Soccer Dad

Confronting the terrorists and aligning wtih them

via memeorandum

In the afterglow of the confidence building Annapolis conference where President Bush said

I have known the President for quite a while. I am convinced that he is dedicated to the formation of a Palestinian democracy that will live in peace with their neighbor, Israel. And I believe the Prime Minister of Israel is dedicated to the same vision. And therefore, as I told the President, the United States of America will work as hard as we possibly can to help you achieve the vision, Mr. President.

we learn that the PA, under President Abbas's leadership intends to confront terrorists - and work alongside them. Khaled Abu Toameh has this exclusive in the Jerusalem Post.

Fatah will fight alongside Hamas if and when the IDF launches a military operation in the Gaza Strip, a senior Fatah official in Gaza City said Thursday.

"Fatah won't remain idle in the face of an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip," the official said. "We will definitely fight together with Hamas against the Israeli army. It's our duty to defend our people against the occupiers."

The Fatah official said his faction would place political differences aside and form a joint front against Israel if the IDF enters the Gaza Strip. "The homeland is more important than all our differences," he said.

A blog for All observes

Israel will continue to be attacked by its enemies - and the Palestinian terrorist groups Fatah and Hamas are likely to rejoin forces at some point in the future, which means that all the aid that was going to Fatah will end up in Hamas' hands. Gaza is currently in Hamas' hand, and if the terrorist attacks from Gaza do not cease and Israel takes military action against Gaza, Fatah might strike at Israel in response.

Hamas has never waivered from its position on demanding Israel's destruction. Fatah hasn't either - although they're more coy in their calls. They'd rather kill Israel through thousands of paper cuts.

Diplomacy under these circumstances is a fool's errand for Israel.

Israeli diplomats couldn't even enter through the same entrances as Arab diplomats at Annapolis and Arab diplomats couldn't be seen shaking hands with their Israeli counterparts either.

That speaks volumes to the hatred and animosity towards Israel in the Middle East.

Israel Matzav provides a bit more background

You will recall that the reason why Olmert met with Abu Mazen in Annapolis is because Abu Mazen is a 'moderate' who wants 'peace' (despite the fact that his 'moderate' Fatah organization sponsors an armed wing called the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades that has carried out most of the terror attacks in Israel in the last seven years). In other words, Abu Mazen is 'good' as opposed to the nasty Hamas terrorists in Gaza who are his enemy and who are 'bad.' You will also recall that three and a half weeks ago, I reported that the US had given Israel clearance to send the IDF into Gaza to clean out the vipers and stop the firing on Sderot and its environs. At the time, Israel postponed the 'operation' - earning Sderot a few hundred more rockets and mortars and earning Olmert a few brownie points with his prosecutors - so as not to interfere with the Annapolis gang rape. But now that Annapolis is over and was just so successful (/sarc), it's time to clean up Gaza, restore it to the rule of the good terrorist Abu Mazen and bring quiet to Sderot and the western Negev, and then we can make peace and prosperity and live happily ever after. Right?

Well, maybe. But if we do send the IDF into Gaza, they won't just be facing the bad terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You see, if the IDF invades Gaza, that will be enough for the good terrorists of Fatah and the bad terrorists of Hamas to put their differences aside and fight together against the real enemy: Israel.

And Meryl emphasizes

Please note that the quote is not from a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the “armed wing” of Fatah. That quote is from Fatah, the organization that is now headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who claims he wants peace with Israel.

They don’t want peace. They want Israel.

It's astounding that time after time the same thing happens and no one's the wiser.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, middle east.

Council speak 11/30/2007

The council has spoken.

The winning council entry this week was Right Wing Nuthouse's critical critique Buchanan's New Book: “Prepare Ye for the End” in it he punctures many of the themes Buchanan adresses with ease.

Runner up, was the most original post this week, The Glittering Eye's The Visual Imagery Society, which speculates if we're moving from words to icons and what that means in terms of our interactions.

The winner among non-council post was Wolf Howling's Have Our Copperheads Found Their McClellan in Retired LTG General Sanchez? drawing historical parallels between the naysayers now and the naysayers a century and a half ago. Given that Wolf Howling's a newcomer to blogging, that's a pretty impressive feat, keep up the great work!

Making it even more impressive is that he outpolled Michelle Malkin whose Letter from the Front: Turkey Day in Tikrit about our dedicated soldiers.

Given that the conference in Annapolis dominated news this week, I'd like to give special mention to Council member Rhymes with Right's Arabs coming to Annapolis and Council alum, Eternity Road's Outrage in Annapolis.

Again there's an opening on the Watcher's Council, if you'd like to apply for the position follow the instructions here.

If you're a blogger and wish to participate follow the instructions here.

watcher's council.

Juggling carnivals

Incoming Carnivals

Thanks to Dr. Sanity for including me this past week in the most recent Carnival of the Insanities. Lots of great stuff from this crazy world of ours.

Upcoming Carnivals

Carnival of Maryland is scheduled to go up this Sunday at the home of its keeper, Pillage Idiot. So all of you Maryland Bloggers get your entries in as soon as possible.

Sideshow

Check out the entertaining and challenging TV Trivia Thursday #4 at the home of its creator Elie's Expositions. blog carnivals.

What Is Olmert's Real Position On The Temple Mount--And To Whom Did He Say It

So--did he or didn't he?

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statements on Wednesday that Israel's sovereignty over the Temple Mount is not up for negotiation are "false," according to a chief Palestinian negotiator, who told WND the Israeli leader already agreed to forfeit Judaism's holiest site to a coalition of Arab countries.

... "We had intense debates on many topics, which remain open and unsettled, but the Harem Al-Sharif (Temple Mount) is not a sticking point. The Israelis didn't argue with us. We were pleasantly surprised Olmert didn't debate about giving the lower section of the Mount either, which was a sticking point in the past."

According to the chief Palestinian negotiator, Olmert agreed to evacuate the Mount but not to turn it over to the Palestinians alone. The negotiator said both sides agreed the Temple Mount would be given to joint Egypt, Jordan and Palestinian Authority control.

Of course, there is no reason to believe the Palestinian negotiation team automatically, but it is odd for them to come out and say: "I think he's not yet ready to tell the Israeli public and is waiting for the right time and he fears his coalition with religious extremists will fall apart if he announces it now."--If Olmert really was ready to make the concession, purposely leaking this and showing Olmert's hand would be a good way to kill the deal.

One Jerusalem conducted a poll, which found--among other things:

o 75% of Israelies say that Jerusalem should not be the the capitol of the Palestinians.
o 65% do not think Jerusalem can be a safe city, if shared with the Palestinians.
o 73% believe there should be a referendum before any concessions are made in regard to Jerusalem.

On the other hand, if Olmert really did make that promise and is not revealing the whole truth--who would be surprised.

Crossposted on Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Annapolis and Olmert.

And all that it entrails

With an absurdly outrageous story about a stuffed animal making news these days, perhaps we ought to take a look at an absurd stuffed animal story for some relief.

There's a new line of plush toys coming out called Road Kill Toys. (The company's website is under construction.) First in the series is Twitch.

The first to be launched is Twitch the Raccoon which comes complete with its own body bag to keep the maggots out, reports Metro.

Twitch also has an identity tag revealing it was "run over over by a milk float last Thursday, near the Hangar Lane Giratory system in London".

A zip on each side of the toy allows the owner to remove Twitch's innards and stuff them back in again. A tyre print runs across its back.

I suppose my (nearly) 9 year old would enjoy these, he's a boy.

There are more mashed mammals on the way

Coming soon are other characters including Grind the rabbit, Splodge the hedgehog and Pop the weasel.

And if that didn't spoil your appetite, you might want to try the Road Kill Cafe.

road kill.

Hard cell

In 2006 one of the most potent (cynical) campaign weapons in the hands of Democrats was the issue of embryonic stem cell research. Most notably, actor Michael J. Fox entered the fray claiming that such research was his best hope.

The symptoms of Parkinson's disease that all but ended Michael J. Fox's acting career are making him a powerfully vulnerable campaign pitchman for five Democrats who support stem cell research.

In 30-second TV ads for Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, who is running for the Senate in Maryland, Senate candidate Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, Fox shakes and rocks as he directly addresses the camera, making no effort to hide the effects of his disease.

In the McCaskill ad, which has been viewed by more than 1 million people on YouTube.com, Fox tells voters, "What you do in Missouri matters to millions of Americans. Americans like me."

All three candidate won running, in part, on the idea that they were enlightened enough - unlike their opponents - to approve government funding for embryonic stem cell research that was so promising.

But as Charles Krauthammer noted two years earlier when Vice Presidential candidate tried to make it an issue, the issue was misrepresented.

George Bush is the first president to approve federal funding for stem cell research. There are 22 lines of stem cells now available, up from one just two years ago. As Leon Kass, head of the President's Council on Bioethics, has written, there are 3,500 shipments of stem cells waiting for anybody who wants them.

Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on stem cell research. This is false. There is no ban. You want to study stem cells? You get them from the companies that have the cells and apply to the National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.

As Krauthammer wrote earlier this year there was no ban, there was only a limit. One that he approved of with some reservations.

When President Bush announced in August 2001 his restrictive funding decision for federal embryonic stem cell research, he was widely attacked for an unwarranted intrusion of religion into scientific research. His solicitousness for a 200-cell organism -- the early embryo that Bush declared should not be destroyed to produce a harvest of stem cells -- was roundly denounced as reactionary and anti-scientific. And cruel to boot. It was preventing a cure for thousands of people with hopeless and terrible diseases, from diabetes to spinal cord injury.

At the end of his article Krauthammer observed

The House voted yesterday to erase Bush's line. But future generations may nonetheless thank Bush for standing athwart history, if only for a few years. It gave technology enough time to catch up and rescue us from the moral dilemmas of embryonic destruction. It has just been demonstrated that stem cells with enormous potential can be harvested from amniotic fluid.

This is a revolutionary finding. Amniotic fluid surrounds the baby in the womb during pregnancy. It is routinely drawn out by needle in amniocentesis. The procedure carries little risk and is done for legitimate medical purposes that have nothing to do with stem cells. If it nonetheless yields a harvest of stem cells, we have just stumbled upon an endless supply.

And not just endless, but uncontroversial. No embryos are destroyed. The cells are just floating there, as if waiting for science to discover them.

Even better, amniotic fluid might prove to yield an ideal stem cell -- not as primitive as embryonic stem cells and therefore less likely to grow uncontrollably into tumors, but also not as developed as adult stem cells and therefore with more "pluripotential" in the kinds of tissues it can produce.

Now there's been another advance in stem cell research, that apparently obviates the need for using embryonic stem cells. In "Stem Cell Vindication" (or here) he praises the President for standing firm.

Bush got it right. Not because he necessarily drew the line in the right place. I have long argued that a better line might have been drawn -- between using doomed and discarded fertility-clinic embryos created originally for reproduction (permitted) and using embryos created solely to be disassembled for their parts, as in research cloning (prohibited). But what Bush got right was to insist, in the face of enormous popular and scientific opposition, on drawing a line at all, on requiring that scientific imperative be balanced by moral considerations.

This leads Krauthammer to praise the President additionally

Because the moral disquiet that James Thomson always felt -- and that George Bush forced the country to confront -- helped lead him and others to find some ethically neutral way to produce stem cells. Providence then saw to it that the technique be so elegant and beautiful that scientific reasons alone will now incline even the most willful researchers to leave the human embryo alone.

It wasn't just that the President's line slowed progress, but it also spurred progress that wasn't morally objectionable.

It's interesting that as President Bush's term in office is winding down that he's starting to see some successes pay off. In his previous two columns, Krauthammer observed that the United States was turning things around in Iraq and in relations with the rest of the world.

At a time when the Republicans are getting knocked around politically it will be interesting to see if the president can sustain his policy successes and help his party translate them into some surprising victories next year.

stem cells.

Multiple choice quiz - middle east oppression edition

Which one of these leaders said the following?

A) King Abdullah said, "The Kingdom must open up its holy cities to everyone and allow all visitors to worship as they please or Saudi Arabia is finished."

B) President Bashar Assad said, "Syria must stop bullying its neighbor and killing its politicians. The occupation of Lebanon must end or Syria is finished."

C) Ismail Haniyeh said, "Hamas must start buildling an economy in Gaza, allowing a free press and stop persecuting Christian and stop firing rockets into Israel, or Hamas is finsihed."

D) President Mahmoud Abbas said, "The Palestinian Authority must accept the verdict of history, fight terrorists and teach its citizen to live peaceably with Israel or Palestine is finished."

E) President Hosni Mubarak said, "Egypt must open up its government to opposition and encourage its citizens to honor the 30 year old treaty with Israel, or Egypt is finished."

F) PM Olmert said, "Israel must stop considering it acceptable to force people from their homes just because they're Jewish, or Israel is finished.

G) None of the above.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel, middle east.

Auth's almost right

He just needs to change the word "occupation" to "capitulation."

israel.

Vatican Cardinal: Palestinian Refugees Have The Right Of Return

The Christian clergy seems to have developed quite a soft spot for Muslims this year.

We've read in the news this year about the Catholic priest who converted to Islam. We also heard from the Roman Catholic bishop who thinks we should all refer to G_d as Allah. Now we have a Vatican cardinal who is venturing his opinion on diplomacy in the Middle East.

A senior Vatican cardinal said on Wednesday that all Palestinian refugees had a right to return to their homeland.

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican department that formulates refugee policy, made the comment as U.S. President George W. Bush was set to revive long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at a White House summit.

"Palestinian refugees, like all other refugees, have a right to right to return to their homeland," Martino said in response to a question about the 44-nation conference in Annapolis on Tuesday.

Martino did not make clear whether he meant refugees had a right to return to homes in what is now Israel or to an eventual Palestinian state.

Probably an oversight on his part.

But I think Cardinal Martino onto something here when he says that all refugees should be given this option. So let's not stop with the Palestinian Arabs. There are other injustices to refugees to resolve as well. Some stand out in particular. Bernard Lewis mentions a few examples, since what happened to the Palestinian Arabs is not unique:

What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways -- Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement -- Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.

By all means, lets allow all of these people the option to return to their original homeland--it is after all their right. The difference of course is that contrary to Cardinal Martino's implication, not all refugees are the same. In fact, Lewis points out that Palestinian Arab refugees actually are different.

The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid.
The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.

And let's not forget another way that the case of Palestinian Arabs is different--there has never been a Palestinian state, and the idea of a Palestinian 'people' is itself a recent invention.

In any case, Palestinian Arabs alone have not resettled because their 'fellow' Arabs have consistently refused to allow them to resume normal lives. Instead they have exploited them--despite the availability of both money and land--in order to use their suffering as a club to hit Israel over the head with.

Crossposted on Daled Amos

Enter Cardinal Martino to help them do just that.

Technorati Tag: Cardinal Renato Martino and Palestinian Refugees.

So Who Is Fooling Who?

Is Olmert fooling the Palestinians?

Although Olmert said in Annapolis on Tuesday that he hoped an agreement with the Palestinians could be reached by the end of 2008, and he said Israel would exert all efforts to achieve this, he stressed that Israel had not committed itself to any deadline whatsoever.

Or is he just fooling himself?

He also stressed that it was completely clear to all parties that the agreement would not be implemented until all the Palestinian requirements under the road map - including dismantling the terrorist infrastructure - are fulfilled. He emphasized that this included both the West Bank and Gaza.

Annapolis really didn't change a thing.

True, the Annapolis was expected, but there still there is what to get upset over.

These periodic negotiations are like a volley ball game. Sometimes the ball is hit over at once...sometimes one person sets up another who spikes the ball.

Each time we have one of these conferences, the concession ball is being moved closer and closer. True, the promises that Olmert hinted at may not be followed through on--no more than those articulated by Barak during Clinton's last days.

But some day, Israel will be dragged to a conference where the concessions will be promised and enlarged upon--the ball will be brought right up to the net...and Israel will be pushed into following through on those noble promises of painful concessions.

Someone is going to spike the ball on Israel's side and it will be game, set, and match.

(And no, I hate volleyball.)

Crossposted at Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Annapolis.

60 years old and still premature

In a sense, today Israel is 60 years old today. The partition plan that split the portion of the Palestine Mandate that hadn't already been lopped off to create Transjordan (now Jordan) into Jewish and Arab sections was approved today.

Infolive.tv sums it up nicely

Sixty years later, Israel is still under threat, and continues to strive for recognition in the Arab world. Israel sixty years later, still suffers from Palestinian initiated violence and terror and still strives to live within secure borders. It appears that despite all negotiations for peace, history once again is repeating itself. As Israel marks the 60th anniversary of the UN Resolution 181, the United Nations declares an official day of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Yes today is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people one of those days-whose-name-is -so-loaded-it-must-be-a-creation-of-the-UN. And of course it is celebrated today as a poke in the eye of Israel. However, the Palestinians might want to be careful about the full implications of Resolution 181. Media Backspin notes

The official map of what would have been the UN's Jerusalem district includes the areas of Bethlehem, Maale Adumim, Motza, Shuafat and beyond, far surpassing anything Israelis or Palestinians would now define as "Greater Jerusalem."

Israel Matzav concludes

So when you hear the UN bashing Israel today, just remember that the Arabs could have had their 'Palestinian state' sixty years ago if that's what they really wanted. Of course, it isn't. The 'Palestinians' don't want their own state: They want to destroy the Jewish state and murder all the Jewish inhabitants in the area. We cannot give them that opportunity.

There's an irony now, that even as today is an effort to turn back the clock, this week's Annapolis conference will start a process to provide the Palestinians the deal they could have had seven years, if what they really wanted was a state.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

Preconditions and conditions

The appointment of James Jones as a mediator in the Middle East doesn't bode well. The previous military man appointed to the region, Gen. Dayton, hasn't worked out so well. The problem with the mediators is that their job is to report progress. If the Palestinians won't adjust their demands but Israel can be pressured to, well that's what they'll do.

It is interesting that President Bush apparently has a sense of America's limitations.

"America can't impose our vision on the two parties," Bush said.

"If that happens, then there's not going to be a deal that will last."

Still what's troubling is that President Bush has contradictory impulses, earlier in the article he says

President Bush on Wednesday told CNN he would personally "facilitate" peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, saying the formation of a democratic Palestinian state was the best way to bring peace to the region.

"A democracy on Israel's border is important for Israel's security and that very democracy is important for the Palestinians to have a hopeful life," Bush said. "It is also important for the broader Middle East."

If a democracy is a precondition for peace, why isn't the United States first working on setting up mechanisms of democratic government in the PA controlled areas before encouraging discussions on final status issues.

Then, at the end of the article, we read

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the two sides can "absolutely" fashion a peace deal by the end of next year.

However, he said, the deal must come in the form of a package that resolves at least six points: Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, Jerusalem as the shared capital of a future Palestinian state, settling on borders, security and water supply.

Israel will add the condition that the conflict must end, Erakat said.

In other words all Israel demands is that the conflict must end? Isn't that the point of any "peace" negotiations, why should that be an Israeli demand? In fact, wasn't the end of the conflict already promised by Yasser Arafat back in 1993 and enshrined in his letter to then PM Rabin?

The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.

So once again Israel is being assumed to make concrete concessions to achieve what had already been agreed upon in the past. Worse, that's what's considered an Israeli "demand."

But then isn't it odd to negotiate with someone who doesn't even believe in your right to exist?
(via memeorandum)

Crossposted on Yourish.

Israel.

Hillary in Pocket

Got votes in pocket
Got a pantsuit, I'm gonna use it
Election, I feel selected
Gotta make me, make me, make me POTUS

Connections, and planted questions
Got praxis, raisin' taxes
No reason, just seems so pleasing
Gotta make me, make me, make me POTUS

(CHORUS)

Gonna use my right
Gonna use my left
Gonna raise a child
Gonna use my village
Gonna use my Hubby
Gonna use my, my, my machinations

'Cause I gonna make you see
Nobody else here
Is a dynasty
Potential, potential
Gonna be really presidential
Give it to me

Momentum, I can't miss a beat
Got funding, it's Hsu reet
My rough beast is slouching towards you
Gotta make me, make me, make me POTUS

(CHORUS)

'Cause I gonna make you see
Nobody else here
Is a dynasty
Potential, Potential
Gonna be really presidential
Give it to me

'Cause I gonna make you see
Nobody else here
Is a dynasty
Potential, potential
Gonna be really presidential

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The shadow over annapolis and more

Steven Erlanger's Iran Casts Shadow on Mideast Talks is an analysis that emphasizes the role of Iran in the Annapolis talks yesterday.
First he quotes a view from the Arab world

“There is a genuine concern and fear among political classes in the Arab world that the Islamic trend hasn’t reached its plateau,” said Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief for Al Arabiya television. “They worry that Iran and its allies act as if this may be the beginning of the end of America’s moment in the Middle East.”

Those concerns are linked in the minds of the region’s leaders to the Palestinian issue, he said. “They want to try for a resolution to an Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has always been the focal point for mobilization of Islamic and radical groups,” he said.

Then the Israeli view

Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, put it this way: “This is the summit of our hope and their fear. It’s our hope that at long last the Arab world will understand that the Israeli-Palestinian problem is not the core and can be solved, and their fear of Islamic extremism and Iran, which they call the Persian threat. This is what brought them here.”

Actually the way Amb Gillerman put it was the exact opposite of the way Melhem put it. The latter said that the Israeli/Palestinian issue is what strengthens Iran, the former said that it was Iran that made the Arabs engage Israel in Annapolis.
Aaron David Miller who was unable to shepherd through a final peace treaty during his decade in government weighed in too.

Aaron David Miller, a former negotiator for the Clinton administration, said that while he applauded the effort at Annapolis, he doubted that the Bush administration “has the will and skill” to pull off a peace treaty. “The chances for a Palestinian state in George Bush’s term are slim to none,” he said. But the Annapolis gathering does have important regional significance.

“For the Arab centrists, the new Middle East is a nasty one, and the Palestinian issue resonates emotionally and deeply,” he said.

At the top of the article Erlanger laid out what was important though,

...there is enormous relief among the many Sunni Arab countries in attendance that the United States has re-engaged in what they see as the larger and more important battle for Muslim hearts and minds.

When, pray tell, will the Arabs engage in the all important battle for Israeli hearts and minds? I don't think it's started quite yet.

via memeorandum, similar thoughts at A blog for all

Other views:
The NYT - Starting from Annapolis

If there is any hope of pulling this off, Mr. Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, will have to invest their time, their reputation and their best arm-twisting, including offering bridging proposals to nudge both sides beyond their long-fixed positions. There’s no chance at all if Mr. Bush goes back to the sidelines.

This is a typically simplistic formulation. No amount of arm twisting over details will change anything unless there's an Arab (not just Palestinian) change of heart.

Contentions - John Podhoretz - ANNAPOLIS: What It All Means

The open evidence so far indicates that the low-expectations summit has in fact met its low expectations, with the “lots of other nations present” business proving essentially meaningless except as a bragging point for the diplomats who got them there and a shopping opportunity for them and their wives at outlet malls and Tysons Corner. That doesn’t mean the State Department wouldn’t like it otherwise. But that doesn’t seem to be the story of this summit. If we’ve seen the worst of Annapolis — and I grant you we may not have; we won’t know for a few days — I think we can actually breathe a sigh of relief.

IOW, little ventured, something gained. (An aside: J-Pod's making contentions int a "The Corner" wannabe. I think I preferred the discrete posts to the ongoing conversation.)

Washington Post - Glenn Kessler and Michael Abramowitz - Eyes Will Be on Bush At Talks on Mideast

When Bush first asked Rice to take over the State Department after the 2004 elections, during a weekend at Camp David, she quizzed him on only one policy issue: Was he willing to support the creation of a Palestinian state? The president gave an affirmative answer, which was important to her, according to people familiar with the conversation.

"I wouldn't be doing this if he weren't deeply committed to it," Rice told reporters last week. "I am his secretary of state."

I guess this goes against the speculation (including mine), that this is an issue of "legacy." Still what makes now such a propitious time?

Washington Post - David Ignatius - How Annapolis Helps

For starters, the document commits the parties to begin negotiations on a peace treaty "resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception." The text unfortunately doesn't specify what these unmentionables are, but negotiators understand that it does mean the two deal-breakers: Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. The prayers of Israelis that they wouldn't have to talk about Jerusalem, and of Palestinians that they wouldn't have to discuss the right of return, have not been answered.

But, of course, the issue of Israel's right to exist is not something that the Palestinians (or the Arab world) have to address.

Shmuel Rosner - Ha'aretz - To Palestine via the side road

Meanwhile, off the main road, the fate of the Palestinian state will be decided - at a conference of the donor states - by nurturing orderly institutions and by quietly deploying the Palestinian Authority's security forces street by street. The accusation constantly hurled at Arafat - that he did nothing during his term of office to improve the sewage system or transportation or life in the territories - is a charge that Abbas and even more so his prime minister Salam Fayyad have to avoid. The kind of talks Fayyad is holding with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in the company of babysitter Tony Blair, are the key to genuine progress toward a Palestinian state. The commotion caused by the other subjects is a smoke screen that makes it possible for them to work, for the time being, in relative quiet.

Rozner argues that we ought to ignore the political maneuvering and pay attention to the changes on the ground. This is refreshing, for he isn't overemphasizing the political. Still he seems to minimize the important political aspects too. Will Abbas (and his PA) continue to convince his people that Israeli is illegitimate? If so it really doesn't matter how well the sanitation system is running, terror will continue. Will Olmert continue to insist that he's right and ignore his electorate despite shaky coalition? Further concessions are going to be unpopular and Olmert has shown little inclination to convince the populace of the rightness of his actions. Really all depends on 1) his ability to keep his coalition together and 2) the PA showing (against all previous experience) that it is committed to peaceful coexistence.

The Jerusalem Post - Make Annapolis Work

Today, Bush and Olmert are to meet precisely on this topic. It will be the most important meeting of this diplomatic mission, even if it is not officially part of the Annapolis conference. At this meeting, Bush needs to hear from Olmert that Israel cannot accept a nuclear Iran, while Olmert needs to hear from Bush that neither can the US and, no less importantly, how Iran will be stopped. The extremists who cast a shadow over Annapolis and who impelled it, cannot be defeated otherwise.

In other words the main goal of Annapolis is to stop Iran. Apparently, even if military means are necessary.

Dennis Ross - USA Today - The Day after Annapolis

The road map dates from 2003 and has been moribund since. The obligations of the first phase — Israelis freezing all settlement activity and removing the impediments to Palestinian mobility, and Palestinians beginning to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and reforming their institutions — have altogether different meanings on the two sides. Each party defines its obligations minimally and the other side's obligations maximally.

Dennis Ross - like Aaron David Miller - spent the better part of two administrations peace processing and he accomplished as much as President Bush did. He may not want anyone to look too closely at his record. (Yes, Oslo occurred during his tenure but 1) the basics of Olso were agreed upon before American got involved and 2) I don't know that anyone would argue that Oslo was a major disaster.)

Yes, each party does what he says, but the idea that Israel ought to be increasing Palestinian mobility when the Palestinians are supporting terror is suicidal. Besides abandoning terror isn't simply a procedural issue, it was the very basis of Oslo. The PLO would abandon terror and become legitimate. The former didn't happen but the latter did. For Ross to put dismantling the "terror infrastucture" on the same level as any of the demands on Israel is disingenuous.

Dan Diker - Jerusalem Post - Peace Parks and Pipe Dreams

Political and economic peace making with the Palestinians can not be driven by Israeli, US and European enthusiasm alone. The Palestinian middle class must build its own economy free of threats by Palestinian terror groups and financial control by local warlords. But Israel and the international community must stop undermining the real chance for Palestinian economic development by forcing economic projects on the Palestinians before they secure their own cities and towns and establish a framework for a safe viable civil society, based on an empowered and peaceful middle and professional class.

Reasons why Rosner's idea won't work.

For me, I'd like to believe that Rosner is right, but the infrastructure and security arguments have been made before. I just don't believe that Abbas and Fayyad are any more interested in co-existence than Arafat was. They owe their power and positions - no matter how precarious they are now - to rejectionism. That is the ideology of Palestinian nationalism.

I don't believe that there can be peace until there is an acceptance of Israel. At best the process started in Annapolis will cause no real harm to Israel's standing or security.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, annapolis.

Submitted 11/28/2007

Here are this week's Watcher's Council submissions.

The Never-ending U.D. Thought-control Saga - The Colossus of Rhodey writes that just when you thought it was safe to think again at the University of Delaware, thought control is back. Alternate headline, "Reactionary reacts to critics; calls them reactionary"
Carnage - Done With Mirrors tells us what's missing in the coverage from Iraq - a context of whether Iraqi civil society is progressing so that it may, one day, be capable of self government.
The Visual Imagery Society - In a fascinating essay, The Glittering Eye examines if we're moving from words to pictures and what changes or losses in our ability to communicate that entails.
Today's Non Sequitur: San Fran's Bohemian Intolerance - The Education Wonks examines similar territory to Colossus of Rhodey. It's another lesson in the intolerance of the tolerant.
The Gap Between Critics and the Rest of Us - Bookworm Room examines (indirectly) one of the premises of the blogosphere: that there's a lot of wisdom out there among private individuals that is at least as perceptive as those professional who profess for a living. Here she applies that view to movies and their reviewers.
Arabs Coming To Annapolis - Rhymes With Right presents the flawed premise of the Annapolis conference.

Until the Arabs are willing to concede the legitimacy of Israel and its undeniable right to exist within secure borders, there is absolutely nothing to talk about. Indeed, the Israelis should not be attending Annapolis without a firm, explicit agreement to those points from every other participant. Frankly, I am ashamed of my President and his Secretary of State for not insisting upon those as the minimum standard for any Arab state to be allowed to attend the Annapolis summit ...

"Apt Natural -- I Have a Gub" - Big Lizards goes over the legal of political implications of the D.C. gun ban to be considered by the Supreme Court.
Dealing With Disinformation - Joshuapundit responds to criticisms of a previous (winning!) post with the facts to defend his position successfully.
Still No Evidence 9/11 Nuts Rule - Cheat Seeking Missiles outlines the problems with a poll that likely overstates the number of nut jobs living in the U.S.
Buchanan's New Book: “Prepare Ye for the End” - Right Wing Nut House reviews Chicken Little's Pat Buchanan's latest - a tome that predicts that the end of the American empire is at hand. It's a provocative theme, but RWNH shows why it's wrong.
And finally there's my Legacy of Legacies in which I argue that when there's little more than a year left in a two term presidency, it becomes time to seek a legacy in the Middle East.

If you're a blogger and you wish to participate in the weekly council vote follow the rules here. If you'd like to participate weekly and join the council. well a seat has opened up. Follow the rules here to nominate yourself for a post on the council. Why might you want to join?
FWIW, when a student at Carnegie Mellon recently did a study calculating the 100 most influential blogs, the Watcher ranked #4. I suppose with weekly links to 24 blogs on current topics is one way to be influential. 3 other blogs from watcher's council made the list in addition to two alumnae. So this could be a chance to be influential.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council

Don't You Miss The Days When The US Propped Up Stongmen and Dictators?

Instead, we have 'moderates' like Abbas is in charge, someone Olmert can negotiate peace with. Too bad Fatah did not get the memo:

Abu Haroon, a black-clad bearded militant from the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, placed a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in the hands of his nephew. The rifle was twice as big as the child.

"Remember, as I may not be coming back: Learn to use this against the enemy one day," he said, giving the boy a farewell cuddle.

..."We have orders not to fire any rockets on Tuesday because of the Annapolis summit, but we can resume normal activities after the summit ends," Haroon explained, claiming he is totally loyal to the political leadership of Fatah.

He would not say who was giving the orders, or what the chain of command is. Many analysts think President Mahmoud Abbas, who has publicly condemned rocket firing as "silly and counterproductive," at most only has limited control over the brigades.

Go ask yourself what kind of leader calls firing rockets at your peace partner 'silly'.

Then again, we all know that Ehud Olmert is nothing to write home about either. On the one hand, we see him as constantly calling for painful concessions, all the while offering dangerous ones. Olmert thinks this creates an environment for peace. That is not so clear. What is clear is that there is now a

second line of thinking - among Palestinians who discern a pattern of unilateral concession from Israel and see no incentive or imperative to compromise at all. Israel has left Gaza. It is talking about leaving all of the West Bank, albeit with settlement bloc adjustments. It is talking about unprecedented concessions in east Jerusalem. It is finding no answer to rocket attacks from Gaza and proved vulnerable to attack from south Lebanon. So why hurry, they ask, to compromise on the refugee issue and other maximalist demands? Why hurry when a two-state solution is so obviously an Israeli interest, and when the single, binational state which inertia might bring spells suicide for Israel?

Olmert has done nothing to convince Palestinian Arabs that they need to bring any sort of concessions to the table--and don't expect Abbas, or Bush, to do that job.

When did it happen that the leaders of Israel turned into politicians?

Crossposted on Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Annapolis.

The limits of annapolis

Ralph Peters has weighed in on Annapolis with No Lasting Peace. (Judeopundit rightly credits it with having "with numerous Mark Steyn-style one-liners.")

What happens in the course of Middle East "peace" talks under such circumstances? Whether the American administration is Republican or Democrat, it pressures Israel for concessions - since the Arabs won't make any. Prisoner releases precede each summit; territorial handovers come under discussion.

For their parts, Arab leaders and their representatives assume we're sufficiently honored if they just show up. We hear no end of nonsense about the great political risks they're taking, etc. We're suckers for any fat guy in a white robe with an oil can.

Today's session in Annapolis may or may not result in a we-the-undersigned statement or a few unenforceable commitments. And yes, there's merit just in bringing folks together and keeping them talking. But the baseline difficulty is that we want to solve problems for people who don't really want those problems solved.

Who doesn't want the problem solved?

Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, for example, couldn't accept a genuine peace tomorrow morning - even though Hamas' coup in Gaza has put them up against the wall. Their problem? The most successful jobs program in the Arab world has been Palestinian "resistance" to Israel.

In Context adds an insight to to Peters' column

What Peters doesn't say but certainly appears to understand is that Israel does want the problems solved -- just not at the expense of her own annihilation. Understandable, you would think, as Israel is the party with the burgeoning First World hi-tech society just waiting for a respite from the terror and antipathy of her neighbors for a chance to show what she can really do. But it's a hard sell, nonetheless. It's far easier for many to believe that Israel has actually grown fond of the checkpoints, the fences, the reserve duty, the funerals and the "occupation." Go figure.

Jack's Shack emphasizes Peters' point that the Bush administration seems to be copying the Clinton administration by seeking a legacy. Something, he observed earlier, is an awful motive for pursuing an foreign policy project of this magnitude.
On the other hand, JudeoPundit sees a difference

The one place I would quibble is the assumption that Bush is repeating Clinton's failed legacy-quest. True, the determination to plow in such barren pastures begs for some sort of explanation, but I don't think Bush is desperate for a legacy. If he is, the joke is on him, isn't it? I think rather that Bush continues to follow his foreign-policy assumptions. He is convinced, as he has often said, that everyone, without exception, yearns for freedom and a better life. By all rights, the United States should be able to lead a movement for peace, freedom, and sanity. This would require, however, a unity of the left and right worldwide that is no more likely to come about than the Palestinians are to act in their own self-interest.

Seraphic Secret praises Peters for not being

seduced by the mass delusions of the State Department

.

Meanwhile what's really needed is a change of heart. This is something that PM Olmert was all too willing to accommodate without a reciprocal one from the other side.

UPDATE: via memeorandum
Excellent comments from PowerLine, Done with Mirrors, The New York Sun Jules Crittenden and others.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, annapolis.

Annapolis and beyond

Thomas Friedman makes some good points in Oasis or Mirage? He notes that the players in Annapolis were motivated more by fear than by love. Unlike others, he attaches a lot significance to the missing handshake.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, announced even before he got to Annapolis that there would be no handshakes with any Israelis. Too bad. A handshake alone is not going to get Israel to give back the West Bank. But a surprising gesture of humanity, like a simple handshake from a Saudi leader to an Israeli leader, would actually go a long way toward convincing Israelis that there is something new here, that it’s not just about the Arabs being afraid of Iran, but that they’re actually willing to coexist with Israel. Ditto Israel. Why not surprise Palestinians with a generous gesture on prisoners or roadblocks? Has the stingy old way worked so well?

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been so starved of emotional content since the Rabin assassination that it has no connection to average people anymore. It’s just words — a bunch of gobbledygook about “road maps.” The Saudis are experts at telling America that it has to be more serious. Is it too much to ask the Saudis to make our job a little easier by shaking an Israeli leader’s hand?

The bottom line is that if Prince Saud al-Faisal had, say, refused to greet Secretary Rice because of her gender or her skin color he would have been (rightly) excoriated as a bigot and considered beyond the pale. But somehow treating a Jew as if he has cooties is acceptable. (Just as the Prince got a pass because of the object of his scorn, he also got a pass because he's an Arab. Could you imagine a head of state from Europe getting a pass for refusing to shake Olmert's hand?)
So yes I'm glad that Friedman mentioned it, but he underplays its importance.

The other surprise we need to see is moderates going all the way. Moderates who are not willing to risk political suicide to achieve their ends are never going to defeat extremists who are willing to commit physical suicide.

The reason that Mr. Rabin and Mr. Sadat were so threatening to extremists is because they were moderates ready to go all the way — a rare breed. I understand that no leader today wants to stick his neck out. They have reason to be afraid, but they have no reason to believe they’ll make history any other way.

(This is a variation on Friedman's concept of a "fanatical moderate." Of course in Friedman's view, Yossi Beilin is a "fanatical moderate." I would argue that he is the former but not the latter.)

One mistake he makes here is claiming that Mahmoud Abbas is a moderate. He is not.

While it's not clear, I suspect that Friedman's made a second mistake. His definition of "extremist" and "moderate" will be defined by how committed each party is to the outlines of the Geneva Accord. As he wrote in his "fanatical moderate" column

The Geneva Accord fleshes out the peace initiative first outlined by President Clinton. You don't have to accept every word to see its basic wisdom and fairness: In return for peace with Israel, the Palestinians get a nonmilitarized state in the West Bank and Gaza. They also get the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and sovereignty over the Temple Mount, but under a permanent international security force, with full Jewish access. The Israelis get to keep settlements housing about 300,000 of the 400,000 Jews in the West Bank (in return for an equivalent amount of land from Israel), including virtually all the new Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem built in the Arab side of the city. About 30,000 Palestinian refugees get to return to their homes in Israel proper, and all refugees receive compensation. Polls show 35 to 40 percent of Israelis and Palestinians already support the deal, without either government having endorsed it.

I hardly think this is a moderate position as it rewards the Palestinians for rejecting Camp David and launching a terror war against Israel. (The rejection of Camp David was not just Arafat but encouraged by such "allies" as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.) Friedman of course knows that this is the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just as he knew that an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon would lead to the dissolution of Hezbollah.

But even if we assume that this position is moderate, how would Friedman treat PM Olmert if he hesitated on some issue due to continued Palestinian non-compliance? Would Olmert still be a moderate? Or would he become an extremist in Friedman's eyes?

Friedman's categories of "moderate" and "extremist" are simply terms dividing actors into those who agree with him and those who don't. Other than that, they have no real meaning. And when it comes to hesitations along the way I have no doubt who Friedman will characterize as an extremist and to whom he will give a pass.

UPDATE: via memeorandum
PrariePundit points out that Iran will be selling a different fear.

The question to be answered is whether the parties will do anything with the momentum that the conference is suppose to generate. It is possible, but the real fear that prevents an agreement is the Muslim religious bigotry that has pushed the conflict to begin with That will be the counter fear that Iran and its allies will be pushing.

.
The "exploding Palestinians" that he refers to later didn't start until two months after the Camp David summit. So we're not out of the woods yet.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, annapolis, thomas friedman.

Tehran Times: Conference to fail "if there is no logical response to the legitimate demands of jihadi groups"

That's what it says. Via Mehr News:

[...] Massive demonstrations in the occupied territories protesting the participation of the Palestinian delegation have shown that the Palestinian Authority has no legitimacy, with many people believing that the motive behind the U.S.-hosted conference is to support the Zionist regime.

The other goal of the autumn conference is to bring Arab states closer to Israel, especially after the stillbirth of Washington’s new Middle East initiative.

In addition, since Israel is not prepared to enter into dialogue with the Palestinian delegation on key issues, like the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the return of refugees, and the final status of Beit-ul-Moqaddas (Jerusalem), the Palestinian side will be the main loser.

Certain Arab states that agreed to participate in the conference are making a hesitant approach to the U.S.-envisioned alliance so that they can have a share in the future division of power in the region.

In light of such regional variables, the question of whether the Arab states are trying to distance themselves from regional crises and the Palestinian issue arises.

If those Arab states which participated in the Annapolis Conference are really trying to resolve the Palestinian issue, why don’t they ask the United States and Israel for a work plan?

Of course, if there is no logical response to the legitimate demands of jihadi groups and no just resolution of the Palestinian conflict, the Arab peoples will never allow their rulers to establish political relations with the Zionist regime, and this conference will create political problems for them at home. [...]

You can't ask for a clearer statement than that.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Ralph Peters: "No Lasting Peace"

Soccer Dad has alerted me to the following essay from the NY Post. It says eloquently what most conservatives have been saying in general about the folly of the Annapolis-summit (with numerous Mark Steyn-style one-liners as an added bonus):

[...]In the Middle East, you can't buy peace. You can only buy time. If we want to help at all, the fundamental requirement is to have realistic expectations.

At present, the situation is aggravated by the Bush administration's desperate quest for a headline-worthy foreign-policy success - mirroring the Clinton administration in its closing years. But desperation's a poor basis for dealing with a geopolitical problem of near-infinite complexity, with ill will on every side except our own.

What happens in the course of Middle East "peace" talks under such circumstances? Whether the American administration is Republican or Democrat, it pressures Israel for concessions - since the Arabs won't make any. Prisoner releases precede each summit; territorial handovers come under discussion.

For their parts, Arab leaders and their representatives assume we're sufficiently honored if they just show up. We hear no end of nonsense about the great political risks they're taking, etc. We're suckers for any fat guy in a white robe with an oil can.

Today's session in Annapolis may or may not result in a we-the-undersigned statement or a few unenforceable commitments. [There is now a joint-statement-YG.] And yes, there's merit just in bringing folks together and keeping them talking. But the baseline difficulty is that we want to solve problems for people who don't really want those problems solved.

Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, for example, couldn't accept a genuine peace tomorrow morning - even though Hamas' coup in Gaza has put them up against the wall. Their problem? The most successful jobs program in the Arab world has been Palestinian "resistance" to Israel.[...]

The one place I would quibble is the assumption that Bush is repeating Clinton's failed legacy-quest. True, the determination to plow in such barren pastures begs for some sort of explanation, but I don't think Bush is desperate for a legacy. If he is, the joke is on him, isn't it? I think rather that Bush continues to follow his foreign-policy assumptions. He is convinced, as he has often said, that everyone, without exception, yearns for freedom and a better life. By all rights, the United States should be able to lead a movement for peace, freedom, and sanity. This would require, however, a unity of the left and right worldwide that is no more likely to come about than the Palestinians are to act in their own self-interest.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Olmert Has Just Become The Life Of The Party At Annapolis

Halivai this was in regards to his position as Prime Minister. Instead, it is about Israel. The Olmert quote is from Contentions (Annapolis: Olmert Concedes). I've seen the quote on two other sites, but without the key part about 1967 borders.

Presidents Bush and Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert have just finished giving their speeches here in Annapolis, and while Bush and Abbas said little of importance, Olmert broke new ground—and not, alas, in a good way. The money quote from his speech was:

The negotiations between us will not be here in Annapolis, but rather in our home and in yours. It will be bilateral, direct, ongoing and continuous, in an effort to complete it during the course of 2008.

It will address all the issues which have thus far been evaded. We will do it directly, openly and courageously. We will not avoid any subject, we will deal with all the core issues. I have no doubt that the reality created in our region in 1967 will change significantly. [Emphasis added] While this will be an extremely difficult process for many of us, it is nevertheless inevitable. I know it. Many of my people know it. We are ready for it.

From Shmuel Rosner:

Some Israeli parties threatened to leave the coalition if Jerusalem is mentioned in the document. It was not - that's an achievement for Olmert, but that will be short-lived. Starting tomorrow, a new political reality will make life more difficult both for Olmert and for Abbas. Whether they can maintain their coalitions through a year of "core issue" negotiations is yet to be seen.

Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman has been quoted as saying that Annapolis will be "a terrific cocktail party".

Ehud Olmert has just become the life of the party.

UPDATE: Read the complete transcript of Olmert's address [Hat tip: Soccer Dad]

Crossposted at Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Annapolis.

Why Is Rice Pulling A Pelosi?

Middle Eastern politics can be more fickle than most. Bret Stephens writes:

Remember Nancy Pelosi's spring break in Damascus? Condoleezza Rice apparently does not. When the House Speaker paid Syrian strongman Bashar Assad a call back in April, President Bush denounced her for sending "mixed signals" that "lead the Assad government to believe they are part of the mainstream of the international community, when in fact they are a state sponsor of terror." Today, said sponsor of terror will take its place at the table Ms. Rice has set for the Middle Eastern conference at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Only at Foggy Bottom would Syria's last-minute decision to go to Annapolis be considered a diplomatic triumph.

What does the US get out of Syria joining the party? Syria's attendance may add an air of legitimacy, and give the impression of a diplomatic victory by seemingly driving a wedge between Syria and Iran. But the better question is what does Syria expect to get out of its cameo appearance.

In a word--plenty.

Contrary to popular belief, recovering the Golan is neither Syria's single nor primary goal; if anything, the regime derives much of its domestic legitimacy by keeping this grievance alive. What's urgently important to Damascus is that the U.N. tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri be derailed, before the extensive evidence implicating Mr. Assad and his cronies becomes a binding legal verdict. No less important to Mr. Assad is that his grip on Lebanese politics be maintained by the selection of a pliant president to replace his former puppet, Emile Lahoud. Syria would also like to resume normal diplomatic relations with the U.S. (which withdrew its ambassador from Damascus after Hariri's killing), not least by the lifting of economic sanctions imposed by the 2003 Syria Accountability Act.

The Beirut Spring has a post, 7 Reasons Why Syria’s Annapolis Attendance Is Inconsequential, which also believes that Lebanon is as important to Syria, if not more so:

3- Syria’s real demand is Lebanon, not the Golan.

Syria’s forced withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005 was a humiliation the regime hasn’t gotten over. Syrians believe the historical fallacy that Lebanon was cut-off from Syria after the French colonialists left. Also, Lebanon was to Syria what Hong Kong was to China a few years ago: A cash-cow and window to the international financial system that helped prop its corrupt security services. Adding to this all, the Syrian regime is threatened by the International Tribunal that will try the killers of Rafic Hariri, the popular ex-prime minister of Lebanon who was killed in in February 2005.

Stephens points out that it is unlikely that the US can provide Syria with any of the things it wants--and even if it could, Syria would only demand more. So what we can expect is for Syria to continue to exactly the things it has done so far--including assassinations and inviting North Korean technicians back to Syria.

So what has been accomplished by bringing Syria to the conference?

Put simply, there is nothing the U.S. can offer Mr. Assad that would seriously tempt him to alter his behavior in ways that could meaningfully advance U.S. interests or the cause of Mideast peace. Yet the fact that Ms. Rice's Syria policy is now a facsimile of Speaker Pelosi's confirms Mr. Assad's long-held view that he has nothing serious to fear from this administration.

Well, at least Rice didn't have to put on a burka.

Crossposted at Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Syria and Condoleezza Rice and Annapolis.

Size doesn't matter

In Bernard Lewis's "On the Jewish Question," the scholar gives a brief history of the Palestinian Israeli conflict in order to illustrate the fundamental problem with negotiations.

If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.

PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.

So when Steven Lee Myers of the NYT writes in "Seeking a Mideast Path, Bush Offers a Nudge":

A recurring criticism of Mr. Bush is that he has so clearly tilted American policy toward Israel that the United States is no longer seen as an honest broker, emphasizing Israel’s security over Palestinian grievances.

That was the case in 2004, when he publicly expressed support for some of the nonnegotiable positions of the former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, including Mr. Sharon’s objections to what Palestinians regard as the all-important right of return for Palestinians uprooted by the conflict. Mr. Bush’s assurances to Israel remain on the table.

he is confirming that the goal of the Palestinians is not peace with Israel, but the destruction of Israel. This equates supporting Israel's right to exist with being "tilted" towards Israel.

The all-important "right of return for Palestinians" is code for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. With Palestinian leaders, even now, saying that the status of Israel as a Jewish state is a bargaining chip or a fiction, they are saying that they deny Israel's right to exist because they are denying the historical link between Jews and Israel.

Others comment on the Lewis article. (via memeorandum)

Israel Matzav notes sardonically

Unfortunately, he [Lewish s.d] never figured on the suicidal Olmert-Barak-Livni government, which is apparently willing to negotiate whether or not the State of Israel should exist. Some day, that will make an interesting historical study.

The Spine uses Lewis as a way of refuting Roger Cohen's NY Times op-ed. The Spine, Martin Peretz, refutes Cohen nicely too:

What does Fayyad want? Cohen endorses his interlocutor's formula: "Fayyad is right. A return to the 1967 lines, plus or minus agreed swaps, is the only basis for a two-state accord." "Convince Israel that its long-tern security lies in compromise." "Bush must tell Israel it's strong enough to bet on Fayyad's vision of co-existence." This last line is the most preposterous in the entire article. Israel must bet on Fayyad's vision of co-existence? And what if that bet turns out bad? Doesn't Israel's prior dealings with the Palestinians indicate that this bet might actually be folly? Bet? Is Cohen nuts? Does he really want Israel to give up the West Bank on the wager that rockets will not be aimed at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as they are -- daily -- from Gaza onto Sderot?

Real Clear Politics adopts the view that Annapolis isn't about Israel and Palestine but about containing Iran. He cites Lewis to show that even if containing Iran is the goal,

But this can't be done, presumably, without some kind of "peace" between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Does anyone seriously believe that can happen in Annapolis?

And it can't be done. As long as the issue isn't Israel's border but its existence. Israel's size does not matter.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, annapolis, bernard lewis.

A piece of mind

Meryl's Girls with Guns reminds me of a couple of classics of the genre.

There was West Bank Mama's On Holocaust Remembrance Day, M16's, and a New Respect for Veterans and Emily Yoffe's How I learned to love guns.

Seraphic Secret had a similar piece on how he introduced someone to shooting. I couldn't find it, but I did find this post in which he encounters some atypical shooters.

I don't have a gun and don't have much interest in learning how to use one, even if I had the time. Still, I don't think that gun laws accomplish much. But I also find it interesting how much people enjoy shooting once they take it up as a hobby.

guns.

Murders up: aclu - city moving in the right direction

According to the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore police are arresting fewer people, then notes that the higher arrest rates may have had a positive effect.

But they also might have led to some steep crime declines. In 2002, with Norris at the helm, the city saw a low of 253 homicides, still far short of the goal then-Mayor Martin O'Malley set of dipping to 175.

Currently, with the year not yet over, 262 people have been killed in Baltimore. That projects to roughly 286 over the course of the year.

Nonetheless we learn

David Rocah, an ACLU Maryland staff attorney, said this year's arrest numbers show that the department has "moved slightly in the right direction, but not enough for anyone to say the problem has been solved."

So is the higher homicide rate an acceptable trade-off for the ACLU?

Isn't it possible that many arrests - even if all they do is take someone off the street for a short time - have the effect of disrupting criminal activity? And isn't it possible that that's played a role in lowering the homicide rate?

crime, baltimore.

Different ways of saving lives

Yuval save lives because he's a doctor.

The Arab baby, Tara, had four heart defects. Tara had come to Israel through Save a Child's Heart, a program that sponsors surgery for children from poor areas. Doctors had inserted a shunt in Tara's heart. Eight stitches threaded down her chest. Tubes emerged from her ribs, from her clavicle, from her hand.

Through all the wires, Yuval could see that Tara was "innocent, untouched."

"When they come from Gaza at age 3 or 4, they have that look in their eyes," he later recalled. "That 'I know the dangers, don't get too close to me.' "

As Yuval bent over Tara, the monitors beeped alarms. Tara's lungs had filled with fluid. "It was horrible to think this little girl was going to go," recalled the nurse, Svetlana Kakazanov.

"Adrenaline," Yuval ordered. He felt for the center of Tara's chest with his thumbs, and pumped.

It was sad for Yuval, but he often thought that the Gaza children had "a 90 percent chance of becoming terrorists. But mainly it's not their fault, it's 'the situation's' fault. And I'm not treating 'the situation.' I'm treating the child."
. . .
Now in the ICU, as Yuval ordered a second shot of adrenaline for Tara, as her lungs were being puffed manually, Yuval felt the differences disappear again. So what if she was from Gaza? "All that mattered was that she's blue, and she has to be pink."

Yuval kept pumping the baby's heart. Five minutes passed. He stopped to listen for a beat, but every time he stopped, the blip of the monitor's green cardiac line went flat.

"Third dose of adrenaline," Yuval ordered. He wiped his brow. He thought, "She has no reason for dying. She's going to come back. She has got to come back."

Sometimes, Yuval said later, "I can see the children that died while I was trying to resuscitate them." The blond 9-year-old boy, crushed by a car. The green-black baby born at 23 weeks.

There were also the faces Yuval didn't see: "the small, dark image -- I don't visualize the face behind it -- of the terrorist I was ordered to fire on."

He couldn't let Tara's face join the others. He had to breathe her back into improbable existence. Things that seemed impossible, he said -- peace for Israelis, for Palestinians -- Yuval still believed could be true.

He pressed his stethoscope to Tara's ribs. The irregular blip of her heart steadied, and leveled, to 120 beats. He could hear the exquisite swish of her circulating blood.

Tara's chest was rising. He said, "We got her back."

He's also a pilot.

At 2:30 a.m., air force sirens woke Yuval. Tamar didn't stir as Yuval leapt from their warm sheets, they recalled in interviews about that night in October.

"Is it the mission we briefed for?" Yuval whispered into his phone.

"Something else," a voice said from headquarters. "You're going south."

Yuval shot into the hallway in his underwear. He had 15 minutes until takeoff.

Every movement, every zip and shiver, from Yuval's pillow to his Cobra had been timed. Two seconds to rinse with mouthwash. Forty-five seconds to pull on his flight suit and boots. Ten seconds to sprint to the car, parked nose-out. Six minutes to drive to the airfield, including swerves, in case a jackal crossed the road.

By the time Yuval reached his helicopter, four wire-guided missiles had been loaded. The crows roosting on the rotor blades had flown. Yuval strapped on his helmet and plugged into the cockpit radio. He recalled hearing:

"Your mission is to attack a group of terrorists. They launched a Qassam rocket at Israel and they're about to launch again."

In the past four months, the army says, more than 1,000 rockets and shells have been launched against Israel. On this night, the army said, four men from Islamic Jihad were attacking. Yuval entered the coordinates -- northeast Gaza, four miles from the Israeli town of Sderot -- into his electronic map.

The radio said: "All four are approved for targeting."

Yuval's heart, already beating fast, began to pound, he recalled. Usually, Yuval fired warning shots, or destroyed the launchers. Now Yuval and his wingman were supposed to take out a whole squad, he said. Kill four men, or be a failure.

Yuval wouldn't be human if he didn't have doubts, but he observes

"My oath as a doctor is primo no nocere, do no harm," he said. Even as a pilot, when he's ordered to kill, "I try to think of it as -- I'm helping to save lives, and not hurting lives."

We can only hope that someday soon he will be able to ply his first trade and not his second.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel.

Al Dura and The UN Zionism = Racism Resolution: A Pattern Of Israeli Reluctance

Back in October, Natan Sharansky wrote about the Al Dura trial, especially about the defamation trial of Philippe Karsenty, who called for the firing of two of the France2 journalists--and one of the things that apparently hurt his case:

The defamation trial passed almost unnoticed in Israel, to the apparent detriment of Mr. Karsenty's case. In his ruling in favor of France 2, judge Joël Boyer five times cited the absence of any official Israeli support for Mr. Karsenty's claims as indication of their speciousness.

Israel's decision to stay on the sidelines was unfortunate because the truth always matters. The al-Dura incident wasn't the only media report to inflame passions against Israel in recent years, but it was the one with the highest profile. Moreover, if, as Mr. Karsenty and others have claimed persuasively, the al-Dura incident is part of the insidious trend in which Western media outlets allow themselves to be manipulated by dishonest and politically motivated sources (recall the Jenin "massacre" that never was, or the doctored Reuters photos from Israel's war against Hezbollah in 2006), then France 2 must be held accountable.

But finally, after 7 years, the Israeli government did finally come out with an official statement that the death of Al Dura was staged. Just keep in mind that although the statement was made in a letter by Government Press Office Director Daniel Seaman, Haaretz reported that the Prime Minister's Bureau said that not only was it not informed of the letter--it did not grant its approval for the letter either.

Still, it only took 7 years.

It took longer than that for Israel to actively push for the repeal of the UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism. In his book, Nations United: How the United Nations Undermines Israel and the West, historian Alex Grobman writes about the Israeli miscalculation:

Most Israeli diplomats and government officials believed that the resolution was so outrageous and embarrassing to the majority of the UN member states that it would shortly cease to be an issue. Responding to the charges would only give the resolution undue weight and grant Z=R credibility. The failure to grasp the long-term threat to the State of Israel and Jews in the Diaspora helps explain Israel's reluctance to engage in the fight a t the UN. [p. 96]

The Al Dura film has also been able to exert strong negative PR because Israel badly underestimated its effect. Sharansky writes about this based on first-hand experience:

It is important to note that the al-Dura news report profoundly influenced Western public opinion. When I served in the Israeli government as minister of Diaspora affairs from 2003 to 2005, I traveled frequently to North American college campuses. I heard firsthand how Mohammed al-Dura had shaped the perceptions of young people just beginning to follow events in the Middle East. For many Jewish students, the incident was a stain of dishonor that called into question their support for Israel. For anti-Israel students, the story reaffirmed their sense of Zionism's innately "racist" nature and became a tool for recruiting campus peers to the cause.

Grobman writes that while UN Resolution 3379 was passed in 1975, it was not until 1984 that the Israeli embassies around the world to take a hard look at the damage the resolution was doing to Israel's image around the world [p.98]. In the end, the resolution was repealed in 1991, at a cost.

Vice President Dan Quayle called for the repeal of the resolution in 1988, but the Israeli government was less than enthusiastic about the idea, fearing there would be a high price to pay for U.S. help. They were correct. By initiating a repeal, President George H. W. Bush attempted to finesse the pro-Israel lobby in the United States during an election year while pressuring Israel to acquiesce to its Arab neighbors. European and other allies supported the repeal to give the president that leverage over the Jews and the Israelis. [p. 104-5]

Hopefully, in the case of the Al Dura hoax, Israel will not end up having to pay such a high price for having allowed this lie to go on for so long unanswered. More importantly, the question remains whether Israel will learn to speak up on its own behalf. On this, the jury is still out.

Crossposted at Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and UN and Al-Dura.

Musical monday #22

Thanks to Elie's Expositions for letting me go this week.

The rules are: figure out the songs and the theme of the week's songs.

1) the second hand unwinds
2) Looking out of my lonely gloom
3) Nothing lasts forever, only fades away
4) I know I could turn, blink, and you'd be gone
5) you gave me no warning of what was to be
6) The trench is dug within our hearts
7) Sweet Banana, You'll Never Give Up.
8) Then he held out some moonshine whiskey
9) Can you boogie? Can you slide?
10) When I was broken in two it was all because of you
11) I had to leave my life in Dallas That town will always be you
12) If you wanna own a great big mansion
13) Yes, that one in a million girl
14) All you have to do, Is speak out my name
15) Soothe my mind and set me free (I'm going to catch a lot of flack for this one - SD.)
16) I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you
17) Shoot 'em down, Turn around
18) I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball
19) I hate to have to say it, But that look's all over you
20) And I just happened to find your name and number
21) I'm through with-a countin' The stars above
22) It`s tearin`apart My blue, blue heart
23) I'm going down, going down, like a monkey

I don't have time right now to list the answers from MM #19 or give links to previous editions. Hopefully later tonight!

UPDATE: Done. See the extended entry.
Plus two more:
24) "Then your birthday rolled around, so you let me go to town" (h/t Elie's Expositions.)
25) Until that day is here I'm crying

UPDATE: There was monkey business in Musical Monday #19 designed by Apollo C. Vermouth. The theme was Primates.

1. George of the Jungle Theme
2. King Kong--Kinks
3. Too Much Monkey Business--Chuck Berry
4. Apeman--Kinks
5. Jealous Daddy's Death Song (Don't you monkey with my widow when I'm gone)--Michael Hurley et al.
6. Monkees Theme
7. The Funky Gibbon--The Goodies
8. Hats Off to Harper--Led Zeppelin
9. Brass Monkey--Beastie Boys
10. Monkey Man--Stones
11. Everybody's Got something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey--Beatles
12. Shock the Monkey--Peter Gabriel
13. Megilla Gorilla Theme
14. Flash Gordon's Ape--Captain Beefheart
15. Lancelot Link Secret Chimp Theme

Previous editions:
Musical Monday #21
Musical Monday #20
Musical Monday #19
Musical Monday #18
Musical Monday #17
Musical Monday #16
Musical Monday #15
Musical Monday 14
Musical Monday 13
Musical Monday 12
Musical Monday 11
Musical Monday 10
Musical Monday 9
Musical Monday 8
Musical Monday 7
Musical Monday 6
Musical Monday 5
Musical Monday 4
Musical Monday 3
Musical Monday 2
Musical Monday 1

musical monday.

Sieg-speak: war is peace

Henry Siegman is my hero. Really.

With academic credential no greater than mine (a bachelor's degree from the New School vs a B.A. in Math from Yeshiva University ) Siegman has had the title of "expert" appended to his name. He writes for the New York Times, the New York Review of Books and served on the council of foreign relations. He also is better connected than I am. I doubt that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia would deign to talk to me, but he talks to Siegman. I don't know that he writes a whole lot better than I do, though he is certainly longer winded.

Me, I'm just a blogger. Still when Siegman writes, people apparently read, so I guess that's why he continues to write no matter how wrong he's been in the past.

In a recently published piece in the NY Review of Books dramatically titled, Annapolis: The Cost of Failure, Siegman lays out many of his ideas about what's wrong with the Middle East.

One of the first on-line responses to the publication of the letter to President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a simple, straightforward question: "What is in it for Israel?" The "it" referred to guidelines the letter proposed for an agreement that would end Israel's occupation of the territories the IDF overran forty years ago in a conflict—as Israelis were reminded by the celebrated author David Grossman when he addressed a recent commemoration of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination—that is now in its 100th year.

What is in it for Israel should be self-evident, but now that three new Israeli generations have been born having no memory of Israel without settlements, it no longer is; for too many, the occupation—and the spiral of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has come with it—is a given, the natural order of things.

An agreement that leads to the end of an occupation that with the best of intentions humiliates and brutalizes an entire nation should be more than enough of a reason to go for it. The subjugation and permanent dispossession of millions of people is surely not the vocation of Judaism, nor is it an acceptable condition for a Jewish national revival.

The occupation, to the degree that it exists, is no longer the occupation of 1967 or even 1993. For one thing all Jews have been evicted from Gaza. In Judea and Samaria there exists some form of Palestinian self-government, however inept and corrupt it might be. The dispossession of the Palestinians is not vocation of Judaism, it is however, the vocation of the Palestinians' Arab brothers who have refused to settle them since 1948, keeping them instead, as a cynical proof of the inhumanity of Zionism.

The argument against an Israeli agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is that they are too weak and unpopular to implement an accord that would require them to put an end to the violence of Palestinian rejectionist groups. Indeed, it is pointed out that the fact that most of the violence in the West Bank continues to come from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a faction that belongs to Abbas's Fatah, underlines the limits of Abbas and Fayyad's authority and their capacity to establish the rule of law in the territories.

That Abbas has been unable to control violence is true enough, but it is nevertheless a disingenuous argument. Abbas's weakness is the result of Israeli policies—primarily the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory that continues even as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks about removing settlements—that have convinced most Palestinians that Israel has no intention of returning to the pre-1967 border and allowing the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. An Israeli policy that seriously rewarded Abbas for his moderation—such as a significant release of Palestinian prisoners, instead of several hundred out of the over 10,000 prisoners being held by Israel; the removal of physical obstructions and checkpoints that have strangled Palestinian economic and social life; the dismantlement of outposts and a freeze on further construction in the settlements, as required by the Roadmap—would turn Abbas and Fayyad into strong leaders overnight. But Olmert has until now only offered token "gestures," and Palestinians have been given no reason to believe that a change in Israeli policy will occur even when the Palestinians choose leaders committed to nonviolence and moderation.

Actually, I'd add one more adjective to describe Abbas and Fayyad - unwilling. They are unwilling to fight the terror groups because, despite their nice suits and reputed Western leanings, they both subscribe to the same ideology as the terrorists. Israel - not post 1967, but even post 1948 - , to them, is an illegitimate entity. Israel has no right to exist. Claiming that agreeing that Israel is a Jewish state is a bargaining chip, is disingenuous. The fact that Israel is a Jewish state is the same thing as declaring that Israel had a right to exist. To deny one is to deny the other.

Checkpoints and roadblocks designed to prevent the movement of people and goods throughout the West Bank—well over 500 such obstacles—have devastated the Palestinian economy and turned Palestinian life, in all of its aspects, into an endless nightmare. In 2005, following Abbas's election as president of the Palestinian Authority and before Israel's dismantlement of its settlements in Gaza, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank who was designated as the envoy of the Quartet (the EU, UN, US, and Russia), worked out a detailed agreement with the Israeli government to remove many of these obstacles. The plan included the creation of a safe passage that would link the populations of the West Bank and Gaza—a connection that is vitally important to the social, cultural, and economic life of these geographically separated entities, to which Israel had already committed itself in the Oslo accords. The whole point of that agreement was to show Palestinians that Abbas's moderation and opposition to violence could obtain results that Israel had denied his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. It proved the opposite. According to Wolfensohn, Israel violated the agreement before the ink of its representatives' signatures had dried.

"In the months that followed, every aspect of the agreement was abrogated," Wolfensohn, an observant Jew and a lifelong friend and generous philanthropic supporter of Israel, recently told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Indeed, instead of removing checkpoints, more were added. Reading the Ha'aretz interview, it is difficult to avoid the impression that this firsthand experience with Israel's dealings with the Palestinians profoundly disillusioned Wolfensohn, who came to see the equities of the conflict in a new light.

I had never heard that Wolfensohn is an observant Jew. Maybe he is. But no matter. Wolfensohn invested a significant sum of his own money in the Gaza greenhouses that were abandoned by Israel, only to have them destroyed by the very people they were meant to help. My guess is that it was easier to blame the failure of his contribution on Israel - which had to defend against continued violence even after abandoning Gaza - than to admit that he invested badly. Siegman is only too eager to support Wolfensohn's self-interested (and dishonest) claims and pretend that Israel set up more checkpoints arbitrarily rather than out of need.

The signers of the letter to President Bush stressed that a successful outcome of the Annapolis conference would require Syria's participation in the conference, as well as efforts to start a dialogue with Hamas. Washington overcame its initial reluctance to include Syria. However, Syria has said it will not attend if the subject of a Syria-Israel peace agreement will not appear on the Annapolis agenda. Syria's nonattendance would result in the downgrading of Arab attendance at the meeting to the ambassadorial rather than ministerial level, which in turn would defeat the American objective of using the Annapolis gathering to create a coalition of moderate Arab countries that, together with Israel, would be prepared to counter the growing threat of Iranian hegemony in the region.

Syria's absence will also prevent a serious exploration of the Arab League's 2002 peace initiative, whose promise of full normalization of relations with the state of Israel is contingent on an Israeli-Syrian agreement. It would also impede efforts at a resolution of the festering crisis in Lebanon.

Actually Syria sought to subvert the so called Arab League peace initiative by claiming - against the United Nations - that Shebaa Farms is part of Lebanon. (Of course Syria can do this since it considers Lebanon to be part of Syria, but that's not the issue right now.) The mischief of this claim is to deny that Israel fulfilled its obligations by completely withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000. By making this claim Siegman legitimizes Hezbollah's continued terror war against Israel since 2000.

But the claims here are nonsensical. Syria is not moderate and in the Iranian orbit. Strengthening Syria by pressuring Israel to cede the Golan, will only serve to exacerbate the situation in Lebanon. As long as Syria doesn't feel that it will suffer for its mischief it will continue making mischief. And yes, strengthening Syria, strengthens Iran.

Israel and Washington have made clear their determination to deny Hamas the fruits of its 2006 victory in the most honest and democratic election—perhaps the only one—in the Arab Middle East and to return to power a Fatah leadership that lost those elections. This has surely given Hamas's leadership an incentive to undermine any agreement reached by Abbas in Annapolis, or in the negotiations that are supposed to follow the conference. But if Abbas emerges from Annapolis with parameters for an agreement with Israel that will be seen as fair by the Palestinian public—even if such parameters were not explicated in a joint statement of principles by Olmert and Abbas but by Bush in his address to the meeting—Hamas would damage its standing with the Palestinian public if it were to seek to wreck such an accomplishment. Palestinians have suffered too much for too long to tolerate that kind of recklessness.

What? If Hamas would wreck an Abbas-Olmert agreement it would hurt Hamas with the public? Who does Siegman think he is kidding? After its election, Hamas had every incentive to make its governance work and show the world that it was reasonable. Instead it continued to allow its terrorists to rain rockets on Sderot and launched an attack into Israel killing a number of soldiers and kidnapping Gilad Shalit. Hamas has also restricted the press and persecuted Christians. And still Siegman insists that Hamas is essential to peace, The only truthful thing that he says is that Hamas was democratically elected. Unfortunately that reflects poorly on the moderation of the public that chose them.

Israel and the US have disqualified Hamas as a peace partner not only because it has refused to recognize Israel but also because it refuses to be bound by previous agreements between the PLO and Israel's government. A recent Op-Ed in Israel's Yedioth Ahronot newspaper by Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and a longtime senior adviser to Likud prime ministers, illustrates the manipulative character of Israel's diplomacy. Shoval asks in his Op-Ed piece, "How could the government that would replace Olmert's cabinet be able to free itself from the pledges and commitments to be made in Annapolis," given the "basic principle of international law that every government inherits the rights and obligations of its predecessors...?"

What is remarkable is not only the shamelessness of a Likud leader, himself a prominent Israeli lawyer, urging publicly that Israel find ways to violate commitments it is about to make to the Palestinians in a meeting to which the president of the United States is a party, but of the answer Shoval proposes: This principle of international law applies only to states, and "after all, it is difficult to define the Palestinian Authority as a state." Apparently not so difficult as to prevent Israel from starving the civilian population of Gaza by pretending that Hamas is to be defined as a state.

Here Siegman willfully mis-represents Shoval's entire argument. The fact that theh PA is not a state, is a significant legal issue. But Shoval argued further

There is also a principal that enables states to free themselves from past obligations in case of an extreme change in circumstances, or if the other side violates its own obligations in an extreme manner.

As noted above, the Palestinian leadership denies that Israel is a Jewish state and thus denies its legitimacy. The basic premise that allowed the PLO to be treated as a legitimate entity was that the PLO had accepted Israel's right to exist. We now see that premise was always a sham. Israel has been negotiating with an organization (and its successor) that denies Israel's legitimacy. I can't think of a more "extreme manner" than that.

Be that as it may, Abbas will have to negotiate with Hamas the reestablishment of a unity government even in the highly unlikely event Annapolis is a success. He cannot risk the permanent separation of Gaza from the West Bank, nor will the Palestinian public allow him to take that risk. An even greater risk is that without a unity government, Hamas—which has significant political support in the West Bank—will replace Fatah in the West Bank as well. Hamas will exist at least as long as Fatah, and Palestinian governance will have to reflect that reality.

This might be, but that's hardly an endorsement of Abbas as a moderate.

Is Abbas prepared to agree to compromises that Palestinians must make if there is to be an agreement with Israel? The answer is yes, if the demands for compromise do not go beyond those envisioned in President Clinton's proposals and in the Taba discussions that followed the failed Camp David summit in 2000. The parameters of an agreement reflecting those compromises are outlined in the letter from Scowcroft, Brzezinski, Hamilton, et al. to President Bush and Secretary Rice.

This is simply not true. Elder of Ziyon actually read Abbas's views (as opposed to supreimposing his own beliefs on Abbas as Siegman did)

An offer similar to the one made by Clinton at Camp David, giving Palestinian Arabs 92% of the West Bank and Gaza, is completely unacceptable and out of the question. The "moderate" position is that some 400,000 Israeli Jews would have to be uprooted and could not possibly live in a Judenrein Arab Palestine. The 1967 Green Line, which the Arab nations never accepted themselves before 1967, is the sacrosanct borders of the mythical Arab Palestine.

It is not true, as Israelis often claim, that Palestinians refuse to compromise. (Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously complained that "Palestinians take and take while Israel gives and gives.") That is an indecent charge, not only because so far Israel has given Palestinians nothing, but because Palestinians made the most far-reaching compromise of all when, in 1988, Arafat formally accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice line (i.e., the pre-1967 border). With that concession, Palestinians gave up their claim to more than half the territory that the United Nations 1947 Partition Resolution had assigned to Palestine's Arab inhabitants. Palestinians have never received credit for this wrenching and historic concession, made well before Israel formally recognized that Palestinians have a right to sovereignty in any part of Palestine. The notion that Palestinians can now be compelled to accept "border adjustments" at the expense of the 22 per cent of the territory that is left them is deeply offensive to Palestinians, and understandably so.

Nothing? What's Gaza? What's effective control of Kalkilyeh, Jenin, Jericho, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Shechem/Nablus, Hebron and Tulkarem? Not to mention the millions of dollars and weapons? Thousands of terrorists released? That's nothing? That's one of the fundamental problems with negotiations. Every Israeli concession is promptly pocketed and denied. What's indecent is that Siegman justifies the terror that continues to kill Jews. Arafat mouthed words that were said to him in Geneva. He never accepted Israel's right to exist in 1988, 1993 or 1998. Even if he said the words, his subsequent actions (and the words and actions of his successors) prove that this basic step was never taken.

And of course Siegman maintains the fiction that the Palestinians are entitled to all of Judea and Samaria. That, of course, goes against the reading of resolution 242, that demanded that Israel withdraw from territories captured, not "all territories captured."

Also forgotten is that at the Camp David summit Palestinians agreed to border adjustments to the pre-1967 borders that would allow large numbers of West Bank settlers—about 70 percent—to remain within the Jewish state, in an equal exchange of territory on both sides of the border. Barak rejected the principle of one-to-one land swaps.

Camp David failed on the refusal of Arafat to bend on the issue of Jerusalem. He wouldn't take less than all of Jerusalem including the Jewish holy sites. Everything else was agreed upon. I guess when you can't make an argument, you make up the facts.

In the past, the Palestinian demand that Israel accept the Palestinian refugees' "right of return" to their homes was a serious obstacle to a peace agreement. But the Arab League's peace initiative of 2002 leaves no doubt that what Arab countries are demanding is Israel's acceptance of that right in principle, while agreeing that the number of refugees allowed to return would be subject to Israel's agreement.

And say that Israel agrees to that, with the fiction that only a symbolic number of Palestinians be allowed in? What will happen when the Palestinians decide that the number isn't enough. Will they negotiate? Or threaten to attack if their new demands aren't met? This is one thing that Israel has every reason to hold firm on. Elder of Ziyon again

Asked if he would demand to return to his birthplace, Safed, Abbas said: 'This is my right, but how I will use this right is up to me and to the refugees and to the agreement which will take place between us.' " - So he will not be flexible either on his "right" to move to Israel proper, either.

If Annapolis fails, it will be because of Israel's rejection of the single most central condition for success: full disclosure of its definition of viable Palestinian statehood. Olmert has already reneged on his earlier endorsement of Rice's insistence that the meeting must produce a joint statement outlining a permanent status agreement to avoid becoming a meaningless photo op, and it remains unlikely that any meaningful joint declaration can be reached.

According to Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz's diplomatic correspondent, Olmert is adept at marching "in the no-man's land between talk and action." For Olmert, Benn says, engaging in high-level talks and granting gestures to the Palestinians creates "the most convenient diplomatic situation," because such gestures are "in themselves sufficient to remove international pressure on Israel to withdraw from the territories and to end the occupation." At the same time, "as long as it's all talk and there are no agreements," internal pressures not to cede the territories are neutralized. Olmert seems to have succeeded in turning Annapolis into that kind of no-man's land.

No. If Annapolis fails it will be because the Palestinians don't accept the right of a Jewish state to exist. Benn's cynicism notwithstanding, he's probably correct. Of course the reason why there's little political support for more concessions to the Palestinians in Israel, is not because of the extremists. It's because the average Israeli sees his country as less secure than it was 14 years ago when the peace process (and concessions) started.

The importance of reaching such an agreement now rather than in the future should be self-evident. For if Annapolis fails, the likelihood that Israel will again have a moderate Palestinian interlocutor is close to zero. Not only the prospect of a moderate Palestinian leadership but also the commitment of all Arab countries to normalizing relations with Israel following a peace agreement will be casualties. Hamas's insistence that moderation, as understood by Israel, is a synonym for Palestinian capitulation will become widely accepted, and not only in the Arab world.

The disillusionment that would follow a failed effort in Annapolis would therefore leave Israel with the most dismal of prospects for renewing a peace process with the Palestinians and with Arab countries. It certainly could not happen in circumstances as favorable as they are today, for the growing skepticism in US policy circles about Israel's real intentions in the territories, as suggested by the letter to Bush and Rice by this country's most eminent elder statesmen and stateswomen, is bound to change what has been the reflexive US support that Israel has been able to count on until now, particularly during the past two administrations.

Again, Abbas, like Arafat before him is no moderate. There is no one for Israel to negotiate with. There are plenty of Palestinians who would be willing to take territory from Israel, but none who are willing to stop the terror, stop the incitement and stop the deligitimization. The better time for Israel to deal with the Palestinians, would be when the Palestinians have demonstrated that they are ready to live in peace with Israel. Siegman's protests to the contrary, we are not at that point now. That Siegman identifies with Hamas, makes him even less credible.

More important, should Annapolis fail, prospects for resuming a viable peace process at some future date will be made increasingly unlikely by the changing demographic balance in Palestine. A clear Arab majority in historic Palestine, a situation that is imminent, will persuade Palestinians and their leaders that the quest for a two-state solution is a fool's pursuit. They may conclude that rather than settling for even less than 22 percent of Palestine—i.e., less than half the territory that the international community confirmed in the 1947 Partition Resolution of the UN is the legitimate patrimony of Palestine's Arab population—it would be better to renounce separate Palestinian statehood and instead demand equal rights in a state of Israel that includes all of Palestine. Why settle for crumbs now if as a result of their decisive majority they will soon become the dominant political and cultural force in all of Palestine?

In other words Siegman denies all Israeli concessions to date. Of course he also is basing his prediction on demographic projections that are notoriously innacurate. There is nothing imminent about his scenario. However it may reveal his true hostility to the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

If the international community has been largely indifferent to—or impotent to do anything about—what some have tried to portray as a quarrel between Israel and Palestinians over where to draw the border between the two, it is far less likely to remain indifferent to an Israel intent on permanently denying its majority Arab population the rights and privileges it accords to its minority of Jewish citizens. It would be an apartheid regime that, one hopes, a majority of Israelis would themselves not abide.

Annapolis may well be a historic watershed—the last opportunity to salvage not only a two-state solution but a Jewish state that remains a democracy.

Oh please. Israel will remain a democracy regardless of the outcome of Annapolis. It's funny how concerned Siegman is about Israel turning into an "apartheid regime" even as he argues for expanding the scope and power of the Palestinian "apartheid regime."

The truth is that as far as foreign policy "experts" go, few are worse then Siegman. The highlight of his career was an article he wrote for Foreign Affairs, "Being Hafiz al-Assad." The whole article is no longer available, but there's a summary that speaks volumes of Siegman's thought processes:

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.

Got that? For Siegman "War is Peace." It is this illogical mindset that illuminates all his writing on the Middle East. George Orwell got nothing on him. Siegman's made a whole career out of this, not just a single novel.

UPDATE: I made an edit to correct a mistake in the second paragraph.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, annapolis.

Ahmadinejad: "The existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to the dignity of the human being"

Denouncing the Annapolis Summit is a big current theme in the Iranian press. From IRIB:

No injury deeper than the Palestinian tragedy has ever hurt the body of the world of Islam, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a gathering of the members of the Basij Organization on Sunday.

"The Zionist regime has been committing crimes and murders in Palestine over the past sixty years," Ahmadinejad added, adding that the global arrogance had been trying in the past sixty years to deprive the oppressed Palestinian nation from its rights.

"They have designed a new plot now to further abuse the issue," Ahmadinejad said in reference to the Annapolis confab in the United States.

Ahmadinejad underlined a growing inclination on the part of the Palestinian people towards the option of resistance, adding that the coming to power of revolutionary and uncompromising figures in the latest Palestinian elections was proof to that argument.

"Following the elections (when Hamas was voted into office), Zionist regime's supporters have carried out many seditions," the President said, warning that the advocates of the regime want to wring concessions in favor of the criminal Zionists through the Annapolis confab.

The President reprimanded the invitees to the so-called 'peace' confab for their positive response, calling it repetition of failure.

"They have participarted in such confabs during the past sixty years, but they haven't achieved any result," Ahmadinejad said.

"These kinds of confabs are only in favor of the Zionist regime," the President said.

Ahmadinejad regretted that the Annapolis confab is set to be held in a country that is the base and supporter of the Zionists.

"The Palestinian nation is alive and awakened and will never ignore its rights," the President underlined.

Ahmadinejad noted that none of those who were to take part in the confab are representing the Palestinian nation.

Ahmadinejad then recalled the Zionist regime's weak conditions, saying "the regime is going downward."

"The existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to the dignity of the human being," he said, adding "those who take part in such confabs as the Annapolis meeting will leave no good records in history."

There's more where that came from:

IRNA: "Ahmadinejad: Annapolis conference not beneficial to Palestinians" [This one actually moves on rather quickly to the nuclear issue]:

He said enemies and opponents of the Iranian nation had made some wrong decisions based on false information and raised charges against the Iranian nation.

"The time has come for you to be courageous and accept your mistake. The Iranian nation is great and will forgive you," he said.

Press TV: "Hamas: Annapolis confab a mirage"

Fars: "Ahmadinejad Warns Participants in Mideast Peace Conference":

"They (the US and Israel) intend to deceive a bunch of people who are like themselves in a watery conference and make them give concessions to the criminal Zionists," Ahmadinejad said.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Now see what we've gone and done

Here's an article from the Telegraph about two "cosmologists" who claim that Human "activities may be shortening the life of the universe." What is the offending activity? Simply observing the cosmos, and the explanation seems to be some sort of Schrodinger's cat scenario. I often find it frustrating to read this sort of stuff. It isn't that I'm so alarmed about the universe, it is simply that by the time all the science has been reduced to metaphors by journalists, there doesn't seem to be anything left but gibberish. See if you can make anything out of this:

The startling claim is made by a pair of American cosmologists investigating the consequences for the cosmos of quantum theory, the most successful theory we have. Over the past few years, cosmologists have taken this powerful theory of what happens at the level of subatomic particles and tried to extend it to understand the universe, since it began in the subatomic realm during the Big Bang.

But there is an odd feature of the theory that philosophers and scientists still argue about. In a nutshell, the theory suggests that we change things simply by looking at them and theorists have puzzled over the implications for years.

They often illustrate their concerns about what the theory means with mind-boggling experiments, notably Schrodinger's cat in which, thanks to a fancy experimental set up, the moggy is both alive and dead until someone decides to look, when it either carries on living, or dies. That is, by one interpretation (by another, the universe splits into two, one with a live cat and one with a dead one.)

New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

The damaging allegations are made by Profs Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the cosmos to revert to an earlier state when it was more likely to end. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe," Prof Krauss tells New Scientist.

The team came to this depressing conclusion by calculating how the energy state of our universe - a kind of summation of all its particles and all their energies - has evolved since the big bang of creation 13.7 billion years ago.

Some mathematical theories suggest that, in the very beginning, there was a void that possessed energy but was devoid of substance. Then the void changed, converting energy into the hot matter of the big bang. But the team suggests that the void did not convert as much energy to matter as it could, retaining some, in the form of what we now call dark energy, which now accelerates the expansion of the cosmos.

Like the decay of a radioactive atom, such shifts in energy state happen at random and it is possible that this could trigger a new big bang. The good news is that theory suggests that the universe should remain in its current state.

Following all this? Here's more:

But the bad is that quantum theory says that whenever we observe or measure something, we could stop it decaying due what is what is called the "quantum Zeno effect," which suggests that if an "observer" makes repeated, quick observations of a microscopic object undergoing change, the object can stop changing - just as a watched kettle never boils.

"A watched kettle never boils"? I thought that was just a cute folk-saying. And who is trying to determine the state of the universe anyway? Isn't it the cosmologists? Aren't they the problem?

In this case however, it turns out that quantum mechanics implies that if an unstable system has survived for far longer than the average such system should, then the probability that it will continue to survive decreases more slowly than it otherwise would. By resetting the clock, the survival probability would now once again fall exponentially.

Getting the idea that you're not really supposed to be paying attention? If "the probability that it will continue to survive decreases more slowly than it otherwise would," isn't that good? Oh, but then there's that "resetting the clock" business. Why does it work that way?

"The intriguing question is this," Prof Krauss told the Telegraph. "If we attempt to apply quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole, and if our present state is unstable, then what sets the clock that governs decay? Once we determine our current state by observations, have we reset the clock? If so, as incredible as it may seem, our detection of dark energy may have reduced the life expectancy of our universe." [...]

More bad news:

This is not the only damage to the heavens that astronomers may have caused. Our cosmos is now significantly lighter than scientists had thought after an analysis of the amount of light given out by galaxies concluded that some shone from lightweight electrons, not heavyweight atoms. In all, the new analysis suggests that the universe has lost about one fifth of its overall mass. [...]

Could that be adapted into a method to shed some extra pounds? The article never addresses this vital question. That's the trouble with cosmologists: they don't think big.

Further thoughts: Perhaps we should tell these cosmologist guys that tinokos shel beis rabban are keeping the world in existence so no need to worry?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Haveil Havalim #142

Welcome to the 142nd edition of haveil havalim.

Contents
Personal
Israel
Humor
Al Dura
Annapolis
Politics
Judaism
Culture
Torah
History
Carnival

Personal

SerAndEz remembers a friend in Yonah Goldman, a'h.

me-ander figures out how to save the flowers in Scenes From a Wedding.

Seraphic Secret remembers what his relatives were thankful for in Aunt Pearl, Nanny & Thanksgiving.

Pillage Idiot is Thinking about my father on Thanksgiving.

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Israel

The Muqata جميل في المقاطعة explains The Yoreh: First Rains and warns about a possible result of them.

West Bank Mama presents a video of HaMatzav Shelanu - Our Situation. (Hebrew for "Our situation.)

Boker Tov Boulder writes about what it will take for The terror will be eliminated (but not at Annapolis).

Contentions.David Hazony sees hope for Israeli society in The Rabbi?s Army.

Little Green Footballs presents details about Israel's High-Tech Attack on Syria.

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Humor

Esser Agaroth presents Crescent News Network, saying, "Media Watch - poking fun at CNN"

treppenwitz presents Strange Science. Actually the humor isn't in the science, which is very important, but in its inadvertent presentation.

Esser Agaroth presents The Christian Missionary Who Didn't Ruin My Day posted at , saying, - "Personal Experience/Resources for dealing with missionaries."
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Al Dura

Ocean Guy presents L?Affaire Al-Durah. This is an excellent overview of the controversy and filled with relevant links. He writes,

The details of the story didn’t need to be checked, since it already fit the narrative… brutal Israelis murdering innocent Arab children. In fact it fit the narrative so perfectly that the Israeli government decided to apologize and move forward, and didn’t contest the facts nor the story those “facts” told. But not everyone accepted the story so unquestioningly.

This an excellent response to James Fallows (who wrote an excellent essay on the topic four years ago) who more recently wrote:

My general experience in life makes me skeptical that large-scale conspiracies can be pulled off -- and kept secret for seven years, which is how long it has been since the original event.

The conspiracy need not have been discussed by the conspirators. Everyone involved "knew" the truth. That made it a lot easier.

The Better Part of Valour describes Mohammed al-Dura as an ?Icon of Hatred?.
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Annapolis

YID With LID implores you to PLEASE ACT NOW TO SAVE JERUSALEM. Follow his instructions to call the President, Secretary of State and Israeli Ambassador.

Debbie Schlussel points out an obvious element of hypocrisy in Condi's Redlining & Restrictive Covenant: U.S. Says "No Jews Allowed to Live Here". (h/t Esser Agaroth)

Greetings from the French Hill expresses Frustration over the government's enthusiasm to jump headlong into Annapolis.

Israel Matzav wonders if last week's news showed that Israel Matzav: Annapolis crumbling?. Unfortunately since then, the process has only strengthened. Still his points suggest that Israel is headed for a diplomatic mugging.

Schvach - פני דל presents Oh, Let’s Be Friends and Just Push the Reset Button. You'd think that there ought to be a price for 60 years of rejection.

YID With LID is concerned how the Saudis will greet the Israelis in Saudi Officials "EEW the Israelis Have Cooties".

SimplyJews analyzes Ted Belman's four points against Annapolis.

Elder of Ziyon questions the wisdom Giving your enemies weapons in the name of peace.

In a similar vein the Dry Bones Blog demonstrates that "4 panels is worth 1000 words" in The Madness Continues . . ..

Life in Israel compares Israel to the generous but unappreciated The Giving Tree.

The Spine explains a number of problems with The Annapolis Conference.

michellemalkin.com presents The Annapolis folly, continued.

Daled Amos observes where Where The GOP Stands On Annapolis. There is dissent in the President's party, but mostly silence on the other side of the aisle.

Meryl Yourish gleans the press for signs of An Annapolis quid pro quo?.

Rhymes with Right presents a nice synopsis with plenty of links in Arabs Coming To Annapolis.

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Politics

Deja Vu presents Red Cross Jets Terrorists to Geneva to train in international law. When you go to the BBC story you see the terrorists in ski masks. The whole effect is really surreal. Laws of war demand that combatants be identified. Wearing ski masks would seem to violate that.

snapped shot presents the captions the news services won't in The Religion of Peace (and destroying Israel).

Israellycool channels Aerosmith in Granny Got a Gun (Or Two).

Media Blog puts the two previous items together and asks Palestinian moderates?.

Israel Matzav points to the hypocrisy with which Israel's "incitement" laws are enforced in Israel Matzav: Will they be charged with incitement?.

Judeopundit observes how well the PA performs its confidence building measures in Fatah to disarm "all armed groups"?.

Shiloh Musings presents Translate the Russian, Please, saying, "poster against Lieberman, but I don't know what it says." Help her if you understand the Russian!

Schvach Yid wonders about SimplyJews who wonder about HItler, Ahmydinnerjacket and the Stoppers. Schvach, we wonder about him too!

Last year Dana Milbank wondered if Walt and Mearsheimer's paper sounded better in the original German. Now Judeosphere shows that it isn't much appreciated in Germany (or Austria) in Germany and Vienna Say "Nein" to Walt-Mearsheimer.

My Right Word presents Is This A Front for Tony Blair? saying, "Yisrael Medad thinks he's found a link between Tony Blair, big money and a campaign to redivide Jerusalem."
You mean he's not disinterested? I, for one, am shocked. (Well not really.)

YID With LID wonders about The Mole in the CIA Case-Lessons Unlearned.

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Judaism

The Eye of the Storm - Blogs presents "Chessed" for a Bagel saying, "Are mourners supposed to provide food for a minyan?"

Musings from a Square Peg muses about the problems of appropriate dress for her daughter in Modest or Something Else?.

A Simple Jew honors Only The Good.

Laz - A - Fare considers when one ought to make a big deal or not in The Not-So-Important Law School Review Session.

Likelihood of Success explains why the legal system should heed the advice Don?t start with a Hasid.

Cross-Currents explains the similarities between Orthodox Jews and the pro-life movement even if the latter believes things that are not Halachic Jews and the Pro-Life movement—must we eat herring?.

Schvach - פני דל reminds us of an Ethiopian observance in sigd.

LIFE-of-RUBIN writes about a wonderful simcha in Crown Heights Couple Makes Bris After 23 Years Without Children..

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Culture

SportsBiz - The Business of Sports Illuminated presents Troubles in Holy Land Hardball saying, "Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, who is the Commissioner of the IBL, along with nine members of the IBL advisory board have resigned charging the founder of the league with mismanagement and a failure to provide the necessary capital to maintain the league. The group also charged that players, managers and umpires had not been paid The second year of the IBL is now in doubt."
Given the attendance levels at games, I can't say that I'm surprised.

So bIBLemetrics warns Download IBL data files while you can!.

But have no fear because Life in Israel tells us that Israel Football season has begun. This is not the flag football league my nephew plays in.

J O S H U A P U N D I T presents a soccer score (and its significance) in Israel Wins!.

Psycho Toddler who's been reviewing and reviewed a lot recently, reviews again in K'Shoshana.

Life in Israel thinks about what's really important in One child's wishes.

Not Quite Perfect presents more beautiful artwork with Diaspora Dreaming.

Israel Matzav writes about a different "Pallywood" in No kissing allowed!.
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Torah

New contributor (and blogger) Naftalim presents Jacob's America: a Torah thought for Thanksgiving saying, "First post I've ever submitted, only the second I've ever written... please be gentle!" That wasn't too bad, was it?

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History

The IgNoble Experiment, a.k.a. Live Dangerously! presents The Jewish Wars Start With Historians. Some important things to keep in mind when reading or studying Josephus.

Elder of Ziyon presents Arab immigration into Palestine, 1922-1931.
Oh you mean that the Palestinian hadn't all been there for centuries?

Esser Agaroth writes about Anne Frank's tree and the effort to save it in A Tree Grows In Amsterdam.

My Right Word presents Today's Visit to Tel Shiloh saying, "MyRightWord shows us some new archeological discoveries from the past and a vineyard for wine in the future"

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Carnival

me-ander presents the latest Kosher Cooking Carnival: Is It Really Thanksgiving?!?!. Yes it is or was.
Speaking of which did you know the (possible) Hebrew origin for the word Turkey? Oyvay Blog does! And do you know which country consumes the most turkey (per capita)?
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Anyway, please remember that the cutoff for nominations is now Friday.
Upcoming hosts include

Dec 2 - #143 - Soccer Dad (?)
Dec 9 - #144 - Jack's Shack
Dec 16 - #145 - Soccer Dad (?)
Dec 23 - #146 - Soccer Dad (?)

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
haveil havalim
using our carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

haveil havalim, blog carnival.

Israelis Suing Terrorists: Part III

While Hamas does not care much about international law, at the very least this should put Hamas terrorism in the spotlight, and perhaps encourage more open discussion about what Hamas is doing, and failing to due, in Gaza.

ZAKA, a volunteer organization committed to the recovery and identification of human remains, in coordination with the municipality of the rocket-battered city of Sderot, may be on to a new method for combating Hamas: The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

In a lawsuit against Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, ZAKA's directors Yehuda Meshi-Zahav and Dudi Zilbershlag and Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal argue that Mashaal is responsible for numerous murders and crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In the suit Mashaal is blamed for the killing of 176 civilians and the wounding of hundreds in Hamas-sponsored terror attacks and suicide bombings that took place since 2002. Attacks on military targets were not included in the lawsuit.

This comes in addition to 2 other lawsuits:

o 150 Israeli citizens have initiated prosecution of the Wakf for destruction on the Temple Mount
o Israel is holding the PA responsible for terrorism

Meanwhile there are 2 measures taken by the Knesset to prevent Olmert from giving away the farm:

o Knesset gives preliminary approval on Wednesday to a bill intended to hinder any division of Jerusalem in a future deal with the Palestinians.
o 54 MKs in the Knesset have signed a petition in favor of Jews' right of purchase in Hebron.

Now let's see if the ICC is actually good for something.

[Hat tip: Best of the Web]

Crossposted on Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and The Hague and ICC.

Legacy of legacies

The administration was winding down. It wanted to make its mark on history. A legacy. What better legacy could there be than peace in the Middle East? And so the adminstration worked to make it happen.
Shultz Expects Some Progress From Mideast Shuttle

By returning so soon to the Mideast, while the bloody uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue, Mr. Shultz hopes to find some opening among leaders whom he believes increasingly want regional stability.

In the long term, he hopes that by keeping the momentum going, he will deflect criticism that he has not taken an active enough role in promoting peace in the region during his long tenure. Even if he can make little progress before the Reagan Administration leaves office, he is eager to leave behind the legacy of having tried.

Mr. Shultz said that after discussions with Arab and Israeli leaders during his last shuttle in February, he came away convinced that they recognized the need for more stability, which can only be achieved with a peaceful resolution of conflicts.

''The problem is there,'' he said. ''Everybody recognizes it. And the problem isn't going to go away.'' He conceded that President Hafez al- Assad of Syria, as well as the Soviet Union, are likely to oppose any American initiative. Yet he said: ''I can feel it in my bones that there's an answer out there if you can only find it. And you can only find it if you can get the right people together to talk about it and negotiate it, so that's what we're trying to do.''

At this point the PLO was a terrorist organization, not having officially (and mendaciously) accepted Israel's right to exist.
The PLO was still in exile in Tunis.
Israel controlled Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

The administration was winding down. It wanted to make its mark on history. A legacy. What better legacy could there be than peace in the Middle East? And so the adminstration worked to make it happen.

WHOSE HOLY LAND? NEWS ANALYSIS; Falling Short of Peace

And Mr. Clinton, who had devoted more time to Middle East peacemaking than any other American president, saw little risk and possibly big gains, his aides said. If he failed, he would be given points for trying; if he succeeded, his legacy as the Middle East peacemaker would be unchallenged.

Now, with three months' hindsight and having witnessed the startling speed with which an elaborately woven peace effort can unravel, officials and diplomats are considering whether those risks were greater than the Clinton administration had anticipated.

Diplomats from moderate Arab nations have said that they were startled by the alacrity with which the summit meeting was called, and they said afterward that the White House had neglected to prepare the ground with them, something that proved crucial particularly as proposals were put forth over the fate of Jerusalem, which is a priority not just for Mr. Arafat and the Palestinians but for the entire Muslim world. If the Americans had consulted them fully beforehand on the scope of their ambition, those diplomats said, they might have been able to give greater support to Mr. Arafat during and immediately after the meeting.

At this point:
Arafat and the PA had jurisdiction over Gaza and a number of cities in Judea and Samaria, including Tulkarem, Jenin, Bethlehem, Nablus, Kalkilye and Ramallah.
The PLO was no longer considered a terrorist organization by most of the world.
There was an official Palestinian police force.
Hamas was flourishing though it was still second to Fatah.

The administration was winding down. It wanted to make its mark on history. A legacy. What better legacy could there be than peace in the Middle East? And so the adminstration worked to make it happen.

Rice Drops Hints on Time, Place and Tone of Middle East Talks

With time running out on his tenure, President Bush has called for an international conference to be held in the United States this fall as part of a renewed push to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, trying to leave a legacy that has enticed and eluded his predecessors.

In Ramallah, Ms. Rice, on her seventh trip to the region this year, described Mr. Bush's initiative as ''the most serious effort to end this conflict in many, many years.'' In some of her strongest language yet, she said, ''Frankly, it's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state.''

At this point Hamas controls Gaza where there are no more Jews living there.
Sderot is under regular rocket attack.
Arafat is dead, replaced by Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad (and Hamas.)

Does it sound like Groundhog Day yet?

Inarguably the Palestinians should be in better shape than they are now. The idea of forcing Israeli Jews from their homes to allow for Palestinian self-government was a pipe dream of the extreme left in Israel when Secretary Shultz was seeking his legacy. But that very action was carried out by Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who, never had been known as a leftist.

The political landscape in Israel has shifted tremendously in the past 20 years. And yet it's debatable that the Palestinians have moderated their views at all in the same time.

The Palestinians refuse to define Israel as the Jewish homeland -- a major point of contention in recent talks -- and identify east Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after its capture in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of the future Palestinian state.

Palestinians think that offering recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would imply they are dropping one of their key demands in any peace deal -- the right for Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants to return to former properties in Israel. Israel opposes a return

No it's not debatable. The Palestinian position has not changed at all. And it's been quite a bit longer than 20 years.

Article 20:

The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Denying that Israel is a Jewish State, isn't a matter of negotiation. If the PA doesn't accept it, it doesn't accept Israel's right to exist. The PA insists on this because it isn't strictly or even mostly a movement national liberation, rather it is a movement of national destruction.

Even now the Quartet's envoy Tony Blair has announced a series of initiatives for the Palestinians including

Another is the repair of a sewage system in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. Though Hamas's takeover of Gaza has meant that most of the projects are earmarked for the West Bank, the sewage system was put on the list because it is on the brink of collapse and represents a serious health hazard to Gaza residents.

And why is that sewer system in such a state of disrepair? Could it be because the pipes were scavenged to make Qassams?

Once again, there's evidence that the Palestinians are more devoted to destroying Israel than to building their own society. And Israel is expected to concede more and more. (The problem isn't only with the Palestinians either.)

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, peace process.

The futility of confidence building measures

In an innocuously title article, Israel Allows Some Gaza Exports, Isabel Kershner of the NY Times reported:

Israel has approved the transfer of 25 armored personnel carriers from Russia to the Palestinian Authority and will allow the export of some agricultural produce from Gaza for the first time since Hamas took over the area, Israeli government officials said Wednesday.

The moves come as part of a general effort to create a positive atmosphere leading up to the American-sponsored peace gathering scheduled for Tuesday in Annapolis, Md.

Also according to other reports Israel will be transferring some 1000 rifles and 2 million rounds of ammunition to the Palestinian Authority. (And yes, Israel will allow some exports from Gaza too.)

Kershner at least shows that she might be attention with this:

Israeli government officials said Israel had agreed to the transfer of the armored vehicles to bolster the Palestinian Authority security forces and “their actions to prevent terror.”

Given the tenor of the rest of the article, I suppose that she's just quoting an Israeli press release. Still the scare quotes are appropriate, because given recent events, it's pretty clear that the PA security forces haven't been so effective in preventing terror.

Guess who approves of this transfer.

Hamas took over Gaza in June after routing Fatah forces loyal to Mr. Abbas in a brief factional war. Its military wing called the authorization of the delivery “a Zionist gift.” A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said it showed that Mr. Abbas worked “hand in hand with the occupation” against the Palestinian “resistance.”

And who disapproves

Israeli legislators from the right-wing opposition also criticized the move, raising fears that the Palestinian Authority’s weapons could be turned against Israel or fall into the hands of Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the Likud Party, told Army Radio, “According to all the security services, Olmert is endangering the lives of Israeli civilians.”

Actually it was the IDF that objected to the transfer. Netanyahu wasn't simply being part of the "right wing opposition," he was supported organizations whose professional responsibility is to evaluate such risks. Unfortunately, Kershner did the weaselly thing and attribute it to politics.

As Elder of Ziyon, Daled Amos and Israel Matzav have pointed out, these confidence building measure are, by themselves, risky, so why does Israel resort to them when they demonstratively achieve nothing.

Nothing?
Yes, nothing.
Today Kershner reports Pact Unlikely Before Talks in U.S., Palestinian Insists

A senior Palestinian official said here on Thursday that it would be a “miracle” if the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams agreed on a joint document, as they had hoped, to present at the American-sponsored Middle East peace gathering set to start Tuesday in Annapolis, Md.

Why would that be? Didn't Israel do enough to build Palestinian confidence? Apparently not.

But the brinkmanship could also be seen as reflecting a longer term Palestinian goal: Mr. Hamad suggested that the difficulties in agreeing on a text underscored the need for more international involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

More international involvement = more pressure on Israel.

Apparently, the Israelis are cognizant of this:

Israel has always rejected the idea of outside mediation. “Israel is very clear that this is a bilateral process,” said an Israeli government official who asked not to be identified by name because of the delicacy of the negotiations. “There is no need for outsiders telling us what to do.”

Israel, as usual, made concessions to build confidence. The Palestinian are all too happy to receive the concessions and all too happy to continue pretending that they never happened.

At what point will the Israeli government say "enough" and wait for some sort of reciprocal action? This isn't a matter of politics, it's Negotiations 101 and Israel is failing it miserably.

UPDATE: A similar point is made at This ongoing War's Lethal Gestures.

Crossposted at Yourish.

israel, peace process.

Cirumventing the central government

In On Iraq a State of Denial, Charles Krauthammer points out that despite the failure of the Iraqi government to achieve certain political goals, with the success of the surge, we are seeing results anyway.

Sure, there is no oil law. But the central government is nonetheless distributing oil revenue to the provinces, where the funds are being used for reconstruction. ad_icon

Sure, the de-Baathification law has not been modified. But the whole purpose of modification was to entice Sunni insurgents to give up the insurgency and join the new order. This is already happening on a widening scale all over the country in the absence of a relaxed de-Baathification law.

As for federalism, the Kurds are running their own region, the Sunni sheiks in Anbar and elsewhere are exercising not just autonomy but control of their own security, and the southern Shiites are essentially governing themselves, the British having withdrawn in all but name.

He points out that

Why is top-down national reconciliation as yet unattainable? Because decades of Saddam Hussein's totalitarianism followed by the brutality of the post-invasion insurgency destroyed much of Iraq's political infrastructure, causing Iraqis to revert to the most basic political attachment -- tribe and locality. Gen. David Petraeus's genius has been to adapt American strategy to capitalize on that development, encouraging the emergence of and allying ourselves with tribal and provincial leaders -- without waiting for cosmic national deliverance from the newly constructed and still dysfunctional constitutional apparatus in Baghdad.

So the political accomplishments are bypassing the national government. That means that for the purpose of restoring order central Iraqi government is largely irrelevant. This wouldn't just refute those who wish to withdraw, as Krauthammer points out, it would also who have been pushing for a partition. Effectively, then, there is a de-facto partition right now with different groups asserting themselves locally. It might be that this isn't a necessary end state, but rather still a transitional one. Even though it might take years before the central government is able to function properly.

iraq.

Council speak 11/23/2007

The council has spoken.

The winning Council entry this week Charting a New Course In Iraq Messaging by Cheat Seeking Missiles, which earned a tie breaking vote over Bookworm Room's Prophets in a Freudian age.

The winning non-council entry was The Irrationality of Europe by The Van Der Galiën Gazette.

Congratulations to all the winners!

If you're a blogger and wish to participate follow the instructions here.

watcher's council

(North) Korean News: "Kim Jong Il Inspects Companies of KPA Unit"

They'll never forget the day the Dear Leader stopped by:

General Secretary Kim Jong Il inspected companies of KPA Unit 297.

The first leg of his inspection was the 1st company of the third battalion of the unit.

He dropped in at its service commanding room to acquaint himself with the company's performance of combat duty.

He expressed satisfaction over the fact that the servicepersons of the company have performed their guard duty with a high degree of revolutionary vigilance and in a responsible manner and the company has intensified the working class education, equipping all of them with the transparent working class consciousness.

I wonder how he could tell?

He took warm care of the living of the servicepersons, looking round an education room, a bedroom, a mess hall, a wash-cum-bath house, a non-staple food store, a barn and other places of the company.

He highly praised the commanding officers and soldiers of the company for keeping their barracks neat and tidy and assiduously managing their economic life in perfect unity.

When you've got the transparent working class consciousness, it's easy!

He said that the commanding officers have a very important role to play in establishing revolutionary discipline in the army.

He met Jon Hye Yong, company commander who graduated from the Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, praised her for devotedly serving at the post for defending the homeland with ardent patriotism, like her father who laid down his life for the Party and the revolution, and told her to become a fine woman revolutionary.

You become a fine woman revolutionary now, y'hear?

He had a photo session with the servicepersons of the company. The next leg of his inspection was the 1st company of the 2nd battalion of the unit.

After acquainting himself with the company's performance of duty, he learned about how the training is conducted there.

Praising the company for having obtained the top mark in the review of the drill by paying primary attention to the training, he stressed that it is a sure guarantee for increasing the combat capability to undergo an effective training.

After being informed of the supply service by the commanding officers of the company, he went round entertainment and cultural and supply service facilities to get familiar with the soldiers' living.

It is good for the soldiers of the company to conduct brisk diverse cultural activities by use of frontline musical instruments and other instruments, he noted, urging the company to become a model in art activities, too.

Using frontline art supplies?

He appreciated the successes made by the servicepersons of the company, expressing satisfaction over the fact that they are leading a revolutionary and militant life after successfully sprucing up their revolutionary post.

Noting that all of the servicepersons of the KPA are heroes whose life is shining like stars as they remain loyal to the Party, he added that the Korean revolution is making a steady advance as the era is steered by this group of revolutionaries.

He had a photo session with the servicepersons of the company.

There was no photo with the article, though. Drat!

Update: A recent and beautifully-written article about North Korea by Peter Hitchens contains the following description of a North Korean soldier:

I am prepared to believe that North Korea has a nuclear weapon, though I think the evidence is inconclusive and the country certainly does not possess an accurate, reliable rocket with which to deliver such a warhead. But its military power in general is decrepit. I saw many soldiers, though we were forbidden to photograph them. I suspect this is because they are undersized, shabbily dressed, and their weapons are ancient and probably useless. One infantryman, who halted us at a checkpoint on the way to the frontier, carried a rifle whose unvarnished wooden stock was split. The metal parts were worn and old. I should not have wanted to fire such a gun, for fear that it would blow up in my face, and I doubt if it had been used for many years.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Disorder in the (israeli) courts

Isabel Kershner writes about the current controversy over Israeli's judicial system in Friends’ Clash Reflects Battle Over Israeli Court

In recent days, Aharon Barak, the internationally esteemed jurist and retired chief justice of Israel, has broken a self-imposed silence and spoken publicly against an old friend, Daniel Friedmann, Israel’s minister of justice.

The struggle between the men is part of an intense battle playing out across Israel’s political and legal landscape. As Mr. Barak described it last Friday, it is “a struggle over the country’s soul,” specifically over the independence of the court, the separation of powers and the fundamental question of who is in charge.

Both sides fervently believe that Israeli democracy is at stake. Mr. Friedmann, an eminent law professor who came into office in February, contends that the Supreme Court has become a law unto itself, extending its powers into the purviews of the other branches of government and trying to make itself immune from legislative oversight.

In a recent interview, Mr. Friedmann, 71, said he wanted “to restore the balance between the various branches of government,” which had been “completely upset in recent years.” He has argued that unelected judges are waging an antidemocratic revolution.

In case you don't know which side Kershner is sympathetic to, note the description "internationally esteemed jurist." "Eminent" doesn't quite measure up.

After partially describing Judge Barak's revolution in jurisprudence, Kershner writes:

The Supreme Court has used these powers very sparingly. Still, Mr. Friedmann wants them curbed.

His allies include legislators as well as other sectors of Israeli society who want to see the legal establishment restrained, among them politicians and business figures who have been investigated or indicted, and the religious and nationalist camps, which eschew the Supreme Court’s liberal approach.

American conservatives have also weighed in. Robert H. Bork, a key theorist of the American legal right, has complained that Mr. Barak’s ideas are “a textbook for judicial activists” and that Mr. Barak has established “a world record for judicial hubris.”

Richard A. Posner, a senior American appeals court judge, called Mr. Barak “a legal buccaneer.”

Posner doesn't easily fit into categories, but notice the opposition is characterized as being from "conservatives" and those who have an interest in restraining the court.

That someone could have reason to be disturbed with the Israeli Court's reach and not have a selfish or political interest isn't considered.

While she mentions in passing that Friedmann wants to open up the process of appointing judges, the focus of the article is on personalities and politics rather than substance. Others, in analyzing the Israeli judicial system, put more emphasis on the court's notion of perpetuating (and imposing) its beliefs.

Jonathan Rosenblum, who, admittedly, has an issue with the courts - religiously he's Chareidi, politically he's conservative - wrote about one of the problems that Kershner ignores:

Israel, by contrast, has developed one of the most efficient judicial selection procedures in the world: the Chief Justice and Justice Minister sit down together and pick new justices, whose selection is then rubber-stamped by the remaining seven members of the judicial selection committee.

In practice, Chief Justice Barak dominates the process. Over the last decade, he has played a decisive role in the selection of not only every Supreme Court justice but also in appointments to Israel’s lower courts. Israeli newspapers routinely describe new judicial appointments as ``Barak’s picks."

Before Americans embrace the efficiency of this system – the judicial equivalent of Mussolini’s getting the trains to run on time – however, they should consider the system’s drawbacks. As one would expect, it has resulted in a Court remarkable in its ideological uniformity. The titanic struggles between rival judicial philosophies that characterize American Supreme Court history – e.g., Hugo Black vs. Felix Frankfurter – are absent from Israel. There is not one justice on the Israeli Supreme Court who serves as a mediating influence on Justice Barak’s jurisprudence, and it is rare for a decision of major impact in Israel to be decided by a narrowly divided Court.

Barak’s dominance of the judicial selection process chills dissent throughout the legal system. Any lower court judge, academic, or attorney-general who aspires to judicial advancement knows that his or her fate is in Barak’s hands.

Prof. Ruth Gavison, who's no rightist, also objects the Barak court's overreaching. Unfortunately, Kershner didn't see fit to interview her. However, back in 1999, Ha'aretz reporter Ari Shavit did interview her. This is how she summarized the problem of the Israeli Supreme Court (or to translate the Hebrew more precisely - the High Court of Justice)

“In Germany, Italy and South Africa there are constitutional courts that have far-reaching powers. But those courts are subject to a clear constitution and were established especially to fulfill that function; accordingly, their members are chosen by the political branches and are appointed for a limited period. In the United States there is a Supreme Court that has taken on itself the power to overturn laws, but it does this in a lengthy process and on the basis of a crystallized constitution, and its justices are appointed in a political process.

“In Israel, by contrast, there is no crystallized constitution, there is no lengthy process and there are no justices who represent the entire society or who serve for a limited period. The result is a situation in which one court, which effectively appoints itself, creates the constitution by means of its interpretation of the basic laws. And this occurs without any of the control mechanisms that exist in the United States. So from this point of view our situation is quite distinctive. The combination of judicial criticism of Knesset legislation, in a state where there is as yet no crystallized constitution, by a court whose justices are not elected but are appointed for life by the judicial system itself, creates a very problematic situation, in my opinion. From the point of view of democracy and the democratic decision-making process, there is a not inconsiderable problem.

“What is equally serious is that this process is not accompanied by public discussion worthy of the name. In the United States, where there are activist courts, there is an ongoing, lively debate. Opinions are voiced on both sides of a question. Whereas in Israel, some sort of rhetoric is generated that creates the feeling that anyone who is critical of the court is the enemy of the rule of law. I do not accept that. I think the very opposite is true. I think that within the judicial community there are deep disputes today over all the questions on the public agenda: over a constitution, the basic laws, the status of the court, the Or commission reforms [referring to a panel headed by Supreme Court Justice Theodor Or to revamp the structure of the courts system]. All these questions are in dispute, but generate no public reverberation because of the attempt to close ranks and create a front of homogeneity toward the outside.

The one substantive issue that Kershner deals with is

It abolished the principle of standing, meaning that petitioners need not have a direct stake in the outcome of a case they bring. This opened the court up to civil rights groups and a flood of public petitions. Because of a historic anomaly dating from the British Mandate, petitioners appeal directly to the Supreme Court, without the filter of a lower court.

The Supreme Court also broadened the rules to the point where practically every government decision is open to review.

Well yes it has. And it can reasonably be asked if this is a good thing. Certainly there are quite a few results that liberals cheer that occur because of this. But should the Supreme Court be second guessing the military when it comes to routing the security fence? I don't think so, but it has.

Kershner covered an important topic, unfortunately she paid attention mostly to the personalities and politics involved in the controversy over Israel's courts. The substance of the issue was left largely untouched.

Crossposted at Yourish.

israel, judicial system.

Submitted 11/22/2007

The Watcher's Council will be voting on the following Council entries -
Who Won't Be the Next President - The Colossus of Rhodey.Hube continues his figurative evisceration of the Democratic candidates based on their debate performance. He finds all of them wanting. Save one. Or two. And his "whatever" dismissal of Kucinich had me laughing.

Desertion in Perspective - Done With Mirrors looks at news reports of the historically high rates of desertion in the American military. At least they're high, until you start looking at history.

Iran's Nuclear Development - The Glittering Eye looks at Iran's Nuclear Development. While he doesn't object to the current Iranian government developing nuclear power for civilian use, he doesn't want to see it develop nuclear weapons. UPDATE: Please see the the Glittering Eye's comments below. I didn't do justice to this post. Next time I'll be more careful.

Prophets in a Freudian Age - Bookworm Room wonders how we, as a society, would react to prophets of old living in our time. Would we listen to them or would they simply live at the fringes of society carrying signs reading "The end is near."

Charting a New Course In Iraq Messaging - Cheat Seeking Missiles explicates a statement of newly minted Sen. Bob Casey. He detects no small amount of cynicism in the senator's complaint.

Blood's a Rover - Big Lizards covers much the same territory, although he focuses on the other side of the coin. How can the Republicans win in 2008? By emphasizing their commitment to winning in Iraq and the general war on terror.

LA Auto Show 2007 -- Expectation Leads to Disappointment... Again - ‘Okie’ on the Lam expounds on a subject that's near to his heart, cars and their designs. Illustrated with some excellent pictures.

Administrative Buffoonery: Test Company Gets an "F" - The Education Wonks write about a poorly designed test - this time by a private company, not by publicly supported teachers.

Kennedy Calls for Rape of Justice At Supreme Court - Rhymes With Right notes that Sen. Kennedy wants to preserve the independence of the courts by ensuring that all nominees agree with him.

The Infantilization of American Politics - Right Wing Nut House observes that our political conversation has been dumbed down a lot. Soundbites on issues matter more than the rationales for a politician's position on those issues. While I haven't looked at the speeches of Eisenhower and Kennedy, perhaps I should some time.

Lebanon's Presidential Election Postponed -- Again - Joshuapundit provides valuable background about the current political gridlock preventing the selection of a new Lebanese president. Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon hurt Israel in terms of defending its northern border. Reading this post, an argument could be made that the withdrawal boosted Hezbollah sufficiently to help bring about this crisis. Still the occupation of Lebanon by Iran and Syria continues.

My own entry this week is What I Didn't Read in the NY Times in which I accuse Clark Hoyt of hypocrisy in thinking it a good idea to publish an op-ed attributed Hamas spokesman Ahmed Yousef but objects to publishing op-eds by discredited Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget. The Glittering Eye, however, dismisses my contention.

I don’t think it’s a double standard but a value judgement: in the case of the Hamas spokesman the news value of his op-ed overrules the hatefulness of the message and the messenger while in the case of a convicted stock fraud giving stock advice the opposite is true.

If one puts it like that, I'd say that the Hoyt's value judgment is warped.
In the case of Yousef, the problem isn't just the "hatefulness" of his message, it's what he's attempting to do. He's trying to rehabilitate the image of his organization, to build political support for what it does and that includes firing rockets at civilians. It makes no difference if he tells the truth or not.
Blodget now is also trying to rehabilitate his image. His misdeeds are now apparently in the past. It appears that he's giving general market advice. As long as that advice is good, there will be an interest in his viewpoint and he will continue to build his post Wall Street business. If his advice is tainted, people will catch on and his current efforts will flounder.
Additionally, Hamas representatives get plenty of coverage in the news section. It's not like news readers wouldn't know about Hamas's views if Yousef wasn't published on the op-ed page. So the "news value" isn't great at all.
(The New York Times and Washington Post were disappointed that they'd both published op-eds by Yousef that day. Each was hoping for an exclusive.)
Finally, Hoyt seemed to be saying that one of the reasons he valued the Yousef article was because it was from Gaza. In fact, it was established last year that these op-eds are actually ghost written in the United States by supporters of Hamas, not by the members of Hamas themselves. Readers are not getting the unvarnished views of Hamas, but sanitized versions designed to elicit sympathetic responses from American audience.
I did leave out this background, but I guess it's necessary for fully understanding the warped value judgment or double standard the Times has employed.

I was rather pleased that Best of the Web Today agreed with my reading of Hoyt.

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council

Earthrise, earthset

(Photograph courtesy of JAXA, the Japanese space agency.)

The Japanese lunar explorer Kaguya was outfitted with a high definition video camera and recorded Earth rise and Earth set from 100 KM above the moon.

The accompanying text explains that on the moon itself, because it doesn't rotate on its axis so the Earth always appears to be in the same position. An Earth rise can only be seen from a satellite orbiting the moon.

Go here for the Earth-rise and Earth-set videos.

(h/t Maryland Weather Blog)

Basic and Advanced Apologetics

Apologetics for Chavez are at the things-are-not-so-bad stage:

New Statesman: "Venezuela: still a democracy":

[...] The biggest fuss this time seems to be the amendment that would abolish term limits for the presidency.

Perhaps it is because I am from Chicago, and had only one mayor from the time I was born until I graduated college, that I am unable to see this as the making of a dictatorship.

Not to mention that if Hillary Clinton is elected next year, we will have Bushes and Clintons as heads of state for a full consecutive 24 years, and possibly 28 . . .

Some [proposed constitutional amendments] have drawn opposition even among Chavez's supporters. If they are approved, it will likely be because the majority of voters trust Chavez and the government not to abuse their powers.

And there is some basis for this trust: the National Assembly earlier this year gave Chavez the power, for 18 months, to enact certain legislation by executive order. The pundits screamed about Chavez "ruling by decree," but in fact this power has not been used much at all, except in dealings with foreign corporations.

In any case, the voters will decide, with a far stronger opposition media than exists in the United States proselytising against the government. Venezuelans have not lost civil liberties the way people in the U.S. (or even the UK) have in recent years, and ordinary citizens continue to have more say in their government, and share more in its oil wealth, than ever before.[...]

Apologetics for Mugabe are at the more-advanced blame-somebody-else stage:

Khaleej Times: "It’s time for Britain to give Mugabe a break!":

THE recent announcement by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that he will not be attending the Portugal Summit because Robert Mugabe has been invited to it is, to say the least, laughable . . .

The British have turned Mugabe into such an ogre that they themselves have become hostage to their own propaganda. Truth be told, Mugabe's critics do not have a moral right to criticise his policies because Zimbabwe's economic and political woes, partly blamed due to Mugabe's land reforms, have a lot to do with its former colonial power, Britain.

Let's not forget that the British government failed to honour an agreement that was entered way back in 1979, where it pledged to rectify post-independence imbalances in land ownership between blacks and whites. The meeting in London hosted by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to help Zimbabwe carry out a land redistribution exercise, but later when the Labour Party came to power, they withdrew from the programme.

Of course many other nations in Africa that were colonised by Britain up to date have huge swathes of land still being occupied by the colonisers, and here, I have to point out that Africans appreciate the work they are doing to promote agriculture and the general economies of the respective countries. But Mugabe sought to use his own way and reclaim the parcels of land. Whether his move was wise is debatable, since he's just a victim of broken promises from Britain. [...]

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Purpose of Annapolis summit: to make Palestinians "accept the status of lesser than an animal"

Anything less than submerging the Jewish population of Israel in a Muslim majority must be resisted in the name of, get this, "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." From Palestinian Chronicles:

[...] Any attempt to understand the rationale behind what is essentially a case of blatant violation of fundamental human rights, what Jimmy Carter, Desmund Tutu, John Dugard and many others call apartheid, is faced with accusations of anti-Semitism, a weapon used to silence voices calling for justice in the Middle East. The possibility of having peace with justice is far from realization what with the hermetic medieval siege imposed on 1.3 million already impoverished population of Gaza, and the slicing of the already sliced West Bank. The impossibility of the realization of the national dream of one third of the Palestinian People has brought forward the embarrassing question of the rights of the remaining two thirds, namely the dispossessed refuges living in miserable camps in other countries, some of which treat them like animals, and the third-class citizens of Israel.

What is the Palestinian cause if not the right of return of the refugees, those inside and outside Palestine? Is there a slight possibility of having ‘peace’ in the Middle East without resolving this question? If, as the Geneva Initiative signatories claim, there is a way of finding a 'just solution' that does not include their return, does that guarantee a just comprehensive peace? Is that not a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? But ideology has its own way, especially when it is powerful, one that represents the interests of racial supremacists. The Whites of apartheid South Africa defined the institutions of the country as democratic—albeit white democracy, i.e. by and for whites only. Native Africans never recognized the 'white nature' of that country. The idea of defining the country as exclusively white and democratic at the same time was never accepted by the international community. It was considered blatant racism. Unlike Palestinians, Black Africans are considered human beings, and therefore, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to them.

That is precisely what the call for the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state means. Forget about 5 million refugees scattered all over the world as a result of the process of ethnic cleansing that accompanied the establishment of Israel; and don’t even mention the cultural and national rights of 1.3 million Palestinian "citizens" of Israel itself. According to this formulation, the Palestinians are only those who live in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Middle East conflict, in case you don’t know, will be resolved if the latter are given a flag and 3 to 4 truncated Bantustans, with a chief that we can call a president. The Annapolis meeting is NOT going to deal with the refugees’ issue, NOR will it call for an end to blatant racism exercised against "Israeli Arabs;" NOR will it call for the eradication of the apartheid wall being constructed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. So why is the Annapolis meeting being held? In order to practically change the meaning of Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by making the victim her/himself accept the status of lesser than an animal. That is the ultimate goal that Vervoordt and Bhota, and other architects of Apartheid, failed to do in 42 years. Are Bush, Olmert and Blair going to succeed?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Peace whenever

In the American Prospect Gershom Gorenberg writes in Till Settlement Freezes Over that the most important step the United States could take in ensuring the success of Annapolis, is to monitor the building of settlements very strictly.

If Olmert comes through, the consulate's settlement staffer will have a stunning career opportunity: making sure that settlement really freezes over. Let me suggest some guidelines for the diplomat in the field and for his superiors in Washington. First: Ask where the freeze actually applies, and from what stage in construction it takes effect.

Look, for instance, at Beitar Illit. I just took a quick trip over to that community, one of several incredibly quickly growing settlements marketed to ultra-Orthodox Jews. Those Israelis have low incomes and many children -- making them an ideal demographic to lure to the West Bank with government-subsidized housing. Beitar Illit covers two hills southwest of Jerusalem. The streets are lined with very new apartment buildings, faced in rough-cut yellow-white stone, all with red-tile roofs, so alike they could have been turned out in a factory for a Monopoly board. Preschoolers and pregnant moms are everywhere.

On the western hill, at the end of the main street, stand the concrete shells of new buildings going up. Some have already been faced in stone. None have roofs yet. From the street, I could see over a hundred apartments under construction. Each will be home to a family with five or eight or more children.

Beitar Illit is close to the Green Line, the border between Israel and the West Bank. It's part of the Etzion area, one of the "major settlement blocs" that Olmert hopes to keep in Israeli hands. According to Hagit Ofran, coordinator of the Peace Now movement's Settlement Watch team, hundreds of housing units are also being built at Ma'aleh Adumim, in a bloc east of Jerusalem. If the freeze doesn't apply to the blocs, it will be worse than meaningless. It will signal that settlements will keep growing, not that Israel is ready to pull back.

Given his audience, the example Gorenberg chooses is disgraceful. "Ultra Orthodox" "low income" "many children" are probably those who would be least sympathetic to his audience. You almost expect him to write "uneducated" "lice infested" to complete the picture.

The Etzion area is an interesting choice too. There was Jewish settlement in the Etzion bloc prior to 1948. The land was bought by a Jewish man. The reason that there was no Jewish settlement there in 1967 was because the area was taken by force. The defenders of Kfar Etzion were slaughtered after surrender. Yet to Gorenberg and his ilk, it's a place that Jews must not live.

Why didn't he choose another area? Like say French Hill in Jerusalem?

But here's the choice argument:

Olmert's real dilemma is that he'd like to move forward on peace negotiations while postponing an internal Israeli showdown with extremists. No one knows how violent that showdown could become. In this respect, the prime minister has a great affinity with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who would love to make a deal with Israel while avoiding another internal battle with Palestinian hardliners. The reality is that neither can achieve an agreement with the other without being much tougher on the home front.

No one knows "how violent that showdown could become." Everyone was talking about the expected violence before the evacuation of Gaza. Though thousands of people were expelled from their homes there was precious little violence from the "extremists."

And the idea that PM Olmert is somehow comparable to President Abbas in that he'd like to do the right thing but is hamstrung by hardliners is insulting our intelligence. The other evening a young man in Samaria was shot and killed by "moderate" Fatah terrorists. To pretend that Abbas embraces moderation while his cohorts are still killing Jews is a product of willful ignorance.

And that is the core of the issue. There is widespread opposition in Israel to further territorial concessions to the PA because past concessions have only increased terror not brought peace.

Gorenberg didn't mention it but it's worth remembering that there are no more Israeli settlements in Gaza and yet terrorists continue to fire rockets into Sderot and other areas of southern Israel.

The problem with Gorenberg and Peace Now is not that they want peace. It's that they want clear consciences. They want Israel to conform to the legal requirements of the UN and what is called "international law." Even though "international law" has been shaped and subverted by countries and people who object to Israel's existence, still they worship at its altar. Even though concessions of land have brought only more violence still they persist.

But it makes no difference to Gorenberg and his allies how many Jews are killed or expelled. Just so long as their consciences are clear.

israel, peace now.

Adult entertainment

The original episodes of Sesame Street have been issued on DVD. But our children better not watch them. It wouldn't be right.

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Virgina Heffernan explains in Sweeping the Clouds away:

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time. Elsewhere, two brothers risk concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows. Overweight layabouts, lacking touch-screen iPods and headphones, jockey for airtime with their deafening transistor radios. And one of those radios plays a late-’60s news report — something about a “senior American official” and “two billion in credit over the next five years” — that conjures a bleak economic climate, with war debt and stagflation in the offing.

The old “Sesame Street” is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for softies born since 1998, when the chipper “Elmo’s World” started. Anyone who considers bull markets normal, extracurricular activities sacrosanct and New York a tidy, governable place — well, the original “Sesame Street” might hurt your feelings.

What?

Well for one thing, there was Cookie Monster doing his Allistair Cooke impersontation:

I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of “Sesame Street,” how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody “Monsterpiece Theater.” Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.”

Cookie Monster? wrong behavior?

As for Cookie Monster, he can be seen in the old-school episodes in his former inglorious incarnation: a blue, googly-eyed cookievore with a signature gobble (“om nom nom nom”). Originally designed by Jim Henson for use in commercials for General Foods International and Frito-Lay, Cookie Monster was never a righteous figure. His controversial conversion to a more diverse diet wouldn’t come until 2005, and in the early seasons he comes across a Child’s First Addict.

No we wouldn't want our children to follow his example.

Unfortunately one of the examples does strike as a reason to be careful.

Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

Some of the reasons why Sesame Street isn't fit for children sound like warmed over political correctness. The last one mentioned here, though, reflects the our society's loss of innocence. At the same time that our society has become overprotective of children in silly ways, in other ways new hazards have appeared that we must protect them from.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll adds:

Forty years from now, when the current season of Sesame Street is being assembled for release on whatever the successor format to the successor format of DVD is, how much of it will have to be reshot to comply with how much further the nanny state is sure to have expanded further?

Crossposted on Yourish.

sesame street

Eco-terror gets results

The article ends by describing some of the arrests and sentences which have reduced violent incidents in Britain, but in the meantime, the, um, successes of some of these terror campaigns have been shocking. From Der Spiegel:

[...]A fortress is precisely what Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), one of Europe's largest animal research companies and the mortal enemy of the defenders of animal souls, is. On its heavily guarded grounds near Cambridge, HLS tests pharmaceutical substances on animals. But the company also prepares toxicological reports for household chemicals, environmental pesticides and food additives. It consumes tens of thousands of mice and rats each year, as well as smaller numbers of birds, rabbits, dogs and a few monkeys. But the regular attacks by animal rights activists have brought Huntingdon to the brink of ruin.

Repeated bomb scares and the resulting evacuations are the least of HLS's problems. Employees have been secretly photographed and their photos published on the Internet. Some have found explosives under their cars. CEO Brian Cass, now 60, was assaulted and beaten in front of his house by three attackers using tear gas and clubs.

The members of a group called SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) threaten anyone who cooperates with HLS, from cleaning services to couriers to banks, with similar treatment. The group's intimidation tactics have been tremendously successful, turning HLS into a pariah in the business world. "It's as if we were radioactive," says Cass. Other businesses no longer dare to be openly associated with the company. HLS has no bank account, no insurance policy, no auditors and no investors willing to identify themselves as such. The British government has jumped in to provide the company, with annual sales of €93 million, with the most basic services. HLS has had to build its own laundry facilities, its own cafeteria and its own security service.

"Your life is in danger whenever you go to your car after working in the torture chamber." These were the words that activist Julia Didrikson, 43, wrote in one of her mass e-mails to HLS employees. In another missive, she threatened: "Don't even think that your children are safe, if you have any. It doesn't take us long to find out where they go to school and where they live." In late September, Didrikson was sentenced to five months in prison for making the threats. When she was taken into custody she insisted: "But I'm just a harmless animal lover."

Donald Currie, a 41-year-old, unemployed psychiatric nurse turned bomb builder, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. It was only by accident that he didn't kill anyone. Mark Taylor, 39, began a four-year prison sentence in March. As a member of SHAC, Taylor was responsible for occupying the offices of companies linked to HLS. In a typical campaign, he and a dozen other activists, all wearing skull masks, would burst into an office and shout "murderers" at the employees. Some of the companies he and his fellow activists raided were so intimidated that they promptly cut off all ties to Huntingdon.[...]

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Upsetting the applebaum

Usually, like Wolf Howling I enjoy Anne Applebaum's columns. Today's "Collateral Damage" though, was off. Wolf Howling comments

The problem with such moral preening is that it just doesn’t hold water. Anti-Americanism has been rampant throughout Europe for decades. It was not created by our actions in Iraq, nor exacerbated by it. The anti-American leaders of Europe, specifically Chirac in France and Schroeder in Germany, predated President Bush and 9-11. And they did not get reelected. Germany's Der Spiegel and Britain's BBC have been pumping out grossly anti-American screed for as far back as I can remember. Regardless, whatever may have been the case, today, our standing internationally is stronger than it has been in years. Pro-American leaders have been elected the France, Germany and Britain and the EU is moving closer to us as a whole. And that is just a part of the story. Charles Krauthammer tells us the facts.

(While I agree with Krauthammer in part, I think he overstates the importance of the surge's success so far in affecting the world.)

After refuting Applebaum's charge of military incompetence, (something Wolf Howling also address) Q & O gets to the heart of her argument.

But Anne Applebaum's piece uses that premise to talk about striking Iran. And it essentially boils down to this argument:

As for the "military option," the surest way to sell newspapers in Europe, at the moment, is to print an article hinting that the United States is about to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. The very suggestion causes outrage, not because of rampant pacifism — "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus" — but because most commentators (and, off the record, most diplomats) believe it would fail.

Again, I have to scratch my head. Why in the world would it necessarily fail? An attack on Iran wouldn't be an invasion (which, btw, didn't "fail" in Iraq) but instead a strike to take out key Iranian nuclear facilities. That's not a difficult task, relatively speaking, for our air forces. And it is also rather easy to assess success through our "bomb damage assessment" process (and if it isn't sufficiently degraded, you hit it again).

I don't pretend to have an answer to how to deal with the Iranian threat. Certainly if military action can be avoided that is ideal, but if strong diplomacy including sanctions will bar Iran from developing nuclear weapons then try that first. Certainly that's been President Bush's approach so far. But as further Iranian deceptions are uncovered stronger measures could be required.

iran.

Glendale tree fine massacre

Be afraid, be very afraid:

When Ann Collard and her husband hired a private contractor in August to trim the trees around their home, they could not have imagined the bill would balloon to nearly $350,000.

Costs soared when a city urban forester cited the Collards for illegally pruning 13 trees — including five that are reportedly on city-owned land — without a permit. And under the city’s new Indigenous Tree Ordinance, the fine was equal to twice the value of the damaged trees.

“We trimmed our trees and now we can lose our house?” Ann Collard asked.

The fine has the attention of the City Council, which is awaiting a report on the matter before deciding how to address the potential unintended consequences of an ordinance that was adopted in March mainly to discourage property owners from razing protected trees to clear the way for development.

“We don’t know yet, the whole story,” Councilman Dave Weaver said. “It’s just premature.”

The Collards decided to prune the trees after receiving a June fire danger abatement order from the Glendale Fire Department, reminding homeowners of the necessary 5-foot vertical clearance between structures and vegetation, Ann Collard said.

A private tree-trimming contractor based in Orange County hired to prune the canopy back said no permits were needed, she said, but an urban forester ordered the pruning stopped on the third day.

Ann Collard said she was aware of a tree ordinance, but she did not know it prohibited any sort of pruning, especially with a fire danger abatement order in hand. [...]

That'll teach them to live in California.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Votes in the middle east

Voters are headed to the polls in Jordan.

Tuesday's elections for the 110 seats in the lower house are marked by rising expressions of cynicism from among the country's 2.4 million voters, and from political analysts. Eighteen years after Jordan's ruling family lifted martial law and restored parliament, King Abdullah II faces growing charges that the parliament in this Middle East monarchy is only superficially democratic.

Oh really. You think that might have something to do with the fact that the country is ruled by a monarch who came to the throne on the strength of hereditary?

Parliament has the power to introduce legislation. In practice, the government drafts most laws, and parliament only rarely intervenes to frustrate government plans. Abdullah appoints all 55 members of parliament's upper house.

So the vote, then, is to elect a lower house that serves as a rubber stamp.
In Lebanon where the Parliament is set to choose a president, exercising the franchise could be hazardous to your health.

Lebanon does have a government of the people but the election of president hasn't been easy. More than 40 members of Lebanon's parliament have spent the past month in the gilded luxury of a five-star hotel in Beirut, trying to avoid assassination so they can elect the country's next president.

Access to their wing of the Intercontinental Phoenicia is sharply restricted, police keep watch from nearby rooftops, and the politicians are told to stay away from the hotel's windows lest they draw a sniper's bullet. The plush upholstery and buttery pastries do little to soothe the isolated legislators.

"I would rather, a million times over, enjoy the comfort of my house and family than be locked in a jail-like hotel," said Wael Abou Faour, a newly married member of parliament who is anticipating the birth of his first child, a daughter, due in February.

Abou Faour and others want to escape the fate of Antoine Ghanem, a member of parliament killed in a car bombing Sept. 19, a day after returning to Lebanon from refuge abroad. He was the fourth member of the present parliament to be assassinated since the killing of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005. All five politicians opposed what they saw as Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs, as have the targets of other recent acts of political violence.

For all the international uproar over Israel's defensive "occupation" of southern Lebanon, there's relatively little outrage over Syria's continued domination of Lebanon, even after its occupation, officially ended a few years ago.

I guess it is interesting because in some ways, the Palestinians have more open elections than either Jordan or Lebanon. No doubt that's because of the close contact with Israel. What democracy hasn't done for the Palestinians is moderate their politics. No doubt part of it is the education system. The other part of it is the international encouragement of the Palestinian grievance. As long as the Palestinian grievance against (and hatred of) Israel is (are) encouraged to continue, the politics of Palestine will continue to be the politics of hatred.

Crossposted on Yourish.

arab democracy

Juggling carnivals 11/20/2007

Incoming Carnivals

Thanks, as always, to Dr. Sanity for including a post of mine in the most recent (Happy Thanksgiving) edition of Carnival of the Insanities.

Also check out the 20th edition of the Carnival of Maryland at Leviathan Montgomery. If you're a Beethoven fan, live in Maryland and wish to host the Carnival on Dec 16th let Pillage Idiot know. If you have a submission for the 21st edition submit it.

Sideshows

Elie's Expositions did me a favor and did Musical Monday #20, I'm planning to do the next two weeks. It's quite challenging this week, so go flex your trivia muscles and check it out.

And look at these pictures, can you identify the programming language creators? Can you identify the serial killers? Hint: The brooding types are the computer nerds. Well at least some of the time. (h/t Cheat Seeking Missiles)

UPDATE: Whoops, I forgot one. Bas Melech Blogs is introducing a J-Blogosphere Arts Exhibition. Draw. scan and upload by Shabbos Channukah (Dec 8). Check out the instructions there. (h/t Serandez)

blog carnivals, music trivia.

Mehr News: Moishe Arye Friedman and Ahmadinejad look forward to "prayers and celebrations in Beit-ul-Moqaddas"

Between the two of them, Ahmadinejad is the sane one. Warning: reading this can lead to tooth damage:

Rabbi Moishe Arye Friedman of Austria has said Iran is the best model for human rights for children.

Rabbi Friedman, who is the chief rabbi of the Orthodox Anti-Zionist Society of Austria, his wife Lea, and six of their seven children returned to their home in Vienna, Austria on Thursday after almost two months in Iran.

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad warmly welcomed them after the Friday Prayers of Quds Day (October 5) and said he would join them in prayers and celebrations in Beit-ul-Moqaddas (Jerusalem) when it is liberated from Zionism and the Zionist regime.

In addition, the Friedmans met some of Iran’s religious leaders.

The family also took part in many religious ceremonies and events at Iran’s Jewish synagogues and schools.

They have said that there is no place in the world where Jews have so much freedom to practice their religion, adding that Iran’s Jews also enjoy all the other advantages of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The also visited the tombs of Mordechai and Esther in Hamedan.

Before coming to Iran, Rabbi Friedman’s children were attacked by Zionist elements in Austria and Britain in retaliation for the fact that the rabbi had attended the Tehran Holocaust Conference in December 2006.

His children required hospitalization after the attacks. They were also expelled from school in Vienna, kidnapped in London, and illegally imprisoned and tortured in Vienna.

The Friedmans say all this was the work of Mossad agents of the Israeli embassies in Vienna and London.

The family expressed gratitude to the Austrian Supreme Court for their efforts to ensure their children could return to school and to prosecute the culprits, but added that the justice minister and other Austrian politicians beholden to Israel and the Zionist World Jewish Congress are hindering implementation of the court orders. [...]

It's good to end on a positive note.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Some Concrete Ideas on Addressing UN Anti-Israel Bias

I wrote yesterday about the Sunday conference: Hijacking Human Rights: The Demonization of Israel By The United Nations. Originally, I was going to write about Senator Norm Coleman, who proposed legislation to reduce funding to the UN Human Rights Council. I originally confused that legislation with a bill Senator Coleman introduced in 2005--S. 1383, the United Nations Management, Personnel, and Policy Reform Act of 2005, which went nowhere.

On the other hand, the current piece of legislation is H.R. 2764: Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008 has progressed much further. Anne Bayefsky describes the bill:

Alongside what passes at the U.N. for "human rights" protection, stands the eminently reasonable legislation that has come from both the House and the Senate calling for an end to American funding for the Human Rights Council. The House passed their version of the Department of State Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act on June 22 and included by unanimous agreement an amendment introduced by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to refuse any funding for the Council. In the Senate version, proposed by Senator Norm Coleman and adopted unanimously on September 6, an exemption law was inserted by Senators Richard Lugar and Joe Biden. It would refuse funding for the fiscal year 2008 unless the President certifies either that providing the funds to the Council is in the national interest of the United States, or the U.S. is a member of the Council. Conference negotiations are underway, but some form of the restriction is expected to survive.

Though the measure is more of a gesture--the US funding discussed is only around $3 million--Senator Coleman had another suggestion. He noted that many who vote with the anti-Israel block in reality have no bone to pick with Israel--and are on friendly terms with the US. He proposed that the US use its connections and leverage through its ambassadors in those countries to pry away a portion of the support that the Arab block relies upon.

It's a start--no one is suggesting that there is any simple way of dealing with the anti-Israel bias that pervades the UN. The block of G77 undeveloped countries now includes 132 countries--out of the 192 total member states of the UN. There are various alliances of countries within the UN with common interests.

Ambassador Daniel Carmon, Deputy Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN, pointed out at the conference that Israel cannot count on alliances the way the Arab countries can--unlike the Arab countries, Israel is the only Jewish state and the only Hebrew speaking country.

On the other hand, Congressman Thaddeus McCotter suggested the formation of a 'Liberty Alliance' of like-minded democratic countries, which would work together within the context of the UN. Senator Bill Frist last year went a step further when he spoke in reaction to President Bush's decision not to seek US membership on the new UN Human Rights Council:

My hope is that President Bush will consider establishing a council of democracies outside of the U.N. system that could meet regularly to truly monitor, examine and expose human rights abuses around the globe.

In The UN and Beyond: United Democratic Nations, put out by the Hudson Institute, Bayefsky writes that reform of the United Nations at this point is probably impossible, and comes the closest to a concrete suggestion:

I think, however, it would make a lot more sense to talk about a UDN, a United Democratic Nations. It could begin with a small coalition of states comprised of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia. (p. 2)

The question is whether these various suggestions of an alternative group can lead to concrete action.

Crossposted on Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and UN and United Nations.

Muslim street smarts

James Kirchik in the LA Times writes Don't bow to the 'Muslim Street'

America's firebombing of Dresden during World War II surely "angered" many Germans, and our bombing of Belgrade during the Kosovo war perturbed Serbians. Did the fact that we (and our allies) antagonized people during these military actions make those interventions unjust? And while it's true that the overthrow of the Baathist regime in Baghdad has angered Muslims around the world (many of whom, it ought to be noted, cheered Saddam Hussein and ignored his crimes against their fellow Muslims out of a cruelly misplaced sense of Arab nationalism), it has also delighted the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, Iraqi trade unionists and the many other victims of Hussein's regime.

There are lots of things that "anger" the "Muslim street:" Women not wearing burkas. Adults drinking alcohol. Homosexuals. But virtually no one seriously suggests that we make America less free in order to suit the tastes of the Muslim world. So why should we let something as nebulous and reactionary as "Muslim opinion" get in the way of preventing genocide in Sudan?

The context of Kirchik's argument is the mass killing in Darfur. Should the 'Muslim street' dictate American actions in Darfur?

This question is especially pertinent considering that the United States is enormously popular in Africa. A Pew Global Attitudes poll released during the summer revealed that the majority of people in eight out of 10 African countries believe that the United States is their "most dependable ally." More important, the poll found that most Africans fault the United States for not taking a more active role in Darfur. Continuing to avoid intervention there to please the "Muslim street," therefore, will make us less popular with Africans. You cannot please everybody all the time, and in the case of Darfur, intervening will endear us to the people actually living in the region.

Barry Rubin applies the question more generally (and in slightly different terms).

Indeed, there are four main arches critical to the Middle East's dominant ideology:

* That its problems arise from Western and Israeli oppression.
* That the struggles and violence of radical Arab nationalists and Islamists are based on genuine grievances.
* That the West behaves wrongly because it is hostile or ignorant about Arabs and Muslims.
* And that Arab and Muslim society is vastly superior to the West which justifies their rejection of it and ultimately will pave the way for their victory over it.

The first three are too commonly accepted in the West; the last is largely ignored altogether. But the key to understanding the Middle East is not "Islamophobia" in the West but the region's own "Westphobia," "modernityphobia," "secularphobia," "democracyphobia," "freedomphobia," "femaleequalityphobia," and "JudeoChristianphobia."

The bottom line is that change is needed not in Western policies and perceptions but in the Middle East itself. After all, the West succeeded precisely-as Arab liberals well understand--because its societies pit a priority on internal change: education and honest inquiry; productive virtues; better social infrastructure; more human and civil rights; and a freer culture.

In other words, the West ought to ignore what's widely called the "Muslim street" and appeal to Muslim moderates. (I assume that he's not talking about the Muslim brotherhood that Jackson Diehl portrays as "moderates.")

In this regard, a British student who lived in Syria has written a personal account entitled "Syrian Journal," which reduces prevailing myths about the region to rubble. It brilliantly portrays a dictatorship using repression, demagoguery, and modern public relations' techniques to stay in power.
...
Then compare this to a New York Times article on precisely the same topic, "Students of Arabic Learn at a Syrian Crossroads," which falls for every regime trick and generally portrays Syria as a pretty good society.

All too often in the West those supposedly devoted to liberalism and enlightenment are those who seemingly respect the anti-Americanism (and generally the anti-liberalism) of the Muslim street. PostGlobal has a feature that I discovered yesterday, How the world sees America by Amar C. Bakshi. A quick look at the titles and you start to realize that series ought to have been titled "How negatively the world sees America." The author isn't looking for Africans or British students in Syria who appreciate America and the West, but rather for those who hold hatred of the West as one of their primary political beliefs.

Take for example How the world sees Jack Bauer.

Though he's outrageous, Bauer is inevitably intertwined with America. He fights for it, after all, and embodies some of its stereotypes: multiple love affairs, an affinity for pyrotechnics, fierce patriotism, and most of all these days, a go-it-alone attitude. After the unilateral invasion of Iraq, America's belief in the individual, once embodied by on-screen heroes like Rocky Balboa and The Terminator, increasingly reads as a political mantra.

As Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein writes, Bauer’s use of “torture and the whatever it takes mentality is precisely why the U.S. is so despised right now.” From India, student Akshay Bawa writes: “Jack Bauer is James Bond on coke.” The cool, cosmopolitan imperialism of Britain’s 007 is replaced with the brutish patriotism of Bauer.

I will not pretend to be an expert on "24," being a recent discoverer of the series. However as we're approaching the end of the second season, barring any more unforeseen twists, the theme of the second season - clearly visible despite being obscured by all manners of violence - is "Why can't we just get along?" It seems to be a plea of understanding to the Islamic world, not an indictment of that world.

If Bakshi - who seems to admit enjoying "24" - finds critics of America who use "24" as an excuse to hate America, it reflects on him too. Like those who give too much credence to the 'Muslim street' he sees a value in hating - or at least criticizing - America.

The United States ought to look to its interests first and not worry about how others react. In many cases the objection to America is not well thought out, but a posture that is celebrated as "sophisticated" by those who ought to know better.

Crossposted on Yourish.

24, muslim street.

UN-helpful

Yesterday there was a conference, "Hijacking Human Rights: The Demonization of Israel by the United Nations," in New York. The Jerusalem Post reported with a headline so obvious, it's almost funny, US conference: UN biased against Israel. The less obvious bit about this conference comes from Daniel Carmon.

Ironically, the one speaker to offer words of encouragement with regards to the UN was Deputy Permanent Representative of Israel Daniel Carmon. While acknowledging the atmosphere of "cynicism" that confronts the Israeli mission to the UN on a daily basis, Carmon said many have mistakenly approached the international body as "one black box."

"The automatic majority accompanies us with every step in the building, but this is not all that the UN represents," said Carmon. "The UN is a more complicated, complex body."

Unlike other countries who participate in that "automatic majority," which adopts processes and resolutions less for their content and more for who has signed on, Israel does not have a group with which to affiliate, nor will it in the near future, Carmon said.

However John Bolton had a much more negative view of things.

Earlier in the day, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton was more critical of the international body.

"The UN was marginal during the Cold War and is well on its way to marginalizing itself when it comes to the world's greatest threat, terrorism," said Bolton. The UN, he said, has failed to come up with a definition of terrorism, and without a definition, little can be done to stop it.

Regarding Israel, he noted that "there are permanent members of the Security Council and non-permanent members, but Israel is the only permanent non-member."

Daled Amos was there and reports on the talk given by Nonie Darwish.

She told the story about her brother in Gaza who 10 years ago unexpected collapsed and the question was: which hospital should they take him too--the hospital in Gaza or Hadassah Hospital. The decision was, that if he was to live, they had to take him to the Jewish hospital.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, united nations.

Hi-tech israel

AOL, which, in 1998, bought the Israeli company, Mirabilis (ICQ), is buying Israeli again.

When US Internet giant America Online wants to go shopping for new Internet technologies, it heads to Israel. In less than a week, the Time Warner subsidiary has purchased two Israeli companies - Internet advertising technology company Quigo Technologies, for an estimated $350 million, and now search technology start-up Yedda, for an undisclosed sum.

Yedda, a web 2.0 company, has developed a semantic search engine that differs from regular text-based search engines such as YahooAnswers or GoogleAnswers because it can automatically match questions to other related questions and topics, and select the best available users to answer the question. The patent-pending technology, which went live in August last year, intelligently routes questions to relevant communities of Internet users, sending out e-mails or instant messages to 'experts', and creating a large community of people who can discuss and learn from each other's experiences. Content is rated for quality. This is the first Israeli Web 2.0 technology exit.
...

The acquisition follows last week's buy-out of Quigo, which develops customized content-based advertising technology and products for websites. Like Yedda, AOL, which is now undergoing restructuring, plans to maintain the company's R&D center in Israel.

And Intel is getting a lot of help with its new "green" chip, from its development center in Israel.

On Saturday global computer company Intel unveiled its latest addition to its processor family: a new chipset provisionally named 'Penryn.' The innovative hafnium-based "Hi-k" processor, which reduces electricity loss, or "capacitance," through the use of third-generation silicon materials, also does away with the need to incorporate eco-unfriendly lead and halogen materials in the production process.

"These are the biggest transistor advancements in 40 years," Intel co-founder Gordon Moore said.

While the Penryn innovation was initially developed at Intel's centers in California, the offices of Intel Israel, centered at their mammoth Research and Development Center in Haifa, played a crucial role in working out how the new chip micro-architecture could be manufactured on a commercial scale.

This is not the first time Intel has gotten a major innovation from Israel either.

Intel Israel scored its biggest coup to date in the 2003 development of the Centrino mobile chipset, which came, according to company spokesman Koby Bahar, as a "true breakthrough" in computing performance. The Centrino technology, initially designed for use in laptop computers, proved so fast and energy-effective that it rapidly began to appear in desktop PCs around the world as well.

I guess these are among the reasons that Israel's stock market is doing so well.

Crossposted on Yourish.

israel, computer technology.

Anna-policy

Glenn Kessler reports that the current state of the Annapolis conference seems to be very up in the air.

"No one seems to know what is happening," one senior Arab envoy said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid appearing out of the loop. "I am completely lost."

The envoy recounted the calls he made in recent days to dig up information and said he had reserved rooms for his country's foreign minister and other officials. He added with exasperation: "It is a very peculiar thing."

Even a senior administration official deeply involved in the preparations confided, before speaking off the record about his expectations: "I can't connect the dots myself because it is still a work in progress."

Maybe they hadn't spoken to whomever Steven Erlanger spoke to.

The all-out push essentially speeds to the end of the now dormant 2003 “road map” for peace by insisting that the big issues once relegated to later discussion, like the status of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees, be addressed immediately, even before the Palestinians begin to dismantle terrorist groups and networks.

Simultaneously, the Americans will push both sides to carry out their obligations as laid out in the first stage of the road map, involving complex security and settlement issues, American and Israeli officials say. To press for action, which would involve painful decisions on both sides, the Americans will choose a senior official with a background in security to monitor progress. In the words of a senior American diplomat, “We’ll be assiduously fair, and very tough, and if necessary we will be public,” so that failure will have consequences.

We know how that will work. When the Palestinians fail to stop teaching hate, or reining in terrorists and the United States objects, the Arab world and its supporters will accuse the United States of not supporting Palestinian aspirations and the matter will be dropped. If Israel fails to adhere to every particular about "settlements" it will precipitate a "diplomatic crisis" and perhaps even lead to a condemnation in the UN. In the end only one side cares about American approval and other is seeking American pressure.

Roger Cohen, though, hopes that something, no matter how insignificant, might work.

Hope is a shrinking refuge. Annapolis looks like a looming photo-op. Even photo-up-plus would be something at this stage.

However it seems he doesn't think anything inconvenient ought to be discussed.

What matters are the two peoples. But even basic principles are problematic. One core demand of Olmert and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, is for up-front Palestinian recognition of Israel “as a Jewish state.” But Saeb Erekat, a moderate Palestinian negotiator, has said that “Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity.”

Livni wants clarity on the Jewish character of Israel, which has a large Arab minority, as quid pro quo for recognition of Palestine and as insurance against mass Palestinian return.

She’s right to want this; she’s wrong to push for the principle now. Why should Palestinians offer anything when the West Bank is a shameful place offering a primer on colonialism and Israeli settlements have grown almost unabated? Nascent Palestine is in pieces, invisible behind a reassuring fence-wall.

Well the reason that the Palestinians ought to offer recognition of a Jewish state is because it's something that they supposedly committed to in order for the PLO to be certified as a reformed terror group. It's something that should be the very basis of any other negotiations. If the Palestinians don't accept that what more is there to discuss?

Cohen asks:

Still, despair is a nonstarter, even if a minister in Olmert’s government is already voting for legislation to block any eventual division of Jerusalem. So what if Annapolis looks like Rice’s transparent, last-gasp bid for a “legacy achievement”?

Though Cohen's question is rhetorical, In Diplomacy with the Devil, Danielle Pletka has an answer.

For example, in September Israeli jets destroyed what Israeli and American intelligence assessed to be a North Korean-built nuclear reactor in Syria. Officials who have seen the intelligence tell me the structure was the result of several years of transfers between North Korean nuclear suppliers and Syrian buyers. Ms. Rice’s most revealing comment? An explanation that “issues of proliferation do not affect the Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts we are making.”

This bizarre rationalization is oddly divorced from reality: how could Israel possibly be indifferent to its neighbors acquiring nuclear technology from America’s partner in the new agreed framework? The statement simply invites America’s adversaries to capitalize on the administration’s desperation. Why not engage in bad behavior if the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration, will look the other way?

By kowtowing to the conventional wisdom of what a secretary of state should do, Condoleezza Rice is making her legacy dependent on the future behavior of a North Korean tyrant and Palestinian pretenders. Ultimately, that will serve neither selfish nor national interests.

With "legacy" rather than results being the goal, the whole conference is about creating a Palestinian state or at least setting events into motion to make that a possibility sooner rather than later. If so, all other considerations and concerns will be sacrificed to that single goal. It's a making of a diplomatic disaster.

For all the talk of the lack of preparation, Erlanger includes a revealing word in this paragraph.

The Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, who was prime minister at the failed Camp David talks of 2000, said he once told Ms. Rice, who studied in Denver, that from a distance, the Rocky Mountains looked like a wave on the landscape. “But up close,” he said, “they are real mountains.”

Camp David "failed" not because of a lack of effort. But because Arafat didn't want a solution. There is no reason to assume that his successor is any more committed to peaceful coexistence with Israel. And yet the Americans now, seduced by the siren's song of "legacy" will attempt to achieve the unachievable.

Crossposted at Yourish.

israel, foreign policy.

Nonie Darwish: "In Times of Crisis, Arabs Trust Jews"

I attended a conference Sunday in New York--"Hijacking Human Rights: the Demonization of Israel by the United Nations," organized by Anne Bayesfsky of EyeontheUN.org. It was an all-day conference with a wide assortment of speakers, including Nonie Darwish, author and founder of Arabs for Israel.

She told the story about her brother in Gaza who 10 years ago unexpected collapsed and the question was: which hospital should they take him too--the hospital in Gaza or Hadassah Hospital. The decision was, that if he was to live, they had to take him to the Jewish hospital. Nonie Darwish concluded:

o In 1948, almost all of the 160,000 Palestinian-Arabs who remained within Israel's borders became citizens. Today, Israeli-Arab citizens have equal civil and human rights as all other Israeli citizens.

o There are 1,3 million Israeli-Arabs living in Israel, making up 20 percent of the total population. Many are the descendants of Palestinian Arabs who chose to remain in Israel in 1948.

o Hebrew and Arabic are Israel's two official languages.

o Just as the US strives to better integrate its minorities, Israel works to do the same for its Arab population through programs similar to affirmative action.

o There are five official Arab political parties.

o Three Israeli-Arabs were elected to the first Knesset. They have won as many as 12 of the 120 Knesset seats in a single election.

o Twenty percent of Haifa University's student body and 10 percent of the faculty are Israeli-Arabs.

o All Arab municipalities receive government funding for education and infrastructure.

o Many Israeli Arabs hold high-level positions including:

• Salim Jurban, selected a permanent member of Israel's Supreme Court(2004)

• Nawaf Massalha, deputy foreign Minister

• Ali Yahya, Walid Mansour and Mohammed Masarwa, who heldambassadorships

• Major General Hussain Fares, commander of Israel's border police

• Major General Yosef Mishlav, head of homeland security as Israel's Home front commander

• Bedouin Ismail Khaldi appointed Israeli consul to San Francisco in 2006

o Israel has enacted affirmative action policies to help its minority citizens achieve full social and economic equality.

Palestinian Arabs and their allies may persist in throwing around the word "apartheid," but the term obviously does not apply. Even with the problems facing social integration of Israeli Arabs, it is clear that Israel is making an effort.

That is why columnist Dr. Talal Al-Shareef, wrote in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds in May 27, 1999:

Israel has proved that for fifty years its real power is in its democracy, guarding the rights of its citizens, applying laws [equally] to the rich and ppr, the ib and small...and in the participation of the nation in the development of institutions according to ability and efficiency and not according to closeness to [the ruler].

So it is not surprising that in direct contradiction to the mindless accusation that Israel is an apartheid country, James Bennet reported in The New York Times on April 2, 2003 that

since 1996, Dr. Shikaki has been polling Palestinians about what governments they admire, and every year Israel has been the top performer, at times receiving more than 80 percent approval. The American system has been the next best, followed by the French and then, distantly trailing, the Jordanian and Egyptian.

Apparently, Palestinian Arabs trust Jews even not in time of crisis.

Crossposted at Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Nonie Darwish and Palestinians.

Fatah to disarm "all armed groups"?

According to Ma'an News Agency:

Palestinian Interior Minister Abdur Razzaq Mahmoud Al-Yahya pledged on Sunday to disband all Palestinian military factions, including the Al-Aqsa Brigades, affiliated with his own ruling Fatah party.

Al-Yahya said that the last seven years of armed Intifada, or uprising, have been "disastrous" for the Palestinian situation.

Al-Yahya, himself a former commander of the Palestine Liberation Army, tolf the Kuwaiti Ar-Rai newspaper: "The security plan in the Palestinian territories is progressing in parallel steps in armament, training and restructuring the security headquarters and prisons. At the same time, Hamas' and other groups' weapons are being collected."

The Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority is currently implementing a US-supported multimillion dollar security plan in the West Bank city of Nablus, that while reducing crime, has been seen by some as a political move to consolidate Fatah's authority in thw West Bank.

Al-Yahya dropped the suggestion that Hamas is plotting to take control of the West Bank as they did in the Gaza Strip in June: "The Palestinian security in the West Bank revealed cells affiliated to Hamas' Executive Force smuggling weapons and plotting to repeat the Gaza Strip coup in the West Bank."

Ramattan News Agency has the reaction:

Palestinian factions strongly denounced on Sunday the statements of the Palestinian Minister of Interior, Abdelrazeq Alyehia (West Bank), who declared commitment to disarm the Palestinian military wings.

Islamic Jihad leader, Nafez Azzam, said that if such statements were true, it would be a disaster for the Palestinian people and their sacrifices.

Azzam added, in a statement, that any decision could not end the resistance of our people, and it is impossible to end resistance and to collect resistance weapons.

Alyehia revealed Sunday that the Palestinian Authority promised Israel to disarm all Palestinian military wings.

He asserted that resistance has a clear understanding; meanwhile what happened last seven years was a disaster on the Palestinian people.

Hamas Spokesperson, Hammad Alriqib, said that Hamas will defend all Palestinian resisters. [...]

It is easy to believe that Fatah wants to consolidate its power and pursue its rivalry with Hamas. The idea that they are turning away from policies which have been "disastrous" and that they can take the rest of the Palestinians with them seems too good to be true. Hamas seems to emerge here as the patron and ally of all the "armed factions." This should prove interesting.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Tough life in gaza

Steven Erlanger catalogues the problems of life in Gaza in today's Week in Review.

Hopes were high in 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and 9,000 Jewish settlers, and the international community lined up to help the Palestinians make Gaza a model for their potential state.

But happy endings are rare in this part of the world. In the last year, life in Gaza has been plagued by criminal gangs as well as fighting among Palestinian groups. Some rocket barrages aimed at Israel fall on Gaza itself, and Israeli retaliation for the rest ranges from military strikes to economic quarantine.

Erlanger finds fault with Israel for retaliating against the rockets, but he fails to provide any context for Israel's retaliation. When thousands of Israeli citizens flee from a nearby city, that would seem to be ample reason for Israel to strike back militarily at Gaza.

The people of Gaza elected Hamas. Hamas has been more interested in providing guns than butter. If Sderot wasn't a regular recipient of rocket fire, would Israel retaliate or declare Gaza a "hostile entity?" That's the context that missing from Erlanger's article.

And he doesn't mention the press restrictions either. One could reasonably ask if his report was approved by Hamas.

UPDATE: More via memeorandum.

Crossposted at Yourish.

gaza, hamas.

Haveil Havalim #141 is UP!

Haveil Havali #141 - the Save Israel edition - is up at Yid with Lid. Mazel Tov to the father of the Bar Mitzvah, you can tell that he's justifiably proud!

Anyway, please remember that the cutoff for nominations is now Friday.
Upcoming hosts include

Nov 25 - #142 - Soccer Dad (?)
Dec 2 - #143 - Soccer Dad (?)
Dec 9 - #144 - Soccer Dad (?)
Dec 16 - #145 - Soccer Dad (?)

Use Blog Carnival's handy dandy Blog Submission Form to submit your entries and have a great week!

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

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#22 Mystical Paths
#21 Rabbinical Authority Consortium of HACKers
#20 Shiloh Musings
#19 Devarim
#18 Soccer Dad
#17 Mystical Paths
#16 Critical Mastiff
#15 Soccer Dad
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
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#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz

Billick, mcnair and boller

After the Ravens' 13-3 playoff run last year, this year's 4-5 record is a huge disappointment. At this point it's a better bet that the Ravens will finish 6 - 10 than 10 - 6. In other words, it would be a miracle for this team to make the playoffs.

This has gotten a lot of fans and the media talking about who should stay and who should go. Rick Maese argued after the loss that Billick should go.

That time has come. The most important man not named Lewis in this team's short history has reached a point of ineffectiveness.

In relation to Billick's fine career pacing the Ravens' sideline, the 2007 season feels like an old rock band getting wheeled out on stage long after the music died. Billick's song has faded. He no longer moves the fans - but that's not really the problem. Unfortunately, Billick no longer moves his players. There's no harmony, no new notes. Where we used to bob our heads to the beat, we now shake our heads in defeat.

The column was largely a fan's rant rather than an analysis. Billick has been a fine coach of the Ravens. He was at the helm for only two years when the team won a Super Bowl. However, looking at his whole record and the one word that comes to mind is "uneven." Sure he's had good years as coach, but he's also had years like 2005, when the team went 6 - 10.

What is it about Billick that's so frustrating? Mike Preston, put his finger on it.

The Billick defenders will point fingers at current quarterback Steve McNair. That's the easy way out. The big picture is, what quarterback has prospered under Billick? Even Elvis Grbac, a Pro Bowl performer the year before he came to Baltimore, retired one season after playing here.

I remember that year well. Grbac was terrible in the red zone. (Backup Randall Cunningham was much better there. Or at least that's what it looked like to me.)

It's funny that Billick whose experience prior to Baltimore, was offensive coach for the Vikings, has presided over teams lacking in offense. Even 2000, the year the team won the Super Bowl, it looked like it was the defense and special teams that led the team. The offense was just there.

Preston continues:

For years, Billick got a free pass in Baltimore because some of his inadequacies were overlooked. As long as the defense continued to make plays, and the Ravens won, everyone was happy in the Castle.

But it's different now. Some of the great defensive players are gone or have gotten older. This defense can't dominate as it used to.

So, after years of riding Newsome's drafts and the back of middle linebacker Ray Lewis, Billick can't hold up his end as far as the X's and O's. The Ravens can't overcome his weakness.

Preston doesn't feel that Billick has to go, however he writes

We've heard all the excuses during the past nine years. Billick didn't have receivers. He didn't have a quarterback. He didn't have athletic offensive linemen. He didn't have a running back.

Blah, blah, blah. ... Enough, please.

It's time general manager Ozzie Newsome and Bisciotti delivered the ultimatum to Billick. Either he guts this system, or he goes.

But Billick isn't the only Raven with a question mark hanging over him.

After last week's game there was a question whether or not Steve McNair would continue being the team's #1 quarterback. At the time David Steele answered in the negative.

Before the game, Steve McNair spoke up for himself. After the game, his teammates spoke up for him.

But his actions have spoken louder than any of their words. His actions are screaming out: This is the end. For McNair as the Ravens' starting quarterback, and for the Ravens as the Super Bowl contenders he was supposed to have turned them into.

The answer for now has been answered by a very convenient injury to McNail meaning that he will be sidelined for at least the next few weeks. That would be enough time to evaluate what Kyle Boller's value is to the team. (This is not longer an issue of potential. We're way past that stage.)

So how can we expect Boller to perform? There's been a lot of dissension. Even among those who feel that Boller is better than McNair for now, there seems to be little support for Boller as quarterback of the future. Except for Bill Ordine.

Putting it briefly, A) Boller has generally had to play under exceptionally adverse circumstances; B) He sill has a big-time arm that's plenty rare; and C) Drafting quarterbacks is always an iffy proposition and now we're looking at a crop of college QBs that lacks the blue-chippers of the last few years. (Free agent wise, I give you Vinny Testaverde and Tim Rattay).

Further on Ordine warns,

And there's one more thing. Don't expect Boller to work miracles in these last seven games. The Ravens have the toughest stretch of games imaginable. Boller is probably going to be playing from behind in most of them with all the disadvantages that implies. And the offensive line is not playing anywhere near as well as it did last season (14 regular-season sacks in 2006 and 17 so far in '07). That means the bottom line on Boller will have to be weighted to reflect these realities.

So here's the conclusion. Unless Boller absolutely comes apart at the seams or John Elway magically appears in the draft or as a free agent (oops, bad example), a fair decision on whether he's a genuine playoff-caliber quarterback should wait until the end of 2008.

So how does the prognosis for each work out?
Billick - iffy.
McNair - iffy.
Boller - iffy.

Not very encouraging. Of all three, Boller appears to be in the best position. His future is largely in his own hands.

McNair's comments that if he were replaced he couldn't blame the team suggest that he is done. While it's admirable for him to take responsibility, athletes who realize that there are better options than themselves are usually finished.

And Billick? I'm uncomfortable saying that the coach is at fault. However he's had only 4 winning seasons in eight so far. The team has never been so far away from contention that he hasn't been able to redeem himself.

Arguing for keeping him is that the team's performance last year earned him a 4 year extension suggesting that owner Steve Biscotti realizes that his commitment is long term and is willing to take some lumps along the way.

Arguing against his continued service as Ravens coach is, I guess, Rex Ryan.

The Ravens know what is at stake for Ryan. He almost became the head coach of the San Diego Chargers in the offseason.

Since he became the Ravens' coordinator in 2005, the team has had the No. 2- and No. 1-ranked defenses in the league. With one more good season -- the Ravens are currently ranked fifth -- Ryan will become a top head coaching candidate again.

If Billick is fired, Ryan would become a serious candidate here, especially because he is so popular with the players.

The Ravens have lost a lot of talented coaches over the years for head coaching jobs elsewhere. True, the results of those moves have been mixed. It also speaks well of the franchise that it recognizes coaching talent. But maybe now it's time for the Ravens to say, "enough" and give one of their coaching stars the chance to be promoted.

Crossposted on OTB Sports.

baltimore ravens

What's new at Al Qassam Brigades Information Office?

Well, for one thing, "Two of Al Qassam members were injured in exploding Zionist mines, which planted by traitors":

In a dangerous precedent, some traitors planted two Plastic bombs "Anti persons" in Al Qassam Brigades' site in Rafah city. This kind of bombs are just available in the hands of the Zionist occupation forces. Those traitors exploited the evacuation of Al Qassam Brigades' site because of the Zionist threaten in targeting the site.

The two bombs exploded in Al Qassam members during their checking to the site, which led to amputate the right leg to the two members. The first investigations indicate that someone had planted these explosive in the place. We are carrying the responsibility to the occupation and its traitors, who are coordinating with the occupation.

We are assuring on the following:

1. These crimes will not make us afraid but we will insists on continuing our jihad and our resistance.

2. Al Qassam Brigades will continue its investigations and the criminals will be brought to justice.

3. Those who are accused in these crimes are from Fatah solstitial members. Those criminals are getting help from the Zionist occupation in order to achieve illusory goals.

4. We call the Interior Ministry to investigate in this crime and prosecuting the evildoers as traitors.

Those Fatah Zionists are at it again! What else is blog-worthy . . . Here we go, they never disappoint: "Mother of Martyrs and mother of cowards": [Don't you like that title? No capital letters for the mother of cowards!]

When speaking about the sacrifice of the Palestinian people, we cannot but remember every Palestinian woman: the mother, wife, daughter , and sister. All of them have their large share in the suffering and sacrifice. However, the Zionist women are not even ready to send their sons to the struggle with Hamas in the Gaza Strip as the tactics of battles differ from what were happening before.

Um Nidal bid her son Mohammad farewell before his famous operation, and waited for his return as a martyr. She did not expect him to return alive. But she waited to hear news of victory and martyrdom. He infiltrated into a military academy and killed more than ten soldiers before his martyrdom. Um-Nidal’s tears upon hearing the news were of happiness not sadness. However, a Zionist woman said "It won’t happen." You won’t be getting my sons for your Gaza war. " when hearing that her son will go to the Gaza attack by the occupation forces.

The Palestinian woman teach her sons to be the best in resisting the occupation as a legitimate right under the Zionist daily crimes and attacks against the civilians. The occupation forces make an army from every single child and woman in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank after the many historical massacres against the innocents.

"If you haven’t prepared possible alternatives for the war in the streets of Gaza, I guess you don’t care about my sons or about the commission of inquiry that will be established after the war that you know you’ll be able to overcome without personal conclusions." A Zionist woman said to the Occupation army.

" We are ready to send all of our sons in the Sake of Allah and to be martyrs…Why all of them not my son ,,, I want my son to be the first martyr…" A Palestinian woman said to the Qassam leaders.

The future of the West Bank?

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Chomsky: "the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions"

Is that a justification of terrorism?

THE crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories and elsewhere, particularly since the Palestinians voted "the wrong way" in the Hamas victory last year, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims, and is likely to harm them.

Our actions have to be adapted to real-world circumstances, difficult as it may be to stay calm in the face of shameful crimes, in which we in the United States are directly and crucially implicated.

We are approaching President Bush's Annapolis conference on Israel-Palestine, the administration's first potentially serious diplomatic initiative in that conflict.

Ideally, the Annapolis negotiations should begin at the point that had been reached in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001. That week was the one moment in 30 years when the United States and Israel abandoned the rejectionist stance that they have maintained in virtual isolation until the present. And Taba came heartbreakingly close to a possible two-state settlement, with a reasonable land-swap. The conventional fabrication is that at Taba the Palestinians rejected Israel's generous offer. In fact, the conference was terminated abruptly by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, at a moment when negotiators reported that they were close to agreement. [...]

It's interesting that he refers to a "reasonable land-swap." The usual apologetics hold that the Palestinians were only offered "Bantustans" and, of course, declined. The left can't keep its non-fabrications straight.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Best of the web yesterday

Thanks to all of you who commented or e-mailed me about my recent inclusion in Best of the Web Today yesterday.

It's always nice to get my name at the bottom when I send in something that James Taranto likes. But it's a lot more flattering when he actually links to something I blogged.

Thanks all for your good wishes!

best of the web today.

Chief Palestinian Negotiator: "Palestinians Will Never Acknowledge Israel's Jewish Identity"

And I believe him--and so does this Jerusalem Post editorial:

The Recognition Sham

...On Monday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, "The problem of the content of the document [setting out joint principles for peacemaking post-Annapolis] has not been resolved... One of the more pressing problems is the Zionist regime's insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state.

"We will not agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state," Erekat said. "There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined."

On Tuesday, another prominent Palestinian negotiator, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said, "It is only a Zionist party that deals with Israel as a Jewish state, and we did not request to be a member of the international Zionism movement."

Yesterday, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad joined in these statements. And Erekat chimed in again on Al-Arabiya TV: "Israel can define itself however it sees fit; and if it wishes to call itself a Jewish state, so be it. But the Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel's Jewish identity." (emphasis added).

The underlying assumption is that there is some sort of linkage between Palestinian Arabs recognizing Israel's right to exist and Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The editorial seems to think that recognition of Israel's right to exist--as a Jewish state--is enshrined in the original Road Map. Actually, the word recognition is mentioned only once--and it is not in connection to Israel:

Quartet members promote international recognition of Palestinian state, including possible UN membership.

We are not haggling in the shuk here. Palestinian Arabs have what they consider to be their non-negotiables. It is time Olmert made up a list of his own.

Recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is one.
Israel's rights and connection to Jerusalem is another.

Crossposted on Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel and Annapolis

Like success

Elder of Ziyon in his November 1947 and Annapolis Deja Vu reminds us that when it comes to Middle East peacemaking nothing succeeds like failure.

However Charles Krauthammer in Alliances in ruins? (or here) reminds us that generally, in international relations, nothing succeeds like success.

I would even add that the looming prospect of a nuclear Iran has caused Arab states -- Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, even Libya -- to rally to us. All true. And it makes the point that the Bush critics have missed for years -- that the strength of alliances is heavily dependent on the objective balance of international forces and has very little to do with the syntax of the U.S. president or the disdain in which he might be held by a country's cultural elites.

It's classic balance-of-power theory: Weaker nations turn to the great outside power to help them balance a rising regional threat. Allies are not sentimental about their associations. It is not a matter of affection but of need -- and of the great power's ability to deliver.

And of course what's led to this shift?

What's changed in the past year? Bush's dress and diction remain the same. But he did change generals -- and counterinsurgency strategy -- in Iraq. As a result, Iraq has gone from an apparently lost cause to a winnable one.

I'm not sure I buy Krauthammer's argument this week. For one thing as he pointed out earlier.

France has a new president who is breaking not just with the anti-Americanism of the Chirac era but also with 50 years of Fifth Republic orthodoxy that defined French greatness as operating in counterpoise to America. Nicolas Sarkozy's trip last week to the United States was marked by a highly successful White House visit and a rousing speech to Congress in which he not only called America "the greatest nation in the world" (how many leaders of any country say that about another?) but also pledged solidarity with the United States on Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation. This just a few months after he sent his foreign minister to Iraq to signal an openness to cooperation and an end to Chirac's reflexive obstructionism.

That's France. In Germany, Gerhard Schroeder is long gone, voted out of office and into a cozy retirement as Putin's concubine at Gazprom. His successor is the decidedly pro-American Angela Merkel, who concluded an unusually warm visit with Bush this week.

All this, beyond the ken of Democrats, is duly noted by new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who in an interview with Sky News on Sunday remarked on "the great change that is taking place," namely "that France and Germany and the European Union are also moving more closely with America."

Are the friendships of France and Germany a result of success in Iraq? Sarkozy and Merkel were elected before the surge (or at least before it showed signs of success.) And both countries were as unhelpful in containing Iraq in the 90's curing Clinton's presidency as they had been in earlier during Bush's term. (Even now Germany seems to be less than cooperative in dealing with Iran.)

And the Middle Eastern countries he mentioned may be looking towards the United States, but it hasn't translated into support for Annapolis. (Though I'm skeptical that Annapolis will accomplish anything.)

I'm sure that the surge helps America's standing with international relations, but I don't buy that it's the cause of America's newfound friends.

UPDATE: via memeorandum
Angry Bear.Cactus is even more critical of Krauthammer than I am. Actually, I don't really disagree with the substance of Krauthammer's except in the matter of the relation to the surge.

Bits Blog observes (ironically):

Indeed, the situation has gotten SO chummy with old Europe and the US, that Brown is finding himself playing catch-up with Germany and France, in terms of trying to stay in the good graces of the US.

Blue Crab Boulevard summarizes Krauthammer:

The resurgence of a belligerent Russia and an increasingly powerful China are part and parcel to the strengthening ties with allies. This is not a new thing. Part of the reason nations felt they could display some anti-Americanism was because there were few external threats. Now Russia, China and a soon-to-be nuclear armed Iran are changing the realpolitik once again.

foreign policy.

Council speak 11/16/2007

The Council has spoken.

This week's winning council post was JoshuaPundit's satirical "Land for peace," American Style. As a good measure I'd like to thank Yaakov Kirschen (Dry Bones) for sending the link to his classic "Occupied Terrirtories" cartoon of 30 years ago.
The overwhelming winning non-council post was Austin Bay's A conversation in Bagram, Afghanistan showing the ambivalence of a soldier who is weary from war and yet is convinced that he is doing the right thing.

In both categories we have ties for the runners up. The council runners up were 1) School District & Cops Agree -- Ignore The Law by Rhymes with Right about a decision to ignore violations of immigration law and 2) Bookworm Room's Racist Talk about Education laying down the ground rules for generalizing by ethnic identification.

The first non-council runner up was my nominee Elder of Ziyon's November 1947 and Annapolis Deja Vu showing that when it comes to Middle East peacemaking not much has changed in 60 years (and that ideas that failed back then are now expected to succeed) and the second is the American Thinker's Stereotyping 101.

If you're a blogger and would like to participate in next week's Council vote follow the rules here.

watcher's council.

Who Turned On The Applause Sign For Rice?

I haven't checked the video, but I have to assume there was someone there with an applause while Condoleezza Rice spoke:

Address to Delegates at the United Jewish Communities (UJC) General Assembly

...Just think back to 2001. Despite the extraordinary efforts of the Clinton Administration, peace negotiations had collapsed. The violence between Palestinians and Israelis was almost daily. Israelis feared that every bus ride, every night out, could be another Passover massacre. The underlying factors that had made peace elusive since 1967 were nearly unchanged in 2001: Israel occupied the future Palestine and the Palestinian leadership was complicit in terror.

This led the President to try a different approach. The traditional idea had focused largely on negotiating the contours of a Palestinian state, its borders, along with solutions to questions of refugees and Jerusalem -- all essential for peace, but I would submit to you not sufficient for peace.

What also needed to be addressed was the character of the Palestinian state. Would it fight terrorism? Would it govern justly? Would it create opportunity for its people? In our view, the security of the democratic Jewish state required the creation of a responsible Palestinian state. (Applause.)

I have just one question--since the answer to all three questions Rice asked in the last paragraph are 'no', just what in the world are these people applauding?

Crossposted on Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Condoleezza Rice.

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