires. However, 40 percent of the head coaches in the NBA are African-American, and that's more than double the percentage of any other league. At the end of last season, the New York Giants hired Jerry Reese, giving the NFL a total of five African-Americans in positions the NFL says are the equivalent to general managers (some teams use titles like VP for player personnel). By contrast, there were eight African-American general managers in the NBA when the regular season ended last month.

Many celebrate the fact that two African-American head coaches faced each other in the 2007 Super Bowl -- the Colts' Tony Dungy and the Bears' Lovie Smith. That happened in the NBA's counterpart to the Super Bowl -- the NBA Finals -- all the way back in 1975 when K.C. Jones and the Washington Bullets met Al Attles and the San Francisco Warriors for the league championship. To date, four African-American head coaches have won NBA titles: Attles, Jones, Russell and Lenny Wilkens. Through the end of this season, the league has had 53 African-American head coaches. Major League Baseball is a distant second with a history that includes 25 managers of color, including African-Americans and Latinos.

So Lapchik plays down the referee issue:

So in that big-picture context, the possibility of an officiating bias based on race seems less consequential. Thirty-six percent of the referees in the NBA this season were either Latino or African-American, which puts the NBA far ahead of any other sport in that area. Is it possible that white referees make more calls against African-American players? Wolfers says it is more than a possibility. If he is right, his study tells us as much about society as it does about the NBA because there are so many other areas where this sort of "taste-based discrimination" happens, such as corporate executives making hiring and promotion decisions, or police officers, prosecutors and judges making decisions in which preconceived images may play a role in their "calls."

To Lapchik, it's not an NBA problem; it's society's problem.

In his post on the study of officiating bias, Colossus of Rhodey.Hube joked about the paucity of white players in the NBA. That's because the way players are hired is based on merit even though the result is that a disproportionate number of of African Americans are hired to play the game. (Believe it or not, once upon a time, the NBA was a very Jewish league.)

But perhaps one of the reasons race relations are still an issue in society is not the subtle unconscious discriminations but that fact that we have people whose job it is to study diversity. Given that it's their field of study, they need to validate their existence and maintain that problems still exist. Once gains in diversity are accepted unconsciously instead of being heralded self-consciously race will be much less of a contentious issue.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad and OTB Sports.

NBA, Diversity.

Daily Times (Pakistan): "Ahmadinejad’s visit to Riyadh was fruitless"

This offers a nice contrast between reality and Ahmadinejad's rhetoric:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Saudi Arabia for the day to talk with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and came away saying the two counties had agreed to “work together to thwart ‘enemy’ plots seeking to divide the Islamic world”. After landing in Tehran his message was nicely packaged: “Fortunately we and the Saudis were fully aware of the threats of our enemies and we condemn them. We ask all Muslims to be aware of the enemy plots and be alert”.

The reference is to the sectarian war in Iraq and the blame is squarely placed on the United States. Mr Ahmadinejad packed a lot of messages in his statement at home. Not only was the Sunni-Shia conflict a creation of the ‘enemy’ of the Muslims, he said, the enemy had to be driven out of the region too: “We came up with a plan to preserve the rights of the Islamic nations and safeguard the rights of the people of the region.” But he made no reference to Lebanon where the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora is supported by Saudi Arabia but opposed by Iran through Hezbollah. He also made no reference to Israel because on this issue, too, Iran toes a different line from the Saudi-led Arab League: King Abdullah’s offer is that if Israel withdraws to the 1967 boundaries the Arab world would recognise it; Iran rejects that and will not recognise Israel at any price.

The Saudi side revealed a little bit more. It saw the visit as a sign that the two countries were pooling efforts “to ease the explosive regional crises”, the two leaders stressing the need to preserve Iraq’s “independence, national unity and equality between its citizens”. It saw Ahmadinejad endorsing Riyadh’s efforts to resolve the political crisis in Lebanon. Most significantly, a Saudi official has said that “the kingdom would try to convince Tehran to comply with UN resolutions and suspend enrichment”.

Actually the meeting was an important one on many counts. It was a meeting of the two representatives of the Islamic schism: the Shia and the Sunni. A dangerous period of non-communication had intervened in which Saudi Arabian sources had voiced concern about the spread of Shia and Iranian influence in the region. Jordan, which stands close to Saudi Arabia, had said things that Iran did not relish at all. It was therefore not easy to begin talking after a period of hostile non-communication.

According to reports, Mr Ali Larijani, the chief negotiator of Iran’s nuclear programme and special assistant to President Ahmadinejad, visited Riyadh twice to prepare the ground for the visit. He and not anyone else went because earlier the third-ranking Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had visited Tehran and clarified the agenda, which must have concerned Iran’s nuclear programme. Prince Bandar’s father, Sultan, is next in line to the King. Prince Bandar looks after the security agency and is in charge of matters linked to possible dangers of a sectarian outbreak in the country. He also inherits his father’s position.

It is reported that a great feast was prepared for the Iranian president. When the talks began, King Abdullah sat close to Mr Ahmadinejad. This was unusual. He talked of nothing else but Iran’s nuclear programme that the UN Security Council was going to discuss with a view to imposing tough sanctions on Iran. Saudi Arabia itself is greatly worried about Iran’s nuclear posture and the American military build-up in the Gulf, but the King acted as if he was offering himself as a mediator between Iran and the United States.

It is said that the Iranian president with his quicksilver disposition did not like what he heard. The discussion broke up and everyone went for dinner. After dinner there was more deadlock over the nuclear issue. After the meeting, it was expected that the Iranian delegation would stay the night but just after midnight President Ahmadinejad decided to head home. No joint statement was issued which means nothing was decided and each side was to issue its own version of what happened.

If this is what happened, then it does not bode well for the Sunni-Shia world conference together with the Security Council Big Five that Iraq is planning to hold and to which Iran has agreed only tentatively after objecting to including too many extra-regional entities. There is no doubt that some sections of the Iranian ruling elite are worried about President Ahmadinejad’s ‘train without a brake’, but Iran’s pride and sense of honour at being challenged is something that the president can use successfully against all opponents.

Internationally, America’s strategy of threatening Iran is being seen as the latest Washington move, although Washington denies it. Even the Jandullah attacks across the Pakistan-Iran border are seen in this context. If the Riyadh meeting was a testing of the waters to see how Iran was reacting to these moves, it has proved fruitless.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Here in status symbol land

Last week The Spine contrasted the lavish lifestyles of Palestinian leaders to those of Israel's leaders.

It is of the mansion of Rashid Abu Shbak, a bit rough upped by Hamas fighters, that is, the mansion, not the man who was away when the thugs came. I know that the Gaza Palestinians are suffering but now certainly more from their own than from Israel.

Still, the mansion shocks. I knew where Ben Gurion lived...actually in a bungalow on a kibbutz. I visited Golda Meir many times, both in the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem and her own private house in Tel Aviv. Maybe like a middle class house in New Rochelle. With Michael Walzer, Henry Rosovsky and David Landes (how did I fit into this eminent crew?), I visited Menahem Begin in his own apartment, also in Tel Aviv, the small and extremely spare apartment where he had hid from the British before independence and the place to which he retired after being prime minister. Yitzhak Rabin lived in a tasteful but modest apartment in North Tel Aviv. And Ehud Olmert lives in a not at all so grand house, but with a big garden.

And Rashid Abu Shbak lives in a mansion. Perhaps he thinks that it will serve as motivator for the depressed people he polices.

(Elder of Ziyon, reminds us that the well-appointed mansion has a armed and masked thug at every landing.)

This is an ongoing problem. As we've recently learned that foreign aid to the Hamas government is 3 times the level the Fatah run government received the previous year, Shiloh Musings has been taking pictures of the Arab mansions going up around Yerushalayim (Jerusalem).

There is nothing new to this. More aid, means more comforts for the Palestinian elites. But little or nothing for infrastructure. Or peace education.

Back in 2001, Israel shelled the house of Jibril Rajoub, one of Fatah's "security chiefs." Here's what the NY Times saw:

Reporters traipsed through the master bathroom of Jibril Rajoub's house today, getting a highly unusual glimpse of a Palestinian security chief's whirlpool bath and shampoo collection. The marble floor was still littered with the brown glass that blew from the windows when Israeli tanks' shells struck on Sunday.

Rajoub's opposite number in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, too, did quite well.

It is, quite literally, a house built on sand. On a bluff above the coast road overlooking the stagnant pools of Wadi Gaza stands a half- built mansion belonging to Mohammed Dahlan, the head in Gaza of Preventive Security, the largest of the 11 Palestinian security forces.

Not all is going well with construction. Mr Dahlan's four-storey house, said to have another two storeys under ground, and the new road built to its gate, are proving too heavy for the sand on which they are built. In recent months a 10ft wall of oil barrels has been built along the base of the bluff to stop the house sliding into the sea.

For many among the million Palestinians in the Gaza strip, living on average income of pounds 1,100 a year, the new wealth of Mr Dahlan and the leaders of the Palestinian Authority is a sign that they alone are benefiting from the Oslo peace accords, under which they returned to rule Gaza in 1994.

Rajoub and Dahlan didn't just benefit from mis-directed foreign aid. Rajoub and Dahlan are, what we could call in America, "Robber Barons."

The gas station owners have no business relationship with Dor Energy. Dor sells the fuel to the Palestinian monopoly at a certain price, and the monopoly sells it to the station owners at a much higher price. The monopoly keeps the difference. The station owners have no alternative, because Rajoub's outfit in the West Bank and Muhammad Dahlan's in the Gaza Strip prevent any other, competing importation and assign armed guards to escort Dor's tankers right up to the stations themselves.

Another way in which the security apparatuses finance their augmented activity is through the collection of unloading taxes. Rajoub and Dahlan control, in effect, all the discharging platforms at the transit points to the Palestinian Authority. Dahlan is also the owner of the loading pitchforks at the Erez checkpoint. Every merchant and truck owner must pay the preventive security apparatus a tithe in order to proceed. Sometimes, its done in a simpler fashion. An Israeli importer of cleaning products, who opened a branch in Gaza, was asked to pay $2,000, a "donation" to Force 17. A year ago,a rich Arab from East Jerusalem was asked to purchase 14 new jeeps, out of his own money, for Rajoub's organization's use.

Still, foreign aid has its uses as the late Michael Kelly described

Everyone had behaved perfectly fine; no one had so much as mentioned the inconvenient London Sunday Times story the day before, which said that the Palestinian Authority had swiped $20 million in British aid intended to build housing for the poor of Gaza, using the money instead to build luxury flats for Arafat's military and bureaucratic elite.

Palestinian nationalism has been a extremely lucrative pursuit for its foremost proponents. It allows them to criticize Israel with impunity and make a nice living doing so.

I've pointed out many times that Danile Pipes's How Important is the PLO? described the framework within which the PLO (now the PA and Hamas) operated. Fighting Israel was their cause. But accumulating wealth, rather than an independent state was their real goal.

Israel, Palestinians, Corruption.

Leap of illogic from the post

Rocket from Gaza Friday May 18, 2007 Page A22

FROM DAMASCUS, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal yesterday hailed what he called "a historic opportunity." He was referring to the death of several members of his own Islamic movement in airstrikes by Israel. Even while engaged in bloody street fighting with the rival Palestinian Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip this week, Hamas has been firing scores of crude rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, hoping to draw the Israeli military into a fight in Gaza that would mimic its costly invasion of Lebanon last summer and unite Palestinians behind Hamas's extremist agenda. By last night, Mr. Meshal was dangerously close to getting his wish.

I criticized the NY Times a few weeks ago for arguing that, while justified, it would be worse for Israel to strike back than to continue absorbing Qassem attacks. (There was an editorial that stated this explicitly.) This editorial is no different.

The growing willingness of Arab and European states to tolerate and even aid the Hamas movement has been based on the notion that Hamas could be coaxed toward more civilized behavior and tacit recognition of Israel; that is why many supported the creation of a "unity" government of Hamas with the secular and more moderate Fatah. But Mr. Meshal and his sponsors in Syria and Iran have a very different agenda: to use force to intimidate and eventually dominate Fatah, and to wage an unending war of attrition against Israel. That's the same course that Hezbollah, another proxy of Iran and Syria, has been pursuing in Lebanon.

I'm not going to get into an argument Fatah's moderation here, but the Post here should own up to the fact that it helped promote the notion of Hamas's moderation in both its news and editorial pages.

Israel's dilemma is that it cannot stop rocket attacks from Gaza without invading and reoccupying the territory -- and maybe not even then -- but it also cannot indefinitely tolerate daily attacks on its own citizens and their homes. The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, which already is under heavy pressure to resign because of its failure to defeat Hezbollah, knows it is being invited into what Hamas regards as a trap, but the government hasn't found an alternative other than the limited airstrikes it launched yesterday. The government has resisted parts of a security plan offered by a U.S. envoy, Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, that calls for Israel to help bolster a Fatah security force to check Hamas. It has also refused to extend a now-ruptured cease-fire from Gaza to the West Bank because it calculates that its operations against Palestinian militants in the West Bank are preventing suicide bombings in Israel.

This is just a factual mistake. And one the Post's editors wouldn't have made, if they'd read their own paper: Fatah Troops Enter Gaza With Israeli Assent (They didn't even have to read the article, the information necessary was in the headline. Somehow, though, the idea of allowing a few hundred freshly armed members of Fatah is not a trap, but striking back at those attempting to kill Israelis is a trap. The logic escapes me.

Western and Arab intervention offers the best hope of heading off a war in Gaza that could easily spread back to Lebanon, and beyond. Egypt, which has allowed Hamas to smuggle hundreds of tons of weapons and explosives, needs to act decisively to seal its border with Gaza. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states should step up pressure on Hamas and on Syria, which is helping Hezbollah rearm in Lebanon. The Bush administration, which has focused much of its energy on a far-fetched attempt to start talks about a final Israeli-Palestinian settlement, needs to urgently mobilize its allies in pursuit of a more basic goal: preventing another summer war.

Here too, a mea culpa would be in order. Back when Israel was objecting to opening up the border between Egypt and Gaza, the Post was anxious that Israel not put its safety first and allow the borders to be open with minimal security. Ms. Rice's Dealmaking

WITH A CRUCIAL push from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israelis and Palestinians have at last taken a step toward converting Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip into a sustained movement toward peace. An agreement reached early Tuesday morning promises Palestinians in Gaza the access to the outside world necessary to convert their tiny, crowded territory from a detention camp into a statelet. It also gives Israel means to cope with the increased risk to its own security that such access necessarily creates. Needed months ago, the accord was stalled by eruptions of violence, domestic political complications on both sides, and the mutual distrust of Israeli and Palestinian leaders: Each side suspects that the other is not willing or able to follow President Bush's "road map" for a negotiated two-state settlement. By clinching the deal, Ms. Rice preserved the possibility that Mr. Bush's plan could still go forward.

If Egypt is allowing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, it is, at least in part, due to a policy that the Post itself recommended. Egypt previous behavior dictated that it ought not be trusted to police its border with Gaza, but the Post recommended that Israel abandon its own security to others.

The gist of the editorial is that Israel should not defend itself lest it "play into the hand of Hamas." The problem is that the Washington Post has bought into the idea that Israel take risks that no reasonable person would expect it to (and that few unreasonable people would demand!) When those risks have not paid off, the Post pretends that someone else is at fault, but never its assumptions. The only assumption that the Post clings to is that Israel not defend itself.

The Post terms Israel's war against Lebanon as "costly." The Post means that Israel hurt itself by invading Lebanon. But what if something else is true. That the failure to win the war in Lebanon decisively is part of what's inspired to Hamas to attack again. If Sheikh Nasrallah had not survived last summer's war, how quick would Ismail Haniyeh have been to listen to his masters in Damasucs and Tehran?

Washington Post, Israel,Hamas.

Iranian Press Today: "Illegitimacy of Israel," "US Discredited," "Quantum Leap"

Did I ever mention that the Iranian press likes to attack the fake usurper Zionist regime? Warning: I provided the links, but the Fars News site resizes your browser window and may raise other security issues.

Fars News: "Tehran Stresses Illegitimacy of Israel":

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini repeated Iran's stance in the face of the Zionist regime of Israel, stressing that Tehran views that regime as illegal, illegitimate and a usurper of the Palestinians' rights and land.

The spokesman made the remarks in reaction to the release of distorted quotations from Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki while addressing a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Jordan.

Speaking to reporters during his weekly press conference here on Sunday, Hosseini expressed regret over misinterpretations and distortion of Mottaki's remarks.

He further noted Mottaki's statements about the Zionist regime and issues of the Palestinian nation at the WEF meeting as well as his address at the ministerial meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Islamabad, Pakistan, and said if media paid due attention to these statements then they could realize Mottaki's points given the abundant asymmetries existing in his remarks.

The spokesman further mentioned expatriation of the indigenous residents of Palestine and arrangement of free and democratic elections to be attended by the original and native residents of Palestine, including Muslims, Jews and Christians, to determine the type of government in that country as the only way to solve Palestine's issue, stressing that the result of such elections would receive Iran's unconditional support.

Elsewhere, he pointed to the achievements gained by the Iranian delegation at the 34th Foreign Ministers' Meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, and said that Tehran had prepared 15 draft resolutions which were approved by the participants.

"One of these resolutions pertained to Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, which was approved by all the 57 member states. The resolution stresses the need for the use of peaceful means and precondition-free talks as the best way to resolve Iran's nuclear issue," the spokesman reminded.

He also said that as a result of Iran's efforts, participants also passed a resolution stressing Islamic solidarity in a bid to neutralize enemies' attempts and plots for sowing seeds of discord among Islamic countries and nations.

"After 38 years, the Organization of the Islamic Conference for the first time described Shiism as an official religion of Islam and stressed its strong opposition to aggressions against Shiites' lives and possessions," Hosseini continued.

He also voiced pleasure in the ratification of a resolution by the OIC meeting against the Zionist regime, condemning Tel Aviv for possessing nuclear arms. [...]

Fars News: "US Discredited for Supporting Israel":

Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel stressed that the United States' support for the criminal regime of the Zionists has discredited the American nation.

Addressing an open session of the Islamic Consultative Assembly here in Tehran on Sunday, the speaker noted the intensification of the Zionist regime's invasion of Palestine and massacre of the innocent people in Gaza, and reminded, "So far some 18 Palestinians have been martyred while a large number of people have also been wounded."

"Watching the scenes where mothers, spouses and children mourn for the loss of their beloved ones is a source of suffering and grievance for every heart," he continued.

Haddad Adel further blasted European countries who allege to be advocates of human rights for merely watching Israelis' brutal invasions, adding, "These (Europeans) are the same people who cry out when a person is arrested in accordance with the domestic laws of a country, but they have now kept silent. And the United States also extends its constant support for this illegitimate infant (Israel).

"This is the same United States that introduces itself as the flag-bearer of freedom and democracy in the world and intends to gift these items (democracy and freedom) to the Islamic countries as well. But the world people can observe as to how Americans treat Hamas which has ascended to power through the vote of majority of Palestinians and in accordance with the mechanisms which comply with democracy," he continued.

The speaker also mentioned, "Under such conditions that the US supports Israel and the Zionist regime's minister of war officially announces that they intend to assassinate Hamas leader, how can the Americans expect not to be hated by the world of Islam."

He also called on the American people to question the US administration, saying that the United States' support for Israel has ruined the whole reputation of that country.

"We condemn the barbaric acts of Israel and express our sympathy with the bereaved families of the martyrs," the Iranian parliament speaker said.

The Iranian economy may be having difficulties, but don't worry, it's on the "verge of a giant leap." And you thought only North Korea made great leaps!

Press TV: "Iran's economy taking quantum leap":

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the country is on the verge of a "giant economic leap" calling for the nation to take its part.

"The country is on the verge of a giant leap. The infrastructure is developed swiftly and we are creating the (required) conditions (for that). The young expert workforce is entering into the work market. The country has a lot of experience in various fields. We are on the verge of an economic leap," the President said.

In a TV interview on Saturday, Ahmadinejad called Iran as one of the safest countries for investment.

"Despite the current pressures and propaganda, domestic and foreign investment has considerably increased in Iran during the recent years", said the President, adding "But this leap demands a public movement, that is the people and the government should take their part despite the difficulties and pressures. I call on all the people to take part in the movement. The popular economy should move the country forward. The people should participate in the form of groups, companies, and cooperatives. The people should tolerate the difficulties for a 3-4 year period so that our country turns into a developed and modern country," he reiterated.

Ahmadinejad touched on the issue of the fuel consumption Iran and said it falls on the government to decrease the consumption. "The government is seeking to spend the money saved from the fair distribution of oil on stable infrastructure" he concluded.

What a great economic principle: saving money through fairness!

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Haveil Havlalim #117 is UP!

Get the over to the Drive-in at Jack's Shack and check out Haveil Havalim #117. And some people said I need to adopt more catholic tastes! And you Big Boys can go here.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of haveil havalim
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UPCOMING EDITIONS

May 27 - #118 - Esser Agaroth

I'd like to thank the wonderful folks at BlogCarnival for this wonderful Blog Carnival Widget that gives information on upcoming hosts and past editions.

Thanks for participating, reading and keeping Haveil Havalim going!

However is someone decides that he/she wants to host in the future let me know at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com or use the BlogCarnival Contact form. (BTW, there's nothing plain about 117. It is a composite number. What's more it's divisible by 9!)

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Juggling carnivals 05/20/2007

Incoming Carnivals

Well I've been remiss in recounting the various Carnivals I've appeared in recently. I've missed 3 Carnival of the Insanities, so check them out one, two and three.

Last week saw the appearance of J-Pix (the Jewish Photography carnival) #7 is up at the appropriately named Temunot (Hebrew for Pictures).

Last but definitely not least, Kosher Cooking Carnival #18 is UP at Me-Ander (where it all started) and, of course, there are some appropriate recipes for Shavuot.

And while it's not exactly a carnival, check out Mr. Bagel's (the creator and maintainer of J-Pix) J-Blogg Bunch and see if you can identify the bloggers with just a portion of their faces!

Upcoming

Later today there will be the next edition of Carnival of the Insanities and Carnival of Maryland. Look out!

To find out the latest about each carnival or to participate in future editions of each, click on the link below:
Carnival of the Insanities
J-Pix
Kosher Cooking Carnival
Carnival of Maryland

Blog Carnivals

Council speak 05/20/2007

The council has spoken.

This week's winning entry among Council members was Cheney's Chess Moves in the Middle East by JoshuaPundit. It looked at the various outcomes likely due to the VP's trip to the Middle East, and none of them looked particularly attractive.

The two runners up this week were Cheat Seeking Missiles' Positive thinking vs. the Greenies a look at the the negativism that is inherent in the environmental movement and The Glittering Eye's touching tribute to his dog, Gone Across Peterson.

The winning non-Council post was Don't Bury your head in the Sand by Iraq the Model, a plea to America not to look the other way and invest what is necessary to save Iraq. The runner up was The Gates of Vienna's (a former council member) A communism for the 21st Century, a not too gentle critique of multiculturalism.

Watcher's Council.

Guardian: "Israel ready to settle scores"

The Guardian would clearly like to be taken as objective, but that urge has a lot of competition. There is something oddly torturous about how this story is constructed, and I've bolded interesting bits of slanting. Oh, and don't you like the article title?

Israel launched more air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza yesterday afternoon, killing at least two Palestinians, as top officials considered a broader strategy for stopping rockets being fired at Israeli towns.

The air campaign that began last Wednesday has plunged the Palestinians deeper into turmoil after nine days of fierce factional fighting verging on civil war between ruling Hamas Islamists and President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah in Gaza.

For the fifth time in seven days, Egyptian mediators announced yesterday a negotiated ceasefire to end fighting between the bitterly opposed Palestinian groups. But even if the ceasefire holds, it was clear this weekend that Israel planned to use the situation to settle political and military scores with both Hamas and militants who had engaged in a steady bombardment of Israeli towns near the Palestinian borders with their mostly ineffectual homemade rockets.

The announcement of the latest truce also failed to give any details, a bad sign considering that while the fundamental question of who commands the security forces in Gaza remains unanswered, no ceasefire will last, according to almost everyone involved.

An agreement signed by Hamas and Fatah in February to share power collapsed last week, when Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasme resigned because he could not control the various factions of gunmen supposedly under his command.

Al-Qawasmeh had been selected as a neutral choice to lead Gaza's security forces but his neutrality also meant he lacked any gunmen of his own, thus making it impossible for him to exercise any authority over Gaza's many different semi-official armed factions.

Can't exercise authority without your own gunmen.

Within a day, Gaza blew apart, once again sending masked gunmen to the streets in a flurry of gunfights, hostage-takings and a siege of the Islamic University - the intellectual birthplace of Hamas, and a symbolic and military flashpoint over the past year of conflict between the two parties.

Even as the guns in the Fatah-Hamas conflict began to quiet, Israel responded with an unexpected offensive against Hamas-related targets and officials that Israeli officials have long considered terrorists and not part of a legitimate Palestinian government.

Although the US and Israel have openly supported Fatah in the fight by supplying money, equipment and training to its top military commander in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, the Israelis insist that the daily air and artillery attacks on Hamas targets are designed to halt rocket attacks on the small Israeli towns that ring the walled-off Gaza Strip, a narrow sliver of land jammed with nearly 1.5 million Palestinians.

Hamas officials retort that Israel was supporting Fatah, whose fighters appear to be out-gunned, out-trained and out-led by their Hamas rivals. By midweek, Abu Obaida, spokesman for the Hamas military wing, declared an end to the tattered Hamas ceasefire with Israel.

That tattered ceasefire.

Previously, with a few exceptions, Hamas had been honoring a six-month-old ceasefire with the Israelis and had not been firing rockets itself. But its security forces had also ignored repeated attacks on Israel by rocket teams from Islamic Jihad, a militant group of increasing power which ignores domestic Palestinian politics and internal clashes in favour of attacks on Israel. And Islamic Jihad has refused every overture to negotiate on any aspect of Palestinian-Israeli peace.

Let's not mention that Hamas has been arming it.

As the battles with Fatah broke out across the strip, Hamas quickly entered the rocket-firing fray and the nearby Israeli town of Serdot took damage and casualties. But the Israeli offensive, which targeted not just rocket teams but top Hamas commanders, installations and infrastructure, also left the group reeling as it ordered its men to disperse from all known Hamas installations, stay off mobile phones and avoid large gatherings that could be targeted by superior Israeli military technology. This attack on their opponent's command and control ability, at least temporarily, seems to have saved Fatah from a military defeat and might have set the stage for yesterday's ceasefire to hold longer than the previous attempts.

That's interesting.

But Hamas and other militants seem convinced that an Israeli invasion of Gaza is the best plan of action, no matter the cost. In interviews with both Islamic Jihad and Hamas militant commanders over the past month, The Observer learned that both groups badly want to draw Israel into a protected ground combat in a reinvasion of Gaza for political and military reasons.

Politically, Abu Hamza, the top Islamic Jihad commander in charge of the group's rocket programme, told The Observer that the only way to unify the split Palestinian factions is a battle with Israel, even if it devastated the already economically staggering Gaza Strip. And militarily, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim to have adopted weapons, training and tactics from Israel's summer war with Hizbollah and are convinced they can repeat the Lebanese militant group's success on the ground.

For its part, Israel is reluctant to co-operate . . .

Although it's "ready to settle scores."

Crossposted on Judeopundit

IRIB: "Zionist regime keeps rampage in Gaza"

This is pretty typical of Iranian coverage of Israeli military operations although the editing in IRIB stories is worse than that of, say, IRNA and Mehr News. The "defenceless Palestinians" include a lot of "military wing" members, don't they?

The fake Zionist regime pushed ahead with a savage aerial attack against defenceless Palestinians in Gaza Friday.

The regime's F-16 warplanes attacked a building in two predawn attacks half-an-hour apart on the eastern outskirts of Gaza city, near the Karni commercial area, killing five and injuring four others.

The martyrs included four Hamas' military wing members and a civilian bystander, a spokesman for the Palestinian Health Ministry's ambulance service confirmed, adding two other Hamas militants were in critical condition.

Later in the morning, the Zionist regime targettgd a group of Hamas combatants in northern Gaza.

In the evening, at least three people were martyred in a brutal air attack on a car carying Hamas officials in northern Gaza city.

At least five people were wounded in the attack.

Hamas, in turn, has threatend to renew suicide bombings in occupied Palestine for the first time in more than two years.

At least 12 Palestinians have been martyred - eight Hamas militants and four civilians - in seven 'Israeli' barbaric air attacks since early Thursday afternoon.

The martyrs included two innocent Palestinian teens and another bystander in the suthern Gaza town of Rafah.

Following its unhumane policies, the fake regime continues massacring of innocent Palestinian nation, especially defenceless women and children.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Jpost: "Bearded Gazans on razor's edge between life and death"

I guess I'll never again feel that I sacrificed anything by having a full beard. Here's a story about getting shot in the legs for your hadras panim:

Once, Hamas members were afraid to wear beards for fear of being arrested by Israel's security forces. Today, they are once again afraid of appearing in public with beards - this time for fear that they will be killed or kidnapped by Fatah militiamen in the Gaza Strip.

Sources close to Hamas said over the weekend that at least 10 bearded men have been shot and killed in the past week after being stopped in the street by Fatah gunmen.

One case was caught on camera and has since appeared on the Youtube Web site. The film shows several Fatah gunmen shooting a bearded man in the legs. As the man lies in a pool of blood in the street crying for help, a Fatah gunman approaches him and fires at his head from an automatic rifle, killing him instantly.

Automatic fire to the head at point-blank range--that'll do it every time.

"This man was just an ordinary citizen who happened to wear a beard," said a Hamas official. "It's become very dangerous to appear with a beard on the streets of the Gaza Strip."

According to the Hamas official, most of the victims were killed execution-style by Fatah militiamen and members of various Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority security forces.

They include two journalists working for the Hamas-affiliated Falasteen newspaper, Suleiman Ishi and Muhammad Abdo. "The two are not members of Hamas, but they were killed simply because they had beards," he said. "They were kidnapped by members of Mahmoud Abbas's Presidential Guard and executed in a Palestinian security installation."

Another Hamas official in Gaza City said that many young men had begun shaving their beards for fear of being identified as Hamas members. "We never imagined that the day would come when Muslim men would be afraid to walk in the street because they are wearing beards," he said.

Hey, wait a minute! What about that "fear of being arrested by Israel's security forces" mentioned in the first paragraph?

He said that about 40 bearded men have been hospitalized after being kidnapped and shot in the legs by Fatah gunmen in the past few days. Doctors have been forced to amputate the legs of some of them because of the severity of their wounds, he added.

Fatah accused Hamas militiamen of using the same method against its members. Several Fatah and PA security officers who had been abducted by Hamas militiamen were shot in the legs and left to bleed in the street, said a senior Fatah official in Gaza City.

Does that mean being clean-shaven is also dangerous?

He said three members of the PA National Security Force were shot in the legs on Saturday after being kidnapped by Hamas militiamen earlier in the day. The three, Abdel Rahman Barawi, Khalil Abu Shawish and Ala Abu Shamaleh, were admitted to the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City for treatment.

Not that they'll be safe there or anything.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Update: Israel Matzav has the video. Watch it while eating lunch!

Zionist on the defense

Israel is under attack by its enemies on a number of fronts on the public relations front. Israel is portrayed as an aggressor, the world's foremost violator of human rights and international law and unwilling to compromise for peace.

There are responses to each of these charges and in the past few days, there have been some very good ones.

Ali Abunimah - the founder of Electronic Intifada - has written an autobiography and he asked a blogger named Joel Pollak to review it. Pollak has complied and written the review at his blog Guide to the Perplexed. The final paragraph starts with this excellent observation.

The problem in the Middle East, it seems, is that too many people hold out for lost oranges instead of eating the ones in their hands.

(h/t It's Almost Supernatural)

International law is often cited as a reason that Israel is at fault for the lack of peace in the Middle East. Recently a group of British academics and journalists have created a website commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War. There seems to be a lot of excellent information there, but I'd point you to the section on Resolution 242, which gives the historical and legal story of that resolution and why the Arab claim that Israel must withdraw from all of Judea and Samaria (not to mention sections of Jerusalem such as Ramot and Gilo) are bogus.

(h/t Backspin)

Other than the legal aspects of Israel's obligations, there's also the practical aspects that Charles Krauthammer lays out today in Prelude to the Six Days (or here )

Because that three-week period between May 16 and June 5 helps explain Israel's 40-year reluctance to give up the fruits of that war -- the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza -- in return for paper guarantees of peace. Israel had similar guarantees from the 1956 Suez war, after which it evacuated the Sinai in return for that U.N. buffer force and for assurances from the Western powers of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.

All this disappeared with a wave of Nasser's hand. During those three interminable weeks, President Lyndon Johnson did try to rustle up an armada of countries to run the blockade and open Israel's south. The effort failed dismally.

It is hard to exaggerate what it was like for Israel in those three weeks. Egypt, already in an alliance with Syria, formed an emergency military pact with Jordan. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco began sending forces to join the coming fight. With troops and armor massing on Israel's every frontier, jubilant broadcasts in every Arab capital hailed the imminent final war for the extermination of Israel. "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants," declared PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri, "and as for the survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them."

(h/t Boker Tov Boulder )

Zionism isn't about colonialism or subjugation. It is a belief that Jews today have an origin in the land of Israel and that after 2000 years, that connection has miraculously been restored. One benefit of this as Deja Vu blogs is

Instead, Jews do everything they can to strengthen the single state sure to provide them with a safe harbor, Israel. Non-Jews understand the special Jewish interest in Israel and Jews must stop worrying about the "dual loyalty" canard.

Those who seek to delegitimize Israel, also seek to eliminate that "safe harbor." That is why it's so important to fight increasingly aggressive attempts to make Israel a pariah. One only need look to the aftermath of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza to put many of the myths to rest. Israel complied with international law and pressure. That has only led to violence within areas the world generally agrees belong to Israel and the total collapse of civil society in Gaza.

At some point it must be recognized that it is Israel's existence is being questioned and threatened by the Arab world. No amount of concessions will ever satisfy Israel's enemies.

Zionism, Israel.

Wright is the wrong excuse

I like Ken Rosenthal. In the past decade or so he's transformed from a standard issue baseball columnist to one who is informed by statistics. And he knows how to use statistics, they're not just an adornment to his column.

In assessing the possibilities of different managers getting fired this year (either during the season or after) he writes this about the state of the Orioles

...but the team probably is doomed anyway after losing starting pitchers Kris Benson, Jaret Wright and Adam Loewen to injuries. A managerial change is more likely after the season.

This is not up to his regular standards. The loss of those pitchers have little to do with the Orioles' problems this year. For one thing, last year the Orioles had a 5.35 ERA; this year the team ERA (so far) is nearly a whole run lower at 4.43. (The team's batting average allowed is nearly 30 points lower too; and the strikeout to walks ratio is improved too.

And that's without Benson, Wright and Loewen.

When Benson was injured the Orioles quickly countered by signing his former Mets' teammate, Steve Trachsel. Last year Benson pitched to an ERA ; this year Trachsel's been a pleasant surprise with an ERA of 3.94. (While he has a respectable WHIPS of 1.34; his strikeout rate and strikeout to walk ratios are poor and indications that his luck may run out soon.) Last year Benson pitched to an ERA of 4.82. His WHIPS was 1.40 and his strikeout and walk ratios were not great, but better than Trachsels's this year. Though it may be fleeting, for now Trachsel is a step up over Benson.

On its own, I can't see what the Orioles expected from Jaret Wright. Wright has not been both effective and healthy in the same year since 1997, except for 2004. True that's the year when Leo Mazzone was his pitching coach. But doesn't it strain credibility to assume he could work this miracle twice? Counting on Jaret Wright is a failure of the organization. Not specifically of the manager.

So even without Benson, Wright and Loewen the Orioles pitching is fine. The team's ERA is right in middle of the pack.

The problem is the hitting. The Orioles as a team have a .718 OPS. Currently on Kansas City and Chicago in the AL are worse. They are one of only six teams with a slugging percentage below .400.

I suspected that at the end of the year when the team was lamenting a 75-87
record that some official would point to the unavailability of Wright. Ken Rosenthal did it a few months early. While the injury to Wright is a sign of an organizational failure, it is not what ails the O's. What ails the O's is a power failure.

Baltimore Orioles

Crossposted on Soccer Dad and OTB Sports.

Inhuman depravity

It is not uncommon to buy a can of soda, drink the contents, then crush the can and discard it.

But what if someone treats another person with such utter regard to their humanity? Shouldn't such a level of depravity merit the ultimate punishment. I agree with Crablaw that John C. Gaumer warranted the ultimate penalty. His murder of Josie Brown negates any claim he has on mercy from society. Animals kill for food or protection. His actions aren't even that noble. The murder he committed was like discarding a soda can after it fulfilled one's purposes.

And Crablaw's right about the judge's comment assuming there wasn't an missing context.

Death Penalty

Amir Taheri: "How Ahmadinejad is Taking the Americans for a Ride"

The Ayatollah's boasting pronouncements about the upcoming talks should convince anyone that Iran is up to no good. In the present article Amir Taheri fills in some of the internal Iranian political background:

[...] The proposed talks come as a timely booster for Ahmadinejad whose administration is facing a deepening economic crisis. The crisis is in part prompted by widespread fears that his provocative policies may lead to a military confrontation with the United States and its regional allies. Ahmadinejad's opponents within the Khomeinist regime have used those fears as a key theme in their campaign to win control of the Islamic Majlis ( parliament) in the next general election, expected to take place in the spring of 2008.

Ahmadinejad, however, has always claimed that he knows how to "handle" the Americans.

"I know them better than themselves," he boasted just weeks after his election as president. "I have been studying the Americans for more than twenty years."

Ahmadinejad's key campaign theme against his opponents within the system is simple: people like former Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami underestimated the power of the Islamic Revolution and underestimated the power of the United States. Thus, they were prepared to offer concessions that were never necessary.

They key example that Ahmadinejad cites is Khatami's decision to accept a suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment program as part of a deal with the European Union. Ahmadinejad has resumed the program without provoking the much-dreaded American military retaliation.

Ahmadinejad believes that the only power with the potential to prevent the Islamic Republic from achieving is strategic goals is the United States. At the same time, he believes that the US is so plagued by its internecine political rivalries that it in no position to project the degree of power necessary to stop the Khomeinist advance. The best strategy for the Islamic Republic, therefore, is to talk to the US but continue doing exactly as it pleases.

The Baghdad talks will not produce any positive results either for Iraq or the United States. But they could help Ahmadinejad outflank his domestic opponents ahead of next year's elections. His message is clear: the Bush administration refused to talk to Khatami whose administration had adopted a conciliatory posture, but is now courting a genuinely revolutionary regime in Tehran. Conclusion: the US talks only to those prepared to kick it in the teeth!

You just "read the rest." Read what led up to it.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

IRIB: "Australia funding terrorism: Zimbabwe"

Zimbabwe is, of course, the country of "Mugabe, the valiant African figure":

Zimbabwe's government on Thursday accused Canberra of funding terrorist activities in the African nation.

Zimbabwe's Information Minister Sikyaniso Ndlovu said Howard's government was trying to topple Mugabe by funding political violence in Zimbabwe through cash channelled to aid groups and vowed the bid would be thwarted.

"The monies that come to them are to cause violence, terrorist activities," Ndlovu told the Australian broadcasting corporation.

"I've got a list, a long list of their terrorist activities here."

"We will not tolerate violence by the puppets here who are funded by the Australian government," he said.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Update: See the BBC version of this story.

Submitted 05/17/2007

When I read the first two Watcher's Council submissions, I figured, why do I need to read anything else? However, the best part of being a member of the council is getting to read some of the best blogs out there, so I figured maybe I ought to read some more. Wow, what a week. This is one of the best week's I remember.

In Gone Across Peterson The Glittering Eye uses the title as a metaphor to describe the loss of his "best friend." I'm not a dog owner - the only pets I've had have been a parakeet and some fish - but I could feel his pain.

The Colossus of Rhodey asks What Did I Tell 'ya? about charges of racism resulting from a Cinco de Mayo party and the proposed remedy. He also writes

And to those who claim that whites "should understand" the NOI and MEChA since these are "oppressed" minority groups, I retort that this is the precise problem with the status of race relations -- and American culture in general -- today. To some, a failure to "understand" the actions of groups like NCLR (and MEChA) and the NOI makes one "insensitive" and even "racist." But they miss a key point: If we are truly to work towards an equal society, then shouldn't everyone be expected to play by the same rules? Shouldn't advocacy groups be expected to be as consistent as the next group? Why can't the NCLR just disavow groups like MEChA completely, and assist Hispanic students without them?

Eternity Road goes to a Gordon Lightfoot concert and writes his impressions of it in Heroes, Memories and Harbingers. Unfortunately due to age and injuries, Gordon Lightfoot is not able to sing like he once did; he is a shadow of himself. Ironically, Powerline just devoted a post to Gordon Lightfoot last week. Gordon, it's been good to know you.

Bookworm Room examines Gaffes, and Why They're Interesting. After all what's worse being off by 200 years or (nearly) 10000 dead. And then there's Michael Kinsley's cynical definition of a gaffe - When a politician accidentally speaks the truth.

The Education Wonks tell us about Unprofessional Conduct. It's OK for students at recess to go "Bang. Bang" It's not OK for teachers and adminstrators.

Cheney's Chess Moves in the Middle East is Joshuapundit's comprehensive rundown of the Vice President's efforts to shore up support in the Middle East and the likely outcomes of those efforts. Alas, it sounds as if we're about to hear "Mate in 5."

In You Asked for It Done With Mirrors observes that the Left has now come around to condemning the Oil for Food corruption. Now that Condoleeza Rice can be tied to it, however tangentially. I'd point out that many on the hard Left apologized for OFF, praising the job it did of saving innocent Iraqis. The collateral enriching of Saddam wasn't an issue.

Cheat Seeking Missiles follows up on last week's effort debunking global warming with Positive Thinking Vs. The Greenies
. He agues that environmentalists aren't interested in better technology - though the march of technology means that we can more done using fewer (combustible) resources - but in no technology.

Rhymes With Right says that It Breaks My Heart To Say This that reparations should not be paid to the people of Guam though he heartily recommends that the heroism of the people of Guam be recognized.

End of an Era? Falwell Passes is the contribution of Right Wing Nut House to the Council this week. It's his tribute to Jerry Falwell. He appreciates Falwell's contribution to politics, but given his differences with Falwell is glad the they're limited.

Big Lizards claims We Found the "Moslem Methodists!". Or at least Bret Stephens did. They're in Indonesia and they accept Israel's right to exist. And it is a large mainstream organization.

My entry is Talk Isn't Cheap
and it's about the hazards of talking to tyrants. In response to the Glittering Eye's comments I'd argue that what the United States has done is speak softly and not wielded a large stick. If it's necessary to talk to Iran, the United States should be setting the terms of the dialogue, not Iran. And thanks to JoshuaPundit for his praise.

If you like what you see and would like to participate follow the instructions here.

Watcher's Council

IRIB: Iran "approved to remind the Americans of their duties regarding Iraqi security"

The Ayatollah explains that Iran isn't violating its "no-talk, no-ties" policy. Note the reference to "some domestic parties":

Islamic Revolution Leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei Tuesday drew a line under the role of Alims (Islamic leaders) in society, adding that during the last two centuries, the Rohaniyat (community of Iranian religious leaders) has been keeping the leading role in the national combat against colonialism.

Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a speech to an audience of prominent Alims and Islamic jurisprudence students Tuesday in the northeast Iranian pilgrimage city of Mashhad.

The IR Leader reminded the audience of a barrage of enmities against the values which Imam Khomeini, the departed and the Islamic Revolution had estblished in the course of the past 27 years.

"In spite of all these ill-wills, presently the values of revolution and Imam the departed stands as the last word and popular stance in society and the Administration openly takes pride in them," Ayatollah Khamenei said.

In the same regard, Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to a sense of joy on the part of some domestic parties after IRI agreed talks with America, blaming their joy on their supposition that the country had distance itself from the said values.

"Those who suppose the Islamic Republic of Iran may change its solid, logical and thoroughly defensible policy of not having talks or ties with America are gravely mistaken," Ayatollah Khamenei affirmed.

"How could one talk with an arrogant, bullying, expansionist and colonizing American government especially in tenure of its current rude, disrespectful and insolent authorities?" the Leader of Islamic Revolution said.

Concerning prospective talks between representatives of Iran and America about Iraq, Ayatollah Khamenei declared, "since America, as occupying government, has flouted its obligations to restore security in Iraq and even has folded the hand of Iraqi government, tries to make it topple and supports terrorists, the (Iranian) Foreign Ministry at the call of the Iraqi government approved to remind the Americans of their duties regarding Iraqi security in a face-to-face talk and so have it take its final chance."

"This talk is in fact a talk scheduled to be held early last year where Americans dragged feet. However, this time they have submitted a written request for the talk," Ayatollah Khamenei added.

"They (Americans) say they will not talk about any other issues except Iraq. And we tell them even the Iraqi issue does not concern you and the talks are only over the duty of the occupiers about the security of Iraq," the IR Leader underlined.

Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed that the I. R. of Iran's policy of no-talk, no-ties would remain the same as long as the arrogant government refuses to change its policies.

The IR Leader also made some remarks about the obligations and position of Islamic Alims where the honorable hailed the undertaking as a follow-up to the position of the Divine Messengers and thereby bearing a great honor for the Rohaniyat.

"Their responsibility is indeed parallel to that of the messengers," Ayatollah Khamenei said, urging the Islamic Alims to undertake those obligations namely to establish justice in society whatever difficulties they face.

Ayatollah Khamenei underlined that at present the most important duty of Rohaniyat and jurisprudence schools is to identify needs of time, equip themselves with modern scientific means and strong reasoning, preserve independence, keep a close contact with masses, improve their political understanding, keep alert to menaces and combat against deviation and superstition.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Globalizing sports

In Foreign Legion, the Baltimore Sun explores the growing globalization of American sports through the lens of the signings of major international stars by American teams. Specifically it looks at the cases of Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yao Ming and David Beckham.

Of Matsuzaka, the article considers the costs, risks and benefits of the Red Sox signing. Right now the financial benefits remain elusive.

The immediate economic benefits to the Red Sox may be more limited. They already sell out every game and charge more per ticket than any team in the league. They spent $103.1 million ($51.1 million for his rights and a six-year, $52 million contract) on Matsuzaka primarily because they wanted an ace for the next six years.

"It was first, second and third a baseball decision designed to give us a better team and a better rotation," Red Sox president Larry Lucchino said. "There are some ancillary benefits, but they are just that -- ancillary. The notion that there's some enormous pot of marketing gold is illusory."

And I guess, if the Red Sox overpaid, it was also to keep Dice-K away from the Yankees. Still there are some benefits to the signing from a marketing standpoint.

The Sun has an accompanying list of the most prominent signings of foreign players by American sports teams.

In the case of Yao Ming, the article points out that international players are already a significant presence in the NBA, but that China was a real prize.

The league appears on 51 Chinese television stations and has accrued a viewership of 428 million this year. China accounts for 20 percent of the traffic on NBA.com, and the Rockets' Mandarin-language Web site ranks among the most viewed sports pages in the world. NBA merchandise sells in more than 20,000 Chinese stores, and the league will open 10 NBA-specific shops in the country by the end of the year.

The benefits of the LA Galaxy signing David Beckham may not be realized only on the soccer field.

MLS receives scant mainstream attention in the United States, but it's suddenly on the pages of People and on the lips of Access Hollywood anchors. Children in Asia and Europe who've hardly given a second thought to U.S. soccer will wear Galaxy jerseys. If the league can attract more international stars, it might connect deeply with immigrant populations that live in the United States but live and die with soccer teams from their original countries.

Some 30 years ago an the NY Cosmos of the NASL signed an international star. That did not work out as well.

In the 1970s, the New York Cosmos signed Pele and other international stars in hopes of popularizing soccer in America. The formula worked for a while as the Cosmos drew more than 40,000 fans a game at Giants Stadium and earned the North American Soccer League a television deal. But the NASL's other franchises never matched the Cosmos' aggression, and the league folded less than 10 years after Pele signed his contract.

Globalization can help a team discover new talent or a new fan base. Investing in the former could very well help develop the latter. Smarter teams are going to take advantage of the global market. Or they will risk being left behind.

Incidentally, there's another side to the globalization of sports. There are the United Soccer Leagues in the U.S. that is affiliated with England's Premier League. Though the leagues have been operating in Northern America for 20 years, I was unaware of them until a local club - Crystal Palace USA started advertising.

This leads to another question. When will other American major sports leagues follow the lead of NFL Europe and start partnerships with international leagues or teams? This would also extend the marketing reach (as well as the talent pool) of teams and leagues that participate.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad and OTB Sports.

Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yao Ming, David Beckham.

Decline of horse racing in maryland

Two years ago the Washington Post ran a story "Making hay in a horse based economy" The gist of the article was that there are plenty of horse farms in Maryland and that it remains a growing industry. The subtext of the article is that it doesn't matter if Maryland is losing racing to neighboring states, because the horse farms will prosper anyway. Given the anti-slots approach of the Washington Post this is an important case to make.

However as this article in the Baltimore Sun makes clear, the failure of horse racing in Maryland will hurt horse breeding in the state.

The breeding industry is also suffering. Cricket Goodall, executive director of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, said the industry "is at a tipping point where people aren't going to hang on much longer."

"If the MJC follows through with stated plans to cut more racing days to maintain the purses, it will cut into our revenue stream and limit the amount of money we have to reward Maryland-bred horses," she said. "If Maryland-breds don't have the opportunity to run and make money, they'll be encouraged to run somewhere else."

(MJC is Maryland Jockey Club and it's the governing body of the horse racing industry in Maryland.)

There is a trickle down effect. The big money in horse breeding is in racing. If tthe racing industry in Maryland collapses, resources for raising horses will go elsewhere and the horse farms - even for non-racing purposes - will leave the state too.

It's not likely that the industry will survive unless the purses can match those of neighboring states. That won't happen unless slots are approved.

I'm against subsidies to any industry. I'm also not convinced that slots are a great idea. It might just be it's time to let horse industry in Maryland die.

Crossposted on OTB Sports and Soccer Dad.

Horse Racing, Maryland.

Jail bait 15 years later

Read OyVayBlog. This is too tasteless to be believed. These are people so sick they didn't deserve 15 minutes of fame.

Talk isn't cheap

David Ignatius was positively overjoyed a few weeks ago when he wrote about Signs of a Spring Thaw in relations between the United States and Iran

Sometimes big developments are hidden in plain sight, and that appears to be the case with Iran and the United States. The two countries have moved over the past year from mutual isolation to the edge of serious diplomatic discussions.

The Bush administration is aggressively signaling that it wants such a dialogue. But the Iranians, who seem convinced they have the upper hand, are being coy. They still seem unsure whether Iran's national interests are best served by a deepening confrontation with America or by a policy of engagement.

...a process of bargaining is underway between Iran and America. That's what became clear this week, in two different diplomatic channels. And it marks a change from the isolation and intense suspicion that have prevailed for most of the 28 years since the Iranian revolution of 1979.

The two fronts that Ignatius writes about are the nuclear track and the second surround the efforts of the United States to secure Iraq. According to Ignatius

The door is opening on the possibility of the first real U.S.-Iranian negotiations since 1979. Both sides have to decide they want them -- and ignore the powerful voices in each capital that argue for confrontation.

Ignatius is one of those analysts who see value in talking under all circumstances. But what else has been going on? Is there any indication that a greater American opening to Iran will defuse the current diplomatic confrontation?

This week the United States acknowledged that it was seeking talks with Iran by the end of May and what has been happening?

1) Iran has been expelling thousands of Afghan refugees possibly destabilizing the government of Afghan President Karzai. (h/t JoshuaPundit)

2) President Ahmadinejad is a guest of honor at a massive anti-American rally in Dubai right after VP Cheney left. The Washington Post reproted about President Ahmadinejad's "tempered tone." I don't know if irony was intended. (h/t again JoshuaPundit)

3) Iran has arrested an Iranian born American academic, Haleh Esfandiari. (h/t Israeli Matzav, Deja Vu)

4) Iran has resolved a major technical issue necessary to enrich uranium. (h/t Israel Matzav )

Given the anticipation of talks with the United States, clearly Tehran seeks to up the ante. And from its standpoint, it makes sense. Consider the following report from an Iranian news agency.

US Cable News Network CNN says upcoming US direct talks with Iran shows that Washington needs Tehran to quell the violence in Iraq.

Suzanne Malveaux, CNN correspondent, in a report from the White House said on Monday, the decision to hold talks on Iraq showed, after four years, that how significant Iran's role is in solving Iraq situation.

Given that this an Iranian news agency, it's safe to assume that this reflects (to some degree) the official thinking in Tehran. The United States turning to Iran, show that the United States needs Iran. So Iran will raise the price of dealing with it. Cause more anti-U.S. mischief so that the United States will lower its demands.

It even appears to be working. One of Tehran's non-negotiable demands will be met.

The Iranians were captured in a surprise U.S. raid on an Iranian office in the Kurdish city of Irbil Jan. 11, although they were not the intended targets, The Independent (Britain) reported. The two men wanted by the U.S. military were elsewhere, but their official vehicles were parked in front of the building.

Zebari said under an agreement governing such detentions, the United States can detain them for 90 days, which is renewable once, and then either charge them, hand them over to Iraqi authorities or release them.

(Though it is possible that a deal to free the Iranians was in the works earlier.)

All in all, it appears that thawing American resolve only encourages further Iranian intransigence and confrontation. But this should come as no surprise.

In a parallel case, that of Syria, Barry Rubin, The Syrian tragedy and the American one has documented how flattering the dictator has only brought more repression in its wake.

Anwar al-Bunni, a lawyer and another brave dissident, knew what held back Syria from crushing any dissent. Back in 2003, he explained, "The government's fear that it will be next on America's 'regime change' list may make it wary of committing gross violations of human rights....Some of us say that it is only because of what America did in Iraq, the fright it gave our rulers, that we reformers stand a chance here."
Bunni was proven right. Once Syria no longer had any fear, the regime sentenced him to five years' imprisonment. Two more democratic activists, one of them Michel Kilo, an articulate journalist who most clearly expressed the hope of peaceful change in Syria, will be sentenced soon.

What's gone on is that United States - whether the Bush administration or freelance legistlators - have signaled repressive regimes that they're willing to talk, and the regimes immediately increase their oppressiveness and anti-Americanism. It's not a coincidence, that's the way these things work.

David Ignatius seems to think that there's always value in talk. There might be, but the value is not realized by the good guys.

Iran, Syria, Diplomacy.

Old kids on the block

The aqua car is gone.

It left on Shabbos (Saturday) along with its owner. She had lived in the house since we moved in 16 years ago. Her husband passed away not too long after we moved in, though I'm not sure when.

As long as I can remember she'd go out every day in that car and bring back groceries. Fighting the aging process she stayed active, even more recently when she needed a walker. But even then she'd come back with her groceries, though now sometimes she'd ask for a hand bringing them into the house.

Apparently her condition had deteriorated a lot in recent weeks and her children realized that she couldn't live on her own anymore. So on Shabbos she left with her children.

We had a pretty good relationship with her. Sometimes for no reason we'd find a package of cookies on the porch. Always with a certification that it was Kosher. And we'd give her Mishloach Manos (gifts of food for the holiday of Purim). Three months ago she was positively ecstatic about the Napoleon that my daughter made.

Now most of our original neighbors have left or died. When we moved in 16 years ago, the neighborhood was populated mostly with elderly non-Orthodox Jewish couples. Over the years younger Orthodox families moved in. We were the third such family on the block. But of the younger Orthodox families we're the only one remaining from 1991. Except for our oldest - who doesn't remember the apartment - this is the only home our children have known.

The demographics of the neighborhood aren't the only thing to change. Given that young Orthodox Jewish families tend to be larger, a number of us have had additions built to accommodate our families. (Many of the houses on the block were originally identical.) The original houses had impossibly small kitchens too, so others have at least at least extended the kitchen beyond 7' x 14'.

It's funny that now I'm in the position of thinking of myself as an old timer.

But the car is gone and it's not coming back.

Orthodox Judaism, Baltimore, Demographics.

Blair and chirac

Today Anne Applebaum addressed the riddle that is Tony Blair

Fundamentally, the man's character is a riddle. On the one hand, he frequently describes himself as a true conviction politician, a man who sticks to his guns whatever the opinion polls say. Certainly that's how he explains Iraq. "I decided we should stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally," he stated in his resignation speech:
. . .
Yet, at the same time, Blair is perhaps the most outstanding contemporary example of the politician who wants to be loved and who tries at all times to be all things to all people. He speaks the language of the left when he is talking to his own party, dwells on free markets when he addresses business executives and, at least for the first few years of his term, appeared to believe that getting everyone to agree with him about everything was only a matter of time.

One of the lines Applebaum quoted earlier to describe Blair was "an inferior Bill Clinton." Or perhaps he was Bill Clinton with sincerity.

Applebaum's Farewell to Jacques Chirac last week was not so generous. She let Chirac himself make the case against himself

On Russia: "For his contribution to friendship between France and Russia," Chirac decorated Vladimir Putin last year with the highest order of the Legion d'Honneur, a medal reserved for the closest foreign friends of France (Churchill, Eisenhower) despite the deterioration of the Russian president's human rights record. A few weeks later, Chirac decided to hold his 74th birthday party in Riga, Latvia, after a NATO summit. He invited President Putin, disinvited President Bush and snubbed the Latvian president in the process. As the diplomatic scandal grew, the guests all begged off, and the birthday dinner never took place.

On Saddam Hussein: "You are my personal friend. Let me assure you of my esteem, consideration and bond." On Eastern Europe supporting the United States in the United Nations: "It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to shut up." On Iran's nuclear program: "Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous." Theoretically, Chirac was supposed to be negotiating with Iran to give up its nuclear program at the time.

The subtext to the pair of columns was a quote that all political careers end in failure. That might be. But Applebaum is apparently making the case that Jacques was a much bigger failure than Tony.

Jacque Chirac, Tony Blair.

JIBs with jabs

I was going to write an extended rant at how frustrated I am that once again I am being shut out at the JIB's. It's not terribly surprising that I haven't one any of the regular awards. However I thought that a group effort that I was invovled, Haveil Havalim stood a chance. No such luck. Despite Sunday's effort at self promotion in the best contribution category, Haveil Havalim is still languishing in the sixth spot. Silly me, I thought that a contribution to the J-Blogosphere (especially one that was a group effort) would count for something. But the J-Blogosphere has spoken and said "We don't care." I'm angry about it, but there's nothing I can do.

Like I said, I was going to but then I read On running the JIB's and I realized that being dissed is not so bad as being impugned. With Mystical Paths in the forefront and a number of dedicated J-Bloggers on the board, those running this year's JIB's have been in for all sorts of abuse. (There is one board member who's an absolute jerk, and I shed no tears if the invective bothers him at all. But then I hardly suspect that it bothers him much.)

They've had their integrity impugned and their good names besmirched. These people are not self seekers. They did something for the community. They should be shown appreciation, not scorn.

They thought they accounted all the problems but one of the corollaries of Murpy's Law struck:

If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop

Not endowed with the gift of prescience the committee running the JIB's didn't foresee all the problems that could crop up. But that's hardly a crime or proof of malfeasance. That's being human.

And while they're criticized for not addressing problems this year, I suspect that when you have a system in place, it's not easy to change midstream. Saying "wait for next year" is not an excuse, it's likely the only choice.

I have some frustrations, such as the inability to vote or view the vote on my home computer. But the technical requirements of setting up the voting system were great and they didn't have the time or resources to test everything out. Still they tried.

Unlike a certain blogger who's been impugning them and saying that the vote should be about quality. The chutzpah here is that he complains that the JIB's are a popularity contest, but he benefits from that very fact. Since his is a high traffic site he wins JIB's each time out. I don't think much of his blog with its sloppy reasoning and poor spelling and general mean spiritedness. But he has the visitors, so he has the JIB's and will garner two or three more this year.

He's offered his services! How noble. He would like to join with other high traffic bloggers and be a judge for a quality award. But guess what. No one took him up on his offer.

Guess what big shot? If you want to get something done approach others quietly and ask for their help. Then when you've secured their help announce your plan. What you did - and I'm sure you're aware of this - is merely advertise your lack of respect for the JIB's. Your cynicism knows no bounds.

But then why is it that you assume that high traffic bloggers are necessarily capable of judging quality? May I remind you that you ran into certain difficulties this year? You inadvertently left out the sources of many of the quotes you included in your blog. No, I won't accuse you of plagiarism as others have. I can believe that you were sloppy. Still, even unintentionally, you took an unacceptable shortcut this year. Doesn't say much for your quality control. But hey, later this week you'll be able to put up you JIB award and cite it as proof of your superiority.

It doesn't make a difference that you criticized the committee and didn't lift a finger to help. You spit in their faces but you'll have no compunction about accepting an award from them. And no you don't know the meaning of the word quality. Your continued success says a lot about the J-blogosphere and it's not good.

UPDATE: Israelly Cool! before the creator of the JIB's reports that he also has been vilified. I viewed the site he wrote about once. I didn't have the stomach for more.

For all of you who think you can do this better, don't just gripe. Get out and do it. Think that the voting system is too easily rigged: develop you own. Don't like the categories: create your own contest.

Through Haveil Havalim I know that at the very least to get a blogging project off the ground requires persistence. It also requires the goodwill and hard work of a lot of people. But with Haveil Havalim I'm using existing infrastructure. Someone else created BlogCarnival. The entries were written for some other purpose.

An awards program requires a lot more. The infrastructure must be built. (The worst awards program was when the voting system was already in place but wasn't modified for the JIB's.) Checks must be implemented. Those who think they can do better are, for the most part, big talkers with no ability to back up their words.

JIB's.

IRIB: "after the World War II, the big powers staged theatrical play to bring Jews to Palestine"

The Minister dispenses some Islamic Guidance in the form of a history lesson:

Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Hossein Saffar Harandi said on Sunday that after the World War II, the big powers staged theatrical play to bring Jews to Palestine.

Saffar Harandi made the remarks in the seminar on 'Shaping Zionism' at the technical and engineering college of Kermanshah.

He said that both the Western states and even the former Soviet Union regarded their Jewish communities as problematic creating nuisance and looked for ways to send them elsewhere.

"The former Soviet Union followed a double track approach in dealing with departure of Jewish community to Palestine. It helped the departure to have a base in the Middle East to check the Arab states and Palestine liberation movement both during and after occupation of Palestinian territory by the Zionists," he noted.

"The former Soviet Union had successfully attracted most of the Palestinian nationalist groups campaigning for liberating their homeland with socialist beliefs."

Saffar Harandi said that at the same time the Middle East countries were divided into two groups, certain states were under domain of the US and others were under influence of the former Soviet Union.

He said that the same perspective was still the case until the Islamic Revolution culminated in Iran and since the Islamic Revolution was cultural by nature, the nations in the region simply got message from Iran.

He said that Iran was a base for the US and the Islamic Revolution changed the balance prompting the big powers to orchestrate a war on Iran.

"It was the first time America and the former Soviet Union formed an alliance to impose war on a developing nation."

Iranian nation powerfully defended their territorial integrity in front of all world big powers during the Iraqi-imposed war (1980-1988), he said.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Saudi peace fraud - continued

Fouad Siniora, Prime Minister of Lebanon, Friday, weighed in with an op-ed advising Israel to submit to the Saudi plan in the New York Times.

Last week, Israel’s Winograd Commission published an interim report scrutinizing Israel’s conduct during what it called the country’s most recent military “campaign.” But the report failed to draw the most essential lesson from the July war and the wars that preceded it: military action does not give the people of Israel security. On the contrary, it compromises it. The only way for the people of Israel and the Arab world to achieve stability and security is through a comprehensive peace settlement to the overarching Arab-Israeli conflict.

This of course echoes the implication of the NYTimes own editorial about the Winograd commission that Israel ought not defend itself.

In dismissing the op-ed Jewlicious observes tongue in cheekily

Of course, what he’s not telling you is that when a state doesn’t recognize your existence or put you on maps, its pretty easy for them not to want to wipe you off the map.

Israel Matzav correctly notes one of the frustrating aspects of the "peace" proposal

First, what the Arab League is offering is 'full recognition' of Israel. Note that this is not even the 'full diplomatic relations' that were offered in the original Saudi proposal in 2002. What does 'recognition' mean? Does it mean that Israel will be shown as a country on maps in the Arab world? Does it mean that the Arab media will stop inciting children to blow themselves up in order to destroy Israel? Does it mean an exchange of ambassadors and bilateral trade? (Probably not). None of that has been fleshed out. And that's a problem because the Saudis and the Arab League treat this plan as "take it or leave it" and have threatened violence if Israel "leaves it."

Exactly. I've noted before that the Saudi proposal is very specific in what it demands of Israel and very nebulous about what is offered in return for those specific demands. And that's the other problem, it is a list of demand. It's an ultimatum, not a peace offer.

JoshuaPundit also uses the term "ultimatum" and adds a few practical problems with the Saudi plan too.

First there's is Siniora's blatant lie (among many others) that the Saudi ultimatum seeks only to establish a Palestinian state `only 22 percent of historic Palestine' which completely ignores the 80% the Arabs already own in a country established for them by the British called Jordan.

Secondly, there's the little fact that the Arabs never accepted Israel's establishment in 1948, let alone the 1967 lines, and Israel is supposed to move back to indefensible borders strictly on the word of the Arabs that they've now changed their minds, and before any `normal relations' occur.

Then there's the fact that the Saudis and Siniora are shilling for the `right of return' for millions of hostile Arabs - supposedly the refugees and their descendants - to Israel, ignoring the rights and claims of the almost one million Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948. And, to add to the mix, this is supposed to occur while Israel is footing the multi-billion dollar bill for uprooting thousands of its own citizens!

It's possible to be sympathetic to Siniora. After all he serves at the pleasure of Bashar Assad and can hardly stray too far from Assad's plantation. He knows too well what happened to Rafik Hariri when the former Syrian puppet got too uppity and started advocating for his native land instead of his overlord. But that doesn't mean that he ought to be free from criticism. Siniora writes

This is a high price but one the Arabs are willing to pay, as it is the only realistic path to peace that conforms to all United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions addressing the conflict, and ensures the right of return of the Palestinian people. The Arab states are not seeking to wipe Israel off the map. Rather, we are seeking the legitimate goals of an armistice, secure borders and the ability of all of the region’s people to live in peace and security.

The "high price" he's referring to is the Arab world's supposed acceptance of Israel's right to exist in land they now call Palestine. But what's absolutely false is that the Saudi initiative conforms to all Security Council resolutions. It does not. And the reason it doesn't is the reason that the Saudi initiative cannot be taken seriously.

On March 29, 2002, the NY Times's UN correspondent Barbara Crossette reported ("Mideast Turmoil: Diplomacy Saudi Peace Plan Is Finding Resistance in U.N.")

Some provisions in the plan run counter to existing Security Council resolutions, an official here said. Among these is the call by the Saudi plan for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. The Council does not consider Israel to be in control of any Lebanese land after the Israeli withdrawal from the border area two years ago. In Beirut this week, Lebanon revived its claim to a small part of the Israeli-held Golan Heights known as the Sheba Farms.

The language about Israel withdrawing from Lebanese territory wasn't originally part of the Saudi initiative. It was added as Crown Prince Abdullah toured the Arab world to drum up support for his proposal. When he got to Syria, Bashar Assad insisted that the language be added. (The perversity of Assad's demand is striking. Syria controlled - and to some degree still controls - Lebanon and Assad was nonetheless willing to cede territory to Lebanon, just to make the Saudi initiative less likely.)

In essence by accepting Assad's language, Abdullah did two things:
1) He changed the terms of his initiative to accommodate the Syrian thug.
2) He denied the (legal) significance of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, enabling Hezbollah to maintain a pretext for continuing to harass Israel.

With that inauspicious start, Israel is being asked by Lebanon's Prime Minister, to follow the Saudi initiative. Lebanon is the country that didn't fulfill its part of Security Council 425, which called for, not just Israel's withdrawal from Southern Lebanon but the assertion of Lebanon's authority over Southern Lebanon and disarming of Hezbollah.

With this precedent it appears that the Saudi initiative is a castle built on ever shifting sands. If any party (from the Arab side) wishes to change the terms to Israel's detriment; it will. Israel could make significant concessions and then find that King Abdullah or someone else doesn't approve and the Israeli concession will be declared insufficient.

The Forvm sums up his assessment neatly

In short, the op-ed is a PR play. Siniora does not mention Hezbollah once; he does not accept any responsibility for the war; he does not condemn terrorist acts against Israel. His tone is hardline, not moderate...

That's it, in a nutshell.

UPDATE: A commenter below presents a much more generous view of the Saudi initiative at is website Prose before Hos.

Israel, lebanon, Fouad Siniora, Saudi Arabia, Security Council Resolution 425.

Rabbi explains why CAIR doesn't condemn Hizbullah and Hamas

Rabbi Arthur Waskow recently attended a CAIR dinner. In the course of an article for the Philadelphia Jewish Voice he accuses CAIR's critics of McCarthyism and seeks to counter some of the event's unfavorable press coverage. In the following passage he clears up a little misunderstanding:

. . . there is one outlook of CAIR's that has led to criticism. CAIR strongly condemns terrorist actions, but not whole organizations.

To many American Jews, its unwillingness to make a blanket condemnation of Hamas or Hezbollah seems contradictory, if it really opposes terrorism --- because most US Jews, and the US Government, define Hezbollah and Hamas as simply terrorist groups.

But CAIR points to the complex reality in which both groups are simultaneously woven of strands that include social-service organizations with schools and medical clinics, etc.; political parties; friendship groups and ethno-religious communities; police forces; and military / terrorist agents. Much of the non-military parts of this complex, in both organizations, meets real needs on the ground, and much of it is woven into Palestinian or Lebanese society.

Indeed, there is considerable evidence that inside Hamas, at least, there are different sub-groups with competing views and policies about terror and violence. Careful ethical challenges to the use of terror could actually help strengthen the peaceful forces. So CAIR's view is that to condemn the whole organization outright, as distinct from specific terrorist actions, is to demonize all its parts instead of trying to peel away the disgusting actions that CAIR does oppose.

To me this view roused some interesting echoes of my own criticisms of parts of the so-called Left that attack Israel --- the whole society or its whole government --- instead of condemning specific aggressive and oppressive policies and actions of the Israeli government.

Perhaps there is some way to condemn specific actions while naming, but not condemning, the organizations that are partly involved --- as I do when I condemn particular actions of the Israeli government, naming it while not attacking the government as a whole. [...]

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Al Ahram: Palestinians embracing Al-Qaeda--it's the West's fault

There is evidently a growing Al-Qaeda presence among the Palestinians. Media coverage of it has been murky so far, but in this article it emerges as a major trend (although, of course, we drove them to it):

[...] From the very beginning, the Salafis had sought to convince Hamas to refrain from taking part in the elections, arguing that the West, especially America, was not sincere about the issue of democracy and that Western powers were only using the issue to weaken Islam and serve their own imperialistic interests.

And when the US, Israel, the EU and most Arab regimes imposed an exceptionally harsh economic, financial and political blockade on the Hamas-led Palestinian government, which pushed the bulk of Palestinian society on to the brink of poverty, the Salafis and others, like Hizb Al-Tahrir, confronted erstwhile proponents of Hamas's participation in elections, telling them "didn't we tell you so?"

It is thus widely presumed that many, if not most, of those joining the ranks of Al-Qaeda, particularly in the Gaza Strip, are actually former Hamas supporters and members who have come to the conclusion that the West's real purpose is to destroy Islam, not to promote democracy, and that the only way to stop this is through Jihad.

The current refusal of the West, including the EU, to lift the embargo on the government of national unity is enforcing and probably vindicating such convictions among many Palestinians (and obviously among many other Arabs in neighbouring countries), thus facilitating the recruitment of more and more converts to Al-Qaeda's cause.

The growth of similar organisations in the occupied Palestinian territories, and possibly among Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria as well, will have serious ramifications on the Palestinian cause itself, given the nearly nihilistic approach adopted by these people.

Indeed, Al-Qaeda believes in an existential confrontation until the very end, with the enemy. It regards the latter as being, not only the US and Israel, but any group or government or people that hamper the attainment of its goals. In this light, the list of potential enemies of Al-Qaeda includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, who reject many aspects of Al-Qaeda's ideology.

Hence, it is feared that the emergence of Al-Qaeda or similar groups as significant political players in the Palestinian arena could redefine the entire Palestinian struggle for freedom from the Israeli occupation.

Moreover, it is an almost foregone conclusion that Israel stands to benefit from the strengthening of Al-Qaeda amongst Palestinians, especially in the short run, as it will enable Israel to claim that it has a common cause with the West in combating "Islamic terror", thus obtaining an additional excuse to consolidate its occupation and theft of Palestinian land.

As mentioned earlier, the growth of Al-Qaeda in Palestine will expectedly be at the expense of such Islamic movements as Hamas, a comparatively moderate movement that is open to compromise.

The key word is "comparatively," I suppose.

Hence, it is likely that Hamas will undertake a campaign to educate Palestinians against the dangers of Al-Qaeda's nihilistic ideology, especially following the recent acrimonious exchanges between itself and Al-Qaeda's second in command, Ayman El-Zawahri. He castigated Hamas for signing the Mecca Agreement with Fatah on 8 February, which he called a "sellout".

In fact, Hamas-affiliated Muslim scholars are already engaging some Salafi activists, trying to convince them that their way of thinking is not compatible with authentic Islam. [...]

That's a relief.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

PressTV (Iran): "Plans to relocate UN headquarter"

It doesn't seem that there are any actual plans to relocate the UN headquarters, but an Iranian official has made a "decision" that it would be a good idea:

A top Iranian foreign policy official says White House's behaviors have made the United States an unqualified host for the United Nations.

Chairman of Iran's parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said that all UN members agree on changing the home of the UN headquarter from New York and revising the international organization's charter.

He added that all major changes in the UN should be made according to the charter and agreed upon by a majority of the member states.

Boroujerdi said that the decision to relocate the UN headquarter from New York is a reaction to the steps taken by the White House.

"America has proved that it lacks the qualifications required to host the United Nations," he concluded.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Al Qassam Brigades Information Office: "Al-Aqsa mosque in real Danger"

There is a very long tradition of agitation against the Jews involving the idea of schemes to destroy the Al-Asqa mosque.

Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic movement inside the occupied territories in 1948, said that the coming days will witness a very serious attempts to launch attacks affecting Al Aqsa mosque in direct way.

Sheikh Salah said that the city of Jerusalem is exposing to judaize continuously through a Zionist gradually scheme. He emphasized that the occupation authorities were still demolishing part of the Al Aqsa Mosque. He considered that this crime is just the beginning of the serious crimes.

Sheikh Raed Salah, declared that there is a new Zionist scheme to start new demolitions and new drillings near the Al Aqsa Mosque in the few coming days. He mentioned that the drilling will be in "Al Buraq" plaza under its ground.

Sheikh Salah said: "The occupation authorities conditioned on the contractors that Applicants for the tender must have a previous experience in the demolition works in sensitive areas. And the contractor has small trucks could enter the area of "Al Buraq" Wall. The Zionist authorities stipulated that the demolition works begin at the night and end at the morning. All of these actions are executed under full supervision of the Zionist security institution.

He added: "The document revealed the new Zionist scheme, it said that they will remove a very large quantities of stones and soil. According to this document, the stones and the soil will be transported to places under the control of the Zionist security. He said: "That process will be wider and deeper than the demolition works currently happening under Al Magharba gate, which began on February 6th, 2007, today they are preparing to implement a new destructive steps against Al Aqsa Mosque.[...]

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander shot, apparently, by members of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is what Fatah's armed wing is now called, ever since they decided that it was good policy to sound less Marxist and more Islamist. The story just says that the Al-Aqsa commander was killed by Hamas, but naming the Hamas "Brigades" brings out the symmetry in the situation, don't you think? From the AP by way of Jpost.com:

A commander affiliated with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement was shot dead on Sunday, in the most serious attack since Abbas launched a new security plan aimed at calming a wave of violence in the Gaza Strip last week.

Fatah quickly blamed militants from the rival Hamas group, with whom it shares power in the Palestinian government. There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

The dead man was identified as 32-year-old Baha Abu Jarad of the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades. He was shot while driving through the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, and later died of his wounds, hospital officials said.

"This is a cowardly assassination attempt carried out by the enemy of our people and suspicious criminals who want to blow up the Palestinian internal arena," a spokesman for Al Aqsa said before Abu Jarad died.

"We are not going to hesitate to pursue the criminals behind this shooting and punish them," he added.

Fatah issued a statement accusing Hamas of carrying out the shooting.

Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the area has experienced a wave of infighting, armed robberies, deadly family feuds and kidnappings.

Hamas and Fatah formed their unity government in March with the aim of restoring calm. The alliance has brought a lull in factional fighting, but crime and violence remain rampant in Gaza.

However, in recent days, factional tensions have heated up after Abbas ordered 3,000 police to fan out across lawless Gaza City on Thursday without coordinating the deployment with Hamas.

The latest round of violence has been the fiercest since Hamas and Fatah teamed up to share power.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

IRIB: "Palestinian Resistance defeats US"

Each of the first four paragraphs contains the word "plots":

Member of Algerian national reform movement parliamentary fraction, Hassan Aribi told Qodsna on Sunday that America tries to cross out Palestinian cause by misusing Arab peace plan, adding that "all their plots have failed due to Palestinian resistance."

"Simultaneous with the expansion of Palestinian resistance and Zionist regime's defeat, Washington tries to cross out the Palestinian cause by designing new plots," Hassan Aribi warned.

"Unfortunately certain Arab states support the plots without paying attention to the Palestinian nation's rights and fate," senior parliament member added.

Pointing to Tel Aviv's plots to ignore Palestinian refugees' right to return, Aribi noted that "the Zionist regime displaced the Palestinians and exiled them to neighbouring Arab countries since the fake regime was established."

Aribi said that America and the Zionist regime aim to wipe Palestine off the map, warning that "the issue has approxiamately happened."

"Unfortunately they try to neglect Palestinian nation," he said.

"In order to achieve its goal, America has plans to settle the Palestinian refugees in the countries they have taken refuge with the support of certain Arab states," Aribi warned.

The lawmaker reiterated that the plan is an American-'Israeli' plot to completely destroy the Palestinian cause with the support of Arabs.

He regretted over certain Arab countries' dangerous act in giving citizenship right to Palestinians.

About the fate of Qods and Al-Aqsa mosque, Aribi said that the aim is that the Muslims forget these holy sites.

"They want to accelerate the Judasation of Qods," he warned.

Aribi said that the plot is more dangerous than settling Palestinians in other countries.

Pointing to the Islamic Revolution Leader's speech about Islamic harmony, the lawmaker said that the Muslims should rise and take practical measures in support of Al-Aqsa mosque and holy Quds.

"As the IR Leader urged, saving Al-Aqsa and Quds can not be achieved unless solidarity and Islamic unity establishes among Muslims," Aribi said.

"Qodsna" refers to the Palestinian Qods News Agency.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

(North) Korean News: "Rodong Sinmun on Invincible Revolutionary Army"

Six rewrites of the same paragraph/sentence?

The Korean People's Army is displaying its grandiose sight as the powerful main force of the revolution while decorating its noble battle flag with victories, because it is incomparably strong in idea and faith, declares Rodong Sinmun in a signed article Friday, which reads in part:

The KPA is revolutionary ranks overflowing with the Songun idea and equipped with the spirit of devotedly defending the leader, the spirit of implementing his instructions to the last and the heroic self-sacrificing spirit.

The KPA has grown to be an invincible revolutionary army recording an ever-victorious history with the might of ideology as it holds in high esteem Kim Jong Il, a great man of Mt. Paektu, as the supreme commander of the revolutionary armed forces.

It is an ever-victorious revolutionary army devotedly defending the headquarters of the revolution with the might of ideology, a matchless revolutionary army immensely increasing its combat power and an invincible revolutionary army working miracles and creating ever-victorious heroic epic.

Our army is ready to become human bombs for the safety of the headquarters of the revolution. Its officers and men are always ready to courageously fight the enemy single-handed even far behind the enemy line in order to defend the authority of the headquarters and they do not hesitate to go through thick and thin to implement the orders and instructions of the headquarters.

It defended the blue sky of the country and demonstrated the dignity of Korean-style socialism to the whole world in each grim period when dark clouds of a nuclear war gathered in the sky above the country and imperialists came in attack on all sides. The KPA owes this to mighty combat power and matchless ideological might.

Rodong Sinmun is a newspaper, by the way.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Haveil Havalim #116 is UP!

For some people hosting Haveil Havalim is a game. Especially at Jerusalem Board Games where he once again put together Haveil Havalim #116 in the form of a story, starting with the epilogue. I can't say that I disagree with his advice, Haveil Havalim is about breadth not depth.

I'd like to ask for your help. Last I saw, Haveil Havalim is languishing in fifth or sixth place in the Best Contribution / Jewish Blog that Made a Difference category. (No I can't check up, the human verification utility does not work on my computer.) Though apparently there's some disagreement, I felt that this was the best place for Haveil Havalim to be listed. By now it's probably too late as blogs with significantly more readership than mine have taken commanding leads here. But if Haveil Havalim is important to you, or you gain from it, (and Captcha is working and you haven't voted yet) please consider casting your vote for it as a Contribution that's made a difference in the JBlogosphere. And if you know someone who might be interested, please ask him/her to vote too!

Submit your blog article to the next edition of haveil havalim
using our carnival submission form. (This makes things a lot easier for the host than e-mailing links.)

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: haveil havalim, blog carnival.

UPCOMING EDITIONS

May 20 - #117 - Jack's Shack
May 27 - #118 - Esser Agaroth

I'd like to thank the wonderful folks at BlogCarnival for this wonderful Blog Carnival Widget that gives information on upcoming hosts and past editions.

Thanks for participating, reading and keeping Haveil Havalim going!

However is someone decides that he/she wants to host in the future let me know at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com or use the BlogCarnival Contact form.

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.

"Economics is for Donkeys!"

The always interesting Amir Taheri reports that Iran is "Preparing for War and Heading Towards an Economic Crisis." He asks, "How did Iran get into this rather strange situation?"

[...] It all started with the late Ayatollah Khomeini declaring at the start of the revolution that what mattered was Islam and not the economy. In a notorious off-the-cuff comment, he dismissed the concerns of his first prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, about the economy by simply noting that “Economics is for donkeys!”

Matters became further complicated when Muhammad-Ali Rajai, a schoolteacher who became prime minister and then president in 1981, introduced the concept of “khod-kafai” or “self sufficiency”. Rajai was blown up but his ideological heritage remained. Today, Ahmadinejad casts himself in the role of “a second Rajai”.

Rajai was, in fact, "blown up." That means what it sounds like.

Rajai believed that if Iran was incapable of building something itself it had better wait until it could do so at a later date. And that included oil refiners. With most Iranian technicians and engineers fleeing from the Khomeinist revolution in 1980 and 1981, there were few Iranians who knew how to build refineries. Thus pre-revolution plans to build 25 new oil refineries between 1980 and 2000 had to be shelved. The Khomeinist leadership would not allow the “infidel” to come and build refineries.

One of Rajai’s successors as President of the Islamic Republic, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to modify that ideological stance in the 1990s. Himself a businessman and reputed to be Iran’s richest individual, Rafsanjani revived the pre-revolution plans for refinery building. He failed, however, because of the ruling establishment’s fear of bringing in tens of thousands of “infidel” technicians whose presence could undermine the regime’s Islamist ambitions.

Removing part of the state subsidy on gasoline is only the first step towards a broader policy of reducing the government’s budget deficit, now at an all-time record.

The Islamic Republic imports almost half of all food it consumes and has managed to prevent large scale starvation thanks to heavily subsidized prices. If subsidies were removed, the price of bread, for example, would more than double. Most Iranians are still able to consume sugar because the state picks up a third of the real bill for imports.

Despite the massive rise in oil prices in the past two years, Ahmadinejad’s administration may soon find itself facing a cash-flow problem. This is partly because of the massive increases the president has decided in the military and security budgets. Clearly trying to put the country on a war footing, the president has scrapped a number of longer-term development projects. At the same time, he has increased expenditure on the Islamic Republic’s presence in what he regards as theatres of conflict with the United States, notably Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. Fear of ethnic revolts in several provinces, including Sistan and Baluchistan, and Kurdistan has also forced the administration to allocate unprecedented outlays to a security build-up there.

Ahmadinejad believes that the United States is a power in terminal decline and would be forced to withdraw from the Middle East under the pressure of its own domestic political rivalries. And, yet, the US may try to throw the dice one more time in the Middle East by attacking the Islamic Republic. Ahmadinejad believes that such an attack, if it ever comes, would be limited to air strikes spread over a few days. That would enable the US under President George W Bush to camouflage its retreat from the Middle East as an act of military punishment for the Islamic Republic.

Based on that analysis, Ahmadinejad believes that his government’s economic difficulties, including a sharp increase in inflation and mass unemployment in several sectors would be more than an offset once he is able to show that he has challenged the American “Great Satan” and emerged a survivor.

There is, of course, another possible scenario . . .

To learn about that "other scenario," read the rest.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Council speak 05/11/2007

First of all, I missed last week's council vote.

Last week's Council winner was Cornelia mother of the Gracchi a history lesson and plea for greater respect for the roles mothers play in society.

Last week's Council Runner up was After Iraq by Done with Mirrors a contemplation what must be done to salvage something from our efforts in Iraq.

Last week's non-council winner was BlackFive's COIN: The Gravity Well using a metaphor from physics to describe the anti-terror strategy we need too win.

The non-council runner up was Laurie Kendrick's God Called, which defies description.

This week, the council spoke again. Unlike last week, when I failed to get a single vote, I tied for third place this week.

The Council Winner was Does America Elect Defeatists at Big Lizards. The Runner up was The greatest scientific scandal of our time at Cheat Seeking Missiles. And I was tied with JoshuaPundit's Zawahiri Posts an Important New Video -- and Reveals al-Qaeda's Jihad Strategy with my The Quietest Hero about Frank Foley.

Also of note were Suffering by Comparison by Right Wing Nuthouse which compared this year's crop of Republican candidates to those of a different year. Big Lizards had compared this election to that of 1952, but Right Wing Nuthouse went to 1980 to draw his comparison. And Glittering Eye continued his examination of the safety of our food supply in Have you had your Melamine today?

Amont the non-Council entries the winner was Michael Totten's Better a thousand Israeli invasions ... about post 2006 war Lebanon. This was the big winner and that should tell you something. Runner up was Cup of Love's Two Words on the state of government delivered health care.

Watcher's Council.

Letter to the editor 05/09/07

Last week I wrote about an editorial from the Baltimore Sun that accused Israel of rushing into war. Realizing that I made some good points, I sharpened the argument a bit and e-mailed it to the Sun.

It was published Wednesday as a Letter to the Editor. The bulk of it is below.

A reader of the editorial wouldn't know, for instance, that in 2000, Israel complied with U.N. Security Council Resolution 425 and withdrew all of its troops from Lebanon.

That same resolution called for Lebanon to deploy its army in southern Lebanon and disarm Hezbollah. Lebanon did not fulfill its obligations under that resolution, and in subsequent years, Hezbollah launched sporadic terror attacks into Israel, killing soldier and civilian alike.

When Hezbollah again violated the international border last year, killing three Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two, it was clear that, in violation of the U.N. resolution, Hezbollah had built an infrastructure that could no longer be tolerated.

For years, most of my writing was letter to the editor. And I often got published. but I also wasn't always happy with the editing and in the 90's it wasn't necessarily as easy to get published as before, so I stopped. Then I started blogging. So this is sort of getting back to my writing roots.

Letter to the Editor, Israel.

Blogdigger tags: Baltimore Sun, Letter to the Editor, Israel, Lebanon.

Not quite what they meant

Guild says TV, film lack color

The last show I watched that was broadcast in black and white was Gilligan's Island.

Uribe has not given up on the Yankees.

Not when they've won 7 of their last 10 and just signed Roger Clemens.

Lousy CSMonitor article about the Jews of Iran

Considering Iran's bellicose stand towards Israel, the position of Iran's Jews could be considerably worse than it is. Western journalists, ever helpful, occasionally notice this and write articles such as the present one entitled "In Ahmadinejad's Iran, Jews still find a space" by Scott Peterson of the CSMonitor. As a fairly recent BBC article points out, however, ". . . there are legal problems for Jews in Iran - if one member of a Jewish family converts to Islam he can inherit all the family's property. Jews cannot become army officers and the headmasters of the Jewish schools in Tehran are all Muslim . . . . " The present CSMonitor article is less informative, and the following provides a good sample:

Iran's Jews are buffeted by inflammatory rhetoric from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about "wiping Israel off the map" and denying the Holocaust, and a politically charged environment that often equates all Jews with Israel and routinely witnesses the burning of the "enemy" flag.

But despite what appears to be a dwindling minority under constant threat of persecution, Iranian Jews say they live in relative freedom in the Islamic Republic, remain loyal to the land of their birth, and are striving to separate politics from religion.

They caution against comparing Iran's official and visceral opposition to the creation of Israel and Zionism with the regime's acceptance of Jews and Judaism itself.

"If you think Judaism and Zionism are one, it is like thinking Islam and the Taliban are the same, and they are not," says Ciamak Moresadegh, chairman of the Tehran Jewish Committee. "We have common problems with Iranian Muslims. If a war were to start, we would also be a target. When a missile lands, it does not ask if you are a Muslim or a Jew. It lands."

A later description of an abandoned plan to attack the Israeli soccer team at the 1974 Asian Games (held in Tehran) is interesting, but most of the rest is in the same vein as the above. Protestations from Iranian Jews meant to distance their community from Middle East politics are not just corrections of some foreign misconception, but a grimly necessary self-defensive gesture from Jews living in a country whose government arms enemies of the population that now contains most of Persian Jewry. (By the way, I was led to this by the MPAC-UK site, which added the title "Zionists Say Jews are Opressed in Iran - But Is It True?" Morons.)

Crossposted at Judeopundit.

Second guessing and opportunism

One of the toughest things in government is being second guessed. There are so many variables in any event that takes place that there will always be someone who looked at the same information and drew different conclusions from the actual policy maker. So Deja Vu's assessment of George Tenet is important.

For as Tenet correctly points out and we all know, the reasons for the war were strategic. 9/11 showed that the status quo in the ME has become dangerous to the US. Since the ME could not be remade from peripheral Afghanistan, it had to be remade from Iraq. Richard Pearl may not have told Tenet that we are going to a war with Iraq on 9/12 but I told that to my students on 9/13 and I was not the only international relations professor to do so. Hence, the central question was always not whether to go to war but the public justification for it. Tenet may argue that he did not hype the information to help Powel but he admits that the PDB (Presidential Daily Briefings) were hyped and that Condi Rice realized it.

It is the job of the intelligence (or any other )professional is to give the President the best reading of the information he/she can. Tenet, by his own admission did not. Still that only affected the public emphasis of the reasons for war with Iraq, not the decision whether or not to go.

And say the United States hadn't pressed for war and on 9/11/2003 another terror attack struck the homeland, you can be sure that there'd be plenty of professionals saying, "I recommended striking against Iraq, the source of international terror, but President Bush chose to ignore my advice an pursue an ill advised diplomatic course." And there'd be plenty of media outlets credulously feting these professionals because they'd be bashing Bush.

TNR's Spine re-printed a speech some think President Bush should have given. (It's an e-mail, source unknown.)

We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this 'Bush Lied People Died' crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be 'discovered.' Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named 'Clinton' established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

(Read the whole thing.)

Or in simpler terms the words of Gen. Robert E. Lee seem quite apropos.

"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I'm readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I'll, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials — after the fact."

— Robert E. Lee, 1863

(h/t Secular Blasphemy)

There's plenty to criticize about the way the administration ran the war. And I don't know that a Democratic President necessarily would have gone to war with Iraq. However, I'm certain that the President and his advisors took the information they had to heart and decided that the war was the best course of action for the United States. I don't believe that opportunism entered into their calculations. I don't feel the same way about most of their critics.

Iraq, President Bush, politics, Pre-War Intelligence, George Tenet.

If ... you must 05/11/2007

If you haven't checked out Fiery Spirited Zionist yet ; you must.
First OyVayBlog. Then Bald Headed Geek. My commenters are starting their own blogs!

If you haven't read Crab Law's O'Malley for Clinton; you must.

Both were and are happy to adopt right-wing policies accent notes (O'Malley bringing "Giuliani time" to Baltimore, Clinton triangulating more than Isoceles himself.). Both appear quite comfortable with Governance by Our Gang.

Give O'Malley a southern accent instead of his studied, decidedly non-Baltimore accent and a saxophone instead of a guitar, and he could BE Bill Clinton. So his support of Hillary is no surprise. Plus I don't think he wants to make an enemy out of Barbara Mikulski, Clinton's campaign chair. For all I know the fix may already be in for O'Malley and long-term.

I'm going to quibble with one thing here. O'Malley promised something like what Giuliani did in New York, but he never went far enough in implementing it. (He couldn't his political support came from people who would never countenance serious policing.) The murder rate dropped slightly, but not 60%. I really don't think there's any triangulation to O'Malley. (Living wage for state contracts?)

But the comparison with Hillary's husband is fascinating. (At least O'Malley doesn't have the same weakness Bill has.)

Finally, in 2002, O'Malley was set to run for governor, but the powers that be in Maryland's Democratic Party forced him to step aside for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. I can't believe that he easily forgave any of them for that. If O'Malley had run then, he'd be starting his second term now.

However he did get on the Dean bandwagon and that had to put him at loggerheads with state party leadership again. I guess this time, if he wants to maintain his viability within the party, as he surely eyes higher office, he needs to play nice.

Hedgehog Report has a related observation.

If you haven't read Pillage Idiot's Maryland Repeals the Law of Supply and Demand; you must.
Fiscal responsibility seems to be missing too. If you're facing a structural deficit you don't invent all sorts of new spending programs.

If you haven't read Kevin Dayhoff the 110th do nothing Congress; you must.
Do nothing, that is, but make excuses for not winning in Iraq.

Again, Hedgehog Report has related thoughts.

If you haven't read Ocean Guy's Excuses; you must.

If you haven't read Law and Economics of the Godfather at the Volokh Conspiracy; you must.
The Corleone's were libertarians! Who knew?

If you haven't read V is for Vendetta ... at Simply Jews; you must.
And you must scroll to the end to get a load of the headstone.

If you haven't read Meryl Yourish's Bias by Dribs and Drabs; you must.
Sometimes it's the extraneous stuff that gives it away. Like the caption of this scene that looks like it came from Shrek.

If you haven't read Israelly Cool's Ripping the Ripoffs a new one; you must.

If you haven't read Norway: Iranian Influence in the Middle East is a good thing at Daled Amos; you must.

If you haven't read Maryland Weather Blog's Season's first sub-tropical storm forms; you must.

If you haven't read Putting things into perspective at Crossing the Rubicon3 ; you must.

If you haven't read Oh the humanity at Likelihood of Success; you must.

If You Must

Blogdigger tags:If ... You Must, Iraq, Governor O'Malley, Maryland, Hillary Clinton, Farfur Mouse, Iran, Norway, Hindenburg, Universe.

You ain't no fun since ...

Things that don't mix with drinking

driving tests

A German man failed his driving test after attempting the examination while three times over the legal alcohol limit, police said Tuesday.

...

"But his driving was rather bad, so the examiner directed him to toward the police station without him noticing," the spokesman said. "Once there, he had to get out and take an alcohol test, which revealed he was well over the limit."

The article notes that the young man isn't likely to get his license for a "long time." Ya think?

work

On second thought, maybe it was not a good idea to give an award for drinking to local government officials.

The South Korean county of Koesan has decided it will discontinue giving out its "Drinking Culture Prize" after being flooded with complaints that the award promotes drunkenness among municipal employees and encouraged binge drinking.

A county official said Wednesday the public misunderstood the intention of the award, which was meant to recognize government workers who go out to local restaurants and bars to meet citizens and hear what they have to say.

I guess the employees weren't really into original intent.

weddings

Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.

"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.

The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.

It's a good thing the groom had a brother!

relationships

No previews, you have to see the non-graphic graphic. It's a riot.

Drinking

Al-Manar TV: "We are honored to have a cohesive axis comprising Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iran and Iraq"

Al-Manar is Hizbullah's media wing. The article contains an interesting description of a "resistance axis facing the axis of Satan":

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem said that the so calld New Middle East project has failed. He added that what the US and its ally Israel want is to plunder the riches of this region, rip it apart and subjugate Arab leaders to their decisions.

Sheikh Kassem was speaking during a political gathering at the "Bassel Assad" stadium in Damascus' faculty of civil engineering.

His eminence said that a new middle east meant ruptured Arab countries, subject rulers and policies, lost riches, oppressed and humiliated people and occupied territories. "We tell Israel that as long as there are honest freedom fighters within our people, control will not be yours, it will be the control of those brave heroes." Sheikh Kassem touched on the issues of the resistance. He said that the arms that defend legal rights are not for political bargain. "The resistance that returns back rights to its owners cannot be abandoned. We are honored to have a cohesive axis comprising Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iran and Iraq to resist US and Israeli occupation, to gain back our independence and to be free. We are honored to be part of the resistance axis facing the axis of Satan. Some European countries have sent us many indirect American messages and offered billions of dollars for Hezbollah to reconstruct south Lebanon. In return they said that it is required that Hezbollah reconsiders disarming, so we told them we don't need you money or reconstruction," Sheikh Kassem said.

Crossposted on Judeopundit.

Is fertility a crime?

Paul Watson wants fewer people in the world.

Paul Watson, founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and famous for militant intervention to stop whalers, now warns mankind is “acting like a virus” and is harming Mother Earth.

Watson’s May 4 editorial asked the question “The Beginning of the End for Life as We Know it on Planet Earth?” Then he left no doubt about the answer. “We are killing our host the planet Earth,” he claimed and called for a population drop to less than 1 billion.

The commentary reminded readers that Watson had called humans a disease before and he wasn’t sorry. “I was once severely criticized for describing human beings as being the ‘AIDS of the Earth.’ I make no apologies for that statement,” the column continued.

To which Instapundit comments

I just hope that this guy never gets hold of nuclear or biological weapons

Humankind a virus, where have I heard that before?

The entity, which viewed organic lifeforms as carbon-based units "infesting" starships, ...

Secular Blasphemy though, provides a counter argument.

What I really think many get wrong when they discuss population size as a problem is assuming human beings are just resource hogs. Yes, they are, but humans are also a resource in themselves. New children being born means a better chance of a new great ideas and new technological breakthoughs in the future. The reduction in childbirth rates in Europe is not only negative from a demographic point of view, but also because it's people, much more than resources like oil, that really create wealth, both economic and cultural.

This is also what bugs me. We were recently at the Maryland Science Center and they had an exhibit on the ecology of the Maryland area. One display showed how sediments have grown in a local waterway over the past centuries. No context was given, just that this consequence of development was a problem.

But with development comes benefits too. As we've built and travelled more we've also eradicated diseases and made people healthier than in the past. (Access to medical care and better nutrition are more affordable than ever.) There is a price to be paid. But what's the point of the regular efforts to present the price without the benefits as science?

Getting back to Watson, one thing is clear, that Europe is, conciously or not, is heading in a direction he approves, while the United States will be committing felonious growth for the foreseeable future. According to Nicholas Eberstadt -

By 2025, Western Europe's total population would be shrinking despite continuing immigration, while America's would still be growing by about 2.8 million a year. Western Europe, with a median age of 46 years, would be much "grayer" than the United States, with a median age of 39. In this future, Europe would be home to many more septuagenarians and octogenarians than the United States -- but for the under-25 population, Americans would outnumber West Europeans.

America's population profile is set to depart not only from Europe but also from the rest of the developed world. By 2025, according to Census Bureau projections, the U.S. population growth rate would be the highest among the more developed regions, and America's median age should be among the lowest. The United States would be the only developed country of 5 million-plus people with more children than senior citizens and the only developed country whose working-age population (ages 15 to 64) would be growing.

Clearly Eberstadt approves but doesn't really get into specific consequences. (He tries to explain America's inclination to grow but mostly is interested in describing what is happening rather than why it is happening or what it means.)

Demographics

Blogdigger tags: Population Growth, American Exceptionalism.

If ... you must 05/09/2007

If you haven't read Pillage Idiot's The Omnipotent Global Warming; you must.
Locked your keys in the car? Blame it on global warming.

If you haven't read Ocean Guy's Calling all Builders; you must.
If the Ayatollah's go nuclear, things might really get hot.

If you haven't read JoshuaPundit's Leadership, History and our next President; you must.
These are as good reasons as any to vote for (or at least consider) Giuliani to be the next President

He's also the only candidate who's experienced the sight sounds and smell - and I use those terms advisedly - of Islamic terrorism first hand, and the only one I'm aware of who has ever turned down the Saudis' attempt to buy influence or had somebody like Yasir Arafat thrown out of a public auditorium.

If you haven't read The GOP Debate at the Hedgehog Report; you must.

If you haven't read The Baltimore Reporter's Peace in our Time; you must.

If you haven't read Don Surber's Quayle Season; you must.
A new way to look at the former VP. Ahead of his time! While you're there also check out his takedown of Katie Couric and her claim to seriousness.

If you haven't read Bookworm Room's Raining on the Jewish lovefest with the Democratic Party; you must.
Ex-President Clinton's remarks about Arab Israeli peace negotiations and Iranian nukes ought to raise some alarms.

If you haven't read Crossing the Rubicon's Sarcozy wins French Election; you must.
With advice on how you can benefit too!

If you haven't read Personality not Principle at Likelihood of Success; you must.
When is support for a candidate a matter of serious consideration and when is it a matter of unseriousness?

If you haven't read Deja Vu's some of my neighbors might be Islamic terrorists; you must.
One of the benefits of living in central New Jersey these days. And make sure to follow the Richard Clarke link that shows that no good deed goes unpunished.

If you haven't read Brain Terminal's Many faces of Media Bias; you must.
Sometimes it's not what you say, it's what you don't say or how you say it or ...

If you haven't read 5 games to help you live well at Jerusalem Board Games; you must.
My favorites are Boggle, Chess and Othello. I know only one of those are recommneded. But why no word games?

If you haven't read Likelihood of Success's The whole world is a narrow bridge; you must.
And it's not just a metaphor!

If you haven't read Frog in the Washer at Maryland Weather blog; you must.
No it's not a metaphor.

If you haven't read Here's Looking at at Futility Closet; you must.

If you haven't read Environmentalists ask O'Malley to rethink ICC support at Crablaw; you must.

If you haven't read The Ignoble Experiment's Addition to the Family; you must.
Mazel Tov!

If you must

Blogdigger tags: If ... you must, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Quayle, Republican Debate, President Clinton, New Jersey Jihadis, Gone with the Wind, Narrow Bridges, ICC, Global Warming, Iranian Nuclear Ambitions.

Op-ed of steel

We can never make ourselves invulnerable to terrorism. But certain steps would reduce our vulnerability to as close to zero as possible.

from
Answering Al Qaeda
By CLARK KENT ERVIN

(Emphases mine.)

Haveil Havalim #115

Barbara's Tchatzkahs graciously volunteered to host this past week's Haveil Havalim. However her site has been hacked. I was able to retrieve everything she worked so hard on through Google's cache. So all the rest of the post is the result of the work she did; I just copied and pasted.

Welcome to the May 6, 2007 edition of Haveil Havalim.All week I had a lot of ideas about how I wanted to organize this carnival - but of course, I then realized that current events were going to dictate it, not me. Therefore I gathered some posts about the Aftermath of the Winograd Report together. I am sure future hosts will have a lot more to say about it as events continue to unfold in Israel.

One thing I did want to take an opportunity to say here was to thank everyone at JBlogs, those I've met, those I'm getting to know and those getting to know me - for being so welcoming to me.

Despite blogging for almost 4 years now I was very hesitant to join a blogging "community" for a long time. Over the summer I joined the Progressive Faith Bloggers and went to their BlogCon. It was very motivating and something I would love to see the JBlogosphere get together on. But still I dragged my feet, preferring to keep my little personal blog to myself and concentrate on the people who needed me - my children, of course and the readers at my Anti-Domestic Violence Blog.

In late February I shared with my counselor some more things I had written, at her request. We spent a couple sessions talking about why wasn't I doing more with my personal blog - because despite the fact that I was disabled, blogging could put me in contact with others for debate & discussion, educate me more about the Judaism I had just embraced and help restore my courage and my "voice." She gave me the URL to Israel Forum and JBlogs and told me to go for it. So I did.And I am so glad I did.

I am a read-a-holic and always have been. I have gotten into reading so many blogs I would never have seen otherwise. Whether I agree or not I am exposed daily to new information, new insight and reminded how differently the same situation can be seen among people. I get daily Torah learning I wouldn't have gotten otherwise and Jewish law is turned over & upside down as we learn together. Thank you to all the JBloggers who brought their wisdom, humor and rants to me. I must waste a good hour a day just going through Today's Catch. I thank you and my brain thanks you.Now... let's see what came in this very busy week:

MY PERSONAL PICK FOR THIS CARNIVAL

Nuch Epes Ah Chosid presents Did you get the message? posted at Nuch Epes Ah Chosid, saying, "A major post on the topic of hashgacha protis - divine intervention how nothing is by accident, and the signal from heaven we get , but we need to respond to them." Hashem sends us "Wake up call" in form of things that upset us, or g-d forbid cause us pain. If we have the right understanding that NOTHING happens just by accident, then we remember that this is a call for action, for 'cheshbon hanefesh' to inspect ourselves repent and correct something. (from this great blog post)

General JBlogging Goodness

Yisrael Medad presents Belgian Justice or should we say Belgian "INJUSTICE"?My Right Word, saying, "Seems MyRightWord wouldn't mind getting his hands on Veronique De Keyser, or more properly around her neck" (and after reading that post can't say I'd blame him either)Yisrael Medad presents an interesting ethical dilemma that asks can we honestly trust information from an 'unnamed source'? (this one doesn't fall under whistleblower status either)

Media Ethic Matter posted at My Right Word, saying, "As is his wont, MyRightWord deals with a media ethics matter concerning the identity of sources."

SnoopyTheGoon reports "Army undergoing revolution," Peretz says But what kind of revolution? Ask yourself at SimplyJews.

Carl in Jerusalem presents Why Feigele can't be Prime Minister posted at Israel Matzav.

Carl in Jerusalem posts a dilemma facing the IDF & its Hesder soldiers IDF threatening Hesder (again) on ideological grounds take a look Israel Matzav.

Carl in Jerusalem presents Israel Matzav: Treason at Haaretz: Haaretz helps Iran look for nuke builders or the New York Times strikes at Israel again... a good post at Israel Matzav.

Culture

TherapyDoc posts an article which I appreciated personally. It was honest, well thought out and about a lot bigger issues than a rehash of the Virginia Tech massacre - but about something missing from a lot of people these days... EMPATHYCho Copycat and Life is a Battlefield posted at Everyone Needs Therapy, saying, "Sometimes a blogger has to make some tough choices when it comes to posting. Choosing Cho once again to make a point about surviving childhood wasn't easy." (But I, for one, am glad she did!)

Elie presents What's in a (Jewish) Name a question we've all thought about at one time or another, posted at Elie's Expositions.

V presents a post I found enlightening regarding a "jewish marketing" tactic Tznius - In Defense of Gedolim - A Positive Spin posted at V's Jewish Blog.

yours truly posts about spirituality & culture being two pieces of the same puzzle at Spirituality & Culture posted at Barbara's Tchatzkahs.

Culture: Sports

Mark asks "Did you know there was a Jewish Sports Hall of Fame?" No! and this is very enlightening! Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Inductees posted at SportsBiz - The Business of Sports Illuminated, saying, "This year, the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame inducted 12 athletes, including Mark Spitz, Dwight Stones and Howard Cossell (ok, not all of the inductees are athletes)."

Mark writes about Hockey's Up and Comer Benjamin Rubin - an Orthodox Jew at An Athlete's Dilemma posted at SPORTSYIDS - Celebrating Jews In Sports, saying, "Benjamin Rubin is an excellent 18 year old hockey player whose chances to make the NHL are compromised because he is also Orthodox, and as a result will not play or practice on Shabbat."

Humor

Ah! The frustrations of rules, customer service and the airline industry as told by TherapyDoc who shows us how NOT to do behavior modification in And Another Thing: British Air and Behavior Mod posted at Everyone Needs Therapy

I included this in humor because it did make me laugh - as only Debbie Schlussel can at Muslims Upset that Breast Cancer Awareness, Blacks Get Whole Month posted at Debbie Schlussel

Israel

Rafi G reminds us its not just Aliyah but successful Aliyah to strive for at Kosher Style posted at Life in Israel.

West Bank Mama gives it to us straight about Aliyah Some Straight Talk About Making Aliyah posted at West Bank Mama.

muse presents a blog post close to my gardener's heart Didn't I tell you? posted at me-ander.

Cosmic X presents a commuter's lament Commuting To The Holy City Of Tel Aviv posted at ****** Cosmic X in Jerusalem ******.

Cosmic X continues by expressing the longing of many to channel their inner 'Easy Rider' and knowing you never will in The Holy City Of Tel Aviv: Motorcycles posted at ****** Cosmic X in Jerusalem ******.

Wolfline writes a blog post I loved - about personal victory in the face of injury, disability and how love and perseverance can win out at Roni's Victory posted at Busywolf

Elder of Ziyon lets media spin have a piece of his mind with US official praises Palestinian Arab press posted at Elder of Ziyon.

Ya'aqov Ben-Yehudah alerts us It's Official...We're Rednecks.... posted at Esser Agaroth, saying, "tongue and cheek" -- yes the truth is always the most humorous! ;)

muse compares day to night with the current situation in Israel Transitions aren't always beautiful posted at Shiloh Musings.

Judaism

JackB waxes nostalgic about the Good Ole' Days vs. the Good New Days The Golden Age Of The JBlogosphere posted at Random thoughts- Do they have meaning?, saying, "A few thoughts about the JBlogosphere"

Irina has some deep thoughts about her identity - a great post we can all relate to Who Am I Anyway? posted at The IgNoble Experiment, a.k.a. Live Dangerously!.

Happy Mom of 6 asks Medical Miracles or just Mistakes personally, I have had this happen and I like to think - its a miracle but you should take a look and give your opinion at Baby Lox.

Jerusalem Joe presents a fascinating look at psychology, Jung and its relation to a Halacha at Why Women Are Exempt From Prayer In Judaism – A Jungian Explanation posted at The Israeli Tikkun Blog.

A Simple Jew shows us there's always a new opportunity for a "Lego Castle" and a new chance to be a better Jew & a better person - however it presents itself atLego Castles & The Yahrzeit Of The Degel Machaneh Ephraim posted at A Simple Jew.

Ya'aqov Ben-Yehudah tells of a date correction at Um,...Hello?! RaShB"I Didn't Die on Lag b'Omer posted at Esser Agaroth

Kashrut

Mottel presents a photo essay worth taking a look at Shechita -A Photo Essay on Ritual Slaughter posted at Letters of Thought.
and Mottel follows up the above photo essay with some thoughts about animals, ethics and ritual slaughter PETH: People for the Ethical Treatment of Humans you can weigh in your thoughts atLetters of Thought.

Jewish Blogmeister asks for help in getting BeachNut to keep their baby food kosher atBeechNut Baby Food Alert: Going Non Kosher posted at Jewish Blogmeister.

Personal

Robert J. Avrech tells many a man's dilemma of saying, "What happens when Trash TV meets Kosher Yoga."No Yen for Yoga posted at Seraphic Secret

Nuch Epes Ah Chosid writes another post I personally like this week, about failure, personal accountability & determination at Tell Me What You Want.. What You Really Really Want ?! posted at Nuch Epes Ah Chosid, saying, "A view on our personal struggle in life to be better, and yet even if we fail, we still want to be good." (Yes, I believe most people's default setting is GOOD)

muse talks about how, in her area of Israel, a simple commute can be life threatening on a daily basis at With this map... posted at Shiloh Musings.
yours truly shares more of the trials & tribulations of being a "New Ju" at

OPPRESSION, CONVERSATION and FITTING IN posted at Barbara's Tchatzkahs.
Politics

Irina asks about the American Authorities and their relations to the Jewish Community today with a news story at Old News Resurface Despite All Odds posted at The IgNoble Experiment, a.k.a. Live Dangerously!, saying, "On the arrest of Rabbi Avi Weiss"

Smooth alerts us all to the WMATA's Anti-Israel posters and the letter Smooth wrote - a must read! - at My letter to WMATA, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for partnering with US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation posted at Smooth Stone

Elder of Ziyon presents more re-writing of the English Dictionary meetings to whitewash Palestinian intentions at Elder of Ziyon: Today's Palspeak/Reuters word: "siege" posted at Elder of Ziyon.

Freedom's Cost asks some hard questions that Europe needs to ask itself “Europe or Eurabia?" posted at Freedom's Cost. (I included this one because not only is this one of my favorite new blogs but it begs a question that I asked myself on and since my recent trip abroad and seeing what is going there)

Torah

Dixie Yid brings Hashem's presence a little closer to us with What's the Pillar on Which the Whole Torah Stands? posted at Dixie Yid - Thoughts on life and Chassidus, saying, "This post discusses the pasuk, "V'ahava l'reyacha kamocha, Ani " and it's meaning as the Klal Gadol BaTorah."

Rafi G gives a very good analysis at Emor: from rags to riches posted at Torah Thoughts.
Dan gave a great lesson with analogy to illustrate Lag B'Omer at Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's Kabbalah posted at Tsmicha.com, saying, "Lag Baomer and Kaballah"

Josh Waxman puzzler at P3: Parsha Punning Puzzle for Emor #4 posted at parshablog, saying, "This week, I've launched a serious pictorial parsha punning puzzles.[Earlier entries from the same week are:#3#2#1Though the last two listed have already been solved.]

Reb Chaim HaQoton enlightens us for Lag B'Omer with Carobs and Dates posted at Reb Chaim HaQoton.

Avrohom adler writes some learning we can all use at Daf Yomi - Chagigah 23 - JUSTIFYING A CUSTOM REGARDING GEBROCHTSDaf Yomi - Chagigah 22 - AVOIDING STRIFE posted at Daf notes.

Avrohom adler presents some debate & information on the measurements of the Ark More measures posted at avakesh.

Avrohom adler continues with - the difficulty of relating to non-observant family posted at Divrei Chaim.

Avrohom adler presents an explanation of Sefiras HaOmer: Short, straight and simple posted at Drush and Agadata.

Avrohom adler blog posts Limud Torah with Rav Chaim - COVERING THE BREAD WHEN STOPPING TO MAKE KIDDUSH posted at Limud Torah.

Avrohom adler presents Standing Up: Part 2 posted at Nefesh HaChaim.

Avrohom adler presents Emor 5632 Second Ma'amar posted at Sfas Emes.

History

Mr. Bagel wishes a very Happy Birthday to Theodor Herzl (1860) the 'Father' of Modern Zionism posted at (in my opinion-- one of the most imaginatively designed blogs in the JBlogosphere) The Original Bagel Blogger.

Yisrael Medad presents A Bit Odd posted at My Right Word, saying, "MyRightWord doesn't like the avoiding of Jabotinsky in the Shalem Center's new essay collection on Zionism."

On the Aftermath of the Winograd Report

SnoopyTheGoon presents Ask a good question a day-before-the-Winograd-bomb-dropped post which asks some very pointed questions indeed at SimplyJews.

Rafi G presents another pre-Winograd release blogthoughts on the upcoming firestorm posted at Life in Israel.

Carl in Jerusalem presents Shootout at the OK corral and includes an image of a historic U.S. document that is a good reminder for all at Israel Matzav.

muse talks about the rally Correction/Clarification--Yes, I admit mistakes! posted at Shiloh Musings.

Olah Chadasha puts the effects of Winograd and some masterful and prophetic thoughts in this post at Golda Meir He Aint posted at Greetings from the French Hill, saying, "This article is my take on the Winograd Report and what I believe Olmert's next move will be to try and delay his inevitable demise."

yitz presents MISSING THE RED QUEEN posted at Shiloh Musings, saying, "Wonderful post linking an excerpt from Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" to today's political situation in Israel."

muse presents Olmert's Greatest Miss-Calculation! posted at Shiloh Musings.

Cosmic X reminds us of history at Who's To Blame? Olmert, Peretz, Halutz, and the Israeli MSM posted at ****** Cosmic X in Jerusalem ******.

That concludes this edition. I want to thank Soccer Dad for his trust and for giving me the opportunity to host Haveil Havalim this week. Despite some technical glitches earlier in the week I have truly enjoyed it and all the submissions. I would love to do it again sometime! (o.k. so now you all know I am not in my right mind) Though, I can never hope to do it as well as Soccer Dad does!
Have a wonderful, peaceful and successful week everyone. Enjoy! - Barbara

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Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.Technorati tags:haveil havalim, blog carnival.

Labels: blog carnival, haveil havalim, israel, judaism, torah

IRIB: "The so-called democracy are defined in a set of projects whose major emphasis sits on women politicians"

Iran surveys the political scene in the fake usurper Zionist regime:

As the Zionist regime poises for a political transformation, Tzipi Livnin, current foreign minister, remains to be tipped as the top favorite for a soon-to-be-vacant post which was never loyal to a ramshackle Ehud Olmert.

How many metaphors or implied metaphors can you spot in the next sentence?

The crisis has already simmered out of control following an ever-widening schism among Zionist groups which was set off by Winograd's report as well as mounting criticism leveled at the embattled Olmert to make him to step aside.

Kadima tries to persuade Olmert to resign as a sacrificial lamb for the party, providing it a safe heaven in a possible early poll. The presence of a top-level female figure may boost the party's chance of survival.

Livnin for his part has set a positive record during his services to the occupying regime, hence enjoying a favorable position to mend the marring face of the regime in the world. Moreover, she is not embattled with any judicial proceeding against her unlike many of the regime's top officials.

Livni's position in the Arab-Zionist compromise process is also notable. As foreign minister, she has been the most influential Zionist insider to the project only after Ehud Olmert. This has brought her a ringing support from Arab compromisers, Zionist political groups and leaders of America and Europe who entertain pretensions to virtually put their enjoyable seal over compromise deals.

There is nothing more enjoyable than a good seal.

Nevertheless, Livni's opportunities extend beyond the discussion. She may reap a double crop from her gender following America's plans to present her regime as a model for its self-styled democracy in the Middle East. The so-called democracy are defined in a set of projects whose major emphasis sits on women politicians. Livni has promoted the chances of becoming premier also by her close relations with White House officials.

Be that as it may, other politicians including Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Gilerman too have thrown their hats in the field, but they suffer unfavorable records in terms of political or moral scandals.

Another card of power lies in hand of military authorities who are salivating for the contested seat and if livni fails to garner adequate support, they will sweep the scene at least for a moment, carrying a bill of excuse which reads 'political situation needs a savior,' even though a gun totting governor.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The quietest hero

Raoul Wallenberg was a well known rescuer of Jews from the Holocaust. He came from one of Sweden's most prominent and richest families. The Swedish diplomat likely saved more than 100,000 Jews by issuing protective visas to Hungarian Jews. In 1945 Wallenberg was arrested by the Russians and was never heard from again. Wallenberg was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1966 as one of the Righteous among the Nations for his efforts to save Jews.

Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist. He saved Jews by claiming he required the Jews working for him were essential to Germany's war effort. His heroism was immortalized in a book and later a movie called Schindler's list. He was honored by Yad Vashem in 1967. His wife was later recognized in 1993.

Frank Foley was the head of the British Passport Control office in Berlin. When Hitler rose to power in 1933, Foley was overwhelmed by the number of Jews applying for visas to leave Germany. Hitler had been quite explicit about his plans and he started implementing discriminatory laws from the start. As the persecution started, Foley's revulsion at what was going on prompted him to act. (Foley was a one time Catholic seminarian whose religious convictions would not countenance the evils of Nazism.

Foley broke rules for issuing visas and, when necessary, hid Jews in his house to protect them. Foley is estimated to have saved 10,000 Jews. He was finally recognized by Yad Vashem in 1999.

Given that he was clearly in a class with Schindler and Wallenberg the obvious question is why it took so long for Foley to be recognized.

Yad Vashem only honors those non-Jews whose efforts were attested to by those they saved. Foley's efforts were largely those of a bureaucrat bending and breaking the rules. If Foley issued a visa in violation of establshed rules, the person receiving the visa would not necesssarily understand that anything out of the ordinary was done on his behalf.

Then there's the matter of Foley's personality. He had a very quite demeanor and didn't draw much attention to himself. He did his rescue work subtly and without fanfare. (In stark contrast to Schindler.)

Of course being nondescript probably served Foley well, because he wasn't just a bureaucrat for Britain's foreign office, he was also a spy for MI-6. As a spy he wouldn't have had diplomatic immunity had his efforts been uncovered. He was doing his work without a safety net. (Like Schindler and Wallenberg, Foley had entered concentration camp, papers in hand to rescue Jews.)

Foley's effort came to light in the late 1990's when an English reporter Michael Smith found out about him as he researched material for a book on British intelligence. Smith ended up writing a book about Foley and it was the testimony that he gathered that helped make the case for Foley at Yad Vashem.

Saying that Foley was a spy doesn't quite do him credit. He was apparently one of England's top spies who was involved a number of high profile operations. Among other things, Foley put into place the "Double Cross System." an operation designed to feed disinformation to the Nazis. He also involved in saveing Norway's gold reserves from the Nazis.

In the course of his work he became aware of the existence of the Mossad Le'Aliyah Bet - the effort to smuggle Jews illegally into Israel and a forerunner to Israel's external spy agency - and did not report it. His silence no doubt saved many more as it's not hard to imagine that his superiors would have put a stop to the effort.

It's been asked why the Allies didn't to more to stop the extermination. The answer is that it wasn't possible due to the war effort. However on his own level Foley clearly rejected this argument. Despite his value to the war effort he saved Jews at great personal risk.

The British Foreign Office has scanned a number of documents pertaining to Foley's career. Most are his observations on the deteriorating conditions in Germany. In one he wonders if Shanghai was a good choice for Jews to escape to and concludes that the uncertainty of Shanghai was preferable to the certainty of Germany.

The most telling letter though is a response to a Dr. Arian in Tel Aviv. Foley had gotten a visa for Dr. Arian's mother and Dr. Arian had written him a thank you note. Foley responds that he appreciate the praise of "the office" and laments that it didn't have the power it once, else it would have been able to save thousands not just hundreds.

It was that self-effacing nature that probably hindered the recognition of Frank Foley. It is why he was referred to as the Scarlet Pimpernel - a fictional character who saved many from the guillotines of revolutionary France.

Frank Foley did his work quietly and effectively. And that why he is now honored.

The British Embassy in Berlin honored its onetime employee in 2004 on the 120th anniversary of his birth.

I'd like to thank my daughter for writing a report on the book "Foley" by Michael Smith and discussing this great man with me.

Frank Foley

Eight months

Yesterday morning at 1:15 AM she turned 35 weeks old.

The biggest difference from last month is what she eats. She eats baby food. And if you give her the right flavors she opens her mouth willingly. If you try to feed her something like butternut squash, she keeps her mouth open and makes a face and swallows very gradually. Her favorite flavors are apple-mango-kiwi, peach and apple-blueberry. The first two of those are no longer kosher, so I've had to stock up on the old versions.

The other day we went to a concert. When she was up she was tapping her hand to the beat. Do babies have an innate sense of rhythm or does she have a special talent. (I don't think that we'll buy her a drum kit. Yet.)

She also has started occasionally doing what we call the "tushie dance." For some unknown reason when she's sitting she'll start wiggling. Needless to say it's very cute to watch.

She can pull herself up to a sitting position and she's showing signs of being ready to crawl, but hasn't put all the motions together. She'll babble and sometimes shriek. And she can express preferences. She'll lean to a person whom she prefers to hold her. And she will sometimes show that she recognizes someone she hasn't seen in a while by starting to babble.

Of course when we carry her around everyone remarks how cute she is. What more can a parent ask for?

Previous related posts: seven months, One month, two months, three months, four months and five months, six months.

Islam Online: "Why Arabia?"

Don't sneer. You probably believe something like this about something, although probably not about Arabia:

If we cast a glance at the world in the atlas, we find that no other country could have been more suitable for the much-needed world religion than Arabia. It is situated right in the middle of Asia, and Europe is not far away from it. At the time of Muhammad’s appearance the central part of Europe was inhabited by civilized and culturally advanced nations; thus these people were more or less at about the same distance from Arabia as were the people of India. This fact gave Arabia a central position.

And look at the history of that era and you will find that no other people were more suited for the endowment of this prophethood than the Arabs. Great nations of the world had been struggling hard for world supremacy, and in this long struggle and incessant strife, they had exhausted all their resources and vitality. The Arabs were a fresh and virile people. The so-called social progress had produced bad habits among the advanced nations, while among the Arabs no such social organization existed, and they were, therefore, free from the inactivity, debasement, and indulgences arising out of luxury and sensual satiety.

The pagan Arabs of the fifth century had not been affected by the evil influence of the artificial systems and civilization of the great nations of the world. They processed all the good human qualities, which the people untouched by the “social progress” of the time ought to possess. They were brave, fearless, generous, faithful to their promises, lovers of freedom, and were politically independent—not subject to the hegemony of the imperial powers. They lived a very simple life and were strangers to the life of luxury and indulgence.

What's missing from all this is that Islam is derived from Judaism. So why did Islam arise in Arabia and not in other noble-savage inhabited places such as whatever New Zealand was called in the 6th Century--besides the central location, of course? It had Jewboys!

No doubt, there were certain undesirable aspects of their life as well, but the reason for the existence of such aspects was that for thousands of years no prophet had risen among them, nor had there appeared a reformer who might have civilized them and purged their moral life of all evil impurities. Centuries of free and independent life in sandy deserts had bred and nourished extreme ignorance among them. They had, therefore, become so hardhearted and firm in their traditions of ignorance that to make them human was not the task of an ordinary man.

At the same time, however, they did possess a capacity that if some person of extraordinary powers were to invite them for reform and give them a noble ideal and a complete program, they would accept his call and readily rise to act effectively for the achievement of such a goal, and spare no strife for or sacrifice in the cause.

They were waiting for Kim Jong Il? I make joke.

They would be prepared to face without the least scruple even the hostility of the entire world in the cause of their mission. And verily it was such a young, forceful, and virile people that were needed for disseminating the teachings of the World Prophet: Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

And then look to the Arabic language. If you study that language and fathom deep into its literature, you will be convinced that there is no other language than Arabic which is more suited to give expression to high ideals, to explain the most delicate and subtle problems of divine knowledge, and to impress the heart of man and mold it into God’s submission. Small phrases and brief sentences express a world of ideas, and at the same time they are so forceful that they steal into the heart, their every sound moves man to tears and ecstasy. They are so sweet that it is felt as if honey were being poured into the ears; they are so full of harmony that every fiber of the listener’s body is moved by their symphony. It is such a rich and powerful language that was needed for the Qur’an, the Great Word of God. It was, therefore, the manifestation of God’s great wisdom that He chose the land of Arabia for the birth place of the World Prophet.

Crossposted on Judeopundit.

Haveil Havalim #115 is UP!

Sorry I didn't get to this yesterday but I had a very busy day. Barbara's Tchatzkahs had a very busy week putting together an excellent Haveil Havalim #115.

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UPCOMING EDITIONS

May 13 - #116 - Jerusalem Board Games May 20 - #117 - Jack's Shack May 27 - #118 - Esser Agaroth

I'd like to thank the wonderful folks at BlogCarnival for this wonderful Blog Carnival Widget that gives information on upcoming hosts and past editions.

Thanks for participating, reading and keeping Haveil Havalim going!

However is someone decides that he/she wants to host in the future let me know at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com or use the BlogCarnival Contact form.

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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Asharq Alawsat: "Britain teems with nests of serpents and scorpions of extremism"

The author of this is Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, "the general manager of Al-Arabiya television." Asharq Alawsat articles sometimes display admirable frankness and realism. For instance:

I believe that the recent court rulings against the British Muslims [linked to Al Qaeda] were the first strike in a tough war. Britain teems with nests of serpents and scorpions of extremism who come from around the world: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Pakistan and other countries due to its flexible systems and the adoption of a policy to receive outcasts during the aftermath of World War II and the Soviet-Western conflict during which doors were opened to persecuted refugees who sought their rights. The paradox is that it is in Britain, the object of hate for many fundamentalists, where these very people practice their full rights and enjoy what they were deprived of in their native countries.

Until four years ago, Britain's intellects had said that they were willing to tolerate what these people had to say out of protecting individual rights and the right to free speech and political opposition. We used to say to them that we all supported that right but that these people had no relation to freedom and unfortunately never respected the rights of others. They despised the regime that protected them and privately and publicly conspired against society. Unfortunately, these intellects turned a blind eye, believing that we pursued opponents, instead of examining the extremism phenomenon in the Arab and Muslim world to identify the nature of the problem. Several reports and articles appeared in the British media glorifying and supporting these groups both in their homelands and in Britain without realizing their extremist Fascist nature that compared to and even surpassed the capability of Nazism to destroy the social fabric.

Britain is faced with a very difficult problem, confronting a foreign enemy amid social sensitivity and slow-moving legal systems that limit its activity. A key to success is to know opponents and be capable of integrating with their community, which is possible in the Arab states because extremists share a similar background and these states have large law enforcement agencies that can detain and interrogate suspects and can even expel unwanted foreigners if it is believed that they are causing trouble. However, this is not possible to apply in Britain and therefore it will not be easy for British security to combat both the dangers of secret organizations and education provided in residential communities where extremists hide.

Unfortunately, we can only expect more terrorist operations in Britain because all indicators show that extremists have spent a number of years destroying the minds of young British Muslims under various religious and social claims, and it will not be easy to stop the waves of training or, firstly, ban extremist education.

What can the British authorities do?

I think they must do what other Muslim and non-Muslim countries have done before them—accept fighting extremists by cutting off the oxygen that sustains extremist groups: their newspapers, radio stations, televisions, forums, mosques and websites. Through publicity, they can raise funds, recruit volunteers and secure popular support within foreign communities. The question is: how can the codified British system allow that? The answer lies with the hesitant legislators who are practically on the brink of a terrorist war today. After all, pursuing extremist Muslims today is better than pursuing all Muslims tomorrow.

I can't believe he wrote that.

Crossposted on Judeopundit.

"Every Jewish family in America that has any property in the Holy Land needs to be prosecuted as part of an organized criminal network"

This article, picked up by Arab-American News from something called "World View News Service" is written by one Karin Friedemann, who seems to identify as a "progressive Jew." The title, believe it or not, asks "Polite discussion on Zionism: Is it possible?" Let's see, what would "polite discussion on Zionism" involve?

[...] If international law were followed, the Israeli "government' would never have kicked out any Palestinians. The entire existence of Israel is based on the condition made by the U.N. that Palestinians would remain in their homes and receive equal citizenship in the new nation state. That condition was not followed. Therefore, there is no legal basis for any assumption that Israel has a right to exist, according to the U.N. In fact, Israel does not really exist. It is a figment of imagination, the defensive mechanism of the neurotic Jewish collective consciousness. I agree that we need to stop arguing about isms but the next step is to follow the laws that already exist to solve the problems. Don't wait for the world community to force Israel to do it. Why don't we, as Jews, just do it? Why are progressive Jews wasting their time feeling emotionally threatened by a one state solution? The real problem is that we are feeling emotionally threatened by any solution. Because a solution means that a lot of Jews need to be prosecuted.

The refugees need to be given back their property with extra for damages. Even if they fled their homes because Arab leaders told them to get out of the fighting zone in 1948, they have the legal right to return to their homes as soon as the fighting stops. Small wonder why Israel continues to attack people day after day.

The refugees need to be given full civil rights. Full water rights, full road rights, and the full right to criminally prosecute. Every Jewish family in America that has any property in the Holy Land needs to be prosecuted as part of an organized criminal network. Especially if both the Palestinian and the Jewish persons are American citizens. For example one friend of mine, after her family was forced off their land by gunpoint, New York Jews bought the land, bulldozed everything, and planted orange trees. She knows where they live. She knows their names. Anyone who buys or sells stolen property is a criminal. They need to be prosecuted. Any Jew who owns stolen property in the Holy Land should have his property seized including their U.S. assets and progressive Jews should insist on it instead of doing these mental "I'm not evil" gymnastics.

The Jews need to give back what they stole. I am not sure why that is so confusing to people. There needs to be a world tribunal like the Nuremburg trials to determine what was done and who was responsible, and to put an end to this nonsense. But failing that, the U.S. legal system could solve the problem within a year if they just prosecuted this obnoxious real estate mafia. Why are progressive Jews not lobbying for criminal penalties on Jews who invest in property that was cleared of its original owners by force in the Holy Land? There is enough room in all of Bush's new prisons for all these shady real estate agents. This is a simple matter of holding people legally accountable for the harm they cause others. [...]

Crossposted on Judeopundit.

Update: It turns out that "Karin Friedemann" is an adherent of a certain other Abrahamic religion. Soccer Dad has alerted me to a very well-written piece about her.

Middle East: "Pakistanis smash cars for Islam," Hizbullah "ready to defend Lebanon," Hamas "ready for combat"

The bad guys are keeping busy:

Al Jazeera: "Pakistanis smash cars for Islam":

Around 200 armed men have forcibly halted dozens of cars and smashed their cassette players in northwestern Pakistan in a bid to impose Taliban-style values.

A government official confirmed Saturday's incident but did not say if authorities planned any action against the men who also smashed mobile phones and ordered men to grow beards.

The men took up positions beside a road near Khar, the main town in the tribal region of Bajaur, where they stopped and searched passing vehicles, witnesses said.

"They smashed cassette players running music and mobile phones fitted with cameras," a driver, whose vehicle was searched, said.

The driver, who preferred anonymity, also said the armed men had urged clean-shaven tribesmen to grow beards.

Pakistan's lawless tribal belt is well-known as a hotbed of support for Taliban fighters in neighbouring Afghanistan.[...]

IRIB: "Hezbollah ready to defend Lebanon"

The Lebanese Islamic Resistance Movement Hezbollah has rebuilt its defences to face any new invasion from the Zionist regime, the Movement's Deputy Chief said in an interview with Al-Jazeera news channel.

"We have new (military) plans. We have completed ... our ground work in preparing our men, as well as our land, so that we would be ready if the 'Israeli' (government) thought one day of invading Lebanon again," Sheikh Naim Qassim said in excerpts of the interview aired on Saturday.

"We have evaluated the events of the second war on Lebanon ... and looked at the points of strength and weakness in a way that we would learn from the results of this war," he said referring to the Zionist regime's 33-day invasion to Lebanon last summer.

The full interview will be broadcast later on Saturday.

On Monday, an 'Israeli' probe accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the regime's top army brass of "serious failure" in handling the invasion to Lebanon, prompting calls on Olmert to step down.

For a different view of Hizbullah, see this interview with Amir Taheri.

IRIB: "Be ready for combat: Meshal":

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas' political bureau Chief, Khaled Meshal on Friday called on the inhabitants of West Bank to become ready for combat against the enemy.

"Be ready for combat. In fact we have entered a combat against bids such as building of Zionist settlements, Apartheid wall between the West Bank and occupied Palestine and abduction of 11,000 Palestinians by the Zionist regime," Meshaal addressed the Palestinian people in Yermouk camp in southern Damascus.

We will not quit our conditions about the exchange of abducted Palestinians with the Zionist soldier, Meshal said, adding that "the Zionist regime is forced to negotiate with us in this regard."

He also hailed the Lebanese Islamic Resistance Movement, Hezbollah which have troubled Olmert's future and made him face with a crushing report about the failures of the Zionist regime during its war against Lebanon.

Meshal called for end of sanctions against the Palestinian government.

"Attempts to topple the Palestinian democracy will fail," he underlined.

Meshal called on Arab states to be forerunner in breaking sanctions against the Palestinian nation.

"Don't wait for America's green light, otherwise the Palestinian people will not forgive you," Meshal advised Arab states.

Crossposted at Judeopundit.

Carnival of Maryland #6

A word about Blog Carnivals: Great.

Seriously, 2 1/2 years ago I started a blog carnival with a focus on Jewish and Israel related items of interest. Over that time it has grown in participation and interest. If you're reading this consider volunteering as a host for Carnival of Maryland or at least submitting a post for the next edition. Participation will make the carnival grow and make it more valuable for everyone involved.

With no further ado let's look at edition #6 of the Carnival of Maryland.

MBA Members

Crablaw founded and manages this carnival. He's interested in all things Maryland. Isn't it great that his efforts at creating Crabopedia have been recognized by the Maryland Daily Record?

The Greenbelt plays Goose, Goose Goose and realizes that there are only four goslings. What happened to the other three?

Pillage Idiot reports that if you visit Walkersville Maryland you ought to be prepared or you might find yourself wiped out in BYOTP.

Politics Hon criticizes Maryland's General Assembly and Governor for passing a law to bypass the electoral college. If another other states pass a similar law, as he observes, Maryland's voters will be officially irrelevant. In an act of shameless self-promotion let me point out that I wrote about the same topic before.

Kevin Dayhoff notes the destruction of the Pipe Creek Farm where Whittaker Chambers found the Pumpkin Papers. Though he wonders how many are aware of its significance.

Oriole Post a blog not surprisingly devoted to Baltimore's maddeningly inconsistent baseball team reports to us about another O's loss and some other tidbits of interest about the team.

Escape from Pianosa contemplates gun control in Guns, Guns, Guns and wonders how gun control can make people feel safer.

Monoblogue, the Wonkiest blogger I read (and I mean that in the positive sense as he's always worth reading) presents a 50 year plan for education. BTW, you ought to keep up with his Shorebird of the Week feature if you want to know about the athletes who might grace Camden Yards in 3 - 4 years.

Maryland Politics Today fondly, or not so fondly, recalls April: A month of hypocrisy.

If you wish to check out the latest political polls one of the best places to go is the Hedgehog Report, one of Maryland's top political blogs. It's not only a great place for polling information but also for the latest on Howard County Executive Ken Ulman's SUV.

May I call you attention to the two most recent members of the Maryland Blogger alliance?

The (current) penultimate member is The AT Wire who focuses on video games. Last week he observed that the United Kingdom Gets Its Own Version of America’s Army. In more shameless self promotion I'd point out that I gave some background on America's Army last year.

I don't think you can get further away from videogames than going outside and observing nature. That's exactly what Pines above Snow does. So check out Bioblitz and Books and start learning about our local environment.

Non MBA Members

Well you don't need to be a member of the Maryland Bloggers Alliance to participate in the Carnival.

One of the more entertaining Maryland blogs in the Maryland Weather Blog by Frank Roylance, science writer for the Baltimore Sun. He brings us the news that another Maryland website, HubbleSite has won a Webby award as best Science site. (Disclosure: My wife interned at the Space Telescope Science Institute 10 years ago.)

The Loss Column is a Baltimore oriented sports blog. I believe irreverent is an appropriate adjective. The editorial view here is a bit more charitable towards Orioles management than I am.

Inside Charm City is a general interest Baltimore area blog. I first noticed it when he crossposted an item about Gary Thorne's later retracted comment about former Oriole pitcher Curt Schilling at OTB Sports.

For all you legal (and policy wonkish) types out there Maryland Law Blog links to a review of the recently completed General Assembly Session.

Laz-A-Fare puts a video of Camden Yards' Beer Man up.

Miscellany

I know that this is so 1990's and it's a throwback to usenet days, but did you know that there's an Orioles fan mailing list? If you subscribe, you can keep up with latest goings on of your favorite team with pithy comments of plenty of detractors. The list has actually been a bit more active this year. If you're a transplanted Mets fan there's probably one for you too. But since they beat the Orioles in 1969 ...

Finally, say you wish to keep up with all the recent postings of the Maryland Bloggers Alliance, check this out.

If you'd like the code for this, let me know!

And here's the Carnival of Maryland widget courtesy of BlogCarnival.
You can use this to check out past editions or submit for the upcoming edition.

Maryland, Maryland Blogger Alliance, Carnival of Maryland, Blog Carnivals

ISNA: "Iran MP: Latin America has good democratic governments"

ISNA stands for "Iranian Students News Agency." Why does that sound so totalitarian?

Member of the national security and foreign policy commission of Iran's parliament stated that Latin American countries, despite the perpetual U.S. pressures, had managed to form good democratic governments.

I wonder which governments he has in mind.

Speaking to ISNA, Hamid Reza Hajibabaei described the achievements of his one week trip to Latin American countries and the talks with the related leaders and officials as "positive".

He said it was a matter of great significance for Iran to maintain ties with these countries and referred to the various economic ties between Iran and Latin America.

He further added that considering the pressures imposed by the U.S. upon these and other independent countries, it was absolutely necessary for Iran and the related officials of these countries to talk on the issue.

"Despite all the pressures and sanctions of the U.S., they're still carrying out well," said Hajibabaei while referring to Cuba and Venezuela as good democratic governments.

He said Fidel Castro in Cuba, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua had made a democratic triangle of power that was shaping good movements in the region.

Hajibabaei referred to the significance of maintaining ties with Cuba, as the head of the non aligned group and said that Iran's cooperation with Cuba would help in the management of non aligned countries which was in line with national benefits.

"Latin American countries are optimistic about Iran's view and stances and also approve of Iran's foreign policy and the nuclear issue," he said.

Crossposted at Judeopundit

Replacing spouses

In Brazil a man came up with a creative way to get rid of his wife. At least until the government stepped in.

The government has ordered an Internet auction site to remove an advertisement in which a Brazilian man offered to sell his wife for about $50.

The Secretariat of Public Policies for Women announced late Friday it had ordered Mercado Livre, partially owned by eBay Inc., to remove the ad and warned it was violating a law banning the offer or sale of “human organs, people, blood, bones or skin.”

However, in India a young lady was able to get an unfit mate replaced, on the spot (and with no internet advertising - and with a village's approval.)

Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.

"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.

The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.

I guess if you're going get rid of your spouse, you better get approval before doing anything drastic.

Marriage

Blogdigger tags: Marriage, Drunk Groom, Wife Ad

If ... you must 05/04/2007

If you haven't read Yourish's To look at the Queen; you must.
If you haven't read At the march of Hizbollah at JudeoPundit; you must.
What do those two posts have in common.

If you haven't read Secular Blasphemy's Excusing her French; you must.
The French hold a debate and who wins?

If you haven't read Don Surber's Column Accomplished; you must.
OK click on the link and read the column!

If you haven't read I remember JFK's when we learned to dial direct; you must.
That was when we were very young.

If you haven't read Colossus of Rhodey's Comics industry nervous about latest Frank Miller project ; you must.
Holy terror, Batman. Really

If you haven't read Almanac of Miscellaneous Amusement's At three minutes and four seconds... ; you must.
It's your last chance for another 100 years.

If you must

He was drinking milk and when he laughed ...

Donna Hamilton of WBAL TV decided to do a report on an alternative treatment for allergies called neti potting. Given that I'm married to an allergy sufferer and several of my children suffer too, I sympathize. Really.

But does she really need to show this poor guy squirting saline up one nostril and out the other? Wouldn't words have sufficed?

She comments that he usually does this in private and did he ever think he'd be doing it on television. And of course he answers "no." But then in our society people get paid $1,000,000 for eating bugs on television.

I feel like Calvin when he describes Tommy telling a joke when I watch this. I feel a bit grossed out but not quite guilty.

Neti Pot, Allergies.

Tenets of belief

In Rewriting History, (or here) Charles Krauthammer excoriates Former CIA Chief George Tenet for opportunism.

George Tenet has a very mixed legacy. On the one hand, he presided over the two biggest intelligence failures of this era -- Sept. 11 and the WMD debacle in Iraq. On the other hand, his CIA did devise and carry out brilliantly an astonishingly bold plan to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Tenet might have just left it at that, gone home with his Presidential Medal of Freedom and let history judge him.

Instead, he's decided to do some judging of his own. In his just-released book, and while hawking it on television, Tenet presents himself as a pathetic victim and scapegoat of an administration that was hellbent on going to war, slam dunk or not.

The Krauthammer launches into the specifics of his charge with this line.

Tenet writes as if he assumes no one remembers anything.

This has become enough of a problem that Scrappleface joked Former CIA Boss Out of Loop on Parts of His New Book

William Kristol famously pointed out that Tenet couldn't have had a conversation with Richard Perle on Sept 12, 2001 because Perle was stranded in France. Tenet responded by saying that it wasn't necessarily the 12th but was shortly after 9/11. Of course, he wrote that he remembered Perle saying "yesterday," which means that his explanation doesn't hold much water.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has now learned of a second, more stunning error in Tenet's book (which is due to appear in bookstores tomorrow). According to Michiko Kakutani's review in Saturday's Times,

On the day after 9/11, he [Tenet] adds, he ran into Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and the head of the Defense Policy Board, coming out of the White House. He says Mr. Perle turned to him and said: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility."
Here's the problem: Richard Perle was in France on that day, unable to fly back after September 11. In fact Perle did not return to the United State until September 15.

Did Tenet perhaps merely get the date of this encounter wrong? Well, the quote Tenet ascribes to Perle hinges on the encounter taking place September 12: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday." And Perle in any case categorically denies to THE WEEKLY STANDARD ever having said any such thing to Tenet, while coming out of the White House or anywhere else.

My Right Word excerpts part of the book that had appeared in Ynet about Tenet's objection to freeing Jonathan Pollard.

In his book, Tenet, who was part of security negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, reveals, for the first time, the events of the Wye Plantation summit before the signing of the Hebron agreement, and the pressure placed on him to include Pollard in the deal.

The drama reached its peak on Thursday, October 22, 1998, the night before the agreement was signed at the White House. The senior American staff, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was present.

Berger told Tenet that then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put the Pollard matter on the table.

Upon hearing this, Tenet stormed out of the room, telling Berger that he was wrong and that Pollard was not on the agenda, calling the idea ridiculous and insisting that the Pollard issue had nothing to do with the talks taking place at Wye.

If Ynet is reporting what was in Tenet's book correctly, there's a fundamental error here. The October 1998 talks were not the Hebron Accords that were concluded in January 1997, but the Wye Accords.

Finally there's the matter of what the media focuses on. The media who think their job is to question everything President Bush does, apparently missed an important observation that Tenet made. Mediacrity writes

As reported in the Jerusalem Post today, Tenet "places most of the blame for the breakdown of the security plan bearing his name and other efforts to stop the violence after the outbreak of the second intifada on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat."

"Almost always, that last impenetrable barrier to peace had the same name: Arafat," he writes in his 576-page memoir, of which an entire chapter is devoted to the late PA chairman. . . . "Arafat always wanted one more thing, and one more thing was never enough because what he really wanted was for the peace process to be ever-active and eternally unresolved," according to Tenet.

Imagine for a moment that Tenet had said that Israel was the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Do you think that the media would have put aside some of their Bush bashing to have at Israel? (That's a rhetorical question.)

Jack Kelly wrote a nice piece questioning Tenet's lack of concern about Saddam's WMD program.

One of the reasons why the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, former CIA Director George Tenet told CBS' Scott Pelley, is because the CIA didn't think Saddam Hussein would have a nuclear weapon until 2007.

Er, George, it's 2007. To a born again dove like Mr. Tenet, the five years that has passed since President Bush decided Saddam must go was an eternity justifying inaction. But if President Bush hadn't done what he did when he did it, Saddam might today have the bomb, and however bad you may think the situation in Iraq is today, it would be very much worse. That's important to keep in mind as we relive these events through Mr. Tenet's blinkered hindsight.

In the end Tenet looks like he's burnishing his own image at the cost of the truth. He knows that today, if one wishes to become a wealthy author, all he needs to do is write a critical kiss and tell book about the administration. The publication of the book will be followed by plenty of free advertising; an above the fold front page story in the NYT, a full segment on 60 minutes and, if you're lucky, maybe even a glamorous photoshoot in Vanity Fair. (No matter the difficulties with his story, he will be instantly feted as a brave truthteller who bucked the ideological driven adminstration.) It's nice work, if you can get it.

George Tenet

When scrappleface imitates thomas friedman

Reid: Bush Must Halt Slaying of Terrorist Leaders - scrappleface.com (satire)

“It’s a known fact that every time a terror leader is killed, another rises to take his place,” said Sen. Reid. “Therefore, the only way to stop the spawning of new terror leaders is to halt the slaying of the current ones.”

The Reality Principle by Thomas Friedman (not satire) or here

Have you noticed how often Israel kills a Hamas activist and the victim is described by Israelis as "a senior Hamas official" or a "key operative"? This has led me to wonder: How many senior Hamas officials could there be?

We're not talking about IBM here. We're talking about a ragtag terrorist group. Israel should have killed off the entire Hamas leadership twice by now. Unless what is happening is something else, something I call Palestinian math: Israel kills one Hamas operative, and three others volunteer to take his place, in which case what Israel is doing is actually self-destructive.

When it suited him, Thomas Friedman would dismiss the capacity of Hamas to inflict damage on Israel. Hamas may not IBM but it does have a structure. As Elder of Ziyon recently pointed out

In the three years prior to Yassin's death, approximately 800 Israelis were killed in terror actions. In the three years since, that number has plummeted to about 110.

Yassin and Rantisi had organizational skills. Killing them reduced the capacity of Hamas to continue its terror war against Israel. They may have successors, but those successors are nowhere nearly as successful as they were in sowing terror.

Daniel Pipes noted that

Every inquiry into Palestinian suicide attacks, and especially Nasra Hassan's remarkable report in a recent issue of The New Yorker, finds that these do not just happen spontaneously but result from a large and sophisticated infrastructure.

This infrastructure exists for one reason: to make normal men want to die. Because Islamic law prohibits suicide, a suicidal person cannot be recruited to go on a mission. Rather, it is (perversely) necessary to dispatch only those who are not suicidal.

Islamic Jihad, which along with Hamas trains the suicide killers, explains: "We do not take depressed people. If there were a one-in-a-thousand chance that a person was suicidal, we would not allow him to martyr himself. In order to be a martyr bomber, you have to want to live." The same strange logic applies for Hamas, which rejects anyone "who commits suicide because he hates the world."

Convincing healthy individuals to blow themselves up is obviously not easy, but requires ideas and institutions. The process begins with the Palestinian Authority (PA) inculcating two things into its population, starting with the children: a hatred of Jews and a love of death. School curricula, camp activities, TV programming and religious indoctrination all portray Israelis in a Nazi-style way, as sub-human being worthy of killing; and then deprecate the instinct for self-preservation, telling impressionable young people that sacrificing their lives is the most noble of all goals.

Friedman, like his colleagues at the Times, pretends that he believes that Israel has a right to defend itself. Friedman though argues that it is counterproductive for Israel to defend itself therefrom it shouldn't.

The evidence shows, though, that while Israel may not be able to wipe every last Hamas terrorist, Israel can degrade the organizaiton's capabilities by killing its key personnel. It's not even arguable that killing Yassin and Rantisi did more to secure Israel than the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 or from Gaza in 2005. The first action dealt an operational blow to Israel's terrorist enemies; the latter ones strengthened them.

It would be nice to dismiss Friedman's 2003 comments about the "ragtag" Hamas as satire. But I can't. It's simply his implicit way of saying that Israel ought not defend itself.

Thomas Friedman, ,Israel, Anti-terror Tactics.

Roseanne Barr: "The Kabbalah is sephardic. The Talmud is Ashkenazi."

I wonder what color the sky is in the Roseanne World:

[...] Sephardic Jews have very different traditions and culture and thoughts than do Ashkenazi jews. Ashkenazi jews are consumed with germanic principles and philosophies. When Hitler wrote that the soul of the aryan was up for grabs between the german and the jew, I think he was very accurate. When he decided to remove that option, by removing jews from the german presence, in order to tip the balance, he was hoping to seal the ultimate fate of the european gestalt as being german and pagan, not christian.

It is the german (jew) who after many years in power positions in Israel, is acceding power now to the russian (jews), who more sino-aryan in their cultural gestalt. However, it is the sephardic jew who has lived in peace for thousands of years with his arab neighbors, and he who is under represented in the government of Israel.

The history of the jews is extremely interesting when viewed as a racial division between arab jews and european/russian jews. Not one sephardic jew was killed by Hitler, because he considered them to be "real jews" and the german jew as a bastard german.

This fact is not seen by american jews at all. In Israel though, it is whispered about by the sephardic. The Kabbalah is sephardic. The Talmud is Ashkenazi. Jews are at war with jews over old books. Jews are at war with jews and muslims over old books, and jews are at war with christians over old books. Jews are the people who are at war with books. We need to call ourselves not people of the book, but people who are at war with books. In Rome, jews tried to have the kaballah burned and totally destroyed, in their war on it on behalf of the talmud. It was the pope who saved the kabballah. The jews brought the kaballah out of egypt, where Moses was a scholar of Hermetic Wisdom, which is what the kabballah is based on. Moses liberated the hidden esoteric philosophy and gave it to the common man, much as jesus did later on. Bar Yochai wrote the zohar, which he channelled, while hiding in a cave in safed. It is actually his story that makes up a large part of the story we recognize as being about Jesus. Safed is where the sephardic mystics have always lived. Jesus was one of these. He was an arab. [...]

Her soul has obviously been touched by the great Michael Jackson. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin. Ayein sham.)

Crossposted at Judeopundit.

IRIB: "Nasrallah: We respect Israeli confession"

Terrorist leaders say the darndest things:

Secretary General of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance Movement, Hezbollah Sayed Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday that he respects the Zionist regime for issuing a report on last year's attack against Lebanon in which it confessed to its heavy defeat.

"It is worth every respect when an inquiry commission ... is appointed by Olmert ... and it condemns Olmert," Nasrallah said at a book fair in Beirut's southern suburb.

"I will not stand here to rejoice at the misfortunes of Olmert, Peretz and Dalutz," he said.

"One can only respect the butchers' enemy leaders ... when they work day and night for their prisoners," he added.

On Monday, the inquiry accused the three men of serious failure in handling the 34-day attack on Lebanon.

"They study their defeat in order to learn from it," unlike Arab states that "do not probe, do not ask, do not form inquiry commissions ... as if nothing has happened," Nasrallah said.

"It is a pity that we have to wait for an 'Israeli' commission to confirm our victory."

"The first important result of the commission is that it has settled -- officially and for good -- the issue of victory and defeat," Nasrallah said.

"The commission has admitted the defeat. The word 'defeat' has appeared more than 100 times" in its interim report.

The publishing of the damning report prompted the Zionist regime's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a longtime ally of Olmert, to call on Wednesday for the Premier to quit.

Zionist media reported that Peretz was preparing to step down.

Crossposted at Judeopundit.

Learning the correct lesson

In today's Washington Post, David Makovsky write in "The Next Mideast War?"

The first underlying issue is the failure to enforce U.N. resolutions. Israel resorted to military action last July largely because the United Nations and the international community did nothing to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 (passed in 2004) or Resolution 1680 (passed in 2006), which made clear that Hezbollah should disband and be disarmed. Israel was left to fend for itself after Hezbollah crossed a U.N.-demarcated line, killed three soldiers and kidnapped two soldiers it still has not released.

The end of the war led to the passage of Security Council Resolution 1701, which deployed thousands of U.N. peacekeepers to southern Lebanon. The presence of such forces there has constrained Hezbollah, even though the peacekeepers have not attempted to disarm Hezbollah fighters. However, a key provision of the resolution -- an international embargo to prevent weaponry from entering Lebanon -- has not been met. Just two weeks ago the Security Council voiced concern that this resolution has not been implemented fully. It has been widely reported that arms from Syria are being smuggled into Lebanon, and Israeli officials say that Hezbollah is hiding Syrian-manufactured 220mm rockets just beyond the jurisdiction of the peacekeepers but within range of northern Israel. There is open speculation in Israel and Lebanon about the possibility of the conflict resuming this summer.

For the editors of the NY Times who absolutely worship the idea of a dipoomatic agreement, this problem is, of course, ignored. But in the end the war was started last year not because Israel was too quick to respond. The criticism from the Winograd commission is that the war waged without adequate planning.

Unfortunately the editors of the Baltimore Sun show a case of myopia in their take on the Winodgrad commission's report in "Israel's rush to war"

If Mr. Olmert and Mr. Peretz, because of their inexperience, relied too much on the military, they also were ill-served by the top army commander, who, according to the Winograd committee, misrepresented his troops' preparedness and squelched opposing views. Mr. Olmert's march into Lebanon cost the lives of many more Lebanese civilians than Hezbollah gunmen and rocked Lebanon's fragile democracy, which has yet to recover.

The assertion that the war cost the lives of more Lebanese civilians than Hezbollah terrorists is questionable. Because members of Hezbollah don't wear uniforms it's hard to get an accurate casualty total, but Gen Yaakov Amidror wrote

Hizballah casualties were not less than 500 and may have reached 700 - a figure greater than all the casualties Hizballah has suffered during the last twenty years.

Still how is it that Israel's war against Hezbollah has weakened Lebanese democracy? If Hezbollah threatens Lebanon's government now, it's because Lebanon has failed to act against Hezbollah as required by the same UN Resolution that Israel fulfilled by withdrawing from Lebanon. Lebanon had an obligation since 2000 to prevent Hezbollah from sitting on the border with Israel and attacking. Lebanon failed in that obligation.

Additionally, Hezbollah is the proxy of Iran and Syria and somehow the responsibility those countries bear for Lebanon's problems escapes the scrutiny of the Sun's editors.

In the end of the editorial there's mention of a new "pardigm" in war and the limits of conventional war. But that's wrong. In no sense did Hezbollah win the war. Its capabilities were degraded, but it survived. In that sense it won. But that's a mightly thin reed to hang one's laurels on.

It's also possible that Hezbollah won the war in the media, in a sense, demonstrating that the pen is mightier than the sword. But Marvin Kalb ackowledged this and asked what responsibilities come with the media's new power?

The editors of the Sun failed to note that under the Geneva conventions, hiding among civilians doesn't render a combatant immune from attack. (And that the combatant is responsible for the resulting collateral damage.)

The editors of the Sun failed to acknowledge that Hezbollah continued to operate even though its raison d'etre, Israel's occupation of Lebanon was over. This would demonstrate that treaties and international law do not deter terrorists.

The editors of the Sun didn't note (as David Makovsky did) that the UNIFIL forces were not keeping to the terms of the resolution ending the war last summer.

But failing to inform its readers of these relevant facts the Sun has effectively covered for a terrorist organization. Perhaps it ought to consider a new paradigm where it will inform its reader of the facts instead of transmitting its own skewed prejudices.

They could learn a lot by reading David Makovsky.

Israel

Blogdigger tags: Israel, Hezbollah, Baltimore Sun, Geneva Conventions, UNIFIL, David Makovsky.

If ... you must 05/03/2007

If you haven't read Who runs the country at the Spine; you must.
I read the Baltimore Sun, what do I aspire to?

If you haven't read Cheney's more popular than Reid at Don Surber; you must.
And it goes without saying that he's more popular than Olmert.

If you haven't read Unregulating at OSHA at the Volokh Conspiracy; you must.
You mean the government can enforce or regulate less and the world won't end?

If you haven't read Psychotoddler's Workout DVD #1; you must.
What are your ten favorite movie scenes?

If you haven't read That's Got to be discrimination at the Ignoble Experiment; you must.
You mean that women's logic is different from men's logic? This is also discriminatory isn't it?

If you haven't seen Psychadelic Motion at Not Quite Perfect ; you must.

If you haven't read Meryl Yourish's Projection; you must.
And this is just what our "friends" think.

If you haven't read Dr. Helen's Are bears just like people?; you must.

If you haven't read Roger L Simon's Hollywood Greens everyone but itself; you must.

If you haven't read Likelihood of Success's Sullivan in Love; you must.
How the mighty (blogger) has fallen.

If you haven't read Signs of the impending Armageddon #1 at Fire Ant Gazette; you must.
I'm not sure that the end of the world is at hand. However if Donny were singing London Calling, Won't Get Fooled Again and It's the End of the world as we know it, then I'd get really worried.

If you haven't read Baseball Crank's One of these things is not like the others; you must.
In the late 60's and early 70's in Baltimore having a Rawlings glove was a status symbol because of Brooks.

If you haven't read Treppenwitz's the outing of my inner monoblogue; you must.
It's sort of like yelling at the TV.

If you must

Blogdigger tags: If ... you must, Arab World, Baseball, Bears, Media, Fractal Art.

At the March for Hizbullah

Wash away my trouble, wash away my pain
With the “rain” of Hizbullah
Wash away my sorrow, bomb away my shame
With the “rain” of Hizbullah

Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Everyone’s progressive, everyone is kind
We're on the march for Hizbullah
Everyone is speakin’ so much truth to power
On the march for Hizbullah

Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

How is your pipeline for the funds of Hizbullah?
How is your pipeline for the funds of Hizbullah?

I can tell my sister by the niqab on her face
She's on the march for Hizbullah
I can tell my brother by his Che Guevara shirt
He's on the march for Hizbullah

Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

(Tell me) How is your pipeline for the funds of Hizbullah?
(Tell me) How is your pipeline for the funds of Hizbullah?

Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ah, ooh ooh oo oo ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Crossposted at Judeopundit

Best post recommendations

Best post overall
Group A - Hamas Propoganda in the WaPo (Meryl Yourish)
Group B - Old Canards die hard (It's Almost Supernatural )
Israel Meme - (Ocean Guy)
Israel Meme - (Jack's Shack)
Israel Meme - (Perspectives of a Nomad)
Group C - Carter's Maps: Worse than Plagiarism (Jewish Current Issues)
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, M16's, and a New Respect for Veterans (West Bank Mama)
Group E - Speed Dating at Haveil Havalim (Yehuda)
Group F - Of wallets and Wonders (Elie's Expositions)

Best Post Series A - Mere Rhetoric, Seraphic Secret, It's Almost Supernatural and Israelly Cool!

Best Post Series B - Shiloh Musings - Arab Mansions 1, 2, 3

Best Post Series C - Though it's not listed separately, May I recommend Soccer Dad's Series on Walt and Mearsheimer staring with Poisoned Ivies especially The way back machine and Palestinian Israeli conflict.

Best News Post B - Sestak CAIRS (In Context)
- Congressman Conyers and Islam (Daled Amos)

Best Right Wing Post A - Cohen's Mistake (Soccer Dad)

That's it for now. I'm sure I missed some good ones. But this isn't so easy to navigate and it's already taken too much of my time. Worst of all I was unable to vote because the test script is not working right.

Thanks to those of you who supported Soccer Dad in the initial round of voting, alas I only made the cut in seeing that Haveil Havalim was first in its group in the special contribution category and Best Large Blog (behind the very worthy Mere Rhetoric).

UPDATE: I had some trouble navigating, but I had previously recommended SerAndEz's A Hitch and a Prayer as one of the best posts of the year. Vote for it in Best Jewish Religious Post Group B.

UPDATE II: Some other (self-)recommendations
The Ignoble Experiment
Life of Rubin
Something and half of Something - In particular check out Remembering Rachel
SerAndEz I II and III
Israelly Cool! - He's the guy who started it all!
Aidel Maidel
Baleboosteh

Technorati tags: JIB Awards.

Harsh and unhealthy editorial attitudes

In today's editorial the NY Times writes about A Harsh Healthy verdict in Israel

Initially, Israelis applauded Mr. Olmert’s decision to conduct sustained airstrikes in Lebanon. They saw it as a firm and justified response to provocative cross-border Hezbollah raids and rocket attacks. But when 34 days of destructive warfare ended with Hezbollah’s military capacities largely intact, its political standing enhanced and much of the world blaming Israel for the damage inflicted on Lebanese civilians, opinion turned sharply against Mr. Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the top Israeli military leadership.

There's so much garbage in that one paragraph (not to mention the rest of the editorial, it's hard to know where to start.

Below I've excerpted NYT editorials from this past summer. A few themes emerge about the mindset of the editors of the Times.
1) The NYT approved of Israel's response to a provocation.
2) The NYT only approved a limited response that didn't endanger civilians.
3) That a UN enforced ceasefire was the only acceptable ending to the conflict.
4) That Israel's response only helped Hezbollah (and Hamas.)

Actually while it may be true that the NYT approved of an Israeli response to the kidnappings of the 3 soldiers, the terms that they'd allow Israel are so constrained as to be meaningless.

Go back about 4 months before the war in Lebanon. It's March 2006 and Hamas has threatened to break Ahmed Saadat out of prison and threatened the American and British monitors who were supposed to be watching him. Saadat had been in this special jail - as part of an agreement to stop fighting in 2002 - for the murder of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi. Israel launched a raid to make sure that Saadat stayed behind bars.

So how did the NYT treat Israel's effort to ensure that the PA didn't renege? Well it was an election ploy according to an editorial As if that fire needed more fuel

The acting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, should not have allowed the desire to do some election- season muscle-flexing to push him into storming the prison in Jericho, a Palestinian-run city, with tanks, bulldozers and helicopters. Israeli army officials ordered inmates to strip to their underwear, which many did, marching out with clothing on their heads, an embarrassing and completely unnecessary provocation that trampled the dignity of any Palestinian watching that spectacle.

While the underwear stripping may have been a bit much, it probably wasn't an unreasonable precaution to make sure that the prisoners were unarmed. The point is that previous violence had stopped due to an agreement with the Palestinians. The Palestinians were now seeking to abrogate that agreement but they were one of three parties to blame for the incident instead of the primary culprits according to the wise people of the NYT.

If this Israeli raid drew a condemnation from the NYT, it's hard to imagine any meaningful response from Israel to the Hamas and Hezbollah attacks gaining approval of the Times.

In explaining why Israelis were frustrated with their government's prosecution of the war that despite the IDF's efforts Hezbollah's military capacity remained largely intace. Gen Yaakov Amidror provided a rebuttal to that notion.

Hizballah casualties were not less than 500 and may have reached 700 - a figure greater than all the casualties Hizballah has suffered during the last twenty years. It will take Hizballah at least two years to rebuild its capabilities and to recruit and train new people.
Israel also developed a system which made Hizballah's long-range rocket launchers good for one use only. Within less than five minutes of launch they were destroyed by Israel's air force, an unprecedented achievement in modern warfare.

This doesn't mean that Hezbollah was crippled, just that it's capacity was diminished. Of course that hasn't prevented it from re-arming, under the noses of and with the complicity of the very international force the NYT championed.

But the U.N. mandate determines that in the event that UNIFIL personnel come across caches of weapons or gunmen, they should call upon the Lebanese army to handle the situation. The European-enhanced UNIFIL not only shows little inclination to use force to implement UNSCR 1701 but also hampers Israeli monitoring of weapons trafficking across the Lebanese-Syrian border. The French government, for example, denounced Israeli flights over Lebanon to monitor continuing violations of the arms embargo by Hezbollah. On October 19, 2006, the French commander of UNIFIL even threatened to shoot at Israeli planes if they came too close to his troops.[61] A few days later, Berlin complained that Israeli planes had taken aim at one of their ships.[62]

Unfortunately, the U.N. favors ineffectiveness over conflict. Secretary-general Kofi Annan advocated "flexibility" in the deployment of UNIFIL along the Syria-Lebanon border,[63] in effect blessing non-enforcement. Damascus has continued to funnel arms to Hezbollah, something that both prominent Lebanese officials and the U.S. government acknowledge.[64]

By November 2006, according to Israeli military officials, Hezbollah had replenished nearly half of its prewar stockpiles of short-range missiles and small arms.[65] In December 2006, Mossad chief Meir Dagan told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Syria continued to arm Hezbollah and sought to overthrow the independent-leaning Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.[66]

In short as an end to the war this past summer, the NYT favored terms that it had to know that Hezbollah would never observe and the world would not enforce. If Hezbollah gains its full strength in short order it won't be the Israeli actions, but the international enabling that allowed it.

But if Israel's leaders didn't act properly in defending their citizens, it's also important to consider the environment in which the war was fought. There are institutions in the world that are supposed to operate impartially. Israel's wars this past summer were fought at a great handicap.

In a recent paper, Marvin Kalb described how the media often aided Hezbollah by acceding to Hezbollah demands for silence or failing to provide proper context for Israel's actions. He also tells how UNIFIL, an agency of the UN, actively aided Hezbollah during the war. Israel's performance ought to be judged in part in that context. But that is outside the scope of the editorial. The NYT could afford a "harsh and healthy" look at the ways it aided (or provided cover for) Hamas and Hezbollah in the propaganda war.

During the war the Times sounded as if Hamas and Hezbollah were students caught shooting spitballs in class.

Kidnapping Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips for the release of Arab prisoners is horrible behavior for groups that claim international recognition and political legitimacy, as Hamas and Hezbollah do.

Horrible behavior? Claim international recognition? The "horrible behavior" were clear violations of international law; terrorism by definition and all the outrage the NYT can must is to term them "horrible behavior." The NYT can't even bring itself to call Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations instead of using a benign description either would be thrilled with.

And while the Times is quite happy to fault the government for its ineptitude it missed one point of the Commission's report.

The ability of Hezbollah to sit ‘on the border’, its ability to dictate the moment of escalation, and the growth of its military abilities and missile arsenal increased significantly as a result of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in May 2000 (which was not followed, as had been hoped, by The Lebanese Army deploying on the border with Israel.

The withdrawal from Lebanon didn't exactly work out as planned. Israel took an action that should have deprived Hezbollah of any legitimacy to operate and yet ...

In October 2000, Hezbollah attacked, kidnapped and killed three Israeli soldiers accross the internationally approved border. What did the NYT have to say about this outrage?

That's right, nothing. There was no outraged editorial condemning Hezbollah and arguing that if Israeli concessions are met with more terror how can Israel be expected to concede anything in the future? Nor were there subsequent outraged editorials condemning the unchecked growing capacity of Hezbollah.

The NYT showed that from 2000 - 2006 it didn't much care how the capacity of Israel's enemies grew even without provocation. It didn't care about the growing threats to Israel. So with that in mind consider the end of today's editorial.

One major lesson of the Lebanon experience is that Israel cannot defeat its most dangerous enemies by brute force alone. Its security and survival require a more active diplomacy toward the Palestinians and Syria — and a willingness to take risks. More than ever, Israel needs a government and a leader strong enough to steer it wisely through the uncertain hazards of war and bold enough to test the equally uncertain possibilities for peace.

Actually the lesson is that if left unchecked Israel's enemies will grow, threaten and, when ready, attack. Israel has taken risks (withdrawing from Lebanon and Gaza) and seen no tangible benefits for those risks. For the NYT, for Israel to "steer ... wisely" means absorbing terror without retaliating and then submitting to international supervision that allows its enemies a free hand but constrains Israel. Sorry, the editors of the NYT exist in a different reality from the rest of us. They live in a reality where the UN is honest and effective. Where the Arab world accepts Israel's right to exist. And where terrorists observe the terms of the agreements they make.

I'm not sure that such a world exists outside of an asylum.

(All these editorial came from the NYT though I found some of them at the IHT website. I used the NYT titles, even when the IHT title differed.)

Israel's Two Front Battle NYT July 13, 2006

Kidnapping Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips for the release of Arab prisoners is horrible behavior for groups that claim international recognition and political legitimacy, as Hamas and Hezbollah do. The same applies to lobbing rockets over Israel's borders in the hope that they might kill unsuspecting civilians. In response to such unacceptable provocations, Israeli forces are now engaged in major military operations in Gaza, to the south, and in Lebanon, to the north.

But even when acting justifiably in the face of aggression, Israel best serves its long-term security interests by acting wisely and proportionately. Its guiding principle must always be to focus military actions as narrowly as possible on those individuals, organizations and governments directly complicit in the attacks, while sparing the civilian populations that surround them.

Playing Hamas's Game NYT July 15, 2006

The military chieftains of Hamas and Hezbollah fully understand that their primitively armed guerrillas and limited-range unguided missiles are no match for Israel’s world-class military forces. When they engage in provocative operations, like the recent kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and shelling of Israeli towns, they do not expect to win any kind of traditional military victory.

What they more realistically hope for is that the inevitably fierce and devastating Israeli military response will hand them an opportunity to radicalize Arab politics and thereby pressure moderate Arab leaders to distance themselves from Israel and embrace the guerrilla cause. That is a tactic that secular Palestinian guerrilla groups like Fatah pioneered decades ago, and that Islamist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah now use for similar ends.

This perverse dynamic is again coming into play after Israel’s wide-ranging forays into Gaza and Lebanon. Most Arabs are not blaming Hamas and Hezbollah for provoking these Israeli raids. They are blaming Israel for carrying them out.

Diplomacy's turn in Lebanon NYT July 18, 2006

Washington is right to press for the release of the Israeli soldiers held hostage. But this should not be a precondition for the earliest possible cease-fire. Many lives and the stability of the wider region depend on achieving a quick halt to the fighting.

No more foot dragging IHT July 25, 2006

What the people of Lebanon and Israel urgently need is a cease-fire followed by the swift deployment of a well-armed force with a mandate to aggressively keep the peace. That must be accompanied by an international guarantee that Hezbollah will be forced to halt its attacks on Israel permanently and disband its militia so Lebanon can regain control of its borders and its sovereignty.

The White House has resisted calls for a cease-fire, arguing that a return to the situation that existed before the latest fighting would not bring lasting peace. While that is true, we fear that what the administration has been doing is buying Israel more time to pound Hezbollah and Lebanon. Since July 12, hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed and nearly a score of Israelis. For all that dying, there is little sign that Hezbollah -- which fired 100 missiles into Israel on Sunday -- has been so deeply wounded that it can't rebuild quickly. Ms. Rice needs to make clear to Israel that more civilian deaths in Lebanon won't make Israelis safer.

A right way to help Israel IHT July 30, 2006

There is a difference between justified and smart. Israel's airstrikes against Hezbollah targets are legitimate so long as Hezbollah wages war against Israel and operates outside the control of the Lebanese government. But the air campaign is now doing Israel more harm than good.

A better answer to the Hezbollah problem would be an immediate cease-fire, paving the way for an international force to patrol Lebanon's southern border. That is what Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, was pushing for in Washington yesterday, and there were signs that President Bush may be finally coming around.

Ceasefire diplomacy in Lebanon August 1, 2006

The 48-hour limited suspension of air raids that Washington pressed Israel into declaring was a modest step in the right direction, even though, as it became clear Monday, it has far too many exceptions. Too bad that even this partial and temporary restraint came only after dozens of Lebanese civilians, many of them children, were killed by an Israeli air raid on the town of Qana. It took the worldwide uproar over the Qana casualties to finally jolt the Bush administration into asking for something it should have sought many days earlier. Washington's instant turnabout and Israel's instant response has left the damaging impression that had America expressed similar concerns sooner, these and many other innocent Lebanese lives might have been saved.

The Price of not talking to Syria's Assad August 8, 2006

When asked yesterday why the United States isn't talking with Syria about the Lebanon crisis, President Bush replied, "Syria knows what we think." That may be. But Syria is also unlikely to even consider doing what Mr. Bush wants -- rein in Hezbollah and help halt the killing in Lebanon and Israel -- unless its leaders know what potential rewards as well as punishments await them. And for that, the United States needs to offer a serious high-level discussion with Syria, and it needs to do it now.

One month later in Lebanon IHT August 13, 2006

It took unconscionably long -- almost a month -- for the United Nations Security Council to produce a formula to end the fighting in Lebanon. While the diplomats dithered, hundreds of Lebanese and Israelis died, one-third of Lebanon's population was uprooted, and new layers of anger and fear were sown on both sides of the border.

The resolution that the Council finally passed last night will have to be put into effect as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and must lead to a lasting political solution that can avoid future conflicts. That will require more than just an immediate halt to hostilities by both sides and an early withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon. It will also require the dispatch of an international military force with sufficient authority and firepower to guarantee that there can be no repeat of the Hezbollah provocations that set off this destructive conflict.

Israel's leaders under fire August 20, 2006

Israelis believe, as we do, that Mr. Olmert was right to respond firmly to Hezbollah's cross-border provocations. Given the implacable hatred of its enemies, Israel cannot afford to show weakness. But it is even more important that whatever it does is done successfully. The military campaign failed to achieve its stated objectives despite its heavy toll in Lebanese and Israeli lives. Now Israelis have a right to ask whether Mr. Olmert rashly raised the ante by demanding the military destruction of Hezbollah without having any clear and realistic strategy for achieving such an ambitious aim.

UPDATE: Deja Vu references this and other cases of media bias here. Thanks to Daled Amos for the mention.

New York Times, Winograd Commission, Israel.

IRNA: "Terrorism has been failed in the world since the global nations have been awakened"

The "First International Congress on the Culture of Resistance" is underway. Iran is evidently following up its successful Holocaust Conference with a conference specifically devoted to promoting "Resistance," i.e. terrorism.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that the Zionist regime is manifestation of state terrorism, genocide and crimes.

Addressing the First International Congress on the Culture of Resistance, inaugurated in Tehran this morning, he regretted that despite the systematic crimes being perpetrated by the occupying regime of Qods in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories under various pretexts, it enjoys full support from certain bullying powers.

"In the meantime, the same powers term the legitimate defense of the Palestinians and legal resistance of the Lebanese nation to Israeli aggressions as terrorist operations," the president said adding that they talk in a way that the Zionist regime is a peace-seeking regime and the Palestinians are terrorists.

As to critical situation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, President Ahmadinejad said, "Several hundred people fall victims of terrorism in these countries each day".

The Islamic Republic of Iran also fell victim to terrorism, he said paying tribute to Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari, who was assassinated in 1979 in waves of anti-government terrorist operations carried out by Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) after victory of the Islamic Revolution.

Martyr Motahhari, a cleric, was one of the distinguished cultural figures of Iran, who was a teacher both at the seminary and the university.

"Although terrorism has been wiped out from the Iranian scene by great efforts of the nation, but, the terrorist MKO always enjoyed support from the big powers introducing themselves the so-called human rights advocates for the past two decades", the president noted.

Elsewhere in his speech, he said that organized terrorism was developed in Iraq by the occupying forces in order to pave the way for their continued occupation.

Terrorism has been failed in the world since the global nations have been awakened, the president reiterated adding that if justice is administered throughout the globe no reason will be left for violence and terrorism.

The First International Congress on the Culture of Resistance opened with a speech by Director General of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thoughts, Ayatollah Mohammad-Ali Taskhiri this morning.

Representatives from 46 world countries have attended the two-day congress.

Including any big "resistance" leaders? Let's have some names!

Crossposted at Judeopundit.

A new new europe?

Last week Stephanie Levy wrote that whoever wins the presidency in France is likely to change the French foreign policy in the Middle East.

Both Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal, the candidates of the center-right and Socialists, respectively, have promised major shifts in France's stance on the Iranian, Lebanese, and Israeli-Palestinian issues if they win. They are reacting against the regime of outgoing President Jacques Chirac, who for 12 years--following in the footsteps of predecessors back to Charles de Gaulle--has allied with such Arab dictators as Yasir Arafat and Saddam Hussein. By making France the Arabs' favorite Western state, Chirac and other Gaullists have tried to create an alignment to counter the great--and in France, much-despised--primacy of the United States.

Yet many say this strategy has brought little benefit to France, either directly or in terms of making it a credible world power. There are many contradictions. For example, French policy seeks to protect Lebanon while refusing to regard Hizballah as a terrorist organization. Moreover, last January, Chirac stated that Iran's possession of nuclear bombs would "not be so dangerous," reversing previous official positions.

(I previously blogged about this item here.)

Now Anne Applebaum writes that if Sarkozy is elected there might be some even more basic changes in France.

To anyone steeped in the thousand-year history of Anglo-French enmity -- that bitter struggle over power, influence and the edibility of snails -- the highlight of France's presidential election campaign was surely the speech that Nicolas Sarkozy, the center-right candidate (and now the very precarious front-runner) gave this year in London. Standing in the heart of London's financial district, Sarkozy heaped compliments upon his country's historic enemy. The British capital was, he said, a "town that seems more and more prosperous and dynamic every time I come here." More important, it had become "one of the great French cities." He understood, furthermore, that hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen had moved to Britain because "they are risk-takers, and risk is a bad word" in France. With distinctly un-English passion (some things never change) he pleaded with them:

"Come home, because together we will make France a great country where everything will be possible, where fathers won't fear for the future of their children, and where everyone will be able to make their plans come true, and be responsible for their own destiny."

For now, though, it appears that Sarkozy's plea is falling on deaf ears.

Unfortunately, it seems that even a Sarkozy victory in the final round of voting on Sunday won't persuade all of the 2 million-plus French exiles to go home. Asked by a French polling company, TNS Sofres, "Are you satisfied with your life abroad?" 93 percent of French ?migr?s surveyed recently said "yes." Asked, "When do you expect to return to France?" 25 percent answered "never."

Still, Applebaum argues, it might be possible yet to get the expatriates back even in this Europe of open borders.

The political and economic consequences of this new mobility could be quite profound. Countries such as Poland and France may soon be forced to scrap those regulations and taxes that hamper employment, however much the French unions and the Polish bureaucracy want to keep them: If they don't, their young people won't come home. Leaders in those countries may also have to alter their rhetoric. Sarkozy's Socialist opponent, Ségolène Royal, now uses words such as "entrepreneurship" at least some of the time, too.

Applebaum writes that perhaps this is the beginning of a trend toward a new European.

I don't know a lot about Europe, but this analysis raises a couple of ironies and begs a question or two.

Irony 1) According to Applebaum the mobility provided by the EU may have the effect of creating a new Europe, which has more freedom and less regulation. Surely that wasn't the goal of the founders of the EU.

Irony 2) If this trend is real and the political in the U.S. continue in ten to fifteen years we might have a strong contingent of the politial class in Europe nostalgic for Ronald Reagan and in America its counterpart would be hankering for Jacque Chirac.

Question 1) Is the source for this apparent change a general realization that the old way aren't working? Or is it a reaction specifically to the growing and restive Muslim population?

Question 2) Mark Steyn has written about how Europe is in a suicidal decline. The combination of a failure to replace its population internally and an immigrant population that refuses to assimilate has made Eurabia a likely consequence. Is this a sign that Europe has regained its will? Is it too late?

Europe, Anne Applebaum

Demcorats, jews and israel

In an effort to keep their huge share of the Jewish vote, Democrats continue to claim that they are better for Israel, yet their actions leave me wondering.

The NJDC (National Jewish Democratic Council) has been very vocal in its blog defending Speaker Pelosi's trip (with a number of other both Democratic and Republican politicians) to Syria.

Two weeks ago it quoted an editorial from the Baltimore Jewish Times defending Pelosi's trip

Diplomacy is not a weakness: That’s a lesson the Bush administration, mired in Iraq and increasingly isolated in the world, doesn’t seem to learn.

House Speak Nancy Pelosi’s recent Middle East mission cast an uncomfortable spotlight on that reality. Ms. Pelosi, a California Democrat born in Baltimore, was skewered by the administration for violating its policy of keeping the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the diplomatic deep freeze.

Much of that criticism was pure politics, not policy; the administration didn’t seem to care much about the Republican delegations that also went to Damascus over Congress’s spring break.

Except those Republicans who went to Damascus weren't photographed on the front page with the dictator of that country. They weren't in any leadership position. They were wrong, but they were not as high profile as Speaker Pelosi.

That is why Speaker Pelosi came in for the special criticism.

On Friday the Washington Post weighed in with its criticism of the Speaker, No Results in Damascus which concludes

The danger of offering "friendship" and "hope" to a ruler such as Mr. Assad is that it will be interpreted as acquiescence by the United States to the policies of dictatorship. Ms. Pelosi's courting of Mr. Assad didn't cause Mr. al-Bunni's prison sentence this week -- but it certainly did not discourage it.

(The same lesson about encouraging a dictator applied to Arafat too. But logic, when it comes to the Palestinians, is, shall we say, uncertain.)

The NJDC didn't address the Post's criticism, which can hardly be characterized as partisan. Pelosi's make nice approach to Syria didn't just harm Syrian dissidents, it strengthened Assad politically. That's bad for the United States and Israel too.

Also Democrats are proving that Ehud Olmert isn't just unpopular in Israel, but here too. Shmuel Rosner wrote

The Waxman-Ackerman statement doesn't leave any room for guessing game. They were troubled by the continuous speculation and discussion of the Israel-Democratic feud, as was lastly presented by my friend Natan Guttman in The Forward. "Democrats are still angry about what they see as Olmert's desperate attempts to align himself with President Bush even if it means wading into American political controversies... This [different] source said, "even as our leadership is working to calm things down, the rank and file Democrats are getting tired of these Israeli maneuvers." If Israel doesn't "get its act together" and doesn't reciprocate these pacifying moves - "if Olmert keeps doing such irresponsible things" - it will get more "difficult for Democrats who do care about Israel" to defend their position. It almost sounded like a threat.

Mere Rhetoric objects

They proudly grant legitimacy to genocidal lunatics who openly declare their intention to wipe out the Jewish state. They aggressively espouse policies that would objectively empower the most radical anti-Semites on the planet. They implicitly repeat vicious anti-Semitic libels that have costs tens of thousands of Jews their lives. And then they have the nerve to threaten the sitting Prime Minister of a sovereign ally because he points out that maybe he might prefer people who don't behave so atrociously.

There's an additional problem too. PM Olmert is not my idea of an ideal leader, but he has excellent political skills. (How could he survive otherwise.) So why in the world would he risk the wrath of the ascendant Democratic party to support a weak Republican President? It must be that his support for the war in Iraq is based on his own assessment the war from Israel's perspective.

The Democrats forget that the war was initially very popular in pro-Israel circles. Saddam, among other things, was funding suicide bombers. (A number Israeli leaders, though, apparently thought that Iran was the bigger threat than Iraq in 2003.) But as the war has become unpopular in this country, Democrats, even those who initially supported the war, started changing their tune and giving the reason that the war was bad for Israel too.

So when Olmert says that he supports the war he's undermining this fig leaf. The Democratic anger seems to be angry at Olmert for looking for his country's best interests instead of their political best interests.

Whether it is in their leader's actions in Syria or their vocal criticism of Israel's Prime Minister, Democrats, choosing between politics and Israel are choosing politics.

Democrats, Israel

Obama's gaffe?

Susan Estrich faults Sen Obama for his inexperience.

Sure, he said that Israel is an important ally, but his clarification of his "poor Palestinians" comment only left him further in the hole. His point, he emphasized, was that no one had suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failures in Palestinian leadership.

That’s not exactly how I see it, or how many Jewish Americans see it. I don’t think suffering is a contest in which special recognition goes to those who have paid the highest price. The right answer is that there has been plenty of suffering on both sides.

The Palestinians may be suffering more in the sense that their standard of living is lower, but whose fault is that? Talk to any Israeli family who has lost a friend or family member to Palestinian terror –- and that means any family in Israel –- and, believe me, they won't cede the prize for the most suffering to the Palestinians.

And they will point out, rightly, I think, that it is the Palestinians and not the Jews who have chosen these terrible leaders and remained loyal to them. Doesn't that count for something?

She argues that by mishandling the answer Sen Obama may hurt himself in the future.

Mere Rhetoric, though, sees his answer as indicative of a bigger problem.

The debate about whether the US should keep supporting Israel turns on whether it's worth the trouble of pissing off Islamists in a post-Cold War, post spheres-of-influence age. While Israel may have been worth the trouble in the past, the emerging realist-Democratic alignment is that times have changed. The Althouse transcript is certainly more consistent with the general tone that Obama's been striking. It'd be nice to get this nailed down so we can know which side Obama is on - or, at the very least, which side he's paying lip service to.

Barack Obama